[lit-ideas] Re: Censorship
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 16:35:27 -0230
Quoting Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
>Which
> leads me to wonder: is there a kind of humour that is not physical yet
> still requires a physical presence? My humour tends to be very dry and
> doesn't always work.
Definitely. Jack Benny. It's all in the timing, the gestures, the look away from
his interlocutor at the audience or off-stage, cheek cupped with his hand. To
succeed as a university teacher of philosophy, study Borscht Belt stand-up
comedy, beginning with H. Youngman, through J. Mason and Red Buttons and Victor
Borge up to its contemporary manifestation in Seinfeld. Your students may hate
your required course, but they can't hate you if they can't help splitting
their sides laughing at your routines. And if they don't hate you, and the
erotic potential is undisturbed (in the Socratic sense of course) they might
even be amenable to your nudging them in the direction of Plato, Kant and
Rawls. (On this point, both Rorty and Bloom agree.) Still loving it after all
these years ...
Walter Okshevsky
Aristotle Professor of Comedic Rhetoric and Sub-lunar Metaphysics
Larry David School of Comedy and Phronesis for University Professors
Lincoln Mall
MIami Beach, FL
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