Continuation on a Theme

In my last post I discussed laughter and what makes people laugh, now I'd like to continue that thought but perhaps take it back a step or two to discuss the fundamental idea behind laughter: the sense of humour.

There are various theories as to why human beings are equipped with a sense of humour, such as that laughter is a method of releasing tension, allowing us to avoid being frozen when it comes to deer-in-headlights situations; or my personal favourite, that since humans are the only animals who have advance knowledge of their own death a sense of humour is a sort of consolation prize to prevent us from going completely insane.

Then what about people who appear to have no sense of humour? Are they destined for insanity? Probably not, as the thing I'm referring to as a 'sense of humour' is completely based on personal perspective. For proof of this, you need look no further than your nearest national border. Jokes and humour change distinctly from country to country. One of my favourite examples of this is listening to jokes my Polish father translates into English. Here's an example of one of his favourites:

Some kids are shouting and laughing at an old man, "Anemic, anemic!"

(In a weak voice.) "Don't say that to me, kids, I'll set Rex on you.."

"Anemic, anemic, anemic!" 

(Weak voice.) "Kids that's mean, say it again and I'll set my dog Rex on you.."

"Anemic, anemic, anemic!"

(Weak voice.) "That's it, get 'em Rex...!"

(Weak voice.) "Woof..."

Ta da! What, you say? That was a punchline? Maybe it will make more sense if I hear it out loud.. Go ahead. Well? Nope, me neither. And yet when he's talking to relatives in his mother tongue it always makes them chuckle. This is one example of how humour doesn't quite translate. Another good one happened to me a few months back: Sam, Sebastian and I were in town and just leaving a shop where Sam had bought a film. I'll tell you now that Sebastian is Polish and as you may have gathered, I am half Polish. We all left and as Sebastian and I got outside Sam passed through and set off the security alarm. He went back in and Sebastian doubled over in hysterical laughter. I looked over at him, as did many people in the street, to ask what was quite so funny. "Don't you see?" He said, wiping tears from his eyes and gasping for air, "Two Polish guys leave a store and nothing happens. The one English guy with them sets off the alarm." And then he was doubled over laughing again and I couldn't help but join him. This was stereotype humour, but not in the Welsh-sheep-joke, but from within Poland. Sure enough, Sam needed a lot more explanation as to why we were both rolling around in the street than 'we're Polish, you're English.' "And the funniest thing," Sebastian was saying, "Is that you went back inside! A Polish guy would have sprinted off down the street!" And with that he was back in hysterics. It was a brilliant moment. British people make plenty of Polish jokes, but they're mainly your standard immigrants-stealing-our-women-and-jobs jokes to make the unemployed feel like its someone else's fault that they're unemployable. This was pure national stereotype humour which had the Poles bent double, wiping tears from their eyes and the Brits looking at each other as if they'd coughed and missed the punchline.

So if a sense of humour can differ between two people because of their nationality, surely the same could be said for why jokes in Newcastle and Liverpool might not translate. Or why I might laugh at something my brother scoffs at. Humour may be a distinctly human trait, but much like favourite colour or food it varies depending on who you talk to, or who's telling the joke.

The Snowstorm - Part I

But first, an introduction. This is an as-yet title-less short story I started writing before Christmas. It is coming along very slowly, but focuses on characters based around myself and my housemate, Sam. I will post every 500 ish words as I write them so you can connect the story together as I go. Enjoy.

A frosty sheen had made slick the paving stones by the river on my way home from a long, boring shift. It was getting late, but at this time of year it had already been dark for hours and cold for hours more. I trudged delicately along the streets, unconsciously taking each step, absent-mindedly avoiding the odd person along the way. As I got closer to home, the ground caught my attention. Funny, the frost seems denser here. More of a sparkle to it. I rounded the corner onto our street and frowned. About half a kilometre ahead was our house. And about fifty meters above it was a large, swirling white cloud depositing sheets of snow on everything nearby. Bloody hell Sam... I quickened my pace, pulling my jacket closer as I stepped into the blizzard.

