Comic Relief

In the Times today, Janet Maslin reviews Alan Weisman's new work, The World Without Us, a book-length meditation on the post-human world, in which the author imagines, among other things, a reversion of Manhattan to wilderness. The idea may well resonate with New Yorkers, who, after all, have recently seen coyotes in Central Park, beavers in the Bronx River and red-tailed hawks roosting on prime uptown real estate. And then there's the general collapse of what some folks like to call the "built environment." As Ms. Maslin writes:

When Mr. Weisman wonders what would happen to New York City, he foresees rewilding (the return of wolves and bears), plants forcing their ways through the sidewalk and water damage to the underground infrastructure. "Before long, streets start to crater," he writes, with scarily apt foresight. "As Lexington Avenue caves in, it becomes a river." Lexington Avenue has lately shown us what he means.

It is, Ms. Maslin notes, a "punishingly bleak picture." Which is why I want to direct you now to a far funnier take on the same idea. Ladies and gentleman, the Kiwi folk-parody duo, Flight of the Conchords, with "The Humans Are Dead."