a walk on the funny side

[kip_w]

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I couldn't believe that I went to the book store and didn't purchase the humor anthology edited by Nelson Algren. How could I pass that up? Humor. Algren. Algren. Humor. How could it be anything other than amazing? I read A Walk on the Wild Side twice, marveling at the oppressive bitterness of it all. Now I have to wonder: was this humor? Did he chortle as he wrote the chapter about the pile of freshly beheaded turtles? Do I need to read it again? Or maybe I should try The Man with the Golden Grin. Sorry, Arm.

Anyway, I made a special trip into town just to get it. I brought it home, and started reading the introduction: On a June afternoon in 1959 a three-and-a-half-year-old girl was murdered in the basement of a Philadelphia home. Ah, good old Nelson. He didn't let me down. It promised to be a couple hundred pages of cognitive dissonance.

So far I've read one story, and I'm just as bemused. Humor, eh? Who knew?
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Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I know he said, or at least passed along, at least one funny thing. When a Catholic neighbor died, the widow asked his father for $10 for a memorial mass, "so he can see the face of God." Algren Sr, replied, "Here's five. Let him look at His ass."

[rtred.livejournal.com]

You went to a store? To buy books? How 20th century.