Spinoza? I hardly knows her!

December 19, 2022 2:03 AM

Oh hey, it turns out it's Monday again. Ah well, it happens. I guess today we might as well ask (I mean we could not ask, but nah): When people talk about "Free Will" what do they mean? a) Wheaton, b) Shakespeare, c) Meghan Markel's brother in law, d) this thread, OR ...

e) None of the above, free will is an illusion

posted by taz (90 comments total)

f) A movie about a whal
posted by flamewise at 2:18 AM on December 19, 2022 [8 favorites]

A tremendous savings over the Will in town.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:31 AM on December 19, 2022 [5 favorites]

(Also, title chance: Spinoza?! I hardly knows her!)
posted by Ghidorah at 2:32 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ghidorah, I'm just gonna go ahead and steal that s
posted by taz at 2:37 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

also, meghan's name is markle. jeez, taz, pull yourself together. ;)
posted by mochapickle at 2:57 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

taz was clearly talking about a different Meghan. You don't know her. She's real. She lives out of state.
posted by trif at 3:13 AM on December 19, 2022 [10 favorites]

For an injection of surreality, I present Serbia's 2022 Eurovision entry, connected only by a thread of Meghan Markle's healthy hair.

It's actually pretty good.
posted by Athanassiel at 3:21 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

For some reason the words "free will" always make me remember the end of the Time Bandits movie. I think God says some pithy thing about free will?

(I also always stumble on whether I should capitalise the "g" in god.)

Today's video that made me happy: this apparently popular czech guy dancing in the chorus https://youtu.be/FuOhQZP821o
posted by Zumbador at 3:34 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

So over the weekend Metafilter appeared to suffer a significant downtime incident..

What was up wid dat?
posted by Faintdreams at 3:59 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

I went to bed super early last night, like before 8pm. Combination of being a little bit tired and wanting to just snuggle in a nice warm bed. When I woke up, I assumed I was also waking up hours early, and went to the bathroom to pee and drink some water, expecting to just go back to bed for a few more hours… but then heard my alarm going off in my room. I had slept the whole way through till 6am! I don’t think I can even remember the last time I got 10 hours of sleep in one go.
posted by notoriety public at 4:22 AM on December 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

Earlier in the fall I caught a lecture on Spinoza, by a professor who was an orthodox jew, her discussion was excellent, with the slightest unspoken irony (Spinoza remains excommunicated). But perhaps that's just my misperception. My other take was that questions after academic talks maintain a certain performative ritual politeness that I'm always unprepared, not being in that world.

Anyway in every Spinoza thread I recommend The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World, about a pre-mefi meetup by a couple folk that would've been comfortable chatting here.
posted by sammyo at 4:54 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've been rewatching this clip for the past week and I laugh each and every time, so I'm going to share it. The way the animation of the joke is structured, I don't think it needs any setup. I hope it brightens your day. Lately I think we all need that.
posted by Servo5678 at 6:24 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

If I have free will, that means I can quit the sport I've been practicing for nearly thirty years and do something else. I could take a writing class, or travel to Provence to visit my brother. It means I can hang laundry out in my basement instead of putting it in the dryer. It means I can do anything. Or maybe I'm fooling myself. Maybe all of this is inevitable.

Of course, vacuum decay theoretically is already happening (I really recommend Katie Mack's book The End of Everything) and all my worries are a wonderful waste of time.
posted by Peach at 6:27 AM on December 19, 2022

I've sometimes wished I lived in Canada. That way, if a local asked me if I was dating, I could tell them "I have a girlfriend. But you wouldn't know her. She lives in Canada." Probably wouldn't amuse the Canadian but it would amuse me.

I had to marry my Canadian girlfriend so we could live abroad. Otherwise it is not allowed and almost all countries abide by the unwritten rule that Canadian girlfriends only have the very slightest recognition as an excuse but carry no legal weight whatsoever.
posted by srboisvert at 6:29 AM on December 19, 2022

So over the weekend Metafilter appeared to suffer a significant downtime incident..

What was up wid dat?

