jokes about the passing of time to help pass the time (happy jewish new year, everyone who is happy about the jewish new year!)

love!

Sep 16, 2023

dear friends, family, fans, fellow folks, friends again, friends always, all,

i’m grateful that you’re here.
thank you for being here, for the first newsletter of the jewish new year.
and now, for some jokes about time and such.

A) a year:

i just won a year's supply of calendars!

this is just a silly thought to get us started. i’m thinking about calendars because today is the first day of the jewish new year. even if you’re not jewish, because of the back-to-school season, i imagine you might agree that there is a very year-startish feeling to this time of year.

so i like that the jews are like "the year starts NOW,” because a new year is ALWAYS starting. all the time. this moment. and this moment. and this one. pick a moment, pick a day, pick a month, and a year starts then!

also, my birthday is next month, and our birthdays of course make for a great year start moment. so, i'm getting ready for the forthcoming Myqish New Year. when does the YOU-ish New Year begin? could be now! or now! or now! or all of them!

B) a week:

it's been... 25 years
(since the barenaked ladies song "one week" came out on september 15, 1998)!

if you’re not familiar with this song, well done on marching to the beat of your own drummer (or perhaps no drummers, if you’re not a music person? but who’s not a music person! maybe you, and that’s fine! i’m a big music person and i hope you’re a big Something person, whether it’s music or otherwise).

i shared this thought on social media and someone responded “i did not need this reminder of how old i am” and that is a fascinating notion to me. of course, our society has a lot of ageism baked into it, with ideas like “aging is bad.” but good news, there are also ideas like “wisdom comes with age.” (though not automatically.)

another nice thing that comes with age, i realized, is that i have some good friends that i met at summer camp when i was 13ish, which means i now have friendships that span THREE DECADES. that doesn’t make me feel “old,” that makes me feel good! it makes me feel FRIENDSHIP-RICH. they say that time is money, so i feel as though i’ve got a lot invested in the friendship bank, and it continues to pay dividends, year after year.

C) a moment:

i started doing comedy in 2002. here is a review of a performance i did in 2003.

"Kaplan told some funny jokes but he had a hard time ending them. They often finished awkwardly, ruining them. While his ideas were funny and he was still mostly entertaining, he could do with some polishing up, especially at the finish to alleviate the awkwardness for him and the audience."

i love this. i came across it recently and make a note to look at it once a year AT LEAST, to remind me of how far i’ve come. from “mostly entertaining” to “hopefully a little more entertaining than that.” from having ideas that were funny to having other ideas that are also funny. from having a hard time ending jokes to… OH NO, WHAT DO I DO NOW!?!?

this review is bad, not only bad in that it is critical of me, but also it is bad at being a review. it contradicts itself, it doesn’t contradict itself, it repeats itself, it repeats itself, and it repeats itself.

in the moment, getting a “bad” review can feel, well, bad. but years later, it can feel like a good old friend that i’ve known for more than 20 years. look out, summer camp friends! this review is coming for you!

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and that’s all from me! what about from YOU? some questions:

1) how are you doing? how is your heart? what’s new and good?
2) do you have any jewish new year’s resolutions?
3) when does the YOU-ish new year start? (when’s your birthday?)
4) are you a big music person? or a big something else person? what else?
5) how are you doing NOW?

Arty Har-Hars

jokes about the passing of time to help pass the time (happy jewish new year, everyone who is happy about the jewish new year!)

love!

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