As it turns out, Justin Timberlake is Banksy! See, this is why you need to watch.
Also, I'm unhappy to live in a world where people can look like Kirk Douglas does now.
this is why you need to watch.
My current location doesn't even have a television. No, really, it doesn't.
Pixar won best animated feature! HOLY SHIT!
I am going to play hockey and write a research paper instead of watching the oscars. Not simultaneously, although I'll probably be thinking of things to write while playing.
I kinda wanted to watch A Sunday In Hell instead of the Oscars, but now that I'm here I'm enjoying bitching about it.
1.2: I happened to see him being interviewed at a movie opening in LA ~1986 and he looked like a wizened little elf then.
He doesn't look like an elf now! He looks like a confusing alien with eyes that start immediately above his ears.
7: Right, wizened elf + 25 years = confusing alien. It's the little circle of life.
8: dude, there was lots and lots of surgery in there. There's no way there wasn't.
Listerine has invented a new reason to use Listerine! You see you might have BIOFILM on your teeth.
Also, I'm unhappy to live in a world where people can look like Kirk Douglas does now.
I don't know, I think once people get to be 90 or so they have the right to have their face replaced a creepy plastic mask if they want to.
SP plays hockey? Hockey is hard-core, man.
9: You just need a broadened conception of the circle of life.
So when are we going to get to a point where network television allows people to say 'fuck'?
11: that's munificent of you, but I still would like to rescue that poor, wizened midget from the uncanny valley.
I was getting my hair cut. Has the appeal of James Franco become evident yet?
Has the appeal of James Franco become evident yet?
You missed Freaks and Geeks?
The only thing I know about hockey up close and personal is that you sweat a hell of a lot, and the result is quite stinky. It's very hard work, in other words. It's not something I can imagine myself doing recreationally, which makes me think: wow, my world is a little bit too closed, then, isn't it?
The trouble with the Oscars is it seems to be too full of people who know each other and have lots of weird little in-jokes and get too amused by themselves.
I don't know, I think once people get to be 90 or so they have the right to have their face replaced a creepy plastic mask if they want to.
Oh my god, at a Monotonix concert several weeks back there was a girl wearing a see-through plastic mask extremely close to her face and it gave her the weirdest fucking appearance. I confess I gawked at length, especially after it became evident that she had put something on, and didn't look that way as a result of, say, some kind of surgical procedure. (From across the room it wasn't clear that she was wearing something over her face rather than, you know, having smudgy plastic skin.) So bizarre. She took it off after the concert. I really wonder what the story was there.
Let us all chuckle silently in response to 23.
Every time I see Hugh Jackman, I think, one, so gay, and two, you know what they say about Hugh Jackman? He has a HUGE Ackman.
If Jack Nicholson asks whether anyone would like to sex Mutumbo, we may be in trouble.
I'm so proud of Javier Bardem for marrying Penelope Cruz and getting fat.
I'm really not into 60s sex kitten-ish backcombed hair. (Reese Witherspoon.)
29: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How about a spoiler warning, buddy?
What's the over on Christian Bale's speech being batshit insane?
Reese Witherspoon has back hair? What's sexy about that?
24: Regarding the girl at the Monotonix concert, maybe she was protecting her skin from ambient ... something? Smoke?
I give you grudging respect for 38, Stanley.
We were talking about the Oscar nominees in my German class the other day (superlatives!), and discussion went awry when Winter's Bone came up. My students know I'm from Missouri, of course. "Wie sagt man 'Meth Lab' auf Deutsch? Haben Sie ein 'Meth Lab' gesehen?"
That JP Morgan ad is pretty impressively horrendous.
40: "Wie buchstabiert man 'holler'?"
I told them I didn't know, and I would ask/look it up. I think it's "Meth-Labor."
Who are these non-famous people and why do I care?
Who are these non-famous people and why do I care?
Seat-fillers. You don't.
Is anyone else bored by the "back in the day" theme? Who cares? Not me. Entertain me, monkeys, entertain me!
I liked the old British guy's speech, and the bearded British guy's speech.
Man Trent Reznor is freakin' the squares, for real.
I didn't tell them that when my grandparents' house was sold, after the new owners moved in, a metal chimney got put up on the barn, and there were lights on in the barn day and night. It burned down a few months later.
When my other grandmother died, the lot with the giant lumber shed out back was sold separately from the house. About a year later, a crack ring running out of there was busted.
49: Not to wax historical, but wasn't meth a military-industrial product in both the U.S. and Germany during WWII?
Hockey is hard-core, man.
Keegan's hockey team was in a tournament in Pittsburgh last weekend, and will be in Newark next weekend. Then the season's over and it's on to lacrosse.
52: Don't you need at least a little bit of dark for plants to grown?
What kind of plants do you make meth from?
a little bit of dark for plants to grown?
That was our neighor down the way, who had a daughter my age that my mom wouldn't let me play with.
57: I was thinking of a pot farm with grow lights. I guess I thought that a meth lab wouldn't need bright enough lights to be obvious during the day.
Anyway, all my Kansas City friends stress that they live in Kansas. Now I know why.
Yay for that one lady who won a technical award earlier!
I believe we've now entered the boring hour of the telecast.
Anyway, all my Kansas City friends stress that they live in Kansas.
One time my band played a tour show in Kansas City. We sent out tour posters to all the venues before setting off. The dude who made the posters put "Kansas City, KS". It was not very fun to arrive at that venue (which of course was in KCMO).
64: because MO is where the city is?
65: does not, however, have a huge ackman.
66: There is one in each state, but the MO one is bigger.
54: Keegan's hockey team was in a tournament in Pittsburgh last weekend, and will be in Newark next weekend.
Excellent! Um, I hear that being a hockey dad or mom can be challenging. The gear is stinky, and the schedule sucks. But the kids are presumably having a great time, so.
because MO is where the city is?
The dude simply had no idea that Kansas City is not (for the most part) in Kansas. I was kind of baffled that a contemporary USian could make it to adulthood without catching this one, but I wonder how common a belief it is.
I believe we've now entered the boring hour of the telecast.
odd, I thought that started earlier, and went much more than an hour.
70: except that one is the real city.
The gear is stinky
You're really preoccupied with the stinkiness of hockey. My yoga clothes get really stinky too. Let's not even talk about my bike shorts.
You could do a tour of cities with state names located in states other than the one their names name. Nevada City, Virginia City, etc.
Let's talk about Blume's bike shorts!
Good ole Oklahoma City doesn't fuck around and confuse people.
77: Jake Gyllenhaal just said we should make a point of looking at shorts, after all.
Washington, D.C. isn't even near Washington.
78: And apparently they have an an NBA team, which I learned only today.
You're really preoccupied with the stinkiness of hockey.
Because it's true. Apo can testify.
82: I learned it just 30 seconds ago.
Nevada, MO. Washington, MO. Florida, MO. Kansas City, MO, natch.
Oh auto-tune. Sometimes I still find you funny for a little while.
Cycling shorts are another reason I don't ride a bicycle. As Thoreau once warned, "Beware of all enterprises that require ass-padded clothes."
Moby you don't have to wear any pants at all if you don't want to.
88: And here I thought Thoreau was fond of walled-in ponds.
Apo can testify.
I have almost no sense of smell and yet I can attest that hockey pad stink is unbelievable.
Oprah is... busty.
Wait, what is Banksy? The people on Balloon Juice mentioned this as well. A documentary?
Yes, Banksy is a documentary. It's about this guy named Exit Through The Gift Shop. I think he's Australian, and makes macaroni pictures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy
Man, that 'Secret Millionaire' show looks really terrible. Maybe worse than the secret boss one, even.
Uh oh it's old lesbian time. Hello, puffy-face!
I am quite fond of Predator the musical. "If it bleeds we can kill it" is the macho translation of "yes we can," right?
Oh god Billy don't try to move your face, it's just depressing.
Billy Crystal looks older than he did in Princess Bride.
Oh come on, the funk of a sweaty body is hot. Let's all talk about Blume's bike shorts and yoga clothes at length.
91 doesn't seem to make sense.
See, there's this pond, see, in Concord, MA, see...
104: I got that far. I just couldn't connect to bike shorts.
the funk of a sweaty body is hot
Ever been in an ice rink locker room?
105: See, people sweat, see, and it gathers in the pads, see...
Oh, never mind.
"Billy, you ever see a gladiator movie?"
104: I'm with Moby. I think you might have hit bottom. Does this mean that you'll finally admit you have a problem and then seek treatment?
Ever been in an ice rink locker room?
Let's stipulate that the bodies have to be hot aside from their odor.
They wouldn't be producing sweat if they weren't hot, right?
nosflow's fantasy is getting ever more elaborate here.
Does this mean that you'll finally admit you have a problem and then seek treatment?
I've actually been exploring an option of talk therapy that requires you to express yourself in 140 characters or fewer. Tweetment.
