I have had a palisander cupboard made. It was while I lived in Nørregade on the first floor. It is constructed according to my design and this because of something my beloved said in her agony. She said that she would willingly thank me all her life if she had to live in a little cupboard. With an eye to this, it is constructed without shelves. Everything is kept carefully in the cupboard, everything that reminds me of her and that could remind me of her. There is also a copy of each of the pseudonymous works for her. Regularly only two copies of these were printed on vellum, one for her and one for me.
Well, poor Miss Olsen seems to have thought so, but, as Garff says, "She was just a lovely girl of the upper bourgeoisie who wanted to be happy, like everybody."
N.B.: Tentatively willing to entertain arguments for S.A.K. as MPDG.
having noticed that all my then-current boyfriends rode motorcycles, implausible future husband x learned to ride a motorcycle utilizing classes taught at the california dov, which he attended faithfully and methodically. he was/is an unusually safe driver.* is it likely that this sort of disciplined and rational approach to life could win someone's heart, if that person were fucking insane? granting that I did initially have a crush on him during our 2-person PI reading group when we first met. where else does young love blossom, after all? but I had just cheated on my then-boyfriend twice, in such a flagrant fashion that I felt bad about doing it again.
*I did convince him once to take me up a particularly winding mountain road in the middle of the night, drunk off his ass, but I am very persuasive. I guess I needed to be sure he had it in him, right?
Those are human quirks, not Quirks™.
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Thinking of heading down to Occupy SF today. While pondering what I believe in strongly enough to talk about or shout, I thought up an estate tax revival scheme: instead of putting it into general revenue, turn it into baby bonds for those babies in families below median income. Explicit undoing of concentration of wealth; plus babies.
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6: That's pretty persuasive, unless you started the persuasion after he was already drunk, in which case -2 points.
pre-drunk but post-sex, maybe just minus 1?
Offsetting penalties. Replay the down.
Apo is the Ed Hochuli of our little sewing circle.
yeah, the special way he signals the holding call is, well, not many refs are up to that, frankly.
Great post, allow me to be the latest person to compliment you on your writing at unfogged. Though this, "Nonetheless, I am a real person, with an interior life and everything. Scout's honor." can't possibly be true since, as we know, the entire blog is written by a forty-five year old man in his basement.
Possibly related story: the summer of last year I went to the wedding of an old High School friend. We hadn't really kept in touch so I didn't know much about the person he was marrying or their relationship, so I was interested in the version of their story that got told at the wedding. Many of their friends said, essentially, that she was intense (with, perhaps, a bit of a temper) and that he was good for her because he was gentle and stable and caring.
I was amused since my own personalty tends to the stable, loyal, and boring it's reassuring to hear those attributes being praised in somebody else. It made me think that there's a nice tough of gender inversion in male partners being praised for being nurturing and supportive.
Obviously there's an existing masculine stereotype of the man who is inexpressive and stoic but competent and quietly caring, so that narrative isn't contrary to existing gender roles, but it still feels like a somewhat non-traditional script.
Which just demonstrates, again, how much the Manic Pixie Dream Girl narrative fails by not presenting the woman as somebody with an interior life. If we can't see why, on her terms, she benefits from the support then the guy isn't being nurturing, he's just on a quest -- he's acting out some theater of "love" for the sake of an distant object of desire.
I wonder what my movie archetype is. Is there such thing as like...Dysthymic Cubbish Dream Jew, maybe.
go minivet!
the me-centered version of the story is I realize I deserve a person who treats me with love and respect, and cares for me when I'm ill, and that this doesn't mean he's somehow a sucker. like I've duped him into liking me. I used to feel that way about people too obviously thinking well of me, when clearly something was very badly wrong with me.
18: I'm not your target audience, but I'm totes swooning.
18: I'm waiting for the big movie starring a Surly Unkempt Girl to point at as expressing my personal style.
22: I was thinking the Ally Sheedy character in "The Breakfast Club".
All the dandruff might make that less than optimal.
And I'm holding out for freestanding Surliness rather than the expression of deep emotional problems. Where are the romantic heroines who are simply interpersonally unpleasant?
22: Ahaha. I was coming up with Welcome to the Dollhouse.
I was about to compare somebody or other to the girl in Real Genius but then it occured to me that character is a bit of a prototypical MPDG, but with a wodge of Aspergers smeared on the lens.
Doesn't surly unkempt girl usually take off her glasses near the end of the movie, making everybody realize she was Pixiedreamy all along?
Nomination: Juno.
Surly unkempt girl as love interest who makes bad decisions and good ones. She is transformed but still surly and unkempt at the end of the movie.
I don't buy 32, but Blume suggests counternominating Michael Cera's character in that for the MPDG sweepstakes.
re: 33
Nah, he's more of a blank cypher. He's not on screen much and doesn't do all the MPDG stuff. Or at least that's how it seems to me.
What about the Heath Ledger character in 10 Things I Hate About You?
What about the Heath Ledger character in 10 Things I Hate About You?
Yes. In fact I had that thought last time I watched the movie -- not so much that he was a MPDG, but that it was pure wish-fulfillment.
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Why did this surprisingly SFW (considering) site immediately make me think of you guys?
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Cause it was posted by apo in a comment yesterday?
I'm not buying the possibility of a MPDDude. It seems to me that the fragility-unto-madness is too important to the MPDG and that shit wouldn't fly with a dude. Once you start trying to find masculine equivalents for it, you're in "if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle" territory.
Truly, all his friends said, why are you making yourself miserable over this girl for three fucking years already, Jesus, just move on.
This is a statement that either: (a) gives me the courage to hope against hope in a seemingly futile situation, or (b) serves as potential enabling of my unhealthy predisposition to remain mired in utterly damaging lost causes. Luckily, I will be too consumed with playing Trial Lawyer for the remainder of this month to select either path any time soon.
The dysthymia is key. ("Not, dat thymia!")
I'm still not convinced that the male analog of the MPDG is just a manic pixie dream boy.
Let it be noted that although in this thread it looks as if oud pwned me,* I had already said much the same as is said in 39 and 41 yesterday.
*let it also be noted that I somehow managed to write "me," as ",em".
Michael Cera
Would Charlyne Yi in Paper Heart count as a surly unkempt love interest?
re: 41.last
I think the functional equivalent is more the surly dark stranger who sweeps the uptight prissy heroine off her feet by being a handsome arsehole. Which is, I suppose, less specific than the MPDG since it's basically every male romantic hero, ever.
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The Center for Constitutional Rights is sending an attorney to Philadelphia for a fundraising meet 'n' greet! Fun!
Not sure I can get out of work early on Thursday, but Philadelphia-area lurkers should feel free to e-mail me if you want the location details (it's at a Center City coffee house).
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Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets as the male equivalent of MPDG?
Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as the male equivalent of MPDG?
Clark Gable, in every film he was ever in?
Or Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment.
Or probably Jack Nicholson in every movie he ever made.
43: Whiny and surly are not the same thing. Man, I could only take ten minutes of that film.
I stand by my SULI nomination.
Occupy SF: goodish. A General Assembly was under way when I came, but a simple issue of where to hold GAs in the future devolved into frustration over consensus blocks and practically a constitutional convention of proposals for modified consensus and so forth, completely holding up much more important issues like the march scheduled in half an hour. I couldn't take it after a while and cut out until the march starts.
The crowd-mike and hand signals were fun, though - even though they were starting to give everyone the megaphone, rather contrary I thought to the whole idea. And lots of honks of support.
A bit of a superreal feeling when the jets flew overhead as part of Fleet Week. A juxtaposition of the sort one imagines a moviemaker coming up with.
Also the facilitator is the spit and image of Tory Balleci.
How do you know it *wasn't* Tory Balleci?
the male equivalent of MPDG
Johnny Depp in Benny and Joon?
This will sound really stupid, but I'm having trouble getting a grip on the MPDG type, probably because I haven't seen a lot of the movies featuring them (romantic comedies aren't really my thing).
Is she generally a pixie because that suggests airheadedness? On the 'dream girl' portion of it: is she a dream girl because she's undemanding (which seems odd, since it also seems like she's pretty self-involved and/or narcissistic) or because she's so hot in a cute pixie airheaded way, or just because for certain types of guys, that's what a dream girl is like?
