Clever The anxiety at the heart of surrealism lies in trying always to be unpredictable. The audience laughs, not at the irrationality, but at the fact that their brains automatically make sense of anything irrational. We live in an absurd world. An updated version of “My Fair Lady” has Eliza selling freshly sharpened cutlery door to door. “Govn’r,” she cons the Professor, “if you had any balls, I’d cut ‘em off.” Pompous Herr Rath likes living on the edge, so he fondles her vocal chords till she can hit high C and shatter glass in the downtown bank. The Professor dives for gold bars, knowing that the world has run out of places to mine, only to find Swiss chocolate inside. The sugar rots his teeth, and when he smiles, you can see his flapping tongue.
I grew up in Christian fundamentalism, went to hell, came back, became a Presbyterian then a Buddhist Presbyterian, and now I'm a profane Presbyterian Zen Taoist -- not that I'm into labels or anything. Here's what I've learned so far: The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
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Clever
The anxiety at the heart of surrealism lies in trying always to be unpredictable. The audience laughs, not at the irrationality, but at the fact that their brains automatically make sense of anything irrational. We live in an absurd world. An updated version of “My Fair Lady” has Eliza selling freshly sharpened cutlery door to door. “Govn’r,” she cons the Professor, “if you had any balls, I’d cut ‘em off.” Pompous Herr Rath likes living on the edge, so he fondles her vocal chords till she can hit high C and shatter glass in the downtown bank. The Professor dives for gold bars, knowing that the world has run out of places to mine, only to find Swiss chocolate inside. The sugar rots his teeth, and when he smiles, you can see his flapping tongue.
[Disposable Prose January 17, 2010]
Dr. Mike
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