Huh. Maybe I’m the one that’s weird, but I have no trouble understanding why people like or believe things I don’t like or disbelieve. I don’t agree with them, but I understand, usually, what it is about them or the thing in question that attracts them.
Even liberals are easy to understand, despite the fact that they’re incredibly wrong nearly all the time.
jumps up and down, waves hand in air
I’ve read all of *Gravity’s Rainbow! *In fairness, it was many moons ago, when I was young, and I didn’t have easy access to all the mind-numbing distractions that I have now. I also started reading Mason & Dixon, but internet pornography came of age when I was about half way through, which pretty much killed that project stone dead.
I actually do think that one should be wary of taking Pynchon too seriously, and that there is a risk of turning into something of a pseudo-intellectual twit if one does so (which, BTW, applies to a lot of things). But I don’t think it’s Pynchon’s fault. He’s essentially a comedic writer (sometimes side-splittingly funny), and he clearly has a kooky sense of humor, in general (being a reclusive author, only to then appear on The Simpsons with a bag over his head, should illustrate that well enough). At times, I really do think he’s taking the piss. But I don’t want to blame him if someone doesn’t get his jokes.
Too late for edit:
I should have added: I have also read a couple of his shorter novels. They’re not all giant bricks.
Yeah. . . That one had me scratching my head, too.
OK, we all get it. You’re more iconoclastic than the next guy. Big deal. Like Ike, I like a lot of the stuff mentioned in this thread. But the one thing that HAS to be a joke of mammoth proportions stretching over decades is Doctor Who.
Professional sports is a joke, but it’s a joke primarily being played on the most avid sports fans.
First, let’s get the stereotypically most homophobic males to watch a bunch of physically fit males run around in Lycra. Extra points if this is football, so they’re actively attempting to hump… er, tackle each other. “Ball-handling” puns are just a bonus at this point, really.
Next, let’s make these supposedly action-oriented games as boring as possible to actually watch. I think it was George Will who said that football is the most American of sports, being board meetings punctuated by violence. Baseball is notoriously dull, to the point a recitation of statistics is a practical necessity in order to keep drowsiness from setting in. Golf is the intrusion of advanced Buddhist meditation practices into the Western world, and that’s what it’s like to play the damned game. My point, however, is that football, which is supposed to be this fast-paced action sport with snaps and turnovers and tackles, is just as boring as the others except in very brief bursts, suitable for five-second promos and sports commentary shows later on.
And, of course, there’s the name. Football has two separate definitions, which wouldn’t be so bad if one of those didn’t refer to the most popular game inside the lone remaining superpower and the other didn’t refer to the most popular game literally everywhere else on Earth. If ‘football’ meant something else in, say, Canada, nobody would know or care. It literally would never come up. But no, it has to be another example of America vs The World. Shenanigans, I say.
Finally, note how I’ve been talking about football this whole time as the default sport. The most “sport” sport. In theory, baseball is America’s game. In practice, baseball players could go on strike and nobody would notice. Baseball is hyped as this Great American Pass-Time and absolutely nobody gives a good god damn about it. Everyone’s supposed to like it, nobody does, and somehow the perception never changes.
I can’t get too worked up over it, though. I’m not the one being gulled.
Not calling anyone childish. But when I was growing up for the most part only kids called the red stuff “ketchup” (or “katchup”).
Catsup commercial
Another catsup commercial.
Note both the spelling and pronunciation.
Heinz was an exception, but they did that to distinguish themselves from other companies. It wasn’t until I was in college, with the infamous FDA classification of “ketchup” (but not catsup) as a vegetable for school lunch purposes, that most other companies changed the spelling so they’d be able to sell their product to schools. When the last holdout, Del Monte, made the change Dennis Miller made fun of it by saying “In a show of solidarity, the long-running Broadway musical changed its name to 'Ketch”.
You may be onto something! Although it seems I recall reading something about testing or studies done with users of Enchroma-type glasses before they were available for sale that indicated the wearers were indeed seeing colors the way non-color-blind people see them, or at least closer to that way, there apparently being a range of results.
OTOH, maybe the testing or studies were funded by the makers of the glasses. 
I have seen some clips though where the wearers accurately could match up, say, blue markers as resembling someone’s blue eyes or blue shirt or whatever. But of course maybe they’re just matching up the same wacky colors, which aren’t “my” blue or “your” blue at all! :eek: Off to place my order for x-ray specs…
Agree with the previous posts about Springsteen and cheese.
I think a few influential rock critics jumped on the Springsteen train early on, and other critics followed along blindly. I love the music of that era, and I think some of Springsteen’s stuff is ok, but it doesn’t do anything for me.
I think Picasso and Dali were actually revolutionary artists but every abstract artist since then is scamming us.
I think it’s amusing that Dali sold blank canvases with his signature on it. I could actually see him as a con artist, but I like his paintings.
In this vein, American-built cars used to be absolute crap. Why buy American when your Chevy Chiclet will die 100,000 miles before a Toyota Elf even gets its first oil change!
A lot of people claim their Grateful Dead fans, but how come I’ve never heard a single one of their songs on the radio? I think people like the art, which is really neat.
“Touch of Grey” was pretty big at one point in the 80s. But mainly, they’re the quintessential example of a band whose legendary popularity is based on their live shows rather than their recorded output.
You’ve never heard ‘Touch of Grey’ on the radio?
Both Picasso and Dali were mostly “non-objective” artists, but neither of them was “abstract.”
Dali’s pictures verged on hyper realism as well as surrealism. Not abstract.
As a guy, I think wearing no or minimal makeup is far sexier. My first reaction is: She likes herself the way she IS, not the way she thinks she has to look to impress a Bro (or a shallow woman).
In fact, if I’m staring at your foundationed, blushed, mascaraed, face…I’m trying to picture the real you without all that stuff on.
Looked it up on YouTube and the answer is no.
But then again I’ve been listening to reruns of American Top 40 and was amazed by how many songs I don’t remember at all.
Do you honestly think everyone listens to the same radio station as you?
I actually hear “Casey Jones” more frequently nowadays.