Meh. “It must be performance art” is such a 2000s explanation. People really can be that insufferably pompous and condescending in real life.
But since we’re playing armchair psychologist … my theory is that AB is a horribly insecure guy who has overcompensated by creating an elaborate alternate universe in which he’s a world-renowned scholar, a trencherman of regional note, and a bringer of urbane sophistication to hick towns.
waves hand airily
Minions, lackeys, sidekicks - as long as the necessary decapitations are carried out in a timely manner I don’t worry about union rules.
Regards,
Shodan
In the bustling metropolis whence I hail - not the Siegel and Schuster Metropolis, haha, although copies of my groundbreaking opus on Nietschze, "*Man and Superman *and Superman"are available gratis in the lobby after this symposium - I was a noted boulevardier, quite the glass of fashion and the mould of form, and I can firmly assure you that compulsory fedoras will add a much-needed touch of cosmopolitan je ne sais quoi to this Hawthornian hamlet. My epochal dissertation “Haws, Thorns and Hamlets: Some Musings on Hawthorne and Hamlet”, by the by, is also prominently displayed as you seek egress from this feast of reason and flow of soul and hie yourselves to the local hostelry.
Socks aren’t allowed on the dope, AB.
Fuck New England. Buncha sap-sucking blueberry pickers, if you ask me.
That’s all they were until AB moved there. Now they are sap-sucking blueberry pickers with a metropolitan sensibility.
Hell, then, what am I supposed to wear with my Birkenstocks and Bermuda shorts?
Wear them with a fedora, a Starfleet tunic and a convention lanyard, and you too could be the epitome of urban sophistication.
Fucking crab-muncher.
With such stylish accouterments, you’d be quite the raconteur at any convention. Your wit would generate an extended laugh.
I imagine the programme was something like this:
[QUOTE=The Wind In The Willows]
…and on the fly-leaf he would set out a sort of a programme of entertainment for the evening— something like this, as he sketched it out in his head:—
SPEECH . . . . BY TOAD.
(There will be other speeches by TOAD during the evening.)
ADDRESS . . . BY TOAD
SYNOPSIS— Our Prison System— the Waterways of Old England— Horse-dealing, and how to deal— Property, its rights and its duties— Back to the Land— A Typical English Squire.
SONG . . . . BY TOAD. (Composed by himself.) OTHER COMPOSITIONS . BY TOAD
will be sung in the course of the evening by the . . . COMPOSER.
[/QUOTE]
Or, as Rat succinctly put it:
I haven’t heard the stage-whisper brag but a sneakbrag is more like you pretend you aren’t bragging at all and entice people to ask questions. “Can anyone recommend a coffee shop in Minsk with free wi-fi?”
“Ugh ugh ugh writing this speech is killing me.”
“I think I just embarrassed myself while having dinner with Neil Gaiman.”
I see this a lot on FB/Twitter.
What I see on the Dope is more like open bragging while being vague about details so nobody can fact-check.
You say this with mere anecdotal evidence. Your FB/Twitter is your cite. Fie upon it! When I solve this pesky software issue, the research I will publish will transform the way Humanity views…
…wait; I’ve said too much.
I can’t wait until my mistress wakes up (famous actress, quite a stunner, not sure how she ended up with me) so I can shared this page of posts; I know she’ll find it hilarious.
I’ll mention it to her.
Let’s be fair here. Although AB loves to brag about stuff, he’s never (to my knowledge) engaged in this particular kind of bragging.
He has, however, expressed bafflement about other people’s relationships:
Oh yes, the infamous “first rate white woman” thread. That and the Nutella thread were the first times I noticed him. He was put into the “first rate idiot asshole” bucket at that point and has never made any attempt to claw his way out.
OK, there’s being a pompous self-obsessed buffoon, and then there’s being genuinely vile. Link to the thread?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=16444813#post16444813
My favorite part is where he said that he was answering the question posed by the OP of “If a woman has a past relationship with a black man she’s tainted forever. Why?”
See, it’s not racism. It’s that such women are skanky.