Any of you who know me at the other place will have spotted that I like to sail boats. Is that more of a sport than a hobby? I don't think of it as a sport, maybe because I'm not at all sporty and also though I spend a lot of my sailing time on racing boats I really prefer cruising from A to B.
Is "sport" not a subset of "hobby"? That is, if you actually do it, rather than watching it and arguing about it after the event.
I express gender by a dummy variable. Usually it's coded 1 for female because I'm all about the ladies I like my coefficients greater than 1.
I have a couch covered in Ikea fabric. I'm thinking of moving it to the office, which I could promote to a den if it had someplace to sit other than an office chair, and then buying a not-Ikea couch for the family room, which I could promote to a living room if it had a real couch.
Hobbies:
Guitar
Photography
Boxe française / savate
That's pretty much it. I've played guitar for 25+ years. The others I've done for the last 8 to 10 years. I've done other sports - fencing, karate, boxing, etc but only the Frenchyboxing has stuck.
I tie knots in string -- I've basically given up crochet for knitting over the last few years, but same difference really. That's about it, honestly.
5: Is this plan a hobby, or a crucial aspect of your gender presentation?
Well, if you don't let a room have any potential for advancement, it will look for another house.
Couches rise to the level of their incompetence.
I'd like to claim Liz Lemon as my gender expression in art. (UNG= Dennis, yeah?) Also, Rory has declared "You are totally Liz Lemon, Mom. You don't have enough optimism to be Leslie Knope."
Hobbies: running, gardening, watching TV. I don't know why more people don't openly acknowledge TV watching as a legitimate hobby.
You certainly don't want to promote too fast. We promoted the closet to a half bath before it was ready. That was a disaster.
Obviously it would have been better to make it a water closet.
I just got a bunch of stuff that will allow me to get my studio/djing rig set up more usably in my basement. Will I then actually use it? I certainly hope so!
I also just got a trailer which will presumably allow me to combine Zardoz-wrangling with bicycle riding. The bike path through our town is currently being extended to a spot about two blocks from our house, which will allow me to go full-woosy with the baby in the trailer, too.
On the thing from the Toast I was trying to explain to Blume who Buckaroo Banzai is (like really is) but she was maybe less excited about the whole thing than I was.
Surely things like playing soccer count as hobbies!
Yeah, if I still did it. I basically quit after Ace was born. It was just too time-consuming to get back and forth to Austin.
The freezer isn't full of denim. Most of the time.
I suppose I feel most attached, hobbywise, to hiking and other outdoor stuff, though I never seem to do it as much as I'd like to.
My mom's new husband has been really feeling the need for some hobbies, now that he has traded his four hundred head of cattle, large extended family, and job keeping tourists from getting eaten by/eating lions for one none-too-active seventy-something and some classes at community college. So far, he seems to be enjoying tennis, but has really been focusing on indoor soccer and crossfit, presumably because he intuits on some level that I should have good stories for this blog.
The indoor soccer is some kind of adult co-ed rec league full of thirty- and forty-somethings who are trying to stay in shape. My sense, going by the fact that he scored five goals in his first game, is that he might be something of a ringer.
There's got to be some soccer in not-Austin. We have it here, mostly for kids and adult Italian men, but there are women's teams.
18: Depending on where you are, your mom could buy him some cattle.
I'd bet there's a local men's league, but not coed or women's.
Jammies still plays indoor soccer and also hockey, and also does a billion other things and wants to host large parties and stands by anxiously while I make Hawaii's lunch or do the dishes, because he could do it much more efficiently without making such a mess, if I'd get out of the way. I really don't understand how he has so much energy, and how he uses his energy so productively.
21: what stuff? Or do you feel like I've been hiding the existence of the studio/djing rig in my basement?
Er, 14.3. DJing is less surprising than Blume not knowing or caring about Buckaroo Banzai.
Oh, okay. That makes much more sense.
I don't know who Buckaroo Banzai is either. I've heard the name, but I have no idea what it refers to.
Soccer has to count as my hobby (both watching and playing), but dear God do I feel boring when I talk to people about it. Not so much about matches they might have seen, but I feel like talking about my games would make me the most tedious person ever.
Apparently, it refers to Peter Weller and early 80s nerdy wish-fulfillment.
Gender expression -- Pratchett's witches work for me. I see myself as primarily Magrat-identified, with aspirations toward Granny Weatherwax.
28: basically. Not the kind of fictional character a grown man should admit to modeling his life on.
27.last I don't know why more people don't openly acknowledge being the most tedious person ever as a legitimate hobby.
I [long standing gripe] don't like either the idea that people express or 'perform' gender.
However, fictional characters, I can only think of somewhat embarrassing ones I identified as a younger person. None, particularly, now.
Referring to 1, is hiking a hobby or a sport? If that fails, I guess I can list yard work (oops: a chore, perhaps?) and reading (a way of life).
The Buckaroo Banzai movie suffered from a case of trying too hard to be quirky, but I still have fond memories of it. Jeff Goldblum in that ridiculous cowboy outfit was pretty cool.
I'm surprised no one listed unfogged as their hobby. Maybe it's more of a calling.
I dick around on the internet when I should be working as a hobby.
34: You've mentioned that, and I've been puzzled by it. I mean, start from something obviously true, that there are categories of behavior that are both strongly associated with one gender and are learned and culturally determined, like wearing visible cosmetics. What's the problem with calling st least that sort of thing performing or expressing gender?
re: 39
Well, partly because I don't buy Butler's account of 'performativity' here [and generally think Butler is full of shit], but also because the whole notion of performance implies both an element of free-will [that may not exist] and of choice [that may not be possible]. And the term is just wanky, on an aesthetic level.
I don't have an issue with the claim that gender is substantially socially constructed. It's specifically the notion that it's a performance that annoys. I find the ubiquity of one wanky model of gender, with a load of dubious presuppositions, annoying.
My gender presentation is basically Jerry Lewis as The Nutty Professor.
My hobbies include cry, cry, masturbate, and cry.
I was kind of distressed when someone asked me about my hobbies and I couldn't come up with anything except "reading", which hardly counts. I mean, my first thought was 36.2 / 37, but I decided commenting on the internet was even less of a proper hobby than reading books. "Walking around" also seems like a cop-out, and I could go with "hiking" or "visiting art museums" or something I do when traveling but that doesn't really count either.
