September 30, 2018

A closer look at my sense of humor.

As you can see in the previous post, I saw a George Bernard Shaw play — "Heartbreak House" — at a lovely outdoor theater yesterday. The excellent cast gave a fine performance and got quite a few laughs. I laughed. It was a comedy, based on the style of Anton Chekhov and also inspired by the 1874 painting "The North-West Passage/It might be done and England should do it."



Anyway. Though I laughed a sort of abstracted intellectual laugh during the play and appreciated it silently much of the time, there was something I saw and thought after the play that reduced me to flat-out hysteria.

I was walking down the path from the theater in the woods on the hill, down toward the parking lot with the rest of the crowd, and in front of me was a young man in a leather jacket that has 2 words painted on the back of it. He had a blanket or something slung over he shoulder. (It was a bit cold, and many people had blankets.) So I couldn't read the entire words, just the ends of the words. I saw "-ORM" above "-OW." I tried to think of what he might have written there, and I figured that "-OW" was "NOW," and it was a political slogan. He wanted something, and he wanted it now. Like Jim Morrison:



So what was it he wanted with this primal urgency? "-ORM"? I thought: REFORM. And the idea of "REFORM NOW" as a political slogan cracked me up to the point of insanity. It's like shouting "Give me moderation or give me death!" "Reform" is just too dull of a wish to demand it NOW!

I was lost in hilarity when the man whipped the blanket off his shoulder and revealed the 2 words. Suddenly the impossibly dull political demand was a blatant, far-off mistake, which only made it funnier to me, especially in contrast to the real words, which were for me nonsense — "STORM CROW." Nonsense is funny too.  You don't get nonsense when you always have the internet at your fingertips, but I did not have it there as I was dissolving in laughter on that hill. To me STORM CROW was just a new way to shout REFORM NOW!

In the clear light of morning, internet at my fingertips, I see the boring information that Storm Crow is a character in "Magic: The Gathering," and "Magic: The Gathering" is a trading card game. There are over 20 billion "Magic: The Gathering" trading cards out there. That's all news to me.  Maybe if you saw "-ORM/-OW" on a young man's leather jacket, you'd figure right off it was "STORM CROW." But I had my 2 minutes of high amusement trying to think what sort of person would get so intense about reform, that he might caterwaul — in the Jim Morrison mode — We want reform and we want it... NOW!!!!!

70 comments:

tcrosse said...

What do we want?
Incremental change!
When do we want it?
In due course!

Ralph L said...

Mary
Mom
Hell's Angels

Rob said...

“Reform Now” is both too lacking in ambition and too impractical. Youth’s slogan should be, “We want the world, and we want it a week from Thursday.”

Fernandinande said...

Storm Crow
Oracle Text
Flying (This creature can't be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach.)


But be careful, there are six variants!

In due course!

I thought we wanted it as soon as was reasonably possible, or am I impatient?

buwaya said...

We had kids of the age of the "Magic" and other such games after you I guess.
Ubiquitous in those circles, middle and high school.

buwaya said...

Also Pokemon, Zelda, Warhammer, etc. and etc.

Paul Zrimsek said...

"Why should I welcome you, Gandalf Reformnow?" -- Théoden King of Rohan

buwaya said...

In Pokemon I am apparently a Snorlax.

Eleanor said...

My son is 38, and Magic trading cards were very much a part of what he and his friends did in middle school and high school. His nephew, my grandson, is 12 now, and the game is still very popular with his friends, and his uncle indulges him with new cards frequently. I don't know if I would have completed the letters on the guy's jacket correctly, but I would have recognized the reference immediately. It's a card the guys tried hard to add to their decks. Sometimes things catch on in one part of the country and not others, I guess. Like the JoJo Siwa bows for the girls. It's a grandmother's job to keep up.

Meade said...

Since these days personal confession seems to be in vogue around the heartbreak house of a blog, I'll offer mine:

When I was Brett Kavanaugh's age—when he was at his 17 yr old naughtiest—my long-suffering parents handed me a sort of trading card that said:

REFORM NOW

In my state of (shall we say dyslexia?) it took me several years before I realized they were not asking me to:

PERFORM LOWBROW

(And now you know the rest of my story.)

Sebastian said...

"And the idea of "REFORM NOW" as a political slogan cracked me up to the point of insanity. It's like shouting "Give me moderation or give me death!" "

Hey, that's just the way I reacted to that person I noticed recently, going on and on about something called "cruel neutrality"! Cracked me up.

Oso Negro said...

I knew we reached peak Althouse yesterday.

Laslo Spatula said...

"He wanted something, and he wanted it now."

