Sense of Humor (soh) and Insult Comedy
Daniel Wickberg, in his book, The Sense of Humor, talks about the importance of having one. In Western culture, it has only been since the mid-eighteen hundreds...
Category: Stand Up Comedy
My academic “wheelhouse.” This site used to be entirely devoted to stand-up comedy, but as I’ve begin to branch out into my other interests, I’ve collected everything to do with stand-up here.
Leighann Lord on Relief and Laughter
It’s sad when I picture it. As some describe it, there are vast masses of people living in a state of constant psychological and emotional pressure, on t...
Tig Notaro on Comedy and Release
Though she gives a brilliant interview to Ashley Hoffman of Time (8/25/2017), Tig Notaro only briefly mentions something that touches on my theme here: the idea...
Reggie Watts, Stand-Up Comedian?
Same ol’, same ol’ I watch stand-up sporadically, sometimes going on binges where everything I watch is stand-up, sometimes taking a long hiatus. S...
Daniel Fernandes on Comedy as Art
A lot of comics express (perhaps unknowingly) the idea that audiences are passive objects that they “make laugh,” and Daniel Fernandes is another on...
Michelle Wolf Isn’t Trying to Change the World
But perhaps she should be. I talk a lot on this blog about what comedy can do, and my main soapbox is that it can do whatever we let it do. If comics tried to...
Marlon Wayans on Truth in Stand-Up
I’ve talked a lot on this blog about whether stand-ups tell the truth about their lives. Of course some do, but most fudge a bit. Even among those who g...
Jeff Foxworthy and Tension Release
In an interview with Edward Pevos of MLive (8/22/2017), Jeff Foxworthy describes his theory of humor in a way that resonates with the Relief theory of humor: I ...
Dick Gregory Fought for Political Stand-Up
I’m a Dick Gregory fan; I saw him at the Kansas City Improv just a few months ago. I avoided interrupting my queue of topics just for his death (or Jerry...
Add Bill Engvall to the List of Comics Who Don’t Do Politics
In an interview with Bill Hixon of The Beach Reporter (8/22/2017), Bill Envall says, I think that’s probably one of the main reasons why I’ve worked...