A Policy For Comments
Have a Drink and Relax PleaseI've been bothered by the tone of some comments in the recent past and so have instituted a comments policy - a link to which can be found in the Navigation area to the right of your screen.
I copy it here to allow you to comment on it:
Comments are welcome, sort of. This blog is an ongoing cocktail party - or at least with some help it will be. I host this party. I bought these drinks. And soon you'll see the decorations I bought. John Murphy is a VIP guest.
1) Comments must not dispirit other readers.
Would anyone attend a party at which the guests were humorlessly competing with each other over who could make the most bleak comment possible about the state of civilization? No. You were not invited here to be a drag. You can be angry but you must shape that anger with wit. You can be depressed but not depressing.
2) Comments ought to be interesting, funny or the product of drunkeness.
If they are none of the above and furthermore do not at least constitute "making a scene" they will be deleted.
3) Comments are to conform to standards defined as "Not Crazy"
I do not host this party in order for guests to be uncharitable1, to promote conspiracy theories2 or libertarianism3. There are exceptions and you must read the fine print.
4) You must also be well dressed or at least have "a look" when you make comments.
My readers and I are such fine connoisseurs of the written word that we can tell almost exactly what you are wearing based on the diction, sonority and lilt of your prose. Your appearance reflects on mine when you are here. You were not invited here to look shabby. If you do look shabby, you should justify it as a peculiar aesthetic.
1) Uncharitable remarks may be made about Canadians, white people, Muslims, South-east asians, Europeans, "modernists", Greek gods, the Chinese (a.k.a. Orientals), and neo-conservatives.
2)Conspiracy theories are automatically approved if they involve Freemasons, Odinists.
3) Libertarians may comment freely and may disagree with me. But their only protection is my patience and the quality of their dress. (See Rule 4)
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Surfeited With Updates, Under the Influences
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22 Comments
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Reader Comments (22)
Whites and Europeans but not Americans or (especially) Canadians?
Americans are fair game as long as they fit into the other specified categories.
We're all doomed. Doomed, I tells ya. Doooomed!
[End test]
Hmmm? This could be tricky,
I’m wearing Bean Boots waders, intied with the laces knotted at the eye holes because they are never tied on principle. Izod khakis, with a blue Brooks Brothers cloth belt, white Hanna Andersen turtle neck, with a tattered cutoff gray sweatshirt of my alma mater, and my always present black Ray Ban Wayfarers with prescription lenses. And my father’s old braided gold Rolex watch given to me as a highschool graduation gift.
And I’m holding my four month old son whose wearing a cotton teal blue sweater my wife knit with a white cotton all-in-one diaper.
Which is not exactly eastcoast cocktail party fare, but well within established custom here in Colorado were looking shabby is high art were I was schooled in it from infancy. And were we can always spot the eastcoasters because they overdo it to the point of the absurd.
And of course it goes without saying, so let me say it anyway, so goes the dress, so goes the prose.
And if it helps, I’m slurpping a vodka martini, with no olives, the kiddies ate them all.
"if I had the money, I would gladly raise my kids in New York City. There, there is the advantage that good is plainly good, and evil plainly evil. There is no suburban white-wash to confuse the facts. And it's always said that a great sinner is easier to convert than a petty, self-deluding, run-of-the-mill
exactly what he is." copied from ronaldknox@yahoogrops.com email correspondence.
Victoria is an exception to my eastcoast overdoing it. Victoria is always right where she needs to be.
ronaldknox : Ronald Knox
"I would rather be a great sinner than one of those lukewarm believers whom Christ will spew out of His mouth." Or something to that effect. K-L loved the church of the Laodiceans as an example of what he despised most in the world.
This comment was bizarre, I agree, but I hope it remains within the bounds of "not crazy."
So, Michael, what am I wearing? Hmm?
[ED: Cut out HTML code that my comment boxes oddly ignore]
I guessing David Letterman's pants
What is a technically sophisticated commenter to do with comment scripts that interpret HTML appropriately? Surely, that can be rectified, eh? By the way, what does one do to become a "registered" user around here rather than considered a rogue from "anywhere on the internet"?
"I guessing David Letterman's pants"
Ba dum bum
Possibly the closest thing Colorado has to a peculiar aesthetic is the dress and demeanor of a cowboy poet.
The comments policy stays. We shall move on from it on Monday. Have a good weekend gentlemen.
Colorado did you say? Come down to the Fraternity of St. Peter Our Lady of Mt.Carmel Latin Mass Community. I don't know if we're going to the 9:00 or the 11:00 but it's a party after every mass.
Introduce yourself around, starting of course with the smokers outside, since we're without doubt without any Jansenist tendencies. But if you prefer a bit a Jansenism, we offer that too. A little too much at times. We have a new pastor, Fr. VanVliet and assistant pastor Fr.Dupre sp? who was here as a seminarian when the parish was still over at Colorado Catholic Academy.
You can spot me well enough, although the sweatshirt is a bit to ragged for mass.
Indeed. Creeping metropolitanism is a blight.
"Come down to the Fraternity of St. Peter Our Lady of Mt.Carmel Latin Mass Community."
I would love to, but the parish is on the opposite side of Denver. I hope to soon escape the liturgical molestations of suburban Catholicism by attending Holy Ghost's Latin Choral Mass.
Stilton: "We ruddy well do now!"
Thank you, Franklin, for inviting me to this cocktail party. Perhaps I should introduce myself to the host?
Delighted to meet you, sir. It is refreshing to find a blog which, in the course of a week, mentions Coen Brothers movies, broken hearts, Feragamo, St Francis de Sales (although what can one say about French spirituality?) and my own beloved City.
I would like to comment on each of these posts but will confine myself to consoling you on your broken heart. I, too, have recently suffered such heartache. Only this week, my husband of 25 years cruelly informed me that my decades old attraction to Tom Jones' chest hair was a misplaced one. He boldly asserts that not only is it really a chest toupe, but that Tom is actually only 5'3" tall. I am devastated.
Victoria
(previously posted in the wrong place; my apologies to the co-host; delighted to meet you, too)
This is all because I laughed at that Crunchy Con thing, isn't it?