The Girl in the Show

The Girl in the Show
Author: Anna Fields
Publisher: Arcade
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2017-08-08
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 9781510718364

For fans of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Amy Schumer—and every other “funny woman”—comes a candid feminist comedy manifesto exploring the sisterhood between women’s comedy and women’s liberation. “I’m not funny at all. What I am is brave.” —Lucille Ball From female pop culture powerhouses dominating the entertainment landscape to memoirs from today’s most vocal feminist comediennes shooting up the bestseller lists, women in comedy have never been more influential. Marking this cultural shift, The Girl in the Show provides an in-depth exploration of how comedy and feminism have grown hand in hand to give women a stronger voice in the ongoing fight for equality. From I Love Lucy to SNL to today’s rising cable and web-series stars, Anna Fields’ entertaining retrospective combines amusing and honest personal narratives with the historical, political, and cultural contexts of the feminist movement. With interview subjects like Abbi Jacobson, Molly Shannon, Mo Collins, and Lizz Winstead among others—as well as actresses, stand-up comics, writers, producers, and female comedy troupes—Fields shares true stories of wit and heroism from some of our most treasured (and under-represented) artists. At its heart, The Girl in the Show captures the urgency of our continued struggle towards equality, allowing the reader to both revel in—and rebel against—our collective ideas of “women’s comedy.”

Comedy, Book Three

Comedy, Book Three
Author: Patrick McGee
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2024-06-14
Genre: Poetry
ISBN:

Inspired by Dante and William Blake, Secular Revelations is the third and final book of the long poem Comedy. Still in the form of a waking dream, this volume is a meditation on paradise, not as a transcendent place but as an expression of human experience and desire. It consists of poetic dialogues, some with the spirits of well-known artists and philosophers (Richard Wright, John Lennon, Norman O. Brown, Michael Cimino, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Marlon Brando), others with more personal contacts. In an autobiographical mode, this book is a journey through the places, mostly real, in which the author underwent intellectual transformations. Critical motifs in this book are references and allusions to cinema (as in Book 2) and to popular music from the blues to rock-and-roll. There are some satirical and dystopian visions of the future, but the goal of the poem is the affirmation of the power of the human multitude to continue a permanent struggle against that which subverts infinite truth procedures, such as freedom, justice, and democracy. It presupposes that every human mind incorporates the living and the dead in one immeasurable mental process.

The Comedy Bible

The Comedy Bible
Author: Judy Carter
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2010-05-04
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0743219023

Judy Carter, guru to aspiring comedy writers and stand-up comics, tells all about the biz of being funny and writing funny in this bright, entertaining, and totally practical guide on how to draw humor from your life and turn it into a career. Do you think you’re funny? Do you want to turn your sense of humor into a career? If the answer is yes, then Judy Carter’s The Comedy Bible is for you. The guru to aspiring stand-up comics provides the complete scoop on being—and writing—funny for money. If you’ve got a sense of humor, you can learn to make a career out of comedy, says Judy Carter. Whether it’s creating a killer stand-up act, writing a spec sitcom, or providing jokes for radio or one-liners for greeting cards, Carter provides step-by-step instructions in The Comedy Bible. She helps readers first determine which genre of comedy writing or performing suits them best and then directs them in developing, refining, and selling their work. Using the hands-on workbook format that was so effective in her bestselling first book, Stand-Up Comedy: The Book, Carter offers a series of day-by-day exercises that draw on her many years as a successful stand-up comic and the head of a nationally known comedy school. Also included are practical tips and advice from today’s top comedy professionals—from Bernie Brillstein to Christopher Titus to Richard Lewis. She presents the pros and cons of the various comedy fields—stand-up, script, speech and joke writing, one-person shows, humor essays—and shows how to tailor your material for each. She teaches how to find your “authentic” voice—the true source of comedy. And, perhaps most important, Carter explains how to take a finished product to the next level—making money—by pitching it to a buyer and negotiating a contract. Written in Carter’s unique, take-no-prisoners voice, The Comedy Bible is practical, inspirational, and funny.

Bell, Book and Candle

Bell, Book and Candle
Author: John Van Druten
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
Total Pages: 80
Release: 1951
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780822201045

THE STORY: Gillian Holroyd is one of the few modern people who can actually cast spells and perform feats of supernaturalism. She casts a spell over an unattached publisher, Shepherd Henderson, partly to keep him away from a rival and partly becaus

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces
Author: John Kennedy Toole
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802197620

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”—The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures" (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times).

The Teacher's Funeral

The Teacher's Funeral
Author: Richard Peck
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2006-11-21
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780142405079

If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it," begins Richard Peck's latest novel, a book full of his signature wit and sass. Russell Culver is fifteen in 1904, and he's raring to leave his tiny Indiana farm town for the endless sky of the Dakotas. To him, school has been nothing but a chain holding him back from his dreams. Maybe now that his teacher has passed on, they'll shut the school down entirely and leave him free to roam. No such luck. Russell has a particularly eventful season of schooling ahead of him, led by a teacher he never could have predicted-perhaps the only teacher equipped to control the likes of him: his sister Tansy. Despite stolen supplies, a privy fire, and more than any classroom's share of snakes, Tansy will manage to keep that school alive and maybe, just maybe, set her brother on a new, wiser course.

