Every time I teach a comedy class, I challenge my students to tackle a big question: What is comedy for? We consider how comedy can glue together social groups (or exclude the unwanted), how it can shine a light on ridiculous ideas to expose hard truths or persuade people to take action. But we also explore comedy's close relationship to tragedy: How does laughter help us cope with the horrors of the human condition?
I could trot out some heavy-duty jargon-infested comedy theory here, but instead I'll quote that noted expert, Lou Grant: Laughter is "a release, a kind of defense mechanism. It's like whistling in a graveyard. You laugh at something that scares you. We laugh at death because we know death will have the last laugh on us."
This quote occurs, of course, not in an article in a scholarly journal but in my favorite episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "Chuckles Bites the Dust." Now I grew up watching Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards charging pluckily into a new life and a new job where she had to work twice as hard as her colleagues to prove that she could play the game with the big boys (who were mostly little boys trying to cast big shadows). She showed a generation of young women that pursuing a career was possible, that we didn't have to shelve our smiles or our sense of humor to get ahead in the cutthroat world of work.
So I loved Mary and wanted to emulate her ability to pick herself up after every pratfall. This ability is on display in "Chuckles Bites the Dust," when Mary plays the voice of reason trying to persuade her colleagues that there's nothing funny about the death of Chuckles the Clown; later, though, in the funeral scene, her wordless attempt to control her emotions reveals the power of comedy to bring painful emotions to the surface (see it here). Those emotions may spill out messily and at an inopportune moment, but whatever happens, our Mary will find a way to cope.
Even after all these years I can't watch this scene without laughing, but now I also want to cry. (Can someone pass a tissue?)
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Comedy in class: risks and rewards
I was about 30 seconds into a lecture in my Comedy class when the students started to titter and look around questioningly. A guy in the back row reared up in his chair and said, "Whaa----?"
"Is there a problem?" I asked.
Giggles and awkward looks and then some brave soul said, "Your glasses."
"What's wrong with my glasses?"
Silence.
"Tell me," I told them, "Where is it written that a professor is forbidden from teaching a class while wearing fake glasses, plastic nose, and a bushy moustache?"
Silence.
"So why can't I wear these glasses while teaching?"
That's when the reasons poured out: the fake glasses are distracting, unprofessional, silly, undignified, or just plain wrong.
And you know what? They were right, even if they didn't know why. We spent some time talking about how comedy can subvert conventions, starting with a discussion of social norms and where they come from: What's the proper procedure for entering an elevator? What would happen if you stood facing the other passengers instead of facing the door? Where are those rules written down? If they're not written down, how did you learn that it's not acceptable to sit on the floor of the elevator and fart loudly at the other passengers?
Then we did some group work: You've just won the championship game and it's time for the big press conference. What are you allowed to say? What are you not allowed to say? Other groups had to consider the conventions of writing an obituary or presenting a wedding toast. The norms are clear, as are the results of violating them: the sports champ who denigrates the other team will be vilified in the press; the obituary that includes gory details about mode of death will result in a flood of complaints; the bridesmaid so drunk she falls face-first into the wedding cake will suddenly find herself friendless.
Unless they're really, really funny, and then they'll go viral online and inspire memes. Because let's face it: violating social norms can be really funny, but it's the kind of comedy that skirts the edge of disaster.
Comedy always carries risks and rewards. The risk of wearing fake glasses, nose, and moustache in class is that I might end up with little bits of moustache fluff stuck in my mouth, but the reward is far greater: engaging students in a discussion that might otherwise have left them cold. Worth the effort? I would say so, if I could just get this moustache fluff out of my teeth.
"Is there a problem?" I asked.
Giggles and awkward looks and then some brave soul said, "Your glasses."
"What's wrong with my glasses?"
Silence.
"Tell me," I told them, "Where is it written that a professor is forbidden from teaching a class while wearing fake glasses, plastic nose, and a bushy moustache?"
Silence.
"So why can't I wear these glasses while teaching?"
That's when the reasons poured out: the fake glasses are distracting, unprofessional, silly, undignified, or just plain wrong.
And you know what? They were right, even if they didn't know why. We spent some time talking about how comedy can subvert conventions, starting with a discussion of social norms and where they come from: What's the proper procedure for entering an elevator? What would happen if you stood facing the other passengers instead of facing the door? Where are those rules written down? If they're not written down, how did you learn that it's not acceptable to sit on the floor of the elevator and fart loudly at the other passengers?
Then we did some group work: You've just won the championship game and it's time for the big press conference. What are you allowed to say? What are you not allowed to say? Other groups had to consider the conventions of writing an obituary or presenting a wedding toast. The norms are clear, as are the results of violating them: the sports champ who denigrates the other team will be vilified in the press; the obituary that includes gory details about mode of death will result in a flood of complaints; the bridesmaid so drunk she falls face-first into the wedding cake will suddenly find herself friendless.
Unless they're really, really funny, and then they'll go viral online and inspire memes. Because let's face it: violating social norms can be really funny, but it's the kind of comedy that skirts the edge of disaster.
Comedy always carries risks and rewards. The risk of wearing fake glasses, nose, and moustache in class is that I might end up with little bits of moustache fluff stuck in my mouth, but the reward is far greater: engaging students in a discussion that might otherwise have left them cold. Worth the effort? I would say so, if I could just get this moustache fluff out of my teeth.
Thursday, November 06, 2014
Vogons invade my classroom!
I'm trying to make my Concepts of Comedy students think about the human condition but they sit there staring blankly at my well-conceived questions, so it's time to bring some Vogonity into the classroom. No, I'm not planning to read them any Vogon poetry, but I'm giving them some group work with questions like these:
1. The Vogons are
coming! The Vogons are coming!
Those repellant aliens want to destroy Earth to make room
for an interstellar bypass. Fortunately, you have penetrated the Vogons’
massive bureaucratic labyrinth and you now wait in line to submit a form
claiming that the human race is worth preserving—however, only one type of
evidence is admissible. Argue that the human race is worth preserving based entirely on evidence from Fran Lebowitz's "Better Read than Dead" and Woody Allen's "A Look at Organized Crime."
2. Greetings, Vogons!
You’re just trying to do your job, clearing away an
insignificant little planet called Earth to make room for an interstellar
bypass, but those pesky little Earthlings have filed documents claiming that
the human race is worth preserving. You could just read them some Vogon poetry
and drive them all to suicide, but instead you employ the vast labyrinthine
Vogon bureaucracy to reject their claims for sound reasons. Demonstrate that the human race is worthy of destruction based entirely on evidence from Tom Wolfe's "The Secret Vice" and Ian Frazier's "Laws Concerning Food and Drink."
Will my students step up to the challenge? Will they recognize the Vogon reference or sit there scratching their heads? Does it matter? Only time will tell. Ask me tomorrow after class.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Lobbing in the guilt grenades
When Sherman Alexie visited campus last night, he demonstrated the power of comedy as a rhetorical device: he made us laugh so hard we let down our guard, and then he started lobbing in the guilt grenades. It was a beautiful thing to see, but at the same time it felt a little dangerous. We are, after all, in Appalachia, where you wouldn't have to be a gun-toting redneck to take Alexie's comments out of context and get a little hot under the collar.
He urged Christopher Columbus to commit an anatomically impossible act.
He reminded us that the land of the free and home of the brave spent centuries doing its best to stamp out braves.
He pointed out that even if we do not consider ourselves racists, we are nevertheless complicit in the institutional systems that perpetrate racism.
And he criticized Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland Indians mascot.
Alexie lubed us up with laughter so well that the harsh truths just slid right past our defenses, but it was a pretty big crowd and it's possible that some people weren't laughing. Take a little clandestine video, post it to the blogosphere without proper context, and BOOM, we're accused of forcing innocent students to drink the socialist anti-American multicultural Kool-Aid.
And maybe that's a conversation we need to have, but it's much more pleasant when we leave the guns at home and do it with comedy.
He urged Christopher Columbus to commit an anatomically impossible act.
He reminded us that the land of the free and home of the brave spent centuries doing its best to stamp out braves.
He pointed out that even if we do not consider ourselves racists, we are nevertheless complicit in the institutional systems that perpetrate racism.
And he criticized Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland Indians mascot.
Alexie lubed us up with laughter so well that the harsh truths just slid right past our defenses, but it was a pretty big crowd and it's possible that some people weren't laughing. Take a little clandestine video, post it to the blogosphere without proper context, and BOOM, we're accused of forcing innocent students to drink the socialist anti-American multicultural Kool-Aid.
And maybe that's a conversation we need to have, but it's much more pleasant when we leave the guns at home and do it with comedy.
Friday, September 05, 2014
When comedy fails
How do we become whole people in a broken world?
