Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (And Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
Q. Why are there almost as many jokes about death as there are about sex?\ A. Because they both scare the pants off us.\ Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein first made a name for themselves with the outrageously funny New York Times bestseller Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar. Now they turn their attention to the Big D and share the timeless wisdom of the great philosophers, theologians, psychotherapists, and wiseguys. From angels to zombies and everything in between, Cathcart and Klein...
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Q. Why are there almost as many jokes about death as there are about sex? A. Because they both scare the pants off us. Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein first made a name for themselves with the outrageously funny New York Times bestseller Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar. Now they turn their attention to the Big D and share the timeless wisdom of the great philosophers, theologians, psychotherapists, and wiseguys. From angels to zombies and everything in between, Cathcart and Klein offer a fearless and irreverent history of how we approach death, why we embrace life, and whether there really is a hereafter. As hilarious as it is enlightening, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates is a must-read for anyone and everyone who ever expects to die. The Barnes & Noble Review What do you do with a degree in philosophy? Some of us choose to become critics, but we're fortunate that others, like Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, go in for what they call "philogagging" -- telling jokes that illuminate often abstruse ideas about the nature of existence. The pair dedicated their last book, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes (2007) to their "philosophical grandfather," Groucho Marx. Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates, a sort of Everything You Wanted to Know About Death But Are Sorry You Asked, hails their "philosophical mentor," king of the philogaggers, Woody Allen. As descendants of Socrates and Plato -- and comedians in need of a straight man -- the authors naturally structure their discourse as a dialogue. They kick off their discussion with the question, "Do you really think you're going to die?" Their point is that "We are the only creatures who comprehend that we are going to die and we are also the only creatures who can imagine living forever. It's that combo that drives us crazy." Mixing jokes, bad puns, simplified philosophical exposition, somewhat tiresome patter, and New Yorker cartoons like those collected by Mort Gerberg in Last Laughs, Cathcart and Klein touch on René Descartes's dualism of mind and matter, Paul Tillich's "eternal now," Friedrich Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence," Søren Kierkegarrd's "streetcar named despair," and "the Eternal Fruitcake Conundrum." There's more schtick than meat to their routine this time around, and their straight man, mortician Daryl Frumkin, is pretty lame. But the gallows humor is rich. My favorite joke, illustrating the will to live: A Death Row prisoner requests strawberries for his last meal. Told they're out of season, he says, "No problem. I'll wait." --Heller McAlpin
\ From Barnes & NobleWe won't spoil the title joke by providing its punch line, but we will tell you that Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein's Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through the Pearly Gates will leave you not just amused, but also enlightened. Retentive booksellers will remember that Cathcart and Klein are the philosopher quipsters who served up Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar and Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington. For every student who ever clock-watched his or her way through a philosophy class; now in rib-tickling, consciousness-raising paperback.\ \ \ \ \ \ Publishers WeeklyDid you know that Heidegger's notion of living in the shadow of death has its most profound articulation in a country and western song by Tim McGraw? Or what Law and Order has in common with theologian Paul Tillich's view of eternity? Such are the nuggets of wisdom found in this smart and lighthearted consideration of the philosophical dimensions of death. Cathcart and Klein (coauthors of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar) take readers on a whirlwind tour of anthropological, philosophical and theological theories of why and how we avoid accepting our own mortality. The authors demonstrate how humor allows us to express our fears about death "while defusing anxiety." Succinct accounts of Kierkegaard's notion of embracing angst, Schopenhauer's notion of undying will and Descartes on mind-body dualism are thus all peppered by comic asides (Leibnitz "maintained that Mind and Matter don't actually get into each others knickers"). This little book is an entertaining and surprisingly informative survey of the "Big D" and its centrality in human life. (Oct).\ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.\ \ \ The Barnes & Noble ReviewWhat do you do with a degree in philosophy? Some of us choose to become critics, but we're fortunate that others, like Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, go in for what they call "philogagging" -- telling jokes that illuminate often abstruse ideas about the nature of existence. The pair dedicated their last book, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes (2007) to their "philosophical grandfather," Groucho Marx. \ Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates, a sort of Everything You Wanted to Know About Death But Are Sorry You Asked, hails their "philosophical mentor," king of the philogaggers, Woody Allen. As descendants of Socrates and Plato -- and comedians in need of a straight man -- the authors naturally structure their discourse as a dialogue. They kick off their discussion with the question, "Do you really think you're going to die?" Their point is that "We are the only creatures who comprehend that we are going to die and we are also the only creatures who can imagine living forever. It's that combo that drives us crazy."\ Mixing jokes, bad puns, simplified philosophical exposition, somewhat tiresome patter, and New Yorker cartoons like those collected by Mort Gerberg in Last Laughs, Cathcart and Klein touch on René Descartes's dualism of mind and matter, Paul Tillich's "eternal now," Friedrich Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence," S?ren Kierkegarrd's "streetcar named despair," and "the Eternal Fruitcake Conundrum." There's more schtick than meat to their routine this time around, and their straight man, mortician Daryl Frumkin, is pretty lame. But the gallows humor is rich. My favorite joke, illustrating the will to live: A Death Row prisoner requests strawberries for his last meal. Told they're out of season, he says, "No problem. I'll wait." --Heller McAlpin\ \ \