Stanley I don't think she'd admit it but Blume cackled quite loudly at 113.
110: Hmm, I don't know what you consider your type. These are all 12 and 13 year old boys (and one girl), and they're certainly in excellent shape.
I am chastened by 113. Intervention canceled.
96: Re: Banksy, thanks. I know I should have googled. It was news to me. Looks very interesting.
OH GOD DON'T LET GWYNETH PALTROW SING AAH TOO LATE
113 was pretty bad. Anyway, that basketball game was pretty good. This awards show is not.
Gwyneth Paltrow is country music's newest star? Huh. I would not have guessed.
Of the options, I am happiest with Randy Newman winning for best song. As is Stanley.
Hockey equipment stinks and is also very bulky, probably driving up minivan sales among the hockey-parent set. You know what really really stinks, though? Wrestling mats. Just horrifying. Also, the Oscars, but who gives a rat's ass?
Speaking of Banksy, I got to explain Banksy and Gilligan's Island to Thundersnow today. She'd heard of neither. It's really hard to explain Gilligan's Island with a straight face, it turns out.
123: Jesus, your girls are a little young for both hockey and wrestling, I would have thought, but I'm sure you know whereof you speak.
I bet Jesus has acquaintances outside his wife and kids.
Inside his wife and kids, it's too dark to acquaint.
All in favor of replacing Celine Dion with Janelle Monáe?
It's No More Masturbating Montage time.
Blume on Celine Dion: "the singer of death"
Never having heard of Gilligan's Island is odd, though my bookpartner told me not long ago that when he first met his wife, she'd never heard of Lucille Ball, which he found astonishing. So you never know.
My girls are into piano and violin, which don't stink. I had HS friends in VT who played hockey, and I briefly wrestled in 6th grade. I'm really happy I was terrible at it, because that is one godawful smell.
She'd heard of neither
Wait, what?
Inside his wife and kids, it's too dark to acquaint.
How do you think he got his kids?
The omitted my friend who used to be Errol Morris's editor. Dickwads.
Me: "The theme song explains that they were on a three-hour tour."
Thundersnow: "A tour of what?"
Me: "Uh, I don't know. Some stuff. On a boat. Just your everyday, run-of-the-mill, maritime adventure. And then there was a squall. Or something. But anyway, there was this guy, The Skipper. Yes. I know, weird. His name was 'The Skipper'..."
So I'm guessing Thundersnow is imaginary, raised by wolves, from a different planet, or, like, twelve years old.
The weird part is how much luggage they took for a three-hour tour.
I don't think Gilligan's Island was ever very popular among the horsey set.
Never having heard of Gilligan's Island is odd
I thought so too and started to ask whether Thundersnow grew up in another country, but then I thought maybe it was a generational thing and I'd sound like "What do you mean you don't know who Jack Benny is? Jack Benny! Come on!"
Growing up without TV (for the most part) makes for weird cultural blindspots.
137: I think there were several other weird parts.
Hey, neat, the scene they just showed David Fincher directing was in the bar we were at last night.
I'm going with 12 years old.
Ahem. Actually, Gilligan's Island is pretty old by now, and if you're in your mid-20s, where or why would you have seen it? We have to get used to this stuff, people not knowing things that used to be iconic.
Stanley should have sung her the tune, the theme song, if he knows it.
139: Ha, I just asked Tweety if Thundersnow grew up in another country.
You can sing 'Amazing Grace' to that tune, you know.
Tweety and Blume live-blogging their conversation is pretty funny.
Di Kotimy recently met Thundersnow and can confirm her non-12-year-old-ness, you weirdos.
148: truly, we've been slacking the past couple of years.
Back in my day, you couldn't just get voted off the island. You had to watch the Skipper sleep walk until he turned the radio receiver into a transmitter and hope that Gilligan didn't destroy it before you could make an SOS.
How does one buy Mt. Auburn Street, anyway? Streets are for sale in Cambridge?
Especially since the conversation is about the blog. Turbometa. We'll need to work in Billy Dee Williams soon.
Stanley, you should take advantage of her cultural blindspot and describe Gilligan's Island as a mashup of the show itself with Swept Away and Lord of the Flies. Be creative, and report back!
Gilligan was a spy who tried to quit the secret service, right?
I'm not managing to sing Amazing Grace to the Gilligan's Island theme song, though I admit the attempt is a bit hilarious.
158: I also failed. However, it isn't that hard the other way around.
No, Stanley should see how much of the actual show he can tell her about before she decides it's something he completely made up. The climax, of course would be the TV movie with the Harlem Globetrotters and the robot.
Wait, does she know who the Harlem Globetrotters are?
"Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me..."
Word is, Natalie winning Best Actress is Harvard's consolation prize for not getting best picture with the social network.
It's always important to assuage Harvard's fragile ego.
Francis the Talk Mule was in movies, so she might be more aware of him.
Is Inception really going to win? I haven't seen the other nominees, but at least one of them must have been better than that. Though I'm sure a few were probably worse.
You're all asking great questions, but Thundersnow's asleep, after going on a fox hunt at like 7am. Apparently, on a fox hunt in the year 2011, (1) there is no fox, and (2) there is no hunt, but (3) there is booze!
170: I'm pretty sure The King's Speech will win. It r serious film.
Stanley, you should propose the GI drinking game (take a swig every time the Skipper says "Gilligan", drink it down every time he says "little buddy") and then rent the episode where Gilligan gets lost. "Gilligan! Little buddy! Gilligan! Gilligan! Little buddy!" She'll soon see that her TV-less childhood has led her to a yawning abyss.
after going on a fox hunt at like 7am. Apparently, on a fox hunt in the year 2011, (1) there is no fox, and (2) there is no hunt, but (3) there is booze!
So she got up really early to drink? Classy lady you're dating. Also, have you seen or read Tom Jones? That's an awesome book and also an awesome movie.
So Thundersnow: knows about horses; hasn't watched television; goes on fox hunts. Stanley is dating a 17th century British nobleman?
Stanley are you dating my gouty ancestor from that fox hunting print?
Thundersnow sounds wonderful and amazing, if unusual. I'm happy for you, Stanley. And this is all happening in C-ville, it seems. It's a wide world.
It's a wide world.
She'll always think of you as a child.
Did Helena Bonham Carter roll her eyes when Iain Canning thanked her?
180: But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware.
I'm pretty sure The King's Speech will win. It r serious film.
Has anyone seen it? Is it worth seeing? There's that other one that's gotten a lot of hype -- Black Swan? Anyone seen that?
I notice Corey Haim didn't get a mention in the Necrology segment.
182: Black Swan is the only one of the nominated films I've seen. Pretty good, squirm-inducing bit of storytelling, I thought.
184: So I've heard; I'll take that as enough of an endorsement, with warning. I haven't actually talked to anyone who's seen The King's Speech.
I will vouch for The King's Speech. I loved it. Brilliant. Definitely deserved to win. If you haven't seen it yet - you should.
I never see anything until it hits Red Box.
I've seen Toy Story 3, Winter's Bone, and The Kids Are Alright.
Apparently, Toy Story 3 is touching in a throwing-toys-away kind of way. Or something?
I was tempted to see it because someone slipped me a copy not long after my mom saw it and expressed her dismay over what it seems to say about the dance world, which a niece of mine is increasingly into. "Look, mom, I know a thing or two about ballet, and I can assure you there's way less face-stabbing than in the movie. The rest is pretty accurate, I think."
I saw a ballet of Dracula, so there is some stabbing.
They didn't call the 1930s crime musical Bullets or Ballets for nothing.
I saw a ballet of Dracula, so there is some stabbing.
Was it Guy Maddin's totally awesome Dracula: Pages from the Virgin's Diary?
I'm in my late 20s, and I saw "Gilligan's Island" hundreds of times on Nick at Night, TV Land, and mid-afternoon reruns on networks. It's only in the last decade that reruns of such things are truly completely gone from TV.
193: I don't think so. This was a regular ballet as far as I know. I haven't been to another ballet to judge, but I was sitting in the nice theater watching women in tutus.
This was a regular ballet
The irregular ballet is full of shit.
The irregulars' ballet is the militia's version of an officer's ball.
Black Swan is ridiculous, but entertainingly so. It's the only one of the best picture nominees I've seen as well, but I did also see animated film nominee , which I wholeheartedly recommend. Definitely worth seeing on a big screen.
HTML fail. That's animated film nominee The Illusionist
I think it's heartening that the Jews of Hollywood gave Best Picture to a film about a Nazi sympathizer. Post-racial society indeed.
A friend at my Oscars gathering, as Best Actress was coming up, said "Natalie Portman's going to win. She's a Zionist."
I like to think that James Franco was thinking of all us here when he said, "Congratulations, nerds."
Just about all of the nominated Best Picture films are worth seeing.
