Moments of Absurdity
When I was an undergraduate at the University of Texas (NUMBER TWO IN THE NATION, BABY!!!!!!) I took an amazing class on existentialism and the continental philosophical tradition with the legendary professor Robert Solomon. To illustrate the existential tenet that life is absurd, he asked us to imagine what we must look like to others outside a phone booth as we flap our arms in rage and exasperation while arguing with a loved one on the phone. This was a pretty good example, except that even in the 1980s few students had actually ever seen a phone booth, let alone been angry in one.
So ever since then I have made it a habit of collecting moments that illustrate absurdity.
I had one over the weekend. I was in Zurich, Switzerland. I could not sleep. My hotel room was standard European: tiny bed; tiny shower; tiny television. Zurich itself was standard European as well: expensive; clean; good public transport; state-supported heroin addicts milling about.
Anyway, I was flipping around the channels on the television. Many small European countries like the Netherlands run American movies with subtitles in their own languages because dubbing is expensive and their markets are too small to justify anything more. So it's easy for someone who does not know Dutch to enjoy television in the Netherlands.
Not so, Switzerland. Being a country that speaks both French and German, the Swiss get programs that have been dubbed in either of those two much larger markets.
So there I was, lying on my tiny bed at 3 a.m., watching Full Metal Jacket, a film I know pretty well, in German, a language I know not at all.
I burst into giggles as I watched Matthew Modine negotiate with a Vietnamese prosititute, both of them speaking perfect German.
I was surprised to find that some slang words for common sexual acts do not have German equivalents.
This, my friends, demonstrates the concept of absurdity about as well as anything else I can think of.