The sky is not Florida blue, infidel.
2: No, that's not how the bumper sticker goes.
Also, wasn't this a lamer ad campaign?
not having a TV, I'm sure I miss a lot of these.
But I can't think of a beer campaign that wasn't lame.
Not to mention it's one of the worst beers on the planet.
The Utes are the National Champions of American Football, BCS be damned. I say this as a Southern Cal fan (part of my wife's dowry).
Babaganoush is delicious, but I have never seen it at a street fair.
I have to imagine it's all about selling beer to people who, really, would rather be drinking something else. Most beer-drinkers I know don't worry about the "drinkability" of anything below the strength of, say, Samichlaus.
The hilarious thing about the drinkability campaign is that they appear to be presenting it as something cool - or whatever word the kids use nowadays - when it's a glossed up throwback to those silly 1950s ads with the doctor and the pseudo-medical diagrams.
Drinkability is their answer to the hops bombs I love so. It is the ability to drink two sips and notice that your beer is gone.
And as for the Gators, you are--dare I suggest--wrong.
I can't think of a beer campaign that wasn't lame.
I liked this one but then, I would.
The Errol Morris Miller High Life commercials were quite good, I thought.
Bigbeer advertising as a whole is profoundly wrongheaded. Campaigns around here, where a grateful people has embraced better standards of brewing, have targeted craft brews as being foofy fruity faux beers, when every ful no that fruit beers represent a tiny fraction of the market. More generally, tits! Beer! Tits! A persuasive pitch, as long as your target audience is ignorant of (if not exactly unfamiliar with) gynecomastia.
And as for the Gators, you are--dare I suggest--wrong.
No, I really am rooting for them. For reals.
You have to spend a lot of money to get brand loyalty to generic products.
15: yes. I didn't realize there were so many.
Arguably this is a better campaign than Coors's attempt to corner the market on coldness.
Miller High Life
I like to call Jammies "The Champagne Of Boyfriends".
22: he's thin and bubbly, but sweet?
21: cold-brewed, not just cold.
I especially like this one.
Also, remember last year after the Super Bowl when the Giants win was widely derided as a fluke that would have been prevented by a selection process rather than a playoff, causing people to lose interest in the NFL? Everyone knew the best team was New England and yet 1 didn't get to play 2. Best case for the BCS EVAR!
Don't know if this was commented on in some thread I didn't read, but it's pretty funny that James Shearer won a subscription to Mother Jones, isn't it?
I wouldn't have thought that predicting elections is part of the puzzle-solving skill set James is known to have.
What the hell is 25 on about?
The travesty that is "light beer"
26: there are some really bad arguments out there for why the BCS system should be preserved and why a playoff is unfair.
Budweiser IS surprisingly drinkable when you've been out in the sun too long, but otherwise best avoided. Also, spending a few days in Portland makes the beer aisle of my neighborhood Safeway even more depressing than it was before.
27: It was noted, and Shearer showed up to explain with becoming modesty that all he'd done was rely on the central tendency of the prediction markets.
29: I haven't seen many arguments that a playoff is unfair; it's usually just dismissed as impossible. Which is weird, because a playoff should mean tons of TV money, which usually makes the impossible possible.
Budweiser Nearly anything IS surprisingly drinkable when you've been out in the sun too long,
33: But the tons of playoff TV money might end up going to different people than the slightly fewer tons of TV money from the current system.
34: Never tested Carling Black Label for that purpose, but I'm thinking it would still be nasty.
Don't worry, Obama said he will fix it. It's a higher priority than health care.
33: Impossibility or perceived impossibility is really the main problem. But I've come across forms of the "playoffs have problems, so don't do playoffs" argument surprisingly often (example).
I saw a news article today in the St. Petersburg Times with a picture of UF staff gathering up all the garbage cans on campus. You'd think they'd be putting out extra garbage cans, but no, they're removing and concealing all the ones that are there, so the cretinous drunken sports fans don't pick them up and hurl them into the streets, through windows, at one another, etc.
My daughter was once complaining about the loud obnoxious fans who deposit empty beer bottles on the grass in front of her dorm, and I, who loathe sports, casually disparaged "Gators" in general, to which she said: "I'm a Gator! Gators are students."
Mom goes around and picks up all the trash that the Gator students leave on our street, and collects all the perfectly good items that they throw out to clean up and give to Goodwill.
My favorite story ever is when she took home a shirt and dumped it into the washing machine, and when my dad went to put it in the dryer, he found a big clomp of vomit that had been balled up in the middle of the shirt.
I love to say, "Mom, there are times in life when it's okay to throw out the shirt full of vomit." I like to say it all the time. She's probably sick of it.
"Mom, there are times in life when it's okay to throw out the shirt full of vomit."
Ah, but so many lack the wisdom and maturity to discern those moments.
Beer commercials often intensify my feelings of alienation from my own gender. If being a regular guy means drinking Bud Light with genuine enthusiasm, I think, rather than with resignation because there's nothing else around and you'd still like to get a little drunker, than maybe it's no wonder I have difficulty forming significant friendships with other men.
See also: the dudes who show up to the wine and cheese party with their incredibly hot, slinky cocktail dress attired, girlfriends, only to retreat to the kitchen and drink Bud Light with the other dudes. (Seriously. Wine people can be pretentious and all, but cheese is fucking good, and damn near everyone can appreciate it. Wisconsinites are all about the cheese, and no one ever accused them of being snooty. You're passing up good cheese? What the fuck is wrong with you?)
Otto: don't waste time wondering why, just hang out with the hot girlfriend(s) etc. and enjoy the wine & cheese.
not having a TV, I'm sure I miss a lot of these.
I don't even own a beer.
46 that's why they want you to watch the ads.
I don't even own a beer.
Let alone many beers, to necessitate a beer rack.
Miller Beer supposedly was owned by the family of one of the immortal "Four Horsemen" of Notre Dame, Don Miller. As a Fighting Irish fan and occasional beer drinker, when I found this out, well...
"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout [Balboa] when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
props to John Keats "On first looking into Chapman's Homer"
Arguably this is a better campaign than Coors's attempt to corner the market on coldness.
Results 1 - 10 of about 9,270 for "coldest beer in town". (0.26 seconds)
Someone should open a store advertising the "coldest beer in town" and then not stock any beer, 'cause man, that's cold.
Well yes. You should feel alienated. And the cure for that alienation is to buy the product advertised.
Yeeeeeah! That's what I'm talking about!
Let alone many beers, to necessitate a beer rack.
Just because we're drunk doesn't mean we can't be sober anymore.
Isn't a beer rack more in the eye of the beholder? As against a beer gut, I mean.
52: Yes, it does. That's what "sober" means. Geez, are you mental?
Isn't a beer rack more in the eye of the beholder?
More likely, in the beer googles of the beholder.
||
Last winter, about 11 percent of the throat swabs from patients with the most common type of flu that were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for genetic typing showed a Tamiflu-resistant strain. This season, 99 percent do.
"It's quite shocking," said Dr. Kent A. Sepkowitz, director of infection control at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. "We've never lost an antimicrobial this fast. It blew me away."
The single mutation that creates Tamiflu resistance appears to be spontaneous, and not a reaction to overuse of the drug.
The goggles! They do nothing!
You're passing up good cheese? What the fuck is wrong with you?
I will be your friend Otto. I will not pass up the cheese.
The Utes are the National Champions of American Football, BCS be damned.
Word.
Babaganoush is delicious, but I have never seen it at a street fair.
Rubies are beautiful, but I have never seen them at a school play.
I LOVE BL Lime (or Lime flavored Bud Light, for those of you who have not been introduced to this wonderful beverage). It's oh so dirnkable. I'm not insecure about my maturity leel like Heebie appears to be, so I get to just enjoy it.
Wait, I just realized there's a rather significant typo in 1. Yes, Utah, of course. Weird. Not sure how that happened.
