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Spit Take Saturday: Kyle Kinane

image004Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

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“I want comedy to be taken as an art form,” Kyle Kinane says about two-thirds through his excellent special “Whiskey Icarus.” “I feel I put just as much heart and blood, sweat and tears into this as any musician or any sculptor, and I want it to be appreciated as such.” He then tells a short story in which he acts immaturely, eventually juxtaposing his earlier statement with “And that’s why I’m not an artist.”

Those 40 seconds capture the essence of Kinane’s comedy. The man’s a thinker. On a superficial level, the stories he tells of drunken shenanigans are just that: comedic bits with little substance beneath the words. But the personal touch he embeds into every strain of every anecdote is what gives his comedy that artistic integrity for which he strives. It’s the tone in his voice, the glances toward the floor, the pauses and the stammers in his cadence. There’s a struggle, and it’s at the heart of his act.

Kinane says at the top of the special that he believes a lot of comedy comes from “shared experiences—things that we can relate to.” His own comedy, though, is entirely rooted in his personal experiences, which points to a phenomenon of sorts: the more personal the comedy is, the more relatable it becomes.


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Spit Take Saturday: Nikki Glaser and Sara Schaefer

Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

________________________

Live Review: Nikki & Sara & Friends at the NY Comedy Festival, Liberty Hall at the Ace Hotel – November 10, 2012

As hosts of the weekly podcast “You Had To Be There,” Nikki Glaser and Sara Schaefer have an obvious rapport—one that earned them their own show on MTV, which debuts early next year. As part of the New York Comedy Festival, Glaser and Schaefer hosted “Nikki & Sara & Friends” at Liberty Hall—quite possibly the most awkwardly arranged venue in the city’s storied comedy history—with Gary Gulman, Pete Holmes, Dan Soder, Kyle Dunnigan and Bonnie McFarlane.

Glaser and Schaefer opened the show with a 10-minute set, the highlight of which was a discussion of Schaefer’s experience as part of a foursome. “Basically it was just me and another girl watching them have sex,” Schaefer said. Glaser segued into an anecdote about how two guys propositioned her for a threesome, which she found odd because not only were they probably gay, but “Who has a threesome on a Wednesday?”

The duo works well together: they don’t step on each other’s toes, their timing is admirable and they unquestionably elevate each other’s work. Glaser and Schaefer each performed a solo set between comedians, but it would have been nice to see them in action together more. With five comedians in tow, it’s hard to blame them for limiting their joint stage time, but considering how smoothly they work together, it would have only enhanced the show.


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