Hokum Readings (10/29)

In my opinion, Hokum is the most difficult thing we've read this year. Yes Morreal was a little dry and somewhat organized, but it was fairly easy to understand. Hokum is written in a way that I often have to read    over and over again until I understand anything. However, once I finally understand fully what's going on, I find myself intrigued in the stories.

The story that I want to discuss is "The City of Refuge" by Rudolph Fisher. I often feel confused about why these stories are considered African-American humor. "The City of Refuge" never really made me laugh, or amused. I would say that it made me kind of angry the way that Mouse Uggam took advantage of Gillis. He had Gillis run his drug business by convincing him he was just selling French medicine. Gillis is ignorant of everything going on, and ends up taking the fall for the drugs at the end. I'm not really sure if the story is supposed to be amusing or humorous because I found it more sad. However, there is a lot of incongruity in the story. Almost all the incongruity is based off of the King Solomon Gillis' lack of intelligence. One would expect him to easily figure out he's being set up, but he has no idea. Another example of incongruity is Gillis' amazement with Harlem. He feels it's the best place on Earth, the 'city of refuge', but really it is not a place to live. 

Though I felt like there are incongruous parts in this reading and in other Hokum readings, I definitely don't consider it 'funny.' This is probably due to a few reasons. First is that most of these stories are from the early to mid 1900's. The dated time period makes it very hard to relate to any of these stories. Another reason is that I am a 19 year old white male. I've gone through over 13 years of schooling teaching me about the horrors of slavery and injustices against African-Americans. When reading many of these stories that appear to encourage certain stereotypes about African-Americans, I don't chuckle or smile. Usually I just find it pretty racist because of today's culture. 

3rd Meeting with Ricardo

           Ricardo and I met for the third time the other day, for a short lunch at Market Square. It was a short lunch because Ricardo needed to head over to the airport for his trip to Vegas. At this point, he let me know that once he returned from Vegas in a week or so, he would go directly to the airport and back to Brazil. I had no idea Ricardo was to return to Brazil so soon. This was definitely a big communication error on my part. Once I realized I wouldn't be able to meet with Ricardo again, I asked him a few questions about his thoughts on humor.
             Ricardo said Brazilian humor, in his opinion, consists of a lot sarcasm. He finds short, clever jokes and sayings in the middle of a conversation the funniest. I told him we usually call that a dry sense of humor. He didn't elaborate much more on the sarcasm, so I asked him what he thought of American humor. He says he finds some TV shows funny like The Office. Ricardo doesn't like the physical humor in America. When a guy goes up to another guy and hits him, he doesn't laugh. I told Ricardo this often called slapstick humor. That was really the extent of our humor conversation because he needed to catch a plane to Vegas. I wished him good luck on his gambling and to have a safe return to Brazil. Though we only conversed three times, I always enjoyed the conversations.
               Now, hopefully I'll get a new conversation partner to meet with for the rest of the semester...

Another meeting with Ricardo

                 Ricardo and I met again at Market Square this past Thursday. It had been a while since we last met, so we caught up for a bit. Ricardo had been busy the past few weeks with classes, and then he traveled to Austin with his brother. His brother traveled to Austin from Brazil for business, and decided to stay in Texas until Ricardo returns to Brazil in November.

                While his brother is here, Ricardo has some big plans. In a few weeks, they’re going to Vegas for the national rodeo. Ricardo has traveled all across the United States for rodeos. He actually listed off about 15 or more major cities in the country that he has visited. Ricardo’s cousin is a professional calf roper, so he often travels with him to the major rodeos around the country. It surprised me that he’s been to more exciting cities in the United States than me, and I’ve lived here all my life. He’s definitely not a stranger to the culture.

                The conversation about all the places Ricardo has visited brought up the topic about major cultural differences between Brazil and the United States. Ricardo said that the most confusing thing in the US is the federalist government. The different between state and national government definitely confused him because he’s traveled to so many different states in the country. To him, it’s so odd that specific laws vary in different parts of the country. In Brazil, no matter where he is, there is only one set of laws. This intrigued me a lot because I never had really thought about laws changing across state borders.

