Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Golden Corral v. Whites: Separate but Cheaper
Golden Corral would like you to believe that black people will jump out of a moving car for a buffet. Meanwhile their pretentious white "friends" are oblivious to the siren song of unlimited mash potatoes. Before you yell "das racist!" consider the following: the black people are given seats at the rear of the vehicle, not being asked to stand. They are well dressed, indicating respect for the ceremonious 10$ entree. Most affirming of all, they will brave any hardship, whether pavement or heart disease, to ensure a financially prudent date night. There's nothing racist about whites and blacks eating at separate restaurants as long as one of them is cheaper.
Wait, it's totally racist, without any commentary on that racism. And it is deliberate.
You can imagine the director asking the black male to slouch more in his seat. It's impossible to imagine this kind of advertisement being storyboarded without someone's 2012 racial consciousness piping up. Is it satire, or should we conclude that this actually fits the expectations of Golden Corral's black guests?
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Pat Robertson Says Marijuana Use Should be Legal
I couldn't help but google the signs of the apocalypse after reading Robertson's statements regarding marijuana. I wasn't fully aware how much my own morality is based on not being like people like Pat Robertson. Thankfully Robertson has never been more than a sideshow, so his endorsement does not singularly change my stance on marijuana.
The opinion of a man who explains earthquakes not with geology, but theology, specifically made up theology, is not one which carries much sway. That's why the following statement about marijuana is so problematic.
“It’s completely out of control,” Mr. Robertson said. “Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the penalties, the maximums, some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana. It makes no sense at all.”
Like me and all sensible pragmatists, Robertson has just assessed the cost-benefit of the war on drugs and found it did not pass the test. And as all sensible pragmatists would also advise, never sign a deal with the devil. That rarely works out.
Robertson even employs a facile comparison, “If people can go into a liquor store and buy a bottle of alcohol and drink it at home legally, then why do we say that the use of this other substance is somehow criminal?” This kind of reasoning is great for moral consistency, since it discourages treating one behavior as different from an identical behavior. Marijuana and alcohol are both recreational drugs the Bible does not forbid. Jesus even turned water into wine, “I don’t think he was a teetotaler. The key is moderation, Robertson believes, “When I was in college, I hit [da booze] pretty hard, but that was before Christ."
This kind of reasoning also is terrible for moral consistency, because it provides us no means to reject behaviors which are similar, in this case heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy. Those are also recreational drugs. If we use them in moderation, why should they be illegal? Along the same lines, why shouldn't homosexuals be able to marry? We let heterosexuals marry. Jesus was for love, he wasn't about keeping people apart. “If you follow the teaching of Christ, you know that Christ is a compassionate man,” Robertson said. Either these things should be legal, or alcohol-marijuana is a false moral equivalency.
This mixing and matching between pragmatism, false equivalency, and his typical black-and-white moral condemnation raises the question, is it satire? Is Robertson simply lending his imprimatur to a liberal issue in order to scare moderates like me away? I'd almost prefer to live in a world where one percent of the population is in jail for drug offenses than one where I agree with Pat Robertson. As a career pariah, he must know his opinion negatively correlates with everyone outside his insular base. Perhaps Pat Robertson's metawareness has finally reached the point in his later years that he's willing to wield his brand as a weapon. Either that, or, Pat Robertson actually thinks marijuana use should be legal.
"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about. They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another."
The opinion of a man who explains earthquakes not with geology, but theology, specifically made up theology, is not one which carries much sway. That's why the following statement about marijuana is so problematic.
“It’s completely out of control,” Mr. Robertson said. “Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the penalties, the maximums, some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana. It makes no sense at all.”
Like me and all sensible pragmatists, Robertson has just assessed the cost-benefit of the war on drugs and found it did not pass the test. And as all sensible pragmatists would also advise, never sign a deal with the devil. That rarely works out.
Robertson even employs a facile comparison, “If people can go into a liquor store and buy a bottle of alcohol and drink it at home legally, then why do we say that the use of this other substance is somehow criminal?” This kind of reasoning is great for moral consistency, since it discourages treating one behavior as different from an identical behavior. Marijuana and alcohol are both recreational drugs the Bible does not forbid. Jesus even turned water into wine, “I don’t think he was a teetotaler. The key is moderation, Robertson believes, “When I was in college, I hit [da booze] pretty hard, but that was before Christ."
