Long on Wit

A A A Comments By Paul M. Davis Wednesday, Sep 1 2010

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Jim Short is a literate comic, but not one who takes pains to demonstrate what a smarty-pants he is. Unlike David Cross, Short isn’t throwing out the occasional Lexis-Nexis reference. Regardless, the San Francisco comic is sharp and tart in his takedowns of pop culture, history, and politics. Wielding a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the last 30 years of American culture and history, Short brings an outsider perspective to the absurdities of contemporary life, while also reminding a notoriously history-averse nation of some pointed facts about its own past. An Australian by birth, Short has caught some flack in his homeland for his receding accent, but in his defense, the comic has lived stateside since he was 12, giving him plenty of time to establish himself as an American. He offers up an apocalyptic vision of our times that is deeply rooted in gallows humor, yet his scabrous wit helps him win over crowds, no matter how dire the subject matter. Short’s take seems downright prescient after eight months of environmental disasters, interrupted by occasional political crises. Nine months into a year like this, with plenty of outrage and misfortune to go around, he may be the comic we need to tell us how it is, while the rest of us come to terms with living in a real-life disaster film.
Sept. 1-4, 8 & 10 p.m., 2010

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