Noel Fielding?

[kebab_oner]

and check it out - TWO people just accused stevie of having no sense of humour.

does that classify as an unanimous vote?

[Alisso]

Originally Posted by kebab_oner

and check it out - TWO people just accused stevie of having no sense of humour.

does that classify as an unanimous vote?

Yeah, sure, if there's only two people around.

I don't find Noel particularly funny. I don't hate him because I haven't seen enough of his work to have reason to hate him. Perhaps if I'd paid to see more than one of his shows I might hate him for wasting my money, but as strange as that show was, it wasn't the worst thing I've paid good money to see, so I'm fairly indifferent on that angle.

Some of his stuff makes me laugh, but mainly on the same level as I'd laugh at something really bizarre happening...it's kinda watching a flashmob funny...you have NO idea what's going on, and you're a little worried insanity may lie behind it, but it still makes you giggle.

I don't know if I'd call it "art", but then that's my subjective opinion, so I don't mind if other people do call it that.


GM, Kebab, go easy. Stevie has said that he's got his opinions and they're not going to change, and that he's not going to argue further. Let it go, all right? You're not going to change his mind for him if he doesn't want you to, and insulting him isn't exactly a mature way to prove your opinions are more "right" than his.

[Stevie Goss]

Oh goody, this is going to be fun. Who said I wasn't fun? Funny...ho ho ho, that's a good one.

Anyway...I'd much rather watch a comedian who might not have any talent but put effort into his art rather than a comedian who just gets by with talent. A moot point anyway considering we were talking about Noel Fielding.

There's, that MY opinion! :P

And...proper surrealism in comedy is surrealism you don't notice until you've seen it for the fourth time and then suddenly you go "oh shit, I didn't notice THAT", etc.

Wankers rabbiting on stage without purpose don't apply :P

[Alisso]

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

Oh goody, this is going to be fun.

*spanks Stevie* Leave it! Bad boy!


I mean it, let the topic drop. All of you.

[kebab_oner]

my posts were not an attempt to alter anybody's opinion, rather to put forth my own.

as for insults, lets just let stevie's words talk for themselves.

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

foolish people

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

"Newt", you crossed the stupidity line by a far distance.

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

Please come back once you actually understand comedy and/or art.

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

go to hell

[Mythor]

Originally Posted by kebab_oner

and if you don't find Noel funny, you don't have a sense of humour either.

Not finding a given comedian funny does not equate to having no sense of humour, nor no sense of taste.
Similarly, finding a particular comedian funny doesn't mean you have bad taste, either.

Both are common arguments/abuse that I see flung around entirely too often.

Comedy is easy.
Being a comedian is harder.
Being a successful comedian is harder still.
Being a successful comedian and not getting bagged by the try-hard brigade is without doubt the crowning achievement of a comedian's career. :P

[Beckslee]

Originally Posted by Mythor

Not finding a given comedian funny does not equate to having no sense of humour, nor no sense of taste.
Similarly, finding a particular comedian funny doesn't mean you have bad taste, either.

absolutely myth, I don't really like noel fielding but on occasion I do find him funny, also I don't really like the Goons, and it's not that I haven't tried, I have voluntarily listened to hours of their material, and I get a little giggle every now and then but their humour just doesn't strike me as top humour.

but then it would be a dull little world if we all liked the same thing, and can you imagine the lines to get into every show you wanted to see if everyone DID like the same thing

Originally Posted by Beckslee

can you imagine the lines to get into every show you wanted to see if everyone DID like the same thing

I can imagine that, having tried to sneak into Daniel kitson's show on my artist's pass ....

Originally Posted by Alisso

GM, Kebab, go easy. Stevie has said that he's got his opinions and they're not going to change, and that he's not going to argue further. Let it go, all right? You're not going to change his mind for him if he doesn't want you to, and insulting him isn't exactly a mature way to prove your opinions are more "right" than his.

No, he didn't float them as opinions, he posted them as fact and wouldn't back down to the lesser position until I called him out on it. The reason I went Stevie so hard was that people obviously enjoy Noel's work and Stevie came in with guns blazing trying to ruin their enjoyment, which is pretty much the most fucked thing he could've done on a comedy message board. If he'd just logged on and said "I don't like Noel's stuff" I would'nt have posted anything.
And as for letting it go - hey, we're all having fun!

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

Who said I wasn't fun?

