No sooner did the show open in February 2001 than Daisey was branded the "First Internet Dot.Comic" and featured in publications ranging from Wired to Newsweek to The New York Times to the London Guardian. In April Simon & Schuster bought the rights to the book version. In May the show closed. One week later the theater burned down. Daisey decided it was time to move.

The following month Daisey voluntarily exiled himself to Brooklyn to finish the book. He was greeted by a newly formed coterie: his Manhattan-based literary agent, Daniel Greenberg, his manager, David Foster, and his editor, Rachel Klayman. Far from working in a vacuum, Daisey was suddenly dealing with the high-pressure interests of the New York publishing world. "It was like going from being a student to being an adult," Daisey said. "I suddenly had to be very certain of whatever project I was interested in, because, once you sign on, it lasts one year, two years--far longer than a science project."

Foster, though, doesn't think Daisey will have any problems. "His media savvy is amazing," he said. "He is incredibly driven and able to think laterally about his career." He paused, then prophesied, "Mike will grow into a bigger and bigger name. This will probably be from a number of avenues: performing, books and other writing. If one door closes, another will open."

And so Daisey spent the summer finishing his book, breaking only in August to bring "21 Dog Years" to the New York Fringe Festival, where it won best solo show. He still met his deadline--September 11.

Daisey was on his way to the publishing house, manuscript in hand, when the World Trade Center was attacked. Seeking refuge in a Wendy's, he immediately logged onto the Internet and started posting broadsides to his Web site, www.mikedaisey.com. I am writing this from downtown New York. In a perverse reversal, I have no way to contact anyone except through my high-speed wireless Internet connection," the first dispatch began. He went on:

The media will ultimately tell the story better than I, but I can tell you that there is massive loss of life. The sky is black with ash, the people have been panicking and fleeing in unadulterated terror. I have never seen anything like it. It is very difficult to breathe, even with your mouth covered--the ash blows down the streets and burns your eyes. It feels like the world has ended.

Later that day he described walking home over the Brooklyn Bridge, which is unbelievably beautiful, the wires and stone of the bridge surrounding us and the bright sun ahead, passing out of darkness. No one is talking to each other, but there is a sense of warmth. Everyone has their cell phones out, fishing for a clear signal. Those who catch them talk hurriedly to families, friends, people in other cities, children in their homes. It is comforting to hear their voices, telling how they are okay, shhh, it's okay, I'm okay. As we walk out into the sunlight, I am so happy to be in this company, the company of people who are alright, those who walked out.

Daisey's dispatches were picked up and transmitted across the world. In four days he received more than 4,000 e-mailed responses. "Mike's messages are incredibly raw, moving and real," Professor Boylan said. "And they reveal, of course, the key to his humor, which is the wise, compassionate heart beating at the center of all his work."

Boylan's sentiment is one that is heard again and again in relation to Daisey's comedy. "He's not a denier," playwright Laurence Krauser said. "He looks and thinks directly and is honest with himself and in his speech about what he sees and what it means to him. And then he steps outside again for additional perspective on these things. It's the opposite of character acting. He's funny, yes, but breathtakingly lucid."

In other words, he has the mentality of a storyteller, in addition to a comic's, and it's the combination of the two sensibilities that brings so much resonance to his performances. "I believe that humor and the intellect don't have a very amiable relationship," Daisey explained. "Being droll or sly or clever is okay. Actually being genuinely funny is seen as anti-intellectual and roundly considered an end unto itself, incapable of evoking reactions and social change the way drama or serious literature can. So there's a tension there. And I think my work thrives on that tension."

He sees "21 Dog Years," for instance, as being "more about the hows and whys of office life than the dot-com bubble. It's about being in love with work, and coming to grips with the universal battle of where priorities fall in our day-to-day lives." The World Trade Center attacks, far from diminishing these truths, made him realize that these themes were even larger than he'd first believed. "No one speaks to these simple issues, especially when the rest of the world seems to be falling apart," he said. And so, though at first he'd reacted to the attacks "the way most people did, with shock and denial and a creeping certainty that everything was meaningless about comedy and humor, especially my own," he came to realize, in the weeks that followed, that "it's important to be able to laugh at how we spend our time, and in laughing come to some discoveries."

So in the end, Daisey hasn't changed as much as it might seem. As Wood noted, "Mike is funny. But if you look behind the comedy, a lot is being said. He's still an actor, and he's still a poet. He's just using these skills in different ways."

Indeed, he's fusing these skills, and in fusing them has managed to synthesize himself. Daisey said it best when he offhandedly remarked, "The only time I'm whole, using all of my person, is when I'm telling stories."

The result is a bigger, richer brand of comic performance. As John Hodgman, the host of Wednesday night's "How to Win a Fight" gig said at the end of the evening, "Mike is very funny, yes. But as my wife pointed out, anyone who can drink gin and tonics and then essentially make up a nearly perfect, funny, resonant and complete short story is more than a humorist, and about a universe away from traditional stand-up comedy."