Not Incontinentia Buttocks? And further, not Blowing John Galt?
but I find this stuff endlessly amusing.
Yes, but it's still not as endlessly amusing as having Alan Greenspan rattle on for 20 years about controlling interest rates being the only thing needed to keep the economy humming followed by Uncle Alan deciding to reverse course and declare that it isn't his fault because all he controlled was the interest rate.
I mean, that's fucking funny. I suppose that's more The Office instead of the Will Ferrell routine that our media Randroid friends here are gifting us with.
max
['They've got minds like retards and cocks like scholars!']
Now I want to threaten them all with emutes.
I love how suddenly they've made a virtue out of not having a job, and have begun to appreciate the concept of workers asserting their rights by downing tools.
Hey, whatever it takes for them to get there.
"I'm certainly not going to have . . . my labor removed from my possession"
"If only there were some way to have more control over my own labor. I know! I'll refuse to let it be used on unfair terms. Now, if a lot of other people would also do that, imagine how much power we would have collectively to achieve our demands!"
Morons.
I decline to recognize the semi-pwnage of 4 until neil gets a pseud that clearly distinguishes him from Neil the Ethical Werewolf.
Morons.
I think you mean "rugged individualists".
I think you mean "rugged individualists".
I think you mean "hobos."
Also, this:
Like, remember back in the Eisenhower Administration when the top tax rate was 91 percent, and everyone just sat on their asses? It's a good thing we had all those Mexicans to build those interstate highways for us.
...just totally cracked my ass up.
I wonder if I can encourage my students to go John Galt, and then not turn in their papers, thus significantly reducing my work load over the next week. It's worth a shot.
But he's already got a handle that clearly distinguishes him from me.
asserting their rights by downing tools.
The bigger the tool, the harder it is to get the whole thing down.
But he's already got a handle that clearly distinguishes him from me.
Either of you could be a subset of the other.
A tiny sparkling galaxy of jackassery.
2 & 3: Megan's role, though is clearly the Cornish Daughter: Go to death, and go to slaughter; With my MBA tears your grave I'll water.
Indeed, I just assumed that "neil" was "NtEW" when the moon wasn't full.
Was I wrong?
11: See, not so much because if you've* been reading his comments for a while, you tend to think of him as "Neil" and "the Ethical Werewolf" as his last name. It would be like someone going by "ben" and seeing that as distinct from "ben w-lfs-n."
*For values of "you" which are me on a hobby horse. I'm not really sure why I've seized on you as the poster boy for uninteresting pseuds, but c'mon! It's fun! And quite a number of good pseuds have been suggested that no one's ever taken: Wry Cooter, El Hombre Muy Magnifico -- what are the others?
I was really disappointed that the college student wasn't really going Galt. I'd love to see a traditional college student withhold his labor. Would anyone be able to tell? Would anything have to shut down?
I have to disagree with Kraaby and others who think this is some sort of baby step towards labor consciousness. Labor can organize and strike in the real world because workers actually have power, the system won't function without them. The owners of capital never go on strike in real life because they don't actually do anything besides protect their own power.
[Although I suppose the credit crises can be seen as a certain subset of capital-owners going on strike.]
LEAVE MEGAN ALONE!
The owners of capital never go on strike in real life because they don't actually do anything besides protect their own power.
Isn't that what you'd call a lockout? Factory owner shuts down to put pressure on labor in negotiations?
ok, between lockouts and credit crises, I'll just go ahead and admit I was wrong at the general level.
Still, there is a reason why the full blown Galt scenario is just in a story, I just can't quite pin it down yet.
. I'd love to see a traditional college student withhold his labor. Would anyone be able to tell?
There's a pool at the apartment complex I'm temporarily living at. Between the hours of eleven and three every day it is home to a large number of sunbathers who are officially in college and taking classes.
A tiny sparkling galaxy of jackassery.
I love this.
It's people. You tell everybody. Listen to me, Hatcher. You've gotta tell them! Soylent Green Society is people! We've gotta stop them somehow!
I'd love to see a traditional college student withhold his labor. Would anyone be able to tell? Would anything have to shut down?
We'll have to bring in scabs to support all that midday TV watching, or else such titans of the genre as Maury, Springer, and perhaps even the venerable The Price Is Right will suffer drastic losses. And who will fill our daytime television then? Judge Judy and Ron Popeil are only human!
McMegan is a jackass.
You people are slipping.
26: Has anyone suggested that she isn't?
I'm willing to entertain a handle change. But I'm going to need help.
It's weird that by The Perfesser's own wacko ideology, law professors and expert witnesses (his wife's job) are parasites. It's formally impossible for them to "go Galt" in the contemporary sense of the phrase. They're a dead-weight loss.
It's formally impossible for them to "go Galt" in the contemporary sense of the phrase.
That's the beauty of it. They don't need to go Galt. They already have. Whereever Glenn Reynolds is wasting people's time, there is Galt's Gulch.
It's not exactly a step toward labor consciousness, but neil-not-neil and Kraab have it right, and it's comically obtuse (surprise!) of the Go Galt movement not to recognize the rhetorical corner they're painting themselves into. I can only hope that the glibertarian general strike doesn't deprive me of more of this rich entertainment.
I have to disagree with Kraaby and others who think this is some sort of baby step towards labor consciousness.
Of course it's not, any more than McMegan's threat of WWIII is a baby step towards a criticism of the Bush wars. Or that any of the other asininery is a baby step towards self-awareness.
But it's funny to point out the petard-hoisting, all the same.
(I kinda want to use the pseud "Wry Cooter." Dang it.)
Still, there is a reason why the full blown Galt scenario is just in a story, I just can't quite pin it down yet.
But it's not just in a story. I remind you of one Andrew Eldritch:
Following the release of the band's last studio album to date, Vision Thing, Andrew Eldritch's work has included vocal contributions to Gary Moore and Sarah Brightman studio recordings. In attempt for cross-cultural understanding he initiated a 1991 U.S. tour of The Sisters of Mercy in a triple-bill with Gang of Four and hip-hop act Public Enemy. In 1995 he interviewed David Bowie for the German edition of Rolling Stone magazine. Prevented by contractual obligations from appearing under his own name, he is also rumored to have produced a couple of techno albums under various pseudonyms during the 1990s, a rumor he would not deny when asked about it.
In 1997 Eldritch produced the SSV album "Go Figure", featuring his vocals over drumless electronic music. The album finally freed him from his contractual obligations, as EastWest agreed to waive their claims for two more Sisters of Mercy albums in exchange for the recordings. The SSV tracks were however never officially released. The full name of the band is SSV-NSMABAAOTWMODAACOTIATW, said to be an acronym for "Screw Shareholder Value - Not So Much A Band As Another Opportunity To Waste Money On Drugs And Ammunition Courtesy Of The Idiots At Time Warner".
Now in semi-retirement from his musical career -- The Sisters of Mercy still tour every so often, having played a 69-date tour in the first half of 2006 [3]), but no new recorded material has been released for sale since 1993 [4]. Despite this, the band continues to debut new material on stage on a semi-annual basis, infrequently playing secret gigs under a pseudonym in their spiritual home of Leeds.[...]
The devices in Andrew Eldritch's lyrics include literary allusions (most prominently to the works of T. S. Eliot, Leonard Cohen and Shakespeare), erotic imagery, metaphors of drug culture, and an acrimonious criticism of the Republican Party of the United States, with which Eldritch flippantly claims to have a "hate-hate" relationship, in view of the Bush dynasty, Christian fundamentalists, and the military-industrial complex. Politically, he has claimed to be "traditionally a Labour supporter" despite his "anarcho-syndicalist tendencies".
The basic problem is that Rand is working off her experiences in Communist Russia, and notably, none of that is happening here. Unless you're a histrionic idiot. And the identification of Galt with 'capitalists' (that is, Wall Streeters, typically) is broken. If any non-creative people are using the mechanisms of government to oppress people, those oppressors are the goddamn 'capitalists'. (Note: In Communist Russia you had real oppression of yer bourgesie there, but even the most socialist of democratic socialists have come nowhere near doing anything like that, usually because they are the bourgeoisie themselves (and consequently denounceable by communists).)
Basically for someone like Smith to go Galt, it would have to pay better (incentivizing, remember, O Randroids?), and of course packing it in and moving to the woods would pay a lot worse. (I think it would be fair to say the back-to-the-land types are following the same impulse.)
As propaganda though, it's useful; some idiot somewhere will buy it.
max
['Ok! Ranty today!']
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Since we're surveying the gulch, has anyone (in history) ever actually watched Blue Man Group doing whatever it is they do?
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Stuck in a panel about narrative and ev-psych with someone rattling on about the ultimatum game. Help!
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releasing albums under a pseudonym to avoid contractual obligations is "going Galt."? That's almost as weird as saying that quitting smoking is "going Galt."
Since we're surveying the gulch, has anyone (in history) ever actually watched Blue Man Group doing whatever it is they do?
