I don't get Groucho's joke.
May 30, 2013 5:41 PM Subscribe
Groucho Marx made a joke in his Memoirs of a Mangy Lover that I just don't get. PLZ HOPE ME.
The chapter describes him going to a seance. The passage reads as follows:
"You may not have anything to ask her," she [the medium] said smugly, "but I have. I came here to communicate with my aunt's husband. He was my favourite uncle and he's been dead for eight years. He keeps sending me messages. Some nights we vibrate together."
I was considered quite witty in those days, and I replied, "Why don't you write him a letter? Write it down on asbestos. You know where he is."
"Ho, ho," she said, "that's pretty funny. You'd be a riot in a small night club. Now put in the five dollars!"
My question is this -- asbestos? Vibrating? Huh? No idea. What am I not getting here?
Please and thank you. This is driving me batty.
The chapter describes him going to a seance. The passage reads as follows:
"You may not have anything to ask her," she [the medium] said smugly, "but I have. I came here to communicate with my aunt's husband. He was my favourite uncle and he's been dead for eight years. He keeps sending me messages. Some nights we vibrate together."
I was considered quite witty in those days, and I replied, "Why don't you write him a letter? Write it down on asbestos. You know where he is."
"Ho, ho," she said, "that's pretty funny. You'd be a riot in a small night club. Now put in the five dollars!"
My question is this -- asbestos? Vibrating? Huh? No idea. What am I not getting here?
Please and thank you. This is driving me batty.
Best answer: Asbestos = fireproof, meaning he's in hell.
posted by sageleaf at 5:43 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by sageleaf at 5:43 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Vibrating, I take to mean as colloquial for "hearing the spirits" or whatever.
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:44 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:44 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: asbestos - fire resistant. her aunt's husband is in hell. vibrating - some psychic deal about feeling people who are in the afterlife.
posted by koroshiya at 5:44 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by koroshiya at 5:44 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
I'm guessing that he's joking that the dead uncle is in Hell, thus requiring messages to be written on a fireproof medium.
posted by stefanie at 5:45 PM on May 30, 2013
posted by stefanie at 5:45 PM on May 30, 2013
Best answer: Asbestos also used to be used as a vibration dampener for things like heating and cooling systems, which might be part of the association he's making with "some nights we vibrate together."
posted by scody at 5:46 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by scody at 5:46 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you, scody -- reading the joke, I thought that asbestos was playing off the vibrating, and I had no idea how asbestos and vibration were connected, but it must be an obvious connection for everyone in a nightclub to get it.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:12 PM on May 30, 2013
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:12 PM on May 30, 2013
I suspect these were obvious connotations back in the day. Proving yet again that the past is another country.
posted by LonnieK at 7:42 PM on May 30, 2013
posted by LonnieK at 7:42 PM on May 30, 2013
Also, I think part of what makes it a joke (and supporting LonnieK's observation about the past) is that mentioning hell directly was a somewhat taboo. So there's an element of slightly risque humour, I think, in the finding an indirect, winking way of suggesting hell as someone's final destination.
posted by ManInSuit at 10:06 PM on May 30, 2013
posted by ManInSuit at 10:06 PM on May 30, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:43 PM on May 30, 2013 [3 favorites]