About the Origin of Communist Lance Armstrong
Mark Sotelo
things from the Quiznos commercial singing and dancing I my refrigerator?
Peachy Ashie Passion
> How did this thread start, was he ever a communist and why are those sick
> things from the Quiznos commercial singing and dancing I my refrigerator?
>
I have no idea of the answer to any of
these questions.
I didn't start the Lance thread, and it was
well off the topic of Lance when I joined in.
I believe when I got here it was about
Barney's dating life.
--
Usenet is like Tetris for people who still
remember how to read. -Joshua Heller
The Babaloughesian
"Mark Sotelo" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:BC94347A.68118%mark...@earthlink.net...
> How did this thread start, was he ever a communist and why are those sick
> things from the Quiznos commercial singing and dancing I my refrigerator?
IIRC Barney started it as a political troll parody. Armstrong wasn't a
communist AFAIK, but I think there was something about him living in France
or sympathizing with the position of France regarding our invasion of Iraq.
I fortunately have not seen the Quiznos commercial, as I watch almost all my
TV shows nowadays via computer.
Don Sample
<mark...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> How did this thread start, was he ever a communist?
It started as a joke. Barney did an overly subtle parody of the "XXX is
a YYY" type of post, and people took it seriously.
The actual text of the post had nothing to do with Communism. It had
more to do with atheism, and a not very subtle dig at France. (I
suppose the communism bit in the heading came about because everyone
knows that communists are all atheists, so atheists must be communists,
right?)
--
Don Sample, dsa...@synapse.net
Visit the Buffy Body Count at http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Mark Sotelo
"Peachy Ashie Passion" <res1...@invalid.net> wrote:
> Mark Sotelo wrote:
>> How did this thread start, was he ever a communist and why are those sick
>> things from the Quiznos commercial singing and dancing I my refrigerator?
>>
>
> I have no idea of the answer to any of
> these questions.
> I didn't start the Lance thread, and it was
> well off the topic of Lance when I joined in.
> I believe when I got here it was about
> Barney's dating life.
He dated a communist or he dated Lance Armstrong? The mystery deepens....
(just kidding Barney)
Mark Sotelo
"The Babaloughesian" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
You mean DVD or are you downloading them?
Peachy Ashie Passion
Barney's dating habits are most definitely
a mystery, Mark.
I look forward to him filling us in.
Mark Sotelo
"Alicat" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 19:10:37 GMT, Peachy Ashie Passion
> <res1...@invalid.net> wrote:
>
>> Mark Sotelo wrote:
>>> How did this thread start, was he ever a communist and why are those sick
>>> things from the Quiznos commercial singing and dancing I my refrigerator?
>>>
>>
>> I have no idea of the answer to any of
>> these questions.
>> I didn't start the Lance thread, and it was
>> well off the topic of Lance when I joined in.
>> I believe when I got here it was about
>> Barney's dating life.
>
>
> I really like those sick things from the Quiznos commercials, so if
> you don't, send them over here. I think they are hysterically funny.
>
> adios,
> alicat
>
I have a treat for you then. http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song/ This where
they came from and this is the original song. Be sure to check out the other
parody bits especially the misheard lyrics "Holding back the ears" LOL! very
strange website
The Babaloughesian
Downloading.
Peachy Ashie Passion
> "Mark Sotelo" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:BC94585D.68148%mark...@earthlink.net...
>
>>On 4/3/04 11:29 AM, in article
>
> c4n3a4$2jqbul$1...@ID-177202.news.uni-berlin.de,
>
>>"The Babaloughesian" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Mark Sotelo" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>>>news:BC94347A.68118%mark...@earthlink.net...
>>>
>>>>How did this thread start, was he ever a communist and why are those
>
> sick
>
>>>>things from the Quiznos commercial singing and dancing I my
>
> refrigerator?
>
>>>IIRC Barney started it as a political troll parody. Armstrong wasn't a
>>>communist AFAIK, but I think there was something about him living in
>
> France
>
>>>or sympathizing with the position of France regarding our invasion of
>
> Iraq.
>
>>>I fortunately have not seen the Quiznos commercial, as I watch almost
>
> all my
>
>>>TV shows nowadays via computer.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>You mean DVD or are you downloading them?
>
>
> Downloading.
>
>
good gosh where.
I miss so many tv shows lately!
Elizabeth Blake
> > I really like those sick things from the Quiznos commercials, so if
> > you don't, send them over here. I think they are hysterically funny.
> >
> > adios,
> > alicat
> >
> I have a treat for you then. http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song/ This
where
> they came from and this is the original song. Be sure to check out the
other
> parody bits especially the misheard lyrics "Holding back the ears" LOL!
very
> strange website
If you go to the main page of rathergood.com, there's something called Buffy
Swears.
http://www.rathergood.com/buffy/
The singing kittens are still my favorite.
Liz
The Babaloughesian
"Peachy Ashie Passion" <res1...@invalid.net> wrote in message
news:MaIbc.7631$s34....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...
> The Babaloughesian wrote:
>
> > "Mark Sotelo" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> > news:BC94585D.68148%mark...@earthlink.net...
> >
> >>On 4/3/04 11:29 AM, in article
> >
> > c4n3a4$2jqbul$1...@ID-177202.news.uni-berlin.de,
> >
> >>"The Babaloughesian" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>"Mark Sotelo" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> >>>news:BC94347A.68118%mark...@earthlink.net...
> >>>
> >>>>How did this thread start, was he ever a communist and why are those
> >
> > sick
> >
> >>>>things from the Quiznos commercial singing and dancing I my
> >
> > refrigerator?
> >
> >>>IIRC Barney started it as a political troll parody. Armstrong wasn't a
> >>>communist AFAIK, but I think there was something about him living in
> >
> > France
> >
> >>>or sympathizing with the position of France regarding our invasion of
> >
> > Iraq.
> >
> >>>I fortunately have not seen the Quiznos commercial, as I watch almost
> >
> > all my
> >
> >>>TV shows nowadays via computer.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>You mean DVD or are you downloading them?
> >
> >
> > Downloading.
> >
> >
>
> good gosh where.
The p2p program "bit torrent." An FAQ is here:
http://www.monduna.com/bt/faq.html
--
When you think about it, there isn't really any good reason not to torture
Kim Bauer to death with a power drill.
I mean, think about it.
Peachy Ashie Passion
Thank you kind Sir.
Or is it Ma'am? It is Sir, isn't it?
Peachy,
confuzzled now
The Babaloughesian
It's Sir. Or Master, if you feel like it.
--
"Once again a stalker not, a pervert yes."
-NYC Man
Mark Sotelo
"The Babaloughesian" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> "Mark Sotelo" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:BC94585D.68148%mark...@earthlink.net...
>> On 4/3/04 11:29 AM, in article
> c4n3a4$2jqbul$1...@ID-177202.news.uni-berlin.de,
>> "The Babaloughesian" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> "Mark Sotelo" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>>> news:BC94347A.68118%mark...@earthlink.net...
>>>> How did this thread start, was he ever a communist and why are those
> sick
>>>> things from the Quiznos commercial singing and dancing I my
> refrigerator?
>>>
>>> IIRC Barney started it as a political troll parody. Armstrong wasn't a
>>> communist AFAIK, but I think there was something about him living in
> France
>>> or sympathizing with the position of France regarding our invasion of
> Iraq.
>>> I fortunately have not seen the Quiznos commercial, as I watch almost
> all my
>>> TV shows nowadays via computer.
>>>
>>>
>> You mean DVD or are you downloading them?
>
> Downloading.
>
Be careful. I am not claiming to be an insider but I can tell you the MPA is
about to come down like a ton of bricks over this issue.
The Babaloughesian
I suppose I am, given that the only shows I watch are 24, Angel,
Wonderfalls, Carnivale, and Dead Like Me, and of these, there's only one
show that isn't cancelled or between seasons. And I never download movies
at all, so no worries there.
> I am not claiming to be an insider but I can tell you the MPA is
> about to come down like a ton of bricks over this issue.
I was under the impression that the MPAA was concerned about movies. And
that they've been sending out their C&D things since at least last year (to
bt users, anyway. I know they've been onto other p2p programs for much
longer than that). Haven't heard anything to indicate that they're taking
it up a notch, though. I wonder where the "about to" comes from...
--
"Consequences dictate our course of action and it doesn't matter what's
right. It's only wrong if you get caught."
-Tool, "Jerk-Off"
Mark Sotelo
"The Babaloughesian" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
Hollywood reporter article I read a few weeks ago . If I can find some other
links I will post them.
Barney
<res1...@invalid.net> writes:
>>>Mark Sotelo wrote:
>>>
>>>>How did this thread start, was he ever a communist and why are those sick
>>>>things from the Quiznos commercial singing and dancing I my refrigerator?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I have no idea of the answer to any of
>>>these questions.
>>>I didn't start the Lance thread, and it was
>>>well off the topic of Lance when I joined in.
>>>I believe when I got here it was about
>>>Barney's dating life.
>>
>>
>> He dated a communist or he dated Lance Armstrong? The mystery deepens....
>> (just kidding Barney)
I'm not ashamed. Lance was the sweetest, kindest, most generous lover I have
ever had. I wish he would take me back.
>>
>
> Barney's dating habits are most definitely
>a mystery, Mark.
IIRC, Alicat and I did in fact discuss my dating habits. I told her that my
generation doesn't formally date the way people did in the distant past (the
50s). We sort of "hang out". To my surprise, Alicat revealed that she never
really dated either. She's a hippie so to her courtship merely entails walking
up to a guy and saying, "Groovy threads. Let's ball."
> I look forward to him filling us in.
>
What would you like to know about my sex life, Peachy? I'll tell you anything,
as long as you promise not to stalk me.
Your pal,
Barney
The major horrors of our day have been perpetrated by regimes which banned 'The
120 Days of Sodom'.
--- Anthony Burgess
Barney
<dsa...@synapse.net> writes:
>> How did this thread start, was he ever a communist?
>
>It started as a joke. Barney did an overly subtle parody of the "XXX is
>a YYY" type of post, and people took it seriously.
>
>The actual text of the post had nothing to do with Communism. It had
>more to do with atheism, and a not very subtle dig at France. (I
>suppose the communism bit in the heading came about because everyone
>knows that communists are all atheists, so atheists must be communists,
>right?)
>
That's exactly how I remember it, Don, although the precise origin of an
institution as old as the Lance Armstrong thread is bound to be mired in
controversy. Historians will probably never agree about how this madness
started and was allowed to continue. I'll only add that Alicat immediately
tried to convert the thread into a pulpit for Papist propaganda, and we've been
crossing swords (with hiatuses here and there) ever since.
Peachy Ashie Passion
ROFL
well since you brought it up,
what would your qualifications for that title
be?
Peachy Ashie Passion
> In article <cQEbc.5813$Zw....@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>, Peachy Ashie Passion
> <res1...@invalid.net> writes:
>
>
>>>>Mark Sotelo wrote:
>>>He dated a communist or he dated Lance Armstrong? The mystery deepens....
>>>(just kidding Barney)
>
>
> I'm not ashamed. Lance was the sweetest, kindest, most generous lover I have
> ever had. I wish he would take me back.
>
>
>> Barney's dating habits are most definitely
>>a mystery, Mark.
>
>
> IIRC, Alicat and I did in fact discuss my dating habits. I told her that my
> generation doesn't formally date the way people did in the distant past (the
> 50s). We sort of "hang out". To my surprise, Alicat revealed that she never
> really dated either. She's a hippie so to her courtship merely entails walking
> up to a guy and saying, "Groovy threads. Let's ball."
>
hmm. I wasn't in the 50's but the early
90's, and it sounds a bit like my dating life.
Although I thought I recalled stating my
distaste for the word "ball" used to describe
the sex act.
Was that the one where you decided I was
too serious?
>> I look forward to him filling us in.
>>
>
>
> What would you like to know about my sex life, Peachy? I'll tell you anything,
> as long as you promise not to stalk me.
>
> Your pal,
> Barney
Damn Barney, for starters I wanna know how
to get former lovers to say such nice things
about me.
Peachy Ashie Passion
<snipping stuff because Alicat said to so
it's all her fault if you don't follow the
conversation>
>
>
> Damn straight!
>
> All thinking beings will eventually come into line and realize that
> Holy Mother Church is the only refuge for the blah bhal bla...........
> oh, just go and have a beer and think well of each other. (Except the
> French.)
>
> adios,
> alicat
>
But I hate beer.
could I have a nice daiquiri instead?
Mark Sotelo
"Alicat" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> Blessings be upon you, your children and your children's children!
> Thank you oh so much!
>
> This was absolutely great - a total treat, and the perfect antidote to
> the second day of depression occasioned by my team's loss yesterday in
> the FA Cup Semi-Final (oh, you do too know what I mean).
>
> Now I get to spend some money on tshirts!
>
> I don't know why I find these creatures so hysterically funny, but I
> actually anticipate the Quiznos commercials even though I doubt I will
> ever eat any of their food.
>
> adios,
> alicat
Your welcome and may you long enjoy Cheese and Zeppelins. It goes without
saying we like the moon.
Peachy Ashie Passion
> On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 21:08:29 GMT, Peachy Ashie Passion
> <res1...@invalid.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Alicat wrote:
>>
>> <snipping stuff because Alicat said to so
>>it's all her fault if you don't follow the
>>conversation>
>
>
> all!
<snipping more stuff. Because now I've gone
snip happy>
>
>>>
>>>Damn straight!
>>>
>>>All thinking beings will eventually come into line and realize that
>>>Holy Mother Church is the only refuge for the blah bhal bla...........
>>>oh, just go and have a beer and think well of each other. (Except the
>>>French.)
>>>
>>>adios,
>>>alicat
>>>
>>
>> But I hate beer.
>> could I have a nice daiquiri instead?
>
>
> I don't drink beer either....a nice daiquiri sounds very good - are
> you a purist or do you like the strawberry or peach varieties?
> Anyway a nice daiquiri will probably engender all sorts of nice
> thoughts about things, with the notable exception of *the French*.
>
> adios,
> alicat
I'm firmly in favour of all sorts of
fruity drinks. Umbrellas are a plus.
Coconut and pineapple are bigger plusses.
peachy
Peachy Ashie Passion
> On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 23:39:06 GMT, Peachy Ashie Passion
> <res1...@invalid.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Alicat wrote:
>>
>>>On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 21:08:29 GMT, Peachy Ashie Passion
>>><res1...@invalid.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Alicat wrote:
>>>>
>>>><snipping stuff because Alicat said to so
>>>>it's all her fault if you don't follow the
>>>>conversation>
>>>
>>>
>>>Now you are getting the idea! Confuse the masses, I say! Confuse them
>>>all!
>>
>><snipping more stuff. Because now I've gone
>>snip happy>
>
>
> There you go....snip snip snip. Think of it as "Bobbettizing" the
> thread! :)
Okay, now I'm afraid to snip any more.
Bobbettizing? *shudders*
>
>>>>>Damn straight!
>>>>>
>>>>>All thinking beings will eventually come into line and realize that
>>>>>Holy Mother Church is the only refuge for the blah bhal bla...........
>>>>>oh, just go and have a beer and think well of each other. (Except the
>>>>>French.)
>>>>>
>>>>>adios,
>>>>>alicat
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> But I hate beer.
>>>>could I have a nice daiquiri instead?
>>>
>>>
>>>I don't drink beer either....a nice daiquiri sounds very good - are
>>>you a purist or do you like the strawberry or peach varieties?
>>>Anyway a nice daiquiri will probably engender all sorts of nice
>>>thoughts about things, with the notable exception of *the French*.
>>>
>>>adios,
>>>alicat
>>
>> I'm firmly in favour of all sorts of
>>fruity drinks. Umbrellas are a plus.
>> Coconut and pineapple are bigger plusses.
>>
>> peachy
>
>
> Ah so. What do you *do* with the umbrellas after the drink is
> gone....do you put it back in the glass as so much debris, or do you
> take them home or what? I wish I had some use for those things.
>
> A pina colada is one of the proofs of the existence of God, you know.
>
> adios,
> alicat
>
heh. I think you save them so at the end
of the night you know how many drinks you had.
I always thought they'd be fun with
Barbies too. I tend to fidget with them to
the point they don't make it home. But they
are lovely little things.
Along with decorative stirrers. We used to
get lovely things with small plastic animals
on top.
Why is it I stopped drinking again?
Barney
<res1...@invalid.net> writes:
>> IIRC, Alicat and I did in fact discuss my dating habits. I told her that
>my>> generation doesn't formally date the way people did in the distant past
>(the>> 50s). We sort of "hang out". To my surprise, Alicat revealed that she
>never>> really dated either. She's a hippie so to her courtship merely
entails
>walking>> up to a guy and saying, "Groovy threads. Let's ball."
>>
>
> hmm. I wasn't in the 50's but the early
>90's, and it sounds a bit like my dating life.
> Although I thought I recalled stating my
>distaste for the word "ball" used to describe
>the sex act.
>
> Was that the one where you decided I was
>too serious?
>
Anybody who doesn't find the word "ball" to be SCREAMINGLY HILARIOUS is by
definition humorless. Would you believe me if I told you that I giggle every
time I use the word? What can I say, I have a very simple mind.
>>> I look forward to him filling us in.
>>>
>>
>>
>> What would you like to know about my sex life, Peachy? I'll tell you
>anything,
>> as long as you promise not to stalk me.
>>
>> Your pal,
>> Barney
>
> Damn Barney, for starters I wanna know how
>to get former lovers to say such nice things
>about me.
>
Alimony. Lots of alimony.
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>>> How did this thread start, was he ever a communist?
>>>
>>>It started as a joke. Barney did an overly subtle parody of the "XXX is
>>>a YYY" type of post, and people took it seriously.
>>>
>>>The actual text of the post had nothing to do with Communism. It had
>>>more to do with atheism, and a not very subtle dig at France. (I
>>>suppose the communism bit in the heading came about because everyone
>>>knows that communists are all atheists, so atheists must be communists,
>>>right?)
>>>
>>
>>That's exactly how I remember it, Don, although the precise origin of an
>>institution as old as the Lance Armstrong thread is bound to be mired in
>>controversy. Historians will probably never agree about how this madness
>>started and was allowed to continue. I'll only add that Alicat immediately
>>tried to convert the thread into a pulpit for Papist propaganda, and we've
>been
>>crossing swords (with hiatuses here and there) ever since.
>
>Damn straight!
>
>All thinking beings will eventually come into line and realize that
>Holy Mother Church is the only refuge for the blah bhal bla...........
>oh, just go and have a beer and think well of each other. (Except the
>French.)
>
Speaking of Papist propaganda, have you ever paid attention to the lyrics of
the Beatles song "Let it Be"? I've been listening to it for years on classic
rock stations and only recently noticed that it refers to "Mother Mary"
returning to Earth and transforming the planet into a hippie paradise of peace
and love. WTF does "let it be" mean anyway, and why does Paul McCartney keep
insisting that these are "words of wisdom"? This is what happens when you mix
LSD and Christianity.
Don't get me started on Elton John lyrics, which I've also started listening
to. He's got a song about Jesus going to Venus. I'm not joking. Is there
nowhere I can turn without being bombarded by Jeezo-gospel?
JVBGUY
>Speaking of Papist propaganda, have you ever paid attention to the lyrics of
>the Beatles song "Let it Be"? I've been listening to it for years on classic
>rock stations and only recently noticed that it refers to "Mother Mary"
>returning to Earth and transforming the planet into a hippie paradise of
>peace
>and love. WTF does "let it be" mean anyway, and why does Paul McCartney keep
>insisting that these are "words of wisdom"? This is what happens when you
>mix
>LSD and Christianity.
I always saw that song as an unconscious acceptance by Paul that the Beatles
were not likely to last much longer, that the old gang was breaking apart for
various reasons. At the time he wrote that song, he was the sole force keeping
the Beatles together and recording. So "Let It Be" would mean "Don't push it -
they're going to break up, there's nothing you can do about it, so just let it
be." And Mother Mary could signify Paul remembering his own mother.
John B.
Laurel and Hardy Central (co-founder)
http://laurelandhardycentral.com
"If you were cute and little like this, you would naturally be afraid of a man
six times your size." - trailer for ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE
Diane Wilson
schlitz...@aol.comekingdom says...
You actually listen to the WORDS???!???!????
I don't listen to rock much any more, but when I did, it was usually
a severe turn-off to be able to understand the words. If they sang too
clearly, sometimes I'd stop listening to their music completely. The
Moody Blues were the worst; the only song of theirs that I can still
tolerate is Timothy Leary, and that only because it's a good song to
misquote once in a while.
The only real exceptions were groups like Pink Floyd and King Crimson,
whose lyrics were usually too cryptic to make much sense anyway. Or
Steeleye Span, even though they were uncomfortably close to folk music.
Diane
"Skepticism without irony is totally unfun. It leads to folk songs."
(Joel Stein)
William George Ferguson
wrote:
>In article <20040406092626...@mb-m10.aol.com>,
>schlitz...@aol.comekingdom says...
>> In article <c0s070lleaqkudbfg...@4ax.com>, Alicat
>> <m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>
>> Speaking of Papist propaganda, have you ever paid attention to the lyrics of
>> the Beatles song "Let it Be"? I've been listening to it for years on classic
>> rock stations and only recently noticed that it refers to "Mother Mary"
>> returning to Earth and transforming the planet into a hippie paradise of peace
>> and love. WTF does "let it be" mean anyway, and why does Paul McCartney keep
>> insisting that these are "words of wisdom"? This is what happens when you mix
>> LSD and Christianity.
Actually, "crystal words of wisdom". More likely methamphetamine than
LSD.
>> Don't get me started on Elton John lyrics, which I've also started listening
>> to. He's got a song about Jesus going to Venus.
Wanting to go to Venus, he doesn't actually go there.
For bonus points, what was Jesus' last name in the song?
> I'm not joking. Is there
>> nowhere I can turn without being bombarded by Jeezo-gospel?
>I don't listen to rock much any more, but when I did, it was usually
>a severe turn-off to be able to understand the words. If they sang too
>clearly, sometimes I'd stop listening to their music completely. The
>Moody Blues were the worst; the only song of theirs that I can still
>tolerate is Timothy Leary, and that only because it's a good song to
>misquote once in a while.
Moody Blues were too hard core. I preferred the soft melodic ballads,
like Lunatic Fringe by Red Ryder.
>The only real exceptions were groups like Pink Floyd and King Crimson,
"Lock the door, and throw away the key. There's someone in my head but
its not me."
>whose lyrics were usually too cryptic to make much sense anyway. Or
>Steeleye Span, even though they were uncomfortably close to folk music.
Is this some new definition of 'uncomfortably close' with which I'm not
familiar? (my mind will now be singing 'Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes'
for the next several hours, that is easily one of most addictive songs
ever recorded).
--
"Who needs the big picture? Not me. Hints are fine."
Joan Girardi (after God shows her just a little of his omnipresent brain)
Barney
Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com> writes:
>Actually, "crystal words of wisdom". More likely methamphetamine than
>LSD.
>
It sounds to me like Paul just says, "singing words of wisdom".
>>> Don't get me started on Elton John lyrics, which I've also started
>listening
>>> to. He's got a song about Jesus going to Venus.
>
>Wanting to go to Venus, he doesn't actually go there.
>
Actually, He makes it half-way there and then NASA loses all contact with Him,
costing taxpayers $400 million.
>For bonus points, what was Jesus' last name in the song?
>
Gibson?
Barney
<di...@firelily.com> writes:
>You actually listen to the WORDS???!???!????
>
>I don't listen to rock much any more, but when I did, it was usually
>a severe turn-off to be able to understand the words. If they sang too
>clearly, sometimes I'd stop listening to their music completely.
It seems to me the Rolling Stones deliberately recorded Mick Jagger's vocals so
that they were muddy and indecipherable. Clever lads.
> The
>Moody Blues were the worst; the only song of theirs that I can still
>tolerate is Timothy Leary, and that only because it's a good song to
>misquote once in a while.
>
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Which lines do people misquote?
>The only real exceptions were groups like Pink Floyd and King Crimson,
>whose lyrics were usually too cryptic to make much sense anyway.
I love practically all of the British supergroups of the hippie era, with the
Beatles being my favorite. (Original preference, eh?) I've never cared too
much for Pink Floyd, though.
> Or Steeleye Span, even though they were uncomfortably close to folk music.
>
From what I've heard, Steeleye Span *was* a folk band but I've never listened
to their stuff. I'd probably like them if they're anything like, say, Fairport
Convention.
Barney
(JVBGUY) writes:
>Our pal Barney wrote:
>
>>Speaking of Papist propaganda, have you ever paid attention to the lyrics of
>>the Beatles song "Let it Be"? I've been listening to it for years on
>classic
>>rock stations and only recently noticed that it refers to "Mother Mary"
>>returning to Earth and transforming the planet into a hippie paradise of
>>peace
>>and love. WTF does "let it be" mean anyway, and why does Paul McCartney
>keep
>>insisting that these are "words of wisdom"? This is what happens when you
>>mix
>>LSD and Christianity.
>
>I always saw that song as an unconscious acceptance by Paul that the Beatles
>were not likely to last much longer, that the old gang was breaking apart for
>various reasons. At the time he wrote that song, he was the sole force
>keeping
>the Beatles together and recording.
Really? I thought he was the first one to leave the group. Anyway, everybody
knows that Ringo was the real genius behind The Beatles. The other guys were
just his no-talent flunkies.
> So "Let It Be" would mean "Don't push it
>- they're going to break up, there's nothing you can do about it, so just let
>it be."
There were a lot of things he could have done to keep the band together. Such
as making Yoko Ono an offer she couldn't refuse.
>And Mother Mary could signify Paul remembering his own mother.
>
Most likely - I didn't know that was his mom's name. Do you think Mother Mary
was involved with Father MacKenzie of "Eleanor Rigby"?
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>Speaking of Papist propaganda, have you ever paid attention to the lyrics of
>>the Beatles song "Let it Be"? I've been listening to it for years on
>classic>>rock stations and only recently noticed that it refers to "Mother
Mary"
>>returning to Earth and transforming the planet into a hippie paradise of
>peace>>and love. WTF does "let it be" mean anyway, and why does Paul
McCartney
>keep>>insisting that these are "words of wisdom"? This is what happens when
you
>mix>>LSD and Christianity.
>
>Well, Paul's mother was named Mary and pop songs don't have to make
>any sense anyway....less so now than when Let It Be was written!
>Paul's ultimate religion is / was vegetarianism
Yeah, isn't he one of those PETA wack-jobs? Get a life, Paul. (Come to think
of it, didn't he used to be dead?)
> - I think only George
>stuck with spirituality in the long run, and he was more into Krishna
>than Christ.
>>
Was he the bastard responsible for "All You Need Is Love"? Whenever I hear
that song, I feel like beating up hippies.
>>Don't get me started on Elton John lyrics, which I've also started listening
>>to. He's got a song about Jesus going to Venus. I'm not joking. Is there
>>nowhere I can turn without being bombarded by Jeezo-gospel?
>
>Elton John is one of the last people on earth I would think has any
>interest in Jaysus (not that he writes any of his own lyrics, you know
>- isn't that still the job of Bernie Taupin?).
No idea. He actually hires someone *else* to write such nonsense?
> Speaking of insane
>lyrics, have you ever listened to the lyrics of "Goodbye Norma Jean"?
Not sure. What's that song about?
>And why in the name of all thats holy are you listening to Elton John
>anyway? Are you possessed? :)
>
I've been listening to him for years on classic rock, without paying attention
to the lyrics. Finally that bit about Jesus going to Venus managed to reach my
conscious mind, making me go (and I quote), "Huh?" As long as I'm hearing them
right - and Lord help us if I am - I can safely conclude that all of his lyrics
are totally idiotic.
>The only modern pop/rock lyricist who had much to say I can think of
>at the moment is Kurt Cobain - his stuff is brilliant. Neil Young is
>pretty good too.
>
I don't know anything about Cobain but I respect him for having the guts to
kill himself. What did he have to say?
Neil Young is incredibly overrated. Don't you consider Bob Dylan the greatest
poet of the 20th century? I'm shocked! What happened, doll, did people call
and say you'd fall? Did you ride on the chrome horse with your Siamese cat and
compromise with the mystery tramp? Did you gargle in rat race choirs and get
bent out of shape by society's pliers? Did you get lost in a fog of
amphetamine and pearl?
>I wish so much that I didn't listen to lyrics as much as I do - its
>ruined many a good song for me.
Yes, for the most part you're better off dismissing the words as random mouth
noises (like campaign speeches). I'm not a big fan of Tin Pan Alley
songwriting but at least the lyrics, albeit corny, actually made sense and were
sometimes witty. Generally, one guy wrote the lyrics and another guy wrote the
melody. They considered the words important enough to be assigned to someone
who specialized in lyrics.
> My husband barely notices lyrics at
>all, so he will play something for me that he likes a lot but I get
>caught up in the nonsensical words and start moaning about how stupid
>it is, while he assumes a puzzled expression and keeps pointing out
>how good the *music* is...
>
I'm with your husband when it comes to pop music. I take it for granted that
the words aren't worth my attention. But when it comes to real music, I have
to understand what's being sung. Some people actually listen to operas for
hours on end without having the slightest idea what the characters are
"recitativing" to each other. That drives me crazy. I have to track down the
libretto. Although I must admit that arias are just as moronic as rock lyrics.
