Lewis Black, Playwright. Tad Friend on Black’s new play, “One Slight Hitch”: http://nyr.kr/KetuRy 

Cartoon of the Day.

The “Girls” Premiere: What Did You Think?

Rebecca: O.K. I was incredibly impressed with “Tiny Furniture,” her control of the material. And she’s done it again. There are obvious comparisons to be made to people like Woody Allen and Louis CK and Larry David. But I can’t think of anyone who did it so sure-handedly at such an early age. I mean, she’s already an old hand at it.

There’s just a remarkable kind of control and maturity (in the service of showing immaturity and lack of control).

Emily: I agree. When I saw the pilot, last summer, my heart sped up. My skin actually prickled. I felt so excited to be exposed to this confident new voice, and then also how Dunham was dealing directly with subjects I’ve long been fascinated with—digital culture, sex from a young woman’s P.O.V., plus the whole portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-woman element. I’m a fan of all the iconic middle-aged male showrunners who run most of the cable TV shows, but it seemed like a huge breakthrough to get a similarly powerful vision from a very young woman.

Rebecca: I too felt thrilled to see this part of experience represented—and for it not just to feel like “girls can be just as gross as boys,” which is what stayed with me after “Bridesmaids.” Why do you think it has taken until now for this kind of female comic to emerge?

Conservative Bedtime Stories

Jack Sprat

Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
So the government stepped in with mandatory dietary guidelines
And the two starved to death.

…

Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill rushed him to the hospital before Obamacare ruined the greatest health-care system in the world.

Shouts & Murmurs: New Questions for Passover Seder

At every Passover Seder, the youngest child asks the Four Questions, including “Why is this night different from all other nights?” and “On all other nights, we eat either sitting or reclining, but why on this night do we recline?” In order to make this year’s Seders more user-friendly, the United Council on Reform Judaism has suggested adding the following bonus questions:

1. Is the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow is only half Jewish really a blessing in disguise?

2. Was there anyone in the Talmud named Madison?

3. If Lucky Charms were a Jewish cereal, would the box have a picture of Rahm Emanuel?

4. In a Jewish family, isn’t “tiger mother” just another term for “amateur”?

Dentists Without Borders

The time before that, I was lying in bed and found a lump on my right side, just below my rib cage. It was like a devilled egg tucked beneath my skin. Cancer, I thought. A phone call and twenty minutes later, I was stretched out on the examining table with my shirt raised.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” the doctor said. “A little fatty tumor. Dogs get them all the time.”

I thought of other things dogs have that I don’t want: Dewclaws, for example. Hookworms. “Can I have it removed?”

“I guess you could, but why would you want to?”

He made me feel vain and frivolous for even thinking about it. “You’re right,” I told him. “I’ll just pull my bathing suit up a little higher.”

When I asked if the tumor would get any bigger, the doctor gave it a gentle squeeze. “Bigger? Sure, probably.”

“Will it get a lot bigger?”

“No.”

“Why not?” I asked.

And he said, sounding suddenly weary, “I don’t know. Why don’t trees touch the sky?”

On our News Desk blog, Bruce McCall reveals Mitt Romney’s notes home as a young camper: http://nyr.kr/GHbMsn

Tool Time

In another episode, he takes a detour from his mission when a redneck woman offers up hot pie. “It would be rude not to eat her pie,” he argues to his colleague. “Which is probably not only hot but also moist.” Brief pause. “Although hopefully not flaky.”

Do you like these jokes? If you don’t, please don’t watch “Archer.” If you do, come sit by me, and every other fan of the rising breed of what one might term “dirtbag sitcoms”: crass, confident comedies that feature idiotic characters but are not themselves idiotic. (If you want to watch a purely idiotic sitcom, Chuck Lorre’s “Two and a Half Men” is still running on CBS, experiencing werewolf-intensity growing pains in the wake of Charlie Sheen’s departure.) Several of these series are on FX, a cable station with a strong dirtbag bench, especially “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” an ensemble comedy about friendship among sociopathic barflies. After seven seasons, “Always Sunny” is still merrily spinning out plotlines for all five degenerates, including the rare dirtbag woman, Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson). In December’s two-part finale, the “Sunny” gang went to their high-school reunion, where they confronted peers who were hip to their tricks. “I was going to take you to an empty broom closet and I was going to bang the shit out of you,” Dennis (Glenn Howerton) shrieks at a hot woman who is, understandably, backing away. “And then I was going to neglect you emotionally. That’s what I do!” As this dialogue suggests, the show’s taste ranges from salty to caustic. But, in contrast to a series like “Two and a Half Men,” which offers a high-five to every conquest, the zingers on “Always Sunny” and “Archer” work like serrated boomerangs, whipping around to clip the delusions of the pickup artist, rarely his victim.

Cartoon of the day.

(Source: newyorker.com)

Shouts & Murmurs: The Legend of Alexander the Great

When Alexander started out, the world was fresh and new, begging to be conquered. At the age of ten, he conquered all of Greece, clad only in his underpants. He went on to vanquish the vast empire of Persia while totally nude and drunk. He woke up from sleepwalking one morning to discover that he had conquered Egypt. Once, he laid siege to a fortress all by himself, sneaking from bush to bush and popping up behind each one, pretending to be a different soldier.

There had been difficulties, to be sure. At a raucous victory dinner, a chicken bone became stuck in his throat. As he reached for a glass of water, he touched off a mousetrap, then another, and another. He began to flail about, and his foot got stuck in a bucket. Even like this, he conquered India.

On and on he went, conquering kingdom after kingdom. His generals would plead with him to stop, but he’d say, “Come on, just one more,” and they’d say, “Well, O.K.”