I just saw a commercial for new Star Wars Episode III lightsaber toys. The bit that caught my interest is one which allows you to change it's color from blue to red. The tagline attached to that product is, "Choose your destiny, like Anakin Skywalker." (I may be getting the exact language wrong, but the idea is the same.)
I find this very disturbing.
This is downplaying some pretty horrific events from that movie. Not only did poor little Anakin kill a large number of fully-grown Jedi, but he put down all of the little preschool Jedi! I trust this is not the mode of choosing one's destiny that the toy company means to endorse. "Impress your friends! Kill your friends! Kill your friends' little brothers and sisters!"
Not cool.
It was really easy to fall in love with the character of Darth Vader from the original movies. He would walk around all threatening, and choked some stupid British guy for his "lack of faith". But that's about the worst that we ever saw him do. Well, he did cut off Luke's hand. But honestly, he had it coming.
Darth Vader was pretty cool.
But in these new movies, I just don't know. At first he's too little and annoying. He's ok for a little while, as a good Jedi. But then he starts whining about how powerful he is, or should be, or something. I don't know. The exact dialogue can be a little too much to stomach in these movies.
To be fair, I think just about everything up to and including cutting off poor Samuel Jackson's forearm can be forgiven. They were extenuating circumstances, and given Anakin's knowledge at each point, his actions were basically excusable. They were brash, and maybe a little stupid, but not really evil.
What I love, and by "love", I mean "am completely boggled by", is that at this point, it's like a switch gets thrown in his head. The Emperor is like, "Kill the little ones." And for no apparent reason, with no thought or pause, Anakin goes, "Ok." Because clearly, killing all of these children will help him save his wife, not to mention the fact that nothing impresses the little woman, especially the PREGNANT little woman, like slaughtering a bunch of ankle-biters.
This was not too well thought out.
So yes, little ones. Choose your destiny, like Anakin Skywalker.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Friday, October 20, 2006
Anti-joke
"Anti-joke" is the name of one of my most successful recurring jokes. It's never the joke I start out to use - it's more of a recovery vehicle. Here's how it comes up.
It starts out with me telling a joke that turns out badly. I don't mean a bad joke in the sense of one that makes you groan, e.g. almost every pun ever invented. I mean a joke that starts with genuine intentions of being funny, but falls tragically short. The kind of joke that falls completely flat, that produces awed silence so astonishing that you couldn't just hear a pin drop, you could hear the whooshing of the wind resistance on its way down.
When I realize the horror of what I've just done, there's no choice but to come clean. First, I apologize. There's simply nothing else I can say at first that makes any sense. Then, I comment that if someone were to tell a genuinely funny joke at this moment, no one would laugh, because that joke and my joke would cancel each other out.
Sometimes I will continue, confirming that, yes, my audience had just witnessed a comedic feat so awful that it dipped below absolute zero funny, and reached a level of negative humor. Oh yes. An anti-joke.
Thankfully, the anti-joke routine is usually enough to make everyone laugh, or at least unclench from their full-body expressions of absolute horror at the inhumanity of the first joke I told them. Truthfully, the more awful the first joke, the better the reaction to the revelation of the anti-joke concept.
It's a very dramatic concept, the idea of an anti-joke, floating around out there canceling any funny it runs into.
Watch out.
It starts out with me telling a joke that turns out badly. I don't mean a bad joke in the sense of one that makes you groan, e.g. almost every pun ever invented. I mean a joke that starts with genuine intentions of being funny, but falls tragically short. The kind of joke that falls completely flat, that produces awed silence so astonishing that you couldn't just hear a pin drop, you could hear the whooshing of the wind resistance on its way down.
When I realize the horror of what I've just done, there's no choice but to come clean. First, I apologize. There's simply nothing else I can say at first that makes any sense. Then, I comment that if someone were to tell a genuinely funny joke at this moment, no one would laugh, because that joke and my joke would cancel each other out.
Sometimes I will continue, confirming that, yes, my audience had just witnessed a comedic feat so awful that it dipped below absolute zero funny, and reached a level of negative humor. Oh yes. An anti-joke.
