"The paradox of the “u up?” text is that its nonchalance is belabored. "
December 11, 2021 11:45 AM Subscribe
At McSweeney's, Miriam Jayaratna imagines what it would be like to get "u up?" texts from famous male authors. Come for the rhyming couplets from Poe and Seuss, stay for David Foster Wallace's extensive footnotes.
William Gibson:
Bobby jabbed at the deck with fingers propelled by a rapidfire synapse storm. He'd been up since before dawn yesterday, watching the filtered light descend on the city like an electric blanket. One typo and he knew it would be over, his face shredded in a nanosecond by Molly's jazzed up razors.
He thought about his grandfather, in the before times, telling him about paper and ink. He jacked another shot of benzene into his vein and pressed SEND.
"u pu?"
Too much caffeine, too many electro-fields frying his brain tonight. He had eight tokens in the pocket of his leather jacket, and five minutes to make himself disappear. Forever.
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon at 12:01 PM on December 11, 2021 [26 favorites]
Bobby jabbed at the deck with fingers propelled by a rapidfire synapse storm. He'd been up since before dawn yesterday, watching the filtered light descend on the city like an electric blanket. One typo and he knew it would be over, his face shredded in a nanosecond by Molly's jazzed up razors.
He thought about his grandfather, in the before times, telling him about paper and ink. He jacked another shot of benzene into his vein and pressed SEND.
"u pu?"
Too much caffeine, too many electro-fields frying his brain tonight. He had eight tokens in the pocket of his leather jacket, and five minutes to make himself disappear. Forever.
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon at 12:01 PM on December 11, 2021 [26 favorites]
[chef kiss] - the Poe one is worth framing.
posted by microscone at 12:02 PM on December 11, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by microscone at 12:02 PM on December 11, 2021 [8 favorites]
William Carlos Williams:
I wrote you
a text
that lit your phone up
at 2 AM
and which
you are probably
trying
to ignore
Forgive me
I'm cold
and you're
so cuddleable
posted by pmdboi at 12:15 PM on December 11, 2021 [23 favorites]
I wrote you
a text
that lit your phone up
at 2 AM
and which
you are probably
trying
to ignore
Forgive me
I'm cold
and you're
so cuddleable
posted by pmdboi at 12:15 PM on December 11, 2021 [23 favorites]
I’m shaking with laughter at the Poe one!
posted by mochapickle at 12:51 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by mochapickle at 12:51 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
This is sooooooooo good.
posted by rogerroger at 1:05 PM on December 11, 2021
posted by rogerroger at 1:05 PM on December 11, 2021
Kinda figured DFW had a foot(note) fetish.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:14 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:14 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
This is hysterically funny.
posted by medusa at 2:18 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by medusa at 2:18 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
Andy Weir:
I figure I have a window of about 10 minutes here before your nightly melatonin, or 5 methoxy-N-acetyltryptamine as I explain weekly to my students, does a sufficient enough job regulating your neuroendocrine system and reducing your sleep latency until you're out cold. Come on Andy! Work the problem. What can counteract that? It hits me looking at the blue LED flashing slowly on my phone. LIGHT! blue light. The text notification on your phone will emit just enough light at the right frequency to delay the melatonin's effects for a few precious seconds. I hit send and cross all my limbs that this works and you are up?
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:27 PM on December 11, 2021 [10 favorites]
I figure I have a window of about 10 minutes here before your nightly melatonin, or 5 methoxy-N-acetyltryptamine as I explain weekly to my students, does a sufficient enough job regulating your neuroendocrine system and reducing your sleep latency until you're out cold. Come on Andy! Work the problem. What can counteract that? It hits me looking at the blue LED flashing slowly on my phone. LIGHT! blue light. The text notification on your phone will emit just enough light at the right frequency to delay the melatonin's effects for a few precious seconds. I hit send and cross all my limbs that this works and you are up?
