Gretchen McCulloch on negation in Welcome to Night Vale.
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EVERYONE go watch my heroine, Kacy, mow down the American Ninja Warrior course! You can probably appreciate it without watching jacked dudes with twice her wingspan fail to complete, but it DOES make it so much sweeter.
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I am sure e-cigarettes will kill us all, but oh, man, the flavor options! My dad just has green apple (he is definitely part of the described problem, having quit cold-turkey on a DARE like thirty years ago when he worked at a nylon factory and now enjoying a few pleasant after-dinner drags a few times a week) but now I’m gonna put the pressure on him to LEVEL UP. Banana-nut bread!
(Don’t smoke.)
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Remember to be around at 1pm EST to talk about chapter 1-12 of An Untamed State!
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Let it be a shark, quit harshing my mellow. OH IT’S A HOAX, fuck you.
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I 100% want to give this Kickstarter my money bc it is very dear to my heart, but then if they succeeded I would watch it and cry for roughly a week, so.
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Daquan is a white girl, and Black Twitter is dead.
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I am experiencing some serious peer pressure to start playing the Kim Kardashian app, but I don’t trust myself not to get way too into it, so I’m still holding out. ALSO, afraid of this:
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No, Jason Patric. I think not. Also, guys, GUYS, and by guys I mean girls: if you want to be a solo parent, do not ever get donor sperm from someone you know, get it from a sperm bank so you are legally protected. Wow, I’m telling you what to do a LOT today. I’ll cool that now.
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My favourite deleted comment from yesterday:
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
Kacy Catanzaro is amazing. In addition to her physical prowess, I was really struck by how calmly she approached the course. She took time inbetween the challenges to re-focus herself, to stretch her muscles, to relax, which the other contestants almost never do. I don’t want to say it is a woman thing, necessarily, but I liked how focused she was on getting through the course, not being the fastest, because the point wasn’t to be the fastest. It was to do it and be awesome at it. She looked like she didn’t even break a sweat.
She made it look easy.
And now I want a replica course at my gym.
That video actually made me cry. Like Holy Fucking Shit such an amazing thing to watch. Wow. God, can you imagine being in the audience to see that in person? How was every person there not openly weeping with joy? Wow. Just…wow.
Her call out to the crowd! It did strike me as kind of a “woman” thing, too, but it made me so happy. She knew her cheering section was as much a part of the course as some silly poles she was just chillin’ out on.
Tears of combined joy&horniness over here!
the best kind
YES ME TOO
was kind of over the announcers calling her “not human” but damn. what a lady. was super into her bf calling her the best athlete he’d ever known.
I loved when she did the spider thing at the very end. Like it was the easiest thing there. She was definitely in the zone, where she was staying loose and having fun but focused.
how did she do that HOW IS SHE REAL?? I am in awe over here.
She made everything look so easy that I had to go back and watch a bunch of videos of other people just eating it on the same course to tell how hard everything really was.
YES I’m doing that right now. I can’t believe it.
ahhhh I just watched this even though it’s late in the day but she is AMAZING. also the bro chorus (‘dude, what’s she gonna do? she’s gotta tarzan leap, i don’t know, she’s gotta jump.”) is a great part of the ambiance
[email protected]
Poetry
Poetry by “youaregay.” He is committed to a theme.
I thought the 69 in the IP address was a nice touch.
I imagine him thinking: “‘you are gay’ or ‘you’re gay?’ It’s important to get this right, give the right impression, send the right message. ‘you are gay’ is formal and declarative, it’s more definite. ‘you’re gay’ is a bit too informal perhaps. Too easy to misunderstand. Besides, with ‘you are gay’ the emphasis can be on the ‘are’, really driving home just how gay they are”
Let’s not leave out the eternal possibility of your gay
Sincerely,
Your gay
My gay! I thought I’d lost you!
I’m right here, baby. I’ll never leave you.
Poetry, sheer poetry!
Oh, dear deleted comment. They went so far as to make all of their details ‘fuck you’ and even their user name was ‘you are gay’.
Dear, sweet commenter troll. I am impressed. 4/5. Could have gained higher marks if you had reiterated how gay we all were using different language. Creativity is essential for trolling!
