… I often refer to Portugal as ADHD with borders. And it is that. It’s weird, the level of ADD that’s considered completely normal there. (And I was off the charts even for there. Oh, well.) But it took me till this last visit, when I’m almost — to the extent I’m fully acculturated here, or as much as it’s possible to be — to realize how much of Portugal’s inability to organize its way out of a wet paper bag OR maintain anything less durable than a Roman aqueduct (and even those!) is reinforced and driven to eleventy by a culture that goes “The highest virtue is doing things fast, no matter how BADLY they’re done”. And that’s pushed everywhere and by every possible means. And yes, I grew up with it (Anyone making a comment about my books gets put in the corner. Actually they’re worse if I take very long. Yes, I have an explanation, but it doesn’t matter. It is what it is) and internalized it to such an extent it took almost forty years to SEE it was there and it was bad.
Sarah Hoyt, “Culture Clash”, According to Hoyt, 2024-07-09.
October 13, 2024
QotD: Portugal as “ADHD with borders”
October 12, 2024
Classics Summarized: The Oresteia
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published Jul 19, 2017Nobody look at how long ago I promised to do this.
That’s right! The sequel to Iphigenia, which itself was a prequel to the Iliad, has finally been given the ol’ OSP treatment! And it only took me TWO AND A HALF YEARS
(more…)
September 25, 2024
QotD: “Rooting for the meteor”
So far, the meteor has a horrible track record. It showed up once in the clutch for mammals millions of years ago and that’s about it. We need to stop rooting for the meteor. If the meteor even does show up it’ll likely cause all kinds of problems. We need to start rooting for more sensible and practical ways to end a game with both teams losing. Options like:
- Root for Bane
- Root for the large sinkhole
- Root for the tornado
- Root for the alien abduction
- Root for spontaneous player combustion
- Root for lightning
- Root for the ball ending up being a bomb
- Root for the dune sandworm
- Root for the unexpected plane crash. We almost got this one once!
- Root for the Killdozer to show up
- Root for the nerve gas attack
- Root for the Brown Note
- Root for spiked Gatorade that gets everybody sick
- Root for stadium structural failure
- Root for both teams to become friends and refuse to fight
- Root for acid rain
- Root for the big squid from the end of the original Watchmen comic
- Root for the suitcase nuke
- Root for everyone to suddenly become naked, a state of being it is hard to play football in
- Root for a dragon to show up. Any dragon. Pick your favorite. I choose Volvagia from Ocarina of Time
- Root for the solar flare
- Root for the uprising of the skeleton army
Dave Rappoccio, “Rooting for the Meteor Only Worked Once”, The Draw Play, 2024-06-24.
September 24, 2024
QotD: Is vexillology considered part of the LGBT sexual spectrum?
But activists love their flags, and Pride Month™ wouldn’t be complete without the full range of other designs to represent the innumerable sexualities and genders that we’ve only just heard of but have apparently always existed.
There are flags to signify people who identify as nonbinary, polyamorous, polysexual, agender, genderfluid, genderqueer, neutrois, two-spirit and many more. If you haven’t heard of all of these terms, don’t worry. There’s a concerted effort in the public sector to fly these flags at every opportunity and educate the bigoted masses. In April, staff at Royal Stoke Hospital were photographed holding a banner with twenty-one of these flags. And in January, Network Rail unveiled its “Pride Pillar” at London Bridge station, which displayed a similarly garish range.
There are flags for pansexuals (those who are attracted to all sexual identities), somnisexuals (those who are only attracted to people in their dreams), parasexuals (those who don’t feel sexual attraction but will have sex for reproductive purposes) and dozens more. There’s even a flag for “allosexuals”, which apparently means anyone capable of experiencing sexual attraction. Presumably “Allo Allo Sexuals” are people who get aroused by dodgy French accents.
Andrew Doyle, “How many flags does one movement need?”, Andrew Doyle, 2024-06-22.
September 18, 2024
QotD: Freelancing
A wage slave gets time off in lieu. A freelancer fits swing shifts between the daytime work.
You always have to keep a Plan B ready in case you need to fill gaps in your schedule. From the start of my freelancing career, I was a sub-editor SLASH writer. This evolved into journalist SLASH author SLASH print production. Then journalist SLASH trainer SLASH digital publishing. Plans C, D and E have proved most valuable.
It’s a pain in the arse. You have to get multiple business cards printed. You have to keep multiple career histories and CVs updated – something that LinkedIn, which itself accelerated the fad for wankers inventing dipshit slasher job titles, cannot handle at all.
Alistair Dabbs, “Multitasking is a myth: It means doing lots of things equally badly. Some people just like to take the p*ss”, The Register, 2019-09-27.
