Re: Guest Post - Uber Economy

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It has become customary for guest posts to conclude with "Heebie's take".


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:18 AM
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Usury laws limited Heebie's take to 15% APR. It wasn't profitable at that rate because of high fixed costs.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:19 AM
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Comments threads are the uber of the internet.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:22 AM
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I'm doing a lot of one-handed hunting and pecking lately, so I've been keeping things minimal. Or what Moby said.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:22 AM
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I think someone mentioned this in a previous uber thread, but one reason for the relative success of these alternative taxi services is that, outside of NYC and airports, traditional taxi services aggressively suck.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:25 AM
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4: urple is demanding a refund!


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:26 AM
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I do think that there's a difference between the on-demand instant part (the uber economy) and a certain democratization of services.

My future in- laws would be horrified at the idea that people might pay to have their laundry done--especially if the wife doesn't work.

Whereas, without the instant gratification piece, I think you could just see it as part of the division of labor and celebrate it.

(Or so I tell myself, because I hate doing laundry generally and don't like ironing in particular.)


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:28 AM
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Non-iron shirts are the reason there will be no uber for ironing.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:32 AM
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Also the reason people can move their arms freely.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:35 AM
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8: in the article the guy says that he washes his own clothes at home, then somebody picks them up to iron them.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:41 AM
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From the link: "Why does it cost less to install a lift than to move a piano?"

Could one of the British commenters explain this for the Merkins? A lift is an elevator, right? Do you guys have really affordable elevators? Or do all your piano movers live in luxury?


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:57 AM
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Oops, wrong thread.


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:59 AM
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11: In a highly unequal society, the elite can afford to hire contract workers to carry them upstairs.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:11 AM
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My future in- laws would be horrified at the idea that people might pay to have their laundry done--especially if the wife doesn't work.

I kind of have, but in practice it's just a pick-up dry clean service. They do technically do non-dry clean laundry, but I'd never pay them to.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:18 AM
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A woman in our neighborhood has a van that says "Snow Wh/te Cleaners: A Laundress with a Mission."

I've never asked if the mission extends beyond getting other people's clothes clean.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:21 AM
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That means the laundry is actually done in an colonial-style Spanish Reduction that uses coerced indigenous labor.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:24 AM
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So, no more Cuban food at Conflict Kitchen?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:26 AM
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When my wife worked an au pair, she used to take in ironing occasionally. When my Mum worked as a cleaner, she did some people's ironing, too. I don't think that's anything remotely new.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:26 AM
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I've had a slightly more positive/charitable version of the thought from the linked article: Having used TaskRabbit a few times to get things done, and liked it, I wondered if it would continue to exist when (if?) the economy gets better. Though they seems to be destroying themselves successfully before the economy recovers anyway.


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:27 AM
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17: It's Palestinian now. The felafel is pretty good. Have not tried anything else.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:29 AM
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OT: Christmas carol bleg. I've been asked to teach 2-3 (probably 2) Christmas carols to some Chinese college students who are learning English. This is likely their first exposure to Christmas music and to anything beyond the vaguest notions of Christmas. They should be at an advanced intermediate language level, with better comprehension than speaking skills. I'm a big Christmas music traditionalist, but I'm having a hard time picking two songs, and I want to balance my own personal biases with giving them a well-rounded intro to Western Christmas music. I've decided to do Silent Night, since it is a classic and it's an acceptable balance of archaic and reasonably understandable English. I have no idea what to do for the second or third ones. (Three is actually easier, but I don't know if we'll have time). Recently I've been very partial to the Cherry Tree carol, which both tells a fun Christmas story from early Christian apocrypha and is quite pretty and singable. The caveats are 1) It's quite obscure, so it's maybe not a good intro to American Christmas music, and 2) the story is told over many verses, which might be too many to teach language learners, and it loses a lot without the narrative arc. Also, I wonder if I should be doing something more pop-y alongside Silent Night? Something like Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire? Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas? Other thoughts include
-Away in a Manger
-Deck the Halls
-The First Noel
-God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
-What Child is This
There are lots of beautiful carols that I really enjoy, but I'm worried they're too similar to Silent Night (The First Noel and What Child is this might fall in that category. Also O Little Town of Bethlehem).
A third super simple option would be We wish you a merry Christmas or Oh Christmas Tree, so I might have one of those as a back up third option.

