I have no experience with a situation like this, but why are they still there if it's that unsafe? Why don't they stay with the sister or go to a shelter?
Mmm. I'm thinking 'serve with divorce papers and move out' is in the wrong order, if the situation is that tense. Other than that, I have no idea.
I praise the writer for beginning the question in that gripping fashion.
Agree with 1. If D-day is only a few weeks away, surely there must be somewhere they could go. Sisters. Other family. Get the kids out of the house at least - and do it when the father's not around. They're going to have to leave after they serve him anyway, so they should do it now - it's not like he'll be less likely to start a confrontation when they are packing up after he's been served.
If there isn't, or they absolutely can't leave for some reason: basic info hygiene. Delete all emails and texts as soon as they are received - or sent. Don't talk on a landline phone (listening in on extensions) or on a cellphone unless you're out of doors and in an open space.
LB is exactly right, the order is all wrong.
Move out at a time you know he's not around, don't leave anything behind you really care about. Have him served papers.
I've actually twice been peripherally involved in extricating people from really bad domestic situations; it works ok if you have a few people willing to show up and guarantee safety but given the option to avoid the immediate friction, why not take it.
If she feels like he deserves the opportunity to talk it out, fine. But that can be done in a neutral location, in public enough setting she feels safe (and perhaps with a friend there or whatever), and only when she's convinced he's ready to talk.
If she really feels unsafe, the time to leave was yesterday.
My understanding, when there are genuine fears of serious violence, is that "packing" is an unnecessary luxury. Get out, get him served, and worry about getting "stuff" later. And don't go somewhere he'd know to look for you.
6: Yup. My mentioning the "don't leave anything behind you really care about" was relative to a planned retreat only, not an imminent threat.
6 before I read 5. I guess my concerns about packing are similar to the letter writer's concerns about the emails -- what could tip/set the guy off? The smuggling out of the gun seems like a good idea, but not one that I'd follow with staying put a couple of weeks. WOn't he notice it missing?
You can hire large people to serve papers on your behalf, no reason they should be there for it.
You can hire large people to serve papers on your behalf
In North Carolina, the Sheriff's Department does all the serving of papers. I thought that was standard.
I am agreed with various. Move out now, if possible. Worry about divorce papers later.
I'm terrified that he's going to find her emails and texts and do something before they can act. What should they be doing to cover their tracks?Communicate via phone if possible.
What else should she do before she moves out to protect herself and the girls?Move out. If she wants, she can send the girls to 'camp' beforehand, if that is possible. Then she should move out.
They're getting professional help from a therapist to create an action plan and are working with a lawyer but what should they make sure to do before the big day?When they leave, get out the important papers. If uncle goes to work in the morning, then plan to leave half an hour later. If he's stalkerriffic, make sure to have a watchdog on hand to make sure he's gone where he's supposed to be the day she does it.
Generally, I find that violent alcoholics are violent to women and children because said people can be safely terrorized. If deprived of booze, and/or proximity to the threat, they might get nasty (verbally) but they often have enough sense not to go kill-crazy. Most of the time, that's true. For the instances where it is not is where you prepare. So rather than be terrified to do anything, get the girls out, get the critical papers and the utterly irreplacable keepsakes out, and then get aunt out. Soonest. Make sure the lawyer is prepped to file for an RO.
Do not, under any circumstances, talk to this person afterwards, do not accept any maudlin offers of reconciliation, do not return home unless it is with a security guard/PI/police officer (offduty?).
max
['Having the lawyer and therapist handy is the prime issue, and it sounds like she's taken care of that.']
Not knowing anything about the situation for real, the letter doesn't sound as if the aunt is strongly expecting a violent reaction - the combination of 'explosive temper' and 'already acted physically towards one of them' sounds to me like the explosive temper is mostly generally non-violent, in that whatever the physical action was seems to have been an exception. Caution still makes sense, but I'd read this as a matter of being prepared for a smallish chance that he's going to be violent, rather than going into full-scale 'leave the state with no forwarding address' mode.
Not that that changes the advice, which everyone seems to agree is to move out as suddenly and non-confrontationally as possible.
This question makes zero sense, for all the reasons given above. And: she's been taking self-defense classes for the last two years in preparation for moving out? I mean, the classes are a good idea, but does she think she's finally reached a level of proficiency where she can challenge him mano-a-mano, or what? Surely those two things are only peripherally related: she's been taking self-defense for two years because she's scared of him, and now she's ready to move out. One wasn't in preparation for the other. And: there's similar sorts of weirdness in nearly every line of this letter. Again: makes zero sense.
The lawyer should be on top of this, but if s/he isn't:
Around here you can get an ex parte protective order. The standard form prohibits trying to contact petitioner, prohibits going to designated place (e.g. sisters' houses) and prohibits wasting assets.
Get such a protective order in advance, and have it served along side the divorce petition. Around here the standard order that goes with divorce petitions has something like this, but duplicate orders never hurt.
The protective order isn't magic, but if someone has to call the cops it helps a bunch because violation of the order is grounds for immediate arrent and being taken to jail
And: she's been taking self-defense classes for the last two years in preparation for moving out?
Mmm. I feel bad about badmouthing the questioner's aunt, but I can't see this as a reasonable way to behave under any circumstance. If you're living with someone who you're afraid is going to physically hurt you, signing up for a self-defense class is a really goofy response.
Again: makes zero sense.
BUT it begins in mediis rebus! Counts for something!
And: she's been taking self-defense classes for the last two years in preparation for moving out?
I don't think this is as crazy as it sounds to you. If she's been scared enough to take classes for two years, things are bad enough that actually leaving is very, very hard to do. It's always hard, from the outside, to understand why someone doesn't just leave the abusive spouse. But that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.
I feel bad about badmouthing the questioner's aunt
Sometimes I think you're really not cut out for the internet, LB.
Agree with everything everyone's said so far, but also:
1. Plan a blitz move. Every time the uncle is out of the house, treat it as a rehearsal for the time you move: do not actually pack, but walk round the house talking through what each of them is going to pack, in what, how long, how much. Whatever precious stuff can be got out beforehand without his noticing and stored with friends, do it. When the day comes, book the cab, specify the time - before he's due home - and blitz-pack as rehearsed. That way even if he shows up early and catches them, even if he reacts violently, the cab driver is an external witness. (Better yet to have two or three female friends with cellphones and spine present to witness - one to watch, one to call the police, one to rouse the neighbors.)
Don't take the cab directly to wherever they're staying that night: go to a transport hub like a bus station or a train station or even the airport, get out of the cab, pay off the driver, go into the building, wait till the cab's gone, change cabs.
Then have the divorce papers served. ASAP after the move out.
Assuming that they can get away without him catching them, the long term problem is making sure he doesn't catch up with them after they've left - and that if hedoes, the police will take seriously any calls for help.
Your aunt's job and the childrens' school are the biggest weakness there. The school should cooperate, the employer ought to, but better to talk to school authorities and employer before the brown stuff hits the fan: make clear he's violent, make clear he drinks, make clear to the school that a divorce is in process and that the aunt is acting out of justified fear for her daughters' safety. (This applies even if part of e the strategy is a move to another city as soon as school's out for the summer.)
The school must not allow the father access to his daughters without adult supervision: neither school nor employer may give out any information whatsoever about what the aunt/her daughters are doing/where they're staying, to any inquiry. They can do this - they should do this - but they won't, necessarily, unless they're told. Don't downplay the threat. Get a definite committment in writing that they know their responsibilities to safeguard the children (or their employee) and they won't let them down.
And I agree with 17 that taking the classes in and of themselves doesn't seem crazy--she wasn't at the time ready to move out, but wanted to feel like she had some chance of defending herself in a bad situation. But the idea of taking them for two years in preparation for moving out seems very weird.
I specify "female f riends" because (a) their function isn't to fight but to witness - they're there to make sure the abusive uncle knows he can't get away with just lashing out; (b) abusive uncle must not be allowed to claim "She was being unfaithful to me! The day she served the divorce papers and moved out, three of her boyfriends were to here to help her move!" It's less likely to occur to him to make that accusation if they're women, and it's less likely that he'll try to get into a fight if they're women.
Oh, and if the escape involves moving to another city?
Pay cash for the tickets, and don't take a cab directly from his address to the means of transport used.
Make sure whoever knows her new address, knows not to give it out to abusive uncle.
...but better to talk to school authorities and employer before the brown stuff hits the fan
I'd think about this. The risk is that the school, in an otherwise normal interaction with the father, will spill the beans.
Another approach would be to have the protective order prohibit the father from going near the school, and from contacting daughters, and deliver a copy to the school as soon as it's served on father. This places the school under a legal compulsion and covers their ass against complaints by father.
And to everyone who's going "Oh, this sounds so weird!" yeah - my best friend had an abusive spouse for three years, and it is weird. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
They're getting professional help from a therapist to create an action plan and are working with a lawyer but what should they make sure to do before the big day?
Hard to know what the action plan with the therapist or lawyer looks like, but practically speaking: consider the arrangements on the bank accounts? In his name, her name, both names? What about the car, if only one? Is she planning to take it? If so, does she have a legal right to do so, insurance taken care of, and so on?
In other words, thinking aside from the possibility of physical violence on his part, protections in place against what you might call legal violence -- messing up her access to money and freedom of movement -- seems appropriate.
As for emails and so forth, any online communication should be via a webmail account to which only she knows the password, no? Passwords in general, actually: if he knows any of her passwords, she should change them, now. If they have some kind of joint family cellphone account, she should get her own individual one.
Doesn't sound weird at all, and your advice is great.
And to everyone who's going "Oh, this sounds so weird!" yeah - my best friend had an abusive spouse for three years, and it is weird. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
No one's saying the existence of an abusive situation is weird. They're saying the particulars of this sound weird.
The risk is that the school, in an otherwise normal interaction with the father, will spill the beans.
Doing it with a legal order sounds good - harder for the school to evade. Wasn't suggesting that the aunt do it far enough in advance that the school would be likely to let it out, but the day they move or the day before - not the day after. Under no circumstances should the uncle be able to get their current address from the school.
In fact, if a collective whipround can spring for a hotel room for a couple of nights, then that would ensure that the first 48 hours after they move, if the uncle tries to find them, he'll find them in protected circumstances with lots of witnesses - and if he explodes there and then, the aunt has definite proof with independent witnesses that he is not safe to be around.
The school must not allow the father access to his daughters without adult supervision: neither school nor employer may give out any information whatsoever about what the aunt/her daughters are doing/where they're staying, to any inquiry. They can do this - they should do this - but they won't, necessarily, unless they're told.
Unless they are told by court order, I'm not sure you can count on the school's cooperation. From their end, if dad still has legal custody rights, they're in a tough spot to deny him access to his kids. The lawyer can get temporary custody sorted out ASAP, but it seems possible that not sending the kids to school is a good call.
26: I don't think it sounds weird. It can take years to be ready to move out from an abusive spouse.
She should set up separate bank accounts and credit cards, without his name on them, if she doesn't have them already -- and have the plan to transfer whatever assets she's going to need out of joint accounts ready for the day she leaves.
20
But the idea of taking them for two years in preparation for moving out seems very weird.
26
No one's saying the existence of an abusive situation is weird. They're saying the particulars of this sound weird.
Maybe they're reading weirdness into it that isn't there. From the ATM:
My aunt has taken basic precautions, such as smuggling his gun out of the house, and has been taking self-defense classes for the last two years in preparation.
No one's saying the existence of an abusive situation is weird. They're saying the particulars of this sound weird.
I think Jes' point is that these particulars may sound weird, but they really are not uncommon in abusive situations. Or, the particulars of abusive situations are weird.
The lawyer can get temporary custody sorted out ASAP, but it seems possible that not sending the kids to school is a good call.
...or doing it during summer vacation.
But yeah. There is the advantage that if the kids are teenagers, they're big enough / old enough that they should be able to simply sit down and declare that they are not leaving with their dad and they want the principal to call (a) their mum (b) the divorce lawyer (c) the police. They should have all three numbers ready to give out, and be clear that if there was ever a time to resist adult authority this is it.
Where's Will? Is there a batsignal for him?
About the self-defense classes, with not a lot of knowledge:
Some people will take self-defense to protect others, but not themselves;
(some) self-defense classes aimed at people who are already frightened do not start with 'how to damage the baddie'. They can spend a long time on getting used enough to being frightened that you can act in spite of it. You can need to re-learn enough agency to physically run away, let alone fight back. You can need to learn that you get to decide if fighting back and getting killed because of it is preferable to not fighting back.
Also, if you're not very graceful and never scuffle for fun, you can take two years to learn how not to fall over if someone pushes you; this, I know personally.
Where's Will? Is there a batsignal for him?
If there is, it probably looks a lot like this post.
I personally don't find the particulars weird. The only part I find weird is that the mineshaft would contribute something that the therapist and lawyer wouldn't. My guess is that the honest letter would go "Dear Mineshaft, I'm scared for my loved ones and it's hard to sit with this fear and not have much action to take. Please empathize."
The only part I find weird is that the mineshaft would contribute something that the therapist and lawyer wouldn't.
Eh, there are alot of crappy lawyers and therapists out there, and even the good ones don't always agree.
I think part of it sounds weird because with the two paragraphs that we are given it doesn't sound like the guy is normally physically abusive. He's already acted physically towards one of them isn't very clear on what happened and makes it sound like it was a one time occurrence. So the stated fear of physical reprisal seems out of proportion to the rest of the narrative.
