Norm Macdonald died.
That came at me sidewise. Apparently he suffered for years before succumbing to cancer. Darn it.
He was great at hitting you with the out-of-nowhere punch line, but he was better at drawing out a joke. He would talk you through an extended version of a joke that we all knew the punch line to, but he made the story a conspiratorial endeavor where the joy was in the telling and he would wind his way through with a grin toward the knowing audience. It was the telling that was the telling.