Imagine a group of people taking turns making clever remarks, echoing and developing each others’ cues. To play the game well is to extend the discussion for another round in a pleasurable way.<\/p>\n
For instance, they might be middle-aged Jewish men trading Jewish jokes, like the one<\/p>\n
\nAbout two rabbis, one of them tall, one short,
\nOne day while walking along the street together …<\/p><\/blockquote>\nOr they might be “Basho and his friends,” drinking saki one 17th-century night and improvising long chains of the linked haikus called rengas<\/em>:<\/p>\n
\nThreading a long night through the rules and channels
\nOf their collaborative linking-poem
\nScored in their teacher\u2019s heart: live, rigid, fluid
\nLike passages etched in a microscopic circuit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nOr all the stories might flow from a single speaker who has a desperate need, like Scheherazade, not to stop entertaining. And that person might not be an Arabian princess but rather a small boy in a sad apartment, whose mother<\/p>\n
… tells the child she\u2019s going to kill herself.
\nShe broods, she rages. Hoping to distract her,
\nThe child cuts capers, he sings, he does imitations
\nOf different people in the building, he jokes,
\nHe feels if he keeps her alive until the father
\nGets home from work, they\u2019ll be okay till morning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n