I assume that there is more going on than what is stated in the post if other people are also worried about it though.
But yeah, "Dear Mineshaft, my loved one is acting on advice of a therapist and lawyer, please reassure me of the soundness of that advice," is totally reasonable, too.
The standard form New Mexico Protective order has a check box for specifying no contact with kids and no contact with school:
http://www.conwaygreene.com/nmsu/lpext.dll/nmsa1978/23e74/24870/2503a/25340?f=templates&fn=document-frame.htm&2.0
If the jurisdiction is question doesn't have such a standard form, the lawyer should be able get it. My impression is that an ex parte order is available in all US jurisdictions, and as Di points out, such an order would make the school a lot more cooperative.
What everybody else said, especially Jes.
Except -- couldn't possibly disagree more with the letter doesn't sound as if the aunt is strongly expecting a violent reaction
Sounds EXACTLY like the aunt is dreading a catestrophically violent reaction. And probably with very good reason. This letter doesn't sound weird=unusual to me, it sounds weird-because-these-situations-are-generally-surreal weird.
I'd second what was said about safeguarding her credit. Get her name off of his accounts, so he can't run up debt that she'll be responsible for.
And IANAL, but if she is truly terrified of the worst-case scenario, I'd make sure she does a notarized statement with explicit details about her fear for the kids, so that if something happens to her, the extended family will have it as evidence when fighting the father for custody.
And actually, I'd counter the extreme advice being given out here. There's a lot we don't know, and ISTM that overreaction can backfire. You don't want him to turn up at a custody hearing with an MRA lawyer because the aunt went more than a certain amount of time without letting him see the kids or something.
To hedge my bets, the uncle is a horrible person whether he's "acted physically towards" only one of them only one time or all of them daily, and underreaction is risky too. Obviously. I'm just saying, if there's already a lawyer and therapist involved, and if we imaginary Internet people disagree with them, I'd give the lawyer and therapist the benefit of the doubt rather than us.
And running all important papers - and anything else that might be useful - past a photocpy machine beforehand and keeping the copies with lawyer or sister wouldn't be too dumb. Tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, all that stuff can be photocopied.
...so he can't run up debt that she'll be responsible for.
That's another thing covered in the NM Standard Form Protective Order:
Neither party shall transfer, hide, add debt to, sell or otherwise dispose of the other's property or the joint property of the parties except in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life. The parties shall account to the court for all such changes to property made after the order is served or communicated to the party. Neither party shall disconnect the utilities of the other party's residence.
I'm really liking that form Order
44: Cyrus, even if he shows up at the hearing with the toughest MRA lawyer in creation, if both the girls are over 12 and stick to the point about "I'm scared of him, I don't want to be alone with him", giving concrete reasons why they're scared, a judge might award supervised access - as in "you get to see them with a social worker present", but would not (in the UK, at least) be able to award unsupervised access or shared custody. Children over a certain age get a say in access and custody hearings.
19
... Every time the uncle is out of the house, treat it as a rehearsal for the time you move: do not actually pack, but walk round the house talking through what each of them is going to pack, in what, how long, how much. ...
Not convinced this is a good idea. The kids are a security risk and it may not be a good idea to get them too involved in advance. Even if they both completely side with the mother which won't always be the case.
MHS's comments are really interesting. I didn't know anything about the NM model. This is the good and bad of lcoalism in the U.S. In some counties around here, to get a Protection from Abuse order, you have to serve it in person. If you get a kindhearted cop, they will let you hide in the police car while they serve it, but you have to be there. Talk about traumatic.
Yep. Seems to me that if they're worried about the abusive husband's finding out what they're planning, the trick is not to talk about it with everyone in sight. Since that's apparently already gone out the window, I'm with the "get out NOW" contingent.
35: [self-defense classes] can spend a long time on getting used enough to being frightened that you can act in spite of it. You can need to re-learn enough agency to physically run away, let alone fight back. You can need to learn that you get to decide if fighting back and getting killed because of it is preferable to not fighting back.
Yes. Model Mugging is one such - the focus is on getting the student out of victim mode, assessing and responding appropriately to threatening situations. Being willing to fight back is in some cases more important than being able to.
"My aunt and her two teenage daughters have finally had enough. They've set a date and sometime in the next few weeks my aunt is going to serve my alcoholic uncle with divorce papers and move out of the house."
Sounds to me like all three of them are all on the same side and the two daughters already know the date set for moving out - it's just a question of how they prepare.
And yes: leaving your home with only what you can carry, when what you leave behind could be destroyed by a violent, alcoholic ass, takes planning. They need to figure out in advance exactly what they want to take, what they're prepared to lose by leaving behind, and if stuff can get safely smuggled out beforehand for temporary storage in friends' houses without his noticing - old toys, familiar friendly books - go for it.
Sounds EXACTLY like the aunt is dreading a catestrophically violent reaction.
I'd draw a distinction between 'dreading' and 'strongly expecting'. She's been scared enough of his being violent for two years to be taking classes in preparation for it, but the actual violence in that period is described (if I'm reading the letter right) as very limited. That sounds to me much more like "He scares me and it seems perfectly possible that he could do something violent sometime" as distinct from "Based on his track record, I expect he's going to do something violent when I move out."
That's absolutely enough to justify being very, very careful about how she moves out, and all the practical advice is pretty much the same. It just sounds like a situation with a 1/10 chance of going bad (which is a lot, and enough to justify a whole lot of precaution) rather than a 7/10 chance.
And IANAL, but if she is truly terrified of the worst-case scenario, I'd make sure she does a notarized statement with explicit details about her fear for the kids, so that if something happens to her, the extended family will have it as evidence when fighting the father for custody.
AAL, this isn't a terrible idea, but there's no point to having it notarized. Writing a letter to family and asking them to keep it would do the same thing, and a notary wouldn't add anything.
Thanks, Witt. In some areas New Mexico is actually civilized.
The Use Note to the petition form says:
" Section 40-13-3.1(A)(4) NMSA 1978 provides that a victim in a domestic abuse case shall not be required to pay for "the filing, issuance or service of a petition for an order of protection"."
I believe that means that a uniformed officer will serve it, for free. My impression is that most of the departments are good at coordinating service of process with petitioners' schedule. Nobody but the cop and the respondent has to be there.
http://www.conwaygreene.com/nmsu/lpext.dll/nmsa1978/23e74/24870/2503a/25297?f=templates&fn=document-frame.htm&2.0#JD_4-961
Someone close to me has been through this. Significant actual violence was involved.* They ended up moving hundreds of miles to a shelter for abused women and changing their names. They moved in the middle of the night, in secret, and by the time he woke up the next morning they were hundreds of miles away in a place he wouldn't know to look.
It's not an easy process. The shelter were, however, very helpful, and extremely conscious of security and privacy and there are sources of help out there who have dealt with this type of situations often enough to be genuinely useful.
I don't want to harp on at the self-defence thing, because I've talked about this at tedious length in other threads. I have little to add to what Brock says in 13 and LB says in 15.
Everyone's advice to get out first, when he's not expecting it, and then serve papers makes sense. Also, Shearer is right in 48.
* the circumstances were pretty tragic, and the guy is now dead.
Also, just to make the general point that the causation may be slightly different than the letter-writer puts it. The aunt may not have started taking self-defense classes in preparation for leaving, but rather, started going to classes out of a not-ready-to-articulate-why sense of general fear/unease, and over the course of two years she may have gotten self-confident enough through the classes, therapy, etc. that she's ready to point to her abusive husband as the cause of that unease and take steps to leave him.
57 says exactly the thing as 13. And Jes, I'm pretty sure no one came remotely close to disagreeing with "[i]t can take years to be ready to move out from an abusive spouse."
I don't have much to offer on the covering tracks details, but one thing I would make a list of are paperwork things that are important: passport, social security cards, IDs, kids' medical records, medications, prescriptions, tax returns, bank & credit card account information, utilities that need to be changed. These are the sorts of things that are easy to forget about in an ordinary move, let alone one undertaken in these circumstances.
57 says exactly the thing as 13.
Not exactly. And anyway, what do you want, royalties?
57 says exactly the thing as 13.
Good point. 13 seconded!
60: I thought it said exactly the same as 31. And sure, royalties sounds good.
58: I think you are misunderstanding Jes's point. We all agree that "[i]t can take years to be ready to move out from an abusive spouse." You think it "makes zero sense" to take self-defense courses in preparation for moving out. I think what Jes is trying to get across is that there are all sorts of things a person might do to prepare themselves for that terrifying step that might seem kind of weird from outside the situation but that really do make sense psychologically. Aunt may well have known two years ago that she wanted to get the hell out, was too terrified to go through with it, and signed up for the self-defense class on the rationalization that if she could just learn to protect herself, she would be able to make the move.
(63 says the exact same thing as 32, but with lots more words!! I am paying myself royalties right now!)
And sure, royalties sounds good.
You'll have to work that out with Witt.
Good point. 13 seconded!
IANLAL, but I would advise you to either strongly deny any similarity, or be silent on the matter.
Cry, cry, pay myself royalties, cry.
63: but the letter wasn't written by the aunt!
Right, which would explain, if 63 is right, why it mischaracterizes the aunt's (can we call her Dahlia?) motivation for taking self-defense classes. The niece thought they were consciously for protection against the husband, but that may not have been Dahlia's thinking.
67: I'm missing the point. What you find weird is the niece/nephew describing the actions as preparatory?
[Up to 57 here, in this thread. Posting...]
LB @ 12: the letter doesn't sound as if the aunt is strongly expecting a violent reaction - the combination of 'explosive temper' and 'already acted physically towards one of them' sounds to me like the explosive temper is mostly generally non-violent
Dammit, LB, that's 97 times I've agreed with you in the last seven days and three times I haven't. UR BEIN DISAGREEABLE.
Anyways, generally, there are two kinds of alcoholics. Ones with seriously-impaired judgement, and ones with seriously-impaired judgement plus really bad tempers. With the latter group, there's often no telling how far they will go, except that you cannot tell how far they will go. That's because every drunk's judgement is a unique snowflake. The one thing that is certain, is that drunks, like everyone else, will suffer from an increase in the impairment of judgement when in an emotionally-stressful situation. So, moving out on a drunk is almost always going to result in some kind of bad reaction, it's a question of how much and how far and how ugly.
I have experienced this situation, both from the perspective of a child and as the volunteer muscle. (And, in some sense, as the date material.) What works is making it clear to the drunk that stupid choices would be most unwise, which is really hard when dealing with someone with impaired judgement. So generally, it is best to make the possible victims as inaccessible as possible, even though it seems weird to people who have not gone through this situation personally. That is, you put all your ships on alert and have your CAP up and ready to go, and you make it as clear as possible to the other side what will happen, should they choose to do something stupid, all while flying the flag, clear as daylight.
Often, even that isn't good enough, so minimizing the opportunities for drunk and belligerent to fuck up is about invariably the best game plan.
Di @ 28: From their end, if dad still has legal custody rights, they're in a tough spot to deny him access to his kids. The lawyer can get temporary custody sorted out ASAP, but it seems possible that not sending the kids to school is a good call.
Ja. Absolutely. The trick here is to make sure the targets are out of range for the immediate explosion... and afterwards, well, talking for the client is what lawyers are for.
Heebie @ 37: My guess is that the honest letter would go "Dear Mineshaft, I'm scared for my loved ones and it's hard to sit with this fear and not have much action to take. Please empathize."
Yes. Talking to us is probably mostly like talking to an Eliza program. But you know, it doesn't hurt to talk to an Eliza program, and in fact, actually seems to help.
Di @ 17: It's always hard, from the outside, to understand why someone doesn't just leave the abusive spouse.
CJB @ 40: So the stated fear of physical reprisal seems out of proportion to the rest of the narrative.
It does sound out of proportion. The odds are, the fear IS all out of proportion. As Di said, it always difficult to know exactly what's going on in a relationship, and it's always difficult for normal people to judge what the (potentially) insane will do. The usual combination is that the insane person with have a tantrum or 14 but will not do anything truly stupid or massively evil. Instead, they will go petty and lowball. Further to that, they can usually be bluffed out.
Unfortunately, people (usually women) in these situations get into a bad headspace because they have been terrorized, and they cannot make good judgement calls, beccause they have (effectively) been trained to behave like rabbits. So, a nasty, abusive drunk may only need to yell occasionally to maintain ...'order'. Usually they yell a lot and act little. Sometimes they lose it and hurt themselves or others, often while going on about how much they care about the other person.
Cyrus @ 44: I'm just saying, if there's already a lawyer and therapist involved, and if we imaginary Internet people disagree with them, I'd give the lawyer and therapist the benefit of the doubt rather than us.
I agree with this.
52: Being willing to fight back is in some cases more important than being able to.
52 should always be emphasized to terrorized people, BTW.
max
['Nitroglycerine is a tricky little substance.']
the aunt's (can we call her Dahlia?)
She'd never leave Anatole behind.
Add him to the list! As well as a note saying that all of Tom's silver is modern Dutch.
68/69: but how did the letter-writer arrive at this particular mischaracterization of the aunt's motivation? (And, again, we're focusing on only one oddity, while the letter's oddities are legion.)
