Aside from the LP drinks across the length and breadth of the eastern seaboard (well, that may be a slight exaggeration…) summer is here, work is supposedly winding down (though I haven’t noticed) and it’s time to … party! It might be a good time to have an open party experiences thread – share tales of doom from work functions, report on exciting gigs, tell us about your fancy dress themed events, etc, ad infinitum!
I’m not really one for parties as such (if defined as a stack of people crammed into a kitchen and on a verandah or drinks with colleagues at a dreary suit bar) but I have been going to more gigs recently… last night Mr Mark and I caught The View From Madeleine’s Couch at The Press Club. Great OzBrazilian jazz, and I can recommend gin, lime and soda for those sultry and humid Brisbanian summer nights!
Live @ The Press Club, Brisbane
“I can recommend gin, lime and soda for those sultry and humid Brisbanian summer nights”
Never mind the “sultry and humid” and “Brisbanian” bits… actually, you can scratch the “summer” too. And “nights”? What’s with that?
I dunno if I’m behind the times here, and I’m sure lots of youse have heard of this already, but here’s a recipe for Getting This Party Started™ (Pink Recording and GRRRL Power Corporation, All Rights Reserved):
Russian Cocaine: (I know, naff name. I didn’t coin it and the hoss, him bolted)
Ingredients:
>1 generous shot (is there any other kind?) decent vodka. Belvedere is noice – the Lady Friend and I just got gifted a bottle for providing DJ services and PA system to one of those house parties Kim doesn’t like. For shame.
>1 thickish half-round slice of lemon. NOT a wedge! Wedges don’t work for this recipe, plus they hide pips, plus… well, let’s just say FUCK WEDGES!
>1 metric quantity of good fresh coffee grounds
>1 equally metric quantity of caster sugar
Method:
>Okay, now chill the living shit out of the vodka first (duh). You should really have been doing this before starting to read the recipe. Idiot.
>Spread coffee grounds on a little saucer.
>Ditto the sugar.
>Press one side of your lemon SLICE into the coffee, the other into the sugar. Order is unimportant, although a few grains of sugar in the coffee will be less aesthetically unsettling than vice versa.
>Neck the vodka.
>Insert coated lemon slice into mouth, such that it looks like you have o-so-hilarious yellow teeth.
>Masticate while sucking. Also, get mind out of gutter.
>Shiver with delight.
>Rinse, repeat.
How curious, I was just blogging sur le meme chose earlier today!http://bitemylatte.blogspot.com/2008/12/boom-boom.html
Happy Christmas to all at LP!
Over at Blogocrats we’re having a “Write your own Christmas Carol” competition which you’re all invited to enter.
And there’s some awesome prizes up for grabs!! Enter now, before Jesus returns!!
Magnificent, FDB. I salute your piety.
Never let it be said I’m not observant of the faith. Orthodox, even.
Oremus, FDB. I suggest Isiah 28:7-8.
Isaiah
Eeek! What a way to ruin both Vodka and Coffee. Plus, lemon and sugar should be avoided at all costs for drinking delight.
The russians I used to work with used this recipe:
1. Put vodka in freezer yesterday.
2. Buy cheap Sunbeam espresso machine.
3. Drink icy vodka. Shout. Sing. Dance. Break something expensive by accident, make that shrugging motion with knitted brows.
4. Throw lemons at the kids to keep them quiet.
5. Threaten to punch your best mate. Fall down. Have drunken sexual advances rejected by spouse.
6. Wake up with head like a horse kicked it.
7. Turn on espresso machine and make thick, black espresso with enough coffee for four in a single tiny cup NO FUGGIN MILK.
8. Put sugar in it if you absolutely have to.
Y’see DR, that’s what I thought too.
I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the bar. Well, I was told I’d be shouted one of these or nothing else.
I’m all turned around. I couldn’t even be bothered pretending I was lukewarm about it to protect my fragile ego. Go figure, huh?
at our house we prefer Sgroppinos..
2 cups of lemon sorbet
4-6 ice cubes
4 nips of vodka
1 cup prosecco (or any handy sparkling wine)
lemon zest
Blend, then sprinkle the lemon zest on top.
Just the thing for Xmas breakfast if you are already suffering from marguerita overload.
I’m with DR – lip sip suckers.
Anyway, I’m stocking up on this stuff for moi (and all G&T’s gratefully accepted):
http://www.drinkfinder.co.uk/ShowDetails.asp?id=3472
“Fresita” – A premium Chilean sparkling wine infused with hand picked strawberries from Patagonia. No additives blah.
It’s cheap, lower-alcohol and very drinkable. V. good for summer where one tends to guzzle more than in winter due to um, it being hot.
For Liam – I’ll give you a hint: it’s got to do with capital and class formation.
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Yes and Spain hadn’t gone very much past the ancien regime as Hobsbawm states. He was quoted. He said what I said he did. You’re wrong. But you get the principal thing. Well done. You’re a spell checker. Golf clap.
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Franco was on the political right.
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Did I say he wasn’t? The political right is not entirely constituted by fascists.
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Carlist ≠ Traditionalist.
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I didn’t say it did.
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you’d know that the term “Royalist” is almost never used. “Monarchist” is more accurate
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Royalist is often used. What’s the functional difference anyway? You could also say Nationalist. How about knee-jerk, self-righteous rigid cheeseheads? Well, as you demonstrate, that ain’t somethin’ the Right have a monopoly on.. comrade.
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Now here we’re getting into the meat of your ignorance.
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Followed by a long paragraph that has nothing to do whatsoever with what I’ve said. Maybe I’m ignorant but at least I know how to read.
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You can’t count syllables.
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Indeed “Danny Boy” goes 13/10, 13/10 except it doesn’t. I’ll give you $100 if it does.
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You’ve been soundly proved wrong. I’ve quoted Hobsbawm saying what you said he didn’t. You’ve only scored one point on a typo and made all sorts of bullshit excursions into nothing. And then you throw a huge tantrum.
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And why? Because you misinterpret what I’ve written in the most asinine manner and, for some reason, think citing Orwell is showing off!!! For what?
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But keep on saying you’re right. After all saying something makes it so and lying’s fine as long as you disagree with someone’s perspectives. After all if they’re different to you they must be despicable.
Wooo, Meredith Music Festival!
I can’t think of a better way to start a Summer holiday.
I am also looking forward to going back to Perth for Xmas and swimming in the Indian Ocean again. There just aren’t any beaches in Melbourne.
Somebody hand Misthreadrien a drink.
Lefty E- Someone hand me four.
FDB wrote:
FDB, you missed the most important ingredient: FREE!
If I’d known that, I’d have been all over it
Aye, and then even at the poxy Evelyn Hotel bar (during soundcheck time, no less!) you would’ve been in for a tasty and invigorating surprise.
Yow, Adrien still rattling on about Hobsbawm and Franco… good grief, it’s like that horror movie where you think the crazed killer is finally dead, but it turns out you’re wrong. You know the movie I mean, right? There can’t be more than one.
When I was a lad, this was the rugged man’s cocktail recipe:
Ingredients:
– several bottles of vodka, must be either Stoli or else your Polish chum’s home-infused vanilla-bean-and-honey vodka;
– one large garbage can, clean for preference;
– one equally-large plastic garbage bag;
– one Ramones record (or early B-52s will do in a pinch);
– one freezing cold winter.
1. Place the vodka on a low table which can be reached from the floor. Contra FDB, chilling the vodka is a redundant waste of energy.
2. Line the garbage can with the plastic bag.
3. Take the can outside and fill it with freshly-fallen snow. Lots and lots of snow. But avoid the deadly yellow snow crystals, which can deprive you of your sight.
