A Birthday Letter

Old men's jokes, Swedish traditions, a Bulgarian polyphonic wonder

“Who wants to live to be ninety?” asks Keith Johnstone. “Answer: an 89-year-old!”

I don’t know what word to use for Johnstone – teacher? guru? holy fool? He’s the originator of most of modern comedy improvisation, but if you read his books from a certain angle, they are a thinly disguised set of tantric teachings, derived from sheer necessity in order to…