That's the question I asked my Comedy class this morning, and we agreed that comedy is a common response to the world's brokenness. Look at Sherman Alexie's short story "Do Not Go Gentle": suffering children, grieving parents, comedy as a way to cope. Case closed.
But then I went to my office and heard about some real brokenness right up close, a colleague whose child suddenly died, and I'm not the least bit tempted to respond with comedy. I promised myself that I would write a bit of light verse every Friday this semester, but I'm having trouble coming up with playful lines and silly rhymes. If comedy is tragedy plus distance, then maybe next week I'll be up to sharing a dazzling piece of doggerel, but not today. Let's keep it short and simple:
Branch breaks. Baby falls.
All the king's horses
stay in their stalls.
Broken people. Broken world.
Crack the oyster--
where's the pearl?
That's the question I asked my Comedy class this morning, and we agreed that comedy is a common response to the world's brokenness. Look at Sherman Alexie's short story "Do Not Go Gentle": suffering children, grieving parents, comedy as a way to cope. Case closed.
But then I went to my office and heard about some real brokenness right up close, a colleague whose child suddenly died, and I'm not the least bit tempted to respond with comedy. I promised myself that I would write a bit of light verse every Friday this semester, but I'm having trouble coming up with playful lines and silly rhymes. If comedy is tragedy plus distance, then maybe next week I'll be up to sharing a dazzling piece of doggerel, but not today. Let's keep it short and simple:
Branch breaks. Baby falls.
All the king's horses
stay in their stalls.
Broken people. Broken world.
Crack the oyster--
where's the pearl?
Monday, September 01, 2014
(Unless it's Bozo's funeral)
Today I kicked off the comedy class with a one-question poll: "Would you ever wear a clown costume to a funeral?"
Although several students came up with very specific circumstances under which wearing a clown costume to a funeral would be appropriate (e.g., the funeral of a clown), the majority agreed that in most cases such attire would be disrespectful if not outright offensive.
But where is it written that Thou Shalt Not Wear a Clown Costume to a Funeral? How do we learn these things? How can we all be so certain that wearing a clown costume to a funeral is unacceptable without ever being specifically instructed?
Moreover, why do we sing the national anthem before football and baseball games but not before bowling, surfing, or poker tournaments? ("Because football and baseball express the national character but gambling doesn't," said one student, but how does that square with the number of people who gamble on sports?)
And why don't Catholic churches have to post big signs in the foyer saying "Please don't drink the holy water"? ("Because everyone knows"--but how do they know? And what if they don't?)
And why do we accept all these practices as "normal" without ever questioning them?
The topic of the day was the nature of rituals and their unspoken conventions. We are working our way through Matthew Bevis's excellent Comedy: A Very Short Introduction, in which he asserts that "comic riot is predicated on ritual." Comedy, he claims, provides a safe place to expose, illuminate, or critique the unspoken rules that guide human behavior.
Today we looked at those unspoken rules functioning in Eudora Welty's short story "Petrified Man," in which comedy provides a stage to playfully critique the gender conventions of the 1940s. A sideshow freak and a little boy bear the brunt of women's repressed anger, but the men get the last word.
There were some puzzled expressions in my classroom today. Welty's story is peculiar and puzzling and not entirely funny, while watching intelligent people try to draw fine distinctions between football and poker was pretty amusing. I'm definitely going to enjoy this class. Whether we all learn a thing or two is another question entirely.
Although several students came up with very specific circumstances under which wearing a clown costume to a funeral would be appropriate (e.g., the funeral of a clown), the majority agreed that in most cases such attire would be disrespectful if not outright offensive.
But where is it written that Thou Shalt Not Wear a Clown Costume to a Funeral? How do we learn these things? How can we all be so certain that wearing a clown costume to a funeral is unacceptable without ever being specifically instructed?
Moreover, why do we sing the national anthem before football and baseball games but not before bowling, surfing, or poker tournaments? ("Because football and baseball express the national character but gambling doesn't," said one student, but how does that square with the number of people who gamble on sports?)
And why don't Catholic churches have to post big signs in the foyer saying "Please don't drink the holy water"? ("Because everyone knows"--but how do they know? And what if they don't?)
And why do we accept all these practices as "normal" without ever questioning them?
The topic of the day was the nature of rituals and their unspoken conventions. We are working our way through Matthew Bevis's excellent Comedy: A Very Short Introduction, in which he asserts that "comic riot is predicated on ritual." Comedy, he claims, provides a safe place to expose, illuminate, or critique the unspoken rules that guide human behavior.
Today we looked at those unspoken rules functioning in Eudora Welty's short story "Petrified Man," in which comedy provides a stage to playfully critique the gender conventions of the 1940s. A sideshow freak and a little boy bear the brunt of women's repressed anger, but the men get the last word.
There were some puzzled expressions in my classroom today. Welty's story is peculiar and puzzling and not entirely funny, while watching intelligent people try to draw fine distinctions between football and poker was pretty amusing. I'm definitely going to enjoy this class. Whether we all learn a thing or two is another question entirely.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
A love/hate kind of day
A funny thing happened on the way to my Concepts of Comedy class: each student who submitted reading comments thoroughly hated one poem--but no two students hated the same poem, and any poem hated by one student was loved by another.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when students respond passionately to poems dealing with passionate topics: love, hate, death, suicide, and religion. We looked at incongruity of style and substance in Stevie Smith's "Sunt Leones" (link) and Dorothy Parker's "Resume" (link), and we examined love poems you'll never find inside a Hallmark card: Parker's "Love Poem" (link) and Julie Sheehan's "Hate Poem" (link). A love poem full of hate and a hate poem full of love: the perfect recipe for either comedy or tragedy.
Speaking of love/hate relationships, I tried to enrich our discussion of Ambrose Bierce's "The New Decalogue" (link) by reading aloud some entries from The Devil's Dictionary, including his long definition of Regalia, which includes the incomparable phrase "The Blatherhood of Insufferable Stuff." Half of my students bore up under the onslaught as if being pelted by bloody entrails while the other half wore smiles that threatened to break their faces wide open. I ignored the hateful half and kept reading. Bierce may be a polarizing figure, but on a day when we're discussing dark comedy, he's worth pursuing.
"You know he's still out there," I told my students. "Bierce's body was never found, so he's still out there wandering the Mexican wilderness--or else he's sitting at a bar with Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa while Elvis warms up to sing a few tunes."
Did anyone laugh? Maybe a little. Most looked puzzled, a look I see frequently in that class. All in all, it was a love/hate kind of day in a love/hate kind of class that is turning out to be a perfect recipe for either comedy or tragedy.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when students respond passionately to poems dealing with passionate topics: love, hate, death, suicide, and religion. We looked at incongruity of style and substance in Stevie Smith's "Sunt Leones" (link) and Dorothy Parker's "Resume" (link), and we examined love poems you'll never find inside a Hallmark card: Parker's "Love Poem" (link) and Julie Sheehan's "Hate Poem" (link). A love poem full of hate and a hate poem full of love: the perfect recipe for either comedy or tragedy.
Speaking of love/hate relationships, I tried to enrich our discussion of Ambrose Bierce's "The New Decalogue" (link) by reading aloud some entries from The Devil's Dictionary, including his long definition of Regalia, which includes the incomparable phrase "The Blatherhood of Insufferable Stuff." Half of my students bore up under the onslaught as if being pelted by bloody entrails while the other half wore smiles that threatened to break their faces wide open. I ignored the hateful half and kept reading. Bierce may be a polarizing figure, but on a day when we're discussing dark comedy, he's worth pursuing.
"You know he's still out there," I told my students. "Bierce's body was never found, so he's still out there wandering the Mexican wilderness--or else he's sitting at a bar with Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa while Elvis warms up to sing a few tunes."
Did anyone laugh? Maybe a little. Most looked puzzled, a look I see frequently in that class. All in all, it was a love/hate kind of day in a love/hate kind of class that is turning out to be a perfect recipe for either comedy or tragedy.
Monday, June 27, 2011
One of a kind
Q: Why is there only one Eiffel Tower?
A: Because it eats its young.
I've been telling this joke to everyone I know for the past few days, with mixed results. Mostly it has been received in puzzled silence. My son-in-law laughed, but only after my daughter handed him the phone with the words, "Mom wants to tell you a joke and you're sort of required to laugh." Would he have laughed otherwise? He's an engineer, so maybe so.
I encountered the joke in the book Engaging Humor by Elliott Oring, who is known for having written the definitive account of the history of the dumb blond joke. "Blond Ambition and Other Signs of the Times" is required reading when I teach humor theory, but I've never read the chapter in which he introduces the Eiffel Tower joke. He analyzes the joke in a brutally humorless paragraph that includes the following helpful statement: "Since the Eiffel Tower is not a living organism, it does not eat or reproduce anything, and it seems absurd to explain its singularity in such terms."
