November 26, 2017

At the Monochrome Café...

DSC05188

... may your Thanksgiving weekend come in for a gentle landing.

(And this is an open thread, so I must follow my ritual of steering you toward The Althouse Amazon Portal.)

56 comments:

steve uhr said...

Buckle your seat belts, The War on Christmas is about to begin. Bone-spur Donald will be on the front lines of this battle along with trusted assistant Roy, keeping safe from persecution eighty percent of the population.

Yancey Ward said...

Lefties everywhere will be running that thumbprint trying to prove that picture is stock and not taken by Althouse.

Robert J. said...

I like the idea of the folding buildings in the previous post, but not the execution. Nearly all the things I've seen like that are made by engineers with no aesthetic sense. They all look like ugly modernist boxes from the 1950s. They need to take a lesson from simple things like this turkey photo -- rule of thirds, nothing centered, golden mean, organic shapes, etc.

Michael K said...

"Buckle your seat belts,"

Yes, your lefty allies will be creating disorder wherever they can.

Usually in places where guns are banned.

Freeman Hunt said...

Ginger cookie?

Ann Althouse said...

Yes, it's a ginger snap (baked by a neighbor).

Unknown said...

In a post yesterday I mentioned the band Loud Family. They had an album called "The Tape of Only Linda." This title is in reference... well, I'll let Wiki do the lifting:

"a reference to the notorious tape recording of a live performance of "Hey Jude" by Paul McCartney in which an engineer had isolated Linda McCartney's vocals."

And the vocals are iffy: off-key, to begin.

So, you know: a tape for the haters.

On the internet some claim hoax, others swear to it. Meaning it is as real as you want it to be.

Except Paul McCartney basically indicates it is true:

"A BOOTLEG tape of the late Linda McCartney singing out of tune caused her so much hurt that Sir Paul McCartney has revealed that it was a prime reason for his latest project - a documentary on the history of his band Wings...

But in an interview to be published in Mojo magazine later this week, Sir Paul says that a major motivation for the whole exercise was to exorcise the humiliation of that tape and the criticism of Linda that resulted. He says of the CD/documentary: "The great thing is, it vindicates Linda. I know she wanted to do the Wingspan thing. She knew that if it was laid out correctly, people would get the idea. With all the slagging off she got, like the famous Knebworth tape.

"The truth is she was doing this (he stands and raises his hands above his head to clap). She was the big cheerleader. But you don't see the visual. You just hear this out-of-tune-voice, and I know she always wanted the record put straight. And this does."

So, to amend: it is as bad as you want it to be.

And McCartney is defending his wife's honor, the wife who died almost twenty years ago. The wife whose marijuana he claimed was his own when busted in Tokyo in 1980 and for which he subsequently spent nine days in jail. Allegedly. Not the Tokyo bust-and-jail part, but the true ownership of the drugs. Rumors, rumors. We have the Internet: back then you had to get your hands on clandestine cassettes of sketchy origin.

And we again are back to: meaning it is as real as you want it to be.

But McCartney's love for Linda: that seems as real as they wanted it to be.

Which probably pisses off the haters.

There are worse things.

-jj

Wince said...

... may your Thanksgiving weekend come in for a gentle landing.

"I thought it was interesting to see turkeys fall from the plane."

john said...

On Meet the Press it was nothing but harassment and Donald Trump!, sexual predation and Donald Trump!, Anita Hill and Donald Trump! It occurred to me that Charlie Rose, Al Franken, and whatever other Democrats who have been shamed or apologized this week, are more than happy to fall on their sword for their transgressions. Why? They have already been or soon will be forgiven by their followers and the media, and they can now concentrate on the unapologetic Donald Trump with vengeance. They are all working toward his eventual impeachment.

Besides, those are cheap collapsible plastic swords.

madAsHell said...

Fish, or family. After three days, you gotta throw them out.

Freeman Hunt said...

That's my favorite kind of cookie.

Michael K said...

"On Meet the Press it was nothing but harassment and Donald Trump!, "

I quit watching any of them about 6 months ago when I saw the TDS was not fading.

