Old Boeufs

#74: MIMES / PANTOMIME

A MIME is one who PANTOMIMES... easy to remember, right? Mimes had their heyday back in France during the 1940s. The French had all that free time that otherwise would have been used fighting the Nazis in WWII, and they put their minds together to create a new art form based in silence (coincidence?)...
-- Comedy by the Numbers: The 169 Secrets of Humor and Popularity (2007)

I ran across Comedy by the Numbers (a McSweeney's Presents... book) a few weeks ago while I was waiting in the coffee shop at Powells for HomoDomi, who had run out to a neighboring art store. It is an otherwise unoffensive book (most McSweeney's are engagingly funny) -- a 150-page joke claiming that comedy can be taught, textbook style, with illustrations and prose.

I was struck by this particular passage. Funny, yes, but World War II ended 62 years ago, didn't it? Yet still there is not-so-veiled hostility at the French Vichy Regime. I find it peculiar, more than anything else. Perhaps I am short-sighted and progressive? Or should we still be holding grievances felt by our fathers (grand-fathers for many)?