You may be deeply tired of hearing about Mad Men, it may not be your thing, but it was MY thing, and Kate Aurthur’s beautiful and epic ranking of every single episode brought me to tears several times. This is part of what she had to say about “The Suitcase,” which is very special:
For some of us, Mad Men is the tandem stories of Don Draper and Peggy Olson, as well as their relationship together. Their ease around each other, their resentments toward each other, the way they can take resentments against other people out on each other — it’s a living thing, their dynamic. “The Suitcase” is a two-hander for Hamm and Olson in which they both get to show their best. They go from laughing at the discoveries of Roger’s recordings for his book (Don: “Ida was a hellcat? Cooper lost his balls? Roger’s writing a book?”) to peacefully sleeping on Don’s couch together.
Don finally does call Stephanie. And after she tells him that yes, Anna is dead (which he knew, because he saw her ghost holding a Samsonite suitcase), he hangs up and sees Peggy looking at him. The look on Moss’ face — wholly sympathetic, and full of anticipatory worry on Don’s behalf — is a Peggy we’ve never seen, and Don knows it’s OK for him to break down in front of her. “Somebody very important to me died,” he says. “Who?” Peggy asks. “The only person in the world who really knew me,” he says. “That’s not true,” Peggy says simply.
And it’s not. There are a few times in Mad Men’s many years when we see a glimmer of the person Don could have been if his early life had been different and — well, if everything else had been different too. In this one night, Peggy and Don scream at each other, eat and drink together, cuddle, and talk about their fathers’ deaths. Don vomits in front of her; Duck humiliates Peggy in front of Don by showing up at the office, revealing their past affair and intending to shit on Roger’s chair. Weiner’s script, Getzinger’s intimate direction, Hamm’s and Moss’ performances — “The Suitcase” is a transformative episode of television.
At the end, when the workday has begun and Peggy looks like hell and Don looks great, he sends her home to shower. She points at his door: “Open or closed?” she asks. “Open,” he says. In Don and Peggy, Mad Men shows a certain sort of man on his way down, and a certain kind of woman on her way up: They meet in the middle, and they hash it all out. And we got to watch them.
This first-person account of the Amtrak crash is chilling and remarkable.
I missed “Chinese Whisperers” at The Awl the first time around (it’s about Orientalism and the Met Ball):
Pastiche is the operative word here. The exhibition was originally named “Chinese Whispers,” after the British parlor game in which a message is whispered around a circle until it is completely distorted. It was renamed, presumably because a sharp-witted event planner realized its potential to ignite a public relations firestorm and propel the intended pastiche into graceless parody. But the best brand manager could hardly have been expected to anticipate the outfits in attendance, which resembled nothing so much as visual rounds of Chinese Whispers gone awry: Chloe Sevigny arrived in an off-the-shoulder grotesquerie of sapphires, chokers, and over-embroidered pagodas; Carolina Kornikova wore a confused Hanfu that looked like it was missing a skirt; and Emma Roberts, who brought a dragon clutch, seemed to have been left off the memo to avoid chopsticks in the hair. Cherry blossoms, cheongams, and dubious headdresses, of course, were on ample display. Amal Clooney braved the mob by fortifying herself with breastplates that evoked the bloodied cuirass of a fashion-forward terracotta warrior. Rihanna looked like she had invaded the closet of an obese, obdurately cold emperor; Sarah Jessica Parker seemed to have raided the same gilded chiffoniers, with only the empress’s flaming headdress in tow.
I can no longer enjoy anything bc of feminism WHAT does this sexy librarian-y description add to a Silk Road piece? pic.twitter.com/Fi4Je0aCdt
— Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) May 17, 2015
THE FAILED COMMUNE ARTICLE THO (can’t breathe bc laughter, I will buy their “tragicomic” memoir instantly as soon as it’s out):
They toyed with creating a gay Scottish clan (Johannes is from Texas and Zephram from Maine, and both have Scottish forebears) or starting their own version of the Radical Faeries, a vaguely pagan, spiritually based queer counterculture movement from the mid-1970s.
They moved to Bethlehem, Pa., that hotbed of Moravian culture (crafts and agriculture, mostly), where Zephram worked as a teacher and Johannes as a reporter. There they learned of a curious local offshoot of a brotherhood started in Europe in the 18th century.
Its leader was the charismatic son of a patron of the Moravian Church, who believed in a spiritual communion through sex and agricultural practice. It was not a wildly popular concept 300 years ago, and contemporary rural Pennsylvania was perhaps not the best place to resurrect its tenets, even with the sex part edited out.
Also, as Johannes pointed out: “Neither one of us is very charismatic. That was a problem.”
Did you read “The Last Day of Her Life”?
At the gathering, Daryl talked about a lawsuit that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed in 1972 against AT&T for sex discrimination in its recruitment practices, in which he and Sandy took the stand together to testify as a team.
“Did I really do that?” Sandy asked, pleased.
He talked about her expert testimony in another lawsuit, filed by the National Organization for Women against The Pittsburgh Press, that went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1973 and made it illegal to categorize classified job listings by gender.
“Did I really do that?” Sandy asked again.
A psychologist ranks the nine worst parents on TV:
1. Scandal: Rowan Pope
Cold-blooded covert-ops expert who treats his daughter Olivia like an enemy combatant.“You’re never really sure whether this man loves his daughter or he doesn’t. You don’t know even if he would kill her or not! If he wouldn’t kill her, that’s an indication that he loves her — but that’s pretty sick, if the only way you can tell that a parent loves you is that he wouldn’t kill you. [Laughs.] The way that role is [written], if it wasn’t his daughter, she’d be dead. I think that it’s trying to indicate that he does have love for her. But even in the most unhealthy, the most abusive, the most damaging relationships, typically, at the core of it, a parent loves their child. It’s not healthy love, but I would just say there’s something that we’ll call love that stops him from killing her. But Olivia never feels it. She never knows that she’s loved. She can never be sure. As bad as Norma Bates is, at least Norman feels it.”
Deleted comment of the day:
The patriarchy hurts men too, especially all of the men who are forced to live on Mars 🙁
I often think this while flying in my capsule.
Along with “Planet Earth is blue, nd there’s nothing I can do…”
I couldn’t like your comment harder if I tried. I clicked he mouse button EXTRA HARD because I like it so much.
There’s an old joke – a Jewish man is sitting on a bench in the park, reading a Yiddish newspaper, shaking his head, furrowing his brow, and otherwise taking in the state of the world. He hears a man behind him laughing and smiling, and looks over to see him reading a Nazi paper. “How can you read this garbage?” he says.
“Look,” the other man says, “I read your paper, all I see is pogroms, death, and our people’s suffering. I read this one, and look – we control the media, we run the banks, we brainwashed the President…”
Anyway, sometimes that’s how I feel about the MRA view of the world. Oh, to live in such a land.
Yeah, that’s how I felt about the MRA whining on Mad Max – Hollywood is controlled by feminists?! YES PLEASE
#notallMartians
Thank you for linking to that Awl piece. I mean, Met Museum, HOW, WHY, HOW did anyone think that was a good idea, it’s not as though YOUR ENTIRE STAFF didn’t attend liberal arts programs in the bleedin’ NINETEEN-NINETIES, surely the topic of appropriation is not brand-new to anyone there
Of course the failed commune dudes met at a “gay consciousness-raising” meeting in the 70s, of course they assumed PA would be super liberal and ran into the redneck Pennsyltuckey reality, of course they forgot to build fences for their fucking farm animals. It’s every beautiful queer hippie stereotype at once.
The problem was, neither one of them was charismatic… LOL I’m so charmed
“Then there was the man who brought his accordion and offered to play while they worked. Indeed, the farming chores seemed to mystify most of their would-be brothers.”
