So Much Irony in What I Write. Where's the Beef? At Least, Where Are the Nutritious Vegetables?

Brother Daugherty and I were talking about irony and how it consumes itself.

Yes, I live on -- make that, I make a living on -- irony. Every once in awhile I’ll write a column irony free, I enjoy those the most. Irony wears out, does not make a full meal. It’s like most blogging; irony is commenting on something else, on someone else’s thoughts. Gets predictable after awhile.

Patrick

It gets stale, Pat, but it's easy. If anyone doesn't get it, you laugh at their lack of intellectual sophistication, their lack of a refined sense of humor, their lack of an appreciation for your graceful postmodern despair. As I told the kids in feature writing about food reviews -- in fact, about any kind or review -- it is easy to make fun. It is hard to explain why something is good. It opens you up for everyone to see. Sometimes approval is an exercise in pretension but just as often disapproval is a fine public display of your comprehensive ignorance.

Ah, but when you scoff, and scoff at everything: It's a world view. It's gritty. Thank God you have the stones to see things are they really are. (Which does not make you sad, of course, not you; it makes you laugh.)

An attitude of habitual contempt is really quite sentimental. It's like rhyme in poetry. It's so easy to go where it leads you. It's too easy.