It ruins the mystique when you discover that the glorious music you hear is
set to the Italian equivalent of "Be bop a lula, she's my baby". You're
probably better off blissfully ignorant..
JVBGUY
>jvbguy wrote:
>>I always saw that song as an unconscious acceptance by Paul that the Beatles
>>were not likely to last much longer, that the old gang was breaking apart
>for
>>various reasons. At the time he wrote that song, he was the sole force
>>keeping
>>the Beatles together and recording.
>
>Really? I thought he was the first one to leave the group.
No, Paul was just the first to announce that the group was split up. During
the White Album sessions in '68, Ringo quit but was talked back into the group.
("Back in the U.S.S.R" actually features all three contributing drum parts
without Ringo). During the Let It Be/Get Back sessions ('69), George quit
because Paul got too bossy, but he was talked back. Then after the Abbey Road
sessions (also '69), John told Paul he was leaving, and everybody decided it
would be better not to release the news right away and carry on as if the
Beatles were still together. Then Paul got pissed when they tried to delay his
first solo album so that it wouldn't be released at the same time as LET IT BE,
so Paul released the news anyway.
John once said he picture a comic strip of four people. In the second frame,
there are only three. Third frame, only two. Final frame, one guy, who says
"I'm leaving the group."
>Anyway, everybody
>knows that Ringo was the real genius behind The Beatles. The other guys were
>just his no-talent flunkies.
Shhh.... that's a trade secret. Not even Ringo knows it.
>There were a lot of things he could have done to keep the band together.
>Such
>as making Yoko Ono an offer she couldn't refuse.
>
So many myths about how Yoko broke up the group, but it was so much more
complicated than that. I won't bore you with the details and my own theories,
which involve growing tension between George and John.
>>And Mother Mary could signify Paul remembering his own mother.
>>
>
>Most likely - I didn't know that was his mom's name. Do you think Mother
>Mary
>was involved with Father MacKenzie of "Eleanor Rigby"?
>
Considering the original lyric was going to be Father McCartney, that could
very well be.
Enough Beatle trivia for one evening.
Diane Wilson
schlitz...@aol.comekingdom says...
> In article <MPG.1adcc205474cc946989693@news-server>, Diane Wilson
> <di...@firelily.com> writes:
>
> > The
> >Moody Blues were the worst; the only song of theirs that I can still
> >tolerate is Timothy Leary, and that only because it's a good song to
> >misquote once in a while.
> >
>
> I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Which lines do people misquote?
Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no-no-no, he's outside, looking in.
It's such a wonderful perspective to attibute to certain people
from time to time. The rest of the song is useful for extended
parody, too.
> > Or Steeleye Span, even though they were uncomfortably close to folk music.
> >
>
> From what I've heard, Steeleye Span *was* a folk band but I've never listened
> to their stuff. I'd probably like them if they're anything like, say, Fairport
> Convention.
The things that distinguished Steeleye Span was their use of electronic
instruments and amplification, and a decent rock drummer on some later
albums.
<pretentious>
This fusion of folk music with the sounds and style of rock emphasizes
the duality and ironic distancing necessary to open up old lyrics to
the ambiguities of modern life. This actualization of Bakhtin's "carnival"
focuses on the interaction between differing modes of expression,
suggesting new possibilities of thought while leaving us keenly aware
that we are missing out on the extended conversations that lead to
random intersections in time, space, and ideas.
</pretentious>
Or not.
You might like them. They do work the same folk material as
Fairport Convention, and the lead singer, Maddy Prior, has a
marvelously clear voice that's a delight to listen to. They have
a lot of fun with the music, and don't take it too seriously.
Diane
Diane Wilson
jvb...@aol.comnomail says...
> Enough Beatle trivia for one evening.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I prefer the Rutles, myself. All you need is cash.
Diane
Mark Sotelo
>
>>> Or Steeleye Span, even though they were uncomfortably close to folk music.
>>>
>>
>> From what I've heard, Steeleye Span *was* a folk band but I've never listened
>> to their stuff. I'd probably like them if they're anything like, say,
>> Fairport
>> Convention.
Sandy Denny forever!
Diane Wilson
says...
> On 07 Apr 2004 02:24:09 GMT, schlitz...@aol.comekingdom (Barney)
> wrote:
>
> Dead *and* a walrus. Who else has accomplished so much?
> (By the way, nothing against the lady, but Paul's wife Linda was the
> one who converted him to dedicated vegetarianism and massive soy
> consumption and then she died of breast cancer at a rather young age.
> I'm convinced that a soy based vegetarian diet is pretty much a recipe
> for female cancer
That wouldn't be at all surprising. Having done the hormone thing
for a while, I remember reading somewhere (someone's tract on herbal
alternatives to hormones) that soy in the diet can have estrogen-like
effects. And long-term, elevated estrogen levels do indeed increase
risk of certain types of breast cancer.
Anyway. As my partner says, no one is ever *just* a vegetarian.
> >I'm with your husband when it comes to pop music. I take it for granted that
> >the words aren't worth my attention. But when it comes to real music, I have
> >to understand what's being sung. Some people actually listen to operas for
> >hours on end without having the slightest idea what the characters are
> >"recitativing" to each other. That drives me crazy. I have to track down the
> >libretto. Although I must admit that arias are just as moronic as rock lyrics.
> > It ruins the mystique when you discover that the glorious music you hear is
> >set to the Italian equivalent of "Be bop a lula, she's my baby". You're
> >probably better off blissfully ignorant..
True for most opera. Even more idiotic when the heroine is singing on
for pages and pages and pages while she's dying of tuberculosis.
> The only opera I've ever seen live was Pavarotti (about 12 years ago)
> with the S.F. Opera in "La Traviata". We read the libretto in advance,
> and they had one of the screens above the stage to translate the
> lyrics, and I'm so sorry I had any clue at all as to what was going on
> or what was being said - what a bone stupid plot! And imbecilic
> lyrics! Put me off Italian opera for good. (Actually I don't think the
> music is all that great either - Mozart and Wagner are certainly
> significantly better composers, I'm sure you'll agree.)
If I had much tolerance for opera at all, I'd love to trace down the
history of the librettos. Most were garbage, although there were
exceptions. Some of the real prizes, though, were Soviet-era Russian
operas and ballets on Socialist Realism topics. Although Shostakovich
got decent librettos for his operas, the story lines he was given for
his ballets were dreadful. "The Bolt", for instance, is a
ballet about industrial sabotage. Imagine the possibilities!
Shostakovich himself described the ballet as "shit."
However, one can at least enjoy ballet without those pesky words.
The Bolt (and "The Age of Gold") had a lot of interesting music.
Shostakovich showed his complete contempt for the subject matter
by writing music that was full of vinegary sarcasm.
I can tolerate Mozart only in minor keys. I'll take a complete
pass on Wagner for the rest of my life.
Diane
dalecue
Mark Sotelo wrote in message ...
Lief and Liege - how can you hate a title of two obscure words that
are back-to-back in the dictionary?
Dale
>
Diane Wilson
says...
> On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 20:19:22 GMT, Diane Wilson <di...@firelily.com>
> wrote:
> Exactly. Its really unfortunate that soy protein is become pervasive
> in vegetarian and low fat dieting, because in a quest to have healthy
> hearts or use a natural solution to menopause symptoms a lot of women
> are courting disaster.
Hey, think what it does for the guys. There's some evidence to
suggest an association between dietary estrogen-mimicking soy
and lowered fertility rates.
The thing with hormone therapy is that you really have to take a look
at the numbers. The increased risk factors aren't that big for the
general population (obviously, medical history will be the most
important factor for an individual). It was called "significant"
in the *statistical* sense, and the press simply does not comprehend
statistics. "Significant" means measurable, repeatable, and a true
reflection of what a study was intended to measure. It does not
necessarily mean "large", and in a numerically large study, such
as the recent estrogen studies, it wasn't a large difference.
A small fraction of 1% increase in risk.
Some people have good reason for taking hormones. Some people
have good reasons not to. And there's *NO* reason to be dumping
them into the food supply.
> >Anyway. As my partner says, no one is ever *just* a vegetarian.
>
> Sorry, but that flew right on by my head....wha? What are they
> *besides* vegetarians?
Sorry. Guess that comes from being a long-time Unitarian. A lot
of people who are vegetarian by choice may also hold some other strongly
emotional positions. Referring back to the discussion of Linda
McCartney.
> What is really unfortunate is that some of the loveliest opera music
> I've heard was really early stuff like Monteverdi...and that stuff
> never seems to be performed live.
Monteverdi is one of those composers that I keep meaning to listen
to more. I tend to listen almost exclusively to 20th century stuff.
I don't care for many of the Romantic composers, or for rococo.
But renaissance and early baroque, there's so much interesting music
before Bach. Yes, it is rarely performed. And some of those
composers didn't live long, such as Pergolesi. Have you heard his
Stabat Mater? It's stunning. Which reminds me that religious
music is one way to avoid the perils of operatic libretto. No,
I generally don't believe in the words in religious music, either,
but it doesn't bother me the way it does for opera, or for popular
music.
> I think you have to be in the mood for Wagner. And its always good to
> have an apocalypse to watch while you are listening to him....or a
> world war or something....Wagner only existed to provide a sound track
> for the History Channel, most probably.
Then you might like Shostakovich. Monumental, sweeping, dramatic.
Also bitter, edgy, angry, seearingly painful, bleak, sarcastic,
manic, courageous, insolent, frightened. Lots of apocalyptic
moments (thinking of symphonies 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 13, plus
the first violin concerto, second piano trio, string quartet no. 8).
The string quartets are as deeply personal as the symphonies are
monumental. Lots of great music.
Diane
Barney
<mark...@earthlink.net> writes:
Ah, where does all the time go? To Fotheringay?
Barney
<di...@firelily.com> writes:
>The things that distinguished Steeleye Span was their use of electronic
>instruments and amplification, and a decent rock drummer on some later
>albums.
>
><pretentious>
>This fusion of folk music with the sounds and style of rock emphasizes
>the duality and ironic distancing necessary to open up old lyrics to
>the ambiguities of modern life. This actualization of Bakhtin's "carnival"
>focuses on the interaction between differing modes of expression,
>suggesting new possibilities of thought while leaving us keenly aware
>that we are missing out on the extended conversations that lead to
>random intersections in time, space, and ideas.
></pretentious>
>
Bravo, Diane! You're ready to start working for "Rolling Stone" magazine.
(Have you heard Frank Zappa's definition of rock journalism? "People who can't
write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read.")
>Or not.
>
>You might like them. They do work the same folk material as
>Fairport Convention, and the lead singer, Maddy Prior, has a
>marvelously clear voice that's a delight to listen to. They have
>a lot of fun with the music, and don't take it too seriously.
>
Thanks for the description. I'll have to check them out, since I'm a sucker for
folky stuff.
Barney
<di...@firelily.com> writes:
>
>If I had much tolerance for opera at all, I'd love to trace down the
>history of the librettos. Most were garbage, although there were
>exceptions.
Very true. The vast majority of librettos were hacked together by trashy,
tenth-rate poetasters. The most famous exception is Lorenzo da Ponte, who
wrote "Don Giovanni" and "The Marriage of Figaro" for Mozart. (Da Ponte was an
interesting guy - he knew Casanova, and wound up seducing a rich American.) In
the 20th century, the quality of librettos vastly improved, but by that time
opera had become a rarefied "fine art" rather than a vital, popular form, and
contemporary audiences vastly prefer 18th-19th century opera, lame-ass plots
and all.
A case in point is Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress", which was written by no
one less than W. H. Auden, a great poet as well as an opera buff. From a
literary point of view, it's probably the best libretto ever written, without
question the best in English. But as operatic spectacle, it falls flat.
> Some of the real prizes, though, were Soviet-era Russian
>operas and ballets on Socialist Realism topics. Although Shostakovich
>got decent librettos for his operas, the story lines he was given for
>his ballets were dreadful. "The Bolt", for instance, is a
>ballet about industrial sabotage. Imagine the possibilities!
>Shostakovich himself described the ballet as "shit."
>
It sounds like the perfect vehicle for that wonderfully Marxist ballerina,
Lance Armstrong.
>However, one can at least enjoy ballet without those pesky words.
>The Bolt (and "The Age of Gold") had a lot of interesting music.
>Shostakovich showed his complete contempt for the subject matter
>by writing music that was full of vinegary sarcasm.
>
Soviet artists were always resorting to subterfuges like that when forced to
work with state-commissioned subject matter. Just as "free" Western artists
rarely hide their contempt for the commercial stuff they have to churn out to
satisfy the riff-raff. Artists would never accomplish anything if they weren't
given opportunities to prostitute their gifts.
>I can tolerate Mozart only in minor keys. I'll take a complete
>pass on Wagner for the rest of my life.
>
I happen to be a fanatical Wagnerite. I will now pray for your soul.
Barney
>Our Pal Barney wrote:
>>Really? I thought he was the first one to leave the group.
>
>No, Paul was just the first to announce that the group was split up. During
>the White Album sessions in '68, Ringo quit but was talked back into the
>group.> ("Back in the U.S.S.R" actually features all three contributing drum
parts
>without Ringo). During the Let It Be/Get Back sessions ('69), George quit
>because Paul got too bossy, but he was talked back. Then after the Abbey
>Road sessions (also '69), John told Paul he was leaving, and everybody decided
it
>would be better not to release the news right away and carry on as if the
>Beatles were still together. Then Paul got pissed when they tried to delay
>his first solo album so that it wouldn't be released at the same time as LET
IT
>BE, so Paul released the news anyway.
>
Interesting, so Paul was the *last* to leave. I do remember hearing that Paul
used the uproar surrounding the break-up of the Beatles to promote his first
solo album. I like a lot of Paul's Wing's stuff. His solo career was much
more interesting than John's. People accuse Paul of being sappy, but is there
anything more treacly than John's "Imagine"?
>John once said he picture a comic strip of four people. In the second frame,
>there are only three. Third frame, only two. Final frame, one guy, who says
>"I'm leaving the group."
>
Heh heh. John was just jealous that he didn't think of using the break-up to
publicize his Love-Ins with Yoko.
>>Anyway, everybody
>>knows that Ringo was the real genius behind The Beatles. The other guys
>were>>just his no-talent flunkies.
>
>Shhh.... that's a trade secret. Not even Ringo knows it.
>
Was Ringo the luckiest bastard of all time or what? The Beatles hire him at
the last second when they finally land a record deal, and they immediately
become the biggest band in history.
Do you know much about the band's early pre-Ringo days, when they performed in
Germany? That part of their career fascinates me. Is there a good book out
there that focuses on the Hamburg period?
>>There were a lot of things he could have done to keep the band together.
>>Such
>>as making Yoko Ono an offer she couldn't refuse.
>>
>
>So many myths about how Yoko broke up the group, but it was so much more
>complicated than that. I won't bore you with the details and my own
>theories, which involve growing tension between George and John.
>
That wouldn't bore me at all. I've only heard about tension between John and
Paul, not George and John. What's your theory?
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>> Speaking of insane
>>>lyrics, have you ever listened to the lyrics of "Goodbye Norma Jean"?
>>
>>Not sure. What's that song about?
>
>Theoretically its about Marilyn Monroe ("you were a candle in the
>wind" - braaaaaaaack)...but Elton did a special version of it in
>tribute to the late Princess Diana, and it got even more maudlin and
>ridiculous.
Oh God yes, I've heard "the candle in the wind". It was inescapable.
"Maudlin" is too weak a word. Put it this way: I'd rather listen to "All You
Need Is Love".
>>I don't know anything about Cobain but I respect him for having the guts to
>>kill himself. What did he have to say?
>
>Oh, you must get some Nirvana now! I think "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
>is the anthem for our age. And I have this bitchin' jazz version of it
>too....
>Cobain just carried on the great tradition of biting the hand that
>feeds, of course, by dissing Nirvana's sycophantic fans at every
>opportunity, but in a brilliant way. You know he was in constant pain
>from a congenital stomach disorder - being in pain all the time is so
>debilitating mentally and being married to Courtney Love was another
>added attraction. So we got great songs and a tragically short life.
I dunno, maybe I'll check him out. I'm very wary of anything recorded during
my lifetime, though. As everybody knows, pop music died around 1976.
>>Neil Young is incredibly overrated. Don't you consider Bob Dylan the
>greatest
>>poet of the 20th century? I'm shocked! What happened, doll, did people
>call
>>and say you'd fall? Did you ride on the chrome horse with your Siamese cat
>and
>>compromise with the mystery tramp? Did you gargle in rat race choirs and
>get
>>bent out of shape by society's pliers? Did you get lost in a fog of
>>amphetamine and pearl?
>>
>Bob Dylan? The guy that wrote "Blowin' in the Wind"?
>
>How many times must I hear-er this song, before it burns into my
>brain?
>How many years must this guy stick around, before we realize he is
>lame?
>
Not bad. How would you like to be my lyricist?
>What religion is Bob this week?
You should talk !
> Have you seen him in the new
>Victoria's Secret commercials? (I haven't yet, but I heard he will be
>appearing - Dennis Miller said last night that his image will
>certainly put a damper on all the jerking off 14 year old boys do to
>the Victoria's Secret girls...).
>
You have GOT to be kidding. Victoria's Secret? Well, at least Bob hasn't sold
out or anything. He's tremendously overrated, too, but he's at least written
about 5 good songs - which is 5 more than Neil Young.
>Neil Young's Harvest album is a lyrical masterpiece. "Southern
>man...." shit, now you've got me howling. (One doesn't sing Neil's
>songs, one howls them.)
>
No, one turns the knob whenever they come on. "Southern Man" is pretty bad,
even by his standards, both lyrically and musically. Is that supposed to be a
guitar solo in the middle of the song? Could the melody be more generic, the
"message" more trite (not to mention politically correct)?
>The only opera I've ever seen live was Pavarotti (about 12 years ago)
>with the S.F. Opera in "La Traviata". We read the libretto in advance,
>and they had one of the screens above the stage to translate the
>lyrics, and I'm so sorry I had any clue at all as to what was going on
>or what was being said - what a bone stupid plot! And imbecilic
>lyrics! Put me off Italian opera for good. (Actually I don't think the
>music is all that great either - Mozart and Wagner are certainly
>significantly better composers, I'm sure you'll agree.)
>
Well, yes, but they're the only two who surpass Verdi. Verdi's librettos and
music kept impoving, culminating in his Shakespearean adaptations, "Falstaff"
and "Otello". If you don't like them, then I guess you'll never dig opera,
since it doesn't really get any better than that. You would be well-advised to
keep on rockin' in the free world.
JVBGUY
>Interesting, so Paul was the *last* to leave. I do remember hearing that Paul
>used the uproar surrounding the break-up of the Beatles to promote his first
>solo album.
Yeah, he included a printed fake interview with radio promo copies of the album
(I don't think he included it with the album sold to the general public, but I
could be wrong). The "interview" basically said the Beatles were done and they
would never get back together.
>Was Ringo the luckiest bastard of all time or what? The Beatles hire him at
>the last second when they finally land a record deal, and they immediately
>become the biggest band in history.
Lucky, yes, but he had talent, and because of that talent, he got the job.
Pete Best would flake out every once in a while and not show up for gigs, and
Ringo, who played with another band, would fill in. And according to the other
three, every time he filled in, they were just a much better band. When they
did some demos for George Martin, it became apparent that Pete Best did not
live up to his name (listen to his out of time drumming on "Love Me Do" on the
first Anthology CD set.). So they made the change when things got serious.
But they did not just go out and get any drummer. They got the guy they felt
was the best drummer in Liverpool. If you listen to very early Beatles (their
first three albums and the concurrent singles), much of the power and fun comes
from Ringo.
>Do you know much about the band's early pre-Ringo days, when they performed in
>Germany? That part of their career fascinates me. Is there a good book out
>there that focuses on the Hamburg period?
I know some things about it, but it's not an area of expertise. Check out the
Anthology book from the library sometime. You'll get all four versions of the
early days. I don't have a lot of Beatle books left in my collection, so I
can't recommend any other specific book about the Hamburg days.
>That wouldn't bore me at all. I've only heard about tension between John and
>Paul, not George and John. What's your theory?
In a nutshell, John Lennon ran out of steam as a songwriter in 1969, IMO. Over
their final two albums (Abbey Road and the post-breakup Let It Be), he did not
offer many tunes to record. He had a big drug problem, which was part of it,
and he was more into Yoko than he was the Beatles, which was another part of
it. (Paul, of course, always had songs coming out of his butt). And George
had a big backlog of songs that he wanted to record. During the Let It Be
sessions (which occurred before the Abbey Road sessions), George would come in
each day with a tune to offer to the band, and John would make fun of them or
just show no interest at all. They couldn't get anything going at all when
George brought in a song.
At the same time, John had brought three songs to the sessions: "I Dig a
Pony", which is a real dog (again, IMO), "Don't Let Me Down", a superb song,
and "Across the Universe", which was already two years old and previously
recorded by the group. So, with one of the two main Beatles composers not
really bringing much to the table, George still couldn't break through and get
his stuff recorded. And it seems (to me) that a large part of it was due to
John. From what I've read and from the Beatles recordings themselves, Paul
seemed willing to record George's stuff and often made outstanding
contributions to them (his bass playing on "Something", the piano part on
"Guitar Gently Weeps", the harmonies on "Think for Yourself", the guitar solo
on "Taxman", etc.).
My theory (which is mine) is that in the final year of the band, John felt
threatened by George's sudden emergence as a possible mainstream writer for the
band, and George started feeling that he would never get many of his songs
recorded unless he did them solo. All this lead to the day when Paul gave
George one instruction too many about how to play his guitar on "I've Got a
Feeling", and George temporarily quit the band. So most people put it down to
tensions between George and Paul (which there certainly was), but I see it more
as that moment being the straw that broke the camel's back, George's hackles
already majorly raised by John's attitude toward recording George's songs.
Just a theory. I wasn't there, I don't have many samples of Let It Be session
chatter, I'm just going by a book I read which documented the day - to - day
activities of the Let It Be sessions.
Diane Wilson
schlitz...@aol.comekingdom says...
> In article <MPG.1ade2c5858512315989697@news-server>, Diane Wilson
> <di...@firelily.com> writes:
>
> >
> >If I had much tolerance for opera at all, I'd love to trace down the
> >history of the librettos. Most were garbage, although there were
> >exceptions.
>
> Very true. The vast majority of librettos were hacked together by trashy,
> tenth-rate poetasters. The most famous exception is Lorenzo da Ponte, who
> wrote "Don Giovanni" and "The Marriage of Figaro" for Mozart. (Da Ponte was an
> interesting guy - he knew Casanova, and wound up seducing a rich American.) In
> the 20th century, the quality of librettos vastly improved, but by that time
> opera had become a rarefied "fine art" rather than a vital, popular form, and
> contemporary audiences vastly prefer 18th-19th century opera, lame-ass plots
> and all.
My SO has a degree in fine art. She likes to ask people what they
think is the difference between stylized art and mannered art.
No one has ever come up with an answer. I think that the big
problem with opera is that it's a stylized art form loved by people
who can only comprehend mannered art.
> A case in point is Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress", which was written by no
> one less than W. H. Auden, a great poet as well as an opera buff. From a
> literary point of view, it's probably the best libretto ever written, without
> question the best in English. But as operatic spectacle, it falls flat.
That Auden fellow got around, didn't he? Bernstein's second
symphony is based on Auden's "the Age of Anxiety."
Back to opera, the ultimate step was to dispense with the librettist
entirely. Shostakovich did that with "The Gamblers"; he used Gogol's
story directly. (Not to be confused with Prokofiev's "The Gambler," which
was based on Dostoyevsky.) Unfortunately The Gamblers was never finished,
but the idea of an opera about a poker game seems a bit lame, even if
written by Gogol.
> > Some of the real prizes, though, were Soviet-era Russian
> >operas and ballets on Socialist Realism topics. Although Shostakovich
> >got decent librettos for his operas, the story lines he was given for
> >his ballets were dreadful. "The Bolt", for instance, is a
> >ballet about industrial sabotage. Imagine the possibilities!
> >Shostakovich himself described the ballet as "shit."
> >
>
> It sounds like the perfect vehicle for that wonderfully Marxist ballerina,
> Lance Armstrong.
Indeed. Perhaps even an opportunity to go Postal.
> >I can tolerate Mozart only in minor keys. I'll take a complete
> >pass on Wagner for the rest of my life.
> >
>
> I happen to be a fanatical Wagnerite. I will now pray for your soul.
I'm a Unitarian. Just have a cup of coffee for my soul.
Diane
Aethelrede
JVBGUY wrote in message <20040408113623...@mb-m10.aol.com>...
I have a tape of some of their Hamburg recordings; I can't recall if it
was from a CD or an album. It's really amusing to hear some of their early
songs being sung in German.
Peachy Ashie Passion
I can't bear coffee.. would a nice herbal
tea do?
If the caffeine is the essential
ingredient, I could make it a Vanilla Coke,
which is the Elixer Of Life.
Diane Wilson
res1...@invalid.net says...
> Diane Wilson wrote:
> > I'm a Unitarian. Just have a cup of coffee for my soul.
> >
> > Diane
>
> I can't bear coffee.. would a nice herbal
> tea do?
We believe in free and responsible search for truth, meaning,
and beverages. Enjoy your tea!
Diane
Diane Wilson
says...
> np: Rocky! No, really - my husband thinks my kid should see all these
> awful movies that are American cultural reference points so he'll know
> what the hell people are talking about. So lately its been Jaws,
> Alien, et al around here....I'm just about ready to watch something
> very French and incomprehensible as an antidote.
May i suggest some David Lynch movies as a compromise? American
cultural reference points, and incomprehensible.
Diane
Barney
<di...@firelily.com> writes:
>My SO has a degree in fine art. She likes to ask people what they
>think is the difference between stylized art and mannered art.
>No one has ever come up with an answer.
To me "stylized art" is a redundancy. All art is stylized. If it's not, it's
called "life". Mannered art is art that is either too obtrusively stylized or
stylized in a manner you're not accustomed to. How's that answer?
>I think that the big
>problem with opera is that it's a stylized art form loved by people
>who can only comprehend mannered art.
>
These days anything that's not naturalistic is considered mannered. But
naturalism is just one of many fashions, and in the long history of art, it's
an aberration. It seems "natural" to us because it happened to dominate the
arts during the rise of democracy during the 19th century.
>Back to opera, the ultimate step was to dispense with the librettist
>entirely. Shostakovich did that with "The Gamblers"; he used Gogol's
>story directly. (Not to be confused with Prokofiev's "The Gambler," which
>was based on Dostoyevsky.) Unfortunately The Gamblers was never finished,
>but the idea of an opera about a poker game seems a bit lame, even if
>written by Gogol.
>
Never heard of either the Gogol story or the Shostakovich opera. I don't see
why you couldn't make a great opera of a card game. Didn't one of the Russian
composers adapt Pushkin's "Queen of Spades"?
>> >I can tolerate Mozart only in minor keys. I'll take a complete
>> >pass on Wagner for the rest of my life.
>> >
>>
>> I happen to be a fanatical Wagnerite. I will now pray for your soul.
>
>I'm a Unitarian. Just have a cup of coffee for my soul.
>
Coffee is against my religion. How about a can of Schlitz?
Your pal,
Barney
Indeed, I pulled the pistol's foreskin back, and then enjoyed the orgasm of the
crushed trigger: I was always a good little follower of the Viennese medicine
man.
--- Humbert Humbert
Barney
(JVBGUY) writes:
>Our Pal Barney wrote:
>
>>Interesting, so Paul was the *last* to leave. I do remember hearing that
>Paul
>>used the uproar surrounding the break-up of the Beatles to promote his first
>>solo album.
>
>Yeah, he included a printed fake interview with radio promo copies of the
>album
>(I don't think he included it with the album sold to the general public, but
>I>could be wrong). The "interview" basically said the Beatles were done and
>they>would never get back together.
>
Which was sort of true. They did get back together to record a couple songs
for the Anthology, but of course it was sans John. Did you like those new
songs? I found them instantly forgettable.
>>Was Ringo the luckiest bastard of all time or what? The Beatles hire him at
>>the last second when they finally land a record deal, and they immediately
>>become the biggest band in history.
>
>Lucky, yes, but he had talent, and because of that talent, he got the job.
>Pete Best
Pete Best - now there's the UN-luckiest bastard of all time.
> would flake out every once in a while and not show up for gigs, and
>Ringo, who played with another band, would fill in. And according to the
>other three, every time he filled in, they were just a much better band. When
they
>did some demos for George Martin, it became apparent that Pete Best did not
>live up to his name (listen to his out of time drumming on "Love Me Do" on
>the first Anthology CD set.). So they made the change when things got
serious.
>But they did not just go out and get any drummer. They got the guy they felt
>was the best drummer in Liverpool. If you listen to very early Beatles
>(their first three albums and the concurrent singles), much of the power and
fun
>comes from Ringo.
>
I agree, Ringo was no virtuoso but his drumming was very distinctive, and "fun"
is the perfect word for those early albums. I think I enjoy early, primitive
Beatles more than the sophisticated Beatles. They were really a *band* at
first, with their own unmistakable sound.
Sounds plausible to me. I totally agree that John was dried up towards the
end, and thus likely to feel insecure, especially since Paul was then at the
height of his powers. I'd say that John was hanging out with Yoko because he
realized his talent was waning, not because he simply lost interest in the
Beatles. He knew damn well he was losing his grip on the band, and it must
have hurt because he *completely* dominated the Beatles at first. It was his
songwriting and his lead vocals that you heard on all of their early big hits.
