I'm fascinated by the mysteries of sportswriting, and these 2 sentences jumped out at me:
Even the way he plays, all funky-looking forehands and tentacular court coverage, is far from conventional, and at times polarizing. Away from forehands and backhands, he has always been a master of the dark arts, knowing how and when to work a crowd to his advantage, and being more than willing to turn a match into a circus if he thinks it will give him an edge.
That's written by Charlie Eccleshare, at the NYT, in
"Daniil Medvedev, tennis’ walking Rorschach test, asks the U.S. Open what it sees.""Tentacular" — a word I'd never noticed before. I see that H.G. Wells used it in "The War of the Worlds" (1898), to refer to the Martians with “long, tentacular appendages.” The use to describe the tennis player is close enough to the literal meaning. Apparently Medvedev was octopuslike.
But the word has appeared with a more attenuated connection to creatures with tentacles. Grok tells me that the philosopher Donna Haraway writes about "tentacular thinking" in the book "Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene" (2016). There's some notion of "multispecies, interconnected, and responsive" thought to be distinguished from "human-centered, linear, or hierarchical" thought. I'm told there's something called "tentacular empathy" and "tentacular relatings of kinship." Strangulating, and yet I get the sense we're supposed to love it.
Of course, the octopus is a mainstay of political cartoons. Here's one from 1877 that has some present-day resonance:
Lots more here, at
"The Octopus in Political Cartoons/Russia, Germany and the United States have all been depicted as octopuses by their nemeses.
पोस्ट्स
४० टिप्पण्या:
So ... ours is the age of Tentacular Fortitude ... the Society of the Tentacular ...
What an interesting graphic. Finland and Poland are named tentacles of Russia, as is Crimea. The more history changes.....
YouTube A clip of the octopus in action
hic sunt dracones
I thought Octopi were known for their intelligence, camouflage and… well kept gardens?
Here’s the Trumpian tennis octopus, playing the crowd to his advantage while losing the match. link to YouTube clip
Now do Greta von Thunberg and her tentacular thinking about the blue Jewish octopus.
Somebody’s got to mention hentai… might as well be me.
RR
JSM
“ I'm told there's something called "tentacular empathy" and "tentacular relatings of kinship." Strangulating, and yet I get the sense we're supposed to love it.
Or the toxically masculine: Tentacular fortitude.
Shouldn't it be Octacular?
Speaking of tentacles...
NYTIMES today reports Gates Foundation pulling back hundreds of millions from notorious Arabella Advisers. The story discloses what the Left media has hidden for many years: that Arabella essentially runs nearly 200 non-profits as a fiscal sponsor. This is a scheme to hide from Americans that leftist "grassroots" groups are anything but -- they are part of political hydras centrally run by entities such as Arabella.
https://x.com/TomFitton/status/1960471942173221146
David Feherty accurately described Jim Furyk’s golf swing as looking like ‘an octopus falling out of a tree’. Tentacular!
@Bob Boyd: "...NYTIMES today reports Gates Foundation pulling back hundreds of millions from notorious Arabella Advisers...."
Yes.. but why? Because they recognize it's wrong, or because the light has been shined, and now they have to scramble to find a new rock to hide under? The latter is my guess, in the absence of Bill Gates saying 'Mea Culpa'.
The Detroit Redwings were unavailable for comment ...
I see @john mosby sort of beat me to it, but, yes, somebody has to mention The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife.
"Tentacular" seems like a portmanteau involving "spectacular," so that makes it hard to see the "tentacle." How did the "you" sound get in there? Why isn't it "tentaclear" and is the answer to that question the key to understanding why some people feel compelled to pronounce "nuclear" as "nucular"?
Medvedev's outrageous manipulation of the crowd during his first round US Open loss this week illustrated the fact that tennis lacks the fiercely self policed ethical code of golf. If Medvedev could disguise his court position by expelling a cloud of ink, he would.
"And by the way, they are real and tentacular."
Donna Haraway's discredited book, Primate Visions, posits 'other ways of knowing female dominance, power, and peacemaking' among primates, specifically Bonobos, that, it was claimed for decades by Frans B.M. de waal, was practiced by obsessive masturbation over attacking other tribes. Haraway is a major proponent of misandry and an extremist DEI activist/academician. Once bonobos were observed in the wild, though, they did just as much killing and a lot less humping. Both de waal and Haraway pointed to this false research to claim that females would make better political leaders. Of course, Haraway doesn't mind people killing people, as murderer Angela Davis and other terrorists have been close colleagues of hers at the History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz.
Sportswriters, even in Boston, are not known for killing anyone.
Aggie, it looks to me that Finland, Poland, and the Crimea are being grabbed by the tentacles, not part of the beast.
Those clever cartographs are fascinating snapshots: in this case, Bismarck's Germany sports "The Holy Scripture".
Correction, Kaiser Bill I's Germany.
@Tina Trent: " Both de waal and Haraway pointed to this false research to claim that females would make better political leaders."
