Book-It '10! Book #37
The Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a birthday gift from the Funk Queen of the Universe, warriorpoet.
Title: i know i am, but what are you? by Samantha Bee
Details: Copyright 2010, Gallery Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "Candid, outspoken, laugh-out-loud funny essays from the much-loved Samantha Bee, the Most Senior Correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Critics have called her “sweet, adorable, and vicious.” But there is so much more to be said about Samantha Bee. For one, she’s Canadian. Whatever that means. And now, she opens up for the very first time about her checkered Canadian past. With charming candor, she admits to her Lennie from Of Mice and Men-style love of baby animals, her teenage crime spree as one-half of a car-thieving couple (Bonnie and Clyde in Bermuda shorts and braces), and the fact that strangers seem compelled to show her their genitals. She also details her intriguing career history, which includes stints working in a frame store, at a penis clinic, and as a Japanese anime character in a touring children’s show.
Samantha delves into all these topics and many more in this thoroughly hilarious, unabashedly frank collection of personal essays. Whether detailing the creepiness that ensues when strangers assume that your mom is your lesbian lover, or recalling her girlhood crush on Jesus (who looked like Kris Kristofferson and sang like Kenny Loggins), Samantha turns the spotlight on her own imperfect yet highly entertaining life as relentlessly as she skewers hapless interview subjects on The Daily Show. She shares her unique point of view on a variety of subjects as wide ranging as her deep affinity for old people, to her hatred of hot ham. It’s all here, in irresistible prose that will leave you in stitches and eager for more."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Dude. Sam Bee! Not only is she a hilarious and incredibly talented comedienne, she's (as I've said often) the number one female celebrity I'd like to have relations-of-a-certain-nature with!
How I Liked It: I had already set out to like the book, and I was not surprised when I actually did. Although Samantha Bee follows the format of David Sedaris, she does not fall prey to the David Sedaris Syndrome, and her voice remains definitely her own. The book is, actually, laugh-out-loud funny in several parts and Daily Show fans (which, if you're reading the book, you probably already are) will appreciate the backstory of how Sam met her husband (who is also a Daily Show correspondent for those not playing along at home).
I have to say, I cringed when I heard her mother is Wiccan as I was expecting all sorts of horrible, inaccurate, fruity-fluffy bunny misconceptions, but save for the fact it's established her mother is already a hippie (or an attempted one) with weird friends with weird clothing Sam as a child associates with Wicca, it's actually fairly tame. She does throw in an appreciated nod to toppling misconceptions of Witchcraft equaling Satanism and/or devil worship (she refers to her mother's coven as "white witches" which, although I personally dislike the term, is generally meant to mean "someone who does magic for good" as opposed to someone cursing people, et cetera-- so her intentions are basically good), particularly in her childhood fundamentalist Christian (in love with Jesus in a Tiger Beat sort of way) mind. She notes that after the ceremony (a Pagan handfasting), the attendants became "abnormally normal" and even "downright boring". After the ceremony, "It went from being a seamy den of iniquity to a Good Housekeeping coffee klatch in five seconds flat." (pg 38)
She does spell both Pagan and Witch with lowercase "p"s and "w"s respectively, but most in the mainstream do, as well as use the word "heathen" to mean "atheist". Despite her treatment of Paganism and Wicca later in the chapter, she does initially refer to her parents' reaction to her grandmother's decision that she'd attend Catholic school as "if either of them [her parents] had had their way, I would have gone to the Atheist School for the Children of Heretics and Pagans" (pg 30). True, again, many people in the mainstream equate Pagan with atheist, so really, it is nitpicking.
All in all, a hilarious book that's a must-read for any Daily Show fan and, frankly, any Amy Sedaris fan as their styles do run similarly (we can only hope Sam will put out an illustrated book on entertaining and Amy will write a memoir).
Notable: In the chapter titled "May December Never Come", Sam relays a story of
a particularly hilarious recent visit to Woodstock, New York, where her mother missed attending the legendary concert just barely, a fact Sam is enjoying taunting her about. An older couple come upon the two of them and make two misconceptions: one, that Sam's mother actually attended the concert, and two, that Sam is her partner, not her daughter. Sam explains her reaction thusly:
"My mom was the one smirking now. I could tell she took it as a compliment that they thought she was unique and lesbionic, but it meant only one thing to me: an old man had just spent at least three seconds imagining my mom and me doing the scissors together, and when he revealed that to us, I then spent three of the longest seconds of my life imagining my mom and me doing the scissors together." (pg 132)
Okay, I'm familiar with "muff-diver". But first South Park and now this-- did scissoring becoming a mainstream thing? I recall (very briefly) seeing a soft-corn porn on Cinemax (where else?) in my midteens and seeing two women perform that and I can't be alone in thinking that's not only an act that's bound to be fairly unsatisfying, but also tiring (and uncomfortable, no matter how agile and flexible the participants) and especially stupid-looking (I mean more so that most sex acts). I'm just saying, "muff-diver" just makes more sense.
Also wonderful is the jacket art. Aside from the cover, we also get a back cover shot:
And an author photo which proclaims her "pictured here naked, as God intended":
I think these alone are worth the price of the book.
