dumbstruck / a cultural history of ventriloquism

Above The dust jacket of my favorite book about the history of ventriloquism—Steven Connor, Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism. UK: Oxford University Press, 2001—and below my childhood attempt at the same.

have shriveled testicle from mumps / can't marry

Roy R. Behrens, Levitation © 2004

Danny Ballow, quoted in Elizabeth Stone, Black Sheep and Kissing Cousins: How Our Family Stories Shape Us (New York: Times Books 1988) p. 208—

It began with him [my father] telling me about how he had the mumps, and then leaps forward to my parents' courtship by mail when he was in America and she was still in London. He told me that during the course of the correspondence, he wrote, "I think I have to tell you something. I have a shriveled left testicle, and I can't marry you because I'm not able to have children."

He sealed the letter and mailed it, and then he thought, "Oh no, what did I do?" He went to the mailbox but the postman had already come and taken the letter. So he went down to the central mail office in Brooklyn...and they said, "Well it's somewhere in all these sacks." My father said, "I've got to get it." And he went through the sacks. I have this image of my father going through millions of letters. And he found the letter! He tore it up, and he didn't send it.

awaiting the shared use of a set of false teeth

Altered book montages, Roy R. Behrens © 2004

Kingsley Amis, Memoirs (New York: Summit Books, 1991), p. 1.—

[My paternal grandfather] was a great teller of jokes, typically without preamble, to trap you into thinking you were hearing about some real event. One of these horrified me so much [as a child] that I have never forgotten it. A Scotsman (I was still so young that I had not heard about Scotsmen being supposed to be mean) took his wife out to dinner. Both order steak. The wife started eating hers at top speed, but the man left his untouched. "Something wrong with the steak, sir?"—" No, no, I'm waiting for my wife's teeth." I had not then heard of false teeth either, and imagined the living teeth being torn from the woman's jaws on the spot and inserted into her husband's.

the professor cannot meet with his asses today

Digital Montage [detail] / Roy R. Behrens

Ralph Oesper [referring to the 19th century Scottish physicist Sir William Thomson] in The Human Side of Scientists (Cincinnati, OH: University of Cincinnati Press, 1975), p. 181—

One day, because of an engagement elsewhere, he posted the following notice on the door of his lecture room: "Professor Thomson will not meet his classes today." The young men decided to play a joke on their beloved teacher, and one of them carefully erased the "c" so that the note read: "Professor Thomson will not meet his lasses today." They then left. The class gathered the next day and anticipated that the professor would make some suitable remark about the altered notice. He came slightly late, but obviously he had already seen what they had left. The notice of the day before had been changed once again, and this time by the professor himself. It now read: "Professor Thomson will not meet his asses today."

Postscript: This reminds me of those rare occasions when, as a university professor, I was too ill to teach. Sometimes (oh, surely not always!) I would post the following note on my classroom door: Class has been cancelled. Professor Behrens is il[sic] today.

Einstein's visitors / a conspiratorial bowl of soup

Digital Montage [detail] / Roy R. Behrens

Lancelot Law Whyte (recalling a visit to Albert Einstein's home), quoted in G.J. Whitrow, Einstein: The Man and His Achievement (New York: Dover, 1973)—

After we had been talking for about twenty minutes the maid came in with a huge bowl of soup. I wondered what was happening and I thought that this was probably a signal for me to leave. But when the girl left the room Einstein said to me in a conspiratorial whisper, "That's a trick. If I am bored talking to somebody, when the maid comes in I don't push the bowl of soup away and the girl takes whomever I am with away and I am free." Einstein pushed the bowl away, and so I was quite happy and much flattered and more at my ease for the rest of the talk.

there is no better book about human creativity

Douglas Fowler, S.J. Perelman. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983, p. 83—

Continuing an ancient and honorable line of speculation into the nature of humor, Arthur Koestler has theorized [in The Act of Creation] that human laughter may be a sort of alternative satisfaction of “biological drives,” a substitute for “killing and copulating,” for planting antipersonnel bombs. The aggression implied in laughter—and laughter almost always involves ridicule, bringing low—is “sublimated, often unconscious,” but the mechanism of laughter surely involves a psychic effort to reduce or even imaginatively destroy its objects; and we can agree that a good part of the comic phenomenon might be understood as brutality without consequence.

•••

I discovered The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler’s classic book on science, art and humor, as a college freshman in 1965. It had been published the year before. At nearly 500 pages, it is not an easy read. Or, it might be better to say that the text, as one moves through it, is immensely pleasurable, stirring and insightful. That is especially true of Part One. In Part Two, as Koestler cautions, the wording thickens somewhat and the content grows more technical. But you must not be put off by this. 

