Welcome to the desert of the fictional.
I mean, I managed to finally come up with some. But not easily!
Huh. What do you get out of watching movies / TV series, then? Or reading fiction?
Not snarking, actually wondering. I had an office mate in graduate school who *also* didn't bond or empathize with the characters -- who argued with me that it was bizarre to do so, since the characters weren't real. Her entire pleasure from reading fiction came from thinking about and writing criticism about it.
Which, okay. Life is a rich tapestry, after all.
Heebie doesn't appreciate us!
I assume Heebie identifies with imaginary numbers.
3: Oh, I identify with them in the sense that I can play along and relate and enjoy the show. I don't identify with them enough to post their photos and say "this captures my essence" for the facebook meme.
(Although I did.)
i identify with an imaginary number
I wouldn't say that I never identify with fictional characters, but eg I just read "I Capture the Castle" (which, per Thorn, is wonderful), and I can't say that I identified with any of the characters in any resonant way. I mean, they were recognizable and empathetic, and there were moments of identification, but no deep connection even though, as I say, I loved the book.
9: I haven't done the meme because I'm really not exactly Cassandra but I'm also not not. Ooh, maybe Simon??
This is the first I ever heard of this meme and it wasn't on my Facebook at all. I just checked.
I cannot keep "I Capture The Castle" straight from "We Have Always Lived In The Castle". "I Capture" is the girl with the siblings and the eccentric writers'-blocked father and artists' model stepmother and absolutely no money, whose older sister gets engaged to the rich American? (Vaguely, at least?)
Yes, that exactly. The other's also about sisters but less romance and more murder.
"I Capture The Man Who Has Always Lived In The High Castle"
So admitting to an identification with characters that are too shallow is declasse right? Kim Kardashian, Kanye, Trump, Brangelina, all out of bounds for unstated reasons I guess even though this very identification widely multiplied is the (well, one of the sources for the talented ones) source of their considerable wealth.
The actual way to play this game I think is to flip through the tabloid magazines at the grocery.
Otto in The Recognitions, Kostoglotov, Travis McGee or maybe his buddy Meyer.
Otto in The Recognitions
Not Otto in A Fish Called Wanda?
Kim Kardashian, Kanye, Trump, Brangelina
Not sure they really qualify as fictional characters.
No? I almost put Sporty Spice as one of mine.
I don't really identify with fictional characters, pretty much ever. When I get involved with them, I get fond of them as if they were real people, but real people other than me.
I identify with semi-fictional characters, like myself and Beowulf.
I kind of identified with Ross from Friends until he got super-whiny which, from watching reruns, I now recognize as having been somewhere during the pilot episode.
I mean, I don't really identify with any IRL people either.
Mostly, I don't think of myself as a type that shows up in fiction much. Fictional characters tend to be less prone to doing literally nothing for extended periods of time.
I feel like that happens in some of the novels Nosflow likes.
True -- the books I read tend to have gunfire, or at least the occasional explosion.
27 was sort of my explanation for myself, too.
I could handle being an Ent. Entwives, with all the perkily efficient agriculture, are right out.
Trying to think about three characters together, I suppose I qualify with the new Emma Donoghue book, The Wonder, between the hard-headed 11-year-old who's starving herself and unwilling to be swayed, the brittle but tender-hearted nonbeliever nurse who grows to care for her (in more ways than one, gag), and the passionate realist politicized newspaperman. And yet the book didn't really work for me.
I guess I can't identify with them because of the extremely slow conversation factor.
I'm still imprinted on various fictional characters from Dazed and Confused, but that's not necessarily something I want to broadcast on Facebook. Probably better to pick some highbrow shit from Shakesbeer or La Boheem.
When I read fiction in the past, I think it was to figure out how other people think and behave. Now that I have a pretty good idea about the varieties of human experience, I have very little interest in fiction.
How many years before you go to your perch on top of the mountain?
"You mean life isn't a fountain?"
Troll liberals. Check.
Understand humans. Check.
Learn to code. Check.
All that's left is "See the kids through college."
My meme answers were Lisle Von Ruhman, Helen Morgendorfer from Daria, and Edith Dombey.
In reality yeah while definitely see my past self in fictional characters, see e.g. my visceral reaction to Dorothea Ladislaw formerly Casauobon I think my reactions to characters (and tbh humans?) are usually founded on curiosity, not identification.
(Daria as a show has aged poorly but I think the fact that Helen is a very sensible woman who is stuck on a show that has aged poorly is in fact the SOURCE of my attachment to her.)
I wish the meme had been for other people tell me that THEY identify me with Lisle Von Ruhman. Ok, those are my thoughts, enjoy them.
I do think this is a fun game to play about other people. My brother would be Indiana Jones, Fred from Scooby Doo, and Calvin.
When I read fiction in the past, I think it was to figure out how other people think and behave. Now that I have a pretty good idea about the varieties of human experience, I have very little interest in fiction.
Next, move into historical fiction.
It's honestly unsettling to me that anyone would try to answer this question in a serious way. As a lighthearted question, why not? But spending more than three minutes wondering if there are fictional characters you really identify with... Like a lot of you weirdos I'm not sure I identify wholly with this commenting persona, which is pretty repulsive.
3: I find maintaining emotional ties with fictional characters, and serious disbelief-suspension, actively unpleasant, but lots of fiction is tremendously good art and no justification or specifics are needed for reading and enjoying it. I know that sounds dopey. As a kid/preteen I read quite differently, in the make-believe mode; I'd say the turning point was Lolita freshman year in h.s. But even before that I read novels for the artifice, to see how it was done.
For Heebie, I would have picked Ramona Quimby, Holly Golightly, and Mrs. Josephine Rabbit. Or some other anthropomorphized animal mother.
Obama is a combination of Bill Murray, Easy Rawlins (movie version), and Aslan.
Thinking about Lost in Translation reshot with Obama is making my day. Imagine him singing Tom Waits karaoke.
I am the anti-lurid. I used to read an insane amount of fiction, and it was all for the disbelief-suspension, being-present-in-the-fictional-world experience. I can pick something apart and be interested in how it works after I've submerged myself in it, but that's not the fundamental pleasure.
Now, I have a much harder time finding fiction that I can manage to submerge myself in, and as a result I don't read nearly as much. Analyzing and admiring the writer's technique is occasionally fun, but pretty rarely what I actually want to do with my leisure.
Or some other anthropomorphized animal mother.
Kanga-Geebie
I identify with the straight men*: George Burns of Burns and Allen (but not latter-day Burns), Tom Davis, Lou Costello, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smothers, Bob Newhart.
*Used here in the comedy sense, but it's also true in the gender sense.
I always picture peep as Bob Newhart. You'll have to pick one of the others.
anthropomorphized animal mother.
A million years ago here, someone said that they pictured me as the pleasant but harried mother in the Olivia the Pig picture books. That made me very pleased.
55: I often find it alienating to hear, say, classical musicians* talk about their experience of listening to music and other musicians: it seems intensely fussy and critical and quite different from the way I listen (which is super impressionistic and unmethodical). I can't imagine cultivating similar tastes for their own sake, because they're objectively superior or whatever, but it makes sense to me that if you're a practitioner of some art form, you'd see and hear particular things informed by practice.
