Friday

Yep, this is from friday's e-mails... better late than never! There will be a second post...
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[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]i hate you all, by the way. except grace, who i'm legally not allowed to, and doors, because everyone needs a little love in their life in the week before they have to stand out in the cold in a kilt.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Buzzfloyd"]blarg.

hate work. want home, sleep, computer games, food.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]want heater to heat room.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Saccharissa"]Want water heater in bathroom. Cold showers are painful but it's better than smelling[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Electric_Man"]You know it's chilly when you find ice on the inside of your car windscreen. I spent the first few minutes of my journey to work straining to see... then the sun appeared directly in front of me, very low in the sky. Stevie Wonder would've had more visibility than me at that point.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]i hate that crap. i know in lower latitudes, this time of year is heck for driving, the sun's so low in the sky you can barely see. dunno if it'd be the same or worse this far north[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Saccharissa"]It snowed on the summit of the mountain last night. Time to be-agger off[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Electric_Man"]Well I'm always fine in the evening because it's properly dark at 5pm now. I hate it when it's a cloudless morning, it means frost and/or ice and the sun in your eyes The sun is also so low that your drop-down visor thing makes little to no difference.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]exactly. you're either going to have to wear welding googles and thus not be able to see anything, or you have to drive with your eyes shut, and thus not be able to see anything.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Electric_Man"]wow, google can do welding too now? they really are expanding their portfolio[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Buzzfloyd"]lol![/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]they can do anything, man. [/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="chrisjordan"]Huzzah.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]go to school, you horrible little rotter.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="chrisjordan"]I'm in school, you horrible big rotter.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Electric_Man"]Now that's a brilliant birthday gift, insults! Why didn't I think of it first!

Happy Birthday Chris, you big-eared freak! *philanthropises (if that's a word)*[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="chrisjordan"]*flaps ears*[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]t's chris's birthday?[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Buzzfloyd"]s it your birthday, chris? happy birthday![/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Rincewind"]Happy Birthday Chris!

You're now one year closer to death!

Huzah![/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Saccharissa"]Many happy returns Chris

Now where's the City of Anarchy update?[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Roman_K"]After approximately 11 hours of sleep, I have finally risen to greet the new day. For some reason it didn't want to greet me back.

It's 21 degrees today, at least indoors, so I'll just laugh at you all while you're still not too frozen to reply. ;-)

Happy birthday, Chris.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]*crucifies*

once he's had a chance to get a bit dessicated, we'll burn him for warmth.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Roman_K"]If you had enough wood to make a man-sized cross then you would have used it up for heating purposes ages ago. So there.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Buzzfloyd"]he's onto us, clay. I wonder if celery would work?[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]don't need a cross for a crucifixion, romano. s'just the latin methodology.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Roman_K"]What does it involve, then?[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]*Shrug* at its most essential, anything involving impalement, with the primary cause of death being exposure or dehydration suffices.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Buzzfloyd"]I thought the cross was a crucial (ho ho) part of it, given that 'crux' is the latin for cross.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Garner"]*shrug* plenty of cultures have similar death sentences, only the romans had a + shaped cross. i think the japs had something like an X, but plenty of societies would just nail you to a tree and be done with it.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Saccharissa"]The more creative ones would bury you to the neck and leave you to the red ants[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Roman_K"]Our lot just used to stone people, and even that wasn't too common.[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Saccharissa"]I didn't mention stoning because I either remember the opening act of the Life of Brian and I laugh until my brain leaks out of my ears, or I remember the stonings that still take place in Muslim countries and I fume until my brain leaks out of my ears[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Buzzfloyd"]we just used to chop their heads off or hang them. quick deaths are less cruel.[/quote:361b6bf434]



[quote:361b6bf434="Saccharissa"]Less cruel all around. With hemlock the condemned can chat for 500 pages more[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Buzzfloyd"]heh[/quote:361b6bf434]

[quote:361b6bf434="Roman_K"]So no drawing and quartering was ever involved?

In any case, a hanging can be a much slower death than a stoning.[/quote:361b6bf434]

The second half, with a slightly different theme...
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[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]what is this, the 'whose culture is best' competition? quick, let me whip out my pocket shakespeare![/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Roman_K"]Now, I *could* have whipped out a distilled collection of the Elders, but a fair bit of it is arguments regarding what said wisdom was, by said Elders.

