The mathematician and musical satirist has died at the age of 97. The link gives some of his better known songs but the ones I like best are his parody of My Darling Clementine
and the song about Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel.
This was somewhat unfair to Alma, portraying her merely as someone whose chief talent was to work her way through many famous men. She was, in fact, an accomplished composer and author in her own right.
Here is his first monologue after the news broke.
What surprised me is that Paramount gave him 10-month’s notice, saying that the end of the show would be in May 2026. As he said, that gives him the freedom to really let loose.
Jon Stewart also weighed in.
I found this interesting short clip of the versatile physician, writer, director, documentarian, comedian, and public intellectual Jonathan Miller, who died in 2019 at the age of 85, talking with Dick Cavett about how he views his own Jewish ethnicity. I found completely relatable his views about subordinating the ethnic and religious heritage into which he was born to a more universal sense of humanity.
The exchange is well worth watching for anyone trying to navigate rejecting ethnic and religious sectarianism and embracing solidarity with the human race as a whole, without giving the impression that they are disowning or are even ashamed of being born into a specific heritage. As he said, the only time he feels it necessary to tell anyone that he is Jewish is when they turn out to be an antisemite.
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Back in 1961, the ground-breaking British sketch comedy revue Beyond the Fringe featuring Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore took British comedy by storm, breaking old patterns and inspiring a new generation of comedians including the Monty Python troupe.
In the opening sketch, they had a commentary on America.
At the 2:57 mark, Jonathan Miller explains to Dudley Moore, who is on the eve of a trip to the US, the two-party system here, saying “They’ve got the Republican party, you see, which is the equivalent of our Conservative party and then there’s the Democratic party which is the equivalent of our Conservative party.”
That joke worked in 1961 because at that time there were significant differences between the Conservative and Labour parties in the UK, which were not reflected in the Republican and Democratic parties here.. It would not work as well now because, thanks to the neoliberalism of Tony Blair and now Keir Starmer, the Labour party is becoming indistinguishable from the Conservatives.
Actor Steve Coogan has blasted Starmer and the Labour party of betraying its supporters and warned that when angry voters see that neither party is looking after their interests, they will move towards Nigel Farage’s Reform party. His analysis rings true to what we see in the US as well.
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It is common to hear Americans describe the countries of central and south America as fraught with gang violence compared to the safety of US. But this sketch from the show Alternatino shows that things are not that simple.
I too used to wonder what the point of this sign was. I think that what they are really warning about is that you should look out for rocks that have fallen on the road.
So why not say something like “Look out for fallen rocks”?
This was from episode 8 of season 2 of the sketch comedy series The Whitest Kids U’ Know. Note that this was from way back in 2008 but sadly it is still relevant.
(From Boing Boing)
Trump is a loser and a failure, sustained only by the fact that he surrounds hjmself with sycophants who tell him how great he is and because so many of his followers are willing to believe his lies and boasts.