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:27 PM on December 11, 2021 [10 favorites]
Jane Austen:
I have walked some time in the grove hoping to meet you, without success. Yesterday, you laid some charges at my door which I would like the opportunity to refute—though you need not fear the renewal of those sentiments which were so repugnant to you upon first hearing them. I have written you a very long letter in which I explain my history with Wickham, and seek to justify my entitled behavior toward you by maligning your relations, with the exception of your dear sister Jane, whose public behavior has been above reproach, though I am glad my dear friend and follower Bingley accepted my argument that any woman as cool toward a warm-hearted, warm-bodied lover as Bingley would undoubtedly prove to be frigid, as marriage to a sexually cold woman can only be torment to a man with the normal appetites of our sex. In this format, the 2 a.m. text, I cannot possibly rehearse all that I included in that letter, so I will distill it to its essence. It has never seemed to me that you, Elizabeth Bennett, would be an unsatisfactory partner in the marriage bed, but since you have foreclosed the possibility of ours ever being a marriage bed, I am reaching out to you at this unusual time of night to learn whether you, too, are having difficulty sleeping after yesterday's harrowing encounter, and, if so, whether you might like to join me in an unmarried bed, or perhaps here in the grove, where we might take such pleasure as we can in the ruins of our broken connection.
posted by Orlop at 2:46 PM on December 11, 2021 [21 favorites]
I have walked some time in the grove hoping to meet you, without success. Yesterday, you laid some charges at my door which I would like the opportunity to refute—though you need not fear the renewal of those sentiments which were so repugnant to you upon first hearing them. I have written you a very long letter in which I explain my history with Wickham, and seek to justify my entitled behavior toward you by maligning your relations, with the exception of your dear sister Jane, whose public behavior has been above reproach, though I am glad my dear friend and follower Bingley accepted my argument that any woman as cool toward a warm-hearted, warm-bodied lover as Bingley would undoubtedly prove to be frigid, as marriage to a sexually cold woman can only be torment to a man with the normal appetites of our sex. In this format, the 2 a.m. text, I cannot possibly rehearse all that I included in that letter, so I will distill it to its essence. It has never seemed to me that you, Elizabeth Bennett, would be an unsatisfactory partner in the marriage bed, but since you have foreclosed the possibility of ours ever being a marriage bed, I am reaching out to you at this unusual time of night to learn whether you, too, are having difficulty sleeping after yesterday's harrowing encounter, and, if so, whether you might like to join me in an unmarried bed, or perhaps here in the grove, where we might take such pleasure as we can in the ruins of our broken connection.
posted by Orlop at 2:46 PM on December 11, 2021 [21 favorites]
For sale
Magnum condoms
Never worn
…Unless?
posted by ejs at 3:25 PM on December 11, 2021 [25 favorites]
Magnum condoms
Never worn
…Unless?
posted by ejs at 3:25 PM on December 11, 2021 [25 favorites]
He jacked another shot of benzene into his vein and pressed SEND.
Surely no William Gibson booty call story is complete without an injection of three megabytes of hot RAM?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:25 PM on December 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
Surely no William Gibson booty call story is complete without an injection of three megabytes of hot RAM?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:25 PM on December 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.
U up?
posted by kersplunk at 3:34 PM on December 11, 2021 [8 favorites]
U up?
posted by kersplunk at 3:34 PM on December 11, 2021 [8 favorites]
In all this welter of women I still haven't got one for myself, not that I was trying too hard, but sometimes I feel lonely to see everybody paired off and having a good time and all I do is curl up in my sleeping bag in the rosebushes and sigh and say bah. For me it was just red wine in my mouth and a pile of firewood.
