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Rating: 
Summary: Very good intro to humor studies
Review: Cohen's pithy but enterprising volume is not only fun to read but he builds a suprisingly sound idea of the joke-work as an aesthetic bond between two or more. This was refreshing in itself as so many now seem to think of jokes as offensive before they begin, or at best as an offensive against political dullards and people with whom we don't agree.Cohen doesn't fall into this standard academic rap, and so his arguments were a novelty. I especially enjoyed the joke based on Niels Abel's commutative groups, as I didn't realize that mathematicians had a sense of humor that was parlayed into such odd and exquisite visions. The ending was an attempt to take on the morality of joking in an age in which almost everyone is offended by everything from dust to sun-rises. While Cohen says go ahead and be offended, he also says to not try to outlaw other people's sense of humor. I felt he set up a Catch-22 that needed more work. On what basis is it reasonable to be offended? Is it ever reasonable? Unfortunately, the book ended in this snag of ook after seventy good pages building a model of the joke-work as a mode of appreciation. To end with the Maoist stalemate that has held culture in a quagmire of contention was less than cheering, not that I myself know any way out of that quagmire of ooky skook. Thank heavens jokes live on. Some of these are really unusual, and Cohen's commentary is always scintillating. Bravo! I am tickled that this book was written and published. Everyone in America should have a heavily annotated copy under their pillow and we would begin to have a civilization worthy of the zig-zags and ziggurats of the star-bellied Sneetches. -- Kirby Olson, Author
Comedy after Postmodernism
Rating:
Summary: Very good intro to humor studies
Review: I might as well admit up front that I didn't buy this book. In fact, Ted Cohen gave me a complementary inscribed copy so that I could reinvigorate my cocktail party repetoire of jokes (my wife says this book will add at least 5 years to our marriage). But for all of you who read this review, you should know that I intend to buy a few dozen copies to distribute to my best friends. And not because Ted needs the money, but because this book is both a scream and thought provoking. If only for laughs, it's well worth the price. And the publisher has considerately type-set the many jokes in bold so that you can easily skip the philosophy. But after you've read the jokes, I recommend you go back and read Ted's thoughts and commentary. You'll see jokes and joking in a new light. Thank you Ted!
Rating: 
Summary: I Wish I Had Bought It!
Review: I might as well admit up front that I didn't buy this book. In fact, Ted Cohen gave me a complementary inscribed copy so that I could reinvigorate my cocktail party repetoire of jokes (my wife says this book will add at least 5 years to our marriage). But for all of you who read this review, you should know that I intend to buy a few dozen copies to distribute to my best friends. And not because Ted needs the money, but because this book is both a scream and thought provoking. If only for laughs, it's well worth the price. And the publisher has considerately type-set the many jokes in bold so that you can easily skip the philosophy. But after you've read the jokes, I recommend you go back and read Ted's thoughts and commentary. You'll see jokes and joking in a new light. Thank you Ted!
Rating:
Summary: REALLY FUNNY!
Review: IT WAS REALLY FUNNY! BUY IT NOW! I'd be a great stocking filler for Christmas.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply intellectual understanding of modern reality
Review: Of course I read this book, sort of, five years ago when I received it as a gift. It is unlikely ever to be more famous than Lenny Bruce, who had the honor of Dustin Hoffman playing him in the movie "Lenny," but it also devotes much of its attention to the difference between Jewish and goyish. Chapter 5, "Jewish Jokes and the Acceptance of Absurdity," ends on page 68 with a joke which starts:
"Once a perverse Jewish young man in a small village in Poland enjoyed his role as apikoros [see appendix].
The joke ends with:
"I see," said the older man. "Let me tell you: I'm an apikoros; you're a goy."
The last five years have not been kind to public intellectuals who share the annoying attitude of the people observing modern life who "have the stance of an outsider, and the soul of a critical student. A tendency to laugh at absurdity and to traffic in jokes exploiting this tendency are constituents in American laughter generally, I think, and may well have their own sources there, but surely they have been abetted by the infiltration of Jewish humor."
Philosophically, I find that modern life generally ignores the ability of philosophers to refute common assumptions, but people have their own form of upmanship which consists of flipping out epistemic modalities like September 11, presidential leadership, or the triumph of free economies to justify their lack of awareness of any long-term consequences of grandiose missions and dubious crusades: to the moon, to Mars (the god of war beacons), to Baghdad, to the Chinese embassy (was May 7-8, 1999 in Belgrade too recent to get a joke in this book?). As the system works, people who know a lot of jokes are sure to guess the profession of the guys walking past a woman who say:
"Man, Id like to screw her," said one of the *******.
