all things French learn the language via absurdist masterpieces like Ionesco's La Cantatrice chauve. Imagine a schoolgirl, back in the days before Sinéad O'Connor hit it big, pulling her pigtails trying to figure out whether those words really translated as "The Bald Soprano" -- and if so, why and how that woman with the high-pitched voice had become bald -- and you've got the general picture.Don't know any women in Ionesco's absurdist
literary tradition. But perhaps this honor-of-sorts might be dubbed the "Mama Awards," a pinkening of another lavishly absurd art form, Dada?In any event, another nominee has to be certain statements on the war in Iraq made by U.S President George W. Bush. The following snippets appeared this week in a Daily Show segment (video here), in which John Hodgman (left) touted "Eight Keys to Success":
May 2, 2007:
The definition of success as I described it is, you know, 'Sectarian violence is down.' Success is not 'No violence.'
February 14, 2007:
Iraq will be a society in which there is, uh, relative peace. I say relative peace because if it's, like, zero car bombings, it will never happen that way.
April 24, 2007:
If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory.
Hodgman's rephrasing of that last point: "Just hoping for no car bombs automatically makes you an al Qaeda coconspirator."