Thankfully, the anti-joke routine is usually enough to make everyone laugh, or at least unclench from their full-body expressions of absolute horror at the inhumanity of the first joke I told them. Truthfully, the more awful the first joke, the better the reaction to the revelation of the anti-joke concept.
It's a very dramatic concept, the idea of an anti-joke, floating around out there canceling any funny it runs into.
Watch out.
One burrito too many
Mike and I were hanging out tonight, and I suddenly realized that my tummy ached. I told Mike that if there's ever a biography of my life, the title should be:
One Burrito Too Many:
The Tim Goldberg Story
He laughed, and replied that, from now on, I should live my life so as to live up to this title.
Writing this down, I'm reminded of my very favorite comedic work that Mike has ever produced. It started with me sending him the following email, written (for no particular reason that I can figure out now) in telegram code.
STILL HAVE YOUR JUICE AND PICKLES STOP KEEPING THEM IN FRIDGE STOP
SARAH AND JOHN AND SHELBY AND I MEETING TOMORROW AT ALADDINS AFTER
OLIVETTI TO DISCUSS ARMSTRONG BABY SHOWER STOP WANT TO COME QUERY
SIGNED TIM
Here is Mike's e-mail reply. (He interspersed his reply with a copy of my e-mail.)
STILL HAVE YOUR JUICE AND PICKLES '
ok
STOP KEEPING THEM IN FRIDGE
but you still have them
STOP SARAH AND JOHN AND SHELBY AND I MEETING TOMORROW AT ALADDINS AFTER
OLIVETTI TO DISCUSS ARMSTRONG BABY SHOWER
ok, i'll do everything in my power to prevent it
STOP WANT
i donate to third-world aid organizations all the time.
TO COME QUE
I don't speak spanish.
RY SIGNED TIM
I didn't know Tim knew sign language.
The Tim Goldberg Story
He laughed, and replied that, from now on, I should live my life so as to live up to this title.
Writing this down, I'm reminded of my very favorite comedic work that Mike has ever produced. It started with me sending him the following email, written (for no particular reason that I can figure out now) in telegram code.
STILL HAVE YOUR JUICE AND PICKLES STOP KEEPING THEM IN FRIDGE STOP
SARAH AND JOHN AND SHELBY AND I MEETING TOMORROW AT ALADDINS AFTER
OLIVETTI TO DISCUSS ARMSTRONG BABY SHOWER STOP WANT TO COME QUERY
SIGNED TIM
Here is Mike's e-mail reply. (He interspersed his reply with a copy of my e-mail.)
STILL HAVE YOUR JUICE AND PICKLES '
ok
STOP KEEPING THEM IN FRIDGE
but you still have them
STOP SARAH AND JOHN AND SHELBY AND I MEETING TOMORROW AT ALADDINS AFTER
OLIVETTI TO DISCUSS ARMSTRONG BABY SHOWER
ok, i'll do everything in my power to prevent it
STOP WANT
i donate to third-world aid organizations all the time.
TO COME QUE
I don't speak spanish.
RY SIGNED TIM
I didn't know Tim knew sign language.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
The Office
I'm in the middle of watching the second season of The Office (the American one). It's an amazing show. It induces very strong emotions in me.
The first emotion is joy, motivated by the fact that it is incredibly funny. Two scenes stick in my mind. The first is from the very first episode of this series, where Dwight opens his desk drawer, pulls out a plate with a blob of jello on it, with his stapler floating in the middle of it. He exclaims, "Jim put my stapler in jello again!" I think the boss says, "Jim, stop putting Dwight's things in jello."
It's such a beautifully absurd thing, and the characters' reactions just skip over the absurdity of it, like it happens all the time. It's this juxtaposition of something from way out in left field with mundane reactions that made me laugh until my stomach hurt.
The second scene is more recent. It was the opening of one of the episodes. Jim passes Dwight in a doorway. Dwight is on his way to the vending machines, gets there, and screams, "What are my things doing in the vending machine?" Jim turns around to help out. In place of chips or candy bars, there's a stapler, a Dwight's name plaque for his desk, etc. Suddenly Pam shows up, surveys the items for sale, and buys Dwight's pencil holder. Dwight offers to buy it back, and then discovers his wallet missing. Jim helpfully locates it in one of the slots of the vending machine. Jim hands Dwight a bag of change, and he and Pam walk off.