The Kids Are All Right & True Grit most of all. Toy Story 3 and King's Speech are both totally eye-dampening, though you'll feel better about TS3 afterwards. 198 is exactly right about Black Swan. The Fighter was a great story with a very hidden layer of David O. Russell madness. Inception I could have passed on, but it's fun to fight about. Social Network has great performances and dialogue with disappointing sexual politics. Winter's Bone is next in the queue and I probably won't get around to seeing 127 Hours even though everyone says it's good.
195 that would be a great film 'The Women in Tutu' about the split personalities within a black bishop.
If there were a video equivalent of the flickr pool I could post a highlight reel.
I saw the king's speech and enjoyed it. I thought that Geoffrey Rush was really good.
Cryptic Ned is younger than I am, but I only ever saw it in reruns.
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I just heard of a school (here in MA) for special needs children which has spent lots of money lobbying at both the state and federal level to preserve it's right to discipline children with electric shocks.
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206. If it was anybody but you I'd say you had to be fucking making that up. The parents are on board? Do you have a link?
I've heard of it as well -- there's been some coverage for a few years. As I recall, the idea is that the children in the school are disabled in such a way that they're a real risk of hurting themselves or other people if their behavior can't be controlled, and the school claims that the electric shock system works where nothing else does. And you know, while I'd leave it to people in working in the field who know something about it in general, I just can't believe that.
Here's an old story about the school, which makes it sound nightmarish.
209: Jesus Christ. There are no words.
"The skin shock that we're talking about is two seconds and people who have experienced it say it feels like a bee sting," said Rotenberg's Corrigan.
Bee stings fucking hurt. 77 bee stings even more so.
I think it's heartening that the Jews of Hollywood gave Best Picture to a film about a Nazi sympathizer. Post-racial society indeed.
The Nazi-sympathising Edward VIII a) is not exactly portrayed positively in "The King's Speech", and b) is not the title character. The title character is his younger brother, George VI.
In any case, Hollywood has already given Best Picture to a film in which the hero was a Nazi sympathiser. It did so in 1996.
77 bee stings hurt less than 78 bee stings.
87: Oh auto-tune
Prompted me to read about its history. Did not realize that it had its roots in techniques for processing seismic data for oil exploration (makes sense though). And I recognized Andy Hildebrand's (the inventor) name from back in the day.
I'm writing a paper to establish that bee sting preferences are transitive and also ordinal, but that you cannot assume the interval between two stings is constant as you increase the base number of stings.
Yes, it has been used on material from progressively more recent epochs: oil-bearing sediments, cher, and finally singers of the modern era.
214: IIRC the Sound of Music finishes up with the main characters fleeing the Nazis, so I think it's safe to say that it's not a film in which the hero is a Nazi sympathiser.
Good point about The Last Emperor. If you're going to argue Schindler's List, you could also argue 1957 - The Bridge over the River Kwai.
218.2: I sort of think you can by these standards.
218.1: it would also be fair to say that the hero in Schindler's List doesn't close things out as much of a nazi sympathizer.
I'm wondering if John Nash ever went there in his bad moments. He did go to Europe and try to renounce his US citizenship, but I have no idea what the "politics" were.
218.1 Von Trapp was, I think rather pro-Hapsburg than pro-Nazi. A bit different.
219.2. He starts as one, though.
Everyone is worried about Nazi sympathizers, but nobody ever spares a thought for the Nazi empathizers.
221: When I first saw S of M I was confused on why Austria had a navy and what it would do if they had one. I guessed maybe patrol the Danube.
Because of a minor role in a high school production of The Sound of Music, I had to learn how to say "Anschluss ." I failed, but I don't think anybody noticed.
212: not if the 77 bees are big ones and the 78 are small ones.
why Austria had a navy and what it would do if they had one.
Provide a source of dictators for Hungary, of course. What else?
223: We also made like 800 jokes about that until I went and asked my dad.
224: because of a minor role in a junior high production of The Sound Of Music I had to source a nazi uniform and practice the nazi salute. I tried to teach the Japanese kid, who had been assigned the "random nazi #2" role, but the whole thing seemed to make him uncomfortable.
228: I was a nazi guy in a suit and there was also the nazi guy in the uniform. Basically, we were the two worst singers in the class.
Oskar Schindler:
1. Was a German nationalist.
2. Was a member of the Nazi party.
3. Profited from the war.
4. Ran factories producing war materiel in occupied countries using slave labour.
If we can't call Schindler a "Nazi sympathizer" because he was appalled by the Holocaust, then what's the difference between a "sympathizer" and a "fanatic"?
229: yeah, I was the nazi guy in the uniform. The Japanese kid was the other nazi guy in the uniform, who didn't have any lines.
I had a Hitler-style moustache drawn on my face in grease pencil and every time I walked onto the stage, my neighbor roared in laughter. And my neighbor was there for every show because his boy was the little Von Trapp guy.
230: initially, yes. On the other hand, he deliberately sabotaged the two most important Nazi policies - the war effort and the Holocaust. He supplied poor-quality or useless materiel and bribed quality inspectors to pass it.
If someone is actively, at considerable expense, and at the risk of his own life, trying to undermine the main policies of a party, I don't think he counts as one of their sympathisers any more.
In order to parcel out the major roles more equitably, Maria and Captain Von Trapp were both played by two different people. Captain Von Trapp was played by a short, fat white kid for the first half of the production and a 6'3", athletic black kid for the second half. It was a fairly avant garde piece of stagecraft.
I was the spotlight guy for High School Sound of Music. My big moment was near the end when the kid shines the flashlight in the cemetery, I had to shine the spotlight where he was pointing the flashlight.
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Could we get a front page post about this week's NYC meetup? The current proposal is Wednesday at Fresh Salt, 6:30ish. Tuesday's also a possibility.
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He supplied poor-quality or useless materiel and bribed quality inspectors to pass it.
In other words, he was a defense contractor.
234: Did they both have the same first name, like when they switched Darrens on Bewitched?
Mr. Burns: OK, Spielbergo, I want you to do for me what Spielberg did for Oskar Schindler.
Sr. Spielbergo: Schindler es muy bueno, Senor Burns es el diablo.
Mr. Burns: Pish posh! Listen, Spielbergo, Schindler and I are like peas in a pod! We're both factory owners, we both made shells for the Nazis, but mine worked, damn it!
236: If there isn't a post by this evening, I'll put one up then. My status is that I can probably show for a quick drink on Tuesday, but I'll have to split early, and no hope at all on Wednesday.
chris y, Here's a link to today's article in the Boston Globe. I really hope that the legislature manages to pass the bill banning it.
135: Oh wait, he totally has a name and at some point I knew it. Lady Macbeth is Gruoch and Baron Scarpia is Vitellio and The Skipper is...oh I can't remember. (A friend of mine this weekend sent me this insane email about how the crossword no longer seems interesting to him because trivia is middle class and now he is memorizing Tang poetry and I'm all "I hope that is poetry from the back of Tang jars or you are one ostentatious fuckwad.") I don't think I'll google it. That seems somehow joyless.
I'm sorry I missed this thread as it was happening as it is full of lulz.
242: Not to be all whiny, but could it go up earlier? I'll be traveling most of tomorrow and it'll be hard for me to check in.
245: and Von Trapp? Did he have a name?
246: If someone else can do it, it can go up earlier, but I can't post until I get home. I can comment from work, but I'm really not comfortable posting from work.
Someday, Moby, you won't have to apologize for your erections.
234 is maybe the best thing I've ever read.
I was excited that Inside Job won but it's getting no attention whatsoever. The rundown in the Times simply does not mention it.
Some day, I'm going to say "Laydeez" in a meeting at work and have to apologize for a very long time.
253 cont'd: after all, it could be worse.
On the other hand, he deliberately sabotaged the two most important Nazi policies - the war effort and the Holocaust
SOMETIMES I THINK ALL THAT TIME AND EFFORT I SPENT ON PENSION REFORM WAS JUST TOTALLY FUCKING WASTED.
255: Because the numbers dbon't actually look that good?
Stanley, you should give Thundersnow Gilligan's Wake--she'll end up with a pretty unique view of the show.
Jonas Grumby. And his little buddy's name was Willy.
247. and Von Trapp? Did he have a name?
Yes. Two, which he shared with the first Hanoverian King of Great Britain.
I was aware that the real person probably actually had a given name, but looking at the wikipedia page did inform me that he was decorated for his role in helping put down the boxer rebellion, which to my mind points to one hell of a concept for a kung fu movie.
"I hope that is poetry from the back of Tang jars or you are one ostentatious fuckwad."
This is also a non-ostentatious fuckwad possibility.
The Qing Empire is 256 going on 257 and we don't need an international legation.
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight, Wong Fei Hong. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight forever.
Being mystically bullet proof, traditional Taoist and Buddhist values, and not using opium. These are a few of my favorite things.