                Ricardo brought up some other big cultural differences between Brazil and the United States. In Brazil, soccer is the only really popular sport that everything else takes a back seat to. This is obviously different compared to all the variety we have here. Law wise, Ricardo liked that most people can get a driver’s license at age 16 here. In Brazil, one must be 18 to drive. Another major difference exists between laws regarding alcohol. Ricardo told me how he could go to a night club in Brazil and see tiny 14 and 15 year old boys and girls intoxicated, but here it is a lot stricter. Before speaking to Ricardo, I never realized how many small laws and things could make a country seem so foreign. 

Family Vacations

            John Hughes' "Vacation 58" was one of the funnier stories I've read so far this year. What I liked most about it was the nonchalant manor that the young narrator talked about a chaotic event. Throughout the story, crazy, over the top events happen to the narrator and his family, and the fact that the narrator is a young boy makes the events seem like no big deal. For example, when Clarke (the father) is driving through Illinois late at night, the narrator states, "Dad drove up on the side-walk and ran over a bike and some toys. Mom accused him of being asleep at the wheel, but he said he was just unfamiliar with traffic signs (263). The somewhat flattened voice that the narrator states the chaotic events makes it very humorous. It is a form of incongruity because one would expect the narrator to freak out when his dad recklessly drive, but he just casually tells the story and moves on.
           This same exact patterns happens again and again in the story, except the car ride keeps on getting more chaotic. Highway patrol pulls over the station wagon, and it turns out that they were dragging the dog at 60+ miles per hour for half a mile. They drove the station wagon off a four foot cliff. They get robbed by the gas station attendant that towed their car. The dad robbed the hotel, runs from the police, get attacked by Indians, and eventually the events climaxed with Clarke shooting Walt Disney. Every single one of these chaotic events is told in a flat tone from the young narrator who doesn't really understand the severity of the situation. The difference between the chaos of the events, and the nonchalant way the events are told is an example of incongruity in this story.
          Another thing I liked about this story was the underlying suburban, Midwest stereotype. I'm from Omaha, Nebraska, which is essentially in the center of the continental US. To drive anywhere fairly exciting, it's either an expensive flight or a long road trip. With a family of six, flying was rarely an option so for almost all vacations we would pack up the suburban and try to stand each other for usually over eight hours. The beginning of "Vacation 58" is pretty much an exaggerated version of what happens before each of my family vacations. My dad will be super meticulous about packing the car just right, making sure to include his golf clubs. We always plan at leaving around 8:00 or so in the morning, but rarely make it out before 9:30. For my family at least, vacations always seem like a great idea but always result in tears, blood, and a lot of stress. I feel like Hughes captured this situation perfectly. The family was so excited to go on a great vacation to Disney Land, but it turns out to be fairly destructive. Granted the family in the story went through a little more chaos, I was still able to relate to the fundamental situation.

         

What's Better than Breasts and Drinking?

    Out of today's readings, my favorite was definitely Nora Ephron's "A Few Words about Breasts." I predict that the majority of the class will have the same thoughts as me because Ephron's story is easy to relate to. We're all young college kids who somewhat recently went through the awkward stages of "development." Though I didn't necessarily have to deal with "cramps," I was somewhat similar to Ephron in high school considering she was younger than everyone. I have a late August birthday, and most of my friends were at least 8 or 9 months older than me. Combining this with my braces, fairly short stature, and friends that already had full beards, my high school life was fairly interesting. Reading this story brought me back to the days of sophomore year when there was never a time I wasn't asked for an ID at a PG-13 movie. Many people shared these same experiences, and that's what makes Ephron's story so easy to laugh at. Past times may have been slightly uncomfortable, but looking back at them now can be very amusing.
      My next favorite reading was Donald Barthelme's "In the Morning Post." Barthelme seems very quick and witty, and I loved his sarcastic answers and analysis of certain questions from the Writers Digest questionnaire. His humor reminded me a lot of my dad's growing up.Like my dad, Barthelme never really me burst out laughing, but his comments about drinking with Thomas Aquinas definitely made me smile. He kept a playful, amusing style throughout the short reading that really made it enjoyable for me.
     I didn't like Blount's or Ivin's stories as much as the previous two. They both played off stereotypes that were amusing, but just not as funny to me. However, I can see my friends and family back in Nebraska enjoying Ivin's remarks on Texas drawls because they make fun of me every time I say "y'all." Stories like Ivin's and Ephron's make me think that past experiences and cultural background play a big role on what makes people laugh. 

