Friday Ephemera
Slow-motion moths. || The most intelligent lifeform on planet Earth. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || The Museum of Everything Else has an Instagram page. (h/t, Things) || Also, mice farm. || Burly tumbleweed. || The thrill of budgerigars. || Talking Dog. || Cats will do that. || Cat versus cobra. || “Vasily was generously rewarded.” || Viewing dispute. || Pearls detected. || “Completely waterproof.” || The thrill of South Korean candy manufacturing. || They increase in mass. || Just like normal people. || Unhappy conversions. || Highway liveliness. || Illusion of note. (h/t, Julia) || Christopher Lee reads Sherlock Holmes. || Honing skills. || One woman and her bear. || And finally, the thrill of cleaning.
You’ve told us here about burned bridges and broken relationships that seem to be occurring with increasing frequency…Now you seem to struggle with self-pity and lashing out. I sincerely hope you find a way to deal with whatever you’ve got going on.
Meant to address this as well. Don’t cry for me, Argentina. I really tried not to let self-pity seep into that stuff, mostly because I certainly am not looking for such nor respect that sort of thing myself. The problem is, I get frustrated trying to find the right words and it comes out that way. In regard to my broken relationships and such, well I still am in civil contact with a few friends. Actually my self-described bleeding heart liberal college roommate (who certainly does not truly fit the bleeding-heart label) and a couple other more truly “liberal” people in the real, traditional sense of the word…you know, liberals like me. My mentioning such personal things has only been meant to convey the absolutely messed up scenarios that I am seeing. How otherwise normal…”normal” people are seething with hatred. To be clear still, most of these people have not expressed such things directly at me for anything (or much of anything) that I have said. But they are quite outspoken in general about how people who are like me…people like many of the people here…are the scum of the earth. I’ve just done a little mathematical transitive property analysis. Unfair? Though if my sister-in-law gets preachy with us one more time about masks and vaccines and TheVirusDidn’tComeFromChinaThat’sRacistOMG, well…
Bartender, a round for the house. But make it the cheap stuff. It’s all I can afford right now.
WTF was the “nineteen-empties” that he was going on about? Was that it, the 80’s?
Yes. If you went to read some of the meandering screeds he linked to they were absorbed with the awful “emptiness” of the 1980s and with preppiness as some sort of vast, nebulous social phenomenon behind much of society’s ills.
I was only born in 1988 so I can hardly say I have strong impressions of the decade, but it doesn’t seem to have been all that “empty” compared with any other. Certainly cheerier than the ’70s, at least from what I can gather.
but it doesn’t seem to have been all that “empty” compared with any other
Well exactly. I would think a decade in which the Cold War ended should be about as relevant as the 1940’s. Or at least somewhat as relevant. Plus the 80’s were Reagan time…but again, what I said about him being phony-conservative. Though I find this defining history by decades thing, while necessary, rather stupid/ridiculous. It’s as banal as the supposed banality of the decade. Besides, it’s the 70’s that most people choose to shit on. I blame Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Though now that I think of it, and this reference is before your time, the 80’s were supposed to be the Al Franken Decade, so…?
Yeah, one click on one of those links and I got the idea. It was like a trip back to the days of the Information Super Highway! of the early 1990’s.
Bartender, a round for the house. But make it the cheap stuff.
Bless you, sir. May your enemies be cursed with hilariously unintuitive, user-hostile bedside radio alarm clocks.
May your enemies be cursed with hilariously unintuitive, user-hostile bedside radio alarm clocks.
Yes. Along with that same miserably small hotel room in Cincinnati that went with it which I had one trip in the early 1990’s.
There are definitely distinctive periods in various dimensions of pop culture, architecture, fashion, etc., but tying them to decades is almost useless, in my opinion. It artificially yokes together what happens to be going on in different cycles of the various fields regardless of any causal relation between them.
The “generations” game (Boomer, X, Millennial, and so on) is just as misleading of an abstraction and exacerbates the natural friction between age groups to boot. It’s also amusing to me how the generational indicators also seem to have partly congealed into simple age references. I’m a 33 year-old Millennial and the youngest of my (completely arbitrarily defined) cohort are now well out of their undergrad days, but I see countless comments referring to college-age kids as Millennials.
