"If I emailed my parents like Democrats email me."

The best McSweeney's piece I've seen in a long long time.

"Updated Covid Guidelines: A Flow Chart Wrapped in a Riddle Shrouded in a Clusterfuck."

McSweeney's answers the question "Should you wear a mask?"

"Things people say when you get divorced that they really should say when you get engaged."

A list (at McSweeney's).

Maybe you're too nice to find this amusing.

"The political-insider chatter is already suggesting that Warren might have a 'likability' problem, just like the one that supposedly was Clinton’s downfall."

"And if two or three other women join the race, which appears likely, they will no doubt hear that as well. As a headline on the humorous McSweeney’s website put it: 'I Don’t Hate Women Candidates — I Just Hated Hillary and Coincidentally I’m Starting to Hate Elizabeth Warren.' ... Were it not for the fact that they are both women... it’s hard to imagine a reason that Warren’s bid would already be freighted by associations with Clinton’s. The populist Massachusetts senator has made no secret of her disdain for Clinton’s brand of politics, which she says was too cozy with big banks and powerful interests... While Clinton had a 20-point plan ready for every question, she failed to weave it all together into anything that resembled a coherent rationale for her candidacy.... Warren, on the other hand, diagnoses virtually every issue... with the same blunt prescription. 'The answer is corruption, pure and simple. We have a government that works for those at the top,' she says...."

Writes Karen Tumulty in "Elizabeth Warren has something Hillary Clinton didn’t" (WaPo).

"Dear Fellow Alumni, I write to you to address the recent controversy over our college’s long-standing mascot, Sir Racist Von Genocide."

"Clad in his flowing white robes and hood, he has been a traditional fixture on our campus. To my utter astonishment, after this year’s homecoming, many current students have called him 'culturally insensitive' and demanded we replace him. Yes, during Homecoming, he did erect a Confederate statue on the field while shouting a full-throated defense of eugenics into the loudspeaker. But what are we supposed to do? Buy entirely new sweatshirts?..."

The funniest part of this satire at McSweeney's is how over-the-top they thought they needed to be to mock the traditionalists.

"Sir Racist Von Genocide" reminds me of "Boaty McBoatface" — a name so repetitiously and heavy-handedly literal that it opens a door to devilishness.

Subtler humor, please. I'm afraid of "Sir Racist Von Genocide." I'm afraid people will love him.

At McSweeney's, incel jokes.

1. "JORDAN PETERSON’S NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC!" is a list of satirically reimagined songs, some of which show familiarity with what Peterson does tend to talk about — "Rock Lobster Domination Pose," "It’s Draining Men (The Low Testosterone Song)" — and some of which doesn't — "I’m Hot for Teacher (Who Should Be Forced to Have Sex With Me Forever)" — but I just want to highlight the incel material: "Incelebration."

2. "THE INCEL SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK":

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like an equal redistribution of sexual resources.
Let us go, through certain half-considered tweets
and form tedious arguments
about entitlement.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Maya Angelou....

Continued, at the link. Here's the T.S. Eliot poem for reference.

"Audience Participation Cues for the My Dinner with Andre Midnight Screening."

When those "Rocky Horror" events leave you feeling empty and questioning your very existence, it's time to move on to the Andre scene...

When André tells the story of his attempt to workshop a production of The Little Prince, and how he found himself eating sand in the Sahara desert with a Buddhist monk, eat some sand.

Throw a banana at the screen every time André mentions his wife Chiquita....

When André and Wally discuss the lamentable state of the theater and wonder if it’s possible to create a theatrical experience that would shake people out of their complacency, ask yourself: Is attending this screening/performance of My Dinner With André making you less complacent, or does it allow you to wrap yourself in yet another protective layer of ironic detachment? Is endlessly reenacting My Dinner With André a way for members of The MDWA Midnight Madness Troupe to hide behind a mask of performance and avoid exposing who we really are? Are we really saying anything with this show, or is it just an excuse for people to get drunk and dress up on a Friday night?

Treat yourself to a nice amaretto when Wally orders an after-dinner drink....

"In the wake of Modern Guilt and The Information, Beck’s latest album comes in an almost-forgotten form..."

"... twenty songs existing only as individual pieces of sheet music, never before released or recorded."

Sweet. People used to play their own music. Back in the 1930s, my mother bought sheet music. That was how the hit songs were purchased back then. I have a box of those old songs in my hall closet. But things are different today: Beck is inviting people to record these songs, and he's working with McSweeney's to make (some of) our versions of his songs available on line.

McSweeney's makes a comical list of "Suggested Buzzfeed Articles."

"Elvis Presley’s 42 Sweatiest Moments... The 100 Filthiest Bathrooms in Philadelphia... 11 Retired History Professors Being Stung by Wasps... 26 Celebrities Who Look Worse Because of the Passage of Time... 84 Things That Aren’t On an Everything Bagel... 41 Close-Ups Of Severely Rotting Teeth... 3 Raccoons That Would Kill You and Your Family... The World’s 13 Laziest Salmon... 16 Beautiful Photos From Underneath a Bed...."

You get the idea, don't you? Do you? Let's assume you do. Anyway, Buzzfeed — that website with those lists that are there to get you to click on them, because people love lists — went ahead and made "84 Things That Aren’t On An Everything Bagel," and got the upper hand, I'd say. And they kept going.

Forget McSweeney's. Buzzfeed is a thing, e.g., "Annoying Photo Trend: Girls With Mugs In Front Of Their Faces. This is a Thing." And: "The Unnecessary Censorship Of Men's Olympic Diving."