In the 1970s, Woody Allen wrote several satirical pieces for The New Republic. A selection:
The Scrolls: August 31, 1974: “And soon Job’s pastures dried up and his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth so he could not pronounce the word “frankincense” without getting big laughs.”
Fabulous Tales and Mythical Beasts: November 30, 1974: “Persian mythology holds that if a Nurk appears on the windowsill in the morning, a relative will either come into money or break both legs at a raffle.”
Irish Genius: February 22, 1975: “Viscous and Sons has announced publication of The Annotated Poems of Sean O’Shawn, the great Irish poet, considered by many to be the most incomprehensible and hence the finest poet of his time.”
Nefarious Times We Live In: November 22, 1975: “A group of us had been fed roast chicken stuffed with lysurgic acid, in a research program designed to determine the quantity of LSD a man can ingest before he attempts to fly over the World Trade Center.”
At the Cremation—Remembering Needleman: July 24, 1976: “I was present at the cremation and, at his son’s request, brought the marshmallows, but few of us could think of anything but our pain.”
The Query: September 18, 1976: “How long do you think a man’s legs should be? Long enough to reach the ground!”
The Lunatic’s Tale: April 23, 1977: “I was sneaking crosstown nightly to rendezvous with a photographer’s model called Tiffany Schmeederer, whose blood-curdling mentality was in direct inverse proportion to the erotic radiation that oozed from her every pore.”