Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Recycled Joke


The Koch brothers, Charles and David, both  no better than they should be, and having amassed their fortune  by this means or that,
resolved to solemnize their entry into decent society, by having their portraits painted in oil,  by one of the most celebrated painters of contemporary Italy.  This portrait they proudly hung in the antechamber to their mountaintop mansion,  and they invited the world’s most prominent art-critic  to the vernissage.

All the beau monde was there that evening, wrapped in mink and glittering with pearls,  as expectently,  those there assembled  awaited the verdict of the great art-connoisseur.

For a while he stared; leaned forward, squinted;  polished his monocle, stared again;  frowned, stroked his beard, shook his head
(the crème de la crème  meanwhile  breath-held  in anticipation) …

At last he spoke (shrugging, at a loss):

“But where is the Saviour ?”

[Lightly adapted from S. Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (1905 ff).]

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