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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Architectural Interest (Open Thread)

Architectural Interest (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  January 19, 20161:10 pm| 221 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Television

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This pair of seahorses adorn a building on 7th Avenue in Tampa’s Ybor City section:

deco seahorses

I’m no architect, but I think it would be cool if builders would start slapping seahorses and gargoyles on buildings again.

Today I’m tired because I couldn’t sleep last night and stayed up late binge-watching “The Man in the High Castle.” After 10 episodes (not all in a single night), I have one question: WTF?

Open thread.

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Reader Interactions

221Comments

  1. 1.

    Geeno

    January 19, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    Our world NEEDS more decoration. I blame the whole “form follows function” movement for the lack of civic decoration.
    Simplicity is nice, but so is seeing cultural signifying decoration, and I, personally, like to see such decoration from other cultures. Indian restaurants with their Ganeesha statues, etc., but of course, I delight in seeing new, “other” things. A trait sadly lacking in many of my country men.

  2. 2.

    cope

    January 19, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    Phillip K. Dick is WTF, yes?

  3. 3.

    triknitcode

    January 19, 2016 at 1:17 pm

    I loved “The Man in the High Castle”. I thought it was a great depiction of how fascism affects everyone in the system, even those working for it.

    I noticed that John had a similar reaction to the show. What was it that you didn’t like / understand / agree with?

  4. 4.

    Zinsky

    January 19, 2016 at 1:17 pm

    Rumor has it that Trump is going to have Caribou Barbie (Sarah Palin) appear with them at a rally in Iowa tonight. I hope the attendees are careful about the massive vacuum created in the room by the two emptiest heads in America being in one place!

    Betty – is that the building that the wonderful Columbia restaurant is in in Ybor City?

  5. 5.

    Punchy

    January 19, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    I binge watch Forensic Files. If it’s taught me one thing, it’s not to off my wife and expect to skate. Those not-as-shooty-of-black-people crime cops convict perps on 2 picograms of pubes, a buttprint, and cell phone triangulation. These bastards could find (and amplify) DNA on a meteor from 4 galaxies over.

  6. 6.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    Gotta say that I didn’t even finish episode 3. Life is tooooooo short. I watched the first episode with my son who had stopped by and that was after showing him the Trump freedom girls video. After he left, I was going to binge watch the rest but just quit. I still woke up with a nightmare about the freedom girls dancing.

  7. 7.

    Geeno

    January 19, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    @Punchy: They can’t though. They just want you to think they can.

    Well, they can, but only under special circumstances. I think one of those is that the victim isn’t black.

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    January 19, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    Wouldn’t that disrupt the Bauhausian aesthetic of the cinder-block construction? Jeez, people.

  9. 9.

    Geeno

    January 19, 2016 at 1:25 pm

    @trollhattan: My point exactly.
    You were agreeing with me, right?

  10. 10.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    It might surprise you, but I’m not a fashionista. I need something to wear to my son’s wedding and finding something is an absolute fail. Neiman’s had their big sale so I ordered a few things online. They are all going back. One outfit would look great if I were teaching in the late 1800’s and the other just not me. All the future daughter-in-law said, was that it had to be long. weddings are a pain

  11. 11.

    Mike J

    January 19, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @trollhattan: Calm down, Howard Roarke.

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    January 19, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @Punchy:
    Is there any power in law enforcement greater than a lead investigator leaning over the lab tech at his/her monitor, instructing “enhance!”? Seventeen pixels become a rather fetching image of Penelope Cruz.

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    January 19, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    @Zinsky: Not the same building, but it’s close by.

    ETA: I think the pictured building used to be a fish market back in the day. Not sure what it is now — probably a bar that overcharges its patrons!

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    January 19, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    @Mike J:
    I’m starting this club, see….

  15. 15.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    If Sarah introduces Trump, and then he speaks, who will translate?

  16. 16.

    Ridnik Chrome

    January 19, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    I was home from work with a cold last week and re-read “The Man in the High Castle” (along with an anthology of A.J. Liebling’s World War Two reporting, kind of a weird but not incompatible combination given the subject matter). Still haven’t seen any of the TV series. Does the I-Ching figure as prominently in the show as it does in the book?

  17. 17.

    Botsplainer

    January 19, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    Today I’m tired because I couldn’t sleep last night and stayed up late binge-watching “The Man in the High Castle.” After 10 episodes (not all in a single night), I have one question: WTF?

    Cold War conceit. It completely ignores Japanese wartime policy and objectives. It also ignores Nazi capabilities and occupation strategies.

  18. 18.

    boatboy_srq

    January 19, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    Ybor is fun: a bit like Nawlins in miniature. I don’t miss much of FL, but THAT I do miss (though less than I would if redevelopment had gone as planned and not been short-circuited by the real estate plunge: all the mid-to-high-end boutiques and local neighborhood shops that were supposed to move in got trounced by property values dropping to the bottom of the Gulf, and by the bars reasserting their dominance of the street).

  19. 19.

    Geeno

    January 19, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @JPL: Will anyone need to? Gibberish translates gibberish.

  20. 20.

    Botsplainer

    January 19, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @Zinsky:

    Today I’m tired because I couldn’t sleep last night and stayed up late binge-watching “The Man in the High Castle.” After 10 episodes (not all in a single night), I have one question: WTF?

    Columbia is the purveyor of the best sangria known to mankind.

    That and the fish in a paper bag.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    @Zinsky: The only reason I know where Ybor City is because of Dennis Lehane’s book World Gone By.

  22. 22.

    boatboy_srq

    January 19, 2016 at 1:34 pm

    Open Thread, so:

    The job hunt is in high gear this month. Anyone needing a techie in metro DC please chime in. MCSE, VCP, working on renewing both and adding Security+ and Network+. Clearable but no clearance at the moment.

  23. 23.

    boatboy_srq

    January 19, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @Botsplainer: You never went to Acropolis, did you? Sangria there beats Columbia’s hands down. Only two blocks away.

  24. 24.

    MattF

    January 19, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    I read a lot of PKD in grad school– it seemed appropriate. I’d certainly recommend reading his stuff– see if you like it. I’d try the earlier books first, Dick was semi-famous by the end of his career, and that didn’t help his style– the later books have a trying-too-hard feeling.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    January 19, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    @Zinsky:
    The best riposte to having Sarah Palin endorse the Donald at a rally would be having Tina Fey endorse her choice of Democratic candidate at a rally.

  26. 26.

    Face

    January 19, 2016 at 1:41 pm

    These bastards could find a black man’s (and amplify) DNA on a meteor from 4 galaxies over.

    FTFY.

  27. 27.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 19, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    Ybor City and Key West are the only two reasons I’ve found to go to Florida.

  28. 28.

    Oatler.

    January 19, 2016 at 1:43 pm

    If you can stand rants about how hippies wrecked American architecture, check out the Lileks site, which might have a section on signage.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @JPL: I feel your pain. When my 50-year-old sister got remarried, she wanted a “real wedding” because she and her former husband eloped in their 20s and were married by a justice of the peace.

    The only requirement for those of us standing up for her was this: pink dress. long.

    My sainted friend Tina went shopping with me, over and over and over. We called it “the quest for the pink dress”. I mean, I HAD to find one because I was in the wedding and WHAT IF I CAN’T FIND ONE???, so my fear of not finding one was real.

    This may sound crazy, but surely if we knew your approximate size one of us here at BJ would have something that we probably wore only once that we would be happy to loan or give you. I know I would.

    Edit: maybe Anne Laurie would let us email photos to her. Or maybe you could set up a free imgur image account with balloonjuice as the password and we could all take photos of our long dresses and upload them with our BJ nyms.