1. Fertile female behavior (mammals and beyond) is routinely and dramatically transformed by reproductive (hormonal) cycles. What drives an interest in motherhood now drives interest in poisoning enemies later. See Beatlemania and Lucrezia Borgia.
2. Power corrupts. Anyone in leadership heads down a path toward protecting their self interests and blindness to other social needs. This applies whether male, female, or other.
Medvedev had a fair point - it wasn't his fault that a photographer entered the court, the chair ump kicked him off immediately and the whole thing could have been over in about 15 seconds. Instead, within eight second the chair ump gave Medvedev's opponent first serve (he had faulted on the serve immediately prior), which was unfair to Medvedev (and which came on match point - if Medvedev loses the point, he loses the match. Further, the crowd immediately started booing the decision, before Medvedev had raised the issue, and continued booing throughout the extended delay, leading to Bonzi refusing to serve for several minutes (while Medvedev did nothing but prepare to return).
Medvedev ultimately won the point and the game, and brought the set to five sets before going down.
Chair ump in the Medvedev match looks like Chris Christie's fat nephew.
The vegan alternative to tentacular thinking is ramification of thought, which spreads or branches out; growing and developing in complexity or range like the branches or roots of a tree.
Arabella is what is known as a "re-funder" nonprofit, which means that a dominant percentage of donors must donate at least a million dollars, at which point a loophole in the IRS requirement to disclose large funders is removed from public access to their 990s. But Arabella took this even further, creating multiple smaller re-funder non-profits under their re-funder status, most notoriously The New Venture Fund. They also repeatedly violated rules that dictated that even anonymous re-funder non-profits may not directly subsidize political campaigns. Gates Foundations may be liable to tax fraud charges. But it won't matter to him, given his wealth. I imagine that all Gates and Arabella must do is go to the critical minimum of their own well-paid staffs and collect enough small donations to keep operating while continuing to conceal their past illegal activity. They can always start another clean-hands re-funder to keep the money flowing to Arabella.
By the way, The Koch Foundations and others on the Leftitarian Right Wing do this too, though at a much smaller scale. Don't give any of them money, especially AFP.
We need to separate actual, direct service charities such as hospitals, orphanages, foster child assistance, nursing homes, drug treatment centers, and other medical assistance from the nonprofit borg. Everone except defined direct service providers must be excluded from their nonprofit status.
The left is notoriously an Ouroboros. Spread the bennies. Take a knee. Human rites. Etc.
Welcome to the tentacular now. There's a video game called "Tentacular" and Godzilla or Rodan or some other Japanese monster is always sticking its tentacle up out of the ocean and grabbing things.
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The octopus has long been a symbol of monopoly. A cartoon of the Southern Pacific railroad as the tentacular Curse of California probably inspired Frank Norris's novel, "The Octopus." More recently Rebecca Solnit tried to draw a connection between the Southern Pacific monopoly and Silicon Valley tech companies, with railroad baron Leland Stanford and his university as the link.
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How did the "you" sound get in there?
Beats me. I'm wondering why we spell octapus tenticles "octopus tentacles."
I wonder if the blind man felt the elephant's trunk and assumed it was an octopus.
I wonder even more what the blind woman thought.
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Octopuses/Octopi/Octopussies are supposed to be very smart, but how much opportunity have they had to use their smarts?
Harvard and Columbia still discriminate against mollusks so they haven't had a fair chance and a level playing field.
"Donna Haraway writes about "tentacular thinking" in the book 'Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene' (2016)."
If octopodes think, then that would be tentacular thinking. The octopus brain is a distributed organ with each arm having ring-shaped ganglion able to move, regulate, and collect sensory input independently from the other seven little minds.
one is reminded of kurt eichenwald and his octopus fetish (I wish I didn't know this)
see python sketch about mollusks
"Octopuses/Octopi/Octopussies are supposed to be very smart, but how much opportunity have they had to use their smarts?"
Next time, try octopodes. It's an accepted plural according to the OED, and it doesn't sound salacious. (I still get the heebie-jeebies when I recall Louis Jourdan doing his Bond villain schtick.)
hes supposed to be an afghan prince so his diction was more precise than most,
Donna Haraway has to be the single most over-rated "philosopher" of the past 50 years. If I never read another reference to her ridiculous "Cyborg" essay it will be too soon.
I've always enjoyed Medvedev's style of play, along with his antics -- fun to watch for sure. I hope can bag another Grand Slam or two before his career is over.
I don't like that the broadcasters hide his country flag on the scorebug ... he's not directly involved. Just dump the flags altogether, or always show them all. Why erase history as it is happening?
those are very cromulent words,
Medvedev had a fair point
Yep. Was watching at the time - and while he did egg them on a bit - the crowd was already in full throat.
If I were Bonzi, I would've defaulted the second 'first' serve to put it back to where it started. The crowd would've applauded raucously and the match continued.
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