Category Archives: Allegory

Terrrorist Alert Level: Joke. FORWARDED Joke.

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I’ve seen it a billion times. You’ve probably seen it a billion times. If you haven’t, I encourage you to ask yourself if you have enough friends and if anyone truly loves you; the forwarded email joke is the red rosebud of our time. Like not receiving the iloveyou virus, being left off the fwd list of the latest e-fwd is the cyberquivalent of being the wallflower at the highschool dance, propping up the concrete blocks of the gym, making small talk with the history teacher and bitterly regretting letting your mother talk you out of the belly shirt and into the floral buttondown.

So now, without further ado, we present, all the way from Slovenia, the International Terrorist Alert Level Chart. Note, if you will, the special bonus definitions at bottom; this is how Mercator Projectionyou can tell it’s really from Slovenia. That and the addition of America; when the list was first circulated, that was one country left off, since not only did the list originate there, but also they have a perfectly good joke terrorist alert list which is issued every day from the White House. Woz is in the details.

International Response to Terrorism

As many are aware, the French government recently announced a raise in its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide”. The normal level is “General Arrogance”, and the only two higher levels in France are “Surrender” and “Collaborate”. The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country’s military capability.

It’s not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing”. Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides”.

The Germans also increased their alert state from “Disdain” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs”. They have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose”.

Seeing this reaction in continental Europe, the Americans have gone from “Isolationism” to “Find Another Oil-rich Nation for Regime Change”. Their remaining higher alert states are “Attack Random Countries (Ideally Those without Any Credible Military)” and “Beg the British for Help”.

The British are also feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings and have raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved”. Soon though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross”. Londoners have not been “A Bit Cross” since the Blitz in 1940, when tea suppplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been recategorized from “Tiresome” to “Bloody Nuisance”. The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was during the Great Fire of 1666.

Miff – offend

Peeve – irritate

Apocalypse Wow!

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Is this the worst movie ever made? Dear readers, you will have to tell me, for lo, I haveth not the space on my hard drive, and besides, I’m afraid what all my cool documents will say about me behind my back if I force them to make room for the abomination which is The Day the Clown Cried.

Spy Day the Clown Cried

This is proof positive that, no matter how awful a thing may be, how apocalyptically degenerate, how earth-shatteringly horrific, it will, in the fullness of time, get its own fansite.

Where’s mine, bitches?

The site includes not one but TWO scripts for downloading, a first draft and a final, along with comparative analysis (and never has the word “anal” been more apt) and a compendium of articles on this lost meisterstroke (and never has the word “stroke” aw, fergit it).

Lordy, I’m filthy-minded today. Good thing I work for a singles club!

In any case, here is a snippet from the very fine Spy article in which I first learned of the existence of this work of lost…crapitude. And here is the entire article, for those whose lives do not contain enough pain.

JERRY GOES TO DEATH CAMP by Bruce Handy
Illustrations by Drew Friedman
from “Spy Magazine” – May 1992

To artists and intellectuals, the twentieth century has posed no questions more vexing than these:

First, can art make sense of the Holocaust? 

And second, why do the French love Jerry Lewis?

The first question can’t really be answered, at least not in the space allotted here. As for the second, it’s my own opinion that the French have confused sloppy, uneven filmmaking with Godardian anti-formalism.  Regardless, raising these two issues on the same page is not just a pointless exercise in non-sequitur.  Because Jerry Lewis, like Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi before him — not to mention the producers of the NBC ministeries Holocaust — has transformed the incomprehendible into art.

He did this two decades ago, in 1972, a year of cultural ferment that also saw a black man, Sammy Davis Jr., snuggle Richard Nixon on national television.  It was Lewis’ 41st film (but his first to deal with the mass destruction of European Jewry), and it turned out to be the most notorious cinematic miscue in history — unfinished, unreleased, said by the few who’ve seen it to be  almost unwatchable.  Oh, there are also Von Stroheim’s Queen Kelly and Welles’ Don Quixote, among other busts.  But no other film, seen or unseen, can boast both Nazi death camps and the auteur responsible for The Nutty Professor.

There is only one The Day the Clown Cried.

It sounds like a punchline in an overheated Hollywood satire:  Jerry Lewis in Auschwitz. Depending on your taste, the prospect may be as offensive or as inttriguing as … well, truly, no metaphor measures up to the particulars.  A synopsis:

An unhappy German circus clown is sent to a concentration camp and forced to become a sort of genocidal Pied-Piper, entertaining Jewish children as he leads them to the gas chambers.

The story is meant to be played as drama.  By all accounts, no one sings “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, and Tony Orlando does not appear.
Clown Crying

Who’s in play?

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It’s a good question. Here, courtesy of BoingBoing is La Molle Industria, a website that claims to lay it out for you in funfunhappyhappy Engerish terms…only not. I like it very much, although I have no need for the Orgasm Simulator.

Eg:

Tamatipico

Tamatipico Is Your virtual flexworker: He works, he rests and he has fun when you want him to! Raise his productivity but pay attention to his energy and his happyness because he could get injured or strike.

Show me a sign!

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‘k.

Sign

Smartass. 

