Movie Spoofs ‘R Us

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: The Life of Python

If there’s to be a series on humor, which for the last few weeks, if I’m not mistaken there has been, then it would be remiss to not mention one of the funniest comedy groups of the 20th century, Monty Python.

They were a British comedy group that created the influential Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC in October 1969. From there, the Python phenomenon developed into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical. The group’s influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles’ influence on music.

The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.

Their most current hit is the play Spamalot.

And so today, without further ado, are 10 of the funniest Monty Python sketches – of course, technically, the video at the top of the page, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, is not a sketch but instead a segment from their film, The Life of Brian, but if you promise not to tell, neither will I.

The Economics of Cows

Today, even though this series is about humor, I thought it would be important to have an economics lesson.

It’s important for all of us to have a firm grasp on economics because economics is vital to the world, so as a public service, here are some basics on economics – call it Economics 101 – using cows as a helpful aid.

Once you master the economics of cows, you’ll be well on your way to a Nobel Prize in economics.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM — You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION — You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

FRENCH CORPORATION — You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION — You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon(tm) and market them world-wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION — You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION — You have two cows. Both are mad.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION — You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION — You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION — You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A HINDU CORPORATION — You have two cows. You worship them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION — You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION — You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute.

ENRON CORPORATION — You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.

ARTHUR ANDERSON, LLC — You have 2 cows. You shred all documents that Enron has any cows, take 2 cows from Enron for payment for consulting the cows, and attest that Enron has 9 cows.

COWS.COM — You own two cows, so you send a business plan to 20 venture capital firms about how you can make money by giving away milk and selling ad space on the cartons. As the venture capital runs out, you issue an IPO based on your projections that your research team will develop new milking technology any day now. When your milking engineers tell you that they can’t get any more milk from a cow by working 60-hour weeks, you offer them more stock options if they’ll work 80-hour weeks solving the problem. The good engineers, who might actually have solved the problem, all work until their options vest, then retire, leaving you with junior engineers whose options all become wallpaper in another year when the company collapses and liquidates all its cows to a traditional dairy farm started by one of the old engineers.

DISNEY CORPORATION — You have two cows. They dance & sing.

MICROSOFT CORPORATION — You have two cows. You patent them and sue anyone else who has them.

HOLLYWOOD — You have two cows. You give them utter implants and also teach them to bullet-dodge, wall climb and shoot milk out of their utters on command.

ANARCHISM — You have two cows. The cows decide you have no right to do anything with their milk and leave to form their own society.

DEMOCRACY — You have two cows. They outvote you 2-1 to ban all meat and dairy products. You go bankrupt.

DEMOCRACY — AMERICAN: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk and then blame Japan while border guards beat up Mexicans sneaking into the country. People are outraged for a week or so and then go back to televised sports where there’s no violence.

LIBERTARIANISM — You have two cows. You let them do what they want.

MARXISM/LENINISM — The proletarian cows unite and overthrow the bourgeoisie cowherds. The egalitarian democratic cow revolutionary state with the cow party as vanguard disintegrate over time. Marx choked on a veggie-burger before he could explain what happens to the use-value, exchange-value and sign-value of bovine leather.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESSISM — You are associated with (the concept of “ownership” is a symbol of the phallocentric, warmongering, intolerant past) two differently aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of nonspecified gender.

SURREALISM — You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Separated at Birth?

Ok, we continue on with the humor series, now that you know that even with April Fool’s Day over, it’s still ok to laugh.

In fact, as I pointed out in yesterday’s article, humor and laughter is such an important part of life – it will keep you healthy, happy, joyous and fulfilled, and will keep you living a Low Density Lifestyle.

So today, let’s look at various well-known people who obviously were separated at birth from their twin. My hope is that this article, written purely as a public service, will help these twins reunite.

If any of you reading this know how to facilitate these reunions, please feel free to do so.

Lady Gaga and Wilson, the face painted on the volleyball by Tom Hanks, in the film Castaway.

Lady Gaga again, this time her hair, and a croquembouche dessert.

