When I was the judge of a weekly newspaper humor contest in the 1990s, part of my job was to give readers an example of a potentially winning entry for each new competition. You might think that I’d be the best person to come up with jokes that would impress the judge, who was me. But I wasn’t. Week after week, the eventual winning entry was better than my example had been. One week, for instance, the contest was to write a riddle that is answered by a painful pun on someone’s name. My example was: Read full article > >

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Gene Weingarten: Comedy of errors

He’s just directed a movie about relationship challenges as a planet collides with Earth. Now, his sense of humor has gotten even stranger.

Much like Ron Burgundy, Will Ferrell is kind of a big deal. The actor will be this year’s honoree for the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., announced on Thursday. “I am truly honored to receive this…

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Will Ferrell Wins Mark Twain Prize

Neeme Jarvi looks as though he knows what a dance is supposed to be about. On the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night, starting Glazunov’s Concert Waltz, the Estonian conductor moved his whole body with a big man’s buoyant grace even before the music began, conveying a sense of being at once debonair and slightly lumbering, which the orchestra mirrored perfectly. A waltz like this, all honeyed tunes and arabesques, is supposed to make you want to move your body. It’s even better when executed with absolute virtuosity so that its details convey not only prettiness but also humor. If the NSO didn’t quite achieve that, it showed it knew how to make the waltz fly. Read full article > >

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From Estonia to NSO, conductor Neeme Jarvi wins with all-Russian war horses

Wajahat Ali, a Pakistani playwright, essayist, blogger, and lawyer imagines, with humor and sarcasm, the scene that unfolded in Pakistan upon reports of Osama bin Laden’s death. This piece was originally published at The Huffington Post

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Pakistan Leaders Meet to Discuss Osama Bin Laden (Parody)

Found portraits turn darkly humorous with explicit additions In his latest show, frequent Cool Hunting contributor, emerging artist and medical doctor Jonah Samson delves even deeper into his sardonic figurative work. Known for his dark sensibility and cryptic sense of humor, Jonah’s work ranges from constructed photographic dioramas to intimate Polaroids, all hinting at underlying explicit sexuality and violence. ” Paintings from the Archives of the Pleasantville Historical Society ” sees the the artist adding his own twist to vintage photographs found on eBay. A skilled painter as well as a photographer, Jonah infuses the classic portraits with fatalistic comic elements, creating completely new stories for characters who have long passed on with humorous subtitles for the works. For example, Samson’s description for the painting below reads “Blake’s renewed fondness for cocaine was to be the ruin of yet another Mahoney family portrait.” Truly striking and at times hilarious, the work can be seen at the Gibson Gallery from now until 16 April 2010.

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Paintings from the Archives of the Pleasantville Historical Society

As tends to happen, the implicit claim that the Eastern Shore of Maryland–in the 20s and 30s– qualifies as the “South” raised some eyebrows in comments. Having traveled the South quite a bit, I can sort of see the point. But not really. It’s always felt much more like Virginia to me than, say, Upstate New York or rural Massachusetts. Of course there are those who don’t believe Virginia is the South either. Which is sort of the point. Over the past decade I’ve heard people from South Carolina insist that Louisiana isn’t the South, and people from Louisiana isn’t that Virginia isn’t the South, and people from Virginia insist Kentucky isn’t the South, and people from Kentucky insist that Texas isn’t the South, and so on…  As best I can tell, the indisputable South consists of four states–South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. It even seems that Georgia is getting sketchy–Atlanta has always skewed things. I’m pretty much see myself as a New Yorker at this point, but as in all things, I favor broad definitions over narrow ones. Surely there needs to be some definition–but looking at this list what I’m seeing is places that still bear some resemblance to “The Old South.” Again, perhaps this is just a black perspective, but I’d hate to think that deviating from barbecue dogma gets you thrown out the club.  Maryland, I can take. But Virgina?  The Daily Show – Pfriend or Pfoe? Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes , Political Humor & Satire Blog , The Daily Show on Facebook

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The Indisputable South

Children of the ’80s will sigh and roll their eyes when they hear about the upcoming 21 Jump Street movie, but I kinda think it has a shot to be real funny. The original television show – which helped launch Johnny Depp’s career — played it much straighter than this upcoming big-screen version will, and so knowing that they’ll be concentrating more on the humor than the dramatic hardships of being an undercover cop in a high school makes it a project you definitely have to keep an eye out for. We’ve known for a while that Jonah Hill was leading the way on this one, writing the script, producing and starring in what we imagine will be the Johnny Depp role as an undercover detective sent in to a high school to infiltrate youth crimes. (Hill has also noted that they’ve written a… Read More Read Comments

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Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum to Star in ’21 Jump Street’ Movie

It’s always risky to appear onstage with a comedian. Not only are funny guys funny, but they’re also aggressive.