62: pshaw, those flat states are all the same.
||
Do we have any St. Louis Unfoggeditians? It looks like I'll be there for a few days next month and I may have an hour or two to meet up for an artisanal beer.
|>
Utah's not flat. Or was that your joke?
65: yeah, it was pretty lame. I plead distraction of real work.
I haven't seen many arguments that a playoff is unfair; it's usually just dismissed as impossible.
internet scientific racist Steve Sailer (who can be quite interesting and sharp when off his bete noires), recently gave the best criticism of a college football playoff I've seen:
If the average NFL running back has maybe four good pro seasons in him, adding playoffs to the college season could end up reducing a running back at a top college's NFL career by a year, which is a lot. If you have an 8 team playoff instead of bowl games, a USC or Oklahoma running back might wind up playing six or seven more games in his college career, which is pretty close to the equivalent of a full season against mediocre opponents in which stars sit out the fourth quarter of blowout wins. If you have a 16 team playoff, that's more like ten or eleven hard games across four years.
College sports are a ripoff and a scam that forces players to play effectively for free, and the ripoff is particularly bad in the case of football, because the human body has only so much football in it. (Despite this killjoy stance, I enjoy college sports. But not as much as pro).
otoh, utah does have some impressively flat bits (bonnevillle)
58: I will be your friend Otto. I will not pass up the cheese.
Excellent. It's like the beginning of a new mythopoetic men's movement. My forthcoming bestseller will be titled: Real Men Do Eat Cheese: How We Can Replace "Drinkability" with Authentic Manhood.
Drinkability is code for "you can chug a bunch in a hurry."
Liking Bud Light Lime is even sadder than using "I Believe the Children Are Our Future" as a ringtone.
61: "dirnkable" sounds just about right, yes.
69 will result in marketers from one side or the other starting a "drinkability is for pussies" campaign, but I can't decide which.
67: that's stupid. College football, even against strong competition, puts nowhere near as much wear and tear on a RB as pro football. Playing six or seven more college games is not even close to the equivalent of an NFL year.
pshaw, those flatright-angled states are all the same.
74: he was saying it was the equivalent of a college year, and that the competition would be exceptionally tough. The top eight teams in college football usually put a half a dozen players each into the NFL.
Liking Bud Light Lime is even sadder than using "I Believe the Children Are Our Future" as a ringtone.
I also secretly like "Children are our Future", along with a lot of other overwrought early Whitney ballads like "One Moment in Time" (NCAA tournament song!) and "I Will Always Love You". Although I wouldn't normally admit that.
Have you ever tried Bud Lime? This conversation is making me thirsty, actually.
75: Colorado wears Wyoming like a brick wall.
This is a pretty funny ad:
http://www.whoppersacrifice.com/
I like Whoppers too! And Kentucky Fried Chicken (a lot)!
|| Wow. Apparently Bitch's website is no longer accessible from my office 'puter due to adult content. Wahh!|>
This conversation is making me thirsty, actually.
Honey, this conversation is making you sound like you're already drunk.
80: Try it at intervals. I thought I couldn't read Twisty from work at my last job, because it was netnannied, and then clicked on a link and found myself there. I don't know how it works exactly, but for at least some netnanny software, it might be pretty sensitive to what's on the front page on any given day.
Although I read B. today, and I don't remember anything unusually dirty, so maybe it is a change in policy.
Bastards are probably trying to make me focus on work.
who do they think they are, anyway?
You know why the sky is a criss-crossing array of blue and green, with accents of red and yellow?
Because God is a Tartan.
and the winner of the non-sequitur of the day award is ....
I only ever saw a couple of those Errol Morris ads; they're great (and the Alternative Transportation one is flat-out wonderful).
I want to say that 90% of it is the guy's voice, but that's unfair to the writing.
86: One of the low points of my brushes with organized sports was in 6th grade when I joined a little league football team and wore a CMU sweatshirt to the first practice. The coaches basically laughed out loud. (My mother was a Fine Arts grad and she bought it for the occasion. God love her, to quote Joe Biden.)
clever of her though, you learned a lot about the character of football quick-like, that way.
87 to 86? What? It's a direct response to the OP!
87 to 86? What? It's a direct response to the OP!
87 to 87?
||
Peter Cetera's super-hot backup singer at the Smuckers ice dancing was his daughter Claire, once an Olympic-level snowboarder or almost. She showed no signs of being loaded; I don't thinks she trains any more. My pervy insinuations about a trophy wife are henceforth inoperative. She didn't have a big part and looked like she was mildly bored, but a good sport. My data indicates that she can have pretty much any toothless old guy she wants.
|>
You may return to your serious topics.
Not only do i not like cheese, it would intereact with my medications and put me in a hospital. I wish we could all just have wine and chocolate parties in their stead.
I wish we could all just have wine and chocolate parties in their stead.
Build it, and they will come.
Wouldn't the coldest beer in town be the one with the lowest freezing point, and thus highest alcohol content? That seems like an important selling point.
Cheese: yoyo :: chocolate : dogs.
And as far as the OP "booze that children would like" thing, why not oatmeal stouts or ciders?
Implying that (chocolate yoyo) = (cheese dogs).
Schmidt's Gay Beer had the best commercial, for those who remember.
Hey, the Tartans only lost a few games during my tenure there, during the first half of the 90s. You should go tell that coach he was ill-informed.
Schmidt's Gay Beer had the best commercial, for those who remember.
Consisting of a guy holding a can as his buddies snicker, and he keeps saying, "What? What? Seriously, guys, what?"
102: No, it was a really funny SNL commercial -- Chris Farley and Adam Sandler sneak into an abandoned house with an empty swimming pool in the back yard. One of them's all confused, and then the other cracks a Schmidt's Gay -- as the beer opens, suddenly the pool is full, beautifully landscaped, and populated by frolicsome buff guys in Speedoes. It was precisely a straight-guy-beer-commercial made gay.
03: I believe they were housesitting...
So if bud (+ miller + coors?) is the easy listening, what's the muzak?
Rubies are beautiful, but I have never seen them at a school play.
You go to the wrong school plays, then. Also, babaganoush at a street fair is the central theme of one of the drinkability ads, showing what else went into the narrator's tummy, besides the Bud.
Otoh, TLL, you may just be going to the wrong street fairs.
I tried Bud Light Lime once when they were test amrketing it. It tasts like drinking lightly carbonated Rose's lime juice. We all each had one sip, and then they literally could not give that stuff away. Ugh!
I have never seen a chocolate yoyo, but I think of a cheese dog as a kind of hot dog.
111: you seem to be questioning my good taste. I really don't see how anyone could question my good taste after reading this thread.
Hey, the Tartans only lost a few games during my tenure there, during the first half of the 90s. You should go tell that coach he was ill-informed.
I see the Tartans beat the Chicago Maroons in the last game of the season this year. Forget Sooners-Gators...
I really don't see how anyone could question my good taste after reading this thread.
I think all questions have been resolved, yes.
Starts better than it ends, but a relatively non-sucky beer ad.
76: six or seven games is not the equivalent of a college year. And if you look at the early season games - the "classics" and such, plus the proliferation of so-called conference championship games, and the expansion of the "regular" season to 12 from 11 games, you already have the problem of too many additional games. I would support scrapping those extra games - which I understood to be partly a way of forestalling the development of a playoff system, and partly a way of getting more money (of course) - in favor of a playoff. I know, it's not going to happen. Alternatively, scrap the idea of a national championship.
However, I'm sympathetic to criticisms of football at any level that have to do with injuries and the lack of enough support for injured players after their careers are over.
I reject these notions of good and bad taste. You may drink as much limeage as you please without judgment.
My bologna has a first name, it's U-R-B-A-N.
Mein bratwurst has a first name, it's F-R-I-T-Z.
Mein bratwurst has a second name, it's S-C-H-N-A-C-K-E-N-P-F-E-F-F-E-R-H-A-U-S-E-N.
Do you know what OU's favorite candy is?
It's Now-n-Sooners!
