Whining, bitching, and complaining, from the verb "to carp".
Of course, I think about those things all the time anyway.
I have the feeling that I'm being baited.
Several times in the last week I've stopped by the outlet of the local lake to watch the 20-30 lb. carp roiling around. They're there for the taking -- no closed season, no limit. And they taste mmmmm good.
Minnesota carp futures scandal
The sad thing is that the whole fucking state of Minnesota is toxic with mercury. It's recommended that you eat no more than one serving of wild fish a week.
What do you think about instead of carp, outside of your mind?
What do you think about instead of carp, outside of your mind?
That's a good question, one that scholars are increasingly finding relevant throughout history.
It never occurred to me to actually eat a carp. They always seemed to me like the ichthyological equivalent of rats.
Crap. It's Sunday night, which means tomorrow is Monday. Of course that doesn't mean a damn thing to anyone else in this thread. None of you has a real job. Or even, like me, a fake job that you still have to show up for bright and early Monday morning. It's a miserable experience, let me tell you.
I guess that the world is divided into two kinds of people regarding carp. Heebie and I are probably the only ones here in the "thinks of carp first" group.
Carp are the world's most important fresh water food fish.
5: We, as humans, face similar questions every day. Questions like what is love? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, love is a strong feeling arising out of kinship or personal ties. But love is more complex than any dictionary definition.
This post links to fark, but I was thinking of frag.
Carp are surprisingly amenable to definition.
7: Hardly, PGD. I have to get up at 430 am to teach Lolita to a bunch of angry ESL accounting majors.
Outside of your mind, it's too dark to fish.
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OT: I'm amused by the headline Obama's Campaign Closely Linked With Ethanol, because I still think of ethanol as something that gets you drunk instead of something you put in a car. Silly me.
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What do you think about instead of carp, outside of your mind?
Nothing; it's too dark.
9: Trout are far more important than carp. If, by important, you mean "tasty".
13: you would be angry too, if strange foreigners made you wake up in the middle of the night to talk about pedophiles.
AWB teaches Lolita? I want AWB to teach Lolita to me!!! I freaking love that book.
18 made me lol rather earnestly. Thank you.
10 frightens me.
Are walleye carp? Because walleye are really yummy.
Carp are a lot closer to trout tastewise than people think, and they have the advantage of being a durable, plentiful trash fish instead of a little boutique fish that's bottle fed by humans for the first year of its life, and eaten as a panfish the second year.
None of you has a real job. Or even, like me, a fake job that you still have to show up for bright and early Monday morning.
Hey, I have one of those!
My favorite ESL error so far about Lolita comes from a very brilliant Spanish-speaking Art History major who writes "pedophilians" rather than "pedophiles." I propose we replace the English "pedophiles" with her far more poetic word.
How could anyone not love Lolita?
You should appreciate trout more, John. Pan-fried trout is one of the very few things that actually tastes better with ketchup.
Trout are tasty, but the "wild" ones are hatchery fish, and the storebought ones are farmed.
25
I can tell who you are by your fancy prose style.
They always seemed to me like the ichthyological equivalent of rats.
This is how my mom feels about catfish. She can't bring herself to eat anything that can live in the Schuylkill River.
But is this the fault of the poor trout? No, it is not.
I recently learned that we in California are now using trucks to transport salmon to the sea. Because the rivers don't work any more.
on our trip, a highlight was the kids catching their own trout and then the restaurant cooking them for us.
I have the feeling that I'm being baited.
I presume the baiting in question is not the carp but the link to fark.
25: They do love it, but it makes them angry. Plus, this is a writing-intensive class they're all taking to fulfill the w-i requirement at the last moment before attempting to graduate, which is why they're angry. Most of them tried to graduate in the spring, but miscalculated the w-i requirements' importance. They're not mad at me, except that all five of the novels we're reading are about sexual violence. (I figured it would keep them on their toes and I could avoid essays like in 10. The latter bit has not been entirely successful.)
I presume the baiting in question is not the carp but the link to fark.
And the intended baitee was probably not John Emerson.
No, if it's John, it's carp. The fark link is to bait *me*, but I am ignoring it because I'm high-minded like that.
all five of the novels we're reading are about sexual violence
For an ESL class? Are you crazy?
I am pro-trout, but I do recognize the artificiality of the contemporary troup population. Carp are goddamn fucking natural and real. And they taste great if properly cooked and cleaned. Which is why you probably get carp in your local Chinese restaurant.
Who knew that John had an authenticity hangup in re. fish?
Who knew that John had an authenticity hangup in re. fish?
Anyone who's been reading his carp-related comments on Unfogged for the past few years?
36: I didn't know it would be mostly ESL students! I'm used to teaching English major classes. The upside is, I have their goddamn attention.
Eat your phony yuppy fish and be happy, Ms Swipple.
Hatchery trout have to be operant conditioned not to run up to humans on the bank, because they've bonded to the humans who feed them.
Carp are goddamn fucking natural and real
Large as life and twice as natural!
Obviously not.
Fair enough. Anyway, Minnesotans have to get their authenticity hangups where they can, doncha know.
Are all their papers about how unhealthy and fucked-up American culture is?
You could do an ESL class of all works by people for whom English was not a first language. Nabokov! Conrad! Others?
Carp are goddamn fucking natural and real.
Like boobs.
