Friday Ephemera

Goodness, that’s a big one. || Suboptimal sights. || They bend. || It turns out the Minecraft world is actually quite big. || Attempt at playful belly-rubbing not entirely successful. || Desire me now or I will call you names. || Radical appliance relocation. || Attention, shoppers – you are being watched. || Wakey-wakey. || Oh, we’ve all done it at least once. || At last, a Letraset database. || Librarian training of note. || Law and order. || The thrill of drains. (h/t, Richard Cranium) || He’s an educator, you know. || Classroom scenes. || The constellation of Orion. First one to find the Horsehead Nebula wins a beverage voucher. || Girl’s got reflexes. || A festive treat. || And finally, fiendishly, it’s perhaps a tad excessive.

Comments

[Hal]

|| Radical appliance relocation. || Attention, shoppers – you are being watched. || Wakey-wakey. || Oh, we’ve all done it at least once. ||

Cute.

[Hal]

Attention, shoppers – you are being watched.

Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it. It doesn't appear in any feeds, and anyone with a direct link to it will see a message like this one.

Apparently, try instead . . . .

[Hal]

Oh, we’ve all done it at least once.

. . . . . But why is the living room trying to find the hamster and why isn't the inhabitant???

[Hal]

At last, a Letraset database.

Hmmm. Could be quite helpful when needing to spell things out . . . .

[Hal]

Law and order.

Law and order.

[Hal]

A festive treat.

. . . . . . . whatever it is, it's apparently so bad that Boots is adding in 10% off fragrances 90ml or above at Boots with this sandwich . . . . .

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

First one to find the Horsehead Nebula wins a beverage voucher.

About one disc to the 4 o'clock of Alnitak.

[Jamie]

Desire me now or I will call you names

Jeez, his (sorry, her !) photo was bad enough but then I saw all the mystery drippings on the lower part of the mirror.

[Hal]

Yeah, band name . . . .

Cool-Down Act is a band name, but 15-Minute Didgeridoo Drone would still just be a song title . . . .

[Hal]

And finally, fiendishly, it’s perhaps a tad excessive.

[RTW]

Farnsworth M Muldoon beat me to it, but I probably couldn't use a beverage voucher on this side of the Atlantic anyway.

[Ptang]

Librarian training of note

The underlying assumption at these institutions—that white leaders must shield minority employees from open dialogue—is deeply patronizing and can cause racial division in the workplace.

Racial division in the workplace is the purpose. It's not open dialogue, it's an anti-white struggle session; the kind of thing which may or may not involve non-whites, but if they participated it would be as jury or witnesses for the prosecution.

When there's a white anti-white meeting and a non-white anti-white meeting, is "separate but equal" really an accurate description of the intent or the reality? And immediate concern that the real victims are the non-whites who are being patronized by being excused from the struggle sessions? The fixation on "segregation" (repeated 19 times in the article and 8 times in the Twitter page) creates a mental association with lunch counters and legacies of shame, the short mental step to white people having it coming to them, and if being asked hard questions at work is the reckoning, their having little to complain about. With friends like this, who needs diversity trainers?

[Fred Z]

The Constipation of O'Brian?

McAuslan

[Ray]

Librarian training

Maybe I'm being a bit tin foil hat here, but it seems to me that it's more about ensuring right wing people don't get government jobs, because they won't tolerate this crap, than race.

[Hal]

Stan Lee Fought The Nazis As A U.S. Army Playwright During WWII.

[David]

Morning, all.

About one disc to the 4 o'clock of Alnitak.

There you go. 5% discount on any large Bovril. Pint glass only.

but then I saw all the mystery drippings on the lower part of the mirror.

Pray that it’s toothpaste spray.

Not entirely unrelated.

[JuliaM]

"Attempt at playful belly-rubbing not entirely successful."

How did I know this would be Florida?

"A man who paid $150 for a “full-contact experience” with a black leopard ..."

Bit hard to take that one to the advertising standards authority, I'd have thought...

