Download or read book Inside Jokes written by Matthew M. Hurley and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-02-08 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An evolutionary and cognitive account of the science behind why we crack up—“one of the most complex and sophisticated humor theories ever presented” (Evolutionary Psychology). 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.
Download or read book Zizek s Jokes written by Slavoj Zizek and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-02-23 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Žižek as comedian: jokes in the service of philosophy. “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”—Ludwig Wittgenstein The good news is that this book offers an entertaining but enlightening compilation of Žižekisms. Unlike any other book by Slavoj Žižek, this compact arrangement of jokes culled from his writings provides an index to certain philosophical, political, and sexual themes that preoccupy him. Žižek's Jokes contains the set-ups and punch lines—as well as the offenses and insults—that Žižek is famous for, all in less than 200 pages. So what's the bad news? There is no bad news. There's just the inimitable Slavoj Žižek, disguised as an impossibly erudite, politically incorrect uncle, beginning a sentence, “There is an old Jewish joke, loved by Derrida...“ For Žižek, jokes are amusing stories that offer a shortcut to philosophical insight. He illustrates the logic of the Hegelian triad, for example, with three variations of the “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache” classic: first the wife claims a migraine; then the husband does; then the wife exclaims, “Darling, I have a terrible migraine, so let's have some sex to refresh me!” A punch line about a beer bottle provides a Lacanian lesson about one signifier. And a “truly obscene” version of the famous “aristocrats” joke has the family offering a short course in Hegelian thought rather than a display of unspeakables. Žižek's Jokes contains every joke cited, paraphrased, or narrated in Žižek's work in English (including some in unpublished manuscripts), including different versions of the same joke that make different points in different contexts. The larger point being that comedy is central to Žižek's seriousness.
Download or read book Accidentally Perfect written by Marissa Clarke and published by Entangled: Amara. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Workaholic Lillian Mahoney has given everything to her job. The hugely popular lifestyle show she helped create monopolizes her time, energy, creativity, and anything remotely resembling a life. But all it takes is the show’s womanizing, egomaniac star throwing a massive hissy on live TV to utterly implode Lillian’s career in a New York minute. Now Lillian’s hiding out in the gorgeous and completely unknown seaside village of Blink, Maine. Out of gas. A stolen wallet. A broken heel. And worse, she’s somehow managed to completely piss off the town’s resident hunk, Caleb Wright. She’ll show that hot, grumpy single father exactly what she’s made of. But Blink isn’t quite what Lillian expects—and neither is Caleb...or his feisty teen daughter she can't help but love. And while her entire life and career are in shreds, Lillian might just discover what happens when she gives her bad first impression a second chance...
Download or read book No Joke written by Ruth R. Wisse and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Humor is the most celebrated of all Jewish responses to modernity. In this book, Ruth Wisse evokes and applauds the genius of spontaneous Jewish joking--as well as the brilliance of comic masterworks by writers like Heinrich Heine, Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Babel, S. Y. Agnon, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Philip Roth. At the same time, Wisse draws attention to the precarious conditions that call Jewish humor into being--and the price it may exact from its practitioners and audience"--
Download or read book Jokes written by Ted Cohen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abe and his friend Sol are out for a walk together in a part of town they haven't been in before. Passing a Christian church, they notice a curious sign in front that says "$1,000 to anyone who will convert." "I wonder what that's about," says Abe. "I think I'll go in and have a look. I'll be back in a minute; just wait for me." Sol sits on the sidewalk bench and waits patiently for nearly half an hour. Finally, Abe reappears. "Well," asks Sol, "what are they up to? Who are they trying to convert? Why do they care? Did you get the $1,000?" Indignantly Abe replies, "Money. That's all you people care about." Ted Cohen thinks that's not a bad joke. But he also doesn't think it's an easy joke. For a listener or reader to laugh at Abe's conversion, a