Comedy Books Archives - Page 9 of 22 - Ben Rosenfeld

June 5, 2014

“The Humor Code” Quotes

I recently read “The Humor Code: A Global Search For What Makes Things Funny” by Peter McGraw and Joel Warner. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“Two University of Tennessee professors had 44 undergraduates listen to a variety of Bill Cosby and Phyllis Diller routines. Before each punch line, the researchers stopped the tape and asked the students to predict what came next. Then another group of students was asked to rate the funniness of each of the comedians’ jokes. Comparing the results, the professors found that the predictable punch lines were rated considerably funnier than those that were unexpected. The level of incongruity of each punch line was inversely related to the funniness of the joke.” (7)

“As Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves put it, ‘In a room filled with people, the comedian is the only one facing the wrong way. He’s also the only one who isn’t laughing. For normal people, that’s a nightmare, not a career aspiration.’” (36)

“It’s not about whether or not you’re funny, it’s how you’re funny: how you learn the ins and outs of the business, how you develop your comic perspective, how you mix honesty and humor, how you deal with bad venues, and how you handle your shot at fame. And the only way to learn is through hard, repetitive, empirical work.” (40)

“In a MIT study on idea generation, improvisational comedians asked to brainstorm new products generated, on average 20 percent more ideas than professional product designers, and the improv comic’s ideas were rated 25 percent more creative than those of the pros.” (50)

“This recipe for humor production seems so simple: acquire a lot of information, then combine it in unusual ways.” (50)

“It’s not about following rules. It’s about breaking them – shifting perspectives, exploring the absurd, and probing the outer limits of what’s acceptable.” (51)

“Named the ‘Jon Stewart Effect’ after the allegation that while political-satire shows like The Daily Show might get people to pay attention to unpleasant news, the comedy involved could make them less likely to right the wrongs that they’re learning about.” (54)

“The goal of these gargantuan operations (mass-market attempts at humor)? Maximize the number of people chuckling and minimize those offended. In the television development world, there’s a term for this practice: “Least Objectionable Programming.” The results don’t usually equal hilarity, but then, that’s not the point. It’s to move movie tickets and score high Nielsen ratings.” (58)

“Hanson and his colleagues looked at 9/11 this way. ‘To me, it’s not about timing; it’s about validity,’ Hanson tells us. ‘If what you are saying is honest and legitimate and has a valid point, it’s going to be valid the day after, and it’s goign to be valid 500 years later.’” (61)

“Most things in the world aren’t funny. So if you aim to be hilarious… the best thing to do is to come up with as many jokes as possible, then come up with more.” (64)

“In medieval England, cracks about the dunces who lived in the village of Gotham were all the rage. (New York’s nickname, ‘Gotham,’ doesn’t sound so impressive once you learn that author Washington Irving coined it to suggest the place was a city of fools.)” (98)

“It’s possible that joking among the discontented masses might act as a safety valve, allowing folks to let off steam and view their plight in a less threatening manner instead of rising up in rebellion.” (167)

“According to Popovic… humor added three key elements to the movement. First, it allowed the protesters to break through the “fear barrier” that kept much of the population immobilized. It’s harder to be afraid of someone once you’ve laughed at him. Second, the young, laughing activists wearing hip Otpor! T-shirts and engaging in goofy street theater made protests seems cool and fun… Finally, humor was integral to Otpor!’s signature “dilemma actions” – protests designed so that however Milosevic responded, he looked stupid.” (168)

“Patch says, ‘The jester is the only person in the king’s court who can call the king an asshole.’ It’s true. Clowns, like comedians, are outsiders and rebels. All over the world and through most of civilization, clowns, jesters, tricksters, and picaros have stood apart from the crowd, with full license to break all the rules. They can spit in the face of conformity. They can say what no one else dares to say.” (187)

“Jordy Ellner, director of talent and digital at Comedy Central, took all his years working with comics and distilled what he’d learned into a single word: ‘Smile.’” (201)

Liked the quotes? Click here to buy the book.

May 15, 2014May 28, 2014

Announcing My New Book Project: Russian Optimism

I’m excited to announce my new illustrated humor book project:

Russian Optimism is an illustrated coffee table book of thirty of Russia’s most horrifically hysterical nursery rhymes translated for the first time for an English speaking audience.

