Tag Archives: irony

Hot Potato

The dookie left the doggie; the doggie left the dookie. For me.

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Larry David’s Genius, and Masturbating “with a 104 Degree Temperature”

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Eternal Life: Kenneth Hayworth Verses Jesus

Want to live forever? It may be that, rather than following Jesus, you should be following the work of the neuroscientist Kenneth Hayworth. Before the end of his career, he aspires to figure out how, exactly, to preserve his own connectome (the … Continue reading

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Three Grandmas Watch Something Naughty

Very naughty. A nice reminder that adults can see and hear things without the least harm. __________ I love the display of irony here because we all know that this is exactly how individuals tend to respond to “shocking” images … Continue reading

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Critical Thinking Watch: Is Jonathon Keats’ “Copernican Art Manifesto” Serious?

—– Jonathon Keats, “conceptual artist,” has written an art manifesto worthy of an Onion News parody, and yet I think he’s actually serious. His manifesto is getting some straight press (such as from Wired magazine) and he’s accompanied the manifesto with the kinds of … Continue reading

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Did Homer suffer from Hamlet-like self-consciousness? Garry Wills thinks so.

In the New York Review of Books, Garry Wills takes a hard whack at a notion Harold Bloom has long promoted and that seems to show up across a lot of disciplines (and most recently, in a book co-authored by a Harvard philosopher): literate … Continue reading

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Your WTF is not necessarily your neighbor’s WTF

A little life reminder that the messages we send, and the messages we think we send, may not be the same: There is an image circulating on the Internet (but that I can’t seem to embed here) of a megachurch promoting … Continue reading

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Why I blog

Here’s my list of reasons for blogging: Contingency. Blogging is a rather pure way of embracing contingency (chance). Like dropping a marble down a pachinko machine, I put a random thought out into the world and see what associations it provokes in me and anyone … Continue reading

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Metacognitive Jackson

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A Film about Noticing Life’s Small Graces: Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works” (2009), Starring Larry David, is a Funny and Profound Meditation on Existence

Woody Allen’s movie, Whatever Works, offered up in the fall of 2009, sassed and summarily dismissed by critics, and quickly sent by SONY to DVD, was seen at home by my wife and I last night. We loved it. And laughed throughout. And … Continue reading

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The Ironies Compound (and the Memes Multiply)

Here’s a video that ironically (and wonderfully) registers and deconstructs a scene genre within action films: the Stoic ice-hero who walks, calm and unblinking, away from explosions: But wait. Isn’t the above YouTube itself a genre piece (the ironic song about cookie-cutter … Continue reading

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An Atheist Writes a Poem: Thomas Hardy’s “God’s Education”

I love this poem, not just for its power as language, but also for its Job-like evocation of the problem of suffering. Hardy recounts the death of a loved one, and his subsequent argument with God over her death. In content and world-weary tone, Hardy’s poem … Continue reading

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Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” in Real-Time! A Brazilian Man Walks in on His Own Funeral!

For the story’s brevity, emotional accessibility, and ironic shock value, it seems customary nowadays for English instructors to start introductory literature courses with Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” Chopin’s story is about a man who has died in an accident—or at least … Continue reading

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Irony Watch

James Dean cautions against unsafe driving: Until watching this video, I hadn’t registered how closely Brad Pitt channels James Dean.

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Young Cons? “I’m rapping Jesus Christ and conservative views!”

Are the Young Cons, well, conning us? Three things taught them conservative love: Jesus, Ronald Reagan, plus Atlas Shrugged. Eh. Okay. Well, at least it kinda rhymes:

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Bush Era Torture Lawyers and the Banality of Evil

A passage from one of the Bush era torture memos set to music: Waterboarding, by the way, as a torture method, goes back to the Spanish Inquisition.  Here’s how Jonathan Kirsch describes waterboarding in his excellent and troubling 2008 Harper-Collins … Continue reading

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Image of a Faux Statue of Liberty Towering Over a Man and Woman Moving Along a Caged Enclosure, Las Vegas

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The Unbearable Oddness of Being: A Curious Image Juxtaposed with Some Lines from a 1974 Margaret Atwood Poem

  Shall I tell you the secret and if I do, will you get me out of this bird suit?   I don’t enjoy it here squatting on this island looking picturesque and mythical            –Margaret Atwood (from “Siren … Continue reading

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