The Future

Notes toward a local theory of comedy.

I Once, several years ago, when Donald Trump was president and the novel coronavirus was locked safely away in a government lab, I found myself chatting with a regular at a popular comedy venue. She was a producer as well as a performer—who isn’t, these days—and part of a tight-knit social scene that included the venue’s management, which I mention because I believe her opinions were decently reflective of the house’s. As tends to happen in these situations, we ended up arguing about Louis CK, who was still early in his return to the circuit and whose comeback, I said, merited more resistance than it was receiving, given all he confessed and all he refused to atone for. In response, this person gestured broadly around the packed venue. “Statistically, there are people here who have done mu