Go To The Kickstarter Page

Each rhyme is 2-4 lines, with an innocent title and a horrible ending. Each rhyme is accompanied by a brightly colored yet twisted illustration of the scenario described to add humor.

Intro video:

Some sample images:

Click here for more info and to fund it

May 10, 2014

“On The Technique Of Acting” Quotes

I recently read “On The Technique Of Acting: The First Complete Edition of Chekhov’s classic To the Actor” by Michael Chekhov. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“When criticized that his notion of Kobe was not what the playwright intended, Chekhov replied that he went beyond the playwright and the play to find Kobe’s true character.” (xii)

“The idea that an actor can “go beyond the playwright or the play” is the first key to understanding the Chekhov Technique and how it differed from Stanislavsky’s early teachings.” (xii)

“Chekhov’s performance was based not on recapturing the experience but on a feverish anticipation of the event.” (xiii)

“Chekhov’s Technique dealt primarily with images, especially visceral ones, that short-circuited complicated and secondary mental processes. Instead of telling the actor “to relax,” Chekhov asked him “to walk [or sit or stand] with a Feeling of Ease.”” (xvii)

“We soon find that we have only to consciously illuminate two or three light bulbs before a chain reaction begins and several more light up without our ever having to give them special attention. When a sufficient number of these light bulbs are shining brightly, we find that inspiration strikes with much greater frequency than before.” (xxxvii)

“This longing for knowledge makes the real artist brave. He never adheres to the first image that appears to him, because he knows that this is not necessarily the richest and more correct. He sacrifices one images for another more intense and expressive, and he does this repeatedly until new and unknown visions strike him with their revealing spell.” (6)

“When one hears an artist say, “I have built my art upon my convictions.” Would it not be better for an artist to say that he has built his convictions upon his art? But this is only true of the artist who is really gifted. Haven’t we noticed that the less talented the person is, the earlier he forms his “convictions” and the longer he tenaciously clings to them?” (6)

“The real beauty of our art, if based on the activity of the Creative Individuality, is constant improvisation.” (19)

“People often want to experience something other than that which they need to experience.” (21)

“The audience became for Vakhtangov the transmitter of public opinion. He listened to it and kept pace with his time, but was never subservient to it.” (22)

“Do the Psychological Gesture and the acting alternately, until it becomes evident to you that behind each internal state or movement in acting is hidden a simple and expressive Psychological Gesture that is the essence of the acting.” (65)

“The nonactor reads the play absolutely objectively. The events, happenings, and characters in the play do not stir his own inner life. He understands the plot and follows it as an observer, and outsider. The actor reads the play subjectively. He reads through the play and by doing so he inevitably enjoys his own reaction to the happenings of the play, his own Will, Feelings, and Images. The play and the plot are only a pretext for him to display, to experience the richness of his own talent, his own desire to act. The nonactor reads the liens while the actor reads between the lines, sees beyond the characters and events of the play.” (71)

“Choose two simple contrasting psychological moments. For instance, one of them can be the word “yes,” pronounced with wrath and power. The other can be the word “no,” spoken softly and full of pleading. Pronounce this “yes,” and then continue to act without any previously thought-out theme, knowing only that your final aim will be the pleading “no.” Allow your soul to make a free and unbroken Transition from one pole to the other.” (73)

“All the lines, all the situations in the play are silent for the actor until he finds himself behind them, not as a reader with good artistic taste, but as a n actor whose responsible task is to translate the author’s language into the actor’s.” (77)

“As soon as the actor becomes aware that the Psychological Gesture is an incessant movement and never a static position, he will realize that its activity is inclined to grow and its Qualities to become stronger and more expressive.” (81)

“Each character on the stage has one main desire, and one characteristic manner of fulfilling this desire. Whatever variations the character may show during the play in pursuing his main desire, he nevertheless always remains the same character. We know that the desire of the character is his Will (“what”), and his manner of fulfilling it is its Quality (“how”). Since the Psychological Gesture is composted of the Will, permeated with the Qualities, it can easily embrace and express the complete psychology of the character.” (90)

“The actor should never worry about his talent, but rather about his lack of technique, his lack of training, and his lack of understanding of the creative process. The talent will flourish immediately of itself as soon as the actor chisels away all the extraneous matter that hides his abilities – even from himself.” (155)

