The importance of the absurd

Jonathan Routh died in Jamaica last week where he lived with his wife in a house without running water or electricity.  He spent his days painting, and his evenings in one of the local restaurants where he often paid for his meal with one of his paintings.  He was English, most well known to the British as the television presenter who made Candid Camera a success. 

His great gift to mankind was to make liberal use of an unsurpassed sense of the absurd.  He once sold a woman in a tea shop two “valuable left-handed teacups,” and organized a totally silent concert at Wigmore Hall (for those of you who are not familiar with Wigmore, it is one of London’s serious concert venues) by “Tomas Blod” at the piano performing “Transmorgrafications, Opus 37, by Sandal.”  Tomas sat at the piano without playing a single note.  Routh proclaimed it “a quiet success.”

I cannot produce the kind of absurdities Routh spent his life sharing with us all, which may be why I have a deep appreciation for his particular contribution to mankind.  Perhaps I can make a contribution to the absurd, though, by telling you that the single response I received to my blog posting yesterday was an advertisement for sunglasses.  I first spammed it, but on reconsideration, I’m going to approve it. 

It’s a testimony to my serious commitment to the Importance of the Absurd.