Bartender_Venator
No bio...
User ID: 2349
Bartender_Venator
1d ago
Fair warning, no spoilers: Lynch left Twin Peaks for an extended period in Season 2, and it gets really really bad for a bit. Not quite unwatchable but close. Soldier on, though, because The Return is arguably the greatest TV ever filmed.
If you decide to take a break and watch other Lynch stuff, Mulholland Drive was originally conceived as a Twin Peaks spinoff, and Blue Velvet is probably his Peaksiest film.
Bartender_Venator
2d ago
Sadly Turok's discussion of class was less than worthless, and seemed to mostly be about his own unexamined class insecurities. As I said elsewhere, "It's a funny barber-pole-of-status-signaling thing. I have never encountered someone on the internet who is actually upper-class for whom "lower-classness" is an object of vitriol rather than of disinterested study." But bringing that directly into discussion would also violate the norms of this space, such that any discussion from his posts was already drawing from a poisoned well.
Bartender_Venator
3d ago
It's a huge, huge topic, and from a Mottizen perspective a lot of the received wisdom on wine is very questionable. My advice:
- Go region-by-region and familiarize yourself with it. There are some regions I know much better than others, and a lot of depth to go into in each one. This is particularly the case if you're in a marginal wine region, like Niagara, that specializes in particular varietals due to climate.
- Find a really good local shop and talk to the owners/go to their events. Can be a pleasant way to spend an evening and wine lovers like to go in-depth on why a wine/region is the way it is. Consider joining a wine club that will give you a couple varied bottles along with tasting notes.
- Stick to wines around the $20 price point for trying new stuff (maybe $25-30 now with inflation and tariffs). Even the experts will tell you that, for the most part, the price difference between $20-$80 is marketing. If you want to splurge, go above $80 on a varietal you know you like.
- Pairings do make a huge difference, particularly cheese. With a meal, the 'ideal' pairings are generally pretty well-known, just look up what you'll be cooking.
- It's ok not to like varietals. I don't like merlot and I can count the chardonnays I've liked on one hand (though one Franschoek chardonnay in particular is a grail of mine, has an incredible smoky flavour. Sadly my uncle has a long-running beef with the guy who owns the vineyard so no schmoozing in for me). Don't be afraid to develop your own taste.
- Don't be a snob. If AlexanderTurok drank wine, he'd be a wine snob. Nobody wants that at their tasting.
Bartender_Venator
3d ago
I wish you had posted this yesterday. It would have gone well with my wine - I had a South African Cape Coast sav blanc, from an east-facing vineyard at the foot of a coastal valley, where the sea air and rocky soil produce a really crisp, refreshing white with an almost salty minerality. Paired that with a very mild, milky cheddar and some raspberries. In the evening, when it wasn't so hot, I cracked a Salamino di Santa Croce lambrusco. Again, that's a bit tarter and more acidic than your typical fruity lambrusco, but I paired it with a rich mushroom bruschetta. I don't actually know that much about Italian wine (the family place in Italy is on the coast, quite some way from the real wine country), but I know what I like.
P.S. I know you're supposed to capitalize "Sauvignon", "Lambrusco", etc., but that's always struck me as a little pretentious.
Bartender_Venator
10d ago
Yeah everything in London is super expensive, some things are just more ridiculous than others (rent being number one).
Bartender_Venator
10d ago
Ah, you did get to my old neck of the woods. I took my first steps as a baby in the Natural History Museum.
There's a big price differential between the markup on pints/meals and supermarket stuff in London, for obvious reasons - those pints and meals have to be served to you by people who live in London. Personally, I find that Waitrose is comparable in price to non-Aldi/Costco US grocery stores for much higher quality.
Bartender_Venator
12d ago
A decent pub is never a terrible spot to be, hope you and your friend have a great time.
London prices are mad for, well, everything. Though, living in the US now, it's always a pleasure to just pay what my beer costs and not end up with an extra ~30% from tax and tip.
Bartender_Venator
12d ago
Tottenham play football, and they're shit at it (they're Arsenal's old local rivals). Besides, I believe the team is on tour in Thailand right now, probably watching Asian twinks jerk off with plants.
If you're still in the area, after the Tate Modern I recommend walking down the river bank towards Westminster Bridge. It's definitely the prettiest and most interesting part of the river to walk along, and there are some good pubs near Waterloo Station if the walk gets you thirsty (sadly, my favourite, a railway arch pub entirely painted with murals of the Battle, seems to have closed).
