What do you expect to miss most in her absence? My first guess was her disciplinary but effective instruction, but I suppose it could be her network of nordic grad students whom you find interesting-but-not-in-that-way.
Your first guess is correct. Second would be the plain fun of swimming with a great swimmer who's also totally hot. Third would be the nordic network (not that it's done me any good).
As a socialist I used to admire the Swedes, but since I found that they the ones behind the musical careers of Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and J-Lo, I've been hard put not to hate them all.
6 & 7: Good thing you're not getting overly self-referential. I'm lazy enough to want the annotated version in the first place, I'm afraid. Less kind alternative: get a LiveJournal!
Because, you know, you should blog what I want you to blog, not what you want to blog. Because the world revolves around me, me, ME!
Really? No one else seems that excited. But here goes:
I liked a pretty French boy named Vincent. He invited me to a party, but ignored me the whole night, paying attention to a Swedish girl instead. Couldn't blame him, really. She was almost insanely hot. Resembled Charlize Theron. But it was still a painful night: I didn't know anyone else at this party, and it was in Paris so no one else was remotely interested in talking to me, and I was more or less forced to stand by and watch him flirt with this woman. I tried to participate in the conversation but he could not have made it more clear that he wanted me to disappear. He was almost physically blocking me at one point, and I was about to give up and go home, when the Swedish woman touched my arm and started asking me questions, in a very friendly, warm manner. And then (ha!) at the end of the night she very pointedly asked me if I wanted to go back to her place for a drink. And I immediately said that sounded like a great idea, leaving a stunned Vincent in the dust. So satisfying. I can't even tell you.
I have always been grateful to the Swedes for giving the world The Refused, but it sounds as if ac's going to make it apparent that the Swedish have been holding out on me.
A misreading of the word "villanelle" into SB's limerick gave me a silly idea, which is really not villanelltic at all, but related to a different form whose name I can't remember.
ben, ben, the sestina must have sestets, not quintets, and all the end words must be reused! apparently in a very particular order, too, which seems awfully rigid.
but hey, points for villanelltic, which does not appear to be a word, but seems absolutely correct.
Silvana, I know what the strictures for a sestina are. However, the limerick form doesn't allow for all the endings to be repeated very well, and I said "related to". Sheesh. A virtuouso performance and what do you get? Carping.
69: Lyrics. It's kind of amazing to be listening to a Snoop Dogg album and come across a track that's shockingly misogynistic in that context. (And yeah, I'm going to have to give up the "gentleman" thing for, like, a day now.)
Actually, I didn't ask. I said that, unlike ogged, I was familiar with the idea of confidence, and therefore if she wanted to email me, I wouldn't feel obligated to tell everyone in creation.
Are you trying to make some kind of point about speech acts, Ben? I think any reasonable person would interpret 26 as a request for e-mail as well as an expression of confidence.
I was considering dropping a "perlocutionary" in 73. Basically, my goal in 73 was to effect a criticism of simpleminded speech-act theory by combining an overly literalist reading of the text (which does not, after all, contain an explicit request) with an Austinianly-aware reading of some aspects of the subtext. In this way I tried to show that while appeals to "a reasonable person" and how he (for let's not kid ourselves, the paradigm "reasonable person" among Oxbridge dons is a he) might interpret any given "utterance", all too frequently such a gloss is merely a stalking horse for the actual interpreter to advance his own agendum.
This is all explicated at greater length in my artist's statement.
Oh. But the thing is, people are actually common in the city, in the sense of 'common' meaning likely to be found there. Really the joke is clearer with a singular noun.
Ah, posted without actually bothering to make sense. Walt Kelly has some good jokes where some character is reading from the bird atlas that some bird is "common in thickets" and the mouse says "I don't think this young follow should be common in or out of thickets."
So ogged, are you in some kind of a rebound phase now, looking for another hot Olympic swimmer to hone your strokes? Should we expect you to start posting soon about your (achingly!) platonic exploits with "the Dane"?
I'm still moving toward the bottom. The Swede will be around for another two months.
I almost posted today about the lifeguard with the absurd body who was swimming in a little two-piece today; but it seemed sexist, even for this place.
Stow yourself in her valise.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 4:14 PM
A fine idea. Then I'll hope her husband doesn't open it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 4:16 PM
Link? What?
