Roy Blount, Jr.
Author of Alphabet Juice
About the Author
Roy Blount, Jr., has written for the Atlantic Monthly since 1981.
Image credit: Credit: Larry D. Moore, 2007 Texas Book Festival, Austin, Texas
Series
Works by Roy Blount, Jr.
If Only You Knew How Much I Smell You: True Portraits of Dogs (1998) — Author — 250 copies, 8 reviews
Hail, Hail, Euphoria!: Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, the Greatest War Movie Ever Made (2010) 103 copies, 4 reviews
About Three Bricks Shy of a Load: A Highly Irregular Lowdown on the Year the Pittsburgh Steelers Were Super but Missed the Bowl (1974) 56 copies
About Three Bricks Shy... And the Load Filled Up: The Story of the Greatest Football Team Ever (1974) 40 copies
Elvis: All Shook Up: Stories and Insights from Family Members, Journalists, and Those Who Were There (2012) 9 copies
Dispatches Volume One: What Men Don't Tell Women; One Fell Soup; and Camels Are Easy, Comedy's Hard (2018) 3 copies
Book Of Southern Humor 1 copy
Spoofing the Graphic 1 copy
Webster's Ark 1 copy
Associated Works
Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker (2001) — Contributor — 790 copies, 5 reviews
For the Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most (1999) — Contributor — 480 copies, 4 reviews
The 50 Funniest American Writers: An Anthology of Humor from Mark Twain to The Onion (2011) — Contributor — 286 copies, 3 reviews
The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Work (2010) — Contributor — 160 copies, 1 review
Know the Past, Find the Future: The New York Public Library at 100 (2011) — Contributor — 132 copies, 4 reviews
The Sophisticated Cat: A Gathering of Stories, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings About Cats (1992) — Contributor — 112 copies, 1 review
Mid-life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude (1994) — Contributor — 76 copies, 4 reviews
Who's Writing This? Notations on the Authorial I, with Self-Portraits {not Antæus} (1995) — Contributor — 75 copies
Best of The Oxford American: Ten Years from the Southern Magazine of Good Writing {anthology} (2002) — Contributor — 45 copies
Antaeus No. 61, Autumn 1988 - Journals, Notebooks & Diaries (1988) — Contributor — 39 copies, 2 reviews
Sports Guy: In Search of Corkball, Warroad Hockey, Hooters Golf, Tiger Woods, and the Big, Big Game (2000) — Foreword — 22 copies, 1 review
Antaeus No. 64/65, Spring/Autumn 1990 - Twentieth Anniversary Issue (1990) — Contributor — 14 copies
Renegades: My Wild Trip from Professor to New Journalist with Outrageous Visits from Clint Eastwood, Reggie Jackson, Larry Flynt, and other American Icons (2012) — Introduction — 10 copies
Antaeus No. 73/74, Spring 1994 - Who’s Writing This: Notations on the Authorial I {magazine} (1994) — Contributor — 5 copies
Sports Illustrated | September 5, 1994 (NFL '94 Preview: In the Line of Fire) (1994) — Contributor — 1 copy
Oxford American: The Southern Magazine of Good Writing. No. 57 (2007): Best of the South (2007) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Blount, Roy, Jr.
- Birthdate
- 1941-10-04
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Harvard University (M.A., 1964)
Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1963) - Occupations
- humorist
journalist
actor
musician - Organizations
- Rock Bottom Remainders (band)
Fellowship of Southern Writers
Authors Guild (president)
National Public Radio (Wait, Wait. . . Don't Tell Me) - Awards and honors
- Thomas Wolfe Award (2009)
Phi Beta Kappa - Short biography
- Roy Blount, Jr. says on his web site: Born to Southern parents in Indianapolis. Grew up in Decatur, Georgia. U.S. Army 1964-66. Reporter and columnist for Atlanta Journal and part-time English instructor at Georgia State College, 1966-68. Free-lance since leaving SI in 1975. Husband of painter Joan Griswold, father of social worker daughter Ennis and director-writer-actor-songwriter son Kirven (with whom he wrote and appeared in a five-minute film on extreme sports for ESPN), grandfather of of Jesse, Noah and Elsie. No pets at present, but previously dogs, cats, horse, rooster, snake, turtle, hamster, monitor lizard, parakeet and hens.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
- Places of residence
- Decatur, Georgia, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Blount is balanced between a natural love of his homeland and a self-conscious shame for the crimes of the South. While he resents the assumptions made by Northerners that all Southerners are ignorant racists, he must acknowledge historical realities. Given the miserable record of the US on race relations, genocide of Native peoples and imperialism, those of us born in the north should join Blount in ambivalence about our heritage.