September 15, 2024
My Man Godfrey (1936) with William Powell and Carole Lombard
The Film Detective
Published Nov 15, 2018During the height of the Great Depression, a scavenger hunt party game brings a pair of spoiled sisters, Irene and Cornelia Bullock (Carole Lombard and Gail Patrick) to a city dump looking for a “forgotten man”. They find down-and-out hobo Godfrey Parks (William Powell), who accompanies one of the sisters back to the party to be presented as a scavenger hunt find, and ends up warily accepting her offer to become the family butler. Irene falls for Godfrey, but is unaware of his mysterious past. Nominated for six Academy Awards, My Man Godfrey might be the screwiest of all screwball comedies.
Director: Gregory La Cava
Writers: Morrie Ryskind, Eric Hatch
Starring: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Eugene Pallette, Jean Dixon
September 14, 2024
QotD: Academia
Severian, “Storytelling Fail”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-07-13.
September 11, 2024
Parry! Parry! 
Thrust! Thrust! GOOD!
Jill Bearup
Published Jun 3, 2024They’re MEN. They’re men in TIGHTS (tight tights!) Please enjoy the extended edition of this video with many random digressions that will mostly be cut for the public version
00:00 Robin Hood: Men in Tights
00:50 The Plot, It Goeth Thusly
03:03 Prince of Thieves/Men in Tights/Maid Marian and Her Merry Men
04:50 What kind of fight do you like?
06:19 Setup for the ending fight
07:03 The Prince of Thieves fight
07:38 The Adventures of Robin Hood fight
07:53 FIGHT!
08:53 My favourite thing (compare and contrast)
10:03 The first phrase
10:39 The second phrase
11:24 The third phrase
11:43 The fourth phrase
12:29 The fifth phrase
12:40 and FIN
13:13 I love it, I really do
14:17 Book chat
15:52 Men hitting each other with sticks
17:40 Matching vibes
18:46 Just Stab Me Now audiobook update
(more…)
Parry! Parry! Thrust! Thrust! GOOD! August 28, 2024
Then I’ll Take Her When You’re 
Dead!
Jill Bearup
Published May 13, 2024Ah, Captain Blood. Swords, sand, and piratical shenanigans. Let’s do this.
The Fight Master Vol 1 Issue 1: https://mds.marshall.edu/fight/1/
Buy my book: books2read.com/juststabmenow (or try your local Amazon/bookstore)
Dead! QotD: NFL team owners
It’s probably also worth noting that the new Vikings owner is very big on family. By my count, [new Minnesota Vikings majority owner] Zygi [Wilf] used the word “family” 1,068 times during the 45-minute interview session. He mentioned his family, the Vikings family, his partners’ families, local families and the family business.
Asked about meeting the other NFL owners for the first time, Wilf said — you guessed it — they are like a family. Which I can see, particularly when I envision the Corleone family.
Tom Powers, “No news is good snooze with Wilf”, St. Paul Pioneer Press, 2005-06-17.
August 27, 2024
Food at your regional end-of-summer fair/exhibition/extravaganza
For us in the Greater Toronto Area, it’s the Canadian National Exhibition but for a lot of Americans it’s their State Fair. James Lileks considers the sad fact that the interesting and exotic food choices at these shindigs is … overrated:
“Fruity Cereal Tenders”, one of the weird food offerings at the 2024 Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.
Photo from blogTO, “Here’s all the outrageous food and drinks at the 2024 CNE”
I do not understand is why people go to the Fair and queue up at the hamburger stand. I often think this as I am in the queue at the hamburger stand.
After all, there’s so much more to eat. Corn dogs, for example. A low-flavor tube of minced abattoir sweepings, dipped in batter, plunged in oil, and served on a stick with a sharp point on the end. When you get to the last few bites, you either have to shimmy the butt of the corn dog up the skewer, or sword-swallow the thing so the sharp point spears your soft palate. Condiments? Why, yes — a smear of ketchup, or a smear of mustard, or, if you’re one of those people who believe in grabbing life by the lapels and shouting give me all you got, you have both.
Never in my life have I ever thought “I could go for a Corn Dog right about now,” but put me at the Fair and I have to eat one within five minutes of entering the grounds. It’s like the pistol shot that starts a race, and, like a bullet, goes through you just as fast.
It’s the same with mini-donuts. When I was doing the trivia contest at the newspaper stage, one of the questions was “how many mini-donuts can you eat before you are overcome with self-loathing?” The answer varies, I suppose, according to how much pre-existing self-loathing you bring to the job. Maybe you’re already hating yourself for eating a Sweet Martha’s bucket of cookies, a popular item at the fair. It has a handle so you can amble around as you eat. One of these years I expect it will come with a yoke and a spring-loaded tab that pops them in your you at present intervals, for hands-free consumption. My friends, a bucket of cookies is to personal girth management as a cup of quarters at a casino is to financial planning.
This year’s hot new item is “deep fried ranch dressing”, which seems impossible, like “sugar-dusted humidity on a stick”. How do they do that? Just pour the ranch in the roiling oil and and scoop out a globule?
“Well, first you shape the dressing into patties, then — ”
Wait, no, you cannot shape dressing. It defies your attempts to give it form, unless you’ve added a thickening element. (Of course, everything they serve at the Fair is a thickening element, in a sense.) It’s supposed to be delicious, but I wouldn’t eat one without first unbuttoning my shirt and smearing conducting gel on my chest, just to save time. Maybe even draw a dotted line on my sternum.
