"Sorry kids, grandpa isn't with us anymore."
"What? How?"
"Heart attack."
"Massive heart attack killed him instantly?"
"No. He lived for hours, but we don't call 911."
"You let him die rather than call 911?"
"No. We shot him instead of calling 911."
So what, they shot him in the gut or something?
When grandpa kept insisting they call 911, the family decided to shoot him since that was the substitute for 911.
"Why are you shooting that car?"
"It's on fire!"
Nice of them to provide potential burglars with a weapon.
3: Yeah, they would have finished him off but there's no duty to retreat.
5: my question pertains to his having lived for hours.
That made me laugh out loud.
Me too.
9: Grandpa wasn't armed, so they waited a while before calling 911.
Reminds me of a couple conversations with nastier Republicans when canvassing. Slowly back away, mark on sheet 'Do not visit'.
How nasty do you have to be to get a "Do Not Visit" and does it last from year to year?
10: Kraab laughs . . . because it is her house!!!
I'd like to see someone doing donuts on their lawn in a tank.
I'd like to see 911 pull up, and say "Oh, we must have the wrong house" and go back to the dispatcher.
13 [small town in northwestern MO)
Teraz: Hi, Mr. X?
Mr X [middle aged dude in bathrobe]: Yes?
Teraz: My name is teraz and I'm with the Obama campaign. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple questions.
Mr X [speaking very slowly in a flat, emotionless voice] Well, you know, here in this house we think of you people as baby killers. We don't like baby killers. [looks slowly to the side, making sure I follow his eyes to the gun on the table] I think it would be better for you to leave now. You shouldn't come back.
Teraz: Well, thank you for your time sir. [backs away, creepy scary dude staring at him as until he gets back on the street. Door closes. Teraz smokes two cigarettes one after another. Marks do not visit, walks to next house on the list]
There was also the guy who just said 'No, and don't come back, we're proud members of the NRA'.
In a NoVa exurb in 2008 the woman doing the route next to mine actually found a pickup truck following her. We walked together until we were somewhere else.
I only did four days worth, but can't remember running into anyone scary. (Well, some people made me jumpy in the 'house falling down, chained dogs in the yard' kind of sense, but nothing directedly scary that I can recall.)
I got plenty of those. One in a bad neighbourhood in a small city in NW MO. We were doing that one in pairs and my partner was a very attractive woman. Totally fucked up heroin addict starts hitting on her in a half assed zoned out way. Afterwards 'were they drunk'? Ummh, don't think so. Track marks and scabs all over their arms. Filthy toddlers in soiled diapers. Snarling dog on a chain. Really cheerful. I don't think I've ever run into so many junkies as in that place.
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Could this be the worst Slate piece ever? The competition is stiff, but I think it just might be -- and I say that as an acknowledged fan of... well, you know the story.
Anyway, it's a good thing alameida is asleep.
(H/T LGM
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20: Kinda reminds me of delivering pizzas during high school, except those people were stoned on pot. People get real, real stupid when they are stoned on pot. They get real slow, too. They didn't scare me, though, they just took way too much of my time trying to pay me and stuff.
22: It takes a real man to handle a pothead with the munchies.
Let's try that again: 22/23: Relevant.
21: Preach it. Next time I run into Doonan on the street (every 6 years like clockwork), I'll convey your message.
I am now dumber from having read almost half of the link in 21.
1: "No. We shot him instead of calling 911."
"He said, 'It's me, grandpa, don't shoot!' but we thought it was a trick."
Swedish counterpoint to that german apartment porn site a few threads back: http://objekt.fastighetsbyran.se/Templates/Pages/ObjectImages.aspx?ObjektID=821702
30: Erm, what exactly is the connotation of CSA flags in Swedish decor?
Swedish Confederate sympathizers have nice apartments with weirdly complicated plumbing.
13: Were you just looking for some elaboration on TKM's comment, or are you seeking tips to guide your own future behavior?
I suppose I could have asked a direct question, but then I would have been more pwned.
Handdukstork - the next Turducken?
Texas and Florida have some of the most expansive self-defense laws. Now who do we know who has lived in both places....
They can probably kill you just for going in for a closer look to that sign.
30, 31 -- I like to think of it as a the home of a Alabama redneck who just got very, very lost. "Damn straight I'm taking my stand in a vaguely socialist-looking apartment complex in this pleasant seaside town. Wanna shot of Rebel Yell or I've got some Oxies in the back."
21: Wow. That's really remarkable.
I'd argue, though, that its core stupidity, incoherence and hostility to women is actually mitigated microscopically by the fact that the subject matter itself is so frivolous.
Despite the stiff challenge, Saletan retains the crown:
[I]f you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable--you're not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going through a similar struggle over evolution.
Plus, Saletan gets bonus points for issuing a seemingly sincere apology that completely missed the point.
I kind of miss the guy two blocks from our old house who had a sign that said NO SHIT ZONE with a drawing of a dog pooping. There may have been more to it than that. Well, okay, I don't miss him but I miss saying NO SHIT ZONE to myself every time I go past.
is 21 really that offensive? I thought it was just poorly written and kind of stupid.
Granted, I just skimmed it.
But, it seemed more like "Small boobs can be nice too!" written by someone in ten minutes.
South will rise again = nostalgia for the Union of Kalmar?
Somewhat related, a friend just had a double mastectomy. She has always been very athletic and essentially flat. Her friends kept trying to convince her to get some C+s.
re 21 - I admit I skipped that article but Simon Doonan is a gay fashion-industry guy (buyer for Macy's or something?). I am shocked (shocked!) to hear he's making the case for small breasts. Was my assumption that this was a typical 'small breasts make clothes look they're on hangers!' argument?
43: meant to say 'Was my assumption wrong?'
