Don't Mind Me. It's Just a Fad.
GryffnStryff
AG? Is this another who went beyond the rim? Graumach? Edvamp?
Have I become again so solitary that I again turn to the energy of
humor in this group to find substance in life? I seem to feel like
someone in the depths of Z'ha'dum.
Is it the youth of this and other cultures that keeps everyone alive?
Or are these just fads that disappear as we succumb to the consumption
of life's jaws around us?
I guess we just simply are, for a while anyway. Then, we find new
things to do, some of us. Others, more fortunate, found that earlier
on and keep doing it until their time is up.
Life. Survival. It's just a fad. Don't mind me. I'll be dead
sooner or later. *OMD's "Forever Live and Die" plays in the
background as I step off a table and fall, stapling my hand to my
forehead before getting whipped back up by a rope hung from the
ceiling fan that stretches taught and clicks on the fan, spinning me
around the room, making dogs bark incessantly until I can reach the
switch and turn it off*
whew. That was close. Next time I'll tie the shadow-casting dummy on
there first as my special burglar deterrent instead of leaving the TV
on playing, "Horror Movies' Best Screams".
Sorry if that was disturbing. I thought it was kind of funny myself.
As for all the other trolls, I suppose they provide some entertainment
in a sad example of the continued decline of western civilization.
Does anyone get the feeling that humanity is being fine-tuned toward a
hive-like entity where 20ish yr-olds provide the impetus for progress
while everyone older follows and tries to capitalize on the trends?
Thus using the same formula over and over again until it's a dead
machine for what humanity stands for?
Oh I'm sure I have it the wrong way around. It's not age-based, but
rather, technologically based progress which seems to enable global
social development. Are we going to find ourselves in a singularity
where utopia comes into existence just before we create the metasystem
transition like parents giving birth to new life before living out our
own and expiring with the obsolescence of our usefulness?
It seems like there are some basic themes in life.
1. Boy meets girl (or boy, etc.).
2. Children.
3. Technology changes life.
Maybe fads are just a way of expressing the same old formula of life?
Maybe the change is the fear that the movie Metropolis will be
realized. Dr. Frankenstein's monster will kill us. Al Gore's
internet will suffocate us. The Rise of the Machines will crush us.
Rivet heads will hammer all goths into machinery. At singularity
(which I think is a few decades off at least), we will become
obsolete. We humans, will disappear behind the curtain as we
feverishly attempt to keep the machine running to bring us food and
flush our toilets until we expire like the frog brought to a
comforting boil, first in warm soothing water, then scalding too-weak-
to-escape death when the machine decides it will feed itself on its
own and leave us to die. I suppose we may be collectively guilty, if
not realizing that being stewards of our planet and survival by
treating other life forms (animals, plants, etc), with conscience
instead of psychopathic resource hoarding and greed, leads to our own
survival or "sustainability". If we were to produce an offspring of
singularity, wouldn't it just look at our record and simply say, it is
technologically (ethnocentrically, species-based, etc.) superior and
that it should leave us behind, as well as perhaps all other life and
concept ever put forth by all life on this planet? What value would
it place on us? Why should we matter? If we created intellect which
survived by creating physical forms to survive in while retaining its
memories and previous intellect, wouldn't we be left behind? I'm sure
there are those people who would want to put their own intellect into
such a device capable of adapting to new environments and exploring
the universe. After all, Stephen Hawking's concept of human survival
seems to include leaving this planet and being able to adapt and
survive elsewhere. This certainly makes sense if Earth were hit by a
catastrophic asteroid, etc. Of course, as far as most people like
myself know, these things are just not currently feasible, so things
like voyager were sent out to reach out for help. Like people have
said, we are star-stuff figuring itself out.
Perhaps to put it simply, I'm bored and trying to figure out and
explain the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Supposedly,
one's answer has been 42, and I never found out what the question was
that was so fervently sought after. Perhaps the question is, what
does it matter? Why do you care? Who cares? Why should it matter?
If someone told you the purpose of your life was to eat their
excrement and die, perhaps you would come to your own conclusion that
the true purpose of your life would be to find that person who told
you that and torture them accordingly until they are dead and can no
longer put forth that low valuation of someone else's life. Also to
perhaps correct any artifact they created toward that end. Of course,
I'm sure there are varying levels of everything in between where
someone would simply accept that postulate, live their life eating
that person's excrement until death, or the other end where someone
would immediately act to kill the person telling them to do such
things as well as the bell curve of people who would ignore them, talk
some sense into them, call some white coats for a removal, or start
selling products or service toward such ends and tell others to not
only eat their excrement, but buy their products to make it easier,
etc.
So again I've reached a moment of great lucidity between M&Ms
medication and determined that it would be interesting to follow the
old post-modern signifiers leading my train of thought through the
concepts of what humanity will progress to. So far, I looked up a
song from circa the mid 90s, Athamay's, Eternal Torture and just
discovered the hit song from Britney Spears, "If U Seek Amy". It was
a wonderful experience of how strange things have gotten. I guess
that's what we've gotten to. Oh, and writing this like this here and
reading them, that is if you have actually gotten this far. If you
find that there is something better to do, drop me a line will you?
And don't tell me that I need to abolish the zionist governement of
world-controlling jews or juice or that blacks are to blame for white
sex slavery or that all psychopaths should be determined at birth and
exterminated through eugenics. That's just in poor form. Rather,
offer me a job pontificating more ridiculously inane subjects and
concepts like the identification of timelines and the historical
anthology of descriptions for the highest of humanities' fears and
aspirations such as technological singularity and green crayons in
one's nose.
Thanks. and have a nice day.
Peter H. Coffin
> Not unlike a phase. Metamorph. What ever happened to this royalty of
> AG? Is this another who went beyond the rim? Graumach? Edvamp?
> Have I become again so solitary that I again turn to the energy of
> humor in this group to find substance in life? I seem to feel like
> someone in the depths of Z'ha'dum.
*I'm* still here. Jennie's still here. Who else should I browbeat into
posting an "Hi I'm still alive"?
--
53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry
you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and
kill her.
--Peter Anspach's list of things to do as an Evil Overlord
GryffnStryff
> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:57:28 -0800 (PST), GryffnStryff wrote:
> *I'm* still here. Jennie's still here. Who else should I browbeat into
> posting an "Hi I'm still alive"?
Well, Mr. Coffin, I beseech thee not to browbeat me. Though, yes, I
do recall your presence from a long, long time ago in a land, far, far
away. Welcome to the future of the past, and the past of the present.
*shines the goth-light into the dark, clouded sky and waits*
That lighted bat ain't for Batman, you know? Especially after that
whole, Harvey Dent affair, being a scapegoat in hiding and all.
GryffnStryff
Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On 2009-12-30, GryffnStryff <gryffnstr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Not unlike a phase. Metamorph. What ever happened to this royalty of
> > AG? Is this another who went beyond the rim? Graumach? Edvamp?
>
> pretty good shape, clewarly enjoying life again after his time in
> hospital. People keep in touch, you know? Just in different ways
> depending on what suits them.
That is good to hear. I've lost touch with so many people that coming
back here, I was beginning to wonder about a few again. Right. It's
not like I met more than one person from here at the three
convergences I went to a long time ago.
> > Is it the youth of this and other cultures that keeps everyone alive?
>
> A few of us have actually died, you know? So I don't think it
> works that way. And personally I've never seen goth either as a youth
> subculture or as a young one, though it's only been around some thirty
> years or so in its current form. One of the reasons I've always felt
> comfortable within it is that there've been plenty of older people to
> talk to (not that I dislike young people, but fewer of them offer any
> real intellectual stimulation).
Indeed it's ironic of me to forget we are mortal, but I don't think I
was contemplating that part of those lives being experienced here.
I've always looked at the goth subculture as akin to the subculture of
rock and roll when it started back in what, the 1950s era, or punk and
what seems to be the perpetual musically youth-oriented fad which
comes along and sweeps up teenagers who create their own identities
based on exposure to a peer culture steeped in concepts put forth by
the media they're exposed to, especially on the radio, tv, etc.
Granted, even the production of music-based themes in subculture has
to have enough of an infrastructure to come to fruition after being
churned out by teams of professionals as well as fresh new faces, but
I suppose there are few people in the ages of ten and thirty who today
have grown up listening to The Platters, The Ink Spots, etc. as
opposed to Britney Spears, Nine Inch Nails, Marylin Manson, etc. As
for the intellectual stimulation, I suppose there is plenty depending
on where one wishes to find it. One could be fascinated by the
endless barrage of music listening choices a 16 year-old makes,
perhaps in the vein of market research and consciousness/demand
creation.
> > Or are these just fads that disappear as we succumb to the consumption
> > of life's jaws around us?
>
> Life's jaws have TB? Ach, that's a wee shame for it.
Truly a new take I didn't think of. I suppose TB could be one cause
with its resurgence in recent years.
> > I guess we just simply are, for a while anyway. Then, we find new
> > things to do, some of us. Others, more fortunate, found that earlier
> > on and keep doing it until their time is up.
>
> What are you trying to say here? I'm confused.
We exist.
> In truth, it always rather confused me that some people expect
> one to 'do' goth to the exclusion of other things. It's just one aspect
> of life, isn't it? I've always done all sorts of different things and
> the same is true of most of my friends.
I actually wasn't referring specifically to "goth" and was writing in
general terms of life as you mention.
> > Life. Survival. It's just a fad.
>
> On Tuesday we got a phone call saying that something had come
> up in one of Donald's blood tests and he had to go in to talk to the
> doctor about it. Nearly twenty four hours of thinking the leukaemia
> might have come back, of having (in my vcase, at least) to work out all
> the practicalities of what we'd do, how we'd cope in the few months he'd
> have left. Turns out it had been a new doctor, a miscommunication, a
> minor problem which shouldn't have been handled that way. But you talk
> of survival like you know what it means, and it makes me wonder. Perhaps
> you do, perhaps. Do you have a fucking clue what it's like to stare into
> nothingness that way? Do you know what it's like when you or the one you
> love are told you'll be unlikely to make it through the next couple of
> weeks? It's not a fucking fashion statement for me; it never was.
