Recently Read: Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category by Dave Eggers

Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category by Dave Eggers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

SRP (Summer Reading Program) Why Bite: A compilation of humor pieces from McSweeney’s, some are funny, some aren’t, and some are hilarious.

My favorite alternate title for this book: Humor Is Timeless: 1998-2003.

I am not, nor will probably ever be, a dedicated reader of McSweeney’s. I do, however, have a soft spot in my heart for nearly all things San Francisco, and also happen to enjoy Dave Eggers’ writing. Being that McSweeney’s has a certain reputation and specific fan base, I was surprised to find that my local library, in a small, rural desert community that tends to be predominantly blue collar conservative, owned a copy of this book. So of course, it felt like fate and I had to check it out.

While I’m not an avid reader of even the magazine’s website, I have read pieces linked to occasionally by college friends on Facebook. I always found these bits funny, clever, witty and intelligent. While these adjectives could certainly be used to describe several pieces in this collection, unfortunately they do not describe all of them. While the humor seems to be hit or miss, even among the trademark lists found throughout the book and also in a dedicated section at the end, I feel the writers’ aim was true more often than it was way off. Many pieces were moderately funny in a silly fashion, akin to humor found in shows like “Saturday Night Live” (when they have good writing) and the late night shows that include comedy bits and skits. The lists were often as funny as Letterman’s “Top Ten,” a comedy bit which sometimes suffered from the rigid format. The lists have no such restrictions and so vary greatly in length and level of humor. Some pieces were also reminiscent of shows such as “Robot Chicken” and “Family Guy,” witty parodies invoking both academic and pop culture references. These were possibly my favorites. A few pieces were only funny if one possessed the academic knowledge necessary to understand the premise for the joke. One of these made me laugh hysterically, “Unused Audio Commentary by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, Recorded Summer 2002, for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring DVD (Platinum Series Extended Edition), Part One” by Jeff Alexander and Tom Bissell. Another one, “Upcoming Titles from Gavin Menzies, Author of 1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered America” by Paul Tullis, prompted me to google Menzies. I’d never heard of him. Once I knew who the heck the guy was, though, the piece was incredibly funny.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. Compilations are great books to take with you when you are running around town, as you read most of the pieces completely in a manner of minutes, though a few in this particular volume were rather long. So I read this book in short bursts waiting for my son at soccer camp, sitting pool side during his swimming lessons, in line at the post office (Or rather I would have if I had needed to go to the post office.), at the library while my son browsed the children’s section, waiting for the pot to boil while making dinner, etc. I didn’t laugh out loud as much as I wanted, so this book wasn’t perfect. But it was pretty dang close.

Some of my more favorite pieces in addition to the aforementioned and nearly two-thirds of the lists:
“On the Implausibility of the Death Star’s Trash Compactor” by J. M. Tyree (I have some counter points regarding the parasitic worm-creature.)
“I Know What You Did Two Moons Ago (The Revenge)” by Brian Kennedy
“Candle Party” by Alysia Gray Painter (I can totally see this as an SNL skit with Vanessa Bayer playing the part of the host.)
“Journal of a New COBRA Recruit” by Keith Pille (I couldn’t stop laughing at this one, but it might be a generational thing.)
“Pirate Riddles for Sophisticates” by Kevin Shay
“Goofus, Gallant, Rashomon” by Jim Stallard (Please, Seth Green, please do a “Robot Chicken based on this piece!)


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