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Gratitude essay: Comedy
🕑 Added 2024-11-18 18:00:07 +0000 UTC“I’m bringing a caterpillar under the umbrella.”
“Nope.”
“Seriously?”
“Here, I’ll give you a hint: I’m bringing under the umbrella, ummmmmmmm….”
“That’s not a hint! You’re just saying ‘um’!”
It’s easy for me to hold onto frames. Having a mental rubric, being able to place what’s in front of me within a setting I understand, reads as safety to me. If I don’t understand the order of what’s going on, I either jump in to reorganize it, or I race to try and unlock the secret, find that logical set of precepts I’m not yet perceiving.
That desire to know the secret is often what prevents me from seeing what’s actually going on. I remember my intense frustration in high school, playing the “Umbrella” game during a free period with friends, seeing them “get” the puzzle one by one, until it was only me who was stubbornly trying to haul a bunch of stuff under the umbrella I couldn’t bring, because I still failed to see the game’s basic governing rule. I tried out one potential pattern after another, but pride in my rational thinking blocked me from dropping the frameworks I came in with and listening to the game as it was actually played.
Comedy, I think, works like that at its roots. You don’t “get” the punchline by solving it like a math equation; you “get” it by dropping out of the chase for meaning entirely. That’s what a good joke does - it pushes you out of your pre-selected framework by force, sending you through a trick door into a space where you’re able to see the whole scene in a new light. Suddenly you’re viewing it from up above, or down below, rather than having to pick left or right.
In the classic vaudeville bit, someone wants to know who the first baseman for the St. Louis team is. The answer is, of course, Who - “that’s the man’s name!” It doesn’t sound like much of a joke, but watch Abbot and Costello do it, and you can see something profound at work. In their total commitment to the bit, we’re able to see both sides of the conversation at once - Costello’s increasing fury at receiving no apparent answers to his questions, and Abbot’s unwavering commitment to giving him the exact right answer to every question. With this dual vision, we are taken beyond the paradigm of logical framework (who’s right and who’s wrong?) and are placed in a realm of pure delight.
And it is this realm from which all good things flow, not just comedic things, but all of life. Hua Tou is a form of Buddhist meditation where you repeat a given phrase without ceasing. These phrases sound a lot like jokes without punchlines; in fact, they sound like extra dialogue from the "Who's On First" bit: "What is it?" "Who is repeating the Buddha's name?" "Who is dragging this corpse around?" The purpose in repeating a chosen phrase is not to deduce by logic an answer to the question, but to penetrate beyond the question-and-answer pattern entirely, entering into what is called the "Great Doubt". In this state, you slip out of the assurance you once had of any order in life, calling into doubt every framework you've ever held. Only by entering into the darkness of this doubt can all "entangling interpretations...be put to rest" and true wisdom be found, as 17th-century monk Boshan puts it.* Or, as Costello puts it in the depths of his own doubt: "Because. Why? I don't know. He's on third, and I don't care!"
The interpretations we pick up in life help us in one situation, then entangle us in the next. What we always forget we want is that place beyond good and bad, beyond question and response; we want to slip into pure Who? into absolute I Don't Care!. Life, up to that point, is an exhausting chase towards an unfunny punchline; past that point, the chase circles around us, and we look on in contentment, not wanting to spoil the punchline too soon for others. We seek for this turning point, desperately straining our eyes, ears, and brain, expecting the answer to enter through them; meanwhile, it enters in through the back door, and stands waiting patiently for us to blink, to waver into doubt, so that it can embrace us in its full comedic force, in a humor beyond laughter.
*translated by Jeff Shore.
Comments
Luka Buchanan
mmm, that’s a good point, the Abbot and Costello bit does have an admirable human passion for sure… much less stressful than Spongebob misunderstandings, that’s for sure lol. interesting that the awareness of it being a performance makes it less stressful in your view! i’m glad you enjoyed Sage’s performance! i ended up meditating more on my gratitude for her, and emailed her to express that. she was really touched, and we might reconnect to do some vocal experiments together!
Car Seat
Actually, a lot of conflict-based comedy plots leave me anxiety-ridden rather than amused, as well, with the 'misunderstanding' trope being one of my least favorite. I think what makes the Abbot and Costello bit stand out for me is the sheer joy and energy they're putting into it. You can tell how many hours they've put into honing their responses and their chemistry. Even though the characters misunderstand one another, the performers are perfectly dialed in to one another, so it feels like "laughing with", not "laughing at". I think you often lose that element of human energy when you try to put it into a plot for TV or something else. That performance of Sage Pbbbt is great, thank you for sharing that.
