Letters to the Editor
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Get Over It
Havrilesky misses the point. The man is funny and perhaps more importantly incredibly charismatic. I barely knew who Cook was when Tourgasm began airing and while I thought it was not a great show, it was appealing enough to keep me interested. I did hear some of Retaliation and thought that too was hilarious. He possesses a unusual stlye of annunciation that I found mesmerizing in itself even when I was laughing. Is he the best comedian in years? Ha! What a gloriously stupid question! Why even debate such silliness? Performance is utterly subjective. How funny he is, whom he caters to, why HBO is bankrolling him are really beside the point if you don't like him, or if you do. Granted, the lines Havrilesky quotes at the beginning of her piece are embarrassingly bad. It may signal a decline in Cook's material, maybe a slump. I'll watch Vicious Circle and hopefully I'll like it. But to label him a frat boy as a means of getting us to join Havrilesky in despising him is manipulative and pathetic. I expect smarter criticism from Salon.