From Vice, “The Massive Police Database of Information on Black Torontonians Should Be Destroyed“:
For at least a decade, Toronto’s police force has been quietly building a massive database of the black residents it is supposed to serve. This is not a catalogue of convicted criminals—most black people in the database are not suspected of any crime, at least not in any official sense. Police simply document us in case they ever need to identify us later.
In Toronto we use the term “carding” to describe the police practice of stopping civilians who are not suspected of a crime, and documenting their personal information. For years, this practice was a secret; now we know it exists, and that it has excessively targeted Toronto’s black residents. The retention of information collected in such a dubious and discriminatory manner is an insult to black residents. Yet police plan to not only continue carding, but to keep the information from millions of individual contacts in a database for years to come—just in case.
***
Guys, I feel a particular sort of way about DVS and maybe you don’t and if he’s not for you I don’t think we have to have a Talk about it but just check out the diary he’s leaving at Enormous Eye and see if it doesn’t change your mind:
4:40 pm
I feed my monthlong obsession with the Tom Waits song “Come On Up To The House”. This blood-soaked death march of a song never gets old, and like every time I get a song under my skin, I try to listen to every cover of it i can find until the original writer and performer fades into the background and the song starts feeling like a natural phenomenon that has always existed.
The only cover worth shit is Allison Stone’s, which is beautiful, everyone else misses the point hardbody.
Tom Waits has always been a heavy hitter to me for multiple reasons (oh really? oh you like the popular musician? you like The Beatles too? Whoaaaa. You really not afraid to make the unpopular choice, huh? what about “delicious candy”and getting your dick sucked? You like those too? You’re a real iconoclast you piece of shit. Get the fuck out of my office). OK BUT IF I COULD CONTINUE THO. THANK YOU. ANYWAY.
Besides being the patron saint of sounding like you drink boiled broken glass (I’m like the…Comptroller of that), Tom Waits always reminds me of my brother. When I was real young and my father had just died, I got one of those Big Brothers you always hear about in early 90s sitcoms. For years, every weekend we’d meet up and run around doing semi-wholesome shit while he taught me Philly slang and educated me on old SNL. One year he enrolled us in some kind of talent show. His idea was that we pretend to be washed up lounge singers and perform “Yesterday Is Here,” a Tom Waits banger off “Franks Wild Years”, a concept album Waits recorded under the guise of embodying a young Frank Sinatra. I was maybe 9 or 10 and the inherent comedy of this idea was completely lost on me so I backed out. In retrospect, this is fucking hilarious and I’m wild mad I did that.
I also feel a type of a way that one day I hit this guy up like “uhhh matter fact? I think i’m good on having a brother. I’d like to have weekends instead”. This is the kind of coldhearted you can only be as a child, but I can tell this lowkey shattered him. Whiiiiiiich…iunno man…you’re grown. Kids are idiot monsters. I feel like this is a fairly well known fact? After some time he tried to reach out and reconnect and I ignored him because, again, monsters. As a result, I can’t listen to Tom Waits without coming to terms with one of the 3 and a half human feelings I own.
***
Here is a beautiful stop-motion sand animation of Franz Schubert’s “Erlkönig.” I feel like I have maybe shared this before? But whatever, you are not so AWASH in beautiful sand animations that you can afford to ignore this one, man.
***
I refuse to hear anything other than UNALLOYED EXCITED about this guy who yelled “HEY BUDDY!” to the trucker towing his car away, then driving out of the clamp. No, I don’t care that the link came from Someecards, either. You’re so nit-picky today.
***
Please share your VICTORIOUS TALES OF PROMPOSALS HERE. Or like, something good you did at a dance one time, or tell me some good opera, because I want to listen to some more good opera but I don’t know much about it.
*AHEM* *brushes past your locker* I GOT A PROMPOSAL @sdpowell1 @Nicole_Cliffe
— Mallory Ortberg (@mallelis) March 31, 2015
***
Merryl Tengesdal (that’s Lt. Col. Merryl Tengesdal to you) is the only African-American female pilot to man—or, rather, woman—the U-2 spy plane, a highly complex aircraft that captures that kind of valuable imagery.
LT. COL. MERRYL TENGESDAL, THEN.
***
Awesomely Luvvie is recasting the new remake of The Wiz, so if you can bear to look, go check it out.
***
*deep inhale*
JANNNNEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLE
YOOOOOOGAAAAAAAAAA
BABY BEND OVER
***
“A thousand-year-old medieval remedy for eye infections which was discovered in a manuscript in the British Library has been found to kill the superbug MRSA.
Anglo-Saxon expert Dr Christina Lee, from the School of English, at Nottingham University, recreated the 10th century potion to see if it really worked as an antibacterial remedy. The ‘eyesalve’ recipe calls for two species of Allium (garlic and onion or leek), wine and oxgall (bile from a cow’s stomach). It describes a very specific method of making the topical solution including the use of a brass vessel to brew it, a strainer to purify it and an instruction to leave the mixture for nine days before use.
None of the experts really expected the concoction to work. But when it was tested, microbiologists were amazed to find that not only did the salve clear up styes, but it also tackled the deadly superbug MRSA, which is resistant to many antibiotics.”
Mmm, I feel like you guys must have expected it to work a LITTLE, or else you definitely wouldn’t have mixed up some garlic gloves with cow solution and fling it into brass pots before jamming it into your eye, but if you want to play it off like that, I won’t tell anyone.
Tags: GET OFF MY AREOLA, link roundup, the internet
Do we mean promposals like asking people to prom, or like asking someone to marry you AT prom. Because the latter happened at my prom… I don’t think they ended up getting married, but I also had no friends in highschool so didn’t stay in touch with anyone.
More antidotes that are basically just witchy brews, please and thank you scientists.
Destroying flesh-eating bacteria should definitely get to count as magic.
I did not get asked to my own prom. This is still a sore point for me as I watched my friends get asked to prom with roses and candy and shit and I got NOTHING. I realize this was a decade ago and I am now married and should not care any more but I am an insecure person and so I laugh and laugh every time I see an elaborate prom proposal because it reminds me of the guy at my high school who filled some girl’s locker with roses and she said no and her locker smelled like rotting flowers for the next couple weeks and the guy almost cried.
I asked my gay best friend to prom, 3 years before I knew he was gay. SO THAT WAS AWESOME.
I asked my BFF/person I was secretly in love with, he said no because he had already been asked by the girl who was frighteningly obsessed with him. I then asked a boy I knew from another school (forensics was honestly mostly about meeting cuties from different schools and having my first crush on a girl), who was….fine. We hung out quite a bit, had already made out a little, but then he showed up wearing a Mickey Mouse vest and I just couldn’t with that. He spent the whole night hiding in the bathroom smoking. I still had a pretty good time all dressed up with my friends, and later I was able to prank BFF (who I was no longer secretly in love with) by giving him a picture frame with a photo of him and his date at prom (there was a nice picture of us together underneath).
I didn’t plan on going until I found out that my grandmother, who did not understand me well as a teen, had purchased me an expensive dress for the occasion. I awkwardly asked a platonic dude friend who was free because his girlfriend was taking her gay best friend to a different school’s prom on the same night, or something. I stayed at prom for about an hour before we all retired to another friend’s basement, where I promptly spilled Franzia on my expensive dress.
I never got asked to prom either. I had to call three different people all friends from other schools until someone would go with me.
And then I got runner-up for Prom Queen, so SUCK IT dudes who wouldn’t ask me out.
Oh, the smell of rotting flowers!!
I turned down my current husband’s prom invitation to go with some other guy — he ended up having a fun filled “non prom” party, involving trampolines, campfires and general silliness that people still talk about.
I went to the prom and it was so dull, and only saved by playing classic Zelda at the end of the night.
Think I’m gonna still be regretting this decision when I’m 80.
(Still doing better than my father-in-law, former prom king, who still brings up a decade later how he’s disappointed that his son missed his prom)
My junior year, my friend group begged me to invite my ex-boyf to our Jr-Sr Banquet. I mean, we got along and were friends, but this was clearly just a cheap way of saying “hey you’re the only single one in our group and we want our not-at-this-school friend to come hang out with us.” So he came and it was fine and the entertainment that night was a Praise & Worship singer (!!) but my dress was gorgeous and was the color of the eyes of the guy I was truly ~*~in love with~*~ (who also didn’t go to our school, and did not attend the event).
TL;DR I had to ask my ex to prom/”banquet.” Everything was fine but totally meh. We ended up throwing an alternate party the next year to avoid the Praise & Worship singer, who was invited back for some bizarre reason.
I did not get asked to prom or go to prom at all, partially because I did not want to go, partially because I knew I wouldn’t be asked, and partially because I knew I could not afford a dress/hair/makeup. Junior year my best friend and I spent the night doing pre-calculus homework and watching anime. Senior year she had a boyfriend who cared about prom (and who also stepped on our ritual of seeing Harry Potter movies together the first weekend of release, BETRAYAL), so I made a big fuss about how prom was stupid and signed up for that Saturday’s night shift at the bookstore. My coworker at the bookstore invited me to afterprom, which I did not accept both out of principle and because I didn’t like him very much.
I went stag to my prom in a dress that was too big for me from Catherine’s because I couldn’t find a dress that fit me in a regular store. I was miserable at the prom but went armed with a grim determination to “not wonder what I’d missed out on.” Still glad I went.
Admire you for that! I wanted to do that so much but I couldn’t. I ended up moping on the couch and eating gummi bears.
Still a good time!