I refuse on principle to do Rudolph, Frosty, or the Little Drummer Boy


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:32 AM
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Jingle Bells.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:36 AM
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I say Jingle Bell Rock. Some teacher in fifth grade thought it would be a great song for the class to sing, and drilled us on it for weeks in order to get everyone singing it right. At some point I'm sure I will forgive them. Probably.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:36 AM
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Anyway, no hijacking threads within the first 40 comments.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:36 AM
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"The Little Drummer Boy" can teach about Christmas and provide an introduction to onomatopoeia.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:37 AM
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In the Bleak Midwinter

Always go for literary and musical quality.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:37 AM
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Also, I think, Tears in Heaven which, really, I have no idea. They may have been some sort of horrible troll screwing with everyone's parents. Or maybe just stunningly clueless.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:38 AM
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27 just cannot be true.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:41 AM
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I think one non-religious standard like "have yourself a merry little christmas" would be good, and it will help your students be mindful that we must look forward to the grim inevitability of death for true christmas happiness.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:42 AM
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24:Don't make us send you to disruption re-education camp. What do you think comment 3 was on about Madam Control.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:44 AM
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fuck, "in the bleak mid-winter" is MY JAM! but then let's go whole hog and make them learn "o come, o come emmanuel."


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:44 AM
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Good King Wenceslas


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:45 AM
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27: .!!?,?!


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:45 AM
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My favorite advent hymn is this Finnish one called "Lost in the Night." I could do a 1-2-3 gut punch. Haha suckers! You thought this holiday was about tinsel and some fat man in red.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:46 AM
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31.last: Kinky!


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:46 AM
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Uber, but for Christmas carolers.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:48 AM
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21: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year


Posted by: Todd | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:48 AM
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32: the pogo version: good king sauerkraut look out/on yo feets uneven/while the snoo lays round about/all kerchoo acheivin'


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:48 AM
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38: Did not know that one. But well-versed on Deck us all with Boston Charley


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:51 AM
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38: Love the idea of "Good King, sauerkraut"

BTW, how are you holding up, al?


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:51 AM
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39: canonically someone says "bless you" next so we never get to hear any more...


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:52 AM
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I thought it was first 20 comments?

I could compromise with Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, but not the Judy Garland version?

Also, according to wikipedia there is a carol called 'the Unspotted Virgin'


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:53 AM
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re: 31

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s25qJVER_U

[B&S doing it]

Although this is better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpxZv5KAiuo

[B&S: Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto]


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:55 AM
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No nominations for The Twelve Days of Christmas? Seriously? It's fun!


Posted by: MAE | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:56 AM
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On Uber, I wonder if inequality producing a large, willing labor force is sufficient. Maybe you also need recent downward mobility (i.e. new inequality). You need the people providing the services to have cars and the sorts of social skills that you get from having grown up in the same sort of environment as the people to whom you are providing services.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:57 AM
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blergh. mom made a really great recovery from brain surgery which is awesome. she REALLY REALLY insisted I bring the girls over from narnia which has given my husband 10 heart attacks because it's like 10K of plane tix alone but, suck it up, dude. it makes me anxious that she's so insistent on seeing them. we put her in an inpatient rehab centre but my bro didn't like its institutional vibe from the start, and yesterday they did something so shady that we may just yank her out. they lied to us that if we took her out for one night (xmas eve) we would sacrific medicare coverage. and that even if we paid out of pocket for all remaining days, we would lose Medicare money for home health aides. this is all total, serious, I am filing a complaint against these motherfuckers lies. they've got all the old people there convinced they 'can't leave' till they are discharged by the place itself. WHAT EVEN. so she's trying their physical therapy today--it's possible for assholes to employ good staff, but probably we're yanking her.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:00 AM
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A lot of Christmas carols are going to turn out to have surprisingly archaic language when you get around to teaching the ESL students what this gibberish is that they're singing. "Troll"? "Spinet"?

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" contains the now-obsolete subjunctive "Until the Son of God appear". The very title of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" has been the source of generations of confusion.

