Chortled for Days

Yes, I know—not every blog entry needs to be a 1500-word sermon! There are actually days when I don’t think one heavy-handed thought…in fact, there are some days as I look back on them marked simply by laughter.

Last weekend my new neighbors in the Nihal dormitory (my home in Jordan since I arrived in 2007) invited me over to their apartment for the evening. Win and Jennie are newlyweds, and newly arrived in Jordan, and are the kind of people when you meet them, you just stop and say, “You are my instant great friend!”

Over appetizers, then dinner, then dessert, we discussed books we loved (actually the way I found out about their book-loves was nosing around the apartment and checking out what was available in the bathroom) and how to best get across town in New York (they are just from New York, my favorite city in the world) by subway or bus.

Old KA friends Arthur and Tristan joined us for dinner, and the mood was relaxed and exuberant, but not laid-back (meaning that these are interesting, intense people!) Win and Jennie, excellent hosts and brilliant conversationalists, kept us zinging on topics from opera and Wagner and Mozart to sports cars to philosophy in Arabic to sunsets in Vermont. It was clear that this was more than just a fun evening—this was the birth of a new friendship.

At some point I did an imitation of someone near and dear to many at KA, and I used the verb, “titter” to describe the kind of laugh emerging from Tristan. Win seized on that verb and said, “That is a great verb—such a precise way to describe that laugh, much better than just saying laugh.” From there our dining table jumped into the nature of the many verbs that mean laugh. It was exactly what I loved about this evening, and what I can tell is one of the exciting things about these new friends: they are both high brow and low brow. So Tristan decided he loved the verb “chortle” as his go-to fave verb about laughing. In his brilliant way Tristan explained why he thought chortle was such a great kind of laugh and the subtleties of “chortle.” In my strange encyclopedic way I said, “You know Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber used the verb chortle in a line in their show, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and I sang the line, “If he cracked a joke, then you chortled for days.” Of course I needed to explain the context that at the top of Act II the Narrator explained in song to the audience:

Pharaoh, he was a powerful man
with the ancient world in the palm of his hands.
To all intents and purposes he was Egypt with a capital E.
Whatever he did, he was showered with praise.
If he cracked a joke, then you chortled for days.
No one had rights or a vote but the king;
in fact you might say he was fairly right wing.
When Pharaoh's around, than you get down, on the ground.
If you ever find yourself near Ramases, get down on your knees.

This was a great crowd—no one thought this was the least bit weird that I could command a line of musical theater about “chortle.” I said, “Of course I can cite that line, but I really can’t change a tire on car very well.”

As we come to the end of orientation (yes, KA has the longest orientation process of any school on the planet. I have been showing up for work for two weeks and two days and finally we are about to embark on the teaching school year!) I am quite pleased with the beginning vibes of this school year. I am working with the youngest faculty members, the seven recently graduated college students who will be teaching art, biology, chemistry, physics, world history (two of them) and Chinese. They are green, of course, but how fun to meet them and work with them in this first year of teaching. I have enjoyed the new members of the History Department—we have 12 members and an exciting, invigorating group of educators they are. And I have greeted dear, old KA friends Tessa and Nancy and sat down for chats and hugs and laughter. And if you know my inimitable friend Gary, well, I will surely have to do a blog entry on this Klein Meets the Middle East experience. My father said over the summer numerous times, “Every time I think of Gary joining you in Jordan, well, I just smile.”

So in and out of the 2 or 3 hour meetings during orientation have been these exquisite moments of laughter. It has been a very risible reunion with old friends and healthy guffaws with new friends.

One of the best cachinnations of the last two weeks came when Gary and I went to the grocery for his first time in Jordan. We got some staple goods, and as went through the check-out line, and I said in greeting, “Marhaba,” to the clerk, and the man spoke to Gary a greeting in Arabic. Gary didn’t understand, and the clerk, apologized, saying, “Oh, I am sorry. I thought you were Arabia. You look like Arabic.”

As my dear New York friend Gary Klein then said as he smiled, “Well, I am a little bit Arabia.”

About that exchange, well, I chortled for days!