I'm sure she was very nuys.
― pplains, Wednesday, 2 November 2022 14:25 (one year ago) link
So I am a pretty serious Annie Dillard fan and I knew very little about the actual circumstances surrounding the composition of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
This piece in The Atlantic covers the topic sensitively - yes, it is a great work of art, but no, it was not conceived in solitude in a remote wilderness.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2015/02/the-thoreau-of-the-suburbs/385128/
Upon reflection I don't care. Every word in it still holds up.
― blissfully unawarewolf (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 3 November 2022 20:24 (one year ago) link
Finisterre = finis terre = land's end
― koogs, Thursday, 3 November 2022 20:34 (one year ago) link
(^ Ali Smith, 'Winter')
― koogs, Thursday, 3 November 2022 20:35 (one year ago) link
I knew that, but it only recently occurred to me that as James is Iago in Spanish, Santiago = Saint James
― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 3 November 2022 20:48 (one year ago) link
Cool. Did you also get into the James/Jacob thing as well?
― (We're Not) The Experimental Jet Set (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 3 November 2022 20:49 (one year ago) link
He grasps the heel.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 3 November 2022 20:50 (one year ago) link
OK, did not know about the James/Jacob thing!
― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 3 November 2022 22:07 (one year ago) link
Shocking
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 3 November 2022 22:08 (one year ago) link
i have known for a while that James / Jacob / Jacques are the same name, or related. but i did not know that you could throw Iago and Diego in there as well!
― budo jeru, Thursday, 3 November 2022 22:36 (one year ago) link
and you can add Seamus to the list ...
― budo jeru, Thursday, 3 November 2022 22:38 (one year ago) link
Jamie, Jack, Jimbeaux
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 3 November 2022 22:40 (one year ago) link
What's weird - from what I just read on the internet - is that James originally comes from an early French corruption of the Greek to 'Gemmes'. And yet French ultimately plumped for Jacques, which is much closer to Jacob!
― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 3 November 2022 22:49 (one year ago) link
yup during some history week or reading or whatever i got all confused about the term "jacobean" to describe that period and so found out. the james shit is crazy.
― i'm right back on my shit (Hunt3r), Saturday, 5 November 2022 04:31 (one year ago) link
Let's not forget the Jacobites either!
― Fronted by a bearded Phil Collins (Tom D.), Saturday, 5 November 2022 11:34 (one year ago) link
that's the first thing I thought of when people started talking about that Jacobin thing, why is there a magazine about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the glorious '45?!?
― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Saturday, 5 November 2022 12:04 (one year ago) link
The Jacobites have got all the best tunes too.
― Fronted by a bearded Phil Collins (Tom D.), Saturday, 5 November 2022 13:06 (one year ago) link
I always thought jacobites were just mini cream crackers?
― o shit the sheriff (NickB), Saturday, 5 November 2022 13:24 (one year ago) link
I was talking to my 7 year old about the possibility of watching Goonies together and she was asking questions about it. I said there were a couple of guys named Chunk and Sloth.
“Let me guess, Chunk is chunky and Sloth is slow?”
“No… well, actually…”
I always assumed Sloth was a random, absurd name.
― Cow_Art, Saturday, 5 November 2022 13:30 (one year ago) link
The yawning silence around NickB's (frankly appalling) joke is filling me with pathos.
― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Saturday, 5 November 2022 17:27 (one year ago) link
hahaha i dont even know what possessed me to write that but pathos away my friend
― o shit the sheriff (NickB), Saturday, 5 November 2022 17:30 (one year ago) link
Hahahaha. Game knows game, as the kids say.
― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Saturday, 5 November 2022 18:17 (one year ago) link
that the bo diddley beat is just son clave
― budo jeru, Monday, 14 November 2022 05:33 (one year ago) link
!
― Me and the Major on the Moon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 14 November 2022 05:35 (one year ago) link
I knew that, but it only recently occurred to me that as James is Iago in Spanish, Santiago = Saint James― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, November 3, 2022 9:48 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink
Last night I realized that José is Joseph and that Salvador is Savior (making San Salvador = Saint-Sauveur for example).
― Nabozo, Thursday, 17 November 2022 09:53 (one year ago) link
gulag is a russian acronym for a special police division. well, i knew it was russian tbf
Glavnoye Upravleniye LAGerey
― i'm right back on my shit (Hunt3r), Thursday, 17 November 2022 17:09 (one year ago) link
I thought Diego was the Spanish "James."
― nickn, Thursday, 17 November 2022 18:29 (one year ago) link
the brazilian guitarist baden powell, full name baden powell de aquino, was named after robert baden-powell (founder of the boy scouts / scout movement). his dad was a scouting enthusiast.
― budo jeru, Friday, 18 November 2022 18:50 (one year ago) link
Ha!Always wondered why he had such an un-Brazilian sounding name...
― m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), Friday, 18 November 2022 18:54 (one year ago) link
AFAIK, Diego is a variation of Jacob.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 18 November 2022 18:57 (one year ago) link
San Diego, Santiago
My mother has told me on several occasions that we used to meet Lady Baden Powell when I was very small. So I assume she must have lived in teh same neighborhood. I was also a cub scout in my late childhood.
But he was a bit dodge himself I hear. I think there was a Behind the Bastards on him and others in the scouting scene.
― Stevolende, Friday, 18 November 2022 20:24 (one year ago) link
Anyone who creates a whole organization in order to surround themselves with preadolescent boys is 100% suspect. Preadolescent boys are vile both singly and especially in groups.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, 18 November 2022 20:37 (one year ago) link
My city - the nation's capital - has a Boy Scout Monument. It has pride of place on the Ellipse adjacent to the White House, near the National Christmas Tree.
The statue is a thrilling testament to the joys of scouting.