Well, duh.
But even after Oring takes scalpel in hand to subject the joke to this brutal dissection, I still find it funny. (The joke, not Elliott Oring, whose name rhymes with...never mind. Cheap shot.) That's right: for me, the Eiffel Tower joke remains impervious to the depredations of the humor theorist.
Which is why I find it odd that others do not share my delight. It eats its young! What a perfect answer! I picture a monstrous Mommy Eiffel giving birth to little baby towers only to gobble them right up before they can leave the nest. I get the giggles just thinking about it, but then I tell the joke and meet a blank stare and try to explain and I end up sounding like Elliott Oring.
Boring!
Am I the only one who finds this joke funny? Am I doomed to spend my days emitting humorless explanations about the reproductive habits of a tourist attraction? The Eiffel Tower and I have this in common: we're one of a kind. Except I don't eat my young. I just bore them to death.
A: Because it eats its young.
I've been telling this joke to everyone I know for the past few days, with mixed results. Mostly it has been received in puzzled silence. My son-in-law laughed, but only after my daughter handed him the phone with the words, "Mom wants to tell you a joke and you're sort of required to laugh." Would he have laughed otherwise? He's an engineer, so maybe so.
I encountered the joke in the book Engaging Humor by Elliott Oring, who is known for having written the definitive account of the history of the dumb blond joke. "Blond Ambition and Other Signs of the Times" is required reading when I teach humor theory, but I've never read the chapter in which he introduces the Eiffel Tower joke. He analyzes the joke in a brutally humorless paragraph that includes the following helpful statement: "Since the Eiffel Tower is not a living organism, it does not eat or reproduce anything, and it seems absurd to explain its singularity in such terms."
Well, duh.
But even after Oring takes scalpel in hand to subject the joke to this brutal dissection, I still find it funny. (The joke, not Elliott Oring, whose name rhymes with...never mind. Cheap shot.) That's right: for me, the Eiffel Tower joke remains impervious to the depredations of the humor theorist.
Which is why I find it odd that others do not share my delight. It eats its young! What a perfect answer! I picture a monstrous Mommy Eiffel giving birth to little baby towers only to gobble them right up before they can leave the nest. I get the giggles just thinking about it, but then I tell the joke and meet a blank stare and try to explain and I end up sounding like Elliott Oring.
Boring!
Am I the only one who finds this joke funny? Am I doomed to spend my days emitting humorless explanations about the reproductive habits of a tourist attraction? The Eiffel Tower and I have this in common: we're one of a kind. Except I don't eat my young. I just bore them to death.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The divine bovine
Trust me on this: you need to drop whatever you're doing right now and go read Woody Allen's story "Udder Madness" in the current New Yorker.
I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but the sentence that pushed me over the edge includes the words "lampshade" and "pustule." If you can read it without laughing, dial 911.
I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but the sentence that pushed me over the edge includes the words "lampshade" and "pustule." If you can read it without laughing, dial 911.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Humoring the humor-haters
All semester my honors humor theory class has been tackling the question "What is humor for?" from various angles. Yesterday, though, I pointed out that the question itself implies that humor serves some purpose in human societies, presumably a good one. But what if we're dead wrong?
After all, the world has never lacked for people who believe that humor is frivolous or childish or even downright evil (see Jorge of Burgos in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose). People have rioted and killed over attempts at humor gone awry (see the infamous Mohammed cartoon incident). Young people bullied by classmates' pointed jokes have fought back with real weapons.
Is humor dangerous? Yesterday my students broke up into three groups, each attempting to persuade their classmates to adopt one of the following views:
1. Humor is essential for the survival of the human species.
2. Humor is important but not essential for survival.
3. Humor is dangerous or detrimental to the survival of the species.
I had to admire the way these students threw themselves into the debate, each group presenting a wealth of convincing arguments and evidence to support their assigned positions. In the end we voted, and the class split pretty evenly between positions 1 and 2, with no one voting for position 3. I suppose a student who believes that humor is dangerous is unlikely to register for a class devoted to studying humor theory, but still, it's interesting that they were so easily able to muster arguments for the evils of humor while remaining convinced that we just can't live without it.
At one point in the discussion a student turned to me and asked, "What about you? Has humor helped you get through cancer treatments?"
"Of course," I said. "In fact, this class has played a big part in keeping me sane this semester." Here's an example: yesterday morning I was feeling a little glum over a new side effect (ever heard of "peripheral neuropathy"? You could look it up), but I spent an hour in my colleague's class listening to my honors students do speeches honoring great comedians of the twentieth century (like Bob Newhart, Lucille Ball, Jonathan Winters, and Red Skelton, among others) and then an hour in my class listening to those same students presenting brilliant and sometimes funny arguments about the importance of humor, and those two classes provided ample amounts of humor therapy. Humor isn't going to heal my side effects or cancel my cancer, but it sure helps me get through the day, providing necessary distraction from more serious concerns.
Of course, anyone who supports position 3 above would say such distraction is frivolous or childish or downright evil, but fortunately, I'm not one of those people--and neither are my honors students. We laugh in the face of Jorge of Burgos.
And then we keep laughing.
After all, the world has never lacked for people who believe that humor is frivolous or childish or even downright evil (see Jorge of Burgos in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose). People have rioted and killed over attempts at humor gone awry (see the infamous Mohammed cartoon incident). Young people bullied by classmates' pointed jokes have fought back with real weapons.
Is humor dangerous? Yesterday my students broke up into three groups, each attempting to persuade their classmates to adopt one of the following views:
1. Humor is essential for the survival of the human species.
2. Humor is important but not essential for survival.
3. Humor is dangerous or detrimental to the survival of the species.
I had to admire the way these students threw themselves into the debate, each group presenting a wealth of convincing arguments and evidence to support their assigned positions. In the end we voted, and the class split pretty evenly between positions 1 and 2, with no one voting for position 3. I suppose a student who believes that humor is dangerous is unlikely to register for a class devoted to studying humor theory, but still, it's interesting that they were so easily able to muster arguments for the evils of humor while remaining convinced that we just can't live without it.
At one point in the discussion a student turned to me and asked, "What about you? Has humor helped you get through cancer treatments?"
"Of course," I said. "In fact, this class has played a big part in keeping me sane this semester." Here's an example: yesterday morning I was feeling a little glum over a new side effect (ever heard of "peripheral neuropathy"? You could look it up), but I spent an hour in my colleague's class listening to my honors students do speeches honoring great comedians of the twentieth century (like Bob Newhart, Lucille Ball, Jonathan Winters, and Red Skelton, among others) and then an hour in my class listening to those same students presenting brilliant and sometimes funny arguments about the importance of humor, and those two classes provided ample amounts of humor therapy. Humor isn't going to heal my side effects or cancel my cancer, but it sure helps me get through the day, providing necessary distraction from more serious concerns.
Of course, anyone who supports position 3 above would say such distraction is frivolous or childish or downright evil, but fortunately, I'm not one of those people--and neither are my honors students. We laugh in the face of Jorge of Burgos.
And then we keep laughing.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Stephen King Out-Thurbers Thurber
Stephen King in the New Yorker? The Nov. 2 issue features his story "Premium Harmony," which is simply a hoot from beginning to end. The story contains significant echoes of "A Couple of Hamburgers," the James Thurber story in which an unhappy couple rehashes one old tired argument after another during a road trip through Connecticut. King's story includes more serious disaster but still remains more lighthearted and even gleeful than Thurber's bitter tale. And King's metaphors are fresh and telling:
"He sometimes thinks marriage is like a football game and he's quarterbacking the underdog team. He has to pick his spots. Make short passes."
"Now they argue quite a lot. It's really all the same argument. It has circularity. It is, Ray thinks, like a dog track. When they argue, they're like greyhounds chasing the mechanical rabbit. You go past the same scenery time after time, but you don't see it. You see the rabbit."
The scenery in King's story is provided by a small Maine town suffering from economic decline, but, like Thurber's story, the entire plot takes place first within a car and then within a small, struggling business. Thurber breaks his story up by taking his couple inside a diner in search of a couple of hamburgers, but the change in location only pushes the eternal argument underground, where it festers for a while before breaking out again back in the car.
King similarly breaks up the road trip with a visit to a small business, and, as in Thurber's story, the husband's appetite is assuaged while the wife's most definitely is not. Thurber ends the story with the wife's self-satisfied knowledge that she will soon win a small victory that will cause pain for both of them, while King's story ends with a scene evoking pain and suffering but also suffused with radiant joy.
James Thurber's writing once defined what was meant by a typical New Yorker story, ranging from the madcap adventure to the gently nostalgic memoir to the sour anatomy of the failing relationship that we see in "A Couple of Hamburgers." Stephen King's thrillers seem as far from typical New Yorker fiction as any prose could possibly be; nevertheless, with "Premium Harmony," King evokes the madcap end of Thurber's range, joyously transforming one of Thurber's bitter relationship tales into raucous good fun. Thurber must be rolling over in his grave--rolling on the floor laughing, that is.