I made that one up myself.
Guess which Gators player is best at recording TV shows that he'd like to watch.
Hey, the Tartans only lost a few games during my tenure there, during the first half of the 90s. You should go tell that coach he was ill-informed.
Really? By the time I got there in the mid-to-late 90s I recall the football team being pretty miserable. The anecdote that comes to mind was a kicker so bad that they always went for two.
I also think that 90% of their football hall of fame was related to the one time they beat Notre Dame, 60+ years ago when they were Carnegie Tech. Which is not a good sign.
The best thing about the Schmitts Gay ad is that it uses one of the greatest Van Halen songs ever.
123: Well ALL of U of C's football hall of fame was related to Jay Berwanger, who won the first Heisman Trophy in 1935, and who was the first player drafted in the first college draft (but decided not to play in the NFL), which was 4 years before it dropped football altogether.
I lived a block from the reincarnation of Stagg Field for 2 years but never attended a game.
My HS has never had a player in Division I football in my lifetime. When I was about 2 there was a guy who played Division I basketball, but that was during basketball's small, slow, non-jumping, primitive white era.
Columbia U was a football power back before even I was born. Jack Kerouac was slated to be their star, but he had problems with authority. Otherwise he might have amounted to something.
The major of one of the FL players is apparently "Recreation Event Management".
Totally OT: Guess what's super-awesome! I made a movie of a conversation I overheard at the Baths. I am proud of it and may make more. Too fun. Now I'll never write my dissertation.
Columbia was one of the schools caught in the basketball gambling - point-shaving? - scandal in the 1950s, wasn't it?
You put your energy into the brick.
heebie, how come you're not liveblogging the foul insults you & Jammies are hurling at one another?
Really? By the time I got there in the mid-to-late 90s I recall the football team being pretty miserable. The anecdote that comes to mind was a kicker so bad that they always went for two.
I do recall that they were headed downhill by the time I left, but I think they literally didn't lose a regular season game from '90 to '92, and then lost maybe 1 in '93. I suppose it's on the internet, but why check?
The weirdest thing, to me, about Tartan football is that, while they were good, no one at all went to games. CMU had anti-school spirit, a blend of inferiority complex vs. MIT ("The CMU of Massachusetts," as many a t-shirt could tell you) and general Pittsburgh keep-your-head-downism. But, just after I left, a bunch of freshmen and sophomores who were involved in orientation and RAing got together and basically tricked incoming students into believing that the school had spirit. I'll never forget the sense of confusion in seeing Gesling Stadium absolutely full of people twirling towels*. It didn't hurt that the school's ranking shot up right after I left (or rather, once my achievements had been taken into account), so that the place really was getting more exclusive and well-regarded, making for less bitter students. My classmates were more the type to turn Ren & Stimpy's "Happy Happy Joy Joy" into "Bitter Bitter Spite Spite."
* Rather cleverly, towels in the colors of the Carnegie tartan, so it was, conceptually at least, making a giant tartan out of the stands
I made a movie of a conversation I overheard at the Baths
That conversation hurt something in my brain.
106: Huzzah! An Adam Sandler sketch sans homophobia and a Chris Farley sketch sans fat jokes.
Now I'm making one in which two adorable teddy bears take turns making points from a monologue of Zizek while gesticulating wildly.
Rather cleverly, towels in the colors of the Carnegie tartan, so it was, conceptually at least, making a giant tartan out of the stands
Rather.
I'll never forget the sense of confusion in seeing Gesling Stadium absolutely full of people twirling towels*
Nor I. It wasn't until the second or third game that people started accepting that it wasn't some large-scale prank the nature of which would soon be revealed.
Now I'm making one in which two adorable teddy bears take turns making points from a monologue of Zizek while gesticulating wildly.
Surely you could work this into your dissertation.
You know what's better than college football?
heebie, how come you're not liveblogging the foul insults you & Jammies are hurling at one another?
Well, I've been telling him the clever jokes I've been making up, but when I posted them above, they didn't seem to get much play.
Here's another: Which coach has trouble standing up straight?
Bob Stoops! Oh yeah!
We'll never write our dissertation either.
142: Yes, but these internets are too small to contain the complete list.
I posted them above, they didn't seem to get much play.
I thought the Urban Meyer one was kind of clever, but I didn't want to admit it
Excellent--I just got invited to a wine and cheese party. Fuck off, Bud Light guys!
If the Gators win, the coach will be an Urban Legend.
Okay, here's a live-blog: Tim Tebow has those black smears on his cheeks, and on them is written John 3:16.
Which is "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
Sure, why not.
152: We were just talking about that here. According to the roommate, Tebow has encouraged the other members of the team to do copy his practice and choose a passage that means something to them and write it on their face paint. Mostly I just think it shows a startling lack of creativity on Tebow's part, picking the most cliche verse ever like that.
Sure, why not.
Oh, I guess I could think of a few reasons why not. But who am I to criticize this near-perfect example of what Emerson calls "prosperity theology"?
what Emerson calls "prosperity theology"?
Uh, I'm pretty sure that's not original to Emerson.
The player who was just helped off the field had "I [heart] U MOM" written on his eye black. Roommate says that was the sort of message that Tebow thought should be replaced with bible verses.
Correction: Love for mother is meaningful to Tim Tebow, area codes are not:
I write a Bible verse on my eye black as a way to express myself and get a message across. A lot of the other guys started writing something meaningful to them under their eyes. Since his mom died, wide receiver Louis Murphy writes, 'I love you' on one side and 'Mom' on the other. Some players write their area codes, but I encourage something more meaningful.
Honestly area codes aren't that meaningful in the age of cell phones. I can see where he's coming from. People should switch to social security numbers.
I wrote the Wiki article. Sifu is a blind fool.
Mostly I just think it shows a startling lack of creativity on Tebow's part, picking the most cliche verse ever like that.
Coming from a Heisman Trophy-winning star quarterback, it also sounds like something that could be...misconstrued.
Wait, a minute... rearrange the letters... a simple anagram... I've been a fool! John Emerson is Joel Osteen!
Uh, I'm pretty sure that's not original to Emerson.
Yeah, fair enough. I didn't mean to suggest the term was original to Emerson, but probably should have written something like "that 'prosperity theology' about which Emerson likes to make snarky comments." Anyway, Emerson's account is better than than of wikipedia, I think.
I liked it when the announcer said, "There certainly is a lot of jawin' going on at the line of scrimmage." I verified with Jammies that he really had said jawin'.
153: When I was little and people asked my favorite Bible verse, I used to say II Timothy 1:7, to be different from all the losers who said John 3:16 or Genesis 1:1. But since no one knew what II Tim 1:7 was, I got a lot of very suspicious stares.
Funny story 'bout that prosperity gospel.
Just remembered: Pilsner Urquell had a great campaign on themes from the Czech National Revival. Clas-sy. Here's the one with Smetana.
142: That photo would be awesome anyway, and then there's this lion. So beyond great.
159: Not one of your better efforts, John. Sifu's blind folly is understandable, if regrettable.
I have a unified theory of optimism according to which New Age religion, prosperity theology, methamphetamine addiction, futurology, management handbooks, self-help books, pyramid scams, and investment guides all converge on the Last Day into a blinding, optimistic, toxic Candle of Doom.
165: My unbelieving niece is bankrupt because of a house sold to her through her boyfriend's father's minister. IIRC the minister was burned too.
164: A more timid person might have chosen a better known verse.
When I was about 12 I read Genesis 30:14-18 by mistake, and it has stayed with me ever since..
165: Wow. I have little to no sympathy for the Elmer Gantrys of the housing bubble, but for their congregants/marks/victims, a great deal of sympathy indeed.
There's a Christian evangelical personal finance guru, Dave Ramsey, whose anti-govt ideology I find quite objectionable, but whose advice seems very different, and some of it quite good. Stop using credit cards, for example (this I absolutely agree with), and a family of four doesn't need two new cars, which will only leave them at the mercy of General Motors. I appreciate that he's not telling people that God will somehow bless them if they take out a mortgage they can't really afford, but he goes too far in the direction of a Christian-inflected libertarian individualism, perhaps.
