Joni Mitchell’s Application for a Tenure Track Philosophy Position

in Comedy, Philosophy | February 9th, 2015

Image by Asylum Records (Billboard page 2) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Michael Stipe has a teaching gig at NYU. Lynda Barry has one at UW-Madison. Sun Ra gave a classic lecture at UC-Berkeley. So why can’t we imagine Joni Mitchell landing a job at a university too? That’s what Jedidiah Anderson did, when he wrote a satirical piece over at McSweeney’s called “Joni Mitchell Applies for a Tenure Track Philosophy Position.” It begins:

Dear Search Committee:

I am applying for the position of Assistant Professor in Philosophy. I am an advanced doctoral candidate in Philosophy (with minors in Urban Studies and English), and expect to defend my dissertation in May, 2015.

My dissertation, Both Sides Now applies a bilateral, hylomorphic analysis to the phenomenon that is described by the signifier “clouds.” Having been constituted in Western discourse both positively as “rows and flows of angel hair,” “ice cream castles in the air,” “feather canyons everywhere,” and negatively as objects that exist solely to obscure the sun, express rain and snow, and hinder the achievement of various goals, we can conclude that after the application of this bilateral, hylomorphic analysis that due to these contradictory “up” and “down” epistemologies of cloud tropes, the reality of clouds is somehow still understudied, having been ignored in favor of their Platonic form/sign, and that we really don’t “know” clouds at all.

You can read the rest of her “application” here and then spend the evening dreaming about taking Joni’s classes on Plato, Existentialism, and Urban Development. I know I will.

You can find more great Joni Mitchell material below.

James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, Live and Together (1970)

The Music, Art, and Life of Joni Mitchell Presented in a Superb 2003 Documentary

Free Online Philosophy Courses

by OC | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Watch Between Time and Timbuktu, an Obscure TV Gem Based on the Work of Kurt Vonnegut

in Comedy, Literature, Television | February 6th, 2015

Just wondering, who among us knows how to sing the zip code of Boston’s public television station, WGBH-TV?

If you warbled “02134” without hesitation, you probably grew up watching a beloved children’s television show of the 70s.

It turns out Zoom wasn’t the only cool program WGBH hatched in 1972. On March 13, just a couple of months after Zoom’s debut, the station aired Between Time and Timbuktu, a 90-minute special inspired by the work of Kurt Vonnegut.

The script was written by David Odell, who later won an Emmy for The Muppet Show, but Vonnegut advised, pinching characters and scenes from such favorites as Cat’s Cradle, Sirens of Titan, and “Harrison Bergeron.”

Vonnegut also wrote the introduction to the published script, a paperback quickie enhanced by production stills and photos taken by Vonnegut’s wife, Jill Krementz. It was as good a forum as any for him to announce his retirement from film, which he cited as a medium “too clanking and real” for his comfort.

The show itself is likely to cause nostalgia for television’s freewheeling, Monty Python era.

Though 1972 wasn’t an entirely silly period, if you’ll recall. The Vietnam War was raging, with Walter Cronkite holding down the CBS Evening News desk.

Between Time and Timbuktu capitalizes on the veteran broadcaster’s ubiquity by casting comedian Ray Goulding of Bob and Ray fame, as an appropriately grave Walter Gesundheit. Bob joined him at the news desk as a fictitious former astronaut. Vonnegut was appreciative of their efforts, stating that American comedians had probably done more to shape his thinking than any other writer.

Also look for William Hickey, who played Prizzi’s Honor’s genial, aged mafia don, in the lead role of Stony Stevenson—now there’s a period character name! If you’ll remember, Stony is also the first civilian in space, at least according to the Sirens of Titan.

via The Airship

Kurt Vonnegut: Where Do I Get My Ideas From? My Disgust with Civilization

Kurt Vonnegut Explains “How to Write With Style”

Ayun Halliday is an author, homeschooler, and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. Follow her @AyunHalliday

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Watch Artist Shepard Fairey Pretend to Work in an Art Supply Store

in Art, Comedy, Television | February 5th, 2015

Attention sulky art school students! Next time you’re stocking up on pre-smashed TVs, baby doll parts, riot cop stencils and mannequins, be sure to say hello to Shepard Fairey.

The artist is currently sporting a provocative T‑shirt of his own design and posing as an employee of Shocking Art Supply and Craft.

D’oh! We’ve been punked again!

Fairey’s real, but the store, a brightly lit emporium catering to those seeking to make subversive statements with their art, is the invention of Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s Portlandia. (The full episode aired last week on IFC.)

Armisen and Brownstein ham things up in ill-fitting wigs as Gigi and Phil, characters previously known for running a company that provided bad art for coffee shop walls.

Meanwhile, Fairey wins laughs by leaving the comedy to the comedians. Though I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Shocking Art Supply employee Shepard F is an admirer of Henry Rollins. You can read all sorts of things into a performance that deadpan.