4. Bring snow-filled can back into warm toasty room. Pack fresh snow into glasses, then fill with previously-warm vodka.
5. Turn on Ramones record and wait for police to arrive.
6. For an added kick, put pages from self-serving leftist memoirs of the Spanish Civil War in a blender, shred thoroughly, then toss out an open window and let ideologues fret about it. Increase Ramones volume. Dance. Argue about art not politics. Flirt with an ashtray: it seems to like you, maybe there’s a “real” connection? Where did all these new people come from? Did they bring more vodka, or at least more snow? Dance some more, before the Safety Moose comes to take away your vodka. But moose are peace-loving animals, they would never do that. If you can just explain to them what Georg Buechner really meant, it’ll all be cool.
Have to tell you folk, joy for me is around a bowl of kave in beautiful Fiji
JPZ – You post that and you’re comparing me to a crazed killer.
Argue about art not politics.
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Okay – The Ramones are shit!!
Adrien — well, guess the only thing I can say in my defense is: Fa fa fa faa, fa-fa fa fa faa fa.
“more snow”
You asked for it, and don’t say you never.
Very eloquent, jpz.
I might add that performing on the same bill as Talking Heads automatically indenmifies against criticism, but having not been there at the time I’m not sure what horrors that permits.
Kim, we don’t have dreary suit bars in Melbourne, well, we do but we ignore them.
So he’s a bunny boiler?
Also, the most elegant Christmas partay I ever had was the one with the frozen raspberry daquiris. Several people had to go home and change their clothes and come back.
I might need the vodka, but without any of those hideous, un-Slavic adulterations, afer our work Christmas lunch. We’re having it next week… after a one-hour meeting to discuss our achievements… due to end at 2pm. Any bets on it going past time? We are, as a workplace, not happy. I’m even less happy — I’ll have to leave the Lebanese banquet by 2:25pm to do the school run!
I’m feeling somewhat partied out this morning after my research group’s annual Christmas jaunt at the local Tibetan restaurant. I think there were quite a few pinots going down from recollection.
Oh, and there were several Christmasish exhibition ales…
And then there were just the plain old everyday ales…
Sigh, and it starts all over again this afternoon with mulled wine and minced pies…
Just thought I’d put up an advert for a Xmas concert to which I’ll be attending tomorrow nights performance at the Sydney Recital Hall. There is a second performance on Sunday night.
The ‘Voices of Angels’ concert featuring the Sydney Children’s Choir – last year it was broadcast on 702 on Xmas Eve or ABCFM – not sure if many tiks left to either performance, but luverly traditional and classical seasonal fare to take the kids and grannies along to.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2008/12/01/2434017.htm
(Disclaimer: No. 1 daughter in choir)
Doctor: Is that an almond daquiri Dick?
Richard: No it,s a hickory daquiri Doc.
Jo, I love the idea of a Christmas concert with actual choirs singing actual classical carols and Bach and Britten and stuff, as opposed to the aqua-sequined melisma-yowling bogan horror that masquerades as “carols by candlelight” in Melbourne. OK, so I’m an atheist, but as somebody said, consistency is the something of little minds.
Helen: ‘hobgoblin’.
You are so right about teh carolz. Once when I was still in the choir we gave a Christmas Eve carols concert, all sung absolutely straight by choristers dressed in sober black and white, at the Salvation Army HQ in the city that was attended mostly by sex workers and the homeless. Who seemed to really like it. And not a sequin or a sub-post-Mariah Carey lick in sight.
Adrien, Put The Bunny Back In The Box.
Let’s get back to basics, addressing you by your original claims—and I apologise that I cannot refer to comment numbers; the IE6 browser I am forced to use does not display them.
I called you out on the numerous errors of fact in your comment on the Manning Clark thread at 3.35pm. Hobsbawm has never said that the Spanish left were mainly Anarchists, or that the Spanish right were mainly Carlist. He did not “confuse the Spanish Carlists with the wider fascist movement”. In fact, the paragraphs you’ve picked—at random, it seems—argue quite the opposite thing, that Hobsbawm was perfectly aware of Franco’s non-ideological pragmatism. I am not required to do any work pointing out your failures; you do it quite handily yourself.
Nowhere do you even try to justify your claims. Your pokemons of failure are running freely, uncollected.
From your comment on this thread:
You could, but you would be incredibly wrong. Spanish Nationalists came in many flavours, as you yourself have argued; Falangist, militarist, conservative, ultra-Catholic and all flavours in between. “Monarchist” is generally used in the history because it’s closest translation to the Spanish “Monarquista”, the correct contemporary term. Royalists in Spanish history are a different bunch entirely; that refers to those who in the nineteenth century sided with the forces of the King against the liberals in the other Civil War. The three terms are not in the slightest interchangeable, and sadly, this is only the most obvious of your displays of historical ignorance.
More generally, you’re only embarrassing yourself. I called you out on egregious and uncritical use of Orwell in your comments, a habit most of us interested in politics and history grow out of at some time in puberty. I await an answer to my question:
You have a habit on threads of reaching for either half-remembered George Orwell or the nearest book of popular history on your shelf to justify claims about anything. Failing that, you then spray names of people you haven’t read and don’t understand: in John Dolan’s memorable phrase, spewing impenetrable ink for the same reason as the squid. Did you ever get around to Milan Kundera’s views on ad hominem argument?
It’s false worldliness that, as I said, is endearing in children, but unworthy of a grown adult. Grow up.
Well, you won’t have Rob Guest to kick around anymore Helen…
But yes, if one was ever going to get faith, it’s at the moment some extra talented child soloist hits a pure note from some 16th century trad. piece in an acoustically designed structure and it enters some part of your brain wired for spiritual joy/ecstasy. The Church instinctively understood neurotheology in the old days.
Helen and Jo, re carols: this isn’t something I usually do, but it is very apropos.
As for you FDB:
You realise this means war.
Jo “But yes, if one was ever going to get faith, it’s at the moment some extra talented child soloist hits a pure note from some 16th century trad. piece in an acoustically designed structure and it enters some part of your brain wired for spiritual joy/ecstasy. The Church instinctively understood neurotheology in the old days.”
too right, after six weeks in Italy and Malta i was getting a bad case of the “No not another Cathedral Blues” which was alleiviated by singing Gaudete, from Steeleye Span’s album Below the salt, whenever i got the chance. it always seemed to sound far better than i had any right to expect.
Best drinks had in Italy, all of them.
War is bad, m’kay?
You started it, whiskers. It wasn’t me.
Helen, Melbourne is fortunate to have a non-bogan alternative – the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and Philharmonic Brass are doing Carols at the Cathedral with the Australian Childrens Choir and proper operatic special guests.
Dr Cat, what a stunning post. An extra box of tissues required now. Thank you.
Liam @ 40. Flavour savourless.
Simon Cowellised for today’s thinking tweeny:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=y8iY24I1NWQ&feature=related
Take THAT!
That… that… oh my goodness.
That’s going to take some beating.
STOP IT YOU EVIL BASTARDS.
Nuh-uh. It’s not over until the skinny good looking lady sings.
This sounds like a job for A-Ha, literal version. http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=8HE9OQ4FnkQ
Pretty ordinary, man. Pretty ordinary.
Oh my Lord LE. That is fucking outstanding.
The whole internet is gonna hear about this.
Just looking forward to Woodford Folk Festival if it’s not too hot/wet…
Ah Liam – this is the last time okay. Is boring.
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Hobsbawm has never said that the Spanish left were mainly Anarchists, or that the Spanish right were mainly Carlist.
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No neither did I. I cite these two as an example of the idiosyncracity of Spanish politics. Again you don’t read very carefully.
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Like your little ‘Trotsky didn’t like the POUM’ lecture. Did you notice the quotes around ‘Neo-Trot’? I’m sure you read Homage To Catelonia (before you turned 20), when Orwell describes the POUM as Trots, he likewise puts those quotes down. Andreu Nin was on the staff of Trotsky. The POUM was formed partially from his organization. So Trot they rejected Trotsky and vice versa. You appear to (think you) know a lot about the Spanish Civil War but you make some outlandishly blunt observations.