Three Things I'd Never Do

Three Things I'd Never Do
Author: Remi Carrington
Publisher: Phrey Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2020-06-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1947685260

I’m a cat person. He has two BIG dogs. There is no chance this will work. There are three things I said I’d never do— Never move back in with my parents. Thanks to a summer storm, not only am I residing with my parents—temporarily—but a tree falls on their house and traps me in the bathtub. Enter the hottie firefighter who rescues me, bubbles and all. Then my parents have to move in with me. Oh joy. Never let my mom set me up on a blind date. She asks so many times, I finally agree. And the hot firefighter—Adam—is the one who shows up. Because I’ve always wanted to go on a first date with a guy who has seen me in nothing but bubbles. Not. Never date a guy with a dog. Adam is nearly perfect . . . except he has dogs. The furry beasts frighten me, and no way would Pookie tolerate them. But for a chance at love and to get over my fear, I volunteer to dog sit for the weekend. It doesn’t go well. Someone is going to end up in the doghouse. It might be me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three Things I'd Never Do is a sweet romantic comedy with heartwarming characters and a touch of sizzle that will have you laughing your way to the happily ever after.

Vanities

Vanities
Author: Jack Heifner
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
Total Pages: 74
Release: 1976
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780573630149

A snap shot chronicle of the lives of three Texas girls that spans the turbulent '60s through the late '70s and explores how friendship changes over the years.

I'll Have What She's Having

I'll Have What She's Having
Author: Erin Carlson
Publisher: Hachette Books
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2017-08-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316353906

A backstage look at the making of Nora Ephron's revered trilogy--When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle--which brought romantic comedies back to the fore, and an intimate portrait of the beloved writer/director who inspired a generation of Hollywood women, from Mindy Kaling to Lena Dunham. In I'll Have What She's Having entertainment journalist Erin Carlson tells the story of the real Nora Ephron and how she reinvented the romcom through her trio of instant classics. With a cast of famous faces including Rob Reiner, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and Billy Crystal, Carlson takes readers on a rollicking, revelatory trip to Ephron's New York City, where reality took a backseat to romance and Ephron--who always knew what she wanted and how she wanted it--ruled the set with an attention to detail that made her actors feel safe but sometimes exasperated crew members. Along the way, Carlson examines how Ephron explored in the cinema answers to the questions that plagued her own romantic life and how she regained faith in love after one broken engagement and two failed marriages. Carlson also explores countless other questions Ephron's fans have wondered about: What sparked Reiner to snap out of his bachelor blues during the making of When Harry Met Sally? Why was Ryan, a gifted comedian trapped in the body of a fairytale princess, not the first choice for the role? After she and Hanks each separatel balked at playing Mail's Kathleen Kelly and Sleepless' Sam Baldwin, what changed their minds? And perhaps most importantly: What was Dave Chappelle doing . . . in a turtleneck? An intimate portrait of a one of America's most iconic filmmakers and a look behind the scenes of her crowning achievements, I'll Have What She's Having is a vivid account of the days and nights when Ephron, along with assorted cynical collaborators, learned to show her heart on the screen.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri
Author: Robert M. Durling
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 886
Release: 2010-10-07
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0199723354

Robert Durling's spirited new prose translation of the Paradiso completes his masterful rendering of the Divine Comedy. Durling's earlier translations of the Inferno and the Purgatorio garnered high praise, and with this superb version of the Paradiso readers can now traverse the entirety of Dante's epic poem of spiritual ascent with the guidance of one of the greatest living Italian-to-English translators. Reunited with his beloved Beatrice in the Purgatorio, in the Paradiso the poet-narrator journeys with her through the heavenly spheres and comes to know "the state of blessed souls after death." As with the previous volumes, the original Italian and its English translation appear on facing pages. Readers will be drawn to Durling's precise and vivid prose, which captures Dante's extraordinary range of expression--from the high style of divine revelation to colloquial speech, lyrical interludes, and scornful diatribes against corrupt clergy. This edition boasts several unique features. Durling's introduction explores the chief interpretive issues surrounding the Paradiso, including the nature of its allegories, the status in the poem of Dante's human body, and his relation to the mystical tradition. The notes at the end of each canto provide detailed commentary on historical, theological, and literary allusions, and unravel the obscurity and difficulties of Dante's ambitious style . An unusual feature is the inclusion of the text, translation, and commentary on one of Dante's chief models, the famous cosmological poem by Boethius that ends the third book of his Consolation of Philosophy. A substantial section of Additional Notes discusses myths, symbols, and themes that figure in all three cantiche of Dante's masterpiece. Finally, the volume includes a set of indexes that is unique in American editions, including Proper Names Discussed in the Notes (with thorough subheadings concerning related themes), Passages Cited in the Notes, and Words Discussed in the Notes, as well as an Index of Proper Names in the text and translation. Like the previous volumes, this final volume includes a rich series of illustrations by Robert Turner.