Bartender_Venator
12d ago
The swearing is overly snappy and convoluted, and Cim is right that it was an extra-sweary period in British TV that sounds very silly now. In real life people who try to swear like that sound more like Ollie than Malcolm. But the overall tenor is definitely accurate to British politics in the Blair/Brown years. A story about two very senior aides of Gordon Brown (names omitted and stuff paraphrased, since the story was told in private, but newspaper readers at the time would recognize both):
I'm in my office with X, and she's complaining that Gordon's been fucking up everything lately, that he can't come across like a normal person, etc etc. She's got her back to the door, and doesn't see Gordon walk in. He's standing in the doorway and I can see he's about to fly into one of his rages. Now, he would have these terrible rages, and I learned that the only way to get Gordon out of it was to get even angrier than him, enough that he'd start trying to calm me down, so I jump up, kick over the litter basket, and shout "I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT THOSE BASTARDS ARE SAYING ABOUT HIM! I'M GOING TO KILL THEM!" And Gordon calms down, and he comes over to me and puts his hands on my shoulders and says "Calm down, [aide], calm down, it'll all be fine."
In the behind-the-scenes footage, too, the actors talk about the time they've spent with people in the civil service/government preparing for their roles. Nicola Murray's actress quoted one of them as saying "I don't know why we do this. It's not for the money, because we don't make any money, and it's not for the power, because we don't have any power. It's like you're working for charity... but a shit charity, that everybody hates." Who knows if that's real, but too good to leave out.
Bartender_Venator
13d ago
If the strange animation doesn't put you off (switching between old and new animation), the Zeta Gundam compilation movies are a great place to start without committing to a full series. There are compilations of the original Gundam, as well, and it's actually those movies that made the story famous after the original series was canceled. Skip ZZ. If you like Ghibli movies watch Turn A.
Bartender_Venator
13d ago
It changes a lot in between parts, in terms of artstyle, storytelling, setting, powers, etc. The first 10 episodes of part 1 (i.e. Part 1 of the original manga) in particular is pretty rough compared to the others, and the action only really kicks off in episode 3, but it certainly kicks off.
Bartender_Venator
13d ago
The uncanny valley depiction of foreign cultures is one of the funniest things in Jojo. Wait till you get to the second half of Part 1 (set just before WWII, plenty of wacky Nazis) and to Part 4 (set in a Japanese tourist's dream of Italy). Generally JJBA takes all the things that make shounenslop unwatchable - incredibly long fights, painstaking descriptions of each attack, powerscaling, ridiculous poses, flat characterization, corny villains, etc. - and dials it up so far it becomes amazing even if you normally hate that stuff.
Bartender_Venator
16d ago
the ancient Christians, who steamrolled over the strength-is-beauty-is-justice pagan ethos of Rome, did not need mustache-twirling wordcels in high places berating anyone on their behalf to gain followers, nor did the French Revolution with its cries for égalité.
You don't think the Church Fathers were wordcels? You don't think Rousseau and Voltaire were wordcels? Revolution has always been a wordcel endeavour, for better or for worse, until it reaches the point where you need shape rotators to handle the finances and military logistics.
Bartender_Venator
21d ago
Not suggesting they become academics (God, no! Affirmative action just scratches the surface of academia's professional pathologies). If you go to a top university, and are sufficiently intelligent, personable, and flexible, you can pivot into basically any type of email job you want with a little networking. Or, with luck, they can follow some passion and have a happy life doing something for its own sake.
It absolutely does work if you can convince the admissions officers that you are dead set on that particular department, you just have to be a little cannier. Knew a guy who was excluded (i.e. not formally expelled) from his posh high school for drug dealing who got into an Ivy-tier college that way.
Bartender_Venator
22d ago
I knew plenty of people at elite colleges who didn't do anything near tiger mom workloads in high school. There are some seats open for ultra-grinders, but really not all that many (and you have to compete with Asians). Contrary to some stereotypes, admissions officers at top schools are looking for a mix of types, and being a tiger child grinder is boxing yourself into one of the most competitive. I don't know your educational history, but I'd imagine those types are overrepresented in the finance/consulting rat race, which may give you that impression, though. Much more common archetypes:
- von Hammerstein-Equord's "smart but lazy" type, running off natural firepower and intellectual charisma, very good at playing the system to get better results for themselves than the grinders.
