When I first read today's xkcd I got two thirds of the joke, and thought it was hilarious. Then I looked up Don Quixote and "tilting at windmills" and it became even funnier.
Unfortunately none of the friends in the vicinity at the time were likely to have gotten the joke, so I had no one to share it with. The folks here seem to have a higher than average literacy and should be more likely to appreciate it.
I got the Don Quixote literary reference, but I didn't get the Picasso reference.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
At first I only got the "War of the Worlds Ending" reference in the mouseover text, which I still think is the funniest part.
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
Don Quixote is one of my favorite books, so I really enjoyed this one.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
I love Don Quixote. My dad read it to us in translation when I was about 9, it has been a favorite since then.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
EDIT: Oh man, I basically wrote the title of the thread as if it were something new to be said. Let's just stick with...
I love this comic.
Posted by Mocke (Member # 11963) on :
There's a fourth (fifth) bit of a joke, in that the windmills do indeed look like the tripods from the Tripod trilogy, if memory serves. I haven't read those books in so long though, I should go get a copy
*Wanders out of thread to get books*
Posted by Godric 2.0 (Member # 11443) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: The only part I thought was funny was the last panel. They are alluding to the famous Picasso.
Are you sure? Maybe they (he? she? who writes xkcd?) were just referencing Don Quixote and by happy accident drew something that also referenced Picasso (I know some who would say it would be hard for a typical preschooler NOT to reference Picasso). Isn't that the beauty of being an "artist?"
Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :
I love the Tripods books.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by Godric 2.0:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: The only part I thought was funny was the last panel. They are alluding to the famous Picasso.
Are you sure? Maybe they (he? she? who writes xkcd?) were just referencing Don Quixote and by happy accident drew something that also referenced Picasso (I know some who would say it would be hard for a typical preschooler NOT to reference Picasso). Isn't that the beauty of being an "artist?"
The pose is pretty much the exact same.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Yeah, after looking at the picture I'd say it's pretty obvious. Plus, Randy was clearly trying to pack as many artistic references in here as possible.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
I wanted to love Don Quixote. But I didn't. I thought it was incredibly boring. And, in a lot of ways, mean-spirited.
The musical movie, on the other hand, the one with Peter O'Toole that everyone loathes? That I love.
The comic...meh. Probably it was because Raymond's title clued me in, but it was obvious to me where they were going from the first panel. The only thing that elicited a chuckle (and that just barely) was "Al Gore you've doomed us all."
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Valentine014: I love the Tripods books.
Did you read the prequel?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Don Quixote is sort of supposed to be mean spirited. Man of La Mancha, though, is wonderful and uplifting. Cervantes would be annoyed.
Posted by SenojRetep (Member # 8614) on :
Yeah, I imagine if I'd been exposed to them in the opposite order, I would find Man of La Mancha to be maudlin and mushy. First exposure goes a long way to hardening preconceptions about valid reactions to characters.
One of the reasons I didn't particularly like the Bean books was that the character of Peter changed so dramatically (IMO) between the original books and the second series. This transformation was partially mitigated by excluding Ender's perspective from the second series, allowing the reader to attribute the brutal image of Peter from the earlier books to being an artifact of Ender's personal hang-ups. But I still felt that the Bean books didn't do justice, in a sense, to the version of Peter from the original series.
Posted by aiua (Member # 7825) on :
quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: One of the reasons I didn't particularly like the Bean books was that the character of Peter changed so dramatically (IMO) between the original books and the second series.
That's exactly the reason why I like Peter so much in the later books.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
And I thought I was the only one.
Posted by Mocke (Member # 11963) on :
That dream scares me. I had it about Middle School in college, and I get middle school and college ones now. Oddly though, I don't get them about high school
Posted by dantesparadigm (Member # 8756) on :
Oh wow, Randall really is inside everyone's head. Those dreams correspond exactly. I don't usually get a dream, but I often wake up in a panic because I think I'm late for class regardless of the day of the week or time of year.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I love XKCD, but this comic doesn't really do anything for me. I mean, yes, everybody has these dreams, but it's also incredibly common knowledge that everybody has these dreams. Reading this comic, my response was "Yeah? And?"
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
"There's only two jokes in me And I just wrote the third Don't know where I got the inspiration Or how I wrote the words..."
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Lisa, you've spent you whole life just digging up your talent's shallow grave.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote:I love XKCD, but this comic doesn't really do anything for me. I mean, yes, everybody has these dreams, but it's also incredibly common knowledge that everybody has these dreams. Reading this comic, my response was "Yeah? And?"
I agree.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
Thirded.
edit: i do like how he draws "waking up from a dream," though. he's done it before and it is just so artistically real to me.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote:but it's also incredibly common knowledge that everybody has these dreams.
Guess some of us missed that common knowledge though. For a while I had no idea that anyone else had dreams that fit that pattern. I think there was probably some thread on hatrack that clued me in, but I'd been having them long before then.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Interesting. Until now I hadn't talked to anybody who wasn't aware that it was nearly universal.
[Edit - Given that you hadn't heard about its universality until recently, I can see why you'd have the reaction to the comic that you did]
Posted by Achilles (Member # 7741) on :
*Dreams the impossible dream*
Posted by Fractal Fraggle (Member # 9803) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Valentine014: I love the Tripods books.
Did you read the prequel?
I didn't even know about the prequel until just now. Thanks! Time for a trip to the library. Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I knew the dream was universal but didn't know to expect it long after leaving school. (I actually don't have that dream that often. My dreams tend to be pretty cinematic.)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)