You could think to yourself that bodily routines (and the desire thereof) needn't correlate with mental routines (and the desire thereof). Then you could keep this thought as a tattered memento of your literary / philosophical credibility.
My sister gave me the new biography for my birthday last year. I am ashamed to say I was able to reach my ripe old age without ever having known about that episode. There are somethings it may be better no to know. I was horribly dissappointed.
Surely the opposite problem is more common, and worse, being nearly freaking incapable of sticking to the routines imposed on your little literary/bohemian self, because you are so not a business person and yet have to make a living.
ac, you can have my shoulder! (Can't be manly, gotta play up the sweet.)
Also, isn't it 'peccadillos'?
Oh, and 19 explains why it might have been a good thing that I didn't make the big rendezvous. I was thinking dark thoughts about the people sitting next to me at the show--who unwrapped a candy bar and didn't offer me any.
Now that we're talking peccawhatsis again, can someone explain how it's related to routine, accomplishment, and self-respect? I found its inclusion in the Wodehouse comment confusing.
Aah, according to dictionary.com it could be either. Should never have issued that attempted correction. In Italian wouldn't it be peccadilli? Could that be a kind of pasta? With shrimp and pork.
Well actually it was more a comparison to ogged on bothcounts. The general thrust was that you can be a successful literary type (I'm just setting this up, I know it) AND have regular habits.
Ogged, we really are the same person. Eerie. The food-routines are particularly important, because I have to eat more than most people and I'm very uncomfortable (the magic of blood sugar regulation) if I go too long without food. This has a way of pinning down the day.
Seriously though, little frosts me as much as the bogus connection between creativity and a chaotic personal lifestyle. The frickin' Romantics have so much to answer for.
Given that you, FL, are gigantic, and ogged weighs slightly more than a can of Pringles, shouldn't we at least consider the possibility that you've accidently eaten ogged, and that he is now symbiotically connected to you, thus forcing you to mimic him, his wants, and his needs? Under this theory, he is posting from your stomach, like Quatto in Total Recall.
Re 29, creation may not require chaos, but it does require time. I can fritter away work time commenting here, but I think it would be noticed and frowned on if I were sitting here trying to write my novel.
Classical musicians are probably the people for whom the connection between chaos and art is least true--it requires vast amounts of discipline to practice four hours a day and a clear head and dependability to get it together for a performance. They are often the least flaky people around.
Flibbertigibbets! Oh my I wonder what's over that sandbridge pipe dunder the ostrich neck he said and presently died in imitation of the Great Panjandrummer barf. La la la, I'm tired and allergic and I have not an understanding that's great of why I'm writing this here. That being said at least I'm not eating a pad of paper and calling it Suads
Classical musicians are probably the people for whom the connection between chaos and art is least true--it requires vast amounts of discipline to practice four hours a day and a clear head and dependability to get it together for a performance.
Then there's the position that classical performers, or at least those who specialize in highly notated scores, aren't really being creative after all.
Seriously though, little frosts me as much as the bogus connection between creativity and a chaotic personal lifestyle.
Right on, baa. I think the norm among seriously creative people is completely the opposite of the bohemian fantasy. I think of that lifestyle as one more common among appreciators, or hangers-on.
Personally, I have trouble with a really regular schedule. I tend to switch radically. I'll have periods where I work early, early in the morning, then others when I work late. I like shaking things up.
Kids like routine, though, so I've tried to keep very regular about my homelife. I'm always there for dinner, bath, book and bedtime, no matter whether I go to bed at the same time as them to get up at 4 or keep working long after they're down.
Yes, I think I've heard the classical musicians I know complain about excessive notation. Though what I really remember was a complaint about controlling the volume. One friend of mine plays with a dance group sometimes, and they always put mikes by the instruments and turn the volume way up so the dancers can almost feel it in the floor. It's understandable, since the point is the dance rather than the music, but it drives her crazy. Volume is part of expression.
re: writing your novel at work. I have wondered how I could acheive that. I spend enough time at unfogged -- what difference should it make to the powers that be if I spent that time on something useful? Yet it would make some difference. Or maybe it's just that unfogged is easier to hide.
You could write your novel in comment-sized chunks on your favorite blog. It might warp the novel's intended structure, though, or swell the number of penis innuendoes.
I was going to say that would annoy the hell out of everyone, but I let loose enough non sequitors to have done that already. In fact, maybe I've been writing my novel all along.
If I imagined a difference between gray & grey (which I don't), I would have thought gray was lighter. More like gay. (yeah, yeah, I know, at the mineshaft)
This may only be my idiosyncratic take on connotation (and by "may," I mean "certainly is"), but from "grey" I get a sort of British countryside and/or wind-swept moor image, while "gray" is quasi-industrial, steel, etc.