I don't think these Simon Doonan pieces (they seem to becoming a regular feature) are any worse than the typical magazine humor column by Joel Klein or Joe Queenan or Bruce McCall or whoever. They just seem awful in the context of Slate.
This one has a headline that makes us expect one of Slate's trademark entertainingly written pieces of glib pseudojournalism based on misinterpreted scientific studies or societal trends. But it turns out to be some guy writing stream-of-consciousness musings that presume a reader who is already swept up in the Simon Doonan cult of personality. Very odd. Does he, in fact, have a following? Does his following read Slate?
On Swedish redneck culture, this was informative and disturbing. I guess there are Scandinavian Black Metal fans in the USA, and they're no prizes, either.
No, it was more a "Back when I was a lad (shakes cane at audience) my straight male friends were authentically aroused by small breasts. Possibly those halcyon days will return!"
It wasn't terribly offensive, but I couldn't quite figure out why he gave a fuck.
46: The girl in the picture on the first page made me gasp "Pippi! What happened to you?"
I had no idea I worried about the dating choices of fictional children in later life.
46: weird! It fetishizes parts of the US that I hold in total disgust, combined with a swinging rockabilly and party sensibility. Don't know what to make of it.
That photo slide show is set up incredibly annoyingly, though.
Possibly those halcyon days will return!
Except the premise behind that "possibly" seemed to be "because Rooney Mara's 'modest, well-shaped natural chests' were recently on display in a popular movie." Which, taken as sincere prognostication, amped up the stupidity level of the whole thing a few degrees, I'd say.
OTOH, I don't think the article was meant to be especially serious. I think it was supposed to be funny. (I thought it failed, but that's neither here nor there.) And criticizing trite comedy for faulty reasoning seems sort of to be missing the point.
It wasn't terribly offensive, but I couldn't quite figure out why he gave a fuck.
A very acceptable article could be written (and prob has) arguing for the large breast fetish to go away. He just writes it so poorly.
There are rockabilly/greaser subcultures everywhere, although I suppose all with their distinctive national spin on it. Sweden's also the source of a big thriving swing/jive/lindy scene, too.
There are rockabilly/greaser subcultures everywhere
Huh. I didn't know that. I knew there were punk/metal/etc scenes everywhere, but I just thought rockabilly was American.
I guess there are Scandinavian Black Metal fans in the USA, and they're no prizes, either.
Are you referring to the white supremacists? Because that's more a Polish / Ukrainian / Russian black metal fan thing. Scandinavian black metal is popular with a more pretentious intellectual type of person usually. Since nobody in America can really take seriously the whole "Restore the worship of Wotan" thing, it gets ignored. Unlike neo-nazi-ism which has fans everywhere.
45: I actually enjoy Simon Doonan talking about fashion. His article about folding Marilyn Monroe's clothing was interesting, if less interesting than the headline. Of course, I really enjoy watching and reading stuff about fashion so take my interest with a grain of salt.
But yeah, I don't need to read about how someone has noticed that something many women have turns out to be interesting to men. I have noticed that in my own experience.
I will say that Evan Rachel Wood's Golden Globes (low hanging fruit) dress is absolutely gorgeous and there is not a huge amount (or any?) cleavage there.
54 -- I was thinking about some guys I saw a while back on the Sunset Strip waiting for an Amon Amarth show. Maybe they were good guys, I was judging based on appearance.
Yeah, Amon Amarth are popular with morons. They're more of a melodic death metal band, very unambitious musically. They have something like 12 albums and I believe every song is about Viking military conquest.
Why would a Swedish death metal band that sings about Vikings take a title that implies they should sing about orcs?
Scandinavian black metal is popular with a more pretentious intellectual type of person usually.
Hey! I'm right here, you know.
||
AG Holder DoJ Breuer Corrupt as Hell Indictable?
Huffington. MERS cover memo.
Holding off on "SCOTUS Screws Texas Democrats, Minorities and the Nation, Unanimously" for somebody to notice
|>
Doonan also falls into the trap the "real women have curves!" crowd does of implying that there's only one right way to have the breasts that grow on your body. In my office, one of the women with breast implants is still smaller than a lot of the women who only have natural endowments. It's kind of creepy to talk about this.
Further to 61, I rewrote my first sentence so it no longer makes sense, but oh well. Not all women have significant curves. Not all women have naturally small breasts. Big fucking deal.
implying that there's only one right way to have the breasts that grow on your body
Out the front of the torso, I would think.
Out the front of the torso
Or torsos, apparently, if you're Rooney Mara (per 50).
Titties! Hooray!
Re 53
God no. Lots of rockabilly here, which interlocks with various semi/related retro subcultures. Freakbeat, ska, jump blues and swing, and so on. The late lamented God's Jukebox (radio 2 show, British people may know it) played a lot. Some of the bands are pretty good, as they aren't all slavishly recreating the past.
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NMM Johnny Otis
Musicians dropping like flies. Depressed now, going to bed.
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re: 68
Yeah, saw that yesterday. Very sad. I was surprised to find out about his background in the obituaries. I'd always assumed he was African-American.
Otis was an author too, and active in politics, and an entrepreneur in other things.
Yes, the Guardian obituary had:
He attracted many nicknames - among them the Duke Ellington of Watts, the Reverend Hand Jive and the Godfather of Rhythm and Blues - and distinguished himself as a television host, political activist, preacher, cartoonist, painter, chef, record producer, talent scout, DJ, sculptor, writer and organic farmer.
He was born in 1921 during an era when Greeks weren't necessarily regarded as white.
He was the older brother of Nicholas A. Veliotes, former U.S. Ambassador to Jordan (1978-1981) and to Egypt (1984-1986). Otis was well-known for his choice to live his professional and personal life as a member of the African-American community.[5][6][7] He has written, "As a kid I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black."[8]
The process of self-declaring oneself to be black is an interesting one. I imagine quite a charged one at the time.