Personal experience--it went fine. Far better than anyone would have expected. She (my sister, in this case) picked her moment, though. He (hot-tempered, gun-owning, somewhat scary, not alcoholic but with a loss of self-control caused by traumatic brain injury from a serious accident) lost it with witnesses present and she packed up and left on the spot.
It was still scary: I think we all spent months tiptoeing around wondering when and whether the explosion would happen. But the dread has (so far) been much worse than the reality. And certainly the years she spent scared to leave because of what might happen when she did have so far turned out to be not worth the anxiety. Not to say that the separation and divorce process have been easy, but they've just been normal hard, not the terrifying, look-over-your-shoulder hard that she'd anticipated for so long.
As for the commenter who thought the story was weird--if you think he'll kill you if you leave, only maybe hurt you if you stay, self-defense classes are entirely reasonable.
This has maybe already been said, but I don't understand why people are saying they don't understand why she hasn't moved out yet.
Presumably, having lived with the situation for quite some time, the aunt and daughters sort of know what they're dealing with. And presumably also, if the man is dangerous when surprised, which sounds like they think it's the case, then moving out safely requires planning. Which means that having decided to do it, one *wouldn't* just up stakes without setting things in place. And it says that they *are* making a plan. So.
but how did the letter-writer arrive at this particular mischaracterization of the aunt's motivation? (And, again, we're focusing on only one oddity, while the letter's oddities are legion.)
1. I'm not prepared to concede that it is a mischaracterization for the reasons articulated above. 2. We are focusing on this one alleged "oddity" because that was the one you identified. What are the "legion" other oddities? Viewing the circumstances from the perspective of the abused/terrorized Aunt, I'm not seeing anything particularly odd.
I don't really want to fisk the letter.
Oh, and they probably already know this, but if there are pets in the house, they need to be taken as well. AT least, assuming the aunt/kids care about them at all.
73: Letter writer thinks Uncle Tom is scary, knows Aunt Dahlia has been taking classes for two years and is now planning to leave Tom, deduces (wrongly, in this hypothesis) that the classes were intended from the beginning as prep for leaving.
74: if you think he'll kill you if you leave, only maybe hurt you if you stay, self-defense classes are entirely reasonable.
Maybe. I'm really not seeing it in terms of changing her physical capacity to protect herself against domestic violence. Classes directed toward her mental ability to cope with or avoid violence, as suggested in 52, 57, and 70, I can see.
Dear Mineshaft is not a bad idea as an information gathering tool.
But, the professionals should be consulted and their advice followed.
"acted physically" and "might become violent" arent tremendously descriptive. There is a WIDE range of things that might be at play here.
It should be obvious that personal safety is THE most important thing. No protective order has ever stopped a bullet.
That said, if there is credible reasons for fear, then it very well might be likely to get a ex parte protective order. However, "He has yelled at us and one time, two years ago, he threw something " is typically not enough.
In Virginia, you need a recent act of family abuse and credible fear that it will happen again.
In VA, until a court issues an order both parents have equal rights to the kids. Niether one has custody over the other until a court orders. Untl a court issues an order, you cannnot deny the other one access to school records.
She should be talking with her lawyer. If she isnt satisfied, talk with another one. Just make sure that they are compentent. They are not incompetent simply bc they are telling you something that you do not want to hear.
It is scary stuff. I'm worried about one of my clients right now.
I know that whenever I've been under intense stress figuring out what the 'important papers' are has been really hard. The Mineshaft might be able to help to break it down by coming up with a basic checklist.
I am not surprised she's still there. I should have been more clear. I think she should get out before she serves him.
77: That's fine, but don't bitch about failure to address particular points if you are unwilling to identify those points.
why people are saying they don't understand why she hasn't moved out yet.
I don't think anyone said this, did they? I said the classes were weird, but that's different. There's been a bunch of advice that she should move out before doing anything else confrontational, like serving him with papers or telling him she's going to move out, but that' advice going forward, not commentary on her not having left already.
Letter writer thinks Uncle Tom is scary, knows Aunt Dahlia has been taking classes for two years and is now planning to leave Tom, deduces (wrongly, in this hypothesis) that the classes were intended from the beginning as prep for leaving.
Exactly.
It does sound out of proportion. The odds are, the fear IS all out of proportion. As Di said, it always difficult to know exactly what's going on in a relationship, and it's always difficult for normal people to judge what the (potentially) insane will do. The usual combination is that the insane person with have a tantrum or 14 but will not do anything truly stupid or massively evil. Instead, they will go petty and lowball. Further to that, they can usually be bluffed out.
Well said by Max as well as by someone else who said the fear is usually greater than the actual threat.
But, you never know. So be safe.
82: ? You misread me. (That's not intended to convey blame--I was probably unclear.)
Indeed. My sister's husband has been acting increasingly weird lately. Their marriage is not a good one, and my sister is giving him reasons to worry, but still; the things he's been doing are very much in the Red Flag territory for possible physical abuse. I find it hard to believe he'd hurt her (or their daughters), but then I'd have found it hard to believe that he'd do some of the stuff he's doing now. So I've told her that yeah, if/when she decides to leave, she needs to prepare for the worst things she can imagine him doing.
The fear *may* be worse than the actual threat, but I sure as shit wouldn't want to be responsible for telling her that and being wrong.
(By which I mean, that she can imagine *him* doing, given that she knows him well. Not the worst things she can imagine, period.)
Ouch. Sympathies to your sister. I can see it being hard to balance, not wanting to get overly frightened of things that could happen but aren't likely, but still needing to be sensibly prepared for the worst-case scenario.
but that' advice going forward, not commentary on her not having left already.
Exactly.
One of my best friends went through this. We met volunteering for our campus feminist organizations in college, and she was a women's studies major. For however unfathomable it may seem to stay (cue Linda Hirschman), it does happen all the time.
My friend was living in on-campus family housing at the time. She got the school to get her emergency housing, but wanted to leave before then. She stayed at the house of one of the directors of UCI's women's center. I don't think she packed much. She just got the heck out of there. I did help her pick up stuff afterwards though, when her then-husband was away (we checked, yes). Then months later, when she got her stuff together, she served him with papers in one of those divorce things where you don't need them to sign or whatever (Will probably knows better than I do). She had to prepare for this for years though, through therapy, slowly admitting it to friends, most of whom she feared judgment from (we all were supportive and understanding though; I had similar experiences having to tell them that Yes I'm a Feminist (and yes I have a controlling, abusive patriarchal father). It took a whole community of women for my friend. I'm glad she's out of there though.
And ugh, I just found out that a law school friend just went through the same thing, with an even more abusive partner. What a depressing week. But the upside is that both of my friends left their partners, and both of them are now safe and stronger.
There is a WIDE range of things that might be at play here.
Yeah, this made me hesitant to give advice, too. This is why there are therapists, who have experience and can ask the right sorts of questions to help her formulate a plan.
85: Well said by Max as well as by someone else who said the fear is usually greater than the actual threat.
Thank you, Will. (You know'd, you're all of three-four days older than I am.)
B: This has maybe already been said, but I don't understand why people are saying they don't understand why she hasn't moved out yet.
I think what's weird is the toleration for the nasty behaviour. People who stay out of abusive relationships simply up and leave when they get called a nasty name and slapped the first time it occurs.
The time to leave was probably long ago. The time when someone is ready to leave is usually when they can't take it anymore. The time when they actually leave is often up in the air for a long time.
At any rate, this is kind of an unbridgeable gap of understanding. People who avoid abusive relationships, are not going to understand people who do get involved in them, in the same way a non-masochist is never going to understand the big thrill of being whipped.
max
['PUN ALERT: Different strokes for... blah.']
People who stay out of abusive relationships simply up and leave when they get called a nasty name and slapped the first time it occurs.
No, they don't. Nasty names happen in arguments, and you get pissed and say "don't you EVER call me that again" and they don't, but you don't up and leave. Which gets to the point: there is no "time to leave." The time to leave is when one realizes that the relationship is not going to work and never will. And that's true whether the relationship is abusive or not. It's always easy to say that other people's relationships are bad ones (again, whether or not they're abusive), esp. after the fact, but surely anyone who has ever agonized about "should I break up with this person?" ought to be able to understand how difficult it is to figure out whether x thing that you don't like about X is something they might change if they understood how much it bothered you or not, whether or not you're being "too sensitive," how to balance it against their other qualities that you do like, and so on and on.
People who stay out of abusive relationships simply up and leave when they get called a nasty name and slapped the first time it occurs.
Some people have to work on this; many people get verbally slapped here from time to time, after all, and continue to stick around.
In any event, turning this ATM into a discussion of why the aunt hasn't yet left is surely contrary to its spirit.
The inverse works better -- the sort of person who ups and leaves at any ill-treatment, even ordinary non-abusive conflict, is probably not going to end up in an abusive relationship. That doesn't say anything negative about people whose flight instincts aren't as hairtrigger, they just have a greater risk of staying in a difficult situation.
Is it so unbridgeable? Obama calls for empathy! I avoid abusive _romantic_ relationships, but my experiences with my mean ol' dad (who is not _that_ abusive, I had/have a general fear of physical violence but it was mainly never carried out, and the abuse was emotional/verbal) makes me more sympathetic to victims of physical abuse. I would like to think I would not stay. But I can understand how it makes you feel so weak and powerless that you do stay. I found to be most insightful.
Not to diminish severe forms of abuse into an argument that any form of mistreatment should give one a greater basis for understanding and sympathy, but think of all the bad relationships--emotionally draining, using, dependent, etc. that you have stayed in, because you really wanted it to work and you wanted to love/be loved by this person. Toxic friendships, dysfunctional families, romantic relationships. Not that all dysfunction/abuse is equal, but some experience with that does create a window into understanding and empathizing with another's more complex, difficult situation. I don't know what it's like to be beaten, by someone I love. But I know fear and being told I'm worthless and anguished love, and it helps me understand.
"As a woman, why do you stay with that terrible, abusive man?"
"Beats me."
That was supposed to be "I found Hilzoy's post to be most insightful."
the sort of person who ups and leaves at any ill-treatment, even ordinary non-abusive conflict, is probably not going to end up in an abusive relationship
And agreed that Hilzoy's post about this was v. good.
101: Well, true. I was thinking of myself, and that's a large part of the reason I didn't date a lot in college.
Right. There's all sorts of mental abuse that primes the way for physical abuse and can get a person to the point of not being mentally able to leave. My relationship with UNG was never physically violent, thankfully. But in retrospect, it did teach me how easy it is to find yourself tolerating treatment that you objectively know to be intolerable. You don't know how you got there, and you know damn well it ain't right, but as belle alluded to above, being qable to admit to yourself and others what is happening is... Hard.
93: At any rate, this is kind of an unbridgeable gap of understanding. People who [do not want to try to] understand people who do get involved [with someone who turns out to be abusive], are never going to understand them, in the same way as [a Republican] is never going to understand [pretty much anything that requires empathy].
Fixed that for you. You really don't have to have been in an abusive relationship to understand the situation of someone who has been. You just have to quit assuming they're masochists and you're superior. Bit like not being a Republican.
95: Some people have to work on this; many people get verbally slapped here from time to time, after all, and continue to stick around.
Yeah, look how that transphobic bitch who thinks her boyfriend's bigoted jokes about trans women are funny still sticks around here. *scrapes shoe* Too bad.
I'll see your transphobic joke and raise you a joke about abusing women!!11!!!! Clearly you are a terrible, terrible person, Jesu.
I wanna see Bitch and Jes fight it out in a pit 10 feet across and 12 feet deep, with broadswords.
What happened to just acknowledging your undying hatred and refusal to forgive in the absence of remorse, Jes? I AGREE with you about the damned joke, but we're discussing something else at the moment. You are not going to get what you are looking for from Bitvh.
What about casting them in a buddy movie? They could bicker entertainingly for the first half of the movie, and then bond while helping a woman escape from an abusive relationship.
106.last: Jes!
This stuff does interest me: I'd agree that any relationship -- friend, family, romantic -- that makes sense to me will inevitably involve something that could be called ill-treatment, after which both parties pick themselves up, dust themselves off, start ... with a renewed understanding.
If you're someone who can't or won't abide any harsh words or behavior at all, there are only a few ways to make that happen in your life: make clear that you're really fragile; never ever say anything contentious, that might provoke criticism, but speak always quite mildly and in a conforming manner; fight like a mutherfucker if and when anyone ever says anything less than gentle and agreeable. OR! You just walk away.
That's not an exhaustive list -- this is not a study -- but the subject interests me.
I like 111 and really want to run with it but won't for fear of making things worse.
in a pit 10 feet across and 12 feet deep, with broadswords. basketballs.
111: Nah, I think BitchPhd is more the Glenn Close puppy-murdering / fashionista queen type, comic relief / leering villainness.
I've always wanted to be played by Sigourney Weaver. fwiw.
there are only a few ways to make that happen in your life:
Of those options, the last one strikes me as the only one with any degree of reliability.
104: it is really hard telling others indeed. It's just as hard telling about it in the past tense, to explain to your current, non-abusive partner, why you react so strongly to any intimations of disrespect, or simply to tell them your history. It took me a long time to admit that my dad is pretty much a jerk, and to hear that reaction from others. I imagine it was super hard for my friends to come to me and tell them their own stories. "But you of all people should know better" != appropriate response! "I'm really sorry. What do you need me to do. I have a car." = on the right track.