When I was a kid I had at least three or four serious hobbies at any given time: playing the violin! drawing! collecting comic books! computer programming! And that's not even counting all the competitive stuff like quiz bowl and whatnot. Now, nothing.
7 I tie knots in string
LB moonlights as an Inca record keeper?
My main hobby at the moment is taking classes on MOOCs. Also reading, watching stupid shit on TV, and playing with cats. And fucking around on the web. And going to the gym! Pick up a heavy thing and put it down again! Repeat!
I used to build small bipropellant rocket engines but quit when I lost access to a convenient place to test them. Turns out smallish apartments are not ideal for the purpose. Once I get access to a convenient test site I may try again.
One day I will build a hovercraft, I think.
re: 39
Further to 40, the objection isn't from some kind of 'veldtian' gender essentialist angle, by the way. Just that the whole 'performance' terminology seems to get wrong, trivialise even, the relationship between society/social forces and our identities as individuals.
People don't perform 'male' they fucking _are_ male. That's not to say that there aren't lots of ways of being male, or that maleness isn't something profoundly shaped by the society in which someone lives. It's precisely the depth and repetition of social conditioning around gender that make it so pernicious. It's not something you can slough off like an out of fashion coat and change for something else.
I don't have an issue with the claim that gender is substantially socially constructed. It's specifically the notion that it's a performance that annoys. I find the ubiquity of one wanky model of gender, with a load of dubious presuppositions, annoying.
Got it -- that is, your gripe with the terms you object to is at a level of specificity that I haven't put the work in to follow. The distinction you're drawing between "substantially socially constructed" and "performance" isn't something that's clear to me at all, but that's not surprising; my background in the relevant theory is nonexistent.
21: what stuff? Or do you feel like I've been hiding the existence of the studio/djing rig in my basement?
I thought you had a djinn rig in your basement! Forget all those wishes and curse requests I sent you.
I feel like I "perform female" when I deliberately amp it up to pave over awkward situations. Extra smiling and deferentialness, etc, to smooth things out.
47: a djinn rig would be awesome
but also because the whole notion of performance implies both an element of free-will [that may not exist] and of choice [that may not be possible].
This is not actually what Butler means by 'performativity'*, though. It's more that gender is constructed in the doing: i.e., a gender identity doesn't exist prior to behavior and then get 'expressed', rather it gets constituted in the doing. Most of her work is precisely about how power carves the grooves on which behavior has to run, on pain of people feeling they lack any identity at all.
* She actually got from J.L. Austin's analysis of performatives in ordinary language, i.e., "I christen thee, 'Honeybadger'".
I seem to recall that Butler eventually started to complain about the way "performative" was being used all over the place. I forget the exact nature of her complaint, though.
re: 48
Sure. That's not to say that people don't make conscious choices around self-presentation, and some of those conscious choices aren't gendered. I do 'gruff' or 'calmly competent' or whatever, in ways that are living up to certain gender expectations even if I am basically bullshitting it, in that particular situation.
I just don't buy [am intensely annoyed by, in fact] that idea that that is all that is happening.*
* I know that's something of a mischaracterisation of Butler, but fuck it, I still disagree.
I've mentioned my genealogy/stalking project in TFA: for the last 6 months, I've mostly been working on a Quebecois branch, and so reading a lot of French. (It seems, though, that a relative [from the showbizzy Riddez family] moved to Sweden in the 50s, so I'll have to try a little Swedish . . .) Just yesterday, though, I spent a little time on a Susquehanna Frontier branch, and it seems I've got a 4th cousin in or near Ferguson MO.
My gender expression is even more boring than my hobby.
(I do some sports, which I wouldn't call hobbies. Sailing, to respond to 1, strikes me as more hobby than sport because of the constant fiddling involved.)
re: 51.1
It is how received-Butler is understood by almost every fucker who uses the term, though. And, when I read Butler, I still disagreed.
I always figured "performativity" in that context just meant "social communication". Maybe I'm wrong! Could be, not like I'm trying very hard.
I appreciate ttaM's take on this.
Hobbies are 1) Anything to do with cycling: mechanics, transportation, policy, exercise, sport--the only one I follow closely. 2)Choral music performance, which flows from my absorption in listening.
As to gender identification, I been struck by how many of the current generation of British detectives capture my sense of myself. Branagh's Wallender, David Tennant's detective in Broadchurch, the Morse "prequel" Endeavour, and DCI Banks all have it to some extent. A very intelligent man, lonely, isolated, hungering for intimacy or at least companionship and having trouble with it, stubborn, and while masculine, utterly without swag.
I always assumed the word performance was just meant to evoke theater. So costuming, props, acting, etc. Certainly those not the whole story, but as one of many ways of thinking about gender it seems like it has a lot of value.
The fuckers are right on this one. Just because something is socially constructed doesn't mean that we are passively carrying out our social programming. We do have free will. Everyone knows what they're doing. Men are never just being a socially-constructed "male" -- they are deliberately and consciously performing that role. They only reason they couldn't stop is they have so little practice doing anything else. Anyone is says that they don't know what they're doing is either under 12 years old or consciously lying.
My hobby is glassblowing. Biggest drawback is expense, it takes time to sell even very nice pieces, and it's more interesting to work on something new than make more versions of something I understand or sell what's finished.
I'd like to think of myself as an amalgam of Willie Dixon, the Townes van Zandt who sings Pancho and Lefty and the Bach who wrote the French Suites. But a surlier and vainer version of 57.3 is probably more accurate.
I resent the idea that I have to be either self-aware, immature, or consciously lying. There's no way I have enough energy to think about how I'm performing a male role and still earn a living and do my part in the house and drink.
60.1: Do you have a glory hole in your basement?
"In a perfect world he would sleep only with perfect women, women of perfect femininity yet with a certain darkness at their core that Win respond to his own darker self. But he knows no such women."
"In a perfect world he would sleep only with perfect women, women of perfect femininity yet with a certain darkness at their core that would respond to his own darker self. But he knows no such women."
Win? Damn internet-speak.
As to gender identification, I been struck by how many of the current generation of British detectives capture my sense of myself. Branagh's Wallender,
Swedish, no? I mean, even the BBC remake with Branagh is set there.
61: A person who makes jokes all the time can't plausibly claim to not know they are consciously performing.
re: 59
We do have free will. Everyone knows what they're doing.
