a thread for mundane ironists

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10941

[b]The Onion

Study Links Stress To Desperately Grasping For Out-Of-Reach Weapon As Villain Approaches[/b]

That’ll do it.

Whistleblower Uncovers CIA Plot To Get President Laid

Nope, nothing in the New York Times. Yet.

U.S. Demands U.N. Pass Resolution Officially Stating America Is Nice

Nope, nothing in the New York Times. Yet.

Study: Depression Up Among Teenage Girls Able To Perceive Any Part Of World Around Them

More pop culture…immediately!

Mom Sick Of Reminding Lazy Teenager To Reload Family Gun After Shooting Sprees

Kids!

Grammy For Best Hidden Track Awarded Just As Everyone Thought Ceremony Over

How well hidden could it have been then?

10942

[b]Ken Kesey from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

All I know is this: nobody’s very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.[/b]

Let’s just hope that never happens here.

But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.

My guess: some things more than others.

Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power. Think of it: perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become. Hitler an example.

Sure, call him insane if that helps.

What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin’? Well you’re not! You’re not! You’re no crazier than the average asshole out walkin’ around on the streets and that’s it.

Not counting the ones who actually were, of course.

Rules? PISS ON YOUR FUCKING RULES!

Of course, we know how that turned out.

This world . . . belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a law of the natural world. The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf is the strong. In defense, the rabbit becomes sly and frightened and elusive and he digs holes and hides when the wolf is about. And he endures, he goes on. He knows his place. He most certainly doesn’t challenge the wolf to combat. Now, would that be wise? Would it?

Let’s run this by nurse Ratched.

10943

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10944

[b]Samuel Beckett from Waiting for Godot

There’s no lack of void.[/b]

Pick one [your favorite]:
1] before you were born
2] after you die

What about hanging ourselves?
Hmm. It’d give us an erection.

Come again?

Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot?

Let’s decide: are we ourselves sleeping now?

I’m like that. Either I forget right away or I never forget.

Let’s decide: which is better?

The essential doesn’t change.

Ah, of course: the either/or world!

Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance!

Instead, day after day after day, we come here.
Me? I’m waiting for godot. What’s your excuse?

10945

godot keeps hangin up as soon as i answer the phone. i think he’s afraid i’ll give up on him if he asks me to wait again.

10946

:laughing:

No, seriously.

10947

I know you, and I love/miss you.

10948

[b]Milan Kundera from The Unbearable Lightness of Being

People derived too much pleasure from seeing their fellow man morally humiliated to spoil that pleasure by hearing out an explanation.[/b]

That’s still true, of course.

…it is wrong to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences…but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life.

Let’s decide: is chide the right word?

When you sit face to face with someone who is pleasant, respectful, and polite, you have hard time reminding yourself that nothing he says is true/sincere.

Aren’t we lucky then.

…vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.

And then there’s that other vertigo: mine.

What is unique about the “I” hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual “I” is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.

Next up: the fractured and fragmented “I”

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.

Fortunately [or unfortunately] true human goodness doesn’t exist.

10949

All it takes to prove you wrong is to help someone who can never return the favor. Remove all ulterior motives you can imagine… make sure you’re the only one who knows about it, if at all possible, for example (just don’t let that stop you from saving someone’s life, or your motives are still wonky)…

Start with your own. Imagine yourself pissed off as hell at yourself for doing something to save your life, and do it anyway.

10950

[b]Sylvia Plath from The Bell Jar

I wondered at what point in space the silly, sham blue of the sky turned black.[/b]

Of course, we all wonder that.

I hated the very idea of the eighteenth century, with all those smug men writing tight little couplets and being so dead keen on reason.

Or, for that matter, all the other centuries.

After nineteen years of running after good marks and prizes and grants of one sort and another, I was letting up, slowing down, dropping clean out of race.

Clean out of everything eventually.

The lawn was white with doctors.

Imagine that!! No, really.

