Open Mic Night
by Jeff
Image text: Ever notice how the more successful observational comics become, the more their jokes focus on flying and hotels?
Alright, open mic night. Everyone's favorite night.
In the first frame Cutie/MC Aphasia is not a very good rapper because Aphasia is a disorder that effects the part of the brain that controls the ability of speech. So, as you can see in the comic, MC Aphasia has a very difficult time speaking let alone rapping.
In the second frame, Black Hat is reacting to a Yo Momma joke that someone in the audience possibly yelled his way and starts off a common "Yo Momma" joke - "When yo momma sits around the house, she really sits AROUND the house." But instead he goes in another direction to something that is a bit more off the beaten path.
In the third frame Cueball/MC Quine is a computer science joke. A Quine is a program that produces its source code as its output. In other words, what MC Quine puts into the rap is exactly what he gets out of it. Hence the repetition of the same line. In this case, the source code of the rap is "Yo, I'm MC Quine and I'm here to say,".
And completing the xkcd trifecta is the last comic, is a Lord of the Rings joke. I'll call him "Beret" and is riffing off a common observational comic routine in which the comic observes that men go to the bathroom alone and women go in groups.
The image text is a reference to how when comedians become more famous, they travel more to other cities to do their comedy. In the case of observational comics, the more they travel, the more they have time to observe both hotels and flying and nothing else.
August 27th, 2010
I bet he was also thinking of Godel, Escher, and Bach concerning “quining” because he’s referenced Hofstadter before and the book talks quite a bit about quining. The concept is the same as what you mentioned, but perhaps there is some extra meaning to be gleaned from how Hofstadter addresses quining.
August 27th, 2010
I think they’re both references to Quine’s Paradox; the example given in Wikipedia is:
“Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation” yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.
I didn’t know about the CS definition, but that makes more sense given that MC Quine’s rap isn’t paradoxical.
August 27th, 2010
Nope.
My guess is he’s referring to Quine, the philosopher, after whom the program is named. He did a lot with logic and epistemology – I know he’s mentioned in philosophy of mind when discussing though events. Though, to be honest this would surprise me given Randall’s disdain for the humanities. Really he’s probably referencing Quine without meaning to, which is even more amusing.
August 28th, 2010
You guys are forgetting that Randall is a computer nerd.
If it’s got CS, it’s most likely to be about that.
December 2nd, 2011
MC Quine is funny even without the computer science joke. It’s indirectly a reference to the philosopher Willard Van Ormand Quine, who studied indirect self-reference and after whom the computer science phenomenon is named.
December 2nd, 2011
Wait…other people already said that. It’s clearly a reference to both anyway.