Is this the end of irony—and of its kissing cousin, satire?
That was the question people asked in the aftermath of 9/11. It seemed to be something too horrific, too serious to make fun of. It would have been too disrespectful of the attack’s victims, and of its heroic responders, to joke about it.
But of course irony didn’t stay down for long. An early piece of evidence that I remember was a New Yorker cartoon that appeared sometime that fall, which showed a barfly telling the man next to him, “If I don’t have that third martini, the terrorists win.”
If there were any lingering moral reservations about parodying our response to “the terrorist threat,” they vanished for me during the “shock and awe” of Desert Storm, as we discovered that the frightening spectre of WMD’s, and of Saddam Hussein’s support for Al-Qaeda, were simply lies concocted by the Bush administration. The whole ‘yellow cake’ episode seemed custom-made for parody.
But this crisis is different. For one thing, we’re still in the middle—if not the beginning—of this mess. A week ago I could laugh at the video of a man watching a video of a smoking barbecue grill, sipping a drink and waving away the ‘smoke’ with a fan. But today it’s not so cute, as I read the grim numbers rising faster every day, and news starts to trickle in of friends of friends falling victim. Not to mention footage of truckloads of coffins lined up outside hospitals in northern Italy.
And yet…would that be funny to the doctors and nurses having to decide who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t—doctors and nurses who moreover are risking their own lives? Would it be funny to the family of someone who died because there were no ventilators available? Somehow skewering Trump—and the man deserves to be skewered on so many levels—just seems too easy, especially when the skewering is by those of us with the luxury of being able to just “hunker down.” Serious journalistic exposure of this inept president’s failures is now more important than ever. But exploiting his clumsy and often mean-spirited missteps—and those of his coterie—just for amusement suddenly feels kind of sacrilegious to me.
And skewering our clumsy, insecure, mean-spirited president has been a mainstay of this blog, as recently as 5 days ago. But it’s just no fun anymore. So now what? What is the right thing to do? Do we go satire-silent? (I avoid the question: does anyone care?) I don’t have the answer. But I need a laugh now more than ever. Isn’t that ironic?
President Trump said on Tuesday that he wanted to reopen the country for business by this coming Easter Sunday, despite widespread warnings from public health experts that the worst effects of the coronavirus were still weeks away and that lifting the restrictions now in place would result in unnecessary deaths. – New York Times, March 24 2020
WASHINGTON, APRIL 20 2020
The White House announced this morning that as of 12:01 A.M. today the Coronavirus has been eradicated.
Ecstatic Americans greeted the news by emerging from their homes and indulging in joyful orgies of face-touching, handshaking, church-packing, massive consumption of non-essential goods and services, and unapologetic elbowless coughing in crowded public spaces.
“I’m an American,” declared Dwayne of Ohio. “You can’t tell me how and where I can cough.”
Though no longer infected, hundreds of thousands of patients suffering from its lingering effects continue to recover in Trump hotels and resorts, generously leased to the government at market rates. “We’ll care for them as long as necessary,” vowed the president, “if not longer.”
The scientific community was stunned to discover that the president’s March prediction/suggestion that the nation would safely “pack the churches” on Easter Sunday came true. Dr. Anthony Fauci, on a temporary leave of absence, could not be reached at the vacation home he shares with journalist Jonathan Karl and former presidential candidate Joseph Biden in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
President Trump was pressed to reveal how he knew the virus would spontaneously disappear on Easter Sunday morning.
“It’s very complicated,” he explained, “very…sciency. But you’ll know everything very soon. I’m writing a paper about it for the New England Journal of Medicine. If you don’t know, that’s a very classy, very top magazine for doctors. It doesn’t even have ads. It’ll be out as soon as the peer review crap gets taken care of. Along with my tax returns. [cough] Excuse me, there’s my allergy again.”
But a draft of the president’s paper, leaked to the Garden, tells the story. The virus was caused by a “perfect storm,” Trump writes, “of Chinese mischief, liberal media hype, and grasping blue-state governors.” But why did it abruptly disappear? The virus never reckoned on the president’s unmatched powers of magical thinking. “What a great thing it would be, I thought, if we all woke up on Easter morning and everything was normal. I thought that, really hard, and now it’s true. It’s so, so simple.” concluded the president’s monograph.
