Is the text of this post not showing up for other people, too, or is my browser just messed up?
And I have nothing to add, aside from assuring that Veselka was mighty delicious the time I met AWB, Bave, mike d, Jackmormon, and w/d (briefly) there.
Oh, and that Becks is a great brunch and/or burrito companion. (Matt F, too, but that fact may be immaterial in this particular instance.)
Just make sure ben pays before skipping out.
You can literally skip out after paying. In fact, I demand it.
Stanley! You should come up and go on the walk with us! Or come to breakfast! (Everyone else, too!)
7: tempting, but not this weekend. Eekbeat and I will will likely be in NYC for the last weekend in January, though. I'll keep you posted.
Mmmm, Vaselka. Sometimes I fantasize about New York. And my fantasies almost always include mushroom-barley soup at Vaselka.
Fairly early in the walk you're going to be asked how you heard about it. Have fun explaining that.
Goddammit! I was in new york for years watching you guys have meet-ups that didn't seem- on their face- amazing enough to fight through the awkwardness of having to say, "Hi! I'm Ben. I comment sometimes. Let's be friends!"
But this one is that awesome, and yet I now live in Los Angeles. Fuck that shit.
P.S. someone's been watching Before Sunrise...
I second the "dammit"! I can't come. mmm, veselka. and the wandering around at night thing seems good too. I did a similar thing once walking from columbia down to the bottom of manhattan, but I was tripping on acid. you all might want to look into that.
dang, if i only knew that the meetup will be announced this way, i could keep my impulsiveness to myself and remain mysterious
well, well, people propose and gods oppose
or as we say the sky of the day will decide etc
That walk sounds like tons of fun. Wish we could be there!!
As the site said, it will be very draining and mess up your sleep schedule. I really need to protect mine.
Plus I've got a party to go to on Sunday night.
Plus I've got a party to go to on Sunday night.
You're so responsible.
13: Crap, alameida. I did that very thing! (I still have the cookbook from an encounter with Hare Krishnas along the way.)
I am in OH right now, but I would probably be in bed anyway. Can one have piroegis for breakfast? I would.
First of all no one choses their in-laws. We all have extended family that we would rather not be associated with. But in-laws are a package deal with the loved one we do chose. And, since neither Governor Palin herself, nor her soon to be son-in-law or daughter have any known involvement in this crime, there is no legitimate reason to say that Palin "pals around with drug dealers." There is no active choice, here, no close association by either affinity or ideology.
Oxycontin, apparently the winger drug of choice. I'm waiting for Limbaugh's reaction to the story.
19: I can't find it now, but Margo Howard (daughter of Ann Landers and the first-and-best Dear Prudence) wrote a piece in which she reported very matter-of-factly that Palin's oldest son (is that Track?) joined the army not quite by choice, but rather as part of a diversion program to avoid going to jail for dealing Oxy.
In other meetup news: Tuesday the 30th! SF! Pick a spot! Doesn't work? Pick another day!
I really do believe that widespread legal and illegal drug use among all strata of society damages the collective judgment of the American people. Palin's religious faith perpetual bounciness may be drug-induced too. How else could she possibly feel qualified for the Presidency?
Jesus is behind her, of course, but maybe he has helpers.
I'm feeling a lot of crazy walk envy here, although I'll admit that 15 hours seems like a long time to be on one's feet.
The Track rumors seem to trace back to The Enquirer.
I've got meet-up envy and envy for various fun moments of the walk, but 15 hours of walking on cement sounds totally crippling.
Bummer -- no way I can make Veselka (Christmas stuff I have to show up for midday.) Oh, well. Hi, Ben! Hi, Becks!
On the Track thing -- are there diversion programs like that anymore? It sounds very 1958 -- get arrested, and be given a choice between joining the Army or going to jail -- but I thought not these days.
Here's a theme song for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP8Gl7hwp3M
It's one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands- the refrain is "they saw the night, they walked all night until morning" but it's in some ways not quite properly translatable since the Russian word "gulat" doesn't have a happy translation into English- it's usually done something like "to walk for pleasure" which isn't too bad but not quite right- a good and useful word and an appropriate song for the project.
27: Alaska has a unique culture. And standards tend to be relaxed during wartime. And Palin has connections.
The story is completely plausible but not exactly documented.
Veselka at 9 AM on Sunday for anyone who's awesome enough to wake up at the crack of dawn
I guess everyone here is unemployed.
31: perambulation? Constitutional? Walkabout?
31- Stroll isn't too bad, and wander catches some of it, too, but it's not really any of those things exactly. It's a culturally-based activity to some degree.
Samoan has a good translation; savali means walk, as in go from one place to another. Savalivali means 'go for a relaxing, recreational stroll', roughly.
But the market for translations of Russian into Samoan is probably pretty small.
Savalivalivali means to keep on truckin', R. Crumb style.
Y'all like testing friendship, don't you?
I'm a maybe, pending multiple variables.
Whatever happened to people being in Davis or thereabouts some time around New Years? Anything?
The running dog Audobon Society Christmas Bird Count schedulers have tramped on our usual organized outdoor peregrination program-related activities. The Pittsburgh count is on the 27th whilst we are at our folks, while the count in their area already took place on the 14th (as did the one in New York City). Bazzfazz! We possibly will try driving out to the Laurel Ridge area to catch one there on January 3rd.
Whatever happened to people being in Davis or thereabouts some time around New Years?
As small children in Ireland, at the end of Christmas dinner we used to bow out heads and say "Next year in Davis!" No one knew why, though.
Thanks for the theme song, not-famous Matt, although the rhyming of "noch'" with itself kinda bugs me.
40: Did your family also light candles, each Friday night, in a closet?
Yeah hey wait a minute, who's coming to the District for the inauguration? Or has Obama's revealed inner centrism keep you all at bay?
I heard some Ottoman Sephardic Ladino folk songs once which consisted mostly of mourning their lost Andalusian homeland of several centuries past. "Next year in Granada", I guess, or maybe Seville. Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman empire then, but going there would have laid waste to entire libraries of tradition.
Are you folks really going to manage this long walk without any LSD at all? Or would you like someone to wait along the route with little cups, like some kind of dissolute nocturnal marathon?
43 -- I'm going, of course. It can't be true that 3 million or whatever people are going to come.
Oh, pwned way back in 13. I did these things in suburban Jersey, which maybe had more trees and less crime, but so much less opportunity for the weird shit that didn't come from our own brains. Even very sober in NYC I can think of events that gave me that "Did that really just happen?" feeling. Which is a big part of what I miss now that I live in the hinterlands, where the mountains are nice but the surprises are much fewer.
I will be at the breakfast, but no fucking way I'm going on that walk. I was sort of miserable after my 30 minute walk home in the slush this morning.
43. I am heading to the Caribbean. The Pentagon is closed on Tuesday the 20th, but I won't get paid (basically a 1 day lay-off). So I figured I'd go somewhere warmer than DC. I will watch it on French TV perhaps. I do agree with Carp, there won't be 3m.
38: I will be in Davis, Ari! Let's hang out!
OT: reactions to the houston surgeon article in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/garden/18gilded.html?pagewanted=2&ref=style
Sweet?
Totally crazy?
Half crazy?
My favorite two paragraphs:
"Dr. Walter said he tried to interest curators at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in his project, perhaps to make it a satellite decorative arts museum, but "they could care less." One of the museum's curators, Emily Neff, said she had visited his home but wasn't able to spend much time there and thus had no comment.
He said their reaction was understandable, given that the museum's collection includes abstract art, which he disdains. "I am a huge threat because what I have done renders everything they have junk," he said beneath the glinting chandeliers in his great hall. "I hope that doesn't sound arrogant but the reaction of people who come in here tells me the power of it."
52: First thought? Exquisitely crazy. Second thought? I wonder how they'd divide up the art in a divorce settlement.....
I am a bad, bad person.
I barely slept last night (ask me about why in person!) but I won't be deterred.
The room is a tribute to his wife, Susan, he said, and is meant to teach others how to achieve God's salvation through marital love. It is also his take on Christianity.
I am suspicious of people whose take on Christianity involves opulent, lavishly decorated houses.
Hey, it's naive folk art. Naive folk art by a millionaire, with adequate funding. Not made with stuff scavenged up from junk piles like the Watts Towers or the Throne of the Third Heaven. Snobs.
I'm going with "half crazy" for the Houston surgeon. First off, it's totally awesome that he has a project that's consumed him like this. I have a good deal of fellow-feeling for people who decided "hey, I'm going to try and make one of those fancy art things!" That said, Holy cow is that zirconium-covered dove ugly. I'm not terribly overblown by the paintings, either. I like the woodwork?
Ben, please tell me you didn't get mugged.
I didn't get mugged. Nothing bad, or even good, directly befell me.
I can appreciate his enthusiasm, but I feel for his wife.
But, his comment about rendering everything else junk strikes me as crazy, unless delivered with a twinkle in his eye.
So....is the reporter setting him up as crazy? Or is the reporter holding back on his craziness? I want to know more!
is the reporter setting him up as crazy?
Yes.
While I'm talking to myself in public, I would like to implore the world to stop discussing Caroline Kennedy as though she had already been chosen senator. It's not a done deal, people!
While I'm talking to myself in public, I would like to implore the world to stop discussing Caroline Kennedy as though she had already been chosen senator. It's not a done deal, people!
Okay, I don't know how that happened.
The outside of the house looks nice enough.
If I were Caroline, I'd be worried that people aren't making lots of sexist comments. That shows that people don't like her.
Hell, I don't know enough about her to dislike her personally. I just dislike her on principle.
How crazy would it be to make a lavishly decorated gingerbread Versailles?
I wonder how much gilt he used to illuminate Matthew 6:19.
I hadn't really formed a strong view on the NY Senate thing, until last night when I learned that Neil Diamond wrote Sweet Caroline for Ms. Kennedy. The thought of making New Yorkers listen to the song at every public event, and through her campaigns, is enjoyable enough to tip me over: let there be another Sen. Kennedy.
51: You have my e-mail, right? I'll be home Christmas day and available to hang out after that.
I'm jealous of the meetup! I'm off to the west coast, barring substantial airline delays, in several hours. so I say we should have a crazy SF meetup sometime over the break.
In other meetup news: Tuesday the 30th! SF! Pick a spot! Doesn't work? Pick another day!
The 30th works for me. This place has the advantage of having a decent-sized bar, good (if somewhat spendy) food, and an outstanding selection of tequila, plus it's pretty convenient to transit.
I might be able to do an SF meetup on the 30th! I'll be staying in Berkeley, so near BART would be nice.
Whatever happened to people being in Davis or thereabouts some time around New Years? Anything?
Magpie and I won't be in Davis, but we could get there easily.
Clearly I didn't read the thread. (trying to finish final paper so that I can go get on a plane) I might also be able to do a meetup then.
I had the misfortune of spending much of last summer living in an apartment directly above a bar where a crowd of people would sing "Sweet Caroline" in unison three times a week at around 2 AM. So 75 makes me feel a great deal of antipathy toward the prospective Senator.
Wait, if "Sweet Caroline" was about Caroline Kennedy, wouldn't she have been like 10 years old? That's disturbing. (And this from the guy who also wrote "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon". Creepy.)
Instead of going on the walk, I'm making this, which is sort of like the antithesis of going on a 15-hour walk in 20-degree weather.
I en route to this March into Uncertainty [tm]. Leftcoasters could mimic the event by stumbling around Truckee.
81: My sense is that I'd enjoy meeting both you and Magpie. But if you have information to the contrary, please don't come. Also, AWB, I should note that my ability to hang out really only begins evenings after 9 pm, once my kids are sleeping. I'm a free man, then! Until 10:15, when I, too, go to sleep.
85: Looks like a good recipe if you substituted cream.
88: It's pretty yummy. I used purple cabbage and asiago cheese. It's sort of lovely.
