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I spent yesterday being overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers, who put links to me in their posts and on their sidebars. Today, however, is another tomorrow, or something like that, and it is time for me to revert to my usual misanthropic self, bite someone in the leg, and get that sugary goo out of my mouth. A couple of bits of unfinished business first: First, in my excitement, I completely forgot to put Suman Palit’s blog, the Kolkata Libertarian, on what will become my sidebar in another day or two (I’m working on the redesign. Really.) That was inexcusable. And, Shauna, I wasn’t trolling for links (much). But I am flattered that you chose to read my blog. Incidentally, rubbing your hands with used coffee grounds will get rid of the onion smell. That brilliant and highly attractive woman Megan McArdle wrote a short piece yesterday on baiting of the religious by the secular (and I’m not linking back to it to produce some sort of feedback loop. Not only, anyway). I agree with what she writes, and wish only to extend her remarks by saying this: Good parody requires a solid understanding of your subject. Even descending to the lowest denominator of humor: black jokes, Jewish jokes, etc., requires an understanding of the prejudices and stereotypes held by your target audience. Failure to do so makes it much less likely that the audience will see any humor in what you say, and much more likely that they will avoid you as the type of microcephalic bigot that society occasionally throws up, but with whom decent people are not required to associate. The best parodies of "A" are written by ex-"A"ists. The second-best are written by people who have studied "A", and know its weaknesses and foibles (there is some overlap here; the fact that you are, or were, an "A"ist does not necessarily mean that you have a deep and full understand of "A"). The worst parodies are invariably produced by hip, trendy people who don’t know diddly about "A", but think that they can take a few quotes and cause philosophical collapse in their opponents: "Oh, my, centuries and tradition utterly failed to take that in account! I foreswear all of my previous allegiances, and will go to cocktail parties instead of church or synagogue henceforth." Maybe it works that way for Marx, baby. But not for Moshe Rabbeinu. John "Akatsukami" Braue Friday, March 01, 2002 |
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