Selling out

          I usually try to stay away from commenting on current events, or anything too relevant. There isn't anything specifically wrong with doing so. It just that doing so is usually a strategy to get people to actually read what you have written. Using things that actually happen in the world, things that get attention, is a way to divert some of that attention to yourself. And, since I am fairly certain no one really reads this unless I personally ask him or her to, a situation which I don't really see any need to change, current events just isn't what I do.

Top Comedies #1: The decline of our moral fiber.

Mel Brooks would like to think that he is responsible in some way for the vulgarity that we see in movies today. And when he says that, I think he is talking, as usual, about sex. The fictional character, Max Bialystock may have to pretended to produce a play in an elaborate scheme to defraud investors of money, but Mel Brooks (whose initials he shares, MB) probably did in fact create movies in an even more elaborate scheme just to get laid. All his heroes share this common trait. From Robin Hood to Comicus, each has lofty ambitions which are only a role they take on in an indefatigable attempt to get some action. When Robin speaks about justice and patriotism, he is playing. It is only when Marion is involved that he is really engaged. And, the heroines are just as up for it. But the thing that makes Frederick Frankenstein so much funnier than the rest is that he takes himself so seriously, he seems to fool even himself. 

Private Knowledge and Public Policy

One of the reasons I began this blog was to build confidence. Another was to become more articulate in expressing the ideas I have, and of my reading of philosophy. While I have been willing, in past posts, to state my own ideas, I haven't gone much further than comfortable responses to books and essays I read as a student. Today, I find myself willing to put down something of my own. This may be as a result of growing confidence. Or, perhaps I am just running out of things to say. Either way, this should be a challenge.

I know he can do the job, but can he get the job?

Yet another article on the marketability of skills developed while studying philosophy.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/01/be_employable_study_philosophy_partner/

You'll have to excuse my butchering of a quote from Joe Vs. The Volcano. But this seems the obvious question. Philosophy majors might do well in whatever they end up doing, but how do they get to do it in the first place? If you know, would you mind sharing with the rest of us?

Top Comedies #2: "Serpentine!"

There are a handful of common activities that provide the basic material for, without speaking too generally, most metaphors we use today. Sports, dinner parties, and poker. Comedies are like poker. Situations, actors, quotable lines, and combinations thereof are the hands that are dealt. A winning comedy finds a way of using what is dealt and a little of what Sting called "the sacred geometry of chance" in order to succeed. But success isn't beating other players (all metaphors are limited), it is making us laugh.

There is also bluffing, which is essentially overplaying your hand. See every Will Ferrell movie ever made for examples. Sure, Ferrell is funny. And when he has a strong hand to play, he wins big. But when he has a weak hand, despite a few quotable moments, he and his standard set of cohorts play it as though it was strong anyway. And the results are hard to watch, or even just plain forgettable. Dissecting these movies to see what went wrong is difficult. They seemed to have all the parts necessary to be a success. The problem is, when you put them together, there is only so far you can take them. Any further is based only on undue confidence in their strength. They are a bluff. The In-Laws is just the opposite.

You keep using that term, I don't think it means what you think it means...

Before I get into this week's topic, I'll take a moment to review some of the older philosophical posts. In going back over them, I found several cases where I seemed to be making an argument which I didn't intend to make. And, in others I don't seem to have a point at all. This is all fine. I am learning how to put these ideas down in writing more effectively, and that was always going to involve starting less effectively.

Top Comedies #3: From when talent was more than a matter of grooming.

Mr. Mom, I expect, will expose me to the more ridicule than any other post, even those sophomoric philosophical posts which would be better kept in a sealed box in the back corner of a locked basement. You know, the place where you keep your Fleetwood Mac records. But while I am a nerd, and a dork, I am never a geek and just won't give in to caring too much what others think. Mr. Mom is great. If you don't agree, that's fine. Just go watch some South Park, or Archer, or whatever other puerile, cynical, scatological, phony satire that you are convinced is brilliant. As for me, I'll be too busy trying to catch my breath from uncontrollable laughter to really care how deep this movie is.