Laughter has something in it in common with the ancient winds of faith and inspiration; it unfreezes pride and unwinds secrecy; it makes men forget themselves in the presence of something greater than themselves; something… that they cannot resist.
–G. K. Chesterton, The Common Man (1950)
In the wake of yesterday’s post about mental health issues and how coping with it often inspires our art, a reader reached out thanking me for sharing my experience. More importantly, he briefly mentioned his own issues and how they had provided material for his routine as a comic. I rolled his brief comments around in my head for a while yesterday, thinking how laughter has provided me so much relief in the past.
It reminded me of a question asked recently of me by a good friend. We were discussing those memories that are triggered by sensory sensations such as smell and sound. It is much like the madeleine cookie in Remembrance of Things Past from Marcel Proust. In it, the book’s narrator dips a madeleine cookie in is tea and the cookie’s texture and taste open up the floodgates of instant, involuntary memories, some buried under the weight of his history.
He asked what sensory things triggered memories and emotions for me. I thought about it for a while. The aroma of my mom’s roast beef immediately came to mind. I remember the comfort and joy I felt when I walked into the house after being dropped off by the school bus and that gorgeous aroma filled the air. A tiny whiff of that aroma now and I am once again walking through that kitchen door more than fifty years ago.
But the sensory trigger that I answered is one that I have mentioned here before. I said it was the sound of laughter. I explained how when I give a gallery talk and say something that makes the group laugh out loud, it is the most satisfying sensation in the world for me. It is a moment when everyone there is connected, all on the same wavelength, seeing something in the same way, seeing in it the same ironies and absurdities.
In that moment, I feel well embraced.
But it also sent me back through the years when I felt it was my job as the youngest child to say goofy stuff to break the tension in our often-tense household. Hearing laughter like that immediately floods me with numerous incidents when sudden laughter seemed to break the spell of tension, at least for a short time.
I have described laughter here before as a love language for me and causing a group to break into laughter reinforces that for me. It also makes me understand why someone would dare to go on a stage in front of people they do not know and attempt to make them laugh. I would imagine that laughter is the love language of those folks, as well.
They have my deepest respect, even more so on those nights when that connection with the audience is not made. I think the fact that they come back again after facing the silence to try once more is a testament to the power of laughter.
I think that is reflected in the words at the top from G.K. Chesterton. They really hit the mark for me when I came across them earlier, especially where he states that laughter unfreezes pride and unwinds secrecy, connecting them with something greater than themselves.
In my mind those are also vital attributes of good art, at least as I see it. Art is often created when the artist can set aside the pride that keeps their past sufferings hidden to all others and then puts them into a form that is familiar and resonates with experience and sensations of others. Some form that connects the artist and the audience to something greater. That form might be in paint or marble or song or dance– or laughter.
My hope is that my work– my painting, not the once-in-a-while laughter– can somehow serve in much the same way as Proust’s madeleine, connecting them in some way to a strong emotional response still hidden in their past.
I am not going to try to say something humorous here. Not going to tell you to git or get off my lawn. The moment is too ripe. So let me just share a song that was here on the blog seven or eight years back. It is The Laughing Song from Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks from back in 1972.
Do with it what you will.
Leave a Reply