I am really grateful for therapists. They have saved my and my friends lives.
117 living (alone) in a cave is pretty reliable. or cloistered.
You forgot the preferred option, parsimon. First one looks for a physical solution and tries to engineer the dilemma away. All those interpersonal solutions are an unfortunate fallback if one can't find a physical solution.
117: Of those options, the last one strikes me as the only one with any degree of reliability.
The walking away? Or the fighting like a mutherfucker? But actually, I think people do manage to ward off ill-treatment by broadcasting fragility or avoiding contentiousness.
120: Megan, I think the physical solution is a variant of fighting (like a mutherfucker*, etc.)
* This word crops up again and again right now because I learned yesterday that a professional bookselling acquaintance died suddenly two days ago, in his mere early 40s, of complications due to probable stomach cancer. Just up and died. God fucking dammit! He was a great guy.
But actually, I think people do manage to ward off ill-treatment by broadcasting fragility or avoiding contentiousness
Never worked for me.
124: Thanks. It's just making me sad, and not really in the mood to watch people's various antics.
123: Never worked for me. Naw, of course it doesn't work for everyone. Wouldn't work for me, either, mostly because I can't really do either of those things believably; but some people can and do. It's kind of interesting.
Some people have to work on this; many people get verbally slapped here from time to time, after all, and continue to stick around.
Kotsko is driving around and punching commenters in the face? Really? If Kotsko were to drive to your house and punch you in the face, would you continue to comment on this blog? Why? And why has no one told me about this face-punching business?
I mean, if someone drove to my house at random and knocked on my door and punched me in the mouth without warning, for some comment I posted here, I would be seriously pissed off. I would, in fact, retaliate against that person immediately and nastily.
max
['So I'm not really following here.']
But actually, I think people do manage to ward off ill-treatment by broadcasting fragility or avoiding contentiousness
Broadcasting fragility or avoiding contentiousness can also act as a powerful magnet for assholes. Probably does so more often than it wards off ill-treatment.
any intimations of disrespect ???
Even intimations? Oops, I guess I just intimated.
"Uhh, do we really have to watch Transformers for a tenth time?"
"Why are you always attacking the things I really care about?"
125b: no, I meant I can do both those things quite believably and it didn't shield me from ill-treatment.
126: It's true that Kotsko once called me a dick, but I think we ironed that out, and it's all cool.
131: It's so wise of you to agree with me.
You horrible degenerate.
Degenerate? *I'm* not the one having the sex change operation.
FUCK. I should have written that I'm not the one with the artificially constructed micro-penis. DAMMIT.
People who stay out of abusive relationships simply up and leave when they get called a nasty name and slapped the first time it occurs.
The phrase and slapped here meant physically slapped.
No, they don't. Nasty names happen in arguments, and you get pissed and say "don't you EVER call me that again" and they don't, but you don't up and leave.
Sure.
Which gets to the point: there is no "time to leave." The time to leave is when one realizes that the relationship is not going to work and never will.
And my point was, is that point is when you are doing something (even having an argument), and you say something, and then they whip around and say something nasty back, and then punch (slap) you. (For realz punched!) If that happens early on, the relationship just about invariably degenerates into something nastier from there.
They talk about 'red flags' a lot, but really, they should call those yellow cards. When the SO jacks your checking account or punched you in the mouth without provocation, that ought to be a red card. For people who have a habit of getting into these things, it isn't a red card, and might well not even be a yellow card.
If you're saying (as you apparenly are) that people who refuse to be punched in the face regularly are not going to be in a relationship... well, if that were true, which I don't believe, that's unfortunate, but it would be neccessary. That is, if you are unwilling to be in a relationship where you get punched in the face a lot.
max
['Wha...?']
No, what I'm saying is that it just isn't as simple as saying "the first time they get slapped." Because generally by that point, at least as far as I understand, one has already compromised/excused/questioned/accepted so many "borderline" things that that one thing is just one more. And/or because the slapper then totally breaks down with the "omg I can't believe I just did that, I'm so sorry!" and maybe you decide you need counselling, or this was Serious and If It Ever Happens Again or whatever. But saying that someone else "should" just flat-out immediately break off a relationship when x, y, or z happens really isn't realistic. People don't just immediately break off relationships like that. Relationships of any standing *can't* just be broken off like that.
Max, yeah, there was a shift from physical abuse to verbal/emotional abuse -- or just ill-treatment -- in this thread.
You're talking about physical abuse, and everything you say about that is sensible, obviously.
135: Hilzoy's post says that the most common time for physical abuse to begin in a relationship is on the honeymoon or at the first pregnancy.
Hey Bitch, making a joke out of the incident is not only not charming, but is especially obnoxious in the context of this thread.
137: Actually, I don't think it is sensible. From what I've read, often the first instance of physical abuse happens well into the relationship (as hilzoy also said).
I've read that when the first episode of physical abuse happens before marriage, that often it triggers the couple to marry, apparently with both partners telling themselves / each other that if the relationship were more committed, the abusive partner wouldn't get so worked up about things.
I mean, Max's formulation seems to shade into "only people of type x, you know, the ones who tolerate being punched, end up in abusive relationships". I don't think that's true, or helpful in terms of understanding abusive relationships.
Hey DK, what's more obnoxious is your friend Jesu starting shit and keeping it going. But I notice you just sort of gave her a little hands-in-air sigh. I tend not to care if people who indulge that kind of behavior find me obnoxious for refusing to do so.
I also really don't react well to being policed, btw.
138 makes sense - it's the point at which it would be hardest to leave.
140.1: I was just trying to reassure Max that he wasn't misunderstanding that a shift had taken place in the thread.
145: Then I'm pretty unclear why you said this to Max:
"everything you say about [physical abuse] is sensible, obviously"?
I think that I sometimes broadcast fragility here, and when I do express it in person, people sometimes want to take care of me, but I can be vicious too.
143: What is with this "don't police me" thing, by the way, B? Tell me how your remark in the Terror/John Brown thread about how raising, again, the pointlessness of asking whether Brown was crazy was pointless, wasn't a case of policing in your own right. Christ's sake. People make remarks about other people's comments, okay?
145: I think it is important, though, to recognize that mental and physical abuse are NOT two separate, wholly distinct things.
B, lay off Di. Di wasn't even favoring Jes.
I think the difference between "make remarks about other people's comments" and "policing" has to do with expressing disagreement with someone versus telling them "don't say that!".
There are a few resources around on using technology to communicate relatively safely, they include things like:
1. don't use a family computer or one the abuser knows about to do it
2. don't use an a email account or password the abuser knows about
3. get a pre-paid phone number, again, keeping it secret
http://www.nnedv.org/internetsafety.html
http://www.wscadv.org/escapeDetails.cfm
Obviously this is on top of considerations like whether to leave now/sooner instead.
BG, I don't need Di or anyone else to tell me what I should or shouldn't say, okay?
I don't actually care who's favoring who. It is interesting to me that the person who initiates the conflict isn't the person who gets lectured, though.
Thanks, Pineapple. That's really useful info for the questioner.
146: Simple reassurance; I gather Max has been through some of these things personally. There really wasn't much more behind it. I wasn't engaging in a careful study of his statements.
153: Enh, I should have refrained from saying anything, but Di did ask Jes:
What happened to just acknowledging your undying hatred and refusal to forgive in the absence of remorse, Jes?
Ithink she's an equal opportunity policer, but really I shouldn't have said anything.
153: She got chided in 110 and 113.
Since I have nothing to add to the AtM, let me just put on record that Jes really knows how to squander a moral advantage.
158: Yes, I acknowledged that already.
157: Indeed, probably not saying anything is best. However, my point is that "equal opportunity" policing isn't appropriate when Jes is obviously trying to bait me. *And* when I didn't respond to her second, post-chiding remark, but rather to M/tch.
I wasn't engaging in a careful study of his statements.
Then I'm even more confused as to why you said that his statements about the subject were obviously sensible. But hey, say whatever you like.
Of course, if I were smarter I wouldn't let myself be baited, by Jes or any one else. I continue to hate you all.
May I interrupt this love fest for an off topic personal comment that no one cares about. Thanks.
I really, really hate working on ladies' wrist watches.
Thank you. Carry on.
Wait, I'm having a sex change operation? NTTAWWT, but why wasn't I told?
Okay, to put it in non-sexist terms: I really, really hate working on watches smaller than about a size 6/0
This is what happens when you let girls in the treehouse.
I was going to tell you, M/tch, but between your lack of an email link and all the acronyms, I gave up.
166: So PC. Why can't you just come right out and say that feminine frailty ever plagues even the noblest crafts? It's because they stopped teaching Shakespeare in favor of "Waiting To Exhale" is why.
167: Believe me, I've long since repented of starting that ball rolling.
170: Women oughtn't ever to be allowed to touch any balls, B.
But I thought you boys *liked* that.
It's not the feminine frailty, it's my failing eyesight and marginal fine motor skills - or wait, are you trying to feminize me?
crap.
http://www.marcdatabase.com/~lemur/rb-rolling-ball.html
161: Yeah, I'd just let it go, given that it was a passing comment, and I can't imagine why you'd press on it in that way.
About the policing: no one is immune, hey. People tell people to shut up from time to time. B is no more immune from it than any else, so the affront is a little misplaced, and the carrying on about it, sarcastically, is just weird.
I continue to hate you all.
Wait, me too? Do you know who I am?
Please let us know when the aunt makes her getaway. I'm sending good thoughts in her direction.
Wait, me too? Do you know who I am?
B's hate knows no bounds.
Thank god my husband wants his computer back so I don't have time to respond to Parsi's latest comment.
163: When you say working on watches, what do you mean?
But I thought you boys *liked* that.
Most of what people like about girlfights is visual: the hairpulling, the clothes tearing. That's why I suggested the big pit. If you guys can somehow create images of this spat, I'm certain Apo would love to have you in the treehouse.
Just as long as there's going to be some ball rolling eventually.
Only if all the other girls get balls installed first.
OMG IM SORRY SO OBNOXIOUS OF ME.
I think everyone on this thread probably needs a beer even more than I do. No one comment until you've had a drink, okay?
And I will be policing that.
Beer is good. I have to get up for a softball game, so I'm not going to have one now. Being a cheapskate, I often buy Trader Joe's. Anchor Summer Wheat was really tasty (though on the pricier end for TJs). I just got some JB Summer Brew which was on sale and was in a pretty box. It's a kölsch style which I'd never had before. I quite like it.
(I'm pretty unsophisticated about these things.)
Way ahead of you. First beer almost gone.
185: No one comment until you've had a drink, okay?
I think everybody's drunk already. Dunno where you've been.
Who knew Schneider was a horologist?
You're one to talk. I understand you've been known to encourage young people to matriculate, right out in public.
141: I mean, Max's formulation seems to shade into "only people of type x, you know, the ones who tolerate being punched, end up in abusive relationships". I don't think that's true
I think it IS true, in exactly the same way that people who don't drink are not alcoholics. They may have 'addictive personalities' (not sarcastic, term of art), but they ain't drunks.
or helpful in terms of understanding abusive relationships.
The difficulty in all this, is convincing a person who feels utterly powerless (learned helplessness!), that a) they do not deserve being hit, b) that the person hitting them is at fault and responsible for comitting those bad acts, c) everybody (meaning hittees) makes mistakes, d) the hittee is not an utterly worthless human being who deserves everything they're getting, while convincing the hittee that e) they do have the power to change things, f) nothing will change if they do nothing, g) the hittee has the responsibility to act, that is, if they want the hitting to end and h) they have to take responsibility for avoiding this shit in the future if they do not wish a repeat. That series of acts is usually a long, slow, bloody slog.
Sometimes people really do fall in with a bad person purely randomly, and then they get out of the situation eventually, and then the victim learns from that relationship and avoids that kind of relationship stuff in the future. And sometimes cancer really does go into spontaneous remission. It's nice when it happens, but that things will work out/people will stop behaving like they have in the past isn't the way to bet.
max
['Wordy.']
I've had a bottle of wine to drink. I don't think it helps.
But Max, plenty of people do drink without being alcoholics.
I've had a bottle of wine to drink. I don't think it helps.
Now that's just a dirty lie.
195: Yeah! And I have the glass of whiskey here to prove it!
I'm drinking a margarita, but I'm the only one awake in the house.
Mmm. Margaritas. I haven't been thinking of them yet, because it's been so rainy and depressing in NY. But I make deadly margaritas.
No one comment until you've had a drink, okay?
I hate you, LB.
But! The light at the end of the limited-alcohol-intake tunnel is almost visible! Thank god for modern chemistry.
I'm guessing you're not pregnant, and if you're driving while commenting, that's a problem in itself. Why else wouldn't you be able to drink?
He could be on prescription painkillers.
200: technically, water is a drink.
Or any of a number of other drugs which play poorly with alcohol. Maybe it's a time-shifted Lent. Who knows?
Amateur horologist. I used to do repair of older mechanical watches as a hobby. Now, I'm pretty much too lazy, and have stopped collecting. I learned repair because I kept buying busted watches and was too cheap to pay for repairs. This ladies watch is for a friend, who bought it because it's dripping with diamonds and in 14k white gold, a Hamilton from about 1960. One of the last ladies' Hamiltons produced in PA. I swapped the movement that had a busted pinion on the escape wheel for a movement that ran, and then had to swap the face stem and hands to get it to fit the case. It'll probably be on an intertube auction site near you soon.
