The cultural phenomenon of the house and of house improvement is a big deal these days.  We watch and weep over Extreme Makeover - Home Edition, mainly because how do we expect that man with no legs and no arms to build that dream house by himself, especially since his kids are all blind.  We watch TV shows about redecorating houses, flipping houses, surprising people by redesigning their houses while they’re out going into debt at the mall.  We are in love with houses.  And that’s why I love this humor piece from The New Yorker.  The narrator is a designer, a house flipper, and he and his partner have just bought Wyoming. 

Basically, we are looking at this purchase as a tear-down. There’s really not a lot here you’d want to keep, except one or two of the Wind River Mountains and some old nineteen-twenties Park Service structures in Yellowstone. Scott and I bought for the location - it’s convenient to anywhere, really, if you think about it - and for the simplicity of line. We wanted someplace rectangular, a much easier configuration from a design point of view, and we won’t have to fuss with panhandles and changeable riverine property lines where we’re going to get into disputes with the landowner next door. Spare us the headaches, please!

I spent a summer in a tent in Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, and I love it as much as any good American.  But I can appreciate the irony here.

The Times recently asked, “How do you know when you are healthy enough to say goodbye to your therapist? And how should a therapist handle it?”  John Kenney has an answer in “Last Session,” another good, funny piece from The New Yorker.  It’s actually written as a play, and a good one.  Enjoy.

Dave Barry discusses the unusual results of the New Hampshire primary:

The voters of New Hampshire have made their decision, and the big winner is: Change. Here’s the final vote tally:

Change — 43 percent

Hope — 28 percent

Hope For Change — 17 percent

Hair — 9 percent

Experience — 2 percent

Dennis Kucinich — 1 percent

Read the rest of his analysis here.

HT: Daily Kos

It’s a new year, and that means lots of people are looking for new, and hopefully better, jobs.  In case you feel bad about your impending job search, you might enjoy this brief rant on what it’s like to look for a job in higher education.  Most of those who are looking for a college teaching position do so at the various annual meetings for their respective disciplines.  English professor hopefuls attend the annual MLA Convention for interviews.  Theater hopefuls attend the annual ATHE Convention.  And so on and so forth.  This rant concerns the American Philosophical Association, and how depressing it can be.  If you’re looking for reasons not to get a Ph.D. and teach on the college level, start here.

Esquire, which seems to have declined from its Gay Talese days to really just being a slick magazine with novelty articles, has this novelty piece about solving dilemmas during this Most Wonderful Time of the Year:

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Steve Martin’s got a new memoir out, Born Standing Up.  Martin is the perennial comedian-cum-intellectual, which is odd when you consider that he spent the first act of his career playing the dumb guy. 

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If you’ve read No Country for Old Men, or if you’ve seen the movie, or (even better) if you’ve read the book and seen the movie, then you will appreciate this humor piece from The New Yorker.  No spoilers.  I think.  Hard to tell.  You tell me.

There are so many essays and articles on the writers’ strike, and they’re mildly informative and mostly boring.  But this short essay from The New Yorker, “Why We Strike,” may be worth your time. 

We are not in this for the money. Management would have you believe that we all make $200,000 a year. That’s funny. We wouldn’t even eat something that cost $200,000, unless it was actually $200,000, drizzled with truffle oil, the way Silvio makes it. Yum. The only reason we require payment at all is so we can support those little people we keep telling you about-the assistants, amanuenses, baristas, Rolfers, scarf carriers, and erotic muses we need to create our art. Oh, and our babies. And various charities.

It is, after all, in the humor section.  And it’s written by a real writer.

More good humor from The New Yorker: “The 2008 Campaign Quiz.” Here’s the first question…

1. Two of these quotes are from Mike Gravel. Which one is from Mitt Romney?

(a) “I am prepared to tell you that Americans are getting fatter and dumber. I have no problem saying that.”

(b) “I think we at one point were fish coming out of the slime.”

(c) “Gosh, I love America!”

These days, it’s hard to tell the difference between satire and the real thing.  Take the quiz here.

In “Portrait in Evil: My Story,” a very, very short story, a jilted, hardened narrator that seems to be the fictionalized voice of Karl Rove, tells us:

It’s not easy being the bad guy. The public hates you, and no wonder, fed as they are a steaming stream of media bile that maliciously misrepresents all your plots and machinations. Adults, in turn, poison the minds of the young, who every day joyously play-act your murder. All you have is your minions, who do your bidding, sure, but out of fear and not out of respect or, dare I say it, love.

Another great satire, not only of Rove, but of the Rove image created by so much of the left.