Plurp: The Web Service That Dares Not Speak Its Bindings

Bigger!

2004.03.14 : 2004.03.19

Friday, March 19, 2004
Rant. We went to see The Passion of the Christ yesterday, and our conclusion is that all of the pundits got it wrong. It is not an anti-Semitic movie. It is not an anti-Roman movie. It is not a fascist passion play. It is not even a religious movie.
No, it's porn: S/M porn.
How else can you explain the fact that over half of the movie is spent on grueling, detailed, sadistic gore, rendered with such attention to its raw physicality as to raise the erotic gorge of even the most jaded fetishist? Where else have you seen a caning, up close, by two obviously devoted practitioners - a caning so brutal that it abrades chunks of skin off of their victim's body?
And that's just the appetizer. There follows a very, very long sequence in which the two doms switch to new instruments - multi-headed floggers whose heads are hooks that literally tear the flesh from the victim. And by the time they're done, there's not much flesh on their victim at all; most of it, lovingly displayed in a long, slow, pull-away shot, is splayed out around the shredded body.
This movie has it all. Bondage, chaining, beating, caning, whipping, flaying, humiliation and, yes, extreme piercing. We can't use the word torture, as it simply isn't sufficiently descriptive.
Rubbing irony in the long, clawed wounds were the previews shown before the meat tenderizing began. Garfield: The Movie, about that lovable cartoon cat. Two Brothers - cute tiger cubs. Sky Captain, in which brave pilots save the Earth from giant robots. And an animated Disney feature, rated PG for "brief mild rude humor." There's no doubt about it. This is sadism for the whole family, as witnessed by the three generations of the family that sat in front of us, which included a one-year-old child.
But this movie is simply not destined to become a Christmas favorite. At least, not in any universe that we care to inhabit. The Passion of the Christ is a religious movie in the same sense that Debbie Does Dallas is a love story. In both cases, there's just enough plot to hold the money shots together, and following the plot isn't really necessary.
Pundits lambasted Gibson for portraying Pilate as a namby-pamby. Pilate was a nasty guy, they said. Nasty, schmasty - it's porn! Pilate is an inconsequential prop, the pizza delivered by the pizza boy before the action begins.
Pundits criticized Gibson for an historically inaccurate crucifixion. The nails (they were more like railroad spikes) would have been pounded (in fawning slow motion, with an accompanying meat-chopping sound track) through his wrists, not his palms, they said. Palms, schmalms - it's porn! It's not important where he gets nailed as long as he gets nailed, and nailed repeatedly, with oversized objects.
Perhaps Gibson really does believe that he has made a religious movie. Perhaps Hefner really does believe that his bimbo entourage loves him for his charm. They both got rich from their beliefs, and good for them. But that doesn't change the facts.
The dirty secret of millions of middle Americans who have slathered over this movie is this: they like to watch, and they assuage their souls by telling themselves that it's a deeply religious experience. (Satan, by the way, has this same role in the movie: that of an erotic voyeur to the ongoing sadism. Perhaps he assuaged his soul in this same way.)
The pundits got it wrong. We don't expect an endless stream of religious movies following this. We do expect an endless stream of sadistic porn, camouflaged as mainstream entertainment and attended by an endless stream of lascivious, self-righteous S/M gluttons who are desperate for their government to save them from Janet Jackson's breast.

Thursday, March 18, 2004
Plop. A friend here in the auditorium of our Faraway Place asked which had more Google entries: us as a famous technical luminary, or our stupid blog. Naturally, it turns out to be the latter.
Consider this a suicide note.
So today, in mourning over our imminent demise, we do nothing except point to a new bunch of Stuff, the desiccated remains of some little things we wrote instead of writing here.
Yes, this will be on the test.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Plurp. Today, it's All About Us. (We thought you'd like that.) Oh, and Boba Fett. And ducks. Don't forget the ducks.

Blab. A reader laments.
I miss you plurpman
Oh yes you do.

