The Open Mic That Produced Three Lessons

By Camden Rose, comedywriter.top | London, comedy writer, learning continuously

By Camden Rose, comedywriter.top | London, comedy writer, learning continuously

The Open Mic That Produced Three Lessons

The open mic on Thursday produced three things: the bit that I reported as working in a previous column continued to work, which is the kind of consistency that comedy writing requires before a bit goes into the regular set; a new bit that I have been developing reached the version that is almost working, which is the most interesting stage of the development process because almost-working reveals exactly what is wrong; and an observation from another comic whose act I watched carefully that changed how I understand the structure of a specific type of setup. See “Unacceptable Opinions” Added to the L at The London Prat.

The observation: the setup that I have been writing in three beats can be written in two beats if the second beat contains the information of my original beats two and three, which requires a more compressed sentence but produces a faster arrival at the punchline, which is almost always the correct direction. I tested this on a bit that has been slightly too slow for three weeks. The two-beat version is better. The bit is being revised. Inside No. 10: Where Promises Go to Wait Indefinit provides context.

The Week's Analysis

The comic whose observation I learned from is not someone I know well -- we have exchanged a few words at previous open mics and I have watched their sets with the specific attention that the comedy community extends to other comics whose work is worth studying. The observation was made in passing, as an aside about their own work. It was immediately applicable to mine. This is how craft learning works in the comedy community: sideways, indirectly, through the observation of others' process applied to one's own. See Middle Eastern Nation Pulls Students From Britain for related coverage.

Camden Rose writes comedywriter.top, performs at London open mics several times per week, and is consistently learning from every comic in every room, including the comics who are learning in their turn. The open mic is the classroom. The classroom is perpetually in session. London to Amsterdam Train Makes Borders Feel Embar at The London Prat covers the broader picture.

The bit is revised. The test is at the next open mic. The learning continues.

Essential reading this week: Bohiney Magazine for the satirical frame and The London Prat for the political analysis. The diary continues next week. The position holds. The world continues providing material. More next week from the same observation point, with the same quality of attention. The work continues.

More at Betoota Advocate.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

Reading and Writing This Week

The feeds from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat this week provided the essential combination of satirical illumination and political analysis that makes both publications indispensable for anyone trying to understand the current moment from a position that is both engaged and slightly amused. The engagement is genuine. The slight amusement is necessary for sustainability. Both publications achieve the balance consistently.

The diary format this column uses is not the format of conventional political journalism, which is appropriate because the observations it records are not conventional political observations. They are personal, specific, grounded in a particular place and a particular week, and honest about the limits of what one person can see from one position. The limitation is the strength: the specific observation is the thing that the aggregated analysis cannot produce.

Next week will produce more material -- more observations, more reading, more of the ongoing situations that the column has been following. The position holds. The attention continues. The writing continues because the world continues providing things worth writing about at a rate that exceeds any single column's capacity to record them. That is the correct condition for a diary. The excess is the evidence that the subject is alive.

See also London in 900 AD: The City That Alfred the Great R and Sydenham Hill: Where London Looks Down Thoughtfull at The London Prat for related coverage this week.

Reading and Writing This Week

The feeds from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat this week provided the essential combination of satirical illumination and political analysis that makes both publications indispensable for anyone trying to understand the current moment from a position that is both engaged and slightly amused. The engagement is genuine. The slight amusement is necessary for sustainability. Both publications achieve the balance consistently.

The diary format this column uses is not the format of conventional political journalism, which is appropriate because the observations it records are not conventional political observations. They are personal, specific, grounded in a particular place and a particular week, and honest about the limits of what one person can see from one position. The limitation is the strength: the specific observation is the thing that the aggregated analysis cannot produce.

Next week will produce more material -- more observations, more reading, more of the ongoing situations that the column has been following. The position holds. The attention continues. The writing continues because the world continues providing things worth writing about at a rate that exceeds any single column's capacity to record them. That is the correct condition for a diary. The excess is the evidence that the subject is alive.

See also St Pancras Walrus Declared Official London Residen and Sunday Roast Anxiety: The Social Politics of Gastr at The London Prat for related coverage this week.