"If we fail to cultivate wonder we risk missing the very heart of what is going on."
- Eugene Peterson
 

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Title:
Country Hip-Hop (Kanye-Style)   Hot
Tuesday, 07 August 2007 ,  Written by Bob Davidson
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The Absurd
Title: Can't Tell Me Nothing
Artist: Kanye West
Type: Video
Princeton dictionary defines absurd as "inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense". As we are honing in on our own thoughts about "the absurd", we could not pass on ...
Flight of the Conchords
Tuesday, 24 July 2007 ,  Written by Bob Davidson
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The Absurd
Title: Think About It
Artist: Flight of the Conchords
Type: Video
The following should be the definition of "the absurd". Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement (a.k.a. Flight of the Conchords) have been all over YouTube for some ...
Geico Family Fued
Friday, 24 August 2007 ,  Written by Matt Browning
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The Absurd
Type: Video
 "When it comes to Mike Wallace the story ends with me puttin' him into the wall" --Warren Wallace.  I saw this commercial on TV a couple weeks ago and couldn't ...
Let's Play...
Saturday, 06 October 2007 ,  Written by Gabe Knipp
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The Absurd
Title: Play, Spirit + Character
Artist: Stuart Brown
Type: Video
Play is anything that is spontaneously done for its own sake. At least, that's how Stuart Brown defines it. Often, it appears purposeless. Yet, he works as ...
Performance Art and Freestyle Crutching
Thursday, 23 August 2007 ,  Written by Bob Davidson
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The Absurd
Title: Work it Out
Artist: RJD2 featuring Bill Shannon
Type: Video
According to Wikipedia, "performance art" revolves around a situation that embodies four basic elements: time, space, the performer's body and a relationship between performer and audience. Bill Shannon ...
Singin' in the Rain... new school.
Sunday, 22 July 2007 ,  Written by Matt Browning
The Absurd
Type: Video
This is a VW commercial featuring David Elsewhere.
Spider Pig
Wednesday, 18 July 2007 ,  Written by Matt Browning
The Absurd
Artist: The Simpsons
Type: Video
Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever a Spider Pig does... Can he swing from a web? No he can't he's a pig...
The Read My Lips Series
Friday, 21 September 2007 ,  Written by Bob Davidson
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The Absurd
Title: Read My Lips
Artist: Johan Soderberg
Type: Video
Broadcast news and the SNL of the late 80s/early 90s struck gold at the 1988 Republican National Convention when senior George Bush uttered the phrase "Read my lips". ...
Throwing it Back: Sonny J's Can't Stop Moving
Monday, 03 September 2007 ,  Written by Bob Davidson
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The Absurd
Title: Can't Stop Moving
Artist: Sonny J
Type: Video
It's one thing to recreate the disco-psychodelic-funk sound of the 70s. It's another to match the visuals to go along with it. The UK directing team "Good Times ...
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About "The Absurd"

When we think of the wondrous and the mysterious we often think of the deep and the profound. The deep and the profound obviously create a sense of wonder in us and move us in ways that we can't explain. But there is another aspect of wonder that often gets overlooked-the ABSURD. In the same way that there are things that move us because of their profundity and beauty, there are other things that move us to a joy that cannot be intellectualized, a sense of enjoyment that has no explanation. The author G.K. Chesterton describes this inability to explain these things that move us to joy as the "problem of pleasure."

"Why is sex fun? Reproduction surely doesn't require pleasure: Some animals simply split in half to reproduce, and even humans use methods of artificial insemination that involve no pleasure. Why is eating enjoyable? Plants and the lower animals manage to obtain their quota of nutrients without the luxury of taste buds. Why are there colors? Some people get along fine without the ability to detect color. Why complicate vision for all the rest of us?"

It is this pleasure and joy that we cannot begin to explain (why the lip gloss song is so catchy, why Strong Bad's randomness is so funny, why Sufjan's costumes and inflatable props make the concert so much more than a concert, etc.) that we hope you can experience in the Absurd section of this site. There are many times when exploring mystery and wonder expand our understanding... but there are also times when we must revel in the absurdity and let a piece of art, a song, a video, etc. simply be what it is and to enjoy it at that level.

Welcome to the Absurd section of rednow.