September 13, 2022

A few TikToks for you this evening, but first...

 I need to show you this from Twitter, another example, like last night's #5 TikTok, of the irascible King:

All right then. Now here are 4 new TikToks:


2. Approving of Wisconsin (even though some of it is in Illinois).

3. Why you should eat at the Chinese restaurant that has the 3.5-star rating.

4. Little girls react to Disney's black Little Mermaid.

That's all for now!

42 comments:

Bob Boyd said...

It's good to be the king.

gilbar said...

i Will admit, that there are (some) good things, in Wisconsin..
But There is No getting around the fact that; you're Too Close to Chicago

Lash LaRue said...

#3. Interesting restaurant advice.

Kate said...

I'm seeing commentary that suggests the Brits, now that Charles is King, are ready to find his faults to be charming idiosyncrasies.

Bob Boyd said...

The fountain pen is a POS, but they have to use it and no other for this purpose because that's what they have always done. They know it's going to be a problem and make a mess because of long experience with that pen, but they have no choice. They just have to put up with it and get through it because that's the way it is.

Metaphor for the royal succession?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Trump never had any problem with his Sharpie.

tim maguire said...

I will check out the tip on Chinese restaurants.

I call BS on the little girls get excited about a black Disney princess--kids don't care about that crap. You have to go to college to learn to get excited about the color of your cartoon characters. Besides, you hardly ever see white Disney princesses and that's been true for decades.

Mikey NTH said...

I bet it was a fountain pen. They write beautifully but man do they leak everywhere.

Readering said...

Wow. All great, although I will probably have to watch #1 5 more times to absorb it.

Charles video really great. Takes me back to a decade of English schools and leaky fountain pens.

Readering said...

Charles should call Trump for advice on an adequate signing implement. His one area of expertise.

Kay said...

Every single one of these is great in their own way. Wonderful selection.

CWJ said...

#4. It was cute. But it was also explicitly about little black girls reacting. I honestly don't know why Althouse swallowed that adjective in her description of the tic toc, but she did.

Howard said...

King Cheese III should have his own tictoc channel.

forest said...

Enjoyed all four. Agree that all those Wisconsin things are a pleasure, fascinated by the architects, dreaming of good Chinese food. Also found the Little Mermaid video credible. Believing you are beautiful is important to many women and girls of all colors, and a black Little Mermaid says black is beautiful.

William said...

I think the response of the little girls was genuine, but they may have edited out the response of those kids who were more meh about seeing a Black cartoon character. In any event, it's effective as propaganda. One would feel kind of crappy criticizing Disney for providing this much happiness to some little girls....Maybe they could cast Donald Duck with Ronald Raven. Donald Duck is way too white. Ravens have not had much of a cartoon presence. This needs to be remedied.

n.n said...

She should be green, perhaps blue, or a pale shade. Diversity [dogma] (e.g. color judgment, class-based bigotry) for social progress: one step forward, two steps backward.

Smilin' Jack said...

Fountain pens, like fax machines, should not exist in this century. And don’t talk about tradition—I’m pretty sure Magna Carta wasn’t signed with a fountain pen.

Kelly said...

I know I’m at a good Chinese restaurant when the owners kids are doing homework in the corner and everyone’s entrees and appetizers come out at different times.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Sophie Corcoran
@sophielouisecc
·
"Dear Americans who mock us for mourning our beloved queen,
She dedicated her entire life to her duty and our country even just two days before her death.

You mourned a man who pointed a gun at a pregnant woman by burning cities to the ground.

We are not the same."

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Sophie Corcoran
@sophielouisecc
·
"Dear Americans who mock us for mourning our beloved queen,
She dedicated her entire life to her duty and our country even just two days before her death.

You mourned a man who pointed a gun at a pregnant woman by burning cities to the ground.

We are not the same."

Amexpat said...

What made QE II special was that she was living in a state of grace. She had dedicated herself fully to her position and was a willing servant to it.

Charles III is lacking in true grace. He hasn't fully surrendered himself to his regal role - it's more a duty he has to do.

tommyesq said...

I have never clicked on one of these recommended TikTok's, and I read this blog every day, but the Chinese restaurant one grabbed my attention. Thanks!

loudogblog said...

I've never been a fan of these Disney live action remakes of classic animated films. But only Disney could take a classic, almost perfect, animated film, do a mediocre live action remake of it and still make money hand over fist.

Eventually, Disney will get so tapped out for ideas that they'll do a live action version of Steamboat Willie starring Tom Hanks.

Balfegor said...

The King is his father's son, I suppose. I'm not a British subject so my opinion doesn't really matter, but I started warming up to him a bit years ago when, if I am recalling correctly, he was audibly contemptuous of a bunch of journalists or paparazzi trying to take photos of him and his sons skiing or hiking or something like that.

Ah, here it is:

"Bloody people. I can't bear that man. He's so awful. He really is."

It was a specific journalist, it seems.

Peglegged Picador said...

"Eventually, Disney will get so tapped out for ideas that they'll do a live action version of Steamboat Willie starring Tom Hanks."

You sound like a jerk. I'm stoked that my black niece might feel this way.

If you want to insult Tom Hanks, maybe go whine about Pinocchio, ding dong.

tim maguire said...