It might have been less so then, when Greeks were of uncertain race.
The other thing, of course, is that having made the decision Otis carried it off with a shit-load of panache.
5: my question pertains to his having lived for hours.
And heebies response pertained to your being a little bitch.
Her friends kept trying to convince her to get some C+s.
A friend in a similar position had her doc tell her she'd regret it. Not so great for the athlete.
And of course, Slate and other outlets will keep running this tripe as long as we keep reading it, ie forever.
On a related note I almost ate at a Tilted Kilt recently when I was staying outside Charlotte. Boobs are sure good for your food reviews on Yelp. And everyone insists that they were forced to go there but the food was surprisingly good.
Tilted Kilt is to Hooters what Pepsi is to Coke.
82: the same, but with a half-assed Irish theme?
Irish?
Ah. their website says 'Celtic' and then talks about Ireland, Scotland, and England.
Ah, Wikipedia:
The servers are all females who wear bras, baring cleavage and midriffs, likely contributing to a high percentage of male clientele.
It's so tempting to flag that with "citation needed".
85: it's an Irish-themed pub where the waitresses wear Tartan, yes. Welcome to America, where respect for the traditions of others is paramount.
Ah. their website says 'Celtic' and then talks about Ireland, Scotland, and England.
You all look alike to us.*
* I can say this because I'm half [Taxachusetts] Irish. (The other half is soda!)
and England.
Cornwall? Cumbria? Welsh marches? Pushing their luck a bit, I reckon.
Also, if I ever see anybody covering their tits with a kilt, tilted or otherwise, I'll assume they're standing on their head.
They could reach out even further for Celtic-derived foodstuffs. ¿Jamón serrano?
Oh hey speaking of I thought of you recently ttaM while reading a book about the unchanging traditions of your ancient people.
Just like I thought of teo while reading a book about the nascent effort to establish national parks in the recently statified Alaska.
I should probably lay off the long-form journalism from the early seventies.
Probably, before you start telling me about Frank Sinatra's cold.
93: you would not believe how dominant Bill Bradley is in college basketball.
And your home in Princeton, New Jersey, where you live.
I have found that an endless stream of John McPhee pieces makes for a very soothing kindle experience. Unfortunately I've already read most of them, and in something close to reverse order, which means I've been noticing a strange Merlin-like reverse-aging meta-narrative as I go.
I somehow think that the fact that we achieved a nice round number like "50" of states means that we will not add any more. It seems so manifest destiny achieved.
If we annexed Canada and Mexico we could subdivide them into another 10-15 states. "From all sixty states!" has the advantage of alliteration.
Canada already has 10 provinces. Unless you feel we need to redraw all borders by way of de-Baathification.
You -- well, I -- don't annex a country because you think its internal borders are well-drawn and not to be interfered with.
100: Just keeping their provinces/states/districts/territories intact and admitting them as states we'd get 45 more. Admit PR and DC to statehood and find three more and we'd be at Kobe.
find three more and we'd be at Kobe.
Puerto Rico, Samoa and Guam. Done.
Eh, since we're doing this because we're neurotic, lets make all the interior states rectangles.
So you prefer relocating all conquered peoples to Americanization camps. This deserves consideration.
I think that pwning will need an asterisk in the record books.
107: Yes ... "relocating" ... a "rationalization" of the "population" "distribution," if you will....
105: PR is Puerto Rico.
No problem. Virgin Islands.
106: lets make all the interior states rectangles.
Thomas Jefferson tried to rationalize things somewhat.
91 - friends of mine are in the process of applying for a croft on Rum. (The people of Rum recently gained some ownership of bits of the island, from Heritage Scotland or whatever it's called. They marked out 3 crofts and invited people to apply. One was allocated about 18 months ago, and they recently asked for applications for the other 2 - 3 lots of people applied, and my friends are apparently the only ones being interviewed next month.) If they get it, their family of 4 will bring the total residents up to 30. There's no laird but there is a somewhat decrepit castle.
117: Try the online dating thread.
Turn up in a kilt Moby and I'm sure they'll give you the job.
There have been a shitload of proposals to divide various states. Article does not cover one of my favorites which was to be "Nickajack", northern Alabama and parts of east Tennessee proposed at the start of the Civil War.
I like the one from the linked list (120) for merging Western Oregon and Western Washington & Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington. Would make so much more sense.
Turgid Jacobian wants more GOP Senators, pass it on.
Nickajack looks like the land of my ancestors. Well, after they stopped being from the land of the tilted kilt, or whatever.
"Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington and Idaho", you mean.
I'm not impressed by the passive construction of the description of the western Montana partition. Who made the suggestion, and when? The Aryan Nation in the 1980s? Which 6 counties in each? I can't imagine that the proponents of this -- if they are anything like I suspect they are -- want either Latah Co ID or Missoula Co. MT. (Or if they do want both, and don't want Clearwater and Ravalli, their idiots of a different kind).
Never heard of the Tilted Kilt chain. I see that the one nearest me is in Edmonton. Not exactly
re: 116
My mum lived on Islay, for a while. Quite a bit bigger and more populated (3000, ish) than Rum, though. Can't say it (island life) appeals to me, beautiful as the countryside is. Although I could see the appeal of a month or two.
I'd rather head in the other direction. Is it too late to give Texas and Alaska back?
I'm only aware of the Tilted Kilt because of inflight magazines. They buy half the ad space on Southwest.
122: that would be an inconvenient side effect. But it would just make more sense, dang it.
re: 116
FWIW, my brother found it quite hard to integrate as all the kids on the island had known each other since birth, and their families had been related/friends for generations. Less of a problem in somewhere as tiny as Rum, I suppose.
131: in the McPhee book the islanders generally referred to anybody whose family hadn't been resident for at least several generations as an "incomer".
re: 132
Yeah, that's fairly standard, I think. You get a bit of that on the mainland, too, particularly in villages which have suffered from retirement/second-home property price inflation, where there can be a real hostility to 'incomers'.
