Yes, but it really was once an excellent paper. For about 30 years. And, before that, it was a crazy right wing rag. I hate the Tribune Company with a passion.
I have this conversation virtually every Sunday with my parents, when I go over to their house for lunch and there's nothing to read in the Sunday paper so instead we commiserate about the fallen state of the LA Times.
Also, what Halford says above. It really used to be a great newspaper.
That Lohengrin review is terribly written from start to finish. Also I'm jealous because I want to hear Zajick sing Ortrud.
The LA Times used to have America's grouchiest classical music critic, whose name I am currently forgetting. There was basically nothing, under any circumstance, that he liked. My understanding is that during roughly his tenure (1970s-1990s) LA went from having basically no classical music scene to a pretty good one, so maybe his tough love worked.
Also, Smearcase, should I make an effort to go to this Lohengrin ?
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I just saw a bathroom-mirror sticker on campus which originally said "Stop War Now." Someone had crossed out "war" and substituted "terrorism," and also written "where were you on 9/11/01?" and "Cheney 2012." The rest of the sticker was written over with someone's paragraph-long impassioned response.
Analog trolling!
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3: In Swed's defense, a) he's usually much better than that, b) opera reviews are a bitch to write when you have both space constraints and a tight deadline, and c)newspaper editing is generally the enemy of good prose.
BodyScanner Operator Caught Masturbating at Colorado Airport
Also, jeez, "Rapiscan" isn't a parody name?
5: Well, hard to say, both because I haven't actually heard it and don't know much about what you like. But if I were to pretend to be Mr. Knowledgepants, I would mention: Buzz on it is that Heppner is in dire form, which means sitting through a lot of painful cracking. An off night for Heppner is hard on the nerves. Grain of salt=I read this on a site where people are sort of vulturously fond of a disaster, plus Heppner can be very night-by-night. Me, I was just excited by the idea of Zajick as Ortrud because it's a hard role to cast and she seems likely to blaze through it.
Its kind of cruel to expect the TSA screeners to look at live porn all day and not masturbate.
"where were you on 9/11/01?"
Washington DC, getting evacuated from a building a block from the WH. Where the fuck were you, bedwetter?
Further to 10: you might hear Heppner when he's in the groove, and that's pretty great. I'm not sure what site Smearcase is referring to, but Internet opera criticism tends to be dire itself IME.
I'm not sure what site Smearcase is referring to, but Internet opera criticism tends to be dire itself IME.
Bitch-y!
You know what's hard to read? Travel reviews.
Outspoken rightists on liberal campuses seem to rank among the most bedwettery -- viz. Ann Coulter.
10, 13 -- Thanks guys. I'll probably go. I am opera-liking but not really opera-knowledgeable, so.
Martin Bernheimer was the name of the super grouchy classical music critic.
13 I've heard Heppner in extremis (Otello, Chicago, many dramatic cracks and strangly noises) and in the groove (Tristan, Met, the stuff of legends). I guess I've also heard him be perfectly adequate without being especially compelling (Troyens, Met.) Some people I know find his off nights so nerve-wracking they can't quite relax and enjoy his on nights. After that Tristan, I certainly don't feel that way. He set the place on fire. Lohengrin is a more lyric role, though, so slightly different considerations.
I am opera-liking but not really opera-knowledgeable
Protip: wear a cummerbund.
8: That seems to be making the rounds today as a true story. Which it's not.
in the groove (Tristan, Met, the stuff of legends)
The only time I've heard him live was in Tristan in Seattle (with Jane Eaglen), and yeah, holy crap.
You guys are the best, but nosflow is my favorite. I guess that has always been apparent. If he had pigtails, I'd totally dip them in an inkwell!
KCET had a really good documentary about the LA Times and the Chandlers
I just went through airport security. It was the same as before, mostly, but with longer lines. I suppose I drew the long straw. Free airport wifi is really sucky, so someone should fix that.
I suppose I drew the long straw.
TSA is really the most informed source for this.
A grown woman is reading Tucker Max in public.
A grown woman is reading Tucker Max in public.
A grown woman is reading Tucker Max in public.
I'm dying to know what the grown women near Moby are reading. Pwned on preview!
Can't see London
Can't see France
Until we see your underpants
I had to look up what syllepsis is, and thought some here would appreciate knowing the wikipedia article on it cites "The Humpty Dance".
20: An article written by "Hugh Muzzbe" and posted by "Dancomedy" to an unspecified website isn't totally factual?
No extra security in Newark A terminal. But an unusually slow line with tons of rarely-traveling people who think this is new security.
