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mangosteenSo, as I was saying.....
Yesterday began at 0620 EDT, when my sweetie and I got up to catch a plane to PDX.
"Yesterday" ended at 0300 EDT, having just come back from belting out "Baby Got Back" at a karaoke night at a tiki bar in Northeast Portland.
I'll call that a success.
What is there to say about the flight from BOS to PDX? It was as uneventful as such a flight should be, including the six hour layover in CVG. For one thing, six hour layovers aren't all that bad if you know they're coming. I have books, I have a laptop, and I have a statistically significant reading list.
Observation: It's only when I genuinely lack net that I actually start reading again. Net is fast. Reading is slow. However, reading is fast when there's no net, because plane flight is slow. More on "fast" and "slow" later.
Here's what I read on the plane flights, and the six-hour layover in CVG.
Papers:
Bai M., "The Framing Wars", The New York Times Magazine, 17 July 2005.
- Interesting treatise on Lakoff's concept of "framing", and how it's viewed, eight months out from Kerry's defeat.
- If this guy is right, the DLC really doesn't get it. At some point, you need ideas, and the DLC still doesn't actually have them in any way that can be voiced and decided on.
Ronfeldt D., "Social Science at 190 MPH on NASCAR's Biggest Speedway",
first monday, http://www.firstmonday.dk, February 2000.
- An interesting treatise on the co-operative competition needed to win NASCAR races, and how that's reflected in other cultural constructs.
Trebilcock M.J., "Critiques on 'The Limits of Freedom of Contract', a Rejoinder", Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2, 1996.
- A discussion about the limits of the concept of "Freedom of Contract", as written by an author in response to his critics. It's a particularly lurid example of academic masturbation, but it has some fairly interesting things to say.
- Life isn't fair, but there is no peace without justice. Ergo, sometimes a society has to enforce fairness for a just outcome.This includes contract law. The free-market fundamentalists I know who mouth the words "Freedom of Contract", tend to think that coercion begins and ends with a gun to the head, and that the prinicpal-agent problem doesn't exist because everyone has access to a college education and lawyers who can look over all contracts that they may sign now or in the future.
- Ergo, the actual case law on the limits of "Freedom of Contract" are fascinating to me, and I'm trying to learn the relevant litmus tests.
Books:
Salen K., Zimmerman E., "Rules of Play", MIT Press, 2005.
- A textbook-sized treatise on the essential components of game design theory, including Rules, Culture, the nature of Play, etc.
- Currently up to Chapter 2.
So, long (section of the) story short, we touched down in Portland, made it over to Darklady Estates in beautiful Northeast Portland, regrouped for an hour or so, and then headed out to dinner at a tiki bar. Why? Because when the hell else am I going to do it? Travel allows me to live out-of-context, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to take advantage of it.
So![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bookteacher, myself, Darklady, and her housemate were at a tiki bar. On karaoke night. Perhaps I should mention that, for all that people might think I would be uniquely tempermentally suited to karaoke, the last time I had been looking at the business end of a karaoke microphone was around 15 years ago, during freshman orientation at my alma mater. It has been a combination of lack of opportunity and lack of inclination since then. Still, if being in a tiki bar on karaoke night with a couple of beers in your system and full knowledge that you're still likely in the lowest quintile for drunkenness isn't a perfect opportunity to sing heartfelt renditions of songs that you almost remember the lyrics to, I don't know what is.
List: A brief listing of Karaoke styles for American rock music, as noted by yours truly.
After much encouragement by others at the table, I put myself in the rotation. Living by the guideline that if you're going to make an ass out of yourself, you have to go all the way, I decided on "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. I will note that by this time, Johnny Barleycorn had lowered the good-idea bar to the point where this sounded like an utterly reasonable proposition.
"I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CAN NOT LIE" ....and so it begins. Every lyric a gem of booty glorification, being sung by a white guy who has rhythm, a bit of soul, and an utter disregard for looking like an idiot. This included the apprpriately timed pelvic thrusts, pantomimed booty smacks, and other such things. You really had to be there.
