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Funny Games

by Bernie DeKoven

I used to call them "Pointless Games" because they were the kind of games where the score didn't matter so much, where just playing is winning enough. Now I call them "Funny Games." Yes, I know. There's a horror movie of that name. But that doesn't scare me off. Funny is too good of a word, because, from maybe an even more relevant perspective, it's not about the pointlessness of these games, or the lack of scorekeeping even - not as much as it is about the sheer funniness of it all.

They aren't comedies, these games, and we aren't expected to be comedians in order to play them. There are no punch lines, there is no applause. But there is laughter, all right. Rollicking, eye-tearing, panty-wetting laughter.

It's not so much that the games themselves are funny - as it is that when we play these games, we, ourselves, become funny.

Being funny. Not acting funny or saying funny things or even making people laugh, but being funny, funny in the very fullness and totality of our beings and the beings with whom we be being funny. As funny to ourselves as we are to each other. Naturally funny. Unselfconsciously funny. Almost helplessly funny.

Not silly. Not out of control. Funny. Like how we are when we all try everso hard to sit on each other's laps. Or when we find ourselves passionately debating the relative merits of choosing to become panthers, persons, or porcupines. Or wandering around with our eyes closed saying "prui."

Funny Games. Not silly at all, actually. Funny in the way each game manages to make light of and shed light on the human condition.