How to seem rich without being so is a good thread tooic.
Isn't he rich by literature-professor standards?
Per "One-upmanship," you should be reading a book so obscure and strange (maybe it is falling apart or dripping ichor) that people will approach you to find out what it is about, or one so infra dig compared to your no-doubt Davos-attending, Oxonian-don cultural supremacy that people will approach out of fear that they have not yet (e.g.) appreciated the works of Chuck Tingle, or depending on your projected gender identity, any of the Rabid Puppies. (Actually, "Viz" might work if it's still around; is it?)
7: I have alluded to the wisdom of the late, sainted Russell Baker many times, but this cannot be said too often:
As much as you may wish that an attractive girl (or whatever, mutatis mutandis) would sidle up to you and your Malleus Maleficarum* or Golden Bough** and murmur "What's that big book about, big boy [or whatever, mutatis mutandis]?," that will never occur. Give up.
* Ladies.
** Too much?
Hold the line. Love isn't always on time.
But, as we know, an attractive woman did sidle up to me as I was reading Quellen des Wissens, and at the APA an attractive woman sidled up to me at the hotel bar as I was revising my paper.
I bet if you were sitting at a bar or cafe or whatever with the complete and unabridged Golden Bough there would be someone who asked you what the hell it was.
I was going to say aim low, like say Donald Goines, but he isn't near obscure enough for that crowd. You could project "I don't care about obscurity" with an Elmore Leonard but really, if you want to stand out with a book that no one at the ALA would ever even consider reading, then "The Art of the Deal" is it.
10
If you were revising it with a fountain pen on foolscap I could easily believe it.
11
I have an unabridged "Golden Bough" but I've never tried that.
12 is a very good answer but is it the best answer? I think that say John Updike's Rabbit books might produce
more visceral level of contempt. An interesting experiment would be to sit at the bar reading that book and repeatedly buy very expensive drinks by putting $100 bills down on the bar, and see how you do.
I was going to suggest The Art of the Deal but I see I've been pwned.
16
Art of the Deal is too on the nose, people might pick up that you're trolling them. Maybe go with How to Make Friends and Influence People.
I read a tatty copy Camus's Le Pest in French on the bus once, and only got hit on by the most insufferable of pretentious proto-hipster. Serves me right.
14.1 is right that chicks dig fountain pens. The one I got myself for my birthday makes me happy every day.
That was sure not my usual "I want to get a chick for my birthday" call.
21 wasn't even me.
I have a fountain pen. I have several, but only one I carry daily.
Here's an idea. The hot new political movement sweeping the world is right-wing European xenophobia. You will certainly be thought to be open to unconventional ideas if you can find an English translation of one of those books we keep hearing about that are #1 best-sellers in France or Italy, about how French or Italian civilization was destroyed by immigration and secularism.
Any of the presented options might work, but I vote for Ass Eating Made Simple.
Assholes Finish First by Tucker Max.
The Rules BY ELLEN FEIN AND SHERRIE SCHNEIDER
I met him once. Or at least he was pointed out to me. This was before he was famous.
Somewhat serious answer: A Little Life (contemporary, well-regarded, controversial, with a provocative cover).
26 made me wonder "I wonder what Tucker Max is up to these days? Born again Christian maybe?" And it turns out he's teamed up with a psych professor at the University of New Mexico to write a guide to attracting women. Become the Man Women Want, Nosflow.
No, no, no, women want fountain pens! I already covered this! Moby gets me.
The Levenger catalog started out as pron.
Maybe that's the message of the book: the man women want is a man who owns several fountain pens.
They could price the book really low and make their money on a line of tie-in fountain pens.
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a fountain pen.
Whew, I almost got pwned on fish and fountain pens but noticed before hitting post that Moby still speaks for me! Seriously, though, no one has ever said anything nice about my using this but presumably they're too intimidated.
