From Pseudodictionary:
vagenda — The catalogue of expectations a woman has of a man.
e.g., Bob would have liked to have watched the football game on Thanksgiving Day but that was not on Chrissy's vagenda.
This is basically a "Family Circus" joke, but with extra crotch - which, while adding creepiness, adds nothing to the intrinsic lack of funny.
This is basically a "Family Circus" joke
Exactly right -- unfortunately Not Me is not part of the joke.
Speaking of Family Circus jokes...
Interesting. I've never heard of "Family Circus." Surely, as a joke told by an adult, it's unfunny and sexist. But as a kid's mis-hearing/-speaking, it's pretty funny.
7: Now here was one
truly touched
by the angels.
the light was so
bright
we all looked
away.
with apologies, right?
You've never heard of Family Circus? Golly.
And this:
Surely, as a joke told by an adult, it's unfunny and sexist. But as a kid's mis-hearing/-speaking, it's pretty funny.
It is a joke told by adults. The kid didn't mistakenly think that there was some meaningful connection between the words 'vagina' and 'agenda', the kid slurred/mispronounced a word, and some adult seized on that to make the connection. The kid isn't a meaningful participant in the joke at all (which is one of the keys to Family Circus's peculiar unfunniness.)
You've never heard of Family Circus? How is this possible?
Don't know Family Circus? Are you even American, ogged? Do you find our ways strange, and our language difficult?
Ogged is Unfrozen Caveman Blogger.
ogged did know about Family Circus, once, but his memory has been patchy since his accident in the Volvo.
I totalled a Volvo station wagon in grand fashion when I was 16. Rolled it side over side, then end over end, and my brother and I both walked away with nothing but bruises and scratches.
And yet still, you remember the Family Circus. I swear to god, that shitty-ass cartoon will be the last thing on our brains in the nursing home, and yet we'll be too decrepit to kill ourselves.
Consider yourself lucky, Ogged. Shockingly culturally ignorant, but lucky.
Oh, and I love LB and want to have her lizardy little babies. Just for the record.
As long as we're in the nursing home together, B, I'll be happy in our decrepitude.
Huh, just went to the Family Circus site and it doesn't even look familiar. I hate these ignorant immigrant moments.
Rolled it side over side, then end over end, and my brother and I both walked away with nothing but bruises and scratches.
I had a roommate who'd done the same thing--also a teenager, drunk, in the family station wagon, walked away. Another American rite of passage.
Rolled it side over side, then end over end
Physics regards your anecdote suspiciously.
Happily, I was stone cold sober. Leaving a Baptist youth group function, even.
Apostropher is blessed by God. That really tells you something about God, doesn't it?
God also destroyed Grand Forks, ND, because He was upset about homosexual excesses. (Sure, his second try, New Orleans, was more accurate, but that's pretty careless if you ask me.)
Physics regards your anecdote suspiciously.
He forgot to mention the part where King Kong picked up the car and tossed it back and forth.
We really should revive the Dysfunctional Family Circus.
Is Bil Keane dead yet? The reason DFC was shut down was because he wrote the site owner and said something along th elines of "kindly please stop shitting all over my life's work." I thought the DFC was hilarious, but really, the man had a point.
That being said, I am now in the uncomfortable position of eagerly awaiting a man's death so I can participate in shitting all over his life's work.
Physics regards your anecdote suspiciously.
Physics may be skeptical, but I was in it as it rolled (side over side, 1.5 rotations) off the road, then went (end over end, 0.5 rotation, ending on roof) down a hill into some random family's yard.
I now have great faith in the safety profile of Swedish mobiles.
Did you ever read the Far Side? I think that's how most people ended up reading the Family Circus. Being irregularly shaped, they were always placed adjacent to one another in the paper. You'd go to read the Far Side and swear you weren't going to read the Family Circus but, somehow, you always ended up doing it.
I barely know what Family Circus is. I probably read it once, was faintly annoyed, and after that my eye would skip right over it on the funnies page.
Also, the first time I drove my car on the highway, a car hit the median in front of me, went spinning end over end, and landed right behind me with a great thunderous crash. I wasn't in Baptist youth group territory, though.
Ah, so they were in the comics section. Never looked at it. I read the Far Side later in books and calendars.
World O' Crap used to do some Family Circus reinterpretation.
I'm sure you'll all be making fun of ac any minute now...
That layout actually led to some amusing situations. The captions of the two panels would sometimes be switched, greatly improving the Family Circus panel. There are examples in The Prehistory of the Far Side.
OK, ac is a New Yorker, and may have been reading papers that don't contain comments, and Ogged is just weird.
(ac, does that mean the car went over you? Yow.)
"comments" s/b "comics." But is there a difference, really?
I'm sure you'll all be making fun of ac any minute now
Ah ha ha, ac isn't cool enough for Baptist youth group. Also, I believe there is an egregious error in my initial number of rotations.
Is knowing about Family Circus the new "Who won the World Series"? Shouldn't someone be looking into a Iranian Shi'a who claims to be American but does not know about Family Circus?Or does our Homeland security suck?
And, yes, I'm sure we have some sort of reciprocal agreement with the Brits that makes looking into Celt-friendly ac, a purported American who does not really remember the Family Circus, worthwhile.
but really, the man had a point.
This is one thing I won't feel bad about. Apparently Keane was nice about it, but I still think I've got a right to make fun of his work.
30: That is, "read it once and never again" is exactly the right reaction, while "never read the funny pages" is cyborgian--were you were the kid who didn't think it was funny to light farts?
31: The commentary to one of the cartoons in that book made me laugh so hard that I fell off the john (I wouldn't go so far as to call it a faint, but I did have tunnel vision).
you were the kid who didn't think it was funny to light [oggs]?
There are examples in The Prehistory of the Far Side.
The cartoons in question. Turns out it was Dennis the Menace, not Family Circus. (You can get a better scan at Amazon: Prehistory is searchable.)
but I still think I've got a right to make fun of his work.
Sure. It's the scale of the operation that made me feel bad aboutr the whole thing--every cartoon was getting 500 or more caption entries, and they were all just about as vile as you can get (and I thought were hysterically funny). When you consider that the characters are based on the man's own family...I dunno, even though his entire career swims in a sea of insipidity, I just can't bring myself to feel bad that the DFC shut down.
Ah right. I knew it was one of those old panel comics. Been a while since I read the book.
I never thought lighting farts was funny. Even as a juvenile, I thought it was juvenile.
The real reason one read the Family Circus is that one read *everything*, including the backs of cereal boxes and shampoo bottles. In the nursing home, I'll be reading the goddamn pill bottles and restroom signs, I'm sure. And griping about it to Apostropher, who won't have the right to tell me to shut up now that he's said he'll be happy as long as he has my grumpy company.
(ac, does that mean the car went over you? Yow.)
Yes. And it really was my first already kind of jittery time on the highway, driving my first car, about two days after getting my license.
The real reason one read the Family Circus is that one read *everything*, including the backs of cereal boxes and shampoo bottles.
Exactly so.
Except I still managed train myself to never read May Worth.
Fuck. Adam, there's a reason I send you work now and then.
Bphd, I have no particular brief for lighting farts, but in discussing Ogged's cyborgianism it is important to work the word "fart" in as much as possible. Like this: Fart.
And yes, Family Circus and other comic strips gain lots of eyeballs because they're most frequently read by people who have just got up and are still kind of sluggish.
Hey Weiner, let me ask you a question: One is down a touchdown or so at the start of the second half. Why would one kick an on onside kick on the opening kickoff?
I have no particular brief for lighting farts
Any briefs will do, of course.
I was in the midst of a grueling trip back from Thanksgiving, but I understand the answer is "It might give the team a boost." Note that in Super Bowl whatever it was a similar tactic worked OK--the Steelers might have won that game if Neil O'Donnell had been able to remember which team he was on.
The real reason one read the Family Circus is that one read *everything*, including the backs of cereal boxes and shampoo bottles.
Bitch -- You probably shouldn't bear my children, because we're clearly related. On the other hand, given the relationship, how come you guys never show up for Thanksgiving?
So sorry to break up the love-in, but come on, everyone reads the shampoo bottle and the back of the cereal box. But that has nothing to do with whether one reads a particular comic strip, or comic strips in general. In related news, I hate you all.
Googling "toiletry literature" brings back this odd page.
My mother read "Cathy", which is why we never speak.
ANyone read Mark Trail recently? It used to be a nature comic, but recently there's been a steady run of impossibly evil villains.
There was a time, during a particularly bleak patch of singledom, when I really appreciated "Cathy" on a deep level.
given the number of DC-based people around here, I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, which was just linked to in [Washington Post columnist] Gene Weingarten's chat...
I think even "Cathy" qualifies for the shampoo-cereal exemption.
60, see 6. You are pwned by a factor of 10.
the comics are home the the loveliest anachronisms around, e.g., Prince Valient. Also, the Blondie and Beetle Bailey cartoons. I like Blondie, because the strip reflects the present century in some ways -- in that the characters discuss the internet, and drive modern looking cars -- and yet it seems to exist in some parallell 1920s world, where all the men continue to pomade their hair, and the sexual revolution doesn't appear to have occurred. Conflict arises primarily over napping. Who actually identifies with these cartoons?
Similarly, in Sally Forth, it is perennially 1983.
I really appreciated "Cathy" on a deep level.
Even here, at Self-Ridicule Central, some admissions should be kept to oneself.
What in the world has happened to Tom Tomorrow? He's been totally unfunny since Bush got elected, pretty much. It's like he fell victim to the Tom Lehrer conundrum.
Who draws Blondie, and what do they think of their surroundings? Are they constantly baffled by the world in which they live? Have they a mechanism by which they reinterpret sensory information to match the Blondie landscape?
Time ago curiosity got the better of me and I began to read Prince Valiant for a while. After the third or fourth strip, my reserve of tolerance for "Next week: Val adjusts his tights"-style suspense had been wholly sucked dry.
Chopper:I just can't bring myself to feel bad that the DFC shut down.
Seconded. FC has to be one of those things you just have to pretend don't exist...like Baptist Youth Groups. Things that that just sit there lumpily, like a zit. You don't go after FC for the same reason you don't get in fights with little old ladies. It's...unsporting.
O:I had a roommate who'd done the same thing--also a teenager, drunk, in the family station wagon, walked away. Another American rite of passage.
Do you have to roll it? I tried to demolish a light pole with my '72 Ford truck when I was 18. It wasn't a station wagon tho, and I didn't roll it. It left a dent approximately 1/4" deep in the front bumper and hood. Which is pretty good considering I must have been going 35 when I hit it.
Fucked my arms up real good, tho and I was quite thoroughly soused.
Does that count?
ash
['Can I get a play review here?']
LB, I'll show up next year, now that you've invited me.
Ogged, don't be such an old fart.
Matt, see? I learn quickly.
Everyone, when I was growing up my dad would read Prince Valiant--which I *did* manage to skip--out loud to me EVERY SUNDAY no matter how much I begged or commanded him not to. Nowadays he sends me several links to various cartoons he finds around the web every day--he used to email me the cartoons themselves, beginning about ten years ago, until I finally managed to get it through his skull that they took forever to load on my dialup connection and therefore I was deleting all his email. His response was a pouty "Well, that's too bad, because that is one of the ways I express myself." He also has a tattoo of the alligator from Pogo on his ankle.
Ogged, I'll be happy to put you in touch with my dad, who can easily get you up to speed on the cultural background you've missed. One old fart deserves another, n'est-ce pas?
Even Family Circus doesn't approach the abyss Fred Basset occupies.
Ok, the first sentence of 28 is the strangest part of this whole exchange. Ah, so they were in the comics section. How can one be surprised/ find it informative that a comic is in the comic section? Where did he think everyone was finding it, talk radio?
62: Armsmasher, my only redemption is that later in the same chat Weingarten uses the phrase "Undogged". He pwned us all...
How can one be surprised/ find it informative that a comic is in the comic section?
I meant as opposed to, say, a Matt Groening cartoon from back in the day, which might have made the rounds, but never been in a daily paper.
Maybe we shouldn't have any more discussions on this site about matters of taste.
Veering wildly off-topic (or, more accurately, to a different off-topic subject), did anybody else notice that the Royal Marines are apparently conducting commando training at the Mineshaft?
baa is a man full grown. He can take it.
37: As long as we're hating on Scott Adams (we didn't stop, did we?) it's important to note that he has the same hangup.
78- The evil can be surprisingly thin-skinned.
I wasn't trying to protect baa, who can kick your ass all on his own, Ben, but musing, more generally.
So, what, it's to be all swimming, all the time?
I think so, yes. Have you thought about water, lately, Tim? I mean, really thought about it?
It sure does make for compelling swimming-related blog content, that's all I know.
(also, Tim, you are so right that not knowing the family circus = prima facie evidence of being a replicant)
baa, you just reminded me to re-read the replicant test given to the San Francisco mayoral candidates. Verdict: still hilarious.
Maybe you didn't have to read Prince Valiant, but you at least have to look at the pictures - a character in my favorite novel is described as having a "Prince Valiant" haircut.
And it was always Zippy that got to me the most. Family Circus, Mary Worth - awful, yes, but I could imagine a certain kind of overly sweet person who would appreciate it. But who would like Zippy? I actually met someone who claimed to love it, once, who tried to mumble something about the rhythm of the dialog, but I wasn't having any of it.
the Royal Marines are apparently conducting commando training at the Mineshaft?
I especially like the reaction of the former commander:
"Why are they naked, for goodness' sake?"
Just imagine a young man turning up in his unit and being made to wrestle naked in a field while his non-commissioned officers are dressed up in women's frillies.
Oh, Tia...
Doesn't that make you want to give money to Tom Ammiano, Washer? Its' about as stone cold awesome as I have ever seen a politician be in an interview setting.
Zippy. I quick glance at Ziggy, which looks different than I remember, shows normal Family Circus type attempts at humor, where Zippy was another breed entirely. Though poking around your link, I found the guide to understanding Zippy, which makes me think that I wasn't ready for it back in the days that I read comments.
I admit that's exactly what I thought, baa.
No, you were right the first time, oz: Zippy blows. (Or blew. Whichever.)
Comments=comics. Argh.
I'm not saying Zippy is great, SCMT, but that its suckage is on the level of your standard comic. It's a different kind of suckage, but not any more severe.
Have you thought about water, lately, Tim? I mean, really thought about it?
Said to me by a music enthusiast friend after a couple of good tokes, and on the way to the CD collection:
"Dude, I know you've listened to 'Carry On, My Wayward Son' before, but have you ever really listened to how fucking awesome it is?"
Zippy the motherfucking pinhead. Consistently the most hated strip in the Washington Post 'comics poll', and paradoxically, sufficient justification for high-school jocks to persecute artsy types on well into the 22nd century. We all suffer.
Consistently the most hated strip
However, this made me feel friendly toward it, despite only finding it remotely funny once or twice.
So, by analogy, you like Hitler. Apostropher is no hero.
Isn't that what it takes to make a hero?
I believe, my initial-bearing friend, that would be the signal criterion of Powerline-heroism.
How do you know it isn't the sound I make as Cheney leads me to the slaughter?
I do not deny the potential multivocality of pseudonyms.
Ah, reminiscing, a walk down memory lane. Does anyone else miss "Little Iodine," or "They'll do it every time?"
I don't get comment 9. Are you denying that his wife's friend Jane's son said such a thing?
friend's (real) child announced at dinner table: "men have penises. Women are from China."
I don't get comment 9. Are you denying that his wife's friend Jane's son said such a thing?
I'm not LB, but I do have the LB footy pajamas and decoder ring.
I don't think she's denying that at all. I think she's pointing out, rather, that whatever the little tyke said, Goldbarth turned it from a mouths-of-babes precious moment into a "joke told by an adult" when he included it in his poem.
Yeah, that occurred to me, but I was hungry and felt like fighting, frankly. I should post the context when I get home--it's pretty friendly.
Man, it sucks being humorless. Everyone else gets to make jokes about brussels sprouts, and I end up analyzing everything in merciless detail. On the other hand, no one's forcing me to do this, so I must enjoy it. And it beats writing this brief.
Mercilessly detailed analysis commences:
(1) The joke here is that 'vagenda' is a blend of 'vagina' and 'agenda'. Anyone with a vagina has an agenda, the meanings of the two words are connected somehow.
(2) If an adult, fluent English speaker made the joke, it would be kinda sexist and not all that funny; it's taking a weak phonetic similarity as an excuse to say something negative about women generally.
(3) The kid in question, whatever they said, wasn't drawing a mental connection between 'vagina' and 'agenda'. A kid who knows what 'agenda' means, particularly in the negative sense of 'having an agenda' referenced by the joke, is old enough that they aren't cutely mispronouncing 'vagina'. So what happened in the kid's head was a simple phonetic error -- they introduced an extraneous 'd' sound into the word 'vagina'. The funny connection isn't happening in the kid's head -- they aren't participating in the joke.
(4) So for this to be funny, you still have the adult hearer of the mispronunciation seizing on an accidental phonetic similarity between whatever the kid said instead of 'vagina' and 'agenda', and using it to make a negative comment about women generally. The thought process you described as sexist in (2), with an adult making the joke, is the same as the thought process when it's based on a little-kid mispronunciation. Still unfunny, still sexist. (Also, you've got mad day-care skilz. You know that a kid little enough to be bumbling words like that is also mumbling and slurring, which means that the listening adult wasn't likely to have been presented with a clear-as-a-bell 'vagenda'. The adult likely had to do a fair amount of auditory processing to come up with the funny pronunciation. Again, the whole joke is happening in the adult's head.)
(Note: the pedantic over-analysis doesn't mean I'm taking this all too seriously -- it means I'm trying not to write a brief. The joke? No big deal.)
Hey, I don't even have the footy pajamas. Now I want a set.
(Of course, given the whole LizardBreath thing, I understand they have a distinct odor of dead flies.)
And the decoder ring clearly works -- that's a much shorter and less crabby rendering of what I meant.
Least funny comment ever, LB.
Seriously, what's funny is that a kid, who clearly doesn't intend anything sexist, and doesn't really intend anything other than a short anatomy lesson, would say something that sounds so jaded and sexist. That's one of the reasons South Park is funny, right? Kids talking in vulgar terms.
it would be kinda sexist and not all that funny
Disagree. It would be really sexist and kind of funny. And if it were told by Sarah Silverman, it would be "edgy" and "transformative."
But the kids on South Park do mean what they say -- the joke isn't that they're innocently saying shit, it's that they are so young and actually so jaded (in that cartoon 'actually' sense.)
How this for an alternative possible joke: "Daddy, you always say that Rosita does such a good job, and keeps the house spic and span. To tell her how much we like her keeping the house spic and span, we should call her a spic." Innocent mistake on the (imaginary) kid's part, no one meant anything racist, but even if a real kid said that innocently, you wouldn't repeat it as a cute joke. The difference is that racist is really bad, but sexist is cute.
even if a real kid said that innocently, you wouldn't repeat it as a cute joke
Sure I would. On this very site, even. In fact, the only reason I didn't make a "nigger" analogy was that I couldn't think of a believable kid-mistake with it.
Point taken on South Park, though. Nevermind them.
In fact, the more offensive and inappropriate the kid's mistake, the funnier it would be (within broad limits).
Sure I would.
Eh, maybe. You think Goldbarth would write a poem about it, though? I get a strong whiff of 'it's funny because it's true!' either that that's how women are, or that that's how men think of women - now the kid says it innocently, but in twenty years he'll really mean it.
(And I was going for a 'nigger' analogy, but couldn't get to one either.)
I'm annoyed at myself for making you think ill of Goldbarth. I really will post the context tonight; it's not at all a "funny because true" line.
I propose that speakers of English use "vulva" instead of "vagina" whenever context allows. It's anatomically more accurate, harder to mispronounce, and its widespread adoption among adults would end the long disparity in childspeak between the word for male genitals (seldom garbled), and the word for female genitals (often garbled). I don't think anyone* will mourn the "women are from China" anecdotes.
I further propose we find a convenient, semi-clinical word to denote the whole male apparatus, one that embraces both penis and scrotum in the same way that "vulva" does vagina, labia, and the rest. The answer is not "package", please try again.
*Anyone who matters.
apparently SB doesn't know about the invasion of the tripods.
also: flotsam and jetsom. Not clinical enough?
if not, then Mr. Floppy Pants And His Jolly Mumps Encased In Elbow Skin probably won't work either.
112: Thanks, LB. (The pajamas smell fine, BTW.)
You forgot ligan. Which actually works in a kind of tantric yoga sorta way.
It's too bad "ganglia" is taken. "danglia"?
word to denote the whole male apparatus, one that embraces both penis and scrotum
With my older son, I've used "generals," playing off both genitals and privates.
I did forget about the ligan. In fact, perhaps I've forgotten about it many times before -- the secret to the male multiple orgasm?
I have never (for values of "never" in the neighborhood of "only a couple of times") read the daily strip of Zippy. But hearken to the call of John Emerson: "Are We Having Fun Yet?" is a classic. All I can say in this regard: three rocks.
Inspired by apostropher: The Admiralty.
the secret to the male multiple orgasm?
Anyone else thinking of the poor little rat bopping the pleasure lever, ignoring the food lever, and dying of starvation?
But let's not start talking about Rears and Vices. (Jane Austen's only anal sex joke.)
Here's another funny slip-of-the-tongue story:
A still-unmarried thirty-year-old man was having dinner with his very possessive widowed mother. What he meant to say was, "Please pass the butter, mother". But what he actually said was, "You fucking bitch! You ruined my life!"
Aren't unmarried thirty-year-old men cute?
Not clinical enough, though. This is supposed to be the word little boys use when talking to their parents. I can't see "unit" failing to creep out mom and dad.
A reported malapropism that might work:
The 'gentles' (or, for the uncircumcised, the 'gentiles'.)
Actually, what's wrong with penis and scrotum (or balls -- do little kids really say scrotum? I don't seem to discuss Newt's genitalia with him much, now that toilet training is a thing of the past.) Whence this need for a unifying term?
I don't seem to discuss Newt's genitalia with him much
Yeah, once he left the House of Representatives, he wouldn't discuss the Little Speaker with me either.
Whence this need for a unifying term?
I was looking for a male analogue to "vulva". There isn't really a pressing need.
The Admiralty.
Goodness, yours is precocious. Mine's still fresh out of RUTC.
I can't see "unit" failing to creep out mom and dad.
Smug assholes. They could use to have their petty bourgeois world shook up a bit.
Howzabout "pleasure glands"? That might creep out my mom.
Oh, who am I kidding? After 37 years of me, 33 years of my brother, and 30+ years of teaching public high school, my mother is manifestly uncreepable.
do little kids really say scrotum
In my experience, it's mostly teenagers that say scrotum because, let's face it, that's a funny, funny word. And this is the most disturbing scrotum news I've heard all month.
Does one raise an Apostropher, or simply survive him? In either case, kudos to Ma'apostropher.