That's precisely what I find irritating. I don't believe that to be the case. And not just with respect to gender, with respect to lots of aspects of personal identity.
That's not to say that they are immutable, but we are kidding ourselves if we think that our selves are transparent to introspection, or easy to change.
59. Dude, you must know a bunch of competent and self-actualized people. Obviously self destructive behavior is really common, maybe 10-20% of the population, depending on where the threshold for obvious is drawn.
How much more common is what amounts to a tic in overcompensating for anxiety or self-hate ? People in the US don't have the strength of will to pass up an Applebees or to vote intelligently, you seriously a demographically or socially significant fraction of people to take a long hard look in the mirror? Why expect that?
66: What are you talking about? In Moby's case, it's obviously a tic.
69 before seeing 68. And was intended as a performative joke.
we are passively carrying out our social programming
Again, if this is supposed to be a a gloss on Judith Butler's position, it's wrong. She just doesn't work with a view of the world that can be conceptually split between "realm of agency" vs. "realm of social determination".
66. This is Walt's long-anticipated commentary on Capital, I guess.
I don't think they are easy to change, simply because we have so much practice acting one way and not another. But we typically know what we're doing -- particularly when it comes to gender. Kids talk about what it means to be a boy or a girl all the time. Adults are quick to notice deviations from gender-appropriate behavior.
the Townes van Zandt who sings Pancho and Lefty
The Townes I saw sing that was one seriously wasted mofo.
Set there, but reflecting the same sensibility.
67: is expressly theatrical performance transparent to introspection or easy to change? Lee Strasberg'd all be performing "nuh UH".
71: I haven't read Butler, and I'm not making any claims as to her position. I'm just performing masculinity by locking horns with ttaM. The winner of this argument gets to shoot Halford when he tries to take over the world.
68: That's an interesting point. I think people consciously know what they want, but they have conflicting conscious desires. Nobody sleepwalks into an Applebees.
73: Capital is great, but not as good as Cats. -- Walt Someguy, 2014.
78.2 Look here and then explain how desire is conscious: http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/phi/1755781713.html
Nobody sleepwalks into an Applebees.
Demonstrable false. But it may be true that no one has sleepwalked into an Applebees and then sleep-ordered the ribs.
Now I want one of those onion blossom things with all the grease. And I've never been in an Applebees in my life, except once.
Nobody sleepwalks into an Applebees.
The sequel to No One Makes You Shop at Walmart.
81: You're thinking of the Outback Steakhouse, aren't you?
I had a student once who always sat front and center, leaned way back in his chair, stuck his legs all the way out in front of him, crossed his arms over his chest and stuck his chin in the air like he was fucking Rocky Balboa.
I think it was clear that he was performing, in the sense of "Look at me! I'm so macho!"
I think there is also an ordinary sense in which he could have knocked it off if he wanted to. Technically, I'm a compatibilist about free will, as are about 60% of philosophers working in the Anglo-American world. So I concede there may be some sense in which my student might have been caused to act the way he did by upbringing, etc. But I still think I am able to say to him "knock it off!" and give it the basic meaning it has in ordinary language.
The though it was Chili's that did the onion blossom thing. Maybe I'm getting my bad chain restaurants confused.
crossed his arms over his chest and stuck his chin in the air like he was fucking Rocky Balboa.
Rocky Balboa sure does like to be oddly fucked.
I think masculinity has become less performative since veildty times. When masculinity is important then a lot of men are going to fake being masculine.
-lots of crazy arduous (but high pass rate) masculinity tests among hunter gatherers
-lots of anxiety about sex as a test of masculinity among male hunter gatherers
The stakes are much lower now. You can pretty much do what you want and still be a man.
I was in a class once where the teacher said "here is how men sit" describing a legs spread apart stance. Straight up none of the men in the class were sitting that way when the teacher mentioned it. Nobody is really policing this stuff. Men sit the way they want.
I'm with Moby here. If gender is a performance, it is one that most people (and I would include myself) have been doing for so long that it is no longer "conscious."
"Men sit the way they want."
except in rob helpy-chalks' class apparently.
http://www.outback.com/menu/appetizers/bloomin-onion
I wonder what's in their spicy signature bloom sauce.
Women perform gender like this, but men perform gender like this.
I sit cross-legged on my yoga ball. I'm not sure what I'm performing, but it probably isn't masculinity.
I've never actually been to an Outback Steakhouse, but I remembered Elizabeth Cook teasing her Australian bassist about the bloomin onion at the Outback Steakhouse.
OT: The 'Zaha Hadid sues the NYRB' story continues to be interesting:
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/26/zaha-hadid-magazine-critic-issues-retraction
I tend to think there's no case for Hadid, since the criticism of her is based mainly on statements she actually made, as first reported in the Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/25/zaha-hadid-qatar-world-cup-migrant-worker-deaths
89: Just don't sit so our sides are touching each other.
Gaming is a big hobby of mine; I tend to play board games once or twice a week, and roleplaying games on average once a week.
Otherwise, it's mostly reading, TV with my wife, and cooking. Though cooking has been more of a chore than an anticipated pleasure recently.
I sit cross-legged on my yoga ball. I'm not sure what I'm performing, but it probably isn't masculinity.
I think you're performing "laying an egg".
The stakes are much lower now. You can pretty much do what you want and still be a man.
If you're not competing, then the stakes are lower. In a competitive environment (for instance sales, maybe interviewing for a job), it's not possible to do pretty much what you want and then not to get called on it.
By the way Walt, split infinitive in 66. Expected more from you, buddy.
I do some video games. I've almost equipped Steve with a full suit of enchanted diamond armor. Except I never have him wear it because I'm afraid of falling to lava.
I've never actually been to an Outback Steakhouse, but I remembered Elizabeth Cook teasing her Australian bassist about the bloomin onion at the Outback Steakhouse.
It seems a bit unfair to tease an Australian about that. Outback Steakhouse is yet another thing we can blame on Florida.
This thread is slightly depressing. I would like to say that my hobbies are basketball (watching and playing) and listening to music, but I barely watch or play bball anymore, and most of my music listening is on headphones at work -- which counts, but isn't the same.
I guess my hobbies are commenting on unfogged, reading about basketball online (and fantasy bball, to my shame, but I have helped shape one of the more interesting fantasy bball games online).