Just looked at the slideshow of that retired doctor's house. The sort of Magritte-looking (and clearly not on purpose) awkwardly painted panels in the middle of all that baroque finery are pretty funny.
My sense is that I'd enjoy meeting both you and Magpie. But if you have information to the contrary, please don't come.
That depends. How do you feel about snarky Jews?
I ran out of coffee cream the other day and had to substitute 2% milk. I could barely stand it, it was so sickly. You might as well eat instant crystals with a spoon as drink that.
Really! I drank black coffee for two days.
But nice strong coffee with whole cream -- mmmmm.
If Franken is elected he won't be the snarkiest Jew in Congress. That would be Barney Frank.
Franken has been trying terribly hard to be serious. I wish he'd crack wise more often.
You find 2% milk more sickly than cream? WTF?
Really?
[In the same vein, I find cornflakes really spicy when compared to tom yum.]
Terribly flat and nondescript, and completely unsatisfying.
Count me with Emerson on this one. 2% milk is okay on cereal, but just doesn't cut it in coffee. And let's not even mention skim...
Clearly some American English/British English translation problem. Sickly here (about food) means sickly sweet, which is why Emerson's complaint made no sense to ttaM and me.
We smirked a lot in Loblaws and other Canadian supermarkets last year at the "Tastes like homo" milk.
We have 1% here now, which was very exciting to me. And it's been on special offer in Sainsburys for months now, so it's what I always buy.
rfts, the place Josh mentioned is perfectly handy to BART.
I drink 1%. I like it.
And to think I used to trust you, AWB.
Also, a rind is not a unit. How big a rind of Parmesan is one supposed to use?
AWB @85: I really want to make that, but how much parmesan rind does it take? I'm guessing not a whole wheel:
The average Parmigiano-Reggiano wheel is about 18-24 cm (7 to 9 inches) high, 40-45 cm (16 to 18 inches) in diameter, and weighs an average of 38 kg (80 pounds). (wikipedia)The average wedge from a deli round here gives about 5cm of rind if it's from the middle of the cheese. Is that enough?
As I understand, AWB had a difficult childhood, so she likes 1%. We should be accepting.
Cream has body and 2% doesn't.
60: Naive folk art by a millionaire, with adequate funding. Not made with stuff scavenged up from junk piles like the Watts Towers or the Throne of the Third Heaven.
Actually, Houston has a very nice example of the latter, a place called The Orange Show, former home of a milkman, highly recommended if you are ever stuck in Houston. I lived relatively close to the doctor's neighborhood when I was there, and it also has some other interesting art stops due in large part to the Menil family (Schlumberger oil money). The Rothko Chapel is one of the highlights, this place could just get added to the "tour".
A rind just means the butt end of whatever hunk of parmigiano you might have around, usually a hard flat square of 3"x4" or so. It just adds a nice flavor to the soup. I didn't use it because I didn't have it.
If I were to make a less-healthy version, I'd use cream in addition to whole milk and more cheese. The problem when you have that much water and that little dairy and you add cheese is that it tends to "break" a little as it settles. It's still quite delicious, though.
I used asiago because it tends to melt evenly and not clump, even in a rather thin soup.
When recipes call for parmesan rinds, they generally mean the bit at the end of a standard issue wedge that most folks would normally discard. They are good to save and toss in nearly any hearty soup.
We never had anything but whole milk and real butter in our house. And we never put our butter in the fridge, which all my friends found odd and/or unhealthy.
rfts, the place Josh mentioned is perfectly handy to BART.
Great! I'd failed to click through.
I grew up drinking 2%, then 1% when it came out, so when I got older, I stopped drinking milk entirely: no cereal, no milk in my coffee, nothing. Then I discovered yummy delicious whole milk.
Speaking of BART's sucking, I am realizing that I may be utterly screwed for transport from SFO, as my flight gets in at 11:15 pm, I will have a checked bag, and the Bay Area is the Metro Area that Always Sleeps.
To anyone who will be in NYC before January 7, the Catherine Opie show at the Guggenheim is really amazing. Get the audio guide and listen to the whole thing. (Although the rest of the stuff there right now is bullshit.)
110: Yeah, it's theoretically possible, but everything has to go right for you to make it to BART with that arrival time. Last train from the airport is 11:47 or 11:54 or something. SuperShuttle is cheaper than a cab and still runs at that hour, though, and there's probably some goofy SamTrans bus you can take if you really want to be frugal.
I don't think SuperShuttle serves Alameda County -- the shuttles that do are all like "what? after 10? after 11? Oh no no, I don't think so." I am trying to see if the friend I'm staying with will be willing to go against her usual firm position against picking anyone up from SFO, but I haven't been able to catch her on the phone for the last week. I would have flown to Oakland, but that turns out to be surprisingly hard to arrange when the other end of the trip is Cleveland.
The whole thing is silly, since I wound up with no actual in-person, at-MLA interviews (barring some surprising last minute turn of events). It will be nice to see people, but I can do that at a different time of year. I should have spent the travel money on expensive shoes instead!
Hmmm, maybe I won't check luggage. My friends have toiletries, after all.
107: Did you have a butter keeper. I am intrigued by them and just bought one for somebody as a present. I know someone who has one, and it's great to be able to have spreadable butter at the table.
Or rather, we had a dish with a lid. Is this a butter keeper?
Cheese is ideally supposed to be kept at room temperature too, except on very hot days.
Once when I was very young my sisters and I thought it would be fun to stick the bones from the fish in the butter. My mother was not amused.
110: Worse comes to worst, there should be cabs at the airport. I've taken a cab from Oakland to SFO, and it ended up costing me ~$50, IIRC. Not the greatest solution, but there you go.
We just keep our butter out on the counter in a covered butter dish and it works just fine except in high summer. My mother has one of those butter keeper things. I don't really like it. The butter gets damp.
119: We did the same. Dish with a lid. My mother still does, come to think of it.
110: Worse comes to worst, there should be cabs at the airport. I've taken a cab from Oakland to SFO, and it ended up costing me ~$50, IIRC. Not the greatest solution, but there you go.
Yes, it's true! I had been a little bit worried that maybe even the cab stands would be empty, but surely not, right?
Huh. I was totally unaware of butter keepers. Yet now I must have one.
It's not just a covered butter dish. It's a water-sealed covered butter dish:
Butter stays fresh for up to 30 days without refrigeration! Water seals out air keeping butter soft, sweet and spreadable.
Swipple to the max.
I figure 15 hours is a long time to just wander around, so if you need an objective, and if the walkabout is to include the Tribeca area, check out the last unpaved fragment of my ancestor's farm at the intersection of Duane and Hudson. Apparently there is a plaque marking it as the last remaining bit of of Anneke Jans' farm. The family used to own 62 acres of Tribeca. Unfortunately the British scammed us out of it. Bastards.
The Dutch were simple, drunken folk.
Also check out the marble cemetery, where various 15 month old relatives of mine were buried after dying of yellow fever!
||
No more dropping acid to Dock Ellis.
|>
128: An honorable family tradition I maintain with earnest dedication.
And take a swing up to Haverhill MA to see the monument to my murderous aunt. Not the one who was hanged, the nice murderous aunt.
The Dutchmen in Ben Franklin's autobiography tend to be drunk. Ben was a prig about that.
The Sifus stole the togoloshes farm!
I had been a little bit worried that maybe even the cab stands would be empty, but surely not, right?
Ooh, I hope not. I'm also getting in at 11-something. Maybe I'll see you at the cab stand, rfts.
119: A butter keeper is a crock where you invert the butter in a tub with water to form an air-tight seal. Le Tremain makes an expensive one, but they can be got for less. Apparently they were originally French.
Totally unnecessary if you use up your butter fast enough.
105/6 Strange that I've never seen this perfectly sensible usage in any recipe this side the ditch.
Reminder: today is the last shopping day before my birthday. For those at a loss for gift ideas, I would like:
1. An absinthe fountain.
2. Absinthe.
I'll get the butter keeper myself.
Jesus, when I get to Portland you, my son, and I need to have a music-absinthe event. He smuggles in real absinthe from Europe, the kind that makes you blind and insane if used right.
143: you can get the good shit in this country now, I think.
Cheese is ideally supposed to be kept at room temperature too, except on very hot days.
This really depends where you live. We can't keep anything out in the room for long, and most things that can handle refrigeration do better that way.
Even if you air condition the hell out of your place most of the year (todays high 80F/26C, by the way) it doesn't help much. The combination of heat an humidity is perfect for all sorts of molds, so bread goes quickly in a bread box (a day if you aren't lucky), cheese likewise. It's really annoying.
Parmesian rinds are wonderful in soup stocks (they do tend to stick a bit to the pot). We can get them by the bag at $1/lb or so from a big cheese counter, which is handy if you haven't any saved up. Shitake stalks are another easy `leftover' to throw in soup stock.
144: really? When did that change? I've only ever had the proper stuff in France.
No, I mean really blind and insane. The stuff you can get here only makes you sort of goofy with blurry vision. This is Moldavan absinthe.
No, I mean really blind and insane.
Yeah, Americans do this with Everclear, not Absinthe.
142: One million years ago, someone gave us the cute little glasses and the charming slotted spoons and a bottle of absinthe from the Czech Republic. We happily got very drunk setting things on fire, but it wasn't any different from being regular old drunk, definitely not mystical Parisian artist dissociative or anything.
definitely not mystical Parisian artist dissociative or anything.
You wouldn't get there in one shot, you had to have a good ongoing habit. Spend a few years getting fall down drunk on it 2-3 times a week, that ought to do the trick.
You have to work up to it. You wouldn't expect to attain enlightenment in one evening of meditation.
Hey! 149 is me! I have no idea why it says "d." It wasn't one shot, though! Oh -- or do you mean, sort of, one "go" at the absinthe. OK, sb, I will work on my technique.
Oudemia has a complicated yet minimalist website.
oudemia is a cybersquatter from the time she realized that there was some whippersnappress who thought she was oudemia. Hmph.
Hey, I remember that night a million years ago, and the slotted spoon, and the setting on fire of things.
146: I'm not sure if it changed or people just realized that you could import it after all, but yeah, you can get J. Random Absinthe delivered to you courtesy of many fine internet merchants. You can even get the real shit in bars.
Huh, it appears the crazy idiots walking around in the dark for fifteen hours (among them Bave and W-lfs-n) are liveblogging it, after a fashion.
I didn't know Oudemia and Rob H. Chalk were old friends. This changes everything.
162: like, the amount of attention you believe yourself to pay to the comments?
I have known Robert since I was 17, but this is a few years later.
Absinthe prohibition in the US ended last year. There are a few excellent examples produced domestically, such as St. George (from Alameda) and Trillium (from Portland); absinthe from Switzerland, where it originated, is generally recognized as the best. The Czech versions tend to be not so good.
If I were there, I would join the crazy idiots. One of my best memories from NY is walking across the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time in the wee hours on a cold January night a few years ago (I was going from a friend's place in Prospect Heights back to another friend's place in the West Village, which was more of a hike than I'd imagined). I love walking around that city.
I use crazy idiots fondly, of course. Walking around cities is fun. Still: crazy, idiots.
I'm a big fan of walking around cities, but fifteen hours is kind of a long time to be doing something like that.
I just hope there's bars involved.
Fifteen hours is a good length for a good walk. You can get somewhere in fifteen hours.
I do think Brooklyn Bridge (in to the city) is one of the best views of the New York skyline and one of the best city walks that I know. And cheap—a staple of JP's visiting New York with 3 kids tour.
That is one expansive skyline.
I am looking forward to the XTreme low-impact walking trend spreading to Pittsburgh, hopefully in less than two years.
You can get somewhere in fifteen hours.
You can, but somehow I doubt these folks will.
Spiritually, teo, they may travel far.
Bah, you can do that without walking for fifteen hours.
The fifteen hours help, grasshopper. Especially if you don't have a peyote connection.
173: Caveat: I am a giant nerd. BUT, what is that thing that one guy has in his hand? Is he an Ood?