  30. 30.

    Iowa Old Lady

    January 19, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @JPL: My DIL endeared herself to me by going to the post New Year sales and buying two possible outfits for me to wear to their wedding in Chicagoland. I got my choice (a long black skirt and sparkly top) and she took the other back.

    I believe she was afraid I’d show up in black pants and a comfy sweater if she didn’t take matters into her own hands, but since I live in the middle of nowhere, I was deeply grateful.

  31. 31.

    Mustang Bobby

    January 19, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    @boatboy_srq: What was the name of that place we went to a couple of blocks from your old place where we had that nice dinner half-way in and out of the restaurant? Charlie Something?

  32. 32.

    The Other Chuck

    January 19, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    @Ridnik Chrome:

    Does the I-Ching figure as prominently in the show as it does in the book?

    It’s there, and figures pretty highly in the character of Tagomi, though I wouldn’t say it drives the plot or anything.

    My impression of the show is pretty mixed: I find it both brilliant and hokey. Still has me on the hook waiting for season 2.

  33. 33.

    p.a.

    January 19, 2016 at 1:54 pm

    You know I always wanted to pretend to be an architect.

  34. 34.

    boatboy_srq

    January 19, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    @Mustang Bobby: Streetcar Charlie’s. Long since closed: Laughing Cat moved in there (before they too folded). Just as well Streetcar Charlie’s went under: I have horror stories about undone (never mind underdone) entrees, mixed-up orders and just plain awful service there. Seems the waitstaff’s one job qualification was prettiness: neither intelligence nor attention to customers seems to have mattered too much. I suppose they counted on their clientele getting snockered at the bar before ordering, so they wouldn’t care what they ate. I do miss Laughing Cat, though: the seafood fra diavolo was amazing and the buffet lunch (complete with poached salmon!) was excellent.

  35. 35.

    Matt McIrvin

    January 19, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    @MattF: I think it’s more that by the time of the later books, his paranoia combined with the decades of amphetamine abuse drove him to a full-blown psychotic break; pink lasers from God started feeding him cosmic information, and he was struggling with trying to get the baffling things he’d experienced down on paper. It made his writing even less logically coherent than usual, while at the same time, he was actually getting better and better as a prose stylist.

    His break into general fame really came shortly after he died, when Blade Runner came out. I think he lived long enough to see a rough cut of the movie. But I think it was Total Recall that established him as, somehow, Hollywood’s favorite science-fiction author.

  36. 36.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 19, 2016 at 1:59 pm

    @WaterGirl: We’ve married off two daughters in recent years, and my dearly beloved wife’s search for the right dress for each of those occasions was enough to drive me to medication. I wore a dinner jacket. It was hot, but that more than balanced what she went through.

  37. 37.

    Mustang Bobby

    January 19, 2016 at 2:00 pm

    @boatboy_srq: And then there was that ice cream parlor with the folk singer who entertained us with songs about death and disillusionment. Yeah, that was fun.

  38. 38.

    boatboy_srq

    January 19, 2016 at 2:01 pm

    @Mustang Bobby: That was actually a coffee shop (The Bunker). The entertainment may be questionable, but the espresso is excellent and the wine list (what venue in Ybor doesn’t serve alcohol?) is pretty good. I hear they’re still going.

  39. 39.

    shawn

    January 19, 2016 at 2:03 pm

    I design buildings for a living, and while it’ll likely take a while for the styles to shift, I think there’s a lot of potential for decorative elements to come roaring back in the near future. Thanks to 3D printing, making custom decorative components is likely going to become significantly cheaper now that it only has to be modeled digitally and then a machine can churn it out relatively quickly.

    The costs of large handmade custom pieces has been prohibitive for many building types for a while.

  40. 40.

    Corner Stone

    January 19, 2016 at 2:06 pm

    @p.a.: Why not aim higher? Maybe a city planner?

  41. 41.

    raven

    January 19, 2016 at 2:06 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: The Emerald Coast is great off season.

  42. 42.

    Helmut Monotreme

    January 19, 2016 at 2:07 pm

    FWIW I have a new post up about the Flint MI water crisis over at Sadly, No

  43. 43.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:08 pm

    I have reoccurring, vivid dreams where I live in a world full of architectural flourishes. Sort of early 20th-century Beaux Arts meets Victorian-era ornamentation, with machines and electronics all steampunk. Walls are deep red or green, heavy curtains, all deep cherry or mahogany wood. These usually go with my “hidden room” dreams where I discover a door I’d never noticed before, and it takes me to an attic or cellar full of beautiful antiques.

    Downton Abbey is Brutalist compared to these dreams.

  44. 44.

    Hungry Joe

    January 19, 2016 at 2:08 pm

    Philip K. Dick was brilliant, a true visionary … and (generally) a pretty bad writer; calling his prose “workmanlike” is about as high a compliment as he deserves. An exception is his early and very odd (of course) mainstream — i.e., non-SF — novel “Confessions of a Crap Artist,” which I consider his best. But books like “Ubik,” “Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said,” and “A Scanner Darkly” are mesmerizing for their paranoid ambiance alone.

    (“Crap Artist” is the only Dick book I can think of that’s both well written AND written in the first person. Hmmmm … )

  45. 45.

    satby

    January 19, 2016 at 2:10 pm

    @JPL: @WaterGirl: I love Watergirl’s idea! Maybe post the size and colors you like and any of us with long dresses can send in pics!

  46. 46.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:11 pm

    @shawn: About twenty years ago I had a roofed porch built for a house we owned at the time. When it was finished, it basically looked like a storage shed. I went to a lumber place and bought some decorative millwork, and nailed it to all the corners, then stained the wood deep brown. The end result looked victorian. When the contractor came around for the final payment and saw the millwork, he said “Hmmph. Ladies like that sort of stuff.”

  47. 47.

    Botsplainer

    January 19, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    There is some white hot Palin-supporter vs Cruz-supporter action going on at the Free Republic.

    They’re devouring each other over Bristol chiming in on behalf of snowball snooki.

  48. 48.

    gogol's wife

    January 19, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    I highly recommend the War and Peace series that started last night on History/A&E/Lifetime. It will have three more installments, on Mondays at 9:00 PM. The acting is quite good (Lady Mary from Downton, Sydney from Grantchester, the accountant from Home Fires, Chief Inspector Innocent from Lewis, etc.), and the battle scenes are much better than I expected and are very much in line with the way they’re represented in the book. With the exception of some anachronistic dialogue here and there, it’s a very intelligent adaptation.

    But — the commercials really break the mood.

  49. 49.

    satby

    January 19, 2016 at 2:13 pm

    I loved the book Man in the High Castle but only watched one episode of the show. Granted I read the book a long time ago, but the show didn’t follow the book as I remembered it enough for me to keep watching.

    I also really am looking forward to going back to Ybor city for Cuban food. One positive of moving down that way.

  50. 50.

    Betty Cracker

    January 19, 2016 at 2:13 pm

    @boatboy_srq: I’ve tried both, and I’ve gotta side with Bot. But maybe it’s just because I grew up here and the Columbia’s version is THE Platonic Ideal of sangria due to that. Anyway, I wouldn’t say no to either!

    @shawn: That’s good to know. Thanks!

  51. 51.

    Botsplainer

    January 19, 2016 at 2:13 pm

    @shawn:

    Of all the iconic Manhattan buildings, I like the Chrysler Building the best. Something about it sings hope and whimsy to me.

