Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

Jesse OTOH is a complete dick.

Jeff, I have an apology whoopie pie* for you that I am making a major effort not to smush.

*not a euphemism**
**unless you want it to be

i'm sorry to say this but
lol

RIP Jenny: it's sad, she was a how ironic that her need to control everything controlled her

Jon, sorry if my comments last night were frustrating to you. I actually have no personal interest in being snarky or dickish on RIP threads, but it doesn't bother me when other people are. I guess because it makes the thread a more interesting read for me. Nick OTM about the divide re RIP threads.

I was very bad at the internet until I achieve a bit of emotional detachment.

John, I wrote a long-ish post to you and I'm scared to/about you post it b/c it sounds like I'm criticizing you, but I'm not.

And emailing it to you would be weird.

Uh, so, I'm going to post it.

Preface: I want to tell you that everyone likes you and I don't think you're being a frustrating ding-dong anymore.

John, what has been frustrating about your challops is that I've always read your "idgi" statements as you asserting that you genuinely are unable to fathom a concept that most people take for granted - not just that you think the concept is curious, or that you think differently, but that it is utterly foreign to you. Last night you conceded that you were "being ridiculous," which I took to mean that you were strange-ifying something pretty normal in order to learn more about it. Strange-ifying is great and when framed as such can be an invitation to conversation (especially when stoned), but when put forth as "Yeh, but WHY? Why do people do _______?" it's alienating and it puts the listener on the defensive.

Chris P. used to give me the rage with that kind of statement. He insisted that he just didn't get why gym bodies were considered hot, or why people liked orgasms (actual examples that made me really dislike him for a while, but we're pals now). I tried saying stuff like, "What I'm hearing is that you are questioning why people put so much emphasis on getting of when there is so much more to sex blah blah blah...." but he was unyielding.

Both you and Chris P. are great at these sorts of dissection conversations now, and I think you have been a lot more inviting with your inquiries.

Jesse, I said this a couple months ago -- looking at the date, I presume this was conversation was prompted by Amy Winehouse's death:

In a way, I'm envious of people who feel deep emotional connections to celebrities, especially artists. I'm someone who places a lot of value on art and creative pursuits, but I don't know that I've ever had the sort of intense relationships to a performer where I felt like they were speaking to me, or that they'd helped me through some personal emotional event. I guess I understand that if you're that type of person, you would grieve the person's death as though you knew them personally and that snarky comments would feel inappropriate and insensitive. But that kind of relationship is really foreign to me.

I've gotten mildly, momentarily bummed out at a few celebrity deaths, mostly people who I thought were forces of good in the world whose lives were shortened too soon: e.g., Paul Wellstone and David Foster Wallace. That's been about it, though.

― jaymc, Sunday, July 24, 2011 6:57 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Last night you conceded that you were "being ridiculous,"

I don't remember saying this.

ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?

I started out that post trying to say something nice, but it looks like I lost that thread.

Oh, shit, it was jvc, not jaymc.

I mean, I'm being ridiculous of course, but still. Personally I don't see the appeal of shitting on an RIP thread started in good faith by someone who was generally affected by someone, no matter how trivially.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Wednesday, October 5, 2011 11:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I mixed up that post with this one

xp - John, this really feels like old-school "I don't get this obvious thing" jaymc stuff.

You're right, I truly don't get how people can be so affected by a celebrity's death that snark and criticism and contrarian views are in any way bothersome. But people have said that they are indeed affected like that, so I'll drop it.

― jaymc, Wednesday, October 5, 2011 11:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I guess I've learned that some people respond to celebrities' deaths in a different way than I do. Which is totally fine and understandable! The part that I admit I have some trouble getting is why the conversation on ILX has to be tailored to that particular emotional perspective. Maybe your point is that it's just plain common courtesy and respect not to speak ill of the recently deceased, but I don't know that I share that belief, or at least not in the context of a message-board thread about someone none of us know personally.

xpost We're totally friends! I don't take any of it personally. In some ways, I'm interested in why my reaction to this stuff is different from other people's.

OK, cool. Do you and your good bride want to go see Human Centipede 2 tomorrow at midnight?

Hail no.

It's he internet so I know that it's way too much to expect people to say stuff like "Maybe your point is that it's just plain common courtesy and respect not to speak ill of the recently deceased, but I don't know that I share that belief," instead of calling each other assholes (which I did), but that would be nice.

Part of why they get bummed out is because that person brought a certain ongoing improvement to the world, and now that is done. Something is now absent from the world because someone is absent from the world. So there's no need to know the person personally, only to have a personal connection to how they had improved, and were in the midst of improving, the world, the only world.

Pardon the interruption, but holy fucking shit:

Real Lyric Cause livin' with me must have damn near killed you

Artist Nickelback (Click for more)
Song How You Remind Me (Click for more)

I know that I have just sealed my fate of never living down my reputation for mishearing lyrics, but I really just can't believe that the song doesn't say "'Cause Little Women must've damn near killed you." I always wondered what the fuck was behind the literary reference in a Nickelback song, and I imagined I would find an amusing interview in which the lead singer says that he was dating a girl who was writing a thesis on Little Women or something. This calls everything into question.

http://www.kissthisguy.com/2327misheard.htm

Part of why they get bummed out is because that person brought a certain ongoing improvement to the world, and now that is done.

Yeah, actually, I was thinking about Jobs today and did get a little bummed out about that facet of his death. Took me a while to get to that point, though -- maybe because I don't actually know as much about Jobs's life and role within Apple as others do.