"Frosty wind made moan"? That was a stretch even when Christina Rossetti came up with it. And the second verse of that one is nothing but a theological contention.

Even the upbeat rager "Deck The Halls" was written in the 1860s. When you combine that with the tendency toward extreme nostalgia in writing these things ("spinet" in a song from the late 1960s? I guess the musical is set 40 years earlier... and the character in the musical is being nostalgic herself), you get weird stuff.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:01 AM
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I say Jingle Bell Rock. Some teacher in fifth grade thought it would be a great song for the class to sing, and drilled us on it for weeks in order to get everyone singing it right. At some point I'm sure I will forgive them. Probably.

Still better than "Must Be Santa".

And years after being drilled on "Must Be Santa" for months, those of us who went into middle-school German class had horrible flashbacks as the "Schnitzelbank" song is basically the same thing.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:04 AM
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Re: Tears in Heaven - no I am absolutely serious. My best guess is that someone checked out enough to like that song in the first place probably didn't have the best judgment in general. I'm fairly certain they were aware what the song was about, too.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:04 AM
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I tried Flywheel Wednesday out of solidarity and got a first-time user who I had to give some assistance in using the app.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:05 AM
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Ours resolved yesterday: Funeral and Shiva. She'll live forever, her best self really, in the recorded interviews for the Holocaust Museum and in some of the books on the subject.

Reminded again of how Roth's depiction of a Jewish cemetery in winter, in the last chapter of Everyman, is pitch perfect.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:11 AM
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46: Tim said to me yesterday that there were 3 industries he dreaded dealing with. I forget what the first one was, but the second one was the wedding-industrial complex, and the third was the for-profit elder care industry. Obviously, taking care of old people's health and well-being properly is a bigger deal than weddings, but both industries ply on people's emotions in a way that's really manipulative.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:12 AM
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42 - I want you to teach all your students Low's "Just Like Christmas" so that they will be better acclimatized to the Duluth hipster scene. (actual answer: "Silent Night", "Jingle Bells", "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer").


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:14 AM
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46: SO EVIL. Rain hellfire upon them and file complaints. Thanks goodness you know that is illegal. Also, ask whether they do PT on weekends. If not, she's just hanging out making them money. Might as well hang out at home. We had a similar thing happen to my grandmother. We ran into a friend of hers at the rehab facility, whose totally functional sister had broken a hip before a flight home, been imprisoned at the facility for nine months (!), developed depression, dementia (possibly from drug interactions (?) and physically atrophied.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:26 AM
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I thought it was first 20 comments?

Maybe! Now I'm not sure.

As penance, you have to teach them Do The Sad Africans Know It's Christmas.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:27 AM
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You need the people providing the services to have cars and the sorts of social skills that you get from having grown up in the same sort of environment as the people to whom you are providing services.

This is what happened in Cuba in the 90s after the Soviet collapse and the end of its subsidies. A lot of professionals (doctors, engineers) moved into the black market / dollar economy providing services for tourists (especially cab rides).


Posted by: Criminally Bulgur | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:27 AM
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51: Sorry for your loss.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:28 AM
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55: I believe it was teo who proposed 40, which was adopted without much discussion.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:29 AM
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Angels from the Realms of Glory would be fun to teach just for the refrain, with everyone trying and failing not to run out of breath halfway through. I think it has different lyrics in the US, though - Angels We have Heard on High?


Posted by: Ume | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:30 AM
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I am deceptively close to the bottom of the Uber article.


Posted by: Econolicious | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:30 AM
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51: ditto to 57.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:37 AM
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And years after being drilled on "Must Be Santa" for months

Huh. I literally never encountered that until Dylan covered it 5-6 years ago.

If 1 is Silent Night, 2 has to be something poppy, whether a '40s standard or something from the rock era ("Father Christmas" by the Kinks? That horrible Greg Lake atheistic one?)


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:43 AM
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Back Door Santa.


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:56 AM
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FWIW, the two CDs "In The Air" and "Many A Mile" (available here) are both quite good and recorded with ESL students in mind (as well as the obvious audience of parents of young children -- a friend with a one-year-old recently mentioned that he'd liked the recordings before but is really falling in love with them now).

