Reheated (76)
For newcomers and the nostalgic, some items from the archives:
Academic of pallor denounces “whiteness,” flaps his scented handkerchief.
It’s worth pondering, for instance, what kind of adult might feel a need to signal their virtue, or what they imagine as virtue, habitually, and in such ostentatious ways. I mean, if you’re about as virtuous as you think you ought to be, given whatever circumstances, why would you spend time and effort putting on a show? What kind of person feels compelled to seem virtuous – to pretend to be more pious than they actually are – and to a degree that involves contortions like those above? At risk of sounding ungenerous, I think it’s a telling activity. A warning of sorts.
Atlantic senior editor Honor Jones dislikes crumbs. And so, she got divorced.
Two-year-old boy likes footballs and tractors. Progressive father twitches.
At which point, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that readers’ comments are not welcome at the Today site; and Yahoo News, where the item above is also published, is “temporarily suspending article commenting.” This, we’re told, is in order to “create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interests and passions.” Yes, we will engage and connect by not talking about things.
It does often seem that people writing on certain topics, and with certain political leanings, are to be spared the indignity of discussion or disagreement. Say, people who use their own small children as a political experiment. Or whose list of things deemed “too masculine” includes a shirt with a tractor on it, owning a Ford car, and, obviously, manual labour.
Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
That’s tomorrow’s batch sorted.
Cluster B disorders are very common among the sexually dysmorphic.
Was it accompanied by S-backing? Because that would be just awesome.
Speaking of ineffective LEO, it is important that a county have a police force that that looks like the community so in 94.4% hwite Essex (the English one) the coppers are hiring!.
Because that’s more realistic?
Speaking of ineffective LEO, it is important that a county have a police force that that looks like the community so in 94.4% hwite Essex (the English one) the coppers are hiring!.
I read that the UK police now hire functionally illiterate people, as long as they are dark-skinned immigrants.
Because that’s more realistic?
There are artsy types who think “realistic” is the highest goal, forgetting that art is supposed to be understandable, to which goal dialog should be understandable and should advance understanding. To extend this though, good novelists also choose non-dialog details to advance the story and avoid anything that causes confusion. (although some not-so-good ones enjoy creating “ambiguity” for its own sake.) All art is stylized for the sake of conveying ideas.
A few days ago, The Other Half was watching Tenet on TV and I walked in halfway through. For maybe twenty minutes or so, I’d say about a third of the dialogue was muffled or inaudible, and clearly deliberately so. At which point, I stopped caring and played a game instead.
Ephemera already
Where TF has the week gone?
If you’re going to have a decidedly convoluted and unobvious plot – one that requires a lot of expositional dialogue – and you then deliberately make much of that dialogue inaudible, as if that were clever, then… well, bugger that. I don’t generally watch films in order to be frustrated by the sound mix. (Coppola’s The Conversation comes to mind as an exception.) Presumably, Mr Nolan thinks the effect is immersive or realistic or intriguing or something. More typically, it’s distancing and boring, and disrupts any suspension of disbelief.
Eaten–no, devoured–by HOA issues.
Or, as Jerry Pournelle used to say, “devoured by locusts”.
I heartily agree with that, including the epithet.
Artistes like Nolan could take a lesson from Classical Greek drama, in which every line of dialogue was crafted to maximally advance the story and the message. And in the original performances the dialogue was spoken clearly so that everyone could hear every word.
The In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida disease. Sometimes caused by drugs and alcohol, sometimes by pretentiousness.
Well, the use of sound mixing and things-not-quite-heard to further a story or elicit intrigue isn’t new or beyond the pale. Again, The Conversation, which came out in 1974, comes to mind as an example. But I find Nolan’s use of muffling much more distancing and tedious. It just reminds me that I’m sitting in a cinema, or on the sofa, feeling somewhat alienated and bored.
...sometimes by pretentiousness.
Especially that, because “art”. A nice experiment is to find some show – “Arctic Circle” comes to mind because the dialogue at different times is in English, Finnish, German, and Russian – and turn off the subtitles. If you can follow and generally understand what is going on, both the acting and dialogue/sound are on the money, even if it isn’t “art” by Cannes standards (and I use “standards” loosely).
