November 6, 2022

I've got 5 TikToks to scare away the darkness on this first standard-time evening.

1. The nicest thing she's ever done for anyone is something she's going to do in the future.

2. You don't think — just because you're punk — I only want the cool people to like me.

3. Polar night is not depressing.

4. The kindergarten teacher tries to tell her class that she just got engaged.

5. A 1955 cake recipe calls for two 27-ounce cans of pinto beans.

41 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

Ask the AI: I have two 27-ounce cans of pinto beans and I need to make them into a cake.

tim maguire said...

Really liked #2 and I was more moved than I expected by #1 (which I expected to not like). #4--I liked how she mimicked interacting with her students, but found her storytelling style annoying. No wonder her kids couldn't behave.

I'm not buying the polar night is not depressing. Her effort to make it seem not depressing just makes it seem more depressing. And months of sunlight doesn't sound so great either.

tim maguire said...

On Pinto Bean cake, I found the video easily enough but could not find the recipe.

Bob Boyd said...

#1 - Probably a drama student.

#4 - She's the Soup Nazi of kindergarten teachers.

Scott Patton said...

now the chickens are implicated

Merny11 said...

Solar night. I need a role model here in WI! And the CAKE

Saint Croix said...

Althouse, you're going to think I'm a big emotional dummy

but that artist TikTok literally made me cry.

thank you

Saint Croix said...

I've never listened to Patti Smith.

Going to do that asap.

reader said...

#4 is obnoxious. That high pitched squeak was ear piercing and I don’t understand why she thinks her students would need to know that information. It may just be pretend but pretend something kids might actually care about like getting a puppy, going to Disneyland, or falling in a mud puddle and deciding to make mud angles. No wonder her pretends kids had no interest in her story.

I didn’t know anything personal about Mrs. Grey, my kindergarten teacher, and she was friends with my mom.

#5 is awesome. I enjoy his videos and think he is extremely entertaining. His face when he did the sauerkraut cake was priceless.

Saint Croix said...

#5 is hysterical.

ha ha ha

Saint Croix said...

I'm playing that fucking pinto beans thing multiple times now. He's so fast!

In the South, we like it calm.

It's hot.

Sometimes when I get excited I talk really, really fast.

My Dad's like, "Slow down."

I feel strongly that His Girl Friday is one of the finest movies ever made because it's so damn fast.

They say speed kills but I love it!

Dave Begley said...

#4 is really an actress.

Mary Beth said...

I might be willing to give up my 3 hours of sunlight to be able to see the Northern Lights.

I may be exaggerating slightly when I say we only get three hours of sunlight, but honestly, it feels like fewer than that. The sun will be rising when I go to work and setting when I go home. It might be better to not see it at all than to be taunted by what I'm missing.

MadisonMan said...

I'm a sucker for a weird recipe. If I can find that pinto bean recipe, I'll make it for my celiac friend.

Susan in Seattle said...

The pinto bean cake was so interesting to me. I was thinking 'it's a little like hummus' but the honey and baking powder changed all that. I would bake that cake just to see how it turns out. Re: some of the others, I've lived in winter darkness and it gets dreary after a month or so. The young woman in no. 1 would likely benefit from dealing with (what I see as) her own depression before embarking on 'saving others' from theirs.

Saint Croix said...

I finally made it to the ending of the pinto bean cake video.

So, so perfect.

Amazing that Tik Tok allows poor people the ability to show off their art skills.

Wonderful ending. Quiet. Great editing on that video. Great acting. Great comedy. Really well done. 95% of the shorts undergraduates made in film school aren't that good. It's a little thing, nobody would pay money for it. But that little clip is really good.

If agents have any brains at all they are scouring Tik Tok for talent. That kid has a future in comedy if he catches some breaks, in my opinion.

Saint Croix said...