(And no, not gay. Bi!)
my favorite ever shitty youtube comment (which I’ve failed to ever find again, probably because google places a low priority on archiving shitty youtube comments) was the following: “wow ur gay but nice job man you have my respect.” it has everything! (& has since become part of our household lexicon as a response to a very stupid achievement).
SOLID
“I’m very impressed by this, but I’m bound by the laws of trolldom to include ‘ur gay’ in all youtube comments so I’ll just get it out of the way first”
I was googling last week to find out more about the blatty synth bass in “Take My Breath Away” and reading a forum of synthesizer enthusiasts talking about how to recreate the sound, and at the very end was someone saying it was a “gay-ass song from a f*g movie.” but the bass was still great. NO PLACE ON THE INTERNET IS UNTOUCHED.
DELETED COMMENTS ARE THE BEST.
Also that editor’s article is hilarious, and I could happily discuss all those errors all day long. In fact, I think I’ve read books with every single one of those errors (except the sci-fi/fantasy thing as I don’t read enough of that to comment) in the past year. Oh, your character “looked at myself in the mirror and hated what I saw. My long, thick dark hair without a curl. Tall and lean without a single curve to my boyish body. White skin that showed every vein. Dark blue eyes set too far apart to be beautiful. Why couldn’t I be one of the tiny, blonde girls that everyone at my school worshiped? Their hair was all the same colour of honey in the sunshine, tan skin and long legs beneath their cheer shorts, they were perfect.”
There, I just wrote the intro to your YA novel and created a wholly irritating character who will probably go on to go save the world or something.
please stop making characters look in the mirror and describing themselves it is hack work.
Seriously, if you want your character to describe themselves in first person, just have them do it, I know what I look like.
And if you want a character who is unattractive make them actually unattractive, not beautiful in a way that is currently unfashionable.
I just want a YA heroine who is fat and spotty with hair that is ALWAYS greasy and a weird wonky face who still saves the world, and gains confidence in her abilities, and maybe even has someone fall in love with her. Because I sure as hell knew more of them in school than I knew fair-skinned, raven haired beauties or tiny, blonde, tanned cheerleaders.
Yes! And those appearance details just add nothing to the reading experience – generally I don’t care if your hair is flaxen or raven or a wild mass of unruly curls. I mean, feel free to mention what a crap hair day you’re having, if you really need me to know, but since your voice is what I’m paying to read, can’t I just have more of that?
(You’ve read E&P already, right?)
Meg Murray??
I remember Smart Bitches Trashy Books had a tidbit from a romance editor who said she could pick out books written by guys under a pen name because inevitably the heroine would look at herself in a mirror and favourably describe what she sees within the first chapter. In most books by women, the heroine never described herself at all.
Yeah, especially when the descriptions are just setting up her Not Like The Other Girls-ness. Zzzzz….
Sadly, I don’t think The Toast readership is the big money target audience for most YA books. Or…most books, really.
There needs to be more of us.
Am I the only person who’s irrationally annoyed by Medium articles that tell you how long it will take to read them? In the case of Daquan is a white girl it’s that little “11 min” in the upper righthand corner. Leave me alone, Medium! I’ll read at my own pace!
It doesn’t annoy me so much as always make me wonder what algorithm they use and how I compare to it.. How do you know how fast *I* read, Medium? Hmm? Hmm?
They definitely could know how fast you read, once you’ve read a few Medium articles. They could set a cookie to remember you with and use javascript to track how fast you’ve scrolled through other articles. There’d be tricky bits, because they’d have to handle people skimming and only reading half of articles, and possibly the different reading difficulty levels of different articles, but overall it would pretty straightforward. One of my e-readers knows how fast I read, but I forget whether it’s Kindle or Kobo.
Mind you, it would be kind of creepy, and a lot of work for I’m not sure what benefit. In reality they probably just use the same estimate for everyone. I also get 11 mins for the Daquan article.
It really makes you feel good about the quality of whatever you’re reading that it opens with “don’t worry, this won’t take too long”
Also, maybe we’re all still on that flawless Kristen Stewart high but may I just say: KAREN GILLAN.
jesus christ
We can indeed.
My heart has room for two.
There’s a BessieMaeMucho on the radio station where I used to live! Any relation?
Words. I don’t have them. I went as Annie Lennox circa Sweet Dreams for Halloween a couple years ago. I didn’t come close to this.
After watching the video of Kacy Catanzaro finishing the course last night, I said to my husband, “Now let’s watch a man fail!”