I’m a 33 year-old Millennial and the youngest of my (completely arbitrarily defined) cohort are now well out of their undergrad days, but I see countless comments referring to college-age kids as Millennials.
Heh. I’m on the late edge of the Boomer category myself. Never really identified one way or the other but I did like the music. Got a hippie mad at me for dancing to the Beatles with a girl I really liked…who was a couple years older than me. He said I was too young to like the Beatles. The only time I identified as such I replied that I was a Boomer so it was cool. Oh, the shit came down when he asked what year I was born (’62). Probably why I hate hippies to this day.
yes.
This one, for instance.
The display is piss-poor, the design is unattractive, and the controls and interface are comically unobvious, bordering on perverse, including a tiny, easy-to-miss ‘off’ button. Setting the alarm, or worse, trying to turn the damn thing off while half-asleep at 6am, is, shall we say, a challenge.
On the upside, the built-in phone charger works quite well.
as to why this story hasn’t gotten much play
It isn’t a story. Full stop. Others have done yeoman’s work on covering this tale of idiots and their unfortunate child.
Though I find this defining history by decades thing, while necessary, rather stupid/ridiculous.
It would be better, I think, in terms of US history to think of epochs or eras. 1945-1965 (when things started to unravel), 1965-1975 (end of US involvement in Vietnam), 1975-1981 (era of confusion ending with the ending of the Carter farrago), 1981-1993 (Reagan & Bush The Elder), and so on. How epochs are defined can be debated, but more representative of cultural shifts than strict decades.
…the awful “emptiness” of the 1980s and with preppiness as some sort of vast, nebulous social phenomenon behind much of society’s ills.
Hal fancied (fancies?) himself as a cultural elite, though apparently lacking in any actual knowledge of cultural events, as can be seen by his often repeated claims that Harlem hipsters of the 1930s morphed into 1950s beatniks, who then became preppies, who morphed into hippies, who became hipsters of today, a patent absurdity to those of us who actually can remember back to the 1950s – and for those who can’t, know who Maynard G. Krebs was.
The 1980s to him appear to have been basically defined by big hair and disco, and nothing else. Granted those and late ’80s US car designs were generally banal, but as a whole, I am having a hard time thinking of beginning of end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union as “banal” times.
Palate cleanser: Nom nom nom
On the upside, the built-in phone charger works quite well.
Come for the fisking of woke bullshit, stay for the consumer advice.
Hal might have been a Republican or Libertarian of some sort, but I never thought he was a conservative.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/father-of-7-year-old-texas-boy-whose-mother-wanted-to-transition-him-to-a-girl-wins-in-court and scroll down a bit. (That link is now over a year old, but your quoted statement is, as written, objectively wrong. If you want to add some variant of “recently” to it, go ahead.)
There’s also https://texasscorecard.com/state/jeff-younger-gop-leadership-wont-support-ending-child-gender-disfigurement/, so it isn’t that case that nobody in the state of Texas cares.
Living up to my handle, that kid’s fucked no matter what. He’s being used as a pawn between his parents. The mother is a board certified pediatrician http://www.drannemd.com/staff.html, which merely reinforces my thoughts about such bodies. Good thing she ensures her cross is visible in her staff photo. I have no idea what his father does, other than not getting the other kids to tell mom that she’s insane.
the total abandonment of George Zimmerman. A strong pushback at that time would have precluded the whole BLM matter entirely.
I’m not so sure about that. You can go back to Tawana Brawley in the late 80s. Al Sharpton did pretty well out of that. A presidential advisor, a regular on CNN, a “respected” black body telling POC truth to power and all that bullshit. Race grifting has been going on for a long time. “Intersectional” politics just extends the same behaviours to new victim groups. In fact it encourages the formation of new victim groups. I’m with Solzhenitsyn. Good and Evil run through all our hearts. Most of us are weak and vulnerable to the cluster b personalities that prey on society. I’ve said much of what you’ve said regarding not taking it anymore to my wife and friends, but nobody wants to pick up a pitchfork. In terms of politics, our governments are just as much a one party state as any totalitarian regime. So what do we do?