Writing is a thing that loads of people do, and do in very different ways: it's hardly a discipline at all. (If it were it wouldn't be so unbearably pretentious to call yourself a writer if you didn't have a public dossier. An amateur writer? No one says this. Everyone's an amateur writer, except the dignified and respectable people who have the sense and taste to refrain.) So I hesitate to claim that there's something writerly in my analytic reading, right after delagar (a real writer!) expressed bafflement at it. But it's not because I get some detached intellectual pleasure from seeing how sentences are put together. In many ways I loathed writing literary criticism and haven't much missed it since filing the diss.
* Let's maybe narrow this down to "classical musicians in my extended family," although I've spoken with others.
Yeah, analysis is definitely something people do for the pure fun of it, and I think there are a lot of fiction-readers in that camp -- I know plenty of people who read that way. (And I certainly get into analysis for fun in other domains, it's just that it's not part of the almost compulsive relationship I used to have with fiction.)
I don't think I really read fiction for analysis, but I don't particularly identify with characters either, or at least haven't since maybe college or so.
But on the pleasures of hate-reading, I can confirm that 60 was a piece of shit comment written like shit that gave neither me nor anyone else pleasure to read. I may actually punch myself in the non-fictional face for it.
seems a little extreme. maybe punch a cat instead.
63, on the other hand, was vividly enough written that I now want to buy you a drink, alcoholic or some kind of calming herbal tea at your discretion, and am sorry that it's geographically impractical. Stress is not good for you.
I experienced the same transition Lurid did, although perhaps a bit later and more gradually, without a breakthrough or epiphany.
Even when I actually identify with a character—my original pseud is based on such an identification—my disbelief is only temporarily suspended, and never wholly as it was when I was a boy. Johnson's description of the limits of the suspended disbelief, in his Shakespeare criticism specifically describing the three unities, captures the child/adult difference well.
Cats are unavailable now that I've released the one that was accidentally trapped in my garage/basement for two days. I haven't located the inevitable shitheap yet.
I'm sorry I've done a poor job of containing the stress.
I'm an analysis-reader, which people here probably know. I miss reading for pure exuberant joy. I can sometimes get it with poetry, but even that is mostly a stretch now that I'm so totally not a teen anymore.
I do wonder which fictional mother I am. Eek.
I'm sorry I've done a poor job of containing the stress.
Don't be, keeping it bottled up is lousy for you, and this is about the least intrusive place possible to vent some of it.
I was just going to say what LB said. I would have died or some less-dramatic variant thereof without the chance to flail pitifully and angrily here. Safe space!!
Safe space!!
Well, don't overstate things. Whole lot of weirdoes here.
There is no safe space for bad writing. By fiat.
67 I don't know about stress, but you have clearly done a great job containing cats. And 60 made a lot of sense to me, so there.
It's honestly unsettling to me that anyone would try to answer this question in a serious way. As a lighthearted question, why not? But spending more than three minutes wondering if there are fictional characters you really identify with...
What, no trivial question has ever nagged at you out of proportion to its seriousness? For me it's so often exactly those things that should occupy only a half-minute of lighthearted thought that, when not dispatched lightly and quickly, tend to lurk intrusively around my thoughts for ages.
62: I really thought we had something.
I think I sometimes do the absolute opposite of the analytic writerly reading per 60, and engage in ANOTHER kind of writerly reading that zooms right beyond empathetic emotional reactions into extreme but totally narcissistic and disjunctive emotional reactions. I basically cannot read adult fiction written after idk World War I because I get trapped in a vortex of shame and rage over my own lost potential as a novelist (which is not even a thing, believe me, and if it were a thing it would be a dull thing, and it's not something I normally feel any pinch about--I was just encouraged in some delusions and strange career detours in early adulthood, fuck you dad).
What, no trivial question has ever nagged at you out of proportion to its seriousness?
I'm thinking of complaining to my son's math teacher for teaching Goldbach's Conjecture as proven when really they've only tested it by iteration up to 4 × 10^18.
My only problem with the meme was I couldn't post a picture of the narrator of "The Waltz."
The easiest one to come up with was Eeyore since I am apparently so Eeyorish that people give me stuffed Eeyores and the like, but secretly I do not feel much like Eeyore.
My only problem with the meme was I couldn't post a picture of the narrator of "The Waltz."
You know you're my favorite commenter, right?
How do you spell 'cat'?
76: actually that's a good point. I couldn't make it past page 3 of Coetzee's Boyhood for similar reasons. I should probably try again.
78: Eeyore is manipulative and loathsome and I'd never insult you with the comparison... but I admit a fake A.A. Milne dialogue on the subject of the endlessly overrated Bay Area might amuse me.
I think people just give me Eeyore because I'm dour but some large part of it is just my sense of humor. I like a lot of things. Or possibly I am also perceived as manipulative and loathsome!
Bert, shamefully Xander Harris, and Walter Bishop, but that's more aspirational.
You're just trying to get us to say you aren't manipulative.
Bartleby, Oblomov, and either Michaux's Plume or one of Bove's less-active characters. I could assemble a facebook post, but I would prefer not to.
Come to think of it, Bartleby may be aspirational.
83: You can't pin that on him! I set it up. (But it's true, he's not! To the best of my knowledge.)
85: so you did assemble the facebook post?
shamefully Xander Harris
This is how he signs correspondence, right?
Giving someone a stuffed Eeyore because they remind you of Eeyore seems like very bad manners.
Confession though for about a month I have been picturing every one of you as cast members of pretty good tv show "The Last Kingdom."
Confession though for about a month I have been picturing every one of you as cast members of pretty good tv show "The Last Kingdom."
Sadly my TV alter-ego is probably Leonard Hofstadter from the Big Bang Theory (or Martin Freeman's Dr. Watson if you want a more exciting version of the same archetype). Smart, but not likely to impress on pure brilliance; enjoys having friends who are quirkier and bigger personalities; and generally patient and conflict-averse.
OT: a spam subject line reads "Are they cheating on you?" I expect the follow up will be "Do they know about each other?"
Otto in The Recognitions,
Ha, I was thinking of this passage in connection with this ridic exercise.
I didn't mean to give the impression I didn't like analytic reading. I *am* an English professor, after all, and my most recent publication is (kinda) analytical.
But yeah, I read (and write) for the characters.
The lack of a singular, gender-neutral pronoun makes for strange spam.
||
All other attempts having failed, a brand new iMac is (temporarily) on my desktop, and the old iMac is in the car, awaiting transport to a repair place that has a decent shot at doing the job* for not too much $$.
*which at the moment looks likely to be the graphics card, which appears to be a pricey and tricky part, and I've spent enough time on this process. I've done maybe 5 hours of work since Thursday the 8th.
|>
Ok, I'll go with Otto, T-Rex from Dinosaur Comics, and Bjartur. But mostly because I think that's amusing. I am sure I have felt the passion of identification on occasion but not I can't recall many of them.