Newark A terminal
They didn't name that after Mark Zuckerberg yet? Pshaw. Charity just doesn't go as far as it used to.
33 got me to look it up; there is also an example from the Lyttle Lytton Contest.
Stupid iTouch followed by several hours travel with no net.
Saletan is really pissed off at our lack of body scanner credulity.
BTW, since when do you have to get searched just coming into the US, when you don't have a connecting flight? I don't remember this back in September.
It amazes me that the scanner manufacturer company is named "Rapiscan." I mean they might as well have named the company Pornoscanner themselves.
washerdreyer! Long time no see. Are you working hard at BigLaw or something?
40 BTW, since when do you have to get searched just coming into the US, when you don't have a connecting flight?
... never? That's weird.
41: I think most of the old baggage-scanning machines that have been around for ever are also "Rapiscan"; it's not just the new pornoscanners.
I think we're overdue for a Rapiscan vs. Backscatter rap battle. Is M/tch around?
The story in 40 puzzled me when I first encountered it, but I've since learned that at that airport, one has to pass through the "secure" part of the airport between clearing Customs and getting out of there. That's pretty dumb airport geometry, but it's vaguely comprehensible given that factoid (Unclear if you can get *into* Customs from the outside - probably not - in which case the extra-weak threat model is someone who brought a TSA-forbidden item on their international flight, didn't use it for a dastardly purpose there, but wants to have it get onto a domestic flight).
That's pretty dumb airport geometry, but it's vaguely comprehensible given that factoid
Is it? Is it really cheaper to maintain and staff an extra security station than to build a corridor between customs and the outside?
Lots of people arriving on international flights are probably making a connection to a domestic flight. I would agree that it seems more sensible to dump them in the non-secure part of the airport and reuse the same security station(s), but it's not totally insane.
46, 48: I was really confused the one time I flew through Narita. The flight attendants were making this big hullabaloo about how EVERYONE would have to go through Japanese customs -- bowing, the tea ceremony -- but in fact I just went through one low-key security checkpoint, and that was it.
The Kansas City airport has security checkpoints at every gate. Now that's totally insane.
In my continued attempt to repeat every story ever: the last time I flew was out of Richmond; we were heading to a gig in Kansas. I had a carry-on bag with clothes, etc., for the long weekend plus my (drum)stickbag.
What I had forgotten was that I had a Leatherman knockoff in the stickbag—a very useful tool to have at a gig, but not the kind of thing you want to send through the airport X-ray machine. That knife/multi-tool, combined with a metronome, plus several extra batteries, raised no shortage of eyebrows.
After a supervisor finally came over, I was allowed to board minus the knife/multi-tool. In sum, I'm dumb.
I haven't flown into the US since January, but I don't remember any security line as opposed to the two separate customs ones. When flying into the US with a transfer to a domestic flight it has always been the case that you need to go through security again, though that's because you get passed through into the general public non-secure area. The post 9/11 European procedure of multiple full security checks between various secure areas of the airport is actually more annoying. And while I'm at it, for all you folks who favour strict smoking bans in airports with even sealed off smoking areas closed down, you do realize it means you wait longer in security lines, right? Us smokers with long enough transfer times go out through security for a smoke and then back again. Multiple times if it's a long enough wait.
50 Fucking Eurocommies taking over the heartland. (Standard procedure in Europe these days.)
51 A couple months after 9/11 I went through security at JFK and they found a small corkscrew in my backpack after seeing something suspicious and searching it. My pre-TSA guy confiscated it and gave me a lecture. After walking through I was trying to figure out what it was doing there, and I remembered a dinner I had made with a friend at her place, and remembered bringing along a big kitchen knife since hers sucked. Yup, there it was, wrapped in a paper towel.
50: There are quite a few airports that have the complete processing chain stacked up vertically over (or under) each gate - Berlin-Tegel comes to mind. You walk into the loop of terminal building, cross the concourse/walk around it to your gate and then cross, check in, and pass through a security checkpoint into the gate lounge. Eliminates system-wide chokepoints.
In the other direction, you get off the plane and either walk around the secure channel if you're in transit from a Schengen state, or else pass through border control and out onto the concourse.
This would be harder if it was more of a hub, with baggage being transhipped, but Schiphol in Amsterdam's an enormous hub and it has per-gate security.
Come to think of it, Tegel's architect was probably inspired by Speer's Tempelhof - that supposedly had the shortest walk from the street to the aircraft of any airport.
