Comedy

Jon Ronson is a master of the absurd which both surrounds AND is within us. Whether it is indigo children, alien abductees, Christian pentecostalism, SETI, Insane Clown Possee or Stanley Kubrick, Ronson probes into all that is weird and wonderful.

Perhaps one of the best things about Ronson (and his delightfully appropriate narrative style) is that he eschews the superior tone characteristic of most skeptics in favor of a wryly self-deprecating humor which acknowledges his own (and by implication, our) attraction to these phenomena. Not all of it is light-hearted; there is a darker side to some of his subjects, such as the would-be school shooters in North Pole, Alaska. Throughout, Ronson has an extraordinary ability to sympathetically engage with his subjects while retaining his sense of gentle skepticism. His aim is not to ridicule but to understand and to be amazed and sometimes to be saddened--and he invites us to do the same.

Ronson does not have an agenda. Don't be surprised if your own particular ox is gored; but in Ronson's hands the experience is humbling rather than enraging. To paraphrase Pogo, he reminds us that "we have met the crazies…and they are us."

I think Roy Blount Jr. is a marvelous commentator and comic, but this book just does not work in audio format. Imagine someone reading Bartlett's Quotations to you--even if you might have enjoyed a few quotations, it would quickly grow pretty tedious no matter how skilled the reader. In print, this is the sort of book you might enjoy a few pages at a time before falling asleep or waiting for the kettle to boil. Or to put it a bit more crudely, it's the perfect bathroom book.

Less a formulation of a "new" constitution than an exploration of the history and terms of the current one, Bleyer does a remarkable job of describing describing both the substance and the relatively chaotic backstory of the United States Constitution. The framers, although undoubtedly brilliant and visionary, were also very human and had many misgivings about the quality and durability of the document they were creating. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson was quite explicit: no generation should have the authority to bind the next and ideally the Constitution should be written anew by each generation with laws suitable for its own time and needs.

Bleyer takes such august authority as his starting point to facetiously frame his own version of a suitable constitution for our time. While his tone is amusingly light-hearted and sprinkled with frequently hilarious anecdotes from both the times of the founders and of our own (including a luncheon interview with Supreme Court Justice Scalia), what comes across clearly is that the framers would have been shocked, even appalled, to learn that the Constitution they patched together would be considered sacrosanct more than 200 years later. More than that, they probably would have been horrified to learn that their "original intent" (as if there was ONE original intent) would have been considered controlling in interpreting that Constitution by numerous Supreme Court Justices, including Justice Scalia, himself.

Bleyer does a real service in accurately conveying both constitutional principles and the difficulties in their interpretation in an accessible and entertaining style. Whether the reader is new to the subject or thinks that he/she "knows" the Constitution, the book inspires an appreciation of both the privileges and the responsibilities belonging to those who live in a constitutionally governed democratic society and does so in a way that is non-confrontational and, yes, fun!