In Praise of Comedy, by Tilia Klebenov Jacobs

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We started this week talking about the things that keep us going through the long gray days of winter: the green of houseplants, some mindful gratitude. Tilia Klebenov Jacobs has also put her finger on something we all need. In her new YA time-travel caper,  STEALING TIME, a present-day teen is tossed back to the 1980s, where she teams up with her 15 year old future dad to stop a thief and save their family's future. Comedy ensues, and action, and, maybe most importantly, optimism.

 

 

 

 

“Can’t tell you how much I needed this.  Fun!”

 

            This, my favorite review for Stealing Time, appeared right after Election Day, and I suspect the reader’s need for comfort reflected the recently-closed political season.  I was flattered to have provided such a tonic, because although our culture frequently values tragedy over comedy, I feel that the latter, being the genre of positive outcomes, is an essential service.

 

            By “comedy,” I do not necessarily mean that which is laughter-inducing.  Instead, I am hewing close to the Classical definition.  The Greeks and Romans used the term “comedy” to mean stage-plays with happy endings.  Aristotle believed that comedy was positive for society, as it brought forth happiness, which he saw as the ideal state.  It was seen as a profoundly valuable artistic expression in ancient society:  Plato quotes Socrates as saying that “the genius of comedy [is] the same with that of tragedy.”  

 

            Today we have drifted far from that conviction.  As novelist Julian Gough points out, “Western culture since the Middle Ages has overvalued the tragic and undervalued the comic.  We think of tragedy as major, and comedy as minor.  Brilliant comedies never win the best film Oscar.  The Booker Prize leans toward the tragic.”  Indeed.  Most bestseller lists confirm this, as does my local cinema’s schedule for the upcoming months:  their offerings for children focused on overcoming obstacles with humor, inventiveness, and courage; those for adults were mostly about serial killers, dystopias, and nuclear annihilation.  

 

            Aristotle defined comedy as “the fortunate rise of a sympathetic character.”  This upward arc, far from being inherently facile or immature, reminds us that order will prevail, that evil is transient, that good will ultimately return.  Tragedy, by contrast, focuses on chaos.  Tragedy happens when order falls apart, and those things we thought were secure (health, love, sanity) crumble.  To quote IamNormanLeonard, tragedy is “when the banana peel leads to a broken hip.  When the man betrays his family.  When the young woman succumbs to a mental illness.”  He adds, “Pity, bitterness, rage, sadness, fear, dread, and, worst of all, hopelessness—these can kill you.”

 

            Broadly speaking, tragedy deals with death, comedy with life.  It is thus the expression of optimism and resilience.  This was underscored to me in a recent episode of the podcast Where EverybodyKnows Your Name featuring an interview between Ted Danson and Lisa Kudrow, two comic actors of the highest caliber.  Both objected to the idea that their genre is inconsequential.  When Kudrow observed, “Entertainment is a service,” Danson replied that he had come to realize the value of his work when strangers told him how his comedy helped them survive tragedy.

 

Somewhere in the middle of [Cheers] or certainly after, people coming up to me and saying, “My father was dying, and he and I would lie on a sofa together and watch Cheers and be able to laugh.  So the old, “We’re not curing cancer”—I disagree.

 

Cheers ended decades ago, but during Covid it must surely again have been Must See TV.  As soon as lockdowns went into effect, those of us who were able leaped to boardgames, streaming series of an unserious nature, jigsaw puzzles, and comfort novels.  We wanted art, dammit, and during the bleakest time most of us could remember, we specifically wanted escapism.  Because we knew without being told that comedy would keep us going until life returned to normal.

 

            Pain kills; laughter revives; and comedy reminds us that the gods are in charge and the world will right itself.  

 

            Let’s hear it for comedy.

 

When there’s no time left, you have to steal it!

New York, 2020. Tori’s world is falling apart. Between the pandemic and her parents’ divorce, what else could go wrong?

Plenty! Like discovering that a jewelry heist forty years ago sent her grandfather to jail and destroyed her family.