I liked her interview with New York Magazine, too. She seems so nice!
The way for most things in life to be improved, would be to include the option of watching a man fail at said thing.
My second-favorite thing about that video, behind Kacy just generally crushing it, was the meathead dudes watching her and just being so bro-ishly amazed.
They were totally in it for her, which was nice. It would be nice if there were a way to easily determine meathead douchebros from meathead cool bros, but alas, I’ve not yet found a consistent tell.
Meathead bros expressing earnest amazement is one of my favorite things.
And when her dude (trainer? partner? fitness servant?) CLIMBED UP THE THINGY just to get to her when she won!
Fitness Servant!!!
I think he might be her trainer/boyfriend? I was afraid he was only climbing up to propose and make it all about him (he didn’t). Is that irrational?
And she said “I couldn’t have done it without you” and he said “yes you could, but I’m proud to have shared this with you” and I was like, awww.
Yes, I liked him very well! Somewhere in the middle of her run through the course, you can see him turn to one of the other fitness bros and say something along the lines of “she’s flat out the best athlete I have ever known.” I was already ugly crying over her sheer awesomeness, but if I hadn’t been, that would have pushed me over the edge
Boyfriend and fitness servant, according to commentators!
My favorite bonus about Kacy’s run through the course is afterward when she said to her boyfriend “I couldn’t have done it without you” and he goes “yes you could have.”
Yes, she could have. Very good.
!!!!!!!!!
[emoji with heart eyes]
He will be spared.
Toastites, can we talk about Welcome to Night Vale? It seems like it might be up my alley (since I do love Mallory in horror mode, and also other creepy things), and I’ll admit to not giving it much of a chance, but: the other day, I loaded up a random episode (it was “Visitor,” from this March), and it was like Mallory-in-horror-mode on sedatives. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t creepy, it was trying too hard, and I had to turn it off after like 4 minutes. Any true believers here to extoll its virtues, or is it one of those things where the hype has far outstripped the product?
I wasn’t crazy about Visitor, actually. I’ve enjoyed most of WTNV–I think the characters are charming and occasionally badass, and I enjoy the weirdness. It’s not super creepy, it’s just kind of…delightfully strange. I think the hype is not helping it at this point, but it’s a solid little podcast. I would suggest starting from the beginning, if you’re going to give it another shot (and it’s okay if you don’t!).
I’ve never really given it a chance, because there’s something weird about the format that got to me within minutes of starting the first episode. What struck me is it doesn’t have the sense of whimsy that my current obsession, Thrilling Adventure Hour, has in spades. Its feel is more faux-sinister, and that’s just not fun.
I’ve been trying to get into Thrilling Adventure Hour after running through WTNV and I think I’m having the inverse reaction. TAH has been growing on me & I’m pretty sure if I’d reversed the sequence I’d have had the same resistance to WTNV. (Not trying to evangelize for Nightvale, it’s just interesting to think about – like going from dark to bright light and letting your eyes adjust, or vice versa.)
That’s really interesting! It makes a lot of sense, actually. TAH is relentlessly positive, even when the arcs and individual stories are a little darker (I’m thinking of Tales from the Black Lagoon in particular). Once I get through TAH–I’m very close to caught up–I think I’ll give Night Vale another try.
I’ve only heard a few episodes of TAH but I love how delightfully corny it is.
What’s crazy about it is how thoroughly attached you get to the characters, and how genuinely emotional the storylines become. I’ve nearly wept on the subway a few times, as one does over newtime podcasts in the style of oldtime radio.
I really enjoy it, but it’s not going to be for everyone.
Personally I think that it’s creepy and funny, but that both of those aspects work best if you’ve listened from the start. The storylines build and merge together to create something really interesting. I don’t think you’re going to get the most out of it if you listen to a random episode out of context. If you want a good episode that doesn’t rely on previous information, I’d probably suggest The Whispering Forest or The Faceless Old Woman.
BUT if it isn’t your sort of thing, it isn’t your sort of thing, and that’s fine.
I started from the beginning, and I’ve listened to 15 episodes now. I don’t love it as much as I expected, about the same as you described. It feels hit or miss to me, and mostly I found myself wishing I was listening to another podcast and sometimes skipping and coming back to it. I will still probably give it another chance, keep it in my podcast rotation on a less regular basis. But also, I guess all things aren’t for everyone, and that’s ok right?
