timber
January 24th, 2010 | Uncategorized
I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree.
But please give me HDTV.
We had to take these two trees down today in order to get HDTV satellite reception. Well. And also because they were too close to the house, and shaded the garden. They were indeed lovely, but so is the open space. And so, I hope, will Rachel Maddow be in 1080p.
225 Responses to “timber”
It proves it. Nature herself is against TV.
(weeps)
But I live in a city, and so probably pollute more than you do, so I can’t throw stones.
(Do tropical cities save because we don’t use so much heating? Am I ecologically responsible for all the air conditioning in shopping malls that I don’t turn on? My diet definitely contributes to overfishing problems… worry worry.)
Will you be harvesting the wood for fuel? What types of trees were these? I couldn’t tell from the video.
I assume that if the trees were blocking the satellite dish, they were on the SW side of your house. That means you’ll get a little more sun and thermal heating of the house. Probably welcome in winter, not so welcome in summer. Pay for heating or pay for cooling, take your pick. But they were definitely too close to the house… roots could crack the foundation, and they could easily crash down on the roof during a storm.
And don’t forget to carve something cool out of those stumps!
For reasons beyond my control I can only watch the awesomely-magnificent Rachel Maddow on little videos on my computer and she looks lovely even in that size, but I can totally see your point! I’m a little jealous in fact 😀 Enjoy! Keep us posted!
Loved your little twist of Joyce Kilmer’s verse LOL.
Nice bolen.
We lost a big bough after a heavy snowfall in early November–I shoveled for an hour and a half, went sweatily up front to put away the shovel, and heard the cracking begin. I stood in the street in the dark, under variable cloud cover, and just watched and listened. The snow and the noise of breaking was grand, maybe momentous. My neighbors stopped their evening walks and joined me. It seemed the respectful thing to do, to watch it break, to spend the time. I could smell the freshly exposed wood, even 15 feet overhead.
Probably should have had my arbor guy cut that bough last fall, for safety. But I’m glad I got to watch it go on its own.
Lorine Niedecker, a 20th-century American poet, wrote:
My friend tree
I sawed you down
but I must attend
an older friend
the sun
[or in this case, hi-def TV]
Tough to see two mature trees brought down, but your woods looks fire-suppressedly thick anyway. Or maybe that’s just the Coloradan in me seeing it that way.
Ng Yi-Sheng — City living is generally less hard on the environment, since urban life shares more public utilities and requires less driving, etc. But so many factors come into play. Not having kids is probably the biggest single thing you can do to slow global warming. Eating less red meat and flying less also makes a huge per-person impact.
I was trying to imagine how the conversation would go between Mo and Sydney.
Mo: “Sydney, who’s that guy outside with the chainsaw and hard hat, and what is he doing to those trees?”
Sydney: “Ah! Er …”
… 5 minutes later, external shot, as Mo’s outrage hits frequencies only dogs can hear.
“as Mo’s outrage hits frequencies only dogs can hear.”
Haha….you’re funny, Ian.
HOH#3
Will you be harvesting the wood for fuel? What types of trees were these? …
I think those must be maples?
Another option –especially for trees that you “know”– is to get a friendly neighborhood woodworker to turn them into something nice. I bet one could get a nice (say) table out of each of those trees.
I think HDTV is good for three things, movies shot on film, baseball games, and nature documentaries. So far as I’m concerned, most of the stuff most people watch on TV would be just as good in black and white on an 8″ screen with rabbit ears. Or for that matter on the radio. Or come to think of it, not produced in the first place.
@Kat(9): Is there something wrong with that line, Kat? *Is bemused*
Dang, HoH, that was my question when I saw the movie, she’s got to cut those babies up for fuel. All this for Rachel Maddow? Does she follow this blog? She has got to see the lengths to which you will go to receive her show.
At my age, High def doesn’t make much of an impression on my eyes.
I have chain saw envy. I learned to use one selling Christmas trees for the Optimists Club, and even though I’m a pessimist and a Jew, I really want a chain saw of my own. My ex-husband planted little oak trees 25 years ago when we needed some shade, and now they’re so big I can’t grow anything edible except a few raspberries. My town has an ordinance protecting trees (and we can’t keep chickens either) so it’s best if I DON’T own one. There’s all kinds of trouble to avoid.
Amazing precision on the falls. Very cool. Thanks for sharing.
CRASH! Hooray!
oooo, I have a cribbage board made out of a stump. You could make a cribbage board.
Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.
But at least they were asleep.
@Ian, (#12)
nope, I just found it amusing!
Vegetarian, no kids. Now I feel much better about my budget flight to Spain in May. Thanks Ellen.
Concerning Sharon Rosenzweig “chainsaw envy”:
I wish I could find images of two of my favorite Edward Koren cartoons:
#1: Man, holding a chainsaw, sitting on a stump in a field of stumps with a blissful, contented look on his face. His wife is patting him on the shoulder asking simply “Happy?”
#2: Man, holding a chainsaw, stands facing the lone large tree remaining in a field of stumps. Man and tree are glaring at each other.
(Needless to say, Koren’s cartoons are vastly superior to my descriptions, but, alas, I can’t find on-line images to link to…)
@NLC (#19)
Is this Koren cartoon #2?
http://archives.newyorker.com/global/content/GetImage.aspx?pguid=FC9071DC-DD99-441F-A727-1B74670350BC&width=232&i=1993-07-19&folio=046
I learned to use one selling Christmas trees for the Optimists Club, and even though I’m a pessimist and a Jew, I really want a chain saw of my own.
*faint*
I love the internet just for sentences like this.
In other news, I just called Sgt. Osland and of course got his voicemail. I left a polite message (it’s my belief that one gets more with honey than vinegar…at least, at first), briefly explaining my concerns. I then left my name and number and requested a call back (I know, I know, har dee har). So let’s see what happens…
In the course of trying to track down the Koren cartoons, I found this interesting article about Vermont style (Koren, like AB, is a transplant to Vermont). Perhaps the author went for the hyperbolic and stereotyped Vermont look, but perhaps not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/style/runway-white-house-searching-for-defining-look-land-ben-jerry-s.html?pagewanted=all
Quoting from the article:
—
When I asked Grace Paley, the state’s poet laureate, for her definition of Vermont style, she said: “Don’t think so hard. The people here are determined and easygoing. They enjoy their freedom, and want to keep it. Vermonters are serious. They think seriously about their roads, their neighbors, their woods.”
[… snip …]
“We make everything here, but we sell in New York,” she said. Ms. Sarvis’s pieces are available at Bergdorf Goodman; her scarves cover the necks of Carly Simon, Diane Sawyer and Oprah Winfrey.
But the women of Vermont aren’t interested. “Honestly, where would a Vermonter wear a formal velvet dress?” Ms. Sarvis said. “We don’t have any black-tie events.”
Ms. Kaiman, the dairy farmer, said: “Right now, I’m wearing jeans with big holes in the knees, a dirty tank top, manure-coated work boots. I don’t own any makeup. If I walked into a salon to have my nails done, the manicurist would run out screaming.”
Fashion and grooming are considered a waste of time and energy that could be spent weeding the garden. “It’s a distraction from the demands of the day,” said Carrie Chalmers, a vegetable and perennials farmer from Weston. “People do care what they look like, but having to worry about makeup and nail polish would be a nuisance.”
Ms. Chalmers laughed when asked about her fitness regime. “That’s the thing about working at a farm,” she said. “I get lots of exercise all day long.” What about fruit acid peels? Spa treatments? Botox injections? “I don’t think anyone in the state has ever had Botox,” Ms. Kaiman opined. “Or ever will.”
[… snip …]
There are a lot of beautiful bodies around, thanks to all that hiking, biking, wood-chopping and tree-hugging. But despite the musculature on display, Vermonters are not particularly sexy. They’re covered in too much wool and fleece. And no matter how perfect the body, male or female, copious body hair and perspiration kill the allure.
—
Sounds like the DTWOF community. Except for the manure-covered boots. Mo would be in a Tyvek suit, respirator, and three layers of gloves if she had to deal with manure-covered boots.
Thanks for the update, Ginjoint!
(de-cliqueification: Sgt Oslund of the Minneapolis Police Department figures in the investigation of a crime committed against blog regular DeLand DeLakes. DD told us about it on the previous thread.)
“And no matter how perfect the body, male or female, copious body hair and perspiration kill the allure.
—
Sounds like the DTWOF community.Except for the manure-covered boots.”
And the perspiration. I don’t know about anyone else around here, but I’m a big fan of deodorant.
I DO enjoy my chainsaw.
@Kat (#24)
I’m with you on the deodorant. And I do mean REAL deodorant, not the ersatz sage/hops/crystal all-natural junk that Whole Paycheck sells.
I once briefly dated (and I *do* mean briefly) a person who insisted that this all-natural crystal thing worked. Uh, no it didn’t. GAG. I suppose if you’re surrounded by your own funk you can’t smell it, and most people are too polite to tell you that you smell like a wet water buffalo. In heat.
Body odor does seem to depend somewhat on genetics, body chemistry, and diet. I’ve noticed that my body scent changes along with the perimenopausal hormone fluctuations.
I love the smell of sweat — as long as it’s from the body of someone I already like.
I read once that in the Germany during the Middle Ages, a new bride would place slices of apple underneath her arms before starting a night of dancing to celebrate her wedding. At dawn she’d pull out the slices of apple and feed them to her new husband as a delicacy. Yeah, baby.
Vermont is indeed schlumpy. Waaay too much facial and body hair – don’t get me started on how much that disturbs me. Not enough makeup – I adore makeup – and very limited clothing options in the stores. Vermonters have absolutely no sense of style. In anything, except possibly barns. On the other hand, you can wear your Merrills (really comfy shoes) to a party and nobody cares. Now that’s heaven in my book.
In Appalachian Trail news, comes word that Tiger Woods was chased out of the house with a golf club by his wife Elin Nordegren after she texted one of his lovers from his cellphone pretending to be him, and got a hot text response in return. No surprise there, except that she missed with the golf club.
Note to philanderers everywhere: Clear the messages from your cellphone, and don’t keep your paramour’s cell number on speed dial.
In more Appalachian Trail news, YaVaughnie Wilkins, the spurned former lover of one of Obama’s advisors, Charles Phillips, has rented several billboards in revenge. The five billboards, three in NYC (including one in Times Square), one each in San Francisco and Atlanta, are estimated to have cost about $250,000. And she’s got a website too, that reportedly cost about $1400 to set up. Not exactly spare change, which has me wondering what shadowy GOPer helped fund this stuff.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/she_did_whaaat_CTz3l7zyyaJKLywTNaVSrO#ixzz0dLr7TirF
—
Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.
William Congreve
—
@Liza (#28)
“Waaay too much facial and body hair – don’t get me started on how much that disturbs me.”