New York, 1980. Bobby’s life is pretty great—until a strange girl shows up in his apartment claiming to be a visitor from the future. Specifically, his future, which apparently stinks. Oh, and did she mention she’s his daughter?

Soon Bobby and Tori have joined forces to save the mystical gemstone at the heart of all their troubles. But a gang of thugs wants it too, and they’re not about to let a couple of teenagers get in their way.

 

 

 

 

 

Optimistic or pessimistic, and can that be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

 HALLIE EPHRON: Last week the Boston Globe ran a piece about a Harvard study that came to the conclusion: "Women who are optimistic tend to live longer" (though as further reading indicates, researchers are "not exactly sure why.")

Here's the conclusion: "The 25 percent of women who were most optimistic were likely to have a 5.4 percent longer lifespan — or an average of about 4.4 years more — and a 10 percent greater likelihood of living beyond 90 than the 25 percent who were the least optimistic, the study said.

The difference between the lifespan of optimists and pessimists persists, the researchers say, across different ethnic and racial groups.

That got me thinking: am I an optimist or a pessimist?

When I was pregnant I imagined all kinds of terrible scenarios because, I told myself, "that way I can't be disappointed." When I've applied for something or been up for an award, I tell myself that I won't get it so I can say "Told you so" when I don't.

I’m sure traffic will be terrible so I get to the airport hours early. I’m always sure that if I have a medical procedure something will go wrong... I think a psychologist would call me “well defended.”

On the other hand, if something is hard to do and I want to do it, I assume I can if I keep at it.

Questions on a test like the Harvard questionnaire ask you to rate (agree to disagree) with statements like:

So, do you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist, and do you think it's possible that lifespan is nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy?

JENN McKINLAY: I’m annoyingly optimistic.

It’s not that I don’t worry or have stress or get angry. I do all of those things. It’s just that I can usually talk myself out of expecting negative outcomes fairly quickly. When the Hooligans were hitting the stressful teen years, we made a habit of giving our worries and anxieties over to the universe because worrying really doesn’t do anything to help the situation.

Now that they’re older, when I start to spin out, the Hooligans remind me to let go of the worry, stress, or anger - because why suffer twice? Always nice to have your own words thrown back at you :) LOL.

I love this quote:

RHYS BOWEN: I think I was an optimist before the last dreadful years. During Covid the underlying fear influenced my life. Let’s say I’m cautiously optimistic. That doesn’t mean I’m not a worrier— the mom who sat by the window until her kids got home, imagining cars going into ditches.

When it comes to awards I’m thrilled if I win but genuinely thrilled for others if I lose. And I have amazing parking karma. A spot always opens up for me. I think I believe the best of people, that love should conquer hate… at least most of the time. Don’t ask me this right after the Jan 6 hearings

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Hmm. This is very complicated. I think I am an “eventual optimist.” In uncertain times I usually expect the best.

>>Ah, I’d say, I expect the best will happen eventually. Covid, the stock market, ketchup on the walls. But in the instant moment I do expect the WORST possible thing, but followed soon after by okayness.

If something can go wrong for me, it will.
>>Well, I deal with that by worrying. Er, I mean, planning. For every possible eventuality. Then when none of that happens but something else does, I have band width. But in my heart of hearts, I think things will be fine. Eventually.

I don’t get upset too easily.
>>It totally depends. I can INSTANTLY be upset when it’s called for, but it’s not usually my go-to reaction. And if it is, I can get pretty un-upset very quickly.. Sometimes even say to myself–next week, I will have forgotten this. So why not forget it NOW? Sometimes I say–next week, I will laugh about this–so why not laugh sooner?

Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me than bad.

>>Yes. I will admit that, and then knock on wood and throw salt and deny it.

LUCY BURDETTE: I do love that poem Jenn!

I would agree with cautious optimism. I do get discouraged, especially over the past few years with Covid and politics running wild. Even during the pandemic though, I was able to convince myself that there were big brains working on the problem and somehow we’d get out of it. (Which turned out to be partially true–all those amazing vaccines in such a short time!)