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I guess subtle little things like quotation marks don’t register in that fetid sinkhole of paper clip banality that somehow enables you to chew cud and type at once (or not). It seems for you Orwell is outré once you’re 20 but Slogans For Dummies is de rigueur.
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He did not “confuse the Spanish Carlists with the wider fascist movement”. In fact, the paragraphs you’ve picked—at random, it seems—argue quite the opposite thing
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No. Neither did I. I said that a lot of people outside of Spain did so at the time. My ‘random’ quote said exactly that. And I followed the comment up with another that underlined this.
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Interesting that you say I quote The Age of Extremes at random. It seems to me that if I did so I wouldn’t be quoting the very pages in which Hobsbawm concerns himself with the politics of ’30s Spain and would’ve ended up perhaps on his explication of the collpase of the Communist Bloc or some such. I may indulge in popular history but at least I know what words actually mean.
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I called you out on egregious and uncritical use of Orwell in your comments, a habit most of us interested in politics and history grow out of at some time in puberty.
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Oh I see I’m supposed to not quote Orwell after I turn 20. According to whose rule? You appear to have drawn offense at this fairly innocuous citation but, y’know what? I. Don’t. Care. My citation of Orwell has to do with the use of history for propaganda purposes and the herd instinct that will attempt to rewrite the truth. There is nothing inaccurate about my comment and it is critical. Of gramaphone minds such as yours. Wear it.
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You have a habit on threads of reaching for either half-remembered George Orwell or the nearest book of popular history on your shelf to justify claims about anything.
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Hobsbawm, Bacevitch these are popular historians? And I’m justifying anything? Okay. This doesn’t change the fact that Hobsbawm indeed did say exactly what you said he did not. Also, like proving that I can’t count, I’ll give you $100 if you can seriously show me to’ve quoted Orwell or anyone else inaccurately ever.
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I await an answer to my question
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I already answered it – http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/12/08/the-trivial-pursuit-of-manning-clark/#comment-576170
In my wisdom I give a points decision to Adrien.
So it would be good if you could both STFU. As Adrien so correctly pointed out – ‘Is boring’. Which is why he gets the points.
Speak for yourself.
*moves couch on to new thread, resorts to remaining campari bottle*
P.S. Leftisto, you are a fucking L-E-G-E-N-D.
I think the highlight is “im gonna kick some ass with my own pipewrench”, FDB.
Sheesh, I shoulda put that one on my blog!
Mind you, then noone would have seen it
Alons, Merry Xmas Mr LP.
“it would be good if you could both STFU”
No! Have you gone mad? Zounds, man, we’re on the cusp of finding out whether one delusional Marxist (Hobsbawm, I think) was right about what he said or maybe didn’t say about another mob of delusional Marxists (the POUM I think? I seem to remember them from college, but I was always a little distracted in the tutorials).
This is almost as important as discovering what Moombus of Antioch, that great scholar of Ptolemy, thought of Anostigmatus of Libya’s penultimate emendations to the fourth epi-epi-epi-epicycle of Mars-within-Mars, which rectified (or maybe didn’t!) the problem of the semiretrogression of Venus in the fourth month of the eighth year of the reign of Domitian.
The heavens, as you can see, hang in the balance.
Play on!
My god, you’re right.
Goodbye.
This is almost as important as discovering what Moombus of Antioch, that great scholar of Ptolemy, thought of Anostigmatus of Libya’s penultimate emendations to the fourth epi-epi-epi-epicycle of Mars-within-Mars, which rectified (or maybe didn’t!) the problem of the semiretrogression of Venus in the fourth month of the eighth year of the reign of Domitian.
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Absolutely.
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This is the sort of thing that LP should be debating more often. Not this internet censorship rubbish.
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I think you’ll find the key to the debate is that Anostigmatus was a Paleo-Trotskyist (and also obviously a prophetic visionary) whereas Moombus was more inclined to reject Marxism-Leninism altogether and subscribe instead to the theories of Joseph Fourier. You may think this is bullshit on the spurious grounds that these people were dead millenia before Fourier or Trotsky were born but that is obviously because you are slaves to the phallo-rationalism of linear time.
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The real class enemy is the idea that Spet 3rd follows Sep 2nd. We must rise up and kill the Calender Manufacturers and Watch Makers. They are the True Oppressor.
Liam and Leonid. Leonid and Liam. Please don’t tell me its Fyodor. I like the alliteration and he hardly uses it anyway. So, hands down dudes. Always always always. I only come to visit for your smoke and mirrors. Its existential what you do. So lately Ive been wondering – are you human? Or are you dancer? And if so, could you explain what that means? Cause Im on my knees, like, looking for the answer.
christ on a biscuit, a fscking daquiri does not come frozen or raspberry. a daquiri is 2 parts white rum, one part triple sec, one part lime juice, one part sugar syrup, ice to remainder, shake and serve in a lo-ball glass.
instead of the lime juice, you can muddle the limes with mint and you’ve got a mojito – although tecnically you should use dark rum.
also rum != bacardi nor bundaberg. you might want to try Mount Gay Barbados Rum instead, beautiful rich nose and honey and citrus on the palette.
last night I made the “keelhauler” which is rum, triple sec, limes and ginger ale, stirred.
Tyro Rex – technically – a mojito is white rum, sugar, lemon/lime juice, a huge sprig of mint & soda water.
ie. no triple sec & def. not dark rum.
I got to drink plenty in situ a few decades ago and every bar and hotel served as above.
Leave me out of this, Case, I’s a harmless bystander.
yes you’re right but i always do prefer golden rum to white rum, golden rum has a better palette if you ask me and I always prefer it over white – it can be substituted for white in almost any cocktail. white rum is like unwooded chardonnay.
(and I should have said ‘golden’ rum – proper aged carribean rum – instead of ‘dark’ rum, i.e. bundy).
and the triple sec adds to the citrusy goodness, as well as the alcohol content (plus my own internal cocktail rule is that always two and only two alcohol types are involved in any great cocktail).
about the origin of the daiquiri Esquire says
“Leave me out of this, Case, I’s a harmless bystander”
Heh. But its not you Im invoking Leinad, I have in mind another Leonid all together. Liam first alerted me to his revolutionary diplomatic techniques and I’ve been fascinated ever since. Anyway, I think this Leonid is most definitely a dancer.
Actually, even better. A blue pants <a href=”dancer.
Tyro Rex — tch. You mock my frozen raspberry daiquiris on purist grounds and then turn round and vary the recipe yourself?? Pfft.
I got the idea for frozen raspberry daiquiris from an early Doonesbury strip from the era when Duke was governor of some Pacific territory whose identity I have forgotten (American Samoa, possibly), and his faithful assistant Macarthur used to follow him around with a thermos of frozen banana daiquiris at the ready.
I thought raspberries would work, and go better with lime juice. If it’s good enough for a character by G.B. Trudeau based on Hunter S. Thompson then it is most certainly good enough for me. As it was for my guests, some of whom partook to pardonable excess.
A blue pants dancer right here
Casey, that was cruel. (And unusual. He looks as if he hasn’t … oh never mind.)
What is it with Russian leaders getting their gear off?
there’s variation and then there’s variation.
Dr. Cat — ahh, a connoisseur of early-to-mid 70s Doonesbury; now that was some truly funny shit. Too bad Trudeau ran out of steam long ago, but hell, it happens to the best of ‘em, even to Jaime Hernandez. I especially loved the adopted Vietnamese baby who only spoke in TV ad slogans: “Big Mac! Big big big big Mac! You deserve a break today!”
The comic strip, alas, seems to be a fading art form. xkcd keeps the spirit alive, but it ain’t no George Herriman.
Anyways, the denizens of Walden Puddle, Hoppers, and Okeefenokee Swamp (to say nothing of Dogpatch!!) salute you.