As a fellow Ashkenazi who has also fought the Unibrow look all her life, I must say that my body hair has noticeably thinned out over the decades (unfortunately, including head hair). The Unibrow is much easier to keep in check these days, and tweezing out all those white hairs has really thinned them out.
De-clique-ification notes: Ashkenazi (plural Ashkenazim) refers to Jews of Eastern European origin. Unibrow is that dreaded hirsute condition shared by many Ashkenazim… the eyebrows start at one temple and end at the other, uninterrupted.
(… goes back to tweezing with her 10x magnifying mirror …)
The unibrow is the one thing I DON’T have…I swear I’d look like the guys in ZZ Top if I didn’t keep the beard at bay with daily tweezing….
Liza, have you spent much time in Berkeley? We could give you a run for your money when it comes to schlumpy. We’re experts at schlumpy. I guess you all have more outerwear to contend with, though, which might tip the scale in your favor.
oh, and Maggie, remind me never to live in Midaeval Germany!!
Incidentally, I’ve had an interesting problem with previous partners. I’ve liked the person, and obviously been attracted enough to date them, but have often been quite UNattracted to that person’s personal odor.
Not “body odor” in a negative way, just that person’s personal odor.
strange, huh?
I couldn’t watch the video. Too painful to watch those trees cut down, I guess. It’s visceral.
Speaking of chain-saws, nyone remember the Hothead Paisan cartoon where Hothead is sitting on a park bench and a (lunkhead) man intrudes on her space by plunking down, legs spread, squeezing her into 1/4 of the bench? I’ll let you imagine where the chainsaw comes in. (grins)
As a hairy 25+ year vegetarian who has never used antiperspirant or deodorant or shaved or tweezed (except in high school), I say: None of my lovers ever complained. So there. (Then again, I’m a non-trans, sis-gendered person who easily passes for female so I am not particularly oppressed by these personal choices.)
@R2A (#33)
Never used deodorant? You must have some amazing body chemistry, or live in the Land of Stuffed Sinuses.
In my career, I have had several occasions where I had to take an employee or colleague aside and talk to him (it was never a HER) about personal hygiene.
Nothing is more embarrassing for both parties. I remember the first time I had to do it, I was about 28 years old and one of my techs who was old enough to be my father (maybe early 60s) could gag a horse. Customers and coworkers complained about him and his malodorous aroma.
There’s no training manual or managerial course that prepares someone to have this talk with an employee. Ask about health conditions (maybe there’s something going on healthwise to cause the problem). Ask about access to bathing facilities (maybe the bathroom is being renovated, or the wife kicked him out and he’s living in his car). Explain about daily bathing, including use of soap, use of deodorant, necessity of wearing clean clothes, washing one’s clothes, etc.
In the case of this guy, he was an alcoholic, his ex-wife kicked him out, and he was living in his car. I got him into a rehab program, but it didn’t stick, he stopped coming to work, and ended up getting fired.
@R2A (#33)
Oh HotHead! “I’m not your fuckin’ spritz-head girlfriend, I’m HotHead Paisan!”
http://www.hotheadpaisan.com/shirts/Spritztart.jpg
@ hairball, #34:
ah, yes, the body odor issue…..welcome to the thorny world of workplace politics at my school. One of the other teacher’s assistants told her head teacher all of those things, and when she felt that there had been no change, started her that she stank. yes, in those words.
oddly enough, that person still has a job….
“started TELLING her”…oops! **smacks head and points to “preview” button!!**
Re: stinking up the place: when I had to go through chemo, I noticed an odd side effect – I stopped needing to use deodorant. (Well, that, or my sense of smell was knocked out. Whatever.) Anyway, a couple of months after I was finished with the regimen, I was cleaning my apartment. It was summer, and I was working up a sweat. Then:
*sniff*
*sniff sniff*
Hey!? HEY!! Was that funk coming offa me? It was! My body was beginning to return to normal! Woo-hoo! I turned to the cat. “I stink again! I stink again!” I yelled happily. This was said in the exact same manner as George Bailey on the bridge in It’s A Wonderful Life, at the end – “My – my LIP’S BLEEDING!! Well, whatdoya know about THAT!”
Thank God some moments happen only when we’re around beings who can’t talk about it later with their friends.
HOH – I’ve used the crystal deodorant from Whole Paycheck for years and it works just fine. I’m on a trip right now and somehow left it out of my travel kit (whoops) and after one day without it had Ginjoint’s experience. Whoa! Guess that stuff works, cuz when I don’t use it – Well whaddaya knowabout THAT, Mary!
In the meantime, I’m borrowing my friend’s drugstore pit stick, which smells like nasty chemical perfume, but makes me socially acceptable.
Sigh. I can’t wait to get home to Boulder.
I don’t post often, but for some reason thought, OMG, I need to tell these people this! And my second thought was that I need some of your wise words! I have landed my first full time academic job interview this Thursday. It is kinda like Ginger’s University in status, and it is pretty conservative compared to the University I work contract in, but…off I go to do a teaching demo on working with Queer youth. I have done anti-homophobia work for some time, but it is the actual interview and then the dinner I am losing sleep over.
I know some of you are academic track folk, and if you have any pearls of wisdom (or cautions!) I would love to hear from you.
Oh, and what made me think of this, too, was I am a pretty stinky teacher when I get worked up in lectures. I keep a stick of deo in the office and bring a change of shirt (akin to Mo, I own 5 of the exact same shirt, so it is pretty seamless)
Ah! Where is Syd when I need her?!
My Cajun aunt once grabbed all our attention at a large family reunion dinner bu declaring “I went to the doctor last month because with the change of life, I’d come into a terrible problem: I told him I was passing gas all the time. They didn’t make any noise, and they didn’t stink, but I was still mortified and begged him for help. He gave me some medicine and told me to come back in a week. Well, when I went back I told him whatever he’d given me had only made things worse. I was still tooting all the time, and they were still odorless, but now they were loud enough to rattle the windows.”
He said “Good, we’ve cleared up ypur hearing problem, now we’ll work on your sense of smell.”
Yup – I am sans pit crud (and I have hairy pits – woot!). Hmmm, could be my vegetarian diet. Could be that I use essential oils fairly regularly (yummy smell). Could be some underlying medical conditions that I have that may tamp down my smell. Could be I needs to get my sense ‘o smell checked??? Really, no one has ever commented…. (uh oh)
Love your story, Ginjoint. Reminds me of how you kept coming here during your chemo (and I remember when your breasts started feeling sexy again too!). I hope you’re doing great these days. Your spirit is bright as ever, love!
Different body chemistry, different levels and types of smells, probably, R2A…
I don’t sweat much at all, and I could probably get away with not using as much deodorant as I do…maybe I’m uptight? Maybe I’ve been drinking the North American societal cool-aid?? Who knows…
re #2 “Vermonters have absolutely no sense of style.”
Aren’t boots, jeans, and a ski jacket one kind of style? Maybe not a style that turns you on, but one that other’s might like.
Personally, I find the outdoorsy look sexy. I like wearing scarfs, sweaters, and fleece vests and I like the way many women look wearing them.
Make-up reminds me of chemicals and tortured rabbits.
I’d fit right into the Vermont schlumpy look – complete with wool, fleece, and comfortable shoes. Also sloppy sweatshirts. However, I live in this here high-fashion capital of the yoo-neee-verse sans makeup, but I sort of fit in because my wardrobe is mostly the universal New Yorker color (black).
I’m not kidding about the black. I used to play a game with travelling partners in airports: Spot the New Yorker. The baggage carousel at LAX or DFW is a great place to observe this. It’s the person dressed all in black, or a lot of black.
@ 46:
You should amend the game to “New Yorker or Musician?”…My closet is divided in two: concert blacks and everything else.
@ellen: I suppose vermonters have a “style” as in, a typical look. But stylish – not. If something is trendy in NY or Paris it takes about five years to reach here, in a watered down version. It’s fine as long as you stay in VT, but once you leave you realize you don’t have a clue what people in the outside world, i.e. Boston or NYC, are wearing. I’ve gotten used to it, and find it oddly comforting not to have to worry about what I wear. But if I wore my everyday look to NYC and walked into an art gallery and told them I run an art gallery they’d think I was a delusional. But here it’s fine. So…good. Makes my life easy. But I’m not going to give up grooming and makeup. To me, nothing is more alluring than a well groomed androgynous person of either sex wearing eyeliner and smelling of French perfume. In case you’re wondering, I’m obsessed with Magie Noir by Lancome.
@Brazenfemme: Good luck! The ideal is to do your teaching demo before the interview. That way they start the interview knowing that you can do something. If you can get it scheduled so that you are in front of a class the first time they see you, you won’t be starting from zero and having to figure out how to impress them without seeming desperate.
If you do have to do the interview first, treat it as you would a class- be prepared, be excited, and keep hoping that each person in the room with you will say something you hadn’t thought of. You sound like you’re already very well prepared. And if you’re having to change shirts several times a day, it certainly doesn’t sound like excitement is a problem for you. If you read this blog, it probably comes naturally to you to hope for people to say surprising things. So I’m sure you’ll do fine.
Brazenfemme: Good luck on your interview! Is it just one? When I interviewed for my first tenure track job, it was two whole days of interviews, starting with a 7 am breakfast with the department and ending with a 7 pm dinner with the Dean. Sheesh!
Luckily, I got the job, so here are some tips.
The Chronicle of Higher Ed has many articles in the archives with tips about interviewing for positions. I found them quite helpful. One example – dress as plainly as possible. I wore a navy skirt, jacket and shoes and a tan silk shell underneath. (Borrowed, gave them all back after I got the job and never wore them again.) This because an article in the Chron said, “They should remember you, but not your clothes.” (Oh wait, they’re remembering me naked?)
I also presented my work on queer youth (many years ago, when the field was new) to a conservative audience in the midwest (aren’t all tenure track jobs in the midwest?) My goal in the presentation was to find a point where all audience members could relate, so I wove in examples about how homophobia and heternormativity impact/harm all youth, and how social categories shape the lives of all kids and adults, reproduce social inequity, etc. Showing them the big picture (what’s the broader impact of this work?) will help them understand your work and, hopefully, get you the job.
Also, a certain amount of confident aloofness is helpful. Search committees can smell desperation a mile away. And there’s a lot of it out there in academic searches.
Last tips – Find out who’s on the search committee, google them and study up on their work. Have in mind the titles of some new courses you’d like to teach. Be able to tell them your future research agenda (even if it’s only an idea right now.) Don’t be afraid to say things like, “In the article I’m writing right now, I talk about…” They need to know you want to publish. And of course, you LOVE teaching! You love it! But you also really, really love research and service.
Mostly they want to see that you will make a smart, productive, fairly interesting, somewhat humble and not too troublesome colleague with whom they can while away 30 or 40 years while they wait to retire.
Final tip – If you have dinner with the Dean, don’t order spaghetti, no matter how good it looks.
Best of Luck!