With the crazy politics, I can’t help thinking that most people will see the reasonable path, the reasonable compromise. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, I’m *fairly* good at compartmentalizing the bad stuff so I don’t get frozen. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I fall into the ridiculously optimistic camp. I always tend to think the absolute best of people, and even when I've been disappointed, it hasn't carried on to other relationships. 

Which isn't to say I don't realistically see bad things coming. At the very beginning of February 2020, I had a family sit-down and said, "This is like the first scenes of every disaster movie I've every seen, right up to the 'ominous news from distant lands' playing on the TV in the background. We need to prepare now." But I didn't panic, and I didn't assume the world was going to end and we'd all be eaten by zombies. 

One of the benefits of optimism is when dire events happen - you lose your job, the car dies, there are unexpected medical issues - you're more likely to focus on what you can actively do to ameliorate the problem, and eventually overcome it. Pessimists are the folks who sit down and wait for the zombies to get them.

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  What a timely post, Hallie, when it seems like there's a new bombardment of bad news every day. I've always considered myself an optimist, but I have to admit that the last few years have tarnished that side of the coin a bit. In challenging times, being an optimist takes more conscious effort and I'm determined to make it. Get out that gratitude journal, seek out the good news! And when things feel really overwhelming, read a book!

HALLIE: So what about you? Optimist? Pessimist? Hedging your bets and compartmentalizing to get through the day? 

Let's Get Resilient!

photo by bottled_void

LUCY BURDETTE: I like to read the Tuesday Science section in the New York Times (not as much as the Wednesday Dining section, but that’s another story.) The articles remind me of those I used to read in women’s magazines—chock full of interesting facts about exercise, diet, new scientific and medical discoveries in health, etc. This past week an article about cultivating resilience caught my eye. It maintained that people in middle age may be better at resilience because we’ve had lots of chances to practice. And most important, it’s a skill that can be learned. Their tips included practicing optimism, questioning the life story you tell yourself and replacing it with a more positive version, not blaming yourself completely for bad outcomes, remembering times when you bounced back from something hard, supporting others, taking stress breaks with activities that feed you emotionally, and not avoiding challenging and stressful situations—they help you build your resilience muscles!

One of my biggest health challenges over the past few years was discovering I had Meniere’s disease. Here’s a post from 2015 that I went back to look at. My conclusion at that point was that I needed to look at the problem as a challenge, rather than an impossible hurdle. I do think that helped!

Do these suggestions sound right to you? 

Money by Thomas's Pics

RHYS BOWEN: I think these are great suggestions, Lucy. In recent years I have found I am less stressed, more optimistic. I have to say in part this is due to being financially secure. There is nothing more worrying than knowing college tuition is due and you have no idea how you are going to pay it. But having paid off our mortgage and my books doing quite nicely that worry is gone. Also I find I am practicing positive thinking much more. I am able to ask "What's the worst thing that could happen?" and then think that I could handle that. But health issues... they are worrying. I was really stressed about John's condition and surgery earlier this year and I worry about my daughter's bad migraines. No good answer to tell myself about those. But things like flights being late, missing connections: annoying but I can find the positives in them. More time to work at the airport!

JENN MCKINLAY: Rhys, I am the exact same way with the minor inconveniences like delayed flights or long lines. I always look at it as an opportunity to study my fellow man, write, or stare off at the horizon and give my eyes a break from screens. I do think I'm resilient -- no one can receive as many rejections as I did for writing and not have the hide of a rhinoceros. LOL. When the hooligans were born, I did go into a panic, thinking the parenting thing was beyond me and that I was going to muck it up. I worried about everything from the quality of the water they drank to who they might partner with in life. It was exhausting and really sucked the joy out of parenting. Then I found a book called Happiness is a Choice by Barry Neil Kaufman and it really spun my head around about the pointlessness of worrying and how to master my emotions and choose positivity. I highly recommend it!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: And I think flight delays and traffic jams and robo calls--very first world problems, right?  We're so lucky to get to deal with those!  Something truly terrifying--being sick, or a family member being sick, or being..in grief, I guess--is much more difficult. So yeah, we do the best we can. I count blessings, look for the bright side, choose happiness. And it seems as if we are all learning this! As the challenge/disappointment/fear/change increases though, then we are tested. Lucy, you are a stalwart! Each of the Reds, I know, has faced some really tough stuff. I guess we have a choice: handle it, or not. One step at a time.

