Naps are best taken as a pack.
The return of Pee-wee Herman (he’ll always be Prince Gerhardt to me):
Pee-wee is, by now, a decades-old, decades-absent oddball, and yet he does not register as dated because Reubens designed him, from the jump, as untethered to any one moment in time. Arriving in the thick of the Reagan ’80s, ‘‘Playhouse’’ offered a funhouse-mirror vision of the Eisenhower-era United States that Reubens grew up in — its excess, its materialism, its hypocrisy, its racism, its hairstyles — with an added slathering of Los Angeles punk. (Gary Panter, who designed the famous ‘‘Playhouse’’ set, used to draw for the fanzine Slash and made crude fliers for bands like Germs.) Reubens didn’t attack ’50s conventions, though, so much as revise and exaggerate them. ‘‘I saw it as very Norman Rockwell,’’ Reubens says, ‘‘but it was my Norman Rockwell version of the ’50s, which was more all-inclusive.’’ Actors of color dominated the cast, among them Laurence Fishburne and S. Epatha Merkerson. ‘‘The King of Cartoons was black!’’ Reubens says. ‘‘Not just anybody. The king! That came out of growing up in Florida under segregation. I felt really good about that.’’
Friend of The Toast Carvell Wallace on Brittany Howard:
As a parent, all you want for your kids is that they feel free to be themselves and be loved. But the problem, especially raising a girl and most especially raising a girl of color, is that you can say you love and accept them until you are unable to speak anymore, but this will eventually be drowned out by a world that tells them in thundering and certain terms: “There are a lot of parts of you — honest, beautiful, and vulnerable parts — that we don’t have any place for.” The limits placed on a person’s humanity are already great by the time that person is a 10-year-old girl.
Brittany Howard playing guitar, making those ugly, honest faces, and belting out such unapologetic power does the kind of parenting for my daughter that I can’t do alone. I can tell my daughter it’s OK to be something that no one else has given her permission to be. But Brittany Howard can show her.
The Black Panthers, feeding kids:
Between 1969 and 1971, the Panthers established 36 breakfast programs across the country from Kansas City to New York City. It’s estimated that over time, the Panthers fed 50,000 across the country through their program.
“The Panthers are feeding more kids than we are,” one US government official reportedly admitted.
Jolie, following her bliss:
I love laundry in an unnatural way, is what I’m trying to tell you here.
I’m also a laundry expert in my own right; in my capacity as a cleaning advice columnist, I’ve taught my own version of Laundry School for several years now (consider it the correspondence course version). So Downy, recognizing my true and deep adoration for the washing of clothes, invited me to Cincinnati to go deep on the subject (and, full disclosure, paid to fly me out). Even experts can learn new things, so off I went to Laundry School with Rachel Zoe.
Nelson’s examples come from literature and film, but the same goes especially for popular music, which has a twist: It’s narrated by the aggressor and addressed to “you.” Sexual aggression is ubiquitous across genres, even though rock and other white-coded genres have tended to get a pass for it, while nonwhite forms and artists have borne the brunt of scrutiny (compare, of course, the discourse around misogyny in rap music to the discourse around misogyny in metal, in which vileness is often excused as theater). Sex is something men do to women, whether they like it (“Whole Lotta Love,” “Kiss”) or not (“Face Down Ass Up,” “Kill You,” “Fucked With a Knife”). It makes women crazy (Mick Jagger wrote “19th Nervous Breakdown” about the women in whom he induced them) or worse (Elvis Presley, John Lennon: “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man”). When I was 11, my best guy friend played me the Misfits’ “Last Caress” over the phone, followed by the old clip of Donald Duck getting a blow job.
NOPE NOP MOVE OUT (also, for the record, there’s no “trying” to break up with someone, I refuse to accept that this was ALL her being clueless):
Dear Captain and Company,
I recently finalized the ending of a relationship…I say finalized because I’ve been trying to break up with my ex since October, but she finally was able to accept it months later…no matter how many times I told her, “my feelings for you have changed,” “I’m no longer attracted to you,” et al. For the record, she’s not a bad person…hardcore GSF carrier, yes, but a generally decent, well intentioned (if a little misguided a lot of the time) human being. When the ending finally hit her, we were able to talk more openly than we have in months and are working out all the transitional stuff without conflict.
The question is this…we rent an apartment together with me taking on the bulk of the expenses as I make more money. While I could likely move with ease, she’s not in the same position…she wants us to stay as platonic roommates for another year, continue to work on our friendship as we move forward with our separate lives. Most of my Team Me think I am nuts for considering it. I’m torn. I don’t want to be the person who says, “F You, I don’t care, I am looking out for me,” but I want to be sure that I – and she, for that matter – can move on with our lives and be okay with it. I’m at the point where if I saw her with someone else, I’d be totally happy for her. No jealously, no angst. I don’t know that I trust her to be okay in the same way. It worries me that she refused to hear the very explicit statements I was making with regard to wanting to end our relationship, and I worry about how that could pan out should I meet someone else. On the other, we do work together in terms of splitting things up around the house well, and have pretty much been platonic roommates for the last year of our relationship.
Is this worth it to save money and hassle, or should I run, run, run?
Every terrible thing that’s happened to Meredith Grey:
She was in a plane crash. And while Meredith survived …
It killed her half-sister. Whom Meredith had finally started bonding with.
She had to get a C-section during a power outage. Though the delivery-in-the-dark was successful overall, Meredith later realized she was bleeding internally and had to instruct an inexperienced doc on how to stop the bleed.
The Grammys. Discuss. My state chose NOT TO SHOW IT LIVE, so I didn’t get to livetweet the below with y’all:
The Newbery-Honor-winning “One Crazy Summer” by Rita Williams-Garcia is a great middle-grade read that has the Black Panthers breakfast program as a significant plot point.
#GRAM4HAM THOUGH
The acceptance speech is giving me LIFE. They are all so excited!!
TRANSCENDENT. And my entire family texting me like “Okay okay we get it now.”
During their performance, in the moment before Daveed Diggs entered, my fiancé grabbed my arm and urgently informed me, staring at the television in wide-eyed awe: “My boyfriend is about to come on.“
You should have jumped up and said “uh oh! Looks like you made the wrong sucker a cuckold!”
Oh, he could absolutely cuckold me for Daveed Diggs. I wouldn’t even be mad.
IS IT ONLINE IS IT ONLINE I live in England please help me
YES! http://www.vulture.com/2016/02/watch-the-hamilton…
I don’t have cable so I was anxiously looking for it this morning 🙂
The applause pause when Lin shows up… Man. When is the last time a broadway show got that kind of reception at the grammys? (and wasn’t based on a Disney movie.. to even be there in the first place?)
Upon first seeing that, I thought it was a hashtag for grannies who were really excited about Hamilton. I’m kind of sad that’s not what it is.
I think I fell in love with every Hamilton cast member simultaneously. There is so. much. talent.
Goosebumps!!
the CBS livestream was down until right before Hamilton went on and it all worked out great because i got to skip what i gather was a v. tepid Grammy’s night for the only thing i was interested in anyways
I’ve had so many people ping me to learn more about the show, and I’m all I HAVE A GOOGLE DOC OF VIDEO LINKS AND HERE ARE GENIUS.COM’S ANNOTATIONS AND THE CAST ALBUM ON YOUTUBE welcome welcome welcome to being hamiltrash
Oh my goddddd “I’ve been trying to break up” is THE WORST. Just the worst. When will people understand that a breakup, like leaving a job, is not something that requires mutual agreement? (This is targeted at the person being broken up with, not the sad question-asker to CA.) Breakups require ONE PERSON and that is it. “I’m breaking up with you!” “Nooo” is not a scenario that should ever happen! Like quitting your job! “I quit.” “You can’t quit!” YES YOU CAN. It’s done! It’s over! If I were independently wealthy I would hire myself out as a breakup/quitting consultant, so that people could call me and say “Hey, I’m trying to break up with someone but they won’t let me!” then I could go there and drop a truth bomb on them called “They broke up with you! This is over. This is not something everyone has to agree on.”
It’s not like you’re launching missiles from a submarine and you both have to turn your keys.
FIVE WHOLE MONTHS, I feel awful for this lady, probably holding out hope for all that time, plus all the time since the LW knew it wasn’t gonna work but hadn’t spoken up yet. [fires up time machine to fly a “READ CAPTAIN AWKWARD” banner over her house years ago]
It sounds like the LW did speak up, multiple times, but wasn’t being listened to… and wasn’t standing up for themselves enough.
A friend told me recently that someone she knew broke up with his girlfriend and she said no, and so he stayed with her and now they’re engaged! I was so flabbergasted by it, but given this letter, it would seem that people are refusing to be broken up with left and right. Also, if there were enough issues that he wanted to break up with her, that marriage can’t possibly end well.
This is why I need to start my business. People in that situation can call me, and I can go over and firmly break the news that “only one person has to want to break up for the couple to be broken up. You cannot disagree or argue your way out of a breakup.” I feel this is a real niche I could exploit.
You may have some competition
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/21/292417943/breaker-u…
Beaten to the punch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, I’ll be your first customer – trial run! My fiancé told me on Valentine’s Day (fun!) that he thinks we’re in a rut and he’s not sure we’re the same people we were when we got together, and he’s not sure he’s happy. So I’m freaking out, trying to decide if I fight for this, or if it’s just over. He’s under a LOT of stress right now (taking the boards, finishing his residency and trying to figure out where he/we goes next, etc.) and this is the longest relationship either of us has ever been in, so maybe the rut of “normal life” is worrying him. I’m afraid he’s thinking there are too many variables in his life right now, and something’s got to give. But if it’s me…do I have to just accept that, out of the blue? This SUCKS.
Sorry to unload on you…this one hits a little close to home right now.
“he’s not sure we’re the same people we were when we got together”
Well, of course you aren’t. People change within relationships, and you have to make the choice to grow together, over and over again, through communication and compromise if you want to stay together. It sounds like he’s putting a lot of effort into every part of his life but your relationship, so it makes sense why the relationship isn’t making him happy. If he says, “I’m breaking up with you,” then you do have to accept it, but if he’s saying he’s not happy and you think there’s still something in the relationship worth fighting for, then you’ll need some help. Couples therapy? Big hugs.
That all sounds very logical, but I can’t figure out what to do while he’s figuring it out. He says he wants some space, and he’s leaving town for two weeks (business trip, already planned), but it feels like if I give him the space, that just makes it easier to disconnect. But I also don’t want to follow him around and cry, bleh. I suggested couples counseling, but he didn’t sound too keen on the idea. Thanks for the hugs and the sense-talking!
oh man. It sounds like he is going through some big life changes in his profession and that is bleeding into his thinking about your relationship. Which is not particularly fair, or even in his best interests, but definitely a thing I’ve seen a lot of (also cf. people breaking up with their partner at the same time as finishing their dissertation).
Definitely hope you can talk him into couples counseling. I know lots of people who have really healthy, happy relationships and still have done couples counseling as a kind of tune-up, often at a moment of transition.
I also hope you find ways to make whatever the final decision is yours, too, and not his — a way to not feel like you’re waiting for his call on what happens next. It sounds like he has a somewhat immature picture of what a lasting relationship is like — of course you’re both different now (as morganatic said). Maybe this can be a moment for some explicit reflection and thought exploration about how to make the relationship work better for *both* of you (because I’m sure it hasn’t been super fun for you while he does these stressful aspects of med school). Maybe it can be a speed bump that becomes something productive, a taking-stock moment.
Yes, that’s exactly it! It feels like decision is all with him, and it’s wretched waiting to see if he thinks I’m worthy. Makes me want to throw things at him. Especially since I gave up my job and my town and moved halfway across the country with him for residency, and now I’ve been temping and job hunting for two frakking years, and if we’re done I’m kind of sunk. Which makes me feel like some dumb Lifetime movie lesson. “Never rearrange your life for a man!’ So yes, stress all around, but I like the taking-stock idea.
Counselling for you, if he won’t come with, might still be useful to help you get YOUR priorities worked out. You’ve kind of framed this as a decision he gets to make, instead of one you also get to make: breaking up takes only one person, but getting/staying together takes two (or more). If he’s unwilling to do the work to get you out of his perceived rut, are you willing to do it FOR him just so you can stay together? Yes is an okay answer, but you need to actively make it. A counsellor can help.