The commune version of that guy who brings his guitar to BYOBs/potlucks?
“Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”
Farming chores seemed to mystify a lot of hippies, from what I’ve heard… (source: grew up on leftover hippie farm)
Go on….
It was pretty much all over before I was born, though there was assorted livestock around through about middle school. I believe the way it functioned (“functioned”) during the farming days was thusly: the menfolk laid about finding themselves, while the women took care of the children, milked the goats more-or-less on time (goats do not care if you stayed up late, they wish to be milked promptly, at the same time they were milked yesterday), and held down outside jobs because it turns out you cannot actually produce everything you need with 40 acres of bad soil and a couple of instructional books. Basically, a utopian village.
This particular commune was a lot smaller than many others, but my research indicates that the problems were not unique. Lack of discipline plus lack of knowledge lead to very inefficient farming techniques, making the already-difficult task of subsistence farming basically impossible. One story I enjoy is the tale of trying to load a pig to take to auction – no one really knew how, and several people were involved in chasing this pig around first thing in the morning, trying to get it to run up a ramp into the truck. For some reason or another, some neighbors (actual farmers) stopped by, and watched these semi-naked hippies running around for a while; then when they were sufficiently amused, one of the farmers walked over to the pig, picked up its hind legs, and wheelbarrowed it into the truck. (I also like that it shows a side of the backward country rednecks that is not often represented – yes, they were certainly judging the hippies, and not kindly I don’t imagine, and selling and re-selling the same plot of land in the back of Mother Earth News to various groups of them, and probably paying under the going rate to those they hired occasionally to clean out a barn or something, but they were first and foremost neighborly and helpful, and would loan you a heater or load your pig or whatever else they could help with, as an entirely separate issue from their judgements of lifestyle.)
Well. That got long. tl;dr – just because you have a book about something doesn’t mean you are going to be good at it, and also farming is very very hard even if you know how and apply yourself.
Also I live in a city now, and am very happy to work for the man in an air-conditioned office, and have NO PATIENCE for men who wish to find themselves. You are right over there, now get a job and contribute to society!
As a clueless semi-hippie livestock farmer who did not grow up farming (but who thankfully has the internet to help me; how did the back-to-the-landers get anything done without youtube?), your assessment of how the country folks react to us idiots is spot on.
Bless this; this is excellent.
My parents were on the periphery of a commune in the 70s, and now they are stuck in my mind as the place friendships and marriages go to die. Also, the place where you cross ditchweed with seeds you picked out of your shake and the end result is basically like smoking hemp.
I will also read this book. Just the article is amazing.
The deleted comment of the day is a doozy. I give it 8/10 for male whining.
Just saying
I love the Just Saying so much! The whole rest of the comment is just this rambling mess from a guy who can’t contain his incoherent rage long enough to even organize his thoughts. But then suddenly, without even reading over what he wrote, he suddenly decides his argument is finished. He’s done it. The telephone line argument finally beat feminism. His work is done. Just saying.
I am so amused by these examples, as if all men were astronauts, or are working on high tension wires in a hurricane all day, every day.
And as if no women have done those exact jobs. They have! The future is now. My father worked high-rise construction (so up on the high steel?) and his crew had women in the 1980s. That’s thirty years ago, friends.
If ever there was a “cool story, bro.” moment, it is that comment.
Yes, it was mystifying. You do not have to pay to see these things, commentor. You can simply go down to your local union hall and you will find women who work all those jobs you just mentioned, except female astronauts will probably be elsewhere, but the general point is that none of those are jobs that women do not already do, and in some cases, have been doing for quite some time.
Too charmed by idea of Local Astronaut Union Hall to respond to content of comment.
“We demand a five dollar an hour raise! I mean, we have to poop in a bag, for gosh sakes”.
A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s floating in a capsule the size of a phone booth.
“Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for FLOATING AROUND HOLY SHIT GUYS DID WE TELL YOU THERE’S NO GRAVITY HERE? WHEEEEEEE!”
“Oh you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union,
I’m sticking to the union,
‘Til the day I die [terrified and alone in the vacuum of space]”
– Astronaut Woody Guthrie
Dude, I laughed out loud that was perfect.
I come from a rabble-rousing family, and I used to get a lot of the Woody Guthrie catalogue as lullabies when I was a kid.
Samesies! And they are actually still suprisingly comforting at times. Speaking of unions and good songs, have you seen Pride? It was wonderful and I try to make everyone see it.
I have not! But I’ll take a look for it.
I wonder what guys like this do for a living. Obviously none of the jobs he listed, because he would know that women regularly do this kind of work. Like I’ve worked in coal mines and civil construction where there were many women heavy equipment operators. One mine had a shift made up of 70%(ish) women. There was a woman fixing my roof last month, ffs.
Even back in the 19th century, there were women (and children, of course!) working in coal mines in the UK. It was extremely common until they passed the Mines and Collieries Act of 1842, which banned women and boys under 10 from working underground. Women still did pretty backbacking labor above ground at the mines after that, though (e.g., sorting and loading coal).
That’s a really good question. It’s not like I really advance the cause of civilisation every day, but I’d guess he’s some kind of B-Ark milquetoast and that someone who maintains the infrastructure of society has better things to do in their off-hours than whining on the internet.
Yes, this! I know women who are high-rise window-washers, do complicated bridge construction, operate cranes, drive race cars professionally… There’s really a lot of dangerous jobs that smaller, more agile people are better at, especially ASTRONAUTS
And as if all women are just rolling in free stuff and watching TV all day every day. Has this guy ever met a human woman? Does he leave his house? Don’t answer that.
Maybe it’s this guy:
http://www.iflscience.org/missing-scientist-found…
WWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
That guy’s face…if you ever needed a “don’t do drugs” message. *shiver*
WHOA indeed. I– just– what? What? He had more than 600 GALLONS of acid? And an automatic rifle? Did he have plumbing down there?
Oh, never mind: http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/missingscient…
Not to mention that women actually had to *sue* to get into some of those jobs, and into the military, because they, you know, intentionally excluded women . (Until around the late ’70s, it was perfectly legal to ban women from dangerous jobs because they might damage their childbearin’ parts).
And it’s still hard to get apprenticeships and union spots (etc.) for certain trades, because it’s often a boys’ club where you have to be someone’s son or nephew to get an “in”.
Oh yes, I didn’t mean to say that any of those fields have been welcomed warmly. It’s still a fight in every sense of the word. In fact, this story has it all in a nutshell: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150205-unsung-h… Women outperform men; still get excluded.
Although to be fair: “If some of the 13 had made it into space, it would not have made them the first women to venture into the cosmos – that accolade goes to the Russian Valentine Tereshkova who completed 48 solo orbits of our planet in June 1963 – but it would have put female astronauts at the very heart of Nasa’s quest for the stars.”
Absolutely. (I wasn’t directing my comment at you, just mentally shaking my fist at that guy ). (shakes fist)
Absolutely, I just began to reconsider my comment, because it did in fact gloss over how exlusionary so many fields are, and that’s a big part of the puzzle.
Seriously. Save me from men who think that because only men can be drafted, women are actually the ones who have all the freedoms and run the world. Nevermind all the women who have desperately been trying to get into infantry positions. Never mind the women that attempt to sign up for selective service. Never mind the fact that a male-dominated legislature makes the rules. Never mind that there hasn’t been an actual draft in nearly 50 years. It’s all a female conspiracy to keep men down.
Excuse me while I give myself a migraine from rolling my eyes.
“Women don’t have to serve in combat positions, which is why men suffer more in this cruel world.”