So uh. . .what the hell, Trevor Noah? http://time.com/3764913/trevor-noah-twitter-backl…
I’m a little disturbed by how quickly people are jumping to defend this guy. I didn’t know much about him before he got picked to take over the Daily Show, but a quick glance at his twitter shows him to be a horrible sexist douchebro with a side of anti-semitism. And his response is ridiculous, as I doubt he has “evolved” much since March 15th when he tweeted “How horrible someone leaked nude photos again now where is the link exactly?”
I’m just commenting to also say what the hell? I wanted to like him, I really did, I watched his stand up and tried to get to know him but COME ON.
ETA: did no one at Comedy Central think to Google him before the announcement? Or did they think that those of us who love Jon Stewart in part for his belief that women and Jewish people are…people would just ignore this?
Even people who are rightly offended are saying that he ‘seems progressive in most ways but has said offensive things’. Where is the evidence that he’s in any way progressive? The Daily Show is scripted, just because he has said progressive things on it in the past doesn’t mean he’s in any way a progressive person. Ew.
he ‘seems progressive in most ways but has said offensive things’
He hasn’t just been on TDS, show…he’s done a hell of a lot of stand-up and hosted his own show before. Those referring to him as “progressive” are probably referring to that body of work. (I’ve only watched a few YouTube vids so I’m not arguing he is or isn’t, myself.)
I dunno, I’ve only seen his twitter feed and all I’ve seen is a lot of juvenile shit with some sexism thrown in. I kinda think people are just assuming he’s progressive because the Daily Show is and how could they not pick a progressive for the Daily Show. I also get the impression that Comedy Central made this pick, not Jon Stewart (though he may have had input, who knows). And Comedy Central also features gems like Daniel Tosh, so I’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt that they were that thoughtful about this choice.
If you’ve just seen his Twitter feed, that’s an awfully narrow view of him. Even one of his stand-up videos has more of his words than, like, a hundred tweets!
Lol, I do not believe CC made the choice over Jon’s head. No way. Jon has enough power over the show he’s created over 16 years to choose the successor. But that’s just my personal conviction, I have nothing to back it up.
Also, I’ve listened to TDS podcast ep introducing Trevor Noah back in January, and he mentioned then that Jon personally called him a year or two ago to invite him onto the show (and Trevor said no because he had stand-up bookings). Then they kept in touch until it worked out, schedule-wise. This isn’t a new acquaintance.
I mean. . .I’m fat. And Jewish. If someone makes a series of horrible offensive jokes that are directly targeted at me, I don’t think I can be accused of having “an awfully narrow view of him”. I don’t care where he made the jokes, I care whether he apologizes (he hasn’t) and stops doing it (the last fat “joke” he made was on February 8th). Why should I look through more of his history to see if he’s been less shitty and offensive in other venues?
I didn’t mean to imply you have a responsibility to look at more of his work — of course not. He made those tweets, so that’s opened him up to be judged by them alone.
I’m just. . .really unclear on what point you’re trying to make here. Like you seem to be certain that he must be a better person than all of these things demonstrate him to be, but without any evidence. I’m not arguing that a person can do shitty things and not be a shitty person forever, but that person has to do something to suggest that he’s changed, yknow? I just can’t see any reason whatsoever to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.
Because I’ve looked at more than his twitter feed and liked what I saw other places. 🙂 But I know I’ve argued too long and am withdrawing. Didn’t mean to tell anyone they’re wrong in how they’ve responded.
But like. . .did you see anything that suggests he doesn’t think it’s funny to make fun of fat people, or say shitty things about Jews? I don’t doubt that he’s maybe funny off of Twitter, but being funny isn’t enough if he’s also a sexist anti-semite. You are still implying here that you know something about him I don’t, but have not shared what it is.
If you’ve just seen his Twitter feed, that’s an awfully narrow view of him.
But like….how so? He SAID those things. The length of the message doesn’t matter. I’m not really clear on why you are so intent on defending this guy who has made jokes that people here are saying they found personally hurtful. Your words are really coming across very much like, well, like all the other defenders of public figures who say objectionable things. It’s practically scripted. Maybe you could give some thought to why you are defending this guy so much to people who have said his words hurt them.
I’ll repeat what I just said to paddlepickle: yes, it is valid to judge him by the tweets, since he chose to post them. I hope this isn’t contradictory, but I also think Twitter is a shitty way to judge anyone as a complete person, and I kinda hate the whole medium for this reason: it encourages you to publish fleeting thoughts and bad jokes that you really don’t think through and don’t mean to come represent you years for now, but GUESS WHAT, now they do. (Yes I know now he was posting garbage this year too, I’m complaining about it in a wider scope.)
It was not my purpose to come in here to defend Trevor Noah’s honor. I realize I’ve come off as the awful sort of fangirl, and I’m really not — my excitement over his taking over TDS has also been dampened and I’m going to be eyeing him more warily from now on. My motivation in posting way too many comments this morning is rather that I dislike the attitude I sometimes see online that if someone says problematic things, they’re immediately worthless. What I dislike is summed up in a comment above, asking if no one googled him before giving him the job — like his Twitter feed outweighs face-to-face conversations and everything else he’s done professionally, come on.
It was never my aim to tell people they shouldn’t be offended or shouldn’t dislike him based on what he’s said on Twitter. But you’re right that I have added more than my two cents and I need to peace out at this point.
I don’t think people are saying anyone is worthless — I think they are saying that they expect more from their ostensible allies than sexism, fat hate, and anti-semitism. They are saying that when you are inviting someone to take over one of the few very popular and very publicly progressive television programs out there, yeah, maybe you should have googled him to be sure that nothing he’s said publicly is offensive or bigoted in ways that don’t align with the image you are trying to project. And I mean, it’s pretty easy to not post bigoted stuff online with your real name where people can see you. I don’t. I never have. Because I give a shit about not harming marginalized people.
I think paddlepickle, and I, and others are frustrated with your defense of him not because we think he is irredeemable, but because we had had literally this exact same conversation about every single fucking famous person who says something bigoted and hateful. Like I said, you could be reading off a script. I didn’t expect to have to have that conversation here in comments at The Toast.
And I’ll reiterate what paddlepickle said:
I don’t doubt that he’s maybe funny off of Twitter, but being funny isn’t enough if he’s also a sexist anti-semite. You are still implying here that you know something about him I don’t, but have not shared what it is.
All of this, and also like: Yes, Twitter can be a shitty medium in that one ill-advised thing you say can travel far and wide and one ill-advised thing should not ruin a person’s life. But this is a pattern, and a continuing one. What’s happening here is less “good guy makes a mistake and his life is ruined” and more “man makes continual sexist and anti semitic comments throughout course of life, continues to be wildly successful”.
If your “fleeting thoughts” are anti-semitic or sexist…then you’re actually just anti-semitic and sexist. There’s really no mitigating circumstances here. I mean, have you ever had to put any thought into self-censoring on social media in case you just accidentally make an off-the-cuff racist remark? Repeatedly? Me either.
I think they probably talked to him in person, as Jon did, as well as watching his previous shows and stand-up comedy, and they probably put more weight on that than a few tweets. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable way to judge someone.
Yeah, the tweets suck, but I’m more interested in what he does going forward.
Also I am reminded of the time in 2008 when Biden called Obama the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” which was so fucked up, but Obama still picked him as VP because he saw there was value and a real heart in him (like for women and trans issues) despite what came out of his mouth.
Yes, we should absolutely call people out when they say awful shit, but I don’t think it disqualifies them from ever doing good again (or the opportunity to try). I trust Jon’s judgment here. Think of what he’s put into his show over 16 years — do you think he’d toss it off to someone on a whim, without getting to know them?
Yes, we should absolutely call people out when they say awful shit, but I don’t think it disqualifies them from ever doing good again (or the opportunity to try).
Well sure but it also doesn’t qualify them for being the host of a notably progressive television show, or disqualify people from reading things he says and making up their own mind.
Absolutely! I have no issue with anyone feeling soured on him at this point. Everyone should make up their own mind over what weight this has with them.
And let’s not forget the fact that he finds fat jokes to be hi-fucking-larious. I was all Team Not-Another-White-Man, but I am now exceptionally wary.
Yup. And there’s also the fact that even his inoffensive jokes are about as funny as the ones you hear from middle school boys.
And you know, if other people are still interested in watching him on TV or seeing his stand-up, fine. He’s not violating human rights. But this “you can’t judge him by a couple Twitter jokes” bullshit that’s going around is so fucking stupid it’s making my brain bleed. Of course I fucking can. He put words to his name, so I’m allowed to use those words to decide if I like him as a comedian, and I don’t. I don’t owe him shit. He made a shitty, mean-spirited, unfunny joke at my expense and I’m allowed to decide that I don’t have to subject myself to that, like a fucking adult.
YES. And also his description of them as “jokes that didn’t land” is infuriating. They landed, exactly where they should have landed, in the realm of “horrible, misogynistic crap”.
YES exactly. Well-stated!
Someone brought this up in yesterday’s roundup, and I agree with what one of the articles said:
I don’t think that this proves Noah is a misogynistic. I think four sexist, gross Tweets from three or four years ago shouldn’t overshadow the rest of his career. And I think that we can learn a good deal about Noah once his inevitable apology is released. But I also understand why lots of female fans of The Daily Show might have felt like we just lost something.
It also makes me question what exactly we’re expecting from the new Daily Show host. It’s not exactly like the the same evaluation we’d give a dating partner, you know? I want him to do good work on The Daily Show and I want him to do a self-analysis on those tweets and learn from them. I’m not expecting a blemish-free past. Because yeah, like a lot of guys in his 20s, he had an immature streak and made some unwise jokes/acted like garbage sometimes. I don’t think it’s indicative of his fundamental character and entire future potential.