The segment was filmed in a Portland store where Fairey remembered purchasing art supplies a few years back. As he notes on his website:

I’m no actor, but this part, along with maybe “jaded art student” or “jaded skate shop employee,” are the closest I’ll ever get to method acting.

- Ayun Halliday is an author whose last sting in Portland involved making final edits to the Zinester’s Guide to NYC in a broken down vintage camper infested with flying ants. Follow her @AyunHalliday

by Ayun Halliday | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Start Your Day with Werner Herzog Inspirational Posters

in Comedy, Film | February 3rd, 2015

Werner Herzog is the wild man of cinema. His movies are stark and elemental and ecstatic and are usually about a crazed dreamer who struggles to achieve an impossible task in the face of a chaotic, indifferent universe. Think Aguirre, Wrath of God, about a conquistador who goes crazy while adrift along an Amazonian river. Think Stroszek, about a German grifter who goes mental in the forbidding landscape of Wisconsin while struggling to find the American dream. That film famously, inexplicably, ends with shots of a dancing chicken.

The ecstatic truths seen in his movies are reflected in the man himself. At the age of 14, Herzog struck out from his native Germany for Albania and then Sudan. In 1972, he once walked from Munich to Paris to visit an ailing friend. In 1977, he shot footage at the lip of a volcano at the brink of eruption. He’s a filmmaker who seems to go out of his way to choose locations that are remote and difficult — Antarctica, the Sahara and the Amazonian rain forest — and his shoots always seem to be bedeviled by intrigue and catastrophe. His first feature was nearly derailed because of a coup d’état. While shooting Fata Morgana in Cameroon, he was mistaken for a wanted criminal and thrown in jail. Once during a TV interview in the hills of Los Angeles, he was shot by a random crazy person. Watch it here.

“A BBC television crew came to see me in Laurel Canyon,” as he recounted for The New Yorker. “They wanted to interview me for the British première of ‘Grizzly Man.’ I didn’t want them to film right outside my house, so we went up to Skyline Drive. In the middle of the interview, I was shot with a rifle by someone standing on his balcony. I seem to attract the clinically insane.”

Instead of stopping the interview, running for protection and perhaps going to the hospital, Herzog just continued with the interview saying simply, “It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid.”

Herzog’s improbable penchant for disaster, his collaboration with the brilliant, but batshit crazy, Klaus Kinski, and of course, his singular, uncompromising work have turned him into almost a mythic figure in some circles. But it’s these mad, macho declarations like those above that have really fed the cult of Herzog.

Recently, some unknown genius turned some of Herzog’s more extreme quotations into inspirational posters. Lines like “Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness” are placed along side a shot of a glass of white wine and a sunset.

So gaze upon them. Absorb the pearls of wisdom. Find cold comfort in their bleak, nihilist pronouncements. They make fine additions to any cubicle.

See the full gallery here.

via Coudal

Related Content:

Werner Herzog Picks His 5 Top Films

Werner Herzog Offers 24 Pieces of Filmmaking & Life Advice

Werner Herzog Loses a Bet to Errol Morris, and Eats His Shoe (Literally)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veeptopus, featuring lots of pictures of badgers and even more pictures of vice presidents with octopuses on their heads. The Veeptopus store is here.

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Bill Hicks’ 12 Principles of Comedy

in Comedy | January 27th, 2015

When we think of trash-talking, transgressive comedians, a few big names spring immediately to mind: George Carlin and Richard Pryor; Joan Rivers and Lenny Bruce. Currently, we have Amy Schumer, and Louis CK and Chris Rock, who—though both prominent family men now—still piss people off from time to time. We’ve just scratched the surface, of course, but we might even think of Denis Leary, who dominated the 90s with his rapid-fire delivery and unrepentant chain smoking. And if you know Leary, you may know the man whose act he’s been accused of stealing—chain-smoking firebrand comic Bill Hicks.

I won’t get into the merits of those charges (comedy plagiarism is a long and storied subject). What I find interesting is that in one of the key similarities between Leary and Hicks lies one of their greatest differences: a distinctive regionalism—Leary the wiseass New Englander; Hicks the rebellious Southerner. Hicks grew up in Texas, and was very much a Texan, though not your red state, Bush-voter but the kind of Texan who once upon a time elected Democratic governor Ann Richards. (He described his family as “Yuppie Baptists,” who “worried about things like, ‘If you scratch your neighbor’s Subaru, should you leave a note?’”)

In rebelling against both an uptight urban liberalism and the angry rural chauvinism of his conservative Southern milieu, Hicks, who died of cancer in 1993, became something of a folk hero as well as a comedy legend. For a taste of his comic invective, see him rip into American anti-intellectualism in the clip above. And for a taste of his methodology, see the list below, once posted on the wall of Atlanta’s Laughing Skull comedy club. This comes to us via comedian Chris Hardwick at Nerdist, who, after offering his own advice, turns to Hicks to answer to the question, “How does one go about being a comic.”

