I was watching this trailer for a new independent movie called Harold about a teenager who’s already suffering from male pattern baldness, and it hit me: we’re not leaving our children with any quirk. We’re going to use it all up, and for what? For low budget half-funny comedies that run for two weeks at Angelika and then disappear to a life unrented on the Facets shelf? We can do better, guys. Every year our quirk levels go up by three percent, and scientists predict that if we don’t do something soon New York will be underquirk by the year LOL.

In order to ensure that our planet has enough quirk for our children, and our children’s children, we’re going to need to greatly reduce our use of quirk, we’re going to need to reuse our quirk, and we’re going to need to recycle our quirk.

Reduce Quirk

We cannot sustain our current quirk levels before reaching a tipping point where a novel image or a funny concept creates a hostile environment. One way to prevent this happening is to eliminate our use of unnecessary or unjustified quirk. This might mean leaving an awkward dance off between a robot and a basketball player with a Gloria Estefan soundtrack on the cutting room floor. And it definitely means sinking Garden State to the bottom of the ocean, where it will be used as a coral reef by fish with horrible taste.

Reuse Quirk

We can help sustain a viable quirkiness in American cinema by not creating any new quirk. One way to do so is to use the quirk we have. Just because everyone else in your dodgeball league also thought it would be so clever to dress up as Steve Zisou for Halloween in 2005 doesn’t mean it won’t be clever for you to do it again this year. And then next year you can dress up as Borat because you’re a genius.

Recycle Quirk

Once quirk has been created, it never leaves the planet, but it can be modified and reintroduced as new quirk. Let’s say you’ve got the funny little idea of Ludacris with giant hands. That’s some great quirk. Now with a couple of modifications, you can put giant hands on Gael García Bernal, and you’ve added a negligible amount of new quirk to the environment, which will allow future generations to create things for no deeper intellectual reason than that “weird shit looks cool.”

Nobel Prize now please.