With your woodshopped lamp hanging about, I don't think you need to worry about coming across as too sophisticated.

Damn, that Klimt guy sounds like kind of a dick.

The story about the gay couple is sad/hilarious. I've heard that before about the Peace Corps.

Oh dear lord, where to begin? The author's use of the phrase "bad-boy chef" as an objective descriptor? The fact that the stuffed baby seal guy's job is to write dating advice? The mystifying non sequitur "but then I realized he was totally unsuccessful", with which one woman ends a story? The woman who expects any potential mate to have rooms full of table lamps with pink light bulbs? The insane wastefulness of the Peace Corps boyfriend, or his boyfriend's insane overreaction? Mr. Podell's sudden ability to develop a girlfriend 48 years younger than him as soon as he resolves to never show her his apartment? Or the condensed milk?

With your woodshopped lamp hanging about, I don't think you need to worry about coming across as too sophisticated.

It has very clean lines.

Klimt isn't so bad. This read like a case study in why not to apply the norms of consumer goods to one's romantic life. Nail biter. Doissineau-loser, these don't satisfy my preferences!

Off topic, is not a (freakshow!) millionaire lawyer with a rent control apartment not the definition of "libertarian teachable moment?"

And here is your text for the day on this topic.

A friend of mine teaches a big intro course where she shows the students pictures of rooms in various houses. (Some are famous, like Graceland, some are from McMansions, some from fashion mags, etc.) Then she asks them to fill out a quick survey saying which ones they'd like best to live in, together with some basic demographic and positional data. Then she does a little correspondence analysis showing how tastes map nicely onto the space defined by variation in income level and cultural capital.

On a more serious note, if anyone here is a journalist, I'd like to be spotlighted in a hastily-thrown-together trend piece. Maybe it could be on "Nomads on Stipends: How grad students switch apartments every summer", or "Wall Monitors: What to do when roommates turn out to have the same Simpsons poster", or "Life Without Curtains: Unambitious people who never have company and don't see the point".

that should be "don't see the point of decorating if it means putting holes in the walls".

The guy with the baby seal had an amazing mug on him. Someone has to tell him it's not the seal.

baa, come on. "The kiss"? Even if you love it, you have to know what it says about you.

Ummm, this story is about 4 days early, right? Why does every guy in the pictures look scarily similar? Not to mention, scarily photoshopped? Also, since when does the NYT describe someone as a "wealthy lawyer"?

The guy is seventy years old, with a freaky face and hippopautamus sheets, and somehow managed to get himself a twenty-two year old Russian girlfriend? Christ, what a world.

One of my best friends has a statue of one frog sodomizing another on his coffee table. I'm always amazed that any women make it past the living room.

Then again, he looks like Lyle Lovett, so any woman seeing that statue is pretty open.

5: Maybe if she had a Klimt and an Egon Schiele, the decor would have projected a different, and less idiotic, message. I agree with CARE organizer guy that the combination of Klimt and Doisneau, under the theme "The Kiss," is totally unacceptable.

5: Maybe if she had a Klimt and an Egon Schiele, the decor would have projected a different, and less idiotic, message. I agree with CARE organizer guy that the combination of Klimt and Doisneau, under the theme "The Kiss," is totally unacceptable.

"I take her to my apartment, go into the bedroom, and fling back the sheets, and she said, 'My husband had these sheets and he was a mean-hearted son of a bitch and you must be like him and I'm leaving.' "

I probably wouldn't plan a second date with any woman who had a "Water Lilies" print on her wall. Also, lots and lots of stuffed animals = psycho. And not in the good hott sex way.

Also, lots and lots of stuffed animals = psycho.

That's been my experience. Also, cats.

Guys, it's one thing to joke about perving on girls in their early teens, but now you sound kinda serious.

It's not perving if it's true love, ogged.

19: That reminds me.

10: OK, I give up, what does having "The kiss" say about you?

I was recently in a hospital ward filled with Klimt. A bit bizzaro. And really, don't old warhorses attain their position for a reason? Am I still allowed to like J.L. Gerome?

baa, your ignorance of the signals here is shocking.

I need help on the signals, too. Teach us, reaper of lifeguards.

Does it signal "middlebrow doofus?" That's one referrent with an abundence of signs.

Heh.

As far as I know, the problem is really only that Klimt and Doisneau have been so severely overprinted. They're everywhere. You can pick up a cheap print in any college bookstore. Etc.

This means that in the slightly-upper-brow milieu, these images are kind of like having heard Stairway to Heaven 700 times too many times.

Others may correct me, but really there's nothing wrong with Klimt himself. Just overplayed.

Of course in some views it's best not to have any reproductions at all, unless limited/scarce, otherwise original artwork, please. Just not something you've already seen.

Sorry, I'm looking at personal ads with my mom...she's bizarrely height obsessed...

only that Klimt and Doisneau have been so severely overprinted

Monet. And maybe Dali.

the problem is really only that Klimt and Doisneau have been so severely overprinted. They're everywhere.

I had to go look up the Klimt print. Nope, never seen it. Funny gap in the cultural literacy, there....

Ha. I read that bit as "that only Klimt..." instead of "only that Klimt...", which doesn't mean the same thing at all.

Apo, apropos of nothing, how did you get the twin story you linked on your blog? Do you have a news alert set for "ambiguous genitalia"?

Heh. No, I get an email newsletter weekly or so from Nature.

We had to stop, since she wanted me to write to all the tall cute ones, and I couldn't explain "not my type" to the satisfaction of her old country sensibility.

There's nothing inherently wrong with having The Kiss on your wall, but it does say that you're someone who fancies himself someone who likes and appreciates art, but has only a passing familiarity with it and hasn't made any effort to cultivate your own taste. You can still be a fine person, but you're probably not compatible with someone who has a more serious interest in "culture."

Actually, I have no idea why I wrote that in such a generous way. It means you have no soul, but think you do.

And suddenly some of them will realize that they cannot be with this person a moment longer -- or at the very latest, because that wine was not cheap, beyond the next morning.

So wrong.

I was also surprised that line made it past an editor.

Teach us, reaper of lifeguards.

Nice.

Now my mom is reminding me that my internet friends sent me that nice bear, and see how nice internet friends can be, and I should write to the tall cute ones.

Reapr would be a good name for a Web 2.0 Social Networking/Suicide site.

Your mom sounds hilarious.

Klimt, etc: Fussell already wrote Class. Let's exploit our comparative advantage.

Did you ever go out to the nice restaurant your nice internet friends sponsored a trip to?

Schlong.

Or did we not do that? I forget. B?

Then what's your type? she asks me.

Short, fat, and with a bad disposition, I tell her.

Then why did you spend all those years with your Ex?

I was working on making her fat and giving her a bad disposition.

Well, she was putting on weight...

I didn't realize The Kiss was so common. Bad times. I dig Elton Bennett.

It should be noted that my mother doesn't ever recognize or employ sarcasm.

I agree with CARE organizer guy that the combination of Klimt and Doisneau, under the theme "The Kiss," is totally unacceptable.

Me too, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that I had both of those on my wall in college.

But that was in COLLEGE.

Did you ever go out to the nice restaurant your nice internet friends sponsored a trip to?

Not yet! Scheduling problems, as the French Laundry only takes reservations precisely two months in advance, and I'm trying to get people in from out of town for that. Soon, I hope!

I also had to look up the Klimt.

I'm currently retarded over this guy but he doesn't appear to sell prints. Damnit.

49: Could be worse. I had The Scream on my wall.

And now I've looked up the Doisneau.

"The kiss"? Even if you love it, you have to know what it says about you.

I probably wouldn't plan a second date with any woman who had a "Water Lilies" print on her wall.

Dudes. What is wrong with you people? You know what, I like Andrew Wyeth, so y'all can piss right off.

I'm looking at personal ads with my mom.

This sentence AND the Neill Cumpston movie review in the same day is just more than anyone could ask for.

I have a Klimt calendar. I guess ogged and I weren't meant to be.

But that was in COLLEGE.

Yeah, Klimt usually comes after Escher and before Munch. Then later that sort moves on to Schiele.

Ha! Pwned/validated by 53.

damn
55=me

I dig Elton Bennett.

That first lighthouse is cracking me up.

58: Nope. I've never liked Klimt, and never heard of Schiele. I went from Munch to Picasso, and then I gave up on non-photographic art for a long time.

46: Your mom sounds quite nice. I just went on a blind date set up by my mom, the prospect of which I mentioned before in these comments. It was not a success. (Suffice to say, it terminated in an actual argument -- raised voices, and genuine anger, at least on my side).

I might trust your mom, though. I am also predisposed toward the tall and cute.

I can't remember the name of the artist of the print I have up, and it's driving me a little batty.

What's with all the parents getting involved in romantic decisions? This is America, people.

I wonder if it is very difficult to get a genuine Bob Ross anymore. That would be a happy addition to any decor.

53: I think "The Scream" is actually better. Cliched, still, but not goopily so, and without the thematic issues the Klimt and the Doisneau bring in.

Now I kinda want to put together a Komar and Melamid-style "most cliched dorm room in the world". I'm figuring "Starry Night" and "Moon Over Half Dome" both have to be on the wall.

The main thing hanging on my wall is a Cool Hand Luke poster. Played out, perhaps, but it's been one of my favorite movies since I was like 8.

Found it, nevermind.

I also have a Klimt poster (not The Kiss), but it's kind of falling apart so I don't have it up. My current wall decor consists mostly of maps.

68: So what was it?

That first lighthouse is cracking me up.

Jesus, how have I not noticed that before.

Thomas Kinkade?

This.

Dang east coast snobs. Try living in a suburban wasteland for a while! Any girl that has more than CHP educational posters on her wall is okay by me.

Yeah, Klimt usually comes after Escher and before Munch. Then later that sort moves on to Schiele.

I never did either Escher or Munch, but you nailed the Schiele.

Now I have bare walls. (While my Cole Weston print of an Edward Weston dune shot languishes in the closet.)

Currently the only thing posted on my wall is a program schedule for a local public radio station which I assume a, if not the, previous resident left here.

It means you have no soul, but think you do.

Bitching about and/or reading character from the commonness of a print, OTOH, shows that the soul you have needs to be returned to the Manufacturer for repair.

Hopper prints are probably my biggest sin, but I only have two and both are of his urban variety.

Is there an Escher kiss that looks like it goes on endlessly?

Two favorite Kinkade prints here and here.

78: Oh yeah, "Nighthawks" goes on the list, as does the takeoff of it with Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean.

Neither is "Nighthawks". I do have a little sense.

This.

A print can cost 200 Euros? Wow.

I have always like Nighthawks and still do.

Yeah, that seems like a lot; I don't remember where I got mine, but I didn't pay that much for it.

73:

Oh, that's marvelous.

I have these these three prints on the wall (though the color is way off at each of those links), plus lots and lots of little kid art.

plus lots and lots of little kid art.

Those are Pollocks, you cretin.

I loved Van Gogh and then decided this made me cliche and took down my Van Gogh Poster. Then I went to Paris and actually stared at some real Van Gogh up close and was like, fuck that, I love Van Gogh. I don't care if the whole else of the world is done. So my Van Gogh poster went back up.

Actually, though, I tend to decorate with random prints bought in museum shops that are neither famous nor particuarly insightful, and of which I know nothing. They just. . .are. . .what I like? The current set is from the National Gallery. The Spirt of War, some Bierstadt, and a painting of magnollias. So, mineshaft---what does that say about me? You can't judge me on the room itself though, it's painted dark blue, and I can't change it. Also I collect b&w postcards of people and arrange them in an array. It's a trick I totally stole from my high school English teacher, but he's dying of Alzheimer's and whenver I set them up it feels like a memorial for him. . .a moving feast of the humanities.

I briefly dated a guy who turned out to be almost comically incompatible in more ways than I could count, but b/c of circumstances only one or two major incompatibilities was revealed on each bizarre date. One was discovered at his apartment--it was totally bare save a bed, a couch, a tv, a computer, and a photograph of a beach in a storm; he only read Dan Brown books and had no use for anything else. At all.

I have a bunch of stuffed animals in a basket away from the bed. Is that okay, mineshaft? It turns out I'm madly in love with my best friend, unrequitedly, and whenever I go to his house I spend some quality time with the large plush mouse puppet he bought for a halloween costume. I overheard him speculating he really ought to give it away, and before I could say anything, this new girl who I'm sure he'll end up dating, who had only seen it that morning, said she would take it. I angrily and loudly declared that if he gave that puppet to anyone but me, I would be very upset. He meekly said it was mine. He'll never go out with me, and I have no rights over him, but I'll be damned if someone else gets that mouse.

I have some Warhol prints in the pantry.

Is that okay, mineshaft?

It was going to be, until the rest of the paragraph totally confirmed 17.

you can imagine how delighted a single woman might be to find someone like Albert Podell -- particularly after she Googles him and learns how rich he is

Jesus.

I've got a poster from a Klee exhibit in the study and Mr. B. has some Lichstensteins and a couple of detail photographs of a Rembrandt in the living room. Everything else is sentimental western art of senoritas and foals next to cacti and shit like that that I inherited from my grandmother and can't really bring myself to get rid of.

Also, I think everyone in the Times story sounds like an asshole, especially the woman who can't bear to date anyone with overhead lighting. No wonder the terrorists hate us.

Dude, I just want that puppet. :-p It's the only drama I've made about the whole thing at all. You're mean.

Hmm. I have a poster of Johnny Cash on my wall. It's framed, which surely counts for something, and I'll be damned if he's not pretty cool when all is said and done. I think that the set of motorcycle tires leaning up against the other wall don't reflect well, nor do the random bills and bits of electronics, nor does the bed that takes up 1/2 the floor area. But I think that the NYT style section would have a field day with the silicon valley crowd, and by the SV standards, I'm not so bad.

It's been suggested that the fox skull, moon moth, and scorpion on prominent display in my room aren't the best decorations from the romantic perspective.

Most of the people who come over to my house are from my office and the first thing out of their mouths is 'What a lot of books!' This is followed by 'You don't have a television?' and I have to explain that it blew up but I can watch DVDs just as well on my laptop. Then they see the large sleeping yellow dog surrounded by her mounds of stuffed animals on a dog bed the size of a child's crib. After that they leave.

It's a fine thing I'm a member in good standing of the John Emerson Relationship-Free Lifestyle Club or I'd probably be forced to change, and that would be dreadful.

You don't kick them out after the books/television thing?

Is that when you usually get kicked out, Ben?

No, that usually happens after I undertake a thorough examination of the bookcases and announce precisely in what respects they're wanting.

Perhaps they should do a Style article on Nomadic Graduate Students, after all! They could take pictures of the books, a picture of me grimacing at the camera, and then make some sweeping social generalizations based on my lifestyle and a couple more people they dredged up out of someone's talk on religious syncretism in colonial Mexico by setting a clever trap of free snacks.

I think I'm in far too low a tax bracket to make it into a Style article, though. I'm pretty sure they demand financial records from their subjects.

Remember the Buffy episode where there's a group of vampires eating students at Buffy's college? To cover their tracks, they leave notes as if the students have run away from school under the pressure. This means they have to clear out all the possessions. There's a great moment when the vampires are sifting through an enormous pile of dorm room art posters: "Monet still well in the lead but look out for team Klimt."

They always had the creepy cherubs from the Sistine Madonna when I was still in dorms. Flying morose babies are not my idea of something to display anywhere I have to sleep.

Do people still hang this thing?

Didn't anybody see that Buffy episode with the Klimts and Monets?

I try not to clutter my bedroom walls with too much stuff, but I have one painting that was given to me as a gift; I bought another painting by the same artist, and I plan to rotate them every so often. Throughout the rest of the house, so long as I can keep my roommates' stuff off the walls I'm satisfied.

Whoever upthread says he has Nighthawks on his walls is nuts. That irradiated yellow light, that sickness Hopper infused in every surface, that can't be good for you.

We have a Van Gogh poster in the bedroom but other than that, no posters up at all, and the only photographs on the wall are mine. Kid art from nieces and nephews on the fridge.

I'd like to buy some decent photographic prints though -- there's a lot of good stuff out there I'd like to have.

However, when I was an undergrad living in shared accommodation, I usually had a couple of posters of Francis Wolf/Reid Miles BlueNote stuff. I had loads of them and used to rotate them round.

In my defence, I really did (and do) listen to a lot of jazz.

I also had a bunch of 'art' postcards which included some Klimt, Klee, and Schiele so pretty much corresponding to all of the clichés mentioned above.

104: didn't anybody read comment 102?

w-lfs-n, the fox skull is hot. I once totally charmed a woman in college by mailing her a fragment of cow pelvis bone I'd found.

Later in college I did tear off the front of a Klimt card that someone sent me and hang it on my front door. I am so sorry.

I now own two stuffed animals. They are bunnies. They sit on bookshelves. I also have some original art by friends who have had some success at it, and a sconce. And a cool picket sign on the wall. And some blik. Dames haven't really given me much in the way of evaluation. I hadn't begun to consider that my relatively slow start to dating might have to do with the decoratin'.

I have a Schiele coffee table book that my mom gave me when I got back home this summer.

The only things I've put on the walls in my current apartment are a Black Ox Orkestar poster depicting a Russian zionist in shackles, a poster version of Chris Ware's cover for Candide, a small painting I bought in Chicago, and the poster in the lower left.

I had some other stuff at various stages in college---photographs friends had done, other now-lost posters, sometimes even doodles.

I am so not ever going to call ogged's mom for shirin polow tips now.

that nice bear

I take it your mom didn't quite catch the leather daddy thing.

Then I went to Paris and actually stared at some real Van Gogh up close and was like, fuck that, I love Van Gogh. I don't care if the whole else of the world is done. So my Van Gogh poster went back up.