Huh, the Tucker Max how-to-attract-women book actually sounds relatively sane and decent:
To attract women, you must be able to take their point of view and think of them not as marketing vehicles to objectify, but as living, thinking, feeling individual humans. You have to subjectify them: accept, understand, and acknowledge their individual, subjective consciousness.
Ironically, a great way to understand a woman's point of view is to think of her as a marketing consumer: a savvy customer evaluating your products (traits) and ads (proofs) to see if they'll add value to her life. If you want to guarantee mating failure, all you have to do is think of her as nothing more than an inanimate object--as an "8" or a "9," as a simplistic robot with a set of "triggers" and "hot buttons" to manipulate. At that point you've reduced your customer to nothing more than a cash dispenser, or, since we're talking about objectifying a woman, a sex dispenser.
Objectifying women isn't just a moral failure. At the purely practical level of attracting women, it's stupid. It might temporarily reduce your anxiety about approaching them (about making your pitch), because if you think of them as targets, you can try to trick yourself into thinking that they won't be judging you when you walk up to them. But they are judging you--and that's OK, as long as you understand how and why.
38: That is surprising! I wonder if the association with Tucker Max will help get that message across to the PUA-type guys who desperately need to hear it. It certainly seems to be targeted at them.
That's absolutely hilarious.
Next level PUA artistry guys! Be kind of a decent vaguely feminist guy and actually sincerely treat them like people with varying tastes and interests who you respect and would like to think well of you! They'll never see it coming!
It's kind a brilliant marketing move, actually.
And more from the new subversively sort-of feminist Tucker Max:
. She can smell your over-practiced pick-up artists tricks from a mile away. It's like her superpower.
By the time you've met her, a normal American woman has spent years honing that superpower. She had to develop it after putting up with so much shit from lame guys hitting on her, catcalling, sexually harassing, and potentially even stalking her. Since puberty, when she started developing hips and breasts and pretty facial features, she's had to deal with creepers and sketchballs to some degree or another, and she's probably pretty sick of it.
It's hard for guys to appreciate what it would be like to grow up being stared at and sexually harassed every day of your life from age twelve onward. So instead, what you need to realize is that all this sexual attention a woman gets sows in her a fear of raw physical violence--reactive assault--that could be sparked if she ignores your come-ons, rejects you in a way you find demeaning, or dates you for six months before finding out you're a paranoid, jealous control freak.
That's the female reality of living in sexual fear. She's afraid of creeps, weirdos, crazies, losers, and stalkers.
Last week I got to tell a guy that actually I suspect his wife understands him perfectly, which was satisfying. I am no help for nosflow.
I am no help for nosflow.
Luckily, Tucker Max is still there for him.
"Your wife might understand, and I do."
29: I want to be able to respect myself.
Wait, I could have given the answer I always give when someone asks for a book recommendation. You should get I Capture the Castle, maybe the version without the movie cover or J.K. Rowling blurb if you're trying to be fancy, and then use the swooning bodies like Lincoln Logs to build a fort or whatever it is you're into in this endeavor in the first place.
Read a book about libraries and then if someone asks say, "Oh no, I'm at the wrong ALA!"
42: Wait, was the whole PUA thing just a bunch of actual feminists playing a ridiculously long game? Because they did actually manage to corral a lot of the hard core misogynists into one general area, and turning them all into no-seriously real feminists right now would be nobel prize award level trolling.
Also where exactly is Tigre getting these quotes? Do you already own this book? Feel free to lie in response to that question.
48: Many critics considered it one of the best books of the year, why wouldn't you be able to respect yourself? Don't tell me that you're judging a book by its cover. . .
51 -- I subscribe to a PUA service that digests and puts into bite-size "news you can use" excerpts all the best and latest PUA material.
Tucker Max and the "Mystery" guy have gotten lots of publicity nowadays for becoming sincere and relatively sensitive non-douchebags.
Tucker Max was always a pretty smart writer; not just an asshole.