From what I can gather, most of the people on Rum are English. Possibly slight exaggeration - at least, not born on Rum. And they are really trying at the moment to increase their population (in fact it claims on their website that there are 37 residents), so I think they'll be happy to have anyone.
No, it really doesn't appeal to me either! Ridiculously hard work (first they have to build somewhere to live on the croft) and apparently some of the worst midges in Scotland, for a start.
Many short people are perfectly nice.
And they are really trying at the moment to increase their population (in fact it claims on their website that there are 37 residents), so I think they'll be happy to have anyone.
Thy fruit, it hangeth lowly
128 -- Not parting with Alaska, but I'd be willing to give Florida back even without a refund. And I've never heard any good reason not to let SC secede -- and I think giving it to Jamaica would be perfectly fitting.
I often entertain fantasies about visiting one of the tweed-producing isles and, for reasons obvious to those who know my last name, being acclaimed their long-lost laird and proceeding to rule the simple weavers, spinners and people of the rocky, mossy shores with an iron fist, Dr. Doom-in-Latveria style.
re: 134
Midges really are hellish evil bastards. It's bad enough where I'm from. Once you get even a wee bit north and west, in midge-season, meh. I remember once getting off at train at Crainlarich for a fag, along with a crowd of other travellers. Then about 2 minutes later, everyone running for the train again.
re: 139 Suggests that Flippanter isn't who I thought he was.
Crianlarich. Fucking stupid language.
Two of my favorite movies are Scottish islandy. Both Powell-Pressburger joints. The ridiculously sappy/romantic I Know Where I'm Going! and the soul-crushingly depressing Edge of the World.
I'm pretty sure I know who Flip is but despite that I don't see the connection between his last name and his lairdship. Perhaps because of my rank ignorance of all worldly matters.
I don't have the faintest idea who Flippanter is, and now I have to try to repress the urge to figure it out instead of doing the tedious things I was going to do this afternoon.
Usually if I read someone's comments and/or blog for long enough I've found that it's pretty easy to find out their real name with a little Google-fu, but there are exceptions. Standpipe always seemed hopeless. I'm not sure I have much to go on with Flippanter, either.
How many underemployed lawyers could there be in New York, anyway?
I haven't tried, and won't be trying, this, but the parallel black Unfogged on Facebook might lead one to him.
There's a separate black Unfogged? How racist!
151: Zomg, Blandings, I have never seen it!
Having stalked Flippanter successfully, I have now learned something interesting and new! (I mean, besides his name. Which is fine, don't get me wrong.)
One of the things I have learned is that, histotically speaking, Flippanter hasn't a laird-leg to stand on.
Nobod will ever find out my real name.
157: Who do you think you're kidding, Antonio?
Ah, Flippanter's not-so-common sporty hobby is the key to distinguishing from all the other candidates.
A bit of Wikipedia-ing suggests that Flippanter could be laird of, among other things, the Eye of the Butt.
The ridiculously sappy/romantic I Know Where I'm Going!
So good.
I haven't watched many Powell/Pressburger films, but the ones I have seen are notable for feeling substantive while still delivering straight up cinematic entertainment.
Good job, essear. Why don't you just post his real name, while you're at it.
He's got me square to rights. I confess.
Flippanter is already Laird of the eye of my butt.
Man, that is one attractive Butt. I really like rocky landscapes.
The "Eye of the Butt" is nothing exotic, just the Sùil an Rubha.
I've never heard any good reason not to let SC secede -- and I think giving it to Jamaica would be perfectly fitting.
Barbados would be more historically appropriate.
Well shit John, when you put it like that it sounds more exotic.
92: Just like I thought of teo while reading a book about the nascent effort to establish national parks in the recently statified Alaska.
Just like I think of the teo of yesteryear when I watch Breaking Bad.
Usually if I read someone's comments and/or blog for long enough I've found that it's pretty easy to find out their real name with a little Google-fu
Really? (I recall that Standpipe liked to periodically issue warnings to people that they were likely giving way too much away if they thought they had any chance at remaining anonymous.)
Barbados would be more historically appropriate.
Unless South Carolina has decent fast bowlers you can keep it.
Mostly OT, but somewhat apropos of the mention of pseudonymity here:
I found myself in the uncomfortable position of feeling the need to defend unfogged today: it was charged with glibness and superficiality regarding, of all things, reading.
The topic was the extent to which the kids these days actually read all those e-texts they so profess to love. Apparently there was an article in the NYT (?) explaining that many Germans prefer paper books, and someone (German) had averred that e-book/text popularity in the US was a function of those who like to have books they don't expect to read.
"It's like those people you know on unfogged," said my friend, "who haven't actually read the stuff they're talking about."
"What?" I replied.
----
It turns out that I have apparently given that impression of this place to that friend. Oh no.
Does anyone find him- or herself mentioning unfogged to real life friends, then finding the need to explain/defend at some later point? I'm consternated.
You must knife your friend's tires and blame it on a lifestyle columnist from the Sunday Style section.
I must finally admit not knowing how to read.
That makes no sense. I buy and read e-books precisely because I want to read them and don't care about "having" them in that particular way.
Yeah Barbados. That's what I was thinking. Thanks.
e-book/text popularity in the US was a function of those who like to have books they don't expect to read.
This makes the opposite of sense. But then, I'm functionally illiterate.
If you think that would help.
You don't know how else that conversation went wrong (okay: punctuation and grammar battle).
E-books aren't very useful for showing off to *other* people what you have, but I suppose they're just as good for things you mean to get around to reading eventually. Different kinds of aspirational error?
