A few posts ago, I wrote about "fair play" and "your man." I know that no one reading shutitdown will find this as thrilling as I do, but the country of Ireland is currently running ads to encourage energy efficiency that use both of these phrases. If you don't live here, you really should watch this thirty second ad. It airs all the time in between the American sitcoms I watch for their comfort value, and every time it comes on I giggle uncontrollably. Watch it, seriously.
Power of One - appliance purchase ad
In the same post I was writing about slang here that I don't understand. I couldn't think of much while I was writing it, though. I was sitting in the Glasgow airport this weekend with some Irish friends (last week I found myself in three countries, oddly) when I heard something that tickled my fancy--much better than the examples I put here previously. One of the guys was telling a story that began "That fooking eejit was going to the jacks for a slash, but it was jammers, so he..." The story ended with a bathroom covered in blood, and the eejit being slapped across the face with a five Euro note.
Mmm. Euros. You know, my friend just showed me a pound sterling. I am just imagining somebody getting slapped with a pound sterling. It would be very, very painful as I just learned they are very, very big. And in totally unrelated news, I am sending you this interview with Scott Lynch;
Q: Honestly, do you believe that the fantasy genre will ever come to be recognized as veritable literature? Truth be told, in my opinion there has never been this many good books/series as we have right now, and yet there is still very little respect (not to say none) associated with the genre.
SL: Well, you can't really escape the condescension. Sturgeon's Law, "Ninety percent of everything is crap," applies to everything. But as several people have observed, "literary fiction" tends to be judged by its glowing ten percent while genre fiction tends to be judged by its crappy ninety. There are an awful lot of gilded turds taking up shelfspace in the "Fiction and Literature" shelves of the big book chains, and as anyone with half a functioning brain knows, quite a few sparkling gems tucked away next to the gaming tie-in boxed sets.
Mmm. Okay, I think I just sent you that because I like fantasy and you like literary fiction and I wanted to shove this in the face of someone who does. Actually, I like both, but I just sometimes hate it when literary folk act all superior when regarding other genres. I think I've done that before though, because this girl in my class Loves Her Some Danielle Steel and I told her I didn't consider it real literature and she took me off her myspace and I really do think I'm going to fiction hell for saying that.
Hmm. I like American accents, just not modern ones. Like when you watch an old movie, they sound very nice and lovely then. Or upperclass American accents, which aren't too hard to mistake with British ones. Just not today's upperclass Americans because they're all rappers and shit.
I have a chorus concert to go to. We're singing Stevie Wonder. Bye.
Brandy | May 22, 2007 11:29 PMThanks so much for all this commentary! I envy your adaptability and skills. It must be a heavy drinking scene as well as a paradise of friend starches.
Rachel | May 9, 2007 9:56 PM