Where were Michael Dirda and Jacques Derrida when that happened?
And what about that other book critic with a name like "Barthes" that I either can't remember or made up?
The joke is in the mis-telling of the joke. They actually walked into a bar, and said, "Ow!"
Weren't they surprised when they saw Morrissey and Marr had beaten them to it?
No, see, they actually walked into a salon, but were ejected because they didn't pony up the admittance fee.
Actually, it was a saloon along the old pony express route.
And the saloon-keeper said, "Actually, we get quite a few ponies in here."
Cute: the plot summary for A Void on Wikipedia is a lipogram in e.
"One for every thought. Those patrons just won't shut up."
"Actually, we get quite a few ponies in here."
At which point it is revealed that the bar is actually an S&M club.
And then a horse walked in, and the saloonkeeper asked, "Why the long face?"
BARTH HELD AS "METER-BEATER"
Arrested in a saloon!
Yeah, so anyway, John Barth says, "I'll have a beer,"" and Karl Barth says in amazement, "Holy crap, a talking Barth!"
".. lookin' fer the barthroom?"
Then a guy with a lisp invites them to sit on the barthtool...
Please don't hit me as hard as you hit that barthigator!
That was the Barth bitch you ate!
Then Sophie Barthes said, "Fuck you, clown!"
8: And the saloon-keeper said, "Actually, we get quite a few ponies in here."
'That's why there's so much horseshit in here.'
max
['Eau.']
21: And then the barthman said, "That's OK, most guys just leave her hanging on the tree."
So a guy at the other end of the bar says to the saloonkeeper, "I'll bet you a hundred bucks my dog can talk," and then, to the dog, "who's that theologian over there?"
....
Out on the sidewalk, the dog says to his owner, "I'd have said 'Donald', but I always get him mixed up with his brother, Frederick."
25: Very nice, I was trying to come up with a way to use that one.
... and said to one another, "Holy crap, I thought you were dead!"
Sigh.
Out on the sidewalk, the dog says to his owner, "I'd have said 'Donald', but I always get him mixed up with his brother, Frederick."
"I'm surprised", his owner said. You were so quick to pick out Dennett from Dummett and Devitt." And the dog said, "I guess my Barths are worse than my Brights."
Dummett hasn't really signed on with that Bright nonsense, has he?
Fantastic, a link to Georges Perec. I don't think I've thought of him since around age 15 when I stopped reading language trivia books, all of which talked about lipograms. They also all led me to believe that he must have been a member of the Dada movement, or maybe even a contemporary of Mallarmé.
And what about that other book critic with a name like "Barthes" that I either can't remember or made up?
Fabien Barthez?
I think it must just have been Dirda.
...as they picked themselves up off the ground outside and brushed the dirt off their clothes, Karl yells back at the burly Irish bouncer, "Since when do you fucking papists believe in barth control?"
Dummett hasn't really signed on with that Bright nonsense, has he?
No, I'm more interested in old-fashioned nonsense like the Tarot and Roman Catholicism.
Dummett hasn't really signed on with that Bright nonsense, has he?
To my knowledge, Dennett is the only one of the three. But I will not let facts stand in the way of a pun.
While researching the answer to your question, I discovered this handy index of nonsense-prone people.
While researching the answer to your question, I discovered this handy index of nonsense-prone people.
That's rich, coming from the Unfogged front-page poster responsible for this post.
9: is a lipogram in e.
Compels me to point out that my "Twitter Proposal" marriage proposal for neb from a few weeks back was a lipogram in a*. Otwipo.
*I was motivated by a previous report from neb on the results of his deployment of lipography in an unexpected venue.
36: He (she? Its Standpipeness?) wrote that with a purpose.
Williams Gass and Gaddis are tending bar?
The three Lee Siegels were pretending to be one another.
wrote that with a purpose.
Several years ago, in fact.
||
My experience trying to locate the comments to link in 37 has shaken my faith in the Great Chain of Internet Being.
I was frustrated that I could not find neb's earlier comment via Google, so I finally tried Bing. And it found it. In fact, Bing found 4 to Google's 1 (which was not among Bing's 4). Odd and unsettling.
|>
It was a purpose wholly other than to be a piece of automatic writing.
Google is notoriously unreliable with unfogged.
44: Hmm, I've generally had pretty good results (I guess as far as *I* knew) and one of them I know had found earlier via Google. I did find it interesting that the only one instance that Google found was from the comments to a post before one of the Bing ones, yet neither found the other one (the latter was in the comments to your post about the NYTimes link). They're colluding!