Plus, until I get a pocket computer, sometime in the far future, I won't have a big enough pocket.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]I set my john wesley against your rabbi ben maimon![/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]I see your john weasly and I raise you a Socrates[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]dagnabbit. ok, I see your socrates, and I give you charles darwin.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]I see your Charles Darwin and I raise you a Hippocrates[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]I see your hippocrates and I raise you a thomas aquinas.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]I see your Thomas Aquinas and I raise you a John Goldmund[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]I haven't even heard of him. does that mean I win or lose?[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Roman_K"]Haven't heard of him either.

In any case, I call, and raise an Einstein, a Freid, and a couple of composers whose names I can't remember.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom

He is celebrated by the Church of England on September 13nth

Roman: a Freid?!?[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Roman_K"]Freud, then. My brain is not up to the task of remembering the correct spelling at the moment.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]Which one, Sigmund or Anna?[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Roman_K"]Sigmund[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]Wrong answer. After really poring over the Old Testament and seeing just how many dysfunctional families were there, starting from Cain and Abel and taking it from there, Sigmund's scientific breakthrough doesn't seem like such an innovation anymore.

Whereas Anna had the gutzpah to be a scientist, an atheist and a homosexual in a very hostile environment[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]I see your nearest cultural equivalent to Voltaire and I raise you Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Thomas Paine.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]I see all of them and I raise you a Papanicolaou (the inventor of the Pap smear)[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]I see your Pap Smear and I raise you any half dozen nazi scientists who were brought over to the states in opperation paperclip.

I also see you Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Alan Poe, Robert Frost, Robert Hunter, Hunter S Thompson, Thomas Jefferson, and... um... DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]I see that lot and I raise you a Dean Tavoularis[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]don't know who he is, so i'll raise you Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, George Washington Carver, and Ken Kessy[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]I see them and i raise you Pericles, Solon, Dracon and Aristeidis[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]Pericles is fictional, so I call you with Natty Bumpo.

For the others, I raise you Patton, McArthur, Eisenhower, Lee, Stuart, Forest, Jackson and Longstreet, as well as Wilson, both Rosevelts, and Truman. [/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]Pericles is not fictional![/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]how about a nelson, a wellington, a warwick and a henry v?[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]Okay, this is where I find myself at a disadvantage because while I have the necessary knowledge of british and american history to know who are the people you are throwing on the table, I cannot easily retaliate because of a) the lamentable decline of classic studies on a world-wide basis b) the flat refusal of everyone but the most die-hard fans of Xena to try and learn, let alone pronounce greek names.

BUT

Until a brit throws Terry Pratchett on the table I have no intention of folding.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]I call tolkien, lewis, le guinn, gaiman, rankin and pratchett.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]what, the medusa and the horse with wings and all that? or do i have the wrong guy? was pericles the one who killed the bull headed thug in the labyrinth? [/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]I fold[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]John Paul Jones, Forest (again), Green, Lee (again), and Jackson (different one)[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]michael jackson constitutes instant penalties! [/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]Pericles was the one who footed the bill for the Parthenon. If he wasn't real, we would have heard of the IRS finding the offshore company who dreamed up the pyramid scam centuries ago[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]Ole Hickory, fool! and Stonewall the first time. i have a niggling suspicion that they're both named 'andrew', but i'm not sure about Stonewall.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]Angelou. She's greek[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]Poe, Melville, Steinback, Guthrie, Frost, Anjalou (sp), Houghs, Faulkner, Borroughs, Karouac, Hemmingway, and...

Bob Dylan.

Award me my nation's prize.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]dylan doesn't beat shakespeare.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]you wasted shakespeare too early in the betting, honey. dylan beats tolkien, lewis, le guinn, gaiman, rankin, and pratchett on his own.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]dylan doesn't beat tolkien on his own.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Roman_K"]I think Dylan can be safely moved to my part of the table. Also, the US should be disqualified due to Britney Spears.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]I remember reading a biography of Dylan written by an israeli. the first chapter was about how Dylan was coming to play a show in Israel once, and there was a HUGE media blitz over it, 'bob's coming home!' was the gist.