I guess it depends what direction you’re coming from; I think it’s still as good as it ever was, just a lot more grown-up, as one would expect. For an international reader whose political sympathies are in line with Trudeau’s, the political/historical content is sharp as ever plus it’s a relief not to have to puzzle through all the Ivy League in-jokes. Also, his drawing is way, way better.
The adopted Vietnamese baby, Kim, is still around. She grew up, became a geekgirl, and married Mike. I deduce that you don’t read it any more, so how … Oh never mind. (Again.)
JPZ, I’ve been quite enjoying Cat And Girl lately.
I’ve been reading through the archives of Chris Muir’s Day by Day, first in a spirit of ‘WTF – Hahahahahah!”, but I thought it had some interesting insights into Wingnut World which could yield some snarky blog posts. Last time I went back, though, it seemed to have something nasty going on – I mean, not the usual nastiness of the writer’s ideology (he really has a thing about Barack Obama which suggests he should get counselling, and his portrayal of women is hil-a-rious.) No, the nasty thing was an ad for d*t*ng ag*ncy or something which didn’t just pop up, it took over the entire browser which had to be shut down because it wouldn’t go anywhere else. So how is that a good thing, an ad which takes over the whole browser so you can’t read the cartoon for the ad that’s supposed to be funding it? D’oh! Anyway, shame on me for reading crap for the sheer trainwreck value.
They’re only human. Apart from Androidov, natch.
This one’s for you, Case.
Nice, Gorby. Recently, I tried this this on my locals. It still scares people.
Sponge-worthy, Lainy.
Liam, PC — have you seen “Simon’s Cat” on youtube? Google “Simon’s cat” and “let me in”. Delightful black and white clean-line style, and superb, understated comic timing.
Dr. Cat, if Trudeau is still doing work you enjoy then that’s the main thing. I don’t think his work ever got “bad,” it just for me lost its oracular brilliance, kind of the way “Quadrophenia” is mature and skillful, but it lacks the visionary thrill of “Tommy.”. Trudeau owned the seventies the way that Schulz, Kurtzmann, Kelly, Gould and Capp all owned earlier eras. (Herriman and Elzie Segar are of course for all time.) But by the time the 80s rolled around, Trudeau was still doing good work, but the oracular spirit had moved in with the Brothers Hernandez. (Btw, if you enjoy the more mature and thoughtful style of things, take a look at “Flies on the Ceiling” some time, or one of Gilbert H.’s ‘Palomar’ books.). Didn’t mean to slam the great Trudeau, it’s just that all repertoires, even great ones, have limits. I’m sure his recent stuff has many merits, it’s just that at a certain point I no longer found it surprising.
Liam says: I’ve been quite enjoying Cat And Girl lately.
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Really?
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I can’t begin to explain how illogical that is. In fact the best thing I can do is quote George Orwell who said:
Doncha think?
Moreover Liam –
Your question has been logged in the queue and will be attended to shortly.
(Not squibbing Adrien, just running late for the train)
Fits profesional golf to a T, doesn’t it? All those punters following Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh around the course are just waiting for drawn seven irons, and ensuing violence, on the fourteenth hole.
GregM, I prefer Bill Shankly’s dictum:
Of course that was before Liverpool FC’s era of Thinking In New Ways and economic liberalisation, after Everton outspent them to win the Cold War.
Now then, Adrien. I thought you said this was boring? You can’t even have the last word against yourself, it appears—so much for me being the gangster-gramophone of political discussion.
What we’re really on about—and the thing for which I took you to task originally—was your totally uncritical use of Orwell. As JPZ says, his book on Catalonia is interesting history if you take it as a self-serving memoir from someone who fought in the May Days and lost. Orwell is good fun for illustrating the politics of the 1930s and 1940s, and I do enjoy his writing for the simple pleasure of his clear unambiguous hate, but you don’t seem to get that he was a partisan participant, not a venerable chronicleer. You’re quoting Orwell the way a fifteen year old Christian quotes the letters of St Paul, as if they contain lessons to live by, instead of a horrible cautionary tale.
For Orwell and Saint Paul both, all roads lead away from Damascus down to a self-denying, self-righteous, punishing, straightening, pleasureless void.
If you really require evidence on Orwell’s participation in history-for-propaganda purposes, consider his total silence on the real critical question of British colonialism and total war—Ireland.
Your supposed answer to my question about why Orwell has anything useful to say about argumentum ad hominem remains insufficient. Your theory about Manning Clark’s victimhood because he-said-whites-fucked-over-the-Aborigines remains trivialising and puerile. Kundera remains a name dropped pointlessly.
Curse you, Liam, I’m already using the backup keyboard from my old Mac after I spilled champagne in the current one and I need to not spray coffee into it.
Anyone been touched up inappropriately yet? Who do you reackon the real,screamer would be? PC or tigtog?
Hullo, do I detect green slime?
Depends what you mean by ’screamer’, whoever-the-hell you are.
A bit Lairy @ 84,
Don’t think I’d want to go to a Xmas party with you.
Everybody,
Having a quiet time, as always. Only Xmas excitement in my life is getting a letter today from MPs telling me I got $1400 in the bank that I’ve already spent (I think; its hard to keep track of the exchange rate.)
Merry Christmas to you, Paul B.
Orwell’s Collected Essays are worth re-reading. Clear as a bell. Yes, he was partisan; some who praise his writing on Spain do so because they decried Comintern tactics there. And decried the fellow travellers elsewhere. “A pox on both your houses!” to the Comintern and the Nazis. Not puerile. Staunchly anti-totalitarian. Orwell is a touchstone for seeing his own world clearly and writing fearlessly.
It’s much easier with hindsight and benefit of knowing who won which war, and which trends turned out to be salient. I reckon some folk turn to Orwell for an example of clear-sightedness. But thanks, Liam: I hadn’t noticed his inattention to Ireland. Burma, India, etc got in the way.
A bloke who wrote both “1984″ and “Animal Farm” has to rate highly. His critics tend to pale into insignificance. Eric Blair wasn’t puerile. Animated by animus? Many political writers are. Not a happy chappy? Well, if it took gloomy introspection to gestate “1984″ and “Animal Farm”, I say: hurrah for self-punishing, pleasureless…. oh dammit, I can’t accept your characterisation of Mr Blair. As I see it, he hated capitalism because it led to harsh and wearying lives for millions of his fellow citizens. He accepted his own privations as a price to pay for his lonely vocation. Courage, perserverance, and success. Vale Eric Blair.
Yes a definite case of green slime has been detected.
Merry Christmas to all: to PC and Paul B, to Mark, Liam, Adrien, adrian, Hannah’s Dad, Helen, Spiros, Robert Merkel, Kim, GregM, Darlene, Mercurius, j_p_z, and to LP and all who post and read.
I was touched by PC: by her piece on the carols in Adelaide recently. Thank you again, PC !
Good on baby Jesus, go *bJ* !!!!
Merry Xmas to you too, PC. I tend to centre my celebrations around New Year’s Eve, if at all. But I don’t like crowds and prefer not to spend too much of my money on booze. Intermittent cigarettes are bad enough.
My ex-girl-friend usually comes round on Xmas Day if she’s not interstate or overseas, and we polish off a bottle of Southern Comfort (with Coke) together. Something we’ve been doing for years on and off.
I didn’t say Orwell was, I said Adrien’s argument about ad hominem was.
It was Orwell’s pat epigram that “being against both Fascism and Communism is like being against rats and rat poison”. So, no, he wasn’t always the Mercutio kicked out of the happy Victor Gollancz Ltd, and his reputation for being the lonely Cassandra of the post guerre is questionable mythology, as Garton-Ash argues.
Happy Christmas to you as well Ambigulous, and to all posters and commentators on this great blog.