35: Wow, that is quite the collection of nonsense-prone people.
Is it possible that JP is unaware of the hoohole?
47: Very possible. Believe I am aware of the concept as used here, but certainly fuzzy on any details as they might pertain specifically to this site (was there some autorobotblock or the like?). Enlighten or not as you see fit Mr. Garden State.
I believe use of the term "hoohole" begins here, but the problem had been going on for a while at that point, and it continued for some time. No one seems to know what causes it (or, perhaps, those who do know haven't shared that knowledge publicly), but certain threads seem to just disappear from Google's reach. Yahoo has generally been better, but still not perfect. The problem comes and goes.
Oh, I had forgotten about the hoohole. Bing finds this one that I was looking for the other day and didn't find with Google.
Brentano tries to remember the name of his friend Bolzano's favorite drink, but it turns out that Bolzano has in fact been a teetotaler all his life, so nothing in reality corresponds to the idea in Brentano's mind.
But wtf kind of name is "Bing"? Does it randomly start crooning old songs?
Edward worried about his drinking. Would there be enough gin? Enough ice?
But wtf kind of name is "Bing"?
It's secretly powered by cherries.
so nothing in reality corresponds to the idea in Brentano's mind.
So it seems ordinarily, but if you but wear le monocle de Meinongle, you will see that there is another Bolzano who loved to tipple.
Google also claimed that ubu.com contains no documents matching "Schwitters".
Google is a bitch.
Mein ongle ist dein ongle.
And yet it is through Google that I found the Schwitters recording of the Ursonate on ubu.com. Would Schwitters have found creative power within the apparent randomness? I'd like to think so.
For you, Jesus. Listen to the Simultaneous Ursonate.
Apropos of nothing in particular, of course.
59: Thanks, I know! I saw it on Metafilter!
One day Mr. Stevenson asked a friend whether he wanted a "Barth donut", the friend said, "Sure!", so Mr. Stevenson gave him ... a ... "Barth donut".
I've never understood this joke, but then I've never been in a saloon.
Wait—I think I get it—each person's family name begins with bar! But they walk into a saloon!
[Neb's] been raiding the medicine cabinet again.
I keep reopening this thread to read 28 again. It still hasn't used up its funny.
re: 34
He's interested in it as a card game, not as a tool for the divination of the future, no?
[His little peevish 'how undergraduates and Americans abuse the English language' book/pamphlet/polemic is highly amusing.]
TA-A-A-ROT, TA-A-A-ROT, let my people goooooo!
Seriously, a serious question: would someone please explain "The Bothersome Man"? It strikes me as heavyhanded allegory, but then so did "London Fields."
Heisenberg, Goedel and Chomsky walk into a bar. Heisenberg says "This is very odd and improbable, and I wonder if we might be in a joke, but I can't be certain." Goedel says "Well, if we were outside the joke we would know, but since we're inside the joke, there's no way of determining whether or not we're in a joke." And Chomsky says "Of course this is a joke, but you're telling it wrong!"
[credit to John M. Ford]
73: Pauli was excluded from the joke?
I had no idea so many people would find jokes about Karl Barth comprehensible. Maybe I should reactivate my old LOLTheologianz idea. Some old sticks in the mud thought i can haz Reserekshun? was offensive.
76: The Barthers are a confusing bunch, to be sure.
I had no idea so many people would could plausibly pretend to find jokes about Karl Barth comprehensible.
And that flavor is rainbow".
79 are serious revelashun, paranoid. This are serious thread.
One would have thought He tasted of lamb, though.
One would have thought He tasted of lamb, though.
Or bread.
Which makes me think that The Lamb, the Witch, and the Wardrobe would have been pretty awesome. I'm picturing this big fluffy lamb frolicking all around the battlefield wreaking havoc on the Witch's minions with His blessed little hooves.
Although in reality, what Christ really tastes like is paste.
It was oddly fun to paste in a url for an href named "paste".
How did the Holy Spirit come to be understood as one of the persons of God, distinct from the person of the Father -- instead of as something akin to the divine presence/Shekhinah, which would have avoided some (seemingly) needless complexity?
97: I would have gone with something nipple-relate.
UR LITTLE CHILDRENS: SUFFER THEM COME UN2 ME.
Has probably been linked here before, but this seems relevant.
" ... and then the bartender says "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I need to see your Barth certificate!"