Fox is no better.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

My mother was color blind. Couldn't tell the difference between blue and brown (among other combinations like green/red, brown/green or any pastels of any color). She liked orange, but who knows what it looked like in her eyes.

To her that photo would be truly monochrome.

Cookie looks yummy.

Scott said...

I'm not at war with Christmas. I just don't like it starting before Thanksgiving.

Incidentally, the non-commercial internet music streaming site somafm.com has four Christmas music channels that draw from a highly eclectic collection of holiday recordings. Check it out!

Danno said...

Are you sure this isn't a "Wisconsin fist" cookie turned upside down?

Big Mike said...

If there's no war on Christmas, then why do people get so nasty about the sight of a creche? They might as well go down to Mexico and inveigh against the Day of the Dead.

john said...

Thanks for that link, Scott.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Whether Linda M could sing or not, I don't know, but a bad performance proves nothing.

There exists a recording from a Beach Boys' Australia tour where Carl Wilson, possibly the best voice in a band full of great vocalists, totally butchers "Good Vibrations". The official story (which could be true) is that he was medicated for his (real) back problems and didn't realize how badly a pre-show drink would interact with that. It got so bad that he called out "Help me, Bri" to brother Brian, then touring in the "Brian Is Back"/Landy era. Alwas a fragile reed to lean on, Brian actually leads the band into the never released "hum-de-da" alternate conclusion to the song.

Humperdink said...

If there is a war on Christmas, it is a guarantee it will be started by the commie-pinko lefties. Pick one - the war on marriage, the war on historical genders, the war on cake bakers, the war on the men in blue, the war against the national anthem, the war on free speech on campus. Who started these affronts to the American culture? The same gang every time. Your gang steve. Yet we are the deplorables.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Wasn't MTP the show where Nancy Pelosi just insured the snake Moore's election?

She said Conyer shouldn't quit and he deserves the presumption of innocence on the question of harassment on a harassment claim he settled using tax dollars and kept secret.

She just proved Moore's point that this is all just political.

Pelosi and Moore need to go and go now.

Darrell said...

Lefties everywhere will be running that thumbprint trying to prove that picture is stock and not taken by Althouse

Nah. I ran the fingerprints--it's Althouse.

Humperdink said...

I need proof as to who made the cookie. Video, or it didn't happen.

Fabi said...

Was the ginger snap a gift or was it purloined after you-know-who scaled the fence as the treat cooled on your neighbor's windowsill?

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Actual HuffPo headline: Trump Supporters Are Confusing LeVar Burton With LaVar Ball, And It’s Painful

Better HuffPo headline: HuffPo Writer, Readers, Confused by Trolls. Yes, It's Painful

Humperdink said...

It would be mildly amusing if the Chinese government recharged LaVar Ball's son and we sent him back.

Big Mike said...

Was the ginger snap a gift or was it purloined after you-know-who scaled the fence as the treat cooled on your neighbor's windowsill?

Zeus brought it in his mouth.

traditionalguy said...

Time to sing a song about the 3 new justices on the Supreme Court to be appointed soon. On the first appointment of Christmas, my true President gave to me one Diane Sykes and 2 more coming soon....all of whom will need Senator Roy Moore's vote for confirmation.

Ann Althouse said...

Re “colorblind “

I know the shirt looks blue in the photograph but in real life it is unquestionably brown. I tried to enhance the photo to make it look the way it really looks but could not get rid of the blue appearance.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

The shirt looks red to me.

tcrosse said...

Maybe this would explain the disturbing pallor of the hand.

robother said...

A gingerbread turkey? "Swing your axe herky-jerky, you can't kill me, I'm the Gingerbread Turkey!"

Followed by Althouse ritually imploring the deplorable.

Yancey Ward said...

"I tried to enhance the photo to make it look the way it really looks but could not get rid of the blue appearance."

Fake photograph! Althouse has admitted it!

Fernandinande said...

Char Char Binks said...
Actual HuffPo headline: Trump Supporters Are Confusing LeVar Burton With LaVar Ball, And It’s Painful


The PuffHo is always painful.

I keep those guys, neither of whom I'd heard of until the other day, straight even though there's no reason to do so, by remembering that "LaVar Ball" looks like "Larval".


