Andy Borowitz (editor) - The 50 Funniest American Writers

An ANTHOLOGY

of HUMOR

from MARK TWAIN

to THE ONION

AMERICAN WRITERS

A Special Publication of THE LIBRARY OF AMERICA

Introduction and volume compilation

Copyright 2011 by

Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.,

New York, N.Y.

All rights reserved.

No part of the book may be reproduced commercially by offset-lithographic or equivalent copying devices without the permission of the publisher.

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In this ebook edition, an excerpt from Bored of the Rings by Douglas Kenney and Henry Beard replaces Woody Allens A Look at Organized Crime, which appears in the hardcover edition.

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Print ISBN: 978-1-59853-107-7

eISBN 978-1-59853-174-9

First eBook Edition: November 2011

Does being funny get you girls?

Growing up in Ohio, I was convinced that it did. I got this notion from sources I took to be representative of all women: Playboy centerfolds. Every issue, the Playmate Data Sheet would, with astonishing consistency, indicate that Miss Whenevers turn-on was a sense of humor. (Turn-off? Phony people.) I vowed to be a hilarious sincere person who would have sex with lots of naked people named Brandi.

I accepted this view of humor-as-pheromone despite mountains of real-world evidence to the contrary. At Shaker High, the girls mainly went for jocks whose idea of a witty retort was a wedgie. And if I had looked a little more closely at Playboy s monthly Party Pics feature, I might have noticed that the bunnies at Hefs Mansion gravitated towards the laps of people like Lee Majors, the star of The Six Million Dollar Man and not, to my knowledge, a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table.

What being funny got me, mostly, was a lot of free time. While the jocks were busy having tantric romps with cheerleaders, I kept myself occupied by reading Mark Twain, Woody Allen, and The National Lampoon . Little did I know that over the course of a thousand dateless nights, a Library of America humor anthology was being born.

So how did I choose the fifty selections for this book? I showed the people at The Library of America my favorite humor pieces; they showed me theirs; and when we found fifty we agreed on, we stopped. To celebrate, we ordered Chinese food, using much the same process.

Based on the method I just described, you might jump to the conclusion that this anthology is a little arbitrary. Well, heres a dirty little secret about anthologies: theyre all arbitrary. I just have the cojones to admit it. In college, for example, I had to read The Norton Anthology of English Literature . Its full of stuff like this:

Say what? Not exactly sure why that gem made it in, although having just gone twelve rounds with my publisher, I know these things can get pretty political.

Trying to rank artists is a tricky business. A reporter once asked John Lennon if Ringo was the best drummer in the world. Lennon answered, Hes not even the best drummer in the Beatles. Funny people might be even harder to rank than drummers. Theres probably nothing more subjective than a sense of humor, which could explain why those Playboy centerfolds found Lee Majors so riotous.

All I know for sure is that these fifty pieces make me laugh. I assembled this book the way I make a playlist for a party. I dont try to pick the greatest songs of all time; I just choose songs I like and hope that people have a good timeand that they wont judge me too harshly when they hear Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.

Now, all of this raises a legitimate question: if its impossible to say who the fifty funniest American writers are, why did I give this anthology a title like The 50 Funniest American Writers ? Let me answer that as honestly as I can: to sell books.

Here was my thinking. Whenever you come out with a best of list, youre bound to irritate people, and by people, I mean the people youve left off the list and their relatives. They start bad-mouthing it, which forces other people (me, and my many Internet aliases) to defend it. If youre lucky, the controversy goes viral and lots of people start arguing about who deserves to be on the list and who doesnt. And all that talk moves a shitload of units, to borrow a phrase coined by Edith Wharton.

Im not the first to realize that lists are commercial gold. I have spent many hours on the treadmill watching those addictive countdown shows on E! (20 Most Suspicious-looking Celebrity Cold Sores). And while its tempting to dismiss listmania as the province of the trashy, even the monocle-wearing Pooh-Bahs at The New Yorker have succumbed. In 2010 they put out their 20 Under 40 honor roll of fiction writers, the result of a mysterious selection process that seemed to be on loan from the College of Cardinals. It remains to be seen whether being on the 20 Under 40 list made anyones career, but in the near term, it probably got somebody laid. And it sold a lot of magazines, which in the publishing world is as close as you get to sex.

Now that weve established that making lists is the road to royalties, youre probably wondering how I convinced the august gatekeepers at The Library of America to go along with such a crass scheme. I hate to shatter your illusions about the LOA, but in my entire career I have never met a more shameless cabal of publicity whores. They dont think twice about slapping a grabby title on one of their books if itll turn a quick buck. If you dont believe me, check out their catalogue; its larded with temptations like History of the United States During the Administrations of James Madison (18091817) .

Warning: the next two paragraphs contain actual information.

In choosing the pieces for this book, I didnt consider funny songs or poems because The Library of America already published a wonderful anthology of light verse called American Wits ($20.00). And I didnt consider transcripts of comedy sketches, scenes from plays or movies, or standup comedy routines, because that stuff is best enjoyed in performance. But I did find some great material in books written by standups, including George Carlin, Lenny Bruce and Bernie Mac.