Media pundits across the political spectrum, from Fox News to the National Review, all agreed that the sudden national wellness all but assured the president another term, if not two or three. “This’ll shut up the president’s critics,” opined Sean Hannity. “Though if not, there are other ways.”
First of all, a big virtual hug (the only kind CDC guidelines allow) to all our loyal readers out there. We love you and hope you are all safe and sound. And a heartfelt shout out to the farmworkers, grocery clerks, truck drivers, restaurant workers, and others who are (let’s be honest) out there risking their health for a few pennies, to keep life bearable for the rest of us.
Watching the daily clown-show (and it’s a scary clown, at that) known as the “White House Press Briefing,” it’s becoming more evident to me that we, the American people, are on our own. As awful as things are in New York State, New Yorkers at least have the comfort of seeing a guy in charge who is smart and responsible. But here in Texas, rather than a governor who is concerned only with keeping his people alive and healthy, we have someone whose reaction is, “how can we use this catastrophe to make life even harder than it already is for a woman who decides to terminate her pregnancy?” And as for the guy at the top…well, we’re in great shape if all we need is wishful thinking, a cheery sales pitch, and other people to blame. I’m not counting on it.
That leaves the primary task of keeping ourselves safe to…ourselves. And an interesting mental exercise I’ve been playing with lately consists of listing all the things I need or want to do besides staying at home…and asking myself…
IS IT TO DIE FOR? (Allowed responses: YES, NO, or IT’S COMPLICATED)
DISCLAIMER: THESE ARE NOT RECOMMENDATIONS…you’ll have to decide for yourself what’s ‘worth it’!
TOILET PAPER: YES. Though I don’t need to have closetfuls of it. And if it comes to it…we still have enough old copies of the Austin-American Statesman to do us for a while. (Note to self: New condition for the new world—‘Inky Bum’)
GOING TO THE GROCERY STORE: YES. A guy’s gotta eat. And the delivery services in my neighborhood are backed up. But let’s make a list first, keep it quick, and get a little extra so we don’t have to go so often. That’s a little extra, folks. Leave some queso and popcorn for the next guy.
GETTING TAKEOUT FOR LUNCH EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE STILL LEFTOVERS IN THE FREEZER: YES, if the place is doing a reasonable job of keeping customers and workers separate from themselves and each other. It’s a risk but one I’m willing to take a couple of times a week.
ROCKY ROAD ICE CREAM AND PLANTERS’ CHEESE BALLS: IT’S COMPLICATED. Hard to defend as justifying a separate trip to the store, or even extending the trip for ‘basics’ by a few minutes (and a few additional ‘close encounters’) for things that not only don’t improve one’s health or safety but are actually bad for you. But if this business goes on for months…we gotta have something to look forward to!
PICKING UP A FEW THINGS AT THE SUPERMARKET FOR THE ELDERLY NEIGHBOR WHO LIVES NEXT DOOR. YES. No contest. Do we really need to say it?
GETTING THE OIL CHANGED AND TIRES ROTATED: NO. Obviously! It can wait. Yet for some reason our neighborhood quickie lube is still packed with cars. Are you crazy, people? Or just stupid? Don’t know yet about state inspections though….
FILLING UP THE CAR: YES. If the apocalypse does come, I want to be fueled up and ready to go. Just haven’t figured out where. Krum? Pflugerville? Where is someplace no one else would want to be? Maybe Dalworthington Gardens. (Get it? It’s in between Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Arlington, and it’s like a garden! But have you ever driven through it? I have. Enough said. I digress.*) More importantly, it seems like the risk involved in getting gas is low. Plus…it’s below a buck-eighty now…who can resist?
GETTING A HAIRCUT: NO. Hell no. I’ll take shaggy over dead.
WINE AND BEER: IT’S COMPLICATED. I’m not a big drinker, but there’s psychological comfort in have a few bottles under the sink. And psychological comfort counts.