OTOH, it sounds like I will get a bonus at work, so that's nice . . . (I'm never quite sure how I should describe the degree to which work dominates my life. On one hand, I don't work long hours, and do have time to get outside a fair amount. On the other hand, it sure does take most of my mental and emotional energy. Thankfully it remains interesting).
As far as gender role-models go my first thought was Leonard Hofstadter from Big Bang Theory (specifically from the first 3-4 seasons when the show had actually characters rather than sitcom "characters"). It isn't a bad parallel actually -- I'm the earnest, slightly bland one who enjoys being surrounded by people who are deeply quirky, but talented. No wonder unfogged has been a good fit.
102: Definitely intentionally ridiculously unfair.
99: Roosting. I'm far too manly to lay an egg.
Like essear I used to have many more hobbies. Someone recently asked me about mine and I had to lamely respond "dogwalking". Does alcohol count as a hobby? What about meditation, in the Quentin Crisp sense.
Doesn't "performative" here just mean a performative utterance, ie a statement that changes reality as opposed to describing it? Not "it's theater time .. Tonight!" performance, but more simply that when you start to describe things on as specifically male or specifically female you're also enacting the societal division of things into male or female.
It seems pretty obvious to me that this kind of gender as a performative act is often, maybe trivially true, and it's not even a little bit inconsistent with gender being "socially constructed" or responding to deep economic or cultural forces or whatever. Not at all the same as saying "we all can freely choose which gender we're putting on tonight." I mean Walt can but that's because he is a magical hermaphrodite.
Damnit Katherine Hepburn keep your left elbow up and your front foot forward, this isn't a tennis match you charming screwball comedy flibbertigibbet.
Says the man who freely picked a heavy metal guitarist as his pseudonym and role-plays Future World Dictator with a harem of ninja guards.
87 made me laugh out loud and then awkwardly stifle it, as I'm sitting waiting for Kid B to try on various back-to-school clothes. (She has to wear smart work-y clothes for sixth form.)
I'm guessing 110 is some sort of gaming unlocked some level code.
Since heebie left in the part about how I'm making a circle skirt, I have to confess that the reason this came to mind was that I went back and googled the dirndl thing to make sure I wasn't going to set Moby off if I mentioned making a circle skirt since there won't be any bustier component. Though I do have plenty of fabric left!
I do rather like the fabric. I was even admiring it at IKEA last week on my own.
Though I do have plenty of fabric left!
Even better would be having not quite enough fabric left.
113: I like the insect one better. They had 5-meter cuts for $2.99, which you really can't beat. I only got one of each but may sneak out sometime this week to return the stupid thing I got by mistake and try to buy some more. Lee is going to be horrified.
I liked the insect fabric too. I don't think I'd want a skirt of it, though.
108: Singer, dude. And if there was ever a less heterosexual heavy metal singer, I...well, I have trouble imagining it, let's just leave it at that.
I don't seem to knit much anymore so I guess my hobbies are Sacred Harp and piano (recently a jazz class, this week struggling through easier bits of Byrd's My Ladye Nevells Booke.)
I'm not sure about my gender presentation. In my idealized version it's Diane Keaton in Reds, but slightly more male. In reality it's probably Woody Allen in pretty much anything, but slightly more female.
117, have you heard of Hanoi Rocks?
My gender presentation involves PowerPoint.
In reality it's probably Woody Allen in pretty much anything, but slightly more female.
No no no. I think you mean this in a self-deprecating way, but Woody Allen's self-deprecation always manages to be so navel-gazing in an annoying way. Whereas you are wry.
Smearcase, he's like Kentucky, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Bay Area, U Chicago, the socialist sing-a-longs and the, the boyfriend with the ex-Mormon thing, right, and the really, y'know, strike-oriented kind of, red diaper, stop me before I make a complete imbecile of myself.
No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.
I would like to have more concrete hobbies than I do. Reading & watching tv are my passive ones; cooking my active. I *will* get into gardening, or so I keep telling myself, and I'd like to pick up simple sewing (for the home, not clothes).
Of course I like visiting museums & being outdoors, but for whatever reason they don't feel like a hobby. Does playing with my cats count?
Sewing for the home? Like, curtains and cushions? Upholstery? It's not a phrase I've seen.
Yes, just meant I want the ability to buy nice fabric and make my own napkins, pillow covers, what have you without having to pay gobs of money. I've done the pillow covers ages ago & know what I want to do is basic, but I doubt I remember how to operate a sewing machine anymore. (And I can't see straight by hand at all!)
I have a colleague who makes the most gorgeous blinds, curtains, and basic upholstery. I'm pretty sure that's not going to be in my wheelhouse, but it means her home looks like a magazine for relatively little money.
My mom made curtains for the bedrooms. Now she has Alzheimer's.
Doesn't "performative" here just mean a performative utterance, ie a statement that changes reality as opposed to describing it?
Every utterance (that's actually made) changes reality (e.g., makes it the case that that statement was made); and if I smash a bottle over a boat and say "You are now named 'Robert'" that's a true descriptive statement, no?
No opinion on the larger argument about Butler; like LB, not enough background to tell.
I do some video games. I've almost equipped Steve with a full suit of enchanted diamond armor. Except I never have him wear it because I'm afraid of falling to lava.
I've been spending too much time playing Nethack lately. Dunno if that counts as a hobby. Maybe lifting weights counts, but it really does feel like just unskilled repetitive movement (pick up, put down, repeat, as togolosh puts it), which while it can be fun doesn't feel very hobby-ish.
101: you can't take it with you, man. Have you ever thought about what this says about capitalist society? Man?
133.last: nethack! Never has a game turned "hard-coded special edge case behavior" into a work of art. Occasionally I open it in a terminal out of old habit; mostly it just reminds me is that it is a new moon and I should be careful.
I'd say it's astonishing that the "success depends on mastering an arcane and useless set of rules" model is so compelling, but in this crowd, who would I be fooling?
I can't quite bring myself to play in the terminal, without tiles. Maybe once (if) I ascend with them.
127.1: the sewing magazine shorthand is 'home dec'. (Ew.)
TtaM, what was expected of me as a girl among my Alabama relatives was a performance by any of my definitions. Being required to switch in and out of it made femininity everywhere seem just as much so. I don't know anything about Butler.