THAT is what I'm talking about. I hate everyone here except I. Has for the rest of the night.

Except for B, cuzza 92

Another hand up for "The Kiss" on my wall in college, and for a while afterwards. Now we mostly have photos. The only paintings are a cartoony one of my kids that a friend did, and some old aeroplane by my grandfather.

Hmm. I have a poster of Johnny Cash on my wall. It's framed, which surely counts for something

Sorry, Majikthese is spoken for.

I read the whole thing thinking that people were talking about Munch's "The Scream". That would be a turnoff to most people. I don't see the Klimt problem.

BC coastal First Nations silkscreens in most of the house, Monte Dolack in bedroom and home office. I'm probably lucky not to be dating. (Obviously not only because of my taste in art).

I find it really, really hard to believe that story is real--or at least, the writing is so much worse and worse-edited than the usual Times story that there has to be something wrong.

Surely the real apartment sin is being insecure about it? I've been involved with enough snobs of one kind and another to be glad when someone actually just has stuff they like.

In fact, I will go so far as to say that an entirely "correct" apartment is a bit off-putting, and that an article about upper-middle-brow apartment anxiety could be pretty funny. Also that an entirely correct apartment makes me suspect that there are horrible secrets somewhere, either physically present or in the psyche and firmly repressed.

My apartment [boastfully] is (when not a wreck) large, exquisitely beautiful in structure, not too expensive, and filled with neat stuff. I wish I could really believe in the "originals or nothing" dictum, because I've got an excess of originals (since I've got friends, family and ancestors who are/were painters), but I'm afraid that it's just kind of dumb.

(While we're possession-boasting, I've also got a great satiric painting by a Chinese art student of two skinny pinkish guys dueling with swords and shields made of folded yuan. )

I've had to think about how any space of my own that I've been solely responsible for decorating has looked. Inevitably cluttered. I've gotten that "so many books" reaction many times. Anything on the walls would be in the nature of an object displayed as art without having been constructed to be art. I do have some northern landscapes, done by a relative in "Group of Seven" style, but I don't really like them and explaining what the artist had in mind would be bothersome if I were talking to an American; a Canadian of my generation would know right away. So I don't and wouldn't have had them up. My dad had a typical late Colville print, guy with a target pistol, but for obvious reasons we didn't hang it in his room. Wonder what happened to it.

Frowner! did you see the frown on the girl in Clownae's picture?

The upstairs portion of my house is mostly photographs that I've taken, a lot of B&W decaying-small-town stuff, a few color nature shots. (I'd love to fill the house with photography that I didn't take, but budget doesn't allow.)

In the basement I've got some 90s era limited-edition rock posters (Kozik, Hess, etc.) and some original paintings of robots that I bought off eBay for like $20 each. My wife finds the basement decor irritating.

117: I did, IDP. I took some notes for next time I revise mine.

My current frown is referred to by a friend as "the wooden teeth face".

Also, I know about the Group of Seven, from reading novels by Canadians.

He'll never go out with me, and I have no rights over him, but I'll be damned if someone else gets that mouse.

So great.

I dated someone once who had Klimt's The Kiss on her bedroom wall. Which was a little strange because her taste was impeccable otherwise. I think she liked to imagine herself as the subject of that picture.

One of my college roommates once stuck random mirrored tiles to our walls and hung fishing nets and cork fishing lures to the ceiling. Unbelievably hideous. It was like "Disenchantment under the sea."

My own walls are bare, mostly, except for a few framed ads and autographs, two old printing blocks, a Fuji stick, and a few framed postcards.

I was going to say that liking Schiele or Klimt or the Viennese Seccessionists generally wasn't neccessarily a sign of dreadful, dreadful errors in taste, but then I went and googled Schiele (I had, I think, a Schiele print my sophomore year, although the print I remember didn't come up in Google images so maybe not.) and his drawings are just like what a really affected, self-impressed hipster 20-ish art student would make. Yurk. I think I'd prefer that people had Klimt prints, since at least they're not so "lookit-me-I'm-clever-and-transgressive".

Magritte posters, now those really make a cool dorm room.

I've gotten that "so many books" reaction many times that my response is, "yes, that's because I can read".

I like Klimt. I'm a big fan of the whole Nouveau period. But liking the art is one thing--thinking it will look great in the average house or apartment is another.

123: How many is "so many"? Now I'm starting to worry, because although we have seven full-and-double-stacked cases in the visible-to-guests area of our apartment, people seldom comment. Perhaps the standard is eight or nine, and I need another case?

125: It depends. For many people "so many" is any more than the family bible and perhaps a foot and half of the Reader's Digest condensed versions of best sellers. 'Twasn't all that uncommon to see that in the Southeast many years ago, I figure the electronics craze hasn't made it less common since.

If I'm ever part of the dating scene again, I'll be sure to hang a Klimt poster in my house in order to drive away the art snobs.

127: Just buy a bunch of pre-framed stuff from IKEA and be done with it. I'm not sure the point of the Klimt was art snobbery --- hanging another (even inferior) Klimt in your apartment wouldn't have the same effect.

128: otoh, there isn't anything wrong with having a print that everyone else does either. I think that some of them, just like `the Kiss' correlate too heavily in many peoples mind with college dorms and/or bad decorating...

not that i know anything about good decorating....

I used to get the book comments, and at the time I only had maybe three full-and-double-stacked cases on view.

The Buffy line is great. I don't think it's so much art snobbery as it is recognizing that the person hasn't redecorated since the college poster stage.

But fun snarkiness aside, the article annoyed the hell out of me. If we're in my bedroom, and we're going to have sex, and you decide you're not interested because my decor isn't following whatever candyass trend you think means something, the problem is you, not me.

35 was art snobbery.

132: Well, almost nobody actually does that. Maybe this is just my simple provincial character showing, but I assume that all those NYT articles about people who study trapeze and do Pilates daily and cook gourmet meals every night while also working a high pressure job while also grooming the high-achieving progeny for the proper daycare while also collecting Manolo Blahniks--well, I assume that those are mostly made up, and that the impossibility of the lives described serves to legitimate the actual upper classes. Like, they may be fatuous tax-dodging prats who exploit their illegal immigrant help, but at least they're not like those other awful people profiled in the Times.

35 was art snobbery.

Dude, he's fucking Iranian. He just wants people to think he's cool like the WASPs, and to stop making Ayatollah jokes about him. Of course he's going to overcompensate.

133: Most of this thread oscillates between snobbery and social anxiety--such is the fate of the middle classes. I mean, I love to boast about my apartment but I also fear that it's not good enough, or reveals some kind of shameful class-based inadequacy of which I'm not even aware. Or at least, that's how I feel when the topic comes up.

Oh sure, it's probably fiction. It's just that it's being held up as a normative standard and that doth irk. Those young people will have sex on the first date but not if there's a Monet poster on the wall. Okayy.

Snobbery isn't always wrong.

138: Snobbery isn't always wrong, but it's never aristocratic. It's quintessentially bourgeois.

Question: why is it so important to everybody not to still like the stuff you liked in college? Or at least, not to reveal that you still like the stuff you liked in college? I still like the music I liked in college... I like other music, too, that I picked up along the way since then. But, if I'm trying to impress all the potential Mr. Cerebrocrats out there, should I hide away all my Hendrix disks? Should I refrain from cheerfully humming along when I hear Beethoven's 5th?

It's quintessentially bourgeois

Snob.

Anyway, I'm not sure that's true.

Snobbery isn't always wrong, but it's obnoxious more often than not.

People with no books worry me -- I could see reconsidering a decision to have sex with someone if there wasn't a bookshelf in his apartment (or a reasonable explanation of where the books were if they weren't in sight). Wouldn't have to be a whole lot of them, but more than an accidental accumulation of RD Condensed Books. Other than that, I can't think of what about decor would put me off beyond really frightening filth, and my standards for frightening filth are pretty high.

Our wall art is very lame -- a couple of pretty arty pictures of us and the kids a friend took, a Wyeth print someone gave us as a wedding present, some little Japanese prints that used to belong to a friend of Buck's uncle before he died, and a Van Gogh poster of a wheat field in a silly frame that was a signboard in some Van Gogh exhibition and we scavenged from somewhere.

re: 140

A lot of people are quite self-conscious when in college and often cultivate 'tastes' that reflect how they'd like to be perceived rather than reflect what they actually like. I suspect a lot of the 'distancing' is distancing from that sort of affectation.

Personally, I still like most or even all of the music I liked in college but my taste in film and the visual arts is quite different. I imagine a lot of people are the same, and some are vice versa. Hate the music they liked then, love all the same films, etc.

My Klee poster is still in the clip frame + plexiglass that I put it in in college. Complete with fucked up edge where the plexiglass broke as I was trying to score it.

141: I just thought you aimed higher, Ogged.

It's not a particularly complex idea, though--classically, the bourgeoisie wants to seem better than the lower orders and to keep them from rising (hence the anxiety/policing) while aspiring to ape the upper classes (hence the other kind of anxiety). And what could be more middle-browish and status obscessed than letting someone else's decor interfere with your sexual enjoyment? If you have some confidence in your own status, you don't need to worry about the status of those you choose to associate with, particularly not when it gets in the way of fun.

138: There are two sorts of snobbery that need to be distinguished. There's the snobbery of disliking something that's genuinely bad but popular, such as Kinkaid. That's okay, because the object of the snobbery is genuinely bad.

Then there's the the snobbery of disliking something that's good but popular, just because it's popular. That's the sort of snobbery evinced by Klimt-bashing. And that's just stupid and pretentious.

A lot of people are quite self-conscious when in college and often cultivate 'tastes' that reflect how they'd like to be perceived rather than reflect what they actually like.

And once they get older, they just adjust these "tastes" to include things like despising overhead lighting or other people's Klee prints.

Oh sure, it's probably fiction. I bet not. There are 300 million people in the US, any NYTimes piece about neurotic nuts needs only three to four of them.

"People with no books worry me -- I could see reconsidering a decision to have sex with someone if there wasn't a bookshelf in his apartment (or a reasonable explanation of where the books were if they weren't in sight). "

Quiz:
The only books visible are Dan Brown and Dean Koontz. Put your clothes back on and walk out?

Books are my main decor. I love, love, love books. I have a ton of books: a bunch of Civil War books, southern and latin american literature, law related books...anything.

My gf keeps trying to sneak them into our basement so they do not overwhelm us. But, you never know when you might want to go back and find a favorite passage.

147: Is the first even snobbery, though? It seems like that would mean that disliking just about anything would fall under the heading of "snobbery". I think there has to be something to do with cultural capital and status in there, as in your second example.

re: 143

I stopped going out with a girl once because she lived in such total filth. And my standards for filth are also pretty high.

Some friends of mine used to live next to Glasgow School of Art and used to scavenge thrown away and half-finished bits of paintings and sculpture to decorate their flat. They then found some discarded hospital signage and put that up around their flat. The two of them got into a sort of a wierd-kitsch decorating phase that culminated when finally, one of them found a pile of bad 70s porn somewhere and stuck that up in a collage on one wall along with various captions he'd created -- they were genuinely funny and usually made up from newspaper headlines he'd cut out that vaguely fit the pictures. However, the imagery and captions together were quite creepy if you didn't actually know the guy responsible (who was a really gentle guy with a fairly twisted and self-mocking sense of humour).

Anyway, the other guy (not porncollage-ist) met some girls at a party one night, brought them back to their flat for 'coffee'. He was a bit surprised when they literally ran out of the place when they came across his flatmates 'art' ...l

or reveals some kind of shameful class-based inadequacy of which I'm not even aware

Your inadequacies don't have to be class-based. You should post pictures of your apartment, and the rest of us will validate and type your revealed inadequacies. That seems much better than living with the sort of free-floating anxiety you're describing.

"138: There are two sorts of snobbery that need to be distinguished. There's the snobbery of disliking something that's genuinely bad but popular, such as Kinkaid. That's okay, because the object of the snobbery is genuinely bad."

Agreed. Even I know that Kinkaid is genuinely bad.

150: The thing is, if I were attracted enough to somebody to want no-strings sex, I wouldn't care, and if I were actually attracted to their character as well as their physique, it's unlikely that they'd be bookless. Or if they were, they'd be interestingly weird in some other way.

Anyone here ever read Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, or any of Samuel Delany's other accounts of his wide-ranging sex-life?

150: My line of thought is this. Either you've just met the person, or recently met them, and so your standards for having sex with them aren't approaching the level of 'must be my soulmate in every way', but are more 'probably will be fun', and so focusing on the poster art (not filth) as a dealbreaker seems ridiculous. Or you do know the person better, and presumably want to have sex with them because you like them and you think it will be fun, and I think it makes you a shallow bastard if you've decided you like someone enough to have sex with them but the Monet lily print is a dealbreaker.

Maybe these people just have more opportunities for sex than I do, or I have no standards, but I'm not usually worried about decor.

Frowner:
I'm with you. If I am already going there just for sex, the only thing changing my mind are her dad or husband welcoming us to her place, medical conditions, or some evidence of psychotic behavior.

Boy, I can't seem to close my italics tags today.

What should I think of adults who read Harry Potter books? Or ride skateboards?

"What should I think of adults who read Harry Potter books? Or ride skateboards?"

It depends on how long it has been since you've gotten laid.

159: That they are named Frowner (well, Frowners generally avoid skateboards because we are a clumsy tribe) and that their mothers are children's librarians.

I guess it would depend on why they read the Harry Potter books and what else they read. I read them because my mother was reviewing them, and because they're soothing and I tend to get all worked up and insomniac, and because I'm interested in the state of children's books generally.

Geez, you people really want to talk about this. My objection to The Kiss isn't that it's popular or bad. I just recognize that as a matter of fact, in '07 America, having it on your wall when you're past a certain age is a pretty reliable indicator that you're a particular type of person. This, for me, is in the same category as "wears make-up:" you're not a bad person for doing it, but you're not for me either.

What should I think of adults who read Harry Potter books?

We can do wonders with our magic wands.

Whole bunches of people read Harry Potter books. While I don't get the appeal myself, it's too normal to judge people for unless you're really being a jerk about things.

An adult riding a skateboard, on the other hand, is a weirdo. Like any other way of being a weirdo, that could be positive or negative, depending on whether they're annoying about it. (And we were all terribly hurt that you didn't show for drinks last night.)

if you've decided you like someone enough to have sex with them but the Monet lily print is a dealbreaker

"You aren't here for the decorating? Are you?"

"And then their wands touched" is our usual reference to the Harry Potter books chez (non-parental) Frowner.

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue was great.

150: I wouldn't put my clothes back on, but it would definitely bias me towards not coming back again.

Those young people will have sex on the first date but not if there's a Monet poster on the wall.

I'm not a young person any longer so maybe this wasn't addressed to me, but I said no *second* date. I'd still have hot monkey sex under the Water Lilies.

no hating on egon schiele, frowner. my flame-like teen infatuation with schiele has never wavered; he is awesome. also, ben w-lfs-n, having heard about your apartment decor only makes me want to sleep with you more. you must not be meeting the right chicks. let me know if you want more shadowbox-framed scary bugs or moths; they do great ones in Malaysia. cant...look..away.

This, for me, is in the same category as "wears make-up:" you're not a bad person for doing it, but you're not for me either.

Sure, but chances are if you discovered that hottie lifeguard chick wasn't really make-up free, but applied it artfully so it looked natural, you wouldn't decide to put your pants back on, either.

I'm just never putting my pants on again; what's your point?

Also, maybe this was something weird about MIT, but while I recognize a lot of the overdone dorm-poster art that's been discussed here, I'm not sure I've ever seen The Kiss in my life, much less have an immediate understanding of what is implied by having it one one's wall.

(This apartment needs more decoration. Bah, standard-landlord-inoffensive-white walls. Bah, restrictions on making holes in the wall. But the Saison Dupont ad reproduction hanging in the kitchen looks pretty nice.)

Dude, ogged, you live on the west coast. Only silly girls wear makeup on the west coast. If you moved out here, you would find your tastes shifting.

173: Alternatively, maybe there are fewer "silly girls" on the west coast.

Impossible!

174: That goes against every stereotype I cherish.

I don't know how many times someone has told me, "you don't need makeup," while I was wearing makeup, because I had only put on makeup that's subtle in its makeupy appearance, but dramatic in its effect on my face. So much so that I've emerged from a bathroom after applying it to have someone ask, "What just happened? You look great."

Ditto to JM on her point about the cultural context of the makeup. In New York makeup, heels, etc. are a bit too ubiquitous to be drawing conclusions about a woman from them.

In New York makeup, heels, etc. are a bit too ubiquitous to be drawing conclusions about a woman from them.

Disagree entirely.

169: Well, he just draws like someone who would be wearing a retro-fit poly-cotton blend American Apparel tee shirt and some artfully mussed eighties hair at an Arcade Fire show, is all, and who would be really, really impressive to insecure nineteen-year-olds.

But I have a long list of dubious tastes myself, ranging from Margaret Drabble novels to lightly-battered fish pieces.

Does that make me the only woman in NY Ogged would date? Man, sucks to be Ogged.

This might be one of the many reasons I think New York is hell on earth.

Margaret Drabble is questionable? Drat. (I am unreasonably pleased by her being A.S. Byatt's sister.)

I generally jump to negative conclusions from a woman's wearing of heels, but not from makeup. This is probably because I in no way trust myself to detect whether a woman is wearing makeup or not.

So much so that I've emerged from a bathroom after applying it to have someone ask, "What just happened? You look great."

Were these people asking you this women? I absolutely never notice a difference when things like this are done.

181 most definitely written before I saw 180.

177: The whole idea of needing make-up is weird to me. I'm homely, so I need to smear some greasy paste on my face and crust it in my eyelashes? Maybe make my hair rigid and slightly sticky too?