Daria as a show has aged poorly
I'm sorry to read that. I never saw much of it (just timing), but it appealed greatly to me, and I was kind of hoping it would speak to Iris (or at least give her some insight into her parents' cynical generation).
96: Oh man, one of mine was going to be the woman from Dinosaur Comics but now I don't wanna.
58: That's pretty accurate, although I don't look like him
I suppose if I was going to pick a character from pop culture it would have to be Charlie Brown, and he does look kind of like Bob Newhart.
When I was younger I identified very strongly with Dostoyevsky characters like Raskolnikov, but at some point I realized that I was profoundly mistaken about the kind of person I was.
For Heebie, I would have picked Ramona Quimby, Holly Golightly, and Mrs. Josephine Rabbit. Or some other anthropomorphized animal mother.
This is pleasing!
97 Actually less the show itself tham Daria as a character, who is, it turns out, an unconscionable twat. Quinn is the heroine.
101 omg there is a fig leaf on that bear's dick.
am I the fig leaf on the bear's dick, be honest
96: Oh man, one of mine was going to be the woman from Dinosaur Comics but now I don't wanna.
Why not?! Dromiceiomimus is great!
Really what I want to post is three iterations of Charlie Brown, but it would require too much research.
I actually identify very strongly with George Bailey, and have since I was 16 or 17, but it feels too self-congratulatory to post. I haven't been especially selfless, and this town is sure as hell not filled with my friends. The George Bailey who kicks the crap out of his hobby desk and yells at the kids? Now that's me.
I'm amazed that no one but Thorn has posted a cross-gender identification so far (right?). Gender is tripping me up big even with the "lighthearted, fun" version of this game.
I think I once expressed identification with the compulsive cleaning robot in WALL-E, and yet my house is a sty. If you give me an object that needs to be meticulously peeled or scraped, though, I will peel or scrape for days on end. An evil sorcerer would find it very easy to lure me into a trap with a giant onion: stripping off layer after layer while crying uncontrollably about the inexplicable, ceaseless duty at hand.
105: No, no, the woman being stomped. I'm not great!
OK, second round, Ganesha, Bartleby (great choice!!), Buster Keaton, the husband in "Divorce Song", and the speaker of sonnet 138.
101 omg there is a fig leaf on that bear's dick.
It's a lady bear, duh, and the fig leaf is covering her orangina.
I am surely not the only one who always mentally pronounces that word with a long i.
If I see any more wanton self-deprecation in this thread I will... tell you I am making very frosty expression at my computer monitor? Then you'll be shamed into liking yourselves.
It's best to see it as a form of comedy that is usually not very funny. Something about the self being too fluid to deprecate. (Thorn, does that seem fair?)
cross gender: Barbara Stanwyck in Lady Eve, Chhinnamasta, and uhh I guess Judith as she would have been painted by Egon Schiele.
117 rock beats scissors, frosty expression freezes fluid selves into indeprecable forms.
I actually do like myself and think I'm fantastic, just not in ways that express themselves well through fictional characters.
Jammies = Foghorn Leghorn, Simba, Ron Swanson
Self-as-performed is The Fillyjonk, aspirational self is Auntie Mame, syncretizing into I don't even know. Getting to hibernate would be aspirational too, but that sounds really good right now. Ooh, maybe the kid who sends people to the cornfield, except I've never actually seen that and just know about it from the larger culture.
I find this pretty difficult, as it's hard to find characters who are curious but cautious, and also hard to think of people who really like to figure things out but aren't also total assholes (e.g. Sherlock Holmes and all characters based on him).
people who really like to figure things out but aren't also total assholes are often female characters, IME. But I can't be much more helpful than that with names. Rebooted Tinker Bell, maybe?
124: Encyclopedia Brown, Egon Spengler, Linus
117, 121, I know I just like excuses for glaring severely.
Now I am thinking hard about the characters thing for real and it's very stressful, I was a lot happier with myself an hour ago when I was unseriously Helen Morgendorfer.
124, same. Every scientist in a movie or TV show seems to be some sort of asshole, at or above the Dr. House level. The scientist is always the guy who sees someone on his team praying and says "Please tell me you don't seriously believe that mumbo jumbo".
I should probably also be a character who glares severely.
Messily is rather good at this game.
no one but Thorn has posted a cross-gender identification
I tried, but failed. Stupid patriarchy and its stupid forced internalization of norms.
Every scientist in a movie or TV show seems to be some sort of asshole, at or above the Dr. House level.
What about the professor on Gilligan's Island? He seemed OK.
124. American private detective fiction has 60 years of characters to help you. Marlowe, Travis McGee, Jim Rockford, Easy Rawlins, Magnum PI. ANd that's before considering knowledgable comic book figures or James Thurber, whose characters are cursed by knowing and understanding everything which renders them hapless.
It's okay, because probably no one else in history and certainly no one here is going to top 118. Bravo/a, lw.
I briefly considered trying to dress like Jim Rockford. I just didn't think I could pull it off.
Kotsko on facebook had an all-female trio. Another former commenter went with an all-Golden Girls trio.
128, 133. You guys make weird choices. All astronauts are capable engineers-- Dave in 2001, hero of The Martian, astronaut in Interstellar. Dr fucking Who, Battlestar Galactica.
Look, MEN on the Hallmark channel all have issues-- if you're watching stuff where brains are a problem in a different spirit than enjoying one of Victoria Principal's Hallmark movies (occasionally fantastic moody cinematography, plus extreme fun), I respectfully suggest that there's a less self-loathing way to approach your source material.
Barney Fife + Don Quixote + Deadpool. Percentages vary with exposure to drivers in Beverly Hills or tech support phone calls.
I can't even think of any good gender-switching characters, which would be the obvious way out of my quandary.
Lisa Simpson, Milhouse van Houten, probably should pick a non-Simpsons one, uh, Arnold Rimmer.
I usually admire characters more than identify with them, but when I do identify with a character it's hard to tell to what degree that's self-serving. My wife and I are finishing up the slog that is the last season of Downton Abbey and I suppose I'm a little like Mr. Molesley, but he's much more selfless.
135. Thanks! There are a bunch of boon-granting goddesses and saints that are interesting and appealing as well, but I cannot think of a Greek one for the life of me. Not much interest in compassion or benevolence in classical literature.
Boethius has consoling Philosophy as female, and she has a personality of sorts.
144: I was thinking I might go with Diotima.
I hadn't heard of this meme before now. Interesting.
As for identifying with fictional characters, I do it a little. I can't enjoy fiction if I don't identify anyone at all. Most although not all of my fiction reading is escapism. Urban fantasy, horror-lite (as in, there are monsters, but the protagonists survive), science fiction of the adventurous variety. I'm not reading pure wish fulfillment stuff, but it's often pretty close.
The interesting thing is how my self-image deviates from how my life and social circle are, objectively speaking. I think of myself as an antisocial wallflower, witty but more as a way of deflection than anything else, and I genuinely do prefer solitary pursuits. When I think of characters I identify with, it's mostly characters like that. (Who happen to also be The Chosen One the world's most famous werewolf or stuck 350 years in the past and therefore have interesting lives, but the point is, they have personalities like mine.) But when I compare my daily life today to that of people at work, around my neighborhood, or among my circle of friends, they're more like that stuff than I am, mostly. I've grown and changed a lot over the past decade but my self-image hasn't as much.