Over the years, I have owned six or seven copies of this book, and yet I have never read the entire text in sequence, page by page from beginning to end. I don’t think it works best for that. But most likely I’ve read every word, in session lengths and sequences that seemed appropriate at the time. Even today, I still go back to it, because its concepts are so illuminating, and the writing is so perfectly phrased. I have learned immeasurably, I don’t deny, from other educational opportunities, and from other published sources, but I continue to be convinced that, at a critical point in my life, Koestler’s book provided a “big picture” framework for those.  

The entire book is now available free online. If the book seems somewhat daunting, you might first read an essay I wrote in 1998. More recently, I produced a short video talk on the subject, which is also free online. Near the end of the video, I recall an incident that took place in my classroom, back in 1968, when I was a 7-12 art teacher in a public school. In subsequent years, as a university professor (and as a grapher design and writer) I made frequent use of Koestler's approach to innovation—and I still use it to this day.

the essential link between humor and creativity

According to Arthur Koestler (in The Act of Creation), humor in all its various forms is rooted in mock confusions of two or more usually different components, which may then result in so-called bisociative acts. In one form or another, it is often delivered through bait-and-switch. The audience is “baited,” or led to believe that a particular train of thought is in play. And then, abruptly, as a result of the punch line, a disarming switch of attention occurs, and a momentary confusion erupts. The effect is a double awareness in which A is A, while, at the same time, A is also not-A.

In performing bait-and-switch routines, it is customary to feature a pair of comedians, one of whom, known as the straight man, is the person who sets up the pattern—the bait—for the audience. The second person ignites the laughter in the process of airing the punch line. In Abbott and Costello, Bud Abbott is the straight man, while Lou Costello makes the pretended confusions. In Burns and Allen, George Burns is the straight man, while his partner, Gracie Allen, is the sort-crosser. Sancho Panza is the straight man in Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. In Mister Magoo cartoons, Magoo’s impoverished eyesight leads him to mistakenly think that A is not-A, while Waldo provides the conventional view. In the case of Sherlock Holmes, it is the insightful detective whose cleverness takes us by surprise, while Watson underscores the norm. more>>>

Don Quixote / lunatics, lovers, and poets alike

Don Quixote

Above William Lake Price, Don Quixote in his Study (Photograph, 1857), National Gallery of Art.

•••

Roy R. Behrens, “Lunatics, Lovers, and Poets: On madness and creativity" in Journal of Creative Behavior Vol 8 No 4 (1975), pp 228ff—

Don Quixote has tunnel vision, by which he sees through the tunnel of love. Everything he sees relates to chivalry. It is as if he wore blinders, like Rocinante his “steed.”

He calls his neighbor a “squire.” He dons armored armour, with a cardboard visor top. He sees prostitutes as ladies. His unbridled imagination has left us with phantoms of windmills, whch are in turn synonymous with Quixote and quixotic. When he hears the “neighing of steeds, the sound of trumpets, and the rattling of drums,” his sidekick  Sancho Panza sees “nothing but the bleating of sheep and lambs.” 

Sancho Panza is conventional, while the knight-errant is errant. The “visionary gentleman” is either poetic or crazy. He confuses similarity with identity, whether by purpose or fault. A is not not-A, but inside Quixote’s mind, A and not-A merge as one. His five-and-dime descendant is the nearsighted cartoon character Mister Magoo, who (in Magoo Goes Shopping) sees and treats a rib cage (A) as if it were a xylophone (not-A), implying that musical pitch is related to the length of the ribs.…

In Magoo cartoons, Sancho Panza is Waldo. He is Watson in Sherlock Holmes. Sancho, Waldo and Watson represent unexceptional views. They know that A is A, that A is not not-A. “Look, sir,” Sancho calls out to the knight-errant, “those which appear yonder are not giants, but windmills; and what seem to be arms are sails…” more>>  

•••

Below An interpretation of Don Quixote by José Guadalupe Posada, c1908.

tobacco road / the story of a boy who smoked

EVOLUTION OF A BOY WHO SMOKED, in The Journal (Huntsville AL), February 28, 1907, p. 2. Reprinted from the Chicago Daily News. Artist unidentified—

Do you know any little boy that [sic] smokes cigarettes? If you do, just show him this picture. It is the sad story of Dick Sillypate. He saw another boy smoking a cigarette, and thought it looked so manly that he would try it himself. The picture shows what happened to him at the end of five months.

that Lazarus was the original raised character

view larger

Above Roy R. Behrens, Wavelength. Digital montage (©2021). 

•••

Edward Robb Ellis, A Diary of the Century. New York: Kodansha, 1995, p. 222—

Tuesday, March 1, 1955: In the city room today some of us were discussing a report that the New Testament has been published in Braille. Frank [Kappler] said: “Yes—but did you know that Lazarus was the original raised character?”