I kinda want to jump into this "how to react to celebrity death" discussion but I'm also a bit scared to.

Don't be scared. If Jesse is mean to you, I'll make him the middle piece of my human centipede.

But I think amidst the discussion is what, to me, is the core truth of the whole matter:

"(I)t's just plain common courtesy and respect not to speak ill of the recently deceased" around people who feel some emotional connection to that person for whatever reason (and it is not for you to judge the reason at that time).

Speak ill of the dead all you want, but if somebody is having a real feeling about the death of a famous person (and again, it's not for anybody else to judge the sincerity of that feeling), just step back and let that person get his or her mourn on. I mean, when I learned that David Foster Wallace died, I actually involuntarily sat down (on our coffee table, on a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese, which was absurd but made the whole thing even more poignant because if anybody would have appreciated that, it would be DFW) because I was stunned and upset. That was my feeling to have, you know? Let me have it.

So I feel like RIP threads are for people to do their mourning, and it's just impolite to come in there and question people's feelings or speak ill of the dead. There are a million places to be critical of others on the internet. Just let there be that one place for people to have emotions.

There's a corollary there that goes something like "Just because you have a thought about something doesn't mean you have to express that thought," which I think people who really, really, really need to speak ill of the recently deceased in RIP threads should stop and consider.

Of course, I was full of ill-speak about Andy Rooney in his retirement thread but come on. Fuck Andy Rooney.

Which just shows that everybody's personal guideline is shot through with inconsistencies and exceptions. Although Rooney didn't die.

I guess I try to approach stuff like that the way I would in real life. If I walked into the kitchen at work an coworkers were talking about how they were kinda sad that, say, the lead singer of Nickelback (for lack of a better example) died, the last thing I would do would to loudly intrude on the moment with something like, "yeah, that guy's music sucked and he was kind of a douchebag". I'd just walk away and keep my thoughts to myself, let them have whatever moment they needed - no matter how minimal their gesture may be.

But the thing that really bugged me about the Jobs thread specifically, particularly jaymc's comment to me about how if I was grieving so hard I shouldn't be on the internet, is that people seemed to assume that if you were saying anything remotely genuine, you were some slavish, devoted fanboy who was blubbering with tears or something. As if we couldn't just note that it was sad that some guy died young of a horrible disease and left behind some young kids.

like I said, some people are sad sacks of dicks who need to spend all day on the internet feeling superior because they're boring and their life amounts to shit

Well, that closes that discussion.

Having emotional attachment is good for embalmers and firefighters, but it's bad form to express bemusement to the mourners.

er, detachment

I was trying to make sense of that and it was an interesting experiment.

Which just shows that everybody's personal guideline is shot through with inconsistencies and exceptions. Although Rooney didn't die.

― Antonio Carlos Broheem (WmC), Thursday, October 6, 2011 10:23 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'd like to think if he had actually died I would not have posted in the thread. I would have emailed Jesse about it, though.

I would have some non-cruel things to say. Like I said before, I bought some of his books at a yard sale the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school and I didn't think he was a hack curmudgeon.

hi. just putting in one more plug for the show i'm playing with advance base at the ultra lounge in logan square tomorrow night. i don't know anything about the venue, but we play quiet, sit-down type music so there will be no mosh pit and it will be relaxing. sarah will be there, so you can talk to her. maybe i'll see you there.

also apparently it's free if you rsvp, i guess on facebook?

in other news: http://gizmodo.com/5847571/chicagoans-might-want-to-stock-up-on-ice-melt

Mein Gott I am so happy we're not traveling over the holidays. We'd probably get stuck in Raleigh for a week.

we're supposed to go to DC for xmas :(

no traveling for me this year either, i am SO HAPPY

I don't want really want to keep talking about RIP threads anymore, but I do want to respond to jvc's post:

But the thing that really bugged me about the Jobs thread specifically, particularly jaymc's comment to me about how if I was grieving so hard I shouldn't be on the internet, is that people seemed to assume that if you were saying anything remotely genuine, you were some slavish, devoted fanboy who was blubbering with tears or something. As if we couldn't just note that it was sad that some guy died young of a horrible disease and left behind some young kids.

I have absolutely no problem with anyone noting the sadness of Jobs's death. I just thought there was room for other reactions and perspectives as well and instinctively resisted the idea that only certain posts were "appropriate." My approach to RIP threads is usually, "Here's a good opportunity to talk about this person's life and legacy, in whatever manner one sees fit" -- but I recognize that others may have different expectations, which in the future I'll try to respect. (Or, at least, find somewhere else on the Internet to read dissenting or contrarian opinions.)

Again, I apologize for the aggressiveness of my posts.

we're going to be here for thanksgiving this year though! excited for that. i've had fun when i've gotten to attend friendsgiving.

You all should try saying no to holiday trips one year.

I'd rather perform LASIK in myself than travel during the holidays again.

I'd rather perform my own appendectomy than travel during the holidays again. And I don't even have an appendix.

I'm really hoping Christmas isn't too bad, since we have to do the 6 hour drive to Bay City this year and driving through a snowstorm with our newborn makes me v v v nervous.

I'm traveling during the holidays and looking forward to it so :P on u

i wish we weren't traveling the holidays but for some weird reason our families are constantly like "weeee want to seeee the baaaaaaaaaaabeeeeeee" ugh, freaks

^^^ this is why travelling this year will be unavoidable

^^^ this is why travelling this year for the next 18+ years will be unavoidable