Examples from one show: I think of myself as Scott on Orphan Black, but really I have more in common with Donny or even Allison.
my TV alter-ego
If I had a dollar for every time somebody has told me (and my brother!) how much we remind them of Louie CK, I'd be rich like Louie CK. My brother actually looks much more like him than I do, but I am the redhead, so.
I was 146. But like a sexy retconned Diotima or something.
Every scientist in a movie or TV show seems to be some sort of asshole, at or above the Dr. House level.
This is so totally wrong that it can only be explained by some implied belief that only scientists should be presented as heroes. Running down some Wikipedia list I found:
- the guy from Quantum Leap
- TV show "Chuck"
- Dr. Who
- The guy in Terminator 2 who destroys his research
- The scientist guy in War Games
- Artemus Gordon
- The Professor on Gilligan's Island
- Indiana Jones
- Jonny Quest's dad
Etc.
I was thinking that I couldn't do this, but after a day's musing I've come up with two: Mallory Archer and this muppet. If I can come up with another, I'll put it on Facebook.
It occurs to me that it would be amusing to post 3 pictures of incompetent, clueless sitcom fathers.
151: Now that you mention it, the Kermit of The Muppet Show works pretty well for me.
Oh, I identified strongly enough with Michael Bluth that it was hard for me to realize that he was an asshole like all the rest.
Sorry, I should really consolidate some of these.
oh wow 151 is a really niche muppet good job
People need to stop referencing shows that aired after 2006 or so. I haven't watched much since then.
I'd be rich like Louie CK and funnier!
I'm loaded with compliments today. Who else needs one?
Which three saints are you would be hard because you'd have to be boring post-conversion Augustine and that sort of thing, I bet.
King Alfred is a Catholic saint just saying.
Or get creative with their martyrdoms, like choosing St. Lawrence because you throw awesome barbecues.
No need to delve into catholic saints: Jan Hus, these dudes, and Gregory as painted by Andrei Rublev.
Right, I'm way too much like my patron saint (but I got better!) but then maybe one of the Mennonites who'd stop escaping to help their captors out of sinkholes or whatever. That still leaves room for one more.
Dibs on an awesome Sufi saint to finish it out, but I have errands to run before I can pin that down. (I'm awesome but not quite in a Rabia way, I think.)
Holy shit, all of Sufism: The Formative Period is on the Internet Archive. Bayazid, page 4, seems like a glorious con artist: "[H]e apparently rejected renunciation as an option (he said, 'This world is nothing; how can one renounce it?')." Perhaps not a good match for anyone here.
I'd pretty much need St. Guinefort to be one of them for me.
126: Encyclopedia Brown is a great suggestion! Not sure if I'd end up going for him, but exactly fits into the space I was looking for.
Hermione definitely crossed my mind, but although we're both goodie-too-shoes in a sense the two senses aren't really compatible, and she just works way too hard to be a good choice for me.
I also considered Omar Epps's character from House, who is kind of the house-light character with some of the same character flaws but who doesn't indulge those flaws.
A good non-asshole scientist is Abby Sciuto from NCIS, but even though I'd be happy to pick a female character, I wouldn't pick someone that girly. (I also wouldn't want to pick anyone too male-y.)
123: It isn't always easy being a Fillyjonk....
60: this is completely true. Since I've been dancing my view on other people's performances is completely different. I really don't care about narrative, aesthetic, or critic crap generally - I care about technique and I want to sing my heart out for the lads. It's actually quite startling how much more like my relationship with Rugby League it's become.
John McClain, Lorelei Gilmore, and Grendel. Done.
151: That's how it happened to me. I saw the meme, thought "I don't really identify with anyone I read or watch--they're all too action adventure-y, and that's not really how I approach problems." My wife and I were talking about it later and I found a decent three in conversation.
Ged (circa Tombs of Ataun or The Furthest Shore)
Gil from Time of the Dark and a bit of
Conrad Schwartz of the Cross Time Engineer
169.1: It's rarely easy and often painful and that's sort of the point! Working on it.
(I'm reminded that so many people in DC said I was very much unlike my blog self-presentation in a good way that I worked hard to change that presentation to be more positive and then got better and healthier myself in the process. Aspirational isn't a bad thing!)
This is a hard game. I suppose... Nero Wolfe, the British dude from The Quiet American, and Sherman, of Mr. Peabody fame.
I think 171.2 is calling on me to make more cock jokes in real life.
Ooh, maybe the kid who sends people to the cornfield, except I've never actually seen that and just know about it from the larger culture.
Oh, you totally should see it. "It's a Good Life", season 3, episode 8. Both Hulu & Netflix have them all, I think.
Thanks, maybe I will! Right now I'm in my own personal twilight zone where I thought Nia and her classmate from next door could have a fun overnight where they jabber at each other since they both talk non-stop, but instead it's meant they seek me out as a target for conversation. One asleep, one working on it.
175: Said the actress to the bishop.
I wonder how that would go over on a conference call? And if the number of Germans on the call would matter.
Are they the humorless kind of Germans, or is there another kind?
Homer Simpson, Alexander Portnoy, and the guy who loses every case to Perry Mason.
(my identities are dad, Jew, and lawyer, with the unifying theme of incompetence).
The guy who loses every case to Perry Mason is a huge success. He sees justice done with minimal public expense and little effort on his own part.
I've been trying to think about how I could write something longer than a blog comment that isn't peer reviewed. The secret to fast writing appears to be to write about having sex with a dinosaur. So, why not start with that and edit it into a more traditional novel? I don't think I'm the first to have had this idea. Gone With the Wind makes more sense if Rhett is a T Rex.
Also, for obvious reasons, Return of the Native fits this pattern.
Chuck Tingle is obviously Thomas Hardy's pen name.
Most days mine would be the Janitor from Scrubs, the narrator from Arrested Development, and Statler & Waldorf.
Or Thomas Mann? I get those two confused.
I used to have a weird, teenage crush on Thomas Hardy: Far From the Madding Crowd really spoke to my adolescent angst, and the fact that nobody around me even knew what the hell I was rattling on about? well, that just confirmed the grounds of my juvenile (but deeply felt: o! I can still almost feel it!) complaint.
A few fictional characters with whom I have identified:
Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice; Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables; Glorvina of The Wild Irish Girl; Claudia Kincaid of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler; Pippi of Pippi Longstocking.
But basically any heroine who ever figured in a Jane Austen novel, really. Yes, even Fanny Price of Mansfield Park; though I wanted her to go for the rakish Henry Crawford, and not for the priggish Edmund Bertram, who was her own first cousin, after all.
"Tess of the d'Urbervilles" could have used a good Bobbitting.
I have literally no knowledge of Thomas Hardy except the titles of this books and Mallory Ortberg's "Dirtbag" series. I feel this is sufficient.
I have literally no knowledge of Thomas Hardy
It's like you've never even read the Mayor of Casterbridge. But no matter. The point is, Jude the Obscure is massively superior to that tiresome gamekeeper in Lady Chatterley's Lover; and, if asked, of course you prefer Thomas Hardy to D.H. Lawrence, because the history of English literature.