What might undermine your theory a little bit is the quality of George's
songwriting at the time. Was it really good enough to threaten John? Even if
it wasn't, I suppose John was in a pretty paranoid state of mind, thanks to the
drugs and all the squabbling with the other band members. It wouldn't have
taken much to tap into all of his insecurities.
JVBGUY
>To me "stylized art" is a redundancy. All art is stylized. If it's not,
>it's
>called "life".
That's very profound. That Schlitz does wonders for you. :-)
Diane Wilson
says...
> >Hey, think what it does for the guys. There's some evidence to
> >suggest an association between dietary estrogen-mimicking soy
> >and lowered fertility rates.
>
> And those really attractive man breasts. :(
The main culprit there is usually drugs for treatment of
prostate cancer, including estrogen.
> >Sorry. Guess that comes from being a long-time Unitarian. A lot
> >of people who are vegetarian by choice may also hold some other strongly
> >emotional positions. Referring back to the discussion of Linda
> >McCartney.
> >
> So, no one is *just* a Unitarian? Interesting....but I take your point
> about vegetarians - I don't think I've met one who didn't have other
> axes to grind.
Well, some of us Unitarians get past the axe part. (That doesn't
sound quite right.....) In general, Unitarians come from other
faiths, and yes, that does tend to make us a contentious bunch.
There are lots of Unitarian vegetarians. Lots.
> Interesting, I have found very little to enjoy in 20th century
> composers with the exception of Copeland (and thats just
> sentimentalism on my part, I think) and Gershwin (well, I have this
> Fred and Ginger thing). I don't like Romantic period music in the
> slightest, which is a great disappointment for my husband as he loves
> Beethoven and Holst.
20th century music is incredibly rich in diversity. Unfortunately,
a lot of concert repertoire has been dominated by academics and
serialists, and it has turned people away from 20th century music
in droves.
There's nothing wrong with either Copland or Gershwin. They were
both brilliant, and I wish they'd both written more. Try Bernstein,
too; he's best known for his musical scores, but his serious
music can be quite good. Try the second symphony (Age of Anxiety)
which is almost a piano concerto, with a strong jazz influence. The
fifth movement is an extended cadenza in jazz for piano and
percussion. Samuel Barber is another good American; his early
works are very powerful (Adagio for Strings, Overture to the School
for Scandal, Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance).
Some other recommendations:
Bartok. Start with the Concerto for Orchestra. The key to
understanding Bartok is that he, and his fellow Hungarian composer
Kodaly, spent several years collecting and recording authentic
Hungarian folk songs--not the Brahms/Dvorak romanticized
style, but real, authentic, primitive folk music. All of his
tonal systems are based on his Hungarian folk roots. Once you
"get it", Bartok is very rich and powerful.
Kodaly. As long as were in the Hungarian neighborhood, check
out his string quartets and the Harry Janos suite.
Janacek. Sinfonietta. The string quartets. Carrying on the
great tradition of Czech composers. also well respected for
his operas, although I haven't heard them; "The Cunning Little
Vixen" seems to be the favorite.
Prokofiev. Strong neoclassical influences; the Classical
Symphony is a delight. His ballet for Romeo and Juliet is
possibly the finest ballet score ever written. His second
and third piano concertos are possibly the finest of the
20th century. (Look for CD with Guiterrez on piano; he's
outstanding.)
Khachaturian. Rich, exotic Russian and Armenian roots.
try the piano concerto or the violin concerto.
Vainberg (sometimes spelled Weinberg). Polish Jew who
fled to Russia to escape the Nazis. Not well known, but
one of the best of Russia in the 20th century. Chamber
symphonies 1 and 4 make a good introduction. Also try
the violin concerto, trumpet concerto, or symphonies 4 and 5.
Sviridov. Another Russian, and one of the finest choral
composers I've ever heard. I picked up a CD of his recently,
called Sacred and Secular Choruses, with the Ural Choir.
It blew me away.
Stravinsky. As long as we're talking about Russians, he
*was* one of the great ones. His early ballets, for all that
they are credited with revolutionizing music, are deeply
rooted in Russian folklore. You might also want to try
Pulcinella. Stravinsky was commissioned to re-orchestrate
some Pergolesi for the Ballet Russe; the result, Pulcinella,
was more of a recomposing of Pergolesi in a modern idiom.
It's fascinating and quite witty. Another good early work
is the Soldier's Tale (l'Histoire du Soldat).
Szymanowski. Polish, and died young, but what a legacy.
Try the violin concertos, or his chamber works for violin
and piano. He also has an interesting Stabat Mater.
Poulenc. Piano concerto; Aubade for piano and 18 instruments.
(These are often packaged together.) Light, urbane,
witty, very French.
Milhaud. Another French composer, with some interesting
jazz influences. Try La Creation du Monde, or Le Boeuf
sur le Toit.
Villa-Lobos. Brazilian with strong French influence.
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 is a good place to start;
a stunning piece for 8 cellos and soprano. The string
quartets are excellent as well. Villa-Lobos always has
a strong Latin feel that sets him apart from anyone in
American or European traditions.
I've stayed away from English composers, since you mentioned
that you don't care for Holst. Vaughan Williams is somewhat
similar. I do like Walton's cello concerto, however, and
his "Facade" is great fun as well as a bit scandalous.
Also Rubbra's symphonies, starting with the fourth. Many
people like Britten, but his music has never clicked for
me.
> >Then you might like Shostakovich. Monumental, sweeping, dramatic.
> >Also bitter, edgy, angry, seearingly painful, bleak, sarcastic,
> >manic, courageous, insolent, frightened. Lots of apocalyptic
> >moments (thinking of symphonies 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 13, plus
> >the first violin concerto, second piano trio, string quartet no. 8).
> >The string quartets are as deeply personal as the symphonies are
> >monumental. Lots of great music.
>
> Most of my exposure to Shostakovich seems to have been on occasions
> associated with fireworks....definitely monumental stuff. I'll have to
> go listen to some of the more intimate pieces you recommend. Thanks!
Shostakovich was one of the greatest pure talents in the history
of music. His memory, sightreading, and composing speed were
legendary. He was also perhaps the most politicized composer
in the history of music, which has caused a great deal of
misunderstanding of both the person and his music. It helps to
first understand that he was deeply Russian, in ways that
expatriots such as Stravinsky and Prokofiev cannot compare. All
three of those composers grew up and were trained in the rich
artistic environment of St. Petersburg, where European and Russian
cultures blended and clashed. Shostakovich was in deep trouble
with the Soviet government for long periods in his career, and
the environment of terror and repression were woven into his
music from about 1936 to the end of his life. He said in his
memoirs that most of his symphonies were tombstones, and it is
certainly true that much of his public music varied between
toeing the line of Soviet artistic decrees, or speaking out
in spite of those constraints. Often his music can be read
both ways; the irony and sarcasm that seem typical of
St. Petersburg work perfectly to capture that conflict.
(There were good reasons why both Lenin and Stalin hated
that city.) St. Petersburg itself was an imperial capital
built to rival the great capitals of 18th century Europe;
the city's formal grandeur and imposing stature are also
to be found in the core of Shostakovich's music, especially
symphonies 4, 5, 7, and 11.
For the intimate and personal Shostakovich, the string
quartets (all 15 of them) are the place to start. Perhaps
the best recording of them currently available is the Borodin
Quartet on Chandos; it's incomplete (quartets 1 to 13 only)
because that version of the Borodin Quartet broke up before
the last two quartets were written. (Unfortunately, this
set contains *no* liner notes.) The later Borodins
re-recorded the entire set, but I don't think that version
is currently available. Other outstanding performances
include the Fitzwilliam Quartet, the Emerson Quartet,
and the Shostakovich Quartet.
Also, the 24 Preludes and Fugues (Op. 87) are a must.
They were directly inspired by Bach, and were written during
a period when virtually all of Shostakovich's music was
banned. These pieces are as deeply personal as any of the
quartets. Excellent performances are available by Nikolaeva,
Ashkenazy, or Sherbakov. Avoid Keith Jarrett's recording.
Also try the piano concertos, and the 24 Preludes (Op. 34).
These are glimpses of Shostakovich without the weight of
political influence. They are witty, inventive, lively,
unpredictable, and just plain fun. For the concertos,
I like the performances on Chandos by Shostakovich's
son (Maxim) and grandson (Dmitri). For the 24 Preludes,
go with Viardo, and get a great performance of the
second piano sonata as well.
Since conversation keeps steering to opera, both of
Shostakovich's operas are of special interest. Lady
Macbeth of the Mtsensk District is the piece that earned
Shostakovich an editorial in Pravda that amounted to a
public death warrant. It is speculated that the editorial
may have been written by Stalin himself; it was published
two days after Stalin walked out of a performance.
(Katerina Ismailova is a slightly rewritten version of
Lady Macbeth, a futile attempt to get the opera revived
20 years later.)
His other opera, The Nose, based on the story by Gogol,
was an avant garde piece as bizarre as Gogol's original
story, and suggests where Shostakovich might have gone
musically if he had not stayed in Russia.
Enough for one night.....
Diane
JVBGUY
>(JVBGUY) writes:
>>Yeah, he [Paul McCartney] included a printed fake interview with radio promo
copies of the
>>album
>>(I don't think he included it with the album sold to the general public, but
>>I>could be wrong). The "interview" basically said the Beatles were done and
>>they>would never get back together.
>
>Which was sort of true. They did get back together to record a couple songs
>for the Anthology, but of course it was sans John. Did you like those new
>songs? I found them instantly forgettable.
I liked them a lot, though I don't think either one is a classic. Nice little
presents to Beatles fans, but nothing more than that. I think they should have
released "Real Love" as the first single, because it is the more "Beatley" song
(almost sounds like an Abbey Road outtake at times). "Free as a Bird" is an
interesting melody with weird chord changes, but sometimes I like it, sometimes
I don't. I've learned to play it on piano, so maybe I like it more than I
think.
Bottom line: they weren't embarassing. I just wish Yoko would have given them
the original tapes instead of copies.
>Pete Best - now there's the UN-luckiest bastard of all time.
And then there is Jimmy Nichols, who was a replacement "Ringo" on an early tour
when Ringo had to have his tonsils removed. The guy got to be a Beatle for a
few days at the height of Beatlemania, live through all that madness, then was
sent back home to obscurity. Bet Pete Best loved that. Even when Ringo is out
of commission, they still don't want Pete Best.
>I agree, Ringo was no virtuoso but his drumming was very distinctive, and
"fun"
>is the perfect word for those early albums. I think I enjoy early, primitive
>Beatles more than the sophisticated Beatles. They were really a *band* at
>first, with their own unmistakable sound.
I pretty much love just about every period of the Beatles, but I have found
over the years nothing can bring me out of a funk like the stuff they did from
"Please Please Me" through "A Hard Day's Night". It's hard to listen to that
stuff and think "Man, I am so bummed out."
>>My theory (which is mine) is that in the final year of the band, John felt
>>threatened by George's sudden emergence as a possible mainstream writer for
>>the>band, and George started feeling that he would never get many of his
songs
>>recorded unless he did them solo. All this lead to the day when Paul gave
>>George one instruction too many about how to play his guitar on "I've Got a
>>Feeling", and George temporarily quit the band. So most people put it down
>to>tensions between George and Paul (which there certainly was), but I see it
>>more>as that moment being the straw that broke the camel's back, George's
>>hackles
>>already majorly raised by John's attitude toward recording George's songs.
>
<snip>
>Sounds plausible to me. I totally agree that John was dried up towards the
>end, and thus likely to feel insecure, especially since Paul was then at the
>height of his powers. I'd say that John was hanging out with Yoko because he
>realized his talent was waning, not because he simply lost interest in the
>Beatles. He knew damn well he was losing his grip on the band, and it must
>have hurt because he *completely* dominated the Beatles at first. It was his
>songwriting and his lead vocals that you heard on all of their early big hits.
That's certainly true. He used to get most of the early singles, and then, at
the end of their career, Paul was pretty much getting the singles. In the
later years, Paul was the one who would round up the gang and say it's time to
record again, and by the time he was saying that, he already had five or six
songs ready, while John would then scramble around and see what scraps he had
lying around that could be fleshed out.
>What might undermine your theory a little bit is the quality of George's
>songwriting at the time. Was it really good enough to threaten John?
Good enough to threaten a John who was bringing very little to the table at the
time. George had already written "Something" by that time, but I'm not sure if
he ever brought that up at the Let It Be sessions. Strangely enough, for being
his best pure pop song ever and the most covered Beatles tune after
"Yesterday", George really didn't seem to think much of it. It He wrote it
during the White Album sessions but didn't record it, didn't record it during
the Let It Be sesssions. So it took three albums for him to actually get
around to thinking of it as a possible Beatles song. Weird.
Anyway, he was bringing in some stuff that was eventually recorded for his All
Things Must Pass album, including the title track. Depending on a person's
individual fondness for George, the songs he was bringing to the session ranged
from "fair" to "very good". I really like the song "All Things Must Pass" and
the Beatles could have gotten a good recording from it, but it never got to the
official recording stage. But compared to crap like "Dig a Pony" and John
trying to redo "Across the Universe", which they had recorded already, you
would think that the band would be interested in doing something George brought
in, even if it wasn't up to the usual Lennon-McCartney level. We're talking
the beginning days of the sessions, when everybody would bring stuff in that
they would offer to the group as a possible track. So George keeps bringing in
songs, and John keeps swatting them away.
>Even if
>it wasn't, I suppose John was in a pretty paranoid state of mind, thanks to
the
>drugs and all the squabbling with the other band members. It wouldn't have
>taken much to tap into all of his insecurities.
Paranoia was pretty much Lennon's natural state in the later days, as far as I
can tell.
Barney
(JVBGUY) writes:
>Our Pal Barney wrote:
>
>>To me "stylized art" is a redundancy. All art is stylized. If it's not,
>>it's called "life".
>
>That's very profound. That Schlitz does wonders for you. :-)
>
Thanks. I love you, man !!!!
For generating Deep Thoughts, nothing beats domestic brew. That's why I
recently increased my dosage at breakfast.
Your pal,
Barney
Barney
(JVBGUY) writes:
>Our Pal Barney wrote:
[snippage re: "Free Love" ]
>Bottom line: they weren't embarassing. I just wish Yoko would have given
>them the original tapes instead of copies.
>
What's this? That chick is out to freaking lunch. Why on earth would Yoko
keep the original tapes from the others? Was she just on a power trip or do
you think she tampered with the originals in some way?
>>Pete Best - now there's the UN-luckiest bastard of all time.
>
>And then there is Jimmy Nichols, who was a replacement "Ringo" on an early
>tour>when Ringo had to have his tonsils removed. The guy got to be a Beatle
for a
>few days at the height of Beatlemania, live through all that madness, then
>was>sent back home to obscurity. Bet Pete Best loved that. Even when Ringo
is
>out>of commission, they still don't want Pete Best.
>
No kidding. I guess they really didn't like poor old Pete, huh? Never heard
of Jimmy Nichols, so that's a great little piece of trivia. Does he show up at
Beatles fan conventions and so forth? I hope Jimmy's been able to cash in on
the experience in some way, as one of the candidates for "fifth Beatle".
>>I agree, Ringo was no virtuoso but his drumming was very distinctive, and
>"fun">>is the perfect word for those early albums. I think I enjoy early,
>primitive>>Beatles more than the sophisticated Beatles. They were really a
*band* at
>>first, with their own unmistakable sound.
>
>I pretty much love just about every period of the Beatles, but I have found
>over the years nothing can bring me out of a funk like the stuff they did
>from "Please Please Me" through "A Hard Day's Night". It's hard to listen to
that
>stuff and think "Man, I am so bummed out."
>
It's even harder to listen to that stuff and believe that people thought such
happy, harmless music was evil ! What I really like from the early years are
their covers. It's a shame they stopped doing songs by Chuck Berry and the
like. I bet we'd still be listening to The Beatles today if they recorded
nothing but kick-ass renditions of "Money", "Twist and Shout", "Rock and Roll
Music", etc.
>>Sounds plausible to me. I totally agree that John was dried up towards the
>>end, and thus likely to feel insecure, especially since Paul was then at the
>>height of his powers. I'd say that John was hanging out with Yoko because
>he
>>realized his talent was waning, not because he simply lost interest in the
>>Beatles. He knew damn well he was losing his grip on the band, and it must
>>have hurt because he *completely* dominated the Beatles at first. It was
>his
>>songwriting and his lead vocals that you heard on all of their early big
>hits.
>
>That's certainly true. He used to get most of the early singles, and then,
>at>the end of their career, Paul was pretty much getting the singles. In the
>later years, Paul was the one who would round up the gang and say it's time
>to>record again, and by the time he was saying that, he already had five or
six
>songs ready, while John would then scramble around and see what scraps he had
>lying around that could be fleshed out.
>
Heck, why write songs himself at all ? He still got half the royalties, right?
It wouldn't bother me a bit if my songwriting partner cranked out mega-hits
like "Hey Jude" and "Yesterday" and then turned over 50% of the profits to me
while I did nothing but drop acid and ball groupies. :)
Didn't Paul recently start crediting their songs to "McCartney / Lennon"
instead of the traditional "Lennon / McCartney", causing Yoko to have a hissy
fit? It may have been a "printing error" but shame on Paul for baiting the
poor woman like that.
>>What might undermine your theory a little bit is the quality of George's
>>songwriting at the time. Was it really good enough to threaten John?
>
>Good enough to threaten a John who was bringing very little to the table at
>the>time. George had already written "Something" by that time, but I'm not
sure
>if>he ever brought that up at the Let It Be sessions. Strangely enough, for
>being>his best pure pop song ever and the most covered Beatles tune after
>"Yesterday", George really didn't seem to think much of it. It He wrote it
>during the White Album sessions but didn't record it, didn't record it during
>the Let It Be sesssions. So it took three albums for him to actually get
>around to thinking of it as a possible Beatles song. Weird.
>
"Something" is one of the two or three Beatles songs I actively dislike.
"Something" in the way the song moves makes me ill, for unknown reasons. I
don't think you've mentioned "Here Comes the Sun" which is also a George song,
isn't it? I like it a lot more.
>Anyway, he was bringing in some stuff that was eventually recorded for his
>All>Things Must Pass album, including the title track. Depending on a
person's
>individual fondness for George, the songs he was bringing to the session
>ranged>from "fair" to "very good". I really like the song "All Things Must
Pass"
>and>the Beatles could have gotten a good recording from it, but it never got
to
>the>official recording stage.
I like it, too, and some other George solo stuff like "My Sweet Lord", despite
the dated hippie holism. I can't remember the names of the other George hits
they play on classic rock stations, but they're nothing to sneeze at. The main
problem is that they're very Beatles-ish. George never apparently developed
his own style distinguishable from Lennon - McCartney, whereas John and Paul's
solo stuff was definitely different than the Beatles. Not better, of course
(especially not in John's case), but different.
> But compared to crap like "Dig a Pony" and John
>trying to redo "Across the Universe", which they had recorded already, you
>would think that the band would be interested in doing something George
>brought in, even if it wasn't up to the usual Lennon-McCartney level. We're
talking
>the beginning days of the sessions, when everybody would bring stuff in that
>they would offer to the group as a possible track. So George keeps bringing
>in>songs, and John keeps swatting them away.
>
Yeah, must've been pretty frustrating. I wonder if John really thought that
"Dig A Pony" was a masterpiece compared to George's stuff. At the time, he
probably did. Who says LSD impairs judgment?
>>Even if>>it wasn't, I suppose John was in a pretty paranoid state of mind,
thanks to
>the>>drugs and all the squabbling with the other band members. It wouldn't
have
>>taken much to tap into all of his insecurities.
>
>Paranoia was pretty much Lennon's natural state in the later days, as far as
>I>can tell.
>
To be fair, he had good reason to be paranoid. The FBI kept a huge file on
him, and after all he wound up being murdered by a fan. I'm sure there are
plenty of nutty conspiracy theories about why The Establishment wanted to
liquidate Lennon. As William Burroughs said, "Even paranoids have real
enemies."
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>You have GOT to be kidding. Victoria's Secret? Well, at least Bob hasn't
>sold>>out or anything. He's tremendously overrated, too, but he's at least
>written>>about 5 good songs - which is 5 more than Neil Young.
>
>No, I kid you not. I am so eager to see this ad because I can't
>possibly figure out what the point is going to be.....the commercial
>relationship between overpriced underwear, nubile females and *Bob
>Dylan* is escaping me entirely.
It boggles the mind. Hugh Hefner was shilling hamburgers for McDonald's last
year. We live in interesting times.
Do you want to know Barney's Secret ? I and other men don't give a rat's ass
about lingerie. Anything tight, skimpy and slutty works just as well. Take
the money you save on lacy undergarments and use it to buy a twelve-pack for
your man. After he downs a dozen beers, any woman starts to look desirable,
even his wife.
>Neil Young is a song writing god! You blasphemer....do you not love
>"Heart of Gold"?
I do not. "I wanna give, I wanna live, I'm a miner for a heart of gold?"
Hallmark would reject that as too corny.
> What about that great one from back in his days with
> ,
Buffalo Springfield?
>"Attempting to Fly" (actually I'm not sure thats the title, but
>it was wonderfully mournful.)
I believe it's called "Expecting to Fly". It sucks.
>Oh - you want songs you can't sing along to....see, I value songs that
>you can sing along with,
What's the difference between a song you sing along TO and a song you sing
along WITH?
>if they are also rational (none of Elton
>John's songs qualify). A great example is Bowie's "Fashion": you can
>shout along with David: "Turn to left, turn to right, fashion...."
>etc. etc.
I like Bowie. I class him in the second rank of old hippie masters, along with
guys like Eric Clapton. Not brilliant, but they've released quite a few good
songs over the years. I listened to some stuff off a recent Bowie album
(called "Slow Burn"?) and was pretty impressed. He's still got it, unlike
certain has-beens who shall remain nameless but whose initials are NY.
>Doesn't have to be real subtle or involved for those kinda
>songs, and thats what Neil Young is very good at. Trent Reznor of Nine
>Inch Nails is a great lyricist in this mode too and you can *scream*
>along with him: "BOW DOWN BEFORE THE ONE YOU SERVE..." et al.
>
>On the other hand, I do like a certain level of obscurity and thats
>what Cobain or whoever writes the lyrics for Radiohead is good for.
>Good luck singing along with Radiohead.
This utterly mystifies me. Why would you actually *want* lyrics to be obscure?
Any shlemiel can string words together that somebody else won't be able to
understand. Good writers bust their balls striving for clarity. They want to
be understood.
>Unfortunately I've never been exposed to any operas based on a
>worthwhile story, so my musical education is woefully incomplete.
So is mine. When you receive formal training on instruments as I have (piano
and violin), you concentrate on mastering one piece at a time. There's no
leisure to acquire a detailed or comprehensive appreciation of musical history.
What little knowledge I do have has come to me since I stopped performing.
The time I used to spend practicing is now spent listening to records.
> I suppose there are filmed versions of the Verdi operas you recommend
>that are available to rent?
I don't watch filmed versions of opera. They bore me. The only way to
appreciate opera is to sit in a comfortable chair next to your stereo with the
libretto in one hand and a beer in the other. Trust me, it's a lot better to
imagine the singers and scenery yourself than to be confronted with the
depressing reality of elephantine prima donnas and cheesy stage props.
FWIW, a lot of people seem to like Ingmar Bergman's version of "The Magic
Flute."
> Thats how I learned to appreciate Wagner
>(well, in my philistine way....I have been known to get up and leave
>during certain parts of the Ring that I find terminally boring) - all
>on rented VHS....
>
Too bad you can't rent CDs. Or can you? I check mine out of the library, but
you live in a cow town whose library system probably doesn't offer a huge
selection of classical music. You'll either have to (shudder) buy the CDs or
move to a real city, where grown-ups live. In the meantime, you can keep
re-listening to "Cinnamon Girl" in the hopes of one day grasping its sublimity.
:)
>np: Rocky! No, really - my husband thinks my kid should see all these
>awful movies that are American cultural reference points so he'll know
>what the hell people are talking about. So lately its been Jaws,
>Alien, et al around here....
Might as well. You've already destroyed the kid's mind by exposing him to TV
before he was 7. A little more pop culture brain damage won't make a
difference. I've never sat through "Rocky" or "Jaws" but I've watched scenes
from them here and there over the years. Didn't they (along with "Star Wars")
completely ruin American movies ?
>I'm just about ready to watch something
>very French and incomprehensible as an antidote.
>
Jean-Luc Godard sounds like the ticket.
JVBGUY
>>Bottom line: they weren't embarassing. I just wish Yoko would have given
>>them the original tapes instead of copies.
>
>What's this? That chick is out to freaking lunch. Why on earth would Yoko
>keep the original tapes from the others? Was she just on a power trip or do
>you think she tampered with the originals in some way?
I don't think she tampered with the original tapes. I hope not, anyway. I can
imagine her overdubbing herself onto them. "I'm freeeeeee as a bird (ai ai ai
aiaiaia ai ai aiii!!!!)".
She probably just didn't want the originals to get damaged or lost, but if you
can't trust Paul, George and Ringo to take good care of them, then you are as
paranoid as your husband was, Yoko. So there was at least one extra layer of
tape hiss to deal with in the process.
>No kidding. I guess they really didn't like poor old Pete, huh? Never heard
>of Jimmy Nichols, so that's a great little piece of trivia. Does he show up
at
>Beatles fan conventions and so forth? I hope Jimmy's been able to cash in on
>the experience in some way, as one of the candidates for "fifth Beatle".
I read about him in the Sunday papers about two years ago. Can't remember a
thing about him. I have a vague recollection that he is not too fond of
remembering those days, but I could be wrong.
>It's even harder to listen to that stuff and believe that people thought such
>happy, harmless music was evil !
And tuneful. Better melodies and chord changes than the usual three-chord
rockers or the four chord doo-wop sequence that was endlessly recycled in those
pre-Beatles days.
>What I really like from the early years are
>their covers. It's a shame they stopped doing songs by Chuck Berry and the
>like. I bet we'd still be listening to The Beatles today if they recorded
>nothing but kick-ass renditions of "Money", "Twist and Shout", "Rock and Roll
>Music", etc.
Have you thought about the ramifications of that? If they only did cover
versions, then the Rolling Stones might not have started writing their own
songs, Bob Dylan wouldn't have heard the Beatles original chord changes and
decided to go electric, and the sixties would have never happened the way they
did. Now that may be a good or bad thing, or some parts good, some parts
bad... but still... major ramifications.
>Heck, why write songs himself at all ? He still got half the royalties,
right?>
>It wouldn't bother me a bit if my songwriting partner cranked out mega-hits
>like "Hey Jude" and "Yesterday" and then turned over 50% of the profits to me
>while I did nothing but drop acid and ball groupies. :)
Well, first of all, like any of the Beatles, John had a huge ego. So I doubt
he would ever consciously let Paul take all the burden of songwriting.
Secondly, Paul probably would have caught on after an abum or two.
>Didn't Paul recently start crediting their songs to "McCartney / Lennon"
>instead of the traditional "Lennon / McCartney", causing Yoko to have a hissy
>fit? It may have been a "printing error" but shame on Paul for baiting the
>poor woman like that.
Not sure. I don't really follow Paul's solo career these days. I know he
wanted to change the writing credits on some songs, like Yesterday, that he
wrote himself. And Yoko balked (which automatically advanced the runner from
first to second - sorry, it's baseball season). I think he may have actually
changed some of the credits on a recent album, probably just to piss Yoko off.
I say let sleeping dogs lie. It's always been Lennon and McCartney, not
McCartney and Lennon, and most Beatles fans know who wrote which song.
>"Something" is one of the two or three Beatles songs I actively dislike.
>"Something" in the way the song moves makes me ill, for unknown reasons.
Be that as it may, since it wound up the second most covered Beatles song of
all time, there was clearly something in the song (no pun intended) that George
didn't recognize right away, since he held onto it through The White Album and
Let It Be sessions.
>I don't think you've mentioned "Here Comes the Sun"
>which is also a George song, isn't it? I like it a lot more.
I like it too. Probably my favorite George song, and probably one of the most
perfect Beatles recordings. But he wrote that after the Let It Be sessions, so
it didn't fit into our discussion.
>>I really like the song "All Things Must Pass"
>> and the Beatles could have gotten a good recording from it, but it never got
>>to the official recording stage.
>I like it, too, and some other George solo stuff like "My Sweet Lord", despite
>the dated hippie holism. I can't remember the names of the other George hits
>they play on classic rock stations, but they're nothing to sneeze at.
I still love "My Sweet Lord". I know it's dated hippie holism, but the
production of the song (those opening chords, the slide guitar riff, the
background voices) played against the simplicity of the lyrics is a great mix.
It still works. I don't even give a crap that he ripped off the melody from
"He's So Fine".
Let me think, what other songs of his would be played on Classic Rock stations.
"Give Me Love"? Do they still play that? It's been a long time since I had
classic rock on the radio. "When We Was Fab", "Crackerbox Palace", "Got My Mind
Set on You", "Blow Away", "What is Life?". I think that covers most of the
songs I remember them playing by George on rock stations.
>The main problem is that they're very Beatles-ish.
Especially when he started working with Jeff Lynne.