"He sometimes thinks marriage is like a football game and he's quarterbacking the underdog team. He has to pick his spots. Make short passes."
"Now they argue quite a lot. It's really all the same argument. It has circularity. It is, Ray thinks, like a dog track. When they argue, they're like greyhounds chasing the mechanical rabbit. You go past the same scenery time after time, but you don't see it. You see the rabbit."
The scenery in King's story is provided by a small Maine town suffering from economic decline, but, like Thurber's story, the entire plot takes place first within a car and then within a small, struggling business. Thurber breaks his story up by taking his couple inside a diner in search of a couple of hamburgers, but the change in location only pushes the eternal argument underground, where it festers for a while before breaking out again back in the car.
King similarly breaks up the road trip with a visit to a small business, and, as in Thurber's story, the husband's appetite is assuaged while the wife's most definitely is not. Thurber ends the story with the wife's self-satisfied knowledge that she will soon win a small victory that will cause pain for both of them, while King's story ends with a scene evoking pain and suffering but also suffused with radiant joy.
James Thurber's writing once defined what was meant by a typical New Yorker story, ranging from the madcap adventure to the gently nostalgic memoir to the sour anatomy of the failing relationship that we see in "A Couple of Hamburgers." Stephen King's thrillers seem as far from typical New Yorker fiction as any prose could possibly be; nevertheless, with "Premium Harmony," King evokes the madcap end of Thurber's range, joyously transforming one of Thurber's bitter relationship tales into raucous good fun. Thurber must be rolling over in his grave--rolling on the floor laughing, that is.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Ode to ukeleles
Terrific article in the New York Times about the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain (read it here). The thought of a group of tuxedo-clad Brits playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on ukeleles is funny enough, but here is my favorite part:
But the high point may have been when the band invited members of the audience to bring their own ukuleles and join in a group rendition of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” part of their aim to spread the joy of ukuleles among the populace. There were more than 1,000 audience ukuleles, by an official count, and even the obviously unschooled joined in by swaying and waving their ukuleles in the air, like blissed-out teenagers wielding lighters at a rock concert.
We need a ukelele orchestra! And I know just the person to start one. Trivia quiz: which MC faculty member is a closeted ukelele aficionado? (Hint: not me.)
But the high point may have been when the band invited members of the audience to bring their own ukuleles and join in a group rendition of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” part of their aim to spread the joy of ukuleles among the populace. There were more than 1,000 audience ukuleles, by an official count, and even the obviously unschooled joined in by swaying and waving their ukuleles in the air, like blissed-out teenagers wielding lighters at a rock concert.
We need a ukelele orchestra! And I know just the person to start one. Trivia quiz: which MC faculty member is a closeted ukelele aficionado? (Hint: not me.)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
How about some "dumb blogger" jokes?
I tried an experiment this morning in my humor class. They had read an essay on the origin and function of "dumb blond" jokes, "Blond Ambition," in which Elliot Oring argues that the stereotype of the "dumb blond" serves as a placeholder to allow us to distance ourselves from characteristics that are inappropriate in the world of work (stupidity and sexual promiscuity). We also discussed research on what sorts of ethnic groups get stereotyped as stupid in different places: Canadians might tell "dumb Newfie" jokes and Nigerians tell "dumb Hausa" jokes, but in general, Nigerians are unlikely to tell jokes about those goofy Newfoundlanders. Stereotyping a particular group as stupid seems to require a willingness to project negative behaviors or attitudes on those just outside our own neighborhoods.
After some discussion, I broke the students into pairs and gave them instructions: find a way to distinguish yourself from a neighboring group and develop some negative stereotypes about them. They got to work only after I promised to issue a blanket absolution after they were done.
They're a pretty clever group of students, but they encountered trouble right away. One group came up with an anti-tall-people shtick while another heaped some mild derision on commuters, but we learned more by talking about what made this exercise so difficult. "It's just hard to come up with stereotypes about people we know," explained one student, and isn't that the key? We stereotype people close enough to be visible--sometimes close enough to appear to pose a threat--but not so close that we really know them. Real knowledge negates stereotypes.
When I tell people I'm teaching a humor theory class, they sometimes assume that it must be pretty lightweight. I mean, how difficult can it be to spend an hour talking about dumb blond jokes? Go ahead and stereotype my class as stupid--but don't be surprised if we nod knowingly. We know why you're poking fun at us. Do you?
After some discussion, I broke the students into pairs and gave them instructions: find a way to distinguish yourself from a neighboring group and develop some negative stereotypes about them. They got to work only after I promised to issue a blanket absolution after they were done.
They're a pretty clever group of students, but they encountered trouble right away. One group came up with an anti-tall-people shtick while another heaped some mild derision on commuters, but we learned more by talking about what made this exercise so difficult. "It's just hard to come up with stereotypes about people we know," explained one student, and isn't that the key? We stereotype people close enough to be visible--sometimes close enough to appear to pose a threat--but not so close that we really know them. Real knowledge negates stereotypes.
When I tell people I'm teaching a humor theory class, they sometimes assume that it must be pretty lightweight. I mean, how difficult can it be to spend an hour talking about dumb blond jokes? Go ahead and stereotype my class as stupid--but don't be surprised if we nod knowingly. We know why you're poking fun at us. Do you?
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Awkward public record
Found it!
The other day I bemoaned my inability to locate a quote from James Thurber on the essence of humor (read it here), but a quick response from a helpful librarian led me to a book I happen to have on my shelf at home: Selected Letters of James Thurber, Ed. Helen Thurber and Edward Weeks.
In December 1950, James Thurber wrote the following in a letter to Joel Sayre: "The proof of humor is the ability to put one's self on awkward public record, just as the proof of wit is to do that to others." It's not quite the wording I recall, but it's the thought that counts.
And here, as a bonus, is an excerpt from a 1951 letter from Thurber to E.B. White, which I'll share with my humor class on Tuesday:
"I write humor the way a surgeon operates, because it is a livelihood, because I have a great urge to do it, because many interesting challenges are set up, and because I have the hope that it may do some good. When the leftists got hold of Dorothy Parker, they persuaded her to say in The New Masses, 'Humor is a shield and not a weapon.' It is both and neither, but I remember how, at one battle in Gaul, members of the Tenth Legion banged the bejesus out of the enemy with their shields when their swords were gone."
The other day I bemoaned my inability to locate a quote from James Thurber on the essence of humor (read it here), but a quick response from a helpful librarian led me to a book I happen to have on my shelf at home: Selected Letters of James Thurber, Ed. Helen Thurber and Edward Weeks.
In December 1950, James Thurber wrote the following in a letter to Joel Sayre: "The proof of humor is the ability to put one's self on awkward public record, just as the proof of wit is to do that to others." It's not quite the wording I recall, but it's the thought that counts.
And here, as a bonus, is an excerpt from a 1951 letter from Thurber to E.B. White, which I'll share with my humor class on Tuesday:
"I write humor the way a surgeon operates, because it is a livelihood, because I have a great urge to do it, because many interesting challenges are set up, and because I have the hope that it may do some good. When the leftists got hold of Dorothy Parker, they persuaded her to say in The New Masses, 'Humor is a shield and not a weapon.' It is both and neither, but I remember how, at one battle in Gaul, members of the Tenth Legion banged the bejesus out of the enemy with their shields when their swords were gone."
Thursday, September 03, 2009
A day in the life
...because someone asked...
9 a.m.
I'm sitting in the waiting room of the cancer center patiently awaiting lab tests and chemotherapy followed by my daily radiation treatment. I'm early. I'm always early, but this time I'm really, really early. With eight separate medical appointments this week alone, it's not surprising that I get confused. Better early than late, I guess, since I have to be here anyway.
Chemo days always start early, which means I rely on a network of helpful friends to drive out to the middle of nowhere at the crack of dawn to fetch me and then take me home again later. I could drive myself to town in the morning, but the drugs make me too dopey to drive home at the end of the day, so I may as well get a ride both ways and avoid abandoning my car in that annoying parking garage.
On my daily radiation visits I always park in the same general area in that annoying garage: level B (less traffic down there, easy access to the lower exit), on the end near the cancer center entrance (not so far for me to walk), facing out toward fresh air and sunshine (so my car won't get claustrophobic). Today, though, a wonderful colleague dropped me off.
So here I sit in the waiting room, with Regis and Kelly babbling on the television mounted on the wall. It's a lovely waiting room--soothing colors, lots of light, comfy chairs, coffee and snacks, faux waterfall in the corner and stone fireplace right in the middle of the room--but it's generally full of sick people, some with no hair, some in wheelchairs, some haggard and worn and sleeping wherever they land. Sometimes there are children. I always hope the children are here to accompany sick parents. It's just too awful to imagine children suffering through chemotherapy and radiation.