[Completely off-topic, but in a strange bit of random thread-synchroncity that the web is prone to…]
HOH(30) writes:
Ashkenazi (plural Ashkenazim) refers to Jews of Eastern European origin. Unibrow is that dreaded hirsute condition shared by many Ashkenazim… the eyebrows start at one temple and end at the other, uninterrupted.
The other night I was reading a translation of The Acts of Paul and Thecla, one of the early non-canonical texts that didn’t make it into the NT. One thing that struck my attention was that in it one of the more famous “eastern jews” of antiquity Saul (i.e. later St Paul) is described as having a unibrow….
Re: dining with important people while interviewing or discussing something critical to your career: eat beforehand, order salad you can push around the plate. Sorry, even though it’s a free meal, allow your companion to enjoy the food so you can focus laser-like on the message you need to get across, rather than your own hunger/dining needs.
Good news are growing trees hijack more CO² than adult ones, so it’s possible to do good planting new trees somewhere else to compensate those which are gone. Trees too close to buildings aren’t a good thing too.
@10 / NLC & @AB:
My bet, NLC, is red maple / swamp maple, but sugar maple and moosewood (striped maple) are other possibilities.
What were they, AB?
@AB: Do you need more insulation under that roof? I was surprised to see so little snow on it.
@Kat(17): Phew. I was paranoid that I’d said something offensive! Still, just because you’re paranoid, etc, etc.
I always thought that the Ashkenazim were descended from the Jewish Avar kingdom in the Caucasus, but I have a feeling this is info from Wikipedia that got muddled in my brain and is probably horribly wrong. Fascinating stuff though. I’ve always wanted to have my DNA tested to see where my ancestors came from.
PS Can I just comment that I’m really enjoying the FBOFW strip at the moment. Especially where the blonde woman (is it Ellie?) has followed Mike the saxophonist to Montreal just to return his pipe. Of course, I’ve never done anything like that, ever …
No, the crystal deodorant does not work in terms of making one smell neutral. It keeps the stench down to the point of being, for some people but not me, tolerable.
If you don’t like the nasty store-bought stuff, just make your own deodorant. Here’s a recipe I got off the web one day–it does, in fact, work.
1. Put 1/4 cup each of baking soda and cornstarch (**If you have especially sensitive skin, increase the amount of cornstarch to 6T and decrease the baking soda to 2T) in a bowl with 10-20 drops tea tree oil or lavender oil.
2. This deodorant can be used as a powder, but if you want a stick, go to the shortening section of the store and buy some coconut oil, the solid-at-room-temperature stuff.
3. Stir 2+ TBSP in until it’s the consistency you like.
4. Smash into empty deodorant container. (Will be a bit sturdier once it sets a day or so.)
When applying this deodorant, use a lighter hand than you would with normal stick deodorant, especially the first couple of days or it’ll drop little balls on your bathroom floor. Used correctly, this stuff is invisible and lasts for ages, as it works with a very light layer. You should not be able to SEE it once applied.
Please do not use the crystal thing–it works well enough that polite people won’t say anything, and you will notice if you aren’t using it, but it will not stop you from being vile to individuals like myself with sensitive smell (yes, I am a good cook because of this–it’s a blessing and a curse).
Please do it–if not for yourself, then as a public service.
Ian/56
PS Can I just comment that I’m really enjoying the FBOFW strip at the moment. Especially where the blonde woman (is it Ellie?) has followed Mike the saxophonist to Montreal just to return his pipe. Of course, I’ve never done anything like that, ever
Hi Ian
The woman is Connie, Ellie’s neighbor, who is following Phil (Ellie’s brother) who plays trumpet, to Montreal. (BTW, Mike is Ellie’s son.) Not that I follow the strip or anything. 😉
isn’t it interesting how people feel free to stink up a room in public with their perfume, but if you mention that their stink is making you ill, then you are the one who’s committed the faux pas?
ever been in a public bathroom where someone was spraying hair spray? ever been on the subway when someone was doing their nails? all these things are socially acceptable, in a way that smelling like yourself just isn’t.
how many of us have ever been asked by a boss to tell the homeless person that he can’t use the library unless he deals with his stink, but the coworker who day after day assaults us with calvin klein feels she is having her personal freedom impinged on when you ask her to stop it? and then there’s the shampoo, fabric softener, hand lotion, and don’t get me started on plug ins, spray fresheners, lysol, and finally, yes aerosol antipersperant.
can i just say, these things aren’t good for you? and they definitely aren’t good for me.
Bean, yes, completely.
I’m very sensitive to smells, particularly artificial ones. While I may be on the “please use deordorant” train (I realize that this is social conditioning, btw), I actually find human smells much more tolerable than perfume, scented products, anything that gets sprayed, etc.
I don’t see why we need to smell like other things.
Oh, and a tip for those who get dry itchy winter skin–switch to unscented soap or “body wash” or whatever. The “fragrance” in the ingredients list usually (even in “natural” products) contains alcohol, and it dries out the skin. Add cold weather and you get one itchy human!
@HoH(30), @NLC (51) and @Ian (56)
I have, on the contrary, always thought that Ashkenazim were Jews from Western European descent. For what it is worth, Wikipedia is the first to support this idea:
“Ashkenazi Jews (…)are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany. Thus, Ashkenazim or Ashkenazi Jews are literally ‘German Jews’. (…)
Many Ashkenazi Jews later migrated, largely eastward, forming communities in non German-speaking areas, including Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere between the 11th and 19th centuries.”
Saul, to be sure, was not an Ashkenazi, unibrow or not.
I’m generally pro-deodorant, but rigidly anti-anti-perspirant. As others have noted, it matters what you eat. Omnivores, use deodorant, please. But how anti-perspirants ever became popular I’ll never understand. The liquid has to go someplace, after all…
@Ginjoint: Your remark about “tense chatter” on the last thread got me thinking. I wound up posting a little essay on my blog about why I sometimes envy Christ-y Christians who say “I will pray for you” when people confide in them. In case you’re curious about what you started, here’s the link:
http://losthunderlads.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/i-will-pray-for-you/
#56 – Take a look at today’s FOOB, then (as we have deemed it at The Comics Curmudgeon)…
The whole strip “redux-but not-quite-redux-but-sometimes-rewritten” is baffling to many of the commentators there.
@Fester Bestertester (58): Nice to know I got the details right then!
@Calico(63): I’ll have a look at today’s but my UK Yahoo GoComics.com web app thingy is being a bit temperamental today.
completely off topic, AB, i’m reading a book about psychoanalytic treatment of autistic children, and the author keeps citing dr. winnicott. every time she does, i automatically think of a cat!
#64 – You can also go directly to http://www.fbofw.com
Lots of goodies there!
Is AB’s cat’s name really Dr. Winnicott? Ok that settles it, my two feline fur babies are hereby banned from reading this blog. They’re sure to find me sadly lacking in the ‘naming cats creatively’ department. And they wouldn’t hesitate to let me know so.
Wow…bye bye Kindle?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/27/apple.tablet/index.html?hpt=T1
I’ma PC aficionado generally, but this looks awesome.
Only thing is, no e-mail. Hmmmm.
Calico — the video clip says you can get email on the new iPad. I think you might have to pay for it though — $130 a month for service through ATT ?
#70 – Ah, yes, the G3 connection- but I think I will stick to my PC at home and most likely purchase a MacBook sometime later this year.
Choices, choices!
But can you hook the iPad up to wireless internet connections?
I really like the look of this. It’s cheaper than a MacBook. I wonder when it will hit the shores of this sceptred isle?
I dislike Joyce Kilmer so much. His poems are shallow and trite.
Acilius, that was a beautiful and certainly thought-provoking post. I need to think more about your points about comfort and control in one’s own space vs. outdoors…alas, I can’t do it today; I’ve been in bed most of the day fighting a bad headache – and the effects of the drugs I took to treat the headache.
Quick points about other posts here: Liza, I too love makeup! For someone as washed-out as I, (washed-out as me? Screw it, I’m so tired) it’s a good thing. I know that rubs against many folks here, but I long ago gave up trying to please all the lesbians/left wing folks all the time. However, w/r/t Ellen’s post, I’ve been moving my cosmetics in the same direction as my cleaning supplies: making sure the label states it’s not tested on animals.
As to what bean brought up – I’m right behind you, especially since strong odors/perfumes can trigger a migraine for me. When I need to use a chemical product of some sort, I use unscented EVERYthing. I give every.damn.thing. a quick sniff test before purchasing, and lots gets rejected just because it’s over-perfumed. As to being the offensive one if you tell someone that their perfume is making you sick – aw hell, I’ve even had people go to give me a hug and I backed away, saying no thanks, you’re wearing perfume and it’ll end up all over me. I explain about the headaches. People have understood. So far. I got tired of being polite but in pain.
Last thing: haven’t heard back from the sergeant. Will leave another message tomorrow.
Back to bed.
Howard Zinn has died.
I’m now officially leery of praising any radical voice here, at least anyone who ever made mistakes along the way, but his writing really made a difference to me. Especially his point of view that the actual “facts” of history (a nearly nonsensical idea) was far secondary to historiography itself. As we’ve witnessed here.
Here’s a good first obituary from the Boston Globe.
Thanks for the kind words, Ginjoint.
Ginjoint: One thing to remember when using “not tested on animals” products is that all they’re doing is restricting themselves to old ingredients that someone else has already tested on animals. The same number of animals were used to develop that product as any other, just… less recently.
Damn, Mr. Zinn provided one of my favourite lines.
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people”
Seems kind of random to mention his death. Thanks for the heads-up anyway.
Anne @ 73, I respectfully disagree. Everybody thinks of Joyce Kilmer as the guy who wrote that poem about trees, but I remember him as one of the War Poets.
The fragile splendour of the level sea,
The moon’s serene and silver-veiled face,
Make of this vessel an enchanted place
Full of white mirth and golden sorcery.
Now, for a time, shall careless laughter be
Blended with song, to lend song sweeter grace,
And the old stars, in their unending race,
Shall heed and envy young humanity.
And yet to-night, a hundred leagues away,
These waters blush a strange and awful red.
Before the moon, a cloud obscenely grey
Rises from decks that crash with flying lead.
And these stars smile their immemorial way
On waves that shroud a thousand newly dead!
@Brazenfemme – good luck on the job interview! One piece of wise advice I’ve heard about the typical academic job interview process is to make sure you get some breaks built into your day. Otherwise, they won’t even give you time to pee, much less time to just chill and gather your wits about you. In case you haven’t seen it, check out this: http://www.socwomen.org/index.php?ss=26, specifically Volume 24: http://www.socwomen.org/about/heyjane24.pdf.
And to all of you – I know I’m mostly a lurker, but there is some way for me that so many of you are just so damn hot. I know, I’m nuts, but I just had to say it!
Have a lovely evening, all.
