I went to a party last year -- older lesbians; really comfortable lesbians -- and towards the end, when all but the really close friends or really good drinkers had left, they started playing Lehrer. That's not, in itself, embarrassing, I'll admit. The embarrassing bit is that I'd never heard or heard of him.
I could just say they're 50 or so; and I'm not. But it seemed way more significant than that. Joking around with my fathers I note they are (I didn't know, obviously) big Tom Lehrer fans but aresplit over whether his stuff is relevant now. Lehrer, even on that couple of hours and then occasional examples, has a style that I don't think will wash now, while Lenny Bruce will (judging by friends, relatives, and students). I really only have anecdotal evidence for that, and I'd love to know what Lehrer would come out with now -- what it might be like. Whether it might work.
I guess I'm trying to say, comic political commentary is certainly not "dead". However, it may have radically changed. Comedy is a genre after all, and subject to its own and other histories -- what the fuck do we want if not jokes that work? I know there are arguments that satire doesn't work now and hsan't for a long time... I'm not ascribing to them. Or that the "end" of a certain form of satire is an end of the genre or of political comedy. I'm saying you just can't presume an answer to those questions.
Catherine (depressed post Grammys replay in Australia)
------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP at ArtsIT: http://admin.arts.usyd.edu.au/horde/imp/