  52. 52.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Looking for a dress like that IS. NOT. FUN. You are lucky, even if you were hot. Plus, you could take off your jacket when no one was looking, right? :-)

  53. 53.

    gbbalto

    January 19, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    I’ve read the book several times and I found it perfectly coherent and well executed. I don’t know how realistic the Axis occupation regimes he portrayed would have been, but he was using the rivalry of the Axis powers as a mirror of the actual Cold War situation at the time he wrote. With potential US/Soviet nuclear annihilation hanging over the world at that time, he was asking who really had won WW2.

    I haven’t seen the series but understand that it is quite different, including resistance activities. There is no organized resistance in the book. Maybe the writers figured that the audience wouldn’t accept that situation. Probably best not to judge the series by the book, which is well worth the read.

  54. 54.

    satby

    January 19, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    @gogol’s wife: Lady Mary or Lady Rose?

  55. 55.

    Seanly

    January 19, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    I enjoyed the first season of “Man In the High Castle”. I particularly liked how nonchalant everyone was about the current state of the world. It was also refreshing in that it didn’t try to over-explain how the world got to be as it was. Rather they dropped hints such as Nazis dropping A-bomb on DC and Roosevelt being assassinated.

    Most of the acting and dialogue were very good. I know some folks busted on the performances of the young protagonists who meet up in CO, but I thought some of their delivery was on purpose. The main Nazi & Japanese officials were played very well. The sets & setting were excellent.

    I also liked Amazon’s Bosch series. The one incongruity is that in the book, Bosch was a tunnel rat in Viet Nam but they ported that over to him doing that in Desert Storm which is a little WTF (but ultimately a minor aspect). Looking forward to season 2 for both shows.

    Speaking of Amazon, the last couple of years I’ve done my taxes using TaxCut software by Intuit. You can get part of your refund as an Amazon giftcard with a 10% boost. A nice way to get even more out of your federal return if you’re already going to be using software. I have to use software because we (unfortunately) still own a house in another state that we rent out.

  56. 56.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    @Germy: You are scaring me! I am thinking of putting on a screened in porch since the tree crashing in 2013 left me with absolutely no shade anywhere in the back yard. I want it to look like it belongs on the house, and you have just described my porch nightmare.

  57. 57.

    trollhattan

    January 19, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    @p.a.:
    I may have mentioned you’re a marine biologist.
    But I’m not a marine biologist!
    I’m aware of that.

  58. 58.

    p.a.

    January 19, 2016 at 2:18 pm

    @Corner Stone: Pretending to be an architect has more false cachet, I believe. Life mirrors Seinfeld, not vice-versa.

  59. 59.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: I just called to see how to return. It’s a long black skirt but a friend said that it wouldn’t go with the future DIL’s colors. The tuxes are white and the bridesmaids are wearing pale pink. link
    I simply explained that I was already flunking this mother-in-law stuff.

    @WaterGirl: I am not wearing pale pink but I think grey or a beige wouldn’t stand out. The mother is wearing champagne. I hate pale colors…

  60. 60.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    @WaterGirl: The mistake I made was hiring a contractor who didn’t care about architecture or beauty. He hired a crew who put up some posts; the railings were square. It was a basic industrial frame. My woodstain and millwork addition made it look more like part of the house.

    I guess my advice is, communicate with your contractor. Ask for spindle posts for the railings if you want something more decorative or “nice” as they call it, because most contractors default to basic sticks of lumber.

  61. 61.

    Josie

    January 19, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    @JPL: Two online catalogs that I would suggest looking at are Coldwater Creek and Draper’s & Damon’s. I have found nice evening and mother of the groom dresses in those two.

  62. 62.

    satby

    January 19, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    @Germy: I don’t remember having you over to my house.

  63. 63.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    January 19, 2016 at 2:22 pm

    Gargoyles, yes!

    ObOpenThread:

    Some (more) words to live by from Wendell Berry (via M. A. Grubbs):

    In a commencement address delivered in June 1989 at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, Berry gave some advice that to most modern graduates would sound old fashioned, indeed backward. But the advice he gave was timeless, and his reminder seems apocalyptic in view of the world’s current environmental crisis and, as Berry sees it, America’s cultural crisis. In a sense, Berry’s deliverance of such a critical message parallels Moses’ deliverance of the Ten Commandments, for Berry’s advice is also a prescription for cultural healing through the imposition of a set of laws. The laws Berry delivers, however, seem to be Nature’s laws. He closed his address (later published in Harper’s as “The Futility of Global Thinking”) with a series of ten commands, which, he said, “is simply my hope for us all” (22). These instructions are at the heart of Berry’s personal and literary world, and collectively they express the thesis informing all of his work, a canon now in excess of thirty books of essays, fiction, and poetry:

    1. Beware the justice of Nature.

    2. Understand that there can be no successful human economy apart from Nature or in defiance of Nature.

    3. Understand that no amount of education can overcome the innate limits of human intelligence and responsibility. We are not smart enough or conscious enough or alert enough to work responsibly on a gigantic scale.

    4. In making things always bigger and more centralized, we make them both more vulnerable in themselves and more dangerous to everything else. Learn, therefore, to prefer small-scale elegance and generosity to large-scale greed, crudity, and glamour.

    5. Make a home. Help to make a community. Be loyal to what you have made.

    6. Put the interest of the community first.

    7. Love your neighbors–not the neighbors you pick out, but the ones you have.

    8. Love this miraculous world that we did not make, that is a gift to us.

    9. As far as you are able make your lives dependent upon your local place, neighborhood, and household — which thrive by care and generosity–and independent of the industrial economy, which thrives by damage.

    10. Find work, if you can, that does no damage. Enjoy your work. Work well. (22)

    Viewed in the context of Berry’s canon, this sequence represents far more than a neo-romantic or agrarian appeal to return to “simplicity.” To think of his advice in this way is to misinterpret it, for it is more of an oracular warning; either rethink our attitudes toward each other and the natural world, Berry implores, or continue on a path toward natural-, cultural-, and self-annihilation.

    Some heavy thinking went into that list. I like it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    boatboy_srq

    January 19, 2016 at 2:22 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I suppose I get my impression thanks to going to the Columbia to eat (not drink)…

  65. 65.

    Doug R

    January 19, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    Look up The Marine Building Vancouver BC.

  66. 66.

    Corner Stone

    January 19, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    @trollhattan: The sea was angry that day my friends! Like an old man…on a DNC debate stage.

  67. 67.

    p.a.

    January 19, 2016 at 2:26 pm

    @WaterGirl: Tip: if it’s truly a screen room and not weatherproof, and you don’t want to be out there with a mop and rags drying things off immediately after rain/snow, use vinyl for all non-structural items, especially horizontal pieces. And I was conscientious about my priming/painting. Didn’t matter. Maybe I could blame crappy Home Depot pre-primed pine.

  68. 68.

    bemused

    January 19, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    @Helmut Monotreme:

    Oh man, I read your link to Fournier’s adulation piece on Snyder. There are no words….

  69. 69.

    gogol's wife

    January 19, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    @satby:

    You’re right — Lady Rose, sorry! Lady Mary would be good, too, but I guess she’s still employed at Downton.

  70. 70.

    p.a.

    January 19, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @satby: The key to stalking is the stalked doesn’t know.
    ;-o

  71. 71.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    @satby: There are some old houses that are just so beautiful.

  72. 72.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:32 pm

    @p.a.: I was stalked by my contractor until I paid for the porch.

  73. 73.

    bystander

    January 19, 2016 at 2:32 pm

    @Zinsky: According to Trump TV, aka MSNBC, the fun is about to begin.