(In my humble opinion, that is).
In tenth grade, my crushes were Thomas Hardy and Billy Joel.
Me and my best friend, we figured that to be Jewish and from Long Island was to be very subversive indeed (we were Catholic schoolgirls from Ottawa). So we worked up this whole thing (we were totally joking, of course) about Billy Joel for Rabbinical Pope. We were just being goofy, of course, but already we wanted out, we watched SNL, we desperately wanted to be "Jewish" and funny. We had Billy Joel with a yarmulke, but also with a Papal staff (oh, it was 10th grade, and we wanted out, and we thought we were very funny indeed).
Anyway, long story short, my dad's cousin, Father McPsycho (my 10th-grade math teacher) actually called my parents to discuss my insubordination and apparent pro-Jewish mischief. My mother was horrified; my dad was "Eh? You've got a case of the smarts? You show 'em, darling."
Miss my dad so, so much.
I am: Jesus, the Buddha, and Pam from Archer.
OK, I withdraw Gregor Samsa in favour of Josef K; also Ignatius J.Reilly and Byrhtnoth.
Largely indifferent to local realities except when they kick me in the teeth for no obvious reason. From time to time try to rise to the occasion but then invariably fuck up.
Tough. I'm thinking the Hulk, Dana Scully, Principal Skinner.
Which Hulk though, Mossy? That's what always trips me up. Oh my god do I ever just want to be left alone.
The only Hulks I know are the movie ones. I think I like Ed Norton's the best. I don't think it matters though. HULK SMASH FANBOY INFIGHTING! Feel better already.
I've been pondering for the last day and am at a loss. Younger me was Hermione or Lisa Simpson, I think. Maybe Harriet the Spy. Me in grad school and in DC was a scientist workaholic character. Me this past year, I don't really understand yet, I guess. I need a character who's just going through the motions. Dull, bored, boring? Not a lot of extreme dullness in fictional characters. Peripheral friendly gal pal, maybe? Spinster aunt? Dutiful spouse who moves back to partner's hometown and is amused and annoyed by local folkways and characters? That one should probably be gender-switched to get the nuances. Yeah, stuck.
I don't especially identify with fictional characters, but I think my personality fits into a lot of common models. If I weren't desperately dull lately, maybe this would be easier.
How's your social scene there? I think if you're in a boring town, you'll go nuts without a good friend network. Which isn't necessarily quick to build, but.
Ydnew, it's not fiction (and it's got plenty of the racism of its time, though I think there's a tidied version) but have you read The Egg and I? It gets at your last bit with some folk science of a sort thrown in.
More seriously, I'm sorry things are tough and confining. Being dull is not very satisfying, I find all the damn time.
205: Could be worse. On the plus side, it turns out I like my step-siblings-in-law (shorthanding the relationship) pretty well, and their kids are all adorable and lovely. Maybe we'll end up as actual friends rather than friendly. Also, the town is not great but OK, and nearby towns are also OK. On the negative side, it's kind of stifling that we have a ton of obligations (like a birthday party for his mother's husband's sister that we absolutely HAD to attend and bring a dessert or flowers last weekend) that his mother insists on (she actually called to ask when we were free so she could schedule said party to fit our schedule!). She called to complain she hadn't seen us in so long! A whole month! (This was exactly the frequency I agreed to with the boyfriend, who approved wholeheartedly, but then there are kid birthday, and holidays, and other stuff we're expected to show up and bring food to.) This prevents me from making new / seeing existing friends. The job is also not so great, but tiring, which doesn't help. I think enjoying what I can while plotting escape in a few years is the general plan.
206: Thanks for the book recommendation! Maybe literary escapism will help.
Seriously, I have never felt so dull in my entire life. So, so, boring. We refinished a dresser. We play with the cats.
Born of adolescent angst, Kimball Kinnison, Yossarian. Now I'm embarrassed.
Boredom and literary escape are my life, basically.
I am so with the evil Catholic priest math teacher in 197. Billy Joel as pope? Have you even fucking listened to "We Didn't Start The Fire"? FUCK THAT. Those Medici popes who put on armor and had the Banquet of the Chestnuts were like 800x better.
Literally no pennance for suggesting that bullshit would be too great.
I've been told more than once that I'm like the Groke in the Moomin books, which I haven't read and so can't evaluate. In other news, tequila sunrises turn out both to look like sunrises and be quite nice, in a noxious kind of way.
Fistbump, Mossy. I said in the other place that I choose The Groke as my number one. And I'm wearing my Hulk t-shirt today. An already-gross flavored cider left over from Mara's birthday party last November was kind of gross is my drinking update. Also I feel really guilty for not having paid to set up recycling here at the new house yet, but having toted the thing around that long counts as something I guess.
Emperor Palpatine, Khan, and that shouty guy from "Downfall"
I was just wondering if someone would do one of those Downfall videos about Trump.
Alfred Chamberlain, Harry Caul, Lt. Zachary Garber.
Kimball Kinnison
For years I thought he was black because he was described as tall, dark, and handsome. Even when it should have clicked it didn't as I had a fixed image of this character. So, for me, in many ways he remains that way.
Some combination of Madeleine L'Engle's Polly O'Keefe and Vicky Austin; Kermit the Frog; and a smidgeon of Elle Woods (Legally Blonde).
Off topic, but what the hell is this...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heil_Honey_I%27m_Home!
Travis McGee, Galahad Threepwood, and the bishop who orders his tomb in St Praxed's church
218: whatever it is, is fucking awful. A commenter who shall remain nameless found it on YouTube and played the first five minutes
As a mumin character I would like to be snufkin or Lilla my but am actually oscillate between the fillyfonk, the groke, and the insufferable sniff.
I think this process the superior psychological realism of Tove Jansson over almost all other authors
The Hattifatteners support me in email.
218 How about one half of a double bill with The Day the Clown Cried?
214. 9th November. It will be there.
Bleg: my sister is getting married six days from now. Three days ago, she asked me to give a reading. I'm annoyed by the short notice, but, eh, I'm often disorganized myself, no hard feelings. The problem is, she asked me to pick what I'd be reading, with no guidelines. Any suggestions?
Background: she and the groom are both outdoorsy. The wedding will be in a church but I'm 90 percent sure it will be a secular service and 99 percent sure they would both call themselves agnostic.
The speech from The Princess Bride. Next question?
You mean the one that starts, "Mawwiage?"
My first concern is that it might sound unoriginal. At my wedding, we used the Princess Bride music as the processional, and a book as one of the centerpieces. But that was just one six or seven centerpieces, so maybe that's dumb.
I have read Jude the Obscure repeatedly and occasionally said it's my favorite novel but for some reason I do not know I have never read another Hardy novel.
I had to get some information off of the university website, and the page I am looking at has a picture of some students in a seminar, and one of the people looks so exactly like me that it took me awhile to process it wasn't actually me, even though I know it isn't me because 1) I wasn't there, 2) I don't own those clothes, and 3) the person pictured has longer arms and slightly different hair than I do (though, not so different that there couldn't be a picture of me with hair like that). It's so distracting I'm having problems looking up the information. Also, it's unsettling because I like to think I'm unique-looking enough I don't have any actual dopplegangers.
