The Punchline

Livia’s joke.

The department was the set up – gave the context. The whole ‘a man walks into a bar’ thing. The assumption that Livia would only employ the competent and intellectual and smart … The expectation that she’d brought us here to carry the torch for European philosophy … The trust that she has a plan, and we were part of the plan …: that stuff.

And then? Livia knew what she was doing. The pause before the punchline – essential. Because timing is all in telling a joke. The whole thing: the set up, the pause, was about the punchline – and the punchline shouldn’t come too quickly.

Especially when we were the punchline. Us – who were the very opposite of competent and intellectual and smart. Who were the very inversion of Europeans …

So of course there was the pause – it lasted nearly an entire semester. Of course there was Livia’s comic timing – eleven weeks; twelve. But then they met us at the Philosophy Christmas party.

Then they met us, and realised – they couldn’t help but realise – that we were a punchline. That the whole thing was a joke – Livia’s joke.

And to think, they’d been so intrigued by Livia’s bold new venture. By Livia’s swerve. Her clinamen. What was she going to do next? What was her move, after so many surprising, wonderful moves?

It would be worth seeing, after all her other famous Mitteleuropean swerves. Wasn’t she a veritable box of tricks, Livia?

But this was no trick. This was no wonder. What was it then? They scratched their heads. Could it be … Was it possible … that Livia’s last gesture before her retirement was a joke?

Of course, they couldn’t compute, not really. They couldn’t accept it. They couldn’t laugh. It just seemed baffling. And in bad taste. Why would someone do this? Why would Livia deliberately fuck things up?

But it was true, even if they could believe it: we were the punchline, and Livia’s continental philosophy department, in which they been enlisted as advisors, as a college, was a joke played on all of them. On the whole of Tyneford. On the entirety of UK Philosophy. On Europe itself – because what had Europe done to deserve such treatment?   

It wasn’t a joke.

Yes it was.

Well, you weren’t quite part of the joke. She actually respected you.


She wasn’t just some comedian – some joker. She was a wildcard, sure. But what she really was is a trickster – revealing truths through supposed mistakes and seeming mischief. Like Coyote, right – a fool, a trickster, a teacher, a creator? Like Hermes, moving between worlds – between Mitteleuropa and the UK, past and the present, civilization and barbarism … Like Loki, playing pranks and shapeshifting and creating chaos. Like Anasi, the cosmic clown – breaking rules, mocking authority, disrupting the whole established order in order to reveal things. Like Krishna, using deceit, bending the truth, breaking the rules of dharma to save dharma. That’s who Livia was.

Like the Joker, more like. Just some nihilist, mocking everything.

She was about disorder. Instinct. The unconscious. About breaking ordinary patterns. Showing the … hidden dimensions.

And what was she revealing?

Reality itself. What things are. As the absurd – as the serious: both at once. As wisdom and laughter: in simultaneity.


And there they were, Livia’s college, so good at hiding their disappointment. At concealing their confusion. The way they were basically scratching their heads.


See, we’re the punchline. We’re the twist. We’re the surprise. We’re what makes the whole thing funny. Livia needs us as a punchline.

We’re the punchline. We deliver the laughs. But who was laughing? Livia was laughing. Livia and Herwig, probably. Herwig would have found it all very amusing.


We were just Livia’s joke – a joke against us, first of all. That we weren’t in on. That no one except Livia could understand. Livia was taking the piss.

She was always taking the piss. But it was more than taking the piss. Taking the piss, for Livia, was more than taking the piss – you know that.

We were Livia’s jokes. Livia’s pets. Livia’s freak show. Like her own private comedy channel. Like the funnies in her newspaper. Comic relief, right, after a hard day’s mathematico-philosophy.

There’s such a thing as a serious joke.

We’ve lived within a joke – one that we’ve at last half worked. At last half grasped …

We were supposed to work it out. That’s why she left.

What does it mean to live as a joke? To be something that serves only to amuse? Livia’s just a version of the Gnostic demiurge. The Gnostic demiurge is just some ginormous Livia. Laughing and clapping its disgusting hands.