“But also, I guess all things aren’t for everyone, and that’s ok right?”
Right, I shouldn’t have put the last part about its being overhyped the way I did. Obviously a lot of people love it, and I don’t mean to say they shouldn’t. I probably will give it another shot next time I’m in a podcast mood, maybe starting with one of the episodes Silver Deer suggested.
I agree, it seems to just pile on the fantasy/horror elements instead of actually creating an atmosphere. There’s no real internal logic except that everything is weird.
Personally, I use “Summer Reading” as my go-to rec for sampling: great sponsorships, major world-building, introduction of a wonderful new character, and a solid weather segment, not to mention snark at librarians, teachers, and other vigilantes. If you listen from the beginning forward, you do get some more uneven episodes, but you also see the world and its characters develop depth and backstory.
I don’t think of the show as creepy; sometimes mildly unsettling things happen in it, but they’re just part of daily life in Night Vale, and some of the appeal is how everyone in town takes them in stride (barring Steve Carlsberg; ugh, that guy). When two characters go on a date and the narrator is clearly more interested in what to wear than the disaster that’s taking over the town, the point is to accept that that’s normal for them; the kick is that cute scientist and whether he’s up for kissing, not the day’s paranormal catastrophe.
Part of the delight for me as a listener is what you’re asked to consider “normal,” and how it’s allowed the town to be a welcoming, responsible society despite its quirks. You get unsettling glow clouds but also engaged PTA members; the secret police but also adorable kittens (with their caudal spines and venom sacs); a five-headed dragon wanted for insurance fraud but also a romantic relationship that nobody thinks odd merely because it involves two men (there are, as in any romance, other issues).
So that’s some of what I love about the show, but not everyone does, and that’s okay. Mostly.
Yeah, I gave it a brief try and couldn’t get past the narrator’s dramaaaaaatic voice.
I think my affection starts with the fact that I find Cecil’s voice completely soothing. I listen to it in the morning when I run, and there’s something about being half-awake and listening to this mellifluous voice saying goofy bizarre things that is a nice way to start the day. I really enjoy the “X-Files meets Lake Wobegon” premise and don’t feel much need to care one way or the other about world-building or extended storylines. (I mean, I don’t dislike them, but I don’t care too much about how well they work or hang together) And I’ve never found it particularly creepy, really – I have almost zero tolerance for horror and there’s nothing in Nightvale that’s ever bothered me, because it’s all so silly. (I mean, there’s the constant acknowledgement of universally-experienced existential dread, but somehow that comes off as reassuring.) I do feel like they might be running out of steam a bit – hence the greater dependence on through story – so checking out some earlier ones might be worth it.
I totally understand that cringey trying too hard reaction that can make something unlistenable/unwatchable, and I’m not sure why I never had it to WTNV. Interesting.
Conversely, I listen to it before bed a lot, because I find it so soothing and comforting.
I was curious about it, listened to the first episode, stopped listening halfway through because I was distracted, and gave up. Then I tried a random episode and liked it better, and started listening again. I’ve since listened to all the episodes, most on my way to/from work so I’m not reading anything else while listening. I think towards the middle they started developing a long-term plot with serious conflict (which is hard to do if at least 5 people die/get maimed/disappear/turn into angels per episode).
Anyway, now I’m pretty into it for the plot and the characters. I like the random horror and surreal happenings as well, but I appreciate them more when they’re not the premise of the whole show (which is what I thought when I listened to the first episode). That said, WTNV is not really into a dynamic plot line with build and climax during one podcast episode, and I think that works for them because it’s trying to be like legit “community radio.” I also think the narrator (Cecil)’s voice gets more dynamic as the podcasts go on but that might just be me!
I agree he gets more dynamic as time goes on! A year ago I started listening with the episodes that were the newest at the time, and then I went back to the beginning, and I was startled how understated and almost sleepy Cecil sounded in the pilot. I love the way he narrates now, and I love how many other voices have been added to the show and how much it’s grown–though some of my favorite episodes, like A Memory of Europe and A Story About You and Street-Cleaning Day, are still just Cecil.