Fumbling to turn my key in the frozen lock, I eventually barged through the front door and trampled through the house to the back yard. I paused for a second to take Sam in. Standing at approximately five feet eleven inches and wearing a thick purple robe which billowed out on the ground around him. His hands were both raised upwards, his right clasping a long wooden stick, and he was shouting at nothing in particular amid the flurry of wind and snow. I strode up to him and smacked him across the back of the head. He toppled forwards and the cloud of snow dropped as though each flake had suddenly turned to lead. I brushed the dusting off my jacket as Sam leapt to his feet in a flurry of white, which would have looked a lot more impressive if he hadn’t then promptly fallen over again. He sat staring up at me from a small snowdrift.

                "What was that for?"

                "Dressing like a twit and attempting to control weather patterns."

                "Really?"

                "That, and you still haven’t done your washing up."

                "Ah. Right. Yes well they’re all fair points I suppose." Sam slowly rose to his feet, treading carefully back into the house. I followed, resting my hat and gloves on the radiator as we walked past. Sam went round the corner to his own room. I heard him sit down hard on the bed and then a soft thump as he pulled of one show after the other.

                "Cold outside?" he enquired from the other room.

                "No thanks to you," I said coyly, he laughed. "Cuppa?"
                "Go on then."

                I flicked on the kettle and pulled two large mugs out of the cupboard. I smiled briefly, reflecting on how most people would find this situation absurd. For us, this was pretty tame. Last week I opened the pantry to hunt for a snack and ended up releasing twelve live chickens into the house. Sam had forgotten to mention them, or how they got into the pantry. I scowled at him as we rounded them up and put them into the Box.

                "Chickens, Sam? Why? More importantly, how?"

Part II

Here Be There Dragons

Because heretherebedragons was already taken, in answer to that question. And yes, I did come up with that quote. Impressed? Well then you're easily pleased. Look, a button on the floor over there! That should keep you busy for the next half an hour..

Now, for the rest of you, you may be wondering what this blog is all about. Frankly, so am I. I've debated for a while getting a blog in which to voice my musings, but have refrained for one reason or another, mainly because the majority of my musings end up as poems. See Midnight Poetry. So I've never had much of a need for something like this. However, having made headway in my dissertation research I've realised that there are a lot of questions I'd like to explore, but not within an essay.

And so, Pondermonium is born of the pondermaniac. And to kick start, laughter. A subject dear to my heart and ever difficult to explain.

I shall start with an extract by one of my favourite comedy authors, Bill Bryson, from his book Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe in which he describes an experience at a Parisian bakery.

You would go into a bakery and be greeted by some vast slug-like creature with a look that told you you would never be friends. In halting French you would ask for a small loaf of bread. The woman would give you a long, cold stare and then put a dead beaver on the counter.

'No, no,' you would say, hands aflutter, 'not a dead beaver. A loaf of bread.'

The slug-like creature would stare at you in patient disbelief, then turn to the other customers and address them in French at much too high a speed for you to follow, but the drift of which was clearly that this person here, this American tourist, had come in and asked for a dead beaver and she had given him a dead beaver and now he was saying that he didn't want a dead beaver at all, he wanted a loaf of bread. The other customers would look at you as if you had just tried to fart in their handbags, and you would have no choice but to slink away and console yourself with the thought that in another four days you would be in Brussels and probably able to eat again.

Chances are you laughed at at least part of that, or giggled, chucked, at least allowed a smile to cross your lips. But why? Is it the well structured and descriptive imagery, allowing you picture the pastry seller, the cold stare, the beaver.. or is the repetition of what you would see as the punchline? The words 'dead beaver' are repeated five times in this section. I could make a 'flogging a dead horse/beaver' pun, but I imagine you'd groan at that rather than laugh.

Of course, we also laugh in a similar way at visual comedy, such as this sketch from a small group of lesser-known London comics back in the seventies...

Again we see repetition of a punchline, but this time we have the high-pitched voice edged with anger and disbelief to accompany it as well as audience laughter in the background. Why are they laughing? In fact, my question is why they don't laugh at one of my favourite parts: when Mr Praline picks up the bird cage in the second pet shop after he dropped it in the first. My theory is that since this is a stage setting, the audience will have seen the cage the entire time, whereas in the camera frame it is unseen until Mr Praline picks it up off the floor.

Laughter, and a sense of humour in general, is a strange and wonderful thing. I am interested in what makes us laugh, but as for why we laugh, I doubt an answer really exists.