From "An Accidental Collection/How I amassed more T-shirts than I can store" by Haruki Murakami (The New Yorker).
I appreciate Murakami's appreciation of Americans, and I just used the rhetorical device the T-shirt uses. It's something I talked about before, back in 2019, prompted by a quote from Walt Whitman: "I live here in a ruin of debris—a ruin of ruins."
I blogged that because I'd recently seen the idea of a cult following with a cult following:
This could be the kind of joke I've seen many times over the years. I remember hearing it long ago when some character on TV (I think it was Gidget's unattractive female friend [Larue]) said she was so excited her "goosebumps have goosebumps."
That made a big impression on me when I was a teenager — "My goosebumps have goosebumps." Even at the time, I think, I wondered Is this a good template for humor or is it too dumb?
One answer is Who cares about being sophisticated! I’m gonna do what I want!
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I've known people who were addicted to 12-step groups.
I want to be the one to tell him Europeans put mayonnaise on their fries…
I like how he embraces American culture with the compulsive hoarding. Piles on piles…
This T-shirt has a straightforward message: "i put ketchup on my ketchup."
"Nobody, I mean nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog."
Murakami needs to get out more. That's just an Americanization of an old joke about the English, who put brown sauce on their brown sauce, or at least used to back when their cuisine was a global laughingstock (I think it still amuses the French).
Incidentally, Heinz also makes the most popular brand of brown sauce.
Larue was the original Phoebe.
A t-shirt with a picture of a t-shirt on the front.
I heard it on the radio when I believe a caller said to the host that he was outraged by something the host said and the host responded, well I’m outraged that you’re outraged.
Giget was offensive to authentic So Cal beach culture of the 1960's.
I knew there was another Gidget/Walt Whitman connection, but I had to go to Wikipedia to aid my recall.
Karen Valentine played Gidget in one of the Gidget movies.
She also played a teacher in Room 222, which is set in Walt Whitman High School.
Prof, you must have been aware of that show - or did you steer clear of high school shows that came out so soon after you graduated?
JSM
I'm currently re-reading Gödel, Escher, Bach; so my comment is self referencing my self reference
Flat humor is really hard to pull off.
Leaving people wondering whether that was a joke or not also forces you to assess your motives for humor at some point.
Like the child who says of the very old relative they just met, “Her wrinkles have wrinkles!”
Being a contrarian I found Phoebe the most attractive of the Friends. By far. Look how cute she is singing “Stinky Cat” for heaven’s sake!
Oh I spotted another one, a “shadow of a penumbra!”
I would've said Larue was the original Rhoda.
As Johnny Carson would say: “She’s so fat . . That when she sits around the house, she sits AROUND the house.”
My favorite T-shirts I saw when I lived in Tokyo:
– Forcible Pupil
– FUCK CITY (in 12-inch high silver metallic capital letters)
– Time is the rider the break youth
– The Couch Ruined Surfing
– Night cruising pedal
– 11st Monday lovely baby
– I’m fortunate to you and want to be you
– Nomadic collection study in the all from the hearth
– Fuck the Ashley’s (worn by a middle-aged Japanese woman in a ritzy supermarket)
– Climax of a story pink latte lodestar
– What can only ‘HL’ done now
I have no idea what any of it was supposed to mean, but to the wearer it probably made about as much sense as my horribly mangled Japanese (although I am awesome at asking where the bus/train goes).
"My goosebumps have goosebumps."
The first time I heard that very dreary line it was probably on the lips of Huntz Hall, the actor who was paired with Leo Gorcey in the Bowery Boys series, probably on a very dreary Sunday afternoon when the Orioles were rained out, and probably in a very dreary movie called Spook Busters, an unfunny comedy directed by William "One Shot" Beaudine and distributed by the Poverty Row studio, Monogram Pictures.
Apparently my local UHF station had a deal with the distributor to use really crappy movies as contingency programming on a "we'll pay you if we broadcast it" basis on unproven theory that watching Leo Gorcey attempting to tie the world record for malapropisms in a single sentence was more entertaining than a test pattern. The deservedly famous and brilliant Mystery Science Theatre 3000 was born through a similar situation at KTMA-TV in Minneapolis, which aired third-rate Kaiju movies when the Twins were weather-delayed. Unfortunately, no wise-cracking robots provided the color commentary on my station's Rainout Theatre.
Looking back through my collection of MST3Ks I've noted that Best Brains were able to spin comedy gold from some of the moldiest cinematic straw ever committed to celluloid EXCEPT the Bowery Boys delectus. Hopeless is after all hopeless, as we daily rediscover in the Age of Biden.
‘Larue was the original Phoebe’
“I’m the Phoebe!!!”
- Phoebe
I dress casually for work, usually shorts with either a T-shirt or an aloha shirt. I've also amassed a large collection of T's as souvenirs on vacations, or when I something online that I just have to get because it appeals to my warped sense of humor (NECROMANCY: REDUCE, REUSE, REANIMATE). My most recent acquisition shows the outline of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan over the word YOURS. It's kind of passive-aggressive, but only Michiganders and other people from the upper Midwest would get it. I have a favorite T-shirt that I wear around the full moon, that shows a circle of Norse runes with a helmet over crossed swords, with a pair of ravens looking to the sides, with the phrase "IN MY DEFENSE, THE MOON WAS FULL AND I WAS LEFT UNSUPERVISED" above and below the design. Other people get tattoos to make a statement; I get T-shirts, with the benefit that I can make a different statement the next day with a different shirt.
