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Archive for the ‘Funny (ha ha)’ Category

Terry Pratchett–Maskerade (1995) [Discworld #18] [Witches #5]

Posted in Agnes Nitt, Cook Book, Death, Death, Discworld, Fairy Tales, Funny (ha ha), Granny Weatherwax, Greebo, Magic, Magrat Garlick, Nanny Ogg, Phantom of the Opera, Terry Pratchett, Unfinished series, Violence, Voodoo, Witches on January 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 2022] Maskerade

The Discworld Witches are back for another story.  But things are different, and I didn’t remember this happening at all.  Now that Magrat is firmly established with King Verence, she is no longer witching.

And everyone (even Granny Weatherwax) seems to now that Witches work better in trios than duos (although the duo of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg is pretty formidable).

So who would be best to be their new third?  Why, that nice Agnes (once Perdita) NItt had a lot of promise.

But Agnes has no intention of becoming a witch.  She knows what the life of a Witch is like.  Plus she has a VOICE!  (The description of her voice is wonderful).

Agnes has set out for Ankh-Morpork to be an opera singer.  Agnes is very fat and there’s rather a lot of jokes at her expense, which comes across as pretty mean, Terry.  There’s a very fat man as well (this being the opera and all) and there’s jokes at his expense too.  It’s surprisingly mean spirited.

But aside from that, the story is pretty great.  Terry opens his book with some jokes/comments about how he never expected the opera to be a fruitful subject.  Until he talked to his friend in the opera who said the opera was full of crazy stories and superstitions. (more…)

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Terry Pratchett–Interesting Times (1994) [Discworld #17] [Rincewind #5]

Posted in Anachronisms, Death, Discworld, Disembowel-Meself-Honourably Dibhala, Funny (ha ha), Josh Kirby, Magic, Racism, Rincewind, Terry Pratchett, The Luggage, Wizards, Wizards on January 16, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: December 2021] Interesting Times

I tend to think that there aren’t that many Rincewind novels, but it’s clear that Terry liked to have him around as this is the fifth one!

I’ll also preface this by saying that some readers find this book to be problematic because it deals with people from the Aurient (Asia) and tends toward the stereotypical.  I will come right out and say that some of the things said in this book were cringeworthy, and one or two things made me uncomfortable.  However, keep in mind that Pratchett was clearly anti-racist in the Disc overall.  The Watch is one of the most un-racist institutions in fiction.

Remember also that Pratchett was a satirist and is writing for comedy.  Few people fare worse than white “European” men under Pratchett’s pen.  Finally, this book is mostly meant to be about ancient China and the draconian empires.  Yes, he throws in anachronisms (as he always does), and he blurs the boundaries into Japanese culture here and there–not cool.  But the real targets are bureaucracy and tyranny.

The book starts out with Rincewind finally happy.  That doesn’t bode well.

Then the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork receives a demand from the Agatean Empire that the “Great Wizzard” be sent to them immediately.  Vetinari doesn’t know what to make of this, but it obviously involves the WIzards.  All signs (well, the spelling of WIzzard) points to Rincewind.  Although the “great” part surely doesn’t.  But the wizards are suspicious of foreign parts and no one else wants to go, so why not send Rincewind?

In part because after Eric, Rincewind has been on a desert island.  The Wizards use their machine Hex (a proto-computer) to bring him back to Anhk-Morpork.  Rincewind is none too happy–he was really looking forward to the Amazon women that had just arrived on the island.  They might have potatoes after all.

But Hex worked and Rincewind is back.  Although soon enough they are about to send him to the Agatean Empire.  The Hex works by displacing something from where you land.  Which in this case was a lit cannon.  It arrives in the middle of the University (the Wizards wisely put out the fuse). (more…)

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Aaron Blabey–The Bad Guys: Episode One (2015)

Posted in Aaron Blabey, Children's Books, Fairy Tales, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Morality, Piranhas, Sharks, Snakes, Wolves on January 12, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 12, 2022] The Bad Guys Episode One

A movie is coming out about this book series (Scholastic must have SO MUCH MONEY!).  S. brought it home from the library and I figured I’d give it a read.  And five minutes later I’d finished it.

It’s pretty funny (although not as funny as I would have liked).

It’s also clearly designed for young readers since there are usually no more than five words per page.  I guess it’s a graphic novel, although there are chapters.

The book opens with Mr Wolf staring at us and telling us to come closer.  But we are smart, we know he is a monster so we do not get any closer. (more…)

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Terry Pratchett–Soul Music (1994) [Discworld #16] [Death #3]

Posted in Alfred, Binky, Buddy Holly, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Death, Discworld, Funny (ha ha), Glod Glodsson, Imp y Celyn, Lias Bluestone, Magic, Mort, Music, Susan Sto-Helit, Terry Pratchett, The Dean, The Librarian, Unfinished series, Wizards, Ysabell on January 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: November 2021] Soul Music

This book is about Music With Rocks In!  (With a timeless CD on the cover).  But it’s also about Death having (another) existential crisis.

