#748 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday September 12)
Good morning,
A short Musing today on literate humor. There are those occasions when jokes are both funny and intelligent. One that I found recently fits that bill. Here it is: “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
Plato: To get to the essence of good
Marx: It was historically inevitable
Machiavelli: To instill fear in other chickens
Nietzsche: On the assertion of its will to power
Sartre: The chicken was ordered to cross the road
De Beauvoir: One is not born chicken, one becomes
Samuel Beckett: Because he was tired of waiting
Camus: To challenge the absurdity of the world
Darwin: Because over time the chicken has evolves into an animal that must cross roads
Epicurus: To have fun
Kant: To respect the moral law
Pyrrho (the first skeptic): What road ?
Shakespeare: That is the question
John Stuart Mill (the great utilitarian): To maximize his pleasure
Descartes: I cross, therefore I am
Hegel: To realize the reason in history
Spinoza: The chicken thinks he has freely crossed the road, but it ignores the causes through which he did
Rousseau: Because the chicken is good by nature
Confucius: Act against chicken as you would have them do unto you
Leibniz: To maintain the universal harmony of the world.
Voltaire: To reduce intolerance
Aristotle: Because the chicken is a political animal
ANOTHER LOSS
Astrud Gilberto died this summer. She was famous for her collaborations with Jobim and seminal recordings of Waters of March and Girl From Ipanema, among many favorites. Here is a live 1964 television performance, with Stan Getz, of the latter: Girl From Ipanema
Have a great day,
Glenn