Too bad it wasn't in forcing open Japan to trade...
"Do, a way, righteous way..."
Didn't occur to me that "do" and "tao" refer to similar things. Crap.
The Tao of shacking up with the governess while fleeing oppression.
Hey, Stanley, are you able to talk about Thundersnow's viewing habits now? This is something I think about a lot, since it pertains to me.
I was raised without tv (though I did a lot of secondary reading to be aware of and able to talk about things like Gilligan's Island, I shit you not) and I really don't have a normal tolerance for it. I was way overly sensitive to seeing violence, but just weirdness in pacing and the way a lot of shows are exploitative really get to me. I can't watch unless I'm also reading or knitting or online to help me tolerate the tv part, and I'm not sure if this is snobbishness or more just that I'm not a native speaker.
And so of course my beloved Lee would watch tv from sunup to sundown and beyond, even if it's a King of Queens marathon of shows she's seen the day before. She finds it soothing and necessary. I can't tolerate it and it's probably going to become an issue in raising Mara. I already objected to football's violence (not banning it, just keeping it to a minimum) and requested muting commercials. Negotiations are ongoing.
271: Both she and I watch television in a pretty focused, program-specific manner. As in, "I will now watch the latest episode of [some specific show I've been watching] and then I will turn the TV off." The one time I turn on the television almost without purpose is after going for a run, when I'll zone out for twenty minutes to the local news (or Golden Girls reruns or whatever) while drinking a lot of water. Then the TV's back off again.
272: And I'm fine with that kind of viewing, at least as long as it's a show I like. I've even gotten used to it as background, sometimes. But I'm both an introvert and SWPLy and I don't always know what the dividng line is on that issue.
I let my (5-year old) daughter watch a certain amount of TV just for cultural acclimatization.
I grew up watching TV from sunup to sundown, but I'm completely unable to tune it out when it's on. My wife likes to watch incredibly gruesome TV shows in the background while she does other stuff, so I'm always walking by where she's sitting, and hearing TV characters talking about "ligature marks" and "evisceration". The only show she ever found too violent to watch is "Dexter".
...so I'm always walking by where she's sitting, and hearing TV characters talking about "ligature marks" and "evisceration".
Ever since Steve left, Blue's Clues has been way dark.
MONDAY NIGHT IS TACO NIGHT! WOO-HOO!
I've no idea what you mean, old chap.
Okay, here's an awkward little Oscar-party story from last night:
I watch the ceremonies every year with a lady friend of mine who's an Oscars fanatic. We do a (very) competitive home ballot and everything, though I don't know why I still agree to it because I don't see near enough movies in a year to ever be doing much beyond guessing. (Prior to the broadcast I'd seen two of the leading [i]Best Picture[/i] contenders, The Social Network and Winter's Bone. Yes, also Toy Story 3 and Inception but they weren't contenders, obviously.) Any-hoo, we thought we had it all figured out -- King's Speech would take Best Picture (period drama, royalty, WWI) -- but so as to avoid shutting the Social Network out entirely they'd throw Fincher the Best Director bone.
So shocked was my friend (she's Very Dramatic about this sort of thing) that she insisted on watching Social Network after the ceremony to somehow reinforce its status as "the best film of the year by far." Which, yeah, it's a great movie, sure I was up for watching it. But herein comes the awkward part. During the movie this woman, who I've known for a decade and never heard say this sort of thing before, turns to me and says:
"The only part of this movie I never understood is why this guy Zuckerberg had to borrow money. I mean, he's a Jew!"
I tried to sort of laugh this off after an embarrassed pause, but she persisted in this line for another five or six comments: about how his family is Jewish and therefore rich, about how maybe it's explicable because his parents were Jews and thus penny-pinchers, and so on until she finally had to pee, wandered to the bathroom and came back having forgotten the whole thing.
Granted, she was tipsy. Still: most awkward moment I can remember having with another human being in quite some time.
Oh jeez. Sorry, DS: that's going to leave a mark on the friendship.
Yeah I'm sort of wondering if I can do the Oscar party thing with her again after that.
280: I have a friend who's not quite that bad, but not infrequently seems to think it's relevant to mention that someone is a Jew. (Not "Jewish" but "a Jew.") I never know quite what to make of it; occasionally say something like, "Really? He is? Why is that relevant?" It never goes anywhere. Puzzling.
I find it hard to reconcile "Oscars fanatic" with that degree of casual and moronic anti-semitism, but I guess I'm not really sure why.
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No point in watching "The Outlaw" anymore.
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284: Go ahead and tell me if I'm being a cad, but is it clearly anti-semitism? Isn't it (just) ridiculous stereotyping? Or do they amount to the same thing? This is the debate I have with myself with my own friend who mentions someone's Jewishness for no discernible reason; I sometimes wind up telling him that he's applying a stereotype, and he usually agrees, but then may try to defend its accuracy (which is obviously extremely obnoxious, and I then drop it because I'm becoming angry).
Back when I was living in Germany I hooked up once with my very friendly, attractive, nice, left wing, and also just post traumatic breakup neighbour. A few days later while hanging out in her apartment she mentioned having had an unpleasant Jewish boss when she lived in NJ and that she suddenly understood the Nazis, though of course they went too far, etc, etc, in that vein. I declined her invitation to spend the night. My first time living in Poland, well, let's just say for the first time in my life I acquired a bit of a Jewish identity. Amusingly enough, the couple times I've encountered open antisemitism in the US it's been prefaced with some variant on 'as a Pole you'll know what I mean.'
286: Oh I think this is pretty classically anti-Semitism. The kind that South Park jokes about now because people rarely say it out loud this overtly. About the only thing she didn't say is "why didn't he use his Jew gold?"
It's an open question as to how deep-seated it is. What people say when they're drunk tells you about the weird shit skittering across their brains that they can't suppress, but whether or not it's what they "really" think is open to question. Maybe. That's probably a rationalization.
288.1: Okay. As I said, I haven't known what to think about the spectrum between stereotyping and various -isms.
I honestly have a hard time believing that anti-semitism of the type described by DS actually exists among people under 80 in the USA (or in Diet USA to the North), but that's of course because I live in a complete bubble.
I honestly have a hard time believing that anti-semitism of the type described by DS actually exists among people under 80
That was my reaction as well.
285:Jane Russell RIP
283, 284, 285:I read someone call Christian Marclay's "The Clock", SWPL, based on who he saw in line to see it, and perhaps based on the content and style? I'm guessing the writer wouldn't presume the Teabaggers or metalheads would be Marclay's audience, so he probably had some very specific subculture of white people in mind.
This is very indirect because there are some cultures, subcultures, or ethnic preferences or proclivities that simply can't be discussed. Seinfeld and Larry David might as well be from Little Rock.
290, 291: Yeah, weird, huh? Presumably they've learned it from their parents and/or general cohort. Dunno. It's ignorant, in any case, and as DS says, it's so strange to encounter that I, at least, haven't been able to figure out what to say, short of making a scene. It does change the friendship.
290, 291: I find it a has gone a bit subsurface since the fairly open and widespread anti-Semitism I saw growing up in 1960s Ohio, but it is certainly present in several milieus that I regularly encounter (and I suspect it is quite open in several when I or someone "like" me is not around).
Regarding his own writing, Foote said, "I know that people think I have a certain style, but I think style is like the color of the eyes. I don't know that you choose that."[6]
Now there are some who might say that Foote's subjects and style have something to do with him being from and of rural Texas, but that would be so very very wrong.
290, 291: Well, I've seen it before -- it's not really as uncommon in either the Loyalist or, I suspect, the Revolutionary parts of British North America as we like to think -- but it was a surprise to have it just turn up out of the blue in this way.
I told Kotsko's crowd that I was pleased that Suzanne Bier latest film won the oscar, because I really liked her previous film After the Wedding. It is interesting that she focuses on male protagonists, though why should I say that? Bigotry to think the Lisa Cholodenko brings anything to a film because of her gender.
There is no reason she wouldn't have the exact perspective on human society that say, John Milius has. Look at Kathryn Bigelow.
It pops up in weird third-hand ways in some areas of Brooklyn. I was kind of shocked to hear some of the sort of ignorant twenty-somethings I worked with last year venture some old-school anti-Semitism, stuff they maybe got from Nation of Islam people or who knows where. It was like they were test-driving a hypothesis, wanting to hear how it sounded out loud. The orthodox communities in some of the tougher areas of Brooklyn haven't always done a great job with the community outreach, mind you.
298: Yeah, wasn't there some fracas in Brooklyn over bike lanes that pitted twenty somethings against the Orthodox Jewish community?
Frankly, I'm so used to fielding either totally paranoid or disingenuous claims of anti-semitism (yeah, right, NY lawyer, it's the deeply non-Jewish bench and bar of Orange County that explain why your argument didn't go over well) that it's hard to remember that the real thing really exists. Again, I live in a bubble.
