What are you reading, watching and listening to? - All languages

[Man in Space]

Chinese trio outfit Re-TROS’ KEXP session.

[Zju]

Man vs Bee

[ratammer]

• Most recently finished: "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir
• Currently: "Early Riser" by Jasper Fforde

[bradrn]

• Currently: "Early Riser" by Jasper Fforde

I recall reading this book a couple of years ago. Like a lot of Fforde’s stuff, it was a strange experience… the ideas, characters and plot are all there and brilliant, but he’s just not good enough as a writer to turn it into a really excellent book. This is particularly the case with Early Riser, which I think could have been 10× better if only it was half the length. I don’t know what his editors are doing, but it’s clearly insufficient.

[foxcatdog]

Shit idea, shit execution, prose isn't funny while attempting to be funny but it isn't as bottom of the barrel offensive as say Blood Meridian or Ulysses.

[Raphael]

I'm currently reading Simon Kuper's Chums - How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK. Great fun read, though I wonder a bit about the second part of the title: Did the Oxford Tories really have to take over the UK? Didn't they already have it in the first place?

I'm also a bit surprised that there's a friendly quote from the Daily Mail on the cover. I wouldn't have expected that with a book that's fairly critical of both the upper classes in general and the Tories among them in particular. But don't worry, it's a great book, despite the endorsement from the Daily Mail.

Anyway, at the end of a section on upper class architecture, there's this gem:

The timeless paradise of Oxford inspired its inhabitants to produce timeless fantasies like Alice in Wonderland, The Hobbit, Narnia, and, incubating from the late 1980s, Brexit.

[Raphael]

I'm currently reading Simon Kuper's Chums - How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK.

Finished it. Stayed up until very late at night in my timezone to finish it. That was faster than I had expected.

Great read. My main quibbles are with parts of the last chapter. Kruger reports excitedly on some recent changes at Oxford that, to me, sound suspiciously like the university turned itself from a place for the lazy sons of the British upper class into a place for the hard-working, psychopathic children of the global oligarchy. Kuper seems to see that as "progress", but I myself don't really see how it improves anything.

Thankfully, as if to counterbalance that, there are these words of wisdom:

Even a genuinely meritocratic elite would still tend to coalesce into a distinct caste, living separately from the rest of the population, mostly in London. Its members would still help each other out all their careers, and still tend to lose touch with how everyone else lives. A real meritocracy can be almost as dangerous as a fake one.

There are also some IMO too rose-colored-glasses-like musings on German higher education, including one outright falsehood: Kuper claims that there are no entrance selections at German universities, which is simply not true.

Finally, in the "select bibliography" at the end, there is this priceless entry:

Jan Morris (ed.), The Oxford Book of Oxford (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979)

Doesn't get more Oxford than that, I guess.

[alice]

Jan Morris (ed.), The Oxford Book of Oxford (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979)

Doesn't get more Oxford than that, I guess.

The Oxford Book of Oxford, written by and for Oxonians exclusively in the City of Oxford, and even printed exclusively there too, with every word guaranteed 100% Oxonian?

[zompist]

The Oxford Book of Oxford, written by and for Oxonians exclusively in the City of Oxford, and even printed exclusively there too, with every word guaranteed 100% Oxonian?

And printed by oxen at the actual ford.

[Man in Space]

The Oxford Book of Oxford, written by and for Oxonians exclusively in the City of Oxford, and even printed exclusively there too, with every word guaranteed 100% Oxonian?

And printed by oxen at the actual ford.

And the author drives a Ford Taurus.

[alice]

The Oxford Book of Oxford, written by and for Oxonians exclusively in the City of Oxford, and even printed exclusively there too, with every word guaranteed 100% Oxonian?

And printed by oxen at the actual ford.

And the author drives a Ford Taurus.

And he drives it with actual oxen!

[Travis B.]

And printed by oxen at the actual ford.

And the author drives a Ford Taurus.

And he drives it with actual oxen!

I have this image in my head of a Ford Taurus hitched to a team of oxen in front - lol.

[Raphael]

I have this image in my head of a Ford Taurus hitched to a team of oxen in front - lol.

Reminds me of that time I was travelling by train, the train got stuck in the middle of nowhere for a while, and I found myself idly wondering how many animals of which species would have to be hitched to the train in order to get it to move.

[alice]

And the author drives a Ford Taurus.

And he drives it with actual oxen!

I have this image in my head of a Ford Taurus hitched to a team of oxen in front - lol.

That's what I intended, which is nice

[TomHChappell]

A short while ago I finished reading “This Is How You Lose The Time War.”
Then “The Love-Shy Survival Guide” tumbled out of my bookcase. I didn’t even remember the author giving it to me! I’ve started reading it, but I’m still on the introduction.

[Raphael]

Then “The Love-Shy Survival Guide” tumbled out of my bookcase. I didn’t even remember the author giving it to me! I’ve started reading it, but I’m still on the introduction.

Interesting concept. I've just finished the free sample in my online ebook store. IMO I haven't come across any "outright" red flags yet, though the passages where the author contrasts supposedly "normal" and "non-normal" behaviours, the occasional mentions of "the human mating ritual", as if humans are some species of tropical birds, and the one point where the author takes Freudian psychoanalysis seriously, come close. That said, I find it difficult to get over my usual assumption that all authors of life advice guides are grifters, or, at best, people who highly overrate how well they've figured everything out.

