weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) (03/23/86)
A lot of people seem to be having trouble recognizing satire. Hence I offer
the following as a small guide. It comes from an ongoing discussion in
net.{philosophy,sci} (key on 'contempt' if you want to see the original
satires and counter satires and miscellaneous mass confusion), so the
original references may be obscure.
I have directed all followups to net.jokes.d.
In article <640@mmm.UUCP> mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (MKR) writes:
>In article <358@unirot.UUCP> cjr@unirot.UUCP (Charles Riordan) writes:
>>In article <12239@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) writes:
>>>In article <13400007@uiucdcsp> bsmith@uiucdcsp.CS.UIUC.EDU writes:
>>>>To the point at hand. Very few things threaten "scientists" more than
>>> I would say the reaction is DISGUST, solely out of the exaggerated claims
>>Look, it's mighty clear to me you just don't want to believe. I mean, I
>
> This last posting is so ridiculous that I suspect it of being satire,
>but the lack of smiley faces and the poor spelling may indeed indicate that
>he was serious.
OK, people, a SMALL lesson in humor. There are two kinds of humor in the
world. LIGHT humor and HEAVY humor. This is not some western dogmatic
discovery of SCIENCE, but something I KNOW. And something a lot of you
seem to NOT know. CJ and his friend Pete are ON TARGET here: too much
math and science and you turn into humorless ZOMBIE programmers, the lot
of you.
Lesson #1: SMILEY FACES DO NOT MAKE FOR GOOD SATIRE. Ever.
Now some of you are western dogmatics out there, so I'll have to feed you
some western dogmatism on this point before you'll possibly believe me.
Experimental Evidence #1: The Collected Works of Jonathan Swift. A quick
rereading has convinced me that JS never used a smiley face. I could be
wrong on this point, but at least within experimental error I am correct.
Counter claim #1.1: Lawrence Sterne also did not use smiley faces. He did
use a lot of funny squiggly things on the side though. That may have been
the eighteenth century equivalent. I do not know.
Counter claim #1.2: James Joyce also did not use smiley faces. He did have
a picture of a face thumbing its nose though. The true meaning of this face
is still hotly debated by Joycean scholars to this very day.
Counter claim #1.3: William Blake had lots of faces, some perhaps smiling.
However, Blake did not write much satire. My copies of Blake do not have
all the original illustrations, so I am ignorant of whether the smiley faces
were attached to the humorous and satirical portions of his poetry or not.
Experimental Evidence #2: The Collected Works of Juvenal, Petronius, Martial,
and Catullus. None of these authors have smiley faces in the original Latin
or in any translation I have ever seen. I KNOW these are satirical because
my Latin teacher told me they were.
Counter claim #2.1: None of the original manuscripts have survived. Thus
smiley faces may very well have been in the originals, and removed by
grim dourless Medieval copyist monks.
Experimental Evidence #3: The Collected Works of Samuel Beckett. Again,
there are no smiley faces in his works anywhere. There is no question of
experimental error here, because I read these works several times a day.
Counter claim #3.1: Samuel Beckett has been known to smile on occasion,
especially when asked certain enigmatic questions about his works.
Counter claim #3.2: Actors in his plays have been known to smile. While
"smiling" itself is rarely a stage direction, "leering" and "laughing" are
common enough.
Counter claim #3.3: Samuel Beckett's works are extremely deep and profound,
and calling them satire is a poor understatement.
Theoretical justification #1: A smiley face is not a measure of humor. If
it were ':-) :-)' would be twice as funny as ':-)', while only half as funny
as ':-) :-) :-) :-)', and two-nineteenths as humorous as the following line:
:-) :-) :-) :-) :^) :-) O-) :-) :-) ;-) :-) :-) :-{) :-) (-: :-) :-) :-) |-).
Thus, '' is not an indication of zero humor.
There is a high correlation between many articles and zero humor, but it is
incorrect to use inductive reasoning aka western dogmatism here to conclude
that the article you are in the midst of reading is unfunny because of its
lack of smiley faces.
Theoretical justification #2: Putting in a smiley face can only give away
the game. The best of humor is the unexpected. No soap, radio!
Theoretical justification #3: Even more fun that the original satire is
watching all the dumb fish who swallow it. It's even FUNNIER when they
say, "Maybe this was satire, but ..." Like, if a bell goes off in your
head--GONG--are you going to listen to it or not? Like, if a rock lands
on your foot--OUCH--are you going to be in pain or not?
ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile) (03/27/86)
> A lot of people seem to be having trouble recognizing satire. . . . > >but the lack of smiley faces and the poor spelling may indeed indicate that > >he was serious. . . . > Lesson #1: SMILEY FACES DO NOT MAKE FOR GOOD SATIRE. Ever. Sorry, weemba, the problem is not with good satire. Art Buchwald and Andy Rooney write good satire and humor. They don't need to use smiley faces. Their articles smile for them. Few of us command the language with such authority. Our articles are free with words but reluctant to give the reader any facial expression at all. This is bad, because it means that our bad satire is taken as non-satire. And THIS is very bad. Very, very bad because it can cause some awful hurt feelings. Did you see the ``We're out to get you, Cheryl'' article? Satire MUST be read as satire, even if it is not written as satire. Hence the need for the smiley. If you can write satire with the sick leer of a Buchwald, you have my permission to omit the smiley and save net bandwidth. :-) -- from Mole End Mark Terribile (scrape .. dig ) mtx5b!mat (Please mail to mtx5b!mat, NOT mtx5a! mat, or to mtx5a!mtx5b!mat) ,.. .,, ,,, ..,***_*.
weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) (04/07/86)
In article <1261@mtx5a.UUCP> mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile) writes: >> A lot of people seem to be having trouble recognizing satire. . . . > >Sorry, weemba, the problem is not with good satire. Agreed. > This >is bad, because it means that our bad satire is taken as non-satire. And THIS >is very bad. Very, very bad because it can cause some awful hurt feelings. >Did you see the ``We're out to get you, Cheryl'' article? Satire MUST be read >as satire, even if it is not written as satire. Hence the need for the smiley. Hence my article! People will continue to write bad satire and leave off :-)s. I was asking people to listen to that little warning bell --GONG-- in the back of their heads, in order to save themselves confusion and hurt. Not only did I see the article mentioned, I remember the followup stated that as there were no :-)s involved, it obviously wasn't satire, hence the flame. (I should point satire isn't always humorous.) ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
jeffw@midas.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (04/07/86)
In article <1261@mtx5a.UUCP> mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile) writes: >Sorry, weemba, the problem is not with good satire. Art Buchwald and >Andy Rooney write good satire and humor. They don't need to use smiley >faces. Their articles smile for them. It's not just that. When you read a column by Buchwald, you expect satire. When you read any random article on the net, you may be expecting any number of things, but satire probably isn't one of them. (Although there are exceptions with certain contributors.) Jeff Winslow