I.. …. you know that feeling when an author you like compliments your writing?

… I didn’t until this morning =D

1. Marvin in Pulp Fiction who is accidentally shot by Vincent while they’re riding in the car. The shock value and the fact that Vincent does it while arguing a point in true Tarantino fashion is hilarious.

2. Bill Murray in Zombieland. Seriously, who plays a zombie joke during a zombie apocalypse? But as he’s dying and says his greatest regret is Garfield, maybe? Pee-inducing laughter… launch!

So I’m definitely not the first to find humor in death, though I appreciate the grand offense at the thought.

No, no it isn’t. Death is not (always) horrifying and ugly. All of my grand parents died peacefully of old age. There was nothing horrifying and ugly about it.

I’ve also seen friends, stricken with horrible, painful disease. Death, for them, was a release. It was *dying* that was ugly and horrifying. Death was blessed and welcome.

Were either of those deaths hilarious? No, I’ll give you that. They weren’t funny.

But they also weren’t fictional. Consider the improvised swordsman scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indiana Jones is faced with an obviously adept swordsman. His shoulders drop in a ‘You have to be kidding me’ type move and pulls out his revolver and shoots and (theoretically) kills the bad guy. When I saw that in the theater, I remember laughing.

Would I be laughing if it was a real death? No. Because I am able to separate fact from fiction. Most people are.

Now, lets just consider the headline “Jesse Petersen on Why Death (or Living Death) Is So Damn Funny”

You say that’s a horrible headline. I say it is an accurate one. It represents what the article is about. Jesse Petersen saying why death (or living death) is funny. Which she does, rather eloquently.

As for whether or not the Living Death is funny or not, well, I laughed during Shaun of the Dead. I laughed at the Thriller scene during The Return of the Living Dead 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hd1zMak2Vg).

Lastly, even if we remove the fiction/real life barrier, an opinion is never wrong. I am not wrong because I think nectarines taste no better than barnacle spit. You are not wrong because you feel that beef tartare tastes horrible.

Alternatively: You’re wrong because puppies.