Not least because they resemble two of my favourite marine animals, the nudibranch and the garden eel.
They are just the best in every way. And I don't just say that because I'm the Groke.
225. Maybe something from Annie Dillard? Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was a really nice book. Crunchy and sincere, don't know if that fits.
OT Bleg
I have to put together syllabi for various job applications, and I'm not sure what's an appropriate volume of reading. For Ivies/elite SLACs, is a book (approx 250 pages) a week acceptable? Could they read a book and an article? For less competitive state schools, what is a good reading load? I feel like I've heard 50 pages a week somewhere, but that's basically 2 articles.
I have trouble seeing undergrads read 1 book per week at any school, but 1 book every 2 weeks doesn't seem like enough. I guess you can always fall back on the gap between assigning and reading.
For Ivies/elite SLACs, is a book (approx 250 pages) a week acceptable? Could they read a book and an article?
Depends how much else they're expected to do - classes, lectures, etc. But 250 pages a week is 36 pages a day. I don't think that sounds very unreasonable, assuming the rest of their workload isn't heavy. Oxford, for example, expects students reading English to have read 20 set Victorian novels for the first term, plus another eight or nine in Old English (though they make clear that you should read most of them during the vacation). http://www.spc.ox.ac.uk/sites/www.spc.ox.ac.uk/files/English_Reading_List_2016.pdf
They'd chuck about 10 or 12 papers a week at us, IIRC, but a) those were scientific papers so shorter and b) they were suggested rather than mandatory readings.
One of the meeting rooms in our office is called Nudibranch.
re: 234
I read gigantically more than that as an undergrad. The workload for a typical humanities course at Glasgow was a bit less than the sort of Oxford load ajay describes in 236, but it was certainly multiple hundreds of pages per week (per course).
And obviously I was doing multiple concurrent courses, and reading a lot of philosophy and linguistics papers on top of the literature, and the Old English texts. I'd think, even for a fairly lazy undergraduate, 30-40 pages of literature a day is shit-all.
But then, I've been surprised about that sort of thing in the past.
We had several hundred pages a week per course in my honors classes (except for things like Calculus). But the gut courses I took to kill requirements (Whatever 101) would have maybe 75 pages to read a week and that would be from a text that was basically a high school book (but you went through it in 16 weeks instead of 32 weeks). I only took one or two courses like that.
I've been pretty shocked at how much lower the reading and writing expectations are here at flagship state u. The math and science classes are only a little less rigorous than at ivies, but the humanities classes are just not at all comparable. RWM was going to take a course this year that sounded interesting (and did have a moderate amount of reading) but didn't when it turned out the only writing requirement was liner notes for a mix tape and most of the grade was weekly quizzes. Basically students here take only one course in four years that has what I think of as a normal writing requirement.
I've been pretty shocked at how much lower the reading and writing expectations are here at flagship state u. The math and science classes are only a little less rigorous than at ivies, but the humanities classes are just not at all comparable. RWM was going to take a course this year that sounded interesting (and did have a moderate amount of reading) but didn't when it turned out the only writing requirement was liner notes for a mix tape and most of the grade was weekly quizzes. Basically students here take only one course in four years that has what I think of as a normal writing requirement.
Way to pad your word count with cut and paste.
Plagiarism!
My Oxford experience was in line with the requirements Ajay lists. I'd be reading four or five hours a day. A single paper would usually need at least two books of criticism and half a dozen journal articles on top of the source material. On the other hand, I barely went to any lectures.
I'd guess even at a school in the US that would admit Moby an English major in the last two years is expected to read 4-5 hours per day (though across a variety of different classes). A book a week in a class for predominantly non-majors seems crazy for reasons including but not limited to reading length.
The most reading I had was in a "Politics and Literature" course. It was a mixed graduate/undergraduate honors class. I can't recall all the books, but a couple of Greek plays, Henry IV, The Brothers Karamazov, and Darkness at Noon were there.
My English classes were much easier.
The main thing I remember from that course is that Russians take forever to get to the point. We also read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," which I don't think had a point.
For example, for our Shakespeare class they read 7 plays and have no required pieces of writing that are longer than 500 words.
Only about seven of his plays are good anyway.
They're not reading those seven though.
I assume kids today are mostly just reading the Wikipedia plot summary. They have so many advantages we didn't have.
It looks like the upper level classes for English majors do at least have a little writing. Most 300-level english classes have two papers in the 4-7 page range.
||
Bleggity bleg: I'm taking a kid to London for Columbus day weekend for his 10th birthday. Just the two of us- arriving Friday night, leaving Monday morning so really 2 days. Should I get one of the 2-day London passes? A lot of the things he wants to do are not the free museums, and he doesn't like to spend a lot of time at any one place, so we'd probably get value from it. We're staying just north of the City near University/Barbican. Things he wants to do:
Tower
Eye
Play- probably Les Mis
Zoo
Aquarium
Catch Pokemon by the river
Changing of the Guard
Any other suggestions based on that list of interests?
|>
Arguably on-topic since people recently used the words Shakespeare, English, and Oxford.
Is there a gym by where the Guard gets changed?
Are the Thames pokemons especially flavorsome?
He has one of his cheating apps (Pokemap?) that tells him what's at any place in the world at any given time, he checked this morning and there was a wild Snorlax near the Eye so apparently rare things spawn near the Thames.
Ok, take him to catch the snorlax, then throw him in the river for wasting time in London. Liveblog for my vicarious sadism.
That list will keep you pretty busy without any other suggestions, especially if he's into Pokemon Go! I wouldn't bother with the aquarium, and the zoo is worth most of a day in itself. Unlike most London attractions, the Tower is well worth the entrance fee. My kids enjoyed taking a river taxi from there down to Greenwich to go round the Cutty Sark and jump across the meridian (I'm told the park there is full of Charmanders). Then you could walk under the river through the foot tunnel and take the DLR back (or another river taxi).
go round the Cutty Sark
Ten years old is way too young for scotch, even blended, mass-market scotch.
No, the Scotch will warm him right up after the river. And I thought the Cutty Sark burned to ash years ago.
If the barman keeps topping up your Scotch after each sip, you only ever have the one drink.
They've completely rebuilt it, really well, with a massive underground enclosure beneath the hull that's created a genuinely dramatic space.
Yeah, the queues at the aquarium are appalling. The zoo is OK, I suppose; not a huge fan of zoos. The Tower is definitely worth it. (The Cutty Sark did catch fire, but it was only moderately damaged and has now been restored.) Taking a river taxi (Thames Clipper) is also a good suggestion.
HMS Belfast is good fun and fairly kid-friendly IIRC.
My two did enjoy HMS Belfast, though it helped a lot that we had an older boy visiting us who's a complete military history nut. They were willing to listen while he explained all the guns and communication equipment to them in great detail, whereas if it had been just me it would have been groans and foot-dragging the entire way round.