I would agree if he wasn’t still tweeting sexist garbage as of two weeks ago. And he has already issued a response that is petty and includes no apology whatsoever. I mentioned the shitty joke about the leaked nudes above. . .and the most recent shitty fat joke that people are calling out is from about a year ago. This is not something that happened in his past, this is who he is now.
February 8th: “That dress made Katy Perry look like she has a baby in her stomach.”
(sorry I’m just still looking through his tweets not trying to be aggressive with my point).
Fair points in both your comments.
It’s okay, I hadn’t seen those. I am commenting a lot myself here. 😛
That’s… not even a joke. Also kind of shows a lack of understanding of female anatomy.
I agree it’s not at all funny, but I am pretty damn sure he said “stomach” because he is a comedian being ridiculous, not because he lacks knowledge of wombs. He’s not exactly dumb, he speaks six languages.
(I realize I am coming off as a fangirl, which I’m not. I am also disappointed and feeling more wary of what he’s going to bring.)
Heh, I know. I’m just one of those annoying pedantic people who’ll correct people who say “vagina” when they mean “vulva”.
Also, if he’d clarified in that tweet that he meant she looked like she’d swallowed a baby whole, that’d actually have made it a joke 🙂
Point!
On the other hand (went scrolling), this one’s pretty funny: https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/57099583072…
(As an aside, seeing in the replies how many people think Winter Soldier invented that trope made me feel very very old)
I don’t know how Trevor Noah identifies, but his mom is Jewish. Especially since black Jews are often erased, I think it’s important to remember that these jokes may be coming from an in-group place, which you can still find problematic (I still have a problem with the one about Jewish girls not going down easy, personally). Also, anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, and as someone who’s as Jewish as they come I think his tweet about Israel is hard hitting in a good way.
I have a problem with the jokes either way, though I mention downthread that I also think the Israel one is OK. I knew that his mom is half-Jewish, but it really doesn’t seem like he IDs as Jewish.
“Noah has also said his mother’s half Jewish, and Jon Stewart often jokes about his own Jewish heritage on “The Daily Show.” And it seems in popular culture we’ve accepted this idea that people who are part of a minority group can make fun of that group in ways that outsiders can’t. But it also doesn’t seem that Trevor Noah has publicly identified much with being Jewish, and there’s nothing in these controversial tweets that indicates he’s making fun of himself or sees himself as part of Jewish culture.”
That’s how I feel about it. There’s none of the ‘we love bagels and nagging!’ tone to these jokes. They’re all “LOL Jews” and while I agree that it’s important to acknowledge the erasure of black Jews, if you’re going to make in-group jokes you need to make sure it’s publicly known that you are part of the in group. I wouldn’t assume that a white guy making these jokes was Jewish just because he maybe looked it, he would have to say it.
Fair points, for sure, and I don’t know a lot about his personal relationship to his Jewish heritage. If his mom is Jewish and South African, it’s possible that bagels and nagging aren’t her culture, you know? To me the beats by dreidel joke could well be an insider type joke — I could imagine making that joke, personally. Maybe I just suck? Maybe I so rarely run into anti-semites that it’s hard for me to see even when it’s right under my nose? I don’t know.
Ha, it definitely doesn’t mean you suck. These jokes would definitely be less offensive as in jokes, but it’s his responsibility to make sure it’s widely known that he’s Jewish if he wants to make jokes about Jews. It doesn’t matter whether it’s about the bagels and nagging, it’s about not referring to a “jewish kid” or “jewish chicks” without specifying that he’s also Jewish.
And also, I think it’s natural to miss anti-semitism sometimes because it is so rare. It’s happened to me, because its never something I think about, but there have been enough times when I’ve heard random crap about “The Jews own their own banks and control the media industry!” that I’m not willing to let it slide.
THANK YOU for saying that anti-Zionism =/= anti-semitism.
Yeah, I’m finding it really weird that the Israel-related stuff is getting lumped in with the anti-Semitic things (which are really unpleasant – definitely not defending those) – going to a pro-Palestine protest does not mean you’re anti-Semitic, and is not in and of itself a bad thing.
Yesssssss, 100%.
I am 100% with you that anti-zionism is not anti-semitism, and that these are getting lumped in because pro-Israel American Jews love to lump those things together.
That said, over half of the truly anti-semitic comments I have heard in my life have been in the context of Israel/Palestine– not like, I was offended by criticism of Israel, like they said that Jews are greedy land-grabbers who secretly control the world and the Holocaust didn’t happen. It’s why I’m not actively involved in organizing around the issue even though I’m passionately anti-occupation– I don’t see nearly enough people in the pro-Palestine movement questioning or countering those people. That is to say, the Israel joke on its own is not offensive, but knowing he has said all these other anti-semitic things makes me WAY less interested in what he has to say about Israel or any other world events. The joke isn’t offensive on its own but its not totally unrelated, either.
That makes a lot of sense, and I apologise for any implication on my part that anti-semitism of any sort is okay or excusable – it’s absolutely not. I suspect the reason I see anti-semitism and anti-Zionism as separate things is that where I’m from (the UK), being esentially pro-Palestine seems to be the majority view, and wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, whereas overt anti-semitism is not something I’ve seen a lot of (it exists, sadly, but I haven’t encountered it particularly) – even if someone was in favour of the first position, I’d be horrified if they also demonstrated the second. And you’re completely right that considering the context of the other things he’s said makes the stuff he says about Israel more uncomfortable. Thank you for your patience!
No worries, I didn’t think you were saying that! My initial reaction was more similar to yours, that the Israel joke was OK while the rest are not. But then I thought more about the specific context and that he is going to be responsible for reporting and giving opinions on world events so I saw the things are more related.
It actually bothers me more? I have heard these kinds of jokes (Jewish girls are easy, Jewish girls are frigid, Jewish girls are golddiggers, Jewish women are loud and ugly and overbearing…) from Jewish men my whole life. Not only do these jokes hurt when they come from the men in my community, but when they then take these jokes to the wider community to deflect antisemitism to Jewish women, it’s really not ok. As upset as I am that he made these jokes, I’m more upset that the Daily Show (a show which has had many male Jewish correspondents and no Jewish women) just brushed it aside. I don’t care about the Israel joke, but the Holocaust and antisemtic misogyny jokes aren’t ok. And none of the other sexist jokes are ok either.
Wow, really? I didn’t even know those were stereotypes, to be honest. I didn’t grow up around a lot of Jewish men and I guess I’ve never heard “Jewish girls are frigid” before. Thanks for the context.
How does anti-Zionism factor into jokes about running over Jewish kids with a car? And no, being a quarter Jewish does not make that okay.
I get that you can be anti-Israel without hating Jews, but I’m sick of it being brought up when remarks are just plain anti-semitic and have nothing to do with Israel.
There was another joke– something about “South Africans know how to recycle like Israel knows how to be peaceful”– that people are calling anti-semitic along with the rest of them. That joke is still pretty stupid but not actually anti-semitic, in my opinion.
I think they expected the solution to have like, some mild antibacterial properties, but not that it would fucking destroy MRSA.
I LOVE that the lead scientist is named Freya and also that they had to get someone to translate the Anglo-Saxon runes. Whose major is useless now?
WHOSE MAJOR IS USELESS NOW????? *evil cackle*
ftfy
HWÆR IS ÐIN GOD NU???
I could cry with joy at the thought of a witches brew cure for MRSA, because I had one last summer and holy fuck, what a nightmare.
Composer Dame Ethel Smythe, known for her intense and unconventional friendships with other women had the worst case of opening night nerves ever with her opera The Wreckers . She broke into the opera house, stole the orchestra scores and fled the country.
It’s an opera about the grand British tradition of shipwrecking.
A quote from Dame Ethel’s Wikipedia page: ” At age 71 she fell in love with writer Virginia Woolf, who, both alarmed and amused, said it was “like being caught by a giant crab”, but the two became friends.”
That…is amazing.
I kind of wanted to go to prom my junior year because I had a bunch of friends who were seniors, but mainly I really wanted to wear my mom’s purple, glittery leopard print cocktail dress from the 80’s. I didn’t have a date, so one of my friends ended up setting me up with one of her boyfriend’s friends who was 5 years older than me. We went out on a double date beforehand to make sure we could get along (we ate tapas and saw Spiderman, and he paid for everything), and then went out for prom. Again, he paid for everything, for which I thanked him, and then we parted ways and I never saw or spoke to him ever again.
That sounds like the best dress ever. Do you have pictures you wouldn’t mind sharing?
I’m pretty sure there are pictures at my parents’ house, which I’ll try to get my hands on, but right now I don’t have any. It was glorious, though. It was strapless, and fit like a corset down to the hips, at which point it exploded into layers of ruffles down to the knees.
Behold! I regret this is the best picture I have. I was holding the wrap closed in literally every picture. 🙁
Sounds like the best prom date ever!
Desmond Cole has done so much great work. Here is more of his writing on carding in Toronto from this week in Torontoist: http://torontoist.com/2015/03/police-chiefs-cardi…
And here is an interview he did with Metro Morning on CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/episodes/2015/03/3…
Here’s hoping our police board rejects this new policy at their meeting tomorrow.
Hi Jane. Carding makes me so angry, and also now scared.
Hi!
I bet it does. It is so beyond appalling.