[David]

Our betters at large.

[Mags]

He’s an educator, you know.

When idiots think real life is like Twitter.

[David]

When idiots think real life is like Twitter.

Wants violent revolution. Looks like this.

Frankly, I don’t see his scenario panning out quite as he expects.

[Pooklord]

The racially segregated librarian training sessions were held at my library. It's like the King County library system is in a contest with Seattle Public libraries to see who can be most woke.

We'll lose, of course, but it is no less shameful for that.

[Pooklord]

Oh, and Ray: Bingo.

[Hal]

A festive treat.

Japan testing sandwiches that ID discount themselves as they age

[Rafi]

Frankly, I don’t see his scenario panning out quite as he expects.

First against the wall.

[The Sage]

Not being one for burning the midnight oil, I just have to say that the Horsehead is so blatantly obvious in the middle of the opening screen that it was no challenge at all.

[Mike]

Minecraft world is bigger than Neptune? WTF?

[David]

so blatantly obvious in the middle of the opening screen that it was no challenge at all.

Sorry, sir. The Bovril discount voucher (pint-glass only) has already been claimed.

[David]

Minecraft world is bigger than Neptune?

Wider, it seems. Virtually speaking. But having never played the game, I’m taking that on trust.

[Jen]

Oh, we’ve all done it at least once.

Can confirm.

[David]

Can confirm.

The Other Half and I once spent an evening peering under sofas and removing kitchen kick plates in an attempt to track down an escapee hamster. We eventually discovered the beast under the sink, hidden behind the shoe polish and neglected carrier bags, and where, rather conveniently, the hamster food was stored. Said beast seemed quite content, enthroned as he was in an improvised nest atop a mountain of treats.

[John]

Me: Are you my dog?
Dog: I’M YOUR DOG I’M YOUR DOG YES YES YES TWIRL TWIRL
Me: Are you my cat?
Cat: Possession is a solipsistic paradigm. However, if I were to define myself as belonging to anyone, it would be myself. In this essay, I will DON’T TOUCH MY STOMACH.

[David]

Heh.

[John]

Radical appliance relocation.

At least it’s the correct colour. That matters (you know).

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Speaking of identifying, another Racebait Studies PhD, this time a Latinot. Even her twitter background is phony - from California, lives in the mountains, picture of low country.

[Watcher In The Dark]

Oh, Letraset! I used it for years, and I wish I'd kept all those half-used sheets we had with all the A, O and Es letters missing... though the S used to disappear quickly too.

You haven't lived unless you have tried to cobble together a missing letter with a combination of parts of other letters.

[pst314]

Desire me now or I will call you names

I suspect that all his friends made the mistake of catering to his delusions, and what he really needed was to be told in harsh terms to grow up.

[David]

tried to cobble together a missing letter with a combination of parts of other letters.

Ah, memories.

[The Phantom]

With regard to the Law & Order video, your readers will be interested to know that the "protesters" beating up that cop car have dug up sections of the McKenzie road, Argyle Street and Highway 6 in Caledonia, blocked the road with a stolen school bus and are now "hunkered down behind their barricades." Which is media-speak for sitting around in lawn chairs drinking.

Readers will also be interested to know that very, very few of these "protesters" are actually from the 6 Nations Reserve next to Caledonia. And by very few I'm talking under 10%. Most of them aren't even Indians. It's an Antifa deal.

Be it noted that even during the height of the previous Caledonia "Protest" in 2006 the Indians didn't dig up or otherwise damage the roads. That is all Antifa.

Be it further noted that the OPP "response" in 2006 is -identical- to their response this week. Sit back, do nothing.

[Steve E]

Wants violent revolution.

To paraphrase Mike Tyson, "Everyone wants violent revolution until they get punched in the mouth."

[Governor Squid]

Wants violent revolution. Looks like this.

That is the backpfeifengesichtest backpfeifengesicht I've seen in many moons...

[Governor Squid]

Goodness, that’s a big one.