The book opens with the explanation of why Death had a granddaughter.  For reasons all his own, Death rescued a baby girl, Ysabell, and took her home.  He allowed her to age for sixteen years and then she stopped aging.

He also hired an apprentice named Mort who best Death (which Death allowed, truth be told) in a fight.

So Mort and Ysabell fell in love and were sent back to the real world where they had a daughter, Susan.  Susan technically wasn’t related to Death, but Death was her grandfather so…..

Susan went to boarding school, where she had an uncanny ability to be unseen–even by her teachers.  She was also very smart  (Neither of these things made her teachers very happy).  Susan could also see things that others couldn’t.  And she found this upsetting.  Like when a rat that seemed to be more skeleton than anything else looked at her and said SQUEAK?  As the book opens we learn that her parents have just died in an accident. (more…)

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Paul Magrs–The Panda, The Cat and the Dreadful Teddy: A Parody (2021)

Posted in Funny (ha ha), Huh?, Unfunny, Paul Magrs, Margerie Swash on January 10, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 9, 2021] The Panda, The Cat and the Dreadful Teddy

This book is subtitled “A Parody” but it does not say what it is a parody of.  And I genuinely had no idea.  I guessed maybe Winnie-the Pooh.  But I was wrong.  According to the reviewers it is a parody of The Boy, The Mole, The Fox & The Horse, by Margerie Swash and artist Emmanuel Santos, which I have never heard of.  Apparently it’s a book of positivity.

This book is a book of negativity.  The handwriting is really hard to read and the drawings are really crude (intentionally).  And then every other page shows Panda picking on the Dreadful Teddy, who is ever the optimist.

There’s few words per page like Panda seeing Teddy and saying “That’s the little arsehole I’m trying to avoid.”  And, “oh shit, it’s that awful Teddy.”

Then there’s the Cat who is kind of a mediator: “I find that Teddy is full of tolerance and empathy”  Panda replies, “I find he’s full of shit.” (more…)

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Zapiro–It Only Comes in Orange, Mr Zuma: Cartoons from the Daily Maverick (2021)

Posted in Comic Strips, Coronavirus, Corporate skewering, Cyril Ramaphosa, Daily Maverick, donald tRUMP, Floyd Sivambu, Funny (ha ha), Jacob Zuma, Joe Biden, Julius Malema, Kamala Harris, Liars, Lies, Political Humor, Politicians, Quarantine, Racism, Sexism, Shaleen Surtie-Richards, South Africa, Violence, Zapiro on January 9, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 9, 2022] It Only Comes in Orange, Mr Zuma

This is the second collection of editorial cartoons from South Africa’s Daily Maverick newspaper.  Zapiro (Jonathan Shapiro) has been making editorial cartoons and caricatures since the early 1990s and has 25 books of cartoons published.  Turns out I have access to most of them so I may need to d a deep dive–maybe I’ll understand some of the politics more.

I really don’t know very much about the South Africa, and I feel like news about the country is not covered very much here.  I don’t understand all of the jokes in here, but I do feel like I have a vague grasp on the country now. However, it’s when Zapiro turns his pen abroad–especially against trump, that I can see how good of a satirist he is.  I posted this picture when talking about the previous book, but this cartoon appears in this one:

When he publishes the cartoons in the newspaper, they speak for themselves.  But in these collections, he adds a caption since most of the details are no longer fresh.  For the above he wrote:

Hell-bent on overturning the election result, trump supporters storm the Capitol building in Washington. The riot leaves five people dead.

How is it that there is any question about this still in our country.  Why is our justice system so slow?

Well, given the justice system in South Africa, our looks like a quick resolution. (more…)

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Kal Penn–You Can’t Be Serious (2021)

Posted in A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, Autobiographies, Barack Obama, Funny (ha ha), House M.D., India, John Cho, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kal Penn, LGBTQ, M.K. Gandhi, Memoirs, Michele Obama, Mira Nair, Mississippi Masala, NASCAR, Racism, Sunnyside, The Namesake, Van Wilder on January 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: December 31, 2021] You Can’t Be Serious

S. and I were wrapping presents for Christmas this year and put on A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (which I thought was new and didn’t realize was ten years old).  I had said something about thinking Kal Penn was really cool and respecting his decision to work for the White House.

And lo and behold but there was this book in my Christmas pile.

Kal Penn, Jersey represent!, has led a fascinating life.  And he seems like a very cool (but not scoring you weed on the weekend kinda cool) guy.

Kal starts his book by saying that in kindergarten, the fastest, dumbest boy in his class called him the n-word.  He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew it was bad from the way the kids reacted.

A traumatic way to start a book and a school.  But things got better from there.  He recalls not paying much attention in school and also class trips to Old Sturbridge Village–that’s over three hours away!  His class went there–multiple times?  He loved the acting that went on there.

