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Sophia’s acidic wit
In my Antipodean bonhomie, I have asked the no-nonsense Sophia de Tricht if I can call her Soph. Starting at https://www.quora.com/How-do-bel…
The exchange went swimmingly:
—The last person who called me Soph won’t be playing the violin anytime… well, ever
—So when I sold my violin and took up the mandolin a couple of years ago, it was a preemptive strike!
—I think a mandolin would also dissolve in one of the several 55 gallon drums of acid that guy is currently a greasy film on the top of
And capped off, of course, with:
https://www.quora.com/How-do-bel…
You’ve heard of Sic Semper Tyrannis, right?
Well, this is “Sic Semper To Anyone who doesn’t call me Sophia”.
I trust the heels + sailor cap ensemble adequately captures your whole I Mean Business vibe, does it not?
Why is Symphony of Psalms considered neoclassical?
Lazily: because Stravinsky wrote it at the time he was writing his Neoclassical stuff.
The Symphony of Psalms does not have the obvious shoutouts to the Baroque or Classical period that Pulcinella or Oedipus Rex does, and in parts it sounds closer to his earlier Russian period. It certainly ostinatoes like early Stravinsky. Good catch, Anon.
(Could this be the first intelligent Anon question I’ve seen?)
But it’s certainly not as flashy as early Stravinsky: it’s somber and reserved (apart from the berserk horn in the final movement, which a friend said was a shout out to Richard Strauss), and it hews close to older understandings of liturgical music. It doesn’t fit nicely in the neoclassical Stravinsky opus, but it still fits better there than with what he was doing in 1910.
Have people of Mediterranean descent living in the Anglosphere reappropriated the word “dago” as self-identification?
Wogs is the Australian equivalent; and yes, emphatically so, although it’s starting to be dated now, as Greeks and Italians go into third generation. There was overt reclamation in the 90s, though the residue left is more a matter of the more-assimilated using it against the less-assimilated. See Wikipedia on Wog.
JM Cortese speaks for what happened in the US. Her perspective is certainly not mine. And I know the difference between being called a wog by a skip (Anglo-Australian), and being called a wog by a fellow wog.
Is the photo American Girl in Italy meant to depict a woman intimidated by men?
The photo is a cultural touchpoint as a depiction of harassment of women. It is often cited as such, including on Quora. And people are astonished (including on Quora) to find that the photo was likely not intended as such at all.
I’m throwing the question up to see what others think; what I’m finding, from googling, is no.
See the following on the series of photos:
American Girl in Italy: Behind the Iconic Photo
The question is opened up by the discussion at Michael Margolies’ answer to What are some of the most widely circulated fake pictures?, between Michael Margolies and Sarah Jansen. As Michael argues, based on the model’s reminiscences (in the link above),
At the time no, if you read what the model writes about the series and this image it’s interesting to see how even her point of view evolves. What she and the photographer wrote about after making the series and what she writes more recently has evolved just as our politics and perspectives have changed.
Sarah retorted with:
So why was she directed to look fearful?
And was not satisfied that the model’s reminiscences reflect what the photographer had in mind.
Well, let’s try and reconstruct what Orkin had in mind from what evidence we have.
Biography : “At 17 years old she took a monumental bicycle trip across the United States from Los Angeles to New York City to see the 1939 World’s Fair, and she photographed along the way.” (Style of Sport features Ruth’s bicycle trip from 1939)
Ruth Orkin: “The photograph was part of a series originally titled “Don’t Be Afraid to Travel Alone.”” (and almost all the other photos in Michael Margolies’ link show Jinx having a ball). The titling was the creator’s.
Orkin’s daughter relates: American Girl
The two were talking about their shared experiences traveling alone as young single women, when my mother had an idea. “Come on,” she said, “lets go out and shoot pictures of what it’s really like.” In the morning, while the Italian women were inside preparing lunch, Jinx gawked at statues, asked Military officials for directions, fumbled with lire and flirted in cafes while my mother photographed her.