Free While.
posted by srboisvert at 6:32 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

I had a super Skinnerian psychology professor who would respond to any suggestion that humans had free will that he found the whole idea horrifying because that would mean that human behavior must be caused by nothing at all.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:47 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Freewill

Little Willy

Had a good Yule celebration and premiered a new character in my RPG group that I think that I'll stick with.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:49 AM on December 19, 2022

Electronic - Free Will
posted by Kiwi at 7:22 AM on December 19, 2022

I know what freedom is, and I know what will is, but I'm never really sure what people mean by "free will." It seems like asking if water has 104-degree-bond-angle viscosity. Like, yes, water has 104 degree bond angles, and yes, water has viscosity, and the viscosity of water is definitely related to its bond angle, but the two ideas don't combine in that way.
posted by biogeo at 7:45 AM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

yes, water has 104 degree bond angles

Heretic.
posted by Phanx at 7:58 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hey, I just report the news, I don't make it.
posted by biogeo at 8:02 AM on December 19, 2022

We can move our arms up and down. (Yes, if we *have* arms)

That's free will.

Extrapolating that to the rest of what we are is more tricky.

As I like to say about the rest, "We don't have control/free will but we have *input*."
posted by aleph at 8:02 AM on December 19, 2022

Something about this post feels very Free Will-y.
posted by cortex at 8:07 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

got me thinking of an old Willem Dafoe interview I saw recently where younger Willem was explaining that his surname is actually pronounced DAH-foe (emphasis on the DAH) as opposed to the often reported "Deh-Foe" used.

so there you go
posted by djseafood at 8:13 AM on December 19, 2022

We evolved the notion of free will to explain why some people suffer and others succeed. It is a back-propagation that allows us to test effects presuming they all have causes because before we found this evolutionary trick you only had two paths for survival adaptations: slow instinct adaptations which fail when the environment changes too quickly or slow higher cortical learning that was limited in effect and propagation by the lifetimes and very limited interpersonal communication capacities of pre-sapiens.

Once we began breeding in an expectation that things we observed were explicable (even if our explanations were specious) we started lucking in to the causes which preceded some effects that were reproducible (lightning causes fire, etc) which became an advantage despite all the psychic hokum we also invented to explain phenomena.

Free Will certainly takes a beating if there's any force that 'knows' the future or even controls it, but that's also not relevant to a species who evolved in part to expect effects to have causes, so we made a Prime Mover who was the ultimate cause of everything. Because we believe our choices matter as a consensus delusion, the alternative to which is pretty inhuman (see, part of our identity).
posted by abulafa at 8:21 AM on December 19, 2022

Completed Vampire Survivors yesterday-- all achievements, unlocks, secrets, etc. Still my personal Game of the Year.

In other gaming news, the music mashup game FUSER is being pulled from sale today, so I scrambled to pick up some DLC songs on Steam before they're gone. There's still about an hour and a half left to buy stuff there; not sure about other storefronts.

Got a bunch of cleaning and errands to do before going away for the holidays, but hoping to sneak some Pokemon Violet in as well.

Also, Athanassiel, I didn't even need to watch the video for that song to become stuck in my head. It was one of the standouts in an already strong year of Eurovision. Everyone else: go watch it!
posted by May Kasahara at 8:30 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

I am on vacation today. I am posting from bed. Later, I shall do crafting.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:39 AM on December 19, 2022 [7 favorites]

Free Willy's an allusion, you say?
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:04 AM on December 19, 2022

As free as will is, you'd think I'd have some, but my feet are up, some yams are in the oven, the weather is foggy, the apartment is chilly, the cat is glued to my lap. Do we really need evil to balance the world? I went out this morning to greet the person who keeps my lawn. He asked for cookies, I promised him cookies for next Monday. It is so cold out there, the Tule Fog is penetrating and relentlessly bone chilling. Single pane Southern California can be the coldest place. I know, I know it's not 50 below. But. It is dank. Anyway, the pomegranates are ready on the alley, there are many, many olives to gather, what a world! My neighbor's cat came for a pet this morning, so white and black, and tidy! My ancient red-orange geranium is in bloom, and the Day of the Dead marigold is still on fire. Solstice soon!
posted by Oyéah at 9:12 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

g) all the above, free will is real but favorites are the illusionary
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 9:25 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have entered final grades. I'll miss this batch of students as they were pretty delightful. So chatty! I will not miss grading their essays (say society one more time!) and I'm kinda relieved I wasn't given a class for next semester. I'll need to scout around for an opening/opportunity of some sort but today I'm not thinking about it. Now it's time to make toffee and wrap presents.
posted by mmmbacon at 9:42 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Many years ago I went to a movie and we were shown a trailer for a movie about an orca. At the end of the trailer they showed the title Free Willy and the whole audience LMAO'd.