If it's supposed to look theatrical, I'm all for it. I don't care as much for the daily routines that simply make your face leave goop on everything it touches.

If people want to wear it and they think it looks good, more power to them. But out here in flyover country, real serious make-up for day is worn mainly by teenagers and human resources associates.

Everyone says they like girls who don't wear makeup, but the only time I get compliments from department guys is when I've taken the trouble to wear a little light makeup. Methinks they don't like heavy makeup, though the neglected alternative is that I am just perhaps only attractive when I've spackled and shaded my face.

184: Wimp. The Ogged we all know and love would have left that sitting there.

182: I enjoy Margaret Drabble novels far too much and too readily for them not to be questionable. Or at least the ones written before about 1990. The one with Jilly Fox and the start of Thatcherism? Spooky! And the early sixties social-climbing ones? Fab!

re: 186

I don't. I think most people look better with make-up. I also think some people suit heels.

That must make me some freaky outlier in Unfogged land.

Does that make me the only woman in NY Ogged would date?

I rest my (and I guess ogged's) case.

You might never have guessed this about me, but I have mad interior decorating/remodeling skillz, and I am like the opposite of the guys in this article. When I was back in NY, otherwise out-of-my-league women would probably have decided to bear my children on the spot on the strength of my condo's appearance. Of course, you have to get them back to the apartment first for that to work. It's just not fair, I tells ya.

Methinks they don't like heavy makeup

That's it, I think. Light makeup, well applied, generally looks pretty good.

189: Naw, I'm with you; I'm not against very much as a category, presentation and appropriateness is all.

GB: was LB right that the rabbi you'd selected dropped dead?

Light makeup, well applied, generally looks pretty good.

Agreed. But it still means that someone has goop on her face.*

*Don't be gross.

I don't have time to Google this right now, but B/lle W/ring did a great post a couple of years ago on makeup-that-doesn't-look-like-you're-wearing-makeup.

Anyone else remember it?

OF COURSE "light makeup, well applied, generally looks pretty good."

I do think both look good on other people -- I've just always been too lazy to develop the necessary skills. (I still don't understand foundation. Every couple of years I'll have something bizarre happening to my skin and figure 'hey, this could be concealed', and try slapping on a layer of something to cover it up, and every time I end up looking either like a mime or just kind of dusty.)

(Actually, last time I did that was at the trial training program I was in Chicago for last spring. I looked like a clown that whole week. And IDP: Yeah, that was GB's rabbi, and I feel kind of bad about putting up a jokey comment about someone dying.)

160: This consideration could be influencing my argument here more than I'd care to examine.

161: it would depend on why they read the Harry Potter books and what else they read Of course it would, so why wouldn't the same thing apply to people with Monet prints in their house? (not arguing with you, just trying to make the point)

162: The kind of person who's not afraid to put the shit they like up on their wall.

164: Agreed, so again, I don't know why it doesn't apply to the art on your walls. As for skateboards, I live in Williamsburg, where adults on skateboards is not so uncommon. I was pretty sniffish about it at first, but never could come up with a reason why, so I'm trying to knock that off. Also, sorry! I worked wicked late late night and was all burned out and nonverbal. I would have been no fun. Next time, honest!

Despite the side I'm arguing for, I might be a big fat hypocrite, because, given unlimited resources, I probably wouldn't have a bunch of Klimt and Monet prints in my apartments. But maybe the expression of resource is really what we're talking about here.

But, I don't like the "never moved on from college" business. Like everybody else, I was cuter, sweeter, and more idealistic in college; why would I want to throw that guy overboard? I LIKE the fact that I could unselfconsciously stick up some Water Lilies in my dorm room.

The thing with foundation is that almost nobody needs to wear it everywhere.

re: 197

I used to wear make-up. When I was a skinny androgynous 17 year old and playing guitar in a cheesy glam-metal sort of a band. I didn't think it was that hard to learn how to do -- I think my sister and my then-girlfriend taught me.

#193: Yes, he had a second heart attack six months after his first one, and this one did him in. Apparently he had been following doctor's orders since the first one, but it wasn't enough to keep him in the clear.

194: It disturbs me profoundly that I agree with this. I like people to look recently-washed. And should I happen to touch them, I like them not to be smeary. I also like to be able to touch people's hair (that is, the people I touch regularly, who are few) and not have it be all stiff with product, or all slimy with product. (Or indeed, stiff or slimy with anything).

Okay, what conclusions about a woman can you draw from the fact that she wears heels?

(A man who met me in a non-New York context once said, hearing that I wore them: "You wear heels?" I seemed far too hippieish to him.)

I haven't heard a single constructive suggestion here about what people SHOULD put up on their walls between age 22 and death. Actual original paintings? Those electric flat soothing waterfall things? Family photographs? Buddhist prayer tapestries, like my dad has all over his house?

I remember that post, Witt. It was the same discussion: I don't like makeup, I just like girls who look fresh and radiant, and the women all rolling their eyes wondering how they think we often look fresh and radiant.

LB, for what it's worth, I didn't read your initial comment as all that jokey.

199: "in my apartments," one for each of my internets.

That s was supposed to be on "resources."

In fact, not two weeks ago, I got a "cute shoes," followed by a, "huh, I didn't think you would be the type for shoes like that."

201: Oh, theatrical looking makeup is easy -- I can throw on some red lipstick and eyeliner if I'm going out and want to look glammed up. Subtly flattering makeup, which I'm guessing androdgynous 80's glam-metal-ttaM wasn't so much going for, takes skill.

Actually, last time I did that was at the trial training program I was in Chicago for last spring. I looked like a clown that whole week

You must have wiped it off before you met us, then.

I haven't heard a single constructive suggestion here about what people SHOULD put up on their walls between age 22 and death

Whatever you like. Unless you're trying to get laid by ogged, in which case you should apparently go with the print linked in #73.

I like people to look recently-washed. And should I happen to touch them, I like them not to be smeary.

I totally know what product you're looking for! Shiseido does some really nice toners, and you want the mattifying powder and concealers, maybe Lancôme.

re: 210

No, I went for the subtly flattering thing -- peachy colours, and stuff. You could tell I was wearing makeup but I didn't look like a member of Poison. I wanted to look glam and feminine (rockin' the whole androgyny thing) without looking like a drag queen.

My wife gets very uncomfortable when I mention I used to wear make-up.

213: It's matte powder and concealer I wear that makes me look more glowing, and makes my skin tone more even.

Okay, what conclusions about a woman can you draw from the fact that she wears heels?

If it's for pleasure, that she is willing to cripple herself on every step for the sake of a small number of other people finding her slightly more attractive. Same thing if a woman is wearing a skirt is so short that she can't bend over forwards.

If it's for business, that she has some sort of office job that requires her for irrational reasons to wear an uncomfortable uniform that she resents wearing. I guess that last one would include all lawyers, who I don't usually see in a given year unless I'm walking around the city's downtown during work hours for some reason.

This doesn't apply to women over 60, who grew up in a time when they were expected to wear heels in all kinds of situations.

I haven't heard a single constructive suggestion here about what people SHOULD put up on their walls between age 22 and death.

Okay, to back up my boast in #191, here's my 2 cents: If you are going to have art, make it understated and abstract. The Kiss is cliched and literal. But -- and here is the real secret -- a well-designed and well-furnished apartment is itself a work of art, and hanging crap on the walls only detracts from its impact, like putting a bumper sticker on a Ferrari.

I don't know too much about foundation, LB. Or any of it, really; out in flyover calaville all makeup comes from the mall counters or the drug store, and those mall counters are overpriced, don't you know.

But I like powder foundation. I hadn't worn foundation in 10 years but I did recently when the stress of grad school started to make me look like a mummy.

213: Well, if you can tell me how I can get others to wear that stuff, I guess it's okay. I have enough to do, myself, just getting up and showered and dressed without wrangling anything else.

I decorate my apartment with makeup and wear water lilies on dates.

Now that I think about it, 216 basically doesn't apply to women who are more than 10 years out of college, because they aren't my peers so I don't feel entitled to stereotype them.

what people SHOULD put up on their walls

Dude, SCMT is exactly right: whatever you like. It would be silly to decorate with stuff you don't love in order to make some impression that you can't even control. It's not as if you can avoid being judged.

The water lilies aside, how do you wear the dates?

217: Nah, an apartment should be like a museum before museum-ness crystallized--an assortedment of fascinating and interesting things bound together by a personal logic.

I know someone who owns an articulated metal lobster on wheels, for example, among many other objets.

re: 222

Yeah, surely part of what makes some college-art stuff embarrassing is precisely the fact that it was put there in order to make an impression.

Go with shit you like, and if you like shit, accept that you have shit taste. Like all those Ansel Adams-buyin' sods.

If it's for pleasure, that she is willing to cripple herself on every step for the sake of a small number of other people finding her slightly more attractive. Same thing if a woman is wearing a skirt is so short that she can't bend over forwards.

You can't tell from the mere fact that a shoe has a heel how comfortable or uncomfortable it is, and "is sometimes interested in sacrificing some degree of comfort for aesthetics, on some occasions" does not tell you anything too stable about her character.

But you know what, as is probably fairly transparent, I'm Tia, and I do not know why I'm getting into yet another conversation on Unfogged wherein men lecture women for being too girly, since this is precisely the kind of thing I hate being around here for. So have fun.

You can't put the water lilies aside; they're part of the corsage.

That's a cool lobster indeed, and I'd be proud to own one, but I was addressing the subject of what to hang on the wall. My point is that "art on walls" does not equal "stylish and attractive apartment".

..Not to mention the fact that some women like heels because they make them feel taller and more imposing. But I am truly out.

If I ever own a Ferrari, I am so going to put a bumper sticker on it. Maybe that "I'll be a post-feminist in the post-patriarchy!" one I saw in Berkeley.

I'm going to have something that is green, hangs on the wall, and sings.

If I ever own a Ferrari

I wouldn't date a woman who drove a Ferrari.

Ogged, I already have a boyfriend.

I thought other people might want to know.

The only things I've put on the walls

Oh, also this, though the table leg has since fallen down, leaving only the glove and wood strips.

I wouldn't date a woman who drove a Ferrari.

What if she didn't drive it, but kept it on display in a garage, as in Ferris Bueller?

222: It's not as if you can avoid being judged.

You can't avoid being judged by Ogged, it seems.

I have to admit, I don't get the hatin' on heels.

My wife was driving a Corvair when I got to know her. Our first date was dinner after I was to look at it to find why her battery kept draining. I found and fixed the cause very quickly.

Usually when I notice heels, it's because they're clearly making it hard for the woman to walk, leading me to wonder why she's wearing them. Presumably if she's comfortable in them, I'll be less likely to notice that she's wearing them.

Particularly on this big college campus you see lots of girls who get all dolled up for parties, and then put on the heels that they wear five times a year for the finishing touch, thus transforming their normally graceful walk into a nervous clumping motion.

It's not as if you can avoid being judged.

Let's try to get this back to the Male Gaze.

" men lecture women for being too girly"

Maybe I have missed some prior conversation, but the women around me are always giving fashion advice to me and other men.

With apologies to Tia, they really do kind of suck to wear, at least for me. The width of the heel is more important than the height -- I used to have a pair of chunky-heeled black loafers that I loved, despite being fairly high for me (2, 2½ inches, maybe?) because the width of the heel made them stable. But most pretty heels are uncomfortable and hobbling -- you can't walk much, and you can't go fast.

I don't understand judging someone for wearing them, though. Looking attractive is important, and heels are a big part of looking normally attractive around here. I usually don't wear them out of stubbornness and because I'm not trying to attract anyone much these days, but thinking of someone as shallow because they're working on looking pretty by the standards of the society they're in is messed up.

240: Most women's dress shoes have some heel. Flats only really came back into style again in the past couple of years, so chances are what you're noticing (parallel with the makeup) is not that you don't like women in heels, but you don't like women in obnoxiously large fuck-me-pumps that are designed for going out in and falling off of.

Shorter version: Heels: drag because women who enjoy them have both the fun and the props, but women who don't enjoy them often have to wear them and have no fun do so and usually less props, being less invested in the enjoy-being-a-girl thing. Is this a really good place to start one's feminist analysis? No. Will getting rid of heels bring about feminist utopia? Almost certainly not. Are women who wear heels thus bad feminists? Depends, probably not. But is being "feminine" a completely uncoerced choice that women make because it's just so fun? That is, is gender performace some kind of existentialistish free choice? No.

I don't understand judging someone for wearing them

Yeah, it's not always easy to hold the distinction between "not for me" and "bad," but I do mean it much more in the first sense--it's one signal among many of what the person cares about, what her priorities are, what she'll expect of me, etc. Hard to articulate the details, obviously...

"have no fun doing so and usually get less props"

I don't have any feelings one way or the other about heels. I do suspect, however, that if I had to wear them, I'd almost certainly break an ankle within a week.

re: 243

Yeah, i totally get hating the idea that people have to wear them. My wife has to wear them for work -- as she's a high-end shoe pusher -- and that sucks.

In fact her current work-shoes are these which are hardly the most practical: http://tinyurl.com/ywtycp

But the hating on people for choosing to wear them, though -- because they want to, or because they think they look hawt, or for whatever the hell reason they like -- I don't get.

I do not know why I'm getting into yet another conversation on Unfogged wherein men lecture women for being too girly

I think you're misreading at least some of the conversation. I don't think heels or makeup tell you much about a person's character (or Character). I like heels and makeup quite a lot, but I'm more comfortable with people who deploy them in fairly narrow circumstances. And that's really all this is--a description of a proxy which sorts those around whom I am more likely to be comfortable and those around whom I'm more likely to be less comfortable. It's a very imperfect proxy, and it's quite likely that I miss the use of makeup all of the time. Moreover, my lack of comfort might just as easily say something negative about me. Most likely, it says something pretty neutral about me, as judged by some grand scheme, just as the fact that I like the Water Lilies print is relatively unimportant. (I only want that one night of monkey sex with Apo; a second date is not so necessary.) I'm pretty sure ogged made this point above.

Is...that your wife linked in 249?

But the hating on people for choosing to wear them, though -- because they want to, or because they think they look hawt, or for whatever the hell reason they like -- I don't get.

It's not "hating on", it's a heuristic that says "not for me", as ogged describes in 246 without using the word "heuristic".

All these guesstimates are fun to talk about and hash out -- but they are, you know, just guesstimates. I am usually safe in assuming that if a person is ultra-trendy in their clothes, we're not going to have much in common, whether as friends or romantically. Or if they list Maxim as their favorite reading material, we're not going to click on the literary level.*

But then there's the fact that I've now had more than a handful of dates with someone who drives a Jaguar. So go figure.

*Speaking of which, what is with you all counting shelves? 1,400+ volumes at last count, dudes.

Those are pretty shoes. I'd pay a lot to never have to wear them, but they're pretty.

Do you heels-dislikers feel averse to thick, chunky heels too?

but thinking of someone as shallow because they're working on looking pretty by the standards of the society they're in is messed up.

That strikes me as sufficiently broad as to swallow any sort of judgment about self-presentation at all.

252: Either too many books to count or not OCD enough to bother, my friend. I've got a lot of books, and I'm going out to forage for more tomorrow, and that's all I need to know.

What should I think of adults who read Harry Potter books? Or ride skateboards?

That they might be married to me.

Re. the heels, makeup question, for fuck's sake. Whoever it was that said it depends where you live is correct: shit, when I lived in Seattle I didn't bother to shave my fucking armpits. When I lived eastier, I wore heels and makeup pretty regularly; now that I'm in Cali, I virtually never wear either. People *do* adjust to regional styles, you know.

And while fine, people have opinions about makeup and shoes, the tone of some of the comments about "goop" and "fuck-me pumps" seems awfully . . . humorless.

I've now had more than a handful of dates with someone who drives a Jaguar.

If I had no money limits, that's the car I'd buy. I have money limits.

What about Klimt shoes?

People *do* adjust to regional styles, you know.

To varying degrees, obviously. Which might, itself, be information relevant to sorting.

I walk a lot (two miles to and two miles from work daily, plus random 'round campus stuff) and I bike a lot. I like expensive shoes, and I don't want to waste money on shoes I can only wear once in a while.

I can do two miles in half an hour (easy) in these without any discomfort.

255: No, really it isn't. Wanting to attract people is normal, and it's a big deal -- if you're judging people negatively for putting effort into being attractive you're being very strange. Wearing heels and makeup to attract men is normal in our society -- while there's nothing that says you, individually, have to be attracted by heels and makeup, taking wearing heels as evidence of a personal flaw (rather than simply a style choice that doesn't suit your tastes) is likewise screwy. I'm not sure that anyone here was doing that, but it would be wrong of them if they were.

(And there's also the sheer difficulty of finding non-heels at appropriate levels of formality -- remember that post of mine on those cute little mules I bought because I couldn't find more sensible work sandals?)

Wearing heels and makeup to attract men is normal in our society -- while there's nothing that says you, individually, have to be attracted by heels and makeup, taking wearing heels as evidence of a personal flaw (rather than simply a style choice that doesn't suit your tastes) is likewise screwy.

I don't disagree with that, but I fail to see why the same analysis can't be applied to almost any decision about self-presentation. The obvious example is plastic surgery. How popular does it have to be before it becomes a choice that you judge as akin to wearing heels? (Maybe you already do; I think I do.)

I want some of those Trippen clogs so badly it hurts. Too expensive for me right now.

261: Well then, the gods have gifted you with amazing feet, or maybe I just have terrible ones. Or else you're used to it, perhaps--I had a pair of boots with a two-inch chunky heel and I walked all over town in them, and then I stopped, and now a two-inch heel is uncomfortable.

They're a really cute pair of shoes, though.

