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Winging It

Improv’s Power and Peril in the Time of Trump

Spring Publications, 2024

In Winging It, literary scholar and cultural polymath Randy Fertel returns to the interrogation of improvisation he began with his earlier work A Taste for Chaos (2015). In this new volume, Fertel explores the wider landscapes of popular culture and public affairs, ranging deftly from the unmediated experience in hook-up culture, psychedelic trips, Fred Astaire’s tap dancing, Frans Hals’s brush strokes, social media, and Hamilton's hip-hop to — last, though alas not least — the performative and demagogic posturing of Donald Trump. The gesture all improvisations share — I will create this on the fly, or as Trump has it, my gut knows more than many brains — defies rationality and elevates embodied emotions, instinct, and intuition, challenging our assumption that everything of value depends upon long study, tradition, and hard work. Claiming to be free of serious purpose, improvisation only pursues pleasure. Or so it says.

“A tour de force exploration of improvisation and its many uses…”
— Kirkus Reviews

What People Are Saying About Winging It

  • “Winging It explores how improvisation shapes and enlivens our wider world. Yield to your impulses, act spontaneously, and get this book—it’s a revelation.”

    — Alice Waters, Founder of Chez Panisse and the Edible Schoolyard

  • “A masterwork—voracious in scope…and about as hopeful as can be in these troubling times.”

    — Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Curator Emeritus, Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, Tulane University

  • “A thoughtful and accessible look at how and why improvisation goes far beyond the stage, and why its power should not be underestimated.”

    — Kirkus Reviews

  • “Winging It soars. Randy Fertel is a whipsmart, plate-spinning savant, an audacious flying circus wingman. Every performer faces unknown risks, but Fertel takes it to a whole new level, and it’s a very exciting ride.”

    — Michelle Shocked, singer/songwriter

  • “Written in the spirit and style of improvisation, this book charms the reader into a fresh perspective on our discombobulated world ... It’s smart, fun, insightful, and relevant to life today and the incomprehensibles we live within.”

    — Eric Booth, author of Making Change and The Everyday Work of Art

  • “Fertel will scare you and free you, as he peers deeply into the light and the dark spaces where improvisation exerts its powerful sway over our lives and culture.”

    — Davia Nelson, The Kitchen Sisters, Radio/Podcast Producer

  • “Winging It's true fascination lies in its adept analysis of the political implications of the quicksilver art form. It is a work to be savored slowly and thoughtfully, especially in anticipation of the upcoming elections.”

    — Jessica B. Harris, High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America

  • “Randy Fertel gives us an impressive and artful view of cultural patterns that are roiling our world ... His knowledge is encyclopedic and his feeling for the complexities and double binds we face is deep and humane.”

    — Stephen Nachmanovitch, author of Free Play and The Art of Is

  • “Randy Fertel is a master at unveiling theatrical illusion. In this brilliant book, he shines a piercing light into the shadows of the so-called improv style in politics. Winging It reveals the concealed instincts and the fierce emotional currents that keep a rapacious predator aloft.”

    — Murray Stein, author of Jung’s Map of the Soul

  • “Winging It is a remarkable feat of scholarship, analysis and imagination, an eclectic blend of insights from many realms of thought and study ... Fertel’s healing faith in intuition rings from every page.”

    — Tom Mueller, author of How to Make a Killing: Blood, Death and Dollars in American Medicine

  • “Winging It goes everywhere to make clear the universal nature of Fertel’s premise, always with authority to back it, that our physical nature shares with our minds what makes us human.”