Blab. A reader gets it.
Re: Afghan woman
Ok, now I get the thing with the last two Afghan women. Wicked. There's so much to discover at Plurp.
Very impressed S.
PS:
Speaking of discoveries: The bottom line in the big blab box is three years old. Thought you might wanna know.
Always in motion, the plurpman is.

Blab. An astute reader takes a break from his honeymoon to write:
Re: "under his sleeve"
Surely more correct constituent phrases would be:
+ "up his sleeve"
+ "under his hat"
Both of those at least mean the same thing, and so result in that most wonderful of things, a more perfect Helenism.
{inw}
Even better, and so updated!

Blab. On that Ozzy thing, a reader reassures us.
Ozzy has been marginalized.
He no longer is a free thinker.
They make a quack of him.
They prescribe him too many meds.
They don't want no stinkin' War Pigs rant.
The duck won't float.
Hey - that's catchy!

Blab. What's this?

It's an Ozzy Osbourne Celebriduck. What's the problem?
Problem? No problem. No problem at all. Nope. Now just sit quietly until the nice men arrive, OK?

Blab. Proving that our readers' behavior is not their own, two readers do our testing for us.
(Your "earlier entries" link is broken, there. The dot-aitch-tee-em is missing, looks like. you type it by HAND??)
And ...
Your earlier entries link at the bottom there - under the rather excellent Sunday Piture is giving a 404... - AJL
Good readers! Have some biscuits!

Blab. A reader accidentally uncovers another of our little hobbies.
I didn't know you were friends with Chris Rock!?!
Oh yeah! Chris and we go way back.
When this one caller told me his name, at first I thought, "That's no fun -- I can't even Google him -- there must be a million 'Steve White's.'" But then I decided to try Googling "Steve White" and "comedian" at the same time. Bingo! I found exactly the "Steve White" I had talked to. Nice guy, BTW.
We've always said that.

Blab. A reader asks a question, then barks an order.
Where is Mr Blue Dog? Steve, bring him back.
We don't know where the blue dog went.

Blab. A reader laments the kind contribution of some other reader, who recently informed us of a cool new game.
Deadly Shadows? Another game? I will never see you again. You will never have time for PLurp again. I am sad.
Perhaps, but we must always consider the greater good of society as a whole, that is, the utilitarian goal of the greatest good for the greatest number, that is, what's going to be more fun for us, personally.
It's our social duty.

Blab. A reader rewrites the Dictionary of Neologisms.
Googlewhack, v. The act of restting your Google Image Preferences to "Do not filter my search results".
Heh. We whack Google periodically in exactly that way.

Blab. A reader plays the part of a string wrapped around our finger.
May I remind you, sir, that life's theme is silliness and stupidty. And cupidity for good measure.
You may. In fact, you did.

Blab. A reader attempts to tell the difference.
Silly; Silly; Stupid (may be biased, because I only scored 2 out of the 12); Silly (and I want one, my birthday is June 2); Silly; Stupid (the joke is too obscure for Plurp? Inconceivable!). I stopped there thinking the quiz was over, because the pet taxidermy is just creepy. How did I do, and what do I win?
You didn't like the pet taxidermy? That was our favorite!

Blab. A reader donates a statistical riddle.
Only one guy of the twelve (thirteen if you count Boba Fett) was attractive. Is that the national average? One of twelve or 13 if you count Boba Fett?
Yes, that's correct. One out of twelve guys is attractive. One out of thirteen if you count Boba Fett.

Blab. A reader suggests that we lack dimension.
I think the guy in the Boba Fett outfit is actually one of those cardboard cut-out stand-up whatever thingies, which somehow makes it all even sadder.
Would he be more attractive in person? It's so hard to know!

Blab. A reader follows up on some duck thing or other.
With respect to the ducks in the park at night ...
Extensive research (hence the time gap) has shown they are eating lettice!! You haven't lived til you've seen ducks on lettice, talk about hop heads.....and crazed lunies.. its worse than some cats with asparagus.
Yes, but when lettuce is outlawed, only ducks will have lettuce.

