Grobstein

(My theory, which I posted on Metafilter a minute ago. NB I briefly discussed this topic w/ Sarang some time ago. I lost the exchange but he has probably influenced my views. Note also that there is a pretty good Language Log post on this subject.)

There is no prescriptivism. There is no descriptivism. These words don’t describe mutually exclusive opposed positions. If you try to define them rigorously you will not be able to cleanly distinguish them. I think we owe their vernacular ubiquity to the success of Language Log (note that I’m not claiming LL invented them).

“Prescriptivism” in particular is a kind of culture-war tag for a certain family of popular, non-professional language criticism, like “Eats Shoots and Leaves” or “The Elements of Style.” These works are often pedantic, and they often include stylistic pronouncements based on usage errors or false generalizations. Furthermore they often include a more-or-less explicit social conservatism (language was better in the good old days; it is okay to criticize poor people for deviating from Standard English). So the fit isn’t one-to-one, but I think it makes sense to think of “prescriptivism” as a label for a family of populist linguistic-conservate rhetoric.
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Celeb chef Paula Deen has announced she has Type II diabetes, and become the spokesperson for a major diabetes drug. Apparently the backstory is that her food is extremely unhealthy. Do you buy this moral theory:

Whatever Bourdain’s personal faults, he is right as rain about how sleazy it is for Paula Deen to sponsor medical treatments for an ailment caused — not exclusively, but increasingly — by the same willfully self-destructive lifestyle she also sells on her Food Network shows and in her numerous cookbooks. The increase in type II diabetes incidence and increase in obesity rates is not accidental, and she makes money from both ends of this disease. That’s disgusting. (source)

Cf.

I’m fat and I’ve never made a single one of Paula Deen’s recipes. Who do I get to blame?

Is the contention seriously that Deen is tricking people into cooking her recipes by claiming that they are healthy? And then profiting by marketing Diabetes drugs to the victims of her nefarious scheme to hide the fact that butter has fat in it.

To be less snarky, I do not believe that a single person in the entire United States watches Deen’s show and thinks, “Wow, that looks like such a healthy meal!” (source)

UPDATE: apparently her deal is building cheeseburgers with donuts or something and calling it traditional southern cuisine. Not sure if this is hyperbole. (FURTHER.)

At the end of 2010, I posted “10 Games I Actually Played in 2010,” and found it a useful summing-up. I decided to try again this year, but I couldn’t think of 10 Games I Actually Played in 2011. The list below is truncated accordingly. (And even so contains a bit of a fudge — I didn’t actually play Jamestown until 2011, except possibly the tutorial.)

Naturally, a top-10 list is right out. But I did get to play a bunch of excellent games last year. I recommend all of the below basically without reservation. Did I only play great games in 2011? Well no but what’s the point of listing every forgettable iOS skinner box I put a few minutes (or hours) into?

EDIT: added a game I had forgotten — Portal 2.
EDIT EDIT: added Bastion! Continue reading →

Weird shit reminder from Metafilter:

The Peanut Butter Solution is a 1985 Canadian ‘family’ film about a boy who is scared bald trying to sneak into a burned house and cops a hairgrowth recipe from two ghosts. Then things get weird. See for yourself [google video, 90 min]
posted by mannequito (33 comments total) [add to favorites] 20 users marked this as a favorite [!]

When I was growing up, we knew a family that was deep into this movie. I may have been 10 or 11, the family had a daughter a few years older — the kind of age gap where her interest in you is purely oh-a-cute-kid but you can endure or ignore that for a chance to get close to the magic. I remember them calling it “Peanut Butter Scruples” — they may have had a hairy dog named “Scruples” whose fur looked like the magical growth from the movie. All I really remember is the hair, the name, and possibly some peanut butter.

Last night at 4AM Steph and I were awoken by an explosive booming, loud as a gunshot but with the flapping aftershock of a fart. Then, a minute later, another. Then another. Somewhat terrified, we peered out the window, and as the next boom went off I saw a constellation of red lights flare briefly in a high window across the back lot. Fireworks.

I don’t actually know that the fireworks were going off inside — in fact, that seems insane. More likely, then, I saw them reflected in the window. Where were they actually? Somewhere on the roofs above me? I live in a nice neighborhood. Nocturnal explosions are a rarity. Yet here someone had loaded up on New Years ordnance, got excited a week early, and set them off somewhere while I was trying to sleep.

Is this a thing?

None of the neighborhood sites are reporting anything; this is not news I guess. Fucking annoying though and I hope it doesn’t become a regular occurrence. I read some messageboard traffic about similar happenings elsewhere.

Di Fara is the cult hole-in-the-wall in Midwood where you can wait an hour to buy pizza at prices of about $5 / slice. It’s great, obviously. Turns out the management is more engaged than you might have thought:

The interesting thing about Di Fara is that Dom is not just a bug in amber doing things the way he’s always done them. That’s sort of a false notion I think a lot of Di Fara–goers subscribe to. As his daughter Margaret Mieles notes in that heavy hand link (above), her father changed his methods at some point in the late ’00s, becoming more generous with ingredients. And when I chatted with Dom Jr. once, he noted that his father reads the reviews here and there and responds to them. For instance, Dom Jr. told me that his father used to not make all the pies himself. But once he read the press trumpeting this notion, he felt like he had to give the people what they’d read about. And so he changed his M.O.

From Slice, a “point-counterpoint” on the restaurant. (Actually not worth reading overall.)

By Robert Charles WIlson and J. M. Coetzee (who — did you know — is sort of a computer scientist). They’re both fantastic.

[PS I have a free PDF copy of Spin, the book to which Vortex is an ultimate sequel. It's a Hugo winner and one of my very favorite SF of the past 10 years or so; drop me a line if you'd like it. Brief endorsement from Henry Farrell.]

A few words on Wilson:
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