Holy smokes, Becks, are you right. It starts out generically ML shitty and segues into fucked up. Yikes.
I was staring in horror at it, and thought about blogging it but couldn't quite think of what to say.
Am I wrong in thinking it could be summarized as "I like immature, irresponsible guys, because once they mature into responsible adult men, they become dangerous, frightening assholes?" I mean, um, yow.
Heh. Blume's been making fun of it all weekend. Apparently, yesterday I was Man, but today I am Guy.
How did she manage to miss quoting Sylvia Plath on 'Daddy'?
Uh, clothes-wise, that is. The rest of it (reading it now) I can't speak to.
It's a hoax. The surname "Catbert" gives it away.
5: You mean, you don't have your very own padlocked bedroom that you retreat to when you are Man?
Apparently, yesterday I was Man, but today I am Guy.
Right. Because Sifu owns and regularly wears both sneakers and wingtips. Which no other male does, because they are all either Man or Guy.
Sifu owns and regularly wears both sneakers and wingtips.
And if I recall your wedding pictures, spectators, which I think transcend both Man and Guy, and move into Fella, or perhaps Dude, in the pre-1970's sense.
They were wingtip spectators, as it happens. I, MANGUY.
because they are all either Man or Guy.
Sometimes a Man will spontaneously appear outside his padlocked bedroom as a Guy, due to quantum tunneling.
I'm watching rfts' face as she reads the piece. What fun!
Ignoring the trainwreck second half, I think MANGUY is a great party game. Ralph Fiennes: Man or guy? Dan Flavin: Man or guy? The dude with the beard in Mary Worth: Man or guy?
[Sifu Tweety: Guy.]
I think it goes:
Man: Oppressive, repressive asshole to whom you turn when you think you need an oppressive, repressive asshole.
Guy: Everymale else. The broadness of this category is shown by the inclusion of the young Marlon Brando, who is an anal-expulsive asshole, instead of the Man kind.
With hearty doses of "I am deeply fucked in the head" and "I am a terrible writer."
"I am a terrible writer" and a professor!
Awesome.
re: 19
99 times out of a hundred, 'terrible writer' AND 'a poet' is tautological.
14: Did you get to the part where it transitioned from obnoxious to horrifying? After that, it transitioned back to obnoxious and stayed there.
20: What if you reverse the order?
She's also clearly got the need to separate out Man/rapist from Guy/lover. Men are those who see sex in terms of violence and control, whether as doers or watchers. Guys are those who have no idea what the fuck they're doing, but it might as well be fun.
It seems clear that part of her desire to infantilize men who are nonviolent, non-patriarchal, etc., is a way of protecting her relationship with her father. Even though she prefers these people she describes as not-fully-formed, they still never achieve the status she confers on her father.
It's a dumb ML because she seems eye-rollingly un-self-aware, like all ML columnists, but I would argue, as someone who had a similar relationship with a father like this, it is really difficult to put an end to this bad habit of associating men like dad with "grown-ups" and everyone else as perpetual adolescents. It fetishizes that kind of masculinity, even if you are seek out its opposite, and it does no favors for the poor dude who is just trying to be nice and doesn't feel the need to be an asshole about it.
"you are seek out its opposite" s/b "you are seeking its opposite"
Eh. Other than the egregious example of the line-drawing fallacy (which is probably an intentional rhetorical device), the fact that Men are lionized at the same time as being despised, the excessive unwarranted generalization, the dull prose, the lack of any meaningful narrative, and the horrific anecdote that's way underanalyzed and rather unintegrated into the rest of the piece, I don't see why it's that bad. Are my standards too low?
Particularly, I think while Men vs. Guys is not a very helpful line to draw, in that it doesn't follow natural divisions in male personalities very well, it *is* a somewhat useful, or at least interesting, pole to identify.
Men are either responsible assholes or irresponsible carefree imps. Can't live with 'em, can't live without them!
It's a dumb ML because she seems eye-rollingly un-self-aware, like all ML columnists, but I would argue, as someone who had a similar relationship with a father like this, it is really difficult to put an end to this bad habit of associating men like dad with "grown-ups" and everyone else as perpetual adolescents.
Yeah, as I was reading it, I also said something like, "If you need this schema to make it possible to like and trust and enjoy the company of the opposite sex, I can understand. But it's not really fair to the 'guys' in question and OH MY GOD THIS WRITING."
I think that remark began at the point where it had been horrifying for a little while and then carried on through the transition back to obnoxious.
Violating the analogy ban somewhat:
Let's imagine a man whose mother was very classically beautiful, well-dressed, controlled, etc., who grows up to realize that this ideal of womanhood is sort of classist and lookist, so he seeks out slightly sloppier, less gorgeous, more careless girls. And the whole time, he's thinking how great it is not to be trapped by the images of womanhood he was raised with, that he really actually likes girls who aren't as pretty as dear Mama. On the receiving end of attention like this, it hasn't been very comforting to know that I am thought of as specifically attractive because of all the ways that I do not compete with an ideal.
Is it nice to meet boys who are not obsessed with girls who are perfectly coiffed and gorgeous and prim? Of course! But knowing they like you because you're not coiffed and gorgeous and prim feels a little weird.
It would also be weird if I were to date a guy and constantly say, "Thank God you're not decisive and strong and masculine like my Dad! Guys like that are such pigs!"
It is interesting, this association of particular personality traits, especially problematic ones, with maturity. I might have mentioned here, before, the time I was called (not to my face, but within earshot) "immature" and "just a kid" for not joining in the sexist remarks about sorority girls and tall tales about feats of binge drinking while visiting a certain Bay Area public university as a prospective grad student. Really left me with a bad impression of the culture of the place. Maturity means different things to different people, I suppose; there, "immature" was being set in opposition to something closer to, but different from, the "guy" model.
Out of step as usual I kind of liked it.
That thing truly plumbs new depths of total craptasticness.
2 - no, I think you are right LB.
Men have keys. Men have the codes to alarms. made me laugh because I am married to such a Manly Man that he does indeed have keys, and codes, and in fact last week had to set up the alarm system installed in a newly-refurbished building at work, and - this is the Manliest thing of all - he used my birthdate as the code.
Anyway, obviously men are just guys whose parents have died.
Ignoring the trainwreck second half, I think MANGUY is a great party game.
There's a Cynthia Heimel column I read years ago that describes people playing almost exactly that game, except that women can be women, men, or girls, while men are men, boys, or hairdressers.
Cagney in White Heat: Man or Guy?
Cagney in Angels with Dirty Faces: Guy at the beginning and Man at the end? Or Man at the beginning and Guy at the end? Oh the humanity!
Of the three men in The Philadephia Story -- Cary Grant? Domestic violence suggests he's a Man, but on the other hand, the contrast with John Howard suggests Guydom. John Howard -- Man? Jimmy Stewart -- Man? Guy? Reporter? Professor?
Clearly a Guy pretending to be a Man pretending to be a Guy.
the contrast with John Howard suggests Guydom
No, no. JH is generically respectable, but definitely way too deferential to TracyKatharine. Unlike MANCaryCKDexterHaven.
I think there should be a better axis than Man/Guy for characterizing movie stars, but I can't quite put my finger in the right version of it. Jimmy Stewart deinitely doesn't fit either. Some axis like "confident and not needing to exert effort to impress" versus "charmer"? Hmmm. Getting farther roved from Man/Guy.
Then, in trying to think of masculine personality traits that I have, the main thing coming to mind is a tendency to arrogantly and snidely dismiss people I don't agree with, which on reflection is a trait I share with my grandmother, and so perhaps not very masculine.
So the young Marlon Brando of On the Waterfront, being a guy, would go into therapy to better understand his crazy self? Unless you define therapy as "having the living shit beaten out of you", I'm thinking no.
Removed.
Don Draper: man.
Pete what's-his-name: guy.
Hrmmm. 'I will use a false dichotomy to sneak in the story of my abusive Dad, which explains why I can't deal with men.'
max
['I am really screwed up, but I'm a gypsy, so it's OK.']
I have failed to troll a thread on feminism. Is it truly my failure, or has Unfogged failed, in reality?
Ogged, RIP.
49: 27 was trolling, rather than straightforward kidding? Or do you mean 28?
Oh. If you want really bad (I'm not talking about the content - I'm not sure, but I think it's awful), you should try this:
This is the greatest truth, perhaps the only truth, about pulchritude: beauty is not in the eye of the beholder; it is in the eyeliner of the beholden. Beauty is a birthright; it is also a sleight of hand. It is a distraction. It is the nurture of nature. When I fly back to England, I know that I will notice two things: the old place will look surprisingly and miraculously green, and the girls will look like recycling bin bags full of windfalls, with a relentless, stroppy, obstinate and defiant plainness. When everything is wet and cold, English girls glower beneath their frizzy split ends, with their baggy pink eyes, defensively regarding the world over broken veins and puce, dripping noses, pursing their thin lips over badly shuffled teeth.
The summer is when those bodies, long held in supine, chip-rich darkness of shapeless unisex comfort clobber, are set free like blind, hairless, albino moles; the grey adipose flesh slops over waistbands and shoulder straps; bunioned and varicosed feet shimmy in shower slippers; arses are sliced by cheese-wire thongs; wobbling, pocked thighs flap and chafe like drunken mates. But nothing could be worse than English girls when they make an effort, dressed up for a night out: it's then that they reach the heights of precipitous frightfulness. The clacking cankles. The tortured hair. The evil clown's make-up. Predatory breasts, like pink water bombs. Flapping arms and glistening chins, and second-division mouths. The farmyard aggression and the zoo sex. It's not just a class thing; it's not only chavvy ladettes in the provinces. Look at the state of the totty tumbling out of Boujis, or waving chipped-nailed fingers at Glastonbury. Go to any £1,000-a-head charity ball and see the English memsahib, 3st above her fighting weight, swagged in a gypsy's shower curtain, with a barnet that might have been spun in a sugary centrifuge. The granny jewellery and the blue eye shadow, the unhumpable hell of them all.
max
['English girls are ugly? English girl are manly? Makeup is bad? What?']
To be fair, a lot of that does sound like Reading at the weekend.
50: I honestly don't understand why all the reasons mentioned here add up to the worst example of the ML genre. I thought it was simply low-mediocre.
But then, I only read ML when it's linked to here, and only then rarely.
54: It's the difference between being cluelessly self-involved about your own relationships, which is the typical ML, and cluelessly selfinvolved about an entire gender. Having an emotionally abusive father who blamed her for being molested is very sad, but it really doesn't entitle her to say that all men are either irresponsible or abusive.
Maybe it's because I get the sense that "she couldn't possibly mean that literally, could she?", and so I cut her some slack that way.
Anyway, obviously men are just guys whose parents have died.
Asilon wins the thread.
['English girls are ugly? English girl are manly? Makeup is bad? What?']
Being hateful and snide gets page views, would be my guess.
I can still remember the brouhaha almost 20 years ago when a college guy* wrote a piece for his student newspaper about how annoying it was that women students would come to morning classes in sweatpants and ponytails, instead of decking themselves out for his viewing pleasure.
*Guy? Man? Jerk?
I like that "meatloaf" is hyperlinked. "More articles about meatloaf."