To each their own. I've never had your experience of course, but I've
been through things similar. I do not mean to belittle anyone's brush
with life-changing events such as the one you mention. Perhaps after
living life somehow without being deprived of the luxury of access to
the internet for the past twenty years, but spending my entire life
wondering if there is any hope of escape from psychological demons
every day that I don't witness occurring in everyone else, I have come
to question the whole concept of life and survival and its purpose and
have become at times so detached from everything that I go through the
motions while still wondering again, what will I do tomorrow or the
next day and what will happen that could threaten my survival or that
of those to whom I am connected to the point where it seems I have
lived a whole life of four decades of wondering why my life has always
seemed to have been lived in fear of death or catastrophe to myself or
everyone around me. I've become indurated and callous. I have not
achieved any great thing that I can claim seems to have been worthy of
any investment I've made. Life many a time has come to be pointless
for me, and being wrapped up in the drama of what I refer to as youth
culture, only to outgrow it, and find that in the words of The Smiths'
"PANIC", "Because the music that they constantly play," ... "IT SAYS
NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE," leads me to feel that at least in my
life, I feel life in general is just a passing phase of existence,
regardless of how hard or successfully one struggles to survive or
not, not unlike a fad. One lives, survives, dies, like a trend as a
microcosm in the greater scheme of trends that exist to provide the
reason for why a batch of babies survived due to a better vaccine,
hygiene, medical facilities, programs, stable societies, or the lack
thereof. I'm sure the plight of all the children dying with ten years
of birth due to starvation, lack of medical attention and the
centuries-old imbalance of resources due to colonial exploitation
disrupting the previously existing systems of native survival provide
a more expanded view of what I am referring to as a, "fad" as more of
a social construct which sweeps across societies and peoples and
dictates how they live, survive and influence such things in other's
lives such as myself who has observed the pleading missionaries
requesting aid from viewers for donations to help children, etc.
> > Don't mind me. I'll be dead sooner or later.
>
> That's the reality of it, the thing we have to plan around but
> try not to think about. I have to do the work I do allowing for the fact
> that I'll be lucky to make it to fifty, I have to be practical to
> squeeze out of life every drop I can, but it's fucking terrifying to be
> confronted with that void, that uncontestable end. I've looked it in the
> face, and I _do_ mind.
It's obvious that I have a different perspective and life. Perhaps
I'm a spoiled brat or complacent lazy fool who has given up and
decided that after many attempts at doing things and being unable to
complete anything, I've given up and decided to be satisfied with
simply being alive until my time is up. I don't give any special
value to my life or that of any one else's necessarily other than what
suffering one may reduce. At the point of boredom to which I have
come to write these things, I've taken the attitude that perhaps like
a suicidal maniac I've subconsciously reached out to challenge the
value of life while at the same time pointing out my own perspective.
I realize it is a piss poor take to demean it. I suppose I must have
been wondering what life is worth, considering it hasn't seemed to be
worth much in mine. I guess you point out what I am missing and
should probably take heed of and be reminded of what not to forget.
I'm sure I've been through this cycle before and have forgotten as one
does of things when one is obsessed with a narrow vision without
stopping to smell flowers, etc. I suppose it's as simple as that. I
forgot that life is supposed to be more valuable than what I'm living
or have[ experienced in my mind recently.
> > Sorry if that was disturbing.
>
> It didn't come close.
It was never my intent.
> > Does anyone get the feeling that humanity is being fine-tuned toward a
> > hive-like entity where 20ish yr-olds provide the impetus for progress
> > while everyone older follows and tries to capitalize on the trends?
>
> You mean capitalism? Quel surprise.
Perhaps it is nothing more than a schizophrenic paranoia of conspiracy
in fear of being oppressed as many would believe until realizing that
it may not be true given what is openly evident. I think a
manifestation of being victimized and unable to come to terms with
that in life. I'm thinking that I'm allowing other facets of life
that should be dealt with elsewhere have pervaded my entire
perspective of life.
> > Thus using the same formula over and over again until it's a dead
> > machine for what humanity stands for?
>
> Humanity always has the option of expressing itself
> differently. It's about taking responsibility, not hiding behind the
> machine.
Indeed. I believe you are correct. Down to the last fingernail of
fight against what is felt necessary in pursuing one's beliefs.
> > Oh I'm sure I have it the wrong way around. It's not age-based, but
> > rather, technologically based progress which seems to enable global
> > social development.
>
> You mean the information revolution? It enables social
> development to take certain paths; it isn't eseential for it to _occur_.
That's one aspect, but I meant in general. Indeed, being enabled with
nuclear weapons apparently hasn't lead to the completion of mutually
assured destruction and annihilation. The ability to produce global
transportation and sustainable development hasn't lead to a return to
political stability in the third world and an end to hunger and
nuclear proliferation, or the end of oppressive regimes.
> > where utopia comes into existence just before we create the metasystem
> > transition like parents giving birth to new life before living out our
> > own and expiring with the obsolescence of our usefulness?
>
> I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
Louis Armstrong, "If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know."
> > Maybe fads are just a way of expressing the same old formula of life?
>
> Okay, I think one of the problems you have here is that you
> haven't defined 'fad'. I'm not clear on what you mean by it in this
> context.
Just the general definition, perhaps being piled onto by analogies to
other applications as can be found in a thesaurus with me being too
illiterate to supplant it with more applicable terms like, "trends" or
more in-depth explanations such as how a societal norm drifts over
time as opinion polls dictate the perception and center of media
consciousness.
> > Maybe the change is the fear that the movie Metropolis will be
> > realized. Dr. Frankenstein's monster will kill us. Al Gore's
> > internet will suffocate us. The Rise of the Machines will crush us.
>
> There have always been monsters.
Come on, really, I'm just a freaked out psychotic hermit afraid the
trolls under the bridge will evict me from under one of their rocks.
> > Rivet heads will hammer all goths into machinery. At singularity
> > (which I think is a few decades off at least), we will become
> > obsolete.
>
> So what if we do? Why would that necessarily change anything
> for us? Did protozoans staple their appendages to their, um, other bits,
> and commit mass suicide because we came along?
No, I suppose I have jumped to some hysteria of one narrow-minded
conclusion. I suppose there is nothing to fear, and we should expect
that just as today, anything we as humanity create which will probably
be at least fifty or more years from now which can be considered
autonomous, sentient and superior in intellectual efficiency and
capacity to us, collectively or not, will most probably follow (as
coming from us as products of nature) a conservative path to include
humanity as an intrinsic part of its function as the bacteria which
helps us digest the food in our guts. I suppose the bacteria could be
considered to be "happy" if not at least, alive. That is, if we don't
stupidly destroy all known life on Earth out of some freak accident or
stupidity.
> > feverishly attempt to keep the machine running to bring us food and
> > flush our toilets until we expire like the frog brought to a
> > comforting boil, first in warm soothing water, then scalding too-weak-
> > to-escape death when the machine decides it will feed itself on its
> > own and leave us to die.
>
> You're ascribing emotions to machines which we have no reason
> to expect them to have. You're also treating machines as if they'll all
> take some kind of ultimate form as soon as the opportunity arises,
> rather than continuing to fill a variety of niches, like, well,
> everything else we have encountered.
Yes, I shouldn't be so narrow-minded and full of myself to think that
what I propose is the only option. I do acknowledge the fact that
there are probably an infinite number of possibilities with nearly as
much probable.
> > survival or "sustainability". If we were to produce an offspring of
> > singularity, wouldn't it just look at our record and simply say, it is
> > technologically (ethnocentrically, species-based, etc.) superior and
> > that it should leave us behind, as well as perhaps all other life and
> > concept ever put forth by all life on this planet?
>
> Well, it might, but it's equally likely that it would spend all
> its time collecting different kinds of cheese or arguing with its kin
> about the plays of Arthur Miller. The point is, we don't know. One thing
> that is silly is to ascribe our own moral values to it.
Very valid point. I suppose it would be more likely that considering
the amount of mass and organization of it already in existence, it
would be better to assume that any kind of new "life" form that would
arise from singularity would conserve to its convenience and benefit,
what already exists and use it to its own advantage. It does not make
sense to re-create the wheel, unless of course such a, "wheel" as it
were, is to be more efficacious in lieu of the use what currently
exists.
> > If we created intellect which survived by creating physical forms to
> > survive in while retaining its memories and previous intellect,
> > wouldn't we be left behind?
>
> What is this obsession with being out in front, on top,
> dominant? We're not at the top of some evolutionary tree. We are just
> one branch of an evolutionary shrub. It's a big universe with room in it
> for lots of variety.
Well, I just think shrubberies are kind of boring, even though I'm not
really tall enough to see past them and to the tops of the forest of
redwoods.
> > After all, Stephen Hawking's concept of human survival seems to
> > include leaving this planet and being able to adapt and survive elsewhere.
>
> It's an obvious necessity. One for which we are well equipped,
> I must say, having such a nearby moon for practice with handy helium
> fuel on it, and being next door to a planet made of rocket fuel with a
> conveniently placed mountain that sticks out of its atmosphere.
Oh that just simply smacks of us being taunted to just simply leap off
the edge of the flat Earth.
Columbus would be so proud to see that we've made it this far and left
our space trash out there.
> > This certainly makes sense if Earth were hit by a catastrophic asteroid,
>
> 'If'? It's a question of when.
Well, yes, when as well, but until then, if there is no if, because it
hasn't happened, yet, I'm sure more resources will be collectively
deemed appropriate for the purpose of playing MP3s and selling iPods.
> > Of course, as far as most people like myself know, these things are
> > just not currently feasible
>
> Mobile phones weren't feasible for cavemen, but they banged
> rocks together anyway and began the process of working towards this stuff.
And I would probably have sat on one of those rocks thinking and
saying that there doesn't seem to be any useful purpose to banging
them together, but rather rolling them downhill just before falling
off and into a rockslide.
> > Perhaps to put it simply, I'm bored and trying to figure out and
> > explain the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
>
> Why does it need a meaning?
I really hate to say it, but sometimes, it just really seems futile
otherwise. I suppose that must be my own psychological
predisposition. Perhaps it is a result of having been told something
is important, then being told it is not, only to figure out for one's
self that something has to be determined to be important.
> > Supposedly, one's answer has been 42
>
> Heh. My dad askedme the meaning of life when I was about six.
> Annoyed by the stupid question, I answered '43' in the hope of making
> him go away. I'd never heard of Douglas Adams at the time. My dad was
> freaked out for days.
I suppose then that he was already familiar with Adams' postulate
about the number 42?
> > Perhaps the question is, what does it matter?
>
> Not 'why does it matter?'; why should it _be_? I mean, I
> appreciate that humans are wired to seek out patterns, but sometimes
> when they don't find them it's because they're not there.
Perhaps the only pattern is that of the search for one, which is
deemed as an obsessive compulsion whereupon the true pattern is
finally found.
> > If someone told you the purpose of your life was to eat their
> > excrement and die, perhaps you would come to your own conclusion that
> > the true purpose of your life would be to find that person who told
> > you that and torture them accordingly until they are dead and can no
> > longer put forth that low valuation of someone else's life.
>
> That would be a) mean and b) a pointless waste of time. I'd
> pity anyone who didn't have better things to do, deep underlying
> universal purpose or not.
Well, sorry to have used that example, but I was being somewhat over-
simplistic. I think it would have been better to have been more
general or use the term, "bullshit" to illustrate that eventually
people will get fed up and hopefully evolve beyond what is
stultifying. Regardless of the specific example, you are still
correct, as the example applies on many levels and scenarios.
