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Re: What is JAM?

Messages in this topic: 16 View All
DeanOct 29, 2011

This is an interesting post... gee, we’ve had some interesting, thoughtful posts recently that have been most enjoyable to read.

Mark, I wonder if you would post some of your other comedy interests, I’d just be interested to see them. I do agree – and I think Paul Merton once made a similar remark – that part of the enjoyment of JAM is that it can be played in different styles, and enjoyed on different levels. And there’s an old saying that goes something like “"once you try to analyse why a joke is funny, the joke disappears...”. Still it’s fun to talk about.

From: nylon net

Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2011 6:43 PM

To: just-a-minute@...

Subject: RE: [just-a-minute] Re: What is JAM?

<soapbox>

As with the peculiarly oblique and ineffable appeal of R.E.M., if one could ever reach a clear conclusion to the meaning of JAM, it will lose its powerful joy.

To me, it is the fact that it is so varied in its observation of rules, its catholic delivery styles, and its ever-shifting "purpose" that it continues to be fresh and curiously attractive over the decades.

Once the mystery goes, interest soon follows. Like children, we keep listening because the ground of JAM keeps shifting under our feet and it fascinates us. It defies definitive classification. While we *want* to finally categorise it and earmark it and say we grok it, the adult in us hopes we never will because after that point, it loses its flavour.

I once read that it's the faults in our partners that we love, not their perfections. It's the crooked teeth in our favourite actors that endear them to us, not their pearly Hollywood caps: and it's the eccentric oddities of JAM that keep me coming back, and analysing it too much starts to defeat my own enjoyment of it.

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