“Um, women can’t serve in combat positions (although the concept of a front line is stupidly outdated anyway) because the men in charge won’t let them.”
“…Ok, yeah, but why aren’t more feminists out there making men put women in combat positions? If you really wanted it, you’d have made it happen by now, so this is just a smokescreen just saying.”
My guess is that “the high steel” is a term for electricity pylons and cables, but I could be completely mistaken.
I’ve started noticing when a post will go from having 256 comments to 255, and I’ve realized I’m watching men’s comments* get deleted in real time. It’s a heady feeling, I tell you what.
*I only assume that these comments are from men, because of Occam’s razor.
Soooooo, Game of Thrones last night, so crazy, what with the show ending at 9:50! Seriously, so weird, the way that nothing happened between 9:50 and 10, and then the credits started.
Nothing happened.
Sansa Noooooooooooooo
Sansaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I know! It’s really weird to just leave Sansa out of this episode and probably the next couple as well, but it’s probably for the better given how the HBO writers tend to write her.
On that note, that freaking scene really triggered my friend. Long story short, for my birthday I have asked for Benioff and Weiss’ heads, that I may present them to her on a platter.
Well I’m free this weekend.
I like your version of the show. You’re right nothing happened at all. Sansa is just willingly playing the game and still has autonomy over her life.
So much brutal stuff happens in GoT, but what happened last night really got to me. I spent pretty much all of that time between 9:50 and 10 PM bawling my eyes out, not going to lie, and I was barely “watching” it to begin with.
In addition to men whining about the draft and how it means all the women are in charge, save me from “objective” “rational” men who passionately and vigorously defend (and seemingly celebrate) that particular plotline.
Never been so thankful to be watching on a west coast time delay, ’cause I literally did just turn it off as soon as that scene started, no regrets
But look, it’s just historically accurate to graphically show the 15 sexual assaults every Medieval-y woman had to endure on her way to the market! Also, dragons and ice zombies are central to our universe!
I’ve known it was coming for literally a year based on some article, and I deliberately spoiled myself this morning so I can mentally prepare myself until I get a chance to watch it tonight or tomorrow night. I’m not even someone who could be triggered, it just makes me monumentally furious and sick.
Yeahhhh. I’m way behind on Game Of Thrones because as soon as they made the character switch I knew this was coming, and I might just be done for good. Which is a shame because I love so many of the characters, but I do not want to watch this.
See, if they HAD to have her marry Ramsay, clearly the only solution was to her have her dom him. Seriously though, fuck the Game of Thrones writers. They make a lot of changes from the books, which is fine, but they don’t think through what the consequences of those changes would be.
So…when can we talk about Mad Men? Cause I really wanna hash out last nights episode with my fellow Toasties.
Let’s talk! Did you like it? I did. I am happy nothing huge happened, because that is not real life, and Mad Men often felt like it was real. My favorite line was Joan – “I’ve BEEN to the beach.” I was rooting for Peggy and Stan to get together, but it felt kind of weird when they finally did? And they seemed to get SO CLOSE to having Don kill himself. I was shouting at my TV, “No. NO. NO!” And the end was just perfect to me. Don is enlightened and we are reminded that this whole thing was about an industry that makes money off manipulating emotions and co-opting things like “peace” and “harmony.” Just wonderful.
I did like it! Joan was my fav part – when she casually tells Rodger that Greg is a terrible person I actually cackled. I honestly was never interested in Peggy and Stan as a couple, so I was pretty eh about that. And I was pretty charmed by Pete. I’ve always loved Pete, even though he’s a snake and an asshole, I’ve always had a soft spot for him. My heart broke in the last shot of Betty, smoking and discontented while Sally did dishes. I’ve always thought Betty would be a CEO of some tech company, or high powered lawyer or some such thing if she had been born in ’79 instead of ’35.
yes, it was one of the few episodes where I wasn’t like OMG THEY DID WHAAAAT? Far less soap opera-y than much of the run of the show, like you say, as it should be. I was never into Peggy/Stan so I was surprised at how happy that made me! Joan, oh man, I feel this awful vindication at the thing with Richard, like if I was her friend* and she asked me for advice when she met him I would be saying “I toooooold yoooou” now. (Ideally I would be a good friend and only be saying that in my head.)
I like how optimistically open-ended her story is, though. The kid’s provided for, the losers are out of her life, she’s on good terms with the right ex-coworkers…maybe this business will go well, maybe it won’t, but she’s in a good position.
Also, I am so happy that Roger’s story was purely comedic. “I translated your speech into Pig Latin.” “Old enough to be her mother.” “Go in the room with the TV. It is your friend.” Perfect all over.
It’s weird but Pete has always been one of my favorite characters too. He’s such a childish dweeb, I guess? And he and Trudy were sort of perfect for each other, so I guess it’s fitting that they end up back together as big fish in a small pond, living a superficially glamorous lifestyle. I only regret that we don’t get to see more of Pete’s cheesy leisure suits as we go farther into the 70s.
oh, I love Pete as a character. When he gets a good storyline and acts like a decent person it’s quite gratifying, you can see why he’s so successful! But when he does (or wears) terrible things and throws hissy fits and absolutely loses his dignity he’s DELIGHTFUL.
True fact: When Peggy said “A thing like that!” I may or may not have choked up a bit.
same, same. :’) as awful/unhealthy as their relationship was at the beginning of the series, I love what it turned into by the end. a thing like that.
Yeah, I whooped at that line. Perfection.
I watched it this morning and watched it; I think I liked it more than I expected to, but less than I hoped, if that makes sense? It felt…right, somehow, but I still wanted more. That said, as much as I still wish for the what-happens-to-everybody coda that I knew I wasn’t going to get anyway, I do think the episode left everyone in a place that allows you to imagine their lives moving forward, which I liked.
Unrelatedly, when I saw Pete getting on that Lear jet, I was 100% convinced for a minute it was going to take off and explode or crash or something, which would’ve been horrible if only because Trudy and Tammy were also on the plane.
I had the same thought about Pete and the plane! I think it says a lot about what we’ve come to expect from the show. And I agree, part of me wanted a Six Feet Under ending where everyone’s story plays out and you get to see the end, but I knew we wouldn’t get it and that it would have been wrong and weird if we did.
LOVED IT.
My romantic companion’s take away was that the Coke Ad was what Don envisioned during his meditation? And that it means he ended up going back to McCan and creating their biggest ad. Is that what we think?
Also, who got the kids at the end? Or does Sally just move home to the Francis mansion and be psuedo-mom?
I don’t think that’s what happened…I saw the Coke ad as a coda/scene-setter for the end of the show. After the scene at McCann where it looks like they’re settting up a Draper Pitch for Miller Lite and instead he just leaves, I don’t trust the literal “he made the ad” interpretation.
Buuuut after Peggy saying “Come home,” and the Miller Lite thing setting up “McCann is working on true-to-life big deal products,” maybe?
Ok, after writing that comment, my headcanon is Peggy chats with Don some more about his California retreat and SHE’s inspired to write the ad.
And Sally…man…I guess a realistic scenario is Henry hires a nanny and Sally goes to college locally so she can stick around and help out? I can’t shake the feeling that’s an awful outcome for Sally but obviously plenty of people do something like that and it’s not what they were planning on but it’s FINE in the end.
My thought was that even if he didn’t literally write that ad, we’re still supposed to see that he (and, by extension, the rest of the corporate world) is about to embrace his sensitive, enlightened side and enter the modern age? That capitalism keeps reinventing itself to keep up with the culture, but maybe as we leave the 1960s it isn’t stuck in the same kind of embattled identity crisis? IDK, as I finished watching it I was pretty much just like “whaa?” and now I’m reading a bunch of thinkpieces on it.