Yes.
I saw the Blue Man Group in Chicago in the mid 90s It was entertaining.
35: Get up and leave? Sure, you might make a bad impression, but your sanity must be worth something.
no can do; I'm dining with the speakers tonight. Plus I want to get my questions in.
I have an idea! Ignore the speakers and read unfogged.
Hmm, I think rob has possibly the only solution.
It's weird that by The Perfesser's own wacko ideology, law professors and expert witnesses (his wife's job) are parasites.
Adam Smith was in this position too, though this doesn't redeem the Reynoldses in the slightest.
someone rattling on about the ultimatum game
I first read this as "ultimate game" and thought ben was sitting in on Sifu's talk on whatever it was he was going to talk about about ultimate frisbee.
Stuck in a panel about narrative and ev-psych with someone rattling on about the ultimatum game. Help!
I think it's awesomely meta to be at a panel where someone is telling an adaptionist evolutionary-psychology story about why the human tendency to make up stories is an adaptive aspect of psychology selected for by evolution. My brain asplode.
28: I'm here for you, except not right now; I have to run an errand. Seems like we could find some excellent "TJ" ones though: Toe Jam? Taj Jamal?
I am pretty sure that someone used Wry Cooter if only briefly.
I'd love to see a traditional college student withhold his labor. Would anyone be able to tell? Would anything have to shut down?
Her/his synapses?
Adam Smith wasn't a libertarian. Or a glibertarian.
I am pretty sure that someone used Wry Cooter if only briefly.
Abandoned handles are fair game. I keep trying to get somebody to claim "Matt Weiner", but nobody ever does.
20
Still, there is a reason why the full blown Galt scenario is just in a story, I just can't quite pin it down yet.
Because people don't get to be like John Galt by reacting to situations like John Galt did. If you're the sort of person who withdraws completely from society because it gives you less appreciation than you feel you deserve, you probably didn't deserve too much appreciation in the first place.
You could go by Abandoned Handles. Or Abandonles.
Yeah, I'll think about that some, when I have a minute.
You should have come, gonerill. I had posters put up where you hang out.
51: I know. Smith's views on unproductive labor are much closer to Dr Marx than Dr Helen.
I saw Blue Man Group in Boston in the late 90s (I think; maybe it was 2000 or 2001). It was a fun evening. I do have bad taste, though, so keep that in mind.
Gawd, the utter childishness of this going galt crap is astonishing. These are alleged adults? And they're not embarrassed by themselves? It's amusing, yeah, but it's also kind of stunning.
As propaganda though, it's useful; some idiot somewhere will buy it.
"Sometime this year, I'm going to do something to let the world, or my country, my community, my social circle, SOMEBODY know that I consider my life to be my own, not Caesar's."
Srsly, "going galt" is the best gag since they said blogs were vital to winning the war in Iraq.
56: I haven't been in town. Selling my house + moving. Been kinds busy.
I AM NOT GOING TO PAY A LOT FOR THIS MUFFLER!
Damn, Populuxe, good one.
the utter childishness of this going galt crap is astonishing
I know, right? And Dr. Mrs. Perfesser is really hard to beat for pure I'm-going-to-hold-my-breath-until-I-turn-gay impotent imaginary protests.
I often tip generously both because I have been a waitress and because I think it is important to reward people who work. However, if Obama gets in (and it is still an if), perhaps tipping less or not at all would be a good way to save money as a way of "going John Galt." Yet, is it fair to the person who is stiffed? What about a compromise, just tipping less? What do you think?
UPDATE: I've been thinking. If Obama is elected, maybe in lieu of a tip I should leave a note like the following:
HOPE AND CHANGE FOR AMERICA: Spreading the Wealth Around.
In lieu of a tip, $_____ has been donated to the Re-Elect Obama for President Campaign. Thank you for supporting the man and the movement that are bringing America together!
It's pretty fucking frustrating when, even though you were among the first people to raise your hand, you're the last on the list.
Says the man spelling his name backwards.
Ok, dig this: "going Galt" is to the right as "moving to Canada" was to the left and the real John Galt was a secretary to the Canada Company, a charter company established to aid in the colonization of Canada and Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy, while Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln. Makes you think, doesn't it?
I too will "go Galt" i.e. I will retire to Scotland and write novels.
Says the man spelling his name backwards.
I think I'm going to start referring to ben as neb in my head, from now on. I find it sort of apt, even if ben is not particularly nebbish.
In lieu of a tip, $_____ has been donated to the Re-Elect Obama for President Campaign. Thank you for supporting the man and the movement that are bringing America together!
Just starting to think about unpacking all the things being expressed in that statement - not doing it, just thinking about doing it - makes my blood pressure go up. See, this is why I hate people.
27: No, but the comment is obligatory anyway.
(Was commenting over breakfast, then had to get to workWent Galt for a minute there; sorry for slow response.)
I'm finding Neb Nosflow (pronounced with long o's) to be particularly mellifluous.
Let's not get snotty about it.
The talk about 'going Galt' reminds me of the book _Drop City_, I guess because that's the fate I foresee for any urban people who return to the land.
As I follow that back, I realize I'm also saying that I don't think of any sort of withholding as genuine unless it goes with a withdrawal like 'back to the land'. So, short of 'back to the land', I think you're a petulant baby. All the way to 'back to the land' is really, really hard. I don't have a good way for modern Galts to express themselves. OTOH, that's not my problem.
It's pretty fucking frustrating when, even though you were among the first people to raise your hand, you're the last on the list.
This is an instance of a well-known adaptive trait in primate groups, where the monkey who grabs at the food first gets ritually ignored, unless the food is known to be poisoned.
All the way to 'back to the land' is really, really hard.
The new home of Mr. and Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser. Kind of nice, actually.
"Nosflow" he now is, and ever more shall be. Go with the flow, neb.
A much better handle than "Lobofilho". But Parenthetical really still needs to be Ouzel.
Expect the archives to be changed soon.
63: Dr. Mrs. Perfesser is really hard to beat for pure I'm-going-to-hold-my-breath-until-I-turn-gay impotent imaginary protests.
I'd never heard of this Dr. Helen before, I don't think, though the tipping post sounds familiar enough that I wonder whether Brock's wife has been reading her.
Eh, for some reason these people make me alternately shouty, which is unappealing ("You're a fucking idiot! You're an idiot! What the fuck are you talking about!?", etc.), and laughing nearly to the point of tears. I doubt I could control myself if I were in the same room listening to that apparently sincere drivel.
Or, what 68 said.
Like, remember back in the Eisenhower Administration when the top tax rate was 91 percent, and everyone just sat on their asses?
And just before that, the invention of the transistor and the start of the application of the technologies and techniques developed in WW2, mostly funded by the government. That's when those silly moron's current world was born.
Yeah, I'm all in favor of McMoron and the others "Going Galt". We should help them. We could set up special camps for them without internet access so they don't inadvertantly do or something productive.
It's weird, or perhaps instructive, that Drop City was such a failure, while the hippie takeovers of Olympia, Eugene and Berkeley worked out pretty well. Also, all of those folx who bought some land in Mendocino before it got expensive, or built yurts in Maine -- you don't hear much about them, mostly because a lot of them managed to live pretty decent, low-impact lives for the last 40 years.
What I still haven't been able to figure out is whether Your Internet Is Breeding Objectivists, or whether they were all skulking around beforehand, occasionally irritating people at gun shows and SF conventions.
whether Your Internet Is Breeding Objectivists, or whether they were all skulking around beforehand, occasionally irritating people at gun shows and SF conventions.
Well, the pseudo-Objectivists cropping up now don't seem like the same people who probably have indeed been hanging out at gun shows and/or SF conventions.
They were skulking around beforehand. Back when I was in college (88-92), Objectivists were a not-large, but certainly present class of weirdos. My sister dated one, and caught it for a couple of months, which was when I read all of the books, and I ran into a number here and there in other contexts.
hippie takeovers of Olympia, Eugene and Berkeley
One of these things is not like the others.
82: When I was young, callow, and Republican, Rand's books were not that easy to find. Now they're all there at every McBookstore, covers out.
In lieu of a tip, $_____ has been donated to the Re-Elect Obama for President Campaign. Thank you for supporting the man and the movement that are bringing America together!
I'm actually oddly comforted by stuff like this. You rarely see such a clear confession of someone's psychological issues.
When I was growing up, Rand's books were always around but seemed so monumentally boring that I never picked one up. I think that at some point I heard that a lot of serious bridge players were Objectivists, so I asked my dad whether he'd ever read Rand and what he'd thought. He replied that he thought it was boring and selfish, so I didn't give it a second thought for about a decade.
82: I knew one back in the early 80s when I went to college.
I met a militiaman on the bus on the way home. Did you know that there's a certain legal filing which makes you immune to traffic stops and ID checks?
I lived in a house with four Objectivists for a year. The only good thing about it was that the dishes were always done immediately, because they couldn't stand the thought that someone might do their work for them.
