Elynne G wrote:

Jenny Kaye wrote

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Perhaps s/he didn't get the joke and was just laughing because everyone

else

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was, and then when pressed had to come up with something. Unless you

print

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the joke that story is pretty useless.

My apologies. I've somehow felt the punchline summarized it so well. And, since I've given it away, I don't know that telling it will help, but here goes -

<snipped>

That's fantastic! I LOL. Well done. It a brilliant joke. 1/ The milkman is the real father 2/ The husband has inadvertently killed him. 3/ It's saying that child birth is so painful it could kill a man 4/ The milkman is dead on the floor of their home. What's he doing there?

I feel like Orac in Ultraworld. Hope I haven't spoilt it for anyone by explaining it!!!

There were about 20 people present when the joke was tole and, when polled, we gave the reasons stated.

But why stop there? This is a common element of folklore - the same story means different things to different people. It _has_ to. It's how cultures survive.

All the meanings are there, but they are not all necessary picked up by everyone.

The stories that help teach alter with what needs to

be taught.

That's true.

Or apply it to your personal experience.

That's true.

Aren't there events

in your life that you think of with different meanings according to circumstance?

Yes, of course there are.

The first meeting with a boyfriend may mean one thing when

you like him, a different thing when you break up, and something else entirely when you look back on it forty years down the road. Or ever read A Light in the Forest? Two Indians traveling through a colonial village and trying to be friendly tell a joke where the punchline is about a settler being outsmarted by an Indian. The meaning to them is humor and friendly overture, if a bit insensitive. The meaning to the villagers is potential threat and suspicion (it leads to one of the Indians being suspected of a crime and being killed). To a white friend of theirs, it's a red flare that trouble is on the way.

All this is true, but you are missing the point. All these meanings are there in the joke already. It depends on the context of the joke.

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2. If you really do believe there can only ever be one right

interpretation, I can help. It's mine. There, doesn't that make life easier for you?

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Yes it does for me because I know you're wrong.

Ah, knowledge. An interesting concept. Is this like the conundrum that starts all Martians are liars? Or the one where A is 'B is true' and B is 'A is false'? If I know I am right and you know I am wrong then the average velocity of a swallow is . . . .

What I am saying is that your interpretation isn't the only one. But the potential for that interpretation has got to be there in the first place. That wonderful joke you told about the milkman works on at least 4 levels, but some jokes only work on one. And if you had told me the milkman joke and I had said it's funny because "at work the lightbulb blew in the toilets this morning" you'd think, is she being surreal or is she just plain mad? My response might even make you laugh, but then if I argue that my response to the joke was perfectly normal and that my response could be plausibly deducted from the text of the joke, then, quite frankly, I would need locking up.

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3. In keeping with the above, I'm sure we all agree the version of

Hamlet

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with zombies was definitive, right?

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In your head it probably is.

For those who haven't heard me belabour this one before, there's a great essay called (I think) Shakespeare in the Bush, written by an anthropologist working in Africa. Before one trip out to live with a particular tribe, she got into a rather similar argument with another anthropologist about Hamlet. She was of the opinion that there can only be _one_ right interpretation of Hamlet. The friend told her to take a copy along and study it, assuring her time with this tribe would change her mind.

<snipped for length>

That was very entertaining. Now imagine this. A man with the "Bushman mindset" is present at Ophelia's funeral. Laertes jumps into his sister's grave and then tries to grab her body. The man with the "Bushman mindset" starts to shout "Laertes is a murderer! He wants to sell Opelia's body to witches." The man looks around at the startled mourners. He can't understand why they aren't arresting Laertes, and why they seem more stunned by his outburst than doing anything else. The man decides to act. He attacks Laertes. The mourners, seeing what's happening jump into the grave and attack the man. A huge punch up ensues. The man decides that the people attacking him are Laertes' accomplices, and that they want to kill him and steal his body as well. He draws a knife and stabs one to death. This doesn't go down too well. One of the mourners picks up a spade the splits the mans skull open. The man dies. Months later they are still talking about it. The day a madman came to Ophelia's funeral.

The Bushman is perfectly safe within the context of his own society. However, placed suddenly in the context of another he appears mad. He has failed to read the situation and it has got himself killed. Now think on this. What if this man who caused a fuss at Ophelia's funeral was not a bushman at all. But in fact a native of Denmark? There would be no reason for him to act that way. That behaviour would run totally contrary to the society he was brought up in. That man would be mad.

Now here, we are not Bushmen reading Shakespeare. We are Westerners looking at a Western programme.

There is a mindset on Lysator that states that all IMO's are valid. They aren't and that kind of behaviour if translated to the outside world, is going to cause some people on this lyst immense problems. It could even get them killed.

There is a Farside cartoon that I think sums up the situation. A hunter, wearing safari gear and armed with a gun is stalking through the woods. Suddenly he comes across a dear. It's standing on its hind legs dressed in a shirt, blazer and top hat. "Howdy", it says, "The vacuum bags are hot today. Any luck?" The caption on that cartoon reads something like, "When animal camouflage breaks down." I'll give you one guess as to what is going to happen to that poor deluded dear.

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Not at the beginning of the play.

Well, that part was facetious.

No. It's a statement of fact, don't get stroppy now, I'm warming to you.

Although, did anyone actually take their pulse anywhere in the play . . .

?

LOL.

I have no idea what this all means in terms of B7 except that there may be a culture out there that saw everything Avon and Blake did as totally reasonable and even warm and fuzzy.

If there is, and they exist in the context of the western world we are living in now, they are either deluded or fucked up. Dangerous.

Also, I'm getting more and more sympathy for Vila and his failed attempts to defuse conflict with humour.

Conflict is sometimes very necessary, Ellynne. Ask Blake. Sometimes Angels can be mistaken for demons, because they are suddenly ripping down a belief you hold dear. I'm not a demon Ellynne, I'm just trying to save your life.

Jenny _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.