FIERCE

PAJAMA5

AN A N T H O L O G Y OF H U M O R W R I T I N G

FROM THE NEW YORKER

E D I T E D B Y D A V I D R E M N I C K

A N D H E N R Y F I N D E R

R A N D O M H O U S E I N E W Y O R K

CONTENT5

Introduction xv

S P O O F S

Death in the Rumble Seat / Wolcott Gibbs 5

Dusk in Fierce Pajamas / E. B. White - 7

Across the Street and into the Grill / E. B. White 10

On the Sidewalk I John Updike 13

Save My Seat / Mike Nichols 16

Hassidic Tales, With a Guide to Their Interpretation

by the Noted Scholar / Woody Allen 17

The Ultimate Diary / Howard Moss 21

The Analytic Napkin / Marshall Brickman 25

Who's Who in the Cast / Marshall Brickman 29

Health Department Lists Restaurant Violations /

Daniel Menaker 32

The Delts of Venus / Charles McGrath 34

Notes from the Edge Conference / Roy Blount,Jr. 39

v i i i C O N T E N T S

LGA-ORD / Ian Frazier 43

Love Trouble Is My Business / Veronica Geng 44

In the New Canada, Living Is a Way of Life / Bruce McCall 47

Corrections / Calvin Trillin 51

Stardate 12:00 12:00 12:00 / Christopher Buckley 53

Glengarry Glen Plaid / Frank Cammuso and Hart Seely 56

Gum / Scott Gutterman 58

What We Talk About When We Talk About Doughnuts /Michael Gerber and Jonathan Schwarz 60

Teen Times / PaulRudnick 62

T H E F R E N Z Y O F R E N O W N

Press Agents I Have Known / Groucho Marx 67

The Greatest Man in the World /James Thurber 70

The Interview /James Thurber 77

Let's Hear It for a Beautiful Guy / Bruce Jay Friedman 85

The King of Jazz / Donald Barthelme 91

My Mao / Veronica Geng 95

Our Side of the Story/ Veronica Geng 100

Do You Know Me? / George W. S. Trow 103

Gandhi at the Bat / Chet Williamson 105

Igor Stravinsky: The Selected Phone Calls / Ian Frazier 110

We Are Still Married / Garrison Keillor 114

Meeting Famous People / Garrison Keillor 118

Yo, Poe / Frank Gannon 123

My Life: A Series of Privately FundedPerformance-Art Pieces / Susan Orlean 126

The A-List E-List / David Brooks 128

C O N T E N T S i x

T H E W A R B E T W E E N M E N A N D W O M E N

Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife I James Thurber 133

A Couple of Hamburgers I James Thurber 136

Forever Panting / Peter De Vries 140

The Kugelmass Episode / Woody Allen IAS

Partners / Veronica Geng 155

My Married Life: The Whole Truth Thus Far / Mark Singer 157

Life Without Leann / Larry Doyle 160

Zeus the Lutheran / Garrison Keillor 163

The Very Comical Lament of Pyramus and Thisbe /

Susan Son tag 174

Off-Ramp / Polly Frost 177

Blown Away / Lisa Walker 182

Here's a Really Great Idea / David Owen 187

T H E W R I T I N G L I F E

A Short Autobiography / F. Scott Fitzgerald 191

The Cliche Expert Takes the Stand / Frank Sullivan 193

The Cliche Expert Tells All / Frank Sullivan 198

How to Achieve Success as a Writer / Ruth Suckow 201

The Rather Difficult Case of Mr. K*A*P*L*A*N /

Leonard Q. Ross 205

The Notebooks of James Thurber /James Thurber 209

Are We Losing the Novel Race? / Michael J. Arlen 215

Roland Magruder, Freelance Writer / Calvin Trillin 217

Contemporary Writers VI: An Interview with Grip Sands /Philip Hamburger 221

x C O N T E N T S

In the Dough / Roger Angell 224

Selections from the Allen Notebooks / Woody Allen 231

I Cover Carter / George W. S. Trow 234

Notes on My Conversations / Polly Frost 239

Writing Is Easy! / Steve Martin 243

Drivel / Steve Martin 245

Emily Dickinson, Jerk of Amherst / Andy Borowitz 248

A F U N N Y T H I N G H A P P E N E D

The People Who Had the House Before / Robert Benchley 253

The Catastrophe / William Shawn 256

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty /James Thurber 257

I Am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been,a Matrix of Lean Meat / S.J. Perelman

