Definitely a no. Especially on the 'being a grammarfiend is sexy' bit. Constantly correcting others' grammar is one of the more irksome personality traits known to man.
(No, there is no b-wo exception, but I'm willing to bet he doesn't correct grammar in this real world I keep hearing about.)
But yeah, the guy comes across as someone who's posted several ads to find out which ones worked, and then mushed them all together into MegaAd Xtreme.
If one is someone about whom people so regularly talk that stories of one's dreams have become widespread and exaggerated, then they would be one's apocryphal dreams. If, for example, one were William Burroughs. Or Thomas Pynchon. Which, you will note, this person thinks he is, a little.
He's not bad-looking, and is vaguely in the neighborhood of amusing, so I was sort of going with it, until he used the word "biography" instead of "autobiography."
Wait, is this another one of those moral experiment threads, where ogged wants to see what kind of horrible misanthropic responses he can provoke? Did you really write this ad as a test case, ogged?
In any case, it's not the mistake itself, but the question of whether I'd give him the benefit of the doubt about it. He doesn't seem quite clever enough to be attempting to do something interesting and failing; he doesn't seem quite smart enough for me to assume that it's an oversight.
it will be a novelization. He anticipates lots of public interest in his inner monologue, which would create the demand for a speculative first-person biography.
I didn't really find it that bad. Occupation: will get in the way of our love ... that's not bad. The personal ad is kind of a no win genre. Except Mr. Vanity's subgenre, of course.
Slol, I took out the note about how this is not me, because I figured SCMT would assume that it was, and I could abuse him for it. Take that how you will.
Yes, " Occupation: will get in the way of our love." is bad... I mean, you don't start off by telling the girl you don't really have time for her, do you?
Oh, and baa, the good personal ad is not impossible: I'm more charmed than put off by this one. (And I'm only put off by "incompatibility," not ad-crafting incompetence.)
I thought the whole thing was a joke, until I saw his music list and realized, hey, I listen to that crap too! It was then that I sat myself down and had a good cry.
Thank you, Mr. Kelly Ripa - I feel much better now.
I filled out an online ad once, not because I wanted to do the internet dating thing (which I find vaguely creepy), but because I was curious what I would answer to the questions. I've since lost the ad, but when I was done with it, I read over it and thought, "Oh, hell yeah. I'd date me." I have pretty low standards, though.
Best lie I've ever told: "No ma'am, I do not control the weather." She totally bought it, too.
Oh, and baa, the good personal ad is not impossible: I'm more charmed than put off by this one.
To be fair, that one has breasts. Kind of an unfair advantage.
Also, don't you find that ad's use of the ever-popular "I demand a man who's not terrified of fuzzy relationship concept X, Y and Z" to be kind of off-putting, if not terrifying enough in and of itself to immediately disqualify you from responding?
But I take the "I demand" bit to be more about her personal history than anything else (or at least that's how I keep from mentally disqualifying myself).
The only way personals work are by a process of disqualification. You're not drawn to anything about the person, you just aren't repulsed. That seems sort of depressing.
But, OTOH, I know a few people who married the people they met online.
I find this inoffensive. It's mildy amusing, the fellow isn't bad looking... Evaluating the guy as a potential friend, I can't say I'd go out of my way to pal around with him, but he might know a few good cock jokes.
If my sister brought him home, I'd punch him in the nuts if he came off like he comes off in the ad, though.
the only thing i liked in his ad was the "occupation: will get in the way of our love"..... the rest just smacked of "smack me and tell me to calm down"...
i'm thinking it's ok to try to be completely "ironic" or "witty without substance" only if your entire profile can be read in 30 seconds or less.
(though i have to disclose that i met one of my best friends and an amazing lover (2 different people) on salon personals.... along with a lot of people i will never see again.)
I knew I wouldn't want date him even before I plunged into his goopy artifice. But then, I have a vague dislike for Pete Sampras,¹ and the resemblance was too peculiar not to skew my judgment. Those 120 mph serves are beasts, crude and dissatisfying.
¹Tedious disclaimer: To the degree that you can dislike someone unknown to you. Whose pet peeve am I humoring, anyway? I forget.
he was out at "the Zurich of my apocryphal dreams, circa 1918. Sipping coffee and checking out the ladies at the Odeon with Lenin, Joyce, and Einstein."
not just for the "apocryphal dreams" bit, but name-dropping joyce is a bad sign. i mean, joyce is great and all, but any duy who will declare that he just loves joyce is likely an asshole who sort of read portrait of the artist in his junior year of high school and his only other reading since has been occasionally pretending to be engrossed in the stranger on buses in an attempt to impress chicks.
also, "the tiny fraction of people that actually ‘get it.'"
being an uber-hipster who walks around complaining about how everyone is just so lost and they don't understand things the way i do is so 1997.
now we just say that there are plenty of people who 'get it', they just have better sense than to hang around with you, eh?
and why is it that so many guys are desperately looking for women who will laugh at their jokes? maybe if no one is laughing at your jokes, you aren't funny...
this guy's a tool.
although i did enjoy "cabana boy." i need one of those.