>George never apparently developed
>his own style distinguishable from Lennon -
>McCartney
Actually, I think he did develop a style, but it was often pretty inaccessible
to the general public except for the occasional hit or interesting melody. And
when you put that weak voice over those wandering melodies, coupled with so-so
lyrics that often preached... not a formula for major success. I'm not saying
every album was like that. He had several albums that were good from beginning
to end. But a lot of his albums wandered aimlessly and boringly, until the
"hit" plays on side two or whatever.
Back when albums had "sides", of course. I wish they still did. Plenty of
albums really needed to be listened to as two separate sides. Abbey Road, for
one. Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home for another. The good bands and
singers spent a long time sequencing their album sides, and then along comes
CDs, and all of a sudden, it's all one long side.
> whereas John and Paul's
>solo stuff was definitely different than the Beatles.
>Not better, of course
>(especially not in John's case), but different.
I think a lot of Paul's stuff is very Beatley, consciously Beatley, catering to
people who still can't believe the Beatles broke up and are consciously looking
for consciously Beatley music.
John's stuff is not so Beatley, I agree. "Imagine" and "Woman" are two I think
the Beatles could have done. "Instant Karma" too. And I know what you think
about "Imagine" - treacly. Yeah, it is. But again, I love melody, and that's
a really good one, if simple. The words are pretty crappy. Basically Marxism
and secular humanism written into lyrics, which I don't personally object too
even though I don't subscribe to that philosophy. But "and no religion too"?
Damn it, it should be "and no religion either"! For some reason, that always
irks me. And "Imagine no possessions/I wonder if you can"? Well, excuse me,
Mister I Lived on the Upper East Side of New York City in A Swell Hi-Falutin'
Apartment Directly Across from Central Park Because I Was a Beatle and I Could
I Afford To Live There and You Can't. (I don't think anybody ever called him
by that nickname.)
>I wonder if John really thought that
>"Dig A Pony" was a masterpiece compared to George's stuff. At the time, he
>probably did. Who says LSD impairs judgment?
In 1980, I'm pretty sure he dismissed it as "crap" in his Rolling Stone
interview. Rightfully so. The riff isn't even that catchy, and the Beatles
were great at inventing riffs that stuck in your mind forever. And the words,
again - crappy. One of my least favorite Beatles songs, along with "Blue Jay
Way".
>To be fair, he had good reason to be paranoid. The FBI kept a huge file on
>him, and after all he wound up being murdered by a fan. I'm sure there are
>plenty of nutty conspiracy theories about why The Establishment wanted to
>liquidate Lennon. As William Burroughs said, "Even paranoids have real
>enemies."
Yes, as they say: just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that everybody is
against me.
He was also paranoid that Paul was subconsciously sabotaging his (John's) songs
in the recording studio, another thing revealed in the Rolling Stone interview.
Diane Wilson
says...
> On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:56:28 GMT, Diane Wilson <di...@firelily.com>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <tqmb70h1ld13j4uvm...@4ax.com>, m...@privacy.net
> >says...
> >> And those really attractive man breasts. :(
> >
> >The main culprit there is usually drugs for treatment of
> >prostate cancer, including estrogen.
>
> Or excessive beer consumption and lack of exercise. I'm really
> surprised that no one has attempted to market bras for men. :)
OK, sumo wrestlers are another story.
> My aunt was a Unitarian (she has moved on to a non-sectarian heaven, I
> hope), and I went to a Unitarian wedding. My perception of your church
> (gained from knowing my aunt, one wedding, and reading the Unitarian
> service book at a concert in a Unitarian church) is that it is
> surprising to hear you are "a contentious bunch", since you've taken
> out 90% of the argument from Judeo-Christianity. So, I presume you are
> contentious about other stuff, like vegetarianism? Just curious - I am
> extremely interested in all things religion-related.
You want to see some people get uncomfortable, try bringing
someone into a Unitarian church who *does* want to talk about
Jesus. Even in a historical sense. We started out as a
Christian heresy (a Unitarian was someone who didn't believe
in the Trinity) and we've pretty much kept our heretical
attitudes.
Beyond things like that, one of the basic principles of Unitarianism
is the use of democratic processes for self-governance. Given
the extreme acceptance of diversity and the varied paths people
take coming to Unitarianism, getting a consensus on just about
anything can be "richly entertaining." I'm communications committee
chair for the local fellowship, and I own the web site. I'm about
to get deeply involved in the newsletter, too. We're currently
building an extension to our church, searching for a new minister,
dealing with a budget crunch, and having other staffing problems.
So I get to hear a whole lot of the inside controversy.
One of the inside Unitarian jokes is that a Unitarian is a Quaker
who can't keep his mouth shut.
> I'm sure thats true in my case. I was a dance major at UCLA for a year
> and was required to take a year long modern music composition/critical
> survey class and everything I heard that year was extraordinarily
> unappealing, dissonant and offputting. There were several tenured
> professors in the music department that were in effect subsidized
> composers and their stuff was just awful.
Exactly. You won't find any of that garbage in the stuff I
recommended.
I understand what you mean about dance and bad music. My SO and I
go to the American Dance Festival just about every year. Some of
the music has been dreadful, and Merce Cunningham deliberately
seeks out the worst of all (not that he would think so, but his
taste has actually gone down hill since his old buddy, John
Cage, passed away). To be fair, I've been exposed to some really
great music at ADF, too, as well as a lot of great dance.
> Yes, as with some of the music you describe so beautifully below, I
> have learned to enjoy a lot of great music because of my love of dance
> - and there are some great pieces choreographed to Barber, and of
> course Copeland (you've seen the Agnes de Mille?) and Gershwin.
And great pieces choreographed to Stravinsky, Shostakovich,
Bartok, Phillip Glass, Lou Harrison, Mahler, and many others.
I'm not familiar with the Agnes de Mille reference, though.
Details please?
<recommendations snipped>
> You are amazing! Are you involved with music professionally in any
> way? Or just an exceptionally well informed listener? Thanks for the
> info and recommendations.
At this point in my life, just a well-informed listener. However...
I had a dozen years of piano lessons, and ten years of cello.
I got to play in a university orchestra while I was still in
high school, and that experience saved me from becoming a music
major--the high workload and low payback was painfully obvious
when I watched friends struggling with it.
I fell in love with 20th century music when I was about 10 or
12 years old, and I've played a fair amount of it--Shostakovich,
Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok, Barber, Khachaturian, Satie,
Ives, Copland, to name a few.
I also fell in love with Russian literature around the same
time. Especially the eccentric, satirical ones like Gogol,
Zamyatin, Ilf & Petrov, Bulgakov, and Zoshchenko.
Besides all that, I'm an information junkie. I hang out
on a mailing list about Shostakovich and other Russian
composers; the list includes a number of musicologists,
some of whom write books or CD liner notes and such, as
well as musicians who play or conduct Shostakovich. I've
read a number of books on Shostakovich, from biographies
to dissertations on his use of irony and sarcasm. I've read
enough Russian cultural history to put all of that into
context for St. Petersburg (Leningrad during the Soviet
years), various artistic movements in pre-communist
Russia, the years of the Terror, etc., etc.
So I come by all of this knowledge honestly.....
Diane
Diane Wilson
says...
> >
> >You want to see some people get uncomfortable, try bringing
> >someone into a Unitarian church who *does* want to talk about
> >Jesus. Even in a historical sense. We started out as a
> >Christian heresy (a Unitarian was someone who didn't believe
> >in the Trinity) and we've pretty much kept our heretical
> >attitudes.
>
> So what is your "official" take on Jesus - he was just a great leader
> kinda guy? Was he crucified, died and raised from the dead? Does that
> matter for our relationship to God the Father in any way? Do you
> believe in "personal salvation"?
The official line is here: http://www.uua.org/aboutuua/principles.html
For a short, readable book that goes into depth on the principles,
try http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0807016179/
To try to put it into something direct, the "official" line on Jesus
is that there is no official line. We are each free to come to our
own terms with this question. We don't accept the existence of heaven
or hell, so the whole "salvation" issue really doesn't fit in our
framework. Broadly speaking, we accept Jesus and the Bible as an
important source of spiritual insight and moral guidance. But we
say the same things about Bhuddism, the Tao, Wicca, and the humanist
manifesto. We should say the same thing about the Koran, but in
reality we're about as close to understanding it as most Americans.
Personally, I was raised as a Methodist, and rejected it when I was
about 15. I think the closest I can come to putting a label on
my own beliefs is "pantheist," in the sense of accepting God as
part of my perception of the universe. I believe that Jesus was
a gifted teacher and perhaps a healer, and that he died by
crucifiction.
> How interesting....I'm as involved as you (maybe more so...I'm a
> glutton for punishment!) in my parish (Roman Catholic eh). We have no
> democratic tradition, of course, but being in the U.S. the idea of
> consensus et al has crept in, particularly in the light of the failure
> of the hierarchy in recent years. So we struggle between the desire to
> continue to keep "pleasing the Father (the priest in charge)" and
> deciding what to do ourselves about stuff like liturgy, music,
> religious education, etc. As my priest is about to retire, we are also
> anticipating a new pastor and in a couple of weeks someone is going to
> show up from the diocese to actually find out what/who we
> want....which I gather is fairly new in my denomination in these
> cases. Should be interesting - I'm a convert from the Episcopal Church
> (which is highly democratic, of course) so I've never been through a
> transition in Catholic priests before.
Interesting. Unitarians take the approach of "calling" a minister.
The congregation votes. The district and national organizations don't
get final say in it, although they are equipped to help with the search.
Transitions aren't handled like any other church that I'm aware of,
though. The national association keeps a list of ministers who
specialize in helping congregations prepare for a new minister.
These interim ministers are appointed for a year, and can be
extended for a second year. Churches are not allowed to call an
interim minister as a permanent, settled minister. We're working
through the process of selecting an interim minister now, and
expect that he or she will arrive in August.
By the way, there are more women being ordained as Unitarian ministers
than men. Gay and lesbian ministers are common, and there were a
couple of transgendered ministers called recently.
> Agnes de Mille choreographed two landmark ballets in the 1940s (I'm
> not sure of the exact date) that were set on the American prairie and
> called Rodeo and Fall River Legend - I think both were set to modern
> American composers and were notable for that as well as incorporating
> elements of western (i.e. American western and country) dance that
> have never been seen on the ballet stage. Rodeo is not at all dated -
> I saw it again a few years ago and its still wonderful.
Ahhh. I've seen Rodeo danced. I've also played the hoedown from
Rodeo; it is FUN to play! (Copland, if you want to go looking for
it. He did another frontier ballet, Billy the Kid, which is also
a lot of fun.)
> In fact Agnes de Mille has
> some famous quote about an education being a detriment for a dancer...
That's probably true for a lot of things, actually. Doing anything
well requires a tremendous sacrifice in time and energy. For
many physical activities that require a lot of coordination and
precise timing, thinking too much can really be a problem!
> Wonderful. Thanks again. My own fields of interest tend to concentrate
> on modern comparative religion - I went on to get an M.A. in modern
> religious history and was 3-1/2 years into a Ph.D. when I packed in
> the academic life, much as I had done the dance world, in favor of $.
> I am endlessly fascinated with what I call the "intersections" of one
> religion with the other, and with places where a new religious
> construct has impinged upon and been transformed by or has transformed
> what religion already was present. (Like the Evangelical movement in
> South America, for example...or Anglicanism in India.)
OK, here's a book you might enjoy: "The Master and Margarita" by
Mikhail Bulgakov. It's loosely based on the story of Faust, but
set in Moscow in the 1930s. The devil has clearly come to town
to have his fun with a determinedly athiest society. It is also
the story of Pontius Pilate, told alternately by the devil, and
as part of a novel written by one of the characters, and ultimately
as part of the main story line itself. It is deeply challenging
on moral issues while at the same time being outrageously and
wickedly funny. (Not unlike a certain TV series involving vampires.)
It's one of the best novels I've *ever* read. This is an excellent
translation: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0141180145/
Diane
Diane Wilson
schlitz...@aol.comekingdom says...
Sorry for the delay in responding; I wanted to think about this
one first. Then when it was almost done, my cat walked across
my laptop and managed to shut it down without getting a
confirmation from either Windows or me. I have no idea how
she did that.
> >My SO has a degree in fine art. She likes to ask people what they
> >think is the difference between stylized art and mannered art.
> >No one has ever come up with an answer.
>
> To me "stylized art" is a redundancy. All art is stylized. If it's not, it's
> called "life". Mannered art is art that is either too obtrusively stylized or
> stylized in a manner you're not accustomed to. How's that answer?
No, I don't agree that all art is stylized. All art is abstracted
in some way, through filtering, enhancement, or distortion. Art is
about selectivity, perception, and viewpoint. Once you start doing
art, then there are all number of rules, guidelines, structures,
methods, processes, tools, conventions, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
Stylized art and mannered art are both formalist approaches to art;
they embody the idea that form is more important than substance.
> These days anything that's not naturalistic is considered mannered. But
> naturalism is just one of many fashions, and in the long history of art, it's
> an aberration. It seems "natural" to us because it happened to dominate the
> arts during the rise of democracy during the 19th century.
OK, where does neoromanticism fit in? In these post-modern times,
it would seem that any technique you choose to use is available and
acceptable, singly or in combination with any other. Everything
that was old is new again.
Or are we post-post-modern now? How would we know? When do we
get to have the neo-post-modern revival? I'm looking forward
to that.
> >Back to opera, the ultimate step was to dispense with the librettist
> >entirely. Shostakovich did that with "The Gamblers"; he used Gogol's
> >story directly. (Not to be confused with Prokofiev's "The Gambler," which
> >was based on Dostoyevsky.) Unfortunately The Gamblers was never finished,
> >but the idea of an opera about a poker game seems a bit lame, even if
> >written by Gogol.
> >
>
> Never heard of either the Gogol story or the Shostakovich opera.
That's not too surprising. Officially, Shostakovich abandoned work on
The Gamblers because he expected that it could never get performed.
It has exceeded his expectation by one; I have the CD around her
somewhere on a double with The Nose. (Unoffocially, it was during WWII
and he was very depressed.)
As for the original Gogol, it's not in the usual books, and it's not in
my "comlete talkes of Nikolai Gogol", either.
> I don't see
> why you couldn't make a great opera of a card game. Didn't one of the Russian
> composers adapt Pushkin's "Queen of Spades"?
Tchaikovsky. I don't know anything abougt the story, though.
> >> >I can tolerate Mozart only in minor keys. I'll take a complete
> >> >pass on Wagner for the rest of my life.
> >> >
> >>
> >> I happen to be a fanatical Wagnerite. I will now pray for your soul.
> >
Diane> >I'm a Unitarian. Just have a cup of coffee for my soul.
>
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>Or excessive beer consumption and lack of exercise.
I resent that. Are you implying that opening a refrigerator door and twisting
a bottle cap are NOT exercise?
> I'm really surprised that no one has attempted to market bras for men. :)
On "Steinfeld" - a sitcom your son should be watching if you're trying to
inculcate him with Americana - one of the characters indeed tried to market a
brassiere for men. He called it a bro.
Barney
<di...@firelily.com> writes:
>Sorry for the delay in responding; I wanted to think about this
>one first.
No hurry. Any post of yours is worth the wait.
> Then when it was almost done, my cat walked across
>my laptop and managed to shut it down without getting a
>confirmation from either Windows or me. I have no idea how
>she did that.
>
At least your cat (unlike me) is able to make a computer do *something*. May I
borrow her for a few days? I need to upgrade.
>> >My SO has a degree in fine art. She likes to ask people what they
>> >think is the difference between stylized art and mannered art.
>> >No one has ever come up with an answer.
>>
>> To me "stylized art" is a redundancy. All art is stylized. If it's not,
>it's>> called "life". Mannered art is art that is either too obtrusively
stylized
>or>> stylized in a manner you're not accustomed to. How's that answer?
>
>No, I don't agree that all art is stylized. All art is abstracted
>in some way, through filtering, enhancement, or distortion. Art is
>about selectivity, perception, and viewpoint.
How does that differ from stylization? Selectivity, perception, etc. are the
polite terms for distortion and abstraction, which define style. Call it what
you like, the artistic process inevitably involves an artist imposing his
"personality" (using that word in the broadest possible sense) on raw material,
aka life. Whether the result is any good is a matter of opinion. When you
reject or approve an artwork's style, you're rejecting or approving the
artist's personality.
> Once you start doing
>art, then there are all number of rules, guidelines, structures,
>methods, processes, tools, conventions, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
>
All of which form a style. An artist's style depends on which rules and
methods he prefers, and the unique way he combines them.
>Stylized art and mannered art are both formalist approaches to art;
How do *you* distinguish "stylized" from "mannered"? Or do you? That would
help me understand where you're coming from.
I'm not sure if we agree on what "stylized" means, but we're definitely using
the term "mannered" differently. When I say a work is mannered, I'm passing
judgment. It's a criticism, just as when I denounce a work as boring,
derivative, or obscure. You seem to be using it neutrally, as an artistic
category such as baroque art, modernist art, neoclassical, etc.
>they embody the idea that form is more important than substance.
>
An idea I utterly reject. At bottom, form and substance are inseparable. When
the artist has done his job properly, that is. The reason I suggested above
that mannered art is inferior is precisely because it places form above
substance.
>> These days anything that's not naturalistic is considered mannered. But
>> naturalism is just one of many fashions, and in the long history of art,
>it's>> an aberration. It seems "natural" to us because it happened to
dominate
>the>> arts during the rise of democracy during the 19th century.
>
>OK, where does neoromanticism fit in? In these post-modern times,
>it would seem that any technique you choose to use is available and
>acceptable, singly or in combination with any other. Everything
>that was old is new again.
>
When I referred to "us" above, I meant the general public, the consumers of
popular art. That category includes me, because I like movies and other
popular arts, which are overwhelmingly naturalistic. The general public
dismisses fine arts such as opera and ballet as artsy-fartsy and "mannered" (in
my opprobrious sense of the word) because they're not naturalistic. People
say, "Bah, nobody stands in front of his old lady for hours on end, singing at
the top of his lungs! How lame!" It's a form of stylization they're not
accustomed to. All they know is naturalism.
Recently I've taken an interest in dance, which thanks to my ignorance always
seemed incomprehensible - that is, mannered. Ballet is still very strange to
me, but gradually I'm learning how dancers actually create a characterization
entirely through movement. Hopefully, as I become more and more accustomed to
this sort of stylization, it will seem less mannered to me and I'll be able to
enjoy the art of the dance spontaneously.
>Or are we post-post-modern now? How would we know?
The professors will tell us, of course ! I trust them to define the age we're
living in, don't you?
> When do we get to have the neo-post-modern revival? I'm looking forward
>to that.
>
You won't have to wait long. These days, artistic movements come and go every
35 minutes, and the gap between a style's demise and a style's revival keeps
getting shorter and shorter. You need a stopwatch to accurately date artistic
periods.
It's all a result of *genuine* cultural pluralism, which we are experiencing
for the first time. I personally find it interesting that many different
styles are acceptable at the same time, but others deplore it as chaos. The
days when one artist or one style can dominate a country or a culture are
probably over. But only in the fine arts. As I've said, naturalism dominates
the popular arts and anyone who wants to experiment with any other style will
have a long, hard struggle to be accepted.
>> >Back to opera, the ultimate step was to dispense with the librettist
>> >entirely. Shostakovich did that with "The Gamblers"; he used Gogol's
>> >story directly. (Not to be confused with Prokofiev's "The Gambler," which
>> >was based on Dostoyevsky.) Unfortunately The Gamblers was never finished,
>> >but the idea of an opera about a poker game seems a bit lame, even if
>> >written by Gogol.
>> >
>>
>> Never heard of either the Gogol story or the Shostakovich opera.
>
>That's not too surprising. Officially, Shostakovich abandoned work on
>The Gamblers because he expected that it could never get performed.
>It has exceeded his expectation by one; I have the CD around her
>somewhere on a double with The Nose. (Unofficially, it was during WWII
>and he was very depressed.)
>
I've read "The Nose" - what a bizarre story. It's as if Gogol foresaw
Freudianism and decided to mock it before Freud was even born. Have you read
Nabokov's monograph on Gogol? Very funny, and you can see how much Gogol
influenced VN.
>As for the original Gogol, it's not in the usual books, and it's not in
>my "complete tales of Nikolai Gogol", either.
>
So where the heck did you find it?
>> I don't see why you couldn't make a great opera of a card game. Didn't one
of the>Russian composers adapt Pushkin's "Queen of Spades"?
>
>Tchaikovsky. I don't know anything about the story, though.
>
IIRC, it's considered Pushkin's best prose tale and is often described as
"perfect". You'll probably love it if you're into the Rooshans. Come to think
of it, the only Russian opera I've heard is "Eugene Onegin", another
Tchaikovsky adaptation of Pushkin (a narrative poem).
Barney
(JVBGUY) writes:
>Our Pal Barney wrote:
>
>>>Bottom line: they weren't embarassing. I just wish Yoko would have given
>>>them the original tapes instead of copies.
>>
>
>>What's this? That chick is out to freaking lunch. Why on earth would Yoko
>>keep the original tapes from the others? Was she just on a power trip or do
>>you think she tampered with the originals in some way?
>
>I don't think she tampered with the original tapes. I hope not, anyway. I
>can>imagine her overdubbing herself onto them. "I'm freeeeeee as a bird (ai
ai
>ai>aiaiaia ai ai aiii!!!!)".
>
Come on, Yoko is one of the finest vocalists of our day. ("And we become
NAKED!!!")
>She probably just didn't want the originals to get damaged or lost, but if
>you can't trust Paul, George and Ringo to take good care of them, then you are
as
>paranoid as your husband was, Yoko. So there was at least one extra layer of
>tape hiss to deal with in the process.
>
It sounds to me like a plain old power trip. She *could* keep the originals
from the others, so she *did*. What a psycho. Do John's sons inherit control
of the Lennon estate when Yoko dies? Hopefully they'll be a trifle more sane.
>>What I really like from the early years are
>>their covers. It's a shame they stopped doing songs by Chuck Berry and the
>>like. I bet we'd still be listening to The Beatles today if they recorded
>>nothing but kick-ass renditions of "Money", "Twist and Shout", "Rock and
>Roll>>Music", etc.
>
>Have you thought about the ramifications of that? If they only did cover
>versions, then the Rolling Stones might not have started writing their own
>songs, Bob Dylan wouldn't have heard the Beatles original chord changes and
>decided to go electric, and the sixties would have never happened the way
>they did. Now that may be a good or bad thing, or some parts good, some parts
>bad... but still... major ramifications.
>
Don't get me wrong - I love the Beatles' originals and I'm obviously glad they
recorded them. I only meant that *if* they recorded nothing but covers, we'd
still be listening to them because they had that great Beatles sound. All the
same, I think it's undeniable that much of their early songwriting wasn't up to
the level of some of the stuff they covered. You feel a little embarrassed for
them when you listen to them do Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" - which has
ingenious lyrics - and then listen to "Hold Me Tight" right after.
>>Didn't Paul recently start crediting their songs to "McCartney / Lennon"
>>instead of the traditional "Lennon / McCartney", causing Yoko to have a
>hissy>>fit? It may have been a "printing error" but shame on Paul for baiting
the
>>poor woman like that.
>
>Not sure. I don't really follow Paul's solo career these days. I know he
>wanted to change the writing credits on some songs, like Yesterday, that he
>wrote himself. And Yoko balked (which automatically advanced the runner from
>first to second - sorry, it's baseball season). I think he may have actually
>changed some of the credits on a recent album, probably just to piss Yoko
>off.
>I say let sleeping dogs lie. It's always been Lennon and McCartney, not
>McCartney and Lennon, and most Beatles fans know who wrote which song.
>
I don't know much about this either, it was just one of those factoids DJs toss
out in between songs. But since, as you say, Beatle fans can recognize a Paul
song and a John song when they hear them, there was no point in changing the
credit, except to annoy Yoko. Which I'm usually all for, but in this case it
seemed more petty than usual.
>>"Something" is one of the two or three Beatles songs I actively dislike.
>>"Something" in the way the song moves makes me ill, for unknown reasons.
>
>Be that as it may, since it wound up the second most covered Beatles song of
>all time,
I assume "Yesterday" is the most covered? Or is it "Revolution 9"?
>>>I really like the song "All Things Must Pass"
>>> and the Beatles could have gotten a good recording from it, but it never
>got
>>>to the official recording stage.
>
>>I like it, too, and some other George solo stuff like "My Sweet Lord",
>despite>>the dated hippie holism. I can't remember the names of the other
George
>hits>>they play on classic rock stations, but they're nothing to sneeze at.
>
>I still love "My Sweet Lord". I know it's dated hippie holism, but the
>production of the song (those opening chords, the slide guitar riff, the
>background voices) played against the simplicity of the lyrics is a great
>mix. It still works. I don't even give a crap that he ripped off the melody
from
>"He's So Fine".
>
Yeah, what a trip. John ripped off Chuck Berry on "Come Together", too. He
probably would have gotten away with it if he hadn't copied the lyrics *as well
as* the melody. Smart move, John.
>Let me think, what other songs of his would be played on Classic Rock
>stations.> "Give Me Love"? Do they still play that?
Yep - "give me love, give me peace on earth". They played that like crazy when
George died. I heard a lot of cool George stuff on the radio then.
> It's been a long time since I had
>classic rock on the radio. "When We Was Fab", "Crackerbox Palace", "Got My
>Mind>Set on You", "Blow Away", "What is Life?". I think that covers most of
the
>songs I remember them playing by George on rock stations.
>
There are others, but I'm horrible with titles. I'm not sure if I've heard
"Crackerbox Palace" or "Blow Away", but I recognize the others you listed.
>>The main problem is that they're very Beatles-ish.
>
>Especially when he started working with Jeff Lynne.
>
>>George never apparently developed
>>his own style distinguishable from Lennon -
>>McCartney
>
>Actually, I think he did develop a style, but it was often pretty
>inaccessible>to the general public except for the occasional hit or
interesting melody.
>And>when you put that weak voice over those wandering melodies, coupled with
>so-so>lyrics that often preached... not a formula for major success. I'm not
>saying>every album was like that. He had several albums that were good from
>beginning>to end. But a lot of his albums wandered aimlessly and boringly,
until the
>"hit" plays on side two or whatever.
>
I'm sure you're right. I'm judging him by his hits, without delving into the
albums themselves. He was probably pressured to make his singles as Beatley as
possible if he wanted them to be broadcast.
>Back when albums had "sides", of course. I wish they still did. Plenty of
>albums really needed to be listened to as two separate sides. Abbey Road,
>for one. Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home for another. The good bands and
>singers spent a long time sequencing their album sides, and then along comes
>CDs, and all of a sudden, it's all one long side.
>
I know what you mean. Often one side of an album had a certain unity which
contrasted with the "message" of the other side. Let's hear it for wax! I
have a few LPs, which I've picked up at thrift shops for 50 cents a pop. I've
found a few gems here and there, for example some classical recordings which
have never been converted to digital sound. I also casually collect old
stand-up comedy albums by the likes of Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, Lord Buckley.
Great stuff.
>> whereas John and Paul's
>>solo stuff was definitely different than the Beatles.
>>Not better, of course
>>(especially not in John's case), but different.
>
>I think a lot of Paul's stuff is very Beatley, consciously Beatley, catering
>to>people who still can't believe the Beatles broke up and are consciously
>looking>for consciously Beatley music.
>
You mean songs like "With A Little Luck"? Yeah, no question Paul was pandering
there. But a lot of his songs seem to reflect the "art rock" going round in
the early 70s. Tracks like "Dragonfly", "Uncle Albert", "Band on the Run" and
"1985" are multi-part suites of the sort that the Beatles never attempted.
>John's stuff is not so Beatley, I agree. "Imagine" and "Woman" are two I
>think>the Beatles could have done. "Instant Karma" too. And I know what you
think
>about "Imagine" - treacly. Yeah, it is.
It seems obvious to me that John was trying to write his own "Let It Be".
>But again, I love melody, and
>that's>a really good one, if simple. The words are pretty crappy. Basically
>Marxism>and secular humanism written into lyrics, which I don't personally
object too
>even though I don't subscribe to that philosophy. But "and no religion too"?
>Damn it, it should be "and no religion either"!
LOL - I've noticed that, too. If English were John's second language, I'd let
it slide, but come on ! And isn't it clever how he rhymes the word "one" with
the word "one" in the chorus? Hey, John, you're allowed to write a second
draft, you lazy bastard.
Have you heard the Doors' song "L.A. Woman"? Jim Morrison sings, "If they say
I never loved you, you know they are a liar." Great grammar, Jimbo! I guess
they didn't teach number agreement at UCLA when he was there.
> For some reason, that always
>irks me. And "Imagine no possessions/I wonder if you can"? Well, excuse me,
>Mister I Lived on the Upper East Side of New York City in A Swell Hi-Falutin'
>Apartment Directly Across from Central Park Because I Was a Beatle and I
>Could I Afford To Live There and You Can't. (I don't think anybody ever
called him
>by that nickname.)
Well, it's catchier than "Eggman". I think you'll find that only the wealthy
ever go on about the irrelevance of material things. Those who suffer want
know very well that possessions matter.
>>I wonder if John really thought that
>>"Dig A Pony" was a masterpiece compared to George's stuff. At the time, he
>>probably did. Who says LSD impairs judgment?
