Babylon Berlin. Berlin in 1920's. Just really good.

just downloaded more father ted for the weekend

i’m laughing in advance just thinking about it

Anyone been watching this series of Inside No. 9? Fuck is it good. Gotta rank as the most under-rated program out there right now. It gets the right level of dark comedy and tenderness. Episode 2 'Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room' was just perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Symbols, I think you'd love this one.

Jesus there’s so much tv and shit. I’ve literally never heard a single mention of this.

It's totally flown under the radar here in the UK too. However, go on twitter after an episode has aired (Tuesdays) and you'll see that the people who are watching it are in agreeance at how brilliant it is.

To sum up, it's the same idea as Black Mirror (each episode is a different story and plays with your expectations), except a)funnier and b)not about dystopian futures and c)only half an hour long. From one story set around a six bed train carriage, to another based on a old variety act meeting together to rehearse for a reunion show, to one that's a silent episode based around the robbery of an expensive painting. Each story is so unique and just perfectly done. Love it.

Edit: sorry to waffle on about it. Everyone has that album, book, whatever where after seeing it they just wanna bang on to everyone about it.

Mrs. Instigator and I were very excited to see the return of Baskets.

what else we watching?

I am in the middle of a season 6 re-watch of DS9.

watching Ancient Impossible on Hulu. Cool stuff, detailing the magnificently advanced tech of our ancestors.

She has been watching This is Us but I don't care.

I am maybe the only one left eagerly awaiting the next season of Survivor.

SURVIVOR IS STILL ON?!?!!

Fucking seriously?!

16 years. 32 seasons.

im moving tomorrow so my tv queue is a bit jammed up at the moment. surviving on a steady diet of father ted and grounded for life, which keep the laughs coming.

but thanks for the recommend. i’ll have to re-review this whole thread once i’m hooked up to the universe again. it appears (knock on wood, fingers crossed) i might be able to get a steady, non-capped connection to the planet. a slow one, but cheap and uncapped, which would be a very good thing if it can actually work. but we’ll see....

I tried, after years of avoidance, to watch the premiere of the latest season of Ru Paul's Drag Race, and holy fuck I made it about 3 minutes. My wife and brother are huge fans and discuss it a lot, and I just do not understand the appeal.

i don’t know what’s the latest one cuz shit appears randomly on amazon/netflix but come on— these queens are real life heroes. the shit they go through for their dreams is just bananas. takes *a lot* of hard work to do this shit, plus the violence and discrimination they have to survive growing up, holy fuck, they’re way tougher than the spandex-clad beefy men you watch slap each other’s butt’s on weekends.

and the show is like a better and more talented survivor where you have to lipsynch fo yo life.

plus, it’s hilarious—the comedy queens are my favorite ones. THE LIBRARY IS OPEN haaaa haaaa haaaa haaa.

i haven’t seen them all but i think earlier seasons were better as i’ve noticed a peak and then a slow descent. never saw the first season.

i’d rather not name my favorite winners cuz spoilers but shit’s addictive.

All these things you say are true, and I have known this for decades. It has nothing to do with whether the show as aired is entertaining to me. I am a person that does not find any value in aggressive pretending. I have seen countless drag shows in bars and clubs and such. I don;t give a shit about the foundational aspects of drag, the obsession with superfluous and stereotypically feminine looks (for the most part. I know there is a wide range of drag performers, including avant garde and comedy, but those are riffs on the standard femenine queen trope)
I do not like any of the music they perform.
I can;t stand the acts they copy (Cher, Lady Gaga, Tina Turner, Celine Dion, Judy Garland, whoever. They mean nothing to me and my life, except as signposts that I need to get away from their horrible "music")
I do not enjoy extremely affected fake accents, mannerisms, and reactions, especially when done in an attention-grabbing "look at ME!!!" way. I find that shit sad.

.