Clearly a knitted IPOD cozy. Probably made by the girl standing behind him.
Is it considered anti-social to bring a personal music player on a 15 hour group walk?
180: That's Bave's recording device, I believe.
(He wanted to get samples from the trip; he's not being antisocial.)
Are you the girl standing behind him? Whose balcony is that?
I'm not there. I think they met up at one of the host's houses.
It's not so much that it has a knitted cozy, but that the cozy seems to be either glowing or radioactive.
This liveblogging is somewhat interesting. But too few comments.
So are these people strangers to one another for the most part?
190: I recognize a few of the people from the organizer's website, but I think it's mostly strangers. At least, the only two people I know personally are Ben and Bave.
Their website suggests the founders were at U.Va. at the same time I was. Don't recognize 'em, but I'm guessing I know someone who knows them. Small world.
W-lfs-n must be either the intellectual on the far right, or the sickly-looking guy with the long face and the giant forehead.
Speaking of W-lfs-n, I am surprised at how easy it is to like the album "Autumn Response" by Richard Youngs. Is it considered a sellout, to be despised?
Yes, b-dub is the dour one on the far right.
Even smaller world: the person whom I (and several other regulars) know at The Orange Show was delighted to hear it got mentioned in comments (by JP Stormcrow back at 104).
Somehow I assumed the link in 103 was a picture of a previous year's group walk; yet there is W-lfs-n. I see now: this is your before photo, folks.
15 hours of walking is no small thing. I did a 12-hour walk-a-thon for a few years in a row in high school, and it was doable and fun, even. I don't think I'd have been up for much afterwards.
Good luck to y'all.
Whilst our heroes traipse about New York, I'll mention that those with a P'burgh connection might want to check out the film My Tale of Two Cities featuring the city and Carl Kurlander, who grew up here and co-wrote the screenplay for St. Elmo's Fire* (and apparently the original short story it was based on). He is a bit annoying and I also found the narrative about Pittsburgh pretty annoying, but it has its moments and is still worth seeing if you have any interest in the place. For those currently in the area, it is playing at The Oaks (but I think only at 5:00 and projected from DVD). You can make it a nice old person's night out by catching dinner at Nicky's Thai Kitchen** in nearby Verona afterward (home by 8:30, woo-hoo).
*I've never seen St. Elmo's, but apparently the short story was semi-autobiographical and in the film he visits the woman upon whom the Andie MacDowell character was based.
**Which I discovered via a review written by some JRoth guy.
195: The Orange Show! Excellent! I've seen some great shows there.
The event is about half over and attrition-wise, still more than half full. The first bar stop was for monkey bars. Swing with gloved-hands. Bave is recording person in the street interviews and giving hushed-like a 17th green commentary.
Econo -- I didn't know you were on this, too!
The liveblogging has collapsed my opinion from "that walk would either be soul-crushingly boring or kind of awesome" to "looks like fun!". I wonder if I can make it into the city for one of the January walks.
But econolicious should keep liveblogging.
200 makes me think this is going to be Bave's big break on This American Life, sending in an unsolicited radio story about 15 crazy strangers stuck together for 15 hours in the dark in Brooklyn. What will they discover? What will they learn about themselves and one another? Will someone fall in love? Who will give up? What will they eat at Veselka the next morning?
Too similar to the scavenger hunt show, AWBA.
Although...it was only 18 minutes out of an episode...they could do another one like it.
Too similar to the scavenger hunt show every TAL episode ever. I bet they'd run it.
192: Mmmm, Navajo tacos. Also, this link is a useful place to point people when the subject comes up. (It's something of a pet peeve of mine; applies to "Colorado" and "Navajo" too.) These guys are all right.
Why should everyone pronounce the name of the place the way people who live there do? Should we also start saying "Ellinois" and "Missourah"?
Why should everyone pronounce the name of the place the way people who live there do?
What alternative standard do you propose?
I'm with essear. Just because Coloradans pronounce their state stupidly doesn't mean the rest of us have to.
You guys just have no idea how ridiculous you sound when you say "ColoRAHdo."
Probably about as ridiculous as people sound to me when they say "Loo-ey-ville" instead of "Loo-uh-vuhl". Which is, um, not actually ridiculous at all.
I can't tell whether it's more obnoxious to hear people totally mispronounce Louisville and New Orleans or to hear them badly imitate the native pronunciations.
You have no idea how ridiculous you sound when you say "Germany" instead of "Deutschland ", but the world goes on.
You guys just have no idea how ridiculous you sound when you say "ColoRAHdo."
Sounds fine to me. That's how just about everyone I've ever heard says it.
Seriously, teo. When I go to Louisville I am beset by people who say "LOL you said Louisville, the correct pronunciation is Luvul." So I adapt to local mores. Then I come home and learn right quick that I sound like a complete moron pronouncing it as "Luvul" without the confidence that comes from growing up pronouncing it that way.
And people wonder why I gave up on linguistics.
I did not expect to be pwned within one minute on the issue of how non-native Louisvillians should pronounce "Louisville".
216: Likewise, as I am back in the Mini-Apple, should I desire a sugary carbonated beverage anytime soon, I will ask for a "pop." To do otherwise would be an insult to the folkways of my people. When I return to SF, should I desire another such beverage, I will ask for a "soda," as to do otherwise would invite the hurf-durfing of people who actually care about this shit.
219 really seems more in line with my position than Ned's. But whatever, as long as you guys adapt to local mores rather than ostentatiously flouting them that's fine with me.
I reject the use of the word "ostentatiously" (as it implies some sort of desire to stand out by one's actions) to describe someone who is doing what comes most naturally rather than consciously making an effort to change one's behavior.
The prohibition on absinthe was apparently a great big misunderstanding all along anyway.
221: I'm using it to refer to people who go to a place, pronounce the name of that place differently from how the people who live there pronounce it, realize that their pronunciation is different, and keep on using it anyway. I don't care what they do in the privacy of their own communities.
Even so I don't think anything done unintentionally is ostentatious.
Well, it's not always unintentional. Though, granted, it usually is.
What's really ostentatious, though admittedly pretty rare, is when people try to pronounce Spanish-derived placenames in the actual Spanish way. They usually do a bad job of it too.
But, again, it's just impossible to convince people of anything about language, so it's pointless to even try.
You've already convinced me that I should try to pronounce things in the local way when I am in that very place, even though I continue to view doing so when back home as likely pretentious and/or ostentatious.
That is, a non-native does not sound ridiculous saying "Luvul" when actually surrounded by Kentuckians. But he does everywhere else.
You've already convinced me that I should try to pronounce things in the local way when I am in that very place, even though I continue to view doing so when back home as likely pretentious and/or ostentatious.
I thought it was the Louisvillians who convinced you of that.
And certainly it can be pretentious to pointedly pronounce things in the "authentic" way when everyone else pronounces them differently. Indeed, I think that's really what I'm objecting to, regardless of the specific circumstances. I guess I just have a hard time accepting that in some places the Spanish-esque pronunciation of words like "Colorado" (which to me just sounds so unbearably pretentious) really is the standard pronunciation. But that appears to be the case.
If I recall correctly, Ned, your hometown has a name that is very often pronounced differently by outsiders and locals. How do you feel about these issues in that context?
"Wilkes-Bar" rhyming with car will draw complaints and corrections if said out loud in the presence of a local. But if that's how you always assumed it was pronounced, you may continue to pronounce it that way in your brain without guilt.
Looks like we're on the same page, then.
And with that, I'm going to bed. I have to be up early tomorrow. Happy solstice, everyone!
(I am assuming you don't expect to be encountering Wilkes-Barreans on a daily basis. If you do, you are advised to change your mental pronunciation of the word, to avoid awkwardness)
So Wikipedia says that the second word of that town's name can be pronounced either /ˈwɪlksbɛrə/ ("berrah") or /-bɛri/ ("berry"). Which do you favor?
The only solution to this nagging problem is to simply avoid using place names: therefore, the city-that-starts-with-an-L is actually that town just across the river from that state that's next door to that state where Lincoln was born.
max
['That'll fix it.']
My God, I must love Ben and Bave a great deal. It's still dark outside, ffs.
This is like Schrodinger's meetup. I can't tell if AWB's on her way, in which case I'll meet her out of guilt, or if she got the message.
Oh thank god. She got the message. I also left one for Mike D. Really hoping nobody else was planning on coming.
Praying we got in touch with everyone. If we didn't and someone shows up, I'll feel SO BAD.
Hi! Sorry! I'm not as tired as bave is but my feet were absolutely killing me. With boots removed things are much better, actually.
BETTER FOR SOME PEOPLE!
OMG. Teh sux. It is so wet and cold and icy-rainy and slushy outside and I'm still hungry.
OK, I'm done whining. Missing that call by five minutes was a matter of misfortune, but now I'm home and happily back in my pajamas.
What I learned from this:
People go to church in Park Slope! Totally!
Teo, how do you say Colorado? Surely not the way Austonians pronounce the name of their river.
I can see how someone might pronounce the a in the same way that the first a in Nevada is properly pronounced -- rhymes with bad -- but I've never heard anyone actually say it.
Pretentious would be doing something with the d.
The prohibition on absinthe was apparently a great big misunderstanding all along anyway.
Fuck. I'll have to figure out some other way of going blind.
You just need a supplementary source of thujone. It turns out that European absinthe has become wimpy enough that it can be imported now. The jackbooted EU bureaucracy is to blame.
According to Wikipedia, homemade absinthe (which consists of taking Everclear and adding wormwood abstract) is still dangerous, John, so you're still in luck.
OK, I got a really cheap red-eye to JFK and now I'm off to meet everyone for breakfast.
The one that I don't get is all the BBC reporters who pronounce Maryland Mary Land, not merriland. I mean, I'm sure that the ones in DC know that nobody in the US pronounces it the way they do.
So wait, w-lfs-n skipped out before a check was even owed? Devious!
By way of penance, somebody go ahead and wake him up and make him tell us about the walk.
The one that I don't get is all the BBC reporters who pronounce Maryland Mary Land, not merriland. I mean, I'm sure that the ones in DC know that nobody in the US pronounces it the way they do.
It's a disidentifying tactic.
248: Fucking colonialist pigs. If you listen really closely, you can hear them say "Mary's Land."
248: Certain distinctions must be preserved.
I can see how someone might pronounce the a in the same way that the first a in Nevada is properly pronounced -- rhymes with bad -- but I've never heard anyone actually say it.
You guys need to get out to the Rockies more. Everyone says it that way.
253 -- Huh. I've been in CO plenty, and guess I've just forgotten. Which is funny, because I remember learning how to pronounce Nevada and Oregon, and should've had a lesson in Colorado as well. I refuse to pronounce the o in Wisconsin as the natives do.
(I also refuse to pronounce Buena Vista CO as the natives do)
Blume informs me there's a ne-vay-dah Missouri.
I guess I just have a hard time accepting that in some places the Spanish-esque pronunciation of words like "Colorado" (which to me just sounds so unbearably pretentious) really is the standard pronunciation. But that appears to be the case.
Yeah, I think this answers your "alternative standard" objection in 210. There is a fairly standard pronunciation for most place names across the U.S., and in many cases it disagrees with the local pronunciation. I just don't see why it should be objectionable for people who are not locals to use the standard pronunciation.
the Spanish-esque pronunciation of words like "Colorado"
Are we talking about the pronunciation wherein none of the syllables is particularly emphasized, and the "RA" is even almost an "RO" but not really?
In Austin, Manchaca Road is pronounced "MAN- shack." If I were to say "Mon-CHAHK-uh" no one would know what I was talking about.
I've made my own absinthe and it really is a bit odd. drunk plus, a la jagermeister, but moreso. shame no one's eating those little dumplings! but why would awb have to get up whicle it's still dark to get there by 9? wait, does it get light really late at this time of year? I hope if one lone person shows up they at least check the site on their iphone...anyway, I'm going to sleep, goodnight all.