Howard Zinn! (((catches breath short))) Like Mary Daly’s death – I first learned about it here. Am very sad. He was a personal hero of sorts, and a wonderful part of the Boston activist community (not just an intellectual – an agitator!). “How we loved him back,” as James Carroll said in the obit. Thank you, Maggie. I’m sure AB felt some of his impact too (another agitator 😉 )
Look at Wilfred Owen. Siegfried Sassoon. Robert W. Service. Much better.
Concerning all the hype about the iPad yesterday.
My favorite comment was from NPR’s Laura Sydell concerning the name: “I doubt there were any women in the room when they came up with that one.”
@–MC: I like “Trees,” and think it is a shame that it has become so familiar that it’s hard to take seriously. But on Kilmer the war poet, I’m afraid I’m closer to Anne Lawrence. There’s just not much there that’s at all fresh.
@ 84
I saw a parody yesterday (can’t remember where) that said “for extra night-time protection, try the iPad with wings!” and had maxi-pad wings photoshopped onto the thing.
some good videos of howard zinn:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/522580/goodbye_howard_zinn
and, see also democracy now dot org.
More info on the IPad – now it’s looking to me like a really sleek Kindle:
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/64364
#59, Bean, I’m currently sharing an office with a gal who douses herself in enough heavy, cloying floral fragrance (Giorgio of Beverly Hills, maybe?) to scare a hungry dog off the back of a meat truck. Some days it precedes her actual arrival by approximately half a hallway. I’d rather not say anything, though, because otherwise we get along fairly well. My poor nose can only hope that someone else will bring it up.
On a totally different subject, I love my chainsaw. My bro-in-law picked it up in someone else’s trash and fixed it up for me — it runs like a dream. It’s good for cutting back overgrowth and frightening the neighbors.
@ Acilius, Andi, R2A, and meldyke
Thanks for your kind words and advice! On day two of the interviewing (yesterday was supposed to be having someone pick me up from the airport and drop me off at the hotel – turned into lunch with the chair, tour of campus, and dinner with a potential colleague). So I guess I can add my own advice -you are always performing, so always be prepared! As luck would have it, the campus newspaper had LBBTTIQQ issues on the cover, so the timing is right for my presentation! Anyway, today is the official big day. I’ll let you all know how it goes!
Heh, heh, I read an interviewing tip somewhere that if you sweat a lot to put panty liners under your armpits – maybe I need to upgrade to the IPad!
I’ll spot you Sassoon and Owen, sure, they’re the gold standard, but Robert Service?
Life-lasting has my battle been,
My enemy a fierce machine;
And I am marked by many a blow
In conflict with a tireless foe,
Till warped and bent beneath the beat
Of life’s unruth I own defeat.
Yet strip me bare and you will see
A worthy warrior I be;
Although no uniform I’ve worn,
By wounds of labour I am torn;
Leave the their ribbands and their stars…
Behold! I proudly prize my scars.
Of the war poets, don’t forget Rupert Brooke.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
1914 IV: The Dead
Never mind the poetry… when I think of Joyce Kilmer, the New Jersey Turnpike comes to mind:
http://www.state.nj.us/turnpike/nj-vcenter-kilmer.htm
It’s one of my regular pit stops when driving on the NJ Tpke, the other being the Molly Pitcher rest stop on the other side of the turnpike.
is joyce kilmer the batman who had nipples on his breastplate?
Bloomberg is reporting that JD Salinger has died:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aHoKf.IjRWf8
@Kat (#86)
The iPad… with wings:
http://thefrogman.me/post/356493275/someone-had-to-do-it
Me, I’m waiting for the iPon… forget the ringtones, I’d leave it in vibrate mode.
I wondered where Dr. Winnicott’s name came from! Now I see–good one!
My orange tabby Fox (he once was paired with Dana, as they were named for X-Files characters–not remotely as cool as the name Dr. Winnicott) is having an endoscopy as I write this, and we’re worried about the results. If Acilius or anyone else sends good thoughts, prayers, healing vibes toward Fox and his vet, I’d be thrilled to have spiritual forces on his side. I like your blog posting on this topic, Acilius.
Aw Cathy, lots of positive energy being sent to your little furball and the vet looking after him.
Thanks very much for your kind words, Cathy! And best wishes to Fox the Cat.
@ 95 / HoH:
The elegance of absence. The lacune filled by hope, by projection.
Will reading what Salinger’s literary executors release make us feel the same as does totting up BHO’s first-year-in-office accomplishments?
HOH 96
It’s not like Apple wasn’t warned. Here’s a MadTV skit from five years ago that’s making the rounds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L68aKVAzwQ4
Maggie #94: *snicker*
At Utne Reader online,The Secret Life of Birdfeeders: “The birdfeeder industrial complex is raking in cash, inviting controversy, and may be changing the genetic structure of bird populations.”
Seems everyone agrees that iPad is a lousy name for the new Apple gizmo. And they may have at least one trademark lawsuit on their hands. Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s take on it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704194504575031532455016738.html?mod=WSJ-hpp-LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
Quoting from the article:
—
Then there are the jokes bouncing around the Web about the name’s suggestion of a feminine-hygiene product. A headline in the Winnipeg Free Press reads: “The iPad Is a Really Bad Name. Period.”
[… snip …]
Sergio Zyman, a former chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola Co., says the name is “right on.” Apple has to “utilize the equity that they have created from the iPhone, iPod, iMac and iTouch,” he says.
Karl Heiselman, chief executive officer of Wolff Olins, a branding company owned by Omnicom Group Inc., puts it more bluntly. “The iPhone could have been called iCrap,” he says, “and people would have bought it.”
—
Perhaps Mr. Jobs could have shown a bit of wry humor and named the device iClaudius.
Scott Roeder’s trial for the murder of Dr. George Tiller has gotten scant to no attention in the national press, at least from what I’ve been reading.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the judge, Warren Wilbert, ruled today that the jury cannot consider a lesser charge of manslaughter. Hooray.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704878904575030970553181364.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond
Alex K, 100, “The lacunae filled by hope, by projection” — were you talking about Salinger, or Obama?
HoH, 104, the iRobot?
The Wall Street Journal reports that the most hotly-contested bidding war for film distribution rights at Sundance was over a film that features Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as lesbian mothers whose teenage daughter seeks out their sperm donor.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704878904575031062619927700.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
Quoting from the article:
—
The biggest bidding war of this year’s Sundance Film Festival focused on a movie about two kids with two mommies—and their sperm donor.
“The Kids Are All Right,” which stars Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as two mothers raising their teenage children in California, sold this week to Focus Features, part of Universal. Reports put the sale price at about $5 million. Focus wouldn’t comment.
In “Kids,” the eldest daughter of the two women contacts their sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo). His entrance into their lives enhances but also unravels their conventional family existence. Finding the humor in that narrative was central to making the film successful, says writer-director Lisa Cholodenko.
Several years ago, Ms. Cholodenko, and her producer, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, visited every studio in Hollywood with the film project—in vain. The studios didn’t believe the movie, with its lesbian couple, “would reach a wide audience,” he says.
So they raised the roughly $4 million to make the movie from individuals who contributed small equity amounts.
—
I suppose I should be happy this film got made, but the cynic in me is wary that this is a film that examines women’s lives in relation to a man’s life, one whose sole contribution to the family was a puddle of ejaculate. I’d much rather see a film that examines women in relation to one another. I wonder if this film will pass the Bechdel Test.
@104 & 106: I think the iPad Thai would do well. It would be available with tofu or chicken. Mmmmm.
I absolutely have to know. Am I the only person in this whole wide world who didn’t and doesn’t associate iPad with feminine hygiene pad?? The notepad’s been around for years and there’s no association there. So now I have to wonder. Either I’ve got zero lateral thinking skills or my sense of humor has gone on vacation because I don’t find any of the jokes about this funny either, or perhaps I can go the conspiracy theory way and think that someone at Microsoft started this whole thing and in a wild case of the emperor’s new clothes, all women are now saying “yeah we thought of that, we made that association instantly” I don’t believe it. LOL. Don’t jump down my throat if any of you actually did make the association. Simply put my comment down as reason No. 1 – i.e. no lateral thinking he he he I am as non-confrontational as I am possibly non-lateral thinking!
Bechadelic, it wasn’t the first association I made. I did find it funny, though…
I thought of pad of paper, at first. But now I’m enjoying the puns!
No pitifully small picket line,
no poorly attended meeting,
no tossing out of an idea
to an audience and even to an individual,
should be scorned as insignifiant.
The power of a bold idea uttered publicly
in defiance of dominant opinion
cannot be easily measured.
Those special people who speak out
in such a way as to shake up
not only the self-assurance of their enemies
but the complacency of their friends
are precious catalysts for change.
Howard Zinn
“But Judge Warren Wilbert…. …also pointed out that abortion was legal, and said there was no evidence that Dr. Tiller was in any way breaking the law in his practice.”
Does anyone remember the phrase that was written above lots of photos of Dr. Tiller at his memorial service? It was a phrase that Dr. Tiller said often:
“Trust Women”
The ipad’s too large for a pocket, too small for a backpack. I guess it’s fit for a handbag if you carry one. As far as function: it’s a large ipod touch, nothing else. It cannot replace your computer: the “system requirements” as per apple website include a “mac computer” or a “PC”.
#97 Cathy, your furry friend is in my thoughts and prayers. Here’s hoping for skill for his doctor, and a favorable outcome for the procedure.
From the New York Times: “It took jurors 37 minutes on Friday to convict Scott Roeder, an abortion opponent, of first-degree murder in the death of George R. Tiller…”
Let’s hear it for the common-sense people of Kansas, who understood you can’t go shoot somebody because your looney religion and ratio host tells you it will be in the name of g*d.
And let’s hear it, too, for the working class voters of Oregon who protected their elderly, their disabled and children by passing a tax increase (first one in decades) on those well-off, especially corporations. May it sweep the country.
The so-called independents who went for Obama in Massachusetts are the same voters who elected Scott Brown — and who Hopey-Changey was trying to woo back in his make no commitments SOTU speech. (As if the middle class is more than 10% of the population, as if who’s not drowning out here is the working class.) Action, not rhetoric, is what will get rational working folks’ attention, and this will become even more pronounced as the recent SCOTUS giveaway of our elections to corporations makes all campaign language unbelievable. Progressive populism formed alliances and made the difference in Oregon — funny how the talking heads aren’t even mentioning it, much less waawaaing on like they did about the centerfold boy.
Ditch Rahm, undo the secret deal to make HCR an HMO giveaway, stop the wars, fire Geithner, prosecute our war criminals, and pour money into domestic relief/reform, and Obama might have a chance at a second term. But that would force him into non-appeasatory action, and he doesn’t have the eggs for it.