I think it's the hotness I'm not getting: the MPDG isn't, say, sultry, right? She's attractive to a particular type of guy who likes her animation and girlishness, so for whom she's a dream girl.
I can't figure out who might be the male equivalent without understanding this! But to the extent I understand it, ttaM at 44 gets it right.
The tricksters of the 60s counterculture--Neal Cassady, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Jim Morrison, etc--seem to be good shouts for the MPDB, but the uptight, mopey, sensitive types for whom they served as muse also seem to mostly be men.
I just checked wikipedia to see if there was a precise definition of "manic pixie dream girl" and this can't possibly be right"
he Filmspotting podcast created a list of "Top Five Manic Pixie Dream Girls"... Among those included were Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) in Jules and Jim,
That just makes me suspect that there is no clear definition (that, or they just weren't taking the assignment seriously).
The TV Tropes> definition seems good:
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is there to give new meaning to the male hero's life. She's stunningly attractive, high on life, full of wacky quirks and idiosyncrasies (generally including childlike playfulness and a tendency towards petty crime), often with a touch of wild hair dye. She's inexplicably obsessed with our stuffed-shirt hero, on whom she will focus her kuh-razy antics until he learns to live freely and love madly.
So is Trinity from The Matrix a good example of a MPDG?
By that definition Christian Slater's character in Heathers is close to being a male MPDG.
61.last: I wouldn't say so. She's not really very manic or wacky or given to kuh-razy antics, but very focused.
I'm not really getting why the wacky, kuh-razy antics make for a dream girl except for a very specific type of guy. I think Togolosh said something about this in the other thread.
62: I thought of that earlier! but then forgot about it. I think he's too scary, though, to be a great example. The standard is more fun and lighthearted, and less kill-y.
I knew a lot of people in high school who seemed to aspire to being real-life MPDGs.
The TV Tropes place is good for the huge list of variants on the type. Noted (under the Film subcategory):
Jennifer Aniston seems to play a lot of these roles.
Deconstructed in Woody Allen's 1977 film Annie Hall. The title character is a cheerful Bohemian, who turns out to be a spoiled, unfocused, pseudointellectual, neurotic child in an adult's body, a horribly broken person. Which gives her something in common with Woody Allen's character, who is likewise horribly broken, just in somewhat different ways. At the end of the movie, it turns out that Alvy was something of a Manic Pixie Dream Guy for Annie, in terms of teaching her how to have more confidence in her abilities and helping her to improve her own life.
The septuagenarian* very unusual for a MPDG, as they're usually no older than the protagonist and often younger Maude in Harold and Maude, who teaches young Harold to get over himself
Harold and Maude is awesome.
I think he's too scary, though, to be a great example. The standard is more fun and lighthearted, and less kill-y.
Okay, now I'm just getting confused again. In the TV Tropes page it says:
Carmen brutally deconstructs this: she's a gypsy woman who seduces and enchants the lead male, Don Jose, with her free-spirited nature, but quickly tires of him as he proclaims his everlasting love for her. Turns out she's not so much for the forever love, and she leaves him for someone much more exciting. . . .
That makes me think that, in fact, there's a long tradition of stories in which a mysterious and alluring stranger who shows up to tempt the main character out of their stable life is very bad news.
If there's a relationship between the MPDG and that tradition it is that the MPDG presents the interaction safe and positive rather than scary and dangerous. But, I'm not comfortable with that. I feel like that's still mushing together two separate archetypes and that there should be a better way to define MPDG such that Carmen is not an example of the trope.
67: I agree. The TV tropes page offers these (under Live Action TV subcategory):
Arguably Chiana from Farscape. Always happy, always moving, almost always stealing something, and for some reason all over D'Argo. Although frankly she's all over pretty much the entire cast at one point or another. You'll wind up dead from exhaustion, but damned if you wouldn't enjoy trying to keep up with her!
and
Phoebe in Friends seems to act as this to the rest of the group, as well as in most of her relationships. Notably, the group occasionally finds her actions annoying or intrusive, and in the 10th season, Phoebe admits that she has never been in a relationship which lasted more than a month. Occasionally, being an Manic Pixie Dream Girl seems to actively work against her, such as the first time she was ready to move in with a man, and then broke up with him shortly after when he impulsively shot a bird with his handgun. On another occasion, she ends a relationship because her boyfriend is even more of a Manic Pixie Dream Guy than she is, and she can't stand him.
I'll stop blockquoting things you can read perfectly well yourselves.
Nick, note the "deconstructing" term in the Carmen description: I think they're using that to mean that she's not, actually, an MPDG, like, really, because of the ultimately bad news angle. TV Tropes uses this term for the Annie Hall description as well.
I really hope my movie archetype is the bitchy original love interest who treats the soulful-eyed boy like shit, and gets her come-uppance when the soulful pixie boy falls for the MPDG. I'm pretty sure it isn't, but I always love that character.
Nick, note the "deconstructing" term in the Carmen description: I think they're using that to mean that she's not, actually, an MPDG, like, really, because of the ultimately bad news angle.
I get that, I'm just complaining that it seems like a mistake to see Carmen in relationship to the MPDG archetype when she is, in fact, a representative of a different and older archetype. She isn't an almost-MPDG, she's something else.
In the Wikipedia page it quotes the director of 500 Days Of Summer as saying, "Well, it exists and it's also part of literature that has always existed. ... Eve was that to Adam." Saying that seems like an attempt to broaden the conversation into the entire history of archetypes of female temptation. I think there should be a good way to say that's off-topic. That it may be interesting but it's a tangent to defining or discussing MPDG. I would be concerned if there isn't a good way to draw that distinction.
Isn't the more broad term that describes Carmen and all these non-fictional ex-girlfriends simply "free spirit"?
Is she generally a pixie because that suggests airheadedness? On the 'dream girl' portion of it: is she a dream girl because she's undemanding (which seems odd, since it also seems like she's pretty self-involved and/or narcissistic) or because she's so hot in a cute pixie airheaded way, or just because for certain types of guys, that's what a dream girl is like?
She's a pixie because she marches to the beat of a different drummer. She's supposed to be the anti-Barbie, because she wears off-beat clothing and doesn't give a whit if someone sees her being too cutesy by half. What a breath of fresh air, you're supposed to think when you see her.
Remember the obnoxious scene in the entire obnoxious movie Garden State, where whatsherface does an addled spastic dance, and then pats herself on the back for having done some unique thing that nobody ever, in the history of ever, has done that exact spastic thing before? And then she chides boringface to try something unique? And he declines, because we're not far enough along in the movie yet to set him free?
God I hate that movie.
Isn't the more broad term that describes Carmen and all these non-fictional ex-girlfriends simply "free spirit"?
I don't think Carmen is a "free spirit" either. It's been a while since I've looked at Carmen, but my memory is that she's a poor Gypsy working in the cigarette factory who happens to be unusually attractive and unusually strong-willed.
She does end up changing the life of the straight-laced soldier who falls for her, but not, I think, because of her free spiritedness.
That makes me think that, in fact, there's a long tradition of stories in which a mysterious and alluring stranger who shows up to tempt the main character out of their stable life is very bad news.
Now we're talking about the "vamp", who was already an archetypal movie character 84 years ago.
God help me, but is Katharine Hepburn in Holiday a MPDG?
Hmm. Let's pretend my movie archetype is Rosalind Russell in, well, anything. Let's just all pretend this.
I get that, I'm just complaining that it seems like a mistake to see Carmen in relationship to the MPDG archetype when she is, in fact, a representative of a different and older archetype. She isn't an almost-MPDG, she's something else.
Yes, I agree, wholeheartedly, even.* I'm honestly not sure why the MPDG seems to trump and redefine other tropes.
* I was partly complaining about the silly use of "deconstructing" in this context. Dudes, you don't get to say that this thing (which is a totally other thing), is, like, an interrogation/deconstruction of this one thing that you're mostly interested in. Not without making a much better case for it, anyway.
73: that, along with Elizabethtown, was mentioned in the review in which the term was coined as a prime example.
Let's pretend my movie archetype is Rosalind Russell in, well, anything.
So is Cary Grant in His Girl Friday a Manic Pixie Dream Guy?
73, 79: So why is she a dream girl? I don't get that part.