62: I chuckled at that as well. We hyperlink "meatloaf" for you just in case you're one of those whose attention really, really wanders.
['Oh, yes, meatloaf! That's been on my mental to-do list! Thanks, NYT!]
Even better, clicking the link bring you to the Meatloaf Navigator.
"A list of resources from around the Web about meatloaf as selected by researchers and editors of The New York Times."
52: Reading: Unhumpable.
I bet the town council would love that slogan.
57: Having an emotionally abusive father who blamed her for being molested is very sad
Dad: living in his own bedroom and locks the door. I am totally thinking way more was up than his emotional awfulness.
61: Being hateful and snide gets page views, would be my guess.
But hateful and snide to whom? 'English girls: you are ugly and manly and I fookin' luv ya! Piss off you attractive French women.'
when a college guy* wrote a piece for his student newspaper about how annoying it was that women students would come to morning classes in sweatpants and ponytails, instead of decking themselves out for his viewing pleasure.
What's wrong with sweatpants?
Meatloaf Navigator.
John Wayne was a meatloaf.
max
['Marlon Brando was a pate.']
What's wrong with sweatpants?
Or ponytails, for that matter?
The site linked at 56 is my new favorite site.
62-65: Now I know what was behind me taking out the package of ground beef from the freezer and declaring to myself, I shall make meatloaf. Apparently hyperlinking embeds itself deep in your subconscious.
Even better, clicking the link bring you to the Meatloaf Navigator.
Oh, I would do anything for Meatloaf. But I won't do that.
I noticed the hyperlink to ice cream, and wanted some.
John Wayne was a meatloaf.
Are you making an MDC joke?
What's wrong with sweatpants?
What's funny is that I recall that years ago when I was young(er), I resolved, indeed declared to myself, that I would not, like ever, go to the grocery store in sweatpants. I just couldn't see it. All these people walking around doing public things wearing what are essentially their pajamas. Gah. Not me.
This is more a lesson about youth, at least mine, than it is about sweatpants.
"Ice cream" is being used as an example of something lovely and uncomplicated. Isn't ice cream, in fact, one of the most diverse and complicated foods we have? I can understand comparing sex in general to ice cream in general, in that there are many flavors, many tastes (and most people do in fact enjoy uncomplicated sex and ice cream), but no, my friend, ice cream is a fucking rabbit hole of insane, brilliant, manic invention, always yielding new and surprising pleasures, disgusting possibilities, and fashionable alternatives.
The "Choco Taco" is the "Rusty Trombone" of the ice cream world--an idea so vulgar and repellent that one is interested in it solely as a novelty, perhaps to be experimented with while severely intoxicated, but never truly enjoyed, nor repeated.
I liked that column. It was sort of psychotic, but in a way that linked immediately and deeply into the broader psychosis of the entire culture, in a revealing fashion. I appreciate that in a newspaper column.
And on a personal level she seems to have worked it out enough to have a good marriage. I had my fingers crossed that it wouldn't turn into a horror show where she had some terrible affair with an angry Man, and then her Guy took her back, which made her both gain and lose respect for him.
It seems clear that part of her desire to infantilize men who are nonviolent, non-patriarchal, etc., is a way of protecting her relationship with her father. Even though she prefers these people she describes as not-fully-formed, they still never achieve the status she confers on her father.
my first thought after finishing this column was "I really want to read AWB's comment on it", and as usual she did not disappoint -- nailed it.
74: I have to wonder if her thought process wasn't, "Well, I can't exactly call the sex 'vanilla', can I? That's overdone."
People should not be seen in public in sweatpants. I feel more strongly about this than about less/fewer, but less strongly than about belts matching shoes.
75: Never have I disagreed with you more, AWB. The Choco Taco is the zenith of the ice cream truck's art, the finest frozen novelty treat our culture has produced.
No summer afternoon at the beach is really complete without a Choco Taco. Or possibly a strawberry shortcake bar.
79: Aren't you an Ocean Stater? Surely no summer afternoon is complete without Del's. Mmm . . . Del's.
Ice cream booths purveying frozen Charleston Chew candy bars are in short supply. I know few people who have relished what is a frozen Charleston Chew.
I too know the frozen Charleston Chew. I didn't think they made Charleston Chews any more.
I read a memoir by a woman (er, not American, I think, so English or Australian) who married a Frenchman and moved to France. One weekend morning she threw on her sweatpants to dash across the street to buy some croissants for breakfast. Her husband stopped her. "But where are you going?" "To the bakery -- I want some croissants for breakfast." "In your gymnastic pantaloons?! That is not very nice for the baker man." CA now remarks on my "just running across the street" wear as "not very nice for the baker man."
re: 73
There's a certain (very posh and privileged) youth sub-culture in the UK in which people don't just go out and about in crypto-pyjamas, they go out and about in actual pyjamas.
Living in France even for a few months will cure anyone of wearing sweatpants in public. However, I have a wonderful pair of wool-blend harem pants that pretty much fill the sweatpant void, and of course yoga pants can look nice. The most intolerable are the sweatpants with logos across the ass: so déclassé!
"Ice cream" is being used as an example of something lovely and uncomplicated. Isn't ice cream, in fact, one of the most diverse and complicated foods we have?
AWB is… Slavoj Zizek!
Pyjamas can look kinda cool. Who's the British painter---1980s dude, crockery on canvas, in film now---ah, yes, Schnabel!---anyway, he wore pyjamas for about ten years straight, didn't he?
Mesh shorts vs. sweat pants: is one more acceptable in public than the other?
I wouldn't hesitate to run out for milk or whatever in either one. Snobs, the lot of you.
I love 84. Thank you, oudemia.
72: Are you making an MDC joke?
Sadly... what?
73: All these people walking around doing public things wearing what are essentially their pajamas.
That's the good thing about them.
max
['How the fuck did I not see 32? I do not know.']
I am against sweatpants qua sweatpants. My own version is an awful knit skirt from the Gap that I wear when running somewhere. The first summer I owned it I wore it out of the house in earnest before telling myself, no, AWB, anything you use in place of sweatpants must remain in the sweatpants-category, unworn in public. Oh, look what I am wearing right now! Hello brown Gap skirt.
87: AWB has been reading Tarrying with the Negative and enjoying it way too much.
anything you use in place of sweatpants must remain in the sweatpants-category
When one takes the autobus, one must sing the song of the autobus.
91.1: Ah, a song that begins "John Wayne was a Nazi . . ." that is actually fairly funny.
I'll quite happily go to the shop in shorts or sweatpants, but I wouldn't choose to wear sweatpants for anything other than exercise or a 10 min trip to buy milk or whatever.
Sweatpants as an intentional clothing choice pushes two entirely different (and opposite) negative class-based buttons for me, so it's not a choice I'd make. I'm a scruffy sod, though, so that shouldn't be taken as meaning I am not a clothes slob.
On the Upper East Side, of course, the ever-so-fashionable women wear sweatpants and full-length mink coats to walk their toy yorkies in the winter.
||
This seems like the appropriate thread...
We've had a couple of commenter marriages, and I fear to speculate about how many hookups, but have we had a co-commenter breakup yet? Or are Magpie and I the first?
|>
You can read a lot into it or not, but sometimes a dish of ice cream is just a dish of ice cream.
re: 96
Yeah, the 'rah' look I was referencing in 85 has a bit of that. Pyjama trousers/sweatpants and Ugg boots, but accessorised with an Hermes scarf and real diamond earrings. That sort of thing.
Talk about unlucky juxapositions. Best of luck, y'all.
97: I'll say I hadn't realized. I wish you both well.
Sweatpants (or even pajamas, really) in public don't bother me. I enjoy people who dress for others, but I don't think it's a requirement of humanity that we do so.
What bothers me is people who wear pants that deliberately drag in the mud, or who are otherwise contemptuous/careless of the energy that was used to make their clothing. I realize that in the days of tissue-paper throwaway clothes this is old-fashioned and wrongheaded of me, and yet I see a teenager with her bellbottoms dragging and I think "Do you think a maid is going to scrub that out for you? Do you plan to dispose of these clothes? Do you just not care?"
/end curmudgeon
Today I told an Emerson story and that made me miss him.
but have we had a co-commenter breakup yet?
Yes, alas.
Kobe, 101: Thanks. (I hadn't mentioned it before, so don't feel bad, Stanley.) We'll both be okay.
Catching up: Ah, sorry to hear it, Josh. My best to both of you.
Yes, alas.
DAMMIT. I was hoping to be first!
Wait, I mean, uh, that sucks. For whomever it was.
96: Yes, but despite whatever their 1040 says, they are the trashy sweats with JUICY on the ass. Ew.
97: Oh, Josh, I'm sorry to hear that.
And yes, can anyone doubt that we have?
99: I have undergrads (my students are mad privileged) who roll into class in expensive sweaters and pyjama bottoms. Come to think of it, there are people in my building (recent college grads) who are happy to fetch their mail or do their laundry in their pyjamas.
Hell, I do laundry in my pajamas. That's standard. (OK, I seem to be the only person on my block who does, but I figure they're just lucky I'm not naked. Laundry is a total enterprise.)
And condolences, Josh. You sound relatively untraumatized...?
Argh, sorry, Josh (and Magpie).
Is there more than one marriage? And SB sounded sad in 103. Was it you, SB? Most important, tell me about the hookups.
The hookups: tell me about them.
Oh, and who gets custody of the wine?
While I was out of town last week, my wife an son had a showdown over whether he could were PJ bottoms to high school. It's forecast to be 35 F when he catches the bus tomorrow: I don't think PJs are likely to catch on until late spring.
I go across the street all the time in my sweatpants that are way too big (and as such, will fall down if I don't hold them up and/or constantly re-tighten them) and have a two-fist-sized hole in the crotch. The East Africans who run the corner store and coffee shop haven't complained yet, and in fact, they are quite pleasant to me.
I do, however, intend to purchase some new sweatpants at some point.
And sorry to Josh and Magpie.
and have a two-fist-sized hole in the crotch
You might want to reconsider your choice of unit of measurement.
You sound relatively untraumatized...?
It's a combination of it being very amicable and the rest of my personal life doing very very well. (I played soccer this week! I thought I would never be able to do that ever again.) Plus, I just signed a lease on an awesome apartment. There will be ups and downs, but for now we're both on the ups.
Oh, and who gets custody of the wine?
It gets drunk at a valedictory dinner for the relationship.
I do, however, intend to purchase some new sweatpants at some point.
Seriously. Where are your standards?
|| Someone I knew from hs debate just won an Emmy. He also directed a movie. About hs debate.|>
There are two marriages that I am aware of.
Sorry, Josh and Magpie. Which one of you got custody of the blog?
118: And yes, boo. I am sad. But drink well.
And SB sounded sad in 103. Was it you, SB?
No, I just hate when things are over.
121: Me, I guess. Magpie has found a shiny new Internet toy to play with, so hasn't been round these parts lately anyway.
No, I just hate when things are over.
But, what about Breakfast at Tiffany's?
what about Breakfast at Tiffany's?
As I recall, emdash, I think we both kinda liked it.
As I recall, emdash, I think we both kinda liked it.