Still can't reach her eyebrows. I believe our hosts's crown remains secure.

[David]

Still can’t reach her eyebrows. I believe our hosts’s crown remains secure.

[ Uses tongue to flick through latest issue of Enormous Tongue magazine. ]

[aelfheld]

Well, I found the Horsehead Nebula.

What do I do with it now?

[Daniel Ream]

what he really needed was to be told in harsh terms to grow up.

While the pathology of Complex PTSD is in fact cognate with arrested emotional and mental development, Complex PTSD is the disorder it is precisely because its victims cannot grow up - if they don't get the right kind of therapy before neuroplasticity steeply declines in the mid-20's, their self-destructive coping mechanisms become permanent features of their personality.

This is why so many people with severe sexual dysmorphia become so hysterical when their coping mechanisms are challenged ("IT IS MA'AM") - you're demanding they stop doing the one thing they're clinging to that keeps them from ending their own life just to make the PTSD stop.

Yes, there are "trans-trenders" out there, and they need a solid bitch-slapping - for exploiting the pain of real victims for attention at the very least. And the real victims are often not very sympathetic either ("IT IS MA'AM") and catering to their coping mechanisms is exactly the wrong way to help them. Just try to keep in mind that many, even most of these people are very damaged through no fault of their own.

[Daniel Ream]

What do I do with it now?

I've always wanted one of those. I'll make you an offer you can't refuse.

[Russtovich]

"it’s perhaps a tad excessive."

This one's pretty good as well:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/halloween%202020%2010.jpg

[PiperPaul]

Letraset: you can't blame your shitty kerning on software.

[David]

This one’s pretty good as well

Heh.

[Alex]

Well, I found the Horsehead Nebula.

What do I do with it now?

Find the other end of the horse to go with it. There are plenty who have been featured on this blog over the years.

[STG]

I'm not often frightened by Halloween pumpkins, but...

https://twitter.com/agnesfrim/status/1322218901753778177?s=20

[Min]

I'm not often frightened by Halloween pumpkins, but...

*eyes water*

[Darleen]

I'm not often frightened by Halloween pumpkins, but...

Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head.

~~ Carol Burnett

[Steve E]

I'm not a big fan of superhero movies so I didn't see this when it was announced over the summer. Natalie Portman is going to play...The Mighty Thor? 85-pound-soaking-wet Natalie Portman? Apparently she's having trouble "bulking up" for the part on her vegetarian diet.

https://torontosun.com/entertainment/movies/im-in-so-much-pain-natalie-portman-on-thor-training-to-get-in-shape

Are people really paying to see these movies?

[MC]

Desire me now or I will call you names.

I am finding it hard to distinguish between 'trans lesbian' and 'imminent rapist'.

[MC]

I'm not a big fan of superhero movies

Wise. Best to ignore them altogether. I try to and TBF it is easier now I am unable to take long haul flights...
You might think dripping wet Natalie Portman is a good thing for a movie. Don't be fooled. I thought 'Cate Blanchett in kinky spank latex' was worth the ticket. Really very not.

[Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat]

https://torontosun.com/entertainment/movies/im-in-so-much-pain-natalie-portman-on-thor-training-to-get-in-shape

🎼Thorlene, Thorlene, Thorlene, Thorleeeene...🎼

Double You Tee Eff? WHY is Natalie Portman playing the god of thunder? Well, okay, because they’re paying her a lot of money. But why on earth would you pay her a lot of money to play Thor?

[Megaera]

Pro tip for high-tech hamster hunting: my electrician has a battery powered device with a viewing screen and a teeny camera with light at the end of some fiber-optic cable; he uses it to look inside walls (via small, discreet drill holes) for wiring issues and connections -- works well for scouting mammal hide-outs. Also, come to think on it, would be helpful when experiencing the joy of drains, for clogs and valuables which have found their way down into the P-trap.

Don't judge me.

[Alex DeWynter]

I actually enjoy superhero movies. Or I did. Until now.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

I have a condition called pre-triggering...