Something for the people defending the disney princesses to consider: there is an unstated assumption that you can only identify with a character if that character is of your own race. Obviously not true. They don’t even have to be your own species for you to see yourself in them.

This tribalism has to be taught.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

It looked like Charles turned his 12 into a 13 like any normal person would who realizes they have just misdated a document.

Nancy said...

I love my Mont Blanc fountain pen. It's a sensual pleasure to write with it.

Balfegor said...

Re: tim maguire:

I call BS on the little girls get excited about a black Disney princess--kids don't care about that crap. You have to go to college to learn to get excited about the color of your cartoon characters.

I disagree If a little girl's parents and teachers have been teaching her that she can only identify with a cartoon if it looks like her -- well first and most importantly, that's a very sad and unfortunate lesson for their parents and teachers and other adults to be teaching them. But second, it sounds like exactly the sort of lesson a certain sort of adult would teach small children, not necessarily out of malice, but perhaps out of a belief that they're just preparing the child for a racist world. And thirdly, I think even very small children can accept the message that this is not for you if they love and trust the people teaching them that message.

Robert Cook said...

The one rating architects would have been interesting, but the images flash by so quickly (in relation to his narration) that I could not tell in many cases which architects/buildings he liked and which he disliked.

MadisonMan said...

I was gonna like the Wisconsin one, but then I saw the misspelling in the hashtag.

Aggie said...

King Charles the Petty Nuisance. A few months of him and the Brits will start chucking tea in the Thames.

Sean said...

The reaction of the girls to the trailer is powerful, so why doesn't Disney create stories that center around black girls? In the past few years we have had a story about a Columbian family and a Chinese Canadian family. Where are the stories about black girls? Disney did make a princess story starring a black woman but she spent the bulk of the movie as a frog.

Disney, get those movies about black people in the works.

John Holland said...

Kelly said: "I know I’m at a good Chinese restaurant when the owners kids are doing homework in the corner..."

I was at a Chinese restaurant in Rochester NY a few years back. I went early for dinner, and the owner's 11-year-old daughter was both the hostess and my waitress, until the actual staff showed up for the supper shift. At which point she corralled her younger siblings into a booth in the rear to do homework or play on a Gameboy.

She was very efficient at serving me and the three or four other occupied tables at that hour; we patrons smiled at each other as she worked, and one of them whispered to me, "She'll be running this joint in 5 years." The tablecloths were white plastic; the food was superb.

dbp said...

There is a paternalistic assumption baked-in to the black mermaid video. Black girls can only identify with a black mermaid, but non-black girls can identify with a mermaid of any color.

dbp said...

A good fountain pen is a joy to use, but you have to use it frequently or it will become very unworthwhile.

My last 2-3 years in college, I used a fountain pen to take notes and write blue book exams. It gives a line quality like the finest of felt-tip pens, without all the friction and unlike a ball point pen, you don't have to press down on the paper.

One watch-out. When they run out of ink, they do so quickly and completely. I learned to carry either a spare cartridge or a bottle of ink for a quick re-fill.

Jamie said...

Where are the stories about black girls?

The first animated Disney movies some at girls were European fairy tales, weren't they? Cinderella, Snow White - you can make a case for Bambi's being aimed at girls though the main character was male, and though Bambi was a novel, not a fairy tale, it certainly has fairy tale elements. (I recommend its sequel, Bambi's Children. I doubt it was written by the original author - can't remember now - but the parallel stories of what happens to Bambi's daughter and son were very compelling to me as a child.)

There have to be fairy tales in Africa. And fairy tales are pretty universal in speak, pretty archetypal - that's the point of them. Is not one of them interesting enough as a story that it deserves its shot?

Mulan - the first one, I haven't seen the live action - is still one of my favorite Disney movies. I heard they gave it to the B team to make because the execs weren't 100% sold on it. The animation is absolutely beautiful. It doesn't follow the original story very faithfully, I understand, but neither did Cinderella. (Nobody cut off their toes to fit into the slipper, for instance.)

Nancy said...

Note to dpb: my Mont Blanc has room for a spare cartridge in the barrel. Problem solved!

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Bill Cosby used to make cartoons with black cartoon characters.

Disney is very white. Inserting black cartoon characters seems like an "about time' move. but who -know really - it could be cynical. The left's move now is to segregate everyone and call it anti-racism.
I just hope Disney stays innocent. If it goes tranny-woke-Biden-SEX/KGB - that would be bad.

Lurker21 said...

A few days ago, Charles could not move an inkstand a few inches across his desk. He kept gesturing impatiently, until someone moved it for him. It did not make a good impression, but at least it gave people a chance to use the word "inkstand" for the first time and to wonder why the palace still has them.

Anthony said...

>>This tribalism has to be taught.

Tribalism is the lowest form of ego-gratification. All you need to do is point to some group as the Bad People and you're automatically Good just for being not one of Them. You don't have to actually be good or do good things. And the worse you make the Bad People look the better you think you are.

Some are starting to think that re-racing characters is a purposeful marketing ploy. I can't say I dismiss the idea out of hand. . . .

Rollo said...

I know that black is the color of mourning, but Camilla is giving off mad Cruella DeVille vibes.

The Disney videos were more benign than I assumed they would be, but I do marvel that Disney theme parks began with a celebration of the American past and now the company celebrates a globalized post-American world. Going to the parks now must be very different from what it was a half-century ago.