Tag Archives: humour

Mack Sennett: The Limits of Slapstick (1928)

From “The Best Motion Picture Interview Ever Written”, by Theodore Dreiser, Photoplay Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 3, August, 1928, pp. 32-35, 124-129.

[Novelist Theodore Dreiser interviews the Master of Comedy Mack Sennett]

Mack Sennett

… One of the things I was moved to ask at this point was, slapstick being what it is, was there any limit to the forms or manifestations of this humor? And to my surprise, yes there was, and is.

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Filed under Movies

Writing Club: Writing Games for the Holidays

IMG_3984Snow day! Here on Salt Spring our first significant snowfall has occurred, on the first day of vacation! I decided to give the old car a break and not drive down the mountain into town for our last Writing Club meeting (awwww!). Here are the fun exercises we were going to do…

banana-peel5-minute prompt: FUNNY

(5-minute, stream-of-consciousness exercise, write whatever pops into your brain on the topic. Don’t bother with sentences, paragraphs, or punctuation. Just write.)

What’s funny? What makes you laugh? Who makes you laugh?  How many different words for ‘laugh’ can you think of?


 Who Am I? Game

A little character-invention fun. For each of these faces answer the following: Continue reading

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Filed under Get Writing!, Writing Club

Richard Condie: Piano practice, scrabble and nuclear war

Among my NFB animation favourites are two crazy funny shorts by Winnipeg filmmaker Richard Condie.

Getting Started (1979) is the sad tale of someone trying to sit down to piano practice. All musicians (and procrastinators) will find this painfully familiar.

Getting Started (1979) by Richard Condie, National Film Board of Canada

The Big Snit launched a good half-dozen catchphrases that I still find myself saying over twenty years later…*

The Big Snit (1985) by Richard Condie, National Film Board of Canada

*and when I write out my grocery list I always include “carrost”

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Filed under Animation

Return of the Weekly Eldritch…

Okay, so I let this slide for a while, but it’s back! Here once more is a weekly offering of creepiness for your viewing pleasure.

This is one that I’ve had up on my office wall for years and years, a classic of the macabre.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies

by Edward Gorey

gashlycrumbtinies

During my school talk last week C. from the Saltspring Centre School shared this as an eldritch spot that really creeps him out: “under my brother’s bed!”

If anyone out there has something eldritch to share, please leave a comment below or email me! (see CONTACT above)

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Filed under Eldritch