19 March 2006

Butter butter butter

People say that they don't like Aaron Sorkin's writing on The West Wing because “who talks like that?” But I swear, we have conversations like this all the time at my office:

C.J.
I don’t get it. How can you not want to see the butter cow?

TOBY
I’m that way.

C.J.
There’s also a butter Elvis and a butter Last Supper, which has, I swear to God, Toby...

TOBY
Butter on the table?

C.J.
It’s got butter on the table right there between butter James and butter Peter. An almost mind-blowing vortex of art and material that dares the viewers to recall Marcel Duchamp.

TOBY
How do they keep it from melting?

C.J.
How indeed.

In the other end of the passageway, when Toby gets his coffee, Nancy walks up.

NANCY
Toby, you have a phone call in the staff cabin.

TOBY
Thank you.

They walk back to the staff cabin.

C.J.
Butter, butter, butter, butter, butter, butter, butter.

Toby picks up the phone.

MAN
[on the phone] Mr. Ziegler, this is Signal Operator Number 41. I have a call from Mr. Seaborn in the White House.

TOBY
Thank you.

C.J.
Duchamp is the father of Dadaism.

TOBY
I know.

C.J.
The dada of Dada.

TOBY
It’s like there’s nothing you can do about that joke. It’s coming, and you just have to stand there.

C.J.
The cow made of butter? That’s how I like my irony served, my friend.

I bring this up because a) C.J. is one of the sexiest fictional characters ever, and b) I just found a page with pictures of the butter Last Supper. It's real!

1 comment:

Erik said...

I find that the dialogue in Brian Michael Bendis' comic book Powers has a similar flow to it.

Mind you, it also has cops. And superpowers.