LEBOWITZ
I learned tricks, but being funny is like being tall. That is surely a thing that can’t be taught or learned. Either you’re funny or you’re not funny. You either see things in a funny way or you don’t. It’s a reflex action with me or anyone I’ve ever known who’s funny—whether funny conversationalists, stand-up comics, or funny writers. It’s a reflex, the way things strike you. Being funny in writing, especially in the essay form, which is so distilled, I learned certain tricks. I don’t think they would be of real value to anyone else.
Several years ago, someone asked me to talk to a class at Yale—a humor-writing class. To me this was the joke. Really, why not have a class on how to have blue eyes? If I was a parent and I found out that my child, on whom I was spending eight billion dollars a year sending to Yale, was taking a humor-writing class, I would be furious. I can’t imagine a more fraudulent activity than teaching a humor-writing class. Certainly those people should be in jail. I would like to arrest them personally.
My yard seems so yardy. Okay, well maybe I had a drink or two but the shrubbery seems aggressive.
