Paul Goodman: The Joke

Does the title of today's story affect you in such a way that the person nearest you is now asking what you're sighing about? Or maybe you rolled your eyes so far to the side that you now have a stress headache and need to refocus before reading the rest of this blurb? (If so, please, take a moment. The next few words aren't -that- important, and I won't be accountable for repeated stress injuries. I just won't.) Because it had that effect on me, typing it just now. I mean, there's Kunder's The Joke, and the Monty Python bit about the world's funniest joke, and a recent study concerning the same. There's the wildly not funny Freud essay, and from all this, we might think we're taking a right turn onto Hackneyed Street.
But I promise you, my dears, if this The Joke was a bag of prepackaged organic baby spinach, you'd all be sick, not from bacteria, but from overindulging on its goodness. Enjoy.