What's So Funny?

Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.

Lawrence Durrell
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What constitutes being a genius? What are the qualifications? You can take a Mensa test and pass it. You can have your IQ measured. You can out think and out talk your friends. You can flash your Phi Beta Kappa key across the over stuffed vest of your three piece suit. And you can brag to yourself about how intelligent you are. But do any of those things qualify you as a genius? On the other hand if you can make a healthy patch of squash grow where no one else could you may have the right to the title.

Einstein said he wasn't a genius but that he was just very curious. And he had a good sense of humor.

It took me many years before I was able to look at myself with a comedian's eye. I got offended when friends laughed at the things I said and did which I considered important and serious. They told me I was too sensitive. They were being kind, although I didn't realize it. But eventually the subjective gave way to the objective and I was able to see the clown's nose on my face. Then I was on the door step of seeing how humorous the world is and particularly the human race. We can smirk at the antics of babies and some animals but to really get that down in the rib cage laugh we have to see an adult human acting like an idiot. Things we do are worthy of a good French farce or a Neil Simon comedy, and that's why they've been written.

In theatre, one of the definitions of farce is " a passion carried to a ridiculous extreme." Even after the awakening to my own foolishness I would sometimes get caught up in such a passion. I could say to myself "Come one, DB, you're being ridiculous." But I knew the farce had to play itself out and that one day the "comedia" would be "finite" and I could then laugh at myself for it.

Now I get to laugh at the self-important antics of our politicians and TV personalities. Who's wearing the clown's nose today and at whom is she or he thumbing it? It's very entertaining. I once queried if the Congress was ever going to be comprised of grown ups. But the fact is they are all grown ups. That's what makes them so funny. Are there any geniuses in the group? It's hard to tell considering the muddy playing field they're on. But mud wrestling has always been an amusement for some.

So what constitutes a genius? I don't know, but a very curious, intelligent person with a sense of humor gets my vote.

DB - The Vagabond
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AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

5 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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On The High Ground

Since when was genius found respectable?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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There are no easy steps along the rocks of the high mountain pass where few or none have been before and those who tread that rarified and lofty atmosphere may be envied by those below but they are seldom trusted.

If you would be accepted, respected and embraced by the hum drum, predictable opinions of the even, unruffled society you see around you then don't be original, innovative, experimental and adventuresome. And heaven forbid you should sprout wings and fly. If they catch you airborne the rifles will quickly come off the shoulders and take aim. And after you've gone to "the undiscovered country" they will make a trophy of you, admire you, posthumously publish your works and erect a memorial to you n the park.

Those who step out on the dangerous promontories of art, science and philosophy can only survive if they have a sense of humor. Horatio Nelson said "I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humor." When Auguste Rodin created his statue of Balzac he would have known he was breaking all sorts of rules. He must have had a big smile on his face.

I have always admired my, and more profoundly, other people's unorthodox ways of doing things. I was the principle player in a musical one year and had a solo dance. I'm not much of a dancer but the choreographer was notably uninterested in helping me. She just wanted to stage the ensemble numbers and didn't think my dance was important even though it was the only solo dance in the show. She had given me a few basic steps and I tried to expand them into something interesting but was having a hard time with it. In musical theatre there is someone known as the Dance Captain. That person is like the shop steward for the corps dancers. Since I was a principle I didn't come under his jurisdiction. But he had seen me struggling with my dance.

We had a few preview performances after which the choreographer left. I went to the Dance Captain and asked him if he could help me. He said "Sure." We had a tape of the music, played it and he began. Taking the steps the choreographer had given me and starting me out on what I thought was the wrong foot, he untied the knot I had made for myself and redesigned the dance. In five minutes I had a dance that was colorful, vigorous, authentic, fit what the orchestra did and which I enjoyed doing. I said "Sam, you're a genius." He didn't reply, he just grinned.

I had to go to court on a stupid matter and after several appearances in front of several judges nothing was decided. I needed an attorney but couldn't afford one. A friend recommended a lawyer who was willing to take the case for a pittance. We went in to court where he came up with a totally unorthodox solution which no one had thought of but which pleased everybody and I walked out of there with a decision in my favor. I said "Herb, you're a genius." He said "You think that was good? You should see me with a jury." I never did, unfortunately. I'll bet he was brilliant.

I've known a sparse few geniuses in my life, I wish I knew more. I would find them respectable even if they aren't.

