A catechetical question for the prophet of comedism: I've never gotten humor--just don't find most of it funny, as it were--so every week when I read your Saturday post, I scratch my head in puzzlement. But the kind of humor that I find absolutely least funny is slapstick, as well as the cornball humor of TV's "golden years" funny men like Sales, Berle, Kovacks, etc. This is the kind of humor, judging from your posts, that you find side-splitting. So, here's a (totally serious) question for you on the comedist holy day: why?
I hope you didn't stop the provost from offering you more money to stay at GC. Or is that how you got the chair?
YKW,
Actually, the Provost encouraged me to take the offer...whatever it was...
Ruth,
My personal taste in comedy runs the gamut, but I truly love the art-form itself, the craft and for that I have a thing for history, seeing how comedy developed, how different trends played themselves out at different times and how the artists of different periods left their marks.
I suppose if you want to see the sort of comedy I like, check out the comedy I write:
http://philosophersplayground.bl...heckys-
day.html
SteveG, thanks for the clip of your routine. But I guess what I'm asking is not a demonstration of humor so much as an explanation of why you think humor is humorous. (I hope that doesn't sound vapid on my part.) That is, I'm curious about your philosophical take on things that are funny, not your personal, temperamental reasons for being drawn to comedies rather than action movies. What does it mean "to be funny"? (Surely the answer isn't just functional.) Why is something funny if it is? (I've never, for example, found the standard explanations for jokes--unexpected punchlines, reversal of situations and roles, etc--very compelling, since they can apply to so many other forms of discourse than jokes.)
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