Humour Archive

Scraps of humour research presented here for your consumption. Comments welcome.

Monday, August 14, 2006

The Subconscious, and the strange things that lurk therein

At the moment, I am reading Freud's The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious. Funnily enough (just HILARIOUSLY, in fact), this post has almost nothing to do with Freud, save the fact that a memory just trickled down through the recesses of my brain and oozed into my conscious.

So, being in a high state of procrastination, I thought I'd blog about it.

Here's the memory
(hope it comes across as at least mildly amusing; when I first experienced it I think it kept me chuckling for several days [this is perhaps an indication of hos sad I really am...]):

Our cleaning lady's daughter had come over, with her mother, to our house.
While her mother was cleaning, she sat, staring determinedly at a printed
A4 piece of paper.
I went about my business, not really noticing what she was reading.
She remained sitting. Staring. Almost frowning at the paper.
Hours passed.
She still had not moved.
The frown remained.
Same sheet of paper - one sided A4 sheet.
She continued in this manner for almost of three hours.
Motionless.
Silent.
Finally, I glanced at the
title of the paper she was reading.
It read: "Excellent Jokes"


Not laughing? Hey, just because I study humour, doesn't mean I'm funny! :S

8 Comments:

Blogger Dan said...

Seems that I too would be staring at that sheet of paper for hours. I am missing why this is funny. What am I missing? Was there anything on the sheet other than "Excellent Jokes".

11:42 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Supposedly, there were 'Excellent Jokes' on the sheet. Perhaps I didn't stress it enough, but what I found funny is that she stared at a whole page of 'excellent' jokes for three hours and didn't giggle, cackle, or even crack a smile. I'll see whether there're any tricks up my 'edit post' sleeve...

12:04 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yay! it's not just me! :)

2:27 pm  
Blogger AJ said...

Hooch, you may wish to explore Robotology, a religion of one of my favourite comedy shows, Futurama: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotology

This leads to the larger thought of "fictional religions". What is and what isn't a fictional religion??

10:03 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wonder, are all 'fictional religions' 'parody religions'? Is THAT what makes them fictitious - the fact that there are no 'true believers'? Or, is 'fictona religion' a term used when describing religions that appear in fiction but not in real life. If this were the case, Robotology would be a fictional religion, while Pastafarianism (in my 'links') would be a 'parody religin'.

11:40 am  
Blogger Dan said...

Hey, is 'religin' Pidgin for 'religion'? (-8}

4:29 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oops. *blush*

1:52 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

actually, his analysis of the joke is rather interesting...

5:56 pm  

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