The jokes and riddles that I like tend to have a common element:

What's brown and sticky?

A stick.

What's the best way to catch a fish?

Have somebody toss it to you.

What did the Sage say to the Hot Dog Vendor?

Make me one with everything.

... and so forth. They all involve a sudden frame shift, a jump from one way of thinking to another — an escape from the commonplace to a surprising new set of meanings. That leap seems to give the mind a special thrill of joy. In the context of a joke, we laugh. Maybe the same happy feeling of freedom arises in other contexts, when we escape from the prison of our preconceptions?

Tuesday, August 10, 1999 at 16:20:43 (EDT) = 1999-08-10

TopicHumor

(correlates: AchieveNewBalance, Hot and Sour, WebGardening, ...)