>
>In 1980, I'm pretty sure he dismissed it as "crap" in his Rolling Stone
>interview. Rightfully so. The riff isn't even that catchy, and the Beatles
>were great at inventing riffs that stuck in your mind forever. And the
>words, again - crappy. One of my least favorite Beatles songs, along with
"Blue Jay
>Way".
>
Oh, God. Is that the one that repeats "Please don't be long" FOREVER and EVER?
How ironic. I also hate "While My Guitar Weeps". I'm not anti-George,
though, really.
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>It boggles the mind. Hugh Hefner was shilling hamburgers for McDonald's
>last>>year. We live in interesting times.
>
>I missed that one....and the connection between Hugh and hamburgers
>is?
Got me. I guess you're supposed to think that all the women are after him
because he takes them to McDonalds. It's hilarious when fast food ads show an
anorexic model sinking her teeth into a double-cheeseburger with bacon and
avocado. For one thing, the sandwich weighs more than she does. For another,
no way in hell would she look like that if her lips ever came within 100 light
years of solid food.
>>
>>Do you want to know Barney's Secret ? I and other men don't give a rat's
>ass>>about lingerie. Anything tight, skimpy and slutty works just as well.
Take
>>the money you save on lacy undergarments and use it to buy a twelve-pack for
>>your man. After he downs a dozen beers, any woman starts to look desirable,
>>even his wife.
>
>I'll share this with you: my husband has no interest in lingerie or
>actually any sort of clothing - he says he wants me fully naked, and
>as quickly as possible :)
After how many beers? If you actually look good in the nude, you are one of
the blessed. Most of us are way more attractive with clothes on, sad to say.
The real reason Adam and Eve started wearing clothing wasn't shame, but because
they looked like hell, and there was no else around to ball. So they created
clothing, that is, sex appeal. There was no beer or wine until Noah's time,
right? It's a miracle human beings kept on procreating until then.
> So I've actually never bought any of those
>"lacy undergarments", but the people at Victoria's Secret seem to
>think that someday I might. Hope springs eternal!
Maybe you should model for them. Are you familiar with the term MILF? :)
>>What's the difference between a song you sing along TO and a song you sing
>>along WITH?
>
>None - I assumed you didn't like to sing along at all,
Why would you assume that?
> so songs that
>fit that category you find corny or simplistic or whatever, even if
>they have other things to recommend them. However, I now see from the
>Beatles thread that you do like the early Beatles cover songs and
>those are certainly sing along songs....I never get tired of "Twist
>and Shout".
>>
I love those early, silly songs. We've been dissing rock lyrics here but it
just occurred to me that Chuck Berry's output is the exception to the rule that
all pop songs are moronic. His lyrics are witty, literate, well-constructed,
and INTELLIGIBLE. They actually contain observations about the outside world
and even employ polysyllables. Bravo, Chuck. He *deserved* all of the awesome
royalty payments black musicians earned in those days - about a tenth of a cent
for every 10,000 records they sold. (The Beatles were royally screwed over,
too. They became rich because they sold so many freaking records, but not
nearly as rich as they should have been.)
Among the early rock and roll guys, I like Little Richard too. As far as I can
tell ALL of his songs are about fucking, nothing else.
>I really, really hate Eric Clapton. Infinitely boring in every way.
>Especially after his kid died and he got to be a living saint just
>because his kid wasn't being looked after properly, died and he wrote
>a song about heaaaaaaaaaaaaven. More soppy than anything on Buffy,
>ever. Clapton is symptomatic of our sickening elevation of former
>junkies to paragons of virtue just because they didn't manage to
>overdose.
I wasn't aware that Clapton was deemed to be a paragon of virtue, just a good
guitarist. (I do remember hearing that the second he was let out of rehab, he
did a beer commercial.) You don't like "Layla" or the stuff he did with Cream?
I agree with you about that "heaven" song, and he has another love ballad that
is even more nauseating. All those old-timers have recorded their share of
crap. He's still done a lot of good stuff.
>Okay. Do you get librettos off the net or do you have to go out and
>buy them somewhere?
You really don't understand this "library" concept, do you? :) Also, sometimes
(not often) the libretto will come with the opera CDs. I have other resources,
too, through my musical connections.
>>Too bad you can't rent CDs. Or can you? I check mine out of the library,
>but>>you live in a cow town whose library system probably doesn't offer a huge
>>selection of classical music. You'll either have to (shudder) buy the CDs
>or>>move to a real city, where grown-ups live. In the meantime, you can keep
>>re-listening to "Cinnamon Girl" in the hopes of one day grasping its
>sublimity.
>
>Oh sure - we can rent them from the local library, but the selection
>seems to be limited to antique Billy Joel or Johnny Cash albums :)
>Using half.com, buying is just as cheap in the long run since you can
>get stuff for 75 cents plus shipping, and then if you don't like it,
>you can always turn around and resell it.
>
I seriously doubt you can get operas for 75 cents. If you can, then I'm
heading straight for half.com and buying out their entire stock.
>>Might as well. You've already destroyed the kid's mind by exposing him to
>TV>>before he was 7. A little more pop culture brain damage won't make a
>>difference. I've never sat through "Rocky" or "Jaws" but I've watched
>scenes>>from them here and there over the years. Didn't they (along with
"Star
>Wars")>>completely ruin American movies ?
>
>I think both Jaws and Star Wars had more influence than Rocky - they
>started the syndrome of having a significant action sequence at the
>very beginning of the movie (even before the titles) to "grab" the
>audience's attention. Its quite infantile, if you think about it and
>now absolutely de rigeur in every American mass market type movie.
>Rocky was simply the elevation of the moron to hero status - which
>continues to this day in the form of XXX and other wrestling types
>into action figures that happen to be on screen.
Yep, all three contributed to the infantilization of the movie industry.
Before "Star Wars" you didn't have all of that cross promotion and tie-ins with
fast food restaurants, etc. And also, they started the trend of producing
multiple sequels for every semi-successful movie. Hollywood always tried to
repeat past successes but not to the extent it does today. Originality is
perceived (rightly) as box office poison.
>>
>>>I'm just about ready to watch something
>>>very French and incomprehensible as an antidote.
>>>
>>
>>Jean-Luc Godard sounds like the ticket.
>
>Perfect. Except we don't have any Godard in our collection. I do have
>something here by Bunuel
Really? Which one? I like Bunuel.
> - that'll do or I think I'll watch Solaris
>again - it will make Rocky look like a tautly plotted masterpiece.
>
It's a reliable soporofic too, if you're suffering from insomnia.
JVBGUY
>Come on, Yoko is one of the finest vocalists of our day. ("And we become
>NAKED!!!")
Oh, yeah, she's the aural equivalent of a nummy treat. :-)
>Do John's sons inherit control
>of the Lennon estate when Yoko dies? Hopefully they'll be a trifle more sane.
I don't know.
>Don't get me wrong - I love the Beatles' originals and I'm obviously glad they
>recorded them. I only meant that *if* they recorded nothing but covers, we'd
>still be listening to them because they had that great Beatles sound.
Yeah, I finally figured that out. At first I thought you were saying "Maybe if
they had just recorded cover versions, they would still be popular today" which
I didn't understand at all. Then I realized you meant "Even if they had only
recorded cover versions, they would still be popular today." In any event, I
kind of took your premise and ran it through my brain and realized how
different things would have been. The mere fact that they wrote their own
songs changed music in so many ways, including inspiring Jagger and Richards as
well as Dylan going electric.
>You feel a little embarrassed for
>them when you listen to them do Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" - which
has
>ingenious lyrics - and then listen to "Hold Me Tight" right after.
I think "Hold Me Tight" is a good song, but the approach by the Beatles is just
bad for it. The fact that Paul can't hold proper pitch in the middle eight
doesn't help either.
>I assume "Yesterday" is the most covered? Or is it "Revolution 9"?
"Yesterday". Or possibly "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number). Another
"classic" John song. One line, repeated for six minutes. The fact that he
spent much time reworking and mixing both this and "What's The New Mary Jane?"
(my nominee for worst piece of aural horror the Beatles ever officially
released) shows you where his head was at near the end of the group.
>There are others, but I'm horrible with titles. I'm not sure if I've heard
>"Crackerbox Palace" or "Blow Away", but I recognize the others you listed.
"Crackerbox Palace" was a minor hit from the mid-70s, from the same album as
"This Song", another minor hit. "Blow Away" is a George song with a very
Beatley chorus. I don't think it was a hit, but it actually got some play on
MOR and Easy Listening stations back in the late 70s.
>I'm sure you're right. I'm judging him by his hits, without delving into the
>albums themselves. He was probably pressured to make his singles as Beatley
as
>possible if he wanted them to be broadcast.
Delving into his albums is a hit or miss proposition. He'll have a couple of
catchy tunes and a bunch of horrible little ditties, sitting side by side with
no rhyme or reason. Even his posthumous Brainwashed album. I want to love it,
but except for about four songs, the album leaves me falling asleep every time
I listen to it.
>I know what you mean. Often one side of an album had a certain unity which
>contrasted with the "message" of the other side. Let's hear it for wax! I
>have a few LPs, which I've picked up at thrift shops for 50 cents a pop. I've
f>ound a few gems here and there, for example some classical recordings which
>have never been converted to digital sound. I also casually collect old
>stand-up comedy albums by the likes of Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, Lord Buckley.
>Great stuff.
I have a Newhart and the double Woody Allen LP. My turntable died two years
ago in the middle of Roy Orbison's "Leah" and I haven't replaced it. Probably
because of the fright I felt when the turntable died and Roy Orbison sounded
like he was melting.
I have a couple of 78s, including some Bing Crosby stuff, that I bought and
never got to listen to because of having no turntable. Which means I am going
to have to buy a turntable that plays 78s. I saw one in a catalogue for 100
dollars, but I also see them in thrift shops for $25. But I just never get
around to picking one up when I see one.
>>I think a lot of Paul's stuff is very Beatley, consciously Beatley, catering
>>to>people who still can't believe the Beatles broke up and are consciously
>>looking>for consciously Beatley music.
>
>You mean songs like "With A Little Luck"? Yeah, no question Paul was
pandering
>there. But a lot of his songs seem to reflect the "art rock" going round in
>the early 70s. Tracks like "Dragonfly", "Uncle Albert", "Band on the Run" and
>"1985" are multi-part suites of the sort that the Beatles never attempted.
Well, all that stuff reminds me of the Abbey Road medleys. I don't think it
was really anything new for Paul. Not that I don't like the songs, but they
just strike me as not that much different from Beatles stuff.
I think Paul's lyrics really went to hell a little while after the Beatles
broke up. I like "Unlce Albert" but please, with all that "butter pie" stuff.
"Listen to What the Man Said" is one of his best and catchiest melodies, but
what the hell to the lyrics add up to? Nothing. They're not even interesting
as non-sequitors, like some of John's lyrics could be. "My Love"? One of his
biggest solo hits and he can't come up with better words than "Wo wo wo wo, wo
wo wo wo"?
>>And I know what you think
>>about "Imagine" - treacly. Yeah, it is.
>It seems obvious to me that John was trying to write his own "Let It Be".
He succeeded, since it is pretty much a standard and probably his most covered
solo song.
>>But "and no religion too"?
>>Damn it, it should be "and no religion either"!
>LOL - I've noticed that, too. If English were John's second language, I'd let
>it slide, but come on ! And isn't it clever how he rhymes the word "one" with
>the word "one" in the chorus? Hey, John, you're allowed to write a second
>draft, you lazy bastard.
See, now these are things Paul might have pointed out. He might have come up
with a better rhyme or straightened out the grammar. And John would have
laughed "wo wo wo wo" out of the studio.
>Have you heard the Doors' song "L.A. Woman"? Jim Morrison sings, "If they say
>I never loved you, you know they are a liar." Great grammar, Jimbo! I guess
>they didn't teach number agreement at UCLA when he was there.
He was a poet, damn it! His words should never be criticized!
Sorry, not a big Morrison fan, though I do like the Doors. And yes, that line
always bothered me. I always suspected it was intentional, because how could a
smart guy like Morrison get it so wrong? "No religion too", I can see, but
"You know they are a liar" has to be intentional, IMO.
>>One of my least favorite Beatles songs, along with
>>"Blue Jay Way".
>Oh, God. Is that the one that repeats "Please don't be long" FOREVER and
EVER?
>How ironic.
That's the one. And the lyrics are about him sitting in his house waiting for
his friends to arrive. Boy, that's an exciting subject matter! I think I'll
write one about picking my toenails!
>I also hate "While My Guitar Weeps". I'm not anti-George, though, really.
Well, I love that song. At least he came up with better rhymes than Lennon did
on "Imagine". Diverted, perverted, inverted, alerted... that rhyming
dictionary sure got a work out.
Anyway, this could be my last post for a while. I will probably be offline for
a few weeks if not more to take care of some personal business, nothing tragic
or heavy, just stuff I have to do. If I can manage one or two more posts I
will, but if I don't reply, that means I am offline. Think of me, and when you
speak of me, and you will... be kind.
Cheers,
Aethelrede
JVBGUY wrote in message <20040412012638...@mb-m22.aol.com>...
There was this one time, in Istanbul, when I was still in school back in
the 60s and I tried to explain "Roll over Beethoven" to a Turkish guy who
owned a record store. He loved the Beatles because selling their records to
teens made him a lot of money, but he really didn't understand that song. I
think I finally got the message to him that it was really just noise that
went with the music, but the idea of people revolving in their graves seemed
to upset him. Some Turkish vampire fear perhaps?
And now I have the thread back on topic.
Yeah me!
Barney
(JVBGUY) writes:
>Anyway, this could be my last post for a while. I will probably be offline
>for>a few weeks if not more to take care of some personal business, nothing
>tragic>or heavy, just stuff I have to do. If I can manage one or two more
posts I
>will, but if I don't reply, that means I am offline. Think of me, and when
>you>speak of me, and you will... be kind.
>
Don't ask the impossible, JVB Guy! But for your sake I'll try to keep the
libelous remarks to a minimum. Hope you're able to work out your personal
business, and thanks for sharing all the Beatles lore with me. Take care!
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>>Or excessive beer consumption and lack of exercise.
>>
>>I resent that. Are you implying that opening a refrigerator door and
>twisting
>>a bottle cap are NOT exercise?
>
>Switch to wine and make it cheap wine at that - the corks they are
>using now in bottles that sell for under $10. are so crappy that you
>can get a complete workout just trying to get to the alcohol....
That's why you should always drink your wine from a box instead of those
hoity-toity bottles.
>>
>>> I'm really surprised that no one has attempted to market bras for men. :)
>>
>>On "Steinfeld" - a sitcom your son should be watching if you're trying to
>>inculcate him with Americana - one of the characters indeed tried to market
>a
>>brassiere for men. He called it a bro.
>
>There you go! I thought it was "Seinfeld", however. Actually I've
>never been able to get through an episode of that show - the people on
>it all remind me of my whiny Jewish cousins.
>
All the characters are supposed to be selfish losers. You should give the show
another chance. You'll fall in love with George.
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>I was just trying to remember last time I ate anything at McDonalds.
>I'm no snob, but the food doesn't really smell right there....
Have you heard about the documentary a guy recently made ? For a whole month
he ate at McDonald's three times a day and recorded the effects on his health.
Needless to say, he gained 40 pounds, his cholesterol went through the roof, he
went impotent. A doctor who examined him told him that it was healthier to go
on drinking binges.
>if I have to do fast food, its pretty much always Burger King. Wendy's
>looks like public school cafeteria food, Taco Bell is dog food and
>Kentucky Fried Rat is well, fried rat. Everyone on the TV ads for fast
>food always looks like they are having so much fun, which is never my
>experience inside any of the "restaurants" - they have that nuclear
>lighting just to begin with. However, a double cheeseburger with bacon
>and avocado sounds just the ticket, and I actually have all the
>ingredients rite heer.
Fast food is pretty gross, and from what I've heard from the employees, far
from sanitary. When I go to Carls Jr or McDonald's I just order a small soda,
and go back for unlimited refills. Then I spend the rest of the day urinating.
>>>>Do you want to know Barney's Secret ? I and other men don't give a rat's
>>>ass>>about lingerie. Anything tight, skimpy and slutty works just as well.
>>Take>>>>the money you save on lacy undergarments and use it to buy a
twelve-pack
>for>>>>your man. After he downs a dozen beers, any woman starts to look
>desirable,>>>>even his wife.
>>>
>>>I'll share this with you: my husband has no interest in lingerie or
>>>actually any sort of clothing - he says he wants me fully naked, and
>>>as quickly as possible :)
>>
>>After how many beers? If you actually look good in the nude, you are one of
>>the blessed. Most of us are way more attractive with clothes on, sad to
>say. >>The real reason Adam and Eve started wearing clothing wasn't shame, but
>because>>they looked like hell, and there was no else around to ball. So they
>created>>clothing, that is, sex appeal. There was no beer or wine until
Noah's time,
>>right? It's a miracle human beings kept on procreating until then.
>
>I'm sure I look as ridiculous as most everyone else nude. I've never
>figured out why God didn't give humans hair (like the great apes) too.
>Fur or hair all over is so much more attractive unless you are a
>dolphin.
Not to mention more chic. That reminds me of a Peanuts strip I once saw. Lucy
is standing outside with Snoopy on a hot day. She's sweating like crazy and
says, "Sheesh, how can you stupid animals stand all that fur?" Snoopy answers,
"Some of us don't mind sacrificing comfort for style."
> It seems impossible to believe that there were no inebriates
>available until Noah's time, by the way. As you said, the survival of
>the human race kinda depends on getting fuzzy. Where did you hear
>that? Is it one of those "Biblical" stories?
I assume it's straight from Genesis. I've always heard that Noah was the first
drunkard. Right after the Flood, the first thing he does is plant a vineyard.
I believe that's the first reference to booze in the Good Book. Then there's a
weird scene where Noah goes to tent, his children walk in on him and they are
deeply ashamed. What was Noah doing? I'd say either drinking or masturbating
- or both.
>>> So I've actually never bought any of those
>>>"lacy undergarments", but the people at Victoria's Secret seem to
>>>think that someday I might. Hope springs eternal!
>>
>>Maybe you should model for them. Are you familiar with the term MILF? :)
>
>Mothers In Life Forever? Militant Interactive Love Fests?
Close. "Mother I'd Like to Fuck". You use "MILF" whenever you see a hot chick
pushing a stroller or when one of your friends has a really cute mom.
>I look so not like any model for Victoria's Secret. Is that English?
Close enough. *I'll* be the judge of whether you're suitable for Victoria's
Secret, if you don't mind.
>
>You are so right about Chuck Berry. Are you a Buddy Holly fan? I like
>his stuff too.
Yeah, he was great. My Peggy Su-ooo-ooo! Wasn't he about 21 when he died?
Makes me feel like an underachiever.
> Have you ever seen "Rock Around the Clock"? My husband
>has been doing this history of music course with my kid over the last
>two years, as there is none of this being taught around here, anyway.
>They started quite literally from the beginning, and wound their way
>through to this winter and the modern era. Once we got to jazz and
>bebop and swing and rock and country of course there are all these
>video resources so you can actually see some of the legendary
>performers. "Rock Around the Clock" was one of my son's favorite parts
>of the early rock stuff. They are at Led Zepplin now, by the way.
Haven't heard of "Rock Around the Clock", actually. Is it a whole series of
videos? Or is your husband just playing various stuff for your son? I like
Zep. I gots to hear "Stairway to Heaven" every day or I get the shakes.
>>
>>Among the early rock and roll guys, I like Little Richard too. As far as I
>can>>tell ALL of his songs are about fucking, nothing else.
>
>What about James Brown? Yeoowww.
Never got into him. Pretty much every white boy (like Mick Jagger) has copped
his moves though.
[snip Clapton blasphemy - he really IS God, you know ]
>>>Okay. Do you get librettos off the net or do you have to go out and
>>>buy them somewhere?
>>
>>You really don't understand this "library" concept, do you? :) Also,
>sometimes>>(not often) the libretto will come with the opera CDs. I have
other
>resources,>>too, through my musical connections.
>>
>Well, la de da :) Okay, so if you were going to buy someone their
>*first opera*, what would you buy?
>
Good question. I might start someone with an early Verdi like "Il Trovatore".
It's popular entertainment that will give you a pretty good idea of what's good
about opera while bracing you for its awesome silliness. If you start someone
with Mozart and Wagner, he'll probably be disappointed with everything else he
hears afterwards. "Trovatore", by the way, is mercilessly mocked by the Marx
brothers in "Night at the Opera."
>>I seriously doubt you can get operas for 75 cents. If you can, then I'm
>>heading straight for half.com and buying out their entire stock.
>
>I'll let you know - I just found Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
>which Diane kindly recommended on half.com for $5.80...thats $5.10
>more than I usually pay for a paperback but I guess the price goes up
>with the sophistication level. :)
I meant opera CD's, which are usually packaged in 3 or 4 separate discs. If
you see something like that for 75 cents, then definitely let me know.
Did you know that "Master and Margarita" supposedly inspired the Rolling Stones
song, "Sympathy for the Devil"? That's the song they were playing when the
Hell's Angels stabbed that guy in Altamont.
Diane Wilson
says...
> On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 20:04:25 GMT, Diane Wilson <di...@firelily.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >To try to put it into something direct, the "official" line on Jesus
> >is that there is no official line. We are each free to come to our
> >own terms with this question. We don't accept the existence of heaven
> >or hell, so the whole "salvation" issue really doesn't fit in our
> >framework. Broadly speaking, we accept Jesus and the Bible as an
> >important source of spiritual insight and moral guidance. But we
> >say the same things about Bhuddism, the Tao, Wicca, and the humanist
> >manifesto. We should say the same thing about the Koran, but in
> >reality we're about as close to understanding it as most Americans.
>
> prophet Mohammed or you are cooked. Quite literally.
To the extent that there is wisdom in the Koran or in any Islamic
teachings (and the Sufis are definitely interesting in this
context), we can learn and benefit from it.
This does not mean that we would believe that there is no god but
Allah, or that Mohammed was his prophet.
There are those who take Christianity as literally as some Muslims
take Islam. The Bible has just as much hellfire and damnation,
evangelism and conquest, as the Koran. Both have their condemnations
of violence, too.
> >Personally, I was raised as a Methodist, and rejected it when I was
> >about 15. I think the closest I can come to putting a label on
> >my own beliefs is "pantheist," in the sense of accepting God as
> >part of my perception of the universe. I believe that Jesus was
> >a gifted teacher and perhaps a healer, and that he died by
> >crucifiction.
>
> No heaven or hell? So do you believe in "eternal life" of any sort?
Nope. All accountability is in this life.
Officially, the name is Uniterian Universalist, based on the merger
of the Unitarians and the Universalists. One of them (I forget which)
said that man is too good to condemn to hell. The other said that
God is too good to condemn men to hell. Then the humanists came along,
and we decided that God wasn't an essential part of the faith.
Then the pagans came along, and (as another inside joke goes)
undercut the basic Unitarian tenet that one should believe in, at most,
one God.
Yes, I'm being a little flippant, but not as much as you might
think. That really does describe a good bit of our history.
Unitarianism started out as a liberal Christian movement, with
an explicit rejection of Christian mysticism. A few early
Unitarians were burned at the stake for that. We have our roots
in heresy, literally, as defined by the Catholic Church in the
middle ages.
> What about what Jesus had to say on those specific topics, i.e. "He
> who believes in me will have eternal life."?
We believe that Jesus was a gifted teacher who taught in parables
and metaphors, and who said many things with the purpose of
challenging people to examine their own lives.
This is the thing that is so hard for people to grasp. We don't
have a creed or dogma. We don't have answers. We don't really
believe in answers. We do believe in asking questions.
A good thumbnail description of Unitarianism is "religious
humanism."
> Have you ever read C.S. Lewis's take on the idea that Jesus was a
> great teacher/philosopher? Interesting stuff - you can find it in a
> small but brilliant volume called "Mere Christianity".
No, I haven't. It looks interesting, though.
Are you familiar with the Jefferson Bible? Thomas Jefferson
wrote his own Bible, attempting to separate out what was likely
to be historically true, from what he felt was added or changed
by later writers. What he sifted out was a Jesus with no
miracles, no resurrection, no "son of God." A very similar
modern book is "The Gospel According to Jesus" by Stephen
Mitchell, a Jewish writer who has also written a modern
translation of the Tao. Interestingly, Mitchell's Jesus
as some very Bhuddist attributes.
Although Jefferson never officially left the Anglican church,
we do count him as a Unitarian. John Adams, second President
of the US, was a Unitarian (one of four Unitarians who have
been President, including John Quincy Adams and William
Howard Taft).
So there you have it; America's founding fathers had a strong
contingent of Unitarianism. I'm sure they had a lot to say about
the first amendment's guarantee of separation of church and state.
I could add that John Adams studied for the ministry before
entering politics, but, well, so did Joseph Stalin.
> ...in the Catholic Church I was under the impression that the
> diocese simply sends the new priest out, but apparently now we are
> going to get some input of some sort. It might be nice to have someone
> who speaks English, but you never know!
This is just mind-boggling.
> When I was at the Episcopal seminary in Berkeley in 1982 there were
> more female candidates for the Episcopal priesthood than men - I don't
> know what the actual ordination or retention rates are. Naturally
> there were more gay men than straight men even then in the Episcopal
> priesthood in the Bay Area. My experience with married priests was not
> especially positive (nothing personally involving me, just as a very
> involved parishioner and lay minister at the parish, diocesan and
> national level), so I am a big fan of the Catholic ideal of celibate,
> male priests only.
Unfortunately, celibacy hasn't been a guarantor of good behavior, either.
Our current minister is a former minister's wife, and her ex-husband
cheated with a member of his congregation. Needless to say, she has
some extremely strong views on the subject, and has worked to help
develop a code of ethics to help deal with the problem. She also had
the courage to go back and face the congregation where the incident
happened. She's a remarkable person.
> >OK, here's a book you might enjoy: "The Master and Margarita" by
> >Mikhail Bulgakov. It's loosely based on the story of Faust, but
> >set in Moscow in the 1930s. The devil has clearly come to town
> >to have his fun with a determinedly athiest society. It is also
> >the story of Pontius Pilate, told alternately by the devil, and
> >as part of a novel written by one of the characters, and ultimately
> >as part of the main story line itself. It is deeply challenging
> >on moral issues while at the same time being outrageously and
> >wickedly funny. (Not unlike a certain TV series involving vampires.)
> >It's one of the best novels I've *ever* read. This is an excellent
> >translation: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0141180145/
>
> This sounds really, really good and I am determined to get it! Thanks!
I see from another post that you've already located a copy. With this
book, particularly, the translation is important. The book was
suppressed for decades in the Soviet Union. When it was first
published, it was serialized, and some important parts were not
published. Early translations may still be missing these parts,
but later translations are closer to being complete.
I haven't read Mirra Ginsberg's translation, although she did an
excellent job with "The Heart of a Dog," another great Bulgakov
work. Her translation is one of the older ones, though. I've
read Richard Pevear's translation, and it's excellent. Michael
Glenny's translation is also good, but not as good as Pevear.
The Amazon link above is for Pevear.
> Have you ever read "The Screwtape Letters" (also by C.S. Lewis) - its
> about a devil assigned to corrupt a certain young man who writes to
> and receives letters from his uncle, a more senior devil. The whole
> novel is their correspondence and its very funny and bearably
> didactic.
I *need* to read this. I've added it to my Amazon wish list.
Thanks!
Diane
Peachy Ashie Passion
>
>
>>Have you ever read "The Screwtape Letters" (also by C.S. Lewis) - its
>>about a devil assigned to corrupt a certain young man who writes to
>>and receives letters from his uncle, a more senior devil. The whole
>>novel is their correspondence and its very funny and bearably
>>didactic.
>
>
> I *need* to read this. I've added it to my Amazon wish list.
> Thanks!
>
> Diane
oh good.
I was going to reaffirm alicat's mention.
I really love the book.
My library had the audiotape of it, read by
John Cleese, I think. it was really hysterical.
JVBGUY
>jvbguy wrote:
>>Anyway, this could be my last post for a while. I will probably be offline
>>for>a few weeks if not more to take care of some personal business, nothing
>>tragic>or heavy, just stuff I have to do. If I can manage one or two more
>posts I
>>will, but if I don't reply, that means I am offline. Think of me, and when
>>you>speak of me, and you will... be kind.
>>
>
>Don't ask the impossible, JVB Guy! But for your sake I'll try to keep the
>libelous remarks to a minimum. Hope you're able to work out your personal
>business, and thanks for sharing all the Beatles lore with me. Take care!
>
Thanks. I am just at a point (again) where I have to stop spending so much
time online and devote myself to work. Since I actually hooked up with a temp
agency this morning, it is a good time to devote myself to work, since now I
have some.
I'll be making a formal announcement of my yearly newsgroup sabbatical. I
expect much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.
But as the Beatles sang "I'll be back..."
Peachy Ashie Passion
> My Pal Barney wrote:
>
>
>>jvbguy wrote:
>
>
>>>Anyway, this could be my last post for a while. I will probably be offline
>>>for>a few weeks if not more to take care of some personal business, nothing
>>>tragic>or heavy, just stuff I have to do. If I can manage one or two more
>>
>>posts I
>>
>>>will, but if I don't reply, that means I am offline. Think of me, and when
>>>you>speak of me, and you will... be kind.
