This is the online component of the humor section of the Argus, the Wesleyan University newspaper.

10/28/09

The Editor on Literature

We all love to quote things. Good quotations can take our spirits to heights unimagined. Their inspirational power is second only to the ultimate expression of love against the odds, bestiality. Sharing quotes with others for mutual entertainment highlights commonalities among humans and facilitates social bonding. Many of these quotes come from literature. It’s pretty much the only thing literature is good for: as a medium for impressing sexual partners and intimidating competitors. The more base one’s intentions, the more florid the quotation tends to be. If you ever catch me reciting Hemingway, the attractive stranger I’m mentally impregnating must be near by. I quote Dostoevsky out loud to myself while watching porn, and Nietzsche comes out during Thanksgiving, the filthiest of family holidays. The point is, literature is an important component of modern deceptive mating tactics, and nothing more. If anyone ever tells you that literature can expand your consciousness and stimulate existential growth, that person is a sexual crocodile and you’re the buffalo.

-Dave

Burffinstoofy Aroused by Posthumous Seuss Works

A heated debate is going on between the Seussian Studies departments at Kalamazoo College (MI) and Cambridge University over the legitimacy of eight newly discovered Dr. Seuss manuscripts. Both schools are home to the world’s preeminent experts on Seuss’s life and canon. Relations between the two departments have always been gaf-lupted, but the conflict has reached a new level of grickily gructus in the past few weeks.

Kalamazoo’s department believes the works are legitimate. “Those Cambridge clowns don’t know Yertle the Turtle from their leaky assholes,” said Kalamazoo department head Lewellyn Moss; “They’re just a bunch of neo-constructivist Hoober-Bloobs. Just look at our name – Kalamazoo. Seuss practically named us himself.”

Cambridge’s main argument against the legitimacy of the new works is their objectively inferior quality. “Just looking at them, it’s clear that they are elaborate fakes,” Nigel Forewhithers, professor emeritus at Cambridge, said Tuesday. “Magenta Placenta? The Pernicious Pustules of Syphilis Sal? The Glowering Bowels of Diphtheria Dale? Those titles have honkleyfrab written all over them. What’s more, the meter and rhyme scheme are all off; this line from Parasites, Parasites, In My Intestines reads: ‘Although it makes me rather sad/ I’d rather make a tapeworm mad/ Than have it attached to the wall of my duodenum, sapping me of nutrients.’ Does that sound anything like Green Eggs to you?” Forewhithers went on to describe Kalamazoo’s Moss as “a yankee danglehorn.”

A number of articles are being drafted by members of both departments for publication in this December’s Seussian Quarterly, the renowned international compendium of Seuss-related theory and criticism.

Michael Bay Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature

In a totally predictable move, the Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 prize for literature to Wes alum Michael Bay for his film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

“When you examine this piece along with the rest of his oeuvre, it’s clear that Bay is one of those crazy geniuses who, if it hasn’t happened already, will overdose on his own mind fantasia,” said Sven Swejlterskjelterjiglemeijsterj, president of the Committee. “Or autoerotic asphyxiation,” he continued. “For starters, you have his cinematography. The fight scenes in Revenge of the Fallen are composed of jumpy cuts and close-ups of CGI god-knows-what, so the audience has very little idea what is going on, symbolizing the chaotic nature not just of war, but of the human spirit in general.”

Sven also noted that the minstrel show put on by the two Autobots Mudflap and Skids, upon closer examination, is clearly an incisive commentary on racism, most likely an homage to his idol, Spike Lee.
The Committee also noted that the film “examines our society’s relationship to automatons, sexually and otherwise. And it asks whether they really do have souls, a question which is becoming more relevant every day.”

“To be sure, I’m pumped about the Nobel,” said Bay. “All I can say is, doubt is something the artist must constantly struggle with. I’m not going to set out with the goal that the next Transformers will be on the same level as the second, but that’s not to say I won’t put everything on the line. And if Megan Fox still won’t have sex with me, she’s fucking fired.”

Montgomery Book Boycott

Being a New York Times book critic means balls on the wall pressure 24/7. But I do get to read some outstanding works. When my editor told me to review “Rosa Parks: A Life” by esteemed bald Caucasian biographer Desmond Winters, I immediately pitched a pants-tent. I picked up my copy, sat at my favorite table at Arby’s, and got to work. After the first thirty pages, though, my flesh sword was quickly re-sheathed. And it had nothing to do with the Jalapeno Sidekickers I had just demolished. I thought, ‘What the fuck, Mr. Winters? This is terrible, you hack.’ Rosa deserved better. I screamed at my waitress, searching for an answer, “Where’s the pizzazz, you punk bitch?”

Sure, I was asked to leave. But literary justice must be served, even if my Jamocha shake never was.
Bottom line: this book is four hundred pages of boring shit vomit. The kind of shit that you watch on the History Channel to help cry yourself to sleep, when your wife isn’t home, but when she’s not far enough away to order a troupe of plus-sized strippers to your house. You know? I’d rather be caught rubbing one out in a restaurant booth again than be caught reading this garbage.

Wesleyan’s Top Ten Short-Lived Literature Courses

1. Gendering the Mudblood Diaspora.
2. 18th Century Detroit Poetry.
3. Twilight as Allegory for Nazi Germany.
4. Lolita and child porn laws.
5.Where the Wild Things Aren’t: Victorian etiquette.
6. Sticking the “Dick” in Dickens.
7. Zombies and the Bible.
8. A study of the Irish as drunken fist fighters.
9. Alcoholism writes great books.
10. Fresh out the freezer: rap lyrics and metaphysical truth.