    To keep beating that metaphor, it’s like rheumatoid arthritis endorsing multiple myeloma.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    January 19, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    @JPL:

    You might want to take a look at eShakti. For a reasonable price (usually under $200 total at most), you can have them customize it not only to your measurements, but also to your preferences for sleeve length, neckline, hem length, etc. They’re a little bit retro, which can be fun, too.

    Also check Ann Taylor and Nordstrom online, both of which do a lot of wedding business. The Nordstrom website is where I found my matron of honor’s dress 10 years ago, and she was able to get in-store alterations on it.

  75. 75.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 2:35 pm

    @Josie: Drapers doesn’t have a large selection in long skirts. I was hoping to find something that I might wear again, but that’s unlikely.
    @WaterGirl: I’m a six unless I can rid myself of the pudge that appeared after Christmas then a four. I’m 5′ 7″..

  76. 76.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    January 19, 2016 at 2:35 pm

    WTF?

    I tried binge-watching TMITHC, got bored with it. Did it finally get interesting after 10 episodes?

  77. 77.

    satby

    January 19, 2016 at 2:36 pm

    @Germy: I was teasing of course, but I love old houses that have been well maintained. My house in Chicago was a Victorian, and we did it in a Painted Lady style for about 10 years, which was pretty visible because my street was on the house tour (not my house though). Other houses around the area were painted in “my” colors for a while…

  78. 78.

    Shana

    January 19, 2016 at 2:36 pm

    @JPL: I suggest a long black skirt, check the dressy section of your local department store. There are usually a variety of styles, one of which will look lovely. Then, get a separate top that works for the occasion. The skirts aren’t generally too expensive. That way you have a timeless base for whatever occasion may come up in the future.

    I’ve found nice ones, full, narrow, several overlapping layers of chiffon. Always in style so you don’t have to get another new one for the next occasion.

  79. 79.

    satby

    January 19, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @JPL: I’m out…I have nothing that small. And no one who’s a 6 is allowed to say “pudge” :)

  80. 80.

    Poopyman

    January 19, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    Timely:

    If you wish to have ornament, you must pay specifically for it, and the workman is compelled to produce ornament, as he is to produce other wares. He is compelled to pretend happiness in his work, so that the beauty produced by man’s hand, which was once a solace to his labour, has now become an extra burden to him, and ornament is now but one of the follies of useless toil, and perhaps not the least irksome of its fetters.

    — William Morris, “Useful Work v. Useless Toil” (1888)

  81. 81.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    I remember reading an interview with Art Garfunkel. He said in his college days he was fascinated by the idea of becoming an architect. But then when he began the actual studies, he realized he liked the “idea” of being an architect, rather than any actual work involved.

  82. 82.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    @JPL: I second Mnem, I got a fabulous silk halter dress at Ann Taylor. Also check Banana Republic. Tracy Reese whose dress FLOTUS wore for the last Dem convention, also has good dresses that are not too too expensive.

    I found eShakti to be quite fugly the last time I looked. Are you looking for a full length or cocktail length dress?

    ETA: We are pretty much the same size but I am a couple of inches shorter than you.

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    @Germy: ” The mistake I made was hiring a contractor who didn’t care about architecture or beauty. He hired a crew who put up some posts; the railings were square. It was a basic industrial frame. ”

    You are describing the guy I met with.

    @p.a.: I appreciate the advice!

  84. 84.

    Mart

    January 19, 2016 at 2:41 pm

    Sure the seahorses are pretty, until the hurricane winds break them loose, and they are the spinning seahorses of the Apocalypse.

  85. 85.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    @Poopyman: Designer of the Morris Chair

  86. 86.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    @Helmut Monotreme:

    An excellent, clear piece. I’ve been following this story pretty closely (unlike Li’l Marco), and this is among the most concise explanations I’ve seen.

    If I may suggest one small correction, in your penultimate paragraph (referring to Ron Fournier) you call the governor “Ron” Snyder instead of “Rick.”

    It’s a complicated history. Thank you for laying it out so clearly.

  87. 87.

    GregB

    January 19, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    Listening to Jane Mayer on NPR confirming my suspicions that the Koch brothers are crypto-Nazis.

  88. 88.

    p.a.

    January 19, 2016 at 2:44 pm

    @Germy: Your contractor would say: not stalking, just business. Actually, you’re lucky. Try the reverse: tracking down a no-show contractor.

  89. 89.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    @GregB: Some rather unpleasant family dramas are revealed in Mayer’s book “Dark Money”

  90. 90.

    Shell

    January 19, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    Does the I-Ching figure as prominently in the show as it does in the book?

    Man, I haven’t thought about the I-Ching since reading ‘Divine Rights Trip’ in the Whole Earth Catalog.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne

    January 19, 2016 at 2:46 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I love eShakti, but I like that retro look, plus I’m a hard to fit size (wide shoulders, no hips) so dresses tend to look a little weird on me if I’m not careful.

  92. 92.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    @p.a.:

    Try the reverse: tracking down a no-show contractor.

    I’ve experienced it.

    And I actually got to observe it! A guy I hired a few years ago, his cell phone kept ringing. He’d take it off his belt, see the incoming call number, mutter “Nope, I don’t wanna talk to him” and let it go to voicemail.
    This happened, on the average, about three times an hour. Not sure if it was one single panicked customer, or several trying to reach him.

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    @JPL: What time of year is the wedding?

    My pale pink is more of a pink-champagne color, if that would help. I also have a deep blue. If it’s summer, I have a beautiful embroidered skirt with a long embroidered top – very dressy and not embroidered in an old-fashioned way. Would any of those be a possibility?

    Edit: do you have a Dress Barn? I haven’t been in decades, but they used to have dresses that might work. In my QUEST FOR THE PINK DRESS I tried everywhere, even places that sounded awful or crazy. In the end, I found my pink dress in this tiny little boutique.

  94. 94.

    Paul in KY

    January 19, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Now that would be pretty funny/cool!

  95. 95.

    Paul in KY

    January 19, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Anna Maria Island isn’t bad, same for Sanibel/Captiva Islands.

  96. 96.

    Mike J

    January 19, 2016 at 2:50 pm

    @GregB:

    Listening to Jane Mayer on NPR confirming my suspicions that the Koch brothers are crypto-Nazis.

    Read up on the spying they did against Dennis Conner because he had the temerity to try to build a fast sailboat.

  97. 97.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 2:50 pm

    I’m listening to Fresh Air on NPR. It’s an interview with Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money, the new book on the Koch Brothers. Holy shit, she has unearthed some crazy stuff, and the pushback against her has been even sleazier than you could imagine. I have to read it now!

    The interview is well worth hearing. See when your local NPR station broadcasts Fresh Air, or find a podcast. Powerful stuff.

  98. 98.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 2:50 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I pretty much have an hour glass figure, not too difficult to find dresses but finding pants that fit are hard because I have a narrow waist compared to my hips. So pants that fit my hips gape at the waist.

    Pretty dress for JPL from Tracy Reese

  99. 99.

    bystander

    January 19, 2016 at 2:51 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’ve noticed that ABC always personalizes the decision to use Flint River water by saying,”The City of Flint decided to use river water to save money…” Never an attribution to the real parties who made the decision.

    In the cheap novel metaphor department, four Carson campaigners were in an auto collision today.

  100. 100.

    MomSense

    January 19, 2016 at 2:53 pm

    @JPL:

    I’ve got some 4s but I think they are all black. I’m 5’9″ so you may have to hem them. Hmm, I have a cocktail length gray dress with black beading but I think you said long.

  101. 101.

