I thought he said he was a deer!

So, Sven and Ole are out hunting one crisp, Fall day. Suddenly, from out of a copse of trees (I have always wanted to use that word) a man comes running holding his hands straight up and shouting, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, I’m not a deer!” Ole picks up his rifle and shoots the man dead. “Ole,” Sven cries, “Why did you shoot him? He said he wasn’t a deer!” “Oh, said Ole, “I thought he said he was a deer.”

I’ve been telling that joke to my friend Mitch for at least two years now, and each time we laugh as if it were a new joke. And I think each time I recount it, it is a new joke. Because, absurdly, the events of the day make it seem perpetually new. For example, right now final arguments are about to begin in the Michael Jackson child sex abuse case, and I am biting my nails worrying about the fate of the man who owns a fifty million dollar amusement park that he uses as his primary domicile. And I am very concerned about the judges who the Democrats once filibustered to prevent assuming judgeships and who now, with the Democrats’ approval, sit on their judicial benches. The weapons of mass destruction for which we went to war in Iraq are still missing, but the body count continues to increase daily. There are pictures of Saddam Hussein in his underwear, and pictures of every adolescent sans any. John Bolton, who hates the United Nations (and seemingly, not a few others who work with him), might soon become our representative to the United Nations, and there is a suspicion that Viagra and Cialis might cause blindness, which recovers the warning that doing it will make you blind. If only taking Viagra and Cialis would help hair atop the head grow!

This is not the world of 1984 where peace is war, and where the Ministry of Justice is in charge of torture. No, this is worse. Because Ole knew from the start that he was shooting a human being, and he shot him, regardless, and Ole did so despite what the man did or did not say. As if what the man actually said should bear any weight on Ole’s decision to shoot him. Ole’s logic is absurd, and won’t work in any circumstances, but nonetheless, the man is dead! Ole shot him! Whoops, says Ole, it wasn’t really my fault: I mean, this is hunting season, and he was in the woods, and I had a rifle legally licensed to me!

I know, I know, I’ve explained the joke away. It is no longer a joke, and it is no longer funny. I know, I know. Part of what makes a joke viable is its untranslatability into the logic of this world. Or rather, it cannot be explained and remain a joke: such explication leads the joke to lose its entire stance in the world. The joke must be a bit absurd for it to function as a joke, and the explanation renders the absurd logical.

How should a joke relate to the world? I suspect, a good joke treats the world with quite a bit of irony, to place the absurdity of human behavior in the world in irony. Hence, the remarkable success of late night talk show hosts, and Saturday Night Live, and other shows of similar styles. But the more absurd the world appears, the more absurd must be the joke. Until finally, the only good joke is a joke so absurd that it is no longer even funny. But when the world is as absurd as it now seems from the front pages of the newspapers and the sound bites of the radio and television/cable news, then jokes no longer view the world with irony, but become in their absurdity mere exemplars of the real. And as exemplars of the real, they cease being jokes.

Why do Mitch and I continue to laugh at this Sven and Ole joke? Because if we didn’t laugh, we’d have to cry.

“Ole,” Sven cries, “Why did you shoot him? He said he wasn’t a deer!” “Oh, said Ole, “Oh, I thought he said he was a deer.”