an enjoyable fantasy in which Obama just went on and, you know, talked at us for a while. Wouldn't that be nice?
God, no. I don't want to be talked at. Jesus. I want political speech, not speeches about politics. Debate, disagreement, point-counterpoint, open conflict, jostling for position, one-up-manship, partisan posturing, outright antagonism ... all disciplined and somewhat civilized by Hansard or its equivalent, of course.
I don't want to be talked at, to or around. About is okay.
I concede that "talk at" was not the just phrase.
Teo! Long time no see. So let's talk about you for a change. And what should we say, eh?
Weird Kissinger moment in the debate. Now they're talking about Russia.
There already is a debate thread, guys.
Teo! Long time no see. So let's talk about you for a change. And what should we say, eh?
Anything you want.
There already is a debate thread, guys.
Indeed. This one is for talking about me.
But one has to be so defensive. Take the question in the debate about how each candidate would govern differently in the wake of the financial crisis. It would have been so refreshing had one of them actually answered the question. But even had one of them done so, and even had he been hailed for it, the "Obama throws [issue] under the bus" narrative would have reigned.
But anyway. How's the canyon, teo?
How's the canyon, teo?
That's not a very nice way to refer to teo's s.o.
Sure—that's what I meant by the "wise move" line (though I was overspecific in regards to what it opens you up to): given the environment as it stands, it can be of a lot of instrumental value to peddle mostly pabulum or evasions or demagoguery or whatnot.
I think it's "pablum", Ben. Otherwise the analogy doesn't work. Unless you meant it's of a lot of instrumental value to peddle food?
Right. I was just pointing out an example from tonight.
Unless you meant it's of a lot of instrumental value to peddle food?
Eh.
Merriam is a junkie and a sellout.
Webster's no better.
Reading between the lines of the OED, I stand by the spirit of my comment. Pablum was inoffensive crap. Pabulum is the very stuff of stuff. That you eat.
The girl and the canyon are both fine. Thanks for asking.
You don't need to read between the lines, Sifu. The lines that are there support your original comment just fine.
I want fancy cups OR glasses with my wine of choice already in them. Only then will I pay attention to the issues at hand.
The only thing worse than being talked at is not being talked at.
The only thing worse than being talked at is not being talked at.
I have apparently double posted that, but I can't see my own comments in this thread in firefox. Odd.
Hey Ben, have you've ever given any thought to how you are going to write things like course descriptions when your audience isn't made up of Stanford or U Chicago students?
if, for some reason, circumstances should demand that young w-lfs-n moderate his style in the interests of being understood by an audience less erudite than the one which, presumably, characterizes this blog--and even those of us with the highest opinions of w-lfs-n's future career must surely concede that such circumstances might well arise and even be thought quite fortunate in comparison with an array of other alternatives encompassing dire penury--I have the highest confidence in young ben's ability to express the same concepts modulo the flourishes we have come to expect and even a bit, in my own case, to enjoy and look forward to, leaving the course description comparatively denuded of the crotchets and curlicues which constitute the gingerbread, so to speak, on the victorian front porch of w-lfs-n's rhetorical edifice, but nonetheless quite comprehensible, so, in this case, I myself am quite unworried.
I copied that course description straight from the catalogue, rob.
Paul Newman dead. Very sad.
Oh, that is sad.
And now I'm going to go masturbate into some lemonade.
I'm going to pout until people acknowledge the verisimilitude of my pseudo-w-lfs-niana. "good show, al, to the very life" etc.
29:Ben doesn't use enough obscure allusions, portmanteau words, and multilingual puns for my taste.
I don't know why he has to dumbdown his posts anyway, nobody reads this blog.
I am still working on the Anscombe one. Incomprehensible language is so because of what is expected and what, very specifically and contingently, is not being said. FW is 100 books that JJ didn't write. The blogosphere says Sarah Palin, like Lil' Bush, has not a thought in her head. They are wrong, she has bad thoughts she is trying to hide.
Freudians understand.
28:That is a fricking bummer.
Oh, the glory of those intellectual artistic sensitive macho mid-to-late fifties.
Even Gore was studly, and he will outlive them all.
Hell, even Truman.
Is Palance still around?
Liz, Piper, Joanne...Dana Wynter? Had a huge crush on Dana Wynter.
Taken me a lot of seasoning to appreciate that era.
good night all, I'm going to bed early. keep the home fires burning.
alameida you can go to bed whenever you want; no need to burn anything down.
I saw "Suddenly Last Summer" 3 years ago (my sister got it for $1 in a yard sale.) It was the most overdone thing ever. The Fifties were sick.
I believe Gore Vidal did the script, after Tennessee Williams (unless he did "A Place in the Sun" which I also saw.)
The sexual tension between Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor came across very well, and it was real though one way. Taylor in "Ivanhoe" was my first movie crush.
Yglesias' blog is impossible to troll. They have real message discipline over there. The ambient perceptiveness is low, but it's very consistent.
35: Al, I thought that was real live Ben until I got to the sig line. I suppose Ben doesn't normally refer to himself in the third person.
re: 35
That is very impressive. More comprehensible than the genuine article, though.
I'm going to pout until people acknowledge the verisimilitude of my pseudo-w-lfs-niana. "good show, al, to the very life" etc.
I was going to, but thought it might be unseemly to praise an imitation of myself. Very flattering, though.
False modesty is the unseemliest falsehood of them all.