Rosie O’Donnell: There’s No There, There
Rosie O’Donnell’s in the news for a Tweet in which she promotes an online game, “Push Trump Off A Cliff Again.” At first glance, it see...
Category: Cases and Current Events
This is the parent group for pop culture references. The sub-categories are based on how deep I’m reading between the lines. Comics Talking Shop is where they’re explicitly saying something about comedy. Comics in the News is where people are making statements about comedy by criticizing a comic’s act.
Mike Birbiglia on Getting Personal
Mike Birbiglia spoke to Bill Brownstein of the Montreal Gazette (7/14/2017) about getting personal. Getting personal is crucial in comedy. I feel that we’re liv...
Ron White on Entertaining
Just a quick one, so I’ll pair it with another “theory-theory” piece. In an interview with Robert DiGiacomo of Atlanticcityweekly.com (7/18/20...
Lynne Parker and Comic Frames
In an interview with Hannah Williams of Backstage.com (7/13/2017), producer Lynne Parker says a few interesting things about stand-up and humor more generally. ...
Elahe Izadi on the Benefits and Evils of Technology
When I teach courses on media theory, I like to point out that whenever a new technology appears, there are some that hail it as the thing that will finally spa...
Elahe Izadi on the Current Stand-Up Comedy Boom
Elahe Izadi, in an article for the Washington Post (7/13/2017), talks about the current “stand-up comedy boom.” Never before has so much original ma...
Ricky Gervais on Provoking Thought
In an interview with Larry Fitzmaurice of Vice.com (7/12/2017), Ricky Gervais has a lot to say about comedy and even people. All the same? Gervais says that his...
Joe Stapleton on Spontaneity and Hecklers
In an interview with Paul Seaton of Pokernews.com (7/10/2017), Joe Stapleton had several things to say about stand-up: It’s rehearsed On Spontaneity in st...
Update: James Davis’ Interview with StarTribune.com
On reading the interview, I made some updates to Intentionality – where I talk about the idea that comics are first and foremost trying to get a laugh on-...
Misch on Personas, Truth and Ethics
In his article for Splitsider.com (7/6/2017), comic, critic, writer and teacher David Misch notes that there is an idea (held by at least one professional criti...