Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here

I, for one, never cracked any deliberately tasteless jokes in my late teens/early 20s because I thought edginess was hi-la-ri-ous and so did most of my friends at the time, some of whom possessed firsthand experience with the things we were cathartically making light of in the crassest possible way because for some people (read: not all) the occasional bout of laughter in the face of trauma is preferable to unrelenting self-seriousness. Phew, good thing I emerged a fully formed 2020 woke Twitter warrior from my mother's womb (look ma, not even a C-section!), perfectly fit to mete ovt trve borad jvstice on ILX.

the occasional bout of laughter in the face of trauma is preferable to unrelenting self-seriousness.

otm -- otherwise I would be long dead.

Yeah, this is something I've thought about a lot (if not particularly deeply) since a couple of events around 2008/2009

1. A guy in a hostel in HK trying to show me a "hilarious" video of a man destroying his genitals
2. A black woman who was teaching at the same ESL school in Lewisham as me getting me to explain "black comedy" to her class as she simply didn't understand it.

also I've just remembered

3. A video on the "failblog" website of a car plowing into a load of cyclists, and a bunch of internet people defending its use as humour. (should maybe mention here my step-grandad was a semi-pro cyclist who was killed on the roads in this way)

The thing I cottoned on to (sure this isn't a major revelation to anyone) is that there are people with gallows humour trying to laugh in the face of the horrors of the world, and there are people who get a genuine thrill from other people's suffering and discomfort, and think victims probably have it coming. It is not as easy to tell the difference between the two groups as it should be, especially at first, either in real life or online. The first group have to always do more to be careful when meeting new people who cannot be expected to know they aren't the second.

a "hilarious" video of a man destroying his genitals

I firmly declined to see the video but it was described as a man cutting off his testicles with a scalpel so probably not Steve-o.

what did he do with them afterwards?

his description did not include this important detail

what a ball tease

I think we're currently at a point in history – especially in English-speaking countries – where ambiguity (whether comic or aesthetic or merely discursive) is viewed with suspicion because it's been successfully co-opted by alt-right trolls who wear it as camouflage. In response, we tend to err on the side of caution by keeping uncertainty at a minimum so as not to risk misleading the reader, perhaps because deploying language with care is needed to make up for its nihilistic destruction on the other side of the aisle. I totally get how and why we got here in the first place, but as with all blanket solutions, including the most necessary and effective ones, I can't help but wonder about the outliers. So yeah, it's not always easy to tell the difference, but that doesn't mean every instance of edginess is tantamount to dog whistling, nor is everyone who seemingly never slips up in public a woke saint.

xps no kink-shaming plz thx.

pomentiful otm and also I think that Vladimir Putin is a very handsome and strong leader, wouldn't you agree?

Depending on your definitions of 'handsome' and 'strong', I might agree a little.

What is going on here

*whistles*

It's not what you think.

Lol.

I mean if yr first longer post is in response to my posts on the Gawker thread, then that's fine, but I've been this way for a long time, so the idea that I emerged into it is kind of funny. One of the reasons I originally left this board in 2011 was because everyone was so damn namby-pamby liberal and not taking hard enough stances! I've calmed down enough in the interim, I think.

Re yr post about ambiguity, I think yr right, but I am more concerned about the issue as it regards art, and writing in particular. So many students don't understand ambiguity and don't want to, and it's endlessly frustrating when teaching poetry and fiction, especially. It's almost as if ambiguity is read as elitist, and that's a real problem, as I think it is very much anti-elitist in many respects.

I still think rape jokes suck, and won't apologise for my posts on that.

Re yr post about ambiguity, I think yr right, but I am more concerned about the issue as it regards art, and writing in particular. So many students don't understand ambiguity and don't want to, and it's endlessly frustrating when teaching poetry and fiction, especially. It's almost as if ambiguity is read as elitist, and that's a real problem, as I think it is very much anti-elitist in many respects.

Yeah, this is an absolute nightmare to deal with as a teacher. Many students seem to think that it's impossible to write something without actively condoning it. My wife once taught a class where a student complained about how a particular novel was 'anti-feminist' because it offered a tragic portrayal of a black migrant woman trying to cross the Mediterranean. The implication was that anything short of a Wonder Woman-style narrative is problematic, which is just… fucking grim.

Yes! I have had some pushback on certain stories by Black writers as re-inscribing trauma, and while I understand where students are coming from, I'm also like...these are stories written about real life! Like, without these sorts of fictionalized accounts, a huge part of a cultural heritage would slip away! It's odd, and maddening. In the situation I describe above, I've started bringing in Hartman and Sharpe on the necessity of Black people, particularly Black women, telling the stories and finding the strands of the narratives that have been lost or suppressed, and framing other stories in this way has helped.

But whew. Never thought I'd see the day where I'd get some blowback from a Black student for assigning Bambara.

