November 16, 2020

"You think that you're the man/I think, therefore, I am/I'm not your friend/Or anything, damn."

So sings Billie Eilish in this new video, which I'm reading about in Vanity Fair — "Jimmy Fallon Parodies Billie Eilish's New Video, Angers 30 Rock Staff" — and watched only so I could understand what Jimmy Fallon had done that pissed people off... and because I like Eilish enough to check out the song, especially since she's highlighting Descartes' famous quip:

 

Here are the lyrics — at Genius — where the annotations include the information: "The video is just the way the song feels to me of just kinda like careless and not really trying.... It’s some random, chaotic, don’t care shit." Some of the best videos have been made like that, with the singer randomly walking along someplace mouthing the lyrics and interacting with this and that. (Yeah? Which ones?!)

Here she's in an empty mall at night, but — as in a dream — the food places are lit up and the fresh food items are ready to be taken and eaten. Notably the pretzels. It's a realistic dream for COVID times. Just to go to a mall again and have a stupid pretzel. Wouldn't it be nice?!

Now, I'm up to speed to watch the Jimmy Fallon parody...

 

Ha ha. COVID dream becomes COVID nightmare. I wish I had a "pretzel" tag, but I won't start one because it would be annoying to add retrospectively, given the metaphorical use of the word. I quoted someone in 2012 saying Mitt Romney "twisted himself into a pretzel, speaking vacuously." How boring to sift through such outdated ephemera. Mitt Romney twists himself into a pretzel, therefore he is. 

But there are also tasty crumbs to be found in a search for "pretzel." There's this — "Pretzels and free will" —  from the first half-year of this blog:
As I was grading bluebooks in the café at Borders today, two little girls sat down at the next table. Each had a glass of water and a package of pretzels.
GIRL A: Tell me a story. 
GIRL B (the older child, in an adult tone of voice): When I was a baby, I loved to look at my mobile. And I slept a lot ...
The girls are both daintily dipping their pretzel sticks in their water before taking bites. They seem to be imitating an adult they have seen dipping a cookie in coffee. A woman sits down at their table and says to Girl B, "I told you about good pretzel manners." Girl A then proceeds to dip her pretzel in water and the woman takes Girl A's water and pretzels away, which the girl thinks is unfair. The girl had assumed that she had the advantage over Girl B for a moment and was free to dip until she was directly told not to.
WOMAN: You heard me tell [Girl B] and you made the decision to disobey.
Girl B still has her pretzels and water, which she now consumes, observing pretzel manners. After a few minutes, she says, "I love pretzels." Girl A immediately says, "I do too," and the subject of whether the woman has treated Girl A fairly continues--"You're being mean"--with the woman absolutely sticking to her decision to keep the pretzels and water from the girl who, after all, "made the decision to disobey," or, more accurately, decided to act on the theory that the general rule did not bind her and that a warning would precede any loss of privilege. The little girl is perhaps 5 years old, and the woman is clearly committed to teaching personal responsibility. As they get up to leave the girl puts her finger on a crumb on the table and pops it in her mouth. With the woman almost out of hearing range, she declares her small victory: "I ate the pretzel crumb!"

I ate pretzel crumb, therefore I am! 

30 comments:

Wilbur said...

Frankly, that post is too bizarre for me, this early in the morn.

Lewis said...

I want you to be happy so here is what makes me happy (apart from chees - to quote homer - no, not that one - mmmmm) not that it necessarilly is what you want for thanksgiving - who knows? Your hubby is very handsome - he looks my brother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UV5SJ9CkYI

Lewis said...

That sounds very creepy but I'm only talking about your profile pic. Sorry

Lewis said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UV5SJ9CkYI

I'm drunk!

rehajm said...

Boarders. Heh...

The parody name for Chipotle is 'Chipotle'

Lewis said...

'Will you be my girl' As if the empires of disdain could flip a world that stretches across the sea, hands that are incredibaly stunted - like a pancake, flipped merely because on says so - what is it, about idiots, that they assume a more ridiculous version of reality. I despair.

alanc709 said...

Have no idea what Billie Eilish sounds like, from that video. Obviously they must need a lot of Autotune to give her a semblance of quality. And then several overdubs.

David Begley said...

Lewis might bring us back to moderation.