Today in Cleveland the sun rose just before 8. Curse the darkness!
Narnians have a weird concept of time.
Cleveland has a bad case of darkness in the mornings. Too far west. I don't miss it.
It works out great in the summer, when the evenings go on forever, but yes.
260: might have something to do with it being the solstice.
Narnia is near Mandalay:
On the road to Mandalay, Where the flying-fishes play, And the dawn comes up like thunder Out of China across the Bay!(The annoying dialect has been suppressed)
The closer you are to the Equator, the more equal day and night are all year round, and the more sudden the dawns and sunsets are, with not much predawn light or twilight. That's why Alameida is confused.
How can the bringer of rosy-toe-ity be confused? It is so confusing.
The handful of people I know from Colorado say "Colorahdo"; it's not faux-Spanish, but it's not "Coloraddo" either. I think the issue here is that are two standard pronunciations; it's not like Colorahdo is only said by tourists trying to be down with the gente. I"m pretty sure I heard it on national news during the elections.
And I'm sure what confuses things is that there are lots of places with Anglicized Spanish names that have plenty of recent Hispanic immigrants. I'm sure if the French move back to Pittsburgh we'll get people mispronouncing North Versailles, too
I'm reminded of when I tried to buy a train ticket to "Firenze" and the guy at the train station pointedly called it "Florence", as if to say "dude, don't even try". Sometimes trying to go with the local custom makes you sound ridiculous, I suppose.
Attempting to speak French the way I learned it in Montreal was one of the most humiliating experiences imaginable. Every utterance provoked a tired sigh and a translation into English.
The walk ended at the east river where we encountered a guy who asked us how we had enjoyed the first five minutes of winter.
i've been to Veselka and had a cheese cake and hot chocolate
so nobody were there? i looked around and asked the staff, couldn't recognize anyone there unless there were two veselkas or it was a two-storey place
i'd have waited more than 30 min if i wouldn't have to go back to take the membrane transfer off
good, i did not wait longer
well, if the sky decided so, so be it etc
270: There's this goofball movie I've mentioned before, Bon Cop Bad Cop, which features a policeman from Montreal and a policeman from Toronto (or maybe RCMP detective or something. snooty) investigating a series of murders (the first of which dropped from the air and landed on the sign that marks the division between Ontario and Quebec.) And it's a bilingual movie; when they're in Montreal, they speak French. When they go back to Ontario, English. But what makes it even better is that the snooty Anglophone cop speaks French with a perfect Parisian accent, which is just great because he sounds even more out of place.
272: Oh no, read! I'm so sorry you didn't get the message. The gentlemen canceled while I was on the train on the way there. One of these days, I'll get a portable internet device so stuff like this happens less often. But yeah, they canceled 45 minutes before we were supposed to meet, so it's hard to catch everyone and get them to turn around, or know whether to show up anyway.
And speaking of kicking Obama's ass into next week for picking Rick Warren for the invocation, please go sign this petition. (I haven't seen other organized online response. HRC -- Human Rights Campaign, not Hillary -- is doing a more indirect petition. NGLTF doesn't seem to be doing any online action.)
There's no chance he'll rescind the invitation, but he ought to hear from us.
it's okay, i had to go to the lab on Sunday anyway
will become a memory
i just wondered whether there were other people from Unfogged or the solstice walk and i was better to go and ask around the tables, the staff did not know anything
have a good Sunday rest, all
I don't know if anyone's still interested in having a meetup today, but I have a Russian Baths pass for this week, making it $20 for the first two who want to come along. I could stand to warm up.
278: Don't blame me; I'm just lucky I took a train that went above ground and happened to realize I had three frantic voice messages and five texts telling me to turn around.
268: How does one pronounce Versailles in Pittsburgh?
You all could have met up without W-lfs-n and Bave.
Until I'd lived there for a while I wouldn't be able to speak French with a Canadian accent. I speak it with a kind of generic French one that nobody can place.
I have a hard time speaking German without a French accent.
I've found that people who are walking around aimlessly at 4:30 a.m. are generally not very trustworthy. I've never seen large groups of them, though, except in zombie movies.
Until I'd lived there for a while I wouldn't be able to speak French with a Canadian accent.
It's really not just the axiom, but a lot of idiom and words. I suspect that would take as long to shift (at least) as the accent.
re 248: axiom? wtf? I must not be awake.
I meant accent, if it wasn't obvious.
Joual. Canadian French had a long independent development in isolation from the continent, and retains many Early Modern features. It's also been heavily influenced by English, and more recently by attempts to impose a continental standard.
281: "Versailles", if it refers to France, is pronounced in the usual way. "North Versailles" is "North Ver-sales."
286 Right. I really haven't spent enough time in either so I may be way off, but my rough feel for it is that language wise (particularly) Montreal's relationship to France is similar to Puerto Rico's relationship to Spain.
OK, Becks and I are headed to Veselka after all, at 1:30ish, and then to the Baths around 2:30. If anyone wants to meet up, text me if you have my number! Bave may come and warm his bones if he can drag them that far.
Quebecois profanity. Very Catholic.
**Which I discovered via a review written by some JRoth guy.
Woo!
Last night we were at a party and were particularly commended for having reviewed Nicky's well. Actually, this party - which was a solstice party, complete with bonfire in the backyard and hippie-esque "toning," being held by people I would never identify as hippie-esque - was the first time AB and I have ever been treated as celebrities. Someone actually said, "That's J----!?" as if impressed to be in my presence. It was weird.*
One of the things they do at this party is shots of vodka with clementine sections - very nice. Also, the last thing I drank before I left was honey-chile vodka, which was amazingly good.
* We've certainly had people say, "Oh are you J and A from the paper?" followed by the usual questions about the gig, but never with multiple people talking about us like we were somebodies. Funny.
Read! So sorry! I owe you a drink at that blessed meetup in the future when you and I actually meet.
The sole of my left boot slowly separated from the rest of the boot until, at about 10 hours in, it was off completely and not even duct tape was holding it in place. But a fellow walker had a pair of beat-up sneakers in my size in his backpack. It was a solstice miracle.
I missed the earlier local name throw-down, but it seems to me that part of what's being missed by the local pronunciation maximalists is the distinction between mere accent and fundamental pronunciation. Whether or not the S in Du Bois PA is pronounced* is not merely accent, but actually identifying. How the A in Colorado is pronounced is more or less completely accentual - teo, do you pronounce the first city of Illinois Chi-ca-go or Chi-cah-go? It's linguistically identical to what you identify as "unbearably pretentious," yet I bet dimes to donuts that you don't pronounce it the way locals do. And rightly so. You're not a local, and probably don't pronounce "the" as "da."
Only an asshole would pretend not to know what you mean when you say Colorahdo, but locals are sincere when they don't understand du-BWAH - it doesn't match up with local pronunciation at all. 259 is a similar situation.
I'm sure teo is annoyed to hear this from someone with no linguistic training at all, but there it is.
BTW, all of you pronounce Carnegie the wrong way. I'll try not to look down my nose at you for it.
* It is, of course. DOO-boys.
You know, I think I pronounce "Carnegie" differently, depending on whether it's the town, the university, or the person.
For the record, my personal concession in instances such as New Orleans and Louisville, where the local pronunciation is accented very heavily, is to shift the standard, non-local pronunciation in the direction of the accent, but not actually try to mimic. Thus, noo-WAR-lins (between noo or-LEENZ and NWAH-lins) and LOO-ih-vill (between LOO-ee-vill and LOO-uh-vill).
The link someone (Charley?) posted for Nevada reveals an annoying tick of provincials*, which is to treat a perceived elite ("East Coast broadcasters") as intentionally disrespecting their folkways when, in fact, that's simply how things work in a big country (and especially in media). East Coast broadcasters - even in New York City itself - do not pronounce nearby locations as "Joisey" or "Lawn-guyland" - even though they're probably familiar with such pronunciations! Using a distinctively local pronunciation that is not your own is, in fact, the cloying move - we all make fun of Anglo broadcasters who slip in the ultra-Spanish pronunciations of Spanish places, but some of us apparently expect them to do the same with our places.
* Written as a Pittsburgher, which is quite provincial**
** Although I'm not really from here, so my provincialism is borrowed, albeit sometimes heartfelt
I use that strategy for New Orleans and Louisville, too.
There's a Food Network hostess who has that annoying tic, and it's funny particularly because she'll go along talking standard English except for the word 'salsa.' Hi, it's a loanword at this point. Get that L in the back of the throat where it belongs.
295: It's my understanding that it's supposed to be the same every time - car-NEG-ee is how he pronounced it, thus how everything named after him should be pronounced.
I would not go to NYC and ask how to get to car-NEG-ee Hall, however.
Right. I'm not sure whether my pronunciation of Carnegie Mellon has changed, or whether I'm just not consistent. I don't think I'd blink either way, Charlie. My grandfather grew up in carNEGgee, but when he applied for jobs he wrote down "Carnegie" for education, and they thought "CARnegee Tech."
299 is correct.
The best example of people ostentatiously pronouncing things in the non-English-standard way is probably the word "Peru".
Sitting here muttering to myself, I think I say "CARnegee Mellon" but "CarNEGee Mellon University." I think I'll just say "CMU" instead here on out.
299.2: Because the answer is always the same: practice!
You guys stood read up and then went along later anyway? I hope you made sure to stopp by read's apartment and take a shit on the doorstep, too.
The best example of people ostentatiously pronouncing things in the non-English-standard way is probably the word "Peru".
A lot of Spanish words or place-names are done this way -- ColOMbia, EcuaDOR, etc. Cheap cosmopolitanism. One of those situations where there's an awful one-upmanship-like micropolitics of when it's cool for you to pronounce these words like the locals, when it's OK to mispronounce them, and whether it's ever OK to demand a similar level of enunicatory correctness in return.
I would not go to NYC and ask how to get to car-NEG-ee Hall, however.
Is this just because you're tired of the "Practice!" joke, or do they really pronounce it some other way there?
There was a lass at my school who was the biggest Madonna fan, but who believed (on the basis of us Welsh kids not knowing anything at all about America[1], but having to do French) that Ms Ciccione was born in a town called "Duh-TWAH".
[1] Except me, of course; I had spent a couple of years living in Oklahoma City and thus was the go-to guy for subjects such as American Football, NBA basketball, hip-hop, etc.
a town called "Duh-TWAH".
Many people shop at Tarshay.
God, my sister's future mother-in-law, that woman, has insisted it's Tarzhay. My sister timidly asked then why there was a big target symbol as their logo.
The joke I heard was that there were Tarzhays and Targhettos.
Did you happen to know Bartcop (Mr. Coppage) in Oklahoma? He claims that OK has the two stupidest Senators anywhere in the world.
or do they really pronounce it some other way there?
Everywhere in America except for Pittsburgh and environs, the steel titan's name is pronounced CAR-nuh-gee.
I'm happy to hear that, for a denizen of the island in question, that pronunciation is surprising.
Britain preserves many quaint folkish pronunciations, but why should Pittsburgh?
Of course in Scotland they pronounce Pittsburgh "Pitts-borough", I assume.
Detroit Lake, in the OR Cascades, is pronounced DEE-troit. Just out of cussedness, maybe.
Why can't I find a clip of the Jimmy Smits enchilada skit from SNL?
He claims that OK has the two stupidest Senators anywhere in the world.
As a transplanted Oklahoman I'd say this characterization is inaccurate. They're certainly two of the most socially conservative, and neither seems to think there's anything wrong with legislating how other people behave (so much for small government), but stupid they ain't.
304.1: I noticed that too.
Burst of annoyance cussedness: As I alarmedly back things up on my computer so as to lend it to a friend while I'm gone for a week, fearing the worst while I'm gone,
I hear on NPR a sober, hand-wringy story about all those kids out there who thought that they could just get an M.B.A. and go into investment banking, but now no! It is a dreadful situation, dreadful indeed for them: all they wanted, whether they were actually dedicated to the field or not, because that wasn't the point (so tells me NPR), was to be sure that they could enter something, you see. So this sure does suck.
