Courage

My favorite Hockney piece has always been a photographic collage, The Scrabble Game (1983).

I don't agree with the criticisms of shallow or cheery--both because I don't see his work that way and because I don't see those qualities as automatic negatives. To each his own!

You might be making a "mountain out of a mohel." Yuk-yuk-yuk.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohel

Sorry--I couldn't resist. I have nothing to add that more knowledgeable people haven't already said better than I could.

Re: Costs of and requirements for PreP.

Pardon my ignorance--I only have become active to any degree in the past few years. Besides the actual pills, what are the costs and requirements for use of PreP?

Someone mentioned regular testing. Is that about it?

Funny story: when I asked (on @Funguy 's rec) about Gardisil as an older adult and my doc looked at me and asked if I was going to be using sex workers. Awkward!

It just means you can now see the steroid acne on guys in gay porn with stunning, lifelike clarity

Hawt.

If it’s a hobbyist magazine, the mag’s demographic is by definition queer.

It's a hobby dominated by old white guys. The magazine probably doesn't want to be a front in the culture war, so I'll leave it at that.

There is a debate whether LGBT, LGBTI or LGBT+ is a single community, but that is a deflection. They suffer types of discrimination and oppression that are similar so it helps to make common purpose.

I think this is important. A hobbyist magazine I read recently ran a story about a school that is "woman and trans" friendly and got some blowback in the letter column lecturing about how the mag's demographic didn't want to hear about it. The managing editor made a very good and brave response. I'm not trans, but wrote my once-a-decade letter to express solidarity.

"Yes, we must indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang seperately"--Ben Franklin

Having grown up uncomfortable with the concept and identity, it's still a bit of a struggle to identify with the terms. I've settled on "gay" because it's short, it explains the situation, and it demonstrates solidarity with the people who've fought so hard.

Hopefully not literally;

Followed the subtitles and heard what sound like pop-type hooks, but even in English there's only a few true pop songs I know well. So I'm definitely not the best judge. I find the popularity of K-Pop by English-speaking audiences to be an intriguing and positive thing, especially these days.

One of my friends recently married a Swedish woman and I asked her why the Swedish rock bands we talk about (The Caesars, The Hives, ABBA) write and sing in English. She basically said that was where the money was.

Here's a not-so-literal English translation, though not quite so accurate a translation, probably more accurate as an interpretation

Thanks! The English version is now a minor highlight of my day today.

Grace Slick, Jefferson Airplane/Starship

I consider Grace Slick's descent from White Rabbit to We Built This City to be an argument for the forced retirement of rock stars. :-P

This one sticks in my head a lot, for some reason...

Interesting. It's like French New Wave or something.

I can't choose because K-pop is inherently earwormy! But here, have one.

Lost in translation for me. :-) I have a friend who loves Asian stuff, particularly Bollywood and Korean pop and soaps--has even been to award shows in the US. I'm pretty sure she doesn't speak any Indian languages or Korean, but she loves it all the same.

So in your twisted world, the only people who can write fiction containing characters of a specific race/ethnicity/religion/sexuality are people of that same race/ethnicity/religion/sexuality? [sNIP] The examples are countless. Your assertion is laughable and ridiculous.

(1) They can try. The results vary. Certainly, hiding the "countless" examples behind the *best* examples is overestimating the quality of all examples.

(2) Some literature *relies* on the texture of personal experience. Some doesn't. There are great examples of both.

(3) A white writer can transliterate dialect flawlessly, research relentlessly, document extensively, and sympathize a whole bunch...but second-hand is second-hand. It works in all directions: black writers' attempts to get into white people's minds can be pretty jarring. To pick an example, Ernest Gaines wrote in the voice of a white college student in a chapter of A Gathering of Old Men...and I didn't think it worked as well as the other voices.

I am moved this old thread has been resurrected.

I didn't realize the music thread was an old thread! Someone exhumed it and I didn't look at OP date.

(Inspired by @latbear4blk) :

The song you can't get out of your head *right now*--not your "favorite" but the one between your ears at the present time.

