If you know me in any depth (or width), then you know that I love my family, other personally-selected people, books, reading, humor, writing, ideas, and the Boston Red Sox and Celtic etc. I think this short summary points to me as a man of the heart and mind, don’t you agree?
One the other hand, yard work puts way too much dirt under my nails, and at my age, I cannot push a lawn mower in a reasonably straight line. When I rake the grass for five minutes, I require six hours of intensive bed rest. I always misalign our yard’s water sprinklers, drenching the neighbors’ clothes line.
I have made many public and private apologies for these deficiencies with no noticeable skill improvement all the while.
I think that this summary points to me as a man with almost zero earth or mechanical skills and a man better suited to heart or mind projects or assignments, don’t you agree?
Did you know that I informally, at my own pace, study humor (the wide spectrum: history, techniques, biography, variety, what’s funny, what’s not) at UOM—the University of Me.
I do this in a class of one. No teachers or professors, just the required texts that I alone select and assign myself readings from, (based on the recommendations of experts in the field similar to myself).
At random and by surprise, I give myself pop quizzes that I grade myself (I don’t believe in the curve system of grading; I use the more practical and flexible trapezoid method developed by the Trapp Family from Austria). I always look for quality and significance in my quiz answers and will not accept any mere drivel answers—never!
When do I schedule my self-administered humor tests? This is one of the beauties of my personally designed self-study- method—whenever I feel like it. It’s my degree program and I should know what I am doing shouldn’t I?
Just so you know, when I am tempted to cheat on a quiz or exam, I refrain. Imagine the horror and humiliation of catching myself and suspending me permanently from my own laboriously configured class. I shudder at the mere thought of it.
One of my humor study resources recently has been a Kindle book from Amazon.com entitled How to tell a Story and other Essays by Mark Twain. I want to share a couple excerpts from this book that I find both enjoyable and insightful.
Twain says,
I do not claim that I can tell a story as it ought to be told. I only claim to know how a story ought to be told, for I have been almost daily in the company of the most expert story-tellers for many years.
There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind--the humorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.
The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the comic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along, the others burst.
The humorous story is strictly a work of art--high and delicate art --and only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic and the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous story--understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print--was created in America, and has remained at home.
The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it; but the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he has ever heard, then tells it with eager delight, and is the first person to laugh when he gets through. And sometimes, if he has had good success, he is so glad and happy that he will repeat the "nub" of it and glance around from face to face, collecting applause, and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to see. (Underlining BH)
Very often, of course, the rambling and disjointed humorous story finishes with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you like to call it.
Then the listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller will divert attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and indifferent way, with the pretence (sic) that he does not know it is a nub. Artemus (sic) Ward used that trick a good deal; then when the belated audience presently caught the joke he would look up with innocent surprise, as if wondering what they had found to laugh at.
But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you--every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life.
(End MT quotes)
Mark Twain was one of the first legends of American humor.
Twain, Mark (2004). How to Tell a Story and Other Essays (Kindle Location 21). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
Excuse me while I retire to my study to compose pop quiz questions over this material for myself.
BH
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