Certainly the children have seen them in quiet places where the moss grows green

[sovay]

Just as derspatchel and I decide to leave the kitchen table to watch a movie, Autolycus leaps onto my lap and falls asleep within five seconds. He is out cold, a warm trusting weight, flickering his ears and paws a little in his dreams. Ladies and gentlemen, the cat.

Rob: "M'SIEU LE BUTT! THE BUTT ABIDES! IN HIS LAP IN SOMERVILLE, SWEET AUTOLYCUS LIES DREAMING. SNUFFLE SNUFFLE SNORT!"

(We get punchy when the cat gets cute.)

1. Courtesy of gaudior: I do not know the origins of the "dick: out" meme, but I approve mightily of this ancient Roman variation.

2. I've been seeing this photo going around on social media: a menorah against the swastika, 1931. I have also been seeing this article: "A People's History of the Third Reich." I don't think it misses the point to consider the ways in which Trump and his supporters behave like the kind of authoritarians we have seen before, but I agree that the important question is then: so what are you going to do about it?

3. Since it is still the time of year at which people have conversations about "Baby, It's Cold Outside": I felt a lot less weird about the song knowing that Frank Loesser wrote it to be performed by himself and his wife Lynn Garland as a party-closer, signaling to their guests that it was time to gather their coats and go home. Then I felt weird again learning that Garland was furious with Loesser for selling the song to MGM, because it was their duet and their in-joke and the context was everything. Indeed.

4. The Brattle Theatre has just announced an upcoming series on the occult in cinema. Yes, please, awesome. Of the movies I have never seen/in a theater, I am definitely planning on Night of the Demon (1957), The Devil Rides Out (1968), and The Holy Mountain (1973), but I would love to see The Witch: A New-England Folktale (2015) again and I think it would be really instructive to rewatch The Devils (1971) and A Field in England (2013) in close proximity. handful_ofdust, you want to visit Boston for a weekend?

5. I think Tablet just built a golem: "We Built a Bot That Trolls Twitter's Worst Anti-Semitic Trolls."

Last night YouTube recommended me a video entitled "Intelligent People Have Fewer Friends, Here's Why . . ." I didn't watch it. I assume the answer is "comma splices."

Comments

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Oh I love the bot against Twitter trolls

[tb]

"My name is Autolycus, cat of cats! Look on my cute ye mighty and de...snore."

I found that Roman artifact adorable even before Know Your Meme provided me with context.

The Baffler article's subtitle is on-point: "How Great Man theory allows us to abdicate collective responsibility." Thanks for the pointer to that and the Twitter bot.

And yeah, context matters. My original nom de lj was based on an in-joke that upset some out-group folks who didn't and couldn't share the context. I decided to do less harm and changed it.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Re: #2 -- is it my imagination, or are Hannukah posts this year a lot more focussed on the fact that it's a "they tried to destroy us and failed" holiday?

Re: #3 -- my take on "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is that the situation in the song is consensual (and also that it may actually be a post-coital debate about whether she can risk staying over, rather than fixing her hair and going home to throw the gossips off the trail), but that the society it comes from does cause date rape by requiring women to put up a token show of resistance, no matter how eager they really are.

Re:#3b (the importance of context) -- I nearly intervened yesterday in what looked at first like a hate crime against a wheelchair user, but after a couple of seconds observation, I think it was just two bros whose affectionate nicknames for each other were "Fucktard" and "Buddy." Hope I was right about that.

[gwynnega]

I would dearly love to see Night of the Demon on a big screen.

That bot is excellent.

[drwex]

I am now following the trollbuster bot on Twitter, thanks for that.

the important question is then: so what are you going to do about it?

Yes, this exactly.