That’s probably a good idea. I’m not willing to put in twice the work if he’s not interested – that just sounds exhausting, and like delaying the inevitable. But yes, I would like some input into the decision!
Eesh, that’s rough. If you mean “medical training” when you say residency, then this will be relevant. Residency changes people, usually for the better, but I’m definitely not the same person I was when I started. I for sure went through phases where I wondered if I still wanted to be married; I eventually realized that all these phases happened during the most stressful rotations, when I was basically home long enough to sleep, eat and shower, and anything that got in the way of those things was a serious inconvenience. Those feelings, while they felt very real and strong in the moment, were absolutely a reaction to the amount of stress I was experiencing at those times and never appeared during other, less stressful periods. I graduated residency about 3 years ago and those feelings have not returned. I never said anything to my husband about it because I was too busy and stressed to add a difficult conversation on to all that (compartmentalizing ftw!).
So I think you may be correct when you identify the source of his concerns as related to all the other major things he has going on right now. Not that this helps you figure out what you can (or should) do about it, I realize. And he may come to a decision that is different from mine.
Could you give him space in the sense of tabling these difficult conversations until he’s through at least some of his stressful events? He may be better able to clarify his feelings at that point. And he may just not have the spoons for couples counseling currently, but he might once things have settled a bit.
And I would absolutely seek out counseling for yourself. If he’s in a residency program, they almost always have mental health professionals who are available to the residents (should be completely confidential); that person may be able to give you a referral to a counselor who is experienced with the specific issues residency can create.
I’m sorry this is happening to you. Residency is stressful for partners and family in ways that aren’t always acknowledged or supported. I don’t blame you for feeling sad and frustrated and I hope you’re able to get some clarity on everything soon.
That is so unbelievably helpful, thank you so much! I kind of want to print it out and give it to him: “See, the Toasties think we can make it!” Ha. Yes, medical residency – he’s so close to done! I feel like our whole relationship has been a holding pattern, waiting for him to be less stressed. We can’t give up now, right when the end is near! We’ve kind of tabled it for now, which makes my head go in horrible little loops, but hopefully will give him the space he needs.
Thanks, all!
You totally can make it! Residency will likely be one of the hardest, if not THE hardest times in your relationship. I hope it’s smooth sailing once he’s done.
If it was him writing, I’d caution him to keep in mind that we are so well-trained to put off gratification (we don’t eat/sleep/whatever until our patient duties are done) and that bleeds over into our personal lives. It can be a hard pattern to break out of. I think couples counseling once things have settled is a really good idea, so that you both can get a sense of what “real life” can be like. And you can tell him that it gets better. I love being an attending and feel like the stresses of residency were (mostly) worth it from the other side.
This literally happened to my parents. My mom kicked my dad out when I was about a year old. He told her he had nowhere to go (which is ridiculous, because his entire family lives in the same city), so she let him sleep on the couch for a couple days and then boom. They’ve continued to be be (unhappily) married for another 21 years.
the phrase “well, at this point it’s either break up or get engaged” is one I’ve heard a nonzero number of times, and I’m just like…if one of those is an option, is the other one really an option? Unless you’re starring in a romcom and are one hilarious misunderstanding away from the happy ending, or your issues are ones solved by legal marriage benefits.
This is, honestly, one of the things I’ve heard that contributes to the idea that cohabitation before marriage leads to higher divorce rates. Apparently, once the couple is moved in together, there’s a real strong idea that “we might as well just go ahead and get married” because breaking up is TOO HARD, and this is an actual Thing that happens! I cannot believe it! Man.
I can only imagine what they tell the grandchildren.
“So I said to myself, ‘dude, get a grip, this relationship shit just isn’t working out. Tell her it’s finished already’. And then I looked around and realized I had moved most of my stuff into her apartment, and that if I broke up with her, I might never get my x-box back, so I asked myself ‘hey man, what’s more important–freedom, or your x-box?’ And I knew the answer. That’s how I ended up shackled to this ball and chain right here. What’s a ball and chain? Nana’s gonna answer that one, little dude…”
I would think that cohabitation before marriage should lead to lower marriage rates as we realize that we don’t have to spend our lives picking up someone else’s socks and kick them to the curb before making it permanent.
IIRC there’s a correlation between cohabitation and higher divorce rates, but the theory is that it’s mostly because couples that cohabit are less likely to be religious and more likely to be okay with divorce. It’s not the cohabiting itself that leads to more divorces.
I actually cannot believe how many times I have heard of this happening to people I’ve actually met (although am not close to) so there’s none of that “my mom’s friend’s cousin” urban legendy distance. Nope. These are people I sometimes see at friends’ parties.
I just…I am so confused because I thought ultimatums were not supposed to work/be a thing that people do on the regular?
Well, the one person I know who pulled the “we get married or we break up” caper, fully expecting to get married, got broken up with instead.
One of the scariest things about Growing Up is realising the number of people who get married and even have children when one partner is meh-to-hostile to the idea. It’s just so disconcerting that these half-assed, depressing scenarios actually lead to families being created!* I think I was under the illusion when younger that part of being a Grown Up was being very mature and sensible and wise about your partnering/child-having decisions, and seeing people just kind of…meander into it, and not necessarily be OK with it, has been eye-opening. The problems of mine and other people’s parents suddenly make a lot more sense.
*Not saying that families that start that way are doomed to dysfunction or that the parents in these cases don’t love their children, not at all. More just surprised at how little *thought* seems to have gone into it.
If one partner wants a long-term commitment like marriage, they can reach a point where they need a decision from their partner concerning marriage. If the other partner can’t make that commitment, it’s understandable that the first partner would break up with them, even if the relationship is otherwise going well. So someone may well find themselves having to ask themselves, “Though I like this person a lot and would like to continue dating them, am I ready to move forward on their schedule?”
totally, though I think that’s less ‘either we break up or get married’ and more ‘either we break up or keep dating.’
Yeah, I have known couples where it’s like, you’ve been together over a decade, you’ve been living together most of that time, you’ve known all along that the other person wanted to get married someday. If you’re never gonna want that, for heaven’s sake LET THEM GO so they can find somebody who does. But it’s less “we either need to break up or get married” and more “you knew this was the deal, shit or get off the pot already!”
I know this guy. He’s now married and they have two kids….
if you want to break up and your SO demands you get engaged instead and you agree seems to me you’ve fallen backwards into the master/slave relationship you really wanted all along
This is all reminding me of a couple I know who were “half engaged” for a few months, because in order to be “fully engaged” both people need to propose. You’re either engaged or you’re not! You’re either broken up or you’re not!
ugggggghhhhh does facebook have a status for “#half-engaged”? does that mean they get to have TWO over-the-top engagement photo shoots?
They’re super immature and kind of…out there so I don’t think it’s a real Thing (thank god) but I really hope it doesn’t catch on. Every time I heard about it I rolled my eyes so hard I almost pulled a muscle.
it’s totally a thing, in that some couples decide they’ll both propose so it’s equitable, they both get to orchestrate something fun & buy a ring or ring-equivalent, and no one ends up being the One Who Asked and the One Who Said Yes. but I don’t think it’s a Thing in that it has an obnoxious name and you’re expected to announce that you’re 50% of the way there.
I think in this case it was a thing because 1/2 of the couple didn’t actually want to be engaged, hence the several months delay before “full engagement” status. So it was more of an elaborate delay tactic than anything.
So a couple with a future like the letter writer’s, then…where both people have to agree to divorce.
#BADIDEAKIDS
It is all around a clusterfuck, and here’s to hoping they never actually legally bind themselves to each other!!
Ugh, yeah. My cousin is more or less engaged to his girlfriend. They have repeatedly said that once her kid goes off to college, she’ll move in with him (it’s a new house and she’s done all of the decorating with him), and they’ve been together for awhile. But he refuses to call them “engaged” or call her his “fiancee” because he hasn’t actually done the ring/proposal bit yet. I’m like “dude, if you’re both agreed that you’re getting married, then you are engaged. That’s kinda all there is to it.”
Haaaaa I’m basically half-engaged, in that the boyfriend and I are pretty sure we’ll get married and have even told most of our family and friends (none of whom were surprised) but we’re not officially engaged yet.
We even know what rings we want to buy and have talked about the wedding and everything. Pfft.
Oh thank god.
This is such a common trope in romance and sitcoms that I thought I was severely misunderstanding the nature of dating and break-ups, like wow my asexuality or asperger’s or both has me so completely alienized when it comes to relationships that I have no idea
BUT NO apparently I do get it, and it’s just that romance and sitcoms and sometimes other people are dumb.
I’ve been the LW’s girlfriend in this situation, unfortunately. For what it’s worth, here’s how it went down for the entire latter half of my four-year relationship with my ex:
Him: “I don’t think I can do this anymore. You’re making me unhappy in X, Y, and Z ways.”
Me: “I’m so sorry! I’ll change in X, Y, and Z ways.”
Him: “Hmm, I don’t know if that will help, but we’ll see…”
[Months pass; then the conversation happens again, verbatim. Repeat for years.]
In retrospect, I certainly wish I’d just said at some point, “Okay, I guess this isn’t working. Bye.” But in defense of the LW’s girlfriend, sometimes “trying to break up” really means “perpetually dangling the threat of a breakup over her head so as to always get your way in the relationship because she feels like she’s on permanent probation.” When he finally did break up with me, I was genuinely shocked, because he’d faked me out so many times. Afterward, though, the relief was sweet.
HERE FOR TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPENING TO MEREDITH GREY!
I was thinking about it during last weeks episode, her body must be covered in scars and well fucked up at this point. How many surgeries has she had now?
ETA: THE DOG!!! Poor Mer.
Wait, what about the child she was pregnant with when Derek died? If she miscarried, they should include it on the list, no? Or did she have the child in the meantime? (I haven’t been watching for years.)
She had the child; after Derek died she ran away for a year and didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant (they covered all of this in one episode), then had the baby and Alex was her emergency contact, so the hospital called him and then she came home.
Not much has been said about the baby since, I think its a girl? It popped up in last weeks episode, but tbh her kids don’t feature much in the show (how is she a full time surgeon, who just spent 6 weeks in hospital, with three young children on her own? That hospital must have some amazing creche programme.)
They show the hospital nursery fairly frequently, actually.
They used to, when Zola was little I remember Derek and Meredith going to visit her, but recently the kids haven’t featured much at all.
And even then; ok the hospital has a creche, is it 24hr? cause these people seem to always be at work at all hours. And if it is 24hr, who’s paying for it? And how on earth do they get nursery staff to work nights? It is possible that all of the parents on the show also have nannies, but I feel like that would have been shown.
I mean, its not a major flaw with the show, but it is something I wonder about; they’ve done some great work around women and the politics of working in a very male space and all, but I feel like they have kind of glossed over the children/childcare aspect at times.
Like in the last episode, Meredith spent 6 weeks in hospital, and it was implied that Karev looked after her kids, but like, did he just drop all of his own stuff to look after her kids? Is there someone else helping out? Or did the whole house just pitch in?
Baby’s name is Ellis and that’s basically all we know about her.
Also I assumed her village helped take care of the kids. Definitely Karev, probably Robbins and Torres, etc. HOPEFULLY NOT THAT MESS AMELIA, though.
I know there was a lot missed because the episode was from Meredith’s perspective; and I know they’re all very close, but that’s a big deal? Karev and Maggie live in the house (along with Amelia, but I doubt she was doing much childcare), so ok I can see them pitching in, but even then, they work a lot and have their own lives (sort of, Karev is in a mope atm too), and Robbins and Torres have their own kid and lives.
And it must have been extra hard caring for 3 young children who are missing their mum and probably quite confused (although who knows at this point, they’ve had a pretty crazy life and probably think the nursery staff are their parents at this point).
Anyway, I’ll just be over here, overthinking Grey’s Anatomy as usual.
I think the writers are trying to set up Alex and Meredith as the end game. They are putting scenes together for a flashback to make sense later. (He’s always been there! He was called her husband at the hospital when Ellis was born! He cares for Meredith! He’ll drop anything for her! He cried when he saw how injured she was! He kissed her forehead! etc etc.)
