Sunday, February 4, 2007

dead ringer

A post the other day by Kungfuramone reminded me of one of the light-hearted aspects of our jobs: Humor. Academics are way too serious. But they don't have to be.

Take for instance the following comparison.

One of my favorite parts of the colonial U.S. history course is Paul Revere, as Matto and E well know. This is because Paul Revere is a dead ringer for Jack Black. You can judge for yourself:

Then, of course, my mind wanders to personality comparisons. And I imagine that Revere and Black acted in very similar ways. It is the raised eyebrow; this totally gives him away.

(I plan to take credit for this discovery some day when Black plays Revere in a historic film.)

Another attempt at humor (and a successful one in my opinion) was created by a friend who (sigh!) decided to leave academia. It is the "then-and-now-popsicle-stick." It is great for people who don't have a good celebrity or historic double. It requires a bit of image research, but can be well worth it. Anyway, my friend C. had to do a report in our seminar on "a prominent historian." She chose U.S. historian Ruiz. She illustrated her talk with a popsicle stick (or tongue depressor) that featured small pictures of the historian, then and now on either end of the stick. C. wasn't making fun of the assignment or the historian, she just happened on this visual aid. I was thoroughly amused. (Yes, chalk that up to complete nerdiness.)

3 comments:

kungfuramone said...

Holy crap! Jack Black is just Paul Revere...through a time manipulation device of some kind! V: you're a genius.

Rachel said...

this is true - I had NEVER seen that before, and now I will always think of Paul Revere when I see Jack Black. As my brother said, Jack Black always looks like he's up to something. Now Paul Revere will look like that for me too. :)

another kind of nerd said...

Well played, V. Well played.