BILL HICKS’ PRINCIPLES OF COMEDY

1. If you can be yourself on stage nobody else can be you and you have the law of supply and demand covered.

2. The act is something you fall back on if you can’t think of anything else to say.

3. Only do what you think is funny, never just what you think they will like, even though it’s not that funny to you.

4. Never ask them is this funny – you tell them this is funny.

5. You are not married to any of this shit – if something happens, taking you off on a tangent, NEVER go back and finish a bit, just move on.

6. NEVER ask the audience “How You Doing?” People who do that can’t think of an opening line. They came to see you to tell them how they’re doing, asking that stupid question up front just digs a hole. This is The Most Common Mistake made by performers. I want to leave as soon as they say that.

7. Write what entertains you. If you can’t be funny be interesting. You haven’t lost the crowd. Have something to say and then do it in a funny way.

8. I close my eyes and walk out there and that’s where I start, Honest.

9. Listen to what you are saying, ask yourself, “Why am I saying it and is it Necessary?” (This will filter all your material and cut the unnecessary words, economy of words)

10. Play to the top of the intelligence of the room. There aren’t any bad crowds, just wrong choices.

11. Remember this is the hardest thing there is to do. If you can do this you can do anything.

12. I love my cracker roots. Get to know your family, be friends with them.

I’ve never for a second considered doing stand-up, but I’ve stood in front of many a crowded music venue and classroom and have had to conquer stage fright and self-doubt. Seems to me much of Hicks’ advice is plenty applicable to any kind of performance situation, whether its teaching, playing music, giving a job or conference talk, a magic act, or doing stand-up, which I don’t doubt is “the hardest thing there is to do.” I especially like number 12. Hicks’ misanthropic salvos against American ignorance hit the target so often because he genuinely seemed to care about the culture he took aim at.

via @WFMU

Joan Rivers (1933–2014) Describes on Louie Her Undying Commitment to Comedy

Lenny Bruce Riffs and Rants on Injustice and Hypocrisy in One of His Final Performances (NSFW)

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

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David Sedaris Spends 3–8 Hours Per Day Picking Up Trash in the UK; Testifies on the Litter Problem

in Comedy, Current Affairs | January 12th, 2015

Humorist David Sedaris has become something of a local hero in his adopted home of West Sussex, England. And for fairly unexpected reasons. Repulsed by the litter problem in England, Sedaris began spending 3–8 hours each day picking up trash along the side of various roads. Day in, day out. Fast forward a few years, and the local community honored Sedaris by naming a garbage truck after him — “Pig Pen Sedaris.” And now we have him testifying before the MPs on the Communities and Local Government Committee. If you like C‑SPAN, you will love these 2+ hours of video.

via metafilter

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Three Actresses from Downton Abbey Play a Raunchy Card Game (NSFW)

in Comedy, Random | January 8th, 2015

Over the holidays, the cast of Downton Abbey let their hair down a bit when they released a nine-minute parody of the ITV show. It stars George Clooney, and there’s even a little cameo by Jeremy Piven. It’s quite funny. Don’t miss it.

Now comes something even more relaxed. The video above features three actresses from Downton Abbey — Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith), Lesley Nicol (Mrs. Patmore), and Phyllis Logan (Mrs. Hughes) — playing “Cards Against Humanity.” The game’s own web site bills it as “a party game for horrible people.” While I’m sure that Mr. Carson would be completely scandalized by the scene above — it’s definitely Not Safe for Work — I guess we could mildly celebrate the fact that “Cards Against Humanity” has been released under a Creative Commons license, and you can download the game for free.

Willie Nelson Shows You a Delightful Card Trick

by OC | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Steven Spielberg & Alfred Hitchcock Face Off in an Epic Rap Battle (NSFW)

in Comedy, Film, Music | January 2nd, 2015

In a throw down between directors Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock, who do you think would win?

The pioneering crowd pleaser?

Or the master of suspense?

If Peter Shukoff and Lloyd Ahlquist, the makers of Epic Rap Battles of History refuse to say, I will: neither of them.

Instead, it is action director Michael Bay (as embodied by a bewigged Shukoff), who emerges victorious, dropping into the proceedings via helicopter, to spit that moviemaking is all about the “motherfuc&in’ money”! Artistically, he may not have much currency, but there’s no arguing that the Transformers franchise has indeed endowed him with the “socks made of silk money.”

Other unannounced competitors include Stanley Kubrick, pedaling down a long hallway on an ersatz Big Wheel, and Quentin Tarantino, summoned, no doubt, by a Hitchcock taunt that no one will ever pick Samuel L. Jackson’s turn in Jurassic Park as their favorite Samuel L. Jackson role.

It’s vulgar, and NSFW sans headphones, but as legions of adolescent boys will passionately attest, it has its moments. Watching the behind the scenes, below, reminded me of all the planning that went into this episode, from special effects make up to research and green screen. If the end result is not quite to your taste, at least you can rest assured that it’s by design.