This reminds me of when at the end of a trailer for Stepmom, a guy in the audience loudly said "Whatever" and everyone LMAO'd.

I read 2 more chapters of The Silmarillion last night. I'm about 1/3 in and I'm enjoying it much more than I expected to. Yes, it reads like a history book or the Old Testament, but it is a story and a good one. My main takeaway from (finally, more than 40 years after first reading LOTR) reading the LOTR appendices and The Silmarillion is that Tolkien really liked making up names; you could write a master's thesis on that and someone probably already has.
posted by neuron at 9:56 AM on December 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

neuron, there is a podcast called The Prancing Pony that does a pretty entertaining deep dive into the Silmarillion. They give a lot of backstory on the development of the worldbuilding, and the etymology, and all that. Recommended if you're into that sort of thing.
posted by suelac at 10:23 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Zumbador: I also always stumble on whether I should capitalise the "g" in god.

One modern theological reason for capitalising would be to emphasise that God is not an object to be studied, but rather a (free-willed) person (i.e. subject) to enter a relation with. Hence the idea that all knowledge of God is subjective. So I guess you could just take a stance on this issue and let that decide?
posted by trotz dem alten drachen at 10:53 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Trotz dem alte drachen
Thanks for that. I'm going to enjoy figuring that out.

"I defy the old dragon" ?
posted by Zumbador at 11:01 AM on December 19, 2022

is that Tolkien really liked making up names; you could write a master's thesis on that and someone probably already has.

is it widely known that Tolkien loved building languages, and he created stories that accommodated his language-building? this is not a rhetorical question
posted by elkevelvet at 11:10 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Yes it is widely known.
posted by suelac at 11:18 AM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

i can't help myself

which suggests that rush does have some opposition in this
posted by pyramid termite at 11:24 AM on December 19, 2022

The stovetop-roasted coffee I wrote of on Saturday tastes good, though I might do just a touch shorter roast next time. Nothing's burned or scorched, only a little darker than I prefer. Calling it a first-try win anyway!
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:26 AM on December 19, 2022

Yes, I read recently that Tolkien starting creating languages as soon as he learned to write. But his histories are full of a ridiculous number of names. Many, many characters have multiple names. There are vast numbers--hundreds--of people/entities who are named without have a role in the story arc. It's names all the way down.
posted by neuron at 11:45 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

attended a middle school concert, end of last week

parents know what a boomwhacker is

the music teacher had it going on.. there were a couple of numbers where he hit 'play' on a recorded track and raced over to conduct the students (and believe me, his presence conducting was by no means an embellishment on the performance). they did the 12 Days of Christmas "and my teacher gave to me" and each verse brought a teacher up on stage e.g. "Two hairy legs" (principal pulled up his trousers for the reveal)

it was great
posted by elkevelvet at 11:45 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

I would just like to mention that for years and years I thought the Rush lyric was "I will choose a bathysphere, I will choose free will". When I finally learned it was "a path that's clear", it made much more sense.
posted by hippybear at 11:45 AM on December 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

I would choose a bathysphere.
posted by Jeanne at 11:53 AM on December 19, 2022 [7 favorites]

The narrative principle of Yzma's Lever: If in the first act you have a lever, then in the second one it should be pulled. Otherwise why do we even have that lever?
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:05 PM on December 19, 2022

i would choose a chanticleer
posted by pyramid termite at 12:05 PM on December 19, 2022

> “I defy the old dragon” ?

