This is a tough week to be doing a DOT. On Sunday, @Elliecoo gave us a heartbreaking but thoughtful reflection on gun violence in America. Monday, @butcherbakertoiletrymaker comforted us with good news. And yesterday, @SplinterRIP led us as gently as possible back to the anxiety-inducing headlines. Getting ready to write my DOT, I wondered, how was I going to follow all that? I briefly considered pretending to be as erudite and well-informed as my fellow DOTers. But I knew you’d see through that, and then things would get weird. I remembered Hunter S Thompson famously said, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. And Deadsplinters, if they gave out professional certifications for weird, I’d be tops in the field. So I give you Weird Wednesday!
Sports are weird
You may not be able to go to the Summer Olympics, but with travel restrictions lifting you can attend the International Wife Carrying Championship.
https://radseason.com/event/wife-carrying-championship-sonkajarvi-finland/
Sex is weird
I don’t mean to kink shame anyone, but if your fetish is getting stuck in objects you might expect to get stuck now and then.
Fashion is weird
Mildly NSFW
It always has been.
Art is weird
Bidding starts at $1000
https://mashable.com/article/tim-berners-lee-www-nft/
Felix Gonzales Torres’ piece Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is getting dragged on Tik Tok but it’s really very poignant. Context is everything.
https://publicdelivery.org/felix-gonzalez-torres-untitled-portrait-of-ross-in-l-a-1991/
“Froggytastic!!! Probably the best stuffed frog museum I have ever visited.”
Florida is weird
A woman is claiming to have seen a baby dinosaur in her yard. It seems unlikely but anything can happen in Florida.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article251997808.html
As always this is an open thread. Feel free to disregard my nonsense. Have a great Wednesday.
@Hannibal, a DOT pièce de résistance! And finally, the true reason for all of Batman’s brooding angst – he’s a selfish lover.
Aww, shucks @Elliecoo, thanks.
Maybe this is why girls always like the bad boys!
Once again, proof that we need more hilarious posts from Hannibal. I could read your jokes all day.
@butcherbakertoiletrymaker You’re gonna make me blush, thanks.
Eric Clapton is weird. This might be old news to others but I tend not to pay too much attention to him. The punch line of course is that he has been vaccinated. more do as I say not as i do from people abusing their public platform.
https://www.vulture.com/2021/06/eric-clapton-says-covid-19-theories-are-losing-him-friends.html
I guess his friends were okay with his racism throughout the years but not this. Clapton is an asshole, Van Morrison too.
Van Morrison is an asshole, I struggle with this because I like his music, he sort of hates everyone so I am inclined to be lenient and allow him to entertain me.
I like Van Morrison’s music too but he’s really out there politically. It’s the whole separating the artist from the art conundrum. Can we, should we? The line is pretty clear with child rapists like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. But blurrier with this stuff I guess. Anyway, I look for them to team up with Morrissey soon.
For me the solution is to get things I like from artists who I don’t like as humans on the secondary market. They don’t get a royalty and I don’t have an ethical dilemma.
I used to like Ted Nugent. There’s plenty of other good music out there, so I only miss him a little bit. I can also stop trying to decide whether I like Staind. And now I don’t care that Kid Rock only had one good album.
Have you ever seen “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”? The letter W is a central plot element. It is to my mind one of the funniest movies ever made and features dozens of the most talented comedians of the 20th century in lead and supporting cameo roles. The director’s cut is about 3 1/2 hours long, longer than “Dr. Zhivago,” but the studio trimmed it back by an hour. Due to unfortunate timing it came out a couple of weeks before JFK’s assassination, so that dampened the mood of the American movie-going audience.
I happened to catch both movies within the past year on TCM. That channel provides lots of interesting trivia and insight by the host, but it’s also junked up by so many commercials that I think I devoted five, probably closer to six, hours to each viewing. It seemed much longer because footage of “active seniors” living their best lives thanks to various pharmaceuticals holds only so much interest. To put this in perspective, winners of the NYC marathon do it in a little over two hours, and the flying time from NYC to LA is about six hours. The Mars rovers can send images back to earth in less time.
