Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

I’m working on my own little POMO glossary, and check this out:

The Phallus

“…some critics say the term ‘the Phallus’ in Lacan’s work has as many as eight meanings and some as few as one meaning. One thing everyone pretty much agrees on, though, is that Lacan tries to maintain a distinction between the Phallus as a signifier privileged male attributes, and the penis, as a spongy little organ that can’t live up to the Phallus’s inflated claims.”

Those POMOs have been reading too much spam–or hanging out with some very unmotivated guys.

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“When people throw excrement at one another whenever they meet, either verbally or actually, can this be interpreted as a case of wit, or merely written down as a case of throwing excrement? This is the central question of all interpretation.”

Mary Douglas, Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (1975)

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Picture Galileo, climbing the steps of the leaning tower on a hot Italian summer afternoon. Picture Newton, hiding out under the apple tree and scratching his bugbites as he tries to read. Picture your family doctor, shining that little light up your nose…discovery isn’t pretty. Even my research–trying to figure out what makes people laugh, why some jokes are funnier than others, and who has already said good stuff on this topic–even my research can be ugly.

Some of the world’s most infuriating people have written and written and written about humor. I have one short but cherished list of “Stupid Things Smart People Have Said About Humor”, and one of my favorites is the little gem above from Mary Douglas, an anthropologist studying tribal joke rituals.

So imagine my horror when I came across that very quote in a scholarly book about “everyday conversation.” Somebody else had already made the joke I was planning to make–somebody had beaten me to the laugh at this utterly humorless “insight” into humor. Then, to my relief, I realized the author was quoting Douglas approvingly. Woo hoo! I still have my joke!

Frank Paynter has been taking the piss out of postmodern criticism, bless him. Pity me, Frank–I have to read this stuff, because most modern literary theory is written in this tangled, PC, complex, language that you have to read three times before you are really sure that what the paragraph says is 1) obvious, 2) bullshit or 3) (much less often) useful. Here’s a short sample, from Salamansky himself (herself? none-of-your-goddamn-business-what-my-gender-is-self?):

“However, in Heidegger’s formulation, Rede, the rhetorically “correct,” strives toward systematics of exclusivity and closure in its attempt to screen out as much heteroglossia and dialogism as possible for the sake of clarity–to hone language, if it were possible, to monoglossia, to limit its bricolage of genres and narrative levels. A police officer for instance, making an arrest, is unlikely to wax poetic or relate deep-seated childhood traumas to the accused.”

S.I. Salamensky, Talk Talk Talk: The Cultural Life of Everyday Conversation (2001)

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Enough poking fun at the world’s multiple genders–but speaking of poking fun, let’s talk about marriage.

I invite blogworlders to chip in with good advice about how two people of happily different genders can coexist. If you think that’s too flimsy a segue–Dan Berlinger of Archipelago is getting married–congratulations, Dan!

To start with, here are four very standard pieces of marriage advice:

Don’t say things in anger that you will later regret.

Remember Han Solo in the garbage compactor, dodging the ricochets of his own bullet? At least the bullet stopped after a few bounces–nobody got hurt thinking about it later.

Marriage is not 50-50, it’s 80-20.

Expect to give 80% and get back 20%. And so will your parner.

What goes around comes around.

In a long marriage, you will be the person your partner knows best–the model for what’s okay and what’s forbidden. If you break promises or sulk for hours–so (eventually) will your partner. If you give little presents or call when you’ll be late coming home–so (eventually) will your partner.

Never go to bed angry.

It’s a lonely feeling to wake up and remember the stupid fight that you both thought was more important than your love for each other.

You can also learn a lot from watching people do really stupid stuff:

“Ann wouldn’t know about that, would you, Ann?”

Ewwww–there’s nothing more painful than watching a couple needle each other in public. Before you take some nasty, “witty” poke at your mate, just remember how ugly you look doing it.

“What did mean Daddy do to you?”

There are about 8 zillion reasons not to compete for your kids’ affection by putting each other down. Teach your kids by example that hurting anyone in the family hurts the whole family unit–and vice versa. You will eventually be very glad your kids learned this.

“I made the coffee, get your own god-damned cup.”

Some days, life is exhausting–that’s not your partner’s fault. You’re more likely to get praise and affection for a cup of tea delivered with a smile than for a whole pot of hand-picked Peruvian organic coffee you snarled about making.

“That’s mine!” “No, it’s mine!”

I knew a couple whose shared nerdy fun of building electric trains turned into a war between two obsessions. They should have remember Dan Berlinger’s fine saying, “Be mindful. Be focused. Be of the moment. Be respectful.”

Come to think of it, maybe Dan is the one who should be giving us advice. Good luck, kids!

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Scientists decoding the human genome announced that just 78 genes separate men from women. The BBC then published a list of guesses at what those genes do.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Women drive on the stretch of road they can see. Men move through the landscape by car.

Men do not even bother to look for something, then ask where it is and hope that it was the woman who put it away.

Men use I or me when they should use we or us. Women use we or us when they should use I or me.