There was a gorgeous, intense-looking objectivist at one of my jobs. She'd ogle me at times. I guess I was supposed to dragg her into the back room and ravish her right there at work, but it probably would have led to a relationship.
there's a certain legal filing
All the "laws" are invalid because they're sworn in front of what is actually a maritime flag. True fact, most widely appreciated by suddenly-unemployed machinists.
Did you know that there's a certain legal filing which makes you immune to traffic stops and ID checks?
Only if it's prepared with the right color crayon. Also, anything that isn't addressed to your CORRECT LEGAL: NAME isn't about you and can be ignored.
I think that at some point I heard that a lot of serious bridge players were Objectivists
That's... odd. I think, anyway. I believe you, I just don't understand why objectivists would be drawn to bridge. I mean, I guess I could gin up something along the lines of "strong partnerships stating and meeting their goals or suffering the consequences, all in a competitive atmosphere," but I feel like I have to stretch for that one.
i thought how strange that AR was buried not under her own name with which she was born, it's like so tragic
she tried her best to exist in the world however controversial were her views, so when people ridicule her philosophy i feel it's unfair
i think a lot of things she wrote is true, but when on the whole it becomes a movement i wouldn't want to join perhaps
90: There are those who'd describe this as a fringe argument.
I read Fountainhead my freshman year in college, and I enjoyed it, but I never got how anyone could take the ideas seriously.
Crime and Punishment was my favorite book for most of high school, and this was like if Crime and Punishment had ended with Raskolnikov convincing the jury that he was right to kill the pawnbroker.
I lived in a house with four Objectivists for a year. The only good thing about it was that the dishes were always done immediately, because they couldn't stand the thought that someone might do their work for them.
A friend of mine in college told the story of seeing someone drop a bunch of books on the quad. He helped her pick them up and was surprised to get a really angry glare in response. Then he glanced down at the book he was handing her and it was Atlas Shrugged.
I don't think of any sort of withholding as genuine unless it goes with a withdrawal like 'back to the land'. So, short of 'back to the land', I think you're a petulant baby. All the way to 'back to the land' is really, really hard.
Word.
92: It works if you think of it as a Venn diagram. Serious bridgeplayers are (1) nerdy enough to obsess over an intellectually challenging game to the point of getting really good at it, and (2) have particularly directed that nerdiness at a game socially associated with your grandparents. (I love bridge, although I don't play because I don't have a convenient set of people to play with. Not putting down bridge here.) That looks like a pretty promising field to find Objectivists in.
IME serious bridge players are Chinese. Mao's last position was as head of the Chinese bridge association.
LB, are you lacking a bridge partner or just opponents?
The Fountainhead is pretty fun in a trashy sort of way, but very difficult to take seriously. For one thing, she gets the politics of all the characters based on real people totally wrong. Gertrude Stein was a hard-core rightwinger.
I haven't read Atlas Shrugged and I have no intention of doing so.
All card games fall along a spectrum of skill vs. chance. While a simple card of high card is almost pure chance, bridge is pretty much the other end of the spectrum: over time, the more skilled player is going to win. This rewarding of rationality appeals to Randroids.
I of course play an irrationally altruistic bridge game in which I give pleasure to my enemies by bidding too high and going down in flames.
Partner, opponents, and time -- I'm very unreliable about being able to show up for stuff, what with the job and the family. My daydream was to teach Buck and the kids, but after eleven years of marriage I've become reconciled to the fact that Buck really doesn't want to play cards or boardgames. Sally's pretty much the same. If I had convenient, tolerant opponents, I'd probably try to train Newt; while he's only seven, he's a game-player and specifically a card player. We've played a lot of euchre, and that's the start of it.
I miss bridge. For a while I had a once-a-week game, but that broke up about two years ago, and I don't know if I've played since.
Though I wouldn't claim that I was ever a serious player.
You should teach Newt Cribbage. That seems like a good gateway card game (and it's one of the better two player games).
i thought her writing style is difficult to read b/c it's translated, in her mind
the style is like Victor Hugo's i thought, all very elevated
the other day i was reading SB and thought the texts he translated, (translated by author) were easier for me to read, when the texts he wrote directly in English were kinda hard to follow
There's a good chance Rhymeswithmaria and I are moving into your neighborhood, so we should bring up the bridge question again sometime next fall. She's a card player but hasn't played bridge yet. I played some in college (casually, but not badly).
Oh, I was never good. My parents taught my sister and I so we'd have a four at home, so my bidding is a degenerate version of whatever was fashionable in the mid-sixties. I played some in college (there were good players at my MIT co-op: the nicest thing anyone ever said to me about my bridge was from a fairly serious player that "You know, despite everything, you've got enough card sense that you're not annoying to play with when we need a fourth." Faint praise though it was, I preened.) and in the Peace Corps.
But since the early 90s, all the bridge I've played was one evening with Jackmormon.
has anyone (in history) ever actually watched Blue Man Group doing whatever it is they do?
I used to work with a guy who had seen all the greats of the 60s/70s, and reported that Blue Man Group was better than the best he'd seen (which was Hendrix).
Make of that what you will.
Liz, you and Newt should learn to play two-person Casino.* I'll teach you!
*I play the variant where you can build up to an ace (14 pts), you can build multiples on top of each other, the ten of diamonds is worth 1, the two of diamonds worth 2, sweeping the table gets you 1, the majority of cards gets you 2, the majority of spades gets you 1, and each ace is worth one. Oh, and the last person to take a trick gets all the remaining cards on the table.
Rhymeswithmaria and I
Man, I can't keep track of people and relationships.
If you do move, and you're interested (and wouldn't mind playing with a small child. I wasn't kidding about training Newt; he wants nothing more out of life than for people to play games with him), email me. I'd like a regular bridge four, but I'm never going to get organized to go out of the neighborhood for it.
Huh. I don't know Casino at all.
She cowrote the crossword with me (more accurately, I cowrote that one with her as it was her theme idea), so you were probably aware of our relationship at some point.
I've never read any of Rand's fiction (and don't plan to), but I did read several collections of her essays when I was in college. I found the rhetoric appealing at first, and of course I'd heard that Neal Peart was a big fan, so that was a plus, then I chucked it all in the garbage when it became obvious to me that she knew even less about Kant than I did. I still like King Vidor's The Fountainhead, though, and Rand still fascinates me as a character, someone who's more fun to read about than to read.
"You know, despite everything, you've got enough card sense that you're not annoying to play with when we need a fourth."
I stopped playing bridge in college when the foursome we eventually landed with was so pickily serious about analyzing every play of every game once it ended -- so that the analysis period lasted as long as the game just had -- that I became disgusted. There were a few too many occasions of me irritatedly explaining, "I'll tell you why I led with that, if you'll back off for a second."
It was too bad; I liked the game. We just weren't playing it in quite the same way, I guess.
I will say that if you don't mind cardboard characters and melodrama, they're very readable trashy beach books. If you find the Objectivism thing interesting as an outsider, and you're not fastidious about literary style, there are worse ways to kill a couple of hours.
But I will, notoriously, read the most unutterable shit.
113 i thought people like follow my comments, especially when they mention Newark, NJ news and etc/ that was a joke of course
i was reading Samuel Beckett's complete prose, short stories, these two weeks
my self-mission was to find something happy mentioned there, i liked frizzle 6 and the story about a doctor and his nurse, it had some kind of happy ending
It's a very fun game. The feeling of communication with a good partner, or at least a partner you're in tune with, is a real kick.
Rhymeswithmaria is excited at the prospect of playing with Newt so she could start even with someone. Anyway I'll bring it back up in the fall once we know where we're actually living and whatnot.
120: Agreed! It was an odd experience, my deciding to quit; maybe the first time I realized that competitiveness/ambition really did have limits for me.
Looking for cheery stuff in Beckett is a heroic task.
i read someone wrote he's all dark and gloomy, but his humor is so great, i laughed a lot
I enjoyed The Fountainhead in just the same way, teofilo.
90: There are those who'd describe this as a fringe argument.
And then there are those who would cling to it like a drowning man to a sword.
We call these people corporate lawyersJohn Yoo.
I'd never heard of this Dr. Helen before, I don't think
Beckett is indeed hilarious, but seldom cheery.
There's a good chance Rhymeswithmaria and I are moving into your neighborhood
Unfoggedtarian is friends with someone named Sharia?
133: Dammit! And me with no more offspring to name.
Oh. I couldn't make any sense of 107, because I thought read meant Standpipe.
s/he's SPBP in my nomenclature, but is also hilarious
I'm going to go Galt by really sitting down and enjoying my morning coffee.
Rah and I sometimes play Bridge with another couple with whom we're friends. We're all very casual about it and enjoy it as a social endeavor as much as we enjoy it for its competitive, tactical elements. A friend of mine asked if we had also signed up for AARP, hardy-fucking-har, and I explained to her that Bridge is simply a four-player, turn-based strategy game designed to be played while having a cocktail and thus vastly superior to many other entries in the genre.
