Trying to understand the alt-right …
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Humor
Heidegger’s “House of Being” takes
Martin Heidegger’s poetic line from his later “Letter on Humanism” (1947): “Language is the house of Being. In its home man dwells.” Variations: For those of modest means: “Man dwells in the bungalow of Being.” For those on the road a lot: “Man dwells in the Holiday Inn of Being.” For rustic campers: “Man dwells
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Garage captions for entrepreneurs
Caption humor challenge: My suggestions: “We’re lucky that Al Gore invented garages!” “*Exactly* why we need more government subsidies for garage construction.” “Possible — but only before global warning made garages too hot.” More?
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The Clouds and “Socrates”
The comic genius of Aristophanes, in which “Socrates” the sacrilegious philosopher explains to the not-too-bright Strepsiades where rain and thunder come from. Potty humor ensues. Socrates: That is because these are the only goddesses; all the rest are pure myth. Strepsiades: But by the Earth! is our father, Zeus, the Olympian, not a god? Socrates: Zeus!
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Love Is a Fallacy (by Max Shulman)
Love Is a Fallacy By Max Shulman Max Shulman (1919–1988) was an American humorist. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1942 and served in the military in World War II. His writing career included several collections of short stories and a Broadway play, “The Tender Trap,” which was later made into a movie.
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Starting a “Thanks to the X …” humor series
I want to start a “Thanks to the X …” series. A classic example: “We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.” (Robert Silensky) And: “We’ve been taught that all men are
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Philomena Cunk on the true-ish meaning of Christmas
Mockumentarian Philomena Cunk the spirit or something of the holiday season:
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“Notes on Punctuation,” by Lewis Thomas
Notes on Punctuation by Lewis Thomas* There are no precise rules about punctuation (Fowler lays out some general advice (as best he can under the complex circumstances of English prose (he points out, for example, that we possess only four stops (the comma, the semicolon, the colon and the period (the question mark and exclamation
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