I was sincere in concern. No sarcasm either. Life is awkward and disturbing outside the bubble. Cheers
Hal might have been a Republican or Libertarian of some sort, but I never thought he was a conservative.
I never developed any clear idea of what he was or what he believed, thanks to the incoherence of his comments and links. Remember Jim in Taxi, whose brain was destroyed by drugs in the sixties?
It is my opinion that he believed himself to be a Very Smart Person, If Not The Smartest (TM).
I also believe that Hal was a “he”. He might have also been the publicist for The Curia (no, I will not provide a link.), but I have no knowledge if that was the case or not.
It is my opinion that he believed himself to be a Very Smart Person, If Not The Smartest (TM).
Well yes, there was that–which reminds me of a famous Smart Person.
Remember Jim in Taxi,
IWIdToT (I wish I’d thought of that). Double plus good points!
Remember Jim in Taxi,
The difference being that Jim was likable whereas Hal was not…which reminds me that it seems as if there are a lot more TV shows with unlikable people than there used to be. Or am I just turning into a curmudgeon?
Of course you do understand, culture war wise, that Otto in AFCW was the “conservative” or libertarian or whatever placeholder. Not that that film, at least as I vaguely recall it, was overtly political. I could be wrong though. I only remember finding it hilariously funny. But that was back when I still had a foot in the Narrative. I’d like to see it again but I’ll be damned if I will pay (extra) money to the Hollywood douchebags for it.
As for H-a-single-hockey-stick (dare not speak of the devil further for up he may pop…and also breaking my Code 9000 rule), nit picking as to what specifically he was vs. what he claimed to be I will leave to future Trappist monks. It really should not distract from my general point. And yet it does…sigh…
OK, one last thing…as for this: It isn’t a story. Full stop.
Yeah. Not a story. Full stop and shit. Tell that to this little boys balls, if you can find them in 10-15 years. Though I suppose his mother may have them in a jar of formaldehyde in her kitchen window box by then.
Look, I truly regret going down this path as it now is even boring me. My main point of inquiry was, and still is, that perhaps there is something dirty about the father. But what that might be seems weak. None of this adds up no matter which angle I look at it. Yes, Cruz TWO YEARS AGO was sympathetic. But according to what I see from the family, he’s put them at arm’s length. Abott is a f’n squish. I can sympathize with whatever corner he seems to be in but he ain’t no DeSantis (PBUH) and he now is being primaried. Primaried by a guy who doesn’t have the G-D common publicity sense to get a flipping haircut. As I said, and will continue to say, conservatives are losers because that’s the way they like it.
The complicated lives of the severely indoctrinated: How do I get my parrot to stop saying my brother’s deadname?
Also…meant to say in context the guy primarying Abott, Mr. Haircuts Are Not For Me, is using the Younger case as one of his platform issues.
AFCW
AFC Wimbledon?
Aluminum Flux Cored Wire?
Air Force Cadet Wing?
No, it’s a movie, right? and everyone but me knows it by those initials? and picks up the reference immediately even though it hasn’t been named yet in this hundred-and-some-comment thread (I scrolled back: the nearest match is Al Franken and the Cold War both tagged in one paragraph as ’80s markers). . . .
If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll just assume it’s based on a comic book and forget the whole thing.
I only remember finding it hilariously funny
Cool. I saw Murder of a Cat a few nights ago, that was amusing. I like this young actor Fran Krantz, he has a flair for playing amiable goofballs. He was Bottom in a pretty good rip on Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Movies, right? Ya gotta love ’em.
AFCW
A Fish Called Wanda.
Never saw the appeal, myself.
if a woman wrote a book about a scientist who made a reanimated monster, and that book got turned into countless movies and spinoffs
Doesn’t count. Women are solipsists; when the columnist says “why don’t men read more books by women” what she really means is “why don’t men read more books by me“. You can point out all the authors like Nora Roberts, Ursula Le Guin, P.D. James, Mary Shelley, and Ayn Rand all you like, it won’t matter because those authors aren’t her and that’s the only female author she cares about.
