Ok, so what's the name for this particular style of humour

[TrogL]

Examples:

http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/sad/5.html

Basically, the art of describing the totally wierd as perfectly ordinary.

Another good example:

http://www.mil-millington.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/things.html

and another (although this is probably closer to a shaggy dog story)

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/dogsinelk.html

I think it's a little more sophisticated than just "sarcasm".

[A-Schwarzenegger]

1. I dunno but the guy in the first one looks like

Tom Harkin!

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Under the general umbrella of satire. Are you looking for sub-categories?

n/t

[EstimatedProphet]

3. How about "heavy" sarcasm?

Or "absurdist" sarcasm?
The middle site is something I ran across a couple years ago. Wonder if the guy is still married...

[TrogL]

4. I grew up in the era the cookbooks came out

and I would look at them and think pretty much along the lines of what he was thinking and decided at that point that I must be barking mad but I kept it to myself and as my version of reality became more and more distant from everybody else's version (at least that they spoke of out loud) eventually I became barking mad.

[kayell]

5. My mother had the meat cookbook featured in Meat! Meat! Meat!

I'm a vegetarian.

Coincidence? I think not.

[hunter]

6. That cake made me cry.

I don't know why... like smiley faces in the blender.

As for the other two items:

• Margaret. Oh Margaret. Everyone has nude pictures of Margaret. Once upon a time Alta Vista image search would come up with dozens of naked Margarets.
  
  
• Dogs in Elk. I can see that. One of my dogs once crawled inside a dead sea lion on the beach. After I washed her off in the ocean she smelled even worse, and while we were driving home, she rolled all over the back seat. After that I was always terrified when anyone asked me for a ride. The smell never did go away.
  
  

In any case, it's nice to see your link to Pournelle. A long time ago he did something nice for me, for no good reason at all, despite the fact that I was being a jerk.

[trof]

7. No, I would say the perfectly ordinary

as having dark psychotic undertones.
satire

[TrogL]

8. That's sorta what I was thinking

and couldn't remember the damn word - maybe "deadpan satire"?

[cosmicdot]

9. how about sardonic?

Forced; unnatural; insincere; hence, derisive, mocking, malignant, or bitterly sarcastic; applied only to a laugh, smile, or some facial semblance of gayety. "Where strained, sardonic smiles are glozing still, And grief is forced to laugh against her will." (Sir H. Wotton) "The scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of a bloody ruffian." (Burke) Sardonic grin or laugh, an old medical term for a spasmodic affection of the muscles of the face, giving it an appearance of laughter.

Origin: F. Sardonique, L. Sardonius, Gr, perhaps fr. To grin like a dog, or from a certain plant of Sardinia, Gr, which was said to screw up the face of the eater.





these are similar to images I was exposed to in grade school (50s)