This may only be my idiosyncratic take on connotation
Or, in light of my 57, may be evidence of the incredible pervasive NYU Law brainwashing process -- turning out graduates that are absolutely uniform, down to their interpretation of minor differences in color perception.
Right -- Confederates would be butternut. Is there a general rule that the guys in the gray uniforms are always the bad guys? I can't think of a counterexample offhand, but then again I can't think of an example other than those two.
60 - I was trying to some more deeply rooted cultural factor than my current attendance at an institution of which you are an alumna, but I came up empty.
65 - I'm talking about my mental image of the British countryside, rather than any existing countryside. In terms of actual Britain experience, I've never been outside of London. Well I have, but only on a train, and I assume that doesn't count.
We are used to think of the countryside as green(ish). Not your everglades standard of green I grant you, but nonetheless a serviceable, unpretentious green.
In re november: Would this be november in Chicago?
If it's any comfort, Ben, I had never heard of the paper in question--I just thought your comment was so disturbingly out of charcter for you that it had to be a reference to something and I googled it up.
If I'm hungry, I'm unbearable to myself and everyone around me.
Ogged: The Biophysicist becomes unreasonably enraged when his blood sugar is too low. He snarls at innocent children, especially those with golden ringlets and rosebud smiles. If he suffers glucogen deficiency whilst driving, hapless parties who venture to cross streets are forced to leap for their lives. [And no one gets laid.]
"grey" I get a sort of British countryside and/or wind-swept moor image
WD: British countryside tends to be rather green. Urban industrial areas tend to be grey, except when they're a dirty red brick colour. Place that in your mental picture frame. Nothing in Britain is gray, unless one counts elderly American tourists.
Southern California countryside, on the other hand, is a sort of dead plant colour most of the year, punctuated by the lovely autumnal hues of brush fires... and things that are pot plants in respectable climates grow wild and ten feet tall. There are Triffids.
You could think to yourself that bodily routines (and the desire thereof) needn't correlate with mental routines (and the desire thereof). Then you could keep this thought as a tattered memento of your literary / philosophical credibility.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:11 AM
I should add that I like my routines, too. I have heaps and heaps of such mementos.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:13 AM
P.G. Wodehouse was a man of incredibly regular habits. Also he had no known peccadilloes. Just sayin...
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:16 AM
Well, aside from that whole "Broadcasting for the Nazis" thing. (Which, in context, was pretty forgivable, but must count as a pecadillo, mustn't it?)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:17 AM
No, actually I think that forced error of judgement caused by naiivete and bad luck does not count as a peccadilloe. Maybe I'm wrong.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:22 AM
My sister gave me the new biography for my birthday last year. I am ashamed to say I was able to reach my ripe old age without ever having known about that episode. There are somethings it may be better no to know. I was horribly dissappointed.
Damn good biography though.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:25 AM
What has two "C"s, two "L"s, no "E", and rhymes badly with armadillo?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:29 AM
No word that either Austro or I have been using. What, you have a suggestion?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:30 AM
Surely the opposite problem is more common, and worse, being nearly freaking incapable of sticking to the routines imposed on your little literary/bohemian self, because you are so not a business person and yet have to make a living.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:32 AM
I hate to say this, he's correct: Peccadillo and Peccadilloes... damn damn damn
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:33 AM
But SB said it has no "e".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:34 AM
Um, "occultly"? That rhymes very badly with armadillo. I would try harder, but all this crow is giving me indigestion.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:34 AM
I do so need to sleep.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:36 AM
being nearly freaking incapable of sticking to the routines imposed
You know, it took me a few years--so maybe I've become a creature of habit--but this can be done.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:36 AM
Writing that comment very nearly made me burst into tears.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:41 AM
Crying is ok, but try not to get any snot on the blog.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:46 AM
here, ac, you can have my handkerchief instead.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:48 AM
Thanks. *Sniff.*
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:49 AM
If I'm hungry, I'm unbearable to myself and everyone around me.
I hate it when you can feel the latent aggression building, know what and why and can't do anything to stop it. Awful.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 9:52 AM
ac, you can have my shoulder! (Can't be manly, gotta play up the sweet.)
Also, isn't it 'peccadillos'?
Oh, and 19 explains why it might have been a good thing that I didn't make the big rendezvous. I was thinking dark thoughts about the people sitting next to me at the show--who unwrapped a candy bar and didn't offer me any.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 10:03 AM
Matt, I m British.. here it is definitely "peccadilloes". We claim to be right by axiom.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 10:14 AM
Now that we're talking peccawhatsis again, can someone explain how it's related to routine, accomplishment, and self-respect? I found its inclusion in the Wodehouse comment confusing.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 10:16 AM
Aah, according to dictionary.com it could be either. Should never have issued that attempted correction. In Italian wouldn't it be peccadilli? Could that be a kind of pasta? With shrimp and pork.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 10:22 AM
wie bitte?