This kind of reasoning also is terrible for moral consistency, because it provides us no means to reject behaviors which are similar, in this case heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy. Those are also recreational drugs. If we use them in moderation, why should they be illegal? Along the same lines, why shouldn't homosexuals be able to marry? We let heterosexuals marry. Jesus was for love, he wasn't about keeping people apart. “If you follow the teaching of Christ, you know that Christ is a compassionate man,” Robertson said. Either these things should be legal, or alcohol-marijuana is a false moral equivalency.
This mixing and matching between pragmatism, false equivalency, and his typical black-and-white moral condemnation raises the question, is it satire? Is Robertson simply lending his imprimatur to a liberal issue in order to scare moderates like me away? I'd almost prefer to live in a world where one percent of the population is in jail for drug offenses than one where I agree with Pat Robertson. As a career pariah, he must know his opinion negatively correlates with everyone outside his insular base. Perhaps Pat Robertson's metawareness has finally reached the point in his later years that he's willing to wield his brand as a weapon. Either that, or, Pat Robertson actually thinks marijuana use should be legal.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Glitterbombing Rick Santorum
A bunch of bigoted one percenters hired some unemployed 20-somethings to glitterbomb Rick Santorum. And they threw the glitter at him, and no one much cared.
Stupid-ass embedding disabled by request.
http://youtu.be/D4eTuOJhWS8
After landing most of the glitter harmlessly on the ground near Santorum, the protesters revealed their motivation for such enormous symbolic act: they yelled "You hate gays!" at Rick Santorum, one of the less fruitful protest tactics I've seen. The only way it makes sense is if Santorum rushes to defend himself, which is 1)unlikely, since your critique does not come from a position of influence or thoughtfulness and, 2)not even damning were he to decide to. It's like they wanted to provide Santorum the opportunity to reiterate his position on family values.
If that weren't enough to raise suspicion of whether this is actually satire, as they are escorted away the protesters inexplicably begin shouting "occupy!" This fourth-wall breaking is only useful when making a comment on the art, otherwise it's just a disruption. No real occupy protester would be so dumb as to associate their cause with half-assed glitterbombing. Occupy stands for much larger, egalitarian issues and seeks to achieve a real change in democracy. Nice try bigoted one percenters, but no one with half a brain believes that was a real protest.
On the other hand, it is possible some real protesters just punked themselves by valuing zeal more than intelligence, and enthusiasm more than planning. Demonstrating solidarity as you voluntarily leave could be a means to save face at what would embarrass 99% of people. Is it satire?
Stupid-ass embedding disabled by request.
http://youtu.be/D4eTuOJhWS8
After landing most of the glitter harmlessly on the ground near Santorum, the protesters revealed their motivation for such enormous symbolic act: they yelled "You hate gays!" at Rick Santorum, one of the less fruitful protest tactics I've seen. The only way it makes sense is if Santorum rushes to defend himself, which is 1)unlikely, since your critique does not come from a position of influence or thoughtfulness and, 2)not even damning were he to decide to. It's like they wanted to provide Santorum the opportunity to reiterate his position on family values.
If that weren't enough to raise suspicion of whether this is actually satire, as they are escorted away the protesters inexplicably begin shouting "occupy!" This fourth-wall breaking is only useful when making a comment on the art, otherwise it's just a disruption. No real occupy protester would be so dumb as to associate their cause with half-assed glitterbombing. Occupy stands for much larger, egalitarian issues and seeks to achieve a real change in democracy. Nice try bigoted one percenters, but no one with half a brain believes that was a real protest.
On the other hand, it is possible some real protesters just punked themselves by valuing zeal more than intelligence, and enthusiasm more than planning. Demonstrating solidarity as you voluntarily leave could be a means to save face at what would embarrass 99% of people. Is it satire?
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Guy Garvey, lead singer of Elbow, sounds like Winnie the Pooh
In my continued attempt to find some search term niche in which this blog shows up on the first page of Google results (is it satire?), I offer you the following means to ruin the experience of listening to Elbow, a good band.
Watch this.
And with that fresh in your ears, listen to this Elbow song.
