I don't see what's so bad about the German one. The main thing that struck me was that some cultures really have a thing for eyebrows. Someone should write a book.
The weird thing about (1) is that they very much do not look like they've just fallen. There are all sorts of details that make no sense if you assume that is the backstory. The person in the last one is meticulously gaffer taped to the floor with a very precise arrangement of courgette/cucumber slices on their legs.
Yeah, I thought that too. I get the cartoony excess to them, but the journalist seems to be an asshole who just likes seeing people get hit in the nuts.
I guess half of what I'm attributing to the journalist is the list of tags at the end of the piece:
Tags: bodies with no regret, comedy photography, fall, fallen people, falling down, funny photo series, funny photos, hilarious photo series, hilarious photos, In Extremis, remmidemmi, Sandro Giordano
along with the headline. There's barely any actual text.
Whoops, I forgot one of the bullet points in the OP.
The thing about the photoshop one is that she seems to have gotten universally crappy photoshoppers, so it's not really that interseting.
Misogyny? I don't think the photos are funny at all (at all), but I'm not sure I understand the charge of misogyny. Your comment 3 seems closer to the mark.
Yeah, I wondered how different things would have been with a random assortment of shitty "professional" photoshop retouchers from the US.
Re: the photoshop article - what's up with Australia? Bright pink cheeks are a thing there, I guess?
8: Well, all except one or two are excessively womanly women - rich, accessorized, etc. To find it funny, I think the journalist is laughing that the women are basically getting their come-uppance. RICH WOMEN GO SPLAT!
9: Shitty US retouchers are included, near the end.
Until you get to Germany. WTF, Germany?
It becomes much less interesting when you realize the photoshop was done by just some random person in Germany. Not even someone who works in the fashion/beauty industry in Germany--just some person. If she sent it to 25 German photoshoppers and they all returned pictures looking like that, then that would be (mildly) interesting.
A line from Everything You Know Is Wrong:
That blood-red hair and white, white skin made her the envy of all the German missionaries in the area.
I know that it's hard to lose weight and keep it off, and that research is suggesting that there's a difference between someone who is 150lbs who was never fat, and someone who is 150lb who lost 40 pounds a year ago.
But it still seems like it's the second half of the article that explains why it's hard to lose weight and keep it off. We're surrounded by food and cues to eat food, but the people who succeed:
Registry members exercise about an hour or more each day -- the average weight-loser puts in the equivalent of a four-mile daily walk, seven days a week. They get on a scale every day in order to keep their weight within a narrow range. They eat breakfast regularly. Most watch less than half as much television as the overall population. They eat the same foods and in the same patterns consistently each day and don't "cheat" on weekends or holidays. They also appear to eat less than most people, with estimates ranging from 50 to 300 fewer daily calories.
That doesn't sound too crazy, tbh.
This part sounds hard, and slightly disputes the quote in 15:
The research shows that the changes that occur after weight loss translate to a huge caloric disadvantage of about 250 to 400 calories.
along with the brain's heightened obsession with food.
I do as many as three of those things! No wonder I'm shockingly trim!
In the same opened vein:
http://www.emptykingdom.com/featured/high-fashion-crime-scenes/
Some does, some doesn't. Good luck eating the same foods in the same pattern (for example) if you have a job where sometimes you need to eat lunch at 11:30 because you've got a 12:30 client consultation and sometimes you can't get to lunch until 2 pm because of some other shit that came up at the last minute and had to be rushed out the door.
Exercising at least an hour a day is super time-consuming, too. Not that you can't do it if it's enough of a priority, but it displaces other things.
I'm not saying that it doesn't require effort, but the difference between the average stats and the activities of the people profiled (with 100lb+ weight loss) was striking.
re: 23
Yeah. I think about that a fair bit. I'm either out of the house or doing child-care from about 6:30am until 8:30pm. With plenty of things to do outside those hours, too. The only days* I get an hour of exercise are those days when I can commute using slower methods and get an hour of (fast) walking in.
I don't know how people with small children and/or long commutes manage to get any exercise done at all.
* apart from 90 minutes or so of 'boxe' once a week.
Exercising at least an hour a day takes over 7 hours a week or more than 30 hours a month, except in February.
My suspicion is that nearly all of the people on the registry would turn out to be as brutally regimented and disciplined as the anecdotes provided. It's only when you try to summarize common themes to all registrants that it doesn't seem too unusual.