Two male feminists review Star Wars

[JuliaM]

Steve E:"I'm not a big fan of superhero movies so I didn't see this when it was announced over the summer. Natalie Portman is going to play...The Mighty Thor?"

Well, we're trumping that, since this is a real person who existed.

[Hal]

I'm about to commission a set of playing cards depicting our 55 Prime Ministers, to go alongside the book I've got coming out in November. . . . .

Want.

Deck and book.

[Hal]

It's 2020, and there is news of someone's latest entry for a flying car.

[David]

That is the backpfeifengesichtest backpfeifengesicht I've seen in many moons...

It’s sort of analogous with the idiot trying to pet the leopard.

Our leftist faculty adjunct doesn’t seem to realise that in real-world violent revolutions, as opposed to the ones in his head, noodle-armed narcissists who are merely titillated by sociopathic fantasies often find themselves in the shadow of actual sociopaths who aren’t overly fussy about whose teeth are being shattered on the nearest kerbstone. The actual sociopaths who thrive in such scenarios are essentially mad dogs, irretrievable monsters, something to be put down or bricked up in a dungeon. But if anything, I think I’m more disgusted by the preening little twats who would enable them and cheer them on, from a distance and to everyone else’s cost, because it gets them hot.

Also, as Instapundit often quips, “Maybe letting the enemies of our civilisation teach our children was a mistake.”

[Jonathan]

He Protec.

[David]

He Protec.

Yeet indeed.

[Nikw211]

Well, we're trumping that, since this is a real person who existed.

The real issue for this with me is not whether or not it's dramatically plausible - and I would suggest that having Turner-Smith would be highly implausible unless the intention is to deliberately break the fourth wall or else introduce some other element of surrealism.

On stage, in live theatre productions, almost all of which take place or start life in London, you can make these kind of casting decisions without having any adverse affect on the plausibility of the storytelling.

I have seen, for example, a black British actress play Nora from Ibsen's "A Doll's House" and a white Lithuanian actor play Othello (sans any skin-darkening make-up).

In both cases, the plausibility of the performance was not in the least bit marred by the ethnicity of the actors for the roles they were playing because in each case (and many others like it I could recall) it made not a jot of difference to the plausibility of the story to a modern audience.

Everything is carried by the delivery on stage and the plausibility really stands or falls on the quality of the performance.

But what will work fine on stage, simply won't translate to film, and certainly not a 'straight' historical drama.

However talented an actress Jodie Turner-Smith might be, playing Anne Boleyn on film (again assuming that this proposed drama is not consciously trying to be surreal or play with audience expectations) cannot be anything other than wildly, and therefore distractingly, implausible.

I had this experience recently in watching Armando Ianucci's The Personal History of David Copperfield.

The production designers had done an absolutely phenomenal job in recreating a highly plausible vision of England and London of the 1850s - costumes, architecture, interior design of the rooms and so on.

But all this served to do was to amplify the sheer bizarreness of having, for example, at least half of all the boys at Copperfield's boarding school be played by young black actors, as well as having white actors be the parents to non-white cast members resulting in suggestions I can only assume were unintended.

Naturally, there are some who will try to dismiss my concerns about plausibility as simply a fig-leaf for racist bias, but what I'm saying is that casting Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn in a historical drama will be as distracting as a Sci-Fi series set in another galaxy in which the characters lick postage stamps and attach them to envelopes with handwritten letters, or in which they make phone calls using phones with the old plastic-wheel dials, or sit down to a Big Mac and fries out of a brown paper bag.

You can do all those things, but unless you do it for dramatic or artistic reasons you simply make your story implausible and unconvincing.

[Jonathan]

Honk

via Orwell&Goode

[Captain Nemo]

RIP Sir Sean Connery, the first cinematic James Bond:

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/1322518553157754881

[David]

The spam filter’s still being twitchy. If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me (top left) and I’ll rattle the thing.

