Wry Martinis

American conservatives are doomed to suffer in squaredom for a simple reason (besides weak hair): their stance of Permanent Moral Disapproval. Whatever virtues this state may possess, hipness is not one of them. Fred MacMurray may be an admirable paterfamilias and a model of bourgeois rectitude, but he will not win the dance contest on Soul Train. The Right has a serious fun problem. Like evil runes possessed of a curious power, the words carved on the id of every teenager worth her salt -- sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll -- send conservatives into a howling, medieval fury. The inconvenient fact is that all hipness contains a spice of nihilism, a tiny but flavorful soupcon of who-gives-a-****, that is anathema to the Right. To the degree that conservative writers embrace Cool Style, they simply cease to be conservative. -REVIEW : of "Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing," edited by David Brooks (GARY KAMIYA, Salon)That statement is, I suppose, fairly typical of how the Left views conservatives, and may in fact be largely true. But it misses two extremely salient points : (1) those who do embrace Cool Style cease to be humorous, after all, if you think it's perfectly fine to engage in wildly varied sexual experimentation, then 99% of the jokes ever told in the history of man, particularly those with sheep in them, no longer have punch lines; (2) no the Right isn't out having this sort of fun, we're home with our wives making jokes about the hipster doofuses that think that such behavior makes them cool. [Recall the hilarious Republican response to Ted Kennedy's 1988 Democratic convention speech, where he used the tagline "Where was George ?" Answer : Home in bed with Barbara, sober.] Humor, particularly satirical humor, by its very nature, requires you to take a pretty jaundiced view of humankind; it practically requires the stance of Permanent Moral Disapproval, which Kamiya finds so offensive. The natural result is that almost all of the humorous political writing in America today is being done by conservatives. The collection that is panned above, for instance, includes an embarrassment of riches, including Joe Queenan, PJ O'Rourke, Andrew Ferguson, and Christopher Buckley.Wry Martinis meanwhile is a collection of twenty years worth of the writings of Christopher Buckley--an editor at Forbes FYI, regular contributor to the back page of The New Yorker, former speech writer to Vice President Bush, and the son of William F. Buckley. The book contains many funny pieces ranging from travel essays to book reviews. Among the funniest are his NY Times review of Tom Clancy's novel Debt of Honor, which is so scathing that it provoked a mini-feud between the two. It starts by citing Mark Twain : Somewhere, if memory serves, Mark Twain said of one of Henry James's books, "Once you put it down, you can't pick it up." "Debt of Honor," the eighth novel in Tom Clancy's oeu

I found a good illustration of Christopher Buckley's sense of humor while reading of one of the ocean crossings that he had taken with his Father. Buckley the Elder routinely sailed an ocean every 5 years or so, and his Son was often part of the crew. All the ship's members had tasks, and on this trip Christopher was in charge of bringing along projects for fun and diversion during the extended voyage. The one I will remember was the model he brought for the group to construct, of course a ship, and for him it could be no other, The Titanic.His is not low brow cheap shot humor, although you may be surprised by how inept some other Authors are when engaging him in written debate. He writes within this book on a variety of subjects guaranteed to make you laugh, and for those that take themselves, or a given subject too seriously, he will annoy you. Even if the latter group is the one you find yourself in, if only to yourself, you still cannot deny the wit, and the intellect that is behind his thoughts.So if The Pope appearing on Oprah selling his new book intrigues you, or perhaps Johnnie Cochran writing a letter of recommendation for the squeezed fruit who was his client piques your interest, this read is for you. If the two topics I mention do not suffice, there is always his written feud with Tom Clancy, satire on Star Trek, or perhaps the "How I went 9 G's in an F-16 and Only Threw Up Five Times", there is something here that will cause you great pain in your sides, as he is the cause of pain for his adversaries in their nether regions.The stories I mentioned are a tiny fraction of what awaits the reader, for I have not touched upon the selling of Lenin's embalmed corpse.Buckley the Younger is wonderful, or as the Author Tom Wolfe states "Fifty years ago the 3 funniest writers in the English language were named Shaw, Mencken and Muggeridge....today they're named Thompson, O'Rourke, and Christopher Buckley..."If you have not tried this man's work, this is a great place to start.

Fabulous! I highly recommend this collection of essays. I've read 'WET WORK' and am looking forward to reading all of his other books.

I am a Chris Buckley fan who loves his hilarious satire. I would have rated this book a 10, except he filled the last half of the volume with more sobersided essays. These were not as interesting. You finish another funny piece around the middle of the book, manage to stifle your laughter, wipe your eyes and say to yourself, "OK, I'm ready for the next one." Only the next one isn't funny, or even particularly interesting. What would the world be like if Dave Barry, Calvin Trillin, or Fran Lebowitz pulled such a stunt? The book was worth the price, though, just to read the articles on Buckley's feud with Tom Clancy. You'll have to excuse me now, I've got to get to the library to locate a book that Buckley recommends called "Bassholes", by Ed Weiler.

Wry Martinis is an easy to read, funny collection of essays. Buckley has a wry wit and his outlook on topics from the old Soviet Union to Fly Fishing will keep you laughing for quite a while. Especially fun is his fax feud with Tom Clancy