They eat the same foods and in the same patterns consistently each day and don't "cheat" on weekends or holidays
Ugh. I mean, fair play to people who do it, but I'd rather have a bit of a belly while varying my meals and occasionally indulging, thanks.
By occasionally indulging, I mean relative to my normal intake. My ordinary diet is probably extremely indulging compared to these people.
I had donuts for breakfast. In my defense, I'm not legally obese yet.
29: I think the people on the registry often do have a bit of a belly. One of the people profiled is maintaining a weight of 165 lbs, down from 330. Her husband is down from 310 to 200. It doesn't say how tall these people are, but that's probably not particularly thin-looking. The other woman is down from 300 to 140, which may look thin. But you can certainly lose 100 pounds, have to work very hard to keep it off, and have society think you look a bit chubby still.
OP.2. WTF Serbia? A line of dots along her collar bone why?
7, 30: Maybe those are locally considered to be GREAT photoshoppers and you guys are just blinded by your cultural norms.
27: Maybe. But, look, I think official recommendations on how to be healthy are to eat breakfast and try to get an hour of activity daily (10,000 steps or whatever) so I guess it didn't strike me as brutal. I think your 33 is the real brutal point -- one has to put in all this effort while still at a weight that society sees as 'fat.'
Now I'm reading up on the registry, out of curiosity. To qualify, you have to lose at least 30 lbs and keep it off for at least one year. Average weight loss is 66 lbs, and duration is 5.5 years. Average current weights for women/men is 145/190, which would look pretty normal, I think.
Please please please let fark get wind of OP.2.
From an abstract of a linked study:
Women in the registry reported eating an average of 1,306 kcal/day (24.3% of energy from fat); men reported consuming 1,685 kcal (23.5% of energy from fat).
I don't know how people with small children and/or long commutes manage to get any exercise done at all.
No kidding. I've been calorie counting, using the same app I used about 2 1/2 years ago. When I did it then, I didn't find it terribly onerous to keep to the pound/week weight loss calorie target. Now I'm about 50-50 for coming in under the half pound/week target. I looked back at the pre-Zardoz daily logs, and exercise is the difference. Ugh.
It took me two seasons to go from "sort of despicable, but not in a deal-breaker way" to "I would rather watch static than these characters." By the time I found Zosia Mamet by a wide margin the most sympathetic of them, I knew it was time to go back to Pretty Little Liars.
Here's something worse than OP.1
Censorship is awful, artists have to be free, but dozens of people must have agreed to commit resources and space to this, to choose this instead of something else. Jeff Koons, John Currin, high-profile art is just broken.
It took me two seasons to go from "sort of despicable, but not in a deal-breaker way" to "I would rather watch static than these characters."
A friend is house-sitting a house with HBO, and I bet we can get through two seasons in three weeks, so that might be just right.
I get up at 5:30 to fit in exercise. It kinda sucks.
But you can certainly lose 100 pounds, have to work very hard to keep it off, and have society think you look a bit chubby still.
Noted without comment: Why I Refused To Put A Shirt On For Shape Magazine.
(I feel like I should have more to say about that but, honestly, I think that's an interesting story (albeit one that seems just a little too viral-internetish for my taste), but not one that I have a clear or simple reaction to.)
I agree on the commute thing. I am out of the house from 6:30am to 6pm (or later if traffic is bad). In Summer there is still time outside that period to exercise outside (walking, etc.) in daylight.
But the rest of the year, not so much.
I don't get 42. The problem is the sculpture rather than the white visitors taking it glibly?
I don't follow how 42.2 follows from 42.1. You're not saying that the problem is that the art isn't worth the time/space/money, are you?
What is so depressing about the weight loss article (and every other similar article I've ever seen) is the suggestion that the metabolic changes from having been fat are irrevocable.
The sculpture is certainly A problem.
I could not agree more with 41. That is the precise truth about HBO's Girls. Maybe the Texas road trip with Smearcase will be less odd coupl-y than I thought.
I get up at 5:30 to fit in exercise. It kinda sucks.
Me too.
My problem is with the sculpture, even without the morons in proximity, yes. Koons, Currin, and this woman are choosing shitty exploitation as a way to make money. It is possible that there's a contrarian visionary in there, but this seems sophomoric and pointless, like OP.1
Unlike OP.1, it gets a big space and a fancy commision.
I guess I'll click through to the weight loss thing. I have not been obese but Jesus is it harder at 40 to lose weight. I was virtuous for about a month, no liquor, no sweets, which used to do something, and doesn't anymore. Now I'm trying very hard to get myself to run, back on C25K but that's awful too. My only consolation during yesterday's particularly uncomfortable run was the mantra "at least I'm not doing crossfit."
