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0 pointsmrtron18y ago0 comments

But I think he was intending to be funny by being so unfunny.

For example the famous sketch where he got into a 'fight' on stage, the audience was really into the sketch and he interrupted it right in the middle to get in a cheesy fake fight. That sort of anti-humor was what he was trying to achieve (or so I think). I agree a man wrestling a woman isn't funny, but in the context of what he was doing I find it hilarious.

I really appreciate the way he keeps his audience in such suspense, as they don't know what is planned and what is not, and they have no clue what will come next. It really shows his success at it when people think he faked his own death.

Belushi, Pyror and Murray are some of my favorite comedians, but they clearly have different styles of their own too. Belushi was great at physical humor, but someone might say they don't find someone acting obnoxious like that to be funny.

That is a great part of comedy, not everyone enjoys the same things.

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boredguy818y ago· 2 in thread

Another way of thinking about it: Cage's 4'33" isn't particularly interesting as a standalone piece: it's only interesting in the context of music at the time and its effect on avant-garde art. That's the sense in which I think of him as the fool: Kaufman exposes assumptions and makes you say, "Oh holy shit, he's breaking all the rules. Can he do that? Wait, why do we have these rules? Are these good rules to have?"

anewaccountname18y ago

I generally think having sound in your music is a good rule to have.

boredguy818y ago

There are at least three ways to answer that.

First, why?

Second, why doesn't the "sound of silence" count? Many composers utilize silence within a composition for a certain effect. Cage just took that to an extreme.

Third, some would argue that the sound of the audience-performer combination constitutes the 'sound' of the composition in this case--a _musical_ breakdown of the fourth wall. (Which is less cliche as an idea 50 years ago than it is today.)

On the whole, I probably agree with you. But there's a certain richness or fullness available to us after we've thought more rigorously about the questions involved than if we hadn't. (Consider the difference between seeing a sweet hack in a system you barely understand v. seeing a sweet hack in a system with which you're very familiar - the later is a much more profound experience.)

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