I was a super awkward kid in HS so I hated the idea of dancing in public in front of my peers, BUT my friends hassled me a lot about junior prom so to put them off I said I would go to senior prom. I went with a friend who had been turned down by her crush, and at this point I was 1. tired of being in the conservative South 2. so, so resentful of traditional femininity, SO I wore a suit. I agonized over it a little bit because despite hating wearing dresses I didn’t want to be such an obvious target, but I thought “ok this one girl wore a suit last year. Yeah, so she had a guy as her date but whatever.” It’s not a great story after that, really. I was the only girl wearing a suit and I think people were weirded out, I didn’t get up and dance, and I was stressed about being so noticeably different. I’m still glad I did it though because hopefully someone else felt better because I’d worn a suit.
Other good story: My mom and I were buying the corsage for my friend, and my mom proudly stated that I was going to prom. The cashier asked “oh, what color is your dress?” just to be polite, and just as I was about to mumble “black” my mom said “OH NO, SHE’S WEARING A SUIT. THE CORSAGE IS FOR HER GIRLFRIEND” and yes, my mom was really good at embarrassing me in public.
I love that your mom was supportive in such a mom-like way.
I went to my high school prom with a sophomore from my French class because she was going to drop out of school before her senior year and otherwise wouldn’t get to go.
The prom was in a hotel banquet hall. It was fine, I guess. I’m not really sure what proms are for.
I don’t think promposals were a thing at my high school, which is probably for the best, because many of my female friends who went to prom asked their platonic dude friends, and later reported a high incidence of said dudes misunderstanding that they had been invited to provide sexual services. I can only imagine that the peer pressure would have been amplified if one of them had presented the other with a ritual gift and posterboard declaration.
I didn’t go, and do not regret this at all. My dad had just passed away that spring, I was very tired and very sad, and I skipped a lot of the senior year events. But… it got weird. When my teachers realized I hadn’t bought a prom ticket, they started to take me into the hallway during class and quietly tried to talk me into going. My history teacher offered to sneak me into prom for free. The principal asked me if someone at the school had offended me. I know they meant well, and in retrospect I appreciate that my overworked public high school teachers took such a proactive interest in one kid’s life, but the overall experience made me feel very exposed and all the more eager to finish out the year as quickly and invisibly as possible.
So that was my promposal, I guess?
Ugh, platonic male friends, being invited to go to a dance with a girl friend is not a declaration of love/lust! I had the same problem with my homecoming date. I asked a platonic male friend who I knew from church to go with me, and then he was surly all night because I didn’t want to slow dance with him and said no to a date the next day and we all went bowling afterward instead of making out. I asked you to go as a friend! That is how you become an ex-friend.
Yes I had this problem too! To make matters worse, the platonic male friend I went with actually had a girlfriend, who was also sort of a friend of mine! He was a senior, she was a sophomore, and it was my junior prom.
And then the whole thing spiraled into the male friend crying in my living room that summer about whether he should date me or the girlfriend, while I sat there like “dude I don’t WANT to date you. date your damn girlfriend.”
Also, a doctor or a biochemist could probably provide better insight to this than I can, but is it really weird that a potion made of ox bile and wine would kill MSRA? The problem with MSRA is that it’s antibiotic-resistant, not that it’s, like, acid or bleach or alcohol resistant. Most diseases are pretty susceptible to getting burned up by acids or whatever, the problem is that if you’ve got a bacterial infection in your bloodstream, we can’t fill your blood up with ox bile in order to cure it.
(I feel like this is a similar problem to when people discovered that bleach could kill HIV. Which, yeah, that’s fine if the HIV is lying around somewhere, but the problem with bleach is that it would kill whoever we filled up with it, too.)
Thank you! There are so many findings in cancer research that are this all over again–we can kill cancer cells in a dish with this toxic compound! No shit! Approximately everything can kill cells in a dish. The tough part is finding something that can kill cells in a person, while not killing the person. Chemo barely passes the second requirement.
“so what is chemotherapy, anyway?”
“basically, we fill your body with poison and hope that the cancer dies before you do.”
“does that work?”
“sometimes?”
Thank you both! I am endlessly maddened by the number of people posting articles about inconclusive petri dish or animal testing results as if we’ve found the cure for some disease or condition. Every time some test of a new potentially helpful treatment for Alzheimer’s disease is talked about, 30 people post it to me on Facebook like, “Look! They found a cure!” and as much as I love that it gives people hope, it’s also misleading and makes people think the fight is far closer to over than it really is.
Sorry, that may have gone partially off track, but that reaction has been brewing on a back-burner for a week or two.
Yeah, it’s garbage. I mean, it’s important that this research is being done (baby steps!) but university PR departments and mainstream publications need to stop overselling this shit.
Biochemist here, and I’m super curious too. I keep seeing references to oxgall as being “bile from a cow’s stomach”, which is misleading terminology – if they used bile, it’s from the gallbladder, which opens into the small intestine not the stomach. Maybe one of the lipid-based substances in bile undergoes some sort modification during the brewing process? Some skin lipids are known to have antimicrobial properties so it’s not unheard of.
If, on the other hand, they’re using material from the cow’s stomach, it could be a bunch of things because the ruminant stomach is a veritable factory of wacky awesome bacteria and the competitive substances they could be secreting.
Yeah, and if it’s from the cow’s stomach-stomach, isn’t a big component of it hydrochloric acid anyway?
Eh, the pH is different in the four different compartments of the ruminant stomach. Not all of them are strongly acidic the way our stomachs are.
Oh, man! Bacitracin! Bacitracin is produced by bacteria in cow’s stomachs!
Man, you know guys. Hmf.
I’m really annoyed they didn’t publish the actual recipe anywhere I can see it because the whole thing seems fascinating and from the way they wrote it I have no idea what interacted to produce what in that witchbrew
And you just know that if it works all that shit from some medieval peasant’s backyard that a barber-surgeon worked out a thousand years ago is gonna get put in a pill and called Curatin® for $500 a dose
I’d rather see the cows file for the patent rights on the witchy brew.
But fortunately, the recipe will still be in the public domain.
I’m very unclear from the articles I read on this if they actually applied it to tissue/animals/eyes. There was some statement about it clearing up styes, which makes me think they did, but personally I would not care to have fermented leeks in the eye. Also, science requires better than “Oh yeah, it totally makes eyes better! Also bacteria!” Hmph.
I found the original article from the University of Nottingham (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2015/march/ancientbiotics—a-medieval-remedy-for-modern-day-superbugs.aspx), and it states that “[t]he remedy was tested on cultures of the commonly found and hard to treat bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus, in both synthetic wounds and in infected wounds in mice.” So it sounds like they did animal testing. I’m a little disappointed there’s no published paper though, the university’s descriptions are sort of vague.
Five internet points for you! Their website seems overwhelmed right now though.
And testing on mouse wounds is way better than on bugs in a dish, so I might be willing to give this a little credence. Not as much as a paper with stats and peer review, but not none either.
It did say that it worked to clear styes and I know people can get skin MRSA infections so maybe that’s what they are thinking of? Can any bio types clarify?
I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I am willing to bet twenty bucks they didn’t try some 11th century medieval cow-goop remedy on someone with an actual MSRA infection. If they tested it on MSRA, it had to have been in a petri dish.
Hahahahahahahah! True. Or on animals. Like TessierAshpool3 says above, there really isn’t enough information, I guess. So we will wait and see and hope for witchy brews to cure us all!
Though that is definitely a scene from a movie where the witchy brew also turns you into a werewolf or something, I can 100% imagine that scene.
“What do we do? It’s ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANT.”
“What about this ancient witch brew?”
“But it’s untried! We don’t know the effects–“
“We don’t have time to argue, dammit! A man’s LIFE is at stake!”
WITCHMAN 2: THE REWITCHENING, coming to theaters this Summer.
(In this case it is A Man that gets Enwitchened, because without proper training men cannot fully handle proper witchiness, which is what makes them more likely to become the terrible monster-antagonist of a shitty horror film — not because I consider men to be the default characters in imaginary movie scenarios.)
(I should hope that was obvious, but I am writing this just to make sure.)
Take my money.
For sure, but given the state of medieval medicine and pharmacy, that anything they came up with does much of anything even in a petri dish is a surprise.
Especially since they probably didn’t recite the paternoster while turning to face the 4 cardinal directions and making the sign of the cross.
Promposal: the person I thought I was going to go to prom with dumped me the day before ticket sales, so I had no one to go with. As I was lamenting about the situation to my BFF in our bio class, a (really funny, but terribly unhygenic and somewhat awkward) boy next to us overheard, and had been shot down himself several times, so he asked me and I felt super obliged to say yes.
Not only did his mom have to MAKE HIM SHOWER that day, but this was the first thing he told me when he picked me up that night. Also, rather than splitting the dinner bill, he expected me to pay (which I did, because I didn’t know how to get out of the awkward situation I guess). Once we finally made it to the dance, I ditched him to hang out with aforementioned BFF.
BOYS. EW.
Hahahaha his mom made him shower.
Also also, here is a website called the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows that I saw today and i think is pretty neat:
http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/
My favorite one is this one:
exulansis
n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.
I think you just described my life :_(
Holy crap
That is amazing. O.o
Well, I have a new feed to subscribe to now.
I did not go to senior prom because I was in Germany for a year-long exchange program, but while in Germany I took ballroom dance lessons with my 14-year-old host siblings, and at the end we had a motherfucking COTILLION. I got highlights and wore a dark teal slip dress from H&M and did the fox trot and the cha-cha with sweaty-palmed Teutonic adolescents. When I got tired I sat down and ate some fries and drank a beer. It was… not prom.
That. . .that. . .I think I now have to re-evaluate my life.
