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There is a website standrewsny.org where I assume this photo is posted. However, I couldn’t find it there. I credit it to the Downton Abbey Fan Page on Facebook.
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“Despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naïveté, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do.” ― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
HAPPY BIRTHDAY - Steve Martin (August 14th, 1945)
#steve martin#posts in order:#stand up comedy#saturday night live#roxanne#american comedy awards (2000)#conan o'brien (2011)#father of the bride#the pink panther#mark twain prize (2005)#vanity fair#only murders in the building#omitb#gif#queue
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i was going to make a snarky tumblr poll like “what was the Nobel Prize in Literature’s biggest L?”
but then i remembered how many Ls of omission they’ve had over their long history
and i can’t narrow that down into neat discrete poll options, that’s way too many Ls, just Ls all around
#my personal choice for worst L of omission is Mark Twain never winning the prize#but i’m super biased on that front lol#in terms of just bad awards:#i need to reread some of the older shit but i think ti’ll be hard to top Boomer Nostalgia Run Amok choice Mr. Bob Dylan
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Conan Honors Adam Sandler As He Receives The Mark Twain Prize
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#conan o'brien#team coco#adam sandler#mark twain prize#red carpet#awards#Youtube#sorry I'm too drained to do trigger warnings for content and to list everyone
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so crazy to me that people are saying this episode wasn’t funny… this was the most i’ve laughed during an episode in weeks
#wasabi in the eye did absolutely nothing for me but caroline being a cunt? mark twain award#succession lb
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The 2024 Humor and Satire Hall of Fame
Humor and Satire Awards! The Humor and Satire Awards are here to bring you a laugh! ***No Joke! The Humor and Satire deadline is October 31st!*** Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring satire, humor, political ideology, parody, fantasy, and allegory or fable. The Deadline for the 2024 Humor and Satire Book Awards is the end of October. Looking to learn…
#Allegorical Book Awards#awards#Blue Ribbon Book Awards#book awards#CAC#CAC23#Chanticleer Book Awards#Chanticleer Int&039;l Book Awards#CIBAs#CIBAs Book Awards#Dark Humor#First Place#Grand Prize#Humor#Humor Book Awards#Humor Writing#Mark Twain Awards#Mark Twain book awards#Prestigious#Satire#Satire Book#Satire Book Awards#Winners#Writing competitions#writing contests
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Comedian Kevin Hart has been selected as the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize by the Kennedy Center, honoring his lifetime contributions to American humor.
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Another great list of books shortlisted for an award. First presented in 2016, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award honors a work of fiction from the previous calendar year that speaks with an “American Voice” about American experiences. Congratulations to all the authors and their publishers.
#shortlist#book awards#mark twain house#american voice in literature#hernan diaz#gabrielle zevin#tess gunty#andrew holleran#elizabeth mccracken#morgan talty#jacinda townsend#jennifer haigh#ling ma#barbara kingsolver
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Mark Twain Prize for American Humor : Adam Sandler / CNN
#Mark Twain Prize#award show#cnn#adam sandler#production design by tom lenz#production design by mel lovric#production design
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The Relationship between the LDS Church, Palestine, and Israel
I have a confession to make. As a younger person, I was obsessed with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.
"You and every Millennial."
NO. You don't understand. This went beyond "Neat, his talk is up next. He always does a good job. Let me tune back in to this two hour long meeting." This was a parasocial, fandom level, ADHD-fueled special interest that amounted to a kind of hero worship I can't fully explain now, other than to say I outgrew it. I had every talk of his that he had ever given that was available online on my various devices I had in college and would listen to them regularly. I knew them so well I could quote them in entire sections. One of my roommates met him in Southern Utah and got one of my books signed for me, and I cried when she gave it to me. I met him once at a Mark Twain performance (one of his favorite authors and the subject of his study as a student) at Sundance and I wasn't normal about it at all.
Elder Holland had a fan with Swiftie-levels of intensity in 2009, and it was me. It's deeply embarrassing to admit this, but it's crucial to understanding why I know the things I'm about to tell you.
Before Elder Holland became an apostle, he was the president of Brigham Young University. During his tenure, he entered into negotiations with Israel to build the Jerusalem Center, the extension of BYU's campus in the Holy Land. He raised $100 million for its construction. This required buy-in not only from church leadership and donors in the US, but the cooperation of the Israeli government. This was how he ended up winning the Torch of Liberty award from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith. He was effective enough at building bridges between Latter-day Saints and Jews and the other communities in Jerusalem, he got people to open their checkbooks to pay for the facility that would be dedicated to building that interfaith understanding and cooperation into the future. Finished in 1989, it's one of the most important contributions to the Church in Elder Holland's legacy.