Observation: Getting high-fives from ten people you've never met upon the completion of a karaoke song will make you do something silly... like putting yourself back into the rotation.
The next song was "Piano Man". I managed to make the right motions to get people to put arms around each others' shoulders and sway along. This one is a no-brainer to please the crowd, except that Billy Joel made good use of the two-octave range that he had when he wrote the song. It's evidently really easy to screw up, but I ended up making it sound pretty good. Another bunch of high-fives ensued. At that point is was around 3am EDT and we'd been running non-stop for 21 hours. Having decided to declare victory and go home, we headed back to beautiful Darklady Estates, and unceremoniously passed out.
Not bad for the first day.
Yesterday began at 0620 EDT, when my sweetie and I got up to catch a plane to PDX.
"Yesterday" ended at 0300 EDT, having just come back from belting out "Baby Got Back" at a karaoke night at a tiki bar in Northeast Portland.
I'll call that a success.
What is there to say about the flight from BOS to PDX? It was as uneventful as such a flight should be, including the six hour layover in CVG. For one thing, six hour layovers aren't all that bad if you know they're coming. I have books, I have a laptop, and I have a statistically significant reading list.
Observation: It's only when I genuinely lack net that I actually start reading again. Net is fast. Reading is slow. However, reading is fast when there's no net, because plane flight is slow. More on "fast" and "slow" later.
Here's what I read on the plane flights, and the six-hour layover in CVG.
Papers:
Bai M., "The Framing Wars", The New York Times Magazine, 17 July 2005.
- Interesting treatise on Lakoff's concept of "framing", and how it's viewed, eight months out from Kerry's defeat.
- If this guy is right, the DLC really doesn't get it. At some point, you need ideas, and the DLC still doesn't actually have them in any way that can be voiced and decided on.
Ronfeldt D., "Social Science at 190 MPH on NASCAR's Biggest Speedway",
first monday, http://www.firstmonday.dk, February 2000.
- An interesting treatise on the co-operative competition needed to win NASCAR races, and how that's reflected in other cultural constructs.
Trebilcock M.J., "Critiques on 'The Limits of Freedom of Contract', a Rejoinder", Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2, 1996.
- A discussion about the limits of the concept of "Freedom of Contract", as written by an author in response to his critics. It's a particularly lurid example of academic masturbation, but it has some fairly interesting things to say.
- Life isn't fair, but there is no peace without justice. Ergo, sometimes a society has to enforce fairness for a just outcome.This includes contract law. The free-market fundamentalists I know who mouth the words "Freedom of Contract", tend to think that coercion begins and ends with a gun to the head, and that the prinicpal-agent problem doesn't exist because everyone has access to a college education and lawyers who can look over all contracts that they may sign now or in the future.
- Ergo, the actual case law on the limits of "Freedom of Contract" are fascinating to me, and I'm trying to learn the relevant litmus tests.
Books:
Salen K., Zimmerman E., "Rules of Play", MIT Press, 2005.
- A textbook-sized treatise on the essential components of game design theory, including Rules, Culture, the nature of Play, etc.
- Currently up to Chapter 2.
So, long (section of the) story short, we touched down in Portland, made it over to Darklady Estates in beautiful Northeast Portland, regrouped for an hour or so, and then headed out to dinner at a tiki bar. Why? Because when the hell else am I going to do it? Travel allows me to live out-of-context, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to take advantage of it.
So
bookteacher, myself, Darklady, and her housemate were at a tiki bar. On karaoke night. Perhaps I should mention that, for all that people might think I would be uniquely tempermentally suited to karaoke, the last time I had been looking at the business end of a karaoke microphone was around 15 years ago, during freshman orientation at my alma mater. It has been a combination of lack of opportunity and lack of inclination since then. Still, if being in a tiki bar on karaoke night with a couple of beers in your system and full knowledge that you're still likely in the lowest quintile for drunkenness isn't a perfect opportunity to sing heartfelt renditions of songs that you almost remember the lyrics to, I don't know what is.List: A brief listing of Karaoke styles for American rock music, as noted by yours truly.