Lindsay Lohan, and Gollum, from Lord of the Rings.

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine.

Madonna, and a frog. Please note: in no way do we mean to disparage this frog, or any frog, for that matter.

Mel Gibson, and the Burger King.

Rush Limbaugh, and Balthazar, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Please note: in no way do we mean to disparage obese demons such as Balthazar, or vampire slayers, for that matter.

Singer Bonnie Tyler, of Total Eclipse of the Heart fame, and the Bride of Chucky.

Zac Efron, and a well-groomed dog. Please note: in no way do we mean to disparage dogs that are well-groomed, or like to wear toupees, for that matter.

Ok, got it? If you see any of these twins separately, please notify the proper authorities so they can be reunited.

April Fool’s is Over: Can I Still Laugh?

Ok, so you may have figured it out. The last article, And Now For Some Serious News, was not serious at all. It was a total April Fool’s joke.

And it was also a good way to kick off the new series, on laughter and humor. Because although April Fool’s is over, it’s still ok to laugh.

In fact, if we don’t have a good sense of humor, if we can’t laugh easily, and especially laugh at ourselves, we’re in deep doo-doo.

If you want to live a Low Density Lifestyle, and feel light of body, mind and spirit, then being able to laugh easily is something that will help you get there. That’s why laughter is an essential aspect of living a Low Density Lifestyle.

It’s well known that laughter is good for the health. In one of the most famous and well-documented cases of how laughter can be healing, Norman Cousins, who went on to write about his case in his best-selling book, Anatomy of an Illness, healed from a terminal illness by watching funny movies.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle viewed laughter as “a bodily exercise precious to health.”

Studies have shown that laughter drops the blood pressure and is linked to healthy function of blood vessels. Laughter appears to cause the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels, the endothelium, to dilate or expand in order to increase blood flow.

That makes sense, because when you laugh you can feel your body open up – this is the blood moving through the body and dilating blood vessels.

Other studies have shown that laughter can cause a drop in the blood’s concentration of the stress hormone cortisol. Because chronically elevated cortisol levels have been shown to weaken the immune system, this can help ward off disease.

And other experiments have indicated that laughter increases the activity of immune cells called natural killer cells in the saliva of healthy subjects.

Psychologists and mental health experts have also found that laughter and comedy can be a remedy for stress, depression, or just feeling down.

Laughter can also help with pain. As early as 1928, New York physician James J. Walsh noticed that laughter seemed to dampen pain after surgery. Since then, research has indicated that humor can have painkilling properties. One 1996 study demonstrated that patients who watched funny movies needed less of their mild painkillers after orthopedic surgery than did patients who viewed serious flicks or nothing at all.

In addition to suppressing pain, being funny and cheerful can cultivate friendships. Cheerful people have a lighthearted interaction style that facilitates bonding closely with others and builds social support.

So, over the course of this series, be prepared to laugh! (Even if the jokes aren’t that funny, laugh anyway to humor me.)

The Poetry of Leonard Cohen

I end this inaugural week of 2010, and the poetry articles that ushered in the year – as a way to help get us in a Low Density Lifestyle frame of mind – with the words of a master poet, Leonard Cohen.

Cohen, born in 1934, is a well-known singer-songwriter and author of many classic songs, including “Suzanne,” “Sisters of Mercy,” “Hallelujah,” “So Long Marianne,” “Who By Fire,” and “Everybody Knows.”

A few months I wrote an entire article about Leonard Cohen because of his fascinating life journey – the article was called The Spiritual Odyssey of Leonard Cohen.

He is truly a gifted individual and it’s safe to say, an icon.