People say that reading on screens is physically difficult enough that no-one can concentrate on text for hours on end, which I find an odd statement, as the exact placement of a comma or the full wild run of reasoning are vital in programming, too, and it's a while since anyone had to debug on lineprinted copy. Just as well, since it got away from one like that sentence.
Anyway, mostly I don't mention unfogged to friends who don't read books because they wouldn't get it.
175.7: I refer to unfogged as 'the cocktail party'.
182.2: anyhow e-ink readers are to a first approximation just like print on paper. No refresh, no backlight.
I don't discuss Unfogged with real-life friends, partly (though not entirely) because I don't have any at the moment.
181 to 176.
Uh, yeah, I did say that I was pretty sure academics procured e-texts just when they wanted and intended to read them; the reply was that not everyone on unfogged was an academic, according to my friend's understanding, and he was referring to them.
(Honestly, at that point I was mentally sorting through commenters; sure, there are non-academics, but when they refer to books they allege to have read, it's pretty sure that they have indeed read them, so where is this coming from? What have I said to have given that impression??)
184: I refer to unfogged as 'the cocktail party'.
I think that may be exactly the impression I've given.
Well, to be fair, we do discuss cocktails rather often.
I have tons of (real, paper) books I haven't read. I intend to get around to reading them all eventually, though I suppose I might have to wait for retirement or extended unemployment, whichever comes first.
182: E-books aren't very useful for showing off to *other* people what you have, but I suppose they're just as good for things you mean to get around to reading eventually.
That was the idea behind the claim that e-books are popular among a certain faux-erudite set.
190 cont'd: I guess that would mean that those (paper) copies of everything from Moby Dick to a variety of Thomas Mann titles -- which I haven't yet read -- mean I'm a poseur? But I wouldn't pretend to discuss them without having read them! If I do discuss them, then I have read them! Grr.
I only get stupid books for my kindle.
Oh wait, I did download Moby Dick. Stupid or free, I guess.
193: Give The Transposed Heads a try. It's short and amusing. (As opposed to Death in Venice, which is short and pedophiliac.)
Felix Krull is neither short nor long, but it's very fun. Not sure what Mann was on when he wrote it since it's nothing like his other stuff.
And on the unread books front, does anybody else have a book or three that they faithfully bring on trips and vacations for years but never get around to reading? For me it's Ulysses and La Prisonniere. The latter I got about half way through over a decade ago, and then summer ended. I've gotten about a hundred pages into Ulysses a couple times but never gone further. But they were still in my bag this Christmas, and the previous one, and the one before that...
but when they refer to books they allege to have read, it's pretty sure that they have indeed read them
If you wanted to be scrupulously correct I think you'd have to say, "I'm sure there's a certain amount of intellectual pretension and showing off on unfogged, as there is in most gatherings of smart people, but it's a large enough and sufficiently well-read group that I don't think anybody could get away for very long with pretending familiarity with books they hadn't actually read."
Certainly there are several commenters on unfogged who would rank among the most well read people that I interact with but, also, what's really intimidating about unfogged is that there's always the chance that, for any given subject, somebody is going to be a honest-to-god expert on that subject.
I suppose I should have said ephebophiliac.
I've gotten about a hundred pages into Ulysses a couple times but never gone further.
My brother read Ulysses over this last several months, and just finished it. He was, rightly, proud of that. He did report a particularly boring and challenging section, about a hundred pages in but did say that once he made his way through that it did get more entertaining.
And on the unread books front, does anybody else have a book or three that they faithfully bring on trips and vacations for years but never get around to reading?
Several. Like, there are always at least a couple. I usually eventually finish them. Actually, part of the reason I wanted a kindle was to free myself to read more dumb genre-y stuff instead of lugging the same (eminently worthwhile) book around forever. I don't know why I thought this plan would work, but it has.
I've read Death in Venice and Doctor Faustus. Somewhere along the line some grad student was selling off his stuff, and I picked up several other things, including a couple of the Joseph titles -- read something about those a couple of years ago and decided they were moved to the back burner, but I think The Magic Mountain might be worth a go.
I carried the collected works of Waugh on several trips before I realized I wasn't going to read it while traveling.
197.1 gets it right.
197.2 is what I said to my friend by way of defense and clarification, along with a statement that people rarely pretend to know something they don't. It seemed sort of lame, though.
I tend to bring a combination of something light and entertaining, some 'serious' fiction, and some philosophy. The light fiction and philosophy -- I'm not that ambitious with it -- usually gets read, although it's hard with the latter. The reading chops are getting weak. The serious fiction often languishes unread.
The conversation became more entertaining when he declared (initially) that the Oxford comma (of which he'd never heard) was clearly wrong.
When I refer in conversation to something I read on Unfogged, I generally introduce it as, "I was having a conversation with some friends about X, and...."
Traveling, I eschew heavy reading. It's more like Annie Dillard or classic short stories.
I did manage to get myself to read some Stefan Zweig novellas auf deutsch when I was in Poland. Zweig's not all that difficult, but it was in German and I find reading high lit type stuff fairly difficult in German. It was worth it, much better than the translations I've read.
And speaking of Mann, I did read MM on a Christmas trip many years ago. (Good, but not worth the effort IMO) The thing is, in both the Mann and Zweig cases, it wasn't something I'd been carrying around on multiple trips.
164: Yeah, that was enough together with some vague connections I already have for me to identify Flippanter, I think. If I'm right then the place he works could possibly top all those funny firm names from the other day.
197: Agreed except for the intimidating aspect. I'd change that to "interesting" or "fascinating".
I thought Flippanter wasn't currently working. If he is, congrats.
I first read Gravity's Rainbow on a series of 16 plus hour bus rides. It probably would've taken me a while otherwise. On my most recent trip I stuck most of my reading material on my phone and I still ended up lugging around at least 15 pounds' worth of books.
P.S. Moby Dick is like twelve kinds of awesome, and it's free, so nobody has any excuse.
