For instance, "wicked funny" comes up in this blog entry from Lemon Hound, or in comments, etc.--lots to click around and catch up on, once you get there--about very funny negative poetry book reviews.
Now Sideshow Bob really is wicked--he wants to kill Bart Simpson--and funny, as drawn by Matt Groening and played by Kelsey Grammer.
But "wicked funny" seems to refer to sarcasm used to make fun of people, their flaws, and their work. (One might even want to be wicked funny about Kelsey Grammer's life and recent woes, but, fear not, I am not going to link you to TMZ, and Wikipedia takes care of that, anyway. Poor Frasier.)
And "origasm" is a made up word meaning origami orgasm, as when the brain folds get so intense your hair corkscrews out the side of your head.
Last night, for example, watching Woman in Mind, the play by Alan Ayckbourn, I heard Gerald, a not-so-sympathetic-till-you-get-to-empathize-with-him character, played sympathetically by Todd Wineburner, say something about sarcasm being the last defense of the mediocre mind. That's not it, but Julie will correct me. And there are many excellent quotations for and against sarcasm, some of them sarcastic! Anyhoo....
1) I have indeed noticed sarcasm used to easily dismiss writers, especially threateningly successful or popular writers who have worked very hard...
2) Being wicked funny is a way to get your own work read, or maybe that's just me being frankly cynical...
3) I am backing further and further away from sarcasm...because Sideshow Bob has a knife.
Meanwhile, the way-above-sarcasm-mentioned David just finished Hunger, by Knut Hamsun, and is reading a poetry book by C. K. Williams.
And Caroline is reading The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde, by Peter Akroyd, which seems to tie right in.
Kathleen, I experienced the adversity involved in playing a clown or even a mime. Last year I tooled around the gallery, where I work, as a mime for about five hours. As many people ran away from me as toward me. It was weird. A lot more going on in the heads of adults than children.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the quote, and I have no idea where my copy of the play is, so I will try to listen for it tonight. Unless I find the play between now and then.
ReplyDeleteBecause of the play, I was thinking "macrame" when you said "origami." Perhaps my brain is more knotted than folded? That would explain a few things...
Oooh, yes, I see a whole macrame theme turning up in my blog now, if not in yours!
ReplyDeleteRon, you are a brave, brave mime.
ReplyDeleteClowns - and coincidence. This morning, the cats got me up early (again) and I turned on the TV to see Albert Brooks and Leelee Sobieski in "My First Mister." And, after sitting down to watch, it wound up with them discussing fear of clowns. (He wasn't afraid of them, she was.) Oddly enough, before that discussion occurred, the movie made me think of the novel "Billiards at Half Past Nine" . . . by Heinrich Boll.
ReplyDeleteBob
Oh, so you know a lot of people who are afraid of clowns too. I have to say I don't usually find them very funny, but fear doesn't really enter into it.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I think I have it. Sarcasm is the greatest weapon of the smallest minds.
ReplyDeleteVoila! Thanks, Julie!
ReplyDelete