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Particularly Rambunctious
Well, what were you doing? What kinds of structures did you interact with/scale?— December 14, 2009 7:52 p.m.
"Jesus is the ONLY reason for the season" Billboard
The fact remains that many people get very tired of being told "Merry Xmas" when they and their families have always celebrated a different event, such as Hanukkah. I still don't understand how "Happy Holidays" implies a sterilization of any religious or holiday event, especially as it functions to include, rather than exclude everyone's beliefs and practices. Can you see how your argument about choosing to be offended could--and does--go the other way, too, gringo? You choose to be offended by "Happy Holidays," via a perception of the sterilization of your holiday, while many others are offended by the exclusion or lack of recognition of their practices when they must hear only "Merry Xmas." "Happy Holidays" does not exclude your event, it merely recognizes and celebrates all events and practices of the season.— December 14, 2009 7:35 p.m.
Weld Paddy's Mental Web
re: #6: Sorry Pikey, I misspelled "Oulipo." You are going to LOVE this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Queneau http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Perec http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverb— December 14, 2009 4:45 p.m.
Esther
Hmm, somehow my last sentence got cut off--just wanted to again say thanks for these memories, MsGrant! Let's all raise a glass to that "certain" girl we knew! ;)— December 14, 2009 4:36 p.m.
Esther
MsG, I'm late to the convo, but see that you have gotten the 3am bug like me, I see ;) So yes! I had THREE Esthers in my life, one at age 13 (Rachelle and her sister Rebecca), another at 15 (Lisa), and another at 17 (Sarah), for the span of those roiling, fiercely boiling years of identity soup. I was the foil, the counter, to this kind of bubbly, laughing, fearless girl, who taught me valuable lessons about living in the moment, and a harmless kind of exploitation, using one's natural attributes to gain favors and gifts from the males around us. Rachelle and I were in awe of her 17-year old sister Rebecca, who had bright pink hair and the most angelic face--you know the kind of girl who could wear Doc Martens and shave her head and still glow with gorgeousness and sex appeal? Rebecca had a big white 50s era convertible with those shark fins, the top of which I'd never seen up. She'd drive under Rachelle's window, and we'd scoot from the roof down to the eaves, where we could safely jump into the back of the car. Suddenly, at midnight, we would be speeding away to a destination full of pot, beers, acid, and solemn boys with mohawks and eyeliner, and more holes than jeans. Lisa was a brief interlude before I met Sarah; these girls liked me because I was willing to play sidekick, stewing in my own seriousness, they loved to tease me out of my funks and pessimistic moods. They must have done much more for me than I for them...Lisa was Esther incarnate, but with the added tragedy that not only was she ignored most of the time at home, when she was not, there was a long history of sexual abuse. No wonder we could smoke cigs and drink beers at her house--they were in fact supplied us. When her stepfather tried to molest me, that was the last of Lisa. Then Sarah stepped into the void, and she was the best of all. She and her brother enjoyed a suburban childhood of stable, loving parents; Irish immigrants who began a chain of Irish pubs in Orange County. We'd stop by one of the bars, allowed now and then to enter, when her dad joined the band to sing "Puff the Magic Dragon" or an Irish tune about lasses in bloom for us. Sarah was outrageous; the tallest girl I'd ever met, she was nearly six feet of intimidating beauty and aplomb. She wore half orange and half green on visits back to Ireland, no matter what county they were in. She was naturally pale blonde, and her hair swung around her shoulders as she flashed those laughing green eyes, and in phony Irish brogue imitating her parents, she garrulously chided some boy or another serving as our chauffeur for the evening, "Did I shave my muff for this?"— December 14, 2009 4:26 p.m.
Weld Paddy's Mental Web
"Hmmm... I tried anagraming it like the daily jumble, but the desperately low ratio of vowels to consonants make such an effort impossible. I got as far as "WELD PADDY'S MENTAL WEB" but then, I was down to one 'E' and a whole mess of W's. Clearly, the code is not such as that." Oolipean constraints, anyone? ;)— December 14, 2009 4:29 a.m.
Weld Paddy's Mental Web
My cousin has that exact gate! One night we affixed white dinner candles all along the grape cluster pattern, then lit them and danced around like pagan fools ;)— December 14, 2009 2:10 a.m.
Heart-Rending Reunion
That is most definitely the best piece I've ever seen of his--thanks for posting, NQAD. And to think he'd never read Beckett! The mind boggles...;)— December 13, 2009 11:55 p.m.
Particularly Rambunctious
Sébastien Foucan. Yeah, that's the guy! Also heard the name David Belle--guess they are cofounders of the concept. And the docu was the one I believe I saw, looking it jp a The French "par cours" = "parcours" got bastardized to "parkour" somewhere along the line. It is interesting to find out that freerunning is considered the body of moves, and parkour the "philosophy" behind it, as one commenter noted on the docu page. I think that you hit it, AG, with the idea that the world becomes the practitioner of parkour's literal playground, but there is also this idea of refusing obstacles, and of becoming intimate with architecture in a way that seems to bespeak concepts of quantum physics. With the latter, I'm not entirely sure what I mean, but am thinking that the parkourist (?) or freerunner challenges the idea of displacement of one's physicality in relation to objects around him, and can create/trace paths that don't seem to exist for the rest of us. There is also the idea of allowing problems and solutions to set up intuitively and fluidly, as the freerunner negotiates each obstacle as an aesthetic problem or puzzle, each with its own set of possible moves. Clearly, that idea about physics needs some more development ;) Anyway, it seems that parkour can be considered aesthetically in any number of ways. I wonder if we should consider it to be a form of dance, or a way of 'reading' architecture. What is created is fleeting in time, but makes the most of space--much more dynamically than dance...I love it!— December 13, 2009 10:48 p.m.
Particularly Rambunctious
As far as I know, it is "parcours," invented by a French dude, who amassed quite a following--in the 90s, I think. The British started calling it "parkour" with a "k," and either is acceptable. I have never heard of a distinction between parcours as a set of moves, and "free running" as putting them in action, but then, I haven't been around it for at least a decade. I can well imagine you'd be injured doing this, Pike--so many moves seem to be bone-jarringly, muscle-tearingly, and ass-bruisingly difficult. There was, btw, a great little documentary on the inventor--AG will doubtless pop in and post it with her usual magical haste. ;) Oooh, yeah. Hitting the dry areas and rocks. The days of slip-n-slide are sadly over. Pike ventured: "Is it me or is the "Jhon E Cash" maybe related to Jhoyti Bihanga's vegetarian restaucult on Adams Ave?" P'haps. I was thinking only of the pun on "Johnny Cash." What he, or the Easternization of his name have to do with an outdoor swing set/play center? Beats me :)— December 13, 2009 6:41 p.m.