I can't say I'm surprised, really, that sexual abuse is endemic in youth sports, but that swimming link is really something.
So I'm flipping through the barneys Christmas catalogue, and what the hell is a"champagne sabre"?
Also I blame that facebook dude for the proliferation of "luxury" (what a joke) jogging suits.
Teo should take a run at OP.2. Put on his ranger hat and put out that sweet mix of Smokey The Bear meets God's Chosen People. "Only Teo can put out that fire...in your uterus."
Huh:
The bottle neck is held at an angle of approximately 20 degrees and the sword is cast down on it. The experienced sommelier can open the bottle with little loss of Champagne. However, it is advised to allow a small flow in order to wash away any loose shards of glass that may be adhering to the neck. The first glass poured should also be checked for small glass shards.
See, you gain an extra glass of champagne and all you risk is drinking some shards of broken glass.
More seriously to OP.2, exposing yourself to that level of potential child support is crazytown.
Plus I have no idea how potent my seed actually is. It took my parents several years to have me.
wow, we now have discovered the planck's constant of vulgarity!
2: of everyone here, you're literally the last person I would have expected to ask that question. (I learned about challenges champagne sabreing when I worked with a bunch of French folks years ago.)
apparently different french folk!
I wish I hadn't read that fucking swimming story. I'm even redacting how much I wish I hadn't read it so I won't feel confused about why I get along so well with my mom. because, fuck it. I love my mom. also, I really feel for all those girls who were spending night and day in the physical control of someone whom they'd been sort of handed over to and ordered to obey, to regardless of consequences, that sounds horrible.
I don't understand why one would want a champagne sabre. You can do the job just as well with your normal sabre. It'd be like having two corkscrews and saying "oh, no, this one is different. This is my Sancerre corkscrew".
And, to 5, the experienced sommelier can open a champagne bottle with little loss of champagne just by the normal method. You don't have to spray it everywhere like you're a F1 driver. The cork shouldn't even fly through the air if you do it right.
15. So can an inexperienced sommelier. Me for instance. The wine should be cold, held steady, and the cork removed slowly with a slight twisting motion.
agreed, I've never seen the need for champers to go flying everywhere. if it hasn't been shaken then bottle at an angle, cork twisted slowly and smoothly out, and bob's your uncle. perhaps he turns out to be your father; I didn't read the insemination link.
Are these people getting tested for STDs first?
Holy shit, this sex abuse swimming story.
The inexperienced and cheap sommelier (me) can do both because the champagne sparkling wine I buy doesn't froth that much when you open it.
I'm not going to read it. I read the other while it was up, and am horrified.
21: frothier doesn't necessarily mean better. Good champagne can be told by the relatively small size of the bubbles compared to poorer quality stuff.
I always just open champagne by hand. I just remove the cork cage and then gently twist the cork until it pops. I never have any frothing over the side of the bottle.
Then you're doing it right. Keep the sabre for when you next need to charge a battery or something.
My dad has a Knights of Columbus sword. I don't think it is sharpened. It's been over 60 years since anyone in the family has been in the sword-wearing levels of that, so maybe it was sharp and got dull.
It doesn't need to be sharp to open champagne (or flourish ceremonially) and hopefully that's all you'll have to use it for. Cutting wedding cake it might need to be a bit sharp for.
In the Peace Corps, I learned how to take the cap off a beer bottle by whacking it upward with a spatula or knife. When I came home, I found out that developing country beer caps are attached less securely than American beer caps, and doing the same thing broke the neck off the bottle rather than just popping the cap off. Knocking the neck off beer bottles with a spatula is just as cool as beheading a champagne bottle with a sabre, right?
In college, I learned how to take the cap off a beer bottle by slamming it down on the edge of the counter. When I got out of college, I found that I actually valued the tops of the counter more than thirty seconds of having to fish about for a bottle opener.
27: Right. Whole bunches of guns for other uses.
There's also the thing where you use one bottle (cap still on) to remove the cap from another bottle. It works very well for the 50% of the time when the cap that comes off first is the one on the bottle that is facing up.
28- It makes you seem much more refined when you get in bar fights.
There's also the opening it with your eye socket technique. (Probably limited to one-season wonder Cleveland Indians.)
32. Speaking of comical anomalies (in the previous thread), I've run into people (young whippersnappers, of course) who have never dealt with a beer bottle that needs an opener. They either always drink from cans, or the been they drink all has twist tops. Similarly, people (some not even so young) who have never seen or used a wine bottle corkscrew.
