Who is Merry Andrew?

A.F. Bryan is a recovering anthropologist who enjoys chasing windmills, belittling mimes, wrestling giraffes, chasing his dreams with a pointy stick, reading, writing, plundering, pillaging, and remaining indifferent to the mysteries of the universe.

What’s He Like?

Introspective. Unrepentant and unapologetic bibliomaniac. Far too punctual. Maestro of misadventure. Artistic, when provoked. Visual learner. Simultaneously finds chimpanzees in business suits both humorous and deplorable. Frequently suffers from delusions of grandeur. Exasperated and agitated with conservatism. Prone to idealism. Finds gnomes amusing. Loud noises tend to startle him. Revels in the moments that he can make others laugh. Sunburns very easily. Views violence as a weakness and a marker of an underdeveloped mind. Has been to Heaven and Hell. Climbed Purgatory. Enjoys forests and mountains, not so keen on beaches. Finds dancing uncomfortable and intimidating, but it doesn’t stop him from doing a mean string dance. Was once stalked by a mime in South America. Convinced someone once to let him drive a zamboni. Excavated a 1200 year-old brewery, but found the drinks on tap unsatisfactory. Was nearly stranded on Lake Titicaca. Rode a camel in a forest of stone penises in Asia Minor. Never been to a Starbucks. Was almost mauled by a pack of dogs in the mountains of northern Peru. Located the crack of dawn and successfully caulked it. Finds it remarkable that everyone in Paris has a window overlooking the Eiffel Tower.

About the Site…

The Short Version:

 ”Getting the point of the joke is not the same as getting the point of joking.” (Hyers 1996: 13)

The Long Version:

 Much of the foundation upon which this website’s rickety and termite-gnawed scaffolding is resting upon owes its existence to ideas and arguments put forth by Conrad Hyers in his book, The Spirituality of Comedy: Comic Heroism in a Tragic World (Transaction, 1996).  In the book, Hyers presents a persuasive argument for a greater appreciation of and greater attention to comedy and the “comic spirit” in both academia and the world beyond the ivory tower.

His argument boils down to this: we have a cultural predisposition to conceptualize (and value) the world in tragic terms (as in Greek tragedies – the plays, not gastrointestinal disasters with gyros), a mode of thinking which emphasizes struggles between contradicting forces or values where the explicit goal is defeat and warrior-driven virtues like duty, stubborn determination, absolute devotion, and uncompromising dedication (i.e., extremism) are exalted.  Tragedy is dualistic in nature, neatly dividing the world into rigid (and often opposing) categories.  As such, the tragic spirit has pervasively shaped and skewed our individual and collective consciousness, coloring our common understanding of what constitutes heroism, and defining for us what is serious, valuable, and worthwhile in being human.  While these characteristics don’t make the tragic spirit necessarily or inherently bad, it isn’t difficult to predict that such an ideology, no matter how lofty the aspirations, can lead to destructive consequences.

Hyers is not so concerned with eliminating the tragic spirit as he is tempering the rigidity and extremism with its counterpart, comedy.  Thanks to centuries of tragic thinking, comedy has often been the object of a skewed view, regarded condescendingly as coarse, immature, and frivolous.  Often shunned or suppressed in various contexts as inappropriate, Hyers proves that the capacity for introducing a comic sensibility into any situation is a crucial endeavor, one that provides a different and valuable lens for examining life.  As a uniquely human gift, the comic sensibility helps us to better understand humanity. 

At the heart of comedy are the concepts of laughter, playfulness, childlikeness, empathy, generosity, and love.  But also central, are the notions of balance and equilibrium.  In this sense, comedy often acts as the great leveler on the playing field of human interaction, challenging cultural categories and discriminations as well as the vain hierarchies of relative worth we invent through moderation, suspension, or reversal.  Comedy revels in ambiguity and the muddiness of human nature, but it performs in this capacity with a spirit of inclusivity, flexibility, and accommodation that strive to defuse areas of tension with playfulness and game-like lightheartedness.  

Comedy, though it trades most often in the simple, common, and universal concerns of daily human life (often regarded as base or mundane), is nothing less than a resounding affirmation and celebration of life, a delighting in the fundamental joy of life itself.

It is in this spirit of comic sensibility that I hope to lend and cultivate a certain buoyancy of life here at Wit Cracker.  Succeed or fail, I hope at the very least to elicit enough smiles to get you coming back.  Because let’s be honest – existence is already fraught enough with seriousness.