the once and future joke

Last Saturday, in honor of my birthday, the radio program A Prairie Home Companion put on its (mostly) annual Joke Show. APHC is an American Institution, and an integral part of my own childhood and, for better or worse, sense of humor. Saturdays were (maybe not as often as Mom would have liked) house cleaning days when I was growing up and we'd have the public radio trifecta of APHC, along with Whad'Ya Know? and Car Talk as the background. This is undoubtedly why I have the sense of humor of a 60 year old.

One of the hallmarks of the APHC Joke Show is the "best" non-joke possibly ever told:

Two penguins are sitting on an iceberg. One penguin turns to the other and says, "You look like you're wearing a tuxedo." The other responds, "What makes you think I'm not?"

And thats it. Its not really a joke, when you think about it. Yet it makes frequent cameos on Keillor's shows masquerading as one. I've really got a soft spot for it, and was pleased when it showed up in Robert Altman's movie, A Prairie Home Companion. This movie, while flawed like much of Altman's work, is a really fine meditation on death. Its an appropriate finale to Altman's long, varied, and distinguished career. But I digress.

Does this qualify as a joke? I would posit that it does, in the same way as the penguin joke. There's not really a punchline, but maybe the absence of a punchline is, itself, a punchline. Either way, I love that website.

Its Friday. Its supposed to rain this weekend, and life is good.