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kestrell, but ended up in my brain by accident somehow. Last night, however, I seem to have gotten some of learnedax's dreams. The 'anxiety about learning all my lines for the play' motif *could* legitimately have been mine -- but it was immediately followed by 'anxiety about not having enough time to pack', and it is *he* who is moving today, not me! Also, far more LARP content in last night's dreams than is quite warranted for someone who has been out of that scene for ages. Methinks Morpheus got his Dorchester Alexen confused.learnedax, did you get dreams about Game Design last night? Or was it a three-way mixup, with you getting dreams about Burlesque, and new_man getting my dreams?A spoken word piece on Shakespeare, the formation of language, and impressing British girls with baseball chatter.
Michael Anderson at the Connecticut Storytelling Festival, April 25, 2009
Video and audio are a little rough, in part because I smash the lapel mic repeatedly during the piece. I rationalize this as a cyber-punk statement against bourgeois production values!
Same-sex marriage. The husband/father and wife/mother roles in the Inherited Obligation model are timeless, unchangeable, and necessary. Someone has to be the husband/father and someone has to be the wife/mother. Same-sex couples just can’t cover both roles, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.
But no comparable difficulty exists in the Negotiated Commitment model. A child has needs, and the parents have to negotiate a plan to meet those needs. Whether the parents are a mixed-sex couple or a same-sex couple - or even a single parent with a lot of committed friends - the problem is the same.
If the government recognizes same-sex marriages and same-sex couples as parents, then it is tacitly siding with the Negotiated Commitment model of marriage and parenthood, and undermining the Inherited Obligation model. This is why conservatives believe that marriage needs to be “defended” from same-sex relationships. But from the Negotiated Commitment point of view, “defense of marriage” is nonsense. How a same-sex couple negotiates its relationship has no effect on the negotiated relationships of mixed-sex couples.
Should We Just Give Up?
As I have discussed these ideas with my friends, surprisingly often they jump to the conclusion that I’m advocating surrender. “So what are saying? That they’re right? What do you want us to do, give up?”
Not at all. But I am saying that we have to drop our self-image as nice guys. The mere fact that people think I’m advocating surrender demonstrates just how attached we are to that image. It’s comforting to think that we only want what’s best for everybody, and that the only reason people oppose us is because they’re stupid. But it’s not true.
Liberals have a vision of how the world should be. I believe in that vision. It is a fairer, more just world than has ever existed before. It is better adjusted to the realities of modern life. And it is, in my opinion, the only vision of the future that does not eventually lead to competing fundamentalisms fighting a world war.
But no matter how peaceful and good our vision is, eggs will be broken to make our omelet. Eggs have already been broken. We need to take responsibility for that. And we can’t expect people with cartons of half-broken eggs to simply shrug and let us do our thing.
kestrell about possible sources for the "witches all have stuffed alligators hanging from the ceiling" trope. She opined that many such odd notions have their origin in Shakespeare, which seemed worth following up on.I do remember an Appothacarie,Now, in its original context, Romeo is clearly saying, "This guy's shop was so run-down, pathetic, and shabby, that I figured he was desperately poor, and thus would be willing to sell me poison." But one can easily see how the folk process could twist that into, "This is guy is evil, and will thus sell me poison," and from there to, "Romeo can tell this guy is evil *because* of the kinds of things hanging in his shop; they must be the sort of things evil poisoners (i.e. witches) always have."
And here abouts a dwells which late I noted,
In tattred weeds with ouerwhelming browes,
Culling of simples, meager were his lookes,
Sharpe miserie had worne him to the bones:
And in his needie shop a tortoyes hung,
An allegater stuft, and other skins
Of ill shapte fishes, and about his shelues,
A beggerly account of emptie boxes,
Greene earthen pots, bladders and mustie seedes,
Remnants of packthred, and old cakes of Roses
Were thinly scattered, to make vp a shew.
Noting this penury, to my selfe I said,
An if a man did need a poyson now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here liues a Catiffe wretch would sell it him.
kestrell, but both of these are primarily about the visuals.)kestrell and I were on the way home on the T. Across from us was a small girl, around 10, accompanied by an older woman, possibly mom or elder sister. The girl was playing with a small stuffed alligator.buzybee/Joan Vacluse de Villaquemada. (Also, apparently, the offspring of Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman.)rickthefightguy quoting The Princess Bride: "Geez, grampa! Why'd you tell me this story?" What reason is there for this book to exist? What was he trying to say that was worth hundred of pages of prose to say it?
