2-BSide

Whatever 
someone 
may 
think 
about 
his 
humor, 
a 
person’s reaction to an episode 
of “The Eric Andre Show” is a 
surprisingly effective way to 
gauge their personality. I won’t 
quite go so far as to judge you 
based on your reaction, but I 
can, in a way that’s difficult 
to articulate, get to know you 
beyond 
a 
superficial 
level 
(although I will say if you 
guffaw the same way I do after 
watching a specific segment for 
the 10th time, we will probably 
be friends). Borrowing from 
a rich tradition of absurdist 
humor ranging from Monty 
Python to “Rosencrantz and 
Guildenstern are Dead,” Eric 
Andre’s work is the most 
successful form of absurdism 
in the internet and pop culture 
age.
There is a wealth of options 
for the discerning late-night 
viewer. Too many options, 
really. While each variation 
of the format has their own 
unique 
“made-for-Youtube” 
segments, they are really all 
too similar. The tropes of 
straight white men making 
just barely witty jokes, offering 

milquetoast interviews with 
celebrities who would rather be 
anywhere else and squandering 
opportunities 
with 
actually 
interesting guests make for 
a steady stream of cash for 
networks, but offer little in the 
way of substance 
for 
viewers. 
Every once in a 
while, you might 
just 
become 
completely 
fed 
up with the self-
importance of it 
all.
Enter 
Eric 
Andre. 
Perhaps 
the best way to 
describe 
“The 
Eric 
Andre 
Show” 
is 
a 
deconstruction 
of 
this 
tired 
format. It’s like 
watching Jimmy 
Kimmel, 
except 
you just flipped 
on the new TV in 
the Red Room in 
“Twin Peaks” while tripping 
on acid. It lies in an uncanny 
valley of late night talk shows. 
For the first five seconds or 
so, everything seems normal. 
Eric 
Andre 
himself 
seems 
charming 
enough, 
sitting 
behind a desk holding note 
cards. There’s a live band. The 

audience is clapping (well, kind 
of). There’s the straight man 
played by Hannibal Buress who 
seems funny enough to riff off 
the host’s jokes. So far, so good.
And usually, it all falls 
apart in a glorious, symphonic 
trainwreck. 
Every 
single 
aspect 
of 
the 
show 
is 
designed 
to 
make 
the 
guest 
as 
uncomfortable 
as possible. At 
this point, there 
are either two 
reactions: 
You 
either feel as 
uncomfortable 
as the guest, or 
you decide that 
this is the best 
thing you have 
ever 
watched. 
Reportedly, 
the studio has 
a 
conspicuous 
lack 
of 
air 
conditioning. There might be 
a musky smell permeating the 
place as well, or even “heat 
ducts in (the guest’s) seats.” 
Andre 
might 
strip 
naked, 
puke over his desk or suspend 
a man with hooks over the 
desk — whatever it takes to 
completely horrify the guests. 

Even Hannibal is in tune with 
him, whether he is shouting at 
Christina Applegate or getting 
verbally assaulted by a woman 
from the crowd (before getting 
slapped by said woman’s wig).
For 
the 
most 
part, 
the 
guests seem to end the show 
contemplating 
firing 
their 
publicists. Unlike the usual 
round of late night shows, 
guests are never coddled or 
worshipped. 
It 
makes 
you 
wonder what exactly would 
happen if some of the truly 
repulsive 
figures 
who 
end 
up on the normal talk shows 
appeared with Eric Andre (à 
la Sacha Baron Cohen in “Who 
is America”). But every once 
in a while, a Tyler the Creator 
shows up — that is, someone 
who 
understands, 
embraces 
and completely flips the shows 
format on its head, reducing 
Andre to be more akin to 
Jimmy Fallon than his usual, 
irreverent self.
But 
maybe 
the 
true 
brilliance of the show is that 
I am completely wrong. There 
may be no method whatsoever 
to Eric Andre’s madness, and 
if so, more power to him. I just 
hope that in a world where 
reality seems just as absurd 
as the wildest fictions ever 
conceived, he can find ways to 
continue shocking us.