Men speak in sentences. Women speak in paragraphs.

These are my favorites because they make me laugh by reminding me of some, not all, of the real men and women I know.

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Speaking of real men and women, Dave Winer today links to a lovely piece he wrote a few years ago about boys, adventure, and a dangerous tumble down the side of a mountain. On the way down, exhilarated, safe, he points out his cuts and blood to a little boy:

Look, I fell down the mountain! I smile happily. I’m OK! Everyone laughs.

Boys dig this (I’m a boy too). In our best moments, this is what being a man is about — taking risks, falling down, getting up and laughing at our good fortune.

I know Dave means by this what he says he means–that men (like women) find inspiration and comfort in living up to their ideals.

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There are a lot of things that aren’t “fair” when you compare the lot of men and women. Women live longer. Men earn more. Women make jokes about men and don’t like it when men make jokes about them. (Of course the opposite is also true–it just depends on which social group you hang out with.)
I did
a Google search on “it’s not fair” and came up with almost 90,000 results. Here, in the order I found them, are the top six:

1. Health Care is under attack in Ontario and transsexuals have been unfairly targetted.
2. During the Iraq war, ClearChannel radio news had a blatantly pro-war slant.

3. The playing field for DB2 backup and recovery is not level.
4. Global inequalities condemn many people to live in hopeless poverty.
5. Pollution and nationalism create problems for many species.
6. Some national park roads are impassible when it rains.

Some of my favorite bloggers–one is Halley–say honest blogs in a personal voice are the wave of the (business) future. I disagree, for two reasons.

1. Honest blogging can hurt your career.
2. I don’t think your boss should expect to buy your “personal voice”.

1. How can your blog hurt your career? A recent conference summary at JOHO lists just a few ways. Federal law protects you by forbidding prospective employers to ask certain questions–“How old are you?” “How many children do you have?” But if you post such info in your blog–that protection is gone.

Once you are hired, you can be fired for stuff you post in your blog. It doesn’t have to be stuff like “Our product sucks.”

Suppose you have even one co-worker who doesn’t like you. Suppose this co-worker finds something “naughty” in your blog–you smoked dope, or you played football pools on company time, or whatever. Suppose this co-worker brings this to your boss–your boss could be in big trouble if he doesn’t act, even if he doesn’t want to–just the same way an airport security person could lose her job if she doesn’t confiscate tiny pocket knives.

2. How can you business-blog in a personal voice? If you write stuff your boss wouldn’t like, see problem #1, above. If you are careful not to write stuff your boss wouldn’t like, how is this honest and personal?

If your boss requires you to business-blog, can you do it during normal business hours? Or are you expected to blog “as a professional”–that is, after work, cutting into your family time?

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Fun, thoughtful, quirky, provocative, purely Halley-esque. Just go read it. I don’t have time to add my own two cents this morning, but that’s okay. You’ll be thinking up your own responses and that will be even more fun than reading mine.

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Bzzzz–is that a scooter approaching, or a flock of buzzwords? A2O! AOS! Anyone for audio caffeine?

Buzzwhack’s Buzzword Compliant Dictionary has short definitions, full of attitude, for stuff like this. I even get their “BUZZWORD OF THE DAY”–and today’s definition took a (buzz)whack at Segway:

EPAMD: Electric Personal Assistive Mobility
Device. A term coined by Segway in an attempt to
convince state legislators its motorized
two-wheeler is not a “vehicle.” Vehicles aren’t
allowed on sidewalks, have to be registered like
cars and require drivers to be licensed. How many
vehicles, er, things meet the EPAMD definition?
Only the Segway and nothing else.

PR giant Burson-Marsteller’s super-aggressive hype campaign for Segway is a major case of a big ugly tail wagging a cute little dog. (Speaking of super-aggressive hype campaigns, Burson-Marsteller also fronts for Botox.)

Kinda makes you wonder–how much of the cost of a Segway goes to BM?

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“I find it’s often hard to take a good picture of someone wearing a HELLO stick-on label.”

Jim Roberts of Noded raised this excellent point in his comment on my blogpost yesterday. Have you ever wondered:

• why photos of people at conferences look so bad?
• why your passport photo looks like Uncle Bill on a bender?
• why some photographers take gorgeous pictures, but most take photos so bad our subjects wish their heads had been cut off?

Answer: there are force-fields in our universe that make (some) people look terrible in (some) photos. These “Photogenicity Inhibiting Force Fields” or PIFFs are my own contribution to physics and metaphysics:

• Why do PIFFs attach to objects like HELLO badges?
• Why do PIFFs pervade the world of “Official” photos?
• How do photographers like Niek get rid of PIFFs?
• Why is everyone in my family but me immune to them?

As soon as my lawyers pin down the trademark, copyright, and patent rights to “PIFF”, I’ll be unveiling this for the New York Times.

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“The years teach much that the days never know.” Ralph Waldo Emerson “The true measure of success isn’t money or power. It’s laugh lines.” send a postcard