Mine is "She Don't Use Jelly" by The Flaming Lips, which I heard for the first time a few weeks ago.

Leonardo DiCaprio ;-)

Honesty is the best policy. If someone asks you for a spare dollar, and you don't want to give, just say "No, sorry."

You're right. That day I actually didn't have the wallet--it was notable to me that he persisted. I've told him no without an excuse several times.

I wonder whether we all are choosing a band/artist from our 20s. I am.

My favorite act right now is Cake, which is a band from my 20s (though I didn't discover them until a few years ago).

My other favorites in general descending order are Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Blind Melon. Recently the Flaming Lips have been in my head...a lot.

Through Shazam and YouTube, I've been discovering older artists and now have a much greater appreciation for 60s and 70s rock, and to my great surprise, older country, folk, and even standards.

The reason your 20s bands stand out: science!

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-we-stop-discovering-new-music-around-age-30-2018-6

I kinda thought that might be your inspiration, what with the exclamation point and all.....I remember the hell he took when he started saying that.....then he quietly dropped it a few weeks later......perfect assessment of him in your last sentence!

It was his bid to copycat Walter Cronkite with a signoff. I only realized his greatness when CBS canned him. He wasn't the *equal* of Edward R. Murrow or Cronkite (who weren't the equals of each other), but he was every bit a worthy heir. I don't even know who the anchors are now, but I enjoy following Rather's ramblings on Facebook.

excellent points......thanks

 

Yup. That was partially the inspiration for the [uSER=14922]@Courage![/uSER] handle. Rather is gloriously off-kilter in a noble sorta way.

Where I am, they've gotten more aggressive in their asks. Once I was outside the office, told the guy asking I left my wallet in the office, and he told me to go get it--that guy's been at it for months and seemingly doesn't remember I'm not giving him anything.

I generally don't give money to anyone but buskers. I keep my conscience in check by giving to the homeless shelter and food bank.

Skimming this, I felt like splitting out issues:

(1) The removal of Ingalls Wilder's name from the award.

(2) Discontinuing teaching of Ingalls Wilder's (and others') work to children.

(3) The censoring of Ingalls Wilder's work.

One can be con- one or two of them and be pro- the other(s). For instance, I'm against (3). If you wanna read it, knock yourself out. Because, freedom.

I'm for (1) because the ALA gets to name its own award. I'm also for (2) because there's better stuff out there for most* kids to read, that will (hopefully) beget more reading--which is the point of teaching "reading" as a subject.

*Given limited class time, choices have to be made. If your kid has a thing about the grinding details of frontier life, the Little House books are a blast.

Worst? More like the best—I learned many interesting words from Penthouse Forum.

 

I always hoped there would be a “gay letter” when I read it, but there was not one every month. What a nice treat when there was, though!

Yeah, as a kid who didn't know what "gay" meant I still remember the first time I read an account of gay sex...in Forum. I assume Bob Guccione's people knew their audience better perhaps than the audience knew itself.

The problem is the idea that only certain kinds of books count. Graphic novels, manga, comics and car magazines count, too. Reading is reading.

 

If kids want to read Wilder and their parents are okay with it, that's fine. It'd be nice if they discussed the issues, but I'm not holding my breath.

One of my brothers, who had untreated ADHD back in the day, learned to read from World War II-themed comics that were published well into the 80s.

As to explaining...Frankly, my house might've had too much to read for a precocious little latchkey kid. My mom and the brother mentioned above left stuff around or poorly hidden. I can't blame my "issues" on my Mom's Erica Jong/Alice Walker/Alex Comfort and my brother's 80s porno mags (Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, and maybe the worst for a kid who likes reading, Forum). But they probably didn't help :-D

I read the Little House series of books (I was weird little kid, okay?). I enjoyed them, but even as a kid I got some of the overt stuff. In retrospect, the entire series had a worse blindspot--how the homesteaded land was obtained.

I'll let other people fight over the Little House books' continuing value. Frankly, I understand it's a struggle to get most kids to read--full stop. If that's the case, preserving the legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder shouldn't be what people are worried about.