- The ultra-passionate about a particular topic, who don't grind for it tiger mom style but are thinking about their subject all the time and treat it as a hobby as well as work (this represented most math majors I knew, and 100% of those who stayed math majors)
- The "underrepresented major" type, think arch and anth at Oxbridge (iirc) or music at MIT (I'm guessing), who was essentially recruited to fill out a less-desired department. You can get into the best colleges in the world while being an absolute fuck-up that way, and the most elite private schools will steer their fuck-ups in that direction.
- The "little grad student" type, who is not necessarily a crazy grinder (could be a variation of any of these archetypes) but has internalized the lingo and style of academics in such a way as to present as advanced on the academic track.
If you've got a kid with the requisite IQ, I'd maintain that the best way to get them into an elite college is not to grind them as hard as possible at the same metrics everybody else is trying to fulfil, but to let them freely explore their own academic and other high-status interests and put the work into them (i.e. basically anything a smart kid wants to do except vidya and scrolling). That's what gets you the kind of intellectual individuality that stands out to admissions officers. If they haven't got the requisite IQ, start thinking about what weird major they can take, or send them to State.
Bartender_Venator
25d ago
I bought a Daylight Computer (review: it's fine, clearly an early adopter product, competitors look a lot more polished, screen reads great but android is a real pain), and I'm looking for a stand for it to prop it up while I write on a bluetooth keyboard. Any recs for a robust, lightweight, flat-foldable stand that will work with a 10x7" tablet?
Bartender_Venator
26d ago
I notice a strong correlation between sleeve tattoos and any particularly high-octane occupation - military, police, fire, EMS, extreme sports, etc. Part macho, part masochism.
Bartender_Venator
27d ago
Hoping to catch an edgelord grasping the nettle? Aristotle discusses this in his writing on slavery - he distinguishes "slaves by nature", i.e. people whose nature is such that they are incapable of maintaining their freedom, and "slaves by convention", i.e. those who are actually legal slaves. He was not a fan of the fact that not all those who are slaves by convention are slaves by nature (Plato himself did some time in chains), and he does not endorse the mass enslavement of natural slaves who are legally free (they are already enslaved, but enslaved to vices, to menial employment, to patrons, etc., such that enslaving them legally would be superfluous. In fact, some of those natural slaves are otherwise wealthy, strong men who would be practically impossible to enslave except through capture in war).
Furthermore, the actual legal institutions required to deal with the fact of natural slavishness are contingent, and there's no reason that a more prosperous society would need to use Greek-style slavery. One way to put it in a modern context would be that those who are dependent on the state to survive are de facto property of the state, and that modern states have largely chosen to bind themselves to take care of their human property, but this is likewise just an historical contingency. There is nothing, besides the choice of voters, stopping the US from repealing some constitutional amendments and making fentanyl addicts pick cotton (to pick the most extreme case of natural slavery in the modern day. The capacity for freedom of a drug addict would not change if we were legally to enslave him, except that he might luck into a kinder master). So, from an Aristotelian perspective, in the modern age, we can pick out a couple categories:
- Those who are for all intents and purposes the property of others, or the state, protected by some legal rights and more importantly a culture of kindness towards the vulnerable (the severely disabled, although transfers of legal guardianship are limited)
- Those who are for all intents and purposes the property of others, but who are protected by strong legal safeguards and to some extent can advocate for themselves (children, some mental illnesses necessitating legal guardianship)
- Those who are naturally slavish to an extent they're incapable of the most basic demands of freedom, and are legally free except when their behaviour inevitably violates the law (drug addicts, lowlife criminals)
- Those who are naturally slavish to an extent they cannot live without depending on others in a one-sided relationship, who are legally free but practically unfree, and are protected by an attitude of kindness the public has adopted (the hopelessly welfare-dependent)
- Those who are naturally slavish but capable of fulfilling the basic demands of life by developing two-way economic relationships with others in a free market (people working shitty jobs with messed-up lives, but still functioning. This is the point where I would call someone practically free, if one wants to introduce a middle category. They will be effectively somebody/something's property in some parts of their lives, such as their boss's, their partner's, or their liquor's, but they have spheres of real choice even if they choose not to take them.)