130: Oh. I've never read Insty either (but for the occasional quoted excerpt)! Some things you just let pass by.
and enjoying my morning coffee
At 2 in the afternoon. You're truly your own man, Sifu.
140: I didn't mean today. I just meant, you know, if Obama takes things too far.
Some things you just let pass by.
Wise choice.
137: And by ignoring collectivist plots like timezones? Or are you traveling?
read: Could you elaborate more on which of Rand's ideas you find appealing? I'm genuinely curious, because everything I've read of hers, or about her work, is so uniformly banal. Skyscrapers! Rugged individuals! Cruel to be kind! Objectivism has always seemed like such a back-asswards way to come at social change to me. Like: Forget about history, contemporary politics and happiness, and focus instead on taking actions that will be maximally irritating and off-putting to everyone around you.
Further to 143: Oh, and I get it that she really, really did not like Bolshevism, and I can empathize with that, but there's any number of politics that are opposed to Bolshevism that don't stray into Objectivist looney-tuneism.
I thought her plan to get Alan Greenspan laid was puzzling in its particulars.
i generally approve of rugged individuals and rational self-interest, but when all of them rugged individuals create a movement it gets like scary
In lieu of a tip, $_____ has been donated to the Re-Elect Obama for President Campaign. Thank you for supporting the man and the movement that are bringing America together!
What a waste of precious oxygen.
Also, if going John Galt means they invent the free energy machine, cool.
Also, I guess I see the whole Venn diagram angle, and the rewarding of rationality thing, but still, damn. I'd imagined an essentially amoral ethos would lead to more wild times.
148: people who spend a lot of time thinking about how very important they must be tend to be pretty boring.
Yeah, amorality is a lot less fun when you have a stick up your butt.
they're very readable trashy beach books
Surely this applies to Atlas Shrugged only if you skip the 3-hour speech in the middle. (And even then it's a stretch.)
150: Au contraire, that's when it's the most fun of all!
: Thistle Jacket?
I like it. It's the perfect accompaniment to a hair shirt.
I admit that the long speeches in The Fountainhead were the least enjoyable part, but there weren't that many of them. I hear Atlas Shrugged is worse that way, but like I say, no intention of reading it myself.
What a waste of precious oxygen.
She has an answer for you.
As a commenter said, this post really seems to have hit a nerve. I am guessing that a number of lefty types are upset that their livelihood may be threatened.
My ability to enjoy reading crap has plummeted the last couple of years. I'm not sure why.
155: She thinks everyone commenting from work is a waitress?
Actually, the complete John Galt speech as posted to YouTube is only 2 hours long.
The only other people I know of who give speeches like that are Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.
146: but when all of them rugged individuals create a movement it gets like scary
The Perfesser does subsist on taxpayer dollars, right?
And tips!
It was after all the Old Europeans who perfected the privatdozent system where the students in your class would pay you directly, so you had a real incentive to be good. There are stories about Simmel being especially good at lecturing because no respectable university would give a jew a permanent job.
The objectivists creep me out. Their holy text (Atlas Shrugged) is two parts quasi-fascist romanticism and one part each of high school oratory and rape fantasy. If there's a cause behind that particular correlation, I'm not sure I want to know it.
160: As does Mrs. Perfesser, I think. Doesn't she serve the people of Tennessee by opining that criminal defendants aren't crazy?
163: so romanto-fascistic high school rape oratory?
two parts quasi-fascist romanticism and one part each of high school oratory and rape fantasy. If there's a cause behind that particular correlation, I'm not sure I want to know it.
Isn't Klaus Theweleit the go-to guy here?
166: hah! Isn't Dr. Helen always bitching about how there should be Men's Studies programs to counteract all those darn women's studies programs? She should be so pleased!
The world's leading expert in Men's Studies had a sex-change operation the year before last. True fact.
168: There's a "going off half-cocked" joke in there somewhere.
166: Isn't Klaus Theweleit the go-to guy here?
Huh, I had a chance to read a chapter or two of one of those books, the second, I think, while visiting a friend; engaging enough that I was making remarks out loud as I read, which amused the friend, I think. Had to put it down when I left, though.
163: Their holy text (Atlas Shrugged) is two parts quasi-fascist romanticism and one part each of high school oratory and rape fantasy
Which is why it's perfect to fire the imaginations of 15/16-year-olds. That's when I read Rand. It was intriguing enough, as were Camus and Nietzsche around the same time. The angst-ridden adolescent mind just reaches for anything sexy! radical! weird, makes ya think! Not having read any of Rand's essays, I don't know what the excuse for becoming an Objectivist into adulthood might be.
173: Yeah, me too. But the rape scenes just stuck me as such a radical non sequitur as to make me obsess over how it could be relevant, how there must be something I'm missing.
Also, Blood Meridian is the Atlas Shrugged for grown-ups, in much the same way that Gravity's Rainbow is the Illuminatus! for grown-ups.
I know we've had a discussion before about the ways some of us were briefly sucked into Randism, but my google fu is weak today.
Megan hasn't withdrawn from society at all! She and her boyfriend were over Wednesday for a bloggers' work brunch conference. If it makes you feel any better, I made an exceptionally poor maltaise sauce for them all.
Actually, the complete John Galt speech as posted to YouTube is only 2 hours long.
God knows it feels much, much longer.
176: I assume you used blood oranges. Got to keep her strength up.
180: I could have sworn I shared my thoroughly fascinating pedestrian high school Rand infatuation, but apparently I shortchanged you lot.
so romanto-fascistic high school rape oratory?
If you're into that sort of thing, why not go directly to the Marquis de Sade's "Philosophie dans le boudoir"?
I'm pretty sure I'd rather have my teenaged kids reading Sade than Rand.
i am saddened that blue man group have let me down, galtwise: "better than the best" is just not good enough
i think the difference between nazism in Germany and racism here was, that the former was confronted and it was so much tensive confrontation it killed millions, if it was quietly given in, it perhaps would have lasted like 70 yrs of communism getting corrupted from within or like more than a hundred yrs of racism here
if thoughful people penetrated into their nazi organisations from the very beginning and tried to influence or become the decision making key figures, who knows perhaps the major disasters could have been avoided
but in Russia this didn't work, so as a rational proposal it wouldn't have worked
i thought this after reading yesterday someone's comment elsewhere about a sci-fi novel that should have been written about how LW kills his classmate and goes to the jail, and the world has one less philosopher and one less (or fewer, what fits) the world war, very alternative Raskolnikov like tale
but instead of his classmate it would have been someone else, that's why it wouldn't have worked
one less philosopher, that would have been really a pity though
so these are my thoughts on Rand, though i don't see much difference between for example anarchism or objectivism, both seem like about that, rugged individuals, just one is more structural and another one is like amorphous and i read only half of A. Rand's the Fountainhead perhaps should read it until the end before talking about it
Obligatory link to the Ayn Rand Christmas Special.
More and better Nazis! I love it, if only because of one less (or fewer, what fits) the world war. Her heart is in the right place.
174: Illuminatus! is the Atlas Shrugged for anarchists, so it all works out. (plus--and this is important when considering which ridiculous philosophy to pick up in high school--the dirty bits are better.)
Smith's views on unproductive labor are much closer to Dr Marx than Dr Helen.
Yes. Moreover! Smith never claimed to believe in Reason, Egoism, and Capitalism.
Haven't read the thread yet, just wondering: have we already been warned off making fun of McMegan? Or is that still in the pipeline?
I'm pretty sure I'd rather have my teenaged kids reading Sade than Rand.
Jackmo's just getting them ready for their introduction to the Frankfurt School.
You have to have pretty high SATs to get into the Frankfurt School, but the tuition is cheap.
But surely they'll ace all those SAT questions about Sade.
I happened to take the SAT a couple weekends ago, and it was all about invertebrate fossils. Unfortunately, I'm completely serious about that.
I don't understand 198 on a number of levels.
194: I think we're actually supposed to make fun of her in this thread.
The special Darwin bicentennial SAT. This year only!
186: a sci-fi novel that should have been written about how LW kills his classmate and goes to the jail, and the world has one less philosopher and one less (or fewer, what fits) the world war, very alternative Raskolnikov like tale
Ludwig Wittgenstein? I haven't read comments beyond 186, but man, read's on a roll.
194: Haven't read the thread yet, just wondering: have we already been warned off making fun of McMegan? Or is that still in the pipeline?
Well, Armsmasher made her brunch last Wednesday, but aside from that, the field is as clear as you want it to be.
This year only!
No, apparently it's just about every year. A friend who worked for ETS said that it was really difficult to come up with texts that weren't familiar to anyone, didn't favor anyone, and didn't offend anyone. Geology and fossils are in the sweet spot.
I think it would be sort of fun to take the SAT now. Didn't Berube recently retake the Lit GRE? That was a fun read.
