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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-10-05, Page 5Jerry Lewis funny? Go figure Laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of reason with unreason. Jack Kroll Humour can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the scientific mind. E. B White Ever stop to think how strange a phenomenon is the common, garden variety laugh? Call it a chortle, a snicker, a guffaw, a whoop, a chuckle or a giggle, it sneaks up on you unawares and slam dunks you without warning. Suddenly, your belly is shaking, the comers of your lips are heading for their respective ears, and you are, whether you want to or not, laughing. But why? Trying to define exactly what is funny is like trying to braid a rope out of smoke. One man's Wayne is another man's Shuster. Some people think David Letterman is the funniest man on the planet. Others think he's a tiresome, nasty smart-ass. Some people love The Three Stooges. Others line up for Victor Borge. And the French? The French actually believe that Jerry S International Scene 1 1W By Raymond Canon Blueberries and Maine This summer I came across two articles. The first was about southern Ontario where thousands of workers from Mexico and the Caribbean spend a few weeks each summer harvesting the crops, because, in spite of the 10 per cent plus unemployment, there are not enough Canadians willing to do the work in the fields. This recalled an article which I had read earlier in the year about somewhat the same situation in the state of Maine, where similar thousands of workers from Mexico and as far away as Australia come to take part in the blueberry harvest. This crop, which pumps over $100 million in a slate which has been hit by high levels of unemployment, is something of a godsend to bolh workers and fanners. If 1 remember correctly, the land in Maine, which is suitable for the blueberries, spreads over into the Atlantic provinces where the largest supplier in Canada is located in lhe Annapolis valley in Nova Scolia. Bui back lo Maine. The blueberries there are not the cultivated sort, which are available in southern Ontario, but arc grown wild. This, I am told, has several advantages. They have a better flavour than their cultivated cousins and their smaller size makes them the delight of muffin and pancake mix producers because they not only hold their shape but permit the manufacturers lo claim more berries per product. As a result most of the crop is frozen or canned for lhe above mentioned producers. However, like the word "light", lhe use of "wild" to describe the blueberries ol Maine has taken on new meaning. Originally lhe fields in which the berries grew were gradually cleared ol trees and shrubs so that greater growth could be encouraged. However, during tjie past decade chemical Lewis is funny. More - they think he's a comedic genius. They've honoured him with the Gallic equivalent of a knighthood. The French look at his cross-eyed, knock-kneed, buck- toothed, half-witted screen persona and they fall in les aisles. ’ Go figure. Canadians? Il's hard to say exactly where Canadians fit in the Pantheon of Humour. We have Stephen Leacock of course. And there aren't too many funnier writers than W.O. Mitchell or Bill Kinsella when they put their jester's caps on. And of course we export a very high grade of comic artist. Rich Little, John Candy, Dan Akroyd, Dave Thomas, Martin Short, David Steinberg - Canucks to a man. But 'export' is the operative word. None of those comics got famous in Canada. They had to go south for certification. Maybe they should have gone to Japan. My spies tell me that a brand new religion is sweeping the Land of the Rising Sun. It's called Taisokyo. The only commandment in the Gospel according to Taisokyo is that you must laugh. At everything. That includes floods, fires, famine, bankruptcy, disease and traffic accidents. The two million Japanese to follow Taisokyo can be kicked out of the church for not laughing uproariously at death and disaster. farming has taken hold and in the Maine industry there is currently steady use being made of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides to increase yields. One of these, called Velpar, has been particularly successful, in fact, perhaps a bit too much so since its use in killing off weeds has seen the crop grow to 64,000,000 lbs., an amount which actually drove down the price. Another problem has arisen, one which may sound familiar to some of my readers. Velpar has shown up in the water supply of three schools and in two-thirds of all the wells that were tested. Since the area in which the berries are grown has the highest breast-cancer mortality rate in the state, some cancer patients arc wondering out loud if Velpar, along with dioxin produced by Maine paper producers, may be the major share of the responsibility for this high rale. Other possible side effects include the disappearance of clams from lhe areas where the Velpar tainted water runs out to sea, and soil erosion. Whether the weed-killer is banned will probably depend as much as anything on whether a definite health risk can be proven. On the other side of the coin, the blueberry growers say that lhe industry will be devastated if Velpar is banned. My interest in blueberries might have remained relatively academic if it were not for the fact that my oldest granddaughter, Leila, who is 12, discovered that her current income this summer was not enough to match her desired expenditure. Reasoning that having a grandfather as an economist should count for something, I looked around for some extra income for her and decided to set her up in the blueberry business. She proved lo be a willing worker and, by picking blueberries at a district patch, we managed lo sell enough lo net her Si 30. Included m the customers were two restaurants and one senior citizen home. She is