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. Contributors reflect on the subjectivity of audience members and the spread of affect, as well as the two-way...

A memoir of mothers and daughters, hoarding, and healing.
Judy Batalion grew up in a house filled with endless piles of junk and layers of crumbs and dust; suffocated by tuna fish cans, old papers and magazines, swivel chairs, tea bags, clocks, cameras, printers, VHS tapes, ballpoint pens...obsessively gathered and stored by her hoarder mother. The first chance she had, she escaped the clutter to create a new identity--one made of order, regimen, and clean white walls. Until, one day, she found herself enmeshed in life's biggest chaos: motherhood.
Confronted with the daunting...