A presidential candidate / Mark Twain --
Lecture tickets that were bought but never used / George Ade --
Ransom of Red Chief / O. Henry --
from Babbitt / Sinclair Lewis --
from Gentlemen prefer blondes / Anita Loos --
On conversation / Ring Lardner --
Imperial purple / H.L. Mencken --
More alarms at night / James Thurber --
Waltz / Dorothy Parker --
Farewell, my lovely appetizer / S.J. Perelman --
Simple prays a prayer / Langston Hughes --
Night the old nostalgia burned down / Frank Sullivan --
Across the street and into the grill / E.B. White --
House of mirth / Peter De Vries --
from Magic Christian / Terry Southern --
from How to talk dirty and influence people / Lenny Bruce --
Secret vice / Tom Wolfe --
Counterfeit secret circle member gets the message, or, The asp strikes again / Jean Shepherd --
Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved / Hunter S. Thompson --
A look at organized crime / Woody Allen --
Tax man / Bruce Jay Friedman --
Letters to Einstein / Philip Roth --
A few words about breasts / Nora Ephron --
Our white heritage / Henry Beard, Michael O'Donoghue, George W.S. Trow --
Better read than dead: a revised opinion / Fran Lebowitz --
Your action line / Charles Portis --
In the morning Post / Donald Barthleme --
Curb Carter policy discord effort threat / Veronica Geng --
Vacation '58 / John Hughes --
Laws of cartoon motion / Mark O'Donnell --
Tip-Top Club / Garrison Keillor --
Rolled in rare Bohemian onyx, then vulcanized by hand / Bruce McCall --
Tough as bob war and other stuff / Molly Ivins --
Corrections / Calvin Trillin --
Tips for women: how to have a relationship with a guy / Dave Barry --
Clinton deploys vowels to Bosnia / The Onion --
Shiftless little loafers / Susan Orlean --
Gothic baseball / Roy Blount Jr. --
If I were in charge of the networks / George Carlin --
Laws concerning foor and drink --
Household principles ; Lamentations of the father / Ian Frazier --
Writer's life / David Rakoff --
from I ain't scared of you / Bernie Mac --
Buddy, can you spare a tie? / David Sedaris --
It's so hard / Wanda Sykes --
What I'd say to the Martians / Jack Handey --
Your three wishes: F.A.Q. / David Owen --
Ask the optimist! / George Saunders --
Pony problem / Sloane Crosley --
If not an apology, at least a my bad" / Larry Wilmore.