53 cont'd: I mean, that is, all the reading I've done about the controversy has centered on white visitors horribly misunderstanding the tone and seriousness of the sculpture and managing to be incredibly racist in a really unfortunate way, as oposed to a controversy about the seriousness or intention of the sculpture.
Wait, I know next to nothing about art, but I thought the Domino sculpture was considered to be powerful and great.
56: so you are saying that. Okay, then.
57: Didn't you say you like to swim? Why not revisit that from the left coast?
If you wanted to start doing lots of pushups, k-sky has a facebook group going with that 100 Pushups thing, which I'm doing because I find the progress satisfying. (and then I forget about it and get to make the same progress all over again six months later.) Shall I add you? You won't lose weight from it, but muscles look nice.
I'm not sure. I like splashing around in the pool and swimming a lap. Actually swimming laps in a pool with lanes is daunting. Might try it when the lingering effects of long unemployment even out and leave me comfortable enough to spend money on a membership at the Y.
First I typed splooshing in the pool because I thought it sounded cuter but then it also sort of sounded like something else.
Tubing counts as exercise. You should move to central Texas.
Smearcase's current area has great outdoor pools but swimming won't get you not fat. There is of course a way that does work, consistent exercise (but not for weight loss) plus eliminate grains and most starches and sugars, but somehow everyone just ignores it and then still has this conversation over and over again because I don't know why.
Last summer I swam laps. I felt great, but I didn't lose any weight. Maybe this summer, I'll try to swim uphill.
You need to do intervals, Moby. Fartsplooshes.
The pool had no lane ropes and about five people per lane. I mostly did breaststroke because I couldn't see well enough to avoid people with the crawl.
67 c'mon you know exactly why.
There is of course a way that does work, consistent exercise (but not for weight loss) plus eliminate grains and most starches and sugars, but somehow everyone just ignores it and then still has this conversation over and over again because I don't know why.
Because we really like grains and most starches and sugars and a paleo diet would stop me up for a month of Sundays.
Maybe this summer, I'll try to swim uphill.
Feeling that urge to return to your spawning grounds?
On the "A Subtlety" front, while I think people are behaving regrettably about it, I also think that it's, to use a sports metaphor that I'm probably bobbling somewhat, drawing the fouls a bit. The subject matter is so tragic that any behavior but silent reverence is going to seem awful; any sort of jokey, frivolous reaction looks horribly racist. On the other hand, actually getting silent reverence out of any real world audience without a lot of environmental cues that the exhibition doesn't seem to have (things like dim lights, silence, curators enforcing decorum, forbidding photography) is unrealistic. The people who are behaving badly are still behaving badly, but their bad behavior seems so obviously expectable that it almost seems as if it might be part of the intended structure of the exhibition.
73 is right. On the fiber thing, I suppose you could manage it with green, leafy vegetables. But I've never eaten that many green, leafy vegetables in my life. The train is moved by bran and fruit.
If it gets as hot today as they're predicting, I'll be tubing after work.
76 gets it right. My impression from the Gawker piece, which is the only thing I've ever read about this artwork, was that it was designed to induce these reactions from people. Maybe not.
What is so depressing about the weight loss article (and every other similar article I've ever seen) is the suggestion that the metabolic changes from having been fat are irrevocable.
On a population level, maybe. Definitely not on an individual level. Or I should be marketing myself as a medical marvel.
76.last seems right, but does nothing to obviate the fact that those people should be fucking ashamed of themselves.
80: Actually, do you qualify for the registry? You should join, because why not.
80: To be nosy, do you mean that you're successfully keeping weight off, or that your experience is that after losing weight, it's no harder to maintain the lower weight than it was before you originally put weight on, if you see the distinction?
it was designed to induce these reactions from people
Which is a legitimate artistic point, that many visitors can be easily galled into acting like assholes in the exact same vein as the historical tragedies that the sculpture is drawing on in the first place.
81 cont'd: and actually, you know, I'm not so sure that it was intended. It's not like this is some piece of public art. This is a special exhibition, not in a normal museum, that you have to seek out and pay money for. It's not so clear to me that "well, we're going to get a bunch of brooklyn hipsters and they'll act like racist assholes" was necessarily the idea.
If galling people into acting like assholes is art, I know a whole bunch more artists than I had thought.
82: I do! Sure, I'll join. At the very least it'll probably help me keep working on losing weight.
