This is a GREAT profile of Friend of The Toast Sam Irby:
There is no summing up Sam—no writerly preface, no small-talk tidbits, no rundown of vital stats that can suffice. She is irreducible, like a prime number, or a quark. Mention a recent story about her that she didn’t much like, and she’ll snort. “I told my friend Robbie I wished that thing had been called ‘FAT NIGGA TELLS JOKES.’”
So you’re going to want to watch yourself.
Laura Ortberg Turner on why Junipero Serra shouldn’t be canonized:
“Conversion was not compulsory; rather, Indians chose freely to join the Church and the mission after a period of catechesis,” says the L.A. Archdiocese website. This statement runs in direct opposition to Hackel’s account, which recalls an episode in which Serra gave gifts to a 15-year-old Indian boy encouraging him to convert, telling the boy that those who were baptized would receive clothing from the church. In a place whose native people had almost no material comforts, holding out the promise of clothing and gifts for converts qualifies as coercion.
nicole are you gonna link to EVERY interview Kate Harding does?
One of the things it allows people to do, is that if you can resist commenting, you read things that make you uncomfortable. Your knee-jerk reaction is ‘that’s bullshit!’, [but you] just keep reading and keep learning until you realize, yes, I’ve had my mind changed. You don’t have to go with your knee-jerk reaction.
I’ve had plenty of issues—when someone says “No, Kate, you’re being kind of a blinkered, privileged jerk,” and I’m like “I am not!” And I realize that if I sit with it, and just get through that, maybe I am going to find that this is something that I need to change my mind about and change my thinking about. If you do have that fundamental willingness, that information is there, via the internet, to find the arguments and take them in at their own speed.
My friend Carrie’s new puppy is recuperating on her couch:
Always here for Heavenly Creatures:
So often we think our interpretations are fact. In Jackson’s scheme, the light that bathes Juliet functions as metaphorical illumination, a kiss of truth that transforms her into some splendid creature that only Pauline can recognize. There’s nothing especially bizarre about this dynamic: Literature is dotted with women who seem exquisite byproducts of luxury—and, as a result, bewitch the lesser at their feet. In Jane Austen’s Emma, Emma Woodhouse exerts deleterious influence over pretty, dithery Harriet Smith. Dainty, coddled Ash Wolf elicits Jules Jacobson’s love in Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings. That affection is barbed with jealousy and covetousness—but neither reaches the level of Heavenly Creatures, in which a girl would crush her mother’s skull.
Tyler Coates on how Showgirls became a slow burn hit:
Originally intended to as boundary-pushing as possible, Paul Verhoeven‘s exploitation flick was quickly slapped with an NC-17 rating — but it’s over-the-top nature (and, perhaps, the creative team’s secret self-awareness about the finished product) made it a shockingly effective commercial property. While it’s the only film with an NC-17 rating to receive a wide-release (I personally remember my “cool” aunt and uncle cheekily admitting to seeing it in theaters, much to my 12-year-old’s excitement; it was probably the mid-’90s equivalent of Deep Throat, a honest-to-goodness dirty movie that became a much-talked-about piece of the zeitgeist), its horrendous reviews and, well, adult rating saw it tank at the box office. But no one expected what should have been obvious: everyone was just waiting for it to come to video — it quadrupled its $20 million box office receipts in rentals alone.
Yeah, I’m still tweeting about Hamilton, go fuck yourself.
— Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) September 23, 2015
Here’s the Presidential gif again for convenient usage:
also here’s today’s Hamilton thread you know you’re not done talking about it, there are crowdsourced lyrics here the non-radio edit album drops tomorroooooooow
HAMILTON THREAD. #yayhamlet
I’m going to New York next week and seeing it on Wednesday, so in an effort to not be All-Spoilers All The Time* I’m only listening to Act One.
Is this a bad strategy? Should I just give in and listen to the whole thing? Or should I ~wait for it~ SEE WHAT I DID THERE.
* – also, in an effort not to spend the entire show squeeing to the person next to me every time they say a thing I recognize.
WAIT if it is just a week away, definitely!
Thanks! My resolve is appropriately strengthened.
Going in Feb and trying not to listen to every single song…it’s so hard!
No, DEFINITELY WAIT FOR IT. Since it’s so close, you should let yourself experience it on stage first.
This is my favorite article about Hamilton: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2…
And it pointed out that the only time Miranda breaks character is to tell you the cool fact about Martha Washington’s cat. And it just fills my heart with joy that he saw “here is a cool historical fact about a cat” as a worthy reason to break character.
Eeeeeee! Also, “nine people’s favorite thing” reference, I SEE YOU.
Some of my friends who have seen it are like “you were right, this is so great” and I’m trying to figure out a polite way to be like “also you should go listen to In the Heights now so that we can talk about that, too!” Mirandavangelizing? Is that a thing?
This is interesting, but I really disagree with her analysis of Hamilton’s motivations. He DOES spend a lot of the show worrying about how others perceive him: It’s the whole reason he writes the Reynolds Pamphlet (to let people know he wasn’t embezzling money, just, you know, paying off a blackmailer so he could sleep with his wife). Eliza emphasizes that even more in “Burn”:
*SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T LISTENED TO THE LAST HALF OF THE SHOW*
In clearing your name
You have ruined our lives
….
You and your words obsessed with your legacy
Your sentences border on senseless
And you are paranoid in every paragraph
How they perceive you
You, you, you!