You used to be able to find out if abe vigoda was dead or alive at this site, which also housed a take off on "bela lugosi's dead" called "abe vigoda's dead".
karyn, i think if the rest of the ad had been decent, that could have actually been funny.
but since it's not, it's just a lame attempt to be funny.
and tripp, touché.
i think it's pretty funny that all women say they want someone with a good sense of humor, cause a lot of women i know have really terrible senses of humor. you'd think they'd want someone else to wallow in their taking-selves-too-seriously-ness with.
Yeah...I remembered FHM because my ex used to read that all the time too. Actually, he only read those sorts of magazines and his weekly supply of comics (which admittedly, I read too--but I enjoy actual books just as much).
the last two things i remember my ex reading are XBOX magazine and Siddhartha for the twelfth time. oh yeah, and one of those damn Robert Jordan books.
No prob. I had no criticism for you. I think the google description of FHM could have been a little clearer about nudity though.
I always passed over the "want a guy with a good sense of humor" because I thought it meant something like "generally cheerful and will laugh at my jokes" which for the most part everybody would like, right? It would certainly make a person more fun to be around.
When you hold up the book at face level and occasionally clear your throat loudly and tap the title. Sporadically let out a low whistle and shake your head while chuckling softly to yourself in appreciation of the author's genius when you finish a virtuouso passage or a hot indie-looking girl approaches.
70: wolfson, i think you're ok for now . but that's pushing it.
the thing that gets me is camus or joyce on the train. oh, and the other day i saw some rocker-dude (he was hot, though) in like a pantera t-shirt or something, reading the ramayana on the el platform. that was pretty funny.
78: you've got to temper your coolness. gauloises can only be smoked while reading something incongruous, like, say, Harry Potter or Adobe Photoshop for Dummies.
my objection is that the reader of such famously known works in public spaces is trying to appear cool and intellectual, while it is clear that if you really want to pass yourself off as an intellectual, you would have read Ulysses already and moved on to something i've never heard of and/or didn't read in college.
81, so the objection isn't to the trying, but to the failing? Because you still refer to passing oneself off as intellectual.
I would hate to think that if I ever wanted to read Ulysses or that French book named after one of Shakespeare's sonnets I'd have to do so in the privacy of my own home, or cover it up, lest I be thought to be attempting to impress the world with my intelligence in a particularly obvious way.
I'd have to do so in the privacy of my own home, or cover it up
I've done this: make plain brown paper jackets for books so that I could read them in public without people thinking that I was trying to be pretentious.
But if someone were reading something you'd never heard of, it would also be a failure, just less obvious. You've got to pitch your attempt at a middle level.
tripp, i tried to find a picture of a woman seductively licking a fork for you, but it appears as though the bombshell-with-flatware porn market is as yet undeveloped.
I'm surprised that no one has pointed out that our friend is undone by his opening move: you cannot identify yourself with a Smiths lyric if you're the kind of person who needs to wax his eyebrows. Swarthy and mopey are the least compatible of the seven dwarves.
re 91: hmm. i suppose you could just say "fuck it" since there are assholes like me who are going to mentally make fun of you anyway...? i think i'm less likely to interpret reading choices on the train unfavorably in the evening; in the morning i'm cranky and generally contemptuous of everyone. but hey.
You know what was tough? Reading Joseph Conrad's "N_____ of the 'Narcissus'" on the #1 bus from Central Square to Roxburry. It hit me mid-way: Didn't do much title-tapping on that trip....
Baa, you know what's also tough? Having some weird dude sit next to you on the train and start stroking himself while you're reading Breakfast of Champions, with all those sketches of orifices mixed in with the text.
This comment should not be taken as an endorsement of Vonnegut.
re: 56 I think that's just a sub-concious association that runs Farley Granger -> Strangers on a Train -> Tennis match -> Pete Sampras.
re: 100 I've been saving Being and Time for home reading. My pretentious philosophy subway reading is Concept of Law, and I have wondered more than once what impression, if any, that makes on people. I did have someone compliment me after seeing Being and Time on my kitchen table, but that person is fairly pretentious themselves.
re: public reading in general. I can't believe no one referenced either this brilliant onion article (the onion hides their archive (from me at least) but its transcribed in the last comment in the link) or the series">http://pedantspot.blogspot.com/2005/01/rationalization.html">series of blog posts on demonstrative reading from earlier in the year (not my post in particular, but mine contains links to three of the posts about it).
105: I thought that before I read anything about him, comments here included. Granted I'm not really that familiar with what Granger looks like (and the comment is a direct quotation from one of Tom Waits' best songs, "Burma Shave", given its definitive performance on the bootleg Cold Beer on a Hot Night).
Also, on the Paris Metro more than once I saw people reading Stephen King translated into French. I've also seen someone reading John Grisham in Swedish.
