Early Work
I think there is a kind of blind spot, if not contradiction, in the essay. It could be a good kind of paradox like the immovable object vs irresistible force thing.. it’s the paradox of lisp, of bel, of Julia, of mit style hacking.. they MIGHT aspire to be good jokes but as far as I can see they are at best, some kind of inside joke.. it’s a special kind of lame.. maybe we shouldn’t ask whether jokes can be ambitious but whether ambitions can be truly hysterically funny