I took the name from a song, where the dragon (appearing as it does together with the ravages of death) seems to be a metaphor for original sin. The song then presents the defiance of the dragon as a restoration of free will, allowing the singer to withstand the coercive forces of the world (suffering, poverty, persecution and so on). So the name may be slightly on-topic in this topic-free thread!
posted by trotz dem alten drachen at 12:17 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Free will? Nope. $20, same as in town.
posted by LovelyAngel at 12:18 PM on December 19, 2022

Since the topic is now music, my 10 year old nephew has taken up the trombone, so now he sometimes Facetimes me late at night to ask how to play this or that, and we end up standing hundreds of miles apart playing trombone at each other; him full blast, me as quietly as I can with a mute in the bell so I don't wake the toddler. Sometimes technology is kind of nice.

A couple of nights ago he was distressed that he didn't get to play every note in Jingle Bells and some notes were rests where he was expected to just stand there and let some other instrument be heard. I told him that missing out on the melody was the trombonist's lot in life, but I don't think he believes me yet. He also doesn't believe B can sometimes not be flat, but he will eventually awaken to these horrors and more.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 12:30 PM on December 19, 2022 [6 favorites]

I’m here to talk about free will all day, I cannot help it!
posted by trotz dem alten drachen at 12:42 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Let's say there are an infinite number of universes. Each moment in time is surrounded by universes of possibility, each different. One universe where you got up early and started your day with a workout, one where you laid in bed and relaxed. What happens in each of these universes is set in stone; they are fully predestined. But when we make choices, we're choosing the universe we'll exist in. Each choice is a gateway to a universe in which we've made that choice, and we get to live there until we choose again, which takes us to the universe in which we've made both of those choices, and so on.

So you can think of reality as a continuum of universes, a hypersolid space-time containing everything that has happened or will happen, in all of its infinite combinations. And we, with our perception of linear time, are burrowing through it, choosing our own paths through the vast morass of infinite possibility.

Or at least that's how I like to reconcile free will and predestination.
posted by MrVisible at 12:53 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Argument against free will (image link to a Calvin & Hobbes comic)
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:03 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Currently accepting positive mind atoms for our upcoming flights. We leave on Thursday for Cluj-Napoca (Romania) to spend time with Comrade Doll's mama at Christmas. A couple of very quick stops in hubs on the way there and back (Amsterdam and Munich) and well, that is a whole lot of flights and international airports to go through with [gestures broadly at everything].
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:24 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

image link to a Calvin & Hobbes comic

"I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul" is my new excuse for pretty much everything I do.
posted by Gorgik at 1:59 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

f} what does free will mean? I don't actually understand the concept. I understand what random choices with constraints and priors mean. I can't distinguish between free will and randomness. I do feel like I make choices, but they always seem to be just random with constraints.

In much less happy news, I just learned that the teenage son of a dear friend saw his close friend murdered yesterday in a very direct way. I was planning to visit them in two weeks but decided not to because of COVID and personal chaos. I can't decide whether that's better or worse than doing so at the moment. (I don't have much experience at consoling teenagers. (I had two distant friends killed in school, but I never saw it or was involved.) It's devastating.
posted by eotvos at 2:05 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've never heard of a Will Wheaton. Wil Wheaton on the ther hand... :)
posted by PennD at 3:49 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Will Wheaton? (I think the answer is yes, whatever the question.)

[edit: Sorry if that's obnoxious. I think I react to the guy negatively because he reminds me of myself a bit in unpleasant ways. I don't actually know anything bad about him. I assume he's a thoughtful and kind person.]
posted by eotvos at 4:06 PM on December 19, 2022

I would choose a bathysphere.

When I was seven
My father said to me
'But you can't swim'
And I've never dreamed of the sea again
posted by hototogisu at 4:36 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Bath sphere

I'd like one of those, but with the opening at the top so I could fill it all the way up and just float in it. And also it would need to be opaque, I got nothing anyone else wants to see....
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:58 PM on December 19, 2022

People should watch this blind audition by the eventual winner of Norway’s Got Talent, Jorgen Dahl Moe. (Somebody please shoot me a pm and let me know how I make a Norwegian O with a line through it [on an iPad].) Also, do we have a Norwegian speaker who can please tell me what Matoma says at about 1:00? He is half the reason I love this video.
Go watch it. It will soothe your soul. [SLYT 2:23]
posted by Glinn at 6:23 PM on December 19, 2022 [5 favorites]

hey Glinn, press and hold the o and a menu of alternatives will appear above.
posted by mochapickle at 6:29 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

can please tell me what Matoma says at about 1:00?