I had the same thought when I was reading that piece, but I wonder if what she means is that he’s more concerned with his historical legacy than with his contemporary popularity? Like, Hamilton doesn’t care that half of Washington’s cabinet hates him if it means he’s on what he believes to be the right side of history; he doesn’t mind alienating people to ensure his place in the history books. It’s what makes him the opposite of Burr, who is deeply concerned with being liked and consequently is remembered by history solely for his one rash act.
YES. This. Hamilton is only concerned with legacy. He’s so forward looking that he screws up the present.
I agree with your summary, I just don’t think the author of the article did a good job articulating that if that IS what she meant.
I also don’t think (like the author seems to) that the “moral” of the musical is: Be more like Hamilton! YOLO! I think it is to take the best parts of Burr and Hamilton – be ambitious and have goals, but be circumspect and look around you at your life and those you love.
Man, I have so many thoughts about Burr and his role in this play, really. I mean, look at “Wait for It” and “Dear Theodosia”. Yes, his motto is “wait for it” but he’s constantly aware that he’s going to make mistakes (especially for the sake of love) no matter how cautious he is. “The slinking Salieri-Javert”?? DISAGREE STRONGLY.
Hmmm, I wonder if she meant more like he’s a Salieri-Javert in contrast to Hamilton’s Mozart-Valjean? Because I would agree that he’s a more self-aware character than Hamilton, but I think only get to see that because he’s so obsessed with Hamilton’s success and he identifies the difference between them more articulately than Hamilton does — Hamilton reduces Burr to a man of inaction, where really Burr is actually just a little bit better at playing the game. It would be wrong to say Burr is ALL surface, but he understands the difference between surface and substance better than anyone else in this show.
I agree with you, but I’m not entirely sure that’s what the author was talking about, considering her use of the word “slinking.” I think she really only touches on the surface motivations of Hamilton and Burr without digging into the actual substance of them while reviewing a play which does exactly that.
I’m not disagreeing with your reading at all! Only if if that’s what the author meant, I think she did a very bad job of showing that.
(Here’s where I just want to throw in my joy that Burr reminds me so much of Judas in “Jesus Christ Superstar”, which is probably my favorite musical ever.)
Oooh, probably fair. I got so wrapped up in my own reading that I didn’t glance back at the article. I JUST WANT TO TALK ABOUT BURR MORE. I keep obsessing on his solo lines in “The Room Where It Happens” where he finally drops that he wants to be in the room; I don’t know what Leslie Odom Jr does to his voice, but it’s some how equal parts sexy and terrifying and heart-breaking, and it’s
I 10000% agree on the Judas resemblance; the whole show has so much in common with Jesus Christ Superstar and it makes me so happy, because I LOVE JCS and it’s the only thing that Andrew Lloyd Webber has ever done that I love unreservedly. I read somewhere else that Miranda was thinking of Che in Evita when he wrote Burr, which is an interesting take as well.
I will talk about Burr all day long! “The Room Where It Happens” is brilliant, and I’ve been spending a little more time this morning really digging into “Wait for It.” It’s the first time where he outright mentions his preoccupations with mistakes, especially those made for the sake of love. (The other, of course, is in “Dear Theodosia” where he will “make a million mistakes” as opposed to Hamilton’s “I’ll do whatever it takes.”) He’s not a man of inaction, but one patient enough to wait for the right (or maybe “safest”) opportunity in order to protect those he loves.
YES! Very Che-like as well.
Hamilton is my fav founding father, but I definitely don’t think he’s 100% heroic, and I think LMM is really good at showing him warts and all. (Though historically he had no warts, he really was a pretty boy.) Being “great” is very different than being “good”, and I don’t think that the musical’s moral is to emulate Hamilton at all. I like your take on it, that both Hamilton and Burr’s modes have virtues and vices, and neither has 100% the right path — hence why the duel is a tragedy!
I actually didn’t get the takeaway that Burr’s mode had virtues to be emulated. I think the musical did a great job of showing Burr’s depth, and I cared about him, but I’m having a hard time thinking of anything positive that results from his waiting. He tries so hard to follow the path he think is best for advancement, but because he doesn’t attach himself to a cause, he’s been forever remembered just for the duel. That said, I think the musical made it very clear that Hamilton was flawed and that his mode led directly to his destruction and the destruction of his family. So I can see the argument for the musical’s moral being to blend both morals.
I think to some extent, though, he lives. Hamilton doesn’t make his daughter an orphan. If he’s oriented towards the ones he loves, rather than future glory, then he does kind of get that.
That was my takeaway from it. I wanted the reviewer to acknowledge that being obsessed with legacy is another form of being obsessed with how people perceive you–I think that would be interesting to discuss. But I agree with her overall distinction between Burr and Hamilton.
No that’s you starting to cry while just reading the damn lyrics. This fucking show.
Question: is that gif on tumblr? and if so, where? I spent HOURS trying to track it down yesterday, but it was nowhere to be found.
No, someone posted it on Twitter and I tracked it down to Imgur
It is the greatest gif and I am happy every time it’s posted.
Here’s another gift – someone hilariously broke down all of the tracks and Lin-Manuel (our bff) reposted to his Tumblr. http://linmanuel.tumblr.com/
Wait for It: aaron burr do you need a hug?
you will never be able to count to ten in french again without crying
YUP PRETTY MUCH
Can I count to ten in French anymore?