And Ben, why weren't you reading The Tin Drum in German?
I read all sorts of academic books on the train. It's relatively quiet; no one's going to bother me, there are no blogs, and if random people think reading Foundations of illocutionary logic is pretentious, rather than a horrifically bad idea, I promise only to take them seriously if they can tell me what "illocutionary" means.
That's the same reason why my copy of Im Westen nichts Neues remains unread. I think at one point I got enough of the skills to get started, but lacked the discipline to do it.
Cala, Hornsby's article in Foundations of Speech Act Theory (ed. Tsohatzidis) is good. If you want the ravings of a madman on the subject, search my archives for "illocutionary."
And I read most of books 5-7 of Rememberance of Things Past on the T between Davis Square and my Ultimate game at Newton Circle. I remember getting a ride back to Coolidge Corner, finishing the book while waiting for the train to arrive, and thinking "Now what am I going to do?"
Actually Proust is good for opposite reasons from Borges--you'll never finish a chapter in a sitting, so it doesn't really matter when the train gets in.
A certain philosopher, who may or may not have authored an article that may or may not have been recommended just upthread, once asked me what I thought of that book. After I had paltered out some answer, she said, "I think it's dreadfully boring." I found this liberating.
I like the Coulter post , Matt, but I'm not sure I agree about the difference, because both seem to require the same kinds of background conditions. (I think it's because conditions 2 and 3 are kind of fuzzy in my mind.)
Examples:
B-wo: What do you think of Matt Weiner? Me: He's a good bicyclist.
B-wo: Is Weiner a good philosopher? Me: He's a good bicyclist.
Pretend in the first case b-wo and I are sipping dry martinis, by which we mean dry vermouth, at a conference where you're talking.... Doesn't the implicature that MW's not a great philosopher still show up in your stage two?
NB: I can't ride a bicycle at all. Early incident involving my head and a curb.
And... I think you may be right. Partly it may be that the Steyn/Coulter example is poorly chosen--perhaps it should be something like "What do you know about Steyn?" etc. Or perhaps I should have said that the intention, which is in stage 3 in my case (5), is to get you to think that Steyn is untrustworthy (rather than more general denigration).
The idea was (IIRC) that there is a difference between neutral presentation of the facts, intending that a certain conclusion be drawn, and a case in which the intention to inspire the conclusion is itself presented (and in fact the conclusion is supposed to be based in part on the hearer's recognition of that intention, a la Grice). In your case the implicature is in stage 2, in both my cases the idea that Steyn is a bad man is arguable in stage 2, since my citation of his endorsement of Coulter is explicitly presented as giving my opinion of him; but in my case (5) it's not like I suggest "...and so he's untrustworthy." That conclusion I hope you draw on your own, from the truth generally acknowledged that anyone who cites Coulter approvingly is untrustworthy.
Remember that these are the ravings of a madman; I don't know that anyone in the biz agrees with much of anything I say here.
The comment on my blog, BTW, dates from a time when I was trying to keep politics off it--a policy which has now gone by the board completely.
Yeah. I'm not so sure the problem is with the example as that 2) and 3) are really annoyingly murky. I can kinda see what you're getting at; just not sure the intention isn't doing most of the work even in either Steyn case. Surely it's not a clearly intention-free inference from "support Ann Coulter" to "untrustworthy" any more than "good bicyclist" to "bad philosopher" is. I have to have some idea what you think of Coulter. Does that count as intention?
Regardless, we know the real answer to the question now:
b-wo: So, what do you think of Matt Weiner. Me: I hear he's a horrible bicyclist.
Re: 109 Ben, dig up Wladimir Kaminer; Amazon.de should be a good place. Short stories, funny, carefully observed, and as his name suggests, German is not his first language, so his writing is accessible to the rest of us. You'll have deutsche Skillen before you know it.
I have to have some idea what you think of Coulter. Does that count as intention?
The way I was envisioning it, you don't actually have to have any idea of what I think of Coulter--you just have to have an accurate opinion of Coulter yourself. That is, once you know "Steyn endorses Coulter" you must be able to conclude "Steyn is untrustworthy." So I guess I am claiming that intention-free inference is possible. (Which I think it is in this case--if I were reading Steyn with no background at all, and Icame across the words "Ann Coulter says, in a devastatingly correct column," I would instantly ignore everything Steyn had to say; and that surely isn't his intention.)
So I might (er, with some change in the background) have intended something like the following: "I'll tell Cala that Steyn endorses Coulter. Then, she'll believe (on my word) that Steyn endorses Coulter. Then, though she knows nothing about my views and opinions--for all she knows I might be this guy--she will draw the conclusion that anyone who endorses Coulter is untrustworthy." But that latter conclusion (in my intention) won't be based on your perception of my intention to make you think Steyn is untrustworthy.