I am forty-five.
I want a non-prom like that.
No, it was a million times better! That said, my prom date was my best dude friend (quite gay), and I had an empire waist dress so I could eat extra dessert at dinner.
I refuse to believe that promposals are a real thing. They were invented by the writers of Clone High. Like Snowflake Day!
So officially I got my prom date because I turned to him during a French field trip (we got to watch Persepolis!) and was like, “Hey, Steve, so are we going to prom together or not?” Because we’d been having this year long flirtation that nothing was really coming of, and I figured we may as well make a night of it. And he was like, “WELL YEAH but I was going to ask you!” He ended up surprising me a few weeks later with an apple pie that had “PROM??” carved in the top and had been inexpertly covered in rainbow sprinkles. His explanation was he couldn’t find an undecorated cake at the grocery store on which to sprinkle the promposal. Great guy.
Mostly I helped other people plan and execute excellent prom- and homecomeposals. So many stories. Glad that’s all done and over with but it was good clean fun at the time.
I am too old and too English to have ever gone to a prom, and that is fine with me.
I am to Antipodean for prom and frankly, the thought of it terrifies me.
Oh my gosh, Mallory, I’m a pro opera singer Toastie and I want to give you ALL THE GOOD OPERA. What do you like already? What don’t you like?
I have to say: at some point see the entire “Marriage of Figaro,” it’s all about really intense pre-French Revolution class struggle, the clever servants win, the women make the Count look like an ass, and it’s fucking hilarious and the music is divine. Here is a link to literally the whole thing because I have no impulse control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQGe4dLDM5A
Here is the final trio from Der Rosenkavalier. It’s two women and a drag king singing the most beautiful music, about love being really fucking complicated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnJ4oIBa63Y
Here is THE GREAT DIANA DAMRAU as Queen of the Night, telling her daughter to kill her father, who in all fairness is kind of a cult leader. Come for the amazing German dialogue, stay for the high notes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzFi-7H9TKs
If your idea of a good time is watching a bunch of nuns stylistically executed during the French Revolution (again!), one by one, punctuated by guillotine sounds – and it should be – watch the finale of “Dialogues of the Carmelites.” Also a fascinating, cerebral, Bechdel-test-passing opera. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2ubBODy4N0
Here is a stunning rendition of the first Cinderella/Prince Charming duet from Massenet’s “Cinderella.” Prince Charming is once again a drag queen. You may be sensing a theme in the kind of opera I’m interested in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av8AwaCrEXE
Okay, I have to stop. But there can be so much more where this came from.
As a person who watched and loves Marriage of Figaro but had no idea where to go from there, thank you!! This is what I will listen to while spread-sheeting today. (No pressure, but I would love more suggestions, too!)
MORE OPERA, YOU SAY? TWIST MY ARM
Ok so once upon a time Puccini took like three lines of Dante’s Inferno and wrote a giant opera fanfic about it called Gianni Schicchi (say “Johnny Skeekee”). This is a guy who got put into one of the circles of hell for falsifying a will, and Puccini gave him some GREAT reasons why in the form of an ensemble of greedy relatives. This is especially recommended for people with large, squabbling families. The link is to a full production, again with the lack of impulse control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3QMqW0Vbzk
There was a shoutout to Verdi down below. I’m not the biggest Verdi buff, but he did write a version of Macbeth which is considered a masterpiece. And Layla Gencer sang the shit out of Lady Macbeth’s first aria, where she reads Macbeth’s letter about the witches’ prophecy and then finds out Duncan is coming to stay the night/get murdered. This is big singing, the real deal, a hugely athletic feat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raDegluLr8k
This is a nifty animated film rendition, in English, of Janacek’s opera “The Cunning Little Vixen.” (Originally Czech, but often done in the vernacular.) It’s utterly charming, but the vixen GETS SHOT AT THE END because, I don’t know, circle of life, nature is a rough place. Like the plot, the music is gorgeous with surprisingly deep, melancholy undertones. Here’s part 1 of 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPSiQaujbTY
If you’ve always wondered how Richard Nixon would sound as a baritone singing postmodern deconstructed minimalist musical poetry, I give you John Adams’ “Nixon in China.” This is Nixon’s entrance aria as he steps off the Spirit of ’76: “News has a kind of mystery.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9EzSEFeyoA
And so many people below mentioned “Tosca.” I can’t believe I forgot about it. It’s so fucking good and pulpy and creepy and badass. And this recording with Maria Callas is considered one of the greatest opera recordings ever made, period. Scarpia (evil bad guy working for The Man) is torturing Tosca’s lover (with the Resistance) and will only release him if Tosca lets Scarpia rape her. Not only does Tosca sing one of the greatest arias of all time, she then stabs Scarpia to death with his own steak knife. This is the aria in question: basically it means “I’ve been a good person, so why the fuck is God allowed to treat me this way?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfPBNs2rDP0
I love this comment. I just saw the Marriage of Figaro a week and a half ago in Ottawa and I loved it. I don’t know much about opera (I was there to see a friend sing) so I was surprised at how hilarious it was.
I must see this nun one. COC, let me program you.
Another one we really enjoyed recently was Peter Grimes – my gf (who is a classically trained vocalist, and reviews opera) doesn’t usually like Britten, as we were both disappointed that Ben Heppner wasn’t playing the night we went, so we were surprised by how much we liked it. The story is a bit absurd, but hey, opera – the music was gorgeous.
the COC did recently present Dialogues des Carmélites (2013), and it was starring Adrianne Pieczonka as well.
Yes, I went to that one! It was really well done, just gorgeous singing.
Oh hey, so they did, but my managing editor reviewed it instead of my gf so I didn’t know/hear about it. (You are probably the Johane I know.) I don’t go as her date to the opera as much since July 2012 as it now requires hiring a sitter.
Oh, Peter Grimes. I thought I wasn’t really all that into tenors, or opera in English, or 20th-century opera. And that was the opera that proved me WRONG ON ALL THOSE COUNTS.
Time to listen to the Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes again…
Also, this is probably not the best production/singing of Mozart’s Entfühurung aus dem Serail, but it is a full production done as an episode of Star Trek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyx2geLddfg
I have long been obsessed with that Diana Damrau Die Zauberflöte moment. Also: opera Toasties: my debut novel comes out this summer and the protagonist is a soprano, and there is a LOT OF OPERA LORE in it. Comes out in August but you can pre-order it now! http://adriennecelt.com/book/
I adore all of your selections, but Verdi simply must be included! Since Mallory has a thing (had a thing?) for consumptive-looking women, maybe “La Traviata” (n.b. the heroine will probably neither look nor sound consumptive). And “Aida” is just amazing for both the quality of the music and pure spectacle.
Here is a dark secret of mine: I don’t really appreciate Verdi. (I’m a lyric mezzo, so that’s part of it, but my girlfriend’s a spinto so I have no excuse.) I’ve done/seen Traviata a few times, and I hate to say it but it tends to leave me cold. I also distinctly remember seeing Aida circa age 11 and wishing they would just hurry up and die already.
So since you’re more able to appreciate Verdi, PLEASE post some suggestions!
Fist bump to that. You couldn’t pay me to sit through any Verdi.
I always recommend Die Fledermaus to people who have never gone to the opera/would like to ease into it. Also The Marriage Of Figaro, which has already been mentioned by several other people. Ariadne auf Naxos is also really stellar.
(I’m powerfully fond of Lucia di Lammermoor, personally, but that’s definitely on a different level from, say, Marriage of Figaro.)
The Marriage of Figaro and Der Rosenkavalier are two of my all-time favorites as well!
Let us all gather ’round and listen to ‘Blue’ and think good thoughts for Joni
Seriously, when I heard she went to the hospital last night, I was fully planning to take off from work if it was bad news. I WOULD NOT BE OKAY.
Oh no! I hadn’t heard the news til I saw this comment.
Relevant: http://the-toast.net/2014/02/24/ten-celebrities-g…
We’ve already lost a few from that list i thought we had a deal, G-d
What I don’t understand about Joni’s work is this: How could anybody listen to “Little Green” and not know it was about the child she placed with an adoptive family? How did this remain a secret until 1991?
Okay, rhetorical question. I love her and hope she’s okay.
I went to my first prom with a bunch of girls and my second prom with a gay guy and a girl. we were a fearsome threesome: I had just turned legal age to buy booze (this was back when there was Grade 13 in Ontario – thus also the 2 different proms, I went to a difference school for my Grade 13 so I did Grade 12 prom too) and the guy had a license and a car and the other girl had drug connections.
(We totally should not have been driving.)
My god, that Janelle Monae song is a JAM. I mean, of course it is. But damn.
AMEN.
High school isn’t horrible enough so they had to invent Prom-posals?
My HS BF broke up with me before prom because he was (unknown to me) suddenly dating a close friend of mine and then they went together to the prom. He broke up w me by disappearing off of the planet on my birthday and I never saw him again because of course. (this was quite a feat of disappearing, our town was small, he must have been very stealthy)
I’m still a little touchy about the prom, which I did not attend.
That is REALLY terrible. Like what the fuck, who does that, and no kidding you’re still touchy. I don’t know your situation w/r/t grudges, but I am an EXPERT level grudge-keeper, and I would probably carry that well into my 30s, or until at the bare minimum of bearing my first child, whichever came first.
Urgh, that’s the worst. I had 2 different boys let me know they didn’t want to date me anymore by taking me to a dance (one a 6th grade social, one prom) and then abandoning me at the dance for the person they really wanted to have taken. Prom bothered me a lot more than the social but looking back on it I wish I had gone stag just like every other dance. Every other dance turned out fun.
i feel like that MRSA thing is an april fools joke?
i hate april fools on the internet.
