There is a perception that comedians are happiest when everything is at its most miserable. Untrue. When misfortune befalls comics, they want to make sense of it the best way they possibly can, and communicate that understanding to you. They don't want your pity — they want the violence that life has visited on them to be understood, and they want to alchemize that suffering into laughter. Jeff Garlin — Larry David's electrifying grump of a manager in Curb Your Enthusiasm — is particularly skilled at focusing this understanding of comedy with his semi-regular salon, By the Way. Tonight's By the Way features Garlin in conversation with Tig Notaro, the comedian whose life has seemingly imploded in this past year but who has nonetheless has reached an absolute apex of her comedy in how she's transmogrified that implosion into art. Through the litany of a double mastectomy, invasive intestinal diseases and the death of her mother … wait, you know what? These words just don't suffice. They never could. Hers will. Largo at the Coronet, 366 N. La Cienega Blvd.; Mon., March 18, 8:30 p.m.; $30. (310) 855-0350, largo-la.com.

Mon., March 18, 8:30 p.m., 2013

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