Actually, I think that would be a very fitting slogan for many.

I believe that many people feel strongly about their passions, especially those against perceived injustices that resonate with them.

And I also believe many just feel 'something' -- an emptiness, an inspecificity of purpose -- that draws them to something that fills in that blank, that surrounds them with people with whom they can find a warmth of meaning, of action to counteract the space in their lives that passivity fills..

And then that warmth fades, and it is on to the next 'something'.

In the 70s all of the major bands protested nuclear power.

The turnstiles rotate with the masses, and on to Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, Pro-Choice Groups, Black Lives Matter...

The original cause goes on with the original guard; the cause-seekers move on for the next rush of timely righteousness.

"We want something, and we want it now" would save having to buy a new shirt for each cause.

I am Laslo.

tcrosse said...

"Serenity Now!" -Frank Costanza

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rehajm said...

Reform Now

woN, owN

Yancey Ward said...

Insanity later.

Yancey Ward said...

I think it likely I was wrong about Jeff Flake- he will vote against Kavanaugh no matter what happens this week. Crack linked to it last night (or tried to), Flake's appearance at Global Citizen. Flake has defected to the Democrats, but didn't have the courage to say so on Friday. I hope Murkowski and Collins watched that disgusting performance.

I had dismissed as conspiracy theory that Flake was planning to take a main-stream media position with one of the leftist news organizations, but I now think I was wrong to do so- after seeing that Global Citizen bit, it is hard to explain Flake's actions as anything but a deliberate betrayal for personal gain.

Laslo Spatula said...

Reform Straight-Chain Molecules Now.

I am Laslo.

Dave Begley said...

Who would buy an expensive leather jacket with Storm Crow on the back and then go to a Geo. Shaw play?

Trumpit said...

I hate straggly beards. My grandmother hated facial hair.

FullMoon said...

Perfect.

And I also believe many just feel 'something' -- an emptiness, an inspecificity of purpose -- that draws them to something that fills in that blank, that surrounds them with people with whom they can find a warmth of meaning, of action to counteract the space in their lives that passivity fills..

And then that warmth fades, and it is on to the next 'something'.

rcocean said...

The original play was 4 hours. How long was this version?

rcocean said...

Not even Flake can put a written statement saying he will vote FOR Kavanaugh, and then turn around a week later and vote against.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

“May we pretty please have a little reform some time in the future?”

Matt Sablan said...

Hearing Storm Crow (an efficiently costed 1/2 flier) called a character makes me smile because I've never heard it called that before. Creature or card, yes, character, no. It always amuses me how hobbies come up with new jargon for concepts that already exist.

Though, I do love Magic the Gathering, even back when we had The Stack (which was not a character)

n.n said...

The "white girl next door" is the next stop on the progressive slope.

The script has already been written for the next candidate. Decade after regrets for the boy. Diversity quotas for the girl. And, of course, a woman's rite to selective-child. We know how they will attack Barret.

That said, and a funny skit and transgender homosexual #Label and #Judgment, perhaps an outing, for good measure.

D 2 said...

Jim Morrison reference. ....err... (sigh) ok then.

Of all the Doors songs that could have been playing too loudly on the stereo on an underage drunken swimming party That Night That Summer Some Place, Possibly '82, I don't think it was likely to be No Me Moleste Mosquito - a Doors song (post Morrison) which I remember having been played loudly at a party I went to in the late 80s, which my friend A-- thought was good. I can't remember the date of the party but I believe it was very sedate, but I will not testify to either.

I will testify that No Me Moleste Mosquito is easier to dance to than Light My Fire. But not by much.

Etienne said...

I was watching an old Bennie Hill on youtube and his new neighbor wanted to swap marriage partners. At first he appears to be gay, and of course Bennie get's a little nervous.

But then his wife takes a fancy to him, and the door bell rings and a beautiful girl comes in and Bennie thinks it's his wife, and quickly agrees. But then the girl gets coffee and milk spilled on her as Bennie is too excited on the sofa, so she walks around in her underwear as his wife cleans her dress.

But then the girl gets ready to leave and Bennie is told she's just the daughter, and when he opens the door, this old lady comes in, and Bennie thinks he's robbed.

But the clincher is, she doesn't want sex, she wants to feed him. Bennie thinks it's a good deal compared to his wife. The scene ends with Benny hugging her and eating cake.

So many misunderstandings in only 10 minutes...

Yancey Ward said...

rcocean wrote:

"Not even Flake can put a written statement saying he will vote FOR Kavanaugh, and then turn around a week later and vote against."

