Deep Thought: Of Knowing More Than One Joke
Created | Updated Jan 6, 2024
Deep Thought: Of Knowing More Than One Joke
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Next week we begin the 2024 writing marathon. This year's theme is 'Prequels, Sequels, and Paralipomena'. The h2g2 writers are going to work on something connected to something they did before. This should not only be fun but also allow the writers to explore new territory. At least, that's what Tavaron and I concluded after a discussion the other day.
Before I go on, the complete texts to last year's writing project can be found here. Just in case somebody reading this should suddenly strike their forehead dramatically and exclaim, 'Oh, drat! I always meant to go back and read those!'
Now back to this year.
I realise that in providing a space for slower-time writing and leisurely reading, we are swimming against the internet tide. The flash-fictioneers and November novelists will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their craft; but they who persevere in it now will deserve the love and thanks of weary readers.
Why in the world am I paraphrasing Thomas Paine to you lot? This is the 21st (lazy) century. Well, you can google the reference.
One reason our writing projects swim against the current of social media and user-generated content sites in general is that we're hoping to probe more deeply into our subjects. To find something new to say. This, children, is not the internet way. Oh, no, indeedy, as James Thurber used to remark. The usual internet strategy is to probe for openings in order to say exactly the same thing, over and over, to as many people and in as many venues as inhumanly possible. Therefore many of the hobby-novelists I know are busy writing the same story, over and over, while insisting that 'this one is different, the main character drives a classic car!' Telling the exact same story with minute variations seems to be soul-pleasing to a lot of writers, and at least some readers.
One priceless example of this is the apparently ineradicable conviction held by a large segment of the tweeting universe that the quiz command to 'name this bird/animal' can always be answered with 'John/George/Wilbur, etc'. And that it will be just as funny the 1005th time as it was the first.
I can guarantee you that the last statement is true, at least.
For a long time, Superfrenchie, Tavaron, and I were of the opinion that this particular 'witticism' was a Hootoo foible. Alas, no. Mr Carl Bovis, the world's greatest bathroom-based wild bird photographer, gets that all the time.
I, of course, have sussed it out: Mr Bovis lives in Somerset. It's English people. English people don't really warm up to a joke until it's been told for at least 500 years. Once it's marinated at Blackpool and graduated to the pantos, it's become a tradition. Perennially funny, those jokes are.
Where I come from you're expected to get some new material every once in a while. Or else somebody might say to you, as my mother did to my father, 'That joke had whiskers on it when you heard it.'
This comment was not unprovoked. My mom had first heard the joke from my baby sister. All the really good jokes tended to originate over at the elementary school. From there it had migrated across the street to the junior high, then a mile away to the high school on the main road. Some kid got the sniffles, and he and the joke landed in Doc Wallace's waiting room. From there, the joke travelled to the Lutheran Ladies' Auxiliary, the Masonic Lodge, and the Rainbow Girls. One of the Rainbow Girls told a De Molay, so the joke got told in the cemetery – which is where the De Molays met. No, not among the tombstones: they were weird, but not that weird. The administration building, which was modelled after Mount Vernon1.
By this time, the joke had lost some of its lustre. Retelling it to a kid earned you eyerolls. Nonetheless, the mail carrier found it funny and passed it on to the druggist. One of the pastors had the sniffles by now, and picked up his cough medicine and the joke, now a bit the worse for wear, at the corner drugstore. It was a big hit at the monthly interfaith pastors' luncheon, though, because the pastors were the last guys to hear jokes.
Well, nearly: my dad was the last. He might, in fact, have heard the joke before. But since he was hard of hearing he wouldn't have caught it unless he was paying attention to someone whose opinion he valued. Which is why he learned the joke from the pastor. And, having finally grokked the punchline, he retailed it at dinner. To predictable silence – and my mom's comment.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Prequels, sequels, and paralipomena. Leisurely strolls and deep dives. At least, I hope so. And I hope you'll come along. I won't guarantee mine will be any good – my model is Tristram Shandy – but I'm sure you'll find a writer you're in tune with.
Let the games begin.