I don't think either of them have any Christmas music. I can't find a track listing for "Many A Mile" but Amazon shows the tracks on "In The Air" as:

Working on the Railroad/Wheels on the Bus/Train Is A-Comin'/Row Row Row Your Boat/Go Tell Aunt Rhody/DoneyGal/Ye Ho Little Fish/Little Cabin in the Woods/I Hear You Buzzin' Cousin/ Eency Weency Spider/Coming Round the Mountain/Old MacDonald/This Old Man/Big Ship A-Sailing/Green Grass Grows All Around/Skip To My Lou/Buffalo Gals/Chairs to Mend/My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean/You Are My Sunshine/If All of the Raindrops/Put Your Finger in the Air/Everybody Knows I Love My Toes/I Got a Hat/Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Medley.

Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:57 AM
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My sympathies to you and your family, idp.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:58 AM
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Look, fuckfaces, just do the "Twelve Days of Christmas"; sure, some lyrics make no sense but the Chinese students will end up laughing and thinking WTF is this thing to sing and that's part of the fucking holiday. Just listen to what I'm saying and do it.

On Uber, I feel like Uber black is more acceptable than UberX, because you're basically paying for and getting an ordinary black car driver who gets paid about the same and has a slightly better delivery mechanism, plus you roll like a boss and not a tool. Of course the OP gets it right and we're basically becoming a way less fun version of Brazil.


Posted by: Tim "Ripper" Owens | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:07 AM
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I remember learning "Deck the Halls" for an elementary school Christmas program and the teacher spending a LOT of time explaining the lyrics. Doesn't seem like a great choice to me.

To 59: I know "Angels from the Realms of Glory" and "Angels We Have Heard on High" as two songs with different melodies.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:08 AM
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66: Have you guys ever considered doing a Christmas album?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:12 AM
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46: I hope you are serious that you will file a complaint. I hope you don't decide that it's too much of a pain in the ass, and not worth your time and energy. I would understand if you did decide that--it is too much of a pain in the ass and not worth your time and energy. But it's really important.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:14 AM
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59/67.2: Me, too. One not as a Christmas song, just a normal everyday hymn, right?

I recently heard "Santa Buddy" for the first time. An abomination sung by Michel Bublé, entreaties directed to "Santa, buddy" for a Rolex and a yacht, maybe it would be nice to show them capitalist pigs in action.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:15 AM
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39: canonically someone says "bless you" next so we never get to hear any more...

CANONICALLY, someone asks "what's snoo?" and gets the reply "not much, what's new with you?" and we never hear any more.

Anyway, Buttercup should teach her charges or whatever "This Little Babe".


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:15 AM
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Oh, huh, guess it's till called Santa Baby, but he addresses St. Nick as buddy in maybe every other verse.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:16 AM
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way less fun version of Brazil

Love conquers all.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:23 AM
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"Fairytale of New York" would be educational, as well as entertaining.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:31 AM
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Is "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses as ubiquitous everywhere else as it is here (good song btw). I don't have a clear sense. "Fairytale of New York" is on the radio a fair amount but at this point "Christmas Wrapping" feels like a standard.


Posted by: Tim "Ripper" Owens | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:39 AM
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I've had good luck with the Earnest P. Worrel lyrics for Oh Christmas Tree.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:44 AM
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Yes, "Wrapping" is everywhere. Although I don't know if the all-Xmas stations play it as much as the rockish stations do.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:17 AM
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The versions I know of Angels From the Realms of Glory and Angels We Have Heard on High are so similar (just the second and fourth lines of the latter going back down to the tonic) that I always assumed they were just the UK/US variants.

On a completely different note: Black Christmas


Posted by: Ume | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:23 AM
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all-Xmas stations

Oh dear God, no.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:26 AM
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75: Yes, "Christmas Wrapping" is ubiquitous, but now I am sad every time I hear it because a dj the other day introduced it by telling us that the singer died at 40 of lung cancer. I never knew that and now that peppy, quirky song has DIED YOUNG stamped on it.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:28 AM
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How is that young?