GOD YES. Ugh, I don’t mind real life pranks that have relatively little negative effect (ex. I once switched the sugar and salt so my parents ended up with some real gross tea that morning) but the internet jokes are just annnnooooyyiiiinggg.
maybe I was too quick to judge…. these are all from yesterday aka the day when you could trust what you read
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-inst…
Yep, the news broke yesterday!
I first saw it a few days ago, and it was reported in the Washington Post today, so I think it probably is legit.
It was reported on the BBC on Monday, so I doubt it.
I heard about it on NPR yesterday and the woman they interviewed said specifically that they were doing press in the days before the people involved presented at a conference today because they didn’t want folks to think it was an april fool’s joke!
I didn’t get a promposal, but I did get invited to my own senior prom by a guy who wasn’t invited. He was a sophomore, I was a senior; we had no previous history aside from the fact that he was supposed to be the secretary of our Latin club (I was the president) and he never showed up to meetings. Dude, if you’re going to invite someone to something you can’t go to on your own, make sure she doesn’t have a huge grudge against you for not doing your effing job.
Haha, I had a sophomore ask me (a junior) to the junior/senior prom too! I would have turned him down anyways for other reasons, but I was quite irritated that he asked me to the dance and may have told the story several times with “and HE should have asked ME if I’d ask HIM to the prom! Because otherwise he couldn’t go!”
* The Wiz – Prince is the perfect choice. He’s gonna show up on set and they gon be all “I see you came dressed for shooting.” And he’ll be all: “What do you mean?” Yes, this is just right.
YESSSSSSSSSS
Prom story time! I have zero regrets for never going to prom. At my school there was only senior prom and it started so early in the day that seniors got the day off of school to get ready. Except there was an AP exam that afternoon that couldn’t be rescheduled. Plus my friends decided, instead of all going stag in a group, they would ask each other’s cousin and boys from youth group and then go camping afterword. Which… no. I’m not skipping my chance to test out of college history and paying $$$$ to go to prom and camping with a bunch of dudes I don’t know.
That would have been fine if my mom hadn’t been on prom committee. They had frequent prom committee meetings at our house. And then they found someone to go with me. He was the kind of guy who parents love but gives girls his own age the creeps. In retrospect, a total Nice Guy. When I said I wouldn’t go with him my mom laid into me about how I was a judgmental bitch and I was acting so superior to prom and I was making her look like a fool. And that was when I realized my mom was an asshole. The End.
Dang. That sounds like a pretty upsetting realization, but also a good one to have.
At the time it was upsetting but in retrospect it was all so over the top ridiculous that I just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It definitely sounds like the kind of scene that you would see in a high school romantic comedy and then be like, “Come on, no one’s mom is actually like that.”
Right??? Like, daughter’s education CLEARLY >>>>>>>>> daughter’s prom date. Unless you’re in the Bible Belt, maybe. My mother still argues with me about whether one of my HS BFs cheated on me or not and whether I deserved it or not. (I think I would know better on both accounts, but ok????)
Promposals weren’t really a thing at my HS. I guess my friend was my date. My school had a thing called a ‘grand march’ where everybody comes out in pairs on this fancy stage for parents to take pictures kind of like a weird fashion show. People who had dates walked with their dates, and people like me who didn’t paired up with a friend (and a lot of people actually did this at mine, my sister’s, and brother’s proms).
I think the lack of focus on dates at my school was due to the format of prom (nobody called it prom though, we called it safe grad, b/c no drinking). We used one of the school’s gyms for dancing, and the other had a rented bouncy castle, and those sumo-wrestler suit things. Plus, we could take a bus at 2am to the local pool and go swimming. The whole thing lasted until 5am, and most people actually stayed at the school for the whole thing. Usually someone would host a party a few days later that functioned as the graduation celebration that included drinking/sex etc.
My promposal itself hardly counts: I nervously asked my friend what his prom plans were, he said that he was probably going stag, I said we should go together because it would be fun, we went together and had an excellent platonic prom.
BUT. After college, we both moved to the same large city on the opposite coast of where we grew up, and the first time we hung out, all his housemates said, OH, you were [boy]’s prom date! And then his girlfriend met me and was like, OH, YOU WERE [BOY]’S PROM DATE! And then every time they had a party they introduced me to all the new people as the boy’s prom date, and I kept standing there awkwardly having no idea how to react or how to be like, um, no, really guys, there was YEARS OF ESTABLISHED FRIENDSHIP before that and NO ROMANCE, and being terrified that the girlfriend had completely the wrong idea about us and was somehow weirdly jealous of something that had happened four years before. And it’s fine, it’s totally fine, the girlfriend-now-wife and I are excellent friends now, things are totally okay, but it has been seven years since I moved out here and I still have particularly awkward people at social functions cornering me in private to ask me if I’m jealous of her because people have the WEIRDEST assumptions about the importance of prom.
The moral of this story being, if there are any younger Toasties out there, think well as to who you go to prom with: this could follow you around for the rest of your life. I fully expect to be creaky and old and gray and still occasionally be introduced to people as [boy]’s prom date. Sigh. At least he really was a very nice boy.
That is too weird. People older than college age, who are not from your hometown, harping on prom? (And asking you about jealousy???)
But the real weirdo is the boy, for not just introducing you as his friend. You sure he’s not carrying a torch for you?
My promposal:
Guy in my English class stands up on a desk before class is due to start and says, “Hey, if there’s any girl who doesn’t have a date to prom and wants to go, let’s get tickets together. I’m in the same boat.”
(NB: Going to the prom solo, or with a friend of the same gender, was not allowed. I asked. HETEROROMANCE OR NOTHING, KIDS. Anybody surprised to find out I grew up in Indiana?)
So I said yeah, I’d go. Ne was a nice enough guy (not a Nice Guy, just a decent human being) and though we didn’t know each other very well, hey, whatever, it’s not like we had to be joined at the hip all evening.)
I bought a dress (blue, sparkly, ’90s) and shoes (sparkly platform style, because ’90s) because they were on sale and I couldn’t be bothered to put a lot of effort into something I was just going to because that’s what people do. The next morning I woke up and thought, “Holy shit, why am I even doing this?”
Talked to the guy to back out, returned the dress and shoes, spent the evening of prom in my pajamas doing…something. No regrets. The guy found someone else to go with, and all was well.
Wait, you weren’t allowed to go solo??? That seems terrible. Like really terrible. That’s a really bad rule. I am baffled by this.
C’mon, you can’t have single ladies running around prom like they don’t even need a man. That’s just an invitation to social chaos.
High-five from afar, from another person who went to a high school with the same stupid restriction (no solo attendance, no same-gender date or friend group attendance).
Indiana here too! I feel like we weren’t allowed to go with same-sex friends either, but then again I remember one guy bringing two girls (they were all platonic friends) so maybe I’m wrong. I know you could definitely buy a solo ticket, but it was cheaper to buy them in pairs.
And yeah, I got rejected by the guy I liked and then went with a friend who was a grade older and hadn’t gone to his own prom (we only had junior prom). His girlfriend was a sophomore and therefore couldn’t go either. Turned out to be a poor choice because he secretly had a crush on me and ended up trying to cheat on his girlfriend with me, which mostly just confused me because I hadn’t really realized I mostly liked girls at that point.
WHAT you were actually required to attend in boy-girl couples? For real??
Is this a thing that proms actually do?
My prom wasn’t called prom, it was just the grad dance, but we went as a big lump of friends, some of whom were dating each other and I can’t even imagine the weird of being required to go in couples.
My senior prom was awesome. I had no one to go with, because my friends were all paired off and no one had asked me. So, on a whim, I emailed two guys I knew who had just graduated to see if one of them wanted to go instead. And one did! And we had a blast! And somehow, even though my dress was an unusual color, he managed to find a corsage (I didn’t expect a corsage) that matched it. And my hair kinda looked like Medusa (oh late 90s, early aughts). 10/10, would recommend going with a friend again!
As someone from a non-prom culture (it’s starting to come in, but I don’t think we have a lot of the associations US proms seem to), the whole idea of promposals is bizarre and alarming. Reading comments on this thread has made me want to ask what the issue is with having a “prom date”, anyway – at my Leavers’ Ball we all just … turned up and hung out. What does it mean to have someone “take you”? You’ll both be there anyway, right? So why bother to ask each other to go together?
It is from old-time days where Prom was the beginning of the process of pairing up into the mariages that would define the rest of your lives, and then supplemented by decades of culture centering prom as the success or failure of a protagonist’s goals in a high school rom-com, so that “having a date for prom” is essentially “proving that you have worth as a human being.”
On Valentines Day I did a 90s teen rom-com marathon and our conclusion at the end was that the best ones didn’t have a prom (Clueless!) It was hard enough watching those as a teenager and going “are they REALLY that into prom?”
Even as an American who graduated high school over 10 years ago, promposals are bizarre to me. You just ASKED, there wasn’t any spectacle! You could send an IM or whatever!
But it was definitely expected you would have a date, even if you weren’t a couple or even interested in each other. I don’t recall whether you actually had to buy tickets in pairs or they were just significantly cheaper in pairs than separately, but it was set up to be a couples thing. And then there are all these couple-y traditions like corsages and photos together. So if you had a group of friends who wanted to go together (ie. do dinner & transportation to the venue together), you’d have to pair off for the purposes of all that stuff.