I don't understand the "but" in 198.
I don't understand the "but" in 198.
margaritas, like matriculating and patriculating, should be done in private, when the kids are asleep
202: One medication that can interact poorly with alcohol, another that's potentially damaging to the liver. I can drink occasionally, but it's easier to just abstain.
But I will hopefully be able to go off both meds in the not-too-distant future, in part because I just started a new treatment that's a) (so far) very effective and b) a perfect illustration of why we need health care reform. (You know how most insurance plans have two levels of prescription coverage, formulary and non-formulary? This stuff is covered by a third level and you would not believe the hoops I had to jump through to get it.)
margaritas, like matriculating and patriculating, should be done in private, when the kids are asleep
That itself makes sense enough, but I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow.
Yay hopeful treatment!
Also, book recommendation: Service Included, by Phoebe Damrosch. Relates to absolutely nothing in this thread, but Josh ate at Alinea and the book is set at Thomas Keller's Per Se. And I've had more than one beer and am subjecting Rory to Princess Bride.
Yay hopeful treatment!
The list of potential side effects for this stuff is pretty scary (I had to get a latent TB test before I could start it, and I got very strict instructions to CALL MY DOCTOR if I developed a fever or if I had a cut that just wouldn't heal), but my god I have more range of motion than I've had in years. I was walking down the street a couple of days after I started and noticed something felt weird... then I realized it was that I didn't hurt.
Well, it's no Michael Jackson, but as films that adults and kids can enjoy together it's pretty good.
I don't disagree, nosflow. But it holds its own against the option of a fourth episode of The Nanny in one night.
Yay, vacation! I'm schlepping my kids out to visit my mom this weekend, where I will leave them to spend a week on the beach wearing rain slickers and getting damp.
Now that's just a dirty lie.
Sorry.
I just watched 'Synecdoche, New York'. I think it's a movie about how 'Synecdoche' rhymes with 'Schenectady'.
220: Indeed. Best wishes for continued awesomeness, Josh.
Josh drunk is going to be awesome.
I'm drinking some Ricard, for the record.
Josh drunk is going to be awesome.
"I was walking down the street a couple of days after I started and noticed something felt weird... then I realized it was that I wasn't sober."
222: I like Ricard. But I think I like Pernod better. Also, the caramel coloring added to Ricard makes one's pastis look all brown and kind of nasty.
223: I find the brown very classy.
I can tell you what I *won't* be getting drunk on: anything licorice- or anise-flavored.
Well, it's no Michael Jackson, but as films that adults and kids can enjoy together it's pretty good.
One thing it's certainly not is sexy. I was on a date with a guy once and we were having stupid first-date-y flirtatious conversation, and he asked me what movies I think are sexy. I mentioned some, and then turned the question to him. First answer: Princess Bride. It was all downhill from there.
It was all downhill from there.
Obviously.
I find the brown very classy.
Tee.
I like Herbsaint. What I have never had but heard is very good in the pastis vein: Henri Bardouin.
I'm glad to hear that you can have erections now, Josh. Those goats won't fuck themselves.
228: I'm really surprised that apo said that. Maybe he wasn't ready to open up about the movies he really thinks are sexy.
For a first date, that was probably for the best.
You know that one scene in Ran? That scene's pretty hot.
Year of Living Dangerously is pretty sexy -- if you can forget everything you've learned about Mel Gibson since.
Short Circuit is more romantic than sexy, but it gets pretty hot in parts.
But it holds its own against the option of a fourth episode of The Nanny in one night.
Oh dear god why???
This is clearly the right thread to mention that the Netflix prize has been met.
This is clearly the right thread to mention that the Netflix prize has been met.
Trying to turn a movie thread into another computer geek thread?
I thought that Holbo's claim that it would be easy to improve the ratings by changing how they were submitted had merit.
235: See, this is my problem with Gallipoli, nowadays. He is just shockingly beautiful in that movie (in a way he hasn't been since) and his beauty fits so perfectly with the "crushed bloom of youth" oh-so-homosocial theme that was mapped onto everything WWI. But he's so gross to me now in every possible way that I don't think I can ever watch that movie again.
I've heard a lot of people have that problem with "the road warrier", oudemia.
Trying to turn a movie thread into another computer geek thread?
nah, just trying to help with the "If you thought PB was hott, you'll probably like X" problem.
243: Have you seen Gallipoli? So much more beautiful in that movie. (This might just be due to my sick and wrong WWI obsession.)
243: I just can't understand that. How can anything sully the timeless beauty of The Road Warrior?
I once rented Gallipoli from Blockbuster. This was when they were surreptitiously censoring movies (do they still do that?). In the version I rented, they'd edited out the final 15 seconds of the movie.
I've warried about a few roads in my time
248: Seriously? So the Australian cannon fodder soldiers successfully go over the top?
the odd thing about 247 is I first typed it into a slide for a talk i'm theoretically working on (and had better get less theoretical about)
i was briefly tempted to leave it in
This is the theory which is mine and which I have and what it is, too: Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not was made of pure hott, and everything else is downhill.
242: True. But I haven't tried to watch that in years, because, well, I can't watch Gibson on screen any more. Sad, really, as he made some good films when he was a kid and still skinny. Come to think of it, the maturation of his body and face reminds me of the change in Brad Pitt from Thelma and Louise to whatever shitty movie he made last week.
253: She is sure something in that movie. One of the movies that is on the list of movies that are better than the book!
251: if I recall, they ended on a freeze frame of him running. Come the fuck on, you know?
One of the movies that is on the list of movies that are better than the book!
Are we only counting movies made from existing books?
256: That's so awesome. Were you eating a Domino's Pizza at the time, you monster?
257: is that proviso meant to deal with novelizations?
Here's a question: is the recent movie of Great Expectations better or worse than its novelization?
256: wtf? i knew blockbuster did some stupid edits, but I thought there'd be at least some rationale behind it that didn't make them look like asshats.
I used to think that few movies were better than the books they were based on. Then I learned that a lot of movies are based on books few people have ever heard of and which aren't even remembered outside of the credits. So now I figure that many of those books are probably deservedly obscure even when the movies are not, but I'm unlikely to read most of them to find out.
when he was a kid and still skinny
Ageist *and* body shapist!
Maybe it wasn't renovelized. I might be insane.
257: Yes. Do you mean like novelizations or something? I would imagine most movies are better than those, right? I read the novelization of Close Encounters when I was in 3rd grade, which was kind of a weird thing to do.
261: This is true, I think. It's a pretty rare movie that can stand up to being based on a good book. And a pretty rare book based on a movie that is any good. But sometimes screenwriters can do a lot with a mediocre book.
The Novelization of The Abyss, which was written by Orson Scott Card (when he was a kid and skinny and we didn't know) is plausibly better than the movie.
Apparently Night of the Hunter is based on a novel, and, you know, Night of the Hunter is fantastic.
I read the novelization of Adventures in Babysitting before I saw the movie.
264: yes, that's what I was thinking of.
re 259: have you seen it? I haven't.
261: That was pretty much the consensus upshot of a thread where we did those not too far back.
264: We really are the same person. As I'm currently at my parents' house, I just found said novelization, sitting right next to the novelization of Star Wars.
274: I've probably got both of those in a box somewhere, too.
The question of novelizations that improve on the films is, however, untrammeled ground for the unfoggetardiat.
261: Yeah, The Graduate is based on a book, and it is not a good book. The Warriors is also based on a book, and I tried to read it but it was so 60s heavy-handed psychologizing that I couldn't bear more than 20 pages. Other people like it, though.
I've seen two versions of The 39 Steps, one Hitchcock, one not, and despite the book being very very short, I have never managed to read it.
259: Not only was Great Expectations renovelized, but I already asserted that the renovalization was better on a previous thread.
The question of whether the book or movie is superior looks to be damnably hard with the upcoming film version of The Black Swan.
MASH is here, too. Book or movie first? Quick, no peeking.
Orson Scott Card (when he was a kid and skinny and we didn't know)
Was it short? He's only ever done short well, if I recall correctly.
283: Speaker for the Dead was long, and pretty good for the most part. Except the end.
MASH is here, too. Book or movie first? Quick, no peeking.
Separate category, as the TV series was better.
sitting right next to the novelization of Star Wars.
That book was such a massive disappointment to me when I was seven or so. Then I found out it wasn't written by George Lucas but by Alan Dean Foster, and I was shocked and appalled by the concept of ghostwriting.
Also there was some sort of frame story about it being taken from the Journal of the Whills, whatever that was, and I kept wondering why they wouldn't publish the whole thing.
the TV series was better
Take it back. Now!
277: Well, exactly, DS, why do you think I decided to try to read it -- the novel, I mean. I thought, the Anabasis, whee*! But the novel based on the Anabasis is *not good.*
*To anyone trying to learn Greek I recommend the Anabasis without reservation. Sooo easy! Super plain sentence structure. And right in the very beginning you learn fascinating tidbits like "paradeisos" is the Persian word for "game preserve" and how we get the word "meander."
Except the end.
That's the problem though, some of his long stuff is hopeless, and some of it pretty good in part (maybe large parts) but deeply flawed somewhere. He wrote some cracking short stories, and some novellas/short novels that didn't get away from him too badly, I think.
I remember in high school reading Dracula, by Bram Stoker when Bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola came out and then seeing Dracula, a novel based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, a film directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on Dracula, by Bram Stoker, by some author I don't remember, at a bookstore and being amused that a novelization of a film based on a book structured around a collection of documents starts off as a traditional sort of narrative.
281: Book! We did do this recently, didn't we? The book is much nastier than the movie which is much nastier than the TV show.
290: goldarned gays keep distracting him while he's writing.
276: The question of novelizations that improve on the films is, however, untrammeled ground for the unfoggetardiat.
Well Mitch did ask, Any examples where the novelization was better than the movie? in that very thread, but as I recall no one picked up that conversational cudgel.
Apparently the novelization was called Bram Stoker's Dracula, after the film. By this author and another.
288: that was meant wrt the movie, not the book (which I remember as being good), and the 3-way ordering problem being different
I just had a beer. It was called a kvass. Then I walked home.
The time to leave is when one realizes that the relationship is not going to work and never will.
Depends on the meaning of "work". One must be convinced that one could ever plausibly be in a better relationship.
The book version of Night at the Museum is better than the movie.
I've apparently repeated and extended in 261 something I said in that earlier thread. And which I probably said even before then.
The first half of the movie M*A*S*H (up and including to the re-enactment of the Last Supper) is better than the TV show , but the second half (the football game) sucks. The actual football game is like a crappy episode of the TV show, and the way that it shows the now-domesticated Hot Lips trying to fit in by being a cheerleader is incredibly disturbing.
294: and thus the trammeling was averted.
297: Sigh. MASH is a really great movie. And the tv series, while often pretty great, sometimes sucked a lot of eggs. The book I don't remember, I'm afraid, though I do recall reading it in fifth or sixth grade and being scandalized. I was young and skinny back then.
(which I remember as being good)
no wait, false memory, i don't think i've read it at all, just something vaguely similar
Holy shit, 301 is entirely right. I completely blocked out the football game. Anyway, Nashville is better than any iteration of MASH. Comity?
303: Nah. The show definitely sucked eggs at times. But the movie was uneven, and as Walt notes, the second half is pretty lame.
So the show worked better as a show (accepting that anything that ran that long had dry periods) than the movie worked as a movie.
sometimes sucked a lot of eggs
Is it sucking eggs to care too much? Is it sucking eggs to help a child? Is it sucking eggs to lock your eyes full of hurt on this crazy mixed-up world of ours and say "I'm here."?
Yes, yes it is. Stupid Alda.
Oh, right, that thread, where I also mentioned the name Bacall because oudemia brought up To Have and Have Not as a movie better than the book. This is what "eternal recurrence" means, right?
So, uh, how 'bout The English Patient?
Psycho: what's better? Book, movie, remade movie, or musical?
Same question applies for Silence of the Lambs, really.
What's better: Transformers TV show, comic, or movie? Or recent movie? Or toys?
eb lives in a country without either cable TV or DVDs. I envy him.
309: you can actually watch old movies at home on your TV now.
It's okay, eb, I miss a lot of threads.
Sifu lives in the country without pwnership that John Lennon memorably described in Imagine.
The real answer to 312.last might be this movie review
309: you can actually watch old movies at homeanywhere on your TVlaptop now.
246: 243: I just can't understand that. How can anything sully the timeless beauty of The Road Warrior?
Yeah, I did like those Interceptors. A gratifying (and a bit unsettling) feature of driving around SW Australia is that the patrol cars really do have that look. (Not that you see that many of them. A good place to let it rip; just like the autobahn, except two-lanes, very little traffic, other side driving and hoping that the freaking kangaroos don't time it wrong.)
319: might be, might be. On the other hand, the original movie took crappy toy-driven American children's cartoons to places nobody ever imagined they could go.
310: I am chuckling. Also a little drunk.
MASH is just old enough to fall into the range of re-runs I never watched as a kid when I watched a lot of reruns because the show seemed too old and too old for me. Now I have no interest in it, but I actually do think I'm younger than most people commenting on it here.
321: don't try the RV thing, though. Doesn't work.
TVlaptop phoneCIA implant in your brain
311: book is better.
