Do you ever have moments of poetic irony?

[Darryl_P]

I do, like when cartoons are playing on the TV and I don't see the screen but I hear the classical music which is often used as part of the effects.

I imagine a group of disciplined, highly trained and educated individuals wearing tuxedos giving a concerto after long preparations and numerous rehearsals all culminating in one grand moment of musical perfection.

Simultaneously I imagine a spoiled fat kid with toys scattered around eating a barrel of kentucky fried chicken with a bored and disinterested look on his face watching the cartoon out of one eye as he looks for still more ways to amuse himself.

All that hard work and preparation, all those years of experience and education are being used to provide one extra bit of titillation among hundreds for the fat lazy bored kid, as if that's what he really needs.

Kind of ironic, isn't it?

Anyone else have similar flashes from time to time, or am I being a nutcase here?

[chrisnice]

I dont know....I picture you going to see a Jewish doctor who saves your life just so you can go on bashing them.

[spoohunter]

I am pretty sure you don't know what irony is (although I only skimmed the OP and could be wrong). Irony is the least expected thing happening. The least expected thing would be if all these great musicians got together and preformed the song that never ends, out of tune. A fat kid ignoring them is probably the most expected thing.

[Darryl_P]

[ QUOTE ]
Irony is the least expected thing happening.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right. If you think about what the ultimate purpose is (or should be) for the culmination of years and years of effort of talented and intelligent individuals, the last thing you would think about is to simply provide a marginal amount of titillation for someone who needs anything but that. It's not a case of the fat kid ignoring them. It's seeping into his subconscious and he's enjoying it more (or being bored less) because of it. That will make him more likely to buy the useless products on the commercials which, in turn, will provide funding for musicians so the cycle can repeat itself.

It's almost a metaphor for modern industrial society and its lack of meaningful direction. The employees of large companies are like the orchestra, working together in skilled and efficient harmony, while consumers are often like the fat kid, buying all kinds of useless junk just to pass the time, get a few jollies and relieve boredom.

At least that's what it symbolizes for me. The cartoon image just puts it in a nutshell and caricaturizes it a bit.

But it looks like I'm the only one who gets these little flashes, so I guess I must be nuts /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[moorobot]

when something is important/interesting to us, the opposite also is unimportant/dull because of the same reasons. We also tend to define things as the opposite of something else as opposed to defining it in absolute terms, things are too abstract to do otherwise oftentimes anyway.

So for example, when I see George Bush give a speech I think of how foolish he is and how bad he looks/how uncharismatic he is while thinking of how briliant Churchill or Roosevelt (or even Clinton) were while thinking of how good they looked, but I don't give a second thought to what it would mean to be brilliant or 'look good' without reference to the antonym, we know George Bush is bad at giving speeches because we have seen people who are good at it.