Amelia got kicked the eff out last episode for being mean and selfish, so good riddance. I imagine she might live in Derek’s house? I don’t think they’ve said anything about that yet. (I know Mere said she was thinking about selling it, but idk if that’s final.)
I can def see Robbins and Torres helping with the kids; Zola and Sophia are best friends and they’ve definitely watched the kids for Meredith before. Maggie has said that she loves to watch kids (re: Meredith was going to visit Derek, ended up staying in a hotel by herself) so she def helped. Karev loves the kids, loves Meredith, would definitely help. (He also helped raise his siblings, so he has experience.)
Also i am HERE if you need to overthink Grey’s Anatomy, don’t even worry.
Alex and Meredith? AWW HELL NO.
They are platonic best friends, and they’ve been through so much together that I do think they love each other, but they could never work romantically (plus he tends to go for the younger ladies… like interns). Alex deserves some happiness at this point, I’d love to see him marry Jo and actually have it work out (Why do they keep breaking up? It never seems like a real reason, just the writers going ‘well, time to make Karev a mopey shit again’)
Amelia…. I don’t mind her, but she has the unfortunate problem of being a character from a terrible show. And I just wish she’d go for it and have an actual breakdown instead of all this whining. (How is she still allowed to practice medicine?). Plus her and Owen are kind of cute together, if we can’t have Christina and Owen, at least he’s found someone? (God I love Christina and Owen.)
I can totally see them all helping with the kids; my problem is more with the writers, who seem to love making pregnancies a plot device, but then tend to forget about the kids and all the parenting that their characters supposedly have to do in the background of all of the crazy hospital stuff that goes on. Like I suppose all the doctors are now super crazy rich and on huge salaries, so that makes life easier, but it still can’t be easy. And yet they all find time to go to fancy parties and have dinner parties and drink wine. Grey’s isn’t the only show guilty of this, but its such a high pressure environment, I feel like it would definitely come up that one of them is neglecting their kids.
Alex and Jo are not good together, IMO. (Probably because I hate Jo because she’s a one trick pony who can’t stop complaining about her childhood. did you know she slept in her car? She slept in her car!)
I am over Amelia. I never watched Private Practice, so I didn’t see how bad it got over there, but I’ve heard the stories. I’m just not impressed with her. She’s so selfish and petty and unable to care about anyone but herself. Owen has a lot of stuff to figure out, so he doesn’t need Amelia right now. (Also, i saw hints that we’ll find out about Owen’s sister pretty soon.)
There are a lot of neglected kids on GA. I remember thinking at the end of this last episode that we hadn’t seen Bailey since he was a baby, basically. Haven’t seen Tuck or Sophia in a long time either. Hate to say it, but it’s the circle of neglect that Meredith saw with her mom coming back.
All the recent additions are pretty boring characters (although I kind of like the girl who was dating Jackson before he married April), Jo is such a non character. But I want karev to be happy!
I want to know more about Owen, but it does kind of feel like shoe-horning; he’s been through so much, I’d love to see him have all the babies he desperately wants!
I wonder if it’s ever going to come up that Meredith is turning into her mother; like those are going to be some damaged kids for sure!
She carpools to work with half her village, and we never see kids in the car. How do they GET to daycare? That part’s always bothered me.
Ohhhhh! I could not for the life of me remember where the third kid came from. (And of course did not bother to look it up.) Thank you!!!
Is this baby the one she had during the blackout or another one? This is making me want to start watching this show again.
Before I clicked on the link I thought she was a real person and felt very bad for her.
If Meredith Grey was a real person she would be ruling the world with her indestructible body at this point.
I doubt she’d have survived the drowning with full mental faculties. Just, HOW.
She’s Meredith Fucking Grey. That’s how. Ain’t no pissy water gonna stop her.
Can we talk about last week’s ep, too? Because while I was impressed with the perspective it took (and both the direction and the editing were superb), I yelled “aw HELL no” as soon as it became clear that the trope of the Violent Black Man was about to appear. Sure, it was a side effect of a medical condition and not his real personality, but…
(Also I am currently trying to keep up with Grey’s, Chicago Med, and Code Black, and am having a hell of a time keeping the plotlines apart these days.)
I didn’t even get that far; I was at ‘oh dear another terrible thing happening to Meredith’
Also, it was implied that she was getting assaulted for awhile (although, OK it was maybe 5 minutes) and all i could think during the long shots of other people working was ‘how is nobody seeing this?’, they definitely have CCTV and she was being slammed against windows in a not soundproof room, SOMEONE must have noticed!
Let us also rember that John Boyega won the Rising Star Award at the BAFTAs, and celebrated with a video of his cat giving zero fucks about it.
Seriously? I need to find this now.
here you go!
Thanks!
Thank you! That is the best.
/dies
I WILL NEVER BE SATISFIED
That was delightful, thankyou!
Hee, kitteh’s like, unless if that award is made of chicken or tuna, IDGAF.
that was perfect in every way. thank you!
I was so giddy when his name was announced, I almost bounced off the couch.
Also I was so happy generally to be able to watch it for the first time ever. Bless you, internet.
Still undecided but trying to make #ham4Bern happen because it’s fun. Example:
I’m just like my country/I’m old and hella grumpy/and I’m not throwing away my shot
ETA: Ugh can’t get the link to work. Whatever, just search for it. And add your own!
The best break up advice: “Do or don’t do; there is no try”
Conflicted: I feel lucky that the Grammys gave me the chance to see at least a tiny part of Hamilton, but I do fear that exposing it to the public like this will make it even harder for people like me, who are down on their luck, to get decently priced tickets.
It was my first taste of Hamilton, too, and I liked it enough to want to see the whole show – if someone else could pay for it. Ticket prices aside, the travel cost is way beyond my budget. However, I did see several tweets saying that PBS will air the show in the fall so hopefully we can see it that way!
I think that’s going to be a documentary about the show. They did one about In The Heights too (it’s very worth watching!).
LBR, the dream of reasonable priced Hamiltickets went out the window months ago.
LET ME DREAM
Ehhh, the number of people 1) in or able to get to the NYC area and 2) with the means and desire to buy Broadway tickets probably hasn’t changed that much since last night. I do think it’ll spike their cast album sales, which is an excellent thing.
Remember too they have two new locations planned over the coming year, and that will help a lot too with the NYC demand.
I just had a look on the page, and they now don’t even offer tickets anymore; you can subscribe for updates via e-mail, though. But I’m not sure if this is a result of yesterday, or has been like this for a while now.
I’m currently trying to convince my friend that we go to New York next spring, but we don’t know yet where either of us will be in six months, much less in a year, so it’s hard to plan. And I just thought yesterday that if we go next year, we in all probability won’t see the original cast anyway and therefore could easily wait for London – that would be not only easier to plan but also cheaper. Oh well, we’ll see how this goes. But I do want to see this show and I will.
I hope you get to! I know NYC isn’t in my grasp, but I’m certainly going to Chicago and, I hope, San Francisco (which is actually closer, but probably more expensive, plus I’m meeting a friend in Chicago).
When the touring production manages to be in Portland I plan to see it as many times as I can afford. Which will be, like, twice.
No, the show was sold out already. What happens is, they release a few months of tix at a time. 90% of the tix are bought during the Amex pre-sale period, about half of them by scalpers who immediately list on stubhub. (You can see several hundred seats per show are for sale there, most of them out of solid blocks of tickets. It is not a large theater.). The morning sales open to the public, the rest of the seats sell out. New set of tickets should be released this spring. (Most recent block went on sale February 2.)
I’m totes planning to visit my boyfriend’s family in Chicago and see it there.
The thing is, the tour will be GREAT. Really, it will. First national tours always have great casts. And it’ll be SO MUCH EASIER to get tickets for that than for NYC. Alternatively, Chicago is not on sale yet, so if you’re close to Chicago just wait to hear when those tickets go on sale and snap those up – that will also get a great cast, it’s a sit down open ended run production!
I’m not even in the US, so the national tour is not really a better opportunity for me. But as I said above, I might just wait for London 🙂
Miranda has mentioned hoping that the show will be filmed while they still have this cast. While there aren’t specific plans in place for that last I heard, that’s my hope for seeing it.
WHY WAS EVERY SONG AT THE GRAMMY’S SO SLOW???
There were just so many fucking slow ass ballads, PLUS making already slow songs EVEN SLOWER. Like that terrible (TERRIBLE don’t get me started on how many fucking awards that song won and i know the grammy’s are a sham and mean nothing but it still makes me SO MAD) “Girlcrush” song, which, as it was arranged last night my roommate referred to as a “funeral dirge for queerness.”
Lady Gaga was fun tho. And Alabama Shakes brought down all of us in my house.
Even if you stay great platonic friends (unlikely), why would you pay your platonic friend’s rent and living expenses? I have friends I’ve been best friends with for years, and I’d still only be able to agree to a month or two of covering rent if we lived together and they absolutely could not pay. That’s not the formula for a good friendship, even if I thought that was at all a possibility here.
I was actually a bit peeved at the commenters saying “Pay her expenses!” and “Assemble her friends to help her out!” because…no.
And she already got five extra months of rent from when the LW originally wanted to break up!
from experience covering a friend’s rent is a great way to become sort of enemies in short order
The husband went absolutely APESHIT at #Gram4Ham last night and spent the rest of the evening walking around wide-eyed and humming lyrics.
Grey’s Anatomy: I have to say that I was a die-hard until, well, the end of last season, and I have not watched one single episode since.
Same until a few weeks ago when I was super sick. I heard that siren call and answered. Poor choice. There is one good episode. Everything else is like the writers took a list of everything about the show that had been criticized, wrote a season plot which included every single one of those elements, and then accidentally deleted the plot part of the show.
The Grammys last night were a survey course in everything that’s truly great and truly awful in pop culture today. Kendrick, Hamilton, Adele, Bowie/Gaga, Alabama Shakes….and also Meghan Trainor, Pitbull, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift. Woof.
I am absurdly upset about Taylor Swift beating Kendrick Lamar for best album. Watching him just pour himself out in performance, pour us all out, singing lyrics that have been taken up by a living political movement that is a defining feature of this moment in american history (when was the last time that happened?), and then watching (you know “watching” as in reading on the internet) this (yes, totally lovely) skinny, white, blond lady humblebrag winning the thing. Gah. Come on, woman.
I know that the Grammys have always been for white people but Jesus. I feel, like, personally angry at her. Which is ridiculous, but holy shit is this such a vivid affront to caring about anything actually important. Duh, I guess.
But her beating him is why Beyonce gets to do whatever the imperfectly capitalist fuck she wants.
Seriously. “Alright” lost to both the awful Taylor Swift song and the awful Ed Sheeran song. I’m so tired of the segregation in Grammys. No matter how good a hip hop or a R&B album is, it’s always delegated to the “Urban” categories – it’s been that way since 2004, consistently. Mediocre and just plain shitty white artists get all the accolades instead.
To Pimp A Butterfly was so much better than all the other albums nominated, both sonically and lyrically. Also the fact that Taylor Swift using feminism to kind of prop herself up but never to defend other WoC or anyone else than herself, really is annoying. It was a little funny when she was directly addressing women and they panned out to show all the male producers of the album.
ALSO I’m pretty sure they muted the killer-police line in “Alright” ?
Yes, they did.
I’m shocked. SHOCKED.
I’m upset too. 1989 is a solid, well-written pop album but I doubt many people are going to remember it in a few years. TPAB is (no hyperbole) probably one of the best rap albums of all time, even without all the context surrounding it. I wish I could say “I just don’t get it” in terms of why he didn’t win but I do. I get it, and it’s upsetting.
Gotta say the Ryan Adams cover album of 1989 is amazing!
This is all completely true, down to the last line, and I’m not even a fan of Kendrick Lamar’s music.
I wasn’t allowed to watch Pee-Wee’s Playhouse as a kid (this was probably after the whole Sarasota thing happened) but I will always hold Paul Reubens in high regard for playing The Spleen in one of my all-time favorite movies, Mystery Men, which I will talk about CONSTANTLY because it’s one of the few movies I can watch more than once.
MYSTERY MEN.
How is it possible I had forgotten about that movie?
It is my favorite!!! It perfectly encapsulates what my sister refers to as the “egregious sin” era of the late 90s-early 2000s where everything was shiny and neon and retro and it is where All Star came from so.