And 63, can you add me to the group? I didn't even know it was a thing.
59,61: Lots of people like John Currin also, they are free to have horrible taste. This seems gimmicky and confrontational to me, in a way that say Spike Lee's Bamboozled does not.
I guess that since the OP was a gripe, I would pitch in with another one.
My problem is with the sculpture, even without the morons in proximity, yes. Koons, Currin, and this woman
"This woman"? Kara Walker? Are you kidding me?
87: I think I just did. If you haven't gotten an email, I probably misspelled your name.
83: Not sure I quite get the distinction.
Oh, this is the same artist who makes the silhouettes! I like those a lot.
91: Do you experience the calorie disadvantage mentioned in 16?
(a) "Confrontational" is not at all the same kind of criticism as "gimmicky" is. (What's wrong with being confrontational?)
(b) With a piece like this where so much of the impact comes from scale and setting, dismissing its artistic merits on the basis of photos seems especially silly. Nor do I think at all that what you can see from the photos seems either particularly glib or poorly wrought on an aesthetic level.
Re. OP.2, it seems to me that the piece says less about global beauty standards than it does about the tastes and photoshop skills of 25 random people.
(I'm reading the thread backwards. On preview, I'm totally pwned of course.)
91: That is, are you keeping weight off by constantly self-monitoring and controlling your diet closely in a manner that most people without a history of significant weight loss don't have to do, or do you find that once you lost the weight, keeping it off isn't a significant effort, it's just like it was before you originally got heavy.
93: Ah, gotcha. Dunno, I've never counted calories; I've always focused more on food composition. As much as it pains me to agree with Halford, if I eat simple carbs and don't exercise, I pack on the pounds like I always did. If I cut out the carbs, I lose weight pretty much no matter how much I eat. I can compensate for a certain amount of carbs with exercise (e.g., I usually either drink a coconut water or have an energy bar when I'm playing soccer), but particularly if I have starch at dinner I'll gain weight.
Sometimes I surprise even myself with how right I am about everything.
Coconut water is hipster Gatorade.
Except grosser than that description would lead you to believe.
Honestly at this point in my life I can imagine not eating bread more easily than not drinking alcohol.
I just googled to make sure I'm not getting paleo wrong and Joel Runyon, who is hot, says alcohol is not paleo.
100: I'm not willing to pay enough to try it.
Halford isn't wrong about how well the South Beach diet works. Always feels a little goofy doing a diet with such a fruity name, though. I wish somebody could invent a totally, like, badass name for the same thing.
99: Except lower-carb. And available in smaller containers.
100: You're not drinking that chocolate-flavored stuff, are you? Plain coconut water is delicious. It tastes like coconuts!
I like plain coconut water a lot, but it needs to be cold.
105.2: I find the taste nasty. And I like coconuts! Dunno.
Honestly at this point in my life I can imagine not eating bread more easily than not drinking alcohol.
Avoiding refined carbs and sugar is how I keep my weight down without giving up sweet delicious alcohol and it's so worth it. Gin, my precious, you will be pried from my cold dead fingers.
I don't like coconuts to the point that I won't eat either an Almond Joy or the neutered version.
Plain coconut water does taste terrible compared to any other drink that isn't artificially sweetened. Unless the taste is abrogated by being cold.
I should try coconut water. I liked it fine in actual coconuts, but buying it in a can seems weird.
I've had some very bad experiences with coconut water, and I can't stomach it anymore. Even though it's in a can, if stored for long enough in direct sunlight, it will spoil.
Coconut water Coconut smoothie > same smoothie without coconut
Huh, apparently this comment box doesn't do less-than signs.
Coconut water is worse than water, but all smoothies are improved by the addition of coconut, is what I was trying to say.
And most of the health claims associated with coconut water seem ridiculous.
115: HTML thinks you are trying to open a tag.
When did coconut water become a thing anyway? Last 3 years? 5 years?
And most of the health claims associated with coconut water seem ridiculous.
And speaking of fancy hipster water and ridiculous health claims, I now tie thie thread and the previous thread together by giving you this. If there's a sillier incarnation of hipster water out there, I haven't seen it.
And most of the health claims associated with coconut water seem ridiculous.
Just to be clear, I don't give a shit about the supposed health benefits. All I want is a way to get a relatively small amount of simple carbs very quickly, and coconut water bottles are less insanely sized than Gatorade ones.
I clicked though OP1 before reading Heeb's gloss, and I laughed and laughed. Then it turned out I was a misogynist.