Muffled dialog: on the classic Law and Order, lots of dialog necessary to the story and all of it clear (except the first few seasons with too much background noise). Modern Chicago PD 3 key actors have a voice issue (raspy, poor diction, don’t open their mouth). argh. IRL if you can’t hear someone you say “what?” but in movies the audience is just lost. Idiots.
In the case of the guy freaked out by a wrench–I thought the Left was all about empowerment? Nothing as empowering as fixing your own plumbing and saving $600. Even my daughter can put up shelves and do other things. “boxed in by masculinity” my ass.
I’m assuming this is the result of a transporter malfunction.
Is it safe to assume if he’d just thrown the rubbish out to litter the environs there’d be no consequences?
Meanwhile, a quandary over whom to charge for a hate crime.
O Cressid! O false Cressid! False, false, false!
Let all untruths stand by thy stainèd name,
And they’ll seem glorious.
That’s the least horrid hypothesis.
Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.
In that twitter thread, Essex police are stating that the recruiting ad is a fake.
Transporter malfunction…
Mr. Badger, at the top of that thread, made me spit coffee.
transporter malfunction: just a hint that if you have trouble walking, can’t get into a car, and can’t buy clothes at a normal store, then maybe, just maybe, your butt is too big. Reality is so unfair.
Recruiting ad: I suspect a fake but these days who knows? This would be a “fake but truthful” case.
“A Few Good Them“
Mr. Badger, at the top of that thread, made me spit coffee.
The hell with the deck, those gold spike heels must be made of titanium.
Meanwhile, lest we be accused of racism more than usual, let us review Newton’s laws of motion and reprise this lass from the other day.
“A Few Good Them“
From the same artist, a story in two parts:
Part the First:
Part the Second:
The depictions are brilliant.
The depictions are brilliant
I’ve been following him for a while now and his pen is razor sharp.
[ Rummages under bar, emerges with tray of exotic cheeses. ]
Try not to get any on your skin.
This.
[ Washes hands thoroughly. ]
[ Fixes Darleen’s shockingly unorthodox blockquote font. ]
Was it merely unorthodox? Or actually transgressive?
Positively scandalous.
Oh well, all over now, but this boob had a good run.
That could only mean [pause for dramatic effect] Comic Sans.
If someone were to instigate a public shaming of Darleen, would people forget about his HTML transgressions? Asking for a friend.
Of course, we’re all still living in the shadow of Mr Sherman’s spectacular and truly boggling HTML atrocity of August 2016.
[ Eye twitches. ]
What should it be? Psychotherapy and medication? Or a bop upside the head?
Bop upside the head? Or a taser?
Forget the taser. Go with sustained automatic weapons fire.
The longer video is linked here.
Or a bop upside the head?
The mob may not be as active as it once was there but that, the fact that lots of NYPD live there, and not knowing who owns the place, Staten Island probably was not the wisest choice of places to pull that crap as a bop upside the head might be the least of his worries
Looting Amazon truck: I can just see the guy who grabbed the big box of disposable diapers or the 20lbs of catfood…such a victory against The Man!
Because “trans”women need “reproductive freedom”, so c’mon guys and gals*, let’s make this a Women’s History Month to remember.
*(offer not valid for non-Alphabet People after curfew in Sector R)
Watching the obnoxious lady who doesn’t like bbq has made me far far sadder than something taking place at least 4,000 miles away should do.
The fact that such primitives, and they are legion, are allowed to wreak havoc without fear of accountability bodes ill for the west.
The fact that such primitives, and they are legion, are allowed to wreak havoc without fear of accountability bodes ill for the west.
I agree that this is going to get worse … either all those venues under attack will just close shop and give up in certain spaces or someone will finally decide to inflict consequences on the entitled criminals.
I realize that most event vendors probably haven’t thought much about some crazy attendee flipping their tables and equipment, but when the grill full of hot embers went over, the fire extinguisher should have been immediately deployed … embers second.
Let them fight!
Porn “trans”women are upset because a real girl is pretending to be “trans” and makes more money than they do (being a real female might have something to do with it, but I am not checking).
Their chief complaint: “Being trans is not a costume”.
Irony cam be pretty ironic.
I swear, these “trans” can’t leave anything alone.