Board Post, September 1 2011

Regular Business

Don't forget to send in items that you want included in This week in The Slacktiverse September 2/3 2011.

The three sections of the weekend post are:

The Blogaround

Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website during since the previous weekend post is invited to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to TBAT. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosters by other members.

In Case You Missed This

Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers.

Things You Can Do

Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to TBAT.

Deadlines

Please email all submissions to slackmods at gmail dot com. The deadline this week will be 2000 GMT on Saturday.

Urgent or time-sensitive announcements will be posted immediately rather than being held for the next regular "This Weekend" post.

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Comments

[MercuryBlue]

Dear Brain:

We are supposed to be composing an essay on our experience of atheism. Failing that, we are supposed to be composing an essay on A Dream of Christmas Eve. We are not supposed to be composing an essay on Blake Shelton. Therefore, get the damn honeysuckle song OUT OF MY HEAD.

Sincerely,

Me

(You be my soft and sweet, I'll be your strong and steady, you be my glass of wine, I'll be your shot of whiskey, you be my sunny day, I'll be your shade tree, you be my honeysuckle, I'll be your honeybee--the gender essentialism just drips from the lyrics, doesn't it?)

[Will Wildman]

the gender essentialism just drips from the lyrics, doesn't it?

Insofar as it's assumed to only ever be a man(/all men) singing to a woman(/all women), yes, giganto-ick. Changing one or both of those, however, and it seems okay again? (I'm imagining it between the teenage gay couple in one of my stories and they are adorable, which is nice because some adorable is necessary while trying to halt the total end of the world.)

Or it could be turned into a duet, which could be even more subversive. Each 'you be' line is sung by person A, and each 'I'll be' line is person B correcting them. Best if neither singer is taking the presumptions seriously, of course.

[MercuryBlue]

Ooh I like those thoughts. However, this is contemporary country. Your premises are rejected.

[MercuryBlue]

Also the other version of the chorus kind of requires it to be a man singing to a woman. "You be my little Loretta, I'll be your Conway Twitty".

[Ross]

Ironically, the lyrics you have pasted kinda remind me of "I'll Cover You" from Rent.

[Rodeobob]

This seems like an appropriate spot to link to Let's Duet" from Walk Hard. In my mind, you're blowin' me... some kisses...

[Will Wildman]

However, this is contemporary country. Your premises are rejected.

Oh, I have no doubt that my alternate premises aren't at all what the writer had in mind (or most/all of the singers). I just think that makes it all the more important to put those alternate premises in use. I am probably going to actually include a scene in the story between the aforementioned couple wherein one of them (who was submerged in country music by his parents prior to the Rapture) sings it to the other. I see it being happily received until the chorus you note -

"You be my little Loretta..."
"Wait, what?"
"I'll be your Conway Twitty..."
"What the hell is a Conway?" *googles* "Oh my god! No. No, you can't do that."

[MercuryBlue]

What is a Conway, when it's not an old-time country star's name? (Loretta's an old-time country star, too. I forget her surname, though.)

[Froborr]

What's a Conway?

I dunno. Let's find a scale and a con and we'll see!

*ba-dum-psssh!*

[Amaryllis]

Passing through to suggest an antidote:

Buttercup

"now you want somebody to be your buttercup..."
Good luck with that, says Lucinda.

[MercuryBlue]

Loretta Lynn!

[truth is life]

@MercuryBlue: I dunno, the only Conway I know of is the mathematician/computer scientist ("Conway's Game of Life").

[Mary Kaye]

For the math geeks among us, if you ever get a chance to hear that Conway (John Conway the mathematician) speak in person, jump on it. He is *awesome*.

The highlight of his talk here, some years ago, was telling a very senior member of the Math department "Your problem, sir, is that you are assuming that one and zero makes one!" The senior mathematician thought about it for just a moment--he's good--and said, "You're right, my bad." Awesome talk. He developed a whole complicated number theory on a purely recreational basis, then in the last five minutes showed that oh, incidentally, you can get error-robust encryption out of it.

[MercuryBlue]

Mary Kaye: Ooh yes I'd love to hear that guy talk.

Randomly: Chocolate soy milk gooood.

[Asha]

@MercuryBlue:

Finally tried soy milk after years of suffering from a strange milk allergy. I have been a fool. It is a GOOD alternative.