November 2017 – HUMOR IS NO FUN UNLESS YOU LAUGH

Shattering Old Truths

In September of 1862 the Southern slaves were freed by proclamation. One could say, and some still do say, that on that day President Lincoln destroyed the fabric of the established order. What Lincoln actually did is declare officially that slaves, in this case black people, are indeed “people”, not “chattel” as had been believed for thousands of years before. Yes, he destroyed that thousand year old established order of slaves and free men. Cost him his life, but we have learned to live with that truth since then, or at least 8 in 10 of us have.

Now the good Pope Francis in Rome has managed, some say, to shatter the fabric of the Catholic world order by saying or implying that a lot of what we assumed to be divinely revealed unchangeable truth was actually no more than human tradition subject to adjustments as new knowledge surfaces. If I heard it right, traditional creation stories now belong to the realm of human imagination. No god created “the heavens”, let alone earth. Even Adam and Eve are gone, replaced by the Big Bang. Too much for some to take. Good thing we are out of the Middle Ages. This would be heresy, time for a jolly good bonfire.

Something else was shattered in the process. When somebody questions something that is obvious, can I still ask “Is the Pope catholic” and be understood? It is going to be difficult now that some conservative theologians have brought up the question if the Pope is really Catholic. What turns this into humor is the fact that these theologians are serious. The implication is that if you speak the truth to the best of your knowledge you cannot be Catholic. In other words, if you want to be Catholic you must fake it. This turns it into an example of humor of the kind that doesn’t cause one to laugh. Takes the fun out of it. Pity.

Frontporch

Back in “old” (ca.1950) Montreal the houses along rue Cherbrooke just west of rue de Bleury where I lived all had front porches. Some of those wooden porches had low bannisters all around but most did not. They were open to view from the street. That is how I know about the Canadian rocking chairs. Few porches had less then four of those. One chair per resident, it seems, was the norm. The interesting thing about these chairs is that they were used. If you walked along Cherbrooke any evening you would see them all occupied. It was fascinating to see the good folks chatting and rocking. Some would do short back and forths, controlled with their feet on the ground. Others pulled their feet up and did deep, energetic swings. No matter when I walked by this parade of motion, however, there was never any rythm to it. I do not remember ever seeing two chairs rocking at the same clip. As a matter of fact, by the time I reached the library at the other end of the street I was sometimes a little dizzy. It was a confusing phenomenon: they rock and I get dizzy.
In Newport Beach where I now live I find myself again in a neighborhood with front porches. The houses are single family homes and the porches are mostly stone and stucco. Most of those porches are furnished with chairs and little tables. The preferred style is the Adirondack chair. Many families have cushions in their chairs and flowers on their little tables, all set up for little evening gatherings and some gossiping. Just like in the old days, you would think. But there is one noticeable difference: nobody ever sits in any of those nice chairs. There are no rocking chairs either, and nobody is chatting, let alone gossiping. In a way this town is asleep. But that is deceptive. There are people living in these houses and they are awake. But they are never seen outside unless you catch a glimpse of one of them hurrying from house to car or from car to house. Judging by the few I have seen they are like regular people except that some of them have only one arm to wrestle with shopping bags, children’s seats, golf clubs, and such. Their other arm is attached to a telephone which, in turn, is fastened to one ear.

And here, I think, we come to the crux of the matter. Things have not changed. All the chatting is still going on, more than ever probably. But people no longer take time to sit around in a group, talking. One now talks to one person at a time, and not face to face either. But one does talk, all the time, continuously, all through the day. As long as it can be done by telephone. The juiciest bits of gossip are transmitted by the local blog mothers. They show up as email messages, also on your phone.

In the process our front porch lost its function. It did not disappear. It has only been reduced to a tableau, a thing you look at but mustn’t touch. Somebody please tell me: is rue Sherbrooke at least still rocking?

Ground Level Existentialism

(Fontanae fabula similis)

The Elephant who’s usually the quiet sort / complained one day of being much too short.

He told the Donkey that it was not fair at all. / The Donkey said: “Don’t talk like that. Look in the mirror: you are tall.”

But then the Donkey thought some more about it. / Was he himself the proper size? This troubled him and he began to doubt it.

He went to see the Goat whom he considered worldly wise. / The Goat assured him that he was exactly the right size.

But then the Goat compared herself and realized that she was rather small. / (That thought had never crossed the old Goat’s mind at all).

Now she was worried and she told that to the Fox who said: “I see.” / But then just laughed: “You look the way you should, if you ask me.”

But as the Fox himself now thought some more about the matter / it came to him that as a taller fox he also would look better.

The Fox talked to the Squirrel next about his strange delusion. / The Squirrel warned: “Tall foxes would just cause confusion.”

The Squirrel, though, was quite aware that he himself was certainly not tall. / Had fate dealt him a larger size he would not have complained at all.

He talked about that to the Mouse that night. / Mouse disagreed. She thought that all the Squirrels she had met looked right.

The Mouse, like all her kind, was truly small and others often teased her. / To gain an inch or so in height would certainly have pleased her.

“If it were possible”, she said to Madam Beetle, “to grow a bit would be my next objective.” / But Beetle said Mice need not grow, at least when seen from Beetles’ low perspective.

The Beetle, though, who’d never liked her size at all, confided to the Ant / she wouldn’t mind to be a little more like yonder Elephant.

The Ant just shrugged. “I never think of size. To be yourself and free it’s better to be small. The existential question namely, since you ask it, / is simply this: how easy can you sneak into a picnic basket!”