The Well-tempered Caviler

As proof that I have not entirely lost it, I will tell you my three favorite jokes of all time.

Joke #1Q: How many shrinks does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Just one. But the lightbulb really has to want to change.

Joke #2Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: That's not funny!!!

And for my favoritest, drumroll, please...

Favoritest Joke of All TimeQ: Why is the door knob?
A: Because the house.

But there's more! Next, I'm going to tell you one of my favorite anecdotes that I read somewhere I can't remember.

So, there was this kid--let's put him at 6yo--who was perfectly happy and healthy except that he didn't talk. This worried his parents, of course, but because they were loving and caring folk and there was nothing else the matter with the kid, anyway, they just went on loving and caring for him. One night, over dinner, the kid suddenly asked them to pass the salt (or something). Upon recovering from the shock, his parents asked him why he hadn't spoken before. And the kid said: Because I never wanted anything before.

I hope you liked my jokes and the anecdote. And now I'm going to bonk you over the head with something really serious. Kidding!

In an earlier post, I rambled about losing speech last. Now, speech has many functions but probably the most important is negotiation. (Even when we're just talking--or writing, like this--to ourselves, there's negotiation involved. We are "sorting things out.") There are non-verbal ways of negotiating, of course, but they all involve a certain degree of physical violence and/or passive-aggressive subterfuge. This is why speech is so essential and enshrined (last time I looked) as an inalienable human right. Unfortunately, there are too many real-life situations where speech is prostituted for ends that violate its very nature. (Lacan would call this "empty speech" but let's not go there.¹)

What's worse is when speech pimps presume to dictate who gets to speak and who doesn't. The shit doesn't get much deeper than that.

There's a "poetic writer and good conversationalist" (*insert gagging sounds here*) whom I will never speak to again--as in try to communicate anything of worth--because I know that it would be just like throwing myself down a waterless well or casting pearls before swine. As for politics and a bunch of blighted...blighters who are not worthy to outlaw my shorts, it just triggers the Tourette's and so it's not something I like getting started on.²

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¹I'm quite aware of the fact that every time I say something "serious," I'm usually paraphrasing a bunch of DWMs. We can play find the not-so-hidden Bakhtin or whatever, if you like. Can't help it, sorry.

²Which is why I totally admire people like Antonio Calipjo Go who risk popping a blood vessel tilting at blighted windmills. Just a tiny bone to pick, though. He started his statement with three quotes: one each from Dickens, Condorcet, and Borat. Victoriana happens to be my specialty and so I have to say that the Dickens quote is rather off.

"Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else… This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to the Facts, Sir!"

It was a big mean utilitarian baddie in Hard Times who said that.