Seriously, though, no one has ever said anything nice about my using this but presumably they're too intimidated.
A miniature and inexpensive (for fountain pens in the US) fountain pen that doesn't take cartridges? Swoon.
What does anyone ever write by hand anymore? Three or four times a year I have to fill out a check, and at restaurants I have to sign the receipt. When I have to fill out checks, I have no muscle memory, and make misshapen letters, and sometimes write them in the wrong order and have to go back and make insertions. And that's all as it should be.
...pretty smart writer; not just an asshole.
The two are far from mutually exclusive.
I've been astonished to learn how much of our accounting system at work consists of people hand-writing things on pieces of paper. There's an electronic system too, but I'm not sure exactly how it intersects with the hand-written parts.
Don't get me started. More and more things seem to be driven by the need to justify for internal audit by the larger institution. This is affecting workflows everywhere and having a huge distorting effect on operations. And we're not even really operational yet.
I should write a book about this place if/when I leave.
Sadly you probably won't leave soon enough to send it to nosflow to read at the hotel bar.
There was one workflow at my last job that went through printouts and handwritten notes and I came to the conclusion that it was the best way to do that task, given the available tools.
Nosflow should bring a copy of the Mythical Man Month.
57: Hey, plenty of us have the muscle memory firmly intact. Writing things down on stuff is an important bit of human technology and works way better than other stuff. Even stuff people instinctively think will work better. So it's more than worth maintaining.
67: That may well be the case here too; I don't know enough about the workflows in question to say for sure. On the other hand, it's always yesterday in Alaska so it's quite possible that we're just behind the best available options.
70: There was some slight pressure to change it because it was part of public services, which meant it was partly visible to the public, and some people thought it "looked" bad. The suggestion was to use something like an iPad, which would have been horrible without some substantial investment of time choosing software, and probably would have been horrible anyway because one of the things that made it work was the fact that different people can look at different pieces of paper at the same time.
I've explained it to a few people and watched reactions go from shock and horror to "huh, it makes a lot of sense (but I wish it didn't)".
Yeah, the stuff I'm talking about is completely internal so the public visibility issue isn't part of it.
68: and the collected poems of Elizabeth Bishop, and conspicuously alternate between them.
(Made explicit. Also I am no Bishop scholar but I only knew of her earlier sad relationship, not this seemingly happier and arguably more significant one. Includes this sentence: "Several years later, Ms. Methfessel met Angela Leap when the two were waiting at an airport to travel to a computer camp both were attending." ...because OBVIOUSLY one of them had a copy of The Mythical Man-Month in one hand and a copy of Bishop's collected works in the other.)
Methfessel is such a great surname.
Dann magst du mich in Methfesseln schlagen, the poet murmured as she fell in love.
Viz magazine is still going. For reasons involving pressingly urgent procrastination I found myself reading some last night. I do not know how well The Fat Slags would pull at the ALA and would urge neB to make the experiment but I thought this T shirt was just about perfect for filtering out the sensitive types.
I wish my plan for the weekend included getting hammered after going through that horrendous review. Ugh.
Here, have a chapter of Buchan pastiche.
On topic, may I suggest The Management of Savagery?
84 comments and no one's suggested Atlas Shrugged? I'm disappointed.
Alternately, you could go with The Deluge, as a secret signal to any other unfogged readers who happen to be at ALA.
82 being supported by my boss for a possible promotion even though I think I was unfairly down rated on some categories.
84. Excellent so far. I look forward to following it. But you should really publish in in a form which garners you fame and riches.
I'd go with Chuck Tingle. Yeah, other people will be doing it. There may even be a panel on Tingle at the conference. But it would be funny if a couple met because they were both reading "Pounded In The Butt By My Book "Pounded In The Butt By My Own Butt"" in a hotel lobby.
50 Shades of Gray. Or maybe to appear more au courant one of the sequels.
a secret signal to any other unfogged readers
93: Well that should make my amazon "suggestions for you" list interesting for while.
