This is so different from the advice I see elsewhere— it’s more in line with the way I feel about it. I’m already an old man, standing in my own way, so that now feels like an advantage. I’ve been trying to steal from Wodehouse and Thurber and John Collier and Leacock and Bob & Ray (and Tom Koch) and Twain. I’m a big Benchley fan; I should go back and read him again, and see what I can pilfer. This line has stuck in my head for decades, probably misquoted: “Dentists in convention draw giant inlay through the streets of London.”
During pitch season a couple decades ago, a TV producer told me, "First thing you do: watch a lot a lot a LOT of television." And mercifully, that path of ambition was cut off and discarded. I'll never forget his name, I think it was Josh.
I have an amazing clip of them when they broke each other up in the middle of a bit, and they both laughed for a long time, so softly that you have to really strain to hear it. I wish podcasters would go off mic like that when they broke. It’s paralyzingly funny if you do it right.
Notebooks, sketchbooks, and little wads of paper litter my desk. All with some lunacy scribbled on them. Wait a minute...is all this merely performing the literal definition of insanity? Is it just prep for scrawling on the walls of a padded cell? Dammit, perhaps I shoulda stayed in that web design gig and let it hollow out my soul like weevils on a pumpkin.
Then again, I'm much a happier creating works that hollow out the souls of others. At least that's how some editors have described my comics and writing. Thank you for urging on my practice to become a weevil of humor.
Great advice, Michael! I think it’s important to decouple the craft of writing from the business of writing, and I agree that doing so may lead to a happier life.
Your essay seems to use the terms "humor" and "comedy' somewhat interchangeably. I think of them very differently. To me, humor is more subtle than comedy. Comedy announces itself, but humor sneaks up on you. Comedy may surprise you regarding the joke or punchline, but you know it's coming. Humor suprises you just by being there. Humor can be found in a single word choice, comedy needs a whole sentence.
I know people like to slice it this way, but to me it makes things actually less clear. How much of a work has to feel humorous to make it comedy? Even when I’m writing seriously about something serious, like the number of shots fired in the JFK assassination, I’m going to go for word choice and metaphor that is flavorful and surprising and might strike the reader as humorous, mordant, etc.
What others classify as humor strikes me as merely human, and good writing. An active mind.
For the purpose of this essay, which is so focused on the author’s intent, I deliberately chose to sidestep the distinction.
Alan Coren never got his due over here in the States, and I had the pleasure of writing him a fan letter in the days when Barry Trotter made him stand up and take notice. A terribly funny writer and (towards me) a gracious man. Such a fan of his work.
I grew up listening to him being terribly witty week after week on BBC radio shows and sought out his writing about the same time as I became obsessed with National Lampoon (and everything comedy related that drank from the same well) but never made a connection between the two until today!
To me, Coren (and Douglas Adams) are products of the same movement that created Monty Python, for lots of obvious reasons. And while Python and Lampoon are like 7Up and Coke, they’re both delicious.
The Lampooners I knew always considered Python a bit twee, but it has weathered a lot better than Lampoon, and has been almost certainly more influential. Python was the second language of every smart teenager from 1978-1990, and Lampoon really created and receded much more quickly, and connected with people when they were older and less impressionable.
I knew the Lampoon had died for me when they so badly flubbed their Python parody. As sad a spectacle as Cook trying to advise the Pythons backstage at the Secret Policeman's Testicle.
Python itself was probably less of a direct influence to me as I came of age after they had stopped showing it on British TV but before home video - although I devoured the Python offshoots like Rutland Weekend TV, Ripping Yarns and, of course, Fawlty Towers. In many ways I guess the Beyond The Fringe crowd (especially Peter Cook) were the precursors of that movement which included Adams and Coren (as well as Python) but you could track it back further to The Goons or even Wodehouse.
Although Samuel Johnson had Boswell to do the heavy lifting in this regard, few of us have this option.
But all I could think about was the wonderful and sadly departed Thomas Vinciguerra’s book, “Cast of Characters, and the varieties of humorists who made The New Yorker. Wolcott Gibbs, James Thurber, on and on and on. Inspiring. More than a little ruefully sad and and and.