- Those who are naturally slavish, but who are enslaved to vices they can successfully fulfil by predating on others, and so remain practically free unless they're caught violating the law (successful criminals, blue and white collar)
- Those who are naturally slavish, but whose nature enslaves them to compulsions which are rewarded by society, including with greater freedom of action even though they remain internally unfree (e.g. a miser obsessed with money-making. Many celebrities.)
- Those who are naturally slavish, but whose nature is ordered such that it makes them genuinely happy (e.g. someone who feels compelled to enter a 24/7 BDSM relationship, and deeply enjoys it)
- The naturally free, who are able to choose and prefer through rational consideration, and moderate their appetites according to reason. In the modern Western world, these people no longer need or want slaves as property.
Incidentally, in an American context, that last "choose and prefer" is crucial. Natural rights of the type the Constitution enshrines are based on very simple human capacities, in particular the capacity to choose and prefer. The rationality or quality of that ability to choose doesn't enter into it. Hence why we have a system that is able to assign legal rights without reference to more complex aspects of the individual's nature, including inner slavishness/freedom. This certainly causes problems over time, as people forget that they need other methods to deal with the naturally slavish, like occasionally throwing a chamberpot at the town drunk, but is better-adapted to modern norms and technologies than Classical slavery. Even if some people are born to be property, that does not imply that legal slavery is the solution. Instead, let a free market and healthy social norms deal with them (I'll leave to the reader the question of whether achieving a free market and healthy social norms today would be easier or harder than reinstating slavery).
Bartender_Venator
27d ago
I don't mean to call small towns dysfunctional, just that one assumes people in smaller communities hear more of what the folks around are getting up to.
Bartender_Venator
28d ago
I suspect a lot of people here are a third case: they don't pay a ton of attention to the private lives of other people outside of a small circle of family and friends. I could tell 5-10 stories of this type (of varying degrees, not literal jail) just from college, and plenty more from being involved in an art scene with lots of gossip. Suspect that small towns can be similar, but I'd have to hear from a ruralposter on that one.
Bartender_Venator
28d ago
This does have a converse effect, in that most liberals arguing politics on the internet are completely marinated in liberal-aligned or more often liberal-only spaces, and that shapes their ability to discuss things. OP's use of "libtards" is telling - lib"tards" are not welcomed here, just as rightards or libertardians are not welcomed, because they're unable to follow the rules or live up to the standards of the space. And the process of marinating in homogenous spaces does turn an awfully large percentage of online liberals into "libtards" in that sense, people who don't know how to debate outside of the context of a front-page subreddit, college classroom, or similarly low-quality space. One reason why the few high-quality and highly-emotionally-regulated liberal posters have, for the most part, been greatly valued here.
Bartender_Venator
28d ago
My conviction that it happened comes from ketamine's unique(?) ability to synthesize many different understandings together into a comprehensible whole. It all fits and I could see that in a way I never had before.
I can confirm this as a reasonably common effect of ketamine on smart people who have done a lot of reading. Something about the dissociative effect unlocks creative synthesis, and allows you to really "feel" it instead of just assenting intellectually. I've had multiple realizations of this type which have all been of great value. Of course this can also oneshot people who aren't smart enough or who have read the wrong books, since the ultimate value comes from the value of the material you're synthesizing. Caveat emptor!
Bartender_Venator
29d ago
This is why the whole Elite Human Capital thing has already flashed in the pan and gone as a memetic trend. There's no register used by its proponents other than shallow antagonism towards broad swathes of (usually caricatured) outgroupers. Beyond Hanania's mild advocacy of orthodox liberal/libertarian economics, it's incredibly rare to find any positive platform whatsoever buried in all the mud-slinging - as shown on this forum by the complete confusion of many posters as to what positive ideas you actually believe. Out of politeness, I'll refrain from speculating on the psychological motives or personality types involved. But I suspect there just isn't any positive platform because, when people are motivated by one, they're usually excited to win others over, to learn how to convert with argument and rhetoric. If that's what you're trying to do, rather than sling insults because they feel good, then I suggest revising your approach.
On the other hand, if you're looking to antagonize people, here is a guide on how to do it while being as polite as possible.
Nice, both great films. If you want an interesting experience that will teach you a lot about Lynch's influences, I recommend watching Eraserhead and then Orson Welles' version of The Trial.
More options
Context Copy link