9780060516260

Nutritiousness aside, May Contain Nuts provides 100% of the daily recommended amount of that essential life-enhancer, laughter. With more than 70 contributors and 150 shots from the loose canon of American humor, it's a stellar edition with plenty of real stars from stage and screen(writing): bull; Seinfeld 's Peter Mehlman bull; Hairspray 's Mark O'Donnell bull; Ed 's Michael Ian Black bull; and the world's most famous drive-in movie critic, Joe Bob Briggs Plus, there's Roy Blount Jr. on how to travel "Southern" outside the South; summer recipes from our man in the kitchen, Henry Alford; Firesign Theatre's Phil Austin's yuletide "Tale of the Old Detective"; P. J. O'Rourke's not-so-intimate "Diary of a Country Gentleman"; Daniel Radosh's "PowerPoint Anthology of Literature"; and Tom Gliatto's helpful overview of today's thriving cabaret scene. With umpteen illustrations, many perplexing charts, and our first centerfold ever, this volume is party-sized for your reading pleasure. New in This Issue a comprehensive teacher's guide a food section (including a transcript from Van Gogh's early cooking show) up-to-the-minute newscrawl a preview of the new all Law & Order Network "Blues for Advanced Beginners" Ingenious and iffy tributes to Orson Welles, Dale Earnhardt, Beck, John Edwards, and Celine Dion

Special Interest Tables of Contents

xxv

Letters to HQ

xxxiii

Jay Ruttenberg

Justin Warner

Steve Altes

Renee A. James

Joe Lavin

David K. Gibson

Bob Hirshon

Henry Alford

Business Tips of the Dead

1

(3)

The Ultimate B&B?

4

(3)

Olive Fab: The War Diaries of an Embedded Fashion Journalist

7

(3)

Summer Recipes

10

(218)

Steve Altes

Centerfold

228

Ethan Anderson

Romeo and Juliet Versus Mrs. Jackson's Seventh-Grade English Class

13

(4)

Sara Hope Anderson

Reality Check

17

(7)

Phil Austin

Developmental Valley School District Lunch Menus for This Week

24

(2)

X Is for Christmas: A Tale of the Old Detective

26

(8)

Andrew Barlow

Nursery News

34

(147)

New State Mottoes

181

Michael Ian Black

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meeting People More Famous Than You

37

(3)

VH1 Hate Mail

40

(4)

Roy Blount Jr

See the World but Stay Southern

44

(6)

Joe Bob Briggs

Forever Dale

50

Stephanie Brooks

Business Tips of the Dead

Henry Alford

FROM PIECE OF MY HEART : THE JANIS JOPLIN GUIDETO MANAGEMENT

Joplin knew that if you started drinking after you'd taken a fewhits of speed, you ran the risk of becoming messy and vague;but if you got drunk and then took the speed, you could prolongthe drunk, you could power the drunk.

Power your drunk. Take a bold step toward prioritizing yourcompany's future by implementing that growth-centered,results-driven, Big Picture Thinking change after you've alreadyscored a victory with a smaller, easier change. The secondchange can coast in the first one's jetstream.

You'll see the change. Your company's future will be a betterplace. Then you can look at your spreadsheet and be confidentyou won't wake up with a blinding headache on the first day ofyour next quarter; then you can lie in a hotel bed and takeheroin with a reporter from Rolling Stone.

FROM CALL ME COCO: SWINGIN' DEALSWITH COCO CHANEL

Most people do not realize that fashion legend Coco Chanelwas born Cocoa Chanel, but dropped the a following the adviceof a consultant. The consultant explained that, in terms ofestablishing a brand, too narrow a focus could hurt the Chanelbrand. "Cocoa is very specifically either the powder made fromcacoa seeds, or the refreshing, hot beverage made from thatpowder," the consultant told Chanel. "But Coco ... Cococould be coconut or coq au vin, or cocktail-cocktail, orcompany-company, or cost effective-cost ineffective, or commissionbasis-commission yield, or coaxial cable-coaxial cablestorage unit, or cold welding-cold welding helmet, or Co-Chairof the Cote d'Azur Congress for Constant Coconut Oil-Enhanced Copulation."

Lesson #37: Leave your options open.

FROM VLAD TO BE HERE: VLAD THE IMPALERMEANS BUSINESS

One summer day in 1463, one of Vlad's sentries told him thewhereabouts of Vlad's archrival, Brad the Extruder. Vladquickly tracked Brad down in a field in a remote Transylvaniantown; then Vlad lunged at his archrival, gored him with a pike,carried him to a steep-faced mountain, removed him from thepike and dragged him to the mountain's summit, then droppedhim off a cliff such that he fell directly onto the up-pointedpike's sharp tip, now white-hot from a roaring blaze built at thepike's base.

Vlad's paradigm is one we can all learn from. Vlad was successfulnot because he had insider information, but becausehe strategically implemented this insider information. Theimplementation was brilliantly simple. 1) Find archrival. 2)Kabob him.

FROM LASSIE, CEO

While her competitors were all too happy to meet the lowdemands of others' expectations of them -- by licking all stainson the kitchen floor in an attempt to locate a beverage source,or by issuing stalactites of drool while watching others eat -- Lassie incentivized herself. Lassie found her niche. Lassiefound the brand that was Lassie: she made herself the dog whoalerts her master of others' imminent death. Your company canbenefit from hiring a similarly incentivized individual, an outsideconsultant who tours your premises and tells you not to askTom in H.R. to send that fax for you, because Tom is minutesaway from the massive coronary seizure that will finally fellhim; someone who'll encourage you to start grooming a successorfor Noreen in Accounting because research suggests she is130 years old. In short, you need a Lassie. You need to get help.

May Contain Nuts
A Very Loose Canon of American Humor. Copyright © by Michael J. Rosen. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Excerpted from May Contain Nuts: A Very Loose Canon of American Humor by Michael J. Rosen
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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May Contain Nuts : A Very Loose Canon of American Humor

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Business Tips of the Dead

Henry Alford

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