    HRA

    January 19, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    @JPL:

    I had the same mother of the groom problem a few years ago. I found the long dress in a bridal shop and it was on sale.

  102. 102.

    Mnemosyne

    January 19, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    @JPL:

    As far as wearing it again goes, how many formal events do you attend per year? If it’s less than one, then IMO there’s not much point in looking for something you’ll wear again, because it will probably be out of style by the time you have a chance. Get something you like and then sell it at a consignment shop or donate it to charity.

  103. 103.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 2:55 pm

    @WaterGirl: April 9th but it’s in Atlanta. The mother-in-law is going to wear champagne and a friend said she chooses first. Told ya, that I’m failing this.
    The son wants to select the place for the rehearsal dinner but is still looking. The ex and I chipped in a chunk of change so it shouldn’t be that difficult, but he still hasn’t done it. The bride wants that guest list to be 75 so all of the out of town are included. Fun times.

  104. 104.

    Paul in KY

    January 19, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    @Germy: I roomed with one in college. Was always at the Architecture building making scale models of this & that. Seemed very time consuming.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    @JPL: I also have one more option for summer or spring. It’s sleeveless, a mostly white background with a flower print, and it has a long matching cover-up. This is sort of light and breezy, so if you’re looking for brocade, this isn’t it.

  106. 106.

    bemused

    January 19, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    @bystander:

    Fournier is burning up twitter basically yelling blame Obama’s EPA, don’t pile on Snyder.

  107. 107.

    Mnemosyne

    January 19, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    The low-rise pant fashion was a freakin’ godsend for me — until then, pants that fit my waist would balloon clownishly at the hips and thighs because my waist and hips are almost the same size. They will pry my low-rise jeans from my cold, dead hands!

    The gap at the waist in pants is really common for hourglass figures. I think the advice is to find pants that fit your hips and then have the waist taken in, which is usually pretty cheap to do.

  108. 108.

    MomSense

    January 19, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @JPL:

    oooh, Ann Taylor has a v neck, floor length gown in a deep red sizes 4 and 6. $234 and half off at check out.

  109. 109.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @JPL: You don’t have to match her, just not clash, right? Do any of my 4 options sound at all promising?

  110. 110.

    Germy

    January 19, 2016 at 2:59 pm

    @Paul in KY: It’s an interesting-sounding profession. I know nothing about architecture; I just know what I like. The scale model-building sounds like he probably pursued it. I wonder how many people think they want to be architects, but then change their majors when they see the work involved?

  111. 111.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 3:00 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Same here, pants that sit at the waist or slightly below fit far better than the higher rise versions.

  112. 112.

    Iowa Old Lady

    January 19, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    @bemused: By what possible rationale?

  113. 113.

    Seanly

    January 19, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    @GregB:

    My favorite part of that interview was when the NPR douche-host brought up both sides do it. Even mentioned the Dread Pirate George Soros. Has he even given any money to any Democratic candidates since 2004?

    RE: the Kochs – one of the big aspects of fascists was that they were fighting against communism. The Kochs still seem to believe in the John Bircher BS which still has 1950’s paranoia about Big Bad Communism coming to agitate the underclass and steal all our women.

  114. 114.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    @WaterGirl: I am of the opinion that blush and champagne tend to wash you out. Any color close to your skin tone is a no no.

  115. 115.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    @WaterGirl: I’m going to keep that in mind and thank you.

    @MomSense: That’s gorgeous… The other colors are pale, so would I stand out?

    Oh and I’ll buy makeup and stuff for this event. Maybe even have my nails done.. haha

  116. 116.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    @WaterGirl: Never mind, I missed one of your comments – you are 4″ taller than me. So my stuff won’t work.

  117. 117.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 3:06 pm

    @bystander:

    Didn’t know that specifically about ABC, but that framing seems to be pretty common. Whether it’s merely lazy shorthand (because gods forbid they should actually explain the background) or a deliberate attempt to mislead, I could not say.

    Even though Carson is a joke of a candidate running a disaster of a campaign, I wish no harm to his staffers. Hope they are all unscathed.

  118. 118.

    MomSense

    January 19, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    @JPL:

    Of course you will stand out–in a good way.

  119. 119.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    @JPL: Did you check out the Tracy Reese dress? The color is described as antique gold.

    ETA: In a traditional Indian wedding the M-I-L (groom’s mom) is the most important person.

  120. 120.

    Paul in KY

    January 19, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    @Germy: He certainly put in more hours than I did with my Political Science major.

  121. 121.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Hahahahaha! Like Ron Fournier needs a rationale!!

  122. 122.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    @Seanly:

    That was the NPR douche-host on Morning Edition, where Jane Mayer was also a guest today. The Fresh Air interview is longer, better, more nuanced, and not at all douchey.

  123. 123.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 3:11 pm

    @JPL: I loved the red dress that MomSense mentioned, but I suspect you can’t wear red if the rest are wearing pastels.

    Also, does it have to be LONG to the floor, or would mid-calf work? If the latter, then we don’t have to rule everything out because you’re taller.

  124. 124.

    Iowa Old Lady

    January 19, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: For a moment, I left the reality based community. You’re right.

  125. 125.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    @JPL: This is kind of like going shopping with 6 of your girlfriends. :-)

  126. 126.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Has to be long although I’m thinking about approaching her and asking if midi is okay. I really screwed up by forwarding an email that I shouldn’t have, so I might wait a few days. I just sent a friend some links to see what she thought, and the soon to be DIL said, show me. I forgot that I wrote Weddings are a pain on the bottom. uhoh She laughed and I pointed out that I hate shopping and at that time, stopped digging.

  127. 127.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    @bemused:

    I loathe these people.

  128. 128.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    @WaterGirl: This is the kinda thing you not only shop with but you come home and serve wine and cheese afterwards. It’s going to be a pretty fancy wedding. ugh

  129. 129.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 3:21 pm

    @JPL: How about a Dolce and Gabana lace dress, spendy but purty!

  130. 130.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: I do too. I didn’t read the book but I know that at the time the father was being paid, it was money from Ukraine. The people of Ukraine were starving.

  131. 131.

    MomSense

    January 19, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I love that dress. How would it look with bean boots?

    sigh.

  132. 132.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Yup a little spendy. The problem that I’m having is that I’m comfy in my jeans with a paint brush in hand. My son is very fortunate though that he found someone to put up with him. She is really lovely.

  133. 133.

    muddy

    January 19, 2016 at 3:27 pm

    What about rental dresses?

  134. 134.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 3:28 pm

    @JPL: Another option:
    Floor length gown by Herve Leger

  135. 135.

    boatboy_srq

    January 19, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    @bemused:

    blame Obama’s EPA

    For what? Poisoning Flint deliberately (How? Is this more of the “fluoridated water is gummint mind control”?)? Or not nixing a deal they had no say in? Or is this more “Obama destroys jobs” garbage (Detroit and Flint lose jobs [30 years ago] and hence tax base, which is now suddenly the Kenyan IslamoFascoSoshulist’s fault?) Great noodly FSM..

  136. 136.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    @MomSense: I have to see that! Very difficult being a fashionista in the Maine winters.

  137. 137.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:31 pm

    @MomSense: I love this.. link
    Definitely not gonna happen…

    You guys might turn me into a fashionista..

  138. 138.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 3:31 pm

    @muddy: That’s a gorgeous dress! Someone 5;7″ and that size could really pull that one off!

  139. 139.