Also, heels just don't suit most of my clothes, which are almost all either arty-lefty or arty-oddly-proportioned-drapey.

262:

I thought Ogged had a good explanation about this point.

But, I will echo that I am inclined not to date a woman who spends too much money on clothes or who spends too much time trying to appear attractive.

For me, too much make-up and horribly impractical shoes are where that line is for me. Subjective, I understand. But I suspect that women make the same judgments, too much hair goop, manicured fingernails, etc.

It's all the width, for me. Wide, I can manage -- shoes like Jack's would make me cry.

I went to see Christo's Gates in the park in a pair of boots my sister talked me into with a heel like those, and 45 minutes of moseying had me in real pain.

264: You can order them from Germany! Since I work at a university, I don't need to own proper respectable shoes, so I just save up and buy a pair of Trippens every six months or so. I have several pairs of the sort of ankle-strap maryjane ones.

I have strong, almost perfect square feet. The shoes I linked to are just really, really well made.

Are the ankle-strap Mary Janes in question the "Pan"? And if so, is that velcro on there?

I could wear JM's shoes--it's mostly a question of balance. Heels that high are perfectly okay for walking if the shoes are good ones. To me.

In re. "wanting to look attractive," here's my new theory about this. B/c women can't be as sexually aggressive as men without running into some pretty major hostility, presenting oneself as a sex object basically signals "approach me." And women do it for the same reason guys buy women drinks or check out hot chicks--because they want to get laid. It's just that the only socially approved way of being a girl-on-the-make is to act slutty.

No, they are the "Vivienne" in a deep, deep plum. But Trippen does sometimes use Velcro--they're all, you know, conceptual.

They make environmentally-responsible shoes and pay a living wage to workers in Europe. Also, they have a really hilarious shoe information flyer--which, sadly, isn't on the web--which cautions you that walking on bumpy surfaces, kneeling, having wide feet or getting the shoes wet may "shorten the life of the shoe". Given that I wore my Trippen boots all through the past couple snowy winters and they're still in great shape, I can only assume that the natural "life of the shoe" is measured in millenia.

B/c women can't be as sexually aggressive as men without running into some pretty major hostility, presenting oneself as a sex object basically signals "approach me." And women do it for the same reason guys buy women drinks or check out hot chicks--because they want to get laid.

Right. I used to wear more makeup when I was on the market, because it had a clear effect on how people responded to me -- no makeup, the assumption was that I wasn't interested in flirting or being flirted with, some lipstick and I was suddenly a possibility. I'd swear that wasn't an esthetic response -- it's social signaling.

Hmm. I have very little on my walls - in the living room, one fairly conventional original landscape in oils that I bought at an Aids charity art auction, and a print of indigenous Australian art my parents gave me. In the bathroom, a bunch of poems held togther with a bulldog clip, hanging off a nail, which I rotate every week or so.

I wear makeup most days to work, because I feel I should. Left to my own devices I mightn't wear it every single day but would at night if going out. Also I get my eyelashes dyed because I don't like to wear much mascara but otherwise I look like Boris Becker. I highly recommend it to any women of the sandy, reddish or blonde haired persuasion.

I hardly ever wear heels because they hurt my (very wide) feet a lot, so strictly for dressing up occasions. In the summer I wear wedge sandals a bit more often as they're more stable than other heels. OTOH I'm short and broadly built so I don't like totally flat shoes of the ballet slipper type. Like LB I have trouble getting suitable work shoes. I generally end up with something conventional and dreary.

273: You-all are making me feel less homely by the moment--maybe people don't flirt with me because I don't gussy myself up, not because I am preternaturally ugly. That would cause me to radically re-evaluate almost my entire life history, but I'm not sure I'm ready to do so.

Also I get my eyelashes dyed because I don't like to wear much mascara but otherwise I look like Boris Becker.

Is it safe? Half the reason I wear makeup at all is that without it, my lashes and eyebrows are so pale that the aesthetic is more 'recovering chemo patient' than 'natural beauty.'

You can order them from Germany!

Small consolation, as they're still 200 Euros. Those are some awesome-looking shoes, though.

And I just wondered if the social signaling works in reverse: I approached make-upless women, because I was attracted to the way they looked, but often seemed to have disconcerted them in a disproportionate way. Perhaps Can't you see I'm not wearing make-up, and am not in the mood? might have been a factor in some cases.

And that's half the reason I don't. I'm lazy, but a lot of the cheap points you get from makeup are things that increase contrast - dark lashes and brows, red mouth, and so on - and my coloring's already contrasty enough that I don't get anything additional on that front. For makeup to do much for me esthetically, rather than as a pure signal, I'd have to figure out all the subtle contouring shit and that's too hard.

(And Frowner: Sounds like it to me. You know what else works? Dangly earrings are a complete 'flirt with me' signal.)

279 to 276.

I once knew a smokin' hot dark-haired Swedish woman who wore white mascara. The effect was disconcerting, but she could make anything look good. Literally anything: I saw her once in a bright purple 1970 skisuit.

251 er, no ...

And I think LB gets it right in 262 about why some of the comments above seem slightly 'off' to me.

277: Yes, there is no consolation for the price. If I had to wear proper shoes or dress more formally at work, I couldn't afford them.

297 makes sense. I think that the "contouring stuff" is bullshit: it's great if you're on stage or on film, but for regular wear? Whatever.

243: I think that wearing comfortable practical shoes instead of heels is actually a reasonably good proxy for people who might be interested in dating me. I say this for two reasons. First, women who wear crazy heels like accessories that make them look attractive to other women at the expense of comfort and practicality. As a boyfriend, I am an accessory that is comfortable and practical, but not one that's going to impress your girlfriends. Second, women who wear heels consistantly tend to want to date someone noticeably taller than their height in heels. Almost no young women are 6 inches shorter than me.

I'd swear that wasn't an esthetic response -- it's social signaling.

This describes an enormous amount of behavior that we normally feel comfortable judging. It might be easier to see with men, and especially young men. The amount of behavior that can be explained by "I wanted to impress women" is gigantic.

re: 281

Isn't white mascara a pretty classic look in 1960s high-fashion photographs (of people like Penelope Tree, for example)?

297 makes sense.

Ooh, I hope I end up posting that one.

286: Sure, but what you're judging there is that I had some interest in being romantically approached by the sort of men who understand 'wearing makeup' as a signal (or, rather, who interpret 'not wearing makeup' as a 'don't bother' signal). Given that that's most men, while there's nothing wrong with judging people for the signals they send, judging me harshly for that seems awfully narrowminded of you.

273 reminds me that some of my female friends used to tell me (back in my long single stretch) that I needed to buy nicer jeans for precisely the same "hey, I'm looking for a girlfriend and am willing to put effort into finding one" social signalling reasons.

Given the intrinsic harmlessness of smearing a little pigment on your face, that is.

279, smartass.

judging me harshly for that seems awfully narrowminded of you.

Ok, but there's not a lot of harsh judging going on about this here. I get that you haven't accused anyone, but we're liable to get confused soon...

289: And thus, it's logical for a man to see a woman wearing heels and dangly earrings, interpret that as an "I am interested in flirting with a man who likes heels and dangly earrings" signal, and then it follows from that that she is not interested in a man who doesn't like heels and dangly earrings, and then such a man will say "Hmph, well, I never liked you anyway."

This comment is so logical that I hope it ends up being #297.

Oh, sure. I just wanted to point at the difference between judging someone for, say, driving stupid and getting in wrecks because they're trying to signal manliness to girls (nothing wrong with the desire to send the message, but it's no excuse for acting dangerously) and judging someone for wearing makeup.

287.--You're right. I just haven't seen it on that many real-life people. That's not entirely true, as after meeting this woman I went out and got some white mascara that looked perfectly ghastly on me; what I meant was that I haven't seen it work on that many real-life people.

Facts:

Women are oppressing men.

Boys should have short hair.

I'm off to swim, because swimming is awesome.

290 is so, so true. I sometimes wonder if I ended up with my long-term ex because he was the only man in France with good sense in pants.

I was once complimented on my eyelashes by someone complaining about how much time she spent on applying makeup. It was an odd conversation.

So what you're saying is that one pair of men's pants differs from another somehow?

This is too much for me.

276: I've never had any problems but some people are allergic. Basically it's a peroxide base like hair dye. Go to a good beautician. Get them to do a patch test on your skin somewhere with the dye and wait 24 hours to see if there's any reaction. The place I go is v. careful to put some barrier cream (just vaseline, I think) on the skin just above and below the lashes to protect it. While I'm not allergic I have a slight sensitivity just because eyelid skin is so delicate and I can sometimes feel the skin heat up a wee bit. It helps that they put a damp cotton wool pad over the whole thing during the 10-15 mins while it "takes". Also when they're wiping it away a little can get into your eyes and sting a bit.

The eyebrows part is easier for some reason and doesn't get left on as long. If you're very fair get them to do the brows dark brown instead of black as it can be a bit OTT. It will probably look a bit much that day anyway as there will be some dye stain on the skin at the brows but next day it should look more natural. It really saves all that messing around with mascara just not to look washed out.

I had some interest in being romantically approached by the sort of men who understand 'wearing makeup' as a signal....Given that that's most men, while there's nothing wrong with judging people for the signals they send, judging me harshly for that seems awfully narrowminded of you.

Again, I'm not sure I disagree, but that still describes most of the (for example) male behavior I'm referencing. Buying the fast car, etc. (Men might be misreading signs, but that's a different issue.)

the sort of men who understand 'wearing makeup' as a signal (or, rather, who interpret 'not wearing makeup' as a 'don't bother' signal)

So this is, sometimes, a signal?

294: The thing is, guys who really, genuinely, don't respond to gussying up as a signal (rather than expecting it as a minimum at all times) seem IME to be quite rare. A much more common response is (again, IME) the crunchy, practical guy who's all into crunchy practical girls and talks about not understanding why anyone would hurt themselves with pretty shoes or whatever, but still doesn't figure out that flirting might be welcome until the earrings and lipstick come out.

There's Ogged, of course, but not all that many other guys I've run into.

303: Anything is sometimes a signal for someone; I don't know anyone offhand who consciously goes makeupless because she wants to be left alone.

still describes most of the (for example) male behavior I'm referencing. Buying the fast car, etc.

This is exactly right. I wouldn't expect to be friends with someone who drives, say, a black beemer for almost exactly the same reasons I wouldn't expect to get along with someone who wears make-up.

There's Ogged, of course, but not all that many other guys I've run into.

The way you signal probably influences the guys you run into.

I thought you were going swimming. Plus, you're completely wrong: driving a toolish car is not at all the same thing as putting on mascara before going out, for christ's sake.

is not at all the same thing

Because B does one, but not the other.

Here's a better analogy: saying "I wouldn't date a woman who wears makeup" is obnoxious in the same way as a woman saying "I wouldn't date a guy who drives a new car." It implies not merely a preference, but a kind of smug self-righteousness.

309: That, and even the most expensive mascara costs about five cents per use.

Hey, off-topic but Michelle Malkin is John Doe.

Their silliness knows no bounds.

311: Au contraire.

307: Don't think so. As I've said, I'm way, way on the low-gussying end of the spectrum, and my experience getting flirted with is like Frowner's; mostly people don't. The 'huh, I put some lipstick on and suddenly boys come out of the woodwork' thing was noticeable to me in college because that wasn't typical of most of my (romantically pathetic) experience.

306: But compare the relative cost of a BMW and a lipstick, and the social pressure to drive a BMW and to wear lipstick. Someone driving a BMW is spending several tens of thousands of dollars on impressing people, and is doing something that isn't required by any social norms. Someone wearing makeup is spending several tens of dollars on it, and is doing something that failing to do makes you weird in many regions of the country. Taking makeup wearing as a strong signal of 'caring too much about appearances'; or a signal comparable to BMW driving, seems to overweight it.

313: That's not the mascara, it's the tube.

I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.

I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.

I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.

I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.

Wait, she's opposed to all that now? Huh.

I don't wear lipstick because the men come out like flies when I do, and it gets very annoying.

315: "Their mascara generally retails for $589."

318: Okay, fine, you win. Wearing mascara is *exactly* like driving a Beemer.

It hurts when I try to downshift around the corners, though.

Someone driving a BMW is spending several tens of thousands of dollars on impressing people, and is doing something that isn't required by any social norms.

Sometimes. I was thinking about this issue this morning, 'cause I got a ride into work in a brand-new Mercedes. And on the one hand, yeah, the car's kind of flaunting it. On the other hand, driving in a Mercedes is a qualitatively more pleasant experience than driving in a cheaper car. The suspension is better, so the ride is more comfortable. The seats are more comfortable. It's quieter.

I'm still happy with my 7-year-old Civic, but damn if the Benz didn't tempt me...

Brand-new Mercedes are ugly. How about an Audi?

Some people also actually like the thrill of driving a high-performance car. Watch a couple of Top Gear clips on YouTube, and you'll see that it's possible to want an expensive car for reasons other than impressing the neighbors.

How about an Audi?

Well, now we know what price *your* soul goes for...

Watch a couple of Top Gear clips on YouTube, and you'll see that it's possible to want an expensive car for reasons other than impressing the neighbors.

Yeah, but Jeremy Clarkson hates motorcycles, so fuck him.

Dangly earrings are a complete 'flirt with me' signal

Really?

Huh. I wear them every day, without fail. Because they're pretty, donchaknow.

326 was me.

. Someone driving a BMW is spending several tens of thousands of dollars on impressing people, and is doing something that isn't required by any social norms.

This is dependent on the relevant community. When ogged talks trash about the Persian community, it seems to me that he's saying, in part, that he doesn't like a community that has social norms requiring the purchase of a black BMW. None of these things--makeup, BMWs, Monet prints--defines what anyone thinks is important in and of itself. Each is a predictor, and its validity as a predictor is going to be determined by how good it is at discriminating appropriately, whether that prediction is about how well two people are likely to get along in different types of relationships or about what sorts or moral choices someone would make. You seem to be saying that wearing makeup is so common that it will not make a very discriminating predictor. Maybe that's true, but that seems like a situation in which the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

I was once complimented on my eyelashes

Boys have all the luck in the eyelash department.

I must now prove that I am a man.

I'll be back later, with animal carcasses to hang on the walls.

330: Yes, like those guys in the movies, as ac quoted Jane Smiley talking about

I'll be back later, with animal carcasses to hang on the walls.

Just, please, not an elk. Elk are so played.

Tim gets it right in 328. The claim is about predictive power, not whether people in the Kingdom of Ends would wear mascara. Damn, I love saying "it's an empirical question!"

SB wins the thread!

You people are amazing. Seriously? The posters might get to you? OK, I guess certain posters might get to me but they'd have to be pretty aggressively awful. Starry Night I could deal with. A great big portrait of Reagan, not so much. Still, at the end of the day you fuck your trophy date under the Monet print they have, not the Monet print etc.

Tim gets it right in 328.

Except for the part about eating your makeup.

336: One of my co-workers has a great big portrait of Reagan in her office. It's a bit scary.

Let's consider the predictive value of a foodstuff labeled "non-toxic".

336: Aphrodisiac here.

328, 334: Of course I'm saying it's an empirical question. Empirically, what wearing makeup tells you about a woman is that she's willing to devote a couple of bucks and a little effort to being more attractive. That's a really weak signal to hang a lot of deductions about character or tastes from.

It's not that there's anything evil about making deductions about people's character from the things they do, just that as a matter of fact, you can't tell anything about someone who wears makeup except that she lives in an area where it's conventional, and she doesn't see a reason to strike out against convention.

Some people also actually like the thrill of driving a high-performance car. and without thinking at all about what it did or didn't do for my (now non-existent) sex appeal. But the urge for hot cars faded after my first ride on a really hot bike. *THAT* was an epinephrine rush like no other I've had.

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but as far as prints up in your house, the ones in my room should probably send people fleeing but I don't really care. They're both by New Orleans artists and, while I've pretty much outgrown them, I don't have anything else framed that I like right now and they do remind me of when I lived there. One is a Rodrigue blue dog (not that one, but similar) and the other is a French Quarter building with a balcony. When I asked 'Smasher for his take on where I should hang them in my room, he gave me a look like "really?" and suggested I might want to keep them in my closet.

I also have a fantastic Sleater-Kinney poster, which is the only thing hanging on my wall right now of which I'm truly fond.

But the urge for hot cars faded after my first ride on a really hot bike

Agreed: for the speed rush there is no readily-available substitute. But even though much cheaper than a car, the lack of "dual use" practicality makes it seem indulgent, even when the value of the bike is less than the extra you'd pay for your car to be hot.

We had a great big B&W Reagan poster in a past apartment. In the front stairwell, though, so we got a chance to explain the irony in public before traipsing off to the bedroom.

342: Word. And a supremely poserific bike will only run you twenty thousand bucks, compared to sixty and up for cars. On the other hand, if I had a dollar for every time someone said "Oh, I thought my bike would help me get women, but instead it seems to attract rich 50-year-old men", well...

Wearing/not wearing makeup is a two-way signal, too. While a lot of people seem to be saying that to disqualify someone for wearing it would be silly (and others seem to disagree), I think that that doesn't preclude giving a lot of weight to people *not* wearing makeup, since it's less common.

'Smasher would probably suggest that I put my framed copy of this away somewhere dark.

This is the only poster currently on my wall, and it's been on my various walls since 2001. It's on the inside of a closet door, though, so it's not part of how I initially present myself to people.

you can't tell anything about someone who wears makeup except that she lives in an area where it's conventional, and she doesn't see a reason to strike out against convention

I'm not sure this is true. I've known people who moved to make-up wearing places and started to dabble in it, and it really does reflect subtle changes in their outlook and more "wait, what? what the fuck do you care about that for?" moments.

