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December 13, 2004

Troublesome

On the heels of my own rant about people whose phrases I don't care for (well, not really on the heels of, but certainly following behind in exactly the same footsteps), I received a fine book as a gift. Bill Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words. Clearly my friends know me. But although I'd meant to write about it since Friday, when I received this fine piece of literature, I was spurred to action by another fine piece on epistemology by the learned Doctor WittandWisdom.

This was Wordplay , and it appeared on December 13, 2004 8:57 PM. | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 7, 2004

Laughter is the Best Medicine

There is a man in my life. He's a former client, but I also think of him as a friend. He's also a quasi-celebrity and a tremendously talented artist of whom I am totally in awe. His music floors me, his poetry is excellent, and frankly, he has a whole hipster thing going on that has absolutely nothing to do with those chowderheads in the trucker hats and the vintage 80s t-shirts. He's damn cool, and I feel like such a kneebiter for actually claiming him as a friend, as though I'm namechecking at the very time I'm hoping it's true. The biggest problem though, is that Mike's very funny, just in passing, and funny when he's on stage. And it came up when I first met him, having known of him for a number of years. You see, he's publicly known for being an oddball, when in reality, he's just a big clown. As I say, though, this causes problems. Because of course, you see, you want to impress the quasi-famous, and you want to make your friends laugh the way you do. So you string together phrases like two cans on a string and hope that the joke connects better than a crappy cell phone from the 1980s. And you also want to work on your timing, so that a) he knows it's a joke and b) you can keep going if the joke bombs. And bomb it will--you can never compete with an honest to goodness funnyman. Even if your S will laugh at your jokes, you will find that 1 out of every 6 jokes dies with her. And even if your parents and you already share a different sense of humor from most human beings (let alone most normal human beings), even jokes in front of them will be less funny. Particularly when you're not swearing in front of them. Because hey, swearing makes everything funnier. Yes, yes, I'm five. At any rate, the biggest problem I have with my friend Mike is that he makes me realize that although I think I'm funny--see also: I am a blogger--I can never be as funny as him. And I hate him for that.

This was Amusing To Me , and it appeared on December 7, 2004 5:39 PM. | Comments (1) | TrackBack