Of course you can!
Well I couldn’t before!
Thanks for teaching me that, Hamilton, and making me weep every time I think about it.
Take a Break: say yes to this emotional threesome alex
Hahahahah jefferson – america’s original fuckboy
YEP
THAT IS ALL SO TRUE, but I am particularly in love with “Eliza is a cinnamon roll too good, to pure for this world.” That meme was invented for her, clearly, it is the truest. #BestOfWivesBestOfWomen, #CryingForever
The soundtrack has made me plan a trip to NYC in March probably. I’m going to buy tickets today once I’ve finished the work I need to do, as a reward.
I was in NYC in July and went to the #Ham4Ham lottery and didn’t win and I’m so torn, because it’s not terribly hard for me to get to NYC b/c my sister lives there, and I want to see this show with the original cast so desperately but tickets + bus fare are pretty expensive for a college student. And there are a ton of shows on Broadway/opening soon that I want to see – Fun Home, Allegiance (!!!!!!!), Fiddler on the Roof, Deaf West’s Spring Awakening… why are there so many amazing shows and so little money???
Oh man, thank you so much for the link to the lyrics. Although I have now listened to it enough that I’m starting to memorize them just on my own.
Slate just posted a guide to the hip-hop references in Hamilton, though LMM says he hasn’t heard some of the songs referenced: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/09/24/ha…
Still, it’s a way for people like me who only got the Broadway references to hear what we were missing! (I caught maybe two of the hip-hop references, and one was cut before the Broadway move. But I caught nearly every Broadway reference, fuck yeah!)
I was sooooo sad they cut the “Blame it on the Alcohol” reference. It worked so beautifully, though I guess it made sense since they cut nearly all the Whiskey Rebellion stuff (which I also kinda miss? Even though One Last Time works better in the show than One Last Ride? IDK I’m weird)
I also miss the Whiskey Rebellion and prefer One Last Ride for that reason, even if I know the second act needed some streamlining. I think the patter between Burr and AHam is missing something without the Blame It On the Alcohol ref. (I don’t miss Dear Theodosia’s reprise being cut.) Also, the Whiskey Rebellion is awesome.
Tell me about Theodosia’s reprise and One Last Ride!! I want a deleted scenes collection, grrr. (I’m on the west coast and can’t possibly get to NYC for a show, but have been playing the soundtrack on NPR nonstop the last two days.)
I will be honest, I remember barely anything about Dear Theodosia’s reprise except that’s where Burr told his daughter his wife had died and she’d loved her very much. I think it came before Blow Them All Away (there was also a cut verse in that where Burr told AHam he’d heard about the duel from Theodosia). It was forgettable and cutting it was smart, because I admit the second act dragged at points in mid-Feb and was overall too long, even though individually each song worked except maybe that reprise.
One Last Ride was, IMO, cooler than One Last Time — it’s the same tune, but included part of Right Hand Man. Washington is much less reflective and wants to get back in uniform for one last ride against the people rebelling about the whiskey and then retiring. The staging was really cool for the battle, and it was one of the only times AHam seemed happy in the second act, when he was in battle with Washington by his side. (I haven’t seen the Broadway version so I have no idea about staging.) It ended in the same way with the version of the Farewell Address. I like One Last Time, I just miss the moments of OLR.
I think LMM is planning on including the deleted scenes (including the cut Adams rap and a never-finished Franklin song!) in the book, which is coming out in early 2016. I want this book badly!
Oooh, thank you for all that info! I didn’t know there was a book coming! But will it come with audio files or what? I can’t wait to hear the Franklin song — I did miss him in the musical.
I miss One Last Ride, too. I know the show works better new but it still makes me sad it’s gone!
Oh mannnn someone in the lyrics doc linked to this review in the New York from the run at the Public, and it just really bums me out. I don’t know if the show has changed significantly since then, but I feel like the critic reading it as just another love story, or that all the women are “plot points in silk” is… a misreading? But then, I haven’t seen it, only listened to the score 80 times. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/boys…
I mean, it’s valid to observe that all the women in the show are romantically tied to Hamilton and otherwise wouldn’t show up in the plot at all. I wish that was different. But I think LMM went to great pains and length to demonstrate how that was a product of the times, why it was bullshit, and demonstrate the range and depth of Eliza and Angelica. Ugh, idk, I think this review is dismissive.
OH MY GOD THEY CALLED PHILLIP SOO “DULL” THIS REVIEWER CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES.
The show has changed a bit from its run at the Public, but nothing too major. Mostly structural things to shorten it a bit, and taking out some less necessary plot choices (none of it to do with the female characters- the vast majority was based around Washington)
Somehow I glossed over that slight, and now I’m straight pissed. You do not come after my girl Pippa Soo like that.
I mean, seriously though. I’ve been lucky enough to see her live, and while I wasn’t terribly enamoured with Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 she was astonishing. She’s such a magnetic personality on stage, even while playing demure, and that voice! Ugh, this guy can just go straight to Weehawken.
I haven’t seen Pippa live (we had her understudy when I saw it at the Public, and she was truly FABULOUS), but even just listening to her on the album she has such PRESENCE and grace and THE FUCK HOW DO YOU CALL HER DULL HOOOOOW.
