I Love Irony

One of the things I really enjoy are coincidences. Especially if they’re weird or ironic.

Take for example, my post last Wednesday. A situation where I totally screwed something up. Given my screw up, you’d think I might be cautious about even mentioning the Washington Post Magazine in this blog.

But my philosophy is, if a horse throws you off, you need to get right back up in the saddle and ride again.

So, on Sunday, I went through my usual routine. I went out on my porch with my copy of the paper, including the Washington Post Magazine. I’ll admit, I approached said publication with slight trepidation. As if it might bite me when I opened it (or as if Gene Weingarten’s cartoon face, all bespectacled and mustached, would pop up and shout “Boo!”).

But that didn’t happen, of course. So I set my reservations aside and just read like always.

My first stop was at “First Person Singular.” I’m always taken with these stories. Individuals who you’ve never heard of, who’ve done some really interesting things with their life. (Much like many mid-list authors I know personally who are amazing writers, but not household names. Anyone involved with publishing knows most really awesome authors aren’t well known. I tend to blog about them here sometimes and review their books here, too. So you see, I do have an appreciation for people who aren’t well known, but do great things that few others know about. I’m anything but a person who would put people down simply because they aren’t famous. That’s got nothing to do with anything. Er … what was I saying? Sorry, I digress.)

Anyway, the next article was written by a hoarder. “The Mess He Made” really resonated with me. I was pulled into the article, because (ironically) I’d only recently written a post for another blog about my own tendency to collect papers (especially papers, though not necessarily limited to them). Now, admittedly, I find it easier (and somewhat cathartic, actually) to throw stuff out than Michael S. Rosenwald. Even so, I wondered if a kernel of hoarding tendencies lurked somewhere in me. I pored (really closely this time) through the article searching for clues and tendencies I might share with the writer. I wondered if the article might actually help me avoid the problem by putting a finger on what makes people keep things they really ought to pitch. I was fascinated in particular by the way that keeping things might shore up one’s sense of identity. (See, I really did read the article. And does it make the fact that I wrote a novel called IDENTITY CRISIS even more ironic?)

I don’t know, but I kept going. I went on to read the article about spouses and SOs checking out each other’s computer searching history. “Recent History” didn’t make me any more inclined to do that. However, it did make me think (ironically) about this blog. I tend to pick up stray bits of information and post about them here. What (if anything) do my choices say about me? What (if anything) do my choice of blogs in my blogroll tell anyone? When I pick a “Blog of Note” and write about it, what (if anything) can someone learn about me from this? In all these blog posts I’ve been accumulating since October 2006 (jeez, has it really been that long?), is there the equivalent of a “Rosebud” (you know, from Citizen Kane)? Any one or more things that unlock the puzzle of who I am?

In short, the Washington Post Magazine usually has articles like this. Articles that make me think that are also well-written, with a great balance of the bitter and sweet.

I was thinking all the above thoughts (along with how ironic, weird and coincidental all this was), when I finally turned to Gene Weingarten’s column. (His face didn’t pop up and a yell, “Boo!” Thank heavens.)

As always, Gene’s column was amazingly funny. And (in a totally awesome twist) combined humor with his tendency to think about things in an analytical manner.

Basically, he discussed why things were funny. He deconstructed old jokes to see what made them work. And, in doing so, he also managed to turn it into a philosophical discussion. One that attributed the funniness of the joke “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side!” to using (quoting Gene) “the twinned tools of absurdity and non sequitur to amusingly lay bare the final paradox of life. The central comfort of our existence — the notion that life has meaning — is a lie, a pathetic self-deception to which we cling because to confront the truth would be to descend into madness. The chicken crosses the road for the same ‘reason’ we walk through our days on Earth: no reason at all.”

Damn. If he didn’t hate me so much, I’d say Gene took the words right out of my mouth.