The Perfect Quarantine Joke Is Not About Quarantine
The Video starts with a woman and a man, both dressed in black. He wears a straw hat. She has very long hair. He turns his back to the camera. She situates herself in front of him, facing the viewer, then bends at the waist, flipping her hair over. She moves her shoulders slightly. Together, the two people … look like a horse. Her hair is the tail. Her shoulders are the rump. That is the extent of the joke. They saunter, a ridiculous centaur, as “A Horse With No Name” plays in the background.
I can’t stop thinking about that video, in part because it requires so little in the way of thinking. It’s one of the many small jokes I’ve been turning to when I need to turn away from the news: The Adele attended—and “performed”—by gummy bears. Jan van Eyck’s portrait with the help of a quilted comforter and a plastic bucket. The toilets that have been converted into . These bite-size jokes, punch lines. They’re short and silly and, above all, detached from the world’s events. They allow their viewers, for a moment, to forget about the things that might otherwise occupy their minds: The . The . The caregivers who . The . The . The . The . All the ways, right now, people are suffering.