I remember reading that review when it came out and SEETHING. I saw the show both on Broadway and at the Public, and there were no significant changes to the women’s plot–I think Als was just expecting the Les Miz style treatment of women where they’re split into “the interesting one you like” and “the sweet one you don’t like,” and when that didn’t happen he resented the show. Personally I think one of the most interesting things about Hamilton is that both Eliza and Angelica are considered human beings worthy of the audience’s respect and love regardless of their relationships with the men in their world.
The New Yorker did another article on the women of Hamilton more recently that I think is a lot smarter and more interesting than Als’s review: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment…. I especially like this line: “Is it a feminist ending? Almost. The notion that men do the deeds and the women tell their stories isn’t exactly Germaine Greer-worthy. (Look at the history-making women being considered to replace Hamilton on the ten-dollar bill.) But, in placing Eliza front and center, Miranda is reinforcing his over-all project, which is in part to displace the founding story as the province of white men.”
Yes! I read that article and felt way better.
I don’t necessarily love the whole Maria Reynolds thing? Just from listening it seems like there might be some debate on whether she was complicit with her husband in extorting him, but, as the article points out, he comes across more like he’s been tricked than he actively carried on an affair? Which he 100% did. It’s not that the show doesn’t acknowledge that, I just think maybe it could hit it harder. But again, this is just in listening to the album.
Yeah, I agree that he doesn’t come across as all that culpable in the affair, which he was. I rationalize it by saying that “Say No to This” is from Hamilton’s POV and he’s trying to rationalize his behavior, and I do like that it’s balanced almost immediately by “The Reynolds Pamphlet” and “Burn,” but I would still have liked to see the show make room for giving Maria some subjectivity. I think one of its few flaws is that there are so few women the four we get end up having to represent the entire gender instead of just being themselves, and that’s not fair to them.
The only changes I really object to in the transfer were the ones made to the beginning of “Say No To This.” I’m not sure if it was a rights issue with songs he was referencing or what, but I felt like the Public version made Hamilton sound a lot more culpable in the infidelity. The Broadway one makes it sound more like he was tricked.
I’ve been listening to the soundtrack non-stop and I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how I can afford to see it. Anyone know the secret to getting less expensive tickets?
Buy tickets a year in advance/during a period when tickets are cheaper (usually Jan/Feb for Broadway), or attend the raffle every day for $10 front row seats. No idea how likely it is that you’ll get tickets that way, but they do a five-minute show before the raffle called #Ham4Ham!
Did not know about the raffle, that’s awesome and I will definitely look into it. Thank you!
I won the lottery on Sunday and it’s the best thing that has ever happened to me ever in the history of my life.
Thank you for the lyrics! I should not have listened to the damn soundtrack… I still haven’t seen the last hot Broadway musical everyone loved (Book of Mormon) and lord knows I’m not getting to NYC anytime soon waaaaaaahhhh.
I was walking home from Kol Nidre services on Tuesday night humming “The Election of 1800.” I don’t know why that was the one stuck in my head, but it was. And I didn’t listen to it at all during Yom Kippur, because Yom Kippur is not a time for such things and also because I was either sleeping or at synagogue without my cell phone. But I was still humming it.
Just – THIS FUCKING SHOW.
I was listening to “Wait for It” on a loop on Tuesday before Yom Kippur. I have no idea why it got me in the atonement mood, but it totally did.
I avoided listening to it on Yom Kippur too (the sacrifices we make for religion, Hashem should have taken that into account on our ledgers!) But to get my baby to sleep on Yom Kippur I sang her King George’s songs. I might be singing “Say No to This” right now as she feeds. I want her to impress on Hamilton, is what I’m saying.
So if I have zero chance of seeing this any time soon, should I listen to the soundtrack? Or just accept that this is one of life’s sublime joys that is not meant for the likes of me?
I think you should listen if you’re interested. I get to see very few shows, but I’ve fallen in love with lots of them from their soundtracks alone, and it’s a joy I never get tired of.
Never accept the loss of Hamilton in your life. I definitely enjoy listening to shows I might never see and then enjoy seeing them recontextualized on stage. I don’t think it ruins the show at all: it means I’ll appreciate different things when I do see it.
I’ve never listened to a show I haven’t already seen…until this one. I don’t know if or when I’ll get to see Hamilton so I listened to see what the fuss was all about. The fuss is not misplaced, it’s an amazing show. Harder to keep track of characters without a prior viewing, so I just let the first listen wash over me. I’m on my second listen now, and I’m picking up a lot more.
Look around, look around, at how LUCKY we are to be ALIVE right now
<3 <3 <3 <3
I love Phillipa Soo so much… I first discovered her voice on the recording for Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (it’s a pop opera adaptation of War and Peace!) but she’s even more amazing as Eliza.
She said, “You have married an Icarus. He has flown too close to the sun.
My HEART
hearing those lyrics (“look around”) has a pretty ridiculously positive impact on my state of mind tbh. smile on my face every damn time.
Soooo, I live in London and in theory, the hottest ticket on Broadway always shows up in the West End at a later date so I’ll catch up with you guys in a few years if the show doesn’t make the British feel all awkward.
(they seem to be mostly ‘over’ the revolution though so there’s hope.)
Hamilton is transferring to the West End in 2017! http://www.broadway.com/buzz/182100/lin-manuel-mi…
It’ll be interesting to see the response over there. I feel like King George might actually be hilarious to a London audience, but who knows?
Eee! But also I have to wait 2 years?!