Updated to add the correct URL. Management would like to apologize for this error. The people responsible for it have been sacked.
August 26, 2024
History Summarized: Beauty and Brutalism
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published May 10, 2024No no no guys you just don’t GET IT, Brutalism is actually really clever and impressive and in this essay I wi–
SOURCES & Further Reading:
Architecture in Minutes: 200 key buildings and movements in an instant by Susie Hodge – an extremely useful reference for 20th century structures and famous figures outside my usual wheelhouse, and the fortuitous inspiration for this video via the entry on “Concrete” with an opposite-facing image of the Baha’i House of Worship
“Brutalism was the Greatest Architectural Movement in History. Change My Mind.” by Pat Finn, Architizer, https://architizer.com/blog/inspirati…
“Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth” by Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/20…
“The Salk Institute and the Lost Ethics of Brutalism” by James E Churchill, Docomomo, https://www.docomomo-us.org/news/the-…
“The New Brutalism” by Reyner Banham, Architectural Review, https://www.architectural-review.com/…
“Busting the Myths of Brutalism” by Stewart Hicks @stewarthicks, My Take on the Whole Brutalism ThingMusic:
“Scheming Weasel” by Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/… Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 LicenseOur content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
PODCAST: https://overlysarcasticpodcast.transi…
MERCH: https://overlysarcastic.shop/
OUR WEBSITE: https://www.OverlySarcasticProductions.com
August 25, 2024
QotD: P.G. Wodehouse’s unique way to get letters delivered
“He was living in bachelor quarters in a tall, old-fashioned building in Queen’s Gate. His flat was on the fifth floor. There was no lift. I was travel tired and I toiled up the long staircase, pausing on the landings to pant. I found his door ajar and, entering, I found him writing a letter. He greeted me with a cheery ‘Hurrah, you’re here!’ and added, ‘Just a tick and I’ll get this letter off.’
“He shoved the letter in an envelope, stuck a stamp on it, then went over to the half-open window and tossed it out. ‘What on earth?’ I asked. ‘Has the joy of seeing me brought on some sort of mental lapse? That was your letter you just threw out of the window.’ ‘I know that. I can’t be bothered to go toiling down five flights every time I write a letter.’ ‘You depend on someone picking it up and posting it for you?’ ‘Isn’t that what you would do if you found a letter stamped and addressed lying on the pavement? All I can say is it works.’ ‘Well I wish you’d write me a letter while I’m here in London. I’d like to show it round in America – a bit of a score for good old England’.”
Bolton goes on: “It was the second day after moving into a fourth-floor flat in South Audley Street when my doorbell rang and I opened it to a rather stout individual somewhat out of breath. ‘Are you Mr Bolton? I have a letter for you.’ The envelope was in Plum’s handwriting.
“He said he was a taxi driver but refused a tip, accepting instead a bottle of Guinness. While he was drinking it, I phoned Plum. ‘I have your letter,’ I said. ‘What?’ said Plum in a slightly awed voice. ‘I only threw it out of the window 20 minutes ago.’ ‘You were right,’ I said. ‘It’s by far the quickest way to send a letter to a friend in London.’ ‘Yes, indeed. The GPO had better look to their laurels and keep an eye on their laburnums’.”
Of his friend, Bolton says: “He has one quality that is rare in our age. It is innocence. It carries with it a trusting belief in the goodness of heart of his fellow men. Suspicion and distrust have no place in his nature. The characters in his books share in it – even his villains are likely to succumb before a finger shaken by one of those bright-eyed, no-nonsense Wodehouse heroines.”
Alan Ashworth, “That reminds me: A final homage to Wodehouse”, The Conservative Woman, 2024-05-21.
August 21, 2024
QotD: Cyclists at “Flyover State”
But, my friends, the easiest way to obtain an Asshole License is to take up cycling. It must be something about those doofy helmets — anyone willing to wear what looks like a giant athletic supporter jammed down over his eyebrows has to be some kind of douchebag to begin with, and since nut-squashing lycra pants must squeeze out whatever residual testosterone they had left, it’s no wonder that cyclists are such bitches.
Severian, “Luxury Beliefs”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-06-03.
August 10, 2024
History Summarized: Athens (Accidentally) Invents Democracy
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published Apr 26, 2024“TOP FIVE Athenian Tyrants – #2 will surprise you and #3 will get murdered in a polycule-gone-wrong!”
-Herodotus if he had a blog.SOURCES & Further Reading:
“Revolution & Tyranny” & “The Origins of Democracy” from Ancient Greek Civilization by Jeremy McInerney
Athens: City of Wisdom by Bruce Clark, 2022
The Greeks: A Global History by Roderick Beaton, 2021
The Greeks: An Illustrated History by Diane Cline, 2016
I also have a university degree in Classical Civilization.
(more…)