What an epic movie. I need to watch it again.
My favorite cameo in that is Dana Gould as Squeegee Man. He’s a great comedian, and I only found out it was him after becoming a fan of his stand up, but it makes the brief appearance that much more amusing to me.
Mystery Men! My brother and I still occasionally quote that at each other. “Lucille, God gave me a gift. I shovel well.”
Oh man! I love that stupid movie so much.
Oh my god I love this movie so much! William H Macy as the Shoveler! With his adorable family! Jeanie Garaffalo! Ben Stiller’s best role! I’m almost glad that it has flown so under the radar because I would not be able to handle a reboot or sequel…
I thought you guys might want to know LMM made a very sweet Parks & Rec reference in a tweet to his wife.
https://twitter.com/Lin_Manuel/status/69960002820…
ALSO did anyone watch the Westminster Dog Show last night?? I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THAT GLORIOUS BORZOI
why is it hovering???
It’s not commonly known, but Borzois are magic.
It’s actually a ghost.
I adore Borzois… If I were rich I’d have a whole flock of them!
Gotta love Tumblr at a time like this
needs a diamond leash and then it would be perfection
floaty snoot!! I was traveling home when it was on, so I set the dvr via app to record westminster and the grammys and TRUST, I went for the dogs first. I made a lot of incoherent noises when that princess dog won, and even more when the bulldog took non-working! I need to meet a borzoi so I can justify my desire for one.
There’s one of these in my neighborhood, up until this post I had no idea what they were called. I’ve just referred to it as the two-dimensional dog.
SO LOVELY. I would absolutely cuddle that dog and spend long hours brushing out its long, flowing fur.
I enjoyed watching all the dogs but the ones I wanted to win their group, only the Borzoi actually did.
My ex is one of my closest friends, we stayed living together out of necessity for a month after we broke up (mutually) until I could find somewhere new, he is with someone else now who I have met and am totally cool with, and I STILL wouldn’t live platonically with him or pay his rent. Sheesh.
What the hell is a ‘hardcore GSF carrier’?
It’s a reference to the “Geek Social Fallacies” http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
Obviously I wasn’t familiar with this concept, which seems…pseudoscientific at best.
From the way it was put in the letter, I assumed it was some sort of genetic or mental health issue, but googling proved it was not. But I cannot imagine living in such a cloistered group that you can throw that out there to describe an ex-girlfriend and assume everyone knows what you’re talking about. Maybe I’m being snooty, but the way it’s thrown in the letter is equivalent to saying ‘she’s a Libra’, and expecting everyone you know to nod and say ‘aaah’, because they now totally understand everything that made the person incompatible and difficult.
Well, Captain Awkward uses it as a tag/category (http://captainawkward.com/category/geek-social-fa…) so I don’t think it’s THAT strange to assume the community is familiar with it. In that sense, I’d say it’s more similar to using “LMM” on the Toast and knowing most people will know who you’re talking about.
Ah, ok. I’m not familiar with that website. I think maybe I’m just put off by the way the letter writer phrased it.
But I don’t know what LMM means either! Unless it means the Hamilton guy….I always have to google acronyms.
That’s the one 😀
Unless you mean Lucy Maud Montgomery, who also has a following here. 🙂
I get confused every time 🙁 I imagine Lucy Maud doing a lot of hip-hop-bopping and tweeting, though, which isn’t always a bad thing!
Maud would definitely use Twitter, but I think her favourite social media would be Instagram, given her photography hobby.
She’d also be a prolific user of GoodReads.
Not sure about hip-hop bopping, though.
I always think LMM means Lucy Maud Montgomery, and I refuse to change.
Meeeeee toooooooooooooo.
Lin-Manuel can use a hyphen! there’s no need for this confusion to continue!
Kindred spirit!
I am familiar with the website and I didn’t get it until it was spelled out. I’m not good with acronyms in general.
It’s a concept that gets discussed fairly often at Captain Awkward, so I don’t think it’s crazy to think that her audience will get it.
“Arguably, Friendster was designed by a GSF4 carrier.”
Haha WHOA! Friendster!
The fact that since this was written in 2003 Friendster went away and was then replaced by a very similar thing which now everyone has to use or risk missing out on parties really adds a lot!!
Thank you! I’m lost too!
Inquiring minds want to know!
Haha, thank you to people in the know. My first thought was more like STD. . . carrier . . . reason to break up? But I am often acronym-deficient. Thank heaven for Urban Dictionary.
For the US Supreme Court junkies among you Reality Check had a good summary of how Scalia’s death impacts current and upcoming cases http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2016/02/15/scal…
Bless you- I keep meaning to look for this but I wasn’t sure where (trustworthy) to start.
I did *not* need to hear Orrin Hatch first thing this morning NPR.
Nobody needs to hear Orrin Hatch ever imho.
I lost the live stream before Hamilton (CBS, your Roku app is pure garbage), but my sister FaceTimed me when it came on so I could sort of still watch it. Little sisters for the win.
WHY are network tv apps always such garbage?!? My apartment comes with a basic cable package and I have no way to record tv shows, so theoretically an app is great for catching up on shows that I can’t watch on air. Except every single app I’ve tried cannot get through a show without multiple freezes/delays. I could lay part of the blame on my less-than-entirely-reliable internet access, but Netflix streaming gives me far fewer problems than any tv app.
I know! CBS had a one-week-free deal on their “all-access” app, so I got it last night, and watched it try to load for 20 minutes before giving up. It’s only like 3 times a year that I really wish I had access to live TV. The rest of the time I’m happy with Netflix and watching network shows a day later on Hulu.
Same 100%
I was thrilled to find that my no-cable TV antenna caught the Grammy broadcast last night! And it just so happened that I turned it on a few minutes before Hamilton came on, so it worked out. Have you found the videos of the performance yet? They’re pretty high quality.
I keep saying that the All-Access app is junk. I wish people would say nasty things directly to CBS about their BS All-Access App. However, I’m thinking about getting another chromecast stick or the like just so I can cast the free CBS app onto the TV so I can just watch Colbert. I just wanna watch Colbert on my big TV. Why is this so hard, CBS? Why do I have to have two devices to watch what I want to watch?
Laurence Fishburne will always be Cowboy Curtis in my heart of hearts.
I had never seen Pee Wee’s Playhouse before someone put on the xmas special at a holiday party and it was MIND BLOWING, especially when I realized who Cowboy Curtis was. He was so young!
The Pee-Wee xmas special is AMAZING tbh.
I should look that up. When I was an infant I had a Pee-Wee doll, and according to my mom, I would cry and call out for Pee-Wee if I couldn’t find it. I need to go back to my infant comedy-appreciation roots.
That Christmas special is fantastic. The rest of the show is also worth checking out if you like campy anthropomorphized furniture.
See also: Morgan Freeman singing “There’s A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea” on Sesame Street.
One of my favorite Cowboy Curtis moments:
<Curtis puts his feet up on the table>
Pee-Wee: “You sure have big feet Cowboy Curtis!”
Curtis: “Well, you know what they say, Pee-Wee…Big Feet….Big Boots!”
That’s one of my favourite moments too!
I didn’t watch the Grammys, but I just looked up the winners, and …….Taylor Swift and Meghan Trainor won awards??
Taylor busts her ass to make well-liked music, and just because she annoys me doesn’t mean she’s bad, but Megan Trainor is THE WORST. Courtney Barnett totally should have won over her.
Oh man, I already thought any award for Trainor was ridiculous, but now that I know Courtney Barnett had a shot I’m flat out outraged on her behalf.
I am ranting about this somewhere on here. I am feeling a lot of Taylor Swift rage.
I am imagining an alternate reality in which she was so clever and wise that she just walked her main award right over to Kendrick Lamar and gave it to him, thereby Doing the Right Thing & silencing all Kanye bullshit forever.
That would have been cool, but all Taylor’s gonna be is mean.
Taylor’s music is okay, but it’s not worthy of this many grammys. I’m not familiar with the other Album of the Year nominees, but I’m willing to put money on at least one of the four of those albums being better than 1989.
oh my god my eyes got stuck to the back of the head when i saw that video of her and Selena Gomez looking surprised that Bad Blood beat out three music videos by three black men and a fourth person i don’t remember for a Grammy. ugh no one was surprised by that outcome
I find Taylor Swift so disappointing. Always. So, she started out her career as a cute teenaged singer song writery person. Fine. But like, she’s an adult now, and those crop tops won’t look so great forever. I think she needs to get her admittedly cute tiny tiny butt into a creative writing program. I feel like her girl squad and gee I guess I’m a feminist after someone explained words to me schtick would be SO MUCH BETTER if she made a show out of going to college. She could have channeled that precocious thing into being stylish AND a better song writer… But what’s the incentive for her to be a better song writer? She wins all the awards! She has all the model friends! She has a fab apartment! She has terrific gams!
I am not a huge TS fan, but I don’t think crapping on her clothing or educational choices is particularly useful or kind. :/
Internet apologies for coming off more snarky than intended. I really like her clothes and strong sense of personal style, fwiw & I like the idea of a squad–and that it’s kind of principled on being in 5th grade and feeling welcomed into Swift’s squad. But I do think she–and the pop industry at large & her very important role in it–needs to be held a little more accountable for educating its starlets. Maybe I grew up with too much Brittney, Christina & Jessica Simpson, and how we learned nothing from their collective nervous breakdowns. All of them really, really struggled on the cover of every tabloid when they hit 30 and were no longer the cute young blondes who win all the awards. Education, to me, is vital. Especially when you take a girl who rocketed to stardom when she was 14 for being a song writer, who is now winning awards for a album she didn’t write songs on (they’re all co-written by a laundry list).
It’s also her brand of “everyone getting along” = peace vs. actually acknowledging inequality that really rubs me the wrong way. And I think the system that doesn’t incentivize her to become a more engaged artist–that awards her over Kendric Lamar–is a part I’m continually super disappointed to see her participate in.
Wow, judgmental against folks not going to college much?
These are some pretty shallow criticisms. (And now “You belong with me” is stuck in my head; a song made up of entirely weak, shallow criticisms.)
Someone is trying to justify the money they’ve paid for a Creative Writing degree…
She doesn’t need to go to college because her skills (good or bad) have already turned into a profitable career. If she went, it should be because she wants to learn more, not because a stranger on the Internet thinks it’s solid career advice.
You would hate me, then. I never went to college. It wasn’t for me. It isn’t for everyone.
Anyhoo. Find Taylor Swift disappointing because of her white fauxminism, or how she really doesn’t care about lesser-known indie artists (even though she claims to), not to mention let’s remember one of her friends is Lena “I molested my younger, lesbian sister when we were kids and had the nerve to write about it in my memoirs, and I made a show set in a virtually whitewashed NYC” Dunham. Not because she isn’t college educated or because of her clothing choices.
Wow. I’m actually amazed by the idea that you think going to college is somehow better than not going to college. Lots of folks pursue higher education and lots do not, and their individual contributions to society are not worth less or more based on that fact alone. Also, like, who are you to say her music isn’t good? Is taste no longer subjective? Does Taylor Swift owe you her apologies for not living up to your feminist ideal? Actually I think the main thing that bothers me about your comment is that while indicting Taylor for not being your perfect feminist, you have somehow managed to shove her into a box of your own making, this idea you have of how she could be a more ideal woman. And in my opinion there’s nothing less feminist than that.
Of course I don’t think everyone needs to go to college or that it’s for everyone! I’m the only person in my family to get a degree after high school—parents, siblings, cousins–and it wasn’t just a choice I could make or not make–it was a struggle and a vital door to get out of poverty. It’s not something I take for granted or just default to everyone needing to do. I never said that college is for everyone. There are a million very valid reasons not to go. But, as a public figure who is lauded as a role model for young girls especially tweens, who has an enormous & influential platform, I think that making a public statement that values continuing education is important. And I think we need to transition from looking at Swift as a teeny bopper who can get away with middling but catchy tunes into an adult performer, which is the heart of the big disappointment about her winning over Kendrick Lamar. He made a sophisticated album, yet she was awarded for standard pop fare. And we need to look at her lyrical content. If she developed into a sophisticated songwriter without pursuing a degree, if her songwriting continued to mature, become more complicated & nuanced, over the last 15 years, then creative writing would be 100% moot (case in point, I’m talking about TS & her content really specifically, NOT Beyonce who has gone above and beyond on all of these fronts and then some without college either, so I don’t mean it as a universal “accredited higher ed is the only road to education.” that is clearly and demonstratively not true, even in the pop sphere). I’m deeply sorry for sounding so blithe and snooty in my first post, because it isn’t where I’m coming from.
