Plump couches, radical books, free WiFi, $5 microbrews, killer sound system, a menu that runs from catfish and collard greens to peanut butter, banana and honey sandwiches: a cool, comfortable, slightly bourgy haven for a hot, bothered, slightly bourgy peace movement.
September 22, 2005
Sentence of the Day.
The award goes to David Montgomery of the Washington Post for this juicy mass of info in the form of a sentence:
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11 comments:
Reminds me of one of my pithier obtuse blog comments.
Time to turn pro I s'pose.
Actually, it's a sentence fragment. But I like it. No one really needs the "it's" after the colon. I don't think it's confusing. It's a list followed by the modified word "haven." It's concrete, funny, and not at all pretentious.
The $5 microbrew: disturbing. Ouch!
And it's part of a five page panegyric of today's "peace movement" and its titular head, Mother Sheehan.
Wonder how it will all pan out this weekend. If less than 100k show up, will they cover that fact too?
As far as a comparison with Vietnam is concerned, paraphrasing Lloyd Bentsen, I served in Vietnam, I personally knew Vietnam, and folks, Iraq ain't no Vietnam.
Just to be nitpicky -- that there ain't no sentence. 't'ain't gots no verb.
Perhaps if he replaced the ":" with "provide"...
In any case, when was the adjective "bourgy" coined? Did he just make that up?
...of course, he'd also need to turn the "," after "sound system" into an "and"...
Do you know, is the Washington Post looking for new copy editors?
Bourgy is a term you most often hear from dear comrades (or marxist history teachers) when speaking of the evil bourgeois (the term is a Russian pejorative, pronounced BURzhee).
That the author chose that term tells you something, doesn't it?
There's nothing wrong with an intentional sentence fragment, composed for effect, as this one is. It's a label, a sign, not a sentence with an actor and action. I like it.
Calling the anti-war movement "slightly bourgy" is putting it mildly. The protesters that I've seen in Manhattan are overwhelmingly white and middle class; to say nothing of the casual Bush-bashers. Not that they are actually bourgeouis(?) in the traditional sense of a productively industrious middle class. Bourgy here means something closer to "bo-Bo", Bohemian Bourgeois, i.e. the effete elite.
Interestingly enough, the term "Bourgy" has currency in hip-hop culture. My understanding is that it is used to mean materialistic and status-conscious and uptight. Just what the "slightly bourgy" protest crowd likes to think they aren't but really are, in a Bo-Bo sense.
English is not my native language.
"goddamn hippies!"
Check the polls--the mainstream does not support the war in Iraq, national election or not.
"goddamn hippies!" That's funny!
tcd,
You didn't offend me, you amused me! "goddam hippies" is funny as hell.
And American support for the war in Iraq is lower each day, no matter what you put your faith in. "Believe in" is such a strange phrase; you don't believe that polls are accurate? You don't believe in paying attention to information that differs from your opinion? It's unclear what you mean by "believe in." Nor does it matter.
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