I do not find their humor particularly funny.

i know what you mean because i used to see it that way too but it’s not about pretense

the great american philosopher ru-paul (ha ha) coined this phrase i’ve seen reposted elsewhere— we’re all born naked, everything else is drag.

i’d like to believe im an unfashionable dude who wears the same uniform every day cuz i don’t give a shit about clothes but maybe that’s just pretense. maybe your beard and glasses are also pretense. the grey suit and tie, pretense. the janitor uniform, pretense. all pretense.

but it’s not really about pretense— it’s about performance and self-expression. as much as we’d like to think we’re “natural” and “act natural” we all perform our social roles. we have to. we act a certain way in certain contexts, we act another way in others. the current shitstorm of social media, people getting fired from their jobs for posting things on twitter, happens when people naively blur the boundary between public and private personas.

so we’re all have our personas— our masks— we wear at the parties we’re at.

drag queens are just more aware and self-conscious about this.

as for their ideals of femininity, you’re right, they’re stereotypical and, depending on context, oppressive. a drag queen is more feminine than the average woman—which says something about the whole institution of femininity. not sure if you ever saw americas next top model (i saw the first season bakc in the day), but they’d bring a drag queen to teach the ladies how to walk! yep.

anyway i agree with your prespectives i swear, i hate the music too and i think it’s foolish to chase money and fame and glitter, but at the same time i admire those queens for their massive show of balls in the face of a mainstream culture that would have no compunction exterminating them, and the whole nietzschean transvaluation of values they perform for their own benefit and their right to exist and thrive in full view of the disapproving public.

you’re right that in our usual context the “look at me” is sad, and i’m usually very hostile to the average attention whore, but when you see the attention whoring as a means of overcoming oppression it suddenly becomes a glorious thing to behold— a fight for survival and for freedm. and those queens don’t demand that you look at them just becuz— they really work fucking hard not just to deserve but ultimately to command that look.

ultimately, it is a display of male power, just like in traditional sports, but it’s gender-bending instead of gender-reinforcing, and thus punk and revolutionary as fuck—this in spite of its apparent reinforcement of oppresive discourse on its outward expressions.

they’re showing us that in social life everything is surface and that you can choose your own mask instead just of receiving your assigned one. i think they’re fucking great. well, not all of them— the show has both sublime heroes and despicable villains. lots of drama ha ha ha ha ha.

I can appreciate all the show does, but it is not entertaining to me.


The only comparison I can think of is when my wife and I watch a documentary about Egypt. I geek out HARD over the technology and science behind the many attempts to explore ancient ruins, and deeply appreciate the patience and rigor of the awesome scientists as they work for year sometimes to gather the data they need. I find that deeply engrossing.

My wife, however, could give a flying fuck about that shit. She wants to know and learn new substantive information about Egypt itself, which in documentaries like the one I describe above, is really a secondary matter. She is just waiting to see what the discovery is (which of course is the very last thing they discuss).

When it comes to Drag Race, my bro and my wife love it like I state in the former, while I sit purely like my wife in the latter example. I find the endless posturing and snark and catfighting deeply boring, an superfluous to the actual "competition" that is supposed to be taking place.

"i’d like to believe im an unfashionable dude who wears the same uniform every day cuz i don’t give a shit about clothes but maybe that’s just pretense. maybe your beard and glasses are also pretense. the grey suit and tie, pretense. the janitor uniform, pretense. all pretense."

This is the part where I say NAIF! to conflate the millions of choices and the care taken to create a drag look to live in for as while with the choice to shave or not shave (I have a beard because shaving every fucking day is a waste of goddamn time), or wih the choice of what outfits you will generally wear is a bit much man.

if you wear a Joy Division T, for example, and you go around all day affecting a morose, grim, and nihilistic attitude and air, because it matches your little outfit? That is pretense.

o man. the catfighting is HILARIOUS. the exchanges with the judges lolololol.

yeah if you dont enjoy it you just don’t. i’m not gonna pull a severian and try to talk you into liking it :D

you not shaving cuz it wastes times could mean “i’m a serious dude who values his time in serious pursuits.”

appearance is appearance and can’t be avoided. whether you take care of your appearance or you don’t you still achieve an appearance that others will decode and interpret.

that joy division thing is just bad drag and therefore reprehensible lololol

btw, i recently bought mechanics coveralls to save time and space and laundry loads. i am however aware that i’ll start to look like supermario or barf in spaceballs ha ha ha. barf, actually.