- "I know the chorus really well, but I have no bloody idea how the rest of the song goes." (Amusing, esepcially when they kind of mumble through the verses, and then reach up from their colon to belt out the chorus of "Heartbreaker")
- "I know the song, and the lyrics, but the rhythm fairy never came to visit." (arguably the most painful).
- "I heard the song on the radio, but the lyrics on the screen are new and interesting." (This can actually end up well.)
- "I'm going to try to dance along to the song, and occasionally remember to sing." (Has aesthetic appeal, but somewhat misses the point.)
- "My friends bet me that I wouldn't sing this song." (Tell your freinds to stop. They're hurting America.)
After much encouragement by others at the table, I put myself in the rotation. Living by the guideline that if you're going to make an ass out of yourself, you have to go all the way, I decided on "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. I will note that by this time, Johnny Barleycorn had lowered the good-idea bar to the point where this sounded like an utterly reasonable proposition.
"I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CAN NOT LIE" ....and so it begins. Every lyric a gem of booty glorification, being sung by a white guy who has rhythm, a bit of soul, and an utter disregard for looking like an idiot. This included the apprpriately timed pelvic thrusts, pantomimed booty smacks, and other such things. You really had to be there.
Observation: Getting high-fives from ten people you've never met upon the completion of a karaoke song will make you do something silly... like putting yourself back into the rotation.
The next song was "Piano Man". I managed to make the right motions to get people to put arms around each others' shoulders and sway along. This one is a no-brainer to please the crowd, except that Billy Joel made good use of the two-octave range that he had when he wrote the song. It's evidently really easy to screw up, but I ended up making it sound pretty good. Another bunch of high-fives ensued. At that point is was around 3am EDT and we'd been running non-stop for 21 hours. Having decided to declare victory and go home, we headed back to beautiful Darklady Estates, and unceremoniously passed out.
Not bad for the first day.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 11:00 am (UTC)Maybe when you next come over, we could find an appropriate bar to do that duet we were talking about? ;-)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-07 09:52 pm (UTC)You've got yourself a deal. :)
Perhaps late fall or early winter.
More when I know.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 12:07 pm (UTC)Oh, I really wish I had been. The mental image is so damn entertaining :)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 01:08 pm (UTC)However, I once took my darling daughters to an exhibition of all sorts of "family" (read: kid) related stuff (including rentable Moon-Walks, healthy frozen yogurt pops, etc.), and one of the exhibitors had a karaoke machine. We heard a few girls (yes, girls; boys shunned this exhibit) belt out a few pop tunes and sound okay doing so, when my elder got in line.
The name of the tune she massacred is called "Are You Happy Now?", and was a hit at the time. (Google tells me the original artist was someone named Michelle Branch, but I'm of the wrong generation to know that.) Alyssa knew the tune. She knew most of the words, and could read the rest. I'd heard her sing similar songs in the car before, so I know that she can sing quite well. But with microphone in hand, she was missing notes as extremely as by minor fourths. She was all over the map, and hurting people. I can only assume that she literally couldn't hear herself, or potentially the monitors.
When she was done, she handed the microphone back to the DJ (who has survived many a girl's birthday party and thus was dealing), and fairly bounded back to me with the largest grin that her face could support.
I didn't have the heart to tell her at the time. Since then, I've taught her the trick of plugging one ear so she can hear herself as well as those she's making music with.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 03:26 pm (UTC)*laughs to the point of tears*
Oh, Mangosteen, how I love thee. My gods, man! Next time get video if you're going to pull stunts like that! That's utterly beautiful.
I'm glad the PDX trip is being so much fun. I understand that you've bumped into a lad I know from there... what I wanna know is how the name of
no subject
Date: 2005-08-04 05:53 pm (UTC)i don't know -- i find "know the song and lyrics, but the intonation fairy never came to visit" to be even more painful.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-05 01:14 am (UTC)