Yeah, it was similar at my school. For previous formal dances, my friends and I had just shown up in a giant clump and had a good time together, and actual dates were reserved for people who were actually trying to start a relationship. For prom, we obediently formed ourselves into pairs and showed up in an even-numbered clump. The difference was not terribly noticeable, but it was definitely expected that we had Official Dates.
Ah – ours (I had a Year 11 Leavers’ Ball, as compulsory education ended at 16 at that point – some people left, and others went to different sixth-form colleges, so it was the last time the whole year group would be together. There was also a Year 13 Leavers’ Ball at the end of sixth form, before university/leaving education) didn’t have any of those couple-based traditions; there was just a sit-down meal and a dance, and people just hung out with friends.
that sounds really nice! It also sounds like more of a “last fun thing at school” whereas prom felt like “oooh, our first formal adult thing?”
lololol high-school prom as a “formal adult thing”
i knoooooow, it was a time of “putting on a dress and going to a halfway decent restaurant was a SUPER big deal.” Now it’s like, whatever, I can call it Fancy Dress Wednesday if I want.
I didn’t go to prom as either a junior or a senior, mostly because I thought I was Too Cool For Prom, but also because a) it would’ve meant convincing my parents that it was okay to stay out late and have fun instead of staying in writing college scholarship essays and b) I didn’t have a date and wasn’t sure going alone to prom was a thing you could actually do without feeling pathetic. In retrospect, I wish I’d gone, if only to dress up fancy and hang out with my friends.
That said, not going to prom meant I got to hear about all the terrible prom shenanigans as a “neutral party” (everyone tells you the best gossip when you say you’re a neutral party), such as the time my best friend went to prom as friends with someone who then confessed his feelings, which my friend did not reciprocate, which led to the guy throwing a glass of soda on the ground and trying to throw himself into the river.
My “promposal”: The guy I was kind-of-sort-of seeing at the time said “Hey, you want to go to prom with me?” And I said “Sure, why not?” And we went and put in an appearance for about an hour, then went back to his house with a bunch of people and watched Spaceballs and played video games.
I would prefer watching Spaceballs to going to prom 10 to 1.
“An unexpected side effect of the medieval eye remedy is the ability to see through illusions of the immortal Good Folk, who unfortunately smite with blindness all those who espy upon their secrets.”
Speaking of not having a date to the dance! My parents really pressured me to go to my junior homecoming because they were worried that I was too withdrawn and wasn’t getting involved in activities. They were right! I lied to them about having a date and about planning to meet a ton of friends there. I got all dressed up, my mom took a bunch of solo pictures of me, and I drove off alone. Instead I went and ate at my favorite restaurant. It was my first time eating at a restaurant by myself and it was actually kind of fun. Certainly more fun than I would have had at homecoming.
This is actually really fabulous. I love the idea of getting dressed up and taking myself out to a nice dinner.
Dang Mallory you might be interested in the Gonzales Cantata, which is a choir piece based on Alberto Gonzales’ testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
http://gonzalescantata.com/
The author of this piece is currently working on an opera about the sex life of a certain Ayn Rand.
DID THEY GET ALAN RICKMAN TO MIX IT???
Also, “Come On Up To The House” is MIGHTY, and everyone needs to play it to themselves now and then when they need to, as Lokar said, Get OVER yourself….lovah.
Has this DVS fellow hung out with Riff Raff? Riff Raff’s got some depth, man. I got really excited when Riff Raff said he was bowling with Katy Perry and we’re basically dating now, everybody. Like, fuck yeah, who doesn’t wanna go bowling with Riff Raff?
Also, the man needs his fettucines. Got it?
My promposal junior year involved a guy I knew from Model UN club who wrote me an invitation in the form of a MUN resolution. As in, “RECOGNIZING that prom is May 5,” “REQUESTS your presence as my date,” “INVITES you to wear a pretty dress.” We were such nerds!! But it was adorable.
That is flat out amazing.
That is super cute! I’m a cold cynic now but I would have had hearts-for-eyes as a Teen.
(That’s a lie, I have mini-hearts-for-eyes right now)
That is adorable and I love it.
I didn’t get asked to prom, so I asked a friend from my YRUU group in a neighboring town. It was a bit awkward, bc he didn’t know anyone, and also my extended friends group split up so that we ended up at a table next to a friend-of-a-friend in a studded leather jacket and a triple-mohawk. He was an okay dude, we’d gone to school together for eight years, but I think my date was a bit intimidated.
We also had the Grand March beforehand, where you literally promenade around the town common with your date while all the parents/excitable townfolk take pictures (all the ppl going stag get left to walk awkwardly at the back). In my town this was mostly an excuse for the teachers to breathalyze you before prom, and search your limos for hidden booze. We then got a police escort to the yacht club so that no one could stop for alcohol on the way. The only person they actually caught drinking was one of the limo drivers…. it was not great.
Other than that it was a lot of fun.
I don’t have any danceposal stories of my own, but my cross-country teammate Mike had a way with the invitations. Here’s how he asked his girlfriend to Homecoming senior year.
She was on the cheerleading squad at ______ High School, the next town over. One day after school, they were practicing pyramids out on the field when a fresh-faced delivery man approached, wheeling a tall cardboard crate before him on a hand truck.
“Delivery for L___?” he called, peering at a clipboard. “Got a delivery here for L___, from a Mike A. Are you L___? Great. Sign here, here, and here. Press hard, please.”
He retreated a short distance, produced a boombox, and started playing some frisky fresh jams. The sides of the box fell away to reveal Mike, dressed in the navy-and-blue cheerleading uniform of our own school.
He flourished a pair of poms, then launched into an energetic routine. His cheer went something like this:
H! O! M! E!
C-O-M!
I-N-G!
Homecoming!
Homecoming!
Go with me! Go with me!
(Please)
Gooooooooooooooooo
With me!
Reader, she went to Homecoming with him.
How did you know I’m teaching Erlkönig in my music history class today?
Update: Students appropriately creeped out. Success. We all preferred Jessye Norman, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8noeFpdfWcQ . The facial expressions! The incredibly distinct voices for each character, even when panicked! Changing from one voice to another in a split second! The psychedelic background!
I went to prom twice and it was pretty much not great both times, but I made up for it completely with the sorority formals I went to in college. My sorority was this small, local sorority with no house and we had SO MUCH FUN. Our yearly formal was a masquerade and we’d go all out decorating fancy masks. One year I made my boyfriend at the time a mask with little satyr horns on it and it was amazing. Another year I made my date a green man inspired mask with leaves going up the handle (which was faux wood from the florist department of Michaels) and I had one that was lilac themed. It was amazing, and I always felt like I was in the bubble dance sequence of the Labyrinth. Masquerades are THE BEST.
I didn’t go to my proms, but I did go to senior prom as a junior with a friend who was a senior. It was fun! I wasn’t really into the whole “prom” thing, so didn’t have high expectations. The car we hired to take us to the country club broke down, and some guy stopped to help us. He and the driver couldn’t get the car to start, so he offered a lift – but only had a truck and I was like, “No way in hell am I getting in a car alone with a strange man, I will wait.” So my date and the driver rode in the bed while I sat in the cab, and the driver (in his 20s) proceeded to tell me that my perfume was intoxicating and that if I ever needed flowers, I should come to the florist’s shop where he worked and ask for him. I was like, “Bro, you know I am going to prom – so you might not know I’m 16, but you sure as hell know I am in high school. Gross.”
I do have an awkward promposal story! That same year, before I agreed to go to prom with my friend, I was at work – waitressing with a bunch of people between 16-22, so there was all that drama that entails with that age group. I was filling a pot of coffee and noticed, like an antelope on the savannah, that all of a sudden, everything was very quiet around me. I looked up to find that the entire kitchen had emptied, except for a kid my age who went to a different high school. He very nervously and awkwardly asked me if I would go to prom with him, and I was like, “Uhhhhh, well, prom’s not really my thing, so no? But thanks for asking and I hope you have fun?” He was very gracious about it and left the room. I stood there feeling weird for a second until I was literally surrounded by people saying, “YOU SAID NO?!” Apparently this poor kid had been telling people that he was going to ask me, so everyone knew but me, and now he was publically humiliated. I felt so bad but he was a little odd, the only other people from his school that I knew also worked with us and I had no faith that they’d be any nicer to me outside of work, and I really wasn’t into prom! But then I said yes to my friend a few weeks later and tried to keep it quiet so the guy’s feelings didn’t get hurt. And when I clocked out the day he asked me, he gave me a red rose that he had bought :-(.
P.S. New Strong Bad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhfHM3jlKnU (yes, really)
One of my favorite operas is Handel’s Alcina. This production is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueMAOcTiu74
The music is wonderful of course. It involves a sorceress living her best life lounging around on an island in a series of small black dresses, enchanting men and turning them into animals or stone when they bore her (this is basically my goal in life). And there is nothing I love more than Alice Coote lounging about insouciantly in disheveled menswear!
Re: opera
I watched the first half of Norma on DVD and didn’t finish it before I had to return it to the library. Let me sum up.
So Norma, she sings a lot, and is a high priestess, and she finds out her man is having an affair with an assistant priestess. Then these two ladies get together and sing about how dudes are the worst, and fuck that motherfucker.
The end.
I don’t plan to watch the rest because I thought the end of Act One was just fine.
Plus, Casta Diva is the most beautiful thing in the world.
Mallory, if you want to go to opera join Bravo! Club, the young person’s auxiliary to the SF Opera. http://sfopera.com/Bravo-Club.aspx Tickets for $35! Tours of the costume shop and wig making area!
