The Day Tripper intro, ad nauseum (10-06-03)

[JorgeFabregas]

Ah, Pat becomes Absurdist Hero.  Perhaps an Arab will wander onto the sandy stage and Pat will shoot him.

Jough, I have no idea what the specific reference is here. However, that's not going to stop me from describing a troll on another board I'm on who has happily taken an absurdist turn.


It's ok, though, I paid money once. That does give me license to steal things at will, right? Right?

[jough]

Whore Hay,

It's just a Camus reference.  I guess it's also by association a Cure reference, but mostly it's about L'Etranger (The Stranger) a fine novel in which an existential hero ends up killing an Arab on the beach in Algiers just because.

[Bobby Isosceles]

Whore Hay,

It's just a Camus reference.  I guess it's also by association a Cure reference, but mostly it's about L'Etranger (The Stranger) a fine novel in which an existential hero ends up killing an Arab on the beach in Algiers just because.

Well, technically the sun was in Meursault's eyes.

[JorgeFabregas]

Ah, Camus. I read The Plague once and then I stopped reading it in the middle.

[AlohaDawg]

I thought he killed him because, what was the line.... "he did me dirt" or something like that.

[AugustWest]

I liked The Plague better than The Stranger.  

And I thought Mersault killed the Arab because he thought the Arab had done him dirt, but later realized he was mistaken.

[jay-ell]

I was pretty sure it was because the sun was in his eyes, too.  I'll have to dig up my copy when I get home.

[V-Adore]

If I'm recalling my high-school AP English correctly, it's all of these and none of these -- Meursault comes up with a lot of this rationalization afterwards, but at the time he really just did it for no reason. Very existential.

[jough]

Yeah, the whole point was that there was no point.

He killed him and then tried to find a reason why afterwards.

But I haven't read it in fifteen years, so I can't recall any lines directly.

[AugustWest]

Man, I love this place.  I couldn't tell you how we got from Pat Reynolds to Camus, but I'm glad we did.

[jough]

I guess that was my fault.  Camus does seem to come up a lot on this board, though.  

Someone mentioned the Myth of Sisyphus last month, which reminded me of a short play I wrote back in college called "Mrs. Sisyphus" about a woman wondering what was keeping her husband. I think giving her the first name of "Penelope" was pushing it a little, in hindsight.

Anyway, you just can't keep the French down.  Existentialism and Deconstruction comes up a lot in relation to this particular cartoon strip.  I blame Onstad.