[Captain Nemo]

This - in the Guardian, naturally - is too unintentionally funny not to share:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/oct/31/we-left-the-uk-for-portland-expecting-a-liberal-dream-that-wasnt-the-reality?

[David]

You can do all those things, but unless you do it for dramatic or artistic reasons you simply make your story implausible and unconvincing.

The words colonising history come to mind.

[ Added: ]

As the thing hasn’t aired yet, it’s hard to say much. Ms Turner-Smith may give a strong performance and her skin colour may be part of some cunning dramatic device. Though my first impression is that the producers seem to value their self-imagined daring more than historical accuracy or suspension of disbelief. (Katherine of Aragon did, I think, have one black musician in her extended entourage, a horn player named John Blanke, or ‘John Blak’, but that’s about it for Tudor society, so far as I’m aware. Passing historians are of course welcome to correct me.) And assuming there isn’t some cleverly ironic conceit at work, one that will justify the ostentatious distraction, the message being sent is this isn’t history. Which is a little odd for something that is, at least superficially, a historical drama featuring actual historical figures.

[Karl]

This - in the Guardian, naturally - is too unintentionally funny not to share

TLDR; a racist brown-skinned communist authoritarian Londoner who is terrified of the outdoors, guns, white people, the police, freedom, capitalism and Trump doesn't enjoy moving to America.

[Darleen]

He Protec

What goes on in the mountains near me.

[David]

What goes on in the mountains near me.

[ Watches fox sitting in garden. Waits for dramatic struggle with passing eagle. ]

[Jonathan]

[ Watches fox sitting in garden. Waits for dramatic struggle with passing eagle. ]

Just have patience....

[David]

Just have patience....

We do occasionally see, and hear, a woodpecker. And once, a kingfisher.

[Captain Nemo]

Foxes, woodpeckers, kingfishers - what sort of enchanted sylvan glade do you live in?

[David]

what sort of enchanted sylvan glade do you live in?

Edge of town. Oop North.

[ Wafts magical sparkle dust across lawn, beckons badger. A duet ensues. ]

[Captain Nemo]

Heh.

[WTP]

Anything like what we...occasionally see and hear..?

[NTSOG]

Foxes! Where's my rifle? Damned smelly killers - they're worth $A10 per head dead here in Victoria, Australia.

[David]

Anything like what we...occasionally see and hear..?

More like this.

[Steve E]

Anything like what we...occasionally see and hear..?

You're lucky. I haven't seen a pileated woodpecker in our ravine in at least 10 years. We get lots of these fellows and these fellows too at our feeder. Oh, and these guys show up in the spring. I've never seen one like David has seen.

[David]

You’re lucky.

I know almost nothing about birds, so it’s possible I’m mistaken. But I think that’s the closest to what I saw.

[John]

People getting agitated about the prospect of a black Anne Boleyn should remember that only recently a film depicting a lesbian Queen Anne did notably well at the BAFTA’s, the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes. It’s no longer considered entertaining enough to simply depict actual historical events and people, you have to sex them up to get noticed and preferably upset a few traditionalists in the process.

[Darleen]

It's Halloween ... but what is really scary? That this female votes!

[Steve E]

I know almost nothing about birds, so it’s possible I’m mistaken.

I'm sure you're right. We don't have the great spotted woodpecker in North America which is why I've never seen one.

[WTP]

More like this.

What is “amusing” about even those smaller ones here in FL or the smaller ones in GA is that in mating season they like to peck away on the metal street light housings or, not so amusingly our chimney cap, so as to most broadly advertise their prowess. As it were..

[Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat]

Hi Daniel,

Some doctors think you can build up your neuroplasticity all your life, and Sonkitten has done so. Of course he’s autistic, not silly! 😁

No trick or treaters tonight, thanks to Covid hysteria. It’s normally from 1800-2000 around here, and does slack off as night moves in, but this is the first time and place we’ve had none.

I’m so old I remember when trick-or-treat ended when the last people on the street turned off their porch light.

[Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat]

Darleen, what is Karen yelling about in that video? I didn’t understand.

[Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat]

David, re your YouTube video—I will go out on a limb (ha!), and state that I believe that is unquestionably a bird.

[Darleen]

Darleen, what is Karen yelling about in that video? I didn’t understand.

If you turn up the volume you can catch that this woman was in the park with her kids when the evil people with flags turned up and she called 9-1-1 because she finds them scary. She keeps shrieking at the cops to get them out of the park while the poor guy is trying to calm her down and says "it's a public park, they get to be here, too."

She's having none of it - those American flags are down right scary and the cops are complicit in that scariness.

Best line of the video is her demanding a police escort out of the park and the cop saying "No, we aren't going to escort you."

[Nikw211]

As the thing hasn’t aired yet, it’s hard to say much. Ms Turner-Smith may give a strong performance and her skin colour may be part of some cunning dramatic device. Though my first impression is that the producers seem to value their self-imagined daring more than historical accuracy or suspension of disbelief.

Although it’s quite true that very little is known about the production so far, I feel a sense of dreary resignation as to the highly predictable road it’s almost certain to go down.

Yes, I suppose it’s just about possible that they will give the Anne Boleyn story a kind of Quentin Tarantino/ Guy Ritchie-esque treatment with lots of breached fourth-wall moments as Turner-Smith talks to directly to camera while in the background, Henry VIII slurps loudly on a four pack of Stella Artois lager (because the popular nickname for Stella Artois is ‘wife beater’) while watching reruns of Tudor United FC on a TV.

It’s possible.

But even if does do that, you still just know that Henry VIII is going to be molded into the supreme image of misogynistic toxic masculinity, a serial sexual abuser and perpetrator of intimate partner violence.

In short, bathed in straight white male privilege, bedecked in gold, strutting entitled to everything within reach, inevitably means that whoever gets to play him, and my money’s on Rafe Spall, Sam West, or Rory Kinnear if they go for a relatively younger king, Hugh Grant if they go for an older one, will be directed to play him as a feeble caricature of Trump-meets-Farage-meets-Weinstein.

(Of course, seeing as it will be a part that calls for all the emotional depth and psychological complexity of Widow Twanky or Buttons it’ll be a complete waste of some otherwise talented actors, but anyway ...)

And of course, added to that is the fact that Anne Boleyn’s story can easily be written as one of a woman whose first marriage was refused by two white, male patriarchs (the Earl of Northumberland, her lover’s father, and Cardinal Wolsey), whose sister, Mary Boleyn, King Henry VIII was already sleeping with when he tried to get into her bed, and - note well - Anne Boleyn was the woman over whom Henry VIII finally had England break away from Catholic Europe in a kind of Tudor Brexit moment.

So casting a black actress in the role then becomes a wholly predictable move in what will inevitably be a tedious, sermonizing Woke pantomime. (Hugh Grant’s own long ago Hollywood ‘tryst’ would help to emphasise the oppressor/oppressed exploitation narrative if he were to be cast in that role)

In light of Dr Philip Kiszely’s comments on a recent production of A Christmas Carol, which you (David) posted here recently, something along these lines appears to be practically a foregone conclusion.

[David]

I feel a sense of dreary resignation as to the highly predictable road it’s almost certain to go down.

Well, quite. The politics of our arts and media class being what they are, and so remarkably uniform. And the words “feminist lens” didn’t exactly lift the heart with thrilled anticipation.

[Felicity]

I feel a sense of dreary resignation as to the highly predictable road it’s almost certain to go down.

TBH as a Jane Austen fan I have never recovered from the 1999 Mansfield Park adaptation: cringeworthy faux lesbian scene and the frankly weird interrogation of New World Slavery. It marked the beginning of my woke awakening. I suspect Miss Austen would have required the ministrations of smelling salts if she had seen it.

[pst314]

I don't have a problem with, say, a black man playing Julius Caesar if it's because he loves Shakespeare and wants to do some of the great roles. What gets my goat is all this politics.