DB - The Vagabond
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AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

2 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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Why Didn't I Think Of that

Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Arthur Schopenhauer
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When I was studying art I took a drawing class for a year from a great teacher named Marshall Glazier. Mr. Glazier was not an old curmudgeon, but he liked to pretend he was for the amusement of himself and others. He would come into the class room after the class had begun saying in his gravelly voice "All right, all right, what's going on in here?"

One day he came in and said "What's the difference between genius and talent?" One person said Mozart and Salieri. Another one said Bernstein and Bacharach. He said "Yeah, those are good. Now I'll tell so that you'll know, A man of talent does what he can, a genius does what he MUST."

"Oh, that's good"someone said.

Glazier said "You think that's good? I got it out of a fortune cookie."
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One definition of a genius is someone who can do something extremely difficult extraordinarily well and make it look simple. I think we all can have moments of genius. No one is a genius 24 hours a day. It is said the Albert Einstein sometimes couldn't remember if he had lunch or not and forgot where he was going.

A genius is one who comes to a solution no one else thought of and perhaps could not have thought of. When Mozart went wandering in the forest of music the trees and bushes stepped aside for him.

A genius is one who does something that can't be done. There is no way man can fly. But now we fly thanks to a couple of bicycle mechanics. We now have the benefits of the International Space Station, the Hubble Telescope, the shuttle crafts and the Soyuz vehicles thanks to the work of some far seeing geniuses who saw what others could not see and made amazing things happen.

The first step on the road to personal genius is to dismiss the idea that something can't be done, That's a lesson that took me years to learn. I pass it on to you free of charge. Once the "can't be done" is thrown out in the trash whatever it is is going to be done. The next step is the "How" factor and that means observation and imagination, followed by persistence, setting up theories and testing them, until finally the light bulb stays on and the plane stays up.

Never say "I'm not a genius" because you might be at least once in your life and probably more than once.

DB - The Vagabond
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WEEKEND PUZZLE
So you didn't care for last week's Who Done It?
All right, try this one.

FINISH THIS STORY.

It was an early September in the afternoon. The sky was darkening and a storm was threatened. But Dick and Jane needed to reach the other side of the lake. So they got into their canoe with two bags of groceries and Maxine, their Chihuahua. They began paddling across the lake and everything was going well until....

Grand prize goes to the one who gives me the best continuation of this story.

Good luck.
DB
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I'm The Dope

I am a part of all I have read.

John Kieran
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It's a very difficult thing being a genius. The genius mind must be probed to deep levels and airy heights. A genius observes that which is generally accepted as the truth and reorganizes it. A genius's imagination forms the impassible and brings it into reality. The genius designs things that can never be and puts them to work. Everything a genius says or does is laughed at by the rest of the world. It's tough being a genius.

It's not all that difficult being an intellectual. An intellectual is one who reads and observes as much as he can and tries to understand it. The intellectual leaves the unknown to the genius. Like the genius, the intellectual is a thinking person, but his thoughts tend to come out of what he has read of other people's thoughts and words.
While the genius may not concern himself with the op ed pieces in the newspaper because he already knows more about it than the editors, the intellectual knows what's in the paper just as he knows what's on his cereal box, because he reads everything.

The easiest thing in the world to be is a dope. The dope is the man who tries to put together the backyard barbecue without reading and pandering the directions. You can recognize the dope. He's the one punching out the high school baseball referee for calling his son out when he clearly was. He's the one cutting the grass with his loud motorized lawn mower at 2 a.m.

The genius,
The intellectual.
The dope,
None of the above.
Which one are you?

DB - The Vagabond
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WEEKEND TEST
(This is your last chance. If I don't get any entries on this one, there'll be no more weekend tests. You will have to fend (whatever that means) for yourselves.)

You are to fill in the blanks. It may take some General Research, but that's okay.

Get busy.

1. T___ L___
2. D___ H___
3. U T___
4. K___ W___
5. J___ P___ d___ C___
6. B___ B___-G___
7. K___ A___
8. B___ K___-m___

Good luck.
DB
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Genius

This quote comes from my friend Stuart, the actor.

What is the secret of poetry? What is the secret of music, painting,
or any of the other arts? You might as well ask me what is genius.
In my opinion acting is altogether due to soul. The man who feels,
who aspires, who wanders in thought from this world and mingles with
the higher intelligences has a soul that lends itself to artistic
effort; in short, he is a genius. He may be a poet, a painter or an
actor...