88: Congrats and good luck Barry!
95 Thank. I'm rather uncharacteristically hammered on some bourbon (Maker's Mark from a Kentucky cow orker) Wooooot!!!
Yay, Barry! You should comment a lot!! Another commenter and I went to the Maker's distillery last fall (and to Gethsemani, among other things) and I got to dip my own bottle, which was fun.
I got to dip my own bottle, which was fun.
GOOD FOR YOU THORN YOU DESERVE IT
I don't think I've had that head swimming feeling since my early twenties tho
Now would be a great time to write her a maudlin mash note.
Just be sure to put it in the mail before you sober up.
Bourbon + contemplatives + nature is indeed pretty good.
My weekend plans are an 8-hour drive to a family reunion, which I'm dreading a little bit because I'll be the only one with children and so I'll feel guilty and like they're in the way. But perhaps some of the dozens of relatives will want to spend time with them and I can get a fucking nap or just sit and not talk for a couple of minutes. Oh, and catch up on my chapters and get my blog homework done too. I'm having Big Feelings about the end of the school year and this trip sort of marking one year as a single parent even though there are a few weeks of overlap yet to go calendarwise and gah.
102 Further even than usual, unfortunately. gotta get on that mash not but sleep beckons.
Family reunion sounds nice, I'm sure family will want to spend time with the one, so don't feel guilty.
Not sure one follows from the other but it's still true. She'll have a good time and so should you.
||
No papers are signed yet, but it looks like I've locked in a contract role through the end of the year with the intent to convert to FT at the end of the contract provided everyone's happy! Not as much money as I was hoping for from a contract role, but still better than nothing coming in the door. Provisionally super stoked!
|>
And Barry, here's my suggested first draft for your note:
"Maybe it's the beer talking Marge but you got a butt that won't quit.
they got those big chewy pretzels here merJanthfgrr five dollars??!!!?
get outta here [scrawl]"
105: Thorn, in my experience of reunions with my own family, one member turning up with kids is not the signal for everyone else to go "ugh kids in the way", it's the signal for everyone else to descend on those kids in a sort of swarm or horde of grandparental/avuncular/avauntular/cousinal spirit and spoil them to unprecedented levels. If anything, you will be the one in the way. Do not be surprised if they start referring to you as "what's her name, you know, that one who's hanging around with Nia and Mara".
109: fine excuse to get on to the bourbon then.
I've been meaning to post these lyrics to help nosflow out with his difficulties in complimenting women on their clothes.
Chuck Cleaver of Wussy shows you how it's done.
The yellow cotton dress is beautiful no doubt
But it becomes a motherfucker
When you fill it out
113: Making reservations for dinner tonight. You'd better believe there will be large amounts of alcohol consumed.
Holy le FUCK! Major professional coup. What a roller coaster of of a day!
(Actually, "Viz" might work if it's still around; is it?)
Viz, the magazine? It might be hard to find in the US, but Nosflow could get a collection of Andy Capp comics.
Woo Hoo! Congratulations Chopper and Barry Freed!!!
120: That's not like romance. Wait until sobriety before answering that email.
So weird. To be all cryptic about it., a couple of weeks ago in land, a bit far away but not too far, I saw a unicorn I'd been hunting but never thought I'd see because, well, unicorn. When I got up close though I saw that it was, um, not exactly not a unicorn but not something I'd want because, well, it was probably someone else's unicorn. A sullied unicorn, you might say. And that was that. Until I saw another unicorn. Almost within the very week. And by all indications pure. And now it's mine all mine. Bwhahaha. Two unicorns within the week. So weird. What a week.
128: is this some kind of sex thing?
I mean, I know that "unicorn" has a sexual meaning. But I want to be know what unsullied scurrility Barry is driving at.