“Chekhov would then being to ask questions; the first was always “Is this predominantly a ‘Thinking’ character, a “feeling’ character, or a ‘Will’ character?'” (160)

“When acting, it is quite valuable to know whether you are working with a character who has strong Will forces and relatively little intellectual power or one who has a strong Feeling life but little ability to take hold of his Will forces.” (160)

“Chekhov would further inquire, “What kind of Thinking does your character have?” Thinking can be cold and hard, like a little black rubber ball, or quick and brilliant, traveling in flashes. It can be fuzzy, light, slow and ponderous, sharp, jagged, penetrating – the types and qualities of Thinking are almost unlimited.” (161)

“The same holds true for Feelings. “What kind of Feeling does your character possess?” The character can have a Feeling life that is intense and passionate, lukewarm and lugubrious, or basically bitter like a lemon. The character can have predominantly heavy Feelings that drag it down, or light sun-filled Feelings that easily radiate to all other characters. The variety is endless.” (161)

“Mischa was also very insistent about our knowing at every moment what our characters wanted. He often said, “Art is not like life. Art cannot be like life, because in life most people do not know what they want. But the actor must always know what the character wants. The character must always have clear-cut Objectives!”” (161)

He said, “For the actor, it is not enough ti simply have an Objective – nor even to feel a tepid desire for something. You must visualize the Objective as constantly being fulfilled. For example, if your Objective is ‘I want to escape from this room,’ then you must see yourself escaping, perhaps in many different ways – through the door, through the window, etc. It is the vision of the Objective being fulfilled that creates the impulse for a strong desire. This is what will bring your role to life.”” (162)

“Chekhov consistently encouraged me to discover the differences between the character’s personality and my own. “it is the differences which the actor must portray, that is what makes the performance artistic and interesting,” he said. “The similarities will be there by themselves!”” (162)

“Don’t try to mentally justify it. Just do it.” (163)

SHORTCUTS FOR PREPARATION AT HOME (167-168)

Read the script silently as many times as possible

Describe the plot of the script to a friend

“Baptize” the emotional sections

Make a list of your character’s physical activities

SHORTCUTS FOR PREPARATION ON THE SET (169-170)

Make friends with the set

Make friends with the camera

Make friends with the audience

“Read the script silently as many times as possible.

Resist the temptation to say your lines aloud for as long as you can. Do not try to analyze or even consciously think about the script or the part. This allows your creative unconscious the greatest possible freedom in bringing forth a truly original interpretation of the role.” (167)

““Baptize” the emotional sections.

This means to find successive sections in your script and name each one according ot its principal emotion, feeling, or sensations, so that from the emotional point of view each section will differ form the next ones.” (167)

“Make a list of your character’s physical activities.

Include those that are given in the script and those that you may wish to invent for this part.” (168)

“Chekhov believed that it was important for actors to be aware of how much they really need and love their audiences. He said that when actors are not conscious of this love, or are ashamed of it, they are in danger of becoming jaded and patronizing toward the audience.” (170)

Liked the quotes? Buy the book.

April 22, 2014

“Show Your Work” Quotes

I recently read “Show Your Work! 10 Ways To Share Your Creativity And Get Discovered” by Austin Kleon. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, please buy the full book here.

“The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others.” (19)

“Artists love to trot out the tired line, “My work speaks for itself,” but the truth is, our work doesn’t speak for itself. Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work effects how they value it.” (93)

“Author John Gardner said the basic plot of nearly all stories is this: “A character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.” I like Gardner’s plot formula because it’s also the shape of most creative work: You get a great idea, you go through the hard work of executing the idea, and then you release the idea out into the world, coming to a win, lose, or draw. Sometimes the idea succeeds, sometimes it fails, and more often than not, it does nothing at all.” (99)

“Every client presentation, every personal essay, every cover letter, every fund-raising request – they’re all pitches. They’re stories with the endings chopped off. A good pitch is set up in three acts: The first act is the past, the second act is the present, and the third is the future. The first act is where you’ve been – what you want, how you came to want it, and what you’ve done so far to get it. The second act is where you are now in your work and how you’ve worked hard and used up most of your resources. The third act is where you’re going, and how exactly the person you’re pitching can help you get there. Like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, this story shape effectively turns your listener into the hero who gets to decide how it ends.” (101)