    Origuy

    January 19, 2016 at 3:31 pm

    @Paul in KY: My sophomore roommate was an architecture student. We had these tiny rooms just big enough for two twin bed and two desks. (Forbes Hall, for the Illinois alums.) He built himself a drafting table with a shelf for a mattress over it. The desk slid under the table and he pulled it out to work on models. I was taking assembly language programming and was in the computer lab all the time, so it worked out ok.

  140. 140.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @JPL: I suggest pairing it with pearls or diamonds.

  141. 141.

    Xenos

    January 19, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @shawn: Interesting about 3D printing. I understand that much of the reason for American victorians to be so heavily decorated was because new sawmills and technologies and the railroads brought relatively inexpensive decorative pieces throughout the country in short order. The commodification of building materials lead to a deliberately archaic and picturesque look becoming more popular.

  142. 142.

    raven

    January 19, 2016 at 3:35 pm

    @Origuy: Oskewow.

  143. 143.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 19, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    @JPL: In fairness to Fred, while he did help set up oil refineries in the USSR, the evidence seems to indicate that he wasn’t there for long, was disillusioned by Stalin’s purges and left by 1932. This was before the worst of the Ukrainian terror-famine, and almost certainly before anyone in the West was aware of it. The evidence of his working with the Third Reich is both stronger and more damning, IMO.

  144. 144.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:39 pm

    @MomSense: This is me… link

    This is where the wedding is.. link

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    January 19, 2016 at 3:40 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    His break into general fame really came shortly after he died, when Blade Runner came out. I think he lived long enough to see a rough cut of the movie. But I think it was Total Recall that established him as, somehow, Hollywood’s favorite science-fiction author.

    Despite the uneven quality of his prose, his imaginative ideas made for a lot of great sci fi.

    I got busy and have only seen the first two episodes of The Man in the High Castle. I hope to finish it and a couple of other Amazon series whenever I get a chunk of free time.

  146. 146.

    pluky

    January 19, 2016 at 3:40 pm

    @Germy: It’s called ‘archi-torture’ for a reason.

  147. 147.

    trollhattan

    January 19, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    @boatboy_srq:
    It’s the EPA’s fault Michigan violated the holy crap out of EPA’s SDWA regulations, putting them in violation of federal law. No SDWA, no EPA, no law broken. Excelsior! Freedom!

  148. 148.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: IBM dealt with them also. My ex is retired from IBM and I met him while working there. Funny story, one of my sons works at the weather company that has just been purchased by IBM.

    When I was younger, I didn’t mind dressing up, so I know that I can do it..

  149. 149.

    MomSense

    January 19, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    @JPL:

    Love the color and the neckline. I’d go with one striking accessory, like an unusual cuff in gold. There is a sheer, black lace dress that is really pretty. I usually stay away from sheer–but that one is gorgeous.

  150. 150.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    @JPL: Fancy!

  151. 151.

    boatboy_srq

    January 19, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    @trollhattan: Sigh. Remind me again why wingnuts don’t adore Somalia…

  152. 152.

    geg6

    January 19, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    @JPL:

    I found a great dress at JCrew online and for a good price. Nice basic dresses and you can get whatever length you want. I paid less than $100 for mine on sale and had it tailored. The whole thing, including shoes, came to $140.

  153. 153.

    MomSense

    January 19, 2016 at 3:47 pm

    @JPL:

    Then I’d go with this

    Or http://www.neimanmarcus.com/Carolina-Herrera-Sleeveless-V-Neck-Ball-Gown-Black/prod183000372_cat13790832__/p.prod?icid=&searchType=EndecaDrivenCat&rte=%252Fcategory.service%253FitemId%253Dcat13790832%2526pageSize%253D30%2526Nao%253D60%2526refinements%253D&eItemId=prod183000372&cmCat=product

  154. 154.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:47 pm

    wpress fail

  155. 155.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 3:47 pm

    @MomSense: I think pearl earrings and the cuff like you suggested.

  156. 156.

    Helmut Monotreme

    January 19, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thanks for catching that error, I have corrected it.

  157. 157.

    MomSense

    January 19, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    @JPL:

    Damn, links didn’t work.

    Neiman Marcus Carolina Herrera navy trench coat dress or the sleeveless v neck black ball gown. Both have a bit of pouf in the back and full skirts.

  158. 158.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    @JPL:

    I remember the original long-read New Yorker piece several years ago. On the strength of the Fresh Air Interview, I have just downloaded the book and will start reading it this evening over a sustaining glass of wine.

    By the way — I’m following The Great Mother-in-Law Dress Hunt with great interest, although I have nothing to contribute by way of ideas, let alone possible garments! But good luck with the search!

  159. 159.

    raven

    January 19, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    Cabela’s has insulated khaki’s for $29, usually $59!

  160. 160.

    MomSense

    January 19, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Oooh, pretty.

  161. 161.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:53 pm

    @MomSense: I have a wide sterling silver band. Many decades ago when I lived in MA, I took a silver class with a pretty good silversmith and made one. I might try that one on when I go to Nordstrom. I think it’s fun and since I already flunked the mother-in-law thing, if it’s a little longer on, it might work.

  162. 162.

    WereBear

    January 19, 2016 at 3:53 pm

    Today I’m tired because I couldn’t sleep last night and stayed up late binge-watching “The Man in the High Castle.” After 10 episodes (not all in a single night), I have one question: WTF?

    I appreciate the heads up. As a big Philip K. Dick fan, I was interested, but I know how badly such things can go wrong…

  163. 163.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 19, 2016 at 3:54 pm

    @raven: Do you think she’ll need insulated khakis for an April wedding in Atlanta? It’s pretty warm by then, if I recall.

  164. 164.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:56 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Actually you know how simple I am and fancy is not my thing.
    Please review the book for us.

  165. 165.

    raven

    January 19, 2016 at 3:57 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: I report, they decide.

  166. 166.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Hey we might get ice tomorrow, but I’m prepared already. No french toast storm for me though.

  167. 167.

    bystander

    January 19, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: I only use my telekinetic powers for good, never for evil, so don’t look at me.

  168. 168.

    Groucho48

    January 19, 2016 at 3:59 pm

    The series has the setting and the characters of the book but deviates from the plot pretty quickly.

    On the plus side, the background is well done with lots of clever little snippets that show, yes, Nazis will be Nazis. The acting is average to very good. The new plotlines are fairly interesting and engaging.

    The big flaw, for me, is that each episode has a couple or three interesting conflicts and the characters deal with them in the stupidest ways possible. That’s not unusual for a TV series, but, this one really goes overboard in characters acting stupidly. So, after each episode, I’m thinking… that could have been SO much better.

  169. 169.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    @raven: AN UPPER LEVEL STORM SYSTEM WILL MOVE THROUGH THE AREA EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING BRINGING THE THREAT OF WINTRY PRECIPITATION TO PORTIONS JUST NORTH OF THE I20 CORRIDOR.

    haha.. I’m not leaving the house.

  170. 170.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    @MomSense: Thanks! If you have watched the links that I have put up over the past few months about Bajirao Mastani, you must have noticed the pearls everyone wears, especially Kashibai the character Priyanka Chopra plays. The west of coast of India where my family is from originally is known for its pearls.

    My great grandfather used to own several pearl fields outside of Mumbai in Thane.

  171. 171.

    muddy

    January 19, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    @JPL: That’s amazing, so elegant. Love the color.

    @WaterGirl: The color was what drew me to that one too. I don’t usually like the ones that look different on both sides of the bodice. So apt to make one look lopsided.

  172. 172.

    raven

    January 19, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    @JPL: It’s a cruel hoax perpetrated on a nation of sheep.

  173. 173.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Appreciating the banter. You guys are me on the football threads.

  174. 174.

    p.a.