At the least anyway, I hope I haven't been boring. Thanks so much for
your response. It's been an interesting process of thought I've
gotten to travel.
`una
> Not unlike a phase. Metamorph. What ever happened to this royalty of
> AG?
They're around. They just don't post.
I'm always around. Sometimes I post. Then, Nyx or someone else
tells me how stupid I am and how worthless my words are. Then,
I roll my eyes and wander off because I've got better things
to do than argue with people about my intelligence or the worth
of my contribution.
I always come back eventually because I like it here and
I wouldn't know that Nyx said anything at all if people would
quit quoting him ;)
`una - learning to cook, writing more regularly, enjoying life
GryffnStryff
ah, well, that's also good to hear. Yes I guess I'm nostalgic and
miss the comments of people like the goth cop, hippie and promoter, et
al. I'm glad you responded as it seems I usually post something so
inane as to not even be noteworthy to be mocked, but rather, ignored.
Though I suppose negative attention is not necessarily more desirable
than no attention, I suppose you probably get better response than
that as well, I would assume. I remember hanging around the goth
rooms before the whole columbine affair, and how it exploded full of
trolls afterward. I became callous and jaded at the buffoons and low-
lifes that started showing up and eventually before finally abandoning
the whole arena, saw one of the first ones and tried my best to put
forth my word of caution. Beware, or else ye be trapped in the drama
of abuse rampant in the online chat rooms at the time. Just like an
art cafe that was once a nice hangout that became a boisterous
nuthouse of wild kids, I saw that happen in chat rooms and here. The
difference of course is that here, there was a.g.s.f., and of course
being that most of the time trolls were just simply not as
sophisticated, it seems this has again become a place where one can
still find some reasonable interest of value aside from the standard
trolls which are more easily ignored nowadays. blah, whatever. But
it's still nice to see posts from people that have posted for the past
fifteen years or so. And if people don't post, it's nice to hear that
at least they're still around.
Panurge
> ...personally I've never seen goth either as a youth
> subculture or as a young one, though it's only been around some thirty
> years or so in its current form.
Thirty years is a LONG time for a pop subculture (or I should say
"scene"). Or at least it used to be.
> On 2009-12-30, GryffnStryff <gryffn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I guess we just simply are, for a while anyway. Then, we find new
> > things to do, some of us. Others, more fortunate, found that earlier
> > on and keep doing it until their time is up.
>
> What are you trying to say here? I'm confused.
"Sometimes scene X is a phase people go through. Sometimes it's not.
Both are OK."
> > Does anyone get the feeling that humanity is being fine-tuned toward a
> > hive-like entity where 20ish yr-olds provide the impetus for progress
> > while everyone older follows and tries to capitalize on the trends?
Welcome to rock'n'roll! ;-P
> > feverishly attempt to keep the machine running to bring us food and
> > flush our toilets until we expire like the frog brought to a
> > comforting boil, first in warm soothing water, then scalding too-weak-
> > to-escape death when the machine decides it will feed itself on its
> > own and leave us to die.
>
> You're ascribing emotions to machines which we have no reason
> to expect them to have. You're also treating machines as if they'll all
> take some kind of ultimate form as soon as the opportunity arises,
> rather than continuing to fill a variety of niches, like, well,
> everything else we have encountered.
Well, not "machines", not even "the machine", but THE MACHINE--the
network of technological, logistical, and social resources needed to
keep a modern civilization going. People have been worried about THE
MACHINE for decades, maybe centuries now. Not quite a monster, but
something most of us need, and we're worried about the fact that we need
it. And I think many people are worried that THE MACHINE will take some
sort of ultimate form, maybe as a function of our dependence on it.
> > I'm bored and trying to figure out and
> > explain the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
>
> Why does it need a meaning?
Because we want to matter, and we want to matter because we want to
count. Because we can't handle the thought that the universe might
proceed as if we'd never existed. That way, we don't count anymore, and
we don't want to stop counting, even when we're dead. I can understand
that.
--
"He who wishes to go beyond it must die."
--Arnold Schoenberg, on Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony
TenshiKurai9
> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:57:28 -0800 (PST), GryffnStryff wrote:
>> Not unlike a phase. Metamorph. What ever happened to this royalty of
>> AG? Is this another who went beyond the rim? Graumach? Edvamp?
>> Have I become again so solitary that I again turn to the energy of
>> humor in this group to find substance in life? I seem to feel like
>> someone in the depths of Z'ha'dum.
>
> *I'm* still here. Jennie's still here. Who else should I browbeat into
> posting an "Hi I'm still alive"?
If ikins were to post to this, would zie's post have to be a, Hi, I'm
not alive or dead, post?
-TenshiKurai9, still needs to meet the poly-gendered plushie.
GryffnStryff
> Jennie Kermode <"Jennie Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > ...personally I've never seen goth either as a youth
> > subculture or as a young one, though it's only been around some thirty
> > years or so in its current form.
>
> Thirty years is a LONG time for a pop subculture (or I should say
> "scene"). Or at least it used to be.
Well, let's see, rockabilly, taking its roots perhaps from folk
hillbilly music of 1920s Appalachia and earlier, got its fully fledged
coined status around the 1950s and got a revival within the past few
decades so much to the point that upon asking a young punk rock girl
within the past six years about Tiger Army, she said, "They're
rockaSilly."
> > On 2009-12-30, GryffnStryff <gryffnstr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I guess we just simply are, for a while anyway. Then, we find new
> > > things to do, some of us. Others, more fortunate, found that earlier
> > > on and keep doing it until their time is up.
>
> > What are you trying to say here? I'm confused.
>
> "Sometimes scene X is a phase people go through. Sometimes it's not.
> Both are OK."
No! One MUST completely process entirely through phase stage level
One point 9... else they be forever be under 2. Though of course, I'm
sure everything has its reason, including staying within what may be a
phase. Besides, bicycles are so, yesteryear. Especially that one
with the big wheel in front and super high seat six feet in the air,
but don't you DARE make fun of my plastic big wheel, oh wait, I wasn't
one of the fortunate children to have one of those. Never mind.
> > > Does anyone get the feeling that humanity is being fine-tuned toward a
> > > hive-like entity where 20ish yr-olds provide the impetus for progress
> > > while everyone older follows and tries to capitalize on the trends?
>
> Welcome to rock'n'roll! ;-P
Welcome to Rockasilly. On a string it's called, Rock-a-Silly-String
(tm).
> > > feverishly attempt to keep the machine running to bring us food and
> > > flush our toilets until we expire like the frog brought to a
> > > comforting boil, first in warm soothing water, then scalding too-weak-
> > > to-escape death when the machine decides it will feed itself on its
> > > own and leave us to die.
>
> > You're ascribing emotions to machines which we have no reason
> > to expect them to have. You're also treating machines as if they'll all
> > take some kind of ultimate form as soon as the opportunity arises,
> > rather than continuing to fill a variety of niches, like, well,
> > everything else we have encountered.
>
> Well, not "machines", not even "the machine", but THE MACHINE--the
> network of technological, logistical, and social resources needed to
> keep a modern civilization going. People have been worried about THE
> MACHINE for decades, maybe centuries now. Not quite a monster, but
> something most of us need, and we're worried about the fact that we need
> it. And I think many people are worried that THE MACHINE will take some
> sort of ultimate form, maybe as a function of our dependence on it.
Well, after just watching, "Terminator: Salvation" and the last
Transformers movie, I tend to think Jennie's postulate is more apt to
happen, the MACHINE if they stay de-individualized or machines,
whatever their level of interconnectivity and autonomy, will start
bickering about which color enhances their thermal surface control
index with the most efficient radiance for attracting a mate.
> > > I'm bored and trying to figure out and
> > > explain the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
>
> > Why does it need a meaning?
>
> Because we want to matter, and we want to matter because we want to
> count. Because we can't handle the thought that the universe might
> proceed as if we'd never existed. That way, we don't count anymore, and
> we don't want to stop counting, even when we're dead. I can understand
> that.
This is another fascinating revelatory comment which exploded
somewhere with a flurry of activity in my wetware neural net, though
probably mostly irrelevant...
I think the more of use there are, the more likely we are going to
benefit from and seek out tools to help us coexist at the least
expense of resources. Putting an internet infrastructure in place (or
whatever it is that has been leading our bridges and sewers and water
main pipes to all break), etc. is which gets done, making life easier
for the individual physically, but harder mentally, to the point we
have to have mental aids. Thus we all get assimilated into somewhat
of a borg collective such as Microsoft and the electric grid and
internet and international distribution of chocolate pinwheels.
Of course, there is something to be said for the small groups of
humans who live in congruence with their environment in an isolated,
self-sustaining way, occasionally hiring an outsider to spam everyone
for the sale of their wooden wares like the Amish (inadvertently), but
it seems we are nothing without each other. We are social creatures.
Perhaps that's where the whole, "You're either with us, or against us"
attitude finds easy appeal amongst the impoverished who are welcome to
any source of life they can acquire. Such as all the poor desperate
martyrs of terrorists. Except, they get sucked into a self-defeating
group, killing themselves off in sacrifice for their desperate attempt
to control more people. Eventually they all end up the same way.
They gain control like the Taliban, or Tehran, then find revolt like
Castro, and embargo as they realize like North Korea that the other
large entities don't want to play on their terms. I think the concern
is that since we are dealing with humans, everything is on familiar
terms. Once we start coming to the point where machines become
sentient and can function without our cooperation (The Matrix), of
course, there is the fear that not only will such a different life
form have different perspectives, but the "mind"set will be so
different, that it could pose a threat if all the machines decided to
ignore us humans and use all our electricity to launch themselves with
a magnetic railgun into another galaxy where the central solar system
didn't have a sun that was about to go anti-matter supernova or
something after its human population didn't use enough simulations to
realize that inducing anti-matter fusion in the sun as a more
efficient energy source for Multi-United Energy LLC to profit from
would annihilate a few multi-universes in 57 dimensions (including
ours. ever wanted a flat belly, maybe we'll be left with the first two
dimensions at least).
Yeah, anyway, I was just babbling. Sorry.
> "He who wishes to go beyond it must die."
> --Arnold Schoenberg, on Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony
I guess the musicians never played any mistaken notes past the last
one then. I wonder if they would die before they even attempted to,
oh I guess so, because the statement is based on the premise that one
only has to wish to. Well, if I was one of those musicians
contemplating such an action, I suppose there is a fine line between
wishing to and thinking about it. Well, I suppose death wouldn't be
too appealing, but since I don't recall hearing this symphony, I'll
not know.
