{"id":2916,"date":"2020-04-01T14:51:25","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T19:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=2916"},"modified":"2020-04-01T14:52:12","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T19:52:12","slug":"pandemic-ponderings-the-anatomy-of-a-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/pandemic-ponderings-the-anatomy-of-a-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"Pandemic Ponderings: The Anatomy of a Joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

The corona pandemic has birthed an outpouring of creative humor, from elaborate song parodies to simple one liners.<\/p>\n

I have transmitted the following with great success, from appreciative smiles to outright guffaws.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you hear, they have found a way to turn cauliflower into toilet paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is it about this one line that finds such an appreciative audience?\u00a0 What are the factors that so perfectly capture our current predicament?\u00a0 Here is my dissection of the required steps underlying this humor.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Knowledge of current hoarding of toilet paper<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By now everyone is aware that toilet paper was the first item to disappear off the grocery shelves.\u00a0 How did this start, go viral as it were?\u00a0 Grocery stores across the country are now pock-marked with empty shelves.\u00a0 This the land of plenty, isn\u2019t it? Americans shouldn\u2019t have to scrap for something as prosaic as TP.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Panic buying is a universal human emotion, and if I didn\u2019t have the good fortune of a pre-isolation Costo run, I would have stocked up the moment I saw others doing the same.\u00a0 But why toilet paper?\u00a0 My theory is that toilet paper is the very definition of a human being.\u00a0 Without toilet paper we’d be just another animal.\u00a0 Skulking at the edges of my subconscious is the possibility that we could be facing the end of days.\u00a0 If the world collapses around us, I want to face it clutching at least one roll of toilet paper.<\/p>\n

The trickle-down effects of the empty shelves are interesting to consider.\u00a0 Proctor and Gamble was among the first to proclaim their patriotic duty by ramping up production.\u00a0 For years advertisers have tried to convince consumers that toilet paper is not a commodity, that theirs is gentler, softer, basically has more horsepower then the competitor’s thin, flimsy rolls.\u00a0 They can now pull these ads, knowing that Americans will likely buy sandpaper as long as it\u2019s labeled toilet paper.<\/p>\n

Requirement One:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Understand that hoarding toilet paper is an irrational, but contagious, response to the corona virus, and humor is one way to keep calm and carry on.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Childhood memories of cauliflower<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Growing up in the 1960s, cauliflower was a demonized vegetable, pale and sickly looking, with a noxious odor as it was steamed to death.\u00a0 It didn’t help that “cauliflower ear” described a boxer’s brutal deformity.\u00a0 Cauliflower was a token vegetable on the dinner plate, something to push around, cut into pieces to make it look like you took an equally token bite.\u00a0 It was the rare vegetable that could not be salvaged with pads of butter.\u00a0 Even the dog wouldn’t eat it.\u00a0 Broccoli yes, you could gag that down in a pinch, but its anemic cousin, no way.<\/p>\n

Requirement Two:<\/p>\n

You used to hate cauliflower<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Understanding cauliflower’s\u00a0resurgence<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the past decade, cauliflower has been transformed into the darling of vegetables, escaping from the shadow of broccoli, and also escaping from the steamer. \u00a0You can broil it or bake it.\u00a0 It is even robust enough to barbecue.\u00a0 There are recipes for cauliflower popcorn, cauliflower rice, and cauliflower pizza crust.\u00a0 If the sickly white color was the turn-off, it now comes in attractive shades of purple and orange.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The architecture of Romanesco cauliflower takes its appeal to a higher level.\u00a0\u00a0 The multiple spirals represent a golden ratio, otherwise known as a Fibonacci number, and thus share the same aesthetically pleasing arrangement as the columns in the Greek Parthenon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Requirement Three:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cauliflower is more than a mere vegetable; it is the champion of repurposing.\u00a0 It can do anything.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Give yourself permission to enjoy potty humor<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Well-crafted potty humor enjoys a universal appeal, across centuries, countries and cultures.\u00a0 Shakespeare was a noted potty-humor enthusiast, ranging from clever to raunchy, but potty humor shows up in some of the earliest recorded writing.\u00a0 \u00a0Aristophanes, a Greek playwright writing in the 5th century BC, filled his plays with irreverent fart jokes, frequently at the expense of his nemesis Socrates.\u00a0 An Arabian Nights tale tells the story of Abu Hasan who flees to India in embarrassment after tooting on his wedding night.\u00a0 He lives for years in atonement and becomes a man of utmost sobriety and respect.\u00a0 Finally, he returns home but is still nervous at his reception.\u00a0 At an oasis on the outskirts of town, he overhears a young boy and his mother still laughing about his fart that occurred decades earlier.\u00a0 He flees the country never to return.<\/p>\n

However, be advised that without this deft touch, potty humor can quickly devolve into cheap and gratuitous scatology.\u00a0 Timing and audience are also factors.\u00a0 The line between great and wretched is narrow and ever shifting, so delivering good potty humor requires nerves of steel.<\/p>\n

Requirement Four:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the easiest of all.\u00a0 Everyone one likes potty humor and this one is well-done, well-timed and extensively field-tested.<\/p>\n

These four factors have come together in this pandemic season to produce a joke that is perfectly specific to our communal experience.\u00a0 My hope is that next year the idea of cauliflower as toilet paper will make no sense.\u00a0 Tell the joke and you\u2019ll get a confused and hostile stare. The timing will be all wrong, the premise even worse.\u00a0 What sick bastard would think that glorious, nutritious and versatile cauliflower could be mentioned in the same breath as toilet paper?<\/p>\n

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The corona pandemic has birthed an outpouring of creative humor, from elaborate song parodies to simple one liners. I have transmitted the following with great success, from appreciative smiles to outright guffaws. \u201cDid you hear, they have found a way … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-such-is-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-L2","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2916"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2923,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions\/2923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}