I have a dual reaction whenever someone says “I didn’t like it that much, should I keep trying?” On the one hand it is wonderful and I want it to have lots of love and support, and on the other hand it is deeply quirky–less because of the doom and monsters than because of its community radio structure, and the existential poetry of it, and the unresolved narratives. I think it will grab you if it grabs you and if you’re not going to like it, that’s okay. I love Night Vale a lot, but if I didn’t I would find it pretty irritating for people to try to convince me I should like it.
I really like it, but I definitely find it’s best done binge-listening – I downloaded the first 30 episodes and spent a day listening to them at work instead of music. When I get round do downloading another batch I will definitely be carrying on, but not until I’ve got plenty in one go – I had tried to listen to random ones and not been inspired before.
Like others have said, it isn’t something everyone will love, and that’s okay. I love the goofy surrealness of it. They use things and words from horror, but I think of it as sci-fi, and some of the finest sci-fi being produced today.
The episode I use to hook people is A Story About You. If you love second person narration, what the hell is wrong with you, but you’ll like this episode. If you hate second person narration, you’ll be strangely drawn to this episode and you will hate invisible pie.
MY FAVORITE EPISODE.
Seriously, I’ve listened to A Story About You about fifty billion times. At this point it’s become my comfort listen when I can’t sleep. I think the atmosphere in it is perfect, and it always draws me in. It’s a great little escapist fantasy with tinges of existential dread and mystery.
Ahhh, it’s my favorite “can’t sleep” escape too! I love it so much.
I LOVE THAT ONE. it feels like a retelling of the trial to me–powerless, nameless narrator, inexplicable actions, no one listens to him–but the ending.
the ending. i actually liked a story about them more than i expected, but about you is still better.
I can’t get into it either, but I can’t tell if that’s my built-in aversion to the hype machine or something else.
It’s best if you can start from the beginning, when it’s a little more run-of-the-mill weird and you have time to get to know the tons of recurring characters. The story lines are really involved, and they have heaps of callbacks to earlier episodes. The house that doesn’t exist (it seems like it exists, etc), John Peters (you know, the farmer), and so on, are verbatim phrases that get repeated every time the subject comes up, as a little reminder from previous episodes, but that’s the only reminder the listeners get.
If you just want to dip your toes in, 1 (Pilot), 13 (A Story About You), and 28 (Summer Reading Program) are good examples of what the show does best.
I got into WTNV around the time of First Date (aka, the one year mark), when someone on Tumblr posted something along the lines of “hey you, do you like the X Files, and Lake Woebegone, and also indy music? Try Night Vale!” And I like all those things, and I do!
What I do find a turn off is the fandom elements. But that’s the case with nearly everything, as I am a misanthrope of the highest order.
I just think, if it doesn’t grab you, it doesn’t grab you. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve tried with the Thrilling Adventure Hour, and it’s fun and all, but I don’t find myself taken by it.
I love Night Vale. I don’t think it’s perfect, and I definitely felt like the first episodes were trying waaay too hard. But at the same time, there are some things I like enough to keep listening: the dream logic, the unreliable narrator, the large cast of non-white non-male characters, the way some of the things resonate with me. For example:
“Thursday is a lost cause, but we will keep on fighting. We will get up, say “Yes! Today is a different day than before!” believing this against all evidence, eating food like that matters. Going to jobs that mean the same thing as they did before, but cast in a new light by our own optimism, which will slowly drain away until all that is left is the movements and thoughts we’ve had before. Echoes of ourselves, underlined to emphasize the lack of emphasis.
Coming home, drifting home. Aimless homeward wandering into a kitchen that is too small for our needs, and eating food that isn’t what we imagined it would be. And watching television that means more to us than our jobs. And, finally, falling asleep – in which we dream of the Thursday that could be…if only we lived Thursday to the full potential of its Thursday-ness, not expecting it to be anything but Thursday, embracing every inch of its Thursday reality, and living each Thursday moment anew, only to wake the next Thursday, and again impose, unsuccessfully, our imagined Thursday onto the unyielding frame of Thursday. Our Thursday. A lost cause.”
Also, I enjoy it because I have faith in the creators. There are so many tropes that I am sick an tired of, and it is indescribably nice to listen to a podcast where two men get to be in an actual relationship (no seven seasons of UST, no queerbaiting). Where a teenage girl can be well-read, and lead a militia of her peers. Where women do not require romantic interests (I’m partway through season 2 of Deadwood, and am terribly annoyed at how the women are all being paired off with both a male love interest and a male antagonist, and how none on them are allowed to have meaningful relationships with other women). I trust the creators not to betray me, and that is such a rare thing to find.