The Jerusalem Center exists because of Elder Holland. How well he handled its formation, in my opinion, is how he ended up becoming a Seventy, followed by the call to become an Apostle in 1994.
The Jerusalem Center was constructed on what used to be Palestinian land. The Church is aware of that fact and makes restitution for it in the form of student scholarships to Palestinian students. Sahar Qumsiyeh, a professor at BYU-Idaho, was formerly a Palestinian Christian. She was introduced to the Church and joined because she received one of these scholarships.
The Jerusalem Center became a real turning point in the Church's relationship with Israel and Palestine because they have strong, close partnerships with individuals and groups who identify with each group. They have sent humanitarian aid many times over years, and have committed to doing so now. I trusted that would be the case.
I do highly encourage you to read the links above, but the TL;DR version is that the Church got fully engaged in helping Palestinian refugees for the first time in 2006. I've given you multiple links for a reason, so you can see the way LDS attitudes to this conflict between Israel and Palestine have been evolving and changing over time. The rejections of Israeli violence and support for Palestine today are not new. They've been going on in the LDS Church for almost two decades now. The Church maintains the campus in Jerusalem specifically to expand our peoples' perspectives and understanding of that conflict, specifically so they won't unconditionally side with Israel and support everything they do. And that's not my interpretation. That's what one of the instructors who taught at the Jerusalem Center said of the program there.
While some Latter-day Saints have adopted unconditional support of Israel because of the influence of their allegiance with the Republican party, it's not a position that's endorsed by the Church. It's a position the Church has made deliberate efforts to undermine with the resources available to them on multiple fronts. In education through the Jerusalem Center, in humanitarian aid to Palestinians, in messaging from General Conference, and in their PR campaigns like "I Was a Stranger," church leadership (and, one could argue, God) has been trying to challenge Latter-day Saints to develop a more unconditional love that embraces the entire human family, not just those who are politically convenient to us in our current loyalties.
So when the Church made their statement regarding the outbreak of the Israel Hamas War, people criticized it for not saying enough. It didn't give the information that people wanted: what the Church's response was going to look like, how it would impact church members in the region, and what precautions the Church was going to take to protect them. Because the statement was given on October 12th, the answers to those questions weren't really known. But there was an additional question people wanted answered: Whose side is the Church on? They wanted the strongest possible condemnation, some in favor of Israel, and some in favor of Palestine, depending on what their political alignments were. And I will say those people missed the point. They didn't have the knowledge base of the Church's relationship to the Middle East to properly understand the statement.
The Church didn't "pick a side" in this conflict because of the longstanding relationships the institution has with both Israelis and Palestinians. No human life in that war is more or less valuable to them based on their ethnic background or national origin. To expect the Church to choose sides demonstrates a total lack of understanding of what the Church's goals are with their presence in the Middle East: getting people to recognize the value in interfaith relationships and developing love that rejects politically manufactured enmity.
If you're demanding the Church to pick sides in conflicts based on your political alignments, you're allowing the process of politically motivated dehumanization to cloud your judgement. You're asking them to choose an enemy, which couldn't be further from what the Church is supposed to do in this situation. The statement reflects a refusal to choose sides by condemning one thing, in the strongest language I've ever seen any modern church leader use: Violence.
All violence, no matter who enacts it or for what purpose, is "abhorrent" in the sight of God. That's what the statement said. Think about the implications of that statement. If a person is doing violence, they cannot please God. Those who please God cannot do violence.
Think about the longstanding relationships the Church has with civic leaders in Israel. Think about the fact that this statement was given on the 12th of October, before Israel's offensive even began. It would have been so easy for the Church to condemn terrorism in that moment instead of violence, but that's not what they did. They stated their commitment to care for Israelis and Palestinians in the coming conflict, drawing a line in the sand—prophetically, if I may add. I fully believe that the strength of the language of this statement anticipates how extreme the Israeli response has been, which the Church condemned before it began.
One of the unfortunate side effects of being terminally online and fluent only in American politics is that a statement like the one the Church gave reads to some as saying passively "all lives matter." That's not what was happening here. There was a reason I gasped when I read the statement and thought to myself "Woooow. They're big mad."
I studied Public Relations in college. Lying is the dumbest approach you can take as a PR strategy. It squanders good will, destroys your authority, and doesn't accomplish any organizational goals long term. A better strategy is to say exactly what you mean in the fewest words possible, and let people identify the implications for themselves. Only those who are truly invested in your message will understand everything you said without you having to say it.