complicated set of conditions must be met. First, a listener has to recognize that Abe and Sol are Jewish names. Second, that listener has to be familiar with the widespread idea that Jews are more interested in money than anything else. And finally, the listener needs to know this information in advance of the joke, and without anyone telling him or her. Jokes, in short, are complicated transactions in which communities are forged, intimacy is offered, and otherwise offensive stereotypes and cliches lose their sting—at least sometimes. Jokes is a book of jokes and a book about them. Cohen loves a good laugh, but as a philosopher, he is also interested in how jokes work, why they work, and when they don't. The delight at the end of a joke is the result of a complex set of conditions and processes, and Cohen takes us through these conditions in a philosophical exploration of humor. He considers questions of audience, selection of joke topics, the ethnic character of jokes, and their morality, all with plenty of examples that will make you either chuckle or wince. Jokes: more humorous than other philosophy books, more philosophical than other humor books. "Befitting its subject, this study of jokes is . . . light, funny, and thought-provoking. . . . [T]he method fits the material, allowing the author to pepper the book with a diversity of jokes without flattening their humor as a steamroller theory might. Such a book is only as good as its jokes, and most of his are good. . . . [E]ntertainment and ideas in one gossamer package."—Kirkus Reviews "One of the many triumphs of Ted Cohen's Jokes-apart from the not incidental fact that the jokes are so good that he doesn't bother to compete with them-is that it never tries to sound more profound than the jokes it tells. . . . [H]e makes you feel he is doing an unusual kind of philosophy. As though he has managed to turn J. L. Austin into one of the Marx Brothers. . . . Reading Jokes makes you feel that being genial is the most profound thing we ever do-which is something jokes also make us feel-and that doing philosophy is as natural as being amused."—Adam Phillips, London Review of Books "[A] lucid and jargon-free study of the remarkable fact that we divert each other with stories meant to make us laugh. . . . An illuminating study, replete with killer jokes."—Kevin McCardle, The Herald (Glasgow) "Cohen is an ardent joke-maker, keen to offer us a glimpse of how jokes are crafted and to have us dwell rather longer on their effects."—Barry C. Smith, Times Literary Supplement "Because Ted Cohen loves jokes, we come to appreciate them more, and perhaps think further about the quality of good humor and the appropriateness of laughter in our lives."—Steve Carlson, Christian Science Monitor
Download or read book The Everything Big Book of Jokes written by Evan C Thomas and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a collection of miscellaneous jokes, divided into such categories as marriage, politics, sports, health, animals, and everyday life.
Download or read book Truly Tasteless Jokes written by Blanche Knott and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 1985-05-12 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The original is back. TRULY TASTELESS JOKES took America by storm and made it laugh at itself. It's all in here, disgusting, repulsive, cruel, and just plain tasteless jokes and stories that will make you smile, laugh, or groan--and love every minute of it.
Download or read book Nonverbal Communication written by Ullica Segerstrale and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of nonverbal communication is a strategic site for demonstrating the inextricable interrelationship between nature and culture in human behaviour. This book, originally published in 1997, aims to explode the misconception that "biology" is something that automatically precludes or excludes "culture". Instead, it points to the necessary grounding of our social and cultural capabilities in biological givens and elucidates how biological factors are systematically co-opted for cultural purposes. The book presents a complex picture of human communicative ability as simultaneously biologically and socioculturally influenced, with some capacities apparently more biologically hard-wired than others: face recognition, imitation, emotional communication, and the capacity for language. It also suggests that the dividing line between nonverbal and linguistic communication is becoming much less clear-cut. The contributing authors are leading researchers in a variety of fields, writing here for a general audience. The book is divided into sections dealing with, respectively, human universals, evolutionary and developmental aspects of nonverbal behaviour within a sociocultural context, and finally, the multifaceted relationships between nonverbal communication and culture.