Embedding disabled by request: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL4mywCOJXA#t=00m53s
Nevermind that he's singing "There's a hole in my neighbourhood down which of late I cannot help but fall," Guy Garvey, lead singer of Elbow, sounds like Winnie the Pooh. And once you realize this, you can't unhear it. Winnie's there in every track, albeit with a little more effort in his pronunciation. Still Winnie. You think he's singing about an Audience with the Pope, but it's just a metaphor for honey. Seldom Seen Kid? Because he's stuck.
You can't unhear it.
Watch this.
And with that fresh in your ears, listen to this Elbow song.
Embedding disabled by request: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL4mywCOJXA#t=00m53s
Nevermind that he's singing "There's a hole in my neighbourhood down which of late I cannot help but fall," Guy Garvey, lead singer of Elbow, sounds like Winnie the Pooh. And once you realize this, you can't unhear it. Winnie's there in every track, albeit with a little more effort in his pronunciation. Still Winnie. You think he's singing about an Audience with the Pope, but it's just a metaphor for honey. Seldom Seen Kid? Because he's stuck.
You can't unhear it.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Definition of KORY STAMPER
1: Someone who is hot.
When I typed "Kory Stamper" and Google autocompleted “is hot” I learned something.
She's not a bikini model or porn shoot fluffer, but she has caused forty five people to ask of the following video “why do i get a boner when i see this woman?”
The problem is that Kory Stamper, in addition to being a total babe, is smart and a feminist too, so she understands how focusing on her physical qualities necessarily excludes focusing on her mental ones. Now, a case could be made that exploring the cause of our strange boners would be a positive way of celebrating the sexuality of a 30-something mother, but it's too difficult to extricate the objectifying MILFness with so little blood in my brain. So we will ignore her seductive delivery and instead engage her arousing ideas.
The word irony is a sore spot for anyone who doesn't use it. It gets thrown around as a sort of...thing (like, The Thing) that refers to anything remotely funny or unexpected. In Satire?blog's inaugural post I wrote that “[irony's] reclamation by hipsters caused a recession in the meaning market worse than the 1995 crash/release of Jagged Little Pill,” a sentence so darling I wanted to share it twice.
Perhaps Morissette and hipsters* aren't to blame though. In the above video Mrs. Stamper brings her Merriam-Webster descriptive-as-opposed-to-proscriptive lexicography-A-game and we find surprisingly, irony has been sloppily applied for at least 150 years. Merriam-Webster's Ask-the-editor videos have similarly softened my stance on who vs. whom, I hope vs. hopefully, and mercifully, they as a singular pronoun by revealing their lack of pedigree. It seems irony is just a problematic term for any human brain, past or present. It has a lot of conceptual pieces, specifically reversal, expectation, intention, and humor, all mixing and activating in response to each other simultaneously. Alone, a single drop of humor can muddy an entire lake of meaning, and when you try to assess intentions and expectations of different actors in the situation on top of it, it's no wonder irony is the solution anytime there's a whiff of displeasure in the air.
Kory Stamper also has a new blog. I just discovered it while writing this post. Like a window into hersexy lexicographer brain, the blog is about words, and it's pretty exciting to see that behind-the-scenes. I just glimpsed the body of text, but here's a a quick peek at one of its curves:
Suddenly I realize that's the climax of the text. I normally don't comment prematurely, but that was exceptionally tight prose. Beforeplaying next time I'll be sure to explore a little longer, dear reader. Anyway, there's nothing that can reduce my refractory period more than a tease of Orwellian doublethink like unreading. I'd bookmark it. Twice.
*Hipster is problematic for the same reason as irony. It works anywhere you want to refer to the counter-culture or exclusivity, broad concepts. And perhaps we might extend hipster to any search for authenticity, at which point this self-aware footnote reveals "is it satire?" to be a hipster question, thereby fulfilling both the premise and object of this blog simultaneously. And how! I think the appreciation of this...meta recursion...justifies us keeping the lower primates in zoos, right?
When I typed "Kory Stamper" and Google autocompleted “is hot” I learned something.
She's not a bikini model or porn shoot fluffer, but she has caused forty five people to ask of the following video “why do i get a boner when i see this woman?”
The problem is that Kory Stamper, in addition to being a total babe, is smart and a feminist too, so she understands how focusing on her physical qualities necessarily excludes focusing on her mental ones. Now, a case could be made that exploring the cause of our strange boners would be a positive way of celebrating the sexuality of a 30-something mother, but it's too difficult to extricate the objectifying MILFness with so little blood in my brain. So we will ignore her seductive delivery and instead engage her arousing ideas.