3 Comic Relief Take Aways

Here are 3 things that I found most important in Morreal's Comic Relief:

1. The concept of humor as a cognitive shift.
One of the most interesting things that I got from Comic Relief was the pattern of us enjoying a cognitive shift. The pattern basically starts with a cognitive shift, which is a rapid change in our perceptions or thoughts. After the shift, we are in a play mode rather than a serious mode, so we are disengaged from conceptual and practical concerns. Because we are in this play mode, we enjoy this shift, which we express with laughter. This basic pattern is seen in many jokes.

2. Amusement is not an emotion
Morreal explains that the feeling of amusement is not an actual emotion because it does not have the typical characteristics of emotions:
1. Beliefs and desires
2. physiological changes
3. adaptive actions
4 sensations of those physiological changes

His example that really helped me was his story about the eggplant at the market. He saw an eggplant that looked like Richard Nixon's nose. He laughed in his mind about that, but he didn't believe that it was really Richard Nixon's head. He wasn't triggered by fear or anger, and he had no "fight or flight" reactions. To be amused, you don't need to have any of the characteristics of emotions.

3. Laughing is healthy
A lot of people find a lot of laughter foolish or childish. Few people know of the positive physiological effects of laughter. Morreal points out that laughter can reduce stress, blood pressure, muscle tension, and even heart rate. Now that I know this, I can tell my dad he doesn't even need his Lipitor, he just has to laugh at my jokes.

These three things might not be the most profound points that Morreal makes in Comic Relief, but they are things that made me think of humor in a different light. Before this book, I never really thought about why people laugh. Now every time I laugh, I might enjoy that cognitive shift a little more.

First Meeting with Ricardo

This past weekend, I had my first meeting with Ricardo Marchi. It was a romantic man date at Market Square. Over mediocre lunch food, we got to know each other a little. Ricardo is a 23 year old from Brazil. His native language is Brazilian Portuguese, but his English speaking was pretty good. He had an impressive vocabulary, and it was always pretty easy to understand him. He still wants to improve his English, which is why he came to Texas after already earning a degree in Business Administration in Brazil.

Ricardo came to Texas in March to study English, and he actually first started out at the University of Texas at Arlington.  This wasn’t his first time in the United States, however. He vacationed in America at least once a year. Ricardo has visited more places in America than me, including New York, Miami, Orlando, San Francisco, and San Diego. At UTA, he didn’t have a great experience because of his roommate situation. According to Ricardo, he lived in an apartment with three other guys that despised him. They wouldn’t even acknowledge him when he walked in, but they still would eat his food and drink his beer. After being at UTA for a few months, he moved to Fort Worth and started studying at TCU. This time he decided to live in an apartment by himself. He takes English classes every week day from 9 am to 12 pm. The classes mostly consist of grammar, which he doesn’t enjoy too much. Like most people, he finds grammar for any language a little boring. He plans to study here until November, when he will go back to Brazil to pursue Business Interests.

Ricardo’s favorite hobby is calf roping. He began calf roping when he was 14 years old, but sold his horse because he didn’t have time once he started college. Now that he’s in Texas, he decided to start up his hobby again. He calf ropes a few times a week at his friends ranch, and he even competes a little.

After an hour long of getting to know the basic information about each other, Ricardo and I decided to part ways. We plan on meeting again this week.