Reinterpret the great existential masters!
Submit your own reinterpretation.
Submissions so far:
41. German imagines Sartre living in Compton:
“Hell is other peeps.”
40. C. J. Kershner tells us the following: As a jaded young person who is tired and discontent with the society into which he has been so cruelly thrust, I feel it is my right, nay my duty, to give you my take on Nietzsche:
“Life is a mistake.”
It’s a rather dramatic reinterpretation of his quote, “Without music, life would be a mistake.” But I like it dammit, and that’s good enough for me.
39. A fellow named “Mandas” mixes it up:
“Thank God I’m an atheist.”
38. Elmo, from Sydney, puts a cautionary spin on Churchill / Roosevelt / Lincoln and all the other people this quote has been attributed to:
“We have nothing to fear, but not fearing itself.”
37. “Malingered” on Sartre’s chef:
“Existence precedes essence of chicken.”
36. Colleen Carroll riffs off of can-you-guess-who?:
“We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are — that is the bitch.”
35. Jennifer Kelly pops pop-psych:
“If I have one more character building experience to work through, I’ll become a schizophrenic.”
34. Michael Adamson puts the dialectic back in Jesus:
“Seek and ye shall not find anything but your own projections.”
33. Azlan Ibrahim chanced upon an early draft of Wallace Stevens’ Metaphors of a Magnifico:
“Twenty men crossing a bridge into a village,
Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges into twenty villages,
Ah, if only there had been a toll.”
32. J. Maynard Presley recasts the opening line of Camus’ The Stranger:
“My dog died yesterday; or was it my cat?”
31. In Nathan Bruynzeel’s alternate history of philosophy, Descartes discovers sex mid-career:
“Coital ergo sum.”
30. Joshua Perdue changes Bataille, but only slightly:
“I have not meant to express a thought but to help you clarify that you yourself do not think.”
29. Megan Riordan re-figures Spinoza:
“Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand. Then exploit the hell out of it.”
28. Stef Maruch, put Carpe Diem through one of those Latin-to-English on-line translation services, and got:
“Fish for ten cents.”
27. An ANONYMOUS government employee, goes after Socrates:
“I know that I know only enough to keep this job, and keep you waiting in line.”
26. Kristen Haynes confuses DesCARTes with a lunch CART:
“Rosito ergo yum (I’m pink, therefore I’m ham).”
25. Karl Lind reworks Nietzsche:
“We are all greater bullshit artists than we realize.”
24. In our first meta-interpretation, SAFH100 offers (Matt) Hanson’s reinterpretation the guy [see #2, above] who reinterpreted Samuel Beckett:
“I can’t go on. I’ll go on. Are you going to eat that?.”
23. Anthony Notoary , self-described backslidden devotee of the abyss, makes the last line from Camus’ The Stranger, even stranger:
“For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of news reporters, corporate sponsors and Hollywood producers and that they greet me with sensationalism, licensing agreements and development deals.” [see original quote]
22. Renee Riddle de- or re- paradoxifies Robert Frost:
“The best way out is out.”
21. Chris Caruso re-boots Sartre:
“Things are entirely what they appear to be and behind them…there is Bill Gates.”
20. Laurie Stewart imagines Hamlet with early Alzheimers:
“To be, or not to be….What was the question?”
19. Christine Lorenz gives us a more practical take on Wittgenstein’s conclusion to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must change the subject to something we can all enjoy.”
18. Michael Goetz gives us Contempo MacBeth:
“Life is a tale told by a telepundit, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
17. Laurie Stewart :
“The value of any Solution to a Problem can be guaged by how quickly the Solution becomes a Problem.”
16. K.D. Williamson (I’m not sure if this is about hunter-gatherer societies or domestic violence):
“That which does not kill me makes me dinner.”
15. Nu Magic has Wayne & Garth channelling Descartes:
“I think therefore I am. Not!”
14. Angele Ellis re-interprets Nietzsche in light of recent findings from post-traumatic stress research:
“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stranger.”
13. Gabriel J Shapiro packs Nietzsche off to the suburbs:
“In times of grease, a warlike man sets upon the barbecue.”
12. Doris Lajoie, in lieu of Tempus Fugit (time flies):
“Tempus…Fuck-It!”
11. Victoria Herd has Sartre and Harlan Ellison over for the game:
“In your most insignificant actions, there is an enormous amount of television watching.”
10. Randy Urbano gives Descartes a Buddhist/nihilistic turn:
“I am enlightened, therefore I am not.”
9. Liz Buckley, self-described housewife:
“When the going gets surreal, the surreal get paid.”
8. Leslee Trammell :
“There is a Pope, but not for us.” (Kafka, during his brief and historically overlooked flirtation with Presbyterianism)
7. Andrew Cornell reconfigures Nietzsche for the current recession:
“When you look long into the abyss, the abyss will look into your credit rating.”
6. Valerie Greet reinterprets Pogo for the post-9/11 world:
“We have met the enemy and he is us. Now, how do we keep him out of the country?”
5. Pablo Zumarán, from Brazil:
“Hell is older people.” (Sartre, at 5)
4. David Huckle, 15 years old, rephrases Nietzsche for his generation:
“Christians wish sex wasn’t fun, because it would make sin seem impossible, and turn hell into a legend.” [see original quote]
3. James Schumann, AKA Xenopscylla Cheopis, undoes 400 years of Cartesian rationality:
Cogito ergo eh* (I think therefore so what)
*eh, feh, ech, ecch, [bl]ech; a guttural sound of indifference.
2. Michael Barrish has updated the end to Beckett’s trilogy:
“I can’t go on. I’ll go on. What’s up with that?”
1. The Lee Winkelman Corrollary (to Nietzsche):
“What doesn’t kill you, could very easily maim you.”