I think it is best translated as "shit, this is wild, isn't it?" It is hard to translate idiomatic language accurately.

And it is a beautiful performance. I feel it is very Norwegian, somehow.
posted by mumimor at 12:47 PM on December 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

Well, my dad died this morning. Not unexpected. He was 84, and the end came quickly. I saw him in the late summer while he was still more or less there. It did break my heart to see this former knowledge worker - the guy who first sat me down in front of a computer, at the console of a huge orange mainframe - try to work the television with his recliner remote. I've had a good few ugly cries today, and now have to work out hth I'm going to get back to Scotland around the new year for the funeral.
posted by scruss at 3:14 PM on December 20, 2022 [14 favorites]

I'm so sorry, scruss.
posted by taz at 4:07 PM on December 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm so sorry for your loss, scruss.
posted by mmmbacon at 5:15 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm so sorry, scruss. I'll be thinking of you.
posted by biogeo at 10:17 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

So sorry scruss. Ghost hugs to you and yours.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 3:22 AM on December 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Aw, scruss.
posted by mochapickle at 3:39 AM on December 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Thanks, all. It's paperwork, paperwork, paperwork; Kleenex is paperwork, right? (Wish I could find the link here for the sweary "So some %*$#!+ went and died and left you with the paperwork" guide for executors that someone posted to the blue in the last year). Since dad was a huge trad jazz fan, soundtrack is currently Kid Koala - 'Basin Street Blues'

That Jørgen Dahl Moe track is rather lovely. Reminds me of the impossibly lush version put out by Trevor Horn (feat. Gabrielle Aplin & The Sarm Orchestra) a few years ago. The whole album's rather delightful, but I don't need to tell anyone it goes beyond overproduced: it is Trevor Horn, after all. Highlights for me: Slave To The Rhythm (almost Cruise/Badalamenti levels of dream pop), Ashes To Ashes (Seal!) and Take On Me (which, while I know he's gonna pull out all of the voice production stops for himself, Trevor Horn performs the vocals aimed right at the feels)
posted by scruss at 5:28 AM on December 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

oh dear scruss, regardless of how expected it was, it is always hard when it happens.
In my experience, loved people live on in memory, really. They meddle in your life in ways they didn't even while they were alive. Milan Kundera wrote more than one book about it. Invite the ghost in, he is there for you, after all.
posted by mumimor at 5:48 AM on December 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

Ouch, scruss. This one hits me right in the ribs, as my father is 84, my mother is 81, and the past two weeks have been me calling nearly daily to see how the latest doctor visit went. They're both still pretty mentally fit, but bodies just wear out over time. I wish you peace and caring arms while you deal with this.
posted by hippybear at 7:50 AM on December 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

thank you, thank you. Ghost is already in, complaining about my music ("I don't know how you can listen to this modern jazz rubbish!"), the beverages ("This tea tastes boiled. Did you boil the water from fresh-drawn?") and the food ("Where are the potatoes? Dinner has boiled potatoes!"). I will not get him a bone egg-spoon ("eggs tarnish metal!") or a subscription to The Telegraph ("it's lefty rubbish anyway"), no matter how pouty he gets. I think I heard him drumming his fingers on a hardback library book, on his way to spend far too long reading on the toilet (that's my role now). He'll be back down eventually, to watch reruns of 1970s [UK] wrestling ("Flatten him, McManus!") and 1980s Ski Sunday ("Go on - crash! Crash! Yessssss!").

