lenny bruce is not afraid

For Sunday's blog post, please select from among the following topics:

1. You've had another week to let the uncanny brilliance of the The Onion seep into your mind. Why let that Onion-y flavor go to waste? Using the subject title as your headline, write a news-story parody that will amaze passersby with its huge amounts of ironic insight.

2. In "Politics and the English Language," Orwell says that you can "shirk" the responsibility of being a "scrupulous" writer "by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you--even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent--and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself." He also writes, "In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them." How do you understand what Orwell means here?

3. Maybe "fuck" isn't an acronym for "Fornication Under Command of the King" after all. But that doesn't mean we should stop wondering about its origins. Write a satirical history of this versatile, dangerous word.

For Tuesday, I want you to read a few chapters of Lenny Bruce's hugely influential autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People (a take-off on Art Carnegie's famous self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People). Start off with the introduction written by playwright, actor, and L. Bruce fan Eric Bogosian. Bogosian, who isn't as famous as he was fifteen years ago (think a darker, artsy-er, less cartoonish version of Lewis Black) makes some great points about Bruce's importance that we'll discuss together next week. Kenneth Tynan's foreword might be harder to follow, but it'll give you a sense of how Bruce was received across the Atlantic (do you think Tynan is a Marxist? yeah, so do I). As a theater critic, Tynan's championed the dramatic realism of the so-called Angry-Young-Men in Great Britain, which makes sense, given Bruce's own comedic/satirical style.

The rest of your reading assignment is divided into two parts. There's the sections I want you to read closely (more on that in a moment) and then there's the chapters you can read if you get the chance (I realize that time is limited for most of you, so I'm trying to be realistic here). The important sections: pp. 1-30, pp. 97-103, pp. 129-133. Less important sections: pp. 31-51, pp. 79-90.

Now to reading L. Bruce closely. Try to go some place quiet to read the "important" sections of the autobiography. If you find yourself put-off or confused by him, give him another chance. Imagine that he's the wacked-out but totally fearless guy that everyone knows from high school (well, a lot of us knew in high school--in fact, maybe some of us *were* that person in high school), and you've just run into him at the bus stop. You weren't that close to him, and you're not sure you really like him, but for an hour or so, what's the harm in listening to the strange, interesting story he has to tell? If you're lucky, you may begin to understand why he's one of the most important performers in the US since World War II, and why so many people from previous generations think of him as Saint Lenny.

Oh. And prepare to be shocked. And offended. And, yes, a lot of what he says will seem dated to you.