Hey, Who Filled My Ivory Tower With Carbon Monoxide?

Sorry, kids, but I just really needed a post with this title.  Did you all read this beauty (scroll down to 'Terrifying Teachers') buried in comments?  Freaking awesome.  They have no idea just how terrifying we are.  Muahhaha!

Comments

[Florence Chee]

1.

I have my first editorial cartoon made of me... (I think it was referring to my sobbing ;) SWEET.

The venom coming from that... Yeesh. And they say -academics- take themselves too seriously. :P

[Andy Havens]

2.

Florence: In Sarcasm For Its Own Sake Land, the only people you can't accuse of taking themselves too seriously are people who are too serious about not being serious. To make that accusation, you'd have to take their not taking things seriously seriously, thereby proving that you're not fit to judge the seriousness of their commitment to things not being taken seriously. Because, if you were, you wouldn't, since they don't. On the other hand, if you take their not seriousness not seriously, you prove that you're not serious about being serious. In which case you must agree with them.

The only way to win this war is to not not take their not seriousness not seriously, while simultaneously not taking your own not not seriousness not seriously or not. Seriously.

As the world's greatest theater critic put it:

"Some people have made the mistake of seeing Shunt's work as a load of rubbish about railway timetables, but clever people like me, who talk loudly in restaurants, see this as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for understanding in a mechanized world. The points are frozen, the beast is dead. What is the difference? What indeed is the point? The point is frozen, the beast is late out of Paddington. The point is taken. If La Fontaine's elk would spurn Tom Jones, the engine must be our head, the dining car our esophagus, the guard's van our left lung, the cattle-truck our shins, the first-class compartment the piece of skin at the nape of the neck, and the level crossing an electric elk called Simon. The clarity is devastating. But where is the ambiguity? It's over there in a box. Shunt is saying the 8:15 from Gillingham, when in reality he means the 8:13 from Gillingham. The train is the same, only the time is altered. Ecce homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew his sister, and knew her bloody well. The point is taken, the beast is molting, the fluff gets up your nose. The illusion is complete; it is reality, the reality is illusion, and the ambiguity is the only truth. But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the box? No, there isn't room, the ambiguity has put on weight. The point is taken, the elk is dead, the beast stops at Swindon, Chabrol stops at nothing, I'm having treatment, and La Fontaine can get knotted."

[Douglas Thomas]

3.

Yes, this was a news flash like no other: Professors create blog and it is *gasp* academic. In related reports . . .

"Google good for search"

"Microsoft uses massive bankroll to crush competition"

"Barrens chat dominated by immature teenagers"

And when did it become so problematic to use words with more than 2 syllables?

@Andy

*Obligatory Python Riff*

Let us not forget the savageness of Doug and Dinsdale Piranha . . . .

"Vercotti: He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

*Obligatory Python Riff*

[Spiny Norman]

4.

Dinsdale!

[Julian Dibbell]

5.

If you all don't mind, I'll post my Obligatory Python Riff *after* Something Awful do their obligatory post about our post about their post, wherein they establish that our attempts to establish that we actually have a sense of humor only establish just how pathetic our sense of humor actually is.

Not that I'm not chomping at the bit here. I just don't want to be enshrined in the SA archives as both the "Who raped my beloved MUD?" guy AND the "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" guy.

[greglas]

6.

I vote we let Cory Doctrow, who we "proudly proclaim as one of our own" defend himself against this terrible attack!

I'm with Lisa, I really dig being described as one of those awful smart people who wear glasses and think tweed jackets are stylish.

p.s. "Medieval history of German shoemakers?" Ya, Natürlich! Alles gut! If the shoe fits... :-)

[Douglas Thomas]

7.

Why didn't I think of this earlier! Can't we find some way to blame this all on Julian?

[Thomas Malaby]

8.

I already have -- who needs a reason, really?

[Douglas Thomas]

9.

das Deutsche Schuhmuseum FTW!

[greglas]

10.

Yep, Julian's fault...

[Lisa Galarneau]

11.

Just for the record, this was the photo I was about to post to demonstrate how terrifying we are... but the irony of the fact that Julian can't even scare a cormorant just seemed too subtle. And I like thinking of our hivemind as Cthuluesque. We did play the Horde after all. We're terrifying AND evil! Ha ha ha.

[Lisa Galarneau]

12.

Oh, and not to brag or anything, but I was nominated for a Webby for my work on a website about the history of shoes... So. The shoe does fit.

[greglas]

13.

That weird-looking duck is terrified -- just look at it!!! I'm thinking of a new name: High-heeled ostrich-leather pump Nova.

[dmx]

14.

You have to admit. Its frightningly apt.

The goons mean merely to jest. Take it lightly :)