I previously blogged about how humour is like sex.
Building on that:
Some people, when they attempt to tell a joke and it doesn't get a laugh, start explaining the alleged joke. As though it's not possible that the alleged joke wasn't funny, and the only possible explanation is that the audience didn't understand it.
That's like trying out a move you read about on the internet and then, when it doesn't work, earnestly explaining to your partner how the internet told you that's where the g-spot is supposed to be.
No matter how solid your theory is, the fact of the matter is it didn't hit the spot. And explaining it isn't going to induce the desired pleasure.
Showing posts with label humour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humour. Show all posts
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Wednesday, July 06, 2016
Analogy for "can't you take a joke?"
Some people say cruel things to others and if called out on it say "Can't you take a joke?"
Some people think "a good sense of humour" means "laughs at every one of my attempts to make a joke, no matter how pathetic", and accuse those who don't laugh at their unfunny attempts at humour of having a bad sense of humour.
Today my shower gave me an (unfortunately phallocentric) analogy for both these phenomena:
It's like kicking your partner in the balls while you're having sex, and then accusing them of being impotent or bad at sex when this doesn't give them an orgasm.
Being good at sex, like being good at humour, requires anticipating and meeting the other person's needs. If what you're doing doesn't get the results you're going for - and, especially, if what you're doing causes unwanted pain - you're the one who's doing it wrong, not them.
And even if there have been some people in human history who laughed at your unfunny attempts at humour, the fact still remains that if the attempt at humour doesn't work for this particular audience, you're the one who's doing it wrong. Just like how, even though under Rule 34 there is probably someone somewhere in the depths of the internet who gets off on being kicked in the balls, the fact remains that if you kick your partner in the balls and they double over in pain instead of having an orgasm, you're the one who's doing it wrong.
Some people think "a good sense of humour" means "laughs at every one of my attempts to make a joke, no matter how pathetic", and accuse those who don't laugh at their unfunny attempts at humour of having a bad sense of humour.
Today my shower gave me an (unfortunately phallocentric) analogy for both these phenomena:
It's like kicking your partner in the balls while you're having sex, and then accusing them of being impotent or bad at sex when this doesn't give them an orgasm.
Being good at sex, like being good at humour, requires anticipating and meeting the other person's needs. If what you're doing doesn't get the results you're going for - and, especially, if what you're doing causes unwanted pain - you're the one who's doing it wrong, not them.
And even if there have been some people in human history who laughed at your unfunny attempts at humour, the fact still remains that if the attempt at humour doesn't work for this particular audience, you're the one who's doing it wrong. Just like how, even though under Rule 34 there is probably someone somewhere in the depths of the internet who gets off on being kicked in the balls, the fact remains that if you kick your partner in the balls and they double over in pain instead of having an orgasm, you're the one who's doing it wrong.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
If you haven't sponsored Eddie Izzard yet, now's the time!
Tomorrow is the last day of Eddie Izzard 27 marathons in 27 day challenge.
So far, he has completed 25 marathons in 26 days, after losing a day to a medical emergency. So he decided he's going to make it up by running two marathons (84 km) tomorrow, even though he's never done a double marathon before. And, because apparently that's not challenging enough, he then decided to up his last day's run to 90 km, in honour of South Africa's Comrades Marathon.
Eddie is scheduled to start his double marathon at 5 a.m. South African time (which is about 2 hours after I click Publish on this post), and to end 12 hour later.
I ardently wish him all the good luck in the known universe, and sincerely hope that enough money is raised that everyone involved feels fully satisfied that this increasingly herculean undertaking was completely worthwhile.
You can follow Eddie's adventure live on BBC, Twitter, and Periscope, and donate via Sport Relief.
So far, he has completed 25 marathons in 26 days, after losing a day to a medical emergency. So he decided he's going to make it up by running two marathons (84 km) tomorrow, even though he's never done a double marathon before. And, because apparently that's not challenging enough, he then decided to up his last day's run to 90 km, in honour of South Africa's Comrades Marathon.
Eddie is scheduled to start his double marathon at 5 a.m. South African time (which is about 2 hours after I click Publish on this post), and to end 12 hour later.
I ardently wish him all the good luck in the known universe, and sincerely hope that enough money is raised that everyone involved feels fully satisfied that this increasingly herculean undertaking was completely worthwhile.
You can follow Eddie's adventure live on BBC, Twitter, and Periscope, and donate via Sport Relief.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
The first jokes
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?That was the first joke I ever learned, when I was maybe 3 or 4 years old. Before I learned that joke, I had never even heard of the concept of a joke. While googling to learn about its age and origin, I was surprised to discover that it is in fact an anti-joke. Expectations at the time were that the answer would be a humorous punchline, not a simple, practical statement of cause and effect.
A: To get to the other side!
But, just like "to get to the other side" was once novel and revolutionary, the basic riddle/joke format of asking a person a question to which you expect an answer so you can give a humorous answer instead was also once new and revolutionary. Someone, somewhere in history, was the very first person to do it. And someone was the very first person to think of it! They not only wrote the joke (and it must have been a good joke for the format to persist), they also thought of the whole format.
I wonder how that very first joke went? Since it was unprecedented, the person being told the joke probably gave a serious answer to the question, having no way of knowing that anything else might be expected. Did they get the joke? Did they think it was funny? They might not have since it was so unprecedented (and they might feel a bit perplexed or made a fool of because they thought they were being asked for actual information and acted accordingly), but enough people thought it was funny that it stuck.
Q: Knock knock!
A: Who's there?
Q: Boo!
A: Boo who?
Q: Don't cry, it's only a joke!
That was the first knock-knock joke I remember ever being told, also when I was around 3 or 4 years old (probably the same day I learned about the chicken - I have fuzzy memories of a revelatory day when I learned all about jokes), and I didn't get it because I didn't know that "boo hoo" was meant to be onomatopoeia for crying.
Knock-knock jokes also require precedent to function, since they require audience participation. I don't remember being explicitly taught the script, but I must have either been taught it or seen it repeated on TV.
But someone thought of the knock-knock joke, and taught someone else the script so it would function (or, like, wrote it into a play or something). And, somehow, it stuck!
Someone made the first pun. Someone was the first to use sarcasm. (And, possibly, someone else was the first person to use it successfully.) Someone was the first to fake farting on the grounds that they thought it was funny. Someone thought of and carried out the first practical joke. (It may even have been one of our primate ancestors - I'm sure at some point a monkey has slipped on a banana peel!) And all of these stuck, and got perpetuated.
What's even more interesting is that an unknowable number of other types of jokes that we've never heard of must have been thought of and attempted throughout human history, but they didn't stick because they weren't funny enough.
And this is still going on! It's quite possible that right this minute, somewhere in the world, someone is thinking of and attempting an all new type of joke that no one has ever thought of before, only to fail utterly.
It's also quite possible that right this minute, somewhere in the world, someone is thinking of and attempting an all new type of joke that no one has ever thought of before, and it will succeed and spread! Memes (in the sense of pictures with words on them that circulate on the internet) were developed within my adult life. Those videos where people caption a Hitler movie to reflect current events started after YouTube was invented, so that's within the last 10 years (and quite possibly much more recently). Someone might, this very minute, be inventing the next knock-knock joke, which, decades or centuries from now, will be retold by a preschooler who has just learned of the very concept of jokes.
Sunday, May 04, 2014
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Fact-checking
Being the kind of fangirl I am, when I entered Eddie Izzard fandom I read every current and past article I could get my hands on, and continue to read every article where he's mentioned. (I have a google alert set up and everything.)
And one thing I've noticed in reading all these articles on a very specific subject with a rather narrow scope is the frequency with which they reuse quotes or statements or information from old articles, without regard for whether that information is still current.
The example of this that I find most egregious is the oft-repeated statement, most recently seen in Post City, that Eddie raised over £200,000 for Sport Relief when he ran 43 marathons in 51 days in 2010.
This statement is completely true. And it is completely misleading. Because Eddie did in fact raise well over £1 million with his marathons.
I blogged about it when it happened. The now-defunct video I'd linked to in my blog (which I so wish was still alive because it would completely prove my point) was from the Sport Relief 2010 broadcast. Eddie himself also confirmed the 1.6 million number on Twitter. There's also a BBC article with the million pound number prominently featured, an article in the UK newspaper The Guardian citing 1.8 million, and an archived Sport Relief page from when the total was 1.1 million.
