It's a spy series, set in a supernatural world, and the James Bond
parallels are rampant. The book's version of Q (called the Armourer) is
working in his lab, and our hero and his girlfriend go to speak with
him. They find him working on a little black box that, as he says, is
"supposed to go bang. And it doesn't."
So he picks up a big hammer and whacks it a good one.
This
alarms the hero and the girlfriend, who take the hammer away from the
poor Armourer, worried that he will blow them all to kingdom come, and
the Armourer then delivers the line. The great line. The one I've been
waiting to read.
"You have to teach technology to respect you! It has to know who's in charge!"
That's
exactly how *I* feel. Oh sure, I love riding in cars and flying in
airplanes. Online games are great and without email most of you would
never hear from me ever again. But that doesn't really make me any more
comfortable with technology. When something fails on me, sure, I feel
betrayed, but not like you feel betrayed when a good friend stabs you in
the back - more like Holmes felt betrayed when Moriarty pulled one over
on him. It's the betrayal you realize you have perpetrated on
yourself, for ever thinking you had finally won over the life long nemesis.
Someone get me a hammer. I'm gonna go teach my router to respect me.
**********
I've
been thinking about the nature of humor, and offense. Specifically,
those things we find humorous that skirt, or outright cross the line,
into offensiveness. Mostly I've been thinking about this because I
recently upset a friend of mine with something I found really funny, and
also because I read a comic in which the cops were using some pretty
serious gallows humor to get through a really difficult crime scene, and
the things they were joking about were things that, typically, I would
declare to be "never funny", and yet I could see the humor in what they
were saying.
There are things that I don't ever really find
funny. George Carlin says anything can be funny, but I can't imagine
laughing at a joke about genocide, or mass oppression. At the same
time, I understand that there are times in all our lives
that the only way we can deal with something is by breaking into
thousands of tiny pieces... or laughing. So we make inappropriate
jokes, and we laugh. If humor is a defense mechanism, should we ever
declare a joke inappropriate?
Of course, humor isn't JUST a defense mechanism.
I'm not claiming that. It can totally be offensive (I mean that in the
way of weaponry, not in the way of sensibilities). John Stewart and
Stephen Colbert go on the offensive with their humor all the time.
Mostly I cheer them on. But bullies, both childhood and adult, use
humor to go on the offense. So is the distinction between an offensive
joke and a non-offensive joke not the subject matter, but the intent
BEHIND the subject matter?
And if that's the case, do we give a pass to people
who make racists or sexists joke, if they really aren't trying to hurt
anyone by them? Or do we think they should know better? But then we're
back to judging by content, not intent.
It seems to me that humor is a tricky thing. Daddy
loves Andy Kauffman; thinks he was a comic genius. I just think he was
an intellectual bully, but I know plenty of people who disagree with
me. Who's to say who is right? I often say that I don't like humor
that is based on making other people uncomfortable, and I don't, but
then again, I don't actually know how frequently my humor makes
other people uncomfortable. Among my family, and some of my friends, we
tend to make fun of people. The more we like you, the more comfortable
we are mocking you. Chances are excellent that if I've ever said
something even slightly mean to you it means I think we're friends.
(Except for you, Kate R. I really hate you. PS, welcome to the email
list) But I don't know how many people have actually been bothered by
that, and just pretended that they found it funny.
Chances are good that for every joke you've ever
told, either someone out there would find it offensive if they heard it,
or it wasn't really funny. I'm not maligning your jokes, I'm just
saying that humor and a capacity for offense seem to be really closely
intertwined.
At least, to my way of thinking.
***********
Elliot
got plowed under by an automatic door today. We had gone to the
grocery store, at his request, to refill our depleted supply of Kix, and
he was, as he so frequently is, dawdling. I had Charlotte loaded up in
the cart, and was trying to cajole Elliot into joining us.
"Buddy, come on." No movement.
"Buddy,
you're blocking the door, people need to get in and out." A thoughtful
glance around, accompanied by a judicious grope of his penis. Now that
he's found it he's constantly checking to make sure it hasn't gone
anywhere.
"Elliot, someone is going to come through that door
with a cart and not see you, now get over here." So he starts to move,
and at that second the door swings into him. WHAM!
Elliot wails and goes sprawling. I check him and find no lasting
damage, merely a sense of injustice fomenting in his tiny heart.
There
were several older women standing around (YES, Momma, YOUR AGE, which
is OLDER than ME.) and they were all horrified. I heard many
exclamations.
"Oh, I can't believe that hit him!"
"Poor little fellow!"
"Oh honey, are you all right?"
What does his heartless mother say?
"See, that's why I don't want you to just stand around in the doorway."
************
This
may be my last LITSL email for the summer, unless something so
momentous happens that I just HAVE to send one. Soon Coury and Daniel
will be here for two weeks, and then we'll all be in CA at Tiff's house,
then Been, Daniel and Joseph will be here through the beginning of
August, and then I'm supposed to be maybe meeting some people in NYC, if
we can all actually agree on a specific date. So I'll be a little
busy. Everyone have a lovely couple of months.
No comments:
Post a Comment