81: because he's a loser and it's a bad movie.
Here, the origin of the phrase. Not because it's illuminating. Just because it's funnier than I remembered.
"Cluck, cluck!" goes my chickenbutt.
81: Because he wasn't fully living till she came around and made him feel like a kid again, only with untroubled sex because invariably MPDG really enjoys herself in the sack and has a high sex drive, and happens to be conventionally beautiful but that is just incidental to her wacky quirks.
"Toot toot!" goes my chickenbeak.
86: Excepting Annie Hall, I have seen none of those movies. I mean, I probably watched ten minutes of Joe Vs. the Volcano when it was on TNT or something, but I couldn't tell you why he was supposed to jump in a volcano.
I realize the movie MPDGs* are all insanely annoying. it's my hope I avoid this by being an actual person and not zooey deschanel the fictional creation of an emotionally stunted screenwriter/star who's looking for some bogus excuse to cast himself fucking natalie portman (which totally worked, in the most undeserved fashion of all time).
di: my general feeling is: go get another boyfriend and see if love interest x gets all jealous. if not, you'll have another boyfriend. also, is love interest x about to have some kind of serious mental and physical collapse through/after which you could nurse him to health? that was somewhat crucial in my case. by the time I could have gotten up out of bed to go find my dumbass thrilling model/embezzler/heroin addict boyfriend of the moment [whom I was cheating on my long-term, sensible, linguist/CIA agent/heroin addict boyfriend with]. I had come to my senses.
though, to be fair, I asked husband x to marry me after we had been going out only two weeks (MANIC) and he naturally said yes because I was his DREAM GIRL (dude, thoug--), and that was before I got sick, so. but being so free-spirited and crazy and all and underweight with cute red/purple hair (PIXIE, but I was gonn--) I might have run off nonetheless if I hadn't gotten hep c from sharing dirty needles (CRAZY SUICIDAL DRUG ADDICT WTF--see, I was trying to tell you!) and been bedridden for ~6 months.
it gave husband x a chance to have his virtues shine. I already knew that he was wicked smart and fun to have sex with, but who knew that when you got sick someone could be nice to you? and bring you gatorade and saltine crackers? even though that's all you could eat for 3 months? and read you finn family moomintroll?
di, maybe the key is to poison love interest x in some non-fatal way that everyone else will think is leprosy so you can sneak and and scoop him up?
I think there was also a related article by a young women at the time complaining that all the men on online dating sites were looking for MPDGs. That's where I was introduced to the MPDG controversy.
or just kidnap him? no, that's too manic.
You should see Harold and Maude, Moby.
Earlier flapper-era manics seem to be part of the genealogy. Daisy Buchanan and Lady Brett Ashley, or Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot and Zelda Fitz on the real. Different class base on these, though.
I'm not sure which movie, but I think Paul Rudd could be a male MPDG contender. He'll make you laugh at your foibles! With a twinkle in his eye! You were so stodgy before him.
I saw Harold and Maude with a guy I'd just started dating, who was so unbelievably uncomfortable with the whole thing that he wouldn't shut up about how gross it was. I started detesting him very quickly and ended things.
I just read the plot summary and I'm on the side of the guy heebie dumped. The "suicide on a date" thing really seems unpleasant to watch.
Daisy Buchanan might start out a bit like that, but by the end is shown to be a moral monster. Not in the MPDG catalog of traits! Tough she's also never that interested in the protagonist anyway, so is already not a MPDG.
103: nah, it's sweet. Very, very '70s, but sweet.
102: Yeah. He didn't have any mental whateverness, sounds like.
I didn't finish the *point which was that repeated uses of the abbreviated form are leading me to to think of MPDGs as being a weapons class such as RPGs.
Harold and Maude is sweet and poignant and funny as hell ("Kill, kill! I want to kill! Bleleahahargh, kill, kill!") and, you know, not a stupid movie at all.
104,
Yeah, I guess the MPGD can't really exist outside of the conventions of the romantic comedy. My examples were more femme-fatale-ish with a manic style of charm.
His Girl Friday
Just watched it tonight, for the 97th or so time, with someone who was seeing it for the first time.
I haven't rea most of this, but in my mind, I am 100% convinced that my movie archetype is Lee Marvin. 100%.
One of my teachers in high school showed Harold & Maude in class. I don't think any of us enjoyed it.
Also, since 92 literally describes the plot of a MPDG film, I want an apology from Tweety.
I am 100% convinced that my movie archetype is not a leading role, of any sort. I figure I'm utterly charming for my 10 minutes of screen time.
Either that or I'm Wallace Shawn from My Dinner With Andre.
Also, I just looked at Facebook, and one of my friends just posted about having watched Garden State for the first time since college and hating it because the characters were all the age she is now but were acting like emo college students.
She's particularly unimpressed with the MPDG thing:
"Wah wah, I have problems." "I'm Natalie Portman! I'm childish in a different way, one that is spontaneous and somehow still completely predictable! Don't I make you feel ALIVE!?!?!" And the irony is that she makes me want to kill myself. MOST ANNOYING CHARACTER EVER.
When you talk about your own movie archetype (I realize it's a joke overall), you're talking about the personality type?
I can't get to a personality type past the physical type, myself. I don't have a perky nose, so I can't be a perky. And I look really stupid in perky haircuts (they don't go with my face). For example. I can't be a pixie either, since I'm like 5'7".
Anyway, the point is that I have a hard time divorcing my physical aspect from some distilled personality, and making the latter into a type, much less an archetype.
I don't have a movie archetype, because people as boring as I am don't become characters in fiction.
Maybe the male version of MPDG is the Obligatory Psychotic Jackass.
I'm Johnny Depp in The Ninth Gate. No, wait, I'm the woman he meets with the mismatched socks. Both of them, together.
Or.
People assume me to be a well-behaved, bland vegan in a way that irritates me. Being a vegan is fine (except I'm not). But it's this wholesome egg type that I'm sure they're seeing deep in my soul, but I wish my soul were more interesting. I want to be bad. Or scary. Or hip. Without investing the time in it.
So I guess my movie archetype is actually probably earnest and wide-eyed and pauses for too long before answering.
Someone is talking smack about Cosma on the Theoretical Physics Stackexchange. I feel like they should be shot down, but the question they're asking and their dismissal of Cosma's remarks are both too vague for me to have anything to say.
It's about something Jaynes said that looks really vague to me, and Jaynes is usually about Bayesianism, and someone linked to remarks of Cosma about Bayesianism and stat mech and the original question-asker dismissed it as irrelevant and also impugned Cosma's knowledge of physics. So... I don't know what they're really asking.
124: Why do people assume you're vegan?
124: what is a wholesome egg type?
120: I'm the neighbor who's completely flummoxed when I encounter MPDG whimsy while watering my lawn.
128: weird. Isn't Cosma's PhD in physics?
128: I don't understand physics or Bayesianism.
126: Oh yeah? I might also be Meryl Streep in Out of Africa -- she looks like me, or I look like her, which is a little weird, but is true, at least when we were both younger. No pink-haired pixie, she, at any rate. You just can't do that shit with that kind of nose.
Heebie, you'd have to yell at people more often, or be more sarcastic, if you wanted to be bad or scary. I'm not saying it's recommended.
Thank goodness I'm not too beautiful to be undignified.
134, 137: Yes.
You can look at theoreticalphysics.stackexchange.com and find the question near the top, I'm just reluctant to link there directly for reasons that don't really make a lot of sense.
139: ah. Yeah, no idea. It's wrong to think about statistical mechanics statistically, instead of purely as physics, or something?
Yeah, no idea.
I didn't understand it at all. I can call genneth a racist if that would help.
I think I provided negative feedback to the guy who recommended Cosma thinking I was posting negative feedback to the guy who said he didn't know physics.
I'm not sure which movie, but I think Paul Rudd could be a male MPDG contender die slowly cut into a thousand pieces die die die...
(Which is to say, I've experienced slight disappointments with his comedic work.)
142: I don't think there's any mechanism for downvoting a comment.
Mine's easy, I provide inspiration for normal people who have forgotten about what is important by being miraculously able to perceive beauty and truth where others cannot, plus also I'm a supervillain.
You should see if you can find out what percentile of "North-ness" you are for all of Judaism.