Drudge sez: "US troops killed in plane crashes skyrockets"

Better: "Skyrockets crashed by US troops killed in plane"

Fernandinande said...

A usual, my war on Christmas will consist of leaving a bunch of outside lights up for way too long hoping they'll make Jesus land in the wrong spot.

tim in vermont said...

Those glasses for the colorblind are pretty cool. It turns out that the red and green perception overlaps on certain frequencies, for example. The glasses precisely filter out those frequencies that overlap, allowing the wearer to see un-muddied colors, nearly the same as you and I might.

I suppose you could create an Instagram filter that would allow colorblind people to view photos in nearly full color.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Althouse: "I know the shirt looks blue in the photograph but in real life it is unquestionably brown"

That is really interesting in terms of the blue/brown colorblind spectrum (among other confused colors) of my mother (and brother). I always wondered what colors really looked like to her as compared to me or anyone else.

Then I realized that we really have no idea what colors look like to anyone and that perhaps everyone's perception is unique unto themselves. What I see as a pleasing color combination may not be so for someone else.

Bay Area Guy said...

I love college football and I love high school football - but it is getting somewhat tedious to watch pro football. Too many overpaid prima donnas.

By the way, is there anything sexier than an attractive woman who likes football and can discuss it? Yowzah.

Howard said...

We are not colorblind, we are monochrome enhanced. Superior night vision, superior camouflage detection, enhanced pattern recognition... it's a feature, not a bug. You just need to get used to eating raw meat.

Those Enchroma glasses are a real trip. The little woman got them for me when they first came out, something about her concern me not seeing stop signs, red traffic lights and brake lights... women, waddya gonna do? There was a manufacturing defect that made the color effects fade with time. The newer model they gave us gratis seems to be holding up OK. So much red paint and lights... now I know why you people like it to draw attention. No wonder they paint STOP signs red.

My daughter is slightly mono-enhanced, which is rare for a female. DBQ: had that same thought about colors looking different to individuals when I was a kid. My oldest bro got flagged when I was 8, so I knew about the gift from an early age. In fact, I noticed when quite young that I saw different colors out of each eye: more warm out of the left and cooler out of the right.

Ann Althouse said...

"monochrome enhanced"

Differently abled. Celebrate diversity.

rehajm said...

By the way, is there anything sexier than an attractive woman who likes football and can discuss it?

I got mine!

walter said...

From article currently at Drudge:



A handful of letters laced with powdered anthrax killed five people and sickened 17 others. The government closed congressional office buildings, the Supreme Court and postal facilities as the country braced for further biological terrorism.

But Mueller's FBI struggled for nearly seven years to determine who was responsible — even as he personally managed the case.

"The director was always the leader of the anthrax investigation, period," said Michael Mason, former head of the FBI's Washington field office.

The FBI focused on Steven J. Hatfill, a virologist at the Army's laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md. In January 2003, Mueller assured congressional leaders in a closed-door briefing that bloodhounds had traced anthrax from the attacks to Hatfill.

But Hatfill had no experience handling anthrax. Nor did he have access to anthrax stored at Ft. Detrick or elsewhere. Years later, the FBI would reject the bloodhound evidence as unreliable.

After media leaks fingered Hatfill, he sued the FBI and the Justice Department on privacy grounds. In June 2008, the government agreed to pay Hatfill about $5.8 million.
--

What an unfortunate name...Hatfill.

Howard said...

It's celebrate mongrel evolution. Only the cross-breeds with Neanderthal/Denisovans have significant colorotherness.
Do the Evolution

rhhardin said...

Ha, got New Zealand ZM4T just now with a 12w transceiver by the mouse. Tough part of the sunspot cycle to do it.

Dull for you but cool for me.

rhhardin said...

Normally there's gunshots outside as variously distant neighbors work out in their private shooting ranges, but somebody's firing mortar rounds now, probably after rabbits.

walter said...

Militarized Elmer Fudds.

JRoberts said...

I’ve been thinking a bit about the Sarah Sanders / April Ryan #PieGate thing.

Yeah, I know there are far more important things in the world to think about, but while Sanders’ initial post was innocuous, Ryan’s responses (both of them) were just mean-spirited.