I was absolutely dying.
There's one more scene like this that floats to the surface of my mind. Dwight comes into the office one day to find his desk missing. (How can you find something that's missing? The phrase doesn't imply that you've actually found the missing thing, and even if you had, then it wouldn't be missing! I love this phrase.) Dwight starts looking around, then starts out into another room. Without looking up, Jim says, "Warmer." This proceeds as Dwight wanders around the building, until he finds his desk sitting in the Men's Room. The part that absolutely kills me is that everything is set up perfectly. The computer is plugged in, it's screensaver running. Even the phone is plugged in, as evidenced by Jim calling Dwight to get some information about a certain paper product they're selling. Dwight sits right down and gets to work.
It's absolutely amazing.
--
Another feeling that hits me often when watching The Office is a deep sense of embarrassment. It simply overflows from most scenes involving Michael Scott. Steve Carell earned his Golden Globe award at least a hundred times over. It takes true talent to play such a preposterous individual. And Michael Scott is 150% preposterous. The things he says and does are just incredible. I wouldn't say that you can't see it coming, it's just that you can't imagine it will actually happen. It's astounding, and hysterically funny, but it also makes me very uncomfortable sometimes.
I felt this way sometimes watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, another brilliant show, but the feeling I get from The Office feels much more blunt. It takes me longer to recover from the Office. It leaves a dull ache for a while.
--
The last feeling that I get is harder to describe. It's really a couple of feelings, sometimes together and sometimes separately. It comes from the evolving story between Jim and Pam. I think it's mostly empathy and sorrow for Jim's character. The two actors have great chemistry together. Their timing and body language mesh beautifully together, and when the plot takes an awkward turn, you can feel the sudden shift in temperature between them. It's so abrupt that it's almost savage. It's great work from the actors, and from the writing, but it wrenches me around.
You really do want to give Roy a bop in the nose, don't you? Or maybe Pam a good solid shove to wake her up? Poor poor Jim.
I haven't finished watching this season, and my understanding is that there are dark times in store for Roy and Pam, but I don't think this automatically makes things lighter for Jim and Pam. We'll see, we'll see.
The first emotion is joy, motivated by the fact that it is incredibly funny. Two scenes stick in my mind. The first is from the very first episode of this series, where Dwight opens his desk drawer, pulls out a plate with a blob of jello on it, with his stapler floating in the middle of it. He exclaims, "Jim put my stapler in jello again!" I think the boss says, "Jim, stop putting Dwight's things in jello."
It's such a beautifully absurd thing, and the characters' reactions just skip over the absurdity of it, like it happens all the time. It's this juxtaposition of something from way out in left field with mundane reactions that made me laugh until my stomach hurt.
The second scene is more recent. It was the opening of one of the episodes. Jim passes Dwight in a doorway. Dwight is on his way to the vending machines, gets there, and screams, "What are my things doing in the vending machine?" Jim turns around to help out. In place of chips or candy bars, there's a stapler, a Dwight's name plaque for his desk, etc. Suddenly Pam shows up, surveys the items for sale, and buys Dwight's pencil holder. Dwight offers to buy it back, and then discovers his wallet missing. Jim helpfully locates it in one of the slots of the vending machine. Jim hands Dwight a bag of change, and he and Pam walk off.
I was absolutely dying.
There's one more scene like this that floats to the surface of my mind. Dwight comes into the office one day to find his desk missing. (How can you find something that's missing? The phrase doesn't imply that you've actually found the missing thing, and even if you had, then it wouldn't be missing! I love this phrase.) Dwight starts looking around, then starts out into another room. Without looking up, Jim says, "Warmer." This proceeds as Dwight wanders around the building, until he finds his desk sitting in the Men's Room. The part that absolutely kills me is that everything is set up perfectly. The computer is plugged in, it's screensaver running. Even the phone is plugged in, as evidenced by Jim calling Dwight to get some information about a certain paper product they're selling. Dwight sits right down and gets to work.
