The Smartest Book in the World: A Lexicon of Literacy, A Rancorous Reportage, A Concise Curriculum of Cool
Greg Proops
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 1476747040
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
From the brazen, bold, and beloved comic and podcast star Greg Proops comes an electrifying, thought-provoking, and unrelenting collection of rapid-fire references, historical name-checking, Satchel Paige bon mots, and genuine wisdom.
Greg Proops is an internationally renowned comedian, best known for starring on the hit improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? and for his popular award-winning podcast, “The Smartest Man in the World,” which Rolling Stone called “some of the boldest comedy on the podcasting frontier right now.” But Proops is also a fountain of historical knowledge, a wealth of pop culture trivia, and a generally charming know-it-all.
The Smartest Book in the World is based on Proops’s sensational, iTunes Top 10 podcast that has been downloaded more than nine million times, in which his “bold, never-boring voice takes center stage” (The New York Times). The book is a rollicking reference guide to the most essential areas of knowledge in Proops’s universe, from the noteworthy names of the ancient world and baseball, to the movies you must see and the albums you must hear.
Complete with history’s juiciest tales and curious back-stories, Proops expounds on the merits of poetry and proper punctuation, delivering this wealth of information with his signature style and Proopsian panache. An off-beat and exuberant guide to everything, The Smartest Book in the World gives you everything you need to know to always be the smartest person in the room. Well, unless the Proopmaster is there, too.
intellectual Artie Shaw. She was carried up the steps by the male bombshell bullfighter known as Numero Uno, who also dated Bardot and Rita Hayworth. In The Killers, Ava makes you want to sell your soul to Satan for a chance to pick up her stockings. Satan makes a sale. She needs a drink. Our own Shoeless Joe. Say it is so, Ava. Starting Pitcher: TAMARA DOBSON (1947–2006) The most elegant of bombshells, Tamara Dobson follows after Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge for poise and class. What gives
minutes. “Casey” remains the most famous poem about baseball and gave us another legendary American hero like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill. The key to this piece is Casey does not triumph. Baseball, like life, is often disappointing. Someone loses every game, after all. Casey is the hero as washout. For a gung-ho country like America in the 1880s, this poem was a reflection of how popular the game was, the Irishness of the players, and the humor of the swaggering slugger having to deal with
calling as an ace pitcher. Tall and skinny and just a kid, in 1926 he got an offer from the Chattanooga Black Lookouts, and, with his mom’s approval and the understanding he would send her money, he signed. Once he was in organized ball, he made the world take notice. Paige’s hallmark was brash cockiness and hilarious theatrics. He threw fast and with deadly accuracy. He could throw a ball over a bottle cap or gum wrapper with alarming consistency. Then tell you all about it. At the start of his
means. At the outset, it seemed a good idea to shove some old-fashioned culture in here. I may possum have been misapprehending. There is a boatload of poetry and baseball. I don’t apologize; I merely note and agree with you that it was a lot. Try reading the poetry aloud—even better, have someone read it aloud to you while you lie recumbent on velvet cushions drinking cherry wine and smoking a hookah. That ought to solve any metric problems. For the next book, if there is one, less baseball and
Harrison Ford meets Mickey Rourke, if you will, thrown together in a German prison camp in WWI. Aristocrats and common types deal with the ever-changing world while trying to survive and escape. Erich von Stroheim, the maniacal director of silent classics Greed and Queen Kelly, is the very movie cliché of the German officer wearing jodhpurs, sporting a swagger stick and a monocle, but he plays the commandant suffering a leather neck brace as the ultimate gentleman officer flipping over the cliché