9:17
The lab nurse calls me in so she can take my blood. The medi-port makes drawing blood easier, but that doesn't mean it's painless. At first stick she can't get any blood. "That's because I don't have any left," I say, but she doesn't believe me. It's true that the chemotherapy exacerbates my anemia to the point that my cheerful oncologist keeps saying comforting things like "Don't worry, if it gets any worse we can give you blood transfusions," but I haven't run out of blood entirely, so the nurse eventually finds a few lonely blood cells willing to go out for a spin.
Back in the waiting room, I wonder what my numbers will look like this time. Will the tumor markers decrease again? I won't find out until next week, and the suspense is just killing me. Unlike Regis and Kelly, who are causing millions of brain cells to commit suicide out of sheer boredom.
I know! I'll use the cancer center's free wireless internet system to check my mail: junk, mass e-mails regarding events I can't attend, committee meeting minutes, supportive messages from colleagues, the usual. No frantic messages from students so far. I've set up online activities for all three classes today and tomorrow, and I fully expect a few newbies to struggle with the technology even though we've put it through its paces in class several times already. But maybe they'll surprise me.
My honors students in the humor class have already surprised me by posting their discussion questions well in advance of the deadline--and what terrific questions! I'd like to test-drive a few myself, but better to give the students a chance to take 'em out for a spin. I want to see how they handle the question about when it's acceptable to make humor out of human suffering, a topic particularly close to my heart right now.
Let's go check the online discussion board to see how it's going--but first, a detour to the sitemeter faithfully tabulating blog visits. Wow. My numbers have never been better. If I'd know getting cancer would make me so darn popular, I'd have done it years ago.
Sorry. Just a little inappropriate levity re: human suffering.
Nothing new in today's discussion yet...but some students have already posted comments for tomorrow's online class. Which works better, synchronous or asynchronous discussion? I guess I'm getting ready to find out.
10 a.m.
The news is on now, showing strikingly beautiful photos of California burning, which raises the question: when is it acceptable to make art out of human suffering? Is it better to make art or humor or something else entirely?
Oh, now they're reporting on the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping case. It's painful to contemplate the facts, but who can turn away? Will it ever be possible to make either art or humor out of that kind of human suffering? Why or why not? Discuss.
(And who am I addressing here anyway? Hi, whoever you are! Glad you stopped by! Hope you're doing something much more fun than chemotherapy! (If so, why would you want to read this?) Write and tell me about it so I can enjoy it too!)
10:20 a.m.
The nurse leads me back to the chemotherapy room, already crowded with patients attached to IV's. I request a window seat as usual, and I settle in on the big comfy yellow reclining chair in a cheery cubicle surrounded by warm wood half-walls topped with frosted glass featuring a lovely leaf motif. A volunteer comes over to see if I need anything--water, warm blanket, snack?--and we chat a bit. He and his wife, both retired, volunteer here twice a week, and he says 99 percent of the patients he works with are nice. What about the rest? "Sometimes it's hard to be nice if you don't feel so good," he explains. Resolved: be nice to the volunteers, regardless.
Voices from the next cubicle:
"She has a laptop over there."
"A laptop? Do you think they have wireless?"
"I'll go ask."
"No, don't ask--I don't want you to bother her."
"Bother me," I call out. A pleasant young man pops over from the next cubicle, where he's keeping his mother company while she gets chemotherapy. They're both delighted to discover the existence of wireless access. "Next time I'll bring my computer," says the mother, "and maybe we can talk." I refrain from pointing out that we could actually talk just as well without a computer, but let's not get contentious.
Lunch arrives. It's a little early, but it'll keep. Sandwich, cole slaw, apple, granola bar. And of course I have my college mug full of green tea with ginger. Sustenance enough to get me through the day.
Further exploration of the lunch bag reveals that the round object in the bottom of the bag is not an apple after all but an orange. Even better: I'll peel it and experience some natural aromatherapy...but apparently I'm not the first one to think of that. Why can't all medical facilities smell like fresh-squeezed oranges?
10:45 The pre-chemo medication drip is doing its thing. These drugs precede the nasty chemo drugs to head off bad reactions and prevent nausea, but they also make me dopey. I may pay a spontaneous visit to la-la land at any moment. Hope I remember to hit "Save" first.
She's four years older than I am, the woman in the next cubicle. I know this because she has been asked twice already to state her name and birthdate. Every medical procedure and every new bag of drugs attached to the IV requires the patient to state his or her name and birthdate. I'm sure I've said it a thousand times since June.
Sounds like this is her first encounter with chemo, but she's staying pretty cheerful. "Is this the stuff that'll make my hair fall out?" she asks. I want to tell her how to do fun things with scarves, but she's busy being introduced to the IV pole that will be her dance partner for the next few hours.
The cubicles all have little televisions tucked into the warm wood half-wall, and some patients pass the time by watching. Last time I was here, the guy in the next cubicle was watching a Nascar race. It's tempting to draw conclusions about cancer patients based on their viewing choices, but what would they say about me?
10:55
The IV monitor beeps. "Infusion complete," it proclaims, which would be good news except that it's referring only to the infusion of pre-chemo medications. The really nasty stuff starts right now and lasts until it's through. My first chemotherapy session lasted only a few hours because an allergic reaction caused the first drip to be aborted; the second round lasted three or four hours. I'm not sure how long this one will take, but the nurses have assured me that I'll be done in time for my 2:00 radiation treatment. Radiation waits for no man. Or woman either.
Funny: I feel alert, but the connection between my intentious and my fingers seems to be slipping...I'm leaving letters out of words and hitting other letters that have no excuse for intruding where they are not wanted. This is the chief drawback on these drugs: they slow me down in ways that are not immediately obvious, so at the moment I'm probably not the most reliable source of information on how I'm doing.
11:04
Time to check the online discussion board to see how my honors students are doing. Three messages already! Class just started four minutes ago! Students are piling on that question about making humor out of human suffering. Can't wait to see how the rest of the class responds.
Many machines are beeping. Hey, let's get out the iPod! Music to soothe the savage beast. Not that there are any savage beasts here. We're just sick people doing our best to be nice regardless of how we feel.
11:45
Still immersed in my students' online discussion. They're doing great! I jumped in to comment at one point and I'll do it again in a minute. Meanwhile, my IV gently drips.
12:20
I've read all my students' comments and added a few of my own. They've been eagerly debating why humor about machines is so common: are we frightened of machines or trying to assert our superiority over them? Or do our interactions with machines simply provide many opportunities to expose our incompetence to the world? When it comes to technology, we slip on metaphorical banana peels every day of the week. Who wouldn't laugh?
The machine I'm hooked up to right now makes me feel incompetent every time I need to get up and visit the rest room. It's not possible to sit here absorbing fluids for hours without eventually needing to get up and go, but the process is cumbersome: unplug IV monitor from wall; waltz IV pole carefully through the nest of power cords mingling promiscuously on the floor of the cubicle; drag IV pole over to rest room; figure out how to get both of us in there and shut the door--and then get ready to repeat the whole process in reverse.
One of these days I expect to see a cancer patient waltzing with an IV pole on Dancing with the Stars. Too bad Ted Kennedy's not available for the part...
Here we go again, making humor out of human suffering. Tasteless, tacky, irreverent, or none of the above?
12:30
Someone nearby is watching a soap opera. I can't see it but I can hear it: dramatic soap music loudly announcing impending doom, stilted dialogue dealing with situations even stranger than the life of a cancer patient. What is it this time, return of the long-lost twin? Blackmail of a foot-fetishist whose stash of stolen flip-flops is uncovered by the neighbor's dog? I can't hear enough to know what's going on but I refuse to move any closer because those soap-star faces creep me out. They look shiny, stretched and stitched to the point of immobility, like space aliens--or space-alien action figures manufactured from space-age polymers. They just don't look like real people.
12:45
The little gray cells are slowing down. Time to do something mindless. Let's load some more music onto the iPod, shall we? And how amazing is it that I can sample, select, and download music to my cute little Shuffle while wedded to an IV pole at the cancer center?
I'm due for radiation a little over an hour from now, but there's still quite a lot of fluid in that IV bag. I've seen people waltzing their IV poles into the radiation rooms, but I don't look forward to taking my strong but silent dance partner on that long a journey. It's hard enough stumbling around on my own two left feet, but the IV pole has five. Come to think of it, five feet ought to make the pole more proficiently mobile than I am. Maybe I'll let the IV pole carry me over there. Your lead, sir.