Oh heavens, the reason one uses "vulva" instead of "vagina" is NOT because "vulva" is all-inclusive. It isn't. The vagina isn't part of the vulva, only the vaginal entrance is. Nor are the uterus, the fallopian tubes, or the ovaries part of the vagina. The reason one uses "vulva" is because it names the *external* parts, the parts little kids can see. One might also use "labia" perfectly accurately, except that a halfway intelligent little girl who's done any exploring at all knows that there's more there than simply the external labia.
By those standards, one uses "scrotum" and "penis" because they are visible and external to small children. Again, if one's kid is halfway intelligent, they also get explanations about internal parts that they can't see.
And LB is right: the joke is sexist.
Of course bitchphd is right. Sorry for the muddle.
And LB is right: the joke is sexist.
Wot's wrong with being sexy?
And the proper word to fully encompass all the female stuff is "cooter".
Actually, B, Standpipe's claim was "anatomically more accurate," not fully-encompassing. Also, his reasoning for a new term for the external (okay) male genetalia was brevity, not that penis & scrotum are anatomically inaccurate.
But, seriously, thanks for ruining our totally productive discussion.
And suddenly, the comments lapse into monosyllabic German.
And LB is right: the joke is sexist.
We all agree that, qua joke, "vagenda" is sexist. The issue was whether the kid was just being used as a prop, to make the joke at a distance. Like I said, I'll post the context when I get home.
Sam K, I veered into foul territory with the second paragraph of 120 and, by association, its descendant comments.
Sorry, I wasn't talking about the joke, which of course is sexist. Also, not very funny.
161 to 159.
160: Ah, gotcha. Still, that wasn't why we needed a new term, right?
Of course the kid's being used as a prop. As a well-established kid-as-humor-prop user, that's how "oh, the things kids say!" works as a humor genre. Either it's funny b/c the kid is saying something true w/out realizing it, or it's funny b/c the kid is saying something that's absolutely ludicrous but *almost* true. And as LB said, the humorousness of any given little-kid mispronunciation depends on whether or not it functions as a malapropism. "Vagenda" functions as a malapropism only inasmuch as it evokes the sexist argument that, well, LB already said it. If one conflated the word with, say, a day planner, it wouldn't be especially amusing. I mean, fine, I'll read the broader context when you post the thing when you get home, but as posted here we all agree: unfunny and sexist, yes?
Anyway, I didn't mean to crap on anyone's good time. Back to vulvaesque terms for men's external genitalia. I propose "Google."
Also, not very funny.
Bzzzt.
Yes, it is.
I propose "Google."
Or, more generically, "search engine".
Yes, it is.
This is that whole "Tragedy is when I slip on a banana peel; comedy is when you fall through a manhole cover and die," thing, isn't it?
This is that whole [...]
No. Plays on words are funny. Genitalia are funnier. I quote:
This sudden Right-wing embrace of radical PC speech codes about sex is certainly a fascinating development; but, sadly, it doesn't make any more sense than it did when the Campus Hippy Loser Crybaby Coalition first tried it during my college years. For, much as my junior high school principal, scowling hippy wankers, and y'all might wish it weren't so, sex - as everyone who passed the fourth grade knows - is hilarious. Sorry, just is - granted, some people may have outgrown this point of view, but I think we all know what some people are like. It involves all of the most disreputable and silly-looking parts of the body, smells silly, sounds silly, looks totally ridiculous, and makes people behave like total fools. That's some funny, funny shit, and we haven't even mentioned online advertisements featuring ridiculous poses, horrible porn nicknames, and embarrassing sexual CVs. That all of this is so, and that it is, nevertheless, quite fun, is one of the main reasons that God didn't make walls see-through.
Plays on words about genitalia are funniest of all.
Increasingly, I think LB's #2 is the key. More specifically, isn't it the general reference to women that makes it sexist? Imagine you were with a close group of friends, male and female, all of whom you trusted not to be sexist. If one of them, male or female, described another friend's new girlfriend as having a "vagenda," wouldn't you laugh? And wouldn't you treat any sexism inherent in it in roughly the way we treat any inherent homophobia in our use of "teh gay" - that is, obviously available, but obviously not being deployed on this occasion.
I just want to say I'm proud of having diverted this thread into a discussion of shitty comic strips for as long as I did.
roughly the way we treat any inherent homophobia in our use of "teh gay"
Yes, yes, precisely. And it's teh ghey, goddammit.
"Teh ghey" looks like the name for some sort of specialty yoghurt. Given the conversational arenas into which threads here drift, I avoid like the plague anything that evokes images of yoghurt .
Ok, here's the whole stanza.
Moon of the gnashing wolf, moon of the overtumulting tidewaters,
moon of the itch of love, of the gnash of love, of the waters of love,
--we've all been there.
Upstairs, my wife is sleeping; dreaming--what? How far
is the tether unraveled? If life is a stem,
by definition its flowering grows outside of the stem.
How short, how everyday, is the step
between two worlds?--the thickness of the skull? of the skin?
My wife's friend Jane's young son announced,
in case we didn't know it, "Men-have-penises.
Women-have-vagendas." That's a good one, yes?
And I've been pleased to have been issued passports
into some of those "vagendas"--to have traveled there.
And always, at that journey's end, I've been left breathless,
changed for a moment and lost in myself and breathless,
and beached on a foreign shore.
howe everyday
In the original or a typo?
I avoid like the plague anything that evokes images of yoghurt
But it's a tradition.
For whatever reason, I know 'vagenda' is 'v-agenda' but everytime I see it, I picture a woman with an accordian.
ash
['Momma's got a squeezbox, Daddy never sleeps at night.']
Honestly, when I hear "vagenda" I just hear somebody with a cleft palate saying Virginia. Which is the second funniest state name behind West Virginia.
Wouldn't Virginia West be a good porn name? Based on a quick google, it seems not to be taken yet.
A) The funniest state name: Idaho.
B) Fishing tackle.
Are all jokes that play off (negative) generalizations about one gender or another sexist? I guess in the dictionary definition sense, that's got to be true. And one can understand, what with history being what it is, why ears are sharp for these things when the generalization is about women. Nonetheless, I feel that in common usage I want to think of sexist behavior as obviously unsupportable behavior, and humor which relies on negative generalizations does not seem to fit that bill.
Perhaps that's beacuse manyof these generalizations about gender appear to have strong basis in fact? Men are, truly, more aggressive and sex obssessed. Women are, in fact, more ... well, some other things surely. And aren't these differences often a great well-spring of humor and *good natured* chuckling. And do not these differences play a role in art which is not low art? Would Pride and Prejudice work if it were Lizzie who was distant and proud, and Darcy who was lively and to quick to judge. Or would that just seem weird and unnatural?
Having doused myself in kerosene I await the match.
Re 181 Thanks A, but I'm partial to Juan de Fuca. 'course were I ever to Wendy my Walter, I could then change the Juan de to Wanda, so that my fan base would not be *too* confused. One must plan for all, even the most unlikely, eventualities.
Just imagine a young man turning up in his unit
So, this would be related to a Klein bottle?
(In ogged's case, a sehr klein bottle.)
174: I'll say it. That poem sucks ASS.
Having doused myself in kerosene I await the match.
I gotcher back, Holmes. However much that might dismay you.
You and I agree on this one, Isle: it's a weak stanza in a weak poem. Some of his other stuff, however, is awesome.
were I ever to Wendy my Walter
Or switch-on your box, as it were.
Would Pride and Prejudice work if it were Lizzie who was distant and proud, and Darcy who was lively and to quick to judge. Or would that just seem weird and unnatural?
Why wouldn't it? I don't see either of those as male or female stereotypes anyway. Were they at the time? I wasn't paying too much attention back when I was trying to pick up chicks in eighteenth-century England.
Seriously, though, I'd think most of us are mature enough or worldly enough at this point to have met a sizable number of (for example) aggressive women and non-aggressive men, just to take a whack at one obvious stereotype you mentioned.
In context, fine; the poem seems not sexist.
#170, no, actually, I wouldn't; I'd say it was a sexist joke. B/c the point is that whether or not X is sexist isn't about whether or not I think the person saying X is a good person or a bad person; it's about the role that language and stereotypes play in culture. Hence, people who aren't especially sexist can, and do, say sexist things all the time; I do it.
Hence, also, re. #183, no, *in and of themselves* jokes that play on negative stereotypes of men/women aren't sexist; however, given that neither the people who make jokes, the language with which they are constructed, nor the cultural context in which they are found funny exist in a vacuum, yes: at this historical moment, they are virtually always sexist. The reason P&P "works" with the gender roles assigned is because those gender roles speak to a cultural and historical truth. And recall that those truths are at least as much about social class as about gender--Darcy's aunt is also distant and proud, and a major part of Elizabeth's informality is that she is basically middle class.
One man's "good natured chuckling" is another woman's patronizing chuckling. One can surely harbor sexist ideas while nonetheless liking women a great deal and sincerely believing in their equality. And yes, in social context we let those things go. Nonetheless, there's a difference between letting slips among friends go and absolving those friends of sexism. Just as there's a difference between friendship and political opposition, and just as there's a difference between social realities and the integrety of ideas.
But wait. What, exactly, is sexist about the pun "vagenda"? Having an agenda is neither a stereotypically male nor stereotypically female trait.
Really, in the self-proclaimed home of the cock joke, how much sexist intent can be assigned to a vagina joke?
The pun isn't sexist, in and of itself. The joke that "men have a penis, women have an agenda" is sexist b/c it evokes the stereotype that women are conniving bitches who manipulate men. You can't possibly say that you don't "get" that.
As opposed to the non-existent stereotype that men are conniving assholes that manipulate women? Come on.
Sure, and if I said "women have penis envy, but men are real dicks," that would be sexist too.
I bet Ogged is SO glad he let me back in.
that would be sexist too.
And funny! See?
And I've been pleased to have been issued passports
into some of those "vagendas"--to have traveled there.
And always, at that journey's end, I've been left breathless,
changed for a moment and lost in myself and breathless,
and beached on a foreign shore.
Just him and a goddamned accordian.
ash
['He sounds like he needs an anima.']
I'm not sure I said anywhere that sexism, in and of itself, is never funny. I, for one, greatly enjoy the misogyny of, say, Byron: "Oh you lords of ladies intellectual / tell us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?" Sexist and funny ,yes. But that particular joke, imho, is sexist and not funny.
But we must cheer up Ogged. How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Ogged is not enjoying this thread.
Killjoy. Is ogged enjoying anything these days?
B, I conditionally buy your argument, but I'm super-hesitant about it. (It sounds right, but I'd want to think about it, and Gawd knows that's unlikely to happen.)
Would it help if I told you I was composing misogynist doggerel in my head the other day as I walked downtown to buy cigarettes?
The joke that "men have a penis, women have an agenda" is sexist b/c it evokes the stereotype that women are conniving bitches who manipulate men.
I think my brain agreed with you in the initial milliseconds of processing the line, and went hunting for another, actually funny, joke.
How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Two. One to screw in the lightbulb and the other to hold the fucking accordian.
ash
['Can I get a 'Yo, bitches!'?']
That recipe is flawed. (It's probably damned good, but if you cooked the steak first in a non-nonstick pan using little bit of vegetable oil, you'd get a fond. Then you take the steak out of the pan to let it rest while you cook the shallots in the remaining fat in the pan. Deglaze with the wine, reduce slightly, add butter, whisk to incorporate,, return steak to pan briefly to bring back up to temp, done. Same amount of time, extra flavor.)
Just riffing a bit on bphd's 191. I think it is interesting (and perhaps relevant to the point I wanted to make), that an ungendered invokation of good natured chuckling (ungendered) evoked a profoundly gendered response: what men perceive as good natured women see as patronizing. But surely, woman frequently chuckle good naturedly at men's foibles. And sometimes the chuckling is not so kindly meant.
I am inclined to focus on the kindness, or lack thereof, rather than on the mere deployment of a gender stereotype. Why? Because I believe these stereotypes are inescapable. We cannot, however heroicly we try, reduce generalizations about gender to class, or to social construction. It won't work. We are all, I hope, Darwinists here; and both theory and established biological mechanism suggest differences will always, in general, be observed between men and women.
There are good reasons to think this hypothesis false, and equally good reasons to hope it false. Let us stipulate, however, that sex does correlate with significant, differences in psychology as well as physiology. Will it not then behoove us to distinguish between a mentality that views these differences as cause for contempt and justification of oppression, and any number of benign or neutral responses to these differences? And will this not be true even if historically the most significant result of noting these differences has been injustice? To get back to the earlier point, does it help us to use "sexist" -- in the sense of "immoral" for both these cases?
I just did it, Chopper, and if you use a non-nonstick pan, and a coating of mustard as called for, the fond you get is a thing to be reckoned with.
I should also note that the person who runs that site and the person who wrote that recipe are surely better cooks than I. I just like to shoot my mouth off.
Ben, I'm sorry to say I can't really remember it--a couplet with a shift from "friend" to "girlfriend" with the basic idea being that women become a lot less interesting and more annoying as the shift happens.
Baa, I agree that stereotypes are inescapable; that's why sexism, too, is inescapable in the current world. Maybe someday it won't be. No one is saying there are no differences between men and women; the point is that assigning value judgments to those differences imposes a hierarchy. And I gendered the "good natured chuckling" thing on purpose, to point out the problem.
Thanks A, but I'm partial to Juan de Fuca.
Bphd, your short response evokes two thoughts. The first is that I wonder to what degree assigning value judgement does, in fact, impose a hierarchy. If we say Jane Austen is funnier than Joseph Conrad, we have imposed one hierarchy: on the great chain of humor, Austen > Conrad. But we have not imposed or implied any larger, all-encompasing hierarchy of artistic value, nor ranked Austen relative to Conrad on it. And anyone who thought we did would be making an error.
Trivial point, so why make it? It's because it is hard to separate the mere noting of difference with the assignment of some kind of value. Men are, on average, physically stronger than women. Men are, on average, more violent than women. The recognition of these differences cannot be easily segregated from the ascription of some kind of value. This suggests to me that we should simply accept this level of "value ascription", and keep our powder dry to resist the imposition of the larger, and more invidious, and false hierarchy. (men > women; woman > men)
[[I should just note that I do not intend this primarily as an argument about what position we should adopt as a matter of public rhetoric. It may be that in the service of abolishing the truly invidious hierachy, we want to police references to the less invidious hierarchies. I tend towards small "l" liberal on these topics (the truth will out, sunlight the best disinfectant, etc.), but I could be convinced otherwise in a given case]]
stereotypes are inescapable; that's why sexism, too, is inescapable
I took baa's point to be that the inference from stereotypes to sexism doesn't work, even if there's a reliable correlation between them. That is, suppose some stereotypes, read as statistical claims, are true. It's possible to acknowledge this without being committed to (or committing) some form of sexism. (This might be what's meant by "in the current world," though, in which case we partly agree.)
That was a lot shorter than what I said, Fontana, but much clearer. Thanks.
I'd absolve the poem of sexism largely because it seems to be using a different meaning of 'agenda' than we all came up with -- using it to mean something more like, maybe, itinerary?
baa-
Please take this as good-humored (albeit vehement) disagreement rather than an accusation that you're a sexist bastard.
I am inclined to focus on the kindness, or lack thereof, rather than on the mere deployment of a gender stereotype. Why? Because I believe these stereotypes are inescapable. We cannot, however heroicly we try, reduce generalizations about gender to class, or to social construction. It won't work. We are all, I hope, Darwinists here; and both theory and established biological mechanism suggest differences will always, in general, be observed between men and women.
Sure, we're all Darwinists. What established biological mechanism do you refer to that creates (on average) personality differences between men and women? Do you imagine that it is possible to, e.g., do a blood test and predict aggression levels from testosterone levels in any simple (or in any complex) way? Do you believe that any solid, rather than speculative, connections have been drawn between average differences in brain structures between the sexes and personality differences? I am not denying the existence of biology when I say that to my knowledge research has not yet been done establishing that there are (on average) innate physical differences between the sexes (hormone levels, differences in brain structures) that cause (on average) personality differences between the sexes. If you want to appeal to the fact that "We're all Darwinists" to establish something, you have to show me some solid science.
More socially, you talk about how the obvious average differences between men and women (and I'm certainly not denying that there are some in our society, nor that some of them may be innate, although they haven't been shown to have been) are a source of good-natured fun and are inescapable, so why bother trying to escape them? I don't think you are fully considering quite how much the expectation of conformity to those norms can fuck people up. To take an example you mentioned as noncontroversial:
Perhaps that's beacuse many of these generalizations about gender appear to have strong basis in fact? Men are, truly, more aggressive and sex obssessed.
Remember being a hormonally driven teenager? Couldn't think about anything but sex? Absolutely obsessed with it? Now picture that the fact that you're obsessed with sex makes you unmanly, abnormal, and undesirable, rather than a perfectly normal teenage boy. Welcome to my teenage years, and those of lots and lots of other women.
I don't actually know which gender is more obsessed with sex -- it's hard to figure out how to compare thoughts -- but I do know that every woman I know well thinks about sex more than she knows a normal woman is supposed to, based on what we all know about men and women. The harmless, obvious stereotypes you rely on aren't necessarily all that harmless.
Calling sexism immoral, as you did, is only going to confuse things, because you're going to believe that something well meant and therefore not immoral can't be sexist and therefore harmful. Whether or not you mean well has nothing to do wih whether what you've said is sexist, and pointing out sexism doesn't mean I'm calling you a bad person.
Would Pride and Prejudice work if it were Lizzie who was distant and proud, and Darcy who was lively and to quick to judge.
Well, we might call them Jane and Bingley under those circumstances.
I think the issue here is the loaded word "sexist". I've always assumed that the important part of the definition involves discriminatory intent or behavior. Clearly, in the context of the poem, no such intent/behavior is expressed. The following works just as well, without changing any of the poem's meaning:
And I've been pleased to have been issued passports
into some of those "virginias"--to have traveled there.
Back to the point at hand, I don't see that manipulativeness is the stereotypical domain of either gender, but rather a trait assigned widely to members of each.
Actually it works a lot better, since "Virginia" is a geographical territory.
And jeez, can't we all agree with LB about the pervasive harm of the boys-are-randy stereotype? Is there a single straight guy here whose high school years would not have been much much better if it were OK to say in public that girls are just as crazy about sex as guys are? ("They weren't crazy about sex with you, Weiner." Shut up.)
I don't see that manipulativeness is the stereotypical domain of either gender, but rather a trait assigned widely to members of each.
I think that's not at all true. Here's my opening bid. Cf.
I don't think the harm lies in the boys-are-randy stereotype (which is, of course, broadly and demonstrably true), but in the good-girls-aren't-randy stereotype.
Thanks for the response bphd.
First, lets just table the effects of these generalizations for a moment. That's what I meant by saying this is to one side of "public rhetoric." Let's just stipulate, for a moment, that there is a biologically based difference in sex drive between men and women. So that the generalization "men are more aggressive and sex obsessed" just is *true*. It may yet still be the case that we do not wish to reinforce that difference, publicize that difference, or make jokes about that difference because of all the negative results it will have (some people will feel abnormal, some people will be oppressed, etc.). And it may be also, that because of those negative effects , we should place much higher burdens of proof on those generalizations than we do on others. All fine, etc.
Ok, end to that digression. On the science, sure, the evidence you call for is lacking. That's why I said "suggest" rather than "proves" or "demonstrates." And I'm not really committed as a proposition about value, to whether this proves to be true or not. A world in which all average temperamental differences between men and women result from socialization is a fine one as far as I am concerned.
The problem is, that while I'd agree there's no definitive proof, as yet, about the biological basis of temperament, I really, really doubt that the 'no innate differences' world is in fact the one we inhabit. Again, it's not proven, but I would be *astonished* if there were not statistically significant, biological differences in psychology between men and women. If that's wrong, hey, great. The problem is, what if it's right?
You are of course right to note that kindly intention is no guarantee of good results. I would not dispute it. It's also the case, however, that a proposition being true is no guarantee that its promulgation will have good results. Since I think ultimately the truth will out, it is in all of our interests to find ways to make promulgation and reference to the truth compatible with a just society in which we all want to live, etc.
-----
That's the end to the serious comments. But just one thing. Bingly/Jane as a mirror image of virtue/vice dynamic of Darcy/Lizzie? That's crazy!
222, absolutely, that's what I should have said. Or boys-are-randier.
Thanks for the response bphd.
You misspelled "LizardBreath".
OMG check out the top hit for manipulative asshole.
>You misspelled "LizardBreath".
Oh, fuck, that's awkward.
baa-
Let's just stipulate, for a moment, that there is a biologically based difference in sex drive between men and women. So that the generalization "men are more aggressive and sex obsessed" just is *true*...
On the science, sure, the evidence you call for is lacking. That's why I said "suggest" rather than "proves" or "demonstrates."...
The problem is, that while I'd agree there's no definitive proof, as yet, about the biological basis of temperament, I really, really doubt that the 'no innate differences' world is in fact the one we inhabit.
You're saying that if the truth is uncomfortable, we nonetheless need to face up to it. Sure. I'm just not willing to skip the step of figuring out what the truth is before I face up to it.
(And I need to disappear for the rest of the day -- I have way, way too much work to do. Could people please mock me if I comment again?)
Don't worry about the name mixup (although it's nice to know we're confusable. I always feel that my writing gets so dry when I'm ranting, but apparently not.)
And Weiner? That's the best rhetorical use of googlefight I think I've seen.
You commented again! Ha ha!
(Thanks.)
LB--- I mock you.
Baa--Do you really think that it is appropriate to talk of scientific proof? There are results consistent with an hypothesis, but outside of pure mathematics, I think it's probably inaccurate to describe any evidence as having proved a scientific truth.
Weiner rocks.
On stereotypes of gendered difference (and on the broader argument, I agree with LB):
1. Men like sex more--well, LB's argument about the role of socialization here is a good one. I'll just add, anecdotally, that the most common criticisms I get from readers who happen upon my blog and realize I have an open marriage are (1) it must be fiction; (2) no "real woman" would "endanger her child and marriage" that way; (3) my husband must be a pussy.
2. Men are stronger, on average--I believe you mean, "on average men have more upper body strength." Again, this is problematic b/c, on average, women are discouraged from physically demanding activity and men are not. But even so, I believe studies have shown that women have more endurance and tolerate pain better. Surely these also constitute "strength."
3. Men are more violent: again, problematic in that violence is encouraged in men and discouraged in women. Women's violent impulses get expressed rhetorically and indirectly in many ways, but are still there. Also, please keep in mind that violence in women--which is often directed against children--is considered "unnatural," just as frank sexuality is.
223, quotes matter.
And the sole hit reveals... it's completely innocent! Though that seems to be an online community devoted to perpetuated jokes about genitalia. For shame.
Chopper:That recipe is flawed.
That was my reaction.
(It's probably damned good, but if you cooked the steak first in a non-nonstick pan using little bit of vegetable oil, you'd get a fond. Then you take the steak out of the pan to let it rest while you cook the shallots in the remaining fat in the pan. Deglaze with the wine, reduce slightly, add butter, whisk to incorporate,, return steak to pan briefly to bring back up to temp, done. Same amount of time, extra flavor.)
1> I'm not sure what he means by 'total reduction', but I assume since he doesn't want to brown the shallots he doesn't mean actual total reduction. Although carmelizing onions to go on steak is time-honored.