I think you have to be yourself. Maybe your writing registers with someone, maybe it doesn’t. Jesus, the bookstores don’t even stock S. J. Perelman anymore and that is fucked beyond reason.
SJP’s style was utterly unsuited for the generations which followed television. He (like WC Fields) was destined to become an aficionados’ pleasure.
Whereas SJP’s youthful inspiration, Benchley, is all over the internet. And it’s Thurber’s art, not his battle-of-the-sexes writing, that connects with people today.
The future, what a crazy unpredictable thing it is.
I didn't start carrying a notebook until I turned 40. While I'm sure waiting that long freed me from reminders of the bad ideas, I'm sure I let a few good ones slip through my fingers. And now they're just gone, dead potential.
Goddamnit I can’t figure out how to edit this post on my phone; please forgive any typos til I can get back to my desk! Sorry!
There's a wonderful book called "Steal Like an Artist" that is philosophically aligned with your wonderful advice. https://austinkleon.com/steal/
I feel like in a lot of ways I'm still searching for the stuff that I want to steal, but that's my own nonsense.
I mostly watch old Carrot Top standup videos because I subscribe to the adage, "If you're going to steal, steal from the best."
I have never heard of Alan Coren -- I have some digging to do.
You will be pleased. I have Golfing for Cats, and there’s a Best of that’s very good (look on Amazon.xo.uk).
This is so different from the advice I see elsewhere— it’s more in line with the way I feel about it. I’m already an old man, standing in my own way, so that now feels like an advantage. I’ve been trying to steal from Wodehouse and Thurber and John Collier and Leacock and Bob & Ray (and Tom Koch) and Twain. I’m a big Benchley fan; I should go back and read him again, and see what I can pilfer. This line has stuck in my head for decades, probably misquoted: “Dentists in convention draw giant inlay through the streets of London.”
I posted it because I’ve honestly never seen this advice.
During pitch season a couple decades ago, a TV producer told me, "First thing you do: watch a lot a lot a LOT of television." And mercifully, that path of ambition was cut off and discarded. I'll never forget his name, I think it was Josh.
Somehow they are all 32 and named Josh
Bob & Ray would just send me right to the floor with laughter. Maybe radio is just a funnier medium. They sure discovered new territory.
I have an amazing clip of them when they broke each other up in the middle of a bit, and they both laughed for a long time, so softly that you have to really strain to hear it. I wish podcasters would go off mic like that when they broke. It’s paralyzingly funny if you do it right.
Paralyzingly funny. Les mots justes. Vraiment.
Notebooks, sketchbooks, and little wads of paper litter my desk. All with some lunacy scribbled on them. Wait a minute...is all this merely performing the literal definition of insanity? Is it just prep for scrawling on the walls of a padded cell? Dammit, perhaps I shoulda stayed in that web design gig and let it hollow out my soul like weevils on a pumpkin.
Then again, I'm much a happier creating works that hollow out the souls of others. At least that's how some editors have described my comics and writing. Thank you for urging on my practice to become a weevil of humor.
Summer to me is the perfect time to enjoy an evening cocktail and read Damon Runyan. His was the perfect rhythm on the page.
Great advice, Michael! I think it’s important to decouple the craft of writing from the business of writing, and I agree that doing so may lead to a happier life.
It’s a lucky break for me I was up early for once, and noticed this essay.
"The Essential Alan Coren" is $3 for the Kindle version today. I call that a bargain.
Your essay seems to use the terms "humor" and "comedy' somewhat interchangeably. I think of them very differently. To me, humor is more subtle than comedy. Comedy announces itself, but humor sneaks up on you. Comedy may surprise you regarding the joke or punchline, but you know it's coming. Humor suprises you just by being there. Humor can be found in a single word choice, comedy needs a whole sentence.