Yay everyone! It was a holiday today here and we had a lovely day. Brunch in the 3rd with two friends, then Hundertwasserhaus and museum, then a drink by the canal with a friend, then another drink on the donauinsel with that friend and another friend, then dinner and drinks with said friends at a Greek place on the island overlooking the neue Donau at sunset. The kind of day to make us think we could actually be happy here. Yay!
This seems like the right thread to share. It's 1:20 am, I'm beyond exhausted, and I have over 6300 words and am about halfway through my point. I have an 8 page conference paper which will make up part of the final part, except I have to rework it so it doesn't just sound like a conference paper. This draft is for a workshop with a hard upper limit of 40 pages and a soft limit of 30, which I am approaching soonish. I have a general sense of my argument but am too tired to really write it well, except I need to get it down. I also have a bunch of annoying fiddly stuff that will take time--converting my own phonetic notation system into IPA, wrangling the formatting of about 30 images into the chapter, providing a word for word gloss of things I've translated. [I really should do that in latex, but then I'd have to figure out how to get latex and scrivner to cooperate]. I'm trying to decide between more black tea, making coffee, or taking a 2 hour nap. The thing is due more or less by some time tomorrow, except I have a lot I wanted to do and wanted to get this done tonight.
I really should do that in latex
Is this the thread on tight clothing and academics?
Ok, now it's 3:43. I have almost 8,000 words, and I'm running out of space.* A minor point kind of expanded a lot, so I still am only about halfway through the chapter. I think I might have to stop around here and provide an outline of what I want to do in the second half.
Also, one of my things tomorrow got cancelled, so I actually now have more time to work on it.
*I am ok pushing it to near 40, but given that the pictures are going to add another 10 pages or so I don't want to annoy too many people.
Thanks Barry!
It's 4:36 and I'm at 8350 words, and I'm going to hit up against the limit soon. So far I'm pretty happy with what I've written. There are rambly bits in there and I'm sure the writing could use cleaning up, but I feel like I've been able to articulate things that I've been trying to say for awhile. I wish I'd done this days earlier so I could have time to do the little stuff like properly cite sources,* clean up or tinker with formatting, do a proper interlinear gloss, etc.
*I don't mean in the plagiarism way, but in the "ok, one of three authors made this point but all the sources are really giant books I don't have time to trawl through so I'm either going to dump them all in, or pick one at random for the rough draft since no one reading it is that familiar with the literature, at least not to the point they'd remember that it was 1970s sociologist X of rural China said the point, not sociologist Y."
Or my personal favorite, where I just write (SOURCE) as a place marker.
Yay Buttercup! Is that where you already know the source is that like "(FIND SOURCE)" that I can recall doing a few times back in the day.
Wow, yay everybody. Buttercup, good luck. Finishing my dissertation wasn't the worst thing I've eever done, but it was close. I hope you have a plan that lets you recover when you finish.
143
Yeah it's usually that. Occasionally it's a claim that I feel like should have some sort of citation but I haven't found it yet. (Usually I google scholar a few key terms and skim through the articles/google book entries until I find something respectable).
It's 5:37 and I have 9137 words. I've moved from writing to summarizing my article now.
Also, thanks again for all the support, liveblogging my dissertation-writing all nighter is strangely a very affirming and supportive activity. You guys have given me the energy to push through some serious tired slumps.
Happy to help! I'm here all (of your) night.
Ok, I've finished a rough draft of a rough draft, and I'm going to sleep for a few hours so I'll be awake enough to proof read it. Thanks again for the help. I've gotten to over 9200 words, and I feel like the chapter has become much more coherent than it felt like at the start. It's overstuffed and fingers crossed I won't be horrified in 4 hours when I reread it.
Even if it's overstuffed and you have to cut it in half or less that's still a ton of work you did in one night. Well done!
Heartiest congratulations to Chopper, Barry, Buttercup and anybody I may have missed!
Also, less absurdly, congratulations to Chopper!