Joy Holley’s collection of short fiction Dream Girl published by Te Herenga Waka University Press is an amazing read. I loved talking to Joy about it.
Joy chose as a starting point to talk about laughter and writing the 2022 film Bodies Bodies Bodies. This American black comedy horror film directed by Halina Reijn, in her English-language debut, with a screenplay by Sarah DeLappe from a story by Kristen Roupenian. It stars Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha'la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, and Pete Davidson.
I really liked how this conversation concentrated a lot on joy and pleasure which is perhaps something that has been missing from these conversations about comedy.
I also loved talking about the way Joy is reimagining some elements of horror and the surreal.
I have a signed copy of Dream Girl to give away. Simply leave a comment here on Instagram or reply to the story on Twitter by June 11 and I’ll do a draw and send it to the winner.
I think this conversation was quite influenced by an amazing book I’m reading by Nuar Alsadir called Animal Joy: A Book of Laughter and Resuscitation. This book is literally changing my life. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s ostensibly about a psychoanalyst who goes to clown school and investigates humour in an incredibly inciteful way. The book is also making me feel a bit stupid, so many of the things I say that I think are profound are all described here as the stock and trade of psychoanalysis.
Ep 120: Beyond a Joke 11 - Anna Pendergrast & Kelly Pendergrast talk with Pip Adam about The Laughter Lift from Kermode & Mayo’s Take
Ep 119: Beyond a Joke 10 - Marolyn Krasner talks with Pip Adam about Hudson Valley Ballers: Lovers
Ep 118: Beyond a Joke 9 - Rijula Das, author of Small Deaths, talks to Pip Adam about a New Yorker cartoon
Ep 117: Beyond a Joke 8 - Dominic Hoey tells Pip Adam a funny story and they talk about Poor People With Money
Ep 116: Beyond a Joke 7 - Sarah Jane Barnett talks with Pip Adam about Michael Schur’s The Good Place
Ep 115: Beyond a Joke 6 - Brannavan Gnanalingam talks with Pip Adam about Kira Muratova’s film The Asthenic Syndrome
Ep 114: Beyond a Joke 5 - Rachel O’Neill talks with Pip Adam about Pockets and Everything Everywhere All At Once by the Daniels
Ep 113: Beyond a Joke 4 - Anthony Lapwood talks to Pip Adam about ’Goethe in the Roman Campagna’ by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein
Ep 112: Beyond a Joke 3 - Jordan Hamel talks to Pip Adam about his poem ’Death Coach’
Ep 111: Beyond a Joke 2 - Jonny Potts talks to Pip Adam about Nikolai Gogol’s story ’The Nose’
Ep 110: Beyond a Joke 1 - Anna Jackson talks to Pip Adam about Anna’s book ’Actions & Travels: How poetry works’.
Beyond a Joke! Better of Read’s New Home at Substack.
Ep 109: Andy Southall : Time, Love, Memory session from Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts
Ep 108: Bridget van der Zijpp: Time, Love, Memory session from Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts
Ep 107: Elements 21 – Character. Tatyana Kulida talks to Pip Adam about Henry Miller’s ‘To Paint is to Love Again’.
Ep 106: Elements 20 - Character. Tara Black talks to Pip Adam about René Magritte‘s ‘The Treachery of Images‘.
Ep 105: Elements 19 - Character. Rachel O‘Neill talks to Pip Adam about Andrea Arnold‘s film Milk.
Ep 104: Elements 18 – Point. Kirsten McDougall talks to Pip Adam about first-person perspective.
Ep 103: Elements 17 - Point. Ebony Lamb talks to Pip Adam about a self-portrait photographed by Ebony Lamb.
Ep 102: Elements 16 - Point. Cassie Hart talks to Pip Adam about Butcherbird by Cassie Hart.
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