Posted by: Opinionated Sandman | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:30 AM
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79: Is this just a U.S. phenomenon? Most pop stations start to go all-Christmas .... around Black Friday, maybe?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:31 AM
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Most? As far as I know, it's just the one locally.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:32 AM
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"Oh Tannenbaum", in German, is the obvious choice for the situation in 21.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:33 AM
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I've been liking this carol recently. Teach the kids the shape notes!


Posted by: Bave | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:35 AM
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http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2005-12-11-xmas-music-side_x.htm

According to this USA Today article there were 4 in Columbus in 2005.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:40 AM
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45, 56 and 66.2 get to what I find so so so depressing about the trajectory of this city. Like all our hard work coaching these lovely immigrant kids in mock trial is just setting them up for crippling student loan debt and becoming acculturated peon labor for the new asshole economy. What is it about people that they don't give a damn about other people having a decent, normal and middlingly secure life? Why doesn't living in *that* society seem to have no appeal worth fighting for????

al, that is truly fucked up, excellent you and your siblings are acting swiftly. You may have missed it in the other thread, but at the risk of being a tiresome repeater I cannot recommend enough Atul Gawande's recent Reith lecture on precisely the situation your family is in, you can grab it off the BBC radio 4 isomething or other. Get your husband to listen to it, it'll probably make those plane tix ho down easier.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:44 AM
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80: Yes, that's the sad overtone to The Waitresses. But I will re-link to my favorite of theirs, "No Guilt" with a fun video in the spirit of the song by Cassie J. Sneider.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:45 AM
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80 I know, I was just reading about that on the Wikipedia. I'll tell you what boys DON'T like. Boys don't like peppy, quirky singers who died young.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:50 AM
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Since this is now a Christmas music thread, I suppose I'll get into the spirit of the season and piss off the xkcd haters with this.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:52 AM
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78: Wikipedia says it is a US/UK split. Interesting. Apparently, the US kept the different melodies and the UK switched to singing them with the same. Here's the US version. I'd link a video, but my coworkers don't need to hear me hunting through hymns.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 12:19 PM
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79 et al: Data!

Among other things in that link, iHeartMedia (nee ClearChannel) has 184 stations in that format; that's got to be close to every single market in the country, and of course they're not the only radio company out there.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 1:18 PM
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B&S: Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto

Huh, I had never heard that one. Passed it along to a few people, thanks!


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 1:47 PM
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You know what not-a-real-Christmas-song popped into my head a day or two ago? A Pizza Hut commercial from the I want to say early 90s on the theme of "order a pizza so you aren't eating Turkey leftovers" to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas where they sang "flaming turkey breasts!" instead of "five golden rings!" I think I'm saying this in the hopes that Heebie remembers it and will now share my torment.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 5:17 PM
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The internet informs me it was flaming turkey wings.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 5:19 PM
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Christmas in the Sand is the ubiquitous holiday song down here, but I don't think I've ever heard it in temperate climates. But maybe that's because its only a couple years old and I've been away awhile? Has anyone here heard it on American radio?


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 5:43 PM
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So apparently the guy who wrote Minecraft bought that house that Halford liked.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 5:49 PM
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Notch understand the value of machine guns for keeping creepers and skelitons at bey.

I don't imagine We Parang de Wrong House gets much play on North American radio either....


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 5:52 PM
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IMO, peak Xmas music was achieved in 2012 with Sufjan Stevens' Christmas Unicorn, especially as played in his sing along tour.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 6:19 PM
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||

So they just brought in Beveljoint Cryptobranch to keep playing Sherlock?

|>


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 6:42 PM
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45: On Uber, I wonder if inequality producing a large, willing labor force is sufficient. Maybe you also need recent downward mobility (i.e. new inequality). You need the people providing the services to have cars and the sorts of social skills that you get from having grown up in the same sort of environment as the people to whom you are providing services.

Interesting point, but I'm just as interested in this:

Another distinction [between Mumbai and San Francisco], just as telling, lies in the opportunities the local economy affords to the army of on-demand delivery people it supports. In Mumbai, the man who delivers a bottle of rum to my doorstep can learn the ins and outs of the booze business from spending his days in a liquor store. If he scrapes together enough capital, he may one day be able to open his own shop and hire his own delivery boys.
His counterpart in San Francisco has no such access. The person who cleans your home in SoMa has little interaction with the mysterious forces behind the app that sends him or her to your door. The Uber driver who wants an audience with management can't go to Uber headquarters; he or she must visit a separate "driver center."