2> More important is that he's using flank steak. All I can think is 'hockey puck'. All the flank I ever get is pretty tough, and sauteing it for four minutes would make it really tough. The tender part of T-bone or whatnot would work better. Otherwise, you're doing chicken-fried steak, so you might as well pound it with a hammer, which I don't think is he's going for. It would be about as easy to do the number on the shallots (well, onions, shallots are a waste when you're using mustard), and then braise the steak sans mustard in the wine until you get a nice reduction and then add some dijon to the sauce. (Or you could it add the beginning but it's useful as a thickener adjustment.) Like rostelyos but different.
ash
['Brain turns off at non-stick pan.']
Men like sex more
I think this has been proven to be an unsupportable assertion, and particularly difficult to disentangle from societal pressures.
Men are stronger, on average
Men are, on average, larger and have greater muscle mass and density. This one really is a matter of fact. Pain tolerance != strength.
Men are more violent
As you say, male violence is simply more accepted than female violence.
You're all pussies. Especially Weiner.
pwn
The sample size being what it is, the p-value on that will not reach statistical significance.
Sorry, I'm editing study reports again today. I'll tell you this much: women are much more likely to participate in clinical trials than men.
Er, "...more likely than men to participate..."
I suspect more women participate in men than participate in clinical trials.
Thanks for posting that site, Ben—I am in the market for recipes for hors d'oeuvres for a winter party.
apo, I don't know if Dr. B is around, but I'd love to hear you speculate as to why that is? And weren't there a number of years where they kept women out of studies, because it was thought that they would mess up the purity of the data? The symptoms of heart disease were always described in male terms, i.e. the ways that men feel when they're having a heart attack.
You're all pussies.
Strange that derogative "pussy" isn't dispreferred. I wonder what pattern, if any, governs your rhetorical dispreferences. Why agitate against "blows" but not "pussy"?
Possibly b/c women are likelier to need the money? Or to need the medical care?
Surely part of strength is the ability to endure pain. If you're in a fight and you get hit and fall on the floor yelling "ow!" you're going to be considered less strong than someone who gets hit and then hits back. Just to give a stupid oversimplified example.
I think O. used "pussy" because I did.
That "if any" was uncalled for. Sorry, ogged.
I'm not sure why it is, but recruiting men for trials is always more difficult than recruiting women. My wild-assed, unsupported guess is that women are just generally more used to doctors and medical procedures, what with the semi-annual checkups of the plumbing. But since most of these studies deal with patients who have already been diagnosed with the studied condition, I'm not sure that really explains the disparity.
Surely part of strength is the ability to endure pain.
I'd say that's part of "toughness," but not of my internal definition of strength, which has to do with raw exertion of force on an object, ie torque and lifting.
LB,
So you're saying this is a great opportunity to have the last word, then kill the thread by posting encomiums, to the late, great Eddie Guerrero. Sweeeet!
>I'm just not willing to skip the step of figuring out what the truth is before I face up to it.
Sure. But just because there's no definitive proof on some topic X doesn't mean that we don't have a guess about how it is likely to go. And on most topics, people are quite willing to act on those guesses. I think we have reason to expect, given the importance of gender evolutionarily and the fact that men and women are swimming in different soups of regulatory hormones, that science will eventually be abel to connect biology to certain general psychological differences between the sexes. So we should think about how to engage them constructively.
Another option would be for us to not engage these topics until the science comes back with definitive evidence. Or perhaps, to regard these differences as false until proven true. That would be fine with me; I just don't think that's going to work, either intellectually or as a matter of public rhetoric. I don't think we have the perfect scientific story yet to explain why men are more aggressive and violent than women, (we can't use a testosterone test predict violence, to adopt your example) but is anyone out there denying that this difference has a biological basis?
So, I would submit, we are not going to ditch the "men are aggressive" stereotype any time soon. I quite concur that non-aggressive men and aggressive women may be hurt by this stereotype. The question is, (to briefly return to what for me is the main point) how do we deal with a stereotype that is true without stigmatizing the outliers. I don't think it is likely to be helpful to deploy the term 'sexist' for any recognition of gender diffrences that turns out to have some negative results. I would much rather reserve the moral force of that term for occasions when those generalizations are used to draw incorrect or unjust conclusions, such as when they are used to set moral norms of gender behavior (all real men play football), or when deployed in lieu of assessment of individuals. Thus, Jane is a better fireman than Jack, even though men are in general stronger than women, and strength is a good attribute for firefighters to have. Noting the latter two points is not sexist. Given the job to Jack instead of Jane is.
Surely part of strength is the ability to endure pain.
I'm totally with Apostropher on this, though phrasing matters. If I say, "S/he is really strong," I will never mean that s/he has a greater ability to endure pain, or greater general endurance. Nor will I mean that s/he has a good character, is smart, is witty, or has good eyesight, despite the fact that all of these things are considered, in various contexts, strengths.
how do we deal with a stereotype that is true without stigmatizing the outliers
Easy. You modify your rhetoric. Rather than saying "men are stronger," say, "on average, men have more muscle mass than women." And maybe, "of course, men are also encouraged to be physically active at a younger age."
Having said that I think you've put your finger on the thing: you'd rather "sexist" be used to denote *intentional* discrimination. LB and I would rather it be used to denote discrimination whether intentional or no. Your focus is on intent; ours is on effect. I think the distinction is telling--and I don't mean that in a snotty way at all. It makes sense that, given that we mostly agree sexism is bad, that men would, on average, prefer to absolve themselves from ill intent, while women, or at least feminists, would, on average, prefer to focus on the effects regardless of intent.
I find some inconsistency, LB, between your attitude about this and your attitude about possible racial/class misunderstandings that you were talking about here--you said that you don't want a permanent guilty-cautiousness to set in and make it difficult to communicate across boundary lines. Doesn't the same apply to male-female conversation? If not, why not? I could see how they might be different, but I'd be curious to know exactly how.
Ac-
I'm still reading, (and clearly posting comments) but I really shouldn't focus on this enough to respond in detail. I'll get back to you later on that, okay?
shallots are a waste when you're using mustard
I love shallots in this sort of application because they're small enough that you can use one or two whole shallots instead of using only half an onion and then keeping the other half in the fridge until the next time you need one.
More important is that he's using flank steak.
True. Flank steak is a slow-cooking kind of steak. But it's cheap(ish), and you
>can beat the shit out of it to get it tender.
>you'd rather "sexist" be used to denote *intentional* discrimination ... Your focus is on intent; ours is on effect.
I do not think this is quite right, bphd.
First, I do agree that you are focused on effect. I get the sense that if promulgating a stereotype has bad effects, you will want to describe that as sexist (and bad) , even if the stereotype is true and has positive or neutral effects. I don't think it's that simple. Promulgating the "men are more likely to be violent criminals" stereotype is not, to my mind a bad thing to do. Whether we want to use "sexist" to describe it, I dunno.
I would like to believe that my interest is less in intention, than in appropriateness. Whatever your intent using a generalization as a factor in an individual hiring decision is wrong. There is no need to rely on the generalization. You have the individual in front of you and can ask him/her questions, can ask him/her to take a physical fitness test, whatever. Likewise, whatever your intent, stigmatizing a person based on their divergence from a gender norm is sexist. You may be trying to help! That doesn't matter. You shouldn't do it.
Yeah, yeah. Torque is cheap.
Torque is expensive. Horsepower is cheap.
Again, this is problematic b/c, on average, women are discouraged from physically demanding activity and men are not.
My mother is almost as tall as I am, weighs more than I do, and has been working in the exciting field of lifting heavy objects for a long long time. She once knocked a 6'2" ex-marine out cold with one punch.
I can outmuscle her pretty easily. I'm sure if you took a six-foot tall bodybuilding woman, and had her arm-wrestle a 98 pound weakling guy she'd win. But that matches the strongest woman against the weak(er)(est) man. The strong (upper) end of the female group falls close to the middle of the male group. That said, women do have more tolerance for pain, more stamina (in general) and more tolerance for tedium. (More body fat too.) That is very probably genetic. 'Socially-constructed' doesn't cut it as an explanation. However, I'm pretty sure if you started working out girls at young age, they'd wind up stronger in adulthood. But not enough to completely overcome the genetics.
Men like sex more
I agree with LB completely on this. Distinct lack of good measurements (read: no mind-reading instrumentation available).
Men are more violent
Men are currently more violent. Or more accurately, more overtly violent. How much of that is due to social causes and how much of that is due to genetics is up in the air. If it is pure social-construction I would expect to see equal numbers of female serial killers, for instance. I would also expect to see equal levels of violence when comparing the sexes when talking about people who are deranged and thus not internally conforming to social controls. And I don't. If I went with those numbers, women would be somewhat more violent than socially accepted and men would tend to be about as violent or a little more violent. That's a pure estimation-by-eyeball.
Hrmm: biology vs. temprement. Um, what the twin studies really suggested was that genetics and temperament are intermittantly related. Sometimes the relationship is very strong, sometimes less so, often non-existent.
Hrmm. I agree with baa that we probably live in a world full of innate (genetic) differences, but which differences are purely or mostly sex-related (and the reverse, unrelated) are really fucking difficult to determine.
ash
['Magic 8-ball says 'Ask Again L8er'.']
Likewise, whatever your intent, stigmatizing a person based on their divergence from a gender norm is sexist. You may be trying to help! That doesn't matter. You shouldn't do it.
Unless they're being a total gaywad.
I love shallots in this sort of application because they're small enough that you can use one or two whole shallots instead of using only half an onion and then keeping the other half in the fridge until the next time you need one.
I usually am not cooking for one, so I burn through white onions at quite a high rate.
True. Flank steak is a slow-cooking kind of steak. But it's cheap(ish), and you >can beat the shit out of it to get it tender.
If you look in the actual list of recipes on the site, it's listed as skirt steak. I think it's a bug. Biftek/sirloin would work much much better.
ash
['It would be a very sensible recipe then.']
I followed JP's link in 248, and then started reading a different, quite interesting, thread at amptoons which comments on the post wherein ampersand describing why she calls Cathy Young an anti-feminist, with the participation of Cathy Young. Some really bad comments, but a lot of good ones.
Yeah, I couldn't figure out if Barry was his first or last name, and didn't realize I had written "she" in 266 to refer to ampersand, I even tried to use "ampersand" to avoid using a pronoun. Stupid unconscious associations.
Well, I think that I'd differ on *promulgating* a stereotype--and probably on stereotype, full stop. Isn't stereotype, by definition, oversimplified and not based on evidence?
Having said that, I'm quite willing to believe in certain tendencies. IME, sure: men are more physically aggressive than women, on average. Women are more sensitive to linguistic nuance, on average. I, personally, think that those particular differences are probably innate rather than purely socially determined. The problem is that your criteria of "appropriateness," it seems to me, is inevitably oversimplified; it doesn't seem to recognize that saying "men are generally stronger than women, but I'm willing to take individual women on an individual basis," while a laudable intent, doesn't fully compensate for the effects of unconscious bias.
So, for instance, I noticed when I dropped PK off at school this morning that, as usual, the boys run off and play and the girls stand in line by the door. I also noticed that the girls' mothers don't encourage them to run and play with the boys. While the boys' mothers, myself included, tend to say to their boys, "oh look, there's Peter!" in an enthusiastic voice, which surely comes across as encouraging PK to go play with Peter.
Now, is that an effect of boys being naturally more boisterous? Is it an effect of girls being naturally more sensitive to social nuance and imitating what the adults are doing? Or is it an effect of unconscious bias on the part of the parents--do the boys' parents encourage or allow more boisterous behavior while the girls' parents either refrain from encouraging the girls to play boisterously, or make more of an effort to get the girls to be "good" and stand in line? Hell if I know, but I'm very hesitant to just assume that it's innate--even though it fits into stereotypes that I believe *are* innate (physical aggression vs. social nuance), because I'm also paying attention to what the parents are / aren't doing.
Isn't stereotype, by definition, oversimplified and not based on evidence?
Yes to the first part, no to the second. Stereotypes don't arise from a vacuum.
probably innate rather than purely socially determined
Probably both, and in different ratios by individual.
No, they don't arise from a vacuum; but that doesn't mean they come from evidence properly defined. They may come from legal restrictions, or from extrapolating the tendencies of an entire group based on one instance, or from television--none of which constitutes evidence as to the behavior of said group.
I have always cooked flank steak quickly, and it responds well to that treatment. Chopper: insane.
Re: 257
Couple of things. In the earlier conversation, I meant that people shouldn't nervously police themselves to avoid saying things that might be interpreted as racially insensitive -- the resulting tendency to avoid saying anything at all to someone of a different ethnic group is more of a loss than any decrease in the number of insensitive things said is a gain.
Here, I'm not advocating nervously policing speech for unconscious sexist content -- that's part of saying that it's unhelpful to talk about sexist speech as 'immoral'. If I say "That thing you just said was sexist," that doesn't mean "You hate women and you suck, watch your mouth before you say something like that again." On the other hand, I do think it is helpful, when I see something that appears sexist, to talk about it so that the issues that lead to unconscious sexism can get a little more conscious.
On strength differences, I'm with Ash. Dr. Oops is pretty darn close to Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman -- way out there on one end of the bell curve for women. She's stronger than a lot of guys, but not as strong as lots of them: for instance, she's never been as strong as my father, who, while a big athletic guy, is much less unusual for a man than Dr. Oops is for a woman. The biological differences in upper body strength, although certainly exacerbated by differences in socialization, exercise habits, etc., are pretty well established.
Exactly. Which is why I have a problem with the idea that "sexism" (or "racism") should only be understood as meaning "based on individual intent and prejudice" rather than as "being part of a larger system." Of course, the fact is both terms get used to mean both, which is why people react defensively. But first, there's a difference between saying "you are sexist" and "that's a sexist thing to say" (or whatever), and second, one (ok, "I") generally operate with the understanding that, among friends/peers, it's usually accepted that one is referring to broader social issues, rather than attacking individuals.
Of course, sometimes that assumption doesn't operate, but it should. IMHO.
Also, Dr. Oops can't add.
She can, however, remove a liver with a rusty butter knife, and has been known to do things like that to people who gave her lip.
Dr. Oops is the basis for Hannibal Lecter.
And she doesn't wait for anybody to give her lip, she just takes it.
On average not as strong. Some days, she's stronger.
Why is it that people participating in the strength conversation have taken such pains to specify *upper* body strength? Do women hog the squat rack when I'm not around, or something?
Do women hog the squat rack
Could you make a dirtier-sounding undirty comment? I doubt it.
I don't think there's a notable differential in leg strength, actually, adjusted for size.
adjusted for size
Aye, there's the rub.
Wait, size of what? Average 1rm leg press for (say) 5'5" man and 5'5" woman are the same? This would be jaw-dropping if true. Wouldn't the non-social explanation for the difference in mean upper body strength apply to, say, my glutes, too?
Ahhh, the Gayatollah's glutes...
Yeah, I'm not sure that makes sense to me either, though I'll stipulate that I'm operating with almost no actual knowledge here. Moving to the very extreme outliers (Olympic athletes), the men's winning high jump, which is almost purely a function of leg strength, is about a foot higher than the women's was in 2004.
Banana Lofts is the Gluteatollah!
And I could be a beautiful young woman. I could, dammit, I could!
I'm coming late to this thread, but I'd like to say that I actually think that "Boys are sex-obsessed" actually also has some potential negative effects, contra someone upthread (I don't remember who). When I was younger I had a whole passle of dehumanizing male stereotypes that I had inherited from some combination of society/my bitter female relatives, and they were damaging to some of my early relationships with men until I unlearned them. "Men are sex-obsessed and care more about sexual than emotional satisfaction" was one of them.
I may be insane, but you don't know what the hell you're talking about, w-lfs-n.
This is flank steak. It is the cut most commonly used for fajitas. It is flat, about an inch thick, generally sold in an approximately rectangular shape about 8" by 12". It is tasty as hell, if you marinate it and cook it low and slow, with a sear at the beginning.
If you just blast the shit out of it, and especially if you blast the shit out of it and then don't slice it against the grain, then you don't have a steak, you have a chew toy.
Also, the site I just linked is apparently Weiner's.
Why is it that people participating in the strength conversation have taken such pains to specify *upper* body strength?
*I* didn't. I expect men have an advantage there as well, albeit a much smaller one, adjusted for height and weight.
ash
['Vietname? Withdrawal? Wha?']
If y'all will permit me to chat with myself for a bit, I might add that I think this of baa's is basically wrong:
And aren't these differences often a great well-spring of humor and *good natured* chuckling
I'm having trouble generating an example of jokes that make sweeping generalizations about the other gender that are ever really good natured, or that aren't doing some kind of social work, probably pernicious, because gender role assignment is basically pernicious, or at the very least are springing from a deep well of sexual ressentiment. Even if the joke is about men's haplessness when it comes to housework, or something like that, the point is to keep (other) women relegated to performing it. A few of them are funny--usually, I find, the most bitter and transparently ill-natured ones.
Basically every comment I've ever posted here has been a travesty of grammar, but I thought I'd note that I'm aware that "an example" "are ever really good natured" don't agree.
It's OK, because the subject of "are ever really good natured" is "jokes"; the problem is that that doesn't agree with "example."
(Welcome back!)
a travesty of grammar
should be the name of b-wo's first spoken word release.
Wouldn't the non-social explanation for the difference in mean upper body strength apply to, say, my glutes, too?
I have the impression, based on very, very little actual knowledge, that muscle is muscle, gram for gram, and so that the average strength difference between men and women is pretty much exactly equivalent to an average difference in muscle mass. I have the further impression that the strength-increasing effect of androgens that hits at puberty is an increase in upper-body muscle mass that doesn't have much of an effect on the lower body.
Now, men still hold the vast majority (probably all) of athletic records, even in sports that depend on the lower body, but again, I have the impression that those differences are a lot smaller than in upper-body sports, and that they're within the realm that easily could be explained by social effects (more men than women participate in sports, etc.)
All this information comes straight from www.myass.com, of course.
"The server at www.myass.com is taking too long to respond. The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy."
I have the impression, based on very, very little actual knowledge, that muscle is muscle, gram for gram, and so that the average strength difference between men and women is pretty much exactly equivalent to an average difference in muscle mass.
That's where the difference lies. I was taught (where? don't remember) that the muscular differences between men and women are based on men having more 'fast twitch' muscle per pound, and women having more 'slow twitch' muscle per pound.
A cubic gram of 'fast twitch' would be the same from a man or a woman, but in any given amount of randomly chosen muscle there would be the sex differences above.
Skeletal muscle is further divided into two subtypes:
* Type I, slow oxidative, "slow twitch", or "red" muscle is dense with capillaries and is rich in mitochondria and myoglobin, giving the muscle tissue its characteristic red color. It can carry more oxygen and sustain aerobic activity.
* Type II, glycolytic, "fast twitch", or "white" muscle is less dense in mitochondria and myoglobin. It can contract more quickly and with a greater amount of force than Type I muscle, but can only sustain short, anaerobic bursts of activity before a build-up of lactic acid in tissue begins to interfere with muscular contraction and causes pain.
Ergo women are better (on average) at endurance, men are better a mass lifting. The difference between the sexes in the lower body is less pronounced because women tend to have more mass located below the waist than men do, and because women have wider and thicker hips (pelvic bone) so they have improved torque (ha) below the waist. Which helps compensate for the reduced density of 'fast twitch' musculature.
Basically, if you wanted a woman who was just as strong as a man of the same height and exercise routine, you'd change her hormone balance starting at the youngest possible age (preferably in the womb) and more or less transop her.
This would probably have exciting side effects.
ash
['.']
I would think you couldn't help but be a LizardBreath.
On 273- It just struck me that you or I know what it is like to occupy the low ground of a racial boundary, and like to be cut some slack on that score, since we are attempting to be good liberals most of the time. And that might be a useful gauge for judging questions of sexism.
It may not be a true parallel--since race issues are treated as more sensitive or explosive, as you were saying with the comparison of a child making a racist joke.
But it seems a bit disingenuous to say that you're not taking the moral high ground in calling something sexist-- yes, it's in the culture, and you're subject to these mindsets, too, but you have some insulation against it in the same way a black person describing some statement as racist has insulation. Given the power issues, there's only so much harm your historically disadvantaged self is going to be able to do.
It's still useful to point out if you're feeling hurt by something--or find something deeply unfunny--but there is an element of shaming of others involved.
Of course, Ogged asks for it, but I mean as a general proposition.
See, I honest to god don't believe that. There's an element of shame in having one's attention drawn to, say, having said something racist, god knows; but the shame isn't necessarily imposed by the person pointing it out. I think the trick is to really internalize the idea that one's own sexism / racism / whatever is sort of inevitable, not a moral failing, and thus to not get hung up about having it pointed out occasionally.
cubic gram ?
Mouth running far behind visual representation in brain.
Extract a small amount of pure muscle tissue and it should be roughly cubical if you shave it down to be exactly one gram.
Assuming you're neat and not sloppy.
(WMIBSALB?)
IHNIWYTLAM.
ash
['NBD.']
I just got reminded of the funniest bathroom wall joke I ever saw:
Q: What do you call that useless flap of skin on the end of a man's penis?
A: His body.
This was in a unisex bathroom, by the way.
Gender traitor.
But seriously:
But it seems a bit disingenuous to say that you're not taking the moral high ground in calling something sexist--
I don't think I said that. What I meant, if not what I said, is that one can express disapproval of a statement or an action as sexist without necessarily judging the speaker or actor as particularly sexist or a bad person. The most enlightened of all of us (not me, certainly) is steeped in a sexist society. I don't want to define 'sexism' as a grave sin indicating moral turpitude, because that leaves me with the choice of tarring everyone I know (including myself) as an awful, awful person, or overlooking a lot of real sexism that comes from lovely people whom I am very attached to. Hate the sin, love the sinner, that's my motto.
'Cutting people slack' comes into it in two ways: first, I'm not going to judge anyone as a misogynist bastard for a certain amount of conventional sexism -- it's perfectly normal. But I'd still like to be able to point it out when I see it, in the hopes of seeing less of it in the future. Second is the whole 'humorless feminist' problem -- it can get boring and unpleasant griping about every last little thing. That's a manners issue that I try to stay on the right side of -- people here seem interested in these discussions (and they tend toward lively discussions rather than one-sided lectures), so I don't think they're all that grating.
Damn, Bitch pwnd me again.
IHNIWYTLAM
I was doing fine with this until the final LAM.
funniest bathroom wall joke
Personal fave: Anyone can piss on the floor, be a man and shit on the ceiling.
ogged, you didn't happen to see that bathroom graffitti in NYC, did you?
There's a small chance it was NY, but more likely it was Boston. It was Chinatown, wherever it was.
I was doing fine with this until the final LAM.
I Hace No Idear What Yer TLA Means.
ash
['...cuz he eats his spinach...']
I can't get the T either, unless it's "think." Prior to that was "I Have No Idea What You", right?
Also, 303 is neat.
It was Chinatown, wherever it was.
*Sigh of relief.* Okay, that joke's gotten around some.
I was inclined to agree with ac's point in 304.
