The Aesthetics of Jokes

Here's a joke. There's a particular park in America where people always play chess. One day, it started raining so all the chess-players adjourned to a swanky hotel just outside the park, one that had a fancy lobby with soft chairs and nice marble-topped tables. The manager wasn't too happy about this, so he asked the doorman to get rid of them. "I'm afraid not, sir", said the doorman. "It's not my job to pull your chess nuts out of the foyer".

Did you laugh?

That's one of my favourite jokes. I first encountered it in one of Isaac Asimov's joke books. Doubtless my version of it isn't nearly as well-told.

It's a good entry-point for this blog post, though. As with most of my favourite jokes, its appeal to me goes beyond the fact that it's funny-- although I do find it very funny, and I wouldn't care about it if it wasn't funny.

But it's more than that. The whole set-up of the joke is immensely pleasing to me, and this is what most of my favourite jokes have in common.

First off, I like the idea of chess players playing chess in a park. Who doesn't? It's picturesque and pleasingly public. Buskers, street preachers, street vendors-- they all add to the character of a public place, making it seem more public and less a collection of private "bubbles".

Secondly, the fact that all the chess players go to the lobby together suggests that they're not just different pairs of players, but they're some sort of community-- and that is also very appealing.

A.I. is good for something...

Thirdly, they move to a hotel lobby. Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time, and also anybody who knows me at all, knows that "lobby" is one of my favourite words. I use it as often as I can. The same applies to "foyer". Indeed, I don't know which I prefer!

It's not just the word lobby that I like, but the idea of a lobby, and indeed the reality of a lobby. Especially cinema lobbies and hotel lobbies, which are usually rather splendid.

Why? Well, I guess it's a liminal space. There's been a lot said about those, but I'm intrigued by the fact that it's both public and private. Not a place you're supposed to linger in for a long time, but not made just for passing through, either.

(In my experience, the happiest times in life are often "in-betweeny" times, when you're either pausing or in transit between other experiences. Such moments often occur in lobbies, and they're also like a symbol of such moments.)

I don't actually have access to the Asimov book where I found the joke, and I can't find the joke on the internet. (I can find similar jokes, which I'll get to in a moment.) But I'm pretty sure that, in the Asimov version, it was a policeman who is called by the manager to use the chess-nuts.

I've changed it to a doorman in my version. Partly this is because those other jokes I mention use a doorman instead. But, more importantly, it's because I like that the whole joke occurs "in-house". I like buildings and institutions that resemble little societies; universities, for instance! Besides, don't we all like doormen, with their splendid uniforms and air of ceremony?

Anyway, I think you're probably getting the point by now. Very often, it's not just the punchline, or even principally the punchline, that appeals to me in a joke. It's the whole little world conjured by the story-- the atmosphere, the setting, the flavour, the incidentals. A punchline can only surprise you once (though it can still amuse you), but the background details can give a more lasting pleasure.

I mentioned a different version that I found online. Here it is:

A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse.

“But why?” they asked, as they moved off.

“Because,” he said “I can’t stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.”

This is also a good joke, but I don't think it's quite as good. For one thing, I've never heard anyone use the phrase "open foyer". So it doesn't quite have the pleasure of the other punchline, where the situation fits the idiom perfectly.

One thing that I like about both jokes is their innocuousness. First off, they're both clean-- and while I've laughed at hundreds (or maybe thousands) of smutty jokes, clean jokes seem much more pleasing, especially at the "deep" level I'm discussing here.

But these jokes are innocuous in another way. Compare them to this common joke:

Doctor: I have some bad news and some really bad news. The bad news is that you have twenty-four hours to live.

Patient: Oh God! What's the really bad news?

Doctor: I've been trying to contact you since yesterday.

This isn't a joke I find particularly funny, for a start-- although it seems plenty of people do find it funny, given how often I come across it. But, aside from that, it's quite depressing. A man with only an hour to live? That doesn't fill me with the sort of warm glow created by my favourite jokes.

The "chess nuts" in the foyer jokes are at the opposite pole of seriousness. Nothing really bad happens in this joke. Nobody is dying. Nobody is in distress. The chess players have enough time, leisure, and health to at least play chess. And the existence of hotels and city squares are a good thing in themselves.

Honestly, I think jokes act as a sort of sudden illumination that show us that the human condition is, for the most part, pretty good. There's enough drama in the story to make it interesting, but not the sort of three-hankie or white-knuckle drama that feature films or novels require. Just enough to engage the brain, while the less analytical part of the mind savours this wonderful world of ours: a world of chess, hotel lobbies, doormen, and so on.

In case you thought I'd analysed this joke to death, I do indeed have more to say. This much, at least: another reason it appeals to me is its basic realism.

There's nothing improbable in the story. It could reasonably happen. It could happen tomorrow, or today. Personally, I much prefer this kind of joke to the whole comic galaxy of talking dogs, little green men, genies in bottles, and so forth. Even if we set aside all supernatural and paranormal elements, I also prefer a joke like this to all the jokes that involve far-fetched or exotic motifs such as lottery wins, cannibals, desert islands, and the like.

How could a blog post about jokes have so few laughs? Well, I'd better round it off by another of my favourite jokes. I've lifted it straight from the first place I found it on the internet. (I actually suspect this was lifted from Asimov, too!)

A man went to his dentist because he feels something wrong in his mouth. The dentist examines him and says, "that new upper plate I put in for you six months ago is eroding. What have you been eating?"

The man replies, "All I can think of is that about four months ago my wife made some asparagus and put some stuff on it that was delicious...Hollandaise sauce. I loved it so much I now put it on everything --- meat, toast, fish, vegtables, everything."

"Well," says the dentist, "that's probably the problem. Hollandaise sauce is made with lots of lemon juice, which is highly corrosive. It's eaten away your upper plate. I'll make you a new plate, and this time use chrome." "Why chrome?" asks the patient.

To which the dentist replies, "It's simple. Everyone knows that there's no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise!"