Musings 16/09/2020

Theme: Playfulness

Words of the Week

Jayus – (Indonesian) A joke so poor and unfunny that one cannot help but laugh.Mencolek – (Indonesian) The trick when you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them.

While I’ve been researching for this series I have often turned to untranslatable words from other languages. It is really interesting to note which words have no English equivalent. It seems as though these are words we think we don’t need in English, or at least not enough to create the language to describe the sensation, experience or action. When it comes to playfulness, English seems to be rather lacking. There are words that convey naughtiness (impish, devilish, kittenish, puckish, roguish, prankish, tricksy) or full of energy (frisky, lively, spirited, exuberant, perky, skittish, coltish, frolicky) or happy (jolly, gay, fun), and we have some phrases which have similar meanings (high-spirited, full of beans, full of fun, fun-loving) but what I feel is missing from the English lexicon are words which fully describe the state of childlike, innocent fun or pleasure purely for the joy doing of it. ‘Playfulness’, on its own, is not enough. The words above seem to indicate (though I can’t say for sure, never having spent time in Indonesia or around Indonesians) that Indonesian culture places a higher value on jokes and little pranks than we do. For words to enter into common parlance they need to be used widely and often enough as to be almost universally understood. This seems to me to indicate that the English (sweeping generalisation alert) are less playful than Indonesians.

This may be totally untrue. I’m basing my theory on two words, which by any scientific standard, is far too small a data set to draw any conclusions. I haven’t done any testing on the two populations. I don’t even know how to quantify what I’m suggesting. I do know, anecdotally, through lived experience of myself and others, that I find playfulness hard, and so too do a fair few (English) people I’ve met.

So what is it to be playful?

I’ve never been much good at playing. I mentioned before that I would take the 'safe' characters in make believe games when I was a child. My nursery school teacher has been quoted by my mum as saying, “She takes herself very seriously.” (I see no problem with this – being me is a serious business.) I struggle with some games my son wants to play. I’m much more comfortable quietly building cars out of stickle bricks or Lego than I am sending those cars off on imaginary adventures. I’m also not good at being the butt of any joke. Even well meant, gentle ribbing feels like a personal attack to my fragile ego. When I was younger, I hated it when my dad used to give me a big, laughing, loving smile, assuming that he was laughing at me not simply finding me, his teenage daughter, sweetly amusing and lovable.

What strikes me as strange in all this is that in order to be liked and accepted I have always erred on the side of funny (ha ha as well as peculiar) in order to gain favour with those in my peer group. I make jokes (though I can’t tell jokes as I always tend to get muddled and forget the punchline when under pressure to perform.) I try to be witty and clever. I enjoy it when someone laughs at my humour. I still remember the pleasure of gaining the courage to speak up in the company of one of the popular set at school, and to have my joke (it wasn’t even an Esther original, just a well timed quote from a TV show) greeted with big belly laughs. It felt good, but none of this is really playful. It’s humour, taken seriously.

To be truly playful I think you need to leave clever at the door. Playful isn’t about wit, it’s about being silly. I read an article recently which really struck a chord with me. During these troubled times it seems a good idea to try, at least, to stop taking life so seriously. I don’t mean reducing the value of life, or stopping caring about living, but I do think that we’re all under a lot of strain (health-wise, money-wise, politics-wise, etc.) and that a perhaps a jayus or two could hold the key to releasing a bit of that pressure.

In a lot of comedy, there’s usually a build up, a story that pulls the audience in and creates tension. It may even make them uncomfortable. The punchline, whether expected or not, delivers the release of that tension and relief from discomfort. Even in cracker jokes (the closest words we have for jayus) there is a short build up, leading to the punchline and the collective groan. It is important, at Christmas, for these to be the kind of jokes we tell each other. The collective groan is better for family, cross generational, bonding than a joke that ridicules someone or something, or that some people won’t get. These are jokes designed to be bad so that we can all laugh at the awfulness of the joke and be united in that.

2020 feels like it’s one long build up, with a few cynical laughs thrown in to keep us hooked, but with no proper punchline, no relief or release of tension in sight. I often feel that we are coming close to living in a world in which satire cannot work. The real world is sending itself up. We have gone so far through the looking glass and into the absurd that it is sometimes hard to know whether to laugh or cry about the situation we find ourselves in. When times are this strange and tense I think we need to make our own, innocent fun and laugh whenever we can.

I wrote in one of my earlier musings about having fun with dressing up and the Facebook and Instagram group, Put Your Bins Out In Your Ball Gown (encourages exactly what it says in the title, though as lockdown has eased the idea has expanded to include other incongruous situations and household tasks.) This sort of grown up, dressing up box fun is just the sort of playfulness I feel we need. Indeed the success of the group, which has been referenced in many articles and attracted thousands of followers, as well as celebrity attention, would bear that out. It’s harmless, it’s kind of childlike, it’s almost sending yourself up, and making the best of a rubbish (pun intended) situation. (My effort for one bin day is pictured above. Not exactly a ball gown – I don’t own one – but colourful, fun, incongruous, and with floppy hat and sunglasses, impossible to see in!)