GETTING MY TEETH CLEANED: NO. I brush. I floss. It can wait. Academic at this point anyway.
HAVING A BEER IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD BAR: NO. It’s academic anyway. There are no neighborhood bars in my part of Austin, unless you count ‘lounge areas’ within restaurants, with enormous TV screens and loud music, which I don’t. No bars the way I remember them from my misspent youth in Hyde Park: places where people went to share a pitcher and talk with friends, or to just sit at the bar with a pile of crumpled bills for the bartender to deduct from each time your beer glass was wordlessly refilled. Ah those were the days. But even if there were such a place nearby (which would be fantastic), it would be shut down after tonight, according to the shelter-in-place order. And even if there weren’t such an order…not now.
VISIT TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY OR BOOKSTORE: IT’S COMPLICATED. I might go once, and stock the hell up. Life on pure Netflix and YouTube and etc. is really just not worth living. But e-Books are really good enough for now. I’m not a paper-book sentimentalist—It’s the message that counts, not the medium. Anyway it’s academic…the libraries at least are shut down.
GOING FOR A WALK: IT’S COMPLICATED. In the ‘hood, yes. The prettiest places—with narrow trails—unfortunately…no.
GIVING BLOOD: IT’S COMPLICATED. I believe it’s perfectly safe. I’m also a coward who hates needles. Just give me some time.
BUYING A GUN: NO. No way! Not my thing. And so far as I have been able to determine, shooting the virus doesn’t work. But the Garden is in the middle of a part of the country where folks will swamp the gun store at the slightest provocation. If an African-American is elected president, if there is a whisper of a rumor of background checks, if ‘bump stocks’ might be banned, if the “gun show loophole” might be closed, if there is a thunderstorm in the forecast, if a coyote eats someone’s cat, there is a mad rush to the weekend gun show to buy a gun. Or more typically, another gun. We almost hope** to be reading someday soon about someone who got infected because they went to a gun show to protect themselves against…sick neighbors.
ACQUIRING A SPRING WARDROBE: NO. “Old T-shirt” is the new black.
VOTING: IT’S COMPLICATED. If my House district (Mike McCaul) has a fighting chance of turning blue in November, then…yes, definitely. You’re welcome, Millennial
*no offense intended to the fine people of Dalworthington Gardens, Texas
As a public service, we suggest creative ways to make time fly.
Heat up the can of lima beans that’s been sitting at the back of the pantry shelf since 1st Obama.
Enjoy the lima beans while fantasizing that we’re back in 1st Obama.
Watch the 3rd season of Babylon Berlin in one glorious day.
Invent new cocktails that use whatever’s sitting under the sink. Like a Drambuie Beet Consommé Fizz.
Peek-Out-The-Front-Window games: Which Tree Will That Bird Fly To Next? Is That Amazon Truck Bringing Something For Me? Is That Neighbor Going To Clean Up After Her Dog Or Just Walk Away?
Set a new personal record for not checking your Facebook. (7 min 12 sec)
Watch the 3rd season of Babylon Berlin one more time so you totally get everything.
Start writing down the novel you’ve been writing in your head since your sophomore year of high school. The one where you only needed two weeks away from work for it to be a best-seller.
After 1½ pages, realize with equal parts disappointment and relief that you’re not a novelist.
Browse through the collection of all the DVDs you ever bought from the Wal-Mart $5 bin, looking for anything that doesn’t make you groan on sight.
Fail the attempt but watch the Sylvester Stallone Gold Collection for seven hours anyway.
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”—President Donald Trump, August 8 2017
The White House had announced early Friday that Trump’s trip to the CDC was canceled because of concern about a possible infection there, but that person tested negative and Trump ended up going after all.—The New York Times, March 6 2020
ON NORTH KOREA
North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never…GAAACK! GET THAT OFF ME! Was that a spider? I think it was a spider! Who let it in here? [To Secret Service detail] Is it still alive? You killed it, right? —August 8, 2017
ON IRAN
If Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, will be hit very fast and…jeeSUS YOU SCARED THE [REDACTED] OUT OF ME, PENCE! How long have you been standing there?—January 4, 2020
ON POSSIBLE U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION IN VENEZUELA
Certainly, it’s something that’s on the…EEWWW, is that something on my fork? I think I’m going to throw up!—February 3, 2019
1. “March Madness” (again). Do we really have to go through this every year?
