What the articles in America’s Finest News Source℠ “share in common with the best opinion writing is an ability to elegantly locate and dismantle a problem with an economy of words. … The Onion has figured out a way to do a high-wire trick: they’ve made moral outrage funny without slipping into moralizing.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
No, The Onion Isn’t Even Funny (A #SlatePitch Special)
David Weigel: “Where’s the fun in sticking up for an incredibly popular opinion? Well, here’s the fun: It’s really shareable on Facebook!”
The Onion‘s Editor On Walking The Tightrope
Editor-in-Chief Will Tracy: “What you have to be really careful about is what the target of the joke is. And if the target of the joke is wrong, if you’re targeting the victim or someone who doesn’t deserve our ire, then it doesn’t feel right and it also doesn’t feel funny.” (As in the paper’s notorious Oscars tweet about Quvenzhané Wallis.)
Samuel Johnson’s Angry Letter To His Patron
“Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it.”
Explaining Twerking To Your Parents
“A critical first step is to acknowledge that twerking is a normal part of life and that there is nothing shameful in their questions. They’re parents, after all, and this is the sort of thing they hear about on NPR, and, well, they’re curious.”
Detroit Institute Of Arts Director: “Selling Any Art Would Be Tantamount To Closing The Museum”
“[Graham] Beal minces no words in his September letter on the DIA website, telling supporters that he remains adamant that selling art as part of Detroit’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy is the nuclear option that would have catastrophic results.”
Muslim Artists At Work, Battling The Fundamentalists
In excerpts from her book Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here, Fatima Bennoune visits a Pakistani director fighting to maintin a children’s theater festival despite actual bombings, the embattled producers of the wildly popular North African TV show Bled Musique (which one might describe as Algerian Bandstand), and the director of the controversial Lahore musical Burqavaganza.
Paul Simon Remembers Seamus Heaney
“Songwriters have melody, instrumentation and rhythm to color their work and give it power; poets accomplish it all with words. Seamus, though, was one of those rare poets whose writing evokes music.”
The Taboo Against Critics Discussing The Play They’re Reviewing – Is It Ridiculous?
Lyn Gardner: “Some years ago I took my dad with me to the theatre. There were interval drinks for critics and guests in a small room. My father walked in among the assembled critics and asked loudly: ‘So are we all enjoying it, then?’ Everyone froze as if he had just lobbed a hand grenade into the room.”
Next Up From Disney’s Broadway Factory: Aladdin
Early next spring, “Aladdin will join other Disney animated films – Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Tarzan and The Litte Mermaid, among them – adapted for the musical stage with varying degrees of success.”