The piece about cruelty in music is Very Good. I have a ton of thoughts on it but none of them are coalescing.
I like it too! I am interested to see that like 90% of the artists the author writes about are totally artists that I listened to a bit and then was like “eeeeeeeeeeh…” (I’m looking at YOU, Scott Walker and the Weeknd).
I feel like thoughts are not coalescing because the piece doesn’t seem to have a solid thesis? Like it is merely musing on the fact that rock music is… actually really violent towards women? And doesn’t offer much else? Other than the thought that we should not ignore our discomfort when listening to music like this?
But. If anyone ever wanted to know why I am So Over Bob Dylan, this article nicely explains why. It does not explain why i am still ok with Zappa, who is arguably way more horrid.
Could you talk more about Zappa’s horrid-ness/your feelings on Zappa in general (good, bad, in between)? My boyfriend LOVES him and I…don’t, to put it diplomatically, but it’s mostly because his music is the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard for me.
Could I talk MORE? Why certainly I could! GIANT HEARTS FOR YOU FOREVER.
Zappa was… prolific. There are definitely albums that are easier and harder to take, in terms of musicality. Some albums are much more accessible than others in terms of sheer listenability – Sheik Yarboutei, Joe’s Garage (Part I, Parts II and III are Just Weird) and Shut Up And Play Yer Guitar are some of my favourites, while Lumpy Gravy is… just the other side of listenable to, imo.
Zappa has often been referred to as a “musician’s musician”, which is a more-or-less shitty (depending on which side you fall, i think) way of saying that it is Not Pop Music. The liner notes for Sheik Yarboutei, for example, read, for one track SPECIAL NOTE: The bass part is extracted from a four track master of a performance from Goteborg, Sweden 1974 which I had Patrick O’Hearn overdub on a medium tempo guitar solo track in 4/4. The notes chosen were more or less specified during the overdub session, and so it was not completely an improvised “bass solo.” A year and a half later, the bass track was peeled off the Swedish master and transferred to one track of another studio 24 track master for a slow song in 11/4. The result of this experimental re-synchronization (the same technique was used on the Zoot Allures album in “Friendly Little Finger”) is the piece you are listening to. All of the sensitive, interesting interplay between the bass and drums never actually happened . . . also note, the guitar solo section of the song “Yo’ Mama” on side four was done the same way. So the song is not, like, amazing, really, or even “a song”, but if you are interested in spending 5+ minutes listening to the “sensitive, interesting interplay” while not being bothered that there is no melody, Zappa is For You. All of this being said, I inherited a flash drive with a PILE o’ Zappa on it and i am happily deleting a LOT of it because it is TERRIBLE and UNLISTENABLE to. Zappa recorded EVERYTHING, and it shows.
All of this being said, there is also some creepy-assed stuff going on lyrically in Zappa tunes (check Bobby Brown Goes Down or Camarillo Brillo or Jewish Princess, for example), both in terms of race and gender. A common refrain around our house is “it was the 70s, things were different then”, but as time goes on the awfulness of a song like Crew Slut grates on me more and more. I think that, for me, why Zappa gets a pass for creepiness while people like Bob Dylan don’t is his snideness. It is very clear to me that Zappa is very Counter Culture, into Thinking Critically about society, and very dismissive of a lot of things, including capitalism. Like, when Zappa sings about Catholic Girls, he is (i think) actively critiquing the society that produces teen sluts and shames them at the exact same time. The song is not so much about the girl, as about the narrative that surrounds her, and how damaging and awful it is for everyone. I may be reading that in, tho. But Zappa at least leaves space for that kind of interp. Bob Dylan, I would argue, does not.
tl;dr Zappa is not for everyone and if he is not for you you can insist that it is not and that he not be played in your presence. GentlemanX and I have some such agreements – he does not play NoMeansNo, and I do not subject him to Rufus Wainrwight. And you in no way have to justify your dislike of Zappa. “It doesn’t do it for me” should really be good enough. If you would like more on this subject, this article helped me out a LOT when thinking about this kind of thing: http://tigerbeatdown.com/2010/04/14/ladypalooza-p…
Aaahhh, you are awesome! Thank you for all your thoughts, seriously.
Luckily, boyfriend knows about my aversion to Zappa and doesn’t really make me listen to it/is okay if I leave the room, etc. So I don’t have to justify things to anyone. I just like to have as much information as I can, so really: THANK YOU.
I definitely agree with you re: the sheer unlistenability of some of his stuff, and I think that’s why my boyfriend, working musician/recording engineer/music major nerd extraordinaire, loves him so much–he likes hearing the process as much as the songs. I’ll definitely be looking more into the lyrics now that you’ve given me a couple songs to focus on.
Also, that Tiger Beatdown piece: <3 <3 <3 ” Dude music is post-rock, and prog-rock, and rock that exists not to say anything, but to showcase how awesome the men in the band are at playing guitar.” AAHH YES.
My absolute pleasure! I must say, the only reason I love Zappa is because I discovered him in a small town German bar while drunk af on delicious local Pilsner, where a group of INSANELY talented musicians covered the entirety of Sheik Yarboutei, which was my entry point. I’m not sure if I would have been convinced any other way.
I am glad you like the TB piece! It resonated super hard with me too. If that phrase in particular resonates, Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar may not be for you, since that is what that album is (Zappa can totally shred when he wants to).
As a side note, are you watching St. Vincent? Because she is ridick good on the guitar, and her music is not a showcase for how awesome anyone in the band is at playing anything.
I really like St. Vincent! My boyfriend was the one who introduced her to me, haha. If I remember correctly, he saw her live a few times in his brief stint in NYC/NJ and was smitten with her music/talent.
I have no real objections to Dudes Who Can Totally Shred, and I love fluffy pop music (I was 13 in the year 2000, soooo), so obviously not all my music needs to be Meaningful Deep Amazing Stuff, but, much like with literature/TV/other media, it’s like, “okay, I’ve seen what looks like 18 different sad white guys strum their guitars sadly/47 different angry white guys attack their guitars angrily…what else is out there?”
Drunk on delicious local pilsner sounds like a great way to get into anything, though.
I am so with you. I feel this exact way about many bands, where I am like… you are not doing anything that has not already been done. Solidarity!
Drunk on delicious local pils IS a great way to get into anything. Like, ANYTHING 😉
Someone on twitter joked recently that ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ is basically the song equivalent of texting your ex at 1am to tell them how OVER them you are and how also they’re going to regret dumping you. Heee.
Also, ‘From a Buick 6’ is basically ‘My girlfriend is my new mommy’, which also makes me laugh.
THANK YOU!!!!! I was rephrasing the lyrics to myself and wound up shouting angrily at the radio, which kind of astonished me. And I finished triumphantly “Bob Dylan You Are SUCH A DICK” just as I pulled in to get the kid at school.
so yes,
‘Bob Dylan you are SUCH A DICK’ is a legit response to at least 45% of the man’s back catalogue tbh. Which song were you referring to?
Thank you for the Carvell Wallace piece! I’m now searching youtube for any and all performances by Valerie June.
OH MY GOD THE HAMILTON OPENING NUMBER.
I teared up a little. (Not a lot though, it’s too early in the day for ruined eye makeup.)
Last night I went and took off my makeup immediately after watching the Grammy performance, because it had been destroyed by my tears of joy.
I teared up a little during the show and then told my partner that I pretty much just got all of the crying out of the way for if when we see Hamilton live. He rolled his eyes and (probably correctly) predicted The Force Awakens-level crying if when we see Hamilton
I was trying to play it cool in the lead-up to “Alexander Hamilton” because my wife thinks it’s cute that I’m “into it” (her words). But I was (first) grinning and (then) crying like a damn fool. If I ever got to see it live I would just sob silently the whole time, which is also known as Here Lies Dobby A Free Elf–level crying.
I burst into tears at the end of the song. That surprised me, but it probably shouldn’t have. ~feels~
I was full of foot-stomping excitement! Shouting along with the lyrics! All my Hamilton feels at their PEAK.
I’m so glad they caught the expression on LMM/Hamilton’s face right before ‘the ship is in the harbor now’. When I saw the show myself, his sheer awe and joy in that moment was about the moment I started crying happy tears because Alex is so young and here in America and you’re going to do so much, Alex, welcome to New York.
Grammys side note: I am so far out of her demographic that I might as well be Methuselah, but that breathy Selena Gomez song about “I wanna look good for you” trips all the triggers that drove nascent feminist 13-year-old me to Ani Difranco. Jesus Christ I hate that song.
leslie odom jr. did a cover of it which may or may not redeem it for you a little: http://leslieodomjr.bandcamp.com/track/leslie-odo…
Somehow this makes me like Leslie Odom Jr. even more, but nope, every cell in my body still rebelling against lines like “Let me show you how proud I am to be yours.” BE YOUR OWN PERSON DO NOT DEFINE YOUR SELF-WORTH BY YOUR LOOKS AND A MAN. (This is not a sophisticated criticism, particularly, I know. I don’t care.)
This is amazing and now I imagine that the cast of Hamilton are creating musical side projects in between the matinee and evening performances.
The only thing I have seen from the Grammys (Hamilton aside obviously) is Courtney Barnett being the cutest and most perfect person and quite frankly that is the kind of content I need http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/lifestyle/fash…
Not an open thread, but I really wanted to tell you toasties that your were all in my dream last night. It was that scene from the 2005 P&P movie at Lady Catherine’s house when they sit down to dinner. Lady Catherine asks Mr. Collins to move to the other side of the table away from his wife, but when he gets to the other side, Mr. Collins morphs into Mallory. And then the rest of the toast walks in and fills the big empty half of the table. Tons of egg dishes are served on beautiful platters–frittatas, really herby scrambled eggs, and eggs poached in cheese, which is not a thing outside of my dream but I think it should be. Then we had a really wonderful conversation about Thomas Merton totally ignoring Lady Catherine et al. Splendid stuff.
I want to live in this dream!
I wonder if you could poach eggs in a good cheese sauce and have it work okay.
Y’all during the grammy’s last night the cast of Hamilton came out to accept their best musical album thing, and my roommate, who [is white and] knows Hamilton only by reputation as new popular hip-hop musical started shouting “they’re all white! they’re all white!” in our typical liberal indignance voice, but I [and I have just listened to Hamilton a few times and recognize its goodness but have not earned the title of super fan] was just like “no….no. stop. shhh.” and had no idea what else to say.
Some of the cast is white, for sure. And maybe their light costumes made it harder to tell for him? It was entirely awkward. And he was drunk. But if anyone has anything smart to say about . . . well, anything relating to the situation I just described, I welcome it, because I sure don’t.
Oof. Not sure if I have anything smart to say, but…no? They’re…not? All white?
In fact, no one in the main cast (except King George) is white. I’m gonna give your roommate the benefit of the doubt and assume the white-passing/lighter-skinned cast members confused him….yikes.
A bunch of the ensemble members are white, but even then not all of them or even half.
Ouch…. I hope he was able to humbly admit that he was wrong and maybe reexamine the need for moral superiority in areas where he’s underinformed?
You are definitely right, and I think one of the reasons it stuck with me so heavily is that I also need to examine my own tendency towards uninformed moral superiority…..
Huh. I’m kind of at a loss for anything to say except, “No, that is factually inaccurate”? Because every single named character except for George III is played by a person of color. There are some white actors in the chorus, but that’s really it.
I think some of the Hispanic and Asian cast members pass as white in stage makeup? But Ramos was literally holding a Puerto Rican flag. Ugh. One more good reason to not shout things about people’s race.
Ugh, what? That sounds hella awkward. There’s a thing where being white and ‘woke’ means you knee-jerk check for privilege to see if it’s ‘right’ for you to enjoy a piece of media, mostly for that ‘gotcha!’ moment when you discover that the thing doesn’t deserve plaudits because it is More Racist Than You. And I’m not even saying outright racist necessarily, it could just be laying claim to a culture you don’t think they have any right to have. I can’t link to it because I can’t remember who wrote it, but there was an excellent piece I read about needing to explain that you really are a minority in some way so as not to be accused of appropriation. Plus, for some people it’s just easier to poke holes.