Yes, I was surprised by how many think pieces took that scene to literally mean that Don wrote the Coke ad. Especially since Mad Men hasn’t been in the habit of plagiarizing real work that was done in the era depicted. I thought it was meant to show us that Don would go on to cynically use the experience he was having to crush it at work again (until thew next time he feels the need to run).
It actually wouldn’t surprise me (in kind of a terrible way) if Bobby and Gene end up going to live with…Betty’s brother? Whoever it was Betty wanted them to live with.
I think that’s what happened, yes. It’s just the kind of ambivalent ending that I could see Weiner going for. You could see it from the cynical angle: co-opting of the ideas of peace, love and harmony, or Don tapping into his newly found zen to create that ad. Regardless, the ad came out in 1971. I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to see it as Don creating that ad.
Other hints that Don might have created it:
Peggy: “Don’t you want to work on Coke?”
Peggy: “They’d take you back. They’ve done it before.”
Don to Peggy: “I’ll see you soon.”
And:
I’m actually really happy with how the Joan-Peggy relationship panned out — Peggy was so obviously happy to hear from her. Even though she didn’t jump ship, it’s clear that they have a solid relationship, and that’s what I really wanted to see.
Peggy and Stan was kind of hammy, but I loved Peggy’s “WHAT?!” Not entirely in character for the show, but whatever, it was charming.
Meredith is straight up amazing, and the actor that plays her is spectacular.
You should follow Meredith (Stephanie Drake) on Twitter, she is one of the show’s biggest fans and is just literally the best.
My favorite part: Joan naming her company “Holloway-Harris” because you need two names to sound official.
But both names are hers.
My least favorite part: Peggy on the phone with Don. It felt like I’d never seen them so out of sync before. Even the way Don dropped his voice to a vulnerable whisper, while Peggy kept talking more and more loudly and insistently. You could just really feel that they were filmed separately and it sapped all the chemistry out.
Also, Peggy worrying for about five seconds and then getting distracted with Stan. Closure between her and Don was more important to me than seeing her with Stan.
Also, this is going to be a bit inside baseball, but Brett Gelman (the bearded hippie at the retreat) made me laugh a bit louder than I care to admit as a long time Comedy Bang Bang fan. Let’s hope they get Hamm on the show again soon.
IBrain people. It’s a terrifyingly obscene bit of anti comedy but it will always make me die laughing, especially as it launched the Gelman-Aukerman feud.
tl;dr: I have been listening to a certain podcast for way too long
Man, what’s this thing about men not being able to get things for free? Back when I was still hitting up bars, women used to buy me drinks all the time.
Maybe this guy’s problem is just that he’s a charmless stooge? I dunno.
Maybe he just needs more shirts embroidered with gold.
Yes, why doesn’t Obama address the “Charisma Gap”?
Truly, it is the civil rights issue of our age.
Also, someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you not need to be especially strong to operate heavy machinery? I was always under the impression that the backhoe did most of the work itself. It’s got treads on it, it’s not like you have to carry the thing anywhere.
Well, no, the backhoe runs on your inflated sense of masculine supremacy, so it takes a certain kind of person to operate one. Just saying.
I am not especially strong and have operated a backhoe! Also a road saw (road saws are awesome BTW). When testing equipment for my family’s electrical contracting company, that my grandmother was president of, as a teenager. But the commenter clearly doesn’t believe things he hasn’t directly observed occur.
50 years ago maybe. Now everything is electronic.
Gosh, it seems like soon we won’t need anyone with a sense of masculine supremacy at all.
On a related note, I don’t think you necessarily need to be that strong and muscle-bound to serve in the military these days.
I was reading an interview with an officer who served in Afghanistan, who said that the two most useful attributes of a soldier now are a cast-iron bladder and the ability to sit quietly for hours at a time.
yeah you say that now but what happens when your tank breaks down? I’ll bet you’ll be wishing for a super-strong masculine guy to carry that tank through the Hindu Kush for you.
a cast-iron bladder and the ability to sit quietly for hours at a time
I am now hoping fervently that if there is ever a universal draft, someone notices I have neither of these characteristics and lets me go, like, plant a victory garden on the home front. I’m a terrible gardener but at least I feel like I have room for growth there in ways that the bladder and the attention span don’t…
Same here, I have to pee constantly. No wars for me!
Never been so grateful for that nagging ovarian cyst before…
Yeah that’s basically the point of heavy machinery, is not having to do the lifting yourself.
#humblebrag 😉
So as far as I’m concerned, Peggy’s story ended when she showed up at the new office hungover and wearing sunglasses, cigarette dangling from her mouth, carrying that painting, and generally looking like the biggest baller on the planet. Nothing else happened to Peggy after that. Nothing else.
I’m with you, friend.
I threw myself dramatically into a couch and basically checked out from life when it happened
ETA Jesus, I’m an ass for saying anything anywhere but in replies, sorry sorry sorry
http://mindyswift.tumblr.com/post/118106840531 (nsfw audio)
Oh, thank you kindly.
The audio is so, so great though!
IT IS SO GREAT. But people may need headphones in the office or to tell small children to give them a minute!
I could watch this on repeat forever
In the final episode, there’s a scene where she’s sitting in her office, and I could swear it’s the dress from That Scene hanging on the door, fresh from the dry cleaner. I could be wrong. Anyone else see that?
My main confusion about Mad Men is how so few of the characters developed lung cancer.
oh, give it time
I broke up w Game of Thrones last night. I need like, red wine and chocolate ice cream, a soft blanket and room to cry about it.
I’m on the fence about this, but only because I’m giving them the rest of the season for Sansa to flay Ramsay, take Winterfell and become the QUEEN IN DA NORF.
[it’s probably not going to happen]
[cries]
[also wtf LF you are more confusing day by day, and not in a clever tricksy sort of way]
I was already gunning for Sansa to kill Littlefinger for the sake of familial vengeance at some point (still hoping for him to be pushed out of the Moon Door, although that’s looking less likely), but now I fully expect her to personally affix his head to a spike for tossing her to the Boltons like he did.
I’m still upset at show!LF’s whole “oh, I don’t know shit about Ramsay” shtick (whether sincere or not) because it just seems so fucking unlikely for someone who has spies everywhere. Either he knew, and is a horrible person, or he didn’t know, and is just terrible at doing the very thing he’s set his whole life to do. Either way it’s shitty.
BURN ALL MEN
THIS. THIS RIGHT HERE.
From EW:
The writer producer also confirmed that, for those suspecting Littlefinger might have known about Ramsay’s sadism, that Baelish was definitely ignorant of the situation. “The difference between the Ramsay Snow of the books and the show is the Ramsay of the show is not a famous psycho,” he said. “He’s not known everywhere as a psycho. So Littlefinger doesn’t have the intelligence on him. He knows they’re scary and creepy and not to be folly trusted and it’s part of a larger plan.”
FFS. So they keep the fact that he hunts down former lovers with dogs but he’s not a famous psycho.
OKAY
TV!Ramsay migh not be a famous psycho. But his family is known for flaying people alive. And mr. writer/producer cannot convince me, that LF didn’t know about this.
that makes no sense whatsoever. The idea that it’s not widely known, ok, but LF is known for knowing things! That’s absurd.
UGH UGH UGH UGH
Oh, great, because now Sansa’s rape can be a tragic moment for LITTLEFINGER, too
The thing is, she was ALREADY QUEEN IN DA NORF by way of BIRTH she has no reason to marry ANYBODY to take her seat. Any man she chooses to marry CONSENSUALLY becomes Warden of the North, so THEY should be catering to HER.
I was so proud of her when she saw straight through Miranda and asserted herself and then they do that to her. 🙁
I hope she and Brienne cut Ramsay into little tiny pieces. Grrrr.