2. The 40th anniversary of “The Miracle on Ice.” I think it’s something to do with hockey.
3. The Democratic primaries. Just go ahead already and pick the one I’m going to vote for in November. Or not, since I’m a Democrat in Texas and my vote won’t matter.*
4. The lack of affordable housing in the Bay area. So?
5. Whether or not Harry and Megan get to use the word “royal.” By the way, if things get tight you two are welcome to stop by the Garden any time for a sandwich and a beer, on me.
6. Don’t remember what the sixth thing was.
7. That thing on my foot, unless it gets infected.
8. “Electability”. 2016 erased any meaningful definition of the word.
9. Medicare For All vs. expanded Obamacare. I’m cool with either one, really. Let’s focus on the real problem (hint: it looks like 250 lbs. of fresh pork roast wearing a long red tie).
10. Where Tom Brady ends up. I should care…why?
* Though it should be Elizabeth Warren. She gets things done and she knows how to fight.
Movies like “1917,” “The Irishman,” and “Ford v Ferrari” have all used their historical settings as a shield to deflect diversity critiques. – Aisha Harris, in an editorial in the New York Times, Feb. 6 2020
Human beings are strange animals. We’re the only species that loves to tell itself stories. And, being the unevolved species that we are, the story-tellers prefer to tell stories about themselves, or more usually, mythologized versions of themselves. For example, white male film producers, directors and actors just love to tell stories about super-duper white males. Even when they are telling a story about a black person, it’s usually really about a white person. Yes, I mean Green Book.
Hollywood’s ingrained exclusion of minorities is wrong, and effectively suppresses an enormous supply of great talent. But we wouldn’t want to live in a world without Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood. So here is a solution that will allow us to have our inclusion cake and eat our great entertainment, too.
Cast the best actor, not the (supposedly) appropriate race.
For example, why not cast Ford v Ferrari with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Chadwick Boseman instead of Matt Damon and Christian Bale?
“But then,” you say, “it wouldn’t be real.”
Oh, right. Reality.
When we’re watching Ford v Ferrari (so goes this line of thinking) we’re capable of forgetting that we’re sitting in a movie theater or a living-room couch, watching a digitally contrived recording of professional actors wearing silly costumes, speaking lines written by someone else. We can mentally block the experience of having seen these same actors, who now portray “real” people, perform the parts of Jason Bourne and Batman, among many others. Yes, we can delude ourselves into believing that somehow we are watching a live-stream reality show that is able to reach back in time to 1966.
We can do all this, and yet our suspension of disbelief is so fragile that the whole experience will be ruined if one of the lead actors happens to be black!
Oh really? Did the Greeks of Sophocles’ time grumble on their way home from the theater, “I hated that Electra! The real Electra didn’t go around wearing a mask!” Did the Elizabethan audience of Hamlet walk out midway through the performance, muttering, “The whole thing was so stupid! Everyone knows Ophelia was a girl!” No, and no.
Yet today we follow the silly and arbitrary convention that if a movie is about a real or imagined person of gender A and skin tone B, then the actor must be the same. What does that convention really do to enhance our movie-going experience? Nothing.
And once that convention is broken, all sorts of wonderful possibilities emerge. Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington would have crushed the parts of Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman. And if it bothers anyone, they can damn well just pretend the actors are “white.” It’s no harder than pretending that the man you once pretended was Michael Corleone is now James Hoffa.
And why stop with racial correctness? I for one would pay green money to see a Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood headlined by Whoopi Goldberg and Awkwafina.
And don’t get me started on Little Women. I’m thinking John Lithgow, Rupaul, Nathan Lane, and Chris Tucker. And that’s just the girls!
