In any case I don’t think we’re really going to have strange new hybrid species; it’s more likely people will seek some sort of body modification that will make today’s tongue studs look as tame as Hello Kitty temporary tattoos. I’m guessing that young guys will go for the elk horns, which at least would make bar fights more interesting. Young women would opt for a Bambi tail. Gastronomes would shyly ask their doctor if they could get some cow genes — multiple stomach chambers, one for each course! — and geeks would request those agile monkey toes that come in handy when you’re up all night writing viruses. We’ll be shocked at first; they’ll be ostracized. In 2064 a presidential candidate will be forced to withdraw when someone digs up college pictures that show him sporting a scaly tail. Hey, all the kids had them. It fell off. I have no idea where it is now. But by 2096 we’ll not only be used to it, we’ll have a governor with a unicorn horn.
Unless we stop now. And I know what you’re saying: Oh, it’s easy for you to say, Mr. Stop-the-progress-of-science-for-some-ridiculous-ethical-reason. Actually, no, it’s not easy for me to say. This forked tongue I got from the snake gene implant is not exactly working out. On the other hand, I don’t have to change clothes; I just molt twice a year. On the other, my wife hates finding that thing in the hamper.
James Lileks “In the genes department”, Star Tribune, 2005-02-06.
April 26, 2020
QotD: Bio-engineering
April 25, 2020
History-Makers: Shakespeare
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 24 Apr 2020“The Bard” is not only an essential class in any D&D party, but a byword for England’s most famous writer. We’ve covered a bit of Shakespeare before on OSP — just a bit, really, nothing major, only a dozen — but today we’ll look at how William got to Bard-ing, and how he accidentally became England’s biggest Historian.
SOURCES and Further Reading: The Introduction and play-texts of the Folger Shakespeare Library (The best way to read Shakespeare), “Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction” by Wells
This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
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April 24, 2020
QotD: The best way to see Toronto (aka “Greater Parkdale”)
David Warren, “The scandal of interiors”, Essays in Idleness, 2018-01-25.
April 22, 2020
QotD: Actors
There are, of course, such things as good actors. Let us be just and admit it. I have seen and known a few myself, and have heard of a few more. There are half a dozen in England and as many in France. In Germany, I dare say, the police have the names of twenty. (One memorable night, in that strange land, I saw two on the stage at once!) But is the good actor, either at home or abroad, the normal actor, the average actor? Of course he is not. He is the rare actor, the miraculous actor, almost the fabulous actor. Examine a hundred bartenders and you will find that fully sixty of them actually know how to tend bar: they can mix a cocktail that, whatever its faults, is at least fit to drink, and they have the craft needed to draw a Seidel of Pilsner and to beat the cash register. But in the allied art of acting there is no such general dispersion of talent. A handful of outstanding super-actors have it all. The rest of them not only don’t know how to act, but they don’t know that they don’t know.
H.L. Mencken, “Getting Rid of the Actor”, The Smart Set, 1913-09.
April 20, 2020
Prehistory Summarized: Early Life
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 1 Dec 2015Blue’s back with more sweet, sweet prehistory! Today, Bruce explores the wonders of life.
April 14, 2020
History Summarized: England
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 10 Apr 2020English history has a reputation for being nigh incomprehensible — what with all the kings, civil wars, succession crises, and slapfights with France. But with the right perspective (and a little royal-restraint), England can become quite a straightforward story. So let’s take a look at this slice of Britain, and see how it grew into the master of the Isles.
SOURCES & Further Reading: “History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts”, lecture series for The Great Courses by Robert Bucholz, a great look at Renaissance and Early Imperial England.
“Ten Minute History of England and Britain” Parts 1-18, by History Matters, a lengthy chronicle of English history from the Roman conquest through the Union of the Crowns. Good watch if you have the time.
Foundation by Peter Ackroyd, the first book in a mammoth 6-volume History of England, which covers everything up to the death of Henry VII. If you really want to dig into English history, this is the book for you.This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.PATREON: https://www.Patreon.com/OSP
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April 13, 2020
Prehistory Summarized: The Early Universe
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 23 Sep 2015Blue hits us with some physics! Hold onto your butts. That butt is made of star stuff, ya know. It’s very special. Be proud of that butt. It was forged in the heart of a supernova.
Anyway, yeah, physics.
Guest starring yours truly! Watch out for my extremely subtle and unobtrusive cameos.
The ninja thing is a reference to earlier videos. I think he shows up in the College video and the one about The Borgias.