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Obama’s missing sense of humor

Gabrovo, Bulgaria, once regarded as the Communist capital of humor, is trying to build on the legacy of its House of Humor and Satire.

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Abroad: Take My Bulgarian Joke Book. Please.

Kill time creatively with Amy Sedaris’ clever new book on crafting If Carrie Bradshaw embodied the modern woman of the early 2000s, then Amy Sedaris (who made a few cameos on the show) might be just the clever lady to lead us out of the Great Recession and into the next decade. Along with her crack team of outfits and misfits, Sedaris’ new book on crafting assembles a host of DIY projects for “anybody who’s looking for a simple, creative way to kill a lot of time.” From crafting for Jesus to knowing your knack for knick-knacks, ” Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People ” details how, with just a few pennies, well-adjusted adults and those “hampered by a defective brain” alike can construct a fake candle or coconut bikini. Fifteen chapters cover curious crafts like crab-claw roach clips and crepe-paper moccasins, along with practical insight like which kind of glue to use with different materials and how to avoid disasters like feather asphyxia. Amy Sedaris for president 2012. Available November 2010, “Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People” pre-sells from Amazon .

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Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People

Parse hop hop’s poetry with a book of dry interpretations While most gets what Tupac meant when he rhymed, “I ain’t guilty ’cause, even though I sell rocks/It feels good puttin’ money in your mailbox” on his hit 1999 track “Dear Mama” (a song now included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry if you needed anymore proof of rap’s mainstream legitimacy), some rap lyrics are just downright baffling to anyone not pursuing a linguistics degree on the phenomenon of hyper-regional slang. Seattle-based writer William Buckholz steps in with his book ” Understand Rap: Explanations of Confusing Rap Lyrics You and Your Grandma Can Understand .” The result is exhaustive and seemingly in earnest, making for hilariously thorough explanations of double entendres in the same class as the Twitter stream English50cent . The book’s chapters cover ten thematic categories; “Fashion” includes favorites like “Hockey players pagin’ me to practice on my wrist” (with so much diamond jewelry, my wrist is like an ice rink), while “Places” describes selling drugs on a particular street in Cleveland, OH with “Slang on the double nine,” and from “Insults” you get poetic gems like “Leave you kinda startled like the funk off of Fritos”—comparing an element of surprise with the unexpected pungent smell of the corn chips brand. Great for giggling over with friends or an ideal gift for any student of lyrics, “Understand Rap” sells from Abrams and Amazon .

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Understand Rap

Parse hop hop’s poetry with a book of dry interpretations While most gets what Tupac meant when he rhymed, “I ain’t guilty ’cause, even though I sell rocks/It feels good puttin’ money in your mailbox” on his hit 1999 track “Dear Mama” (a song now included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry if you needed anymore proof of rap’s mainstream legitimacy), some rap lyrics are just downright baffling to anyone not pursuing a linguistics degree on the phenomenon of hyper-regional slang. Seattle-based writer William Buckholz steps in with his book ” Understand Rap: Explanations of Confusing Rap Lyrics You and Your Grandma Can Understand .” The result is exhaustive and seemingly in earnest, making for hilariously thorough explanations of double entendres in the same class as the Twitter stream English50cent . The book’s chapters cover ten thematic categories; “Fashion” includes favorites like “Hockey players pagin’ me to practice on my wrist” (with so much diamond jewelry, my wrist is like an ice rink), while “Places” describes selling drugs on a particular street in Cleveland, OH with “Slang on the double nine,” and from “Insults” you get poetic gems like “Leave you kinda startled like the funk off of Fritos”—comparing an element of surprise with the unexpected pungent smell of the corn chips brand. Great for giggling over with friends or an ideal gift for any student of lyrics, “Understand Rap” sells from Abrams and Amazon .

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Understand Rap

An ex-beauty queen’s kidnapping and cloning escapades in Errol Morris’ latest doc With a former beauty queen accused of kidnapping and rape as a subject, Errol Morris’ latest documentary, ” Tabloid ,” has all the makings of an episode of “America’s Most Wanted.” But those familiar with Morris’ work (Vernon, Florida, The Thin Blue Line, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control) know that the auteur is interested in more than the sensationally lurid details of a story. Instead, Morris’ film is a portrait of Joyce McKinney, a woman who first made headlines when she attempted to rescue her husband from Mormons and later came in the public eye for cloning her dog. If McKinney strikes you as bizarre character, you’re not alone and Tabloid delights in her zany personality, cutting her interview (she compares a women raping a man to “putting a marshmallow in a parking meter”) with other first-person accounts, archival photos, animation and found footage in trademark Morris wink-wink-nudge-nudge style. Like with all his films, this one suggests the classic narratives at play, touching on the role of the press, insanity, fame, love, obsession and everything in between. Recently screened at Telluride’s and Toronto’s Film Festivals, it heads to the BFI London Film Festival next.

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Tabloid