Patrick R

Right, that's why you don't say "pair of shoes" you just say "shoes". As in the popular phrase "I bought a shoes."

With "pair of underwear" underwear is used as a synonym for underpants. Pair of pants. Pair of underpants. You wouldn't say "pair of bra", even though that's underwear too.

Pant = leg

"Amidst the mists and coldest frosts she thrusts her fists against the posts and still insists we bury the ghost." I also thought Chris was endorsing a literal shower cap and was about to SCREAM at how weird and grandpa-y Chris had become.

My curiosity lead me to look up Wizard People, Dear Reader and holy cow was that unbearable. There's little that annoys me more than self-consciously wacky narration. It's simple math: if the words are funny, the voice should be serious. One of the reasons Welcome to Nightvale always bothered me is the "I'm reading this in a koooooky way" narration ruining the genuinely good writing.

I just finished my fourth Julian Barnes book and I think he's my favorite author now? I don't think I'm well-read enough for that statement to mean that much and I don't think his books are the best I've ever read. It's that his style and point of view really really resonate with me. The Sense of an Ending was a life-changing book (not necessarily for the better, as the main way it changed my life is that I dwell on awful things I did as a child with a lot of my free-time) and I've found each subsequent one to be just as insightful, if not always as good. So I figured I'm in this for the long haul and instead of posting all my Julian Barnes thoughts into the Books Books Books section I can start a new thread to collect them and encourage others to read his books. Previous posts about Barnes: --------------------- I just read Levels of Life, Julian Barnes' memoir about his wife's death and grief. It's a three part book, and the first two parts make up about half the book and are pieces of historical fiction (maybe? Real people, but plays out dramatically more like fiction than non-fiction) about the history of ballooning and a romance between a great French actress and an English explorer. The conceit that these stories play out as metaphors of the grieving process is more interesting in theory than practice. Finely written on their own, but they do very little to illuminate the second half of the book where Barnes speaks more bluntly about the grieving process, outside providing a handful of images to refer back to. But the Barnes' whose ruminations on memory and time made The Sense of an Ending such a joy to read is in full force in the second half, and it's the first time I've read anything about grief that takes an explicitly non-religious non-afterlife approach. I too believe that there is no grand meaning to death, and it was refreshing and reassuring to read about that pain from someone who feels the same. I know when my parents die everyone is going to frame everything around being "in a better place" and it's gonna really suck. -------------------------------- On a Julian Barnes kick, so I just finished his latest novel The Noise of Time, a historical fiction about the life of Russian Composer Dmitri Shostakovich, as explored through three time periods in his life where he was challenged by powers that be and how they wore hm down. Typically great writing and definitely in the contemplative style of The Sense of an Ending, with a little thematic overlap as well. Certainly bracing to read about the life of artists under fascism now. I don't know anything about the history of life under Stalin or even Shostakovich (despite the fact that he's one of the most famous composers of the 20th century, I never heard of him before) so I can't speak to it's accuracy (though there's an epilogue where Barnes lays out all his sources) but I'd highly recommend it if you like The Sense of an Ending. ------------------------------- And now, the book I just finished, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, his short story collection. Despite being 11 discreet stories (one of which is an essay about the nature of love he calls "Paranthesis" and refuses to number, but it's one of my favorites) it shares a lot of the same qualities of his complete novels, where he establishes premises in one story that become a metaphor in the next and continues to build. The first story, "The Stowaway", tells the story of Noah's Ark as told through the eyes of a woodworm that stowed away (Noah didn't include a lot of animals he thought unworthy), and while Noah's Ark jokes are kind of corny and old hat for me, it serves as the bedrock of metaphor and the Noah's ark imagery continues through the whole book. I spent too long reading this (about 3 weeks) and had too much time in between stories to pick up any real thematic links, but they were all good to great. My favorites were "Paranthesis", "The Visitors", "Shipwreck", "Upstream!", and "The Dream". They range in tense, tone and approach but all share his wry humor and insight. I'd definitely recommend this.

Not my shit, but if you are at all interested in body positivity or movies my partner has a blog where they write essays on fat characters in film called Consistent Panda Bear Shape and I may have promoted this before but I forget and, anyway, they just did an article on the two Magic Mike movies I think is good, so you should check it out. The essays are lightly academic but with a real sense of humor.

On the flipside I've watched a bit of the MBMBAM show on Seeso and it's way exceeded my expectations. Episode where they are teamed up with high-schoolers is great.

