Ant Theory.

"Clintonville noises: City's equipment fails to tape mystery booms."

"The city set up audio and video recorders overnight Wednesday but didn’t capture anything. There was at least one loud boom at 5 a.m. The booms started Sunday. Residents describe them as sounding like thunder, fireworks or someone slamming a heavy door."

They hear things, but then when officials set up recording equipment, nothing is recorded. I said it yesterday: I think it's nothing.

Or does your mind travel in the other direction? Failure to record the booms is evidence of the supernatural, like the way Dracula isn't reflected in a mirror?

Karl: Well, the mirror thing, he can't look in mirrors, can he?

Steve: Well he can look in mirrors but he can't see himself in a mirror.

Karl: That still doesn't work.

Ricky: It doesn't work at all Karl.

Karl: His centre parting is always really neat.



Steve: His centre parting is always really neat?

Ricky: (laughs) How does he do it if he can't look in the mirror.... I love the flaw in the Dracula film is that his centre parting is too neat, how did he do it without a mirror.... You know there aren't really vampires in that sense.

Karl: Yeah, yeah.

Ricky: Yeah but it still annoyed you that his centre parting was too neat.

Karl: Well if you're gonna do it, d'you know what I mean.

Ricky: I'd like to see him with a fringe sort of pushed forward and maybe a hood up "alright, I've come to suck your blood n' that, alright".

Steve: Yeah, just bits of tissue paper all over his face where he's cut himself shaving.

Ricky: "Oh, I can't see in bloody mirror, it's annoying me", I'd love to see that, a little Manc Drac, that would be great wouldn't it, Mancula, Count Mancula, "alright, you got any rave, you got any rave music, you got any Oasis", that would be brilliant, "he came from Manchester, please welcome Mancula", that would be great wouldn't it, his hair's a mess, "well I can't see in mirror".

"Is Karl's bewilderment with the world endearing?"

Ricky Gervais responds to a question about Karl Pilkington:

It is, because you know there is no malice. He says ridiculous things like, the Chinese don't age well, and gays should have their own toilets. But even though on the face of it that could be incredibly offensive, you can't get offended because you can't get offended when a toddler says something either. He doesn't really understand what he is saying. Everything is in the form of a question.

Sometimes there is an arrogance in his ignorance. For example, I explained to him on "Natural History" that we're 98.6 percent genetically identical to a chimpanzee. And I said we're closer to a chimp than the chimp is to a gorilla. Karl went "no way," I said, yes it's true. He said "no, if I look at them, I'd think the gorilla is more like us." I said "You'd be wrong. The chimpanzee is 98.6 percent genetically identical to a human. That's only 1.4 percent difference." And Karl went, "well that's gotta be the arse then."

"It's like saying when a soldier puts on combat gear, it's a cross between a human and a shrub."

"It's not a cross between a human and a shrub."

Here's another video with Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington. (Subscribe to the podcast if you love this stuff.) Karl has some ideas about the stick insect:

I apologize to the flies... and taunt bees.

Okay, okay, I get it. The "cute bee" is not a bee at all. It's a hoverfly. So flies can be cute, and it's not proved at all that bees are cute. They are ruthless killing machines. They are the devil. They are naughty. I get it! I apologize to the flies.

And when a bee dies? (Be aware — bee, aware — that there are a couple flashes of naked bottoms in this hilarious Ricky Gervais clip with Karl Pilkington talking about a dead bee.)



I think I could write a good childrens book called "I Apologize to the Flies" if you would just help me figure out an equivalent rhyme for about 20 other insects.

A new season of Ricky Gervais podcasts.

About to begin, August 22. Entertainment Weekly has an interview -- probably only for subscribers -- here. An excerpt:

EW.COM: How do you account for the podcast's popularity?