1:15
Serious beeping this time. Infusion complete? The nurse checks: "Just a few more drops." But the end is near! I'll be done in plenty of time for radiation, and I don't even feel awful. Slow, yes, and not entirely connected to reality, but not awful. Awful comes later. Trust me: you'd rather not know.
My ears are full of Chopin, a condition for which a doctor ought to be able to prescribe something. If Chopin were a medical disorder, what symptoms would it produce?
The nurse tells me my color looks good, but my appearance has changed enough to bring tears to the eyes of one colleague yesterday and to spark absolutely no recognition in the eyes of another. Ye shall know me by my scarves.
1:30
The nurse unhooks the IV and flushes out the medi-port with saline solution, which immediately creates in my mouth a flavor I can only describe as antiseptic, as if I've been gargling Lysol. This is good news: I'm done with the drip and I can move on to radiation without the assistance of my dance partner.
Now I'm in the radiation waiting room, a cozy space enlivened by the presence of a large aquarium where colorful tropical fish swim for my amusement. They're much more entertaining than Regis and Kelly and far less likely to babble. Bubble, yes; babble, no.
Radiation is easy: lie still and let the machine do its work. At first all the beeping and buzzing were a bit disconcerting, but after eight treatments, I find it easy to block out the noise and fall asleep in the arms of Elekta the elegant linear accelerator.
The women who work here are young and petite, but when it's time to man-handle my body to make sure ever inch is lined up correctly, they have no problem shoving me around like a sack of potatoes. I'd like to see them try that when I'm not lying flat on my back half naked. Then again, maybe not: they have me outnumbered.
The route to Elekta's lair takes me down a nondescript medical office hallway and then down a narrow corridor decorated like the entrance to Grandma's parlor: homey pictures line the wall around a faux brick fireplace topped with dried flower arrangements and family photos. So warm and inviting and homelike...but then I turn the corner and find myself in Sick Bay on the Enterprise. I wonder whether cognitive dissonance is an essential part of the treatment.
1:45 and I have nothing to say. Tired of waiting. Feeling sleepy. Time to shut down for a little while.
2:15 and I'm done! I drifted off to sleep during radiation and then jerked awake moments later, which sort of messed up all that careful positioning. Fortunately, Elekta had reached the last stage in her enigmatic machinations.
Now I'm outside on the sunny courtyard waiting for my wonderful colleague to collect me. Feeling good so far. A little wobbly, a little warped, but not at all awful.
But if I did feel awful, I would strive to make some humor out of it. It's hard to make humor out of a long day of waiting and boredom, but awfulness...well, if I can't make humor out of suffering, then what's it good for?
9 a.m.
I'm sitting in the waiting room of the cancer center patiently awaiting lab tests and chemotherapy followed by my daily radiation treatment. I'm early. I'm always early, but this time I'm really, really early. With eight separate medical appointments this week alone, it's not surprising that I get confused. Better early than late, I guess, since I have to be here anyway.
Chemo days always start early, which means I rely on a network of helpful friends to drive out to the middle of nowhere at the crack of dawn to fetch me and then take me home again later. I could drive myself to town in the morning, but the drugs make me too dopey to drive home at the end of the day, so I may as well get a ride both ways and avoid abandoning my car in that annoying parking garage.
On my daily radiation visits I always park in the same general area in that annoying garage: level B (less traffic down there, easy access to the lower exit), on the end near the cancer center entrance (not so far for me to walk), facing out toward fresh air and sunshine (so my car won't get claustrophobic). Today, though, a wonderful colleague dropped me off.
So here I sit in the waiting room, with Regis and Kelly babbling on the television mounted on the wall. It's a lovely waiting room--soothing colors, lots of light, comfy chairs, coffee and snacks, faux waterfall in the corner and stone fireplace right in the middle of the room--but it's generally full of sick people, some with no hair, some in wheelchairs, some haggard and worn and sleeping wherever they land. Sometimes there are children. I always hope the children are here to accompany sick parents. It's just too awful to imagine children suffering through chemotherapy and radiation.
9:17
The lab nurse calls me in so she can take my blood. The medi-port makes drawing blood easier, but that doesn't mean it's painless. At first stick she can't get any blood. "That's because I don't have any left," I say, but she doesn't believe me. It's true that the chemotherapy exacerbates my anemia to the point that my cheerful oncologist keeps saying comforting things like "Don't worry, if it gets any worse we can give you blood transfusions," but I haven't run out of blood entirely, so the nurse eventually finds a few lonely blood cells willing to go out for a spin.
Back in the waiting room, I wonder what my numbers will look like this time. Will the tumor markers decrease again? I won't find out until next week, and the suspense is just killing me. Unlike Regis and Kelly, who are causing millions of brain cells to commit suicide out of sheer boredom.
I know! I'll use the cancer center's free wireless internet system to check my mail: junk, mass e-mails regarding events I can't attend, committee meeting minutes, supportive messages from colleagues, the usual. No frantic messages from students so far. I've set up online activities for all three classes today and tomorrow, and I fully expect a few newbies to struggle with the technology even though we've put it through its paces in class several times already. But maybe they'll surprise me.
My honors students in the humor class have already surprised me by posting their discussion questions well in advance of the deadline--and what terrific questions! I'd like to test-drive a few myself, but better to give the students a chance to take 'em out for a spin. I want to see how they handle the question about when it's acceptable to make humor out of human suffering, a topic particularly close to my heart right now.
Let's go check the online discussion board to see how it's going--but first, a detour to the sitemeter faithfully tabulating blog visits. Wow. My numbers have never been better. If I'd know getting cancer would make me so darn popular, I'd have done it years ago.
Sorry. Just a little inappropriate levity re: human suffering.
Nothing new in today's discussion yet...but some students have already posted comments for tomorrow's online class. Which works better, synchronous or asynchronous discussion? I guess I'm getting ready to find out.
10 a.m.
The news is on now, showing strikingly beautiful photos of California burning, which raises the question: when is it acceptable to make art out of human suffering? Is it better to make art or humor or something else entirely?
Oh, now they're reporting on the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping case. It's painful to contemplate the facts, but who can turn away? Will it ever be possible to make either art or humor out of that kind of human suffering? Why or why not? Discuss.
(And who am I addressing here anyway? Hi, whoever you are! Glad you stopped by! Hope you're doing something much more fun than chemotherapy! (If so, why would you want to read this?) Write and tell me about it so I can enjoy it too!)
10:20 a.m.
The nurse leads me back to the chemotherapy room, already crowded with patients attached to IV's. I request a window seat as usual, and I settle in on the big comfy yellow reclining chair in a cheery cubicle surrounded by warm wood half-walls topped with frosted glass featuring a lovely leaf motif. A volunteer comes over to see if I need anything--water, warm blanket, snack?--and we chat a bit. He and his wife, both retired, volunteer here twice a week, and he says 99 percent of the patients he works with are nice. What about the rest? "Sometimes it's hard to be nice if you don't feel so good," he explains. Resolved: be nice to the volunteers, regardless.
Voices from the next cubicle:
"She has a laptop over there."
"A laptop? Do you think they have wireless?"
"I'll go ask."
"No, don't ask--I don't want you to bother her."
"Bother me," I call out. A pleasant young man pops over from the next cubicle, where he's keeping his mother company while she gets chemotherapy. They're both delighted to discover the existence of wireless access. "Next time I'll bring my computer," says the mother, "and maybe we can talk." I refrain from pointing out that we could actually talk just as well without a computer, but let's not get contentious.
Lunch arrives. It's a little early, but it'll keep. Sandwich, cole slaw, apple, granola bar. And of course I have my college mug full of green tea with ginger. Sustenance enough to get me through the day.
Further exploration of the lunch bag reveals that the round object in the bottom of the bag is not an apple after all but an orange. Even better: I'll peel it and experience some natural aromatherapy...but apparently I'm not the first one to think of that. Why can't all medical facilities smell like fresh-squeezed oranges?
10:45 The pre-chemo medication drip is doing its thing. These drugs precede the nasty chemo drugs to head off bad reactions and prevent nausea, but they also make me dopey. I may pay a spontaneous visit to la-la land at any moment. Hope I remember to hit "Save" first.
She's four years older than I am, the woman in the next cubicle. I know this because she has been asked twice already to state her name and birthdate. Every medical procedure and every new bag of drugs attached to the IV requires the patient to state his or her name and birthdate. I'm sure I've said it a thousand times since June.
Sounds like this is her first encounter with chemo, but she's staying pretty cheerful. "Is this the stuff that'll make my hair fall out?" she asks. I want to tell her how to do fun things with scarves, but she's busy being introduced to the IV pole that will be her dance partner for the next few hours.
The cubicles all have little televisions tucked into the warm wood half-wall, and some patients pass the time by watching. Last time I was here, the guy in the next cubicle was watching a Nascar race. It's tempting to draw conclusions about cancer patients based on their viewing choices, but what would they say about me?
