Planning my wedding was so stressful. Hard agree for anything else.
The easiest event to plan is a funeral lunch. Just murder someone with an active church and they'll probably give a lunch. You can just get married or do math presentations after lunch.
You can't get them to grade papers no matter how many people you murder.
I feel this in my bones. I'm now Department Chair, and I don't mind-- and even enjoy parts of!-- most of the stuff that people say is terrible about being Chair. But the event planning is a constant source of stress. I'd rather spend a week in Faculty strategic planning meetings than organize a single event. I *particularly* hate doing the promotional work of encouraging people to attend things I myself would much rather not attend!
Event planning has also topped my list of "things I'm bad at" for a long time, and especially since I somehow ended up as co-chair of my former department's annual graduate student conference. It wasn't a disaster, but I think the other co-chair got as mad at me as I've ever seen her get at anyone.
You know what's a little like event planning, though? Dealing with this big national event happening in November and all the other stuff leading up to it. You have to call all these people! You have to do all this research! There's money involved! It's also agonistic! Pure crap. I'd rather plan an international move, so to speak.
A friend of mine once complained "how is it that they both involve the same elements - church, minister, flowers, reception venue, music, transport, catering - but you can organise a funeral in three days and my wedding is taking a year?"
We told him it's because the star of the funeral doesn't generally have as many opportunities to make her preferences known during the planning process.
I think it's mainly that there's a lower standard of quality accepted. Especially for the catering.
The flowers don't have to match even.
At least for my wedding, 98% of the answers were "I don't care so why don't we skip it?" That part was nice.
You can break a glass by throwing it at the floor and save the cost of the napkin.
Huh, I like and am good at event planning. I'll plan your events, heebie!
In my admittedly limited experience, I think the person who plans events is usually the first person laid off in times of trouble since canceling events is the first thing done to save money.
I wouldn't want to do it as a career, for sure.
I just got a promotional email riffing on a poorly-planned recent event (NYT link). I assume I'm the last to hear about it. Were there highlights beyond the "illustrations ... marred by unusual misspellings and phrases, including: 'a pasadise of sweet teats' and 'exarserdray lollipops'"?
11: We have someone like that in my office. If we didn't, event planning would fall to me and I think I'd have to resign.
Yeah. That's going to be a classic.
All happy funerals are alike; each unhappy wedding is unhappy in its own way.
The Glasgow Willy Wonka thing is hilarious. They seem to have tried to use AI for, like, everything.
Possibly including the event planning? The website is still up; I was fine until I got to the "Twilight Tunnel" image, at which point lourdes came downstairs to see if I was laughing or crying. DODJECTION.
I think everyone now assumes for-profit events with no long history are just fraud.
21: The line in the NYT article about the woman who was relieved there was an actual event is funny.
There was something here called an Immersive van Gogh that was just stupid enough to not be fraud.
The moving line of things that used to be so difficult or expensive that they either weren't used without art, or at least they were sensually impressive on their rare occasions. Now they're cheap and automated, and we get to live through realizing they're unimpressive.
If I were all memey I could turn this into a "how old are you?" quiz for which one was the first you recognized. Laserprinters and computer typesetting as utterly terrible replacements for calligraphy, for me, but that's because my college had both very late calligraphy and fairly early Macintoshes.
My handwriting has always been just awful. I just got lucky that my teachers were wrong when they said you can't type everything. It certainly wasn't foresight.
Actually, I take back 5.1 last, because now I remember that the co-chair got much angrier with the keynote speaker. The professor we had booked originally DGAFfed his way out and handed it off to "a friend" who basically did Glasgow Wonka-level crap for 25 minutes, including making the audience watch an entire Downfall meme with subtitles about some video game, and I remember my colleague saying something to the effect that she had to sit completely still, because if she let herself move a millimeter, she probably would have taken a swing at him. It's all coming back.
I have a friend who dislikes event planning who is still bitter about having done of a lot of work on logistics for an international human rights conference in 2001 which had to be rescheduled after the attack on the world trade center.
