30 Satires

by Lapham, Lewis H.

• ISBN13: 9781565848467
• ISBN10: 1565848462
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-11-01
• Publisher: New Pr

Summary

The leading political satirist skewers the pretensions and vanities of America's equestrian classes.The marketing directors who make the rules of commercial publishing regard humor of any kind as so specialized a commodity that the chain bookstores make no distinction between the works of Voltaire and those of Garfield the Cat; both authors appear under signs marked HUMOR in order that the prospective reader will be advised to approach them with caution.from 30 Satires Known for his political essays, Lewis Lapham is a satirist who belongs in the company of Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken and Mark Twain. He writes with pointed and often savage wit; over the last twenty years in the pages of Harper's Magazine he has experimented with satire in its several formsas burlesque, pasquinade, invective, and deadpan jest. This first assemblage of Lapham's satires presents thirty pieces that hold their currency and humor against the tide of social and political change that has engulfed American society over the last twenty years. He reduces to absurdity most of the portentous topics of the dayDickens' A Christmas Carol retold to praise the virtues of remorseless greed; the hydrogen bomb introduced as a solemn dinner guest who doesn't play tennis or speak English; gene banks in the form of well-trained pigs that accompany their wealthy owners in the first-class cabins of transatlantic jets.

Table of Contents

Christmas Carol	1	(9)
The Last Hohenzollern	10	(6)
Philosopher Kings	16	(10)
Wall Painting	26	(5)
Capitalist Tool	31	(10)
Back to School	41	(10)
Balzac's Garret	51	(9)
Traveler's Tale	60	(10)
Tower of Babel	70	(7)
The Spring Shows	77	(10)
Sky Writing	87	(8)
Jefferson on Toast	95	(10)
A Man and His Pig	105	(6)
Italian Opera	111	(10)
Eyebrow Pencils	121	(10)
Asset Management	131	(9)
Natural Selection	140	(7)
Fatted Calf	147	(10)
Mixed Media	157	(8)
Performance Art	165	(10)
Potomac Fever	175	(6)
Hugo, Mon Amour	181	(5)
Tremendous Trifles	186	(9)
Conventional Wisdom	195	(9)
Hide-and-Go-Seek	204	(9)
Shadowboxing	213	(10)
Compass Bearings	223	(10)
When in Rome	233	(10)
Curtain Calls	243	(11)
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis	254