I thought that Dr. B's assumption about broader social issues wasn't one that could be assumed.
one (ok, "I") generally operate with the understanding that, among friends/peers, it's usually accepted that one is referring to broader social issues, rather than attacking individuals.
Of course, sometimes that assumption doesn't operate, but it should. IMHO.
In fact, I thought that it was a giant leap of faith.
LB, you were not pwned. Your explanation in 308 seems much clearer than the good Dr.'s.
I think it's fine to say that one considers a remark sexist, and that it's crucial to avoid saying "you're sexist." The latter is much more of a value judgment than the former.
And at the margins, I don't think it's always clear. Is it sexist of me to think that women's colleges and schools still have an important role to play? I even think all-boys activities (and schools too) are okay. But, of course, I'm willing to fry Alito for believing that Princeton was wrong to admit women.
I thought skirt or hangar steaks were most commonly used for fajitas.
I'm telling you, marinate in wine with onions, thyme, garlic, then broil for, say, five minutes a side, it's good. It works. Of course you have to carve against the grain. I'm not that dense.
Also, 303 is neat.
Rescued from the silence crickets! Thanks, w/d.
Silence crickets? That makes no sense.
[catches up to previously closed tab]
Now, is that an effect of boys being naturally more boisterous? Is it an effect of girls being naturally more sensitive to social nuance and imitating what the adults are doing? Or is it an effect of unconscious bias on the part of the parents--do the boys' parents encourage or allow more boisterous behavior while the girls' parents either refrain from encouraging the girls to play boisterously, or make more of an effort to get the girls to be "good" and stand in line? Hell if I know,
Seconded, but
but I'm very hesitant to just assume that it's innate--
Purely would be the correct modifier here, I think.
even though it fits into stereotypes that I believe *are* innate (physical aggression vs. social nuance), because I'm also paying attention to what the parents are / aren't doing.
Well, evolution has been cranking along for 4 billion odd years, whereas the mild body modification involved in growing a large frontal lobe has only been around for two millions years or so.
So *I* would tend to think humans are not blank slates by any stretch. However, culture is fucking sticky, like apostropher's shorts. Witness that Jewish people (hi, guys) use a different alphabet, a different language, and have substantially modified their holy books (not to mention being spread to the four winds), from what they started with, but nonetheless they (mostly) still celebrate an (possibly entirely imaginary) event that took place 33 hundred years ago.
The Etruscans had their language, religion, political existence and institutions more or less wiped out 24 hundred years ago. Nonetheless, in the geographical area they dominated their descendents still dominate and continue to maintain very similar minor social customs, as if nothing had changed. Including continuing to differ from their neighbors, the Romans, who maintain a distinct set of (minor) social customs.
So, do you wind up with a set of social customs (sexism) because it reinforces genetics, or in spite of genetics, or is a given set of behaviours caused 'directly' by genetics? Or, is a given custom not caused by genetic inclinations in any way, but the custom is maintained purely by force of habit?
See above about damfino.
ash
['Wow, I sound tedious.']
I think the trick is to really internalize the idea that one's own sexism / racism / whatever is sort of inevitable, not a moral failing, and thus to not get hung up about having it pointed out occasionally.
I don't think most people want to view their lives as extended exercises in self-criticism. They like to think of themselves as having a capacity for empathy.
These issues are deep enough that you're not really trying to convince the other person of something through argument, you're trying to engage his emotions, and make him see things from your point of view. Shame is one vehicle for this. But it seems more useful, in the long run, to engage the higher emotions like generosity of spirit. That, it seems to me, is the real trick.
But in pointing out sexism or racism, one *is* engaging generosity of spirit; the generosity to admit when one makes a mistake. Recognizing that one isn't perfect isn't an "extended exercise in self-criticism." It's an acknowledgment that one is human. I honestly don't see why it's such a hard thing to do.
But in pointing out sexism or racism, one *is* engaging generosity of spirit; the generosity to admit when one makes a mistake.
Oh, come on. It's one thing to admit your own mistake. Pointing out someone else's is generous, though? Really? This seems like the sort of argument one's mother makes--I only say these things because I love you.
No, she's saying that she's appealing to the generosity of the one who made the mistake -- that they will have the generosity to admit it, rather than that she is generous enough to point it out.
Not to generalize: that would be my mother.
I hate it when my mom tells me how racist I am. That goddam mic shrew.
I think maybe one of the themes here is that if we're to avoid awkwardness in intersex relationships--the initial think ac and LB were talking about in 257--then people need to avoid overreacting to either mild sexism or mild accusations of mild sexism. If men always had to worry that lame jokes like Goldbarth's would be met with "You horrible sexist PIG!" then men might find it tough to talk to women. But Bphd is saying that women shouldn't convert every little bit of sexism to that sort of personal accusation--she's saying that it can be appropriate to say "This is sexist, though it doesn't mean you're a horrible person" (roughly). And that appeals to the listener's generosity of spirit, as LB says; men ought to be willing to acknowledge the sexist elements in their own mind. If a man is completely unwilling to do that, well, maybe his relationships with women will be awkward, but it may not be the women's fault.
(text: is a mic shrew a rapping insectivore?)
yes, so one would normally include a k. Thanks for ruining my evening, Matt.
The chirping of the silence crickets, though plainly audible, suggests silence by limning the negative space of an audience's or interlocutor's lack of response.
wouldn't the generous thing to do be not to point out the absence of a k? You failed to engage my emotions.
I think the generous thing to do would be to feel pleased that you'd given me the opportunity to make an allegedly humorous nitpicking comment, which you know I so love to do.
oh I can't fight with you. my emotions are fully aroused.
324 (etc.):
But isn't the idea behind pointing out the mistake to discourage the person from making it again? Seems like the end result of that would be something approaching a life of self-criticism ("whoops, can't say that, it's sexist").
This is, of course, dependant on the definition of "sexist" (like so much else in these discussions). Part of the problem is that it's such a loaded term that people don't want to be tarred with it, even if it does only refer to their actions and not their intentions (which, again, is subject to debate).
Of course there are many ways to point out that someone's made a mistake, and the bald ones won't exactly engage someone's generosity of spirit.
I am the silence cricket, limning the non-response.
Teofilo, then basically the argument would be that one should pass over sexism in silence, so as not to hurt someone's feelings.
Which is, in that context, kind of sexist: it's a version of the argument that women should care more about the emotions of men than about justice or intellect. I prefer to think men aren't such tender flowers.
Text, I think your missing k ran and hid in the first sentence of Weiner's 329. I dunno where his missing g went. Perhaps it can live ghere.
I prefer to think men aren't such tender flowers.
Yes, we are all burly He-Men.
Sexist!
Oh, I agree. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that ac had a point in 323.
(I also agree that we are all burly He-Men.)
"and the bald ones won't exactly engage someone's generosity of spirit."
This is a rather uncalled-for swipe. I assure you that I have a full head of luxuriant man-mane.
Even if I did not, no matter. Vronsky went bald.
The name Vronsky is delicious to say. Vronsky Vronsky Vronsky. A pleasureful rumpus.
he seems to have had one. Oblonsky is also fun to say, and also a fellow with a rump for pleasure.
Oblonksy is gonsky a fonsky pant-jonsky (jon-ponksy is fonsky a gonsky Oblonsky).
Pointing out that a comment or a pattern of thought is sexist can often be painful, unfortunately. Not necessarily At The Mineshaft, mind you, which is to everyone's credit, etc.
Ok, sorry about the digression into the personal, especially as this thread has gotten sillier again, but I think that the kind of dilemma I outline below speaks to the debate that BPhD and LB are having at cross-purposes with Baa.
I had a real-life convo with my lover this past weekend where he was talking about a balance of feminity and masculinity that helped him to understand himself, and suddenly my mental recontextualizer gave out.
Gender stereotypes have consequences--like when my post-doc sister wasn't invited to a high-powered NASA conference where her data was to be presented because her advisor assumed that with a toddler she wouldn't want to travel, like when the coolest lady in my LDS church scored better on the Foreign Service exam than her husband did (she was worth ten of him) yet she raised the kids and supported his career, like when hilzoy's older friends can remember the exact emotionally manipulative technique for answering neither "yes" nor "no" to a job-interviewer's question about whether they wanted children.
At the effectual end of the conversation, after he returned some Lacanian argument and we agreed that he'd been speaking in the metaphysical and I in the reality-based, I don't know which of us felt worse. Before my recontextualizer overloaded, we'd been enjoying a lazy, idealistic, post-prandial conversation--which had suddenly become my teachable moment.
Since my lover has had almost zero exposure to either theoretical or political feminism, we might end up having a few more of these conversations, and they all make me feel simultaneously condescending and defensive. Oh, and his doctorate is in the decidedly non-adversarial field of music, so he's uncomfortable with argumentative methods of persuasion. (Obviously, argument, insult, and innuendo work fine around here. Less so in some situations.)
So. Let's stipulate that this is a six-month casual relationship and a three-month getting-serious relationship, for argument's sake.
Dear Auntie Mineshaft, how exactly should one handle epistemologically sexist remarks? Should one educate the potentially live prospects or hold out for the ones that don't need edumacating? How should one best exercise tact while informing the slightly feminist-naive?
I welcome all suggestions, be they ever so ribald. Of course.
Tell him to put "traditional" or "stereotypical" before any gender-based shorthand. Then he doesn't have to engage it intellectually and you get to think he understands.
[Runs, zigging and zagging, for the nearest cover]
Educate the live prospects, because they all need educating. And I'm not being sexist: I need educating too, and I learn a lot from reading feminist books and feminist blogs. The reality is that women are more likely to deliberately seek out that education, but that doesn't mean we don't all need it.
How to do it tactfully is tougher. I married a thick-skinned guy, thank god. One way to be tactful would be to talk about feminist issues as a matter of course--that is, not just when something overloads your tolerance meter, but in the course of daily events: "here's this interesting article I read," "my girlfriend told me . . ." "this guy at work is struggling with. . . ." At least that gets the issue out there as something that's discussable.
The larger question, though, is how one will handle conflict of *any* kind in the relationship. If you can figure that out, then use whatever method you have to do the feminist thing.
Just be careful of the conflict-averse passive-aggressive. Very very hard to deal with, ime.
Sorry that wasn't at all ribald. To make up for it, here's a picture of a huge cock.
In all seriousness, jm, my advice would be to wait to the next day on anything you want to seriously talk about, so as to not wreck the lovely evening (this may just be the parent of a young child who gets to go out alone with his wife very infreuently--how much you value comity in such situations may vary).
Then, I guess I would start the conversation with something along the lines of "Y'know, there's something I want to talk about from last night. I didn't want get into a thin, we were have having such a nice time, but it's gonna bug me if we don't talk it through. You said "x," and I think I know what you were trying to say, but "y" is what I heard, and I'd like to explain why the implications of "y" bother me. It's a small-/medium-/big deal to me. I'm not saying this to attack you. I'd like you to hear me out, and then I'd be happy to listen to your thoughts."
Is that helpful, or am I not getting what you're asking? (A potential false dichotomy, I realize.)
If he really said "feminity," he's not smart enough for you.
She thought you wanted a cheese hollandais. Your postprandial, do you know that word?
There should be an Unfogged vocabulary-builder. I keep learning new things.
I'm not saying you shouldn't get into conflict, or point out when comments are sexist, just that it seems weird and extremely presumptuous to expect gratitude for it. I'm just saying, accept that it is a conflict. It may produce good feeling in the end, but that's not usually the assured outcome.
I just want to de-lurk for a moment to say that I don't believe myself to be alone among the regular lurkers rejoicing at the return of bitchphd.
This is precisely the kind of thread that got me addicted to unfogged in the first place, and now it's even better than in the days before the split because of the addded spice of bridgeplatica.
Ogged: Had he said "feminity," then he would be too stupid for me. As I mispelled "feminininininity," I don't know quite what to think.
AC: You're right: conflict is conflict, and even a "teachable moment" is conflict. It works in a classroom where there's a hierarchy to struggle and think against, but it's far chancier in a relationship.
As per BPhD's: as you say, conflict is conflict, and it will happen on many an issue. Running away or disguising it doesn't work, in the long run. And even more important: even if it doesn't work out between him and me, maybe he'll be more educated for the next gal? God, that could go so wrong, though. I prefer thinking of my students are emotionally separate from myself by virtue of the hierarchy. I really do think that a teaching relationship is incompatible with a meaningful and sustainable sexual relationship. Am I wrong?
Chopper: I like the think-it-over approach towards conflict, but I do tend to let sleeping dogs lie in general. (It's unusually difficult to tell whether this is gender-acculturation for me: my dad and his family are from the Yukon, where you just find a way to get along until spring, in early June.) I do think your reminder to wait until the next day to see if it see bothers you is a fundamentally good one, even though I am the type of person who would deliberately if unconsconciously obliterate the memory of having been bothered.
If you wait by the river long enough, all of one's jokes will become reality.
I don't know if teaching and love are mutually exclusive: if the relationship is *exclusively* teaching on your side, and you never learn anything from him, then, sure, it's unequal. But usually it's not like that, and people learn things from one another.
Ac, I don't think I expect gratitude. At least, not fawning gratitude. I just don't get why people get all freaked out, rather than going, "really? huh. Let me think about it." Or, "really? I don't know that I agree..." and explaining why. That is, why things always get personal.
Skipping back 300 comments or so, here are some more remixed comics, including some Family Circus.
She thought you wanted a cheese hollandais. Your postprandial, do you know that word?
There should be an Unfogged vocabulary-builder. I keep learning new things.
To his club-footed son said Lord Stipple
As he poured his post-prandial tipple,
"Your mother's behaviour
Gave pain to Our Saviour
And that's why he made you a cripple.
-- E. Gorey
I'm "Added Spice". Which Spice Girl are you? (Thanks, Big Ben.)
If you wait by the river long enough, all of one's jokes will become reality.
You didn't even have to wait this long.
The formatting on 359 is b0rken because MT sucks.
I don't think I expect gratitude. At least, not fawning gratitude. I just don't get why people get all freaked out, rather than going, "really? huh. Let me think about it." Or, "really? I don't know that I agree..." and explaining why. That is, why things always get personal.
Who knows why? But the point is that they (often) do, and it seems reasonable to factor that response into interactions of this sort (again, not that I'm saying this should discourage anyone from pointing out sexism).
Also MT. I had written "b[zero]rken", but ogged has arranged for zeroes to be converted to "o"s, in his wisdom.
359 is borken because of its radical, out-of-the-mainstream views on jurisprudence. Also because it's missing a ". Come on, people.
I just don't get why people get all freaked out
I'm trying not to get involved in this discussion, but one small point I think I can make non-screamingly: as several people have more or less said upthread, the word "sexist" is heard in different ways by different people, and when some people hear that something they've said or done is "sexist," it sounds much more like "bigoted" than "pehaps unintentionally discriminatory." It doesn't much matter what the person making the charge intends; it's an incendiary word.
ogged has arranged for zeroes to be converted to "o"s, in his wisdom
I'm sure I've said this before Ben, and so I must assume that you only want to hurt me: I haven't been able to find the MT setting that makes this conversion, else I would change it.
Ogged in 367 gets to what I think is the main point, which is that these interminable discussions usually boil down to subtle differences in the definition of "sexist." Which is part of why I find them so irritating (as, apparently, does he).
It's true that I want to hurt you, and you certainly have justification for believing that (eg, the many past times I've intentionally hurt you), but in this case, I had forgotten.
So is this a Gettier case?
"it's an incendiary word."
I propose a different word: cockenvaginminded.
My argument, and I swear I'll stop after this, is that if the word is incendiary, it is a responsibility of those who point out sexism to be clear what they mean by it, sure; but it is equally a responsibility of to work on not taking it personally. Otherwise all the onus gets put on the pointers-outers (mostly women) to take care of the feelings of those who trip (both men and women). Which is, in a word, sexist.
What have I done to earn your enmity, young Ben?
what you mean, of course, is cockenvaginminded.
But you can only know that you have the responsibility not to take it personally if you're already aware that the person calling you X might not mean it as an accusation of bigotry or an affront in some other way—in that case, sure, you should work on controlling your reaction. But if you're not in the slightest accustomed to thinking of it that way, then it's hard to see how you'd be able to recognize that responsibility.
Maybe it's just that I haven't updated to the new version of Movable Type.
But the point is that they (often) do
Which is why I think Chopper's advice to wait and see how insulted/disturbed one is by another's remarks not unsensible.
Anyway, I thank Auntie Mineshaft for its advice in dealing with my skinny Persian lover. I knew you'd come through.
Skipping back 300 comments or so, here are some more remixed comics
The text to the Mark Trail remix is amazing:
Chemicals ripen the citrus;
There are rattlesnakes in the mountains.
And on the shoreline
Hygeine unhuman caution.
Beef in cellophane
Tall as giraffes,
The orange-rancher's daughters
Crop their own groves, mistrustful
Perpetual summer seems
Precarious on littoral. We drive
Inland to prove –
The risk we sense. At once
Winter claps-to like a shutter
High over the Ojai valley, and discloses
A double crisis,
Winter and Drought
Ranges on mountain-ranges,
Empty, unwatered, crumbling,
Hot colours come at the eye.
It is too cold
For picnics at the trestle-tables. Claypit
Yellow burns on the distance.
The phantom walks
Everywhere, of intolerable heat.
At Ventucopa, elevation
Two-eight-nine-six, the water hydrant frozen,
Deserted or broken settlements,
Gasoline stations closed and boarded.
By nightfall, to the snows;
And over the mile on tilted
Mile of the mountain park
The bright cars hazarded.
Does anyone recognize it? Did the parodist just make it up?
my skinny Persian lover
Wait, is this for true? Is your lover really Iranian? If so, I'll give you the free advice I give everyone else: never date an Iranian guy. I'm totally serious about this.
Do you give this advice to your inamoratis, or do you just not consider them people?
Do you give this advice to your inamoratis
I do. So far, they've all taken it.
That was a suicide pwn if there ever was one.
That's why I was so concerned about your bathroom graffitti; it was in the cafe where I picked my skinny Persian lover up. I suddenly had some concerns that I was actually dating you, and I'm very glad you dispelled them swiftly.
Yeah, I'm dating an Iranian guy. Whole nine yards: His mother friend of the shah's wife; "uncle" on the CIA payroll in Europe. My guy? First/second generation elite/Ivy who's overcom/ing identity issues. I'm more political than he is. I've more religious issues than he does. But, yeah, he hasn't really had to think through gender, in a theoretical way.
And, Herr w-lfs-n, I'll invite you to conjure up your own inamoratas.
Conjuring them up is what's left to me, I'm afraid—they usually take the form of fantasmal images flickering on a glassy screen—but I'm afraid I don't follow the path that led to your saying that.
See, Ben, you've got to lure the virtual sylphides in, rather than insulting them. It's a delicate art. You have to create a receptive atmosphere, one that doesn't scream I will tear you apart for grammatical infelicities. Besides that, man, they want you.
Secretly, I long for a woman who'll tear me apart for grammatical infelicities.
If DominEditrix weren't your mother…
The above will be a handy link, methinks.
ogged, if you have secret wisdom/judgment about Iranian men, give.
390 to 388. And then to the annoyingly vague 381, of course.
Was 351 in reference to a particular previous comment or comments? Ooh, and I'll half-follow Mitch's suggestion:
351
She thought you wanted a cheese hollandais. Your postprandial, do you know that word?
There should be an Unfogged vocabulary-builder. I keep learning new things.
I'm dying to know what Mitch's suggestion was.
(And I was referring to Jackmormon's use of the word post-prandial in 345.)
Oh, do you mean M/tch's suggestion?
If so, then 394 should read:
(And I was referring to Jackmormon's use of the word post-prandial in 345: Before my recontextualizer overloaded, we'd been enjoying a lazy, idealistic, post-prandial conversation--which had suddenly become my teachable moment.)
390 to 388.
WE ACCEPT YOU, ONE OF US
396 I am overcome. Wait, don't make that into anything. Shit.
I'm astill waiting for the inside scoop on Iranian men. I'm also waiting for 400.
Shit, how long have I been commenting as "Bridgplate"?
How embarrassing to let out the hard g! Your mother must surely be mortified; yet, carry on!
At least you made it to 400; that is surely not to be despised.
How embarrassing to let out the hard g!
… said the honky warden.
But if you're not in the slightest accustomed to thinking of it that way, then it's hard to see how you'd be able to recognize that responsibility.
Hrm -- isn't there an assumption of goodwill we get to work with? "My perfectly nice (female acquaintance/friend/lover/wife) just said I said something sexist. I understand this as a statement that I, personally, am a horrible, horrible person, she thinks I hate women, and she hates me. That was certainly out of the blue -- maybe I should ask for clarification?" That is, someone who understands 'sexist' only as a massive personal accusation should, by virtue of that fact alone, have an incentive to figure out what's going on when the word is used.
That's why I was so concerned about your bathroom graffitti; it was in the cafe where I picked my skinny Persian lover up. I suddenly had some concerns that I was actually dating you
Man, that would have been so awesome. Like some Paul Haggis film where the whole world only contains 18 people who run into each other coincidentally.
That's why I was so concerned about your bathroom graffitti; it was in the cafe where I picked my skinny Persian lover up. I suddenly had some concerns that I was actually dating you, and I'm very glad you dispelled them swiftly.
This is terribly funny -- Ogged as Jimmy Stewart in The Shop Around The Corner.
I'm not usually accused of being sexist, so I wasn't even thinking of that particularly. I'm just wondering where this universe is that operates on the assumption is that people respond well to direct criticism.
Ogged as Jimmy Stewart in The Shop Around The Corner
I'm not usually accused of being sexist
I'm not by people who know me in meatspace. I don't mock women any more than I do homosexuals, Christians, or the handicapped, and indeed, far less than I make fun of my own silly self. Which is to say, I'm very equal opportunity when it comes to clowning and accusations of sexism are much more likely to be met with an eyeroll and a more barbed follow-up wisecrack than defensiveness.
However, I'm still a bit puzzled how "vagenda" is any more sexist of a joke than, say, "BitchPhD".
Ac-
I don't think anyone lives in a universe like that, but there isn't any way to change someone's behavior (that is, in the direction of being less racist, sexist, whatever) without somehow communicating that you see a problem with it. Certainly, there are personal issues with how you make that communication, and good reason to do it as politely as is compatible with making yourself clear, but without communicating somehow you can't get anything done.
There's also a responsibility that any functional adult has to take valid (justified, appropriate) criticism well. It's hard to live up to, but if someone whose opinion you have reason to value says you're doing something wrong, the right thing to do is to figure out if they're right, rather than simply to resent the criticism. This isn't a special standard for sexism, of course, it's just part of what makes it possible to share a world with other people.
But "hard to live up to" implies it's not the common reaction. So you can't really say it's a mystery why some people balk, get defensive, &c.
is any more sexist of a joke than, say, "BitchPhD"
If you or I had dubbed her "BitchPhD" it would be more sexist. But there's a big difference between names one calls oneself and names others call one.
ac, as I read 373 etc. B isn't saying that it's a mystery why people react defensive, so much as that the person who made the criticism shouldn't bear the whole responsibility for the defensive reaction.