Download or read book Is This Anything written by Jerry Seinfeld and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book in twenty-five years from “one of our great comic minds” (The Washington Post) features Seinfeld’s best work across five decades in comedy. Since his first performance at the legendary New York nightclub “Catch a Rising Star” as a twenty-one-year-old college student in fall of 1975, Jerry Seinfeld has written his own material and saved everything. “Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation, or working it out on my preferred canvas, the big yellow legal pad, I kept it in one of those old school accordion folders,” Seinfeld writes. “So I have everything I thought was worth saving from forty-five years of hacking away at this for all I was worth.” For this book, Jerry Seinfeld has selected his favorite material, organized decade by decade. In this “trove of laugh-out-loud one-liners” (Associated Press), you will witness the evolution of one of the great comedians of our time and gain new insights into the thrilling but unforgiving art of writing stand-up comedy.
Download or read book Stop Me If You ve Heard This A History and Philosophy of Jokes written by Jim Holt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-07-17 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Finally I understand what it is I’ve been laughing at all these years.”—Jimmy Kimmel From the best-selling author of Why Does the World Exist? comes this outrageous, uproarious compendium of absurdity, filth, racy paradox, and gratuitous offensiveness—just the kind of mature philosophical reflection readers have come to expect from the ever-entertaining Jim Holt. Indeed, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This is the first book to trace the evolution of the joke all the way from the standup comics of ancient Athens to the comedy-club Seinfelds of today. After exploring humor’s history in Part One, Holt delves into philosophy in Part Two: Wall Street jokes; jokes about rednecks and atheists, bulimics and politicians; jokes you missed if you didn’t go to a Catholic girls’ school; jokes about logic and existence itself . . . all became fodder for the grand theories of Aristotle, Kant, Freud, and Wittgenstein in this heady mix of the high and low, of the ribald and profound, from America’s most beloved philosophical pundit.
Download or read book A Spell for Chameleon The Parallel Edition Simplified written by Piers Anthony and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Piers Anthony’s bestselling Xanth series is one of the cornerstones of fantasy, a lively and whimsical interpretation of a genre often criticized for taking itself too seriously. Anthony’s first Xanth novel, A Spell for Chameleon, was initially edited to target a more traditional audience. Now, in an eBook exclusive, A Spell for Chameleon has been reworked line by line—its language matching the simpler, playful way with words that made Piers Anthony an enduring fan favorite. Xanth is an enchanted land where magic rules, a land of centaurs and dragons and basilisks where every citizen has a unique spell to call their own. For Bink of North Village, however, Xanth is no fairy tale. He alone has no magic. And unless he gets some—and fast!—he will be exiled. Forever. But the Good Magician Humfrey is convinced that Bink does indeed have magic. In fact, both Beauregard the genie and the magic wall chart insist that Bink has magic as powerful as any possessed by the King, the Good Magician Humfrey, or even the Evil Magician Trent. Be that as it may, no one can fathom the nature of Bink’s very special magic. This is even worse than having no magic at all . . . and he still faces exile!
Download or read book Reel Gags written by Bill Givens and published by Renaissance Books. This book was released on 1998-09-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steven Spielberg in The Lost World, Back to the Future, and Raiders of the Lost Ark? The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Harrison Ford in E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial? Jaws, the killer shark and Star Wars' R2D2 riding on the outside of the spaceship in Close Encounters? These may seem like ridiculous impossibilities, but they all actually happened. Now film buffs can find out more about these and other jokes, sight gags, and director's tricks in Reel Gags. This unique source book for movie lovers goes behind the scenes to reveal on-screen secrets from everyone's favorite movies. You'll find the "in-jokes" which are hidden in dialogue, in character names, and in props and costumes. You'll see how directors slip in subtle references to their earlier works and pay tribute to (or toss bricks at) friends and co-workers. You'll learn actors' favorite on-screen quirks, and you'll have a guide to cameo appearances by famous directors in their own films, and much, much more from the author of the best-selling Film Flubs books.