Unfortunately it's too late to participate, but today was the "3rd Annual Global Orgasm for Peace". Global-O time was between 11AM and 1 PM Greenwich (GREEN-witch) Time.
But maybe we could do a survey to see if anybody helped "effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological, mental and spiritual energy". I'll confess that I just missed it by this much.
In high school, I worked in a pizza shop at the local mall. The folks at the candle shop all had fake nametags with Jello flavors listed. Except, if you said their fake Jello names, they'd correct with a faux French snootiness.
"Grape Jello?"
"No no. It's gruh-PAY zhu-lo."
I found this unbearably hilarious and still do.
I was thinking about this argument, and I thought, "you know, Gonerill would make a pithy comment along the lines of..." And lo, 304 is the sentiment I predicted that Gonerill would make. I'm onto you, Mr. Sociology Man.
304: A lot of Spanish words or place-names are done this way ... One of those situations where there's an awful one-upmanship-like micropolitics of when it's cool for you to pronounce these words like the locals,
Although in the US you sometimes get the reverse. I always felt that many in Houston went out of there way to emphasize the "J" sound in San Jacinto for much the same reason that subdivisions named things like Nottingham Heights spring up on the surrounding flat Gulf Coastal Plain.
319: Was me, Jota Pe Cuervo de la Tormenta.
You know, it's flat rude of the recent Latino immigrants to Colorado not to adopt the local pronunciation. The nerve!
I tend only to correct people on their pronunciation on the off chance that they might like to know that things are pronounced otherwise elsewhere.
Admittedly, there are certain names I feel more strongly about than others. In the book business, my partner and I get into this issue fairly often, as we mention a lot of names and places to one another, and rapid-fire understanding is helpful. Correction is addressed with equanimity, though debate may ensue.
319/320: There was a decisive battle in Nottingham Heights?
Come to think of it, the Spanish word colorado is among the hardest for me to pronounce, presumably because the L and the R are in nearly but not quite the same place in the mouth.
For a long time, the hardest Spanish word for me to pronounce was Irarrázaval, which among other things is a major street in Santiago with an accompanying metro stop.
I have no idea why any of you should care about any of this information.
I care about it because I care about you, stanley.
Another heart will be broken, I can see. Stanley walks by himself.
324: Yeah, the r/l combo like that is a really tricky one. It pisses me off that rs have become more difficult for me as I've gotten older.
A running joke among Spanish speakers is that Puerto Ricans call it Puerto Lico (because, well, they kinda do).
I was always taught to pronounce Carnegie, Car-nay-gee.
My Dad corrected me when I said New Orle-EENS. I was brought up to say Ne-WAR-lins.
I wonder how Ken Salazar pronounces the name of his home state.
330: that's Ken Sa-LASER to you.
Iowa? My dear, here in Boston we say "Ohio".
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Fucking Vikes
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Fucking Vikes.
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I used to watch the Vikes, Chopper. Grieve in private, please.
Actually, the Vikings loss is good news for the Bears, assuming they can beat Green Bay and Houston, also assuming the Vikings will lose to New York next week. I'm quite content to have Chopper's shame out in the open.
And lo, 304 is the sentiment I predicted that Gonerill would make. I'm onto you, Mr. Sociology Man.
I'm like that uploaded personality-on-a-chip in Neuromancer. It's in my nature to be predictable.
I thought that was in one of his other books.
OT: Two separate married couples I know because I went to high school with the women in those couples have been using Facebook status updates this month to exchange last sallies in their divorces, ending with "X and Y have ended their relationship."
It is weird.
339: some friends of mine (who, I think, remain married) were messing with their relationship status on facebook, and it popped up with "X and Y have ended their relationship"; everybody was like "what?!? They were doing so well! They just had a baby!#!!@#" Turns out they were... messing with their facebook settings.
Stupid facebook settings.
Predictable and inaccurate.
Oh well. I try to do my best, AWB.
At least they no longer use the broken-heart icon.
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Don't know if KR is around, but he might certainly have something to say about this map showing the availability of coleslaw as topping at hot dog joints in West Virginia. (Apparently the Slaw Dog originated there and is the standard everywhere but in the most northern parts of the state.)
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Oh well. I try to do my best, AWB.
Actually, it's quite the feat, teo, given that there are so many more ways of being wrong than there are of being right.
340: Even more disturbing than the "X and Y have ended their relationship" notifications are the status updates. "X DOES NOT HAVE TO TAKE THIS SHIT ANYMORE AND DOES NOT CARE IF Y HATES HER." "Y says fine take all your crap i don't want any of it anyway just get out."
341: I would never call you any such thing, my dear.
We found out about the break-up via a Facebook status, too. Very weird.
Well I used Facebook to establish that my cousin Alice, a native Denverite and junior at CU, pronounces Colorado just like I do. So there!
29 miles, pshaw. You need to apologize to read!
I'm late to this discussion, but I'll throw in some idiosyncratic placename pronunciations from my youth. The nearest "city" was Berlin, pronounced BERlin. Rumor had it that it had been pronounced like the German capital up 'til WWII, when the pronunciation was changed by vote of city council. Another town nearby was Milan, pronounced MYlin, apparently for the same reason. We would all correct outsiders' pronunciations assiduously, and found it baffling that anyone might get it wrong.
Hey, I've got just the thing for you last-minute holiday shoppers!
re: 329
That's pretty much how I'd say it. Slight emphasis on the 2nd syllable, but definitely 'nay' rather than 'neh'.
As an actual Scot, what would I know, though?
As an actual Scot, what would I know, though?
Yeah, it's a shame you guys never really threw off your colonial masters.
As an actual Scot, what would I know, though?
Quite a lot but not as much as Andrew Carnegie?
re: 357
Heh. I am just going by how I've always heard the name pronounced. I presume the actual Carnegie probably pronounced it that way, too. Unless someone has convincing audio of him pronouncing it otherwise.
Wikipedia, btw, agrees with me on the proper pronunciation. Also, he, fwiw, is from a place about 15 miles from where I am from, so I'd be surprised if his pronunciation was radically different [although you never know].
Otoh, people from round that area pronounce "leg" as "Layg", so "proper pronunciation" is a bit of a minefield here (I know a man called Jeff Weinberg who pronounces his surname "Wine-boig", but I think I'd get some very funny looks if I tried the same!)
There can be some ambiguity between /eɪ/ and /ɛ/ in some Scottish accents, but I don't think <Carnegie> is one of those cases. In a Fife/Central accent, it's definitely /eɪ/ in Carnegie i.e. c'rNEYgee. In other Scottish accents, it'd be more carNEHgee.*
* I get quite anal about accents/phonology, etc. More because I find it interesting -- which is why i have a degree in English linguistics -- than because I am trying to score points.
Hmmm, looking at the Gaelic etymology, it's clearly coming from an "ea" rather than an "ei" so I suspect you're right. However I will now open up another front of battle on shortening the first syllable. I suspect that the pattern of stresses is rather like "Caernarfon" (basically because the original Gaelic meaning appears to be exactly the same; a fort in a gap), and although people from Caernarfon pronounce it "C'narfon", they're wrong; that's definitely something that's just a local tic rather than the actual pronunciation (viz, Mr Wine-boig). I think Car-NAY-gee looks the rightest now; stressing the first syllable is clearly wrong.
(Albeit, if one is asking for directions to Carnegie Mellon University, probably best not to stand on ceremony; Kingsley Amis used to remark that he happened to know that the head man at Glenmorangie pronounced the name with stress on the second syllable, but that he personally didn't regard this fact as being worth a single second's delay in getting served).
Yeah, car-NAY-gee is something I could settle on as probably right. The shortening the first unstressed syllable thing is common in a lot of accents, I think.
I am quite happy to think of the US pronunciation of Carnegie in the name of the hall and of the university as the right one [in that context]. The word has evolved into a different word, with its own pronunciation. Place names often diverge from their original etymology and pronunciation and it's silly to be overly strict about it.
'Glemorangie' is a really odd one. I think I've heard about ten different pronunciations and I've never been sure which is right. The one used where I am from -- stress on the first AND third syllables -- is definitely not correct [it's different from the way I've heard pukka teuchters pronounce it, for a start].
I did once get into an argument with a barman in Glasgow when I ordered some Czech beer.
me: "I'll have a pint of [beername] please"
barman [snootily]: "it's pronounced [comicallymangledbeername]"
me: "don't mean to be rude, but it's [beername]"
barman: "I think I know how to pronounce the names of the beers in my own pub."
me: "I speak Czech numbnuts,* am married to a Czech, and am just back form 2 months in Prague, you on the other hand are a wee scrote working in a shit pub in Glasgow, which one of us is likely to be right?"**
* this being a total lie, of course. But I can order beer fluently.
** and, of course, in reality I just walked off glowering
I know that there are valid reasons for disliking Galloway, but here in Minnesota we are grateful to him for trashing our soon-to-be ex-Senator Coleman
I think Car-NAY-gee looks the rightest now; stressing the first syllable is clearly wrong.
(Albeit, if one is asking for directions to Carnegie Mellon University, probably best not to stand on ceremony;
Pronouncing it correctly will get you to CMU just fine -- that's exactly how they say it in Pittsburgh. You'll just get funny looks if you ask for directions to CAR-neh-gie Hall like that.
I'm thinking I probably learned how to pronounce Carnegie Hall from Fred Flintstone. Or maybe Betty Rubble. An authoritative source either way.
You pronounce it 'Car-neh-ROCK'? I think that's w=how they say it in Jersey.
I know that there are valid reasons for disliking Galloway
Yeah, he was my MP for quite a few years. He remains pretty good in that sort of context. Putting the average US senator up against him was a total failure of political nous.
Even more disturbing than the "X and Y have ended their relationship" notifications are the status updates. "X DOES NOT HAVE TO TAKE THIS SHIT ANYMORE AND DOES NOT CARE IF Y HATES HER." "Y says fine take all your crap i don't want any of it anyway just get out."
I need to change my facebook status to "W will help you get divorced so you DONT HAVE TO TAKE HER/HIS SHIT EVER AGAIN!!!!!"
i have a degree in English linguistics
Isn't that the subject where the practicals involve going to foreign countries and engaging the locals in English conversation, viz, "I said, WHERE. IS. THE. NEAREST. DECENT. HOTEL? Don't look at me like that. Pay attention and try a little harder. Honestly."
Known as TEFS (Teaching English to Foreigners by Shouting) in the trade I believe.
I (and a few others here) have a college acquaintance whose voluminous Facebook postings make it quite clear that she crossed the line into full-on paranoid schizophrenia some time ago. One the one hand, it's sad to see somebody you knew so very mentally ill, but it certainly makes for fascinating reading.
371: you'd have to be pretty far gone before someone could deduce actual real-life paranoid schizophrenia from internet postings. Mental disorders are really not too far from the internet norm.
re: 369
Heh. I did one 8 week course in TEFL [part of the language acquisition finals paper] which was taught by a guy who'd once had a job teaching English in Moscow to certain Russians with a strong interest in passing as native speakers. He had interesting stories [whether they were true or not is another matter...].
re: 370
I suspect a significant minority take up that trade because of their ambitions to TEFS (teach english to foreigners by shagging).
The only place in the world where an English BA is worth anything is Elsewhere. In the EU it should be a Briitsh or Irish BA, though.
"Today's our 'crazy cruncher' Christmas sale," said James Severtson, general sales manager for Island Chevrolet. "We'd like to send the message that the best way to support your country is to buy an American vehicle today."
To "crush" their Asian competition, the General Motors dealership had planned to have a monster truck -- a heavily modified Chevrolet Suburban SUV boasting tires that cost $5,000 apiece -- drive over a Honda Accord.
"We're going to have the Hawaiian Rebel monster truck crush the competition all weekend. We are literally crushing the competition," Severtson said.
"It was a happy coincidence that the bailout happened after we came up with this idea," he said.
