Tag: Humor
‘Afterglobe,’ ‘Ingesticulate’ and 28 Other New Additions to the Travel Lexicon
by Eva Holland | 01.30.12 | 7:58 AM ET
Andy Murdock has been brainstorming some much-needed new travel words. For instance, “comeuppants,” a noun for those times when “an obnoxious person loses their luggage and has no change of clothes.” Or “trambunctious,” possibly my favorite of the bunch, an adjective describing someone who is “overly excited by riding trains, funiculars, and other forms of public transport.” Funny stuff all around.
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Yahoo! BuzzShit Travel Bloggers Say
by Jim Benning | 01.20.12 | 4:08 PM ET
I guess this was inevitable, given the wildly popular meme. My room is comped, right?
‘Did You Read That Thing in Mother Jones?’
by Jim Benning | 01.17.12 | 8:32 PM ET
In case you haven’t seen it, a pretty brilliant scene from “Portlandia.”
‘Travels With Harley’ and Other Travel Books With Missing Letters
by @worldhum | 08.03.11 | 11:32 AM ET
Last night on Twitter, a fun, silly hashtag made the rounds: #bookswithalettermissing. Naturally a few travel-focused titles popped up, and we’ve collected nine of our favorites:
@Mi_Schu
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pans. Love, friendship, cookery…. #bookswithalettermissing
@evaholland
Travels with Harley: Steinbeck criss-crosses America by hog. #bookswithalettermissing
@inkasrain
Eat, Pay, Love: What really happened. #bookswithalettermissing
@evaholland
Our Ma in Havana: Memoir of Cuban childhood. #bookswithalettermissing
@BrantSmith
The Canterbury Ales…a guide to the finest brews in the land. #bookswithalettermissing
@douglasmack
Notes From a Mall Island. (Somewhat less charming than Bryson’s original book.) #bookswithalettermissing
@douglasmack
Fear and Lathing in Las Vegas. Gonzo tales from the machine shop. #bookswithalettermissing
@BrianOnWine
A Moveable East: Hemingway recalls his years in Paris with a broken compass. #bookswithalettermissing
@Mi_Schu
On the Rod. Kerouac’s other adventure. #bookswithalettermissing
The last time we had this much travel-themed fun on Twitter, we were talking #faketravelquotes.
The Return of Bulwer-Lytton and More Bad Travel Writing
by Michael Yessis | 08.01.11 | 11:34 AM ET
Love this annual contest, where writers compose an intentionally awful opening sentence of a novel. This year’s winners were announced last week and, as usual, the honorees have given us some dreadful yet hilarious travel writing. My two favorites come from the purple prose category. Mike Pedersen took the top spot with this clunker:
As his small boat scudded before a brisk breeze under a sapphire sky dappled with cerulean clouds with indigo bases, through cobalt seas that deepened to navy nearer the boat and faded to azure at the horizon, Ian was at a loss as to why he felt blue.
Jack Barry’s vision of Los Angeles was runner-up:
The Los Angeles morning was heavy with smog, the word being a portmanteau of smoke and fog, though in LA the pollutants are typically vehicular emissions as opposed to actual smoke and fog, unlike 19th-century London where the smoke from countless small coal fires often combined with fog off the Thames to produce true smog, though back then they were not clever enough to call it that.
Clever, Jack. Clever.
Do you yearn to write bad travel writing? We can help.
Tales of a Travel Chaperone
by Michael Yessis | 07.26.11 | 7:14 AM ET
Funny story concept well executed by the man doing the chaperoning of fifth graders to Spain: Dave Barry.
Our group consisted of four dads, 18 moms and approximately 27,000 children. There was no way to get an exact count: They move too fast.
Our group assembled at Miami International Airport (motto: “Our Motto Has Been Delayed”). All of us wore identical ill-fitting T-shirts with our group name printed on them. That’s how you let everybody know that you’re a group of sophisticated world travelers.