Dylan's plane landed, he ignored all press agents and conferences, stayed out of sight until the concert, played short sets of B-material, and then left straight to the airport and flew on to the next stop.

dylan's next concert in israel wasn't given any such 'prodigal son returns' hooplah.

You're better off grabbing at Tolstoy and Moses, man. None of us can lay claim to Leo, and Moses trumps shakespeare AND milton.

also, before you even invoke them, I'll see your Cabbots, both of them, and raise you Aldran, Sheppard, and Glenn.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]moses goes in a different category, I think, but david could trump shakespeare.

also, I misread tolstoy as trotsky.

Clay, who on earth are those three? I give you captain cook and david livingstone. also edmund hillary.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]Buzz Aldran, Alan (i think) Sheppard, John Glenn.

astronauts. discovered the moon and stuff.

moses wrote much of what milton and shakespeare's culture was rooted in and, in many ways, based upon.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]oh, aldrin.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]honey, dylan TIES shakespeare. he trumps anyone else.

FURTHERMORE, up until 1776, our cultures are the same, thus shakespeare is one of MINE, and i'll see your tolkien and raise you shakespeare. I'll also raise you one Heinlein, Clark, and Asimov, along with Gygax and whats his name who came up with the Forgotten Realms setting.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]dylan doesn't tie shakespeare.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]yes, he rather does.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="OmKranti"]R.A. Salvatore? - the Forgotten Realms guy?[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Saccharissa"]If yes, you're disqualified chum![/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]noooooooo not that homoerotic tosspot. the guy who invented the setting itself. some geek who used to contribute articles to Dragon magazine. [/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]I don't think so. shakespeare invented a substantial portion of the english language. he was the man who turned phrases that we use in everyday conversation without even realising he wrote them: "I'll not budge an inch"; "we have seen better days"; "a dish fit for the gods"; "it's greek to me"; "to thine own self be true".[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]dylan's impact on the language is not as great, i'll give you that, but he's more influential within his field than shakespeare was within his, and i'd bet dylan is as equally quoted, covered, and translated as shakespeare.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]hundreds of quotes from shakespeare are used *daily* as part of our ordinary vocabulary of metaphor and idiom. furthermore, I highly doubt that dylan is as much quoted, covered and translated as shakespeare. possibly within the USA, but certainly not in the rest of the world, and definitely not even close in most of europe.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]people listen to 'rock' music throughout europe. you cannot deny dylan's influence on the genre. it's not always first generation, but it's there. [/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Electric_Man"]No way is Dylan close to being equally covered, especially if you mean in school. My schooling covered two works of Shakespeare and none of Dylan.

If you mean covered as in 'people have performed his work', then i still
think Shakespeare would win hands down. Especially as a lot of stuff actually includes some sort of parody/homage to one his plays.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]that's not a cover, that's a tribute. dylan receives more popular tribute in the same fashion than shakespeare.

look, let's move away from the bard, who even unpatriotic brits have a strong attachment to.

in the realm of 20th century poets, i think we can ALL agree that john lennon changed the world, yes? had the beatles not existed, life and culture would not be as we know it today, yes?

the beatles, who changed the world, were influenced by dylan. lennon wrote parodies of dylan songs, and they all played with him at varying points.

ergo, dylan changed the world.

now, in 400 years, let's see if people are still singing 'all along the watchtower' or not, but right here, right now, dylan has consistently shaped american (and thus, for good or ill, the world's) popular culture, and his influence is far reaching enough to influence artists and musicians and poets the world over.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]people speak english, read english literature and perform plays throughout europe and the world. you can't deny shakespeare's impact on language, literature, the theatre, popular music lyrics, poetry and the english identity both through his own work and his impact on the work of successive generations.

hey, no one's arguing that dylan hasn't had an impact. I'm saying that shakespeare had a *greater* impact.