The word irony is a sore spot for anyone who doesn't use it. It gets thrown around as a sort of...thing (like, The Thing) that refers to anything remotely funny or unexpected. In Satire?blog's inaugural post I wrote that “[irony's] reclamation by hipsters caused a recession in the meaning market worse than the 1995 crash/release of Jagged Little Pill,” a sentence so darling I wanted to share it twice.
Perhaps Morissette and hipsters* aren't to blame though. In the above video Mrs. Stamper brings her Merriam-Webster descriptive-as-opposed-to-proscriptive lexicography-A-game and we find surprisingly, irony has been sloppily applied for at least 150 years. Merriam-Webster's Ask-the-editor videos have similarly softened my stance on who vs. whom, I hope vs. hopefully, and mercifully, they as a singular pronoun by revealing their lack of pedigree. It seems irony is just a problematic term for any human brain, past or present. It has a lot of conceptual pieces, specifically reversal, expectation, intention, and humor, all mixing and activating in response to each other simultaneously. Alone, a single drop of humor can muddy an entire lake of meaning, and when you try to assess intentions and expectations of different actors in the situation on top of it, it's no wonder irony is the solution anytime there's a whiff of displeasure in the air.
Kory Stamper also has a new blog. I just discovered it while writing this post. Like a window into her
When I began reading and marking, I would begin reading an article and get halfway through it before realizing that I hadn’t marked a thing. I had made the classic rookie mistake of engaging with the content. If you’re on the hunt for interesting vocabulary–and particularly if you’re reading something that piques your interest–you need to intentionally miss the forest for the trees. You must focus only on the language used without caring at all about the point made with that language. But you can’t just skim. No, you need to be able to read closely enough to catch a subtle grammatical or lexical shift in a word, but not so closely that you forget your primary objective (MAKE CITATIONS). It’s not reading, and it’s not not-reading. It’s unreading. (source)
Suddenly I realize that's the climax of the text. I normally don't comment prematurely, but that was exceptionally tight prose. Beforeplaying next time I'll be sure to explore a little longer, dear reader. Anyway, there's nothing that can reduce my refractory period more than a tease of Orwellian doublethink like unreading. I'd bookmark it. Twice.
*Hipster is problematic for the same reason as irony. It works anywhere you want to refer to the counter-culture or exclusivity, broad concepts. And perhaps we might extend hipster to any search for authenticity, at which point this self-aware footnote reveals "is it satire?" to be a hipster question, thereby fulfilling both the premise and object of this blog simultaneously. And how! I think the appreciation of this...meta recursion...justifies us keeping the lower primates in zoos, right?
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Texts From Bennet, now with 15% more real!
Two weeks ago I wrote a post skeptical about the authenticity of Texts From Bennett. Yesterday, it began selling preorders for its Texts From Bennett(TFB) brand tshirts, featuring Hustla Da Rabbit, a character from TFB.
If it wasn't authentic before, it most definitely is not now.
If it wasn't authentic before, it most definitely is not now.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
A call to the shamans, the elders.
Today I wanted to finally pay homage to the primogen of Satire?blog, the straw(man) that broke the camel's back and propelled me to ask "is it satire?" in the shirt-ripping manner that I now do. Please give a warm look of quoi while I bring to you the very definition of the ineffable, TransguyJacePDX.
You might expect me question the utility of spiritual shamans and elder healers in a 21st century policy struggle or to start in on sentences like, "there were the use of sound weaponry," or "...synchronicity...one after another." You know, really shit on him from atop my throne of words. But I'm not. I love this video. It is perfect.
Every thing I've covered on satire?blog so far has obvious extra-textual clues that indicate its intent. For instance, a single shitty hip hop song may be an obvious caricature of art and music, but in the context of a well-established industry which excretes the same waste week after week it is obviously not meant as satire, which makes my tone of ineffability a facade. We could just say these things suck, but pretending they might be intentional makes a greater rhetorical impact and serves as a writing exercise. A healthy exercise, I think, but deliberate and a little unfulfilling.