After flying over 100,000 miles domestically for a few years in a row, can I just say how happy I am to have taken exactly two airplane trips this year? And I'm going to Thanksgiving 10 minutes from my house. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
50: 54, etc. - I always really *liked* KC, precisely because of that feature. It seemed faster to me. It also does away with that awful feeling of being late, knowing most of the people ahead of you are for later flights, but feeling it would be rude to ask to go ahead.
Seriously - the argument against doing it the Tegel/KC way is what? Just that it means duplication of equipment?
The European airports that I've seen with that feature had it as an add on to the other security checks. Really annoying. The worst was Geneva which last time I was there had four full security checks between entering the airport and the plane. And it's not like Geneva is a particularly big airport. I'll get to see if they're still doing that on my way back from Christmas.
If we brought back zeppelins security would be much less of an issue. It's hard to bring down a building by crashing a dirigible into it, and even in-flight bombs would bring the thing down fairly slowly, enough to avoid crashing into stuff on the ground and allowing passengers time to get into their crash resistant pods or whatever. Also the world needs more things shaped like giant cocks flying around.
32: Best TSA bumper sticker:
It's not a grope. It's a freedom pat.
(Runner up: We are now free to move about your pants.)
I do wonder if Tegel could cope with boarding an A380 though - not much buffer space before the check-in without queueing and blocking the circulation or queueing out into the street (not a good plan in a Berlin winter).
57: That seems massively more expensive. Not only duplication of equipment, which isn't trivial, but also many more screeners, a good number of whom would be idle at any given time. There are no doubt better ways to set up security than the current mess, but doing it at every gate seems absurd to me, unless there's something I'm not understanding.
51, 53.2: Most ridiculous confiscation in our family: a soccer cleat wrench. On the other hand my wife and daughter continue to sail through with knitting needles--sometimes big fucking wicked-looking ones.
Also, waiting in line isn't nearly as bad if you can read while you're standing there. I've never understood why more people don't carry something to read (or video game to play or phone to watch or whatever).
The X-ray units can be mobile, and only active gates need to be staffed. It's incompatible with airport architecture in most US airports, but is pretty common in Europe.
Gatewise screening is great from a passenger's perspective, definitely minimizes missed flights because of screening delays.
I would gladly pay extra to send my luggage the day before travel on the same flights, getting electronic confirmation that it has arrived safely. Restricting this service to clothes would be fine. Currently, checking baggage means significant risk of loss if there's a plane change and also adding 30-50 min of waiting at the end of your travel.
64: Some people are too anxious and impatient to focus on something else while waiting in line. Others are too uncoordinated and unbalanced to stand up and read at the same time. Guess which group I fall into?
And I don't understand people who can't sleep on planes-- variety makes the world a richer place, crowds cause anxiety for many people.
And I don't understand people who can't sleep on planes-- variety makes the world a richer place, crowds cause anxiety for many people.
On the veldt, you don't fall asleep surrounded by strangers. One of them might kill you.
(I suppose, actually, that they were probably more like active-duty soldiers and medical residents, etc - able to sleep anywhere, at any time. But I comfort myself when I can't sleep by telling myself my own little evolutionary fable.)
67, 68: My greatest talent is my ability to fall asleep surrounded by people. Maybe its my only true talent.
And I don't understand people who can't sleep on planes
Seriously? The noise and the excruciatingly uncomfortable seats?
If we brought back zeppelins security would be much less of an issue.
The Pentagon is way ahead of you.
Your seat is a badly furnished, crappy apartment in a bad neighborhood. Nevertheless, this is where you are, and if you want rest this is where you'll sleep.
There are many things I don't understand-- movies on ipods, tongue piercings, fauxhawks, Cinnabons in airports, why siRNA regulation is so common and yet is so poorly conserved.
I meant to say more that human response to travel conditions is pretty varied, my own response just the example I know best. I do really love looking out the window at cities as planes take off or land-- the tiny little cars moving around are great. Flying over any kind of geographically interesting area is nice as well.
And I don't understand people who can't sleep on planes
Seriously? The noise and the excruciatingly uncomfortable seats?
The paralyzing, inextinguishable terror?
Oh wait. Just me.
73, 74, 75: I usually convince myself the plane will probably crash, and I'll certainly die, so I might as well take a nap. And then I'm out like a light.
72: There are many things I don't understand-- movies on ipods, tongue piercings, fauxhawks, Cinnabons in airports,
Improves fellatio.
The paralyzing, inextinguishable terror?
Does that make anybody else want some curly fries?
How do movies on Ipods improve fellatio?
