Comments on: Tom Lehrer is 80

By: ajay

ajay — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:47:43 +0000

“Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department, – says Wernher von Braun.”

Next: Gene O’Grady announces that “My Home Town” shows that Tom Lehrer was a typical Ivy League elitist mocking real small-town Americans. And “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” is horribly offensive to, er, pigeons. Or something.

Just to make the point again: mocking Catholics is bigoted. Mocking the Catholic Church is an entirely acceptable act, just as it would be acceptable to mock, say, the Republican Party or the government of France or any other large organisation.

And the Vatican Rag, of course, was about Vatican II, and so predates John Paul II and Cardinal George by more than a decade.

Finally, I would say it’s a happy day when a single Jewish mathematics lecturer can successfully bully the richest and most powerful religious organisation in the history of the world.

By: Maia

Maia — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:01:49 +0000

But please, always to call it “research”.

One of my Russian textbooks included biographical profiles of famous Russians. I knew I had met a fellow traveler when one of my classmates started to snigger as we read the profile of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky. No else got it, though, and the instructor just thought we were nuts when we tried to explain what was so funny (and I think her national pride was vaguely insulted at the suggestion that the great mathematician was a plagiarist).

By: Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:43:20 +0000

Dinesh D’Souza considers Lehrer and Monty Python “juvenile”? Geez, what a complete idiot.

By: jcamfield

jcamfield — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:31:25 +0000

I stumbled into Tom Lehrer when my father caught me researching Lobrachevsky for a HS geometry years ago. I listen to Poisoning Pigeons every spring still.

By: Righteous Bubba

Righteous Bubba — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:20:22 +0000

It’s a song a conservative Catholic (with a sense of humor) should love.

You might even say an orthodox one.

By: bernard Yomtov

bernard Yomtov — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 03:29:28 +0000

If you think that the Vatican Rag is laughing at traditional Catholic ritual, you’ve missed the point of the song. That’s very explicitly not what it’s making fun of.

Exactly.

Listen to Lehrer’s introduction to the song, which mocks the church not for traditionalism but for catering to popular demand.

It’s a song a conservative Catholic (with a sense of humor) should love.

“Fish gotta swim,
Birds gotta fly,
But they don’t get far if they try.”

(Totally irrelevant to my comment, but one of my favorite lyrics, from “Pollution.”)

By: Matt Austern

Matt Austern — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 02:03:14 +0000

If you think that the Vatican Rag is laughing at traditional Catholic ritual, you’ve missed the point of the song. That’s very explicitly not what it’s making fun of.

By: Righteous Bubba

Righteous Bubba — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:41:15 +0000

may I also say that the famous Vatican Rag is the work of a bully and a bigot?

He is laughing at something that is stupid and worth laughing at.

By: Gene O'Grady

Gene O'Grady — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:58:27 +0000

At the risk of starting a flame war, may I say I was never particularly impressed with Lehrer’s self-indulgent humor? Gee I’m clever, and I’m probably a lot better than other people too.

And since I had one too many bishop worry more about holding on to real estate than dealing with priests buggering five year olds and no longer consider myself a Roman Catholic, may I also say that the famous Vatican Rag is the work of a bully and a bigot? He’s not getting anything on John Paul II or Cardinals George or Spellman, or Garry Wills, or on powerful Catholics in business, he’s standing there like an immature lout sneering at pious old ladies genuflecting and fumbling with their rosary beads (a dead give-away). I had a jerk of a neighbot who used to pull the same crap on a local Orthodox Jew whenever he looked through the window as the guy was celebrating Shabbat. Those of us who were slightly more civilized at least had the grace to be ashamed.

By: vivian

vivian — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:36:25 +0000

12: No, alas, but my undergrad advisor worked with him before my time. Rumor had them trashing the faculty meeting room after a raucous party and one too many puffs, but apparently reality was just that Lehrer would write/arrange for Christmas parties where they would sing together. Watching the video links from 15 in the corner of the screen as I type.

By: stostosto

stostosto — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:55:43 +0000

“These are the only ones of which the news have come to Harvard / And there may be many others but they haven’t been discovered.”

By: William Sjostrom

William Sjostrom — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:40:16 +0000

One of his better songs, but I am surprised you did not put up his Sociology.

By: MikeN

MikeN — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:02:42 +0000

And, of course, sadly true about the Spanish Civil War:

“They won all of the battles, but we had all the good songs.”

By: David Mackinder

David Mackinder — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 14:36:14 +0000

Happy birthday, Professor Lehrer. Now, I’m off to the park to—erm—track down some pigeons in your honor . . .

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:12:30 +0000

I can hardly look at pigeons without recalling his paean to spring, or hand my mother her visor without this theme running through my mind:

So be sweet and kind to mother
Now and then have a chat
Buy her candy or some flowers or a brand new hat
But maybe you should let it go at that