A funny thing happened REVIEWS BY MICHAEL SIMS

Let's begin with the most amusing book I've read since the Meese Commission report on pornography: 2007-Eleven: and Other American Comedies, by Frank Cammuso and Hart Seely. I don't want to overstate this, but your view of the late 20th century is incomplete until you read this book. 2007-Eleven is a collection of stories, from places such as National Public Radio, confirming that brevity is the soul of wit. In every one of them, the satirical voice is pitch-perfect, as the authors happily skewer one modern icon after another. These gentlemen enjoy their work.

In "The Xmas Files," Scully and Mulder investigate the reported appearance of a large red-and-white being that seems to be able to alter its shape ("You mean like a bowl full of jelly?") and move through narrow chimneys. Scully is skeptical, but as a child Mulder was visited by the creature -- and somehow, reading his mind, it knew he wanted a Mr. Potato Head!

You can journey to Potomoc Park, where scientists have cloned "the most terrifying creatures ever to roam the earth: senataurs!" Supposedly extinct, having taxed themselves out of existence, at Potomoc Park they've been recreated without the ability to reproduce. "They have no voting power, and we've separated the huge, vegetarian liberals from the hot-blooded conservative carnivores." You can see the D'Amatradon, Packwoodasaurus (a horned lizard), VelociSpecters, Pteddydon, and the dreaded Dolesaurus rex.

What happens when Rod Serling and Dr. Seuss collaborate? Can you imagine the advice when animals call in to Dr. Laura Dosomething's radio show? ("I have said this a thousand times, but let me say it again: I am totally opposed to the eating of one's young.") The Wicked Witch of the West files a very reasonable-sounding lawsuit against Dorothy G. for killing her sister with a house, stealing her broom (thereby removing the witch's livelihood -- skywriting), taking her flying monkeys, and melting her. In "Captain's Log," James T. Kirk defends himself against charges of sexual harassment that range across the galaxy. And in the marvelous title story, a computerized cash register named Mart monitors everything that goes on in a 7-11 until it begins to, well, malfunction.


Ever since early anthologies such as the Bible, editors have been preserving the best literature of their time in collections. Many works are remembered nowadays because someone had the foresight to rescue them from the ephemeral periodicals (or even crumbling papyrus) in which they first appeared. In this tradition is the fat first entry in a new series, Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor, edited by Michael J. Rosen.

You'll find everyone from John Updike to Garry Trudeau. Roy Blount laments that he isn't cited as the source of a single new word. Dave Barry remembers Paris. Jay Jennings considers possible mergers of the future -- Bert and Ernie forming Bernie, Stephen King acquiring Joyce Carol Oates, Men and Women forming Humanicorp, (despite "serious antitrust issues"), and God and Satan finally giving up and shaking hands. Ian Frazier presents advice to children in a magnificent biblical tone.

In the finest gem, Jon Stewart, author of the wonderful collection Naked Pictures of Famous People, presents the Last Supper as told by the waiter. ("I say cut the hair. Please. You're not a musician and it's very B.C.") Rosen also includes another fine Stewart piece, Lady Di's fan letters to Mother Teresa.


Brett Leveridge, a contributor to All Things Considered and This American Life, and author of a long-running column in Might magazine, has collected the columns (and borrowed their title) for Men My Mother Dated: and Other Mostly True Tales. Leveridge laments the shadiness of advertising, the fear Saturn car commercials inspire in him, his first experience with eyeglasses, constantly being misidentified as gay -- and, oh yes, his mother's boyfriends. This is a strange and entertaining book, and the question of what is true and what is false in it is too scary to contemplate.


And last but not least: The humorously inclined won't want to miss Stefan Kanfer's upcoming biography, Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx. It's a serious biography, but inevitably it has a high laugh quotient.


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