The fact that the number is over a million is important, because that's commensurate with the number of Twitter followers Eddie has. In my blog post linked above, I mentioned that it was more than the number of followers he had at the time. There's a huge difference between raising an amount of money commensurate with your number of Twitter followers and raising exponentially less money, especially with a feat so ridiculous as 43 marathons in 51 days. (Analogy: I have 189 Twitter followers. If I were to attempt to raise money, raising $189 is a reasonable expectation. However, raising $40 would not be gloat-worthy at all. And if I were doing multiple marathons, raising $40 would be pretty much a failure.)
Eddie deserves full credit for raising an amount of money commensurate with his feat and his audience reach, but because of citogenesis (although not necessarily through Wikipedia in this case) he isn't always getting it.
And this leads me to wonder: what other defunct or misleading statements are making it into media reports, perhaps on more important subjeccts?
And one thing I've noticed in reading all these articles on a very specific subject with a rather narrow scope is the frequency with which they reuse quotes or statements or information from old articles, without regard for whether that information is still current.
The example of this that I find most egregious is the oft-repeated statement, most recently seen in Post City, that Eddie raised over £200,000 for Sport Relief when he ran 43 marathons in 51 days in 2010.
This statement is completely true. And it is completely misleading. Because Eddie did in fact raise well over £1 million with his marathons.
I blogged about it when it happened. The now-defunct video I'd linked to in my blog (which I so wish was still alive because it would completely prove my point) was from the Sport Relief 2010 broadcast. Eddie himself also confirmed the 1.6 million number on Twitter. There's also a BBC article with the million pound number prominently featured, an article in the UK newspaper The Guardian citing 1.8 million, and an archived Sport Relief page from when the total was 1.1 million.
The fact that the number is over a million is important, because that's commensurate with the number of Twitter followers Eddie has. In my blog post linked above, I mentioned that it was more than the number of followers he had at the time. There's a huge difference between raising an amount of money commensurate with your number of Twitter followers and raising exponentially less money, especially with a feat so ridiculous as 43 marathons in 51 days. (Analogy: I have 189 Twitter followers. If I were to attempt to raise money, raising $189 is a reasonable expectation. However, raising $40 would not be gloat-worthy at all. And if I were doing multiple marathons, raising $40 would be pretty much a failure.)
Eddie deserves full credit for raising an amount of money commensurate with his feat and his audience reach, but because of citogenesis (although not necessarily through Wikipedia in this case) he isn't always getting it.
And this leads me to wonder: what other defunct or misleading statements are making it into media reports, perhaps on more important subjeccts?
That thing I do where I go to see Eddie Izzard and then brainspew disconnectedly all over my blog
Most of the times I saw Eddie Izzard material for the first time were alone, in my apartment, watching YouTube.
The last time I heard Eddie Izzard material for the first time was almost 5 years ago, lying in bed in the dark listening to an audio bootleg of one of his Stripped shows.
Today, I saw new Eddie Izzard material for the first time sitting front row centre in Massey Hall with my two very best friends in the whole world!
I highly recommend it.
I repeat: front row centre. Front row centre. Front row centre!!!
This bears emphasizing not just because holy shit front row centre, but because Eddie Izzard and Massey Hall deserve credit for having a system where an ordinary person with no inside knowledge and no connections, armed with nothing but a readily-googleable fan presale code, can land front row centre seats through normal, official channels! Since I saw tickets to some of Eddie's other shows on stubhub before the fan presale even started, I was very happy to see that Massey Hall was selling properly and aboveboard and "best available" actually meant best available.
Also, I touched the stage of Massey Hall! (Before the show, when the audience was milling around. I just stood up, took two steps, and touched it!)
The whole show went by so fast! The first half felt like 20 minutes (it was an hour and a quarter) and the second half felt like 10 minutes (it was at least an hour). I didn't even retain any of the material for future quoting purposes because it went by so fast! I've already forgotten and then re-remembered some parts, and burst out laughing in the subway because I re-remembered the sacrificial virgins bit.
About halfway through the first act, I hit this endorphin high where I was so close to full belly laughter than I couldn't even laugh big any more. The show ended 1.5 hours ago, and I'm still floating there. I've been grinning basically since 8 pm, and I'm not about to stop any time soon.
Because of the high and the rapid pace of new material and the intensity of experiencing it brand new for the first time live and in person and up close and personal, I can't even review the material! I can't even compare it to other shows! I'll seriously have to buy the DVD to figure out how I like it compared with other shows!
We still really need a way to communicate to Eddie on stage that we're listening with rapt attention. When he was talking about how we use French-derived words for meat instead of the Anglo-Saxon-derived words we used for the animals (cow = boeuf = beef) we were agreeing and listening and waiting to hear what he said next, but he read the room as not following or not entertained or something. Which isn't true! What he was saying was true and interesting and one of my favourite things about English etymology and we couldn't wait to see what else he had to say about it, it just wasn't making us belly laugh.
I normally tweet a welcome to any visiting celebrities, but Eddie arrived right at the peak of the Rob Ford gong show, so I didn't quite feel right about welcoming anyone into this mess. But perhaps it's good thing for a comedian, because it provides a wealth of material! Eddie did a bit about Ford at the beginning and then had smoking crack as a callback punchline throughout. Twitter tells me that in the earlier shows this week, he got 20 minutes of quality material out of it. Imagine walking into a city as a comedian and it hands you 20 minutes of material that didn't exist the day before! On one hand, maybe this will make him like us and come back! On the other hand, I don't want my city to still be so rich in comedy material next time!
Eddie looks absolutely fantastically gorgeous during this tour! Best I've seen him look in real time! The clean-shaven look really suits him, even when he's not going fully femme.
And my absolute favourite part of tonight was that instead of doing the stage door autograph thing, Eddie came back onstage and did a Q&A session! He sat down right on the edge of the stage and took questions from the audience! I vastly prefer that because you get to feel like you're part of a more intimate conversation even if you don't have anything to contribute! I didn't have any questions, so I just sat there and enjoyed and felt like I was getting to be a part of the conversation without the risk of making an ass of myself.
Eddie is so good at including the whole room that even though we were front and centre and really really close to him during the Q&A, we didn't feel any more included in the conversation than anyone else. He was deliberately calling on question-askers who were further back and not giving us any particular attention. All of which was very fair and equitable, of course, I'm just very impressed that he can do that! It's got to be difficult not to favour people who are nearly within arm's reach and within easy conversational distance! (We still got to enjoy proximity and skinny jeans and such, so I feel like we won.)
(I'm also happy about the Q&A in my ongoing tradition of interpreting everything as being the result of my influence as a blogger. Eddie did Q&As earlier in the Stripped tour, but didn't do them for us. I did express my disappointment on the internet that we got stage door instead of Q&A. And this time we got a Q&A! Also, last time I also expressed concern that the tickets available through Ticketmaster weren't the same as the tickets available though the Massey Hall box office, with far better tickets being available through Massey Hall (Massey Hall put us in the second row when Ticketmaster was putting us on the balcony), and this time the Toronto tickets were through Massey Hall only with Ticketmaster not involved at all!)
Next time there's an It Gets Better or Letter To Your Younger Self or similar meme floating around, this evening is something that I am totally going to tell my younger self about. This was like the pinnacle of experience for me.
Eddie did mention in the Q&A that he plans two more tours. I look forward to him topping this. Twice.
The last time I heard Eddie Izzard material for the first time was almost 5 years ago, lying in bed in the dark listening to an audio bootleg of one of his Stripped shows.
Today, I saw new Eddie Izzard material for the first time sitting front row centre in Massey Hall with my two very best friends in the whole world!
I highly recommend it.
I repeat: front row centre. Front row centre. Front row centre!!!
This bears emphasizing not just because holy shit front row centre, but because Eddie Izzard and Massey Hall deserve credit for having a system where an ordinary person with no inside knowledge and no connections, armed with nothing but a readily-googleable fan presale code, can land front row centre seats through normal, official channels! Since I saw tickets to some of Eddie's other shows on stubhub before the fan presale even started, I was very happy to see that Massey Hall was selling properly and aboveboard and "best available" actually meant best available.
