Over at the DG, I write about recent performances by two stand-up comics, Mike Birbiglia and Andy Pitz. I'm always interested in humor, and how it works, and stand-up comedy can provide insight into such matters.

Anyway, click here to read it.

The chocolate bunnies

Stare blindly out through candy eyes

And cellophane wrapping

Unaware of their fate

Surrounded by solid and hollow brethren

Some in profile

Bedecked with decorative ribbons

That mothers will toss away

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David Sedaris writes about his experiences with the French health care system here.

Recently at work, I was asked to write a short biography for an upcoming advertising campaign. Everybody had to participate; it's not like I was singled out. Even so, I didn't want to do it. I just didn't feel like there was anything to be gained from summing up my life in a short paragraph for thousands of people to read. Which might sound funny, given that I write a blog and a column. But for some reason providing personal details for an advertising campaign rubbed me the wrong way.

So how did I respond to the assignment? By writing a bunch of fake biographies. For some reason, they weren't accepted, but I think if you string them all together they actually say quite a bit about me. Here they are:

"Sara Foss is a private detective. She runs her own agency, with some friends from her New Hampshire hometown. Her favorite tool is a magnifying glass, and she takes courses in forensics in her spare time. Her inspirations are Encyclopedia Brown and the Three Investigators. For fun, she plays billiards and goes bird watching."

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In honor of Newt Gingrich and his goofy moon colony obsession, I am posting one of the most hilarious pieces of writing ever: "Space Exploration is a Bunch of Baloney and the Moon is Boring." 

I’m sure we have all enjoyed the pleasure of scaring someone witless at one time or another.

Usually we are most comfortable doing this to someone we are close to. For instance, I know that if I toss anything that looks even remotely like a mouse in the direction of my wife’s face, she will scream and receive a terrible scare. Even after she realizes that the object is not a mouse, she still won’t be able to stop shaking for a minute or two. And I know from experience that, no matter how many times I pull this stunt, the shock it will give her will not diminish. Grey rolled-up socks, fuzzy microphone covers, cat toy mice, and real mice (dead or alive) are all great for scaring people who are afraid of mice.

Of course you don’t need any props to scare most people. All you have to do is to walk quietly up behind them and scream in their ears. This takes very little effort and is exceptionally effective. Given that it is so obviously easy to scare people, I am not going to write an article merely on how to give someone you know a good scare. I am not going to tell you how while in college my wife’s friend wrote “red-rum” backwards in glow-in-the-dark ink on the ceiling above my easily scared wife’s bed. Or about the likely effect of changing your wife’s computer’s desktop image to a screen shot of the scary face that briefly appears when the priest is walking out of the subway in "The Exorcist." Rather, I am going to write an article on what to do to give a stranger an absolutely terrifyingly scary and long lasting scare. (Something you should never do.)
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Calvin Trillin is a very funny writer, and on Slate he proposes a new way of measuring pretentiousness: the Asshole Correlation Index.

Click here to learn all about it.