I’ll bring an extra bottle or two and some stuffed animals my daughter isn’t using. I’m done. I just can’t.
Also, for what its worth– Nothing in Dorne makes sense eitherrrrrrrrrrr
Worst kidnapping plots ever, by both Jamie & Bronn and Ellaria & the Sand Snakes. I mean, god, does no one know how to kidnap anyone?
Dorne could’ve been so awesome, too. 🙁
“I have an idea! Lets ride in at noon and grab her while she’s making out!” / “HEY THAT WAS OUR PLAN!”
Seriously what is going ON in Dorne. Even characters we’ve seen before being competent in other places get there and suddenly do incredibly dumb, poorly-choreographed things.
I saw on twitter this morning that there’s some “debate” as to whether it was rape at all, because Husband, or something. I didn’t see the episode (don’t have HBO) but read about it last night and even I can’t figure out how someone would think it was ok.
I feel like this could be a beautiful opportunity to have A Talk about what exactly constitutes rape, if it weren’t for the fact that everyone who could most benefit from this conversation is also refusing to acknowledge the conversation.
i have been deliberately not watching this season and reading ALL spoilers so that i can get through this whole arc without warching it live.
once the season’s over, i’ll decide whether it’s worth actually watching the whole thing. buuut, maybe not because honestly if you get rid of Jeyne Pool then maybe just lose the damn tortureline?
Thank you, yes. Less torture, please. It isn’t like this show was running low on rape and torture…
Sammmeeee. UGH. Just UGH.
Joan had the best line of the night, in reference to Dr Rapist: “He’s just a terrible person.” Delivered so matter-of-factly to Roger, she is the fuck OVER IT, and bye-bye weirdo Richard! No more worthless men!
PLEASE keep Mad Men spoilers in the replies. I’m desperately trying to avoid them until I have a chance to watch the finale tonight.
EVERYBODY DIES
Valar morghulis
Oh gosh, Sandy Bem. I knew a lot about her incredibly important, groundbreaking work, but little about her personal life. This is beautiful and sad. Thank you.
Someone linked this piece about uberwealthy stay-at-home-moms on facebook last night. It sometimes veers into shamey territory but it is definitely thought provoking. Something that grabbed me was the privilege of having all female friends– the author spins it as a husband-jealousy thing, which could also be true, but it does sound so great to have the resources to engender women’s spaces for yourself and your friends.
The “wife bonus” thing though… yikes?
The wife-bonus thing actually made me reconceptulaize helicopter parenting somewhat. The fact that some mothers are apparently economically incentivized to micromanage their children’s entire lives made me sad about it in really different ways than I already was.
In different ways, but still sad. UGH.
Favorite comment:
Feminist drivel. These men are dependent on their wives to take care of their home and children, a women’s natural role from both an evolutionary and Biblical perspective. These women willingly choose to devote their lives to their family and should be commended for that, not criticized.
This really deserves to be a Toast deleted comment of the day.
Just saying.
JUST SAYIN’
oh man, the train derailment article. I’m welling up. I neurotically fear loss of my loved ones as well (for slightly different reasons) and this just made the tears flow…
“The fear of loss, that someone can be snapped out of existence at any second, comes from the same deep, emotional well as love. Maybe it is love’s dark twin. It’s incredibly powerful — strong enough to poison your thinking to assume the worst will happen, in even the most mundane situations.”
I’m so glad she survived to tell her story. That crash was so horrifying.
The comments on that article are so weird, like, people are mad at her for sharing her story… I don’t know, there’s only room for male-reported news and male-reported feelings in newspapers of record, I guess.
My cousin (a woman) drove one of those giant earth mover machines in a strip mine in Montana and later worked on an oil rig in the 80s/90s. A HS classmate served in Afghanistan.
MRA man above sounds like the guys in HS who’d say woman cannot be drafted as their rejoinder to every argument.
The reason they use such tired old arguments is they’ve got nothing else.
Just sayin’.
The worst part about those guys is 1) women have been actively lobbying to be Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and even regular just frontline infantry for decades, and 2) no fucking man has been drafted to serve in a war in forty years. AND 3) no one has even been prosecuted for failing to register for the draft in thirty years.
(Actually, I just looked it up and the last US draft order was issued in 1973 which means no one has been drafted in 42 years — and since you can’t be drafted until the age of 18, that means that no American man under the age of 60 has ever been drafted to serve in a war, so maybe these grand-dads need to take a step back.)
And, while the physcial standards for special operations are (and need to remain) very high, I can so for sure that I knew at least one woman who was a fellow officer who would have been able to handle Ranger school.
yeah, I mean, I don’t have a problem with physical standards for special ops stuff being high, but it seems weird that if a woman could pass those tests, there’d be any reason not to put her on the team.
Though, I guess it’s reasonable to say that there could be some negotiation in terms of what the standards are — if the physical strength standards are purposefully calculated to be much higher than even the highest estimated requirements of operations specifically to keep women from being able to pass them…well, that doesn’t sound like a good way to set the requirement standards.
7 out of 9 on that “worst TV parents” list are women (7/10 if you count Philip Jennings separately). No thank you.
Yep. Not buying that Betty Draper makes the list and Don doesn’t.
Also I can’t even remember the last time a man bought me a drink that didn’t end in me saying “I’ll get the next round.” Maybe I don’t go to the right kind of bars? Maybe he has confused “all women of all ages and backgrounds” with “that one hot chick who never returns my attention even though I sent her like, two drinks”?
right? In my experience “buy you a drink?” is a way of saying “I like this conversation and you don’t seem to be in a hurry to leave, let’s keep hanging out,” unless it’s coming from someone willfully oblivious to my not having a good time. But I love how many complaints about reverse sexism are “women get free drinks from men, who get NOTHING in return!” DRINKS. Are you listening to yourself? Good, because I’m not.
Yeah, it’s kind of in the same boat as “women can sleep with anyone at any time they want, and you just ignore us!” When you just know that these same dudes ignore the very existence of any woman who doesn’t meet his very narrow idea of attractiveness. Because if you paid attention to any woman who is not currently catching your eye at a singles bar, you might notice that some of them need things like better job opportunities, or health care, or child care, or effective legal protection from violence, and none of these problems can be solved with a free long island iced tea.
Exactly.
Let’s not pretend that men make 20% more than women on average in order to subsidize the necessary living expense of paying for drinks/dates.
Literally the only time a man has bought me a drink that was not part of a group setting where we were taking turns buying rounds led to me being held conversationally hostage by him being a total slimeball, talking about how he needs a woman who will make him steak, and is educated but not TOO educated etc etc while the bartender steadfastly ignored my efforts to pay my tab.
ugh my skin is crawling for you…
I don’t think a man has bought me a drink, like, ever.
“It’s 2050 and Feminism Has Finally Won” will continue to accumulate deleted comments long after 2050. Eventually, irate men will compile all their angriest deleted comments on this topic into a vast and weighty book, which literally all white men will own.
<3
This is the true singularity.
This dovetails with my theory that Vox Day is not a real person; Theodore Beal is just its present vessel.
So there’s Mad Men and Game of Thrones, but they’re not what I spent hours tinkering with my computer to bypass the BBC iplayer restrictions for. DID ANYONE ELSE SEE STRANGE & NORRELL? I still can’t entirely believe I saw it. It is a thing and it happened and I want to take Segundus home and feed him tea and biscuits and my god this show is actually a thing.
Has it started? I wants to see how they handle it.
The first episode was Sunday night in the UK. It took me roughly the entire time difference between there and the east coast to figure out how to watch it.
Do you happen to know if it’s going to be available in the US? I’ve heard very good things from my UK friends!