Yippeeeee Yahooooo, just read about this on afterellen.com and yay! yay! and double yay! it has my favouritist everest talentedest cartoonist Alison Bechdel on the just released jacket cover:
http://twitpic.com/10b2t5
Many apologies for the massive murder of English adjectives 😀 and more apologies if it’s old news. I just learnt about it and had to celebrate!!
Bechadelic#117:
Thanks for the pointer.
That’s such a great picture of AB. (Tying it into the thread above, it is so much in the “Vermont Style.”)
@ 106 / Andrew B:
It’s an old literary story. Capote’s ANSWERED PRAYERS. Joe Gould’s ORAL HISTORY. The inspiration runs out.
Instead of being proved a failure when your next novel is not another CATCHER IN THE RYE, you sit in the shed at the bottom of your garden, tabulating your royalty cheques and writing not that novel but love-notes to teenage girls…
Supposedly a joint-stock company was floated in 1720, during the South Sea Bubble, with this as its prospectus: “A company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is”. Nixon’s secret plan to end the war in Vietnam won him a second term. Oh, the credulity. Oh, the shelvesful of Salingeriana that now at last will unblock the dried-up fountains of our souls, allow our spirits to flow again.
And then, after death, the unmasking.
Yes, I voted for Obama. Lois tried (again; cf. DTWOF 346) to convince me to vote for Nader. She was right.
Note pads, shoulder pads, abodes, extraneous filler, to traverse by foot, — I have many other associations with the word “pad” beyond and before menstrual pads. The whole “pad (giggle, giggle) thing” ? More dumbing down of America.
re #108 iPad Thai — now that’s funny…
re #117 I have no idea who any of those other women are on the book jacket with Alison. I guess I’ve dropped too far out of mainstream-ish culture. And yes, I also love her Vermont style.
Alex K, 119, To Kill a Mockingbird, if you want to count that as literature. And Rushdie has written some good stuff, but never anything to equal Midnight’s Children.
You probably will turn out to be right about Salinger, but why not wait and see? And even if he did write only one great short novel and some minor works, that’s still one more great novel than I’ll ever write.
Ellen, 120, I recognized the actor in the large picture. She was in “A Mighty Wind”, “Best in Show”, possibly one or two other of those movies. And she’s in an ad, I think for Wii, that I’ve seen recently. (Oh yeah, I keep track of the important stuff.) She’s very funny, and I’m embarrassed that I can’t remember her name.
It’s a good picture of Alison, Vermont style or otherwise.
The woman in the big picture plays the cheerleading coach on Glee, but I don’t know her name. No time to Google it…on my way to a Lesbian Potluck. Don’t know the other two.
(My spelling checker wants me to hyphenate “cheerleading” but that looks wrong so I didn’t.)
the actress is jane lynch and i love her. currently in glee on tv. i don’t know recognize of the others, though.
It’s Jane Lynch on the cover with Alison! She was interviewed late last year on Fresh Air with Terry Gross:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120086244
Great interview.
Feminist comedian Kate Clinton is in the upper right of the cover.
Wow — I’ve seen Kate perform many times but did not recognize her. Time is marching on for all of us.
MC — I just really, really like “The March of the Dead”:
————————————————-
The cruel war was over — oh, the triumph was so sweet!
We watched the troops returning, through our tears;
There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street,
And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers.
And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between;
The bells were pealing madly to the sky;
And everyone was shouting for the Soldiers of the Queen,
And the glory of an age was passing by.
And then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear;
The bells were silent, not an echo stirred.
The flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer;
We waited, and we never spoke a word.
The sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack
There came a voice that checked the heart with dread:
“Tear down, tear down your bunting now, and hang up sable black;
They are coming — it’s the Army of the Dead.”
They were coming, they were coming, gaunt and ghastly, sad and slow;
They were coming, all the crimson wrecks of pride;
With faces seared, and cheeks red smeared, and haunting eyes of woe,
And clotted holes the khaki couldn’t hide.
Oh, the clammy brow of anguish! the livid, foam-flecked lips!
The reeling ranks of ruin swept along!
The limb that trailed, the hand that failed, the bloody finger tips!
And oh, the dreary rhythm of their song!
“They left us on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn’t stop
On this, our England’s crowning festal day;
We’re the men of Magersfontein, we’re the men of Spion Kop,
Colenso — we’re the men who had to pay.
We’re the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain?
You owe us. Long and heavy is the score.
Then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer us for our pain,
And cheer us as ye never cheered before.”
The folks were white and stricken, and each tongue seemed weighted with lead;
Each heart was clutched in hollow hand of ice;
And every eye was staring at the horror of the dead,
The pity of the men who paid the price.
They were come, were come to mock us, in the first flush of our peace;
Through writhing lips their teeth were all agleam;
They were coming in their thousands — oh, would they never cease!
I closed my eyes, and then — it was a dream.
There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet gleaming street;
The town was mad; a man was like a boy.
A thousand flags were flaming where the sky and city meet;
A thousand bells were thundering the joy.
There was music, mirth and sunshine; but some eyes shone with regret;
And while we stun with cheers our homing braves,
O God, in Thy great mercy, let us nevermore forget
The graves they left behind, the bitter graves.
————————————————
Besides, I love Robert W. Service’s meter.
Ian– Rupert Brooke’s poetry is also the writer of “The Soldier” about the patch of dirt that is forever England because the noble warrior sacrificed himself. He also wrote a many, many, propagandist pro-war poems and it is for them that he is the most famous.
Anne — that works. Thanks for posting that.
It reminds me of a film I saw scenes from, Abel Gance’s “J’Accuse”. In the film, an inventor’s work is stolen by a munitions company, so he invokes dead soldiers to come back and reveal the true horror of war. He used maimed soldiers from the World War to play the returned dead.
Funny .. so many extreme artistic gestures which were supposed to remind us of the full horror of war and prevent another one from happening …
Also in a further tweet by Erin McHuge, she says: (And that jacket features actress Jane Lynch, comedian Kate Clinton, GMHC’s Marjorie Hill, and bestselling author Alison Bechdel)!
I don’t know anything about Vermont fashion, but I really love that photograph of Alison.
Profiles in Courage: Dr. Marjorie Hill
http://www.nbjc.org/news/profiles-in-courage-1.html
thank you, R2A.
Maybe it’s just a Boulder or college thing, but often when I see straight men and women together on a date around here, the women are wearing dressy clothes and have carefully tended hair, nails, and applied make-up. The guy looks like he’s just rolled out of bed — hair mussed, pants wrinkled, shirt untucked.
The message I take away is that for women to be “acceptable” they have to put a lot of time and money into their appearance. Guys do not.
This is why it disturbs me to read here subtle put-downs of Vermont women “lacking style” or looking frumpy. It’s a double-standard and an expectation that much more of our time and resources must go into our appearance.
@ Dr. E way back at #78: I know, there’s always loopholes available in order to be able to paste “not tested on animals” on a label, but I doubt totally “pure” products even exist. I’m doing the best I can, but suggestions are welcome. I didn’t mean to sound so sanctimonious.
@ Bechadelic at #109: I too did not associate that product name with a menstrual pad. It didn’t even occur to me. I thought of, you know, a pad of paper.
@ Ellen at #132: I’m old-school. I was raised that you keep yourself neat and clean not only out of respect for yourself, but for those around you. If someone showed up for a date with me looking like you described (the messy one), I would feel very disrespected. The date wouldn’t take place, that’s for sure.
#97 – I hope your kitty is feeling better.
My kitty had an endoscopy last Fall – he actually had distemper, but thanks to my awesome Vet and staff, he’s a brand new kitty!
Fact – if a cat is not eating, and said can handle it, Valium will jump-stert the appetite.
Weird but true.
>^^<
@Ellen(132): That’s the latest fashion (I think). It actually takes a lot of effort to get the “just rolled out of bed” look right. To get the mussed up hair requires a proper haircut by a stylist and 3 different types of “product” so I’m told.
Me, I’m just a scruffy bugger. I dress for comfort, not speed. Although I’ve recently discovered that with Cashmere, you can almost have both.
There’s a hair gel/mousse thingy for sale in QC called “Bed Head.” Funny.
@Calico (#136)
Bed Head? Since it’s for sale in QC, I’m assuming you have translated the name from French. What is it called en français?
(… goes back to her seasonal schlumpy look, Hat Hair …)
@Ian (#135)
I have some favorite cashmere sweaters that are oh so soft and comfy, it almost feels like I’m not dressed for work. But I have that unique talent for making a $150 cashmere sweater look like a $10 sweatshirt. :(.
If cashmere is too expensive for your budget, try some nice Italian merino wool sweaters. Very comfortable, not itchy, and they look professional enough to wear to work. I have a bunch of merino turtlenecks that work well alone or layered.
(… goes back to her favorite weekend attire – grubby sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers …)
Ipad Thai, still howling over that one.
Andrew B., Midnight’s Children yes, but I”m fond of the Moor’s Last sigh and would love to write a novel about my mother like that one.
And as for the Ipon, just you wait.
It does not matter what their hair or clothing looks like if they are a wonderful person. Judge those you love not by the scruffiness of their hair but by the content of their character.
I’ve had a song stuck in my head for almost 40 years. I just heard it again for the first time since before puberty. Does it ring a bell for anyone else?
Somebody left a package at my door last night.
It was a pretty one with ribbons wrapped up tight.
Well when I opened it, music filled the air.
It was the weirdest thing, and gave me quite a scare
When it went:
Bing Bang Bockety Bing Bang!
Bing Bang Bockety Bing Bang!
Bing Bang Bockety Bing Bang!
BONG!
i think that women spend more time, effort and money on their appearance than men do because in this sexist world, women are a commodity and our value is determined by how thin, sexy and able to produce children we are. is this news to anyone? we are still a world where Hooters restaurant is considered an acceptable business model, and pornography is “liberation,” although whose is a question that some century ought to be asked. what can “personal choice” possibly mean for women in a patriarchal world? not much.
i’ll be a post feminist in the post patriarchy. sex in the city may be fun to watch, but honestly, it’s important to know the difference between fantasy, tv, and reality.
You’re quite right, Ellen O., that there is a double standard in how men & women are expected to dress and present in mainstream society. Makes ya wonder why women who date men put up with it. The reason is conditioning. Which is to say: sexism, plain and simple. We are products of our conditioning.
One of my favorite things about winter in New England is seeing women in boots. I mean big hiking Timberlands kinds of boots. (Have we discussed this before?) Sexy.
As an aside, today I had a manicure. I rarely do that but have a good reason (OK – job interview). Anyhoo, the women in the salon were upset that I didn’t want them to “clean up” my eyebrows. !!! Painted nails, ok. Bushy eyebrows, ok. I’m good, thanks. 😉
I think someone mentioned this already, but the “just rolled out of bed” look that one sees on college-age guys actually (from what I’ve been told) takes almost as much effort as the super-primped looks their dates go for.
