Harmony Books, 216 pages, $19.00,
Mark Leyner's new Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog is a wacky potpourri of satire that grazes on modern topics from deconstructionism to sperm banks. Tooth Imprints follows Leyner's similarly odd Et Tu, Babe and is jam-packed with random episodes of hysterical weirdness.
Leyner combines a mastery of both language and absurd imagery, barely giving his readers time to recover between c!ÿlsions of laughter. Rather than writing the "I'm so complex and difficult, and my wife is so simple and forbearing," introduction to dedicate the book to his wife, Leyner inverts the roles and launches into a rhapsody of his wife at his own expense. "I'm just the cream soda swilling, crotch scratching, irascible, coughing-up-indigestible-bits-of-grizzle-from-some -meat-on-a-stick, surly, greasy-overalls-over-candy-colored-latex-minikimon o (my work uniform when I'm in the throes of a novel or a play), don't-bother-me-'til-halftime kind of guy that society has made me," he writes.
Probing deeper into the problems of modern masculinity, Leyner's essay "Hulk Couture" is sure to become a manifesto for all non-jocks living in Mather-a perfect expression of their sartorial feelings toward the body-building lifestyle. In this piece, Leyner assumes the persona of a "buff buff" who advocates losing the spotter when one pumps iron because, "When there's nothing to keep a barbell stacked with 375 lbs. of iron plates from collapsing onto your throat but your own two arms...well, if that doesn't get the ol' fight-or-flight response going, then nothing will." For such hearty individuals, he recommends a diet of "Testosteroni, the Pasta for Men--testis-shaped pasta made from the finest durum wheat seminola and enriched with natural steer androgens."
Leyner's satire extends to modern life and stereotypical Jewish angst. "Young Bergdorf Goodman Browr, " his adaption of Nathanial Hawthorne's dark masterpiece, satirizes paranoia apropos to Jewish-extraterrestrial conspiracies, Six Degrees of Separation, and the gauntlet to be run when trying to escape those downright annoying perfume sales-woman at the department store who insist that you sample their scents: "We've daubed your wrists, your lower arms, your chest, your stomach, your ankles, calves, knees...Let's see...Hey, if you don't mind, how about the upper portion of your buttocks?"
Leyner's paranoid rhapsodies continue in "Great Prentenders," an essay on the dominance of a thespian conspiracy in modern society--the idea that your neighbors, for example, are not really neighbors, but actors hired by realestate salesmen to convey the image of an ideal neighborhood. Leyner calls this the "De Niro-ization' of culture...Migratory shifts back and forth from the real to the simulacrum [that] will calibrate the rest of history." "The Mary Poppins Kidnapping" pokes fun at the over-sensitive parents who worry that all forms of media, even the innocuous products of Disney, are dangerous influences on the impressionable minds of their children.
Leyner loves to take you behind closed doors to follow him on his imaginative paranoid ramblings. Maybe senators give one another tattoos--during session--corresponding to their ideology and accomplishments, or lack thereof. Has the medical industry been suppressing data (at the behest of the federal government, of course) that proves criminal activity causes physical attractiveness, the socaPºÐ "allure of immorality?"
Leyner's book subjects nearly every element of pop culture to light-hearted scrutiny, yet includes moments of insight into our human condition "Thoughts While Listening to Mahler in the Afternoon" and "Bassinet Mattress Day" discuss with comical yet realistic clarity issues such as death and, less serious but hopefully more immediate, what to do with that spare time in the car while waiting for your companion to finish her shopping.
A wild evaluation of the '90s, Tooth Imprints on a Corndog meanders along thematic paths through the discontinuous and often confounding amalgam that is contemporary culture. It successfully unites them under a splendidly crafted satirical umbrella, one that would fit perfectly on a beach this week.
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