A generation before Tom Green could be found wandering through Wal-Marts hollering on intercoms for a hypothetical lost child, Mal Sharpe and Jim Coyle roamed the streets of 1963 San Francisco terrorizing America with the absurd. The two men cut classic Organization Men profiles: grey- suited establishment- types, each armed with portable audio equipment, set loose on an innocent age. Now granted, few of us ever spring for comedy records, it's true. But in all fairness, Audio Visionaries is hysterical.

Released in conjunction with The American Century soundworks exhibit at the Whitney Museum in New York, Audio Visionaries culls seventeen of the duo's funniest bits. The formula is essentially the same: find the most unassuming target, approach him or her, and invite them in all seriousness to participate in a ludicrous scheme. Example: three-ism. Coyle and Sharpe stop a man on the street to familiarize him with the concept of three-ism. When the man claims that he's not aware of such a concept, the gentlemen proffer an explanation: "Three people get together and merge their identity as one. Would you ever consider giving up your identity as an individual to be a third of one person?" The question is delivered with impeccable '50s newsman professionalism. The man protests that he hasn't even eaten dinner yet. "Could we accompany you to your meal and show you how three-ism will work? We will help you make the selection of your food." And Coyle intones, "There is nothing that we will do that will not be a unit decision."

Other pranks are equally ridiculous, and subsequent victims all seem selected with an almost preternatural sense of their credulity. Coyle and Sharpe find a priggish Brit and ask him to select members for a new Utopian community by marking their foreheads with a blotch. "I know very little about America," says the poor limey, "but what we hear in Eng-- eh, Great Britain doesn't give us a very good impression sometimes."

The funniest bit is easily "Maniacs in a Living Hell," in which Jim Coyle poses as an employer on a recruitment campaign, stopping people on the street and offering them work. "You would be working down in a pit," Coyle explains, "in which I have created-- through scientific endeavor-- I have created intense flames. People throw objects in the flaming pit. You go through, you pick them up. They name the object, you pick them up and I charge admission." And the potential employee actually calls the opportunity "new and exciting." Sharpe adds that the death index on this job is about 98, "In other words, if you took this job, the chances of you actually perishing would be about 98%."

"What we are trying to do really is create a living hell. Have people pay admission. They look down in the pit. They see you down there. The flames are all around you. There will be four maniacs with you and you've got to control them."

"Did I understand you? You said, 'four maniacs?'"

"Have you worked with maniacs before, sir?"

I can't do it justice-- not by a long shot. But trust me, it's funny. It's goddamn funny. Perfect for infusing a daily dose of the absurd into your life without resorting to drugs. Or reading. Oh, what's the matter? Too cool for hilarity? Choke on it.

-Brent S. Sirota