Orkin herself relates: Ruth Orkin | American Girl in Italy | The Met
“We were having a hilarious time when this corner of the Piazza della Repubblica suddenly loomed on our horizon,” the photographer recalled. “Here was the perfect setting I had been waiting for all these years…. And here I was, camera in hand, with the ideal model! All those fellows were positioned perfectly, there was no distracting sun, the background was harmonious, and the intersection was not jammed with traffic, which allowed me to stand in the middle of it for a moment.”
From the link American Girl in Italy: Behind the Iconic Photo, Orkin staged a shot with the same model going for a vespa ride with the guy that was leering at her, a few shots before.
My guess about the answer to Sarah’s question? I think Orkin was subverting the notion that the tourist was right to be afraid, in the iconic shot, and her overall message is the “look at the good times you can have as a single female tourist in Italy, if you’re not afraid” theme of the rest of the shoot. With a shout out to her own cross-country adventures at 17 in 1939.
It doesn’t look like the viewer was meant to take the fear any more seriously than the confused squinting:
And in her diary: (An Image of Innocence Abroad), Orkin described the shoot as a “satire”.
The linked article concurs with the analysis:
In its rebirth, however, the photograph was transformed by the social politics of a post-“Mad Men” world. What Orkin and Allen had conceived as an ode to fun and female adventure was seen as evidence of the powerlessness of women in a male-dominated world. In 1999, for example, the Washington Post’s photography critic, Henry Allen, described the American girl as enduring “the leers and whistles of a street full of men.”
You can argue that the sexual politics I’m claiming of Orkin is as naive as you’d expect out of the 50s. But it looks like it’s authentically naive: Orkin may well have thought that she was making a statement for emancipated, empowered single women (like herself and Jinx) travelling the world, and shrugging off the street harrassment.
I mean, you tell me. If that’s not what Orkin had in mind when she had Jinx look scared, then why does she have Jinx on the back of the vespa in the next shot? The resolution is appalling, but she does not look like she’s on the vespa unwillingly…
To my wife, on our five-year anniversary
My love, whose smile is wide enough to clasp
the heavens in; whose sorrow can expend
the deep-dug wells of earth; whose anger’s grasp
no whisper can unravel; whose amend
no benison of rainbows can surpass;
whose passion strides where armies never went,
and lays what claims it pleases; and whose glass
flashes with all the sunrays it has bent,
much like a crystal: Love, on this our day
of memory of cycles run complete
and cycles yet to be, our eyes will meet
and recognise once more the subtle play
of light and night. We’ll laugh through dreary weather,
and toast another year of us together.
To my wife, on our five-year anniversary
Reposted from: To my wife, on our five-year anniversary
My love, whose smile is wide enough to clasp
the heavens in; whose sorrow can expend
the deep-dug wells of earth; whose anger’s grasp
no whisper can unravel; whose amend
no benison of rainbows can surpass;
whose passion strides where armies never went,
and lays what claims it pleases; and whose glass
flashes with all the sunrays it has bent,
much like a crystal: Love, on this our day
of memory of cycles run complete
and cycles yet to be, our eyes will meet
and recognise once more the subtle play
of light and night. We’ll laugh through dreary weather,
and toast another year of us together.
VICE PRESIDENT SOPHIA DE TRICHT’S REIGN OF TERROR!!
Sophia de Tricht’s answer to Who would turn down Donald Trump if asked to be his Vice President?
Sophia de Tricht welcomed the opportunity to become VP in an El Donaldo administration, in order to… creatively subvert it:
My gaffes would be art.
I’m talking about hung over vomiting in the Louvre on camera, calling heads of state fat balding pussies to their face, having intercourse with not one but three of a dignitary’s adult daughters. Simultaneously, if I can swing it. Preferably from somewhere really conservative. I mean, pictures in the NY Times where I’m straddling the leaning tower of Pisa so it looks like a massive erection, getting butt-checked with a Queen’s Guard rifle after fucking with the sentries outside Buckingham Palace, accused of setting fire to more than one royal palace in Saudi Arabia, throat-chopping Vladimir Putin, walking around Hiroshima saying “this place is the bomb!” kind of tone-deaf gaffe turds.
https://www.quora.com/Who-would-…
…
Herewith, find attached an artist’s impression of:
VICE PRESIDENT SOPHIA DE TRICHT’S REIGN OF TERROR!!