Brain damage from toxic pigments? In any case, you're lucky you're not trying to date around here -- your options would be extraordinarily thin on the ground.

NY: Not my kinda town.

276: Find an eyelash dyer who uses vegetable dye; it's the safest.

Funny - I just read an article about cosmetics, in which it was stated that there are really only a couple of ways to make mascara, and that it is not worth it to go for the high-price stuff, as there really aren't demonstrable differences between them and the drugstore brands - and as one should pitch the tube every six months, the cost differential really matters.

107: I had to attend a cocktail party just after I'd broken a bone in my foot. To palliate the inevitable being stepped on by clumsy co-attendees, I bought a pair of bunny slippers - very thick, lifelike, brown-furred bunny slippers. They now sit on a bookcase, with a cat bowl between them. It confuses people.

~10 years ago I needed a specific kind of bulb for a scanner at work and could only find it at a bulb specialty store in Raleigh. I went there to purchase it and the storefront was basically a cash register on a pedestal in a warehouse of bulbs. The only person there was the guy in the one glass-walled office in the place and he took me back to his office as he'd set it aside when I called to inquire about it. The glass walls of his office had been completely papered over with drawings (not his), photos and, most of all, newsprint praises of Reagan. It was like a shrine. It's like Reagan Himself stood between this guy and all the dusty warehouse space that comprised his business. It was so strange. I think that experience is what prompted precisely that example on my part.

Tangential: at the state fair a couple of years ago there was a get-your-photo-with-the-Prez thing set up with a mocked up oval office and cardboard cut-outs of Bush and Clinton. A friend and I lined up to have our pictures taken with the Clinton cut-out. Said friend was asking me whether I thought they'd let her lay on her back on the desk, legs in the air, with the Clinton cut-out In Place, as it were. (They didn't allow it.) As we were talking I heard the two suburban harpies behind us comment to one another that they couldn't believe anyone would want to be photographed with that lying cheat Clinton. Then one said, "I wish they had one of Reagan. He was just... he was the father we all needed." It was an act of will not to puke on the carpet.

Actually, the fashionable makeup look in NYC these days is to have impeccable, dewy skin that gleams with health and "I just wash my face and go out!" Maybe a little eyeliner, if you're emo. Of course, "I just wash my face and go out!" is fairly expensive and labor-intensive.

ogged is looking for the person he wishes he were, but with boobs.

Not for the literal-minded.

but with boobs

And less body hair.

You could shave each other. Intimate!

Tia offers, as what I presume is a reductio,

Those young African-American teenagers would be so much more attractive if they just didn't dress so ghetto. It just says, not my kind, you know. It communicates something about their values. Oh but, you know, I don't mean to say anything to judge them, even though I do wonder how they can be comfortable or walk around like that. It's just a proxy for who I'd like to have certain kinds of relationships with.

But this quite right. Me and people who dress ghetto: not going to get along, at least not in any kind of coupling relationship.

Off to a meeting, unfortunately...

Also, 340 is giving me the screaming creeps.

361: It seems facetious, but I'm not 100% sure.

I had a big Mao poster on the wall in college, with him releasing doves and the words "Forward along the path charted by Mao Tse-Tung!" scrawled across the bottom. I hung it next to a Pepe Lopez tequila poster that I convinced a liquor store to let me have, because Pepe had the exact same expression as Mao did in his poster.

The similarity was much remarked upon.

While a lot of people seem to be saying that to disqualify someone for wearing it would be silly (and others seem to disagree), I think that that doesn't preclude giving a lot of weight to people *not* wearing makeup, since it's less common.

That seems right. There's no reason one couldn't be some sort of freak for whom makeup wearing is a good signal. I think vegans are not the norm, but I don't think it's wrong for them to see me with a burger and think, "Never, ever."

I've known people who moved to make-up wearing places and started to dabble in it, and it really does reflect subtle changes in their outlook and more "wait, what? what the fuck do you care about that for?" moments.

Weirdly true, and (obv.) not restricted to makeup. People's personalities aren't altogether persistent. Makes the break-up decision hell, sometimes.

J-Mo, you have a framed copy of a blog screen, or of the Gubernator?

Does that make Ogged the Blair Brown character in Continental Divide?

Hm. Okay, try this, but mentally erase that ugly red lettering and bad cropping.

I knew it, the liberals just hate Bush because they are anti-Semites.

I didn't really follow that connection myself.

Evangelicals support Israel because it's a sign of the second coming. Therefore, disliking Bush means you hate the Jews. Of course.

Further, the Jews control the government. Bush, as President, controls the government. Therefore Bush is a Jew, and opposing him is antisemetic.

Did I get back here too late to talk about shoes? Because I really appreciate a nice pair of shoes.

(The .mov version is better.)

Also, an observation about the sexes:

A guy telling a girl he's dating that she has nothing on her walls and he is going to fix that by decorating for her sounds cute.

A girl telling a guy she's dating that he has nothing on his walls and she is going to fix that by decorating for him sounds scary.

I've been redecorating steadily in my new singledom. The living and dining rooms got new paint, pistachio and avocado respectively; the office got tiffany blue with red blik decals. (Yes, I'm going for that parsimon slightly gay je ne gay quoi.) The art on the walls is originals plus the aforementioned cool picket sign (framed). I did well by my ex-wife with the art -- she accepted the argument that she was more likely to accumulate art than I was, and she let me keep most of the stuff I wanted. I got rid of the ol' conjugal bed (although I still have the same mattress + boxspring; I'll get rid of the bad juju eventually, I promise).

The happiest part was getting rid of the old bookshelves, which were yellow-and-blue-painted boards on stacked bricks. Nice for the years after college, but not much longer. The saddest part was thinking that the four bookshelves that I bought from IKEA wouldn't hold my massive collection of books, and then putting them up and having to fill in the empty space with hats, a wig, and the bunny shelf.

The wife, she left with a lot of books.

The next step is getting the couch re-covered. It has been a very thirsty couch, especially for red wine.

I want these. Just because.

373: I would think that the "cute" should be "weird", and the "scary" should be "normal".

353: very thick, lifelike, brown-furred bunny slippers. They now sit on a bookcase

374: the bunny shelf

Domineditrix is Wrongshore?

Neat! I was feeling kinda non-self-identical today.

A guy telling a girl he's dating that she has nothing on her walls and he is going to fix that by decorating for her sounds cute.

A girl telling a guy she's dating that he has nothing on his walls and she is going to fix that by decorating for him sounds scary.

As I'm sure you're aware, these are asymmetrical situations. Would a guy telling a girl he's dating that she has nothing on her walls and he is going to fix that by decorating for her be less creepy than the latter situation?

Some of you people need to test drive a BMW. Seriously. My last two cars have been a 1986 Celica and a 1993 Corolla, so that should tell you just how much of a priority nice cars are to me, but if money wasn't a factor, a BMW or a Porsche would be mighty tempting.

Biohazard also is right that bikes are amazing.

378: That's why we need B to come fabric shopping; otherwise, we won't know for whom the velvet rolls.

Oh, just go and reference some textile not have heard of, why don't you.

In high school I had a Monet poster on my wall. It was a picture of a fisherman's cottage. Even then I didn't really care for the lilies.

I'm rather fond of Klimt's portrait of Wittgenstein's sister.

I have to admit that I loved Sargent growing up. Back then I preferred his oil paintings; now I think that I like the water colors more--though I still love El Jaleo. Much of this is for sentimental reasons. My grandmother owned every book any museum gift shop ever put out on him, because Sargent and my great-grandmother (her mother-in-law) had been second cousins.

I went to see the Klimts at LACMA last year or so, the Adelle Bloch Bauer something something paintings that hadn't been shown before in the U.S. and some Nazi bullshit something.

Anyway, all of them were really wild to look at in person. One of them was really moving to me, and I had a powerful experience that would sound just too precious if I went on about it even a bit more.

I ripped it off the wall, took it home and hung it in the dining room, and no one had sex with me ever again.

380: someday, as a vacation outing, I'm going to rent me a Porsche and drive it up Highway 1 in California.

(*pause to savor fantasy*)

However, I don't think I could bring myself to actually buy one even if I had the money.

It's all quite different in person. Van Gogh's paintings are fucking intense in person.

And Sargent is great, and I don't care what anyone says about him. (What do they say about him?)

Empirically, what wearing makeup tells you about a woman is that she's willing to devote a couple of bucks and a little effort to being more attractive. That's a really weak signal to hang a lot of deductions about character or tastes from.

This gets it right. Presumably, what you're trying to avoid is a high-maintenance fragile doll who can't bear to be seen without makeup and who won't be fun or go camping with you (ogged, substitute, looks like the sort that might go camping) because she'll be without her cosmetic tote bag.

If that's what you're trying to avoid, as opposed to a really irrational fear of eyeliner, it's not that you're morally wrong for drawing a judgment, but that it's likely a really bad proxy. Perfectly sensible women may wear makeup and heels when they go out or go to work and be perfectly fine with going without.

what you're trying to avoid is a high-maintenance fragile doll

That's not it, but if I say what I think it is, everyone will tell me that I'm crazy and a bad person and there are some days when I just don't need that kind of abuse, dammit. Maybe later though.

Honestly, I don't think there's much more bad feeling to be milked out of this one. I might tell you you're insane, but I can't see anything other than Cala's theory making you a worse person.

Oggers, you are that most tragic of dilettantes: simultaneously a snob and a reverse snob.

I shant be baited.

...until someone finds the right bait.

Isn't it unsportsmanlike to take so much pleasure in baiting and refuse to be baited in turn?

I'm on pins and needles. I don't think it's "fragile doll," either.

383, re: Sargent,

In 1998 I saw a show (curated by his great nephew Richard Ormond who is the curator of a naval museum as well as the go-to guy on all things Sargent) at the Tate. That show later travelled to Boston. Boston loves Sargent and is very proud of his murals for the Public library, so people talked about his artistic skill.

In London there were articles about his classism and exaltation of the upper classes in his portraits, which I find rather odd--since he let people's nastiness show through.

Sargent is thoroughly bourgeois and fits with prim Bostonian notions of only approving of things that are museum quality. Pre-tested. Boston is not an avant garde sort of place.

This watercolor of a saddle horse in Palestine is one of my favorites.

Boston is not an avant garde sort of place.

Proverbially, even. (Provided one associates the shocking with the avant garde.)

Oggers, if you were a machine, dare I say it, you would not kill fascists. You would be the "Good Machine" that makes mechanical totalitarianism inevitable.

I adore Sargent. Screw people who look down on him.

388: You are really going to have to explain this, because it is fucking weird to be *so* opposed to makeup. I'm sure that virtually every woman in America owns at least some mascara or something.

Unless you're looking for some kind of freaky fundamentalist type who also wears those "modesty" swimsuits or some shit like that.

"Also, an observation about the sexes:

A guy telling a girl he's dating that she has nothing on her walls and he is going to fix that by decorating for her sounds cute.

A girl telling a guy she's dating that he has nothing on his walls and she is going to fix that by decorating for him sounds scary. "

Wow Becks. I disagree. I think it is the opposite. Women feel comfortable making decorating suggestions.

Yeah, a guy who told me X was wrong with my place and he'd fix it for me would get the boot really fast.

Unless he was offering to fix something like a broken cupboard that I hadn't gotten around to, in which case I'd refuse him, but not kick him out.

But! In terms of what most people think (or at least what we are told most people think), Becks is completely right.

I'm not opposed, I said I didn't think I'd be compatible with someone who wears heels and makeup. It's possible to say "not for me" non-condemnatorily.

I just talked about this with a friend who knows me pretty well, and the friend suggests that if we set aside people who really are tools of the patriarchy, folks who wear heels and makeup are playing or having fun with how they're looked at and this is not, as my friend says, "my medium." To put it another way, one thing heels and makeup tend to do is to call attention to the wearer, and calling attention to myself, particularly via how I look, is just about the last thing in the world that I want to do.

This, as they say, gets it exactly right. It's an extremely good bet that someone who enjoys making a minor spectacle (I don't mean that in a pejorative way) of herself is going to find me deathly dull, and I'll likely find it uncomfortable to be with her. This seems to me the same character trait behind the refusal to dance, to go to costume parties, etc. It's fairly central to my public self, so I'm pretty sensitive to the issues around it.

(I do seem to make an exception for fancy dress up occasions like weddings and, of course, the opera. Then I enjoy looking good and even enjoy being with someone who's done up with heels and makeup, etc. I doubt I can draw a distinction to justify this exception, but there it is.)

There are some days when I just don't need that kind of abuse, dammit.

For Ogged, we are nothing more than a precisely-calibrated abuse delivery system which he turns on and off at will. He cares nothing about our needs.

I do seem to make an exception for fancy dress up occasions like weddings and, of course, the opera. Then I enjoy looking good and even enjoy being with someone who's done up with heels and makeup, etc. I doubt I can draw a distinction to justify this exception, but there it is.

Okay, at least you're not completely insane.

Seriously, though, this explanation makes sense to me. I think it's weird to be that uncomfortable around people who occasionally have "hey! look at me!" days, but you're right that to some extent that's what femminess is about.

I have a new idea for a dating service. You have to post pictures of all of your shoes and bedroom

402: I am now going to entirely blow your mind.

I very rarely wear either heels or makeup.

In my professional and social worlds, that makes me conspicuous and visible.

Freaky, huh?

All your bedroom are belong to us.

To put it another way, one thing heels and makeup tend to do is to call attention to the wearer

I think what you're missing is that in modern society, often at least a little makeup is worn to avoid calling attention to the wearer.

Damnit LB.

Empirically, what wearing makeup tells you about a woman is that she's willing to devote a couple of bucks and a little effort to being more attractive.

I was going to leave this alone.

But no, it tells you quite a bit more, or something different: she agrees with, or accedes to, the dominant culture's conception of what's attractive.

Yes, it's a marker or predictor. I don't know what work "empirically" is supposed to be doing in the quoted formulation.

Sargent: the last of the prints I have around in clipped-on plexiglass, or whatever you call it, is a Sargent. No, I haven't put it up. I might if I framed it properly. I'm not inclined to go figure out its title, as it gathers dust upstairs, but it's of fisherwomen approaching the sea on a dreary day. Lovely.

There's an entirely legitimate place for considered snobbery: it's called judgment.

But actually, I think that we should all chip in and buy Ogged and any possible future girlfriend full body suits covered with lichen, so they can diguise themselves as rocks.

(Actually, I do kind of sympathize with the not liking display. It's just the depth of your antipathy for it that's weird -- wearing makeup is often more about conformity than display.)

All of the art in my apartment is stuff like this and this.

Somewhat counterintuitively, when a woman enters my apartment and sees the art for the first time, they almost always fall silent and begin to strip. This can lead to awkward situations at times.

that makes me conspicuous and visible

Hmm. I'm not sure that being the odd one out actually does make you conspicuous and visible in this context. That's not a comment on how you experience it, of course. (God, I have become a wimp.)

402: Pathetic. If that's really the explanation, I don't see why you believed it would garner abuse. If that's not the explanation, you deserve abuse that you are not getting.

the refusal to dance

It is so sad.

You might want to start dating people, Petey.

Also, I do not believe the "I talked to some friend who knows me well" story; the clear implication is that you exist independent of the blog, and that's just not credible.

the refusal to dance

It is so sad.

Is it really that uncommon among guys? I'm this way too.

Would you dance if you could?

I got dragged to Latin Dancing classes. I really enjoyed it. I still cannot do it well, but a little knowledge made me much more comfortable. Now I am much more willing to dance.

"You might want to start dating people, Petey."

I was indeed curious what kind of shots that would open me up for. That one works quite nicely.

Would you dance if you could?

I think it's, as Ogged says, the spectacle. I'm not lacking coordination or grace, it's that getting out on the floor and shaking my money maker has no appeal.

This seems to me the same character trait behind the refusal to dance, to go to costume parties, etc.

Interesting. I get this, but I also get, time and again, that dancing and costuming is about reverting to childlike behavior and just not caring what people might think.

It works that way. If it's done that way, which it often isn't.

You gotta close your eyes when you dance, Ogged.

what kind of shots that would open me up for

Distemper and heartworms.

In my experience, straight men are more likely to be resistant to dancing than not. Some refuse outright; some just take many drinks along with nonverbal promises from their lady friends of a lucky night if they do/never getting laid again if they don't. Generally, only those previously-discussed slightly gay het men jump right up on the dance floor at the first suggestion.

Cerebrocrat:

I always thought it was the guys who had been forced to take dance lessons when they were younger.

I NEVER danced until I was 36 and took Latin Dancing. (Unless I was drunk or promised certain favors from a girl)

Since I'm otherwise having a hard time finding something to contribute to the makeup and high heels discussion, perhaps I'll just mention that I listened to an hour-and-half talk by this Swiss scientist who studies footwear in an I-O context (and also historical - he actually wrote an journal article on the shoes they pulled off that frozen caveman years ago) and he was really, really, REALLY down on high heels.

They do like nice on the ladies but I'm glad nobody expects me to wear them.

What's gonna make a little straight boy kinda gay faster than having to take dance lessons?

Guys really should learn to be good sports about dancing, even if they suck at it. It's just fun. I went to a wedding once where there were two totally different communities, one whitie-McWhite and one in from the Phillipines for the occasion, and they weren't intermingling much---until the zydeco band struck up a disco-beat, and everyone, young and old, did the electric slide together. It was wonderful.

I can't decide if the queasy feeling in my stomach is the result of my disappointment in ogged's explanation or the meat-ish substance in my lunch salad. I like to dance. I don't do it a lot, I'm not a particularly good dancer, but I enjoy it. And this is just wrong: You gotta close your eyes when you dance, Ogged.

