Word: comically
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Another bumbling error in last week's issue--this time the computer's fault, not ours--was the disappearance of the Mr. Minnesota Head comic strip. Next week you'll find an expanded version...
...also the prime exemplar of the crucial debate America is now having with itself, at the decibel level of a Metallica concert. What should the level of political discourse be in an election campaign, or on radio and TV, or at the office water cooler? At what point does comic exaggeration shade into slander? When everyone is shouting, is anybody listening...
...some comics, the subject of Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan is as fertile as Bush-Quayle. Will Durst, who refers to Limbaugh as "Jabba the Talk Show Host," says, "Buchanan had a killer instinct; he wasn't afraid to lick up the blood. But Rush leaves it there and just chews off the flesh." Harry Shearer, the actor (This Is Spinal Tap, The Simpsons) and host of his own politico-comic radio show, is kinder, gentler to Limbaugh: "This country runs on personality, not on ideas. I think if Rush were spouting diametrically opposed ideas, he'd be just as popular...
This air of comic unreality not only pervades the debates, but also the whole parade of presidential electioneering. Currently I have a fascination with spin-doctors, those masters of empty chatter who pump up their clients in press gatherings before major appearances. These wonderful creatures infest the debate halls, taking the spoken language to undiscovered levels of pap, hot air and irrelevance in order to make journalists do the same. The pity is that these spinners should only exist in the political domain...
...think, in a sense, it's all me, if you scrape away the comic hyperbole of the book. All the fantasies and all the delusions about notoriety and celebrity in the book, although exaggerated vastly, I do have. And I think all people in our generation, or the generations that grew up in the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s. I think everyone to some degree or another has been inculcated with these, since we live in a society that's obsessed with celebrity. I think all those are within me, quite truly. I've made comic use by taking...