Tag Archives: humor

Guy Kawazaki on Typography and Graphic Design

Posted on August 26, 2022 | Leave a comment

“The more fonts a document has, the less content it has.”

Guy Kawazaki

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Clive James on Bertolt Brecht

Posted on August 19, 2022 | Leave a comment

“I have nothing against Brecht in his place, which is East Germany.”

Clive James

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Cultural Literacy: Battle of Hastings

Posted on August 19, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Battle of Hastings in 1066. This is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. In other words, a concise introduction to what is a seminal event in the history of Western Europe (and the basis for the hilarious 1066 and All That by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman).

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Algonquin Wits: Dorothy Parker, Famously, on Katherine Hepburn

Posted on August 19, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Mrs. Parker once said of a Katherine Hepburn performance: ‘She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Paul Fussell on Chess and Social Class

Posted on August 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Chess is seldom found above the upper-middle class; it’s too hard.”

Paul Fussell

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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The Algonquin Wits: Alexander Woollcott’s Riposte in a Moment of Immodesty

Posted on August 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Ever conscious of his weight problem, Woollcott installed a steam cabinet at his ‘Wit’s End’ home on the East River. The cabinet had a large window in front, through which an outsider could see anyone sitting inside. One afternoon Peggy Pulitzer, while a guest at Woollcott’s, wandered by the cabinet and beheld Aleck’s stark-naked form. Later she advised him, ‘You should cover that window with an organdy curtain.’ Woollcott corrected the lady’s phrasing, however” ‘Curtain de organ.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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John Kenneth Galbraith on Meetings

Posted on August 3, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Cacophony

Posted on August 3, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Cacophony (noun): Disagreeable or jarring sound; aural infelicity; discordance; babble or tumult. Adj. cacophonous; adv. cacophonously.

‘And always with an air of vast importance, always in the longest words possible, always in the most cacophonous English that even a professor ever wrote.’ H.L. Mencken, Prejudices: First Series”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Thomas Edison on the Labor of Thought

Posted on July 22, 2022 | Leave a comment

“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.”

Thomas Edison

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Write It Right: Custom for Habit

Posted on July 22, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Custom for Habit. Communities have customs; individuals, habit—commonly bad ones.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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