And having achieved the endorsement of the two commenters with the most vowel-heavy pseudonyms, for what more could I long?
This vowel-heavy commenter and that vowel-heavy commenter have endorsed the post. There is nothing worth saying now.
I approve.
3: For the approval of the unvowelled commenters?
Of which, here is some.
This is a very tender and beautiful comment thread. I want to give it a sack dress and a river view.
Sometimes I love you, neb.
It wouldn't be as charming if you always loved me.
This post is so wrong in that it approaches and hints at thanatophilia.
"Let death have no dominion over your thoughts", as in Castorp's epiphany, young neb.
The line between "cherry blossoms about-to-fall" and "cherry blossoms fallen" is the precise moral demarcation between the Silver Pavilion and the Rape of Nanking.
Like the sands of time through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
Thanatophiles: Mozart, Keats.
Not a thanatophile: Bob Mcmanus
This, too, is a chasing after the wind.
Thanatophiles: Huysmans, Greenaway
This is fun!
Higashiyama Culture is about movement perceived, and especially valuable in the most subtle perceptions of movement.
The sand garden is about what it reflects, the changes of light, the passing of the seasons, the phases of the moon.
The tokona was about making the decoration of a room temporary, whatever might be in the alcove was destined to be replaced.
The tea ceremony is so firmly delineated so that there is no place you may stop. You drink the tea, and then you must immediately clean the instruments, and then you must have a parting conversation, and then leave.
Renga was a collaborative poetry, a chain passed around a room of drunks.
And seppuku is only valuable for what it leaves behind.
I suggest, if you are interested in Japan, studies of Mishima, who refused to have his social-psycho-sexual identity socially determined (by the Other and the Gaze) but since the Subject can't determine his/her own identity found the Real in fascism and death.
Or Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Huysmans
I guess both "la bouche d'un pistolet ou les pieds de la croix" qualify. And while we're at it, let's add Baudelaire, the original target of that bon mot, to the list.
Oh, it's a lot more fun than that, than the obvious candidates. Life is change.
Anybody who seeks certainty, stability, or identity is a thanatophile. Anyone who seeks to control, or be controlled. Anyone who seeks structure over process.
All of us, sometimes. Life is hard. Freedom is crazy.
Science is as thanatophilic as redemptive religion.
I had to fight the nihilism. Vitalism and strong tea were only palliatives until I discovered the most horrible truth of them all.
(Okay, here I'm kidding. Mostly. I think. But don't fuck with the cherry blossoms.)
Ephemera? I've never even met 'er!
Therefore I say to you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? And why take you thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say to you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Why, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek you first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.
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Sifu Tweety just identified me in a downtown LA restaurant. Nice work!
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How many other people has he accused of being you today?
24: he had not, though he had seen pictures on Facebook.
25: All of them!
So, walking back from the bar, I saw what appeared to be a guy driving while receiving oral sex. My thoughts were a concern about safety and thinking that maybe one should either pick a higher vehicle or a less traveled street. I may be getting old.
28: Since you didn't use "OT" or the pause-play thing, I'm going to assume that was intended to be on-topic, in which case the obvious question is: which Unfogged commenter was it?
29: And whose opposite are they?
Anyway, if you read a news story about a car crash and a penis bitten off, you can tell people you probably heard it here first.
So, walking back from the bar, I saw what appeared to be a guy driving while receiving oral sex.
Last quarter the student paper here contained an editorial coming out in favor of road head.
I have to say it strikes me as primarily unsafe and uncomfortable.
I assume it is the leading cause of accidental penis biting-off.
Last quarter the student paper here contained an editorial coming out in favor of road head.
With what justification?
An editorial that (presuming one has intuited neb's current location correctly) contains such charming phrases as "throat weasels" and "baby gravy," as well as an implication that women are bad at driving. One expects more from an elite coastal institution.
If not love, at least a strong feeling of mutual respect and acceptance.
Considering that it's the only place where, while casually walking down the street, I've found myself having to actively dodge vomit, maybe not.
Did you try walking less casually before dodging?
(presuming one has intuited neb's current location correctly)
The worrisome implication here is that either one has intuited my location correctly or there are at least two such editorials.
40 was poorly phrased. But, you know, there are the times when you are at least semiconsciously aware that it's possible that someone may vomit at you, and so are slightly on-guard, and the times when you... aren't.
Like when you are at Arby's and when you are not at Arby's. Sure. I get it.
42: You're supposed to be squirreled away in an undisclosed location, like Cheney of yore?
42 was ill phrased. Only the second disjunct is actually worrisome.
Well, you can always Google "throat weasels" to see if I had the right editorial
I don't know for what offense you'd get ticketed for oral sex while driving. But the negative points eventually disappear from the DMV computers, so it's definitely ephemeral.
Of course, there was already indirect corroborating evidence in this very thread.