I didn't have to take the math, thank God.
How did you just happen to take the SAT? A couple weeks ago? Were you, like, walking down the street and they accosted you like scientologists?
I have to say, my experiments in purchased pornography were failures. Free stuff from here on!
God, wouldn't that be awful? Or if Homeland Security made you take the SAT every once in a while for their own mysterious purposes...
No, I'm going to tutor for Kaplan.
I did SAT tutoring for a while, but I was freelance, and I didn't realize until far too late that I was working for a mafia family. That got a bit ugly when the girl decided she wasn't very interested in being tutored.
202 bingo! it's not me, the comment of someone else which i too thought was noble in intent, but impossible to happen irl even if it had happened like that, the murder part, coz the war would have happened as like scheduled, and the world without LW would have been worse i guess
it's a headache to write all the if something had happened verbal tenses
the LW example illustrates though 'my' theory of importance and irrelevance of an individual on different levels, intellectual or politico-social
191: Good point. I'd like to have read Illuminatus! in high school, but didn't discover it until college. Still enjoyed it immensely, though.
205: I'm Googling for this one right now. Thanks for the tip.
I read about half of Illuminatus! in college and didn't quite understand the appeal. I had enjoyed Foucault's Pendulum, The Magus (yeah, I know), Hermann Hesse (ditto), and various other hermetic novels. Is that the right bunch to lump Illuminatus! in with, or should it be in the paranoid novel class with Pynchon and the others?
and I didn't realize until far too late that I was working for a mafia family.
Oh sure. Madoff investors, Mafia moles...sooner or later, they all come out with the same hackneyed excuse.
Well, Armsmasher made her brunch last Wednesday
Aha! And she consorts with Skrulls, on top of it all! My pile of evidence for the Revolutionary Tribunal is mounting by the day.
211: Yes, I don't see what Wittgenstein has to do with the advent of the war. I don't know the comment you're referring to, either, so I can't say whether it was noble in intent.
213: I recall (it's been a while) being especially intrigued with the idea of a tax on hording money through a scheme of devaluing cash holdings.
Speaking of everyone's favorite poker-wielding philosopher, I think I want to read Alexander Waugh's The House of Wittgenstein, A Family at War which came out recently. I had been aware of some of the interesting aspects of the family (suicides of three brothers, one of the richest families in Europe, patrons and players of music), but not things like the brother who lost an arm in World War I, but continued as a concert pianist, commissioning works for only one hand form famous composers. Or the modernist house that Ludwig designed for his sister.
So, I've never read any Robert Anton Wilson (RAW), and I don't know whether I should remedy this.
219: Stormcrow, report back if you read it? It's sparked some controversy. Well, it would.
Somewhat OT: A friend from HS posted this ad for a job in our hometown on FB. Check the pay grade. Unbelievable.
With the median home price at $134k, it's not a terrible living.
222: Well, it would.
It does seem that just about everything about the man sparks some controversy. I was amused by the anecdote in the NYTimes review I linked claiming that Wittgenstein's nephew "announced his readiness to vomit on the hat of the publisher" of William Bartley's 1973 biography (he was outraged by claims that his uncle sometimes sought homosexual encounters in a public park).
Yeah, but I don't think I'd trust legal advice I'd paid $17/hour for.
This is brilliant: "Crime and Punishment was my favorite book for most of high school, and this was like if Crime and Punishment had ended with Raskolnikov convincing the jury that he was right to kill the pawnbroker."
Someone should write that book.
219: Here's a brief clip of Paul Wittgenstein playing part of the Ravel Concerto for Left Hand. Judging from the pieces he commissioned that I'm familiar with, he must have been a pretty accomplished pianist.
224: I'm not sure that's how it works. It's true that you can own a pretty decent (by expensive urban standards) home in KC for very little, but that's not the kind of home someone with those kind of qualifications would live in in KC. I know that sounds shallow, but just because you can afford a domicile for what they're offering doesn't mean that's a proper respectable living for someone with those qualifications.
213: I suppose it depends on what you mean by "hermetic." I'd call GR hermetic ahead of Foucault's Pendulum any day of the week. I don't see your division at all. And where would you stick Borges?
Although it's worth noting that stated qualifications often include a significant aspirational element, IME.
Oh, my friend posted it as ridiculous. It's not his ad; he's a lawyer looking for work.
Sorry, missed that part. I wonder what the company that posted the ad expects to get in response.
232: Wait, is Borges considered hermetic?
220 perhaps he alluded to this photo
i'm not sure about the contents of the page
For comparison, he added, he currently works as a legal consultant for a not-for-profit in KC, with two years of experience, and makes far more than $17.
209: No, I'm going to tutor for Kaplan.
Good luck. I did it for about a year and found it kind of draining. It was hard to escape the feeling that we were just scamming them out of their money. They charged $1100 for the basic course, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling them that they could get the same value from buying a copy of 10 Real SATs for $20 and working through it on their own.
I suppose it was helpful for the kids who wouldn't study without an organized program telling them to do so, but still. Lot of money to listen to someone read from a script.
228: Although according to one biography, he did not please everyone: His own family, however, extremely fastidious in their musical taste, did not greatly admire the style of his playing. And from Waugh's book, even when Ravel was losing his memory to the neurological disorder Pick's disease, he still responded to Paul Wittgenstein's name with visceral loathing. (Although this last was apparently do to a more fundamental differences of opinion, "Performers must not be slaves!" Paul told Ravel during a dispute over a concerto he had commissioned; "Performers are slaves!" Ravel shot back. )
223: Seems reasonable to me.
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such financial planning seminars as "Lower Your Heart Rate by Drastically Lowering Your Expectations," and "Negative Equity: The Pluses and Minuses of Home Ownership."
I thought "neil" was a commenter here long before "Neil the Ethical Werewolf" commented here.
The special Darwin bicentennial SAT. This year only!
Darwin:fish::Jesus: ?
Wittgenstein's classmate was Hitler. True fact. There's a fantasy history book claiming that Hitler's resentment of Wittgenstein (arrogant assimilated Jew) caused Nazziism. Read seems to be referring to a second book taking off from there.
245: Yes, without that it would have just been Rohm and Himmler marching around in their darling little outfits: Snazzyism!
Even when Ravel was losing his memory to the neurological disorder Pick's disease, he still responded to Paul Wittgenstein's name with visceral loathing
That certainly clinches whatever point was being made.
Wittgenstein's outraged nephew announced his readiness to vomit on the hat of the publisher
Just the Viennese being Viennese. Young Mozart offered to shit in his lovely cousin's mouth. We should not judge other cultures by our own provincial standards.
Think of that when you next eat one of those delicious Viennese pastries.
Young Mozart offered to shit in his lovely cousin's mouth.
Well I do hope they considered the health issues.
Also, read, there are lots of differences between Objectivism and Anarchism. For instance, after Hurricane Katrina, anarchists snuck back into New Orleans to help with food, health care and reconstruction. Objectivists did not. Also, when anarchists create effective community organizations, the FBI harrasses, infiltrates and disrupts them. Objectivists are never subject to that kind of intervention. (Possibly because they are so ineffectual.) Also, there's a cozy anarchist cafe or two in every major city. Let's take a trip to a hypothetical Objectivist cafe:
ATTENTION: You are now entering a free trade zone. The management of this cafe makes no warranty, express or implied, that you will be served food, or that what you are served will be what you ordered, or that you will not find cockroaches in your food, UNLESS: you have a pre-existing contract that specifies all of the rights and obligations to which you, the patron, are subject to.
Menu:
Ayn Rand Sausage Tower
Anything you want. May or may not include food, depending on your pre-existing contract. $399.95
Milton Friedman Fries
Not guaranteed to be made from potatoes, unless specified in contractual form. Not USDA inspected. $149.95
Alan Greenspan Waffles
Beat inflation! Beat Communism! Beat your workers! $249.95
We aim to please! If you are not completely satisfied with your meal, you have no recourse.
247: Ravel can't be held responsible for that loathing, of course. The damage caused by Pick's disease to the Hippocampus means his rage reaction was simply ingrained routine happening pre-consciously in the basal ganglia. Certainly putting him on trial for Paul Wittgenstein-hatred is a bridge too far.
249: Typical liberal unwillingness to judge. The Viennese are evil. And that includes the pastries.
The Viennese are evil. And that includes the pastries.
Isn't their some legal means of redress against the evils thus inflicted?
their s/b there. I am abashed.
According to a Spy magazine article I read long ago, Chuck Berry is/was a coprophiliac. Is he secretly Viennese? It's an intriguing question.
It was hard to escape the feeling that we were just scamming them out of their money.
At this point I can't say I can spare much concern about that. So far I'm annoyed by the continued insistence in the training materials about "the proven Kaplan methods and materials," but, hell, they're offering to PAY ME.
As for the hermetic vs. paranoid novel, oh, I'd say the distinction has something to do with truth-value.
