...Shakespeare had one of his characters say All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players...which would indicate, by dramaturgical standards of the day...reaching back to festivals of Apollo in ancient Greece, when theatre first emerged from religious ritual...that life is either comedy or tragedy...
...Bob Dylan, some time later, wrote there are many here among us, who feel that life is but a joke...which would appear to indicate wide support for the comedy thesis...though how you take that might depend on your definition of the word joke...seriously...
...someone I knew well seemed to view life...or at least his own life...as something like a Greek tragedy....little to do but keep up a noble bearing, marching on toward a preordained doom with moral uprightness and dignity...knowing that even therapy and religious faith can only do so much to cure the inevitable tragic flaw....and that a joke is something inherently trivial, and often inappropriate...as life is no laughing matter...
...Ken Kesey might have said always star in your own movie...which could present a few more options in terms of genre....I’ve tended at times to see life as a dark comedy...like Heathers* or Dr. Strangelove...since, when tragedy seems to be attacking from all sides, tempting one to curl up into a ball and pretend not to exist, laughter can smell an awful lot like victory**...
Laughing at our mistakes lengthens our life. Laughing at someone else's shortens it.
...Bob Dylan, some time later, wrote there are many here among us, who feel that life is but a joke...which would appear to indicate wide support for the comedy thesis...though how you take that might depend on your definition of the word joke...seriously...
...someone I knew well seemed to view life...or at least his own life...as something like a Greek tragedy....little to do but keep up a noble bearing, marching on toward a preordained doom with moral uprightness and dignity...knowing that even therapy and religious faith can only do so much to cure the inevitable tragic flaw....and that a joke is something inherently trivial, and often inappropriate...as life is no laughing matter...
...Ken Kesey might have said always star in your own movie...which could present a few more options in terms of genre....I’ve tended at times to see life as a dark comedy...like Heathers* or Dr. Strangelove...since, when tragedy seems to be attacking from all sides, tempting one to curl up into a ball and pretend not to exist, laughter can smell an awful lot like victory**...
Laughing at our mistakes lengthens our life. Laughing at someone else's shortens it.
Cullen Hightower
...Shakespeare also wrote a play called Henry IV...then a sequel and a prequel to cash in on the popularity of one of its characters...that’s not a joke, by the way...let’s face it: Shakespeare was no more aesthetically pure than George Lucas or Mick Jagger...or whoever created those brilliant Mentos commercials...and you have to decide for yourself whether I’m joking about the brilliance of Mentos commercials.....anyway, the character, Falstaff, makes no claims to purity, either...he's a drunken, amoral buffoon...though he often speaks truths that could only be uttered on stage safely by a fool....anyway, at one point...I think it's in the sequel...he responds to mockery with I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men...takes it as a compliment, that is...and there might be something to be learned from that...
For life is quite absurd, and death's the final word
...Shakespeare also wrote a play called Henry IV...then a sequel and a prequel to cash in on the popularity of one of its characters...that’s not a joke, by the way...let’s face it: Shakespeare was no more aesthetically pure than George Lucas or Mick Jagger...or whoever created those brilliant Mentos commercials...and you have to decide for yourself whether I’m joking about the brilliance of Mentos commercials.....anyway, the character, Falstaff, makes no claims to purity, either...he's a drunken, amoral buffoon...though he often speaks truths that could only be uttered on stage safely by a fool....anyway, at one point...I think it's in the sequel...he responds to mockery with I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men...takes it as a compliment, that is...and there might be something to be learned from that...
For life is quite absurd, and death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow...
Eric Idle
...ultimately, it’s all there...the tragedy, the comedy, the tragicomedy, and everything else...but allowing for improvisation, and not at all bound by classical unities or conventional plotting....and, like any poem, wide open to interpretation....
...maybe it all comes down to matter...we are matter...and things matter...and yet we laugh...making us, essentially, laughing matter....these are the jokes, folks...
* just googled Heathers...turns out Winona Ryder says a sequel’s in the works....I hope that’s a joke...
** yes, that was a darkly comic reference to Apocalypse Now and the smell of napalm...
Eric Idle
...ultimately, it’s all there...the tragedy, the comedy, the tragicomedy, and everything else...but allowing for improvisation, and not at all bound by classical unities or conventional plotting....and, like any poem, wide open to interpretation....
...maybe it all comes down to matter...we are matter...and things matter...and yet we laugh...making us, essentially, laughing matter....these are the jokes, folks...
* just googled Heathers...turns out Winona Ryder says a sequel’s in the works....I hope that’s a joke...
** yes, that was a darkly comic reference to Apocalypse Now and the smell of napalm...