Collapse of civilization imminent. Film at 11.
been -> beer.
No, I haven't started yet, I just can't type.
Ran into some d²-level trolling the other idea. Good beer better out of a can than a bottle because even dark bottles allow some degradation from light.
34: The young whippersnappers I see around here are all into craft brews that never have twist-off tops (except on a growler). Though cans are making a come-back in the fancy beer set.
Good beer better out of a can than a bottle because even dark bottles allow some degradation from light.
Not if you keep them in the dark.
And on the swimming thing, all I will say is take the toxic intersection of authoritarianism, parental anxiety and kids that is the Youth Sports Industrial Complex and sadly no surprise some of the channels the excesses take. Also, it unfortunately squares pretty well with my experiences in the swimming world (the experience of which I've already subjected to several agonizing reappraisals over the years).
I can't believe we're talking about methods of opening bottles instead of any of the three separate interesting links in the OP.
"the other day", not "idea".
Furrfu.
40, 41: What you mean "we", white man.
"Ran into some d²-level trolling "
I spent a couple hours reading dsquared's comments at the guardian yesterday:
https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/2383664
really quality trolling
Similarly, people (some not even so young) who have never seen or used a wine bottle corkscrew.
I thought this was supposed to be a good thing because poor-quality corks can ruin the wine, but a screw top is pretty reliable. It's just snob value that has kept corks going.
Snob value and that you can't make a really good bulletin board by putting a bunch of screw tops in a frame.
But if you get lots of them and nail them upside down to the floor, it will give you the sensation of walking on lots of little metal bottle tops nailed upside down to the floor.
I can't say I'm surprised by OP.3. In recent years I have been rethinking some of the stuff that was going on in my club team during jr. high, high school, and later. There were fairly formal inquiries conducted by parents/club administrators regarding the coach, who I mostly thought of as an authoritarian and tough disciplinarian. I understood these to be about harsh coaching and maybe his immaturity, and lots of swimmers, parents, and community members agreed and supported him vocally.
But in retrospect, there are lots of other signs that things were worse than that. Behavior I witnessed first-hand was utterly inappropriate and unacceptable, and I now realize he should have fired for it (and in one incident, possibly charged criminally). And now I think that was probably the least of it.
There is no snob value in falling for champagne flacks' hype re sabres people! It's tacky, proceed by normal, standard, non-fizzy-losing methods above.
Have not and sm not going to read swimming story, partly as am horrifically reminded of sex abuse uncovered in English music schools and that in turn brought up non-sex but still definitely abuse memories from own youth, don't want to dwell today.
48: Yep, similar here. My two HS coaches and the one following all were engaged in some manner of underage sex (and other inappropriate behaviors). The one after me ended up in well-deserved legal trouble. I have certainly had to reassess my own attitudes and behaviors from that time. And for me it was all in the context of late-60s and early 70s sexual "freedom" that LB talked about the other day. A very confusing and unhealthy environment for viewing the whole endeavor of sex as a positive thing.
And one of the people mentioned in the story (pretty much just in passing) coached me back in the day (basically got me started in competitive swimming--but not one of the three HS coaches mentioned above). Went on to much greater prominence, but was pushed out of the organization in 2010. So, under suspicion? Sure, he was one of the most authoritarian and charismatic people I have ever encountered. But from the few details I know, he was in great conflict with the guy who headed the organization and was kept out of the HoF. So who the fuck knows.
I finally read the piece about the sex abuse in swimming (and other sports). It was just as horrific as I expected it to be, or moreso.
Does anyone else remember the movie "Personal Best" (from 1982)? Saving Mariel Hemingway from the horror of lesbianism, male coach Scott Glenn selflessly seducing her to do so? I recall at the time there was some criticism about that, but not much. Yikes.
There was also a funny folk song about anabolic steroids.
The past is another country.
40, 50 (esp.): the coach I'm thinking of stayed with my team after the inquiry, but had some other (probably related) issues that led to his quitting some years later. A quick search indicates he's still coaching. His positions, though, have gone down in status since the late '80s, despite some pretty remarkable success with swimmers around my time.
I find the screaming method of coaching useless and think that the people who do it are losers with no self discipline or self control. Screamy coaches doing other bad things seems to me like a pretty logical progression. I know some people really like it but I just don't get it. It seems to me like some sort of authoritarian follower thing, or Stockholm syndrome.