The announcer said "jawing" again.
Oh yeah, the Dave Ramsey radio show is really interesting to listen to, the time or two that I've caught it. His number one thing is (sensibly) drop everything and do what it takes to pay off your debt.
164: Meek High School in Alabama uses Matt 5:5 as shorthand for its football ambitions. (Or did very far back in the day)
WHY isn't "Waltz with Bashir" playing in DC? WHY is the Washington arts scene so bad? This is a WORLD IMPERIAL CAPITAL, people! We should have all the art we want! Plus slave girls and gladiators!
WHY is the Washington arts scene so bad?
Whoa.
(/keanu)
How disappointing that his John 3:16 is sincere and not some vaguely surreal way of saying, "Right back at you, people in the stands with that sign at every sporting event ever."
179: Heh. Despite my Catholic upbringing and third-grade proclamation that I would become a priest, I will forever associate John 3:16 with the WWF.
177: I bet it isn't playing in Brazilia either, if that makes you feel any better.
178: bad relative to NY/SF/LA/Chicago, even Boston really.
181: right, Washington was the 18th century Brasilia.
DC's actually pretty small, as a city. You can't expect to get what you want when you want it, so it's best to get over that, maybe.
It's definitely playing in Boston.
Apparently it's playing only in LA and NY. Whaddaya gonna do.
Hah! I, liar. Well it's going to play in Boston. Mark my words.
OMG that text-to-movie thing is awesome. Another overheard conversation.
I thought lambic was the drink for people who find beer really hard to drink. At least, it's what my husband thought would start me down the road to appreciating beer, but I have been stuck at the Belgian starting line for four years now.
Whaddaya gonna do.
Well, it really sucks a LOT to be behind the eight-ball and what have you. See.
Lambic is a drink for people who want to make cherry soda to disguise their drink as. Actual lambic is rather an incidental phenomenon.
Actual lambic is rather an incidental phenomenon.
Dude keep talking like this and you'll drive the Flemish to unprovoked aggression.
Pretty daffy use of "unprovoked" there, Sifu.
But wouldn't it be provoked, then?
Everybody asleep? Movie report. New movies are available at start of month, but postponing Away From Her, Persepolis, and Southland Tales until I feel like a challenge.
So it was Vantage Point, which was okay.
But now the old movie Girlfight is much better and more my style.
Persepolis is swell. I'm not clear why you'd consider it a challenge?
164: That's a great favorite Bible verse, AWB! (Especially if your mother is named Lois and your grandmother is named Eunice.)
just after I left, a bunch of freshmen and sophomores who were involved in orientation and RAing got together and basically tricked incoming students into believing that the school had spirit. I'll never forget the sense of confusion in seeing Gesling Stadium absolutely full of people twirling towels
Harvard pretends to have school spirit precisely once per year, which leaves them vulnerable to stunts like this one.
Interesting game, this favourite Bible verse thing. I think I'd have to pick Song of Songs, 7:4 - "Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus."
Spot the deliberate error in 203.
re: 202
Has to be the King Jimmy version, though.
Spot the deliberate error in 203.
203 is technically correct. Intentional fallacy, yo.
205. Oh, absolutely. I have no idea what the modern translations look like, anyway. ("Your neck is like a carbuncle of glass; your eyes like the fishcounters in Sainsburys, by the checkout of 10 items or less: your nose is like the IDF command post which looketh toward Damascus.")
internet scientific racist Steve Sailer (who can be quite interesting and sharp when off his bete noires)
Sailer's other bugaboos include attorney generals, book-on-tapes, and MacBooks Pro.
this favourite Bible verse thing
Galatians 5:9. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."
Ecclesiastes 1:8: All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
A hot tub and a good book, 'smasher.
212. It comes from the same chapter in which God is revealed to be a Gator (III Heebie 7).
I was actually looking for the passage in which God meets Moses in a pub and picks a fight with him, prompting his (Moses') wife to mutilate their son in response.
Exodus 4:24-26.
Judges 4:21 -- Sisera gets hammered on a camping trip.
21Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.
i recalled these cartoons, very cute and funny, though sometimes it was difficult for me to follow the story or catch some words
if there were subtitles i wish
215 - That bit and the Judith vs. Holofernes smackdown are among my favorite Bible stories. Also the bit about the kids getting eaten by bears for teasing a bald guy. And the talking donkey thing is cool, too. Pretty much all the tolchoking bits are wizard cocksucker.
I've always been fond of 1 Samuel 5-6.
What would a golden hemorrhoid even look like?
A movie - Indiana Jones and the Golden Hemorroids of Ashdod.
219: That's the beautiful thing. You picture strangers coming into the temple: "Hey, what are those sort of lumpy gold things over there, next to the gold mice?"
"Hemorrhoids."
"Oh."
Judges 13:6 Then the woman went to her husband and told him, "A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn't ask him where he came from, and he didn't tell me his name."
Samson's mom preparing hubby for news of their impending good fortune.
This is totally gross but so funny you have to picture it anyway.
I'd forgotten about the emerods of the philistines. Some batshit crazy stuff, that. You have to wonder a bit about the historical events anchoring the legend - presumably there were actually at one point golden emerods and mice to be seen in the temple. Perhaps it was just a few nuggets of raw gold and some scribe retconned them into hemorrhoids.
You have to wonder a bit about the historical events anchoring the legend
Legend? Legend?
I like to think there is still some ultra-orthodox sect out there making golden images of their hemorrhoids.
People have not properly appreciated the conception of Issachar:
14
One day, during the wheat harvest, when Reuben was out in the field, he came upon some mandrakes which he brought home to his mother Leah. Rachel asked Leah, "Please let me have some of your son's mandrakes."
15
Leah replied, "Was it not enough for you to take away my husband, that you must now take my son's mandrakes too?" "Very well, then!" Rachel answered. "In exchange for your son's mandrakes, Jacob may lie with you tonight."
16
That evening, when Jacob came home from the fields, Leah went out to meet him. "You are now to come in with me," she told him, "because I have paid for you with my son's mandrakes." So that night he slept with her,
17
and God heard her prayer; she conceived and bore a fifth son to Jacob.
18
8 Leah then said, "God has given me my reward for having let my husband have my maidservant"; so she named him Issachar.
228: Why mandrakes? Pimping your husband for gold I can see, but mandrakes?
The Mathers were fond of comparing Emerson's "good" auntie to Jael.
Those two sisters seem so archetypal that I have trouble believing that they were real. They should be paired idols in a feminist temple.
I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.
Mandrakes are used in witchcraft rituals in Europe, because they are said to resemble people. Is there some weird subtext here?
Perhaps "My son's mandrakes" was substituted for something kinkier when the story made the transisition from oral to written form.
[Bud Lime] tastes like drinking lightly carbonated Rose's lime juice.
It couldn't possibly be worse than the Bud Light and Clamato "Chelada" Anheuser-Busch started marketing last year. I saw those at Cinco de Mayo last spring and just the smell of one made me gag.
(Belatedly on the topic of vanity, I like this painting by Nick Musaelian which illustrates Nietzsche's remark "I am forbearing to the vain because they are the physicians of my melancholy" with Playmobile people.)
Mandrake was regarded as a fertility drug, but that probably traces back to this passage.
My favorite Bible verse has to be Proverbs 26:11, As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
It more or less sums up my life, and now that I have a dog I've confirmed the part about the dog is accurate too.
I remember Malachi 2:3 fondly: "Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung upon your faces, the dung of your offerings, and I will cast you out of my presence." A college friend of mine used to shout that at people while we walked across campus.
Where it falls mandrakes grow. That's why they shriek when you pull them up. Did you not know that?
188: Your daughters, I take it? Very cute.
I have no idea what the modern translations look like, anyway.
