A week or two ago, during a post in which I devised a foolproof method to test the quality of any public library, I let drop, casually, the idea that there are only two known "good" knock knock jokes. It then lay out there in plain sight. Though it was not a test or a plant I suppose some part of me felt like it would pick up some sort of response, some query or challenge, because when it didn't, it suddenly seemed full of meaning. I had no idea what sort of meaning though. Wildly unrelated meanings started blooming in my head like bubbles in lava that has been poured over ice. Insulting, fawning, inscrutable, illuminating, obfuscating, and odd, all these meanings are about you. For you are the reader after all, and all these meanings touch on the reader's, your, nature. So surely it is your right to see this strange plethora of meanings.
The lack of comment, response, or query to my offhand comment that there are only two "good" knock knock jokes is a clear indication that:
1. The readers of this blog are profoundly educated on the subject of knock knock jokes and understand every implication of my reference.
2. The readers of this blog are eager for any discussion of knock knock jokes to go away and think I could only be joking in bad taste when I use the impossible phrase "good knock knock joke", but forgive me for it if we could just move along already, like, now please?
3. The readers of this blog assume most things I say are whimsical rather than foundational.
4. The readers of this blog dislike being drawn out, and know what I am up to long before I know what I am up to, and conceive that silence alone drives me to flower.
5. The readers of this blog are "print version" readers and have scrawled in the margins of the text: "But WHAT are the two knock knock jokes!!!!!!" even though it will reduce the resale value of their copy.
6. The readers of this blog mostly sit quietly, hoping one among them will raise their hand.
7. The readers of this blog DON'T LIKE TO BE TALKED ABOUT!
8. The readers of this blog trust the author and assume he will tell them everything he needs to tell them exactly when it needs to be told.
But suddenly it strikes me as unwholesome to speak of grand, collective "you"s here. You, after all, are just you. None, or one, or more of these may apply to you, and you alone, and what else matters here?
Nothing.
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.
I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!
One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.