I'm not sure what the "two day London pass" is. You mean a travelcard? Or is it a tourist attraction thing? If the former, yes, definitely get a travelcard (or, preferably, get yourself an Oyster card and put some money on it).
Personally, I'd ditch the zoo, as it's a bit crap and depressing. Though the new tiger enclosure is decent as those things go. Haven't been to the "new" aquarium so I can't really comment, but it would be handily close to the Eye.
If you do opt for Greenwich, you can get a pass which will get you access to Cutty Sark and the Observatory/Planetarium. The Maritime Museum is pretty good for kids and is mostly free. Also, stop by and say hi!
If only you knew someone in London who was a complete military history nut.
Oh, and, presumably you've already thought of this, but check what's on at the Barbican. And check out the
Now we need Sherlock to figure out who killed Ginger Yellow.
And hit 'post' just to taunt us.
I always assumed that Cutty Sark had something to do with the Channel Island, but no, the actual etymology is much more hilarious:
The ship was named after Cutty-sark, the nickname of the witch Nannie Dee in Robert Burns's 1791 poem Tam o' Shanter. The ship's figurehead, the original of which has been attributed to carver Fredrick Hellyer of Blackwall, is a stark white carving of a bare-breasted Nannie Dee with long black hair holding a grey horse's tail in her hand. In the poem she wore a linen sark (Scots: a short chemise or undergarment), that she had been given as a child, which explains why it was cutty, or in other words far too short. The erotic sight of her dancing in such a short undergarment caused Tam to cry out "Weel done, Cutty-sark", which subsequently became a well known catchphrase.
Weel done.
271: To establish a false time of death.
272: That poem has been the basis for the names of lots of things.
London pass touristy thing. There are many arguments on travel boards about whether it's worth it- 2 days is 79 pounds for adults 59 for kids, and things like the Tower are ~20 so you need to hit 5 or so attractions over the two days to be worth it.
Already planning to get an Oyster, I actually have one from a previous trip but it's on the wrong continent to be useful- the capped spending is nice.
Hats, certainly. But that's relatively boring compared to sexy witch catchphrases.
I never knew Robert Burns wrote about peeping on women.
I guess between him and Groundskeeper Willie, I'm going to have to assume it's a national trait.
Sorry, I realised in the middle of typing "check out the street food at Exmouth Market" that I wasn't sure if it's open on the weekend. Turns out it's not.
I think you'll really struggle to get value out of that pass over a weekend (especially compared to the free stuff you could be doing). Maybe if it saves you queuing it would be worth it at, eg the Tower, but you'd really have to make time to get the most out of it. Also, I know you said the kid didn't want the free museums, but the Natural History Museum is so much better than the Zoo it would be silly to do the latter over the former, and that would leave you close to the Science Museum, which is pretty much designed to appeal to 10-year old boys.
the Science Museum, which is pretty much designed to appeal to 10-year old boys.
Speaking as someone whose tastes are disturbingly similar to the identified age group, it's a really really good museum for kids. Or me, except for all those stupid kids hogging the good stuff to play with.
Now I'm assuming LB makes fart jokes and/or noises all day long.
Ok, thanks for the suggestions- the whole weekend is already pretty cheap for a trip to London ($400 hotel incl. breakfast; $180 round trip air; $100 trains to/from departure cities) so I was going to let him pick activities regardless of cost but if the science and nature museums are better on the merits happy to save more.
279: Having recently spent a few days going round Stockholm with Hitsuji, I can testify that all museums, zoos, and other displays of real animals, dead or alive, pale into complete insignificance beside the prospect of catching a rare Pokemon. Preferably one that isn't found in your home country, so you can brag massively the next time you see your friends.
Zoos are really for small children and very boring people. Museums are better, but not the dead animal part unless they have a life-sized diorama of a Bedouin guy being eaten by lions.
272: So our equivalent would be the U.S.S. Wet T-Shirt.
Which we don't actually have because John Tower was too obviously drunk too often.
Not USS, United States Ship, a naval vessel. Not SS, for Steam Ship, Cutty Sark was a highly-refined sailing ship, with a narrow hull, large crew and vast sail area, and a small payload because of those things.
"U.S.S." implies it's a naval vessel, though. The Cutty Sark was just a merchant vessel owned by a shipping line. A Victorian naval ship would have a sober and reasonable name like the HNS Audacious, HMS Thunderer, HMS Terror, HMS Porpoise, HMS Raccoon, etc.
Just this morning, I had to explain to my son that it wasn't "dread knot". (He was impressed with how he tied his shoes.)
287: You are so wrong that we must duel to the death.
290: the suffix would be SV, Sailing Vessel.
Ships with rude names: I think I have already mentioned the HMS Black Joke, q.v.
Fine. Zoos are for small children, boring people, and the two of you.
Lion guy. In this post-Orientalism age you'd think we'd be past this, but tradition.
297. And for serious photographers and people who are in favour of the conservation of critically endangered species.
The Chicago equivalent, also a diorama would be the Tsavo Lions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_Man-Eaters
If you're going to be at the Tower anyway (and you should, it's awesome), walking through the Tower Bridge is kind of fun--not sure if it's still there, but circa 2003 there was an animatronic exhibit in an underground area that I enjoyed. The Globe is a fun little tour and not too far a walk into Southwark from the bridge.
If you're over near the Barbican, I recall REALLY enjoying the Museum of London--prehistory on up through modern times. Lots of fun dioramas and historical artifacts.
299: I think that "conservation" stuff seems like post-hoc window dressing. I'm not saying they aren't sincerely trying to preserve various species, but most of what they got locked up is just there for gawking at. Except for the penguins, some monkeys, and baby tigers, they mostly aren't interesting to look at.
Zoos are fucking rad you monster. So are natural history museums. Who doesn't want to gawk at crocodiles or t-rex bones? What the fuck kind of question even is this?
You just like them because they're the main source for the paleo propaganda.
It is true that a lame zoo* is lamer and sadder than a lame art museum. But if you're in a place known for its pretty good zoo or pretty good natural history museum the zoo/nhm will almost always be better than the art museum or other tourist attraction, unless you're in like Paris at the Louvre or some shit.
*the LA zoo is pretty lame, but you're 2hrs away from the best zoo in the world.
305. Actually both the London zoo, the Natural History Museum (it's the NHM; all others are qualified by their location) and several of the London galleries are all world class, so if you're only there for two days think "fuck it" and go to the pub you have serious choices to make.
The main thing to do in London is to leave and go to Birmingham, where you can breathe in the spirit of Black Sabbath. Let's get our priorities straight here people.
I just turned off the TV in the waiting room at the dentist. Overreaching? No other patients here.
London Zoo may technically be world class, but I think it's doing the term a disservice if it's putting LZ in the same class as San Diego, Taronga, or Singapore. And while it's personal preference, I've seen at least half a dozen aquariums that I think are better experiences than LZ.
308: Thank you for taking "be the change you want to see in the world" seriously. You are an inspiration to us all.
305 is right. I am also happy to give pointers on comparing different natural history museums and zoos. For example, St. Louis Zoo is amazing and underrated (and free!), and the Brussels natural history museum is another less well-known gem.
