Product Description: With contributions by leading scholars, writers and comedians in the USA, the UK and Canada, THE LAUGHING STALK: LIVE COMEDY AND ITS AUDIENCES focuses on the dynamics of audience behavior. Performers, writers, historians, producers, and theorists explore the practice and reception of live comedy performance, including cultural and historical variations in comedy audience conduct, the reception of "low" versus "high" comedy, and the differences between televised and live jokes...read more

Product Description: A true-life travel tale of fate, coincidence, drugs, stand-up comedy, mushrooms, hookers, aliens, Vegas, and massive debauchery, from an award-winning comedian This is the true story of four men—Brendon Burns and his friends Barry Castagnola (the everyman), Paul Provenza (an Italian New Yorker, devout atheist, actor, and movie director), and Keith (Barry's dad and best friend)—and their search for happiness and redemption in the heart of the Nevada desert...read more

Product Description: From the producer of the enormously popular Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie, Thou Shalt Laugh is the hit standup comedy series audio book that's cleaning up comedy one BLEEP at a time! Thou Shalt Laugh started with a simple premise...read more

Product Description: Anyone can do improvisational comedy -- all you need is a sense of humor and a touch of fearlessness. The Immediate Gratification Players have been improvising at Harvard University since 1986, and in this book, they show you how to do it, too...read more

Product Description: Edgar Arceneaux: The Alchemy of Comedy . . . Stupid documents a multi-channel installation by contemporary video artist Edgar Arceneaux. Centered on video footage of popular comedian David Alan Grier, the artwork examines the nuances and structures of comedy routines, jokes, and humor itself...read more

Product Description: A rhetorical analysis of female stand-up comics that explores the relationships among humor, gender, and power in contemporary culture.

Presents interviews with such comedians as Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Belzer, Ellen DeGeneres, Richard Lewis, and Roseanne, and includes tips about careers in stand-up comedy. (view table of contents)

Product Description: This comprehensive improv manual shows the who, what, when, why, and how of comedy improvisation. It is a complete improv curriculum divided into four sections. The introduction explains what improv is and how to create an improv team...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

A how-to handbook for aspiring stand-up comics and comedy writers offers an insider's perspective on how to make a living through comedy, providing step-by-step instructions on everything from writing a screenplay and greeting card one-liners to gag writing, film, advertising, stand up, theater, and sitcoms. Original. 25,000 first printing.

Product Description: On both sides of the stage improv-comedy's popularity has increased exponentially throughout the 1980s and '90s and into the new millennium. Presto! An original song is created out of thin air. With nothing but a suggestion from the audience, daring young improvisers working without a net or a script create hilarious characters, sketches, and songs...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: This guide examines the power of comedy and explains how to be a writer of this genre. Writing for radio, stage, TV, jokes, sitcom, stand-up, cartoons and children are dealt with. Each stage of the process is covered, from creating ideas and learning the craft, to marketing the material...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

This is an advanced engineering textbook dealing with rotor-bearing systems in the context of whole installation. Acknowledged as one of the most important classes of machinery, its uses are as diverse as aircraft engines, automobiles, military equipment and space satellites. It is because of the wide range of applications of rotating machinary, particularly in situations where its reliable operation is paramount, that rotor dynamics has evolved as a subject area worthy of study in its own right. Before the 20th century, rotating shafts and bearings were not considered to interact with one another; some interest was shown in rotor balance, and bearings were important because they could reduce power loss, but they were rarely considered to interact in any system-like manner. In the early years of the 20th century, however, machine design developed to a stage where a plant was required to operate at particularly high speed. The importance of shaft flexibility was then realized, and the influence of the bearings and foundations on the dynamic behaviour of the system was better understood. The relationship between rotating components and bearings is so close that most machine operators use vibration data collected at the bearings to confer information about the condition of the machine in general, and in many cases bearing-pedestal vibration characteristics form an important feature of machine acceptance criteria. It is within this context that this book has been written, one of the aims being to clarify the dependance of both rotor and bearing dynamic characteristics upon each other. The aim of this book is not only to review the general principles of operation of rotating machinery, which would satisfy the requirements of undergraduate mechanical engineers, but mainly to guide the graduate who continues to work with rotating machines to gain a deeper understanding of the subject. This book would also be of use as a specialist reference text for personnel employed in industry. (view table of contents)

Furnishes a comprehensive guide to improvisational techniques as used in stand-up comedy (view table of contents)

A hands-on guide to telling jokes, dealing with stage fright and other pitfalls of the trade, and choosing and creating a distinctive style are complimented by glimpses of some of the country's leading funny men and women