The Best Medicine: Humor [Class 3 - 9/19]
Wilson was already in the classroom as the students filed in today. He was sitting behind the desk with a cup of tea in his hands, sipping upon it and giving folks a gentle smile as they appeared. There was a plate of homemade fudge of various varieties sitting on the front of the desk with cold milk or coffee for the students to chase down the rich, gooey treats.
However, beside the gooey treats is also a small box labeled ‘Homework’ for the turning in of said same. Yes there would be a grade for having at least taken the test.
As soon as everyone was seated, he stood up and set his tea aside.
"Good afternoon. All right, we have a lot of material to cover today so I want to get right in to it. Today, we’re going to delve a bit deeper into what we talked about last week with the idea of Humor Types. In our jokes last week, we saw a wide variety of humor types, from pun to point specific as well as humor such as slapstick and physical based in the movie clips we saw. Now, to take a closer look at some of these types."
Lecture:
Picking up the remote he turned down the lights and pulled up the white screen to flash up overhead sheets.
Using sections from another source, he gave them a framework of what went on with the different types of humor and how they were both different and similar. Focus was given to four basic areas.
a) assessment stress: wit, pun, ambiguity, contradiction, circularity humor, conceit, connotation, free association, satire, insight humor, informal logical fallacies, ignorance or naiveté humor, irony, nonsense, etc.
b) bodily feeling stress: unexpected honesty, hopelessness humor, repartee, laughter, giggle, tickle, pleasure, delight, perceptual humor, caricature, deviation from likes or desires, deviation from the familiar, escape or release humor, defeated expectation, etc. Some of these bodily states are merely reports or descriptions of sensations. For there to be humor, appraisal must be involved. If affected by laughing gas one may laugh and have elevated bodily feelings, but this is a physiological state, not humor. Similarly, a state of well-being is not humor.
c) action stress: slapstick, caprice, frolic, tease, chuckle, giggle, titter, smile, grin, playful, accident humor, behavioral humor, defense mechanism humor, hypocrisy humor, mimic, etc.
d) situation stress: farce, ludicrous, situation comedy, context deviation, deviation from the usual or practical, grammar deviation, cosmic irony, satire, etc.
"Each type of humor may, then, be reduced to all of the specific statements, assessments and imagery involved; a description of the specific bodily feelings, actions, and situation."
Picking up a cup of tea, he turned to look at the class and gave them a gentle smile.
"Ever heard the following? Dying is easy, comedy is hard? Humor and comedy, having the right touch, the right timing, the right delivery for the right type of joke in the right situation can be harder than the most difficult bit of tragedy or drama. It takes a certain understanding of situation, personality and comedic need to tap into humor to carry well."
POP QUIZ:
Setting the teacup down, Wilson reached for another overhead film and set it up on the projector.
"All right, in class today I want each of you to take a look at this picture and come up with your own humorous caption for it. This is, in fact a pop quiz based on your homework and today’s lecture."
Homework:
As everyone was working on their pop quiz, Wilson wrote up on the blackboard
Read the last of chapter 2, chapter 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 3.7 and 4.2 in your text book and be ready to discuss next week.
[ooc: For the sake of your eyes, “Read the last of chapter 2, chapter 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 3.7 and 4.2 in your text book and be ready to discuss next week.]
[ooc: Please wait for the OCD threads up and ready!]
However, beside the gooey treats is also a small box labeled ‘Homework’ for the turning in of said same. Yes there would be a grade for having at least taken the test.
As soon as everyone was seated, he stood up and set his tea aside.
"Good afternoon. All right, we have a lot of material to cover today so I want to get right in to it. Today, we’re going to delve a bit deeper into what we talked about last week with the idea of Humor Types. In our jokes last week, we saw a wide variety of humor types, from pun to point specific as well as humor such as slapstick and physical based in the movie clips we saw. Now, to take a closer look at some of these types."
Lecture:
Picking up the remote he turned down the lights and pulled up the white screen to flash up overhead sheets.
Using sections from another source, he gave them a framework of what went on with the different types of humor and how they were both different and similar. Focus was given to four basic areas.
a) assessment stress: wit, pun, ambiguity, contradiction, circularity humor, conceit, connotation, free association, satire, insight humor, informal logical fallacies, ignorance or naiveté humor, irony, nonsense, etc.
b) bodily feeling stress: unexpected honesty, hopelessness humor, repartee, laughter, giggle, tickle, pleasure, delight, perceptual humor, caricature, deviation from likes or desires, deviation from the familiar, escape or release humor, defeated expectation, etc. Some of these bodily states are merely reports or descriptions of sensations. For there to be humor, appraisal must be involved. If affected by laughing gas one may laugh and have elevated bodily feelings, but this is a physiological state, not humor. Similarly, a state of well-being is not humor.
c) action stress: slapstick, caprice, frolic, tease, chuckle, giggle, titter, smile, grin, playful, accident humor, behavioral humor, defense mechanism humor, hypocrisy humor, mimic, etc.
d) situation stress: farce, ludicrous, situation comedy, context deviation, deviation from the usual or practical, grammar deviation, cosmic irony, satire, etc.
"Each type of humor may, then, be reduced to all of the specific statements, assessments and imagery involved; a description of the specific bodily feelings, actions, and situation."
Picking up a cup of tea, he turned to look at the class and gave them a gentle smile.
"Ever heard the following? Dying is easy, comedy is hard? Humor and comedy, having the right touch, the right timing, the right delivery for the right type of joke in the right situation can be harder than the most difficult bit of tragedy or drama. It takes a certain understanding of situation, personality and comedic need to tap into humor to carry well."
POP QUIZ:
Setting the teacup down, Wilson reached for another overhead film and set it up on the projector.
"All right, in class today I want each of you to take a look at this picture and come up with your own humorous caption for it. This is, in fact a pop quiz based on your homework and today’s lecture."
Homework:
As everyone was working on their pop quiz, Wilson wrote up on the blackboard
Read the last of chapter 2, chapter 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 3.7 and 4.2 in your text book and be ready to discuss next week.
[ooc: For the sake of your eyes, “Read the last of chapter 2, chapter 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 3.7 and 4.2 in your text book and be ready to discuss next week.]
[ooc: Please wait for the OCD threads up and ready!]