Which Thought is the Best Thought?
First thought? Third thought? How many thoughts do I think I should think?
I’ve been thinking about thinking again, thanks to comedian and writer Matt Ruby. Matt’s got a few different publications here, each with a distinct focus, but they all discuss creativity and process in a way I really enjoy and can totally nerd out on.
His newsletter Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian focuses on standup comedy philosophy, advice, and inspirational quotes from comedians. His posts on Working Methods are a collection of advice from legendary artists in different fields and is a great place to find inspiration or tips to work through blocks or help kickstart your creativity.
Two recent posts by Matt, each focusing on a different artist and their theories and methods of how they create, really got me thinking about how my brain works, and how I can use that to my advantage1 when writing.
On Working Methods, Ruby shared advice from Allen Ginsberg on the idea that the first thought is the best.
His poetics was shaped by an adolescent encounter with Williams and Pound, their rejection of what he called the metronomic ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum of iambic pentameter for the flexible, complex rhythms of everyday speech. As informed by his later discovery of Buddhist meditation practice, this recognition led to the idea of poetry as breath, an emanation of the body as much as of the mind (one reason he gave, and attended, so many readings). Indeed, Buddhism taught him to eschew rationality in favor of ''ordinary'' or ''spontaneous'' mind, the vast sea of consciousness upon which our concepts and categories, anxieties and prohibitions, float like so much junk. Hence Ginsberg's compositional method, the moment-by-moment transcription of thoughts and images as they passed across his mind. (The thousand-odd lines of ''Kaddish'' poured forth in one 40-hour session.) ''First thought, best thought'' was his governing principle: no heed to the high-modernist idea of poem as patiently constructed artifact, but an equally strenuous discipline, for it was only with hours of daily meditation that he maintained his wide-open path from mind to breath.
In his Funny How newsletter, Ruby shares a different approach, from comedian Anthony Jeselnik, who believes that the third thought is the “best thought” when crafting a punchline for one of his jokes.
He walks Co.Create through an example of his third thought approach, using a joke he tells in Thoughts and Prayers. “The joke: ‘My mom should have been on one of the planes that crashed on 9/11.’ Your first thought is, ‘Oh, she survived—it’s a miracle thing.’ That’s the first thought,” he says.
“The second thought will be a joke that you can think of if you took your time—if you really thought about it,” he continues.
“Third thought is one step removed. It’s something that you never would have thought of, and that’s where the best jokes lie,” Jeselnik says, relaying the entire joke: “My mom should have been on a plane that crashed on 9/11—I think.”
“No one is going to come up with that, and that’s where my comedy lives,” he says. “You have to dig it out. Not only is the diamond there, but if we can find it, it’s perfect.”
So, which thought is actually the best thought?
In true “thinking about thinking” fashion, my answer would be “it depends.”
It depends on a lot of different factors. To start, Ginsberg is talking about poetry while Jeselnik is talking about comedy. I promise I’m not trying to put down the art of poetry when I say this but poetry can be anything. So a “first thought” approach works — especially when combined with Ginsberg’s meditation and style of tapping into the spontaneous mind. With comedy, the goal is laughter, and that requires an element of surprise, so the “first thought” or most obvious thing would most likely not get the best laugh from a crowd.
The “third thought” method is similar to the “A to C” rule that is taught in improv. When you get a suggestion from the audience it’s good to take that suggestion (A) and instead of instantly starting with that, take a moment to think about what that makes you think of (B) and then take another moment to think about what that makes you think of (C). For example if the suggestion is “pineapple” instead of staring a scene by saying “wow, this is a tasty pineapple” take a moment to realize that “pineapple” makes you think of Hawaii and Hawaii makes you think about how you were so poor as a kid you couldn’t afford to go anywhere cool for vacation. Now you can start a scene about a family taking a very stupid and cheap vacation. Thanks, pineapple!
I’m especially intrigued by the joke Jeselnik chooses to use as his example. To me, the punchline of “I think” doesn’t read like a “third thought.” I understand his explanation in that the first thought would be some kind of situation where his mother had a ticket for one of the flights but through some miracle didn’t get on one of the planes. But I believe the work of this joke is already complete in the set up. By choosing the phrasing of “should have been” instead of “was supposed to be” the “I think” punchline is a given. It’s almost unnecessary (not actually unnecessary for the sake of comedy, but technically unnecessary because the connotation of the first sentence alone relays that he believes his mother should have been on one of those planes!)2 “I think” (or at least something equivalent to that) is the first thought I have because of Jeselnik’s use of “should have been” in the set up. I’m not taking credit for this. I’m not bragging about cracking the cody of his joke. The work is his, he incepted it into my brain through his fantastic and economic writing.3
Perhaps the “third thought” from Jeselnik actually came about by making the change in the wording of the set up and not in the punchline. Maybe he was playing around with “supposed to be” and then had a third-thought eureka moment to change it to “should have been” to convey the feeling of the punchline he wanted. Nevertheless, it made me think about how our brains work to process things, and how some people’s “third thoughts” might be the first thought of somebody else.
Jeselnik’s point about the “third thought” works best when I think of it from the perspective of the audience. When writing, I’m not trying to come up with my own third thought, I’m trying to come up with the thought that the audience might not have right away. Something that might be in their brain, but would take some digging to get to4. With time and practice (or a naturally gifted comedic mind) your first thought might already be in the land of what the audience’s third thought would be5. You might have already trained your brain to get to the funny thought right away. This is a useful way for me to think about this, as I can get bogged down and stuck trying to think of something so out in left field that nobody else would think of it. I might actually already be there!
Tracking backwards is a great way to see if you6 might already be there. Think of the set up and get really simple and logical. Ask yourself “what would most people think when they hear this idea?” What expectations are there when they hear this? What would an audience member think is coming next. Then you’ll know if your punchline is far enough away from this to get laughs. It also will help make sure you’re properly wording your set up to relay enough information to the audience and set them up for the “third thought” punchline you’re about to bring.
If you can do it as efficiently as Jeselnik, then you’re probably a master.7
Also, how I have been using my brain to my disadvantage.
It reminds me of how Norm MacDonald looked for jokes that had the same set-up and punchline.
A skill that does not come naturally to me. I am long winded and could definitely benefit from working on brevity. I won’t do that now, though. Maybe later.
Hitting that sweet spot of “funny because its true” while also not being completely and totally obvious.
I think I’ve gotten to this point through the process of “overthinking jokes” — which you can most likely tell by how much I write about thinking about jokes.
I say “you” I mean “me” but, sure, also you if you work like this as well.
Why are you reading this if you’re already a master?