I agree that the distinction between 2 and 3 is annoyingly murky though. In my defense I say: Less annoyingly murky than the distinction between illocution and perlocution. What we do in saying it and what we do by saying it, my eye.
Still, best to read Hornsby.
[I--dammit, I want to say demur--from the characterization of me as a rotten bicyclist. I am no more a rotten bicyclist than an incompetent climber of Mt. Everest, or a poor husband to Tina Fey.]
the irony reinforcing the narcissism is my bit. That and misspellings.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:06 PM
I thought Pete Sampras was married.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:07 PM
Seriously, what kind of nice Jewish boy wants to say he's a nice Jewish boy without saying he's a nice Jewish boy and then misspells "Abe Vigoda"?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:07 PM
D'oh, now I see he beat me too it. Damn self-deprecation!
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:08 PM
Definitely a no. Especially on the 'being a grammarfiend is sexy' bit. Constantly correcting others' grammar is one of the more irksome personality traits known to man.
(No, there is no b-wo exception, but I'm willing to bet he doesn't correct grammar in this real world I keep hearing about.)
But yeah, the guy comes across as someone who's posted several ads to find out which ones worked, and then mushed them all together into MegaAd Xtreme.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:09 PM
Does "apocryphal dreams" stikre everyone else as non-sensical?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:10 PM
Yeah w/d, that's when I became certain that I didn't like him.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:11 PM
I mean, it's possible to use the phrase "apocryphal dreams" in a meaningful way, but he doesn't.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:12 PM
MegaAd Xtreme
What, this is bad?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:13 PM
It could be meaningful, but not when referring to one's own dreams.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:13 PM
It is if you're still including your idiotic grammar joke.
(Okay, maybe it's not irksome to Mankind. Just ridiculously irksome to me.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:15 PM
If one is someone about whom people so regularly talk that stories of one's dreams have become widespread and exaggerated, then they would be one's apocryphal dreams. If, for example, one were William Burroughs. Or Thomas Pynchon. Which, you will note, this person thinks he is, a little.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:16 PM
He's not bad-looking, and is vaguely in the neighborhood of amusing, so I was sort of going with it, until he used the word "biography" instead of "autobiography."
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:21 PM
Wait, is this another one of those moral experiment threads, where ogged wants to see what kind of horrible misanthropic responses he can provoke? Did you really write this ad as a test case, ogged?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:22 PM
I was actually consciously resisting Ogged's attempt to prejudice me against Pete Samprasman, but stumbled at the auto/biography question anyway.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:25 PM
I think I wasn't too happy with:
Occupation: will get in the way of our love.
^^ Think that means unemployed IT guy?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:25 PM
perhaps he was just suggesting the phrase to his future biographer, who will no doubt read his personal ad as part of the research.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:27 PM
But the suggested line wouldn't be in the first person, would it?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:28 PM
Oh shit! You found my personal ad!
Posted by V. Botkin | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:28 PM
In any case, it's not the mistake itself, but the question of whether I'd give him the benefit of the doubt about it. He doesn't seem quite clever enough to be attempting to do something interesting and failing; he doesn't seem quite smart enough for me to assume that it's an oversight.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:35 PM
it will be a novelization. He anticipates lots of public interest in his inner monologue, which would create the demand for a speculative first-person biography.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:36 PM
I didn't really find it that bad. Occupation: will get in the way of our love ... that's not bad. The personal ad is kind of a no win genre. Except Mr. Vanity's subgenre, of course.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:37 PM
also, if that's what he was intending, it would be ridiculous, another reason to scorn him.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:37 PM
it will be a novelization
He can call it A Headaching Work of Swaggering Tweeness.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:41 PM
Slol, I took out the note about how this is not me, because I figured SCMT would assume that it was, and I could abuse him for it. Take that how you will.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:41 PM
I guess, in SCMT's absence, I take the implicit abuse.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:44 PM
baa, I don't know if you were around when Mr. Vanity paid us a visit.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:45 PM
Yes, " Occupation: will get in the way of our love." is bad... I mean, you don't start off by telling the girl you don't really have time for her, do you?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 5:46 PM
Oh, and baa, the good personal ad is not impossible: I'm more charmed than put off by this one. (And I'm only put off by "incompatibility," not ad-crafting incompetence.)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 6:01 PM
I thought the whole thing was a joke, until I saw his music list and realized, hey, I listen to that crap too! It was then that I sat myself down and had a good cry.
Thank you, Mr. Kelly Ripa - I feel much better now.
Posted by moira | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 6:07 PM
I filled out an online ad once, not because I wanted to do the internet dating thing (which I find vaguely creepy), but because I was curious what I would answer to the questions. I've since lost the ad, but when I was done with it, I read over it and thought, "Oh, hell yeah. I'd date me." I have pretty low standards, though.
Best lie I've ever told: "No ma'am, I do not control the weather." She totally bought it, too.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 6:09 PM
His height standards seem kind of low.
Also, what the hell would Einstein, Lenin, and Joyce have been doing at the Odeon? There was work to be done.
