overseen in Ann Arbor, plus

[fflo]

bumper sticker this a.m.

Gawwwwd. Is it just me, or is that especially stupid? And I'm all "To the left, to the left" myself. I think it's largely the offensiveness of figurative meaning (and quite fuzzy there, at best) without any literal one that makes any damn sense. Nothing of what left? What the fork are you talking about, couplet?

My smugness is only reinforced by the blurb (at the site peddling the thing) calling it a "soon-to-be-famous slogan."


So, what do you think it means when you hate your horoscope so much you want to decide you're not really going to play that game any more but you then think that must mean it's exactly what you need to hear?

[Poll #973113]

Mr./Ms. Coin is what my old friend called the coin-for-flipping he kept in his pocket. It was "Mr." when it was a Kennedy half dollar (or fifty-cent piece, as 'twas commonly called); it was "Ms." when Suzie B. came on the scene.

The sweet thing about his coin-flipping protocol was that, faced with two choices he couldn't otherwise seem to decide between, he'd pull out Mr. or Ms., assign values to heads and tails, flip, look, and THEN---here's the variant---assess how he felt when the decision had thus been "made" for him by the coin. Was he bummed? Slightly disappointed? Or was he ready to accept that outcome with relative ease, or even a suddenly-found sense of being pleased with the result? So then, realizing (better) his own desires, he'd do what he (now realized he) wanted. A coin flip, for him, didn't make the decision: it just helped him get at what he really wanted. Or at, sometimes, his genuine indifference---in which case he's just go with whatever Ms./Mr. Coin wanted.

The problem with horoscopes that way is that they have more of an implication of what's right or best being located, at least somewhat, outside yourself. Which I'm afraid I believe it is (at least somewhat). Damn it all to hell. (Oh, as IF, Lisa, anyway...)

I'm pretty sure I'm over time on this break. I was just gonna write about that bumper sticker.

Comments

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

I like the bumper sticker. There won't be anything left. As in, fill in the blank: There won't be any _______ left.
Where _____ = clean air, civil liberties, moral high ground, decent middle class jobs, blah-de-blah-de-blah.

About horoscope-- sometimes it is what you need to hear, except when it isn't. What is it? I don't generally look, unless I have the Style section of the Post (actual paper) in front of me. And even then, it's usually days later. So i think, Hmmm, could it apply?

I do that same coin flip thing sometimes, except I don't have a special coin for it.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

But you could jsut as easily fill in the blank with stuff you/one wouldn't want to have, couldn't you? it's too necessary that the blank-filler-in be on "our" side---thus too implicit that the reader is some other self-satisfied ann arboreal driving around being theoretically left-ish. which it probably is.

not to mention that "nothing" being left kinda has to mean at least life "as we know it" and probably also the whole planet, plus maybe even, if you (i) wanna get really pissy, all matter and energy

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

I _thought_ you would say that! :) Well, when you come right down to it, any language can be twisted... it's the whole grad school, "Do we speak language or does language speak us?" thang. But I think that, in this case, the message comes across and the people who are meant to get it get it. Just the fact that it's using "left" as an OK word, and not a dirty word along the lines of "liberal," is something.

Hmmmm... that is resonant, to think that "the whole planet" might not be "left."

I dunno-- the people with this sticker may very well be self-satisfied, or they may not be, but they don't sound satisfied.
Does it bother you more that someone with this sticker would be self-satisfied, or that the sticker doesn't invite inclusion? or that, among the things that would not be "left" are the facets of "life as we know it" that you'd willingly part with?

[fflo.livejournal.com]

it bothers me most that there's something crappily-put about it, masquerading as cleverly-put

the self-satisfied thing--- well, that's true for most bumper stickers, and i favor bumper stickers in general, liking variety and some tiny indication of personality, or at least some words, and anyway there's the busting the could-hurt-the-value-at-resale prohibition of my father (you shoulda seen him go off at the 1880 Train when they bumperstickered everybody in the parking lot)... lefty self-satisfaction in A2 is a special flavor of yuck---or set of flavors, many of which taste like "yuck", like the variety of unsavory jelly beans in barf, booger, and whatever other flavors they make those. (is there a "poo"?)

i need to get out of town for a while sometime before a whole lot more A2 time in a row

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

the could-hurt-the-value-at-resale prohibition of my father (you shoulda seen him go off at the 1880 Train when they bumperstickered everybody in the parking lot)

Sounds like my dad at this little amusement park called Fantasy Land.

i need to get out of town for a while

Where did you have in mind to go? I have an idea for you.

[aabassplayer.livejournal.com]

while I had trouble at first, now you've caused me to question it as well, and the only, and easiest, thing I've come up with is that they mean, if we keep electing right-leaners, there won't be any left-leaners in authority...

They aren't saying "left" like "remaining", though that's what our mind immediately goes to.

i'd rather watch beyonce

[(Anonymous)]

What does your horoscope say about bumper sticker nitpicking?

To the left, to the left:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3URfWTEPmtE&mode=related&search=

Re: i'd rather watch beyonce

[fflo.livejournal.com]

no denying her fierceness

but while you and she are busy maybe i can get in with one of those band members

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I think you should do like I do, and not waste any time reading silly horoscopes in the first place. If you have a need for annoying advice that you'll hate but then be unable to stop questioning whether you hate it for the right reasons or the wrong ones, I've always found that friends can supply ample amounts of that sort of advice.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

hah. well, qbc, it's kinda like this. the horoscope's not so much "advice" to me as it is a springboard to meditation. poor man's therapy. any rational sort knows it doesn't "know" anything; thus it's a blank thing to take your own interpretations from, for the sake of seeing what interpretations you take. my astrologer's schtick in the free weeklies is to offer up that sort of thing in a way that (feels to me, anyway, like it) winks at me that it's throwing something up there for me to react to and then see how i'm reacting to it. if that makes any damn sense at all. sometimes something leaps right to mind; sometimes the exercise requires more exercise. either way there can be something there to get at, if you want to get at something, if you've got something you want to get at, if you want something to get at.

i'd add some fantabulously clarifying paragraph here about what, on the other hand, the witness and presence and comfort and reflection and gentle nudging and not-so gentle knocking up side the head---and even the mere knowledge of the very existence---of friends can do and does for me, but let me leave it at this: that's a whole different ballgame.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had actually already assumed that you were using horoscopes that way. I used to read them myself, back in my teenage years, and I would have given the same explanation for why I was reading them. But mostly I think I was just reading them because they're kind of addicting, like so many other simple daily rituals that all add up to eating away a surprising number of minutes of the day. So now that I've broken the addiction, I can no longer understand the appeal of going back to it. ;-)