Some great art never makes it. A band called The Creation should have been as big as the Kinks or the Who. They had the same manager as several of the big British Invasion bands. You listen to that song and you're like, "oh my God, why did they never make it?" It kind of broke the manager's heart that he couldn't get them to the top. It all just fell apart. If the song sounds familiar it's from the movie Rushmore, that's where I first heard it. Unbelievable art. And it never made it.

This is why you have to be brutal on bad art, so amazing stuff can make it. And you have to help artists rise because many of them do not have commercial instincts and have no idea how to market, which is a whole different skill set. It's heartbreaking to me that A+ art can die and nobody knows about it, while mediocre stupid idiotic nothing art can live forever, or at least decades.

Ann Althouse said...

4 is a comedy monologue and she’s in no way trying to make you think otherwise.

#1 might be an actress but we’re enticed to think it’s real. I’m not sure. I don’t want to be fooled but I don’t want to hope her mother died.

Saint Croix said...

The importance of agents and managers in the world of art creation is underestimated by so many people. Agents and managers are capitalists, so liberals hate them. You fuckers are idiots.

Artists need money people to protect them.

The Beatles wrote Tax Man because two of them faced bankruptcy!

In my movie book I say this about Hitchcock and his amazing agent. This is from my discussion of North by Northwest.

The James Bond people ought to write Hitchcock a check. What a fun flick this is. And you can watch it over and over and over. If Grace Kelly was in it, might have made my top 10. Innocent man wrongly accused. Hitchcock has done this story three times, and it gets better every time he does it. The fight scene on top of Mount Rushmore is pure beauty. And Bernard Herrmann’s score is amazing. This is a suspense film for adults.

By the way, without even asking Hitch, his agent got him complete artistic control over the picture. So when the studio wanted him to cut scenes and screw up the movie, Hitch was able to say, no way. So a shout out to Lew Wasserman, the man who saved North by Northwest.

Doug said...

Lose TikTok. It's poison.

MadisonMan said...

So, 2 27-oz cans of pinto beans, drained. 1-1/2 c peanuts, all blended together. Add 3/4 c (!!) honey, 5 eggs, 1/2 c. melted butter and 2 tsp. Baking Powder. 45 minutes at 375 in a large springform pan.
It is very tempting to make this. A sweet peanut-y taste, I guess.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Jesus Christ Althouse lives in her own stupid fantasy world. Polar nights are not magical. Polar nights lead to alcoholism, domestic violence, suicide, child abuse and rampant STDs.

I've been working in the Alaskan bush the past 2+ years and polar winter is something to survive. Period.

Temujin said...

Polar nights intrigue me. I think I'd like to try that while I'm still here. Just to experience it. It'd be like living back in Michigan- on steroids. Not sure how to talk my wife into it. I'm open to suggestions.

Mary Martha said...

A friend who lives in Alaska says the polar night isn't the problem, it's the midnight sun that makes them crazy.

I love the guy making historical recipes.

I want to climb through the internet and give the girl from #1 a hug.


Finally, I am so happy to have TikTok back here! I am one of the some of the people who like it.

Saint Croix said...

Althouse, thanks for the Patti Smith introduction.

How is it that I missed her?!

wow

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

I now want the pinto bean cake recipe

Saint Croix said...

#4 - She's the Soup Nazi of kindergarten teachers.

No she's not.

The customers of the Soup Nazi were terrified!

Both Jerry and George got in line for their destruction. That was the joke. They were well-behaved little Jews who just really wanted that soup.

She's the opposite of the Soup Nazi. She's trying to control her class but her squeaky voice and her girly attitude is not authoritative enough.

I love artists who mock themselves, it's an important part of being a comic artist, in my opinion.

Trump is at his best when he mocks himself!

wildswan said...

Kind of curious about the pinto bean cake recipe. I think it must have been a World War II recipe - no eggs, sugar or other rationed foods.
Liked the "kindergarten teacher", they do talk like that.
Northern night was interesting. In Iceland families go to hot springs and, in mid-winter, behave as if they were at a beach.
No #1 was too sad if true and very manipulative of our emotions if not.