23- We got scammed by that because we read a review that said it was ok, so we tried to buy tickets, but ended up buying from a scam company with a very similar name and calendar (Van Gogh: the Immersive Experience, vs Imagine Van Gogh, who then insisted that the other company were the scammers.) We just did a chargeback and didn't go to either.
They followed that up with other more and more ridiculous ones I saw ads for. There was immersive Vatican, some other artist, and I forget the others.
It's not a thing I enjoy, and I rarely have to do the promotional end, which seems like the draining part of it. The mechanics of securing a space and marching through a checklist isn't as obnoxious - but it's still one off generalist work where I'll always feel like an amateur. My wife is good at it, except for the marketing part - and store staff, which is generally good at helping in surprising ways, doesn't seem to promote the events that we do plan very well.
One of my coworkers is now in the middle of planning a multi-day work event. The thing is, she was hired recently and has never attended this event before, and the person who handled it previously has retired. So she's been searching for clues in the now-retired planner's old files and notebooks -- "Oh, it looks like there's usually a cocktail hour? And I need to rent the room for...maybe three hours? And I guess order hors d'oeuvres? And here's a contract for power strip rental -- what could that be for, and should I do that?" It's like watching a time traveler from the 16th century reconstruct a modern American wedding by reviewing old receipts.
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Classicists, have you read the new Emily Wilson Iliad, and would you share your thoughts about it or other translations? Do you prefer Fagles, Lattimore, others? Thank you.
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I went to an "immersive" experience once, called Secrets of Tutankhamen, or some nonsense like that. (Why did we think this was a good idea? The answer is a mystery, lost to the sands of time.) It turned out to be an empty warehouse room with Power Point slideshows projected on the walls at the wrong throw distance. There was part of the show that was definitely just like a screensaver. I guess it was pretty fun? It was a complete scam.
I'm going to take this thread all the way to 100 by myself, unless salma khan steps in to sell me some shoes.
33: Less than impressed by your perseverance, jms.
An immersive experience that was actually not crappy, and conquered my skepticism, was teamLab Planets in Tokyo. I'm as eye-rolly as anyone, but it turned out that walking around a giant mirrored room in a foot of warm water while they project illuminated carp around your ankles was a thing I needed in my life.
the thing described in 35 sounds a lot better than a bunch of van Gogh crap.
Hm. If you want spiky, expensive, femme clothing, why not go with a Karolina" Laskowska corset?
I haven't read the Wilson Iliad and am also curious if anyone has opinions. Lattimore is the one I keep on the shelf. Fagles is somehow... cinematic?... in a way that rubs me wrong.
Karolina Laskowska is of interest but I was hoping for a better exchange rate on kroner.
Yours for only 0,00 NOK!
They're examples of bespoke work, not items regularly for sale.
Has anyone here been to any of the Meow Wolfs? (Meow wolves?) I thought they sounded cool, but I also thought the Van Gogh thing sounded cool (and never actually attended either).
I've been to the one in Santa Fe and it is very cool.
44: I have! I saw the one in Denver. It was a lot of fun -- think of a trippy children's museum for adults and that was kind of the vibe.
I would no more to go an immersive Van Gogh thing that I would go to an immersive Wonka thing. But I would go see a real Van Gogh if the line was short.
9 was my experience with my mother's funeral. "She literally wouldn't give a shit about any of this so stop trying to upsell us fucking prayer cards."
Saw The Mountain Goats at Meow Wolf Santa Fe in August 2021 (vax required mask required, Delta times). Truly a healing experience to finally be back in a room of a lot of people yelling "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me."
I'm pretty sure they had a bit of a songs about wolves subtheme for the setlists.
Also went there not for a concert, anyway there really fun if you're ok with not trying to hard to understand anything. Similar vibe to the City Museum in St. Louis of like a giant art jungle gym situation.
Also, pretty sure it's Meows Wolf.
Here I was thinking I had no idea what Meow Wolf was, but now I see that they're behind Omega Mart!
Hah! I was contemplating doing a guest post on Meow Wolf (we just went to the one out here in Santa Fe and quite enjoyed it) and immersive experiences in general. Off the hook. My daughter thought it sounded a bit like a good escape room experience but I've never been to one so can't say; I assume they can run the gamut from very good to dreadful.