    January 19, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    Not criticism, just curious: can anyone remember another such fashion-centric thread on Balloon Juice? This thread could really use Cole’s fashion sense.

  175. 175.

    gogol's wife

    January 19, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Are you watching War and Peace? I’m wondering how much input Vladimir Vladimirovich had. They seem to have been given some good access to some important sites within Russia. Which creates an interesting effect for Tolstoy’s characters. Like, I guess the Tsar let them ice-skate on his front lawn.

  176. 176.

    geg6

    January 19, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    I believe it’s Lady Rose, not Lady Mary.

  177. 177.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 4:05 pm

    @p.a.: I remember another one, maybe when geg6 (or someone else?) needed a dress for some important event.

    I am not a fashionista by any stretch of the imagination, but anyone with a heart who has ever had to FIND A DRESS FOR THE WEDDING jumps in to help when someone else is stuck.

  178. 178.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 4:07 pm

    @muddy: I don’t have the height or the shape for that dress, but damn, it sure is beautiful!

  179. 179.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    January 19, 2016 at 4:07 pm

    Never read the book (wasn’t much of a PKD reader), enjoyed the series a lot, especially in the little details. There was a sense of retarded technological advancement (yeah, the Germans had rocket planes, but nothing that filtered down to daily life), zero hints of rock-n-roll or other Boomer culture, stuff like that. After all, there was no postwar boom in this reality, so the early ’60s still look a hell of a lot like the late ’40s.

    Shortly after we watched that we saw an excellent documentary on North Korea called The Propaganda Game, and a lot of shots of Pyongyang immediately made me think of MitHC. You have these huge public spaces with relatively little public, and that same sense of arrested technological development.

  180. 180.

    MomSense

    January 19, 2016 at 4:09 pm

    If anyone is interested, gofugyourself has been a lot of fun lately with all of the recent awards shows.

  181. 181.

    WereBear

    January 19, 2016 at 4:12 pm

    @Mnemosyne: So those pants are your fault.

    My hourglass figure curses those pants!

  182. 182.

    Brachiator

    January 19, 2016 at 4:14 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    That was the NPR douche-host on Morning Edition, where Jane Mayer was also a guest today.

    That interview can be found here (audio and transcript). Mayer’s reply is very good.

    I think most Americans really don’t like the idea that 400 of the richest people in the country are going to pick the next leaders no matter what their point of view is. The story now is the money on the far right. That’s where most of it is collected, and it’s in the hands of the Koch network because they’ve built something that, as they tell their own donors, is unique. It’s not just campaign money. It’s a full-service operation. It’s a pipeline that runs from universities and colleges, where they recruit kids.

    They’ve got programs now in somewhere between 200 and 300 universities and colleges. It goes from there to state think tanks in every state in America. It’s Koch Industries itself, which is a tremendous company with $115 billion of revenues which lobbies members of Congress to push its point of view. And then it’s all these dark money organizations. So they all kind of working in concert and create a phenomenal machine.

  183. 183.

    EriktheRed

    January 19, 2016 at 4:15 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:

    My “WTF” was that I had no idea just what this show was supposed to be? Science Fiction? Fantasy?

    Sometimes when a show brings up questions such as those I feel compelled to watch more. Not so with this; it’s just a mess, IMHO.

  184. 184.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 19, 2016 at 4:16 pm

    @gogol’s wife: No, I’m not. I don’t make much time for watching TV these days.

  185. 185.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 4:18 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Yes, it was a very good answer.

  186. 186.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 4:20 pm

    @bystander:

    No, of course not. Wouldn’t think of blaming you.

  187. 187.

    boctaoe

    January 19, 2016 at 4:22 pm

    @JPL: I finally found “the”dress for my son’s wedding, and then they eloped.! I still have it, unworn.

  188. 188.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 4:23 pm

    @MomSense: My much older brother was married to a gal, whose father was a motion picture photographer. He was nominated for several Academy Awards and won a few. Anyway when she was visiting us, she went shopping in Grant’s which is like a KMart and found a dress to wear to the awards. Her dad was filming in Europe at the time and she had to attend, in case he won.
    My brother volunteered to bomb Hanoi, even though he didn’t have to because they had young children. Things didn’t work out after that.

  189. 189.

    bemused

    January 19, 2016 at 4:27 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    It’s Fournier, who knows. He seems to be annoyed that Snyder is getting all the heat.

  190. 190.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 19, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    @JPL:

    No, you are not the fancy type, but you are very much the elegant type — jeans, t-shirt and gardening gloves notwithstanding — and I think some of the dresses that the girlfriends have linked to are on the right track. You say pale pink is the theme for the attendants (and mother of the bride? can’t remember) and that you aren’t much for pastels — but could you go with a deeper pink, which would be better with your colouring but still coordinate with the rest of the wedding party?

  191. 191.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    @muddy: I have the perfect coral and pearl earrings for the dress

  192. 192.

    JPL

    January 19, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: haha.. They are beautiful though.

  193. 193.

    hilts

    January 19, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Yesterday, you recommended “The Big Short.” I’d like to get your take on this critique of the film http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/what-the-big-short-gets-wrong-213535.

  194. 194.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 19, 2016 at 4:35 pm

    @p.a.: We have had them before, DougJ used to put them up. We have discussed the merits of seersucker over linen for example.

  195. 195.

    Kay

    January 19, 2016 at 4:39 pm

    @bemused:

    I think he’s embarrassed because he wrote a fawning piece about Snyder right before we found out about the lead poisoning.

    Ron Fournier, columnist for the National Journal and a Detroit native, paid a visit to Michigan’s One Tough Nerd, Rick Snyder, and was charmed. Fournier writes that Snyder is refreshing in his pragmatic approach to governing, a job that the governor approaches with “the passion of an evangelist.”

    He has another interview with Snyder up where Snyder admits it’s “his Katrina”- almost like a correction in a newspaper.

    I listened to about 20 minutes of Morning Joe on it today and they’re doing the same thing. Everyone will be responsible so no one will be responsible when they’re done spinning it.

  196. 196.

    bemused

    January 19, 2016 at 4:40 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Yes, abominable people. Just a month ago, Fournier wrote with much admiration about Snyder’s “fresh approach to politics” governing style extolling Snyder’s emphasis on helping the state’s residents re-enter what Snyder calls a “river of opportunity” without a mention of Flint lead water. Unbelievable.

  197. 197.

    p.a.

    January 19, 2016 at 4:40 pm

    @WaterGirl: Guys have it soooo easy, especially now that ‘White Tie’, ‘Evening Wear’ etc. is so rare. (In the circles I run in, it’s not even a consideration, thank dog. Probably 1/2 the guys I know don’t own a suit.)

  198. 198.

    Gimlet

    January 19, 2016 at 4:41 pm

    I would encourage one of the Flint high schools to adopt Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People” for their senior play.

  199. 199.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 19, 2016 at 4:45 pm

    @p.a.: Feel free to wear a starched long-sleeved shirt with a bow tie and a wool dinner jacket to a 3:00 pm outdoor wedding on the hottest day of the summer.

  200. 200.

    bemused

    January 19, 2016 at 4:48 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    First kid’s wedding, dress hunting was a nightmare. Searched and searched but couldn’t find a thing. Thank goodness it was a low key Vegas wedding so made do with what I had in my closet. Finding a dress for second kid’s wedding was a breeze and I was thrilled to find a dress I loved marked down plus coupons for the unbelievable amount of $20.00. That was my best shopping day ever and the dress got a ton of compliments.

  201. 201.

    p.a.