The only thing I've seen in St. Louis is the airport. I got a voucher for a meal worth up to $15, so I've experienced the finest of dining there.
307 is at least original. Seconding the recommendation for the museums (science/nhm) over the zoo.
Robert Burns:
letter to Robert Ainslie (March 3, 1788):
I took the opportunity of some dry horse-litter, & gave her such a thundering scalade that electrified the very marrow of her bones. Oh, what a peace-maker is a guid weel-willy pintle! It is the mediator, the guarantee, the umpire, the bond of union, the solemn league and covenant, the plenipotentiary, the Aaron's Rod, the Jacob's Staff, the prophet Elisha's pot of oil, the Ahasuerus Sceptre, the sword of mercy, the philosopher's stone, the Horn of Plenty, and Tree of Life between Man and Woman.
If only they had called the ship "the good weel-willie pintle"
I love our museum, even on Fridays when it is overrun by 21-30 year olds drinking half-priced wine.
go to Birmingham, where you can breathe in the spirit of Black Sabbath.
When in Birmingham, one is required to smoke constantly, right?
cannot tell if 314 is about sex or horse-riding. I guess sex? It would be great if the notion of scots was just bullshit and Burns was just making up words as he went along
All but the very best zoos are depressing, is the problem.
The Pittsburgh Zoo had a wild deer get frightened and jump into the polar bear enclosure. It died of a heart attack before the bear could decide to kill it. Also, wild dogs ate a baby.
Anyway, I went when I needed something do to with a small child but don't really see the need to go any more.
318 - I dunno, non-depressing zoos I've been to in the US:
San Diego/SD Wild Animal Park
Bronx
Central Park
National Zoo in DC
Detroit
New Orleans
Santa Barbara
Houston
Tucson
That's a pretty big list. The LA zoo could actually be non-depressing if it just wasn't so insanely badly designed, there are individually non-depressing exhibits in a sea of general sadness. The San Francisco zoo is very depressing. And I haven't been to a bunch of supposedly good ones.
320: Dogs too full, or no more babies?
I thought the national zoo was kind of depressing. The local one is mostly not except the whole gorilla thing of course.
The Pittsburgh Zoo had a wild deer get frightened and jump into the polar bear enclosure. It died of a heart attack before the bear could decide to kill it.
Somehow this reminds me of how I anthropomorphize my houseplants, when it's raining, staring out the window at all that rain and me forgetting to water them.
The local one is mostly not except the whole gorilla thing of course.
"I wish the ape a lot of success"
I'd be into seeing UPETGI's ranking of zoos. I'm more of a zoo amateur myself. And online zoo rankings appear to suck. Is the Omaha zoo really all that? Why then did my hotel concierge send me to the site of the college world series?
The Omaha Zoo is supposed to be one of the best and Doorliest zoos in the nation. I have not seen enough different zoos to confirm this, but it is certainly much better than the local one here.
I rank the Omaha zoo as D for Depressing. There were tigers with just pacing space, etc. I can only recall going to the Omaha Zoo and the San Antonio zoo. The latter is less distressing but less impressive.
The zoo in Royal, Nebraska was great. I don't know if it is still open or not. They shoot three chimpanzees after they escaped.
On my only visit, we were given a tour by a kid who was maybe twelve. My uncle spent the whole time trying not to laugh. All the cages except the chimp cage were old-school wire corn cribs. There was only one chimp when I visited and he looked sad. So they got him some friends, which must have been nice, until they shoot them all.
Actually I can't remember if I was at the Lincoln Zoo or the Omaha Zoo. Is there one that's supposed to be the distinctly impressive one?
The Lincoln Zoo is really bad (except if you have little kids). It's not even a real zoo. It's a "children's zoo."
I am more easily depressed than Halford, as I definitely found the Santa Barbara zoo depressing. Good little train, though.
Then we did Omaha. We were in both cities on that trip.
The SB zoo definitely gets a boost from its setting. If it was in Ohio or somewhere it'd conceivably be mildly depressing I guess (hard to imagine though). But it's not like mangy bears in metal cages or anything.
There's what WOULD be a good little children's train through some swamp in Houston too, it's supposed to be so you can see birds but all you end up seeing is nutria which get way too close; if you don't know what a nutria is consider yourself blessed.
I haven't been to Omaha yet, it's the highest on my to-see list in the US (after Prague overall).
To some extent depressing vs good is actually a 2-dimensional thing. Cincinatti and Berlin are both very good in some sense, but are definitely more depressing than San Diego or even a much smaller zoo like Amsterdam. You're totally right that SF is depressing, but the Oakland zoo has fewer animals and is lower profile, but is much less depressing.
I liked the Oakland zoo when I went with my sister's family a year or two ago. I'm always shocked to hear the SF zoo still is open.
I am more easily depressed than Halford
Halford seems to exist primarily in one of "excited" or "hoppin' mad", so this isn't really that surprising.
335- They're not just otters with bad dental hygene?
There's a petting zoo in Iceland that's awesome because 1) you get to just walk into enclosures and pet or pick up whatever animals are there (except for the pigs); 2) they have things that are not normally in petting zoos but damn well should be like puppies and kittens.
Anyway, for rankings San Diego and the Bronx are clearly the top two among the ones I've seen, with San Diego winning mostly based on being in San Diego. Cincinnati is close to those two but could really use a bit more space. St Louis is better than the National Zoo (both are free). Neither Chicago Zoo is world class, so you're much better off with the aquarium or NHM, though Lincoln Park might beat Central Park in terms of small free urban zoos. Baltimore, Oakland, Indianapolis, and Nashville are all ok and non-depressing, but not anything special.
Internationally, Sydney has an amazing location, and monotremes. Amsterdam is really good for its size. Berlin Zoo is the Cincinnati Zoo of Europe. RWM thinks Prague is the second best zoo she's been to (after SD), but I haven't been. Wellington is in the Baltimore category, but with a Kiwi (you're much much better off going to Zealandia, which is unique and amazing).
The only depressing thing at Oakland was they had rescue lions from some asshole in Texas. They had plenty of space for lions, but the rescue ones were antisocial and unhappy and had to be kept separate. But that's not their fault, that they were the only zoo willing to take them.
339 otters hahahaha oh boy no, they are scum-slick horrors of the bayou, 20 pound rats with shovel teeth and no fear.
We've still got indigenous muskrats up here.
When my kids were small and we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo there was a huge Liger, with a mane and black on grey stripes. The roaring of big cats, amplified by the structure of their building is prodigious, and gives you something you don't get watching Nature.
And lemurs are mesmerizing to watch.
[reposted from the wrong thread]
I understand the Oakland zoo was pretty bad decades ago; then they did a major overhaul with a bunch of corporate money and went with large open spaces for a bunch of the animals, like the lions and elephants. Now you can take an aerial tram ride and dangle your feet over the lion enclosure. Hope the kids aren't too squirmy!
Otter attack stories are pretty common, no? Like at Lake Tahoe and such? Think it hilarious the Monterey aquarium has managed to hide their apparently vicious character.
SF zoo has appalling location, unless you are a benighted creature evolved to thrive in impenetrable wind-whipped fog.