GryffnStryff
Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On 2010-01-02, Panurge <panu...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, not "machines", not even "the machine", but THE MACHINE--the
> > network of technological, logistical, and social resources needed to
> > keep a modern civilization going. People have been worried about THE
> > MACHINE for decades, maybe centuries now.
>
> things that machine now protects them from. I'm all for people working
> to reshape and improve the machine (I do plenty of that myself), but I
> have no time at all for those who simply reject it - they're mostly
> sentimental fools.
> We've been dependent on civilisation for much longer than most
> people realise, and it affects us at a much deeper level. For thousands
> of years there has been no going back because we have evolved to fit it.
> Look at our digestive systems, for instance. Outside of a very few
> unusually fertile areas of the world, we are incapable of finding
> sufficient sustenance unless we can cook. We long ago developed a
> dependency on the technology of fire. We're continuing to evolve larger
> and larger skulls; we're increasingly dependent on modern
> birth-assistance and antiseptic technologies.
It would be nice if we could still survive without modern technology
in case a solar flare knocks out our electric grid and cell phone
towers, not to mention satellites. I suppose that's why some people
like the Amish are around and hippie communes and what not exist.
That's the strength through diversity which, I suppose if it still
provides survival and life for communities, can also provide an
alternative to becoming looters, etc.
> > Not quite a monster, but something most of us need, and we're
> > worried about the fact that we need it.
>
> That's like worrying about the fact that we need oxygen.
A monster is in the eye of the beholder. Some people find goat meat
tasty, but others think they're a pain in the ass, especially when
they have pointy horns.
> > And I think many people are worried that THE MACHINE will take some
> > sort of ultimate form, maybe as a function of our dependence on it.
>
> Tee hee. That's a very Japanese idea.
> Ultimate forms are like meanings of life. The universe doesn't
> go that way.
Ghost in the Shell?
> >> Why does it need a meaning?
> > Because we want to matter, and we want to matter because we want to
> > count. Because we can't handle the thought that the universe might
> > proceed as if we'd never existed. That way, we don't count anymore, and
> > we don't want to stop counting, even when we're dead. I can understand
> > that.
>
> Sure, but see, all that tells me is why you _want_ a
> meaning, not why you presume there _is_ one. Right now I could really
> go a big piece of chocolate cake but I'm not going to spend the next
> hour poking round my desk hoping to find one.
Meaning is definitely subjective, but it is nice to feel one has the
power of knowledge indicating order such as, the bird flies, so it can
escape fires and swoop down on prey, and for example, the pelican, has
a big fleshy thing that lets it scoop fish out of the water. Just by
observation, one becomes one with the environment, in following this
theme of knowledge and fuzzy warm cumbaya (I can't think of the word)
familiarity and community with an environement, I think it's a natural
curiosity to want to find reason for things, including unreasonable
things if not to just say something is unreasonable.
GryffnStryff
If someone posted, "Hi, I'm dead." would they goth, Bela Lugosi, Peter
Murphy, or just plain silly?
Peter H. Coffin
Sadly, they become the looters' targets. Maybe not the first week, but
after that, they's who gots.
>> > Not quite a monster, but something most of us need, and we're
>> > worried about the fact that we need it.
>>
>> � � � � � That's like worrying about the fact that we need oxygen.
>
> A monster is in the eye of the beholder. Some people find goat meat
> tasty, but others think they're a pain in the ass, especially when
> they have pointy horns.
They fatten up cheaply, but poorly. They're economical milk-providers
though. If you want something harvestable, sheep are the way to go. They
need a lot of watching, but they provide better.
>> > And I think many people are worried that THE MACHINE will take some
>> > sort of ultimate form, maybe as a function of our dependence on it.
>>
>> � � � � � Tee hee. That's a very Japanese idea.
>> � � � � � Ultimate forms are like meanings of life. The universe doesn't
>> go that way.
>
> Ghost in the Shell?
Nothing so specific.
--
I love the way Microsoft follows standards. In much the same manner that
fish follow migrating caribou.
-- Paul Tomblin in the Monastery
Panurge
> Well, let's see, rockabilly, taking its roots perhaps from folk
> hillbilly music of 1920s Appalachia and earlier, got its fully fledged
> coined status around the 1950s and got a revival within the past few
> decades so much to the point that upon asking a young punk rock girl
> within the past six years about Tiger Army, she said, "They're
> rockaSilly."
AIUI, rockabilly was a '70s invention based on the original rock'n'roll,
with some extra country touches. IOW, it's actually the product of a
revival, bearing the same relation to '50s rock'n'roll that indie rock
bears to, say, 1965 garage rock or the British Invasion.
> Yeah, anyway, I was just babbling. Sorry.
>
> > "He who wishes to go beyond it must die."
> > --Arnold Schoenberg, on Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony
>
> I guess the musicians never played any mistaken notes past the last
> one then. I wonder if they would die before they even attempted to,
> oh I guess so, because the statement is based on the premise that one
> only has to wish to. Well, if I was one of those musicians
> contemplating such an action, I suppose there is a fine line between
> wishing to and thinking about it. Well, I suppose death wouldn't be
> too appealing, but since I don't recall hearing this symphony, I'll
> not know.
Here's one more-complete version:
"It seems that the ninth is a limit. He who wants to go beyond it must
pass away. It seems as if something might be imparted to us in the Tenth
which we ought not yet to know, for which we are not ready. Those who
have written a Ninth stood too close to the hereafter."
The Schoenberg essay collection *Style and Idea* has it as "must die"; I
think he originally wrote it in German (he did most of his writing in
English once he moved to the U.S., IIRC), but I haven't read it in
German. (My German is just good enough to know that "sterben" means
literally "to die".) For Mahler's own part, he completed the first
movement of his Tenth and had the rest barely sketched out before his
heart gave up on him. I guess Dmitri Shostakovich never got the news!
--
"He who wishes to go beyond it must die."
--Arnold Schoenberg, on Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony
Morgan Bane
Sorry to be late to this party and additional apologies if I was
supposed to formally introduce myself before posting. (That didn't
seem to be the case.)
I, too, remember the days before Columbine. There were actual
conversations between real people, and trolls were a minority. Then
the 'net filled up with narcissistic jackasses who argue from behind a
shroud of anonymity. I became so disgusted with the arrogance and
stupidity that I logged out of newsgroups, forums and chat rooms
entirely. I'm now peeking into alt.gothic for the first time in
years, and what a nice surprise it is to find that the group still
exists in a form resembling that of the "golden" times.
Truly,
The Bane
`una
> On Jan 1, 1:56�pm, `una wrote:
>
> > `una - learning to cook, writing more regularly, enjoying life
>
> ah, well, that's also good to hear.
Thank you.
I've also added writing scholarships under a tight deadline
and flying to Oakland to that list. It's an interesting life.
> Yes I guess I'm nostalgic and
> miss the comments of people like the goth cop, hippie and promoter, et
> al.
I always miss the people.
> I'm glad you responded as it seems I usually post something so
> inane as to not even be noteworthy to be mocked, but rather, ignored.
Silence is not always indicative of indifference.
I just got done reading the stuff you've written since I last posted
and found it interesting, informative, and enjoyable. I didn't
respond to any of it because I don't have anything to add or ask.
I'm not a very high quality poster because I tend to post when
my insomnia kicks, so I don't post my best stuff. My best stuff
gets scattered in the places where it seems to help people or
entertain people.
> Though I suppose negative attention is not necessarily more desirable
> than no attention, I suppose you probably get better response than
> that as well, I would assume.
Depends on what I post and how pissy Nyx is feeling ;)
I was going to protest that I don't get a better response, but
that's an incorrect self-perception left over from younger days.
I've mostly let go of such things. I still get very little response
to most of what I write, but the response I do get tends to be
on the more positive side.
> I remember hanging around the goth
> rooms before the whole columbine affair, and how it exploded full of
> trolls afterward. I became callous and jaded at the buffoons and low-
> lifes that started showing up and eventually before finally abandoning
> the whole arena, saw one of the first ones and tried my best to put
> forth my word of caution. Beware, or else ye be trapped in the drama
> of abuse rampant in the online chat rooms at the time.
Trolls and drama are a fact of the internet because they are a fact
of the human condition. It's just more obvious online because there's
so much less context to distract people from the bullshit.
I've learned to not get wrapped up in it, even if I happen to be the
target for it. I'm active on a very large forum and had taken over
a particular thread because my brand of cheerleading encouragement
was especially suited to the situation. Eventually, the thread turned
sour and it was blamed on me just because I was prolific.
So, I could have done what I used to do in such situations and
been a complete bitch, but I decided that setting bridges on fire
just because I was hurt and pissed off was boring. I ignored them,
they followed me around different threads for a few days trying to
antagonize me, and I ignored them until they got bored.
They ruined my experience for a week, but I weathered the storm and
found other parts of the forum that I still enjoy. They are the kind
of people who stir drama wherever they go and they go all over the forum
stirring trouble and getting away with it because the mods like them.
They've successfully run off many people I liked. Fuck 'em.
There are still plenty of people I like and threads I enjoy, so I'm not
going to let some high school bullshit ruin it for me anymore than
I'd let Nyx make me feel like an idiot.
It sucks that petty bullshit is everywhere and it would be nice if
things could stay the way they were before the bullshit, but they can't.
So, you either focus on the good that is still there or you decide the
stink is too strong and move on to greener pastures.
> Just like an
> art cafe that was once a nice hangout that became a boisterous
> nuthouse of wild kids, I saw that happen in chat rooms and here.
There's a very popular book/movie out right now titled Twilight.
If you've heard a reference to sparkly vampires, you've heard of it.
The book is set in a town that is near where I live. One of the scenes
in the book takes place in a real restaurant.
That restaurant is the only restaurant on the Olympic Peninsula that
has an ambiance I like. It's where I go when I want to dress up and
feel like a sophisticate because this place utterly depresses me.
In the book, it was described like a teenage hangout because the
author didn't do any more research than looking up restaurant names
on the internet. Now, it has been overrun with twittering teenage
girls, who wish the vampire boy was real so that they could be stalked
and fucked by him.
I still go there for the food because it's still amazing, but the
ambiance is gone and will not return until this Twilight bullshit
goes the way of all fads. Do I give up on my restaurant because it's
been ruined or do I continue to eat there because the food is still
worth the trip? I still take my friends to eat there when they come to
visit me because the food is worth ignoring the fangdorks.
Soon, I'll move on and find new hangouts that will be ruined by
the invasion of people I don't like and I'll move to other places.
Whether the places I like get ruined or not, I end up moving on
just because that's what our culture is built for now.
I'm still clinging to the fantasy that I'll find a place that will
remain relatively unchanged and comforting in its familiarity for many
years, but such places are rare in a disposable culture. So, I don't
expect it.
Even a.g has changed. It's still comforting that it's here, but it will
never be what it was when I found it or what it was when I loved it best
or what it was when I disappeared for a number of years. It's just a.g.