The modern translations of the Song of Solomon are actually quite lovely. I'm very fond of the hallucenogenic weirdness of the King James version, mind you. Still, some of the newer translations do a wonderful job of restoring the poetic form, even if there is a certain demystification involved. The King James version has that Orientalism thing going, which is both wonderful and problematic.
239: That would have been cuter. It was a couple of grownups, actually.
I have a friend (not religious) who's favorite bible verse is Psalm 137:9.
It couldn't possibly be worse than the Bud Light and Clamato "Chelada" Anheuser-Busch started marketing last year.
see, I would never ever drink something like this. I have standards.
242: Blessed is the one who grabs your little children and smashes them against a rock.
Wow, that is beautiful, Nick! Thanks for sharing!
242: Beginning sung by Jimmy Cliff. End is implicit, but not sung. Reggae isn't as mellow as it sounds.
Reggae isn't as mellow as it sounds.
You can only imagine it is if you haven't listened to much, and/or haven't listened to the lyrics.
Peter Tosh is pretty unmistakable, though.
On Topic:
First, is the Budweiser "Drinkability" ad campaign the lamest campaign ever? Targeting everyone who finds beer really hard to drink?
It's actually the #1 mass-marketing scheme. Sports for people who don't like sports (e.g., Olympics coverage). Music for people who don't like music. (much of pop). Novels for people who don't like fiction or books (you name them).
The age-old "sell out" problem. At a certain level of popularity, people hate you.
Yes, but most of the television for people who don't like television is art.
I was going to ask: is the reggae fratboys listen to Marley and Cliff and Tosh and so on, or are there specialized lame reggae bands specifically for them?
248 is deep. I am going to make art for people who don't like art made for people who don't like art. It will be crap.
242, 244 - Yeah, that takes an abrupt turn at the end.
It couldn't possibly be worse than the Bud Light and Clamato "Chelada" Anheuser-Busch started marketing last year.
Agreed! Also disgusting!
Even disgusting when hung over at a football game, which seems like it would be the optimal Chelada environment.
Mixing actual vegetable juice with actual beer is not so bad, though. That is to say, it is a better way (than simple diluting with water or sparkling water) of rendering vevetable juice less glutinous and actually drinkable.
I had the Budweiser Clamato once and it was neither undrinkable nor good. But it led me to believe mixing a good beer with vegetable juice would work pretty well, which it does.
Mixing actual vegetable juice with actual beer is not so bad, though. That is to say, it is a better way (than simple diluting with water or sparkling water) of rendering vevetable juice less glutinous and actually drinkable.
What a great way to get your vitamins!
Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good, DiKot.
V-8 and beer for hangovers. Good.
255:
the center is known as pith.
256 and previous, V-8 and beer:
The very thought upsets my tummy.
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A couple nights ago I had my second celebrity sighting in almost ten years of living in NYC, and I thought of Unfogged, specifically of Emerson. In the lobby of the Met opera, waiting on the friend with the tickets, I heard a group of well-dressed middle-aged people introducing each other: "And this is Judy Miller..." I whirled around, did four or five takes, and yes, it was her. She looked much more healthy and cheerful than in the pictures from a few years ago, so I assume she's landed on her feet. I would never have spotted her without the full name introduction, even though she's still rocking the same Anna Wintour bob.
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We need a new post up! My vote: a post on whether this movie about philosophers looks as impossibly lame to the rest of you as it looks to me. Does this level of pomposity justify analytic philosophy as an understandably violent reaction?
260: "Nature is a big series of unimaginable catastrophes"
Not true, but it sure sounds good. I'll watch it, but I don't promise not to throw things at the screen.
260: When I read the post about it at Crooked Timber, I thought the clip was actually sort of innocuous and entertaining. Then I looked at the list of philosophers featured and had a little flash about my sense of the public face of the field.
When I have a viscerally negative reaction to three out of the five people I've ever heard of, that's a sign that your field is in trouble. At least if I'm any sort of stand-in for mainstream America on this issue, which is arguable either way.
I've long wanted to bring a sign to a football game that says "Republic 505e".
The public face of philosophers has always been, in order of priority,
A) Atheists
B) People explaining that they know how the brain works
C) Crazy people
D) Educational reformers
hasn't it?
pGD is taunting me, but I don't have sound anyway. Also, I only recognized maybe 3 analytic philosophers, and none of the nastiest ones.
261: I don't promise not to throw things at the screen
I have not looked at the movie, but the quotation you offer suggests to me that harmless pieces of popcorn should be good-naturedly lobbed at the screen along with repeated ejaculations of "Dumbass!" "Dumbass!" "Dumbass!"
Wait, okay, as the trailer launches ... whozat, Cornel West? And Judith Butler is apparently in this thing? And it has something to do with Zizek. I'll suspend judgment.
264 is wrong. In the U.S. at least, philosophers don't have a public face.
There's another goddamn Examined Life movie, and Singer's in that one too.
D should be "social reformers", don't know what I was thinking.
268: That seems to have been a 1/2 hour TV talk show featuring interviews with philosophers.
Arne Naess Sr. in the TV show was one of the good philosophers.
Geographical bias. You just like all people named "Arne".
270: Yeah, I used to watch that show when I managed to catch it. It wasn't bad.
The list of participants in this movie is a little surprising. Avital Ronell. I've never heard of Michael Hardt.
I don't know who Witt means with her visceral reaction against 3 of the people. Cornel West, yes: who else? Probably means Zizek and Singer.
is the reggae fratboys listen to Marley and Cliff and Tosh and so on, or are there specialized lame reggae bands specifically for them?
No it is all that stuff to the point where hipsters have to pretend that they don't like Exodus. It is more like there are specialized less awesome reggae bands for non-fratboys.
It is more like there are specialized less awesome reggae bands for non-fratboys.
You just like all people named "Arne".
This story would have been perfect if the guy's name had been Arne Frank.
276: Yeah, Na-Tehisi (sic) wrote how he loved Bob Marley until a white friend explained to him thatthat "no self-respecting person can play Bob Marley, because all his albums had been stamped "FRAT-BOY""
pGD is taunting me, but I don't have sound anyway. Also, I only recognized maybe 3 analytic philosophers, and none of the nastiest ones.
They're all non-analytic philosophers, that's the point John. The pompous alternative to the arrogant analytic hegemony. Choose your poison!
I hate it when I go to all the trouble of taunting people and they don't get it. At least John recognized he was being taunted.
Man, that's harsh about reggae. What does "Sittin here in limbo" or "By the rivers of Babylon" or "Downpressor man" mean to a fratboy?
If a fratboy could talk, we could not understand him.
The pompous alternative to the arrogant analytic hegemony. Choose your poison!
Annoying, PGD. Those are not the only two options. Also, not everyone in that film is a pompous twit.
260: We need a new post up!
"We feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us"
--The only philosopher I'll ever need.
It occurs to me that this might be PGD's last day in his current job, before moving to the new job, which move was causing him some anxiety.
Best wishes, PerfectlyGoddamnDelightful!
If a fratboy could talk, we could not understand him
DUDE IT'S NOT ABOUT LYRICS IT'S ABOUT CHIX
What does he mean? Why do chix like reggae?
WHO KNOWS WHY CHIX DO ANYTHING, MAN
286: yes, and thanks. The anxiety is sort of justified, frankly, but we'll see. A new adventure and stuff...
Good luck with the new job, PGD!
Best of luck on your mysterious new job.
If a chick could talk, we could not understand her.
If chix could talk
Oooh... they would say I want you more
They would say
Hey...ever felt like this before?
That you'll always be the one for me
290: Just breathe. You'll be okay. Your brain works fine.
As for Emerson's 293, I think this is the second time you've alluded to the Wittgensteinian comment that If a lion could talk, we could not understand him it.
Since we're apparently NEVER EVER going to get a new post, I'll randomly link to a great excerpt from a video on the Republic Windows & Doors occupation.