Well, that's something you've got.
CHANGE ... bad. Change bad?
CHANGEBAD.
Unfogged is brought to you by the letter C, the letter B, and the number 2.
84 is what is great about France.
The most intolerable are the sweatpants with logos across the ass: so déclassé!
But on the plus side, they're an open invitation to check out someone's butt.
129: As in, affordable, modern housewares and furniture for apartment, loft, and home?
130: Which makes it awkward when the person wearing them is apparently 13.
131: Hey, that's where I bought my couch!
It's "one thing" rather than "something," isn't it? Fuck.
the number 2.
It's possible I don't need to know what this means. That's alright.
Actually, the ones I remember seeing have sweatpant-like fabric but are short shorts.
136: 2 is the second loneliest number.
Worst song of 1994?
I believe that honor goes to Sting, Bryan Adams, and Rod Stewart. Sting, what the fuck, man?
A dude I knew in college had a sign on his dorm room door that said: "[Surname]'s Theorem: All even prime numbers are less than or equal to 2".
Well, the splitting up is bad. I'm sorry.
This is like Bad News Sunday.
On the other hand, the tight gray sweatpants a girlfriend used to wear were very nice.
max
['She didn't have a mink coat tho. Or a Yorkie.']
138: Oh. See. all I could think was "When in doubt, the answer is two." Something my high school math teacher told me.
The furniture linked in 131? Dude, I know someone who can make you one of those galvanized 12-bottle wine racks! It'll be a dust collector, you know.
Dude, sorry to hear about that, but I'm glad it's amicable and fairly cheerful sounding at least.
They belong to a different era, but I heard quite a lot of the Steve Miller Band for two weeks in 1994 for reasons not entirely within my control, and I would just like to mention here how much I hate hate hate them. Sucks to your pompatus, Steve Miller Band.
144: You can call them Maurice, Standpipe [woot-woo].
Charley! I wrote you a letter! Check your mail.
I really wish y'all hadn't just brought up the whole "what you leave the house in" thing right as I put on my "now even too sad for band practice" pants with the hole on the hip to go get milk.
I once went to the corner store to buy Budweiser with quarters from the change jar wearing ratty shorts and a "wife-beater" (irony quotes!!!1!). I ran into a friend's 15-year-old kid who was in the neighborhood to flirt with a girl from his school. Now I'm that guy.
144:There are two Steve Miller Bands in two different eras, and the 60s band with Scaggs and the first four (5) albums is a SF psych/blues band and interesting. "Fly Like an Angel" is dreck, but I would defend, probably unsuccessfully, "Children of the Future" or "Your Saving Grace" with Hopkins, or "Jackson-Kent Blues"
139: Holy crap. I had not thought about that song in a long time, and I have to assume that Sting lost a bet.
Trench coat and flip-flops.
Huh. Random jeans and T-shirt seem like they're both easy to put on before dashing out of the house on an errand, and yet not an obvious fashion disaster. What am I missing?
Flip-flops are uncomfortable. Socks.
I can see my unborn children in your eyes.
"Fly Like an Eagle", you mean? Which I now have going through my head?
Time keeps slipping, slipping … [bong hit] into the future!
157: Funny, I was wondering if exactly that might be the only thing that will dislodge this earworm.
Excuse me while I feed the babies, who don't have enough to eat. And perform some other works of charity.
Excuse me while I feed the babies, who don't have enough to eat. And perform some other works of charity kiss this guy!
Worst song of 1994?
How quickly people forget Rednex's version of "Cotton-Eyed Joe."
To not hear Steve Miller Band for a long time is a treat; surprisingly, to hear Steve Miller Band again after having partly forgot is a great treat.
Sting lost a lot of bets.
Rednex's version of "Cotton-Eyed Joe."
This song was, at least, catchy.
A good mix that includes Steve Miller Band.
I am easily persuaded back to things I have rejected by other people's lists. Sometimes I think I have almost no interest in the autonomy of my own tastes. It's a pleasure to throw dislikes overboard.
Let me be the first latest to add my condolences and best wishes to you and Magpie, Josh.
I too am sorry to hear about the breakup, and I'm glad it's an amicable one. I can see thinking it might be the first; I don't think anyone's mentioned one in comments before. (And I don't think I've been aware of any, though I do know about the marriages.)
I had no idea there was an earlier Steve Miller Band, a band that wasn't unbelievably awful! Thanks.
As for worst song of 1994, this has always been my candidate, but being older and wiser now, I may only put it in the bottm quintile.
The worst thing about this thread is that Josh and Magpie have broken up, but the Steve Miller Band didn't.
I am sort of bemused/amazed that people have such clear ideas of which year certain music came out. I own that Deep Blue Something album, and I couldn't have told you within a seven-year window in either direction when it came out.
Bands you follow closely, sure, you're going to remember the chronological order of albums, or if a particular song is very wrapped up in personal memories, maybe you'll remember the summer it was on the radio nonstop. But random one-hit wonders from 15 years ago? How do you guys know this stuff?
Aw, Josh and Magpie - sorry to hear it.
1994 entries from various "worst songs ever" lists:
Hammer "PUMPS AND A BUMP"
Crash Test Dummies "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm"
Cheap Trick, "Woke Up With A Monster"
Elton John & RuPaul, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"
Boys II Men "I'll Make Love To You/Thank You"
M.C. Hammer, "Pumps and a Bump"
Cranberries, "Linger"
Lisa Loeb "Stay (I Missed You)"
Snoop Dogg "Murder Was The Case"
Those are dumb lists.
How do you guys know this stuff?
I generally think back to how old I was when I first heard a given song. It doesn't always work; I would have guessed more like 1996 for "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
As I click on the links, I am reminded of why I didn't listen to music at all back then. Unlike now, when I barely listen to music.
Wow. Hello Senior Year! Remember "I want you to look at the girl with the Daisy Dukes on! COME ON BABY! KICK THEM DAISIES!" and "Cotton Candy sweet as gold, let me see that Tootsie Roll! Ta-tootie roll! To the left to the left!" and "WHUMP! There it is! WHUMP! There it is!" and "This is how we do it!"
I think every song listed in this thread was played at my senior prom. Cotton-Eyed Joe maybe twice.
My grandparents were bad about stalling up conversations by spending minutes trying to recall the exact year or last name of some obscure acquaintance or event in their past. They were surprisingly very specific about these things.
I, on the other hand, have no sense of time, no ability to remember names, and wear pocket protectors and suspenders. My sense of direction is fine, though.
Wait, there was a song called "Breakfast at Tiffany's"?
Excuse me. "Whoomp". They even spell it in the song. "Whump" is the sound of an autistic teenager masturbating over an echoey stairwell; my bad.
Deep Blue Something, I believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany%27s_%28song%29
It's such a terrible song, but I bet Jammies loves it. It's his brand of terrible 90's songs.
"Breakfast at Tiffany's" was one of the most played songs on Top-40 and adult contemporary radio for the entirety of 1996 and 1997, you snobs.
An OT anecdote: my grandfather's wife died about two years ago from gastro. cancer, and he soon started spending time with an widowed friend of his (and hers) from high school, who still lives in the area. He was the best man at her first wedding, and will soon be the groom at her second. I find such a thing happening in more populated regions of the country, or among a younger cohort, to be quite implausible. I think that sort of thing is going to be a thing of the past before too long.
171: How do you guys know this stuff?
Google?
173: At least four of those songs are actually awesome.
Congratudolences on your new fancy-freedom, Josh. I hope you get to toast the relationship like you described. That sounds rare and good.
182: Thanks, just looked that up. Huh, missed it. And it wasn't even by the Dave Matthews Band.
Wait, there was a song called "Breakfast at Tiffany's"?
Is there a young-person's equivalent to "get off my lawn"? "Get off my blawn" seems mean.
173: At least four of those songs are actually awesome.
Hell yes! I wasn't following the worst-songs suit.
What're your faves, emdash?
Breakfast at Tiffany's does show up on the Blender list under 1995.
Heebie is a Boyz II Men partisan IIRC.
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If you believe what you read on the internet, you wouldn't be able to read on the internet, because every brand of laptop sucks and you shouldn't buy it.
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I'm pretty sure there are some MacBooks that don't suck, if you know what to do with them.
I generally think back to how old I was when I first heard a given song.
See, this is equally amazing to me. I can do some detective work and puzzle my way back in some cases, but although in other contexts I have a pretty good memory, age-at-first-listening is definitely not in the category of things that get encoded.
For instance, I can tell you I was in my kitchen when I first heard Nina Simone's "Pirate Jenny,*" and based on that memory I can narrow it down to a four-year window of which kitchen. Maybe it's that such a lot of the music I love and listen to repeatedly was recorded before I was born.
*Not on YouTube?! There is an Ute Lemper version.
Heebie is a Boyz II Men partisan IIRC.
You do. I have a soft spot for sappy R&B.
I can do some detective work and puzzle my way back in some cases, but although in other contexts I have a pretty good memory, age-at-first-listening is definitely not in the category of things that get encoded.
Well, in the case of the song in question, for instance, I was 10 in 1994 and 12 in 1996. That's only two years, but my memories of the two ages, including those involving songs, are vastly different.
192: I'll man the barricades in defense of Crash Test Dummies, Boyz II Men, Lisa Loeb, and the Cranberries.
192, 200: That's a silly piece. There are people on that list whose entire discographies are worse than, say, "Sounds of Silence".
Cheap Trick, "Woke Up With A Monster"
Elton John & RuPaul, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"
Boys II Men "I'll Make Love To You/Thank You"
M.C. Hammer, "Pumps and a Bump"
Cranberries, "Linger"
Lisa Loeb "Stay (I Missed You)"
Snoop Dogg "Murder Was The Case"
It's like you all inhabit a parallel universe! I've never even heard of any of these songs and assumed that MC Hammer had stopped recording well before 1994. Yet I was in college that year.
Meanwhile, the speaker for tomorrow's "Innovations in [Topic]" seminar series who was supposed have been flying in tonight has gone missing and I'm not entirely sure that the person doing the itinerary for his visit (who was filling in for me) knew enough to send it to him or provide him with his hotel information. It's a good thing that I've resigned from Job 1 and accepted Job 2 or I'd probably be fired from Job 1.
Wait, did the 90s actually happen?
If you have no contact at all with top 40 radio or the popular television shows on which popular songs are often played, then I guess you won't be familiar with popular songs.
It's like you all inhabit a parallel universe! I've never even heard of any of these songs and assumed that MC Hammer had stopped recording well before 1994. Yet I was in college that year.
I hadn't heard of any of those songs either, but I suspect for a different reason.
194: Consumer's Reports has laptop reliability (about 63K responses) going from 18% needing repair or having a serious problem for Sony to 21% for HP. So, not much difference there. It's barely statistically significant according to them
I got a monster Toshiba laptop from my brother and it's too big, heavy, and hot to use on my lap for any period of time. It mostly and only occasionally gets used to satisfy my curiosity about some member of the cast while watching an old movie on TCM.
