The New Lexicon
Hello. Today we deliver the internationally acclaimed Weekend Gene Pool, in which we pretend to entertain you in return for your questions and observations for use as fodder on Tuesday.
Last week, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd once again handed off her Thanksgiving week column to her reactionary brother, Kevin, who excreted his idiot, uninformed, unsupportable right-wing-radio talking points all over the page. Maureen justified this, as in the past, by saying she loves him.
Well, as it happens, I love Lexi, my hound dog, and I am now surrendering my next few paragraphs to her. I do not feel this is a lazy affront to you, the reader. Learn from Lexi. Alternative viewpoints are always valuable! Take it away, Lex.
Me want eat.
ROO!
Yay, fresh other dog pee on lawn!
ROO!
Crotch sniff good! Smell like crotch.
Can’t eat this. Can hork THIS down, though!
ROO!
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Thanks, Lexi. I disagree but we can agree to disagree and we’ve all been enlightened and broadened by the exchange. See you next year in this space. Moving on.
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I have some news and it is kind of exciting. It is seldom that one can summon up great examples of art imitating life imitating art imitating life and vice versa, ad infinitum.
Thursday’s Invitational results, for a contest to come up with absurd items that might appear in a mail-order catalog such as Hammacher Schlemmer, included these two entries:
The E-Twirler Fork. Stick this ingenious utensil into your pasta, press a button on the handle, and voilà – the fork spins automatically. Just press the “off” button when your fork is sufficiently loaded. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md. )
and:
For the ultimate in double-decker enjoyment: A mechanical ice cream cone rotator, so you don’t have to lick around the center. $47.95. (Gregory Koch, Falls Church, Va.)
Both were excellent, inventive entries, and both were original, submitted by long-time Invitational pros. Both are wonderfully absurd. It wasn’t until they were published that a reader, Jesse Aronson, informed us that BOTH PRODUCTS ACTUALLY EXIST in past Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs! Here’s one. And here’s the other. It is impossible to out-absurdify these guys at Hammacher Schlemmer. After being informed of this coincidence, Tom Witte remarked “They should hire me.”
It reminds us of a terrific Saturday Night Live spot from 1975, after Gillette introduced the Trac Two razor with, shockingly, not one but two blades. The SNL schtick proposed a “Triple Trac” with THREE blades. How absurd.
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Okay, today’s challenge is to send us something from your life that seemed like a good idea at the time, but turned out to be anything but. Send your stuff to here.
Also, send me cash. It could be in non-sequential used currency in a valise, but also you could do this. It’s cheap, like me.
See you on Tuesday.
MAD Magazine's sainted Al Jaffee created a spoof of the multiple-blade razor decades ago. MAD always was ahead of the curve.
Digging more deeply into the H-S ad for Lazy Licker's Spinning Ice Cream Cone, a device that allows us to "enjoy the classic treat without tiresome head turning or wrist twisting", I came across a review from a user named Pamela who lamented that "the batteries are a pain to insert. You have to use a screw driver to take off the battery door, which takes forever. " I am now more convinced than ever that we are doomed to extinction as a society.