I'm presently sitting in the DMV and I just noticed that in front of me is a trashbin marked "identity theft is on the rise. This is not a secure trashbin".
275: Primary (hazy) associations as follows:
Kwame Anthony Appiah - vaguely kind associations; I remember thinking he was sensible when I read him in college
Judith Butler - extremely negative perception, largely on account of that ubiquitous and actively counterproductive kidney-donor analogy to abortion
Martha Nussbaum - generally mistrustful perception based on some weirdo reactionary stuff I read of hers ages ago (basically lusting after the Victorian era without acknowledging its costs, IIRC)
Peter Singer - extremely negative perception due to bombastic, ham-fisted approach to human life in general and humans with disabilities in particular, not to mention his political grandstanding.
As far as West is concerned I think tolerably/kindly of him; he comes across as more thoughtful in writing than the one occasion I heard him speak.
Heavens, tolerably s/b tolerantly. And even then I could probably have been clearer.
299: If we've degenerated to posting random links, Richard Perle now claims not to have been an architect of the Iraq war, and downplays neocon influence in the whole fiasco.
Wiit -- I am fairly certain you are confusing Martha Nussbaum with Gertrude Himmelfarb.
Anti-semite.
303: Damn, he hasn't even gotten his Errol Morris documentary yet.
Nussbaum was in a "hot couple" fluff item when she was with Sunnstein. Apparently she's a bit less center-right than he is. The article made much of her being a very fine blue-blooded lady. She seems to be sort of OK.
Nussbaum was a convert. Not a real Jew at all. No gas chamber for her, I'm afraid. Sorry, lady.
This photo begs for an Unfogged caption.
306: Actually, he's telling the truth. He's not saying that he didn't support the invasion just that the subsequent occupation wasn't part of his plan. Perle wanted the U.S. to invade and put Chalabi in power and then leave (well of course we could have kept a few troops around). He and David Frum wrote a book saying this a while ago.
Martha N. is very much okay.
Gertrude Himmelfarb is Mrs. Irving Kristol and mother of Bill. She wrote a book extolling Victorian values (The Demoralization of Society?).
Did I mention that Hilzoy has a crazy uncle on her mother's side (Jan Myrdal)? He's in the Emerson-McManus range of intemperance, with a few extra quirks, but he's been very active and prominent. Methinks I could not shock Hilzoy, but nor could I ingratiate myself with her. She's been there.
I remember one million years ago everyone whispering about "Martha and Cass" -- except I thought they were saying, "Martha and Kass," and that freaked me right the fuck out.
So Perle was in Chalabi's Bilderberg-MIT-Teheran-Shi'a cabal?
301: Interesting. Okay. thanks.
I daresay the general public has never heard of any of these people, anyway. The question of the public face of philosophy? Here was your original comment:
262.2: When I have a viscerally negative reaction to three out of the five people I've ever heard of, that's a sign that your field is in trouble. At least if I'm any sort of stand-in for mainstream America on this issue, which is arguable either way.
All I know about mainstream America's attitude toward philosophy is that it's likely the same as its reaction toward the higher level academy in general: a waste of time, mostly.
Your own responses to the philosophers in that film are reactions to your limited interactions with them. (As are most of our responses.) My responses are the reverse in some cases. I propose that we listen to the people themselves speak, in that film. Okay!
I confess that the entire question of whether "your field is in trouble", as you put it, irritates me. Certainly the Astra Taylor film is not to be taken as any kind of accurate presentation of the field of philosophy.
OT: I totally just got asked out by a married guy who sought out my phone number to call me. That is, I have gotten zero calls from either of the single men who have shown interest in me over the past month and sought my contact information. Married guy, however, makes his move.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH SINGLE PEOPLE?
Kotsko better post a photo quick. I have no visual image of him, but it's increasingly becoming Blagojovich.
My visual image of Scott E. Kaufman was way, way off too.
306 - he's playing a very shifty game. He knew damn well that the Iraq war and subsequent occupation would not be under his personal and complete control. He knew damn well that things would be run by other people and he knew pretty well what approach they would take. Playing the game of blaming others for the fully foreseeable consequences of actions he promoted and endorsed (and *lied* in order to promote) is typical of the neocon modus operandi.
Of course things would have been different if it had been done according to the Perle script, but that just means they'd have been fucked up in a different way. I'm not sure that putting a convicted embezzler in charge of the Iraqi government with quasi-dictatorial powers would have been an improvement over early elections, f'rex.
Married men can escape from a relationship without guilt?
301: I didn't really have many negative associations with those people to start, except I thought Cornell West was a charlatan after hearing him speak one time. But just in the preview almost all of them struck me as twittish and self-important. Especially the dude in the rowboat talking about revolution. But it's a five minute clip or whatever so I'm clearly somehow prejudiced and judgemental to start. I accept that.
316 - he's playing a very shifty game.
Wiit -- I am fairly certain you are confusing Martha Nussbaum with Gertrude Himmelfarb.
Hm. I definitely was never assigned anything by Himmelfarb, but I've probably come across her work in other contexts, so [peruses Wikipedia] maybe I did conflate them and that's where the Victorian part came from.
I have a distinct memory of being assigned Nussbaum as counterpoint to some other essay, though, so I'm going to stick with the discomfort and the generally not-positive reaction as being accurate.
Anti-semite.
Um. ??
Hiding behind his original Chalabi plan is pretty fucking weak. I don't think that anyone anywhere is now saying "Everything would be OK if we'd just left Chalabi in there". It's more like "Almost the scam artist of the century".
WHAT IS WRONG WITH SINGLE PEOPLE?
they're seeking a primary relationship, which can be very complex and involved and time-consuming. Once you're married, you can just settle down, relax, and enjoy a lot of casual sex with random people.
Yes, the single people are serious about you in their passive-aggressive way.
316 - Sorry. On behalf of single men I offer my apologies.
OTOH, is there some reason you haven't made a move on singletons #1 and/or #2?
re: 301
I thought the most famous thing about Judith Butler was the perspicacity of her prose?
I have no visual image of him, but it's increasingly becoming Blagojovich.
Twice now I have been stopped on the street (well, once in line at the Post Office) by people stating my resemblance to the disgraced pol. My offer to sell Obama's US Senate seat for $50 and a cup of coffee enhanced the image.
I was under the impression the 'drinkability' thing was, in fact, actually aimed at hard-core drinkers - what's at issue is not the ease of drinking one or three, but the ease of drinking an entire case per person while spending the entire day watching Manly Sports. In other words, just a variant on that old 'great taste that won't fill you up' slogan - a beer for when drinking is a marathon, not a sprint.
322: Um? Surely you've been around here long enough to get that joke.
I suspect 324 is correct and it annoys me, not because I don't like casual sex, but because when one is sleeping with someone who has a different primary partner, one has a tendency to get jilted suddenly and nastily for reasons that have nothing to do with oneself.
Also, I find it highly suspicious that this particular married person works in a very small office with one of the single men in question. The whole situation makes me nervous.
327: I did. In both cases, I made moves, very obvious ones, like making out with them. I believe it is now up to them.
this particular married person works in a very small office with one of the single men in question
Perhaps he is doing a Cyrano de Bergerac, and the single man is too shy to speak directly.
326: One early post-work drink.
309: "Vote to acquit, or the cripple gets it."
the entire question of whether "your field is in trouble"
Well, to me there are a number of reasons that fields should care what the general public thinks of them (or vaguely perceives them to be). Most, but not all, are self-interested.
- Because if a few blowhards create a lousy public perception of your field, you'll find it harder to get your work funded, disseminated, discussed, understood, or used.
- Because (theoretically) you want other wise, interesting people to find your field appealing, so they choose to work in it or support it, and insofar as those people are represented in or influenced by the general public, they won't.
- Because you are presumably doing your work because you feel it has some social value,* and if society thinks it doesn't, that can be both demoralizing and eventually depressing.
*Not social work or social justice. Value to society, broadly construed.