U up?
posted by kersplunk at 3:36 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
U up?
posted by kersplunk at 3:36 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
Ask not what your being up can do for me. Ask what my being up can do for you.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 3:38 PM on December 11, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 3:38 PM on December 11, 2021 [15 favorites]
APPLAUSE
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:12 PM on December 11, 2021
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:12 PM on December 11, 2021
H. P. Lovecraft:
"If it is madness, then it is mercy. I was overcome with a nameless and overwhelming urge; to rush through crowded cyclopean streets to find you amongst the black ocean of night and join in a feral and terrible assignation which echoes the most obscene rites of ancient Cybele and Babylon. Then we could go mad and free in crude human animality, rolling and screaming in atavistic subjection to our basest biologies."
posted by LeRoienJaune at 4:28 PM on December 11, 2021 [6 favorites]
"If it is madness, then it is mercy. I was overcome with a nameless and overwhelming urge; to rush through crowded cyclopean streets to find you amongst the black ocean of night and join in a feral and terrible assignation which echoes the most obscene rites of ancient Cybele and Babylon. Then we could go mad and free in crude human animality, rolling and screaming in atavistic subjection to our basest biologies."
posted by LeRoienJaune at 4:28 PM on December 11, 2021 [6 favorites]
Patrick O'Brian:
I am not the first man to say that wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas. Far from it. It is a commonplace. I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success depends upon the aptitude of others, their bodies, indissoluble by heat, setting the furnace as they like in their basest interactions and permutations of limbs and digits. Above all, lust may be a beastish sin, but without sin there can be no forgiveness. Care to board my vessel and raise the flag?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:08 PM on December 11, 2021 [6 favorites]
I am not the first man to say that wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas. Far from it. It is a commonplace. I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success depends upon the aptitude of others, their bodies, indissoluble by heat, setting the furnace as they like in their basest interactions and permutations of limbs and digits. Above all, lust may be a beastish sin, but without sin there can be no forgiveness. Care to board my vessel and raise the flag?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:08 PM on December 11, 2021 [6 favorites]
oh my god some fantastic usernames in that article - and a fair few in this thread as well!
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:21 PM on December 11, 2021
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:21 PM on December 11, 2021
This was a great way to learn about a modern slang phrase. Now I wish there was a podcast that took this sort of approach for a new phrase every week. I would call it "Odd Slang, Thine".
posted by Callisto Prime at 7:12 PM on December 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Callisto Prime at 7:12 PM on December 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
Oh my god. Today I learned that "You up?" is another "Netflix and chill". My son routinely works all night, and I am an insomniac, so I have often texted him in the middle of the night to find out if he was up. I am Old.
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 7:23 PM on December 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 7:23 PM on December 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
OMG 'Til this moment, I thought Netflix and chill DID mean watching TV howmanypsoplehaveIsaidthatto?! And this comes after a day when I regretted looking why Nancy Reagan was trending. (She allegedly was very good at a form of Netflix and chill.)
Also, these texts are great.
posted by NorthernLite at 9:09 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also, these texts are great.
posted by NorthernLite at 9:09 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
The Neruda one is spot on except for the PBR reference.
posted by signal at 4:28 AM on December 12, 2021
posted by signal at 4:28 AM on December 12, 2021
OMG 'Til this moment, I thought Netflix and chill DID mean watching TV
Hard same.
posted by signal at 4:29 AM on December 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
Hard same.
posted by signal at 4:29 AM on December 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
In vain I have struggled; it will not do. You must allow me to ask: u up?
posted by basalganglia at 5:09 AM on December 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by basalganglia at 5:09 AM on December 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
The confounding thing about "you up?" is it's a synonym for "you down?". Gotta get up to get down.
posted by Nelson at 7:11 AM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 7:11 AM on December 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Oh my god. Today I learned that "You up?" is another "Netflix and chill".
Eh it’s contextual.
(The context being “it’s pretty obvious what this person is getting at texting at an hour such that this is a question in the first place” and the reason the specific phrasing is such a widespread joke being that it’s the lowest-effort way this could possibly be approached.)
posted by atoxyl at 11:55 AM on December 12, 2021
Eh it’s contextual.