10:55
The IV monitor beeps. "Infusion complete," it proclaims, which would be good news except that it's referring only to the infusion of pre-chemo medications. The really nasty stuff starts right now and lasts until it's through. My first chemotherapy session lasted only a few hours because an allergic reaction caused the first drip to be aborted; the second round lasted three or four hours. I'm not sure how long this one will take, but the nurses have assured me that I'll be done in time for my 2:00 radiation treatment. Radiation waits for no man. Or woman either.
Funny: I feel alert, but the connection between my intentious and my fingers seems to be slipping...I'm leaving letters out of words and hitting other letters that have no excuse for intruding where they are not wanted. This is the chief drawback on these drugs: they slow me down in ways that are not immediately obvious, so at the moment I'm probably not the most reliable source of information on how I'm doing.
11:04
Time to check the online discussion board to see how my honors students are doing. Three messages already! Class just started four minutes ago! Students are piling on that question about making humor out of human suffering. Can't wait to see how the rest of the class responds.
Many machines are beeping. Hey, let's get out the iPod! Music to soothe the savage beast. Not that there are any savage beasts here. We're just sick people doing our best to be nice regardless of how we feel.
11:45
Still immersed in my students' online discussion. They're doing great! I jumped in to comment at one point and I'll do it again in a minute. Meanwhile, my IV gently drips.
12:20
I've read all my students' comments and added a few of my own. They've been eagerly debating why humor about machines is so common: are we frightened of machines or trying to assert our superiority over them? Or do our interactions with machines simply provide many opportunities to expose our incompetence to the world? When it comes to technology, we slip on metaphorical banana peels every day of the week. Who wouldn't laugh?
The machine I'm hooked up to right now makes me feel incompetent every time I need to get up and visit the rest room. It's not possible to sit here absorbing fluids for hours without eventually needing to get up and go, but the process is cumbersome: unplug IV monitor from wall; waltz IV pole carefully through the nest of power cords mingling promiscuously on the floor of the cubicle; drag IV pole over to rest room; figure out how to get both of us in there and shut the door--and then get ready to repeat the whole process in reverse.
One of these days I expect to see a cancer patient waltzing with an IV pole on Dancing with the Stars. Too bad Ted Kennedy's not available for the part...
Here we go again, making humor out of human suffering. Tasteless, tacky, irreverent, or none of the above?
12:30
Someone nearby is watching a soap opera. I can't see it but I can hear it: dramatic soap music loudly announcing impending doom, stilted dialogue dealing with situations even stranger than the life of a cancer patient. What is it this time, return of the long-lost twin? Blackmail of a foot-fetishist whose stash of stolen flip-flops is uncovered by the neighbor's dog? I can't hear enough to know what's going on but I refuse to move any closer because those soap-star faces creep me out. They look shiny, stretched and stitched to the point of immobility, like space aliens--or space-alien action figures manufactured from space-age polymers. They just don't look like real people.
12:45
The little gray cells are slowing down. Time to do something mindless. Let's load some more music onto the iPod, shall we? And how amazing is it that I can sample, select, and download music to my cute little Shuffle while wedded to an IV pole at the cancer center?
I'm due for radiation a little over an hour from now, but there's still quite a lot of fluid in that IV bag. I've seen people waltzing their IV poles into the radiation rooms, but I don't look forward to taking my strong but silent dance partner on that long a journey. It's hard enough stumbling around on my own two left feet, but the IV pole has five. Come to think of it, five feet ought to make the pole more proficiently mobile than I am. Maybe I'll let the IV pole carry me over there. Your lead, sir.
1:15
Serious beeping this time. Infusion complete? The nurse checks: "Just a few more drops." But the end is near! I'll be done in plenty of time for radiation, and I don't even feel awful. Slow, yes, and not entirely connected to reality, but not awful. Awful comes later. Trust me: you'd rather not know.
My ears are full of Chopin, a condition for which a doctor ought to be able to prescribe something. If Chopin were a medical disorder, what symptoms would it produce?
The nurse tells me my color looks good, but my appearance has changed enough to bring tears to the eyes of one colleague yesterday and to spark absolutely no recognition in the eyes of another. Ye shall know me by my scarves.
1:30
The nurse unhooks the IV and flushes out the medi-port with saline solution, which immediately creates in my mouth a flavor I can only describe as antiseptic, as if I've been gargling Lysol. This is good news: I'm done with the drip and I can move on to radiation without the assistance of my dance partner.
Now I'm in the radiation waiting room, a cozy space enlivened by the presence of a large aquarium where colorful tropical fish swim for my amusement. They're much more entertaining than Regis and Kelly and far less likely to babble. Bubble, yes; babble, no.
Radiation is easy: lie still and let the machine do its work. At first all the beeping and buzzing were a bit disconcerting, but after eight treatments, I find it easy to block out the noise and fall asleep in the arms of Elekta the elegant linear accelerator.
The women who work here are young and petite, but when it's time to man-handle my body to make sure ever inch is lined up correctly, they have no problem shoving me around like a sack of potatoes. I'd like to see them try that when I'm not lying flat on my back half naked. Then again, maybe not: they have me outnumbered.
The route to Elekta's lair takes me down a nondescript medical office hallway and then down a narrow corridor decorated like the entrance to Grandma's parlor: homey pictures line the wall around a faux brick fireplace topped with dried flower arrangements and family photos. So warm and inviting and homelike...but then I turn the corner and find myself in Sick Bay on the Enterprise. I wonder whether cognitive dissonance is an essential part of the treatment.
1:45 and I have nothing to say. Tired of waiting. Feeling sleepy. Time to shut down for a little while.
2:15 and I'm done! I drifted off to sleep during radiation and then jerked awake moments later, which sort of messed up all that careful positioning. Fortunately, Elekta had reached the last stage in her enigmatic machinations.
Now I'm outside on the sunny courtyard waiting for my wonderful colleague to collect me. Feeling good so far. A little wobbly, a little warped, but not at all awful.
But if I did feel awful, I would strive to make some humor out of it. It's hard to make humor out of a long day of waiting and boredom, but awfulness...well, if I can't make humor out of suffering, then what's it good for?
The naked truth
"Let me be the first to admit that the naked truth about me is to the naked truth about Salvador Dali as an old ukelele in the attic is to a piano in a tree, and I mean a piano with breasts."
James Thurber wrote that wonderful sentence in a 1943 essay called "The Secret Life of James Thurber," and how wonderful is it to be teaching a class with a textbook that includes this essay?
But that reminds me of another naked truth: for years I've been telling my humor classes that James Thurber once said that the essence of humor is the willingness to place oneself on painful public record. I believe that, and I believe Thurber said it, but where? I haven't been able to track the statement down anywhere. If you Google "Thurber" with "public record," you get a whole lot of hits referring to some other Thurber, Fred Thurber or Mike Thurber or Joe Thurber, whose entry into the public record has more to do with crime than with humor. So now I don't know whether to keep telling my students that the essence of humor is the willingness to place oneself on painful public record without attribution, or perhaps I should admit the naked truth about my inability to locate the source. Help?
James Thurber wrote that wonderful sentence in a 1943 essay called "The Secret Life of James Thurber," and how wonderful is it to be teaching a class with a textbook that includes this essay?
But that reminds me of another naked truth: for years I've been telling my humor classes that James Thurber once said that the essence of humor is the willingness to place oneself on painful public record. I believe that, and I believe Thurber said it, but where? I haven't been able to track the statement down anywhere. If you Google "Thurber" with "public record," you get a whole lot of hits referring to some other Thurber, Fred Thurber or Mike Thurber or Joe Thurber, whose entry into the public record has more to do with crime than with humor. So now I don't know whether to keep telling my students that the essence of humor is the willingness to place oneself on painful public record without attribution, or perhaps I should admit the naked truth about my inability to locate the source. Help?
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Imagine a world without fart jokes
My honors students in the humor theory class are writing right now in response to an intentionally vague prompt: "What is humor for?" It's not a graded essay; I just want to see where their writing skills are, how they organize ideas, what kind of work they can produce in 30 minutes without advance preparation.
But I'm also interested in their answers. I've taught variations on this humor theory class three or four times and every time I hope students will come to some understanding of the function of humor in human societies, but let's face it: I'd be hard pressed to answer the question myself. What is humor for? Does it confer some sort of survival advantage for the species? If some strange cataclysm somehow wiped out the human capacity for humor, what would happen? How long could the human race survive without fart jokes?
This semester we'll read a variety of humorous essays and essays on humor, many of them shockingly unfunny, and we'll discuss a variety of approaches to answering the question. First, though, we have to ask the question. What is humor for?
You've got thirty minutes, starting now.
