If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
-Wittgenstein.
#21
The key to Albain Renais’ 1962 existential skull-fuck Last Weekend at Marienbad is, I believe, the strange stick game that the hotel’s gaming dealer plays with the movie’s characters. Renais depicts the game in painstaking detail (even if it only shows up only three times in the 2.5 hour movie), yet it is impossible to make sense of it. The characters, however, do not seem to mind, and pursue victory in the game regardless of its logical absurdity. Once the viewer realizes that the game is absurd, it becomes the film’s key metaphor, making more than a simple Camus-esque statement of the futility of hope, but folding the movie’s thematic abstruseness back upon itself — weaving a quilt-like object-lesson about attempting “victory” over life’s disconnected (if often stunning) images. A visual philosophy in two and half hours.
#22
I’m starting to get really tired of saying “Have a nice weekend” to people at work on Fridays. “See you tomorrow” every night is also bad, but at least there some variations on that one that crop up (”See you later”, “Tomorrow’s another day”, etc.). But “Have a nice weekend” is pervasive, all-consuming, horrifically platitudinous. It means nothing. There’s no way to tell that the person saying it gives one damn about your weekend. It’s just a convenient thing to say when someone leaves the office on Friday because it seems all cheery and the sayer can think, “that was a nice way to end that conversation.” The thing that bothers me most, really, is that people always say it with this tone of excitement from the fact that the weekend is arriving. And, yeah, I’m going to have a nice weekend. Sure. I’m a cool guy and have cool friends. You’re weekend is probably going to involve shepherding your three kids to soccer practice and then going to Fuddruckers for overpriced burgers and videogame noise. Sunday: probably church and re-runs of the Antique Roadshow where you can marvel at how that old lady totally thought that Qing Dynasty vase that she bought was going to be worth way more than it actually was. You are so great in comparison.
#23
Seriously, why do people put cream and sugar in their coffee? Do they like disgusting coffee?
-Shark
15 responses so far ↓
Mike B. // Nov 16, 2007 at 11:06 am
You don’t like cream in your coffee, eh?
Shannon // Nov 16, 2007 at 11:58 am
My co-worker would like to know then, what should she say to me when leaving on Friday?
Gabbeh // Nov 16, 2007 at 11:59 am
Shark, I’m totally with you on #23–black coffee is the only way to go. But man, #22…you sound like a self-absorbed, yuppie fuckhead. Sheesh.
Shark // Nov 16, 2007 at 12:05 pm
I hide my egotism behind egotism.
Hip E. // Nov 16, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I usually say “take it easy.” It’s good to sprinkle in some old standards in the office conversation like “another day, another dollar” and “same shit, different day.”
Also, don’t be obtuse. Coffee is a sour, acidic liquid. Good coffee is an acquired taste (the acquisition of which is aided by neurochemical addiction), while bad coffee is really disgusting. On the other hand, both cream and sugar taste good. That’s about as close to an objective fact as you can have about food. So putting cream and sugar in coffee makes it taste better a lot of the time, or at least more like cream and sugar.
I like a good cup of black coffee some of the time, when I have time to appreciate it or if I just want a good slap in the face/gut on a bad morning. However, when you’re drinking bad office coffee and the main purpose is to inject caffeine into your brain, putting cream and sugar in it is often the way to go.
Obviously everyone has different tastes. But your argument amounts to saying that cream and sugar taste bad.
Mike B. // Nov 16, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Argument? I thought he was just going on a Seinfeld-esque rant.
I can’t wait for Shark to wax poetic about how bad airline food is. Or how taxicab drivers are dangerous. Edgy stuff!
Shark // Nov 16, 2007 at 3:18 pm
There really is no “airline food” anymore. Only when you cross an ocean do you get warm meals. Almost all domestic flights now feature a delightful “snack box” filled with chips, cookies, cheese spread and other really crappy crap. The last flight I went on offered “wraps” for $5, which I considered an assault on my humanity.
Don’t even get me started on the whole “wrap” craze.
Mike B. // Nov 16, 2007 at 3:56 pm
It’s true, it’s true!
Now, talk about how folks of African descent drive their vehicles, versus white people.
Hip E. // Nov 16, 2007 at 4:54 pm
mmmmmm.. pizza wraps…
Shark // Nov 16, 2007 at 5:05 pm
What’s the deeeeeeal with homework? You’re not working on your home .
Shannon // Nov 16, 2007 at 6:04 pm
She said, “I hope you have a shitty weekend.”
Britt // Nov 20, 2007 at 3:16 pm
how about a simple “see you monday”? Or my favorite, “Holla!”, used mostly to annoy my urban-slangily un-hip co-workers as I depart for a weekend they know will be filled with drunken bally-hoo. I also get off 2 hrs earlier than everyone else….so occassionally (if I am already drunk) it’s “Holla Suckas!”. The best thing about holla, is that it suffices both as a morning greeting as well as a departure statement! Sort of like Aloha.
speaking of aloha, Hawaiian airlines food is hot and non-offensive and you get like 3 options.
Shark // Nov 20, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Sort of like “the keg is tapped”?
Hip E. // Nov 21, 2007 at 12:16 am
sounds like Hawaiian airlines food is kind of like a classy pornstar.
simon // Nov 27, 2007 at 8:29 am
try this one out friday afternoon but do it w/ a smile and a wink:
“eat my ass w/ some salt and pepper”
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