Title: i know i am, but what are you? by Samantha Bee
Details: Copyright 2010, Gallery Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "Candid, outspoken, laugh-out-loud funny essays from the much-loved Samantha Bee, the Most Senior Correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Critics have called her “sweet, adorable, and vicious.” But there is so much more to be said about Samantha Bee. For one, she’s Canadian. Whatever that means. And now, she opens up for the very first time about her checkered Canadian past. With charming candor, she admits to her Lennie from Of Mice and Men-style love of baby animals, her teenage crime spree as one-half of a car-thieving couple (Bonnie and Clyde in Bermuda shorts and braces), and the fact that strangers seem compelled to show her their genitals. She also details her intriguing career history, which includes stints working in a frame store, at a penis clinic, and as a Japanese anime character in a touring children’s show.
Samantha delves into all these topics and many more in this thoroughly hilarious, unabashedly frank collection of personal essays. Whether detailing the creepiness that ensues when strangers assume that your mom is your lesbian lover, or recalling her girlhood crush on Jesus (who looked like Kris Kristofferson and sang like Kenny Loggins), Samantha turns the spotlight on her own imperfect yet highly entertaining life as relentlessly as she skewers hapless interview subjects on The Daily Show. She shares her unique point of view on a variety of subjects as wide ranging as her deep affinity for old people, to her hatred of hot ham. It’s all here, in irresistible prose that will leave you in stitches and eager for more."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Dude. Sam Bee! Not only is she a hilarious and incredibly talented comedienne, she's (as I've said often) the number one female celebrity I'd like to have relations-of-a-certain-nature with!
How I Liked It: I had already set out to like the book, and I was not surprised when I actually did. Although Samantha Bee follows the format of David Sedaris, she does not fall prey to the David Sedaris Syndrome, and her voice remains definitely her own. The book is, actually, laugh-out-loud funny in several parts and Daily Show fans (which, if you're reading the book, you probably already are) will appreciate the backstory of how Sam met her husband (who is also a Daily Show correspondent for those not playing along at home).
I have to say, I cringed when I heard her mother is Wiccan as I was expecting all sorts of horrible, inaccurate, fruity-fluffy bunny misconceptions, but save for the fact it's established her mother is already a hippie (or an attempted one) with weird friends with weird clothing Sam as a child associates with Wicca, it's actually fairly tame. She does throw in an appreciated nod to toppling misconceptions of Witchcraft equaling Satanism and/or devil worship (she refers to her mother's coven as "white witches" which, although I personally dislike the term, is generally meant to mean "someone who does magic for good" as opposed to someone cursing people, et cetera-- so her intentions are basically good), particularly in her childhood fundamentalist Christian (in love with Jesus in a Tiger Beat sort of way) mind. She notes that after the ceremony (a Pagan handfasting), the attendants became "abnormally normal" and even "downright boring". After the ceremony, "It went from being a seamy den of iniquity to a Good Housekeeping coffee klatch in five seconds flat." (pg 38)
She does spell both Pagan and Witch with lowercase "p"s and "w"s respectively, but most in the mainstream do, as well as use the word "heathen" to mean "atheist". Despite her treatment of Paganism and Wicca later in the chapter, she does initially refer to her parents' reaction to her grandmother's decision that she'd attend Catholic school as "if either of them [her parents] had had their way, I would have gone to the Atheist School for the Children of Heretics and Pagans" (pg 30). True, again, many people in the mainstream equate Pagan with atheist, so really, it is nitpicking.
All in all, a hilarious book that's a must-read for any Daily Show fan and, frankly, any Amy Sedaris fan as their styles do run similarly (we can only hope Sam will put out an illustrated book on entertaining and Amy will write a memoir).
Notable: In the chapter titled "May December Never Come", Sam relays a story of
a particularly hilarious recent visit to Woodstock, New York, where her mother missed attending the legendary concert just barely, a fact Sam is enjoying taunting her about. An older couple come upon the two of them and make two misconceptions: one, that Sam's mother actually attended the concert, and two, that Sam is her partner, not her daughter. Sam explains her reaction thusly:
"My mom was the one smirking now. I could tell she took it as a compliment that they thought she was unique and lesbionic, but it meant only one thing to me: an old man had just spent at least three seconds imagining my mom and me doing the scissors together, and when he revealed that to us, I then spent three of the longest seconds of my life imagining my mom and me doing the scissors together." (pg 132)
Okay, I'm familiar with "muff-diver". But first South Park and now this-- did scissoring becoming a mainstream thing? I recall (very briefly) seeing a soft-corn porn on Cinemax (where else?) in my midteens and seeing two women perform that and I can't be alone in thinking that's not only an act that's bound to be fairly unsatisfying, but also tiring (and uncomfortable, no matter how agile and flexible the participants) and especially stupid-looking (I mean more so that most sex acts). I'm just saying, "muff-diver" just makes more sense.
Also wonderful is the jacket art. Aside from the cover, we also get a back cover shot:
And an author photo which proclaims her "pictured here naked, as God intended":
I think these alone are worth the price of the book.