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 4:20 PM
What do you expect to miss most in her absence? My first guess was her disciplinary but effective instruction, but I suppose it could be her network of nordic grad students whom you find interesting-but-not-in-that-way.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 4:22 PM
Your first guess is correct. Second would be the plain fun of swimming with a great swimmer who's also totally hot. Third would be the nordic network (not that it's done me any good).
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 4:26 PM
Gary: a link.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 4:28 PM
And another.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 4:35 PM
As a socialist I used to admire the Swedes, but since I found that they the ones behind the musical careers of Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and J-Lo, I've been hard put not to hate them all.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 5:26 PM
But they make such good pancakes!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 5:27 PM
With lingonberries! Mmmm.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 5:29 PM
Hey, Benji, have you been to Tre Kroner? Yummy stuff, and, at least when I was going lo those many years ago, the staff was uniformly hott.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 5:32 PM
6 & 7: Good thing you're not getting overly self-referential. I'm lazy enough to want the annotated version in the first place, I'm afraid. Less kind alternative: get a LiveJournal!
Because, you know, you should blog what I want you to blog, not what you want to blog. Because the world revolves around me, me, ME!
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 5:42 PM
The Hopleaf is in Andersonville, isn't it? Does one of you live near there, among the Swedes?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 6:19 PM
Yes it is, but no, I don't think any of us does live near there. (There's also a good Iranian place (Reza's) in the neighborhood.)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 6:33 PM
Swedes? Try "lesbians". Though lesbian Swedes, hmm...
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 6:34 PM
I could tell a story of a lesbian Swede...
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 6:39 PM
reza's, oh reza's.....
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 6:52 PM
I could tell a story of a lesbian Swede...
Ears have perked up across the Intarweb.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 7:51 PM
Ears have perked up across the Intarweb.
Really? No one else seems that excited. But here goes:
I liked a pretty French boy named Vincent. He invited me to a party, but ignored me the whole night, paying attention to a Swedish girl instead. Couldn't blame him, really. She was almost insanely hot. Resembled Charlize Theron. But it was still a painful night: I didn't know anyone else at this party, and it was in Paris so no one else was remotely interested in talking to me, and I was more or less forced to stand by and watch him flirt with this woman. I tried to participate in the conversation but he could not have made it more clear that he wanted me to disappear. He was almost physically blocking me at one point, and I was about to give up and go home, when the Swedish woman touched my arm and started asking me questions, in a very friendly, warm manner. And then (ha!) at the end of the night she very pointedly asked me if I wanted to go back to her place for a drink. And I immediately said that sounded like a great idea, leaving a stunned Vincent in the dust. So satisfying. I can't even tell you.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:19 PM
Nice try ac, but you still haven't told us how you know she was a lesbian.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:21 PM
Well, she wasn't interested in Vincent, so she must have been a lesbian, right?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:26 PM
Well I got some further proof later in the evening, if that's what you mean, Ogged.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:39 PM
Precisely what I meant. Though I meant it in greater detail.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:42 PM
I'll email you, if you really want to hear. But it's a little too hot for Unfogged. As someone around here might say.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:50 PM
too hot for Unfogged
!!
I know of no such category.
No, don't email me; doesn't seem right not to share.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:52 PM
You can email me; I don't mind not sharing.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:53 PM
Well I got some further proof later in the evening
I'll bet ac is just talking about that big Xena poster that was on the Swede's wall.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:57 PM
If anyone thinks a Xena poster is too hot for Unfogged, I'm closing up shop.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 8:58 PM
Well, maybe it was one of those XXXena posters oft heard of in legends of yore (at least in certain circles).
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 9:01 PM
I have always been grateful to the Swedes for giving the world The Refused, but it sounds as if ac's going to make it apparent that the Swedish have been holding out on me.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 9:09 PM
There once was a lesbian Swede
Who to our own ac decreed
That while Vincent's advances
Had terrible chances
Her own attempts might well succeed
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 9:13 PM
Not just hiatus; unfogged hiatus.
I like it. One point off for "decreed," which isn't quite the apposite verb.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 9:18 PM
A misreading of the word "villanelle" into SB's limerick gave me a silly idea, which is really not villanelltic at all, but related to a different form whose name I can't remember.