Wilhem Meister is hermetic, I'd say Borges is hermetic, and of course Hesse is hermetic because there's a discovery of some sort of sincerely meant truth---even if it is, in the case of Borges, an allegorized or even transitory, game-dependent truth.
The paranoid novels seem to accept that truth will racket around from one player to another, that every revelation is another deception, etc. I find that sort of thing a bit tiring. When I was younger, I was so damned earnest that I didn't realize that Foucault's Pendulum was a satire and, like a total sap, went out to learn more about the Templars. It's a paranoid novel masquerading as a hermetic novel; sorry for the confusion.
Wait. Are you saying Tristero's Empire is not coming?
256: Could be. A lot of people are secretly Viennese. Maybe the next generation of parents, having grown up in a milieu of tolerance, will raise children who will never feel they ought to be ashamed of being Viennese.
250: True love thinks not of the future, but follows desire wherever it leads.
I'm ignorant: what does "hermetic" mean in this context? Apparently something more specific than "mystic" (and less specific than specifically pertaining to Hermes or Hermes Trismegistus)?
I saw blue man group in 94. Had no idea what it was, laughed myself half to death. It was a different world, though.
I know it's been said many times, many ways, but can't we help the rw bloggers achieve their goal of going Galt by ignoring them?
And what about Osberg, Spanish writer of pretentious fairy-tales and mystico-allegoric anecdotes, highly esteemed by short-shift thesialists? (You know, the one who wrote about the Andalusian gypsy Lolita.)
I beg to differ about the ineffectuality of Randians. Greenspan already did the John Galt destruction-of-ivilization thing. These others are pathetic wannabes.
It seems that my cousin John Hospers never banged Rand, just as I failed to ravish the hott Randian at work. Wobegonians miss all the fun.
Hermes is the messenger between worlds! He brings hidden knowledge to light! So a hermetic text is one which presents multiple layers of meaning. A hermeneutic reading is one which interprets a text by searching out hidden meanings. But the premise is that there is a meaning---a stable one---to be found, which is the distinction that I'm shakily drawing above. So it doesn't exactly mean "mystic"; it's a bit more specific than that.
less specific than specifically
I suck.
Hermetic works are in some sense coded.
Hospers is your cousin? That explains a lot.
Wobegonians miss all the fun.
Oh, John. What with your lack of workplace ambition, and her lack of the moral framework upon which to build a conscience, it never would have worked. She would have left you for someone in middle management.
270: You, specifically your obsession with Scarlett Johansson.
It's a paranoid novel masquerading as a hermetic novel
Exactly so.
MC, my researches make it almost certain that my missing ancestor was a Revolutionary War Loyalist or deserter living in Sutton or Emerson in Brome County, Quebec. Me and Garrison Keillor.
Maybe I needed to be fooled into thinking it hermetic to enjoy it. Similarly, I enjoy mystery novels more than USENET.
Now, to bed.
John, for real, I told you I thought you had a Loyalist ancestor. I'm pretty sure I found his petition to the Crown for a land grant in Lower Canada (Québec).
Why is everyone not obsessed with Scarlett Johansson?
251 i thought objectivists are that, perfectionists, so anything they do they strive to do like trying their best, no?
so, anarchists are organized, effective, objectivists are unorganized, irresponsible, it's getting clear
the cafe you described sounds like irl socialist
though i think it depends on the individual's morals even in the socialist reality, to do the work putting one's best efforts like altruistically if one values one's name or interested in the work, or be motivated by just material rewards and be a bad worker if those are not satisfying
altruism i read somewhere depends on the serotonin levels in the brain or perhaps it was oxytocin, i forget, so maybe it's not even something socially determined, being a good worker
i thought SB's poor evicted heroes could have been pretty happy if they were born into the soc reality, you do some light meaningless monotonous work not interfering with one's inner life and have minimum responsibilities with some minimal social needs guaranteed, pretty humane and indifferent if you comply
if you dissent, then the things would get ugly of course, but the conditions are like pretty livable for the majority of people
That wasn't the direct-line ancestor, though, I don't think. He should have my exact name.
Almost half of my ancestral names are John.
I am John11 Edwin10 Albert9 Charles8 John7 John6 Samuel5 Joseph4 John3 John2 Michael1. John6 was the deserter/Loyalist.
276 -- Not only was John's ancestor a traitor -- he married and had children!
277 -- Some people might be trying to avoid a creepy old man vibe. By keeping their obsessions to themselves. (Or creepy old woman vibe, as the case may be).
so, anarchists are organized, effective, objectivists are unorganized, irresponsible, it's getting clear
Anarchists are from Mars, Objectivists are from Venus, where they hoard their magic Venusian trinkets lest they be subject to confiscatory taxes here on Earth. Mars has better vegan soups, but man does that Martian punk rock grate.
From here on I'll just say things like "Unlike Americans, we Canadians know that...."
That wasn't the direct-line ancestor, though, I don't think.
But was he related to your direct-line ancestor? It seems unlikely that two unrelated Emersons would just happen to move from New England to the same area of Lower Canada. The Québec church records (both Catholic and Protestant) are very well-preserved. You could probably sort this out if you had the patience.
278: In East Germany, before the counter-revolution, what was the statistic? 1/3 of the population was Stasi or Stasi-connected? At least that meant that there were 2/3 of the population you could trust most of the time. Here in the US, it's just the opposite -- 2/3 of the population are either part of the security apparatus, or they're inveterate stool pigeons and informers.The Objectivists chief among them. (Except for the cheating on their taxes part.) All of the anti-drug insanity and white slavery insanity is a class-based effort to turn the few remaining holdouts and imprison the incorrigibles.
Thus do I achieve thread-meld!
And now, up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire
Here come the nice
273 is stronger than it should be; there's some serious ambiguity in the text.
P.S. If you all keep declining opportunities like 254, I'm going to take my set-ups elsewhere.
Probably. My brother just met someone with a Quebec Emerson ancestor.
Please quit casting aspersions on my patience, MC.
Not only was John's ancestor a traitor
A loyalist, do you mean? But one man's loyalty is another man's treachery, of course.
See, for me it's sort of like the Roundheads versus the Cavaliers. No doubt the Roundheads were on the right side of history, but like all zealous reformers, at all times and in all places, they were just so fussily self-righteous in the building of their New Jerusalem that it makes me sympathize with the crumbling Old World decadence of the Cavaliers.
See? Emerson rocks. How could anyone ever doubt Emerson?
I just want to say, in re some discussions that have previously taken place on this site, that anyone who could doubt the absolute superiority of e.g. a well aged, high quality Chateauneuf du Pape to even the best beer has something wrong with them.
How could anyone ever doubt Emerson? ... anyone who could doubt the absolute superiority of e.g. a well aged, high quality Chateauneuf du Pape
Look, we all agree Emerson is well aged, and maybe even high quality, but what does that have to do with the pope?
I think a lot of people here are comfortable admitting they have something wrong with them.
This is really important: when frat boys listen to reggae, do they listen to Peter Tosh's "Downpressor Man" / "Equal Rights"? Because if they do, I find this world too horrible to face any more.
I'm fairly sure PGD has something wrong with him, but I'm sure it's not the wine's fault.
Welcome, Sifu. I actually was thinking of you when I wrote that.
Yes, I know you were trying to troll me. All in good fun.
I think a lot of people here are comfortable admitting they have something wrong with them.
There are many things wrong with me. I can say this confidently because I'm drunk on Czech beer.
I actually came out of that previous thread feeling like I was probably basically wrong, but I might have to reconsider now.
(Which I would probably prefer to the fancy-pants wine).
I haven't had enough to drink tonight. Maybe I should remedy that.
But then I might do something terribly ill-advised like replying to Emerson at Crooked Timber again.
Czech beer makes us comfortable with confessing our flaws. Slovak beer makes us boorish and pushy. Ukrainian beer makes us brave enough to sing in public.
PBR is the beer of Eden. We've advanced a lot since, but it gets the job done as well as anything.
I've heard good things about wine made from these fancy pants.
304: I am not a fan of the drawstring waist with silly little tassels.
I like the word fancy-pants. I must have picked it up from someone who uses it here, as I can't recall using it before.
304: they do rather say "cunt", don't they?
Please quit casting aspersions on my patience, MC.
Oh, sorry. I just meant that you would have to spend hours and hours combing through the Anglican church records (howsoever they professed themselves at mid-19th century or later, for the early 19th-century period you'd probably be looking at C of E parish registers), but that the records almost certainly do exist, and have been not only microfilmed but more recently digitized and placed online.
I've seen the name Emerson amongst the French and Irish Catholics at Vinton, in Pontiac Co., Québec, actually. It's an unusual name for them, and therefore stands out. A cousin of a cousin of mine was baptized John Emerson Sloan, son of Michael and Bridget. Where did that name come from, I wonder? I doubt very much these folks were reading the collected works of Ralph Waldo as a source of inspiration (I'm almost certain they were illiterate, and the priest says "they could not sign"). A study of the Emerson surname in Québec would probably prove interesting.