This is true in a general sense, but it is a very big leap to equate choosing a daily wardrobe to creating a whole new persona in a new gender.

I actively work and have worked for my whole life to NOT judge people based on superficiality, of which clothing choice is the most obvious. One's clothes mean NOTHING of substance when it comes to the inner human. . They mean everything to people whose whole existence depends on the world's reaction to their fake ass persona..

(for example, I love sports, and sometimes wear a Oilers, Texans, Astros, Rockets jersey. To me, it is a way to show my interest in the team. However, I constantly run into idiots who think my wearing of a football jersey means deep things about who I am INSIDE. They think I must also find "fags" abhorrent, that I support sport over intellectual pursuits, that I could not possible be an artist or a well-read intellectual, or enjoy pursuits that are ridiculously far removed from competitive physical sport. Most people are every narrow-minded, whether by nature and/or nurture, and can only conceive a symbol standing for ONE THING. These are the idiots who use the word "liberal" or "conservative" as pejoratives. They think that wearing a team jersey indicates you are a real MAN! who likes manly things like hunting, raping unconscious women, obsessing over inanimate motor vehicles, etc.

Just because I have to love in these idiot's world does not mean their value judgements matter to me.

The world of drag is infinitely more insular, rigorous, and quite cut-throat and petty, even before you expose it to the hetero world, all due to the devotion to artifice. You should read about the horrid way straight men who happen to do drag get treated by the homosexuals that do drag.

not a new gender. just DRAG. wearing a costume.

you realize there’s drag performers who wear a business suit and carry a briefcase to look like corporate executives? it’s not only about gender.

(and corporate executives are in drag too. )


right, i also pay very little attention to clothes in general. but i know they work. people hear me different when i wear a suit and a good haircut vs. when i look like a deranged cave dweller.

the inner human is not readily accessible to everyone. people make snap judgments all the time based on a kind of neural economy. we only have so much cpu power so we unconsciously resort to shortcuts.

that’s why i was careful to clarify above: in social life we wear masks. social.


you’re right, but that’s the way it works. not everybody is a philosopher and a certain uniform will place you in a certain social category whether you like it or not.

i myself have thought of buying soccer jerseys and things like that but am afraid of the type of douchenostril and unwanted conversation such displays will attract. so i haven’t.


you don’t have to agree with them (i myself don’t) but since we have to live in their world their value judgments end up mattering anyway. we get socially sorted.


oh yeah i believe that. i never claimed it was a saintly community of enlightened beings bathing in their mutual agapé. it’s more comparable to sports— or game of thrones maybe. a battle of egos.but... that’s entertainment.

any old costume is not DRAG man, Drag is specifically dressing as your opposite gender. (unless you are genderneutral, gender fluid, genderless, or just a eunuch.....hahahahhahha)

wearing a uniform is not drag.
dressing to fit the occassion (business suit) is not drag.

maybe in purely general (hence vague and inapplicable to any specific instance) terms one could see any form of dress and costume as drag, but that would be like seeing any form of religious worship as satanism, or Lutheranism....

sorry about self-absorbedly not spelling out what i see as the theoretical implications of drag. i took them for granted and ran with it.

i did quote rupaul’s “we’re born naked” though. he wasn’t talking about just queens but everyone.

everything we wear or how we cut our hair or not its artifice that conveys a persona.

so i would say yes, wearing a uniforn and dressing for the occasion are drag.

drag in its mre circumscribe definition is more self-conscious and more... effortful than our everyday social drag, but our everyday social life is aaaaaaaaaaaaall drag all the time.

that’s my point, yeah.