But I'm also interested in their answers. I've taught variations on this humor theory class three or four times and every time I hope students will come to some understanding of the function of humor in human societies, but let's face it: I'd be hard pressed to answer the question myself. What is humor for? Does it confer some sort of survival advantage for the species? If some strange cataclysm somehow wiped out the human capacity for humor, what would happen? How long could the human race survive without fart jokes?
This semester we'll read a variety of humorous essays and essays on humor, many of them shockingly unfunny, and we'll discuss a variety of approaches to answering the question. First, though, we have to ask the question. What is humor for?
You've got thirty minutes, starting now.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Definitely Not Funny
My freshman seminar students have been reading, writing, and thinking about the role humor plays in human societies, so this morning I asked them to respond to roll call by briefly stating something that is Definitely Not Funny. They came up with some obvious ones: dust is not funny; pain is not funny; migraines that prevent you from doing assignments are Definitely Not Funny.
One student said lightbulbs are not funny, which is probably true, but then why are there so many how-many-whatevers-does-it-take-to-screw-in-a-lightbulb jokes? We agreed that lightbulbs may be the occasion for humor, but the lightbulb qua lightbulb simply isn't funny.
One student finds Jesus jokes Not Funny and another strongly objects to vegetarian jokes. "They're offensive," she said. "They make me so upset I have to leave." And yet when she said "vegetarian jokes," everyone laughed, suggesting that humor, as we have already discovered on many other occasions, is pretty subjective.
One student said, "Making the freshmen soccer players clean the team bus after an away game is Definitely Not Funny," but I asked him whether it might look more amusing from a distance, when he and his fellow sufferers get together at their 25th reunion and start talking about old times. "Will you ever laugh at this experience?" I asked, and he cracked a smile. "We're already planning revenge," he said. "That'll be funny."
So what did we learn from this experience? Nothing terribly earthshaking, but it did confirm the importance of context to humor. Broken cell phones, for instance, are Definitely Not Funny, but when a classmate whose cell-phone struggles are already legendary brings up the topic, everyone laughs. Indeed, that was the most interesting thing about the experiment: no matter how unfunny the stated items were, they made people laugh.
Now that's funny.
One student said lightbulbs are not funny, which is probably true, but then why are there so many how-many-whatevers-does-it-take-to-screw-in-a-lightbulb jokes? We agreed that lightbulbs may be the occasion for humor, but the lightbulb qua lightbulb simply isn't funny.
One student finds Jesus jokes Not Funny and another strongly objects to vegetarian jokes. "They're offensive," she said. "They make me so upset I have to leave." And yet when she said "vegetarian jokes," everyone laughed, suggesting that humor, as we have already discovered on many other occasions, is pretty subjective.
One student said, "Making the freshmen soccer players clean the team bus after an away game is Definitely Not Funny," but I asked him whether it might look more amusing from a distance, when he and his fellow sufferers get together at their 25th reunion and start talking about old times. "Will you ever laugh at this experience?" I asked, and he cracked a smile. "We're already planning revenge," he said. "That'll be funny."
So what did we learn from this experience? Nothing terribly earthshaking, but it did confirm the importance of context to humor. Broken cell phones, for instance, are Definitely Not Funny, but when a classmate whose cell-phone struggles are already legendary brings up the topic, everyone laughs. Indeed, that was the most interesting thing about the experiment: no matter how unfunny the stated items were, they made people laugh.
Now that's funny.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Holy jokes! That's REALLY not funny!
So we were discussing that annoying Christopher Hitchens article--the one that links the ability to bear children with a significant decline in funniness--when someone raised the question, "Was Jesus funny?" Far be it from me to try to resolve the thorny theological issue that caused so much bloodshed in The Name of the Rose, in which merely speculating about whether Jesus had a sense of humor could result in the gruesome death of the speculator and the immersion of his body in a vat of blood drained from freshly slaughtered pigs. There's something about torture that just takes all the fun out of humor, you know? So rather than risk such treatment, I'll just paraphrase the words of Umberto Eco himself: if Jesus wasn't funny, why did he get invited to so many dinners?
A laughing Jesus I can envision, but a laughing Mary? She's not laughing in all those byzantine icons, but then neither is anyone else. In fact, if religious art is any indication, the laugh was a heresy introduced after the Second Vatican Council. I'm trying to recall an image of Mary that suggests laughter, but nothing is coming to mind; the most we ever see is a sort of Mona Lisa smile--quiet, subtle, mysterious. If Hitchens is right, then Mary was less likely to crack a joke than to purse her lips and say, "That's not funny." And the minute those lips were pursed, you can bet some byzantine artist would come along and start slathering on the gold leaf. Did you ever try to crack a smile through half an inch of gold leaf? That's gotta hurt. If Mary followed the Hitchens model of humor-free females, where, then, did Jesus get his excellent sense of humor?
Our furry green friend points out that Hitchens's argument relating humor to powerlessness is a bit circular: men use humor as a smoke screen to hide their own powerlessness, while women use humorlessness to hide their power. If this theory is correct, then surely ultimate power should be linked with ultimate humorlessness, which gives us a stern Jesus straight out of The Name of the Rose. Meanwhile, Mary, the submissive, servantlike handmaiden of the Lord, ought to have a lucrative career in stand-up comedy.
But this is all, of course, mere speculation--as is Hitchens's article, for that matter. I'm sure it would never enter into anyone's head to immerse either of us in a vat of pigs' blood simply for the sin of getting serious about humor. But if someone has to suffer for the cause, let it be Christopher Hitchens. He's the one who links humor with powerlessness, and the way I see it, he can use all the powerlessness he can get.
A laughing Jesus I can envision, but a laughing Mary? She's not laughing in all those byzantine icons, but then neither is anyone else. In fact, if religious art is any indication, the laugh was a heresy introduced after the Second Vatican Council. I'm trying to recall an image of Mary that suggests laughter, but nothing is coming to mind; the most we ever see is a sort of Mona Lisa smile--quiet, subtle, mysterious. If Hitchens is right, then Mary was less likely to crack a joke than to purse her lips and say, "That's not funny." And the minute those lips were pursed, you can bet some byzantine artist would come along and start slathering on the gold leaf. Did you ever try to crack a smile through half an inch of gold leaf? That's gotta hurt. If Mary followed the Hitchens model of humor-free females, where, then, did Jesus get his excellent sense of humor?
Our furry green friend points out that Hitchens's argument relating humor to powerlessness is a bit circular: men use humor as a smoke screen to hide their own powerlessness, while women use humorlessness to hide their power. If this theory is correct, then surely ultimate power should be linked with ultimate humorlessness, which gives us a stern Jesus straight out of The Name of the Rose. Meanwhile, Mary, the submissive, servantlike handmaiden of the Lord, ought to have a lucrative career in stand-up comedy.
But this is all, of course, mere speculation--as is Hitchens's article, for that matter. I'm sure it would never enter into anyone's head to immerse either of us in a vat of pigs' blood simply for the sin of getting serious about humor. But if someone has to suffer for the cause, let it be Christopher Hitchens. He's the one who links humor with powerlessness, and the way I see it, he can use all the powerlessness he can get.
Monday, December 11, 2006
That's not funny
In the January Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens attempts to answer the age-old question, "Why are men funnier than women?" (Read about it here.) He covers the topic in some depth, including results from an unfunny study on the topic and concluding that "the explanation for the superior funniness of men is much the same as for the inferior funniness of women. Men have to pretend, to themselves as well as to women, that they are not the servants and supplicants. Women, cunning minxes that they are, have to affect not to be the potentates. This is the unspoken compromise."
I've been mulling over possible responses, most of them remarkably unfunny, which would just provide further support for his underlying assumption that (most) women aren't particularly funny, or that women don't feel the pressure to be funny that men do. I know some very funny women, but they're not professionally funny--their humor is not a career in itself but a byproduct that bubbles out while they're otherwise occupied. This suggests that Hitchens is right, sort of, but this annoys me because I want him to be wrong, but proving him wrong would require a whole lot of serious, articulate prose, preferably with a coherent argument involving bullet points and scientific studies quantifying differences in humor levels. And you know what? That's just not funny.
So let Christopher Hitchens be funny today. I'll go back to being morose.
I've been mulling over possible responses, most of them remarkably unfunny, which would just provide further support for his underlying assumption that (most) women aren't particularly funny, or that women don't feel the pressure to be funny that men do. I know some very funny women, but they're not professionally funny--their humor is not a career in itself but a byproduct that bubbles out while they're otherwise occupied. This suggests that Hitchens is right, sort of, but this annoys me because I want him to be wrong, but proving him wrong would require a whole lot of serious, articulate prose, preferably with a coherent argument involving bullet points and scientific studies quantifying differences in humor levels. And you know what? That's just not funny.
So let Christopher Hitchens be funny today. I'll go back to being morose.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)