I have a half-baked post that I'll go ahead and ruin: I'm convinced this country is totally being trolled by Don't Stop Believin', because that song shows up all over the goddamn place at the most surreal times. Freakin' Kanye West concert, in the airport, on NPR. Wherever audio is broadcast you'll hear that trilling guitar and "....Just a smalltown boy. Born and raised in south Detroit. He took a midnight train going an-y-where..."
(and it's a candidate for the worst song ever.)
204: You may be overestimating my awesome anarchist seclusion--I mean, I went to diners, shopped at Target, skated at the roller rink, rode in cars with people who did not share my musical taste, worked in the college cafeteria, etc. I was around people playing regular music.
202: New job, Frowner? Let me be the first to offer you my congratulations!
I have lived in total eremitic seclusion for 30 years and I'm still tired of Don't Stop Believin'.
Wait, did the 90s actually happen?.
For the life of me,
I cannot remember
206: I was wondering if something like that is going on. If roughly 1 in 5 laptops - and seriously, how can that be acceptable? - needs repair, then every brand is going to have people with warnings to give. So far I've learned that HP and Dell use substandard parts, Sony's keyboards break down, Toshibas get too hot, Fujitsu fans pick up dust easily, Macs have wireless issues, etc. But plenty models of all of those brands work fine.
Another terrible song: this one. It came on in a bar I was in the other night, and I started ranting about how much I hated it because people used to play it all the fucking time my freshman year in college, by which means I knew that it had to have come out no later than 2003 or so. One of the people I was with was surprised and said he had only started hearing it in the past year or so and had assumed it had just come out. Looking it up now, it seems that it originally came out in 1997 but had spread by word of mouth around college campuses for years afterward. (Note the caption on the picture there; I had forgotten that they played at Slope Day that year, but it gives you a sense of how popular they were.) God, I hate that song.
210: Everything is still kind of weird; there's a lot of bad feeling at Job 1 because I didn't tell them I was thinking about leaving and allow them to make a counter offer but instead resigned after securing another job (another job at Large Land Grant University). But that was because I wanted to leave!
Actually, I'm still on my last few weeks at Job 1 and have not received the formal letter of offer for Job 2, so I sure hope nothing goes wrong. I'm a little bit afraid that Job 1 is going to try to get my job offer revoked because they're so angry (for reasons I don't fully understand; I mean, I gave notice and the world is certainly full of secretaries in need of work.)
208: Did you know that they had a Journey video game (like, the big stand up ones in arcades of yore)? You could pick which band member you were, and in the background different tinny digital versions of Journey classics would play as your little Steve Perry due jumped over obstacles or dodge asteroids or whatever.
I never played it.
Ah, here it is.
Criminally Bulgar thinks he is just SO WISE and would not compromise.
OT: Apparently B is giving a talk at Columbia tomorrow. I work until 4:30 and will miss it, but if anyone's around and goes, tell me how it is!
214: I hope the standard version isn't 18 minutes long.
217: That song is the song I hate most. It turns out my students have revived it and think the 90's were so deep, man, because, like, we were only freshmen and stuff.
219: It sure feels like it. I think it's actually around 8 minutes, but it really drags.
214: First time for me, and I'm deep in OAR country. I'm sorry for you.
In 216, The photo technology was originally to be used in another game, which would take photos for the high scores. However, the game in question failed location testing when one player flashed the camera.
Bravo.
I think it's really profound because when you think about it, freshman year is really hard but the friends you make are like really tight and did the girl in the song commit suicide or something, because what are they pussy-footing around, anyway?
I heard that Emdash was a small-town boy, born and raised in south Detroit. He took a midnight train going an-y-where. [Trilling guitar]
They are guilt-stricken, sobbing, with their heads on the floor is all I know. When I was a freshman, we mostly just drank rum and tried to distract the boys from gay chicken long enough to notice us. In other news, I'm in a band with one of those dudes from freshman year now! We recorded some pretty OK songs last weekend.
Pictures/tv clips of the early 90s make them look a lot like the 80s, only subdued. For a while the late 90s still looked like "today", so they didn't seem distinct. Therefore, there were no 90s.
God, that song in 214 is horrible. I'd never heard of that Dave Matthews knockoff band before.
A shoe full of rice, also! We never had those in college.
The Big Lebowski is a historical drama set in the early '90s, filmed in the late '90s.
Pictures/tv clips of the early 90s make them look a lot like the 80s, only subdued. For a while the late 90s still looked like "today", so they didn't seem distinct. Therefore, there were no 90s.
Fashion lags behind the decade that it's associated with. Thus, the 50's ran till 1965, the 60's till 1975, etc. Each decade is five years late, fashion-wise.
She was touching her face, AWB. Her face.
Pumps and a Bump I would have guessed 1994 or 1995. I have a clear date in mind for that one because I remember it and the associated video being heavily mocked by my junior high friends. (It was in heavy rotation at the time on The Box.)
If you hate Journey, you should never move to the Bay Area. They love that shit here, 'cause Journey's local. It's treated as a nostalgic anthem a la "Livin' on a Prayer". NTM there's a "Journey Rules" graffito on a No Parking sign near my place.
Why aren't any of these lists of Worst Songs Ever judged on the songs' moral bankruptcy? A lot of Worst Movies lists seem to be motivated by the critic's loathing of the horrible people who could come up with the premise of, say, "Shoot 'Em Up", or "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover", or "Freddy Got Fingered". For music, all you get is people saying "This was overplayed, am I right?" or "These guys should have retired fifteen years ago", and giving the songs whatever the opposite of the benefit of the doubt is. (The songwriter does not actually think because that two people both kind of like "Breakfast at Tiffany's", they have a good reason to stay together. This is a bad song because it has an unheroic narrator?)
Well, my nominee for worst song of the decade is R. Kelly's "I'm a Flirt". Any other candidates?
Yes. They're both about the Gulf War.
PROFOUNDNESS CAT IS TOUCHIN UR FACE
202:I would occasionally turn on MTV back when it played music, so I definitely know "Stay" and "Linger" from the videos.
But not the rest. I don't know if I'm a sleaze or a feminist for not noticing men in my visual world.
I think every song listed in this thread was played at my senior prom. Cotton-Eyed Joe maybe twice.
And now I know that heebie is pretty much exactly 4 years older than I, as all of these featured heavily at my 8th grade promotional dance.
235: The underwear displayed at 1:09! I just bought those!
Oh, OAR. I have a soft spot for them. They were a few years older than me and went to the high school one town over. I was friends with the younger brother of one of the guys in the band. Not a great band, I admit, but they sounded very profound when I was 14.
242: They had to promote 8th grade to you guys? Attendance wasn't mandatory?
At my 8th grade dance I really wanted to slow-dance to More Than Words with a guy whose name I can't remember, but I don't think we did.
Unfortunately, I have now heard of, and heard some of, a song called Cotton Eyed Joe.
243: Hot! You should wear them next time you play strip poker at a frat party!
I'm listening to Cotton Eyed Joe right now for the first time in I don't know how long. It's making me want to get up and do that stupid dance.
Oh! So yesterday, my hometown friend came over. (I'm at my parents' house.) At one point we went to look something up in old yearbooks.
As we were thumbing through my 6th grade yearbook, she said, "Do you remember [John Smith] from the grade ahead of us?" I said no. She said that he was now a registered sex offender in town. I flipped to find him in the yearbook, and I had completely blacked out his picture and name. I was so, so against doing stuff like that - that is completely out of character for me. I remember, right after blacking out his picture, wondering if I'd regret vandalizing my yearbook, but feeling so revulsed by him that I was glad I didn't have to inadvertently see his picture.
I don't even think he did anything outright skeezy. We were briefly friends, and I think he may have made some mild romantic overture, and I had this incredibly disproportionate reaction of intense revulsion. I wonder what exactly I was reacting to.
Also, I love Don't Stop Believin'. And in 7th grade PE they made us learn a dance routine to the tootsie-roll song.
247: Ah, 8th grade slow-dancing. I still remember that my crush (who I did manage to snag a dance with) was wearing red flannel. I'd miss the '90s but they're everywhere.
And in 7th grade PE they made us learn a dance routine to the tootsie-roll song.
When I was in middle school, we learned a dance routine to Bust A Move.
OK, ok. Does anyone think it's plausible that there will someday be "That 90s Show"? I can totally see "That 80s Show".
246: "It's music television YOU CONTROL"
I think that was the period where we didn't have cable, and so that was my only music video outlet. Also during the heyday of my Box-watching was Vanilla Ice's attempt at a comeback. To wit, "I need some herbs and spices / So I can feel nices"
We never had cable when I was growing up, so The Box was it for music television for us. Then it became MTV2, which soon became cable-only, and that was it.
I think the big thing when I was in the 6th grade was the Macarena, which is the only song I can think of with a definite article.
The Box! I used to watch The Box!
I never knew this broadcast outside of South Florida.
The Right Stuff by TKNOTB, if we're listing songs with definite articles.
One of the more recent Simpsons episodes I've liked was about the late 90s. It's probably on Hulu but since I can't watch it here, I'm not looking.
Well, there's the Internationale, youngster.
When, oh when, will nosflow return and stop this plague of song titles in italics?
264 gets it exactly right. The only entities that use italics for song titles are People and USA Today.
Yeah, The Right Stuff was by Tom Wolfe, I believe.
People, people who read People are the italicized people of the world.
A: I believe the recent resurgence in Journey-love is thanks to John Scalzi.
B: I kinda am enjoying said resurgence.
C: At least it's not .38 Special.
Also, the song in 235 almost made me weep. The song qua song kinda blew, but man I loved college. Yadda yadda wife family maturity. Getting wasted, listening to live music in someone's basement, and getting your freak on with someone you'd just met? It had it's moments.
It's always after I hit posts that I notice typos, to wit:
its.
Getting wasted, listening to live music in someone's basement, and getting your freak on with someone you'd just met?
Just because college is over doesn't mean grumble grumble.
Ask Will and BR. Their friends are mostly married/divorced with kids, and those people get their freak on. I am not alone.
I can totally see "That 80s Show".
Not no more you can't, it was cancelled back in 2002.
Also, "That 70's Show" really started airing 11 years ago? Weird.
I'm determined to enjoy grad school as much as I didn't enjoy college (which is to say, a lot). So far it's going pretty well.
I might actually go to a grad school bar thing tomorrow. It's being advertised as a professional organization sponsored thing, though. Also, it's not that close to my neighborhood, which could be a good excuse to leave early.
I've been forced to lurk for the past 4 hours, my blackberry having lost the ability to transmit comments. Possibly a revolt against the pro-Steve Miller comment I wrote about the Boz Scaggs era. There's an instance of the parts being less than the whole, but you can't blame Boz. Sure, any sentient being would find Loan Me a Dime, Sweet Release, and Baby's Calling Me Home vastly better than Lido etc, except Scaggs' accountants. And the seemingly endless supply of 13 year old girls who set taste in the pre-MTV era.
(People should round up the Scaggs set from the closing of the Fillmore West: BCMH made the compilation album, but LMAD and SW are first rate as well.)
To catch up a little, I'm sure I've mentioned that I saw Journey back when they were just a spin-off from Santana, and Greg Rolie did the singing. And Aynsley Dunbar the drumming. Teeny-boppers might have been willing to tolerate Rolie on Black Magic Woman, but that era was ending by the time I saw them (in the gym of a junior college on the Peninsula -- they needed Perry to get into stadium gigs, I'd imagine). The bass player Ross Valory went to my high school -- before my time, but my girlfriend's sister was his classmate. I did not know until right this minute that he also played for the Steve Miller Band.