213.last : Yes, I've heard that, and it's already free, since I have two different editions of it upstairs somewhere, but don't pressure me, okay, don't pressure me!
Newt for the win, apparently.
Wait, really? I was joking. I have no idea what a butt-eye laird is.
Newt for the win, apparently.
We're talking about it in the "Obama sucks/Actually, I rather like Obama" thread.
216: Where the consensus is that those are not in opposition.
I'll take the blame for the "unfogged is full of people who talk about books they haven't read" impression. I mention books all the time with the disclaimer that I haven't read them. Although some of them I've now read, years later.
By the way, Even in Sweden, on racism in Sweden, might interest people here, based on some recent threads. I haven't read it, though.
212: I'm a volunteer, for now, but so is everybody else on the team.
OT: Joe Paterno is apparently "near death." My heart fucking bleeds.
212: I forgot about that, could be an archived page from previous employer.
It took me about 3 years to finish Moby Dick as an audiobook. Turns out it's not that easy to follow in some places if you have to pay attention to driving.
212: I'm a volunteer, for now, but so is everybody else on the team.
So you're all just there to create the pretext for some kind of suit based on the FLSA?
Probably the more recent; the previous employer has long since been dissolved, pretty acrimoniously, I think.*
You reprobates may friend me on FB, you know, if you want access to, well, my occasionally posted images of the attractive and well-dressed dead. Thousand words and all that.
* Not my fault!
I don't like conference calls any more than you do, neb, but it's hardly hazardous duty to take them in one's pajamas.
I was thinking more along the lines of not paying one's employees.
OT: Joe Paterno is apparently "near death." My heart fucking bleeds.
the attractive and well-dressed dead
I must missing some background on that reference.
I have one unfogged friend on facebook whose identity I thought I knew but upon friending I haven't been sure if I matched the names up right. Clearly someone who comments here, though.
It's pretty obvious who I am, at this point. I guess that was the danger of actually starting to use facebook. I blame my in person friends for pulling me into that.
If I had any idea who you were, Flip, I'd FB friend you. But I don't, and now I'm feeling left out *pouts and sulks*. I have a random selection of Unfogged FB friends - those of whom I'm not friends with, it's not because I don't like you, honest, I'm either lazy or not be sure who you are. Friend me, I'm pretty obvious.
You can just e-mail my pseud at-sign gmail dot com; I think it's linked to FB somehow. Damn you, Skynet.
I have no idea who you are, fake accent. But then, I have just three (3) Facebook friends who are unfoggedtarians, and that's partly because Facebook is so wide open.
I must missing some background on that reference.
Flip often uploads photos of attractive, well dressed people, who are now dead.
The photos were taken when said people were alive.
People say that reading on screens is physically difficult enough that no-one can concentrate on text for hours on end, which I find an odd statement,
The little bit of research I read on this last year said that the studies that were the basis of the "reading on screens is difficult" conventional wisdom pretty much all were done using older screen technology. More recent studies on screen reading, not just e-ink but regular computer screens, apparently do not show extra strain.
Anecdotally, the complaints I hear about screen reading from academic friends who read lots of articles are all along the lines of not liking electronic annotation tools vs. their established paper habits, or being too easily distracted. Sometimes, when reading something particularly boring, I'll go track down the print journal if I can and read it in the library.
You reprobates may friend me on FB
I haven't been able to figure out yet who you are, but in the course of my searching I've discovered all sorts of junctures between Unfogged and other parts of my life. It's kind of fascinating and kind of terrifying.
233: I meant obvious in terms of matching up the name and pseudonym based on content, once friended.
Any such junctures, for me, are, by definition, trivial.
And I generally don't send friend requests,* so I have a smaller set of unfogged friends than I might otherwise. Based on large numbers of mutual friends, it's usually possible to guess that someone is from here, even without knowing who it is.
*I used to not send any, except the time facebook either deceived me or I just didn't understand what option it was offering and then suddenly I discovered I had sent out a couple of requests rather than having accepted them, as I thought I was doing.
239: Me neither. I am reluctant to put myself forward in so many respects.
I would really prefer it if Google Plus were to replace Facebook, but I guess it looks unlikely at this point.
I have not found the google plus value proposition very clear.
I'd sign up for Google Plus immediately, if it could be separate from my e-mail and default search engine. I don't feel like setting up another google account to do it, as I want people to use my current gmail address, I just don't want it to be linked in a "one account for everything" way.
Google+ looks nicer than Facebook, and at least so far doesn't have a track record of making annoying changes for no apparent reason other than to give its legion of young employees reasons to stay awake for several consecutive nights rewriting their code.
244: they make it relatively easy to have two google accounts that you switch between, now.
239.2 - yeah, that was weird when that happened.
I tend not to send out many requests either. I'm never quite sure what to do - I have 20+ mutual friends with X, Y and Z, all of whom I know are Mineshafters. So do I friend X, Y and Z even though I don't really know who they are? Or hope they will be able to do anagrams and work out who I am? The latter seems preferable.
241: Ack! Forgive me, but the Facebookification is bad enough as it is.
I post things on google plus, now that the "share" button in reader redirects there, but I never look at it.
It does always seem ridiculous what a large part of my facebook life is Mineshaftian.
If they'd called it Google Eleven and painted it black it might have caught on.
246: Do they? So I can have a google plus profile as "some-name" that has its contact e-mail as "another-name", but with both at google domains?
I used to try to friend only those whom I had met in person*, and for some reason I couldn't or didn't find the one I met most recentlly until just now. But I'm connected now with a couple of ye who I've never met so I may as well say hi to whomever I can identify.
* a few of the small number here that I have met later left under acrimonious circumstances.
I haven't even looked into Google Plus. Is it better (safer in terms of privacy, e.g.) than facebook?
