Oh look, I did that thing again where you think I'm offline, and then I stomp on your post. We'll be on the road in 30 minutes, I swear.
Did I used to complain about that? I guess I still generally find video a bit tl:dr.
It's always ok to stomp on posts that are just links to, or embedded, video.
You too cool for school types are missing a fun video.
That is a fun video. Sometimes I wish Jewel were still the world's most famous Alaskan.
I've been away for a few days. What did you do to get famous so quickly?
Today I saw a Nissan with antique plates (i.e. the plates you get for an older car you have in a collection, not for daily use). It looked really nice for a 25 to 30 year-old Nissan*, but still it seemed odd.
* A car has to be 25 years old to get the plate and a Nissan that is more than 30 years old is a Datsun.
Teo, have you watched any of "Alaska: The Last Frontier"? Follows the Kilchers--Jewel's extended family--on their homestead outside of Homer.
No, but I've heard about it. I think it's considered one of the better Alaska reality shows, which isn't saying much.
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Ok, you verbal virtuosos, I need some help in an ongoing philosophy argument with my wife. I'm looking for some technical French or German term that means "half-glimpsed" which I keep imagining exists. It's not going to convince her anymore than "half-glimpsed" itself does, but I'm feeling the need to up my rhetorical game.
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14: I sort of watched an episode or two (my wife was the one really watching) and it was somewhat interesting. But yeah, the state must easily lead in reality TV crews per capita.
But yeah, the state must easily lead in reality TV crews per capita.
I'm sure it does, and not everyone is happy about it.
By one count there have been 34 Alaska reality shows in the past five years.
Today I saw a Nissan with antique plates (i.e. the plates you get for an older car you have in a collection, not for daily use).
In CA the plates stay with the vehicle when it changes hands so all the classic cars still all have the old plates from the same era. It's pretty neat.
Those direct-democracy type things never work out as population increases. You need to have the people elect representatives to shoot fireworks at the helicopters instead of letting everybody do their own.
21: I dunno, it appears to have been pretty successful in this particular case.
Thanks. Not exactly right, but I'll use it at some point.
I'll probably try take a run down the mise en abyme road as well. The garden that frames the garden.
I thought the road names in your area were all woodsy-type stuff or just really racist.
24: He wasn't actually trying to shoot down the helicopter, and he succeeded in scaring the reality show people away.
28: That's his post-hoc statement. If he'd called it ahead of time, I'd buy it.
Well, successfully shooting down a helicopter that's flying over your house seems like a Pyrrhic victory at best.
20 -- A while back I linked to that ad from a state senator running in the Rep US House primary where he shoots down a drone. He came in second.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOoXJI4vBns
32: He's quite the freedom fighter. Wow.
19: You can now get CA vanity plates in the old colors. My boyfriend and I joked about getting black and yellow plates for his Honda Fit.
Jane, I recollected Charlotte Whitten on that "Eve" thread.
Those plates were iconic for the whole continent, and probably for the Dominions beyond the seas. The old Hot Rod magazines, that title but also its competitors and stablemates, were filled with dream cars with those plates.
Speaking of reality shows, we watched a bunch of Naked Dating with Jammies' family.
Man, everyone has their own reality show.
You can now get CA vanity plates in the old colors.
You can pre-order them, it looks like from the state site - they won't come out until next year, and even then only if there are enough pre-orders for a given style.
I find the idea of Naked Dating amusing and would totally watch it but we don't actually get tv channels for the usual reasons of moral and intellectual purity. Reality shows about Alaska I do not think I would watch. I can't muster a lot of curiosity about Alaska.
Aw. It's a really interesting place!
I do suspect most or all of the reality shows suck, though.
Ha, I was like "should I post that, knowing the only person likely to respond is in Alaska?" I guess the thing is less that I'm convinced it's uninteresting than that I'm certain I'll never go there.
That's okay. Most people never got to Alaska.
After all, it's really isolated from everywhere else in the world except places that are similarly famous for being isolated, like the Yukon and Siberia.
Speaking of the Yukon and Siberia, I'm finally reading 1491 and it's super-interesting but it leaves me kinda confused about the current status of the whole overkill story.
teofilo, it's on my bucket list. So if I get a sufficiently slow, cheap cancer you have to show me where to catch some decent trout. I did once stopover in anchorage
I can't muster a lot of curiosity about Alaska.
Really? Alaska is incredible--like going to another planet where your money and language still work. And it's only three-and-a-half hours from SeaTac.
48: forswearing plane travel might have something to do with it.
I find the idea of Naked Dating amusing and would totally watch it...Reality shows about Alaska I do not think I would watch.
Naked in Alaska.
43: we should totally drive up to Alaska together. And then make the trip into a reality show. Except that it would be pretty boring, because we mostly agree on everything. Maybe McManus would join us to goose ratings?
51 I would so totally make an exception to my no reality TV entertainment diet to watch.
51: I could see how many hours I was able to spend recriminating you for being a nice semi-local person and then leaving. That's good television, right?
48: you're new around here, aren't you?
