There are n*zis on campus rn and a student brought out like a 1997 boombox and started blasting Taking The Hobbits to Isengard every time they tried to say something.
“Those who do not share our genes -THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS – THE MASTER RACE – TO ISENGARD TO ISENGARD – AND I BELIEVE –
THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE-”
Chaotic good
In Jewish tradition, one of our holidays is called Purim. It celebrates the defeat of an antisemitic political advisor to a king who liked to prowl the streets ranting his hatred. Part of the story of Purim involves the people being ranted at inventing a special kind of noisemaker to drown him out.
Basically what I’m saying is this student is following a grand tradition whether they realize it or not and they should be proud.
not only is Purim about drowning out fascists, it’s about doing so in the most absurd and embarrassing ways possible! fascism thrives on an aura of invincibility, and it’s hard to hold onto that when people keep making farting sounds every time you open your mouth
so really, weaponized memes are PERFECTLY in keeping with the Purim spirit
*slams fist on table* NOW THIS is the kind of religious/cultural tradition I can get behind!
what if we start treating fascist rallies like rocky horror? bring popcorn and 3D glasses and heckle them like they’re a goofy movie.
singing playground songs is also effective. you know, the ones you thought were super super naughty when you were seven. and songs that get stuck in people’s heads. do the macarena for twenty minutes, they will have flashbacks for life. bring signs with random weird things on them. like. scooby doo. an apple. a line from frosty the snowman. a spiraling shape that actually spins.
rickroll them right to their goddamn faces.
This is what I mean when I say “what do you mean nonviolence is ineffective?”
Sometimes being humiliated is WORSE than being punched.
If you’re advocating punching without thinking about trying mass ridicule first and ruling it out for good reasons, I have trouble taking your wisdom seriously.
The most basic and the most important task of any technician in both music and theatre production is simply wrapping a cable. It may sound basic, but *how* you wrap a cable can actually determine how long it lasts. Now, most professional for-profit productions do list cable as “consumables”, meaning that they are designed to be thrown out and purchased or manufactured anew if they develop an issue. But you will catch hell by any Foreperson, TD or SM for wrapping cable in a way that damages it.
There is a correct technique accepted by both IATSE and Teamsters production houses, and that is called the “Over/Under” technique. Trying to describe it in words is maddening, and even I have a hard time trying to tell someone what has become a reflex to me over 20 years. But, this video by the London School of Sound perfectly shows the way I learned how to wrap cable.
Now, I know what you are saying if this is a new thing to you, or if you’ve been too embarrassed to ask because some asshole stagehand called you out for not knowing such a “basic” thing (And, if any tech does pull that, they are a bad person and shouldn’t be on the gig, FYI)
“But, WHY?!??! Why do Techs gotta make EVERYTHING so hard and, well, dramatic!!??”
Excellent Question!
It all comes down to how the cable is constructed. The cable itself is actually made up of various different wires (which is why we don’t call a cable a “wire” on a show, because they technically mean two different things). The wires in a cable, such as a balanced XLR cable, are actually wrapped around one another, like this:
Now you see that the wires are actually wrapped AROUND one another! This means that the cable, once covered in shielding, it going to want to twist a certain way, because the cable is tensioned around one another (usually counter-clockwise). This means if you try to wrap it like your extension cord you use for your Christmas lights, it is going to get kinked up, and the wires inside will start binding against one another because by just wrapping it over your arm like a garden hose is going to force those cables to bind and twist in a way that is unnatural.
In short: You end up forcing them against one another until they simply break.
Yep. Wire itself is just thin bits of copper (anywhere from 22 to 10 gauge thick, with the bigger the number being the thinner the wire), and it doesn’t take much to bend them out. Just like when you shove your earbuds in your pocket without making sure they are coiled up nicely.
So, when you wrap Over/Under, you are actually alternating the coil of the cable to match the natural way the cable wants to go (this is called the “lay” of the cable). When you get the over/under technique down, you will feel that the cable naturally wants to coil that way, and it takes no effort. When you wrap a coil just one over the other like a home extension cord, you can feel the cable actually twist and want to fight you.
