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Tue 3 Dec, 2002 03:13 pm
It's funny, of all the sage things one would remember, it is the jokes that matter. I love memorizing jokes and retelling them. There is nothing like a good laugh shared with friends to make an ordinary moment memorable. And yet, jokes are elusive, and always depend on precise wording and intonation for their effectiveness. A joke badly remembered or clumsily delivered is a social disaster of the highest order.
I have often tried to recapture a chuckle from the past by telling an old joke. But time, and memory play tricks. The joke is no longer funny, or has suffered in the storehouse of my past. In comedy, as in life, timing and wording are everything.
One must use judgment before entering a joke. In addition to making sure one remembers the thing, there are so many particular nuances to consider. A delivery which may "kill" with one audience will fall flat -- or, worse, offend -- with another. It's a funny thing how so much of the fine line between tasteless and funny consists not in content but the manner of the telling, and in the level of trust between the teller and the audience.
My favorite jokes, though, are red herrings -- which are all, of course, about delivery. Performative jokes, I suppose, rather than mechanistic ones.
I can't tell jokes at all -- I am lacking all comedic timing and can remember only half of most jokes (which rather diminishes their quality). Usually, I remember only that so-and-so told me a funny story, but the fact that I remember that he/she did so is, I suppose, a compliment to his/her talents as a joke teller and further proof that what you say, algis, is quite true.
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