312: original movie in both of the first cases.
||
This is completely insane. I've thrown out and re-written a talk 3 times now. Not like me |>
||
This is completely insane. I've thrown out and re-written a talk 3 times now. Not like me |>
I'll spare you the comment 3 times though.
289: Oh, there's a novelization of The Anabasis? I Did Not Know That.
291: No, seriously. Somebody novelized Bram Stoker's Dracula? Nobody thought to tell them there was already a novel by Bram Stoker? That is FUCKED. UP.
Not sure if this has been addressed (sue me, I skimmed) but if she's been communicating with relatives and any of it has been electronic and she doesn't want that to be known for one reason or another or she suspects useful information might be on the family computer, take the computer.
Emptying one's virtual recycling bin doesn't make emails or other documents go away and if she suspects there's anything on the hard drive that she will want or need down the road, even if she thinks he's "deleted" it, it can probably be recovered.
Nobody thought to tell them there was already a novel by Bram Stoker?
Perhaps was just too hard to follow.
Also, as the original Dracula is my favorite novel of all time, 333 caused me to go back and read 291 which, in turn, caused me to bleed from the eyes in great gouts. Thanks.
289: I guess you're kidding but it is a novel very loosely based on the Anabasis about, you know, weird roller skating gangs of New York, as in the movie. And it is bad.
think about how much easier the new novelization will be to read, after you've watched the movie.
336: At least your eyes didn't go through this.
335: I mean, even thinking in Studioese... why not just release a Very Special Edition of the original novel as a tie-in? Wouldn't that be cheaper?
(Although, maybe Bram Stoker's estate wasn't having any of that. I guess that could explain it.)
342: It's really amazing, isn't it? And putting Stoker's name in the title carries it to a higher level than just doing a novelization.
I think anything written by Bram Stoker is long out of copyright.
I once bought, from the Bookmobile, a sort of novelization cum comic book of Grease -- maybe it was called a Photo Novel? Instead of drawn panels it had still from the movie. So cheezy.
Changing topics, surely someone here can do something with this:
I was trying and trying to write a limerick about Ricci, to launch us into the weekend, but nothing seems to rhyme with "disparate impact."
Could I just do a novelization of the novel itself?
Do people get royalties for having written the simplified "children's editions" of great novels?
I read a lot of Star Wars novelizations as a kid. Though maybe it would be more accurate to call them spin-offs. Mostly the slew that were published in the early-to-mid 90's: the one about bounty hunters, Shadows of the Empire, etc. They were pretty terrible.
I just finished watching Casablanca. Which is actually not overrated! Totally solid. Though I can't really watch it without quoting half the dialogue at this point.
Almost done with this bottle of wine...
I have thought of looking up Elizabeth Hand's novelization of 12 Monkeys which I've heard is pretty decent.
nothing seems to rhyme with "disparate impact."
lisped Herod "intact!"
A meager first attempt, to provoke the more skilled to do better:
There was a Judge Sotomayor,
White firefighters did not adore:
"There's disparate impact;
by the Civil Rights Act,
She nullified all of my scores."
Impact really has the wrong stress for that. Oh well.
Just pronounce "disparate" "disp'rate".
Not to mention that I would prefer a limerick more supportive of Sotomayor's decision. Ineptitude!
Shadows of the Empire
Was that the one that was written to help sell a video game?
I'm out of wine for the night. Time to sleep.
Was that the one that was written to help sell a video game?
Pretty much. They put out a bunch of stuff (novels, video games, I think some sort of board game or MtG-type card game) at the same time that all reinforced each other. The video game is the thing most people remember, since it was released a few months after the N64 came out, and is thus associated with it.
The novel by Stoker is ... weird, if what you're expecting is a vampire more like Lestat or Spike or Edward Cullen. And the vampire hunters are a pretty 19th-century bunch of big game hunters, really. I am somehow unsurprised that rather than sticking a cover on the original novel and hoping people buy it without dipping inside, they went for a novelization of the film. Not that I've seen the film.
Van Helsing's speech on King Laugh is just one example of dialogue that really isn't cinematic.
wow, I went and looked up pictures of mel gibson in gallipoli and he was, indeed, smokin hot.
344: I think I had (or at least read) a photonovel of the movie version of The Lord of the Rings (Bakshi version)
you know what sucks, you guys? I have the flu. they didn't send me to the hospital for testing, just sent me home with tamiflu and biohazard masks. I don't think I actually have H1N1, just whatever crummy flu my kids had over the last weeks, but I feel like total crap. oh, well. I'm probably in better shape than the domineditrix. feel better soon, DE!
I think that tamiflu is what they give people who have H1N1, al. There was a thing on the news here about healthcare workers who've gotten it and what sort of precautiosn they're going to take with those they think have been exposed.
I didn't think that most people were given drugs with the flu, though. If you're youngish, I thought that they just told you to rest and drink lots of fluids.
re: 362
There's two different treatment modes, apparently, which are used depending on the epidemiology. In populations with a low incidence of the disease they use tamiflu partly to try and act as prophylaxis rather than just because of its curative/palliative properties.
Once disease incidence gets above a certain level in the population there's no point in taking any other than minimal prophylactic measures. So in those cases, they don't routinely give tamiflu unless it's medically indicated.
At least, that's the impression I've picked up from UK coverage of swine-flu.
Flu treatment protocols may be different in Narnia than in, say, Boston.
Hope you feel better soon, Al. You too DE!
I have heard that the novelization of Star Trek V is better than the movie. Having seen the movie, I don't find this hard to believe at all.
364: Yeah, of course. It was just my sense that the tamiflu was about as good of a treatment as she could get unless they felt that she needed to be on a drip in the hospital.
358: Ha! I teach that book all the time and cannot help but make fun of that fucking King Laugh business.
weird, if what you're expecting is a vampire more like Lestat or Spike or Edward Cullen.
Surely a recent phenomena.
The DE made it up and down the stairs TWICE yesterday with only a cane and the railing for support. Bounding like a gazelle (analogy ban be damned) is still a way off but there was no screaming, a considerable improvement. Thanks.
You really shouldn't scream at her, Biohazard. She's recovering from a broken pelvis.
A Domin___trix wouldn't respect anything else.
narnia has decided to nuke everyone with tamiflu because of the particular stage of transmission we're at. they were quarantining suspected cases at tan tock seng hospital for a while, like they did with sars, but now that they have community transmission they've changed strategies. I have to say that I do feel really weird, though my fever's only 101. when I was young I used to hallucinate with a fever, even up until I was in my early 20s, but not since then. some of my most vivid childhood memories are from those febrile hallucinations. our maid is convinced I have H1N1 and is stomping around the house in a mask in a state of extreme irritation. I am sleeping in my kids' room while they sleep with husband x in our bed (they won't sleep alone, really.) the particular color of pink on the walls, combined with the height of the ceiling, reminds me of my room in my grandmother's house in savannah. unlike my grandmother's house, this one isn't haunted, so I can rest easier on that score. my room was always fine, anyway, it was my brother's room that was the problem. that room was haunted like a motherfucker.
370: Apo, all this has made me more than a little cranky, yelling at her is therapeutic.
In addition, one of the cats has reacted to the various commotions, absences, and changes in routines by deciding to think outside the box. She's pooping right in front of it and then dragging the edge of the litter-catching carpet back over it. I'm trying the suggested remedies one by one in order of difficulty. So far, no joy.
cats really know how to express their disapproval.
That is suck, alameida. Hope y'all feel better soon.
Totally OT, but remember how I slept with that really nice guy a few weeks ago? Last night I was at his girlfriend's house with a few other people and when I tried to follow everyone out, they did a "where the fuck you think you're going?" and took my clothes off and had their way with me. No one believes me when I say this shit happens, so I figure it should go on record. Disorienting, yes, but sorta gangsta I guess.
Shoot, I can't keep the stories straight. I thought the nice guy of a couple weeks back hadn't had sex in a while? Did I make that up?
I think I may have slept with him before his new gf did. They'd only just started seeing each other the week before.
No, that's also something no other human on earth has ever experienced. Sorry.
Ooh, well they sound like they could be a lovely resource for you. I hope it works out to your great satisfaction.
Eh, I'm not crazy about being a third for a couple. Too much obligation to perform on demand. Once is cool, twice is queer.
Wow, that framing hadn't even occurred to me. (Please, from all the way across the country, please sense my hesitance to put words in your mouth.) My take had been that this sounded like a nice thing that would meet your preferences for not having your partners expect more of your time and attention (thus sucking you into your orbit and you conforming to them, which I thought I understood you do and dislike). Because they could do that of each other. You're off the hook!
I hadn't even thought of you having to perform on demand. I guess I thought of it more as a well you could draw from when you want to.
AWB, you do have a deliciously dramatic life. I love it.
But the other two people in the couple are people, and it's complicated to be involved with two other people, especially naked. What if someone likes someone more than the other someone is comfortable with? What if someone has a fight with someone? If a proper distance is kept, what if the successfully distanced third party feels used?
Poly people manage this stuff, but it's no free pass out of relationship-land.
I think BR and I asked you "Where the fuck do you think you are going???" but it didnt quite end up the same way.
We'll probably use a different phrase next time, just to be safe.
OT: We listened to The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. We loved it! My daughter loved his book "When the Wolves Come Out of the Walls" and she loved the movie Coriline.
Are his adult books good?
No, you're right, Megan. I have had experiences in the past with couples for whom I was a triangulating presence in emotional ways that I found confusing. But maybe this is just sex. It's just hard for me to know what people's boundaries are even one-on-one, or what will freak them out or what they want. I was too tired last night to care.
385: They're good. I like his short stories a bit more than his novels -- try the collection Smoke and Mirrors; my favorite stories in it are "Chivalry" and "Murder Mysteries". I liked the premise of his novel American Gods but the execution fell flat for me, YMMV. I did enjoy the followup novel Anansi Boys; while loosely connected to American Gods it stands fine on its own.
AWB: that same group was at our house for a goingaway party.It finished at 430am and involved a slip and slide. Come back to Richmond!
Also, if you dig audiobooks, Gaiman's Warning: Contains Language is delicious; he is an excellent reader.
Thanks, Hamilton-Lovercraft! I'll try to the short stories first.
389: Oh shit! That gang is fucking crazy.
387: Four letter word for intercourse that ends with the letter k. It ain't wrong.
Will, it's only half-Gaiman, but Good Omens is terrific. I've read it bunches of times, though I'm down to one copy (from several) because loaned copies keep not getting returned.
395:
Sounds like high praise. Is Good Omens a book or short stories?
396: No one believes me when I say this shit happens, so I figure it should go on record. Disorienting, yes, but sorta gangsta I guess.
I believe you. Someone has to be doing this stuff.
max
['"Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to the endless night."']
Novel. Features an angel who didn't fall so much as saunter vaguely downward.
Didn't stuff like that happen to everyone in college? If not, then why did you go to college?
"Dear Mineshaft Forum: I never thought it would happen to me..."
399: I must have chosen the wrong college. I didn't even know anyone that sort of thing happened to.
I would assert with confidence that this sort of thing didn't happen to anyone at the U of C, but then nosflow might come along and contradict me, and that would just be dispiriting.
399: Looking back, I've realized that there were a lot of times where sex just sort of landed in my lap in college. Each time, I wound up having really complicated feelings. It never even approximated the El Dorado of casual sex, the zipless fuck
I never had a three way fall from the sky in college, though, and nothing like that happened after college, so that sets AWB apart from my perspective.
The guy and I were discussing this last night. Our alma mater was the sort where the only people who got it on with any frequency were the super-freaky nerds. One night I was in a girlfriend's dorm room and we were complaining about the total lack of libido of Nerd U guys when the two startlingly geeky girls next door started having such a vigorous foursome with their hideous boyfriends that books fell off the shelf. My friend, however, who was jaw-droppingly hot and sort of legendary among campus boys for her desirability, couldn't get laid to save her life.
Such was Nerd U.
393: Some support for the argument:
("The guy" refers back to 375.)
Good Omens is quite untypical Gaiman, because the other half is Pratchett. But genius, yes.
Speaking of Edward Cullen, I imagine everybody's seen this?
the two startlingly geeky girls next door started having such a vigorous foursome with their hideous boyfriends
I'm now picturing the McPoyle brothers in their bathrobes with their sister (from It's Always Sunny).
Yes, exactly so. People think IASIP is not a realistic television program, but I know better. I have met these people.
Did I mention that I've since watched It's Always Sunny? And it's the best?
Maybe I'll try it again. The first two or three episodes left me cold. Does it improve? Or am I, in addition to being soulless, humorless?
413: It does indeed improve. Maybe just try a couple of great ones first, rather than watching them in order? I recommend "Dee Is Dating a Retarded Person" and "The Gang Goes Jihad."
414: I'd recommend "Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life" (which is not only the episode with Sinbad and Rob Thomas, but also the one in which Dee and Charlie switch lives) and also "Who Pooped the Bed?"
Yeah, some are a lot less funny than others.
"Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life" and "Who Pooped the Bed" are both hilarious. Oh! And after you've watched "Dee Is Dating a Retarded Person" you can watch "The Nightman Cometh," where Charlie turns his "Nightman" song into a rock opera.
I think the sort of experiences AWB brings here are less unusual than they are unusual to some others here.
Which isn't to say they aren't unusual globally, just that there is a lot of "holy crap, nobody does that" sort of reaction that seems off. Doesn't have to be a majority experience to be fairly common. This stuff varies a lot by social group too.
