New Yorker Rejects #12

A couple of months ago, I put on a workshop for veterinarians about humor. Not humor theory–the ancients idea that disease is just an imbalance between bile and other crap– but the actual scientific understanding of humor.

I've been sort of obsessed with this topic, and somehow this bonkers idea to teach it in a workshop to animal doctors made it all the way through the vetting process.

My credentials as presenter? Nearly 120 rejected New Yorker cartoons! That's right, I claimed authority on the subject because I've spent a lot of time spent looking for the "funny". But I've got no special letters after my name, nor an impressive resume as a humor expert, other than my prestigious publication history with Veterinary Practice News.

Anyway– while I was trying to get burned-out professionals to think stupid so that I could grant them CE credit, one of my audience members was not having it. During the hands on part of the workshop, while I asked them to start drawing their funny ideas. This person said no. They didn't want to do it, and didn't want encouragement to do it. They would in fact, just not participate. They weren't rude about it, but they did lay out a clear red line and described in anatomically graphic-yet-accurate detail what would happen to me if I crossed it.

Recognizing this particularly prickly porcupine, I backed off and focused my efforts on other attendees, hoping that I wasn't going to hear about this from the State Veterinary Board the following Monday.

But then a funny thing happened. We finished the hands on portion with my frantic cartoon coaching, and then I closed things out with about 20 minutes more of droning on and on about cognitive neuroscience.

After finishing and waving folks bye-bye, the humor-resistant attendee came up to me. They explained the direct portion had been very uncomfortable, but the ideas were making sense. Actually, during my closing lecture, all sorts of funny concepts and ideas had presented themselves to this person. They showed me their worksheet, full of exactly the type of ideas I was asking attendees to seek during the workshop.

What's the lesson here? Relax, people!!!

That's all! Just give things a little space, time or distance and you can finally have fun with them! If it's too uncomfortable, take a break and come back to it–you literally can't force things to be funny.

Which is (I think) why I came up with so many Halloween cartoons in March.

I should have seen this one coming a long time ago. It perfectly captures my anxiety about post-surgical complications, displeased and intimidating clients, and mistiming holiday-themed cartoon ideas.

Whereas this just seems like a legitimately good idea.

And this is stretching–no, you're right, overstretching the festive spirit to stupid extremes.

But hey! Cartoons– nay, humor itself is all about getting to stupid extremes! And speaking of extremes, how about extreme sports?! Those always seemed kinda stupid to me!

But is there any way to make them even stupider?! I think so!

Truly, I do question my stupidity sometimes.

I am so sure some of these have a 0% chance of making it into the New Yorker, and yet I draw them anyway. Possibly because I just think they're funny, possibly because I'm trying to sabotage myself, or possibly because sometimes– you just need to get something out of your system, regardless of whether or not it's the appropriate time and place to do so.

It's all (hopefully) part of the process of getting better.

And you know what? Even if it's not, it's the way that I'm built and I might as well go with that.

Right?

Or maybe I should be listening to all the gurus who tell me to do this or that or the other if I want to be successful.

Maybe I ought to be more open to (targeted, search-engine based and algorithmically-optimized, and commercially incentivized) advice.

What do I have to lose?