77: Is the answer, "all of the above"? I'm kind of doubtful about the Cinnabons.
77: Cinnabons? I'll have to try that.
'Cause ya see, 'cause, there's this movie called Pulp Fiction, see...
I'm not scared on planes. I can't sleep anywhere surrounded by strangers. Hell, I can't sleep surrounded by friends. It just doesn't happen.
84: That really makes sense to me.
It makes no sense to me that I can fall asleep at a meeting sitting in an uncomfortable chair right next to my boss.
I can't sleep surrounded by friends. It just doesn't happen.
I wouldn't say we were *sleeping*, Bob.
No terror, just paralyzing inextinguishable boredom combined with noise, nasty dry air, and objects and people banging against you at all times. I can sleep if I'm exhausted, which generally means I pass out right before they wake me up for landing in Europe.
I've never had any trouble falling asleep in a classroom or a movie theater, but I can't sleep on planes. The problem is basically that the seats are incredibly small and uncomfortable. And there is turbulence. And the background noise is punctuated by frequent loud announcements, either robotic or human. And the lights keep going on and off. Those are all factors
How do movies on Ipods improve fellatio?
Instructional videos, presumably.
My greatest talent is my ability to fall asleep surrounded by people. Maybe its my only true talent.
Me, too, on both counts.
85.2: Yeah, I've got the meeting sleeping thing down pretty good. But no go on planes, pretty much per Ned in 88.
Some people are too anxious and impatient to focus on something else while waiting in line.
I know this, and that people have kids to keep track of and lots of other reasons; I just expect that there must be others who are bored and cranky and might be less annoyed with the process if they had a distraction. Then again, maybe all those people have a rich inner life and pity someone who cant stand in line for 15 minutes without something to occupy them.
90: Wow! We have so much in common!
But I know you have other talents. On this very thread you've mentioned your ability to read a book while standing in line.
Personally, I've slept great in Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. I guess I just sleep well on Plains.
3 out of 4 people in my office felt that anything they want to do to keep us safe is fine.
One said that she didn't care if they grabbed her titties. as a former swimmer she was comfortable enough stripping if they wanted her to.
56 After flying over 100,000 miles domestically for a few years in a row, can I just say how happy I am to have taken exactly two airplane trips this year?
Wow. Domestically? That sounds incredibly horrible. In the last year I'm at like 1/3 of that many miles and that's with two European trips. I can't imagine flying much more often than I do now.
67 And I don't understand people who can't sleep on planes
Sigh. For several years, something like my last year of high school through my first or second year of grad school, I could always fall asleep instantly upon boarding a plane and wake up when landing. It was beautiful. Then, abruptly, I couldn't anymore. Even, usually, on flights to Europe, where I might get two or three hours of sleep. I miss having that ability.
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As songs with suburban videos go, I prefer the Smashing Pumpkins' "1979" to Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" by a wide margin.
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Can anyone point me to one of our wine recommendation threads? I don't remember anything specific enough to search for one.
Or recommend some $20-ish whites for Thanksgiving? (The meal will be on the lighter side than your standard groaning-table spread.)
Have I inadvertently violated some kind of "don't start none/won't be none" treaty?
103: Have to run, but will post some when I get back.
105: It's mostly that I hate every Smashing Pumpkins song that isn't "Today", and "1979" more than most.
Every so often the WaPo Op-Ed page doesn't suck.
103: Offhand, and thinking locally, A to Z Pinot Gris and Chardonnay are bargains at about $13. I know they're distributed in TX, but I don't know if they're distributed in your part of TX. Otherwise, pretty much anything with under the Alsatian Pierre Sparr label is reliable. While we're on the subject, I have to retract my recommendation of Big House for decent box wines. I may have earlier tasted some inventory remaining after the sale of the brand; I've since tasted both red and white, and they're not very nice even at $4/bottle.
103 A Savennieres might be good.
105: I believe that is usually rendered: "Don't bring none, won't be none
Does the video for "Take the Skinheads Bowling" count as suburban? Because if so, that's obviously the best one.
111: no. $start$ has 519000 google hits, $bring$ has less than 1000.
105: I believe that is usually rendered: "Don't bring none, won't be none
Not nowadays.
Looking quickly at the Austin Wine Merchant site (is that a plausible destination?), I see J.P. Brun Beajolais Blanc, Champalou Vouvray, Clos Roche Blanche Touraine Sauvignon, Trimbach Riesling, Puffeney Arbois Savagnin (a bit weird but delicious), Pierre Boniface Apremont Vin de Savoie, and Lustau Manzanilla Papirusa sherry.
