- Hardcover: 278 pages
- Publisher: AldineTransaction; 1st Rev. Ed edition (Dec 1970)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0202010910
- ISBN-13: 978-0202010915
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 16.7 x 2.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,479,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Synopsis
Collected jokes, toasts, and stories from the Northern ghetto, with descriptions of the personalities and styles of the tellers.
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3 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
One of the Seminal Texts of Dirty Jokes as Literature
19 May 2000
Format:Paperback
Originally written as a Doctoral Dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, Abrahams' work is one of the 5 or 6 leading books on dirty jokes as folklore/literature. His commentary isn't as deep or as amusing as Gershon Legman's work in No Laughing Matter or the Vance Randolph commentary in Pissing in the Snow or Blow Out the Candle, but it is well worth reading anyway. With the fascism inherent in the political correctness movement, these books are a wonderful, but safe, way of enjoying filthy, smutty ethnic humor without being attacked as a sexist or racist. Not just that, they're damned funny too.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
The first book on Toasts (Afro-American oral folk poetry)...
10 Jun 1999
The first book to write about Toasts (Afro-American oral folk poetry). It is the foundation from which you should start in researching Toasts. An excellent, entertaining, book.
Deep down in the Jungle where the Cocanuts grow.......
27 Jan 2006
Format:Paperback
This is an interesting book. Actually, it's more about sociology and folklore than a mere collection of dirty jokes.
Basically, the white folklorist Roger Abrahms spent some time in the late 1950s living in the Philadelphia ghetto. He befriends a number of the locals who are fascinated with his tape recorder (this was when they were new) and proceeded to record their folktales, songs, rhymes, and stories.
To his credit, Abrahms does not patronize his black sources. He also writes about them and their lives with respect in the chapters preceding the tales. But what makes this controversial is that the tales he records are the rough, uncensored kind that black comedians like Redd Foxx, Rudy Ray Moore, and Richard Pryor would not publicly record until a few years later. Many (middle class) African-Americans at the time saw this kind of humor as an embarrassing throwback that would hurt their chances of integrating into mainstream America, thus it was heavily criticized at the time.
But taken as it is, the sometimes bawdy tales like "Shine and the Titanic," "The Signifying Monkey" (the title of the book is the opening stanza from this), "Stagolee", "The Preacher and the Bull," etc. were street folk tales that were told for years in Black communities. Previous folklorists such as Langston Hughes tended to clean them up for public consumption. But the fact that these tales were told in the streets for so many years is proof that for better or worse, what we now know as "Gangsta Rap" is nothing new.
Incidentally, the story of Roger Abrahms's experiences getting these tales in the Philadelphia ghetto and the initial controversy behind this book would make an interesting movie.
Basically, the white folklorist Roger Abrahms spent some time in the late 1950s living in the Philadelphia ghetto. He befriends a number of the locals who are fascinated with his tape recorder (this was when they were new) and proceeded to record their folktales, songs, rhymes, and stories.
To his credit, Abrahms does not patronize his black sources. He also writes about them and their lives with respect in the chapters preceding the tales. But what makes this controversial is that the tales he records are the rough, uncensored kind that black comedians like Redd Foxx, Rudy Ray Moore, and Richard Pryor would not publicly record until a few years later. Many (middle class) African-Americans at the time saw this kind of humor as an embarrassing throwback that would hurt their chances of integrating into mainstream America, thus it was heavily criticized at the time.
But taken as it is, the sometimes bawdy tales like "Shine and the Titanic," "The Signifying Monkey" (the title of the book is the opening stanza from this), "Stagolee", "The Preacher and the Bull," etc. were street folk tales that were told for years in Black communities. Previous folklorists such as Langston Hughes tended to clean them up for public consumption. But the fact that these tales were told in the streets for so many years is proof that for better or worse, what we now know as "Gangsta Rap" is nothing new.
Incidentally, the story of Roger Abrahms's experiences getting these tales in the Philadelphia ghetto and the initial controversy behind this book would make an interesting movie.
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