I second Amibigulous’ description of Orwell. I was starting to get a bit guilty about buying my 16yo nephew his collected essays for Christmas last year. Now, I feel reassured.
This Adrien/Liam stoush is dead entertaining.
Paul Burns, Christmas with your ex-girlfriend sounds fab.
I do the family Christmas thing on Christmas Eve. We get fabulously drunk and hurl abuse at ‘Carols by Candlelight’. I don’t recommend watching it sober. Then on Christmas Day I have lunch with friends, which I’ve done every year since we were 19, which is way longer than I care to think about.
I think both Adrien and I would agree, Fine, that Orwell’s collected essays are a perfect gift for a 16 year old who is fond of reading.
And he loved them. This year I’m getting the Christos Tsiolkas novel ‘The Slap’ which is a great read. He wants to be a writer, so get some good reading into him I reckon.
Thanks Liam, I stand corrected. Well, slouch. No, sit. Prone.
Fine, I read them at around 16 too; better than much of the stuff we had to read at school. Liam may be right about 16-year-olds and Orwell. I never grew up. Whoops, too late now.
I’ve never thought of Orwell as a saint. Good writer. Clear-sighted analyst. I wonder if he got “Saint George” partly for his staunchly patriotic pieces written while the UK was under threat of German invasion? Apparently there was a war.
Nothing crystallises the heart like the prospect of invasion.
Liam – Now then, Adrien. I thought you said this was boring?
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Sucked in. I was taking the piss. I thought. Well Liam reckons I just grab a chunk o’ Orwell for no reason in particular so I just grabbed a chunk o’ Orwell for no reason in particular. ‘Cept to be a smart-arse.
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The first quote was the most irrellevant I could find, the second is the closest I could find to exholatin’ the joy of battle. It is a joy to Celts like us. We like to do three things: fight, drink and sing. Preferably at the same time. Let’s
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My answer to your question is fine. Saying something doesn’t make it true (again). I’m sorry, I think Orwell is relevant to now as well as the 30s and 40s and a lot of people agree with me. Sorry if you don’t, but so what?
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I think St Paul was a prick and should’ve been shot. I have no idea how citing something as a lesson to live by is less mature than deploying same as a cautionary tale but I did neither (and you can in fact do both) – I just stirred your pot. Thick with potatoes as it is. (A bit like yer skull laddie).
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I didn’t say Manning Clark was a victim. I don’t usualy speak in terms of victimhood. Orwell had things to say about irrational demonization as a political technique. But them’s big words and subtle concepts and you’d rather talk in grunts. I understand. It’s difficult for you to assimilate anything that can’t be painted on a banner right? Orwell didn’t talk about the Micks cause he thought they were a bunch of troglodytes. Ruling over the Indians was the shocking deprivation of human rights. Ruling over the Irish was fair enough.
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And also what the fuck does the Prince of Verona’s dead kinsman have to do with anything? Ask for him tomorrow and you’ll find him a grave man.
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And either you or I or both must go with him!
Ummm, merry Christmas to Katz too.
Stoush? Stoush?
Bah, humbug!!
Ambigulous: Merry Christmas to all: to PC and Paul B, to Mark, Liam, Adrien, adrian, Hannah’s Dad, Helen, Spiros, Robert Merkel, Kim, GregM, Darlene, Mercurius, j_p_z, and to LP and all who post and read.
Oh dear!
Merry Christmas to ya, SC!!
So where is the Santa Goth?
“Orwell didn’t talk about the Micks because he thought they were a bunch of troglodytes.”
Okay.
Waiter, check please! And send a mirror over to Table Five, my treat.
A very merry Christmas to all here.
Mele Kaliki-maka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day.
That’s the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway.
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright,
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night;
Mele Kaliki Maka is Hawaii’s way
To say Merry Christmas
To you.
– j_p_z, generally off-key by the time we get to the “Chansons tous-nous Son evenement” part
You had your fingers crossed the whole time? And I fell for it, like the fascist I am!
Merry christmas/seasons greetings/bah humbug to all at LP!
Since this seems to be the place – Season’s Greetings to you all. You’ve given me a most enjoyable year. Much thanks.
A more detailed response to your twitterings, Adrien.
1. You’re not sorry.
2. Your answer to my question, as I’ve said, is a wordy version of “Orwell didn’t approve of ad hominem in arguments about politics”. That’s just rhetoric, it’s nothing to do with Orwell’s work. 3. In 1984 the science fiction idea is that truth itself is malleable, not just that power is maintained by demonising an opponent. Moreover, Orwell’s idea of power was not that there existed a “herd instinct” tending towards tyranny, but rather that an elite (ie. the Party) can establish Power by force and keep it by ideology.
4. The fact that many other people mistake Orwell for a twentieth century Jeremiah does not make him a prophet. As you know perfectly well, Orwell argued strongly that fact resides outside the realm of what-most-people-believe.
5. You cannot do both. They are in fact opposites.
6. You have stirred nothing. Perhaps Fyodor’s Campari, but that’s it.
7. “Laddie” is Scottish, not an all-purpose Gaelicism.
8. I was responding to Ambigulous. You seem to have mistaken me for someone who was talking to you.
9. I didn’t want to link to this again but you’ve forced my hand.
Sublime,
merry Christmas!! I shouldn’t have made a list, but I did say “and to all who post and read”. Have a very happy holiday, Sublime.
So is Adrien, apparently. There are certainly some qualities that he and my Grandma MacAlpine seem to share.
Careful, Ms Cat. If you start up an ethnic stereotyping thread, you’ll summon Dr Strocchikananga from his underground lair.
Careful Ms Cat
While eschewing stereotyping, your mention of Grandma MacAlpine might lead Adrien to conclude he’s your long-lost third cousin. Which would be worse: that, or the reappearance of Signor Strocchi?
Hard call.
Line ball.
If he’s a MacAlpine, a McIntyre, a McNaughton or a Kier, the plot thickens.
I think it’s far more likely he’s a McNaghten, PC.
The one they wrote the rules for, Liam?
Thrilling stuff, Liam.
Shaken, not stirred.
Bullshit you didn’t. Showoff.
Really? I wouldn’t have noticed, apart from his mentioning it all the time.
Besides, “Laddie” isn’t Gaelic. It comes from Middle English, which shouldn’t be too surprising as Scots is a dialect of English, and not a Gaelic language. Just like our lad Adrien here carries a lowlander name, of English origin, and is thus most likely more English than “Celtic”. NTTAWWT.
Excellent points, Macadder – indeed, Scottish Gaelic was imported from Ireland as late as the 9th century, via various marauding Irish tribesm including the Scoti.
Whereas Scots and its Anglo-Saxon linguistic antecedents have been spoken in Sth Scotland since the 4th or 5th centuries.
PS Lend us a fiver till Thursday.
Ach Liam laddie,
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You’re not sorry.
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No I’m sarcastic.
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Your answer to my question, as I’ve said, is…
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No it isn’t.
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In 1984 the science fiction idea is that truth itself is malleable, not just that power is maintained by demonizing an opponent.
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Sure. Was I attempting to summarize Nineteen Eighty-Four? No. How long have you been summarizin’? Careful mentioning the hobbies old bean, golf’s not very popular around here.
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Moreover, Orwell’s idea of power was not that there existed a “herd instinct”
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No that’s Nietzsche’s idea. I can apply more than one idea at a time. I have the power. So do many people with IQs in three digits. You wouldn’t understand.
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The fact that many other people mistake Orwell for a twentieth century Jeremiah does not make him a prophet.
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$100 if you can point to anything I say anywhere that declares Orwell or anyone else to be a prophet.
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You cannot do both. They are in fact opposites.
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As Emerson once wrote only tedious people are entirely consistent.
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You have stirred nothing.
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Don’t be too hard on yourself. I mean yes, that is an accurate description of your value but don’t lose hope. Obama’s gonna be Prez in a few weeks.