It's got to be pretty close to the top. Anchorage has a fair number of Jews, but there aren't a lot of other cities this far north.
It's like you're a real-life Michael Chabon character. Magic Alaskan Dream Jew.
My mom gave me a copy of that book when I moved up here. She read it a while ago and loved it. I'll get around to reading it at some point, I'm sure.
It seems like cheating to go North in the fall to fast.
Eh, in the fall the days are about the same length as in other places. It's winter and summer that are different.
Fair enough, we're not much past the equinox. You win this round, Jew of the North.
The most northerly Jew, historically, was probably some guy who pissed of the tsar. These days, it's probably just some scientist.
movie MPDGs aren't moral monsters and are inexplicably interested in the boring protagonists, but the women whom "nice guys" want as their MPDGs are sometimes totally uninterested in them, may be callous about their emotional welfare, and enjoy having mopey guys around mopily being in love with them due to the continuous psycho alteration between flirtation and shocked offense for no reason, god, boys are so annoying. not that I would ever stoop to such low, manipulative behavior.
Anchorage - latitude 61.2
Scandinavian cities northerlier than that include Tampere, Oulu, Pori, Umea, Trondheim. St Petersburg barely misses.
Russian cities - Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Norilsk, Yakutsk. And of course Anadyr and the rest of Chukotka.
Also Reykjavik.
For a hypothetical male analog to MPDGs, pixie-ism is of course out of the question, but so is a certain kind of irresponsibility.
Seth Rogen in Knocked Up* would be one, except he gets converted to responsibility in the end. His role isn't to teach the Heigl character to lighten up.
Stoner-type comedies in general come close-ish. Bill and Ted. Wayne. Arthur. But the MPDG is a romantic comedy trope.
*Look, it's on cable and I channel-hop sometimes. Don't give me any shit.
These days, it's probably just some scientist.
Poke around the University Center at Svalbard website and see if you find any. She might be the one.
A shame, as (if observant) she can't go outside town on Saturdays:
Due to the risk of meeting polar bears visitors travelling in Svalbard must always have firearms and protection devices at hand, such as a big-game rifle and ammunition for self-defence, flare gun or an emergency signal flare pen for driving off polar bears and tripwire with flares for camping.
Hm. I assumed firing any kind of gun would count as "igniting a fire" in the Orthodox interpretation, except unavoidable self-defense or whatever, but I can't find any references to this being the case.
dude: I call polar bear, infinite no backsies. it's in maimonides, in a reference too large to fit into this comment box.
I was about to say, "anyway, YHWH isn't totally unreasonable," but I thought a little harder. motherfucker be definition of unreasonable.
"oh, you put a string around it, oh, fine then." WTFF?
I read the thread backwards, so I assumed that 159 was a joke about bears. How wrong I was.
139: The dude sounds like a fanatic. I'm sure in the natural course of things the discussion will end badly for him.
The most northerly Jew, historically, was probably some guy who pissed of the tsar.
These days, it's probably just some scientist.
the jewish guy who pissed off the tsar was likely as not a scientist.
Oh, and Fairbanks of course. And Wasilla!
Congregation Or HaTzafon's members cannot afford to hire and sustain a rabbi on a full time basis.
157, 167: Yeah, and there are also a few small cities in Canada, plus most of the rest of Alaska. I don't have the numbers at hand, but I strongly suspect that Anchorage has more Jews than any of them.
It certainly has more people overall than any of those cities except Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, both of which are only slightly larger.
The Jewish populations of Canada's northern territories, including Nunavut, appear to number less than fifty when anybody even bothers mentioning them in that context at all. By contrast there are five thousand Jews in Anchorage, which almost matches Calgary's total (and we have four times Anchorage's total population).
I don't know what Alnakka.net is, but this disputes Or HaTzafon's claims of being the northernmost synagogue.
I don't know what Alnakka.net is
Perhaps this will help:
Alnakka.net er ein nettressurs för kultur og miljø med utgangspunkt i skandinavisk kystkultur i vidaste meining, inkludert minoritetskulturar og kulturmøte.
Anyway, if they are indeed correct that there is a synagogue in Murmansk, that would definitely be the northernmost. Their link doesn't really shed much light on the matter.
My home brewed translation: "Alnakka.net is a net resource for culture and environment with a focus on Scandinavian coastal culture in it's widest interpretation, this includes minority culture and cross cultural encounters."
Even to Scandinavians, Scandinavia is frightening.
I've always wondered what happens to observant muslims when ramadan falls during summer and they live somewhere far north. (it moves around the calendar year, being lunar based. it's thought to be more fair that way anyway.) some people use sunrise and sunset in mecca itself. but I wonder what is the latitude at which you are allowed to say, "fuck it, I'm eating some dates and drinking some water, because this motherfucking sun be up all day long." I mean, people have discretion, in that pregnant women can choose not to fast (but they have to make it up later when no one else is fasting.) and children can decide at what age they go...I was about to say whole hog but that strikes me as singularly inappropriate. all in, let's say. still, seems like an annoying situation, and there are lots of muslims in scandanavia, right?
unrelatedly, I realized today that it wasn't so much that shearer pissed me off recently (although he did and I won't acknowledge his existence again) as that I just had a horrible emotional and physical experience. I mentioned this but I didn't really emphasize it enough, I think. I was looking at my older daughter (10) who's just starting to grow tiny boobs, and I thought about the physical disparity between an unusually small 11-year-old and someone who's 6'2'', and I just had this wave of real physical horror overcome me. just terror and revulsion. that, itself, was the ambush that revealed I didn't have any solid armor on like I imagined, and that was why I could get got in the first place. it's just been bothering me for days.
I even did cry about it finally, which I haven't done for years. I vowed that fucker would never make me cry again ever, which impeded my doing so, naturally. but it's not him making me cry because he's dead, it's just my own self having feelings. so, tomorrow I'm going to an al-anon meeting. maybe I'll feel better after that. taking lots of extra klonopin is not the royal road to getting your shit together psychologically, though it does "work" for some value of work. anyway, not like I want to make a front page post about it but I thought I would mention it. clearly some shit needs to get dealt with in a fashion other than flirting with physically dangerous people.
whom I will see at the al-anon meeting LOL.
re: 175.1
They have a really hard time is what happens. Scotland is really far north (by US standards) -- Aberdeen and Inverness are about the same latitude as Sitka -- and when Ramadan falls in mid-summer, it's quite sucky. Eating at 11pm, and then rising again at 3am to eat.
I don't know what they do in Trondheim, or places like that. In Scotland there's always at least some darkness.
Crying is good. My daughter cried the other day when Murder in the City was not playing. It pleased me to see her exercise this emotion. I havent figured out what triggered it yet. But, I am working on it.*
*Yes. I know that I am the guy who makes everything about his daughter. Prob a form of narcissim by proxy. Munchausen syndrome by proxy?
175: I had a secular Iranian friend who spent a summer in Alaska driving trucks and asked. He said "There are no Muslims in Alaska". I think that what he meant was 1.) all Muslims in Alaska cheat and 2.) a serious Muslim wouldn't go there. Considering that the whole place is basically a big drunk tank, #2 makes sense.
180.last doesn't reflect any kind of recognizable reality.
Also, Google says: Alnakka.net is an online resource for culture and environment on the basis of Scandinavian culture in the widest sense, including minority cultures and culture meet [contact I suppose].
176. In the absence of being able to blow the fucker away, retrospective protectiveness and outrage seems a good way to go. Also, WTF is up with people?
179: not at all, it's a big part of your life in a way that's not true for all the parents on the blog. I am always interested to hear about how you deal with the various situations and I admire your steadfastness. also crying is good. you do feel better after a good cry. I haven't actually just let go with it because I worry it would make my husband unhappy.
180: hi john! my godfather used to listen to african muslims complaining about ramadan and he was like, "you guys just nap all day while your wives cook, and then you stay up all night partying and getting wasted on hash and beer and palm wine. this is so not sympathy-inducing."
