| Author: | Hugh McClintock | ISBN: | 9781476224930 |
| Publisher: | Hugh McClintock | Publication: | April 20, 2012 |
| Imprint: | Smashwords Edition | Language: | English |
| Author: | Hugh McClintock |
| ISBN: | 9781476224930 |
| Publisher: | Hugh McClintock |
| Publication: | April 20, 2012 |
| Imprint: | Smashwords Edition |
| Language: | English |
Rib-tickling Humor Straight is a book of the author’s funny newspaper columns plus a dozen of his short burlesques covering the bumbling activities of prehistoric cavemen. A quick dip into the humor of the newspaper columns:
That old saying about the folly of changing horses in midstream? It doesn’t begin to merit elevation to the status of a proverb, as some would have it. No person in his right mind would change a horse anywhere but in the warmth and security of a clean stall.
An eminent poet wrote that “A diplomat always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.” Huh? What’s so hard about remembering the number twenty-nine? Clearly, the versifier should never have strayed from the vineyard of poetry into the rocky badlands of epigrams.
God handed Moses fifteen commandments, not ten. Being carved in stone, Moses wasn’t able to muster the energy needed to tote all fifteen down Mount Sinai. Anyway, he didn’t. One discarded tablet ordered that no husband ever mention his wife’s age aloud. Another warned the faithful to never serve broccoli except as very tiny uncooked morsels in a salad that is to be eaten outdoors. On a windy day. The other left-behind commandments were also critically vital edicts.
The love of cherished mothers as well as the misbehavior of lovable family pets also come under fire by McClintock in Humor Straight, not to mention the timidity of his “perky little hometown newspaper” serving the community where he lives. He equates the newspaper’s editorial conservatism to the “head-in-sand” attitude of a papacy of hard- shelled Baptists.
McClintock writes that years ago he “made his bones” from mousey landlubber to doughty, close-hauled helmsman when a friend gave him a grubby catamaran sailboat. (True.) A summer later, after finally learning how to “come about” without ignominiously rowing the prow across the eye of the wind, he sailed his boat into a submerged tree stump and sank it (the boat).
The column “Cooking breakfast and other adventures,” describes the dangerous kitchen hazards a man must take on when suffering domestication alone at old age. Etc.
All of the sixty-five humorous columns are basically true. The thirteen burlesques covering the activities of prehistoric cave-people, however, may not be veraciously accurate: A raft that didn’t float (See “The Titanic raft.”), how upright posture improved one caveman’s chance of fathering a child (See “Standing up to the challenge of ensuring fertility.”), proof that Homer did not deserve immortalization (“Homer was a pretty good poet but not the first ever.”), the serendipitous invention of counting numbers (“Fishing for cardinal numbers.”), and so on, could certainly be interpreted as compositions of fiction. The author avers, however, that all are either authentic or nothing.
Rib-tickling Humor Straight is a book of the author’s funny newspaper columns plus a dozen of his short burlesques covering the bumbling activities of prehistoric cavemen. A quick dip into the humor of the newspaper columns:
That old saying about the folly of changing horses in midstream? It doesn’t begin to merit elevation to the status of a proverb, as some would have it. No person in his right mind would change a horse anywhere but in the warmth and security of a clean stall.
An eminent poet wrote that “A diplomat always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.” Huh? What’s so hard about remembering the number twenty-nine? Clearly, the versifier should never have strayed from the vineyard of poetry into the rocky badlands of epigrams.
God handed Moses fifteen commandments, not ten. Being carved in stone, Moses wasn’t able to muster the energy needed to tote all fifteen down Mount Sinai. Anyway, he didn’t. One discarded tablet ordered that no husband ever mention his wife’s age aloud. Another warned the faithful to never serve broccoli except as very tiny uncooked morsels in a salad that is to be eaten outdoors. On a windy day. The other left-behind commandments were also critically vital edicts.
The love of cherished mothers as well as the misbehavior of lovable family pets also come under fire by McClintock in Humor Straight, not to mention the timidity of his “perky little hometown newspaper” serving the community where he lives. He equates the newspaper’s editorial conservatism to the “head-in-sand” attitude of a papacy of hard- shelled Baptists.
McClintock writes that years ago he “made his bones” from mousey landlubber to doughty, close-hauled helmsman when a friend gave him a grubby catamaran sailboat. (True.) A summer later, after finally learning how to “come about” without ignominiously rowing the prow across the eye of the wind, he sailed his boat into a submerged tree stump and sank it (the boat).
The column “Cooking breakfast and other adventures,” describes the dangerous kitchen hazards a man must take on when suffering domestication alone at old age. Etc.
All of the sixty-five humorous columns are basically true. The thirteen burlesques covering the activities of prehistoric cave-people, however, may not be veraciously accurate: A raft that didn’t float (See “The Titanic raft.”), how upright posture improved one caveman’s chance of fathering a child (See “Standing up to the challenge of ensuring fertility.”), proof that Homer did not deserve immortalization (“Homer was a pretty good poet but not the first ever.”), the serendipitous invention of counting numbers (“Fishing for cardinal numbers.”), and so on, could certainly be interpreted as compositions of fiction. The author avers, however, that all are either authentic or nothing.