Things you were shockingly old when you learned

I was just told that Cinco de Mayo is not celebrated in Mexico itself, but only in the US.

Although maybe the guy meant Mexico Mexico, el DF, Mexico City itself.

Hmm, seems to be true.

I think it commemorates a relatively minor victory in some battle for independence, and I've always assumed it was selected in the US for celebrating because of its calendar position - not much else going on in early May.

Cinco de Mayo = a "white people get drunker than usual and get in more fights and car accidents" holiday

- "So when is Mexico's Independence Day?"

- "El dieciséis de septiembre."

- "Hmmm. Did anything ever happen in 'marzo' or 'mayo'?"

Commemorates the Battle of Puebla when they beat the French and slowed up the Second French Intervention.

^this

Just talked to a poblana to get another data point and she confirmed that not even in Puebla is it celebrated.

It was basically invented to sell Corona to WASP Americans

https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/05/05/cinco-de-mayo-civil-war/

That the singer from Stereolab is Laetitia Sadier and not Sadler.

Only been listening to them for the last 30 years.

Heh. I've gone back and forth on that one.

Glyn Dillon is Steve Dillon's brother

I don’t do much comics work these days, so I was really chuffed to be asked if I’d like to do the cover for the new #bestof2000AD collection. I jumped at the chance because it features my brother’s iconic Cry of the Werewolf story. #SteveDillon #JudgeDredd pic.twitter.com/cD131r7vKG

— glyn dillon (@glyn_dillon) May 11, 2023

That the singer from Stereolab is Laetitia Sadier and not Sadler.

Marianne Faithful was related to Leopold von Sacher Masoch who gave the world the term masochism. Is that quite Sade-y? I'm sure it could be Sadier

I wound up doing a tour of the Republic with Stereolab when I first came to Ireland in the early 90s cos I bumped into one f the guys who ran teh White Horse in Hampstead or possibly vice versa. Like I was sitting at a dublin bar and he appeared from behind me and said hey Stevo or something to that effect.
I think Laetitia was quite generous with snacks and things

White HOrse guy was being tour manager/possibly sound engineer too. Sean O'hagan was in the band at the time too.

Roquefort is a really great cheese.

oh yeah, one of the best. in small quantities though.

so creamy

Yeah, it's pretty rich. I eat a lot of cheese, but for that reason, I haven't had a blue for snacking in long time. It kind of blew me away.

have known for a long time that the children's network Nickelodeon was named after a sort of old-timey movie theatre. but i never put it together that that name just means an Odeon that costs five cents (a nickel).

and then a totally different thing that occurred to me this week is that taco in spanish means "wad", lol.

Was watching a Peppa Pig with the 3-year-old, the Pig family are walking in the park on a foggy day, and Peppa asks what fog is. Daddy Pig says “fog is a cloud that’s on the ground“, and I was like oh yeah, duh

Clouds can be on the ground if the ground is high enough.

Seance means "meeting" in French

As does reunion.

Seance doesn't quite mean meeting, it's more like session or sitting.

Right. Like the seance is the screening time of a film.

This is the way "meeting" was used in Mercyful Fate's "A Dangerous Meeting"

Though I suppose it might have also been about Tupperware

xp I just realised on seeing the post about seance that session had a similar etymological derivation about seating. Not sure if I got that before but can see now the root is that.

Does this in any way connect "secession" to "we're not meeting anymore"?

aggravatingly it does not! the latin root of secession is cedere with a c (to withdraw) rather than sedere with an s (to sit)

notorious typo to be on the look out for: supercede and supercession (both wrong) for supersede and supersession (from the latin supersedere, to sit right on top of)

(these may have been easier to kept apart a few centuries back, when the c was still hard)

tho i guess by normal usage as opposed to stupid etymology (and to honour the joke) secession is a very good way to announce that we're not meeting any more :)

a session cessation if you will

Must be the session of the witch.

til Elvis had an identical twin brother who was stillborn.

... called Jesse and Scott Walker wrote a song about him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYyOkQUyJZM

Nick Cave's "The Firstborn Is Dead" is a reference to him too.

Jesse Garon and the Desperados were named after him.

A 17-year-old boy shot at the Queen from a tall building during a state visit to New Zealand in 1981. He missed.

pot shot from the local museum iirc. that was just one of that particular person's various exploits & it was well up hushed up, but yeah.

That there's a website with a sampling of the videos and a list of teh dances involved from the video I saw the 4 hour version of at teh TULCA festival last year.

Video clips here
https://www.universaltongue.com/video-edition

and separate alphabetical lists of the forms of dance here
https://www.universaltongue.com/dance-styles-az

the 4 hour version is quite mesmeric and kaleidoscopic and I think a much shorter summary of a much longer original mix.
THey mixed a stack of video together for the film they wound up with. All edited to teh beat.

I just came across a reference to some of the voguing from Paris is Burning over the weekend which I think had some clips included in the mix, if not directly from there similar vintage voguing which was just one of a load of pretty jawdropping dance footage included.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlbX7iMc8Lc

you can have 2 different numbers on the same mobile phone. Took me a minute to work out why my new phone had slots for 2 sim cards and that is the reason. Is that widespread now?

also that phones no longer open to let you swap batteries etc. previous phone was several years old so opened so you could change battery, put sim and memory card in slots within phone. new one had a tray that could be popped out.

That a band like Dry Cleaning would be playing in Argentina. Not sure if that reflects an opening up of the touring map or if this is more exceptional. Really not familiar with the amount of non-massive bands that tour South America but very surprised to see a live set by them from there and there is one up on Dime.
Like do indie like bands tour there now.

Seems to be some video of the show circulating though an upping to youtube has been removed.
Also seeing they played Chile too

The word "czar" or "tsar" is a Russian derivation of the German "kaiser," which itself is a derivation of "Caesar." I believe the American usage of the word "czar" (as a politically appointed head of something) is actually unique to America, and may have started getting used more often under Roosevelt as a exotic/foreign-sounding word perhaps less likely to raise the hackles of Americans wary of authoritarian titles/implications.

It's not unique to the US we've got dozens of them over here.