Join the Boston Chapter for Cocktails this Thursday, July 18th

The Boston "We've Come for the Davenport" Chapter of the Robert Benchley Society will hold its monthly Roundup at the Downtown Harvard Club, high above Boston town on the 38th floor of One Federal Street, in the Financial District. We'll gather at the Crimson Pub on Thursday, July 18th, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Dress code is informal or business casual. For more information, contact David Trumbull at david@robertbenchley.org.

NSNC '13 Lifestyles and the Writing Life

By Rose A. Valenta

The annual National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) Conference was held in Hartford, CT, last weekend. It was a remarkable and exciting event with stellar headliners.

Featured guests included Pulitzer Prize winner, Dave Barry, who has also served as the final judge in previous Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor Writing competitions; Emmy Award-winning TV writer, original SNL writer, Thurber Prize for American Humor winner and novelist, Alan Zweibel; women’s humorist, UConn professor of English and essayist, Gina Barreca; CNN contributor, John Avlon; bestselling author and previous Robert Benchley Society Humor Award winner, W. Bruce Cameron; Heloise; bestselling author, Tracy Beckerman; and popular radio personality, Mike Morin.

Among the highlights of the event: Dave Barry won the Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award; Mike Morin of WZID-FM in Manchester, NH, won the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award; the late film critic, Roger Ebert, posthumously won one of the column contests; Blake Seitz of the University of Georgia won the Jeff Zazlow scholarship award; and Bob Haught and Stacey Hatton won the exciting “Columnists’ Got Talent” contest on Saturday night.”

The NSNC comments about Dave Barry:

For more than two decades, Dave Barry was a syndicated newspaper columnist, based at The Miami Herald, whose work appeared in more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad. His career at the Herald brought him worldwide acclaim as a humorist with a distinctive style and a best-selling author of 31 books of humor and parody, as well as 13 novels and children’s books.

In 1988 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary “for his consistently effective use of humor as a device for presenting fresh insights into serious concerns.” He retired from the grueling demands of weekly column writing in 2005, but still contributes special projects.

The theme at NSNC ’13 was “Lifestyles and the Writing Life,” which was impeccably demonstrated in the various sessions and panel discussions. You can click here for the entire NSNC Conference Program.

Note: The grand tour of Mark Twain's home on Friday, unveiled the world's first "Man Cave" on the third floor of his house complete with pipe stands, pool table, bar and balcony. It was built in 1873. Legend has it that when uninvited guests arrived at the house, he would step out onto the balcony, so the person answering the door could truthfully say that he was "not in residence."

If you are on Facebook and Twitter, you can follow post-Conference discussions and photo sharing by searching the hashtag #NSNC13 on both social media sites. You can follow @NSNCGroup on Twitter and “like” the NSNC page on Facebook.

I must warn you that “What happens in the hospitality suite, stays in the hospitality suite.” I know, I was there - only I can’t seem to remember anything.

You just have to be there next year!

Photo source: Dave Barry, Gina Barreca and Alan Zweibel Photo copyright: Teri Rizvi, Director of the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop

Boston Chapter Roundup Set for July 18th

The Boston "We've Come for the Davenport" Chapter of the Robert Benchley Society will hold its monthly Roundup at the Downtown Harvard Club, high above Boston town on the 38th floor of One Federal Street, in the Financial District. We'll gather at the Crimson Pub on Thursday, July 18th, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Dress code is informal or business casual. For more information, contact David Trumbull at david@robertbenchley.org.

RBS Member Ed Tasca Publishes New Comedic Play

Parlor Games
By Ed Tasca

Cast: 4 m, 4 w
Script: 60 pages. About 90 minutes.
A funeral parlor is the perfect setting for this quirky, off-kilter farce where family and “special” friends come to mourn, to surprise, to plot, and even to negotiate their futures. Everyone thinks Donny D’Silva was killed in a car crash. But it wasn’t Donny at all. Then again, it was – until everyone assumes the real victim is Rodrigo Benitez, Donny’s former employee. Then, Rodrigo shows up, so it’s not him either! Throughout the confusion, the families of the would-be dead make every effort to take advantage of the loss of their respective loved one. So who was the real victim? In the end, it turns out to be the town’s local lothario, whose life has ended in a most fitting way!

See more at http://www.histage.com/playdetails.asp?PID=2507

From the Mailbag

Recently someone contacted the Robert Benchley Society to ask:

Can you please tell me the date that Mr. Benchley first used the quote

"there are two kinds of people in the world.."

I am writing a paper for school and need the date, at least the year, of the original quote.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

Thank you for contacting the Robert Benchley Society.

The quotation is: "There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not."

In is from his essay "The Most Popular Book of the Month," which is a literary review of the New York Telephone Directory as if it were a novel.

The essay also contains the hilarious line: "But it is the opinion of the present reviewer that the weakness of plot is due to the great number of characters which clutter up the pages. The Russian school is responsible for this."

It appears in the first book of Mr. Benchley's collected writings, titled, "Of All Things" and published in 1921.

David Trumbull

The Benchley Roundup One of 50 Great Books That Will Change Your Life

"Benchley taught me how to create and then mine a comedic worldview with details gleaned from everything all around me," writes humorist Merrill Markoe in the June issue of Real Simple magazine. Her comments on Benchley's influence on her career in humor are also available online at http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/entertainment/great-books-00100000101474/page8.html

Join the Boston Chapter for Cocktails on the 20th

The Boston "We've Come for the Davenport" Chapter of the Robert Benchley Society will meet for cocktails Thursday, June 20th, at 5:30 p.m. at the Downtown Harvard Club, One Federal Street.