But I think we've been here before.
Generally, I think the show got a lot better after Danny DeVito became a full-time character. He's fucking hilarious.
Do you think that George's observation that many frenchwomen drop into his shooting gallery and prove themselves dab hands with a sidearm is meant to foreshadow the identity of Tulkinghorn's killer? This just occurred to me.
The first two or three episodes left me cold.
I dunno, the first episode cracked me up from the word go. You may just lack a sense of humor.
I saw a few episodes of It's Always Sunny and I didn't like them, even though I'm from Philadelphia and it's exactly the kind of depraved shit we find funny. But maybe I didn't see the right ones. (The one where Dee becomes an obsessive boxer was pretty funny, though.)
I just Googled a picture of the McPoyles, and I'm twice as ugly as both of them combined. What you people, models? I've been chatting with models all this time? I'm surprised you spend so much time on the Internet while you're lolling on the beach in St. Tropez.
Also I might have a crush on Mac. If that's not too depraved.
421–23 do not address my question in any fashion I can discern.
The erotic life episode is so amazing. Pretty much anytime green man shows up is great.
God, the one where they try out for the Eagles is just about the funniest thing I've ever seen.
423: Since Bave isn't here, I will say that he is in love with Charlie.
I haven't seen the third season yet, though.
I've seen none of the episodes mentioned, so maybe there's hope for me yet. Except in heebie's eyes, of course, but she may just be mad that I outed her as true patriot. And Walt, I tend to like depraved humor, have almost no boundaries that I think shouldn't be crossed in comedies, and still found the first three episodes a lousy combination of boring concepts, lousy acting, and amateurish writing. The lighting wasn't great, either. But really, I'm not trying to pick a fight! I'll try again. Because I take all my cultural cues from supermodels like the people here.
422 made me laugh and reminded me of something. I went to a bar here in Brooklyn a few weeks ago with my girlfriend and we watched as a group of total honeys came into the bar, one by one. Each of them would go up to one of the other honeys and give him a friendly pat on the shoulder. A few girls came in, of the overweight, dressed in Mad Men costumes type. They were adorable and also greeted each of the honeys warmly.
The GF commented that the honeys were all very particularly the sort of pretty dude whose self-regard I would find ways to take sexual advantage of. I agreed and we continued to watch them.
What became clear to both of us is that this was some kind of goddamn internet meetup. An internet meetup of 100% honeys! What site could this possibly be? Those of us who were at Lindsay's massive bday party a few years ago will remember with what confidence Lemieux announced the supreme hottness of the Unfogged table, but, my friends, we hold no candles anywhere near whatever this internet group was. I burn with curiosity.
Probably something like this.
There's a specific type of girl who dresses in Mad Men duds and is overweight and adorable?
433: She sports fashionable eyewear, as well.
Honey is what fills fuzzy yellow bumblebees.
Allow me to say that "bumblebee" is an adorable word.
Contrariwise, Bumble & Bumble bees are too too.
"Honeys" always makes me think of Montell Jordan and "This is how we do it". Once upon a time in 1994, Montell made no money and life sure was slow.
435: I make myself vulnerable by asking a question, and this is what I get?
What is a honey? Is it like a hottie?
Stickier.
You see, the hood's been good to me, ever since I was a lower-case g. But now I'm a big G. The girls see I got the money, hundred dollar bills, yo.
I think if a man is described as a "honey" by this website, he is always, or almost always, Iranian. But how does that combine with the overweight vintage-apparel trend?
The OED defines "bumble" in one of its verb meanings (apparently unrelated to that which means fumble, blunder, etc.) as "To boom, as a bittern; to buzz, as a fly". I find this most pleasing. Though it does not touch the greatest footnote ever.
438: Why, I just occasion to sing a bit of that song yesterday.
All of a sudden, this thread makes as much sense to me as the computer language one from the other night. (Was it even about computer languages? I honestly have no idea. Maybe honey is a computer language. I wonder if there are any Golden Girls reruns on now.)
435: I make myself vulnerable by asking a question, and this is what I get?
I am an authority on honey, ari.
442: My honeyfication process is nationality-blind.
441 - And yet I got nothing from my Big Ole Butt reference the other day.
430 very vaguely reminds me of a painfully hip social group with model/music/arthouse overlap I knew yonks ago in [coastal city], which had a subgroup that would regularly do this sort of thing on purpose. As in "I'm bored of [latest-hotspot] Lets go somewhere nobody knows us and mess with their heads". I guess everyone needs a hobby.
Not that it sounds like an exact parallel, just that they were fishing for responses like AWBs, and flustering the hell out of waitstaff, etc.
Dunno. I figured that everyone forgot that Brenda also worked at Red Lobster.
It is her fate to be forgotten as another employee at Red Lobster.
LLCoolJ forgot that Brenda worked at Red Lobster as well.
pwned. Isn't it awesome that he still goes by LLCoolJ, instead of re-inventing himself ever? He has done an amazing job of staying cool for decades.
So did the Mineshaft. I REMEMBER YOU Brenda!
I will caress you and rub you like a poochie
If the ladies still love him, why should he change?
Girls adore him. Even the ones who never saw him like the way that he rhymes at a show. The reason why, man, I don't know.
I just thought of a flirty comment to make to Parenthetical's 401 but I've already fucked it up by pronouncing myself hideously ugly. Sorry Parenthetical.
I read a bunch of plot summaries of It's Always Sunny and they sounded brilliant, so I might give it another try.
Ari, did you like the movie Happiness?
458 reminds me that I recently rewatched Wild Style and that at the very end, at the big concert, there's a cameo of a very young Kool Moe Dee all up in that shit.
450: flustering the hell out of waitstaff,
Always a good idea if one likes free piss or spit in one's drinks or salad dressing, and like that. I've known perhaps too many of them; I'm alway really nice to waitstaff.
I'm alway really nice to waitstaff.
Not pissing them off, flustering them. A bunch of these people were recognizable, and many quite ridiculously hot. That might have got them the occasional vindictive response, but more often the other direction, I suspect.
462: So like a waiter or waitress would go up to one of these people and say something like, "Please, sir, will you spit in my drink?"
I don't remember Happiness all that well, Walt. All that's going through my head is the trailer, where the girl is doing her dance as the band rehearses. Was the whole movie that scene on a loop? If not, I should probably see it again.
exactly! Or 'sign my [...]' . Either way.
Are we talking about the same movie? Happiness is the comedy about the child molester.
I read a bunch of plot summaries of It's Always Sunny and they sounded brilliant, so I might give it another try.
Is that where the bleached asshole thing came from?
max
['Just curious.']
nah max, that comes from one of the other major sources of American popular culture, namely pr0n.
466: Well, it turns out we're talking about the same director. But I was thinking of Welcome to the Dollhouse. I don't think I ever saw Happiness. But the trailer makes me think I'd love it.
Why'd you eat my italics tag, internet? Happiness.
Happiness is much better. And it tests your self-description in 429.
nah max, that comes from one of the other major sources of American popular culture, namely pr0n.
I was think of when it showed up on this blog, but it got mentioned in the show in 2008, so never mind.
max
['Wow, that was another century, wasn't it?']
472: I'll try to rent it in the next few days and will report back.
472: I can watch it with my kids, right?
475: Sure! It's an excellent way to teach them the meaning of "inappropriate touch".
476: Oh, they learned that phrase a long time ago.
Happiness is possibly the greatest Rorschach test movie of all time. I'm always fascinated by people's reactions to it.
I'm guessing that you liked it.
Happiness filled me with giddiness and despair.
I was not, as many people seemed to be, mad at the filmmakers for producing such a film.
but I've already fucked it up by pronouncing myself hideously ugly.
Don't worry, so am I.
482: From the church's website: "The people of New Bethel have always been willing to try to do "whatever it takes" to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ."
You can study at my school any time, Parenthetical.
You can study at my school any time, Parenthetical.
s/b "You can study under me any time, Parenthetical."
WELL THANK GOD WE'VE MOVED BEYOND THE HOW-HOTT-ARE-WE, HOW-HOTT-WE-ARE SUBTRACK!
I've just been schooled by nosflow in innuendo. My dishonor is complete.
Re 441 et al., in parenting tips that could be useful for Heebie, my 2 year old daughter really enjoys my version of the Ed Lover dance.
On the other hand, she has also, due to an in-law, become obsessed with this "Arky-Arky" song , which I'd previously encountered only by way of Rod and Tod Flanders and which I'd assumed was a Simpsons parody, but turns out to have a real and horrible existence.
I'm guessing that you liked it.
Well of course I liked it, but I've got a very high tolerance for... for... I'm not quite sure what the word I'm looking for here is, but you all know what I'm talking about. Anyhow, I'm always interested in other people's reactions to it. Also in this category: Spanking the Monkey.
487: wasn't it more of a how-nott-are-we, how-nott-we-are subtrack?
Okay, that's eerie. I also loved Spanking the Monkey.
And just imagine the date movies we could pick.
I had a friend who I recommended StM to once, a stoner buddy who was down with shock humor and all that, but he was so completely weirded out by the movie that the next time I saw him, I thought he might actually take a swing at me. Which really made me think, "Okay, so tell me about your relationship with your mother."
496: "I'm feeling all snuggly. Wanna drink a little bubbly and watch Requiem for a Dream"?
I loved Spanking the Monkey. I identified with the protagonist more than almost any other movie character. Except for the physical act of love part of the movie.
492: NO THERE WAS ANOTHER HOTT-WE-ARE EARLIER WHICH WAS ANNOYING BUT IS OVER.
Sorry to be obtuse, AWB, but I couldn't quite tell from your description whether this threesome was consensual on your part. Are you glad/ok that this happened?
Hmm, I remember thinking that Spanking the Monkey was much ado about not very much. Was it funny? Still, I'll pop some JiffyPop and watch Happiness with the wife and kids.
Oh and Ned, "Levance M. Powers is typing" was funnier than funny.
498: How odd -- I feel as though I must have seen Requiem for a Dream, and yet the description of it leaves me with nothing, no recognition. Looks great.
I also liked Requiem for a Dream.
Happiness is a much more offensive movie than Spanking the Monkey. I can't think of an explanation of why it's funny that's compatible with me being a good person in any way.
Ari, if you actually watch Happiness with your wife and kids, I predict that whatever you wife says to you afterwards will top anything anyone said about you in the Civil War thread.
If you don't remember it, I really, really doubt you have seen it.
Jeez, Walt, what do you take me for: a child molester?
I had a friend who I recommended StM to once, a stoner buddy who was down with shock humor and all that, but he was so completely weirded out by the movie that the next time I saw him, I thought he might actually take a swing at me.
Since there's no humor of any sort in the movie, I can see where he wouldn't be expected to like it. But it's great!
I take you for a man comfortable with the idea of sleeping with his mother.
Thanks Walt. I knew I should have found a word other than "identified" for 499.
no humor of any sort in the movie
C'mon, the dog is funny.
Spanking the Monkey is one of the great Fear of Falling movies. The descent into stay-at-home madness is precipitated by the main character's college money drying up.
Jerry Maguire with its health insurance plot and Say Anything, much reviled around these parts, are also on the list. I need to add more movies to the list.
Other shocking movies that didn't shock so much as bore me: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. Requiem for a Dream, however, was an excellent film -- though not really all that shocking.
Must you get between me and Ari, Ned? Must you?
501: Yeah, I don't know either. I would have preferred a little warning that that's what the plan was. Do I feel angry or violated? Hell, no. But I was really, really physically worn out from softball and several hours of dancing and, well, it wasn't my best work. All I want is to feel like I've done a good job.
I'd like to watch Requiem for a Dream again. For the laughs.
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover
.... was supposed to be shocking?
Wait. Say Anything is much reviled? What kind of heartless monsters are you people?
The world was different before Two Girls One Cup, soup.
I think The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover was ripe for a certain time -- a brief time, in retrospect. At the time, it was absorbing. There are probably a number of films like that.
God, I'm now remembering all kinds of cinematographically interesting films I once had on my list and never saw. I should pick that up again.
I reviled Say Anything because that's what everyone else was doing. I've never even seen it.
518: Yes. Reviewers gasped and everything.
Also, I apologize in advance if this is a touchy subject, but where's Emreson? Did he leave or something? And if so, would someone point me to the thread in which that happened. I'm trying to plan my own dramatic exit from this place -- there will be lots of righteous indignation, I promise -- and I'm studying recent cases for tips. But if he's just on vacation, or something, that would be much better. Really, he's not ill or something, is he?
Also, people here don't like Say Anything? That's just sad.
518: Wasn't NC-17 basically invented for it? I thought the movie was gorgeous to look at. The room-to-room color changes, the Gaultier dresses . . .
Dammit, oudemia. Do you have the novelization? Well, Because I do.
I thought the movie was gorgeous to look at
This, yes.
All of Greenaway's movies are gorgeous to look at. He has a painter's sense of color and composition. But beyond that, the one's I've seen don't do much for me.
This was on Chiller, I think Thursday night, edited a little of course. I am not easy to shock or horrify, but the onscreen clitoridectomy of a 15 yr old girl, performed in suburban basement by a 40 something mother and a dozen children, performed with a blowtorch was pretty tough. Blanche Baker. the zoned sister in 16 Candles played the sadistic mother.
An American Crime with Ellen Page and Catherine Keener was the other recent version of that true Sylvia Likens story.