Also, I touched the stage of Massey Hall! (Before the show, when the audience was milling around. I just stood up, took two steps, and touched it!)
The whole show went by so fast! The first half felt like 20 minutes (it was an hour and a quarter) and the second half felt like 10 minutes (it was at least an hour). I didn't even retain any of the material for future quoting purposes because it went by so fast! I've already forgotten and then re-remembered some parts, and burst out laughing in the subway because I re-remembered the sacrificial virgins bit.
About halfway through the first act, I hit this endorphin high where I was so close to full belly laughter than I couldn't even laugh big any more. The show ended 1.5 hours ago, and I'm still floating there. I've been grinning basically since 8 pm, and I'm not about to stop any time soon.
Because of the high and the rapid pace of new material and the intensity of experiencing it brand new for the first time live and in person and up close and personal, I can't even review the material! I can't even compare it to other shows! I'll seriously have to buy the DVD to figure out how I like it compared with other shows!
We still really need a way to communicate to Eddie on stage that we're listening with rapt attention. When he was talking about how we use French-derived words for meat instead of the Anglo-Saxon-derived words we used for the animals (cow = boeuf = beef) we were agreeing and listening and waiting to hear what he said next, but he read the room as not following or not entertained or something. Which isn't true! What he was saying was true and interesting and one of my favourite things about English etymology and we couldn't wait to see what else he had to say about it, it just wasn't making us belly laugh.
I normally tweet a welcome to any visiting celebrities, but Eddie arrived right at the peak of the Rob Ford gong show, so I didn't quite feel right about welcoming anyone into this mess. But perhaps it's good thing for a comedian, because it provides a wealth of material! Eddie did a bit about Ford at the beginning and then had smoking crack as a callback punchline throughout. Twitter tells me that in the earlier shows this week, he got 20 minutes of quality material out of it. Imagine walking into a city as a comedian and it hands you 20 minutes of material that didn't exist the day before! On one hand, maybe this will make him like us and come back! On the other hand, I don't want my city to still be so rich in comedy material next time!
Eddie looks absolutely fantastically gorgeous during this tour! Best I've seen him look in real time! The clean-shaven look really suits him, even when he's not going fully femme.
And my absolute favourite part of tonight was that instead of doing the stage door autograph thing, Eddie came back onstage and did a Q&A session! He sat down right on the edge of the stage and took questions from the audience! I vastly prefer that because you get to feel like you're part of a more intimate conversation even if you don't have anything to contribute! I didn't have any questions, so I just sat there and enjoyed and felt like I was getting to be a part of the conversation without the risk of making an ass of myself.
Eddie is so good at including the whole room that even though we were front and centre and really really close to him during the Q&A, we didn't feel any more included in the conversation than anyone else. He was deliberately calling on question-askers who were further back and not giving us any particular attention. All of which was very fair and equitable, of course, I'm just very impressed that he can do that! It's got to be difficult not to favour people who are nearly within arm's reach and within easy conversational distance! (We still got to enjoy proximity and skinny jeans and such, so I feel like we won.)
(I'm also happy about the Q&A in my ongoing tradition of interpreting everything as being the result of my influence as a blogger. Eddie did Q&As earlier in the Stripped tour, but didn't do them for us. I did express my disappointment on the internet that we got stage door instead of Q&A. And this time we got a Q&A! Also, last time I also expressed concern that the tickets available through Ticketmaster weren't the same as the tickets available though the Massey Hall box office, with far better tickets being available through Massey Hall (Massey Hall put us in the second row when Ticketmaster was putting us on the balcony), and this time the Toronto tickets were through Massey Hall only with Ticketmaster not involved at all!)
Next time there's an It Gets Better or Letter To Your Younger Self or similar meme floating around, this evening is something that I am totally going to tell my younger self about. This was like the pinnacle of experience for me.
Eddie did mention in the Q&A that he plans two more tours. I look forward to him topping this. Twice.
Friday, August 23, 2013
A public apology to Eddie Izzard
Dear Eddie Izzard,
During one of your May 2010 shows at Massey Hall in Toronto, you asked the audience who or what Massey Hall was named after. Various people shouted out various things, and, to our utter delight, you picked up on our answer of "Vincent Massey." You asked who he was, we replied "Governor General", you asked what that was, we replied "Queen's representative", and then you segued neatly into your thoughts on the monarchy, pausing only to remark that some guy on the other side of the audience kept randomly shouting out "Tractors!"
I've only just learned we gave you completely incorrect information. Vincent Massey was in fact Governor General of Canada, but in the 1950s. Massey Hall was built in the 1890s, before Vincent Massey was even born. Its construction was funded by Hart Massey, Vincent Massey's grandfather, with a family fortune made by, among other things, manufacturing tractors.
I apologize unreservedly for giving you incorrect information and causing you to repeat it publicly as though it were fact. All I can say is that it simply never occurred to us that Massey Hall might not be named after the most famous Massey, after whom so many other things are named. Obviously I should have been more careful. When we see you again in November, if you should choose to pose any questions to the audience, I promise to only answer if I'm certain, not if I just think I have a logical extrapolation from common knowledge.
I would also like to apologize profusely to the people who were saying "tractors". You were completely right and we were completely wrong, and yet we stole your moment from you and made your Eddie Izzard experience less perfect. I truly do hope you'll be able to get your own moment in November. Maybe Eddie will ask the same question again (it seems like the sort of thing that might be part of a standard show-opening arsenal), and you can give your answer and we'll all get a different choose your own adventure.
During one of your May 2010 shows at Massey Hall in Toronto, you asked the audience who or what Massey Hall was named after. Various people shouted out various things, and, to our utter delight, you picked up on our answer of "Vincent Massey." You asked who he was, we replied "Governor General", you asked what that was, we replied "Queen's representative", and then you segued neatly into your thoughts on the monarchy, pausing only to remark that some guy on the other side of the audience kept randomly shouting out "Tractors!"
I've only just learned we gave you completely incorrect information. Vincent Massey was in fact Governor General of Canada, but in the 1950s. Massey Hall was built in the 1890s, before Vincent Massey was even born. Its construction was funded by Hart Massey, Vincent Massey's grandfather, with a family fortune made by, among other things, manufacturing tractors.
I apologize unreservedly for giving you incorrect information and causing you to repeat it publicly as though it were fact. All I can say is that it simply never occurred to us that Massey Hall might not be named after the most famous Massey, after whom so many other things are named. Obviously I should have been more careful. When we see you again in November, if you should choose to pose any questions to the audience, I promise to only answer if I'm certain, not if I just think I have a logical extrapolation from common knowledge.
I would also like to apologize profusely to the people who were saying "tractors". You were completely right and we were completely wrong, and yet we stole your moment from you and made your Eddie Izzard experience less perfect. I truly do hope you'll be able to get your own moment in November. Maybe Eddie will ask the same question again (it seems like the sort of thing that might be part of a standard show-opening arsenal), and you can give your answer and we'll all get a different choose your own adventure.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Eddie Izzard Canadian tour (and how to convince Massey Hall to sell you tickets)
Eddie Izzard is touring Canada in November and tickets just went on sale with the presale code BEES.
To buy from Massey Hall, you need to go to the Massey Hall site (not Ticketmaster), create an account, and log into the account with BEES in the presale field. Then navigate through the calendar to the date you want (November 13-16) and that's where it will give you the link to buy.
It wasn't working earlier today when the presale started, but it just worked for me.
On a personal note, this is very exciting for me because I'm completely unspoiled for this show. For Stripped, I was convinced he wouldn't come to Canada so I sought out bootlegs, and by the time he finally came here I knew the material already - but I was still belly laughing for three hours straight! This time I have no idea what's coming, so I'll be seeing new Eddie Izzard material for the first time in five years (!) and I'll be seeing it live and in person!
To buy from Massey Hall, you need to go to the Massey Hall site (not Ticketmaster), create an account, and log into the account with BEES in the presale field. Then navigate through the calendar to the date you want (November 13-16) and that's where it will give you the link to buy.
It wasn't working earlier today when the presale started, but it just worked for me.
On a personal note, this is very exciting for me because I'm completely unspoiled for this show. For Stripped, I was convinced he wouldn't come to Canada so I sought out bootlegs, and by the time he finally came here I knew the material already - but I was still belly laughing for three hours straight! This time I have no idea what's coming, so I'll be seeing new Eddie Izzard material for the first time in five years (!) and I'll be seeing it live and in person!