RICKY GERVAIS: It's engaging, it's real. It's a man who sees the world differently from us. It's like we download his head so everyone can see it. We prod him and we shake him, and interesting trinkets fall out. It all comes from a good place, this slightly confused man who wanders around the world and sees things from a slightly different angle than the rest of us. As inarticulate as he may sound, there is a poetry to his strange words of wisdom. Often, he's sort of right, once you know what he means. The things he takes to his bosom, and the things he rejects are often the other way around for most of us. He thinks painting is pointless and he thinks choice is confusing, and those are the things we cherish. He's just different but very nice and honest. Even the things he says that sound heartless, they come from a good place. He's not trying to be funny. He's just a fascinating little creature. He's like a fictional character. He's the closest thing to a living Homer Simpson.

Steve and I see ourselves as carnival barkers who've found the most fascinating creature in the world. We really think of ourselves as some sort of Victorian entrepreneurs, bringing out the Elephant Man. I feel like Anthony Hopkins, taking out John Merrick, going, ''Look what I found.'' Not only is it our own experiment, and fascinating to us, but we want the whole world to see the amazing Eighth Wonder of the World that is the mind of Karl Pilkington.

Ah, Karl Pilkington. We're so ready to spend some more time with him, aren't we?

"It ran sideways, like a crab, and all that."

Virginia Heffernan loves the Ricky Gervais podcast, but she struggles to convey why Karl Pilkington is so funny. Finally, she sort of gives up and transcribes a long thing:

"When me gran died, right, she had this rubbish dog, right? And that's all we got left. It's like this little poodle. It was rubbish, right. It's called Fluffy. And like me gran looked after it in a way like it was a human. Do you know what I mean. It had a little coat on when it went out, and all that. Anyway, so she died, we got left it, and me dad's like, 'bloody hell.' Before you know it, it only took about a month; it was a wreck. Because we weren't sort of bathing it the way she bathed it. If it wanted to go out, we took it out. It got covered in oil. It used to go under the car and everything. It went from looking like this fluffy, you know, poodle to just being a bit of a wreck. It got hit by a car. It ran sideways, like a crab, and all that. So it went from being overtreated to just being treated like a dog."

Still, if you're not hearing Karl's voice, are you getting why that is hysterical?

Karl Pilkington!

There's a little article about this hilarious man in today's NYT:

Karl Pilkington has debated the merits of eating a kangaroo's penis for breakfast, envisioned a wristwatch that counts down the time left in a person's life and proposed a new population control system in which elderly women give birth at the moment of their deaths. He has mused on topics ranging from caveman "bear pants" to dishwashers on Mars, and reported "news stories" about the triumphs of chimpanzees as bricklayers and television talk show hosts. In so doing, Mr. Pilkington, a 33-year-old unemployed radio producer from Manchester, England, has become the object of a global Internet cult, a Guinness world record-holder and the unlikely harbinger of a technological revolution.

Mr. Pilkington is the breakout star of "The Ricky Gervais Show," a podcast presided over by Mr. Gervais, the British comedian behind "The Office" and "Extras," and his co-writer and co-director, Stephen Merchant. In its brief, 12-episode run this winter, the program, available on the Web site of The Guardian (guardian.co.uk/rickygervais), has racked up nearly three million free downloads, the most ever for a podcast, according to the Guinness book. While these numbers reflect the international popularity of Mr. Gervais, the program's title is a bit misleading. The show is almost entirely devoted to the esoteric ramblings of Mr. Pilkington, whom Mr. Gervais has called both "the funniest man in Britain" and "that little bald-headed Manc idiot."

Of course, you've listened to these podcasts, haven't you? If not... you're so lucky! You have so much fun ahead of you. Gervais alone is great, but Gervais talking to Pilkington -- sublime!

I love the way the two are so completely dumb and smart at the same time. Like, in the 12th podcast, when they start talking about Wittgenstein's remark that if a lion could speak, we wouldn't be able to understand him. Gervais restates Wittgenstein's point so crisply that it's clear how smart Gervais is, and Pilkington starts down a thoroughly Pilkingtonesque line of thinking: it would depend on the lion, maybe you could understand a lion in the London zoo, better than a worm at least, what could a worm tell you, even if it is English, etc. It's so purely stupid, yet you'd have to be quite brilliant to be capable of saying it.

...

Somewhat related: I talk about that Wittgenstein quote, Koko the Gorilla, and Mardi Gras.