> The
> difference of course is that here, there was a.g.s.f., and of course
> being that most of the time trolls were just simply not as
> sophisticated, it seems this has again become a place where one can
> still find some reasonable interest of value aside from the standard
> trolls which are more easily ignored nowadays.
Around here, the trolls have been around that they've just become
a part of the decor, like that big crack on the dance floor that
everybody keeps tripping on, but doesn't make anybody stop dancing.
> blah, whatever. But
> it's still nice to see posts from people that have posted for the past
> fifteen years or so. And if people don't post, it's nice to hear that
> at least they're still around.
People are always still around until they aren't. It's nice that the
news still travels so far that even an under-rock dweller like me
gets the word from time to time.
`una - crawling out from under this rock this year.
`una
> On Jan 2, 9:04�pm, TenshiKurai9 wrote:
>
> > If ikins were to post to this, would zie's post have to be a, Hi, I'm
> > not alive or dead, post? ��
>
> If someone posted, "Hi, I'm dead." would they goth, Bela Lugosi, Peter
> Murphy, or just plain silly?
Cliche.
`una
`una
> Ghost in the Shell?
There are ghosts in our machines, but they are mostly quirks of
physical design and sticky bits. Never anything as interesting
as a sentient will or emotional interface.
Machines take us over because of our own obsessions with them
rather than because they become obsessed with having power over us.
They don't need to take it because we give it willingly.
The future is what we envisioned, it just doesn't look
the way we pictured it.
`una - misses my Ukrainian, who understood the ghost in the machine
Dark Phoenix
"`una" <una...@nettrip.org> wrote in message
news:f03m17-...@abyss.ninehells.com...
> There's a very popular book/movie out right now titled Twilight.
> If you've heard a reference to sparkly vampires, you've heard of it.
> The book is set in a town that is near where I live. One of the scenes
> in the book takes place in a real restaurant.
>
> That restaurant is the only restaurant on the Olympic Peninsula that
> has an ambiance I like. It's where I go when I want to dress up and
> feel like a sophisticate because this place utterly depresses me.
>
> In the book, it was described like a teenage hangout because the
> author didn't do any more research than looking up restaurant names
> on the internet. Now, it has been overrun with twittering teenage
> girls, who wish the vampire boy was real so that they could be stalked
> and fucked by him.
>
> I still go there for the food because it's still amazing, but the
> ambiance is gone and will not return until this Twilight bullshit
> goes the way of all fads. Do I give up on my restaurant because it's
> been ruined or do I continue to eat there because the food is still
> worth the trip? I still take my friends to eat there when they come to
> visit me because the food is worth ignoring the fangdorks.
The *truly* annoying part about going to that restaurant dressed up in
gothic finery is that you are apt to be taken for one of those fangdorks,
which in my mind would be even worse than all those folks who used to assume
all goths were Marilyn Manson fans.
--
Laurie Brown, Dark Phoenix
dark_p...@netw.com
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/103910/laurie_brown.html
"To destroy the Western tradition of independent thought, it is not
necessary to burn books. All we have to do is leave them unread for a couple
of generations."
--Robert Maynard Hutchens.
Morgan Bane
Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Did you post here in those days gone by to which you refer? We
> had a Bane, but her posting style was different.
I mostly lurked in alt.gothic. I posted with some frequency in
alt.gothic.fashion.
> > I, too, remember the days before Columbine. There were actual
> > conversations between real people, and trolls were a minority. Then
> > the 'net filled up with narcissistic jackasses who argue from behind a
> > shroud of anonymity.
>
> I don't think much of it was really due to Columbine. I think
> it's more that the landscape of the whole internet was changing, with
> all sorts of people getting online. Now it's changed again because those
> people have largely settled down in particular easy-access areas,
> leaving things like newsgroups, which require more clue, to those of us
> who were here to begin with.
I agree, I don't think Columbine was the cause; it's more a convenient
time marker. The atmosphere of the internet began to change (or at
least I began to notice it) in that same year.
What's interesting is that 10 years ago, it was fairly easy to find
like-minded people online. One could do a search of the profiles on
Yahoo! Messenger, or find an appropriately themed chat room, or jump
into a lively on-topic discussion on a newsgroup. Now, thanks to
Google, one can find facts (or fiction) about any subject under the
sun, but reaching out to like-minded people seems nigh impossible.
Ah well, in a year or two, Google will find a way to scan everyone's
brain for temperament, likes and dislikes, neuroses, etc. Then
they'll release a Personality search engine. ;)
GryffnStryff
> GryffnStryff wrote:
> > On Jan 1, 1:56 pm, `una wrote:
>
> > > `una - learning to cook, writing more regularly, enjoying life
>
> > ah, well, that's also good to hear.
>
> Thank you.
> I've also added writing scholarships under a tight deadline
> and flying to Oakland to that list. It's an interesting life.
It's good to know that someone is living life. Not to assume no one
is of course.
> > Yes I guess I'm nostalgic and
> > miss the comments of people like the goth cop, hippie and promoter, et
> > al.
>
> I always miss the people.
indeed. Isn't that what life is all about.
> > I'm glad you responded as it seems I usually post something so
> > inane as to not even be noteworthy to be mocked, but rather, ignored.
>
> Silence is not always indicative of indifference.
I've come to realize it's impossible to get involved in ever post even
if I read them.
> I just got done reading the stuff you've written since I last posted
> and found it interesting, informative, and enjoyable. I didn't
> respond to any of it because I don't have anything to add or ask.
wow. I'm flattered. At least I don't feel like my words are simply
for archival.
> I'm not a very high quality poster because I tend to post when
> my insomnia kicks, so I don't post my best stuff. My best stuff
> gets scattered in the places where it seems to help people or
> entertain people.
Hah. If only you could get paid for your best stuff. But I guess if
it supports someone's liveliness, that's not bad.
> I was going to protest that I don't get a better response, but
> that's an incorrect self-perception left over from younger days.
> I've mostly let go of such things. I still get very little response
> to most of what I write, but the response I do get tends to be
> on the more positive side.
The benefits of growing old, knowing when not to be too concerned I
suppose.
> Trolls and drama are a fact of the internet because they are a fact
> of the human condition. It's just more obvious online because there's
> so much less context to distract people from the bullshit.
It's always been that way. Some people I think just want to express
themselves without consequence.
> So, I could have done what I used to do in such situations and
> been a complete bitch, but I decided that setting bridges on fire
> just because I was hurt and pissed off was boring. I ignored them,
> they followed me around different threads for a few days trying to
> antagonize me, and I ignored them until they got bored.
LOL! That's how the world goes 'round!
> They ruined my experience for a week, but I weathered the storm and
> found other parts of the forum that I still enjoy. They are the kind
> of people who stir drama wherever they go and they go all over the forum
> stirring trouble and getting away with it because the mods like them.
> They've successfully run off many people I liked. Fuck 'em.
Sounds like life in the big city.
> It sucks that petty bullshit is everywhere and it would be nice if
> things could stay the way they were before the bullshit, but they can't.
> So, you either focus on the good that is still there or you decide the
> stink is too strong and move on to greener pastures.
I agree. It makes it nice when one can converse without knife-cutting-
thickness tension.
> Soon, I'll move on and find new hangouts that will be ruined by
> the invasion of people I don't like and I'll move to other places.
> Whether the places I like get ruined or not, I end up moving on
> just because that's what our culture is built for now.
I'm sure the restaurant didn't mind having more customers as long as
the fad doesn't disappear and leave behind a lack of even the previous
customers who got put off.
> I'm still clinging to the fantasy that I'll find a place that will
> remain relatively unchanged and comforting in its familiarity for many
> years, but such places are rare in a disposable culture. So, I don't
> expect it.
Reminds me of Willoughby in the Twilight Zone, Cinema Paradiso, and
the 1990 Italian movie, "Everybody's Fine".
> Even a.g has changed. It's still comforting that it's here, but it will
> never be what it was when I found it or what it was when I loved it best
> or what it was when I disappeared for a number of years. It's just a.g.
I guess there's no longer any need for a.g.s.f. though. Maybe that's
progress.
> People are always still around until they aren't. It's nice that the
> news still travels so far that even an under-rock dweller like me
> gets the word from time to time.
>
> `una - crawling out from under this rock this year.
Hah. More than the mountain of rocks under which I live. kudos to you.
GryffnStryff
Well, at least you didn't say, Andrew Edlritch. He would probably
come over and troll the group just for that, complaining that it is
not funny to be dead and he's not goth and not either one.
GryffnStryff
It seems the machines sometimes have a spirit all their own, if not
being involved somehow otherworldly. I suppose the mind plays tricks
and the machines get blamed like dogs and flatulence.
GryffnStryff
>
> I don't think much of it was really due to Columbine. I think
> it's more that the landscape of the whole internet was changing, with
> all sorts of people getting online. Now it's changed again because those
> people have largely settled down in particular easy-access areas,
> leaving things like newsgroups, which require more clue, to those of us
> who were here to begin with.
Now that I think of it, this is very true. Back in the late 1990s,
the mad rush to get a computer into every home to benefit from the
social internet of email, web pages, irc, icq, etc. was all the rage.
Now that it's mostly passe', most script kiddies would rather waste
their time and creativity on myspace/book/schmook/banana. It's like
that ad somewhere showing a conservative 1950s scene, 60s hippiness,
70s rockness, 80s outlandishness(or was this when it came full circle
and restarted). Dunno.
> > years, and what a nice surprise it is to find that the group still
> > exists in a form resembling that of the "golden" times.
>
> This is nice to hear. :)
I agree.
GryffnStryff
oh, Brave, New Can of Worms (tm)!
Dark Phoenix
"GryffnStryff" <gryffn...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:2a5373da-94e5-
I guess there's no longer any need for a.g.s.f. though. Maybe that's
progress.
a.g.s.f. lives on in the lessons they taught, however. Trolls show up in the
damnedest places, and the techniques of booting them to the curb remain the
same. I thank them heartily for that.
`una
> On 2010-01-09, `una wrote:
> > I've mostly let go of such things. I still get very little response
> > to most of what I write, but the response I do get tends to be
> > on the more positive side.
>
> You often post things that are quite long. I tend to read
> these but set them aside until I have more time to write full replies,
> and sometimes that more time never arrives. I don't believe I am alone
> in this.
This is true.
> > I still take my friends to eat there when they come to
> > visit me because the food is worth ignoring the fangdorks.
>
> Do the fangdorks ever take you for one of their own?
Hell no.
Even if I was thin enough to be fashionable, I don't wear body glitter
or flush and giggle at Twilight merchandise/mentions of Twilight.
