Napalm & Silly Putty - Softcover

Carlin, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786887583 ISBN 13: 9780786887583

Publisher: Hachette Books, 2002

Synopsis

The #1 New York Times bestseller with more than 450,000 copies in print offers up a hilarious and "entertaining" [Chicago Sun-Times] collection of razor-sharp observations--now available in paperback!

Spending more than 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in hardcover, George Carlin, the thinking person's comic, has made it very clear how successful he is at the transition from stage to page. In Napalm & Silly Putty, Carlin's characteristically ironic and hilarious take on life shines through. He asks:

How can it be a spy satellite if they announce on TV that it's a spy satellite?

Why do they bother saying "raw sewage"? Do some people cook that stuff?

In the expression "topsy-turvy," what exactly is meant by "turvy"?

About this title

Review:

Standup comic George Carlin follows up his dark-horse smash bestseller Brain Droppings with another compendium of cranky meditations, cinching his reputation as the Andy Rooney of boomer hepcats. "Road rage, air rage," Carlin rails. "Why should I be forced to divide my rage into separate categories? To me, it's just one big, all-around, everyday rage. I don't have time for fine distinctions." Carlin is not into the lengthy essay--he's a sprinter of the mind. Most sentences in the book could be lifted out to stand alone and provoke deep thought: "How can it be a spy satellite if they announce on television that it's a spy satellite?" Good question. "Why do they bother saying 'Raw sewage'? Do some people cook that stuff?" Yuck, but yes, Carlin's got a point.

He can do an extended bit too, most memorably the transcript of Jesus on a talk show plugging his new tell-all memoir about the Trinity, Three's a Crowd. Carlin is funny, but genuinely angry and poignant at times: "You live 80 years and at best you get about six minutes of pure magic," he says. Sad, but about right.

And how did Carlin get into his line of business, "thinking up goofy s---," as he puts it? There's a clue in one entry in this book: "As of 1995 the number of people who had lived on earth was 105,472,380,169 ... it means that at this point there have been almost 1 quadrillion human bowel movements and most of them occurred before people had anything to read. These are the kind of thoughts that kept me from moving quickly up the corporate ladder."

Thank god Carlin stayed low on the corporate food chain and high on his own utterly idiosyncratic ideas! --Tim Appelo

About the Author:

George Carlin, author of three bestsellers, has released twenty-three comedy albums; appeared in sixteen feature films; written and performed fourteen HBO specials; received four Grammy Awards; and been nominated for five Emmy Awards. He was the recipient of the American Comedy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award and was recently named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0786887583
• ISBN 13: 9780786887583
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 269