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Wherein Eddie Izzard becomes my hero all over again
As I've blogged before, I've been trying to figure out how Eddie Izzard translated his giraffes and tigers bit into French. Because it's based on charades, he can't just plug French words in, he'd have to find a whole new word to charade.
After wondering about this for years, I finally got my answer, thanks to "Claywoman" on Eddie's fan site (third post in the thread - I can't figure out how to make direct links):
This is particularly impressive because the tigers really should have been lions in English in the first place! Tigers live in Asia and giraffes live in Africa (hence Monty Python's "A tiger??? In Africa??"), but Eddie was using a tiger in the English-language charades because it's charadable in English. So this is not only an effective translation of comedy, an effective translation of the non-verbal, and an effective translation of the non-translatable, but it's one of those so very rare situations where the translation is an improvement upon the original!
Well done to you, Mr. Izzard! I'm quite genuinely impressed, and at the same time kicking myself for not having thought of it myself.
After wondering about this for years, I finally got my answer, thanks to "Claywoman" on Eddie's fan site (third post in the thread - I can't figure out how to make direct links):
The giraffes were there too but with twist because tiger doesn't work in French, it became a lion. "Lit" (pronounced lee) is French for bed and "on" is a French pronoun for we or they... different mimes but he still made it very funny.
This is particularly impressive because the tigers really should have been lions in English in the first place! Tigers live in Asia and giraffes live in Africa (hence Monty Python's "A tiger??? In Africa??"), but Eddie was using a tiger in the English-language charades because it's charadable in English. So this is not only an effective translation of comedy, an effective translation of the non-verbal, and an effective translation of the non-translatable, but it's one of those so very rare situations where the translation is an improvement upon the original!
Well done to you, Mr. Izzard! I'm quite genuinely impressed, and at the same time kicking myself for not having thought of it myself.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Comedy guilt
This takes a lot of talent:
He's doing silent physical comedy all alone, without anyone to play off or react to. He's doing it in front of a live studio audience without corpsing. There's fire involved, and a live animal on stage with him.
But it doesn't make me laugh. Physical comedy very rarely does it for me, even though it takes a lot of skill, athleticism, choreography, timing, and rehearsal. In this particular case, rehearsing probably meant they had to light the set on fire spray foam about, and clean up multiple times. To say nothing of the work involved in writing the whole thing.
But it still doesn't make me laugh, and I feel really guilty about that.
He's doing silent physical comedy all alone, without anyone to play off or react to. He's doing it in front of a live studio audience without corpsing. There's fire involved, and a live animal on stage with him.
But it doesn't make me laugh. Physical comedy very rarely does it for me, even though it takes a lot of skill, athleticism, choreography, timing, and rehearsal. In this particular case, rehearsing probably meant they had to light the set on fire spray foam about, and clean up multiple times. To say nothing of the work involved in writing the whole thing.
But it still doesn't make me laugh, and I feel really guilty about that.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Further attempts to translate Eddie Izzard's giraffes and tigers
A while back, I proposed a strategy for translating Eddie Izzard's (technically untranslatable) giraffes and tigers bit. The basis of this approach was that the tiger needs to be replaced with something that's charadable in French.
In the shower this morning, it occurred to me that it might be possible to keep the tiger.
The French for "tiger" is tigre (scroll down for French pronunciation). The first syllable could be ti, as in the casual French diminutive for petit. And, if the onomatopoeia for a growling predator animal is reasonably similar in French, the second syllable could be "grrr" just like in English.
Now you're probably thinking (especially if you're Anglophone) that the second syllable of the French tigre doesn't sound very much like "grrr". Which is absolutely true. But it the second syllable of the English word "tiger" as pronounced in Eddie's own non-rhotic dialect doesn't sound much like the very rhotic "grrr" either. Eddie pronounces it something like the UK example provided by "mooncow" here, in a way that I would write out in my North American dialect as "tie-guh". The fact that the English word "tiger" contains a G and an R seems to be enough to carry the charade in non-rhotic English, so I see no reason why it wouldn't work in French. (I don't know if the French sound in the second syllable of tigre can be defined as rhotic or not because I never paid enough attention to my phonetics unit, but the French R is certainly more growly like a tiger than the non-rhotic UK English R in the English word "tiger".)
The flaw in this translation is still in the first syllable, using the diminutive ti. In English the first syllable is "tie", which Eddie charades by miming the act of tying a tie (i.e. men's neckwear). The Anglophone audience sees this and thinks "tie", thus making the charade effective. However, any effective charading of the French ti will first lead the Francophone audience to petit, from which they'd need to be guided to ti. It's still a two-step process in French where it's a one-step process in English, and the additional step is significant when you're doing something as complicated as trying to communicate syllables soundlessly while imitating a giraffe.
I can't tell you whether or not this translation would work on stage. It would have to be tested to an actual audience in real-life conditions. But it's the closest I've gotten so far to translating this untranslatable sketch, so I'm posting it.
In the shower this morning, it occurred to me that it might be possible to keep the tiger.
The French for "tiger" is tigre (scroll down for French pronunciation). The first syllable could be ti, as in the casual French diminutive for petit. And, if the onomatopoeia for a growling predator animal is reasonably similar in French, the second syllable could be "grrr" just like in English.
Now you're probably thinking (especially if you're Anglophone) that the second syllable of the French tigre doesn't sound very much like "grrr". Which is absolutely true. But it the second syllable of the English word "tiger" as pronounced in Eddie's own non-rhotic dialect doesn't sound much like the very rhotic "grrr" either. Eddie pronounces it something like the UK example provided by "mooncow" here, in a way that I would write out in my North American dialect as "tie-guh". The fact that the English word "tiger" contains a G and an R seems to be enough to carry the charade in non-rhotic English, so I see no reason why it wouldn't work in French. (I don't know if the French sound in the second syllable of tigre can be defined as rhotic or not because I never paid enough attention to my phonetics unit, but the French R is certainly more growly like a tiger than the non-rhotic UK English R in the English word "tiger".)
The flaw in this translation is still in the first syllable, using the diminutive ti. In English the first syllable is "tie", which Eddie charades by miming the act of tying a tie (i.e. men's neckwear). The Anglophone audience sees this and thinks "tie", thus making the charade effective. However, any effective charading of the French ti will first lead the Francophone audience to petit, from which they'd need to be guided to ti. It's still a two-step process in French where it's a one-step process in English, and the additional step is significant when you're doing something as complicated as trying to communicate syllables soundlessly while imitating a giraffe.
I can't tell you whether or not this translation would work on stage. It would have to be tested to an actual audience in real-life conditions. But it's the closest I've gotten so far to translating this untranslatable sketch, so I'm posting it.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Friday, November 12, 2010
Still trying to figure out the proper name for a hodd-d-d-d-d
If you don't know what I mean by a hodd-d-d-d-d, watch Eddie here, starting at about 4:30:
What is that thing actually called?
Update: The always-awesome @TravelMaus tells me that it's a carpet sweeper! I've been trying to figure that out for ages! (It's awfully hard to google when you don't know what it's called)
What is that thing actually called?
Update: The always-awesome @TravelMaus tells me that it's a carpet sweeper! I've been trying to figure that out for ages! (It's awfully hard to google when you don't know what it's called)
Monday, May 31, 2010
Eddie braindump
I just got back from seeing Eddie Izzard again!! This isn't at all cohesive, but I want to write stuff down before I forget. I know at one point in the show I was doubled over with laughter struggling to breathe at some throwaway line, and I can't for the life of me remember what it was any more!!!! Plus at least two brand new blog posts were inspired by this show, and I can't remember them either.*
- The experience was far less intense for me because it wasn't the first time. Last time I was agog and in awe of the simple fact that he's real. This time that wasn't there. Similarly, some of the lines I didn't laugh out loud and viscerally at because I knew they were coming. I'm wondering if a significant portion of the audience had also been there at previous shows, because we didn't standing O his entrance this time. Which is unfortunate - I wanted to do it on principle - but maybe we weren't collectively feeling the sheer awe that he is real and right there because we had already been through that just a few weeks ago. Maybe this is a bad idea though, maybe we should have forced ourselves to react like it's new, because we certainly don't want Eddie to think he has to wait another seven years before he comes back so he'll get a proper welcome.
