A Skeleton Key to FAHRVERGNÜGEN!
Originally made in 2008 for The Hic-Up, an excellent punk rock zine out of Wilmington, Delaware. This was an esp heady era, when I was sharing studio space with the great Todd Purse, and we were working in, what I called, The House of Ideas, surrounded by our wonderful friend group.
It got so I started using the assemblage of cool cats as a writers room of sorts, crowdsourcing ideas, workshopping art styles, etc. I remember we went around the room for an hour to come up with the phrase “ivory frock” to describe Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dress for the original punchline.
The comic was originally a metaphysical riff on the now old and mostly forgotten SNL skit Astronaut Jones, starring Tracy Morgan.
The joke being a sacred moment ruined by a profane outburst.
A coincidence of opposites w/ Albert Einstein & Marilyn Monroe, a pairing that seemed both natural & nonsensical, and which I assumed, at the time, that I had invented.
Years later, I ran into an optical illusion featured at the Franklin Institute, which when looked at closely appeared to be a picture of Albert Einstein, but would transform into a picture of Marilyn Monroe when viewed from far away.
The same trick could be accomplished with almost any subject matter, I’m sure, but I felt encouraged that someone else had connected the same 2 dots. Little did I know that, in our Rule 34 world, that was only the tip of the iceberg…
“You simply cannot invent any conspiracy theory so ridiculous and obviously satirical that some people somewhere don’t already believe it.”
– Robert Anton Wilson
If you Google “Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe“, as I recently did, you will be treated to a featured headline announcing:
“Marilyn Monroe may have had an affair with Albert Einstein.“
The hell you say!?!
The next result offers to inform you:
“Why Marilyn Monroe wanted to sleep with Albert Einstein“
These headlines stem from the same source, Shelley Winters, who was roommates with Marilyn Monroe when they were young struggling actors.
Winters recounts in her autobiography, and told David Letterman in 1989, the story of the 2 girls writing a list of the famous men they were interested in, on which Monroe included Einstein.
“Marilyn, there’s no way you can sleep with Albert Einstein. He’s the most famous scientist of the century. Besides, he’s an old man.”
“That has nothing to do with it. I hear he’s very healthy.”
Several years after MM’s death, SW was at the apartment of the Strasbergs, Marilyn’s foster parents, who inherited her belongings, and amongst the things she left behind was a silver framed photo of Einstein, which was signed with the inscription: “With love, respect and thanks. Albert Einstein”
But don’t take my word for it, here’s Shelley Winters telling the story to David Letterman:
There’s even a movie about it! Insignificance (1985)
The characters are unnamed, but the intentions appear crystal clear.
More recently there was a stage play version of Insignificance performed in Portland, OR, keeping the alt history alive.
Now I hate to say it, but I’m not sure it’s more plausible that Marilyn Monroe had an affair with Albert Einstein, rather than just that Shelley Winters wanted to have something interesting to say on TV, but who knows!
There also appears to be a copypasta fan fiction story about MM & AE that pops up in several places around the web, which incorporates the “with my looks and your brains” routine:
At a dinner party, Einstein and Marilyn sat next to each other. After a few flutes of champagne, she cooed in his attentive ear: “I want to have your child. With my looks and your brains, it will be a perfect child!”
Einstein replied: “But what if it has my looks and your brains?”
Though I’m not that crazy about that joke being performed by those 2 characters, because the whole reason MM is an enduring personality is because she isn’t just a dumb blonde, but rather a thoughtful person who seems tragically self aware about the complex dynamics of embodying an icon/symbol/object.
It’s a great song though!
A few years ago I had an experience at a comic con where a nice lady was flipping through my comix, got to the page with Einstein crassly coming onto Marilyn Monroe, appeared visibly bummed, put the comic down, and walked away.
I suddenly got how easily that joke could be misunderstood and that the context was too dependent on trusting that there were good intentions behind it.
When it came time to prep new print editions of my early WEIRD COMIX, I knew the joke wasn’t worth the misunderstanding, but still thought the archetypal team up of Albert Einstein & Marilyn Monroe was worth exploring, so I went in search of inspiration for a new ending, and did indeed find it :)))
Enclosed are links to all 3 iterations of the comic:
FAHRVERGNÜGEN! (2008)
FAHRVERGNÜGEN! (2012)
FAHRVERGNÜGEN! (2022)