Howl, Canadian Edition

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Today I did something conventional: worked all day, then dinner and a movie. Shocking, I know. I was even invited to a VIP-only jazz show, but I had a choice between jazz with free drinks or work with the opportunity to buy my own later. Normally, as a freelancer, my instinct (and, indeed, my moral obligation to the profession) would be to go for the freebies, I haven’t done any paid work in awhile and could really use A) the cash and B) the reference, so there you have it. Besides, on Monday I got three free meals, four free drinks, and probably a door prize, though I bailed too early to tell, a victim of the effects of smoked salmon, cream cheese, deep-fried artichoke hearts, and a half-pound of peel-and-eat shrimp meeting two pints of Strongbow, two shots of Johnny Walker Black, and a glass of merlot that would have eaten the shell off an egg. So for the week, I’m still ahead.

Dinner and a movie. Right. It’s a blog about dinner and a movie.

Had, in honour of the blog, calamari. I believe strongly in theme-based meals and, indeed, theme-based living. Tuesday was obviously Giant Squid Day. Today, I think, is Literary Day. There I was eating calamari in honour of my Giant Squid blog entries, although the calamari in this case was more micro- than macro-squidopic, but still pretty good. I think a Mango Madness counts as a serving of fruits, don’t you? From the agonies the blender went through it must certainly have its share of dietary fiber. And, I am sure, the RDA for cheap vodka goodness. Gotta luv White Spot.

The movie. Narnia. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m late. Scroll down and check out PeterPan if you want to see me catching up on something that won a Webby in 2000-and-bloody-1-ferchrissakes. I was born a month late, so by my count I’m still really early most of the time. So, Narnia it was.

Knowing the book as well as I do, there weren’t a whole lot of surprises in it for me, although it did come as a bit of a shock when I realized that Maugrim was speaking with a distinct Canadian accent. Is this some kinda xenophobic crack, people? Watch it. I mean, I didn’t hear the Minotaur speaking Greek, did I?

Timber Wolf

Sure, it was a timber wolf and all (I live in Canada, I know a timber wolf when I see one; hell, I’ve seen them in the wild and petted a tame timber wolf, not to mention the time in Algonquin Park when I was a munchkin and we all went out on the official Wolf Howl, sitting around in a big circle, 60 of us campers, in the dark, listening to a lecture by the nice Mr. Park Ranger Guy and then waiting in silence for the wolves to start howling – seems kinda optimistic, eh? sitting there in the middle of the night with a whackload of strangers, waiting for wolves to howl – but they did: one, up in the north, followed by a long and, we could feel, pregnant silence, then some beta-wolf, the kind who never wants to go into a restaurant if there’s nobody in there already but will go if you go first, answered, then another, and another, and soon the hills were literally echoing with the cries of wild wolves; a more beautiful sound I have never heard, nor ever hope to. It was eerie, and exquisite, earthy beyond comprehension; you simply felt it more than heard it, and utterly, utterly indifferent to Man. Which made it all the more strange when Mr. Park Ranger Guy encouraged us to, one by one, join in. We didn’t feel we had the right. But Mr. Park Ranger Guy was the alpha, and he started, and we did, indeed, all join in. The wolves fell silent. You could imagine them turning to one another with puzzled lupine expressions, their brows furrowing like grizzled Sharpeis, and saying, “Can you make that out? It’s the funniest damn accent I ever heard.” Perhaps they were embarrassed for us, the obvious tourists. Gawd, we even appeared touristy to the wildlife! And it was too dark for them to see our chinos! But after a few minutes, Mr. Alpha Wolf said, “To hell with it, I’m gonna get my full howlin’ allowance in tonight, tourists or no tourists,” and the rest of them followed him and so did we. It was the most peculiar, the most delightful, and the most transcendant harmony of which I have ever been a part. Imagine howling with the wolves, and the wolves howling back. It both put humanity in its place and assured it that it had a place, and should you ever be in Algonquin Park I recommend that you find yourself a Mr. or Ms. Park Ranger and ask about going on a wolf howl) but I do think (yes, that was a parenthetical. Scroll up) that making a nasty villain the only Canadian in the entire film…oh, wait.

Do they have beavers in England?

Okay, scratch that. Um, so to speak: I do not suggest you scratch a beaver, even if you have one handy. Nothing but trouble comes from that.

But I guess we’re even. One big baddie, two little goodies. Canucks all, but from their accents the Beavers musta been Maritimers. But didn’t Trumpkin say that by Caspian’s time there were no more beavers in Narnia? Wiped out! Is that ethnic cleansing? Was C.S. Lewis traumatized by a Canadian when he was young? Let’s get the UN and NATO on this ASAP!

So, my friend was settling in to watch The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but meanwhile she was also eavesdropping on the two men in the row in front of her. One was complaining to the other about how all movies are merchandised to the gills; Fantastic Four figurines, Batman meals at fast food outlets, probably Spidermanburgers somewhere. “You can just see it,” he said. “Narnia Nuggets, Tumnus action figures. C.S. Lewis must be rolling in his grave.”

“Yeah,” said his more laconic friend. “He’s probably thinkin’, ‘Screwtape that!‘”