Yet Another Post Which Mentions Laugh Tracks

Here is a partial list of things which I don't like because they tell me how to think about and react to any number of various experiences, events, or feelings.

• Travel books.
• Reading movie reviews before seeing the movie. (They're really fun to read afterwards, to compare your tastes to those of the columnist. I picked this up from Chuck Klosterman, but I don't remember where he wrote it.)
• Going to Poland to see concentration camps.
• Scoreboards at basketball/baseball games that tell the fans to make noise.
• Yeshivot.
• Laugh tracks.
  
• That certain type of rabbi who devotes his life to telling young adults how to think about and react to any number of various experiences, events, or feelings.
• Advertisements.

On second thought, I don't dislike advertisements. I think they're interesting/amusing. Interesting/amusing so long as you realize what they're out to accomplish. I suppose the same could be applied to the rabbi category also.

Update: Vonnegut knows it's all about respecting the reader.

I Told a Lie

You know how sometimes when you say something you don't really pay attention to what you're saying, so that you have no idea what it is that is coming out of your mouth, even as you are saying the aforementioned thing? This happened to me a few days ago. I was talking to a rabbi. Here is a transcript of the discussion as best as I can remember it:

Rabbi: Are you coming to the Yeshiva dinner on Tuesday?
Me: I hope so.
Rabbi: I hope I can a chance to speak to you.
(I wonder why he isn't yelling at me for not going to the dinner.)
(I realize that he isn't yelling at me for not going to the dinner because I told him that I was going to the dinner.)
(Whoops.)