I found the book, btw: it's ms. demeanor's “So You’re Confronting Your Own Mortality, or Preparing for the End, or Some Dipshit Up and Died and Now I’m Stuck Dealing With This Mess” (aka DeathSucks.pdf, also available in a less sweary version, SayingGoodbye.pdf). Can't find the reference on the blue, so maybe I didn't read it about it here.
posted by scruss at 8:36 AM on December 21, 2022 [6 favorites]

right now, I'm here with the ghosts and the dog. The algorithm gave me this video from Russia that reminds me of my own childhood, when the ghosts were living people -- not at all old fashioned, but in another world where pigs where scratched.

Tomorrow, the first of my kids will arrive for the holidays, with the grandchildren. They can't hear or see the ghosts. For the grandchildren, I will one day be the ghost, the old lady full of gravy and books and a wolf in the woods. Then the day after, the rest will arrive with more noise and fun, and the ghosts will retreat even further back into their graves, a kilometer away. I know them, they will enjoy this. Maybe they will take a peek. There is nothing they want more than a new generation of life and uncertainty. Can I persuade one of the little ones to love an oak or a stream? Who knows? Regardless of what happens, the memories live in the walls and the things and the letters they have left behind.
posted by mumimor at 2:53 PM on December 21, 2022 [5 favorites]

So sorry, scruss. But I do love that track you suggested.
And then I watched Video Killed the Radio Star from 2019 on a German tv show. It is pretty great (and still timely). But, is it actually a great song or do I only think so because I was impressionable when I first heard it?
posted by Glinn at 4:16 PM on December 21, 2022

No, it's a good song. Horn is very talented, and he's a master with pop music and pop arranging. (Just listen to the first two Seal albums. He's done a lot of other things equally grand, but those stand out in my mind.) I really need to get his autobiography. He was so formative to my world through his music before I even knew his name, really.
posted by hippybear at 4:45 PM on December 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'd class Horn's work with Yes as non-essential, especially Big Generator.

But Anne Dudley's version is the best Video Killed The Radio Star of all
posted by scruss at 7:34 PM on December 21, 2022

Just saw a friend online say "fuck your mother! She defied the law of thermodynamics," in Spanish, which may be the most entertaining and confusing insult I've ever heard. I'm going to try very hard not to use it during holiday visiting.

[Edit: I assume the second law. But I still don't really understand.]
posted by eotvos at 12:29 AM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]

a glorious insult, eotvos!
posted by scruss at 8:13 AM on December 22, 2022

So sorry, Scruss. And to make up for the fact that I came in here to post something silly, I'm going to dedicate it to you in the hopes it gives you a chuckle:

So, recreational marijuana was recently made legal in New York State. And it's just been announced that New York's first Officially-Legal storefront will be run by the charity Housing Works (they have said they'll use the proceeds to provide legal aid to people unjustly prosecuted for drug-related crimes). They're scheduled to open a week from today.

A Facebook friend noticed something - The dispensary is located at 750 Broadway in New York City. And just one block away is Tisch School Of the Arts, the school for performing, film, and media arts at New York University (and my alma mater).

They're going to make a fortune.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:01 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

hey EmpressCallipygos - no need to feel obliged. Free thread is free, after all.

I'm so glad to hear that cannabis is now legal in NY. I'm a Canadian very lightweight user (in both senses: frequency, and that 2.5 mg THC has me all loopy for hours) but it's good that it's available without legal threat. I remember being in Niagara Falls ON on April 20, and there was a huge crowd of Canadian smokers trying to waft the love over to Niagara Falls NY ... ultimately futile, but they had a lot of fun trying.
posted by scruss at 10:38 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]

Sounds like me re: frequency and dosage. (My roommate prefers the guy-who-comes-to-your-house route, and I occasionally get these little 1/2 inch square gummies from him - that I then have to cut into quarters because that's as much as I can handle at once.)

Although I was pretty tightly wound in college and I chuckle to think that maybe having a dispensary a block from school would have done me a little good.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:42 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

So the kids are here. Because of corona, I am only now building a relationship with my oldest grandson. Things are going well. The little one is all in. I can't express how joyful this is.