I was thinking more of 356, "I just don't get why people get all freaked out," and so on.
However, I'm still a bit puzzled how "vagenda" is any more sexist of a joke than, say, "BitchPhD".
It's redolent of simmering, squinty-eyed resentment of the sort that leads people to drop poison in drinks? And the writer apparently thinks he is about to be overwhelmed by hordes of all-powerful harridans? And it apparently applies to all of the vagina-equipped, yes?
Whereas 'BitchPhD' is self-mocking, and lacks the umph of an poison-coated stiletto?
Might be wrong tho.
ash
['I mainly thought it was stupid, like Scooter Libby.']
It's about the severity of the reaction. It's hard to take criticism well in any context, but people know they're supposed to (if it's justified and from a reasonable source), and usually after an initial defensive reaction, they deal. On sexism, there's a tendency for even people who basically agree with you on the merits of the discussion to get significantly irate about the offensiveness of the accusation.
370: Matt – I'm guessing that you read the comments through a RSS reader, as do I. MT isn't converting 0s to os. The font used in the comment window makes the characters look the same. Your RSS reader most likely uses a different font (mine uses TNR), so you can see the 0s.
So, Ogged and Ben, if you really want to fix the 0/o issue, it's a matter of changing the font, not a MT setting. Considering we're all a bunch of Rain Men around here when it comes to change, that could cause more problems than it solves.
Nope, I read it in Firefox most of the time. The font in comment windows is all serify for me. Last year I couldn't tell the difference; I forget what font the comments were in on that computer/browser.
Ok, I lied. The point of my nom de plume is preemptive--I'm well aware that the blog persona is likelly to be considered "bitchy" so I've self-titled in order to point out the irony and problematic nature of that particular defensive reaction.
What I meant by "I don't get why people are defensive" isn't that I don't understand that it's a natural reaction, but as LB said, why people who explicitly consider themselves not-sexist, or wish to do so, privilege their defensiveness over the importance of whether or not X is sexist. It's perfectly possible to disagree on whether X is sexist, but the fact that being called sexist hurts X-speaker's feelings isn't relevant to the judgment of the statement, and I generally expect people who are interested in the issue (sexism, or avoiding it) to be able to make the distinction. Plus what Matt said, above.
Ok, back to grading.
redolent of simmering, squinty-eyed resentment
Or maybe it's just a play on words. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. In this case, the wide early reaction to the pun turned out to have missed the target when Goldbarth's usage was later revealed to be closer to itinerary.
But even using it in the form of hidden agenda (qua joke), I guess where I'm running aground here is when "agenda" becomes a negative trait, and a specifically female one, at that. I have an agenda. You have an agenda. We all have our agendas. It just so happens that only one sex organ has a pronunciation that's close enough to mix and that's obviously not by design.
Does any play on gendered words automatically fall into sexism unless the conflation is unambiguously positive and laudatory? If so, what a dreary place to find ourselves.
It's hard to take criticism well in any context, but people know they're supposed to (if it's justified and from a reasonable source), and usually after an initial defensive reaction, they deal.
But that's the thing, if people are being criticized, and are having a defensive reaction, part of that defensiveness is to think, "Who are you to criticize me?" I mean, the people-are-not-perfect thing goes both ways. As criticizer, you're opening yourself up to scrutiny as well. To criticize someone else is, like it or not, to risk coming off as self-righteous and unpleasant. And that is part of being an adult, too--realizing that.
I guess where I'm running aground here is when "agenda" becomes a negative trait, and a specifically female one, at that.
There, I'd refer you to Weiner's masterful usage of googlefight. You may not be aware of this, but there is a real gender stereotype that paints men as dopey but forthright, endlessly manipulated by crafty women who emotionally strategize on levels far beyond what mere men can understand. (Like so many sexist stereotypes, it's offensive to everyone! Yay!)(For reference, think of any sitcom whose characters include a married couple.) There just isn't a matching stereotype that goes the other way. So it's not any play on gendered words, it's one that falls in with a pernicious stereotype.
(Note: I'm making a fact claim here, about what gender stereotypes do actually exist. You seem to disagree with me. The fact that you disagree with me in good faith doesn't make you sexist, and I'm not accusing you of being so -- it's just that one of us is in error about the facts of the matter, and I, obviously, think that it's you.)
If I seem vehement about this, it's not directed at you or B, just I've had some dealings with a moralizing type lately. And, again, the context had nothing to do with sexism. It's just clear to me that being around people who try to make you feel guilty a lot=deeply unpleasant. For anyone.
We may not be disagreeing that much. I just think it's best to pick your battles. For the sake of your cause.
But apostropher, that poem's atypical use notwithstanding, the other meanings seem to be more generally swipes at women who are attempting to control some aspect of themselves or there environment, unless it's women themselves who are appropriating it, which, as in the case of calling yourself a "bitch," is a lot different than when a man uses the word about them. Definition one at urban dictionary is particularly ludicrous, because it's another example of the old saw about women using sex to control men, as if men weren't capable of controlling themselves in this regard. There is a long tradition of male resentment of female power, even quite legitimately asserted power, and "vagenda" squares quite neatly with that tradition.
It's perfectly possible to disagree on whether X is sexist, but the fact that being called sexist hurts X-speaker's feelings isn't relevant to the judgment of the statement
It has nothing (or very little) to do with hurt feelings : people can call me "sexist" to their heart's content via email, or in person, but it's a strong and toxic accusation to make in even a semi-public forum like this one. When you call someone sexist in public, they don't think about whether the accusation is true, but about protecting their reputation. Which is why, as I might have mentioned before, I take every accusation of sexism (and racism) here as a personal betrayal. It's the difference between pulling someone aside and saying "you're being an ass" and filing a harrassment complaint. One is something that friends do, the other is something that strangers and adversaries do.
If we're all more or less friends here, but if there's also a point worth making on the site, the onus falls entirely on the person making a charge that might be read as a charge of sexism or racism to make it as delicately and considerately as possible. If measuring your words is too onerous, then take it to email, where you can say what you want, however you want.
(Note: this particular thread has been fine--I don't see anyone here being accused, and it's been a good discussion. But, you know, for future....)
There just isn't a matching stereotype that goes the other way.
Aside from men who emotionally manipulate women in order to gain access to their vagendas.
wouldn't it sound much more civil, instead of saying "ogged, you racist," to say, "ogged, I think that remark was a bit cockenvaginminded, but on the whole, you are a swell fellow, and I enjoy your website?"
Now I'm wondering whether the proper plural would be vagendas or vagendae.
overwhelmed by hordes of all-powerful harridans?
Mmmmmmmm, all-powerful harridans, and plenty of them.
It is amazing how friendly the most ferocious lioness can become when treated with respect and appreciation.
Not all of them, of course, but so what? What is the harm in starting off with respect and appreciation? Competition and bitter barbs can come later.
Ogged, stop trying to make fetch happen.
Ogged, stop trying to make fetch happen.
If civility is what one is going for, might it not be better (and more useful, actually) to avoid terms like "sexist" altogether? For instance, instead of merely crying sexism if someone assumes that women should be responsible for child care in a relationship, it could be more productive to say "why can't the man take care of the kids?" Gets to the substance of the matter, without seeming so much like an attack or an accusation.
(n.b. this obviously doesn't apply to people who are just bigoted. In those cases, bring on the calls of "racist" and "sexist")
When has "agenda" become negative? I can't cite hte date, but it certainly has become negative in certain contexts.
In a negative sense it implies a "secret agenda" that means one is being deceptive and manipulative. Then throw in the old stereotype of the wily female and add the V word which is still taken as somewhat coarse and there you go.
Now, when my young son called cellulite "Sunny Delight" that was a truly funny and cute childish moment.
Not that I'm boasting.
Competition and bitter barbs can come later.
Followed by cry, cry, masturbate, cry of course.
Tripp, sure. I can come up with negative connotations for that, or nearly any, word. But even using "hidden agenda" as the referent, there's a perfectly non-sexist play on words there, too, since the most of the female genitalia are, indeed, hidden. That's the beauty of our language. There are so many potential levels and layers of meaning to so many of our words that good poetry acts like the best art should, producing a widepanoply of reactions depending on (and even within) the observer.
That's the beauty of our language. There are so many potential levels and layers of meaning to so many of our words that good poetry acts like the best art should, producing a wide panoply of reactions depending on (and even within) the observer.
God, you're such a fag.
How do you speak so clearly with my balls in your mouth, Ogged?
I'm not speaking clearly, apo, but we understand each other perfectly.
Or maybe it's just a play on words. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. In this case, the wide early reaction to the pun turned out to have missed the target when Goldbarth's usage was later revealed to be closer to itinerary.
Did you read it (solely) that way? I thought the rest of it kind of drove the attitude home. ('Yo, bitches! Put me on your vagenda!')
Does any play on gendered words automatically fall into sexism unless the conflation is unambiguously positive and laudatory? If so, what a dreary place to find ourselves.
Ya know'd, if a woman wrote one of those 'wymyn's poetry' things that was all about the penises she had known and how she'd wound up doing everything that was on their agenda, (because of their scheming to control her body or some shit) I'd find it sorta annoying. And I have read some of that stuff. Unfortunately.
ash
['M. poetry v. dreary, avoid.']
Did you read it (solely) that way?
When I read a poem, I usually read it several times in a row, looking for meanings I might have missed the first time, since the poetry I like tends to resemble word puzzles. Shrug.
'Yo, bitches! Put me on your vagenda!'
We read it very differently, then. I read it as being about the figurative impenetrability of other people's exeperiences, even despite literal penetration.
But even using it in the form of hidden agenda (qua joke), I guess where I'm running aground here is when "agenda" becomes a negative trait, and a specifically female one, at that. I have an agenda. You have an agenda. We all have our agendas. It just so happens that only one sex organ has a pronunciation that's close enough to mix and that's obviously not by design.
Does any play on gendered words automatically fall into sexism unless the conflation is unambiguously positive and laudatory? If so, what a dreary place to find ourselves.
...
That's the beauty of our language. There are so many potential levels and layers of meaning to so many of our words that good poetry acts like the best art should, producing a wide panoply of reactions depending on (and even within) the observer.
But apostropher, in point of fact, *most* uses of the word are derogatory and refer mockingly and shamingly to women's exercise of power. So any women on here who found it sexist were right to. Sure, I could say, "I have a vagenda, yo, and you aren't on it," or some such empowered thing, and it turned out not to be sexist in that poem, but no one here was drearifying the world by seeing that word and remarking on its sexism. "'Vagenda' a sexist and unfunny joke" is a true statement; it just happened not to be true w/r/t that poem.
Wait, I think the horse is still moving. Step aside while I whack it.
*most* uses of the word are derogatory
Let's be fair, though: this is hardly an oft-used word, and I doubt Goldbarth consulted the urban dictionary when writing the poem, though I could be entirely mistaken. I'd never heard it before, anyhow.
Sure, I could say, "I have a vagenda, yo, and you aren't on it,"
And this, really, is the issue at hand: words have multiple meanings. "She has a vagenda, yo, and I ain't on it" is sexist, but "I have a vagenda, yo, and you ain't on it" is empowering? To me, neither is right. It's a pun.
But let's stick with the derogatory usage. Certainly, it can be used demeaningly and over-broadly, and undoubtedly has. On the other hand, we can all point to instances we've witnessed personally where the derogatory usage would also be an accurate description. I mean, really, we have all played power games with sex at some point in our lives. And while a corollary pun escapes me at the moment (Women have vaginas, men have fallacies? Eh, weak.), come up with a male version, and I'd say the same thing.
The closest male analog I can think of is "he really dicked her/him over." But I think that goes in the not nearly as gross because of historical and actual power differences between the sexes in fact does favor men bin.
Apo, you're defending a person I'm not accusing. But when you say, "Does any play on gendered words automatically fall into sexism unless the conflation is unambiguously positive and laudatory? If so, what a dreary place to find ourselves" and say some conceivable meaning of "vagenda" is okay (the meaning you're defending is in fact laudatory, though not specific) you're doing whatever the converse of attacking a straw man is--defending an iron one, I guess: picking the least objectionable expression to criticize. (Maybe I just misunderstood you in the first place, and you were narrowly defending the poet from Ash's criticism and not defending the word in general. )
Maybe I just misunderstood you in the first place
Eh, I've been all over the map over the course of ~450 comments, interjecting them between glances up from my dreary work. I'd be hard-pressed to summarize my comments into a coherent, internally consistent argument. So defending an iron man is probably a fair accusation.
Thank god Apo is here! Otherwise he'd be planning his vengeance and having his revenge.
ap: Wait, I think the horse is still moving. Step aside while I whack it.
Hah.
We read it [the full stanza] very differently, then.
And I think I had good reason to do so. [flourish of cymbals indicating appearance of rabbits & hats]
I doubt Goldbarth consulted the urban dictionary when writing the poem
But he consulted something else. Poetry translator on!
Moon of the gnashing wolf, moon of the overtumulting tidewaters,
"My tumult is all stiff now baby!"
moon of the itch of love, of the gnash of love, of the waters of love,
"Gnash == gash! A pun a pun a pun. I'm so subtle!"
Anyways, this is the point where the eyerolling it started. The reason the eyerolling started is because
those two lines are a tarot card reference. The specific reference is XVIII - The Moon card.
Tarot decks are pretty old (late medieval), but the modern popular forms are derived (more or less) from the Ryder-Waite deck. Said deck was designed, and then described in a book around 1910 - Edwardian England, when Victoria's memory still held away.
An adequately large picture of the moon card.
The picture has the elements the dude mentions, shore/water, wolf (gnashing), moon and whatnot. So I expect he just ripped off the card and didn't bother to file the serial numbers off.
At any rate, the Moon, in yer Edwardian sense, would represent negative 'female' principles. Like menstruation and fucking. 'horin' it about, guv. Also, deception, manipulation and whatnot.
--we've all been there.
Except the virgins. And the heterosexual women. And the homosexual men.
Upstairs, my wife is sleeping; dreaming--what? How far
is the tether unraveled?
Your wife gave birth to you? Do ye want to go back to the womb now?
If life is a stem,
There is no Freudianism in the Champagne Room.
by definition its flowering grows outside of the stem.
Spooge!
How short, how everyday, is the step
between two worlds?
Just gotta go upstairs, evidently.
--the thickness of the skull? of the skin?
Soon your wife will leave you for Regis Philbin.
My wife's friend Jane's young son announced,
in case we didn't know it,
You cheat five-year-olds at card games, doncha?
"Men-have-penises.
Women-have-vagendas." That's a good one, yes?
Toothy vagendas, even. Gotta rip yer stem right off there. And give it to Regis.
And I've been pleased to have been issued passports
into some of those "vagendas"--to have traveled there.
You've had sex with at least two women! Your mom would be proud, if she wasn't one of them.
And always, at that journey's end, I've been left breathless,
changed for a moment and lost in myself and breathless,
and beached on a foreign shore.
It was GGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDD. There was even some flowering!
ash
['Soon, a third woman! Yow!']
When apostropher traveled time, for the future of mankind, did anyone thank him? No. No they did not.
They just turned their heads, dammit.
We all thanked him about ten minutes from now. You're early.
Who is this Noody? I need the love before I put on my boots of lead.
It's a long way to 500.
"Ben w-lfs-n is so gay..." threads can go forever.
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, he's a catamite!
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, when he sits around the house, he sits around the house.
Wait. No, actually, that works.
Excellent!
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, he's not that...oh yes he is.
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, he, uh, he has sex with dudes. And he likes it!
Wow, that's like, the definition of gay.
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, Carson Kressley calls him for fashion advice.
Why I Am So Gay
Why I Am So Smart
Why I Am A Destiny
ogged is so gay, he namechecks Carson Kressley.
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, he likes his mustard qua mustard.
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, your momma is fat.
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, he just needs to find the right boy and settle down to a life of domestic bliss.
ash
['And fellatio.']
Ogged, "namecheck" is basically just "refer".
If helping people out with their problems is gay, then I gay gay to be gay.
What is "namechecks?"
Now if you'd read Family Circus like a real American, you'd have known that already.
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, Jeebus hates him.
Ben is so gay, he thinks Ogged is almost cute.
That is a misrepresentation of my words!
Ben is so gay, he's feeling no pain.
476: Except ogged's too old for him.
And I quote: "Oh, Ogged. It's almost cute."
I feel this belongs here, somehow.
...Ratzinger has preemptively barred him from the priesthood.
..he cares about andrew sullivan's sleep apnea
...he has more upper body muscle mass than a woman
he is pushing a 48x18, with a front brake, and mustache bars.
I agree.
Where do you quote from?
For the sake of others, you don't really want to click on the link in 482.
It's certainly a misrepresentation of my meaning, and with "it's" I certainly wasn't referring to ogged, but rather to the state of affairs in which he was lost, a child, amid the teeming profusion of threads, his own creations.
I thought you were talking about his wang.
baa, your contribution is appreciated (particularly the apnea line), but we're trying to get to 500 here.
That was a Bitchphd indiscretion error, wasn't it?
#485: What's wrong with the link in 482? Well-built guys in admittedly geeky pictures. BFD.
#486: Still, you did say "cute."
Ben is so gay, he's feeling no pain.
Pegboy!
ash
['Arr.']
If "somebodies" is well-built we are definitely accepting no more complaints about Rachel Wacholder.
Matt, are you the last guy to realize that I wasn't serious about Rachel Wacholder?
Anyway, in reality, I'm so gay I think ogged is smokin' hot.
She's a lying, hurtful, bitch, that's why.
When did Ben call ogged cute? Was it in meatspace?
And there's a big difference between the IT guys finding buff guys in your browser cache (gay) and them finding goofy guys riding bikes in their undies (keep away from me, weirdo!)
When did Ben call ogged cute? Was it in meatspace?
Clearly, Bphd has violated the sanctity of an IM/email communication.
When did Ben call ogged cute? Was it in meatspace?
Then I pinched his widdle cheek.
Clearly, Bphd has violated the sanctity of an IM/email communication.
What I was getting at in 490.
And I may be clueless, but I got to make comment 500 again.
Hm. My whole life has been a waste.
This would be an excellent time for someone to scream "OW! My ASS! It burns! It BURNNNNNNNNNSSSS!"
ash
['Daddy's dying, who's got the probe?']
Nothing personal, Matt, but damn you to hell. Way to bogart the 500.
428: isn't vagenda itself plural? I thought the singular form was, vagendum.
Check out the time stamps: I called my shot! (Yes, it's sad that I'm actually excited about this.)
I got to make comment 500 again.
So, what's the oddest place you've ever made comment?
You are, however, now pwned on the "no hottness past 25" score.
I thought the singular form was, vagendum.
Why can't people just call it an accordian, goddammit?
ash
['I'm so confused.']
You are, however, now pwned on the "no hottness past 25" score.
I said in the post that athletes could push it to their early thirties.
Because that's not how it's spelled, ash.
This Sufjan Stevens album, Come On Feel The Illinoise, is pretty damn good.
Because that's not how it's spelled, ash.
w-lfs-n is so gay, he LISPs.
ash
['Cruelty is the step-father of invention.']
Of course it is, Weiner; Sufjan Stevens rulz.
I told you all when I first got back: I've violated the meatspace of everyone here, except Ogged, who is a toddler and I don't swing that way.
520: That's so 480s. You're dating yourself, old man.
"Come On! Feel the Illinoise!", one of two songs I heard on the radio and made me think "I should check this out," except that time I didn't get the chance to hear who the artist was, quotes the Cure in its horn part.
It's not as if anyone else would.
The other one was "Casimir Pulaski Day." Not the same as the Big Black song. (My brother: "There's more than one song called 'Casimiar Pulaski Day'?)
Your brother's reaction was the same one I just had.
It's not as if anyone else would.
What? What about when you propositioned me?
ash
['I feel so used.']
The other one was "Casimir Pulaski Day." Not the same as the Big Black song.
The Big Black song is "Kasimir S. Pulaski Day".
Isn't it time for Ben W to recommend us up some cool new music?
Also, is Casimir Pulaski the one who has a memorial on the Cambridge Common, Matt?
The Sufjan Stevens album isn't called "Come on feel the Illinoise" if you want to be like that.
520: That's so 480s. You're dating yourself, old man.
But I found the god-damned Grail, didn't I?
ash
['Neener, knave.']
532: Pulaski is a Polish hero of the American Revolution, much commemmorated by Polish-Americans I believe. The Bloomfield Bridge Tavern (come back, Cala!) has a proclamation of Kasimir Pulaski Day on its wall. So, probably.
Did you never walk up to the quad, Matt? Gotta be pulaski, thoiugh. Man, the American Revolution is like a goddamn fairy tale.
Last time I walked up to the quad was probably in '93. Maybe in '97 for my reunion. I'd forgotten where Cambridge Common was.
I own a biography of Casimir Pulaski. I haven't read it though - a professor threw it out (almost literally, along with a pile of other books, onto a table) and somehow I ended up with it.
re 511: So, what's the oddest place you've ever made comment?
Are you thinking of the Newlywed game?
I learned from Prince Valiant that the Druid who landed the burnt piece of toast (wondering now: Druids? Toast?) was thereby assigned to die as a sacrifice to the gods. So may it be with students and biographies of Casimir Pulaski.
Looks like trouble for eb.
I need to go down to the hall of records.
The fact that everyone went away so soon after SB's prophecy of doom has me worried, though.
I've driven on the Pulaski Skyway, is that half doom?
Things were slowing down before that, really.
Oh, I'm still here. Regretting having turned down Bitch&Ben's combined offer to do my job.
Sacrifice averted!
(But LB, please don't let us take up your time.)
Maybe next time I'll offer to show my tits to anyone who grades essays for me. I figure most of the folks here are qualified.
Have you never heard of the staircase method? Guaranteed to produce a nice, even looking grade curve.
I have, but if there's no comments, they get suspicious.
is that half doom?
According to this site, which I found by searching for the punchline of the joke about the Pulaski Skyway told in Angels in America, yes.
That seems to be a message board of a bunch of people making in-jokes and homoerotic comments. Strange places you find on the internet.
I've always been fond of the weighted average: the grading scale depends on the average weight of the papers.
Actually grades merely reflect the students' "hotness" quotient.
If your students read the comments, that's pretty good. If they don't, you could just scribble gibberish.
I know that some of them read, b/c they come up to me after class and say, "what does this gibberish mean?"
We should start a co-op/barter system for onerous work. The most attractive thing I have to offer is those pictures of my cat that you've all seen.
You could make music recommendations, Matt.
I have some string on my desk. And rubber bands.
I have copies of handwritten letters implicating 19th century businessmen in corruption.
Actually, on comments, a history professor friend of mine uses speech recognition software. Talks into the mike as he reads the essay, and comes up with a very low-effort page of comments that way. I admit that I find this slightly incredible, because I've never met anyone else who successfully uses speech recognition software, but I offer the suggestion for what it's worth.
I'd write for string.
Frankly, I'd feel guilty accepting a rubber band. Too fancy for me.
Me.
So, if you'll do some grading for me in the future, I'll tell you about this totally cool Sufjan Stevens album.
I just ate a peanut butter cup of a brand certain. Bidding for the wrapper starts at one paperclip.
