Late to bed and early to rise

Jed

April 8, 2003

Went to bed a little after 1 a.m., had trouble getting to sleep. Probably fell asleep around 2. Was awakened promptly at 6:30 by loud motorcycle revving its engine twenty feet from my bedroom window. Grr. Couldn't get back to sleep; eventually decided to give up. Finished re-reading "The Last of the Winnebagos," which I'd intentionally saved for last in Impossible Things 'cause I knew I liked it. Still good.

I like many of C.W.'s darker and more serious stories quite a bit. But since I'm in a kind of grumpy mood this morning, I'll note that I'm not a big fan of her other two biggest categories of stories: her screwball comedies and her anti-PC satires. Judging by the introductions to the stories in this collection, one of the worst sins in her worldview is (or at least was when she was writing these, ten to fifteen years ago) to be "humorless." People who are bothered by use of gender-specific terms in genderless contexts are "humorless," as are people who are offended by anything, as are people who espouse various worldviews and attitudes that go against common sense. Unfortunately for me, I'm in several of her "humorless" categories, which makes it hard for me to appreciate the barbs in these stories.

I think part of it for me is that I've just seen too many bureaucracy-gone-awry stories and too many if-this-goes-on social-trend-taken-to-extreme stories over the years, and they all start to blur together. Yes, I understand that (for example) the Literary Canon contains many Great Works of Literature that include bits that are offensive to modern sensibilities, and that if all offensive things are outlawed then that will include Great Literature; I don't need to see another story about it.

Then again, it may just be that my sense of humor doesn't match a lot of people's. I've noted to Susan and Chris on more than one occasion that I must have had my sense of humor surgically removed at some point; there are a fair number of submissions that they find funny but that do nothing at all for me. And hell, I didn't find Bringing Up Baby remotely funny (except the bit with Cary Grant explaining why he's dressed in a flouncy bathrobe—"I was just feeling . . . gay today!" with (iIrc) a great little queeny hand-flourish (and I'm still skeptical about that being an intentional double entendre, given that I gather the use of "gay" to mean "homosexual" didn't otherwise surface 'til the late '60s, ten years later, but I could be wrong)—which is funny for reasons external to the movie), so it's not really a surprise that I don't enjoy C.W.'s screwball comedies. (There are screwball comedies that I adore, but they're mostly His Girl Friday, which isn't exactly the center of the genre.)

Still too unfocused to edit. I think I'll try going to work.

10 Responses to “Late to bed and early to rise”

Will Quale

04-08-2003 12:48 PM

I tend to read single-author anthologies in cover-to-cover order, on the assumption that the author and/or the editor had some reason for putting the stories in that order (thematic tie-ins, chronological to show progression of the writer, etc). It sounds like you don’t always read these anthos in order: is that because you find there generally isn’t particularly rhyme or reason to the ordering (except perhaps for cases like the Sturgeon anthos you were reading a while back)? Or just because sometimes you remember a favorite and want to end on a known high note (which is what this one sounded like)? Or something else?

I don’t generally go in for screwball, and while there were a few funny moments in Bringing Up Baby I didn’t like the film as a whole. There were just too many “but that would never happen, real people aren’t all blithering morons” moments.
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Rachel Heslin

04-08-2003 1:32 PM

Humor is the combination of confusion followed closely by recognition.

If you’ve heard it before, there’s less confusion, which is why most jokes aren’t as funny the second time around. If you don’t identify with the underlying assumptions, then you don’t have the recognition and don’t “get it.”

Nothing to worry about; what might be considered a “lack of humor” is probably just a difference in cultural or individual identifications.