He talks about getting picked on for being a nerd.  But also about being grateful for living in a diverse New Jersey town–he went to a lot of mitzvahs.  His story of being on a boat for someone’s mitzvah is pretty funny.  And yet, he also talks about a hate group called Dotbusters based in Jersey City (I am so shocked to hear about this) who harassed assaulted and even killed Indian people.  His aunt lived there and his grandmother visited her there. (more…)

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Nathan Rabin–The Weird Accordion to Al: Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Edition: An Entirely Excessive analysis of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s complete discography, UHF, The Compleat Al, The Weird Al Show and More (2020)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Batman, Comedy Bang Bang!, Film & TV, Food, Funny (ha ha), Nathan Rabin, Nostalgia, Pee Wee's Playhouse, Reggie Watts, Seinfeld, Smarty Pants, The Compleat Al, The Weird Al Show, UHF on January 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: December 20, 2021] Weird Accordion to Al [Vanity Edtion]

This book came to my work and I said, Hey I have this!  And then I said, but my cover is orange.  What gives?

And then I saw that Rabin, inspired by Al’s Ill-Advised Vanity tour expanded this book.  Or actually, since there is very little information about these books, perhaps he wrote them at the same time and released a shorter and longer version.  But why would he do that?

The first 366 pages are the same but, (and here’s the thing that messed with my head) they are not exactly the same.  Now, I didn’t read the same text in both books and compare them (that would be really insane). But I did flip through the book comparing paragraph and chapter breaks.  The text appears to be the same in both books.  BUT, the paragraphs are not!  For reasons that I don’t understand, in book 1 some pages end with paragraph F, but in book 2, with the same exact text, the page now ends with paragraph E.  Like the spacing of a period threw off all of the justification (Users of Word will know what I’m talking about).

So I’m assuming that both books are the same.

And then the new stuff was added to Book 2 (or taken out of Book 1, whatever).

Starting on page 368 we move on to Other Stuff. (more…)

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Nathan Rabin–The Weird Accordion to Al: Every “Weird Al” Yankovic Album Analyzed in Obsessive Detail; with illustrations by Felipe Sobreiro (2020)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Beastie Boys, Crosby Stills & Nash, CSN, Don DeLillo, Dr. Demento, Felipe Sobriero, Film & TV, Food, Frank Zappa, Funny (ha ha), George Harrison, Happy Birthday, James Brown, Jeopardy!, Johnny Dangerously, Jurassic Park, Language, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Nathan Rabin, Nostalgia, Pac Man, Pixies, Ramones, Smarty Pants, Sting, The B-52's, The Beatles, The Police, Tonio K., UHF, Video Games, Wendy Carlos on January 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: December 20, 2021] Weird Accordion to Al

After writing the “Weird Al” biography, with “Weird Al” himself, Nathan Rabin dug even deeper into his “Weird Al” fandom to write a detailed account of, as the subtitle says, “Every ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Album Analyzed in Obsessive Detail.”

“Weird Al” wrote the (short) introduction and then Nathan drops the needle on “Weird Al” Yankovic, Al’s 1983 debut album.

Nathan goes into varying degrees of detail on each of the songs.  Nathan was a rabid “Weird Al” fan from when he was a little kid.  And when he talks about how much he loves Al, you can see his deep abiding appreciation for everything Al has done.

Some songs get a paragraph, nut most get a page or so.  He usually talks about how much he likes (or loves) the song (and occasionally dislikes).  There’s nostalgia in the older songs and jokes and observations about contemporary things as well (Rabin’s politics poke through once in a while.  Good thing he’s a smart guy.

Because he did the Al biography with Al, he presumably got a lot of insight into the man and his work.  So although sometimes his insights seem like maybe he’s reading too much into a goofy parody, perhaps he’s on to things.  Maybe Al’s depth is deeper than rhyming Sharona with Bologna.  Which is not in any way to diminish Al’s intelligence.  He’s obviously very smart, especially as his later songs indicate.

Rabin’s tone throughout the book is smart and snarky.  He talks about the songs and the video (if there is one).  He talks about the production quality (or lack thereof) on the first album.  He references Dr. Demento (because the Dr is essential to Al’s career).  He also references Don DeLillo’s White Noise and says things like “Al is in deconstructionist mode.” (more…)

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William Nealy–Skiing Tales of Terror (1990)

Posted in Christmas, Comic Strips, Funny (ha ha), Skiing, Snowboarding on December 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: December 26, 2021] Skiing Tales of Terror

My daughter T., got this book for me for Christmas.  She bought it at a flea market.  She told me that she thought I’d like it because it looked like the kind of cartoon books that I like (she is referring to the original editions of The Far Side that came in the short but wide comic style).

A fair guess.

Except that the content is entirely about skiing.  Which is something I have done maybe three times in my life.  And which I’m terrified of.

So, content-wise it’s not really my wheelhouse.

And yet, this book turned out to be pretty fascinating.  It is a mix of jokes about skiers and genuinely helpful skiing tips.  Indeed, if I had read this book before the first time I Went skiing I would have probably enjoyed the experience a lot more. (more…)

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