Matt and David Talk about "Community."

David: i want to do a back to back community and spaced thing sometime
yeah
well
i wouldn't know
i haven't watched community in forever either
last i saw chevy chase had taken some strange turns
which didn't make sense
but whatever
it's community
Matt: yeah, it's not high art
Matt: I guess for a sitcom it should at least be considered such.
David: wellll...
Matt: yes?
David: i've told you my issue with community before, right?
wherein most of it feels like things happen because they have to happen to make it conform to a plot, not because it makes any sense
too much time thinking about how "tv shows work" and not enough paying attention to what's actually going on
ya know?
Matt: yeah I do but it is still fun.
Sent at 11:24 AM on Wednesday
David: absolutely
i like it a lot
but i wish the writers spent less time forcing characters through situations, and more time letting the characters guide it
Sent at 11:27 AM on Wednesday
Matt: On the other side of that we have Seinfeld, a decent enough show, but still not as good, in my opinion, as community
each show is an event
Sent at 11:28 AM on Wednesday
Matt: rather than people just doing things. It's a hyper reality.
like all art
but not exactly in the same way
David: sure
but it strains between the situations and the people
and i think the strain is too much at times
we analyzed it enough?
Matt: yep time to post it

Of the Fallen

abattoir |ˈabəˌtwär|
noun
a slaughterhouse.
ORIGIN early 19th cent.: from French, from abattre ‘to fell.’

One week ago I stood on a kill floor for the first time. In many ways I've been building up to that moment for a few years now [at least], learning about food systems and production and how the food we eat gets from the farm to the table. In elementary school we were assigned a research paper, and my initial "animal rights" topic quickly changed to a more focused study of slaughterhouses. What I learned turned me off meat for months, as I recall.

But let's face it. I'm like many other red-blooded Americans who love bacon and steak and fried chicken and Thanksgiving turkey. My studies [and interests in life] led me to food, and it changed the way I bought milk, where I shopped, what I shopped for. My internship in Italy got me so close to the food chain as helping raise animals, and seeing their carcasses return in halves, still warm.

But this whole part about death, scared me as it does so many people. It's easier to turn away and pretend that pork chops simply come from the grocery store in neat little bloodless, and plastic-wrapped, packages. I've seen film footage, both raw and in documentary form about it, but I wondered how I would feel actually being there for the moment of death. Could I ever, EVER, eat it again?

As soon as we got back from the processing plant, I sat down to write about the experience. It's disjointed but thoughtful, shock and a sort of peace between every line.

"To stand less than ten feet away from an animal who is about to take its last breath; to watch it take in its surroundings, fresh blood spattered and streaming across the kill floor, steam rising from another animal so recently slaughtered that it, despite being halved and headless, has rhythmically-twitching muscles that speak to pastured life."

Blood is an amazing, sustaining thing that captivates and horrifies us. To see so much of it, still hot, will take your breath away. And these men working make it all look so easy— when I know how much practice goes into each slice, knowing the grain of the meat, where to cut and where not to cut. It's one of our most primal skills as a species, perfected over centuries of passed-down learning.

The Adventures of Cr. X

He ate raw egg and mud to breakfast, and looked at the stolen chicken as a tumultuous option that if accepted would bring about his end. A fire would only bring scavengers and the time it would take to kill and de-feather the fowl would waste valuable daylight. It really didn’t matter, the police had his sent and where three miles away. He hadn’t lost them through the river.

It takes a man three years to become a chicken wringer and ten if you wanted to be an egg collector. X was a slop pusher, an alcoholic and depressed. It wasn’t uncommon that one was an alcoholic. For the price of a fried egg and potatoes one could fill his canteen full of protein enriched liquor. This kept the population full, thirsty, compliant and only mildly suicidal. The world needed slop pushers and X was one of the best.

