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[Slurpee]

*lying on floor*

I think I did OK on my midterms

*staring at ceiling silently*

[Slurpee]

did you guys know the yu-gi-oh creator died trying to save people from drowning?

https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html

Kazuki Takahashi, 60, the creator of the popular Japanese manga series "Yu-Gi-Oh!," attempted to aid Bourgeau in the rescue, unbeknownst to the American, and drowned in the process, a pained Bourgeau told Stars and Stripes on Oct. 3.

...

"He's a hero," Bourgeau said of Takahashi. "He died trying to save someone else."

yu-gi-oh was never really my thing but like damn, right?

[Slurpee]

ceterum censeo David Zaslav esse delendam

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

did you guys know the yu-gi-oh creator died trying to save people from drowning?

https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-10-11/okinawa-riptide-rescue-yu-gi-oh-7646714.html

Kazuki Takahashi, 60, the creator of the popular Japanese manga series "Yu-Gi-Oh!," attempted to aid Bourgeau in the rescue, unbeknownst to the American, and drowned in the process, a pained Bourgeau told Stars and Stripes on Oct. 3.

...

"He's a hero," Bourgeau said of Takahashi. "He died trying to save someone else."

yu-gi-oh was never really my thing but like damn, right?

my buddy told me about that yesterday. it's even more tragic now, but at the same time he really went out like a protagonist of his genre would have. it's not just writing and taste in comics, it was his nature to begin with. I went back and started rereading the series last night after hearing about that. I never did read the final arc in the show or the manga, just the ending years later. might as well finally do it.

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

ceterum censeo David Zaslav esse delendam

remember when cartoon network was still cool and inventive and anything good on it didnt exist in spite of it

something happened to their management in the mid to late 00s and they never really recovered from it

[PhantomCatClock]

had to change the email i used for humble bundle and now they're sending me like six emails a day like i'm a new user, telling me "(UNREAD MESSAGE) DID YOU KNOW WE/RE NOT JUST A STORE?>????????? WE PUBLISH GAMES TOO" "(UNREAD MESSAGE) THERE ARE MORE THAN JUST BUNDLES THERE'S ALSO SA A STORE?!?!!!!!!!!!!!" "(UNREAD MESSAGE) DID YOU KNOW WE HAV E MORE THAN JUST A STORE AND A BUNDLES THERE IS ALSO A MONTHLY THING YOU?RE ALREADY SIGNED UP FOR DIIIIIIID YOOOOOOU KNOOOOOOOOW" bruh fuck off also rooster teeth can go to hell i only watched red vs blue anyway

[Slurpee]

I always thought "So Desperate" by The Mountain Goats was about a couple that had broken up with each other dealing with feelings unexpectedly resurfacing when they meet in private again later

We were parked in your car
In our neutral meeting place, the Episcopalian churchyard

why would you need a neutral meeting place unless there's some hostility, right?
and a churchyard is like sanctuary imagery

I mean ok in practice it's where teenagers go to hotbox because it's huge and out of sight and unattended and there's two exits so if 5-o shows up you can casually drive out the other way
but I think the idea of it being neutral territory is like, you wouldn't want to make a scene there, it's a church. hallowed ground

then this part:

I had things I'd been meaning to say
But in the dazzling winter sun that late I could feel them melt away
And through the warm radio static
I couldn't hear my stage directions
And the fog on the windshield
Obscured our sad reflections

I felt so desperate in your arms
I felt so desperate in your arms

so the narrator is in the car with this hostile party, and he has things he's been meaning to say
but something about that moment in that environment ("the dazzling winter sun", "the warm radio static" "the fog on the windshield") melts away the coldness he felt toward them, and  makes him forget the part he's supposed to be playing (his "stage directions"). even their self-knowledge of their mutual unhappiness ("our sad reflections") is obscured

all he's left with is the feeling of desperation as this person holds him

second verse begins:

We were parked near some trees
And the moonlight soaked the branches in ever-deepening degrees

note the moonlight, not sunlight like it was in the first verse.
if this were an essay I'd make the argument that night is a more intimate and obfuscating setting, a feeling emphasized in the imagery of branches showing different degrees of moonlight. light is associated with truth, with revelation and knowledge
but this is not an essay and I think it will suffice to simply say that this implies this part of the song takes place at a different time from the first part

Had my hand in your hair
Trying to keep my cool - til it became too much to bear

they're fucking
well, darnielle is more tasteful than that. they're about to fuck, probably

see I always took the second verse (beginning with "we were parked near some trees") as sort of a flashback to who they were when they were together, when they first met. the narrator "trying to keep [his] cool" is very typical of a young man early in a romantic relationship instinctively wanting to take things further physically but not wanting to show it