Fact: non-veggie carbs are the devil.
You could try eating gummy bears.
The people saying coconut water needs to be cold are absolutely right. Otherwise it's gross.
114: no story, really. I drank about half of one that had been stored on the back porch (in direct sunlight) for a few years. The whole time I was wondering why it had such a terrible, fermented taste. Then I got sick. Same thing happened with another, although I stopped after only a few sips. Then I gave up.
Because everybody else is thinking it anyway: Why was it stored for years on the back porch?
Are there canned or bottled beverages that would not spoils after being left outdoors in full sun for several years? I assume urple has data on this point.
124: I'm also loving the whole "god this is obviously fermented" as he powers through half a can.
127: gotta open a second one to be sure.
I would have figured botulism would happen, not fermentation.
To elaborate, it was supposed to be a convenient place to be able to get one when I was outside and wanted to drink one. I drank a few that way and they were fine. Then I basically forgot about them a for a few years. Then I noticed them and tried to drink some more, and they had gone bad. Now even not-bad coconut water makes me gag. As do the ridiculous health claims they put on the bottles. End of story.
Botulism probably happened but was no match for urple.
"This can of tomatoes is now bulging. That must mean it's being filled with extra deliciousness."
Are there canned or bottled beverages that would not spoils after being left outdoors in full sun for several years?
Soft drinks are fine. They will probably go flat and maybe the syrup will separate out to the bottom, but they won't hurt you.
V8 would probably also be fine, I think. It's got lots of sodium.
Rule of thumb: if you taste something and it tastes good and not-fermented, and then you have it another time and it tastes bad and fermented, the second batch is probably spoiled. I hope this will be helpful.
Huh, actually on googling it looks like if you store a soft drink the sun for a long time, it will probably give you cancer. Damn.
I had coconut ice cream after lunch today. Sitting by the river, Big Sky Mudflaps playing in the bandshell.
It's short but man it's glorious.
"Confrontational" is not at all the same kind of criticism as "gimmicky" is. (What's wrong with being confrontational?)
I juuuuuuuuuust slightly doubt whether we ought to look to Gawker for guidance thereon.
And speaking of fancy hipster water and ridiculous health claims Part II.
It's funny because it's true (and trivial).
I thought that link was going to be to Numbers 5:11-31, linked by Emerson at some other place. Not exactly hipster water, though.
I raise you fancy hipster water from reality tv.
42 but dozens of people must have agreed to commit resources and space to this, to choose this instead of something else
Gee, it sure is a pity they didn't consult you first.
Also I feel kind of bad that the main reason I know who Kara Walker is is because Dan Bejar has a song called "Suicide Demo for Kara Walker."
A song co-written by Kara Walker, in fact.
So no love for the Guam link? I thought it was funny.
The Guam link may be the greatest thing of all time except for Jesus. The Toast is really impressively great.
Although they now have a post on scenarios for Canadian pornography that has nothing to do with sex with bears. I was saddened on Emerson's behalf.
I loved that Guam link and sent it on to another friend who also reads YA novels.
I laughed out loud at the Guam link and posted it to my friend who is moving to Guam.
The dumb thread was hurt that no one had thought to write a YA novel about her. She sat on the sofa by the railroad tracks and sulked.
The dumb thread has a point. She should surely be the confused heroine of a self-destructive trek into heavy pot use YA novel.
High NPP as a resource curse is relevant to my interests. Even without that I'd bet on Kara Walker vs Gawker any day, and I don't mind Gawker.
Needs a limerick.
Watching a few more episodes of Girls: they sure don't make hipsterhood in Brooklyn look very appealing.
I would do best (health and feeling wise) with 90 minutes of exercise-related time (that includes warm up and changing etc.) and 9 hours of sleep. It doesn't compute.
re: 158
Yeah. 30minutes a day of fairly hard exercise, plus an hour or so of just general wandering about in the fresh air or cycling. Less sleep than 9 hours would be fine, but more than I have now.
159: It gets easier when they're older and can do stuff with you. My girls and I go to the same MMA gym. On Tuesday my older daughter, who's smaller than her sister, was able to reverse the mount her sister had and stab her in the femoral with the rubber knife they were struggling over. She was quite proud of herself.
re: 160
Heh. I saw a guy recently in the park doing BJJ with his kid. Kid was about 10, and the guy was encouraging the kid when the kid got a lock on him.
MMA skills in kids could lead to terrifying playground argument escalation.
'But Miss! I had no choice but to pass his guard and go for the leg lock!'