Pulaski is a Polish hero of the American Revolution, much commemmorated by Polish-Americans I believe.
The only thing I remember from reading about him is that he was the father of America's cavalry, he fought for Napoleon, and he was crazier than a shithouse rat. Which seems to be a fine Polish tradition continued down to this very day.
Sacrifice averted!
But you're only buying time. No, I'm afraid there's only one permanent solution, lad.
{sounds of doom, dramatic music, penguin noises}
You're going to have to pull Borshtcalibur out of w-lfs-n's ass.
ash
['The land is the sausage! The sausage is the land!']
Oh hey, cat pictures and string! A fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that!
I lied. I don't really have string. (I do really have the rubber bands.)
Well, drat. And here I was ready to offer a blankhealth insurance application for some string. I suppose I'll have to content myself with having the ability to go to a doctor now.
At a library I was using, in the microfilm room, off in a darkened corner a middle-aged man sat at one of the old-style machines and spoke quietly to no one I could see. I thought he was using a tape recorder, but it could have been something more high-tech.
I tend to make photocopies and/or type things out. I suck at organization though.
Hey, I also as of today have the ability to go to a doctor, I think.
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
570-- Or he could have been practicing evil incantations. Never know.
572, 573: LizardBreath revealed again!
I'll offer mint-chocolate chip ice cream for an in-depth summary assingment 12. I've agreed with fellow students to a summary sharing regime, and must contribute my part, though I've read the majority of the other assignments.
Hotspur: once again harshing my mellow.
I can do such deeds as the day would quake to look upon.
Did you really just have a peanut butter cup, SB? That's charming. (Actually, it's cute, but that word has been overused today.)
And along with the mint-chocolate chip ice cream, you'll also recieve an ice-cream soaked, stamped, and used, envelope.
You have funny ideas regarding hyphenation, w/d.
Did you really just have a peanut butter cup, SB?
I did.
That's charming.
I'm waiting 'til marriage, but thanks.
What is it we used to say to the girls? "Marriage has been around for thousands of years."
I love the argument of "To His Coy Mistress": if we would live forever, then I wouldn't mind your eluding me, and teasing, but in fact, we're both going to die eventually, and then a worm will get all up in there, and aren't I preferable to a worm? So let's do it."
"Marriage has been around for thousands of years."
I never thought about it that way. Maybe I could arrange for you to share more of your wisdom with me.
"Casimir Pulaski Day" is a very sad song. But damn this album is good.
Maybe I could arrange for you to share more of your wisdom with me.
A.T.M.
You know, I noticed after posting the first time that I had placed a hyphen between "mint" and "chocolate", wondered what I was thinking (because chocolate is modifying chip, and mint and chocolate aren't forming a compound word at all), and then I went ahead and did it again. The one in ice cream is even less explicable, perhaps my hands are plotting against me (I attempted to find the far side cartoon of one hand plotting to kill the other as a hyperlink for "hands are plotting, but failed. If you have seen this cartoon, imagine you are seeing it again.).
"… we're both going to die eventually, and then a worm will get all up in there, and aren't I preferable to a worm? So let's do it."
But she gets the worm (ick brigade on two: 1, 2, ick!) either way. His sweet talk is not soundly argued.
You can download "Casimir Pulaski Day" from Amazon.
No, you see, he is saying that by sexing her up, he will make her immortal. His cock has magical powers.
True, but the poem actually states that a worm will try her virginity if she keeps going as she's been. (I always remember it as "your virtue", being discreet.) At least she can avoid that indignity.
Also "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts".
Wow. There goes $15.
The Angels of Light song "Evangeline" ends on a very Sufjan Stevens–esque vibe, what with the female backing vocals—or maybe it's the other way around, properly.
SB, you may be able to get it cheaper at a record store or something--I paid $11 at Paul's CDs a block from the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern. (The vinyl cost $13 and appeared to have 3 more songs--though I don't know if they were just interludes along the lines of "Let's hear that string part again, because I don't think they heard it all the way out in Bushnell."
But the main point, that you should buy this, is correct.
Ogged would hate this music. Agreed?
Thanks for the tip, Matt. And of course, damn you to hell.
Ogged would hate this music.
This is correct. But as long as a consensus doesn't develop that he's a genius, I don't begrudge anyone their pleasure.
Ogged, have you listened to any of it, or are you just agreeing with us? You might like some of the banjo-based tunes from Seven Swans.
Also the breathy, high voice will get on his nerves, and the painstakingly composed arrangements aren't his thing. In fact it's kind of like Pet Sounds isn't it?
He probably is a genius, now that you mention it.
Yeah, those "ba ba badada"s from "Evangeline", very similar. That Angels of Light album (How I Loved You) is really good, too.
Always trying to expand my horizons, I listened to a bunch of Stevens a few months ago, after reading several "he's so great" articles. But Weiner's got it right in 611; I kind of like the music actually, but I can't get past the voice.
He probably is a genius, now that you mention it.
I think he's one of the deftest arrangers in indie rock today!
How many commenters does a consensus make?
painstakingly composed arrangements
As a way to express care and attention, I dislike "painstaking". It suggests too much the artist's having passed a diamond through his/her urethra. Good: diamond! Bad: urethra diamond.
Maybe ogged would find this more to his liking.
I do like that, in fact. I'm not sure I'd play it over and over, but I like it.
In the spirit of low-key late night comity, I offer that I have a soft spot for the CSNY song "Southern Cross" and love all of Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" album.
The Sun City Girls track "CCC" (that's "Calcutta Codeine Coma") is very much in the spirit of late night low-key comity.
Hmm. I'm thinking of calling my next project "Urethra Diamond". Comments?
Wait, actually, what sucks about it? Y'all have a good idea what I think makes for suckiness, but I have no idea how you're thinking about this stuff.
I've never heard it, actually, I'm just suspicious of CS & N, +/- Y.
I typically want to murder CSN, but I like "Southern Cross."
That's just not as funny as Blixa Bargeld reading a home improvement catalog.
It works on so many levels!
Hard to say--I can point to various things (the high voice piercing rather than floating, the chord changes somehow obvious so the song becomes unpleasantly catchy rather than memorable, and the beat is just eh), but all of those might conceivably be things I would like in other contexts.
In the spirit of late-night comity, I'll go to bed now.
Yeah, there are things about the song that annoy me, but the parts with Stills (it's Stills, right?) just singing I find unaccountably affecting. Woot! Comity!
Urethra Franklin?
Dee eye ay em oh en dee,
Find out how it hurts to pee!
I like Southern Cross, but I'm close (LB seems at least as disinclined as I am) to the last person to defend my own taste in music. Though I don't quite understand how it's possible to sincerely believe that one's taste in anything is bad. Well, I guess if you recognize objective standards independent of what you actually like, it's not so surprising.
"Casimir Pulaski Day" is a very sad song.
Listening to it again. Tears now. Very sad.
It took me a couple of listen-throughs to catch the whole story.
519: Thanks Matt! I will give that to my brother, who lives in Illinois (Urbana) and enjoys music, for Christmas.
Always happy to evangelize for my music, and this is really so good that I am driven to spontaneously exclaim while I listen to it. And I seem to like making SB cry. The album does build to a mystical-Sandburgian (or maybe Whitmanesque) climax, which refers to the now-defunct Goat Curse.
I was thinking a little bit, and part of the reason I like Stevens but not "Southern Cross" is that Stevens and his singers don't oversing. If you listen to "Casimir Pulaski Day" in a car, you can't tell what it's about, because the voice is a steady murmur throughout. If he were moaning and yowling it would become manipulative and less deeply effective. In a way it's like Buell Kazee--though the pain in his music is obvious from every note he sings, it would be less effective without the implacable onrushing banjo underneath, and the formality of his singing also makes it more devastating. It's like those Beckett plays where the characters tell their stories in the third person.
Whereas I find Nash's singing on "Southern Cross" to be cloying (I believe he's the one with the high voice, and Stills sings "and you know it will"). But I can't defend this as an overall preference--Otis Redding emotes all over the place and he's great. The whole problem of whether aesthetic quality can amount to anything more than taste is incredibly vexing, although Ben will be able to solve it for us in a few years.
Perhaps it would most promote early-morning comity if I point out that the mention of Sufjan Stevens in 519 was also partly intended to distract from the humiliating sequence of auto-pwns I had just executed.
Always happy to evangelize for my music, and this is really so good that I am driven to spontaneously exclaim while I listen to it.
I once started laughing while listening to "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!" in my car. I think it was just out of sheer gratification.
This is a different medium, but I was spontaneously moved to kiss A Room with a View when I read it, and did.
I liked Rupert Graves so much in the film version that I wanted to be him. I'm still having Freddy Honeychurch identity issues to this day.
Hmm. I'm thinking of calling my next project "Urethra Diamond". Comments?
Shine on, Urethra Diamond.
Shine on, Urethra Diamond.
Hey not to totally change the subject or anything but the indirect mention of Pink Floyd's "Shine on you Crazy Diamond" -- a song I consider fair to poor from a band that I like a lot -- makes me think about a question I wanted to ask you guys about the movie, "The Squid and the Whale". I am not going to ask that question in this comment because it's so unrelated to anything anyone has been talking about; but if anyone else commenting would be interested in it, then say so and I will post it. Or if you don't want to, then say that and I will let it lie. If there are both sorts of responses I will give preference to the ones telling me to quiet down.
This thread is strictly for discussing Albert Goldbarth's sexist poetry.
In a thread that has hit the 650 mark, you hesitate to ask a question because you think it may be too off-topic?? Ask, already!
Commenter 648, aka Jeremy Osner, although I am an irregular commenter on this blog, I have read the manual, and have been deputized with the authority to respond to your query. Having consulted the manual, Subsection C, paragraph 2, line 12, I see that under these circumstances the correct protocol is, and I quote, "only if it involves butt sex."
Can the song that takes up half of the band's best album be fair to poor? Interestingly, with this band there are two excellent candidates for such a song.
Goldbarth only.
You are a stern taskmaster, Standpipe. This fact must somehow explain the meaning of the email I received the other day with the subject line "it buy an cerise standpipe".
I forgot about the butt sex proviso. For shame.
I wanted to ask you guys about the movie, "The Squid and the Whale"
Never heard of it, but I sure do want to see The Calamari Wrestler.
Aagh -- no butt sex. Butt sex is however featured (in a minor role) in the movie so I will go ahead. Here it is: I can buy the older son's plagiarizing a song to do in the school talent competition and saying he wrote it, as I did something remarkably similar when I was 13.* But the movie is set in 1984! How the hell is he expecting that people will not know "Hey You" is by Pink Floyd? Is this meant as a hint to us that he is totally spaced out? I don't think it quite works as such a hint, if that's how it's intended; and if not, it's disturbingly non-credible. Either way it detracts from an otherwise great movie.
Note: The first time I was ever in a strip club, when I was 17 (? maybe 16 -- either way I was telling them I was 18) on a trip to Montreal, one of the strippers performed her act to "Hey You".
*(Viz: I was sitting in 7th grade drama class scribbling notes and I happened to write out some of the lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel's "Patterns". My older friend Martyn Corgiat, who was in a punk rock band, saw them and asked if I had written them. I claimed that I had and hilarity ensued; it ended in heartbreak of course.)
Note: I expect you are going to come back with, "but how the hell did Jeremy not expect that people would know 'Patterns' is by S&G?" or words to that effect. Answer: I did expect I would be found out, which is why I revealed my deception to Martyn a few days before his band was planning to play the song at Leonard's Underground. This was the beginning of a rocky period in Martyn's and my relationship -- we were friends on and off for all of high school.
I'm pretty sure that spam is pimping my cherry en franglais.
Matt -- is your other candidate for such a song "Another Brick in the Wall", parts I through whatever?
About Pink Floyd -- the songs and albums I like, I love; the other stuff I can take or leave. My only real use for "Hey You" is that it reminds me of my shame and rapture at seeing a stripper undress for the first time. "Shine on YCD" does not drive me to change the channel when it comes on the radio; but I would not voluntarily spin it up.
Did My Alter Ego just cleverly lure SB into giving a clue to SB's gender?
Speaking of music recommendations (and the desire to evangalize for favorite music) I'm tempted to make copies of collections that I've made of some of my favorite music and send them along as my contribution to the great unfogged DC/NYC gatherings.
Would people actually take them and listen to them if I did so?
I'm pretty sure that spam is pimping my cherry en franglais.
I was hoping that's what it was. That's why I clicked on the link in the email and gave them my credit card number.
Did My Alter Ego just cleverly lure SB into giving a clue to SB's gender?
I thought both genders had les cerises, in one way or another.
Great. Now I've got a "Come on you beggar/ you stealer of secrets/ And SHI-ne!" ear worm. Thanks a fuckin lot, self. And I don't even know if the lyrics in the ear worm are correct.
Weiner's comment next.
No, I've been savoring the anticipation, and I'm going to snatch it from his jaws.
Muwahahahahahaha.
I suppose I can't rightly complain.
I think the evil laugh makes it acceptable.
Ms. Carpathia, I presume?
I'm going to snatch it from his jaws
At the Mineshaft.
660: No, "Echoes"--ABitW doesn't actually take up that much space, on the most generous construal. It occurs to me that "Dogs" might also count. If you said, "Atom Heart Mother," though, you need to smoke less.
I wouldn't have recognized "Patterns," and I listened to a more than fair amount of S&G--just not that album, I guess. Your point about "Hey You" seems eminently fair.
Ms. Carpathia, I presume?
Why yes. And in the last few comments I have ascended from lowly blog deputy to all-blogosphere enforcer. Unfogged, I hereby order you to take shelter under the benevolent aegis of Pajamas Media. It's dark and friendly under that robe.
[mutters to self] Next on the vagenda, rain of fire.
Next on the vagenda
Tia is the sexiest!
This thread makes me feel so out of touch with this blog.
(checks self for signs of rapture)
Crap.
Well, I had no trouble believing that his parents didn't recognize the song, but when he won the school talent contest with it I didn't know what to make of it either. Is there some way we can ask Noah Baumbach what the authorial intent was?
take shelter under the benevolent aegis of Pajamas Media. It's dark and friendly under that robe.
It occurred to me that the marks on the side of the robe could be Scooby Dolike "wavy dream delimiters" (as Ogged called them, in his comment about toast)--marking some entrance into an alternate reality or dreamscape.
Was that like checking for your car keys, SB? Because if it was, you don't need to worry, we've got plenty of extra signs at Headquarters. Just come on down and fill out a requisition.
"wavy dream delimiters"
I think of them as waves of fetid odor.
[mutters to self] Next on the vagenda, rain of fire.
Yo! Howabout Comfortably Numb too?
ash
['I was always wanted to hear the polka version.']
['I was always wanted to hear the polka version.']
"Money" translates pretty well to the … whatever that keyboard-wind instrument is.
Next on the vagenda, rain of fire.
Don't they make pills now that will cure that?
682 was, I am [proud/sorry/ashamed] to say, me.
this thread is going to eat unfogged. how shall I contribute?
I think Standpipe's gender has been revealed more than once, but it is more fun to pretend otherwise.
I know! Let's take the names of ordinary movies and alter them so that they would be more appropriate for blue movies! I'll start.
Good Night and Good Fuck
Wallace and Grommit: The Kiss of the Bare Rabbit
I was going to say Bareback Mountain, but that's been done to death. How about Escape from Boy Mountain? Sort of blue/horror.
Dickin' a Little.
Ok, it's a stretch.
I can't believe you're doing this Ben, without giving credit to the queen of the pornified titles.
Also, please note that I'll close comments on this thread before it gets to 1000.
Ogged, my link in 691 was meant as a small token of respect to that thread and its pornified title queen.
And, indeed, doing this at all is nothing more than an extended allusion to and riff on that other, now second-longest thread.
Can I do books, poems, and operas?
The Love Song of J. Alfred Hugecock
As I Lay Diane
Poon River Anthology
Shlong of Solomon
"Oh, Lord, Jim!"
Dildo and an Anus
Of Spume and Bondage
Honestly! Must I spell everything out for you?
Dildo and an Anus
Of Spume and Bondage
Brilliant!
Since I'm blanking on a porniferous version of Goblet of Fire, I'll just say that I'm anxiously awaiting the release of Hairy Pooter and the Odor of the Finger.
Hairy Cooter and the Philosopher's Stone-Hard Cock
Hairy Cooter and the Chamber of Secrets
Hairy Cooter and the Prisoner of Ass: Cabana Boy
Hairy Cooter and the Goblet of Fire
Hairy Cooter and the Philosopher's Stone-Hard Cock
Gotta say I like this one best. More...direct.
Interesting how familiy fare doesn't need name changes:
The Kid & I
Yours, Mine & Ours
Also now playing:
Tastes A Little Like Chicken
Not Just Friends
Hairy Cooter and the Hot-Blooded Prince?
Oh, there's always "Cunt." Based on the musical of the same name, you know.
I can't agree with Jackmormon; "Prisoner of Ass: Cabana Boy" was the best.
Hairy Cooter and the Hot Bloodprints
Oops. 711 and 705 were me.
Syrianal.
Shitty Shitty Bang Bang. ATM. Yeah, it's weak.
The Family Jewels
The Lyin' Bitch and the Whore's Globes
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Behind
The Life Aquadick
Rushwhore
Bottle Rocket
Ballsack and the Little Chinese Reamstress
The Constant Hardener
Actually, I guess, I could have made the last Bottom Rocket, but it seemed inartistic.
Alexander's Fanny
Pages from the Virgin's Diary
Todo Sobre Mi Puta Madre (All About Fucking My Mother)
The Girl with the Pearl Necklace
Das Cooter
No Man's Land
Seven Samurai and Eight Women
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
I was just about to type that Joe. Foiled again.
Seven Samurai and Eight Women
Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch involving a school production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers: "Right, do you four boys take these two girls to be your seven brides?"
I was just about to type that Joe.
That Joe!
The Passion of Joan and Mark
Two English Girls
Babbette's Fist
740 being in a double feature with The Dirty Dozen.
The Lyin' Bitch and Whore's Globes
Prince qua Pee On
The Ravage of Dawn Treader
The Fill-Her Chair
The Horse and His Boy
The Lesbian's New Screw
The Last Anal Battle
I Have No Dick and I Must Scream
ash
['Vagenda Productions, Ltd.']
Antonia's Crack
I Remember Your Mama
How about children's ditties? "There Were 10 in the Bed" is just waiting to be made into a porn extravaganza. (With an Agatha Christie twist perhaps -- we need more porn crossover!) The "Barney" theme song likewise, obviously.
Damn you all.
Citizen's Cane.
Missionary? Impossible!
754: LOL. Sorry, it's got to be said.
Was "The Turn of the Screw" made into a movie? I think it was.
The Ass Sperm Papers
Central Park in the Dark
#749 made me laugh.
A Fuck in the Sun
The Wizard of Cooze
And then there's Pascal's Penisées.
Re. #758, has anybody read "Guess How Much I Love You"? In which the parent bunny's name is "Nut Brown Hare"? I cannot read that book out loud, it's impossible.
I Spit On Your Cock.
Come With The Wind.
Singin' In Pain.
Some Like A Cock.
The Treasure of Sierra's Madre.
The Treasure of Sierra's Madre 2: The Aunts.
#766 continued: actually, it's "Big Nut Brown Hare" and "Little Nut Brown Hare." I can't believe that book is a bestseller.
Bill Murray in Gushwhore (I know Rushwhore was already done. What the hey.)
Bill Murray in The Royal Ten-Inch Bones.
662: Would people actually take them and listen to them if I did so?
Yes I definitely would. I am lazy about listening to music I have not already heard, but if an opportunity like the one you lay out presents itself (or is presented by somebody), I jump on it like, well, you know.
Fevered Bitch
The Brothers' Rims
Chick, Cock, Go
Seven Whores in May
ash
['Ellison's titles lend themselves not to porn.']
Bill Murray in Bossed in the Dungeon
Bill Murray in Lost in Trans Nation
From the Dick 'Ems Suite:
Great Ejaculations
The Licked Wick Papers
Twisted Oliver
Little Dorrit Does It
Tale of Two Titties
#788: Or, Seven Pairs of Tits? You Bet!
The Prostitute's Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of My Ass
Pussy, the Universe and Everything
Mostly Dickless
So Long, And Thanks for All the Pussy
The Long, Dark Teabagging of the Soul
ash
['Girl-girl extravaganza.']
High Nooner.
The Postman Always Comes Twice.
Old Yeller and Her Daughter.
And 800 went to someone with an exponentially faster internet connection than I've got.
Actually, Seven Gays in May
ash
['It's like making pottery!']
#807, don't you mean, "If These Balls Were Sucked"?
No Pride, No Prejudice
Sex and Sexability
On A Mansfield Park Bench
Persuaded
733: Das Butt seems a little more mellifluous to my ear.
Penis of the Gods
The Sleeper Ejaculates
Whoreworld
Fuck Mama On the Train
A Kiss Ass Carol
Hussies At War
Apartment 42DD
House of the Rising Erection
ash
['A dry white.']
804--ha.
The Penises of Penzance
Roaming Pole-Licking Pirates!
The Piled Asses of Caprice
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. in The Cockblocked Pirate
Pirate Ass-Swarm (with Vageenda Vis)
Fuckonomics
Happy Penis, Texas
Anal Rose of Texas
Deep in the Ass of Texas
This Dick is Your Dick
Alice's Pussy
One-Eyed Joe
ash
['Cunty the Clown!']
By Eat-it Whoreton:
The Scourge of Innocence
The Hose of Worth
The Custom of the Cuntry
Eatin' Frum (a foray into the secret lives of Orthodox Jews)
Hummer
Gold Spew York
Die Drei Gropenfuehrers and the Three-Penny Whores
A Confederacy of Cuntses is my favorite of yours, b-wo.
Uh-oh. J.G. Ballard.
Cock Rise
Vagina Island
The Dickasster Area
The Unlimited Pussy Factory
Dicks of the Near Future
ash
['Bzzzt. Bzzzt.']
The Unbearable Tightness of Ian
How can I compete with that?
Not so much Goldbarth criticism going on. The butt sex provisio is really getting a workout.
Gorge Jelly-It's works:
Adam's Seed
Diddlemarch
Will on the Butt Floss?
Daniel on Rhonda
(Didn't someone do Shlong Day's Journey Into Dwight before?)
Kirstie's Alley: An E! True Hollywood Story
An Enemy of the Peehole
The League of Poon
A Dick's House
The Master Baiter
The Wild Dick
Heada Gobbler
ash
['Ibsen, unlike Ellison, is fairly easy.']
I suppose it's hopeless to even say The Ass Menagerie. It seems so obvious.
On the Genealogy of Orals
Thus Take Zara Thrusting
The Gay Science
Ecce Homo
The House of the Fine Buggerers.
(Due to a strange loading error, this page showed up this time as:
4
This is basically a "Family Circus" joke, but with extra crotch
~~~~~~~~~~~~
832
What have I wrought?which I thought at least obliquely appropriate.
Eight Hunderd and Fiftythree is enough
I'm admiring Joe D's work in this thread.
Hey look at these.