REFLECTING ON LATEST DISASTERS, TRUMP DECLARES, “I AM SO SORRY.” “I’m only human,” the president adds
SCHOOLCHILDREN CONFUSED BY TEXTBOOKS ON 21st CENTURY HISTORY “What did they mean by ‘a black person’ or ‘a white person’?” they ask
DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY CLASSIFIES THE N.R.A. “TERRORIST ORGANIZATION” “Our investigation uncovered an obsession with guns,” observes director
REPUBLICANS PASS MAJOR CLIMATE-CHANGE REFORM BILL “We can’t enjoy our wealth if we’re getting roasted alive,” explains Senate majority leader
APPLE, SAMSUNG DECLARE BANKRUPTCY Device manufacturers struggle to stay relevant as books, newspapers, movie theaters enjoy renewed popularity
‘MADAME BOVARY’ TOPS NY TIMES BESTSELLER LIST FOR RECORD 100th WEEK Says fan, “I can’t believe it’s been here all this time, it’s so much better than the crap they put out today”
ISRAEL, PALESTINIANS AGREE ON VIABLE TWO-STATE SOLUTION, ENDING DECADES OF VIOLENCE “All we had to do is start acting like responsible grown-ups,” says negotiator
USC ANNOUNCES $10B STATE-OF-THE-ART ENGLISH DEPARTMENT “The world has enough doctors and quarterbacks,” says chancellor, “what we need now are more poets”
GARDEN OF EATON WINS BEST-BLOG PULITZER “Huffington Shmuffington” says judge
WARREN BEATS TRUMP 100,000,000 TO 1 “I must have checked the wrong box,” laments Ohio man, “I don’t see too good”
All-State sonneteer Caitlyn Adams (North Richland Hills Senior High School) committed to UT-Austin on Friday, ending months of speculation and raising early hopes of a return to national championship contention for the Longhorn poetry team after a decade-long drought.
“I visited the poetry dens of Chicago, Iowa, UC-Berkeley, and Columbia,” said the D/FW regional standout, “but the facilities in Austin were like totally awesome,” her choice of words causing head coach Gail Postlethwaite to visibly flinch. Adams was probably referring to the results of the $20 million overhaul of the poetry training facility, which now includes a gleaming battery of commercial-grade espresso machines and a world-class wine-bar. Postlethwaite has received sharp criticism for the expenditure, but explained, “you don’t write world-class rondelles on Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and boxed swill. Every penny we spend contributes to our goal: getting to the slam in Carmel in March and bringing home the trophy.”
Postlethwaite was brought in two years ago after the regents fired her predecessor over his lackluster verses and unengaging imagery. “Beating your Harvey Mudd or North Texas was nice,” says Postlethwaite, “but we’re here to prove we’re the best.” Given her $5 million annual salary, she needs to make that intention a reality.
It won’t be easy. The Longhorns had a poor season last year, dropping to last in the Big 12 after a rough handling by Baylor in the free-verse tournament in November. The shocking loss caused Postlethwaite to fire her assistant coaches for meter and enjambment. And next year’s team is handicapped by the loss of junior Rocky Anderson, who went pro after being offered multi-million-dollar contracts by several publishing houses. “Rocky had a winning mentality and a flair for innovative metaphors,” said Postlethwaite. “But we’ll be just fine with our incoming talent. I know that expectations are high in the Longhorn community for a national championship, but as I keep telling our kids, we’ll get there, one tetrameter at a time.”
Postlethwaite has a reputation for keeping her young writers in line. Before her tenure, Longhorn poets were known for getting into late-night fights on Sixth street and acing exams. “When I first got here,” recalls Shaun Jameson, sophomore rapper from Katy, “Coach Gail caught me looking at a chemistry book. She made me throw it in the dumpster. She doesn’t put up with any nonsense.” The practices are grueling, Johnson adds. “We do two-a-days, every day, in the coffee shop. Like I learned from Coach, there’s no substitute for just sitting down with a grande mocha, booting up the Mac, and dreaming for four hours straight. But that first winning submission makes you forget about all the pain that went into it.”
Postlethwaite nods and smiles. “I make no apologies. We’re not here to party or graduate with honors. We are here to write poetry. World class championship poetry, period. Or no period, if you’re omitting punctuation.”
The Garden of Eaton 