- The show is less scripted than I expected. The set pieces were there, loosely plotted, and the key beats were there, but everything in between was just Eddie being Eddie. I'd thought that more of it was scripted in a way to make it sound unscripted, but it seems it's mostly just Eddie. Which is fantastic, because that's what I'm here for - to spend time inside Eddie's brain.
- Eddie was wearing jeans that were so tight that they showed off his post-marathon leg muscles nearly as well as fishnets. Not jeggings, actual jeans. Regardless of how you feel about that as a fashion statement, you have to admire it as a design achievement! In addition to the expected collection of inappropriate thoughts, I want to have a girl talky conversation with Eddie about these jeans. Precisely how comfortable or uncomfortable are they? (They had some stretch to them, but looked like they had the potential to be uncomfortable.) How many did he have to try on to find that exact look? Were they altered? How often does he wash them? Can he sit in them? Does he really need that belt?
- With Eddie wearing makeup and heels this time (along with the same boy-mode costume, but this time with the astoundingly tight jeans), I noticed that his hairdo is masculine. I had never before in my life consciously realized that short hair styles can be gendered! I've always just parsed them as Other and irrelevant and moved on.
- I just noticed this time around that the giant squid is writing a TripAdvisor review with INK! Yeah, because you can totally send handwritten reviews to websites. (Why yes, that is the most egregious of all plot holes in that bit.)
- The seats in Massey Hall are SO uncomfortable! They make me want to sit with my legs rather wide apart, but I can't do that because the seats are close together and the strange older man beside me is rather large and wearing shorts, and I'm just not going to open my legs while wearing a shortish skirt and rub my bare leg against a strange man's bare leg. Most comfortable would have been to sit knee-crossed-over-ankle, but there simply wasn't room to do that (even if I was willing to be improper and invade personal space), so when I got home I had to spend some time in triangle poses. If it's this bad for me, imagine how bad it would be for people with stiff joints, or especially tall people! Dear Massey Hall, please fix this!
- I don't care what anyone says, there are few sights more beautiful than Eddie making himself laugh
- At one point, Eddie dares God to prove his existence by showing himself, and then offers him various bribes to do so (cash, smoothies, etc.) Today he also offered him 12 virgins, then 23 virgins, then 72 people with experience. My thought: are there 23 (or even 12) virgins in this room, like at all?
- I noticed today that whenever Eddie did his write-on-his-hand oops-not-funny thing, it was always in cases where I wasn't laughing, but I wasn't not laughing because it wasn't funny. I wasn't laughing because I was waiting with rapt anticipation and bated breath to hear what he'd say next. I wish there was some way to communicate "Yes, and...?" to the person on stage.
- (In retrospect, putting my purse between my knees might have helped with the uncomfortable seats.)
- The black-market merch guys were still out there (different guys, same set-up) so I guess that means they did make enough money last time. Either that, or they had a bunch of extra merch left over from the last run and this was their best chance to move some of it.
- At one point, Eddie was on a tangent about how the word sheep doesn't pluralize, and a bunch of all different people in the audience shouted out "MOOSE!" And I was thinking that too, I just didn't shout it out because it didn't seem the moment. But it was just so interesting that so many people were thinking exactly the same thing at that point. There are other words that don't pluralize, but we all thought of the same one, to the extent that probably 7 people felt the need to shout it out (and this at a point in the show where he wasn't asking us to shout things at him).
- The interesting thing about sitting close to the stage (Second row centre!!! Best seats I've ever had for anything in my life!) is how the audience feels different to me as an audience member. The audience as I was experiencing it was me and Poodle, the very enthusiastic group of die-hards in front of us, and the older couple next to me who kept repeating funny lines to each other. The reaction of the audience as a whole was travelling to Eddie in waves over our heads, not touching us at all.
- Overall, the show as a whole was looser and more relaxed than the previous one. I think a significant portion of the audience had seen it before, but even without the surprise it was still entirely entertaining. I would very happily do this once a month at the same price point for a very long time.
"I'm very good at pure logic. I have to be - I'm a transvestite!" - E. Izzard.
*Oh, I just remembered: the line was supposed to be "everyone take a frog and put it on your head" (plot point in Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt) but Eddie either accidentally or deliberately-repeating-a-previous-mistake-that-had-humour-value said "everyone take a frog and put it on one of your heads" or something like that, then took rather a circuitous route back in a way that alluded to Inspector Tiger. I'm obviously not communicating the humour here, but for some reason it just killed me.
- The experience was far less intense for me because it wasn't the first time. Last time I was agog and in awe of the simple fact that he's real. This time that wasn't there. Similarly, some of the lines I didn't laugh out loud and viscerally at because I knew they were coming. I'm wondering if a significant portion of the audience had also been there at previous shows, because we didn't standing O his entrance this time. Which is unfortunate - I wanted to do it on principle - but maybe we weren't collectively feeling the sheer awe that he is real and right there because we had already been through that just a few weeks ago. Maybe this is a bad idea though, maybe we should have forced ourselves to react like it's new, because we certainly don't want Eddie to think he has to wait another seven years before he comes back so he'll get a proper welcome.
- The show is less scripted than I expected. The set pieces were there, loosely plotted, and the key beats were there, but everything in between was just Eddie being Eddie. I'd thought that more of it was scripted in a way to make it sound unscripted, but it seems it's mostly just Eddie. Which is fantastic, because that's what I'm here for - to spend time inside Eddie's brain.
- Eddie was wearing jeans that were so tight that they showed off his post-marathon leg muscles nearly as well as fishnets. Not jeggings, actual jeans. Regardless of how you feel about that as a fashion statement, you have to admire it as a design achievement! In addition to the expected collection of inappropriate thoughts, I want to have a girl talky conversation with Eddie about these jeans. Precisely how comfortable or uncomfortable are they? (They had some stretch to them, but looked like they had the potential to be uncomfortable.) How many did he have to try on to find that exact look? Were they altered? How often does he wash them? Can he sit in them? Does he really need that belt?
- With Eddie wearing makeup and heels this time (along with the same boy-mode costume, but this time with the astoundingly tight jeans), I noticed that his hairdo is masculine. I had never before in my life consciously realized that short hair styles can be gendered! I've always just parsed them as Other and irrelevant and moved on.
- I just noticed this time around that the giant squid is writing a TripAdvisor review with INK! Yeah, because you can totally send handwritten reviews to websites. (Why yes, that is the most egregious of all plot holes in that bit.)
- The seats in Massey Hall are SO uncomfortable! They make me want to sit with my legs rather wide apart, but I can't do that because the seats are close together and the strange older man beside me is rather large and wearing shorts, and I'm just not going to open my legs while wearing a shortish skirt and rub my bare leg against a strange man's bare leg. Most comfortable would have been to sit knee-crossed-over-ankle, but there simply wasn't room to do that (even if I was willing to be improper and invade personal space), so when I got home I had to spend some time in triangle poses. If it's this bad for me, imagine how bad it would be for people with stiff joints, or especially tall people! Dear Massey Hall, please fix this!
- I don't care what anyone says, there are few sights more beautiful than Eddie making himself laugh
- At one point, Eddie dares God to prove his existence by showing himself, and then offers him various bribes to do so (cash, smoothies, etc.) Today he also offered him 12 virgins, then 23 virgins, then 72 people with experience. My thought: are there 23 (or even 12) virgins in this room, like at all?
- I noticed today that whenever Eddie did his write-on-his-hand oops-not-funny thing, it was always in cases where I wasn't laughing, but I wasn't not laughing because it wasn't funny. I wasn't laughing because I was waiting with rapt anticipation and bated breath to hear what he'd say next. I wish there was some way to communicate "Yes, and...?" to the person on stage.
- (In retrospect, putting my purse between my knees might have helped with the uncomfortable seats.)
- The black-market merch guys were still out there (different guys, same set-up) so I guess that means they did make enough money last time. Either that, or they had a bunch of extra merch left over from the last run and this was their best chance to move some of it.
- At one point, Eddie was on a tangent about how the word sheep doesn't pluralize, and a bunch of all different people in the audience shouted out "MOOSE!" And I was thinking that too, I just didn't shout it out because it didn't seem the moment. But it was just so interesting that so many people were thinking exactly the same thing at that point. There are other words that don't pluralize, but we all thought of the same one, to the extent that probably 7 people felt the need to shout it out (and this at a point in the show where he wasn't asking us to shout things at him).