So there is substance to it, if you want to find substance, or are capable of finding substance in this particular thing. But if it’s not working for you, that’s perfectly fine! I can understand how people can find it unsubstantive, and I’ve certainly been on the other side and looked into a work which has resonated deeply with people but found nothing there for me.
The creators and actors all seem like stand-up people. I love that when they realized Carlos was going have a major role they switched the actor so he’d actually be played by a gay poc.
Also I almost cried at the bit about Cecil’s niece in the recent Strex episode.
I can only do two pull-ups (on a good day) so most of that video was like “but HOW?!?” but I MASTERED that thing where you climb up by bracing yourself between two walls when I was nine in my parents’ house. Now I want to know if it can do it as an adult, off to find a hallway and report back to you with the number of arms I have broken
Eagerly awaiting your findings 🙂
Because: D1 gymnast. That is my explanation for everything in that video. Skilled gymnasts are magical and not to be trifled with, like other magical creatures.
A kid I was babysitting recently was doing that in doorways and when I told her to knock it off, she earnestly informed me that she was doing it on doctor’s orders to recover from a foot injury.
It’s been an hour! How many arms was it?!
Six. (Actually I’m at work and couldn’t do it)
Can we please have a deleted comment of the day in the link round up? I think it would make my life on the regular.
That Jason Patric story … yeesh. What I dont like is that they are taking the angle of surrogacy and repoductive rights when the more important issue is his horrifically abusive personality.
I dont necessarily agree that if someone ‘gifts’ their dna in some way (sperm or egg donation) that they can never act upon their parental rights because I dont think it’s easy for people to realize what they are giving up, particularly if its given to an ex and they still have contact. Its a really difficult area.
Abusive parents on the other hand need to be nopetepussed out of childrens’ lives.
What made my blood boil was how he refused to criticize her in the article so that he doesnt look bitter, but then Gus came back home having learnt to say some really nasty shit about his mother. The fucking hypocrite.
a+ use of “nopetepussed” as a verb
I had a really hard time parsing it even though I *knew* it must be nope-based somehow. I have overcome this difficulty and am adding it to my lexicon.
I hadn’t heard about any of this prior to reading the article, but it seems pretty clear that Jason Patric = garbage person. What may be even worse are the comments on the article (I couldn’t help scrolling down. I see that, just like the last time I read comments, people are still fucking insane).
Those comments were even more terrifying than usual. Shudder.
“The story of Patric and Schreiber’s relationship is a sad one, with fault for sticking around too long on both sides.”
A+ casual victim blaming well played Rolling Stone
Apparently the author is a friend of Schreiber’s, which makes it even WORSE.
In November 2013, Schreiber was awarded a domestic-violence restraining order against Patric, which says he is not supposed to harass, attack or strike Shreiber, among other actions.
Could Toasties who are better-versed in legal matters than I am clarify what the effectiveness/purpose of such an order would be? Nobody is legally permitted to harass, attack or hit anyone else – you would have a strong basis for legal action due to those actions alone, regardless of whether you had a domestic-violence restraining order in place, wouldn’t you? Or is it more intended to document that this is a long-standing issue that law enforcement has already been involved in?
Yeah, that sounds weird to me too, but I am very much not a legal expert.
Not really a domestic violence expert here, but three responses come to mind:
(1) As you’re probably aware, often these sorts of orders prohibit things that would otherwise be lawful, like calling someone on the phone or being near them. Depending on what’s meant by “harassment,” that could fall within this (for example, calling someone to berate them isn’t generally illegal, but might be considered “harassment”). And the “other actions” part of the quote might include a prohibition on him communicating with her.
(2) Sometimes court orders are helpful because the contempt penalty for violating a court order can be heavier, and thus more of a deterrent, than the penalty for the crime that the same action counts as. Also, a violation of a court order might be easier to prove in court than the underlying crime, for various reasons.
(3) But you’ve got a point, it is often unclear what the point is of a court order to obey a law that is generally in force, though for whatever reason courts do issue orders like that a lot.