BTW did any of you ever see 2069: A Sex Odyssey? When I was a young lad, one time a friend's elder brother rented some sexy videos for us, this was one of them.
(Didn't someone do Shlong Day's Journey Into Dwight before?)
It's been four minutes since the last comment. This thread must be losing steam.
Osner: Hey look at these.
Bitanic is pretty good.
ash
['Most of them are lame.']
['Most of them are lame.']
Oh no question, I just thought it fit in well with the nature of this thread. They've got some nice contributions like The Quick and the Hard and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Breast, and I think it adds a lot that these are actually produced and marketed. And all-time classic, I think it can not be surpassed, An Officer and His Gentlemen.
From the Sheetrock Bones collection:
The Sign of Froth
A Study of Starlets
A Skank in Bohemia
The Adventure of the Ingenue's Thumb
His Final Boner?
The Poon of the Fast Thriller Killers
And on the B page, one finds "The Bare Bitch Project" and "The Backdoor Bradys" -- OK the second is not so much a punny title but the concept! The concept! This is high art.
Ball In The Family
Desperately Sucking Susan
BTW -- on noticing my most recent comment snagged #869 (quite inadvertently) -- Has anybody else noticed how many of the posts on this page for which N % 100 == 69 belong to bitchphd? Intriguing.
851: Twilight of the She-Dolls, Or, How One Feminizes a Rammer.
(I can't avoid this one)
All That Jizz
This thread must be losing steam.
I would have suggested a nice group story. I even have an opening line(s)!
I think it adds a lot that these are actually produced and marketed.
It invokes the eternal question of 'Why can't they make GOOD porn?'
From the Sheetrock Bones collection:
I was holding back unleashing the collected works of Edgar Allen Poon.
ash
['Step one, extend and seat tripod on stable surface with gun pointed in preferred direction. Step two, engage safety and set selector switch to semi-auto position. Step three, install fresh, clean barrel. Step four, fill resevoir with water. Step five, latch bolt into loading position....']
Ball In The Family
So close to "Ballin' the Family"…
(I can't avoid this one)
All That Jizz
You've been pwned.
Wait... did someone come up with Ballin' the Family already? Or are you just suggesting it because it's better?
I'm suggesting it because it's better.
So close to "Ballin' the Family"…
You've been pwned.
Jesus, guys, Ogged just said he was admiring me; it's not like he said I was incisive.
#871: I'd sue you for sexual harassment, but I'm too flattered.
The Neverending Whore
The Black Stallion meets Black Beauty
Snow White and the Seven Short Men with Really Big Cocks
The Lady and the Tramp
The Adventures of Vicky's Body and Mr. Choad
Poke a Hot Ass
Screw Anything
Pretty ' n Punk
Sixteen Chiquitas
Balls Quiet on the Festerin' Cunt
Kinky Delivery Service
The Laying King
Alice in Bonerland
Ferris Baller Gets Off
or
Ferris Baller's Gay Day Off
That's Some Great Humpin, Charlie Brown
Ben w-lfs-n is so g--
Whoa! Flashback!
The Discreet Charm of the Booboisie
I like how both 800 and 900 went to comments expressing disappointment.
Night of Giving Head
Dawn of Head
Day of Head
Land of Head
#898, I tried SO HARD to think of one for the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
90-odd comments left, if ogged's as good as his word.
I'd like to applaud Apostropher's contributions and to dare (that's right, DARE) Ogged to shut this thread down before 1000.
Gonorrhea with the Wind
Ben Herpes
But who would rent those?
That this thread has at least 1000 comments is a timeless ontological truth. It hardly matters whether ogged keeps his word.
Don't make me take away your timestamps, people.
You can take out timestamps, but you'll never take our freedom!
From the Chinese Mille-Feuilles canon, soon to be cumming in theaters everywhere!
The Twat
Dildo Street Strumpets
The Skank
The Iron Cunnilinguists
A Jock's Progess
The Little Girl Who Gives Head Down the Lane
Mary-Kate and Ashley in Our Lips Are No Longer Sealed
B, the last time we did this, you had nuthin'.
I just made a fucking delicious dinner, people. You wish you were me.
I worry that, having once made it to 1000, as we have evidently done right here, we'll catch a kind of magnitudinal ennui and yearn not for 1100, or even 2000, but for 10,000 and beyond. This cannot be done. Not with ben-w-lfs-n-is-so-gay, nor even with porn movie titles.
I got me some garlicky, minty, homemade tzatziki, a a heel of yummy crusty bread, some souvlaki-alike beef marinated with thyme, lemon zest & juice, olive oil, and garlic, and roasted veggies. Damn.
It could be done if Unfogged stopped doing comment threads for every post, and just kept one running permanent comment thread.
But we're not going to make it to 1000, not in this mortal plane, anyway.
Okay, while Apostropher made me laugh unexpectedly here and there, BPhD really gets teh credit for continuous depravity. Yay, bitches!
#922: Hey, I was away for a while, I had time to save up.
Was cheesecloth involved in the making of your tzatziki?
I'm having leftover spaghetti for dinner.
Clearly, we have to lie low around 950, then wait until ogged sleeps.
Cry, Cry, Masturbate, Cry, the Beloved Country
But we're not going to make it to 1000
You suckle at the teat of falsehoods.
I dunno, Apostropher and Joe Drymala really had it going on.
The Importance of Seeing Her Chest
Too bad for you, Ogged. We've been commenting in base 6. 1000 passed long ago.
While I sympathize with 929, the only one I literally laughed out loud at was apostropher's 888, and then 896 was pretty high up in my rankings as well. In fact, one way to extend this thread until around doomsday would be to rank everyone's titles, and then rank everyone's rankings, and then...
I was once defeated by the cheesecloth stage.
Was cheesecloth involved in the making of your tzatziki?
I was fooled by the yogurt container into thinking it would be thick enough without draining, so no, but it should have been. Worked out ok anyway.
Good luck, folks. I'm going home.
And the less popular sequel:
Who Says You Have to Stop Crying Game?
925: You don't even know. Last night it was duck-legs simmered in turnips, shallots, apple cider, rosemary, and thyme, over rice, followed with a raw-milk camenbert on challah, then pumpkin cheesecake leftover from Thanksgiving with vanilla gelato. This morning? Challah french toast. (After all that, this evening was broth.) That-all said, I totally bookmarked your hertzmann.com link.
Pick up the pace, folks, I have to go out.
You mean "gag."
So I do. And now having reread the rest of that thread, I see I should have held my tongue on the matter of priority.
You mean "gag."
Speaking of gagging, and preparations of yogurt, I know the most interesting scandalous blowjob-gone-wrong story.
Come on, people! We can do this.
I got me some garlicky, minty, homemade tzatziki, a a heel of yummy crusty bread, some souvlaki-alike beef marinated with thyme, lemon zest & juice, olive oil, and garlic, and roasted veggies. Damn.
w-lfs-n, that's lunch. What's for dinner?
ash
['Thyme? Wouldn't rosemary have been better?']
simmered in turnips
Must have been pretty rotten turnips.
The Fucking in the Rue Morgue
ash
['Ew.']
Tit Found in a Bottle
ash
['C'mon, it's Edgar Allen Poon.']
Dr. Train Slave, or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love to Bone
Butch Cassidy and the Femmey Kid
Close Encounters with the Third Man
I don't even have to change the names!
Why the Little Frenchmen Wears His Hand in a Sling
The Man that Was Used Up
Diddling
The Conqueror Worm
ash
['He's dicking his fourteen-year-old cousin!']
Wim Wenders' Until Vagenda the World
Close Encounters with the Third Man
Wim Wenders' Until Vagenda the World
The Greatest Whore I Ever Sold
I Never Banged My Father
MILF Dearest
Jane Fonda in Cunt
Woody Allen's Queefer
The Gold-Butt
The Balloon-Knot-Hoax
There's my Edgar Allen Poon contribution for you, ash.
Lust for Your Wife
Madame Sex
Moby's Dick
I'd forgotten the word queef, B.
Queefer Madness
The African Queef
Apparently girl27 did the Queer Hunter last go-round.
Children of a Lecher's Wad
21 beers on the wall, if one of them should happen to fall...
The Dick De L'Omelette (ow)
The Literary Penetrations of Thingum Bob, Esq.
Four Breasts in One
Never Bet the Devil Your Penis
Hop-Fuck
The Masque of the Red Cunnilingus
Her Oblong Box
ash
['Be sure to stick around for the 10 pm show, folk, when we'll have the snakelady and her boyfriend the sword-swallower.']
They Saved Hitler's Penis
ash
['Dammit.']
The Sweet Smell of Sexes
The Tender Twat
They Shoot Whores, Don't They?
(hoping somebody hasn't already done this): Whorehouse-5
Plan Dick From Outer Space
ash
['Bend and Enta!']
Is anyone else a little worried about bphd?
Soon, I will arrive on the fields of Hastings!
ash
['But first, I gotta do something about this tide.']
eb wins!
If that's how you want to score it. I, however, prefer to flaunt the fact that I am the only Unfogged commenter ever to leave a comment 997. Suck it, bitches!
Wolfsen, you don't know from turnips. But I expect some people 'round here would be willing to make some introductions...
Ash, I'll take your Edgar Allan Poon and raise you by:
A Minx for the Crowd
The Faun of the House of Asses
The Gold-Buggered
The Loined Submitter
The Mashers in the Lewd Morgue.
Thanks y'all. My semester ended yesterday and I had nothing better to do today, so merci buckets for keeping me entertained.
NOW would be an excellent time to scream 'Who's going to sex apostropher???'
ash
['Just tryin' to be helpful.']
Let the record show that 997 was for a brief while insuperable, sort of.
Danke, Jm. Poor beknighted Poon.
ash
['It's a very sad story.']
Now would be an excellent time to fix me a drink. Anyone? Anyone?
I've already been sexed. After much debate, the researchers determined I was male.
Gold-Buggered is admittedly much better than the juvenile Gold-Butt.
I'm a brown goods girl, mostly. Whatcha got?
But you know what, O is going to hate me if this turns into a chat room. If we're gonna chit chat about booze, we can do it via aim or yahoo. Email me.
bitchphd -- bourbon and club soda is what I recommend. Mix it fairly strong, about a double of bourbon and a half cup of club soda. No rocks but the soda should be cold. Sorry I don't have the proper attachment for my internets or I'd send you one.
In ---------, one sunny winter day in 20--, a young fellow named ogged was journeying to his local coffee shop. A learned fellow he was, and kind to many, if a bit of a stickler for protocol, and fastidious in his habits. He was walking, lost in thought, when he turned a corner and was supremely started by a woman bearing a vagenda...
ash
['Dammit.']
Oh, a metric assload of fine red wine, mostly. But brown liquor? Scotch, rum, bourbon, and tequila in the pantry.
The scotch is Glenmorangie single malt. If you start driving now, you could be here by tomorrow night.
Why do people insist on putting shit in perfectly good whisk(e)y?
w-lfs-n, not Wolfsen. Fuck.
But let's not forget
694 [...]Also, please note that I'll close comments on this thread before it gets to 1000.
Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 2-05 04:06 PM
I'd be careful, Ogged; you don't want to suffer the Cock of Amontillado
I'm a Laphroaig girl, really, but decent red wine is good...
I didn't say "decent" red wine, I said "fine red wine." Some of it carried back by hand from Italy.
Fine isn't decent? I was being subdued and understated, snobby.
snobby
I prefer "oenoweenie," thanks. I have decent red wine too, but if you were travelling all the way to North Carolina, I'd break out something fancy, of course.
Ok, next time I'm in North Carolina I'll show up and demand the expensive stuff.
It's a date. The missus will be thrilled. She thinks you're the bee's knees.
Well, I am, but why does she think so?
From reading your blog, of course.
ooh, does she comment? who is she?
ooh, does she comment?
She hasn't.
She did make a brief appearance here once to tell me to stop commenting and come to bed, but that was while you were away.
I'm a Laphroaig girl, really, but decent red wine is good...
I didn't say "decent" red wine, I said "fine red wine."
Naoussa Boutari 2002 (J. Boutari & Son Wineries S.A. Thessaloniki, Greece).
A miracle occurred. A 14.99$ miracle. Wine into the mildest scotch ever, almost.
ash
['Heads up, w-lfs-n.']
B, "whipped" is short for "pussy-whipped," which is what guys say about other guys who accede to the wishes of their opposite-sex significant others, as opposed to asserting their right, as men, to be in charge. Try to keep up.
I've never tasted a Greek wine that I've liked (and my first wife was Greek). Not saying they don't exist, just that I have yet to encounter them.
1052Damn right he is.
Time for bed.
Posted by: Roberta | Link to this comment | 12- 2-05 09:59 PM
Nevermind my curiosity and respect about/towards Roberta; surely we can all agree that a SO's interference is reason to tease Apostrpher?
And, yet, I'm feeling Roberta's logic: it is time for bed; I am helpless to resist.
I was just reflecting, incredulously, on the fact that I don't think we've made fun, even once, of the apostropher for the last time he was summoned away.
I love Roberta. And Apostropher's not bad either.
Last time she posted a pic, it was too awesome to make fun.
14.99$
The dollar sign comes before the dollar amount.
ast time she posted a pic, it was too awesome to make fun.
You know, it would be conducive to...well, everything, if one could feel assured that if cameras were to wander around the great Unfogged meet-ups, that the editors would emphasize the awesomeness.
(I don't have a camera, myself, so I'me terrified of being at a disadvantage. I'll deny everything, mind you.)
No cameras. Not only because the rule is "no cameras," but because it will be far more awesome to describe each other for those not in attendance.
No cameras, but someone should bring a scale.
Ok, that's funny. I'll say in advance that this prediction was correct.
So in this AOTW 1062-comment thread, how many different people left comments?
Whoops! Program error. 46, and they are:
ac
neil
SomeCallMeTim
text
ben w-lfs-n
John Emerson
eb
Standpipe Bridgeplate
bitchphd
Isle of Toads
baa
FL
Tia
Tarrou
NickS
Becks
bostoniangirl
Matt Weiner
mike d
My Alter Ego
Jackmormon
foo
Oztk
Joanna
washerdreyer
Roberta
LizardBreath
JP
Gaijin Biker
teofilo
Matt F
ash
Armsmasher
Tripp
apostropher
Joe Drymala
Sam K
Standpipe Bridgplate
ogged
Big Ben
oz
Chopper
Jeremy Osner
M/tch M/lls
Mr. B
Let's just say that if I come, there's no way in hell that I'm bringing my own skinny Persian--who, at 5'10" and a bit, claims only 135 lbs, and I believe him.
While I actually think you two would get along (appallingly well), there's too long a ways between "so you should check out this blog" and "you should come with me to a potentially awkward internet-community meet-up."
So yeah (1062), Ogged is a fat-ass.
And yeah, visual discriptions are more...malleable.
MySQL says 46! (Haven't quite figured out how to get a list of names, though.)
Ben, do you think you could rank those in terms of number of comments? And what about length of comments? Total number of words used? This alphabetical thing is for amateurs.
Well ogged, first I saved this page to a file called comments.html.
Then I fired up the trusty ol' python prompt, and went like this:
>>> import re, sets
>>> text = open("comments.html").read()
>>> res = re.findall(r'Posted by: ([^\|]*) \|', text)
>>> res2 = [re.sub("]*>([^", r'\1', r) for r in res]
>>> import sets
>>> s = sets.Set()
>>> for r in res2: s.add(r)
>>> print len(s)
46
>>> for n in s: print n
(The first time through I didn't do the res2 line---some people must have posted multiple times with and without a URL.)
Sorry to say, Jackmormon, but with his ties to the Shah, I'd be obligated to beat the living bejiminies out of him.
>>> res2 = [re.sub("]*>([^", r'\1', r) for r in res]
This line is actually wrong, owing to HTML metacharacters in what I pasted.
Length of comments and words used would be more complicated. (And note it's not in alpha order at the moment anyway.) Number of comments, though, is easy. Look—we're tied, as of 1062! It must be a sign.
apostropher: 128
ben w-lfs-n: 106
bitchphd: 106
ogged: 97
Standpipe Bridgeplate: 64
Matt Weiner: 60
ash: 48
eb: 43
LizardBreath: 42
Chopper: 38
Joe Drymala: 36
Tia: 36
Jackmormon: 31
ac: 26
SomeCallMeTim: 23
washerdreyer: 23
Jeremy Osner: 22
baa: 19
text: 19
Matt F: 18
FL: 8
: 7
Armsmasher: 7
My Alter Ego: 6
teofilo: 6
Isle of Toads: 4
John Emerson: 4
Standpipe Bridgplate: 4
Tripp: 4
bostoniangirl: 4
Becks: 3
Sam K: 3
Gaijin Biker: 2
M/tch M/lls: 2
Mr. B: 2
Roberta: 2
mike d: 2
oz: 2
Big Ben: 1
JP: 1
Joanna: 1
NickS: 1
Oztk: 1
Tarrou: 1
foo: 1
neil: 1
What about SB posting as "Standpipe Bridgplate", was that not counted by your program?
Also, it "explains" what he did in the sense of, "list each step you took." It doesn't explain (to me) in the sense of, "why did typing those things lead to you knowing how many unique commenters there were."
I gather that the third line found everything written between the words "posted by" and the vertical line, the fourth line did some kind of substitution which, combined with the seventh line, did something or other, but what are all those carats and asterisks and things doing? For that matter, what's "r"?
These questions probably make obvious that the extent of my programming knowledge is nothing, with it at one time containing logo. Oh, and my dad showed me how to write a random number generator (well, it was surely pseudo-random, but I didn't know that at the time) in BASIC when I was around ten, but I'm not sure I ever knew how, and I certainly don't know
with his ties to the Shah, I'd be obligated to beat the living bejiminies out of him.
Oh shit, that is so not my fight, and diminishingly his, and (I'm guessing here), less yours.
But I am more than willing to defend (someone's) honor at twenty paces with some non-lethal instrument. Or we could play a simple card-game for drinks. Do you play hearts?
it's a sign that you and i are actually the same person. kind of like in dead ringers. oh no wait, they were twins
Do you play hearts?
Hearts is the only card game I do know how to play (no! also blackjack) but not with people who have regular bridge games.
Ogged, you don't know how to play Old Maid?
You're going to make mean immigrant comments again, aren't you? I don't know how to play Old Maid.
Christ, I go away for a few hours, and look what happens. This is epic. I missed out.
On the other hand, I just met Wonkette. So there.
This is the thread of eternal return.
Yeah, I was wondering if ogged really meant "explanation".
>>> import re, sets
This imports the modules which contain various functions and classes we'll be using. re has regular expression functions, sets has sets.
>>> text = open("comments.html").read()
We read in the text of the comments page, which has been saved to disk.
>>> res = re.findall(r'Posted by: ([^\|]*) \|', text)
You can read about findall at the "re" page linked above. The first string there is a regular expression which, as you suspected, finds all the text between the "Posted by" and the vertical bar. [] is a regular expression operator which allows for extended alternation; [abvde], for instance, matches a, b, v, d, or e. A carat at the beginning means to match everything but what follows. "|" is a regexp metacharacter (ordinary alternation), so it needs to be escaped with a backslash. Thus, "[^\|]" matches everything except a |. The * means to match zero or more repetitions of the preceding pattern. The parentheses form a group—the regexp as a whole matches the "Posted by:" and the " |" as well as the name, but we only want the name.
>>> res2 = [re.sub("<a[^>]*>([^<]*</a>", r'\1', r) for r in res]
Hokay. What was actually matched was the HTML that's in the posted-by part, not just the text that appears to us. This gets rid of the <a href=....> shit, so we just get the display name. I'm not going to explain this bit any further.
The [foo(bar) for bar in baz] construct is a list comprehension. Python adopted them from Haskell, which adopted them from math. In Haskell they retain in notation their settish origin, and look more like "[foo bar | bar <- baz]".
>>> import sets
Redundant line.
>>> s = sets.Set()
Creates a set.
>>> for r in res2: s.add(r)
For each item in the list "res2", this adds it to the set. Since sets are unique collections, if it's already in the set, it's ignored.
>>> print len(s)
46
Should be self-explanatory.
>>> for n in s: print n
Same.
I didn't make mean immigrant contests. Anyway, the Old Maid thing was a joke of another kind.
It's easy. You get a deck of cards with one joker, or else you take out three of, say, the queens, leaving one. Then you deal the cards out. You take cards from opponents one at a time, and when you get a set you put it down, out of play. The goal is not to end up with the one unmatched card, or Old Maid.
I didn't make mean immigrant contests
My bad, you called me "shockingly culturally ignorant," it was apostropher who made the immigrant comment.
Sure, but lots of people are culturally ignorant, and they're not immigrants. In fact, "shockingly" could even be a compliment--I expect you to be culturally savvy.
Oh, I do love you, but really my defensiveness was more about not being caught in a contradiction, because, as we both know, honey, I am never wrong.
Well, she said she needed a drink within 30 seconds of me meeting her. I haven't decided if that was good or bad.
I was at a show at the Warehouse Theater in D.C., seeing John Hodgman (of McSweeney's fame) speak, and I noticed a rather familiar looking woman in the crowd waiting to get in. The 8:00 show was filed up, everyone there was waiting for the second show at 9:30, but she breezed in at 7:55 and go ushered right in. I said hello as she was walking out of the theater at the end of the show. Nice woman, actually stopped to talk for a moment. I don't think anyone else recognized her.
Appreciate it b-wo, I think I understand what each character's function was now. But it turns out the answer is 45, right?
Yes, but only because SB is a tricksy SB.
honey, I am never wrong.
I've noticed this!
she breezed in at 7:55 and go ushered right in
DC is a funny town.
Yes, she's what passes for the hot celebrity here.
Hearts is the only card game I do know how to play (no! also blackjack) but not with people who have regular bridge games.
If you are willing to learn to play bridge, I might seriously consider jumping from one skinny Persian to another. It really isnt' that hard, I swear.
Formatting around her, I swear.
You should see the formatting around him!
Wait a minute.
Her, here, him, scrim--all this becomes trivial when at least one minshaft participnt indicates a familiarity with bridge.
I've got my eye on a few of you and intentiions on the rest.
SomeCallMeTim and washerdreyer win, for being closest to the median posting frequency of 23.152173913043478260869565217391.
Actually, although I haven't played since the Peace Corps, I have a longstanding hankering for people to play bridge with. I was planning to bring it up discreetly next week.
a SO's interference is reason to tease Apostrpher
Indeed, it would be an excellent reason, except...
I don't think we've made fun, even once, of the apostropher for the last time
Where's the joy in mocking someone whose entire raison d'etre is making fun of himself?
So. Did anything much get posted while I was away?
No, but there were a lot of comments.
I haven't played bridge with people since before LB was in the Peace Corps, but I used to deal bridge hands as a substitute for solitaire (in the pre-blog days). Here's something I've wondered--they say that in third hand you should be willing to open weak hands, 11 points or so. Is there any accepted way to single "this is really a good opening hand, if you have a highish pass we should be headed to game"? I've thought that maybe if you have 16 or 17 points in 3rd hand you should start with a two-bid. Does that make sense?