My wife and I quite liked Meow Wolf and went whole hog into the framing story spending a lot of time reading the ephemera and the like which "told" the story,* and then tracing the connections to the art . I was worried it would be quite lame (as many museums with interactive exhibits often are with busted tech and very little actually working). But it seemed to be fairly well maintained. Also enjoyed many of the art things themselves. I am looking to do the one in Denver when we go up there in May but the friend I am visiting was not all impressed with the Santa Fe one. Another friend dismissed the Santa Fe one as "Chuckie Cheese for grownups." Fuck 'em, they've grown old in soul.
*I was quite struck with how it resembled the novel House of Leaves in several ways--house connected to other worldly weirdness, story often advanced through ephemera. And doing some searching it does seem to have been an inspiration for some of the creators. I do quite recommend the book if you are into that sort of thing. Another book it brought to mind was Roadside Picnic, which I believe we have discussed here before and which I also highly recommend.
Speaking of going places to see things, I just realized that if I want to see the 100% eclipse, I have to drive to Cleveland. But if I want to see the 97% eclipse, I can just walk outside.
54 This is one of those half a loaf half a baby situations. I think there's just no substitute for totality.
31, 40: Not a classicist, but really enjoyed E. Wilson's Iliad! And that after having bounced off at least three other translations over the years. I was completely hooked and read the whole thing in about three weeks. And that was only reading at home, since I found the physical copy (big hardback) did not work well on the train.
Here's what I wrote not long after I finished:
https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/31/the-iliad-translated-by-emily-wilson/
The write-up has several snippets, both from her informative introduction and from the poem itself. 10/10, would Iliad with Wilson again.
ps You can click on the Emily Wilson tag at the end to find what I wrote about her Odyssey, if you are so inclined. The tags "Epic," "Gods, Demigods & Heroes," and "War What Is It Good For" take you to slightly different places.
57: Seconding Charley on this based on seeing totality twice (Mazatlan 1991 and Munich 1999), and near-totality once (Baton Rouge 1984). It's even worth going to Cleveland.
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The Holdovers is not bad, but not particularly good either. It is itself, Oscars-wise, a legacy admission.
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I have a bleg.
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I've spotted a couple of jobs that I may apply for which are a fairly big step up in terms of salary. It's been 8 years since I last had to make a resume/CV and I wondered if there were any go-to templating solutions or approaches that people have found worked for them?
I can google it, obviously, and use a template in Google Docs or Canva, or something similar. In the past I used LaTeX. So I'm looking more for positive personal experiences.
>
60: that's probably true about the legacy admission part, but I really liked it. Maybe because of the Dad locked up in a mental institution bit and the way people used to hide all mental illness in a family which felt very realistic to me.
63: I also liked most of it, but in a very low-voltage way.
From the sublime to the ridiculous: does anyone have 40k fiction recommendations? (I have zero interest in the game qua game, but find the setting intriguing.)
The Caiphas Cain books by Sandy Mitchell are fairly jolly - explicitly "Flashman/Blackadder in space" - and Dan Abnett's Heresy books are worth reading. "Prospero Burns" is probably the best.
I also appreciated watching it in an old-timey theater that was a former car dealership. The experience of going to a movie theater and being with others seemed part of the art, a throwback to a different time.
If you wait a year or two, there'll be a TV show
61: I don't think the templates matter much. I do know that I was very bad at writing a resume. It took a couple rounds of comments from people in my field before I got the wording gooder. Best of luck.
explicitly "Flashman/Blackadder in space"
Never in a million years would I think I'd want to read 40k fic but, well now, here we are.
Mobes, to hearken back to an earlier, simpler time, let me be the first to suggest you go watch the eclipse in Montreal.
Apparently, I have to be in Pittsburgh that day. There's health care happening, plus school.
Your school, Moby, or the kid's school? Nothing he learns that day will be comparable to experiencing a total eclipse. If there must be an academic component, he can read the Annie Dillard essay and write a comparison. I'm halfway surprised the science teachers aren't telling everyone to blow off school that day, especially considering there won't be another one visible from the States until 2044.