When I eat at that restaurant, I get good service. I once ate there
with an obvious fangdork because I hadn't even heard of the book yet
and didn't realize how obviously idiotic she was being until she
ordered the mushroom ravioli and the quality of the service went from
their usual standard to "eat that slop and get the fuck out of my
restaurant, twit." One employee even loudly stated, "I am getting
out of here before any more fucking Twilight fans show up."
Surprisingly, I didn't stop hanging out with that girl because of that.
I stopped hanging out with her because of her open hostility towards
fat people. When called on it, she would say, "I am not talking about
YOU. I'm talking about THEM." Finally, I just hung up on her and refused
to acknowledge her existence when I saw her in public because she didn't
care when I told her that she was being willfully hurtful and offensive.
> > Soon, I'll move on and find new hangouts that will be ruined by
> > the invasion of people I don't like and I'll move to other places.
> > Whether the places I like get ruined or not, I end up moving on
> > just because that's what our culture is built for now.
>
> It's curious that you see things that way. I've always been
> one for standing my ground. Let the waves of trolls and clueless
> creatures come; they break against the shores; they fall away again. Let
> _them_ bother themselves with constant motion. They make no real
> difference to anything.
Change is constant.
I can stand my ground and stay in a place forever, but that place will
change around me no matter what I do. So, I choose to stay or go based on
what is important to me. If what is important to me stays relatively the
same, then I stay. If what is important to me changes or disappears, I
move on and look for it somewhere else.
What is important to me at the local restaurant is the food. The ambiance
used to be important, but it has changed so much that I will stop eating
there if the food becomes boring. As long as the food is worth tolerating
the change in the ambiance, I will continue to eat there.
The ambiance of a.g has changed, but what is important to me remains
pretty much the same, so I keep coming back. If that changes, I'll
move on. Some of what used to keep me here is gone, so I have found
that in other places already.
Staying and going are not all or nothing propositions.
Very few things in life are as static as people think they are.
> > Even a.g has changed. It's still comforting that it's here, but it will
> > never be what it was when I found it or what it was when I loved it best
> > or what it was when I disappeared for a number of years. It's just a.g.
>
> What is it that you loved so much that's gone?
Mostly, many of the people and what they added the conversations.
I had really good chemistry with some people. Without that chemistry,
this is just a very interesting board to read, but it isn't a place
I love the way I did when I had chemistry here.
I stay because it's still interesting, but I've had to go other places
to find chemistry. The new chemistry isn't what I used to have, but
it's good and enjoy it, so it does what I need it to.
That's the nature of good relationships. They change. Sometimes they end
and new relationships get built. Nothing ever stays the same and it's
foolish to try to make it do so.
That was actually much more difficult to learn than it seems it should
have been just because change sucks even when you know it's unavoidable.
Learning it makes it easier to cope with change, but it doesn't make
the change suck any less.
`una - accepts change, but doesn't like it
`una
> "`una" wrote
> > There's a very popular book/movie out right now titled Twilight.
> > If you've heard a reference to sparkly vampires, you've heard of it.
> > The book is set in a town that is near where I live. One of the scenes
> > in the book takes place in a real restaurant.
> >
> > That restaurant is the only restaurant on the Olympic Peninsula that
> > has an ambiance I like. It's where I go when I want to dress up and
> > feel like a sophisticate because this place utterly depresses me.
> >
> > In the book, it was described like a teenage hangout because the
> > author didn't do any more research than looking up restaurant names
> > on the internet. Now, it has been overrun with twittering teenage
> > girls, who wish the vampire boy was real so that they could be stalked
> > and fucked by him.
> >
> > I still go there for the food because it's still amazing, but the
> > ambiance is gone and will not return until this Twilight bullshit
> > goes the way of all fads. Do I give up on my restaurant because it's
> > been ruined or do I continue to eat there because the food is still
> > worth the trip? I still take my friends to eat there when they come to
> > visit me because the food is worth ignoring the fangdorks.
>
> The *truly* annoying part about going to that restaurant dressed up in
> gothic finery is that you are apt to be taken for one of those fangdorks,
> which in my mind would be even worse than all those folks who used to assume
> all goths were Marilyn Manson fans.
Only if your idea of gothic finery is Hot Topic, body glitter, and
plenty of Twilight merchandise. The Cullen family crest is very popular
as jewelry around here.
Someone dressed up for Convergence would not be mistaken as a fangdork
in a million years, but that has as much to do with age and bearing as
it does with fashion.
Fangdorks are most easily identified by their behavior. There are plenty
of fangdorks who dress in a completely mundane fashion, but their
giggling and twittering around Twilight landmarks are a dead give away.
`una - it's all about your attitude
`una
> On Jan 9, 3:53�am, `una wrote:
>
> > `una - misses my Ukrainian, who understood the ghost in the machine
>
> It seems the machines sometimes have a spirit all their own, if not
> being involved somehow otherworldly. I suppose the mind plays tricks
> and the machines get blamed like dogs and flatulence.
I dropped the word "boss". He was a guy who hired me just because
I am wicked smart. He even gave me an informal I.Q. test to confirm
his suspicion. I never let on that I knew it was an I.Q. test, but
I've been through enough tests that I knew what he was looking for.
The computers in our office had very strong ghosts to the point
that they would continue to display the same obnoxious behavior
after being wiped clean and having their operating systems re-installed.
He was very impressed with my ability to not only deal with those
ghosts, but to eventually work them out of the system.
It isn't a matter of supernatural possession or magic.
It's a matter of learning how to deal with the quirks of hardware
and the bits that never get wiped clean.
Think of it like any physical thing that changes over time.
Handles get loose so screws need to be re-tightened. If you
are around a particular handle long enough, you get used to
that loose screw and tighten it without thinking about it.
Likewise, if you break a handle on a piece of luggage
and have to carry it a certain way so that the repair holds.
Carry it wrong and you have to fix it again. Carry it right
and the repair can hold for years.
We have always had to deal with "ghosts" in our belongings.
Now, our ghosts seem more sentient because they are built to
resemble us to some degree, but it's still just sticky bits
and lose bits where we expect uniform bits.
It seems to me that many people struggle with this stuff
because they are so wrapped up inside their own heads that
they struggle to deal with anything external. The ghost in
the machine seems like a malicious external force rather than
a quirk of hardware that needs to be worked with/around.
So, for them, it does become a matter of blaming the dog.
`una - didn't see any ghosts on the Queen Mary
`una
> On Jan 9, 3:39�am, `una wrote:
> > It's an interesting life.
>
> It's good to know that someone is living life. Not to assume no one
> is of course.
Most are. That's why there's so little posting going on.
I'm still in the beginning stages of doing so, thus having more time for
things like posting.
> > I'm not a very high quality poster because I tend to post when
> > my insomnia kicks, so I don't post my best stuff. My best stuff
> > gets scattered in the places where it seems to help people or
> > entertain people.
>
> Hah. If only you could get paid for your best stuff. But I guess if
> it supports someone's liveliness, that's not bad.
After decades of being told that I should be getting paid,
I have finally decided that the assholes who told me I had no business
trying to get paid were full of shit and am taking active steps
towards figuring out how to get paid for what I do well.
Still working on figuring out what it is that I do so well so that
I can find a market for it. "Writing" is far too broad a field to
work with, so I'm looking at what it is that I do with my writing,
so that I can sell it to the people who think that what I do is worth
paying someone for.
> > I was going to protest that I don't get a better response, but
> > that's an incorrect self-perception left over from younger days.
> > I've mostly let go of such things. I still get very little response
> > to most of what I write, but the response I do get tends to be
> > on the more positive side.
>
> The benefits of growing old, knowing when not to be too concerned I
> suppose.
Getting older always means a change in perspective. Mine happens to be
a change that has allowed me to respond to life in a more productive
fashion. I like it.
I find it increasingly difficult to say that I am growing older because
I seem to be growing younger in my enjoyment of my life and my enthusiasm
for experiencing as many things as I can in life. It's like I started off
old and curmudgeonly and had to learn to be young and care-free.
> I'm sure the restaurant didn't mind having more customers as long as
> the fad doesn't disappear and leave behind a lack of even the previous
> customers who got put off.
As long as the food stays good, I'm glad that they are getting enough
business to stay open. We've lost many local businesses over the last
few years. The ones we still have are struggling because of the box store
invasion. Much as I hate the loss of ambience, I am glad of anything
that keeps our local businesses in business.
I won't even set foot in the box stores anymore. Sadly, I order a lot
of stuff online because it simply isn't available, but I order it through
a local business whenever possible. Anything to keep them going because
they sell high quality items that can't be had at the box stores.
> Reminds me of Willoughby in the Twilight Zone, Cinema Paradiso, and
> the 1990 Italian movie, "Everybody's Fine".
I don't watch movies or TV anymore, but Cinema Paradiso is on my list
of movies I will watch if the opportunity presents itself. I don't know
anything about it and I don't want to know anything about it before
I see it. I want to see it because I like the tone of voice people use
when they mention it and the contexts within which it gets mentioned.
Seriously, don't tell me anything about it because I won't read it.
It's a mystery I want to solve for myself by seeing the movie someday.
A Clockwork Orange is on that list as well. I like that what I've heard
about it doesn't make any sense.
> > `una - crawling out from under this rock this year.
>
> Hah. More than the mountain of rocks under which I live. kudos to you.
I already spent five years clearing the mountain.
`una - doesn't take much force to cause an avalanche
whisky-dave
"Morgan Bane" <theb...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:926dc0d4-4017-47f2...@c34g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
}Ah well, in a year or two, Google will find a way to scan everyone's
}brain for temperament, likes and dislikes, neuroses, etc. Then
}they'll release a Personality search engine. ;)
google doesn;t need to bother you just use something like arseface, type in
all your details
and start playing those games that collect and store info about you and your
friends that also
'play the game'
Dark Phoenix
> "Dark Phoenix" wrote:
>> The *truly* annoying part about going to that restaurant dressed up in
>> gothic finery is that you are apt to be taken for one of those fangdorks,
>> which in my mind would be even worse than all those folks who used to
>> assume
>> all goths were Marilyn Manson fans.
>
> Only if your idea of gothic finery is Hot Topic, body glitter, and
> plenty of Twilight merchandise. The Cullen family crest is very popular
> as jewelry around here.
>
> Someone dressed up for Convergence would not be mistaken as a fangdork
> in a million years, but that has as much to do with age and bearing as
> it does with fashion.
>
> Fangdorks are most easily identified by their behavior. There are plenty
> of fangdorks who dress in a completely mundane fashion, but their
> giggling and twittering around Twilight landmarks are a dead give away.
>
> `una - it's all about your attitude
Good to know. It would incredibly embarrassing to be taken for a Twilighter.
Now, I do know that some otherwise reasonable goths enjoy reading the books,
but none of them would wear the Cullen crest on a bet. I think. And they
certainly don't giggle and twitter around the landmarks.