the drag of the drag ball reveals the drag of social life.

i’m not interested in dictionary definitions of “drag” but about what drag performance forms says about our life in general.

yes. that’s precisely why i appreciate it. its extremes reveal the more subtle instances.

and nature itself loves artifice. nature is in drag all the time.

the moth that looks like a pair of owl’s eyes— drag.

the venus flytrap— drag

the cat that raises his tail and spikes his hair to look bigger before a threat—drag

the flu virus that changes its outer shell to fool the immune system— drag

the chief hat or crown that make them look taller than the rest of the tribe— drag

the lipstick and eye makeup and flattering dress on the hot girl— drag

the shoulder pads and tight pants on the american football player— drag

trump’s claim of billions and populist persona— drag

a figurative painting— drag

nature is all drag all the time, and social life is natural life, and everything in nature is performance. there is no substance, only void, performing as substance.

yeah i may all appear spooky or demonic or oppressive, or maybe just join the dance in your own terms if you can, and learn to read your enemy to avoid being eaten.

because as they say in rupauls drag queen, reading is fundamental.

if it does not involve an inversion of apparent gender,IT IS NOT DRAG. it is just a costume, or a uniform, or an outfit.

a man dressed as a woman is NOT DRAG, in the sense of a "drag queen" That is a transvestite. A man that dresses as a woman to perform as a woman and entertain? DRAG.

all kinds of realness are also drag

started on Dirty Money, Netflix documentary series. First up was the Volkswagen emissions scandal. Damn, State of California should have been given a lot of kudos for sussing that shit out.

Been meaning to watch this.

spent the weekend bingeing on season 7 of gaymotron while the rest of the cuntry was hooked on the superballs.

tons of fun, and a very satisfying season! it had me laughing and laughing at various times because— YES!!

SPOILERS SPOILERS

arya stark ftw

also snoe fucked his real bio-sister? wtf

END SPOILERS

I hate that I'm so amused by 2 Broke Girls.

Why the fuck didn’t anyone tell me how great Halt and Catch Fire is? It’s... like, really good! :eek:

i didn’t chase you around to personally tell you but i think i’ve posted about it here and yeah it’s really fucking great.

the problem we have today (first world problems!) is we have too much fucking great tv. poor us! lol

This was fucking great

People trying to make comparisons with game of thrones are fucktarded by idiot hypes. I mean poor readers with no imaginagion who parrot someone else"s impressions pretending it's original thought.

As its own beast, this is a small show and utterly INSANE.

eta: have also read criticisms that it’s not “historically accurate”. LOL. moronic logic!

They make a ton of jokes about this on the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (which gets really exhausting after a while, I tell ya).

“You know you’re living in a golden age of television when people take a show like ‘The Americans’ for granted.”

(Preach!)

Oh, speaking of the Americans (which is goddamn well the best show on TV goddammit), the first teaser for the final season came out!

The Americans season 6: “Stop her”

It’s not much, but man am I excited.

Letterkenny is the best comedy on TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rSBmOgpcDE

rewatching season 1 of BLACK BOOKS, which is on amazon and it’ even funnier than the first time

i must be on a time warp cuz i just spotted west wing on netflix and i started with season 1 episode 1 and it’s soooo fucking exciting why????

(this is like the 5th time i rewatch the whole show lolol)

Holy shit this is a great show! Could be legendary if they keep it up. Unique and twisted and hilarious and even oddly heartwarming

^^ oh yeah i saw that on the menu

looks like the ol’ kids on the alpacalypse yeah?

It’s basically dark British Wes Anderson does twisted Bonnie and Clyde. It’s fucking funny, and there’s good music and it’s a legitimately original story... except for the Bonnie and Clyde bits I guess.

Oh and it’s not really about the end of the world or anything. It’s about a psycho kid who courts a girl so he can kill her and the girl who courts the psycho kid so she can escape her terrible existence. And they connect, oddly. It’s good.

Maybe I should watch the end of the fucking world afterall. I definitely saw it around