Camels Are Easy, Comedy's Hard by Roy Blount Jr. is a collection of writing which includes; essays, poems, short stories, travel writing, reminiscence, sports writing, political discussion, interviews of famous people, and crossword puzzles. I hope I didn't leave anything out. There are 64 pieces in the book; 61 originally appeared in 28 different publications. They range wildly in length from the very short (23 words) to long (10,000 words). Many are recent but a few, as Blount says, "have show more been acquiring patina for ten to twenty-one years." This is a newly released eBook edition of Camels Are Easy, Comedy's Hard which was originally released in 1991.
As anyone who has ever read Roy Blount Jr. knows, this is a humourous book simply based on Blount's presentation and the way he looks at things. The stories run the gamet from exploring the Amazon to French painting to coon dogs to synchronized swimming meets. The travel writing includes some reflections on camels as well as visits to Dierks, Arkansas; Kampala, Uganda; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Esperanza, and Peru. Famous people written about include Gilda Radner and Jonathan Demme.
For example, Blount says about the Amazon "To tell the truth, when people ask me what the Amazon was like, it is not man-eating fish that spring to mind. It is the mud. Strange gray-green-blue-brown mud." in "Eating out of House and Home" Blount writes: "You know why Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe is so sexy, don’t you? Not just because one of the people in it is outdoors naked—I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that half the people in the entire history of French painting are outdoors naked. It’s because she is outdoors naked eating lunch."
Or in "I Model for GQ" he writes"On a scale of the ones to the nines, I am usually dressed to roughly the twos. In order to avoid giving offense at special occasions, I will go as far as the threes or fours. The only reason to move on up to snazzy, however, is to attract business or women. And the type of business or women you attract by dressing snazzy is the type that will expect you to dress snazzy all the time. I wouldn’t want to live like that. Another reason I am not natty is that I like to eat lying down sometimes. I also like to eat sitting up, standing and walking, but let’s face it, you can’t always be sitting up, standing or walking when you eat; sometimes you’re going to be eating lying down. Or at least leaning back. And you spill stuff on your lapels."
How can you not laugh at a man who is that honest?
I particularly enjoyed reading his piece on Gilda Radner, but I could easily list a dozen others (The Amazon (well, all the travel monologues), getting a tan, Jonathan Demme, all the crossword puzzles...
Highly Recommended
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Open Road Media via Netgalley for review purposes. show less
As anyone who has ever read Roy Blount Jr. knows, this is a humourous book simply based on Blount's presentation and the way he looks at things. The stories run the gamet from exploring the Amazon to French painting to coon dogs to synchronized swimming meets. The travel writing includes some reflections on camels as well as visits to Dierks, Arkansas; Kampala, Uganda; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Esperanza, and Peru. Famous people written about include Gilda Radner and Jonathan Demme.
For example, Blount says about the Amazon "To tell the truth, when people ask me what the Amazon was like, it is not man-eating fish that spring to mind. It is the mud. Strange gray-green-blue-brown mud." in "Eating out of House and Home" Blount writes: "You know why Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe is so sexy, don’t you? Not just because one of the people in it is outdoors naked—I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that half the people in the entire history of French painting are outdoors naked. It’s because she is outdoors naked eating lunch."
