Tig Notaro

Honesty never hurt so purely. If the basis for Right View is sustainable relation to one's suffering, this discussion, in each word and pause, is hope for even the most self-deceiving, shenpa-addled of us out there.

I had never really thought about talking about my life-issues to a bunch of people. Not that I have a some problem with telling random people all about things they don't care about. I just mean that I don't think I'm very interesting, my way of seeing things isn't necessarily too universally interesting, my sense of humor sufficiently flat and dry to appear non-existent. There is no unique virtue in my story to validate its expression. But I guess that's what makes Tig Notaro's story so accessible; we all think that, it helps us distance ourselves from the pain of sharing and being vulnerable. She got up and got honest anyway and in every breath drawn each feeling of shock and hurt is right there.

 

That said, here's a disclaimer:

I don't want to seem to pretend that I know her experience or what she's going through. This set is so special and compelling that I feel it pressing to indicate what I am posting about. I don't want to seem like I know any more than the feint I put in front of my own emotions. My words below are a response to my relationship to my own issues, and my attempts to communicate them AS compared to my experience of the presentation of emotions and reactions of someone-that-I-do-not-know to specific, real situations I was not affected by in any way. (Also, I don't know if this is just yet-another post like this, but I sure hope it is.)

 

I recalled foggily a set of hers here or there once I saw her face, but the name didn't stick until then. Sometimes an insight is too precious or too acurate to ever forget. That's less the case here. In this case, sometimes the voice is too honest. It's not that it's raw (or not); her voice is just so plain and without pretense. Each sentence seems constructed of shards from her defensive coccoon as she snaps off a piece; just pried off with some crowbar and dropped with a plunk at her feet with a slow glance down.

At the 26:00 mark of her set she gets some encouragement to keep ripping it up. She says she's honestly tapped out. It's actually somehow believable. You actually listen as Tig gets up, says what she needs to say, pulls away to see the pain, acquaints herself again with her relationship to it, then just steps away from it.

At the end, there is this amazing wrap-up involving a particular joke. I'm not going to say anymore, but listen and pay attention.

I don't want to be some emotional voyeur but the set is an amazing piece of emotional diplomacy; she drills down through her relationship to it all, her interactions with and experience of it, the timeline that had unfolded, and with all the shock and hurt still in her voice and without a drop of humanity lost she says yet still, I'm not that.

From a Huff Po / Louis CK post:

Well, Tig is a friend of mine and she is very funny. I love her voice on stage. One night I was performing at a club in LA called Largo. Tig was there. She was about to go on stage. I hadn't seen Tig in about a year and I said how are you? She replied "well I found out today that I have cancer in both breasts and that it has likely spread to my lymph nodes. My doctor says it looks real bad. ". She wasn't kidding. I said "uh. Jesus. Tig. Well. Do you... Have your family... Helping?". She said "well my mom was with me but a few weeks ago she fell down, hit her head and she died". She still wasn't kidding.

Now, I'm pretty stupid to begin with, and I sure didn't know what to say now. I opened my mouth and this came out. "jeez, Tig. I. Really value you. Highly.". She said "I value you highly too, Louie.". Then she held up a wad of note-paper in her hand and said "I'm gonna talk about all of it on stage now. It's probably going to be a mess". I said "wow". And with that, she went on stage.

In a recent piece, This American Life broadcast the majority of her set. The piece was titled "What Doesn't Kill You." It's how I found out about this. Go have a listen to that. Louis CK, who I've really only developed a recent appreciation for, is hosting the track on his site for download (no DLC, $5.00; do it). Go and get it. You never know when you'll need thirty minutes of aural courage. Also, check out her site - tignation, there's an amazing post on living the follow-up to her set.