- The interesting thing about sitting close to the stage (Second row centre!!! Best seats I've ever had for anything in my life!) is how the audience feels different to me as an audience member. The audience as I was experiencing it was me and Poodle, the very enthusiastic group of die-hards in front of us, and the older couple next to me who kept repeating funny lines to each other. The reaction of the audience as a whole was travelling to Eddie in waves over our heads, not touching us at all.
- Overall, the show as a whole was looser and more relaxed than the previous one. I think a significant portion of the audience had seen it before, but even without the surprise it was still entirely entertaining. I would very happily do this once a month at the same price point for a very long time.
"I'm very good at pure logic. I have to be - I'm a transvestite!" - E. Izzard.
*Oh, I just remembered: the line was supposed to be "everyone take a frog and put it on your head" (plot point in Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt) but Eddie either accidentally or deliberately-repeating-a-previous-mistake-that-had-humour-value said "everyone take a frog and put it on one of your heads" or something like that, then took rather a circuitous route back in a way that alluded to Inspector Tiger. I'm obviously not communicating the humour here, but for some reason it just killed me.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
This is not an episode of Scooby Doo!
The OED Word of the Day was Holy Ghost. In the Catholicism of my era, we called it the Holy Spirit. I have seen Holy Ghost in older schoolbooks (I strongly suspect they were Catholic schoolbooks from my parents' era, but I'm not 100% certain about this because I saw it before I was aware of different denominations), but I've never heard it in Catholicism in real life.
I can see how the same (currently unknown to me) word might be translated as both Ghost and Spirit by two different translators, but I wonder which is more accurate? Spirit makes better sense to me just logically, but I'm not fully up on my catechism, and I'm not sure if an atheist's idea of logic is applicable when translating such a religious concept.
The OED etymology only went as far back as Old English, at which time the concepts of Ghost and Spirit overlapped more than they do today. But I wonder which word more accurate reflects the original (Greek? Aramaic?) source text?
I can see how the same (currently unknown to me) word might be translated as both Ghost and Spirit by two different translators, but I wonder which is more accurate? Spirit makes better sense to me just logically, but I'm not fully up on my catechism, and I'm not sure if an atheist's idea of logic is applicable when translating such a religious concept.
The OED etymology only went as far back as Old English, at which time the concepts of Ghost and Spirit overlapped more than they do today. But I wonder which word more accurate reflects the original (Greek? Aramaic?) source text?
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Strategies for translating Eddie Izzard Stripped: giraffes & tigers
Disclaimers:
This is the scene I'm talking about:
First issue: Does the target culture have charades?
Will the audience recognize what Eddie's doing when he's charading? If so, you're fine and can carry on to the next step. (Just check whether charades is played exactly the same in the target culture, i.e. are the ways of indicating syllables and the nose-touchy "you're right!" sign the same?) If not, that needs to be addressed before we go any further. There are two possible approaches here:
a) Find another suitable game. It needs to be a word guessing game that is played silently, it needs to be recognizable when performed/mimed on stage without props, and, to retain the core humour of the piece, it needs to be somewhat dependent on the verbal characteristics of the words. The piece draws its humour from the fact that mute animals can still recognize homophones and put together syllables to create words. In terms of pure translation, it would be perfectly valid to use a word guessing game that isn't dependent on the verbal characteristics of the words, but that would be far less effective as a piece of humour. So if you're doing this for class, you can totally go for a game that doesn't depend on verbal characteristics and get a solid B- (or maybe a B+ if the prof gives you credit for tackling something untranslatable). But if you're actually adapting it for the stage, don't go there. Better to leave it out of the show all together than to eliminate the crux of the humour.
b) The most awesome callback ever. Introduce new material early in the set that, as part of a broader gag or story, explains the English game of charades, complete with demonstrations, so the audience has a solid grounding in how the game is played. Then, in the second half of the show, bring out the giraffes. This is incredibly difficult and beyond the scope of translation, and it would be impossible to implement in a traditional translator-client relationship. ("Okay, I've got your translation all ready, I just need you to write five minutes of brand new material that meets these very specific requirements.") But if it could be carried off, it might be the greatest callback in human history.
Second issue: Replace the tiger
The tiger is a tiger in the first place because it's charadable. It doesn't need to be a tiger. It could be any animal, or indeed anything that would present a threat to a giraffe. (Lions, jaguars, hunters, alien abductions, Voldemort...) While the tiger was originally a cop-out in that tigers and giraffes don't co-exist in the wild, there is some humour to be gained from the fact that it is a cop-out. When Eddie performs it at least, the fact of admitting to a cop-out is charming, and there's a laugh or two in speculating just how and why the tigers are in Africa.
So the tiger's replacement needs to have the following characteristics.
a) Be charadable - in the target language. This is obviously the most important factor, because without something to charade the material wouldn't exist. You can't use the tiger charade used in the English version of Stripped because "cravate-grr" doesn't mean anything in any language. You need a target-language word where each syllable has a charadable homophone in the target language.
b) Be something giraffes would need to talk about. Humour could be gained in explaining how something that isn't at first glance a threat to a giraffe is in fact a threat. (If the justification of the threat is kind of half-assed, it could be introduced earlier in the show - perhaps on Noah's Ark - and gain additional humour by being a callback.) Alternatively, it doesn't necessarily need to be a threat that the giraffes announce to each other. It could be food, or a shoe sale, or a celebrity whose autograph they want. If it isn't a threat humour will be lost because the silent scream bit would have to be cut, so it might be useful to introduce additional humour by making the subject of the charades something more surreal than just food. But on the other hand, it's quite possible to overload the surreality. We already have a human performer miming being a giraffe, and then miming being a giraffe performing charades. It's possible that adding something too surreal to all this - like the giraffes have an Elvis sighting or something - might take it too far and lose the audience. I don't have the skill to tell when sitting behind my computer. As a translator, my ideal approach would be to present options - say yummy trees, and an ice cream truck, and a Sith lord, and an Elvis sighting - and let the performer use their professional judgement.
c) Be two syllables long. One syllable isn't quite charades, it's just mime. The humour comes from mute animals recognizing homophones and combining syllables to form words, so you'd lose a lot of that with just one syllable. But there's also the audience's attention span to take into account. A purely visual bit like this requires more audience attention than a verbal bit, because they can't look away from the stage even for a second. (If you've ever taken a sign-language class taught solely in sign language, you'll know how hard this is.) They have to accept the charading giraffes, retain memory of each syllable, put the word together without verbal repetition, and accept that the giraffes are putting the word together through mime rather than through verbal repetition. That's a lot of commitment, and if you lose even a bit of the commitment you crash and burn. Monty Python's "Call the next defend-ANT" bit works because they're constantly repeating the previously guessed syllables out loud, but you can see why it would never work silently. Three syllables might work, maybe, but it's really better to focus your efforts on finding a suitable two-syllable word. In other words, even if you have the most perfect charade ever for Eyjafjallajökull, this isn't the place to use it.
1. This post contains spoilers for Eddie Izzard's Stripped. If you're going to see it live and you haven't been spoiled yet, I strongly recommend skipping this post until you see it. (Specifically, this post dissects the bit with the giraffes. If this isn't yet meaningful to you, skip it.) Reading my translation strategies isn't worth missing out on discovering this particular piece of material live.
2. This post does not contain solutions, only strategies. The strategies could be used by a talented native speaker of the target language to translate the material, but I'm not nearly talented enough to translate untranslatable comedy away from my mother tongue.
3. Some creators don't like fans to give them ideas for fear of later lawsuits. So I am explicitly stating that this idea is free for the taking. I doubt you can claim ownership on a mere strategy anyway, but regardless. The original material belongs to Eddie Izzard, this translation strategy is free for anyone to use. If I get wind that it has been used, I will simply be flattered.
This is the scene I'm talking about:
First issue: Does the target culture have charades?