I also had a dim idea that if I walked the streets of New York by myself all night something of the city’s mystery and magnificence might rub off on me at last. But I gave it up.

Next up: the streets of Baltimore.

I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after I had children I would feel differently, I wouldn’t want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state.

By all means, weigh in yourself here.

10951

[b]William S. Burroughs from Naked Lunch

Naked Mr. America, burning frantic with self bone love, screams out: "My asshole confounds the Louvre! I fart ambrosia and shit pure gold turds! My cock spurts soft diamonds in the morning sunlight!”[/b]

Especially this guy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Scott_(bodybuilder

Did any of you ever see Doctor Tetrazzini perform? I say perform advisedly because his operations were performances. He would start by throwing a scalpel across the room into the patient and then make his entrance as a ballet dancer. His speed was incredible: “I don’t give them time to die”, he would say. Tumors put him in a frenzy of rage. “Fucking undisciplined cells!” he would snarl, advancing on the tumor like a knife-fighter.

No one quite like him around today, is there?

Take a shot in front of D.L. Probing for a vein in my dirty bare foot… Junkies have no shame… They are impervious to the repugnance of others. It is doubtful if shame can exist in the absence of sexual libido… The junky’s shame disappears with his nonsexual sociability which is also dependent on libido…

Next up: shame here.

While in general I avoid the use of torture - torture locates the opponent and mobilizes resistance - the threat of torture is useful to induce in the subject the appropriate feeling of helplessness and gratitude to the interrogator for withholding it. And torture can be employed to advantage as a penalty when the subject is far enough along with the treatment to accept punishment as deserved. To this end I devised several forms of disciplinary procedure. One was known as the Switchboard. Electric drills that can be turned on at any time are clamped against the subject’s teeth; and he is instructed to operate an arbitrary switchboard, to put certain connections in certain sockets in response to bells and lights. Every time he makes a mistake the drills are turned on for twenty seconds. The signals are gradually speeded up beyond his reaction time. Half an hour on the Switchboard and the subject breaks down like an overloaded thinking machine.

You know, when waterboarding proves ineffective.

A coprophage calls for a plate, shits on it and eats the shit, exclaiming, “Mmmm, that’s my rich substance.”

No, for real!

There’s a boy across the river with an ass like a peach; alas I was no swimmer and lost my Clementine.

So, what would you do?

10952

[b]The Onion

Encouragement Of Family, Friends Motivating Man To Keep Struggling Indefinitely[/b]

The fool!

New Study Finds Solving Every Single Personal Problem Reduces Anxiety

In La La Land, for example.

HR Improves Company Morale By Giving Employees Constant Stream Of Dumbass Bullshit To Mock

Tesla, of course.

Report: Nothing Wrong With A Good Old-Fashioned Ham And Cheese Sandwich

Yo, vegans!

Man Grateful To Live In Society Where Mattress Disappears If Left On Sidewalk For A Couple Days

Or, around here, a couple of hours.

New Study Finds Humans Shouldn’t Spend More Than 5 Consecutive Hours Together

Or, around here, more than 5 consecutive minutes.

10953

[b]Don DeLillo from White Noise

Was she naked? Lasher said.
To the waist, Cotsakis said.
From which direction? Lasher said.[/b]

Men let’s call them.

That’s what it all comes down to in the end, he said. A person spends his life saying good-bye to other people. How does he say good-bye to himself?

Anyone here know?

The family is the cradle of the world’s misinformation.

Mine [like yours] especially.

The plane had lost power in all three engines, dropped from thirty-four thousand feet to twelve thousand feet. Something like four miles. When the steep glide began, people rose, fell, collided, swam in their seats. Then the serious screaming and moaning began. Almost immediately a voice from the flight deck was heard on the intercom: “We’re falling out of the sky! We’re going down! We’re a silver gleaming death machine!” This outburst struck the passengers as an all but total breakdown of authority, competence and command presence and it brought on a round of fresh and desperate wailing.

