Word: stand-up
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...thing about these books -- they're not really books. They're comedy routines on paper. For people with attention spans geared to television. Short chapters. Short paragraphs. Short sentences. They have the rhythms of stand-up monologues. Lots of conversational asides, jokey hyperbole and the sort of slangy sentence structure you don't usually see in print. So what did you think, you were getting Middlemarch...
Seinfeld's book is pretty funny, if you can keep his stand-up delivery in your head. Here he is on magicians: "What is the point of the magician? He comes on, he fools you, you feel stupid, show's over ... It's like, 'Here's a quarter. Now it's gone. You're a jerk."' And on people picking up dog poop: "If aliens are watching this through telescopes, they're going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other...
...into print, says, "Now comedians who have never been known to read a book are thinking that they can write one." Robert Miller, publisher of Hyperion, claims his company wanted Allen to do a book well before Home Improvement became a hit: "This guy had made his reputation and (stand-up) act out of getting way deep into the complexities of male- female differences. That seemed like a very good subject...
...small-that's one strike against me," he says. "And I've got this rambunctious style, nothing at all like an Israel or the more stand-up style that's preferred in the pros--that's another strike...
...going negative, Mrs. Bush is listening to her inner flak. First it told her she was going to have to do more than recite the guest book from Blair House. Now it's telling her to endure a promotional tour that would tax a stand-up comic pushing her new fall series. David Letterman went very easy on her, but she got testy when he didn't want to let her labor the point that George Bush (she always refers to him in the third person) had once worked in the private sector, unlike a certain President from Arkansas. Letterman...