Getting Through the Night

A. L. Kennedy, one of my favorite authors, has found something that gets her through the night: stand up comedy. 

Stand-up gets me through the night.

In everyday life, I feel very little (which is for the best), but 20 minutes in a club, an hour in a theatre with everybody happy - that means I'll get a decent sleep and I'll believe that words and individual actions have meaning. That's 20 minutes or an hour away from me. Even a duff gig makes me feel alive.

Now that I perform comedy regularly, I've realised the blindingly obvious fact that, actually, it is like writing.

Whatever your taste in comedy may be - and comedy is viciously subjective - it relies on rhythm and melody just as much as poetry might. (Even a pie in the face has to arrive at exactly the right moment.) One evening you'll sound like notes on the back of an envelope; weeks later, months later, you might suddenly hear the sound of your own voice, real voice.

All of the steps the writer takes - finding her voice, choosing her material, uncovering her nature and working with it, learning the craft - I've found myself visiting them again, and again. Which is never a bad thing. No matter what else happens, at least I can keep learning and working and telling stories.

Nice. Inspired by her description, I'd be compelled to do similar were it not for that whole public performance aspect of it all. And the being funny part. If it weren't for those two things, I'd go for it.

[via]

[Photo: a lovely picture by my pal JM of a leek from his garden gone to flower.]

Comments

[dharma]

What a beautiful photo!

[ae]

Isn't it, dharma? I loved it so much I told my pal I had to blog it!