There once was a lesbian Swede
Who to our own ac decreed
That while Vincent's advances
Had terrible chances
Her own attempts might well succeed.
Earlier had Vincent decreed
"Stand back, ac, and let me succeed!"
How could he know
It would be a no-go?
For this was a lesbian Swede.
As nights one another succeed,
And sour follows on Swede,
It's always complex
In matters of sex:
Thus have all gods decreed.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 9:25 PM
I apologize for the sour/Swede thing.
I was thinking of the sestina.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 9:28 PM
ben, ben, the sestina must have sestets, not quintets, and all the end words must be reused! apparently in a very particular order, too, which seems awfully rigid.
but hey, points for villanelltic, which does not appear to be a word, but seems absolutely correct.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 9:48 PM
Not just hiatus; unfogged hiatus.
Oh, you noticed? Five days and then blammo, I'm back on the smack.
One point off for "decreed"
Yeah, that's not quite right. Change the second line to:
Better?Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 9:55 PM
Umm, but ac couldn't read the Swede's appetites: the Swede made them clear herself, in a too-hot-for-unfogged manner, and only later in the night.
Are you submitting this somewhere?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 9:59 PM
No, I'm not really into submission.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:03 PM
Dude, you'll never get tenure.
(One hears that line a lot at the Mineshaft.)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:07 PM
Cite me harder!
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:17 PM
Whatever, you'll just get me hot for Chicago, then be all "No, MLA! MLA!"
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 1-05 10:26 PM
Well I got some further proof later in the evening
A Parisian poetry reading, perhaps?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:57 AM
"Cite me harder."
And the crowd goes wild, chanting MoB MoB MoB....
Off to Reno. I'll let you know how the food is and whether or not anyone shoots anyone just to watch them die.
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 7:05 AM
Silvana, I know what the strictures for a sestina are. However, the limerick form doesn't allow for all the endings to be repeated very well, and I said "related to". Sheesh. A virtuouso performance and what do you get? Carping.
A Parisian poetry reading, perhaps?
Bookshelves lined with Colette?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 7:19 AM
you'll just get me hot for Chicago
I wouldn't dare cross a man in a libibidinous frenzy.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 7:28 AM
The real problem with SB's limerick is that the last line doesn't scan.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 7:32 AM
If ac won't say directly what the "further proof" was, we might bound the sapphic signal space with a game of twenty questions.
Was it bigger than a breadbox?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 7:41 AM
With whimsical zest I began
To hatch a poetical plan:
With Wolfson observing
I'd whip up a serving
Of limericks whose last lines didn't scan.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 8:35 AM
That one's a lot better because of all the liquids in the last line, it reads as shorter than it is. If it were "lim'ricks" it would be perfect.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 8:48 AM
OK, is no one else willing to admit that their blogcrush on ac just stopped being non-creepy (tm)?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 10:56 AM
Are you still working that, Matt? If this is how she teases us on the blog, just imagine...
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 10:59 AM
From the resident gentleman to the salivating porn dog in just 14 days.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:09 AM
If by 'tease' you mean saying she'll e-mail the rest of the story but not post, and then not posting, I'm not too worried. No means no, dude.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:10 AM
SB--already lost that fight....
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:11 AM
Yeah, in what sense is that teasing?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:12 AM
It's not teasing if you're willing to email everyone who asks.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:13 AM
Did you ask, ogged?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:14 AM
There seems something pimplike in your attitude towards me.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:15 AM
Yeah Weiner, you're a pimp!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:15 AM
58 to Ogged.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:15 AM
Damn.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:16 AM
A gentlemanly pimp.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:16 AM
There seems something pimplike in your attitude towards me.
Is that good or bad?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:16 AM
I did not ask. Didn't seem, uh, fraternal to be the only one to hear the story.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:17 AM
Sigh. "Ogged, game, needs to work on," part DCIV...
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:17 AM
Wolfson asked.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:18 AM
And did you just say "Ain't no fun if the homies can't have none"?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:18 AM
Yes! That's what I mean!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:18 AM
Does the singer then shoot a bunch of cops or something? I meant it in a good way.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:19 AM
Ogged has just learned the lesson "you can't have it unless there's enough for everyone" real well.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:19 AM
69: Lyrics. It's kind of amazing to be listening to a Snoop Dogg album and come across a track that's shockingly misogynistic in that context. (And yeah, I'm going to have to give up the "gentleman" thing for, like, a day now.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 11:27 AM
Regarding 24 and ac,
Sigh. Guys. How many times have I told you you can't chase?
