On staying in the game
"One of the most important of the rules that make improv possible...is the idea of agreement, the notion that a very simple way to create a story--or humor--is to have characters accept everything that happens to them."
-Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink"
Well, goddamn if I haven't been mulling over this very concept for the past three years, and some improv team (parsed by Gladwell) finally put it into words I failed to find. And it all started with text messages.
I have this friend. And this friend said to me, "You and [ex-boyfriend] have this really cool banter, always joking with each other. How come I can't do that with [boyfriend]?" She flipped open her cellphone to show me the latest text he'd sent: a silly come-on, something about her tits. And I said to my friend, "You've just gotta learn how to stay in the game. If he says something weird, respond with something weirder. If he's got a goofy idea, don't shrug it off... suggest the first step towards making it happen." I quickly narrated two or three potential responses; she thumbed her favorite into the phone and hit "Send". He replied in kind and they were off to the races.
What I was trying to communicate was the notion that you have to make the crazy shit real, if only for a few moments. So what stops us? What makes us giggle and wave our hand in a "Oh, you're just silly!" gesture? Why do we laugh and decide that that's it, that's the end of the story? Is it a self-confidence thing? Do we think that other people have already cornered the market on funny-smarts and there's just not enough left to go around? The funniest person you know wouldn't be funny if she didn't know how to play along. Or she'd be a modern-day Henny Youngman. The merit of either predicament is up for debate.
And sometimes that crazy shit morphs into something real: a piece of art, a trip around the world, a new way of looking at things. Sometimes, god bless it, it changes your life. At the very least it can make you belly-laugh, and that's good enough for me much of the time. Two of my greatest joys in life are laughing, and hearing someone else laugh at me.
It doesn't have to get any more complicated than that.
"One of the most important of the rules that make improv possible...is the idea of agreement, the notion that a very simple way to create a story--or humor--is to have characters accept everything that happens to them."
-Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink"
Well, goddamn if I haven't been mulling over this very concept for the past three years, and some improv team (parsed by Gladwell) finally put it into words I failed to find. And it all started with text messages.
I have this friend. And this friend said to me, "You and [ex-boyfriend] have this really cool banter, always joking with each other. How come I can't do that with [boyfriend]?" She flipped open her cellphone to show me the latest text he'd sent: a silly come-on, something about her tits. And I said to my friend, "You've just gotta learn how to stay in the game. If he says something weird, respond with something weirder. If he's got a goofy idea, don't shrug it off... suggest the first step towards making it happen." I quickly narrated two or three potential responses; she thumbed her favorite into the phone and hit "Send". He replied in kind and they were off to the races.
What I was trying to communicate was the notion that you have to make the crazy shit real, if only for a few moments. So what stops us? What makes us giggle and wave our hand in a "Oh, you're just silly!" gesture? Why do we laugh and decide that that's it, that's the end of the story? Is it a self-confidence thing? Do we think that other people have already cornered the market on funny-smarts and there's just not enough left to go around? The funniest person you know wouldn't be funny if she didn't know how to play along. Or she'd be a modern-day Henny Youngman. The merit of either predicament is up for debate.
And sometimes that crazy shit morphs into something real: a piece of art, a trip around the world, a new way of looking at things. Sometimes, god bless it, it changes your life. At the very least it can make you belly-laugh, and that's good enough for me much of the time. Two of my greatest joys in life are laughing, and hearing someone else laugh at me.
It doesn't have to get any more complicated than that.
1 Comments:
Excellent post! Some of us take life way too seriously.
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