At the top of the page, you can view his spoken word poem, A Thousand Kisses Deep. Here are the words to the poem:

Don’t matter if the road is long
Don’t matter if it’s steep
Don’t matter if the moon is gone
And the darkness is complete
Don’t matter if we lose our way
It’s written that we’ll meet
At least, that’s what I heard you say
A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
You see, I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second hand physique
With all he is and all he was
A thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me
I know you had to cheat
You learned it on your father’s knee
And at your mother’s feet
But did you have to fight your way
Across the burning street
When all our vital interests lay
A thousand kisses deep

I’m turning tricks
I’m getting fixed
I’m back on boogie street
I’d like to quit the business
But I’m in it, so to speak
The thought of you is peaceful
And the file on you complete
Except what I forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep

Don’t matter if you’re rich and strong
Don’t matter if you’re weak
Don’t matter if you write a song
The nightingales repeat
Don’t matter if it’s nine to five
Or timeless and unique
You ditch your life to stay alive
A thousand kisses deep

The ponies run
The girls are young
The odds are there to beat
You win a while, and then it’s done
Your little winning streak
And summon now to deal with your invincible defeat
You live your life as if it’s real
A thousand kisses deep

I hear their voices in the wine
That sometimes did me seek
The band is playing Auld Lang Syne
But the heart will not retreat
There’s no forsaking what you love
No existential leap
As witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep

And here are some additional Leonard Cohen videos:

The first video is Cohen doing his haunting and beautiful hymn, Hallelujah. Of this song Leonard Cohen says, “It’s, as I say, a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion…. It’s a rather joyous song.”

The second is of singer/pianist Allison Crowe performing the same song – it’s really an amazing performance that will truly touch your soul. Many people have done this song; it was Rufus Wainwright’s version that was featured in the movie Shrek.

And the third video is of Leonard Cohen singing Who by Fire. The song features a saxophone introduction by the legendary sax player Sonny Rollins.

Have No Fear! We’re Ringing in the New Year With Poetry Far and Near

To start the New Year, I thought it would be a nice and very Low Density Lifestyle thing to do to usher it in with poetry.

We first heard from poet David Tucker, and then the next day we heard from Susan Jefts.

Today I offer a collection of poets who offer poems for the new year.

These are poems of optimism and hope. And that’s the best way to ring in the new year – to be full of optimism and hope.

First up is poet Kim Addonizio with her poem “New Year’s Day,” in which she finds a blessing where few would think to look for it:

Today I want
to resolve nothing.

I only want to walk
a little longer in the cold

blessing of the rain,
and lift my face to it.

Next up is poet Margaret Avison with her deftly written “New Year’s Poem,” in which she finds a new appreciation for home and her own space:

Gentle and just pleasure
It is, being human, to have won from space
This unchill, habitable interior
Which mirrors quietly the light
Of the snow, and the new year.

Next we have poet Philip Appleman, who finds beauty in an unlikely event in “To the Garbage Collectors in Bloomington, Indiana, the First Pickup of the New Year”:

O garbage men,
the New Year greets you like the Old;
after this first run you too may rest
in beds like great warm aproned laps
and know that people everywhere have faith:
putting from them all things of this world,
they confidently bide your second coming.

And last, we have poet Susan Elizabeth Howe’s poem about New Year’s optimism undeterred by some bad news from a fortune cookie. Here’s an excerpt from “Your Luck Is About to Change”:

Ominous inscrutable Chinese news
to get just before Christmas,
considering my reasonable health,
marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan,
career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet.
Not bad, considering what can go wrong:
the bony finger of Uncle Sam
might point out my husband,
my own national guard,
and set him in Afghanistan;
my boss could take a personal interest;
the pain in my left knee could spread to my right.
Still, as the old year tips into the new,
I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking
his legs in the air. I won’t give in…

The Poetic Nature of Life

Yesterday’s article, Onto a New Year, was the first of the new year. I said in the article how I wanted to start the new year off in a Low Density Lifestyle kind of way, by featuring poetry all week long.

In yesterday’s article, I featured poetry by David Tucker. Today’s article brings a new guest poet, Susan Jefts.

You may remember Susan from a few weeks ago, when she guest wrote the article, Life is Poetry.

Susan is back today with some poetry to help get us in a Low Density Lifestyle mood, to help us feel lighter of mind, body and spirit.

And if we were to have any type of New Year’s resolutions, that should be it – to feel lighter.

And so, without further ado, here are some poems, by Susan Jefts.