- Because humans are social beings, and if only a small circle of other humans is engaged with your work, even in the broadest possible sense, you will be shut out of one of the loveliest elements of being human -- sharing.
- Because if the field gets hijacked by a few extremists, the rest of the field will squander massive amounts of time and productive years trying to drag the conversation back to sanity. (Cf. cloning.)
334: That would be terribly awesome, but I fear it is not so.
All Jews do look pretty much alike.
"AWB is easy".
You could be the frist lady to try out the "He was asking for it" rape defense.
Because if a few blowhards create a lousy public perception of your field, you'll find it harder to get your work funded, disseminated, discussed, understood, or used.
doesn't seem to have hurt economics much.
335: Respectful question, AWB: What are your rules/ethics around getting involved with married people?
You could be the frist lady to try out the "He was asking for it" rape defense.
Oh I think that's been tried before.
Is soup taunting me too?
Econ has a great reputation with the people who count.
I'm not easy. I'm fast. There's a difference.
try out the "He was asking for it" rape defense.
Not funny, dude.
Not funny, dude.
New rollover.
seriously.
Chalabi is a demonstration of the danger of having too many unexceptional graduate students floating around:
Here at the University, Chalabi wrote his doctoral dissertation on the "Jacobsonian Radical of the Group Ring," according to mathematics professor George Glauberman, who advised his work.Glauberman said Chalabi was a bright and hardworking math student but did not consider him to have exceptional leadership qualities. "He did not seem that different from all the other math students," Glauberman said.
Mathematics professor Paul Sally, who also knew Chalabi, agreed.
"He was just one of the gang, good student, fine work, blended well in the department," Sally said. "There was nothing in math that would set him apart one way or the other."
After "just blending in" for long enough, they yearn to stand out again in the way that they did before grad school, and as such are liable to try all sorts of crazy things.
341: I have slept with a married woman with her husband's consent, and with a married man whose wife had moved out to live with her boyfriend. I have unknowingly slept with a man who had a longterm girlfriend I'd never heard about.
Generally, my rule would be that, unless it's an honestly open relationship in practice, I wouldn't knowingly sleep with anyone with a primary partner. And even in the case of an open relationship, I admit I still get annoyed that I have to deal with the structures they have agreed upon, rather than the structures me and my partner have agreed upon.
I prefer to sleep with single people, but I have a hard time meeting single people who are interested in me.
333: like making out with them.
Ah. I was just firing up my "men can be quite oblivious" burble, but you sort of cut it off at the knees there.
"Of course, we knew all along that he planned to mount a coup someday and declare himself President for life, but hell, what mathematician doesn't hope to do that? He really didn't stand out at all."
His mediocrity was in comparison with some of the top math students in the country, though? Are MIT and Chicago top schools?
but hell, what mathematician doesn't hope to do that?
almost all of them...
Some of those open marriage things have a sort of voyeuristic vibe, though. A very hot woman once invited me to a threesome (me!) with her jockish boyfriend sitting right there, and I was more than usually determined not to go there.
I still get annoyed that I have to deal with the structures they have agreed upon, rather than the structures me and my partner have agreed upon.
I can see this, definitely.
Once, I was "grandfathered" into an otherwise monogamous ltr, which sort of turns things around in that sense.
351: This is a little ambiguous -- the most natural interpretation is that the threesome invitation incorporated the boyfriend, but otoh if that were the case you probably wouldn't need to point out that he was 'right there'. I suppose I can conclude that you're a feminist.
I was "grandfathered" into an otherwise monogamous ltr
That must make you feel very special! "We're monogamous, except for soup."
Kind of like being vegetarian, except for chicken.
If you were the chicken, you might feel flattered.
347: Do you know if this guy's relationship is open?
328: I thought the most famous thing about Judith Butler was the perspicacity of her prose?
At least I'd say that people shouldn't dismiss Butler without thinking about it.
337: Witt, half of the people in the Astra film aren't even in philosophy departments: they're in literary criticism (theory) or political science (theory).
Judith Butler - extremely negative perception, largely on account of that ubiquitous and actively counterproductive kidney-donor analogy to abortion.
You've mixed up Judith Butler with Judith Jarvis Thomson. Butler is the opposite of Thomson.
358: He has said something along those lines. I would not do anything without making my position extremely clear and figuring out exactly what the details are.
In fact, I should probably do nothing anyway, given my intense, longstanding crush on his coworker and one of my other friends' intense dislike of him.
At any rate, if we could negotiate a friendship, that would be nice. I have no desire to fuck up my life any further.
He has said something along those lines. I would not do anything without making my position extremely clear and figuring out exactly what the details are.
IME, such things should be verified independently through a reliable source other than the person who wishes to tell you what will improve his chances of getting laid.
I have no desire to fuck up my life any further.
always, a good goal.
re: 359
Oh, I've read Butler. I did find her prose a little difficult in places.
I wouldn't claim to be any kind of expert though, my reading runs to a couple of chapters/papers rather than some extensive cross section of her work.
364: It was my new year's resolution actually. Oh well...
I make undergrads read Butler pretty frequently, and they seem to be able to figure it out. Nussbaum's right that Butler can be annoyingly abstruse, but it's not like reading Hegel.
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Here's an example of why I like Yglesias. He makes a very important point in a snappy, convincing way. Not a word wasted.
If he's far wrong on the facts, that's a different thing. But if he's right, no one could have said it better.
Several points, actually. 1. Stark's plan helps more people. 2. Stark's plan costs less. 3. Rightwing ideologues make Stark's plan unthinkable. 4. Moderates and liberals cave in before the wingers.
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re: 367
Well, yeah. I can figure out what's she's saying. I just can't generally be arsed with the way in which it's said. There are people whose prose is, on the surface, much clearer and where I find it harder to work out what's going on. She's not the worst ever or anything.
366: A few years ago I made it my New Year's resolution to fuck up my life as much as possible while I still had time. It was really fun and I met a lot of interesting people, did interesting things, etc. Now that I've figured out what it is I'd do with the license to do things, I can rein it in based on experience, rather than ignorant fear.
In a way, I feel like I could really only learn what my desires and their limitations were by acting on them for a while. Now I don't even want many of the same things anymore, and, on the positive side, I feel like I've learned to want healthier things. I'm still a mess, but more in control of how I deal with being a mess.
370 sounds both admirable and something that is only a good tactic for certain personality types. I don't think that would work for everyone.
I've known a fair number of people who followed that plan, but AWB seems to have done it in a much more conscious way. For impulsive, unintrospective, dependent, needy people the method is less desirable.
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AWB, I both love and curse you for introducing me to text-to-movie.
Where it falls mandrakes grow.
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My students really dig Butler's stuff on Antigone.
360 & 313: So the problem with visceral reactions is that they're frequently incorrect?
370 sounds like an approach for the young people. Or the recently divorced. I guess I did pretty good with that resolution last year, come to think of it.
I'm still a mess.
How do you say "I think, therefore I'm a mess" in Latin. It seems as true as cogito sum. I'm sure that Lacan has covered this.
370 is good for people who have a hard time articulating, expressing, or acting on desire, probably due to a rigid home-life or longterm emotional abuse/manipulation. It is probably not good for the kind of person who doesn't get paralyzed with anxiety about life.
373 is totally awesome. I love the wind and the long pauses and low-angle camera.
370: A tautology? sum=I'm a mess, surely.
377: So, like, me.... Maybe I should rethink the New Year's resolution!
It needs to be made explicit for slow learners, Oud. We know that that was Descartes' esoteric meaning, but he didn't make it clear.
This photo begs for an Unfogged caption.
336: 309: "Vote to acquit, or the cripple gets it."
This photo (fullsize)? The only possible caption is, "I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent."
max
['cf James G. Watt']
370 is sort-of kind-of peripherally related to my New Year's resolution. Fill out the trollopewocket a bit. Perhaps some different colors of ink. Sketches. Woodcuts. Hello Kitty stickers.