I know people like to slice it this way, but to me it makes things actually less clear. How much of a work has to feel humorous to make it comedy? Even when I’m writing seriously about something serious, like the number of shots fired in the JFK assassination, I’m going to go for word choice and metaphor that is flavorful and surprising and might strike the reader as humorous, mordant, etc.
What others classify as humor strikes me as merely human, and good writing. An active mind.
For the purpose of this essay, which is so focused on the author’s intent, I deliberately chose to sidestep the distinction.
I’m just pleased to see Alan Coren and Doug Kenney mentioned in the same sentence.
Alan Coren never got his due over here in the States, and I had the pleasure of writing him a fan letter in the days when Barry Trotter made him stand up and take notice. A terribly funny writer and (towards me) a gracious man. Such a fan of his work.
Following your pointer, this is the second piece I've read & I'm sold:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n21/alan-coren/to-put-down-richard-that-sweet-lovely-rose
Yes, top notch. Coren has an ability to be both razor-sharp and mellow all at once.
I grew up listening to him being terribly witty week after week on BBC radio shows and sought out his writing about the same time as I became obsessed with National Lampoon (and everything comedy related that drank from the same well) but never made a connection between the two until today!
To me, Coren (and Douglas Adams) are products of the same movement that created Monty Python, for lots of obvious reasons. And while Python and Lampoon are like 7Up and Coke, they’re both delicious.
The Lampooners I knew always considered Python a bit twee, but it has weathered a lot better than Lampoon, and has been almost certainly more influential. Python was the second language of every smart teenager from 1978-1990, and Lampoon really created and receded much more quickly, and connected with people when they were older and less impressionable.
I knew the Lampoon had died for me when they so badly flubbed their Python parody. As sad a spectacle as Cook trying to advise the Pythons backstage at the Secret Policeman's Testicle.
Python itself was probably less of a direct influence to me as I came of age after they had stopped showing it on British TV but before home video - although I devoured the Python offshoots like Rutland Weekend TV, Ripping Yarns and, of course, Fawlty Towers. In many ways I guess the Beyond The Fringe crowd (especially Peter Cook) were the precursors of that movement which included Adams and Coren (as well as Python) but you could track it back further to The Goons or even Wodehouse.
It’s all focused so precisely on Oxbridge that I’d date it to Peter Cook’s arrival at Cambridge; Roger Wilmut’s book is good enough for this Yank.
The Goons are EVERYTHING, obviously, but the Oxbridge people added overt political satire in a way that to me proved so so important.
That is a great book - must dig it out.
Although Samuel Johnson had Boswell to do the heavy lifting in this regard, few of us have this option.
But all I could think about was the wonderful and sadly departed Thomas Vinciguerra’s book, “Cast of Characters, and the varieties of humorists who made The New Yorker. Wolcott Gibbs, James Thurber, on and on and on. Inspiring. More than a little ruefully sad and and and.
I think you have to be yourself. Maybe your writing registers with someone, maybe it doesn’t. Jesus, the bookstores don’t even stock S. J. Perelman anymore and that is fucked beyond reason.
Ars longa, vita brevis.
SJP’s style was utterly unsuited for the generations which followed television. He (like WC Fields) was destined to become an aficionados’ pleasure.
Whereas SJP’s youthful inspiration, Benchley, is all over the internet. And it’s Thurber’s art, not his battle-of-the-sexes writing, that connects with people today.
The future, what a crazy unpredictable thing it is.
Seems I heard something about this “future” of which you speak.
Also, where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
You mean Lord Snowden, the photographer husband of Proncess Margaret, right? My mental map ends in 1982 and I feel no guilt
Jeepers, dude. You’re surely not telling me you never were imprinted by Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, are you? And don’t call me Shirley.
Oh it was so so long ago, Neal. Milo Minderbinder lives in my mind, for sure.
Hmmm… he was the villain. Should we read something into this?
I didn't start carrying a notebook until I turned 40. While I'm sure waiting that long freed me from reminders of the bad ideas, I'm sure I let a few good ones slip through my fingers. And now they're just gone, dead potential.
Knowing you, you will have a million zillion great ones to come