Unless it seriously lampoons the British as a whole (instead of just George III) they probably won’t care. It’ll probably just make me feel awkward sitting in the audience like I feel when my friends wish me Happy 4th of July. (How is that not weird? It’s weird right?)
Wait, so does Peggy Schulyer ever show up in the show or not? I know she’s mentioned in The Schyler Sisters, but does she ever play a role in the proceedings. I just realized Eliza & Angelica do a ton of singing, but I’m not sure I ever hear her at the forefront of any songs. One thing I’m not quite picking up from not seeing it live.
She sings in “The Schuyler Sisters” (she’s the one saying things like, “Daddy says be home by sundown”), and she appears onstage in “Helpless” and “Satisfied,” but she doesn’t solo. She’s mostly just there to round out the harmonies in “The Schuyler Sisters,” I think–the casting description refers to her as the Michelle Williams of the group. The same actress also plays Maria Reynolds, though, so you can hear her rocking her contralto in “Say No to This.”
Got it! Thank you!
HAMILTOOOOOOOOOON. Someday I’ll stop obsessing over this show. JUST KIDDING THAT WILL NEVER EVER HAPPEN.
“Conversion was not compulsory; rather, Indians chose freely to join the Church and the mission after a period of catechesis,” says the L.A. Archdiocese website.
This is the Catholic Church’s official line on the entire history of conversion — that i.e., the Teutonic Knights didn’t force the conversion of Baltic pagans for instance, they just conquered their country and destroyed their villages and killed all their leaders and priests and burned all their stuff and then after that the pagans came to the Church of their own free will. Sure, Clovis and Charlemagne conquered France in the name of the Pope, but after that everyone just converted because they heard the message of the Lord. Living in a devastated, burned-out hellscape was unrelated, and largely coincidental.
I can get behind the fine distinction between coercion and bribery, although if someone’s material destitution that renders them vulnerable to bribery is the fault of the offeror, no reason you can’t have both. but even if it’s pure bribery with no coercion, I would have thought that offering someone material goods in exchange for a conversion was the essence of corruption and would constitute the Church making itself into a proximate occasion of sin? also, it’s not a real conversion, at all?
ugh sometimes you can tell I am just a thin atheist skin stretched over the wicked spirit of a Protestant
I’ve never read something that rang as true for me as “a thin atheist skin stretched over the wicked soul of a Protestant”. Add back in a nougat of pure cynic and tiny core of just plain atheist and a sprinkle of superstitious pagan during the winter, and you’ve got me pegged. I might even join your religion, should you be peddling one.
You’d think that. I expect that this is mostly a post-hoc rationalization to avoid invalidating the history of conversion. Like, the Church would be willing to admit that it mostly didn’t happen willingly or fairly if they could be confident that they wouldn’t have to give all those converts back.
This is so horrifyingly cutting on so many levels I think I am in love with that paragraph.
This reminds me of the sad, bitter things I’ve read about the stories of Protestants offering food to Irish famine victims in exchange from conversion *from* Catholicism. Ugh! all around.
That’s awful. Just awful.
Interesting historical note! The Choctaw Nation — just after having been forcibly relocated to the midwest — heard about the Irish famine and took up a collection, ultimately sending the Irish people $170 to help them in their time of trouble.
No conversion of any type was requested.
Wow. That is pretty incredible.
“I am just a thin atheist skin stretched over the wicked spirit of a Protestant”
It me.
Wow. Replace Protestant with Catholic and I think someone’s finally been able to put me in words. Thank you.
I’d say that I’m a thin pagan skin stretched over the wicked spirit of a Catholic, but in truth the Church co-opted so much from the pagans that there’s yet another matryoshka doll beneath.
When I consider that I come from a long line of Pagans who thought of themselves as Catholics, a lot of things about me start to make sense.
Except in examples like the Canadian residential school system, where it really was straight up explicit coercion, not just (just) the “we’ve wiped you out, now please straggle over here so we can bless you and tax your land” style.
Yeah, it was definitely also explicitly forced indoctrination in many cases. They still use the same line though: “Oh, we just gave them schools and a place to live away from poverty, we HAD to, their parents would have kept them from getting lifesaving medicine and they would have starved, and then they happened to willingly convert while they were there.”
edit: I guess every once in a while they DO admit that they were basically just trying to destroy First Nation culture, but good luck getting them to admit to cultural genocide.
How convenient, really.
(I might have strained something there being so deadpan; it really does make me quite sad that there has been an ongoing campaign too eradicate indigenous cultures. It breaks my heart to think about kids loosing their families and their language and their communities in one blow, plus all the abuse that happened in those schools.)
yeah, I’ve got a real hard time being anything but disgusted about it. The only people connected to the colonization of North America who should be canonized are people who said, “We should leave this people alone.”
I don’t know if there was anyone like that, though.
If there was, my guess is that they would not have likely been written about anywhere in history.
The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Bartolomé de las Casas (the Dominican friar who opposed slavery and wrote about abuses of the indigenous population in the West Indies):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_l…
yeah, though I’d still prefer someone who didn’t go through a, “what if we enslaved Africans instead?” period.
You go to heaven with the saints you’ve got, not the saints you want.
But yes- I wish he’d had his realization of universal human dignity way earlier. But mostly I’m glad he did.
God this is making me realise how utterly horrifying heaven must be, if it really is the kind of heaven we get taught about.
I was pretty lucky I was taught that heaven was outside our understanding and attempts to explain it other than “oneness with God” was really not possible. I was also taught that hell might exist but it’s totally possible there’s no one there.