299: more than twenty! Scores of somethings!
Paul Varley, Japanese Culture
Drawing on his Confucian tradition, he sought to portray in nature the kind of harmony and overall agreement of parts that ideally ought to prevail in human society. In other words, the Chinese artist tried to make a social statement; and the greater the sense of structure and depth he could incorporate into his landscapes, the greater the philosophy of his workThe Japanese, on the other hand, have never dealt with nature in their art in the universalistic sense of trying to discern any grand order or structure; much less have they tried to associate the ideal of order in human society with the harmonies of nature. Rather, they have most characteristically depicted nature-in their poetry, painting, and other arts-in particularistic glimpses. The Chinese Sung-style master may have admired a mountain, for example, for its enduring, fixed quality, but the typical Japanese artist (of the fifteenth century or any other age) has been more interested in a mountain for its changing aspects: for example, how it looks when covered with snow or when partly obscured by mists or clouds.
I find the demand that Jewish culture or background may not be discussed or taken into account to be profoundly anti-semitic.
Again, I live in a bubble.
That's because you keep hiring goy realtors. They never know about the good listings.
I find it hard to reconcile "Oscars fanatic" with that degree of casual and moronic anti-semitism
I generally finish any encounter with Billy Crystal more anti-semitic than I started.
220
I'm wondering if John Nash ever went there in his bad moments. He did go to Europe and try to renounce his US citizenship, but I have no idea what the "politics" were.
This was actually a minor controversy at the time the movie was up for a Oscar. Briefly Nash did make anti-semitic comments while ill which people variously took as symptoms of his illness or as something more sinister.
You don't even remember Soap or Fernando's Hideaway, do you?
I do find it enraging that I can take John Martin Feeney's background into account but not Billy Wilder's when studying their movies. Feeney would never have made Ace in the Hole and Wilder could not have made She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, but this is because of characteristics they had that are absolutely unique to them?
This atomistic individualism, this maniacal abstraction from contingency, context, and culture as a moral imperative seems very American, and yes, capitalistic to me. We are rational agents, condemned to be free.
To sum up, Charlie Sheen, though an irredeemable asshole, knows his fucking producer a lot better than you do, and wasn't talking about a stranger. AFAIC, the irrelevancy must be proved.
Although apparently nothing was said to damage his reputation, I do find the names of the people John Ford worked with over fifty years, and there are a lot of names, to be kinda interesting.
AFAIC, the irrelevancy must be proved.
Finally, something I'm good at.
It seems sort of on topic to note that the new French defense minister was a founding member and later head of a violent radical right wing student organization which was dissolved by court order but not before he and all the other leaders were convicted of terrorism. The organization was primarily motivated by radical anti-communism and pro-colonialism of the OAS variety, but they also expressed affection for ye olde thirties style French radical right. Later on he was the author of the foundational program of the Front National. He left the movement when he graduated from ENA and thus turned fast track elite public servant. While I'm willing to accept that people can change, and youthful extremism should not necessarily be held against them, that does not apply when they say they have no regrets and agree with almost everything they were back then (the only thing he says he was wrong about was that it was possible to reconquer Algeria and recreate l'Algerie Francaise). The fact that last year he objected to the nomination of a person of Arab background to a senior post, saying that it should be occupied by a person with a ' traditionalFrench body' (corps francais traditionel) suggests he hasn't changed much. He's also been indicted numerous times on corruption charges (give a big public contract to a company, get a no work consulting gig for a couple hundred grand).
Well, of course, most of my friends own keffiyehs/shemaghs, so I live in a nest of virulent anti-Semitism. The thing is, as I've mentioned here before, I never heard anyone use the word "jew" as a verb until I was in my 30s. I didn't even know that usage existed until my mid-20s. I think the casual anti-Semitism of the past (e.g. "Jews are wealthy, greedy and all in cahoots with one another to put one over on Gentiles") seems to have faded into a very faint background noise that only comes out occasionally into public view. The really batshit Klan/Silver Shirt anti-Semitism is probably at an all-time low. And the sort of Seinfeld-esque "Oh those New York Jews, they're so wacky and neurotic!" stereotyping is perhaps slightly abated from decades past.
The really scary anti-Semitism, that the ADL doesn't like to mention, because they know which side their bread is buttered on, is the End Time anti-Semitism of the Xtian right. THAT anti-Semitism is alive and thriving. And admittedly, it's a weird anti-Semitism, where Jews are instrumental in bringing about the hoped-for Rapture, so, as when they killed Jesus, really they're kinda doing the Xtians a favor. But the danger, which is obvious, is that this "Oh, I like my neighbors the Cohens just fine, it's a pity they'll be condemned to live through the Dying Times and then be consigned to Hell" stuff could easily be transmuted into some much more actively violent form by the Glenn Becks.
Glenn Beck is an LDS. I think they have a different thing about the world ending.
And the sort of Seinfeld-esque "Oh those New York Jews, they're so wacky and neurotic!" stereotyping is perhaps slightly abated from decades past.
Ok, so here we go. Seinfeld apparently could have set and staged in Topeka.
And everybody is wacky and neurotic, but I might posit that New Orleans, various parts of LA, and Alaska can have interestingly different styles of wackiness and neurosis at the margins, based on environment, history and demographics.
Or are only New Yorkers exactly like everybody else?
It is one thing to say that The Wire does not depict all blacks, or all urban blacks, or whatever, it is another thing to say that The Wire has nothing at all to say about urban blacks in Baltimore.
312: The End Times Semitism isn't really a separate type, I don't think. It's more like a specialized Rube Goldberg (as it were) attachment built on top of the old-timey version, which is sort of obscured thereby but every once in a while heaves fully into view (cf. Passion of the Christ screenings a few years back). Similar bizarre neo-anti-Semitisms seem to have cropped up in Europe, where ultra-nationalist movements now attempt to affect philo-Semitism as an added excuse for attacking the more convenient target of the moment, Muslims. It's very baroque to watch it in action.
The old-timey version of anti-Semitism may be at an all time low but I still see plenty of it, which maybe comes from living in a city that draws very heavily on the populations of the rural Maritimes, the rural Prairies and rust belt Ontario. Disaffected blue-collar youth seem to be ever-fertile ground for it. Many of them are probably prepped by hearing similar sentiments in the mouths of their parents. (My lady friend of the other night is the daughter of a Bathurst miner and no doubt imbibed certain opinions that way. Probably what happened is she's gotten really adept at occluding them -- maybe even from herself -- except at odd moments.)
You should try moving to some place really cosmopolitan, like Pittsburgh.
which maybe comes from living in a city that draws very heavily on the populations of the rural Maritimes, the rural Prairies and rust belt Ontario.
Check it out. Stereotyping.
Wait, maybe that's me! Whitebread my whole life from 100 miles either side of the Miss, sundown town, German Amish-Mennonite/Scotch-Irish Catholic. Embracing parts of it, rebelling against parts, but never pretending I am a blank slate that can self-create. I am where I'm from.
(No, I can't remember ever hearing a single anti-semitic word in my RL. Never came up. Italians & Poles came up.)
I think this atomistic individualism, this furious denial of culture and contingency, has become much more pronounced in the last few decades. I don't remember in my youth people having these problems with the influence of ethnicity and backgrounds on Mordecai Richler, John Cheever, Richard Pryor. It had problems, but I think it was a warmer pluralism, that accepted difference rather than denying it.
Yes, maybe if I'd been born earlier I would have heard people discuss Jewish culture and traditions with respect to people like Richler, Bellow, Roth, or Woody Allen. But no, by the time I was growing up, PC had made us think that the cultural background of writers or directors had no influence on their work, so we never heard that they all grew up filthy rich but deprived by their tight-fisted parents.
Well, Bob doesn't live in our fallen world, teraz. May he shower us with more random statements from his realm of pure context.
318:Wait, you are saying, so sarcastically I can't really tell, that cultural background does have influence on their work?
So Charlie Sheen could be right about his producer's cultural or personal background having influence on his work? Not that Sheen said much that could be interpreted.
(Charlie himself I have often seen as rebelling against the prissy liberalism of his father.)
I wouldn't know, of course, not being at all privy to the details of the people. You might know more.
Charlie Sheen might be blitzed out of his gourd.
318:When was the last time Woody referenced Jewish culture in a movie? He did quite often in the 70s.
He celebrated it.
When people who grew up on the coasts ask me whether I witnessed a lot of casual racism during my Minneapolis upbringing (because, you know, it's in the Midwest, and so of course I must have), I reply that we had something like "tolerance without diversity" or "racial harmony in theory". The educational system (Catholic for me, K-12) taught from an early age that MLK was a hero and judging people based on their skin was evil. Such messages were reinforced in my home. I recall no one walking around spewing overt and obvious racism, and a racist was such a horrible thing to be that one could hardly imagine deploying that epithet in reference to a breathing human being of one's acquaintance. And why would one ever need to? Racism was a pre-1970 phenomenon, right?
