Very interesting what you are writing, and I will be reading this thread if
it continues because I also need similar examples for my students (be them
old or young) to dismantle that logicality given for granted which helps no
one but some stale ideas which mine common sense.
Best, Anny
From: "Elizabeth James" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 12:40 AM
> Hi Alison
>
> I didn't sufficiently express that Stafford Smith's advocacy of humour
> was not just to the end of making oneself feel better, or (more
> profoundly) some kind of 'rising above' helplessness and humiliation to
> win an inner triumph (however, some jokes and irony in the
> Guantanamo detainees' letters did get through the censors, if one can
> trust the play), but was more to do with lateral
> thinking to practical ends, e.g. for him it would be about finding some
> crazy little point of law to base a court appeal on, and by winning it,
> actually to prevent an execution. Also presumably about coping with
> failure and going on working,
> and ideally, to
> exchange time spent reiterating deep-held principles in anguished
> energy-sapping debate for other tactics for cutting the opponent down
> to size. 'They hate being laughed at', he said. You're right: though it
> may be useful that kids see that powerful authorities are not
> unquestioningly revered, there should be more to it. It's not easy!
>
> As for comedy as such, I agree with Howard Barker: the rhythmic billows
> of recorded audience laughter on TV for instance. And even with real
> people, you hear how, when once they've laughed they're hooked, they
> respond to the trigger so easily then, whether the joke deserves it or
> not. And what about poetry? (to try to get back on message). That
> trigger complicity (not just humour), where the reader is reassured to
> recognise a reference, or intimately receive a personal confession, or
> be vouchsafed a piece of wisdom, etc., is presumably one of the main
> things
> interesting poets would be consciously avoiding, like every kind of
> cliche.
>
> I'd be interested in recommendations of places where humour has been
> deployed in innovative / experimental writing, to what effects. Maybe
> tomorrow I can manage to nominate an example.
>
> e
>
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