I don't even have an Instagram, but I keep seeing links to Instagram posts were young women scowl at the camera while cooking food. Some of the food looks good, but there's not really a recipe.
I have to say, my IG algorithm is amazing these days. It's full of funny, interesting things that I want to know about.
I've been noticing this genre lately- the USA viewed from abroad as exotica. There was a viral tweet about being super excited to go to a diner and get eggs, bacon, and pancakes. There was also the red solo cup fooferaw. Maybe this means Americans are reaching a new developmental stage when they can start to understand that they are foreigners from the perspective of the rest of the world.
I recently got shown a sequence of teenage Brits trying fried chicken in Louisiana and being overwhelmed that there is seasoning in the batter. (Also, and not I think the same video, but ranch seems to be similarly eye-opening to the average Brit.)
I had thought it was an east coast event
Well, you're wrong.
We have a lot. The noise is constant; like a futuristic spaceship starting up. And if you look at anything with leaves, you'll see a two-inch long bug on every single leaf. I have pictures, but those are a pain to upload here. (Slack, here we come!) But at least where I am, they're not (yet?) on paved surfaces, so it's pretty easy to be outside and not worry about them crunching under your feet.
To be honest, American summer camps having a one psychiatrist: ten children ratio seems extremely on brand.
I had a similar moment of confusion on landing very jetlagged at LAX; one of the first things I heard in the US was a looped announcement saying "THIS AIRPORT DOES NOT SUPPORT THE ACTIVITIES OF SOLICITORS. PLEASE DO NOT GIVE MONEY TO SOLICITORS" which was completely baffling. I could only interpret it as "Please don't sue anybody yet! At least wait till you get outside the terminal!"
Around here the cicada noise level peaks around 2-3 in the afternoon. They're about as loud as a couple of neighborhood children lawnmowers.
The noise is constant; like a futuristic spaceship starting up.
By constant, do you mean omnipresent? Because here cicadas have a distinct pulsing intensity, maybe 15-30 second sin wave period.
Apparently, we don't get cicadas here this year. We do next year though.
re: 6
That seems odd, as literally every chicken shop in the UK, whether it's KFC, some Korean place, or one of the innumerable KFC rip-offs (Alabama Fried Chicken, etc.) puts seasoning in their batter. So, I suspect the kids in question were having a wind-up.
On the other hand, ranch dressing genuinely isn't a thing in the UK, although the occasional themed diner might do it.
No, you can pay barristers! Sue anyone and everyone! It's the American way!
Maybe it's the use of paprika/cayenne - or the amount of it.
6, 13: This was Louisiana, where if it doesn't cause shortness of breath along with sweat on the brow and/or upper lip, it isn't sufficiently seasoned.
Also, the last line of the OP is the wholesomest laugh I've had all day. Thanks, heebie!
Tell us about some of your unwholesome laughs, Doug.
If we all had drum sets we could do rim shots at that joke.
18: An author observed on twitter that Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller was basically a blog post. She then added that Tropic of Capricorn was the same but longer. I asked whether it was thicker, too.
It was an unfunny kind of day.
Some year I recall being amaze that driving on I-287 in suburban New Jersey with the windows up and could hear the cicadas.
A similar thing driving home from out west recently; Western Meadowlark songs heard with windows up driving by at 65 mph.
Did not dtay there but think drove through Moby IG hometown. The one named for the Fenian? On the way to ashfall park (ancient mammal fossils in doomed waterhole).
Yes, that's it. There's not really a great hotel there. Ashfall was great when I went there, but that was over thirty years ago. There's a nice, stocked trout stream nearby.
The town before it is named after a United Irishman.
Only three people have been murdered in Boston this year. So good job to all of our Boston commenters unless they were responsible for one or more of the three.
13: they're aware that pretending not to know about curry is a big Online Thing among the US opinion class and you can get a rise that way, and they're playing up to their market.
Related: the OP made me think of the bizarre and apparently unshakable belief that Benny Hill (1924-1992) is still a universally popular figure in British light entertainment. Remember that peculiar bit from "V for Vendetta"?
24, 25: The town before it is named after a United Irishman.
Population 46.
We stayed in Valentine NE which had no better hotel, but was more aligned with our driving plan. (Coming from Black Hills/Badlands.)
I was surprised how recently the ashfall deposits were discovered--1971 and park only established in the early 90s so you got there early on. They now have a large "Rhino barn" built over the major current excavations which has tens of in situ skeletons (mostly ancestral Rhinos). They have one with the bones of the fetus preserved inside the womb.
Rhino moms are not careful enough to refrain from inhaling hot ash while pregnant.
I don't think I've been to Valentine more than once, but that was the furthest court house my dad traveled to.
28: I have never heard of such a notion. Except for the eponymous chase song, Benny Hill barely itself registers in the American cultural memory anymore, at least for anyone under 60.
Like, what kind of comedy show was it? A bunch of skits interspersed with songs or something? I couldn't say. I could possibly identify Benny Hill if shown a photo of him.
I can remember him, and the thin guy, and the really old, bald, short guy. But I only ever watched it for the articles.
Pretty sure the last time Benny Hill came up in my experience was in the comments to Lewd and Prude (2009).
I did not realize he was a miser and multilingual. Which was harder back before Duolingo.
Is there a literature comparing the summer camps and the Young Pioneers?
Wikipedia doesn't do much compare and contrast.
If only there were some way to modify it.
How do you close a whole university with seven days notice, even in Philadelphia?
I don't even mean morally. Just as a practical matter, how can you shut down that quickly without breaking some laws?
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Hit Man is a good-looking big-laughing feel-good time!
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It turns out cicadas are really quiet on rainy days.
Rainy days and Mondays always bring them down.
Mossy! I'm back from vacation and slowly reintegrating into normal life.
38: Probably, but I wouldn't know where to find it. I mean, I guess I would start with a jstor search on something like "Komsomol summer camp nostalgia," but I don't know off-hand of any articles or books.
The wife of a Soviet émigré I knew many years ago described how she was at a large summer camp as a young teen (I assume Komsomol) which included a number of Warsaw Pact children in August 1968. I'm not sure what means of communication they had, but she described a massive dampening of enthusiasm and camaraderie.
August 1968 is when the Soviets crushed the Prague Spring by leading an invasion of Czechoslovakia, so yeah, I can imagine that dampened enthusiasm.