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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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