I'm finally reading 1491 and it's super-interesting but it leaves me kinda confused about the current status of the whole overkill story.
My understanding is that it's still pretty up in the air and there's no real consensus. People publish papers regularly arguing for one side or the other based on some new piece of evidence or reanalysis of existing evidence. I think Mann goes a bit too far in implying that the anti-overkill side is now ascendant, but I've only read a few of the papers myself.
So if I get a sufficiently slow, cheap cancer you have to show me where to catch some decent trout.
I guess there are places in Alaska where you can fish for trout, and I'm sure some people do, but I'm not sure why when there's so much salmon available. But then I'm no fisherman myself.
56: Salmon and trout are close relatives so places like the Kenai that have big salmon also have monster trout. Rainbows are great fighters on the line and are fun as hell to catch.
I read 1491 and 1493 entirely because teo made me.
Actually that's impressive since I haven't even read 1493 myself. I intend to at some point, though.
I liked 1491 a great deal, and 1493 less so. The second book seems a bit stretched out. I tried to read 1491 a bit skeptically, since it's obviously written to promote a certain point of view, but it had a big impact on how I imagine the pre-Columbian Americas looked.
I sort of liked 1941 but it wasn't great or anything.
Yeah, it's definitely best to read 1491 skeptically. It's very engaging and I think the overall message is reasonable, but he's definitely picking sides in active scholarly disputes, and his presentation tends to downplay the amount of controversy involved.
62: But I hear good things about 4119.
62: Did you have a view of what North America looked like before Columbus? I pictured it being like 10 people running in a gigantic forest.
Missing that Moby is making a joke is possibly the most embarrassing possible failure.
Right. Because I though 1491 was great.
That is a bad video. I should know, Matt Welch of Reason fame made fun of me for complaining about it at my old blog.
By mixing with the rabble and then revealing her powers, Jewel sucks the fun out of karaoke. The message of this video is that, actually, most people can't do the things celebrities do, that privilege follows a natural order, and there's no point in trying to join the elect if you're not already in it.
But...that's ridiculous. She can't stop anyone else from sounding good. And "privilege" just seems inappropriate there--success is at issue, and we all know that there's a lot of luck involved in success, but it was nice to see that here's a somewhat shlocky artist that we like to make fun of, but she's genuinely talented enough to wow people without the imprimatur of a record label. ("Celebrities" is also inappropriate, conjuring the Kardashians and MTV veejays and the like--she's a performer, and most people can't perform like even middling pros.) It's a nice anti-cynicism video.
By mixing with the rabble and then revealing her powers, Jewel sucks the fun out of karaoke. The message of this video is that, actually, most people can't do the things celebrities do, that privilege follows a natural order, and there's no point in trying to join the elect if you're not already in it.
I'm kind of curious how you came to that conclusion. I can't say the blog post makes it crystal clear to me.
I hadn't realized the fun in karaoke was contingent on being able to undermine the natural order.
Er, to be a bit less hit-and-runny: it seemed like the crowd was having quite a bit of fun. The dominant feelings seemed to be joy and exuberance at getting to hear Karen/Jewel sing, and astonishment at her talent. Is the fun supposed to be getting sucked out for us?
I didn't see any expression of the idea that Jewel's talent was just part of the immutable order of things, or unattainable to us plebs, or anything like that; setting up a strong wall between the audience and Jewel didn't seem like part of what the video was trying to achieve.* "Anti-cynicism" seems like a good way to describe it to me; contrast the tone here with the depressed tone of the NYT (?) article discussing the famous subway violinist almost no one paid any attention to.
Inasmuch as it was supposed to be a joke, I didn't find it funny. If it was even intended to be a joke, I guess it was on the audience. But it didn't seem malicious.
* I mean, I'm not exactly sure just what the video was trying to achieve, other than making a moderately entertaining, maybe anti-cynical, video. I'm not sure there's a message here at all. But I usually find out later I'm missing the point when I think that.
The Joshua Bell thing was understandable, I suppose. Sturgeon's law needs some sort of instrumental busker coda, as 99% (or 99.9%) of them are shit,* and when you get to the remaining 1% (or 0.1%) how many are going to stop for long enough and be experienced enough listeners to tell the difference between Bell and someone else competently playing a Bach partita or whatever?
* I am a decent jack-of-all-trades guitar player but no virtuoso and can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of solo guitar buskers I seen, ever, I wasn't easily more competent than.
Caucasian DC is uniquely shitty IME for people not paying attention to their physical environment. Possible others: the Manhattan of those too powerful for the subway (but how to get a crowd of those? I guess the engagement brags come closest), LA, or Shanghai would be worse.
I liked the video-- fun for everybody, even the vimeo audience.
99% (or 99.9%) of them are shit,* and when you get to the remaining 1% (or 0.1%) how many are going to stop for long enough and be experienced enough listeners
God point. I had to sit and eat lunch to realize that the guy playing the Casio keyboard who did a near-perfect Elton John imitation was also capable of doing a near-perfect Billy Joel imitation.