What I don't like about fb is that many of my female (but very few of my male, interestingly enough) relatives are there, and they keep track of everything, they don't miss a trick. One of them was quite offended by a comment made by Emerson (yes, I know, hard to imagine...): 'who is this John Emerson fellow, and how did you get mixed up with him?' I thought I'd never hear the end of it. Funny, yes, but also tedious and tiresome (not you, John, but my offended aunt).
but in the course of my searching I've discovered all sorts of junctures between Unfogged and other parts of my life. It's kind of fascinating and kind of terrifying.
The day I stop commenting at Unfogged is the day I discover that my dad's elderly cousin in Almonte, Ontario has been posting as James B. Shearer all of these years.
A disturbingly large fraction of my Facebook friends are physicists. If it were only the ones I really think of as friends, then I would feel like I could, say, write a snarky comment about a weird new paper or a less-than-pleasant visit I just made somewhere, but it's so many of them that an overwhelmingly large fraction of things I might like to say would offend someone.
Anyone is free to friend me, and I think my identity is fairly obvious. I occasiounally friend other unfogged folks but even if I can match pseud to name I sometimes think I should leave them alone.
What 254.2 says. My real-name life and my unfogged pseud life are really rather separate, and I'd like to keep it that way. It's not that I don't like you all. I might venture out into the wild if I'm sure you can all behave yourselves, but I frankly don't want people asking me about unfogged-related things. (I believe I said some stuff about that upthread.)
I frankly don't want people asking me about unfogged-related things.
I'd probably just be all "I don't know! I don't know! Prank caller! Prank caller!"
I have more twitter connections with people here than FB ones.
Twitter is bridge much too far for me. Now and then I'll check @theisb or some funny Twitter user like that, but I feel like I don't really need to solicit the phenomenon of familiarity breeding contempt.
I don't read the ISB as much now that it's all linking to stuff at ComicsAlliance. But, looking at it now: I had that Castlevania II novelization when I was a kid!
Essear is Were-Chris Sims, writing multi-part analyses of the Blade movies by the light of the full moon!
260: I only look at twitter during Republican debates and primaries.
My Facebook was totally fucked by my starting under this pseud and then changing to my real name for unsound reasons. And I hardly go close to after I had a girl for who coached in swimming when she was 9, a friend of my daughter and a very unfavorite former co-worker friend request me in the space of about a week. But just checked and somewhere here had just sent a request and I accepted that. There are a number of bloggy folks as friends, some of whom I know who they are (internet-wise), some whom I don't.
||
News reports state that Arizona is implementing its anti-ethnic-studies law by confiscating copies of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed from school students, and punishing protesting students by making them do janitorial work.
If this is even slightly true, I'm wildly tempted to create a Twitter account and start posting excerpts. @ForbiddenPaulo, anyone?
||>
Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed
I have a copy of that on my shelves! I haven't read it, though. (I think I read a couple of chapters a long time ago.) Also have another Freire called The Politics of Education. Haven't read that either.
Forgive me for tangential annoyingness. I just rearranged my bookshelves a couple of weeks ago, that's all, and noticed that I should read some of this good stuff.
There was a list of Mexican-American Studies books that got confiscated recently, that showed up in my facebook feed. I almost posted it, but then I wanted to talk about my frivolous car debates.
Bah, I can't find my copy. I wonder where it is. Maybe still packed -- although that's unlikely, as all of my other books in the 300s are on the shelf.
I hate when I can picture a book so clearly in my mind's eye and not find it.
I was facebook friends with two Unfoggetarians, but unfriended them once I started getting recommendatopns to friend others.
Since starting my blog I keep wanting to refer people here to it, but really really don't want people IRL to see my comments here.
272.1: I struggled with the fact that it's probably reasonably easy to figure out who I am for people who are both on here and on facebook, but then I decided "ahhh, fuck it". My pseudonymity is relatively threadbare after this many years, but it's probably good enough.
271: as all of my other books in the 300s
Funny, I was about to say: what's that, Dewey decimal system? But why don't you shelve by subject matter?
Then I remembered that the Dewey system is by subject matter. What a good plan! Yeah, what I recently rearranged was my 'nature and ecology and alternative and hippie' bookcase. It's so nice. There are Foxfire books there. Groovy, baby.
You have your picture at the top of your blog, so I'm sure it is easy for those who've met you.
"[S]helve"? But the floor's right there!
It's like this article was designed to piss me off.
I don't know who anyone is on fb, really. But I guess I'm easy enough to find via Emerson. Just friend me if you want to play Scrabble.
The group aims to bring a philosophical approach to the basic questions at the heart of physics, including those concerning the nature, age and fate of the universe.
That sounds like a great idea!
275: yes, but which of them is me!?
281: That one that wasn't an adult in 1975.
I'll bring a philosophical approach to the basic questions deep in the heart of Texas.
Now that I know it's possible to get a faculty position at NYU based on misunderstanding quantum mechanics, maybe I should start sending out applications to philosophy departments....
I'm sure if you keep at it, you can eventually understand quantum mechanics.
Philosophers' status anxieties, if only harnessed, could refire the sun.
277: "[S]helve"? But the floor's right there!
Let me be the first to recommend an actual bookcase. You'll never believe the improvement it makes in your life. You can stare at all those books you've never read!
You know who had bookcases. That's right.
Bookcases just get full. Eventually, you run out of room to put new ones in and books go on the floor. You may as well not bother.
(I'm reminded of the classic query from walk-in customers to a bookshop: [wide-eyed] "Have you read all these books?")
"Where do you think we are, Arizona?"
If the Guardian link in 266 is correct, wow: those people are going to be in some deep shit.
When I saw 266 I immediately thought of Gingrich's proposal for students to do janitorial work, but on clicking through I found that the guy writing the post makes the same connection.
Man, Arizona sucks.
No argument here.