Why not? He could simply come this Friday and say the FBI needs another week, and then another week etc. I think he doesn't want to have to vote at all- he is trying to get the nomination pulled so that he never has to vote on a replacement for Kennedy before he is out of the Senate. However, he does need the cooperation of either Collins or Murkowski to pull this off, or he needs someone to die of something. I think, if a vote is forced, he will, at best from the Republican view, vote "present", but will vote "no" if he can force either of the other two fence sitters to not vote for confirmation.

The way Flake basked in the adulation at Global Citizen told me that Friday morning's "agonized, indecisive Flake" was a facade altogether. If Friday's performance were authentic, there is no way Flake goes to Global Citizen in the first place, and even if he did, there is no way he behaves like that on stage. I hope I am wrong, but I don't believe it right now.

William said...

I usd to think that Jim Morrison died a poetic and tragic death. Now I just think what a stupid, fucking waste. He could have had the life of Keith Richards or Rod Stewart. Supermodels, private islands, endless adulation. Jim Morrison truly fucked up.

Yancey Ward said...

Someone in the leadership needs to be talking to Collins and Murkowski now to find out if they ever intend to support the nomination- if not, just call the vote and get it over with, and get ready for Barrett's hearings next month.

Etienne said...

William said...Jim Morrison truly fucked up.

Morrison got fat. That's what did him in. He was losing weight but didn't reduce his heroin intake.

When you do heroin, you really need to consider your weight. e.g., A fat person can drink more beer than a skinny person.

His grave is now also a tragedy. The cemetery had to build a glass wall around it as the tourists were desecrating it. Now they desecrate the glass wall.

I feel sorry for his neighbors. "that fucking American is ruining my dirt nap"...

Bad Lieutenant said...

At this point I don't care if Flake votes Yes or No, I still want him broken on the wheel. In fact wouldn't the numbers be better if he never votes at all rather than votes no? I wouldn't kill him, I wouldn't even hurt him, but if somebody else did, would it be illegal for me to send them a Stella D'oro breakfast treat?

Bad Lieutenant said...

By the way, stupid post from a flibbertigibbet.

Birkel said...

Paul Zrimsek wins this thread.

wild chicken said...

So many misunderstandings in only 10 minutes.


As i read that I could hear Yakety Sax blaring in my head

Bill Peschel said...

"Reform now" was the theme of the presidential election. A large portion of the support for Bernie and Trump came from people who were sickened by what they saw in Washington.

No one's willing to admit that, because then they'd lose the argument over indefensible positions.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

when a play is written about Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing.
it should be a real side-splitter

gilbar said...

if you're going to put something lame on your leather jacket, you need to put the Lamest:
magikarp

Bunkypotatohead said...

PROCRASTINATE NOW!

gilbar said...

from chem class...
Free Radicals!

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

Used to edit a leftist newspaper. We had a standard joke about our lead headlines:

WORLD WAR III TOMORROW!

GIVE NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

Heartless Aztec said...

Almost as funny as "Peace Frog".

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...

Nothing better illustrates a man’'s character than what he laughs at.. - Goethe

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

You should sell "Cruel Neutrality" T-shirts and shorts.

Ralph L said...

End Road Work

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

End Road Work Now!

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

AA could also sell "Civility Bullshit" ball caps.

n.n said...

Is "too dull of a wish" NOW a knock on N.O.W.?

Today, it's the end of the world is NYE, purchase your carbon credits before your capital is redistributed.

"Reform now" was the theme of the presidential election.

Trump's election is supposed to be about a conservation of principles. MAGA is about restoring, not reforming, based on principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution (less the Twilight Amendment).

steve uhr said...

How about live blogging the Brewers and Cubs games? I'm sure you have a unique set of play-by-play skills.

Rosalyn C. said...

Who would put Reform Now on their leather jacket and go to a Shaw play? Why, David Hogg, Parkland high school survivor, of course! Recently invited to speak at Harvard. What will he be doing when he's fifty? Career politician? College professor? Franchise owner? Probably most of us won't be around by then. The children of today believe they will run things better. Doubtful, seriously doubtful.

narciso said...

He is still more subtle than Pinter and hare.

JMW Turner said...

No, "Procrastinate Later!" I've been relatively new to this blog, but my appreciation of what Meade brings to Ann's life besides the willingness to climb on the roof and clean gutters is his somewhat Libertarian sense of humour;Monty Python meets GRand Paul meets Dennis Miller. Or, am I projecting?

Laslo Spatula said...

"...(it) cracked me up to the point of insanity... I was lost in hilarity... I was dissolving in laughter on that hill...."

Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It's like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.

I am Laslo.

n.n said...

A lovely scene with father and daughter.