Well actually it was more a comparison to ogged on bothcounts. The general thrust was that you can be a successful literary type (I'm just setting this up, I know it) AND have regular habits.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 10:23 AM
Ahh yes, Nudels and Peccadilli... a spicy combination.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 10:23 AM
Ogged, we really are the same person. Eerie. The food-routines are particularly important, because I have to eat more than most people and I'm very uncomfortable (the magic of blood sugar regulation) if I go too long without food. This has a way of pinning down the day.
What old men we are.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 10:47 AM
I have to eat more than most people and I'm very uncomfortable (the magic of blood sugar regulation) if I go too long without food
Yes, exactly.
What old men we are.
I think it's more a case of discovering what an old man I've always been.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 10:55 AM
I am the same way. My food routine is pretty set. If I am hungry, I can't do any work. I just shut down.
I also like sleeping in my own bed and don't like travelling very much.
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:05 AM
Hey, you and Immanuel Kant, Fontana.
Seriously though, little frosts me as much as the bogus connection between creativity and a chaotic personal lifestyle. The frickin' Romantics have so much to answer for.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:06 AM
Amen to that, baa.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:08 AM
Given that you, FL, are gigantic, and ogged weighs slightly more than a can of Pringles, shouldn't we at least consider the possibility that you've accidently eaten ogged, and that he is now symbiotically connected to you, thus forcing you to mimic him, his wants, and his needs? Under this theory, he is posting from your stomach, like Quatto in Total Recall.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:09 AM
Oh, it's manly to offer a shoulder, I think. Very Dudley Dooright.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:10 AM
And "the man" should be "The Man," shouldn't it?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:11 AM
I know this concept was addressed when the pronunciation of "Weiner" came up, but no one wants to call out 7 for confusing use and mention.
Low hanging fruit intentional.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:13 AM
Is that my own petard in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:17 AM
Just trying to get a chit in my column prior to my next failure to spell "misspelled" properly, or something equally egregious.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:21 AM
Re 29, creation may not require chaos, but it does require time. I can fritter away work time commenting here, but I think it would be noticed and frowned on if I were sitting here trying to write my novel.
Classical musicians are probably the people for whom the connection between chaos and art is least true--it requires vast amounts of discipline to practice four hours a day and a clear head and dependability to get it together for a performance. They are often the least flaky people around.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:22 AM
Flibbertigibbets! Oh my I wonder what's over that sandbridge pipe dunder the ostrich neck he said and presently died in imitation of the Great Panjandrummer barf. La la la, I'm tired and allergic and I have not an understanding that's great of why I'm writing this here. That being said at least I'm not eating a pad of paper and calling it Suads
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:25 AM
There should be a kind of synaesthesia under which it's meaningful to rhyme with armadillo.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:26 AM
Classical musicians are probably the people for whom the connection between chaos and art is least true--it requires vast amounts of discipline to practice four hours a day and a clear head and dependability to get it together for a performance.
Then there's the position that classical performers, or at least those who specialize in highly notated scores, aren't really being creative after all.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:30 AM
Seriously though, little frosts me as much as the bogus connection between creativity and a chaotic personal lifestyle.
Right on, baa. I think the norm among seriously creative people is completely the opposite of the bohemian fantasy. I think of that lifestyle as one more common among appreciators, or hangers-on.
Personally, I have trouble with a really regular schedule. I tend to switch radically. I'll have periods where I work early, early in the morning, then others when I work late. I like shaking things up.
Kids like routine, though, so I've tried to keep very regular about my homelife. I'm always there for dinner, bath, book and bedtime, no matter whether I go to bed at the same time as them to get up at 4 or keep working long after they're down.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:31 AM
Eating a pad of paper.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:36 AM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:43 AM
Yes, I think I've heard the classical musicians I know complain about excessive notation. Though what I really remember was a complaint about controlling the volume. One friend of mine plays with a dance group sometimes, and they always put mikes by the instruments and turn the volume way up so the dancers can almost feel it in the floor. It's understandable, since the point is the dance rather than the music, but it drives her crazy. Volume is part of expression.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:44 AM
re: writing your novel at work. I have wondered how I could acheive that. I spend enough time at unfogged -- what difference should it make to the powers that be if I spent that time on something useful? Yet it would make some difference. Or maybe it's just that unfogged is easier to hide.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:48 AM
You could write your novel in comment-sized chunks on your favorite blog. It might warp the novel's intended structure, though, or swell the number of penis innuendoes.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:51 AM
I was going to say that would annoy the hell out of everyone, but I let loose enough non sequitors to have done that already. In fact, maybe I've been writing my novel all along.