I think I’ve heard August maybe? Which is clearly not soon enough for me or any right-minded individual.
No indeed! (I have a multi-region DVD player, so I’ll grab it on Amazon.co.uk if it comes out sooner than that).
I’m almost willing to bet money that it will. And I will be snapping it up the moment that it does.
I heard June 13 on BBC America!
So much better than my August rumor.
Is it good is it good is it good?
SO GOOD.
AW YISSSSSS
SO GOOD! Although they made a mistake in the COE vestments according to Rev Richard Coles (he’s a fun follow on twitter)
The talking statuary was much better than I had expected. Also kind of want to live in his library. Still having a hard time with the correct pronunciation of Norrell, since it’s not what I thought.
I was kind of half expecting it since I had a friend who had a last name one vowel off and she pronounced the ‘ell’ at the end the same way, but it’ll still take some time to get used to it.
Is it a weird pronunciation? It’s how I would say it (although I am also English, although not from Yorkshire). English accents are fond of schwas in place of actual vowels.
It’s not weird, just different than I had it in my head when I read the book.
Also. Yes the talking statues. The stones of York might have been my favorite bit. All the kings arguing with each other and nobody liking Stephen and it was absolutely beautiful.
Listen to my thoughts, everyone. I want to tell people my thoughts.
Tell me your thoughts!
Yes. I stayed up too late to watch via not entirely above board means.
I’m not yet convinced about the casting for Strange, but Norell is *perfect*
Yes. Norrell was great. Which is funny because I remember people being all ‘but he’s not old enough, etc’ when the casting was announced vs almost no reservations about Bertie Carvel. The only slight issue I had with anyone is that the Drawlight I always pictured in my head is younger and prettier (Because how else does he have all that highly sensitive blackmail information about certain gentlemen and their proclivities…), but I like aging fop Drawlight too.
I love everything about it. Everything.
I was excited enough to watch Antiques Roadshow which was on before it, so I didn’t get into the X-Files and forget to turn the DVD off at 9.
LOVED IT ALL.
Oooh, thanks for the heads-up that this show has started! I’ve been very excited about it. Really really hoping that the fairy gentleman is the Thranduil-Jareth cross I always envisioned him to be. And Stephen Black is smolderingly, smolderingly hot.
ACQUIRING THIS IMMEDIATELY
Childermass is so attractive that I’m in serious distress.
I also loved the rest of it but apparently my hormones have taken the reins.
His accent. My god, the accents on that show will end up killing me.
I did! Mr Segundus is lovely and adorable. (And Samuel West is in it! That’s always a good sign.) I think they’re doing a surprisingly good job of adapting the book – it feels very faithful to it.
*torrents* *cough cough cough* *torrents*
Google eztv they normally have BBC stuff the day it is released over there.
Hush. We’re all good, law abiding citizens here. What are these ‘torrents’ you speak off? *cough cough*
So rather than seeing Game of Thrones, during which I hear nothing happened, and instead of finally seeing Age of Ultron and joining the tortured conversations about Black Widow, I saw MAD MAX: FURY ROAD this weekend, and it was perfect in every single way, you guys! An utterly un-sexualized Charlize Theron covered in dust with a steel arm is the actual star of the movie (Imperator Furiosa = Fury = Fury Road!!). Tom Hardy is lovely and speaks very little and is on a leash for the first 30 minutes of the movie. It’s got a goddamn motorcycle gang of old, badass women. And the movie is basically about how the equal status of women is necessary for the development of a civilized society. It’s a misandrist’s dream, you guys. (The MRAs were right!) Also, the explosions, you guys, the EXPLOSIONS. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie where the action just does not stop for two hours. A++ would see and go “woohoo!” again sorry not sorry for gushing recommendation WOOHOO.
Oh i like this! Going to see this movie based on this review wooo thanks!
Ugh. This movie definitely sounds worthy of being seen in a proper movie theater with a massive screen. I will make the hour drive for it and gladly.
That sounds very promising!
THE THUMBS UP. THE SNIPER GUN. THE COMPLETE LACK OF SEXUAL ANYTHING BETWEEN MAX AND FURIOSA, IN IT’S PLACE A GROWING DISPLAY OF MUTUAL RESPECT AND CARE.
George Miller is 70 damn years old and he gets it.
George Miller brought us Babe as well, so to him we must be forever grateful.
Sometimes I watch that Farmer Hoggett dance scene on youtube just so I can get all teary and smiley.
Tom Hardy sure is pretty. I never really got it before but once he lost the face mask thingy and got hosed off, I was totally on board.
That scene where he hands over the gun to Furiosa and she USES HIM AS A GUN REST is also the greatest thing that’s happened ever.
100% can confirm. that moment made me so happy.
Just kinda of a grunt and shrug, like ‘sure you are better at this than I am’.
I have only been calling it Furiosa Road because that is clearly its correct title.
Yes!! I saw Mad Max yesterday and it was incredible. Like if you can picture a giant :D, but in Comic Sans, that was my face throughout the entire movie.
Also, the DOOF WARRIOR (aka the guy with the flame-throwing guitar). Talk about commitment to your craft. dang.
I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to find a celebratory animated gif of that dude. Instead I’ll just post this:
😀
YESSSSSSSSSS
The Doof Warrior has the most awesome backstory, too.
did you know (as i do now that i am Keenly Interested in all aspects of this movie) that Doof Warrior and Capable (the redheaded one with goggles) just got married In Real Life?
Yes! I’ve never seen any Mad Max movie so I had no clue what to expect. I looovveeddd it!
holy crap it was the best and i want to go see it again. and i love that it was a mutual tip of the hat relationship developed between max and furiosa rather than anything romantic and Oh My God she was just the baddest ass badass. the many mothers were fucking great and the film is full of explosions and fancy trick motorcycle riding. and a guitar! that shoots flames! guitar warboy was probably best warboy but honestly all the visuals are delicious.
anyway, go see it!
I saw it this weekend too! It was SO AWESOME. Literally non-stop action.
YAAAAAAASSSS. I saw it in 3D and it was fantastic. A++++, will watch a million more times. I was very pleasantly surprised by how not-horrible it was when it came to gender issues. I was expecting a lot of gratuitous nudity and sexual violence, and there wasn’t any! Just enough nudity and implication of sexual violence to make the point that this situation is FUCKED UP. I loved how feisty the wives were, the motorcycle grannies, Furiosa not takin’ shit from no one – how many Furiosa Halloween costumes can we expect to see this year? Hopefully millions. Just millions of Furiosas stomping around, punching gross dudes with their robot hands.
Anyone else find the Doof TERRIFYING? Like, the scariest part of the whole movie. His role is so gloriously cheesy, but he’s creepy as fuck. I loved the giant drum truck, though.
It was SO AMAZING. It was my Jupiter Ascending. I left the theater in actual tears. SO GOOD. So so so good.
“So THAT’S why people like action movies!” -me, leaving the theater
ALSO: http://www.sbnation.com/2015/5/15/8611525/MAD-MAX…
YESSSS. It was perfect on every level. I loved how it was Furiosa’s story and Max was just kind of there to having guns propped on him and shit. Also, there is also a sequel in the works.
This was an action film about crushing the patriarchy and I am in love with nearly everything about it.
I went to see it in glorious IMAX (3D, alas, but it wasn’t that bad) with the boy last night, and basically was reduced to just saying “this. fucking. movie.” over and over again. Best moment, indeed, was Max handing the gun with just one bullet left to Furiosa and her leaning it on his shoulder. But the movie was just a relentless parade of awesome.
