Jokes

The fart is the only art form whose audience is always present and never invited.

Every fart is a first draft. There is no second.

Dignity is the distance between the sound and the explanation. Close it slowly.

A man does not know himself until he has heard himself in a stairwell.

The nose is the only critic who cannot be bought, bored, or persuaded to leave.

Comedy is tragedy plus time. So is the elevator.

To fart alone is craft. To fart in company is theatre. To fart in a lift is opera.

The author is dead. The work, regrettably, lingers.

Never trust a man who apologises before the evidence arrives. He has rehearsed.

The minimalists are the most dangerous. They removed the sound and kept everything else.

You will be forgotten. The room will not forget quite so quickly.

Two people in a small car are not passengers. They are collaborators, and one of them has begun.

n. The itinerant school. A composition performed while in motion, such that no single room may claim the premiere and no single listener may claim standing to complain.

First attested in open-plan offices, though the technique is older than the furniture.

n. A work in the minimalist tradition, in which the artist withholds all sound and permits the material itself to carry the argument.

Often mistaken for restraint. It is the opposite of restraint.

n. Any work produced during a job interview, a wedding vow, a moment of silence, or a hold on the line with one’s bank.

The canon is small because the survivors do not speak of it.

n. The universal alibi: a swift, deliberate shifting of weight intended to attribute the work to the furniture.

Efficacy declines sharply on soft seating, and entirely on grass.

n. The catastrophic failure of an artist who mistook their ambition for their ability.

A cautionary term. We shall not elaborate; you know.

n. A second work, offered shortly after a first by another party, intended to distribute the shame evenly across the room.

The highest act of friendship the form permits.

n. The announcement of authorship, made aloud and unprompted, before suspicion has settled.

Considered vulgar by the classical school and indispensable by everyone under thirty.

n. The preparatory stiffening of the entire body undertaken in the half-second before a work of unknown magnitude.

The only known instance of an artist bracing for their own art.

★★★★☆ — A confident and unhurried piece, performed to a full house of six between the fourth and the lobby.

The artist’s decision to hold the final note until the doors had opened showed real nerve. One mark withheld for the exit, which was frankly cowardly.

★★★★★ — A masterwork of the domestic tradition. Performed solo, at dawn, to no audience whatsoever.

Critics will note the absence of witnesses. Critics have missed the point. This is the only genre in which the artist may finally be honest.

★★☆☆☆ — Poorly sited. The room was silent, the pose was compromising, and the acoustics were unforgiving.

The instructor’s decision to continue speaking as though nothing had occurred was the finest work in the building that morning, and it is she who deserves the notice.

★☆☆☆☆ — Ambitious, and entirely undone by its venue.

The leather sofa is the most treacherous surface in the domestic canon: it flatters nothing, forgives nothing, and testifies loudly against the artist for a full second after the work has concluded.

★★★☆☆ — A work of considerable stamina, staged in a sealed vehicle at motorway speed with the windows up.

The artist has confused endurance with achievement. The passenger, who did not consent to a three-hour retrospective, has our sympathies.

★★★★☆ — Extraordinary bravery. The venue was hushed, the seating wooden, and the congregation attentive.

We are told the artist was eleven years old. We are told the artist has not returned. Art demands a price.

Sir —

Your correspondent writes from a desk situated between a colleague who eats lentils and a colleague who does not.

I have made my peace with the first. It is the second, who sighs meaningfully and opens a window, whom I have come to regard as the true aggressor.

A reasonable man cannot be expected to hold his breath from nine until five, and I put it to your readers that the sigh is the ruder of the two acts.

Sir —

For eleven years my labrador has borne, without complaint or counsel, the authorship of works she did not produce.

She has looked up at the assembled company. She has been looked at in return. She has never once defended herself, and she has never once been believed.

I write now, too late, to say: it was me. It was always me. She was asleep.

Sir —

I wish to record my admiration for the massage therapist who, at the eighty-minute mark of a ninety-minute appointment, said absolutely nothing.

She did not pause. She did not flinch. She moved to the shoulders.

There are people who run countries with less composure than that woman showed on a Tuesday afternoon, and I should like it noted.

Sir —

On a first date I was asked what I was most afraid of. I answered honestly, and at some length, about the sea.

I was, of course, lying. And in the taxi home the truth made itself known, unprompted and at volume, in a manner I can only describe as editorial.

We have been married nine years. She has never mentioned it. This is the cruellest thing anyone has ever done to me.

Sir —

My father did not knock. My father did not apologise. My father announced each work by name, gave it a rating out of ten, and awaited the family’s scoring.

We found it mortifying for thirty years and we would give anything to hear it once more.

Print this where he might see it, wherever he is. Tell him it was an eight.

FOR SALE — One elevator, four floors, lightly used. Buyer collects. No questions, and I will not be answering the one you are about to ask.

NOTICE — To the seventeen passengers of the 07:42 service on the fourteenth: it was me. It was not the tunnel. There was no tunnel.

WANTED — Small dog, any temperament, must be willing to travel and to be blamed. Excellent home, moderate shame. References available.

LOST — All credibility, somewhere between the buffet and the toast. Sentimental value. Reward offered, though I no longer have anything to offer it with.

SERVICES — Experienced professional available to cough loudly at the precise moment of your choosing. Weddings, funerals, interviews, viva voce examinations. Discretion assured. Hourly rate.

VACANCY — Chief Aroma Critic. The successful candidate will possess an unimpeachable palate, a strong stomach, and no remaining friendships. Apply within.

“Was that you?”

“Was what me?”

“…”

“…”

“It was me.”

“Strictly speaking, it’s nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, and a trace of hydrogen sulphide.”

“Strictly speaking, get out.”

“Mummy did a big one.”

“That’s not — we don’t —”

“MUMMY DID A BIG ONE.”

The aisle, to its eternal credit, said nothing.

“You used to hold those in.”

“You used to laugh at my jokes.”

“Fair.”

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Ah. Nothing, then. Forget I spoke.”

“…”

“…”

“Oh.”

“I would never do that in front of my wife.”

“That’s lovely.”

“I go to another room and do it very carefully into a cushion.”

“That’s less lovely.”