It looks like those are the author’s words summarizing the order, rather than a quotation of the order itself. Restraining orders vary in scope, but a well-written order will forbid behaviors that would not normally be considered harmful or dangerous (such as calling or emailing) but are intended by the abuser to instill fear or cause harm. And, as another commenter noted, the penalties for violating a restraining order may be harsher than the penalties for the behaviors that constitute violations, so a judge might include “don’t break the law” provisions in order to trigger these harsher penalties.
I requested a restraining order that had no teeth but for one aspect. My stalker was, on paper, an otherwise law-abiding citizen, self-employed handyman. He would have lost most of his client base and most of any potential customers if he had this order on his legal record. That threat alone scared the shit out of him. I agreed to delay the restraining order. Never heard from him again.
In some states, violating a protection order becomes a crime, even if the conduct isn’t. It also lets the police stop the person even if they are doing something “innocent” – like hanging out in the building where the person lives. And subsequent violations escalate the offense level. It also helps future victims – if a person has a violation against one person, it might be a misdemeanor, but the next violation could be a felony, even if it’s against a different person (this probably varies state to state).
I started playing the Kim Karsashian game yesterday and it’s pretty fun but also in danger of taking over my life
I’ve only seen the banner ads everywhere. Why are we choosing/pressuring Nicole to take up this particular hobby?
I actually saw an episode of the show yesterday morning at the gym (not on purpose) and OMG HELLBEAST MONSTERS. They are all awful.
I saw one at a nail salon a few weeks ago and I was TRANSFIXED. Couldn’t look away.
Just play that Kacy clip on all the screens on the gym, 24/7. I will become so much mightier in homage.
I’ve been watching Ninja Warrior/American Ninja Warrior since they started airing it on G4 back in the day and I cheered SO LOUDLY when Kacy made it through. SHE CLEARED THE WARPED WALL IN ONE GO, PEOPLE.
I legit cried everytime I watched that video, and I watched it THREE TIMES. I threw my hands up even though no one was there to see me cheer, because she is absolutely amazing.
I switched from cigarettes to a vaporizer at the beginning of the year, never thinking that I would be interested in some of the crazy flavors. My two daily flavors are now Far From Heaven (a mint/cinnamon combo) and Drunken Pirate Pudding (plum, rum and caramel). I still don’t like super fruity stuff, but will occasionally vape coffee or chocolate “dessert” flavors. Even if it does kill me, it’s a lot slower, tastier and less expensive than cigarettes.
Attn MIchagan-area Toasties: pet adoption opportunity.
I lurk over at BPL and someone there is trying to rehome two cats due to an impending overseas move. He trusts backpackers; I trust you guys. Hope he doesn’t mind the signal boost.
Thread here: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpacki…
“Celebrity friends like Mark Wahlberg, Chris Evans, Brad Pitt and Chris Rock, who told Patric “children want to love their mamas and their dadas,” have supported the foundation. ”
CHRIS EVANS, HOW COULD YOU??? I trusted you!
I DID THE SAME THING 🙁
And Matt Damon! WHY DO I EVER TRUST MEN. I mean I’d expect this sort of thing from Mark Wahlberg, but not these two!
AAAAHHHHH I HAD SOMEHOW NOT NOTICED HIS NAME IN THAT LIST
the two most famous sweet Boston bros (as distinct from total Boston meatheads) in the world have let me down and I’m so upset now
Yeah, new research just came out last month suggesting that e-cigs aren’t any safer than regular ones. (http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2014/05/30/CIRCULATIONAHA.113.007252.abstract)
PLAY THE KIM KARDASHIAN GAME, NICOLE. IT WON’T WORK ON MY PHONE.
somehow the link is broken, but this one should work: http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2014/05…
(also, I AM NOT SURPRISED.)
I am also not surprised, but I am a little sad. The dangers of the tobacco were very thoroughly taught to me in childhood, and I have never once tried the stuff. There’s a small part of me that has been hoping that the vaporizers would prove safe enough that I could see if nicotine has a place in my caffeine-alcohol rotation.
and by guys I mean girls
Aw, nah! Some guys can have babies with donor sperm, and some girls can’t, and so on and so forth!
TRUE, and If you are a guy who wants to be a solo parent, you DEFINITELY want to get sperm bank sperm, because the likelihood that your friend-donor\’s parents are going to get all weird and decide this is THEIR GRANDBABY bc Unhealthy Environment will go up by a billion.
So… the daquan thing:
I’d never heard of it until this link roundup, but man oh man, that essay is not the most logically sound thing.