304: Dsquared2? Wearing those pants makes you prone to calling other people a cunt. Twice.
Essear, you sure you're not drinking?
306: I think we know what you're wearing to your wedding, now.
I have lots of patience. I just choose to specialize in projects which require no more than 7 minutes of extended attention.
310: I said enough to drink. And remedying it.
But that would be out of hand.
Looks to me like Samuel Emerson was born in 1750, married in 1770, and his wife was a widow in 1778. Makes J6 awfully young to be a 'loyalist.'
316: he was the 13 year old CPAC kid of his day.
315: The "T" should stand for "Tumescent."
Tensor Jenga?
Tuna Jet?
Toroidal Japery?
Maybe Samuel was the deserter / loyalist / Revolutionary War veteran. Genealogy is an inexact science when I do it.
John7 was born in Sutton, Quebec, 1799. I know nothing much about John6, b. 1773.
317: "I didn't leave the American colonies, the United States left me."
I do like those... Tender Jiffy
This is the worst-tasting pinot grigio I have ever had.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees as sweeet as Tupelo Jalopy.
292 was serious. Frat boys don't listen to "Downpressor Man", do they?
Tang Jockey?
Oh, wait... okay, listen, I was thinking about the beverage, okay? Like a NASA thing. Shut up.
Always wanted to try fancy wine. Had some moderately fancy wine once. Was very nice.
Tupelo Jalopy is in fact pretty awesome.
Togo Jitney?
Toil Jowl?
Tron Jesus?
Taint Jelly and Toad Jom are nice
I keep coming up with ones that turn out to be vaguely filthy or racist or something.
Taco Juice! Turbo Jewsday! Tong Johnson!
Tell Juthro
I think this is our winner right here.
Thor Jelly?
353: great now I'm singing "well this here's the ballad of Testicle Joe" to myself.
Will decide TomJorrow, but these are good.
Tmesis Jujube
Transcendental Jägermeister
Does the interest in geneaology suffer with the increasing knowledge that infidelity is and probably was much more common than we thought?
Tail Jisk.
Thunder Jingle.
Turd... Jangler?
No, probably not.
Greta movie on TCM right now. Shack out on 101. Early Lee Marvin as a "Slob" a short-order cook at a diner on the California coast who is really a commie agent
Since we're surveying the gulch, has anyone (in history) ever actually watched Blue Man Group doing whatever it is they do?
I have. It was reasonably impressive, but I certainly wouldn't have paid for it. Ironically enough given the subject of discussion, I saw it at a conference of securitisation bankers.
On Illuminatus!, it helps a lot to read the Principia Discordia beforehand. Which you should do anyway, as it's very funny if you've got a taste for the silly and a dislike for organised religion.
317 -- Can't you just imagine a young John Emerson, something like Mohammed El Gharani. You know, the 11 year old kid from Chad, living with his impoverished family in Saudia, seriously thought by our intelligence apparatus to have been a member of a London Al Qaeda cell. His lawyer suggested Gharani attended the meetings by teleportation -- thus revealing an astonishing technology gap. They also have time travel (apparently). You people just don't understand how scared you ought to be of these people.
A hermeneutic reading is one which interprets a text by searching out hidden meanings. But the premise is that there is a meaning---a stable one---to be found, which is the distinction that I'm shakily drawing above. So it doesn't exactly mean "mystic"; it's a bit more specific than that.
Wait, what? That's not what a hermeneutic reading is, at least not in the tradition I know. I'd would say it's the belief that in order to understand a text, you have to understand both the whole and all of its parts. Thus leading to back-and-forth interpretive process -- the hermeneutic circle! -- in which your understandings of the whole and of the parts keep adding to each other as you asymptotically approach the true meaning.
There are kinds of hermeneutics that assume surface meanings to be deceptive -- the so-called "hermeneutics of suspicion" of Nietzsche and Freud -- but I don't think it's accurate in general to say that hermeneutics assumes hidden meanings.
A hermetic text in the classical world is different than the hermeneutic tradition in continental / German philosophy...
Somewhere in the archives is teofilo's mind-bendingly perfect short description of all of Rand's work but I can't find it because I'm lazy. Truly, though, his brief observation is a work of genius. It is a quick dart in the side of any Randian balloon.
parsi, I've only ever read RAW's, er, "non"-fiction, which is to say a trilogy of books of essays about conspiracy theories and his own far-out experiences in which he comes across as a sort of acid-soaked Charles Fort. I loved them, but there is no way that is a widely held opinion of them. He reads like the sort of person it would be fun to have a drunken dinner with, and sometimes that's all I really want out of a book.
Hermetics meets the modern age,
The revelation of the once-secret Hermetic symbols and philosophies that are the foundation of the Golden Dawn's system has long since occurred, yet we still see Lodges swearing their Aspirants to absolute secrecy with mighty oaths of death and destruction, if they dare to reveal to the uninitiated the "secret knowledge" which the uninitiated could buy cheaply at a used book store. We see no reason to follow this defunct and even harmful approach.
Instead, following the demonstrably advantageous practice of the Open Source Software movement, we build our Order on the sources of knowledge that are accessible to anyone. Our sources are already open; we simply affirm this obvious fact. We have no "secrets" to conceal, in particular those that have already been revealed. And in any case, the era of artificial secrecy is at an end. Ours is the Information Age, and we embrace it fully. Therefore we ordain and establish our order as the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn
Sadly, you cannot become a member over the Internet, History has shown us that 'astral' initiations are too prone to abuse, and so we eschew the practice, but there are lodges in San Francisco, Seattle and Manchester so some of you are in luck.
Don't read Illuminatus!. Or anything by Robert Anton Wilson, for that matter. His stuff reads like the product of a horny fourteen-year-old who can't think about anything but sex but is too self-conscious to admit he doesn't know anything about it, so you end up with all these sex scenes that are painfully Mary Sueish and incredibly awkward (like the one where a guy has sex with a woman through a hole in a giant apple and she later tells him he was awesome, 'cause that's what really does it for the ladies - a dick in a hole).
361
Does the interest in geneaology suffer with the increasing knowledge that infidelity is and probably was much more common than we thought?
I thought dna studies have indicated that misattributed paternity is rare historically.
Toilet, Jo de
Do the T and J have to be in that order? "Joie de Toilette" is delightful, and Google indicates that it is as yet un-seized upon. But is it appropriate—is TJ delightfully fresh and well-groomed? Inquiring minds want to know.
Becket's novel "Some guy and Some other guy" is hilarious. What are the guys' names? I forget.
It must be "Mercier and Camier", though that title doesn't sound familiar at all.
404: Right. Did 265 use the word 'hermeneutic' mistakenly, or am I missing a part of the larger picture?
Ayn Rand had a disciple who wrecked the entire world economy. What have the disciples of your pansy little philosophers ever done, besides make a lot of undergrads miserable?
Help people better understand the process of understanding and meaning-making?
i vote now for ToJ, a slight modification from eb's suggestion
" 'Atlas Shrugged' is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should."
What have the disciples of your pansy little philosophers ever done, besides make a lot of undergrads miserable?
Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kommt darauf an, sie zu verändern.
Judging by the post title, I wonder if apartment = apartment.
419: A 67" TV and a blender!!
I bet if you claim to shout "Hail Satan" during sex, they'd behave intensely hypocritically and be more enthusiastic to have you as a roommate.
is TJ delightfully fresh and well-groomed?
Less than usually, these days. Check back with me on Wednesday.
No one said Titty titty ja ja?
36: releasing albums under a pseudonym to avoid contractual obligations is "going Galt."?
The dude is creative. (Really actually.) He withdraws his labor and doesn't put out any albums to get back at the people restricting him. So there you go. Kinda silly, but Eldritch is a weird dude. At least he isn't doing the Marie Antoinette version.
174: But the rape scenes just stuck me as such a radical non sequitur as to make me obsess over how it could be relevant, how there must be something I'm missing.
What I suspect is missing is the suspicion that AR had a personality disorder. If you fold all her published behaviour together, you can go through the checklist and spot it. Granted, that tends to be a silly parlour game, but on the other hand, if it walks like a duck, acts like a duck and quacks, it's a fucking duck. DiK would understand, I think.
82: They were skulking around beforehand. Back when I was in college (88-92), Objectivists were a not-large, but certainly present class of weirdos.
See, I mainly saw them at that time on the Mensa echo. (Everyone mentions SF and gun shows, how come no one mentions how frequently weird Mensa people (who go to meetings) are?) Show up on the theory that someone might say something intelligent (ha!), stay for the fruitcake programmers. Actually Objectivists seem to be pretty rare, but certain type of basically atheist Republican whining about people stealing their money and invoking Rand as some form of moral justification is pretty common a dime a dozen. There certainly don't seem to be as many of either as their used to be but I'm probably not lurking the right places. They're probably all commenting on Arnold Kling's blog.
