Geez, Labs. Too much spicy food last night?
And what exactly was it about this dream that you found disturbing?
I think the symbolism of this dream couldn't be clearer.
If you've got to have an anxiety dream, this is the one to have.
It could have been worse. It could have been:
In lieu of defending your thesis, please explain to the committee what we were thinking when we admitted you.
It seems like it's about an uncomfortable relationship with greatness and genius, and feeling inadequate in relationship to it. You're being examined by a great authority, which makes you feel weak in the dream, but you're specifically being asked to imagine yourself in a position of authority over another great, which is itself uncomfortable. And while they have musical instruments to express themselves, you have craft sticks. I wonder if it has to do with being a philosophy professor, and feeling like you're immersed in this canon of greats, and worrying you're not up to some part of your job task.
80 bucks please.
Did Rostropovich tell you to find your soulmate?
It seems like it's about an uncomfortable relationship with greatness and genius, and feeling inadequate in relationship to it. You're being examined by a great authority, which makes you feel weak in the dream, but you're specifically being asked to imagine yourself in a position of authority over another great, which is itself uncomfortable. And while they have musical instruments to express themselves, you have craft sticks. I wonder if it has to do with being a philosophy professor, and feeling like you're immersed in this canon of greats, and worrying you're not up to some part of your job task.
That, or he's gay.
Well, yes, sponges do recall SpongeBob Squarepants, and craft sticks are made of wood. But I have a sinister plan to promote Labs's repression of his true identity. I said that dream of him riding on a geyser that spurted from the Washington Monument was work-related too.
In lieu of defending your thesis, please explain to the committee what we were thinking when we admitted you.
Ah, memories.
Also, I find Mstislav incredibly fun to say. Its euphony with Rostropovich is only the logical fugue to a sprightly prelude.
Like Ondenekst Mauripovich.
SB, each day I fall a little more in love with you.
You'd fall right back out when I told you what I wanted to name the kids.
I'm also lousy in bed, though, so there's that.
I'm not sure about Tia's interpretation. It might be backwards. Seems like the really disturbing part is that they take away his facility with language, and make him speak in the idiom of children. So he has to sit in judgement of the greats, but do it without the tools he most needs. Short version: Labs hates his students.
Good point, Ogged. They're the ones who make him use the craft sticks. Of course, only FL can truly answer these questions.
only FL can truly answer these questions
Nonsense, have at it.
Well, alright then. Humility to the wind. I forgot to mention that this dream contains the hallmark of male anxiety dreams, the dead "pianist." Repeating the dream three times fast reveals the hidden meaning.
I'm also lousy in bed, though, so there's that.
That's not what you were saying before.
A friend in college had an insane Rostropovich box set, but I never got around to copying it.
Ben, never listen to what people say about their sexual prowess before.
As soon as I saw 6 I walked into the next professor's office to tell it to him. We're totally using it.
But TT doesn't have doctoral candidates. Must master's students go through a defense as well?
So this is how Oppenheimer felt.
I guess I can check "make sucky analogy" off my to-do list.
I was trying to offer consolation. You could be a nano-Oppenheimer, if that helps.
Oh—thanks, slol. And I didn't mean my response in a snitty way. I thought you had rightly flagged my comment for its lack of taste and proportion.
By the law of transitivity, does that make you a tiny, tiny little Death?
Hey Chopper, there's this new thing called subtext (nothing to do with the commenter, either), it's pretty cool.
Are you implying that Chopper doesn't understand subtext?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Actually, I just wanted to use the "does not equal" sign.
Hey Chopper, there's this new thing called subtext (nothing to do with the commenter, either), it's pretty cool.
Really? Am I that much dumber than I thought? Is the Oppenheimer's most famous quote reference -> nano-Oppenheimer -> tiny, tiny little Death transition such that my inserting the French euphemism for orgasm is blindingly obvious and should have gone unwritten, as everyone else here saw it, grokked it, and considered unworthy of mentioning it?
Huh. This is a brainy crowd.
Also, I like the idea of there being a subtext and a domtext. Subtext must be punished, and domtext is just the fellow to do it!
I didn't get it. I did pick up on 27 without slol's explanation, though.
I was only referring to tiny death (in english) -> orgasm/petit mort. And I was trying to be cutting and funny, not assholish, which I seem to have been. My bad.
No worries. You caught one of my sore spots is all--the folks here are so brainy that I'm often afeared that I'm the one that's not getting the joke.
Hm. OK, my take is that it's OK to apologize for seeming assholish while trying to be cutting and funny, but that apologizing for lack of taste and proportion is completely beyond the pale. Unless you're explaining why you're serving Hot Rancid Ass.
Also, I like the idea of there being a subtext and a domtext. Subtext must be punished, and domtext is just the fellow to do it!
I always imagined domtext to be a she.
I actually thought about making the petit mort joke myself, and decided against it, so from my point of view it was up for grabs.
33 should have been: Standpipe is an orgasm!
I am the very model of a modern nano-Oppenheimer
Little death so brief it can't be measured with a kitchen timer
I'm the sort who's liable to disappoint your valentine or
Make you see your lover as an aging Gallic pantomimer
valentine or
Tsk, tsk, tsk...it was almost perfection.
I guess I could have made the line you mention just a bit sublimer.
Chopper,
the folks here are so brainy that I'm often afeared that I'm the one that's not getting the joke.
Never fear, I've got a solution. Whenever they stray too far afield I skip their posts and think to myself:
What.ever!
I'm sure you can provide the proper intonation.
Plus I mostly just read my own posts.
It works for me.
Don't listen to 'em Standpipe, you're a picture perfect rhymer
No no, I'll gladly take criticism from the author of this.
Mostly didn't scan, either, but that might have been intentional.
I meant SB's contributions in this thread.
It does scan, if you put the final "er" of each line at the beginning of the next line. But that's an awkward way to write it out.
Also, it's important that one reads "liable" as a 3-syllable word, rather than haering it spoken with a Dixie-inflected twang to rhyme with "Bible".
Ah, so it does. Bravo, Standpipe. Bravo.
But if someone wanders by with evidence that Marcel Marceau is even now a fantastic lay, I'm going to scream.
I am the very model of an Unfogged comment animal
I've information actual, apocryphal and trivial
I know the Guardian columnists and quote the spats political
From Powerline to TPM in order ideological;
And I can let the subtext go and wield a handy metaphor,
And I know where the waist goes on a brand-new girly pinafore.
"Bursty" is something else.
Joe,
I agree, but I might quibble enough to say the final word should then be "pantomime."
And can't you see my faded Standpipe/Bursty apart...
Joe,
Yeah, who am I to call somebody's baby ugly . . . congrats SB!