I’ve tried to reproduce the inflection present in this actual performance by comedian Mitch Hedberg:
I eat a lot of sandwiches, who doesn’t man, sandwiches
are easy to eat. But I hate sandwiches at New York deli’s,
too much fuckin’ meat on the sandwich. It’s like a cow
with a cracker on either side.
“What would you like sir?” “A pastrami sandwich.”
“Anything else?” “Yeah, a loaf of bread and some
other people.”
“What kind of bread?” “Rye… no, fuck, banana… you
got banana bread?” “What kind of cheese?” “Cottage.”
“Get the fuck out! I’m not makin’ a banana bread,
pastrami, cottage cheese sandwich. That will severely
ruin my reputation.”
You’ve just got to hear this to get the full effect. I’ll go look up an audio file… aha, this should do it. Brings back memories of hanging out in Dan’s dorm room, playing Burnout 3: Takedown, and listening to Mitch on the stereo.
A throttle-happy 20-something in a BMW pulled out in front of me, and the frothy puddle left in the car’s wake expanded just in time for my bike tires to kick the water up into my clothes.
There are two people in the world, those who have played Peggle, and those who will love it soon. In that vein, I present to you: Peggle for iPhone Confirmed, from Boing Boing Gadgets. Imagine, being able to play Peggle, on your phone, anywhere in the world. This is a win for everyone!
We’ve got things backwards. Not just you and me; it’s a bit bigger than that. Since at least the industrial revolution, and probably before, we’ve been pushing, shoving and smashing something out of our culture: art. A tiny event like the removal of art and music from school curricula has its roots not in budget cuts but in a societal shift away from art. And so the evisceration of any balance in public education (in the name of things like No Child Left Behind) is simply an indication of a greater problem, not the problem itself. A relentless march towards increased efficiency and productivity has created a society that gasps and heaves in cycles:
Sell the ideal of efficiency and elimination of waste and grow huge businesses based on this.
Wait a generation to convince the entire workforce of the validity of part 1.
Sell that same generation tools (books, seminars, self-help!) to do what businesses do: efficiency and elimination of waste.
Next, sell the ideal of relaxation and meditation, with no effort toward questioning why relaxation and meditation have nearly disappeared.
Repeat.
My ruminations here aren’t talking about 35 hour work weeks or some fundamental change in multi national corporations. No, this is about a tragedy: so thoroughly are the ideas of “no waste” and “mathematical proof of progress” promoted, that alternatives of “slower pace, lower productivity” aren’t even considered. I don’t know, I may be rambling; time to clarify…
Here’s the main idea: it seems that the huge category of “art” is slipping away — it survives only in places where it fits into a balance sheet (movies, music, gallery art sales) — I hate that. I wish that the things humans were capable of, some of the beautiful things they can do to improve their own lives and the lives of those around them, didn’t have to make money to be appreciated. It’s like this: what if, on a weekly basis, amateurs got up in front of millions of people and sang to them? Well, they do. But it’s only for a few short seconds, and they are all ruthlessly judged, and the only reason anyone is up there is the hope of a huge money making (not necessarily for the actual artists) contract with a record company. It’s not artistic — it’s the use of hyped and processed sound bites to power a multiple media juggernaut. Don’t get me wrong, the show doesn’t bother me so much… it’s just an example of how far art is from being, well, art.
“Art is play, or partly play,” they’ll tell you with an engaging smile, serving up their non-nutritious fare
with the murderous indifference of a fat girl serving up hamburgers. What they say is true enough, as far as
it goes, and nothing is more tiresome than the man who keeps hollering, “Hey, let’s be serious!” but that
is what we must holler.
In a world where nearly everything that passes for art is tinny and commercial and often, in addition,
hollow and academic, I argue—by reason and by banging the table—for an old-fashioned view of what art
is and does and what the fundamental business of critic ought therefore to be. not that I want joy taken
out of the arts; but even frothy entertainment is not harmed by a touch of moral responsibility, at least
an evasion of too fashionable simplifications. My basic message throughout the book is as old as the hills,
drawn from Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Dante, and the rest, and standard in Western civilization down through the
eighteenth century; one would think all critics and artists should be thoroughly familiar with it, and perhaps
many are. But my experience is that in university lecture halls, or in kitchens at midnight, after parties,
the traditional view of art strikes most people as strange news.
The traditional view is that true art is moral: it seeks to improve life, not debase it. It seeks to hold
off, at least for a while, the twilight of the gods and us. I do not deny that art, like criticism, may
legitimately celebrate the trifling. It may joke, or mock, or while away the time. But trivial art has no
meaning or value except in the shadow of more serious art, the kind of art that beats back the monsters and,
if you will, makes the world safe for triviality. The art which tends toward destruction, the art of nihilists,
cynics, and merdistes, is not properly art at all. Art is essentially serious and beneficial, a game played
against chaos and death, against entropy. It is a tragic game, for those who have the wit to take it seriously,
because our side must lose; a comic game—or so a troll might say—because only a clown with sawdust brains would
take our side and eagerly join in.
I’ve you’ve skipped over it all, an action I certainly can’t fault you for taking as it’s probably due more to my disorganized thoughts spewed into this post than anything else, I leave you with this: can we have more art, more beauty, in our society? Please?kthnxbye.
The interesting source UsingEnglish.com defines “storm in a teacup”:
If someone exaggerates a problem or makes a small problem seem far
greater than it really is, then they are making a storm in a teacup.
You can also say “tempest in a teapot.” I originally tried to describe it as somehow relating to making a mountain out of a molehill, but I think it’s actually just another way to say the same thing. A bit of background from Wikipedia:
The phrase is at least a century and a half old, as evidenced in the January
1838 edition of the defunct The United States Democratic Review, in an article
regarding the Supreme Court.
And don’t forget, The Red Hot Chili Peppers have a song called “Storm in a Teacup” on their excellent double disk release Stadium Arcadium.
Somehow, the caption for this picture is hilarious to me: “Brueggie, the Bruegger’s mascot, gets checked by the Transportation Security Administration while visiting the grand opening of the CVG Airport store.”
Basically, they’re running a metal detecting wand around the portly baker mascot for a bagel chain.
There is more than one way to do it (TIMTOWTDI,
usually pronounced “Tim Toady”) is a Perl motto.
The language was designed with this idea in mind,
so that it “doesn’t try to tell the programmer how to
program.”
I find it humorous that the Python language has the exact opposite motto; that is, there is only one correct, obvious way to do things. I’m with Perl.
New York Magazine has something called “The Approval Matrix” which is their “deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on out taste hierarchies.” I particularly enjoyed a snippet from this week’s Approval Matrix: “Obama has the most badass Secret Service code name ever: Renegade. What’s up now, axis of evil?”
Bear with me on this: (kottke.org) is, apparently, the most popular post on kottke. It’s not actually written by Jason Kottke. I didn’t understand it when I first read it, almost exactly 8 years ago. Today, I think it makes sense.