BARDO* OVER THE HUDSON

Words. Born out of vibrating air
at West 26th street, air of myth and poetry.
Words. Some danced patterns for me outside
on the sidewalk as I headed toward midtown.
Words. I ran into more the next day
below the Columbus statue in Central Park,
arranging themselves on purple pansies that
startled me out of any remaining winter.
Words, hanging languidly outside the window
at Café Europa, their fairy bodies hovering
between creme brulée and Carnegie Hall.

Words, at the wide throat of the Hudson
as my train rambles northward. These words
flicker like unborn fireflies unversed
in the art of direction, or rhythm, or sound.
They are the ones I want.
These in between words, lingering low in that
bardo like place, the sacred gap the mystics so honor.
Here, that place floats on smoky mist over the Hudson.
Air between Gotham and Lake Tear of the Clouds,
life receiving and life giving,
Between being and becoming,
the word, the image,
Poetry.

*Bardo: a word of Eastern origin describing the continuous state of oscillation between certainty and uncertainty, bewilderment and insight, that characterizes all of life, a state that by its nature creates gaps, spaces in which profound chances and opportunities for transformation are continuously flowering – if they can be seen and seized.
Tricycle Magazine, winter 2001

NIGHT FLIGHT IN VERMONT

I am looking for poems tonight.
I’ve just pulled one from this leather couch
and another has risen from my jasmine tea.
There is at least one written along the white ridge
of the mountain visible from the window
and another along its gradual southern slope.
I think about the one I can’t see
where the mountain meets the valley
and the valley, the village,
or perhaps it’s a river and
the wild moan of the trees. The gasp
of the night owl on her flight
through the black and ash pattern of the forest
under the broken light of the moon
that leads to an open field,
a small lit farm and the rise of a hill.
Winter appears there as in a Chagall,
blue horses in the field rise up, float with candles
in the heavens, drift back down to the river -
river sacred swirling myth that flows from
the once golden valley, from the mountain
that sits like a chapel, reflected light
and a pinnacle of breath.

WHAT REMAINS

Late afternoon

two days after Christmas

snow has fallen.

A carol sounds from the kitchen:

Greensleeves.

The carol stays with me

and Christmas drifts further away.

What remains is this.

Silence after snow,

long blue shadows,

a white farmhouse

and not far off,

a stand of evergreens.

BEFORE COFFEE

I don’t know how to put together

the world again, I can’t stop

the February rain. But I know

these few moments this morning -

before thought

before coffee,

when words are starlings

flitting in and out of my mind

and all I know is this space inside

that feels a little

like God – nothing to fill,

nothing to say,

just this pause

this place

before poetry.

AT THE RUBIN MUSEUM

The Bon people of the Himalayas believe a little imbalance is a good thing and portray this in their art. Everything is a little off, on purpose, and everything is needed and everything is good.

Snow dragons above

lotus to the left

mandala in the middle.

Always

unity and blossoming mind.

Snow dragon says

wrath and fire

peace inside.

The yin and the yang

the four directions

the wrathful one and the protector.

Fear and love

all inside the lotus.

Onto a New Year

Happy New Year! And may it be a Low Density Lifestyle year, all year long.

I want to start the year in a nice way. No, I won’t be talking about New Year’s resolutions. That you see written and talked about all over the place, so I won’t bore you with that kind of thing.

Instead, I want to start the year off right, in a Low Density Lifestyle kind of way. For this entire week, before I begin writing on a specific series, which I will do next week, I will feature poetry.

Life is Poetry – poetry can make us feel lighter of body, mind and spirit, and often can speak to our soul. It talks to us in ways that prose often cannot, in rhythms and cadences that can reverberate and resonate with our deepest longings.

It can also help us be more in touch with the innate low density nature we all carry within. It is this instinct that propels us forward in life; it is a natural drive we all have, one that desires happiness, love, joy and peace.

Unfortunately, it gets muddied up and lost. And it is poetry that can help us find it.

And so, each day of this week we’ll hear from a different poet.

