Casual as Castles

I don't want to pressure you to respond to comments, although more Rassles = more better, but I'd like your opinion on this. Someone said "if you're laughing at what you're writing, stop drinking." There seems to be a fundamental flaw there, but I can't put my finger on it.
- JMH, The Good Word of Sprout

You know, I would say that it's just plain wrong, because I am fucking hilarious and currently sober. But then I realize: ever since I stopped drinking as much as I useterr, everyone is so much less interesting, including myself, and I am easily the most interesting person I know.

For example, lately I've been nonstopgoogling pictures of Putin with various adorable animals. If anyone is a Real Life Magnificent Bastard, it's Vladimir Fucking Putin. I think it's the nose. He looks like Hitler Youth Julius Caesar, like he could be the fucking Emperor of Everything. I don't know if he's a hero or a villain, and I don't care. He leans like Jordan Catalano, casual as castles. He's carved from ice and homophobia and St. Bernard puppies, he burns like an Unextinguishable Thing That Brightly Burns. I am fascinated by pictures of the man, and I'm amused by my fascination even more than I am by Putin himself. My self-obsession is way meta-er than yours.

I think that someone who would declare something as ridiculous as that quote from JMH up there (who, obviously, is on my side here) doesn't really understand laughter and hilarity to begin with. Why would we listen to someone so ignorant? It's sweeping generalizations like that that kill society. Say something with assuredness and people will accept it as truth whether they understand it or not.

Most likely whoever said that is of the opinion that laughter is just discomfort at being confronted with the truth (people falling, feeling embarrassed, dirty jokes, close-calls) and they've ruled out the kind that comes from sheer joy of living. Someone reads too much Robert Heinlein.

But chances are it was said by a humorless cement-carving with weak, narrow shoulders and wide feet. Someone whose nose is far too small for their face, perhaps. People with too-small noses always need to be fucking taken care of. Victims have dainty little noses. I'm instinctively more watchful and protective of small-nosed people, because how can you properly take care of yourself when your nose is that small? How can you possibly make good decisions when you can't smell danger in the distance with your pert little sniffer? Haven't you ever desired a proud, handsome, substantial nose that suggests monarchial conviction? A nose that makes you seem, dare I say, a little more like Putin, a man whose nose is sweeping and elegant?

It's not that I distrust small noses or that I dislike people who have them, they just have poor interpretive skills and are bad at finding things. I just made a list of all of my friends with noses too small for their faces, and they're an adorable batch of noses growing on lovely people, but I'm totally right: they require way more emotional energy than everyone else. They need more reassurance, they're more easily offended, they enjoy being coddled and served.

I should write a book about this, about judging people's noses. And people will believe me because my nose is odd and prominent and because I say things confidently.

Either way: yeah, JMH. That person whoever said that shit was so wrong, and I'm sorry this post had nothing to do with it.

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