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“Laddie” is Scottish, not an all-purpose Gaelicism.
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Yeah – I know. So? (Head-the-ball!)
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I was responding to Ambigulous. You seem to have mistaken me for someone who was talking to you.
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Well it helps if you don’t dedicate the first 9/10 of the comment to a feeble attempt at rebutting something I didn’t say in the first place but I shouldn’t demand such high standards of rhetoric ’til you’ve passed the test on Run Spot Run first. (Hint: Spot is the dog)
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I didn’t want to link to this…
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Oh sure you did. You’ve linked to it before. I’ve got the Lo Fidelity All-Stars remix. Class.
Anyway Liam
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To get back to the question of the Spanish Civil War of which you are obviously ignorant I think that the best thing that can be said about it is the following:
Wouldn’t you agree? Well even if you dispute that, you can’t possibly argue with this:
*opens bag of pretzels, cracks six-pack of campari-pop*
@Adrien @120…
I gave up on reading about WW1 poets because I needed to have a latin and a greek squib book handy…. is LP going the same way?
What ever happened to translations as footnotes? I want to be entertained, not edumucated!
..well…mostly..
Fyodor, a word. Either stir you your own campari or start wearing a long black dress
(Can I borrow the dress when you are done?)
Daren,
I might be wrong, but I think its something about gazing at one’s navel and something about shit. (My Latin is pretty bad – it could be about boats) and my Spanish isa even worse, despite hanging out with Chileans for quite a while.
Anyway, I’m sure Adrien will enlighten us.
“Eat more popcorn.”
Paul, I think the first one might be about fondling a policeman’s bottom, though why Adrien would want to do that I do not know.
Hands up all who think Adrian and Liam are flirting not fighting?
Not flirting and not fighting either. Its macabre actually. Liam is grabbing bits of Adrien’s skin and slowly hammering them into a piece of wood. What is truly horrible about it is that Adrien has that rare condition where he feels nothing. Thats why he keeps prattling. But Liam, if you are going to jump into a metal skirt and act out the passion play, you could have waited. Adrien (who came upon this earth to save all men with his highschool trinity of Orwell, Kundera and Kubrick) will keep going till Easter. Whereapon someone in a skirt (liam or fyodor I dont much care) can finally stick a sword in his side and be done with it. But dont forget the garlic and shit, cause you know what happens on the third day.
Haggis?
You’ve got this all wrong, Case. It’s short skirt, long jacket. Plus, if you’re recruiting for the Legion, I have better legs than Haiku and don’t have religious iss-yews with making pincushions of prophets.
You really have not thought through the logistics of it do you? You may have great legs, but if you want the short skirt you will need one of these
Men dont think of anything except how great their legs are….
“do you” = “have you”
I think the puffy red hair might have to suffer a mess Corporal’s scissors in the Legion, Capitonis Maximus. And that round 90° elbow has got to be 4F material—that’s advanced rubber-tendon if ever I saw it.
Casey is correct, it’s only flirtation in the same way that puppies jump on trouser legs for attention. Down, Adrien, if you want to be seen in public, you’ll have to stop that compulsive humping. Gebbehind.
The power of Pumping Up The Jam? The Power of Love? The Power of Greyskull? Or just the ordinary power of assuming that because you liked reading them both, Nietzche and Orwell contain the same wisdom?
I’m not sure he had total internal inconsistency within the space of one clause in a sentence in mind. Your wrongness is certainly entertaining, chicko, I’ll give you that.
No, you didn’t know, and so? You’re wrong. And soccer exclamations aren’t going to distract anyone.
Your favourite band sucks, d00d LOL.
No, actually, to be serious, that’s quite an apposite example you have there of a habit you show yourself: the Lo-Fi All-Stars enjoy success because they find other people’s forgotten work, put it back together and let musically uneducated people (like you and me) claim erudition we don’t have. We’ve got the DJ set, isn’t that the same as claiming a musical education? Hey, you’ve read Orwell and Hobsbawm on the Spanish Civil War, why read further on the conflict of the history of the country? You can whip up a bizarre Spanglish insult from Google and a dictionary, why learn the language? From the other thread you describe the MO:
You do nothing of the kind. You snatch bits of dinner party conversation and pass them off as original insight.
BTW, “Sus” botas? If you’re going to insult someone, remember el tuteo.
Un joyeux Noel au Comte de Canberra, et sa femme La Reine Therese.
And because my internet access may be limited over the next week or two, I wish all of Larvatus Prodeo, authors, commenters, and lurkers, a happy Hilaire Belloc Christmas.
You have no enemies, Liam.
Mephistopheles will not be inconvenienced.
Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
Heh heh heh.
Heh.
Wouldn’t that rather depend on how short we’re going with this? The Roman legionaries, judging from the evidence, didn’t go in for the peg-leg look.
Look, to be honest I have to admit that I hadn’t really considered the skirt-sausage logistics. However, I _am_ reassured that you’ve been pondering my dimensions with a generous eye.
I can assure you that men spend far more time thinking about the perfection of women’s legs. Also, apologies for being pedantic – and for any ensuing disappointment – but I didn’t say my legs were “great”; I just said they were better than berray-boy’s.
Yah, gauche. I was wondering when you’d get to that.
It’s always a risky strategy, taking a stoush multilingual – particularly when up against a punning linguist.
It requires a generous eye to get a grasp of at least one of your dimensions, boxhead—diameter around the temples. Trust me, Sideshow here puts terror into the hearts of phrenologists; they put away their compasses and vernier scales, take their transits and plumb-bobs out of the surveyor’s kit and hire a bloke to stand around mid-patella with a measured stick. Multiplying by π is one thing, dealing with exponential measurements of distance strains even the most diligent head-measurer.
Jealousy’s a curse, Haiku. Particularly when my colossal cranium has grasped geometry, and yours hasn’t.
Geometry is right, oh Sphere of Influence—a line bisecting the circle from one ear to the other is truly a global measurement.
“What is truly horrible about it is that Adrien has that rare condition where he feels nothing”.
Intellectual leprosy?
Liam @133, my internet access has already been limited, my neighbour’s old friend’s son staying from London has ‘encouraged’ the boys (16 & 15) to download music & movies and have used our shared network’s entire month’s cap in a week (3g just last night to finish it) as well as logging onto the neighbours on the other side’s wireless network and sucking through their’s. Fessed up. Bastards then all pissed off for a surf.
We’ve gunna have to ring and see if we can pay to restore otherwise it’s dial up till after New Year. Ah, kids, doncha
luv ‘emwanna strangle them…So Happy Holidays LPer’s, one and all ……(and it’ll be Boxing Day before this page refreshes – arrghh.)
Some proper Xmas music y’all:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=aMCDriUlalE&feature=related
Diameter between the temples then?
It’s geometry or adjective use, but you failed at something.
Heh. Pick the Arts graduate. Here, have some pie.
The Greeks pronounce the magic letter, pi, as ‘pee’.
Would go down well in secondary schools, to be sure.
Damn!
I’m off for a cold shower.
Yeah, see, that’s because you’re not Scottish.
pie arse-squared, area of a wee circle
That, or I’m not used to kilting up in a band-aid like yon jessies.
Did someone say Troglodytes?
Apologies for the extra apostrophes and typos earlier, I was away that year(s).
Just off for a final losing battle at Bondi frigging Junction Westworld.
“Yeah, those prawns, the $49.99 a kilo ones thanks”…
Merry Christmas Pi to you all.
Sheesh, Fyodor. Ease up on the babes mate.
Some of us have a reputation to uphold.
Well, the Devil Drink comes through again. After careful study of his advice on a recent LP thread (i.e. start drinking every day before the party season), I have had a hangover free bender involving entire bottles of proper alcohol.
The downside is: I’m now an alcoholic and I’m jonesing for a beer and have been since 10:00am.