6B — Thursday, September 13, 2018
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

You are about to begin 
reading 
the 
latest 
edition 
of the B-Side on absurd art. 
Or, depending on the layout, 
maybe this is the last article 
you came across. At the time 
this article was written, it was 
only a flood of pixels, one trip 
down the waterfall of edits 
away from print. The author 
was aware that according to 
convention, usually the lead 
article reigns supreme from 
the upper left of the first 
page. 
Nonsense 
like 
what 
you 
are 
currently 
reading 
would be lucky to be shuffled 
between 
the 
intermediary 
pages. The author still leaves 
the possibility open for you 
to fatally flip to page three 
on your first read. It is also 
possible that the chiefest of 
nonsense 
takes 
precedence 
in an insert dedicated to 
nonsense.
Take a moment to take 
in your surroundings. The 
classroom chatter is enough 
to 
slightly 
obstruct, 
forcing you to 
make a choice: 
Finish reading 
this 
article 
or 
prepare 
yourself 
for 
class with the 
one 
minute 
you have left. 
You 
opt 
for 
the 
latter 
(a 
smart decision, 
as 
reading 
a 
crinkly 
newspaper 
is 
complicated 
to do covertly) 
and 
your 
professor 
suddenly 
manifests into 
the 
cramped, 
windowless 
room. 
How, 
you 
ask? 
Your 
questions 
remained 
unanswered as the lights dim 
and the projector whirs.
“I have eaten the plums” 
is all you can make out. You 
crane your neck around the six 
feet of human in front of you to 
read the text that has spilled 
onto the blackboard. It seems 
orientation has been thrown 
out the window. But there is no 
window, thankfully, because if 
there was a window, the birds 
would sing tempting songs 
of 
self-defenestration 
from 
their unimpeded pedestals. 
You, the prisoner pawn, sit 
flanked 
by 
that 
unusually 
tall bishop and fellow fodder, 
while the opposing queen plots 
unflinchingly.
The 
invisible 
hands 
controlling the standoff begin 
to budge, albeit apathetically. 
The 
presentation 
on 
the 
absence of convention and form 
in literature switches slides 
slowly in the background. 
You find it funny that this 
theoretical warden has the 
gall to confine you when they 
have 
never 
been 
confined 
themselves. 
Intrinsically, 
they are free. You are not. 
Your professor, the eightfold 
master of the checkerboard, 
initiates her strike. Ramble of 
how abandoning form is form 
itself soundtracks this scheme. 
Fell swoop. 12:51. You and your 
monochromatic 
compatriots 
lay prostrate on the battlefield 
of irony.
This article has become 
crumpled 
in 
your 
hurried 
attempts to fashion the insert 
back to its virginal state. 
You put all your focus into 
these words. Except the only 
words that can excite you are 
“RESTROOMS.” The helpful 
arrow indicating their position 
extends seemingly infinitely. 
The stall door flies open as 
fast as your belt unbuckles. 
You think to yourself that The 
Thinker looks like he’s shitting 
and 
everything 
amusingly 
swirls 
together. 
Lecture 
keywords buzz through your 
mind, but where to store them 
provides a challenge.
The Encyclopedia Of Songs 

