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Workshopping a joke
Jan. 25th, 2017 03:56 pmLet's work through the variations:
A man goes to the barber. It's a snowy winter's day, and he steps through the door and stamps his feet at the cold. He takes off his hat, his gloves, etc, and tucks them into the pockets of his coat and hangs the coat by the door. He sits down at the barber's chair and requests a shave. The barber lathers him up and begins shaving.
Halfway through, the barber pauses.
"Were you wearing a red scarf when you came in?" says the barber.
"No," says the customer.
"Oh dear," says the barber. "Then I must have slit your throat."
The obvious analogue is Sweeney Todd, but Todd is a murderer. Stories about barbers slitting throats are rich with barely repressed intent. The customer is a dictator, the customer is a blackmailer, putting their lives at risk as a demonstration of their own mastery of self. The barber here is faintly apologetic, heedless, absent-minded. The customer is likewise unaware. There is no guilt or recrimination in the story, merely negligence. You will be killed not by someone who hates you, but by someone who would barely recognize you if he saw you in the street.
This must be like a car crash. The lead up to it is casual, meandering. No demonstration of intent. How is your wife? Fine and thank you. Innocuous conversation that only becomes menacing in retrospect. Consider Kafka's Odradek. It can be described in detail, but not defined. You want to write this instinctively, subliminally.
"Cold outside."
"My god, yes."
"This far for a shave?"
"My beard grows in the winter, does it not?"
Maybe a slit throat really is indistinguishable from a red scarf. I imagine the inside of a throat must be velvety, and that blood must be smooth as silk. Imagine a barber making the incision and seeing a scarf bloom, and then not being able to distinguish the brand for the real thing. His memory fades. Was that man always wearing that scarf? Did it always flow down his throat and chest so dark and red? We live in a temporal world, motion to motion, dreaming of each other. What would such a man say?
He makes the cut. Blood begins to ooze out from the throat. The customer is lying back, unaware that he has already begun to die.
"We had a kitten when we were young. Its red tongue would peek out, and lap at the milk."
"A funny thing to think of."
"Yes, it's funny. I hadn't thought of it in years. And yet that moment is still there, indelibly, my sister and I by the fire stroking the fur of our little grey kitten, as if nothing at all was separating me from that moment - neither time nor distance - as if nothing separates us from the rest of the world."
"Mm. And what happened to your kitten?"
"Oh. It died. Our father drowned it."
Or maybe the joke doesn't need any elaboration. Maybe it's perfect as is, abrupt and bloodless. No one sees the blood until the joke's already over; it's transmuted into red cloth, a euphemism to gently swaddle a throat. A man walks in and gets his shave in silence, and at first the barber thinks he is warm from the cold. No, the man says. No, I have never been warm until now. No, I would not know it if I bled. No, I had no red scarf. We walk into a barber shop, and do not understand the joke until it is over. What a relief, the blood running down his throat. What a relief.
A man goes to the barber. It's a snowy winter's day, and he steps through the door and stamps his feet at the cold. He takes off his hat, his gloves, etc, and tucks them into the pockets of his coat and hangs the coat by the door. He sits down at the barber's chair and requests a shave. The barber lathers him up and begins shaving.
Halfway through, the barber pauses.
"Were you wearing a red scarf when you came in?" says the barber.
"No," says the customer.
"Oh dear," says the barber. "Then I must have slit your throat."
The obvious analogue is Sweeney Todd, but Todd is a murderer. Stories about barbers slitting throats are rich with barely repressed intent. The customer is a dictator, the customer is a blackmailer, putting their lives at risk as a demonstration of their own mastery of self. The barber here is faintly apologetic, heedless, absent-minded. The customer is likewise unaware. There is no guilt or recrimination in the story, merely negligence. You will be killed not by someone who hates you, but by someone who would barely recognize you if he saw you in the street.
This must be like a car crash. The lead up to it is casual, meandering. No demonstration of intent. How is your wife? Fine and thank you. Innocuous conversation that only becomes menacing in retrospect. Consider Kafka's Odradek. It can be described in detail, but not defined. You want to write this instinctively, subliminally.
"Cold outside."
"My god, yes."
"This far for a shave?"
"My beard grows in the winter, does it not?"
Maybe a slit throat really is indistinguishable from a red scarf. I imagine the inside of a throat must be velvety, and that blood must be smooth as silk. Imagine a barber making the incision and seeing a scarf bloom, and then not being able to distinguish the brand for the real thing. His memory fades. Was that man always wearing that scarf? Did it always flow down his throat and chest so dark and red? We live in a temporal world, motion to motion, dreaming of each other. What would such a man say?
He makes the cut. Blood begins to ooze out from the throat. The customer is lying back, unaware that he has already begun to die.
"We had a kitten when we were young. Its red tongue would peek out, and lap at the milk."
"A funny thing to think of."
"Yes, it's funny. I hadn't thought of it in years. And yet that moment is still there, indelibly, my sister and I by the fire stroking the fur of our little grey kitten, as if nothing at all was separating me from that moment - neither time nor distance - as if nothing separates us from the rest of the world."
"Mm. And what happened to your kitten?"
"Oh. It died. Our father drowned it."
Or maybe the joke doesn't need any elaboration. Maybe it's perfect as is, abrupt and bloodless. No one sees the blood until the joke's already over; it's transmuted into red cloth, a euphemism to gently swaddle a throat. A man walks in and gets his shave in silence, and at first the barber thinks he is warm from the cold. No, the man says. No, I have never been warm until now. No, I would not know it if I bled. No, I had no red scarf. We walk into a barber shop, and do not understand the joke until it is over. What a relief, the blood running down his throat. What a relief.
