I’m about to jump on a plane to Europe, after jumping off a plane from Hawaii yesterday, but couldn’t resist blogging this aside from a recent Scott McLemee “column”:http://www.insidehighered.com/views/intellectual_affairs__11.
bq. At one point, they [‘Chairman Bob’ Avakian and his philosopher sidekick] note that the slogan “Serve the People,” made famous by the little red book, could be used — with very different intentions, of course — at a McDonald’s training institute. This is, on reflection, something like Hegel’s critique of the formalism of Kant’s ethics. Only, you know, different.
Chairman Bob is stealing a riff here from Damon Knight’s famous short story “To Serve Man,” which was made into an even more famous Twilight Zone episode. I imagine that Chairman Bob’s version is more laboured and less funny than the original: “Don’t get on the ship. The book, To Serve Man, IT’S A COOKBOOK!” has to rank as one of the best closing lines of all time.
{ 9 comments }
Carthik 03.10.05 at 7:27 pm
Have a nice trip!
j.g. 03.10.05 at 7:59 pm
Curious what you think of my latest piece–I think it’s important.
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J.G.
cleek 03.10.05 at 8:04 pm
and of course, The Simpsons took it a few steps further with their “How To Cook Forty Humans” book in the 2nd season Halloween episode
Andrew McManama-Smith 03.10.05 at 8:21 pm
“Don’t get on the ship. The book, To Serve Man, IT’S A COOKBOOK!†has to rank as one of the best closing lines of all time.
That and “If it hadn’t been for that Nazi prostitute, I would never have become an author.”
Ted 03.10.05 at 8:28 pm
C.S. Lewis used that gimmick for a plot twist in one of his overly many Narnia sequels, didn’t he? The Silver Chair, I think.
John Isbell 03.10.05 at 8:58 pm
Bets closing lines would be an interesting post. I nominate: Great Expectations? The Great Gatsby? Ulysses? No, Beckett’s “Dante and the Lobster”:
“‘Well, it’s a quick death at any rate,’ she said.
– It is not.
bryan 03.11.05 at 2:33 am
that it’s a cookbook doesn’t mean the main dish is humans though. it could be a cookbook of man’s favorite foods.
digamma 03.11.05 at 7:00 am
“Don’t get on the ship. The book, To Serve Man, IT’S A COOKBOOK!†has to rank as one of the best closing lines of all time.
It wasn’t the closing line. There was a whole bunch of stuff with the guy stuck on the ship afterward.
But I can’t recommend this parody enough.
Skippy McGee 03.14.05 at 2:18 am
It’s a far cry from the E.T. / CE4K mythos which displays all more technologically advanced beings as nearly angelic demigods. I always liked these kinds of twists in science fiction because it reflects the conservative sensibility so much more effectively.
Liberals go joy-skipping into the alien pot carrying their own potatos and carrots figuring we’re all just one big happy family, of course, and we’re all getting into the jacuzzi for some interspecies orgy. The conservative is always the guy who blows the dust off the cookbook and discovers they are about to be eaten.
One could expect to find a book like this in the possession of the 30 million illegals in America, something on the order of “HOW TO SERVE GRINGOS,” with the same dual interpretation. I guess it is not actually until the salt shakers comes out and the basting fork that the difference in perception can be resolved.
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