Also: per cultural narratives, are the latter predominantly male?
The riders are predominantly male, so yes, but I've been bounced by the ladies too, IYKWIM.
Thanks for the visual aid?
Listen, pal, I knew that if I didn't provide a picture, ajay, or some other cantankerous clown, would ignorantly google up a photo of the new seats and say "Those don't look sufficiently contiguous to enable the bounce you describe. I question your story, your manhood, and your honesty."
I wondered about rail transit in Chicago. Until my recent visits, once by Amtrak, I hadn't realized it was served by such an extensive intra-city regional rail. I knew the El was there, but I didn't realize you could get 50 miles out of town.
4: I like "The hardest-working paper in America." I hadn't seen that before; gives it a kind of James Brown vibe that suits the Sun-Times, just as "All the news that's fit to print" suits the NYT.
On the other hand, my local newspaper is a bit too self-important and melodramatic: "Democracy dies in darkness."
I dont have this problem because I am not scrawny.
On a related note-- what is worse in your seatmate's earbud speakers, trap or metal?
There are three separate people with Tourette's who occasionally cohabit a train car with me in the morning.
Not an issue in London as people avoid sitting next to other people to the extent possible, or, in the alternative, all the seats are taken by the time you board.
On a related note-- what is worse in your seatmate's earbud speakers, trap or metal?
I go on a regular three-mile run on a heavily-trafficked course near my house. On any given evening there are one or two people who carry around radios or mp3 players attached to tiny speakers. I don't care if it's trap or metal or Rachmaninoff,* everything sounds run-ruiningly terrible when it's dopplering at you or away from you on tiny plastic amplifiers. Do these people not know about earbuds?
*This doesn't include the guy who bikes around with a ghettoblaster on his handlebars playing the Stylistics and Brenton Wood, that guy is awesome and every time I share the track with him is a blessing.
ghettoblaster
Does one still use this term?
I wondered about rail transit in Chicago. Until my recent visits, once by Amtrak, I hadn't realized it was served by such an extensive intra-city regional rail. I knew the El was there, but I didn't realize you could get 50 miles out of town.
Yeah, you can go all the way to Joliet or Kenosha, WI. The Metra system is pretty great. Also the Electric train line that goes from the Loop past University of Chicago to the South Side is part of the Metra system for some reason instead of being part of the El.
Does one still use this term?
In the unlikely event of my encountering one, what else would I call it?
Boombox describes the same thing more neutrally?
boombox maybe.
The battery-powered bluetooth speakers that are the contemporary replacement, I don't know if these have a generic name yet.
Let me be the first to suggest Boombox.
It's a reference to this movie, where Apollo from the original Battlestar Galactica literally blasts the ghetto.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097426/
That movie came after the term "ghetto blaster" had been widely used. Karen Finley of all people recorded a single in 1988 including an oft-sampled clip of her saying "Drop That Ghetto Blaster".
I didn't realize British people had never heard "boombox" before and exclusively use "ghetto blaster" and think it's a neutral and objective term. Strange.
17 - Yes, I was there at the time. I feel like "ghettoblaster" was a neutral term but maybe that's because I used it (of course, since I am so in touch with the ghetto it would therefore be automatically OK). It would be interesting to see what word they use in the original "Breakin'." Maybe like LL Cool J, just "radio."
17: Karen Finley made me think -- naked woman with chocolate performance artist? Is that right? A villain from the golden age of vilifying NEA grant recipients?
A villain from the golden age of vilifying NEA grant recipients?
Have I recommended (former NEA Director) Jane Alexander's Command Performance: An Actress In The Theater of Politics here? I stumbled across it in a used book store last year and found it surprisingly interesting.
Ghetto blaster sounded fine to me back in the eighties -- like, I think (although I'm not certain) that someone carrying one would have called it that and not perceived it as meant to slur at all. But it does sound bad now, and boombox works just as well.
I didn't realize British people had never heard "boombox" before
Unless they played Toejam & Earl
Once them seats get pounded down flat and hard this problem will go away.
We don't have ghettos the way you do. We used to, but these days Notting Hill is full of millionaires.
I just took the subway in China, and was impressed by how clean and high-tech it was. Also, they had a sign warning against manspreading.
My recollection of subways in Beijing was that they were jammed all the time. The idea of an empty seat of any sort was a fever dream of luxury. Also, if you open up some empty space by manspreading, someone will stand between your knees. Maybe two someones.
I don't do well in crowds for long periods of time, so I've just avoided Beijing.
Moby has retreated to the Shaolin monastery to perfect his wushu but will emerge if the prople need him