INGRID THOFT: I second Jenn’s point that you need to have a certain degree of resiliency to survive as a writer.  Rejection is just part of the deal, and if you can’t manage it, writing is probably not the right path to take.  Someone once asked my mom what she most hoped for her kids, and she said, “good coping skills” i.e. resiliency. The questioner was surprised; didn’t she want them to be happy or rich or successful?  Of course, she responded, but bad things happen, and if you can’t manage those inevitabilities, than happiness, success, and wealth will be much harder to attain.  I think she’s right.  There are two concepts I try to keep in mind as I navigate life’s challenges.  The first is, “this too shall pass.”  The next is the first Noble Truth of Buddhism, that “all life is suffering.”  Accepting that life can be difficult and that that is its very nature is a useful reminder when life is throwing curve balls.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Ingrid, I love "good coping skills!" I hope I can pass that example along to my daughter. I've never really thought of myself as being resilient, but it occurs to me that I know people who let the slightest setback throw them into a pit of despair, and that that attitude really tries my patience. My response is, "Well, just do it again," or "Try something else!" I know my dad struggled with depression for many years and that he made a very deliberate choice to have a positive outlook on life, and that I admire enormously. I hope I can mostly do the same. (My agent jokes--sort of--about my eternal optimism on the speed of writing. My response is, "Well, I do always finish the book, don't I?"

As for the small things, I don't get upset about traffic jams or waits in airports, etc., etc. Why get your knickers in a twist over things you can't change? And if you are stuck somewhere, it is always a chance to read or write (or take a nap!)

Reds, do you consider yourself resilient? What tips would you share?

On Hope

Flamingo feather from La Camargue, France

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
    *Emily Dickenson

 

LUCY BURDETTE: One of the remarkable things we saw on our vacation last month were these locks, attached to two bridges that cross the Seine River in Paris. The legend goes that lovers write their names on the lock (or sometimes make another kind of wish), then snap them onto the fence along the bridge and throw away the key. 

    Which reminded me of seeing Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree project in the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York several years ago. Here were the instructions: “Make a wish. Write it down on a piece of paper. Fold it and tie it around a branch of the wish tree. Ask your friend to do the same. Keep wishing.”

    We did not add a lock to the bridge, but I definitely added a paper to the wishing tree. And I say prayers when I remember. And I cross my fingers and knock wood when I need to.

    



Last week, I came across another interesting article in one of my professional psychology magazines. The subject was research on hopefulness, as distinguished from optimism (a general feeling that good things will happen) and wishing. “Hope is different because it has to do with facing reality,” says Jon G. Allen, PhD, a senior staff psychologist at The Menninger Clinic. “As I see it, hope is motivation to stay in the game.” He went on to explain the three important components of hope: optimism, social support, and setting goals. 


    
I think I’m a pretty hopeful person, though realistic too. I hope like heck my next book will make it to the New York Times bestseller list (right after Julia’s!), but I’m not sitting around waiting for it to happen. And I’m thinking of a plan in case it doesn’t...But most important of all, I’ve surrounded myself with positive, supportive people--starting with the Jungle Reds!

    How about you guys? Hopeful? Any special tips for keeping that state of mind going?

And PS, after writing this, I heard the news about the disaster in the Philippines. Those folks really need some hope right now. Here are a few places where you can donate money and feel confident that it will get where it's needed: the United Church of Christ, the Red Cross,  Doctors without Borders.