Also, to know if you got it right, all you have to do is take one end of the cable, and then throw the rest of it out away from your body. If you did it right the cable will FLY out of your hands and land straight and true right on the deck, making you look like a badass stage ninja!
It may take a lot of practice, but eventually you will literally do it in your sleep. Just like any motor action, it just takes practice! And, you will find that many professional houses still have people who cannot coil cable correctly (these tend to also be the know-it-alls who will give new techs trouble, ironically). Master fast, accurate cable wrapping and you will save the band or the venue a TON of money in cable costs, and it will make you more attractive too! Trust me.
Clearly the nineteenth century Russian word translated as “lovemaking” in Super Karamazov Bros has a different meaning than the usual twenty-first century English sense of that word. Bit of a double-take there.
Comes up in PG Wodehouse too. Something like “He was making love to her right on the park bench.”
Jane Austen: as soon as they were alone in the carriage together he at once began making violent love to her.
Me: {O,O}/
One also sees this in narratives of opera. In general, if the date is before 1912, s/lovemaking/hitting on.
I kinda enjoy reading stuff like that with straight up modern interpretations. It spices them up.
so it’s official, my eldest has been diagnosed with autism
there’s a lot of talk about different supports that I will be able to access, it’s all in the air at the moment, I’m still processing
basically I’m ‘well, now we know for sure and can direct our efforts appropriately’
part of me is worried about these ‘social skills classes’ though, I follow enough autistic people to know that these programs can be sketchy, I don’t want him to be abused
I’m trying to respect his sensory issues, which at this point are – needs something for noise as needed, doesn’t like how lotion feels on his hands but he’ll let me put it on him (dermatitis), he needs a new bed probably because the loft bed is squeaky and he doesn’t like it, doesn’t like hugs so when he does hug me, it definitely feels like he’s doing me a favor
he has dysgraphia, so we need to work on fine motor skills and his gross motor needs work too
baby steps, though
I need to get both my kids Alphasmart Neos, they really like the ones the program has
any one have any suggestions how to help him wash his hair better, I dunno, he’s 13 and touchy about the subject
Re dysgraphia: “working on” motor skills isn’t likely to do much. If the bit of his brain that does that doesn’t do that well, then practice won’t make much difference.
With stuff like handwriting, he probably already practices it lots, and any extra practice (even like an hour a day) isn’t going to make a significant difference if there’s already 3-4 hours of writing built into the school day.
Even large improvements aren’t likely to bring his handwriting up to “typical” levels. The 3 requirements here are 1. speed, 2. legibility and 3. endurance. If you can’t write at a reasonable speed, readable to most people, for long periods, then you haven’t reached the minimum standard for handwriting.
My handwriting is either illegible, slow, or painful. I can choose one out of the 3 requirements. So I get a computer in exams, and I can take notes on a laptop. Being pulled out of lessons to practice handwriting for hours on end made no difference, accommodating me so that my handwriting didn’t affect my exam results did.
Re: hairwashing: It really depends what the issue is. If it’s sensory, depends what the specific sensory issue is. Could also be difficulty adjusting to how fast your hair gets greasy during puberty. Dry shampoo might be useful. Explicit instructions on how you’re supposed to do it (eg. lathering) might also be needed, we sometimes miss stuff.
Agreed on the dysgraphia. My handwriting is bad, but I have a note taker accommodation in college, and I get on fine.
Re: hairwashing, etc – it definitely depends what the issue is and in that regard, thirteen is probably old enough to start developing some good self-awareness and self-advocacy as an autistic person. So I would encourage him, even though it might take a while to emotionally adjust to being newly diagnosed, to explore his being autistic and take ownership of the experience. There were so many things I had difficulty with, that I really didn’t understand why, (showering being one of them), that once I was diagnosed and explored all the things about autism from other autistic people, I was able to figure out and change for myself. Plus, it is an embarrassing subject to talk about with your parent at that age, so even if you know you are having trouble, you are likely to want to figure it out on your own. So if he can become even more familiar with things like sensory issues and executive dysfunction, and ways other autistic people have dealt with these things, he can begin the lifelong process of navigating being autistic on his own self awareness and strength, and advocating what he needs.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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