Plurp. Recently ...

arnieboard

badger

virtual helen naked pictures

funny flash ecards

helen naked pitures

iris chacon

madtv

naked helen lollipops

amphicar

aquacar

And ...

ballmer

helen naked pitures

sock puppet

gene ray

developers

iris chacon

ludlow

sarah kozer

space food

backstage

And ...

helen naked pitures

imani

sarah kozer

aaliyah

ice cream mountain

irischacon

literature play

mia

naked pictures of helen

renee

And ...

helen naked pitures

imani

iris chacon

mia

painter william carson

anorexia

gene ray

thermobaric

angelina jolie

blue rivets

Nice to see continued attention being paid to the women.

Plop. News from the South!
Rhea County [Tennessee] commissioners unanimously voted to ask state lawmakers to introduce legislation amending Tennessee's criminal code so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature.
"We need to keep them out of here," said Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the motion. [...]
Rhea County [...] is among the most conservative in Tennessee. It holds an annual festival commemorating the 1925 trial that convicted John T. Scopes on charges of teaching evolution [...].

Yow.
I want our politicians and religious leaders to stop going on television and suggesting that legalizing marriage for us would be like legalizing sex with dogs. My wife, in my arms? They are talking about my wife, in my arms. Do they know, do they care, how much that hurts? Where must we run to be safe from them?
This suggests an excellent sound bite for those dreary TV debates between Christian fascists and hopeful gays.
I am offended, Doris, and I hope everyone in this country is offended, when you suggest that me marrying the woman I've loved for twenty years is like you having sex with your dog. You should be ashamed.
Thanks, Penny!

Rant. Rachelle actually moved from New York to Chicago. Imagine! So we've decided never to read her blog again. Hmph.

Plurp. Yes, we do love meetings.
That's still up in flux.

That's still up in the air.

That's still in flux.

Plurp. From one of our infinite All Day Meetings.
Hit the hammer on the head
That seems like it ought to be a Helenism, doesn't it?

Plop. Text in a style that one should never (not ever) use in a presentation: Part IV - new coinage.
CAs log performance data that is used by the ARE to adjust the VPP sizes (allocations) for each of the CAs

Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Plurp. We find ourself once again (as seems all too frequent these days) in an auditorium in a Faraway Place. This particular Faraway Place is, we must admit, rather nice. The low hills are green, the sky is clear and blue, and the sun is warm and gentle. Back home, the sky is gray and there is wet snow in Central Park.
So maybe we don't want to leave The Very Heart of It for this soft sun, not forever anyway. But it's nice for a few days, even if we did have to get up at 4:30 this morning to get here.
So, in obscure celebration, we publish missives from those Treasured Readers who have bothered to identify themselves (even if they're lying, as Treasured Readers are wont to do), and a whole pile of potential Helenisms (and blathering about potential Helenisms) that seem to have piled up in the corner.
We wonder why you care. But only for a moment.

Blab. Last week (or some other time in the distant past), a reader wondered if at the end of your rope was a Helenism, suggesting that at the end of your tether might be one of the constituent phrases. We wondered if a rope and and a tether weren't really the same thing. How could we resolve this conundrum? Not knowing, we were bound to fail.
Fortunately, a polyglot came to our rescue.
Subj: tout les deux sont biens
Hey pal, both ar right
Ar ar!

Blab. A reader who knows some strange dialect of English writes:
"end of your rope" is not a Helenism, I don't reckon -- it's a perfectly acceptable Britishism in regular usage, meaning the same as 'at the end of your tether'.
So there you are. In whatever obscure part of the world this applies, this is clearly the definitive word.

Blab. A reader quotes someone who must be famous in some context or other.
Kenneth Clarke (Ex UK Chancellor of the Exchequer) in a radio interview this evening...
"Out of the roof"
- Out of control
- Through the roof

Oh, and ...
Fish, Suck, Sour, Warhol

-AJL
A classic! And we also recognize the four-word poem as a worthy entry to a now-long-ago Reader Contest that (we seem to think) was somehow associated with these images.