[ Hides breakables. ]
Of course you do understand, culture war wise, that Otto in AFCW was the “conservative” or libertarian or whatever placeholder.
Yes. A grossly cartoonish caricature of America and Americans, as I recall. Because people who were at Cambridge University are so much smarter and wiser than those crass Americans. John Cleese has recently lamented the destruction of the institutions that he and the Monty Python gang so mercilessly insulted, but I don’t think he has significantly changed his views even so
AFCW
I, too, sometimes forget and use acronyms and words which are may not be immediately clear to all. 🙁
Never saw the appeal, myself.
Yes. All through the film I found myself hating them and wanting them all to get caught and sentenced to long prison terms.
“the guy primarying Abott”
There’s what, half a dozen or so?
Look, I don’t know anything about the father, and don’t care. What is obvious, though, is that the “trans” bit is a play by the mother (well, likely attorneys) to gain more over the kid in the divorce. BTW, if you bothered to actually read the ruling, it’s quite Solomonic – mom’s side was going for all the marbles, and the Judge (likely just as tired of the farce), “split” the decision. Funny, in a sad sort of way.
What I am sure of is that over the next few years (or at least until one of the parent’s cash runs out), we’ll get the “you gotta be outraged by this…” from various self proclaimed conservatives…
[ Hides breakables. ]
I have a vicar here with an entire suitcase filled with breakables.
Doesn’t count. Women are solipsists; when the columnist says “why don’t men read more books by women” what she really means is “why don’t men read more books by me”
I’m sure that’s true of her, but the phenomenon is more general: Lots of women who do not write make the same complaint and demand: It’s part of the complaint that men are not women.
…and not all of those bitchy women are lesbians, far from it.
{Wonko} might have been a Republican or Libertarian of some sort, but I never thought he was a conservative.
Apologies for being late to the party, but yesterday was spent unplugged (glorious!).
The thing that really infuriated me about Wonko the Sane is that he played so fast and loose with definitions. If you bothered to squint at The Curia long enough, you’d see that he spent paragraphs defining “conservative” in such as way as to make himself the only man on Earth who qualified for the label. Conversely, he used “hipster” to describe basically anybody whose actions or motivations he deemed nekulturny.
As a result, it was impossible to argue with the guy. You’d make an argument that most of the usual suspects recognized as solid, and he’d come out swinging, saying you didn’t have a leg to stand on because he conveniently redefined crucial terms to have whatever meaning was most sympathetic to his assertions. He’d say something like “Henry Kissinger was the worst of the hipsters…” and you’d be left just sitting there, stunned, trying to figure out how to respond.
It was maddening! I tried hard to ignore and not to provoke, but sometimes the condescension was just too much. I wish him no ill, but I can’t say that I miss the guy.
While the 9000 unit was all you say Guvn’r, my interactions with a certain PhD (via Ohio State no less) FAMU philosophy professor were all that and more. The sophistry, the game playing with favorite words, the pomposity of language (things were always an ‘endeavor’, nothing was ever ‘tried’), etc. Four or five of us non-leftists argued with him fir about a decade. About four years ago I gave up on him. I greatly enjoyed discussion with the other commenters but he stopped addressing me and I him. Eventually, and this is my fault sadly, my constant pointing out to the others how disrespectful the host was to their points and such everyone eventually gave up on him. Even one guy with whom he was once good friends with. Ironically the most conservative of us (combat infantry NCO). I check back once a week or so because his NCO friend has commented about once every couple months. But aside from him, and the occasional one-off fellow leftist, the most frequent commenter there now is…I kid you not…his mommy.
I wish him no ill…
You’re a nicer guy than me. I wished him some poetically suitable payback.
…but I can’t say that I miss the guy.
I enjoy his absence, albeit by thinking about him only rarely–usually when someone says something that reminds me of his defects.