I read it and I totally get why people are appalled by the “wife bonus” thing as it was presented, but I kind of loved it. It seems like it acknowledges that what the women are doing as wives and mothers is actual work with real value and is deserving of financial renumeration. Caregiving work has real value and is important, and if a couple chooses to have one partner perform most of that work, that partner should have financial benefits as income allows. IDK, it just didn’t seem as icky to me as it did to most people.
But the icky part is … who determines the wife bonus? When I get a bonus, my boss does a performance evaluation and I get recommended to HR for said bonus. Does the husband sit down with the wife and go over strengths and areas for improvement? What does it mean to give someone a bonus who you do not employ? I’d be more OK if it were an actual salary and it was negotiated as part of say a pre-nuptual agreement or contract. As an informal agreement, it’s a little bit like Christmas gifts for children. Like, maybe you get this bonus or perhaps Santa leaves a lump of coal in your shoe. Who knows! That’s the icky part, to me.
That makes sense. Something like a stipend would be a lot less icky as far as power dynamics go.
Also it reinforces the idea that all the money in the relationship is the husband’s money, that he gives her as a gift or a reward. The money is her money! When you are a married couple and both of you have agreed to have one partner stay at home all the money is shared!
thank you! this is the sticking point for me, a system along these lines smells very much like old school “allowance” or “pin money.”
if your household is a common resource for a joint partnership between equals, your husband should not be making decisions about your annual allotment from his resource pile
I definitely agree that caregiving has financial value but the idea of a “wife bonus” can get icky so fast. First, the amount is linked to how well the breadwinner (husband, in all of the cases in the article) perceives the caregiver is doing–so on the flipside, wives can be monetarily punished if junior doesn’t get into the most elite preschool, or if meals aren’t being prepared to the husband’s liking, or anything. That’s so scary! Second, I understand that this is a world of lawyering and prenups and income inequality, but the idea of an adult getting an allowance seems very infantilizing. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, but she had just as much access to the family’s finances as my dad–it was never “his” money, it was their money, and the shared bank accounts and credit cards reflected as much. So there are ways to financially compensate caregivers without making it a power imbalance.
Yes, the idea that the wife wouldn’t have access to money otherwise is what makes this seem pretty creepy to me.
Yeah, that really makes sense. The whole thing being based on things like household performance and school acceptance is super gross. And the power dynamic is totally off balance.
I was a stay-home mom for several years and we totally considered all the finances shared, but it never fully FEELS that way. And there are ways that, even legally, a partnership is not considered as such by the law. Like, all the years I didn’t have an income are years I earned no Social Security, and that’s not something you get to split in case of divorce or even something your kids will get if you die while they’re children if you never paid into the system.
We never had the financial resources for this, but it seems wise for wealthy women who are staying home “by choice” (I think it’s rarely that simple) to have some stuff in place to protect her financially. Wife bonuses aren’t really that though.
Yeah, the retirement/SS income is a good point, and one could definitely see putting allowances into savings helping a woman out of a tough spot if things in the marriage go south. It’s not really the “allowance” that bothers me so much, it’s the system by which it’s rewarded in the case of the “glam SAHMS.” (Terrible epithet.)
But who really knows how money dynamics work in these rich families?
I have an “allowance” from my fiancé, which we agreed upon when I stopped working (for money, anyway). It’s basically so I can have some financial autonomy – I can make purchases for myself, by myself, without any oversight (not that he would care but it’s nice to have money that is in my own personal account where no one else can see the activity). We also have a joint account, which I sometimes use, but in general purchases that are for the household are made together, anyway (groceries etc.). We currently don’t have sufficient joint bills that it would make sense for me to be involved in the paying of them – rent + utilities comes out of the joint account automatically, the car payment is his to deal with from his own accounts (I don’t drive, I am not a co-owner of the car), our taxes are separate, he deals with the health insurance primarily because it’s through his employer (I just have to nag my doctors into sending the damn invoices). We’re slowly working towards an arrangement where I am more involved in the finances, since we live in a community property state and once we do marry most of the money/assets will belong to both of us, but I have frankly never had to manage anything close to the amount of money he makes and am not exactly the best person to ask when it comes to investing.
I plan on working later on – at the moment I am preparing to start a Masters’ program, after which I have to decide on work or PhD, both of which will involve some kind of income. (Also trying to figure out how to shove having a kid in there – best plan so far seems to be “get pregnant near the end of MS program, get accepted to PhD program, defer enrollment because pregnant, have year-ish with baby before starting PhD and daycare”.)
Let’s face it, everything is more interesting with an Icelandic prosecutor present. You naturally want to know more details about the Icelandic prosecutor. In this case she happened to be attractive, but that’s not really the point, which is that THERE WAS AN ICELANDIC PROSECUTOR PRESENT.
I went to the mall. There was an Icelandic prosecutor present.
In 1909, the first Lincoln cent was struck at the Philadelphia Mint. There was an Icelandic prosecutor present.
Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. There was an Icelandic prosecutor present.
By contrast, nobody gives a shit about an attaché from the U.S. embassy. Admit it, you fell asleep during that part. You just don’t care.
It was 1969. San Francisco, the Summer of Love. “What’s your scene?” asked Moonchild. “I’m an attaché from the U.S. embassy,” said the attaché from the U.S. embassy, and suddenly the party was over. Everyone went home and got a job.
The presence of the attache from the US embassy adds a suggestion of Great Game diplomacy, or mysterious government shenanigans in the right setting. An island resort rife with rumours of revolution. A British Army forward base in bandit country. A remote Antarctic research base.
The island resort was rife with rumours of revolution. There was an Icelandic prosecutor present. Tarbell was mildly distracted by how revolutionary she was, in a sexy-librarian way. “Rumour has it that she has been sent to aid the revolution,” an island resortian whispered. “Sent from the sexiest law library in Iceland.”
“Anyone for a game of Diplomacy?” suggested an attaché from the U.S. embassy. There was no reply. Shortly thereafter, the meeting broke up into desultory small talk. It began to rain, and the volleyball tournament was cancelled.
—
The British Army forward base was located deep in bandit country. There was an Icelandic prosecutor present. Tarbell was mildly distracted by her jaundiced, world-weary demeanor and her curious knowledge of banditry. “This base is too far forward,” she remarked to no one in particular. Tarbell ventured cautiously, “In these conditions, prosecution of the bandits will be very difficult, don’t you think?” The Icelandic prosecutor struck a match on the neck of a passing bandit and lit a cigarillo with it. “That’s why I’m here,” she said curtly.
Then an attaché from the U.S. embassy arrived. “Blast it,” said a British Army soldier. “I’ve mislaid my biro.”
—
Tarbell had been to the remote Antarctic research base before, and knew some of the researchers– but what good was that, when this alien organism could mimic any of them perfectly? There was an Icelandic prosecutor present. Tarbell was mildly distracted by her futuristic cyborg bionics. “In order to preserve this timeline, the extraterrestrial infection must be halted at this juncture,” she explained. “The probability is high that some of you have already been replaced. The simplest method of detection is the blood challenge.” Her synthetic alloy hand extruded a red-hot filament. “Macready, you first. Then the attaché from the U.S. embassy.”
Macready’s blood sample sizzled, inert. The attaché from the U.S. embassy’s blood sample twitched and writhed.
“I’m an attaché from the U.S. embassy,” it said.
These are brilliant. Thank you.
You guys, I’m at a conference, sitting in the first plenary. My field is almost 50% women. So far there have been 9 questions, all from men. And they all look so proud of themselves.
Quick, ask something! Anything!
Ask why all the questions so far are all from men. Make ’em think for a minute.
I just had a meeting today that was 100% women (including managers), and it was awesome.
Balhblahblahmadmen. Let’s talk about the more important (season) finale last night. The Bob’s Burgers double header.