I don't know whether it's "performing" gender in the colloquial sense, but I just had my umpteenth lifetime interaction with a contractor-guy who was visibly taken aback when I shook his hand.
Seriously. I keep expecting this will wear off at some point. I used to think it was a generational thing but the last few years have proved me wrong. This guy cannot possibly be more than five years older than me. Dude. Do you just NEVER shake hands with women? Ever ever?
(He was very nice, otherwise. Scrupulous about not charging me for work that wasn't going to fix my stormwater problem.)
Huh! I've gotten startled reactions to the proffered handshake. It never occurred to me that this might be a gendered thing.
There are men who don't shake hands with women? Bizarre.
Well, Orthodox Jews, of course, which always has me stumbling as I'm about to shake hands and then remember not to. I don't think I've ever gotten a boggle from anyone who didn't have religious reasons, though.
Many years ago, when I was a 20-year-old receptionist, I went to shake hands with a 50+ black man in our office. He did a doubletake, and then quickly shook my hand.
I must have looked as puzzled as I felt, because he clarified something along the lines of, "You don't do that, because that'd mean I was treating you like--" and here he looked both ways to make sure nobody else was in the office, then pantomimed adjusting his testicles a la an uncouth athlete.
I was still gobsmacked, but the message I took away from it was that men were not to shake hands with women (in his mind) because that would mean he was treating them like one of the guys.
In contrast, the contractor-dudes have mostly been white. They often do a doubletake when I extend my hand, to the point that I honestly started to wonder whether it was just that they aren't accustomed to shaking hands, period. But no. When there is a guy -- my father, my beloved -- around, they shake HIS hand. Weird.
Every utterance (that's actually made) changes reality (e.g., makes it the case that that statement was made); and if I smash a bottle over a boat and say "You are now named 'Robert'" that's a true descriptive statement, no?
Well, there's a special class of utterances called speech acts that does something rather than just communicating something, among which I believe naming things. Oh I don't remember what I'm talking about. The last time I read about it was 2003.
I'll testify that I've only had what I'd consider regular handshakes with women only a few dozen times in my life. Somehow doesn't happen very often.
When I was just out of college I was hired for a sales job and went through some training. Handshakes. For men, the instructor wanted you to squeeze, hard. When we started he was very urgent that it had to be harder. For women, no pressure at all, but you would fold the thumb around the back of her hand, presumed to be somewhat smaller, and more or less limp, and press gently with your thumb. I've done that a few times, even in the last few years, when the situation presented itself.
Should you ever encounter that, you'll know what it was.
Funny thing about that is that, as far as I know, there wasn't a recent period where standard manners was that women didn't shake hands with men. It's not like people are living by 1950s rules -- those weren't the rules in the 50s.
110, 111: It's a roleplaying simulation of Dylan's autobiography. ogged hasn't gotten very far yet.
145: Once women stopped wearing gloves, it got difficult.
I've never ever heard of a "don't shake hands with women" rule (except, like LB, for orthodox Jews). Certainly foreign to any professional life that I've seen. I'm not sure I would shake hands with my contractor much anyway, but I wouldn't expect it to be weird if otherwise appropriate for a woman to do so.
Maybe they expect women to hold out their hand to be kissed.
Trying to dredge up what I recall of old-fashioned manners, I don't think men were supposed to initiate a handshake with women -- the woman was supposed to offer, or not offer, her hand. But I doubt anyone's consciously playing by that rule anymore either.
I would still be confused by 144. Dominance? Seduction? I've had my hand kissed maybe five times, of which one creepy, several mistimes, one grandfatherly, one knee-weakener. Really handshaking seems like a safer bet all round. {No return in this interface! Para:} I shake contractor's hands on meeting and wrapup, and they all seem fine with it, but this is the earnest PNW. What wierds people out is when I shake children's hands. When do you all start that? My grandfathers switched to handshaking at five or so, but they were pretty reserved.
What wierds people out is when I shake children's hands.
I've seen a bunch of posters about not shaking children. I forget why.
I usually give contractors a sporting slap on the butt.
My dad and I usually shake hands instead of hugging when we greet and say goodbye. I've always assumed it's a Reserved Midwesterner thing on his part.
143: The point was that the quoted text contained an unsuccessful way of distinguishing the special class.
I don't have it in me right now to explain theories of speech acts and how "I name this ship Robert" fits into them (definitely not just as a "true descriptive statement"), but if you're curious this lays it all out pretty clearly.
I've had my hand kissed maybe five times
What really? That seems surprising both in general and given the persona you project.
158: I didn't say "I name this ship 'Robert'" was just a true descriptive statement. But it also seems to be that. Since it is (or is supposed to be) a paradigmatic example of the phenomenon, that shows that however you make the distinction, "a statement that changes reality as opposed to describing it" isn't a good way to characterize speech acts.
Hm, remarks on the distinction in general erased on second thought. I guess I'll just say that I'm sympathetic to the position which, on a quick skim, your link attributes to the later Wittgenstein, and leave it at that.
I don't think I have seen any hand kisses, unless you count nuns kissing the ring of a bishop.
NickS in 103:
I'm never quite sure how I should describe the degree to which work dominates my life. On one hand, I don't work long hours, and do have time to get outside a fair amount. On the other hand, it sure does take most of my mental and emotional energy. Thankfully it remains interesting
I feel this way too. I have plenty of free time, but work leaves me so emotionally exhausted that I don't feel very motivated to do anything with it. So I spend most of that time on Unfogged.
"I name this ship 'Robert'" is a queer* kind of descriptive statement, because unlike most descriptive statements, the state it describes does not exist prior to the description, and (correlatively) the truth of the descriptive component does not depend on something's being the case independently of the statements' being made. Contrast something like "this ship is named 'Robert'"; the ship has (or doesn't have) that name independently of and prior to the description.
* I invoke the spirit of Anscombe to justify this usage
"This utterance is being spoken in a nasal voice" is the same way (if I say it) and doesn't seem very speech act-y to me.
Well, it becomes true as soon as you start uttering it, and it has no (as Austin would put it, I'm sure the state of the art is much different now) felicity conditions to speak of (not just anyone can name a boat), but sure, self-descriptive statements don't describe a reality that exists outside of themselves. Yours isn't a very good one in this regard because what makes it true is independent of its content; it would be uttered nasally even if you said "this utterance is not nasal". Something like "This statement refers to itself" might be better in that regard. Even there, though, all your statement does is inform its hearers of something, even if it's something that pertains solely to your hearers.