I figure that, as long as you appreciate the absurdity of life in general and can differentiate between treating something seriously and taking it seriously (or, worse, taking yourself seriously), that’s all the sense of humor you really need.
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Jenn Reese

04-08-2003 7:02 PM

I’m not a big fan of humorous SF. Just don’t find most of it funny, esp the screwy stuff. (Love Jim Morrow’s humor, though.) I’m a huge fan of Katherine Hepburn’s, however. But while I enjoy Bringing Up Baby, I far prefer the humor of The Philadelphia Story, my favorite movie of all time. (How can you go wrong with Katherine, Cary, and Jimmy Stewart?)
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Jed

04-08-2003 7:28 PM

I used to usually read anthologies and single-author collections in order of length, shortest stories first; these days I sometimes just skip around, picking whatever looks interesting, or what I’ve heard most about, or what I have time for at the moment. I think I fairly often save something I expect to like for last. But I also sometimes read front-to-back simply because it’s easier that way to be sure I’ve read everything. In the giant-size Year’s Bests, it can be easy to miss something otherwise—though I do sometimes hold off on huge novellas if I don’t have the energy to dive into them.

I was skipping around in this one because I knew there were some that were going to bug me, so I held some I remembered liking in reserve to read last.

I know, but tend to forget, that anthologists often put the strongest two stories first and last; unfortunately that also often means those stories are among the longest, which sometimes makes me hesitant to read them.
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Vardibidian

04-09-2003 11:00 AM

I know you’re not a big fan of humiliation humor, and I suspect not of recognition humor as well, but you do like puns, some absurd humor, and I seem to recall you liking some visual gags as well. So you have a sense of humor; I’ve seen you laughing to split your sides.
So, how about this: tell us five movies you find funny, five stories or books, and five songs or jokes. Then you can say “Blued Moon” isn’t funny, but the Siberian Peach Pie joke is funny, and we can react accordingly.
There’s another thing – do you respond particularly strongly to failed humor? I find failed humor almost unbearable, and watching “Meet the Parents” was excruciating, while most of the rest of the plane was in stitches. Were in stitches? Anyway, I sulked for hours.
Thank you,
-Vardibidian.
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Dan P

04-09-2003 12:10 PM

Everyone hates a meetooer, but: Me too. To pretty much the whole entry, apart from the lack of sleep thing. And now I want to hear the Siberian Peach Pie joke!
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Jed

04-09-2003 12:22 PM

Perhaps I should clarify: the bit about having had my sense of humor surgically excised was a joke.

There are lots of things I find funny. But there are also lots of things that most people seem to find hilarious that I don’t find remotely entertaining.

When C.W. refers to “humorless” people, I suspect she actually means people who take issues seriously that she doesn’t think are worthy of serious consideration. I actually think it’s a mistake conflate concern about political issues (such as language use and offensiveness) with lack of a sense of humor; I don’t know anyone with no sense of humor.

Sorry not to be clearer.
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David Moles

04-10-2003 4:09 PM

I like to think of myself as being fairly nuanced about these things. Sometimes an offensive joke is clever enough, that it still gets me to laugh, even if I feel ashamed of myself afterwards; other times it just makes it clear that the teller is dumber than a sack full of hammers. (And then there’s the small but crucial distinction between a Nazi joke and a Nazi joke.)

Most of the people I’ve met who use “you just have no sense of humor” as an excuse to be offensive are much crueler and more stupid than CW seems to be. I’m guessing she doesn’t actually spend a lot of time telling truly offensive jokes and then being upset when nobody laughs. When I’ve seen her at readings and panels and whatnot, generally everybody laughs. So I wonder how many of the sort of humorless people CW’s got a problem with she’s actually met?
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David Moles

04-10-2003 4:11 PM

And while I’m wondering, how come my blog comment postings always have those convoluted dependent clauses?

(The extra em dash was just a typo.)
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Jed

04-10-2003 4:40 PM

(I removed the extra em dash.)

I should note that I find C.W. extremely entertaining in person, and a lot of fun to listen to.

My completely unfounded impression is that most of her real-life contact with the ardently PC people she objects to comes in the university environment. Then again, according to her introduction to “Even the Queen” in Impossible Things, she wrote that one because a lot of people had been writing to her demanding that she write about “women’s issues.”

For my money, “All My Darling Daughters” is an excellent “women’s issues” story (though it could certainly be read as overly male-bashing), so I’m not sure what those letter-writers were on about.
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