WEEKLY WHINE

Understand humanity with Edvard

As you know, it is currently not a good time to be a human. If possible, you should be an animal instead. Of course, it is currently not a good time to be an animal either. Or a plant. But we hear there are some great opportunities in the Fungi kingdom.

But if you don’t have that opportunity, what should you do with your life instead? We have no idea, so we will do what we normally do in these situations: send in “Dynamite Eating” Edvard van de Kamp, the one man who knows what to say to anything.

If you have a question for Edvard, please send it directly to him care of us, by way of you, courtesy your neighbour, regardless of me, with apologies to Olivia Wilde.

Before we begin, it has come to our attention that we have received a great many questions regarding our gratuitous mention of Olivia Wilde. It is possible for us to explain why we mentioned her, but it can only be done when she attends our Halloween party. She keeps failing to respond to our invitations. So the next time you see Olivia Wilde, ask her why she thinks she is so much better than us. No doubt the other theatregoers will appreciate your desire to understand her reasoning and will welcome your increasingly loud, pushy, and incoherent questions to her during the screening of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.

Dear Edvard: Why did those guys bomb the Boston Marathon?

– Annie Sparrowicz
West Ladshire, NH, USA

Dear Annie: They are suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon. If they in fact did it, we may never know why. One of them died, and the other is still hospitalised in serious condition. It will be a while before he is ready to talk, and he might not say anything even then.

Dear Edvard: Why were the 1980s so weird?

– Russell Maierholtz
Annapolis, MD, USA

Dear Russell: The 1980s are difficult to understand for anyone who did not live through them. If you are less than about thirty years old, you will never be able to understand the 1980s.

Dear Edvard: I was born in 1971. My teenage years were in the 1980s. I lived through them – in my formative years – and I still don’t understand them.

– Russell Maierholtz
Annapolis, MD, USA

Dear Russell: Perhaps that’s why you don’t understand the 1980s: they occurred during your formative years. You might have been chasing after the girls, but you just didn’t have the chance to stop and wonder why they were all wearing leg warmers and turning their collars up.

Dear Edvard: The bombing brothers are clearly part of a vast conspiracy that includes the mainstream media, the Occupy Wall Street crowd, the gays, the ACLU, Obamacare, and that one guy on The Daily Show. No, not Jon Stewart. The other guy. Watch out for them! They’re coming to take our guns! Wake up America! Defend the 2nd Amendment!

– Sally Third
Helena, MT, USA

Dear Sally: Wait... what?

Dear Edvard: Is that what we’re going to call them? “The Bombing Brothers”? Just so we’re clear.

– Manuel de Vargas
Brookhaven, CT, USA

Dear Manuel: No. “The Tsarnaev brothers” is just fine.

Dear Edvard: Why does everyone think it’s strange that I bit Ivanovic’s arm? There’s nothing out of the ordinary about that, is there?

– Luis Suárez
Liverpool, England, UK

Dear Luis: For you, no.

Dear Edvard: Why is all this shit happening all of a sudden? I totally don’t know what to make of it. Can you tell us what to make of it? Please, someone, tell us what to make of it so that we can all breathe easy.

– Lance Baker
Champaign, IL, USA

Dear Lance: If you are having difficulty breathing, may I suggest asthma medication. Telling you what to make of it will not help your asthma; everyone should figure out for themselves what to make of things. For example, I am making cautious optimism of it, and Amber Lynn is making Smores of it.

If you are able to make something of it, please send your recipe to us, and we will post it right here on GoobNet. Or just post on Twitter with the hashtag #makesomethingofshit.

Dear Edvard: Why would anyone think that detonating explosives in a crowded area is somehow a good idea? What would make someone get up in the morning and say, “You know, today is a good day to kill and/or maim scores of innocent people for a cause that I believe in, even though there is no plausible connection between a bombing and the cause I believe in, nor any sensical way for the cause I believe in to be improved by me detonating an explosive device in a crowded area”? Why would anyone do that?

– Peter Carssley
Salem, OR, USA

Dear Peter: I’m actually pretty sure that I do not want to understand what was going on in the bombers’ minds.