This thread is a ploy for ogged to try to figure out the gender of certian commenters.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 6:35 PM
I hope SB never slips, and remains genderless, or vaguely hermaphroditic, for the whole of his/her/it's time here.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 6:43 PM
*its
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 6:44 PM
Oh, and baa, the good personal ad is not impossible: I'm more charmed than put off by this one.
To be fair, that one has breasts. Kind of an unfair advantage.
Also, don't you find that ad's use of the ever-popular "I demand a man who's not terrified of fuzzy relationship concept X, Y and Z" to be kind of off-putting, if not terrifying enough in and of itself to immediately disqualify you from responding?
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 7:03 PM
I'm with tom; she's attractive, so it skews your perception of the ad. Impossible to evaluate fairly.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 7:08 PM
has breasts. Kind of an unfair advantage
Granted.
But I take the "I demand" bit to be more about her personal history than anything else (or at least that's how I keep from mentally disqualifying myself).
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 7:10 PM
The Mary J. Blige thing was good. As was the use of all caps RETARDED.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 7:26 PM
baa, you probably don't realize that you liked the Mary J. Blige thing because it was in the form of "answer: X"
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 7:29 PM
?
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 7:35 PM
The only way personals work are by a process of disqualification. You're not drawn to anything about the person, you just aren't repulsed. That seems sort of depressing.
But, OTOH, I know a few people who married the people they met online.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 7:35 PM
?
I was hoping I could link to it again.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 7:40 PM
No, I would never date this man, but someone out there will. And then they'll reproduce.
Posted by annie | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 8:18 PM
I'm ignorant enough of film that I had to google abe vigoda to figure out what it was.
What I found strangest was the whole bit about adding a new person to your group of friends, especially if you're the "loser" in your group.
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 8:35 PM
Am I the only one tempted to write a personal ad for Ogged?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 8:43 PM
Yes.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 8:44 PM
I am a: spoilsport
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 8:46 PM
I find this inoffensive. It's mildy amusing, the fellow isn't bad looking... Evaluating the guy as a potential friend, I can't say I'd go out of my way to pal around with him, but he might know a few good cock jokes.
If my sister brought him home, I'd punch him in the nuts if he came off like he comes off in the ad, though.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 8:47 PM
Almost.
Am I a spoilsport? Answer: yes!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 8:48 PM
45: I think you're on to something, ac.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 07-13-05 8:48 PM
the only thing i liked in his ad was the "occupation: will get in the way of our love"..... the rest just smacked of "smack me and tell me to calm down"...
i'm thinking it's ok to try to be completely "ironic" or "witty without substance" only if your entire profile can be read in 30 seconds or less.
(though i have to disclose that i met one of my best friends and an amazing lover (2 different people) on salon personals.... along with a lot of people i will never see again.)
Posted by robin | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 1:27 AM
I knew I wouldn't want date him even before I plunged into his goopy artifice. But then, I have a vague dislike for Pete Sampras,¹ and the resemblance was too peculiar not to skew my judgment. Those 120 mph serves are beasts, crude and dissatisfying.
¹Tedious disclaimer: To the degree that you can dislike someone unknown to you. Whose pet peeve am I humoring, anyway? I forget.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 3:08 AM
You are frail, neurotic, and a bit insecure, and damn proud of it.
I was once told when reading a play to give special notice to the title and the last line.
Granted this was the penultimate line but it still stood out to me.
First, why is this guy looking for someone who is frail and insecure?
Second, does damn pride ever go with insecurity? False pride, maybe.
I suppose it is trite and a cliche to be looking for someone who is strong and well adjusted, but to ask for the opposite to try to be novel?
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:11 AM
he was out at "the Zurich of my apocryphal dreams, circa 1918. Sipping coffee and checking out the ladies at the Odeon with Lenin, Joyce, and Einstein."
not just for the "apocryphal dreams" bit, but name-dropping joyce is a bad sign. i mean, joyce is great and all, but any duy who will declare that he just loves joyce is likely an asshole who sort of read portrait of the artist in his junior year of high school and his only other reading since has been occasionally pretending to be engrossed in the stranger on buses in an attempt to impress chicks.
also, "the tiny fraction of people that actually ‘get it.'"
being an uber-hipster who walks around complaining about how everyone is just so lost and they don't understand things the way i do is so 1997.
now we just say that there are plenty of people who 'get it', they just have better sense than to hang around with you, eh?
and why is it that so many guys are desperately looking for women who will laugh at their jokes? maybe if no one is laughing at your jokes, you aren't funny...
this guy's a tool.
although i did enjoy "cabana boy." i need one of those.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:36 AM
duy = guy.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:37 AM
He kinda looks like Farley Granger, with his hair slicked back.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:42 AM
I kinda like duy=duy.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:47 AM
You used to be able to find out if abe vigoda was dead or alive at this site, which also housed a take off on "bela lugosi's dead" called "abe vigoda's dead".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:48 AM
ben, I don't appreciate you teasing me like this.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:51 AM
oh, yeah, and this. obviously.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:52 AM
silvana,
why is it that so many guys are desperately looking for women who will laugh at their jokes?
