The Tao of Comedy

The Tao of Comedy PDF Author: Bobbie Oliver
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781482640748
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
There are a lot of stand-up comedy books out there. This book is like none of them. It is about the Art of Comedy, the Zen of Comedy, the Tao of Comedy. It is comedy from the soul instead of the head. It is about Ego-less comedy. Don't Act. Be. You don't do standup comedy; it does you.

The Tao of Comedy

The Tao of Comedy PDF Author: Bobbie Oliver
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781794002500
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
There are a lot of stand-up comedy books out there. This book is like none of them. It is about the Art of Comedy, the Zen of Comedy, the Tao of Comedy. It is comedy from the soul instead of the head. It is about Ego-less comedy. Don't Act. Be. You don't do standup comedy; it does you.

What Are You Laughing At?

What Are You Laughing At? PDF Author: Dan O'Shannon
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441162933
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
This book presents a comprehensive guide to all the variables that can come into play when we come into contact with comedy.

I'm Dying Up Here

I'm Dying Up Here PDF Author: William Knoedelseder
Publisher: Public Affairs
ISBN: 1586488961
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Full of revealing portraits of many of the best-known comedic talents of the 1970s, "I'm Dying Up Here" is also a poignant tale of the price of success and the terrible cost of failure--professional and moral.

The Tao of Martha

The Tao of Martha PDF Author: Jen Lancaster
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 045141764X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
One would think that with her impressive list of bestselling self-improvement memoirs Jen Lancaster would have it all together by now. One would be wrong. After all, she’s no Martha Stewart. And that’s why Jen is going to Martha up and live her life according to the advice of America’s overachieving older sister—the woman who turns lemons into lavender-infused lemonade. By immersing herself in Martha’s media empire, Jen embarks on a yearlong quest to take herself, her house, her husband (and maybe even her pets) to the next level—from closet organization to party planning. Maybe Jen can avoid food poisoning if she follows Martha’s dictates on proper storage. Maybe she can rid her workout clothes of meatball stains by using Martha’s laundry tips. Maybe she can create a more meaningful anniversary celebration than getting drunk in the pool with her husband. Again. And maybe she’ll discover that the key to happiness does, in fact, lie in Martha’s perfectly arranged cupboards and charcuterie platters.

A Decade of Dark Humor

A Decade of Dark Humor PDF Author: Ted Gournelos
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1617030074
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
A Decade of Dark Humor analyzes ways in which popular and visual culture used humor-in a variety of forms-to confront the attacks of September 11, 2001 and, more specifically, the aftermath. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars from four countries to discuss the impact of humor and irony on both media discourse and tangible political reality. Furthermore, it demonstrates that laughter is simultaneously an avenue through which social issues are deferred or obfuscated, a way in which neoliberal or neoconservative rhetoric is challenged, and a means of forming alternative political ideologies. The volume's contributors cover a broad range of media productions, including news parodies (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, The Onion), TV roundtable shows (Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher), comic strips and cartoons (Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks, Jeff Danzinger's editorial cartoons), television drama (Rescue Me), animated satire (South Park), graphic novels (Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers), documentary (Fahrenheit 9/11), and other productions. Along with examining the rhetorical methods and aesthetic techniques of these productions, the essays place each in specific political and journalistic contexts, showing how corporations, news outlets, and political institutions responded to-and sometimes co-opted-these forms of humor.

The Tao of Bill Murray

The Tao of Bill Murray PDF Author: Gavin Edwards
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473519659
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
People love Bill Murray movies, but even more, they love crazy stories about Bill Murray out in the world. Bill reads poetry to construction workers. Bill joins in strangers' kickball games. Bill steals a golf cart in Stockholm. Bill follows the Roots – a hip hop band – around. Bill pays a kid $5 to ride his bicycle into a swimming pool. The most popular Bill Murray story of all time (which he will neither confirm nor deny): on a crowded street, he puts his hands over a stranger's eyes from behind and says "Guess who?" When he lifts his hands to reveal his identity as Bill Murray, he tells the gobsmacked stranger, "No one will ever believe you." For The Tao of Bill Murray: Real-Life Stories of Joy, Enlightenment, and Party Crashing, best-selling author Gavin Edwards tracked down the best authentic Bill Murray stories. People savour these anecdotes; they consume them with a bottomless hunger; they routinely turn them into viral hits. The book not only has the greatest hits of Bill's eye-opening interactions with the world, it puts them in the context of a larger philosophy (revealed to the author in an exclusive interview): Bill Murray is secretly teaching us all how to live our lives.