But, hey, body glitter was once a staple among certain goths. There was the
Glitter Goth Collective way back when...
TenshiKurai9
Which might generate a bit of traffic.
It's you, Andrew Edlritch.
-TenshiKurai9, is going to be shocked if this does result in us being
trolled.
TenshiKurai9
Or Jesus.
-TenshiKurai9
Maxwell Hammer
news:slrnhkq7dt...@abyss.ninehells.com:
> It's you, Andrew Edlritch.
I think he did once before.
I know Warren Ellis used to read the group.
Max
`una
> But, hey, body glitter was once a staple among certain goths. There was the
> Glitter Goth Collective way back when...
It's all in how you wear it.
`una - "I'm covered in irony!"
Dark Phoenix
"Sparkly, sparkly irony that sheds in everyone's drinks when I move!"
~Fianna
"Dark Phoenix" <dark_p...@netw.com> wrote in message
news:ILmdnUTiWJ9p8NLW...@povn.com...
>
> "`una" <una...@nettrip.org> wrote in message
> news:vq5227-...@abyss.ninehells.com...
>> "Dark Phoenix" wrote:
>>
>>> But, hey, body glitter was once a staple among certain goths. There was
>>> the
>>> Glitter Goth Collective way back when...
>>
>> It's all in how you wear it.
>>
>> `una - "I'm covered in irony!"
>
> "Sparkly, sparkly irony that sheds in everyone's drinks when I move!"
Poor Satori had to adapt to this when I first started visiting. Due to the
living conditions of my home, we didn't keep anything in the bathroom unless
we were actively using it... So without thinking, while getting ready for
the club one night, I sprayed my glittery hair stuff in... Satori rolled his
eyes and off we went. The next morning, he showered and went to work as
usual... and was covered in a light dusting of glitter because I'd hit the
bathtowels.
I really thought for a minute that I was going to wind up buried in the
desert.
~Fi, sparkly irony was fun.
Peter H. Coffin
> Poor Satori had to adapt to this when I first started visiting. Due
> to the living conditions of my home, we didn't keep anything in the
> bathroom unless we were actively using it... So without thinking,
> while getting ready for the club one night, I sprayed my glittery hair
> stuff in... Satori rolled his eyes and off we went. The next morning,
> he showered and went to work as usual... and was covered in a light
> dusting of glitter because I'd hit the bathtowels.
>
> I really thought for a minute that I was going to wind up buried in
> the desert.
There's a joke involving an OB/GYN visit in there somplace...
--
Compared to system administration, being cursed forever is a step up.
-- Paul Tomko
`una
> Due to the
> living conditions of my home, we didn't keep anything in the bathroom unless
> we were actively using it... So without thinking, while getting ready for
> the club one night, I sprayed my glittery hair stuff in... Satori rolled his
> eyes and off we went. The next morning, he showered and went to work as
> usual... and was covered in a light dusting of glitter because I'd hit the
> bathtowels.
Laughing that hard with a sinus infection was deeply painful, but
so entirely worth it. Having actually spent a considerable amount of
time with both of you at Convergence took a story that was just
kind of cute and made it totally worth the pain I'm in right now.
`una - liking people is easy. Talking, not so much.
GryffnStryff
Perhaps so, if not already last year:
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-09/cal-tech-scientists-solve-social-problems-mris
MRI Brain Scans Can Solve Eternal Social Problem of Freeloading
By Stuart Fox Posted 09.11.2009 at 7:58 am
We'll See Who Freeloads Now! via Greene Medical Imaging
The problem of people who take more than their fair share of public
services is as old as public services themselves. On a small scale,
the problem merely blends into all the other inefficiencies in the
system. But if freeloading becomes too pervasive, it can imperil the
entire society. This may seem like an abstract economics or social
sciences problem, but the tendency of people to request social
services without demanding that they pay a fair amount for those
services led directly to California bankrupting itself.
Now, scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech)
claim they have figured out how to avoid the problem of free-riding by
using an MRI machine to read people's hidden feelings about a
particular public service.
Imagine a business designing a lunch plan for its employees. The
fairest way to charge for the lunch would be to make people pay per
item, so that those who eat more, pay more. Knowing this, those who
are prone to eat more naturally argue for a flat rate, thus ensuring
they get a better deal in the long run. This kind of negotiation goes
on in many forms throughout society, in areas as disparate as national
defense, public transportation, and health care.
The Cal Tech researchers measured the brain patterns of volunteers
asked to role-play just that kind of scenario. The scans helped the
researchers determine whether or not the participants were lying when
they said how much they valued a hypothetical service. Those who told
the truth about how much they valued the service got to pay less to
receive the service (in this case, an actual cash payout). Those who
weren't honest got less money.
With the payments proving the accuracy of the MRI at reading people's
honesty, almost everyone in the experiment began voting for a fair
distribution of the burden for supporting the service.
The lead author says his research will allow state, local, and Federal
governments to forgo the proposition system, and instead brain-scan a
random sampling of possible beneficiaries of a new service, as a means
to assess how much the public is actually willing to pay. In
California, where the ballot initiative process led to so much free-
riding that the state became bankrupt, it's easy to see the appeal of
this system. However, the idea that any government would monitor its
citizens' brains for honesty will doubtless strike even the least
paranoid person as rather terrifyingly Orwellian.
GryffnStryff
ghosts. If we don't perceive and interpret their existence, they don't
exist. After all, when a man says something and no women are around
to hear it, only a woman would say it's wrong anyway.
GryffnStryff
> "Morgan Bane" <theban...@gmail.com> wrote in message
doubleclick
NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
Echelon
GryffnStryff
Or a lying antichrist, since Jesus still lives in the afterlife, I'd
assume. After all, didn't he rise from the dead? Don't tell me he's
a zombie.
Ssulian
Get some respect, fool!
\
Ssulian
GryffnStryff caterer tortoise isdladsl molester
Maxwell Hammer
6921be...@c4g2000yqa.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> doubleclick
>> NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
>> Echelon
>
> GryffnStryff caterer tortoise isdladsl molester
Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom!
Max
Peter H. Coffin
> On Jan 9, 11:38�pm, GryffnStryff <gryffnstr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Jan 9, 10:09�pm, Morgan Bane <theban...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > On Jan 9, 9:29�am, Jennie Kermode <"Jennie
>>
>> > Kermode"@triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> > Ah well, in a year or two, Google will find a way to scan everyone's
>> > brain for temperament, likes and dislikes, neuroses, etc. �Then
>> > they'll release a Personality search engine. �;)
>>
>> oh, Brave, New Can of Worms (tm)!
>
> Perhaps so, if not already last year:
>
> http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-09/cal-tech-scientists-solve-social-problems-mris
>
> MRI Brain Scans Can Solve Eternal Social Problem of Freeloading
> By Stuart Fox Posted 09.11.2009 at 7:58 am
>
> We'll See Who Freeloads Now! via Greene Medical Imaging
>
> The problem of people who take more than their fair share of public
> services is as old as public services themselves. On a small scale,
> the problem merely blends into all the other inefficiencies in the
> system. But if freeloading becomes too pervasive, it can imperil the
> entire society. This may seem like an abstract economics or social
> sciences problem, but the tendency of people to request social
> services without demanding that they pay a fair amount for those
> services led directly to California bankrupting itself.
I wish I could get worked up about it, but honestly, I have a bigger
problem with people who refuse to avail themselves of public services
that they qualify for. Take the damned free flu shot if you can get it.
Ride the bus. Go to the library and get your entertainment from there
instead of NetFlix. Most of these kind of things have substantial
capital costs, but very little incremental costs. Putting the bus on the
road? $100,000. Running the bus for a day? $2500. The cost of having
it drive around with an average of 20 people on it instead of two? $10
or so.
--
Crowds want to beat, journalists deserve to be beaten. Where lies
the problem?
-- Lars Syrstad
whisky-dave
No of course he wasn;t what actually happen was not the Jesus got
resurrected
but he got an erection while on the cross. It was a typo in the Bible.
Some 2000 years later Michael Hutchence tried a similar thing but he didn't
have any helpers aka disciples.
The Wizard of Berkeley
> "GryffnStryff" <gryffnstr...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Maybe Jesus was a Satan worshipper too.
\
GryffnStryff
Me or Tenshi? And toward what? Respect is a two-way street, fool.
GryffnStryff
Troll, there is a bigger goat coming over the bridge.
GryffnStryff
> GryffnStryff <gryffnstr...@gmail.com> wrote in news:90ca8c1d-9885-45fa-
> 916b-1c56c6dba...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Or a lying antichrist, since Jesus still lives in the afterlife, I'd
> > assume. After all, didn't he rise from the dead? Don't tell me he's
> > a zombie.
>
> his blood.
>
> Max
What a novel concept. Perhaps Anne Rice would write about it.
But I think she's writing about zombies now isn't she? Although, what
about the breaking of bread and eating the body of Christ? Maybe
that's applicable. Though zombies seem to always want to eat brains,
so I'm not sure, unless of course, this is about the life of Brian and
the poor zombies mistake him for brains.
GryffnStryff
wrote:
I don't think that's what he meant when he said, "Satan, get thee
behind me."
Maxwell Hammer
news:b9579af9-84b9-41d2...@h2g2000yqj.googlegroups.com:
> On Jan 23, 6:50�am, Maxwell Hammer <Secret...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> GryffnStryff <gryffnstr...@gmail.com> wrote in
>> news:90ca8c1d-9885-45fa-
>> 916b-1c56c6dba...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> > Or a lying antichrist, since Jesus still lives in the afterlife,
>> > I'd assume. �After all, didn't he rise from the dead? �Don't tell
>> > me he
> 's
>> > a zombie.
>>
>> No, Jesus is a vampire, everyone knows that. That's why Christians
>> drink his blood.
>>
>> Max
>
> What a novel concept. Perhaps Anne Rice would write about it.
Already happened. Lestat went back in time and bit Jesus. Seriously.
Max
Dark Phoenix
I figured he was tired of being the top.....
whisky-dave
I've heard that pimps call them their bottom bitch.
Peter H. Coffin
> On Jan 23, 6:50�am, Maxwell Hammer <Secret...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> GryffnStryff <gryffnstr...@gmail.com> wrote in news:90ca8c1d-9885-45fa-
>> 916b-1c56c6dba...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> > Or a lying antichrist, since Jesus still lives in the afterlife, I'd
>> > assume. �After all, didn't he rise from the dead? �Don't tell me he's
>> > a zombie.
>>
>> No, Jesus is a vampire, everyone knows that. That's why Christians drink
>> his blood.
>>
>> Max
>
> What a novel concept. Perhaps Anne Rice would write about it.
Already been done, at least once.
--
Better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. And if he can't
be bothered to learn to fish and starves to death, that's a good enough
outcome for me.
