Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 11 Jan 2016The oracle at delphi simply tells him, “congratulations”. The standard of nudity was his idea. Narcissus gets shy around him. Patroclus was his boyfriend first. He is … the most interesting man in Ancient Greece.
Extra special thanks to Blue’s professor, Mr. Samons, who taught him about Greek history and the comedic potential of marshmallows and triremes.
Having regaled us with shocking tales of the Basic College Girl (linked here), Severian now gets down to the not-very-salacious details of modern female mating behaviour at US colleges:
University College, University of Toronto (not one of the post-secondary institution Severian used to teach at).
Photo by “SurlyDuff” via Wikimedia Commons.
When people find out I’m retired from “higher” “”education,”” if they’re anything but rabid Leftists they usually ask me a series of questions: Why are professors such hypocritical assholes? and Is there really any point to ___ Studies? and Why do they pay the football coach umpteen zillion dollars a year to never finish higher than third in the conference? If the questioner is a man, though, and we’re out drinking, after a few martinis they always get around to: But what about … you know … the girls?
Where to start? Since there’s no avoiding prurience here let’s get one thing out of the way up front. This is TLP, not me, but it holds for coeds, too:
These people are prone to two errors. A psychological one: fetishization; and a biological one: mistaking for beauty what is merely youth.
Taking the second first: I made the same mistake. I came to the ed biz later than most, having had a “real” job back in my other life, so when I first got to grad school I was amazed at how hot the girls were. Like everyone else I was a TA for Intro to Studies 101, but unlike everyone else I must’ve gotten the “sorority girls only” section, because every single chick in it was a knockout.
Now I’ll cop to being a little slow on the uptake, but I’m not that dumb. So I started looking a little closer — purely in the interests of science, you understand — and it wasn’t long until I realized that yeah, what I thought at first was smokin’ hotness was just youth. Back in the office I’d been surrounded by women who were equally attractive, but not equally young. A few years in a high-stress job puts a lot of miles on you.
But the other, fetishization element came into it too. Not like that, get your minds out of the gutter, let me explain:
I don’t think it ever really was, but if “coed” was a fetish its days are long past. In a country where the vast majority of people have at least a semester or two of college, not even “sorority girl” really moves the needle much. Rather, all the “fetish” stuff comes from the other side. After spending oh-god-sooooo-many hours getting harangued by the HR ladies about “sexual harassment,” even the most cynical teacher finds himself wondering what he’d do if some slinky young thing really did show up at office hours, close the door, and declare she’ll do anything to pass the class…
Which never happens, of course. I’ve never even heard of it, and I taught at lots of places, for many years, among male colleagues (and a lot of lesbians) who were desperately horny losers. The reason is twofold. The first, and most obvious, is that even if some girl really is that mercenary / sociopathic — and y’all have me on record, at great length, describing what little sociopaths modern kids are — there’s a much simpler alternative available: Straight-up bribery. But notice that’s the one thing you never even hear suggested, though it’s the easiest thing in the world. TAs get paid peanuts; I don’t know how low the bidding could’ve gone, but having seen the squalor in which lots of my fellow grad students lived, twenty bucks doesn’t seem unreasonable …
[…]
Ironically, I’d bet #MeToo and the rest of it actually result in more, not less, of this behavior. Like I always say, today’s blue-haired, nose-ringed slam poet is tomorrow’s obergruppenfuhrer, and one of the main reasons I say it is that I’ve been around a LOT of college people. Shrinking violets who need “safe spaces” everywhere very obviously long to knuckle under to power, any power. Goofy losers who suddenly find themselves with a lot of power naturally start carrying on like Heinrich Himmler. Put them together in the closest possible proximity, in a place explicitly designed to shield them from the real world, and, well, you figure it out.
Voting for president is a lot like sex — and not just because it takes place every four years in the solitude of a semi-private booth. Both are intensely personal activities that nonetheless can have profound public consequences. We might add that both often involve drug-and-alcohol-fueled delusions and morning-after feelings of guilt, shame, and recrimination.
The Editors, “Who’s Getting Your Vote?”, Reason, 2004-11.
Friend A: “Anime by itself isn’t supposed to be cringy. There’s lots of good anime out there.”
Friend B: “Intentional or not, that’s the effect on me.”
Friend A: “Well, what anime have you watched?”
Friend B: “Let’s see… Pantyflash Crisis, Fanservice High School, and Animal-Eared Preteens, I believe.”
I laughed so hard I nearly lost continence.
Tamara Keel, “Overheard Online…”, View From The Porch, 2019-10-16.
Claire Lehmann responded to a Tweet from @shamshi_adad on the topic of polyamory:
With spreadsheets https://t.co/vlJqICLWUj
— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) December 30, 2019
… which got some amusing responses:
Polyamory is the “parents aren’t home let’s eat all the candy” of sex.
A phase whose unwisdom will be soon understood.
