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tirebiter |
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:49 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4011
Location: not far away
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ehle64 |
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:00 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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_________________ It truly disappoints me when people do something for you via no prompt of your own and then use it as some kind of weapon against you at a later time and place. It is what it is. |
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bparton454 |
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:22 am |
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Joined: 30 Mar 2007
Posts: 12
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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Okay, so here's a question I've had for many years:
Men's briefs have that silly little slit in the front, presumably to pull your dictator through when necessary. Yet I have never known a single man or boy in my life who uses the thing - they all just push down the front of the brief. So what genius thought up the slit, and did he use it himself? |
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tirebiter |
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:37 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4011
Location: not far away
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I'm a leg-hole man myself.
Did you know that one of the worst things you can call a man in Germany is a sitzpinkler? It means a man who sits down to pee.
They're cruel, those Germans. |
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ehle64 |
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:46 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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This is funny stuff!
If I happen to be wearing underwear, I use the little slithole, myself. |
_________________ It truly disappoints me when people do something for you via no prompt of your own and then use it as some kind of weapon against you at a later time and place. It is what it is. |
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carrobin |
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:46 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Sitzpinkler goes on my Favorite Words list. Can't wait to use it. |
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bparton454 |
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:47 pm |
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Joined: 30 Mar 2007
Posts: 12
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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ehle64 wrote: This is funny stuff!
If I happen to be wearing underwear, I use the little slithole, myself.
AHA! So you still wear tighty-whities!!! |
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Syd |
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 10:25 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I finally finished The Namesake after misplacing it a couple of times. The first fifty pages, it turns out, are the best part of the novel, and Ashoke and Ashima are the best characters in the novel. The rest of the novel is often brilliant and worth reading, although light on plot. The novel becomes a series of episodes in Gogol's life, taking him up to the age of 32. When he goes to school, he insists on keeping the name Gogol, a decision he later regrets, especially when he finds out Nikolai Gogol lived a rather painful life, gradually tending toward insanity, and died young. We have Gogol's first love , his second, more mature love, and his marriage. Lahiri handles love beautifully and poignantly. This is fortunate, because Mira Nair directed the movie version, and it's one of her strengths as well.
The best moment in the novel is near the beginning where Ashima is getting ready to meet her future husband for the first time and sees his shoes by the door. On an impulse, she tries them on, feeling the warmth and moisture of his feet, in effect touching him before they've ever met.
Gogol has to deal with three cultures, the Indian culture of his parents, the American one he grows up in (most of the time he's American to the heart), and the Russian culture in his name that he refuses to acknowledge. The end of the novel is very moving.
From reading her first novel, I suspect Lahiri is stronger as a short story writer than as a novelist although that will probably change as she grows more comfortable with longer forms. I'll have to check out her collection (which won a Pulitzer Prize, no less).
I was reminded a bit of another family saga, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, which also dealt with conflicts of culture, but in a less benign way, since the conflicts were within Afro-American culture and the shadow of slavery. Since Song of Solomon is my favorite mainstream American novel of the last forty years, that's not a bad thing to be reminded of. |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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Syd |
Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 10:47 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I also read You Suck, which is Christopher Moore's new novel, a sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends, which I recommend you read first. I also recommend you read A Dirty Job second, because one of the scenes here, where Jody the Vampire takes an object to a mysterious antique store, is seen from the shopkeeper's point of view in A Dirty Job, and makes more sense when you read that first. (But read Bloodsucking Fiends first, since you'll want to know who Jody is first.)
All of Christopher Moore's novels take place in the same fictional universe, with the possible exception of The Stupidest Angel, which I haven't read, and maybe Fluke. Lamb, the story of Jesus as told by his best friend Biff (in the Bible called Levi) has an appearance by the demon who appears in Practical Demonkeeping, and most of that novel takes place in the same city as The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove.
