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FUNNY


So what did you think?  Was it, like funny?
I put some thought into polishing it up...

Like for instance, I think it's important to state that there
was a lizard in my pocket first, before describing reaching
into my pocket and feeling some "rubbery" thing.

The way I did it is a little funnier, I think, that doing it
the other way which would just be confusing.

It may not seem like much, but this little bit of technique
was a major revelation to me...

My usual rule is that the reader should never know something
before the main character does.

But verbal description is too blunt a tool to describe a
sensation accurately, unless you've already narrowed down the
range by supplying an interpretation.

Lots of things are rubbery. A lizard is rubbery in one
particularly way.

But then, this might be a particular case of the general
problem that it's hard to perceive anything without
preconceptions.

Anyway, this humor business is hard work.

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Subject: More lizard's milk

Ever thought about the problem of what to
say at parties?                          
                                         
(Actually, hopefully you haven't, because
if you don't need to then you're "healthy"
as opposed to "neurotic", at least       
according to Paul Goodman, who had a                   GOODMAN
tendency to sing the praises of
spontaneity, as you might expect from a
1950s intellectual liberal anarchist.
Anyway, I was raised on something more
like the "unexamined life" philosophy,
hence I tend to analyze most everything --
as you may have noticed.)
                                                
Anyway, so you're at a party.  You're surrounded by 
strangers, acquaintances, and a small number of          
freinds.  What do you talk about?  The weather is an     
underrated topic, but you do have to sound               
enthusiastic and sincere about it, and it gets           
played out fairly quickly.  Movies are usually good      
for ten or twenty minutes.  Politics is kind of          
useless unless all your opinions fit on a bumper         
sticker, and you expect complete agreement from          
everyone around you.  You will be repeatedly asked       
things like "What do you do?", but answers like "I'm     
a Materials Science graduate student doing research      
on ion implantation of polymers for toliet bowl          
seats" tend to kill things pretty quickly, since         
you're only allowed a few seconds to explain each of     
the terms you just used.                                 
                                                         

Last night, I wound up milking the                 
lizard story.  Too bad they don't      
crawl in my pocket every day.              LIZARD
                                                              
                                                              
  I have learned a few tricks from a                          
  freind of mine, who when things get                         
  slow just starts talking about sex                          
  (e.g. if she's bored at dinner she           Though "So, are    
  might turn to the guy next to her            you gay?" is   
  and ask him how big his penis is).           probably her    
                                               favorite line.            
    Something to remember, anyway.                                       


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                                             6/29/92    

My favorite Monty Python joke:                       
                                                    (Well, second favorite.
Some guys are standing around in a                  It's hard to beat the  
bookstore, playing out some schtick                 fish dance.)
or other.  In the background,
unacknowledged, unrelated to the
forground action, there's an ad for a
book (I think Desmond Morris's _The
Naked Ape_).  Emblazoned across it in
huge letters is the advertising hype:
  
   I N T E L L I G E N C E   P A C K E D !!!
                                  
I think this is tremendously funny.  
I can't find anyone else who does.  



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