184: this is where I sometimes start to go off the deep end a little and think men just suck generally. (present company and my brother and husband x stipluatively excluded) stop fucking molesting children and raping people and murdering them. get your fucking shit together, dudes, WTF? thanks for the science and stuff, but the patriarchy much? we could do with less, please? also, with the raping, just fucking cut it out, jesus, what is wrong with you fucking psychopaths. something is really wrong with you, and I think you're just in general a physical threat to everyone. I don't know anyone who was raped by a woman, but I know so many people who have been raped by men that it would literally be kind of a pain to count. I am afraid of all of you.
valerie solanas totally wrote a great manifesto about this. maybe a little over the top.
Public service: there are new drugs out from Vertex and Merck which can "cure" the hep. c infection.
I'm kind of cheered that this thread has touched on Kierkegaard, polar bears that celebrate Ramadan* and hepatitis.
Maybe not that last one, per se, but something variety something.
* I was skimming.
186: I don't know anyone who was raped by a woman, but I know so many people who have been raped by men that it would literally be kind of a pain to count.
Well, perhaps the women just need to work a little harder at achieving parity, ever think about that? It's a travesty in this day and age for women to commit a mere quarter of our child sexual abuse. How do they hope to be competitive in rape-based fields like warfare and street gangsterism with numbers like that? Get it together, ladies.
190 reads like the complaint of someone in a crime stats fantasy league.
191: The coming thing now that Bill James has written a book about crime.
191: Depends on whether something like this qualifies as explanation or mansplanation. But the point is, women are still drastically underrepresented in this important field.
Woohoo! Men of Unfogged, continue molesting, murdering, and raping.
It's like women don't even want to rape and murder.
DS: who ever doesn't know that boys get the shit beat out of them/are raped all time time by their abusive parents? it's kind of a famous way for men to turn out crazy, right? why was my step-dad such an asshole? because he was an alcoholic, maybe also because when he was a kid his dad beat him brutally, at the slightest provocation, all the time, with belts and riding crops and fucking chairs. hid dad pistol whipped him a few times. and he had an incestuous relationship with his sister but whatever. I think they banded together against the greater threat too closely.
part of the reason I turned out crazy was that I felt I failed my brother in letting him be hurt, that I should have been able to keep him safe, if I had managed better, somehow. I never stood up for him enough. I comforted him, afterwards, but I never did anything. my stepfather only ever beat my brother, and various assorted humiliations, and continuous saying hateful things (actually the most damaging part). if you want me to ritually denounce abusive moms/step-moms/etc I'll denounce'em. they're out there, and they all suck and are horrible people.
I have been able to forgive my mom and have a great relationship with her, despite her tolerating this kind of thing. I'm sure I would be a happier, more serene person if I also forgave my step-father, but FUCK THAT. the thing I will never forgive him for is my brother, not me.
verdict: MANSPLAINING.
195: yeah, weird, right? admittedly the mechanics of the operation favor the man.
goodnight, super-trustworthy, empathetic, totally not going to do fucked-up shit all the time dudes of unfogged! keep on keepin' on! except eggplant. remember not to rape anybody today! you can just take it one day at a time.
165: 139: The dude sounds like a fanatic. I'm sure in the natural course of things the discussion will end badly for him.
Yeah, I noticed from his profile there that he had been a member for 3 days.
verdict: MANSPLAINING.
NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
* throws up arms dramatically as Phantom Zone spinny-window thing comes to claim him *
(I sort of do think 196 is an unfair -- albeit perfectly understandably so -- assessment of the article in 193, which is talking about something rather more specific. But never mind.)
Damn. It's like I'm on detention during recess.
190 reads like the complaint of someone in a crime stats fantasy league.
Appropriate, since the only true criminals are fantasy league aficionados*. "Fuck Stalingrad! I had von Paulus** heading up my Eastern Front fantasy army!"
*We're here for you apo, but we can only help if you decide to help yourself.
**Best field promotion ever (came when it was clear it was all over--he surrendered the next day):
Two weeks later, on the 30th of January Paulus was promoted to Field Marshal and in a message from Hitler was reminded that no German Field Marshal had ever been captured.
193, 196: I don't follow. An explanation or a mansplanation for what? I read/skimmed just the first few pages of the article linked in 193, but it seems unobjectionable.
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A post just disappeared, in case you refreshed and noticed. I decided to bury it in a thread since I just got roundly chastised for being tone-deaf to what ought not be broadcast on the internets.
It was just me venting:
I was invited to give a talk this Sunday. I wanted to include some pictures. I emailed the prof in charge of the event last Tuesday and asked for a screen and whatever else I'd need to hook up a laptop. I knew the professor was technologically declined, but I thought he'd just say "She wants to hook up her laptop" and the people on the other end would fill in the blanks.
He responded:
Thank you, Heebie. I have called and left a message with food service to add a screen to be available for you for your presentation this Sunday at 4:00 p.m. in the [location].
Late Thursday night, it occurs to me that he might have only reserved a screen. I wrote:
Could we have a projector, as well? I'll probably just bring my laptop, so if they can supply everything else, that would be perfect.
Just now, I saw his response, dated 10:30 pm, Friday night:
Thank you, Heebie. For a possible projector, at this late date, please call [Jane Doe] so that you can receive a direct reply rather than adding me into the communications chain.I am totally annoyed. He had all Friday to deal with this. The talk is in three hours. Here is my passive-aggressive response:
I just got this, a few hours before the talk. Friday would have been our last chance to double-check the projector. I'm going to assume that you had some sort of discussion with whoever when you originally arranged the screen, and that it probably got taken care of. See you soon!
Oh who cares.
|>
Tell the students all the pix are posted on the internet.
202: The mention of "mansplaining" in 193 was actually just a joke.
a message with food service to add a screen
Wait, food service?
Yeah, that confused me too...
205: Oh. Well, I thought so, so 196 was puzzling.
206/7: Oh, the room where it's being held is one of the formal rooms in the general cafeteria building. Food Service is in charge of the whole building.
||Whining: I hate the fucking flu. Not so much the high point which is miserable but mercifully short, but the low grade shit that just doesn't want to end. Also, cleaning for a parental visit and the flu don't go together. And Ikea sucks too. Can't put the shit together, and when I finally do it falls apart on me. One of the rare times that having really bad fine motor control is a problem. So I'll leave it for my dad, and let them arrive to Ikea boxes and pieces everywhere. /End Whine>|
There's a mosque in Norilsk, which is well above the Arctic Circle. Wikipedia says:
The mosque of Norilsk, belonging to the local Tatar community, is considered to be the northernmost Muslim prayer house in the world.
Nothing about how they deal with Ramadan.
Catching up on this thread, I have to ask: 194 -- what the fuck?
Perhaps it was funnier in the flow of the thread but reading it now it comes across as either painfully tone-deaf or absurdly passive aggressive as a response to 186 -- as if it's message is, "the lack of humor in this joke just signals how very much I do not want to talk about what you want to talk about."
Sorry, it just caught me by surprise when I read it.
OT: I'm on a Jim Jarmusch kick. If you had to choose between Down by Law and Ghost Dog, which would you pick? Bearing in mind that you'd rather be fascinated than depressed and hand-wringy.
212: Dude, that's not even a RTFA. That's just straight RTFT, especially like three comments in front of the one you're complaining about. Jesus.
213: Ghost Dog, I think. It's more bizarre and quirky than depressing.
Ghost Dog
This is a cheap answer, but I would recommend Le Samurai the spectacularly good film that Ghost Dog is based on.
As for you actual question, unfortunately I haven't seen either movie so I can't give you a real answer.
I really like Down by Law. It's not hand-wringing or depressing. The charms of Ghost Dog are a little more up-front, I think, though.
. That's just straight RTFT, especially like three comments in front of the one you're complaining about. Jesus.
Yeah, I'm quite possibly the one being tone-deaf here, and that isn't sarcastic.
Skimming the comments again 194 still strikes me in a way that the preceding comments don't, but I would accept that it's just me.
So basically just pick one and watch it.
Ghost Dog has charms? Any Jarmusch film has charms?
194 was just a little more stark than the preceding comments in its vein, and lagged a bit, so it stood out. Was my feeling.
Ghost Dog it is. That had been my inclination -- and I really like Forest Whitaker -- despite the rave reviews attaching to Down by Law (which isn't voted out for the future by any means). I just need a transition, having taken a hiatus for a while with the Firefly series, which is totally lighthearted for some value of lightheartedness.
It's not like I'm going to jump straight to The Corporation or something.