I've wondered about the Stockholm syndrome piece too and whether it's related to other parts of magical thinking that seem to get tied up in sports so easily.
but a screw top is pretty reliable. It's just snob value that has kept corks going
That's my impression as well. From the interviews I've read with winery owners, employees, etc it seems pretty universally accepted that screw tops are way better for the storage of wine and they'd all switch over if it wasn't for pushback from the idiot customer base.
Wine makers claiming to be unhappy that "idiot consumers" force them to do things that are illogical but provide a feeling of prestige and quality - that's a good one. And what's with the idiot consumers forcing them to have some wines be red and some be white? Taste tests prove that this is not a good signifier of flavor.
55. Vintners actually don't like real corks, largely because they are expensive, so they are trying the plastic ones and of course screw tops. But there is definitely a snob factor in real ones.
57. Taste tests prove that this is not a good signifier of flavor.
Don't taste tests also prove that absent external signifiers (i.e., the label) wine drinkers can't identify wines any better than chance?
56 is right. It's all about the illogical feeling of prestige and quality. To avoid that, I drink mostly beer and discount port.
58: Because alcohol consumption is all about being logical.
How well pedestrians along Murray have come to know the voice of the man they call the Cheap Port Man. "Getchyar cheap port right here! Heavily discounted!"
I find the screaming method of coaching useless
I want to agree with this, but about the best athletic experience I ever had was sailing for a shouty old guy who yelled at us all the time. Sailing might be different, though, because instantaneous obedience is more of an issue than in other sports; you need to leap to do what you're told without pausing to think about it, because the boat is doing something right now.
But that wasn't particularly fear-producing shouting, so maybe different.
Speaking of sports, Breath family outing in the 'hood this weekend. The worst college football game in the worst college football town is tomorrow.
61: Yeah, I think a bit of yelling to motivate and emphasize is fine. It's the red-faced, clipboard-throwing, athlete-slapping level that I'm thinking about. I get the impression that the rapist coach in the OP link was such a man.
61, 63:
I don't know about the relative efficacy of screamy coaching versus other coaching, and whether the screaminess of a coach is correlated with other bad behaviors. I do believe, though, that a norm allowing authority generally to scream is bad overall.
Also, it's worth distinguishing screamy types. The coach I'm thinking of was not the stereotype of a sideline / pool deck ranter. He was harsh--no missing practices, no slacking off in work sets, you support your teammates (stand during their races, walk together before and after relays, you stay at the meet until everyone's done), but not a negative ranter/clipboard thrower. He would, though, scream in support like an avid fan. And when you did something impressive (winning a close race, best times, qualifying for whatever meet), he would yell and scream and make it seem like the awesomest thing in the world. The negative side of his style was more side-eye, dismissive, ignoring, subtle put-downs to others or to the group, gendered remarks of various sorts. And only some occasions where violence seemed barely contained, or not quite fully contained. Also, sexual innuendo.
Yeah. My guy was shouty in sort of a G-rated drill sergeant kind of way. Gruff but not nasty or negative when not actually shouting, and the shouting was, while certainly sometimes insulting, all about the immediate obedience.
Speaking of sports, I think 62 is the only time I've ever seen a link to anything on the ESPN 538 website.
The downside of natural cork is the risk of tainting. On the upside, sustainably harvested they provide an economic basis for preserving habitat that would otherwise likely be lost. http://www.corkforest.org/ Snob or not, I'll stick with cork when given the choice! Besides people it's Ferdinand's hangout!
I suppose using the same logic, the champers sword is critical to preservation of the sexy but box of rocks hussar lieutenant, so may have to rethink my disapproval ...
For however little it's worth, I've spoken with some wine folks who say that natural corks are actually good for high-end wine (those that you keep in a cellar for a number of years) because they very slowly transmit oxygen to the wine, which what allows it to age and develop over time. Screw tops and plastic corks are great if you don't expect the wine to improve with age and proper storage.
But many styles of wine (eg most whites) don't improve with long aging anyway, so certainly should have screwtops from a purely functional standpoint.
Obviously the best wines should come in aluminum cans sealed with natural cork.
Whaaaa? This is just crazy talk. No no no.
Back to the sexy hussars, I've been officially 35 long enough that my own days of playing with same are likely over but in solidarity with my sisters in younger generations the champers sword, although irredeemably vulgar, is approved solely to encourage foolish, heedless but sexy young men.
69: Exactly. Most of it's being sold to be drunk pretty quickly, not kept in a cellar for years. People look all sideways at boxed wine as well but it's totally a better way to package and store wine in the short term. Black Box in particular is a steal.