I’m about to watch it right now. Strange & Norrell took precedence last night.
No spoilers! I’ll watch it tonight! Man, I didn’t even know this was happening. Christmas in May!
The credits scenes for both were absolutely perfect.
Over on a friend’s Facebook wall I had a lovely incident where A Man was telling us his opinions and got all sad that I did not bother to read them just because he thinks a dictionary is the same thing as a gender studies textbook. It must be really sad to be walking around with this idea that the world is just waiting to hear your opinions only to find that actually nobody cares, nobody ever cared, and you’re kind of irrelevant. Poor dears.
Mansplaining into the Void
Man-moths beating against a windowpane, trying to get into the light you’re reading by
This is beautifully poetic. Also, I want to draw a cartoon of it.
Laughing in recognition and eternal rage at the dictionary line. “Well, Webster’s/the OED/whatever says thus and such, so your point is invalid.”
DICTIONARIES ARE NOT THE INSPIRED WORD OF TRUTH, Y’ALL
PEOPLE WROTE THEM
MOST OF THOSE PEOPLE ARE WHITE DUDES, HUH, I WONDER IF YOU’VE EVER THOUGHT OF THAT
I wonder if these guys read definitions of, like, epidemiology or geophysics and then try to debate high-level concepts within those disciplines, or if it’s only, you know, stuff like feminism and critical race theory. Ha ha ha just kidding I know the answer to that I do not wonder at all!
I mean, I feel like the concept of guys having debates about subjects on which they know very little is pretty universal. (Source: 7 years of grad school)
(╯°□°)╯︵ uǝɯ
And looking at bias in dictionaries can be so interesting! Even ones that try to be super objective, like the OED, leave stuff out; others are written with a definite viewpoint in mind, like Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language – he wrote what was very much intended to be an American dictionary, with “American” spellings which then became popularised, and there’s also a Christian focus. (He wrote another dictionary about 20 years earlier and became a Congregationalist in the intervening period; the later dictionary is much more overtly Christian. When I looked for a copy of the American Dictionary for an essay at university, the only one I could find was a recent facsimile edition by an evangelical Christian group who felt it should be used in schools in place of modern dictionaries due to its Christian ethos.) Treating dictionaries as objective and always right is a bad idea.
Oh man, not listening to men is the best! It makes them so mad, plus you don’t have to waste time absorbing their opinions.
Anybody have any good tips on how to get around the NYTimes paywall? So many of the links this morning seem to be from there.
Try deleting your cookies, using “private browsing” mode in Firefox, or Googling the title of the article you want and clicking on the link there. Also, I think they allow you to read extra articles if you get to them through Facebook or Twitter.
I think if you google the article name + nyt, you can get a direct link OR if you delete your NYT cookies? (Unless I’m mixing up which papers’ paywalls this works on.) I’ve never had an issue, I think because I block javascript and cookies aggressively, or because I don’t actually click NYT links as much as I think I do.
The ‘Cookies’ app from Chrome store can be very handy for this – use it to clear & refresh cookies.
If you use Chrome, open the link in “Incognito” mode.
I read that comment as “Great women can” to which I agreed. I realized after reading that he meant, “Great. Women can…” Grammar makes all the difference.
Off-topic, but I am bursting with pride: at the beginning of the month I was charged [big bucks] for damage to my rental car*. I knew about the damage, had told them about it, but had thought the insurance would cover most of it. So when I got charged I told myself, “You’re just an idiot who doesn’t understand insurance, this is a stupidity tax.” But I still dropped a polite email to them asking for clarification. No answer. Five emails, a dreaded phone call, and three weeks later, they’ve come back and told me they were at fault and given me a complete refund.
Moral of the story: don’t be afraid to ask! I mean, I logically know this, but it’s hard to apply sometimes, especially (for me) when money is involved – my default is just to figure I got it wrong.
*parking while exhausted = bad news.
Yay! Always ask! And always call when your money is at stake, even if you are not really disputing things – a lot of places just sort of send out bills and hope people will pay them!
One of my former bosses at a shoe store went into that business with a colleague after working as an electrical engineer for the city (up on poles in storms as well as mapping out the power loads, etc.), prior to which she was doing the same work in a series of mines. To the best of my knowledge she was never an astronaut, though, so I guess that guy makes some valid points. OK, off to get all my free stuff and not pay for it with my life!
In Don and Peggy, Mad Men shows a certain sort of man on his way down, and a certain kind of woman on her way up: They meet in the middle, and they hash it all out. And we got to watch them.
beautiful
I take a *lot* of trains (intermediate distance relationship, woooooo) and oof, that Amtrak crash essay hits hard.
And I can’t imagine the scenario where Sansa gets her revenge and I think “oh, yes, that would have been so much less satisfying if she HADN’T been raped”. She already had plenty of motivation to kill the Boltons because of the Red Wedding. I hope she learns that Theon didn’t kill her brothers, gets control of Winterfell, and then punishes him for the farm boys. I am not invested in his redemption at all.
Seriously, this had better spawn an entirely different and satisfying quest for vengeance that is separate and distinct from the retribution she already richly deserves to see administered.
Why you gotta hate on Rihanna’s dress, it was by a Chinese designer 🙁
Jon Hamm’s forehead veins deserve a special kind of Emmy. When the man chooses to emote he goes big or goes home.
ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh
but also valar dohaeris
This dovetails with my theory that Vox Day is not a real person; Theodore Beal is just its present vessel.
– I’d seen pics of the Met Ball thing, but I had no idea that it was supposed to be on any sort of theme; I thought it was just tacky, attention-grabbing celebrity wear as per usual. (I did see one comparison of Sarah Jessica Parker’s thing with the Heat Miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus Rankin-Bass special.)
– The only explanation that I have for that Silk Road article is that some random Conde Nast exec wandered into the Wired offices and declared that it had to be sexed up, immediately, don’t overthink it just do it damnit. That’s the only real explanation for the other “sexy” bits, in which, for no particular reason, the article describes Ross/DPR taking some topless photos of his girlfriend, which in the illustration morphs into her disrobing entirely (thanks for the NSFW, Wired!), and also that “no one in the computer-illiterate realm of the FBI noticed that [Lab1a] was also leetspeak for some sensitive lady parts.” Tee hee!
– Oh lord, the Mars men martyrs, Heinlein wept. Never mind that it’s not actually true, at least WRT the Mars One project (not that that will likely ever get off the ground). Here’s a great article on Mars One that makes the case that the project leader is either severely self-deceiving or running an outright con or both, in varying proportions.
– I'd seen pics of the Met Ball thing, but I had no idea that it was supposed to be on any sort of theme; I thought it was just tacky, attention-grabbing celebrity wear as per usual. (I did see one comparison of Sarah Jessica Parker's thing with the Heat Miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus Rankin-Bass special.)
– The only explanation that I have for that Silk Road article is that some random Conde Nast exec wandered into the Wired offices and declared that it had to be sexed up, immediately, don't overthink it just do it damnit. That's the only real explanation for the other "sexy" bits, in which, for no particular reason, the article describes Ross/DPR taking some topless photos of his girlfriend, which in the illustration morphs into her disrobing entirely (thanks for the NSFW, Wired!), and also that "no one in the computer-illiterate realm of the FBI noticed that [Lab1a] was also leetspeak for some sensitive lady parts." Tee hee!
– Oh lord, the Mars men martyrs, Heinlein wept. Never mind that it's not actually true, at least WRT the Mars One project (not that that will likely ever get off the ground). Here's a great article on Mars One that makes the case that the project leader is either severely self-deceiving or running an outright con or both, in varying proportions.
Never been so grateful for that nagging ovarian cyst before…