Hello Kitty stickers.
I don't know what this is a metaphor for, but it makes me think 370 may be bad for you.
385: Neither do I, but it'll be interesting to find out.
Hello Kitty stickers.
This morning I passed up a chance to buy some Hello Kitty elastic pony tail holders. In light of 370, I'm beginning to regret this decision.
You can buy Hello Kitty guitars.
http://www.squierguitars.com/products/search.php?partno=0335005506
which does have a certain charm.
I recall an article about an official, licensed, Hello Kitty vibrating dildo (since discontinued, and now collectible) but I don't recall where. Of course, I have far more use for pony tail holders than dildoes.
This looks fun, too, but it's not for everyday wear.
370 still isn't making sense to me. A few years ago I made it my New Year's resolution to fuck up my life as much as possible while I still had time.
I hadn't followed the previous comments, but I guess the sense here is that doing things that would not be recommended by the righteous can be really fun, though upsetting and disturbing.
I must just be having an age discrepancy problem. I never had to actually resolve to do those things.
re: 390
I think 377 clarifies.
Otherwise, I had the same thought as you.
I must just be having an age discrepancy problem.
My father used to say "you're never too young to start your second childhood".
391: I think 377 clarifies.
I saw that. Anxiety's relative, but okay. In retrospect, I'm pretty surprised by the things I've done so far. I imagine everyone's life is that way.
Although, truthfully, 377 clarifies that it's not so much resolving to "fuck up your life" so much as resolving to live more boldly/fearlessly, no? By which you learn that those big scary things you were sure would fuck up your life really don't.
re 260 and subsequent - I'm dying to see it, as Sunny Taylor is kind of a friend, and seeing her in the trailer rolling along while Judith Butler says, "you know, it's not like there's an ideal morphology, what a body should look like..." was priceless.
re: 394
Yeah. I think that's right.
In retrospect, I'm pretty surprised by the things I've done so far.
And indeed, the things you do that surprise you -- for better or worse -- seem to wind up being the ones that teach you the most about who you are and what you value.
I imagine everyone's life is that way.
No some of us went straight from puberty to 60. And spent puberty playing in the basement with computers.
389: I have seen such an object. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to its reputation. The production quality was such that the little ridge of plastic that results from pressing the two halves together was rather more pronounced than might be desired, thus rendering it ineffective for its intended purpose.
395: the things you do that surprise you -- for better or worse -- seem to wind up being the ones that teach you the most about who you are and what you value.
True, but we must try not to be dippy about it! dearheart.
Of course, I have far more use for pony tail holders than dildoes.
Surely they both have their uses!
By now I regret my normal years 1975-80 and 1984-2001 more than the preceding and following irregular years. Too much time grumbling about stupid jobs.
399>: the dildo, or the machine gun?
402: It is in being dippy that I have come to discover who I truly am. And for that I shall have no regrets.
399: another one of my fondest beliefs, destroyed by inferior workmanship. There's a lesson there, somewhere.
the things you do that surprise you -- for better or worse -- seem to wind up being the ones that teach you the most about who you are and what you value.
I resigned from a committee today that I really cared about because the chair is an emotionally abusive jerk. I knew how much I valued the work of the committee. I'm still a little surprised with myself to discover that I value not getting shat upon more.
406: And for that I shall have no regrets.
Excellent!
So, Michael H. Schneider has long enough hair to need a pony-tail holder?
408: Not getting shat on is important. Unless you're into that sort of thing. Who am I to judge. Could be it's your trollopewocket Hello Kitty sticker. To each his own.
So, Michael H. Schneider has long enough hair to need a pony-tail holder?
Apparently learning to braid hair is either a sex linked aptitude, or must (like language learning) be started at a very young age. I failed to learn to braid, and must use rubber bands. The current one is a fuschia with reflective metallic highlights woven in.
The long hair is the only thing that keeps me from being mistaken for Moqtada Al Sadr (that, and my beard is a bit bigger than his, I aver proudly, and wholly grey).
408: sympathy. Emotional abuse is nasty.
Braiding hair is much like tying shoes, Michael (DF)H. It's all in the nimbleness of the fingers. In any event, long-haired men cheer me, so cheers.
405: Machine guns will make us powerful, dildoes will only make us come.
You've mixed up Judith Butler with Judith Jarvis Thomson.
Whoa, thanks for correcting me.
So the problem with visceral reactions is that they're frequently incorrect?
Yeah, I can't figure out which side of the "I am a good proxy for the general public on this issue" that weighs in on.
I'm happy to have the clarifications, though. It's not a nice thing to go around disliking the philosophies of people who don't even believe those things.
414: It means you're a reasonable stand-in for the general public when it comes to philosophy. (It's no secret that those esoteric academic pursuits aren't viewed clearly or charitably.) How a field like philosophy might correct this is a mystery, and it's hard to see why it should try.
Witt, I'll send you a list of contemporary and recent philosophers it's appropriate to hate if you wish. Do you want the ten name list or the super-duper fifty name list? The fifty name list will take a little longer.
I hate Plato. And Plotinus. Locke was evil. Mencius was a thief. Hume was ugly. Who likes Hegel?
Judith Butler says, "you know, it's not like there's an ideal morphology, what a body should look like..."
That is a ridiculous statement. Of course there's an ideal morphology. Actually, almost every statement in that preview was a dumb generalization straining much too hard to be "provocative".
Not sure about Catriona MacKinnon, she might be a liberal.
Kit Fine & Penelope Maddy could be attempting some subtle evil.
Just for the sake of historians going through these archives, I want to put on the record that I don't believe that Richard Perle is absolved from all responsibility for the Iraq War because he had a different plan for after the invasion.
Also I don't think Thomas Kinkade is a great or even a good painter.
418 - at the risk of being too earnest, I think the various philosophers' statements deserve the benefit of the doubt. With the possible exception of West's "I'm a jazzman of ideas." But consider the sort of thing Judith Butler does - does it seem likely she's suggesting there's no such thing as normative body images and discrimination? Without yet seeing the full conversation, I would imagine her argument is more along the lines of process and practice. That is, we don't carry around in our heads a universal Platonic ideal of what a body should look like. Instead, we develop discriminatory preferences through exposure and habit, the structures of physical space around us, etc. Which things we could do differently. Just a guess.
And sure Hardt sounded like an ass saying "It's easy to start a revolution; just go up in the mountains with some guns." But it seems obvious that the second half of the sentence was something like, "But what do you do next?" Which is a fair question. And taking Zizek to a recycling center? Genius. So if these things sound absurd, it appears to me that's a matter of editing for soundbites, which is what a trailer is for.
And while I'm at it, here's a thing. 8 of the most famousest philosophers, and not one of them what Emerson would call an "analytical philosopher." Does this do something to the argument that the analyticals dominate the academic field? Just asking.
Just a guess.
Right -- in general, if someone one knows to be a solid thinker says something seemingly nonsensical, chances are the statement must be provided some context, taken in light of other things the person has said, and so on. There's a body of work there, and it's the task of a reader of philosophers to get a grip on the whole, in a sort of "What would Judith Butler say?" way. If the answer is, "Well, she wouldn't say that", chances are it's not what she meant.
422: I'm not sure they're 8 of the most famous philosophers, as much as 8 of the most publicly-faced philosophers (and several of them not actually in philosophy). That just makes the question: why are analytic philosophers not terribly public figures? Ha.
422: I don't think so. Non-analytic philosophers are the ones complaining. Many non-analytic philosophers end up in French, German, English or other departments.
Analytic philosophers combine blandness and evil in a extremely unappetizing way, that's why they don't have a public face.
And sure Hardt sounded like an ass saying "It's easy to start a revolution; just go up in the mountains with some guns." But it seems obvious that the second half of the sentence was something like, "But what do you do next?" Which is a fair question.
"It's easy to start a revolution; just go up in the mountains with some guns" is pretty stupid no matter what follows.
