I can understand what you mean by ruining a joke by having to explain
it. I have had to do that any number of times and it just isn't funny
anymore. It still remains, though, that if a joke is not understood then
it is simply not understood. If it is not understood in the first place
then explaining it will not make it any less funny except, perhaps, to
those who did understand it. One I remember having to explain in
particular was this one.
Two cows are talking. One says, "You know, I'm really worried about this
mad cow disease that's going around." The other cow says, "Not me. I'm a
squirrel!" I told that to someone once who then actually laughed. I
wonder what the laugh was for because the very next thing she said was,
"I thought you said that they were both cows." It was exasperating to
have a joke flop like that, but I proceeded to explain it knowing full
well that even though the woman to whom I told it would then not find it
funny, but that at least she might understand it. I think the part of
not getting the transition from cow to squirrel was due to
inattentiveness, but in the process of explaining I discovered that she
had never heard of mad cow disease. So any way you looked at it she was
not going to understand that joke and I still wonder why she laughed.
There is still the question of whether communication is the purpose of
what you are saying or something else, like in the case of a joke, to be
funny. In the case of a joke it is to be funny. If the joke is not
understood it is not going to be funny and you have missed doing what
you intended. In the case of a poem if the purpose is to communicate it
doesn't do a very good job, but if the purpose is to do something else
my guess is that it doesn't do that other thing very well either if the
reader does not understand it. In another message I said that I had
never thought of poetry as art before. Then I defined art as something
upon which a human had imbued it with patterns and when the subject of
poetry came up in this context it hit me that poetry meets that
definition of art very well. That is, it imbues words and sentences with
a pattern. If that is the purpose of poetry over communication then it
might be very good at it and I can suppose that you might have done a
very good job of it. I have said that there is art that I like, but that
for most art I am neutral. That neutrality seems to extend to poetry.
Now that I can see that the patterns in it constitute art I see it only
as a simple fact with no emotional reaction to it. For me the poetry
needs the additional patterns of music to make it enjoyable for me. A
song is simply poetry set to music and in that form I can appreciate it
much better. But, of course, I appreciate certain songs more than
others. One advantage of setting poetry to music is that it does not
have to be understood. I have already described the kind of music that I
most prefer and, frankly, the words are difficult to understand. One has
to do a bit of straining to understand them. I think the reason that I
prefer poetry in that form is that it is the patterns of sounds That I
like and that there is no need to understand the patterns of sounds and
that there is most probably nothing to understand in it anyway. On the
other hand, when I have just a poem in front of me that is expected to
be read it looks like something that is supposed to communicate meaning
to me. What I tend to get is sentences that are grammatical sentences,
but convey no meaning or sentences that are on the verge of meaning
something, but do not quite accomplish it. Other poems look to be more
straight forward. As a literal minded person I can read them and
literally understand something. The trouble is that I have heard over
and over that a poem is full of symbolism and I have no idea what the
symbolism is. I could guess, but without rules for what symbolizes what,
I am doing nothing but making up things. I will also say that when I
look at song lyrics I tend to be disappointed. I first noticed this back
when I was a Black Sabbath fan. Hearing the words in the songs sounded
so grandiose and important to me. Black Sabbath, though, had the policy
to print the lyrics of their songs on the album covers though. When I
read those lyrics without musical accompaniment they seemed to be
simplistic and actually silly. It was a big disappointment. Then in the
future I found lyrics for other songs in various genres of music and the
same thing happened with all of them. Lyrics without the music just did
not work for me at all. Even poetry that was not meant to be accompanied
by music seemed to be more grandiose even if the meaning escaped me. But
I am digressing. To address your analogy with a joke I mean to say that
if a joke is not understood it is not going to be funny no matter
whether you explain it or not then I think that if a poem is intended to
do something other than communicate it is not going to accomplish that
if it is not understood and to be understood it has to communicate
something. If you have a straight forward message to communicate and you
put it in poetic form then you are making it difficult to understand and
that act is what it means to engage in obscurantism. But, of course, if
your intention is to do something other than to communicate then I
suppose that you fail to do that if you just say it straight forward. I
suppose Miriam would say that by explaining this I am somehow derogating
poetry, but I still don't see how trying to understand and to clarify
derogates anything.
On 1/12/2016 10:00 AM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:
Roger. I'm going to explain this with kindness, but I think you simply don't grasp nuance, subtle ironies, etc.
Alice was being quite sarcastic in her original response.
This is not your fault. This medium is difficult. But, it does go to the core, in my opinion of your responses to art.
Regardless, if I do what you suggest then what in effect you are doing is like asking a person to explain in some sort of long form narrative a good joke. When that is done the joke is ruined.
I distilled the intense, and often conflicted times and emotions; indeed quite personal conflicts with the use of symbolism, metaphor, and other tools.
I expressed angst and internal conflicts.
Rene's eyes symbolized those issues with their very color and the tension between black and white in the notion of gray.
There was also a hidden conflict amonst others here. For Rene was very, very beautiful, physically. People didn't take her seriously often because of this, and inspite of her idealism. I didn't precisely point that out.
But, conversely I did point out this hidden insecurity within myself, basiclly "Just who was I to deserve this young lady."
So we both went back and forth over our personal wants and our social-political explorations.
And, ironically much of that was to impress the other. Though this was sub-conscious. "I always threw rocks at Goliath. And like warriers of old I brought his head to her as a trophy. Now, I didn't literally slay Goliath. I took on the establishment with anti-war, and other activities. It is the use of metaphor and symbolism to compress the concepts and to express, vividly the tensions.
But, now I've explained this joke and, thus I've ruined it.
That makes me somewhat sad. Not for me btw. But, regardless I didn't write it for you or anyone in particular either.
I wrote it for myself and, perhaps for Rene, as I still do hold her in my heart after all of these years and I wish for her to know that.
I also shared it for my comrades freely. They can chose to like it or not, to gain insight, or not.
Perhaps others share such things. I mean we were all teens once upon a time and most of us grew up with these sorts of conflicts.
By the way the last time I saw Rene she dyed her hair black. She thought her blond hair was why guyes always both hit on her and didn't take her seriously (she did have quite an education by the way). I said, "Shit Rene, the reason guys hit on you all the time is because you are so fucking beautiful."
We made love one last time.
Then we simply drifted apart for a variety of reasons.
I, honestly don't know if she has any regrets about that. But, I do.
Again, I just ruined the joke here.
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for
DMARC) <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Monday, January 11, 2016 9:39 PM
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Re: i think this isart
Now that does make some sense. But, Joe, when you put it in that
poetic form I really did not understand it to mean what you just
now said. It just did not get through. The question is, did you
want to create a piece of art with words? If that is the case then
you succeeded. I could detect the patterns that make up a poem. It
was very recognizable as such. Or did you want to communicate what
you had to say in your prose version? If that was the case then
you failed. You only communicated it when you did translate it
into prose.
On 1/11/2016 2:53 PM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:
Ok, I'll try. When I was quite young I fell in love and lust with
a really pretty girl. I mean she was really pretty and she really
liked me too. But, I was pretty insecure. Then we did the belly bump.
And all mixed up with all of that goofy and sensuous stuff the
times were really pretty troubled to. You know Vietnam,
assisinations and that sort of stuff.
I got caught up in that shit and really did become a real radical.
And with regret Rene and I drifted aapart.
But, in spite of that she still lingers in my memories.
Oh, yes, and might I add that youth is wasted on the young.
Oh, did I mention the sex was really good, though surely it is
only some sort of bio-chemical reaction.
How, did I do?
P.. She really did look lik