Alex was over on Friday night, and we got to talking about The Aristocrats. I went down to New York earlier this summer and went to the movie with my uncle, who is of a mind with me about funny, and it was what you might think. It was filthy. It was unimaginably filthy. It was shockingly hairball filthy.
Lots of comics told the joke, which may or may not have been an actual phenomenon before the movie. And then there was Sarah Silverman. OK, Gilbert Gottfried told the joke very well. But Silverman, oh, lord, Silverman. I lacked the sophistication to truly grasp at the instant when I saw her do it how well she had done it. But time passed, and I thought about it more, and more, and I saw her expression -- not deadpan, but sweetly brightly self-effacing and almost fey -- and I realized I had seen something really special.
And by "special," of course, I mean, "unimaginably hideous."
You may get "The Aristocrats," or you may not. I did get it. I told the Joke to some people in the U.K., and there were three of them, and two of them got it and the third just looked at me and said, "It's just not funny." Well, DUH.
So when I was talking to Al, I couldn't figure out how to describe how well Silverman got it. I think I said she hit the big bell, and she just kept hitting it, until your teeth rattled in their sockets. But what I think now is that the joke was like a long jump, and depending on how well you related to the jumper, that was the angle at which you saw the jumper jump. So, if you didn't really relate to the style, you were watching the jumper jump toward, or away, and you couldn't see what they were doing or how far they went.
And time rotated for me Sarah's jump. (Silverman's.) And now I see her delivery tracking away from where she takes to the air, in slow motion, her arms and legs pumping like a jumper, like a spider spinning. And you're watching, and you're thinking how absurd she looks, but then you see her face, that blithe stubborn facade like an athlete's, and the absurdity is your own thoughtless sophisticate's conceit. And you realize how far she's going, and how well she's done it, and you're up, out of your seat. You don't watch track and field all that much, just at the Olympics, and on that day, in that statium, all of it comes together. She got it. The damage she does is catastrophic. It's over. She's torn out huge gouts of sand and the earth is riven. But she never hints at it. You know they turn off the camera and she won't even ^%&^& smirk.
That's funny.