I’ve been thinking that if Sanders does make a pecan chocolate pie for Ryan and Ryan insults Sanders by turning it down, I would gladly accept the pie and make a $1,000 donation to a local food bank.

The holiday season is a time for kindness and giving – especially to those who struggle during the holidays. This is not a time to be mean-spirited about simple joys.

rhhardin said...

Interesting fact for communications nerds. I'm copying foreign stations at 30-40wpm but they can't copy me unless I slow down to 22 wpm, the difference being I'm way down in the noise for them and they're strong for me. 12w vs whatever they are, probably 100w or more.

As the theory says, only it's copying by ear and still works.

DavidD said...

I can hardly believe that the shirtsleeve is brown--except that I was going to say that the image would be monochrome if the shirtsleeve were brown (or not showing).

Fun fact: Military optometrists don't like it if you tell them that their hand is blocking the cards for the pre-enlistment colorblindness test so you can't see the numbers. Don't know how I was supposed to give the correct answers otherwise, though. Maybe I wasn't deferential enough.

Even though I'm not colorblind, I see brighter colors in sunlight with one eye than with the other--deeper greens, deeper blues.

Also, brown-tinted prescription sunglasses should be illegal. The one time I tried to drive with them on I could hardly see anything. Since I'd bought them to wear while driving it was a costly mistake--not as costly as it could have been, though....

David Baker said...

"...Mueller's FBI struggled for nearly seven years to determine who was responsible — even as he personally managed the case."

"The director was always the leader of the anthrax investigation, period," said Michael Mason, former head of the FBI's Washington field office... The FBI focused on Steven J. Hatfill...But Hatfill had no experience handling anthrax. Nor did he have access to anthrax...

Hatfill was always the see-the-bouncing-ball, someone to keep Americans preoccupied. Because the most likely (unnamed suspect) by far was Loeb Professor Don C. Wiley of Harvard. Who conveniently "fell" of the Desoto Bridge in Memphis one late night, and was fished out of the Mississippi River near Natchez (300 miles downstream) a month later. Did I mention that Prof. Wiley was the world's leading Anthrax expert, particularly regarding the "Ames" strain, which was used in the anthrax attacks.

Of course, Harvard denied they had any Anthrax samples on campus, that is, until a lab worker blew the whistle. And of course, the Memphis medical examiner came up with some rather novel causes of death, like "bridge bounce." And did I also mention that Wiley's wife returned to Iceland (her home country) with their two kids even before her husband's body was found?

Meanwhile, Professor Wiley was virtually the only living person with the knowledge, experience, access, and facilities to mill/process the anthrax spores used in the domestic attacks. In addition, Wiley was on the advisory board of a pharmaceutical company that would have taken him past the mail drops in New Jersey regularly.

And the man who was in charge of the cover-up, I mean, the "investigation," is now cooking up another bio-brew to use against Trump.

tim in vermont said...

The reason I think DBQ is wrong about color perception being arbitrary on an individual basis is that so many birds have the most gorgeous color schemes that seem picked off of a color wheel, a color wheel designed by humans. Almost every bird not camouflage colored has complementary color schemes per well understood human rules.

Howard said...

tim in vermont: you don't understand DBQ's point. Whatever you think is red is always red to you. If you were to see red through my eyes, it might look blue to you or yellow. However, the shared relativity makes it so everyone follows the same nomenclature.

Watching the Redskins game on Thanksgiving, their red-maroon jerseys looked green to me... that's NOT what DBQ is talking about.

Michael K said...

"I’ve been thinking a bit about the Sarah Sanders / April Ryan #PieGate thing.""

It's all about race as is the case with most blacks these days, especially if they are in Hollywood or Washington DC.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

"The war on Christmas" literally began with Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was intended from the first to divert attention from Christmas.

rhhardin said...

My backyard, unlike Meadehouse, has a useful antenna

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4555/37951228204_8e71692d20_o.jpg

Bad Lieutenant said...

My backyard, unlike Meadehouse, has a useful antenna



Useful to whom?

tim in vermont said...

Sure Howard, it's always other people who don't understand, what a burden for you.