Funny was...

About that New Yorker cartoon from back in October of 2008...option C is the funniest. It didn't win among the readers of the mag, but that don't mean shit. And as far as funny goes...ain't nobody funnier than my two kids. How can a 21-month-old kid be so fucking funny? The kid splits all of our sides daily. Crazy.

There's No Title For This Post

Hey Blog,
How you been? Neglected, you say? Abandoned? It's all gonna be okay...

Funny is...

Year after year my in-class allusions (to literature, film, television Seinfeld) become increasingly unfamiliar to my audience students. I try to keep up with the times, with the fresh, but they need to meet me halfway. I soon might replace summer reading assignments with exercises in developing some common reference points.

Case in point: There's a caption contest on the back page of each issue of The New Yorker. The magazine prints a caption-less cartoon; readers submit captions. The mag prints the top three submissions...and the readers vote. Most winning captions are not very funny. A recent submission, however, made me laugh out loud. I found it so amusing, I wondered if others would (compared to the other two entries) find it the funniest. I wondered if my students would. They did not. So I'm asking you. Read the cartoon below, and then tell me which caption is the funniest.



a. "Come sweater season, you'll be back."

b. "You're the one who left your fertility drugs on the counter."

c. "Could you bring me back a goat?"

Fresh Baby

These days I am listening to three albums almost exclusively. These days...nothing else compares. I slide into these listening routines--abandoning variety (and a too-large catalogue) and embracing the recent and fresh. Sometimes, though, I retreat to the past and enjoy exclusivity there. It happens most often with Dylan...I can spend weeks listening to only Dylan. Because, really, nothing else compares...why waste time with something lesser? But then the variety and the fresh beckon. New is good.

I detest fans who repeatedly rip new releases. It's like going to a concert and listening to all the douche bags barking out requests (like they've never heard of a fucking set list). When a band tours with a new release I'm pretty sure they're looking to play the fresh. I saw Elliott Smith downstairs at the Middle East--he was playing all his new stuff, but the crowd wouldn't shut up with the requests...it got to the point where he asked the crowd what they'd rather hear, the old or the new. I yelled as loud as could, but was drowned out by those bastards living in the past. I'm not saying he killed himself over it, but it still sucked. Anyhow, this is what I'm listening to:

Noteworthy Track: Carpetbaggers

NT: Souled Out!!!

NT: The Sun Also Sets

RIP

"There is a point where feelings go beyond words. I have lost a real friend. My life — and this country — is better for his being in it." — Robert Redford.

Toddy

Sort of if Good Will Hunting were set in Maine...

No video, just audio.

Ryan's Song

My wife and I (con friends) went to see Ryan Adams (and the Cardinals) Sunday night at Harbor Lights in Boston. And the kid was sharp--the most energized and happy and healthy I had ever seen him for a show. It's a wonder what dropping a heroin/cocaine/alcohol habit will do. Highlights (for me) included "Come Pick Me Up" and "Why Do They Leave." "Magick," a new tune, sounded a bit Joan Jett-ish...not that there's anything wrong with that. The show reminded me to keep his music in regular rotation on my ipod.

It took me awhile to place his new, youthful, spectacled appearance. But I got it about four songs in: Corey Haim in Lucas. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) You tell me:

Ryan


Lucas


Check out the Cardinal Cave, Ryan's blog.