4 september 2019 | r
fromtop:^rastar/kobal/shutterstock.glenn^glasserDEAR READER
Reader’s Digest
I
am not a funny person, but I am
very good at half of humor. When I
die, I wouldn’t mind if my epitaph
said, He sure knew how to laugh.
As a kid, I laughed at my two older
brothers’ gags and sealed my bond
with friends via my loud honk at in-
side jokes. I’ve been a serious fan of
comedy since I was a teenager, when
I actually saw Richard Pryor perform
live. Today, I take in as many Netflix
specials as I can find.
I’ll laugh at anything. Case in point:
My friend Karl wrote me an e-mail.
His wife was about to miss a party his
parents were throwing for him—she’d
decided to run in the Bay to Breakers
race in San Francisco instead. “Imag-
ine taking up running again just to get
out of seeing your in-laws,” he wrote.
I laughed out loud at that. Karl is just
very funny.so elegantly funny.Laughs Ahead
upon a video of a mumbly southern
comic, Nate Bargatze, whom no one
seems to know. That didn’t stop me
from guffawing as he described the
church basketball of his youth.
“They didn’t even give you a bas-
ketball,” he said. “We would just stand
there and play on honesty. You’d be
like, ‘I just made it.’ ‘Yeah, that was a
good shot—you’re really good.’ ‘I just
stole it.’ ‘I forgive you for stealing it.’
‘Moral points—counts later.’”
This issue’s Genius Special, on page
54, shows why absurdism is the core of
humor and laughing at it is good for theTo my family, friends, and comics like
Richard Pryor: Thank you for the laughs.