Bought a book today on the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. Bit of light reading before Xmas.
Also only weeks away (or maybe a month) from starting the prologue, and first and scend chapters of my book. Research reaching the point of diminishing returns after I’ve been through the books coming from Amazon between now and 20 January.
Was a Scrooge today. Had to tell the kids to stop coming to use the computer for awhile. Boy, were some of them pissed off. Expect garbage will be tipped over and letters taken out of letter box and torn up for payback. (has happened before when I’ve pissed them off.) Ah, well, that’s life – and Xmas.
Darin – What ever happened to translations as footnotes?
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I’m sorry. I used to get frustrated with Umberto Eco who the reviews tell us loves pop culture and has a great sense of humour (true). Trouble is the punchlines always came in ancient Greek. Great essay by Eco on political correctness in his latest collection btw.
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The first says: My hovercraft is full of eels (a huge problem for the Roman armed forces)
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The second says: Your boots are full of shit. Liam’s boots are full of shit. There’s no room left in his skull.
What is truly horrible about it is that Adrien has that rare condition where he feels nothing
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That’s not very nice.
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It’s true but it’s not very nice.
TMI, dude.
Actually, that Warrant clip didn’t provide quite enough cheesy, poodle-permed glam metal gratuitous baberie for mine. Top this. The horror, the horror.
Ah Liam. Alone at last.
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Nietzche and Orwell contain the same wisdom?
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No if they did it wouldn;t be necessary to synthesize ‘em now would it. That would be like mixing one of your brainfarts with the wisdom of a brick.
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And soccer exclamations aren’t going to distract anyone.
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Except you. It’s not out as a football crowd call btw, it’s slang for nutbag as well.
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the Lo-Fi All-Stars enjoy success because they find other people’s forgotten work, put it back together
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Yeah it’s called hip hop.
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and let musically uneducated people (like you and me) claim erudition we don’t have.
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No better to link to ‘Troglodyte’ much wittier.
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You snatch bits of dinner party conversation and pass them off as original insight.
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I don’t get invited to dinner parties any more. I keep humping peoples’ legs.
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If you’re going to insult someone, remember el tuteo.
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I wasn’t insulting you merely putting forth some esoteric nonsense in expressing my esteem for your arguments, sir.
We’ve got the DJ set, isn’t that the same as claiming a musical education?
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Hey man. I got kulcha comin’ out my ass. How’s this faw kulcha?
Adrien, excuse me for rudely interrupting your stream of commentness yet again, but WTF does Eco have to do with it?
“WTF does Eco have to do with it?”
At this point we must ask, What does Eco have to do with *what*? There hasn’t been a predicate to an ‘it’ in this stoush since back when the POUM shot Orwell for misquoting Hobsbawm or something.
Meantime, if Adrien’s cornerman can’t stitch up that gnarly cut at the next bell, we may have to truck in Bishop Desmond Tutu by dog sled and hot-air balloon, to end this bout on humanitarian grounds…
– j_p_z, lost in a wilderness of zany monikers, cursing that his Herman Munster gravatar got lost in the mail AGAIN!!111!!one!!!
Oh come on
Eco is not a dirty word.
(thus finishes my sentence)
OK, I’ll pay that one.
Actually I just came to say that if Adrien is “humping peoples’ legs” then he is getting through whole nations and races at a time. While I believe this to be possible, I also think it unlikely.
Or, as Robert Dessaix once said when handed a Melbourne Writers’ Festival brochure hot off the presses and proudly headed Melbourne Writer’s Festival, “Who is this lucky writer?”
*Watches Adrien puff up with apostrophe rage like Harry Potter’s Aunt Marjorie*
“Deep Throat” died. Vale, champion leaker. ‘Twas a far far better thing you did…
What the fuck does Eco have to do with it you ask.
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Well it’s all there in Foucault’s Pendulum. There are secret societies within secret societies and behind it all there’s a small door that leads up to a tower and in that you’ll find a bookshelf and if you give Darwin a nudge the shelf moves aside and you’ll find a corridor leading to another library where Frank Sinatra is singin’ rare like ol’ camembert and sitting at the far end under a portrait of the Borgias are the people who wear the robes and control everything. And Umberto is the Grand Wizard of them all.
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In this affair we are all his creatures. It’s in Revelations people. (And he’s blowing perfect smoke rings up into the air).
Watches Adrien puff up with apostrophe rage like Harry Potter’s Aunt Marjorie
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I wish you’d make up your mind P Cat. Either I’m a cold, bloodless unfeeling bastard or I’m a cauldron of barely contained emotion which is it? I really need to know.
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I don’t read Harry Potter it’s out of fashion and a trifle uncool.
Now Liam -
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I think we have to admit that Sublime Cowgirl is right as usual. Let’s stop fussing and declare our love to an uncaring world. You can be my hot Columbian coffee and I’ll be your jug of fresh cream. You are my cute little rabbit-toed fluffiness. Be the glaze on my cherry, the hot wax on my nipples, the pastry in my gift box.
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Snookums.
Liam my little sausage dog you’ll be delighted to know that our debate is out on DVD. It makes me swell with pride.
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Tah tah my cute little cheese ball.
Re: comment #168. Uh, that’s the second-creepiest comment I’ve ever had the displeasure to read.
You’ve made yourself a thorough laughingstock, here, Adrien, and by all means, add to your shame, but please don’t point that at me.
Oh Liam baby doll. Don;t tell me you’re peeved. That would break my heart. Please my little tube of body oil what can I do to make it up to you. You are the Danish Pastry in my breakfast tray.
Come on Liam don’t be angry. I’ll buy you that rubber paddle you’ve always wanted.
The creepiest comment I’ve ever seen was actually yours Liam. This is the time you slandered Scepticlawyer by accusing her of plagiarism, ended up with egg over your face and got banned from Catallaxy for all time.
Can we see some evidence for that you honor? Perhaps a little linky?
Anyone who abandons their side of a stoush in favor of off-topic putdowns is probably losing confidence in their own position.
Never change a winning game, always change a losing game – Rodney Laver.
I’m very impressed – being banned from Catallaxy, was an achievement that I thought only a certain winged creature had managed.
But I’m more impressed by Adrien’s change in strategy, which seems to have had the presumably desired effect.
I’m utterly lost.
I trust you all go to midnight Mass and consider the great legacy that Christianity has bequeathed you all.
Fr.Jack Hackett
Always walk downriver or towards the sunset Paul.
And if you rub two cigarette lights against eachother long enough, you’ll get a spark.
“cigarette lights”
That should read “cigarette lighter”.
Yo mama!
Its easy Paul:
Adrien thinks he’s like this
Liam, on the other hand, sees Adrien more like
this
Adrien, disurbingly, has waited to now to unveil himself and proposition Liam looking like this (and believe me, this just about explains everything about Adrien’s little quirks)
Nonetheless, Liam, reasonably, feels a little like this
And the rest of us are wondering if we have become inadvertantly trapped on the set of
this
Meanwhile, cause it aint a circus without them, a bunch of wingnuts from Catallaxy have descended, looking predictably, like this this
See? Easy.
Unmoderate me, I need to show Paul the way…
Narrator, that was beautiful.
Thanks, Narrator. All is now clear to me.
“goes to corner shop, buys more packets of chocolate biscuits, hurries back so he doesn’t miss the rest of the show.Munches on chocolate biscuits, eager for next round.”
Yes thank you. And in the director’s cut, we have Fyodor’s legs looking like this (actually that pic’s just for you Leonid – now thats generosity), but thats for real afficionados.
That thing Kirk Douglas is wearing over his bits is really disgusting. Nor do I understand why he thinks he can afford to lose his left arm.
Anyone who abandons their side of a stoush in favor of off-topic putdowns is probably losing confidence in their own position.
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I haven’t lost confidence in my own position. How can I? I have no idea what my position is. I’ve got no idea what the stoush is about. As far as can see Liam’s just picking a fight because he feels like it.
