October 28, 2002

9:26 AM

Your special day. Afterwards, you curl up in a corner with your new better half, gorging yourselves on leftover wedding cake and laughing over the pictures. You sift through the thoughtful presents your guests have selected, piles of dishware and linens, decorations and photo albums that will fill your home for years to come. Soon, you come to the most special present of all ... a coffee table book entitled Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America??!!
scroll down to #389
posted by grrarrgh00 (19 comments total)

I realize this is a rather ephemeral link. But I had to post it, because it was so odd. Especially the squickily cheery recommendation to "Buy this book with 100 Years of Lynchings today!" on the page for the item itself. What was Amazon thinking??
posted by grrarrgh00 at 9:29 AM on October 28, 2002

The original post's link is somewhat hosed - should be here, an Amazon.com gift wizard (reccomendations) list. Scroll down to number 389.
posted by kokogiak at 9:34 AM on October 28, 2002

I like the Buff Brides book with the "look inside" google eyes.
posted by stbalbach at 9:38 AM on October 28, 2002

Ah, yes. The horrors of receiving a stainless steel sauce ladle when you specifically asked for the copper.

I must have gotten a different list of gift recommendations.
posted by dilettanti at 9:38 AM on October 28, 2002

Your introduction. The scrolling down...everything. Brilliant. Couldn't be funnier if someon made it up. But its true. Who is the maniac at Amazon who edited that list. He deserves a medal at least.
posted by donfactor at 9:38 AM on October 28, 2002

Those gift lists are probably generated automatically from customers' wedding registries, with the assumption that most people register for dish towels and salad tongs. The "buy this book with _____ today"s pop up for every book, and I can't imagine every combination passes in front of Amazon employee eyes ... lucky for us
posted by kmel at 9:44 AM on October 28, 2002

Why is the coffee table book entitled "posted by grrarrgh00"?
posted by timeistight at 9:47 AM on October 28, 2002

All of this is generated automatically... including the "What was amazon thinking?" text you pointed out above.

Amazon is successful because of their superb collaborative filtering (generated recommendations and associations between items)... its not perfect, of course.

It's pretty funny... but it does bare a certain resemblance to the infamous broomstick post.
posted by malphigian at 9:49 AM on October 28, 2002

Why is the coffee table book entitled "posted by grrarrgh00"?

Um, yeah. I don't get it.
posted by mikrophon at 9:51 AM on October 28, 2002

because 1.) he forgot to close the link tag
or
2.) he's actually planning on collecting all his Mefi posts into a coffee table book.

number two's actually not a bad idea for some of the posters around here.
posted by erisfree at 10:01 AM on October 28, 2002

On a side note: The website associated with this book is excellent, so much so that it gets posted to Metafilter about once a year. If you haven't checked it out yet, I highly recommend it.
posted by boaz at 10:04 AM on October 28, 2002

i really hate that book.
posted by Satapher at 10:45 AM on October 28, 2002

What I don’t get is the first link, gayweddings.com. Related?
posted by Firefly at 10:52 AM on October 28, 2002

too bad, the item's been removed already, hopefully this thread will disappear as quickly.
posted by DBAPaul at 10:53 AM on October 28, 2002

What Firefly said. And what DBAPaul said.
posted by jjg at 11:30 AM on October 28, 2002

2.) he's actually planning on collecting all his Mefi posts into a coffee table book.

Oh. I thought that was what this thread was about.

I didn't read the link first, now I'm dissapointed
posted by ginz at 11:39 AM on October 28, 2002

Assuming that the post had no homophobic intent, and my hopeful self prefers to think this way, this was a funny 9if slightly grizzly) thing to come across on a Monday morning. The Amazon link still worked for me.

Good job, grrarrgh00 .
posted by Danf at 11:44 AM on October 28, 2002

As funny as this must once have been, it's now completely incomprehensible. The first link is to gayweddings.com and the second link is to a seemingly random assortment of housewares. And yet, some of you good folks seemed to get it. Could I get an explanation, please?
posted by Jonasio at 6:21 PM on October 28, 2002

Further investigation has shown me the light. Now I can go on with my life. Thank you.
posted by Jonasio at 6:24 PM on October 28, 2002