Lysander: This lion is a very fox for his valour.
Theseus: True; and a goose for his discretion.

- Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Laughter is a powerful thing. In the midst of death and despair, laughter may exist, may brighten eyes and lighten hearts before the critical moment of dramatic mortality. The “first string” critics of the world tell us about how Comedy works, its U-shaped plot*, and the inevitable “tragic threat.” And it is here, at the bottom of the U, at the nefarious edge of calamity, at the very tragic threat, that the redeeming power of laughter squints its eyes and roars with merriment–it asks “for a muffin,”** it says “paramour” instead of “paragon,” it tips the hierarchy on its ear and inverts the social binaries.

Laughter is Divine; it is a place of “unofficial discourse”*** where the downtrodden can safely critique the powers that be. Laughter brings peace, for it successfully disarms death by reaching into our souls and giving the oft-times marginalized heartroom of irony a Comic sense of self-mortality; for in the end, those of us who age gracefully are not the stonily dramatic realists, but rather the gentle Merrimakers who can look at life with all of its losses and LAUGH (til their stomaches ache and tears stream down their faces). As Flannery O’Connor says, “Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.”

*Leland Ryken; **The Importance of Being Ernest, Oscar Wilde; ***Mikhail Bahktin