I think it is because so many women say they are looking for a guy with a good sense of humor.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:53 AM
Am i the only one who was put off by the I only read FHM -- that is, unless I want to impress someone by busting out an issue of Maxim. at the get-go?
Posted by Karyn | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:54 AM
I'm not teasing you, ogged, it's the straight-up truth.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:55 AM
Yikes!
I didn't know what FHM was and this is a warning that it is NOT work safe.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:56 AM
Are you mind-too-fining me, Ben?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:56 AM
karyn, i think if the rest of the ad had been decent, that could have actually been funny.
but since it's not, it's just a lame attempt to be funny.
and tripp, touché.
i think it's pretty funny that all women say they want someone with a good sense of humor, cause a lot of women i know have really terrible senses of humor. you'd think they'd want someone else to wallow in their taking-selves-too-seriously-ness with.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:57 AM
Silvana, more whimpster talk here.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:57 AM
Yeah...I remembered FHM because my ex used to read that all the time too. Actually, he only read those sorts of magazines and his weekly supply of comics (which admittedly, I read too--but I enjoy actual books just as much).
Posted by Karyn | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 8:58 AM
The sense of humor question definitely deserves its own post. Bit later in the morning, time permitting...
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:01 AM
I hope ostentatiously reading The Tin Drum on the train and busses doesn't qualify me for membership in silvana's 54 class of duys.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:01 AM
the last two things i remember my ex reading are XBOX magazine and Siddhartha for the twelfth time. oh yeah, and one of those damn Robert Jordan books.
i must have whimpster-dar or something.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:02 AM
What is ostentatious reading?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:03 AM
silvana,
No prob. I had no criticism for you. I think the google description of FHM could have been a little clearer about nudity though.
I always passed over the "want a guy with a good sense of humor" because I thought it meant something like "generally cheerful and will laugh at my jokes" which for the most part everybody would like, right? It would certainly make a person more fun to be around.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:04 AM
When you hold up the book at face level and occasionally clear your throat loudly and tap the title. Sporadically let out a low whistle and shake your head while chuckling softly to yourself in appreciation of the author's genius when you finish a virtuouso passage or a hot indie-looking girl approaches.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:05 AM
No one taps the title.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:05 AM
Needless to say, I
got the jobdon't actually do that.Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:06 AM
70: wolfson, i think you're ok for now . but that's pushing it.
the thing that gets me is camus or joyce on the train. oh, and the other day i saw some rocker-dude (he was hot, though) in like a pantera t-shirt or something, reading the ramayana on the el platform. that was pretty funny.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:06 AM
the thing that gets me is camus or joyce on the train.
What about at a café while smoking gauloises?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:08 AM
How about using the word "buss" correctly? Would that be too pretentious?
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:11 AM
Gives a whole new meaning to bussing one's tableware.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:13 AM
78: you've got to temper your coolness. gauloises can only be smoked while reading something incongruous, like, say, Harry Potter or Adobe Photoshop for Dummies.
my objection is that the reader of such famously known works in public spaces is trying to appear cool and intellectual, while it is clear that if you really want to pass yourself off as an intellectual, you would have read Ulysses already and moved on to something i've never heard of and/or didn't read in college.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:13 AM
Re: 81
*applause*
Posted by Karyn | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:14 AM
81, so the objection isn't to the trying, but to the failing? Because you still refer to passing oneself off as intellectual.
I would hate to think that if I ever wanted to read Ulysses or that French book named after one of Shakespeare's sonnets I'd have to do so in the privacy of my own home, or cover it up, lest I be thought to be attempting to impress the world with my intelligence in a particularly obvious way.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:17 AM
yeah, it's the failing. i will also note that most of the people i see reading these things tend to be on the first 3-5 pages.
maybe if i see you reading the last chapter of Ulysses (and what a lovely chapter it is), that would be ok.
but really, this is just me. maybe you can still pick up hott indie chicks.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:25 AM
Gives a whole new meaning to bussing one's tableware.
Yeah. The correct meaning.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:28 AM
I'd have to do so in the privacy of my own home, or cover it up
I've done this: make plain brown paper jackets for books so that I could read them in public without people thinking that I was trying to be pretentious.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:29 AM
But if someone were reading something you'd never heard of, it would also be a failure, just less obvious. You've got to pitch your attempt at a middle level.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:29 AM
ogged, don't you think that's a bit much?
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:30 AM
Something just familiar enough to be strange.
(Tripp--kissing?)
