Just Kidding

"Humor is inherently ambiguous. You're saying more than one thing, and it's not clear exactly what the message is." That's a quote from the August Psychology Today. People like to say that humor is about surprise, as in 1,2, 3..15. Or, to give the usual example; guy in a new $1000 suit walks out of a club and slips an a banana peel. Or to to give the more common term; this is a non sequitur, and equals humor.

Subtlety, ambiguity, ambivalence are also part of humor. It's a big piece of what I see as funny. It's how I see writing too. Somewhere T.S. Elliot (I'm presently into citing people with two initials in place of a first name) (stay tuned for E.B. White, A.A. Milne. ee cummings, J.D. Salinger and more) (in fact, how many writers and/or others can you came with two initial initials?) writes that poetry is all about reframing, about taking away labels, about looking at things in a different way. (After that whole initial thing I just decided it my not be a T.S. Elliot quote.) (I am reminded of the time that a friend of mine decided that it might be a good idea to read C.S. Lewis, because Rav Aharon Lichtenstein had quoted him. But my friend's not a big reader, so he decided to get the Cliff Notes. But my friend doesn't have a great memory, so he got Cliff notes on T.S. Elliot.) Poetry is not about ambiguity for everyone and either is humor. But I think this opens up the differences between various personalities. Discuss.