General Criteria to be Measured:
Who best resembles a child’s drawing of a bird
Most melodious snicker or most closely approximating the sound of rain
Length of tongue
Other:
“The Witness Stand” — Draw a star nursery from memory
“The Stand Off” — Whomever any dog likes best
What’s the difference between in and out?
A wall with delusions of grandeur
Question Mark Harris, Answer Michelle Tennison (2016)
— Jane Wagner
Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how’s-your-father; hairy blighter, dicky-birded, feathered back on his sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harpers and caught his can in the Bertie.
Eric Idle, 1974
Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance.
Humor is the fourth dimension of this world, without it futile and unlivable . . .
A secret conquered at the cost of long suffering, humor is the answer to superior minds to this world in which they feel themselves alien. More than a natural secretion, as it has too often been regarded, humor manifests, on the contrary, the heroic attitude of those who are unwilling to compromise.
— Maurice Nadeau, The History of Surrealism
Perhaps humor breaks the quantum bonds created by story . . . and laughter is the energy that is set free.
above
the sea of voices
a laughing gull
— Michelle Tennison
New one-syllable words for the color blue:
prist
sweem
bloof
New two-syllable words for the color blue:
prinkle
lushie
And going forward, acceptable general substitutions for the word blue shall include “misunderstood” and/or “snowy owl.”
5 X 7 watercolor and haiku by Sabine Miller, 2017
You’re asking the wrong questions. If you want to make the world a better place, tell funnier jokes!
–Woody Allen
You’re thinkin’: How does a person know if they’re crazy or not? Well, sometimes you don’t know. Sometimes you can go through life suspecting you are but never really knowing for sure. Sometimes you know for sure ’cause you got so many people tellin’ you you’re crazy that it’s your word against everyone else’s.
— “Trudy,” played by Lily Tomlin in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by Jane Wagner
How many truths are there?
Building a cabinet of cabinets to leap through
Question Christopher Herold, Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)
. . . for me it came at a time when nothing else seemed to be working. I got the kind of madness Socrates talked about, “A divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention.” I refuse to be intimidated by reality anymore. After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin’ but a collective hunch.
— “Trudy,” played by Lily Tomlin in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by Jane Wagner
What is Albert Einstein doing on the other side?
Thunder in a haiku
Question Michelle Tennison, Answer John Levy (2017)
I made some studies, and reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.
— “Trudy,” played by Lily Tomlin in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by Jane Wagner
Am I falling or flying?
The universe goes as far in as out.
Q&A Session with Paul Cunniff, Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison (2016)
A Lit Jellyfish 
You must be logged in to post a comment.