On Laughter and Allie Brosh's Solutions and Other Problems

If there is such a thing as love at first sight, I have probably only experienced it with someone I have never met. That someone is Allie Brosh.

I don't know exactly when I first encountered the great love of my life, but "The Alot is Better Than You at Everything" was published in April 2010, so let's pretend I do remember, and that it was around then. Because, you see, I love the alot. Alot. The alot has hung on my office door in four different jobs. My children have grown up with the alot.

Allie Brosh climbed into my life via her blog Hyperbole and a Half, and her book of the same name is a family favorite. (That nugget of information tells you perhaps too much about my parenting. Alas). After a long silence, Brosh released Solutions and Other Problems in September, and if you missed it, and if you like to feel ALL THE THINGS, you should probably read this book.

Like all of Brosh's work, the new book combines her signature digital art with commentary that can only be described as devastating. That devastation often comes via hilarious observations and descriptions like that granted to "Neighbor Kid." Brosh writes,

I can't leave my apartment unless I figure out how to deal with her. She gets up at 5 in the morning and hangs out directly in front of my door like a bridge troll --- all who wish to pass must answer her riddles, and the only riddle she knows is Do you want to see my room?

All good comedians know that humor is born out of an unexpected take on the familiar, and Brosh is an excellent comedian. As soon as I read this paragraph, I realized I knew this kid. Perhaps we all know this kid. Perhaps we were this kid. Regardless, she is utterly familiar and utterly hysterical. By the time I reached the end of this story, which recurs occasionally throughout the book, I was literally weeping tears of laughter.

This happens to me. When I am really amused, laughing really hard, I can't just chuckle. It is a full body experience, and liquid starts to escape from my face. It doesn't matter what part of my face, and the liquid might take many forms (snot, saliva, tears), but if I'm really laughing, it is going to happen. I think I'm not alone here, and I think it is because the emotional core of joy is strikingly similar to the emotional core of sorrow. Believe me when I tell you no one understands that better than Brosh.

At some point during her long hiatus from the world, Brosh made some brief statements that alluded to the fragility of her mental health. So when Brosh describes her depression (in the chapter titled "Losing"), I was ready. It is still hard, of course, but Brosh does for this discussion the same thing she does with neighbor kid. She makes it utterly real and true and right. For those seeking an understanding of depression, this chapter should be required reading. But then, at the close of that chapter, she indicates we're about to get into "the serious part." And despite her warnings and preparations, I wasn't ready.

The serious part comes on suddenly, and just like that, those tears of laughter are tears of sorrow. Brosh walks into the reality of loss and grief. She sees it and shows it unflinchingly. It is powerful. But please don't think that this book should be taken seriously only because of the serious stuff. To write (and draw!) humor well is just as rare and just as valuable a gift as to speak the truth about pain. Because they come from the same place. We carry the devastatingly sad things in our past into our present, where eventually, things are funny again.

Brosh does the same here. After The Serious Part, she introduces the pile dog, and oh-so-accurately describes the disorienting rage we can feel at inanimate objects, and details the story of how a failed guided meditation led her to increasingly awkward interactions with a stranger, and the reader laughs and laughs and also knows that Allie Brosh is a person who has been broken by things in her life and is doing her best.

Just like all of us.

On Sundays, We Read Poetry

Each Sunday, I post a brief introduction to a collection of poetry I've been loving. I include one poem that I think really sings. No review. No need. If it's here, you'll know I recommend it. If you have one to recommend (yours or someone else's), send it along. I'll do my best to be here every Sunday.

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I've been reading A. R. Ammons since December 6th. That's the date in 1963 when he began typing a long poem on a roll of adding-machine tape. It was experimental and somewhat odd, but the effect -- Tape for the Turn of the Year -- is a book-length poem full of quotidian observations and unexpected insights.

Here's an example:

acquiescence, acceptance:

the silent passage into

the stream, going along,

not holding back:

I try to transfigure these

days

so you'll want to keep

them:

come back to them: from

where?

from the running honey

of reality & life?

come back:

I hold these days aloft,

empty boxes

you can exist in: but

when you live in them

you hurry out of your own

life:

if my meaning is

to befriend you

must I turn you

away?

January 10 was the day the tape ran out and Ammons finished his poem. I've been reading along, each day's entry read on the day it was written, so I, too, finished today. Fitting that it be on a Sunday.

Though it was originally posted back in November, I saw this tweet today, and while I don't begrudge those who find other versions of Sunday more compelling, I think we would all do well to make a little more room for this option.

Just before I started the Ammons poem, I decided to embark on my own experimental and odd venture, an digital-age homage to his great effort. Mine took place on twitter, a few tweets each day, limited in scope and structure just as Ammons was. I haven't yet revised or edited the errors, but here are a few excerpts:

from 23 Dec:

what does it look like

to choose the side of

possibility?

to glance over the shoulder

of God:

to want endlessly

and without warning:

I choose today

the solemnity of milk,

the stern apology

of a cat’s tongue,

the sleek head of an

unexpected

otter

& her warning whisper:

from 5 Jan:

language is my proving

ground, that stage on which

I strut & fret:

but what to do

when the idea

outstrips the word?

what name for a group of

angry footfalls?

what to call

a nest built of

berry &

starshine?

the soliloquy grows

threadbare, outrageous:

the slings & daggers

of survival arise:

skyhoney words

in mellifluous sin:

tattoo-parlor love

on the back

church pew:

shots fired & ballots

mailed:

story is accounting,

a gathering of neighbors:

despite all my misgivings,

all evidence to the

contrary: still

I hope:

and the final stanzas from today:

somewhere

nearby

a mockingbird is making

his Sunday offering,

the plate

passed

sermon

preached

and now a hymn

of rebuke

& forgiveness

blistered

with sunlight

blinking,

we emerge

from life

to life:

I can't remember the last time

I took communion,

the last time

I sat in

congregated

wealth

and

white

privilege:

I can't remember what

drew me there

or why now I turn away:

I once was a child

raised up

in the light:

the Sabbath

remains a sacred

space, even as

I recognize

the anagrammed

reality:

scared:

how much of my faith

has grown of my fear?

how much now can come

from turning:

the year has been

born again

& we each resolve

afresh

even in our failure:

for me:

the soil

the page

the tables:

abolition over absolution

submission to the

wisdom of elder

oaks, switchgrasses,

& jays:

infinitude of beauty:

vacancy of worth:

I've given

you my

emptiness:

how does one come

home:

I include these meager efforts because this silly exercise reminded me of something that Marilynne Robinson asserted in Home:

People have always made poetry, she told them. Trust that it will matter to you.

Those who observe the Sabbath see it as a setting apart. It is an act of trust that returning again and again to a practice sets it apart from the ordinariness of everyday. And in so trusting, we are reminded that it matters.