This ever happen to you?

If you don’t have the grace and wit to die early, you are forced to vanish, to hide as if in shame and apology.

On the other hand, whatever that means.

It occurred to me that eating is the only form of professionalism most people ever attain.

Let’s decide: can that possibly be true?

10954

aloha

10955

[b]Cormac McCarthy from The Road

Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
You forget some things, dont you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.[/b]

Though for some it’s the other way around.

Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave.

Anyone here been there? Then explain it please.

There is no God and we are his prophets.

Pick one:
1] clever
2] too clever

What’s the bravest thing you ever did?
He spat in the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.

You know, on The Road.

If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.

How’s that working out for you?

When you die it’s the same as if everybody else did too.

Tell that to them though.

10956

[b]Joseph Heller from Catch–22

He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt.[/b]

You know, covering all bases.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.

Anyone after me here? :wink:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
That’s some catch, that Catch-22, he observed.
It’s the best there is, Doc Daneeka agreed.

Let’s come up with a better one.

They’re trying to kill me, Yossarian told him calmly.
No one’s trying to kill you, Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me? Yossarian asked.
They’re shooting at everyone, Clevinger answered. They’re trying to kill everyone.
And what difference does that make?

No, really, philosophically, what is the difference?

The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.

We called it fragging.

It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.

Well, unless God’s on your side, of course.

10957

I’m going to explain this Valentines Festivus miracle very simply for the Wresdufis.

If you take away (ignore) all motives that don’t orbit self=other, then you are free of the drive of pressure/interest, and you drive/direct the pressure/interest. So, the more you increase your ability to respond by driving pressure/interest & ignoring what doesn’t orbit self=other, the more you can authentically focus the self=other-orbiting pressure/interest to every instance of self/other. If you are not subject to time, you can direct it to every instance. It is 1OO% authentic. If it missed any instance (seeing as such a being has no excuse like a lack of choice), you would have reason to doubt it. Such a being can discriminate every instance. It is not random. So perhaps a better phrasing rather than unconditional or disinterested would be immanently transconditional/interested. Methinks that was what Kierkegaard was on about.

10958

[b]Virginia Woolf from To the Lighthouse

One wanted, she thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to be on a level with ordinary experience, to feel simply that’s a chair, that’s a table, and yet at the same time, It’s a miracle, it’s an ecstasy.[/b]

Next up: one wanted none of that.

A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her.

Ultimately…
Life on points
a TKO
a KO
or for some a draw…if only all the way to the grave.

If Shakespeare had never existed, he asked, would the world have differed much from what it is today? Does the progress of civilization depend upon great men? Is the lot of the average human being better now than in the time of the Pharaohs?

You know, going all the way back to Adam and Eve.

For nothing was simply one thing.

Not since the “initial singularity” and the Big Bang, anyway.

How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it is liking one felt, or disliking?

Well, there’s my own take on that, of course.

The strange thing about life is that though the nature of it must have been apparent to every one for hundreds of years, no one has left any adequate account of it.

Anyone here [besides me] not find it strange at all?

10959

Cuz we know it like the rest of nature knows it.

When you get your level, you have to do more than just know.

You have to accept/reject.

10960

[b]The Onion

Super Bowl Confetti Made Entirely From Shredded Concussion Studies [/b]

It sure as shit ought to have been.

Report: 84% Of Super Bowl Ads Specifically Intended To Distract From Human Rights Violation

The good news: down from 85% last year.

Controversial Puppy Bowl Star Shits During National Anthem

As well it should have.

‘The NFL Is Deeply Concerned About Domestic Violence,’ Thinks Local Moron

Yo, pinheads! Weigh in on that please.

Grocery Store Not Fooling Anybody By Marketing Cantaloupe As Fun Super Bowl Snack

I’ll bet a few here were fooled.

Man Sure It’s No Big Deal That He’s Betting On Sports In Dreams Now

Not only that but he actually wins a few then.