Archive for culture
re: cake or death
October 22nd, 2008 • 2 comments culture, politics
David Sedaris (author of When You Are Engulfed in Flames) on the phenomena of the “undecided voter“:
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?
There’s certainly more than a small hint of cake or death about the entire situation.
literary deconstructionism and sarah palin
October 22nd, 2008 • culture
John Hodgman, interviewed at The AV Club:
I am someone who values truth—actual truth as opposed to “truthiness.” I am also someone who has been trained in deconstruction in the literary theory department of Yale University, so I am someone who is tempted to believe that no absolute truth is possible.
And in a very weird way, my leftist postmodern leanings and relativism has put me directly in line with the contemporary Republican Party. The very idea that there is no truth, but only the filter of narrative through which truth is invented is something I learned at the feet of the most leftist professors at Yale and am learning again from Sarah Palin during the Vice Presidential debate, and I find that very disorienting.
So if you’re looking for another reason why “elitists” disdain Sarah Palin - it’s because they’re/we’re all too familiar with this flavour of bullshit.
Your instant guide to public decency
October 9th, 2008 • culture
Depiction of graphic murder before 9pm watershed = exciting plot development for the whole family, see photos pages 7-11.
Depiction of same-sex kiss before 9pm watershed = end of good taste and decency, think of the children, etc. etc.
Anyone else finding the Daily Mail’s standards a little bit confusing?
Funny, ha-ha
October 9th, 2008 • comedy, culture
It has been a pretty difficult week for comedy. Before we go any further, it’s helpful to recognise that comedy is hard work. Sometimes - and even with the best preparation and writers - jokes fall flat. Having to explain that something is, in fact, a joke is not normally a good sign, and not a defence that works well with audiences or reviewers.
For example, the noted humourist, the Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre without Newgate Dr Peter Mullen, has been having some trouble with his new material. Let’s hand over to The Guardian for a second:
A Church of England vicar could face disciplinary action for saying gay men should have “sodomy” warnings tattooed on their bodies. [...]
Mullen, 66, wrote it was time for religious believers to recommend the discouragement of homosexual practices in the style of cigarette packet warnings.
“Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan sodomy can seriously damage your health and their chins with fellatio kills.”
Mullen is apparently unaware that straight people are also allowed to have oral sex. No-one tell him, okay? When complaints were made, Mullen responded:
“I wrote some satirical things on my blog and anybody with an ounce of sense of humour or any understanding of the tradition of English satire would immediately assume that they’re light-hearted jokes.”
Some small confusion here from Mullen, whose piss-weak “ha-ha, you can’t take a joke” defence rather fails to understand the “tradition of English satire” which he hopes to join. Satire is not kind. Satire is not half-hearted and satire is certainly not light-hearted. It’s a way of attacking something of which the speaker strongly disapproves. The person being attacked should not be provoked into genuine laughter, but sharply needled.
Beyond the failure to meet certain rhetorical standards, if Mullen had the strength of his homo-hating convictions (and understood satire at all) he might have taken this opportunity to tell us how AIDS is Gods punishment for “teh homo” (always a rib-tickler) rather than hiding behind the defence that he was sadly misunderstood and that:
I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion.
I quite understand. I myself have spent many hours riling up hatred and revulsion against some of my closest friends. /sarcasm
Mullen’s attempt to distance himself from the content of his homophobia by claiming it’s just light-hearted satire is nonsensical (and hey, I got to use some literary criticism at the same time). And obviously, the main problem with Mullen’s “joke” is that it’s old and tired. I’m sure we all remember how quickly the Third Reich’s “comic” forced tattooing of social minorities became unfunny. Instantaneously, in fact.
Hmm.