I hope our Miss Brooks has another career planned 'cause her writing isn't going to pay the rent for her.
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Dialogue from this week's episode of The Good Wife:
"What's an econophysicist?"
"I have no idea, but they're very impressed with themselves."
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Mumble velocity of money mumble mumble.
53: is that the one about bitcoin?
God, I really should be watching that show. It's just that it's not on hulu and it would feel awkward torrenting it. Like robbing the yarn store.
Not torrenting a show about bitcoin feels almost insulting.
By all reports, The Good Wife is consistently better than it has any right to be. I've only watched a few episodes, but none of them were insultingly teeveeish.
I don't know for what offense you'd get ticketed for oral sex while driving.
Lewd act in public. I did it once to some idiot who decided to go through the McDonald's drive through while getting a hand job from a streetwalker.
one thing that I imagine would be depressing about gswift's line of work is that he meets so many extraordinarily stupid people all the time, doing dumbass stuff. and I am a huge hater on "why does she stay with him?" questions, preferring such questions as "why the fuck is he hitting her in the face?"; nonetheless if I were going out on a second DV call to the same house a lot I might become jaded/annoyed.
I saw what appeared to be a guy driving while receiving oral sex.
Movement, perceived.
So, walking back from the bar, I saw what appeared to be a guy driving while receiving oral sex, but it was dark and what with needing to concentrate on coordinating our strides, it might have been a woman driving.
One expects more from an elite coastal institution.
One does not, with the possible exceptions of Regent College and St. Johns in Maryland.
There was a "penis bitten off" accident in Hood River OR about 10 years ago, but it's been covered up and can't be Googled.
67: Rightly so. If your penis gets bitten off, cover it up. No one wants to see that shit.
I'm a risk-taker, but the whole thing just seems like a terrible idea. not even dangerous in a sexy way, just dangerous in a stupid way.
Well, OK, I'll just have to find someone else then, lady.
God, I really should be watching that show. It's just that it's not on hulu and it would feel awkward torrenting it. Like robbing the yarn store.
I found out that for this show, I don't know about others, there's apparently a way you can see it broadcast over the television once a week or so.
67: I was expecting it was common enough to get a table in Morbidity and Mortality but apparently not.
The Good Wife is really quite good. Essear and I have completely overlapping tastes in teevee. We should try to end up in the same old folks home. (Oh wait. I will be in the home like 15 years before essear.)
Imagine how much more dangerous a moving car must be? I assume it happens all the time and never makes the papers because of various machinations my the automakers or somebody.
nonetheless if I were going out on a second DV call to the same house a lot I might become jaded/annoyed.
You have no idea. Did everyone during the holidays see the stirring tale of a woman saved by Facebook?
The woman told officers she and her child had not been allowed to leave the home and that she repeatedly had been hit, choked and sexually abused over a period of nearly five days.
But, the real nugget is at the end of the article.
Utah State Court records show that in December 2010 Critchfield pleaded guilty to felony aggravated assault and obstruction of justice charges in connection with a domestic violence incident. A judge sentenced Critchfield to a prison term of five years, but suspended the punishment for a 120-day jail term and three years of probation.
How time flies. Has it already been a year since my agency got into a full blown SWAT standoff with this guy over kidnapping and assaulting the very same girlfriend? Good thing he only did six months so that they could hang out again the next holiday season. Strike two, dude. Better be on your best behavior because I swear, if you kidnap her a third time, she's definitely going to break up with you.
I assume it happens all the time and never makes the papers because of various machinations my the automakers or somebody.
There used to be more people publicizing the dangers, but they've been swallowed up by Big Head.
Maybe gswift knows the straight story on how many men get their penis bitten off each week and how many of those are because of careless driving?
The really problematic cases are the guys who have their penis bitten off by the same woman two times or more. Some of these guys end up on a first-name basis with the penis surgeon.
Plus, it would have to get a bit shorter each time you reattach.
Never underestimate modern science, Moby. They can pribably splice in a section of pork penis (or goat for Muslims and Jews).
The bacon craze has really jumped the shark.
Anybody with a bacon-penis should be very certain to jump well over the shark.
I quite enjoy a certain kind of baco bits on my salad.
86: Are they made of actual baco?
They say eating an extra 50g of processed meat, approximately one sausage, every day would increase a person's risk by 19%.
How much bacon does Halford eat?
Is bacon considered processed meat? I thought that processed meat means that at some point it comes out of a Play-Doh squeeze dispenser.
I think the concern is because of the effects of curing the meat. You can get uncured bacon, but it doesn't taste the same.
Discerning aficionados prefer bacon that has been Smithsed rather than Cured.
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A natural experiment; we may soon see what kind of CEO $250k/year can buy:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203735304577164970097400172.html
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|| Yglesias really is good at this sort of thing.
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God damn you to hell, Stanley. I mean this in the friendliest possible way.