And boy, it sucks.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 11:54 AM
So, am I the only one for whom "grey" and "gray" name two different colors?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:00 PM
yes.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:01 PM
Gray is darker?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:02 PM
Grey has mauve undertones?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:03 PM
Only one of them is an Earl?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:07 PM
Gray is darker.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:12 PM
If I imagined a difference between gray & grey (which I don't), I would have thought gray was lighter. More like gay. (yeah, yeah, I know, at the mineshaft)
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:18 PM
But it's very dark at the mineshaft.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:18 PM
I like a structured day. How can one know when one is procrastinating if one is too busy flouting conventions and sticking it to The Man?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:20 PM
Grey is less even -- more like lichen, or clouds, or the ocean on a cloudy day. Gray is monochromatic.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:20 PM
This may only be my idiosyncratic take on connotation (and by "may," I mean "certainly is"), but from "grey" I get a sort of British countryside and/or wind-swept moor image, while "gray" is quasi-industrial, steel, etc.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:21 PM
I think I'd imagine grey as darker, too, but for more complicated reasons.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:21 PM
This may only be my idiosyncratic take on connotation
Or, in light of my 57, may be evidence of the incredible pervasive NYU Law brainwashing process -- turning out graduates that are absolutely uniform, down to their interpretation of minor differences in color perception.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:32 PM
I was thinking "field grey." *Shiver.*
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:38 PM
My military history has broken down. Nazis, or Confederates?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:44 PM
Nazis.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:46 PM
Right -- Confederates would be butternut. Is there a general rule that the guys in the gray uniforms are always the bad guys? I can't think of a counterexample offhand, but then again I can't think of an example other than those two.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:48 PM
Re #58
If the British countryside is grey, what is left to describe Birmingham?
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:50 PM
the NY Yankees (when not in pinstripes). Bad guys.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:52 PM
Colonel Joffe.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:53 PM
But then there were the Washington Grays (good guys)
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:56 PM
This is far and away the worst thread in unfogged history. I share the blame.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 12:58 PM
Fuck this thread by midnight or I'll take away your teddy-bear.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:02 PM
60 - I was trying to some more deeply rooted cultural factor than my current attendance at an institution of which you are an alumna, but I came up empty.
65 - I'm talking about my mental image of the British countryside, rather than any existing countryside. In terms of actual Britain experience, I've never been outside of London. Well I have, but only on a train, and I assume that doesn't count.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:03 PM
scuse me?
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:04 PM
According to Russell Hoban, the British countryside is november, as in, "it was novembering hard outside".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:05 PM
Wd, that was meant for Wolfson
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:05 PM
In 71: trying to some was intended to be trying to think of some.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:07 PM
We are used to think of the countryside as green(ish). Not your everglades standard of green I grant you, but nonetheless a serviceable, unpretentious green.
In re november: Would this be november in Chicago?
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:09 PM
No, it would be November in YOUR MOM.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:10 PM
thinking, I fear.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:10 PM
I—I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. Or who.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:11 PM
Damn seven irregular verbs.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:12 PM
growing pains can cause aggression, dont worry about it.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:13 PM
Great link Chopper.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:24 PM
Ogged, we really are the same person.
I think I am the opposite of Ogged.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:25 PM
Hey, you can't give Chopper credit for that!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:26 PM
I don't see how your 70 would have led to me reading that paper. Chopper gets credit.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:30 PM
Score!
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:33 PM
If it's any comfort, Ben, I had never heard of the paper in question--I just thought your comment was so disturbingly out of charcter for you that it had to be a reference to something and I googled it up.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:40 PM
68: That's the Homestead Grays, later stolen by Washington DC apparently. But, like all things, they were better in the 'burgh.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 1:51 PM
you and your "facts" and "history"
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 2:09 PM
Speaking of facts, I have it from reliable sources that one of their players was an extra-terrestrial.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 2:12 PM
I remember that episode. One of the funny ones.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 2:15 PM
If I'm hungry, I'm unbearable to myself and everyone around me.
Ogged: The Biophysicist becomes unreasonably enraged when his blood sugar is too low. He snarls at innocent children, especially those with golden ringlets and rosebud smiles. If he suffers glucogen deficiency whilst driving, hapless parties who venture to cross streets are forced to leap for their lives. [And no one gets laid.]
"grey" I get a sort of British countryside and/or wind-swept moor image
WD: British countryside tends to be rather green. Urban industrial areas tend to be grey, except when they're a dirty red brick colour. Place that in your mental picture frame. Nothing in Britain is gray, unless one counts elderly American tourists.
Southern California countryside, on the other hand, is a sort of dead plant colour most of the year, punctuated by the lovely autumnal hues of brush fires... and things that are pot plants in respectable climates grow wild and ten feet tall. There are Triffids.
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 4:08 PM
Southern California countryside, on the other hand, is a sort of dead plant colour most of the year,
A delightful yellowish brown the hue of fresh-tossed wheat, with darker patches of withered scrub.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-10-05 4:44 PM