I have a Peter Greenaway book, no lie.
AWB, you have this threesome thing all backwards. All relationships have a certain amount of tension. Your job is to exploit that by setting them up in competition with each other. You should first announce who was the winner from the initial round, but then give them a chance to try again.
Seriously! Greenaway! Gorgeous to look at! So you can't really dismiss The Cook, The Thief, etc.
523: ari, Emerson moved to Portland, it seems, and is in transition. So no big scene or anything. Jesus McQueen was supposed to be in touch with him, but JMcQ has been recently out of town himself.
533: Thanks, parsimon. I found myself quite concerned last night when John wasn't telling me what a milquetoast piece of shit I am.
No, I am not into torture pron, and have seen none of the Saws of Hostels. I just surf 500 channels and the OnDemand listings.
Zoo was what I watched this week. On Sundance. About a Boeing engineer who got killed after he let himself get screwed by an Arabian stallion. Perforated colon, he wouldn't go to the hospital because he didn't want to lose his security clearance or have his wife and kids find out about his preferences. The video of this fatal act of love is out there on the web for anybody to find.
Old news maybe, could be in the Unfogged archives. New to me, and disturbing on several levels.
533: Also, who dismissed it? I was bored by it but recognized the filmmaker's extraordinary palette -- in addition to his extraordinary capacity for inducing (stifled) yawns in me. I mean, let's just say it was no Say Anything and leave it at that.
530: bob, have you checked out any Catherine Breillat films? Particularly L'anatomie de l'enfer or Romance?
539: Fat Girl/A ma soeur is one of my favorites. That girl is such a wonder/terror.
537: See, talking about Greenaway, I thought ZOO referred to his Zed and Two Noughts. I love that movie.
could be in the Unfogged archives
541: I love that one, too! (But those two have Rocco Siffredi in them!)
534: Yeah, that thought crossed my mind as well, actually. It's possible John is having a hard time with the circumstances of his move anyway, so maybe a good idea idea to keep an eye out for him.
I think I saw Emerson comment on another blog, but once Jesus is around, I hope he'll let us know how Emerson is.
539:Not her most famous stuff. I have seen about a half hour about Breillat, and I watched Sex is Comedy several times, which may be a roman de clef on the making of Fat Girl. Sort of. Anyway, Sex is Comedy was excellent, with a stunner of a feminist twist at the end that just blew my mind.
FWIW, I saw Say Anything in HS with my beloved GF of the time, towards whom I was unabashedly romantic. Yet I still found the movie intolerably stupid and annoying (even tho I like[d] Cusack!). I don't think it was the stalker angle per se ("stalking" was not a concept I could have given that name at the time, I don't think), but rather a general sense that Dobler was being an ass and a dope. I think I sighed with exasperation throughout the movie.
I have no idea what the rest of the thread has been about. 500+ comments, impressive.
greenaway is lovely, and if Ari finds the murder in the cook the thief boring, Ari is a bad man.
Spanking the monkey reminds me of my mom.
551: Should we take your lack of capitalization or italics to mean that masturbating reminds you of your mother?
See, I always thought Say Anything, about which I've heard next to nothing, must be a romantic comedy, so I've never seen it. That is, I've never seen it, and I thought it was probably a romantic comedy with a title like that, so it didn't concern me that I hadn't seen it.
Learn something new every day.
Phil Nugent writes the most interesting MJ essay I've seen.
Or, if you can't be bothered reading all those words, watch this vid.
Holy shit. I can't believe that I forgot about the Jackson 5 cartoon until this second.
The three Tulse Luper Suitcase movies have been in long rotation of one of the cinephile channels for years. Like every 3 months. I have tried, and they aren't horrible, but it just didn't happen.
I did get to watch Queen Margot all the way. Too much sex & violence, not enough history if you ask me.
If you liked the essay, Walt, scroll down to the one he wrote about Pauline Kael. It's also pretty excellent.
Okay, I have seen Requiem for a Dream. Yeah, it was pretty shocking.
I walked past Weiner Dog on the street not too long ago. She was with a pretty hot chick.
I don't revile Say Anything, but I do think it's about as overrated as The Princess Bride. I was pissed because the boombox scene was such an anticlimax, after seeing that image for so long beforehand. (Another iconic scene of cinema that was also a letdown: the kissing-in-water bit in From Here To Eternity). Further, all the father-daughter relationship stuff was just kinda treacly.
It's hard to get all your tags right when you're typing on a phone, ok? Give me a break, jerks.
562: From Welcome to the Dollhouse to The Princess Diaries. WTF?
I have an irrational hatred of Kael because David Edelstein loves her, and he is the worst film critic in the history of the world. I had to see multiple movies based on his reviews before I realized he was always wrong.
||
Mrs. W and I went to see a friend do stand-up comedy tonight. The audience was overrun with drunken twentysomethings on a birthday party who were having the time of their lives. They answered every comic's every set-up and tried to get them to do a beer bong. Since the comics were all waiting outside, none of them was prepared to deal with the onslaught so every act just became about trying to ride the drunken twenty-something wave. It was bad.
We left after about two-thirds of the comics had gone. There was a girl from the group in the lobby when I left. I said, very calmly and matter-of-factly, "Are you with the birthday party? You guys are bad people. I know you won't think so now, but I hope you do tomorrow when you're not as drunk." The girl got angry and said she hoped I woke up and felt the pain of remembering what it was like to be drunk and have fun. I said, "Don't worry, I already do that. That doesn't change things for you."
On the drive home, I asked Mrs. W if she was cringing the whole time. "No," she said, "but I was surprised at how...ruthless you were. You didn't back off and let her think it was in good fun."
It doesn't actually feel that good to have done it, but I am kind of impressed with myself.
|>
I like Edelstein. He has long had an ax to grind about revenge plots--that there's something both cheap and atavistic about motivating the action of a film with the murder of the protagonists's family--and he's consistently brought back that line through many, many reviews. Most prominently for Gladiator.
He also started the end-of-the-year Movie Club feature at Slate. I love hearing movie critics respond to one another. It's done really well.
I thought A.O. Scott was the critic wrong about everything.
I don't watch movies. I prefer good film criticism.
The Hours seemed like a film adaptation of literary criticism. Someone should novelize it.
I'd bet lots that Scott got Away We Go right.
I haven't read much Scott.
I particularly fucking hate his Year End Movie thing at Slate. The one for 1999 was particularly wrong. The highlight was when he complained about amateurs making year end best-of lists, a task that apparently should be left to professionals like himself.
Also, we can deduce that Edelstein hated both Hamlet and the Oresteia.
There really hasn't been a great movie critic since Pauline Kael died. And I'm not sure that she was a great critic of movies, as such, so much as a great critic and writer. And yes, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. But really, Pauline Kael was great.
567: I'm kind of impressed with yourself, too. In a quietly amazed, "Oh my, that was interesting, and holy shit, dude" way. I don't know whether being ruthless is underrated or not. I've noticed that opinions differ.
567: I was going to post the following anyway, but now it's semi-topical:
Yesterday I was in Wholey's* in the chicken section, and heard a mother say to her adult daughter, "See, what I like at Sam's Club is that the chicken is all Purdue and it's all packaged, so you know it's clean." I was really, really tempted to say something - not even nasty, just to try to introduce some reality to her. But I was not in the least convinced that I could do it without my contempt showing through. Among other things, Wholey's sells (veggie-fed, cage-free) Amish freaking chickens (as well as regular chix that are I'm sure not raised in the happiest way). But this moron thinks her food should come cleanly packaged and name-branded just like laundry detergent.
Gah.
* Local fish market institution, also with full butcher, frozen & produce
576: I think I've told you all about the roommate I once had who expressed distaste that some potatoes at the market were covered in dirt. She would not purchase them.
At least the daughter of the woman at Wholey's was an adult rather than a child learning at her mother's knee.
A simple "Just because its shrink wrapped doesn't mean its sanitary" would probably work there. You didn't need to go into the details of chicken living conditions.
567: Good for you. My tolerance for drunken assholery has gotten a lot lower the past few years.
(Although I have to admit that my first reaction was that anyone who wants to do standup is going to have to figure out how to deal with that sort of situation at some point, so it was a learning experience for the comics.)
I like David Bordwell for deepthink, and Mary-Ann Johansson for fun.
And Michael Bay is the high priest of our self-engrossment. It's not enough that we like blowing shit up: the blowing shit up must be transubstantiated into something religious by having, say, a ridiculously gorgeous girl humping a motorcycle, her face aglow in the golden hour of sunset as she watches the shit get blown up, her glossy lips parted just a little in orgasmic joy...MAJ
||
No more masturbating to Billy Mays.
|>
Musician? Pretty Things? No, that's Phil May, maybe.
581: It is mysterious!
According to Fox News, Mays had been on board a US Airways flight that blew out its front tires as it landed at a Tampa airport on June 27, the day before his death. None of the 138 passengers and five crew members were injured in the incident, but several passengers reported having bumps and bruises, according to the station. It is unsure whether Mays' death was related to the incident.
Bill Mays is a mainstreamish jazz session piano player.
Nope. Still not a clue. I guess this is proof that I really haven't watched much TV.
I guess this is proof that I really haven't watched much TV.
You're just showing off.
I'm sure Vince Offer had something to do with it in some way. I do not trust that guy. I hated Billy Mays with a fiery passion until Offer appeared on the scene and then was instantly grateful for Mays.
I thought A.O. Scott was the critic wrong about everything.
Michael Medved.
587: probably rigged Billy's pocket fisherman so he would cut himself. Then Billy thought the ShamWow would be good to stanch the bleeding... a tragic error.
573: Actually, we can't deduce that.
Vengeance dominates the modern action cinema, but to be a work of art, a revenge film needs to give you something more than your sadistic jollies. It needs to show the cost of revenge to the revenger, to innocent bystanders, and to society--which can't survive if injustice goes unpunished but also can't survive if individuals routinely take matters into their own hands. The important vengeance sagas of our drama--The Oresteia, Hamlet, such Jacobean revenger tragedies as, well, The Revenger's Tragedy--portray revenge as both natural and cataclysmic, whereas in modern movies it's just action business as usual.
It needs to show the cost of revenge to the revenger, to innocent bystanders, and to society
Why does it need to show that?
590: Ah, you beat me too it. The Oresteia is all about the costs of revenge (baby eating! getting chased around by ugly ladies!).
so it was a learning experience for the comics
Yeah, I appreciated that. My friend who I came to see went on first, and he said he enjoyed it. But the comics weren't in the room beforehand, so they didn't get the aggregate effect, and every comic (there were 12 on the bill, with a strict, alarm-bell five-minute time slot) had to go through the same learning process -- oh, rowdy crowd, better dumb it down, should I or shouldn't I have some from the beer bong?
I could see where it would be fun to ride the wave, finish, and say "that was something else." But pretty intolerable as a sober audience member who wasn't part of Shana's birthday party.
I mean, how moralistic! I know some prefer their art to support the established order, but really. Have the decency to be covert about it.
It's a fair point, especially with respect to the Orestia, which justifies the subordination of a feminine order to a masculine one. Edelstein's main point about revenge plots is that they eliminate the social. "Badguy killed your kids" is the cost of admission to the carnival of sadism. Vigilante bloodlust in art doesn't so much encourage questioning the state's monopoly of violence as it does encouraging a more violent state -- the wish of Death Wish is for more police, more jails, more people in 'em.
595: It's at least partly about questioning the competence of the state and the prevailing "let the authorities/experts handle it (whatever it is)" mentality.
I'd expect more of that after the "experts" dealt with terrorism/Katrina/economics/LA riots ad nauseam so very well.
For the rootless cosmopolitan elites among us: US up 1-0 on Brazil in the Confederation Cup final. Very early though, so a lot of time for Brazil to assert their superiority.
595: Vigilante bloodlust in art doesn't so much encourage questioning the state's monopoly of violence as it does encouraging a more violent state
Agreed about the encouraging a more violent state and so on. But you mean vigilante bloodlust *in movies*, right? "in art" confuses me.
That might be what Death Wish encourages. Sure. But Edelstein wasn't talking about Death Wish.
597: Wow. US up 2-0 27 minutes in. Donovan on a beautiful counterattack. Not surprisingly though, Brazil is dominating possession.
More wow, they take that lead into the half. Good finishing.
Ugh, unfortunate Brazil goal in first 40 seconds of 2nd half, though. Quick turn, nutmegged the defender and in.
|| I just spilled half a kir down my neckline in a total Airplane drinking-problem kinda way. |>
If by "close" you mean "just over the line," then, yeah! Oh well, only the linesman can say for sure, and he didn't indicate a goal.
Shit. Continual pressure just too much.
I believe that's known colloquially as getting schooled.
Looks like they got over their initial overconfidence.
Too tired. Not enough juice to make up for the difference in talent over the full match. I can't say I'm too upset--unlike the first game against Brazil.
It's still tied up, though, right? So says this. Don't give up hope, now.
us just had a good chance (not a lot in 2nd half) and missed it... unlikely to get another
Frankly, seeing the US put together two consecutive games of decent play, these days, is enough to set my heart aflutter. Six decent halves, in total, too. Better than I expected after Costa Rica and Honduras.
i don't even care about the game --- procrastination is a weird thing
616: They've already proved any point they had to make, I think.
ok, i'll stop talking to myself now.