Laughing, Refreshed, in Its Face

[Video: scene from The Princess Bride — the Man in Black faces off against his cleverest adversary, Vizzini the nearly-inconceivable Sicilian. You can find a transcript (among other Vizzini-isms) at this IMDB page.]

From whiskey river:

To get through this life and see it realistically poses a problem. There is a dark, evil, hopeless side to life that includes suffering, death, and ultimate oblivion as our earth falls into a dying sun. Nothing really matters.

On the other hand, the best side of our humanity finds us determined to make life as meaningful as possible NOW; to defy our fate. Everything matters. Everything.

It is easy to become immobilized between these two points of view — to see them both so clearly that one cannot decide what to do or be.

Laughter is what gives me forward motion at such intersections.

We are the only creatures that both laugh and weep. I think it’s because we are the only creatures that see the difference between the way things are and the way they might be. Tears bring relief. Laughter brings release.

Some years ago I came across a phrase in Greek — asbestos gelos — unquenchable laughter. I traced it to Homer’s Iliad, where it was used to describe the laughter of the gods. That’s my kind of laughter. And he who laughs, lasts.

(Robert Fulghum [source])

…and:

I lounge on the grass, that’s all. So
simple. Then I lie back until I am
inside the cloud that is just above me
but very high, and shaped like a fish.
Or, perhaps not. Then I enter the place
of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-
wanting. When the blue jay cries out his
riddle, in his carping voice, I return.
But I go back, the threshold is always
near. Over and back, over and back. Then
I rise. Maybe I rub my face as though I
have been asleep. But I have not been
asleep. I have been, as I say, inside
the cloud, or, perhaps, the lily floating
on the water. Then I go back to town,
to my own house, my own life, which has
now become brighter and simpler, some-
where I have never been before.

(Mary Oliver [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Rope

The girl’s father laughs a little too hard
when I say: She knows what’s important in life
as his daughter whips the dime store jump rope
over her head for the twelve thousandth time—
laughs as if I’m joking, when really, she has it down—
sparkly pink handles grimy with effort,
her face obscured by her hair, shins thin and bruised,
socks down at the ankles. Abandoned
by the rest of the crowd, the concrete square
an archipelago, an alignment with rigor the others
cannot fathom, she moves with fierce persistence
into afternoon, the heft of the handles, smack of the rope—
no Double Dutch, limbo, no communal game,
but this resolute definition of rhythm,
slatted bench shadows lengthening into space,
the other kids simply forgetting she’s there,
her solitary corner of the playground darkening
as the dinner hour approaches, while pigeons pause
on their branches, squirrels come down the trunk and stop,
with rush hour beyond the fence, cars idling,
and the rope’s metronome, forgotten as breath,
weaving all the disparate energies of girl—
elation, fury, eagerness, song—
into one singular strand.

(Rynn Williams [source])

…and (the narrator is a woodworm who, with a half-dozen companions, has stowed away on Noah’s Ark):

Noah — or Noah’s God — had decreed that there were two classes of beast: the clean and the unclean. Clean animals got into the Ark by sevens; the unclean by twos.

[Being] “clean,” as they rapidly realized, was a mixed blessing. Being “clean” meant that they could be eaten. Seven animals were welcome on board, but five were destined for the galley. It was a curious form of honour that was being done them. But at least it meant they got the most comfortable quarters available until the day of their ritual slaughter.

…among the species who took themselves seriously there arose all sorts of complicated jealousies. The pig did not mind, being of a socially unambitious nature; but some of the other animals regarded the notion of uncleanliness as a personal slight. And it must be said that the system — at least, the system as Noah understood it — made very little sense. What was so special about cloven-footed ruminants, one asked oneself? Why should the camel and the rabbit be given second-class status? Why should a division be introduced between fish that had scales and fish that did not? The swan, the pelican, the heron, the hoopoe: are these not some of the finest species? Yet they were not awarded the badge of cleanness. Why round on the mouse and the lizard — which had enough problems already, you might think — and undermine their self-confidence further? If only we could have seen some glimpse of logic behind it all; if only Noah had explained it better. But all he did was blindly obey. Noah, as you will have been told many times, was a very God-fearing man; and given the nature of God, that was probably the safest line to take. Yet if you could have heard the weeping of the shellfish, the grave and puzzled complaint of the lobster, if you could have seen the mournful shame of the stork, you would have understood that things would never be the same amongst us.

(Julian Barnes [source])

…and:

Between Neighbors

The complainant is a big man
in his own goddamn front yard
in a wheelchair, his voice as high
and highly offended (but only half
as loud) as the dogs barking
on his porch. His goddamn neighbors
(a young male couple
standing their own ground
deadpanned, on the other side
of the chain-link fence) went and aimed
their hose at his expensive bird
and hosed it. It was innocently
catching a little healthy goddamn sun
in its cage. The cop bends close
to listen. Then he walks off
to consult the complainees
who say the barking, the barking goes
on and on till they can’t, just can’t
stand it. If they pass on the sidewalk,
the dogs bark. If they decide to swing
on their porch swing, the dogs
bark, so, yes, they hosed his parrot
and would do it again. The big man says
between barks he needs, listen, he needs
the dogs as a signal to tell him
strangers are nearby. The cop explains
loudly the definition of nuisance,
issues a warning, turns his palms
like a double stop sign up and against
the opposing sides, then demonstrates
keeping the peace by bending
forward and saying, “Polly,
want a cracker?” and offering
through the cage bars, one healing finger,
and the wet-backed, green-backed,
red-white-and-blue para-
military macaw gives a counterdemonstration
to all of them of what can happen
if you give somebody, anybody, a finger.

(David Wagoner [source])