Everything old is new again
Last night while going to bed I was reading the book "Asimov Jokes Again",
which is a collection of jokes, anecdotes and limerics by the old
master of science fiction, with some interspersed general commentary
about joke-telling and other topics. The book was printed in as late as
1992, but all jokes in this book are much older, usually so old that
they have hair on them. But it's kind of interesting to read
old-fashioned jokes and anecdotes to get an idea how people thought in
the ancient past several decades ago. There was even a joke about an
ugly old maid who protested when the rapist didn't want to rape her,
unthinkable today of course. The jokes are numbered from 1 to 743, and
I am now at around 230, so I have to wonder if an ethnic joke section
is coming up.
Especially in retrospect, both anecdote 56 about a newspaper cartoon and its commentary are both funny ha-ha and funny strange. First, the joke:
Especially in retrospect, both anecdote 56 about a newspaper cartoon and its commentary are both funny ha-ha and funny strange. First, the joke:
The cartoon I refer to shows a line of crusaders on their horses heading eastward to fight in the Holy Land. The horseman in the lead is talking to another horseman on his left, and the caption reads: "I hope this won't offend the Muslims."
Asimov's commentary then says:
The trouple with Joke #56 is that it is topical. It is tied to a news event and such jokes grow quickly stale. Already the Rushdie affair is a thing of the past, and people are notorious for their the shortness of their memories.
So very true.
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