“George Orwell wrote: “Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.”” (108)

“In their book, Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson encourage businesses to emulate chefs by outteaching their competition. “What do you do? What are your ‘recipes’? What’s your ‘cookbook’? What can you tell the world about how you operate that’s informative, educational, and promotional?” They encourage businesses to figure out the equivalent of their own cooking show.” (117)

“Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it. When you teach someone how to do your work, you are, in effect, generating more interest in your work.” (119)

“This story shows what happens when a musician interacts with his fans on the level of a fan himself.” (127)

“Steve Albini says, “being good at things is the only thing that earns you clout or connections.” (131)

“Once a good knuckleball is thrown, it’s equally unpredictable to the batter, the catcher, and the pitcher who threw it. (Sounds a lot like the creative process, huh?) (139)

“Colin Marshall says: “If you spend your life avoiding vulnerability, you and your work will never truly connect with other people.”” (152)

“You have to remember that your work is something you do, not who you are. This is especially hard for artists to accept, as so much of what they do is personal.” (152)

“Comments outnumber ideas.” (156)

“Cartoonist Natalie Dee says: “There’s never a space under paintings in a gallery where someone writes their opinion.” (157)

“Artist Ben Shan says: “An amateur is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.” (161)

“Walt Disney: “We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.”” (172)

“Try new things. If an opportunity comes along that will allow you to do more of the kind of work you want to do, say Yes. If an opportunity comes along that would mean more money, but less of the kind of work you want o do, say No.” (174)

“The people who get what they’re after are very often the ones who just stick around long enough.” (183)

“Isak Dinesen wrote, “You can’t count on success; you can only leave open the possibility for it, and be ready to jump on and take the ride when it comes for you.”” (185)

“A successful or failed project is no guarantee of another success or failure. Whether you’ve just won big or lost big, you still have to face the question “What’s next?”” (187)

“You can’t be content with mastery; you have to push yourself to become a student again.” (197)

“Alain de Botton wrote, “Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.”” (197)

“First, be useful. Then necessary.” (206)

Liked the quotes? Click here to buy the book.

March 27, 2014March 26, 2014

“Art & Fear” Quotes

I recently read Art & Fear: Observations On The Perils (And Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please click here to buy the book.

“Art is rarely made by Mozart-like people – essentially (statistically speaking) there aren’t any people like that.” (i)

“It’s easy to imagine that artists doubted their calling less when working in the service of God than when working in the service of self.” (2)

“We’ll side with Conrad’s view of fatalism: namely, that it is a species of fear – the fear that your fate is in your own hands, but that your hands are weak.” (3)

“Becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive.” (3)

“Even talent is rarely distinguishable, over the long run, from perseverance and lots of hard work.” (3)

“It suggests that our flaws and weaknesses, while often obstacles to our getting work done, are a source of strength as well.” (4)

“The viewers’ concerns are not your concerns (although it’s dangerously easy to adopt their attitudes). Their job is whatever it is: to be moved by art, to be entertained by it, to make a killing off it, whatever. Your job is to learn to work on your work.” (5)

“Virtually all artists spend some of their time (and some artists spend virtually all of their time) producing work that no one else much cares about.” (5)

“There’s generally no good reason why others should care about most of any one artist’s work. The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars.” (5)

“One of the basic and difficult lessons every artists must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential.” (6)

“Until your ship comes in, the only people who will really care about your work are those who care about you personally. Those close to you know that making the work is essential to your well being.” (6)

“”Artists don’t get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working.” – Stephen DeStaebler” (9)

“Basically, those who continue to make art are those who have learned how to continue – or more precisely, have learned how to not quit.” (9)

“Operating manual for not quitting:
A. Make friends with others who make art, and share your in-progress work with each other frequently
B. Learn to think of [A], rather than the Museum of Modern Art, as the destination of your work. (Look at it this way: If all goes well, MOMA will eventually come to you.)” (12)

“Fears arise when you look back, and they arise when you look ahead.” (14)

“Lesson for the day: vision is always ahead of execution – and it should be.” (15)