How many nationalities have you met?
A fun question! And I’m not going to win. But I do live in God’s Own (Australia), which gives me an unfair advantage.
I’m listing people I’ve had conversations with In Real Life.
- Albania: random guy at a shopping centre cafe a months ago, several in Greece in various capacities.
- Algeria: boyfriend of a fellow intern I was visiting in France
- Armenia: went there
- Australia: live there
- Austria: went there
- Belgium: went there
- Bulgaria: fellow conlang geek, met in Scotland
- Canada: went there
- China: several fellow engineering students, several programmer colleagues
- Taiwan: programmer colleague
- Croatia: fellow linguistics student
- Cyprus: went there
- Czechia: my massage therapist
- Denmark: a conlanger, met in Scotland
- East Timor: fellow research assistant
- Egypt: parent’s neighbours
- El Salvador: server at my local Del Taco in Cali
- Ethiopia: linguistics lecturer
- Fiji: fellow engineering student
- France: went there, a few French lecturers
- Georgia: owner of Georgian restaurant I go to
- Germany: went there, lots of German lecturers
- Greece: lived there
- Hungary: fellow high school student
- India: several programmer and BA colleagues
- Indonesia: fellow engineering students
- Iran: fellow linguistics students
- Ireland: I live in Australia 🙂
- Israel: fellow high school student, fellow BA
- Italy: went there, lots of Italian lecturers
- Japan: fellow linguistics students
- Kazakhstan: fellow linguistics student’s boyfriend
- Lichtenstein: some tourists I met in Crete
- Luxembourg: CEO of assessment software company
- Macedonia: uni student I befriended while working tech support
- Malaysia: fellow engineering students
- Malta: wife’s best friend
- Mauritius: former boss
- Mexico: I lived in SoCal
- Netherlands: went there
- New Zealand: I live in Australia. Latest was a data architect just this week
- Norway: linguist at historical linguistics conference
- Philippines: fellow linguistics student; admin in linguistics department
- Poland: fellow linguistics student, student I co-supervised
- Romania: neighbour’s daughter in law
- Russia: fellow high school students, fellow linguistics students
- Saudi Arabia: students I lectured
- Serbia: student I lectured
- Seychelles: neighbour’s wife (deceased)
- Singapore: fellow engineering students, fellow high school students
- Slovenia: solutions architect at work
- South Africa: owner of bike shop next door to my parents
- Spain: Spanish lecturers
- Sri Lanka: fellow high school student
- Sweden: Swedish lecturer
- Switzerland: programmer colleague
- Syria: My dry-cleaners in SoCal
- Turkey: been there
- Ukraine: friends of fellow linguistics student, boss
- UK: been there, boss, personal trainer
- US: lived there
- Uruguay: boss’ wife
- Vietnam: French lecturer; fellow PhD student
If I add restaurants with cuisines from those countries (who, it stands to reason, will likely employ at least one person from that nationality—so I’ll have met them if not spoken to them):
- Afghanistan
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Cambodia
- Jamaica
- South Korea
- Lebanon
- Morocco
- Nepal
- Pakistan
- Peru
- Thailand
Anon fails to deliver
Who likes low quality questions on Quora?
Noone, amirite?
https://www.quora.com/How-are-st…
An easily Googleable question from Anon?
I’m going to be commenting this in to any low quality Anon questions I answer, from now on. Feel free to take this and go viral.
Pictures of toy trucks will be fine too.
How well can you get by visiting Turkey without speaking Turkish?
Well, I guess it was just us then.
Spent three or four days over our honeymoon in Istanbul, pretty much Sultanahmet, with a couple of excursions to Üsküdar. Sultanahmet, certainly, is Grand Tourist Central.
I was astonished how few English speakers we found. Which proved particularly devastating when we got a taxi to Üsküdar, and when we got lost in Üsküdar, trying to find my wife’s cousin’s house.
Granted, I’m comparing Istanbul to Greece, where everyone has to know English if they know what’s good for them. In fact, I found it heartening for Turkey that people don’t have to know English. But I only found command of English in staff in really obviously touristy places. Not among the ordinary Istambullus, and not in normal shops.