Ehhh I’ve encountered that mentality so many times irl, including with people older than me. I am, and always have been a firm fan of the fiction =\ reality line, but other people interact with fiction differently. I have never gone a year of my life without encountering it in some way, and I actually was the student at school arguing against this view (shocking), it’s not a Kids These Days thing at all. I have often wondered, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, if it’s more pronounced a divide between people who write and those who don’t?

I've definitely become acquainted with people that think a good movie or book is one that explicitly and without any sense of subtlety endorses the things they already believe, and that depiction automatically = endorsement.

there's one thing where GoT does a brutal rape scene that wasn't part of the book and served no narrative purpose, and was brutal and visceral. that was ridiculous, and I found it weird that people weakly jedi-handwaved it away by saying "that's how things were in those times" while ignoring that it takes place in a fictional continent that had no history.

vs having a rape scene in a movie that is part of the film's social commentary and people viewing a rapist getting away with it in the movie as "The film taking the rapist's side".

Haha, yes, I saw that exact same hand waving as if GOT was actual medieval European history. I don’t remember too many fucking dragons in the Hundred Years’ War.

Part of the reason I've never revisited Star Wars Ep. 4 is because I just can't deal with not knowing exactly who shot first, Han or Greedo, like what was all that second-guessing on George Lucas's part? You'd think, based on his hallowed reputation as a director, that he'd make his intentions clear from the get-go. Anyway, it made the rest of the franchise undecipherable to me.

Han shot first often until he quit using anabolic steroids

Han shot first until he started thinking about Palpatine.

A great disturbance indeed.

I've had nothing but second thoughts for weeks. Probably a hundred typed and deleted posts. I should probably just stop.

I’m guessing the answer is no, but has there ever been an ask LJ thread? Because his cooking habits need to be justified in the glare of the public eye

it was either the fish, the pak choi, the tomatoes or the jackfruit, and whatever

The cooking is just another expression of his maximalist aesthetics

honestly it was nice

It gave you a temperature and made you post in the covid thread!

a full recipe:

1 yellow chilli sliced
4 garlic cloves sliced
5 large pak choi leaves sliced
about 15 halved cherry tomatoes
an old courgette (this may have been the culprit actually) quartered then sliced

^stick that in to fry in butter, then add

fish pie mix (bits of salmon, haddock, cod etc)
tinned jackfruit pieces
powdered ginger
miso paste
tamari
soba noodles (pre-cooked)

and ultimately douse the lot in a tin of coconut milk, leave to stew/reduce, serve, be poisoned

it wasn't food poisoning, you've been cursed by Ukemochi.

leave to stew/reduce: minutes, hours, days or weeks?

I've just discovered the magic of pressure cooker stews/curries recently, it's amazing what you can make after just say 20 mins of saute and 7-8 minutes of exposing it to high pressure venus type atmosphere. I know it's an abuse of the thread .. but i'm not the only one!

Not an abuse at all. Supposedly you can do excellent dhal the same way?

I've only been using it for a week, not used it for dhal yet. on the the cooking thread an ilx use harbl posted a good link to loads of pressure cooker recipes.

If anything this is a gigantic improvement on the thread premise and to be encouraged.

LJ's recipe honestly looks pretty good but I'm not sure about the inclusion of fish and jackfruit together.

well 2 weeks i have been using it but I have started with some quite unadventurous recipes like playing very fast + loose with authenticity chicken masalas or beef stews until I get a feel how this high pressure beast works. I bought a little platform for steaming chicken on and am cooking a beef brisket in it at some point this week.

it's a blessing on hot days and my kitchen has no extractor fan, so I can put the pot next to window when I release the pressure drop (rip Toots!)

lol I meant Ilx user harbl xxp

not that there is anything wrong with playing fast and loose with trad recipes in the comfort of your own kitchen. But when tory cunts like Jamie Oliver sell 800000 books/get a million youtube views murdering food and have the audacity to call the dishes by their traditional names - that's where it becomes bad imo.

The only Tory cook I pay attention to is user imago.

remember Jonathan Meades brought out a cookbook and it was full of joyless unappetising recipes involving the likes of boiling bones and Parmesan rinds with a bit of sherry? At least imago recipe didn't seem that bad!

I'd still read it tbf!

Have we ever done a worst celebrity cookbooks thread?

Do it

Guy Fieri lol

are we sure the jackfruit fish pie stew didn't cure the illness?

lol i bought that Meades book for my brother, i haven't read it

I was strapped for time today because of cutting my hedges earlier so just sauteed some onions/garlic/celery/beef strips, added some stout/beef stock/tom puree/vegetables/green bell peppers/oregano/spring greens/chick peas and incinerated it in the pressure chamber and viola ..very reasonable stew done in 30-40 minutes.

that sounds nice!

today is exclusively soup for me. my mum just dropped by with some vermicelli in vegetable stock and insisted I have it. so I'm having it. it feels very medicinal