For Hamilton itself, it’s obvious that some of the company are white but nobody in the main cast is except for Jonathan Groff. And especially with the acceptance speech… Between LMM mentioning his Hispanic heritage and Anthony Ramos holding up the Puerto Rican flag, well….I’m sure your roommate was very drunk indeed.
YES to your third sentence. That feeling. The knee-jerk check to cover one’s ass. A reflexive indignance even in ignorance.
His outburst then made me think confusing things about lighter-skinned POC who might pass for white that bananakarenina mentioned, and about making snap visual judgments based on appearance, even when we assume those judgments aren’t negative. Very weird.
Also, this might be the piece you’re referring to about being accused of appropriation: http://www.racked.com/2016/1/26/10829826/cultural…
not sure about smart, but one thing is you can’t tell somebody’s ethnicity by looking at them? Especially if they have on a powdered wig?
The only charitable explanation was that he was referring to their costumes?
I admire and strive towards your level of charity
LOL for his bad eyes. No honestly more of the chorus were white than I expected, when I saw it – Anglo features and Anglo names, anyway, not that that’s a guarantee – but it’s more of a discussion about visibility and expectations, probably. I know people who thought Philippa Soo was white; as noted a lot of Latinos can pass, and I’m sure in their careers a lot of them have done so — but in a show that so openly declares its cast are racially diverse, why do the eyes still whitewash?
This isn’t directly related to Hamilton, but it reminds me of some of the Mad Max Fury Road discussions I’ve seen going around tumblr. Some people were complaining that there are no POC in MMFR and others pointed out that several of the actresses are actually WOC, and that this focus on, like, visible otherness dictating whether a person is a POC is incredibly damaging.
If he meant the historical figures were supposed to be white, well, yeah they were. But the cast itself is brownity brown brown. There are only 2 characters that can even be played by white people per Lin’s casting call: King George (who’s explicitly white) and Peggy/Mariah (who can be literally any race, white included). And there are like 3 white people in the chorus? So white actors in Hamilton get the same treatment as actors of color in any other Broadway musical.
In the midst of all the emotion over Hamilton, all the politics, and on and on, I just want to link to this.
I’m afraid that with Scalia, primaries, Grammys, Kanye, Taylor, you name it, this news will disappear. It was a post on Gawker, I think, around the time we talking about some OTHER famous dude, that first made me aware of Cosby. It was still months later before it actually blew up and people started to finally take it seriously. Post-Super Bowl, post-this guy’s retirement, it would be so easy for people let this slide and let Manning go untarnished.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but at this point I’m the furthest thing from it. Certainly at one point in time I bought into Manning’s nice guy image, but I’ve been pretty disillusioned since then. I don’t want to forget. I’d rather be disillusioned a thousand times than believe lies. Even if everyone else lets this pass, let’s try, for just a moment, not to do that.
Your link goes back to this page. Maybe you were talking about something like this?
yes, thanks!
Whoops, sorry: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-pey…
Here it is.
Wow.
One thing I’m wondering about: can you really be fired for having a “vulgar mouth” in the US? I mean, pretty much everybody swears at my job, so that struck me as odd.
When angry with a woman and unable to find any legitimate fault with her, the default is to call her unfeminine.
ETA: Especially in US Southern culture.
You are full of Truth and Awesome basically around the clock. Consider this a fierce and joyous high five/fist bump/hug/imaginary cupcake delivery/etc.
Aw shucks
Almost all employment in the US is at-will, so you can be fired for pretty much any reason that isn’t discrimination against a protected class. So, yeah.
For years I have had an impression that Peyton is a bad person. That impression was without foundation. So I said nothing. But it persisted. For years. Now my impression seems to have some merit.
Honestly, the giant cro-magnon forehead and beady eyes are never a good sign.
Yes. Hated him already. (And it wasn’t just because of sports rivalries, because I quite liked, say, Derek Jeter.)
But oh, Lord, I am sharing this on my Facebook because Celebrities Getting Away with Monstrousness=no, this stops now.
I have such an intense dislike of football that I am willing to believe pretty much any terrible accusation against a football player, which I realize is unfair.
GEEEEEEZ.
Thank you for highlighting this. I’m horrified, of course, but glad that it was pointed out to me so I can be appropriately horrified.
The “this is surprising and no one knew” tone of that article kind of bothers me – that stuff has been on his Wikipedia page for at least two years (not sure how long before that, but that’s the first time I googled “Peyton Manning”, so at least that long). I’ve asked a few different Broncos fans about it – there are a lot of CO transplants here, and I think it’s the nearest NFL team – and they’ve all known about the assault and Archie’s subsequent tanking of her career. I don’t think it’s near as big a secret as King is portraying, and is definitely already part of his public image. Might be different on the coasts or among non-fans, i guess?
Not that it’s at all acceptable, but it’s pretty widely known in my experience.
Also, if anyone is curious, the sealed incident is widely rumored to have been Peyton Manning farting on the trainer’s head after she turned him in for smoking pot.
I’m glad to hear it’s not entirely unknown. But I feel like there’s “known,” and then there’s everyone in the media talking about it so that it actually sinks into people’s consciousness – which is what happened with Cosby, for instance. Like theoretically I could have known about Cosby, but I had no idea until like two years ago. So all the while people like my parents and what I sort of think of as “the average person” who doesn’t live on Twitter or Wiki not only don’t know about this stuff, but actively think these people are “good” people. Whether or not they believe it once it’s known is another thing, but at least a shadow’s there that wasn’t there before.
It’s possible King’s tone in the article might have resulted from all the general admiration thrown Manning’s way post-Super Bowl vs. the (almost certainly racist) bullshit spouted about Cam Newton and his attitude. Just theorizing…
Fair enough! I think I just hit the wall w.r.t. “New York is the only part of the country that matters” really early today, and was reacting to the article as if it was saying that, if the NY media doesn’t know about something, obviously no one does. I feel like average people=football people, generally, and out here they do know about it, but you’re definitely right that saturation level for the country hasn’t reached “everyone and their mom”/”Nationwide is ruined forever” (like Cosby and pudding) levels.
I kind of doubt that it could, though? (I realize you pointed this out.) More than 50 women have come out against Bill Cosby, and some people still claim they’re all lying (!!!!). Most people I’ve talked to dismiss Peyton Manning’s assaulting someone by saying that he was young/dumb, which, no, I have been young and stupid, and never did I rub my genitals on someone’s face and have my dad destroy their life, nor did I at any point think that would be ok. It’d probably be easier to tarnish his image by pointing out that he donated to Bush, sadly.
I also obviously agree that the Manning’s tantrums=competitive, Newton’s=childish thing is racist af (someone literally called him as “boy”!).
NY might have been willfully ignoring it too. His brother is the QB for the Giants and what tarnishes one could rub off on the other. Couldn’t have Eli be anything but the good guy….
I can’t believe they did Kendrick dirty again. First to Macklemore and then to 1989? Ugh. When will they stop segregating soul and hip hop music and actually start giving them awards in the main categories instead of just the “urban” categories?
Also the album with the song “Welcome To New York” won the Album of the Year. Think about that, y’all.
also Macklemore released The Worst Song Ever yesterday but that is more of a retroactive indignity
jesus somebody make that man stop
I will listen to The Life of Pablo eight more times to erase that garbage from my memory. Ugh, Macklemore, he makes me annoyed to tell people I’m from Seattle.
I’ve been listening to Ultra Light Beam and No More Parties in L.A on repeat all day. So good.
Holy random accidental bolds, Batman! God, the production on it is just amazing. It’s a downer of a song, but I’ve listened to Real Friends about 50+ times so far.
First Beyoncé, now Kendrick? Taylor Swift really has a knack for stealing awards from black competitors whose work is far more interesting than hers.
Toast. I am about to burn down the world thanks to MS project. It’s actually melting my brain.
I’ve currently got a project doc open, and an excel calendar; I’m messing with the dates in MS, then transferring the project phases into excel to make it readable (I, and most of the clients I’ve ever met, need a visual aid to understand timelines. Recently I discovered manually making project calendars is easier than trying to explain Project Plans to clients. If only there was a ‘calendar view’ in MS.).
Its 2016, producers/PMs of The Toast, there has to be a better way of doing this? Halp me. Googling ‘MS project alternatives’ just returns browser based versions of MS project, I want a different system god damn!
Sounds like you’re trying to make Gannt charts that show project timelines and task dependencies. Search for “Gannt chart” on a software directory like GetApp or Capterra, and you should be able to find something (though it may not be free). Good luck!
nononononooooo, I want to get away from Gannt Charts. I want something that will product a calendar of what’s happening when and who needs to do what. Yes, we do use dependencies and timelines, but gannt charts, or at least the ones MS produces, are a pain, and it never reads logically to anyone who doesn’t read gannt charts for a living.
My workplace uses Asana which is annoying as shit, but does have tasks and calendars and stuff. It’s browser-based, which was frustrating when I had an old-as-dirt XP machine that couldn’t handle it.
We’re currently running an experiment with Trello, and if it takes off, we’re hoping to convince the higher ups that Asana (or Basecamp) is actually worth it. They’re so cheap though, who knows.
Sigh… I hate this planning bit of a project where I’m trying to plan for things that will happen in 6 months and MS project has me running 3 months over already! (I will fix this eventually, but it will melt my head first. And then I’ll have to present it to the client, at which point they will inform me of all of their holidays and the hard deadline for launch, which will probably be two months earlier than we’re expecting and everything will blow up. FUN!)
I like Basecamp a LOT better than Trello, personally, but maybe I just have never bothered to sit down and really learn to use Trello? It just seems like it’s too….I dunno, static?
Trello is very basic, its pretty much just to do lists online. What it is, is almost completely free! There’s a few extras you can pay for, but the free version works fine.
We’re attempting a bit of a coup where we get everyone using at least trello, then everyone sees how much better a software solution is from our current system (spreadsheets. So. Many. Spreadsheets.) And then we can make a case for buying asana/basecamp and run like a modern company!
Does basecamp do future planning? Like before a project starts, you put in everything that needs to happen and it shows timelines/critical dates? At the moment that’s all we use ms project for, to show the client the project timelines so they’ll sign off
I was going to suggest Trello! I looooove Trello. <3
What kind of visual aid are you trying to make? A monthly/yearly calendar with important dates on it?
I’m kind of just having a rant and I’m curious how other people do their early project timelines and plans.
I’d love some thing that’s more user friendly than ms project (I’m really starting to hate ms office in general. So many unnecessary functions! Google drive is much more friendly) for creating and linking tasks, that then spits out a month to month calendar instead of an unreadable gannt chart (in theory gannt charts are useful for critical path etc, but in practice our project get long and complicated and the chart is a mess)
Project is so unusable that we only use it during project scoping to get client sign off, and then it gets forgotten about in favour of people just remembering shit; which of course is a disaster, which is why I’ve taken to makeing calendars manually that I can print out and give to everyone. And now we’re trying to at least use trello for tracking and comms, if we can run enough projects smoothly that way, then we can !make a case for spending money on basecamp or similar (company is Cheap. Even when it looses them money in the long run.)
This is going to be really simplistic, but it might help if you’re just trying to make something for quick reference?
You could make a simple month to month calendar (or one covering a larger period of time). If you have multiple tasks in the same day or if a single tasks links to multiple ones, use multiple cells for each day. You could then link the tasks together by colour-coding them according to the stage of the project or which people are going to work on it. If you need to set up notifications for people, you could use Google Calendar to set them up, and use Google Docs to make a table and documents so people can click on a task and read more about it or be taken to the next task.
Again, this is probably too simple for what you’re looking for and it doesn’t use trello. Basecamp is pretty awesome, though.
Basecamp. FTW. Or Asana, I guess, depending. Also, just setting people on fire could be satisfying.
Jolie Kerr FOREVA <3
Is an alligator a deadly weapon?
I especially love this one because of the digression about the word “defenestrate.”
That was fantastic, thank you.
My favorite word!
Tangent: “eye” and “symmetry” totally rhymed when Blake wrote the poem, so it’s not his fault that the language has changed.