— 🤖🦉Cyberowl 🦉🤖 (@Supreme_Owl_FTW) December 30, 2019
It's true. I had a poly friend once. The rules were Talmudic. I didn't understand how that was freeing. But she beat me over the head with her dog-eared copy of "Sex at Dawn" and assured me it was.
— Stephen Wood (@SlideQuintus) December 30, 2019
Polygyny: Just harem girls sharing an alpha.
Polyandry: Only 1 guy is getting laid, the rest are just there as utilities and servants.
Neither arrangement is a good deal for anyone except that one dude who's getting laid.
— Irreverant (@XTheIrreverantX) December 30, 2019
At Catallaxy Files, Steve Kates recently read Hammer and Tickle: A History of Communism Told Through Communist Jokes by Ben Lewis:
It looks at the jokes themselves; the evolution of these jokes as communism aged and new leaders took over; it looks at the different kinds of jokes told in different communist countries; it examines the fate of those who told such jokes and the difference in the fate of those who made such jokes depending on who was the leader of the Party; it asks whether such jokes helped the communists consolidate power or whether they helped bring communism down; it looks into the difference between telling anti-Nazi jokes in Nazi Germany versus telling anti-communist jokes in communist countries; it asks about the psychology of those who told such jokes and whether they helped relieve tensions; and much else. But I will say this, some of I found really funny. This is my favourite.
Khrushchev is walking through the Kremlin, getting worked up about the Soviet Union’s problems, and spits on the carpet in a gesture of disgust.
“Behave yourself, Nikita Sergeyevich,” admonishes the aide. “Remember that the great Lenin walked through these halls!”
“Shut up,” responds Khrushchev. “I can spit all I like here; the Queen of England gave me permission!”
“The Queen of England?”
“Yes! I spat on her carpet in Buckingham Palace too, and she said, ‘Mr Khrushchev, you can do that all you like in the Kremlin if you wish, but you can’t behave like this here …'”
Easy to see this one added to the Donald Trump canon and now that I have pointed it out, I expect it to be.
I therefore thought I might have a look at what passes for Donald Trump jokes. And google all you like, there really is not much although there was this: Donald Trump Jokes. None were funny but I did like this:
Where’s Donald Trump’s favorite place to shop?
Wall-mart!
Mere pun though it is, it seems appropriate. At least it’s policy-related and almost entirely a joke that could only be told about Trump. The rest are re-treads, never specifically about anything related to Trump himself and his policies, but are almost entirely forms of insult than anything with any associated wit or insight. The most interesting part to me about the communist jokes was that the ones that became acceptable were those directed at the failures of communism relative to the promises that had originally been made. Lots like that. The way to end up in the gulag was to tell jokes about actual party leaders, especially Lenin and Stalin. Very few like that.
I rather liked the one from the Amazon page for the Kindle edition: “Q: Why, despite all the shortages, was the toilet paper in East Germany always 2-ply? A: Because they had to send a copy of everything they did to Moscow.”
Richard Best, The Frugal Oenophile Newsletter, 2005-07-13.
Risk-taking microbreweries these days are known to replace or supplement hops with such oddities as heather, bog myrtle, ginseng, and hemp. As hops are related (by marriage) to cannabis — that other great medicinal herb — we shouldn’t be surprised to encounter hemp beer, and indeed you can usually find it on tap in Toronto at C’est What down on Front Street. It’s not bad either, once you get it lit, which is the hard part.
Nicholas Pashley, Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It’s Necessary, 2001.
Rowan Atkinson Live
Published 24 Jan 2014A classic bit by comedian Rowan Atkinson. A teacher does roll call with a class register full of hilarious dirty names.
Whether mesmerising us with the sheer visual mastery of Mr. Bean, beguiling us with the acerbic wit of Edmund Blackadder, or simply entertaining us as the suave, but rather hapless British Secret Agent Johnny English, you surely won’t have escaped the comic genius that is Rowan Atkinson.
In Rowan Atkinson Live, co-written with Richard Curtis (4 Weddings & a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually) and Ben Elton, Atkinson runs the whole gamut of his remarkably versatile 30 year career, with sketches, mimes and monologues that are guaranteed to have you shedding tears of laughter. Performing live on stage alongside “straight man” Angus Deayton, the show features a number of original and familiar routines, including sketches that appeared in the original Mr. Bean series.
Senator: “I have here a report from www.gruesomeliesaboutpublicfigures.com that says you like to puree puppies in a blender and drink them as a breakfast smoothie. Why do you do that, Mr. Smith?”
Mr. Smith: “I don’t drink pureed puppies for breakfast.”
Senator: “So you’ve stopped pureeing puppies for breakfast. Was that because you were afraid that it would become public and derail your nefarious secret plan to devastate the U.S. economy from your perch at the Department of Agriculture? Or did you just get tired of puppy blood?”