This too is as old as the sun: such a system relies very heavily on maintaining ignorance between buyers and sellers. Indeed, the 'seller' becomes not the person actually providing the service (the delivery person, the person who does the ironing), but the middleman.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:02 PM
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The 538 article in 92 is very good and includes Glenn McDonald, famously-among-some-including-some-of-you for The War Against Silence (and Every Noise at Once).

Is there a good Christmas album this year? Aside from the occasional Sufjan update, Edmund Welles's Hymns and a few charming-enough She & Him songs, I think the most recently recorded tracks in my playlist are Over the Rhine (2006) and the Raveonettes (2008). Oh, actually, this was new and pretty good.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 7:57 PM
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I'd go with Cherry Bough, Silent Night, and Rudolph for the chronosequence (& I really like Cherry Bough). Rudolph is there for everyone who can't sing; if I had good singers, some swing version.

_Just One Angel_ is, uh, less than a decade old.

OP: I assume the Uber economy will keep the 'real' economy from getting back on its feet, because it regards all margin going to labor as an exploitable inefficiency. I didn't speak up when they came for warehouse workers...


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 8:52 PM
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Their frequent price changes are probably giving them excellent, deep data on precisely how much they can squeeze drivers.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:06 PM
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This too is as old as the sun: such a system relies very heavily on maintaining ignorance between buyers and sellers.
Ah, yes, intermediation. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This your first time at the pin factory?


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:23 PM
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100: Sherlock is probably a less conventional character.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:25 PM
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I can't find the quote, but there was an article or interview somewhere, possibly even with an Uber executive, where someone talks about how great it is to be able to hire people for a few hours, get some work out of them, and then fire them.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:26 PM
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102: I've heard this year's Over the Rhine Christmassy album is good, but I haven't gotten it and don't plan to go to their holiday show so this isn't a real recommendation.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 9:31 PM
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Ok, I know u/f would rather focus on regulation gutting by overpriveleged tech bros, eg looking at the fight between airbnb and NY state hotel laws, but you can't look at the systemic reasons for the rise of uber and not this:

https://medium.com/@blakeross/uber-gov-29db5fdff372

It smugly but amusingly rips Las Vegas taxi regulators apart for being an expensive, useless tool of entrenched taxi industry. Come on - there must be a better way to regulate this in 2014.

Bonus depressing Vegas link on waitstaff earning more than academics:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/your-waitress-your-professor.html?_r=1


Posted by: conflated | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:25 PM
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Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas worked fine with Chinese highschool students, but it's a bit of a downer song.


Posted by: conflated | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:26 PM
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Is there a good Christmas album this year?

I reject the premise of the question.


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:40 PM
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I don't have anything in particular against Christmas music, but I admit I am surprised to hear that some people apparently seek it out.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 10:42 PM
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112 Have you even listened to the CU?


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:22 PM
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113: I have now! I liked the first two or three minutes, but the ten minutes after that was pretty repetitive. Still not something I would have sought out independently.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:38 PM
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It's better if you're there singing along. Wondering just how long it's going to go.

And whoever filmed it missed all the wacky stuff the rest of the band is doing.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 12-19-14 11:54 PM
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Oh, whoops. My computer forgot who I am.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 12:01 AM
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Don't worry, I could tell.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 12:03 AM
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Yeah, that was for the NSA.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 12:08 AM
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Dammit!


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 12:08 AM
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Heh.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 12:09 AM
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"Over the Rhine Christmas album" just makes me think "Battle of the Bulge".


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 1:29 AM
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I suppose it's not surprising that ajay would not be familiar with neighborhoods in Cincinnati (and bands named after them), but it's still worthy of note. America: Full of Germans!