Sent from my iPad
Also, a lot of times it’s, “Hey, it wasn’t US, that was Secular Authorities doing all of the bad stuff, we were just helpless bystanders to their atrocities! In a way, we were actually SAVING them by helping them to assimilate into a culture that was hostile to their difference! We’re kind of like the heroes of that story.”
Oh god, I am either going to laugh until I cry or cry until I laugh. I cannot tell which.
Oh my goodness yes- and I do get it, I do, it was great and important that they were the only people even trying to mitigate the rampant violations of the colonization but that isn’t the same as staunchly opposing it. You still danced with the ones that brought ya.
But they weren’t mitigating: they were running schools where children were beaten for speaking their native language, they were encouraging people to settler further out as part of their Christian duty. It was a joint effort between the church and state. To be honest, in 17th century New France, they were hardly separate entities.
I don’t know much about the history, but this sounds correct. And a nice counterpoint to Islamophobes who always spout cliches such as ‘THEY [Muslims] were just marauding invaders who forced populations to convert at the point of a sword, while WE [Christians] were all peaceful ‘n’ democratic ‘n’ stuff, everyone just converted completely of their own free will cos we’re so awesome and white’.
Yeah. I’d say that’s EXACTLY how it happened, in the notably serene and peaceful time in history that was early medieval Europe.
It’s self evidently true! The message of Christ is love, and European Christians were its messengers. Therefore, it MUST BE THE CASE that they didn’t violently conquer nonbelievers, because if it were, they wouldn’t be Christians.
Quod erat et cetera.
This actually made me go ‘uuuuunnnnnghgghghg’ and loll around in my chair.
UUUUHGHNNHHGHGHGHG.
that is how we roll, unfortunately, just uncomfortable truths left and right, seasoned liberally with half-remembered Latin.
And a disconcerting instinct to sit, stand, kneel, stand is a particular rhythm.
okay so I’m reading HILD by Nicola Griffith (and i’ve been reading it since June it is so sloooowww because of so many details and political manoeuvering amongst the early-medieval saxons or whatever group they are i can’t keep track anymore) and one of the things I love is that apparently St Hilda was canonized for converting England to Christianity way back in 700AD or something, but Griffiths explicitly subverts that by being all “actually, Hild didn’t really have any personal belief-investment in Christianity, and she thought it was kind of stupid, but hey, look, pretending to believe means she learned to read and got some assurance that her family line wouldn’t be murdered for a little while longer!”
except i’m only halfway through, so maybe she has some kind of religious experience before the end. still, all along, she’s been commenting on how obvious it is that the religious people are making shit up that promotes their self-interests (because that’s what her mother has raised her to do!), even if she does believe in Woden myths as explanations for the natural world.
i read so many stories about saints as a kid, because i grew up in Catholic school, and it was actually a huge part of what made me atheist (as a teenager, i realized the hagiographies and venerations resembled other multi-deity religions/stories), so it’s kind of refreshing to read a saint story that’s all “naw, that’s bullshit”.
Yeah, right? It’s pretty peculiar how the centralized cosmology of Middle-Ages Christianity was ideally-suited for the emerging growth of dictatorial nation-states.
“Give us your best exports and our god will protect you from other tribes by making sure our bishops are in place with bribes and wealth! (also reading/writing to spread news + bribes faster)”
Yup.
I mean, historically, belief in the Christian God has not actually been a prerequisite for serving in the church, etc. And honestly it still isn’t, a lot of people in seminary etc will tell you they are mostly doubters, but that the church is a way to do good. Personally I can think of a lot of other ways to do good that don’t involve associating oneself with an historically violent and terrible organisation, but there it is. And I can certainly see a 14th century me jumping on board with one of the only places you could actually get shit done (the church), especially as a woman – as limited a scope as that was, it was still SOMETHING.
See also that old classic: “God will know his own.”
Of course, Cardinal Arnaud-Amalric was actually leading an attack on other Christians, just in case anyone had any doubts as to what exactly the Church was getting up to back then.
(Oh, it was a SECULAR political conflict about the King of France seizing control of the County of Toulouse from the Duke of Barcelona! It’s just that it coincidentally happened to be prosecuted against Christian heretics and coincidentally happened to be led and managed by Catholic hierarchs! When Innocent III declared a crusade against the Albigensians, he wasn’t acting as a fallible human being in a civil conflict, not as a representative of the Church! No true Scotsman would ever behave that way!)
Christian. No true Christian would do that. “No True Scotsman” is a logical fallacy that has no bearing on this whatsoever.
GUYS, it’s sea otter awareness week and the Monterey Bay Aquarium instagram account is killing it with the videos of sea otter pups: https://instagram.com/montereybayaquarium/?hl=en
You are doing good work here. I shall bookmark this page to look at whenever something sad happens.
the smithsonian library tumblr just posted this hilarious picture of a sea otter
I am angry at the WORLD for never telling me that the Smithsonian library has a tumblr
The Smithsonian Library has the BEST tumblr. A squirrel-appreciatin’ tumblr.
i love them so much. they make me excited to go to museums in a way that no class or museum tour ever did. i have very carefully curated my tumblr so i basically only see pictures of plants, sea life, and sciency gifs.
Thank you for this! <3 the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
I’ve watched all those videos and I feel EXTREMELY aware of sea otters right now.