April 7, 2020
If you don’t have an [N95-equivalent mask] … dress up as a ninja
I first saw this years ago and thought it was amusing but probably useless. However, according to data at this site (which may or may not be authoritative), a cotton T-shirt is far better than nothing as far as DIY masks are concerned:
April 4, 2020
QotD: The danger of studying philosophy
I knew my analysis of Wallace Stevens would please my professor, but I was bothered by a nagging thought that I really didn’t understand Wallace Stevens. I wondered if my graduate school training just amounted to a parlor trick. Last year, at my high school, the students enjoyed arguing if a hotdog is a sandwich, the millennial equivalent of asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The hotdog question made its way to the whiteboard in our staff lounge. By the time I arrived, my colleagues had written their responses. Some argued that a hot dog is not a sandwich because a sandwich requires two pieces of bread and a hotdog bun isn’t supposed to separate. Others averred that it most definitely is a sandwich: Meat between bread is a sandwich, end of story. I saw these responses and thought, “Simpletons!” before putting my graduate education to work: “In order to determine if a ‘hotdog is a sandwich,’ we must first determine the proper understanding of ‘is’ for if we do not grasp the ontological necessity of being itself, we fall into an abyss wherein ‘being’ is and is not itself and thus a hotdog is and is not a sandwich for it is and is not its very self.” I was quite amused by the whole situation until a colleague told me that a student had seen the whiteboard and said he wanted to study philosophy so that he could write like me.
S. A. Dance, “Incomprehension 501: Intro to Graduate School”, Quillette, 2018-03-06.
March 30, 2020
Renaissance Antics – History Hijinks
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 27 Mar 2020The Italian Renaissance is known for its fancy art and ginormous domes, but what about the visionaries behind it? In this ~~fancy new series~~ we’ll discuss the antics of the period’s most famous artists.
Sources & Further Reading: Brunelleschi’s Dome by King, Leonardo Da Vinci by Isaacson, Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography, and Artemisia Gentileschi by Garrard.
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi, AKA “Indigo” https://www.sophiakricci.com/PATREON: https://www.Patreon.com/OSP
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March 29, 2020
Armchair Classics: The Epic Of Gilgamesh
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 17 Aug 2015CONTENT DISCLAIMER: This video no longer meets my standards of quality for historical research and presentation. I made this one in the days long past, when the question of “How do I make an entertaining and historically interesting video” was answered by “IDK, memes I guess?”. Take the video above with a grain of salt and enjoy the jokes for now. We have a replacement planned, so stay tuned.
Hailing from Mesopotamia, it’s the Epic Of Gilgamesh!
Gregory brings you yet another dose of knowledge from the comfort of his comfy chair.
March 28, 2020
QotD: A man’s view of home decoration projects
Potentially offensive language warning — hence the NSFW tag — so the QotD is below the fold:
March 22, 2020
QotD: The notion of Hell
I know we all follow the theological debates within Catholicism about which saint got in touch with which angel to channel which biblical dead person — don’t they have a show on CNN that goes over each week’s highlights? — but one thing you never do, in Catholicism, Protestantism, or Pentecostal Snake-Handlingism, for that matter, is say there’s no hell.
Because that would be Jewish. The Jews have never cared that much about hell. They grudgingly admit that it’s probably there, but it’s just this place that, after you die, you feel intense shame before God for all the times you yelled at your wife or failed to stuff two dollars into the self-parking kiosk. The Hebrew word for hell is “Gehenna,” which is the name of the garbage dump outside Jerusalem that (a) smelled bad, and (b) was always on fire. I can imagine generations of parents using it as a threat to their unruly children: “If you don’t straighten up right this minute, I’m gonna throw you into the smelly garbage dump with the smoke cloud over it!”
So when the Christians come along, they take Gehenna and run with it. They use the name Gehenna to mean hell, and that’s not just trash burning out there, it’s demons and human souls, and it burns forever because it’s mixed with brimstone, which does indeed smell bad when you burn it. Actually brimstone turns red and burns blue, so if you’ve got brimstone out there, you’ve got a blood red gelatinous mass with a blue flame, or what the great preachers call …
The Lake of Fire.
[…]
At any rate, the reason the Catholic press got their cassocks in a bunch is that, over the past half century or so, a lot of theologians have been saying, “Maybe we got the whole hell thing wrong.” They’ve looked back over the appropriate scriptures and decided that, after you die, you don’t get thrown into the flaming garbage dump, you just vanish from all human history, as though you never existed. There’s no memory or trace of you, you’re erased from the universe.
And this might be what the Pope said he believes. After Eugenio reported their conversation, the Vatican scrambled around and issued statements saying that, no, the Pope didn’t go outside the catechism and they were just chewing the fat and please everybody let’s not get carried away. Yes, Gehenna is real. Yes, the Pope believes in hell. Yes, the Pope is Catholic.
Joe Bob Briggs, “Pope Forgets the Lake of Fire”, Taki’s Magazine, 2018-06-21.
March 21, 2020
Modern Classics Summarized: Stranger In A Strange Land
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 20 Mar 2020This book is:
10% Mike
20% stars
15% concentrated power of mars
5% water
50% cult
and 100% topics that are very adultThis video was requested by our longtime patron Joshua A. Demic!
Can you use the “product of the times” defense if the book was wildly controversial for its time? Asking for a comment section…
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up. No, seriously. We REALLY MEAN IT.
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March 17, 2020
QotD: The luck of the Irish
Dan Savage, “Welcome Black”, AndrewSullivan.com, 2005-08-08.