I eat between 12 and 14 oz of bacon a day, not quite at POBAD. There's some ambiguous evidence out there about a nitrites (used in curing salt) cancer link, but I generally buy the kind that doesn't use curing salts. Actually, I just started curing my own bacon, so I e got a 5 pound pork belly in the fridge. We'll see how it goes. I did use a curing mix with sugar (the real killer) in it, though, and feel bad about that.
Do you use the kind that doesn't use curing salts or the kind that uses "natural" curing salts made from celery and the bandana squeezings of hippie farm workers?
Adele Davis, Jim Fixx, Jerome Rodale. How'd that healthy living shit work out for them?
95 -- both. To get the kind that doesn't have the celery salt, you need to buy from a butcher.
Like robbing the yarn store.
Oh you just don't know. Baby alpaca costs mad skrilla. Is there a verb I'm supposed to be using there instead of "costs" to go with "mad skrilla"? I just thought it sounded funny with "baby alpaca."
Wait but as the opposite of nosflow I denounce this thread! Go back to the one about being the cat! This thread doesn't have enough books!
I don't know for what offense you'd get ticketed for oral sex while driving.
Lewd act in public. I did it once to some idiot who decided to go through the McDonald's drive through while getting a hand job from a streetwalker.
That must have been one crowded car!
Probably pwned.
I was just kidding. Come back!
Everyone moved along. Apparently they found this thread extremely tiresome.
101:Mono no aware, wabi-sabi, inscrutable as all fuck
I could come back after I finish watching my houseplant die.
I'm back, pulling Kore-eda Hirokazu from behind the poster, one of the best directors in the world.
Hana yori mo naho "Something More than a Flower" 2006 which I recently watched is much better IMO than most of it's reviews. A blistering, yet hilarious attack on the bushido ethos it proffers a new ethos built around the abject and subaltern. Discarding family and authoritarian state (but with much affection and empathy) it advances free communization based on illegalist expropriation an sharing as the new alternative. I. Shit. You. Not.
And it is beautiful, funny, sentimental. Here are the last final (translated) lines.
(The 47th Ako retainer has hung in the back of the Chushingara revenge party and then quietly run away. The other 46 committed seppuku. The "coward" in a community decision decides he will survive by saying he was ordered to be their chronicler. Yes, there is also modern media satire here)
Heroine to hero:"But...maybe now, he'll be able to teach his son to make sandals."
...
Tough guy to kid in street, about 47 ronin:
"Now listen up. For samurai, the moment of death is all. As they say, "Cherry blossoms are blessed only when they have all fallen."
...
Hero to heroine:"But...just as Mago said, "Cherry blossoms only fall to return again next spring...
Heroine:"...in even greater beauty."
The end (almost)
It just struck me that a blogfight between Bob and S/teven D/en B/este over Japanese anime and culture would be fucking fantastic. Can someone make this happen?
Well. I know little about anime, especially the kind SDB watches IIRC. Ghibli and Miyazaki of course. Wolf's Rain grabbed me, you know, talking doggies. Ikira. A few things. Need more. Never seen Neon Evangelion, not even one Cowboy Bebop.
Now Manga is more complicated, because stories you couldn't imagine in America come out first in manga form in Japan (HS romance with blind boy/girl;everything), and if they are popular, get made into movies.
A far as "Japanese Culture" goes, well I could say the usual about many cultures, subcultures, and counter-cultures etc but there are a few things that cut across and cherry blossoms, mocked ironic or whatever, are close in a way to the American Flag. A national symbol. Samurai. Robots. Cats. Noodle shops.
As far as why I am doing it, it is way too much to say I want to use Japan as a mirror, that Orientalizes and Otherizes much more than I intend or feel. In many ways, Japan is a much more International and cosmopolitan society than America, and I hope to learn about the world through the eyes of the Japanese (in addition to my American ones), hoping that specific aspects of Japanese history and culture, like colonial target and then Empire for instance, will help.
Coulda been France or Germany.
I mean, fuck man, four of the ideas in the discussion of the Koreeda:"communization, illegalism, abject, subaltern" are barely available in America, and not at all in our entertainment. You have look overseas for anything worth a damn.
This country is a stinking cesspool of ignorance, privilege, and prejudice.
This country is a stinking cesspool of ignorance, privilege, and prejudice, and Poptarts.
Wolf's Rain grabbed me, you know, talking doggies. Ikira.
"Ikira" clearly an early experiment in Flatpack Cyberpunk.
Ikira: in this anime from Kurosawa a low-ranking civil servant tries to build a children's playground on a deserted lot. Enraged by continual bureaucratic frustrations, he eventually loses control and destroys all of Tokyo in a burst of physic rage.
105.1: I recommend Detroit Metal City or Monster (although they are very different).
108,109:Fuck, y'all have no idea how long I sweated over that.