113, 114: Well, I guess it depends on how you define "usually". I'm sure people who are going to commit street slang to Googleability are already a bit suspect.
The "bring" version is, to my mind, by far the more euphonious of the two.
I note as well that there are NO Google hits for "they ain't heard we got a black President now".
It's mostly that I hate every Smashing Pumpkins song that isn't "Today", and "1979" more than most.
I've always kinda liked "Rhinoceros". Probably helps that I can't understand any of the lyrics other than "she knows".
118: A similar situation worked out well for my town.
120: heh. A friend of mine spent most of 5 November exclaiming "He said the President is near!"
Every so often the WaPo Op-Ed page doesn't suck.
Eh. I dunno; everything about the piece reads like the Air Miles method of cab-driver insight applied mechanically to a 'German model is great' conclusion.
I guess it just seems like any article that talks about 'the German economy' in broad strokes without any discussion of how deeply implicated its banks were in the housing bubble, and how much its current policy priorities are now fucking over the Eurozone's periphery, is being almost criminally negligent. But that's because I'm a grumpy gus.
Although speaking of not-sucky opeds, this seems to do a nice job of saying something both sensible and non-vacuous about kids exercising.
Though there, too, I think any such discussion needs to mention something about make your damn kids walk/bike to school.
If they walk to school, they might get on my lawn.
No, the optimal pathway avoids everyone's lawn--it does, however, require walking uphill both ways.
Thanks for all the wine suggestions, everyone.
Off to swim play football. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.
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Robert Reich on why Bristol Sarah Palin will be our next President.
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Well,that killed the thread.
Watched The White Ribbon Wednesday night, and saw much that was disturbing, but nothing that was "reprehensible." I spent a lot of time on the IMDB threads afterwards, which, as often the case with higher quality movies, were populated by objective, informed and intelligent commenters, and much more useful than the professional critics.
I note in Haneke that much of the worst occurs off-screen, and we see the reactions to and consequences of violence/oppression rather than the violence itself. Denial, adjustment, acceptance of the exceptional localized horrors may be what the movie, and maybe Cache is about.
And Funny Games? Two hours of evil and torture, then let's go get something to eat? Life goes on, and that is what sucks.
You can't kill a thread around here by posting a comment 8 hours after the most recent comment. The thread was already dead.
123: The smartest thing I've read recently on the subject was a bit by Amanda Marcotte in which she pointed out that schools actively discourage kids from enjoying sports by having asshole coaches with a win at all costs mentality and no respect for just fucking around with a ball for friendly fun. I hadn't made the connection before, but it's certainly true in my case that exposure to super competitive instructors and classmates sucked all the joy out what ought to have been simple fun.
130: in "Backroom Boys", there's a chapter about Elite which mentions how radical an idea it was to invent a game that didn't have a score, because most of the big games developers didn't really believe you could have fun if there wasn't a score to tell you how much fun you were having.
The reference to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" is assumed to have been made ("their last one was a disappointing 4.7").
130. Back a few years, when the West Indies were effectively unbeatable at cricket, Gary Sobers, who was probably the best all round cricketer of all time, was asked why he thought they were so much better than England. His reply: "English kids don't play enough softball." Expanded, Caribbean kids of that generation would gather with a bat and a tennis ball on the beach, in the street, any piece of open ground, and play. English kids didn't have the opportunity, and where they did they were dragooned into formal teams, made to play with a hard ball and insufficient padding and generally fucked around by adults.
132: what's his explanation for why Windies are so terrible at cricket now? Did Caribbean kids suddenly stop playing beach softball in 1990 or something? Or did English kids start?
133. Well, I'm not on the terms with Sir Gary that I can just ring him and ask, but the conventional explanation is that all the top youth athletes are now offered 10 times as much money by European football clubs and American baseball and basketball teams than the island cricket authorities could dream of finding, so that only the second raters stay home and play cricket.
I have no idea how far that's true, but it sounds good.
132: Sounds like the same argument people make to explain the English and American national soccer teams' relative lack of success.
The only places in the Caribbean that produce baseball players are Spanish- and Dutch-speaking places, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There's a few basketball players from the U.S. Virgin Islands but the only other one I can think of from any of these places is Adonal Foyle, who is 6'10" tall. So if they aren't playing cricket anymore it's either because they don't like it or because of soccer/football. I was under the impression that most Trinidad&Tobago and Jamaican soccer stars were actually born in Britain or moved there as kids, but that might be inaccurate.