For the second straight game of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the New York Knicks, the Boston Celtics blew a 20-point second-half lead, turned the ball over to Mikal Bridges at the most crucial possible moment, and lost. In his wee-hours postgame blog about this, ESPN's Brian Windhorst wrote the following sentence:
[Celtics star Jayson] Tatum didn't address the media after the game because TD Garden had to be evacuated because of a fire alarm, allowing for various metaphors.
One of the most annoying things any commenter could do under a blog on the old website was paste a line of text from the blog, and then under it write something like, "The jokes practically write themselves," and then post it. In the heyday of the site's comment-section moderation, this behavior nearly always occasioned some type of punishment. If you had a commenting star, entitling you to special prominence in the display of comments, you lost it. If you did not have a star to lose, you got suspended or outright banned.
This is because jokes do not write themselves—not practically, not figuratively, not at all. If they write themselves, where the hell are they? "I am aware that jokes could be made in reference to this" sure as hell is not one. More to the point, if the jokes were capable of self-writing, one or two of them would surely have had the dignity and accountability to appear under the quoted text, in place of your announcement that you could not be bothered to do the work yourself and felt the world needed to know this. Sooner announce that you successfully used the potty like a big boy.
Allowing for various metaphors. Imagine hitting the writerer fist-pump after putting a period on the end of that sentence. Moby-Dick would be the length of a limerick—
Captain Ahab sailed forth from Nantucket,
seeking vengeance without any luck—yet
the white whale he pursued
(allegories ensued)
'til it dragged him below when he stuck it.
—if this was an acceptable practice. You see how I actually tried, however incompetently, to write the limerick, there? Instead of just congratulating myself for having had the thought that one could be written? Imagine a standup comedian going up on the stage and going, "So I was at the drugstore yesterday, and ahead of me in the checkout line was this guy buying 300 boxes of condoms and a big bag of Cheetos, allowing for various suggestive jokes and double-entendres." And then just moving on to the next part of their act! No way that comedian gets out of the club alive.
Various metaphors! That the events of life allow for various metaphors is not news to anyone! You do not get a special Literary Comprehension medal for smoke-signaling your awareness of the possibility of metaphors! That is information that can be left out of the blog altogether; it is just as redundant as specifying that the game the Celtics lost took place on Earth. Wow! Amazing! Various metaphors! Next you'll tell me your pants are on forwards.
Also: Jayson Tatum missed his postgame press availability because of an arena evacuation caused by a fire alarm. Are there even any good metaphors to wring out of this? I kind of think there are not. The alarm in this case is, I guess, Boston's 0–2 series deficit after two home games? The sudden imminent danger that the Celtics' title defense will end two rounds shy of the Finals? OK fine, but in that case, the alarm is not the cause but rather the result of Tatum being nowhere to be found.
Better than a metaphor in these circumstances would be a straight-ahead rude joke. Imply that Tatum himself pulled the alarm so that he wouldn't have to talk to the press after needing 19 shots to score 13 points and committing the game-ending turnover. Then cut back and say wait, no, it couldn't have been Tatum: If he'd had his hands on the fire alarm, then you'd be able to find the alarm in Mikal Bridges's pocket. Say that people should start calling Bridges "The Fire Alarm," since he also makes Jayson Tatum vanish. Say that the organization should find whoever pulled the alarm and hire him, so that the Celtics will have at least one person on the coaching staff who can draw up a scheme to spring Tatum from pressure. Say that if the Celtics don't get their act together, pronto, coach Joe Mazzulla might be experiencing some more "fire alarm" very soon.
This acknowledgement of various possible symbolic or metaphorical parallels is over.