But, my Minneapolis of the 80s and early 90s (things seemed to have changed a bit by the time I left for college in 99) really was white and Christian. Catholic, really--but there were a few Protestants of my acquaintance. Or perhaps I should say, "my South Minneapolis". We never went to North Minneapolis. North Minneapolis was "not safe". North Minneapolis was where the black people lived. So, everyone knew what the right attitudes were, but there was next to no mixing of ethnic groups.
Jewish people were simply not brought up much. I had to go to college to hear about stereotypes of Jews (e.g., cheapness, bankers, Hollywood). "OK, I won't think that all Jews are rich, but I didn't realize people thought that way to begin with." I think there weren't enough Jewish people around my communities for it to occur to people to talk about them as having a collective identity.
One exception: I went to HS next door to a synagogue. Generally I didn't give it any thought other than as that place we used for overflow parking on certain occasions. Similarly, it didn't provoke any discussion amongst my acquaintances. Why would it? But clearly there were a couple kids who felt differently, for one year, on one afternoon, word went around that a couple kids were yelling "Jews!" out a classroom window toward the synagogue as the folks attending services there walked to their cars. It seemed to me like such a foreign thing to do. My classroom education in anti-Semitism had ended after WWII, of course.
I only remember Annie Hall and the one where Gene Wilder was found in bed with a sheep.
Anyway, today I removed a sump pump, opened the innards of the switch, found a lose wire, and reconnected it. So far it seems to be working. Take that you cheap-ass sump pump switch makers.
Charlie Sheen might be blitzed out of his gourd.
Well, he says Mel Gibson has reached out to him, so that should go well.
324:Lots of jokes in Take the Money and Love and ? the Russian movie. Wrestles with faith in Hannah and her Sisters Crimes and Misdemeanors explores ethics from a Jewish perspective. (Part of the point of Match Game is precisely the differences from C & M, and makes my point)
Oh hei, was that Bob trying to troll me?
Lawsy me. Was a time it would've worked, too.
I encountered a great deal of overt anti-Semitism, mostly of the "rich bankers ruling the world" conspiratorial form, in India. It's quite the culture shock to mention Soros-fixation as a strawman conspiracy theory and realize the person you're talking to does see Soros that way.
Well, of course, most of my friends own keffiyehs/shemaghs, so I live in a nest of virulent anti-Semitism.
It's been awhile since I heard anyone in a keffiyeh pray the shemagh.
It's too bad that apparently Jon Shook sucks, because the pig's ear at Animal is really good.
The ex I call Sylvia Plath turned out to be anti-Semitic, which was part of the icing on the crazy cake. She told me once about how the Jewish partners at the firm where she worked as a paralegal would hang out together (at synagogue, presumably) and something something business something that the other partners weren't privy to. The funny thing was that the victims of this particular Jewish conspiracy were the majority WASPs at this WASPy firm.
Oh hei, was that Bob trying to troll me?
I can't figure out what the hell Bob is up to. Bob, are you asking for permission to making sweeping ethnic/cultural generalizations? Have at it. Are you trying to goad someone into calling you a Nazi? Fine, you're a Nazi. Do you want someone to join you in taking Charlie Sheen seriously? Fuck that.
I can't figure out what the hell Bob is up to.
Why is this night different from all other nights?
Because tonight is amateur night.
Meanwhile, TKM, the new French foreign minister is a convicted criminal - there are something like three people with criminal records in the current cabinet, and a few more like Longuet who just scraped by through being on the other side of the mob when the CRS showed up or not having gone to the meeting with the Elf-Aquitaine chap and the Angolan ambassador. What a bunch.
On the Charlie Sheen subthread, I'd point out that he really needs to stop quoting Gabriele D'Annunzio (all that stuff about either loving or hating and doing so violently is near-quotation).
323 is somewhat like my childhood. I'm Chinese and grew up in one of the mountain states, and most people there simply didn't know what the relevant stereotypes were. I remember a lot of the discussion about racism was very abstract, because the most egregious forms of racism were all in the past, and you would sound very overbearing and PC-ish if you tried to talk about the more subtle stuff that did still happen. We studied the Holocaust in horrible detail, for instance; but no one ever tried to explain the kind of anti-Semitism you might see in real life today.
Well, of course, most of my friends own keffiyehs/shemaghs, so I live in a nest of virulent anti-SemitismBritish Army garrison town.
I find it hard to reconcile "Oscars fanatic" with that degree of casual and moronic anti-semitism, but I guess I'm not really sure why.
The link between far-right politics and musical theatre goes beyond "Springtime for Hitler", you know. "Evita!" was written in support of a planned military coup d'etat in Britain in the 1960s.
I find the demand that Jewish culture or background may not be discussed or taken into account
I think it's OK, as long as it's done with sensitivity and tact. Unfortunately, Bob, you're not really all that good at sensitivity and tact. So if I were you, I'd steer clear.
oh my god, I'd forgotten! Time to buy a daffodil
323: IIRC, an effect like this showed up in the Democratic primaries in '08. Obama did better in states with almost no minority population than he did with a medium-sized minority population, and I theorized (probably everyone else had the same thought) that in environments with no diversity, everybody tends to absorb the standard anti-racist discourse, and doesn't have any countervailing direct experience of racist behavior as normal, because there's no one around to be racist at. So when, at long intervals, a racially weighted decision like voting for a black candidate comes up, they tend to behave well.
I don't think this dynamic works with anti-Semitism at all, though - I've gotten the impression that you're just as likely to see anti-Semitism among people with no direct exposure to Jews as with anyone else.
Mentioned this before, but I've never heard anyone say anything anti-Semitic, ever. Well, I suppose I sort of have, but it's been Jewish friends, making jokes, which I think we'd all agree isn't the same thing. But I've never heard any in-earnest anti-Semitism, ever.* Countless racism against other groups, religious bigotry, homophobia, etc. But not that.
* I've _read_ things, written by journalists, where you could probably argue that there was something dubious about it.
346: me neither, actually. The closest I've got is my aged grandfather making some remark about Malcolm Rifkind being Jewish, and therefore "good with money". And some Muslim ranters around Speaker's Corner, but that's not quite the same as someone saying it in person.
I fairly recently had a conversation with a babysitter I knew from when Newt and Sally were younger, catching up on what she'd been doing for the last five years. And she complained about her last employer, and said that she wasn't ever going to take a job working for Jews again.
I don't hear much antisemitism, but there's some.
330: A friend of mine in his mid 40's is from Kansas and his parents have glommed on to Fox news. She'll call him up with comments from Glenn Beck about George Soros. So I found an interview with Eric Hobsawm about his book on the value of Marxism. EH said that Soros told him over lunch that Marx had a lot of interesting things to say.
I have heard people being clearly anti-Semitic. I have never heard anybody i. white and ii. young enough not to have subsequently died of old age, being anti-Semitic without the use of codes and dog whistles.
That leaves more than enough.
EH's history books are v. interesting.
My grandmother (who died in 95)was sort of culturally anti-semitic. I was having breakfast with her at her assisted-living place and slightly regretted my choice. I saw someone at one of the other tables eating a bagel and said, "Oh, she has a bagel." She looked at me intensely and whispered, "I think she's Jewish." And I said, "Well, I like to eat bagels." My grandmother opened her eyes widely and said, "Really." It was like a revelation.
I saw a guy wearing a "DSQUARED" jacket here in Marrakech, which startled me--I didn't even know you sold swag!--but now I see that it's a . I'm very disappointed.
...too her.
And she managed to put up with my cousin's Jewish boyfriend who was a son of a rabbi.
(He totally didn't deserve it, because he was a moron and immature, but that doesn't have much to do with his religion. I think he claimed to be an atheist and frequently trashed religion, but he still made my cousin convert when they got married.)
Gah. It's a Canadian fashion line, is what I meant to say.
345
IIRC, an effect like this showed up in the Democratic primaries in '08. Obama did better in states with almost no minority population than he did with a medium-sized minority population, and I theorized (probably everyone else had the same thought) that in environments with no diversity, everybody tends to absorb the standard anti-racist discourse, and doesn't have any countervailing direct experience of racist behavior as normal, because there's no one around to be racist at. So when, at long intervals, a racially weighted decision like voting for a black candidate comes up, they tend to behave well.
An alternative (albeit less PC) explanation is that it is easier to think well of black people if you rarely encounter any.
everybody tends to absorb the standard anti-racist discourse, and doesn't have any countervailing direct experience of racist behavior as normal, because there's no one around to be racist at.
I dunno. I was once stuck for an afternoon in western South Dakota, and some people in the bar got talking about the City, and they clearly thought that a drive through Chicago would be like a reenactment of Aguirre, Wrath of God, only with a car instead of a boat.