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 1:41 AM
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121. Inky pinky parlez-vous.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 6:26 AM
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100: sure sounds like it. in fact, I had already thoughtit quite lame that all we had was chaste boyhood reveries and no actual gay dudes getting it on, because I am a feminist stickler for historical accuracy. no but really, is this tom hanks in 1994 or some shit?

idp, please accept my condolences. you have made me want to read philip roth, something he himself has never accomplished thus far, so maybe I will do that. it is sad and fascinating to think of the last living links to that horror parting one by one all over the world.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 6:59 AM
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Well, that was a bust. I was told that I was going to teach members of the English club some Christmas carols, and I should prepare 2-3 songs. I ended up going with Silent Night, 12 Days of Christmas, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas.* I made a power point with the lyrics, glossary of the difficult words, and embedded mp3s of the songs. I get there, and it's a "Christmas party"** Turns out what they actually wanted was for me to teach them a few lines of a popular Christmas song. I tried with Silent Night, but it was too hard and no one was really interested in learning. I ended up having to sing it a capella in a kind of awkward range in front of people who were probably very bored at that point. I got about a quarter of them to sing a simplified version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, which they'd learned before. They did ask for a copy of the ppt, so maybe it wasn't a total waste of my time.

*I looked into more contemporary stuff but it either felt too childish, too sad, too saccharine, or too hard to sing.
**The kind of party people who know nothing about Christmas or parties throw. Like, say, take a roomful of 18 year old Chinese peasants and tell them that people in America throw these things called "parties" and celebrate this thing called "Christmas." Then provide about 5 bottles of warm orange drink, some tangerines, and tinsel. This being China, there are two MCs, there are a boy and a girl in Sad Santa Baby outfit. One kid sings part of a Westlife song a capella, in somewhat comprehensible English. Then there's a game of musical chairs, which everyone else in the room watches. You make awkward small talk and take lots of selfies with a bunch of freshmen who are really! excited! to speak! with! a! foreigner!!! They're especially excited you speak Chinese, because despite being English majors none of them actually know English. Explain over and over again that no you're not an undergrad and you're actually much closer in age to their parents, while the look completely shocked.*** You leave when the party winds down, at about 7:55 pm (about an hour after it started).

***Actually, once I get over my grumpiness at the lameness of the events they invite me to attend and the extreme solicitousness that feels like borderline condescension (but isn't meant that way), I actually like hanging out with the college students here, and they're quite interesting. This is a 2nd tier pre-professional college, and the students all come from rural backgrounds from other areas of the province. They're all the first in their families to get higher education, and many of them have to borrow money to pay the $1,100/year tuition. Most of them go on to work in the nicer jobs in the tourist industry, like at the front desk of a hotel or as a tour guide.**** Most of them hate the city we live in because it's quite expensive for its size and the locals look down on people from other parts of the province.*****

****Good students get to do summer internships at hotels in Shanghai, and the top students get sent to do internships in the US, working at US hotels or restaurants, including KFC.
****The province is famous in China for being very poor and backwards, and for producing coastal Eastern China's servant class. My city is the only nationally famous tourist destination in the province. The locals are quite proud of that, and they very strongly distance themselves from everyone else.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 7:40 AM
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122: I have wondered if the band regrets the name now that the neighborhood is drastically gentrified. Once it stopped being German, it was full of white Appalachian families and black ones, so it was also considered the powderkeg for the "race riots" in 2001. Now it grows more hipster by the day and the city just announced that parking meters in OTR will cost more and require payment longer into the night, which also sounds like a good way to be inhospitable to poor people. The core band members got married and moved to a farm back in the late '90s. They took the name because they lived in the neighborhood because they were in college and it was cheap there, but I don't think this is the growth they hoped for then.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 7:49 AM
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125: That's why I mostly try to avoid understanding other cultures.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 8:23 AM
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Is there a good Christmas album this year?

Not from this year, but I have a soft spot for these Moldovan dudes doing "Feliz Navidad".


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 8:50 AM
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On the OP, re: Uber economy, I wonder whether this NLRB development might have some impact.

Alternative story on this development, for those disinclined toward Vox.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 1:00 PM
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79: Is this just a U.S. phenomenon? Most pop stations start to go all-Christmas .... around Black Friday, maybe?

I think so, though to be honest I don't really listen to music radio so I wouldn't really know these days.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 12-20-14 9:00 PM
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