That's an opinion based on empirical evidence, to whit: your previous posts. :p

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

Anyway...I'd much rather watch a comedian who might not have any talent but put effort into his art rather than a comedian who just gets by with talent.

Hmmm, that sounds remarkably similar to those plebeians who don't like Picasso's work because "my kid could do better". Let me see if I've got this right: using your definitions of talent vs. effort, Jackson's Pollock's 'Blue Poles' shouldn't be valued at $1mil+ because he didn't colour inside the lines, yeah???

Okay, smart-ass comments aside, this looks like a question of the division between talent and craft (or effort, as you put it). Talent and craft are both necessary elements of comedy, but each comedian will have them to different degrees. (Side note: I'm not sure if any comedian lacks either of them, although it could be argued that Elliot Goblet works purely on craft.)

Okay, I'm getting kicked off this computer so I'll leave it there, but I don't quite understand:

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

And...proper surrealism in comedy is surrealism you don't notice until you've seen it for the fourth time and then suddenly you go "oh *bleep*, I didn't notice THAT", etc.

That sounds like an really odd definition of surrealism to me. Hmmm.

[hellokitty]

surrealism is when something appears to be normal yet slightly disturbed or well just not right... or two seemingly normal things are juxtaposed to created something fantastical or weird

Originally Posted by hellokitty

surrealism is when something appears to be normal yet slightly disturbed or well just not right... or two seemingly normal things are juxtaposed to created something fantastical or weird

That description could also apply to Dada, or even some Abstract Expressionism, or several other movements. That description could be applied to The Far Side cartoons, for example, and they're definitely not surrealist. And there's a whole lot of classic surrealist works that wouldn't fit into your definition - anything by Dali, for example, or most surrealist poems or unconscious writings.

Damn, there's a poem by Giorgio de Chirico that I wanted to quote 'cos it sounds a LOT like Noel's work ... having trouble tracking it down ... I'll find it eventually ...

[dermo]

"To become truly immortal,
a work of art must escape all human limits:
logic and common sense will only interfere.
But once these barriers are broken,
it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams."

Originally Posted by dermo

"To become truly immortal,
a work of art must escape all human limits:
logic and common sense will only interfere.
But once these barriers are broken,
it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams."

Yeah!!! De Chirico rocks!!!

I found that poem of his that I mentioned before. Does this sound like Noel or what?? Now this is Surrealism:

THE STATUE’S DESIRE

“I wish at any cost to be alone,” said the statue with the eternal look. Wind, wind that cools my burning cheeks. And the terrible battle began. Broken heads fell, and skulls shone as if they were of ivory.
Flee, flee towards the square and radiant city. Behind, devils whip me with all their might. My calves bleed horribly. Oh the sadness of the lonely statue down there. Beatitude.
And never any sun. Never the yellow consolation of the lighted earth.
It desires.
Silence.
It loves its strange soul. It has conquered.
And now the sun has stopped., high in the centre of the sky. And in ever-lasting happiness the statue immerses its soul in the contemplation of its shadow.

There is a room whose shutters are always closed. In one corner there is a book no one has ever read. And there on the wall is a picture one cannot see without weeping.

There are arcades in the room where he sleeps. When evening comes the crowd gathers there with a hum. When the heat has been torrid at noon, it comes there panting, seeking the cool. But he sleeps, he sleeps, he sleeps.

What happened? The beach was empty, and now I see someone seated there, there on a rock. A god is seated there, and he watches the sea in silence. And that is all.

The night is deep. I toss on my burning couch. Morpheus detests me. I hear the sound of a carriage approaching from far off. The hoofs of the horse, a gallop, and the noise bursts, and fades into the night. In the distance a locomotive whistles. The night is deep.

The statue of the conqueror in the square, his head bare and bald. Everywhere the sun rules. Everywhere shadows console.

Friend with vulture’s glance and smiling mouth, a garden gate is making you suffer. Imprisoned leopard, pace within your cage, and now, on your pedestal, in the pose of a conquering king, proclaim your victory.

Giorgio de Chirico, from “Meditations of a Painter,” 1912.[/i]

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

To Fielding and his ilk, surrealism simply means mentioning animals a lot.

And what's wrong with mentioning animals??? Although it's probably more of an Expressionistic formula - see Franz Marc's article "How does a Horse See The World?" from Briefe, Aufzeichnungen und Aphorism (1920) if ya want to read up on it more. Reading is fun!

