Word Play. The English language is the clunkiest hybrid erector set imaginable, cobbled together with bits and pieces from enough ancient cultures to build little microcosms every time you write or speak more than two or three syllables at a time. I love watching people play Frankenstein with it.


Perspective humor. The things that make me laugh the most are usually fresh angles on everyday things and common ideas. Something just off-center enough to take me by surprise. The things I love most give me the delight and astonishment babies show when they see things for the first time, that little pause--click--laugh. And if they add a dimension for me, so that I begin to see some things with an added depth, so much the better.

I'll laugh at Tristram Shandy or Benny Hill, John Stewert or Ricky Skaggs, George Carlin, Italo Calvino, The Three Stooges. I still get a kick out of little moron and light bulb jokes. And if you love me give me puns for christmas.