Writing for the Harvard Lampoon

Description: They had a nice building, Lieb says.

Question: Why has the Lampoon created so many great writers?

Transcript: The Lampoon . . .  You know I . . . I don’t . . .  I think that obviously goes in ways . . .  The writers it’s creating right now, I think they’re all good.  It’s . . . it’s just a . . .  Look you’re at Harvard, so, you know, you’ve got sort of a pretty good pool to choose from.  And it’s got this nice building and a sort of sweet setup, so it becomes very attractive.  And then it’s got this history.  So you know it became very easy to attract sort of talented writers.  And then you know when you’re there, you sort of wanna live up to the people that have been there before. I mean that said actually putting out the magazine are not really always that funny.  But the . . . there is a competitive nature with the, you know, people on the magazine itself where you’re always sort of trying to better each other and one-up each other.  So you know it’s all those rams butting their heads eventually makes you stronger.

Question: Did you join as soon as you got to Harvard?

Transcript:  In my freshman year, yeah.  Yeah.  I hadn’t heard of it before I got there.  And then I remember walking around the campus and seeing this really cool building.  And I was like, “Oh, I have to . . . I have to go in there.”  And it turned out that it was the Lampoon.  So . . .

Question: What was your first Lampoon experience like?

Transcript: You know my . . . my first . . .  You know they invite you in to see if you wanna compete to join.  And they give you beer, and that was nice.  So you just sit around drinking beer while they tell you stuff.  And then sort of every event after that was a social opportunity with drinking cocktails or beer, and getting your writing critiqued.  And it was all good.

Recorded on: 9/4/07