A friend once told me that her boyfriend would spend insane amounts of time in front of the mirror mushing all sorts of “product” into his hair (but would blow-dry first), choosing just the right over-sized shirt, slouchy jeans and color coordinated Nikes…..etc….the thing is, the guy always looked like, well, he rolled out of bed, so I wondered what the point was.
Incidentally, I dragged Boyfriend to two different parties this weekend. one was a b-day party for a coworker who’s basically a Barbie doll (tall, thin, blond, trendy, exceedingly well dressed, nice but doesn’t really have a profound thought in her head). Her husband is basically Ken (see all the attributes above), so it lines up conveniently. Everyone was super well dressed, and trendy, and there was trendy music and trendy furniture, and a couple of us kind of sat in the corner and talked about work amid all this shininess.
The other was this evening, and was a barbecue thrown by some good college friends of mine. We ate yummy meat and home baked desserts, sat on the floor and played cards and then Rock Band, and were silly as hell. No one was more dressed up than jeans or corduroys, and it was just fun and comfortable.
Boyfriend turned to me in the car on the way home this evening and said “I hate to be so judgmental, but the pretty people all had pretty friends. Do you think there’s some test to be [shiny coworker]’s friends?
I don’t think this relates to the “prettied up girls with schlubby boyfriends” meme….oops….
Art mimics Life. (Or the NYT mimics DTWOF.)
Masculinity in a Spray Can:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/fashion/31smell.html?hpw
Excerpts:
“More insecurity equals more product need, equals more opportunity for marketers,” said Kit Yarrow, a professor of psychology and marketing at Golden Gate University.
For “Gen Buy,” a new book she co-authored about marketing to tweens and teenagers, Ms. Yarrow held focus groups with boys. “The 10-year-olds are copying the 14-year-olds, trying to be cool,” she said. “Everything is moving down the spectrum. It’s getting younger and more pronounced.”
So boys are turning to hypermasculine guideposts like Instinct from Axe, Swagger by Old Spice and Magnetic Attraction Enhancing Body Wash by Dial with results that are poignant, comic, confused — and stinky.
[[snip]]
Lyn Mikel Brown, a psychologist at Colby College and an author of a new book, “Packaging Boyhood,” said the products gave boys the mere illusion of choice. In fact, she said, they often preach an extreme, singular definition of masculinity — at a time developmentally when boys are grappling uneasily with identity.
“These are just one of many products that cultivate anxiety in boys at younger and younger ages about what it means to man up,” Ms. Brown said, “to be the kind of boy they’re told girls will want and other boys will respect. They’re playing with the failure to be that kind of guy, to be heterosexual even.”
R2A, 145, a year or two ago I was in the soap aisle in the supermarket when I saw a prepubescent boy nag his mother to buy him brand name “body wash”. It was an eye opener as to how the marketers are reducing the difference in gender roles — not the same way I would.
I can’t comment for sure on whether young men work at the slob look. At least a few of them must have noticed that they can get the same look with or without working at it. So what would you do?
Dr E, 141, I have no idea. You may have set a record for randomness of comments on this already random blog, though.
Dr. Empirical – “Cling Clang” by Yvette Blais (pseudonym for Ray Ellis) and Jeff Michael (pseudonym for Norm Prescott)?
It seems Ray Ellis composed music for a lot of cartoon shows, which may be where you heard this song. There’s a wiki entry for him. I found one site that suggests this song was from a show called “Groovie Goolies” that aired September 19, 1970. The characters therein had a band – hence this song?
http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon/26008-Cling_Clang.html
I googled hard, but couldn’t find an audio clip before I had to stop and get ready for work. I hope this helps.
I should add – there was one link that, well, linked those lyrics with those composers. I couldn’t get it to open, however.
http://www.toastformorons.com/video-theme/clang.html
Oh, I wasn’t asking for help, I was just bringing up a random bit of nostalgia to see if I was the only victim of this particular brain virus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_wWht4Ctn4
I have literally had this song playing in the back of my head since 1970, but apparently it’s “Cling clang clockety” where I remembered “Bing bang boppity”.
I didn’t mean to put you to work, Ginjoint! Good detective work, though; I think Norm Prescott was a producer on the show, which was a spinoff of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch, itself a spinoff of Archie.
I also understand that they failed to syndicate the show in Britain because the Brits have their own meaning for “goolies.”
*slaps forehead after having spent fifteen minutes googling obscure songs*
🙂
@Dr E.(149): Oh yes indeedy, the Brits do have their own meaning for the word “goolies”! It’s a slang word for testicles, folks. So a show like “Groovie Goolies” would have been loved by kids in the 70s but it would have gone down like a lead balloon with parents et al.
@R2A (#145)
This excerpt just broke my heart and angered me at the same time:
—
Kristen Gilbert, an assistant principal at Waterville Junior High School, in Waterville, Me., who has impounded her share of spray cans, wrote in an e-mail message that when she asked a young student why he wore the product, he replied, “I have to have it, Ms. G., because I don’t have the money to dress the right way. This is all I can afford.”
The boy added that the body spray was his “best chance to get a girl.”
—
Marketers manipulating kids to make money is nothing new. Kids trying desperately to “fit in” with the “right” kids and “right” look. Also nothing new. But the combination of the two is a marketer’s synergistic dream, and a kid’s nightmare.
I’d love to see elementary and junior high schools give a course on marketing manipulation in their so-called “hygiene” classes, instead of handing out manufacturers samples.
(… goes back to her memories of the Modess samples handed out in 5th grade …)
I was Googling for some examples of the feminine hygiene product marketing that is endemic in school curricula, when I stumbled upon The Museum of Menstruation.
http://www.mum.org/
You can’t make this stuff up, the Internet really does have everything.
@Therry (#139)
“And as for the Ipon, just you wait.”
I have an iPod Nano 5G, not shaped at all like an iPon ought to be. It has an accelerometer built in, if you want to shuffle the music play order, just shake the iPod. This has me thinking about the iPon and uses for the accelerometer… hmmm.
Nerdy types such as myself could graph orgasmic intensity. Perhaps one could use the accelerometer to control the ambient lighting and music (I’m assuming there will be some kind of wireless network on an iPon… wires, like strings, are oh so old-school Tampax). And I’m sure some practical joker will rig an iPon to do something unexpected on April Fool’s Day.
(… goes back to thinking about how to interface an iPon with X-10 control systems …)
HoH @ #143, no kiddin’. Here’s the page on “Growing Up And Liking It”:
http://www.mum.org/GULIcov.htm
#137 HOH – It is written in English – most if not all products have both English and French on the label here, and sometimes, depending on country of origin of product, the labels also have Spanish and German.
I guess the translation would be “Téte a Lit.”
(See Wiki entry indicating there may be false product here, but who knows?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_Head
@hoh #151 We did learn about marketing manipulation in my 8th grade health class!!! I have never looked at advertisements the same way again. We learned about the bandwagon technique, nostalgia, fear. All kinds of stuff. I’m very grateful about that. It was very eye-opening.
Awesome, CCC. (May I ask, out of curiosity, what year you were born?)
1989 🙂
Hmm… That yellow smiley face looks very smug. That’s not the expression I was aiming for!
There was a short segment on marketing in my Home Ec. class in 8th grade, but it wasn’t very effective. In 10th grade I took an elective course on propaganda, which I still apply every time I watch the news or read a blog.
@Andrew B #146: “I can’t comment for sure on whether young men work at the slob look. At least a few of them must have noticed that they can get the same look with or without working at it. So what would you do?”
Ah, but you’re missing the game. It may look the same to you, or to me, or to others who are not in the know about these things. But if you’re a fashionable person, The Bed Head Look is worlds away from the bed head look. When Kat’s friend mentioned in #144 that the “pretty people” test their friends, he was right. Not only do they have to look like the others, they have to see like the others as well.
@R2A (#143)
Good luck on the job interview. Another hideously sexist reality – women’s dress clothes. Few or no pockets, poorly-constructed, lesser-quality materials, and overpriced as compared to typical men’s clothing. Oh, and while men usually get free alterations when they buy a suit, women never do.
Then there’s the drycleaning sexist reality. Women’s clothes cost more to dryclean or launder than equivalent men’s clothes.
Years ago, the drycleaner told me it was because women’s clothes have more frills and require more hand pressing. When I pointed out that my wool gabardine dress slacks had no frills to speak of, he relented and charged me the men’s rate. When I bitched about the price on my very plain starched and pressed button-down shirts, I was told that because they were small, they had to be done by hand, not machine. I questioned whether he looked at the sizes of the men’s shirts and charged accordingly. He dropped the price for me, but he let me know it was not because he had done anything wrong, but because I was a good customer. Yeah right.
I’ve been out of the corporate drag dress-up routine for a bunch of years, so I don’t have all those drycleaning bills these days. That is likely soon to change, rumor has it that we’re about to be re-orged again and I will soon be in another jobhunt beauty contest. Jeez, I haven’t even been in this job six months, I was hoping to last at least a year before having to do this all over again. And I really don’t want to manage a staff again full-time, or deal with budget lines and office politics. :(.
Acilius, I’m sure you and Kat are right about the pretty people. I was thinking back to Ellen’s original comment, 132. I think she’s right that the double standard persists. This kind of thing is never absolutely black and white. But on average, men still have leeway about their looks that women lack.
Another place where this shows up is in baggy men’s clothing and tight clothing for women. It’s easy to hide a gut under one of those baggy sweat shirts. Not so with the clothing that’s fashionable for women, especially young women, these days.
Andrew B, there’s absolutely a double standard.
I do find it humorous, though, that the guys who look like they’ve just rolled out of bed often spend surprising amounts of time getting the look just right….
Hairball, not to sound like an advert, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the Gap’s trousers lately. I know that many have issues with the Gap due to sweatshop questions, but lately their women’s pants have actually had the quality and detail not previously found…..lining, buttonhole and waistband reinforcements…
I just had to take pretty much all of our dressy clothes to the drycleaner last week (we found mildew in the closet….ew!!), and I have to say, Boyfriend’s suits were the most expensive.
Maybe it’s a business by business inequity?
I’m so glad that my early teen years were during the height of “Grunge”s popularity. Spending time on one’s “look” meant raiding dad’s closet for old flannel shirts and going to Salvation Army for old jeans…
Women’s clothes cost more to dryclean/launder because women have more ostentatious clothes. Society has decided that women must be pretty, delicate things that are made to be looked at and not functional. Conspicuous consumption is the core of female attire. It is also for this reason that women wear heels — if you wear heels, you must not need to actually move around much or do any physical labour whatsoever.
Women are sunflowers, men are wallflowers, or some such.
“But on average, men still have leeway about their looks that women lack.” Wow, Andrew, ya think?!
Anyone read the book many years ago called “Women Pay More?” (and what you can do about it). All about haircuts, dry-cleaning, buying cars, etc. etc. Do men pay more for ANYTHING, I wonder?