Eine Kleine Mothmusik /S.J Perelman

Monomania, You and Me Is Quits / S.J. Perelman

Pnin / Vladimir Nabokov

Annoy Kaufman, Inc. / George S. Kaufman

The Last Repository IH. F. Ellis

Yma Dream / Thomas Meehan

Ainmosni / Roger Angell

The High Ground, or Look, Ma, I'm Explicating /Peter De Vries

Apartment 6-A: After the Fall / Ian Frazier

Spill / George W. S. Trow

Hearing from Wayne / Bill Franzen

Stunned I Jack Handey

C O N T E N T S x i

He Didn't Go to Canada / Garrison Keillor 322

Post-Euphoria / Veronica Geng 327

Keith Richards' Desert-Island Disks / Noah Baumbach 331

W O R D S O F A D V I C E

How to Be Obscene / Upton Sinclair 337

Filling That Hiatus / Robert Benchley 339

It's Fun to Be Fooled . . . It's More Fun to Know /

Robert Benchley 341

Why We Laugh—or Do We? / Robert Benchley 345

Insert Flap "A" and Throw Away I S.J. Perelman 348

How to Eat an Ice-Cream Cone / L. Rust Hills 351

Teaching Poetry Writing to Singles / Veronica Geng 358

Dating Your Mom / Ian Frazier 363

A Reading List for Young Writers / Ian Frazier 365

How I Write My Songs / DonaldBarthelme 367

Save Our Bus Herds! / Cathleen Schine 372

Three Great Meals / William White 374

Read This First / Bruce McCall 377

Take It from Me / Nancy Franklin 380

Changes in the Memory After Fifty / Steve Martin 382

The Hundred Greatest Books That I've Read / Steve Martin 384

Reintroducing Me to My Habitat I Jack Handey 387

Thank You for Stopping I Jack Handey 389

Homework: A Parent's Guide / Christopher Buckley 390

What Happened to My Money? / David Owen 393

x i i C O N T E N T S

R E C O L L E C T I O N S A N D R E F L E C T I O N S

On Taxi Drivers / Alexander Woollcott 397

Father Isn't Much Help / Clarence Day 400

The Night the Ghost Got In I James Thurber 404

Ring Out, Wild Bells / Wolcott Gibbs 408

The Ballet Visits the Splendide's Magician / Ludwig Bemelmans 412

Cloudland Revisited: Why, Doctor, What Big Green

Eyes You Have! /S.J Perelman 418

Thoughts on Radio-Televese I John Lardner 424

The Musical Husbands / Adam Gopnik 427

Listening to Bourbon / Louis Menand 435

Look Back in Hunger / Anthony Lane 437

Tennis Personalities / Martin Amis 446

Car Talk / John Updike 448

V E R S E

Critic / E. B. White 453

Song to Be Disregarded / E. B. White 453

To a Perfumed Lady at the Concert / E. B. White 453

Song of the Queen Bee / E. B. White 454

Rhyme of an Involuntary Violet / Dorothy Parker 458

Fulfilment / Dorothy Parker 459

Bohemia / Dorothy Parker 459

Mother's Home Again! / Don Marquis 460

Melancholy Reflections After a Lost Argument /Phyllis McGinley 461

The Seven Ages of a Newspaper Subscriber / Phyllis McGinley 462

C O N T E N T S x i i i

Incident in the Afternoon / Phyllis McGinley 463

Procrastination Is All of the Time / Ogden Nash 465

To My Valentine / Ogden Nash 466

So That's Who I Remind Me Of/ Ogden Nash 466

Compliments of a Friend / Ogden Nash 467

The Invitation Says from Five to Seven / Ogden Nash 468

Theme and Variation / Peter De Vries 469

?eopk/W.H.Auden 470

Six Poets in Search of a Lawyer / Donald Hall 472

The Naked and the Nude / Robert Graves 474

12 O'Clock News / Elizabeth Bishop 475

Christmas in Qatar / Calvin Trillin 477

Duet, with Muffled Brake Drums I John Updike 479

Ocular Hypertension I John Updike 480

Notes on Contributors 481