Hobbies: Flyfishing, reading, handloading along the the accompanying shooting. My daughters and I also go to the same MMA gym.
You should probably just read the Kent Bach thing though.
Yours isn't a very good one in this regard because what makes it true is independent of its content; it would be uttered nasally even if you said "this utterance is not nasal". Something like "This statement refers to itself" might be better in that regard.
It's not clear to me that the second utterance is actually true, which is why I didn't pick that sort of sentence. I don't understand the first objection. The sentence is not true until it's spoken; it can be infelicitous, but as you say, so can naming statements. (Infelicity in one case amounts to only falseness, and not in the other case, you might say; but that seems to me to be just making the old distinction another way. In both cases the statements are infelicitous in the relevant sense (i.e., not infelicitous in the sense of rude or mean or whatever) when they don't succeed in matching the world.)
Even there, though, all your statement does is inform its hearers of something, even if it's something that pertains solely to your hearers.
The distinction between statements that only inform listeners as opposed to ones that are actions is the one that I am suspicious of. That said, this is not exactly my wheelhouse, and suspicion is just that, not planting-my-flag-in-this-position.
Crossed with 167. Yeah, I might do that.
Went to college with some diplobrats, one set of grandparents had an international and slightly louche circle, I wear hats, dance groups are mixed in nationality & age & open to theatricality. When I was young & occasionally tongue-tied I appealed to guys who wanted to debauch Marian the Librarian. I bet alameida has had an array of hand kisses.
Tl;dr - what, I'm chopped liver?
I think neb was surprised at so few hand-kisses, not so many.
that only inform listeners as opposed to ones that are actions
That is, they all seem to me like actions, and more questionably they seem like information conveyors, if that wasn't clear.
Certainly making the utterance is an action; this is one of the reasons, IIRC, that Austin abandoned the performative/constatitve distinction in favor of speaking of locutions with illocutionary force and perlocutionary effects.
Yes, I am much happier with different ways of viewing the same utterances than a distinction among utterances.
E.g. it's clear that I'm warning you that there's a bull in the field when I say "I hereby warn you, there's a bull in the field"; but can't that also be what I'm doing when I just say "there's a bull in that field, you know"? Certainly there do seem to be some unusually purely performative, mostly fairly conventional, cases like namings, or marryings, that I think are, hm, more action-like than something like issuing a warning, probably partly because of the conventionality—you can know, for instance, that you're naming the ship, assuming you're the sort of person who can name it and it hasn't already been named and other such conditions are met, in a way that I'm not sure you can know that you are actually causing the other person to be warned (i.e. you can put the warning down but the other may not pick it up). Anyway, I am rambling. One thing I do know is that I've certainly engaged in more than five acts of hand-kissing, by god.
176 before seeing 175 but as noted it's mostly rambling anyway.
So, over the last century in America, the convention against male-female handshakes has been limited to Orthodox Jews, and blue-collar professionals in Philadelphia.
I would have thought (before reading 176) the more action-like cases are roughly cases where, for whatever reason, we find one of the types of description of the act to be more important. But I hadn't considered the putting-down picking-up distinction; that's interesting and I'll have to think about it.
Anyway, to get back to what matters in life, I am fairly sure that I have never once kissed someone's hand in greeting. I am also fairly sure that if I ever tried, if would come off as quite creepy. Probably, among other things, is required a certain self-confidence that I lack.
Probably it requires a certain self-confidence that I lack, is what I meant to say. Whatever.
Gracefully turned! But you never kissed my hand, neb. Any witnesses at unfoggedodecadentedron?
I wonder if my principles require that I kiss a few men's hands. On the whole, door-opening is getting egalitarian, why not move on? This would have been an easier decision before I entered into the stultifying bliss of the sexual dyad.
You could make a start, anyway, by kissing the dwarf lord's* hand.
*Boy I hope I'm getting that right.
My hobbies include cry, cry, masturbate, and cry.
Ok, so the first two are tennis and philately, the third is re-reading Lady Chatterly, but what's the fourth?
85: I've never seen the films and now I am quite bewildered as to how you fuck Rocky Balboa
Start by kissing his hand, and hope for knee-weakening. A sporting slap on the butt might also work.
My hobbies: fly fishing (failing that, fishing, but I love the physical grace of fly casting in ways unrelated to the fishing bit); photography; bicycling; halfwitted computer programming. All of these, at various times, have been things I got deeply enough into to see the world differently in lasting ways as a result. I'm not doing any of them enough right now.
Reading is not a hobby but a kind of vocation, or work, or breathing.
Fooling on the internet is more serious than that.
187: I understand there is one film set in Soviet Russia, where Rocky Balboa fucks you.
you can know, for instance, that you're naming the ship, assuming you're the sort of person who can name it and it hasn't already been named and other such conditions are met, in a way that I'm not sure you can know that you are actually causing the other person to be warned
But it's not the case that ships are named by the action of the Queen (or someone) saying "I name this ship $NAME". The ship has already been named. The carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, for example, was launched earlier this year. HMQ slung a bottle of whisky at it and said "I name this ship Queen Elizabeth". But it had been referred to as the Queen Elizabeth for literally years before that. It was not in any sense an unnamed ship. It even had its name painted on the side!
85: I've never seen the films and now I am quite bewildered as to how you fuck Rocky Balboa
I don't know, but I'm sure it involves a montage.
re: 192
Heh. Cue the music: Dah dun DAH, dah dun DAH.
192: and ends with an anguished shout of "ADRIAN! ADRIAN!"
191. Do they waste whisky on ships these days? I thought they used champagne. Dreadful anyway, the ship wouldn't notice if it was Lambrusco.
I think I normally shake hands with women I don't know well, certainly in formal circumstances. What are you supposed to do when you meet somebody who's come in from another company to give a presentation? Stick your tongue down their throat?
191: normally it is champagne, but Brenda got whisky. Bowmore, apparently. Very nice.
195. It's a carryover from when you implored the gods' favor by sacrificing something you value to them. For example, Liz could have sacrificed Charles but it's out of fashion, and a bottle of whisky is worth more anyway.
Also the next CVA will be the Prince of Wales so it would be good to have an actual Prince of Wales around to launch it.