    January 19, 2016 at 4:54 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: And a boater? Always wanted one. Would have to google bow tie tying. For neckties, I know Windsor, 1/2 Windsor, and Four-in-Hand.

  202. 202.

    PurpleGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 4:55 pm

    @Germy: The house my friend bought is 100 years old and still has almost all the original woodwork inside. The kitchen has been updated at least once, and the windows are new but the wood trim is original. What I love are the pocket doors between the two parlours, and they still work. In the room she uses as her bedroom, there is a shelf above the radiator and the cats use it for the heat and the sunlight. There are three bedrooms on the second floor — she plans to use those for the cat/kitten rooms. The porch is also screened in.

  203. 203.

    bemused

    January 19, 2016 at 4:58 pm

    @Kay:

    That National Journal piece was vomitus, just as fawning and adoring as Hinderaker saying GW Bush approached genius. I don’t see how Fournier could have been unaware of the Flint water fiasco even if it hadn’t hit national news yet.

  204. 204.

    Mnemosyne

    January 19, 2016 at 4:59 pm

    @JPL:

    As probably one of the more recent brides here (10th anniversary this year), I’ll say that the only way to flunk the mother-in-law thing would be to say anything other than, “Whatever you think is best, dear, you’re the bride.” I’m sure her own mother is driving her berzerk, so she may actually want someone she can vent to who will say soothing things like, “It doesn’t really matter, the important thing is that you’ll be married at the end of it all.”

    We solved the bride vs mother of the bride problem by having separate parties — I planned the actual wedding and luncheon in California for 40 people, and she planned a reception for 150 that took place a month later in Illinois. We were both happy because we both got our way for our party.

  205. 205.

    Mnemosyne

    January 19, 2016 at 5:00 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It was 106 degrees for our July wedding, but we were smart enough to have it indoors.

  206. 206.

    PurpleGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    @gogol’s wife: I watched it last night. In fact, I watched it twice because a friend during the first showing and I couldn’t pay attention. I liked it and will watch the other installments. I never read the Tolstoy novel; I think I need to find a listing of the characters so I can keep them straight.

  207. 207.

    laura

    January 19, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: @SiubhanDuinne:
    I checked the link to the wedding location and would like to offer an opinion – a simple blue column dress with your silver cuff would be understated, easy to wear and act as counterpoint to the brides’ colors. A color like hydrangea (or moonstone) would be swell.
    Please make sure that’s there’s no fussy stuff that makes you aware of your dress -you wear it, IT shouldn’t wear you.
    I hope you and your dil have as much love as I had with my mil.

  208. 208.

    Kay

    January 19, 2016 at 5:19 pm

    @bemused:

    I don’t see how Fournier could have been unaware of the Flint water fiasco even if it hadn’t hit national news yet.

    Oh, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt there. Even if he was aware of it he probably thought they were whining and too coddled.

    I hate these stories because details are so important. Snyder’s people are conflating two different events as a defense- they are saying Flint signed onto a water authority (true) but they are making it sound as if that was the same as the decision to decouple from Detroit and use the Flint River water.

    No, it wasn’t. Those were two separate decisions at two different times: 1. sign onto developing new connection to Lake Huron water, 2. decide to use Flint River water. Two events. They are solely responsible for the second decision.

  209. 209.

    bemused

    January 19, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    @Kay:

    I bet Fournier wishes he hadn’t quoted Snyder’s “river of opportunity” remark and Snyder hopes it will be forgotten.

  210. 210.

    Brachiator

    January 19, 2016 at 5:32 pm

    @hilts:

    Yesterday, you recommended “The Big Short.” I’d like to get your take on this critique of the film

    I liked The Big Short, but don’t think it Best Picture material because it is more a visual lecture than a real movie.

    That said, the Politico article is correct that some of the cameo analogies are not clear, or are flat out wrong. HOWEVER, the main point that they were trying to address was correct.

    The Politico article is wrong and the movie is right in other respects. Politico:

    But when the delusion is financed by debt, especially short-term debt that frightened lenders can withdraw in a hurry when markets turn, it can explode into a death spiral of margin calls and panic selling followed by more margin calls and panic selling.

    Bullshit.

    One of the central premises of the movie is dead on. My oversimplified analogy: Greedy ass lenders inflated the already ballooning housing bubble by deliberately approving mortgages that were risky. They then lied about “sophisticated” instruments that reduced risk.

    On top of all this the ratings agencies deliberately obfuscated things in order to hide the fact that many of these financial instruments should have been rated junk. Or worse. I remember on rating agency going to court with the novel idea that their ratings did not have to be based on anything objective because freedom of speech laws protected their right to essentially create fictions called ratings.

    The movie oversimplifies, but oversimplifies better than almost every media financial commentator I’ve ever read.

    The Politico article also notes that some of the fat cats lost their own money by investing in housing. Yeah, some people believed their own bullshit. And the movie makes clear, contrary to the Politico story, that many of these people were motivated by stupidity and greed, not evil. This is even worse than evil, because stupid fools self righteously insisted that they understood risk and markets and let this blind them to what a sober analysis would easily have revealed to be the certainty of economic collapse.

    Hope this was not too much of a rant.

    Shorter: the movie, warts and all, is a good way to get a general understanding of the mess. Obviously, there are deeper investigations that can be found, but few as entertaining.

  211. 211.

    gogol's wife

    January 19, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    @PurpleGirl:

    Yes, it’s kind of Wolf Hall in that I think it would be totally confusing if you haven’t read it. But if you’ve read it, the selection of scenes to dramatize, and the execution, is excellent. I’m so glad to see a Pierre who isn’t too skinny (Henry Fonda) or too old (Bondarchuk).

  212. 212.

    Satby

    January 19, 2016 at 6:32 pm

    @muddy: That’s got some great dresses!

  213. 213.

    Satby

    January 19, 2016 at 6:34 pm

    @JPL: Check out muddy’s suggestion at Rentthedress. Some really nice ones, and way cheaper than buying.

  214. 214.

    scuffletuffle

    January 19, 2016 at 6:40 pm

    @JPL: i think gray would be lovely, or what about lilac.

  215. 215.

    WaterGirl

    January 19, 2016 at 6:51 pm

    @bemused: Wow, dress you loved for almost nothing. Win!

  216. 216.

    muddy

    January 19, 2016 at 6:59 pm

    @Satby: Beats having something in the closet you’ll not wear again. I have a dress bought for a wedding that did not come off in the end, probably I will be laid out in it when I die for a 1st wearing.

  217. 217.

    J R in WV

    January 19, 2016 at 7:00 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Been there, done that for brother’s first wedding. Very scenic, outdoors, 90 miles south of Atlanta. Wool tails!!

    Second one was in air conditioned church, thank FSM!!

  218. 218.

    Ruckus

    January 19, 2016 at 9:37 pm

    @Face:
    These bastards could find fake a black man’s (and amplify) DNA on a meteor from 4 galaxies over.

    FIXIT for both of you.

  219. 219.

    moderateindy

    January 20, 2016 at 12:08 am

    If you are an architecture fan, and find yourself in Chicago in late spring /summer/early fall, I highly reccomend the architecture tour by river boat. I am not exactly an architecture fan, but I’ve taken it twice cause it’s really cool.

  220. 220.

    Paul in KY

    January 20, 2016 at 10:03 am

    @Origuy: Sounds like he had already built some scale models of it before he started!

  221. 221.

    Paul in KY

    January 20, 2016 at 10:07 am

    @Mnemosyne: Did an outdoor one once where it was 100, in Lexington KY. The preacher cut the service short, but I just about ruined my outfit from sweat.

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