The Church's statement was all but a slap in the face to the Israeli and US governments, telling them that God rejects them for bringing this violence into the world. They will not enjoy his protection while this violence continues. It also stands to reason that any other nation that assists Israel with their campaign of death and destruction will also stand condemned by God.
Church leadership, in partnership with PR, isn't going to say that part out loud. But they'll imply the hell out of it. Working in PR is operating on Jane Austen levels of subtext. I wish more people understood that so they could enjoy moments like this when the Church throws shade.
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Nobody would dare to boil down Ursula Le Guin’s marvelous writing—all that fantasy, all that science fiction, poetry, essays, translations—into one idea. But in a pinch I’d pick two sentences from her 2014 National Book Award speech: “Capitalism[’s] power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.” Fantasy and science fiction never meant escapism for Ursula Le Guin. The dragons of Earthsea and the reimagined genders of The Left Hand of Darkness were always lenses, lenses she ground in order to sharpen her readers’ focus on everyday life. Indeed, for Le Guin, there was no difference between the stories she invented and everyday stories about the institutions governing our world. The dragons of Earthsea and capitalism are woven from similar material: it is imagination all the way down. James Baldwin said not everything that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed without being faced. The word for facing things in Le Guin is recognition, or you might even say re-cognition. Her characters—and readers—find themselves forced to think again. When they do so, what had seemed a fundamental truth about their universe turns out to be anything but. [...] Here is what I learned from Le Guin: Imagination is a beautiful and a shadowy builder. Over the generations, it supplied language, gods, music, arts, pretty much everything we sum up as culture. But imagination’s power comes at a familiar price: all power corrupts. Looking at those delightful surfaces painted onto the world by past acts of imagination, it can become hard to catch sight of what is really there, underneath. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein has a wonderful phrase: “a picture held us captive.” It applied to divine right of kings at one time, and may apply now to capitalism. Ending a picture’s captivity involves cracking common sense, and that is where some of my favorite writers come in. Jane Austen’s wit helped her readers peer beneath the surface of Regency England’s marriage market; Mark Twain’s Huck Finn tore aside the racial lies of 19th century America. During the Nixon era, Le Guin’s fantasy and her science fiction did the same: she pushed aside captivating pictures and let the light shine in. Then she returned to Earthsea decades later and did it all over again.
John Plotz, Dragons Are People Too: Ursula Le Guin’s Acts of Recognition.
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Billie Joe was interviewed when he performed at the Mark Twain Prize for Humor, awarded to Will Ferrell, on 23 October 2011.
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The 267th Annual Banquet in celebration of St. Andrew’s Day was held on Friday, November 17, 2023. New York’s original Scottish evening celebrated the best of Scotland with honored guests from far and wide.
The presentation of the Mark Twain Award, fondly referred to as the “Sammy,” was made to our Honoree, internationally acclaimed actor, Phyllis Logan.
Here’s the link to the gallery.
https://standrewsny.org/gallery/ViewAlbum.aspx?id=&album=&group=&index=0&p=0
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Ten Days Remain! The Somerset Awards and the Humor and Satire Awards!
The Final Fiction Divisions of this years Award cycle close in less than 2 weeks! 10 days left to submit! Don’t let your book miss out! The Humor & Satire Award for Allegorical Fiction The Somerset Award for Contemporary and Literary Fiction Only 10 days left to submit your books to these prestigious CIBA Divisions and embark on an extraordinary journey to success. With over $30,000 in prizes…
#Action#Adventure#Allegorical Book Awards#awards#Best Books#Best Contemporary Books#Best Literary Books#Blue Ribbon Book Awards#book awards#CAC#CBR#Chanticleer Blue Ribbon Awards#Chanticleer Book Awards#Chanticleer Int&039;l Book Awards#CIBA#CIBAs#CIBAs Book Awards#Connections#contemporary#Dark Humor#Family Themes#Humor#Humor Book Awards#Humor Writing#Literary#Magical realism#Mark Twain Awards#Mark Twain book awards#Prestigious#Psychological Themes
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George Robert Newhart (September 5, 1929 – July 18, 2024) Stand Up comedian, film and television actor. He was known for his deadpan and stammering delivery style. Beginning as a stand-up comedian, he transitioned his career to acting in television. He received numerous accolades, including three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award. He received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2002.
Newhart hosted a short-lived NBC variety show titled The Bob Newhart Show (1961) before starring as Chicago psychologist Robert Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show from 1972 to 1978 and then as Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon on series Newhart from 1982 to 1990. He also had two short-lived sitcoms in the 1990's, Bob and George and Leo.
Newhart played Professor Proton on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory from 2013 to 2018, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award. He also reprised his role as Professor Proton in the prequel series Young Sheldon. (Wikipedia)
IMDb Listing
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