>>>
>>
>>Don't ask the impossible, JVB Guy! But for your sake I'll try to keep the
>>libelous remarks to a minimum. Hope you're able to work out your personal
>>business, and thanks for sharing all the Beatles lore with me. Take care!
>>
>
>
> Thanks. I am just at a point (again) where I have to stop spending so much
> time online and devote myself to work. Since I actually hooked up with a temp
> agency this morning, it is a good time to devote myself to work, since now I
> have some.
>
> I'll be making a formal announcement of my yearly newsgroup sabbatical. I
> expect much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.
>
> But as the Beatles sang "I'll be back..."
>
>
>
>
> John B.
yearly??
Couldn't you just only visit on weekends
or something?
I mean.. good gosh! My teeth are gnashing
already!
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>>I was just trying to remember last time I ate anything at McDonalds.
>>>I'm no snob, but the food doesn't really smell right there....
>>
>>Have you heard about the documentary a guy recently made ? For a whole
>month>>he ate at McDonald's three times a day and recorded the effects on his
>health.>>Needless to say, he gained 40 pounds, his cholesterol went through
the roof,
>he>>went impotent. A doctor who examined him told him that it was healthier
to
>go>>on drinking binges.
>
>What a turkey! I saw an interview with this guy and he didn't just eat
>a meal at McDonalds - he had them supersize every single meal, so he
>was eating about 8000 calories a day - no wonder he gained all that
>weight. I hate people like this - they go totally over the top on
>something and then draw some generalized conclusions - like Michael
>Moore - I really hate him.
I haven't seen the movie (have you, or are you getting this worked up over a
secondhand account of it?) but obviously the whole point was to go over the
top. Since people don't generally eat at McDonald's three times a day, that
was your first clue. But they CAN, and he demonstrated what happens when
people do.
>You could actually eat at McDonalds three times a day and not gain any
>weight at all if you pick the right foods (throw away the buns and
>fries, to start with)....there is a guy named Jared who ate at Subway
>every day and did some exercise and wound up losing 100 lbs. in a
>year, and is quite healthy.
Any kind of food taken in moderation is healthy. But the whole point of fast
food is that people don't pay attention to what they eat, and they don't "pick
the right foods." They grab whatever is handed to them in a wrapper, swallow
it, and get the hell out. Once their clientele starts asking questions and
being selective, McDonalds and Subway will go out of business. If this Jared
were a typical Subway customer, he'd be gaining 100 pounds a year by scarfing
foot-long pastrami and cheesesteak sandwiches. (Which no doubt is how he
became such a lard-ass in the first place.) If he's losing weight, he's
obviously choosing his food carefully. He's an exception, just as the guy who
made the McDonald's documentary is an exception.
>>> It seems impossible to believe that there were no inebriates
>>>available until Noah's time, by the way. As you said, the survival of
>>>the human race kinda depends on getting fuzzy. Where did you hear
>>>that? Is it one of those "Biblical" stories?
>>
>>I assume it's straight from Genesis. I've always heard that Noah was the
>first>>drunkard. Right after the Flood, the first thing he does is plant a
>vineyard.
>
>Smart man! You notice it was a vineyard, not a field full of hops or
>potatoes.
>
>>I believe that's the first reference to booze in the Good Book. Then
>there's a>>weird scene where Noah goes to tent, his children walk in on him
and they
>are>>deeply ashamed. What was Noah doing? I'd say either drinking or
>masturbating>>- or both.
>>
>I vote for both, plus he was probably looking over downloaded porn.
>
I looked it up. Whatever Noah was doing involved drunkenness AND nudity, and
he was NOT happy about his sons catching him at it. Here's Genesis, Chapter 9,
right after God displays the rainbow :
17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have
established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and
Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth
overspread.
20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his
tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his
two brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders,
and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces
were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto
him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his
brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his
servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and
Canaan shall be his servant.
28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.
29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.
[sniff ] I'm gonna miss the old bastard. This is even weirder than I
remembered. Ham's great crime was to tell his two brothers that their dad was
drunk and naked? For that reason, all of his brethren are to be cursed for all
time? BTW, didn't good Christians use this verse as a justification for
slavery? Ham's descendants are supposed to be the "servants" of his brothers'
descendants.
>>>>> So I've actually never bought any of those
>>>>>"lacy undergarments", but the people at Victoria's Secret seem to
>>>>>think that someday I might. Hope springs eternal!
>>>>
>>>>Maybe you should model for them. Are you familiar with the term MILF? :)
>>>
>>>Mothers In Life Forever? Militant Interactive Love Fests?
>>
>>Close. "Mother I'd Like to Fuck". You use "MILF" whenever you see a hot
>chick>>pushing a stroller or when one of your friends has a really cute mom.
>
>Do you say that as "milf" (rhymes with milk)
No, "silk" ryhmes with "milk". AFAIK, nothing rhymes with milf. It's like
"orange". That's why I had to abandon the composition of my "Ode to a Milf".
> or as separate initials - M. I. L. F.....?
That would take way too long. You might as well say, "Dude, I wanna ball your
mom!"
>Did you know that the fastest way to attract women is
>to push a stroller with a baby in it? (assuming you are a guy) - my
>husband was amazed at all the women that were suddenly interested in
>him when he carried our son around as an infant.
They were probably looking for a babysitter for *their* kids. Pets are chick
magnets, too.
Don't talk to me about babies right now. On Easter I was stuck at a big dinner
table with a woman who had just been knocked up. So naturally any topic of
conversation besides filthy embryos and their adorable little quirks could not
possibly be allowed. Am I the only person on earth who finds babies utterly
uninteresting? Granted, it's kind of mysterious how such tiny creatures can
produce such vast quantities of excrement, but otherwise there's nothing
remotely fascinating about them. In a truly civilized society, ladies and
gentlemen would not discuss infants in public.
The dinner was good, though. Do you like Greek food? I don't know WTF I was
eating, but it was very tasty. You would have been proud of this chick sitting
next to me. She polished off her entree in about 12 seconds, after eating most
of my appetizers. Then I gave her about half of my entree, which she sucked
down immediately - all the while talking non-stop. Some people don't require
oxygen, I guess.
>>>I look so not like any model for Victoria's Secret. Is that English?
>>
>>Close enough. *I'll* be the judge of whether you're suitable for Victoria's
>>Secret, if you don't mind.
>
>Did you hear that they cancelled the annual TV show? Things have gone
>too far....
Not sure what you're referring to. What show? Who are "they"?
>I'm not a Rolling Stones fan (probably a blasphemous statement...) - I
>always thought Mick Jagger was extraordinarily ugly. Especially as
>compared to Jim Morrison, who really was God. Or at least The Lizard
>King (he can do anything!).
The Stones were a much better band than the Doors, though I like both. Jimbo
was one of the great drinkers of our time. I taught my niece and her friends a
few verses from "The End": "Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain, and all the
children are insane, waiting for the summer rain!"
>One of my favorite movies, which we were able to get on DVD before it
>went out of circulation again. I'll go look for the Verdi on line. I
>actually was just at my local library ten minutes ago (shock, horror!)
>to find the sequel to Ender's Game
Is that a sci-fi novel? I think I've heard of it.
> for my kid and pick up some last
>minute tax forms. The place is a disaster of disorganization -
>whatever happened to the Dewey Decimal System? Does that still exist?
Most public libraries still use it. College libraries use a different system
which I think is better, although I forget what it's called.
>Why, in a two room library, do I have to look everything up on a
>computer?
Even the lamest libraries such as yours have dispensed with card catalogues, so
that when the computers are down, there's no way to look anything up. That's
"progress" for you.
Diane Wilson
schlitz...@aol.comekingdom says...
> In article <MPG.1ae298492525c8b89896a9@news-server>, Diane Wilson
> <di...@firelily.com> writes:
>
> >Sorry for the delay in responding; I wanted to think about this
> >one first.
>
> No hurry. Any post of yours is worth the wait.
OK, second try at replying to this one. It does not do to start
a reply at midnight. Going to sleep in the middle of typing
doesn't make for a coherent reply.
To paraphrase George Burns, life is easy. Art is hard.
> > Then when it was almost done, my cat walked across
> >my laptop and managed to shut it down without getting a
> >confirmation from either Windows or me. I have no idea how
> >she did that.
> >
>
> At least your cat (unlike me) is able to make a computer do *something*. May I
> borrow her for a few days? I need to upgrade.
Here she is: http://www.firelily.com/about/snazzy.html
Don't teach her any new tricks. PLEASE.
> How does that differ from stylization? Selectivity, perception, etc. are the
> polite terms for distortion and abstraction, which define style. Call it what
> you like, the artistic process inevitably involves an artist imposing his
> "personality" (using that word in the broadest possible sense) on raw material,
> aka life. Whether the result is any good is a matter of opinion. When you
> reject or approve an artwork's style, you're rejecting or approving the
> artist's personality.
Selectivity, perception, distortion, and abstraction are distinct
from each other, and I don't find any of them impolite. They are
ways of transforming and focusing on subject matter. Style is
an attribute of presentation: art deco, photorealism, romanticism,
etc. are styles; they have little or nothing to do with content.
The fact that art is done in some style doesn't make it stylized.
It becomes stylized when style takes precedence over content.
> >Stylized art and mannered art are both formalist approaches to art;
>
> How do *you* distinguish "stylized" from "mannered"? Or do you? That would
> help me understand where you're coming from.
I don't think that thre is much difference between them.
> I'm not sure if we agree on what "stylized" means, but we're definitely using
> the term "mannered" differently. When I say a work is mannered, I'm passing
> judgment. It's a criticism, just as when I denounce a work as boring,
> derivative, or obscure. You seem to be using it neutrally, as an artistic
> category such as baroque art, modernist art, neoclassical, etc.
I think we agree that "mannered" is a term of criticism, more than
"stylized". It's a subtle shading, though.
> >they embody the idea that form is more important than substance.
> >
>
> An idea I utterly reject. At bottom, form and substance are inseparable. When
> the artist has done his job properly, that is.
Form can enhance art, or detract from it. Form, and style, are tools
that a good artist can select to enhance a work of art. A truly
great artist can do amazing things with this.
To use my favorite composer, Shostakovich, as an examnple. He was
a master of form, and could use form to express emotion. Have you
ever felt so angry that you could feel your thoughts going in circles,
repeating themselves and feeding your anger so that it continued to
build? He does that in music, using fugues (4th symphony, 1st movement;
also 7th string quartet, 3rd movement) or theme and variations
(piano sonata no. 2, 3rd movement). This is deeply angry music,
and it circles on itself in exactly that way.
In a different sense, parody and travesty work by deliberately
using an inappropriate form or style that is an extreme mis-match
with content.
> When I referred to "us" above, I meant the general public, the consumers of
> popular art. That category includes me, because I like movies and other
> popular arts, which are overwhelmingly naturalistic. The general public
> dismisses fine arts such as opera and ballet as artsy-fartsy and "mannered" (in
> my opprobrious sense of the word) because they're not naturalistic. People
> say, "Bah, nobody stands in front of his old lady for hours on end, singing at
> the top of his lungs! How lame!" It's a form of stylization they're not
> accustomed to. All they know is naturalism.
Naturalism died with Steinbeck. Mainstream popular art is anything
*but* naturalistic. Buffy? Spider Man? Lord of the Rings?
The Matrix? Comics? Popular music? Talk radio?
> Recently I've taken an interest in dance, which thanks to my ignorance always
> seemed incomprehensible - that is, mannered. Ballet is still very strange to
> me, but gradually I'm learning how dancers actually create a characterization
> entirely through movement. Hopefully, as I become more and more accustomed to
> this sort of stylization, it will seem less mannered to me and I'll be able to
> enjoy the art of the dance spontaneously.
The thing that is so slippery here is that form and styles play
much the same role as language. A language that you don't know
seems incomprehensible. As you come to know a language, the
language itself begins to disappear, and you focus on the
thoughts behind the words and sentences. Music and dance are
each made up of whole families of languages.
If you find yourself become less tolerant of some art as you come
to understand it, that is something to look at in itself.
That's one way to react to mannered art.
> >Or are we post-post-modern now? How would we know?
>
> The professors will tell us, of course ! I trust them to define the age we're
> living in, don't you?
Yeah. Sure, I trust them. Uh huh. Right.
> It's all a result of *genuine* cultural pluralism, which we are experiencing
> for the first time. I personally find it interesting that many different
> styles are acceptable at the same time, but others deplore it as chaos. The
> days when one artist or one style can dominate a country or a culture are
> probably over. But only in the fine arts. As I've said, naturalism dominates
> the popular arts and anyone who wants to experiment with any other style will
> have a long, hard struggle to be accepted.
Buffy is cultural pluralism. Or Post-modernism. How many genres
does Joss Whedon put into each of his series?
Yes, there's still naturalism around. NYPD Blue, maybe (I'm guessing;
I've never seen it). But certainly not any of the "reality" shows, and
certainly not the sit-coms. Those have been over-refined down to
pure formula, where <gasp> form takes precedence over content!
500 channels of stylized art, beamed to our living rooms every day.
If anything, it's naturalism that's confined to the art houses.
Even there, it's pretty hard to think of something recent that's
been pure naturalism. "K19 - The Widowmaker" was a technothriller
that came pretty close, but only because it was based on true
stories. "Shattered Glass" told a naturalistic story, but used
fantasy elements to give form to the lies and deceptions of the
main character.
The experimenting has been done. We're post-naturalism now.
Waaaaay post-naturalism.
> >That's not too surprising. Officially, Shostakovich abandoned work on
> >The Gamblers because he expected that it could never get performed.
> >It has exceeded his expectation by one; I have the CD around her
> >somewhere on a double with The Nose. (Unofficially, it was during WWII
> >and he was very depressed.)
> >
>
> I've read "The Nose" - what a bizarre story. It's as if Gogol foresaw
> Freudianism and decided to mock it before Freud was even born. Have you read
> Nabokov's monograph on Gogol? Very funny, and you can see how much Gogol
> influenced VN.
Nabokov's Gogol is in my reading stack. &deity; knows when I'll get
to it, though.
The Russians love Pushkin, but Gogol was far more influential
in the development of Russian literature. No kidding that he
influenced Nabokov. And Dostoyevsky, and Bulgakov, and Zoshchenko,
and Ilf and Petrov, and damned near everyone else. Gogol was
at the heart of the St. Petersburg artistic culture.
Not Tolstoy, though. Tolstoy was a Moscow product. It shows.
> >As for the original Gogol, it's not in the usual books, and it's not in
> >my "complete tales of Nikolai Gogol", either.
> >
>
> So where the heck did you find it?
I don't have the story, just the opera. There is *one* recording
of it, on a double CD with The Nose. Two Shostakovich & Gogol
operas in one box!
As it turns out, my "complete Gogol" books are more like a
"complete set of one translator's work on Gogol". I don't
know whether The Gamblers has been translated.
> >> I don't see why you couldn't make a great opera of a card game. Didn't one
> of the>Russian composers adapt Pushkin's "Queen of Spades"?
> >
> >Tchaikovsky. I don't know anything about the story, though.
> >
>
> IIRC, it's considered Pushkin's best prose tale and is often described as
> "perfect". You'll probably love it if you're into the Rooshans. Come to think
> of it, the only Russian opera I've heard is "Eugene Onegin", another
> Tchaikovsky adaptation of Pushkin (a narrative poem).
Eugene Onegin is in my reading stack. I need to track down
a copy of the Bronze Horseman, too. But I really haven't
gotten into Pushkin much. It must be a character flaw.
Later,
Diane
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>>>>I was just trying to remember last time I ate anything at McDonalds.
>>>>>I'm no snob, but the food doesn't really smell right there....
>>>>
>>>>Have you heard about the documentary a guy recently made ? For a whole
>>>month>>he ate at McDonald's three times a day and recorded the effects on
>his
>>>health.>>Needless to say, he gained 40 pounds, his cholesterol went through
>>the roof,
>>>he>>went impotent. A doctor who examined him told him that it was
>healthier
>>to
>>>go>>on drinking binges.
>>>
>>>What a turkey! I saw an interview with this guy and he didn't just eat
>>>a meal at McDonalds - he had them supersize every single meal, so he
>>>was eating about 8000 calories a day - no wonder he gained all that
>>>weight. I hate people like this - they go totally over the top on
>>>something and then draw some generalized conclusions - like Michael
>>>Moore - I really hate him.
>>
>>I haven't seen the movie (have you, or are you getting this worked up over a
>>secondhand account of it?) but obviously the whole point was to go over the
>>top. Since people don't generally eat at McDonald's three times a day, that
>>was your first clue. But they CAN, and he demonstrated what happens when
>>people do.
>
>Yeah, I saw about 20 minutes of it - its horribly redundant as the
>entire shtick is the guy eating enormous amounts of McDonald's food
>over and over and over....What pisses me off is that although I think
>McDonald's food sucks, this guy is slamming them even though he didn't
>eat anywhere normal portion sizes - I mean, he's not a big guy to
>begin with and he was eating for three people every day - no wonder he
>got sick. So he wasn't demonstrating "what happens" if you eat at
>McDonald's three times a day, he was demonstrating what happens when
>you stuff yourself like a goose preparing to become foie gras.
>
Which is exactly what people are doing who eat fast food. All this guy did was
order the normal "value meals" that McDonald's offers - a burger, fries, and a
soft drink. Whenever you order them, the cashier asks you if you want to
"supersize". He said yes. He didn't go out of his way to stuff himself at
all. He simply accepted what was offered.
>>
>>>You could actually eat at McDonalds three times a day and not gain any
>>>weight at all if you pick the right foods (throw away the buns and
>>>fries, to start with)....there is a guy named Jared who ate at Subway
>>>every day and did some exercise and wound up losing 100 lbs. in a
>>>year, and is quite healthy.
>>
>>Any kind of food taken in moderation is healthy. But the whole point of
>fast
>>food is that people don't pay attention to what they eat, and they don't
>"pick
>>the right foods." They grab whatever is handed to them in a wrapper,
>swallow
>>it, and get the hell out. Once their clientele starts asking questions and
>>being selective, McDonalds and Subway will go out of business. If this
>Jared
>>were a typical Subway customer, he'd be gaining 100 pounds a year by
>scarfing
>>foot-long pastrami and cheesesteak sandwiches. (Which no doubt is how he
>>became such a lard-ass in the first place.) If he's losing weight, he's
>>obviously choosing his food carefully. He's an exception, just as the guy
>who
>>made the McDonald's documentary is an exception.
>
>Actually, you really can eat reasonably healthy if even all you eat is
>at fast food restaurants. Once upon a time I spent three years or so
>on another alt. (which shall remain nameless), all dedicated to
>dieting and eating and there are lots of people out there by reason of
>their jobs or whatever that are condemned to eating fast food most of
>the time - its a question of choices. All the fast food places have
>salads now, and Subway will make you any of their sandwiches either
>low fat or low carb, depending on your dietary philosophy. And I
>betcha they make lots more profit on the salads than they do on
>anything else besides the soft drinks (and the diet soft drinks make
>just as much) and the fries, which no longer resemble food at all.
>When I was a french fry girl at McDonald's the fries were made out of
>actual potatoes and were deep fat fried in lard. And they were
>awesome. Now, in the name of health (!) they are reconstituted
>strangeness that may or may not involve potatoes at all and they are
>breaded and baked! before being flash frozen and delivered to the
>restaurant and then quickly dunked in boiling cottonseed oil.
>
>As you said, it is about choices and I think people actually don't
>care enough about themselves to make good food choices. We have poor
>self esteem - thats it! I knew that the eventual goal of this
>reasoning was going to involve therapy.
Exactly. Now stay very still while I immerse you in ocean water.
We're not disagreeing here. I already acknowledged the fact that you can eat
healthy food at fast food restaurants, if you're careful. But people do not
choose to eat salad for lunch. McDonalds makes money by pushing high-calorie
products.that have helped to create a nation of lard-asses. Obviously, most
people are *not* careful. The average American is now obese, and fast food is
one of the reasons for this situation.
>>[sniff ] I'm gonna miss the old bastard. This is even weirder than I
>>remembered. Ham's great crime was to tell his two brothers that their dad
>was>>drunk and naked? For that reason, all of his brethren are to be cursed
for
>all>>time? BTW, didn't good Christians use this verse as a justification for
>>slavery? Ham's descendants are supposed to be the "servants" of his
>brothers'
>>descendants.
>
>This is super weird stuff alright. I think (just guessing here) that
>Ham's great crime was to actually *look upon* his father's nakedness -
>you notice the two brothers managed to cover Noah up while averting
>their faces. In effect, Ham put Noah to shame - its very Asian, no?
>
How so? You mean the emphasis on honoring your family?
>I thought the justification for slavery was that black people were
>descendants of Hagar, the slave woman kept by Abraham (? - maybe not
>Abraham - it was someone with two wives, one slave and one not, who
>both bore him sons, and the not slave wive made the guy drive Hagar
>and her son out into the desert, and they got saved somehow and wound
>up estabishing a "people" somewhere....could I get more vague? Do you
>have any idea what I am talking about?). Or black people were
>descendants of Cain, who murdered his brother Abel - therefore having
>dark skin was seen as "the mark of Cain" - thats another one I've
>heard.
I'm sure preachers found justification for slavery in just about every verse of
the Bible. As Genesis Chapter 9 states, the world after the flood was divided
by the descendents of Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Ham was somehow associated with
the African continent. I think the Mormons got into trouble, too, by
emphasizing the curse on Ham.
>>That would take way too long. You might as well say, "Dude, I wanna ball
>your>>mom!"
>
>Does that go over well among menfolk? :)
An important part of the male-bonding process is learning how to cope with
sexual innuendos about your mother.
> Some of my confirmation
>students (ages 13/14) have moms considerably younger than me - like in
>their mid 30s and they are gorgeous women....
Rest assured, you are also the object of many an impure thought.
>I wonder what its like to
>be a horny 13 year old boy with a really pretty mom?
Why don't you ask your son?
> I'm assuming that
>natural squickiness prevents any sort of speculative thinking on the
>part of the kid, but his friends, of course, would be another story.
Of course. Most kids, I asssume, fantasize about nailing a "Mrs Robinson"
type. And as a good Freudian, I accept the fact that all little boys want to
bang their mothers. To be perfectly frank - and to encroach upon the outer
edges of squickiness - I find it much easier to think of my mother as a sexual
being than any of my sisters. It utterly mystifies me that other men are
willing to sleep with them.
>>
>>>Did you know that the fastest way to attract women is
>>>to push a stroller with a baby in it? (assuming you are a guy) - my
>>>husband was amazed at all the women that were suddenly interested in
>>>him when he carried our son around as an infant.
>>
>>They were probably looking for a babysitter for *their* kids. Pets are
>chick>>magnets, too.
>
>Only small dogs (the kind I call "punthems", because thats what you do
>with them: punt them).
Damn, I guess I'd better get rid of my pit bull then.
>No, I'm talking non parental type women - women
>already with babies have no need for or much interest in a breeding
>male.
An interesting paradox. They say a wedding ring always attracts women, too.
>I love Greek food, and in fact, being that my birthday is tomorrow
Happy B-Day !!!! How does it feel to be 29 ?
>(although the IRS seems to have been receiving all *my* presents), we
>are going to a Greek restaurant and I plan on moussaka, washed down
>with copious amounts of wine, and something sticky and flaky for
>dessert.
Have fun - break a plate for me!
>Glad that you met my sister - or at least it sounds like her
>:)
Is she fat? This girl was, amazingly, skinny. And HYPER. She obviously has
one of those hummingbird metabolisms that eliminate calories through nervous
energy.
>>Is that a sci-fi novel? I think I've heard of it.
>
>Yeah - Orson Scott Card. Good for the young adolescent set. As usual,
>the sequels suck. I gave my kid "Dune" to read yesterday as he didn't
>have anything new going, but he doesn't seem to like it much so far -
>he said something about "gibberish". :)
>>
Very acute observation. I've dipped into "Dune" and came to the same
conclusion.
>>> for my kid and pick up some last
>>>minute tax forms. The place is a disaster of disorganization -
>>>whatever happened to the Dewey Decimal System? Does that still exist?
>>
>>Most public libraries still use it. College libraries use a different
>system
>>which I think is better, although I forget what it's called.
>
>I see no evidence that any sort of organization takes place other than
>just digital entries in a computer database, which doesn't need a
>decimal system, right?
It would be very odd, though, if they just assigned numbers to books
arbitrarily. That would make their catalogue incompatible with other libraries
and thus make inter-library loans impossible. I've never heard of any library,
however small, doing that, but if it's true, then your local branch is truly
the lamest library in the history of ink and paper. Did you check out a
non-fiction book? If it's got a Dewey number on it, 500s are science, 200s are
religion, 700s are art, 900s are history.
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>Well, are you saying that the average person who eats fast food is
>generally going to "supersize" when they order?
Yes. McDonald's researches these things, you know. They are very well aware
of the fact that the average person, *if asked*, will supersize his meal.
That's why it's policy to always ask.
> Maybe - I guess I
>assume that most people don't want to ante up, but maybe I'm totally
>out of touch with my "peers"....
Who are you kidding? We both know that you have no peers. You're sui generis.
>on the other hand, this guy supersized
>at every single meal and ate at McDonalds three times a day - you know
>that isn't average, even though there are people out there who do
>that. I still see it as a stunt, not a reasonable investigation of
>fast food and its effects on humans.
I've already acknowledged several times that the guy was going over the top.
All he's saying is, "This is what happens when you eat too much fast food."
When you want to warn someone about the dangers of drinking or drugs, you point
to winos and junkies, who use drink and drugs to excess. When you want to warn
someone about the dangers of over-eating, you point to lard-asses.
Unfortunately, most Americans eat too much.
>>
><more snippage>
>>Exactly. Now stay very still while I immerse you in ocean water.
>
>You are going to wreck my hair...not permitted. I have to go out
>tonight and I need to look smashing!
I'm sure you looked gorgeous, dahling. Did you have fun? Are you still
hungover?
>>
>>We're not disagreeing here. I already acknowledged the fact that you can
>eat
>>healthy food at fast food restaurants, if you're careful. But people do not
>>choose to eat salad for lunch. McDonalds makes money by pushing
>high-calorie
>>products.that have helped to create a nation of lard-asses. Obviously, most
>>people are *not* careful. The average American is now obese, and fast food
>is
>>one of the reasons for this situation.
>
>Its not the calories, its the totally empty nutritional food content
>coupled with the kind of food that is designed to fatten mammals -
>they fatten cows and pigs up with grain and corn, and the more we are
>immersed in the products of agriculture, the fatter people get. Until
>50 years ago no one ate anywhere near the amount of sugar people
>consume on a daily basis in the U.S. either. Soft drinks and french
>fries/potato chips/corn chips are at least half the problem.
All of which are served copiously at fast food restaurants.
>Another reason for obesity, of course, is the rather obvious lack of
>exercise we get. People in Asia eat lots of rice (a grain, of course)
>and lots of sugar (I think Japan is the world leader in this regard),
>but until recently everyone but the richest Asian person got around by
>walking or bicycle and they were generally slim. Now, they all drive,
>take the subway or whatever, and they are getting as fat as us....or
>will do.
On the other hand, the French eat very fatty foods and don't exercise any more
than we do, and they're slim. Nobody can figure out why. Maybe their portions
are generally smaller, but I think it's the quality of the cuisine. "Slow
food" - of the sort that the French fetishize - is just healthier.
BTW, have you ever had truffles? I just tried one the other day. Not bad.
I'm hopelessly infatuated with all forms of fungus, though.
>>>This is super weird stuff alright. I think (just guessing here) that
>>>Ham's great crime was to actually *look upon* his father's nakedness -
>>>you notice the two brothers managed to cover Noah up while averting
>>>their faces. In effect, Ham put Noah to shame - its very Asian, no?
>>>
>>
>>How so? You mean the emphasis on honoring your family?
>
>No - the idea of losing face in front of your son and knowing he knows
>you lost face....do you get this concept?
Yes, but in what way is it "Asian"? Does any culture proclaim that losing face
in front of your children is *not* shameful?
> The other sons of Noah
>collaborated in pretending they hadn't seen anything even while acting
>on their father's behalf, which is what Noah expected Ham to do.
It sounds to me like they were simply following one of the 10 commandments,
"Honor thy father and thy mother." Although since this was before Moses' day,
the commandments didn't exist yet. I guess the emergence of beer and wine is
what made the commandments necessary. :)
>Thats right - the Mormons up until quite recently were very racist - I
>don't think you could be a Mormon if you were black - is that right?
I'm pretty sure that's true. Last year I was watching some program about the
history of college basketball, and in the 80s Brigham Young University had a
great team - all white guys!
>>
>>>>That would take way too long. You might as well say, "Dude, I wanna ball
>>>your>>mom!"
>>>
>>>Does that go over well among menfolk? :)
>>
>>An important part of the male-bonding process is learning how to cope with
>>sexual innuendos about your mother.
>
>Really? Okay - I'll take your word for it. Did other guys want to ball
>your mom?
Of course. Don't girls ever play "the dozens", where you keep insulting each
other until someone loses his cool by being genuinely offended? Usually it's a
reference to his mother that puts greenhorns over the edge.
>>> Some of my confirmation
>>>students (ages 13/14) have moms considerably younger than me - like in
>>>their mid 30s and they are gorgeous women....
>>
>>Rest assured, you are also the object of many an impure thought.
>
>Oh goody! One tries....