Probably true, but the health care thing is not movable or skippable.
I can google it, obviously, and use a template in Google Docs or Canva, or something similar. In the past I used LaTeX. So I'm looking more for positive personal experiences.
I don't really have a suggestion, having not been on the job market since 2006. But when I was revising my CV in the past decade, I was amused/charmed to see Kieran Healy's template on LaTeX, so I used that.
I think I'm going to have to go on Nextdoor and fight the Boomers. My neighbor installed a 30,000 lumen exterior light about 20 feet from our house with one bulb pointing directly at our window.
Either that our rig a mylar sheet so that the light reflects back.
Mylar sheet! Mylar sheet! The live-blogging opportunities are way more fun this way.
I need to build a frame, because I'm pretty sure that if I stuck it on their fence, they would just take it down.
A couple years ago I was briefly stranded in a Barnes & Noble and grabbed the nearest thing off the shelf, which turned out to be 40k fiction about (ogres? orcs?) playing high school football. I guess there's a range? I'll probably try the Wilson Iliad first.
I have no idea what people are talking about.
I have four 2x4s that are eight foot long or so and a couple of "space blankets" from hiking. I could built a pretty big mirror and I think I could place it where it isn't exposed to strong winds.
Or you can just lean a regular mirror on your window sill, from the inside, pointed at their bedroom.
But I think the square footage of the mirror is the key.
Sounds like you really want a large, concave mirror that you can aim.
Also, the window doesn't have a sill. It's the window in the door to the patio.
We have sills on other windows. Though you've given me a better idea. I can just put a mirror in between the glass storm door and the regular door.
But I think the square footage of the mirror is the key.
Right. But the glass area of the storm door is about four times the square footage of the window in the door-door.
Because it's not your sill set.
OT: Kyrsten Sinema is dropping out of the race for Senate.
97 is an admission that I can't beat 96 and therefore heebie won.
Agreed that heebie won this thread with 96.
This is a long shot, but did anyone here listen to the audio book of Anxious People, by Frederik Backman? If so, you remember the real estate agent who always answers the phone with "How's Tricks?" (House Tricks.) Our new admin assistant has that exact voice. It took me forever to place it.
Also the book is very good.
Concavity would be sweet. Mylar sheet in a square frame in the wind would bell one way and the other unpredictably? That might be even *more* annoying.
What do the neighbors seem to think they're doing?
They don't answer emails or calls. I don't know.
They might be mad at me about taking too long to fix a gutter that was pour water near them, but not on them.
They've been trying to reach you via lighthouse signals.
A gutter that spouted water onto them would be a truly spectacular neighbor-feud move.
They are slightly uphill and close enough that the water would run back to us.
They don't answer emails or calls. I don't know.
Could you knock on the door and ask?
Not the front door. That's too far away.
Anyway, it's been turned off. At least for last night.
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I talked to my Mom last night and it sounds like she is going to vote for RFK Jr. she's been drawn to homeopathy over the past several years and just said "a lot of people have concerns about vaccines."
She was a Republican for a while (anti-choice) but won't vote Republican now because of the death penalty and her strong pacifist views.
My main worry is not that this will throw Maine to Trump but that she won't get an updated Covid vaccine. I know she got 3 primary shots.
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120 https://x.com/armanddoma/status/1765175777816113492?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
I liked the response: "I'm genuinely taken aback and to the left".
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Whereas Anatomy of a Fall is pretty damn good.
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But trigger warning for bd experimental protocol.
Someone in the next county up was attacked by a bear last night. They're getting stronger.
The moral of the story is that you should probably let the dog learn a valuable life lesson on its own.
Shorter Moby in this thread: "the arc of the gutter water is long and it bends back towards us"
130: lourdes says the new Netflix series is completely intolerable, but the kid is enjoying it. I watched a few minutes and got a real community theater vibe from the acting. Everyone is trying! (It seemed intolerable.)
I dipped my toe back in the water and read some political news (from various countries), and immediately went stark raving mad. I'm calming myself by reviewing the Arabic alphabet. Recovery in time for tomorrow's SOTU seems unlikely.
I don't know the Arabic alphabet but I use the numbers.