Incidentally, Heinz also makes the most popular brand of brown sauce.
No, no, and again, no. That was Uranus Corporation's Brown-25.
Oh I spotted another one, a “shadow of a penumbra!”
Everything is either the shadow of a penumbra eating a licorice whip at midnight, or a vanilla ice cream eating contest at Ku Klux Klan rally in Antarctica during a blizzard.
Nuance is lost on me.
My hard nipples have hard nipples!
Bru Burger has ketchup I think is made in house. They’re in Indianapolis area and great menu. The one downtown That key is walking distance from Riley Square, on Mass Ave (or in old days, Massachusetts Avenue).
Sally Fields was so cute it wasn't fair to be compared to her.
"Forcible Pupil" and "The Couch Ruined Surfing" might have legs.
"Prof, you must have been aware of that show - or did you steer clear of high school shows that came out so soon after you graduated?"
That show (Room 222) began the fall that I started college and was on for the 4 years that I was in college, so... I didn't even have a TV to watch. I watched plenty of TV shows before college, but then just had no access. My favorite TV about high school was "Dobie Gillis." But that was the students' point of view.
From the teacher's point of view: "Mr. Novak."" I watched that!
And I can remember watching at least 1 episode of "The Bill Cosby Show" — though that ran from 1969 (the year I started college) to 1971.
"Cosby played the role of Chet Kincaid, a physical education teacher at a Los Angeles high school, a bachelor, and an average cool guy trying to earn a living and help people out along the way. The show ran for two seasons, 52 episodes in all. While only a modest critical success, the series was nominated for two Primetime Emmys."
"Being a contrarian I found Phoebe the most attractive of the Friends. By far."
I follow a Reddit group that's about "Friends," and people there are always saying Phoebe is by far the most attractive. She's soooo beautiful. I guess they're being contrarian, but you'd be a contrarian there to say what's just factually true — Joey is the most attractive. Monica is the most attractive of the women. It's very clear in the first 2 seasons.
" Look how cute she is singing “Stinky Cat” for heaven’s sake!"
Smelly Cat.
TV series about SCHOOL? Never watched a single one after I was old enough to choose.
I don't watch The Office either.
I don’t know, Qster, hp seems ubiquitous (owned by Heinz) in the English pantry and also specialty stores here. My favorite tee was one a friend made that got quite popular here, with a graphic of the ubiquiin nyc Greek styled diner coffee cup.
Sally Field? She still looks like that. Or did the last time anyone saw her.
Not to get too far into looks, Lisa Kudrow looked okay in Friends.
When she made her comeback in the Comeback she was hard to look at for very long.
But it was an awful one-joke show.
"saying Phoebe is by far the most attractive.
Monica is the most attractive of the women."
The Important thing to remember,
is that there were two things that men thought about whenever they'd see Rachel
Doesn't really matter what your face looks like, when you have a nice attitude*
a nice attitude*
Some people think, the expression 'a nice attitude' is sly reference to braless tits, with pokey nips... It's Not; it's a DIRECT Reference to braless tits, with pokey nips
You’re right. It is “Smelly Cat”!
Relative to the Phoebe Question, I once did an informal survey among friends and acquaintances, asking roughly 40 or so, “Ginger or Maryann?” The only two to answer Ginger ended up marrying each other a few years later. Didn’t last.
They put coffee in the coffee in Brazil!
Monica was creator Marta Kaufmann's alter ego and wish fulfillment, but Jennifer Aniston's Rachel was the breakout character from the show.
It must have been the haircut.
And if you’re tired of being tired you might just be retired.
My wife is half-Mexican, and half-Polish. She is thrilled when people tell her she looks like Sally Fields.
"Goosebumps" We grew up calling them goosepimples. We called coke and pepsi soft drinks. My wife from the midwest called it pop. We were from the San Joaquin/Central Valley in California. We pronounced almonds without the L. am-ends with a short a.
People Offended by Offended People.
But it was an awful one-joke show.
The intersection and general adjacency of awful and sublime. They didn’t run it too long, and it ought to be the last word of cringecoms, Curbed notwithstanding. My cringes cringed watching that.
Imagine how it made people in Hollywood feel. Too spot on. She’s a bold artist.
You give my boner a boner.
Althouse provides a tiny bit of positive social media advertising to corporate Heinz, while John Kerry (Mr. Heinz) makes deals as the official US climate change czar with the CCP - deals that will enrich his wife, who has millions invested in China.
I wonder if the taxes on yacht purchases are lower, or higher, if you register it in China than in Rhode Island or Massachussetts?
Kerry is putting corruption on his corruption.
But we're the ones expected to choke it down.
"Karen Valentine played Gidget in one of the Gidget movies."
Karen Valentine and Sally Field were born less than a year apart, went to the same high school. Cindy Williams, too.
There's a woman I follow on MeWe who is obsessed with mayonnaise, all her posts are about it.
In the Navy I remember a sailor who was a chain smoker, and apparently he had no sense of smell or taste left. He carried a mini-bottle of Tabasco Sauce around in his shirt pocket and put it on all his foods. I saw him put Tabasco on a cinnamon roll one morning.
Monica's personality over time overrode her objectively great looks. After a few seasons, she was in the proverbial "no-go zone." Rachael reminds me still of my ex-wife, when I first met her and fell for her at first sight. Too bad people grow apart. But seeing Rachael on clips or pictures from Friends sometimes is a little startling.
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