Base Eight is Just Like Base Ten, Really -- If You're Missing Two Fingers.

[tzikeh]

Tom Lehrer is alive and well and likes Eddie Izzard and Stephen Sondheim. He also has some thoughts on satire.

Comments

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

ROCK!!! Dude, thanks so much for posting this! (Love, Love, Love TL.)

[arallara.livejournal.com]

Ah, Tom Lehrer. *g*

I thought this was interesting:

"With audiences nowadays I see it with these late-night [TV show] people, Jay Leno, David Letterman and so on the audience applauds the jokes rather than laughs at them, which is very discouraging.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but that is an important distinction, isn't it? I'm right with him on the way the mainstreaming of comedy into the television medium has changed the way it functions as cultural work, too.

Cool. *g* Thanks for posting the link.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Tom Lehrer has long been my favorite satirist and possibly earliest comedy influence. Mom and Dad had all the LPs. I adore him. Much of my delivery derives from his speech patterns - him and Carlin.

"That I missed her depressed her young sister named Esther...."

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about it that way, but that is an important distinction, isn't it?

Yeah, it really is. I can't stand watching Leno or most of those guys because the jokes A) aren't funny, B) don't end when they're over because the host always feels the need to explain why it's humorous, and C) the audience reaction gets me down. It's like they know they're expected to laugh and applaud, so they do, but none of it is a genuine reaction.

[finabair.livejournal.com]

Two game warden, seven hunters, and a cow!

[arallara.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't really watch them for pretty much the same reasons. Heh, especially the part about the jokes not being funny. *g*

[nestra.livejournal.com]

He says Stephen Sondheim "is the greatest lyricist the English language has produced and that's not an opinion, that's a fact".

Amen.

Thanks for posting this. Fun read.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Amen.

And hallelujah.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

The maximum the game laws would allow!