Today’s poet is David Tucker. I’ll let David tell you about himself:

“I am a poet who lives in Vermont where I struggle to dig from the rock of mundanity formed by the details and disappointments of life the images that will startle us and remind us how we are connected to each other and to all the universe.”

Here are some poems of David’s, to help us ring in the New Year and put us in a Low Density Lifestyle frame of mind.

David’s email address is davidshawnee@mac.com.

To Learn How to Love

It is so beautiful,
this life,
the sun,
Vermont,
evening creeping in
over the Green Mountains.

It is light,
sweet,
so beautiful,
this life,
that we are given
that we might
learn how to love.

A simple lesson
I cannot catch.
A lovely butterfly
too light and quick.
For weeks now
I grab
and cannot hold
how beautiful,
how sweet,
how light
is this life
we learn
how to love.

As the Morning Glory
buckles into the night
I crumple into
fear,
anger,
darkness.
I think
I may die soon.
I think
How quickly it passes.
I think
What have I accomplished?
I think
It is not fair.
I have forgotten.
I came here
to learn how to love
and
in the evening light,
in the sweet approach of night,
I remember,
this minute
is enough,
to love
is what I came to learn.
It is enough.

Sabbath,
For Catherine

I woke this morning
paused
only a minute,
ate a tiny slice of peace,
sipped a thimble of light,
jumped up
and put on
my harness,
walked to the field,
head down,
up to the plow,
snapped on the line,
flexed my thighs
and prepared to pull.

Then stopped,
staring at the clods
and broken sod.
What, oh Creator
do you have planned
for me
today?
Pulling this plow
is my idea.

I looked up,
unsnapped the line
and
suddenly
the air was full
of butterflys,
cobalt blue wings
with
eyes as gold
as daffodils.
I broke up
the plow and made a drum.
We danced,
stepping and leaping
on the hard ground,
broke it into velvet loam.
Ready
to receive
the seed.

Meditation

You cannot trap

the sunshine

or

capture love

Maybe

for a minute

or a night

but

time

always shows up

cuts their chains

and

they escape

into the hills

Relax

stop pushing

let it go

let it all go

There is a trap door

in the top

of every second

Lift

Enter

The Gods will pour

cups of quiet

tap the drum of peace

fish diamonds from your soul

and

kiss the scales

off your eyes

till

you see

this is the only place

your enemy

time

cannot enter

to steal

your sunshine

and

your love.

Living the Good Life, and the Idle Life

I continue on with this series What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like? with an interesting take on living a relaxed, very Low Density Lifestyle life, courtesy of English journalist Tom Hodgkinson.

This is an interview that comes courtesy of the website Good. Good is a collaboration of individuals, businesses and nonprofits pushing the world forward.

Tom Hodgkinson runs the website The Idler and is an advocate of the good life as the idle life. He thinks the way to happiness is to be a loafer.

Tom Hodgkinson’s books sometimes end up in bookstores’ self-help sections. That would make How to Be Idle and The Freedom Manifesto the only books to advocate dropping out of consumer society, ditching urban life, anarchy, bread baking, beer drinking, and generally living like it’s the Middle Ages. As co-founder and editor of The Idler magazine, Hodgkinson champions laziness, hedonism, thrift and a freewheeling DIY approach to life. Let him tell it, and it’s the key to a more ecologically sound future.

GOOD: You’re a known critic of consumer society, so tell us: what have you purchased yourself, lately?

Tom Hodgkinson: I try not to buy anything beyond beer, bacon, and books. Generally, though, I find that the older, the better. I did buy a painted pine bookcase recently from the local antique shop, which is very useful and beautiful.

Good: What’s your take on the global financial crisis?

T.H.: I am feeling very cheerful, to the point of smugness, about it. As someone who has no shares, no stocks, no bonds, no insurance policies, no pensions, and no money, I am feeling very safe. Money is for spending, not saving. I think average people should respond with great joy. At last, what businessmen used to call the “real world” has been exposed as imaginary. Perhaps what businessmen used to call a dream world—poetry, nature, God, the spirit, music, contemplation, books and good conversation—will now be seen as the “real world.”