    — Gerry Dryansky, Senior European Correspondent for Condé Nast Traveler

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“A tour de force exploration of improvisation and its many uses, beginning with what most people would associate with “improv”: a distinctive form of theater perfected by Chicago’s Second City troupe… This is a thoughtful and accessible look at how and why improvisation goes far beyond the stage, and why its power should not be underestimated. A detailed explication of a vital artistic and cultural concept.”
— Kirkus Reviews

“At the farmers market, I'm responding to color, and smell, and I'm following my intuition. In my kitchen when I'm imagining where things will lead, I'm improvising. In his artful and authoritative book Winging It, Randy Fertel explores how improvisation shapes and enlivens our wider world.  Yield to your impulses, act spontaneously, and get this book — it's a revelation.”
— Alice Waters, Founder of Chez Panisse and the Edible Schoolyard

“Winging It soars. Author Randy Fertel is a whipsmart, plate-spinning savant, an audacious flying circus wingman. Every performer faces unknown risks, but Fertel takes it to a whole new level, and it’s a very exciting ride.”
— Michelle Shocked, singer/songwriter

“Winging It dances with the reader atop a mountain of scholarship, original thinking, and profound applicability. Written in the spirit and style of improvisation, this book charms the reader into a fresh perspective on our discombobulated world, touching on social media, popular culture, literary classics, neuroscience, AI, and politics. It’s smart, fun, insightful, and relevant to life today and the incomprehensibles we live within. Don’t walk, improvise your way to the bookstore to grab this irresistible tour de force from Randy Fertel.”
— Eric Booth, author of Making Change and The Everyday Work of Art

“A masterwork—voracious in scope…and about as hopeful as can be in these troubling times.”
— Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Curator Emeritus, Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, Tulane University 

“In Winging It, Randy Fertel returns to his life-long fascination with improvisation, following its threads from antiquity to the magic and madness of our unsettled present. Fertel will scare you and free you, as he peers deeply into the light and the dark spaces where improvisation exerts its powerful sway over our lives and culture. Radio is my home and I love the starring role he ascribes to listening, both in the construction of this rollicking and seductive book and within improv itself.”
— Davia Nelson, The Kitchen Sisters, Radio/Podcast Producer

“[I]t doesn’t matter how you feel about what Trump says. In fact, he knows that the more outrageous the better. Why? Because you never know what he’s going to say next. To Fertel’s point, Trump is an improv that 74 million people want to keep watching; and that the other 70 million voters can’t avoid watching. For the next four years, at least, we all be Winging it.”

— Tom Teicholz for Forbes

“In Winging It, Randy Fertel presents a wide ranging and masterful study of the art of improvisation that will delight scholars and lay readers alike. The work’s true fascination lies in its adept analysis of the political implications of the quicksilver art form. It is a work to be savored slowly and thoughtfully, especially in anticipation of the upcoming elections.”
— Jessica B. Harris, High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America

“In the new century, we’re all winging it now. Randy Fertel gives us an impressive and artful view of cultural patterns that are roiling our world in so many ways. His knowledge is encyclopedic and his feeling for the complexities and double binds we face is deep and humane.”
— Stephen Nachmanovitch, author of Free Play and The Art of Is 

“Randy Fertel is a master at unveiling theatrical illusion. In this brilliant book, he shines a piercing light into the shadows of the so-called improv style in politics. Winging It reveals the concealed instincts and the fierce emotional currents that keep a rapacious predator aloft.”
— Murray Stein, author of Jung’s Map of the Soul

“Winging It is a remarkable feat of scholarship, analysis and imagination, an eclectic blend of insights from many realms of thought and study that equips the reader to make sense of such disparate phenomena as “artificial” (and pseudo-) intelligence, Benoît Mandelbrot’s fractal geometry, Oscar Wilde’s “meticulously prepared art” of spontaneity, and the perverse fascination of Donald “the Dark Trickster” Trump. Fertel’s healing faith in intuition rings from every page.”
— Tom Mueller, author of How to Make a Killing: Blood, Death and Dollars in American Medicine 

“Winging It goes everywhere to make clear the universal nature of Fertel’s premise, always with authority to back it, that our physical nature shares with our minds what makes us human.”
— Gerry Dryansky, Senior European Correspondent for Condé Nast Traveler