It's easier to think well of anyone if you never encounter them. You can think to yourself, for example, "Oh, JS isn't really that bad." But then you accidentally read a comment like 345, and realize that he is an insufferable prick.
358: you mean a comment like 356, but otherwise get it exactly right.
357: I hadn't heard of that movie, but now I want ot see it.
357 I dunno. I was once stuck for an afternoon in western South Dakota, and some people in the bar got talking about the City, and they clearly thought that a drive through Chicago would be like a reenactment of Aguirre, Wrath of God, only with a car instead of a boat.
I hear this kind of shit from academics surprisingly often (mainly from foreign ones). All you have to do is mention having lived in Hyde Park. I've come pretty close to saying "you realize you sound like a racist, right?" to people ranting about how they would never live or especially raise children in a neighborhood like that.
I don't think this dynamic works with anti-Semitism at all, though - I've gotten the impression that you're just as likely to see anti-Semitism among people with no direct exposure to Jews as with anyone else.
No, I was about to make the same comparison but with opposite conclusion. Around here, and also in north Florida where I grew up, it just doesn't occur to anyone that someone might be Jewish. And I really have never heard any anti-semitism either, although there's definitely the fascination with the Holocaust mentioned by YK in 339.
There is a slight bit of Northerner/yankeeism which could be cousin to anti-semitism, or just plain residual Civil War nonsense. But there are definitely situations in which I'm outgroup and I couldn't possibly understand what they're describing because I'm so outgroup.
I spent an afternoon in western South Dakota and now I'm afraid of giant stone Abe Lincoln.
I spent an afternoon in western South Dakota in the first week of August and now I'm afraid of thousands upon thousands of gaudily-dressed motorcycle riders blotting out the landscape.
We were hundreds of miles away, but every summer there would come a day when hundreds of motorcycles were parked all over the whole downtown. There was a cafe that they all like to stop at, if they were coming from the right direction.
Jesus, I give up with the numbers.
Don't do it yet, mcmc: lent doesn't start until next week.
368: Yes, might as well try to pick up some grace for it.
Next Tuesday, I want to go to New Orleans and just count and count.
Yes. I assume that's why people throw beads. In preparation for lenten period of not using numbers.
go to New Orleans and just count and count
By twos?
Or threes, if you go to the right bar.
Or threes, if you go to the right bar
Seems like you'd have to "get your ass to Mars!"
With all the obsessive counting, you're beginning to sound a bit of an anal beads person, Moby.
356: Geez, Shearer, some days it gets embarrassing not having made an effort to run you off the blog.
I've lived everywhere from small-town south to Jewville on the Hudson and basically never* encountered overt anti-semitism. I know when I was a kid in an awful town in Oklahoma someone said to my mother, at a garage sale, "I'm gonna try to jew you down on that," as it was one of the few times I have seen my mother freak the fuck out, but I really can't recall much else. In elementary school in a slightly less awful town in Kentucky, the other kids were what I recall now as sort of cutely curious, asking me to pronounce my "Jewish name" and stuff. A bunch of them came to my bar mitzvah. I assume most of them were Southern Baptist so I've always wondered if insanity and hatred crept into that kind of religion right around then or I just didn't know it was there because I had no political consciousness whatsoever until college.
*the one thing that always sticks out in my head was a fellow grad student at U of C who was half Polish, half Armenian talking about how nobody ever talked about the Armenian genocide because the Jews had monopolized the topic of genocide with the whole holocaust thing. There are things to unpack about the discourse of the holocaust, but this particular thing struck me as distinctly antisemitic.
An alternative (albeit less PC) explanation is that it is easier to think well of black people if you rarely encounter any.
God, I'm going to regret this, but Shearer is right. It's easier to think well of a different culture if you're not actually confronted with the differences being imposed on your life.
I went to an all-white elementary school, and then to a 50-50 black-white middle school, and my initial response as a 6th grader was to become a racist little shit. There were stark differences in how groups of kids behaved, and lines were drawn according to race, and I immediately went to "Black people are like this!" land.
It's easier to have happy views on diversity if you're on the extremes: either the idea is theoretical, or so ingrained that you can't imagine any other way.
378: Come on, Smearcase, no one's ever asked you, "How d'Jew you do?"?
I certainly didn't experience any anti-semitism in my hometown (it's more than 35% jewish -- we got Jewish holidays off at my (public) elementary school), so it was pretty novel when one of the people in my loose circle of friends in SF latched on to lefty pro-Palestinian causes as a way of expressing his otherwise apparently inappropriate anti-semitism. (I'd seen him to it before, but it was in the context of an 'oh, look at how edgily offensive I can be' thing, never overtly earnest)
Oh, I forgot, my grandfather (the minister) had a sort of cultural-insensitivity anti-semitic streak; he liked all the jewish people he knew just fine, and had no particular preconceptions about how they might act or be, but he just couldn't reconcile with them being so catastrophically wrong about theological matters. It was an issue of deep concern and puzzlement to him.
There was a group protesting for Palestinian causes that really annoyed me. They would march back and forth across the street, crossing with the light. But, I needed to make a left and there was no arrow.
My mom and my grandmother are both (imho) self-hating Jews. Or at least they prize assimilation above all else. If you ask my mom if she's Jewish she would pause and not answer and then say something like "I love Christmas songs!"
380: Seriously, I was called a "kike" and "a damned Jew" a few times at my elementary school. It bugged me less than the more personal insults.
383: ...argued the bulldozer driver.
(too soon?)
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All you old-times have to stop masturbating to Jane Russell. I know its hard to quit after sixty-some years, but rules are rules.
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"I love Christmas songs!"
Entirely worse than being Jewish.
I went to an all-white elementary school
Literally?
389: 3rd-5th grade I went to a private school, which had opened the year our city was desegregated. There may have been a stray black kid, but none in my grade, or the grades above or below mine.
Before 3rd grade I went to a Montessori school.
My parents went to visit the local elementary school several times, and developed an opinion of it that I can't make heads or tails of. They claim that the classrooms they saw were total war zones, and that they saw enough to develop a sound sample, and therefore they sent me to the crappy racist private school. Then I went to middle school with all these same kids, in the exact same school system, and none of their kids perceived their elementary experience to have been unusually chaotic. I can't imagine that it wouldn't have been the junior version of my middle school. And yes, my middle school sucked a lot. But so did fancy white private elementary. So who knows.
I didn't know that Montessori went up to 2nd grade.
We've got one around here that goes up to 8th.
381: I certainly didn't experience any anti-semitism in my hometown (it's more than 35% jewish -- we got Jewish holidays off at my (public) elementary school),
Is another large plurality of the population South Asian? If so, it would appear that you grew up in the same town as a friend of mine. (He's half your age, so probably no way you would know him or his family.) Anyhow, he's one of the most leftwing Jews I've ever met, and believe me, being in the anarchist scene for 20 years, you meet A LOT of leftwing Jews. He's so leftwing, that when he went to a small (like 100 students or less) Jewish HS, he started a Palestinian solidarity group. And he's gay. And he's an actor. Which fits in with most of my positive stereotypes of Jews. If I were 10 years younger and 100 pounds thinner, I would totally want to be his boyfriend. Sigh.
You could send him McDonald's gift cards and HoHos until he weights 100 pounds more.
I didn't know that Montessori went up to 2nd grade.
We have two public Montessori elementary magnets and a public Montessori middle school magnet here.
We've got one around here that goes up to 8th.
This one goes to 1112.
There is a Montessori public elementary here, but they don't have any actual Montessori certified instructors. Or didn't, last time it was in the news.
but he just couldn't reconcile with them being so catastrophically wrong about theological matters. It was an issue of deep concern and puzzlement to him.
How was he with Hindus?
I would have been public school Montessori through 6th grade, at least, but because of the infamous Big Shuffle, I wound up having to go to regular public school instead after 2nd grade. Basically ruined my life. But the first 3 years of school was really fun.
I have to agree with hebbie and James. Growing up in the Maritimes (in a city mind you), I only knew 1 Jewish person, 1 Chinese guy, 1 East Indian guy and a smattering of black people. It was really hard to have the 'proper' stereotypes and any sort of 'active' racism. We white people were all much too similar to be too mean to different groups among us (my bff's grandmother once whispered to me that some family was "Roman") and the non-white people were too few and not different enough for any stereotypes to take root.
It wasn't until I moved to CA (in my mid-20s) and had my roommate make some comment about herself looking Jewish that I realized there were stereotypes about Jewish people's appearance. She of course couldn't believe that I didn't know Jewish people*.
So I do find it really surprising that a girl from NB is anti-Semetic. Maybe it's because her father is a minister that she was exposed to it? I mean, don't get me wrong - Maritimers and people from the Prairies are increadably racist against certain groups; I'm just surprised that it's also Jewish people.