Prepare for me to come back and make everyone talk about Hamilton again in February when I finally get to seeeee it.
Please do! I am happy with this being a daily feature personally!
This will NOT be a problem.
I’m seeing it in late December, so count on me being in on discussions months from now.
Jerk guy Gentrifying Brooklyn = opening up the West like Lewis and Clark
I’m hoping it ends up closer to the Franklin Expedition, then he can get lead poisoning from his jars of artisanal pickles and haul a piano through the snow while bemused locals watch.
speaking of conquistadors…
It’s probably for the best, but the video for the Ballad of the Brooklyn Settler is gone. But from reading the words… wow.
Nevermind! It’s still here and it’s worse than I thought. What a shitbag.
You can just hear the way he said “Excuse you” to that woman… a way that I am 100% willing to bet fully justified a “Fuck you.”
I mean, saying “Excuse you” to a person who bumps into you automatically justifies a “Fuck you” in my book.
You think you know the variety of ways people can be awful and then you see something like that. “I settled this neighbourhood for you” and then shouting “White privilege” at someone else… what with him and Roland Emmerich, it’s shaping up to be a good week for offensively butthurt white men.
I have a solid $10 that says that this dude also uses terms like “warrior” to describe his gym workouts. He’s going places that have never been gone, doing things that have never been done!*
* by any people he knows personally
“People” defined, in his mind, as white men.
“White privilege! White privilege!”
You keep using those words… I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
Maybe he was trying to invoke it?
Oh! Well in that case, he should have said it three times – you know, like Beetlejuice or Bloody Mary.
Gotta get your incantations RIGHT, man.
“Fun” fact time: my brother attended Junipero Serra High School (a public high school at that) in San Diego as a teen. The mascot was, I shit you not, a Conquistador. The colors were appropriately poop brown and mustard yellow and I remember (back in the early 90’s) the poor marching bad uniform included some unfortunate flat rimmed brown hats with little dangly yellow balls around the rim. Here’s a link to school https://www.sandiegounified.org/schools/serra
Let me see if I can a picture of those sad mariachi hats…
Oh they still have the entire unfortunate get up minus the dangly balls on the hats!
Poor kiddos.
Talk about suffering for the sins of one’s ancestors.
Okay, now I have an even more compelling reason to move away from San Diego before having children…
I went to a high school named for Theodore Roosevelt and our mascot was the Roughriders. Would have been bothered by the imperialist implications, but they were overshadowed by the DMX song and a wealth of double entendres.
I live by such a high school! I CANNOT STOP MAKING JOKES. Nothing about it is appropriate.
I’m not familiar with the DMX song, but from untold numbers of convenience stores:
My first high school had those exact same horrible colors, but the mascot was… Well, the mascot was the Gorton’s Fish Stick Man. No really. It was.
Was it in Gloucester, Massachusetts?
Close. Rhode Island.
I went to Catholic school and our mascot was the Crusaders.
I went to a *Lutheran* school and our mascot was the Crusaders.
WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA SERIOUSLY
I went to a public school and our mascot was … the Crusaders. There was a weird faux set of armor in the lobby.
My honest to god response to that was to mutter ‘Jeeeeeeeessussssssssssssssssssss’ under my breath. And then I realised what I was doing.
“Conquistador”, on the other hand, is not a bad song; probably Procol Harum’s second-best-known song.
Vancouver Toastfolk! I’ll come back and mention it again in tomorrow’s OT, but ROXANE IS COMING TO THE VANCOUVER WRITER’S FEST NEXT MONTH and did any of you want to go because I think it’d be splendid to go as a group?
OMG! Can we include a Toastie Roundup at a bar/coffee joint /diner, too? Cause I’m IN!
Ah! Yes! I’m there.
Grace Jones’ memoir is out todayyyyy!
Have recommended Meaty to my library to buy on Overdrive. And now we play the waiting game…
Until living in Brooklyn is no longer mandatory, I am sorry to say that these sorts of unfortunate incidents will likely continue.
*Gentle cough* – that profile of Sam is great but also from 2013! (I was confused when the referred to Meaty as a new release.)
Thank you for clearing that up for me! I was getting all indignant over “new release WHAT” good to know I was in the wrong.
And if I ever get the blessed chance to meet Madam Irby, we are gonna swap vet receptionist stories for, like, at least an hour or two.
Who else will be watching the premiere of Heroes Reborn tonight??? I’m so excited, I loved the original run of Heroes (until it went bizzarro) and the buzz for this minisereies has been really good.
Ta-Nehisi responded to someone defending Daniel Patrick Moynihan and damn… Quoting the Wire in regards to TNC is hackneyed, but damn: “You come at the king you best not miss.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/…
Wow, so excellent. (Yeah, no surprise, I know.)
The story of mass incarceration, of American racism, is not simply a story of evil racists. It is also the story of people trying to help. And it is also the story of these same people not fully understanding the ugly traditions alive in their own country. Black criminalization is such a tradition and when Moynihan employed it he was playing with fire. Others got burned.
I refuse to click on Facebook links, especially at work. What is that one that is simply labeled “nice” about??
(helpful link descriptions are helpful :/)
(eta: partly because it’s Facebook and I refuse to visit that site, but also because the URL is an algorithm generated string and i have no idea what it might show me)
I really hate FB too, but if you’re practicing a total boycott against anything on that site, I would think it’s best to forfeit all curiosity on pages linked there, too? Rather than asking others to visit and describe what’s on pages you won’t visit yourself. Just food for thought, I don’t mean to preach.