Cooper
Comedy was always a defense mechanism for me. I basically thought that people would only like me if I was funny, so I spent all my time trying to be funny. But I only was able to truly, wholeheartedly laugh when I was around people who I learned I could be my true self around. To me, true comedy is that which brings people together, shielding them from the trepidation's of daily life, and letting people enjoy eachothers company.
elvis
Humor is such a weird concept for me. I overanalyze it all the time and don't end up getting/enjoying the joke because I'm too focused on it. I also feel like I use humor constantly without even fully understanding it. Whenever there's a tense situation or a traumatic event, I feel the need to fill the awkward tension with a joke or comment to lighten the mood, even when it would probably be better off without it. I usually find myself blowing off or lightening up real issues because I immediately respond with humor instead of a real response. Also, thank you genuinely so much for sharing your essays, they open me up to a whole new interesting perspective. Your marching band one really struck a chord with me especially. I too am a band kid who took a lot of it for granted lol.
Luka Buchanan
lmao, I was going down the rabbit hole of Sage's website and was looking at her text scores - this one made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes and I genuinely slapped my own thigh in joy: https://www.sagepbbbt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/keep-your-silences.pdf
Luka Buchanan
I would disagree that the dramatic irony of the Who bit places one in the realm of pure delight! it reminds me of watching Spongebob as a kid, when the comedic tension was caused by misunderstanding between Squidward and Spongebob. I'd be holding my breath until the end of the episode when either the misunderstanding was resolved or Squidward gave up. it would stress me out so much! it's very Shakespearean... like the pies in Titus Andronicus. maybe it's some kind of schema for me or something haha. but I think I get what you're saying about the realm outside the logic of tension and resolution... the challenge, maybe, is in an absurdist (or Buddhist, or something else) mindset of floating beyond the expected narrative, finding joy without. this is kind of why I love improvised music/art so much - when you really throw over the expectations and stakes and allow something unknown to appear. not just doing improv, but watching it, too, especially experimental/'out there' type stuff, where you confront your expectations of what art/music/etc etc should be, allow yourself to be challenged and just sit with the performance in a very mindful way. this is very tangential, but all this really reminds me of the work of my friend, Sage Pbbbt. she's a vocal artist and the first time I saw her perform - a lot of loud, grating, intense, at times silly throat noises, and lots of silence, i was so shocked and confronted - "is this art? is this even music?" at the same time, I couldn't stop thinking about it, and over the years of seeing/reading more of her projects I realised how utterly inspired I was; how her performances shattered my expectations of music, sound, noise, and humour too! she'd be making the weirdest sounds, and I'd be like, can I laugh right now? is this okay? I'd be looking around to see how other people were reacting. her performance style is very inspired by her meditation practice. when I get to see her perform now, I just sit there the whole time with a huge grin on my face. she really allowed me to float beyond my expectations and find joy in something meditative, organic, intuitive... a realm of pure delight! sorry for being so tangential, I can't help but be super stimulated by these, haha. if anyone is curious, here's a performance of Sage's from some years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4dh5J3_cEM her PhD research is also fucking incredible: https://bpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.unimelb.edu.au/dist/6/184/files/2019/08/44.04-Context.Harlow.pdf
Luka Buchanan
this is soooo real god this made me remember how I used to memorise riddles to delight my peers in primary school because actual humour and jokes went over my head and I was always pretending to get them. but riddles have an easily understandable and very satisfying secret! I memorised the St Ives riddle from Dragonology lol
sceven
WILLIAM TOLEDO, ANDREW KATZ, IM GOING TO YOUCH YOU. (Will I love your essays and the point of view you give from them)
frankie
Humor is sooo hard for me. It’s not that i don’t understand tone, or context, but often my brain (like you mentioned) prevents me from taking the paths to understand a joke, and it can be so frustrating. But when I get a joke, and understand it, oh my god it sticks with me even if it’s childish and overused etc. Same thing with riddles. Love riddles that are solved by a joke/pun because it incorporates both the technical knowledge of life and also the willingness to let go of it all. The funniest jokes of all time are not ones i laugh at but rather those that I enjoy internally (or with a slight smile) like if I laugh too much I’d forget why it was so special .. if that makes sense. Funny is an innate reflex but Humor is fulfilling (pretentious warning)
