See you on the other side

October 21, 2020 3:16 PM

I Was In Charge of the Deck Chairs On the Titanic, and They Absolutely Did Need Rearranging (McSweeney's, via kottke)
posted by roaring beast (29 comments total)

"your triptych of trompe-l’oil portraits of Richard Nixon"

I will admit I have been looking for artistic inspiration recently...
posted by supermedusa at 3:28 PM on October 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

I will admit I have been looking for artistic inspiration recently...

Like Bacon's screaming popes, but Nixon et al. Please.
posted by aramaic at 3:33 PM on October 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

This is a rare feat of humor writing: the concept is immediately funny, the content moves from funny to poignant, and (rarest of all) it's just as long as it needs to be. Which is not that surprising coming from Emily Flake but worth noting anyway!
posted by babelfish at 3:39 PM on October 21, 2020 [29 favorites]

This is great!

I learned about Emily Flake last month when the algorithm showed me a similar McSweeneys piece of hers, "Why I'm Leaving This Plane of Existence" (cw: suicidal ideation), which made so much sense that I worried about Flake, and, shortly afterward, myself.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:47 PM on October 21, 2020 [6 favorites]

I like existentialism as much as the next person, and acknowledge that the grind of entropy renders all tasks ultimately futile and self-justified if justified at all, but to the extent that it lies within our power let's try to keep the boat afloat for a little while longer.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:49 PM on October 21, 2020 [7 favorites]

You chivalric fool, as if the way one fell down mattered
posted by Clandestine Outlawry at 3:58 PM on October 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

When the fall is all there is, it matters.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:10 PM on October 21, 2020 [11 favorites]

That was unexpectedly touching. Not at all what I expected.
posted by treepour at 4:51 PM on October 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

your triptych of trompe-l’oil portraits of Richard Nixon

The center panel
posted by clavdivs at 4:54 PM on October 21, 2020 [7 favorites]

'I could try composing wonderful musical works, or day-long entertainment epics, but what would that do? Give people pleasure? My wiping this table gives me pleasure. And people come to a clean table, which gives them pleasure. And anyway” – the man laughed – “people die; stars die; universes die. What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead? Of course, if all I did was wipe tables, then of course it would seem a mean and despicable waste of my huge intellectual potential. But because I choose to do it, it gives me pleasure. And,” the man said with a smile, “it’s a good way of meeting people. So where are you from, anyway?'


― Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
posted by lalochezia at 4:54 PM on October 21, 2020 [33 favorites]

it's just as long as it needs to be

This. A million good works are spoiled by inattention to the virtue of brevity.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:58 PM on October 21, 2020 [5 favorites]

Love it. Timely indeed

Does it really matter, I hear you ask yourself, if I finish my screenplay? Who’s even going to make movies anymore? Who cares, in the long run, if I file these reports or simply burn my entire house to the ground? What the disharmonious FUCK is the point of Zoom calls for kindergarteners?
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:17 PM on October 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

All kidding aside, sometimes when in the grips of existential dread, i find Camus' intro to The Myth of Sisyphus profoundly comforting. Its basically "who cares if its meaningless? Do it!!"
posted by supermedusa at 6:16 PM on October 21, 2020 [8 favorites]

I so frequently think in my work, "What is the point of any of this shit? We have no future any more."
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:23 PM on October 21, 2020

in the grips of existential dread

You put the peeps in the chili pot and eat them both up,
You put the peeps in the chili pot and add the M&Ms,
You put the peeps in the chili pot and it makes it taste baaad
posted by aramaic at 7:14 PM on October 21, 2020 [28 favorites]

What a lovely little essay. I really needed that tonight, thank you!
posted by ZakDaddy at 8:21 PM on October 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

I learned about Emily Flake last month when the algorithm showed me a similar McSweeneys piece of hers, "Why I'm Leaving This Plane of Existence" (cw: suicidal ideation), which made so much sense that I worried about Flake, and, shortly afterward, myself.

oh. well. I did not think a thing on the internet would be what made me check myself into inpatient care but. here we are.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:30 PM on October 21, 2020 [23 favorites]

Wow, “Why I’m Leaving This Plane of Existence” (linked upthread) is a very different piece from the one in the post. It took two reads and catching the tags at the end for me to clock that it is intended to parody “Why I’m moving out of New York City” pieces. (I wasn’t actually aware that that was a genre, probably because I don’t live in NYC.) However, even that context doesn’t change the fact that it is, actually, a well-written suicide note. There’s no “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” perspective shift at the end of that one.
posted by snowmentality at 9:35 PM on October 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

The center panel

"Sock it to me, sock it to me, great balls of fire"
posted by kirkaracha at 10:19 PM on October 21, 2020

That was oddly poignant for a satirical comedy website.
posted by FritoKAL at 11:04 PM on October 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

It doesn't matter who gets breakfast tacos, they told me, and we can't all have them.
I said: I can have a breakfast taco, and it matters to me.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:15 AM on October 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

Oh this got to me, today
posted by Caxton1476 at 6:45 AM on October 22, 2020

Hope you’re doing OK, WpofiBH.
posted by zamboni at 6:50 AM on October 22, 2020 [9 favorites]

Oh Jesus, I’m so sorry.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:24 AM on October 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

Blast Hardcheese, I hope you get the help you need.
posted by Orlop at 9:25 AM on October 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

We are rooting for you, We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese. Please PM or give a shout if you need some kind of support.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:51 PM on October 22, 2020 [3 favorites]

I thought this was going to be a light humor piece, but there's something poignant about:

"Your efforts matter as much as they always did, which is to say not one little tiny bit, except that they are the most precious of things — they are your heart."
posted by yohko at 2:07 PM on October 24, 2020

Jesus Hard Cheese I hope you're OK.
posted by latkes at 5:41 PM on October 24, 2020

I found this little piece extremely provocative. Like, we actually DO need to distinguish between finding meaning in vital work, despite the futility of it all, and doing work that has no intrinsic meaning. Like, FUCK zoom calls for kindergartners. And fuck deck chairs. Let the rich dicks who bought the deck-chair-level tickets on the Titanic drown! But trying to fix the life boats, or make art, is ESSENTIAL and our only hope, even if we ultimately fail, we have to fucking try those things.

Shit, we are fucking losing this battle with fascism and climate apocalypse, but we have to fucking well struggle against it, and find meaning in the trying, and that's not deck chairs.
posted by latkes at 5:44 PM on October 24, 2020 [1 favorite]