Never mind.
So, checked the referrers, and up comes:
Have you stopped beating your wife, sir? - repriseInteresting debate over the effectiveness and/or desirability of mandatory arrests in domestic abuse cases happening here, for those who'd like to offer an opinion...
I'm not going to ask what Jeff used for the rotating sidebar quote that, I'm guessing, is what brought the tourist in for a visit. Comes with using a Creative Commons License, I expect.
And using that title for a discussion of that subject. . . ok, humor is idiosyncratic. The title I used for this one may not even make sense to most of you. But domestic abuse? Jokes about the photos coming out of Abu Gharib?
Can we all break kayfabe for a minute here?
Taking on a public persona for weblog entries and comments, as Jeff and Laurence (among others) do, is all well and good. God knows I've done it myself, which is why writing this feels distinctly like stepping outside my glass house to throw stones.
I'm not. Or I'm trying very hard not to, at least.
Like everyone else, including Michael King (and how long have you had the domain?), I saw A Frank Guide to a Cordial Political Discussion a few days back. And the comments there. And a few of the places linking it.
And a few of the other entries at places linking it.
And saw that Rachel Lucas is back, too, from an entry at Protein Wisdom. Which reminds me of something:
http://www.uppity-negro.com/cgi-uppity-negro/mt.cgi
- Username: guest
- Password: guest
I'll explain that in a bit.
Anyway.
- Kayfabe
- The act of acting or being ‘in character’. When a wrestler ‘breaks kayfabe’, he is no longer playing the character that he is in the wrestling world. In the past, there was unwritten rule that wrestlers should never ‘break kayfabe’ in the presence of a wrestling fan. Today however, this rule has largely disappeared, with wrestlers regularly speaking out of character on talk shows and the Internet. At some points a wrestler may even break kayfabe on a wrestling show, in order to appeal to ‘smart’ fans. For example, Raven used to regularly break ‘kayfabe’ in his WCW days by referring to Diamond Dallas Page and Eric Bischoff as neighbours – a true fact. Chaz Warrington famously ‘broke kayfabe’ on a WWF show, refusing to continue with his Harry ‘Beaver’ Cleavage gimmick.
Not the first time I've compared blogtopia (y!sctp!) to, as Vince would have it, professional sports entertainment. And the whole left/right name-calling stuff (moonbat, asshat, rethug, take your pick and please deposit it in one of the dustbins located by the exits) feels like a storyline that's seriously played out.
Time for something new.
Only not that new.
ambra took me to task for my lack of civility here a short while ago. Conversation didn't really go anywhere, and I'm sure if I just ask nicely for us to all sit down and talk here and now, the same thing'll happen.
Which is why I've turned that guest login back on.
So you can say whatever you'd like.
Only, the real you. Not the character you use at your own place, Tell me about a book you've read and enjoyed, or a band you like, or a film you saw or are looking forward to seeing. Something. Anything.
Just not in character. As an actual person.
I'd like to think that's not too much to ask.
Update: Minor edits here and there; knew them sics in the previous entry were gonna come back to bite me in the ass. Also turned off trackback autodiscovery, in the hopes that it'll prevent the thing from re-pinging the MT entries at other sites that are linked. Is that a standing issue, or just something I have configured wrong?
The "Have you stopped beating your wife, sir" title refers to a link to the original Cathy Young piece in Reason. I used it because I believe that mandatory arrest laws in certain jurisdictions make being accused of the crime tantamount to having committed it. "Prove you're innocent," that sort of thing. "Have you stopped beating your wife, sir" is commonly cited as an example of proving a negative, I believe.
The blurb I used from you I asked you about a while back and mentioned it in your comments section.
re: kayfabe and wrestling. I met Andre the Giant and Jimmy Superfly Snuka in a Howard Johnsons when I was much younger after they'd played an event at the Baltimore Civic Center. Not only did they break character, but they weren't all too friendly.
The last time I had an honest discussion with someone of a politically different persuasion--and this was someone I had met in person, too, so it wasn't a net.friendship only--I ended up being unfriended over it. And I got unfriended for being "intolerant" for saying essentially that I didn't like him complaining in advance, without giving them a chance, that his friends who disagreed with him were gonna beat him up over his views. Mind you, this was all about a blog/LJ meme which reduced all sorts of controversial memes to bumper sticker slogans, which is a stupid way to discuss politics at best.
I did have a rewarding discussion out of it with another friend who has generally similar views but differs with me on one key issue, so that was a plus.
On the kayfabe issue, I think it's difficult, if not impossible, to completely break character in blog-writing. People (in America/Europe/the industrialized world) are necessarily multi-faceted nowadays, because it's too hard to deal with the complexity of modern society otherwise. While some character acts are more distant from the faces underneath, I think there's always some distance, if only because people are like onions and you can never completely peel them.
Are you being paid to shill for Shrek 2, dear?
Think I was trying to say that sometimes exposing parts of yourself while restraining others crosses over completely into role-playing, especially with the folks I cited. I've been told Lawrence Simon really isn't that bad when you get to know him, but it's damned near impossible to get to know him from the stuff he posts.
Which charge can also be tossed in my direction, of course.
Jeff, think that sentence was used in at least one of my linguistics courses as an example of implicit presuppositions or leading questions or somesuch. Not sure that sort of construction is possible (or at least, not as prevalent) in other languages, actually.
Briefly met Stone Cold Steve Austin at Mall of America (don't ask, just. . . don't) at a point where he'd been "fired" from the WWF. Nicest guy in the world, which might be because it was an official public appearance, but since his character wasn't the nicest. . . you know, even I'm not sure what point I was making there.
As for the blurb, I'm not sure which of us that's generating heel heat for. Or even if that's an either/or thing.
*raises eyebrow* Shrek 2? I hate to say this, but the only reason I know it's at/near premiere is iTunes had a free single from it.
I understand what you're getting at. I think I'm addressing a conceit dear to a person not even involved in this conversation, who tends to imply her blog is what she is, and there is no disconnect between who she is in person and who she is online. My opinion is that this is necessarily a crock, because people aren't even the same with two people they know IRL who don't know each other,
All of which could lead into a great discussion about how Google is showing people a more complete (and possibly more authentic) version of each other, by increasing information accessibilty, and what are the implications of privacy, and is such a thing as privacy/different social selves possible in the internet age? And where does the personal roleplay you're describing fit in? Etc.
I've had it (the new site) about a week and a half; I've been moving stuff over to it all week long.
I'm going to stop posting to the BlogSnot site Monday, and finish my move to the "real world."
Well, you said people are like onions, but nobody likes onions. You could have said people are like parfait.
Ain't nobody don't like parfait. . .
And yep, the Google/privacy thing is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
Where writing "a whole 'nother" brings back yet more linguistics flashbacks. English needs more infixes.
Didn't notice if you have it installed already, but remember, Michael, MT Blacklist is your friend. I can show you the spam comment rejections from just the last week if you need proof of that.
And based on, among other things, what happened when Ginger went on hiatus, bet'cha it'll take months for most of the people who link you to switch to the new URL/domain.
Bet'cha a dollar.
You're probably right, although, I got linked by several folk who hadn't done so previously on both my pieces recapping my FNC appearance, and my pieces from earlier this week on Maxine Waters and on the Iraqi fiasco.