*Ironically I'm now related to two.
public school Montessori
There are public Montessori schools? Sweet.
402: Several here, or more properly across the river from here, and as AG says, they go to 12.
they go to 12
What?! That's impossible!
nobody ever talked about the Armenian genocide because the Jews had monopolized the topic of genocide with the whole holocaust thing
This is the sort of thing I would consider up for debate among fellow MOT*, and would back away quietly from anyone else for saying.
Bless Natilo's friend, and bless Jenji Kohan.
*Member(s) Of the Tribe, for the one of you who didn't know.
378: There are things to unpack about the discourse of the holocaust, but this particular thing struck me as distinctly antisemitic.
I should say so. Especially since the fact that the Armenians had been swept under the rug long before WWII was part of the reason Hitler thought he could get away with genocide in the first place.
379: God, I'm going to regret this, but Shearer is right. It's easier to think well of a different culture if you're not actually confronted with the differences being imposed on your life.
There's a couple of ways it tends to go:
- Contact breeds conflict if the circumstances are right: lots of preexisting tension, economic conflict between demographic groups for scarce resources like jobs and housing, people with huge chips on their shoulders, and especially for the younger kids parents with huge chips on their shoulders who transmit this attitude by word or example to their offspring.
- Contact reduces conflict if the circumstances are right: if there are lots of opportunities to interact with the "other" in a normal way, if you play at each other's houses, go to each other's weddings, shop at each other's stores (or at the same stores together) and so on.
- Unfamiliarity breeds indifference and naivete. People who have zero contact with a group have no reason either to respect or hate them to any particular degree, and will happily get along with not thinking about them or with thinking whatever they think other people think it's acceptable to think about them. This usually means their opinion of the group in question is highly malleable, and that they don't have much of an "immune system" built up against propaganda. Meaning that sometimes:
- Unfamiliarity breeds fear, or craziness. If you've never encountered a group in real life before but are suddenly told they're a collective fascist conspiracy to conquer the world, it's easy -- even for educated people who are supposed to have critical thinking skills -- to be panicked. Cf. America, Muslims, 9-11, most obvious example. Craziness can also take hold more easily: if they take to studying such questions on their own, smart but not necessarily formally-educated people from a background like this will be vulnerable to plausibly-constructed but crack-brained or hateful theories of the Illuminati or Elders of Zion varieties.
These four dynamics would seem to me to be present in virtually all human communities. The Maritimes -- the largest "foreign" group my friend encountered growing up were "the French," Acadian families that surely go back about four hundred years -- have always seemed to me (to judge by the Maritimers who come here, anyway) to be heavily dominated by the latter two.
401: Maybe it's because her father is a minister that she was exposed to it?
He was a miner, not a minister.
Oh. I can't read. Because of school.
379: In my experience a lot of it has to do with crossed wires due to different cultures interpreting the same thing in quite different ways, or due to different assumptions about the appropriate way to handle a given interaction. Things as simple as having different expectations of personal space or of the appropriateness of touching can lead to considerable hostility if the people involved aren't consciously adjusting for the cultural difference. Someone standing too close feels like an aggressive act, and it does so at a deep subconscious level. The same with placing a hand on someone as you squeeze by in a crowded space if you come from a very hands-off culture.
These mismatches lead to strong subconscious reactions, which in turn feed stereotypes. "Those people are really aggressive" is true if their insistence on standing right in your face is interpreted through the prism of your own culture, and it's hard to step outside of the way you were raised - not true in an objective sense, but true in the sense that you will feel yourself to be on the receiving end of aggression if you interact with one of them, simply due to the mismatch in the meaning of your body languages.
Obviously there's a lot of ifs and buts to be thrown in about how people can have the same culture as far as music, food, language and so on but have very different expectations of personal space, or interpretations of the significance of a gesture, the meaning of a particular act, and so forth. Nonetheless when two groups rub up against each other it's far more likely than not that their differences in what we typically think of as the signifiers of culture will have corresponding differences in the more subtle things that can lead to misinterpretation and that the differences within the culture will be smaller than those between cultures.
These mismatches lead to strong subconscious reactions, which in turn feed stereotypes.
Misreading that as "These mustaches" was confusing but in a funny sort of way.
411: Try growing a Charlie Chaplin mustache to explore people's subconscious reactions. Do it for science!
401: Growing up in the Maritimes (in a city mind you), I only knew 1 Jewish person, 1 Chinese guy, 1 East Indian guy and a smattering of black people. It was really hard to have the 'proper' stereotypes and any sort of 'active' racism.
From my own personal experience, I understand "It was really hard to have the 'proper' stereotypes", but it doesn't follow from not having known any non-white, non-WASP, non-Western cultural practices, but somewhat the reverse: I was a military brat, and we were surrounded by Filipino and Irish and Panamanian and black people and so on. It's quite possible I was a clueless kid, but I just didn't notice any cultural stereotyping. Of course, the military is a weird thing in itself, wherein there is arguably one overriding culture, that of military solidarity.
I really freaked out when my dad retired and we moved into civilian life: people sometimes said nauseatingly racist things, casually! They didn't seem to like French Canadians or Polish much either, and Irish was suspect at times. It was utterly confusing, and upsetting, at age 14.
I was pretty disappointed in the Coen's True Grit, but AMC is airing the original and boy had I forgotten how ridiculous it could be. Tune in for the Best Actor performance for the ages.
414: Although I had forgotten that Dennis Hopper had a minor creepy guy role.
381: I saw some people protesting Israel in that town and thought that they might be taking their lives into their hands.
Robert Duvall, as well. The original True Grit is like a meeting of the "old" and "new" Hollywood; I wonder what the set was like.
I thought the Coen Bros. remake was great.
417.2: Well, now I'm thinking better of it now. But just no real "there" there in my opinion.
I am, in theory, a much more tolerant person than I often am in practice. So while I believe certain social democratic principles, my elitist instincts go into gear when I see some really tacky, ugly furniture or house. And I decide that people whose tastes are that bad just shouldn't be allowed to have money if they're going to buy whatever ugly leather sofa caught my ire.
I realize that this is terrible, but it still gets me.
I hate my boyfriend's brothers wife so much. She said that she had had hardly any "normal, white Canadian" professors in the Sciences, but I become much more vile. She lived in Alberta before she and her Mom moved to Ottawa, and she was born in Poland. (So, I start thinking things like: you've got a double whammie--she's from the prairies and she's Polish. Really vile, on my part. Must purge.)
I liked the Coens' True Grit a lot also.
One thing I liked was that there was weather in the film-- not just "rain" to make night surfaces glossy, but weather that affected the plot and the characters.
A second thing, often the Coens leave me with the impression that their films are private, and that they don't have much respect for or interest in their audiences. Not this one.
357: Aguirre, Wrath of God
Have we done the best opening sequences ever thing?
Your mom's got a pretty good opening sequence.
But almost certainly not the best ever.
422: Did you hack into lw's Netflix account?
Babe, Pig in the City. I've seen it probably a dozen times. Completely wonderful, has weather. Not much of an opening sequence, though.
The heavy-handed Star Trek movies started nicely. For film snob points, Touch of Evil has a completely great opening.
The heavy-handed Star Trek movies
Is this a proper subset of Star Trek movies?
Wrath of Khan was the only one with weather, which is all that matters.
427.last: New to me. Ah, here it is one YouTube. . Impressively tension-inducing.
431: Impressive opening, Charlton Heston playing a Mexican, Marlene Dietrich telling Orson Welles to lay off the candy bars, and this wonderful bit of weirdness from Dennis Weaver. What's not to like? (Also, The Player's extended opening tracking shot includes a character mentioning the opening sequence of Touch of Evil.)
For film snob points, Touch of Evil8 1/2 has a completely great opening.
The first work I remember really noticing the role of the weather in was King Lear, and that's also the work I associate with the term "pathetic fallacy" even though I'm never 100% sure I'm using it correctly. (So I basically don't use it.)
Your mom is a pathetic fallacy.
434: Your comment even used my local area code, so that dig hit particularly close to home. Strong work.
(my bff's grandmother once whispered to me that some family was "Roman") and the non-white people were too few and not different enough for any stereotypes to take root.
My mother's mother converted to Catholicism when her family lived in France in the 20's. Her future mother-in-law wrote a letter somewhere saying that we "must be nice to E, even though she's Roman. We have Roman Catholic friends."
280
Granted, she was tipsy. Still: most awkward moment I can remember having with another human being in quite some time.
This could have just been a drunk's idea of a joke. A belief that it is appropriate to make jokes about all Jews being rich is not exactly the same thing as believing all Jews are rich.
This could have just been a drunk's idea of a joke
Depends. Did the offending party work for Christian Dior?
437: It'd be nice to think that, but I don't think it'll hold up. She made it really inescapably clear that she wasn't joking.