The author starts off by explaining the difference between the laughing with you and laughing at you dynamics of racial comedy and then situates the Daquan meme in that history, the history of white people laughing at black comedy for the wrong reasons, or mimicking black tropes for their own amusement.
So far so good. But then he goes off on this tangent about the appropriation of black culture in general (BET!, Black Twitter!, Worldstar!) , about how white people and capitalism have found a way to generate blackness to such an extent that they could pass a sort of Black Turing Test, the Daquan Test, because the representations of blackness, however special and historical and meaningful, are now replicable and imitable; and because of that we (the black people) should just say “fuck it, go ahead and have it.”
Ummm…
Apart from the fact that it stretches the Turing analogy beyond comprehension or recognition, how about we look at cultural appropriation in the service of capitalism as, you know, a political and economic act of violence, and maybe act accordingly by normalizing accreditation and compensation when necessary?
“I’m not really sure what this means for black people. I also don’t have any real suggestions, aside from maybe that we should consider abandoning rap music like we did jazz.
Let them have it, along with everything else. Black Twitter included. We lost this battle. Retreat, make something new, and try again.”
Imagine you and your friends come up with a playground game like hopscotch or something, but then this other group sees you doing it and decides to play it too, and then charge people to play it.
The response isn’t “well, fuck games.” It’s “Um, we came up with this, so either pay me or at least let people know we came up with it.”
I mean….
That doesn’t even make sense.
I mean I get it. It’s the internet., but FFS, even the premise that the current form of cultural appropriation is different from Joel Chandler Harris or Al Johnson or Elvis is ahistorical and, frankly, insulting.
*burns incense and recites incantation to the old gods and the new*
This.
That bit about abandoning rap because white people have invaded it? It is terrible on so many levels. It skeeves me out so much how many musical genres were created by black people and then appropriated by white people.
What do you think the next one will be? This is something I seriously ponder!!
I haven’t the slightest clue. I like music but I have to have new songs fed to me–left to my own devices I mostly listen to stuff I already have. Do you have any ideas?
What the heck people, I wrote that Night Vale post like a year ago. I mean, glad everyone’s having fun with it, just like…why now?
I think because Night Vale is in the news bc of Dashcon? I had not read the post until it resurfaced in the wake of that, personally!
Hm, maybe. That Night Vale post did recently get picked up by someone on MetaFilter but I think that was slightly before DashCon. The internet works in mysterious ways.
“Maybe, in 20 years or so, the idea that a kid wouldn’t want to know his biological parent will be outmoded, and we’ll accept that having a relationship with both of them is worthwhile for kids’ psychological development and happiness.”
Did anyone else get weirded out by this? I kind of thought the point of that article was to say that Patric does not automatically get a claim to parenthood, and then they throw in this weird both-parents-are-necessary speculation at the end. Or am I reading this wrong?
I once had a male friend offer unsolicited to be my future sperm donor, and ever since I have sort of seriously kept it as a consideration in the back of my mind, because he’s a nice guy (not a Nice Guy) and a good friend, and smart and conventionally attractive, but now I don’t know! I DON’T KNOW. Luckily I don’t have to/want to even think about having a kid for quite a few years, so I don’t have to worry about it. But still! I don’t know!
So many of my kin were adopted. Some, as adults, have met their biological parents. Some have not. All agree, however, that biology is bullshit, when it comes to parenting. No true *need* for a kid to meet egg or sperm donors. Very helpful to have medical details, though. But child development is not influenced.
That’s generally my view on these things. I thought that’s the model this article was working from, but then it threw that in at the end, and it surprised me.
Did anyone else love Rebecca Traister’s piece yesterday? I just saw it in Anne Helen Petersen’s twitter feed, and it resonated SO DEEPLY and basically sums up how I feel about men these days.* http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118735/problem…
*#notallmen, duh
Thanks for sharing! I got chills at the end of the piece. So much truth.
I am a huge advocate of never moving one’s body and I fully intend to write a column for Inside Magazine, but holy everloving shit Kacy Catanzaro’s performance is unbelievable and I emailed it to everyone I know.
YOU WIN TODAY, EXERCISE
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-710D_R2CgqI/Uu-3SjueFEI/AAAAAAAAGXM/NiyMw3qOkaM/s1600/Miss+Shields.png">
Poetry, sheer poetry!