That You Almost Completely 
Know Lyrically But Don’t Bust 
Your Pipes Out In The Car 
Around Friends Quite Yet? The 
Encyclopedia Of Very Basic 
Video Tutorials For Everyday 
Human Processes (Featuring 
Such Hits as, “How To Boil 
Water” and “Practicing Eye 
Contact”)? The Encyclopedia 
Of Life Lessons That Came 
As A Result Of Getting In 
Trouble With Your Parents? 
The 
Encyclopedia 
Of 
Misremembered 
“National 
Treasure” 
Quotes? 
The 
Encyclopedia Of Menu Item 
Numbers At Takeout Places 
Within A Three Mile Radius?
You settle on Volume Three 
of the Encyclopedia Of Literary 
Terms 
You 
Incorporate 
Into Colloquy And Writing 
To 
Make 
Yourself 
Appear 
Smarter Than You Really Are 
(of which the author has a full 
set). Metafiction fits in nicely 
above metonymy.
With a clear mind and 
clearer body, you head home 
for your sweet midday nap. You 
are at peace. Instantaneously, 
your meditative state of mind 
is marred when 
an ugly stack of 
dishes 
greets 
your arrival. You 
angrily 
ponder 
the notion that 
your 
roommate 
actually believes 
you don’t need 
soap 
to 
clean 
pans. 
Boiling 
like a tea kettle, 
steam billows out 
of your ears quite 
cartoonishly. 
You need to cool 
in the calming 
waters of your 
most 
cherished 
story, 
“Pierre 
Menard, Author 
of the Quixote.”
The 
author 
wonders why you, 
someone 
who 
prefers chess-fueled escapism 
over English class, would have 
a leather-bound copy of “The 
Garden of Forking Paths.” 
You and the author share a 
common 
bond: 
Questions 
remain unanswered.
Perhaps you like reading 
books that aren’t really books 
and don’t like listening to 
people talk about books that 
aren’t really books. You hate 
structure anyways, evidenced 
by the fact “Pale Fire” and 
“Hopscotch” top the pile of 
books sandwiched in a corner. 
You prefer function over form; 
functionally, the corner is a 
bookshelf.
Chapters 
and 
three-
act structure are tools of 
oppression. 
Liberation, 
in 
your eyes, is the shirking of 
oppression. In absurdity, you 
find normality.
You 
realize 
that 
Jorge 
Luis Borges found normality 
in absurdity as well. So did 
Vladimir 
Nabokov. 
Julio 
Cortázar. 
William 
Carlos 
Williams. In your attempt to 
subvert normality, a new norm 
was established. The walls of 
your room are closing in. In 
a flurry of motion, you grab 
your copy of Italo Calvino’s “If 
on a winter’s night a traveler” 
from the middle of your stack, 
an absurd stack, as infinite as 
the Library of Babel housed in 
that aforementioned favorite 
leather tome of yours. The 
balance is upset and its weight 
is enough to crush you, if not 
for your nimbleness. The world 
around you is vanishing, like 
the letters on the last page of 
that Calvino book you grabbed 
after you spilled water on it.
It takes the first word of 
“traveler” to realize that your 
shackles are drawn in ink. 
You are bound to this page of 
the B-Side as you were bound 
to the classroom. You are the 
reader. I am the author. While 
these pages are set in type, 
the nature of our relationship 
is not. Perhaps one day these 
roles will be reversed. For 
now, you’re still fiddling with 
this flimsy paper. Classmates 
chatter 
closely. 
The 
clock 
strikes noon.

One thousand 
and one words

ROBERT MANSUETTI
Daily Arts Writer

Eric Andre and cringe comedy

SAYAN GHOSH
Daily Arts Writer

There may be 
no method 
whatsoever to 
Eric Andre’s 
madness, and if 
so, more power to 
him.

TV NOTEBOOK

COMEDY CENTRAL

BOOKS NOTEBOOK?

SINGLE REVIEW: ‘ELECTRICITY’

“Electricity”

Dua Lipa

Warner Bros. 
Records

WARNER BROS RECORDS

Somehow, 
we 
as 
a collective have not 
dropped 
Dua 
Lipa 
quite yet.
The English singer/
songwriter first rose 
to 
attention 
with 
“New Rules,” a driving 
pop anthem that was 

made distinct by Dua 
Lipa’s curiously husky, 
soulful voice. From 
there, she remained 
steady, always existing 
within the public eye 
with consistent music 
releases — like her “One 
Kiss” 
collaboration 

with Calvin Harris — 
but never reaching the 
same level of attention 
as she did with “New 
Rules.”
In a similar sense, 
her 
newest 
single, 
“Electricity,” 
doesn’t 
veer far from her norm. 

Teaming up with Silk City — a 
music duo consisting of Mark 
Ronson and Diplo — she has 
created what was created with 
“One Kiss,” and what could be 
argued was created with “New 
Rules”: a dancefloor smash hit, 
and nothing more.
With Lipa’s vocals layered 
over 
Silk 
City’s 
predictable 
pop algorithm, “Electricity” is 
unsurprising, yet not terrible. 
It does what it’s meant to 
accomplish. The tempo is fast 
enough to make your hips start 
swaying of their own accord. The 
piano interspersed throughout 
the song adds an effervescent 
quality to contrived house beats. 
The lyrics, “I wanted to let you 
know, I’ll never let this feeling 
go” are just catchy enough to 
scream in the middle of Rick’s, 
the pulsating bodies all around 
adding to the electricity of the 
song itself.
It does its job well and with 
that, I guess Dua Lipa is sticking 
around for a little bit longer. 
-Shima 
Sadaghiyani, 
Daily 
Music Editor

You are about to 
begin reading 
the latest edition 
of the B-Side on 
absurd art. Or, 
depending on the 
layout, maybe this 
is the last article 
you came across