On an earlier topic, I taught Kai how to use a waiter's tool corkscrew last night. The bottle was already open, so not a true test, but he did use proper technique.
The #1 area IME where the PA state store system falls down is in box wines. They basically have Franzia, Black Box, Bota, Big House, and a smattering of others. It's incredibly rare that I see a writeup of box wine* that mentions anything actually sold in my state.
*not that I see a ton, but still, n>3.
That's part of why I started drinking the giant bottles of cheap port.
Man's inhumanity to man is most of the rest of it.
Plus, I've been sort of sick lately. People keep hearing me cough and asking if they can help me. I think they just want me to go home before I infect them.
Moby, go warm up with a sexy hussar, have him decapitate a bottle of fizzy for you! Then drink him under the table and cheat him at cards. I understand this is a sure fire cure for a cold.
Oh that is so sad, mobes, much condolences.
I'm trying to remember when my last trip to Africa was.
I'm resisting the temptation to repeat a racist joke with the Birmingham Bridge at its center.
I haven't been here long enough to figure out what joke.
Anyway, off to swim the liquor store.
Clearly either that vicar or myself have been doing one of those two things disastrously wrong.
I must be failing Mrs. E, because I've never heard her make a sound like a properly uncorked bottle of champagne.
I really should have said "at least one of those two things," for the sake of accuracy.
Think of it as the champagne signalling consent to be drunk.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e0wUCE4iraI
Beginning from 11:05, jean gabin shows how it is done.
It seems as if the champagne uncorking there was mostly offscreen, and mostly metaphorical.
But clearly correctly executed...
Nevertheless, "shows how it is done" may not be entirely accurate.
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Is it really only 3pm? Jeeeeeeez.
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Now that it's 4pm, can we talk again?
Admittedly, my heart beats in Mountain Time, but I'm surprised that these timestamps do the same.
I liked it better when it was mountain time plus six minutes.
Yes, that's the relativistic effect from being a mile above sea level.
alameida, I saw 13 before you redacted it and now after and I just want to say that you're not the only one going through that and it's a huge gift to your daughters that you've given them a mother who would never make that choice.
I don't think you can ever make a woman sigh contentedly by unscrewing her.
103: thanks a lot thorn!
61: and now that you know what sailing with my grandfather was like, you know what my grandfather was like generally at all times.
105.1: This is probably the sort of advice you don't need, but it would be pretty common for you to be triggered by your daughters' ages to have to really emotionally deal with your mom's actions and complicity when you were those ages in a different way.
Alameida:
Let me endorse Thorn's delayed response in 103. I saw it on the train yesterday morning, was horrified and saw it was gone by the time I got to work and a keyboard. The cold-bloodedness of waiting for the day, and the complicity; I know you'll never get over it but at least you can face it and use it as Thorn says.
106: I know. it makes me queasy. as long as I don't have another nervous breakdown about it it'll be fiiiiiiine I bet.
107: thanks idp. I was feeling also like maybe it wasn't a very bad story in light of what happened to those swimmers, and I shouldn't make everything about me all the time. but actually it's a pretty sad story.
64: Let me chime in with support for the position that the form of the authoritative manipulation is probably not correlated with the incidence of actual abuse behind the scenes. Of the three coaches mentioned in the 50, the first was a brooding menace with the rare sporadic bursts of verbal violence* (and we all believed that physical violence from him was a possibility), the second was sort of a "wise guy" who was not very effective as a coach (although his transgressions were arguably the least serious, he was fired much more quickly because not winning; and the one transgression that I heard sealed the deal was a poorly-concealed consensual sexual relationship with the mother of one of the swimmers), and the third was a passive-aggressive with a cult-like following**.
*His most memorable "pep talk" before a meet was after someone had apparently stolen his stopwatch. The entirety of it was a profane 2-minute rant on the state of our souls and the fallen world in which a stopwatch could be stolen. We swam well.
**My most significant interactions with him was via our mutual positions in a leadership position at our church. In retrospect he was certainly another (if minor) brick in the wall of my rejection of religion.
I haven't read all of the Outside piece yet, but that comment from the European investigator made me wonder if the whole Sandusky business wasn't just the tip of a humongous iceberg of rape and sexual assault in the traditionally macho boys' sports of football, baseball, basketball and hockey. I mean, if it's hard for people to admit that perverts are molesting teen girls in swimsuits, how many orders of magnitude harder is it going to be to admit that a boys' baseball coach is fondling away in the bullpen?