I’m assuming symmetry was pronounced “sym-uh-treye” and not that eye was pronounced “ee.” Correct?
Symmetry and eye were both pronounced with a Norfolk/pirate-type pronunciation, sort of halfway between “eye” and “oi”.
I cannot express how much joy this article brought my husband and I. I am dearly looking forward to debating the lethality of a flung ‘gator over the pre-dinner washing up.
I really think it depends on the size of the gator! I mean if you locked a person in with a three-and-a-half-foot-long gator you’d expect the slim chance of death, the probability of some injury and the possibility of not being hurt at all. Whereas with a 15-foot-long alligator, death becomes a likely outcome. But then one would have a harder time tossing a 15-foot-long alligator through a window I would think so I can see how there wouldn’t be much precedence in the case history.
I may have been the only adult here watching the final Gravity Falls episode instead of the Grammy’s, but it was so good! My baby teenager has gotten way, way into that show and they cried like a baby at the end, which made little sister cry, and I just held them while we watched the show. I can only imagine how much more difficult it will be when Steven Universe comes to an end one day, but wow. Having felt similar ways about shows I loved in the past, I totally get it.
I’m gonna watch it tonight and… I’m not sure I want to? I don’t want it to be over! (Not enough to like, make a deal with Bill or anything, but I kinda get the impulse.)
We don’t have cable at home so we had to drive to grandparents’ house to watch it (they are away right now), and 15-year-old was not sure they really wanted to go watch right away because then it would really be over. They decided to do it because then the fandom would be online sobbing together about everything and they didn’t want to miss that. I kind of love that!
I won’t spoiler anything, but I thought it ended well. There wasn’t a sense of being let down.
Some of my tumblr friends are super into Gravity Falls, but here in the UK it only shows on some premium channel called Disney XD. I wanna see it sooooo badddddd but maybe not enough to pay Amazon £12/season. Is it worth it y/n?
It is only on Disney XD here too. We paid for episodes through Amazon, but the episodes are usually released a few days after the original air date.
I would say check out the first season and see what you think. It’s a deeply weird show with surprisingly good animation for a Disney cable program and there are lots of 90’s references. So if that sounds like it might be your thing, check it out?
I’ve been so out of the Gravity Falls loop, but all my GF friends said it was an excellent ending and for that I am glad. I’ll probably look it up on Wikipedia bc that is the mental fortitude I have right about now.
And we don’t talk about the eventual end of Steven Universe. Sssssh….
(i just really love the crystal gems ok)
I love that Carvell Wallace piece. That is all.
I just made banana pancakes and (being a firm believer that more-is-more) I think it was the first time in years I’ve made pancakes without adding oatmeal or cornmeal or at least some adjunct grain.
It’s a weirdly mundane thing to realize.
No need to add anything else except maybe mini chocolate chips.
Did anyone else read about this surrogacy case on slate? http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/20…
Like a lot of these cases it is a mess and I’m beginning to wonder if there can be a regulation regime for surrogacy that is truly ethical and fair.
Oooh, that one’s a doozy.
That is really tricky. I am surprised to learn that surrogacy isn’t treated more like adoption as far as home studies and such go. It seems like that should be a given.
These cases are a mess. I don’t think there should be any legal way to compel a woman to have an abortion (or to continue a pregnancy when she doesn’t want to), and any contracts forcing abortion should be void. The rest is trickier.
I agree with you on both points. I think there is a lot of stuff that should be better regulated within it especially with how pregnancy or post pregnancy medical expenses are covered. How does a surrogacy contract impact on employment and should there be protections?
What happens to the child when a potential parent doesn’t want the child (or all the children)? Should it matter what the reason is?
Should potential parents be screened as in the adoption process? Should there be stricter regulation around how many eggs can be implanted, maybe no more than a potential parent would be willing and capable of caring for?
A very small part of me thinks that maybe we shouldn’t allow it because there are so many potential issues.
Huh, that gives me some interesting feels. Mostly nausea at the idea of forcing a pregnant person to make a reproductive choice against their own wishes, whatever the choice? But also some mild fascination at how openly “well he can’t parent because he’s Deaf” the surrogate person was, and more nausea at how profit motivated the fertility industry is.
Tbh surrogacy is so messy and turns so gross when it goes wrong, that I don’t see how it could be done ethically, especially with money involved.
Yeah the ableism was not cool and I don’t think it was examined enough in the article but there was already a lot going on in that whole situation.
As I wrote above I think I might agree with you on ethical surrogacy
That comment was so weird. d/Deaf people can and do parent, and while I can see how (depending on the individual) it could make things trickier, arguing that it’s completely impossible to be a single parent of triplets while d/Deaf is very weird and ableist.
What a mess. Poor everyone. (Although I am pretty cross with the person who decided to go ahead and implant three embryos even though he definitely didn’t want triplets. Sometimes all three implant! I know triplets who are the result of two embryos (one split to form twins); I am a triplet myself. Seriously, if you know you don’t want triplets, lower your chances by not using three embryos.)
Little bit freaked out that Paul Reubens is 63.
Christopher Jackson <3 <3 <3
“apple juice!” “delicious!” really got me!!!
We watched that over the weekend and decided that the next one need to be Jonathon Groff and Cookie Monster.
I don’t watch, have never seen, Grey’s Anatomy, so I was very relieved to discover the Meredith Grey in the excerpt was a fictional person.
I stopped watching when i realized it was just a prime-time soap opera. I replaced it with Nurse Jackie (still a soap opera, sure, but a better one).
Same here! From the excerpt I believed she just had an unusually difficult life and the penny didn’t drop until I actually read the article. I wonder if my sense of reality has been skewed by watching trashy TV programmes. Just not Grey’s Anatomy, though. I must be in the target audience without knowing it!
I used to watch Pee-wee’s Playhouse religiously. Nothing else has come along to replace it, and I thought Reubens got a raw deal for his movie-theater masturbation – he wasn’t doing anything your kids don’t do, and he wasn’t hogging your bathroom. Anyway, we don’t really need to go there. He was subversive, and I liked it.
a) he wasn’t doing anything your kids don’t do, and he wasn’t hogging your bathroom. Amazing, I felt this way too.
b) have you… watched it as an adult? I recently saw a clip and i was astonished at how… suggestive… it is.
I’ve only watched it as an adult 🙂 And yes, I used to crack up all the time at what was going over the kids heads.
I was really upset; I feel like you got the better deal, here 🙂 Like, i just don’t remember Chairy yelling about wanting Pee-Wee to sit on her face that much.
Through the whole first part of that cruelty in pop music article I was thinking about Bill Callahan and then he popped up! I really liked how she distinguished music that’s aware of its cruelty from gross, un-self-aware music and Bill/Smog has so many early songs that fall on the right side of that but are still so uncomfortable. She mentions “I Break Horses” but I think a really interesting one of his is “Cold Discovery” which as far as I can tell is sung from the point of view of a rapist. There’s a part of me when I listen to that song that’s like “Noooo whyyyyy” and another part that’s like “It’s intellectually good that this song exists because of the whole end part about how most people wouldn’t see what happened as rape” but then I’m like “But I don’t enjoy listening to the line ‘I can hold a woman down on a hardwood floor'” but then I’m like “But I get it.” Apparently I really go on a journey with that song.
The one that gives me the willies is ‘Let Me See The Colts’, even though it sounds very dreamy and beautiful, I can’t help but link it to the metaphor of horses=women from ‘I Break Horses” and it starts sounding like its told from the pov of a predatory man who’s planning his next ‘conquests’ of much younger, vulnerable women :/
Oh I don’t read that song that way at all! That’s actually my favorite song of his. I think it connects to “Palimpsest” in that it’s about a restless optimist always looking toward the next change and hoping it will be the one that sticks. And the horses are the different paths he could take, I guess.
Is there where I confess I love Guns n’ Roses’ “I Used To Love Her”? Because I enjoy that song. I feel bad, because this makes me a bad feminist, but there it is.
A surprising amount of 60s pop I’d always considered innocuous is now….problematic, though. And much of the Rolling Stones is just awful. I cannot believe they still play Brown Sugar.
Our pipes froze this weekend and I woke up 40 minutes after the baby finally fell asleep to hear water gushing from the ceiling. Luckily the pipe burst was localized to only one room and the electronics basically escaped (our shoes did not) but oh, so much cleaning and laundry to do this week now. Also, nightmares of the ceiling falling on baby.
This is a homeowner horror story! Now tell me the one about the Furnace Failure…<shivers>
AHHHHHHHHHHH
Oh, good gravy. You poor thing!! Good luck getting it all resolved, and sending protective vibes for your baby. I used to have that as a recurring nightmare when we sprung a big leak right over our bed in our old apartment.
Jolieeeeeeee
I’ve been meaning to scour her archives for weeks because I am in a JAM and it’s DISGUSTING and oh what to do.
We forgot to blow out a cheap peppermint-scented candle a little before christmas and it was in the bathroom and when we got up the next morning not only were our sinuses strangely clear feeling but it was like we were Victorians living with all that soot i mean our snot was black and the a/c circulation meant there were clouds of black all over the ceilings and ESPECIALLY in my bathroom and i still haven’t managed to get it off the walls it’s like it just spreads further instead of going away when i wipe it down??? and it’s disgusting on the shower ledges like mud or something that is definitely not mildew but i’ll rinse it away and it’s like it comes back??? it must be sliding off the walls or something.
Anyway soot is awful and I will never buy cheap Kohl’s candles again and forget to blow them out after an hour and also I’m taking a day off work in March to give the bathroom a deep clean and hopefully I’ll have figured out a good solution by then.
I need the Clean Person bat signal or something.
Hi hi, Jolie here! You need a soot sponge, which is a real product and not something I just made up. You can buy them from Amazon, of course, or at hardware/home improvement stores.
oh my gosh it’s like there IS a clean person bat signal
you are the best, thank you!! i am going to get one toute de suite and maybe i won’t have to schedule an entire day to clean but can fit it in with my regular schedule. Though, tbh, a full day probably wouldn’t hurt!
You’re welcome! Let me know how it turns out. Also, if you ever need to catch me, Twitter is usually the best place for sending up a Bleach Signal.
I got My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag and it is seriously helping me clean my apartment so much. Someone here recommended it and it has been wonderful.
Thank you so much for the kind words!!!
She is among us *gasp* ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod *sinks to fainting couch*
(i have read the entire AACP archive. you are legend.)
Feed them using candy and give them tasks to do, otherwise they’ll turn into soot. I hope this helps.
For all the toasties, here is the link to Pee-Wee live on Broadway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBAF0RX9Urg
And the trailer for the NEW MOVIE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Quo-Oen1wkY
And the live MTV show with Phil Hartman as Captain Carl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWBV83lg33s
Is 3-4 loads of laundry a week not normal for two people? How do you keep your pants from destroying your other clothes if you don’t do them separately?
If you’re talking about jeans, you don’t need to wash them. Levi’s recommends putting them in a freezer.
I never follow this advice so I don’t have any stories about how this has turned out.
Every time I see that thing about Levi’s saying not to wash their jeans, I get so confused. Dirt does not come off in the freezer. Stuff needs to be washed sometimes!
Yeah. Sometimes. Not every week.
I’ve never tried the freezer thing. I just wash mine once every so many months, or if they get something on them. (I also wash new jeans after I buy them.)
ETA: I typically do laundry for three (I live at home), and my parents still have jeans washed every week. Tasks are spread out over two or three days.
Does the freezer advice mean not washing them, though? I always took it to mean that you should wash them, just less often than other clothes, and keep them in the freezer between washes. If not, that’s gross! Dirt really doesn’t come off in the freezer, even if the cold might help kill some bacteria.
I barely have enough room in my freezer for food, I am not sharing it with my pants. Plus I agree, dirt is still a thing that exists, even if you freeze it.
This article confirmed everything I already believed about freezing jeans: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-…
(Which is: it doesn’t do what you want it to do, which is kill bacteria.)
Which should have been obvious to every one from the get go.
No one would believe you if you told them you don’t have to cook meat if it’s been frozen.
It doesn’t even do that? I was hoping that at least people who follow that advice would be able to walk around in jeans that are free of bacteria, though dirty and caked with frozen mud.