[TomHChappell]

Interesting concept. I've just finished the free sample in my online ebook store. IMO I haven't come across any "outright" red flags yet, though the passages where the author contrasts supposedly "normal" and "non-normal" behaviours, the occasional mentions of "the human mating ritual", as if humans are some species of tropical birds, and the one point where the author takes Freudian psychoanalysis seriously, come close. That said, I find it difficult to get over my usual assumption that all authors of life advice guides are grifters, or, at best, people who highly overrate how well they've figured everything out.

The doctor who coined the term “love-shy” is Brian G. Gilmartin. I don’t know what he’s a doctor of.
Google Books and Amazon can find it.
https://books.google.com/books/about/S ... tEAwAAQBAJ

I went to the APA’s online searchable version of the DSM-5-TR to try to find the term “love-shy”, and I couldn’t find it.
To check whether I could draw some conclusion from that fact, I also looked up the terms
“PDA”
“Pathological Demand Avoidance”
“Pervasive Drive for Autonomy”
and couldn’t find any of them. But I know they’re in the DSM, because my case-worker’s supervisor found it in her hard copy DSM.
So then I looked up ASD and ADHD and found them easily.
I don’t know why I couldn’t find PDA in the online searchable DSM, but my cas-worker’s supervisor could find it in her hard copy.
Perhaps the online version is out-of-date but the hard copy is closer to up-to-date. If so I’d find that surprising!
More likely there’s some trick to searching the APA’s online-searchable DSM, that I don’t know.

So I’m left wondering whether Dr Gilmartin managed to get the term “love-shy” into the DSM, or not!

….

I don’t know for sure whether or not I’m really love-shy. (Less importantly I’m not sure I ever was LS in the past.)
I’m not a professional pshrink, so I don’t know how to diagnose myself.
I think I am, or have been, a good “candidate” for that diagnosis. Especially in Junior High through to 4-year college.
Maybe I got over it around the time of my first marriage?

I also doubt I’m an incel, or have been one for very long.
Both of my divorces, and my 2nd wife’s death, were followed by long (14 years the first time, 11 years the second time) stretches of voluntary celibacy. Only the last year of being “single” was the celibacy no longer voluntary.
And Talmer Shockley’s book seems to suggest there’s significant overlap between love-shyness and involuntary celibacy.
I have the impression Shockley thinks at least a handful of people who’ve worked on and studied those problems, do think LS and incel are connected.

….

Well, enough about me! How have you been?

[Raphael]

I also doubt I’m an incel, or have been one for very long.
Both of my divorces, and my 2nd wife’s death, were followed by long (14 years the first time, 11 years the second time) stretches of voluntary celibacy. Only the last year of being “single” was the celibacy no longer voluntary.
And Talmer Shockley’s book seems to suggest there’s significant overlap between love-shyness and involuntary celibacy.
I have the impression Shockley thinks at least a handful of people who’ve worked on and studied those problems, do think LS and incel are connected.

Wait, do you mean "incel" as in "murderous far-right misogynist terrorists and far-right misogynist terrorist sympathizers"? What kind of person seriously uses that as a medical term? Big red flag.

Well, enough about me! How have you been?

Thank you, miserable, as usual. My life keeps being one big mess, and I keep having no idea how to even start un-messing it. But that's off-topic for this thread.

[linguistcat]

Wait, do you mean "incel" as in "murderous far-right misogynist terrorists and far-right misogynist terrorist sympathizers"? What kind of person seriously uses that as a medical term? Big red flag.

Fun(?) fact: Before the term got coopted by misogynistic far right bigots who want to blame everything on women, the term had actually been coined by a woman, and she'd made a message board for people to either find like minded people (and possibly end their celibacy), or else find like minded folks to share non-relationship related achievements and try to come to terms with said celibacy. She's said in interviews that while she doesn't regret the community or even coining the term, she hates what it's become.

Possibly this guy picked up the term before the change over? But yeah, if not, big red flags.

[TomHChappell]

Fun(?) fact: Before the term got coopted by misogynistic far right bigots who want to blame everything on women, the term had actually been coined by a woman, and she'd made a message board for people to either find like minded people (and possibly end their celibacy), or else find like minded folks to share non-relationship related achievements and try to come to terms with said celibacy. She's said in interviews that while she doesn't regret the community or even coining the term, she hates what it's become.

Possibly this guy picked up the term before the change over? But yeah, if not, big red flags.

Yes, that’s how B.G. Gilmartin uses it; as an adjective meaning “involuntarily celibate”; or as an adjective-used-as-a-noun meaning “an involuntarily celibate person”, or “some or all involuntarily celibate people “.
He sites the authoress who coined the term. I could look up her name, and the title of the work cited, but I don’t think it’s as valuable-to-me an investment of my time, as it might could be valuable-to-Raphael(-or-other-reader’s) time.
I meant that meaning when talking about my two types of celibate periods I’ve had in my adulthood.
Or, I sort-of meant that.
Those periods wherein I accepted my celibacy and made no attempts nor had any ambition to end it, I called “voluntarily celibate”. There’s no contraction of that that I know about; maybe “volcel”?
Whilst I was trying to find ways to end my celibacy, or even taking steps that hadn’t yet been successful, I called those periods “involuntarily celibate”.
Maybe that was too risky?