A rollicking collection of good-natured humor designed to put patients at ease.
A chiropractor’s book of jokes and gags.
Friedman, who has multiple degrees and is the author of a college-level textbook on the nervous system, has practiced chiropractic and alternative medicine for decades. Named by the Hollywood Reporter as “The Chiropractor to the Stars,” his clients have included John Travolta and Anthony Hopkins, and he has been a contributing writer for Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, and other national publications. In this lighthearted book of jokes, he embraces the maxim that laughter is not only the best medicine, but has been scientifically proven to release endorphins and serotonin, induce euphoria, and increase immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies. Like Dr. Patch Adams, whom Friedman has interviewed on his radio show, the author has amassed a vast repertoire of jokes, puns, and other gags that he uses to “entertain or simply keep a patient’s mind off the pain they are experiencing.” Barring a brief introduction regarding the science of laughter, the bulk of the book comprises one-liners and inoffensive gags that span from eye-roll–inducing dad jokes (the music most chiropractors listen to is “hip-pop”) to sidesplittingly funny, admittedly juvenile, scatological humor (one entire chapter is devoted to fart jokes, given the proclivity of chiropractic patients to release gas during procedures). While most of the jokes are family friendly, like one that renames cars after bones (i.e., the “Ford Fibula” and “Kia Clavicle”), the chapter “Couples Comedy” offers PG-13 fare in the form of mild sex jokes. Accompanying each chapter are humorous illustrations drawn and captioned by the author. While many of the jokes may be a bit corny or only funny within the context of a doctor’s office, Friedman offers a template for medical practitioners to approach their patients with amusing quips that dispel awkward tension inside examination rooms. That these do not rely on stereotypes or other offensive tropes is a model on how to bring humor into a professional setting. Most important is the author’s golden rule to never laugh “at anyone in my office” and to only laugh “with them.”
A rollicking collection of good-natured humor designed to put patients at ease.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 9781632996176
Page Count: 200
Publisher: River Grove Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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