Also, it's not that close to my neighborhood, which could be a good excuse to leave early.
Always good to be thinking ahead.
271: But I was enjoying the post-college experience of no longer resenting all my peers because they are probably no longer all having more fun than I am! Don't take away my illusions!
264, 265: For those of us who write a lot of book titles, it just comes naturally!
271: Did you miss "Yadda yadda wife family maturity?"
Also, with guys there's always a very real risk of turning into Creepy Old Dude Standing by the Keg. I don't want to be that guy. Better than being Old Dude Who's Trying too Hard, but still.
Note that the risks outlined in 209 do not apply when you're a Hot Chick, as I know from personal acquaintance that AWB is.
The risks of eating at diners and shopping at Target?
Diners and Target are risks for all of us.
You haven't noticed the big "No Hot Chicks" sign on the door of every Target?
I don't want to be that guy
No one does, but if that's the hand you're dealt, there's no choice but the play the shit out of it.
Resenting hot chicks for having more fun has no age limit.
The point of my 271 was that I think it depends on who your friends are. I've often worried about whether I'm living in some kind of fairyland in which being a professional 30-year-old means I still get to get disorderly, or that I'm actually way superannuated for that kind of behavior in fact and only barely squeak by because I'm not married with kids, but going to a party with Will made me realize it depends on the community. R******d knows how to shake it. I saw many people well into their 40's at the same keg party with 20-somethings, playing flip-cup for God's sake. It was normal there, and everyone was having a great time. Not creepy. But maybe that's very rare.
I'm not a good example because, well, thanks for the hot-chick exclusion, but I'm certainly not hot enough not to be chastised on semi-regular occasions for being absurdly inappropriate at parties. I don't have a good gauge for those things.
281: Diners? Only if there is a killer banana cream pie or other attraction.
286: I'm not a good example because, well, thanks for the hot-chick exclusion, but I'm certainly not hot enough not to be chastised on semi-regular occasions for being absurdly inappropriate at parties.
Are you breathing? That's almost good enough. (I can say this while having no idea what you look like.)
max
['Basically, you're a hot chick until you look like a troll. Sorry, those are the received rules. I just work her.']
284: That's why I go to parties where I'm the creepy guy with the wandering eye and the hot wife, thanks.
With regards to the OP, I'm kind of curious as to how the male students and professors react to finding out she thinks of all of them (lovingly of course) as a bunch of useless undependable fucks with a tendency towards frequent unemployment and/or homelessness. But hey Guy, cool t-shirt and jeans you've got there.
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Where does the line between "really, really likes the taste of bourbon" and "alcoholic" start? Cuz I worry. You try to be aware, but my typing has gone to crap and I still want another drink. (Note: I am unemployed and thus am less constrained about dutiful fulfillment of duty tomorrow).
Also, 286:
Repeat to self: "They're just jealous. They're jsut jealous" ad infinitum.
I'd say Choppers taste for bourbon is all Man, but the unemployment is clearly Guy. Give us a tiebreaker, quick. Have you mowed the lawn or fixed anything lately, or have you just sat around playing the guitar?
Movies!!!
Nah, came back online because h-b's 251 reminded of the reaction of the female lead in Wild Reeds to one of the young males. If you have seen it, you know what I mean, and what was implied in the movie.
Yeah, watched Varda's Vagabond and Techine's Wild Reeds this weekend. Both lived up to their reputations, all well-observed and sensitive and stuff, but with the exception of a few amazing moments in WR, neither of them really surprised me, nor astonished me.
But El Rey de Montana, which is a very nasty Spanish language movie about a sniper, did provide me with many surprises and astonishments. Big things, and little things like a passionate argument that finishes on camera but off mike. A baby car seat that is never explained. Lots of directorial decisions that built tension and confusion. Nice.
So I preferred the cheap Spanish horror to two of the sensitivity classics of our age. Not really, Wild Reeds was amazing, and I want to watch it again. But Vagabond was just dreary.
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235 & Chopper's love there-for: I think I've mentioned this before, but he went to my high school (long after me). He claims to be from "Morrisville, PA" and sometimes so do I, but I actually come from a leafier nearby suburb, and I'm pretty sure he does too. Morrisville isn't exactly the ghetto but it's harder than where he and I think we grew up. I suspect this rapper of mild Philly-burbs related fronting.
Also I have a family connection to the producer of the song.
What have you done more recently: mowed down some kids who wronged your family, or confessed insecurity about your manhood to your therapist?
292:I always liked the taste of liquor without much liking the high. The high sucked, made me all social and sloppy.
298: You have me deeply confused with someone else.
268:
Scalzi on Journey.
The other thing, which is what I told Ted at the time, is that for the vast majority of Suburban Americans between the age of 14 and 24 in the early 80s, when it was time to make out and you put Escape on the turntable, you were automatically spotted two bases. Honestly, if you didn't have a hand under a bra or massaging a button fly by the end of "Who's Crying Now," Steve Perry would stop what he was doing, fly to your house and then beat the crap out of you for blowing a sure thing. God forbid you actually flipped the LP, because then, baby, you were going home. There's an entire generation of white 22-to-25-year olds walking around today whose moment of conception is largely coincident to the second chorus of "Open Arms." These people will be driving along with their moms, that song will come on that radio, their moms will get a small, wistful smile, and these people will spend the next three minutes, nineteen seconds uncontrollably shuddering.
I'm curious as to who is actually responsible for the resurgence of "Don't Stop Believing." A quick timeline:
Final episode of The Sorpanos: 6/10/2007
Petra Haden's a capella version: 9/4/2007
Kanye West dedicates the song to his mother: 11/19/2007
Hey look, the whole internet got there first. According to Wiki, the White Sox adopted it as a second anthem in 2005. The LA Times says that David Chase got it stuck in his head after seeing The Wedding Singer, in which it's never sung but played by a string quartet.
broken LA Times link: Don't Stop Believin' as Cultural Touchstone
296: I brought a garage back into true with solely a sledgehammer, and used a gunpowder-driven hammer-like tool to fix it in position. I then built a tool-holding bracket that could hold seven long-handled landscaping tools and the weight of my body as I chinned up on it repeatedly.
301: I'm reading between the lines of 269. Coming after "made me weep", "kinda blew" is as convincing as "Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?"
ok, so at Uni today somebody chucked out half a skip worth of perfectly decent clothing --- second hand, but somebody would have been quite happy to have them. Somebody else went up to them and said, basically, wtf? that's just wasteful.
First person later came in, went up to tutor, and said, somebody was mean to me. They were looking very shaken. At which point the tutor gave the second person a ticking off.
So um, I basically feel that the second person was pretty well righteous, but I'm kind of interested in other's opinions.
305: Methinks you read too deep. Also, I've always wondered at that question. I mean, if it were me, I would would have answered "Because my cock is AWESOME. Next?" What's the mystery?
Speaking of uni, Emory Douglas is visiting tomorrow!
Excitement.
OT bleg:
I'd like to read some more Japanese literature. Suggestions?
310: The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon! Or you meant, like, something written in the last thousand years? (It's really good though.)
311: Oooh, I've read parts of that. The whole thing should go on the list, though. Thanks!
306: So um, I basically feel that the second person was pretty well righteous
What is the ANZACS equivalent of the American Goodwill? I would think the clothes would go there... but even if there was no point in the second person saying anything, why is the first person whining to the tutor? What's wrong with 'sod off'?
max
['Odd.']
What have you read so far? This is a great short story anthology, and this more recent one looks good too.
What is the ANZACS equivalent of the American Goodwill? I would think the clothes would go there... but even if there was no point in the second person saying anything, why is the first person whining to the tutor? What's wrong with 'sod off'?
That's rather what I thought. The first person seemed very upset over it --- to the point of tears, actually --- which just made it all seem very odd.
Were they their clothes? I could see that as a plausible reaction if you'd been getting rid of clothes of someone who'd died and couldn't bring yourself to do anything else. Though the op shops still seem like a better choice.
I don't think so: they seemed to be a complete random mix of stuff, not just one person's & they were perfectly happy for other people to have them.
(I did think about that --- that they might be sensitive about them for a reason, but ---? Really, the Salvation Army or the Red Cross, you know? And using the tip at uni seemed pretty odd. I should probably add that it's a communal skip in an area that gets heavily used, and it's reasonably common for people to grab stuff back out of it & do things with the stuff. It isn't where I'd put gramps old clothing if I was at all touchy about it.)
Anyway. Yeah. Odd.
Was this someone moving out of a dorm?
314: Thanks for the suggestions. And, well, not a whole lot. Basho. Some Zen poets and translations by Rexroth. Murakami novels. (And, parts of The Pillow Book, for a class.)
Maybe the logic is "I could take them down to the Sallies, but the skip is closer, and people will take them from it anyway, so it's just as good" followed by "here I am trying to do a good deed...".
It isn't good logic or a reasonable reaction. People aren't always reasonable though, so we probably can't figure out what was going on.
Nah --- they were using some of the clothing for schoolwork (fi/ne ar/ts), I think, and then they didn't need the rest, so...
(But not entirely sure; don't know them especially well.)
310: Tanizaki, if you haven't already?
302: Anything Petra Haden covers is redeemed, in my book. That's when the sing re-entered my consciousness, but I doubt it accounts for the popularity.
There was a discussion here recently, initially about Murakami, then about others. I remember Kobo Abe and Natsume Soseki coming up.
I sill haven't gotten around to reading Sei Shonagon. Really should.
310: Thanks. I haven't. I'm starting from scratch, pretty much. (I am close to finishing the Wind Up Bird Chronicle and figure I should keep going, but want to switch authors.)
323: I know! I remember that discussion but had a hard time finding it because I couldn't remember who had been discussed. So thanks!
And obviously, previous was not to 310 at all.
Maybe the logic is "I could take them down to the Sallies, but the skip is closer, and people will take them from it anyway, so it's just as good" followed by "here I am trying to do a good deed...".
It isn't good logic or a reasonable reaction. People aren't always reasonable though, so we probably can't figure out what was going on.
Yeah, I mean I'm not too surprised about the first person getting worked up; people are odd in general so.
It was the tutor's reaction that seemed strangest to me, though. I dunno; I kinda felt they should probably be pointing out that throwing out entirely serviceable clothing isn't really a good idea. But I guess they were mainly trying to make people stop squabbling.
The fact that she was "shaken", rather than responding as max suggests by angrily berating the person who criticized her behavior, suggests that this was a person who generally behaves in such an inoffensive or conventional way that she has her behavior criticized maybe once every five years. And thus has no way to react to even the mildest of confrontations.
() should read Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows and then Some Prefer Nettles, Mishima's "Death in Midsummer" and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, and Soseki's Kokoro, and of course one can't omit to mention the Essays in Idleness of Yoshida Kenko (Donald Keene, trans.).
