<TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText>Who's to Say What's Obscene?</TitleText> <Subtitle>Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today</Subtitle>

City Lights Books transfers@onixsuite.com 20130918 eng

COM.ONIXSUITE.9780872865013 03 01 City Lights Books 01 GCOI 87286100005960 02 0872865010 03 9780872865013 15 9780872865013 BC <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText>Who's to Say What's Obscene?</TitleText> <Subtitle>Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today</Subtitle> 1 A01 Krassner, Paul Paul Krassner Paul Krassner was a close friend of Lenny Bruce and the editor of Bruce's autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Krassner co-founded the Yippies, was involved with Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and is written about in Tom Wolfe's unforgettable The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. His articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Spin, Playboy, The Nation, Penthouse, Mother Jones, New York, National Lampoon, Utne Reader, San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the L.A. Weekly and Funny Times. He has been a guest on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher." Krassner published The Realist, the counterculture's first alternative paper, from 1958 t to 2001 and writes regularly for Season in the Sun, High Times, AVN Online and the Huffington Post. 2 A24 Huffington, Arianna Arianna Huffington Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of twelve books. The Huffington Post is one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2006, she was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people. 01 eng 240 00 240 03 20 "paul krassner";comedy;humor;krassner;politics 24 Internet CL Hierarchy California Writers 24 Internet CL Hierarchy Essays 24 Internet CL Hierarchy Politics 01 Yippie co-founder, merry prankster and satirical provocateur Paul Krassner reads from Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today at City Lights podcast home page. Fans of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Onion will appreciate this timely collection of satirical essays by counterculture icon Paul Krassner. With irreverence and an often X-rated wit, Krassner explores contemporary comedy, and obscenity in politics and culture from "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banners to scenes cut out of recent movies, including Borat. In his essay "Don Imus Meets Michael Richards" Krassner examines racism in comedy from Lenny Bruce to Dave Chapelle, on The Sarah Silverman Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and in controversial comic strips like The Boondocks. Krassner riffs about busted public figures, counterculture, free speech, late-night talk shows, censorship, sex, and the jokes of other famous comedians. "These are times of repression," says Krassner, "and the more repression there is, the more need there is for irreverence toward those in authority." Paul Krassner's Contributions to the Counterculture: Watch a short history of Krassner's career from High Times. <object width="425" height="344"> <embed width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5D1pSDTMTqA&hl=en&fs=1"></embed> </object> Praise for Paul Krassner: "He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture." —New York Times "Krassner has the uncanny ability to alter your perceptions permanently." —Los Angeles Times "I have been a fan of his since I was a snot-nosed kid, and his words have been a driving force and influence on my life... If you have read his work before, you know the joys that you are in for. If you haven't, start reading, and consider this your lucky day. For Paul Krassner is an activist, a philosopher, a lunatic and a saint, but most of all he is funny." —Lewis Black, Root of All Evil and The Daily Show "Krassner is one of the best minds of his generation to be destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked—but mainly hysterical." - Art Spiegelman "He is a unique character on the American landscape. A self-described 'investigative satirist,' he straddles the lines between politics, culture, pornography and drugs--in other words, the land where all of us, were we really honest with ourselves, would choose to dwell." —Harry Shearer "Krassner loves ironies, especially stinging ironies that nettle public figures. He would rather savor a piquant irony about a public figure than eat a bowl of fresh strawberries and ice cream." —Ken Kesey "To classify Krassner as a social rebel is far too cute. He's a nut, a raving, unconfined nut." —Federal Bureau of Investigation "The FBI was right. This man is dangerous—and funny; and necessary." —George Carlin 02 Satirical essays by a countercultural icon about the moral obscenity of contemporary politics, culture, and comedy 08 "[Krassner] uses the concept of 'obscenity' as a moral framing device to drive a series of free-form observations on war, drugs, sex, entertainment culture and connections between the past and the present. Krassner is not only concerned with identifying what is not obscene (in his view, pretty much anything to do with sex); he crafts a definition that instead encompasses greed, dishonesty, cruelty and murder. . . . Throughout the book Krassner retains the affect of a hip elder statesman with a perpetual twinkle in his eye, reminding his readers that politics without humor is boring and that laughter without a moral compass is lame." — Danny Goldberg The Nation 08 "Krassner very blatantly points out how, through a carefully staged smoke and mirror routine, our priorities are being manipulated by politicians, media, and the filthy rich. . . . Ignore anything that is actually newsworthy and focus on Bono dropping the F bomb on TV or Janet Jackson's nip slip during the super bowl. What is truly obscene: all content that we enjoy as entertainment being controlled by a very small group of wealthy businessmen, or Tommy Chong selling a few bongs over state lines?" —Ben Trentelman Salt Lake Underground Magazine 08 "Krassner lives in a world where Truth and Satire are swingers, changing partners so often you never know who belongs with whom. His latest collection of entertaining essays, which originally appeared in publications as diverse as High Times, The Nation, Adult Video NewsOnline and the Huffington Post (Arianna Huffington wrote the introduction), covers comedy, the drug war, the counterculture, dead icons and freedom. Don't miss the parts they left out of the Borat movie, the short history of racism in standup and the discussion of whether Moses might have been tripping when he parted the Red Sea." The Playboy Nightstand 08 "For readers unfamiliar with Krassner, his credentials--author, journalist, editor, talk show guest--seem fairly safe. But combine those with his role as a co-founder of the Yippie movement, his membership in Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, and his X-rated standup comedy routine and those initial credentials sound downright dangerous. Krassner is a satirist and he uses that skill here with his irreverent takes on the hypocrisies and absurdities in politics, comedy, and other aspects of American life. Offensive or funny? It's a matter of taste." Book News 08 "Krassner writes on anything that catches his eye: the war on drugs, stand-up comedy, Don Imus, to mention just three topics. . . . The collection also includes a number of touching memorials to cultural icons Krassner has known, including Allen Ginsberg, George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, and Robert Anton Wilson." -- Jack Helbig Booklist 08 "All of the essays in Krassner's new book have been published before--in High Times, The Huffington Post, The Nation and The L.A. Weekly--but they all read as though they were written yesterday. That's because Krassner is always shocking, always provocative and for all his shenanigans, amazingly serious about the pornography of power and the obscenity of war (as well as Somali pirates and piracy on the web)." —Jonah Raskin The Bohemian 08 "Krassner (Confessions of a Raving Unconfined Nut), publisher of the Realist magazine, ruminates on American social and political hypocrisy in these essays that drift between current events and the heyday of the 1960s counterculture when the author dropped acid with the Merry Pranksters and palled around with Abbie Hoffman. Krassner weighs in on the last election cycle, the decriminalization of marijuana, and racism, with a stated (and largely achieved) goal of illuminating the gulf between what society says and what it does." Publisher's Weekly 23 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100005960/extras/TOC_Intro-Krassner.pdf 23 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100005960/extras/33F14D25-D1A4-C9CD-3DEA8C705536DD09.html 23 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100005960/extras/33E8DADA-C56C-C846-99239CF3092AA2B0.html 04 03 72 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100005960/images/87286100005960L.jpg 07 03 72 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100005960/images/87286100005960S.jpg http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100005960 City Lights Publishers 01 City Lights Publishers 20090701 08 16 oz City Lights Books 01 WORLD 20 20090701 01 02 16.95 USD