Footnotes to a reference
March 11th, 2007 at 14:51
I sometimes worry when writing something that when I try to reference something to get a laugh, that I’m referencing something badly. Like if I were to try and end a paragraph by arbitrarily name dropping, say, Canadian kids show The Adventures of Shirley Holmes.
I think what I reference can risk saying a lot about me and the sort of audience I’m targeting the nonsense I write at. For example, if I were to reference contemporary politics, it might sound a bit lame and unoriginal. “It’s dangerous for North Korea to have nuclear weapons, as they’d be controlled by a mad man… not unlike another major world power“, I might wryly say whilst stroking what one of the commentators on GodTube called my ‘neckbeard’.
So what else can I reference instead? What about old political and historical things? I could be sickeningly obvious and make a reference to the Nazis – but someone in a very high place has noticed that nearly all of my columns mention the Nazis in some form or another. Or I could be obscure and reference, maybe, Martin Luther (the one who wasn’t King)? Or would that make my writing too inaccessible? There can’t be too many people would know what I’m talking about when I’m talking about 90s Canadian kids TV AND the reformation and split of the church… and I can’t imagine many of them read my blog.
How about instead I try and derive my humour from the absurd? “Wouldn’t it be funny if gorillas had cannons instead of arms and they shot out aborted foetuses!?”
I could just go down the obvious studenty route and try and get laughs out of “ironic” references to “ironic” celebrities – Pat Sharp, Thundercats, Neil Buchannon, Roy Walker, Keith Chegwin, Jim Bowen – all of which will undoubtedly have Facebook groups dedicated to them calling them a ledge, which, to my understanding, means that they are a “legend” or “legendary” and is not a blank check to try and balance things on them next time they tour at your local student union.
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