tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post8084295830703420931..comments2024-03-14T11:50:14.761-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: Friday Oddness: Tom LehrerDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-91640067001179676342014-04-13T21:59:06.949-04:002014-04-13T21:59:06.949-04:00I clicked on to the Copenhagen concert linked by t...I clicked on to the Copenhagen concert linked by the Buzzfeed article, one of the last he gave, and listened all through. I was struck by the fact he said, at the end, introducing "Vatican Rag", "this is one I like to finish with." Or words to that effect. I asked myself, why? Why does he like to finish with that? It's as crude a piece of Know-Nothing Anti-Catholicism as ever there was, not funny or even particularly clever. Lehrer must have seen that the Church deserved more than cheap scorn. So in fact, he must have been asking his audience, what do YOU think of the Church? And when they went along with it, fell for his bait and joined in the laffs, he decided he didn't want to be part of a society that would laugh at serious and important things, and withdrew from it. <br /><br />I hope, in his private life, he didn't stop asking the question about the Church, though. Otepotihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12315317923902957130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-58475723990823746672014-04-13T15:37:31.254-04:002014-04-13T15:37:31.254-04:00Well, there was Jenny Lind. She retired from opera...Well, there was Jenny Lind. She retired from opera in her twenties, at the peak of her career, for reasons she apparently never explained even in her memoir. Barnum persuaded her to tour in the US, and a few people after that persuaded her to do concerts (often for charity), and she became a music professor later in life. But mostly she just got married and stayed married, and raised kids, and helped the careers of some folks and the memory of others.<br /><br />Jenny Lind, the honey badger of sopranos. She don't care. :)Bansheehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12594214770417497135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-71308950056617415822014-04-11T14:43:44.863-04:002014-04-11T14:43:44.863-04:00This was back at the Bush/Gore election. All the p...This was back at the Bush/Gore election. All the political double-speak and dishonesty appalled me. So, I was inspired to create someone who would fearlessly speak the truth, and then some: a barbarian warlord's take on modern American politics. He just naturally assumes that all the empty talk was prelude to *real* political action: slaughter, pillage and conquest. <br /><br />I decided to have him support Gore - "Gore the Merciless" - because Gore seemed the more limp-wristed, and therefore funnier, candidate for a barbarian to support. I could have just as easily chosen the the GOP candidate - that wasn't remotely the point to me. <br /><br />So, the humor, such as it was, centered around having him speak barbarian realpolitik: "The merciless iron of Gore shall fill the streets of the D.C. with entrails of Republican dogs. He shall set the head of Bush the Babbler upon a pike!" and so on, the wailing of their women, you know the drill. I had him form a willing grassroots horde from rank and file Democrats, who then engage in slaughter and mayhem - nobody blinks. I even got complaining emails from Republicans....<br /><br />But when I had him hack reporters to death for daring to criticize Gore - boom! Anytime I had him taunt Bush or murder Republicans, people loved it. All the time, I'm putting what I think trenchant political criticism in his mouth and - very few people got it. <br /><br />It was a little scary. These are odd times we live in. Joseph Moorehttp://yardsaleofthemind.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-34142523947767494732014-04-11T12:34:32.220-04:002014-04-11T12:34:32.220-04:00"Oddly, I think I had an experience similar t..."Oddly, I think I had an experience similar to his, on a much more modest scale..."<br /><br />That's a fascinating story. Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-42740927041434527892014-04-11T11:34:38.954-04:002014-04-11T11:34:38.954-04:00Back in the 60s, when I was a kid, Tom Leher was a...Back in the 60s, when I was a kid, Tom Leher was a slightly guilty pleasure (he did write "Vatican Rag" after all). But, yea, never thought of him as particularly liberal, as he was just curmudgeonly and hilarious. <br /><br />Oddly, I think I had an experience similar to his, on a much more modest scale: I created a character for an on-line humor magazine, which turned out to be by far the most popular thing I've ever done - this guy was a parody of a barbarian warlord, an outrageous supporter of Democratic candidates, wrecking murder and mayhem on his opponents - and my biggest fans were people who *identified* with this character, oblivious to the *slight* issue of resorting to physical violence to resolve problems. Behead Rush Limbaugh? Right on! Lead a horde to sack the Republican convention? Absolutely! Eventually, I couldn't come up with anything vile enough to turn these people off, and had only a few people catch the broad sarcasm and irony that was, for me, the whole point of the exercise. It was flabbergasting. <br /><br />I eventually lost interest, and the zine folded. But it was eye-opening to me, at least, how impervious some people - well, the people that wrote me fan email, anyway - were to irony. Didn't Leher say something like: Once Kissinger wins the Nobel Peace Prize, irony is dead? Joseph Moorehttp://yardsaleofthemind.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com