Jace Transguy doesn't have extra-textual clues. He only has 200+ views on the video and I suspect my post on facebook is at least 100 of those. No one has written about him. No one buys what he makes. He obviously has an agenda, but only in the most recondite sense does his audience have any influence on it. It's almost as if he doesn't exist at all. As his transient delivery calls out to the shamans, this ghostly obsession with spirituality suggests a wish to reach out from the great beyond for a child-vessel in which to be born again; satanically, not satirically.
This lack of corporeality makes it difficult to see Trans Jaceguy as an object of satire as well. At 200+ views, the lack of internet presence makes a strong case that he is not a memelogical agent designed to spread virally and undermine the Occupy Wallstreet movement. On the other hand, what would a satire of a white-collar, ostentatious, liberal look like? If you saw the protesters as entitled, wet-behind-the-ears whippersnappers who've never gotten their hands dirty a day in their lives, isn't this the speech you would write? Obliviousness to consequences, "there were many cities who...for the first time...really encountered force from police, that they had never seen before," grandiose arcs of victimization, "people in wheelchairs were tear gassed," abstract gobbledygook, "reactionary responses...occupied spaces," and problematic grammar throughout, delivered by someone with "trans" in his username who is less than clean-cut. Perhaps you might use someone more self-righteous, or perhaps you were going for dim-witted stammering, but this is 95% of the idea. He may not have sang Kumbaya (the viewer assumes a bum pawned his acoustic guitar for hootch), but his heart was definitely bleeding from those rubber bullets. All told, this is a particularly mean-spirited caricature by whoever made it.
At once, Guy Jacetrans's video is both a heartfelt call to shaman/elders, and a clear indictment of university education in the hands of youth. It is completely ambiguous. A strong case can be made for either interpretation, and best of all, there is no key at the end of the text to check our answers. That's what sets this video apart from all the others and makes it truly thrilling. Is it satire? I don't even...!
You might expect me question the utility of spiritual shamans and elder healers in a 21st century policy struggle or to start in on sentences like, "there were the use of sound weaponry," or "...synchronicity...one after another." You know, really shit on him from atop my throne of words. But I'm not. I love this video. It is perfect.
Every thing I've covered on satire?blog so far has obvious extra-textual clues that indicate its intent. For instance, a single shitty hip hop song may be an obvious caricature of art and music, but in the context of a well-established industry which excretes the same waste week after week it is obviously not meant as satire, which makes my tone of ineffability a facade. We could just say these things suck, but pretending they might be intentional makes a greater rhetorical impact and serves as a writing exercise. A healthy exercise, I think, but deliberate and a little unfulfilling.
Jace Transguy doesn't have extra-textual clues. He only has 200+ views on the video and I suspect my post on facebook is at least 100 of those. No one has written about him. No one buys what he makes. He obviously has an agenda, but only in the most recondite sense does his audience have any influence on it. It's almost as if he doesn't exist at all. As his transient delivery calls out to the shamans, this ghostly obsession with spirituality suggests a wish to reach out from the great beyond for a child-vessel in which to be born again; satanically, not satirically.
This lack of corporeality makes it difficult to see Trans Jaceguy as an object of satire as well. At 200+ views, the lack of internet presence makes a strong case that he is not a memelogical agent designed to spread virally and undermine the Occupy Wallstreet movement. On the other hand, what would a satire of a white-collar, ostentatious, liberal look like? If you saw the protesters as entitled, wet-behind-the-ears whippersnappers who've never gotten their hands dirty a day in their lives, isn't this the speech you would write? Obliviousness to consequences, "there were many cities who...for the first time...really encountered force from police, that they had never seen before," grandiose arcs of victimization, "people in wheelchairs were tear gassed," abstract gobbledygook, "reactionary responses...occupied spaces," and problematic grammar throughout, delivered by someone with "trans" in his username who is less than clean-cut. Perhaps you might use someone more self-righteous, or perhaps you were going for dim-witted stammering, but this is 95% of the idea. He may not have sang Kumbaya (the viewer assumes a bum pawned his acoustic guitar for hootch), but his heart was definitely bleeding from those rubber bullets. All told, this is a particularly mean-spirited caricature by whoever made it.
At once, Guy Jacetrans's video is both a heartfelt call to shaman/elders, and a clear indictment of university education in the hands of youth. It is completely ambiguous. A strong case can be made for either interpretation, and best of all, there is no key at the end of the text to check our answers. That's what sets this video apart from all the others and makes it truly thrilling. Is it satire? I don't even...!
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