"You studied semiotics in college. I’m curious if that also shapes the way you think of narrative...."

Sarah Larson asks Ira Glass, in "Ira Glass Hears It All/Three decades into 'This American Life,' the host thinks the show is doing some of its best work yet—even if he’s still jealous of 'The Daily'" (The New. Yorker).

Glass answers:

For me, the most important book was “S/Z,” by Roland Barthes, where he takes apart a short story by Balzac phrase by phrase, paragraph by paragraph. What he’s interested in is, How does this story get its hooks into you? Why do you read to the next paragraph? Why do you care? And that feeling that you get at the end of a really good story, where you just feel, like, Ahh!—what produces that? And he names a bunch of mechanisms that, once you know them, you can create yourself.

Who was America’s first stand-up comedian?

According to "Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians," by Justin Martin, it was Artemus Ward (1834-1867):

Ostensibly, he was delivering a lecture called The Babes in the Wood... [H]is act consisted of a man in a dark suit, who, in a tone of complete seriousness, speaks utter nonsense. At some level, it certainly reminded audiences of all the oratories and lectures and sermons they’d been forced to endure, delivered by assorted pompous moralists...

The impression that his performances were rambling and spontaneous was just that, an impression: he was in complete control... He would begin by struggling to describe the claustrophobic feeling of traveling inside a very small stagecoach. “Those of you who have been in the penitentiary . . . ,” he offered. But then his voice trailed off, and his eyes filled with panic. He realized his error. He’d just suggested that members of his audience had been to jail.

As Ward tried to extricate himself from this awkwardness, the audience could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. He spoke slowly, trying to buy himself time to recover: “and stayed there . . . any length . . . of time . . . ” Suddenly, his expression brightened. He added hopefully, “ . . . as visitors.” He stood up straight, pleased with himself. But then Ward’s trademark crestfallen look returned. He recognized his error. Even suggesting that members of his audience had merely visited the penitentiary didn’t do the trick. That only meant they had friends and loved ones in jail...

Ward’s show clocked in at exactly one hour. Just as it opened on a high note, it closed on one, too. As the hour mark drew nigh, Ward would reach into his pocket and retrieve his watch. He’d stare at it, an expression of alarm spreading across his face. He had been rambling rambling for many minutes, traveling countless conversational tangents, yet he’d failed to address the subject at hand, “The Babes in the Wood.” But what could he say now? What pithy comment about the topic could he offer that might tie things up? There simply wasn’t enough time left. After a few more stumbles and false starts, Ward would apologize, promising to give the subject a full airing during his next lecture. Then he’d bid a good night to his delighted audience. The next morning, the critics’ columns would be full of praise.

Here's the Wikipedia page for Artemus Ward (AKA Charles Farrar Browne ). Excerpt:

Browne was also known as a member of the New York Bohemian set which included leader Henry Clapp Jr., Walt Whitman, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and actress Adah Isaacs Menken. Ward met Mark Twain when Ward performed in Virginia City, Nevada and the two became friends. In his correspondences with Twain, Browne called him "My Dearest Love." Legend has it that, following Ward's stage performance, he, Mark Twain, and Dan De Quille were taking a drunken rooftop tour of Virginia City until a town constable threatened to blast all three of them with a shotgun loaded with rock salt.

Here are some Artemus Ward jokes. Example: "Did you ever have the measels, and if so, how many?"

ADDED: The author of the quoted book doesn't attempt to define "stand-up comedian." He only describes what Ward did and sums it up: "[I]t’s fair to describe Artemus Ward as America’s first stand-up comedian." In search of the history of the term and the practice, I found this in Wikipedia:

Stand-up comedy is a comic style in which a comedian performs in front of a live audience, usually speaking directly to them... [T]he comedian usually recites a grouping of humorous stories, jokes and one-liners...

It's so simple, it's hard not to think that it's something human beings have done going all the way back to when we first figured out how to talk.

The history section of the Wikipedia article is almost entirely about the last 200 or so years, but there is this one sentence:

Stand-up comedy has its origin in classic Parrhesia in 400 BC used for cynics and epicureans in order to tell the reality without censorship.

That has this footnote:

Foucault, Michel (Oct–Nov 1983), Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia (six lectures), The University of California at Berkeley.

I'll have to get to that later. There's just not enough time in this blog post.