Kobo Abe is some weird shit. If you read The Box Man, you might also like Aristotelis Nikolaides' Vanishing Point.
re: 139
I believe that honor goes to Sting, Bryan Adams, and Rod Stewart. Sting, what the fuck, man?
Why the surprise at Sting? Sting is an artist pretty much identified with egregious shite since time immemorial.
Rod Stewart is, by really quite a long chalk, the best artist there. Although I suppose low expectations generated by his entire career since about 1973 would lead to a total lack of surprise at recording something crappy. But, seriously, his recording career up until about '72/73 is just littered with great stuff.
Thanks, nosflow. Recommendations noted.
The fact that she was "shaken"...suggests that this was a person who generally behaves in such an inoffensive or conventional is an overly dramatic, manipulative pain in the ass who knew she could get a gullible tutor to react if she pretended to have been on the receiving end of threatening behavior rather than a simple WTF.
People of this ilk who don't have a tutor to complain to will resort to calling the cops to report "threats" that in reality amount to "so and so called me bitch/told me to go fuck myself/was rude to my idiot children"...and so on.
I would recommend Confessions of a Mask, Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the short story "Patriotism" by Yukio Mishima. I remember liking Kawabata's Snow Country, but it didn't leave a big impression on me. Dazai's No Longer Human is interesting in its fucked-up-edness.
Sounds to me that maybe first person and second person already knew each other, and the interaction wasn't (on a deep level) actually about the clothing. Or there is some other subtext going on that would not be apparent to the outside observer.
Thanks a lot to the person who mentioned Rod Stewart; now I've got "I'm Sailing" stuck in my head again.
Here's the older thread.
329: In Praise of Shadows as a place to start? Hmm. Interesting choice. I would have suggested one of the novellas, probably.
re: 338
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpGD9icrIco
Better?
re: 340
Faces live vesion much more plodding than the recorded version, however.
my earlier proclamation of love for journey, a love shared by ogged, seems lost to the hoohole. and sweet jesus that mmmm mmmmm mmmmm song is one of the most horrible things ever to have existed in the history of man. it's like blah, blah, buchenwald, blah, blah, blah, that fucking song.
I had managed to completely blot it out of my mind until I stumbled upon it somehow in some ill-starred youtube search and now it's stuck in my head! curses!
I'm going to listen to the song "shake some action" repeatedly in the cab on the way to my NA meeting. if that doesn't work, nothing will. well, there's the "fight fire with fire" strategy of singing starship's "we built this city" to yourself, but I don't know that I'm ready to go there.
The Muppet theme is my go-to tune for getting rid of ear-worms.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/jun/22/popandrock
turns out hall and oates "rich girl" was the ticket.
They did the Macarena at my BF's brother's wedding, and I didn't know it at all. Some of the older people with kids in schools or teachers knew it, but nobody had ever heard of the electric slide.
A few miles south of here, there's a spot where Lewis & Clark camped. Archeologists found the exact location of the camp because a couple of the men (including a distant cousin of mine) had a venereal disease, and, treated with a medicine that contained mercury, left traces in the latrine. They died young (but not here).
Fighting fire with Hall & Oates makes even less sense.
(Analogy, I know. I ban myself).
There's a certain (very posh and privileged) youth sub-culture in the UK in which people don't just go out and about in crypto-pyjamas, they go out and about in actual pyjamas.
In Ireland the sub-culture in which women go out and about in pyjamas is far from posh or privileged. I think ultimately though the message is the same: "I don't have to work or even look like I might have a job". http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6815188.ece
I programmed "Don't Stop Believin'" for a wedding in mid-June 2007 at Scott Lemieux's suggestion. "Nothing gets white people on the dance floor like that song," he said, speaking a couple of weeks before the final Sopranos episode. He was right, but I don't understand it at all.
re: 346
Interesting. I find the Irish model much less irritating.
Huh. Apparently I was drunker than I thought last night. What I wrote yesterday seemed to make sense at the time.
Given my 292, maybe I need to take a break from the hooch. Damnit.
There are days when I wish clothing was government-issued and standardized. I usually enjoy getting dressed, but a big deal was made last week at my new campus about how everyone, faculty and staff, has the responsibility to dress in a manner that sets a professional example for young impressionable people who need to learn to look up to inspiringly well-dressed members of the community and yadda yadda. I don't ever remember thinking of my professors or random staff at my college for sartorial inspiration, or saying to myself, "Man, I should get a PhD so I too can wear flowing gray Eileen Fisher culotte suits with waist-length pendant necklaces!"
I'm not like worried about it, but I feel like my position is a bit precarious as it is.
350: Well, I have a bit of advice for you.
1) No sweatpants with "Juicy" on the ass.
2) No crocs.
3) No pajama bottoms.
4) No camo.
5) If you get tomato sauce or beer stains on a shirt, don't wear it to class.
6) Nothing with auto grease stains.
7) No wifebeaters.
8) No chewing tobacco.
Use a little judgment, and you should be just fine.
BTW, different spellcheckers don't seem to agree about the first "e" in "judgement". It's really frickin annoying.
"Lynchburg" is a really awful name for a town.
Along with Steve Miller, which I will actually sing along in the car with, I really like Neil Young, Cat Stevens, and Steely Dan from the seventies. There are some great covers of seventies songs-- The Be Good Tanyas "For the Turstiles" is great.
For songs with a beat, there are remixes as well. Maybe a mix set tonight-- I have a fantastic recent dance remix of don't fear the reaper, totally better than this one .
BTW, different spellcheckers don't seem to agree about the first "e" in "judgement"
I was eliminated from the sixth-grade spelling bee because of that word. I knew it was an accepted alternate spelling; it was even in the fucking dictionary the judges were using, as I found out later. I'm still chapped about that. Plus, I knew all the rest of the words. That first-place prize was rightfully mine.
I'm a lawyer, and it comes up all the time. I like the 2 'e' spelling, and have discovered that no matter what dictionaries say, people who don't like it will not accept that it's okay. So I don't use it anymore -- the one 'e' spelling doesn't annoy anyone.
Married people not only party, it is much more frequent than one would think for them to get their freak on with non-spousal partners.
352: I have no idea, even though I witnessed the dancing myself.
the short story "Patriotism" by Yukio Mishima.
Thanks, Walt. And I forgot, I have read that. (I was bored during office hours and someone had it on their desk so I nicked it. And gave it back.)
350: I don't ever remember thinking of my professors or random staff at my college for sartorial inspiration, or saying to myself, "Man, I should get a PhD so I too can wear flowing gray Eileen Fisher culotte suits with waist-length pendant necklaces!"
Heh. Above knee-length skirt, hrmmm actually, a black sweater would workl or anything that is not a white blouse, a suit jacket, no, a military jackets that button closed would be awesome, not gray... and BOOTS. No high heels or any bullshit like that.
max
['They're supposed to be impressionable, you should make an impression.']
I'm beginning to suspect that Robust just isn't manly enough to show up in this thread. He knows somebody will call him Robust McGuylyPants.
and BOOTS. No high heels or any bullshit like that.
What about high-heeled boots?
Kenzaburo Oe's two famous novels are great. I didn't care much for his short stories, though.
348: They still wear Uggs tho, or at least facsimiles thereof.
The suggestion in that article that it's one of the few trendyish non-sexualised ways for teenage girls to dress is interesting and something that hadn't occurred to me.
The suggestion in that article that it's one of the few trendyish non-sexualised ways for teenage girls to dress is interesting and something that hadn't occurred to me.
Perv.
I mean, we can't very well deliver a fruit basket without a pseud, now can we?
What are you, a lawyer?
Apparently so. While I don't normally advocate the ruining of one's foot health by wearing high heels, high-heeled boots are infinitely more attractive to me (unless the person wearing flat boots has enviably long legs, as so many do. Just not me. I'm stumpy. The Corgi of people).
(I haven't read the whole thread)
Nina Simone's "Pirate Jenny,*" ... *Not on YouTube?!
It may not be on YouTube, but it can be found.
Confidential to emdash and Parenthetical: Watch here until it gets yanked for copyright or start at minute 43 here.
Thanks, SK.
(I was in a brew pub in Mendocino Co. on Saturday and it came on; the entire bar was tapping its toes. Otto must be right about Northern California's love for it.)
373: for all it's faults, "Don't Stop Believing" is too adult a song to be sung by such fresh-faced youth. Although that girl has got some pipes.
Also, funny example of the homonym invasion I once referred to -- an extended post demanding that the police ban "wreckless operation of a motor vehicle".
that girl has got some pipes
I know, doesn't she?
374: Also irresistibly toe-tapping when played in a bar.
I've had "Don't Stop Believin'" running throgh my head for hours and came here to say "I'm glad you didn't mention 'Sweet Caroline'". Then there was 377.
I guess I'm probably within a block or two *right now* of a bar that will play those songs at least once this week, if not this very night.
I always knew we were cosmically connected, essear.
379: As are probably 2/3 of the US population.
380:As are probably 2/3 of the US population.
381: But I'm not, at the moment, in the US. Just in a place that seems to be full of Americans whose main interest is in going to bars full of other Americans.
383: It's the smell of wine and cheap perfume that draws them in.
Me, I'm enjoying the country properly by sitting in a hotel room debugging code.
"A coder in a hotel room . . . . "
But this weekend! -- this weekend I will take the midnight train going Cinque Terre.
(No, not really midnight, and yes, I know to pronounce the last 'e'. Shut up!)
Nice. I was there backpacking... good lord, twenty years ago. It was pretty then, and probably still is.
I love talking to Italians who don't speak English. They're the best about mime, cognates, pointing -- who needs a shared language to communicate?
388: But they do the exact same thing with people they share a language with too.
388: I keep reaching for Italian words and coming up with Spanish. Seems to work moderately well at getting the point across. I should try more miming, just for fun.
Cinque Terre is wonderful. I was there in 2006. The trail through the hills that connects all the towns is worthwhile.
who needs a shared language to communicate?
Robots.
391: They're pretty darn close, and probably would be called dialects of each other if Spain and Italy were one political entity.
When I first got back from China, I would try to speak Spanish and Chinese would come out. It's like I only have one box for foreign languages in my brain, and whatever got stuffed in there last is what comes out whenever a foreign language is required.
393: Voulez vous couchez avec moi, ce soir?
369: Apparently so. While I don't normally advocate the ruining of one's foot health by wearing high heels, high-heeled boots are infinitely more attractive to me (unless the person wearing flat boots has enviably long legs, as so many do. Just not me. I'm stumpy. The Corgi of people).
I think it would depend on the heel. I wasn't trying for 'nice' though - I was shooting for 'making an impression'.
max
['Nice would be some flowery poet's blouse thing or something like that.']
I don't know what your schedule is like, essear, but both Orvieto and Urbino are worth visiting. Urbino has an amazing study and Orvieto has a walk-through well, among other things.
Is this enough of a heel for you, )(? That's the most attractive kind of boot.
398: I don't believe I said anything about nice!* Making an impression boots to me, are, uh, well, perhaps not best worn in the classroom.
Or giant steel-toe things worn unlaced. Stomp.
*(But we clearly have different fashion sensibilities.)
400: I think I have a pair just like that, but those aren't really the sort you wear with skirts. (When the stumpifying effect is something to consider.)
