When I first got to Davidson, I readily perceived the crevices in our social landscape that would prove all too easy to fall into. In the most recent years, I’ve noticed a distinct change in how people at Davidson talk about gender, sexuality, and their attendant ethical projects of feminism and queer justice. I remember the days when we queers and women and dissenters would tell jokes among one other-about our furies, our lusts, our fears. Humor can, however, land with a force more devastating than more straightforward, serious language. As anyone who knows me can attest, I love few things more than a biting bit of wit that leads to raucous cackling.
Lately, though, the ubiquity of jokes about matters of life, death, and love has left me cold. Some of those lines stick with me even in my most distracted moments of cynicism and righteous anger: “I wish I had more sense of humor / Keeping the sadness at bay / Throwing the lightness on these things / Laughing it all away / Laughing it all away / Laughing it all away.” I, too, wish I had more sense of humor.
In 1974, Joni Mitchell recorded the song “People’s Parties,” a classic example of her sometimes jaunty, sometimes moaning repertoire.
