Critics have raved about this delightful book Allen addresses the muddleheadedness (or "dumbth") that pervades all segments of American life and work, and offers 81 "rules" for good thinking.
In what may be the ultimate how-to book, Steve Allen addresses a social problem so pervasive that it may well be the cause of many others. The author's thesis started with observation of a sharp increase in instances of inefficiency.
The success of Steve Allen's How To Be Funny led first to the republication of that book, and now occasioned a companion volume, Make 'Em Laugh. This new how-to book about the art of comedy includes an even richer assortment of examples of the author's unique humor. In Make 'Em Laugh, Allen laces his formal instruction with hilarious ad-libs, written jokes, TV comedy sketches, satires, song parodies, humorous essays, amusing autobiographical reminiscences, one-act plays, witty speeches, and stand-up monologues from his comedy concerts. Noel Coward called Steve Allen the most talented man in America, and he is probably the most borrowed-from comedian of all time. The perceptive reader will recognize many of the comic ideas that Allen originated during the "Golden Age" of television comedy - ideas that are still influential in the 1990's. If there were a college course in creating and performing comedy, Make 'Em Laugh would be the ideal textbook.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term "fairy tale" as a fictitious, highly fanciful story or explanation. Can such a narrative furnish pragmatic advice on important topics like sound thinking, overcoming indecisiveness, stress reduction, emotional self-management, and getting along better with others? This book, Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living, shows that it can. Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living provides twenty-five highly fanciful stories featuring characters who successfully battle a variety of personal problems and mishaps through the formulations of general semantics, a science-based "self-help" system designed to assist individuals to better evaluate and understand everyday difficulties. (Steve Allen, polymath and author of numerous books, including Dumbth: 81 Ways to Make Americans Smarter, lists as Idea Number 81: Learn general semantics.) While the stories are not true in the literal sense of that word, the British pundit G.K. Chesterton observed that "Fairy tales are more than true-not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten." Some of the stories you will find here contain plot elements from familiar literary classics and children's fairy tales. Other yarns offer completely original scenarios. All the stories have in common a desire to inform and entertain with a bit of humor. That was my purpose in writing these tales, and I hope that is your experience in reading them.
Why Did Steve Allen Cross the Road? Steve Allen is a legend among comedians and entertainers. He's been playing to audiences on stage, radio, film, and television for more than fifty years, gaining acclaim for his unique wit and energy. Now for the first time, he shares more than a thousand of his favorite one-liners, anecdotes, limericks, quotes, and other generally funny things. The entries are divided into nearly two hundred categories to make it easy for anyone to find the right laugh for any occasion. If you're faced with the prospect of having to "say a few words," Steve Allen's Private Joke File is the perfect place to look for ideas and inspiration on such topics as awards, drinking, baseball, lawyers, dentists, insurance, marriage, the stock market, and dozens of other subjects. A sampling: * My wife and I had words, but I never got to use mine! * If ignorance is bliss, he should die of joy. * "How are the acoustics here?" "Great, I can hardly hear you!" * I learned to rumba very early in life ... I had a tricycle with a loose seat. * Room for rent, by young lady, freshly plastered. Steve Allen has also included a number of his favorite essays and monologues. Steve Allen's Private Joke File is great to flip through for fun or for function, and for those of us looking for a good laugh -- to give one or to have one -- it's indispensable.
A scathing indictment of American modern-day culture examines the current disdain for logic and evidence fostered by the mass media, religious fundamentalism, poor public education, a lack of fair-minded intellectuals, and a lazy, credulous public, condemning our addiction to infotainment, from TV to the Web, and assessing its repercussions for the country as a whole. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.
A must-read for parents and teachers, this major bestseller reveals how cultural literacy is the hidden key to effective education and presents 5000 facts that every literate American should know. In this forceful manifesto Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr., argues that children in the United States are being deprived of the basic knowledge that would enable them to function in contemporary society. They lack cultural literacy: a grasp of background information that writers and speakers assume their audience already has. Even if a student has a basic competence in the English language, he or she has little chance of entering the American mainstream without knowing what a silicon chip is, or when the Civil War was fought. An important work that has engendered a nationwide debate on our educational standards, Cultural Literacy is a required reading for anyone concerned with our future as a literate nation.
Versatile entertainer Steve Allen is the creator of The Tonight Show and PBS's award-winning Meeting of the Minds. In But Seriously . . . he explores such topics as nuclear war, interracial justice, and Frank Sinatra. One article titled "How to Attack a Liberal" advises conservatives how to best ethically confront his beliefs. His reflections tackle weighty topics sure to be thought-provoking.
Occasionally in the world of science, unexpected results that appear to violate accepted laws of nature can herald revolutionary advances in human knowledge. Many of these 'revolutionary' discoveries do, however, turn out to be wrong, and eminent scientists must carry the burden of a tarnished reputation for mistakenly thinking they have made a great discovery. In this entertaining text, Robert Park examines the social, economic, and political forces that elicit or support flawed or fake science and then go on to sustain it in the face of often overwhelming contrary evidence. Readers are made aware of the fine line that exists between foolishness and fraud and are warned against irrational beliefs dressed up as scientific garb.