I think this kind of fun is really important right now. Other kinds of fun come with inbuilt issues. Our usual types of fun, like going on holiday, to the pub, shopping, or out for a meal, might do a lot for struggling local businesses, but I found it hard to relax at our local café, despite excellent chocolate brownie, pleasant company, and comprehensive social distancing policy. This last was, in fact, exactly why I couldn’t relax. Every time I step out of my front door, mask in place, I am reminded of what’s happening. No matter what is done to make me feel safe, I can’t ignore being part of the 'new normal' as it’s not yet normal enough for me to have settled in. Then there’s the guilt. If I go for a lovely walk in the country that I’m so lucky to live near, I feel little pangs of guilt for having a nice time when others are trapped in big cities, or sitting beside hospital beds. For me, a holiday would definitely cause the same feelings. (How can I possibly be having a nice time under these circumstances? What kind of unfeeling monster am I?!)

Playing around at home helps with all this. I feel like a pressure release valve has been unscrewed when I come home to silly, nonsense messages on the fridge or chalkboard, even the ones I’ve written myself (this week I need to remember to buy fish fingles and moosli). This kind of low level, background, daft behaviour is comforting. It’s very far from highbrow. It’s like rice pudding or custard, or drawing beards on ladies in the newspaper, something from my mind’s nursery, soothing me and telling me it’s ok. The world might be a bit crazy at the moment, but I can fall back on jayus, mencolek, dirty limericks, jester-shoe slippers, bear onesies, smeary fingerprint notes on the bathroom mirror, stripy tights, family ‘in jokes’, sequinned cat ear head bands, and googly eyes in the fruit bowl.

(If you feel like taking humour very seriously, read on for an academic analysis of what makes us laugh.)

Craft activity: homemade silliness board game.

You will need:

· A largish sheet of paper of card (A4 at least)

· A pencil and ruler (optional – this exercise isn’t about neat presentation but if you like to make things neat, by all means do so)

· Marker pens

· A die or dice

· Blue tack, tiddly wink counters, drawing pins (if pinning the game up on a pin board) or other playing pieces to mark your progress around the board

Instructions

· Take your paper and use the marker pens to draw out a pathway, like the kind you might find on a Snakes and Ladders board. You can even copy another board games design if you like. The layout is entirely up to you. You can draw a snaking trail, a neat pathway with square corners, or a spiral shape.

· Divide the path into individual 'squares'. Put in as many as you like, but make sure you allow enough room in each to write in your instructions.

· In each square write an instruction. I have listed some of my ideas below, but again, this is your game, write down things that you find fun or funny. The idea is to make any instruction enjoyable by everyone you’re playing with, so avoid things which might make others uncomfortable. Make it as challenging, or as simple as you wish.

· Some silly stuff: sing a song, dance to your favourite song, draw a picture of another player, find a hat and wear it to the shops, leave a silly note, make a food face (for example, raisin eyes, strawberry nose, apple slice mouth) in your own or someone else’s cereal or porridge, draw moustaches/whiskers/a beard on yourself or on each other (do check the pen isn’t a permanent marker!) play rude hangman, make up a limerick, gargle a tune for others to guess, play the finger on nose game (last one to put their finger on their nose ‘loses’ and becomes the next person to initiate the next round of the game. This can go on for as long as you like – days even!), hide a cuddly toy somewhere for others to find, pose a cuddly toy doing something silly, wear odd socks all day, tell a joke, play guess the word (you could use actions as in charades, draw the word, describe the word verbally without mentioning it, or even model it in play dough), swap clothes with another player, do an impression of a celebrity, play hide and seek, see how long it takes for someone to notice your shirt/trousers/dress is on backwards, surprise another player (in a nice way!)...

· To play, simply take it in turns to roll the dice and move your counter (blue tack, tiddly wink, drawing pin) onto a square, then follow the instructions on that square. You can play on your own if you tailor the instructions to allow for that (as I said earlier, I’m cheered up by my own silly notes). You can even play with another household over video call. Just get them to copy your board and decide on a time to roll the dice together.

· Once a player has reached the end of the board, go back to the start and keep going. This isn’t about winning, it’s about enjoying being silly.

Poems

I have chosen The Owl and The Pussy Cat by Edward Lear as it is a lovely example of Victorian nonsense verse, which most of us are familiar with, or at least with the first verse. I think it’s rather a beautiful poem, which, with its playful use of language, manages to conjure up a romantic adventure, even while it doesn’t actually make sense. And it gave us the word 'runcible' even if no one knows what it means.

Edward Lear is also well known for his limericks, so I’ve added a few of those as well, which might inspire you to write your own. Limericks are five line poems in which the first two lines rhyme with the last line, and the middle two lines rhyme with each other (A A B B A rhyme scheme) The examples here don’t have titles and are simply referred to by their first line.

Finally, I’ve included a bit of the class poem my A level English teacher, Bill Greenwell, wrote for us. I can only remember the bit about me and my wit, which says a lot about how important humour and being funny is to me (and how self absorbed I am!)

The Owl and The Pussy Cat by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat:

They took some honey, and plenty of money

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

“O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl,

How charmingly sweet you sing! Just

Oh! Let us be married; too long we have tarried,

But what shall we do for a ring?”

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the bong-tree grows;

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

Limericks

1)

There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said, "It is just as I feared!—

Two Owls and a Hen,

Four Larks and a Wren,

Have all built their nests in my beard.

2)

There was a Young Lady whose bonnet,

Came untied when the birds sat upon it;

But she said: 'I don’t care!

All the birds in the air

Are welcome to sit on my bonnet!’

3)

There was a Young Lady of Hull,

Who was chased by a virulent bull;

But she seized on a spade,

And called out, 'Who's afraid?’

Which distracted that virulent bull.

Bill’s Poem:

Esther's a jester,

Her humour is dry,

You’ll find if you test her,

That wit’s in supply.