-James O'Neill

Absorbing Ability 9/14/09

Much deep thinking makes me sleepy.

DB - The Vagabond
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Step this way.
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Beth says that some of the things I write make her brain hurt. I can relate to that. I'm very familiar with the pain in the brain. I have found that many complicated problems can, if not be solved, at least be eased by a good nap. And yet I knew someone who carried sleeping a big step further and actually solved complicated problems in his sleep.

This is about one of the most interesting people I've ever been blessed to know, a college roommate named John. I don't know all the facts about John's life but for the few years I knew him I got to experience the activities of an eccentric genius.

He came to college knowing three languages and became a classical studies major. He graduated in 3 years. He quickly mastered Greek and Latin, He memorized and recited ancient poetry at great length. He went through all the courses of the Classics Department in 2 years and took on special translation assignments.

In the meantime he mastered everything else he set his mind to. He was an actor in the Drama Department productions. He fulfilled his science requirement in his second year by taking an advanced mathematics course. When he was a teenager he had made the money for his college education by playing pool. During one summer he took a job selling encyclopedias, sold his allotted number by midsummer, sold the one he was given as a bonus, then sold magazine subscriptions door to door.

He fulfilled his Phys Ed requirement in his final year by learning tennis.

Besides his knowledge of languages and all the other things he did he could talk at length about world history and he was knowledgable opera lover.

But John had one major flaw. Once asleep it was impossible to wake him up until he decided to wake up. I got a phone call for him one day while he was napping. No amount of shaking him or pounding his head on the pillow would do it. He bought an alarm clock with two bells on the top of it and a hammer that went back and forth striking them. It would ring until it ran out of power. He tried mounting it on a pie tin to increase the sound. The whole contraption slid off his desk and crashed to the floor. He never heard it.

What was worse was that he was a sleep walker. He would start talking in his sleep, or appear out of his room and start doing things. You could swear he was awake. But he didn't respond to anyone. He might start doing things and then stop and go back to bed. One day he came out, fully dressed, lit up a cigarette, turned on the shower, got into it, stepped back out, turning it off, placed the soaking wet cigarette carefully in an ash tray and went back to bed, sound asleep the whole time.

But the brain didn't stop when he was asleep. One night I saw that his light was still on after he had gone to sleep. I went in to turn it off. He sat up in bed and started dictating a mathematical problem and its solution. I wrote it down on his pad and when he was finished his head went back down on the pillow, he never woke up. In the morning he was puzzled to find the math written out and thought I had done it.

I and his other roommates got used to him and his odd behavior. But one day he got married. She was a simple girl, a dairy farmer's daughter, but she knew just what buttons to push and chains to pull, and from then on when it was time for John to be up and awake he was up and awake.

DB
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May you have a joyful week.
__________________
SUMMER QUIZ

This is not a contest.



A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.



Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?



You have all summer to answer if you wish.

21 responses so far.



DB

Zenith Zeal 6/22/09

A genius is one who sees what is not yet and causes it to come to be.

Peter Zarlenga
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Welcome.
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Question: What do the space shuttle, the 747, a blimp, a hot air balloon, a mountain climber, a tight rope walker, a pole vaulter and a good thinker have in common?

Answer: They all overcome gravity.

.......................................................................

We all daydream. A genius is one who takes his daydreams seriously. All the great and important things that have come to be have all started with thought. Not just any kind of thought, but the thought that reaches out beyond the established limits of what we suppose reality is made of. Not the downbeat thinking Loretta Young spoke of in my last entry. We dream of things that are not possible. We laugh at the absurd ideas that crop up in the free floating mind. And if, by chance, we perceive that there may be a remote possibility that what we dream of may someday become a reality, we turn the whole project over to the mysterious "They." "Someday they may figure out how to do so-and-so." Meanwhile the genius isn't content with waiting for "They," he becomes the "They" in question.

We are all capable of genius on one level or another. The "down beat" thinking that most of us engage in sometimes is one of the worst culprits in the world. It's the voice that says things can't be done, are impossible, against the laws of nature and morally wrong. "If God had meant us to fly he would have given us wings."