The Washington Post Magazine covered similar ground this weekend. John Kelly joined a group of junior high students touring Washington D.C.
I began to recognize the symptoms of Stockholm syndrome about four hours into my day touring Washington with the eighth-graders of Centreville, Mich. I was starting to identify with my captors.
To China’s Fangji Cat Meatball Restaurant and Beyond
by Michael Yessis | 07.18.11 | 11:18 AM ET
More travel-related hilarity from David Sedaris in China, though it’s not for those without an adventurous palate. And if you do have an adventurous palate, Sedaris salutes you:
Another of the dishes that day consisted of rooster blood. I’d thought it would be liquid, like V8 juice, but when cooked it coagulated into little pads that had the consistency of tofu. “Not bad,” said the girl seated beside me, and I watched as she slid one into her mouth. Jill was American, a Peace Corps volunteer who’d come to Chengdu to teach English. “In Thailand last year? I ate dog face,” she told me.
“Just the face?”
“Well, head and face.” She was in a small village, part of a team returning abducted girls to their parents. To show their gratitude, the locals prepared a feast. Dog was considered good eating. The head was supposedly the best part, and rather than offend her hosts, Jill ate it.
This, for many, is flat-out evil but the rest of the world isn’t like America, where it’s become virtually impossible to throw a dinner party. One person doesn’t eat meat, while another is lactose intolerant, or can’t digest wheat. You have vegetarians who eat fish and others who won’t touch it. Then there are vegans, macrobiotics and a new group, flexitarians, who eat meat if not too many people are watching. Take that into consideration and it’s actually rather refreshing that a 22-year-old from the suburbs of Detroit will pick up her chopsticks and at least try the shar pei.
Sedaris: ‘Around the Time my Lunch Tray was Taken Away, I Remembered I Needed to Learn Mandarin’
by Michael Yessis | 07.06.11 | 9:15 AM ET
Travel-related hilarity from David Sedaris in the latest issue of the New Yorker, as he mines his efforts to learn languages.
Thanks to Japanese I and II, I’m able to buy train tickets, count to nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, and say, whenever someone is giving me change, “Now you are giving me change.” I can manage in a restaurant, take a cab, and even make small talk with the driver. “Do you have children?” I ask. “Will you take a vacation this year?” “Where to?” When he turns it around, as Japanese cabdrivers are inclined to do, I tell him that I have three children, a big boy and two little girls. If Pimsleur included “I am a middle-aged homosexual and thus make do with a niece I never see and a very small godson,” I’d say that. In the meantime, I work with what I have.
Alas, only an abstract is online.
Patton Oswalt Trick-Or-Treats in His Hotel Room
by Jim Benning | 11.01.10 | 5:12 PM ET
Comedian Patton Oswalt apparently found himself alone in a hotel room last night for Halloween. That didn’t stop him from having a grand time. He unleashed a series of tweets. Among them:
“Trick-or-treater” at my hotel room door just Polish woman checking mini-bar. Happy Halloween. Sigh.
Just ‘cuz I’m alone in a NYC hotel room doesn’t mean I can’t have a happy H’ween.
Now to trick-or-treat in my hotel room. Trick-or-treat, mini-bar! Thanks for the scotch!
Trick-or-treat, bathroom! Yay, Q-tips!
Trick-or-treat, desk drawer! Oooo, a room service menu!
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for October
by @worldhum | 10.29.10 | 3:07 PM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
‘Quick, Martha, Take a Picture!’
by Eva Holland | 10.14.10 | 1:30 PM ET
The folks at Gizmodo list seven things they never want to see photographed again. Sorry, travelers: “food” and “scenery” make the list. Don’t miss the accompanying cartoon dialogue—funny stuff.
23 Great Fake Travel Quotes
by @worldhum | 09.30.10 | 4:36 PM ET
iStockPhoto One strange travel quote got us started. The travelers on Twitter took it from there.