If the Guardian link in 266 is correct, wow: those people are going to be in some deep shit.
Why? They're implementing a state law.
For them to get in trouble, their higher-ups would have to make a really compelling case that the way they chose to implement it was wrong. I admit that I'm 3000 miles away, but from my vantage point that seems unlikely.
235.2: That doesn't explain programmers not going blind, though. I think it's a (possibly unconscious) walking-back a preference for the familiar. Unless, to move on to 235.3, the problem is that non-techies always tried to read layout-exact copies of print work (as in academic PDFs), and only now are common screens getting halfway good enough to match the size and accuracy of decent print.
Perusing the archives, it looks Unfogged contained a lot more people making vague casual statements involving minor misunderstandings of quantum mechanics before I showed up and started being a whiny little bitch about it.
I presume that everything I think about QM is a misunderstanding of a misuderstanding of a misunderstanding of a math problem that I'm too stupid to see, much less grasp.
Perusing the archives, it looks Unfogged contained a lot more people making vague casual statements involving minor misunderstandings of quantum mechanics before I showed up and started being a whiny little bitch about it.
Don't let anyone ever tell you you haven't made a difference in the world.
I think they prefer "arithmeticist" these days.
297: I don't think the research I was reading about ever looked at programmers. That's a different kind of reading, too, isn't it? At least I would guess that it involves different scrolling/jumping around behavior. This was about reading regular writing and was more about usability than about the possibility of actually going blind or ruining your eyes.
210: funny firm names
213: Gravity's Rainbow
in which the firm of Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short makes an appearance.
Anyway, the gist of it was that complaints about screen reading vs print were overblown.
Why would reading screensful of text for syntax and meaning be different for programmers, though? Where does it stop being different for mathematicians or engineers? Why should jumping around a lot be *easier* with fewer physical cues?
There's another bit of half-evidence, which is that -- AFAICT -- there was a lot of early prose written and read online, short or long form. Good old amber and green terminal text is fine for almost anything, for a lot of people who happened to try because they had computers already.
tl,dr: I miss rn.
All good questions. Maybe the answer is poor research design? I guess I could look it up again, but it doesn't seem to matter that much anymore.
298: And so now we know it's philosophers all the way down. Except in Arizona, where it's sheriffs.
I'm not an academic, but I read a lot of scholarly journal articles in pdf form, and I've never noticed it being more difficult than reading similar material in hard-copy form. The main annoyance I've found is that the aspect ratio of a laptop screen is very different from that of a printed page, so there can be a lot of scrolling involved. I imagine using a tablet of some sort would eliminate this problem.
I imagine using a tablet of some sort would eliminate this problem.
You imagine wrong, lad.
pdf on tablets is still very much hit and miss. On the touchpad, at least, rendering a pdf involves turning it into an image format and that doesn't always work. When they updated the system recently, it became impossible to read my internet archive pdfs. The rendering process strips out the layer with the text and displays a blank page. Regular b&w read ok, but the dimensions don't always work out right.
308: I've been reading on screens since the early Sixties. It's never been a problem to do it all day. The gray on gray Kindles and Nooks are more difficult with small fonts though.
There's also no ctrl-f searching in pdfs on the touchpad. None in the browser either, which is really irritating. I haven't used an iPad enough to know what it's like there.
On the other hand, I've been really impressed with how it handles the book readers for hathitrust (in its mobile version) and the internet archive. I'd never have bought a tablet for myself (any brand), but it's turned out to be a much better gift than I expected.
309: Yeah, not arguing with you, fake accent, just still cross about the lazy justification of things-as-they-were.
PDFs... using a format that doesn't reflow text is crazy for digital-first. I only know of one journal that switched their layout to landscape format, and that's remarkably helpful.
To the OP:
Guns Don't Kill People, I Kill People
139: dr. doom only exercised his right of droit de seigneur that one time in that one super-villain team-up, so don't go 'round thinking it's an everyday sort of thing in latveria. that we hear about. needs mentioning.
I'm fine with reading programming on screen, but generally prefer reading prose on paper. I expect it's partly force of habit, but also partly layout. Code generally has a lot more white-space and there's more structural information conveyed through the layout. The landscape versus portrait issue is also part of it. My colleagues who work in textual areas -- doing TEI-type markup and analysis of early(ish) printed books, for example -- all use pairs of vertically orientated screens, which I expect helps a lot. One for reading, and one for markup/annotation.
One thing I've noticed, too, is that faced with someone else's code, particularly the poorly documented 'legacy' code that I sometimes have to work with, I will sometimes still print it out. Then work slowly through the printout marking it up, as I find that's easier than working screen-only for certain things. I'm not a particularly good programmer, though -- what I do is more about the quickly knocked together throw-away code than anything permanent -- so that's probably not standard practice.
319: Flip doesn't really seem like the type to exercise that right even if it were available.
321: sure, and he doesn't look the type to team up with namor the sub-mariner either, but one never knows about people. I think it likelier he would command his subjects to make him attractive sweaters, with a subtle worsted design.
321: The way of the Flippanter is the way of eating cinnamon graham crackers for breakfast peace.
322: Knit, puny humans! Knit for Doom Flippanter!
Back when I read academic articles I'd often print out the pdf's to be able to read them on paper rather than on the screen. I'm fine with reading short stuff on screens, but I find the longer stuff more difficult than on paper.
I read all my academic papers onscreen. I have a really nice ipad app for it. Doesn't bother me at all. That app is not terrific for ebooks, as the bookmarking and chapter search is not ideal, but it handles citations and annotations and so on swimmingly, and the library management is great.
The priest at my church invited me to join google +, and I don't really want to, because I'm concerned about the privacy issues. I could not figure out how to send a reply (the thing says do not reply) saying that I wasn't ignoring him but was uncomfortable with google +. It seemed a bit much to send an entire e-mail from scratch.
