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      • HARVEST
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      Joke Book

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      MCFARLANE-THESIS-2016.pdf (311.2Kb)
      Date
      2016-09-26
      Author
      McFarlane, Brent R
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
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      Abstract
      Joke Book is a creative thesis, a collection of comic personal essays, somewhat in the spirit of Montaigne, in which I trace the impact of several pivotal jokes on my life. Among other digressions, I give a mathematical theory of comedy using the Fibonacci sequence, mostly fail to read Kierkegaard’s Repetition, try to blame lutefisk for the bitter character of Saskatchewan humour, reflect on my experiences in Skit Skit (a mildly successful local sketch comedy troupe in my city of 250,000), and tell of the time my father brought home his malfunctioning Wang (Laboratories Computer). In the process, I give an incomplete though still exhaustive account of my life and my surroundings (namely, rural Saskatchewan since 1985), and reflect on racism, class, sexism, television, memes, hip-hop, and, again, lutefisk. Sometimes bordering on the absurd, the work is more footnotes than actual prose, and more sizzle than steak. It also details the author’s complicity in the wrongful accusation and subsequent murder of a chicken in 1993, when the author was eight years old.
      Degree
      Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)
      Department
      Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity
      Program
      Writing
      Committee
      Findlay, Leonard; Parkinson, David; Surtees, Doug; Lynes, Jeanette
      Copyright Date
      September 2016
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/7482
      Subject
      humour
      numbers
      math in comedy
      fibonacci
      saskatchewan
      rural saskatchewan
      memoir
      autobiography
      repetition
      repetition in comedy
      comedy
      jokes
      joke
      joke book
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      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
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