"Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why" by Various Authors
Title: Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why
Author: Various Authors
My Grade: C+
This book features essays of people making asses of themselves in the name of traveling. Here are a few that stood out...
Bushwalk by Eugene Sigaloff and Snap Happy and the Nagas by Bennett Stevens dealt with poo. I don't like anything involving poo. I rarely find it funny except for once in a David Sedaris essay, but otherwise it just grosses me out. Although I did find the proclamation "What an anus!" in the last story rather amusing. The writing was good, but the graphic description of "splattery splendor" (a.k.a. diarrhea) was just icky.
Hungry? by Bradley Charbonneau explains what happens to a person who's been on a diet of rice and noodles for months and months when they enter a Kenny Rogers' Roasters restaurant... the delirium he experiences is like some erotic dream. The man is really really hungry to say the least, it's pretty damn funny.
In Sleepless in Florence, Mark St. Amant remembers about living in an apartment in Florence with the upstairs neighbor from hell... a Japanese woman who seems to wear wooden shoes while stomping around at all hours of the night making him wonder if she is infact a sumo wrestler (I've had that same experience living in the dorms!). This same Japanese woman also had the tendency to do karaoke, unfortunately she "makes Yoko Ono sound like Maria Callas."
Ravioli, French Style by Rikke Jorgensen was about the experience of finding a pubic hair in one's food, only to have the waiter respond "It is not mine." Charming.