•••

James Joyce, Ulysses (Chapter Six)—

“Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job.”

in Naples / street games of joking make-believe

view larger

Above Roy R. Behrens, Spycraft. Digital montage © 2021.

Fritz Heider, The Life of a Psychologist. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1983, pp. 74-75—

When I think of those summer days in Naples [Italy], I have a dim memory of noisy movements of masses of people, a surging of multitudes with much laughter and cheerful, restless activity. People wanted to get in touch; everywhere one felt that they had a need for human contact. And this seemed especially strong when a stranger appeared—he stimulated them and aroused their curiosity. Perhaps the frequent cases of young people who begged may have stemmed less from poverty or greed than from a compulsion to get involved with a stranger and establish some sort of contact. What they seemed to love above everything were little games of joking make-believe, and begging provided lots of opportunities for that. Once I passed two boys sitting on a wall, and when they saw me, they begged for cigarettes. I had seen that one of them had a box full, and I said: “Why do you beg? I can see that you have lots already.” They protested, “No, no”; and one of them took the cigarettes out of his pocket and handed them to the other. He knew that I saw what he had done, and he said, laughing, “I have no cigarette!” When I told him that I had seen him give them to the other boy, he answered, “Those are my father's cigarettes.” All this was spoken in a sort of theatrical comic way, with much laughter and many playful gestures, all as if they were telling fairy tales and hoping that the listener would join with them in the game.

•••

VIDEO LINKS

Nature, Art, and Camouflage  

Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage

 Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage

that's the second dirtiest leg in all knox county

Above Drawing from Keith J. Holyoak and Paul Thagard, Mental Leaps: Analogy in Creative Thought. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1995, p. 14.

•••

Wilbert Snow, Codline's Child (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1974), p. 39—

One day working ln the garden, Polly Dan stumbled over a big rock and sprained her leg. The post-mistress telephoned for Dr. Hitchcock, who took a good look at her leg, probed the muscles, and said: “Aunt Polly, I'll bet that's the dirtiest leg in all Knox County.” “How much will you bet?” asked Polly. “I’ll bet five dollars.” “All right, it’s a deal,” she said. Thereupon she took off her other shoe and stripped down her stocking. “I washed that one because I knew you were coming.” The doctor lost the money, but he had a story which he loved to tell for the rest of his life.

first sexual experience / fancy ball of bobolinks

Donald Barthelme, Paradise (New York: Putnam, 1986)—

"What was your first sexual experience, Simon?" He thinks for a moment. "I was about ten. This teacher asked us all to make little churches for a display, kind of a model of a church. I made one out of cardboard, worked very hard on it, and took it in to her on a Friday morning, and she was pleased with it. It had a red roof, colored with red crayon. Then another guy, Billy something-or-other, brought in one that was made of wood. His was better than mine. So she tossed mine out and used his." "That was your first sexual experience?" "How far back do you want to go?"

How Ballast Began 

Other links 

Bewilderness | Joyce and the National Parks

Above Cover of Bewilderness: James Joyce and the National Parks (Bobolink Books, 2020) with posters by Roy R. Behrens, juxtaposed with passages from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

Ice cream, drinks and the half and half Iowa man

Above An advertising postcard featuring a tavern owner from Bonair IA named John Pecinovsky (1899-1942). After opening his tavern in the late 1930s, he attracted wide attention, was sought after by tourists, and was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not, when he began to wear an outfit that was dark-colored on one half (bearded) and light on the other (clean-shaven). He was buried dressed the same way in nearby Cresco IA. See our earlier, related post.

Bonair has all but vanished now, but there is an American writer (she teaches writing in France) named Janet Hulstrand, whose relatives were from Bonair, who is in process of writing a memoir about her Midwestern origins called A Long Way from Iowa. See her post from 2014 titled A Little Town Called Bonair. I believe it was in Cresco (or was it Decorah?) that my father (who grew up near Ossian IA) saw Buffalo Bill and his Wild West extravaganza, c1912.

Frank Lloyd Wright | His Favorite Jokes

Roy R. Behrens, Robie House Montage (2016) •

David Henken (Wright apprentice and engineer, in a letter to his wife), in Priscilla J. Henken, Taliesin Diary: A Year with Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012), p. 92—

[After Christmas dinner in 1942] Frank [Lloyd Wright] read some jokes from a gift book he received, killed himself laughing at each joke so that we couldn't hear them at all. I managed to piece a few together as samples show.

Father: When George Washington was your age, he was working as a surveyor and making a success of himself. 
Son: When he was your age he was President of the United States.

Grandmother to granddaughter: Dear I want you to promise me never to use a certain two words—one is swell and the other lousy.
Granddaughter: Why, of course, I'll promise. What are the words?

•••

Frank Lloyd Wright—

Television is chewing gum for the eyes. 

•  Image sources: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, and NASA. See also Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016)