Laslo Spatula said...

"STORM CROW" isn't particularly funny.

"STORM COW" on the other hand: there are possibilities.

I am Laslo.

Tina Trent said...

North-West Passage makes me think of the Eurasian Land Bridge.

Lyndon LaRouche is still trying to build it.

Zorfwaddle said...

Strangely enough, 2-3 sets of MTG cards are in front of me now, one of which is from 1996. Building an Artifact deck.

Some of the cards from the original decks in 93-94 are worth $7000+....

Jorge

Laslo Spatula said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Laslo Spatula said...

Though I laughed a sort of abstracted intellectual laugh, and appreciated it silently much of the time, there was something I saw and thought after the bees that reduced me to flat-out hysteria...

The bees had buzzed and they had hovered, and the flowers had looked scared in that way when things that don't have feelings suddenly look like they are having the exact same feeling that you are having, and that is what I felt when I watched the bees hover and buzz...

I am not sure if it was the bees themselves that scared me so, or if it was the bees making me think of the thought of bees. Because what draws the bees? The witches and their witch-milk draw the bees, everyone knows that...

The rumors were in the whispers and the whispers were in the townspeople's lips and ears. The bees come in the day, even the children knew that, but at night was what the rumors and the whispers were really about...

In the woods the witches left hints of their previous eve's presence in scattered twigs and in leaves attached to the twigs that were scattered. They looked like everyday twigs if you didn't know what you were looking for, but if you knew what you were looking for then you saw it, as clear as a moon-beetle on a night with no clouds...

So, yes, I laughed a sort of abstracted intellectual laugh because the bees were here. But the laughter was not of the bees, but what they brought. The bees that brought the witches, and that was the source of my flat-out hysteria, because everyone knew that the bees brought the witches and that the witches, they brought Storm Cow...

I am Laslo.

Tommy Duncan said...

Happiness is wanting what you get.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Land of the glass pinecones
They only grow for the full moon
The farmers never gather them
The magic cones are heaven-sent
Land of the glass pinecones
Their seeds are made of rhinestones
The squirrels never scatter them
They know what rhinestone seeds portend
Land of the glass pinecones
They smash on the grass when the wind blows
The splinters fly throughout the land
And pierce the eye of every man

Josephbleau said...

We want something and we want it now. This is something, therefore we want this now.

Spiros Pappas said...

George Bernard Shaw is awesome. He once said that “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world.” Obviously, we're never going to stop young men like Brett Kavanaugh from raping drunk girls. Men will always rape women. Reasonable people adapt to the existing situation and take small, practical steps to reduce the number of rapes. For example, if we, as Republicans and moderate Democrats and on the fence Independents, fight for something practical, like convincing the Senate not to appoint Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, we’ll see tangible results in our lifetimes!

narciso said...

David hares worringer triptych for instance.

Meade said...

@JMW Turner- welcome and please, project freely! No kindly offered boost to my self-esteem -- however modest, subtle, ironic, or back-handed -- goes unappreciated!

rcocean said...

"The way Flake basked in the adulation at Global Citizen told me that Friday morning's "agonized, indecisive Flake" was a facade altogether."

We were flipping through the channels and saw C-span had a titled program:

"Road to the White House 2020" - and it was about Jeff Flake making a speech in NH!

He has as much chance to win the nomination as a snowflakes chance in Hell.

And who unleashed Meade? Who does he think he is, "Chuck"?






Tom Grey said...

"What have they done to the earth, (yeah)?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn and
Tied her with fences and
Dragged her down
I hear a very gentle sound
With your ear down to the ground
We want the world and we want it (we want the world and we want it!)
Now
Now?
Now!"

I was going to just quote the "ear down to the ground", but realized that the God-shaped place which is empty is driving so many Dems to fill it with quasi-religious beliefs which are far less believable than any major religion.
What have they done to the Earth? << watermelon Greens.
What have they done with our fair sister? << see answers in #MeToo, toxic masculine ravishment (just like in most popular best-selling romances, especially 50 Shades...)

Ann, with her ear on ground, somehow finds an accusation credible with no memory of who else was actually there (those named deny it), nor the house, nor the time, nor how the accuser got home. Looks a lot like a false memory to me.

NewNeo has excellent stuff about false memories, and evidence. There's no evidence to support anything Ford said -- altho her "performance" was incredibly sincere. (I believe she now believes that story; false memory.)
https://www.thenewneo.com/2018/09/29/trial-by-tears/

I support a civilization with the presumption of innocence. Democrats don't. It's not clear what Ann thinks of this presumption, now.

"When the music's over,
Turn out the lights."

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