already planning on bigger and belter things lor next year. Your typical Taisokyo funeral is not quite what you'd sec down al the local cathedral or synagogue either. Funeral guests come with cream pics to push in the faces of mourning family members. Says one Taisokyo disciple, "If we feel like it we draw a mustache on the face of the corpse and even set fire to the casket." I guess you have to be there... And then there's Britain's entry into the Humour Sweepstakes. His name is Magnus. He's a computer created by a team 20 computer engineers at Imperial College, in London. But Magnus is not your average battery­ run agglomeration of wire and plastic and silicon chip. The boffins who created Magnus claim to have built a 'neural- computer brain' very close to the one we all carry around on our shoulders. Magnus thinks, suffers emotions and even dabbles in free will, say his creators. Aha, but can Magnus take a joke? More to the point can Magnus tell a joke? Igor Aleksander, the engineer in charge, admits that Magnus is no, well, Charlie Farquharson. "If you ask Magnus to tell you a joke" he says, "it may say, 'Okay, here is a joke.’ Then it will say, 'Now can we get back to business?' " Yeah, well. The French would probably eat it up. While I was out in the patch, I chatted frequently with the owner about blueberries in general. He sprays his plants and says the benefits far outweigh the negatives. He cited the example of a nearby grower who specializes in organic berries (no spraying), and who has just been hit with a three-year quarantine because of some infection, which could have been prevented had he opted for the spraying. Such problems do not appear to have affected lhe Main growers where organic berries arc selling for about 30 cents a quart less than lhe sprayed variety. In lhe long run perhaps some spraying is necessary. Just as possible is the fact that there is loo much going on in Maine, not to mention elsewhere. Perhaps the current brouhaha in Maine will result in a more judicious use of sprays. Crops may not be quite as big but the potential harmful effects on society may be lessened. Letters Writer missed reunion THE EDITOR, Pleased to read about the reunion of former Blylh students and sorry I could not make it. I first heard of it through my sister Eileen and then Layton Bray, now living at Saluma Island, B.C. Sorry, none of us got there but I was happy lo gel a list of those who attended, from Jerry Augustine's wife, Maxine. I recognized quite a number of names. Hope it happens again, and I'll be there. Lois Robinson (lassie) Port Alberni, B.C. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1994. PAGE 5. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Life’s more relaxing when you don’t have one They say that life begins al 40. Well, if that's the case I've got to tell you it was a lol more relaxing when I didn't have a life. Il's no secret to most of us that a fact of this life is the little control we have over how we spend it. Demands of the job and family duty often dictate where we arc to be at given times. Juggling work and time with our children is a daily challenge, not lo mention trying to fit in the social obligations you absolutely can't get out of. This past week has been a very busy one in our household. In addition to my usual talents of fitting 20 hours of daily work and play into enough time so that I can have eight hours sleep at least one day of the week, I have also had to organize schedules with the intricacies of logarithms. I have often thought it would be a good idea to set up my home as a central command centre with schematic drawings hanging from our walls charting which car is travelling which direction. Al least four separate phone lines would be an asset and we could really use detailed agendas noting the whereabouts of each in our family of six, including departure times and ETAs. Unfortunately none of us has enough time to do them. I do pride myself on being an organized person; every aspect of my life, even the time for relaxing, is planned lo the minute. And therein perhaps lies my biggest problem. Throw one screw into the works and Wonder Mom is undone. I had been prepared for a less than perfectly orchestrated week. With family visiting from B.C., billeted in Stratford, I knew we would be spending a good deal of time in the car, probably as the whim struck. Saturday we had an anniversary parly in Stratford to attend and just to make it interesting a son stranded in Kitchener. This past week also included three meals out, two meals missed and seven guests expected for Sunday dinner al noon. Oh, yeah, and a son who needed a ride back to Kitchener. So now it's Monday afternoon and I’m finding it difficult to stay awake. My mind is frazzled by images of dirty bathrooms and truckloads of laundry in various stages of done. I feel guilty that my weekend slipped past without my children getting my undivided attention and just a little selfishly put out that I didn't really get my weekend. However, after five deep breaths I thought about how nice it has been to see these long lost relatives once again. While my children may not have had me al their beck and call, they have had the fun of being re-introduced lo the cousins they haven't seen in years, or in some cases, ever. In just a few days they will be returning home once again, and with thousands of miles separating us it will quite likely be some time before we visit again. Then there will be minutes once again when there will actually be a car sitting in our driveway and someone will be around to answer lhe phone. A swoop of the cloth will gel the two week's worth of dust as easily as it would have one. The laundry and my sleep will eventually gel caught up, if for no other reason than necessity. And I will sit back with my feel up thinking how very dull our lives would be without a little break from the norm now and again.