Comedy Sex God

Comedy Sex God PDF Author: Pete Holmes
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062803999
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Part autobiography, part philosophical inquiry, and part spiritual quest, Comedy Sex God is a hilarious, profound, and enlightening romp around the fertile mind of stand-up stand-out, podcast king, and HBO superstar Pete Holmes. Pete Holmes is a sold-out-every-night stand-up comedian with two HBO specials and the host of the hugely successful podcast You Made It Weird, and he was the creator-star of the hit HBO show Crashing. But it wasn’t always roses for Pete. Growing up, Pete was raised an evangelical Christian, but his religion taught him that being “bad”—smoking, drinking, having doubts or premarital sex—would get him sent to an eternity in hell. So, terrified of the God he loved, Pete devoted his life to being “good,” even marrying his first girlfriend at the age of twenty-two only to discover a few years later he was being cheated on. Thanks for nothing, God. Pete’s failed attempt at a picture-perfect life forced him to reexamine his beliefs, but neither atheism, nor Christianity, nor copious bottles of Yellow Tail led him to enlightenment. Pete longed for a model of faith that served him and his newfound uncertainties about the universe, so he embarked on a soul-seeking journey that continues to this day. Through encounters with mind-altering substances, honing his craft in front of thousands of his comedy fans, and spending time with savants like Ram Dass, Pete forged a new life—both spiritually and personally. Beautifully written and often completely hilarious—imagine Dass’s Be Here Now if penned by one of the funniest people alive—Comedy Sex God reveals a man at the top of his game and a seeker in search of the deeper meanings of life, love, and comedy.

Comedy in a Minor Key

Comedy in a Minor Key PDF Author: Hans Keilson
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429980249
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
A penetrating study of ordinary people resisting the Nazi occupation—and, true to its title, a dark comedy of wartime manners—Comedy in a Minor Key tells the story of Wim and Marie, a Dutch couple who first hide a Jew they know as Nico, then must dispose of his body when he dies of pneumonia. This novella, first published in 1947 and now translated into English for the first time, shows Hans Keilson at his best: deeply ironic, penetrating, sympathetic, and brilliantly modern, an heir to Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka. In 2008, when Keilson received Germany's prestigious Welt Literature Prize, the citation praised his work for exploring "the destructive impulse at work in the twentieth century, down to its deepest psychological and spiritual ramifications." Published to celebrate Keilson's hundredth birthday, Comedy ina Minor Key—and The Death of the Adversary, reissued in paperback—will introduce American readers to a forgotten classic author, a witness to World War II and a sophisticated storyteller whose books remain as fresh as when they first came to light.

Taking a Stand

Taking a Stand PDF Author: Jared N. Champion
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496835506
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Contributions by Jared N. Champion, Miriam M. Chirico, Thomas Clark, David R. Dewberry, Christopher J. Gilbert, David Gillota, Kathryn Kein, Rob King, Rebecca Krefting, Peter C. Kunze, Linda Mizejewski, Aviva Orenstein, Raúl Pérez, Philip Scepanski, Susan Seizer, Monique Taylor, Ila Tyagi, and Timothy J. Viator Stand-up comedians have a long history of walking a careful line between serious and playful engagement with social issues: Lenny Bruce questioned the symbolic valence of racial slurs, Dick Gregory took time away from the stage to speak alongside Martin Luther King Jr., and—more recently—Tig Notaro challenged popular notions of damaged or abject bodies. Stand-up comedians deploy humor to open up difficult topics for broader examination, which only underscores the social and cultural importance of their work. Taking a Stand: Contemporary US Stand-Up Comedians as Public Intellectuals draws together essays that contribute to the analysis of the stand-up comedian as public intellectual since the 1980s. The chapters explore stand-up comedians as contributors to and shapers of public discourse via their live performances, podcasts, social media presence, and political activism. Each chapter highlights a stand-up comedian and their ongoing discussion of a cultural issue or expression of a political ideology/standpoint: Lisa Lampanelli’s use of problematic postracial humor, Aziz Ansari’s merging of sociology and technology, or Maria Bamford’s emphasis on mental health, to name just a few. Taking a Stand offers a starting point for understanding the work stand-up comedians do as well as its reach beyond the stage. Comedians influence discourse, perspectives, even public policy on myriad issues, and this book sets out to take those jokes seriously.

The Tao of Pug

The Tao of Pug PDF Author: Nancy Levine
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510714456
Category : Pets
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Playful, endearing, and clearly profound, The Tao of Pug looks at the big picture from the eyes of a little dog. Meet Wilson the Pug, a dog with a great deal of wisdom to share. A much-admired spiritual teacher, Wilson lives by the principles of the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese text on the art of living. Passed on through the generations from his ancestor Pug-tzu—companion to the philosopher and author of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu —the wisdom of the Tao has helped Wilson lead a simple, peaceful, and fulfilling life. Deciding it was time to share this spiritual knowledge, Wilson enlisted the help of his owner (and photographer), Nancy Levine, to bring you The Tao of Pug. Each photograph captures Wilson’s charm and humor as he illustrates the timeless principles of the Tao Te Ching with examples from his active life alongside quotes from the original text. With his adorably expressive face, funny poses, and trademark yin-yang coat, Wilson has an unmistakable magnetism that has won him countless admirers, of all canine and philosophical persuasions. Wilson’s comical lessons on life pair beautifully with Levine’s delightful photographs to make The Tao of Pug a must-have book for pug lovers of any age.