Download or read book An Unofficial Joke Book for Fortniters Sidesplitting Jokes and Shenanigans from Salty Springs written by Brian Boone and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jump out of the Battle Bus and jump into more than eight hundred side-splitting jokes! Jump out of the Battle Bus and jump into more than eight hundred side-splitting jokes! Jokes for Fortniters is an all-new, laugh-out-loud book of jokes for you and your squad. From Battle Royale puns and wordplay to funny one-liners that will have you dancing, this hysterical book has the cleverest jokes about Fortnite and game play. Cackle your way to victory with the funniest, craziest, and silliest jokes you can fire off to everyone on the island! Inside you will find funny gags such as: What do a door and a new Fortnite player have in common? They both get “knocked” a lot. What happens after you drink too much Slurp Juice? You burp juice! What kind of pop should Fortniters never drink? Shield pop! Where do Fortniters sleep? In a nite fort! For kids ages eight and up, this is the perfect book for at home, at school, or any battle royale! You’ll enjoy telling these silly jokes to your friends and family. Get extra laughs from silly illustrations throughout!
Download or read book Knock Knock Jokes for Kids Laugh Out Loud Jokes for Kids written by Rob Elliott and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2013-06-15 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kids can't get enough of laughter--so they can't get enough of Rob Elliot's hilarious joke books! Knock-Knock Jokes for Kids is an all-new collection of knock-knock jokes that will have kids and kids-at-heart rolling in the aisles. Jokes like Knock knock. Who's there? Ben. Ben who? Ben away for a while but I'm back now With more than 2 million copies sold of his first book, Laugh-Out-Loud Jokes for Kids, it's clear that kids (and their adults) are looking for clean, lighthearted humor--and Rob Elliott delivers.
Download or read book The VERY Embarrassing Book of Dad Jokes written by Ian Allen and published by Portico. This book was released on 2013-08-08 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did the banana go to the doctors? Because he wasn't peeling very well! Proving the age-old maxim that ‘it’s in the way that you tell them’, Dads – for the best part of forever – have always been renowned for being truly god-awful joke tellers. Whether it’s telling them at the wrong moment, misremembering the punchline or it just simply being one of those jokes that were terrible to begin with, Dads are an embarrassment to the whole family when it comes to trying to tell jokes. The VERY Embarrassing Book of Dad Jokes is full to the brim with jokes that only your dear old Dad would dare say – jokes that will make you groan, sigh ... and then probably make you groan again. Dads take great pleasure in these kinds of jokes and some of them are so rubbish they actually blossom into proper rib-ticklers – but don’t tell your dad that, it’ll only encourage him!
Download or read book Jokes Every Man Should Know written by Don Steinberg and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2010-03-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pocket-sized gift book is packed with hilarious jokes every guy needs in his repertoire. This little black book has everything aspiring cut-ups, comedians, and reformed class clowns need to win at comedy. Covering everything from roasts and toasts to historical footnotes to alternate versions of beloved old chestnuts, this indispensable reference is great for any occasion. Plus tips on telling jokes and much, much more: • Nine Jokes about Heaven and Hell • Eight Jokes Just for Kids • Nineteen Jokes Definitely Not for Kids • Six Jokes about Lightbulbs • Seven Jokes about Bars • The World’s Only Funny Knock-Knock Joke
Download or read book How to Tell a Joke written by Marcus Tullius Cicero and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Everyone knows that Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the great statesmen, lawyers, and effective orators in the history of Rome. But did you also know he was regarded as one of the funniest people in Roman society as well? Five hundred years after his death, in the twilight of antiquity, the writer Macrobius ranks him alongside the comic playwright Plautus as the one of the two greatest wits ever. In this book, classicist Michael Fontaine, proposes to translate selections from Cicero's great rhetorical treatise, On the Ideal Orator (De Oratore). That larger work covered the whole of rhetoric and effective public speaking and debate. However, contained within it, is a long section focused on the effective use of humor in public speaking. In it, Cicero is concerned not just with various kinds of individual jokes, but with jokes that are advantageous in social situations. He advises readers on how to make the most effective use of wit to win friends, audiences, and achieve their overall ambitions. Cicero wants to teach his readers how to tell a joke without looking like a buffoon, and how to prevent or avoid jokes from backfiring. Hence, he does give scores of examples of jokes-some of which are timeless and translate easily, others that involve puns in Latin that challenged the translator's creativity. But overall, this work brings to the fore a little known, but important part of Cicero's classic work."--
