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Solomon updated that iconic opus approach by assembling an array of sly, wry personalities working today.
We followed up on Solomons cue and discussed the funny and formative books championed by eight comedians featured inNotes.
Like Jessica St. Clair, June Raphael we all were obsessed withAnne of Green Gableswhen we were tweens.
I read all the books, like feverishly.
I connected with that feeling like a lot of comedians feel when theyre little that theres somethingwrongwith you.
That youre an outsider.
Annes a real weirdo.
I grew up in a small town in Georgia and feltveryother early on.
I tried to fake my way through it, while still trying to be authentic to my freak flag.
So I think I really connected with Anne on that.
And you could see she persevered, so maybe youll be okay one day too.
I was getting that information at home, but I wasnt getting it from other adults.
In high school, we didAnne of Green Gablesas a stage play, and I played Rachel Lynde.
Shes the town gossip.
It might have been one of the first straight comedic roles that I got to play.
Well, multiple times, because shes butting in where she shouldnt.
That juxtaposition of the fierce quality of Anne and also the softness within is really interesting.
Mitra Jouhari:I usually read a lot of contemporary fiction, but I read Alis book last year.
I obviously found it very funny, but also I learned a lot about her.
She writes about food really beautifully.
It felt inspiring when I was burnt out on cooking the same three things every day.
it’s possible for you to talk about things you might not talk about onstage.
So its stressful to have to wait.
She describes the kind of detail that I notice in real life and never expect to see in literature.
Sasheer Zamata:I love her takes and grievances with the mundane parts of life.
She speaks as if shes delivering a stand-up set.
So whenPretend Its a Citycame out on Netflix, I of course devoured that immediately.
I aspire to complain as well as she does.
Frans distaste for people who dont know how to walk in New York definitely resonates with me.
Shes so good at highlighting details that many people would gloss over.
Like, she made a list of obligations (dropping off laundry, going to parties, etc.)
and called them Modern Sports.
I would love to hear her thoughts on greeting someone in a post-COVID world.
I imagine she never liked hugging someone when meeting them, and would probably prefer that not come back.
And a kiss on the cheek would most likely be out of the question.
Karen Chee:Full disclosure: Blythe is a very good friend of mine.
This is my dream SparkNotes: the philosophy of dating.
She has such a good performer voice, and is able to translate that perfectly to the page.
Its like taking comedy and setting it to a different rhythm.
The book has a lot of wholesome comedy or, comedy about wholesome things.
Theres a piece in there about how Tom Hanks is the actual villain inYouve Got Mail.
(Would they have actually been happy together?!
Like, he put Meg Ryan out of business!
Her moms store!)
There are lots of really absurd, silly pieces scattered throughout the book also, so its fun.
But in the book, it feels likeNo, its okay to think about this.
Its not frivolous by nature.If its nebulous, its because someone is making a mistake.
Meg Stalter:I read it a long time ago, like around 2014.
Thats when I started comedy likereallystarted.
Mindy writes like shes one of your friends.
I became even more of a fan while reading it.
I was nannying all day and doing open mics at night.
Im sure it would be fun to go back and read now, but I reallyneededit at the time.
Before I knew how to do anything, I wanted to do everything.
At that time, I didnt really have my voice yet.
The stuff I do is pretty absurd.
It would make sense if I chose John Waters or something.
But Mindy is appealing to my real-life self.
Im painfully earnest in real life like write poetry and cry at everything earnest.
I was really young and I was like,How are people doing this?!
How do you get a writers job?It was watching somebody do what I wanted to do.
And then later, I figured out how to write my own crazy stuff.
you might make your own way.
Catherine Cohen:Everything about my life is humiliating and embarrassing and just cringe.
I just fell in love with it.
Do you rememberLenny Letter, the thing that Lena Dunham did?
They would do such great excerpts of female writers.
This unlike anything Ive read.It just felt so immediate and accessible.
I love anything thats like these little prose poems little tweets, almost that form the novella.
She just makes you feel so seen.
Oh, were allowed to write how we speak?
!It feels like youre texting with a friend who happens to be very insightful and bizarre.
So shes like,Im not letting you inthatmuch.
Thats a fun rig.
Its comforting because its true and its true because its funny.
Its vulnerable too, and that makes it even funnier.
Ziwe Fumudoh:The Onion was the first job that ever paid me to write jokes.
I started as an unpaid intern there, for a year and a half, in 2013.
At the end of my internship, the video staff gave me this.
I read it front to back.
You have literally 240 pages by all these brilliant writers collaborating to make a satirical encyclopedia.
I find the Onions voice to be so sharp, so funny.
How do you make light of really serious issues and sort of punch up at people in power?
They really take shots ateveryone.
No one is spared from the barrage of scorn that the writers have for general living beings.
The strongest aspect is that the entire page is full of jokes.
This is a very large book, and every single aspect of it is a joke.
Maybe Im cheap I like a book thats like buy one, get 1,800 different things.
A lot of it is really offensive, honestly!
They inherently push boundaries and sometimes cross the line.
But Im a satirical writer myself, so I really value the wide breadth.
A lot of these jokes show a really deep understanding of American pop culture.
And to watch inside jokes amongst these really tight writers in Chicago kind of transform into this national bit …
It shows the importance of media and of comedy writing.
The Onion was at the forefront of making fun of these domestic and foreign policies.