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It’s all in good fun.
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Anyway I’m not putting him down. I’m finished with that. First I did the absurd stuff in other languages and now I’m doing the Pepe Le Pew routine: Liam you are my little honeybutter lozenge, my ham and cheese croissant, my truffle delight….
Anyway wrong Kubrick movie.
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I see myself as this and Liam as this. But Liam sees me as this.
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That all said this stoush is very constructive and stimulating. Um well stimulating anyway.
“Eats last of chocolate biscuits while waiting for the next – instalment/round/comment/rejoinder etc. etc.”
Anyway Liam -
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Perhaps we should revise and recap and reboot. Perhaps we should take stock. Perhaps we should take a drink, perhaps we should take heroin.
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You have been saying that the Spanish Civil War was all about Trotsky’s fungus infections right? Poor old Leon, if it wasn’t for that fungi he’d've ended up running the Sov and we’d all be living in a worker’s paradise now: happy happy joy joy.
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In fact Marx was wrong. History is not about class struggles it’s about fungus infections. In fact I believe Liam himself has suffered at the hands of the Fungist Oppressors throughout his life. Isn’t that right my plate of pofferties? Unite O infected ones. You have nothing to lose but your tinea!
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What are your thoughts Liam. (My little fluffed-up poodle puppy)
I like mushroom soup!
Oppressor! All history is the history of the struggle against mushroom soup.
I see you’re trawling Catallaxy for support from your bottom-feeding mates, Adrien. Classy. I particularly like the way you faux-fucked up by misposting a comment here to the open thread there—as always, playing both sides of the line between disingenuity and incompetence.
Whoops! Look at me, Currency Lad!
I am not fighting you because I feel like it. I am correcting you, because your own special idiocy offends me.
Hmmm… there’s a rule against that, isn’t there?
I see you’re trawling Catallaxy for support from your bottom-feeding mates, Adrien
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No I’m not. I made a reference to this absurd bullshit of yours. I don’t need anyone’s support.
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I am correcting you, because your own special idiocy offends me.
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You haven’t introduced any facts, you haven’t made any corrections, you haven’t even come up with a reasonable argument. I don’t even know what you’re arguing about you twerp. All you do is verbal me, twist my words around and refuse to acknowledge any qualifier I make. I stopped taking you seriously a week ago.
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(My cheesy comestible and cracker saltine snooky wooky)
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Hmmm… there’s a rule against that, isn’t there?
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Yes what isn’t there a rule against? I have endeavoured and succeeded largely in complying with LP protocols. Whenever I’ve extensively engaged in commentary at Catallaxy about what happens over here I’ve let you know. That happened once.
In any case, I don’t think this thread is about a Liam/Adrien stoush – so I’d like to see that end. Immediately. Thanks.
I don’t think this thread is about a Liam/Adrien stoush
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No? What’s it about then? I forgot. Oh that’s right. Spartacus and his disgusting loin cloth etc.
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Here’s some bloopers from that flick and others.
“In any case, I don’t think this thread is about a Liam/Adrien stoush – so I’d like to see that end.”
Yes, there’s always a faster gun, and you gotta know when to stay down for the count.
Wise words, Lefty E!
It did, at #82 with Liam’s destruction of Adrien’s substantive points, followed by Adrien’s extended squibby-fit. The thread since has been no more or less than collateral homage.
However, thanks all the same, Mark, for bringing this open thread back on-topic. Speaking of which: gladiator moofies.
Well, for one thing, as a slave-gladiator he doesn’t get to choose his equipment. For another, the Romans liked to mix & match different types of combatant, with the archetypes often based around stylised exemplars of the foreign warriors they had defeated. So, for example, the hoplomachus was equipped similarly to a Greek hoplite and the samnite like the Italian warriors of the same name. In the photo, Kirk Douglas is dressed as a secutor (i.e. “chaser”), the traditional opponent of the retiarius (”net-man”). Normally, his left arm would be carrying a small shield, comme celui-ci. He should also be wearing a helmet, but we can assume that’s Kubrick’s dramatic licence.
That’s beautiful, People’s Poet, but does nothing to dispel the notion that your inane and irrelevant name-droppings are symptomatic of faux-intellectual lookatmoyism.
You also gotta know when to walk away, know when to run.
Know when to moderate, know when to pun. Ahem?
Kenny Rogers – one of the great contemporary philospohers.
Kenny Rogers – one of the great contemporary philospohers.
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Yeah. I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
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Pretty bad.
It is very important to get as absolutely pissed as you can about Christmas, once the liturgical duties are out of the way.
Jack
Clearly, this little cautionary tale has escaped you all.
@203 – sorry, Fyoderevitch, away from computer etc.
Comment now on thread:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/12/11/christmas-silly-partay-season-open-thread/#comment-586282
Amen.
I try, but sometimes the flesh is willing but the spirit is weak.
/Boom boom
Many thanks, Queenie. I was beginning to think the moderatin’ elves had gotten into the brandy.
I hear they have good elf at the Canterbury markets. Marinate in rosemary and a nice Chianti. Serve with sweet potatoes.
I’ve been to one Christmas partay so far, which was the work do. The younger ones switched to vodka after an afternoon of champagne and beer, which made for some er, interesting consequences which I must blog if I get the time.
Well, here’s a picture of me at my work party. What a blast!
Lefty E
So, you took Berlin !!! Good lad. Didja kill Adolf? What?? Couldn’t find him? don’t tell me you were all as p***ed as parrots at your work do…. tsk tsk
And here’s one of me at mine.
My “holidays” will also look like this.
Quel dommage, Dr. C. Round these parts, the Christmas party tends to look more like this…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Repin_Cossacks.jpg
Not sure quite what it is we’re doing that drives all the ladies away, though.
Well, I could use some of this, myself.
Re Cossacks, I don’t know, I quite fancy one or two of those dudes. The one in the half-beret half-turban to the immediate left of the Santa-looking one looks quite strikingly like my first boyfriend.
Some of ‘em are right bogans, but.
Yer looks great that one PC@216…a ranga theme party, I would say.
That looks perfectly delightful, PC. Just don’t forget to indulge in a little of this, once in a way…
http://www.tokyoartgallery.com/guitargirl.jpg
PC
your work do @ 214 looks good: no drunken “colleagues”, no unexpected bonhomie; good posture and serious intent, a long way from the madding crowd. Cheers.
Just to clarify…
Liam and Fyodor were never banned from Catallaxy. They were permanently disinvited, however, and in Liam’s case for the reason ‘the judge’ gave. Fyodor and FDB made similar comments, but once put to rights, apologised. Those comments (and quite likely the rest of it as well) have disappeared into the mists of the internets, quite possibly for all time. Catallaxy’s probably crashed a couple of times since then, too.
Quite apart from that, I don’t think it’s possible to get a flying monkey response out of libertarians. Our only genuine flying monkey, the bird, has been banned. As for the rest of us, well, you all know my line about libertarians and herding cats.
Bought a Xmas pudding to cook tomorrow.
Also bought Tom Holland’s Millenium (Thanks for the rederence on another thread, Mark) and a second-hand book, c.1957, on the 18th Century English Constitution. Have another book from o/s to pick up from PO at 4 pm. Hope its threr. A friend of mine out when the courier called went to PO to pick up book and it hadn’t been brought in yet.
Will have a quiet Xmas. According to e-mail this morning she is in Paris and apparently having a wow of a time. Said she’d have a drink on me.Ah, the life of the idle rich.
Six books. Two on the Royal Navy and the Revolution, one on Bunker Hill, an eighty year old primary source, Letters from a loyalist Lady (well 240 odd years actually), a British soldier’s diary, and John Shy’s Toward Lexington. Am over the moon. Also reading Tom Holland;s Millenium. great Xmas for a bookworm.