When I think of carp, it reminds me of a more innocent past.
46: The novels are French, British, New Yorkish, Nigerian, and Russian-emigre.
44:
"Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again." And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about -- whenever the wind blows -- oh, that's very pretty!" cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands. "And I do so wish it was true! I'm sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown."
For ten points, compare to the ending of Joyce's The Dead. Why was Joyce so pissy about snow?
Mostly lately I'm eating tilapila and halibut, actually. I'm religious about consulting the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch Guide.
Also, what's "swipple," anyway?
47 sounds like a fantastic idea. Maybe we should revive the Unfogged Reading Group and do it here. It would supply regular doses of humility, too.
And the papers are quite good, actually, especially the ESL ones. There's a lot of curiosity and empathy there, especially in texts in which young people are seduced into a life of corruption and decay.
"Swipple" is the new word for "yuppy". "Stuff White People Like".
What Nigerian author are you teaching, AWB?
Also, what's "swipple," anyway?
White people like feigning ignorance.
50: And you're the one teaching them. You sick fucked-up American, in your sick fucked-up university.
White people like feigning ignorance.
How inscrutable.
57: Tutuola. Not my favorite Nigerian author, but he's so so fun and really baffling for students who do that silly "That's how things were back in the olden times when this book was written!!" kind of analysis. It forces them to realize they don't know shit about shit, and they have to develop new methods for reading that aren't based on stereotypical "Western" narratives. Plus, I have a lot of African students who get a kick out of it.
Have we discussed Absurdistan here? Excellent book.
I am a sucker for lines like "Out of common curtesy, I tried unsuccessfully to imagine her skirt around her waist while I plowed her from behind."
56: Oh. That makes sense. And it's totally in keeping with my consultation of the MBASWG, so.
62: The sucker is another wrongly despised fish.
62: We haven't. I tried to get Ogged to read it, but he refused.
I agree with Witt about the unfogged book club.
On a similar note, I really didnt appreciate the difficult job of the translator when I was younger. Translating Funtes? Borges? Geez. daunting.
56: You're not telling her to check the archives? The soft bigotry of low expectations is not confined to racism, friends, but extends its patronizing reach into sexism as well.
fuentes
Bitch, was his first book as good?
The unfogged book club is an idea that will always seem good in theory.
69: I have not yet read it. But I bought it on the strength of Absurdistan, so I will at some point.
The Russian Arriviste's Handjob sounds better.
There's no insult in being of carp descent.
73: It does. And of course the joy in reading the first book second is that one will have that title lingering in the back of one's mind while doing so.
Btw, Will, did you catch that there was even an Iranian/Mexican joke in Absurdistan?
texts in which young people are seduced into a life of corruption and decay.
this is hot, and the older I get the hotter I think it is.
How could anyone not love Lolita?
A charming book about a little girl who was sad because she couldn't find anyone her own age to play with, I believe Harry Fannin called it.
re: 25
The lecturer who taught it to me as an undergraduate clearly had issues with it. He went to some length to try to puncture the undergraduates' love for it.
I look forward to not reading the comments on the post about the article in the new American Prospect about SWPL.
81: I was looking forward to not reading comments on Unfogged about not reading the comments on the post about the article in the new American Prospect about SWPL.
And then you went and ruined that. Not that I'm feeling the least bit defensive.
Hasn't the Unfogged Reading Group been moved to Standpipe's blog?
Mostly lately I'm eating tilapila and halibut, actually
The terrestrial equivalent of that statement would be, "Mostly lately I'm eating granary rats and organic spring lamb."
Or is that a banned analogy? Anyway, Tilapia sucks ass, and halibut is exactly what a fish was meant to be.
Actually, the summer before Humbert and Quilty came along, Delores Haze had been initiated into the joys of sex by a high school kid who used a condom he found floating in the lake. She thought it was sort of nice, and good for the complexion. The book really is a story of domination and captivity rather than of sex.
Your source on all aspects of statutory rape.
Good to hear that halibut is doing OK chez B. It's red listed in the Atlantic. Save some for your kids, or they'll miss a treat.
Carp are the ecologically responsible choice, being a thriving, robust, pest. Why do the sheeple not listen to me?
Except for the mercury, which means that you can only eat one serving a month. But that's not strictly an environmental problem, it just causes you to hallucinate and rave madly at some point.
re: 85
Yeah, I remember the lecturer who taught it to me found that a bit of a cop-out. Also, he had the usual style-over-substance complaints which get made a fair bit about Lolita, although his were fairly nuanced rather than just "he's a bit flash, that Nabokov bloke".
How could anyone not love Lolita?
The charms of Lolita were totally lost on me when I tried reading it last summer. I didn't even finish the book.
This has fed my recurring fear that I am turning into my father and never reading fiction again...
Except for the mercury, which means that you can only eat one serving a month. But that's not strictly an environmental problem, it just causes you to hallucinate and rave madly at some point.
Ah, but it cures syphilis (maybe)...
A carp a day ensures you get the dementia you want.
Not syphilitic dementia. Yuk.
It's highly unlikely that Nietzsche had syphilis. The symptoms and the progress of the disease were wrong.
You know what is pretty damn tasty? Trout stuffed with lump crab meat and poached in butter. My wife was the one smart enough to order it on Saturday night, so I only got a couple bites, but that was fucking good.