Thursday, July 4, 2013

Good for a Belly Laugh

I recently was home for an extended period of time and was able to listen to NPR's Fresh Air for a week - what a treat! Interviewer Terry Gross is known for her sharp insights and the depth of her interviews. One thing I have noticed over the years is that she has a soft spot for "lowbrow" comedy. Her recent interview of Seth Rogen shows that his movies really hit her funny bone - she does not need to pretend to enjoy his sense of humor.
Serendipity, one of my favorite methods of finding books, recently pointed me in the direction of two "lowbrow" comedy books - Damn You, Autocorrect! by Jillian Madison and When Parents Text by Lauren Kaelin and Sophia Fraioli.

My phone is so old that texting is not an option. But I am intimately familiar with a computer that thinks it is smarter than I am and wants to change the word I am typing. Evidently the autocorrect function for texting comes up with some really doozies - why would you change the word thing to thong? Or whenever to wieners? How about coworkers to Visigoths? This makes no sense, and there are a ton of hilarious autocorrected texts out there. Luckily Jillian Madison has set up a website to capture many of these texts. I will just say that I laughed so hard reading this book I had to ration myself to 5 pages/day. And I had to read it when I was home alone, because I would start gasping for air from laughing so hard, and want to share every single page in the book, which tends to be distracting to anyone who happens to be around. These texts are definitely low on the lowbrow end of things.
If you like the idea of humorous texts but are interested in a tamer version, check out When Parents Text. This collection looks at not just the autocorrect, but the general mayhem of parents excited about texting, but not entirely sure of what they are doing. Or knowing exactly what they are doing and finding a new method to nag their kids. The experts say laughter is the best medicine, so if you need a good lowbrow belly laugh, look no further.
~More Books

No comments:

Post a Comment

What can I post on your wall?
Commenting & Posting Guidelines

Welcome to your library on social media!

Pima County Public Library (PCPL) offers blogs and other social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter for educational, cultural, civic, customer service, and recreational purposes. They provide a limited (or designated) public forum to facilitate the sharing of ideas, opinions, and information about library-related subjects and issues.

By choosing to comment or post on our social media accounts, you agree with the following:

Comments and posts are moderated by library staff, and the library reserves the right to remove any that are unlawful or off topic. Posts containing the following may be deleted:
Copyright violations
Off-topic comments
Commercial material/spam/solicitation
Sexual content, or links to sexual content
Threatening or harassing postings
Libelous or other kinds of personal attacks
Conduct or encouragement of illegal activity
Content that reveals private, personal information without permission
Vulgar language or content
Comments in support of or in opposition to political campaigns or ballot measures
Content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability or other classification

P.S. Protect your privacy. Don't post personally identifying information in these public spaces, including details like your library card number, phone number, or medical information, etc.

Young people under age 18, especially, should not post information such as your school, age, phone number, and address.