10.26.08
Great Comedy
Comedy Around the World visits Israel–again. There are so many fascinating things there–and also danger. There was always electricity in the air in Israel. As if anything could happen at any moment. Kind of like a comedy show: the danger of the hecklers lurking in the audience, the bigger danger of what I will say to them. Danger, but also power. The power to turn their comments–into humor.
A week after I bought a great purple dress jacket at the Dizengof Shopping Center in Tel Aviv, a suicide bomber blew up a bus. Right by the sidewalk where I waited for my ride! The news reports said that there was human skin in the form of spit-balls on windows of buildings several blocks away. Nearby was the bus station. A few days after I’d been at that station, someone got stabbed. Onlookers tackled the perpetrator. A few weeks later, Saddam Hussein sent rockets into Tel Aviv.
Great comedy, huh, folks?
That’s the point, though. Eventually there will be comedy. There will be humor surrounding those events. Maybe not the exact events, but some buffer around them, to allow us to process, accept, and move on from the tragedy. The bigger the tragedy, the more important it is for us to be able to see the lighter side. And the more we can lighten our disastrous events, the more we can, “Get Your SHINE Together!”