But the first attempt turned into a David versus Goliath, as the massive monster truck blew a hydraulic hose and leaked vital fluid, while the Honda remained intact and ready for more.
292, 352, no need to apologize, sure not
i just tried to attend the meetup coz felt kinda responsible a bit for the initial impulse which led to the impulsive preambulations, which of course was not so, just a pure unilateral fantasy i'm prone to, i was explained that, felt like Larina a bit, which is nice :) the dramatic weather added to the effect
my sympathies to Bave about the detached sole, what you had been through
i had a similar experience once in the summer and it was a highheel's sole, but there were no commitments to the continued walking, so i just took a taxi home
about the other theme of this thread i pronounce carnegie like car-ne-gie, all the syllables stressed evenly
Read has forgiven you guys, but I have not!
re; 375
One of the British car TV shows* tried to destroy a Toyota pickup over an entire series. At one point they put it on top of an apartment block that was being dynamited.
They then pulled the truck out of the rubble and were able to start it.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZDtC9kjVk
* presented by men who are, it has to be said, often colossal arseholes...
375: That Accord was probably assembled in Marysville, OH..
The whole demonstration was probably actually one of those Michigan/Ohio rivalry things.
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While I have read and Emerson here together. Are either of you familiar with the works of Victor Pelevin? I just finished reading his Buddha's Little Finger (apparently published in Russia as Chapayev and Void), which my son had read for a class this term. Quite an interesting work of whimsical and philosophical fiction (and I'm sure I missed any number of Russian folkloric allusions) spanning the Revolution and post-Soviet Moscow.
(And I see he did come up in the middle of a SciFi thread here.)
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it's okay , JE, really, thanks
i've tried to read Pelevin before, but he uses a lot of slang and sometimes sounds cynical and kinda dirty, and this does not suit to Russians well imo, i like their pure and kinda chaste prose so he was kinda difficult to read, or maybe i mix him with others
and basically i don't read the modern Russian writers
if you say it's good i'll read it, Chapaev and void
not post-soviet Moscow, but if post the Revolution then the link at languagehat about Vaginov was very good
On the topic of ubiquitous and long-lasting cars:
In his discussions with doctors who practice in impoverished settings, Dr. Rosen learned that no matter how remote the locale, there always seemed to be a Toyota 4Runner in working order.
It was his "Aha!" moment, he recalled later: Why not make the incubator out of new or used car parts, and teach local auto mechanics to be medical technologists?
Cimit then hired Design That Matters, a nonprofit firm in Cambridge, Mass., to design the machine. "The idea was to start with a 4Runner," said Timothy Prestero, the firm's founder and chief executive, "and take away all the parts that weren't an incubator."
What resulted was a serious-looking gray-blue device that conjures up a cyborg baby buggy, but fits comfortably in hospitals and clinics with few resources. For one thing, the supply of replacement parts is virtually limitless, because the modular prototype can be adapted to any make or model of car.
i looked up the Pelevin texts, they all are made not available online, the last october, pity
i think i was thinking about Limonov or Erofeev which i tried and did not like
nice to find something new and nice, thanks, JPS
Pelevin is a particular taste-- I liked Generation P and A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia quite a bit. But there's a definite science-fiction influence; if say Robert Sheckley or Lem leave you cold, I expect Pelevin might too. Also, Gen P is hard to translate into English, as English borrowings into Russian are important; the English translation of Generation P that I saw is far from optimal.
Aksyonov is well-reviewed from modern Russians, though he didn't do anything for me in English.
I quite liked a couple of Pelevin that I read, but not enough to really seek out more of his stuff.
I read Omon-Ra and the Clay Machine Gun, I think.
375/8. And yet, today Toyota has posted its first operating loss since 1941. There just aren't enough Taliban out there to buy all those pickups.
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Third Way seems like an incredibly lame Blue Dog group, and the staff and board of trustees are thoroughly nondescript.
I hope Yglesias isn't hurt by this, but you certainly can't fault him for his choice of enemies.
I hope Yglesias isn't hurt by this
I think if anybody got hurt, it's Palmieri.
re: 386
Yeah, and with the burgeoning Somali pirate market there's probably already market saturation.
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Economists missed the brewing crisis.
Damn. I can handle an economic crisis, I think, but a brewing crisis on top of that would literally kill me.
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Back to whatever the topic was.
389: Just wait until the Japanese government bails out Toyota by paying Libya to invade Chad again.
385: and the Clay Machine Gun
Which is what Chapayev and Void/Buddha's Little Finger was published as in England (and I've seen the Russian rendered as Chapaev and Emptiness).
What is 387 in response to?
I've followed Third Way for a while...they're all about classic circa-2002 Democratic establishment timidity.
387 responded to something way above, or maybe on another thread. (They just intervened on Yglesias's site in a heavy-handed way, if you didn't know that).
I've been trying to figure out who the Center For American Progress is. I didn't see any board of trustees, and Podesta seems to be the head cheese, with Daschle possibly behind him. They have tons and tons of miscellaneous affiliates and staff, and some of the Fellows are eminent.
They just intervened on Yglesias's site in a heavy-handed way, if you didn't know that
No, I didn't know that...details?
CAP is a big deal. They were started by Podesta (ex Clinton White House chief of staff I believe, his brother runs a major lobbying firm) as an explicitly Democratic / liberal alternative to Heritage/AEI. They raked a ton of money from wealthy liberal-connected types looking to rebuild the Democratic "idea infrastructure" during the 2001-2006 period. CAP is a worthwhile indicator of where the Democratic "mainstream" is, they are noticeably to the left of places like Third Way or the DLC, but to the right of various other liberal operations like the Economic Policy Institute, or, or...I can hardly think of a foreign policy think tank I would consider as really offering an alternative to the American hegemony...maybe the foreign policy operation at the New America Foundation?
I ask this in a serious and non-snarky way: Why exactly is it that people find Yglesias important? On what subjects does he display particularly useful insight or analysis? I've never read him regularly, but the posts I see usually seem to be along the lines of, "I read this interesting thing and here are a couple of thoughts about it off the top of my head though I'm not an expert so I could be wrong."
This is posted on Matt's site. As far as I can tell, Matt's offending post was deleted.
396: He's good at writing short, pithy bits on a wide variety of topics, and managing to be mostly right most of the time. There's not a lot of deep analysis there, but there's still something to be said for it.
396: Seriously? He's a mile wide and an inch deep, but in a good way -- he's got a good eye for what the current interesting thing is, and the couple of thoughts about it tend to be sensible ones. If you're not putting a lot of effort into keeping up, reading Yglesias would form a low-effort way of keeping on top of a reasonable center-left take on current political news.
(That sounds really, really, dismissive, and I don't mean it that way -- I think he's very good in that niche. But the niche is spoonfeeding news and ideas to people not doing a whole lot of work on it themselves.)
Yglesias can be very effective in ridiculing a stupid idea. He can get into an out of a topic amazingly quickly while still making a point. To me he also represents an index of which way the conventional wisdom is moving. He might end up being the David Broder of 2058.
John, Matt's "offending" post is here. Oddly enough, no one read it, and none of the comments were about Third Way.
People are bitching about censorship and credibility on Matt's blog, but I just think it's an interesting glimpse into how things work. He made an innocuous post that no one read, and someone complained to his boss, who in turn was compelled to do something about it.
I don't think it was deleted. It's here.
Why exactly is it that people find Yglesias important?
Why has any political columnist ever been considered important? The Internet has revealed them all as a bunch of dilettantes, since there is always someone available who has more expertise in the topic at hand.
And yet, I still obsessively read that worthless prick George Will every time his cro-magnon column appears in the newspaper. Partly, he's important because he's important - people read him because people read him.
But also, like Yglesias, he's a good writer whose mind works in interesting ways that illuminate issues in a way that wouldn't occur to me. Yglesias is a better thinker than I am, and spends more time thinking about policy. Will is a much more conscienceless, evil prick than I am. Both help me understand how the world works.
397: ha. Matt will never work in this town again. Third Way really does have lots of clout. Politically, Matt's original statement about them strikes me as pretty accurate, if anything an understatement.
I agree with 398-99. One of Matt's strengths is the common-sense ability to see through orgs like Third Way with ease, a gift that is rarer than one might wish among the DC establishment. But I've been pretty disappointed with the amount of follow-up/actual reporting he does on stories -- more or less none. But I guess that's blogging for ya.
He is what he is. Deal with it.
He's a mile wide and an inch deep . . . . But the niche is spoonfeeding news and ideas to people not doing a whole lot of work on it themselves
I guess that's what I mean. While that may be a useful service, it doesn't begin to merit all the breathless praise or high drama that seems to go along with it sometimes -- which doesn't make it his fault.
Who praises him breathlessly? I really haven't seen that. He's not a bad aggregator, which is how I read his blog.
Matt has a gift for an immediately penetrating common sense progressive take on things, presented in a witty and concise manner. That's unfortunately rare, so much so as to be almost totally absent in the conventional media. He really is a smart guy that way.
it doesn't begin to merit all the breathless praise or high drama that seems to go along with it sometimes
Welcome to the internet fishbowl. Plus, you know, saiselgy is the founder of the Flophouse and all. High drama!
One of the British car TV shows* tried to destroy a Toyota pickup over an entire series. At one point they put it on top of an apartment block that was being dynamited.
They then pulled the truck out of the rubble and were able to start it.
Quite possibly the finest episode Top Gear has ever produced.
* presented by men who are, it has to be said, often colossal arseholes...
You ever see the episode where they bought cars for $1000 in Miami and drove them to (post-Katrina) New Orleans? The rock-throwers went more than a bit overboard, but goddamn were the three of them asking for it...
"hyper-timid incrementalist bullshit" is an excellent description of what I most fear Obama's policies will be.
Also, there are no open threads or "request" threads. That's a plus.
Who praises him breathlessly? I really haven't seen that.
In the early days, especially, Andrew Sullivan named an award after him, he found himself on a bunch of "25 most important people under 30" type lists, and he got a pretty sweet book contract to write about an area he had no "credentialed" academic training in.
He is very good at what he does, which is basically fill the function of the 24/7 cable news channel for the smart, snarky, prefer-to-read set.
390:Currently reading a hardcore book on disequilibrium marcodynamics that is really impressing me, both on theory and policy implications (flexicurity). It is by Peter Flaschel, a German. Clower-Leihonjhfvud(?) disequilibrium Keynesianism never got a hearing in the US, but was taken up by Europeans forty years ago. There is the sad story of the Cambridge Keynesians not paying any attention to Friedman & Lucas until it was too late, because they couldn't believe any sane economist would take them seriously.
I mean, c.mon, would you listen to American theoreticians on foreign policy? The US is just all fucked up, and not to paint with too broad a bush, but all our intellectuals are stupid and crazy.
They have Bourdieu and Zizek and Agamben, and we spend man-years arguing with Jonah Goldberg and think Mankiw is a reputable economist.
Anyway, the Continentals have some brilliant economists with a much more complicated & useful intellectual tradition to draw from (real Socialism;German Historical School, etc) and time is probably better spent at VOXEU than any American blogs.
Re:Yggles
I keep waiting for a star to rise up from the blogosphere, rather than someone already established taking up a blog, like say Becker & Posner & Robert Reich. Josh Marshall?
I always assumed they would need a doctorate and 5+ years work experience outside academia to get taken seriously by the beltway, which leaves Yggles & Klein and most others out.
When Pelosi has to drop everything to take a call from a blogger we will have made it. Otherwise the blogosphere is just entertainment for nerds.
MY's been working hard on his ambitious career path, but I think the early adopters burned too many bridges back in the Wild West days. And it was too easy. He should take 5 years off and get a couple degrees.
413: if you look at the left-hand list of "founders" of VOXEU, you will see that most of them are central people in the U.S. academic economics establishment, which is quite international and has been for decades.
403 is a great comment. Kristol is the reigning evil prick right now, though, right?