This is my favorite scene of that movie –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejDx-zn7M5Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejDx-zn7M5Y
So, link fail for some reason.
It worked for me, that’s hilarious. She’s so serious. But I guess he’s having enough fun for both of them. I really want to watch it now.
It’s a shame that Turkey’s national sport, oil wrestling, is not more widely popular. Traditionally this is/was done in the nude, to give opponents less to grab onto, but there is that one extremity exclusive to men—
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/turkey/articles/10-things-to-know-about-oil-wrestling-turkeys-national-sport/
@MatthewCrawley I didn’t know about that one. I almost went with goat carcass dragging.
https://www.scmp.com/sport/other-sport/article/3080137/goat-dragging-greasy-pole-and-tuk-tuk-polo-asias-weirdest-sports
I think I saw it years ago but I don’t remember much about it. I’d like to see it again if I can stream it somewhere it didn’t require that kind of commitment. I just googled it, that’s a hell of cast -Spencer Tracy, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Terry Thomas, and Phil Silvers.
Watch it. The movie is hilarious.
@myopicprophet Speaking of movies, how did you like The Holy Grail?
I fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through but thought it was hilarious. I’m going to have to watch the rest next week.
Love it when things get weird!
Frankly, all I’m hoping for in the NBA playoffs is another version of this gem…
Tell us about yourself? What is this a corporate retreat with an icebreaker before the team building exercises? He has a great laugh.
@LemmyKilmister, “Run through a Motherfucker face” has so many applications for me, this week. I was wanting to punch folks in the nose, but this works better.
@lemmykilmister I laughed so hard my stomach hurts.
Who has tickets? Going to be a great show, some might even say the best show!
https://crooksandliars.com/2021/06/new-maga-scam-1200-tickets-trumps-second
@Loveshaq There is nothing weirder than the minds of the trump base.
Does that mean you are not going? Maybe I’ll just catch a ride w/ Lemmy. I know he is a fan of the Nuge and K.Rock.
Hey now, I didn’t say I wasn’t going! I’m sure there will be enough of us that we can take the Deadsplinter bus if myo will let us.
Only if we can also use the P-card. Better than aggregating everyone’s receipts later.
“Minds”
You’re right. I should have said mind, they share one.
I keep losing my post, but that Bunions/Poulaines story is not really surprising, if one knows fashion history, and that, until the 1800’s, wmWestern shoes were mostly single-lasted.
Meaning that, for *most* of history, European shoes were created by using one, single, last to create both shoes in a pair. They weren’t made with a “left shoe” and “right shoe” in the pair…
So as the poulaines/crackows grew longer & longer, the weight on the center front at the point (which may be stuffed with wool, fabric, feathers, or even have a piece of whale bone, to keep its shape!), and the pressure on the sides of the toes, to keep the shoe on one’s foot, would be considerable… definitely enough pressure to cause bunions for many/most wearers…
https://bellatory.com/fashion-industry/The-History-of-Shoes-Early-Footwear
https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/poulaine/
https://www.lparchaeology.com/prescot/the-site/the-prescot-street-shoes
http://philmaffetone.com/shoe-history/
It’s pretty fascinating, too, that the shoe in the picture Hannibal showed appears to be a *chained* poulaine!😉
As the points got long, and heavy, and so many folks tripped on the dragging points, some folks started to attach a small gold/silver chain (if rich), or a thin string (lower classes), which attached either to a knee-garter or a bracelet work on the lower leg, just under one’s knees, in order to keep the points up and not dragging😉
If you zoom in, you can juuuust see the ring on the end of the fish/dragon/*whatever it is* on the tip of the toe, where said chain would’ve attached!😁
I didn’t notice the little ring on the end. Thanks for pointing that out!
Trevor Noah’s response about Batman not going down on Catwoman or anyone else was hilarious
It’s nuts that this story is everywhere, lol.