I can’t remember the fabulously funny lesbian comic of a few years ago who did a routine about women’s clothes having no pockets. It was at the annual Sojourners Feminist Comedy event in Boston. I was crying in laughter. She was a hoot. She nailed it. (“They took our pockets!!!” or some such.)
In case you missed this in the NYT: (Timmmmber!) (that’s the sound of an unjust policy being cut down – smile)
Forces push Obama to Act on Gays in the Military
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/us/politics/01military.html?hp
R2A, I’ll look for that book. Sounds interesting.
I’m trying to think of something that men pay more for……drawing a blank!!
In the late 1970s, I worked after school at a dry-cleaning shop. I was told that we charged more for cleaning women’s clothing (not just dry cleaning, but shirt laundering, too) because much of the “hardware” used to clean and press clothing was designed for menswear, so cleaning women’s clothing required more hands-on work by human beings. We didn’t do any of the actual cleaning in my shop–clothes were bagged and driven to a facility a few miles away, then returned to us on hangers–so I could not verify this first hand, and I had doubts about whether items such as trousers really did require different handling depending on who wore them. As the percentage of women in white-collar jobs has grown, and so much time has passed, I’m even more skeptical about what I was told. Are the higher prices persisting simply because women don’t challenge them?
Also, I’m touched and grateful for the comments and well wishes for my kitty Fox. We await biopsy results this week. He’s home now contributing to science by taking Cerenia to control nausea (this drug is not yet generally given to cats, so he’s part of a trial). Cerenia is working well for him, but is only effective for about five days, so I wonder how he’ll do when that period ends.
Kat @ 169: Drinks. In the college town where I live “ladies night” is a popular promotion at the bars near campus. “Ladies” get in free and get free drinks, while guys pay a cover and pay for their beer. Apparently, “ladies” are far less likely to be carded than guys, as well. Also apparent: attracting large numbers of underage women and encouraging them to drink a lot is a good way to get (straight) men to come to your bar.
I think women “pay” for “free drinks”, a very high cost indeed. Just not in coin.
Remember that quaint custom fine restaurants used to have, where the men’s menus would show the price of the entrees and such, but the women’s wouldn’t?
@R2A (#167)
The book was “Why Women Pay More” by Ralph Nader.
Medusa has it used in paperback (it was published in 1993):
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Women-Pay-More-Marketplace/dp/0936758341
Not much has changed since Nader’s book was published in 1993. Check out this article on how women pay more for nearly every consumer good and service (and the really BS reasons corporate entities give as justifications):
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/ConsumerActionGuide/dunleavey-why-it-costs-more-to-be-a-woman.aspx
Quoting from the article:
—
The January issue of Consumer Reports just came in the mail, and what I found on Page 8 shocked me. There were two bottles of Nivea body wash: one for men priced at $5.49 and one for women costing $7.49.
Why the 2-buck difference? Nivea’s reason, according to Consumer Reports senior editor Tod Marks, is that the women’s product is made with “skin-sensation technology,” which makes it more expensive.
I tried to imagine a bigger load of bunk. I failed.
Consumer Reports compared six products that come in his-and-hers versions (or a neutral edition and a feminine one): shaving cream, antiperspirant, pain reliever, eye cream, body wash and razors. The magazine found that products aimed specifically at women can cost more than 50% extra.
—
@Fester (#101)
That MadTV skit is a hoot.
“But what if my computer has a virus?”
“Don’t worry. Each iPad comes pre-installed with vaginal firewall protection.”
And the tag line…
“The new Apple iPad. Please don’t make us explain how it works.”
I’m laughing so hard my ribs hurt.
Advertising is not often the pepetrator of standards of self-worth. Advertising usually leverages on existing lack of self-worth and promotes products and services as a solution to such feelings. While this is not a nice thing to do, the real root of the problem lies in reasons for such lack of self-worth in women, in the first place.
Removing trees is never easy. For better or worse, we are creators of the landscape; if we were to let nature take its course, my yard would be full of scruffy elms and dandelions.
Getting back to the clothing theme: I’m currently reading _Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride_. It’s about a Jewish immigrant who decided to ride her bike around the world in 1894. One of the chapters takes a look at how bicycle riding helped to change what women wore. Annie started out in the whole Victorian get-up (imagine riding in those long skirts, petticoats, shirtwaist and jacket!) but after some time, went from bloomers to outright men’s clothing. Many people were shocked, but as Annie put it, “I have grown accustomed to this costume and do not now mind the stare of people.”
Of course, many thought that riding a bike would be far too taxing for the delicate sex. There was also concern about sexual stimulation; some seats even had a cut-away to avoid this. Ironically, this would have made the bike more comfortable to ride; high-performance women’s seats now have this feature for just that reason!
I like stories like this to show how far we truly have come. They are inspiring, reminding me that progress does come about, through the actions of the few and the many.
@ 171/172
yeah, the expectation is that you get in without paying, but you have to play the game (of subjecting yourself at the very least to being hit on, and probably groping, pressured into various things…..).
Definitely not “free.”
Can I just say how much I feel the no pockets thing? I will probably never be able to afford a mortgage, but I saved up a shitload of moneny (by my standards) in the last five years. I’m thinking of actually having a suit made – “men’s” detailing (i.e. no ruffles or pleats!!!) but actually fit for hips, and with all of the pockets deep enough and placed so they will not dump my change on the sofa when I sit down.
Nope – it’s this one: Women Pay More (and How to Put a Stop to It), by Frances Cerra Whittelsey
from Medusa here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565842243/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=
oh wait, Nader did the Introduction. Maybe it’s the same book, or a predecessor.
@Ready2Agitiate (167) That was the fabulous Marga Gomez
@Geogeek, 180:
That’s a brilliant idea. My cousin has lost multiple cellphones due to the too-shallow pockets phenomenon. They’ve fallen into the great abyss known as The Toilet!!
The too-shallow-pockets phenomenon is responsible for the disappearance into the void of my beautiful maroon Fisher Space Pen……
#177 – There is an interesting program on CBC Radio one called “The age of persuation.”
It’s an ongoing discussion about the advertising world, pitch-people, etc. and the psychology of advertising and selling products.
Off topic (aren’t I always??):
The crazy f*ckers at the Westboro Baptist Church were in San Francisco the other day, protesting in various locations….I always wonder why they bother coming to SF, whev, if they feel the need to tell the people who work at Twitter that God! Hates! Everything! then the least SF can do in return is….well, hold up signs too:
http://laughingsquid.com/san-franciscos-answer-to-westboro-baptist-church/
http://laughingsquid.com/god-hates-twitter-westboro-baptist-church-plans-protest-at-twitter-headquarters/
(I like the sign that says “I have a sign” best of all)
This site posted their protest schedule, and one person in the comments mentioned that Friday was Critical Mass day. Meaning that during commute time, anywhere downtown would be swarmed with angry cyclists! That must have been fun…..I wish there were photos of that!
(I have very mixed feelings about critical mass. I bike a fair amount, and want biking to be more common and safer and all that….I just don’t appreciate getting almost mowed down on the sidewalk and cursed out by critical mass folks WHEN I’M A FRIGGIN’ PEDESTRIAN!!!!)
Continuing in the “Vermont Style” discussion:
“Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow! Only six more weeks of winter!”
#171 RE: Ladies’ Nights at Bars…
Sometimes the “Ladies’ Night” idea backfires for the bars…I remember a certain pool hall in Texas that once advertised “On Wednesday~free pool games and $1 beer for the ladies.”
It was packed with lesbians every Wednesday night.
The guys soon figured we weren’t interested and quit showing up on Wednesdays. Ladies night ended about 6 months later, but we had a blast!
@freyakat (#185)
The “too shallow/too small pockets phenomenom” is exactly why I have used Fisher bullet Space Pens for over two decades. It’s the only pen that will actually fit in pockets of women’s dress clothes, and it’s nicely rounded so it won’t rip them. I’ve lost a few, including a more conventionally-shaped Space Pen that fell out of my checkbook in a doctor’s office last year, and a few AG7s when I broke the clips. Love my Space Pens.
@R2A (#182)
I think the Nader book I referenced was a predecessor or earlier version. The author you mentioned, Frances Cerra Whittelsey, was quoted in the moneycentral article.
Kat, those signs were a million kinds of awesome! Thanks so much for those links – I needed a good laugh today. I just can’t decide which is my favorite…oh, why can’t the Westboro nuts come to Chicago so I can see and snark-bomb them? Meantime, here’s another sign you might like:
http://boingboing.net/2009/11/30/gay-bashing-woman-hu.html
@Kat 187: I love “Build Prisons on the Moon!”
Some neuron or another twitched interestingly last week — about THE LITTLE STRANGER. To see if I had remembered something, or actually had a novel comment to contribute, I went back to this blog’s discussion files — and indeed this apercu may be new.
The last bit of the book, in which Dr Faraday uses his key now and again to gain access to Hundreds, setting out pails, sweeping up dirt, passing by himself from room to room… oh my, that reminds me of end of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. A quotation: “Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within…silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
Waters will know Jackson’s work. I suspect an hommage, or a femmage.
Alex K, was that a spoiler??? I sure hope not….
Ginjoint, that’s great! I had heard of that counter-signage, but hadn’t seen the pics.
Marga Gomez! She’s hilarious! Thanks, M! (I’ll never forget her “no pockets” skit – I was crying with laughter.)
Seems she’s next performing on 2/10 at Cafe Du Nord in SF.
http://margagomez.wordpress.com/about/
Awesome smiling from the first link, Kat. “G-d hates kittens” and “I’m bored” too much!
Kat, thanks for anti-wacko link. And R2A, I’d never heard of Marga. I wonder if she ever ventures to the Miniapple….I see that she is gap-toothed–anybody remember the Les Blank film about gap-toothed women?
Glad I could make people laugh…
Marga Gomez sounds awesome. Sadly, though, I HATE Cafe du Nord, and don’t really ever want to go back.
@Hairball (#190) Sometimes even the bullet ones fall out of pockets, I guess (RIP Maroon Lacquered Bullet Space Pen…).
What was sad but the fault of nobody was the loss of the rainbow bullet Space Pen that was in the pocket of a pair of Flax pants that, unbeknownst to me, had developed a hole…..
Continuing (hopefully) to amuse you all. Tenured Radical has a funny iPad satire:
http://tenured-radical.blogspot.com/2010/01/open-letter-to-steve-jobs-about-ipad.html
(read the last comment, btw)
@freyakat (#199)
I had a very nice royal blue lacquered bullet Space Pen (with gold band); it lost its lacquer over time (scratched from loose change and keys in my pocket), and eventually I lost it. I’ve been sticking to the chrome bullet Space Pens for a while; the one I’m using now has a good deal of chrome worn off (the brass underneath is visible), but it doesn’t look as bad as the scratched-up lacquered one did. I saw that pretty rainbow bullet pen (perhaps it was at FPH Stationery, aka Fountain Pen Hospital), but passed on it after my experience with the blue one.
