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& nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p; ; & nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p; ; SEINFELD
There is very little on film or television that
moves me to laughter. I am often
amused, tickled, impressed by the cleverness of some comedian but, if I watch a
whole program, I am out of spirits half way through and distinctly disjointed by
the last phase of the sequence. As the
piece progresses, my laughter becomes mechanical and each chuckle intensifies
my ill-at-easeness. At the end of the
program I feel flat and empty. I also
feel I have wasted my time.
There are
come comedians and comedy which has a more lasting value. Seinfeld is one of these—at
least for me. In Australia, "The Chasers," is another. -Ron Price
with thanks to G.B. Shaw on Oscar Wilde in Bernard Shaw: A Critical View,
Nicholas Grene, MacMillan Press, London, 1984, p.4.
Laughter is idiosyncratic, canned, a
commercial product. I feel it inside,
welling-up, fast, some spontaneous
explosion, frequently in Seinfeld, a
program of skits about nothing, just trivia, the spaces in relationships, &
self-centered human beings. I dig
the absurd, my laughs and millions
of others in this most popular of TV
programs,where the energies of a
comedy are harnessed, dynamically:
do we understand ourselves in the end?
Society? I create nothing. I invent nothing.
I imagine nothing. I see the drama and
laugh at everyday
nothingness. Can I call these laughs spiritual relaxation?
Filling my pocket full with the most
delightful
emptiness and the weight
of the day lifts, exploded into thin
air.
Ron Price
16 August 1998
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