Mallory! Mark Adamo’s Little Women. It is in a post-tonal style even though it has some tonal bits, which means it will DELIGHT YOUR EARS if you like post-tonal music.
Also, Little Women.
Listen to this sample: https://youtu.be/ejJGU3QVrag
AMAZING! I needed this in my life!
Are Toastfolk aware of this blog? http://askthepast.blogspot.fr/2014/09/how-to-play… It’s full of advice from ye olde past. Go ahead and read about “how to make dainty sport with a cat” by tying a “Bel” to her “tayle” so that she will “hearing of the Bel gingle” and “run up and down as if she were mad.”
God, children ARE the worst. Agreeing with DVS. I know nothing about that guy, but now I am remembering various horrible things I did as a child and am mortified too.
Prom-posals shouldn’t be a thing. My hot take. I feel old.
Also, I kind of get the going into an experiment expecting it to fail thing. Those are the best experiments. Otherwise, you are not truly performing experiments, but confirming obvious stuff or stuff that’s been done before. IDK. I had to get out of research because the failure rate was too hard. I wasn’t tough enough to do that much slogging. Oh! Like when Robin Williams played Oliver Sacks and they said, “You can’t get enough zinc out of ground worms to do anything with.” “I know. I proved that.” (Or something close.) Anyway, so proud of those medieval MRSA people. So awesome.
Some good stuff in the comments on that Luvvie post:
Luvvie: if you’re talking about Diana Ross, you’re talking about the film version. The Broadway version (from 1975) is where Phylicia Rashad met her first husband, Victor Willis of The Village People. It’s also the first musical (the second being the original production of Dreamgirls) where Phylicia told of the director and quit on the spot.
How I got asked to my Jr. Prom:
Me: Hey are we going to prom because I bought a dress. It was on sale.
The future Mr. Delperro*: Yeah I guess. Tickets are expensive though. Do I have to wear a tie?
Me: Na, you can wear one of those tuxedo shirts without a tie if you want.
Mr. Delperro: Ok cool. Let’s go bowling afterwards.
I remember this conversation because at the time it seemed extremely un-romantic and a little disappointing to me. Now that I’m a grownup, I realize how nice it is to be able to negotiate these sorts of things, and I want to shake some sense into my 17 year old self.
*We got married 12 years later. We put our prom picture in a display of family pictures at our wedding. Everybody laughed/cooed.
Promposals (I love that auto correct thinks I meant to type “prompts alas”) were not a thing in the 80s in MI.
I went with a friend, as part of a larger group of friends. One of my good friends in this group had decided to wait until after prom to break up with her boyfriend (even her mother told her to wait until after prom). Attending prom with a quarreling, mismatched couple was exactly as much fun as you’d expect it to be – they were a total train wreck, and I’m not sure if they managed to wait until prom ended to break up or not.
My one instance of being asked to a dance via spectacle was for homecoming, not prom, but still probably says a lot about me.
My then-bf and I were in choir class together (that’s actually how we met), where every day we had a bell-ringer music theory exercise on the board to do before class started. He had asked our teacher to include his invitation as the last part of the bell-ringer, but, me being me, I dutifully went question to question, all the while wondering why my teacher kept giving me funny looks. Eventually I saw the question, he pulled chocolate and flowers from under his seat (how didn’t I see those?) and asked me verbally, and I said yes. The class had a good laugh at how long it took me to realize.
We’re actually good friends now, and I still get made fun of for my nerdiness.
Boycotted all high school formals. A++ would make decision again.
My prom story: I wore vintage tails over a bandeau top (actually, just a scarf tied around my boobs), dyed my hair Lucille Ball red, and went to prom with two girlfriends in a Jeep!!! My husband just wore the same tails jacket to his birthday party, and I had fun telling everyone the origin story!
I’m on OkCupid so at this point “yoga” is basically a trigger word. I’m certain Ms. Monae means me no harm though.
I got a little guff for really, really liking the “Topsy Turvy” cast’s renditions of Gilbert & Sullivan. You know, they’re not *real* singers. That could hardly matter to me since The Mikado got imprinted on me by watching “Foul Play” endlessly on TV. I was never going to be a purist. (Shirley Henderson is exactly ten years older than me, I’ve designated her my birthday buddy, she just isn’t quite aware of it)
Shirley Henderson is especially excellent in Topsy Turvy and tops the “who would you want to play you in a movie” list by miles.
Topsy Turvy is excellent and full of good performances! I’m not really familiar with the Mikado otherwise, but Shirley Henderson’s rendition of “The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze” is beautiful.
p.s. BEWARE OF THE DWARF! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKmU8oawtnw
I never got a promposal, but they did happen at my school. A friend of a friend did some promposals involving like, fake tickets tucked under windshields and stuff. I think he asked 3 or 4 girls who all turned him down, and he eventually asked me with zero fanfare since I was his last choice. I posed for photos with him and then ditched him and spent the whole night with my friends.
Don Giovanni is a wonderful revenge tragedy, and I will fight any academic who tries to say the title character is a good guy and Anna is lying about him trying to rape her.
Yup. The only ambiguity there is whether he only tried to rape Anna or if he did and she lies to Don Ottavio (because fucking Don Ottavio is an asshole who is only a decent human being when compared to serial rapist Don Giovanni, and I doubt Donna Anna would have gotten so much sympathy from him if she told him she actually had been raped). Really there are no decent men in the entire opera and all the women need to go form a misandrist colony somewhere. I am an academic, and I definitely made a point of telling my class that having sympathy for Don Giovanni is bullshit (my class is almost entirely freshman frat-bros, so I hope I did some good there). (ETA: This should have been a reply to Mira.)
Here’s an academic fight I’m trying to start on tumblr:
“If Don Giovanni were a good person, he wouldn’t be a baritone.”
Nah, Mozart just preferred baritones. Figaro’s a baritone, too. All of his tenors are incredibly boring (see Don Ottavio, Tamino).
On the other hand, you can tell that you’re not supposed to sympathize with Don Giovanni because he has no arias, and so you never get inside his head. He just continuously uses Leporello as his mouthpiece, even when he’s bragging.
I took a platonic friend from another school to my prom, because all my friends were going. We met up at a park to take photos and he was bleeding from his face because he cut himself shaving, so we walked over to the CVS to buy him bandaids. We were in prom clothes. The bandaids were adjacent to the condoms. I felt enormously self conscious.
Ahh, prom! Senior year I was hooking up with a terrible, terrible teenage dirtbag and had A Lot Of Feelings about it/him, which were, naturally, unrequited. At some point that spring, I dragged him on a multi-day field trip thing with some other schools. A couple weeks later, I heard through the grapevine that he had invited a girl that he had met on that very field trip to go to prom with him, even though she lived several states away. I hesitantly asked him about it and he told me (probably shortly before we made out in a parking lot) that she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. That was a greeeaaaaat one. Really did me good in the self-esteem department!
It was sort of okay, though, because my cousin’s wedding was that very day several hours away and I had to go, so at least I didn’t have to witness Most Beautiful Girl In The World get danced up on by my Not Boyfriend. Thank god high school is over.
That article on the secret database of black Toronto residents was terrible and surprising, though not shocking, I suppose. I mean, I am at a point where I have ceased to be shocked about horrific police practices although they seem to keep coming up with new ways to be awful. It really makes you wonder if this is just a Toronto thing, too, or if police departments all over the country are doing similar things. As it is, they look for trouble in majorly black areas, right?
I have this curious black hole in my memory where prom is concerned. I know I went to my senior prom (with a group of friends, nobody was paired off), I know we went out to eat beforehand and I think we might’ve gone for ice cream afterwards, but that’s about it. I might’ve danced a little bit with the group, but I’m not sure?
Clearly my prom experience was just so insanely boring that my brain couldn’t even be bothered to remember it. A promposal obviously wasn’t part of it because I like to think I would’ve remembered that kind of ridiculousness.
I had typical 80s experiences at dances. I do remember a dudebro (fringe jock guy) tried to pick a fight with my boyfriend at prom. I think he was trying to bully him, but his date was my friend and she put the quietus on that.
I also remember a weird Sadie Hawkins lipsync dance party in the cafeteria and the guy that won ‘sang’ Get Down by G.T.F.O. and many of us were scandalized by it. I’m still disturbed that it was not only allowed but that he wasn’t disqualified.
We also had a teen nightclub in town and they would rent it out on Thursday nights to school clubs and that was, imo, the greatest fun. Nothing in my 20s and going to clubs was as much fun as that place.
OK the thing that really gets me about that MRSA witch potion is that they tested each ingredient separately, and they had no effect. WHAT IS IT ABOUT THEM TOGETHER THAT MAKES IT WORK I WANNA KNOW. /nerd
“but the combination used and brewing methods.”
“leave the mixture for nine days”
I say again, turn to page 394. Or at least have Rickman host the BBC special on the chemistry herein once they work it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy0m7jnyv6U
ZOMG OPERA! I am beyond delighted to see anyone on the internet say anything pleasant about opera. As a former pro and current misanthropic shut-in and stay-at-home parent, it pleases me to have a connection drawn between a life that feels very disjointed from most of what I see and experience around me.
No idea what you like, but the imagery from this scene from John Adams’ Dr. Atomic seemed like something that might intersect your sensibilities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf8Z_ciROM4 The opera is about the Trinity testing in Los Alamos, with libretto by Peter Sellars.
I am so happy you posted this. This is one of my favorite arias of all time, and Sasha Cooke is a dream.
Yeah, it's garbage. I mean, it's important that this research is being done (baby steps!) but university PR departments and mainstream publications need to stop overselling this shit.