Amexpat said...

I'm not buying the polar night is not depressing. Her effort to make it seem not depressing just makes it seem more depressing. And months of sunlight doesn't sound so great either.

I reside at 60 degrees north, about the same latitude as Anchorage. I don't like the long nights and not fully bright days and travel quite a bit during the winter to more southern latitudes for more sun.

But I know plenty of people who love winter, even those who live further north where the sun doesn't shine for a couple of months. The main draw for them is skiing and other outdoor winter activities. The coziness thing is a plus. Also, I think it helps growing up in a polar location. Transplants usually have a harder time.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I came upon a radio station playing christmas music tonight. 🫣

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

That guy yelling into the preparation.

No thanks.

Readering said...

Well you had better like 24 hour nights if you are going to live up there. But can people really raise a family there? Had to turn #1 off. Too squeamish.

FleetUSA said...

#3 Polar nights. A real charm. When I was working I spent many winter days in Norway. There's something very special about winter that further north.

The others: meh.

tim maguire said...

Amexpat said...But I know plenty of people who love winter, even those who live further north where the sun doesn't shine for a couple of months. The main draw for them is skiing and other outdoor winter activities.

I get that part of it. I was a teenager in Cleveland and currently live in Toronto. The weather is pretty similar--Toronto is less grey and Cleveland gets more snow, but temperature, hours of light, that stuff is about the same. Yet here winters are way more enjoyable. In Cleveland (actually every northern US city I've lived in), when the weather gets cold, people go inside and wait for it to be over. The winters are interminable. In Canada, when the weather gets cold, people head outside. Every neighborhood in my city has an outdoor ice rink, people go hiking, skiing (even though there are no real mountains), ice festivals. I don't mind winter at all here.

michaele said...

The very emotive pinto bean cake baker forgot to mention the 1/2 cup of saliva that got inadvertently spit into the batter as he exclaimed about the weirdness of the ingredients.

Saint Croix said...

ha ha ha

saliva!

ha ha ha

I'm not going to laugh

because saliva!

Saint Croix said...

I was having a pro-life conversation with a Republican for Congress and I got so worked up I accidentally spit in his face.

Enhance our calm.

Enhance our calm.

Saint Croix said...

I used to do yoga at my church to help me relax.

One time I got so relaxed I fell asleep in there.

I might have snored a little.

Another time, the hot girl in the yoga class put her legs behind her head, right next to me. All the way behind her head. I got a huge boner. This is at church. I had to quit going to Yoga.

I didn't have to, but it's been a while since I did Yoga. Also the guys were giving me shit because none of them do Yoga.

Young men, listen to me. Yoga! That's all I'm going to say.

Saint Croix said...

I'll tell you another church story. One time we do overnights for the homeless. And we need at least one man to spend the night over there. And I was there with a woman. And I had my own sleep room, and I was on the sofa.

And she wanted me to sleep in the room with her, because she was scared of the homeless. And I said, "No, you're fine, don't worry about it. Just lock the door."

And she said, "I'll feel a lot safer if you sleep in the room with me."

I said, "You're fine, they're nice people. Relax and don't worry about it."

She spent 5 or 10 minutes trying to get me to sleep in the room with her.

The next Sunday at church, I am not kidding, she introduced me to her boyfriend like this: "This is the man who was sleeping with me!"

I gave her the stink eye and explained to him what we were doing. Holy shit. Incident averted. I get in enough trouble for shit I do, I don't need entrapment. At church! Get thee away, Satan.

Anthony said...

I formally gave up baking a couple months ago, but I may return to it just to try that pinto bean cake.

JAORE said...

I'll bet #5 videos and performs this kind of (way) over-the-top act when he picks up his mail.

Could not spend 15 minutes in his company.