His companion answered, "Yeah? Out of what?"
Given the nature of professional ethics, the second of the two men might be considered more professional, more interested in the economic possibilities for financial rewards, than the first, while the first is merely reflecting years of absorbing modern entertainment values or male chauvinist pigishness (take your choice). Since impeachment proceedings in 1999 were dominating the jokes which the public were hearing at the time, this book was riding on a crest of awareness that some professions need complicated rules about what you can say after you swear to tell the truth. The president would have surprised everyone back in 1992 on "Sixty Minutes" after the Superbowl if he had said, "If I had to choose between telling the truth or lying my ass off, I'd pick Jennifer Flowers." That is easier to understand than all the is meanings in the world of doubletalk that professional mindbending encourages when faced with specific questions about allegations of infidelity.
The 24 hour day puts strains on everyone's relations with each other, best illustrated by the line in "Get Off My Cloud" by the Rolling Stones in which an anonymous voice on the phone complains:
"It's 3 a.m., there's too much noise. Don't you people ever want to go to bed?"
The key word here, you, can be looked up in the index of joke beginnings and punch lines in this book to find a joke with an exchange at 3 a.m. which ends with:
"For God's sake, Abe, you don't have to get up in the morning."
With characters named Abe and Sarah, this joke could have some relevance to a society growing much older than anyone is used to, and doctors who dare to inform patients when their number comes up and they have a duty to die, but our society keeps pretending that it has not reached that stage yet. More likely our society thinks of itself as being more like the joke in the Introduction which ends with:
"Of course they take bribes." (p. 9).
Rating:
Summary: maybe i'm biased, i dunno...
Review: ted cohen is bleeding hilarious. he's even funnier in person than on paper. he happens to be my philosophy professor - ain't i lucky? buy that book!!
Rating:
Summary: Includes an Index of Jokes
Review: The index of this book is called the "Index of Jokes by First Line, Punch Line, and Subject." I was in high school when "Science is a sacred cow" was a joke. I would bet that it is one joke that does not appear in this book, simply because there isn't anything in the index listed for science, sacred, or cow. As a philosopher, Ted Cohen is ideally situated to be able to assert that a joke is just a particular kind of contrivance, but it also happens, sometimes, that a joke "embodies some profound understanding of things." The acknowledgments of this book, while mentioning "those who have done me the blessed favor of laughing at my jokes," approaches perfection in describing his wife as being "very nearly infallible" in the very important matter of "the consideration of jokes with regard to predicting who will like them and who will not." In our comic society, these people may be closer to understanding the meaning of existence than the clerk on page 73 who said, "This is a hardware store."
Rating:
Summary: Includes an Index of Jokes
Review: The index of this book is called the "Index of Jokes by First Line, Punch Line, and Subject." I was in high school when "Science is a sacred cow" was a joke. I would bet that it is one joke that does not appear in this book, simply because there isn't anything in the index listed for science, sacred, or cow. As a philosopher, Ted Cohen is ideally situated to be able to assert that a joke is just a particular kind of contrivance, but it also happens, sometimes, that a joke "embodies some profound understanding of things." The acknowledgments of this book, while mentioning "those who have done me the blessed favor of laughing at my jokes," approaches perfection in describing his wife as being "very nearly infallible" in the very important matter of "the consideration of jokes with regard to predicting who will like them and who will not." In our comic society, these people may be closer to understanding the meaning of existence than the clerk on page 73 who said, "This is a hardware store."
Rating:
Summary: Philosophy AND Jokes - What more could you want?
Review: This is the first book I have read by Ted Cohen but it will not be my last. Do not be frightened away by the word "philosophy." Everyone seems to grasp the fact that some jokes work with some people and not with others. This book shows us how jokes depend on a "complex set of conditions" in order to work and that jokes are "conditional." The book has a wonderful cadence allowing room for the philosophy behind and the intimacy caused by good joke telling and -- great jokes too. Laughter is indeed the best medicine -- grab this book and have a laugh!
Rating:
Summary: Philosophy AND Jokes - What more could you want?
Review: This is the first book I have read by Ted Cohen but it will not be my last. Do not be frightened away by the word "philosophy." Everyone seems to grasp the fact that some jokes work with some people and not with others. This book shows us how jokes depend on a "complex set of conditions" in order to work and that jokes are "conditional." The book has a wonderful cadence allowing room for the philosophy behind and the intimacy caused by good joke telling and -- great jokes too. Laughter is indeed the best medicine -- grab this book and have a laugh!
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