Congratulations for the United States of America’s 231st birthday!
Ralf Goergens
Gregarious gluttony
From a book review by Caitlin Flanagan:
As for what they [female college students around 1900] ate — just about anything that wasn’t nailed down, apparently. One cannot read this book and continue to believe that the “disordered eating” that besets so many college women is a recent phenomenon. Today it may be marked by grimly endured starvation campaigns or bulimia, but in decades past it was the stuff of a strange glee: festive communal gorging. The midnight suppers or “spreads,” once a major pleasure of college girls’ lives, were conducted around a chafing dish — by the 1890s, it was a popular gift for a college-bound girl — in which the hostess cooked rarebits, omelets, and (most popular of all) pan after pan of fudge. By the early 20th century, groups of female eaters commonly gave themselves nicknames: the Stuffers, the Nine Nimble Nibblers, the Grid L. Kakes. While college men during the same period were forging friendships through cane rushes, fraternity hazing, and other acts of ritualized violence, the girls ate — and ate — their way to community and affection.
Sounds like fun, and much healthier than anorexia or bulimia.
‘History’s Shortest Geological Column’
Russel Seitz offers at the Adamant ‘Deep Time For Dummies’, ‘Biblically Correct Geochronology’, based on ‘the addition of Begats by eminent 17th century divine Archbishop Ussher and the noted Revelation scholar & alchemist Sir Isaac Newton’:
A brief excerpt:
…
2584 B.C.: Earliest sedimentation; discovery of slate leads to stone tablets.
…2384 B.C.: Breathable atmosphere develops; first sermon preached.
…1794 B.C.: Children of Ham split from Israelites, insisting that the Burgess Shale fauna are kosher; chowder invented.
1704 B.C.: Charshumash the Hittite bitten by first vertebrate; lawyers emerge from slime.
…
A.D. 494: Snakes evolve and are driven out of Ireland.
Read the whole thing, for it is good.
Silly movie swordfights
John Clements, a professional swordfighter, writes at THEFORCE.NET:
Moves that Look Cool are usually the Stupidest
One of the worst clichés of these fan films (and in professional films too, so don’t feel bad) is this ridiculous spinning around action. I’ve lost count of how many times Obi Wan has used this move so far in two films. Stop trying to spin around at every opportunity! I can’t tell you what a phenomenally useless move this overused cliché really is. Against a skilled opponent it’s virtually suicide. The move is ubiquitous in countless sword fights and each time it’s made to look like it has some value, but in reality, it’s about the most inane thing you could possibly do in a real sword fight. You gain nothing from it. No experienced fighter or fencer is going to intentionally turn his back, taking his eyes off his opponent while exposing his whole body in the process, just so he can turn himself around and bring his weapon back predictably from the other side. To what purpose? It’s not going to make you any more deceptive nor any quicker in your strike nor any better defended. It fools no one, adds no real power, and immensely delays your attack.
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…it’s silly and leaves you horrendously vulnerable. I cringe every time I see it in a sword fight scene.
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The more aware you are of the physicality of personal combat (that is, how the human body actually moves and how a weapon actually performs when fighting in earnest), the more dramatic opportunities you have at your creative disposal. The clear reason why Darth Maul looked so darn menacing as a fighter was the simple fact the performer was a real life martial artist, not an actor just faking it (even if it was often clear he was just doing classic kung fu staff moves). His obvious sense of personal space and balance as well as his firm and agile stances made the other actors look amateurish by comparison.
He concentrates on lightsaber fights, but that stupid spinning move is cropping up in any movie where swords ever make the briefest of appearances. My ‘suspension of disbelief’ comes down crashing down every time it does, making me very aware that I’m watching something made by very silly people. Bah!
On Transatlantic Myths
Link via Atlantic Review:
William Drozdiak writes in his article ‘4 Myths About America-Bashing in Europe’ among other things:
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Europe supposedly lost its relevance. Not true. In fact, Europe and the United States still act as the twin turbines of the global economy, accounting for 60 percent of all trade and investment flows.
Americans invested five times as much money in Germany last year as they did in China, and U.S. firms in total have poured four times as much money into tiny Belgium as they have into India. Europe provides three-quarters of all foreign investment in the United States, creating millions of American jobs.