Humor

Southerners are known for their hospitality. Most love to entertain and are great storytellers. Like the British, they embrace eccentricity, don't mind "shabby chic," and have a wry sense of humor. They are also ardent collectors, invigorating their homes with the things they love, especially heirloom silver, ceramics, photographs of friends and family, and relics of their shared past. "Southerners cherish reminders of struggle and survival, reminders of families that have gone before, and [they]

Clarice Taylor has brought her impersonation of the black comedian Moms Mabley back to Philadelphia, but this Moms Mabley is not quite the same character Taylor portrayed five years ago. On that first visit, Taylor, the veteran actress who played Grandma Huxtable on The Cosby Show, starred in Moms, a play that presented Mabley's humor within the context of a drama that showed her not only performing but also interacting with other people off...

Mary C. Fee, 86, known in her Grays Ferry neighborhood for her generosity and earthy humor, died Saturday at a daughter's home in Oxford Circle. In a life filled with laughter if not riches, Mrs. Fee raised two daughters, nursed her tuberculous husband back to health, prepared deserts for Cardinal Krol and the priests of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and was one of the city's first school crossing guards. On the first day the crossing guards were on the job, a photographer showed up, and Mrs. Fee was the one who attracted attention, said her daughter Frances Horner.

Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood had at least one concern last year when Fountains of Wayne released its lyrically offbeat debut album. "We were worried that people would think we were just these two wiseasses," Schlesinger says from his Greenwich Village apartment. Instead, the duo are being hailed for their expert songcraft, and deservedly so. Fountains of Wayne (Tag/Atlantic) bubbles over with a timelessly tuneful blend of power pop and ballads that is as smart as it is irresistible.

Marilyn Keating's Gloucester City home is filled with her work, just as her work is filled with her life. A dismantled sculpture sits on the enclosed front porch of the house that the sculptor shares with three cats and another artist. In the foyer, a whimsical wooden tiger-striped cat perches atop the stair post. Hanging from the dining room ceiling is a ferocious-looking red-and-gold paper fish with delightfully nasty-looking teeth and a jaw that opens and closes with the yank of a string.

Bruce Blitz was the little kid who entertained his classmates by drawing funny pictures of the teacher. Today, at 39, Blitz is still drawing funny pictures of people. Now, however, the pictures are called caricatures, and he gets paid to draw them. Blitz describes his art as "portraits with a sense of humor," illustrated by drawings such as the one of Dolly Parton that hangs on the wall of Blitz's Cherry Hill office. One can recognize the lady by the voluminuous hair and two other very prominent assets before even looking at her face.

Comedy albums became a big commercial deal in the early '60s, when comics of such varied styles as Allan Sherman, Bob Newhart and Vaughn Meader began selling millions of records each, an unprecedented achievement for comedians. One reason comedy was able to triumph during this period was that music was so boring - it was the tail end of the folk-music boom, and just before the explosion of the Beatles. Thus Sherman's deft song parodies, Newhart's serenely insane telephone conversations and Meader's impeccable President Kennedy impersonation were able to excite the mass audience in a way that music was failing to do. In the post-Beatle era, the success of comedy albums has been far less predictable.

One day, back in 1991, roommates Salman Rushdie and Elvis peered between the blinds in their shabby apartment. Maybe they heard the commotion across the street, where a crowd had gathered around a man struck down by a boomerang. Among the bystanders was a kangaroo, who knew, just knew, "That was meant for me. " Maybe they could even see the two clowns lurking in an alley, quietly waiting to hit an unsuspecting passerby in the face with a couple of pies. Which is what happens . . . "When clowns go bad. " What the . . . ?

Linda Horn may be a nurse with a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing, but her professional equipment is what she calls her "humor bag of tricks. " When Horn goes to work, she wears red-and-white-striped socks, fire-engine red basketball sneakers and a garish purple bow tie. And everywhere she goes, she takes humor tools: toys, soap bubbles, a Groucho Marx nose, wind-up toys, balloons, funny hats and a feather duster. "Humor helps people get well," said Horn, who had come to the Medford Convalescent and Nursing Center on Nov. 21 to talk to health-care professionals and others about therapeutic humor.

People who laugh a lot like to imagine that they have a lively sense of humor, but this is not necessarily the case: People laugh at things that others consider vulgar, or ugly, or humiliating, or mean-spirited or cruel. Literally hundreds of books have been written on the subject of humor, and the authors have ranged from a successful comic author such as Stephen Leacock to a profound philosopher such as Henri Bergson. But none, to my knowledge, has been able to capture or define its essence.