The Strangest Travel Quotes of All Time
by Michael Yessis | 09.29.10 | 12:03 PM ET
“Travel ... six letters flowing like melted French Brie across two syllables.”—Cathy Salter, Sept. 27, 2010, Columbia Daily Tribune
The famous Twain quote and the Saint Augustine quote and so many other famous travel quotes—they’re just so earnest, aren’t they? After reading Cathy’s words of wisdom above it occurred to me that we could use a little more levity, a little more strangeness, a little more melted French brie in our famous travel quotes.
Inspired by her words, I humbly submit a few suggestions for the canon:
- Travel ... in Spanish, it’s five letters that melt like jamon across three syllables.
- Travel is like a Peruvian flute band busking in your soul.
- Travel sticks with you like gum in your hair until you get it out with peanut butter.
- Travel opens the heart, and the wallet.
Got your own strange travel quote? Share it below, or join the #faketravelquotes conversation on Twitter.
The Onion Reports: More Colleges Offering Dick-Around Abroad Programs
by Eva Holland | 09.17.10 | 4:27 PM ET
This just in from America’s finest news source: A growing number of colleges are now offering their students “the chance to spend every night partying in pretty much the same way they would have at home.” Lehigh University senior Christie Oden says she’s “dicked around in France and Australia.” She continues:
“I tell everyone I know: Definitely dick around abroad if you get the chance. It’s the best thing I did in college.”
For students like Oden, who are seeking opportunities to waste enormous amounts of time in a specific field, some schools offer specialized programs for dicking around abroad. Engineering majors at MIT, for example, can spend a semester in a drunken haze at the school’s Munich location, while juniors studying art history at Northwestern University may sign up for a year of yanking their puds in the museums of Paris.
(Via Adam Karlin)
Riding The Little Engine That Could
by Jim Benning | 09.17.10 | 10:16 AM ET
Illustration: Bill Russell What if travel writer Paul Theroux had been aboard the train journey that became a classic children's book? Jim Benning imagines the account.
Slate Takes a Nudist Vacation
by Eva Holland | 09.08.10 | 2:50 PM ET
“Human Guinea Pig” columnist Emily Yoffe bared all for journalism. Here’s the introduction to her resulting, funny dispatch:
The most disconcerting part of my visit to a nudist camp I’ll call “Hidden Bush” occurred when I got in a discussion about the benefits of nudity with a longtime member I’ll call “Dick.” Nudists, nudists will tell you, are very friendly, and Dick had spotted me as a newcomer as I stood naked and adrift by the pool. He came over to welcome me and proselytize for the benefits of nudism. He told me about the cruise he had taken to Alaska with 2,000 other naked people, and as I tried to envision all of this sagging flesh chugging toward unsuspecting caribou, I was distracted by a more immediate, awful sight. I could see myself reflected in Dick’s sunglasses. All of me. It was impossible to follow our chitchat as I watched my pale flesh quiver every time I made a gesture.
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for August
by @worldhum | 09.02.10 | 12:13 PM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
Anxious About Full-Body Scanners? xkcd has a Solution
by Eva Holland | 08.16.10 | 4:59 PM ET
Here’s the web comic’s, er, modest proposal. (Via James Fallows)
Your Flight Attendant Jokes Do Not Amuse JetBlue
by Eva Holland | 08.11.10 | 1:06 PM ET
The airline’s been objecting to cracks about Steven Slater’s infamous emergency chute escapade via its official Twitter account. Of course, this only inspires the tweeting jokers to new heights; here’s comedian Andy Borowitz’s response: “At @JetBlue you have to pay $5 extra for a sense of humor. Exact change, please.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times has unearthed the 1947 story of a Bronx bus driver who got fed up with his job—and took his rig on a 1,300-mile joy ride. That sounds even better than a trip down the inflatable slide, no?
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for July
by @worldhum | 08.02.10 | 11:42 AM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
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