Which is not to say I don't think this movie is great. I just think the more solidified the What's-Going-On angle becomes the less interesting it gets. I think to do my concerns justice it'd probably have to be the kind of movie that makes no money as opposed to 100 million, so I am still pretty happy with the line this walks between sharp satire and crowd-pleasing horror, especially if it means Peele gets to make more films.

Paterson is such an incredible, beautiful movie. As someone who works a minimum wage job, with no ambitions of marriage or children or career advancement or any of the things the world constantly tells me is vital to being a real person, it was wonderful to see something more resembling my life in a film. There is precious little cinema that doesn't judge low-wage work as either demeaning or romantic.

My favorite part of that scene is the way he holds on the R in "motherfucker", so it's just "You motherfuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr". Weird. Also, that clip probably doesn't do Deep Cover justice. Deep Cover is an amazing and smart movie about drugs. Blazing angry and intelligent blaxploitation from actor/director Bill Duke. It just also happens to be kinda trashy at points.

I wanna follow a bunch of random teenagers on Twitter because I am super out of touch and wonder what youth culture is like these days. What is the best phrase to search on Twitter to guarantee finding a teenage Twitter user?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_Ami Boo! This is not actually a bad episode but holy shit, The X-Files could have literally had a jump the shark moment during an actual water-skiing scene and I am kinda mad this doesn't exist.

It's definitely the sort of movie James Spader made a dozen of in the 90's.

Have any of the Thumbs seen Mr. Frost? It's kind of a trashy movie, but Goldblum plays the devil (or is he?) taunting a psychiatrist. Surprisingly buttoned down Goldblum, considering the role, but he's got a great intensity. I sometimes wonder what kind of career he would have had without Jurassic Park, how many more trashy low-rent thrillers we would have seen him in.

Jake (on some podcast): Remember when people thought we were gonna do a Jurassic Park podcast? Crazy.

Oh shit, really? That's awesome.

CONTENT WARNING: rape, sexual assault A lot of people I know consider Elle to be one of, if not the, best movies of last year. They are smart and thoughtful people whose taste I trust. That said, I turned if off 40 minutes in because I found it completely fucking awful and offensive. I figured there was some sort of big reveal that would come and make sense of things, but the whole film acts as if a home invasion/violent rape has about the same emotional impact as, say, someone keying your car. The victim is totally unaffected by it, she tells her friends and they don't seem to concerned (one of them she has a relationship with corners her in her office trying to have sex with her and when she tells him she doesn't want to, she was just attacked, he shrugs it off like she's telling him she has a headache) and all in all I just thought it was gross and trying to be provocative for the sake of being provocative. Also Verhoven doesn't have a great track record with women and sexuality, and between the misogynist* Basic Instinct and his "wacky sex comedy where rape is played for laughs" in Turkish Delight I just don't have faith that Elle pulls it out in the final hour and change. I think it is supposed to be more a deconstruction of rape revenge movies than have anything to do with real life but I find even that choice to be repellent. *Again, some people consider Basic Instinct to be satirical and feminist, but I don't see it at all. ---- The Love Witch, on the other hand, is amazing. I wrote a long review here, but suffice to say if you have any affection whatsoever for 60's sexploitation, it's a must see.

I'm surprised it took this long to hear what Jake thought of the Nintendo Switch. They talked about New Donk City when all that stuff was coming out but, unless I'm mistaken, the system hasn't actually been discussed at length on IT before this episode? Something I've waited a while for, it was worth it.

Season 7 opener continues the nonsense. It's all summed up via Wikipedia's production notes on the episode: You know. That everyman Jesus.

I get not wanting to collect CDs (100% agreed on cases feeling cheap and junky), but I think they are one of the best ways to discover albums now because the market for vinyl has driven up used record prices while used CDs are cheap and sound as good as they ever have. Also, the only decent speakers I own are connected to my TV, which is connected to a blu-ray player, so that's the only way I can listen to music not through bad laptop speakers or earbuds. *That is to say, albums by professional musicians, as I also just download a lot of whatever's new on the "lo-fi" tag on Bandcamp.

I spent 10 minutes trying to remember what the hell this could be referencing before I remembered that there's a feed with ads. Nice glasses!

Something that was said and unexamined that I was curious about is Chris's assertion that he'd "feel stupid" buying albums. Why? He clearly likes physical media to some extent (not just holding onto the Sony Walkman, but he's talked about buying blu-rays of Twin Peaks and Batman) and we're in an era now where record collecting is more popular and mainsteam than it's been in decades (I heard there's even an Idle Thumbs vinyl). I wonder what Chris's personal reason for feeling dumb buying albums is.