I'm an artist, and I know that an artist is also one who takes his daydreams seriously. Sometimes, when I view or hear the work of another artist I'm fascinated to think at what point the artist was in his life when the idea first occurred to him to try to create such a thing. I am equally fascinated by where my own ides come from.

I wonder the same about the great inventions of the world; some are magnificent, like the space shuttle, some are mundane, like the can opener, And yet they are all fingers pointing to the sign that reads "Genius At Work."

DB - Vagabond Journeys
__________________
Do a little summer dance today. Just a couple of steps will do.
********************

SUMMER QUIZ

This is not a contest.


A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.


Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly at 88 million dollars what are the first three things you would do with it?


dbdacoba@aol.com

http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/

Dangerous Degradation 5/31/09

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Arthur Conan Doyle
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I beseech thee, join me.
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One of the worst forms of imprisonment, in my opinion, is to be stuck in surroundings that offer nothing but old, worn out, inane and recycled ways of thinking. We that live all deserve to be always in the presence of inspiration, curiosoty and appreciation of the best. Why aren't we?

The typhoons of life rock the boat so severely that the desperate wish is to be calm in the water. That's normal. And it's a great relief when the storm is over. That's when the trouble starts. Rather than risk another storm we put into a safe harbor and stay there, never venturing out to taste the joys of the journey. Not facing and surviving the storms of life we have no idea what we are capable of. Not using the opportunities we can be given we never express our own talents to ourselves. The talents get buried under the ground like pathetic seeds and what grows out is mediocrity.

One of my art teachers, Marshall Glazier, an inspiring and humorous old curmudgeon, came into class one day and said "What's the difference between talent and genius?" A few people offered various opinions and Glazier finally said "Alright I'll tell you so that you'll know. A man of talent does what he can. A genius does what he MUST." Someone said "That's very good." Glazier said "You think that's good? I got it out of a fortune cookie."

I'm no genius, but I am a man of talent (at least that's what they paid me for for 50 years). It's a dangerous and scary thing to live off of your talent, but it is much more dangerous not to. Because I was out there in the storm I did recognize genius when I saw it. I even had the chance to work close to it a few times. If you do that once or twice you begin to recognize the spider web of mediocrity that you can get tangled up in if you're not careful.

"How you gonna' keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paris?" goes the old song. Dig up your talent if you buried it somewhere, use it, even if it's just a simple gift for crafting something and as soon as you see that it pleases people and moves you, you will start thinking about how to do it better or what to do next, you will be noticing how the geniuses do it, and part time or full time, congratulations, you're an artist and there is nothing mediocre about you.

Even if your talents lie in other non-artistic directions, the same rules apply. Trade in the old safe but worn out ideas about yourself and go for some risky rewards.

DB
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Make it a happy day for somebody.
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Kindling Knack 4/15/09

Genius is the talent for discovering what cannot be taught or learned.

Immanuel Kant
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Hi. Government got your money?
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Einstein once said he wasn't a genius but that he was just very curious. I don't know but I guess curiosity is behind all endeavors that transcend what people seem to know. It has been said that education begins the moment you leave school. That's when you start to find out some of your teachers knew what they were talking about, some of them knew some of the time and others never did know. Leaving school and going out into the real world requires shedding a lot of skins.

In my own career I have seen young people come into professional theatre fresh from some drama department or school of the arts with the stupidest ideas as to what acting is all about and what actually goes on in a professional theatre. It's painful to see them struggle to let go of what their favorite professor taught them to do. But letting go of useless training is essential to finding one's way in any important endeavor.

There are theories, there are practices and then there are discoveries. Theories are like rule books, written or compiled by somebody along the way. They generally say that if you put this with that then the other thing is going to happen. Some of these rules are good, others are not. One has to decide for oneself. And that's where the practice comes in.

I know actors who act by the numbers, as the saying goes, who think they know how any given scene should be played based on similar scenes of the past. If they have a love scene they will perform a generic love scene with no love in it, a rule book love scene. No risks taken, nothing learned.

Then how do discoveries come about? By asking questions. By curiosity. By saying "I wonder what would happen if I tried attaching a flat piece of wood to the bottom of the ship with a handle on it. Maybe I can steer it that way and I wouldn't have keep moving the sails back and forth by hand."

In short, geniuses are curious people who put the rule books aside, imagine, think things through, try them out and keep trying until they work.

Maybe you qualify as a genius but don't know it yet.

DB
____________________
Have another one on me.
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