Flippanter likes romantic comedies, you see.
Ghost Dog has charms? Any Jarmusch film has charms?
Yes.
I think that there's actually an option of fasting according to Mecca time. Probably there's a requirement that you not switch to Alaska time when Ramadan is in December.
Down by Law! Down by Law! Worth it for the rabbit scene alone. Last time I saw it, I watched it with my wife and we were both more or less crying with laughter at the point where Benigni does the chopping motion with his hand.
(Haven't seen Ghost Dog)
Flip, you might like some Jarmusch films -- maybe you've seen a bunch and have formed a hatred. I don't know. But they're really not bad. Dead Man got me started on this revival; I have trouble thinking that you wouldn't enjoy it. It's entirely possible I don't understand what you enjoy, though.
The choice has been made, O of M. Down by Law will come my way later.
And I'm sure as hell not going to watch a youtube segment of film before I've seen the whole thing. What is wrong with you people?
And I'm sure as hell not going to watch a youtube segment of film before I've seen the whole thing.
1. My comment was directed, by lexical echo, to Flippanter, who scoffed at the idea of a Jarmusch film having charms.
2. Why the hell not?
There is a wikipedia article Jewish law in the polar regions. And it points to a recent discussion, "Mizvot in the Polar Regions and in Earth Orbit." J. David Bleich. Contemporary Halakhic Problems, volume 5, chapter 3, pages 75-128. Targum Press, 2005. ISBN 1-56871-353-3.
And this discussion suggests a different solution for Svarlbad and the like for Muslims based on specific wording in the Quran:
(During Ramadan)eat and drink until the white thread of dawn appear to you distinct from its black thread" This results that fasting is a duty for the Muslims only when days and nights are producing otherwise fasting is not necessary So the Muslims of Svalbard have to fast only when days and nights are prominent by the sun. If Ramadan comes in June/December (when days and nights are not prominent by the sun in Svalbard, Norway) they may leave fasting and then complete their fasting in March/September (when days and nights are prominent by the sun in Svalbard, Norway).
I love Down by Law, saw it twice in the theater when it came out, but it's never been quite the same for me since Life Is Beautiful.
Benigni's Il Mostro is quite good. You can see the Peter Sellars influence quite strongly.
Speaking of whom, if you want to hear the funniest thing ever, you should listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm-4nU5LL2w
231: Benigni's undoubtedly talented, and I like a lot of his work. I just wish he hadn't decided to make his version of The Day the Clown Cried.
228: 2. Why the hell not?
Really? Because I want to see the whole film as it's presented, in sequence. I feel pretty strongly that with anything that I'd call a film, the presentation in its whole, as it develops, complete with cinematography and character development and whatnot, is essential.
I can think of all sorts of exceptions to this -- I'd watch a clip from the 40 Year Old Virgin (which I've never seen, and I hear is very funny) -- but otherwise, nah.
Also, I don't see a Peter Sellars influence, except perhaps in the area of crazy hair. Peter Sellers, though, sure.
234: I try to meet this standard with films I'm reviewing, and even more strictly, I refrain, if possible, from reading other reviews, source materials, etc. But for films I'm watching for fun, I don't really believe in any of that. Spoilers? If having one or two gags or plot twists explained to you before seeing a film "spoils" it, the film is probably inferior anyway. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the process of film production to think that you're ever apprehending a movie as some kind of unified whole, which sprang fully-formed from some director's brow. As they said in the old days: "The projectionist has the final cut."
Really? Because I want to see the whole film as it's presented, in sequence. I feel pretty strongly that with anything that I'd call a film, the presentation in its whole, as it develops, complete with cinematography and character development and whatnot, is essential.
You know, you can still do it, and watching a scene of Roberto Benigni dancing is not going to prevent you from appreciating the movie later.
225:
Irma Thomas rules. If you have the chance to see her live, do so. Your life will be enriched.
238: Oh, that was a scene of somebody dancing?
237: Spoilers? If having one or two gags or plot twists explained to you before seeing a film "spoils" it, the film is probably inferior anyway.
Sorry, no. Just recently, Moby decided that Harold and Maude was an awful loser of a movie because he read it described as "suicide on a date." That's an entirely wrong assessment of the film, of course; you'd have to do some work to explain to me how the film itself is inferior if someone came away from that spoiler with that impression.
For heaven's sake, the better films set a tone and immerse you a world and narrative: show a single isolated clip from one of them, and it may well make no sense, and in fact seem utterly stupid. Or boring.
I don't see how this is controversial.
I didn't see the Moby/Harold & Maude discussion, but I'm not sure how it would go against my assertion. You were suggesting a sequence of events like this:
A. Parsimon sees some element of a film
B. Parsimon sees the film
C. The film has been ruined for Parsimon
Now, perhaps for you, this is a valid proposition, but I'm taking exception to any attempt to universalize that. I think there are certainly films where, if you see the clumsily edited trailer, such that every gag or plot point is made explicit, there's not much point in seeing the film itself (Double Jeopardy and its trailer being the canonical example). It is a much larger claim, however, to say that any pre-viewed, out-of-sequence segment of a film is going to ruin the experience of watching the film in its entirety.
show a single isolated clip from one of them, and it may well make no sense, and in fact seem utterly stupid. Or boring.
Yes, that might happen, or the person selecting the clip might show one that can be enjoyed in isolation.
238: Oh, that was a scene of somebody dancing?
If only there were a way to find out!
241: So, my second argument is that it will be much more likely that a spoiler will spoil a film if the film in question is very commercial Hollywood product. Because with that particular cinema, you really are paying for the privilege of consuming a hyper-defined commodity in a very specific way. If you see the "Odessa steps" sequence by itself, is that going to ruin Battleship Potemkin? Does seeing the shower sequence in Psycho by itself ruin the entire film? I don't think so, for most audiences. If that were the case, then basically every film would be ruined for almost every audience, given the prevalence of trailers and television/internet promotions.
It is a much larger claim, however, to say that any pre-viewed, out-of-sequence segment of a film is going to ruin the experience of watching the film in its entirety.
Right, and I wouldn't make that claim. Not at all. I made room for plenty of exceptions! I'm just less likely to make exceptions when I think it's a film that might should be seen in its entirety. I don't know which ones those are in advance, but I can make guesses. (I would not ask someone to watch a clip from, oh, Synecdoche, New York in isolation. Nor one from any number of Bergman films. I put Jarmusch films in this category, but maybe I'm wrong.)
244: You're not beginning a lot of your sentences with "So", are you? Nat?
You know who has started to do that? Paul Ryan! On Meet the Press today. I could scarcely believe it.
||
I am going to New York next weekend Arriving 12PM on Saturday near Penn Station (the Bolt Bus) and leaving for Boston at 4:30.
We're going to be staying with a friend in Queens whose family lives in Forest Hills.
I think that we can leave our bag at the Plaza, because we are members of the Fairmont President's Club.
My friend says that she wants to do whatever we want to do, but I am trying to pin her down a bit, since she can be a bit manic-y. She has been talking about the Met and possibly cheap seats at a show.
The only thing planned for sure is dinner with a group of her friends at the Yale Club.
What should I say that we want to do? I was interested in the Cloisters. Any recommendations for a nice place to eat lunch on Saturday?
|>
What should I say that we want to do?
Say you want to get trashed and wander the streets.
It sounds from your recounting as though you're going to be there for 4.5 hours. All the clubs will surely be helpful in this regard.
I think it's safe to say that everyone who's been to the Cloisters would recommend it. I do.
You could get tattoos, or some heroin.
251: You're just needling her, aren't you?
If you can drop off your bag at the Plaza, have a nice lunch, go to the Opera, stay in Queens, and go to the Cloisters in 4 1/2 hours, that should probably be enough. Don't want to overdo it.
Oh, I forgot about the dinner at the Yale Club. You'll definitely have time to fit that in.
Alternately, if you meant 4:30 on Sunday, my suggestion is to go to Battery Park and sit on a bench for 27 straight hours, reflecting on your life and what could have led to such an error.
For the record, I plead tone-deafness and clumsiness. I feel there is more than enough evidence in the archives to lead one to this conclusion over passive-aggressiveness, if only NickS cared enough to pay attention.
I've done 258. Surprisingly affordable!