I know what goes on at those confirmation classes. They're meat markets.
>>
>>>I wonder what its like to
>>>be a horny 13 year old boy with a really pretty mom?
>>
>>Why don't you ask your son?
>
>LOL....he's definitely extremely horny, but still rather embarrassed
>about it. Time will take care of that!
You guys better be careful, though. According to Freud, your son will soon
murder your husband, marry you, and then poke his eyes out. Things like that
tend to impair healthy family relationships.
>>
>>> I'm assuming that
>>>natural squickiness prevents any sort of speculative thinking on the
>>>part of the kid, but his friends, of course, would be another story.
>>
>>Of course. Most kids, I asssume, fantasize about nailing a "Mrs Robinson"
>>type. And as a good Freudian, I accept the fact that all little boys want
>to
>>bang their mothers. To be perfectly frank - and to encroach upon the outer
>>edges of squickiness - I find it much easier to think of my mother as a
>sexual>>being than any of my sisters. It utterly mystifies me that other men
are
>>willing to sleep with them.
>
>Thats interesting, given that consensual brother/sister incest is
>probably more common than other kinds, wouldn't you think?
In certain African cultures, and in ancient Persia, there was no incest taboo
at all. It was preferable to marry one's siblings.
> With your sisters, is your opinion based on their personalities or their
>appearances?
Interesting question. I haven't really delved into this, because of the
above-mentioned squickiness, but I'm not sure why I find them so sexually
repellent. They're not ugly, and they've never had problems finding boyfriends
(you know what they say about Catholic girls). I get along with them, so it's
not their personalities either. Maybe it's simply a case of familiarity
breeding contempt? I was closer to them than my mother, so that's probably why
it's easier for me to accept the fact that my mom has actually had sex and is
sexually desirable to another man, in this case my father, whom I haven't
gotten around to murdering yet. I'll have to put that on my "to do" list.
Sisterly relations are very weird, incidentally. I'm sort of aloof from how my
sisters interact with each other, but it's a bizarre mixture of jealousy,
protectiveness, and often shocking viciousness. But maybe they just act like
all females do to each other, whether sisters or no.
>>Happy B-Day !!!! How does it feel to be 29 ?
>
>Huh. Its just a number - its actually #48, which is wonderfully round
>and completely surreal to me, all at once. Since I hope to be 100,
Do you seriously want to live that long, even assuming you're in good health
etc. until you die? I'm not sure I want to live much beyond 30. What's the
point of protracting this disease called life?
> I consider myself less than half done, but not half baked a la Buffy.
Cute. You should put "I'm half-done, not half-baked !" on a T-shirt and wear
it to PTA meetings. It will embarrass the hell out of your son.
> I actually look at lot better and feel a lot better now than I did when
>I was 29 - I was fat and smoking then, living in the Bay Urea and all
>stressed out.
Too much McDonalds, eh? Did you just have a few extra pounds, or were you
obese? Tiny women such as yourself are mega-cute as long as they're thin, but
IMO it's much harder for short girls to get away with flab than tall girls.
>>Is she fat? This girl was, amazingly, skinny. And HYPER. She obviously
>has>>one of those hummingbird metabolisms that eliminate calories through
nervous
>>energy.
>
>I really, really hate people like that. I am quite hyper, according to
>most everyone who knows me,
Now why doesn't that surprise me? :) You're a handful, I bet. Did your son
turn out to be a spaz, too, or is he normal?
> but it doesn't seem to affect my ability
>to gain or lose weight, dammit. I can drink an entire pot of
>caffeinated beverage and go right to sleep - caffeine and other forms
>of "speed" have virtually no effect on me. Probably why cocaine never
>seemed to be as good as everyone said it was....
I'm not particularly hyper, but I avoid the various forms of "speed" because
I'm an insomniac. It probably wouldn't make much difference if I drank a pot
of coffee before going to bed, though.
>Arrgh. Help me - I need some new books for my kid. He seems to be
>gravitating toward fantasy rather than science fiction (the new Garth
>Nix series was read in one swallow, and he loves the endless David
>Eddings books and of course, Harry Potter). We've been trying to get
>him to read all the old sci fic classics that we grew up on -
>Heinlein, et al and he doesn't like them much. Got any suggestions?
Hmm, I prefer the "old school" sci-fi writers like Heinlein, too. You probably
know more about modern sci-fi than I do. Have you tried Terry Pratchett? I
don't like him much, but his humorous fantasy very popular. Let me think about
it.
BTW, I just finished a James Lee Burke novel, "In the Electric Mist with
Confederate Dead" (gee, suddenly Dick Francis's titles don't seem so bad.) It
was good, but to be honest I wasn't knocked out by it. I was mainly worried
that like most Southern writers, he'd overdo the "atmosphere" but fortunately
he didn't, and a lot of the descriptions were vivid and memorable. I'll
certainly read some more of Burke. I checked out two others.
Barney
In article <vap0801vl98fsl771...@4ax.com>, Alicat
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>When I worked at McDonald's they were just introducing the "quarter
>pounder", and we had to ask every single person if they wanted to try
>"the new quarter pounder", even if it was 6:30 A.M. and all the poor
>person needed was a cup of what was passing as coffee.....they send
>out spies from the corporate offices, and if a spy catches you failing
>to ask everyone to try...., the manager gets in trouble. On the other
>hand, if the counter person correctly asks the spy, the manager can
>get a bonus (once it was a trip to Hawaii). You can imagine the
>pleasant work atmosphere created by this lovely campaign.
>
Every workplace has that sort of atmosphere. At a lot of schools now they tell
the teachers, "If your students get bad test scores, you're fired. If they get
good test scores, your principal gets a raise." What a great motivator to know
that your boss will receive all the credit for *your* good work, while you
receive all the blame for your bad work. I can't figure out why nobody wants
to become a teacher.
[ snippage re the leanness of Frogs ]
>Actually it turns out to be two things: Their portion size is *much*
>smaller than ours, and its not considered polite or couth there to eat
>to discomfort
I had a fair number of meals in France, and I don't quite agree with either
point. I'd say their portions are *somewhat* smaller than ours, not much, and
diners are encouraged to sample course after course. It's considered uncouth
to refuse food.
> (did you ever see La Grande Bouffe?).
Heard of it but haven't seen it. It involves cannibalism at some point, right?
> Secondarily, they
>eat high fat but low carb - vegetables soaked in butter, but not large
>side portions of pasta, grains or potatoes. (Italians don't eat pasta
>the way Americans do, either - they consider a side dish and have it
>quite sparingly.) French bread is actually rather low carb as compared
>to what we eat.
Oh my God, just try eating crappy American processed bread after eating fresh
French bread. But you're not about to tell me that their pastries are either
low-carb or low fat. And let's not forget the cheese at every meal.
> And you are right, inasmuch as France is, like India,
>a nation appreciative of food cooked freshly and taking a reasonable
>amount of time to both cook and eat. Its harder to overeat if you eat
>slowly, because then you have time to recognize when you are actually
>full.
Something we forgot to mention is snacking between more or less 'formal' meals.
The French don't snack like we do, either. Food is way too important for them
to eat casually. I still think it's a mystery why they aren't fat. I suspect
that all the chemicals in our diet contribute to the universal obesity, but I
have no proof. The French are probably genetically superior. Most of them
would agree with that.
>>
>>BTW, have you ever had truffles? I just tried one the other day. Not bad.
>>I'm hopelessly infatuated with all forms of fungus, though.
>
>Oh, yes - they are horribly expensive, though.
Caviar, saffron, and truffles are supposedly the most expensive foodstuffs on
Earth. Truffles are scarce because they must grow in the wild and nobody's
figured out how to cultivate them.
> My experience with them
>has been more often as a sauce at a creative restaurant and it is a
>wonderful taste. We eat a lot of shitake mushrooms (extremely healthy)
>and I make mushrooms of mixed varieties as a stir fry accompaniment to
>a nice top sirloin. Do you like hen's ear? Thats my fav....
Haven't heard of it, actually. Please describe in a mouth-watering way.
>I was under the impression that the whole idea of "losing face" *was*
>specifically Asian. No? Or at the least, reacting very violently to
>having lost face, i.e. committing suicide, condemning your son....
>maybe Europeans are better at getting past public shame? I'm really
>not sure....just speculating.
The Europeans certainly had a tradition of maintaining honor, both public and
personal. If another man shamed you in public, you challenged him to a duel.
If you disgraced yourself, the honorable thing was to commit suicide. I've
never heard that Asians are more obsessed with personal honor than Westerners,
but I don't really know beans about Asia.
>Are they still all white? Do you have to be a Mormon to go there?
I honestly don't know. Probably not, in either case. I assume Brigham Young
now has token black students. They probably offer full scholarships to any
black who wants to go there. The problem must be finding a black guy who
would.
>>Of course. Don't girls ever play "the dozens", where you keep insulting
>each>>other until someone loses his cool by being genuinely offended?
Usually>it's a>>reference to his mother that puts greenhorns over the edge.
>
>Well, I don't think girls do this....but I'm not the right person to
>ask - I never hung around with other girls (with a couple of
>exceptions over the years) - I hung around with the guys :) I don't
>remember the guys doing this either...the guys I was around were
>always trying to one up each other by being funnier or smarter, not
>through insults, generally.
Same thing. All male one-upmanship rituals have the subtle subtext, "My dick
is bigger than yours!"
>>I know what goes on at those confirmation classes. They're meat markets.
>
>Strangely enough, I had that told to me by one of the moms, who told
>me her son took all this time to get all dolled up for class - which I
>couldn't tell by looking at him, but what do I know....
Was he trying to look spiffy for you or the other females ? It is very common
to fall in love with teachers, you know. You've simply got to stop wearing
those skimpy outfits, displaying leg and cleavage. Buy a burka.
>we had 26 in the class - 9 girls, one of whom is the cutest thing you've ever
seen
>(think 13 year old Natalie Wood) and my son is hopelessly smitten.
He'll have to compete with me for her. I have a weakness for those doe-eyed
brunettes. Does your son have a serious crush here? If so, you should help
him out. Tell this girl, "Have sex with my son or you won't be confirmed and
you'll go to hell."
Come to think of it, my first serious crush occurred with a fellow prisoner,
oops I mean parishioner. I would spoon with a Mexican girl after church. All
very innocent - no petting - and those are the fondest memories of my entire
childhood. Spooning is a fine art, by the way. I could write a book on the
subject.
>>Sisterly relations are very weird, incidentally. I'm sort of aloof from how
>my>>sisters interact with each other, but it's a bizarre mixture of jealousy,
>>protectiveness, and often shocking viciousness. But maybe they just act
>like>>all females do to each other, whether sisters or no.
>
>Uh, yeah! Why do you think I never hung out with the girls? Women are
>evil in ways men have never even considered.
Well, I agree. Like you, I've gone through periods where I've hung out with
girls more than guys, and it's always been very educational. The stereotype
that women are more observant than men is actually 100% true and probably
contributes to their viciousness to each other. Men are so self-absorbed they
neither know or care enough about other people to work up such strong emotions
about them. Men are definitely "nicer" but as I've pointed out many times on
this ng, "niceness" is boring (as well chick-repellent). Girls are much more
interesting to talk to.
>>> I actually look at lot better and feel a lot better now than I did when
>>>I was 29 - I was fat and smoking then, living in the Bay Urea and all
>>>stressed out.
>>
>>Too much McDonalds, eh? Did you just have a few extra pounds, or were you
>>obese? Tiny women such as yourself are mega-cute as long as they're thin,
>but>>IMO it's much harder for short girls to get away with flab than tall
girls.
>
>I had 50 extra pounds, which on a person 4'11" is gross...it wasn't
>McDonalds, it was an endless supply of cookies and candy in my office
>that crept up on me over the years...I looked "matronly" - major uggh.
It does kinda sound like you were as wide as you were tall. (Lots of Mexican
girls turn out that way.) Did your husband have a weight problem, too?
Spouses should be obliged, as part of their wedding vows, to retain their
physical attractiveness. If you were allowed to 'cheat' on your spouse
whenever he / she got disgusting, you can bet both husband and wife would take
better care of themselves. A "no love handles" clause would save a lot of
marriages.
>Now I'm healthy slim, not thin - about the same as "Faith", I'd say,
>with less on top.
That sounds about right. Women should be soft and provide padding in the
proper places. I hate rail-thin or hard, muscular bodies. For a long time a
friend of mine pursued this incredibly gorgeous girl who had one of those
anorexic super-model physiques. He finally nailed her, but was pretty
disappointed. He said, "It was like fucking a bicycle." That cracked me up.
>>I'm not particularly hyper, but I avoid the various forms of "speed" because
>>I'm an insomniac. It probably wouldn't make much difference if I drank a
>pot>>of coffee before going to bed, though.
>
>Do you stay up late, or go to sleep and wake up and can't go back to
>sleep?
The latter, generally. I usually go to bed at a reasonable hour and sleep 2 or
3 hours with no problems but always wake up. That's when I do most of my
reading. I've come to like it, actually. That's Barney's private time, and
it's wonderful to sit in relative quiet knowing that nobody's going to
interrupt me. Well, not always. Some girls don't allow anyone to have "me"
time.
I do tend to sleep more deeply when there's a girl sharing the bed, whether
we've had sex or not. It's the extra warmth and 'security', I guess. Sex
puts some guys straight to sleep. After balling his old lady, the guy pushes
her away, turns his back on her, and starts snoring. Chicks LOVE that. About
as much as guys love inane post-coital conversations.
> I know so many people with sleep problems - the guy I work
>with/for can't go to sleep before 3 AM or so - he just works until
>them and gets into the office around 11. This for 25 years.
Yes, some people simply operate on different cycles. It's a shame society
tries to force everyone to be a 9 to 5 person. They say it's healthiest to nap
in the afternoon, when your body naturally wants rest. Too bad the tradition
of the siesta is dying out and creating a whole new population of
sleep-deprived Latinos.
>>Hmm, I prefer the "old school" sci-fi writers like Heinlein, too. You
>probably
>>know more about modern sci-fi than I do. Have you tried Terry Pratchett? I
>>don't like him much, but his humorous fantasy very popular. Let me think
>about>>it.
>
>I quizzed him so more and did definitely ascertain that he prefers his
>fiction laced with humor - he doesn't prefer fantasy over science
>fiction after all, its the humor element he wants.
Humor's essential for me, too. That's one of the qualities that separates the
men from the boys, and the reason I can't make it through "The Lord of the
Rings" is its lack of humor. For fantasy laced with comedy, nobody beats Fritz
Leiber and his Fafhrd / Gray Mouser stories. He's pretty "old school", though.
Somebody on this ng once recommended Spider Robinson, who is usually funny.
He writes mainly short stories about a bar called Callahan's, where all sorts
of crazy people drop by and tell tall tales. Your son might like them.
>So we are going to
>try some Larry Niven and whats his name Jose Farmer.
I've tried a few things by Larry Niven. I thought "Lucifer's Hammer" was an
excellent disaster novel, with some really inspired scenes. It turned into a
love letter to nuclear power, though. I seem to like "Dream Park" more than
most people.
>All the fantasy
>stuff seems too infantile and girly that I'm seeing in the bookstore.
I guess fantasy does tend towards the wussy - all of those goddam unicorns,
right?
>>
>>BTW, I just finished a James Lee Burke novel, "In the Electric Mist with
>>Confederate Dead" (gee, suddenly Dick Francis's titles don't seem so bad.)
>It
>>was good, but to be honest I wasn't knocked out by it. I was mainly worried
>>that like most Southern writers, he'd overdo the "atmosphere" but
>fortunately
>>he didn't, and a lot of the descriptions were vivid and memorable. I'll
>>certainly read some more of Burke. I checked out two others.
>
>Yay. I really liked "Jolie Blonde's Bounce".
That's the other one I checked out, along with "A Stained White Radiance".
>Well, I like them all. I
>haven't read the very latest one yet - I'm waiting for the price to
>come down on half.com. I think Dave Robicheaux really grows on one,
>and the character of Clete Purcell is really interesting as well. The
>women are generally less well written, in my opinion.
>
Judging by this novel, I'd agree. His wife "Bootsie" was a nonentity. And the
Mexican FBI agent who acts as his partner wasn't too memorable either - and I
groaned at the references to her breasts. Nothing against breasts, but do
*all* the women in popular fiction have to have big hooters?
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>[ snippage re the leanness of Frogs ]
>Cheese is not fattening if you don't eat a pound a day. And I still
>think that the average person over there gets a lot more exercise
>walking around, thus the ability to eat a lovely pastry and not gain
>weight. But people don't gorge on pastries there - have you ever been
>in a Krispy Kreme venue and watched people here eating 4 or 5 of those
>things? Thats my carb allowance for an entire *year*!
>
Fortunately for my teeth and my digestion, I've never cared much for
sugar-saturated foods, and the thought of eating something as sickeningly sweet
as a donut (or pancakes) for breakfast makes me nauseous. I could only manage
one bite of a Krispy Kreme lard roll, a few years ago. That was enough.
>I learned to appreciate all sorts of food after I went to Europe for
>the first time at age 19. I had never understood what people saw in
>beer or yogurt, just to cite two examples, because I had only had the
>American versions of these delightful ingestible.
>
I don't get yoghurt. It's commie food. OTOH, it's un-American to avoid
drinking domestic beer. It's your duty to swallow the stuff, no matter how bad
it tastes.
>Admittedly, a baguette from a Parisian bakery at 6:00 A.M.,
>accompanied by a cafe au lait, is a foretaste of heaven. I think we
>(the U.S.) should hold off on nuking Paris for this reason alone.
You can fairly judge a nation's cuisine by its bread. If they screw up the
bread, the rest of the food is probably going to be lousy, too. America has
the worst bread in the world, and it's all downhill from there.
Kingsley Amis once speculated that there was a simple inverse correlation
between nations and their food and drink. England: nice people, nasty food.
France: nasty people, nice food. But then he thought of Germany: nasty people,
nasty food. He had to abandon his theory.
>>Something we forgot to mention is snacking between more or less 'formal'
>meals.>> The French don't snack like we do, either. Food is way too important
for
>them>>to eat casually. I still think it's a mystery why they aren't fat. I
>suspect>>that all the chemicals in our diet contribute to the universal
obesity, but
>I>>have no proof. The French are probably genetically superior. Most of them
>>would agree with that.
>
>Of course they would! And they would do it in that poofter language
>they insist on speaking, too :) I hate to admit it, but I think at
>least French women are genetically superior to us, or they do a good
>job of looking so.
French girls certainly have something going for them. If I were a girl trying
to land a guy, I'd imitate the French woman's "attitude".
>>Caviar, saffron, and truffles are supposedly the most expensive foodstuffs
>on>>Earth. Truffles are scarce because they must grow in the wild and
nobody's
>>figured out how to cultivate them.
>
>And you need a pig! to find them....a trained pig.
Yep, those pigs will find the truffles for you, but once they do, it's
impossible to prevent them from eating the shrooms themselves. Once the piggy
catches a whiff of truffles, he goes mad with desire, and it takes about 12
guys to hold the pig back. Truffle-hunters have reluctantly concluded that you
have to let the pig eat a few of the truffles as a reward, or else it won't
cooperate at all. All of that gold disappearing down a boar's throat!
>Who has one of
>those around here? Its sort of a French monopoly. Some government
>entity should be investigating.
AFAIK, it's a *complete* French monopoly. Truffles only grow in Provence.
Other parts of the world sprout fungi somewhat similar to truffles, but
needless to say the gourmets turn up their noses at them. Real truffles, like
real champagne, originate from France.
>I thought the suicide option was much more Asian than European - thus
>the tradition of hari-kiri in Japan.
"Hari-kari" is politically incorrect for some reason. You're supposed to say
"seppuku".
> I thought Europeans were more
>likely to just move to the colonies when disgraced or join the army or
>something....like in The Four Feathers or Poldark....
>
>There are probably very different reasons for being shamed in Asia and
>Europe (and of course I'm generalizing like mad here)....I think the
>reason I thought of Asian mores in the light of the Noah story is
>because of the generational issues there....Asians have much store in
>respecting the older generations, with age being a mark of wisdom and
>engendering respect (still, actually) and I don't see that tradition
>predominating in Europe, right?
That's simply because Asia hasn't been as tainted with capitalistic "progress"
as the West. But they're coming round, thanks to globalization. Asians are
beginning to learn the great truth that only money matters, not things like
wisdom and tradition.
We were discussing something similar on the Wagner newsgroup a while back.
Somebody pointed out that most of the good musicians these days are Asian
(which happens to be true, although the best musicians come from Finland.) I
said that was probably because Asian children are still considered the property
of the parents, not autonomous individuals as they are in the liberal Western
societies. So the parents can make the kids practice their instruments until
their fingers bleed. Here, that would be considered child abuse. You're
supposed to let the child do his own thing. Which isn't necessarily a good
idea.
>>Was he trying to look spiffy for you or the other females ? It is very
>common
>>to fall in love with teachers, you know. You've simply got to stop wearing
>>those skimpy outfits, displaying leg and cleavage. Buy a burka.
>
>I'm absolutely and positively sure that he was trying to look spiffy
>for the other females his age....it is inconceivable to me that any of
>these boys think of me other than as (a) my kid's mom and (b) an
>exceptional annoyance that keeps making them consider things beyond
>the latest X-box game. I never display cleavage for the simple reason
>that I don't really have much....its part of being efficiently sized,
>and also a requirement as a dancer....I'm forever grateful that I
>don't have to spend my adult life wearing one of those hideously
>uncomfortable harnesses that passes for lingerie. Having rather
>muscular legs means I also don't wear miniskirts or short shorts
>either....I must be so disappointing!
True, you're not giving me much to work with here. Call me old-fashioned but I
don't approve of women who refuse to flaunt their breasts and legs. What am I
supposed to fantasize about? Your eyes? Your mind?
> A burka might be fun
>though...more as something to carry around and throw over some zaftig
>woman at the beach this summer who thinks she looks good in a thong.
Please do. I've seriously considered carrying towels or burlap, to cover up
the flesh of both men and women who should not be exposing their hideous
bodies. My major pet peeve is women who wear short-shorts without shaving
their legs. That is an insult to all leg-fetishists. In a civilized society,
going out in public with hairy legs would be a capital crime.
I once got into a huge argument over the word "zaftig" during a Scrabble game.
(I used to be very good at Scrabble, and very obnoxious about it, too.) I
scored about six million points by laying it on a "triple word score". People
started arguing with me, saying it wasn't English and shouldn't be accepted.
Fortunately, "zaftig" was in the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary and I
won the game (as usual.)
>>>we had 26 in the class - 9 girls, one of whom is the cutest thing you've
>ever>>seen>>>(think 13 year old Natalie Wood) and my son is hopelessly
smitten.
>>
>>He'll have to compete with me for her. I have a weakness for those doe-eyed
>>brunettes. Does your son have a serious crush here? If so, you should help
>>him out. Tell this girl, "Have sex with my son or you won't be confirmed
>and>>you'll go to hell."
>
>Too late! Confirmation was March 27th - they are cooked already.
>The girl already knows my son is hopelessly in love with her,
Big mistake. You can never let a girl know that. Sorry, but your son doesn't
have a chance of scoring with her now.
> and actually consented to a slow dance this year at one of their little
>school soirees....but as with most intelligent girls, she thinks he
>and all the other boys her age are idjuts and is saving herself for
>YOU!
True. If she wants me, though, she'll have to hurry up before she gets too
decrepit. I don't want to date any hagged-out 14 year olds.
Unfortunately, underaged girls do seem to like me. Maybe I should move to
Louisiana or another Southern state where the age of consent is 12? I usually
wind up going out with girls who are a few years older than me. I clearly am
searching for a mother figure.
>>Well, I agree. Like you, I've gone through periods where I've hung out with
>>girls more than guys, and it's always been very educational. The stereotype
>>that women are more observant than men is actually 100% true and probably
>>contributes to their viciousness to each other. Men are so self-absorbed
>they>>neither know or care enough about other people to work up such strong
>emotions>>about them. Men are definitely "nicer" but as I've pointed out many
times>on>>this ng, "niceness" is boring (as well chick-repellent). Girls are
much
>more>>interesting to talk to.
>
>Everything up that last line is 100% accurate and tremendously
>observant of *you*.
You don't agree that men are "nice" and women are interesting? Well, maybe to
you chicks are dull, because the female mind is not a mystery. I still have no
idea what girls are really thinking most of the time, and it's fascinating to
hear what plops out their mouths.
>The only bitchy men I've ever met are gay...hetero
>men seem to be immune. The problem with women is that they buy into
>the idea that they are in competition with each other in ways that
>don't really exist (in contrast to the ways that men are in
>competition with each other in ways that really do exist, i.e. dick
>size, bank account and societal status). For example, women really
>think that if they look really good to *each other* then more men will
>want them. Strange logic there, no? So women believe the bullshit
>about appearance that other women and gay men put out and then get all
>embittered when their husbands or boyfriends don't appreciate their
>efforts.
Agree again. Women seem to waste a lot of time obsessing over stuff that just
isn't real. They invent these elaborate paranoid scenarios about the world
around them, and suspect everybody of conspiring against them. Men just don't
think like that.
Sooner or later, the bitchiness gets to me and I retreat into the safe company
of men. I'm in a "guy" phase now. It's nice to be away from women's voices
(one at a time is more than enough to handle). But I'll go back one of these
days… I can hear the distant calls of the sirens already.
>The stats are that, on average, a married couple gains 15 lbs. each in
>the first year of marriage.
Weird. I've never heard that before. Why do they gain so much weight?
> We were so poor when we were first married
>(living on $500/month in San Francisco - for rent, food, bus passes,
>utilities, everything for both of us....) we probably lost weight
>since we would run out of money and live on donated zucchini and brown
>rice for a week.
Thank God for Top Ramen. I always have to scrounge around for food at the end
of the month. Usually I wind up blatanly free-loading off of friends. I try
to entertain them and literally sing for my supper, which makes me feel like a
whore. After the revolution, no one will have to degrade himself like that
for a meal.
>I've been told that if you drink alcohol before you go to bed, that
>this sort of sleep pattern results.
Absolutely true. I've decided to be in denial about this, however. My
insomnia *must* be caused by something else.
> My own experience, however,
>doesn't bear it out....so who's to know? Maybe you are just on a
>different clock and aren't meant to sleep just because its dark out -
>have you noticed any craving for blood lately? :)
I've often suspected that I am at least half-vampire. In additon to sunlight,
I have an aversion to garlic and crucifixes.
>>Judging by this novel, I'd agree. His wife "Bootsie" was a nonentity. And
>the>>Mexican FBI agent who acts as his partner wasn't too memorable either -
and
>I>>groaned at the references to her breasts. Nothing against breasts, but do
>>*all* the women in popular fiction have to have big hooters?
>
>"Bootsie" - is that not an inspired name? And never explained either -
>whether its a nickname or she was actually baptized Bootsie....
Maybe she's into funk? Bootsy Collins was / is a guitarist for George Clinton
and other Funkmeisters.
>and she
>never does get a personality, but the daughter, Alafair, does.
>
In this novel, Alafair gets kidnapped by a child molester. I don't like it
when plots involve endangered children. It's a little too cheap and
manipulative for my tastes.
>All women in fiction have to have breasts big enough to wrap around
>your head from behind (you are sitting, brooding at your kitchen table
>about some injustice or another, and your wife/girlfriend comes up
>from behind and feels it would be comforting to put one breast on
>either side of your head. You are comforted, right?)....and legs long
>enough and limber enough to tuck on either side of your head from a
>front, supine position. Its required, damn it!
>
LOL. Sounds like you're ready to become a popular novelist.
Barney
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>I don't like sweets for breakfast either - when I ate carbs, I would
>have a bagel with lots of cream cheese, or some oatmeal....and then I
>wondered why I was starving at 11 AM every day! Now I have bacon and
>eggs or an omelette with interesting cheese/spices combination every
>day.
I love breakfast food - except in the morning. I never wake up with an
appetite, but whenever I'm really hungry at night, I crave sausage and eggs.
During high school I used to go straight from class to work, and by the time I
got off late at night I'd be STARVING. A co-worker and I would go to Carrow's
and order big breakfasts. This must be pretty common, since all of those
24-hour joints serve the items on their breakfast menu at any time.
I usually skip lunch, too. Do you regularly have 3 meals a day? Or just 2?
>The lady who does my hair is a Krispy Kreme devotee and actually goes
>down to the Bay Area to retrieve them from time to time....she has
>offered them to me, but after trying a bite once, I had no desire to
>repeat the experience.
As if normal donuts weren't disgusting and fattening enough, someone had to
invent a blob of dough with even more lard and sugar. This hairdresser of
yours is a large lady?
>The only donuts worth eating are the ones
>freshly made at dawn on the Greek island of Eos....and you have to
>spend the night on a hotel roof in order to merit their amazing
>goodness.
>
Is this part of some bizarre Easter ritual ? Or a religion founded on the
holi-ness of donuts? (That would go over big in Canada, where the donut is the
national food.)
>English food is awful, but in England, like the U.S., you have such a
>great choice of ethnic food....I had my first gyro in London - what a
>delight! In Germany, there is little alternative to all that heavy
>potato laden pablum except for vegetarian potato laden pablum - or
>least there wasn't when I was there, but things may have changed.
Germans LOVE Mexican food. Even in small towns (I hear) you can find good
Mexican restaurants. Pretty much every country has internationalized its
cuisine by now. The best Chinese restaurants are in Australia.