I made spagbol, the historic granny food of my family. And the little big guy loved it. He is very picky, so that was an achievement, and I put all my love into it, while remembering that I loved my paternal grandmother's absolutely hopeless spaghetti with mince. Sometimes it isn't really about the food.
He also enjoyed bathing in a real bathtub. I feel a lot of long term plans are coming together here. Twenty years ago, my grandparents replaced the old tub with a shower. I get it. As you grow older, getting in and out of a tub becomes challenging. But a nice warm bath is such a lovely thing when you are a child, and since we are on renewables, it is absolutely guilt free, too. So re-establishing the tub was the first thing I did when I took over.

Little brother just loved a bit of squishing and funny sounds, we are talking.

Tomorrow, when the others arrive, it will be all in Fanny and Alexander (only the nice part). Yeah!
posted by mumimor at 12:41 PM on December 22, 2022 [5 favorites]

Goddamn, Scruss. I'm so sorry. (The weird back and forth between silly things and devastating things here is weird.) Sympathy and best wishes.
posted by eotvos at 1:03 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Thanks, eotvos. Silly and devastating are all one.

paternal grandmotherly love story about food, from ms scruss: a couple of evenings a week when she was in junior school, ms scruss would go to her grandma's house straight from school as her parents couldn't pick her up immediately those days. Each of those days, her grandma would make her a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup, and they'd eat together. These are some of ms scruss's fondest public memories; even today, many years after her grandma passed, grilled cheese and tomato soup is her feel-better food.

But here's the grandmotherly love bit: some years ago, ms scruss was visiting her grandma and it got close to dinner time. Her grandma offered to make grilled cheese and tomato soup for them both. After they'd both finished, and ms scruss was thanking her grandma for all the delicious food over the years, her grandma said "You know, I've never really liked tomato soup. You do, though, and that's why I made it for you."

Her name was Mary Raine. Outlived her husband by about 40 years. Saw both of her children buried. Former teenage typesetter for her father's paper in a tiny town in northern Missouri. Daily player of low-stakes bridge at roughly 57 dimensional simultaneous chess level. Quilter supreme: all of her grandkids had wedding quilts hand-sewn by the time they were 8 years old, all packed away in her closet. ms scruss's quilt is the colour of the summer sun.
posted by scruss at 2:35 PM on December 22, 2022 [11 favorites]

"You know, I've never really liked tomato soup. You do, though, and that's why I made it for you."

Beautiful. [edit: the rest too]
posted by eotvos at 11:25 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Weird Insult of the Day: "You're just a big bag of wind, from si-nus to a-nus!"
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:58 AM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

Murry Crizzmuzz any Hoopy Noo Yer. I am placing no bets on what kind of year 2023 will be. They haven't found a trench deep enough to bury 2022 in. Cough, cough, hack hack. I ate a plate of snacks for lunch, I made three things on it, pickles, pickled cayenne peppers, and olives. The rest was good too, crackers, Dubliner Cheese, feta, red pepper spread, celery pieces. My neighbors brought cookies they made, and something they call Christmas Crack, and it is good, some sort of pretzel slices, covered in chocolate. Chocolate, a great word.
posted by Oyéah at 1:16 PM on December 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am sorry, I have to clarify what's up with the Christmas Crack. On closer inspection, it has praline on the bottom, some broken up pretzel in the middle which more than meets chocolate and nuts. Oh wow.
posted by Oyéah at 1:41 PM on December 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

we're almost nearly going to bed after a long day of cooking and eating and giftgiving and the last hour exchanging dance videos and music recommendations.
The little ones and their parents went to bed hours ago, but while they were awake, we had the most hallmarkish Christmas celebration (we are all atheists, it's about the family and the food and the forest and the dog and presents but not in excess). After corona, and a terrible holiday where we all were food poisoned in 2018, this has been so joyful.
posted by mumimor at 2:41 PM on December 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

I am sorry, I have to clarify what's up with the Christmas Crack. On closer inspection, it has praline on the bottom, some broken up pretzel in the middle which more than meets chocolate and nuts. Oh wow.

So you then grind this up and chop it into lines? Or you smoke it? I'm still not quite clear....
posted by hippybear at 4:28 PM on December 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

I bet cold-smoked praline and chocolate would be pretty tasty! Ohhh, you meant...never mind.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:47 PM on December 24, 2022