Funny: The Book

Funny: The Book PDF Author: David Misch
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1557839662
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
FUNNY: THE BOOK - EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT COMEDY

Funny: The Book

Funny: The Book PDF Author: David Misch
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1557839662
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
FUNNY: THE BOOK - EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT COMEDY

What is Funny?

What is Funny? PDF Author: Etan Boritzer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781625174611
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
WHAT IS FUNNY? addresses the subject of sensitivity and awareness in humor. Laughing at others or laughing at oneself, or laughing for no particular reason at all, author Etan Boritzer approaches the various subtleties of this basic human activity asking what is appropriate and what is hurtful, while tackling issues of taunting and teasing, bullying and aggression issues that are very much in the focus of our nation s schools today. Suggesting a gentle and conscious, multicultural message of compassion, understanding and acceptance, this book helps children, parents, educators and child professionals explore a subject too often easily glossed over.

Inside Jokes

Inside Jokes PDF Author: Matthew M. Hurley
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026201582X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Get Book Here

Book Description
Some things are funny -- jokes, puns, sitcoms, Charlie Chaplin, The Far Side, Malvolio with his yellow garters crossed -- but why? Why does humor exist in the first place? Why do we spend so much of our time passing on amusing anecdotes, making wisecracks, watching The Simpsons? In Inside Jokes, Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams offer an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Humor, they propose, evolved out of a computational problem that arose when our long-ago ancestors were furnished with open-ended thinking. Mother Nature -- aka natural selection -- cannot just order the brain to find and fix all our time-pressured misleaps and near-misses. She has to bribe the brain with pleasure. So we find them funny. This wired-in source of pleasure has been tickled relentlessly by humorists over the centuries, and we have become addicted to the endogenous mind candy that is humor.

Ha!

Ha! PDF Author: Scott Weems
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465080804
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
An entertaining tour of the science of humor and laughter Humor, like pornography, is famously difficult to define. We know it when we see it, but is there a way to figure out what we really find funny -- and why? In this fascinating investigation into the science of humor and laughter, cognitive neuroscientist Scott Weems uncovers what's happening in our heads when we giggle, guffaw, or double over with laughter. While we typically think of humor in terms of jokes or comic timing, in Ha! Weems proposes a provocative new model. Humor arises from inner conflict in the brain, he argues, and is part of a larger desire to comprehend a complex world. Showing that the delight that comes with "getting" a punchline is closely related to the joy that accompanies the insight to solve a difficult problem, Weems explores why surprise is such an important element in humor, why computers are terrible at recognizing what's funny, and why it takes so long for a tragedy to become acceptable comedic fodder. From the role of insult jokes to the benefit of laughing for our immune system, Ha! reveals why humor is so idiosyncratic, and why how-to books alone will never help us become funnier people. Packed with the latest research, illuminating anecdotes, and even a few jokes, Ha! lifts the curtain on this most human of qualities. From the origins of humor in our brains to its life on the standup comedy circuit, this book offers a delightful tour of why humor is so important to our daily lives.

Only Joking

Only Joking PDF Author: Jimmy Carr
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440627207
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Get Book Here

Book Description
Britain’s hottest young comedian presents a seriously funny, up-close look at joking matters—from the social origins of laughter, to the art and craft of humor, to why we can never remember the punch line—featuring over 300 jokes. As the host of the hit game show Distraction (now in its third season on Comedy Central) and one of the premier stand-up acts working today, award-winning comedian Jimmy Carr has won over millions of fans around the world with his trademark rapier wit, laced with "exquisitely economical and perfectly timed one-liners" (The Guardian). For this book he teams up with friend and fellow comedy writer Lucy Greeves to take an in-depth look at where humor comes from and how it works, through exploring its purest form: the joke. Only Joking begins with the mechanism of laughter—how it happens and why even infants do it—then delves into the power of the punch line, exploring the basics of all jokes, from the use of shock and surprise to advanced stand-up techniques such as the "pull-back/reveal." Carr and Greeves go on to explore taboo humor, jokes that bomb, and the psychology of finding something funny. They look into the long-standing connection between politics and humor, and discuss the survival prospects for contentious jokes in the current political climate. Throughout the book they conjure up a supporting cast of colorful joke enthusiasts, from Sigmund Freud to Lenny Bruce, and discuss their influence on the jokes we tell today. Surveying across national, ethnic, and gender divides, this rollicking analysis of why joking will always be close to the human heart is an irresistible exploration of humor that makes clear why we need a good laugh now more than ever.

The Humor Code

The Humor Code PDF Author: Peter McGraw
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451665423
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
Part road-trip comedy and part social science experiment, a scientist and a journalist travel the globe to discover the secret behind what makes things funny, questioning countless experts, including Louis C.K., along the way.

Humor That Works

Humor That Works PDF Author: Andrew Tarvin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780984889761
Category : Corporate culture
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
The author presents a collection of ways to reap the proven human and corporate benefits of humor at work, organized by core business skill and founded on his own work as a business speaker and coach with the consulting company, Humor That Works.

Humour

Humour PDF Author: Terry Eagleton
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300244789
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book Here

Book Description
A compelling guide to the fundamental place of humour and comedy within Western culture—by one of its greatest exponents Written by an acknowledged master of comedy, this study reflects on the nature of humour and the functions it serves. Why do we laugh? What are we to make of the sheer variety of laughter, from braying and cackling to sniggering and chortling? Is humour subversive, or can it defuse dissent? Can we define wit? Packed with illuminating ideas and a good many excellent jokes, the book critically examines various well-known theories of humour, including the idea that it springs from incongruity and the view that it reflects a mildly sadistic form of superiority to others. Drawing on a wide range of literary and philosophical sources, Terry Eagleton moves from Aristotle and Aquinas to Hobbes, Freud, and Bakhtin, looking in particular at the psychoanalytical mechanisms underlying humour and its social and political evolution over the centuries.

The Importance of Being Funny

The Importance of Being Funny PDF Author: Al Gini
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442281774
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Get Book Here

Book Description
When E. B. White said “analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog; few people are interested and the frog dies,” he hadn’t seen Al Gini’s hilarious, incisive, and informative take on jokes, joke-telling, and the jokers who tell jokes. For Gini, humor is more than just foolish fun: it serves as a safety valve for dealing with reality that gives us the courage to endure that which we cannot understand or avoid. Not everyone tells jokes. Not everyone gets a joke, even a good one. But, Gini argues, joke-telling can act as both a sword and a shield to defend us from reality. As the late, great stand-up comic Joan Rivers put it: ‘If you can laugh at it, you can live with it!’ This book is for anyone who enjoys a good laugh, but also wants to know why.

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character

Author: Richard P. Feynman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393355683
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 429

Get Book Here

Book Description
One of the most famous science books of our time, the phenomenal national bestseller that "buzzes with energy, anecdote and life. It almost makes you want to become a physicist" (Science Digest). Richard P. Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. In this lively work that “can shatter the stereotype of the stuffy scientist” (Detroit Free Press), Feynman recounts his experiences trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets—and much more of an eyebrow-raising nature. In his stories, Feynman’s life shines through in all its eccentric glory—a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah. Included for this edition is a new introduction by Bill Gates.