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:30 AM
That's me, baby.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:30 AM
What would you have him do, silvana, with people like you in the world?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:30 AM
baby=silvana, in this case.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:31 AM
tripp, i tried to find a picture of a woman seductively licking a fork for you, but it appears as though the bombshell-with-flatware porn market is as yet undeveloped.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:33 AM
I'm surprised that no one has pointed out that our friend is undone by his opening move: you cannot identify yourself with a Smiths lyric if you're the kind of person who needs to wax his eyebrows. Swarthy and mopey are the least compatible of the seven dwarves.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:43 AM
a picture of a woman seductively licking a fork for you
Harder than I'd have thought. On the other hand, here's a teenage girl (and two much younger ones) swimming in Lick Fork Lake. So that's something.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 9:54 AM
Which is the Smiths lyric?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:06 AM
"boy with the thorn in his side" is the title of a smiths song.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:08 AM
Ah, thanks.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:09 AM
re 91: hmm. i suppose you could just say "fuck it" since there are assholes like me who are going to mentally make fun of you anyway...? i think i'm less likely to interpret reading choices on the train unfavorably in the evening; in the morning i'm cranky and generally contemptuous of everyone. but hey.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:13 AM
my objection is that the reader of such famously known works in public spaces is trying to appear cool and intellectual,
So does this mean that people are mocking me for reading, oh, I don't know, say Being and Time on the subway?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:16 AM
You know what was tough? Reading Joseph Conrad's "N_____ of the 'Narcissus'" on the #1 bus from Central Square to Roxburry. It hit me mid-way: Didn't do much title-tapping on that trip....
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:18 AM
Re 100
Ogged should give out the instructions for making the paper book covers.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:22 AM
What, weren't you ever in school, Joe?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:25 AM
Baa, you know what's also tough? Having some weird dude sit next to you on the train and start stroking himself while you're reading Breakfast of Champions, with all those sketches of orifices mixed in with the text.
This comment should not be taken as an endorsement of Vonnegut.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:42 AM
re: 56 I think that's just a sub-concious association that runs Farley Granger -> Strangers on a Train -> Tennis match -> Pete Sampras.
re: 100 I've been saving Being and Time for home reading. My pretentious philosophy subway reading is Concept of Law, and I have wondered more than once what impression, if any, that makes on people. I did have someone compliment me after seeing Being and Time on my kitchen table, but that person is fairly pretentious themselves.
re: public reading in general. I can't believe no one referenced either this brilliant onion article (the onion hides their archive (from me at least) but its transcribed in the last comment in the link) or the series">http://pedantspot.blogspot.com/2005/01/rationalization.html">series of blog posts on demonstrative reading from earlier in the year (not my post in particular, but mine contains links to three of the posts about it).
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 10:58 AM
105: I thought that before I read anything about him, comments here included. Granted I'm not really that familiar with what Granger looks like (and the comment is a direct quotation from one of Tom Waits' best songs, "Burma Shave", given its definitive performance on the bootleg Cold Beer on a Hot Night).
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 11:00 AM
When I had a short commute I started reading Borges on the train solely because I wanted to read stories I could finish during the ride.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 11:50 AM
Also, on the Paris Metro more than once I saw people reading Stephen King translated into French. I've also seen someone reading John Grisham in Swedish.
And Ben, why weren't you reading The Tin Drum in German?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 11:52 AM
Because my German sucks.
I do have a copy of The Rings of Saturn in German. And some Kafka, some Goethe, bilingual Wittgenstein and Lenz ... but no skills, man, no skills.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 11:57 AM
I read all sorts of academic books on the train. It's relatively quiet; no one's going to bother me, there are no blogs, and if random people think reading Foundations of illocutionary logic is pretentious, rather than a horrifically bad idea, I promise only to take them seriously if they can tell me what "illocutionary" means.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:02 PM
That's the same reason why my copy of Im Westen nichts Neues remains unread. I think at one point I got enough of the skills to get started, but lacked the discipline to do it.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:02 PM
Cala, Hornsby's article in Foundations of Speech Act Theory (ed. Tsohatzidis) is good. If you want the ravings of a madman on the subject, search my archives for "illocutionary."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:08 PM
I read 110 as a challenge to potential scoffers, not a request for enlightenment.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:08 PM
And I read most of books 5-7 of Rememberance of Things Past on the T between Davis Square and my Ultimate game at Newton Circle. I remember getting a ride back to Coolidge Corner, finishing the book while waiting for the train to arrive, and thinking "Now what am I going to do?"
Actually Proust is good for opposite reasons from Borges--you'll never finish a chapter in a sitting, so it doesn't really matter when the train gets in.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:11 PM
112: In lieu of asking Wolfson WHMBSALB, I will politely ask Cala whether she found my comment helpful.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:12 PM
Are we to understand that, in making that announcement, you have so inquired?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:17 PM
Ben, would you like me to explain what illocution is?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:19 PM
You know, I used "in" instead of "by" purposely.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:20 PM
Maybe it was just a ceremonial utterance.
Yes, Weiner, you are helpful. I hate that damn book though; it's good, but trying to get through it requires unhealthy levels of caffeine.
