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Out of Context

08/31/04

Permalink 03:47:04 pm, by Lytspeed Email , 0 words   English (US)
Categories: General

Out of Context

"I like the architecture of Plum Pudding, but the interior of Apple Blossom."

Before you think I have a Stawberry Shortcake fetish, I should probably explain; the sentence relates to dollhouses.

My girlfriend wants a dollhouse so bad she can taste it, so it's probably appropriate that she is looking at dollhouses with cute food names. She pointed me to a website, and told me the Apple Blossom was her favorite. You can see where it went from there, I'm sure, and taken out of context, I think the result is a pretty funny statement.

Context -- or lack thereof -- is a big part of humor for me. Though I usually don't have a hard time maintaining a thread of conversation, there's always a separate thread in my brain processing the conversations, looking for little chinks in context that I can pry open with a pun. As a result, I do spend a lot of CPU time out of context; that's probably why so many of my jokes fall flat. Recipients (or victims, if you prefer) of my puns are usually not as far out of context as I am, so my humor comes across as frustrating to them.

Does that mean I need to change my style of humor? Mmmm ... no, I don't think so. I much prefer out-of-context puns to humor that takes advantage of others' misfortune, as most modern humor seems to do. I'm not perfect; I occasionally say things I think are funny and later realize that I've yielded to the temptation of humor at someone else's expense, but I try to keep an eye on myself.

No, I don't think I'll change my humor style. I'll just continue to fish for groans and avoid the sharp objects people throw at me.

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This is the Creativity Journal of Stace Johnson, writer, musician, poet, and geek. Feel free to hang around and post some comments or add me to your blog aggregator (see RSS links below.) Enjoy!

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