399: Arg. People keep making these wonderful-sounding suggestions, but I have so few days that I can escape working and explore. (Escape for a few hours in a museum, yes. To other cities, not so much.) Things to keep in mind for future trips, I guess. Thanks.
Did I mention the time I found some gunmetal green Fluevog boots in my building that fit? I may wear them this weekend. Hott.
Boots on ladies are hott in general. It is a truth that should be universally acknowledged. Boots with heels, moreso.
This has been your edition of Things Otto Finds Sexy for September 21, 2009.
re: 404
This year, insanely high boots are in fashion. It's like pantomime season came early.
Speaking of wearing schlumpy lounge clothes out of the house, I surely do foresee my standards going dreadfully downhill in the coming months. These yoga pant sort of things I just put on are so very much more comfortable than something with a button, I can hardly express it. Also I give thanks that it is a fashion moment for loose dresses + leggings.
I surely do foresee my standards going dreadfully downhill in the coming months.
And if anyone gives you crap about this, tell them I said they can go fuck themselves. My word in carries great weight in these matters.
I keep reaching for Italian words and coming up with Spanish. Seems to work moderately well at getting the point across.
When my mom was hitchhiking through Europe and ended up in Spain she ended up doing the exact opposite. She didn't know any Spanish, but her one year of Italian in high school turned out to be close enough.
They're pretty darn close, and probably would be called dialects of each other if Spain and Italy were one political entity.
Quite true. Interestingly, however, both Spain and Italy are full of regional varieties generally considered dialects that are distinct enough from both the standard languages and each other that they would probably be called separate languages if they weren't contained within the same political entities. (And, at least in Spain, the more prominent often are referred to as separate languages these days.)
Boots on ladies are hott in general. It is a truth that should be universally acknowledged.
Your statement was true as well but, you know, subset.
385: You picked a hotel that's full of bugs?
411: Would Basque count as one of those?
Basque isn't a dialect of Spanish, no. It's a language isolate, not related to any of its neighbors.
No, Basque is entirely separate.
Basque isn't even arguably a Spanish dialect, so it's always been recognised as a language (if suppressed). The likes of Catalan and Galician are where it's been more hazy. Basque I think is a language isolate.
414: Not really. Basque is unambiguously a different language, unrelated to Spanish, that happens to be spoken within Spain. I'm thinking more of languages like Catalan and Galician, which are Romance languages closely related to Castilian but not totally mutually intelligible with it. Portuguese is another example which happens to be associated with a different political unit and therefore considered a separate language.
I almost fell over dead with joy when I saw a car with the bumper stickers "J'♥ pétanque" and "Occitan! Parla ta lenga!"
To my ears, Portuguese sounds phonetically much more like a Slavic language than a Romance language of the Spanish/Italian variety. I'm surprised that its status as a language (as opposed to dialect) is generally ascribed to the political boundary.
So, Basque. It's basically just a dialect of Spanish, right?
Actually, Basque is a language isolate. Oddly, it isn't related to any of its neighboring languages.
Here is a scary modern love anecdote:
I mean, we can't very well deliver a fruit basket without a pseud, now can we?
Sorry, 346 and 365 were me, I'm an existing mostly-lurker rather than a new commenter. I'd just commented on another thread and for some reason my info didn't carry over.
I understand that neurologists think that languages learned later than early childhood are to some extent stored elsewhere in the brain than mother- or nearly mother-tongues.
I found that although I can't speak Catalan, Provençal was good enough.
Oddly, it (Basque)isn't related to any of its neighboring languages.
Genetically, it appears the Basques were there first and everybody else in Western Europe are just blow-ins.
I was talking with some other English-speakers when we overheard a group of people speaking another language. It sounded like a Romance language, but definitely not one of the ones we could easily recognize, so we figured either Portuguese or Romanian. After listening a bit longer we guessed Romanian, which turned out to be correct. It helped that their conversation involved counting things starting at zero.
There are apparently a lot of Basques in Reno. I find this surprising, somehow.
426: Oh, Edwards, we are so over.
I went to a Basque picnic outside of Walnut Creek, not far from Mt. Diablo, many years ago. It may have been an annual thing. A very fine time, I must say.
431: I shot a Basque in Reno, just to hear him complain about it to some incomprehending Spanish speakers.
Uncomprehending? Comprehension-free? Comprehensionless? Non-comprehending? Probably that. Stupid Basque.
There's a Basque character in The Octopus, isn't there? I thought there were Basque sheperds in California (also fishermen, but probably not in Reno).
Portuguese and Galician are very, very close to one another. They would almost certainly be called the same language if not for the political border. Spanish (i.e. Castilian) and Portuguese are pretty close too and mostly mutually intelligible. Like a really thick accent more so than a wholly different language. If it's spoken slowly enough I found I could understand spoken Brazilian Portuguese fairly well, at least.
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I hope this isn't the only comment I leave from this laptop.
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Basques dominated sheepherding the northern Great Basin. Rough life in a hard place, but today you can get excellent Basque chorizo in Boise, so everything ultimately worked out for the best.
"Mr. Edwards told Ms. Hunter that every time he heard the song by that band entitled 'Crash,' he 'fantasized about crashing into' her. Ms. Hunter said she thought this a very romantic thing to say."
There's a very large and prominent Basque community in Nevada and nearby parts of the interior west; they came over to work as shepherds. The University of Nevada has a Center for Basque Studies, and there's a Basque Museum and Cultural Center in Boise.
If it weren't for the weird diacritics and the words "sao", "e", and "do" I would have a hard time telling written Portugese apart from Spanish.
I have always depended on the kindness of sheperds.
439: Is someone holding the computer store hostage a la Dog Day Afternoon?
There's an early Edward G. Robinson film called Tiger Shark about Portuguese fishermen in southern California. A basic love triangle story, but with some great, almost documentary, footage of the work involved in fishing.
442: "And when they planned a getaway abroad, Edwards paid special attention to advice not to drink the water."
372 That's a carbon copy of the Lotte Lenya performance with Orchestra Sender Freies Berlin from 1958 - hands down the best Dreigroschenoper verson I've heard.
West Virginia: not so popular with the Basques.
I have some supposedly Basque wine glasses.
(450 is my suggestion for a new state motto.)
re: 449
There's a New York Shakespeare Company version, with Raul Julia, which is really very good.
http://www.dinosaurgardens.com/archives/180
Three or four years ago, I played in the 'pit band' for a production that stuck close to the original score, and while I was learning it I listened to a lot of different versions. That NY Shakespeare version, and some of the near-contemporary original cast recordings are the best. I don't think I've heard that particular 1958 version, though.
To my ears, Portuguese sounds phonetically much more like a Slavic language
Yes! When I hear people speaking Portuguese my mind can't stop trying to process it as Russian, which doesn't work out well at all.
I agree; it's all those slushy sh sounds.
I have basically zero Spanish, but I was able to pick up a couple of words from context while watching soccer matches on Unimundo. ("Y ahora, la pelota...") I tried the same trick watching Portuguese soccer matches, but I couldn't get past the idea that they were all, "Comrade da Silva's slide tackle brings the glorious revolution!"
"Y ahora, la pelota..."
Careful with that one.
that 'crazy poker game' song i might have heard before, but i have no memory of it. its completely uncatchy. bad-but-catchy like the freecreditreport band or something is much worse. this songs, its just like urban noise from cars and ACs or something.
Careful with that one.
Do explain.
431
There are apparently a lot of Basques in Reno. ...
Paul Laxalt former Nevada Governor and Senator was a Basque born in Reno.
I found that although I can't speak Catalan, Provençal was good enough.
Huh, not my experience at all. I used to be reasonably fluent in French and spent a fair amount of time around Provencal speakers (my friend's grandparents and their friends) and could follow them at least part of the time. I knew some girls from Catalan during my study abroad experience, and, well, it was as though they were speaking a foreign language.
(It occurs to me that I may be interpreting this over earnestly.)
460: Oh, it's the same mind-in-the-gutter caveat I'd give with the direct English translation. Don't blurt it out out-of-context, is all. Or, actually, do blurt it out out-of-context and then report back.
Am I wrong in supposing the direct English translation is "And now, the ball"? Because I blurt that out of context all the time, especially in church, and no one's so much as looked at me funny.
OMG can you guys believe what Standpipe just said?
It's okay, Otto. It was a religious utterance.
yup I never confuse Portuguese and Spanish, but Portuguese for Russian though never the reverse. I lived on the edge of a Portuguese neighbourhood my senior year and I kept on doing double takes at those old ladies in black speaking 'Russian'.
If you want really close, but 'language = dialect plus your own police force' think Czech and Slovak. It takes close listening for me to distinguish them (I understand Slovak a lot better). Kashubian is probably at least is different from Polish as Czech and Slovak are from one another, but it's a 'dialect'. On Spanish vs. Italian the latter is much closer to French.
462 -- Wow, you were around real Occitan/Provencal/Langue d'Oc speakers? That's pretty dang rare these days.
I think that Occitan is generally thought to be closer to Catalan than to French, but I've never actually heard it spoken.
Also, there are some great basque restaurants in Bakersfield, CA and Elko, NV, for the reasons everyone has already explained.
And if anyone gives you crap about this, tell them I said they can go fuck themselves. My word in carries great weight in these matters.
Use the phrasing that Kanye West used, "I'm one of the kings in this game right now, so my opinion counts."
The difference between Catalan and Spanish seems to be, at least in radio football commenting, mostly a matter of the use of cheap studio sound effects in the latter.
All though the Catalan does start to sound much more un-Spanish when they break into the pseudo-liturgical call and response around 1:15.
468: Yes, though I'm pretty sure that most of the people I met are dead now and they didn't pass it down.
462: I am trying to learn from past mistakes.
Also, further to 472, I'm not that great with languages; it may be that I had an easier time with the Provencal speakers because they were, well, old, and speaking slowly, and so they actually sound completely alike. The girls from Catalan sounded like auctioneers in comparison.
I bought a train ticket in Barcelona just to watch, uh never mind. I asked the guy at the ticket booth if he spoke English. He said no and asked me if I spoke French. I said, a little. So I bought the ticket in French. I guess it was appropriate, because I was trying to book a couchette.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCZhmwRnHgw
favorite thing and and the first time i liked 'don't stop believing' song
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Did any of you New Yorkers pick up a copy of the Yes Men's fake New York Post? I have a short piece in it, and I don't know if they're going to get print copies to contributors. It would be swell if someone scored one.
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I still haven't found anything out about my house, for those who are interested in an update. with every passing day I think it's less likely to happen, but I thought that before and she suddenly turned up all let's sign a legal agreement! clearly the danger of having this person as a landlord is pretty extreme. but if she's in bangkok out of my hair...
yoyo, that's a pretty sweet remix, but I fail to see how you could like it without also straight-up liking the journey song. I expected more rap over journey instrumental.
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Actually...looking at the website, it's not clear that my piece has been published, either there or in print.
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Also an update, for those who might wonder: I finally got a new laptop. It seems to be working fine so far, but I just threw away some money on useless CDs. Turns out the recovery discs are DVD only. I don't know what to do with the CDs. Guess I can use some coasters.
danger of having this person as a landlord is pretty extreme. but if she's in bangkok out of my hair
Since it's a house, you probably won't need her to do anything. But if you do, it could be a problem. This is assuming she'd not always in the way and what you need is for her not to do anything.