A fellow solstice-walker just shared this. I wish we'd run into these people so we could have kicked their asses.
The people in 416 sound awesome.
Matthew Yglesias helps me live with the hostility I feel towards an unjust world.
Will is a much more conscienceless, evil prick than I am.
I am mostly happy to read this .
417: Matt Yglesias: opiate of the snarkosphere.
413: Politics and economics don't always line up neatly. For example, Barro (whose public policy views are pure evil) did research in the Clower-Leihonjhfvud vein. Mankiw, whose every public pronouncement is an embarrassment to thinking people everywhere, helped fight off the Lucas-Prescott attempt to prove that the government had no business intervening to smooth the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Business Cycle.
416: someone is just jealous because he's not an urban shaman.
They included Liz Tortolani and Kunji Rey, who are roommates and massage therapists and both 32; Deni DeYonker, a 54-year-old business owner wearing a pair of felt antlers; and three women from Staten Island, two of whom were draped in sweeping hooded cloaks."We are all priestesses from a goddess temple on Staten Island," one of the women, Adrienne Cumberbatch, said.
420: Some economists are less bad than others, or bad in different ways.
421: Clearly a Wu-Tang Clan side project.
We are all priestesses from a goddess temple on Staten Island," one of the women, Adrienne Cumberbatch, said.
Every word of this sentence is awesome, including "of" and "the".
The ToS has insulted Pelosi. I'm infuriated, as I'm sure you all are. He's finally crossed the line.
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It's rather wintry here, and has been for over a week now. I pass the time by typing "All work and no play makes Jesus a dull boy" over and over and over again.
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Leave those girls alone, Jesus!
426: Who made that beautiful birthday cake, Jesus?
Why, I did, thanks for asking.
I keep waiting for a star to rise up from the blogosphere, rather than someone already established taking up a blog, like say Becker & Posner & Robert Reich. Josh Marshall?
I think Josh has. He's fundamentally different from the others listed or Yglesias or lots of others because he's first and foremost an investigative journalist who (with his staff) has done some great work. I expect Pelosi does take his phone calls.
I keep waiting for a star to rise up from the blogosphere, rather than someone already established taking up a blog, like say Becker & Posner & Robert Reich. Josh Marshall?
If your definition of a "star" is someone whose calls are taken by Nancy Pelosi, the person in question would be a stumpy ex-serviceman called Markos Moulitsas. How do you like your star, Bob?
On the subject of Yglesias, he does analysis about on the level of an Economist staff writer (by which I mean a proper Economist staff writer like Phil Coggan et al) but is less loathable.
I have to say I read Yglesias rarely, for about the same nonexistent "reasons" that I like French fries more than potato chips. The links 397 and 401 have made me feel more kindly toward him than anything I've ever read about him, or meeting him for 90 innocuous seconds in person.
Kos, though short, is more slight than stumpy. I have met him and am stumpier in both respects.
By the signs, he knew who I was but was not terribly impressed by what he knew. This was right when he was hitting the big time.
Why, I did, thanks for asking.
It is lovely!
Ezra Klein has a good post on Third Way, and a weaker post on the controversy.
My critique of MY is primarily that, although he frequently acknowledges that he's pulling opinions out of his ass, he sometimes forgets their provenance, and holds them rather closer than he should. I have no problem with his use of a random opinion generator; I just hope he'll learn to keep track of these things.
For years I resisted reading him, partly for the above reason, and partly for the reasons Sir Kraab is getting at, but a year or so ago I put him in my RSS because: A. he's better than most at well-measured disdain for rightwing/Beltway idiots; B. his broad range of interests extends beyond mine, so he points up stuff I might not otherwise notice; C. his gut instincts are, in fact, pretty good. He was strongly against the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia from the get-go, he was completely right, and he's stayed on top of the story - not just because it reminds people he was right, but also because the US press does a shitty job of keeping track of such things.
That said, he's not in my top 5, but comfortably in my top 15 or so daily reads.
Actually, I just realized he's not in my RSS because I don't want to deal with that many posts that often. I stop by a couple times a day to catch up, but I don't want/need to read what he writes as soon as it goes out.
Near as I can tell, my blog-reading habits are idiosyncratic. Not the content, just the method.
although he frequently acknowledges that he's pulling opinions out of his ass, he sometimes forgets their provenance, and holds them rather closer than he should
OTOH, when he decides he was wrong, he's does a good job of admitting that he was just wrong, rather than justifying the error. Of the pro-war liberal hawk brigade, he's the one I remember as most forthright about saying that he just straight-up got suckered. Better he should have been right in the first place, but when you're wrong, that's the way to handle it.
438: Eh, I kind of agree with Ezra's take on this. The hysteria among his commenters is hardly surprising, and not necessarily well-grounded. People are way too easily misdirected, and always forget that the outrages they're allowed to see are not the critical ones.
443: But that's really the only interesting part about it. It was completely predictable, and because of that makes TP in general and Matt in particular look pretty inept. Which isn't a good thing, in their line of work.
443: the "It's transparent" argument gets me. Yes, it was a transparent note that CAPAF likes Third Way's work product. Beyond that, it wasn't anything that really conforms to any serious idea of transparency. And that argument looks a lot like an after the fact damage control effort, not a thought through commitment to editorial integrity.
The first link in 438 absolutely nails it on Third Way.
Adding to 445: the transparency argument is being put forward by the Think Progress people. I'm disappointed that Ezra seems to be taking it at face value.
OTOH, when he decides he was wrong, he's does a good job of admitting that he was just wrong, rather than justifying the error.
In context, this is sort of funny LB. On the whole I agree with you, but there's a whole second comment storm brewing over at TP because Matt has failed to do exactly that in this case.
Why the hell they didn't just do the obvious and post a letter from Third Way and Matt's response to same I don't know. These guys are supposed to know what they're doing.....
Why the hell they didn't just do the obvious and post a letter from Third Way and Matt's response to same I don't know. These guys are supposed to know what they're doing.....
They are charting a moderate course between airing the disagreement that way and whatever a conservative group would do.
Why the hell they didn't just do the obvious and post a letter from Third Way and Matt's response to same I don't know. These guys are supposed to know what they're doing.....
Ha, what would the letter from Third Way say?
"Dear Thinkprogress, we feel it is important to challenge your blogger's assertion that our "domestic policy agenda is hyper-timid incrementalist bullshit." Also, the claim that "There are a variety of issues that [we] have nothing whatsoever to say on, and what policy ideas [we] do have are laughable in comparison to the scale of the problems they allegedly address" is inaccurate, for the following reasons:
A, B, C, etc."
Anything Third Way gets quoted as saying in response to something that is basically totally dismissive of them makes them look even weaker.
in 450, "weaker" should be "sillier". I implied the wrong thing,.
Anything Third Way gets quoted as saying in response to something that is basically totally dismissive of them makes them look even weaker.
It wasn't totally dismissive of them. It was saying "I like these guys, and they're good at A & B. Sometimes they do a bad job of C though"
Even if it were something more categorical, it's a hard play for them to make and the wrong way to make it. Which is why they shouldn't have tried in the first place. There is no way for them to look good in this, and it was stupid of them to try.
On the other hand, if TP had handled it the way I suggested (after warning third way it wouldn't help) then 3rd way would still have looked like whiners, TP editorial would have looked like it was just doing it's job, and MY would have come up roses.
As it is, 3rd way looks like a bunch of whiners, TP looks like they don't understand their own jobs, and MY looks like he dropped the ball.
How is this an improvement?
In retrospect, forget the letter, just have Matt post his own note saying they'd asked TP what implication this had for 3rd way's relationship to TP, Matt says obviously no implication at all 'cause everything I write here is my own opinion blah blah blah and (if he can't talk them out of it) here's a link to my CEO's response to them (posted elsewhere, of course)
Point was, there were a bunch of ways to handle this. The best one would have been to say nothing at all, but if you can't do that, there are a bunch of ways that would have competently managed this (originally) very minor issue.
The way they went wasn't one of those. And that really is the issue, because they should know better.
Sure, there's a slicker way to have handled it, and the weirdo interjection by the acting ED (posting on MY's own blog, not visually differentiated at all well!) looks amateurish.
But I don't see this as being about transparency at all. It's just about tone-deafness to a certain audience, and I'm agnostic about whether that audience is even important to the speaker.
I mean, someone who is paid to have opinions had an opinion. Because he is now paid by a platform that is more part of the established pecking order, there was someone for Third Way to call and complain to. Because that someone apparently doesn't understand blog etiquette, the rebuke was ham-handed, but accomplished (I would guess) the goal of plausible deniability (we are too your friends, TW! We don't wanna say bad things about you!) with the audience that matters to them. Meantime, the traditional blog-reading audience is scratching its head because somebody just put a chess piece on their mancala board.
It reminds me of nothing so much as the kabuki required to get private foundation funding for activities that the foundation does not want to admit they're funding. No, we're not giving medical care to people with AIDS! It's community-based support for chronic disease! Uh-huh.
Having the editor pop in and post on Yggles blog was pretty much the worst thing they could have done. Very beltway insider/villager sort of thing to do. Makes it clear Yggles (and by extension his readers) are on the outside.
But I don't see this as being about transparency at all. It's just about tone-deafness to a certain audience, and I'm agnostic about whether that audience is even important to the speaker.
Right, which is why the transparency stuff looks like an after the fact thing to me.
449 is funny.
It's not that I think that TP has handled this wonderfully or anything. I just think that the outrage is a bit much, considering what has actually happened. If MY's original post had been redacted, that would be outrageous. If MY had posted something nice about TW without acknowledging why, that would be awful. MY's failure to talk about what happened is lame, but there's still time to heal that wound.
I can't help but feel that some of the response isn't to the content of what happened but to its unbelievable clumsiness - what'sherface's post is as ham-handed as a 1950s principal reminding the kids at the hop not to get too wild as they dance to this rock and roll combo.
Although not as ham-handed as that analogy. Banned!
It's rather wintry here, and has been for over a week now.
I am going to be very deeply bummed if PDX has weather issues Thursday night.
Dammit! 453 has a non-ham-handed analogy.
Always Preview, kids.
JRoth: The outrage is a bit much. But it was predictable. This is exactly the sort of thing people get wound up about all out of ratio with the actual offense.
They then compounded the error (both MY and TP elsewhere) by trying to explain why what they did was actually just fine. It wasn't. Neither was it nearly as bad as some slightly hysterical MY commenters were making it out to be, but that's beside the point.
Huh. Could it be more completely obvious I'm procrastinating this afternoon?
Speaking of amateurish responses, this brings to mind the West Wing episode in which the speechwriter wipes the floors with the inexperienced public-relations guy from NASA who has drafted remarks for the president:
"The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view. To prove the point, when they filed their story, NYT reporters were completely unfamiliar with the president's prime time address to the nation where he laid out in detail all of the causes of the housing and financial crises.
Is it me, or does that last sentence sound like bad seventh-grade mindreading posing as writing? Who is still left at the WH to write this garbage?
(I don't make a habit of reading administration press releases, but is it common for words like "brazenly" and "myopic" to show up?)
Right, which is why the transparency stuff looks like an after the fact thing to me.
Now I see your objection. But transparency itself isn't a goal, it's a method (or a principle, I suppose). The point about the transparency claim isn't that TW called CAP with a complaint and the CAP people sat around brainstorming how to handle the complaint with transparency. The point is that CAP felt they had to deal with the TW complaint, they chose a ham-handed method, but one that is, fundamentally, transparent. Their goal was to unruffle feathers, and they did it awkwardly, but they weren't all surreptitious about it. That's all.
I don't think anyone is claiming that it was handled well, just that it wasn't handled in a way that undermines MY's credibility. It does raise questions about his credibility, but there's no way for it not to have done so short of CAP telling TW to go take a hike, but CAP isn't a journal. The seeds for this were sown the moment MY signed on with an advocacy, rather than a journalistic, org.