After two years pushing slop, X hadn’t failed enough alcohol tests to keep from advancing. You had to be drunk to advance in the company. On the posters that collaged the walls read a variation of the aphorism, “A sober eye cannot but lie.” One of X’s favorites was, “wanntoyah get mar % WiT the booozze!?” which was either a wonderful joke or had been conjured by an executive marketer. X liked to think it was the Temperance League supplanting a ridiculous piece of propaganda that would snap him out of his drunken stupor.  It would take the wind out of X’s sheets to know that not only did the TM not exist, but  the CFO of Chicorp (pronounced chick-orp) came up with his little piece of defiance.

The Awkward World Economy: Greece and the EuroZone

The weakest links in the EuroZone have been Greece, Spain and Portugal. We all know how the old adage goes. In this case we ought to think of the situation not as a chain but as, well a chain is really a good metaphor. Let us use it.  I was going to use soil erosion or crop rotation, but a chain just makes sense.

Picture a long chain, I was going to make a pictorial representation, for help, but this isn't a school assignment and I have faith in my readers. Again, picture a chain made up of all the countries in the EuroZone ( Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain). The larger economies, the German and French, support the weaker ones...

That isn't how the chain metaphor works.

Here we go, let's use a hole at, say, a beech, no a beach. Yeah a beach. I thought that the whole chain thing would have worked out, but it didn't, so now I'm winging it. O.K. Remember when you dug a hole at the beach and it was time to go and your Mother told you to fill in the hole before you left.  You said something like,
     'Mom I'm just going to let the water wash it full.'
The only problem is that you dug your hole on the picnic grounds and transported all the dirt into the lake. You tried to fill it up with paper plates and leftovers but your mom wasn't buying it. Then you put all the garbage back in the trash can and said,
     'O.K. Mom how about some dirt?',
She said,
     'I don't have any, ask your Father'
So you ask your father and he says,
     'I can't really give you any soil,' he's a bit snooty, 'but I can work with your sister Angela and your brother Dom at the County Soil Dispensary Foundation and you are going to have to promise them that all the gopher holes that we see are also plugged up before we give you their hard earned soil.'


Now you think the gophers are going to fill up all of their gopher holes, but what happens? They go on strike and you have to teargas them to fill in the holes. Finally you get about five eights of the dirt required to fill the hole that you dug. Now Mom is getting really fed up with all of this. You start to plead your case and mom finally blows her lid and grounds you for two months. Thats right, no entitlement programs (allowance) until you work off your debt (chores).

All the while the twins have been digging their own holes, and big Bro and Sis are trying to keep them from also dumping it in to the lake.

Does that make it clearer? I thought so. Just to make sure, here is a list of the cast:

Mom: International Speculators and Markets
Dad: The European Central Bank
Sis Angela: Germany (Angela Merkel)
Bro Dom: International Monetary Fund (Dominique Strauss-Kahn)
Gophers: Grecians
The Twins: Spain and Portugal

The End of an Era

Just as James Buchanan (15th president) ended Jacksonian Politics and the Jacksonian Era, Jay Leno has killed the Late Night Talk Show. Now I'm not going to say that James Buchanan was the reason that Lincoln (16th president) was killed but I am saying that Leno is responsible for ending the hosting career of the best T.V. personality on the air. As Leno is a bumbling moron who made Conan look like a comic genius, Buchanan was the bumbling moron who made Lincoln one of the best presidents this country has seen.

If you didn't watch the show, go to Hulu and glue your eyelids open.

Potato Confit and Cranberry Sauce

This is a simple enough dish, however it does take some time to complete. This would be great to begin making while the green bean casserole is in the oven. Let's clarify some butter and confit some potatoes!

Shiitake Green Bean Casserole

This is going to be a culinary adventure into waters previously uncharted by Awkward Haiku; fusion cooking. From scratch, we are going to make the cream of mushroom base with shiitake mushrooms. And that about covers the fusion aspect of our dish. All of the images that you see are from the making of this casserole, let me know if you want to use them elsewhere. 