Anyway, it’s an image with captions of things that don’t scan for breast cancer (pink stuff) versus what does (doctors at Planned Parenthood).
The issue here is less that it’s FB than that it’s a mystery URL labeled “nice” and with no further labels. I generally don’t bother when I see a url leads to FB, but I’m getting frustrated with how often there’s an obscured URL (not just FB!) with no descriptive information before I click.
I wasn’t seriously asking for someone to click on it and report back! I see how it looks that way, but it was more griping that mystery/obscured links are annoying – and they make it hard sometimes to connect a comment thread to a particular link.
I’m with you, I don’t like clicking on things if I can’t tell by the descriptive text or url where it’s going to take me, especially when I’m at work. Sometimes I read through the comments here to see if people are raving about something and go back if it looks interesting.
I mostly browse the dash toast dot net on my work machine, which blocks all the major social networks. So I can see, say, the text of a tweet that’s being quoted here but never the pic/video. Where I could see a pic linked from flickr (or even tumblr) or a video embedded from youtube.
So I’m also guilty of just waiting to see if there are raves in the comments and then googling/inquiring about it. Based on this description, I’ve seen that particular image passed around quite a bit on FB and elsewhere, so that’s all fine, I suppose. But it is sometimes frustrating to have to go chase down some tweet to be able to understand what I’m supposed to be seeing.
Same here– all the social media sites, YouTube, etc., are blocked here where I work.
Also, if I accidentally click on (say) a Facebook link on my work computer, I get a scary error message about it being **BLOCKED** which makes me afraid that the IT folks are about to descend on me with a SWAT team.
Ah, that’s an issue for Nicole to address, then. I don’t mind clicking links myself, except it would be awesome if we got a NWS heads-up for any applicable content, since it is the workday for so many of us.
It is a one-panel comic about breast cancer awareness pink (which does nothing) versus Planned Parenthood (which actually does things).
Unrelated:
Guys, my goddamn scooter warranty parts finally arrived! This is after I was told they’d shipped out, asked for a tracking number (again) a week later, and then had someone from the warranty claims department call me and ask me if I knew which parts I needed. So he then sent those out, which was cool, along with the helmet I ordered (it’s not actually the helmet, I ordered, but it’s sparkly blue and matches my scooter, so that’s cool). As soon as the warehouse guy gets back to the store with the van, I’m going to drive over to the mechanic’s, since they’ve been holding my scooter for over a month while I waited on warranty parts.
Hooray for progress on fixing your pretty blue scooter.
But, exciting new development, when I took the parts over on my lunch break, the scooter guy informed me that I was sent the wrong fuel valve. So hopefully, the fuel valve isn’t the problem, and replacing the carburetor will do the trick. If not, I’m just going to tell them to buy whatever parts they need and bill me, because I’m sick of spending money on the bus (since I never know when this thing’ll be fixed, I never get a bus pass, so I spend cash money every day), and I just want this gd thing to be done.
Completely unrelated, but I just wanted to share an anecdote from this morning. My college BF and I are not friends anymore, even on FB (it was a nasty breakup), but 7 years later we’ve now gotten to a point where we are friendLY. His 30th birthday was on Tuesday, and that’s a pretty big milestone, so I sent him a FB message this morning saying I hope he’s well and that he’s doing something amazing for his bday.
Readers, the Universe has rewarded me.
He wrote back and said that he is great, and appreciated my birthday well-wishes, that came on the day he found his first grey hair. !!!!!!
Like I said, we’re friendly, but schadenfreude is just a beautiful thing.
“Heavenly Creatures”….oh man, I LOVE that movie. Haven’t seen it in years, mind you, maybe it’s time for a re-watch. Off to read the link!
I found out the other day that the Mystery author Anne Perry is Juliet Hulme (the Kate Winslet character). It blew my mind a little bit.
This is Link Roundup! #420. That is all.
Showgirls! I’ve never seen it, but it has a special place in my heart because my uncle was one of the assistant art directors! I wonder if he has any stories about making it…
It has a rather special place in my heart, too, because I saw it after a very long hiking trip– after staying in grotty youth hostels for several months, having my own room, my own bathtub, and my own TV was very exciting. (Even if the only thing on was a movie about strippers).
I’m dissatisfied by the two movie articles. The Heavenly Creatures article was a good recap of the movie, but I’m puzzled that someone who started by highlighting the real-life nature of the story and wondered about two girls brutally attacking someone else based on their shared delusions wouldn’t reference the Slender Man stabbing, at least in passing.
And the Showgirls article is oddly framed in places; describing Paul Verhoeven as “the guy who directed Basic Instinct“, without mentioning any other movie that he’s done (such as the three genuine science fiction classics) is really front-loading your argument in an obvious and shallow way. (This Grantland article on Verhoeven’s career not only puts Showgirls in a better perspective, but also addresses, however briefly, the role of women in his movies, which can be somewhat problematic.) Also weird is how Joe Eszterhas never gets mentioned, not even once, even though the skeevier aspects of the movie are completely characteristic of his screenwriting career well before Basic Instinct and Showgirls.
SAAAAAAAAAAAM
IIIIIIIRBYYYYYYYYY
That is all.
that is how we roll, unfortunately, just uncomfortable truths left and right, seasoned liberally with half-remembered Latin.