It's absolutely amazing.
--
Another feeling that hits me often when watching The Office is a deep sense of embarrassment. It simply overflows from most scenes involving Michael Scott. Steve Carell earned his Golden Globe award at least a hundred times over. It takes true talent to play such a preposterous individual. And Michael Scott is 150% preposterous. The things he says and does are just incredible. I wouldn't say that you can't see it coming, it's just that you can't imagine it will actually happen. It's astounding, and hysterically funny, but it also makes me very uncomfortable sometimes.
I felt this way sometimes watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, another brilliant show, but the feeling I get from The Office feels much more blunt. It takes me longer to recover from the Office. It leaves a dull ache for a while.
--
The last feeling that I get is harder to describe. It's really a couple of feelings, sometimes together and sometimes separately. It comes from the evolving story between Jim and Pam. I think it's mostly empathy and sorrow for Jim's character. The two actors have great chemistry together. Their timing and body language mesh beautifully together, and when the plot takes an awkward turn, you can feel the sudden shift in temperature between them. It's so abrupt that it's almost savage. It's great work from the actors, and from the writing, but it wrenches me around.
You really do want to give Roy a bop in the nose, don't you? Or maybe Pam a good solid shove to wake her up? Poor poor Jim.
I haven't finished watching this season, and my understanding is that there are dark times in store for Roy and Pam, but I don't think this automatically makes things lighter for Jim and Pam. We'll see, we'll see.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Oh deer
Is there something strange going on tonight?
I just drove back from some friends' house, and came across many wandering creatures in the night on my way. (This does not include undergraduates.) There was a bunny who nearly hopped his way right under my tire. As I wound my way from one side of Ithaca to the other, I passed several little troupes of deer loitering in people's front lawns. And as I a last pulled into my apartment complex, a short line of deer found it's intended path interrupted by the sudden appearance of my trusty car. The first and last incidents were both far closer than I would have liked, although I can now say with absolute certainty that my breaks work.
I can't recall ever seeing quite so many animals hopping about at night, at least not recently, so I ask again, is there something strange going on tonight?
The moon doesn't seem to be full, and there's no eclipse. I find no reports of natural disasters, either recent or impending. The weather did seem to turn cold this weekend, for the first time this season, I think. I also noticed that the air outside seemed quite fragrant and gently sweet, maybe a last burst of olfactory pleasantness before everything tucks itself away, or simply gives up the ghost, for winter. I don't know.
The deer reminded me of the one time that I hit a deer. I think it was in the late summer or early fall of 2003. This was while I was taking a year off from Cornell and living in Saugerties. I was across the Hudson River, just leaving Red Hook on my way to visit my girlfriend at the time. She wasn't actually home, but I was going to leave a little surprise for her outside her door. She had a fondness for the combination of Dr. Pepper and Butterfingers, and I had put together a little arrangement of these.
I wasn't going very fast, but the deer seemed to come out of nowhere. I think it had galloped out from between some houses. It was a large beast, and in addition to setting off the airbag and stopping the car flat, it had pushed in the entire front of the car and cracked the windshield. The side doors were even dented.
I was fine, and the deer ran right off, so I like to think he was fine too, and as surprised by the whole thing as I was. The inhabitant of one of the houses came out, and told me how car after car had met deer after deer in that exact spot. (I was proud to be a part of such a consistent tradition.) Some other folks stopped by and helped push the car out of the road. A state trooper eventually stopped by, and then a tow truck. Each person had some sort of hunting weapon with him, (and they were most assuredly all "him"s), ranging from knives to bows and arrows to rifles, and all were eager to go check on the other, four-legged victim of the accident. Fortunately, no one found him.
I got to ride in the trooper's car and see some of his barracks, which was cool. On the way back home with my mom, I even dropped off the gift for my girlfriend. Unfortunately, the car was totaled. Fortunately, it wasn't my beloved car, but instead my parent's one-year-old automobile. This last fact would have been an "unfortunately", except that the insurance covered a brand new version of the car, although it wasn't quite as cool. (The first one was red, and had a sunroof and a six-CD changer/player. Its replacement was a sober dark blue, had only the traditional openings (four doors), and had a CD player that played only one meager CD at a time.)