Will the audience recognize what Eddie's doing when he's charading? If so, you're fine and can carry on to the next step. (Just check whether charades is played exactly the same in the target culture, i.e. are the ways of indicating syllables and the nose-touchy "you're right!" sign the same?) If not, that needs to be addressed before we go any further. There are two possible approaches here:
a) Find another suitable game. It needs to be a word guessing game that is played silently, it needs to be recognizable when performed/mimed on stage without props, and, to retain the core humour of the piece, it needs to be somewhat dependent on the verbal characteristics of the words. The piece draws its humour from the fact that mute animals can still recognize homophones and put together syllables to create words. In terms of pure translation, it would be perfectly valid to use a word guessing game that isn't dependent on the verbal characteristics of the words, but that would be far less effective as a piece of humour. So if you're doing this for class, you can totally go for a game that doesn't depend on verbal characteristics and get a solid B- (or maybe a B+ if the prof gives you credit for tackling something untranslatable). But if you're actually adapting it for the stage, don't go there. Better to leave it out of the show all together than to eliminate the crux of the humour.
b) The most awesome callback ever. Introduce new material early in the set that, as part of a broader gag or story, explains the English game of charades, complete with demonstrations, so the audience has a solid grounding in how the game is played. Then, in the second half of the show, bring out the giraffes. This is incredibly difficult and beyond the scope of translation, and it would be impossible to implement in a traditional translator-client relationship. ("Okay, I've got your translation all ready, I just need you to write five minutes of brand new material that meets these very specific requirements.") But if it could be carried off, it might be the greatest callback in human history.
Second issue: Replace the tiger
The tiger is a tiger in the first place because it's charadable. It doesn't need to be a tiger. It could be any animal, or indeed anything that would present a threat to a giraffe. (Lions, jaguars, hunters, alien abductions, Voldemort...) While the tiger was originally a cop-out in that tigers and giraffes don't co-exist in the wild, there is some humour to be gained from the fact that it is a cop-out. When Eddie performs it at least, the fact of admitting to a cop-out is charming, and there's a laugh or two in speculating just how and why the tigers are in Africa.
So the tiger's replacement needs to have the following characteristics.
a) Be charadable - in the target language. This is obviously the most important factor, because without something to charade the material wouldn't exist. You can't use the tiger charade used in the English version of Stripped because "cravate-grr" doesn't mean anything in any language. You need a target-language word where each syllable has a charadable homophone in the target language.
b) Be something giraffes would need to talk about. Humour could be gained in explaining how something that isn't at first glance a threat to a giraffe is in fact a threat. (If the justification of the threat is kind of half-assed, it could be introduced earlier in the show - perhaps on Noah's Ark - and gain additional humour by being a callback.) Alternatively, it doesn't necessarily need to be a threat that the giraffes announce to each other. It could be food, or a shoe sale, or a celebrity whose autograph they want. If it isn't a threat humour will be lost because the silent scream bit would have to be cut, so it might be useful to introduce additional humour by making the subject of the charades something more surreal than just food. But on the other hand, it's quite possible to overload the surreality. We already have a human performer miming being a giraffe, and then miming being a giraffe performing charades. It's possible that adding something too surreal to all this - like the giraffes have an Elvis sighting or something - might take it too far and lose the audience. I don't have the skill to tell when sitting behind my computer. As a translator, my ideal approach would be to present options - say yummy trees, and an ice cream truck, and a Sith lord, and an Elvis sighting - and let the performer use their professional judgement.
c) Be two syllables long. One syllable isn't quite charades, it's just mime. The humour comes from mute animals recognizing homophones and combining syllables to form words, so you'd lose a lot of that with just one syllable. But there's also the audience's attention span to take into account. A purely visual bit like this requires more audience attention than a verbal bit, because they can't look away from the stage even for a second. (If you've ever taken a sign-language class taught solely in sign language, you'll know how hard this is.) They have to accept the charading giraffes, retain memory of each syllable, put the word together without verbal repetition, and accept that the giraffes are putting the word together through mime rather than through verbal repetition. That's a lot of commitment, and if you lose even a bit of the commitment you crash and burn. Monty Python's "Call the next defend-ANT" bit works because they're constantly repeating the previously guessed syllables out loud, but you can see why it would never work silently. Three syllables might work, maybe, but it's really better to focus your efforts on finding a suitable two-syllable word. In other words, even if you have the most perfect charade ever for Eyjafjallajökull, this isn't the place to use it.
So a dyslexic walks into a bra...
I saw Eddie Izzard! (Who wasn't wearing a bra, at least not that I could tell, but I didn't want to lose my chance to be the first person on the recorded internet to use that line in reference to Eddie Izzard.)
I complained a lot about the way this show was promoted. I didn't get an official announcement until several days after the presale had started (when I already had my tickets in hand!) and the promo code was never officially released, at all. But this did have the positive result that the place was a love-in! Everyone around us was fan enough to have been actively keeping an eye out for when Eddie was going to do a show in Toronto, and to guess or hunt for the promo code. When Eddie walked on stage we gave him a genuine, heartfelt, standing O, where we were quite sincerely saying thank you for coming to Toronto. More than that, it felt like we were all on the same side. Even waiting in line for the washroom at intermission, it felt like we were all on the same team. It was a good feeling, and not something I've experienced before.
I was also worried by the fact that I'd been spoiled. I didn't think Eddie would be bringing this show to Canada at all ever, so I sought out bootlegs and later bought the European DVD (with the very sexy SUBTITLES IN 17 LANGUAGES!) and therefore I knew what was coming. I have never laughed so much in my life as the first time I experienced Eddie's material fresh, and I was rather disappointed that I wouldn't get the joy of experiencing material fresh combined with the joy of experiencing it live. But I needn't have worried. Eddie gave us THREE HOURS, and I was laughing or smiling or floating happily the entire time. He started by asking us who Massey Hall was named after, to which several people said Vincent Massey. Then he asked who Vincent Massey was, and Poodle and I (and several other people, I'm sure) said Governor General. But since Poodle is far louder than I am, he focused in our direction and asked what a Governor General is, which Poodle explained. And I'm going to bask in reflected glory and say that WE explained. So that sent Eddie off on a tangent on the monarchy, most of which I'd heard him say before, but it was a natural organic tangent and therefore just felt like he was standing on the stage chatting with us.
And most of the show felt like that. There were the set pieces that I recognized, but most of the in between felt like he was just telling us what was currently in his brain, which is my very favourite part of the whole thing. I recognize his "make is sound like I'm making this up as I go along" verbal tics, but it did genuinely seem like he was making a lot of it up as he went along. He even made himself laugh a few times!
I laughed until I cried until my makeup was ruined (note to self: wear waterproof mascara and eyeliner next time!) and just grinned like an idiot the rest of the time, basking in waves of joy filling the room and the further joy of sharing this joy with the person with whom I most wanted to share it. Having been spoiled wasn't a problem. I didn't feel like "Meh, I've heard this before" - I felt like a co-conspirator.
In a moment of foolishness, I bought extremely excellent tickets for the second round of Toronto shows at the end of May. And after seeing this show, I'm very glad I did so.
***
Silly personal fannish stuff:
- I laughed for three hours straight. That's an awesome feeling, physiologically. It gives the calm and mental clarity that you normally get from the perfect balance of cardio and yoga and naturopath-recommended supplements, and I haven't had it since I saw Eddie's DVDs for the very first time. After the first act, I was just kind of floating along on this endorphin-like high where nothing mattered. We waited outside the stage door for an hour, and that didn't matter. I haven't eaten since 5 pm, and that doesn't matter. If this were a drug, I'd become an addict. If there were some way to guarantee that I would feel it every time, I would happily wake up at 4 in the morning every day to laugh for three straight hours before starting my day. It's 2:30 a.m. as I'm typing this, and I seriously think I could stay up all night and go straight through all tomorrow if I had to.