Good: Just after the first major government bank bailouts were announced, you wrote that all that money would be better spent giving everyone an acre of land. What would we do with it?

T.H.: With just an acre of land a family of five or six can provide a huge amount of their food needs. You can keep animals and grow fruit and vegetables. This was the thinking behind Distributism, a political idea of the 1920s put about by Catholic intellectuals such as G. K. Chesterton. They saw a return to a medieval-style system where families combined smallholding with another source of income. Smallholding is enjoyable, useful, reconnects you with nature, is therapeutic, keeps you fit and healthy and is enormously satisfying. The quality of the produce is far higher than the products of the industrialized food system. You can also do more or less of it as circumstances change. A large garden in the city, or even a terrace, can be used to grow delicious food.

Good: Yes, you’ve written quite a bit in praise of the Middle Ages—in fact, you argue they were sort of a golden age of social justice and sustainability. Really? That’s not how most people think of them.

T.H.: We have been taught the negative version of the Middle Ages by the people who replaced them, the Puritans and Protestants. If you want to replace an existing system with your new system, then you need to besmirch the previous system. The idea we carry around in our minds of the Middle Ages is a ridiculous caricature. Just think about the beauty of the cathedrals—are they really a product of the Dark Ages? They outstrip the Empire State Building in terms of beauty by a million miles. The medieval economic system, interestingly, was against lending money at interest and it was for fixed prices. You were not allowed to undercut your fellow worker or manufacturer. In a sense the system was opposite to ours: It valued community over individuality, and precisely guarded against the kind of collapse that unrestrained competition has led to.

Good: To turn to modern times for a moment, what do you think of the whole “sustainability” trend?

T.H.: Three years ago, business hated anything “green.” Then they realized that it was simply a new market, and therefore great news. What sustainability really means is growing your own vegetables. It means wood not plastic, composting toilets, chickens in the yard. It means fun and a different kind of life—not just swapping one brand for another.

Good: In The Freedom Manifesto, you urge readers to “stop consuming and start producing.” What’s that mean?

T.H.: In practical terms it means rediscovering our ability to make things, like bread, jam and clothes. Instead of buying everything, grow stuff, make stuff—rediscover the lost arts of husbandry. When you cut down your need for money in this way, you cut down your need for work, leading to more idleness all round. Look at Cuba today. Look at the U.K. during the Second World War. You can supply for yourself a lot more of the things that you need.

Good: But Cuba is dirt poor. Is that what you’re advocating?

T.H.: I just want to say that living on modest means is not necessarily a bad thing. Thrift can be creative. I don’t really care whether people are rich or poor: the thing really is your approach to life. I just happen to think that promoting the idea of being rich is ridiculous, because only a few people can be rich, whereas many can live on modest incomes. So to me it makes a lot of practical sense to promote, not poverty, exactly, but the ability to live well on small incomes.

Good: Is that what you mean in The Freedom Manifesto, when you urge readers to “Reject Career”? Do you think people should give up work and all the ambition that goes with it?

T.H.: It is not so much work per se that I am against, but rather work for someone else and work that you don’t enjoy. I work quite hard, about four hours a day, but I do things that I enjoy. How can we reclaim work for ourselves, and make it something joyful and creative? As for aspirations, I think that to aspire to real freedom in everyday life should replace the aspiration to make a lot of money.

Good: A final question, and an important one: you’ve suggested that people should buy ukuleles. Um, why?

T.H.: I don’t really believe that anyone should do anything. But having said that, I personally have derived a huge amount of pleasure from learning the uke. They are better than iPods. I play Woody Guthrie songs and the Beatles. Kids can play it, and it’s elegant for the ladies: think Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. They are very cheap and very portable, and they’ve got that fun-loving Hawaiian vibe. You can have one on your desk and practice while waiting for large downloads. Try it: Take a uke to work.

Tom Hodgkinson’s most recent book, The Freedom Manifesto, is available from Harper Perennial. His website is http://idler.co.uk/.

The website Good is located at http://www.good.is/

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