Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: comedy

  • Questions

    by Daniel A. Kaufman __ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2lIbp1XYpM&ab_channel=blackicebill96 Some things I’ve been wondering about, from the serious to its opposite and everything in between. Not all of them – or any of them – need be questions for you, of course. __ [1] Why is it that when you realize that someone you care about deeply doesn’t…

  • The Marx Brothers and American Comedy

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ____ The Electric Agora’s own E. John Winner spoke with me about the Marx Brothers and their relationship to American Comedy. https://youtu.be/5Hkjtbmlces 1:30 Vaudeville, Burlesque, and Musical Theater 11:20 The Jewish Marx Brothers and “Playing in Peoria” 22:00 Writing for the Marx Brothers / Relationship with George Kaufman 27:40 Becoming the…

  • Marxism for Dummies Like Me

    by E. John Winner __ When I was 17, I fell in love with three older men. Indeed, they were so much older that two of them were dead at the time. They were everything I wasn’t. They were short and thin, and though not athletes, they moved swift and agile. One couldn’t say that…

  • Twenty-Five Things Everyone Used to Understand

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ What strikes me more than anything about our current moment is how utterly alien the dominant zeitgeist is from that of just a few decades ago. Increasingly, I find myself unable even to comprehend people’s reactions to social, political, and cultural developments, let alone identify with them. This rather abrupt…

  • Forbidden Ideas

    by Mark English ___ The English writer, actor and stand-up comedian, Alexei Sayle, was born into a seriously left-wing family (they were Communists), and he still adheres to what he sees as Marxist principles. This background shaped his life but did not entirely destroy his sense of humor. The title of his autobiography is Stalin…

  • The Highly Esteemed Goon Show (and here is a photograph of me writing that)

    by E. John Winner ___ (1) The perceptive reader, those having operational eyes at least (and let’s remember that not everyone does), will notice that the promise of the subtitle of this article has not been fulfilled. There is no photograph of me writing the title of this article. The phrase has been borrowed from…

  • Feminism, Mental Representation, and Churros

    by Daniel A. Kaufman A disturbing glimpse into the way contemporary gender identity politics is compromising science and medicine. https://quillette.com/2018/10/18/trans-activists-campaign-against-terfs-has-become-an-attack-on-science/ How progressive politics have ruined comedy. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/social-justice-warriors-arent-funny/ A detailed history of the original feminists, which their contemporary progeny should read carefully. https://www.city-journal.org/metoo-movement [The late] Jerry Fodor’s brilliant and hilarious survey of theories of mental representation.…

  • Dirty Uncle Bertie

    by Mark English Blaise Pascal saw our need for entertainment and distraction as arising from the very essence of the human condition and dark fears regarding our place in an apparently hostile and infinite universe. He himself was terrified by the silence between the stars. One does not have to follow Pascal all the way,…

  • That’s Not Funny

    By David Ottlinger One good thing to come in the wake of these frequently misguided and often intolerant student protests has been a real and surprisingly hopeful national conversation about public discourse. I can’t remember a time when so much energy (and printer’s ink) has gone into debating free speech and censorship. I want to…