>France has nasty food too - they even have McDonalds on the Champs
>Elysee (or they did 20 years ago - maybe they burned it down by now).
It's still there. But that of course is American food. I assume only American
tourists go to McDonalds in Paris, on their way to Euro-Disneyland.
>I'm not sure American women can ever have the savoir faire of the
>French women, or the sensuousness of the Italian women....I think you
>have to grow up in those places and get it by osmosis.
France and Italy have their share of strident feminists, but they are still
very 'sexist' cultures compared to the U.S. All the same I'd say French and
Italian women obviously have a lot more real power and influence (not to
mention personality) in the "male-dominated world" than American women.
>In S.F. the best public high school has to do admissions like a
>college because otherwise it would be entirely Asian-Americans....my
>boss/partner's stepson went there, after being a star student at his
>tony private school previously, and was hopelessly outclassed
>intellectually speaking....
Interesting. I didn't realize Asian-dominated schools had to seek out token
whites. I wonder if he was really outclassed intellectually or just
overwhelmed by the competitive atmosphere ? Asian kids are pressured to
conform, conform, conform, compete, compete, compete, succeed, succeed,
succeed.
When I made the transition from private (Catholic) school to public school, I
had the exact opposite experience. I was light years ahead of all the other
students, and they were teaching me stuff I had already covered in the third
grade. I honestly thought that I had mistakenly been enrolled in a "special"
school for retards.
>Speaking of all this, both my husband and I were given music lessons
>as children, and both of us were allowed to give up learning to play
>properly because our parents didn't want to force us to do anything
>(even though my husband's parents were both classically trained
>musicians who understood the sacrifice required to learn something
>correctly)....and we both wish we had stuck with it.
Of course you do. Life is full of regrets. You could just as easily have
resented your parents for making you do something you never enjoyed, thus
taking time away from the things you were really interested in. It's a fine
line, as you must know as a parent. Personally, I'm okay with the liberal idea
that kids should be allowed to find their own way, even if that means society
will have to get along with fewer good musicians.
> Naturally, we
>have done much the same thing our parents did with our kid, but
>although he balked at continuing piano lessons, he has shown a lot of
>dedication to singing (he is in two choirs now, one mostly adult) and
>hopefully we can keep him at it. There are apparently lots of college
>scholarships for male singing types as its hard to find good men for
>the colleges that have choral programs...
That's great he's keeping up with music. As I believe I mentioned before, it's
absolutely necessary to have something to focus on to get through the hell that
is high school.
>>True, you're not giving me much to work with here. Call me old-fashioned
>but I>>don't approve of women who refuse to flaunt their breasts and legs.
What am
>I>>supposed to fantasize about? Your eyes? Your mind?
>
>I have weird eyes - they change color so frequently that I have a hard
>time answering the appropriate question at the DMV each time.
Do they change color depending on your mood? Do they turn red when you read my
posts?
>I would
>be happy to flaunt any appendage if it was worth flaunting. I do have
>a pretty good rear end, so that gets encased in tight jeans most of
>the time. Will that do? :)
Yes. Thank you! A perky hiney will greatly enhance the visualization process.
>>Please do. I've seriously considered carrying towels or burlap, to cover up
>>the flesh of both men and women who should not be exposing their hideous
>>bodies. My major pet peeve is women who wear short-shorts without shaving
>>their legs. That is an insult to all leg-fetishists. In a civilized
>society, going out in public with hairy legs would be a capital crime.
>
>We are so conditioned on this one that I even wondered about the women
>in The Passion of the.... - do you think they left their legs hairy
>for that authentic feel, or shaved them anyway as you would never get
>to see them?
I never thought about that. Who's the leg fetishist here anyway?
> I used to object to this kind of conditioning as a hippie
>teenager, even as I went along with it, but now I think that every
>culture has its particular fashions (I'm glad we are over the shaving
>of the foreheads, a la medieval women) and its just nothing to get
>testy about.
Hey, I sympathize with the ladies on this one. Shaving your legs is a pain.
Men don't like to shave either, but we accept the fact that we look like hell
when our faces are covered with whiskers. If we could walk around with bags
over our heads, we would. Women can easily wear pants or long dresses to
conceal their furry limbs. But if you do decide to expose your naked gams,
please realize that they are eyesores when they're covered with hair.
>
>There are many Yiddish words for which there is no acceptable English
>substitute. So of course it should become part of the regular lexicon,
>just in the way "drielo" has :)
It's always tricky, though, deciding whether an adopted word has been truly
assimilated into your language. Is "taco" an English word? Having grown up in
California, I'd say yes. But someone in Iowa may think differently. If
someone else had tried to get away with "zaftig", I would have challenged it,
but not a word like "klutz."
> I've never gotten into Scrabble (I
>know - heinous admission #105) - I find it boring, actually. I prefer
>trival pursuit type games because my brain is stuffed with useless
>info and I tend to win. My kid beat me at chess on Sunday afternoon,
>so I told him to stick with playing his father from now on; I've
>ceased to be any sort of a challenge to him.
As Bobby Fischer tactfully put it, "Chicks can't play chess." Pushing pieces
around on little squares is a man's job, dollface. Now go make us some
cookies.
>>>Too late! Confirmation was March 27th - they are cooked already.
>>>The girl already knows my son is hopelessly in love with her,
>>
>>Big mistake. You can never let a girl know that. Sorry, but your son
>doesn't>>have a chance of scoring with her now.
>
>Yeah - he literally wears his heart on his sleeve - its so sweet, and
>so useless.
Poor kid. Oh well, it's a learning experience.
> The girl in question is a total overachiever - not only
>very pretty, but a national level junior track star, straight A
>student, and a beautiful singing voice (she is the lead in the school
>musical this year). I would hate her except I'm supposed to have
>outgrown that sort of thing :)
I find those Miss Perfects pretty pathetic, actually. Do they ever wind up
doing anything original or interesting with their lives ?
>>> and actually consented to a slow dance this year at one of their little
>>>school soirees....but as with most intelligent girls, she thinks he
>>>and all the other boys her age are idjuts and is saving herself for
>>>YOU!
>>
>>True. If she wants me, though, she'll have to hurry up before she gets too
>>decrepit. I don't want to date any hagged-out 14 year olds.
>
>LOL! I have a dear friend in the movie industry who keeps "seeing"
>younger and younger women as he gets older. (Actually he is given to
>attempting to "rescue" young strippers from their terrible fate....).
>I guess if they are young enough, and small enough, they can't see the
>ever encroaching bald spot on top his head!
Kinda squicky. This guy is middle aged? I bet he was a Mr Perfect in high
school, now trying to recapture his faded glory by dating teenagers.
>If you come up to this branch of ruritania we can set you up with a
>mother-daughter trash combo - then you can have the best of both
>worlds! Lots of divorcees up here with nubile teenage daughters,
>looking for a meal ticket....although I guess that last part would be
>a problem. Well, you could all go get your food stamps and free cheese
>together, okay?
>>
Sounds good, but I've already got my own urban mother-daughter combo living
next door to me. The mother is remarkably slutty and the daughter's always
walking around in skimpy clothing. Whenever mom has "company" - which is often
- the girl comes knocking on my door.
>>You don't agree that men are "nice" and women are interesting? Well, maybe
>to>>you chicks are dull, because the female mind is not a mystery. I still
have
>no>>idea what girls are really thinking most of the time, and it's fascinating
>to>>hear what plops out their mouths.
>
>No, I agree that men are "nice" but women being interesting? Right-oh.
>What girls are really thinking? Something having to do with just how
>much they wish the other women they were with would drop dead of some
>horrible disease on the spot, probably. Or shoes. We think a lot about
>shoes.
Well, maybe I find the female thinking *process* interesting, rather than the
thoughts themselves. It does not resemble earth logic. That's why women tend
to be way more religious than men. Religion must actually make sense in their
minds.
>>>The stats are that, on average, a married couple gains 15 lbs. each in
>>>the first year of marriage.
>>
>>Weird. I've never heard that before. Why do they gain so much weight?
>
>Because now that they are irretrievably hooked for life (or so they
>would like to pretend, anyway), they relax about their appearances and
>overeat. By the time the woman has whelped a couple of times and is
>now hauling around several times 15 lbs. in extra flab, the husband
>figures it matters not at all what he looks like, and soon you have
>the average American middle aged couple, waddling around Disneyland
>sucking on supersized Cokes.
>
Oh yes, I knew that people let themselves go once they're married - but I
didn't imagine they did it so quickly, while they were still newlyweds.
Sheesh, try to stay attractive for at least a few years, people! Yet another
reason to abolish the institution of marriage. It fosters complacency, which
in turn fosters blubber.
>See, in France, you have to keep looking good for your mistress or
>male lover, so you have more incentive. In Italy you are too busy
>yelling during mealtimes to eat. In Spain all the meals are made up of
>little bits of things (I think they call them tapas) so it takes more
>dishes than its worth to get an entire meal in. Any more stupid
>cultural generalizations you'd like me to make?
No, I think you covered all the bases - you yenta.
>There was no Top Ramen when I was in your condition, so I think you've
>eaten a whole lot more MSG than me. We used to go dumpster diving
>behind supermarkets - ostensibly for ruined produce to feed our
>chickens, but American supermarkets throw out an enormous amount of
>edible food - dented cans, et al....
That's how the Manson family survived. One of the girls would go foraging in
the dumpsters.
>not that I'm recommending lurking
>in alleys, but its a shame anyone goes hungry, really.
>
"Shame" is a slight understatement. It's a completely avoidable tragedy. But
you can't just feed the starving, you know. That would violate the sacred
principles of free market capitalism. You have to *sell* food to fatsos who
don't need it. As my Irish relatives will inform you, at the height of the
potato famine, Ireland was still *exporting* food to England. It was far
better for 99% of the population to starve than for 1% to suffer any loss in
profits.
>George Clinton died on this day. See what you can learn from Headline
>News?
Bummer. I didn't know he was dead. What year did he die?
>>LOL. Sounds like you're ready to become a popular novelist.
>
>I want to write a gothic someday,
Seriously?
> but generally they don't involve this sort of scenario.
>
You should try writing a bodice ripper.
Your pal,
Barney
Realism is the only completely vague word. Satire is the technical word for
writing of people as they are; romance the other extreme of people as they are
to themselves - but both of these are the truth.
--- Dawn Powell
Barney
From: Schlitz Drinker
To: alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer
Date: 4/22/04
In article <5dgd80pekgb5e0egc...@4ax.com>, Alicat
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
>Subject: Re: About the Origin of Communist Lance Armstrong
>From: Alicat <m...@privacy.net>
>Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 13:04:44 -0700
>
>On 21 Apr 2004 13:52:59 GMT, schlitz...@aol.comekingdom (Barney)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <hqta80pnrtefoq241...@4ax.com>, Alicat
>><m...@privacy.net> writes:
>>
>>>I don't like sweets for breakfast either - when I ate carbs, I would
>>>have a bagel with lots of cream cheese, or some oatmeal....and then I
>>>wondered why I was starving at 11 AM every day! Now I have bacon and
>>>eggs or an omelette with interesting cheese/spices combination every
>>>day.
>>
>>I love breakfast food - except in the morning. I never wake up with an
>>appetite, but whenever I'm really hungry at night, I crave sausage and eggs.
>
>>During high school I used to go straight from class to work, and by the time
>I
>>got off late at night I'd be STARVING. A co-worker and I would go to
>Carrow's
>>and order big breakfasts. This must be pretty common, since all of those
>>24-hour joints serve the items on their breakfast menu at any time.
>
>I like breakfast food pretty much anytime of the day. If I'm on my own
>for dinner, I'm just as likely to fix bacon and eggs as anything
>else....
>When I was younger and could eat anything with impunity, my fav was
>hash browns like you get at 24 hour diners (its cheating to make your
>own, plus they just don't have quite the same taste, I think). We
>would go to some place at 3 AM and my invariable order was hash browns
>and a chocolate shake. So wonderfully healthy! (Well - two essential
>food groups - chocolate and grease.)
>>
>>I usually skip lunch, too. Do you regularly have 3 meals a day? Or just 2?
>
>Always three. I wake up hungry, and get to listen to my stomach make
>strange noises through morning Mass, which fortunately is only half an
>hour, after which I rush home to a lovely breakfast at about 9 AM -
>then a large lunch at 2:30 or so, and a smallish dinner at 7 PM. I
>avoid eating anything between meals, but I drink hellacious amounts of
>water and tea and coffee.
>>
>>>The lady who does my hair is a Krispy Kreme devotee and actually goes
>>>down to the Bay Area to retrieve them from time to time....she has
>>>offered them to me, but after trying a bite once, I had no desire to
>>>repeat the experience.
>>
>>As if normal donuts weren't disgusting and fattening enough, someone had to
>>invent a blob of dough with even more lard and sugar. This hairdresser of
>>yours is a large lady?
>
>Getting there...she is only in her mid 30s but she is already have
>endless gastric distress, which is *only* caused by eating stuff thats
>unnatural - and I don't think there is any food more unnatural than a
>Krispy Kreme donut. Well, PEZ are....but thats another story.
>>
>>>The only donuts worth eating are the ones
>>>freshly made at dawn on the Greek island of Eos....and you have to
>>>spend the night on a hotel roof in order to merit their amazing
>>>goodness.
>>>
>>
>>Is this part of some bizarre Easter ritual ? Or a religion founded on the
>>holi-ness of donuts? (That would go over big in Canada, where the donut is
>the
>>national food.)
>
>No, it was just a great experience my husband and I had on our
>honeymoon - which was three months of traveling around Europe on $8
>dollars a day for both of us. We slept on the hotel roof because we
>couldn't afford a room and the weather was lovely anyway, and we woke
>up to the smell of these awesome donuts....we got three donuts each
>plus coffee for $1.50, I remember. We hitchhiked everywhere and had
>some real adventures - you would appreciate our ride in one part of
>Yugoslavia - we got picked up by a large beer lorry, and the driver
>(who spoke not a word of English) kept reaching behind his seat
>through a canvas flap and grabbing another huge bottle of beer for
>each of us as we rode along - he was already completely soused when he
>picked us up and soon we were too....
>
>I thought the national food of Canada was *beer*. (Well, if Guinness
>is considered a food in Ireland, can't Grolsch or whatever be a food
>in nacada?)
>>
>>>English food is awful, but in England, like the U.S., you have such a
>>>great choice of ethnic food....I had my first gyro in London - what a
>>>delight! In Germany, there is little alternative to all that heavy
>>>potato laden pablum except for vegetarian potato laden pablum - or
>>>least there wasn't when I was there, but things may have changed.
>>
>>Germans LOVE Mexican food. Even in small towns (I hear) you can find good
>>Mexican restaurants. Pretty much every country has internationalized its
>>cuisine by now. The best Chinese restaurants are in Australia.
>
>Really? Is it real Mexican food or the kind of stuff you get at El
>Torito? We have two mexican restaurants here and one serves food that
>is worse than anything I've ever had on a plane (I make better refried
>beans than they make on their best day....) and the other is okay, but
>still not very authentic. I so miss the burrito stand near our place
>in the Bay Area - complete with chipped tile counters, freshly made
>*everything*, and no one who spoke anything but Spanish. Their
>burritos (which I used to get without rice, so they would add extra
>meat - and none of that nasty ground beef, but great chunks of slow
>cooked carne) were unbelievably good....waaaaaaaaaaaaah.
>>
>>>France has nasty food too - they even have McDonalds on the Champs
>>>Elysee (or they did 20 years ago - maybe they burned it down by now).
>>
>>It's still there. But that of course is American food. I assume only
>American
>>tourists go to McDonalds in Paris, on their way to Euro-Disneyland.
>
>You do realize that actual French people go to Euro-Disney? But then
>again their devotion to the mouse cult is only eclipsed by their
>adoration of that abomination known as Jerry Lewis.
>(I went into the McDonalds in Paris - there was only the one then, but
>I bet there's more by now - and they served wine! Horrible, gutter
>wine, but it was enough to drown the food.)
>>
>>>I'm not sure American women can ever have the savoir faire of the
>>>French women, or the sensuousness of the Italian women....I think you
>>>have to grow up in those places and get it by osmosis.
>>
>>France and Italy have their share of strident feminists, but they are still
>>very 'sexist' cultures compared to the U.S. All the same I'd say French and
>>Italian women obviously have a lot more real power and influence (not to
>>mention personality) in the "male-dominated world" than American women.
>
>Yeah, I agree entirely. As the ancient, but oh so true, cliche says:
>You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
>Just as in Japan, where the women seem too sweet and docile to have
>any power to outsiders, but it turns out they entirely control the
>family pursestrings - the husband/wage earner has to hand over his pay
>and then gets an "allowance" for his after work drinking parties.
>>
>>>In S.F. the best public high school has to do admissions like a
>>>college because otherwise it would be entirely Asian-Americans....my
>>>boss/partner's stepson went there, after being a star student at his
>>>tony private school previously, and was hopelessly outclassed
>>>intellectually speaking....
>>
>>Interesting. I didn't realize Asian-dominated schools had to seek out token
>>whites. I wonder if he was really outclassed intellectually or just
>>overwhelmed by the competitive atmosphere ? Asian kids are pressured to
>>conform, conform, conform, compete, compete, compete, succeed, succeed,
>>succeed.
>
>He was really outclassed intellectually....and couldn't even make the
>school baseball team, which to my erstwhile partner/boss was even more
>of a disaster, after devoting years in Little League to getting this
>kid ready to play at the high school league level. The boy was just as
>pressured as any Asian kid (the whole family are poster children for
>the materialist way of life), but just couldn't hack it....and that
>pressure (being of insufficient genetic fortitude, I guess) has led
>him to the life of a street junkie, with dreams of being a rap star
>(he is a white Jewish rich boy...so you can imagine the odds).
>>
>>When I made the transition from private (Catholic) school to public school,
>I
>>had the exact opposite experience. I was light years ahead of all the other
>>students, and they were teaching me stuff I had already covered in the third
>>grade. I honestly thought that I had mistakenly been enrolled in a
>"special"
>>school for retards.
>
>I went to 11 different elementary schools (both private and public,
>but none parochial) in my parents' quest to find someplace that would
>"challenge" me....never did. I quickly discovered that bringing my own
>books and reading in a corner was the best way to learn things and get
>through the day. Much like now!!
>>
>>>Speaking of all this, both my husband and I were given music lessons
>>>as children, and both of us were allowed to give up learning to play
>>>properly because our parents didn't want to force us to do anything
>>>(even though my husband's parents were both classically trained
>>>musicians who understood the sacrifice required to learn something
>>>correctly)....and we both wish we had stuck with it.
>>
>>Of course you do. Life is full of regrets. You could just as easily have
>>resented your parents for making you do something you never enjoyed, thus
>>taking time away from the things you were really interested in. It's a fine
>>line, as you must know as a parent. Personally, I'm okay with the liberal
>idea
>>that kids should be allowed to find their own way, even if that means
>society
>>will have to get along with fewer good musicians.
>
>Probably so...I'm reading an Elizabeth George mystery that involves a
>kid who discovers an incredible talent for music at age four, and
>becomes a violin prodigy, only to freeze up on stage at age 24 after
>years of astounding success. His entire family have completely
>rearranged their lives around insuring his music career, so the
>pressure on him after he loses his ability to play is greater than it
>was before....
>>
>>> Naturally, we
>>>have done much the same thing our parents did with our kid, but
>>>although he balked at continuing piano lessons, he has shown a lot of
>>>dedication to singing (he is in two choirs now, one mostly adult) and
>>>hopefully we can keep him at it. There are apparently lots of college
>>>scholarships for male singing types as its hard to find good men for
>>>the colleges that have choral programs...
>>
>>That's great he's keeping up with music. As I believe I mentioned before,
>it's
>>absolutely necessary to have something to focus on to get through the hell
>that
>>is high school.
>
>Our high school, despite its relative lack of size and resources, has
>a first rate jazz choir (besides the regular choir), that you have to
>audition for in 10th grade...people keep telling me that when my son
>gets to that point, if he gets in, it will be the highlight of his
>life, thus far. The jazz choir is invited all over, and in fact sang
>at the Mormon Tabernacle last year on tour (no, I don't have a clue as
>to why there....). So I think the discipline of rehearsals coupled
>with the adventure of traveling on tour would be good...
>>
>>>>True, you're not giving me much to work with here. Call me old-fashioned
>>>but I>>don't approve of women who refuse to flaunt their breasts and legs.
>>What am
>>>I>>supposed to fantasize about? Your eyes? Your mind?
>>>
>>>I have weird eyes - they change color so frequently that I have a hard
>>>time answering the appropriate question at the DMV each time.
>>
>>Do they change color depending on your mood? Do they turn red when you read
>my
>>posts?
>
>No, they change color depending on the time of day...in the morning
>they are generally gray with yellow/green right around the iris, and
>they get greener or more hazel (green/brown) later in the day. But
>some days I've woken up, looked in the mirror and they are almost
>turquoise, but with that cat like yellow circle....
>They turn red when people take pictures of me with a flash.
>Inevitably.
>>
>>>I would
>>>be happy to flaunt any appendage if it was worth flaunting. I do have
>>>a pretty good rear end, so that gets encased in tight jeans most of
>>>the time. Will that do? :)
>>
>>Yes. Thank you! A perky hiney will greatly enhance the visualization
>process.
>
>Enjoy :)
>
><snippage of leg hairs>
>
>>>
>>>There are many Yiddish words for which there is no acceptable English
>>>substitute. So of course it should become part of the regular lexicon,
>>>just in the way "drielo" has :)
>>
>>It's always tricky, though, deciding whether an adopted word has been truly
>>assimilated into your language. Is "taco" an English word? Having grown up
>in
>>California, I'd say yes. But someone in Iowa may think differently. If
>>someone else had tried to get away with "zaftig", I would have challenged
>it,
>>but not a word like "klutz."
>
>>
>>> I've never gotten into Scrabble (I
>>>know - heinous admission #105) - I find it boring, actually. I prefer
>>>trival pursuit type games because my brain is stuffed with useless
>>>info and I tend to win. My kid beat me at chess on Sunday afternoon,
>>>so I told him to stick with playing his father from now on; I've
>>>ceased to be any sort of a challenge to him.
>>
>>As Bobby Fischer tactfully put it, "Chicks can't play chess." Pushing
>pieces
>>around on little squares is a man's job, dollface. Now go make us some
>>cookies.
>
>Great new book out on the Bobby Fischer match! (Yes, the big one). It
>looks really good - I'll have to go find the review again so I can
>remember the name.
>>
>>>>>Too late! Confirmation was March 27th - they are cooked already.
>>>>>The girl already knows my son is hopelessly in love with her,
>>>>
>>>>Big mistake. You can never let a girl know that. Sorry, but your son
>>>doesn't>>have a chance of scoring with her now.
>>>
>>>Yeah - he literally wears his heart on his sleeve - its so sweet, and
>>>so useless.
>>
>>Poor kid. Oh well, it's a learning experience.
>>
>>> The girl in question is a total overachiever - not only
>>>very pretty, but a national level junior track star, straight A
>>>student, and a beautiful singing voice (she is the lead in the school
>>>musical this year). I would hate her except I'm supposed to have
>>>outgrown that sort of thing :)
>>
>>I find those Miss Perfects pretty pathetic, actually. Do they ever wind up
>>doing anything original or interesting with their lives ?
>
>Generally not. The lack of true adversity breeds mediocrity. Which is
>why its ultimately a huge advantage not to grow up beautiful if you
>are a girl. This, on the other hand, doesn't seem to apply to guys -
>good looking guys still wind up being star athletes, and generals and
>stuff....probably because guys don't seem to really notice if other
>guys are good looking or not, do they?
>>
>>>>> and actually consented to a slow dance this year at one of their little
>>>>>school soirees....but as with most intelligent girls, she thinks he
>>>>>and all the other boys her age are idjuts and is saving herself for
>>>>>YOU!
>>>>
>>>>True. If she wants me, though, she'll have to hurry up before she gets
>too
>>>>decrepit. I don't want to date any hagged-out 14 year olds.
>>>
>>>LOL! I have a dear friend in the movie industry who keeps "seeing"
>>>younger and younger women as he gets older. (Actually he is given to
>>>attempting to "rescue" young strippers from their terrible fate....).
>>>I guess if they are young enough, and small enough, they can't see the
>>>ever encroaching bald spot on top his head!
>>
>>Kinda squicky. This guy is middle aged? I bet he was a Mr Perfect in high
>>school, now trying to recapture his faded glory by dating teenagers.
>
>No, actually - he was one of my gang of pointy headed chess players/
>dope smoking misfits, but he was the only one of the bunch who didn't
>pursue any sort of intellectually oriented career and always had an
>inferiority complex about the other guys in our group - didn't see
>himself as quite as smart, like anyone cared....we never sat around
>comparing IQs like some Mensa dweebs. He went into "showbiz" because
>his parents were successful character actors and he had instant entre
>- both his brothers are also in the movie biz. Its just that it is so
>easy in that world to date young women as there is an endless supply,
>as you know, in L.A., of hopefuls...
>>
>>>If you come up to this branch of ruritania we can set you up with a
>>>mother-daughter trash combo - then you can have the best of both
>>>worlds! Lots of divorcees up here with nubile teenage daughters,
>>>looking for a meal ticket....although I guess that last part would be
>>>a problem. Well, you could all go get your food stamps and free cheese
>>>together, okay?
>>>>
>>
>>Sounds good, but I've already got my own urban mother-daughter combo living
>>next door to me. The mother is remarkably slutty and the daughter's always
>>walking around in skimpy clothing. Whenever mom has "company" - which is
>often
>>- the girl comes knocking on my door.
>
>Offer her some free cheese! Does mom have company "professionally" or
>is she just another amateur slut?
>>
>>>>You don't agree that men are "nice" and women are interesting? Well,
>maybe
>>>to>>you chicks are dull, because the female mind is not a mystery. I still
>>have
>>>no>>idea what girls are really thinking most of the time, and it's
>fascinating
>>>to>>hear what plops out their mouths.
>>>
>>>No, I agree that men are "nice" but women being interesting? Right-oh.
>>>What girls are really thinking? Something having to do with just how
>>>much they wish the other women they were with would drop dead of some
>>>horrible disease on the spot, probably. Or shoes. We think a lot about
>>>shoes.
>>
>>Well, maybe I find the female thinking *process* interesting, rather than
>the
>>thoughts themselves. It does not resemble earth logic. That's why women
>tend
>>to be way more religious than men. Religion must actually make sense in
>their
>>minds.
>
>There you go. Maybe its just that not everything *has* to make sense?
>- now thats a woman's point of view, for you! Men are always trying to
>get everything to add up correctly.
>>
><snipped my ranting>
>>
>>>There was no Top Ramen when I was in your condition, so I think you've
>>>eaten a whole lot more MSG than me. We used to go dumpster diving
>>>behind supermarkets - ostensibly for ruined produce to feed our
>>>chickens, but American supermarkets throw out an enormous amount of
>>>edible food - dented cans, et al....
>>
>>That's how the Manson family survived. One of the girls would go foraging
>in
>>the dumpsters.
>
>Our supermarket here has Top Ramen on sale this week - $1.88 per
>package, but you have to buy a whole case. Don't you think if you ate
>a case of Top Ramen, the salt and MSG would probably reach toxic
>levels?
>>
>>>not that I'm recommending lurking
>>>in alleys, but its a shame anyone goes hungry, really.
>>>
>>
>>"Shame" is a slight understatement. It's a completely avoidable tragedy.
>But
>>you can't just feed the starving, you know. That would violate the sacred
>>principles of free market capitalism. You have to *sell* food to fatsos who
>>don't need it. As my Irish relatives will inform you, at the height of the
>>potato famine, Ireland was still *exporting* food to England. It was far
>>better for 99% of the population to starve than for 1% to suffer any loss in
>>profits.
>
>Fortunately the revolution is right around the corner. No really, I
>just read a poll that says Americans believe the world situation is
>deteriorating so rapidly that 1/3 of us think the apocalypse (not
>necessarily the religious kind) is just about to occur. All
>possibilities may be more possible, including the rather obvious
>possibility of sharing the surplus with those in need, just 'cause.
>>
>>>George Clinton died on this day. See what you can learn from Headline
>>>News?
>>
>>Bummer. I didn't know he was dead. What year did he die?
>
>Well, I can't find any evidence at all that he died - he was just
>arrested last December, and he surely wasn't dead then. Maybe they
>meant the George Clinton who was vice president? (He died a long time
>ago). Is there another George Clinton? Is Headline News a reliable
>source of useless info?
>>
>>>>LOL. Sounds like you're ready to become a popular novelist.
>>>
>>>I want to write a gothic someday,
>>
>>Seriously?
>
>Yeah. My friend in Denver and I worked up a plot outline a few years
>ago and then we each wrote some sample chapters, but then we abandoned
>the effort due the pressure of having to work and all....
>I still want to do it - it starts with a young girl coming to live
>with her great aunt in Yorkshire in the period just before WWI - and
>then it turns out that her aunt isn't female and there is perverse
>stuff going on in the stables....
>>
>>> but generally they don't involve this sort of scenario.
>>>
>>
>>You should try writing a bodice ripper.
>
>Heaving bosoms and tumescent swelling bulges and stuff? Too easy.
>
>Is Dawn Powell related to General Colin?
>
>adios,
>alicat