101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells [Hardcover]

Michael Rosen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 2002

Dear flappable reader:
Do you bristle at a handshake that resembles a limp fish? Do oblivious pedestrians bring you to the brink? What about museum gift shops, superfluous courtesy (do we need a gas pump to show us gratitude?), behemoth SUVS, or inexplicable operating manuals? Have you had it with screeching leaf blowers, beseeching telemarketers, escalating movie-ticket prices, or proliferating celebrity magazines? Is it children's choirs or karaoke singers, waiters bearing pepper grinders or dinner guests blathering on about salt, that drives you to distraction?

For anyone who has recognized that this peaceful kingdom of ours has more than a few potholes, 101 Damnations is the perfect companion. It's your ticket to the nine circles of personal hell.

Armed with wit, bewilderment, and words to the wise ass, today's leading humorists conduct a brief tour of the trivial and often universal exasperations we all must endure. Among the damning, Henry Alford reveals our wanton desire to affect Britishisms. Sandra Tsing Loh has it in for people who forward "funny" e-mails. Once and for all, Merrill Markoe sets forth cell phone etiquette. And there are many, many others. Ninety-eight to be exact. Make yourself comfortable. Misery loves company.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mass e-mails. Telemarketers. People who call the Hamptons "the country." Muggers, allergies, teenagers and things that stick to the soles of your shoes. In 101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells, edited by Michael J. Rosen (Mirth of a Nation), writers and humorists take quick, hilarious swipes at the things that drive them crazy. From Kurt Andersen's one-paragraph consideration of "the weird remarks between silence and praise," to Andy Borowitz's dismissal of the phrase "and all that good stuff," to Onion writer Tim Harrod's list of things he simply hates ("Reality TV, Tailgaters, Hangnails... Cartoons that Look Distinctive but not Expressive... Cheap Wristwatches), this collection is sure to please curmudgeons, cynics, Luddites and average fed-up Americans everywhere.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

We've all got pet peeves that drive us crazy, and this volume covers them all: cell phones in public places, porn e-mails, joke e-mails, SUVs, David Blaine, and one of my personal favorites, Amish friendship bread. Editor Rosen, the literary director of Thurber House and author of Mirth of a Nation, has compiled an entertaining collection of essays by various humorists that covers the things they (and often the readers) love to hate. Contributors include Calvin Trillin, Merrill Markoe, and Jon Scieszka, among others. On Amish friendship bread, Celia Rivenbark observes: "Amish friendship bread is a woman thing. Sure, we pretend to be friends, but when it comes right down to it, women only make new women friends so that, one day, they'll be able to pawn off a bag of friendship bread 'starter' on them .The starter looks like baby spit-up and is usually accompanied by a recipe only slightly shorter than the Constitution." Been there, done that! Recommended for most humor collections. Kathy Ingels Helmond, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (August 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312284802
• ISBN-13: 978-0312284800
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,484,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Greetings and thanks for welcoming me into your home. Since I write books for both young readers and adults, I've cooked up two long-winded paragraphs.

Kids first: So, I'm the author of some four dozen books for children of all ages. The fall of 2011 brings four new titles: MY DOG! A Kid's Guide to Keeping a Happy & Healthy Dog (the idea go-to dog guide for families); a pop-up book with Robert Sabuda, Chanukah Lights, which just received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly: "A stunning achievement"; The Hound Dog's Haiku and Other Poems for Dog Lovers, illustrated with Mary Azarian's woodcuts; and Night of the Pumpkinheads, illustrated entirely with extraordinary jack-o'-lanterns.
Other favorites are The Cuckoo's Haiku and Other Poems for Birders; Our Farm: Four Seasons with Five Kids on One Family's Farm (which I both wrote and illustrated with some 400 photographs); A Drive in the Country; Don't Shoot!; A School for Pompey Walker, and Elijah's Angel. (And, yes, there's the Britiish Michael--no "J."--Rosen whose many books are often confused with mine.) For over 35 years, ever since working as a counselor, water-safety instructor, and art teacher at local community centers, I've been engaged with young children, their parents and teachers. As a visiting author, in-service speaker, and workshop leader, I frequently travel to schools and conferences around the nation, sharing stories, poems, creativity, and humor.

Several of my books here show my work as editor/anthologist or illustrator. It has been my privilege to have enlisted hundreds of other authors and artists to create 15 philanthropic books that aid in the fight to end childhood hunger through Share Our Strength's national efforts, or that offer care to less fortunate companion animals through The Company of Animals Fund, a granting program I administered for a dozen years.