Feeling like you know what you're doing definitely helps with the dancing. I really wish I knew how to do latin dance, because it looks sexy as hell. The little swivelly-hip thing, etc. I recently went to a gay two-stepping event (!) which was pretty easy, as long as I didn't try to talk and dance at the same time.

427:
that is what I thought until I took the dance class and realized that women like men who will dance. All this time, I thought it made you catch the gay, when in reality, it got you laid.

by women.

427: Drug addiction.

It's just fun

It's fun for people who like it, JM. For people who don't, it can be really unpleasant. I think we've discussed this here before: you shouldn't try to get people who don't want to dance to dance.

Guys really should learn to be good sports about dancing, even if they suck at it. It's just fun.

…for you.

Dammit, 426 was supposed to be "look nice," not "like.'

Guys should learn to be good sports about dancing even if they suck at because girls usually like it and it beats the pants off of watching "Under the Tuscan Sun" as one of those guy thing/girl thing compromises.

Our latin dance instructor was a drunk former dancer with large untethered breasts. They would swing wildly and bounce against your forearms when she demonstrated dance moves with you. My gf and I laughed more in that class than just about anything else we have ever done.

Cereb, were you here in Aus/tin?

431: That's what I'm sayin', man. It makes you gay in the GOOD way. I mean, the good-for-straight-guys way.

Next JM will say that if guys knew what they'd like if only they started liking it, then they would like dancing, because dancing is worthy of choice or something. To which I say preëmptively: JM, don't be so terpsichonormative.

I back away from universalist pronouncements!

432 made me laugh out loud.

I do agree with Ogged that people with issues about others looking at them, shouldnt be forced to dance.

You lookin' at me?

or

Am I a clown to you? Do I make you laugh?

437: No; believe it or not (I know *I* was shocked), they have gay two-stepping in New York.

Hm, it was some lesbians from Austin who dragged me there, though.

Boy, do I like dancing. While I'm more than willing to believe that lots of people genuinely don't enjoy it, and wouldn't no matter what, and also that lots of people don't enjoy it, really, regardless of whether they would in a better world, I'm saddened by whatever systemic things are clearly at work in making more men incapable of enjoying it than would if those things didn't apply.

I should have split that sentence into two or three smaller ones, but this drink has gone to my head.

I thought Men Without Hats already covered this.

Also, I bet there is a strong correlation between Ogged not drinking much and not liking to dance.

Nah, I used to drink plenty before my body rebelled, but still no dancing.

When it's fun, it's really fun. But I only really like dancing when I'm into the music in its own right; I have a hard time forcing it, to dance purely for the sake of dancing.

Yeah, that's one of those arguments that always amuses me. Similarly, I think everybody ought to do LSD. It's just fun.

I'm very much anti-pickyness, so I'm happy to suck it up and dance once in a while. But I can't say I think dancing is fun. In particular formal dancing is not so easy to learn as a guy (leading and all), I'm not terribly good at it even when I have tried to learn (I learned the basic Waltz box-step for a play once, but I can't do it quickly or anything more complicated), and embarassing oneself in public really sucks.

I think for guys there's a lot of pressure to always appear competant. It's hard to do that with dancing unless you're a natural or take it pretty seriously.

My daughter and I will tango some nights, loudly counting 1, 2, 3, 4, then we shout "spin!"

Ok, so it isnt much of a tango, but it makes her giggle and that makes me smile.

LSD is just fun. For me!

Me too!

I'm sure that I met Apostropher at a dead show once....wait, maybe that is just a hallucination.

Let's drop acid together, and then you can show me your beautiful ass and talk about math!

wheeeeeee! You're on! when and where?

454 to 453. Sweet.

Oh darn it, I dont have a sweet heebie ass.

And this is just wrong: You gotta close your eyes when you dance, Ogged.

Why?

True, it assumes you like (some) music.

I just like seeing little kids wriggle around barefoot on the dance floor, giggling.

The last really good dance I went to was a wedding reception with a live reggae/funk band, and everybody was dancing barefoot and waving their arms in the air, and half the people on the floor were kids aged 10 and under. There was some colliding going on, and some solemn promenading (I think this starts to happen when you're 12), and some tippie-toeing, and some really quiet self-absorbed flinging-your-hair-about. It was fucking great.

But no, it tells you quite a bit more, or something different: she agrees with, or accedes to, the dominant culture's conception of what's attractive.

From one observation you can infer this?

There is at least one zebra that is white on one side.

457: Watching people dance without inhibition is really great.

I used to go to this bar in San Francisco that had a lot of funk/dance jazz/ boogaloo bands; it was music that was naturally easy to dance to, but at the same time, not what most people were used to dancing to, so they had to kind of make it up as they went along. A few drinks into the night, and the dancefloor was a great show. I go to a bar in Brooklyn now that books afro-pop bands for the same reason - people don't have prepared moves for the unfamiliar music, but the beat is so infectious, they can't help themselves.

Unfortunately I no longer have any connections for obtaining any, now that I'm so old and boring and have moved too many times. Damme!

Lurkers? Little help?

457: Because dancing is a social activity, and dancing with your eyes closed is an attempt to indicate an internal moment in a social setting. It's akin to hanging a Klimt print on your wall. Also, you keep bumping into me.

Keep your eyes open, but wear dark sunglasses.

Aha, I found the B/lle post.

But, I'd be willing to bet that Will thinks some women look good without make-up when they are in fact wearing skilfully applied makeup. Is he really going to notice that someone has curled her eyelashes and put on one coat of non-clumping mascara? Or is he just going to think she has big eyes? ... Is Will going to think, hey, nice job with the Shu Uemura foam make-up base, concealer, and translucent lavender powder (to counteract sallowness), or is he just going to think the girl's got nice, even-toned skin?

(She's not talking about the Will who posts here.)

On the luxury car issue: My assumption (well backed up by experience) was that most people who drive flashy cars are concerned with being flashy. My recent experience confirms that some others are more concerned with the joy of driving a really high-quality machine. I can't relate, but I can acknowledge the phenomenon.

459:
From one observation you can infer this?

Standpipe, I didn't get the impression from the original remark I quoted that it was to be based on a single sighting, but rather on a patterned behavior.

From my 410, quoting the previous comment:

Empirically, what wearing makeup tells you about a woman is that she's willing to devote a couple of bucks and a little effort to being more attractive.

This sounds a great deal like: being more attractive means spending some money and effort on acquiring and applying make-up.

You see.

a really high-quality machine is a thing of joy even if one can't use it to its fullest. Bodies, too, IMX. Alcohol as a lubricant makes the dancing smoother.

This sounds a great deal like: being more attractive means spending some money and effort on acquiring and applying make-up.

OK. It didn't sound that way to me, but that's probably because, judging by her comments here over time, I wouldn't attribute that position to Cala. But maybe I mistake her.

467:

Obviously, I just read the comment at face value. I haven't been around here long enough to weight according to speaker, much.

The whole make-up discussion became distorted in various ways, anyway.

THREADJACK: I'm in need of a divorce lawyer in the Atlanta, GA area ASAP - one who is tolerant of clients who are not too tightly wrapped, able to fight tooth and claw, and, dear FSM, pro-woman. Any of you lawyerly posters have any suggestions? If so, please email me at [pseudonym] @gmail.com.

I'll bet it started with dancing.

You know why Southern Babtists don't believe in premarital sex?

... wait for it ...

It might lead to dancing!

And that's not a euphemism.

BeatBots is a project to develop technologies and methodologies for human-robot interaction that incorporate the rhythmic properties of human interactive behavior, by dancing to Spoon.

Please watch that video, because it is really great.

A rebuttal to the question, "Why do our joyless peeps never dance?"

You're right, that's a great video. My favorite part is probably right about 1:15, when it starts bouncing in (what I think is) a Z-shape.

462

Because dancing is a social activity, and dancing with your eyes closed is an attempt to indicate an internal moment in a social setting. It's akin to hanging a Klimt print on your wall.

Bah.

It's not an attempt to indicate anything.

The Klimt reference is just glib.

This thread is so impossibly long.

I don't think I would object to learning to dance with someone; I have objected to the prospect of dancing near someone.

Sargent is thoroughly bourgeois and fits with prim Bostonian notions of only approving of things that are museum quality. Pre-tested. Boston is not an avant garde sort of place.

"Extremely shy," Mrs. Westgate repeated. "But she is a dear good girl; she is a charming species of girl. She is not in the least a flirt; that isn't at all her line; she doesn't know the alphabet of that sort of thing. She is very simple, very serious. She has lived a great deal in Boston, with another sister of mine--the eldest of us--who married a Bostonian. She is very cultivated, not at all like me; I am not in the least cultivated. She has studied immensely and read everything; she is what they call in Boston 'thoughtful.'"

"A rum sort of girl for Lambeth to get hold of!" his lordship's kinsman privately reflected.

"I really believe," Mrs. Westgate continued, "that the most charming girl in the world is a Boston superstructure upon a New York fonds; or perhaps a New York superstructure upon a Boston fonds. At any rate, it's the mixture," said Mrs. Westgate, who continued to give Percy Beaumont a great deal of information.

(from)

I think rfts's video is very cute.

Agreed. I wish to dance with him.

Oh, hi, Big Thread I've Been Ignoring! Make-up, make-up! Blowjob! Pretty!

I only like make-up if I can pass it off as campy. I like my Benefit Bad Gal mascara and Lip Venom. There's no way I'm putting it on so boys will like me more. I put it on because it's the facial equivalent of an absurd pair of socks. I like having my normal serious interactions with people, while occasionally being able to retreat into my private awareness that I am a ridiculous person.

those who don't like to dance are bad people.

yeah...but it's not crazy to think that the type of person you're trying to attract is turned on by flagrant rejections of Ally McBeal make-up.

I could be even better than dancing to Spoon. I could dance to this.

That was you in the video? I see what you mean by indeterminate gender.

I am a bad person. Whether it's because I don't like to dance, I leave to your imagination.

those who like to dance are also bad people

The guy in the article who was worried about "blandifying" his apartment might want to look into some more colorful furniture or a throw rug instead of a dead seal.

'S'all I got.

IT IT IT IT IT

Is there a sin in those its?

information technology is the key.

Fellow humans, the correct response was "Hooray".

itties! ooray!

485: Clearly, this is true. I am not fantastic-looking, but I've never wished to be prettier than I am, which is what a lot of make-up culture seems to be about.

It reminds me a smidge of Sedgwick writing about "coming out" as a fat woman, that she realized she'd spent her whole life trying to position herself and dress herself to create an illusion of a body she didn't have, but eventually she realized, even if she wasn't fooling anyone, she needed to come to terms with her actual looks.

So much of female beauty crap is about trying to fool the world into thinking you look different than you do naturally. No one is fooled by our attempts to cover up our body parts except ourselves, but that gives some people a sense of confidence. It gives me a creepy sense of self-delusion.

But wearing a Superman costume doesn't mean you are trying to convince anyone you're Superman; everyone can see that it doesn't give you the power to fly. Just like no one thinks I naturally have big huge black eyelashes.

calling attention to myself, particularly via how I look, is just about the last thing in the world that I want to do

I have to say, I cannot relate to this at *all*. Unless... you didn't kill the president of Paraguay with a fork, did you?

who gets married in st. paul, anyway?

483:

I like this.

At that great dancing wedding reception I went to, where everybody was basically -- no, actually -- a hippie:

in the bathroom at some point a woman was putting purple eyeshadow on herself and her 8-year-old daughter, and she smiled and asked if I would not like to put some on too?

ahem, hem, uh. No, thank you, no, that's okay, thanks.

I've regretted that moment.

That's just weird, right? To be dancing around with sparklies on your face, and ask a virtual stranger (okay, she was the neighbor of the friend I was staying with, I had met her briefly) if she didn't think she might want to put on purple eyeshadow, like, now?

Ah.

500!

500!

Magpie, I am DISCONTENT.

Service unavailable!

Who sent you? Did Weiner send you? Weiner!!!!

Wow, Standpipe. Hard to recover from a flub of those proportions.

Well-played, Magpie. Well played indeed.

504: Don't deny me my agency! Sexist.

A memory.

Don't deny me my agency!

So you admit it was the agency, good. Boris, put down the tongs.

There once was a canonical dancing puppets comment, but that time is past.

All I do is post about old comments.

Sure am loving this TOTAL PWNAGE here. Mmm, sweet victory. And it's all mine -- not sharing it with any dang "agency" or "Weiner" or "gayatollah" or "Oggsie" or anything.

The old 500s were real, solid, honest 500s. Not like the chintzy plastic 500s they have nowadays.

Don't listen to me, Magpie. I'm just trying to ruin your fun.

Yeah, right. You're just trying to get the thread up to 600.

I don't get it.

Great, start 'em young.

Chintzy eye-fabric
candy posts of purple shadow
do not dance, miscount

Fuck. I'm tired.

There needs to be some butterscotch in here somewhere. There must be.

There needs to be some butterscotch in here somewhere.

Overheard at the Mineshaft.

Bah, the only reason men (and some women) won't dance is because they're self-conscious about not knowing how.

Solution: take a class.

(And no, this doesn't mean you *have* to, but it would spare you some social embarassment and possibly give you and a partner something fun to do.)

Bah, the only reason men (and some women) won't dance is because they're self-conscious about not knowing how.

Not true.

Now there's an argument!

No there isn't!

458 gets it exactly right. Remember, there's a difference between actions conforming to X, and actions done because of/from X!

itties! ooray!

Welcome to our ool.

This is making me sad.

I guess you are all talking about, like, dancing with partners. In social settings where people actually watch you and make judgments upon your movements.

Weirdos. I mean, that's just bad from the get-go.

This is making me sad. Ogged, people are saying they wish you could dance because for some, it's a source of joy, or at least temporary emancipation, and all would wish you joy, and this is such a readily available avenue. That's why I hoped you'd dance around your apartment watering the plants naked.

The idea that one should take a class for this seems absurd.

Smile, babe. That's your butterscotch.

Well, I really like dancing. Whether it makes me look like an arse or not. I used to go dancing a lot with some female flatmates, years back, and just get extremely silly with it -- dancing in the cages at Club X, that sort of thing.

The closest I have ever come to dancing in living memory is various methods for opening and moving through doors or turning around when descending stairs that involve much rotation. Needless to say, that's not very close.

That's why I hoped you'd dance around your apartment watering the plants naked.

I think this will have to suffice.

I have, actually, and perhaps not infrequently as these things go, spun around in what I suppose could be called dance-like ways to open doors and pass through doorways, on one occasion producing a smile from someone for whom I held a door open, although in that case I had not meant to spin around--I was just trying to avoid a collision. Generally I only do this when no one else is around.

And I'd do similar things in high school when it was my turn to take the dog for a walk: I'd swing the leash over my head when she changed directions and spin around and follow her. But only if it was dark out and no one was around.

523

458 gets it exactly right. Remember, there's a difference between actions conforming to X, and actions done because of/from X!

Where X = contemporary culture's assessment of what counts as attractive?

I may be being dense, but honestly, I'm not seeing the difference in this case.

Do the substitution for X. Seriously, talk it through.

Read your Austin, and I'd guess you might have, on reasons versus excuses. A Plea for Excuses.

While your general point remains, in this case it doesn't work, because the question is about conformity itself. The problem trades on the relation between 'conforming' and 'what counts as.'

Though rereading what you wrote, I'm not sure if by "conforming to X" you mean just 'explainable by X,' or you mean something more intentional on the part of the agent.

bleh. I hate it when intentionality becomes involved. I also hate this tiny comment box.

499: Always accept offers of purple makeup from strangers. There's a lovely scene in a book called Wedding Season where at one of the weddings the heroine finds herself in a bathroom at a wedding with a little girl and her grandmother who are all putting on spackle-quantities of makeup until the mother/daughter comes in and freaks out on the three of them.

Unrelated: just got back from seeing The Fuxedos. They were awesome. Watch "Mimsy". Also good: Vagabond Orchestra, from Portland.

I haven't read "A Plea for Excuses" in a while, though I do have Philosophical Papers just a few short feet away.

I would have thought the problematic part of my slogan was the second. If X = contemp. cult.'s assessment of what counts as attractive (henceforth "CCA", and take as a somewhat concrete case being made up in a certain way), then being made up in that way would conform. What is under contention is whether such conformity on the part of some person's actions (not on the part of the person; I'm not talking about a person's conforming him or herself to anything), even observed over time, suffices to conclude that that person agrees with, or accedes to, the dominant culture's conception of what's attractive. The conformity of the action I'm talking about is/should be judgeable without reference to intentionality; it's a question of whether someone is made up in such and such a way—so the question is not if it's explainable by CCA—not whether she did it because that's the way recommended by CCA.

But whether the action were done from CCA's recommendations (to use "from" here is awkward but required in order to gain stolen respectability from the "conformity with duty"/"from duty" distinction) would be a question of more than whether the person is made up in s-a-s a way; that would be a question of motivation, of whether she agrees with/accedes to CCA. But it's perfectly possible that she might want to make herself so up without doing so. (She might, you think, only want to do so if she agreed/acceded, and if it's not transparent to her that that's why, well, false consciousness. But I don't see why anyone should assent to that argument in general, though no doubt in some particulars it's true.) It might just be something she likes. Maybe she did it before it came into style and will continue to do so after it goes out of style. (Emerson has claimed that he wore flannel shirts and jeans in bad shape before grunge; when it came along, people thought he was imitating the kids. But he wasn't. He was dressed in conformity with grungy dictates, not from grungy dictates.)

Now, someone might be aware that CCA recommends such and such, and therefore, despite otherwise wanting to make herself up in that way, decide against it, for fear that people like ogged would assume that she was doing it because of CCA's recommendations. After all, it is used as a signal. Here we start entering territory implied in this discussion (which I thought was more detailed; maybe one of the "proudly pretentious" threads), a certain unaired episode of The Chappelle Show, and, if I am not misled, The Fall, and also a paper about Schlegel I wrote in the fall.