The recipe is after the jump

Butternut Gnocchi

• Ingredients 
• 1 small butternut squash, halved lengthwise and seeded
• 3/4 lb Yukon Gold potatoes
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan 
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon white pepper (or any pepper 
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting

Preheat oven to 500

Cut the squash in two and place on lightly oiled baking pan. Throw the potatoes in there with the halves and put them in preheated oven for 25 min or until tender. Take out the squash and leave the potatoes on the pan and put the pan back into the oven.

Remove the squash from the skin and put in to largish bowl. When the potatoes are done remove the skins by slicing in half and just peeling them off. Add the potatoes to the squash and mash as best as you can, then put them into the vegetable mill.

Post-Ironic Thanksgiving

For those of you that remember the whole 'Siberian Sangria Fiasco,' please forget it. I would like to make a fresh start cooking for the internet with a new series, Post-Ironic Thanksgiving.  I will be sharing some of my favorite fall recipes just in time for your Thanksgiving.
During the Dark Times, when the only cooked things were drugs and an occasional soup was made when cigarette ash fell into a glass of Richard's Irish Wild Rose, we saw all food, on all fronts become snooty, stingy and ironic. Lets enjoy food with our new found sense of taste and smell.

Read the menu after the jump...

Obirony Updates

UrbanDictionary says...


Bam! Do a google search for "obirony". Come on, I dare you. Know what pops up as number 2?

That's right. Our post on the waning fortunes of obirony.

A victory for our Post-Ironic Studies division if I ever saw one.

Also, as an update, see how, just as we predicted, Obama's political fortunes are rising once more ("Obama's Strategy Pays Off", though with just enough disillusionment that times are still tough for the Obironist. Hold in there, poking fun at the Obama supporter will be cool again soon.

Mad Men, The 90s Revival, and Post-Irony

This week, we're doing a Mad Men series. Why? Well, it seems like since the early 60s popularity is hitting its zenith (/starting to decline), it's time to do what we can to celebrate it. Plus Mad Men's phenom.

So, first--Mad Men in 60 seconds


Second, a Post-Ironic look at the shape of 60s nostalgia: (more after the jump)

Dammit!

Gossip Girl just used the Lissy Trullie cover of "Ready for the Floor"

Damn!

But good for them I suppose. But not for me, or anyone else who's been wanting to keep them a secret, and away from the big bad mean world of trashy soaps meant for 13 year olds (no comment as to having been watching the show when the song appeared).

Obirony Updates

In the NY Times, Frank Rich just wrote an article on Obama's news tactics. Interesting follow-up to our previous posts on the subject. Nothing new to report really, but an interesting angle to add to our discussion.

Ask Awkward Haiku - Obirony

As loyal readers know, we here at Awkward Haiku specialize in post-ironic trends. Irony and post-irony have important ramifications in the pop culture zone, it can be difficult to track how irony turns into post irony, before reaching another stage of irony. The Awkward Haiku labs are researching the flow across pop culture, and occasionally publish our findings.

But right now, we've taken a break from the big research topics (for instance, what inspires the robotic uprising fear? How did fairy tales briefly take over pop culture in the 80s?) to answer some questions from our loyal readers.

This week's question was sent in by Mahmoud A. in Tehran.

Dear Awkward Haiku,

Is obama-themed imagery ironic yet? How about spoke cards on non-fixed gear bikes? I'm thinking of purchasing this bicycle, and wish to know if I'll be simply tacky, or ironically tacky. 

I love your bear jokes!

Love,

Mahmoud 

Dear Mahmoud,

Thanks for writing in! We've never posted any bear jokes, but we'll see what we can do.