They're already being informally referred to as Brenda and Dumbo.
Bowmore, apparently.
That's appalling! What a waste.
197. Is there any evidence that HM still values Charles? He's been nothing but an embarrassment to the firm for the last thirty years.
So, all those participating in the Rocky-fucking subthread do know that Stallone did an actual porn early in his career, right? No need to speculate.
I assume it's still informative. Also: if you are going to re-edit a softcore porn movie to add hardcore action how fortunate for you that the additions in question are called insert shots.
153 made me laugh.
"I name this ship 'Robert'"
We're all reading this in Vanessa Huxtable's "Raahhhhhbert", right?
There is a "how hard do you squeeze?" issue re: handshakes. Some people purport to judge by the "firmness" of handshakes. They are almost always men, and very traditional ones at that. But you never know until you're in it when you'll encounter a squeezing contest. It's been a few years, and I wouldn't mind if I never experience it again. I can squeeze very hard, and my wife claims I often unconsciously squeeze her too hard in some place, and I'm always surprised when she says so.
I think I half-remember shaking hands with LB when I met her. I'm hoping I reacted normally if so.
I was a little surprised when you went for the fist-bump/explosion, but I went with it.
In certain provinces of the healthcare system, handshakes are beginning to be disdained as a threat to health. A number of facilities have declared themselves "handshake-free zones". One is expected to nod politely upon being introduced to someone. It's a little disconcerting the first time you extend your hand in greeting and the person keeps their hands at their side while giving you a sorrowful look.
In the winter, my parents' church doesn't shake hands for the sign of peace. Because flu.
People who go for the hand-crushing handshake should be kicked in the balls repeatedly. Or, you know, just pull firmly on the hand and headbutt them. One of the two, anyway.
From what I understand in some Asian countries people headbutt instead of shaking hands.
Whoah. Headbutt kismet plus explosion.
Normal handshake for the first up and down shake, then double-hand soul brother grip, then a firm grasp of the wrist.
I don't like the thing where in groups of people who sort-of know each other the men shake hands but the women hug. I like hugs and all, but they ought to be reserved for situations where there isn't that awkward contact-minimizing lean. Hug like you mean it or don't hug at all, say I.
Sometimes instead of shaking hands or hugging I'll just stare at a point three inches off the person's left shoulder and let my lip quiver a little bit.
The double cheek kiss is the greeting I dread the most. I think the crushing handshake has nearly disappeared in my circles, which is a huge relief to me.
The quadruple cheek kiss is probably not going to catch on.
If someone seems to be overly glad-handing I will give them an aggressively limp handshake, like I'm handing them a dead fish.
The two handed head grasp plus forehead kiss is pretty good, but then people think you're going to kill them later.
And then there's the finger suck-plus-eye contact.
I don't like the thing where in groups of people who sort-of know each other the men shake hands but the women hug. I like hugs and all, but they ought to be reserved for situations where there isn't that awkward contact-minimizing lean.
In my experience, generally 1/4 of the interactions are handshakes (man on man) and the other 3/4 are hugs (if any woman is involved). It's like in AAA baseball, you only see the pitchers batting if both the home team AND the visiting team are National League affiliates.
Right hand on shoulder, look straight in the eyes, nod firmly once, "That'll do, pig."
Palm their face with one hand and jiggle it gently back and forth while laughing agreeably.
I have a book about ninja secrets of invisibility that recommends, essentially, waving your hands in your interlocutor's face and then running behind them while they're distracted. That could work!
224 seems like it could only work on Japanese palace guards who were, to put it charitably, in the bottom 10% on standardised tests, and could equally easily have been distracted by shouting "SQUIRREL!"
Feudal Japan didn't have squirrels in a way that we can understand, ajay.
154: Does he put his left hand on your shoulder as he shakes your hand?
Put one bloody hand to the glass in a Vulcan salute and talk about the needs of the many and the few. And then die.
There was a site-specific joke among Austin gays when I lived there about how queens greet each other in various cities where Dallas was hugging so you could pull up the collar and check out the label of the other guy's shirt.
224: There is a rich debate in aikido circles about how the current practice of waving a hand in the opponent's face to distract him while you slip around his guard is a devolution from the original doctrine of, I guess, just beating people up.
A minimal, reserved nod is what I instinctively go for, outside of professional contexts where I shake hands. The problem with the nod, of course, is that in social contexts everyone I know goes in for the hug, leaving me awkwardly following suit: "Right -- we're people who hug each other. I knew that."
I'm not saying I'm looking forward to a future where antibiotics don't work and infectious disease is a much bigger problem, but I think I'll find the resulting change in manners comfortable and natural.
I think if you are *going* to hug, do it for real. Man or woman.
I hate not fully knowing the rules of when I'm going to be kissed on the cheek. I generally don't want to be kissed on the cheek, but if it's going to happen, I want to respond in kind, and I don't even know if I can pull that off without feeling like an idiot.
I used to work with a patient who would always try to hold people's hands when they shook his hand and then go in for a kiss. It was problematic, but when he was just holding your hand it wasn't creepy. He was just so starved for touch. If someone else had done it, it would have been. It was sad, because he had some dementia and was just so starved for touch. There was an OT who would do deep tissue massage on him, and he was in absolute heaven.
228: exactly. You see, conversely, we have squirrels in a way that feudal Japan can't understand. The concept will cause him to melt down, Star Trek style, emitting smoke and error messages from beneath his lacquered helmet.
a future where antibiotics don't work and infectious disease is a much bigger problem
Extremely unlikely event. Medicines against small-molecule resistant bacteria may become much more serious interventions than a course of pills that upset GI tract. But there are a bunch of possible approaches that are well understood now, leaving out the possibility of progress.
That seems optimistic. I'm pretty sure that Hepatitis H, when they get to it, will be spread primarily by arm-back contact.
I hate not fully knowing the rules of when I'm going to be kissed on the cheek.
Turn your head at the last moment and buss 'em right on the mouth. Slip 'em some tongue.
I hate perfunctory kisses more than I hate perfunctory hugs. If you plan on kissing me, brace yourself Bridget, we're going all the way!
I hugged my father often in the last years of his life, for the first time since I was a little child. It was after his stroke and the onset of dementia, but I'm not sure the change wasn't more in me, after my marriage and especially the births of my children. If so, then those hugs might always have been there had I been ready for them.
