Guest host Andy Borowitz shares some of his favorite comic writing. Judith Ivey reads the late newspaper columnist, humorist, and political commentator Molly Ivins. Sloane Crosley confesses a shameful secret in “The Pony Problem," read by Kirsten Vangsness. In Dorothy Parker's “The Waltz” we are treated to an hilarious inner monologue as the speaker is dragged around the dance floor by an inept partner read by Parker Posey. Finally, Ian Frazier lays down the law in “Lamentations of the Father,” read by the late Isaiah Sheffer.
Guest host Andy Borowitz shares some of his favorite comic writing. Andy Borowitz is a New York Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. In 2001, he created The Borowitz Report, for which he won the first-ever National Press Club award for humor. Some of the choices on this show came from his anthology The 50 Funniest American Writers.
First, the late newspaper columnist, humorist, and political commentator Molly Ivins skewers Texas politics in “Tough as Bob War and Other Stuff.” In addition to her newspaper work, she was the author of the bestseller Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? Reader Judith Ivey captures Ivins’ gleeful sense of outrage. Ivey’s work in theatre has garnered her both the Tony and Obie awards. On film and television she has appeared in “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” “Down Home,” “Designing Women,” “The Devil’s Advocate,” “What the Deaf Man Heard,” for which she earned an Emmy nomination, “Will & Grace,” “Nurse Jackie,” and “Big Love,” among others.
Next, Sloane Crosley confesses a shameful secret in “The Pony Problem.” Crosley’s work has appeared in Esquire, Elle, GQ, Vogue, The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, The Believer, Vice, McSweeney’s, and New York Magazine, among others, as well as on National Public Radio. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and is currently a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Interview Magazine. She is the author of the essay collections Look Alive Out There, and I Was Told There’d Be Cake, as well as How Did You Get This Number? and a novel, The Clasp.
Reader Kirsten Vangsness is best known as Penelope Garcia on the television drama “Criminal Minds.” She is also the executive producer and star of the feature film “Kill Me Deadly” and she regularly performs her one-person show “Mess” to sold-out houses around Los Angeles. Vangsness was nominated for the LA Weekly best playwright of the year for her play “Potential Space.”
As Borowitz points out, you can’t have funny without Algonquin Roundtable wit Dorothy Parker. In “The Waltz” we are treated to an hilarious inner monologue as the speaker is dragged around the dance floor by an inept partner. Parker Posey is the one getting her feet stepped on. She’s best know for her many indie films with Christopher Guest, including “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show,” and “A Mighty Wind.” Her other film appearances include “You've Got Mail,” “Scream 3,” “Superman Returns,” and the Woody Allen-directed films “Irrational Man” and “Café Society.” On television, Posey has appeared on “Will & Grace,” “Boston Legal,” “The Good Wife,” “Parks and Recreation,” and “Search Party,” among others. She is currently appearing in the Netflix adaptation of “Lost in Space.”
Finally, Ian Frazier lays down the law in “Lamentations of the Father,” Frazier is a staff writer at The New Yorker. His published books include Dating Your Mom, Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody, Coyote v. Acme, On the Rez, The Fish’s Eye, Gone to New York: Adventures in the City, and Lamentations of the Father, the collection from which this piece was taken.
SELECTED SHORTS’ late host and founder, Isaiah Sheffer is the reader.