(Reposted with improved formatting)
Speaking of amateurish responses, this White House press release brings to mind the West Wing episode in which the speechwriter wipes the floors with the inexperienced public-relations guy from NASA who has drafted remarks for the president:
"The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view. To prove the point, when they filed their story, NYT reporters were completely unfamiliar with the president's prime time address to the nation where he laid out in detail all of the causes of the housing and financial crises.
Is it me, or does that last sentence sound like bad seventh-grade mindreading posing as writing? Who is still left at the WH to write this garbage?
(I don't make a habit of reading administration press releases, but is it common for words like "brazenly" and "myopic" to show up?)
floors s/b floor
Goodness, it's embarrassing to get this sort of thing wrong when you're a native speaker.
The seeds for this were sown the moment MY signed on with an advocacy, rather than a journalistic, org.
This is probably true. I do think that out of all the people involved, MY has the least stink on him in this. It just looks like a bad call on his part, compounded by bad timing of the post. If he'd even taken time to embed her post in a little wrapper, he'd be home free (though TP and TW would both still look inept)
The point is that CAP felt they had to deal with the TW complaint, they chose a ham-handed method, but one that is, fundamentally, transparent.
It was more public than being transparent. There's really no way they could have handled the complaint to Third Way's and presumably their own satisfaction except by being public, since the complaint had to have been about MY's public statement about Third Way. You can't very well say privately "we like Third Way's work product and hope to continue working with them" and get what Third Way would have been looking for, i.e. public praise explicitly countering MY's original post for the benefit of readers who may have been misled (in their view) by that post. The idea that there was some hidden way to deal with this is just another example of the transparency argument being fundamentally bs. There have been later explanations of what was going on and what the editorial policies are, but those don't make the original post any more transparent.
If you really want to get into transparency, we still don't know who, or even if, anyone at Third Way complained, there's no statement from Third Way, there's only a mention of one specific item where CAPAF partnered with Third Way on something, and if you go over to sourcewatch, you'll see that CAPAF like many foundations doesn't disclose their funders/donors. We also don't know if there are any other organizations out there, criticism of which will lead to a similar disavowal. But we're supposed to believe that this should only enhance our confidence in the editorial integrity of Think Progress.
This is a much longer comment than the controversy warrants, but so it goes on the internet.
Correction: it's wikipedia, not sourcewatch, that mentions the lack of contributor disclosure. This mistake and and its correction is my own and does not represent the views of any other individual group and was made of my own free will.
Cementing my opinion of Goldberg, J, as a knob-end. Hahahaha hummus. There are about a zillion things he could have said there that would have had some actual satirical bite, but he didn't want to bring them up because that might be professionally risky.
i recalled the cutting water with a knife saying
hope this conflict will impact MY that way, like, scarlessly
and will affect more Palmiery for her undemocratic ways, boo
On the subject of Yglesias, he does analysis about on the level of an Economist staff writer (by which I mean a proper Economist staff writer like Phil Coggan et al) but is less loathable.
I don't think you can separate loathsomeness from analysis so easily. Glibertarian smugness is loathsome and also makes you stupider, insofar as Economist writers are encouraged to adopt it they weaken their own analytic abilities.
Huh, so there was an explanation of the complaint. In comments. They really know how to handle things.
465-6
When I looked at CAP's site, I was amazed not to find a board of directors. Only Podesta and Daschle had much eminence; there were a bunch of well-known fellows, but they weren't running the place.
From the link in 472: "After Matt's post calling them 'bullshit,' Third Way requested a clarification regarding CAP's institutional view of their group. " WTF?
After Matt's post calling them "bullshit," Third Way requested a clarification regarding CAP's institutional view of their group.
"We had our people check out your group, Ms. Palmeiro, and they reported that it really is pretty much bullshit. Do you have any other concerns?"
She submitted it through a process, and Matt published it on her behalf.
well, then, peace-peace
if it was clearer from the beginning
In the new Obamareich, the comity thought polizei even came after a center-right writer like Yggles dor complaining the tent was too big. I call Y "center-right" in the hope that it will save him from waterboarding. Ezra Klein is amazed there ever was a range of political opinion wider than the vast differences between the Third Way and the DLC.
Does France have a refugee policy? I need asylum.
474: Yup.
This is an advanced technique called "digging yourself deeper"
Cementing my opinion of Goldberg, J, as a knob-end.
Indeed.
Third Way requested a clarification regarding CAP's institutional view of their group.
They requested somebody please to kick MY in the butt, publicly.
This is an advanced technique called "digging yourself deeper"
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool bullshit than to speak out request a clarification and remove all doubt.
Oh, JG surely is a knob-end and more. My opinion was already sure on that one, though.
I just think that the outrage is a bit much, considering what has actually happened.
As far as I know, the only outrage that's been expressed is in blog comments. This seems like an entirely proportional response to me.
The politicalfootball theory of media corruption is that much of it is caused by squeaky wheels. Somebody complains and the media takes notice.
In more sinister contexts, management forces the offender to retract or run something that "balances" the offending view. In less sinister contexts, the complainer is told to go to hell. But in both contexts, the media people involved think that it's all a big waste of time, and can't we move on to more important things? Isn't all this outrage overdone?
The result is that everybody is more careful next time. Who needs the hassle?
With the institutional and personal priorities that media people have, bitching always pays. You can bet that Third Way wanted Yglesias to understand that, if pushed, they could reach right into his blog. You can also bet that the nitwits at CAP are going to be more careful the next time they try something this ham-handed.
484: As far as I know, the only outrage that's been expressed is in blog comments.
????
Blog comments are important.
482: I liked the link and found it funny enough. But then again, I'm partial to the ends of knobs.
486: It was too timid to be funny.
487: It appealed to my to phyllo-Semitic tastes.
You can bet that Third Way wanted Yglesias to understand that, if pushed, they could reach right into his blog.
Ultimate, I'll bet this teapot tempest reaches to some Congresseople's egos.
This is important about how the Village is created and maintained. All about who Podesta lunches with, or an Obama minion getting a phone call. We outside the beltway can't keep track of it, I am not sure those inside the Village can realy keep track. I used to read Steve Clemons just to get a feeling of how Foggy Foggy Bottom really was.
Does it fucking suck that favors & personal relationships, that we don't understand, will determine whether poor kids get healthcare? It's politics. It doesn't matter if it sucks. It doesn't matter what we think.
I actually found Ezra Klein's slight knockoff on Phil Ochs, about the narrowing of political opinion since the 50s & 60s to be much more interesting & important. Without proto-nazis & Trotskyites banging on the doors, of course DC is consumed by these decadent trivialities. It is starting to look like academia, intense passion over meaningless status markers.
And nothing worth a damn will get changed.
489: I suppose some things are just feta'd.
It might go to those anti-liberals I read, who say the triumph of liberalism after the fall of communism (along with globalization) means the death of meaningful diversity. And why this is intrinsic to liberalism. Why, for instance, a truly massive clean energy intiative is not discussable among sane wonks, or a return to FDR/Truman. tax schedules.
I don't know, maybe y'all have a better idea why the range of viable presidential candidates run the gamut from Clinton to Obama.
Do I give a flyin fuck about the pecking order and office politics of Beltway wonks? For fuck's sake.
Back to Colorado. My cousin Rachel, who grew up in Farmington NM and just graduated from Colorado School of Mines, says the following:
I've got to go with "rad". It might be a slope-side issue. East Slope (aka Denver and Springs people) like "rod". Western Slopers like "rad". Since I've lived on both sides, I think [that] is most accurate.
Unless you are in Aspen, Vail, etc....they like "rod".
Colorado is so three hours ago, Carp.
My cousin Rachel, who grew up in Farmington NM
Jammies went to high school in Farmington and Teo's dad is from there.
Emerson has evidently moved to Newfoundland.
On Yggy: he articulates the practical, politically feasible left side of policy debates, and avoids too
(by blog standards) much smug know-it-all male answer syndrome.
It's been said before.
On the other hand, he complains about the cold too much.
It appealed to my to phyllo-Semitic tastes.
You know, I've tried to work with that dough because it makes such lovely pastry. But it's fussy, Ari. And a little bit tetchy.
I'd like to visit Colorado. One of many US states that I've yet to see. Its state motto is "Nothing Without Providence."
(Looking through a North American road atlas a while ago, I was amused to discover that each state has its own motto. Each Canadian province also. Some of them sound oldey-timey [or perhaps like a mid-20th-century version of something that sounds oldey-timey], whereas some of them sound like they were coined by a chamber of commerce official circa 1960).
DeLong and Yglesias are the two established legit mainstream centrist bloggers who I feel I've been able to communicate with successfully. I worked on Kevin Drum for awhile and he was impossible.
Minnesota is "L'Etoile du Nord", the last refuge of civilization before you enter the wasteland. It was in French in the hopes of luring down some of the less brutish Canadians to settle here.
500: Kansas is "Ad astra per aspera," which I've always liked.
It was in French in the hopes of luring down some of the less brutish Canadians to settle here.
It was the promise of employment in the lumber industry that lured some of my Canadian cousins to Minnesota. I doubt they could read much French (or much English either, for that matter). Anyway, the Rand McNally road atlas now anglicises this slogan to "The Star of the North."
Your Brutish Fenian Canadian cousins, let us not forget.
In 1850 MN was about 5% French. The lot I live on was first owned by an illiterate Civil War veteran named de Rucha, de Rossier, or something like that. He signed with an X and there are four different versions of his name.
de Rucha, de Rossier or something like that
"Ed Ruscha"
See if you can scrounge up any early pieces, formative works and/or juvenilia.
That is the most cliched thing you have ever written, ToS.
504: Well, just because they gave their sons names like Emmett Patrick and Thomas Parnell, doesn't mean they were actually Fenians, John. I mean, where is the nuance, where is the sense of subtlety? Anyway, they emigrated from Co. Kerry to Upper Canada, and then to the city of Cloquet in your fair state.
Minnesota is great for census data, btw, because in addition to the US federal census every ten years, they also had their own state census every five years after the federal.
Nobody really cared how his or her name was spelled until the rise of the welfare state: at which point, it began to matter, because, you know, you want your benefits, and you don't want them to send your cheque to someone else who almost sounds like you, but who actually isn't.
I think that's also the motto for starfleet.
During Minnesota's 3-party era (ca 1920-1940) the Democratic Party dwindled down to about 10% of the total vote, mostly Irish.
Irish Catholics were the Americanizers, following Archbiship Ireland of all people, whereas the German Catholics were traditionalists. Both were bootleggers, however, for sacramental reasons and with the blessing of the Church.
The German traditionalists survive to this day, publishing a newspaper called "The Wanderer", now in English.
You will note that the Lebowski cult is international now.
Reading around the blogosphere, even Stoller (or was it Bowers) seems to take the Yggles thing to lightly. Podesta is on the transition team, and Palmieri is probably moving into the administration.
They felt they had to humiliate Yglesias to placate Third Way (Bayh & Harman). This should be no surprise about Obama's preferences or tactics, but I do think it is important in that it shows who the Obamites are negotiating with.
Third Way isn't the joke, they will carry much more weight in the coming months than the left blogosphere. OpenLeft has been all over Obama's move to the tight, I am sirprised they didn't get it.
I type this fearfully, wondering if my keyboard will melt, but in the Yglesias matter, Kaus gets it exactly right.
Next up for me: A reconsideration of goatsexx.
That is the most cliched thing you have ever written, ToS.
That's a pretty high bar...
I can't even bear to click through the link on 513. Doctor says it's bad for my heart.
Ben, Bave: I vanished Sunday morning without really saying my farewells, for which I apologize. I was tired, in some pain, and really looking to get out of the cold at the time, as I imagine we all were, but I should have stuck around for the extra minute or two that it would have taken to be polite.
Kaus is the master of timid hyper-incrementalist bullshit.
No, wait, it's snarky contrarian bullshit. (Talk about an idea whose time has gone. It's probably too late for him and Kinsley to reinvent themselves, too.)