I like all of Moore's novels except for Fluke, and You Suck is funny, weird and sexy. Moore is in some ways a more recent version of Thorne Smith, but he can afford to be less coy since he can get away with things Smith had to hint at. You Suck is also largely superfluous although its fun. The novel continues the story of Jody, who was turned into a vampire in Bloodsucking Fiends, her lover Tommy, who she has now turned into a vampire, the ancient vampire who turned Jody for sport, and the Animals, a bunch of slackers who work nights at a supermarket engaging in such sports as turkey bowling. The Animals have also been to Las Vegas, and come back to San Francisco with a hooker named Blue who is after the money they and Tommy made in the previosu novel.
With Moore, I recommend you read the novels in the order written, including the first, Practical Demonkeeping, even though it's not as polished as the others. Coyote Blue and Lamb are the best, but I love Island of the Sequined Love Nun, and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is just plain fun. |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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whiskeypriest |
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 7:55 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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bparton454 wrote: Okay, so here's a question I've had for many years:
Men's briefs have that silly little slit in the front, presumably to pull your dictator through when necessary. Yet I have never known a single man or boy in my life who uses the thing - they all just push down the front of the brief. So what genius thought up the slit, and did he use it himself? I, er... well, I use the, you know, slit thing. |
_________________ I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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bart |
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:03 pm |
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Joined: 05 Dec 2005
Posts: 2381
Location: Lincoln NE
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You know, I decided to look in the reading forum here after some months hiatus, looking to find some stimulating book chat and maybe some meaningful assessments of the Vonnegut oeuvre, or at least some nascent chat about the man. And what do I find? NYT refugee Bparton delving into pee methods!
Kurt would have loved that.
And there is nothing silly about that slit in the front when you are in a public restroom and you don't want to remove, or even unbuckle your pants, to relieve yourself in an expeditious manner. And, if I may descend into a crude and suggestive mode here (and I may; who's to stop me?), a "little slit" will expand and loosen with repeated use, Thus, what is initially an "Escape From Alcatraz" soon becomes "Leaving Las Vegas."
OK, I don't have the movie title metaphor thing quite working, but you know what I mean. |
_________________ Former 3rd Eye Member |
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marantzo |
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:22 pm |
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I have switched to boxer shorts now that I have heard that 95% of women prefer them. Unfortunately I haven't got a chance to test out that poll result. They usually have one button on the slit (I prefer the silky kind) which is a nuisance to button up and sometimes when I have to unbutton it I find that I've buttoned my shirt to it. |
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bparton454 |
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:43 pm |
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Joined: 30 Mar 2007
Posts: 12
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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bart wrote: You know, I decided to look in the reading forum here after some months hiatus, looking to find some stimulating book chat and maybe some meaningful assessments of the Vonnegut oeuvre, or at least some nascent chat about the man. And what do I find? NYT refugee Bparton delving into pee methods!
Kurt would have loved that.
And there is nothing silly about that slit in the front when you are in a public restroom and you don't want to remove, or even unbuckle your pants, to relieve yourself in an expeditious manner. And, if I may descend into a crude and suggestive mode here (and I may; who's to stop me?), a "little slit" will expand and loosen with repeated use, Thus, what is initially an "Escape From Alcatraz" soon becomes "Leaving Las Vegas."
OK, I don't have the movie title metaphor thing quite working, but you know what I mean.
Bart - Sorry, but I've been reading too much of Notes and Queries on The Guardian online recently, so I'm coming up with my own silly questions. |
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carrobin |
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 2:44 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Speaking of Vonnegut (someone did, right?), fans in NYC are in luck tonight because I just read that the NY1 channel is going to run a 2005 interview with him that didn't run originally because he had some rude things to say about Bush. That's at 8:30 tonight on channel 1, says the Daily News. |
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bart |
Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:25 am |
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Joined: 05 Dec 2005
Posts: 2381
Location: Lincoln NE
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I want us all to take a close look at this comment, from Gary Marantz:
"I have switched to boxer shorts now that I have heard that 95% of women prefer them. "
If women preferred men wrapped in tinfoil and barbed wire, would you wear that? Who cares what women prefer, vis-a-vis your male body, especially when it's something you will, one hopes, be removing shortly after it is revealed by prior disrobing steps? Throw off the shackles of the repressive matriarchy and wear the undies that YOU like! |
_________________ Former 3rd Eye Member |
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