- This was actually the first serious fannish experience I've ever had in my life. I never had an opportunity to be fangirl in my teens like most people do (that's a topic for a possible future blog post), so this was the first time in my life I've ever seen That Thing I Love live and in person. As I said to Poodle as Eddie stepped out on stage for the first time, "He's real!!!" It's quite the emotional arc, and rather unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I now understand why Beatles fangirls cried. We waited around outside the stage door (thank you Poodle for instigating that!) and very briefly got him to sign our programs and spoke German at him (to disprove his earlier allegation that we don't understand German - he spoke some German onstage and we and a number of other people applauded, and Eddie said something to the effect of "Don't clap, I know you don't actually understand it.") and probably made fools of ourselves, all of which I understand intellectually was very kind and gracious on Eddie's part and wholeheartedly appreciate and will use as anecdotal evidence of what an awesome human being he is. But it also drove home the fact that I'm never going to get to have an actual conversation with him. Eddie has (entirely inadvertently on his part) been a role model to me for holy shit three years now, and as a result I've accumulated a number of things I'd be interested in discussing with him. Not just squeeing things at him or showing off look at me I speak German like I did today, but actual back-and-forth productive discussion, the kind where we build on each other's ideas and both come out smarter than we went in. I could get a good half-hour of fruitful bilateral discussion on the challenges of and strategies for adapting his current show for non-English audiences alone. And, in the midst of my fangasm and endorphin high, it kind of slapped me in the face that that's never going to happen. Not entirely sure what to do with that just yet.
- Heather Mallick, to whose book title I owe my discovery of Eddie Izzard, was sitting across the aisle from us! I was seriously considering going over and talking to her, to thank her for (inadvertently on her part, but life-changingly for me) introducing me to Eddie. But the opportunity never presented itself - it got too crowded at intermission and at the end of the show, and I would have annoyed and inconvenienced a whole lot of people just to do it. So, Ms. Mallick, if you ever happen to google upon this, thank you! Seriously. Eddie has inspired me and made me a better person in many areas of life, and it is thanks to you that I discovered him. Sincerely, the girl in the red shoes next to the guy who explained what a Governor General is.
I complained a lot about the way this show was promoted. I didn't get an official announcement until several days after the presale had started (when I already had my tickets in hand!) and the promo code was never officially released, at all. But this did have the positive result that the place was a love-in! Everyone around us was fan enough to have been actively keeping an eye out for when Eddie was going to do a show in Toronto, and to guess or hunt for the promo code. When Eddie walked on stage we gave him a genuine, heartfelt, standing O, where we were quite sincerely saying thank you for coming to Toronto. More than that, it felt like we were all on the same side. Even waiting in line for the washroom at intermission, it felt like we were all on the same team. It was a good feeling, and not something I've experienced before.
I was also worried by the fact that I'd been spoiled. I didn't think Eddie would be bringing this show to Canada at all ever, so I sought out bootlegs and later bought the European DVD (with the very sexy SUBTITLES IN 17 LANGUAGES!) and therefore I knew what was coming. I have never laughed so much in my life as the first time I experienced Eddie's material fresh, and I was rather disappointed that I wouldn't get the joy of experiencing material fresh combined with the joy of experiencing it live. But I needn't have worried. Eddie gave us THREE HOURS, and I was laughing or smiling or floating happily the entire time. He started by asking us who Massey Hall was named after, to which several people said Vincent Massey. Then he asked who Vincent Massey was, and Poodle and I (and several other people, I'm sure) said Governor General. But since Poodle is far louder than I am, he focused in our direction and asked what a Governor General is, which Poodle explained. And I'm going to bask in reflected glory and say that WE explained. So that sent Eddie off on a tangent on the monarchy, most of which I'd heard him say before, but it was a natural organic tangent and therefore just felt like he was standing on the stage chatting with us.
And most of the show felt like that. There were the set pieces that I recognized, but most of the in between felt like he was just telling us what was currently in his brain, which is my very favourite part of the whole thing. I recognize his "make is sound like I'm making this up as I go along" verbal tics, but it did genuinely seem like he was making a lot of it up as he went along. He even made himself laugh a few times!
I laughed until I cried until my makeup was ruined (note to self: wear waterproof mascara and eyeliner next time!) and just grinned like an idiot the rest of the time, basking in waves of joy filling the room and the further joy of sharing this joy with the person with whom I most wanted to share it. Having been spoiled wasn't a problem. I didn't feel like "Meh, I've heard this before" - I felt like a co-conspirator.
In a moment of foolishness, I bought extremely excellent tickets for the second round of Toronto shows at the end of May. And after seeing this show, I'm very glad I did so.
***
Silly personal fannish stuff:
- I laughed for three hours straight. That's an awesome feeling, physiologically. It gives the calm and mental clarity that you normally get from the perfect balance of cardio and yoga and naturopath-recommended supplements, and I haven't had it since I saw Eddie's DVDs for the very first time. After the first act, I was just kind of floating along on this endorphin-like high where nothing mattered. We waited outside the stage door for an hour, and that didn't matter. I haven't eaten since 5 pm, and that doesn't matter. If this were a drug, I'd become an addict. If there were some way to guarantee that I would feel it every time, I would happily wake up at 4 in the morning every day to laugh for three straight hours before starting my day. It's 2:30 a.m. as I'm typing this, and I seriously think I could stay up all night and go straight through all tomorrow if I had to.
- This was actually the first serious fannish experience I've ever had in my life. I never had an opportunity to be fangirl in my teens like most people do (that's a topic for a possible future blog post), so this was the first time in my life I've ever seen That Thing I Love live and in person. As I said to Poodle as Eddie stepped out on stage for the first time, "He's real!!!" It's quite the emotional arc, and rather unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I now understand why Beatles fangirls cried. We waited around outside the stage door (thank you Poodle for instigating that!) and very briefly got him to sign our programs and spoke German at him (to disprove his earlier allegation that we don't understand German - he spoke some German onstage and we and a number of other people applauded, and Eddie said something to the effect of "Don't clap, I know you don't actually understand it.") and probably made fools of ourselves, all of which I understand intellectually was very kind and gracious on Eddie's part and wholeheartedly appreciate and will use as anecdotal evidence of what an awesome human being he is. But it also drove home the fact that I'm never going to get to have an actual conversation with him. Eddie has (entirely inadvertently on his part) been a role model to me for holy shit three years now, and as a result I've accumulated a number of things I'd be interested in discussing with him. Not just squeeing things at him or showing off look at me I speak German like I did today, but actual back-and-forth productive discussion, the kind where we build on each other's ideas and both come out smarter than we went in. I could get a good half-hour of fruitful bilateral discussion on the challenges of and strategies for adapting his current show for non-English audiences alone. And, in the midst of my fangasm and endorphin high, it kind of slapped me in the face that that's never going to happen. Not entirely sure what to do with that just yet.
- Heather Mallick, to whose book title I owe my discovery of Eddie Izzard, was sitting across the aisle from us! I was seriously considering going over and talking to her, to thank her for (inadvertently on her part, but life-changingly for me) introducing me to Eddie. But the opportunity never presented itself - it got too crowded at intermission and at the end of the show, and I would have annoyed and inconvenienced a whole lot of people just to do it. So, Ms. Mallick, if you ever happen to google upon this, thank you! Seriously. Eddie has inspired me and made me a better person in many areas of life, and it is thanks to you that I discovered him. Sincerely, the girl in the red shoes next to the guy who explained what a Governor General is.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Eddie Izzard's latest astounding achievement
The Globe and Mail published a fluffy little promotional interview with Eddie Izzard. This article has been on their website for at least 24 hours now, and spent most of the day headlined (and some of the day featured with a photo) on the front page. It has therefore received comments.
As of right now, every single comment is positive. Every. Single. One. No one is dissing Eddie or the author, no one is going off on their pet political tangent, no one is complaining that the G&M calls itself a national newspaper but this particular article doesn't cover their part of the country, no one is dissing other commenters, no one is posting "So who cares?" There are people going YAY Eddie, and there are quotefests. (And no one is even posting to complain that other posters are indulging in quotefests!) And on top of all this, only thumbs-up ratings have been given. No thumbs-down whatsoever! And this in a Globe & Mail comments page!
This might be even more miraculous than the marathons!
As of right now, every single comment is positive. Every. Single. One. No one is dissing Eddie or the author, no one is going off on their pet political tangent, no one is complaining that the G&M calls itself a national newspaper but this particular article doesn't cover their part of the country, no one is dissing other commenters, no one is posting "So who cares?" There are people going YAY Eddie, and there are quotefests. (And no one is even posting to complain that other posters are indulging in quotefests!) And on top of all this, only thumbs-up ratings have been given. No thumbs-down whatsoever! And this in a Globe & Mail comments page!
This might be even more miraculous than the marathons!
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Note to anyone buying tickets for Eddie Izzard at Massey Hall
You can get far better seats through the Massey Hall website than through Ticketmaster. Also, there are more dates for Toronto: May 30 and 31. Promo code = BEES
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