ULTAMIT WERD CHRIST PENULTAMIT WERD PAR-TAY!
Would it help squeeze a few more jokes out of the thread to point out that the surnames of Karl Barth and Roland Barthes are actually pronounced "bart"?
117: Come for the ice cream, stay for the exegesis of your choice of cone.
THIS SERMON SOUNDS A LOT BETTER IN THE BACK OF MY VAN.
From the lolcats bible: "An den dis clowd shoded up n teh voyce of Ceiling Cat sez, 'Let me show u mai fav kitten. Mai fav kitten, let me show u him. U lissin to his meows, kthxbi'.
HEY! UNTO YOU A... ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?
||
Oh, I had forgotten about the hoohole. Bing finds this one that I was looking for the other day and didn't find with Google.
Oh, nice. Bing finds one of my very favorite unfogged comments which google doesn't have.
|>
He is... The Most Interesting Man in the World.
96: I recently read a convincing explanation that the Trinity was all about catering to Neo-Platonists, who were committed to a three-part division of the divine, and were influential in the early Church. So they had the Father and Son, and cobbled up the Holy Ghost to fill the gap.
This page even leads with a Barth joke before proceeding to the LOLTheologians.
I'm sure the page linked in 129 would be hilarious if I knew anything about theology.
SINNRZ IN HANDZ OF A ANGRY CEILING HUMAN.
So, out of curiosity, why do students of other -ology fields become [x]ologists, but students of theology become theologians?
132: "-gist" is not a theological category.
/Stanley Hauerwas'd
(In reality, I have no idea. I don't believe German and French make similar distinctions.)
Wait, has teo transferred to the dayshift?
136: I thought you preferred aesthetologist?
I don't believe German and French make similar distinctions.
German doesn't (Biologe, Theologe), French does (e.g. biologiste, théologien).
So it seems the French are to blame.
According to the OED, it comes from Greek/Latin theologia, so there's that. Also, the OED gives 'theologist' (from the verbal form theologizare) and 'theologer'.
When I tend bar, I'm a mixologian.
140: The Ologer: CBS Tuesdays, after CSI: Barmen.
Me, I'm an Apostropharian. Mon.
Which reminds me, there's an honest to Jah Rastafarian couple that frequents the farmstand where I cashier. They're totally unselfconscious in their Rasta ways and always take their leave by saying "Much respect!".
I'm from the US, but my ancestors were Norwelogists.
144: You're nothing but a viking apologian.
I am a biologian, as Kotsko has observed.
my ancestors were Norwelogists.
Is that like Swedenborgians?
as Kotsko has observed.
JRoth is the Salbologist with the most confirmed neb observations.
I'm on all shifts
Then when do you sleep?
(Alternate: teo is aware of all shift traditions.)
always take their leave by saying "Much respect!".
I rather love this as a form of farewell.
Liz Kelly: celebritologist or celebritologian?
I tranzlated u sum golden plaetz, but an anjel eated em. Srsly.
147: Swedenborgians
No one expects the Scandinavian assimilation!
151: The last time I was in Jamaica, my drug-procuring scary dude had a standard parting:
D-PSD: (holds out fist) Respect.
Me: (fist bump) Respect.
D-PSD: (soft punch to my chest, volume up sharply) MAAAAAAAximum respect!!!!
149 to 150.
152: Neither. She's a starfuckeuse.
155: And then after that, the daggering started?
I rather love this as a form of farewell.
It is damn cute when they say it (although I feel a little patronizing feeling that).
MAAAAAAAximum penile fracture!!!!
M/tch: Apostropharian or Apostrophagian?
160: I'm a phag where it counts, baby!
In 162, I probably should have provided this link for those who need to RTFC(anon).
Saloonkeeper asks what do they call themselves, and they say, "The Baristocrats".
156.2: I, by contrast, am a nofuckeuse.
156: Neither. She's a starfuckeuse.
You just got mad with her
For givin' head to Steve McQueen
I have been waiting my entire life--okay, well, ever since I started graduate school, anyway--for someone to make this joke.
168: And all along, B, maybe you were the someone you were waiting for.
Oh wait, I forgot. Women can't tell jokes.
Grad turned B into a Steve McQueen fangirl?
170: You are averring that 167 contains a joke?
A lame joke that no one gets is still joke (or was before about 1980 or so).
Sorry, 172 is incorrect. The proper answer is "No, I am averring that your pants contain a joke."
Damn, I always get that one wrong.
