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March102006

Chain-Smoking Is Probably Post-Irony

Filed under: Headline Shooter

Robin Cembalest reviews a recent event in which Alex Melamid (of the elephant paintings and Art Poll, on which I worked in a lowly capacity many years ago), Art Spiegelman, et al. talked about Neosincerity, the Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoons Contest, Tom and Jerry, etc.:


Later, at home, I wondered if the panelists were right. "Is irony over?" Typing it into my computer, I felt like Carrie Bradshaw. I continued. "Is it possible to develop antibodies? And if we are finally resistant to irony, is Neosincerity the new zeitgeist?" I thought about the success of Jon Stewart, who has become hugely popular by making a comic show the most honest news broadcast on TV—and even managed to make a Munich joke at the Oscars. Maybe we're on the cusp of a new age of shtick.

Comments

Kierkegaard said that no genuinely human life is possible without irony, and I’m sure I read somewhere something else he wrote along the lines of “irony is envious of earnestness.” Anyone know this line? I can’t find it to reference it for you, and would love to be reunited with it myself.(Sorry to be such an odd combo of airhead and egghead. Wait, that would make me an omelette, wouldn’t it?)Anyway, it looks to me more like earnestness is the new irony.

Would that all our eggheads could be efficiently cracked for maxiumum heated fluffy deliciousness. My kingdom for a nonstick pan!

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