Why is this commercial so wonderful?

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 16 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_0fyUYB3cA

It is a very specific culture that produces this auto insurance commercial, in which Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo, a man from Africa who played professional basketball in Houston, knocks various objects out of the air. It is an ultra-specific culture that finds it hilarious, as I do. Probably it is helped along by my predilection for slapstick. I submit that certain elements of it are pure art, though, such as the sequence in the grocery store aisle that begins at :16. Motumbo has to be standing so close to the kid to get that reverse shot, such that he becomes conspicuously absent from the shot preceding it. Your brain has to go backwards in time and add him in. It is a visual expression of the incongruity theory of humor—something that was itself technically impossible until about a hundred years ago—and it makes it.

Continue reading

Two approaches to teen pregnancy

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 1 Comment
God, I wish you were a phone.

God, I wish you were a phone.

Here in New York, all anyone can talk about is the city’s recent campaign to shame teenagers out of getting pregnant. “Woo!” they say, “St. Patrick’s blleeaarggh!” It’s possible my man-on-the-street survey has been corrupted by outside forces. If the Times is any indication, however, it’s a hot issue. Richard Reeves’s defense of shame as an instrument of social change is compelling, particularly in its citation of how we shamed cigarettes. It seems like a great argument, until you remember that teenagers don’t get pregnant because they think it’s cool. Pregnancy is to smoking as having sex is to catching on fire. If we’re wondering what to do about teen pregnancy, perhaps we might consider a more reliable approach: abortion.

Continue reading

The problem of determining whether you, yourself, are an asshole

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 19 Comments
A good fence

A good fence

If you read the comments on last Monday’s post, you will find a message from my neighbor [redacted], who is evidently moving out. First of all, welcome [redacted]; you have expanded my readership by 16%. Second of all, after reading said message, I realize that I am a weird hermit who is completely unreasonable in my expectations for quiet. No, wait—I still think I am a normal person. It is an agile interpretation that decides my “imperious pounding” on the floor is the problem when the stereo unavoidably comes on at 3am. The floor, by the way, is [redacted]’s ceiling. Again we encounter the problem of others.

Continue reading

Regarding wishes

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 7 Comments

1711557-1705817_wiz_super_super

Since the US government and most history ground to a halt over the weekend, I’m going to take a moment to address one of the comments on Friday’s links. I’ve gone back to reading the comments, because Aksimet cannot be trusted to distinguish rap videos from Cialis advertisements on its own. Anyway, Matt offered the following question about the Dungeons & Dragons spell Wish:

Isn’t wish open to the DM’s interpretation? Like if you wish for a meteor to crush your enemy, the DM can also have the meteor crush you? Or were my friends just major douches?

“Or,” huh? The theme of today’s post is don’t make me choose.

Continue reading

The American public cannot get enough drones

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 4 Comments
The drone that captured our hearts or, if that was not possible, incinerated them with a missile

The drone that captured our hearts or, if that was not feasible, incinerated them with a missile

Despite our misgivings about using them to kill US citizens overseas, the American people love drones. It’s like the way we can hate Darius Rucker but still like acoustic guitars. An ABC-Washington Post poll from February of last year found that 83% of respondents approved the use of drone strikes against suspected terrorists overseas. Two thirds of them said they approved such strikes even when the alleged terrorists were American citizens. And why not? An unmanned drone comprises all of man’s deepest yearnings: to fly, to play video games, to kill people on the other side of the world without having to look them in the eye.

Continue reading