But we don't remember how.

Blab. A reader who listens to things suggests this complex construction.
-"under his sleeve"
1) under his belt
2) up his sleeve
-heard on "Trisha"
An interesting case! Under his belt implies that "he" possesses it (or something like that). Up his sleeve implies that what "he" possesses is hidden from view, somehow nefariously snuck in without anyone noticing.
While we could speculate about the pants thing, we instead follow the safe path and just add it to our collection.

Blab. A reader has a friend.
Subj: Helenisms
A friend of mine has a mother-in-law who does something similar. Her most memorable Helenism was when she accused her daughter and son-in-law of "living high on the cob." No word yet on whether they eat corn on the hog.
Or on what the aphorism might be that has the word cob in it, eh?

Blab. Another reader spins the magic spinner and lands on this.
Hi Captain Plurp,
Here's a possible Helenism, for your consideration. It was uttered in the wild, in my very own car this last weekend.
"Check a look" which is a combination of "Check it out" and "Take a look."
Your Midwest Correspondent
Another classic! We appreciate your ongoing contribution to Modern Culture.

Blab. A reader wants to know if we have any thoughts. So do we.
Dear Steve, How much do you love Wikipedia? Do you have any thoughts upon it? I am obsessed. Sincerely, Paul F.
It used to be that teams of scholarly folks would huddle for months - years even - to create the definitive word on a whole variety of topics, and weave them together into what was at that time known as an encyclopedia (literally general education). These were huge volumes of books (those paper things) - often twenty or more individual books in a single encyclopedia. And they cost a fortune.
Then came computers. The poor encyclopedia companies struggled to survive. They attached dongles to their computer-based encyclopedia, hoping to maintain their historic margins in the New Age.
Then came Microsoft, with Encarta, sort of Encyclopedia Light - fewer words (in many cases not enough to even understand what they were talking about), but they had pretty pictures. And a lot cheaper.
Today, we don't think anybody actually publishes physical encyclopedia any more. We sure haven't seen one in a long time. Encyclopedia Britannica is now free. And online.
Now there's Wikipedia, a free, online encyclopedia written by, well, the unwashed masses. Anyone can submit an entry. On anything. And anyone can correct them. Or mess them up.
The amazing this is: it pretty much works.
We suppose we have to like this progression. It's the Web after all.
Still ...

Blab. An alien that looks a lot like Stephanie writes:
My interest never waned.
from Stephanie
Here's an interesting transition.
Once the most popular read for UFO fanatics, UFO Magazine is calling it quits with its March issue, amid waning public interest in unidentified flying objects. [...]
While ufologists may mourn UFO Magazine, there's no shortage of websites to cater to their interest - and UFO sightings are still being reported.
So it's not that the UFO fans have gone away. Quite the contrary, they've just moved to the richer environment of the Web. And that's a good thing, Martha.
As a tot, we were fascinated by UFOs. We devoured a couple of books by a guy named Frank Edwards, which featured grainy photographs of hub caps and stories of a million anchovies that somehow got dumped on a small town in Iowa.
It was our first experience with epistemologies, with the boundaries of credulity, with whether (and when) to believe things that most people did not.
It turned out to be an awfully important lesson.

Blab. A reader lunges at us with this.
Duck, duck, goof!
(Stephanie)
You know, we like to think of ourself as capable of understanding lots of things. But not, we think, this:

Ozzy Osbourne Celebriduck

Readers who are more understanding are urged to explain it to us. (Though we're not sure that's even possible.)

Blab. A Treasured Reader who would have us believe that it is Helen writes:
My anniversary of leaving home. March 15th. The Ides of March was my Ides of freedom.
Celebrate!
Helen in NYC
We celebrate every day, Treasured Reader. Every single day.

Sunday, March 14, 2004
Plurp.

Top

Earlier entries Later entries