Sparsely, Sage and Timely
By David V. MitchellStaying light in the darkness
As we enter the two darkest months of the year, those of us with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) have to take pains, so to speak, to avoid gloom. The disorder, which does, in fact, make one sad, results from insufficient daylight during the winter, and this throws our bodies’ clocks off.
Not surprisingly, the farther north people live, the more likely they are to feel SAD. The Journal of the American Medical Association confirms that the "prevalence of SAD increases with increasing latitude and has been estimated to range from 1.4 percent in Florida to 9.7 percent in New Hampshire."
To counter the lack of sunlight at this time of year, I keep a light-box blazing on my desk during the day, and it does wonders – to the point where each winter I have an addiction-like craving for it by the time I arrive at work.
In light of this SAD situation, friends at this time of year bombard me with jokes to keep my spirits up. I’m sure most of the jokes originated somewhere else, but since I’d never heard them before, I’ll pass a few along:
• Point Reyes Station’s Macintosh-computer "guru" Keith Matthew asks, "If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?"
• My regular correspondent in South Dakota, Julius Taylor, 80, sends along a classified ad from the days when circuit-riding preachers spread the word in rural areas: "Wanted. A strong horse to do the work of a country minister."
• As for dry humor, why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?
• Magazine ads report that four out of five travelers suffer from diarrhea. Does that mean one of them enjoys it?
The Columbia Journalism Review in each issue publishes examples of headlines containing unintended double-entendres, and CJR’s November/December sampling would keep anyone from feeling SAD.
• Remember the gunman who in 1981 wounded President Reagan? You no doubt recall that in 1982 he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to a mental institution? Recently the gunman, John Hinckley, asked court permission to leave his institution for brief visits with his family. Over an article on the court hearing, The Journal News of New York ran the surprising headline: Hinckley asks judge to go home.
• Also dropping the reins was the Juneau Empire, which headlined a story about fighting in West Africa: U.N. Peacekeepers land in Liberia to reign in violence.
• The stately New York Times sounded more like Rolling Stone with a headline: Putin Cancels Plans for Trip After Bombing at Rock Concert.
Getting back to the basic questions of our existence, for a moment:
• If lawyers can be disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, and dry cleaners depressed?
• And if it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?
• While we’re dealing with fundamental questions, this would seem the time to ask: Whatever happened to Preparations A through G?
‘I heard it couldn’t be done,’ writes subscriber Taylor from Taylors, South Carolina, "so I didn’t even try."
• The doctor after examining a sick woman took her husband aside and confided, "I don’t like the way your wife looks." The husband nodded his head. "I understand," he said, "but she’s a good mother to our children and helps support the family."
Then there’s that special brand of humor known as the limerick, which more often than not is bawdy and politically incorrect. Here’s a risqué but non-malicious limerick I heard from a gay friend in Point Reyes Station: "A gay guy who lived in Kartoum/ Took a lesbian up to his room,/ And they argued all night/ Over who had the right/ To do what, and with which, and to whom."
The earliest-known version of that particular limerick, it turns out, can be found in the 1940s, or so says The Limerick, a book that bills itself as "the largest collection of limericks ever published." (Extensive research, as you can see, goes into these columns.) Indeed, in 1987 I traveled to Limerick, Ireland, and while there tried to find out why limericks were named after the city. I never met anyone who knew.
The American Heritage Dictionary, in fact, goes so far as to say no one knows. The dictionary, however, offers two possibilities: "One theory is that it was named for a group of poets who wrote in Limerick in the 18th century; another, that it came from a custom at parties of making up nonsense verse and following it with a chorus of ‘Will you come to Limerick?’ In any case, the first limericks appeared in books published in 1820 and 1821, and the form was popularized by Edward Lear in a collection published in 1846. The word itself, however, is not recorded until 1896."
These days limericks are as popular as ever. Good heavens, the physicists of the American Physical Society now hold a limerick contest, and it turns out that even scientific limericks are frequently risqué. This winning limerick by AP French was titled Condensed Story of Ms Farad. "Miss Farad was pretty and sensual/ And charged to a reckless potential;/ But a rascal named Ohm/ Conducted her home -/ Her decline was, alas, exponential."
• More dissipated was Goodnight Irene by an anonymous poet: "There once was a girl named Irene,/ Who lived on distilled kerosene./ But she started absorbin’/ A new hydrocarbon,/ And since then has never benzene!"
• Perhaps the physicists’ most existential limerick was one submitted by David Halliday, who titled it Proton Decay. "A proton once said, ‘I’ll fulfill/ My long-term belief in free will./ Though theorists (may) say/ That I ought to decay/ I’m damned if I think that I will."