Or in "I Model for GQ" he writes"On a scale of the ones to the nines, I am usually dressed to roughly the twos. In order to avoid giving offense at special occasions, I will go as far as the threes or fours. The only reason to move on up to snazzy, however, is to attract business or women. And the type of business or women you attract by dressing snazzy is the type that will expect you to dress snazzy all the time. I wouldn’t want to live like that. Another reason I am not natty is that I like to eat lying down sometimes. I also like to eat sitting up, standing and walking, but let’s face it, you can’t always be sitting up, standing or walking when you eat; sometimes you’re going to be eating lying down. Or at least leaning back. And you spill stuff on your lapels."
How can you not laugh at a man who is that honest?
I particularly enjoyed reading his piece on Gilda Radner, but I could easily list a dozen others (The Amazon (well, all the travel monologues), getting a tan, Jonathan Demme, all the crossword puzzles...
Highly Recommended
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Open Road Media via Netgalley for review purposes. show less
A generally good short introduction to Robert E. Lee. But, compared to other volumes in the series, like Frady's MLK, or Keegan's Churchill, this one seems a bit chatty and gossipy, like Robert E. Lee via the old lady at the beauty shop. There is generally good enough coverage of battles until Gettysburg, then it returns to chattiness. And do we read really weird asides to modern days like that at the bottom of page 65? No. Blount's attempts to be humorous and sly and witty and Shelby Foote show more all at the same time makes the book less than stellar, and underscores that he is an over-rated auteur in the mold of Garrison Keillor; nobody's heard of them but the haute-beautiful people of New York who watch and listen to too much PBS and NPR, and while Blount and Keillor claim to represent the great, good, rural people of the Midwest and South, they denigrate them at every turn.
But, I digress. The appendices are pretty good, and rightly relegated to the appendices, but these should be in a book of essays, not a biography in a short-length series. Some editor at Penguin should have said, "No, Mr. Blount. You only have two hundred pages to work with, give us some more facts." Instead, we have a strange, yet insightful, attempt at psycho-history. But, it doesn't belong in this book. I mean, from p. 180: "Elvis [Presley] and his mother made a great deal over each other's feet, calling them 'sooties.' Did Robert [E. Lee] and his mother? We don't know." Really?
But, lastly, Blount recounts Lee's devotion to a sort of austere stoicism (he does not use the latter word), but fails to mention the most poignant example of this character trait: when a young mother sought Lee's advice and a blessing for her infant son, he told the mother plainly, "Teach him he must deny himself.” show less
But, I digress. The appendices are pretty good, and rightly relegated to the appendices, but these should be in a book of essays, not a biography in a short-length series. Some editor at Penguin should have said, "No, Mr. Blount. You only have two hundred pages to work with, give us some more facts." Instead, we have a strange, yet insightful, attempt at psycho-history. But, it doesn't belong in this book. I mean, from p. 180: "Elvis [Presley] and his mother made a great deal over each other's feet, calling them 'sooties.' Did Robert [E. Lee] and his mother? We don't know." Really?
But, lastly, Blount recounts Lee's devotion to a sort of austere stoicism (he does not use the latter word), but fails to mention the most poignant example of this character trait: when a young mother sought Lee's advice and a blessing for her infant son, he told the mother plainly, "Teach him he must deny himself.” show less
Well, I hope that saved Mr. Blount the price of 20 years therapy! He should watch it. That sort of "sefflo" will only attract more women who will want to undo the damage his mother did. I loved the cover. Doncha just love those candy hearts? I was reading Camel's are easy, comedy's hard, a compilation of stories, at the same time. If anything, Be sweet was even more maundering. Blount is the undisputed King of the Digression. It's almost as if we are inside his head as he tries to think out show more his relationship with his family and everyone else in the world. I'm always sorry for people whose home life wasn't as loving and supportive as mine, but then, they write books and get paid for it and I just complain about it for free on line. I love you, Roy (no particular stress on the "I"). I think you're funny and love to listen to you talk. You're 65ish now and it's time you got over some things. Go live and be happy. We give you permission. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 35
- Also by
- 37
- Members
- 2,662
- Popularity
- #9,637
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 59
- ISBNs
- 109
- Languages
- 2
- Favorited
- 3
