American Genius, A Comedy

American Genius, A Comedy PDF Author: Lynne Tillman
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1593763174
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Grand and minute, elegiac and hilarious, Lynne Tillman expands the possibilities of the American novel in this dazzling read about a former historian ruminating on her own life and the lives of others--named a best book of the century by Vulture. In the hypnotic, masterful American Genius, A Comedy, a former historian spending time in a residential home, mental institute, artist’s colony, or sanitarium, is spinning tales of her life and ruminating on her many and varied preoccupations: chair design, textiles, pet deaths, family trauma, a lost brother, the Manson family, the Zulu alphabet, loneliness, memory, and sensitive skin--and what “sensitivity” means in our culture and society. Showing what might happen if Jane Austen were writing in 21st-century America, Tillman fashions a microcosm of American democracy: a scholarly colony functioning like Melville's Pequod. All this is folded into the narrator's memories and emotional life, culminating in a seance that may offer escape and transcendence--or perhaps nothing at all. This new edition of a contemporary classic features an introduction by novelist Lucy Ives.

American Genius, A Comedy

American Genius, A Comedy PDF Author: Lynne Tillman
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1593763174
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book Here

Book Description
Grand and minute, elegiac and hilarious, Lynne Tillman expands the possibilities of the American novel in this dazzling read about a former historian ruminating on her own life and the lives of others--named a best book of the century by Vulture. In the hypnotic, masterful American Genius, A Comedy, a former historian spending time in a residential home, mental institute, artist’s colony, or sanitarium, is spinning tales of her life and ruminating on her many and varied preoccupations: chair design, textiles, pet deaths, family trauma, a lost brother, the Manson family, the Zulu alphabet, loneliness, memory, and sensitive skin--and what “sensitivity” means in our culture and society. Showing what might happen if Jane Austen were writing in 21st-century America, Tillman fashions a microcosm of American democracy: a scholarly colony functioning like Melville's Pequod. All this is folded into the narrator's memories and emotional life, culminating in a seance that may offer escape and transcendence--or perhaps nothing at all. This new edition of a contemporary classic features an introduction by novelist Lucy Ives.

Someday this Will be Funny

Someday this Will be Funny PDF Author: Lynne Tillman
Publisher: Red Lemonade
ISBN: 9781935869009
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Presents a collection of short stories that focus on the emotions and memories of the narrators.

Antkind

Antkind PDF Author: Charlie Kaufman
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0399589694
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 721

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Book Description
The bold and boundlessly original debut novel from the Oscar®-winning screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York. LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • “A dyspeptic satire that owes much to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon . . . propelled by Kaufman’s deep imagination, considerable writing ability and bull’s-eye wit."—The Washington Post “An astonishing creation . . . riotously funny . . . an exceptionally good [book].”—The New York Times Book Review • “Kaufman is a master of language . . . a sight to behold.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND MEN’S HEALTH B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, filmmaker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film made by an enigmatic outsider—a film he’s convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made—a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete—B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius. All that’s left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to re-create the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of “likes” and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bête noire and his raison d’être. A searing indictment of the modern world, Antkind is a richly layered meditation on art, time, memory, identity, comedy, and the very nature of existence itself—the grain of truth at the heart of every joke.

Comedy at the Edge

Comedy at the Edge PDF Author: Richard Zoglin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1582346259
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Surveys the stand-up comedy of the 1970s, citing the contributions of celebrity comics, from George Carlin and Richard Pryor to Robin Williams and Andy Kaufman, in an account that also evaluates the roles played by such clubs as Catch a Rising Star, the Improv, and the Comedy Store.

The Comedians

The Comedians PDF Author: Kliph Nesteroff
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802190863
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
“Funny [and] fascinating . . . If you’re a comedy nerd you’ll love this book.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, National Post, and Splitsider Based on over two hundred original interviews and extensive archival research, this groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past one hundred years. Starting with the vaudeville circuit at the turn of the last century, the book introduces the first stand-up comedian—an emcee who abandoned physical shtick for straight jokes. After the repeal of Prohibition, Mafia-run supper clubs replaced speakeasies, and mobsters replaced vaudeville impresarios as the comedian’s primary employer. In the 1950s, the late-night talk show brought stand-up to a wide public, while Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Jonathan Winters attacked conformity and staged a comedy rebellion in coffeehouses. From comedy’s part in the civil rights movement and the social upheaval of the late 1960s, to the first comedy clubs of the 1970s and the cocaine-fueled comedy boom of the 1980s, The Comedians culminates with a new era of media-driven celebrity in the twenty-first century. “Entertaining and carefully documented . . . jaw-dropping anecdotes . . . This book is a real treat.” —Merrill Markoe, TheWall Street Journal