Both were excellent cars. My brother made fun of the model, saying that it had been so easily rendered non-functional, but I continue to point out that its last function was to save my life, in which it was most successful.
I was thinking about this event as I walked from my car to my apartment this evening, and also about that particular ex-girlfriend, and I noticed that I've picked up an interesting new habit. It seems that when I feel a quick, sharp stab of emotional pain I emit a short laugh or chuckle. Something in the way of a "heh-heh-heh".
Of course, this isn't the only time I laugh or chuckle, so it's just a necessary condition, not sufficient.
Tim out.
I just drove back from some friends' house, and came across many wandering creatures in the night on my way. (This does not include undergraduates.) There was a bunny who nearly hopped his way right under my tire. As I wound my way from one side of Ithaca to the other, I passed several little troupes of deer loitering in people's front lawns. And as I a last pulled into my apartment complex, a short line of deer found it's intended path interrupted by the sudden appearance of my trusty car. The first and last incidents were both far closer than I would have liked, although I can now say with absolute certainty that my breaks work.
I can't recall ever seeing quite so many animals hopping about at night, at least not recently, so I ask again, is there something strange going on tonight?
The moon doesn't seem to be full, and there's no eclipse. I find no reports of natural disasters, either recent or impending. The weather did seem to turn cold this weekend, for the first time this season, I think. I also noticed that the air outside seemed quite fragrant and gently sweet, maybe a last burst of olfactory pleasantness before everything tucks itself away, or simply gives up the ghost, for winter. I don't know.
The deer reminded me of the one time that I hit a deer. I think it was in the late summer or early fall of 2003. This was while I was taking a year off from Cornell and living in Saugerties. I was across the Hudson River, just leaving Red Hook on my way to visit my girlfriend at the time. She wasn't actually home, but I was going to leave a little surprise for her outside her door. She had a fondness for the combination of Dr. Pepper and Butterfingers, and I had put together a little arrangement of these.
I wasn't going very fast, but the deer seemed to come out of nowhere. I think it had galloped out from between some houses. It was a large beast, and in addition to setting off the airbag and stopping the car flat, it had pushed in the entire front of the car and cracked the windshield. The side doors were even dented.
I was fine, and the deer ran right off, so I like to think he was fine too, and as surprised by the whole thing as I was. The inhabitant of one of the houses came out, and told me how car after car had met deer after deer in that exact spot. (I was proud to be a part of such a consistent tradition.) Some other folks stopped by and helped push the car out of the road. A state trooper eventually stopped by, and then a tow truck. Each person had some sort of hunting weapon with him, (and they were most assuredly all "him"s), ranging from knives to bows and arrows to rifles, and all were eager to go check on the other, four-legged victim of the accident. Fortunately, no one found him.
I got to ride in the trooper's car and see some of his barracks, which was cool. On the way back home with my mom, I even dropped off the gift for my girlfriend. Unfortunately, the car was totaled. Fortunately, it wasn't my beloved car, but instead my parent's one-year-old automobile. This last fact would have been an "unfortunately", except that the insurance covered a brand new version of the car, although it wasn't quite as cool. (The first one was red, and had a sunroof and a six-CD changer/player. Its replacement was a sober dark blue, had only the traditional openings (four doors), and had a CD player that played only one meager CD at a time.)
Both were excellent cars. My brother made fun of the model, saying that it had been so easily rendered non-functional, but I continue to point out that its last function was to save my life, in which it was most successful.
I was thinking about this event as I walked from my car to my apartment this evening, and also about that particular ex-girlfriend, and I noticed that I've picked up an interesting new habit. It seems that when I feel a quick, sharp stab of emotional pain I emit a short laugh or chuckle. Something in the way of a "heh-heh-heh".
Of course, this isn't the only time I laugh or chuckle, so it's just a necessary condition, not sufficient.
Tim out.
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