It’s entertaining viewing, but not really all that informative. And it has little impact when the nomination comes to a vote, which tends to break down on party lines. Mostly, it’s just a way for senators to get themselves on the teevee.
Megan McArdle, “Prescription Drug Imports Are Banned for a Reason”, Bloomberg View, 2017-12-01.
For something to exist, it has to have a position in time and space.
And this explains why nine-tenths of the mass of the universe is unaccounted for.
Nine-tenths of the universe is the knowledge of the position and direction of everything in the other tenth. Every atom has its biography, every star its file, every chemical exchange its equivalent of the inspector with a clipboard. It is unaccounted for because it is doing the accounting for the rest of it, and you cannot see the back of your own head.*
Nine-tenths of the universe, in fact, is the paperwork.
* Except in very small universes.
Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time, 2001.
Jim Hacker: Are you trying to say “Happy Christmas,” Humphrey?
Sir Humphrey: Yes, Minister.
He’s been hating on the company for a while, but it’s still doing the things that got him riled up in the first place:
Oh, hello there! Welcome! Come on in! Come on in! Dust your boots off in the breezeway. I have a special mat you can use for it that’s woven from human hair sourced from the tribes of the South Pacific. Best snow-wiping hair ever designed, by God. Once you’ve cleaned up, I have a splendid repast of beggar’s purses and dolloped lobster turnovers awaiting you in the dining room. You may begin eating these haute goodies at 7:45 pm and no sooner. Please do not touch ANY of the decorations in the hallway as you proceed toward the food. My decorations are for admiring only. If you mar them in any way, I will grate off your genitals using a microplane. I am the Joneses. You cannot ever keep up with me.
I got that microplane from the Williams-Sonoma catalog, by the way. True, I COULD have bought a microplane at your local Pathmark. They have a rack of them hanging above the Pop-Tart shelf for some reason. But why buy one there when I can support my local (international) mom-and-pop (publicly traded) store (merchandising oligarchy) instead? I’m no fool. I know what’s best for America, and what’s best for America is ignoring every horrible thing going on and, instead, assigning two entire months on the calendar to spoiling myself, cutting down precious wildlife, and indulging in retail spending practices so irresponsible that every accountant on the planet cries their eyes out at night just thinking about it all.
I am hardly alone in such rituals. Try as you might, Christmas fiends, you cannot kill Williams-Sonoma. I know because I’ve been shitting on this company’s catalog every Christmas for YEARS, as a matter of both tradition and moral principle. But all of my efforts to drown this yuppie trinket hive in the toilet have seemingly been in vain. In fact, last year, I myself nearly died before this company did. And I’m a sturdy fellow. I work out an elliptical trainer five times a week and occasionally eat fruit. I am strong. I am invincible. I AM MAN. Alas, I am no match for a company wily enough to sell Star Wars Le Creuset roasting pans for $450 (HOLY LIVING FUCK) and somehow make it work. How does W-S do it year after year?
Well, according to an article I just Googled, the company is strong in something called “omnichannel retailing,” a term I will look no further into because I don’t hate myself. Also, millennials apparently LOVE West Elm, which W-S also owns. West Elm is IKEA for people who don’t want to say they bought their furniture at an IKEA, so that all tracks. I have West Elm furniture in my house. It’s alarmingly small furniture. Really, only my dog can fit on the chair we got. He weighs 15 pounds.
Also, the company has shuttered a lot of brick-and-mortar Williams-Sonoma locations in favor of selling designer chicken coops directly to hotels, banks, and other industrial concerns. OH WOW DID I JUST SEE THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT METER ON SANTA’S SLEIGH SPIKE INTO THE RED? You know I did. According to every Christmas movie I’ve ever watched, Christmas spirit is in great peril every year. That’s why we need overpriced fondue pots more than ever.
ReasonTV
Published 23 Dec 2019Remy is creeped out by restrictive ballot access measures. Also by Prince Andrew.
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Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason
Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/az3a7aReason is the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
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Written and performed by Remy.
Produced and edited by Austin Bragg.
Music tracks and mastering by Ben Karlstrom.LYRICS:
The first Noel I heard early one day
As I tried to run as a new candidate
My cheeks were wetter than Prince Andrew’s shirt
When the man spoke to me and he told me these words:No “L,” no “L”
No “L,” no “L”
No room for me on the ballot, oh wellI looked up a party wherein
I could join but was told “There’s no room at the inn”
No bed to lay and I heard “take a hike”
Like the time I bought my wife an exercise bikeNo “L,” no “L”
No “L,” no “L”
No room for me in the parties, oh wellMy wish this year is to feel content
At the ballot and not—to be frank—incensed
Must it be so hard to boot folks we don’t like
But they claim it is lawful and I think that’s right, but …No “L,” no “L”
No “L,” no “L”
Seriously, how creepy is Prince Andrew?
If you hurry, you can just get your Santa’s Visit Application in before the deadline tonight!
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