True jest is no true jest

By Emmanuelle

 

THE average Filipino must have been born equipped with a funny bone sticking out tickling him somewhere between joints of his skeleton. He is a jest in human form.

What is a jest? It is a joke, a witty remark, a short funny anecdote. It may take a more cruel form of a banter, taunt or a jeer. It can be a subject or action word. Here, it is personified.

Let us magpaligoy-ligoy for an example. Extract a Pinoy  from his natural, normal environment and plop him some place foreign where he sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. Does he cringe in agoraphobic fear and promptly melts himself down the sewers? Humph, no. He wiggles his shoulders, his hips; he cranks up his neck, his spine; he flexes his fingers and toes. He shifts shape!

He acquires the feel and the accent of the place. He starts with the meanest job and comes out with the best. Sometimes, he even becomes richer than the natives. They never see his coming and becoming. All the while, they are laughing at the jokes he makes, sometimes at his own expense, most times at their own. He is commenting on the attitudes, the values of the natives as host people or as a nation. In one jest after another, he is telling them he is getting the better of them at each bend of the corner. And they are too amused with him to feel abused. “You taught me well and good!” he jests. And it is the truth: the six words and all twenty-two letters. 

Quipped in the mindless spirit of fun or told with a humorous vein, jokes and remarks and short anecdotes can hide the most profound insights or serious criticisms. I call these: the teeth behind the smile. The bites masked by the nibbles. 

There’s many a true word spoken in jest. Intended or not, the comments behind a jest might just turn out to be the truth. When you hear a jest, take your sweet time chuckling over it. Afterwards, really listen to it, rewind the tape in your mind. Namnamin. Taste the crunch of the word. You might have been slapped with a truth and it has just been shoved down your throat. And you were laughing while you were choking.

Over the centuries, writers and wits have taken advantaged of the trick, of  punching home the truth û with a smile.  It is less cruel, a critic has a lesser chance of being shot or knifed. Or ganged-on to splintered fragments of not-so-very-funny bones.

Take a look at some of the jests most committed to memory through the centuries.

He in rich Heine: the _____would never have had the time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. German artist Max Liebermann would probably jest back: one more word out of you and I’ll paint you as you are.

Ninon de Lenclos, 1620-1705, resenting the aging process: If God had to give woman wrinkles, He might at least have put them on the soles of her feet. Helen May consoled: Little dabs of powder, little smears of paint, make a woman’s wrinkles look as if they ain’t.  Mortimer Collins, 1855, in turn taunted: O wherefore our age be revealing? Leave that to the registry books! A man is as old as he’s feeling, a woman as old as she looks. A debate which WS Gilbert, 1875, made worse: if this fails, there is nothing for a woman to do but to lurk in the shadows and  appear constantly in the dusk with a light behind her in the hope of passing permanently for forty-three.   

Then take a second look at our home-grown brew. A girl scoffing off a suitor for having only his good looks to recommend himself:  Guapo ka na sana kung hindi ka lang bobo. Knowing boys, this boy would reply: Hindi kailangan ang talino pagsapit ng dilim at lamig ng gabi. And the girl would tartly answer back: Ang problema po, we need to eat to survive; alangan namang kainin _(censored) araw-araw, gabi-gabi?!

A jest to which Stanislaw Lec would end with: if the art of conversation stood a little higher, we would have a lower birthrate.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/
Readers may reach columnist at jingmil@yahoo.com . For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

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