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager PDF Author: Ben Philippe
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062824139
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
William C. Morris YA Debut Award Winner! A hilarious YA contemporary realistic novel about a witty Black French Canadian teen who moves to Austin, Texas, and experiences the joys, clichés, and awkward humiliations of the American high school experience—including falling in love. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon, When Dimple Met Rishi, and John Green. Norris Kaplan is clever, cynical, and quite possibly too smart for his own good. A Black French Canadian, he knows from watching American sitcoms that those three things don’t bode well when you are moving to Austin, Texas. Plunked into a new high school and sweating a ridiculous amount from the oppressive Texas heat, Norris finds himself cataloging everyone he meets: the Cheerleaders, the Jocks, the Loners, and even the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Making a ton of friends has never been a priority for him, and this way he can at least amuse himself until it’s time to go back to Canada, where he belongs. Yet against all odds, those labels soon become actual people to Norris…like loner Liam, who makes it his mission to befriend Norris, or Madison the beta cheerleader, who is so nice that it has to be a trap. Not to mention Aarti the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, who might, in fact, be a real love interest in the making. But the night of the prom, Norris screws everything up royally. As he tries to pick up the pieces, he realizes it might be time to stop hiding behind his snarky opinions and start living his life—along with the people who have found their way into his heart.

Men and Apparitions

Men and Apparitions PDF Author: Lynne Tillman
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 159376684X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Today we live in a “glut of images.” What does that mean? Men and Apparitions takes on a central question of our era through the wild musings and eventful life of Ezekiel Hooper Stark, cultural anthropologist, ethnographer, specialist in family photographs. We are the Picture People. I name us Picture People because most special and obvious about the species is, our kind lives on and for pictures, lives as and for images, our species takes pictures, makes pix, thinks in pix. What is behind the human drive to create, remake, and keep images from and of everything? What does it mean that we now live in a “glut of images?” Men and Apparitions takes on a central question of our era through the wild musings and eventful life of Ezekiel Hooper Stark, cultural anthropologist, ethnographer, specialist in family photographs. As Ezekiel progresses from a child obsessed with his family’s photo albums to a young and passionate researcher to a man devastated by betrayal in love, his academic fascinations determine and reflect his course, touching on such various subjects as discarded images, pet pictures, spirit mediums, the tragic life of his long-dead cousin the semi-famous socialite Clover Adams, and the nature of contemporary masculinity. Kaleidoscopic and encyclopedic, madcap and wry, this book that showcases Lynne Tillman not only as a brilliant original novelist but also as one of our most prominent thinkers on culture and visual culture today.

What Would Lynne Tillman Do?

What Would Lynne Tillman Do? PDF Author: Lynne Tillman
Publisher: Red Lemonade
ISBN: 9781935869214
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
Features essays written by the author on different subjects, but often comes back to the questions what happens when men behave badly and when women behave too well.

Richard Pryor

Richard Pryor PDF Author: Jason Bailey
Publisher: Thomas Elrod
ISBN: 9781941629130
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
One of the most powerful yet idiosyncratic voices of American culture, Richard Pryor often remains an enigma despite the strikingly personal quality of his best work. This series of essays attempts tracks the parallels between the comic's work and the black experience, contextualizing his art and persona among the tradition of Southern storytellers, the Civil Rights movement, and the complicated racial identity of Reagan's America. Focusing on the broad diversity of Pryor's career, from his albums to his concert films to his movies, Jason Bailey attempts to answer a series of questions about this uniquely American entertainer: Was Richard Pryor a product of his society, or an instigator of it? Was Richard reflecting us, or were we reflecting Richard? Was he a mirror, or a prophet?

We Killed

We Killed PDF Author: Yael Kohen
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374287236
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Kohen assembles America's most prominent comediennes to piece together an oral history about the revolution that happened to (and by) women in American comedy.