Punnyography
Synopsis: Intergalactic man-eating aliens the Kanamits (introduced in The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man) return to earth after a 40-year absence and slowly succeed, over time, in abducting all the inhabitants of Chicago and turning them into comfort food on their home planet. Curiously, out of their respect for the literary arts, the Kanamits initially leave the city’s fiction writers and poets untouched. But eventually the Kanamits' insatiable hunger for human flesh overcomes their better natures. The last Chicagoan standing is the city’s brightest literary light.
Title: There's Always Room for Bellow
Synopsis: A family of modern-day trapeze artists, the majority of them descended from 13th century author Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales), suffers a series of unfortunate high-flying/unintended-landing accidents. The family valiantly struggles to overcome these catastrophes and wrench victory from the jaws of defeat.
Title: Earth vs. The Flying Chaucers
Synopsis: A biography of French philosopher and essayist Francis Bacon (1561-1626) with a decidedly anti-Bacon slant.
Title: The Bad Side of Bacon
Synopsis: A cold-war tale about a '70s Iowa farm boy who hides his love of Russian literature from his xenophobic father by pasting false covers on all his books.
Title: The Chekhov is in the Mailer
Synopsis: Focuses on a little-known period in Mark Twain’s life during which he made his living as a maitre’d in St. Louis’s trendiest bistro. Fired for regularly getting patrons to do his work for him by convincing them it was “fun,” a fistfight ensues in the kitchen between Twain and the owner of the eatery, during which the owner falls into a rack of skewers, suffering a number of fatal wounds. Twain is banned from the hospitality industry for life. A period of depression ensues.
Title: Never the Twain Shall Seat
Synopsis: An entirely-reimagined account of a period in the life of a brilliant early 20th century novelist who, disillusioned by his inability to find a publisher for the first volume of what will one day be his acclaimed breakthrough novel, abandons the writing life to run a poultry farm in the French countryside. Two years later, a former literary rival, still bearing an old grudge, absconds one dark night with several of the author’s prize-winning chickens. After several days of captivity in the back of a modified (i.e., penned-in) Daimler DMG Lastwagen, the chickens effect a daring escape, and begin an arduous, danger-filled 900-mile trek back to the only home they have ever known, and the master they adore.
Title: The Chickens Come Home to Proust
An autobiography by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Title: I’m Tolkien to You
Synopsis: A highly unflattering biographical portrait of Truman Capote.
Title: Capote Ugly
Synopsis: Amusing story of a man who, over 10 years time (1895-1905), tried to pass himself off as Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, with absolutely no success.
Title: George Bernard? Pshaw!