Oh, the Met was the Opera? I thought it was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, since the cheap seats at a show seemed like a distinct endeavor. This changes everything. I'm at a loss now.
The Yale Club might have darts; that could kill some time.
If you brought darts, then it wouldn't matter if the Yale Club had them or not.
263: they'd be fun at the Cloisters, too!
That sounds more like a paintball situation. Lots of statues and the darts won't stick in marble.
With 4.5 hours, why not pack both. They can always ditch the darts at the Plaza if need be.
If you brought darts, then it wouldn't matter if the Yale Club had them or not you could kill some time Chets.
Poor BG. Have a hot dog in the park and sit down for a while. Stare at some pigeons.
If you're bringing darts you might as well bring an atlatl too.
You could use it to hunt pigeons.
Then you could have the pigeon stuffed and hang it on a wall!
Now I know the Yale Club rents spears.
Maybe she meant 4:30AM?
I vote for occupying Wall Street, at least between midnight and 4:30 AM.
271: Would that help? My atlatl is in the shop, so I can't test. However, I was under the impression that the atlatl was for hitting targets at a greater range not improving accuracy on relatively close, small game. (I'm just ignoring birds on the wing for now.)
(I'm just ignoring birds on the wing for now.)
That's how they get you.
275: It probably wouldn't help, no. I was mostly playing on the fact that the small spears used with atlatls are generally called "darts."
It probably wouldn't help, no.
Really only one way to find out. So: Cloisters it is!
277: Did not know that. My next weapon purchase is going to be arrows. Then a sword. After that I maybe an atlatl and some darts.
You have a bow but no arrows? That seems terribly frustrating. Do you have a cello?
THEN IT SHOULD BE TAKEN FROM THEE, LEST THOU SHOULDST DO THYSELF A MISCHIEF!
I am the only person in the house without a violin.
286: I have a tiny violin that is playing for you right now.
Speaking of atlatls, I went to this today. It's pretty cool, and definitely worth a look for anyone who lives near one of the museums it's going to in the future.
290: Nope. Can't do that anymore.
Take Blandings's clitoris in the spirit with which it was offered, ghost.
I didn't say it was on my person.
293: Some of us have seen the world's largest articulated fossil mammoth. I'm vaguely concerned that they needed to specify that it was a fossil.
It's only a matter of time before someone clones a mammoth, right? Mmmm, mammoth burgers.
As long as they clone an unarticulated mammoth, for the safety of the public.
I'm vaguely concerned that they needed to specify that it was a fossil.
Many mammoths are preserved by permafrost and don't fossilize, so a lot of the ones in museum collections are not actually fossils.
Many mammoths are preserved by permafrost and don't fossilize
Not yet, anyhow.
It's only a matter of time before someone clones a mammoth, right?
There's actually a display at the exhibit about exactly this question. The answer is apparently no, for now, since they still don't have quite enough DNA. Plus there would be some logistical problems with having an elephant act as a surrogate mother for the clone.
301: Right, it would be better to say that they haven't fossilized as of the time someone comes along and digs them up.
Plus there would be some logistical problems with having an elephant act as a surrogate mother for the clone.
It's probably not easy to get an elephant to sign a consent form.
They didn't specify the exact problems, but it isn't too hard to think of some.
They could just try to split the load and use 2 cows.
Or 865 cats, but that world be a lot of surgery to put the parts together.
It's at least good that someone is trying to solve the world's problems.
Some of us have seen the world's largest articulated fossil mammoth.
AND IT'S, LIKE, NO ONE, UH, EVEN COMES TO VISIT? OR ANYTHING? LIKE I'M NOT SOMEHOW WORTH THE VISIT. OR WHAT?
I have had plenty of arguments with DS about feminism before that didn't go well. I took the link to be saying "what about the menz?" and was thus irritated at the suggestion I wasn't caring about abused boys or the fact that 1/4 of child abuse is committed by women. so I became irritated. let's just accept that I'm miserable and feel awful and am in a bad mood. sorry.
I am really disturbed and off balance and anxious. so much psych medicine. 2 kinds of antidepressants and 2 kinds of antianxiety. FAIL. my sponsor says it's because I'm ready to handle it now or some bullshit but seriously FUCK THIS. I hope I don't do anything stupid.
311:
I am sorry to hear that. Is your sponser responsive/available to hang out?
247: If you go to the Cloisters Saturday morning, the New Leaf Cafe, in Fort Tryon Park a little ways south of the Cloisters, serves a very pleasant lunch. (Also, I got married there under previous management, but that's not important to the quality of the lunch.)
god I'm such a fucking idiot, I'm supposed to be at a mtg right now. it started at 7. fuck I'm so stupid. I'm eating at a restaurant with my kids.
Yes, I meant 4:30 on Sunday. I was tired and about to go to bed. I can't get away with anything.
I meant 4:30PM on Sunday.
My friend is a bit expansive, and I was trying to find a way to slow her down. I think her brother or one of her friends was talking about super-cheap seats after dinner. I would be happy just relaxing over dinner. She's not Chetish at all, but her friend is a member at the Yale Club.
She was talking about the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she was talking about a last-minute ticket at a Broadway show or even the opera. This sounded unrealistic and too expensive to me.
An earlier plan had been (with one of her friends) to take the train to Southampton and bike to Montauk. We weren't up for that because of our schedules, so we weren't going to go, but then that friend got injured.
alameida, I hope you ca make it to the meeting. Off-balance (agitated?) anxiety is one of the most awful emotions I've ever experienced.
Big hug from the other side of the world.
dude, biking from southampton to montauk is the crazy-farthest-along-a-shitty-highway biking plan I've ever heard of, so if this is your friend's style you need to nix like 75% of her planned activities. going to the met museum and the cloisters and eating something is way enough for a day. I used to bike along there when I was a kid but I seriously wouldn't do it now. well, I guess no summer traffic. nonetheless.
There are usually a few people genteelly scalping tickets at the opera around showtime or, sometimes, in the late morning/early afternoon when people go to buy cheap seats.
I don't think the Yale Club is as nice as the Harvard Club, but I wouldn't.
Yes, but the Yale Club is one of the 17 places in Manhattan where Nathan Hale was hanged.
"I regret that I have but seventeen lives to give for my country."
will: I was supposed to be meeting my sponsor at the al-anon meeting I just flaked out on. I did see her earlier today at both stepwork and an AA mtg, so it's not like I'm out of touch. we talked on the phone yesterday for a good while. I just feel miserable and agitated. part of the reason I enjoy talking to my crazy merc friend is that he is 100%, full-on, team crazy. my husband has many virtues, including sanity and reasonableness. this makes him not want to remember how crazy I actually am. so he doesn't really want to hear about it because it's scary. but I talked to him about this thing recently--he was sympathetic...there's really not much to say there but "holy fuck that was horrible."
I hope it was good to share it with him. It is hard to share the bad, the odd, the crazy with the people whose opinions and love you value.
It can be so easy to share with people from whom you can so easily walk away.
310: I'm sure I don't know what you mean, all our arguments about feminism always go swimmingly. But hang in there, for serious. Whether I'm being appropriate or otherwise, I'm always ultimately on Team Alameida.
318: I know. The Montauk ride was her friend's suggestion.
My hope was: Saturday. Lunch, activity and dinner at YC w/her friends. Sunday. Brunch and activity.
I want to nix the Saturday show.
The Cloisters was my suggestion, since I've always wanted to go, but I can do something else.
I'm not sure, but maybe she was thinking brunch at the Met on Sunday. I posted on the Facebook thread that I can't keep up with her proposed itinerary. She probably can't either.
I can't see the word Montauk written down without hearing Smoke in the Water in my head.
319: She and all her friends are Yalies. One of them is a member of the Yale Club. Her brother is apparently an expert at getting tickets. It's too much for me.
Alameida, thinking of you. And what Will said. I've typed more and kept erasing it, but I'll just say that I hear you. Talking is hard. Listening in a useful way to someone you love talk about how she's been hurt or is hurting is a specific skill a lot of the people who need it don't have.
not want to remember how crazy I actually am
Sounds like you're holding on pretty well all things considered. I mean hey, no having to explain things to cops or anything yet, all still in your head, which might sound callous but I'm pretty sure you understand what I mean.