I was mostly joking, since I haven’t tried it either. I’m sorry, I’m failing at humour today.
Plus, I have no idea how long beforehand you’d have to take them out of the freezer to avoid getting frostbite in parts where frostbite does not belong. It just sounds dangerous all around
For me (one person) I do two loads every 1.5 to 2 weeks, depending on how quickly I run out of gym clothes. I have a ton of socks and underwear, and everything else can probably be worn multiple times without washes. I don’t wear pants anymore, but back when I did I just closed the zippers and washed them with everything else.
By myself I would do three loads every two weeks- clothes, whites, and towels + sheets. With two people with a heavy reliance on cloth dish towels and cloth napkins, we do clothes, pants & jackets, towels, and sports gear (I do judo and I’m slightly paranoid about skin infections, so this is a heavy load) every week, with sheets as an additional load every other week.
We used to try to combine loads or do more every other week loads when laundry was father away, but now we have in-unit laundry and a washer that auto detects loads we tend towards smaller and more frequent.
Oh yeah, sheets tends to be its on separate load (I don’t want the flannel sheets getting lint on my clothes), but I do that load…a lot less often than I probably should.
I do 1-2 loads for one person every other weekend, so I’m… not the best judge.
I am finding the load dividing of other people’s laundry to be fascinating! I grew up in a many loads house (I think my mother still does a separate load of reds in a household of one), and I certainly have no belief in the one true laundry path, so it’s all super interesting.
I have to say, the sheer volume of laundry increased significantly when I shacked up with a guy nearly a foot taller than me- volumetrically he’s responsible for about 2/3 of our laundry.
Part of the wide variance is that if you are okay using cold water, you can combine colors and whites no problem.
Occasionally I do a hot wash for underwear and towels and sheets, and occasionally in summer I do a whites-only wash on warm with bleach, but honestly really often I put everything all together in the cold wash and it is 100% fine. Using cold water makes my clothes last a LOT longer. I guess do about 1 load every 10 days? Plus hand washing of bras & sweaters?
I’ve never had pants destroy other clothes so I am not sure what that would be like.
I also often chuck everything together in cold water. Are my heavier fabrics destroying my delicate knit shirts, even though I set the agitation on delicate??? Maybe I should test this…
I’ve found it’s more long term wear and tear than insta-destruction- things just seem to last longer without my jeans beating them up. I wear a lot of waify fabrics, though. Plus one blue judo gi is half a load of laundry, so that plus 2-3 pairs of pants is a load anyhow.
My husband and I still each do our own laundry, and I hope to Jesus this never changes.
(Occasionally, we will have a combined load if there are special circumstances, like travel.)
I do 2 loads of clothes (one whites/lights, the other brights/darks) for my 2-person household each week. I just wash the pants in with everything else, and have never had an issue with them destroying anything–maybe I just have exceptionally docile slacks and jeans.
Occasionally (and more infrequently than I probably ought to), I add an extra load of sheets, or a special load just for the bathmat we keep by the shower. Towels and dish/washcloths get thrown in with the regular clothes.
I do 2-3 loads a week for one person (lights, darks, sheets, plus an extra load of towels and lunapads once a month), which seems excessive, but I teach and practice hot yoga several times a week and thus have many costume changes during the day, and also I have a w/d in my apartment. I air dry most everything I wear. If I had to schlep to a laundromat, I would stock up on undies and do one monster load a month.
Partner and I are both bike messengers with limited supplies of long underwear, we do a mini-wash every three days and then a big load once a week. Otherwise we’d be horribly smelly. But we wash our jeans with everything else and mostly own dark clothes – I wash my bras and dresses in the sink on the rare occasions that I wear them. Whites get done once in a while with the towels.
A slightly more serious comment: I do fewer loads of laundry when I live alone (my wardrobe is not very colourful) with a separate one for jeans and other stain-causing things since I don’t know of a better system. I don’t remember what I did when I wore jeans every day (I probably just tossed them in with the other clothes because I was young and arrogant). When I live with other people, I just nicely ask to combine items that stain if I don’t have enough of them.
Toasties, I seek your wisdom and counsel today even though this isn’t the Open Thread. I’m desperate.
– Do you have any advice on how to deal with academic writing when depressed? Thinking is being difficult right now . Everything is a struggle, from outlining to drawing a conclusion. The subject is one I love and am passionate about, so you’d think I’d be having a hard time with going over the size limit. Instead, I’m close to the minimum page count but not quite there and it will just get shorter. It’s very important, the deadline is coming up, and I’ve been struggling for weeks. I’d rather not back out. I can ask someone for help but I’d rather do it to get feedback on a roughly completed thing since everyone is so busy.
– Can you recommend a good 2016 planner? I like the format that has space for each day along with a monthly calendar with room to write in it, so I can see at a glance how busy a given week is. I’ve been trying to find some in local shops but there isn’t much to choose from. If you could recommend something by either a well-known publisher or a small seller based in Europe that would be nice. I don’t want to end up broke because of shipping costs.
here are a few ideas to trick yourself into writing:
1) break it down into such small tasks it seems ludicrous, like “write transition connecting section a to b. check off list” “find a quote to support claim a.”
2) find a new way to look at the whole and see what it needs. I like to print out my drafts and cut them into separate pieces for each paragraph so I can see how they relate to each other and what’s still missing. It looks kind of mad-scientist (mad humanist?), but that actually helps me?
3) freewrite an answer to a sub-question in a separate document, like pretend you’re explaining your topic to a friend in a letter, then import the good sentences into the main paper.
4) don’t be afraid to ask somebody to be an external voice telling you what’s missing. I find it’s easier to do that executive-function stuff on someone else’s work than my own, I can only assume depression makes that even more so the case.
Re: 2) I write everything that way. When I was in grad school, one of my classmates asked me how long my seminar paper was so far. I said, “13 feet,” because I’d cut it all apart and taped it back together again in a new order. (See also: Signs You’re Hermione Granger.)
This is absolutely peak Hermione Granger
this is literally how I finally finished my dissertation proposal.
I love all of these, and especially #2. I normally print out a draft and scribble all over it, but separate pieces for each paragraph sounds brilliant and I wish I’d heard of it before, so thanks!
Have you tried any of the software tools that allow you to play with order etc? I use this thing called Scrivener (offers a 30-day free trial so you can try if and if it doesn’t work for you just don’t pony up for the non-trial version–and that’s 30 days of use, not 30 calendar days). It lets you write all your sections or paragraphs or however you want to break it down into individual bits that you can then drop-and-drag to arrange, then spit out into a word doc or whatever. I love it a lot and it works on Macs and PCs.
I’ve found that freeing myself from thinking about structure while I’m writing (or even feeling like I need to write linearly because I’m writing in a single document) has helped me a lot. Having trouble writing about this particular event/quote/image/whatever? That’s ok, switch over to this other window and write the connecting paragraph between parts A and B instead. And then worry later about how it all fits together.
This is very late but thank you for the tip! I’ve heard about Scrivener a lot but never actually used it, so I had no idea the trial was 30 days of use.
Calendar: the Hobonichi Techo which you can buy from japan at 1101.com/store OR from JetPens.com (I think there are some sellers on ebay who work for European)
It has 3 calendar layouts, which is really useful, and the daily plus at the start of each month is a summary page.
I also really like the Rhodia & Leuchtturm1918 weekly planners – the left page has markings for daily schedule, the right is an open grid to use as you like (I use it for to-do lists or when I have notes for specific days), and there’s also a couple different month overviews at the beginning. You can get these in Europe, they’re French & German companies.
These are great and exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
For the writing, break it down into small chunks and find little ways to reward yourself. For example, ” I will finish writing this page, then I will allow myself to goof off on the internet for five minutes.” Or, “If I can expand this section to three pages then I will watch that episode of my favorite TV show/eat a delicious snack/go for a walk/etc.”
This is what I normally do, but it’s tough when I spend hours doing a single little chunk. It’s good to know that I’m on the right track, thank you for the reassurance.
I’m not putting down your advice! This is excellent advice that anyone should follow. It’s just not working on its own for me because the depressed brain is a mysterious thing.
Long-time reader, first time commenter, fellow academic writer: get thee to Academic Muse (www.academicmuse.org) to find excellent and compassionate advice about academic writing, including free e-books and (for a fairly reasonable fee) a bootcamp where you can work to forge a daily writing practice.
THANK YOU for this reference, DogModerne!
I have no idea how I hadn’t heard of this before. Where was this site all my life? Thank you!
P.S.: I’m not a first time commenter, though I did just change my username, but I like how welcome I’d feel if I were commenting for the first time ever. The Toast is the best and only site, pass it on
The Passion Planner!
I cannot recommend it highly enough. The overall design is fantastic and there are lots of fun little quotes, inspirational ideas/challenges and more that make scheduling and getting organized super fun! The designer and CEO is a Filipino-American woman who wanted to create a business that was also philanthropic. If you can’t afford to buy a planner right away, you can download the template for the pages and print it yourself for free! Plus, for every planner you buy, they give one to someone in need.
The company’s Instagam account is full of photos that users send in of how they use and decorate their planners, if you want to check that out.
These are a thing of beauty, and I love the idea of spreading the planner love. Thanks!
I’m very confused by the laundry article — is 3-4 loads for two people per week not normal? I actually do more (darks + brights + whites + towels/sheets + underwear). Toasties, pls advise.
I’m living alone right now and I do 2-4 loads depending on what week it is. Every week I do a load of sheets/my towels/dog towels/bathmat and a load of workout/cycling clothes (I run every day and ride my bike to campus 4 days a week. I am a heavy sweater, so I wear cycling clothes rather than normal clothes because I sweat A LOT even though it’s only 3.5 miles. This leads to a ton of spandex to wash every single week.)
Other loads that do not happen on a weekly basis: normal (non-workout) clothes (everything together b/c I wash it all on cold); dog blankets; delicates–I have a fancy-schmancy washer that has a special magic delicate cycle that somehow does not agitate or spin that I can use for bras and sweaters, so every other week or so I do a load of those.
ELMO
Pack naps! I think Dad Magazine could use a sidebar/retrospective on small children destroying their dads’ naps by ostensibly napping ‘with’ them (and needing milk, or getting antsy, or starting a wrestling match with their other sibling, or inviting the dog up). Small children are the natural enemies of adult naps.
Except for the times when they precipitate adult naps, like all the times one or the other of us fell asleep on the child’s bed while they were falling asleep as well, and woke up an hour later in the dark, deeply perplexed. Or the baby falls asleep on you, an rather than even attempt to put her down, you fall asleep under her.
Great point. Let’s amend my previous statement to the widely acknowledged truism that small children are the natural enemy of whatever you thought you were going to be doing for the next 1-2 hours.
Today I bought Texts From Jane Eyre and bonded with the person at the till, who exclaimed excitedly over it and said how funny she’d found it. I am looking forward to reading it immensely.
The article about uncomfortable subject matter and attitudes in pop music was interesting, particularly the distinction between cruel music and music that’s aware of its cruelty. When listening to songs featuring unpleasant mindsets (e.g. “Run for Your Life” by the Beatles; “No One Else” by Weezer) I always just assumed that the protagonist was supposed to be terrible and it was a satirical look at these attitudes that surely nobody really holds. I have come to realise that this may be overly optimistic.
Off topic but I can’t wait for an open thread because everyone has to read this now http://laurie-penny.com/fifty-shades-of-socialist…
chortling with misandric glee
“I pull my tampon out and throw it violently at his head.”
Ahahahaha!!!! Oh, oh my… *wipes away tears of mirth* That was fantastic, thank you for sharing.
If you haven’t yet seen it, I also highly recommend Katrina Passick Lombard’s Goodreads reviews, which include gifs of her reactions when words simply won’t do (and they often don’t). http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/341907930
(That’s the link to the review of Book 2, because for some reason my computer refuses to load the link to the first one. Can one break a link by clicking through it too many times?)
OMG that was wonderful! Please repost on Friday so everyone can see it.
This basically happened to a friend of mine.
She has since married a much better dude and had a really adorable baby.
The website that explains GSF points out that it's terrible. Like, "many of us do these things out of compassion for people who are excluded, because we were at some point excluded, but it actually makes circles of friends really fucking toxic and we need to stop."
OMG …. Looking SO Great !!!!
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