You need to say something like "Wow" and wait. Maybe the story comes, maybe it doesn't.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 12:19 PM
Actually, I didn't ask. I said that, unlike ogged, I was familiar with the idea of confidence, and therefore if she wanted to email me, I wouldn't feel obligated to tell everyone in creation.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 12:29 PM
Are you trying to make some kind of point about speech acts, Ben? I think any reasonable person would interpret 26 as a request for e-mail as well as an expression of confidence.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 12:34 PM
I was considering dropping a "perlocutionary" in 73. Basically, my goal in 73 was to effect a criticism of simpleminded speech-act theory by combining an overly literalist reading of the text (which does not, after all, contain an explicit request) with an Austinianly-aware reading of some aspects of the subtext. In this way I tried to show that while appeals to "a reasonable person" and how he (for let's not kid ourselves, the paradigm "reasonable person" among Oxbridge dons is a he) might interpret any given "utterance", all too frequently such a gloss is merely a stalking horse for the actual interpreter to advance his own agendum.
This is all explicated at greater length in my artist's statement.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 12:43 PM
I hate when Wolfson cracks me up.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:03 PM
Admit it, you snickered at "agendum".
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:04 PM
Huh. 75 is missing a clause.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:05 PM
No it isn't.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:07 PM
Yes it is.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:08 PM
verb phrase
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:14 PM
Yeah that.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:16 PM
Bingo!
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:16 PM
What could it have been, I wonder?
"are typically accepted at the Mineshaft"
"are as common as buttless chaps at the Mineshaft"
??
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:19 PM
Ogged, AFAIK you are the only buttless chap who is common at the Mineshaft.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:21 PM
Buttless chaps are as common at the Mineshaft as people in the city.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:22 PM
It's impolite to call someone "common", Matt.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:22 PM
Dammit, SB, I was trying to set myself up for that joke.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:23 PM
Uh, 86, uh, uh, clears throat, hello? Granted it's not quite right.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:25 PM
Oh. But the thing is, people are actually common in the city, in the sense of 'common' meaning likely to be found there. Really the joke is clearer with a singular noun.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:33 PM
Tell it to Wilde; he used "flowers".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:34 PM
Yeah, and I didn't realize it was a joke until I deciphered 89. So mind too fine me. Walt Kelly has some good ones here.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:36 PM
Ah, posted without actually bothering to make sense. Walt Kelly has some good jokes where some character is reading from the bird atlas that some bird is "common in thickets" and the mouse says "I don't think this young follow should be common in or out of thickets."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:37 PM
The Wilde is only a joke if you know it's Wilde, or if it's said with an arched eyebrow.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:37 PM
I had typed it with an arched eyebrow.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:41 PM
A prehensile arched eyebrow.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:42 PM
So ogged, are you in some kind of a rebound phase now, looking for another hot Olympic swimmer to hone your strokes? Should we expect you to start posting soon about your (achingly!) platonic exploits with "the Dane"?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:44 PM
I'm still moving toward the bottom. The Swede will be around for another two months.
I almost posted today about the lifeguard with the absurd body who was swimming in a little two-piece today; but it seemed sexist, even for this place.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:48 PM
with the absurd body
Like this?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:49 PM
I'm still moving toward the bottom.
Whose?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:50 PM
You guys so owe me, you know that, right?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:51 PM
Yes, only it should be a gloomy Fin who just crawled out of a Kaurismaki film.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:54 PM
Aki or Mika?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 2:57 PM
swimming in a little two-piece today
No, that's a pretty big two-piece. Did it have a shallow end and a deep end?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 3:02 PM
Now you're straining.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 3:04 PM
Yes, apo, please show some restraint.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 3:06 PM
apostropher is banned!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 2-05 3:10 PM
Gloomy Fins are likely to be very good swimmers.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 3-05 9:45 AM
Or at least important parts thereof.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 3-05 10:20 AM
Hi, I'm Gloomy. This is my brother Dorsal, and this is my other brother Dorsal.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 3-05 10:23 AM
I can't think of a clever rejoinder, but that's funny.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 3-05 10:37 AM