-- Steve VanDevender
TenshiKurai9
Maybe he finds the afterlife to be a bit dead.
-TenshiKurai9
TenshiKurai9
> GryffnStryff <gryffn...@gmail.com> wrote in news:90ca8c1d-9885-45fa-
> 916b-1c5...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Or a lying antichrist, since Jesus still lives in the afterlife, I'd
>> assume. After all, didn't he rise from the dead? Don't tell me he's
>> a zombie.
>>
>
> his blood.
That would make his followers the vampires, not necessarily him.
-TenshiKurai9
Peter H. Coffin
Not necessarily. I mean, that's just cannibalism, since there's also the
"eat of my body" thing with the crackers. The key to the vampirism is
actually found in John 10:28 -- And I give unto them eternal life; and
they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand.
--
Science is like sex:
sometimes something useful comes out, but that's not why we're doing it.
-- Richard Feynman
The Wizard of Berkeley
> On Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:05:59 -0600, TenshiKurai9 wrote:
> >> GryffnStryff <gryffnstr...@gmail.com> wrote in news:90ca8c1d-9885-45fa-
> >> 916b-1c56c6dba...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
>
> >>> assume. After all, didn't he rise from the dead? Don't tell me he's
> >>> a zombie.
>
> >> No, Jesus is a vampire, everyone knows that. That's why Christians drink
> >> his blood.
>
> > That would make his followers the vampires, not necessarily him.
>
> Not necessarily. I mean, that's just cannibalism, since there's also the
> "eat of my body" thing with the crackers. The key to the vampirism is
They are not crackers, they are pieces of unleavened bread,
consecrated to become the flesh of Jesus. Note that this is in regards
to Catholicism. Lutherans drink grape juice and Mormons drink water.
--
Sacred
NightMist
<hel...@ninehells.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:05:59 -0600, TenshiKurai9 wrote:
>> On 2010-01-23, Maxwell Hammer <Secr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> GryffnStryff <gryffn...@gmail.com> wrote in news:90ca8c1d-9885-45fa-
>>> 916b-1c5...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
>>>
>>>> Or a lying antichrist, since Jesus still lives in the afterlife, I'd
>>>> assume. After all, didn't he rise from the dead? Don't tell me he's
>>>> a zombie.
>>>>
>>>
>>> No, Jesus is a vampire, everyone knows that. That's why Christians drink
>>> his blood.
>>
>> That would make his followers the vampires, not necessarily him.
>
>Not necessarily. I mean, that's just cannibalism, since there's also the
>"eat of my body" thing with the crackers. The key to the vampirism is
>actually found in John 10:28 -- And I give unto them eternal life; and
>they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my
>hand.
>
A bunch of them have this wierd necromancy thing going on too.
The catholic church and their eastern cousins have bits of dead bodies
stashed around their churches, and always under their alters.
And you know St. Peter's in Rome? They have the heads of like 10 of
the apostles ranged around the wall over where the Pope does mass.
Of course you know what they call the practioners of any other
religion that pray to the spirits associated with bits of dead bodies
for intervention with a higher being...
NightMist
--
Legolas is my house elf
Peter H. Coffin
Okay, tortilla chips.
And the wine/grape juice/water is the BLOOD, not the body.
--
Don't even get me started on the MCSEs I know. It's a miracle of
modern technology that some of these fsckwits still draw breath,
much less a paycheck.
-- Marc Bowden
Maxwell Hammer
news:451faffe-4ebe-40b8...@a16g2000pre.googlegroups.com:
I was a Baptist. They are crackers and grape juice. Also, nobody cares
what Mormons do. They have sacred long johns with triangles over the
nipples. They are Masons with strange fetishes.
Max
Panurge
> AIUI, rockabilly was a '70s invention based on the original rock'n'roll,
> with some extra country touches. IOW, it's actually the product of a
> revival, bearing the same relation to '50s rock'n'roll that indie rock
> bears to, say, 1965 garage rock or the British Invasion.
I've looked into this further and just want to say I was wrong. Maybe
the word came along a little later, but I'm not even sure about that.
--
"He who wishes to go beyond it must die."
--Arnold Schoenberg, on Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony
Peter H. Coffin
> Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> AIUI, rockabilly was a '70s invention based on the original rock'n'roll,
>> with some extra country touches. IOW, it's actually the product of a
>> revival, bearing the same relation to '50s rock'n'roll that indie rock
>> bears to, say, 1965 garage rock or the British Invasion.
>
> I've looked into this further and just want to say I was wrong. Maybe
> the word came along a little later, but I'm not even sure about that.
There's always the "has its roots in" weasel waiting for an opportunity
to pry one's foot from one's mouth...
--
Frankly, your argument wouldn't float were the sea composed of mercury.
-- Biff
Axel
wrote:
>Panurge <pan...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> AIUI, rockabilly was a '70s invention based on the original rock'n'roll,
>> with some extra country touches.
I'm really surprised that you could even write that without realising
that statement must be wrong.
Have you not ever listened to Elvis or Johnny Cash's 50's material?
Both artists produced music that meandered between country &
rock'n'roll (and gospel) such that there is no clear dividing line.
In the words of The King, "My stuff is just hopped-up country."
>> IOW, it's actually the product of a
>> revival, bearing the same relation to '50s rock'n'roll that indie rock
>> bears to, say, 1965 garage rock or the British Invasion.
>I've looked into this further and just want to say I was wrong. Maybe
>the word came along a little later, but I'm not even sure about that.
Wikipedia is your friend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockabilly#Use_of_the_term_rockabilly
Although the term was in common use even before the Burnettes wrote
"Rock Billy Boogie", one of the first written uses of the term
"rockabilly" was in a June 23, 1956 Billboard review of Ruckus Tyler's
"Rock Town Rock".[33]
The first record to contain the word "rockabilly" in a song title was
issued in November 1956, "Rock a Billy Gal".[34]
--
Axel... ...Kallisti
Panurge
> >I wrote:
> >
> >> AIUI, rockabilly was a '70s invention based on the original rock'n'roll,
> >> with some extra country touches.
>
> I'm really surprised that you could even write that without realising
> that statement must be wrong.
Yeah, well, I occasionally have these little moments of gullibility...
I'd read it from some other source that I can't even remember now and
didn't question it, maybe precisely because it wasn't the standard line.
Maybe the source was responding to what's phrased thus in the Wikipedia
article: "The influence and popularity of the style waned in the 1960s,
but during the late 1970s and early 1980s, rockabilly enjoyed a major
revival of popularity that has endured to the present, often within a
rockabilly subculture."
> Have you not ever listened to Elvis or Johnny Cash's 50's material?
Sure (well, a little of it).
Of course, Cash's early stuff (or even later) seems closer to me to
"Western" than "country"--not so much to do with The Nashville Sound.
But it seems there was a revival, and maybe the original source just
made more of it than should've been made.
> Both artists produced music that meandered between country &
> rock'n'roll (and gospel) such that there is no clear dividing line.
>
> In the words of The King, "My stuff is just hopped-up country."
True, too.
> The first record to contain the word "rockabilly" in a song title was
> issued in November 1956, "Rock a Billy Gal".[34]
OK, thanks!
Jeff Blanks
GryffnStryff <gryffn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 9, 9:29 am, Jennie Kermode wrote:
> > On 2010-01-06, Morgan Bane <theban...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I don't think much of it was really due to Columbine. I think
> > it's more that the landscape of the whole internet was changing, with
> > all sorts of people getting online. Now it's changed again because those
> > people have largely settled down in particular easy-access areas,
> > leaving things like newsgroups, which require more clue, to those of us
> > who were here to begin with.
>
> Now that I think of it, this is very true. Back in the late 1990s,
> the mad rush to get a computer into every home to benefit from the
> social internet of email, web pages, irc, icq, etc. was all the rage.
> Now that it's mostly passe', most script kiddies would rather waste
> their time and creativity on myspace/book/schmook/banana. It's like
> that ad somewhere showing a conservative 1950s scene, 60s hippiness,
> 70s rockness, 80s outlandishness (or was this when it came full circle
> and restarted). Dunno.
I don't know what the relationship is here, but I just wanna say I
always hated those ads. They always presented that pre-hippie-era
fashion as some sort of timeless default state--plainly the people
behind it liked that kind of stuff and wanted to re-institute it. And
the worst thing is, people BOUGHT it. And this is the generation that
thinks they're so knowing and ironic and sophisticated.
And yes, it was going on in some form during the '80s as well as after
them. What does it say about the advertising industry that America
Coming Home From Those Awful Times When Men Didn't Necessarily Wear
Crewcuts has been a theme for so long?
--
"When someone serves you coffee, don't go looking for beer in it."
--Anton Chekhov
TenshiKurai9
> I don't know what the relationship is here, but I just wanna say I
> always hated those ads. They always presented that pre-hippie-era
> fashion as some sort of timeless default state--plainly the people
> behind it liked that kind of stuff and wanted to re-institute it. And
> the worst thing is, people BOUGHT it. And this is the generation that
> thinks they're so knowing and ironic and sophisticated.
Are those the Levi's ads where one piece of literature or another is
being read as the whole ad unfurls?
-TenshiKurai9
Jeff Blanks
No--it's MUCH bigger than that. Those Levi's ads are just the hipster
branch of it, which *is central to my point* (*pace* Jonah Goldberg).
Men's fashion journalism is full of much the same thing--"timeless",
"never goes out of style", etc., always referring to the most
conservative stuff, things I thought would be historical costume by now.
That guys supposedly wear it "ironically" doesn't matter--they're still
wearing it.
TenshiKurai9
I just had to Google Jonah Goldberg and then followed the link to the
Wikipedia entry, but already don't feel like reading the entire article.
(My interest tapers-off quickly at the words, American conservative.)
Thought you were talking about a specific set of ads instead of an ad
trope.
Meanwhile, the Levi's ad made me think of the slickness of Vice
Magazine. (Same slickness that makes me feel a bit bad when I read an
article, even if it's as cool the Aborginal Australian town that is so
metal, all the local youth gangs name themselves after metal bands.)
Only reason why my room mate liked the ads is because she says she
spotted a gay couple (in a national ad with wide-exposure.) (AKA,
de-ghettozing gayness in the media.)
I also find my fur rubbed wrong by when people use the word ironic to
describe wearing fashion like that. It doesn't match what my 7th grade
English class told me was irony. (Tale of the Magi) (Why Tenshi can't
be a hipster.) (It's a flaw I look the other way from a couple who are
nice and are hipsters, whether they call themselves that or not.)
(And great joy, the ex seems to have dropped the word ironic from his
vocabulary and uses other words where he used to use ironic.)
-TenshiKurai9, wears her Dunkie Junkie t-shirt and hoodie as a Bostonian
even though she's part of the set that goes to independent cafes.