I had this fantastic domestic last night where this lady's story of "my ex boyfriend/baby daddy beat me up and I'm so scared what do I do" pretty quickly turned into a tale of how she went after him calling him out to fight multiple times on a public street. I think my favorite part was how he attacked her arm with his car window.
Her: "So then he was rolling up my arm in his window..."
Me: "Wait, hold on, so you saw him behind you in his car after he refused to fight you the first time, slammed on your brakes causing him to collide with you. You then get out of your car to try and fight him again?"
Her: "Well, yeah."
Me: "And where is he at this point?"
Her: "Still in the driver seat."
Me: "And now your arm is inside his car?"
Her: "yes"
Me: "Gotcha, proceed."
Her: "So anyways, he's trying to roll my arm up in the window and I have to, uh, push his head a couple times with my hand to get him to stop."
Me: "Sure, that makes sense."
Less coherent but entertaining all the same was last week's domestic with Mom and daughter and aunt. Mom and aunt are in their sixties and the first time around felon daughter isn't involved. Mom had to be taken to jail with cane and all. Mom is a quaint old woman who likes to pepper conversations with the occasional drunken "DON'T CALL ME A NIGGER" even though she's not black. Daughter, who actually seemed like the most sane member of the family but doesn't live in that particular apartment with the aunt and mom apparently returned a few minutes after we left to get into it with the aunt. She somehow bit a big chunk out of auntie's thigh before taking off again and while I appreciate her being gone and saving one of us a trip to jail at the end of our shift I kind of wanted to hear her version of the bite.
riiiiiight, lady. awesome. yeah, no talking to the cops yet, it is a good thing. narnian cops are scary because over 80% are plainclothes, you don't know who the fuck is the police till they're right up in your business. I happen to live next to a huge police station, so I see a bunch of uniformed officers in white cares, but on the whole they are invisible. way more scary like that.
330: also awesome! she's the sanest one and she's biting motherfucking chunks out of people? that family has some low standards, and I know from low standards. I was reflecting, I'm glad I didn't murder my stepfather when he was drunk and try to make it seem like a gun accident. it might have worked, but then I would always be a murderer. he fell down the ladder of life till he was in a wheelchair in a home for the indigent in SC and killed himself with bourbon and pills. who won life? ME.
happily, it's really hard to buy heroin in narnia. it's one of the things I've always liked about it.
Always being a murderer would suck, but some people make it work.
gswift:
I get that stuff all the time!
Will: "How did he assault you?"
Client: "I went to his house to ask him why he didnt want to reconcile. I grabbed his phone to find out who he was seeing. He wouldnt let go of it and we fell to the ground."
Will: "Wow! So you let go of it?"
Client: "absolutely not! I knew by his reaction that he had bad stuff on the phone so I held on! So how much time do you think he will get?"
it appears that in certain cases, bitches be trippin. I am not innocent here, I would be the first to admit. having seen more of the actual abusing my instinct is to always side with the smaller person, but that isn't always right, clearly. I hate that people make shit like that up when at the same time other people are suffering so horribly, and the cops aren't at their house, and they're not safe talking to a divorce lawyer. women making up accusations of child sexual abuse to deny the dads access to their children are really the worst. don't lie about that shit just for some bullshit thing about alternate weekends. I know intellectually that people do this, but when I hear of them actually doing so I always feel SO angry about it. my mom never spoke up for me once, and you're just making shit up? FUCK you.
I freaking hate the words abuse and harassment.
People use those words to describe the stupidest stuff.
It is not abuse when the other person disagrees with you or says that they should have custody not you.
It is not harassment when they call you twice and say "stop fucking my spouse."
hate the words abuse and harassment.
Preach it brother.
336: I think gswift would probably agree that basically everyone be tripping.
334: indeed they do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Boyle_%28artist%29
(Resprayed as Dilithium Davie Murdoch in the rather good Chris Brookmyre novel "One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night". )
don't hate the players, hate the game? abuse has a perfectly good meaning, as does harassment. the cop sitting on my house in the marked cruiser all night because he wants to get back with my sister is harassing her. WTF, we need new words here? no, we just need them to be employed accurately. and don't you ever get any divorce cases where there was terrible abuse? that seems implausible given the raw numbers. I remember you jokingly saying that an eyewitness account of my pop trying to kill my mom with an axe would give you something pretty solid to work with. doesn't that shit ever come up? I know my family is lame and crazy, but we're not the only ones by a long shot. anyway, good night all, and sorry to jump down your throat DS, I just feel shitty and am easily irritated at the moment.
340 addressed to will, but now also to gswift.
re: 339.last
My Dad went to school with him (Boyle). Primary school; Boyle was one of the proverbial 'big boys', a few years head of him.
I've always meant to read the novel in 339.3...
340.last: It's all good, I understand.
WTF, we need new words here?
Not really. It's just crazy people annoying everyone by screwing with the signal/noise ratio with their nonsense.
re: 343
Most of Brookmyre's stuff is good. Perhaps a little dip in quality in some of the recent ones, but still entertaining, even those.
It is not abuse when the other person disagrees with you or says that they should have custody not you.
Of course it can be, depending on agents and circumstances. If you don't want to get into analyzing intent or motivations, and they are often disguised or even unconscious, close observation can reveal the sneer or malice.
I always disagree from an Olympian perch of perfect disinterested unemotional objectivity, of course, with no relationship to the object of my criticism other than a humble and kind generosity.
I do get terrible abuse stories and harassment stories. But, the words have become so diluted that everyone rolls their eyes when they hear the words.
Then, when they tell me something horrific, I am surprised.
women making up accusations of child sexual abuse to deny the dads access to their children are really the worst.
I wonder what percentage of these really are liars, in the sense of deliberately making up a story. The thing about will and gswift's interlocutors is that they seem to have believed their own stories enough to have relayed the facts more-or-less accurately. It's their interpretation of those facts that's fucked.
The human capacity for rationalization can be really scary.
Sure: "You are worthless and dont deserve to be a parent" is abusive.
Most of the time, though, they have omitted the nasty stuff that they have said or done from the story.
336: That's something I am glad never happened during my parents' divorce. My dad made stuff up about why my mom did what she did (Squid and the Whale hit way too close to home for me), but neither of them ever accused the other of doing something they hadn't done.
It was bad enough without that.
I can't add stories like will and gswift, but I will say that it's fascinating in its way to deal with all the unreliable narrators in the new kids' families as I now interact with not only the two kids living with us but their parents, grandparents on both sides, parents of their half-sibs, not to mention all the professionals who are involved. I think we all agree that the core family social worker is doing a bad job, but beyond that it's impressive how easy it is for an outsider to see who dislikes/resents/annoys whom and yet still not get much view of what's actually happened.
There was a great article in the NY Times back in 2006 or 2007, titled "He Who Cast the First Stone, Probably Didnt."
The basic idea was that we remember the pain other people inflict on us, but we dont remember the pain that we inflict on other people. Thus, we are always reacting to what that other bastard started.
Al, I'm struck by the bit where you look at daughter A and realise how small and how young she is & thus you were at about the same age. So you had no power to protect your brother not to mind anything else. But even if this realisation should be "kinder" to yourself than the way you always have seen it, disrupting the story that's part of you has to be traumatic.
352: titled "He Who Cast the First Stone, Probably Didnt."
Hence the importance of being willing to turn the other cheek.
My religious upbringing sucked, and I won't subject my children to anything like it, but it did supply me with a moral vocabulary that has been useful in life.
246: You're not beginning a lot of your sentences with "So", are you? Nat?
So, nu, I just got back from New York, whaddya gonna do?
So, what's the pool on how long until they prove that MO mom offed that "kidnapped" baby? Anyone think the dad's in on it or is he just going be irrevocably crushed when he finds out the truth?
Liars lie.
If we accepted that words become useless when abused by deceit, then we'd run out of words.
353: um. that is a good point. I started to answer it a few times and then realized the things I were saying didn't make any fucking sense. so thanks.
357: I didn't know about it till I looked it up. ugh. it seems like being a cop would sucks partly because you'd all be taking the over and under on whether it was the mom front the stater and that just seems depressing. I mean, it's usually the parents, just like it's usually the husband when the wife and three kids get taken out by a mysterious gunman, but there's always weird shit in the world.