That's Funny

We had some friends stay with us this week. We enjoy each other’s company, and we laughed a lot. This may sound obvious, but it is worth noting because adults do not always laugh as much as they should. One night we went to a comedy club. While it was not the best comedy club experience any of us have ever had, it did spark a lively post-show discussion about what we find funny and, just as importantly, what we really do not.

For me, the best comedy comes from someone taking an everyday situation and flipping it just enough that you see it in a new and unexpected way. I am not a big fan of shock for shock’s sake, and I have seen plenty of comics be hilarious without relying on profanity or offensive language or imagery. Some comedians are especially good at warming up a room with crowd work, gently pulling audience members into the fun and helping them laugh at themselves. I tend to check out when that crowd work turns into picking on someone in the hopes that everyone else will laugh at their expense.

After all, we go to comedy clubs to have a good time. Before the show started, we noticed something interesting: the entire room filled up before anyone sat in the front row. Technically, those are the best seats in the house. You are closest to the performers. But we have all learned the same lesson the hard way. Sitting in the front row is basically signing a waiver that says, “Yes, please talk to me, and yes, please make me part of your act.” That is not usually what people mean when they say they are “up for a fun night out.”

With close friends, on the other hand, laughter often comes easily. We know each other well enough to rib one another, be silly, exaggerate wildly, or say things that only make sense because of years of shared history. It is playful, good-spirited, and nobody goes home wondering whether the laughs were worth a cover charge and a two-drink minimum.

Laughter really is good medicine. When so much of life feels serious and complicated, humor is a welcome antidote. Since this is our last Holidailies blog of the season, I want to thank you for joining us for the 14th year of our family blog this December. I hope it gave you at least a few smiles along the way.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year. See you next year.

Thanks for reading!

Frosty

Comedy Special

I have been to a hundred stand-up comedy shows - some in venues as small as 25 seats, others in outdoor theaters as big as 17,000 seats. I have seen first-time comedians and also seasoned stadium fillers. Heretofore are my opinions on the matter.

What I do not like:

Comedians who ramble about on unfunny topics and scramble to recall what they wanted to talk about.

What I do like:

Comedians who have a tight 5/10/hour prepared and run through their bits mostly by memory.

What I do not like:

Comedians who rely on crowd work instead of having actual jokes to tell. Crowd work is not comedy. In my observation, 99% of the time a “comedian” is standing up there and simply interrogating the crowd, they are resorting to bullying the guest and looking for jokes at the guest’s expense. And usually, they are not the first person to perform, have not listened to the prior comics, and wind up asking the same obvious questions to the same people.

What I do like:

Comedians who use crowd work as a quick warm-up and to gauge the composition of their audience.  The best among them manage to query the crowd without objectifying them or trying to get us laugh to at their expense.

What I do not like:

Comedians who use their platform as a free-for-all to say whatever they want however they want all in the name of comedy.

What I do like:

Comedians who offer thought-provoking humor, stretching the audience’ comfort zone and encouraging them to think.

Here’s to a new year full of laughter, education, and not taking anything too seriously!

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Thanks for reading!

Eve

Kumail Nanjiani's Night Thoughts (Review)

Last blog of the year for me! The only thing I watched today was Kumail Nanjiani’s newest standup special, Night Thoughts, so I guess that’s going to be my last “film review” of the year.

I’ve liked Kumail’s work for years, ever since I saw the movie he made about the crazy story of his journey meeting his wife and what they dealt with in their relationship (it’s called The Big Sick). So, when I saw he put out a new special, I was excited to watch it. My family sees a lot of comedy shows and we’ve watched a bunch of specials over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever watched Kumail’s standup in real life, so I was excited to give it a try.

I would definitely recommend Night Thoughts to people who know his work, and also to people who have no clue who he is. You don’t really need a ton of context (he references his Marvel film Eternals a bit, but not much other than that) to understand his stories, and he’s just a very clever guy. Also, he talks about his cat, which is cute and I appreciate especially an adult man who isn’t beefing with all cats (something about those men feels vaguely misogynistic somehow). Plus my roommate has a cat so I’ve become a big fan of the whole feline genre.

If you’re looking for a laugh, this could be how you spend an hour of your night. Merry new years to all, and to all….. byeeeee.

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Thanks for reading!

Holly

New Years

New Years. The End of the Year.

How did it arrive so quickly? It feels like just yesterday that it was January 1st. And now, it will be January 1st again. How is that possible? Please send your theories in the comments.

 

A riddle for you: A father and his son are in a car accident on January 1st. The father dies at the scene and the son is rushed to the hospital. At the hospital the surgeon looks at the boy and says "I can't operate on this boy, he is my son." How is that possible? The surgeon was January 1st.

 

Do you have resolutions for the new year? I don’t need any personally. Kind of killing it as it is, frankly. But you should definitely get some together. I’m sure you have lots to work on. 

 

Drop goes the ball! Ah, what a lovely New Years Tradition. Most people don’t know this, but the ball dropping is meant to symbolize Times Square becoming a man. Mazel tov!

 

Happy New Year! Be good!

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Thanks for reading!

Rudolph

Oscar Race

It’s the end of the year and 2.5 short months until Oscars night. It is on March 15^th so mark your calendars.

Perhaps just as important a date is January 22^nd.  That’s the date on which the Oscar nominations will be announced. Now with all of this obsession over the Oscars and dates, one might think I’m up for a nomination. No such luck.

But what I will tell you is that every year, my wife and I make it our mission to see all of the Oscar Best Picture nominees before Oscars night arrives. For those without a calendar or a calculator, that is a period of 52 days. To see up to 10 nominated films!! 

As you may recall, in 2009, the Academy changed the number of Best Picture nominees from five films to ten. At the time, they claimed this was to broaden the appeal of the nominee pool by allowing popular films to be nominated along more Oscar-bait type art house films.