“The artwork’s potential is never higher than in that magic moment when the first brushstroke is applied, the first chord struck. But as the piece grows, technique and craft take over, and imagination becomes a less useful tool. A piece grows by becoming a specific.” (15)

“Joan Didion said, “What’s so hard about that first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everythign else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.” (16)

“Art is like beginning a sentence before you know its ending.” (20)

“Tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.” (21)

“Fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your own work.” (23)

“But while you may feel you’re just pretending that you’re an artist, there’s no way to pretend you’re making art.” (26)

“Talent may get someone off the starting blocks faster, but without a sense of direction or a goal to strive for, it won’t count for much.” (27)

“The world is filled with people who were given great natural gifts, sometimes conspicuously flashy gifts, yet never produce anything. And when that happens, the world soon ceases to care whether they are talented.” (27)

“Whatever they have is something needed to do their work – it wouldn’t help you in your work even if you had it. Their magic is theirs. You don’t lack it. You don’t need it. It has nothing to do with you.” (34)

“At any given moment the older work is always more attractive, always better understood.” (39)

“Simply courting approval, even that of peers, puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the audience. Worse yet, the audience is seldom in a position to grant (or withhold) approval on the one issue that really counts – namely, whether or not you’re making progress in your work. They’re in a good position to comment on how they’re moved (or challenged or entertained) by the finished product, but have little knowledge or interest in your process. Audience comes later. The only pure communication is between you and your work.” (47)

“Naive passion, which promotes work done in ignorance of obstacles, becomes – with courage – informed passion, which promotes work done in full acceptance of those obstacles.” (50)

“Your reach as a viewer is vastly greater than your reach as a maker. The art you can experience may have originated a thousand miles away or a thousand years ago, but the art you can make is irrevocably bound to the times and places of your life.” (52)

“Working within the self-imposed discipline of a particular form eases the prospect of having ot reinvent yourself with each new piece.” (60)

“Fear that you’re not getting your fair share of recognition leads to anger and bitterness. Fear that you’re not as good as a fellow artist leads to depression.” (72)

“The dilemma facing academia is that it must accommodate not only students who are striving to become artists, but also teachers who are struggling to remain artists.” (80)

“An artist who teaches will eventually dwindle away to something much less: a teacher who formerly made art.” (82)

“Most people stop making art when they stop being students.” (85)

“The security of a monthly paycheck mixes poorly with the risk-taking of artistic inquiry.” (88)

“What we really gain from the artmaking of others is courage-by-association. “ (90)

“Writer Henry James once propose three questions you could productively put to an artist’s work: The first two were disarmingly straightforward: What was the artist trying to achieve? Did he/she succeed? The third’s a zinger: Was it worth doing?” (93)

“We do not long remember those artists who followed the rules more diligently than anyone else. We remember those who made the art from which the “rules” inevitably follow.” (95)

“Art made primarily to display technical virtuosity is often beautiful, striking, elegant… and vacant.” (96)

“Compared to other challenges, the ultimate shortcoming of technical problems is not that they’re hard, but that they’re easy.” (96)

“The net result is that the art is less polished – but more innovative – than craft.” (98)

“One real difference between art and craft: with craft, perfection is possible.” (98)

“New work is supposed to replace old work. If it does so by making the old work inadequate, insufficient and incomplete – well, that’s life.” (99)

“Old work tells you what you were paying attention to then; new work comments on the old by point out what you were not previously paying attention to.” (100)

“Most early work, in fact, only hints at the themes and gestures that will – if the potential isn’t squandered – emerge as the artist’s characteristic signature in later, mature work.” (102)

“Style is the natural consequence of habit.” (103)

“Science advances at the rate that technology provides tools of greater precision, while art advances at the pace that evolution provides minds with greater insight – a pace that is, for better or worse, glacially slow.” (104)

“Art is something you do out in the world, or something you do about the world, or even something you do for the world.” (108)

“Viewed over a span of years, changes in one’s art often reveal a curious pattern, swinging irregularly between long periods of quiet refinement, and occasional leaps of runaway change.” (110)

“Over the long run, the people with the interesting answers are those who ask the interesting questions.” (113)

“The only work really worth doing – the only work you can do convincingly – is the work that focuses on the things you care about.” (116)

“Art is hard because you have to keep after it so consistently.” (118)

If you liked the quotes above, click here to buy the full book.