I wonder if I can get hold of a list of the words shakespeare invented and see how many show up in dylan's lyrics.

also, shakespeare plays are performed almost continually around the globe. if dylan's the most covered rock artist, shakespeare's the most covered playwright.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]i don't think dylan's ever said 'slugabed', but that's irrelevant.

shakespeare has stood the test of time, he's got a leg up. shakespeare does NOT trump Homer, for the same reason. Homer's influence on all of western civlization is ONLY rivaled by moses, because of compound literary interest.

dylan has, in his day, had more of an impact that shakespeare had in his. this is INCLUDING the fact that shakespeare had a tremendous impact in his own day. not denying that. acknowledging it and building from it. with me?

now, in 400 years time, i'm sure billy S will still be going strong. what remains to be seen is where dylan is in cultural consciousness by then.

grace, 16:01: you can't deny shakespeare's impact on language,

clay, 15:47: dylan's impact on the language is not as great, i'll give you that[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]those are not contradictory, and language was part of a whole list of things. I was also deliberately paraphrasing you.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Garner"]which is why i say dylan is america's answer to shakespeare. popular music is one of the three great entertainments of the 20th century. movies and, in the second half, television, make up the other two. in shakespeares day, we had plays, music, and books.

given: shakespeare wrote the best plays. he wrote fanasticly successful poems as well. he didn't touch music.

given: dylan wrote some of the best songs and poems of his, or possibly ANY, generation. he's also had success as a prose author and a visual artist though his impacts and influences there are no where near as far reaching as his musical and lyrical contributions.

i will back down from saying dylan 'trumps' shakespeare, but he IS the closest american equivalent and, i expect, in 400 years time it's quite possible that he'll have 'trumped' shakespeare. the fact that the case CAN be argued now, in his own lifetime, strengthens the claim.

i'm not saying they're contradictory, i'm saying they were redundant. it was not clear you were paraphrasing me, it read like you were trying to refute me.

anyway, the bulk of your arguement boils down to shakespears impact. i'm sure there's lag involved, so i don't feel like this is repeating myself, but we will have to wait 400 years to fully compare dylan's impact to shakespeare's.

given that the nature of information exchange has changed, it's not fully fair to say that dylan's had 'greater' impact in his own lifetime than shakespeare had in his. things move faster these days. still, it's a point that could be argued, and i think dylan has had EQUAL at the least. [/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Buzzfloyd"]future possibilities don't count in this game!

shakespeare has, as you say, stood the test of time, and that is part of why he trumps dylan. I dispute your contention that dylan has had a greater impact in his day than shakespeare had in his. at the point in his career where dylan reached ascendency, shakespeare had equivalent impact at an equivalent point. shakespeare's plays were the most pirated of the era, and he received patronage from the king, legitimising modern theatre; until shakespeare, the bodleian library had refused to shelve play scripts. shakespeare's first folio went into a second printing within nine years, which was unheard of at that time. ben jonson and john milton wrote dedicatory poems in the second folio indicating that shakespeare was the foremost writer of his time. the only contemporaries who came close to him for popularity are beaumont and fletcher.

shakespeare's style was much mimicked during his life and after his death. he was the most performed playwright in every century after his death, too. after the licensing act in 1737, a quarter of the plays performed were by shakespeare. the impact shakespeare had in his day is at least as great as the impact dylan has had. his wider impact multiplies this exponentially.

I don't believe the case can really be argued, except that you've been trying to argue it!

when we're ~425 years old, we'll see![/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Electric_Man"]if you still have your eyesight at 100 it'll be a surprise, let alone 425![/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Rincewind"]If I was Garner I would of used Matt Groening (though we'd have to count the writing team as part of him). The bbc are retelling shakespeare in a modern setting. I've only seen Macbeth, it was ok, But not great.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="OmKranti"]Oh, I would use Jim Morrison. One of the great American poets. And was Dylan Thomas American? He was good too.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

[quote:9d7504daa1="Rincewind"]Well, I recon the simpsons guy, though not a poet, is awsomely amazing.[/quote:9d7504daa1]

This reminds me...

After some careful searches, I could not find any real evidence that Anna Freud was either an atheist or a lesbian. Sigmund was the official atheist.

..mrrp..

Are those IM conversations or mass e-mails that snowball over time?

(I asked my boss if I could install a messaging software on my machine at work, and he said "No, you'll just spend all day talking"... Why, I'd never! )