Go away, dude.

Mary Beth said...

Obviously they must need a lot of Autotune to give her a semblance of quality.

I dislike the "autotune" sound, but what you think is obvious is not obvious to me.

When it's this noticeable, it's not being done to correct pitch, it's being done as an effect that the people making the music and the people who buy their music like.

Lurker21 said...

I guess every generation has to have its own Alanis Morissette. Yours was who? Janis Ian? Joan Baez?

William said...

On the plus side, she's not anorexic, but she does seem to have very conflicted feelings about food.

Temujin said...

I have to admit, I have no idea who Billie Eilish is. I've heard the name (or read the name?) previously. But I make a effort to not listen to bubblegum music. I've made that effort for years. So, from Brittany Spears through the years on up through Taylor Swift and now (I guess?) to Billie Eilish, I've gone out of my way to NOT listen to it. I don't like my time spent listening to teenage girl music. Didn't even like it when I was a teenage boy. And I wonder how, somewhere a few years back, the entire music industry, men and women, started producing music that sounded like teenage girl music, and just never stopped?

Anyway, I watch her video. Well...about 20 seconds of it. And now I know who Billie Eilish is. Indecipherable from any of the other teenage girl music on the radio. For the last 20 years. Jimmy Fallon improved it. That bit was funny. And short, which is good.

Pretzel Logic This is the second time I've linked to this on your site in the last month or so. Pretzels are becoming a thing.

Leland said...

With the media call for Biden; the woke cancel culture has decided it has a mandate. Even Baby Yoda is now trashed for eating the eggs of a fictional endangered species (link to Vanity Fair for context.

tcrosse said...

I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.

john said...

Like me, she seems to be packing on a few pandemic pounds, unlike me, she can still run like that.

henge2243 said...

" (Yeah? Which ones?!)"

Bitter Sweet Symphony, by The Verve.

MadisonMan said...

"Jimmy Fallon Parodies Billie Eilish's New Video, Angers 30 Rock Staff"
Which staff are angered? The ones who bring more money into NBC than Jimmy Fallon? If it's people who aren't bringing in cash, I will suggest they can find new jobs. Put their principles to work.

daskol said...

You think you're a man, but you're only a boy

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Some of the best videos have been made like that, with the singer randomly walking along someplace mouthing the lyrics and interacting with this and that. (Yeah? Which ones?!)


On of the best right here, bonus reference to previous Althouse content!

daskol said...

who'd they steal that video idea from? poor guys.

Joe Smith said...

The video isn't very funny.

Of all the late night hosts (I haven't watched any in years) he was the one I liked the best.

He didn't take himself too seriously and seemed just happy to be there.

Jupiter said...

When you're the only looter in the store.

J2 said...

Hey NOTOOO I love that song and video. Thanks for posting.

Temujin Change your handle to Kurmujin.

"Hope I die before I get old"

I'm already too late as I am old. But I'll never be as old as you.

fleg9bo said...

Some of the best videos have been made like that, with the singer randomly walking along someplace mouthing the lyrics and interacting with this and that.

Billie Jean.

Butkus51 said...

They overproduced the f&%^ out of that. Its not even her anymore.

Rabel said...

I would have been more amused if she had licked the doughnut and put it back in reference to her much hotter competitor, Arianna Grande.

So, the whole deal about the baggy clothes was to disguise the fact that she has a lumpy ass?

rehajm said...

Come Into my World

veni vidi vici said...

Is anyone less funny than the pair of doofuses Fallon and Kimmel?

People who watch those shows should feel like idiots, since they are. Gone are the days of moderately competent latenight hosts (and writing rooms for their shows).

Chanie said...

Unless my eyes are deceiving me, the article never says 30 Rock staff were actually angered. It's just another poorly written headline. Ann watched two videos to "understand what Jimmy Fallon had done that pissed people off" but nobody was ever pissed off.

Vanity Fair either has a bad editor or (if they believed the scold was not a character in the parody but an actual 30 Rock staffer who was upset, which seems unlikely) a stupid one. Maybe both.

Chanie said...

On further review of the comments on YouTube, a disturbing number (>2) of people seem to believe the woman was a genuine 30 Rock staffer who was interrupting Jimmy Fallon's attempt to make a parody video. God help us all.