Julia Weber
Staff Writer
Paula Poundstone doesn’t typically prepare her performances ahead of time, and today is no exception.
She recalled waiting tables when she first started performing stand-up routines and writing sets on the backs of menus, frantically rehearsing and memorizing as she served before her set.
“If you looked closely while I was bussing tables, you could see that my lips were moving, and then I would go on and forget,” she said.
In conversation with the National Comedy Center Executive Director Journey Gunderson, Poundstone will deliver the morning lecture at 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater, continuing Chautauqua Lecture Series’ theme of “Comedy Now: A Week Curated with Lewis Black.”
When Poundstone was beginning her career, being unprepared was a source of embarrassment.
“I was always in this position to scramble, find something else to talk about. Honestly, at first I thought that was a terrible thing, a horrible thing,” she said. “It meant that I was somehow unprofessional, but at some point down the road I realized, ‘Wait a minute! This is the good part.’ I sort of have allowed myself to do that ever since.”
Poundstone has numerous comedy specials and is a frequent panelist on NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” She hosts a weekly comedy podcast called “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone,” and she also serves on the National Comedy Center’s Board of Directors.
“Comedy is a great thing, and I love to see it getting celebrated,” said Poundstone. “Now, not only is it a great thing, but it’s an important thing for a few different reasons in the same way that it has been throughout time.”
Poundstone said comedy and humor can help people cope with horrific, traumatic experiences, and it can also help disrupt systems of power.
“It’s a coping mechanism that nature gave us for whatever odd reason, and I love the idea of celebrating it,” she said. “The harder times get in some ways, the more important it is. Also, it’s important because it can knock dictators off why they hate that.”
When asked what she wanted Chautauquans to know ahead of her lecture, the comedian said, “Sometimes, when I exercise and I’m wearing shorts and I pull my legs up over my head, my knees look like barn owl faces. And I do like people to know that.”
She emphasized the similarity between her knees and barn owls was essential information.
“I tell people to carry Pete Seeger’s version of ‘We Shall Overcome’ in their left pocket while they protest,” she said. “And in their right pocket, I like them to carry the fact that when I pull my knees up over my head, they look like barn owl faces because I just think we’re going to need that out there in the streets.”