I hug my son, the same size and shape as I am, whenever we meet or part.
I hate not fully knowing the rules of when I'm going to be kissed on the cheek. I generally don't want to be kissed on the cheek, but if it's going to happen, I want to respond in kind, and I don't even know if I can pull that off without feeling like an idiot.
The rules in the Cuban-American and Mexican mileu I know are something like:
1) Male-female, female-female cheek kisses* are the norm when greeting either people you know or that you are being introduced to in a social setting. Handshakes for male-male in these situations.**
2) Cheek kisses are not-to-be done when greeting strangers or interacting with people in an impersonal/institutional setting (business, school, etc.).
*Cheeks touching and kissing to the air, generally.
** There were exceptions, i.e., male-male cheek kisses. I think almost always male children being greeted by older male relatives, but that may be sampling bias.
I hear in the next Star Trek movie there's a scene where Spock picks up a squirrel lifts its tail and tries to talk into its ass.
Find it hilarious how many men will go in for some supplemental cheek-cheek kissing on the grounds that I did too much air-kissing the first go-round. Okay dudes!
||
Just sent Sally off for orientation for her first college class (Statistics at Pigeon U). Told her that if she makes any friends, she should be certain to drop into the conversation the fact that she is a just-turned 15-year-old high-school student. She rolled her eyes at me and stalked out.
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She shouldn't wait until they are already friends to bring that up. Can't tell people early enough, I say.
Did I relate the weird cheek-kissing incident of several weeks ago here? I think maybe not?
She should probably also mention that she's telling them on her mother's advice. Full disclosure, honesty is the basis of every relationship, etc.
249: if you did, clearly it didn't take. Have at it!
Allow me to set the scene for you.
I was in that part of fair downtown Oakland known as Uptown, in the downstairs part of an establishment whose upstairs part I was shortly to occupy. I was inside, but looking out from the window as I leaned on the as it were overflow bar area (no stools, for instance, and beyond the bar only the sidewalk and street). I was keeping my head down and drinking up a cocktail, attempting to memorize "Villon" and consulting occasionally for that purpose the volume (not slim) of Bunting's poetry I had brought with me, softly reciting staves of melodious Northumbrian to myself.
TO MY RIGHT there then appeared a young woman who asked me how my day was going, whether I'd just gotten off work, and who was in general making heroic attempts to engage me in conversation, which was more than sufficient to confuse me utterly. Or so I thought, for further confusion was later to descend on my poor head, when, after her boyfriend walked over to inform her that their table was ready (for this downstairs part houses not just a bar but also a restaurant—it's that kind of establishment) she took her leave of me, and not simply by saying "good bye", nor yet simply by proferring a hand, nor yet, and here things become slightly more complicated, by offering a hug, but in fact by doing the whole kiss-your-cheek thing, which was quite unexpected, because while we were admittedly in a Spanish restaurant and such things might be the custom in sultry Iberia, we were not in fact in sultry Iberia itself, but rather, as mentioned, in that part of fair downtown Oakland known as Uptown, where such things are, to my knowledge, not the custom.
And that is my tale.
I make the "Wait 1" sign and pull rubber gloves from a back pocket. That always shuts down the fraudulent kissy stuff.
The $5 comes to those who are deserving whether or not they look.
It must be found—it cannot be sought.
and who was in general making heroic attempts to engage me in conversation, which was more than sufficient to confuse me utterly
People try to engage me in conversation fairly often. I'm not sure why. I guess it usually isn't young women. It's mostly the middle aged and elderly.
Oh you people the kissy stuff is not fraudulent, sheesh, careful not to become too prissy there!
Unless she was going to marry neb, it's fraud.
188 was solid advice & I now include it in my hobbies.
Some old etiquette (gloves, never touching your face in public) was mildly antiepidemic; I wonder how conscious teat was.
for this downstairs part houses not just a bar but also a restaurant--it's that kind of establishment
Oh yeah.
careful not to become too prissy there!
I wasn't being prissy, I was just totally surprised. Fraudulent schmaudulent, it's unusual here.
I wonder how conscious teat was.
I think they nearly always work on reflexes alone.
252: As one peering in on the (well-described) scene from the outside--and with the benefit of hindsight--I would suggest that in such a circumstance one should ask oneself, "What would Villon do?"
For reasons not completely clear, the song in 268 popped into my head upon reading your description.
The refined art of cock-blocking by the placing of the long-dead on pedestals perhaps not entirely warranted.
My confidence is likely misplaced given that I don't know very much about Villon.
Nobody knows what actually became of him, according to the pedia thing, so quite possibly he'd have stolen her purse and been hanged for it.
I just got through an area on my sewing, currently working on the upper hem casing of the skirt where the elastic will go, that is so awful. The rest has been lovely but right in the middle of the back is a really lumpy, hideous part. Learning is hard, especially if you're hard-headed and not particularly dexterous like I am. But at least I am putting in elastic so it will all be sort of wrinkly and bubbled and not just the part I messed up. Still very satisfying!
I'm feeling like my "hobby" personal computerish projects are a little too close to work, but part of the problem is that there are things I want to learn how to do partly so that instead of having frustrating meetings with IT about getting things done, I could in a future job be in the type of role where getting those things done is part of my actual job. On the other hand, I may one day work with an IT group that has a few people actually interested in gaining domain-related background in the types of projects I work on, which would make some things easier.
My hobby is changing peed-on bedsheets. The cat and the kid are both helping to keep me in practice. Gooooo pee!
Told her that if she makes any friends, she should be certain to drop into the conversation the fact that she is a just-turned 15-year-old high-school student. She rolled her eyes at me and stalked out.
I told my 16 year old with a fondness for dressing up for the Salt Lake Comicon to use something along the lines of "I'm young enough to be a felony". She laughed and IIRC she actually used it last time around on a guy who was obviously way too old to be talking to her.
277 is a horrible hobby and this wouldn't help with the cat side of things, but I'm a fan of the lazy version where you make the child's bed complete with a rubber undersheet or whatever, then over that put another pee-proofed undersheet and make it all again on top so that if there's an accident, you just whisk away the top layers (in our case into the bathtub) to deal with in the morning and then toss the child back in bed without having to fuss with sheets in the middle of the night. I'm so glad we're past the phase where that's a regular occurrence.
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