There's also an annoying bit in chapter three of Nehamas' new book that's not entirely irrelevant here.

533:

The conformity of the action I'm talking about is/should be judgeable without reference to intentionality

Quoting just a beginning bit there. It's way too late to reply. But I'm listening. Later. Maybe not on this thead? I don't know.

You should break up your paragraphs more.

Oh, no, actually I see it's that you make many parenthetical remarks. I do that, and have been told that it's wrong, or something. It's not.

Anyway, later. I've had to save your post in a more eye-friendly format. Alexander Nehamas I have found annoying.

Also, despite not being inclined to participate in it, I don't quite understand why there's anything wrong wtih public kind of dancing (isn't that what we normally call, simply, dancing?), or why one kind should be set above the other, or why so much gets expressed as judgments about people.

Unrelated: I'm tired of insomnia.

I couldn't dance with anyone who thought dancing was "important" in any sense. Like, if you imagine that dancing brings joy and opens all heaven to your little shining space of earth, I will not dance with you. But I will dance if a song comes on at a party that I spontaneously realize I like. And when I do dance, I do it totally, but to express joy, not to win it.

I'm waiting for pale lipstick and Twiggy eye makeup to come back into style. Not that I wore either back in the olden days; I'm just waiting for the ourorboros of fashion to swallow some more of its tail.

What, AWB, you wouldn't dance to celebrate the little fairies that live in the bluebells in the garden?

DE, that's the only reason I dance, and so I do it alone.

re: 538

I'm pretty sure both have been in fashion in the immediate past. Or at least variations on it.

It's those drawn-on-the-cheek Twiggy lashes that always got me. My college roommate took hours to get ready in the morning because of her painstaking attention to every individual lash.

I, on the other hand, tended to roll out of bed, swan through the shower and get off to class in under 15 minutes. With dangly earrings.

That's you? You're so cute!

"Solution: take a class."

It would have to be a class in fun. Ogged's comment about making a minor spectacle of oneself seems spot on. Making a minor spectacle of oneself is fun! Or, I don't know, I understand if one doesn't think so, but a class isn't going to solve that. The good in dancing is spontaneity.

I've noticed European men are better at dancing (and in general, having fun). They make it more of a group thing. With lots of American men, it's shameful to be dancing without women. And that's the wrong way to think about things.

Of course, American men have got issues. What's with all these pick-up trucks anyway?

First things first:
This sounds a great deal like: being more attractive means spending some money and effort on acquiring and applying make-up.

OK. It didn't sound that way to me, but that's probably because, judging by her comments here over time, I wouldn't attribute that position to Cala. But maybe I mistake her.

I'm pretty sure the part parsimon had quoted was LB, not me, but it could have been, so I don't care to check to disavow it. But in any case, I don't think wearing make-up is a necessary part of being attractive. But, if someone does decide to wear make-up, it is neither a lot of money nor a lot of effort.. The person isn't really going to great lengths to conform to a standard, so judging them for excess vanity seems a bit like deciding someone's a tomboy because she's wearing jeans.

---
ogged, you a crazy boy. At least you'd be a crazy boy out in Calaville. While I can understand that you wouldn't want to date someone who would insist on dancing or being the center of attention, I still think makeup is a really lousy proxy for that. Maybe Oggedville is different, but here it's more that the standard is a woman working in a office will wear a little bit of makeup (although whoever upthread said HR cakes it on made me laugh because it's so true), so when she goes out, she'll wear a little more, or wear some that's darker and more dramatic. It's a going-out face vs. a work face. And I've been to plenty of parties and weddings where there are a lot of made-up people being wallflowers.

So I think it's a bad proxy. And it can be a confusing proxy. It would not surprise me at all if Lifeguard Girl wears makeup when she goes on dates. Heck, yesterday I wore makeup, looked very cute, and went.... to a philosophy colloquium! I woulda danced, had there been music. But I was wearing flats! O, the confuséd signals.

re: 546

Yeah, as you and LB said above, it's a bad proxy (if it's any kind of proxy at all).

And its use as a proxy, despite the sincere avowals above, it does seem to have 'eeech, girl cooties' connotations.

My guess is that it seems like a bad proxy for people to whom the issues around it aren't very important, but is a pretty good proxy for the rest of us. And I mean a proxy for "will generally get along with" as opposed to something else, like "cares about Guantanamo."

And its use as a proxy, despite the sincere avowals above, it does seem to have 'eeech, girl cooties' connotations.

Why, because you don't employ it?

Well, no, that's not why. It's like using 'wears shoes outdoors' as a proxy for 'is a sellout to the man'.

The deal is that it's something that, at least in this region, a huge percentage of women do. I'm weird in this respect. And it's a harmless thing to do -- I'm not serving some principle by not wearing makeup, I'm just lazy and stubborn and not particularly well integrated into the femininity thing and it doesn't do much for me -- so someone who's conforming isn't hurting anything by doing so. Judging a woman as being not your type of person on trivial grounds that exclude almost all women does sound like you're not working to hard to build bridges with women generally.

re: 549

Using as a proxy for some other set of values, behaviour employed by millions of women, behaviour that our society (rightly or wrongly) identifies strongly with 'the feminine' then, and something that most people would argue isn't even a very blood good proxy in the first place, then yeah ... it looks a bit like 'girl cooties'.

In the Bay Area, it really is different. Dress shoes are leather clunky things, unless you're actually a corporate lawyer or stockbroker, in which case everyone else feels sorry for you. Almost nobody wears makeup or dyes their hair, unless they're goths or punks. When I go back there, I basically just bring underwear and wear my cast-off high school clothes because everything I own now would look ridiculous there.

Or what ttaM said.

548: What issues generally around it? I mean 'generally get alone with' is a pretty low standard, and I'm pretty sure you'd get along well with be/lle, or me, or LB (who might wear makeup when going out), or Jackmormon, or most of the other women who post here, and some of these women know serious shit about makeup and the use of eyelash curlers and types of concealing powders.

Not that we're available or into dating Persian shoes anyway, but you know what I mean.

It's hard to think of anything to do with fashion or dress and appearance that really acts as an accurate proxy for 'not someone I'd want to spend any time with' except for stuff like, you know, swastika arm-bands and Glasgow Rangers shirts.

Cala, don't goad the ogged into revealing that he thinks we're all freakishly neurotic.

555: I'm sure I could think of a lot of things. But if they were along the lines of 'wears shoes' or 'wears jeans' or 'has short hair'....

Using as a proxy for some other set of values, behaviour employed by millions of women, behaviour that our society (rightly or wrongly) identifies strongly with 'the feminine' then, and something that most people would argue isn't even a very blood good proxy in the first place, then yeah ... it looks a bit like 'girl cooties'.

This is preposterous. The point of a proxy is to sort. The more people it kicks out the better. Based on previous posts, every poster here, with the possible exception of LB and Tia, enjoys music much more, and with greater depth, than I do. My collection of CDs and the like is distinctly plebeian, and the number of days per year that I listen to specific music for enjoyment is trivial. My enjoyment of concerts, on the very few occasions that I go, is primarily dependent on the joy of the crowd. Given the complaints about the crap nature of American pop music, it seems impossible to believe that there aren't plenty of people who have a similar relationship to music. And yet, if FL, Ogged, Becks, w-lfs-n, or Alameida were to see my collection of music, each might well decide that I wasn't a good relationship prospect. I would love to live in a world in which the decision not to fuck me on the basis of my music collection could be considered immoral. And, yet, I find it hard to support.

Or take height. Emerson--who, on the basis of his personality as revealed on the Intertubes, should be getting fucked all day, every day--has said that his height has been a limiting factor in the relationships he has had opportunities to pursue. Anyone want to say that women who prefer to date a tall guy--or even a guy who is taller than them-- are immoral? Height even correlates nicely with nutrition during growth and some ethnicities; think of the charges we can make.

WTF? I have been told I look like I'm having an orgasm when I'm listening to "Kiss Me" from Sweeney Todd. First I'm coming to the meetup at six, now this.

559: I just didn't remember your specific discussions of music. Same with LB. Hence "possible" before "exception."

Anyway, since I'm back, this is a total non-sequitur:

Or take height. Emerson--who, on the basis of his personality as revealed on the Intertubes, should be getting fucked all day, every day--has said that his height has been a limiting factor in the relationships he has had opportunities to pursue. Anyone want to say that women who prefer to date a tall guy--or even a guy who is taller than them-- are immoral? Height even correlates nicely with nutrition during growth and some ethnicities; think of the charges we can make.

People are complaining about invalid inferences about character traits from heel-wearing, not about an aesthetic preference simpliciter. It's fine if you don't like the way heels look, and it's fine if you're more attracted to taller men.

re: 558

You and ogged haven't claimed that you are engaging in arbitrary sorting just for the sake of fucking sorting. If that was all you were engaged in then, shit, go ahead. Personally I don't want to date anyone with a 'K' in their first name or who was born in the first 7 days of the month.

However, your point was that certain types of choices with respect to appearance were supposed to be a good proxy for some deeper set of values, some set of values that are important to you. And they aren't, at all.

556: "Revealing"?

I believe that when this has come up, it's turned out that some of the heavy music listeners have, in fact, dated people who do not listen to much music.

Also, there are others who listen to very little music, and at least a few who have never been to a concert.

You and ogged haven't claimed that you are engaging in arbitrary sorting just for the sake of fucking sorting.

What in gawd's name would "arbitrary sorting" mean; I take non-arbitrariness to be the point of sorting.

Maybe you were thinking of Teo, who's one of us.

But musical tastes are important in a way makeup really, really isn't. Someone who cares about music might not date you or me, because we're really different from someone they'd want to date -- we can't talk about their favorite subject and so on.

But I meet Ogged's standard, and I don't know know a lot of other women who do, and I swear I'm not different from makeup-wearers generally on any significant personality axis. Makeup-wearers isn't specific enough to either pick out or exclude any personality trait at all -- there's nothing truthful that can be said about makeup-wearers as a class other than that they're women who live in an area where it's conventional.

The reasons I don't wear makeup aren't central to my personality either -- it's partially not being particularly femme, but there are much butcher (however you want to define it) women than I who do; partially having coloring that makes it low-payoff; and partially being lazy about things generally. I can't imagine that Ogged seriously wants to pick out that particular spectrum of characteristics.

re: 565

The point of a proxy is to sort. The more people it kicks out the better.

Valuing a sort by the number of people it kicks out looks pretty damned arbitrary.

But musical tastes are important in a way makeup really, really isn't.

Important to whom? This is the same point as 548: if making a minor spectacle of yourself is really important to you, then so will be the makeup and heels traits (and I'll note that all three of my serious girlfriends didn't wear makeup).

there's nothing truthful that can be said about makeup-wearers as a class other than that they're women who live in an area where it's conventional

But this just isn't true. If I'm looking for someone who will not just kinda understand, but actually share a discomfort with making herself an object for viewing, then whether she wears makeup tells me a lot. It's not 100% reliable, obviously, but it's not a bad or empty proxy.

But musical tastes are important in a way makeup really, really isn't.

To you. And it doesn't have to be a perfect, or even good, proxy. It has to be "good enough." We're not talking about restricting people from employment or venues or anything like that. We're talking about restricting them from, at most, fucking ogged. I haven't met the man, so maybe that's a greater loss than I realize.

People are complaining about invalid inferences about character traits from heel-wearing, not about an aesthetic preference simpliciter. It's fine if you don't like the way heels look, and it's fine if you're more attracted to taller men.

Ah, yes. Because aesthetic choices are never the result of deeper and occasionally pretty malignant social forces. Let's see how long anyone wants to hold that line.

And, to be clear, it's not as if I think "Oh, she's wearing makeup, forget her." It's one piece of information about someone that gets noted along with dozens of other facts.

Ah, yes. Because aesthetic choices are never the result of deeper and occasionally pretty malignant social forces. Let's see how long anyone wants to hold that line.

uh, whatevs, I didn't say that. Nevertheless I think people have the right to their aesthetic valuations, though they might have to readjust them if they're too narrow to allow them to get laid, and on many occasions they should keep them to themselves. I have never said men should be instructed not to prefer thin women, for example, in the cases where they do.

We're talking about restricting them from, at most, fucking ogged.

Yeah, I'm not really understanding the heated discusiion this is generating. Isn't Ogged's neurotic nature a long-standing established fact?

566: I think the difference realy lies in the degree to which these things are about conformity.

To take the music example; most people probably have a few CD's lying around. Without any effort taken in it, they are probably pop music of some sort. If you are really into music and meet someone whose CD's look like this, you probably just assume they don't care much. On the other hand, if they have a significant collection of music you really detest; or if there is no music (or stereo) at all --- this probably tells you more about them.

The first case is like finding out someone doesn't really like to play sports, while you do. Not neccessarily a deal-breaker, it just means something you can't do much of together. Activively detesting sports would be harder.

The thing about makeup is, because it is such a default thing you can't learn much from it. If someone spends 3 hours a day on makeup and fashion, they probably aren't a good match for someone who finds the industry reprehensible, and the practice vain. Both of those are a long way from default, though.

Important to whom?

Important to the make-up wearer. For a lot of women, make-up isn't worn in an effort to make a minor spectacle of oneself, it's normal personal hygeine, like brushing one's teeth or wearing deodorant. Deducing things about someone's psyche about something they've done as a matter of routine every morning since they were fifteen just doesn't work well.

If I'm looking for someone who will not just kinda understand, but actually share a discomfort with making herself an object for viewing, then whether she wears makeup tells me a lot. It's not 100% reliable, obviously, but it's not a bad or empty proxy.

In an area like NY, or the South, or anyplace else makeup is conventional (and I'm actually surprised by all of the Westcoasters saying no one wears makeup? Really, or are you all saying that people wear less obvious makeup?) it's empty.

Yes, to 574

Basically it sounds to me like Ogged is saying he prefers women who some people would refer to, unkindly, as "mousy." That's legit; my friends who are in the mousy category (which does not, I hasten to add, mean unbeautiful) *are* sort of qualitatively different in the things they think about and value than the norm: among other things, they're usually more sincere and less cynical than most people.

I think the problem is that the no-makeup preference is being defined in negative terms, as in being about what's wrong with the makeup wearers. They (we) like making spectacles of ourselves, approve of or adhere to conventional sexist norms, blah blah.

I think the problem is that the no-makeup preference is being defined in negative terms, as in being about what's wrong with the makeup wearers.

I think ogged has specifically said that this isn't what he's saying; I know I have.

If someone has worn makeup regularly since they were fifteen, then they come from a certain kind of home, with a certain kind of parents, etc., who are unlikely to be like the kind of home/parents I come from. It's still useful information.

On the location point, I'll just say that living in NY is itself useful information.

women who some people would refer to, unkindly, as "mousy."

Hey! (Squeeek.)

I do think that's fair enough, just that there are plenty of makeup and heels wearing mice out there, probably more than non-makeup and heels wearers. (That is, a non-makeup person is more likely to be a mouse, but there are so many more makeup wearers that there are more madeup mice total than the reverse.)

The `no-makeup' as a proxy for `discomfort with making herself an object for viewing' is also somewhat broken because depending on the situation, not wearking makeup may be much more noticed.

I knew a very conventionally pretty girl who got some large facial peircings done so that people wouldn't look at her; seems counterintuitive, but it worked.

574: Honest to god, it's quite easy not to wear makeup on the west coast. Sure, there are women who do wear makeup too. But it's quite easy to claim that "no one" wears makeup, depending on who one's friends are.

Mousy? What? Maybe I don't know what mousy means, but none of the women I've dated, even for a little while, have been mousy. Mannish, maybe.

Re: music, one must bear in mind what Weiner's friend Allan calls the Fallacy of Shared Aesthetic Interests.

The thing about makeup is, because it is such a default thing you can't learn much from it.

I think this is one of the differences between make-up and CDs as sorting mechanisms. The other is that music tastes seem to correlate better with the sorts of things couples might like to do together far better than wearing makeup. Concerts, priorities, that sort of thing. More analogous with wearing makeup would be 'has a CD player in the car', where those who did have a CD player in the car were assumed to be crazed w-lfs-nesque audiophiles. If I were to say that I wouldn't date men with CD players in their car because I didn't like experimental music, you'd probably say, hey Cala, that's a bad proxy, because CD players are really common in cars and you're probably ruling out a lot of men mistakenly.

I haven't found this discussion particularly heated. And maybe Oggedville is somewhere where no one wears any makeup at all, and doing so is a sign of being a serious extrovert.

577: Did I say "by Ogged and Tim"?

The music thing is interesting, because while I love listening to music and sharing stuff I like, I don't really care at all about someone else's musical tastes, or the importance of music in her life. It's not important to me in that way. That's why it seems like a mistake to say that any one thing is, universally, a better proxy than something else. It seems to depend quite a bit on what's important to the person using it.

WTF? I have been told I look like I'm having an orgasm when I'm listening to "Kiss Me" from Sweeney Todd.

Oh sir! Ah miss!

582: To me, "doesn't wear makeup or heels, like, ever, and is somewhat uncomfortable with being the center of attention" is often the kind of thing people mean when they say "mousy." Also often kinda quiet in public.

That's why it seems like a mistake to say that any one thing is, universally, a better proxy than something else. It seems to depend quite a bit on what's important to the person using it.

You're missing my point here. It's not a that there's anything wrong with you thinking that any particular quality is important or unimportant to you, but if the outward sign you use to indicate that quality is something that's unimportant to the people you're looking at, it won't correlate well with anything interesting about them. It'd be like resting a lot of weight on whether someone uses baking soda toothpaste -- most people don't connect their toothpaste decisions to their inner life, so whatever important-to-you thing you think you're finding out by looking at the toothpaste, you probably aren't right.

uncomfortable with being the center of attention

That's not the kind of thing I'm talking about at all. Exbeforelast=always the center of attention. But never wears makeup (maybe not never, but not in my recollection, anyway).

