When Yelpers Review Entire Cities
One of my favorite bits in all of comedy is Eddie Izzard's stand-up take on St. Paul's epistles to the Corinthians. Izzard walks his audience through the gumption it takes to write a letter to an entire city. "Dear Corinthians," Izzard pens. "As you can tell from my preamble, it's going to be quite a long letter. Here we go: Don't do bad things, only do good things. Always treat your neighbor like someone who lives near to you. Never put a sock in a toaster." And he goes on.
In Izzard's formulation, no one from Corinth actually wants a letter from the apostle. ("Whose idea was it to be a pen pal with St. Paul, anyway?") So Izzard pens a response—from the Corinthians. "Dear Paul (Saint, apparently)," he says, speaking for Corinth. "Who are you? Why do you keep sending us letters? You arrogant bastard, to send letters to an entire city. What do you want us to do, put this up on a board or something?.... Love and kisses, The Corinthians."