144: Further to 143: Oh, and I get it that she really, really did not like Bolshevism, and I can empathize with that, but there's any number of politics that are opposed to Bolshevism that don't stray into Objectivist looney-tuneism.
I really really really don't like the Bolsheviks either! (But then, I really really really don't like Nazis.) Why do so many native Russian speakers who write in English bloviate so endlessly and with such grandiosity? {shrug}
The Objectivist cult doohickey looks like a hardcore narcissist leading a bunch of anal-retentative schizoid/typal types around by the nose.
max
['And the schizoids are still biting, even after she's dead.']
It's dead, Jim! Oh, and nobody touched this!:
Strange Substance Found in Bathroom Soap Dispenser
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 13, 2009 - Filed at 4:20 p.m. ET
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- The Alabama Department of Transportation is keeping the Interstate 10 welcome center in Baldwin County closed until it gets test results on a suspicious substance found in a soap dispenser. Department spokesman Tony Harris said Friday the department is waiting on tests as a precaution.
The center was closed Monday because of an unusual odor in the men's restroom and because the liquid soap in a dispenser in that bathroom had an unusual color.
The center's attendants saw doctors as a precaution, but Harris said no problems were found. The center averages 840 vehicles stopping each day.
I just heard some jackass concern-trolling on BBC radio: Jon Stewart ought not to make an issue of CNBC's incompetent and/or corrupt "journalism" because CNBC will just profit from the publicity.
"...A great American saying: don't wrestle with a pig, because you'll both get dirty but the pig enjoys it," she said.
But I'd say Jon ended up with a freezer full of porkchops without even getting his suit wrinkled.
330: John, my impression is that frat boys who listen to reggae generally begin with the canonical late-period Wailers, then move on to late-70s, early-80s roots stuff (I Roy, U Roy, Burning Spear etc.) which is lyrically dense enough and mystified enough that the essential untenability of their position as consumers is not obvious to them. I could be wrong, and they listen to Culture and Tosh and other stuff that should get them thinking, but they're just too thick to get it. I dunno. The one fellow I know like that who's sort of alright went to one of those horrible gated enclave Jamaican resorts and I couldn't really bear to talk to him about reggae after that.
I just had this horrible revelation that in the world of today, "Downpressor Man" is a teacher who doesn't give many As and insists that work be handed in on time. Where they gonna run to indeed?
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Quick! I'm taking the missus to this place tonight and am going to order the poutine appetizer. Tell me: How is the word pronounced: pooTEEN? powTAHN?
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And the restaurant is pronounced "Duplesh", in the spanish fashion.
424: The center was closed Monday because of an unusual odor in the men's restroom and because the liquid soap in a dispenser in that bathroom had an unusual color.
Dialogue from Shack Out on 101, the mid-50s gem* I watched on TCM last night,
Slob: [Slob, standing next to Kotty] You smell nice, what is it?
Kotty: Soap, you should try it sometime.
*It really is worth a watch. On one level it is fit for Mystery Science Theater 3000, on another it is a great bare bones distillation of 1950s Hollywood. And if you like your homeroticism Cold War-style, you can't beat this clip that starts with Wynn lifting while lying on the countertop of the diner.
Speaking of mid-50s, I've gotten more and more confused recently about how exactly the consensus was formed that "Shake, Rattle and Roll" was the first hit song of the "rock'n'roll" genre. Did Greil Marcus or someone like him ever write a book about the origin of this myth?
Careful, JP, you're edging toward mcmanus territory with the "hey, I saw this movie on TV last night" stuff.
435: I am thinking a Blue Dog congressman.
434: Oh, that certainly occurred to me as I was posting it. I try to only do the unsolicited recommendation thing when I come across something that I judge to likely to be both interesting and relatively unknown to a non-negligible subset of folks here* (and in this case finding it on the WFMU blog was somewhat interesting—and do watch the clip). However, I'm sure bob could write that same sentence in good faith, so there's that. What a drag it is getting old.
*And I do at least wait until I find some flimsy connection with the thread to bring them up.
437:There are always connections, Stormcrow, and they are always flimsy. Movies were weak, so I firstread Watchmen this weekend. Connections?
If those costumed heroes are to be judged from the perspectives of readers' everyday lives, their long-underwear drama is obviously fanciful and somewhat ridiculous. Using as a starting premise this dissonance between a time when heroes made sense and a time when they seem weird, the cast of characters in The Watchmen are introduced mainly through the form of reminisce from retirement about the personal, social, and political changes that have contributed to this dissonance. Where once it seemed to makes sense for them to fight crime as heroes, does it now? Did it ever?Onfiction
"And all along the way are reminders about how small a world it really was, even then (smaller, actually, than it was going to be again until around 1980.)" ...Krugman today on Pre-WWI globalization
Globalization and heroes, the first time (1875-1925) as tragedy, the 2nd as farce.
Connection?
423:I still like the Bolsheviks.
Speaking of unsolicited recommendations, have you seen this film, teo? I think you were still traveling when I recommended it in another thread.
439: I have not, and I did indeed miss your earlier recommendation. Looks interesting.
Uh-oh. I knew someone would take me to task for that jauntily tossed off definition. Still, I'm not abandoning the idea of layers of meaning quite yet. My understanding is that some of the earlier instances of hermeneutics in the Early Modern era were interpretations of the Bible--the whole type and antitype readings of the Old Testament, by which the "deeper" truth of Christ's resurrection were read through or beyond the "surface" story of, say, Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac. In recent times, yes, of course, the text has been flattened, but then who's to say what is part and what is whole, either? And then we get into the unstable hierarchies of meaning and then deconstruction und so beispiel.
But, uh, literary theorists can argue for years about the definition of hermeneutics, and I'm probably not in mental shape to really fight this one out.
I'm reminded of a recent IM conversation:
"""
A: Ich bin daran gewöhnt. Du hast immer mir Gespott gezeigt.
Von erstem Blick.
7:57 PM B: Nein, nein, mein Lieber. Du hast mich vor allem missverstanden.
Und tust es noch.
Immer noch.
A: unmöglich. Ich verstehe alle ganz klar.
7:58 PM B: Bist ein Hermeneutiker im alten Sinn, na?
A: Hermeneutiker der Verdacht.
or ... something.
B: That would make for an excellent Beruf on a business card.
7:59 PM A: Beruf nur im alten Sinn. Es lohnt sich nicht.
"""
I wish I believed you, really I do.
You could, you know. Nothing simpler. And I know that, deep down, you already do.
It's great that my German is just enough to mostly understand that.
Why don't I rate a 900-page novel?
Why don't I rate a 900-page novel?
Dorkus Malorkus Shirkuses Workus (first in a series)
433: Billboard considers "Rock Around the Clock" the first #1 rock n roll song. I actually have a book called "What was the First Rock n Roll Record?", which covers IIRC 50 claimants, starting around 1940. Obviously, a different question from the first "hit."
Reviewing the Wiki article, one of the big things is that, unlike most of the other contenders for "first rock record," Bill Haley was a rock artist - most of the others were established jazz/blues/country artists who recorded a rocklike song. Per Wiki, it appears that Haley was a legit pioneer, not just a white guy popularizing black R&B.
All of this is very meaningful to me, as my mom was very much a cutting edge rock n roll fan, disdaining the white cover artists and with her own very clear demarcations of who was good and legit (most notably, post-Sun Elvis bad, Buddy Holly good; despite her love for black recordings, I guess she had a big rockabilly streak)*. IIRC, she listened to Alan Freed when he was first broadcasting.
But anyway, as a result, all that music is special to me. I try to pass it along to Iris, but it's been 18 years since I've heard any of those stories, it's hard to keep them alive (Which were the 2 songs that always closed a dance? "Goodnight, Sweetheart" and "In the Still of the Nite"? I'm not sure)
* Also: not a fan of post-Rubber Soul Beatles, which was my dad's favorite, so we had this generational split between my parents, who were 2 years apart
The Wikipedia article "First rock and roll record" is probably worth a look. It is long on song citations (most are earlier songs that either mentioned "rock" or "roll" or both, or that advanced music towards what became known as rock'n'roll rather than true contenders) and appropriately short on analysis.
This like the only two cars in town colliding, only the one crushes the other... if there were only a way to see if someone has already written what you are about to say.
And JRoth, since we are having our own little music conversation here, the WFMU blog has an article that links to a BBC documentary Prog Rock Britannia (available on YouTube in three half-hour segments). I've watched the first two, and they are pretty entertaining, although a bit slanted (as these things always are) by who they were able to interview.
445: Hah, that was my exact thought when I read it.
Don't read Illuminatus!. Or anything by Robert Anton Wilson, for that matter.
Heed this well. RAW is even more full of shit than Rand, if that's possible. And he was (is he dead? I can't remember.) an asshole.
A basically dead thread is as good as any place to link Aslan Shrugged:
Author's Note
The Wardrobe
The Witch
The Lion
