Ian "Sandy" Frazier | |
---|---|
Born | Ian Frazier 1951 (age 71–72) Cleveland, Ohio |
Occupation | Non-fiction writer, humorist |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Harvard University |
Period | 1974–present |
Notable works | Great Plains (1989) Coyote v. Acme (1990) Travels in Siberia (2010) |
Spouse | Jacqueline Carey |
Ian Frazier (born 1951 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American writer and humorist. He wrote the 1989 non-fiction history Great Plains, 2010's non-fiction travelogue Travels in Siberia, and works as a writer and humorist for The New Yorker . [1]
Frazier grew up in Hudson, Ohio. [2] His father, David Frazier, was a chemist, [3] who worked for Sohio; [4] [5] his mother, Peggy, was a teacher, as well as an amateur actor and director, [3] who performed in and directed plays in local Ohio theaters. [6] He graduated from Western Reserve Academy in 1969 and from Harvard University in 1973. [3]
The New York Times critic James Gorman described Frazier's 1996 humor collection Coyote v. Acme (in the title piece, Wile E. Coyote is suing Acme Corporation, the manufacturer of products such as explosives and rocket-propelled devices purchased by the coyote to aid in hunting the Road Runner; these products always backfire disastrously) as the occasion for "irrepressible laughter in the reader." Gorman rates Frazier's first collection, 1986's Dating Your Mom, as "one of the best collections of humor ever published." [7]
James Grover Thurber was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in The New Yorker and collected in his numerous books.
The Acme Corporation is a fictional corporation that features prominently in the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote animated shorts as a running gag. The company manufactures outlandish products that fail or backfire catastrophically at the worst possible times. The name is also used as a generic title in many cartoons, especially those made by Warner Bros. and films, TV series, commercials and comic strips.
Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner are a duo of cartoon characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated cartoons, first appearing in 1949 in the theatrical cartoon short Fast and Furry-ous. In each episode, the cunning, devious and constantly hungry coyote repeatedly attempts to catch and subsequently eat the Road Runner, but is successful in catching the Road Runner on only extremely rare occasions. Instead of his animal instincts, the coyote uses absurdly complex contraptions to try to catch his prey, which comically backfire, with the coyote often getting injured in slapstick fashion. Many of the items for these contrivances are mail-ordered from a variety of companies implied to be part of the Acme Corporation.
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A list of the published works of Ian Frazier, American writer.
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