First off--yes Obama imagery is still ironic. The first mass embrace of the Obama irony (Obirony as it's referred to in our tracking) came onto the scene shortly after the election. While there had been glimmers of it before (e.g. "Barack you like a hurricane" "Barack and roll" "between Barack and a hard place" and our personal favorite "Barack you Obamadeus"), after the election the tackiness of those earnest hucksters seeking to make a buck off the election/liberals wetting themselves over the hope of something new inspired a wave of mock-anticipation and joy*1. As the wave of products hit the infomercials (need I remind anyone about the obama plates, the age of hope thong, the chia obama, or any of the other parts of the sea of obama cashing in?), it became acceptable to feign a belief in total transformation. Jokes about hoping Obama would end disease and frowns within 5 weeks hit their peak 3 weeks before the inauguration. Jokes about furnishing one's apartment entirely with yes we can commemorative material peeked about a week after the inauguration.

This would have been the ideal time to ride a bike like this. You'd crest on the wave of silliness, yet gut irrational hope that this really was a transformative moment. You'd perform the perfect feat of mocking Obamites/mass opinion, yet at the same time entirely supporting it.

However, the last few months, as we all know from cable news, has not been good Obama in mass culture. Not to debate the veracity of that (our labs focus only on irony in fads), but that, as well as time passing have led to the state of affairs where it'll still get a chuckle, but over-enthusiastic Obama fever seems out of place. Obirony is still ironic, however it's turned a little mean. Now as we all know from our introductory post-irony-studies courses (ah the good olds of PIS101. I failed the class actually because I spent my time flirting with the TA, but luckily the professor turned in grades on opposite day. I really dodged a bullet there), once irony reaches that stage, it's time is numbered.

Using a simple Millard-Roswell conversion equation*2, we can predict that Obirony will become earnest and post-ironic within 2 months. This makes sense on all sorts of levels. Obama is a redemption story, like any other story in pop culture. He comes in with a wave of expectation, which means he's no longer an underdog. Because of this, he stumbles, there's a fall, which turns him into an underdog again, but this time with something to prove. Once the underdog is ready for the journey, American pop culture will follow.

As such, my dear Mahmoud, if you ride this bike in the next 2 months, it will no longer be a little dated and cruel, but instead tacky.

Never fear though! These are cyclical. Post-irony is a science of sorts. Awkward Haiku labs will go on record to predict that Obirony will be back in a fresh form in 8 months. It will be different, but we feel confident telling you you'll be able to ride your bike then, entirely ironically tacky. If you can't wait, have you considered a Dick Cheney wheelchair?

Sincerely,
All of us at Awkward Haiku

----------

*1)see for instance, this painting which circulated en masse around mid November 2008-


*2)simple equation for determining at what time the fad stops being ironic, and whether or not it disappears or enters post-irony. The variables include level of mass awareness, corporate sponsors, audience, culture, relevance, and silliness. Certain fads don't have enough staying power to become post-ironic. Some never transform from irony.

Tracy Morgan: The End of Post-Modernism?

We all know that Tracy is the clown, but what kind? Is he Perdrolino, the naive Italian? The Tracy who experiences a child's joy in destroying rational expectations? Is he just a celebrated birthday clown? The Tracy that reads the lines on the cue cards? Is he a postmodern Charlie Kaufman buffoon? The Tracy that tapes a wheel to his foot to know what it will be like when his character doesn't have a foot from losing it to diabetes, while Tracy, the man, is a diabetic.

He's all of them and none of them at the same time. He is our comedic savant, the American Cervantes. He creates such a stir because we cant understand how the clown Tracy, the character Tracy plays of himself, uses race as a vehicle without perpetuating stereotypes. We also don't know how he ticks and that makes us mad. Tracy, the real Tracy, knows what he is saying is funny without having cognitive access to its comedic justification.

In an era of Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswald and Zach Galifianakis, Tracy is a breath of fresh air. The would-be transformative comics are, however, a hail to the end of the postmodern movement. The PoMo gang critique societal conventions with humor, but they also refer to those conventions while poking fun. Tracy on the other hand, takes those conventions out in the open and breaks them, out in the open, but without referring to them. When he looks at the camera it isn't to say to an audience 'I know you're there and you get the joke,' he looks at the camera for comfort, direction and inspiration.