Great for the Academy. A lot of potential work for me and my wife.

The good news is that if we play our cards right, we find on the date that the nominees are announced that we have often seen at least half of the nominees. Fingers crossed that this happens again this year.

Based on recent reporting, here are the current favorites to be nominated for Best Picture:

1	One Battle After Another
2	Sinners
3	Hamnet
4	Sentimental Value
5	Frankenstein
6	Marty Supreme
7	It Was Just an Accident
8	Train Dreams
9	Wicked: For Good
10	F1

 If that list is anywhere close to accurate, here is where we stand.

SAW IT: Sinners, Hamnet, Sentimental Value, It was Just An Accident, Marty Supreme, Train Dreams, Wicked: For Good

STILL NEED TO SEE: One Battle After Another, Frankenstein, F1

Whew! This is great news. We can certainly see 3 films during the ramp up to Oscar night.

And they are actually films I’m looking forward to seeing. Some years the films we are missing from our list are ones that we don’t always enjoy but sometimes you just have to take one for the team.

What’s still on your list?

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Thanks for reading!

Frosty

 

ChatGPT n Me

Like most people for the last couple of years or so, I have been getting to know ChatGPT. I thought it might be fun to share with you some of my experiences that have gone sideways.

When ChatGPT first came out, I was just learning bridge and excited to ask the AI to give me samples of certain conventions, etc., so I could practice. I didn’t know much, but I knew the basics and many of the principles and was eager to try them out. I asked ChatGPT to give me ten examples of games when/where/how certain conventions should be used. It was a dumpster fire of lack of understanding – and in the most basic ways. For example, it didn’t even know how many cards are in any and every playing deck (52!), nor did it know that each card is a different number/suit combo! I know what you’re thinking -- the AI has gotten much better since then. I thought so as well. Therefore, armed with several years’ more bridge knowledge, I endeavored to ask it a few more bridge-related questions. I am here to tell you that 3 yr old ChatGPT still doesn’t know even the basics of bridge.  I asked it something and it couldn’t even count how many cards were in the suit in one’s hand, nor could it correctly count the points that hand represented. As I called it on its errors four times, each time it ‘apologized’ and got it wrong again. Now one might find this comforting – like no need to worry that AI is going to take over the world any time soon.  Me, I find this disquieting – like it’s still going to take over the world, but do it in a very sloppy, glitchy, unhelpful fashion!

On to more funny things. I had dinner with friends last month. They suggested we ask ChatGPT “What do you know about me” and “What is the funniest question I asked you this year?” Now, I should point out that my ChatGPT membership is actually my husband’s – with four of us using it.  As such, asking what the AI knows about me is actually a trick question.  Yet interestingly, it seems to home in on qualities based on my husband’s queries (as opposed to an amalgamation of the four of us).

The funniest question part was hilarious. Here is what it said:

You’ve asked many contenders, but the funniest question of the year—based purely on your ChatGPT persona and the whiplash intensity of your conversations—was almost certainly:

“Why does Imodium give me hives?”

…asked approximately eight minutes after grilling me about:

• grid-walking history,

 

• the total linear mileage of Manhattan’s street grid,

 

• the Feast of San Gennaro,

 

• and the location of Serendipity.

The abrupt shift from urban-planning professor to accidental pharmacology case study was peak you. It had extremely strong “Technotainment Scorecard: GI Tract Edition” energy (FYI – Technotainment Scorecard is my husband’s Substack column).

And speaking of the total linear mileage of Manhattan’s street grid, that query totally tripped ChatGPT up. When asked, that answer it gave was “I’ll let you know if authoritative sources publish or clarify the total mileage of all streets in Manhattan.” So I am waiting for a book to be published?? It then told me it was going to “Research Manhattan street mileage tomorrow.” WTF? Does ChatGPT take the night off? I asked it why it couldn’t just answer the question immediately and it then acquiesced that it could answer the question post haste.

So yeah, for me, ChatGPT has been kind of like a new assistant that while bright and eager, has no freaking clue and is going to take a lotttt of training.

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Thanks for reading!

Eve

 

 

Oh. What. Fun. (Movie Review)

Yesterday, my family watched Oh. What. Fun., a new Christmas movie on Prime, together. It has a great cast, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Danielle Brooks, Dominic Sessa, Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Havana Rose Liu, and more.

My mom and I separately saw trailers for this movie and thought it would be a fun watch for us all as a family, so that’s usually a good sign. I definitely think the overall sentiment of the film was a good one. The “invisible” emotional load that many women, and especially mothers, take on to plan, curate, and execute meaningful experiences for those around them should always be talked about more, so I appreciated that part of the story. I will say most of the characters had both their own flaws and also redeeming qualities, but I felt the reconciliation with the Mom character and her eldest daughter was really impactful at the end, because they were able to recognize their similarities and how they had both learned to shoulder the load as a way to feel important and needed.

My two biggest issues were the husband and the middle daughter. The husband barely apologized at the end after spending 90% of the film just trying to build a complicated doll house, and he couldn’t keep it together for one second when his wife was gone. After 20 or whatever years of marriage, I would need to see some real, demonstrated change if I were Michelle Pfeiffer before I forgave him. And the middle daughter was simply an unredeemable character. She went through zero growth throughout the movie and was super mean to her nice (albeit it sort of awkward) brother in law for no justifiable reason. And then HE was supposed to apologize to her at the end? Didn’t like that part.

Overall, I think most of the message of the movie was good, and especially if you’re a mom trying to send your family subliminal messages through media telling the that they need to appreciate you more, this could be a winner for you, as long as they don’t inexplicably side with the middle daughter, who straight-up sucked. 

Merry Christmas!

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Thanks for reading!

Holly