Now, for adults. I can start by saying I'm a poet. I went to Columbia from 1979-1981, and received my MFA there. Poems are now collected in three volumes, which are all featured here at Amazon. Moving home to Ohio, I worked as an illustrator (while in NYC, I began selling spot illustrations to The New Yorker and Gourmet magazines); one of my first real clients was The Thurber House, the soon-to-be-restored home of Columbus's native son, James Thurber. For almost twenty years, I helped to restore the home, develop the programs there, and edit much of Thurber's uncollected work. (Those volumes are also featured here.) It was there, I began to edit short story anthologies, commission great writers to contribute to books about dogs, horses, and even VW Beetles. That's also where I started Mirth of a Nation, a three-volume humor biennial that constitutes almost 2,000 pages of the best contemporary humor.

Most recently, I've been working in humorous nonfiction. No Dribbling the Squid features profiles of 70-some of the world's most wayward competitions. (You can see the Web site and Facebook pages, as well.) And, most recently, there's Any Body's Guess: Quirky Quizzes About What Makes You Tick.

Otherwise, my Website has a good deal about my life on the 100-acre farm I share in Central Ohio. Thanks again for reading along with me.

www.fidosopher.com

for lots more about MY DOG!, including recipes, training tips, cool projects, games, and so forth: www.workman.com/mydog

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tailgaters, Telemarketers, Limp Handshakes, & More!, September 15, 2002

By 

Roy E. Perry "amateur philosopher" (Nolensville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells (Hardcover)

Alexander Pope once wrote, "Wit is that which has oft been thought, but never so well expressed." The present volume, 101 DAMNATIONS, well illustrates Pope's observation.

The "damnations" in this quirky compendikum refer to pet peeves, people, and things that irritate and annoy. Although we could make our own list of such vexations, chances are we would not have the wit to express them so humorously.

For example, Louise Rafkin writes: "Women's handshakes . . . Some are limp as old celery, others flaccid as dead fish." And Merrill Markoe says about cell-phone etiquette: "These people seem to think they cannot really go anywhere unaccompanied by a phone. And along with this obsessive-compulsive need for continuous phoning, any respect for the privacy of others has melted away like the snows of yesteryear."

Tailgaters. Telemarketers. Operating manuals written in arcane, esoteric language. People who play rap music at jet-plane decibel lebels. "Reality TV" programs. The list goes on and on.

Here are excerpts from three of the best:

David Ives: "last year a record 16,238 people had near-death experiences in this country--some 200 of them without financial gain and some 50 without appearing on afternoon talk shows. . . . Many people know Kubler-Ross's five steps to death: anger, denial, blame, grief, and acceptance. Thanatologists now recognize the five steps of near-death: surprise, delight, shlock, mild boredom, and a book contract."

David Martin: "For years, I assumed that the frustration visited on me by bureaucrats was just the inevitable result of dealing with large, inefficient organizations. But now I suspect that there's a secret school somewhere that rains these cruel creatures. A school with a catalog like this: Welcome to the Bureaucrats' Institute, and congratulations on choosing a career as an obfuscation and complication specialist. Start out learning the basics, from paper shuffling to the telephone runaround. Then move on to the specialty skills you'll need to add red tape to any organization."

Michael Gerber and Jonathan Schwarz, from Thirty Things I HATE about Hell: "1. It's really cliquey. 2. You get this weird vibe from Satan if you joke about him being in that SOUTH PARK movie. 3. The biting black flies out by the Lake of Everlasting Fire. 5. No ESPN. C'mon! That's part of basic cable! 6. The snotty e-mails you get from your friends in heaven. . . . 25. Hitler. You're not funny, so stop trying."

There are at least a dozen selections that will have you laughing out loud. As you read this book, keep in mind the wisdom of George Bernard Shaw: "When anything is funny, search it for a hidden truth."

And, as the writer of the Book of Proverbs puts it, "A cheerful heart is like a good medicine." Tickle your funny bone, wipe that frown off your face, and indulge yourself with laughter with 101 DAMANATIONS.

Michael J. Fosen is the author, illustrator, or editor of some fifty books for both adults and children, including the biennial humor series, MIRTH OF A NATION.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you hate it, it's in here, September 4, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: 101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells (Hardcover)

With an all-star lineup of funny folk, you'd expect something hilarious, and that's often what you get with 101 Damnations. Grouped into 9 circles of hell, everyone from Calvin Trillin to writers for the Letterman Show take off on golf, Tuscany, customer service, going bald -- you hate it, they cover it.
The essays are all very short - some hardly worthy of "essay" status - and most are thought provoking, and will definitely get a rise out of you. Some of the pieces, however, are truly hilarious, such as Kevin Shay's take on people who mime being on the phone by using their thumb and pinky, Camuso and Seely's movie trailers, and Andrew Marlatt's "My Left Hair," which describes the true feelings of the haired vs. the un-haired.

Overall, you will absolutely not be dissapointed with this book, and at times you will laugh out loud. Ideal for any bathroom reading library.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not very interesting for the most part, June 25, 2005

By 

Steven Byrd - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells (Hardcover)

I bought this book based on a recommendation of a classmate. This book does have some, keyword, some, hilarious personal Hells but, those are few and far between.