(The context being “it’s pretty obvious what this person is getting at texting at an hour such that this is a question in the first place” and the reason the specific phrasing is such a widespread joke being that it’s the lowest-effort way this could possibly be approached.)
posted by atoxyl at 11:55 AM on December 12, 2021
William S. Burroughs
Kid shot through with the echo of a thousand dying stars Ah Pook was here. Junk sick howling old croaker who was always good for a script. "Man, like, bye then." Heady scent of KY and gym socks "you're pearling" he said. Lizard boys in assless chaps fire laser guns at each other a cold spring on a hot summer day. Sound of a distant train whistle. Dead eyes speak softly. U up?
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 4:06 AM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Kid shot through with the echo of a thousand dying stars Ah Pook was here. Junk sick howling old croaker who was always good for a script. "Man, like, bye then." Heady scent of KY and gym socks "you're pearling" he said. Lizard boys in assless chaps fire laser guns at each other a cold spring on a hot summer day. Sound of a distant train whistle. Dead eyes speak softly. U up?
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 4:06 AM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, out there on the edge of the prairie, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the adults are up more than average.
posted by YoungStencil at 8:10 AM on December 13, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by YoungStencil at 8:10 AM on December 13, 2021 [4 favorites]
Kix version of You Up?
And she said, "I don't have to go home tonight"
I said, "All right"
So I bought again a case of cold, cold Heiniken
And then I had it in the van
A big bottle of Jack Daniels Not the little one, the big one
And I always carry a stash, cause you never know
I had two left, two ludes, for the girl of my dreams
Now, again, she drinks my beer
She drinks my whiskey
She does my Qualudes
5 o'clock comes
"Oh I feel sick I gotta go home now."
And she threw up all over the floor
I said, "Freeze, freeze - go outside and do that!"
I said, "The hell with this. I don't need this."
"I'll go to the geisha house where it's free."
So I said, "Quit, quit throwing up"
"Don't tell me no, tell me yeah yeah yeah"
Don't tell me no tell me yeah yeah yeah
And she threw up again
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:07 AM on December 13, 2021
And she said, "I don't have to go home tonight"
I said, "All right"
So I bought again a case of cold, cold Heiniken
And then I had it in the van
A big bottle of Jack Daniels Not the little one, the big one
And I always carry a stash, cause you never know
I had two left, two ludes, for the girl of my dreams
Now, again, she drinks my beer
She drinks my whiskey
She does my Qualudes
5 o'clock comes
"Oh I feel sick I gotta go home now."
And she threw up all over the floor
I said, "Freeze, freeze - go outside and do that!"
I said, "The hell with this. I don't need this."
"I'll go to the geisha house where it's free."
So I said, "Quit, quit throwing up"
"Don't tell me no, tell me yeah yeah yeah"
Don't tell me no tell me yeah yeah yeah
And she threw up again
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:07 AM on December 13, 2021
"Two roads diverge in a yellow wood,
And sorry I can not travel both,
I'll take the one to your hood,
If u up."
This is also crying out for the famous female authors' (or their characters') answer.
"Laurie, you know from peering out your window that I am indeed "up." But it is not time to be wasted at anything other than furious scribbling at my little desk. I have little interest in your boyish nonsense.
But for your information sir, I hear my sister Amy stirring late this night.
She up.
posted by NorthernLite at 1:03 PM on December 13, 2021 [4 favorites]
And sorry I can not travel both,
I'll take the one to your hood,
If u up."
This is also crying out for the famous female authors' (or their characters') answer.
"Laurie, you know from peering out your window that I am indeed "up." But it is not time to be wasted at anything other than furious scribbling at my little desk. I have little interest in your boyish nonsense.
But for your information sir, I hear my sister Amy stirring late this night.
She up.
posted by NorthernLite at 1:03 PM on December 13, 2021 [4 favorites]
Mrs Conclusion: u up?
Mrs Premise: Up!? I've just spent four hours burying the cat.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:43 PM on December 13, 2021
Mrs Premise: Up!? I've just spent four hours burying the cat.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:43 PM on December 13, 2021
But for your information sir, I hear my sister Amy stirring late this night.
She up.
This is perfect.
posted by mochapickle at 5:30 PM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
She up.
This is perfect.
posted by mochapickle at 5:30 PM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
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