Then you're doing a shitty job of explaining what the no makeup issue is for you.

What I'm saying, LB, is that even though the decision might not be important to the person making it, even that fact can be important to me. If I connect toothpaste decisions to my inner life, and think that's very important, the fact that you use whatever your roommate happens to buy tells me something.

I haven't found this discussion particularly heated.

Have you followed the link in 360?

592 makes sense, but then the rest of us are perfectly justified in thinking that your belief that your toothpaste decisions are central to your inner life makes you a ninny.

Which I think is basically what the "oh come on, makeup isn't that big a deal" people are politely not saying.

593: I have now, and find the lead-in curious:
Gah, due to various wallet shenanigans and my lack of a cc# atm I can't post to my blog today, so I'll say it in a comment about this & seq..

Yeah to 594: 592 makes perfect sense in principle -- in practice who cares that much about toothpaste?

And I've lost the personality type you're looking for as well -- if not making a spectacle of oneself doesn't mean staying away from the center of attention, than I don't get it at all. Don't take this as pressure to explain further, unless you want to and think it might work -- I'll just accept that you came to earth to tell us about what conditions are like on Mars.

This is going to lead to another o-prefixed neologism, isn't it?

I'm with LB. I think that it's perfectly fine to prefer the appearance of women who don't wear makeup, and that it might be a good proxy for general crunchiness. But I think it's probably a mistake to think that wearing makeup would speak strongly against general crunchiness.

This isn't a matter of thinking that you're weighting makeup too seriously. Potato, potahto. But it doesn't seem to me to be just a matter of preference whether wearing make-up correlates well with [X] set of traits. Whether you care about it is a matter of preference, but surely the correlation doesn't have a damned thing to do with what you care about. To the extent that what you really care about is the correlated traits, it seems misplaced to find a proxy that doesn't correlate with them.

And maybe Bay Area is like that. You live there, I don't, but I would be surprised if a majority of women didn't own a tube of mascara.

if not making a spectacle of oneself doesn't mean staying away from the center of attention, than I don't get it at all.

"Making a spectacle of oneself" and "staying away from the center of attention" are both things one has to undertake to do. We could imagine a two-by-two matrix, the rows labelled "undertaken" and "not undertaken", the columns "receives much attention" and "does not receive much attention". The two options in the quoted bit fill two of the four cells.

598: Is right; make-up wearing or not just doesn't seem to be really correllated that well with anything, unless you are talking really niche cases. I mean, if you are dead set on old-order Mennonites, I'll grant you a strong correlation.

Perhaps ogged lives in very different places than I have, though.

but if the outward sign you use to indicate that quality is something that's unimportant to the people you're looking at, it won't correlate well with anything interesting about them.

This criticism is beyond bizarre to me. There's a rule (too strong a word) ogged follows that restricts the number of people with whom he is willing to engage in couplehood. The rule runs counter to the "pretty policy" societal attitudes of which people have reasonably complained. The rule appears to work for ogged, inasmuch as he keeps following it. Why would he follow a rule that doesn't work for him, in the absence of societal pressure to do the same? And if it works for him, isn't the rule meeting the only test that matters?

598 cont. .... erm, unless Cala is referring to SF Bay area, 'cause it isn't like that either. Less makeup that than many places, sure. But still a lot (alibiet more subtle)

Look, with over 3 billion women on the planet, Ogged has to narrow the field somehow. Random criteria are as valid as any other, unless everybody here is just pissed off at trying unsuccessfully to get in Ogged's pants.

If someone has worn makeup regularly since they were fifteen, then they come from a certain kind of home, with a certain kind of parents, etc., who are unlikely to be like the kind of home/parents I come from. It's still useful information.

WOW, is this a leap. My sister-in-law and her sister wear makeup every day -- full eye makeup, lipstick and sometimes foundation. They were raised by bookish Berkeley ex-hippies. Now, I'm willing to bet you weren't raised by hippies, but I don't think their parents aren't "your kind of people" either.

We're talking about restricting them from, at most, fucking ogged.

Except that if you're making character judgments on someone, chances are you're not limiting those judgments about their personality to whether or not they're dateable. If one thinks makeup wearers are, say, shallow or attention-seeking, is that likely to affect a hiring decision, for example? I'd bet yes. (And I know I've carefully calibrated my appearance in interviews along these lines, because I don't think this is an uncommon view among techies.)

and I'm actually surprised by all of the Westcoasters saying no one wears makeup? Really, or are you all saying that people wear less obvious makeup?

More women wear none at all, and the women who do tend to wear less of it. It varies by industry -- women in sales and marketing or in really corporate environments, will tend to wear more. Others might wear a little lip gloss and mascara, maybe a tinted moisturizer or nail polish. And plenty don't wear any makeup at all day to day.

It's really not about where I live. I didn't meet my previous girlfriends in the Bay Area, I met them in Chicago and Boston. Maybe y'all just run in different circles. Anyway, this is as monumentally important to me as it sounds, so...

SCMT: the rule could be working for him. That doesn't mean it's actually a good correllate; and one can challenge any claim that it is. In fact, his correllation may be running the other way. Any rule like this may cut out a lot of people you'd rather it didnt -- but how would you know?

601: First, clearly Ogged's dating policy is working great for him: part of what I'm attempting to do is point out that his sorting policy is probably ruling out some women he'd get along with fine.

Second, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't on the 'pretty policy' -- the thing about femininity is that society simultaneously demands that women be feminine and despises us for it. If you aren't girly enough, you're a freak, but if you're girly at all, you're an empty-headed mass of frills who thinks only about your next manicure. You get away from the "pretty policy" by not giving a damn either way, not by disliking women for going along with social norms.

603: Sure; just so long as he acknowledges that they are basically random criteria.

Except that if you're making character judgments on someone, chances are you're not limiting those judgments about their personality to whether or not they're dateable.

Except that the character judgment he is explicitly making is, "Are they a good fit for me?" Do people make similar judgments about music? I'm sure they do. Maybe that means that my inability to enjoy music as fully as some others do will limit my various employment opportunities, but I'd want to see pretty specific evidence that this was a problem before I made that judgment. Especially since LB has suggested, if I'm understanding her properly, exactly the opposite attitude is at work as regards makeup.

If you aren't girly enough, you're a freak, but if you're girly at all, you're an empty-headed mass of frills who thinks only about your next manicure. You get away from the "pretty policy" by not giving a damn either way, not by disliking women for going along with social norms.

Yeah, exactly.

It's definitely not a random criterion. Someone upthread made the point that insofar as you think wearing makeup is just conventional, then not wearing it indicates that an affirmative decision or a distinctive trait is at work--so it does tell you something.

but if you're girly at all, you're an empty-headed mass of frills who thinks only about your next manicure

Could you point me to the place where ogged (or anyone else) has suggested as much?

re: 609

No, the character judgement also involved reference to 'attention seeking' which is not a value-free character trait, nor is it one that make-up wearing is a good proxy for.

611: That's true. So it's highly correllated to a choice to reject certain societal norms, and perhaps to thereby make yourself more noticeable in some situation. It just isn't well correlated to what you seemed to be claiming to use it as a proxy for. So in that sense, it's pretty random.

Someone upthread made the point that insofar as you think wearing makeup is just conventional, then not wearing it indicates that an affirmative decision or a distinctive trait is at work--so it does tell you something.

But how do you know that that's what the non-makeup-wearer thinks? You can't tell that just from her not wearing makeup.

No, the character judgement also involved reference to 'attention seeking' which is not a value-free character trait, nor is it one that make-up wearing is a good proxy for.

Is the value positive or negative, because I could see it going either ("self-confident and assertive") way ("annoying and self-promoting").

601, 603: I think the problem is that the preference implies an implicit judgment on those of us who wear makeup occasionally. Also that it suggests an aversion to girl cooties, as a couple people said upthread.

Yeah, this "dislike" or "disapproval" is being imputed to me even when I've explicitly disavowed it. I'm sure there are a million makeup wearing women who I could be friends with, and some of those I could marry and have painted children with, but "doesn't wear makeup" is still an indicator of "better possible match."

612: I was blaming society, not Ogged. All Ogged said is that he'd be incompatible with makeup-wearers (which are, you know, women doing perfectly normal unimportant feminine schtick); perfectly normal unimportant feminine schtick is really distasteful to him for some reason I'm still not getting.

So in that sense, it's pretty random.

It's not random; it's poorly described.

Except that the character judgment he is explicitly making is, "Are they a good fit for me?"

And the character judgment you're making when you're hiring someone is, in part, "are they a good fit for my group/my company?" If you have decided that makeup is a proxy for being shallow and attention-seeking, and you find these distateful qualities in a partner, then you may have some trouble getting past that distate in a hiring decision as well.

the preference implies an implicit judgment on those of us who wear makeup occasionally

That's how people are taking it, but it really doesn't. I really and truly don't think that being incredibly uptight about public appearances is laudable or happy-making, and yet, I am incredibly uptight about it and would rather save myself the trouble of negotiating it in a relationship. It's really pretty simple. To take the other example, the fact that I don't dance has been a genuine problem in some relationships, but that doesn't mean that I disapprove of dancing. I love it. I love to watch it and love when the people I love are happy doing it. And yet, finding someone who doesn't care about dancing would make my life easier.

In the Bay Area, it really is different. Dress shoes are leather clunky things, unless you're actually a corporate lawyer or stockbroker, in which case everyone else feels sorry for you. Almost nobody wears makeup or dyes their hair, unless they're goths or punks. When I go back there, I basically just bring underwear and wear my cast-off high school clothes because everything I own now would look ridiculous there.

When did you last live here, JM? This does not match up with my experience (these days, at least) at *all*.

People, I cannot believe this many comments later y'all are still giving Ogged crap about prefering to date girls who don't wear makeup. It's a personal preference to want someone else who doesn't call attention to themselves and not meant as a judgement of people who do choose to do so. Let the boy date who he wants.

Why do you want to shut the blog down, Becks?

622: I'll accept that your no-makeup policy isn't an implicit judgment on me if you'll accept that my griping about sexism isn't an implicit judgment on you. Deal?

I'm probably out of this thread after this, because I certainly don't want to give the impression that I'm upset because ogged doesn't think I'm hot or something and I really fear that's the next rhetorical step. But I think that for a lot of women, wearing light makeup is akin to a man shaving. It's something you do as part of your morning routine, and takes about as much thought.

Not wearing makeup might be a useful proxy for the sort of non-attention-seeking wholesome lass ogged desires (though I doubt it.) But that doesn't mean that wearing makeup entails the opposite.

Obviously, Becks doesn't wear makeup.

OK, let's take another look at this:

To put it another way, one thing heels and makeup tend to do is to call attention to the wearer, and calling attention to myself, particularly via how I look, is just about the last thing in the world that I want to do.

The thing that bugs me about this is that heels and makeup are fairly standard expressions of femininity, and ones that many, many women find to be pretty neutral.

What you seem to be missing here -- and you don't need to believe in the patriarchy or the Male Gaze or other feminist flashpoints to recognize -- is that women are not playing by the same rules that you are. It's just not a fair comparison to judge a woman as "calling attention to herself" because you wouldn't want to do that, when the expectations regarding women's appearance are completely different from the expectations people have of your appearance as a guy.

You just can't map your own preferences about self-presentation onto women and have that not be problematic. That's why people read judgment into what you're saying and why LB and MMG keep referring to the double standard of not girly enough vs. too vain.

I don't think I could date a blogger. People who blog create spectacles of themselves and want the whole world to know about and discuss their idiosyncratic tastes and preferences. That kind of self-absorption isn't what I'm looking for.

I'm much more interested in people who discuss politics and art and literature and social issues and music.

626 - B, meet your own 404: Seriously, though, this explanation makes sense to me. I think it's weird to be that uncomfortable around people who occasionally have "hey! look at me!" days, but you're right that to some extent that's what femminess is about.

When did you last live here, JM?

It has been a while, and, yeah, a lot has changed in the last ten years (while my family has remained very judgmental about vanity).

Would everyone be substantially happier if the "rule" were phrased as "I am more likely to be compatible with someone who doesn't wear makeup than a random member of the public" instead of "I am less likely to be compatible with someone who does wear makeup than a random member of the public"? Because I think ogged is really saying the former, which doesn't deny the existence of compatible people among the makeup wearers.

633: Yes. (And where there are few enough non-makeup wearers, it's possible for the first statement to be true, and the second false (to within statistical noise.))

533:

(Not having read the hundred or so additional comments, but I've written this now, so whatever.)

Okay, on the face of it, this is fine: behavior B conforms to CCA but isn't necessarily done because of CCA.

But it's not going to fly in the case of makeup use.

What is under contention is whether such conformity on the part of some person's actions [...], even observed over time, suffices to conclude that that person agrees with, or accedes to, the dominant culture's conception of what's attractive.

Let's not become unmoored from the real world. While it may be true that Emerson dressed grunge before it became cool, I'm extremely hard-pressed to see that someone one might engage in conforming makeup use by coincidence, as it were, and that's what your case wants to make room for. The behavior in question requires learning what products to buy, learning how to use them, and then doing so. You cannot write intentionality out of this series of behaviors.

The way you've formulated your reply tries to do this, to treat behavior B in isolation from intentionality, but not all behaviors can be treated this way without serious distortion. Makeup use is one such.

There is a problem, by the way, with using the term 'conformity' in formulating the question: it already implies conforming (and I use "conforming" rather than "conformity" advisedly) to standards, which is an intentional act. That's different from simply discerning whether a given behavior falls under a certain class of descriptors.

Theory of action is necessarily about how a behavior, or call it an act, is described: if I bend my knee in a certain way under certain circumstances, did I genuflect, or did I simply bend my knee? It would be wildly inaccurate to insist on the latter, though it might be technically correct.

634: Oh sweet Jeebus. I cannot believe we've gone 600+ comments, and I've had minor moments of fury, while we were all in rough agreement. Fuck that--a thread this long must have meaning! Women should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen fixing me some turkey pot pie!

Turkey pot pie? What the hell is wrong with you, Timbot! A pot pie is for chicken!

The best you can think to ask for is turkey pot pie?

631: Yeah, and?

Turkey pot pie. (Ctrl + F needed.)

635: Yes, every time I put on mascara, I am genuflecting to the man. Thanks so much.

Someday we'll find it, the platonic lump of feminism,
The lovers, the dreamers, etc.

To determine whether make-up is [whatever it is or isn't] we will have a dance-off. It's on!

Let the boy date who he wants.

Yeah, cuz that's working out so well for him.

Turkey is the best pot pie.

552 and 618 get it exactly right. No one is arguing that makeup or heels tell you everything about a person, and they certainly tell you a bit more in the parts of the country where they're unusual.

641:

B., huh?

I was replying to some thing Ben wrote aeons ago, because I got a bug up my butt about it.

Y'all are weird. Someone said upthread that the majority of women own a tube of mascara. To the extent that that's true, it's because, as everyone has been insisting, makeup-wearing is culturally part of being female. That is, of course, fucked up.

Next you will all be saying that shaving one's legs is normal, not a big deal, takes very little effort, after all, in order to be more attractive; and Ben will say that it's not necessarily intentionally in conformity with societal standards. She just happened to like it! Isn't that funny.

No, we'll be saying that shaving one's legs isn't a sign that one is a frivolous tool or to blame for sexism.

632: I don't think things in the Bay Area have changed that much in the last 10 years, at least in this respect. I think you're just running what you see through your NYC filters: "OMG! Everyone here dresses like a bag lady! Must slob up!"

635 noted, parsimon, but I can't reply just now.

and calling attention to myself...is just about the last thing in the world that I want to do.

i haven't read this whole thread, but seriously, you run a blog that is kind of all about you.

Visually, in real life...

why's that any more bothersome than anonymous nonvisual internet attention seeking? for all you know, some woman you like who doesn't wear make up could be all about drawing attention to herself on the internet (or in real life) via nonvisual means.

but i mean, i'm just curious - i certainly have weirdo criteria about folks i'd want to date so i'm not criticizing you for also having weirdo criteria. i just find it odd that your thing seems to be about attention seekers, when this blog is a lot about that.

and again i haven't read the two bazillion comments on this thread, so apologies if this has been addressed before.

644: Dayum.

I guess they don't seem at all similar. For all that I'm an attention whore online, I'm pretty reserved in real life.

it seems at odds to me. putting on some mascara versus running and putting a lot of time into a (anonymous, yes, but still) blog with a slightly cultish following?

anyway, either way. i wouldn't date a guy who wore tevas, so, i'm not really one to talk.

and i'm also leaving the apple store on michigan where i've been hungrily checking my email and blogs for the past 45 minutes, so i'm heading out now to watch some basketball.

Did David Koresh take this kind of abuse from the Branch Davidians? I think not.

David Koresh slept with his followers. I don't see a lot of that going on here.

(Ogged, are you using an analogy? I anxiously await the self-banning.)

Apropos to this thread, I found myself having a long conversation with a guy friend last night during which we kept punctuating discussion of our dating history with reasons why we could never, ever sleep with each other. It was kind of flirty, but mostly funny. Then a girlfriend of mine who was witness to this conversation started making out with me, and my response was something like, "But of course, I could never, ever sleep with you." Apparently this was not funny or flirty and she's really mad at me.

Lesson learned: Whenever you say there is a particular group of people you could never, ever sex with, it will stand as a challenge either to that person or to the person standing next to him.

It's always sad when someone reacts to a joke like that in such a way as to make it actually true.