I've had some crazy landlords in room rental situations and the only solution has been to move out. A partial exception would be the absentee landlord at one place where I was subletting from the leaseholder, but the leaseholder only needed a subletter because he'd given up and was running out the lease before moving.
You could file down the edge of a CD, stick a dowel through the center, and use it to cut pizza into slices.
OR
You could put a CD in the microwave, cause the microwave to spark, call maintenance, and when maintenance arrives, surprise them by answering the door naked except for clown makeup.
OR
Send them to AOL marked with the access code CHOCOLATEY-PLACENTA.
Before I clicked through, I spent a good minute thinking the eponymous Beck in question was the Odelayer.
Send them to AOL marked with the access code CHOCOLATEY-PLACENTA.
Only if I were to decided to do something chocolatey-different.
I'm pretty certain the entire history of Unfogged has just been a lead-up to the perfect comment that is 445.
I have posted in the wrong thread. How sad. This cancels out my Basque-derived joy.
My Basque-derived joy is boundless and everlasting.
401: 398: I don't believe I said anything about nice!* Making an impression boots to me, are, uh, well, perhaps not best worn in the classroom. Or giant steel-toe things worn unlaced. Stomp. *(But we clearly have different fashion sensibilities.)
I believe the phrase you are searching for is B's: 'hooker boots'.
I like hooker boots... and virtually every other kind of boot. That said, to get out of the 'sensible' space that was occupied by my sixth-grade teacher (jacket, knee-length skirt, poet blouse, gold necklace, ultra-sensible shoes and the topper, glasses on a neck chain), while still being 'conservative' enough for 'impressionable' students, I'd think you'd have to be near the norm but subverting it. Since the uniform is fairly standard (and the pantsuit version is even dowdier), and since I wasn't going for porno librarian, that leaves the shoes, by default. And since this will involve walking around, chunky heels are better, if you like your feet. (I should know this, as I own quiet a number of pairs of boots and have walked all over hell and creation.)
So a high heel seems too porno. Sensible shoes are going to be sucked into the dowdy vortex. Unless AWB wanted to go all Weimar cabaret, then it's the nice but ass-kicking boots, I think. Unless you wanted to try for the 'men's dress shirt' attack, which seems like it would tend to be lost in the noise.
403: Did I mention the time I found some gunmetal green Fluevog boots in my building that fit? I may wear them this weekend. Hott.
Yow.
max
['Free money!']
chunky heels are better
As a total stranger and I agreed on Sunday standing in the aisle of a discount store. (What are they thinking, those spike heels?/I know! How 'm I going to walk up the subway stairs in those things?/I know that's right.)
And to NickS way, way upthread: Hey, cool! Thank you.
I only spent one day in Siena, and it was gorgeous. I'd worn shorts that day, so there were a couple of beautiful churches that I missed out on. I love looking at the sunflowers on the way to Siena from Florence. I don't know what it looks like in the fall.
Basques dominated sheepherding the northern Great Basin.
And brought little sheepdogs with them from Spain, who ended up being called Australian Shepherds by confused Americans because the sheep were largely imports from Australia. We tease DogBreath about her Basque heritage frequently. (And ignorantly, of course -- it's mostly revving her up by asking if she wants to go to the jai alai fronton.)
Has someone linked this here yet?
I'm pretty sure I saw that here.
484 caused me to guffaw in public.
(*#&$)(*@#!!! co-workers. Spent the morning in B'lyn Supreme covering an appearance for a co-worker -- while I didn't ask, I assumed that she'd tried to adjourn it and the other side had refused. I show up at 9:30, the other side isn't there, and the clerk says the case will be called again at 10:30. I duck out of the courtroom to the bathroom for five ($#*#$@ minutes, and come back and wait for second call. At second call the clerk announces that the case has been adjourned for six weeks -- apparently opposing counsel showed up between first and second call, and asked for an adjournment ex parte. (A) That's uncool, given that the clerk knew I was there -- he should have told her to wait for second call; (B) if my (#$&@#(!@! co-worker had called the other side and asked for an adjournment, I wouldn't have had to waste two hours getting jerked around.
Feh.
That's why they have metal detectors outside of courts.
Oh, it's pretty minor -- I wasted a couple of hours and couldn't ride my bike to work, but nothing earthshattering. It's just that while I don't mind doing someone a favor, it annoys the heck out of me when the favor is both troublesome and absolutely pointless and unnecessary.
I just went and snapped at her about it; she's pretty junior and apparently asking for an adjournment just hadn't occurred to her. So no serious harm done, she'll know better next time, and the two of us are good.
505: Not for the likes of me -- as an attorney with an attorney ID, I get to skip the metal detector. I could carry an ax into court if it fit in my bag.
I could carry an ax into court if it fit in my bag.
Interesting choice of weapons.
A hatchet would fit most briefcases and a good number of women's handbags. Just saying.
Everyone gets cranky in their own way.
Interesting choice of weapons.
Or musical instruments, I suppose. Busking in the corridor would be a good way to fill the waiting time.
Busking in the corridor would be a good way to fill the waiting time.
The public defenders have all of the good spots. It's how they pay for toner.
511: Good news and usage of "whilst"!
I've always wondered: Does the prohibition on weapons in court technically apply to attorneys--i.e., they're just exempt from the intrusive eye of the metal detector because they're so inherently trustworthy? Or is it that since they're, like, the officers of the court, they're allowed to pack heat?
514: also useful whilst enjoying the massive bladder on the jindabyne cockatoo!
I read 515 initially whilst forgetting that Brock is an attorney. Having remembered that fact, I find it somewhat terrifying.
517: Well I'm not usually the court-going kind. And while I've been a time or two I've never bothered to ask if my not needing to pass through the metal detector meant it was okay for me to keep a knife in my boot.
A colleague just referred to an ongoing exchange of e-mail amongst a group as a "string." So cute, these old folks.
515: I'm not sure. I treat it as if I'm allowed to carry anything I like, whether or not they'd take it away from me at the metal detector, but that's limited to a pocket knife and sometimes steel crochet hooks, which are pointy.
A friend once told me a story about accompanying a witness, who also happened to be an attorney but was acting in his role as a private investigator, to court and finding out after they got in that the guy was packing heat in an ankle holster. (I may have made up the ankle holster. I think I remember that, but it's the kind of detail I'd be likely to inadvertently confabulate.) Not for any particular reason, just because he could (I think he was licensed for concealed carry, but neither I or my friend, IIRC, knew whether that covers carrying a gun into a courthouse).
You can carry gum if you bring enough for everyone.
503
... I wouldn't have had to waste two hours getting jerked around. ...
But you could have used the time to compose an awesome politics post.
Mmm. I should have thrown my little laptop in my bag and used the court's public WiFi -- I've gotten out of the habit of carrying it since I've been biking.
515, 520: While I was clerking we had a lawyer come in to the federal courthouse with a gun (he claimed he forgot he had it on him, and was otherwise carrying legally). This was, to put it mildly, not permitted (we ended up in a crazy security alert for a half hour or so; it was not too long after a federal judge in I think Chicago had been threatened and her husband murdered, so the CSOs were a little tetchy about that sort of thing). Lawyers weren't exempt from the metal detectors in this courthouse, though, so what you're actually permitted to carry could well vary, too.
I believe that Ive seen statitics saying that lawyers who are parties in cases are the most likely to shoot.
That is why many sheriffs departments look out for that.
Lawyers weren't exempt from the metal detectors in this courthouse, though
What sort of uncivilized backwater would subject a licensed attorney to the indiginities of a security check intended for the common class?
524: Oh gosh, I remember that (the Chicago judge thing). They lived quite near us (like maybe 3 blocks away).
Federal courthouses everywhere screen lawyers, don't they? The three I've been in in NY do -- my attorney ID only lets me out of the metal detectors in state courts, not federal.
530: I used to work in the same building as the Ohio Supreme Court. I seem to remember everybody who got on their elevator having to go through the metal detector, though I'm not certain. I do remember the security guard complaining about lawyers given the slightest provokation.
531: And, yes, I am talking to myself.
528 -- Missouri state courts let you in with a bar card. No where else I've been.
The funny thing is that federal court is much less maddening, as a rule, than state court. Federal court is very formal and predictable -- judges don't do anything procedurally bizarre or unexpected. State court, on the other hand, at least in NY, anything can happen.
533:
Human sacrifice. dogs and casts living together! mass hysteria.
I spent a summer at the US Attorney's office for the SDNY.
Late to the thread, but sorry to hear about Josh and Magpie.
Which married couples met here? Sifu and Blume, I would guess, but I didn't know they met through this blog. And I'm drawing a blank on the other.
I'm surprised to see (218) that B. is blogging under her real name, or at least letting it appear with her her blog. I thought she was carefully anonymous. I guess it doesn't matter all that much now, but still. (Also, I'm relieved that I'm not crazy. I met her at a meetup, I remember some crazy weird name I had never heard of before, not like I'm in any position to mock weird names of course, and since then I've wondered if I remembered it wrong or imagined it completely. Apparently I remembered correctly.)
Re: sweatpants, I own a pair but I've never seen much point in them. Jeans are comfortable enough that I can wear them anywhere I'd wear sweatpants, with the added benefit that I can also wear them while working or in slightly more classy venues. For exercise, I wear shorts.
I guess I'd only wear sweatpants if I routinely did light exercise outdoors in fall or winter weather, or if all the jeans I owned were stylishly tight or had strategic rips.
537: Ac and Weiner are married, and met here. They're also absent from Unfogged in a purposeful, displeased-with-Unfogged kind of way (or, at least it was that way a couple of years ago -- I'm not in touch with either) so, out of courtesy to them, I'd rather people didn't start chatting about them here.
Will no one talk about the hookups? This is truly late-stage Unfogged.
History of the Sifu-Blume courtship.
533
... State court, on the other hand, at least in NY, anything can happen.
Fontana Labs and I are married in God's eyes.
Based on the incredible slowness of the past few days, I am beginning to think that the decline of Unfogged is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
538: Ah, I see. That's too bad; I occasionally reminisce about Vermont with him in other blogs' comment sections. (As has been noted recently, the blogosphere is indeed an odd community.) But a quick Google site search reveals that most of his comments here were before I was a regular, maybe even before I found Unfogged at all, so maybe I just never ran into him here.
539: What base do you have to get to for it to count as a "hook-up"? (And at what age are you supposed to stop talking about sexual experiences as "bases"?)
540: Heh, funny.
537: B has been out all the way for a fair while now.
god damn 540 remains awesome. And now we're married! Watch out when Kraab starts making you powerpoints.
Don't approve of things like 536, incidentally, anymore than I did when people "outed" hilzoy. People should be allowed to manage their own multiple identities and personal information without help from others.
arghh 548 to 546
No biggie, it just makes me uncomfortable since I am not certain how "out" she wants to be
Her first IHE post was linked from here before, bob. As was the talk in 218.
Yeah I don't quite know how much more "out" she could be.
547: IT WAS A GROUP EFFORT!