My bidding is ten years rusty, but my sense is that you do that on the second round of bidding. You're going to get another chance to bid, because if fourth hand doesn't bid your partner has no excuse for passing if they have anything reasonable at all.
But if third hand opened with 11, and first hand doesn't have much, doesn't that lead to a risk that due to first hand's compulsory bid you'll wind up at the two-level with very little? Or in a misfit?
Third-hand rebids strongly, based on the signals in first-hand's bid, and then first-hand knows how strong third-hand's had was.
Oh, wait -- I understand your question. The deal is that if South opens with 11, and North answers with, say, 6, you're right that they're likely to go down. In that context, however, East and West have 23 points between them, so better North and South should go down a little than that East and west should get a substantial part score or maybe a game -- the ideal is to be a spoiler.
Also, if you're North, and want to answer with a very weak hand, you keep it at the one level -- either a higher ranked suit or no trump.
I've thought that maybe if you have 16 or 17 points in 3rd hand you should start with a two-bid.
You can bid anything as long as your partner knows how to read it. A third-hand weak two sounds like a pretty sensible convention--but you and your partner should work out how forced the response should be.
1116 is a very nice number.
ash
['Sniff.']
I am strongly in favor of weak two bids (particularly in the 3rd seat because if there are two passes in front of you and you're weak you want to preempt the 4th chair).
If you want to have a special bid to use in 3rd chair what about reviving the idea of a strong club opener? Because a 1C opener has zero preemptive value perhaps it's worth giving up in the 3rd chair. You'd just have to agree that you pass an 11-12 point hand with 5 clubs.
If anyone wants to make a neat chart of number of comments per ten-minute range, I have a CSV file.
I know hearts strategy pretty damn well, and have learned spades a time or two, but no one has ever taught me bridge.
I'm with NickS - I dont' think you want to give up your weak two bids. I believe the most famous system I've heard of to deal with this is Drury, - which I seem to remember being "If you've got one of those 11-12 point hands you're worried about, and your partner bids 2major from 3rd seat, you bid 2C, asking, 'was that real, partner, or an 11point stinker'?" The 6 point hand getting set dilemna then is a) getting in the opponents way, which is good, and b) the opener gets added information when their partner doesn't respond 2c.
God. 1100 comments, all over the map, and I manage to only chime in about Bridge and stupid comics.
And, in the contributor count, I must point out that Oztk and oz are both me. Oztk is how I started out, and I think I've commented before as something else boring and forgettable once or twice, but it'll be oz from here.
I like cribbage and gin.
Ben w-lfs-n has outed himself as eighty years old.
Oz, that Drury link is great. I especially like the disclaimers at the bottom.
I like the Gardiner Convention.
What, as opposed to all the bridge players?
I'm with Ben. Cribbage is awesome, yo.
You'd think cribbage would be popular around here, since a phase of each turn is devoted to pegging.
Not to mention pervasive talk of "his knob".
But cribbage requires extra equipment! [/whining]
Gin is great as long as you have plenty of gossip and chit-chat for your lazy afternoon.
For fun: Here are Sebastian Holsclaw's bidding conventions.
I vote for cribbage as well, and gin is fun. Anybody play cassino?
I read that post of Holsclaw's and was vastly intimidated by his bridginess. I never knew half the words he uses.
All hail the might of this thread. Let it overwhelm all other threads, expanding until it digests the entire interweb.
I likes gin. With tonic, ideally.
And, apropos to 1,000 comments or so ago:
Love in the Time of Hot Nasty Fucking. Ka-Ching!
vastly intimidated by his bridginess
I'm going to treat this as though someone had asked me, "What's the Gardiner Convention?"
It is usual, as part of intimidation play, to invent a convention (if playing with a fellow-gamesman as partner). Explain the convention to your opponents, of course:Gamesman: Forcing two and Blackwood's, partner? Right? And Gardiner's as well? O.K.
Layman: What's Gardiner's.
Gamesman: Gardiner's -- oh, simply this. Sometimes comes in useful. If you call seven diamonds or seven clubs and then one of us doubles without having previously called no trumps, then the doubler is telling his partner, really, that in his hand are the seven to the Queen, inclusive, of the next highest suit.
Layman: I think I see...
Gamesman: The situation doesn't arise very often, as a matter of fact.
The fact that the situation does not arise more than once in fifty years prevents any possible misunderstanding with your partner.
Cribbage is awesome, though since 1133 made me realize that Gin wasn't referring to Tanqueray, I can't agree with Ben entirely.
Bridge is funny in that competitive circles, it is sometimes called a "young man's game," whereas if you bring it up in the general population you get needled, not without due cause, about playing with 70 year old women.
I like the juniper-based gin too.
I thought we were talking about the one invented by eli whitney.
Like Holsclaw, I prefer the reverse Gardiner convention.
Anybody play cassino?
Yeah, but unfortunately I grew up playing my father's two-person variant and get frustrated with the standard version.
Why do people insist on putting shit in perfectly good whisk(e)y?
I thought the same thing when Bitch PhD said, "I'm a brown goods girl, mostly. Whatcha got?" Ew.
And you all can savor your pansy-assed multiples of one hundred to your hearts' content; only one Unfogged commenter is ushering in the apocalypse. Check your forehead. Bumpy? I thought so.
I like cribbage and gin.
I like Five-card stud and Guinness. Or Harp or Bass or Shiner.
ash
['...']
Check your forehead. Bumpy? I thought so.
By god, I'm Moses!
You've noticed a rose like smell wafting from your feet then?
Yeah, but unfortunately I grew up playing my father's two-person variant and get frustrated with the standard version.
Eh... wait. You're saying it's not a 2-person game? Then I apparently grew up playing my grandfather's 2-person variant and have no familiarity at all with the standard version -- I thought what I played was the standard version.
Also -- how about Euchre?
The Buddha has the bumpiest head of all. None more bumpy!
In our two-person variant, you pick up a card every time after you lay down, and face-up cards on the table stay there until someone gets a clean sweep (worth one point) or the game is over. You can add on the table all the way up to an ace (worth either fourteen or one). Also, you can build multiple constructions, eg: lay a queen on a queen, then take it with a third queen next time. You are allowed only to build a value in your hand. Points: two for the majority of cards taken, one for the majority of spades taken, two for the two of diamonds, one for the ten of diamonds, one per ace. Total minus bonuses for sweeps: ten.
From what I've heard about the standard version, you play out the cards in your hand before you draw more, you can only build up to ten, it's the ten and two of spades, and sweeps aren't worth anything. Or something like that.
I've never lived anywhere in the northern Midwest, which I understand is a prerequisite for knowing how to play Euchre. I learned a game in Switzerland that I'm told is similar, but I've already forgotten how that one worked.
For true blue-hair fun, I should relearn to play Canasta.
I used to play canasta with my grandmother when I was a kid (she was terrifyingly good at any kind of games). Couldn't tell you how to play at all -- I remember it as very complicated -- but I remember it as a good game.
Why is canasta bluehair?
ash
['We would wager, yes, when I was kid.']
It's gone way, way out of fashion, so most people who know how to play are ancient.
It's gone way, way out of fashion, so most people who know how to play are ancient.
That's what the Hoyle Book of Games is for!
ash
['This country is going to the dogs.']
People say I insist on getting in the last word.
Men just love to listen to themselves talk.
1159 to 1155-57 (to make Apostropher not last).
You guys might think you'll get the last word, but it just isn't on my vagenda.
Which word is on your vagenda, Tia?
Didn't I already close this thread once?
I see, buy cheap mobis can comment on old threads but we can't?
If the vagenda is getting hauled out again, can I hear some Clifton Chenier?
ash
['Zydeco Cha-Cha!']
If the vagenda is getting hauled
I'd like to rent a V-Haul, please.
I'd like to rent a V-Haul, please.
That must be for a really HUGE vagenda.
ash
['Big girl, is she?']
This could get real old real quick.
Don't despair Chopper, only 825 comments to go.
We could talk about this for a while.
Weiner's been passing himself all along as this guy.
Matt Weiner is focused on results.
So is Matt Weiner a Broward County real estate professional, or not?
Don't despair Chopper, only 825 comments to go.
It's all good as long as you get the last word 413 times, right?
ash
['apostropher is the...um, what was it? Duck? No. Switching power supply? No. Ok, I forget.']
When you approach life with an unquenchable zest, great things happen
That must be one impressive lemon peel.
1182: apostropher is the...um, what was it?
The only stain remover you'll ever need.
1184: I'm touched. Really.
No no no, you had it right, apostropher is the switching power supply.
Very few things in life are as funny as a Matt Weiner-made face.
Then there's this:
Matt Weiner
Matt Weiner, a frequent commentator on this blog and a recent Pitt grad, has a new papers page with the following two papers on it.
. . . .
Comments
My name is Matt Weiner too. Give me my name back jerk!
Posted by: Matt Weiner at November 5, 2003 11:13 AM
Will the real Matt Weiner please stand up?
No no no, you had it right, apostropher is the switching power supply.
Yeah! AC -- > DC!
ash
['Wait...']
1186: or the approaching singularity.
Matt Weiner writes about himself in the third person. With manly vigor.
Matt Weiner writes about himself in the third person. With manly vigor.
My name is Matt Weiner too. Give me my name back jerk!
I'd like to rent a V-Haul, please.
No no no, you had it right, apostropher is the switching power supply.
That's it!
Apostropher and the fake Matt Weiner and a really HUGE vagenda go on a road trick to hunt down and humilate the REAL Matt Weiner for being gay and not a switching power supply! It's a comedy! It's a romance! It's electric, even!
"This is the manliest gay chick-flick EVER!" -- ogged
ash
['Now I just need a title.']
Apostropher is on the grass
Apostropher, is on the grass...
Double-entendres, and jokes 'bout cock and ass,
Got to keep the bloggers off the grass.
Got to keep the bloggers off the grass.
Speaking of hallucinogens, Floyd, did you know that the guy who discovered LSD celebrated his 100th birthday today?
Yeah -- I saw a very nice interview with Hofmann in some periodical or other last week.
Why no, actually, my fly IS zipped, why do you ask?
ash
['But thanks for mentioning it!']
I am a patient and persistent man, ash.
It's almost Magna Carta time. It's like Peanut Butter Jelly Time, but with more barons.
I am a patient and persistent man, ash.
We have something in common then!
ash
['Poor you...']
1201: What will be really sad is that after we get to 2001, the comments will start numbering themselves backward until they reach 1214 again. Like in Flowers for Algernon.
You know what's better than Peanut Butter Jelly Time? Turkey time!
Apostropher is in the hall
Apostropher is in my hall
The mineshaft touts his manly graces on the floor
And every day the comment thread grows more
I'll see you in the back room of the 'Shaft.
While they're all busy discussing the end of the world, I'll nab the last comment on this thread. [Twiddles mustache]
I'm increasingly convinced there will be no last comment on this thread.
Damn you apostropher, and damn all the others for not commenting fast enough to prevent you from noticing.
As long as you realize that if my name's on it, it's effectively my comment.
1207 wasn't really me, but rather my opposite.
Ben can check out any time he likes, but he can never leave. It's because of the warm smell of colitis.
Tia believes in government by visage.
It's a surprisingly common system. Her title shall be Grand Vizier, I believe.
Congratulations, Apostropher, on getting the last comment.
Thanks, Jeremy. It's nice to get recognition.
Since we're topicless here, I'd like to introduce Chopper, Tripp, and Emerson to their next governor.
Apostropher has been awful quiet lately.
In the event of a global pandemic that wiped out nearly all humanity, I'd use the last bit of electricity in order to leave the last comment on this thread.
Apostropher has been awful quiet lately.
Well, I don't believe in commenting without having something important to say. Therefore: nutsack.
eb, my comment made it far enough that it was out of the recent comments! Now we're both doomed. This is some kind of prisoner's dilemma.
And by the logic in 1211, Tia gets the only comment 1234, despite it being rightfully mine.
Dammit.
Now I have to stretch this thread out to 12,345 comments. Everybody get comfortable.
I'm only obsessed with leaving the last comment to compensate for my feelings of inadequacy in the presence of Tia.
Alright, that too. But they're not mutually exclusive.
inadequacy should be arousal
I think we can safely say this applies to every instance of inadequacy.
You two knock it off. You're setting a bad example.
Good lord, they're hybridizing.
I am the new superspecies that will outlast the apocalypse. Did I mention I can reproduce with myself?
So this is what the impending singularity looks like.
Phooootttooonn toooorrrrrpppppeeeddoooooo!
You think you can destroy me that way? In the last three minutes I've used my gene resequencer to create 12 new Tiastrophers--the same species, with slight variation to insure robustness--and scattered pairs of them to several different physical locations, two outside of the solar system.
Your second-gen Tiastrophers are no match for Cosby Team Tri-Osby.
Your Matt-powers are useless against me.
Unfortunately, Cosby Team Tri-Osby was no match for Cease & Desist orders.
*BURRRP*
He has been assimilated.
Mr. Mattttam's name causes me to wonder whether any languages have double glottal stops, and what they sound like.
I'm pretty sure that outside of Klingon you aren't going to find 'em.
We are reversible.
Reversible, are we?
I always knew the "Unfoggetariat" was one guy in his mother's basement with a bag of Chee-tos and thirty-seven pseudonyms.
And don't try that again.
Dammit, I can't even keep track of whose in my entrails anymore.
Dammit, I can't even keep track of who's in my entrails anymore.
We forgot an R. We like it here.
That was OggedpostrolabsPhD's fault.
Silence! We shall savor the last comment.
We have your mother in here with us.
Ah, that was satisfying.
And she's one hot piece of ass.
Time to order one of these, I think.
The 206th prime is the new black.
Well, Tia, nothing left for us to do now but to repopulate the earth.
I don't think that deserves to win.
Tadpoles! Tadpoles is the winner!
When is the next prime? Not this one, obviously.
Only one thing deserves to win this thread: the best blonde joke ever.
People say I insist on getting the last word.
How did a spam filter catch a post with no links? Just because the thread was old I guess.
Someone is approving comments here, but I keep being told this is closed.
It would have been nice to note in a timely fashion that 1279 is not only prime, but perfect.
eb, slol, and JO, leave the dogs alone in the ring.
Dog, or Faerie Queen? Only her walker knows for sure.
You're going to make the others jealous, Tia. I hope you have enough for the whole class.
I feel confident "class" isn't the world for it.
Don't worry, apo, they understand that you're special.
Oy. l
Nice doggies. Have a biscuit?
Apo, I'm younger than you and women live longer. One day I will win this thread. Why don't you except the inevitable?
Tia, if you keep this up, I will make you pee in the hall while listening to Richard Shindell.
...And by then it was all over except the inevitable.
Ah yes, the inevitable. I'll need to dry off first.
All that will mean is that the landing will be jealous. And silent. And dry.
I'll close the thread after one of your comments for $10.
Ah, Monday. A good time to renew a fight.
I approved that comment for you, Tia.
Are you going to approve my comment on this thread? Oh, someone did.
So it's going to be pretty difficult to sneak a comment into the end of the thread without the new regime noticing, isn't it?
w-lfs-n, why no about page for you?
Some beasts cannot be caged, Joe.
Save the Porky Piggin' for your living room.
I can't disappoint my fans. I'm sure you understand.
Au contraire; I think they are disappointed indeed.
Despite your disappointment, you shan't win this thread.
You have a family to attend to, apostropher. I've nothing but Unfogged and a dream.
What happens to a dream deferred?
I take your comment to acknowledge that my dream may be deferred, but it will not be denied.
Take it how you like, just so long as you take it, my little raisin in the sun.
Hey not meaning to break in to the "conversation" here but: Did you ever think about how "A Dream Deferred" would make a really good subtitle for a horror movie sequel? E.g. "Halloween XVII: A Dream Deferred"
And a few months later, "Halloween XVIII: A Dream Denied".
One of us is dried up and shriveled, but I'm not sure it's the one you think.
Gee so if we can just get thirty thousand more comments on this thread, that'll just rule.
(Could my most recent comment be transcribed from Hackerese as "LEEB"? -- that might be a hackerly misspelling of Lieb, as in 4ch du 13383r!)
thirty thousand more comments
No, we'll be stopping at 12,345.
Man o man, you gots to brush up on your mangled hacker German, T(itan)ia -- You mean to say "!ch 13383 d!ch 4uch" -- but that would not be a meaningful response to "4ch du 13383r!" which translates roughly as "G33 wh!11!k3rs!", not "! 10v3 y0u". (Regardless -- I guess you got the message.)
Dude, apo, I was going to leave exactly that comment! Do you remember when I complained to Ogged that I had a fitting, elegaic way to end the thread, but then it became a secret I told only to Weiner? That was it!
I'm telling you, lamb, we're perfect for each other.
1 sums up much of Unfogged.
While everyone is fighting over the last comment, none shall challenge my reign of being the first commenter!
True enough, Matt, true enough. I'll note that both the original post and your trenchant comment were posted on my birthday, and it truly has been a gift that has kept on giving.
The thread giveth, and the thread taketh away.
Shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
They do not move.
Curtain.
Feels the same as when I'm turning you on, doesn't it?
Yeah, it must be external stimuli that tells me how to interpret it.
>Where am I?
With Joe.
>Freak out.
I like to think that Family Circus with a moustache would be A Softer World.
The irony of this thread is that in order to win it, no one else can no you've won it. So even if someone were to win, they'd have to savor their victory privately, lest they unmake their triumph.
It's like rain on your wedding day...
It's like rain on your wedding day.
Chopper, that's situational irony.
NEW RULE: All co-bloggers' declarations of the presence of irony are exempt from criticism or question!
no one else can no you've won it
I suppose there is a certain irony there.
I'm glad you acknowledge it, apostropher.
Feel the love!
Is that what you're calling it now?
It doesn't matter what you call it. It won't come anyway.
Wait, I think that's the wrong punchline.
Saturday night and I ain't got nobody...
I hate all of you, because I keep clicking on the "recent comments to" and then kicking myself because it's this goddamn thread again.
See, even Osner wants to make a deal with you. You must be the best ass-wiper in the world.
I am this close to closing this thread! You guys and gals are on thin ice here.
Osner, I am not wiping your ass, and if you don't stop yelling in the house I'm going to kick you out in the snow.
Ben, you may not have noticed, but this thread has been opened and closed multiple times without your assistance. Welcome to participatory democracy.
Fuck democracy.
I think we can all agree that editing each other's comments is a bad idea, right, Tia?
Apostropher hasnt shown his face yet. Ben is busy with his radio show and some analytic/continental philosophy debate I can't participate in. They'll never notice if I just slip in here and comment.
Maybe we should make this the thread where we play two minute mysteries. Then we could beat the Usenet thread-length record.
I think that's my first banning. Apo, you shouldn't have.
Speaking of liking everything better before, everything was better on Usenet.
Hey maybe this is it: the guy who was served human-flesh-as-abalone had as a child made a kute komment to his parents which involved mispronouncing "vagina" in a way that matches a mispronunciation-joke in circulation among his parents' peer group. The incident stayed with him throughout his adolescence and adulthood, til it finally became too much for him to bear at the same moment he realized that the abalone had actually been his mother's vagenda. The house of cards which he had built up to justify his life came tumbling down about his ears and despairing, he grasped the pistol which was the only thing his father had left to him, and put a bullet through his head.
before what, slolernr?
Mostly, I was just making trouble. Also, I think that mystery's run more than two minutes.
Only at Unfogged is innocence eternal.
That should totally be the last comment.
This is innocence with a moustache.
I didn't approve it, w-lfs-n! I swear!
Of course you realize, Becks, that this means all bets are off wrt your secret identity.
Someday, I will pull of Ben w-lfs-n's mask to reveal...Mr. Withers.
What does this "pull of" mean?
It means I can't resist the pull of Ben w-lfs-n.
I should have made this comment earlier. When I decided to go for it, the rate of commenting was higher.
Ben, netdoctor has answered your question.
Your original question, not the one in 1394.
I reckon it works as a response to 1394 too.
[thinking some] ... indeed that page might work as a general-purpose response to w-lfs-n, a replacement for "why are you being such a little bitch".
So the object of this thread is to be the final poster? Like Highlander, but without the cutting off of heads and what not?
We've not yet ruled out beheadings, Andrew.
1400!
Too bad you didn't get 666, 1234, or 1337, apo. Then maybe your life would have amounted to something.
And I agree, 1386 is worthy of lastdom.
Assuming that the possible winners are limited to people who have already commented on Unfogged, isn't L. most likely to win by outliving the rest of us?
Assuming that the possible winners are limited to people who have already commented on Unfogged, isn't L. most likely to win by outliving the rest of us?
I believe apo's legendary longevity answers this questions for itself, w/d.
Assuming that the possible winners are limited to people who have already commented on Unfogged
...I don't see how this assumption is warranted.
Strangers, searching
Up and down the boulevard
Chopper, you misspelled
And tonight, in Los Angeles, California,
thousands of teenagers will drive up and down Hollywood Boulevard. Endlessly searching for … sex.
And I agree, 1386 is worthy of lastdom.
But if 1386 had been the last, then it would have stood forever as a testament to it's own falsehood. For 1386 to have any merit whatsoever, this thread can never die. Never! THIS THREAD WILL OUTLAST THE INTERNET ITSELF! AFTER THE NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE, GIANT MUTANT COCKROACHES WILL CONTINUE TO COMMENT ON THIS THREAD!
mm, I think I've seen a couple of them hanging around the Mineshaft already. Don't make them feel excluded, guys! I for one welcome our new beetly co-commentors.
AARGH! In 1411, "it's" s/b "its".
isn't L. most likely to win by outliving the rest of us
My "legendary longevity" pales next to my willingness to cold-bloodedly murder those who would keep me from my rightful rewards.
SCMT's comment on another thread made me think, "What better way to clear up the recent comments area, than..."
I'm not absolutely convinced that Bad Thing That Might Happen is worse than starting this up again.
Shorter 1414: Don't. Cockblock. Apostropher.
worse than starting this up again.
Haircut's never over, Matt.
1415, 16: It took me so long to find it that the events making it relevant have sort of lapsed, but, and I quote, Weiner "you're mother's older than you."
Though she was born a long, long time ago
You're mother should know
Your mother should know
(When the front page is broken, no one can hear you comment.)
Yes, I'm surprised to not see a million tiapostropher comments in this thread during the blackout.
You don't suppose something happened to them, do you?
Nah. Couldn't be.
Could it?
Damn. Why is a cockroach smarter than me?
Because of the radiation-induced mutations, natch.
my fortitude and perseverance? You'll not find them wanting.
Seriously, guys, don't make me delete this thread.
If you delete the thread, I'll cry.
Seriously Ben, don't make me kill and eat you.
Dude, if anyone even thinks about deleting anything after that craptacular database conversion, there'll be hell to pay.
However, commenting on Innocence is probably like poking the Internal Server Error god with a sharp stick.
Look, guys, in a post-apocalyptic landscaped ruled by Giant Mutant Cockroaches and Little Bitches, I don't see what the witty academicians hope to win. Fiddle away, you decadents! Fiddle on! I can only hope that the Little Cock-Bitch singularity will close this glimpse into futurity.
