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...
Tag: absolute stand-up
Hari Kondabolu’s Dual Goal
Comic Hari Kondabolu has bachelor’s degree in Comparative Politics and master’s degree in Human Rights, so he probably knows a thing or two about theories of pu...
Irony: Traditional Verbal Irony
Irony has been studied since at least Classical Greece. There are a few different types of irony, including dramatic irony, where the words or actions of the c...
Common Interpretations of Laughter
I have previously discussed John Limon’s theory of absolute stand-up. This theory states that the audience “[makes the comic’s] jokes into jokes, or refuse[s] t...
John Limon on Laughter: Is It Crucial?
I’ve talked a bit about how John Limon defines a genre of “absolute stand-up,” as marked, in part, by authorial intent. Yet he also distinguishes his abs...
Bill Maher On What Comics Do
I make my Advanced Public Speaking students write and give a speech of apology for a public figure, so when we’re talking about comics giving apologies, w...
Comic Intent
You hear it time and time again, from both comics and scholars: in stand-up comedy the only goal is laughter by any means available (Borns; Gilbert; Horowitz; L...