Ben, WMYBSALB?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:21 PM
Having split the hair an unprecedented six ways, Ben Wolfson will now retire to his château in the Alps.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:22 PM
A certain philosopher, who may or may not have authored an article that may or may not have been recommended just upthread, once asked me what I thought of that book. After I had paltered out some answer, she said, "I think it's dreadfully boring." I found this liberating.
Posted by PWELDWCYIQND | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:25 PM
Misspelled my name. I hate when that happens.
Posted by PWELDWYCIQND | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:30 PM
I like the Coulter post , Matt, but I'm not sure I agree about the difference, because both seem to require the same kinds of background conditions. (I think it's because conditions 2 and 3 are kind of fuzzy in my mind.)
Examples:
B-wo: What do you think of Matt Weiner? Me: He's a good bicyclist.
B-wo: Is Weiner a good philosopher? Me: He's a good bicyclist.
Pretend in the first case b-wo and I are sipping dry martinis, by which we mean dry vermouth, at a conference where you're talking.... Doesn't the implicature that MW's not a great philosopher still show up in your stage two?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:32 PM
NB: I can't ride a bicycle at all. Early incident involving my head and a curb.
And... I think you may be right. Partly it may be that the Steyn/Coulter example is poorly chosen--perhaps it should be something like "What do you know about Steyn?" etc. Or perhaps I should have said that the intention, which is in stage 3 in my case (5), is to get you to think that Steyn is untrustworthy (rather than more general denigration).
The idea was (IIRC) that there is a difference between neutral presentation of the facts, intending that a certain conclusion be drawn, and a case in which the intention to inspire the conclusion is itself presented (and in fact the conclusion is supposed to be based in part on the hearer's recognition of that intention, a la Grice). In your case the implicature is in stage 2, in both my cases the idea that Steyn is a bad man is arguable in stage 2, since my citation of his endorsement of Coulter is explicitly presented as giving my opinion of him; but in my case (5) it's not like I suggest "...and so he's untrustworthy." That conclusion I hope you draw on your own, from the truth generally acknowledged that anyone who cites Coulter approvingly is untrustworthy.
Remember that these are the ravings of a madman; I don't know that anyone in the biz agrees with much of anything I say here.
The comment on my blog, BTW, dates from a time when I was trying to keep politics off it--a policy which has now gone by the board completely.
[Hey, there's LizardBreath!]
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:49 PM
Yeah. I'm not so sure the problem is with the example as that 2) and 3) are really annoyingly murky. I can kinda see what you're getting at; just not sure the intention isn't doing most of the work even in either Steyn case. Surely it's not a clearly intention-free inference from "support Ann Coulter" to "untrustworthy" any more than "good bicyclist" to "bad philosopher" is. I have to have some idea what you think of Coulter. Does that count as intention?
Regardless, we know the real answer to the question now:
b-wo: So, what do you think of Matt Weiner. Me: I hear he's a horrible bicyclist.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 12:59 PM
Wow, this baby has been around the barn and back.
I am amused when people use busses and bussing when they don't mean kisses and kissing.
And I can't believe there is no flatware pron. Hmmmm, a niche not served.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 1:02 PM
Re: 109 Ben, dig up Wladimir Kaminer; Amazon.de should be a good place. Short stories, funny, carefully observed, and as his name suggests, German is not his first language, so his writing is accessible to the rest of us. You'll have deutsche Skillen before you know it.
Posted by Doug | Link to this comment | 07-14-05 3:39 PM
I have to have some idea what you think of Coulter. Does that count as intention?
The way I was envisioning it, you don't actually have to have any idea of what I think of Coulter--you just have to have an accurate opinion of Coulter yourself. That is, once you know "Steyn endorses Coulter" you must be able to conclude "Steyn is untrustworthy." So I guess I am claiming that intention-free inference is possible. (Which I think it is in this case--if I were reading Steyn with no background at all, and Icame across the words "Ann Coulter says, in a devastatingly correct column," I would instantly ignore everything Steyn had to say; and that surely isn't his intention.)
So I might (er, with some change in the background) have intended something like the following: "I'll tell Cala that Steyn endorses Coulter. Then, she'll believe (on my word) that Steyn endorses Coulter. Then, though she knows nothing about my views and opinions--for all she knows I might be this guy--she will draw the conclusion that anyone who endorses Coulter is untrustworthy." But that latter conclusion (in my intention) won't be based on your perception of my intention to make you think Steyn is untrustworthy.
I agree that the distinction between 2 and 3 is annoyingly murky though. In my defense I say: Less annoyingly murky than the distinction between illocution and perlocution. What we do in saying it and what we do by saying it, my eye.
Still, best to read Hornsby.
[I--dammit, I want to say demur--from the characterization of me as a rotten bicyclist. I am no more a rotten bicyclist than an incompetent climber of Mt. Everest, or a poor husband to Tina Fey.]
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-15-05 10:23 AM