Humor like beauty is in the eye (mind) of the beholder. What is funny to one person might be puzzling or offensive to another. Nothing is worse than to have to explain a joke to someone.
In that case, it is best left for other ears. But I am going to take a chance and ignore my advice. Here are, to me, some light humor musings that are meant to be harmless yet maybe a little funny. I hope.
I was at the local recycling center recently talking to the unit supervisor who recounted a joke that caused a smile or a groan if you have heard it for the 10th time.
It seems that this man had the grand plan to land a rocket ship on the sun. He surmised that it was rather large and to him was not all that far away but one of his friends suggested to him that he had better have second thoughts about the journey because the sun was awfully hot.
Both agreed, but there was a explanation for that.
The intrepid explorer would simply avoid the heat since he was going to make his run at night.
I read this in a magazine famous for its cartoons, The New Yorker. I recall two in particular that have stuck with me after all these years.
To appreciate the first one, it helps to know a little about the Exodus in the Bible. You recall that Moses was in charge of leading the Israelites out of Egypt to the Promised Land. But things did not go as he had hoped so there was a slight delay before they reached their destination, some forty years. The cartoon took light of their plight by showing the long queue of appropriately dressed sojourners led by Moses holding his staff.
That was the scene but immediately behind Moses were two women who were talking and going on the popular assumption that men never stop to ask directions. One of the women said to the other, “He will never stop to ask directions and we will be wandering for 40 years.” Well that is not all that funny but to me amusing in a slightly irreverent way.
The other cartoon would perhaps offend anyone (Scottish) who loves bagpipe music but funny nevertheless. The sound of music played by the bagpiper is distinctive (“disturbing and unsettling”) to say the least. One is not born with a love for this sound; it is learned like learning to enjoy eating asparagus. With only nine notes, not set in the usual Western major and minor scales, the bagpipe instrument is not music typically heard by the Western ear instead according to an Internet source, pipers use a somewhat different scale of half tones and with no volume control making an unfamiliar sound to the Western ear. In fact, it was so disliked by the English that at one time bagpipes were banned. With all this for background, one can better appreciate the cartoon.
The cartoon shows a piper in full Scottish regalia and a bystander. The piper is talking to his friend and says, “So far no one has noticed.” What is funny is that the cartoonist has not drawn the bagpiper holding a tradition set of bagpipes but instead, he is holding a most unhappy, frightened cat that is making the substitute ‘music’ being heard.
No one seems to notice the difference.
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Bill Lee, PO Box 128,
Hamer, SC 29547