Let me know if you see anything a little weird about it.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vi9kW-T8LDY/TuFeI6yiImI/AAAAAAAAFO4/SvaIgRt9vjs/s1600/DSC00034.JPG
― iliac crestfallen (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 18 November 2022 22:36 (one year ago) link
very normal stuff
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 18 November 2022 22:41 (one year ago) link
hint: THE NAKED GUY
― iliac crestfallen (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 18 November 2022 22:42 (one year ago) link
From Wikipedia:
A panel on the base is inscribed with the Scout Oath:On my honor IWill do my bestTo do my dutyTo God & myCountry and to obey theScout law toHelp other peopleAt all timesTo keep myselfPhysically strongMentally awakeAnd morallyStraight
On my honor IWill do my bestTo do my dutyTo God & myCountry and to obey theScout law toHelp other peopleAt all timesTo keep myselfPhysically strongMentally awakeAnd morallyStraight
So yeah, very normal
― iliac crestfallen (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 18 November 2022 22:46 (one year ago) link
i like how the skinny-dipping party was so quickly broken up that the absolutely shredded giant man has not had time to put on his clothes so he has them wadded up under his arm
quick, let us flee this place, no, no nothing's wrong son, but i think they're gaining on us
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 18 November 2022 22:46 (one year ago) link
meanwhile the boyscout is in full uniform
when i grow up, i'm gonna be naked, just like dad
― Karl Malone, Friday, 18 November 2022 23:35 (one year ago) link
I think the scout is leading the skinnydippers to JAIL where they belong
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 18 November 2022 23:49 (one year ago) link
I have heard there were contemporary groups to the early Scouts that did have nudity as a central policy. Popular in Germany and other mainland European places, combining the idea of back to nature and doing it in the buff etc etc
― Stevolende, Friday, 18 November 2022 23:58 (one year ago) link
I made a leather wallet and learned how to use a compass
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Saturday, 19 November 2022 01:41 (one year ago) link
naked
There's some discussion of this in Jon Savage's excellent book Teenage.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, 19 November 2022 02:24 (one year ago) link
and some time around the 1920s a raft of diseased men realized they could combine mormonism with boy scouting and get child sexual abuse squared!!
― ꙮ (map), Saturday, 19 November 2022 02:52 (one year ago) link
I definitely read Teenage a couple of decades back. Think I got it cheap possibly from FOPP. Think I have come across that elsewhere too. Possibly in Nell Irvin Painters book a few months ago.But I have read a lot over the last few decades so don't always immediately remember exactly where a specific thing came from. Think I came across that in at least one documentary too.
― Stevolende, Saturday, 19 November 2022 11:03 (one year ago) link
Silk. Silk. I had a conversation in work on Sunday while I was doing overtime. Because Porsche has released a new "Dakar Edition" 911 and you can never been too rich or too thin. I learned two things. I'll tell you. Technically I learned three things, but the third thing - Porsche sells a leather luggage set for £4,110 - isn't interesting. I'll tell you the two interesting things.
The first thing I learned is that silk is made by boiling silk larvae. I didn't know that. I had always assumed that silk was harvested in the same way spiderwebs are harvested, e.g. by gathering it from trees. Or by pulling it out of the silk spider. To be honest I had no idea whatsoever how silk was harvested. No fucking idea. I've never thought about silk in any great depth. I've never had a reason to. That's the great thing about interacting with other people. They come up with unpredictable things.
Why was there a conversation about silk? Apparently silk pillowcases are good for the complexion, but the person with whom I had the conversation isn't keen on the idea of killing little baby silk spiders. So there's a thing called Peace Silk. It's harvested after the larvae has gone off somewhere. It's really expensive. A Peace Silk pillowcase is £89:https://ethicalkind.com/products/organic-peace-silk-pillowcase
I was tempted to point out that her complexion is already fine - much better than mine - but who knows. There are different standards. I was also tempted to say "but you don't have a problem with boiling people to death" but two wrongs don't make a right, so I kept quiet.
And then it struck me. It struck me. I had heard about silk farming! The Human League's "Being Boiled" is all about it! Sericulture is silk farming! The song is about boiling silk larvae. That's what it's about! The lyrics draw a parallel between the baby silk spiders and human babies. That's what the song is about! The whole song. That's what it was about! I had always assumed that "sericulture" was a bit like traditional loom weaving, that it was really unsafe, and the song was about low-paid workers being boiled to death to make clothes.
But no. "Being Boiled" is about boiling silk larvae. One of a handful of top ten pop singles to be about boiling silk larvae.
I mean, it might not be interesting to you. But suddenly I could feel pieces moving together in my mind. Little pieces of knowledge fitting together. Forming part of a huge wall of knowledge. There is so much I don't know.
― Ashley Pomeroy, Monday, 21 November 2022 21:02 (one year ago) link
A standout lyric from the extremely underrated* Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella:
I'm a young Norwegian princess or a milkmaidI'm the greatest prima donna in MilanI'm an heiress who has always had her silk madeBy her own flock of silkworms in Japan
* = Internal rhyme, kickass lyrics, so much awesome. The tv version starring Lesley Ann Warren has homely production values, but absolutely slays all gloppy Disney shit.
I will defend this opinion to my death, thxbye
― ooh I wanna take ya to Topeka (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 21 November 2022 21:20 (one year ago) link
But suddenly I could feel pieces moving together in my mind. Little pieces of knowledge fitting together. Forming part of a huge wall of knowledge.
Sounds like there are spiders inside your head!
― pplains, Monday, 21 November 2022 21:20 (one year ago) link
lol i read the first part of AP's post going "BEING BOILED," man! but yupa
― i'm right back on my shit (Hunt3r), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 03:37 (one year ago) link