This piece is a response to Joseph Haydn’s Joke Quartet

This composition has its embryonic inspiration in the homonymous book Pretend the World is Funny and Forever (1982), by Seymour Fisher and Rhoda L. Fisher, which addresses personality and psychological nuances of an array of famous and professional comedians from different styles and backgrounds. They share a connection with the Sad Clown Paradox, a concept that links mental well-being and state of mind of individuals who use humor as a solution, buffer, or compensation in difficult situations, and psyche ailments such as anxiety, depression, among others.

Following this programmatic nature, preliminary research took place and resulted in a compilation and selection of eleven comedians who have committed suicide since 2000: Robin McLaurin Williams (1951- 2014), Joshua Andrew Koenig (1968-2010), Charles Adams Claverie (1949-2005), Richard John Colangelo (1957- 2007), Michael Roof (1976-2009), Drake Sather (1959- 2004), Mats Mikael "Micke" Dubois (1959-2005), Shinji Maki (1934-2013), Ni Min-Jan (1946- 2005), Steven James Brody (1970- 2019), and Simon Tracey Brint (1950-2011).

The work finds its compositional foundations within a symbolic application of alphanumeric data such as names, birth dates, suicide dates, victim’s age, etc., as the basis for the continuous creation and development of musical materials to be crafted and metamorphosed, functioning as a sound representation of those tragedies, and at the same time as a report and homage to the deceased comedians.

“I’m a fucking walking paradox
no, I’m not”
( Yonkers (2011), Tyler the Creator)