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. The essays focus mostly on other humorists, and while he points out that today “sarcasm passes for irony,” he's far from a curmudgeon and praises such current comics as Sacha Baron Cohen and Sarah Silverman. Krassner says, “It doesn't have to get a belly laugh, it just has to be valid criticism, which is the classic definition of satire,” and while this book lingers too long on nostalgic remembrances and tackles serious issues too directly to get constant laughs, it makes a convincing case for the importance—and political necessity—of irreverence. (Aug.)