If you’re wondering what all the hoopla is about re: Fisher Space Pens, check out their website:
http://www.spacepen.com/
Over the years, they’ve made other models (including the now-discontinued slimmer version of the AG7 that I lost from my checkbook) and some limited editions.
Great stuff for those of us who are pen fetishists. ;).
#196: Si,Marga es una comica excelente. Saw her in Portland ca.1998. Don’t think she’s been back since; I think it’s time. (Marga,are you listening?)
Some impt comments from Robert Reich on the state of our (failing) democracy (I found it a worthwhile read):
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=what_happened_to_democracy
Hey Judybusy – yep – I saw “Gap-toothed Women” – it was great! 🙂
holy inkblots, women – them some expensive pens! (now I see why all the chagrin over pens lost!) So… what’s so great about these pens that one would spend so much on them? Good qual ink? Good flow? No discomfort? Good texture? Nice feel? (hey – stop those minds from wandering, y’all!)
@R2A (#205)
Those are list prices, you can get Space Pens for a bit less if you look. Most decent stationery shops sell them, and even Medusa carries them. The chrome bullet usually runs about $25. The AG7 used to cost about the same, lately it has gotten stupidly overpriced because of retro astronaut nostalgia, but it’s still a great everyday pen (although the clip is prone to breakage if you clip onto a jeans back pocket. I used the AG7 for many years until I switched to the bullet style.
It’s a writing implement thing. If you’ve got the jones for fancy pens, you gotta have what feels good. It’s all about balance, how the pen fits in one’s hand, and how smoothly the pen flows over paper. And of course, if one is an artist, there’s the whole Rapidograph collection that is de rigueur.
Space Pens aren’t particularly expensive in the realm of writing implements, BTW. My old beloved Mont Blanc fountain pen seemingly cost a fortune 30 years ago. Alas, I broke it, and the FPH couldn’t fix it, Koh-I-Noor would only replace the whole nib with the new style, after I’d spent a decade getting the gold worn to exactly the slant of my hand, so I declined the repair.
I don’t write much with a fountain pen these days, and my handwriting has REALLY deteriorated from all the ballpoint scribbling I do. I have a couple of really nice Waterman fountain pens that sit nicely in my hand, and once a decade or so I pull out the small Waterman that was my mother’s everyday fountain pen, fill it with ink, and write a little bit to feel the long-lost connection to her.
@R2A
Check out Fountain Pen Hospital:
http://www.fountainpenhospital.com/
I used to work in that neighborhood and regularly spent lots of time (and $$) at FPH.
I’ve never been able to hang onto a pen long enough to run out of ink. I can’t imagine spending money on a pen.
In grad school, I discovered that I could revive frozen ballpoints by putting them in the centrifuge.
@HOH(202): Maybe it’s my extremely filthy mind, but I’m afraid that those bullet Space Pens just look like “discreet” vibrators, of the type that accidentally fall out of handbags at the most embarassing moments.
I too am a pen fetishist….of epic proportions. Fountain pens are the only way to go for me (except, sadly, for checkbook use), and Hairball and I could probably have a competition to see who has spent more on pen-related things.
@Dr E (#208)
That’s why they make disposable pens, and $3 umbrellas. There is a subset of the human race that regularly loses those sorts of things, and thus shouldn’t spend gobs of money on them. Then there are the folks who can hang onto a good pen and a good umbrella, and manufacturers who make high-quality versions of these items to suit the audience.
@Ian (#209)
It would have to be a mighty small anatomical configuration to get much pleasure from such alternate uses for the bullet Space Pen (although it is about the size of one of my fingers).
I’ve had an inexpensive Parker fountain pen since 1995–I think it was less than $10. It flows well, no blotching or streaking. I use it exclusively for my journals and writing cards. If I live up to my New Year’s resolution of writing actual letters to people, I’ll use it for that!
I think I’m one of those people who doesn’t lose stuff. I’ve dropped/forgotten my wallet on about half dozen occasions, but always get it back. I also have an umbrella from, oh, about 1996. It’s a large black one not easily misplaced.
I don’t lose things, I break them! I’m constitutionally incapable of keeping a pen out of my mouth, so it’s only a matter of time before it’s crushed and frayed.
I keep a can of “guest pens” at the far corner of my desk, out of arms reach, so visitors to my office can grab a pen without fear of contamination.
the thing about pens and umbrellas too is that they travel through time and space via the magical sock-eating dryer and come out on the other end. the universe is in perfect balance that way to insure that you lose exactly as many pens/umbrellas as you find. it’s a good system for those of us who have trouble holding on to those things. the same principles could also provide a good transportation model (although it might require a larger dryer). if there were only enough bicycles lying around that people didn’t feel the need to steal them all the time, we could all just use one whenever we needed it, and then leave it behind when we were done for the next person. enough of this sort of behavior, and we could bring capitalism to its knees.
Off-topic (or more properly, segueing back to a much earlier topic)…
Interesting article from the BBC about why people vote against their own self-interests:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8474611.stm
Quoting from the article:
—
Last year, in a series of “town-hall meetings” across the country, Americans got the chance to debate President Obama’s proposed healthcare reforms.
What happened was an explosion of rage and barely suppressed violence.
Polling evidence suggests that the numbers who think the reforms go too far are nearly matched by those who think they do not go far enough.
But it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform – the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state – are often the ones it seems designed to help.
In Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no cover at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%.
[… snip …]
If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them.
They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best.
There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots.
As the saying goes, in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing. And that makes anything as complex or as messy as healthcare reform a very hard sell.
[… snip …]
Thomas Frank, the author of the best-selling book What’s The Matter with Kansas, is an even more exasperated Democrat and he goes further than Mr Westen.
He believes that the voters’ preference for emotional engagement over reasonable argument has allowed the Republican Party to blind them to their own real interests.
The Republicans have learnt how to stoke up resentment against the patronising liberal elite, all those do-gooders who assume they know what poor people ought to be thinking.
Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America’s poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.
Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:
“You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining.
“It’s like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy.”
—
Also in a segue from a long-ago topic, is the current state of St. Vincent’s Hospital in NYC. Edna St. Vincent Millay was named for the hospital.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/nyregion/03vincents.html
I *hate* their emergency room, but it’s better than *NO* emergency room in this part of Manhattan.
Quoting from the article:
—
In an indication of how St. Vincent’s reputation had fallen in the neighborhood, during a fierce debate over whether to demolish a low-rise Modernist building to make way for the new hospital, the actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins suggested that St. Vincent’s no longer served the neighborhood well.
“I would not want to bring my children there,” Ms. Sarandon declared at a landmarks preservation hearing.
At the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, St. Vincent’s ministered to those affected, and was bursting at the seams. But by the 1990s, drugs and public awareness helped bring AIDS under control, and the Village’s wealthy newcomers were choosing other hospitals.
[… snip …]
In short, many of the patients who frequent St. Vincent’s are part of the old Village rather than the new Village, as was clear from a tour of the emergency room last week. It was electric with activity, every bed filled. Many of the patients were elderly, from Chinatown, or grizzled remnants of the Village’s old working class. Nuns from Mother Theresa’s order hovered about.
The room, like other parts of the hospital, had a homey feeling, more like a place television’s kindly Dr. Marcus Welby would have taken his patients rather than the overly caffeinated environment of “House.”
—
What drugs is this author taking? I want some. Homey? Try decrepit. Marcus Welby would never have taken his patients somewhere that puts triaged feverish patients in respiratory distress sitting for hours next to immune-compromised HIV+ patients, waiting to be seen by overworked residents.
Nice to know I’m a “grizzled remnant.” Foo.
(… goes back to looking at her grizzled locks in the mirror …)
Another bit of marketing manipulation explained, the bogus price anchor…
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aDSKBvYrZAaA
Quoting from the article:
—
If you have money to burn, three gentlemen can help.
Chef Daniel Boulud will serve you a $150 hamburger. Ralph Lauren is offering alligator bags for $16,995 apiece. And what about Damien Hirst’s platinum skull encrusted with diamonds? The original asking price was 50 million pounds, or about $100 million at the time.
Just one warning: Those prices are decoys. Each is designed to make everything around it look more affordable, writes William Poundstone in “Priceless,” an entertaining look at how companies, restaurants and even artists exploit psychology to extract more cash from the rest of us.
The trick is simple. Once you’ve seen a $150 burger on the menu, $50 sounds reasonable for a steak. At Ralph Lauren, that $16,995 bag makes a $98 T-shirt look cheap.
This mental process has a name. It’s called “anchoring and adjustment,” a term introduced by a famous team of Israeli American psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. An initial value becomes a benchmark, “a starting point for estimating an unknown quantity,” says Poundstone, a prolific author of fun books that explore the intersection of academic research and real life.
Anchoring appears to be built into our cerebral software, he writes. In experiment after experiment, humans try to resist anchors and fail. They can’t do it, “any more than someone can obey the instruction not to think of an elephant,” he says.
—
That’s also why the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) exists. Retailers can appear to be giving you a bargain when they sell goods for less than the MSRP, when in reality, the items never sell for MSRP.
I’ve read Poundstone’s “Fortune’s Formula,” about the math gurus behind Wall Street financial wizardry and blackjack counting, it was a good read. I expect this one to be equally entertaining.
@h_o_h #215: You quote Auntie as saying:
“If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them.
“They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best.
“There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots.”
I wonder if such a sizeable percentage of working class Americans would continue to oppose the Democrats if the Democrats would actually propose reforms that would substantially brighten the outlook for US wage-earners. As it is, the Democrats seem stuck with a formula that always generates the maximum degree of condescension in support of policies that offer the minimum degree of social progress.
i love your mind and eloquence, HoH. always sumfin’ new…
@h_o_h: What Maggie said! You’re one of my favorite bloggers, even if you do disguise your blog as a series of comments here.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I am so sad a tree died for …HDTV?!?
If it was a maple- it is a flash in the pan for firewood, but better than nothing- I like to use it for cooking, but I prefer the hardwoods for heat-
BTW…What was Toni & Clarice’s reaction when Raffi told them he was joining the Marines?
Did Janice get involved with that str8 co-worker at Boo-Boo Burger?
Did Stella register at the community college?
What does Mo think of Obama now?
Har! 🙂
In response to #169 about the possible repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, I wish to know whether anyone here has read “Conduct Unbecoming”, by Randy Shilts, about homosexuality in the military and published shortly after the legislation was ratified. Also shortly before Mr. Shilts’ death of KS and other opportunistic infections.
People are suckers. Haven’t any of you seen HOUSE OF GAMES?
Boy, take your eye off this blog long enough to go turn over the bacon and what happens? Raffi joins the Marines!
I do not think he discussed it with Toni, or Clarice- just went & did it- & sent the Moms a quick blurb from his Razzberry, at bootcamp-