When we cracked the windows open
Well the air was just so sweet

we skip ahead a bit here... something happened. because it was night time, yet it is now hot in the car. they needed air, either because they fucked or (and I actually like that this is ambiguous) because we're back in the first time period, and the desperation the narrator felt in the other person's arms was a release of emotional catharsis that left them both feeling like they needed a crack of fresh cool air. both are valid, to me

We could hear the cars ten feet away
Out there on the street

I don't know what this means.
I could fake it but I'm trying to get out of the habit of bullshitting just to bolster a thesis (I do not think that is a good way to get closer to the truth (which I think is among the nobler purposes of any art or discourse))

but I do know that it creates a bit of emotional and chronological distance from the return to the chorus...

I felt so desperate in your arms

... which leaves the impression that it's a memory – perhaps of the "winter sun" time when the narrator had an emotional breakdown in his ex's arms, perhaps of the "moonlight" time when they were physically intimate with each other, perhaps both – but in all cases ruminative and looking back at the intimacy once shared with this person
it's a very real and very strange feeling, reflecting on your own capacity to connect so deeply with somebody who you've grown apart from


but I looked it up just now and apparently this song's actually about having an affair lol
I guess it makes sense, idk. I don't want to parse it out because I kinda hate it, but that'd still make it a song about the narrator feeling feelings for somebody who he knew he shouldn't be with. like it's in the same ballpark.
I need to stop looking up the meanings to songs that I like. 90% of the time it just bums me out

but it's that thing where, you have your own thoughts and feelings about what you're getting out of a piece of art, but you haven't quite fully grasped what it is, so you want to see what other people have to say about it to kind of complete the thought and flesh it out
and john darnielle is usually really good about not giving explicit meanings for his songs! he absolutely refuses to explain who the narrator is in "Hair Match" even though I WANT to know so god damn badly, it's such an oddly heartbreaking little twist that to me recolors and helps texturize the entire album.
but So Desperate, no, he just, fuckin, dropped the meaning at a concert with astounding directness. he's like "this song is about having an affair, and if you want to pretend that it's not about the affair that you're having you are lying to yourself 😠" and I'm like "jesus dude I didn't even think the song was about that! I've never even had an affair why are you yelling at me"

[Slurpee]

update: I have been reminded that john darnielle actually says a lot of funny, weird things about what his songs are "about" and while this diminishes my disappointment it doesn't fully disarm it because I have a sense that even in the seemingly joking and contradictory explanations he gives he is impishly dancing on the rim of the truth and I still sense in the shape he left an incongruity with what I get out of it

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

and if you want to pretend that it's not about the affair that you're having you are lying to yourself 😠" and I'm like "jesus dude I didn't even think the song was about that! I've never even had an affair why are you yelling at me"

that feeling is always aggravating as hell. even if it's just one detail it can still mess with the entire experience. it's a big jump from reconnecting with an ex to cheating with your ex. 

and yet with no children I don't really care if it's a comedy or not, it is one to me and somehow I'm not bothered by it probably not being one. it works so well either way.

you know what nearly ruined my favorite song from when I was 13? a random static noise that plays repeatedly in the chorus. it took me forever to notice it even with headphones but once I did I couldn't ignore it. I looked it up a years later and it turned out it's supposed to be an explosion and they did it on purpose. which is also pointless but it still just sounds a like a mastering error or my speakers are damaged.

[PhantomCatClock]

i moved away and now i'm just eating matzo and it's not a holiday so i updated my subtitle thank you for your cooperation

[VCRClock]

☺ Your will have such a biggie pride it will be enough even to divide. ☺
Lucky Numbers: 2, 8, 29, 80, 83

[RobClock]

[RobClock]

and also; happy halloweenie

[PhantomCatClock]

i want to believe [but like freddie mercurochrome saying i want to break free]

[PannacottaClock]

i did OK on my midterms

that's why i've been talking about engineering so much recently in real life, i am sorry

[k9]

☺ Your will have such a biggie pride it will be enough even to divide. ☺
Lucky Numbers: 2, 8, 29, 80, 83

oh my god what is that a quote from it's driving me insane

[RobClock]

Hey Pcat I finally got around to installing that RAM you sent me like three years ago. Thanks again dude <3

[PhantomCatClock]

i could've sworn i sent you a monitor whoops

[VCRClock]

oh my god what is that a quote from it's driving me insane

it's a spam subject line from 2009 but I might have already used it as the spam forum description before the spam forum was renamed "Mrs. McGruder's House"