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

The people who pimp and/or perform "pushing boundaries and trying new things" nonsense seem the most ignorant about what surreal and dark comedy is, and what makes it funny and joyful to watch.

Big words for someone who still hasn't come up with a decent explanation for what he thinks "proper surrealism" is, unless "proper surrealism in comedy is surrealism you don't notice until you've seen it for the fourth time and then suddenly you go "oh *bleep*, I didn't notice THAT"" really was the full extent of your "theory". (That's not Surrealism, that's subtlety and artistry. BIG difference.) That'd be disappointing, I really was hoping you'd have something interesting to say. And if that is the case, may I be as bold as to quote yourself back at you?

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

Please come back once you actually understand comedy and/or art.

If you're gonna be that arrogant perhaps you'd better actually have a clue about the subject at hand before you start yelling at people.

Originally Posted by Stevie Goss

It's quite possible that he is actually putting no effort into what he is saying

I guess from your harping on the amount of "effort" Noel puts into his material you must think that he's something of an Automatist Surrealist (assuming you know what that is) since you also seem to think that he's practising an abstract, stream-of-consciousness form of comedy. He's not, by the way - my gf was one of the MICF staff working at the HiFi during the Comedy Festival and she tells me that Noel performed pretty much the same show each night, although he did develop the material slightly as he went along. (And if you really think that Noel doesn't put any effort into his shows then I really question whether you know anything at all about how much effort it takes to perform comedy.)
I'd definitely say that Noel was a Veristic Surrealist. He's probably not a Social or Visionary Surrealist, so he's probably a Classic Surrealist. But then again I haven't seen a huge amount of his stuff so I could have missed some subtexts.

:p


Hey, if anyone likes de Chirico's stuff then check out "Zeus the Explorer" from Valori Plastici (1919) - I always have to read it in Flacco's voice. It just seems right, somehow.[/i]

Hullo,
First of all....I'm new on here and a bit british so forgive me

Ok, now onto the nitty gritty. Having read your really rather intelligent argument on the Merits or not of Noel's brand of comedy I felt it was my duty to intervene.

Firstly, Noel doesn't just get onstage and talk... he just puts a lot of effort in making it LOOK like he does. Anyone who saw Voodoo Hedgehog will have seen that some of the show involved an animated section from which some of the material arose.

Secondly, He's not actually TRYING to be surreal, he basically bases his act on the strange things which come out of his brain not on what he's trying to become. He does, however know a bit about the surrealist movement and is a known Dali fan and he and Julian (along with a load of other comedians) starred in 'Surrealissimo' in the UK, which was a dramatisation of the Trial of Salvadore Dali so if he were to try surrealism properly, he'd not be entering into it blindly

That said, in answer to the art argument, Noel is an aspiring artist but he doesn't feel the has the ability and looks upon his act as "A picture I don't have the talent to paint".

I think the only way to describe Noel's, and indeed Julian's particular brand of comedy is 'Random' nobody knows why it works, but it does and they're both very funny with it IMHO.

...and finally, my selfish reasons for even finding this site As you can probably tell i'm a massive fan of both Boosh boys and have set up my own website which i'm trying to ... promote! it's here www.thebooshisloose.co.uk and has as much info as i can get my hands on. What i'm looking for at the moment is some feedback from Australian fans as strangely, they're a lot more popular on your waters than their own. Anyone interested in lending a hand, hit on the site or e-mail me at lauren@thebooshisloose.co.uk

....damned thing wouldn't let me edit.

I was GOING to reply to the origional message of the thead but forgot in my defensiveness.

It's highly doubtful Noel will be at the Melbourne fest this year, He and Julian are extremely busy at the moment as they're finally getting around to filming the series they originally got together to do. It's going to be on BBC Three in the spring and is being filmed as we speak so no time for writing a stage show and going out there to perform it i'm afraid.

Is the fest in March or am i imagining that? If so, you guys might be lucky and get him randomly for a few days as that will be post production time (filming NOW and airing april/may) so Noel might get bored and jump on a plane.

Your bestr bet though is if you visit London at all hang out at the comedy clubs regardless of who is on, it seems Noel turns up and random without telling anyone.... hence i keep missing his gigs ven when they're in walking distance of my house ~frowns~