In Classical Greek comedy, particularly in the plays of Aristophanes, there was a stock character called the eiron. He was a dissembler, often outwitting his foes by appearing to be less able or less smart than he actually was, and that they fancied themselves to be, thus lulling them into a false sense of security or superiority until it was revealed that they'd been toyed with and were themselves the fools. Yeah, okay, so I took Leo Rockas's "Satire" class at UHa in 1980, and some things stuck.
From "eiron" we get "irony," a term, a style, a genre, a pose which has perhaps become the predominant manner of expression in modern cultural discourse-- in novels, music, poetry, movies, TV, even "journalism," and especially in interpersonal relationships, to the dismay of many. Irony has become nearly synonymous with "sarcasm" in our daily speech and affect. Greg Brown calls it "One cool remove away." It allows the speaker/writer/performer to distance herself (a gender-neutral pronoun would be helpful there) from his (see what I mean?) words, thoughts, emotions. It can be infuriating or at least disheartening to the listener/recipient. It's hard to have a serious interaction when at least one of the principals can claim ironic distance. Or so I've been told frequently; I am an inveterate and habitual practitioner.
That's irony in discourse. There's also, of course, situational irony, when concurrent or at least linked events are at odds with each other: the young husband sells his watch to buy combs for his wife's gorgeous hair, which, it turns out, she has shorn in order to buy him a chain for the pocketwatch he no longer owns. I just made that scenario up, but someone should write a story based around that premise. What?
Due to circumstances at my real work, as most of you know, I haven't been able to do my radio show for three weeks. This week, though, there seems to be an opportunity for me to change that. Hurricane Sandy is gonna keep us from working until at least Wednesday, it seems, due to rain and very high winds, not particularly good conditions for framing and sheathing a roof system. So Tuesday noon-till-two seems available. In very windy conditions there is an enormously high likelihood that WOOL's antenna, perched shakily atop Fall Mountain, will be knocked out of commission, eliminating our already-limited capacity for over-the-airwaves reception. It's also quite likely that there will be power outages, perhaps extended ones; that will wipe out our internet connection and eliminate the possibility of anyone listening to the show on their computer.
Any chance I can fob some combs off on any of you?
No thanks, I seem to have pulled out all my hair over all the irony.
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