Halloween costumes

[Svenskaflicka]

You better skip "Scary Movie 3", P. It has a Michael Jackson joke in it. It's a little funny, but... mostly cruel.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Flicka, that was thoughtful. I don't watch any scary movies though. xo's, P.
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I was only trying to make a point. No one need apologize for laughing at anything they find funny. My friends know why I'm sensitive to this type of humor, but I like to inform others too, just so they might be careful or a little more sensitive is all. I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone in return.

Perdita

 

[The_Darkness]

I was only trying to make a point. No one need apologize for laughing at anything they find funny. My friends know why I'm sensitive to this type of humor, but I like to inform others too, just so they might be careful or a little more sensitive is all. I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone in return.

Bah, don't worry about it, Perdita. You'll have to try a lot harder than that to offend...hell, even if you did try, I'd probably just laugh it off.

However, I'll be sure to watch myself and keep the conversation kosher....probably not "workplace clean" but I promise, no filthy nasty jokes about controversial subjects.

Unless they're absolutely insanely funny.

 

[shereads]

filthy nasty jokes about controversial subjects.

What a great name for a thread.

 

[shereads]

Would this count as too bad, P?

Design plans for the new WTC

Thank you, Svenska. I was wondering when there would be a 9/11 joke that I could laugh at.

Tragedy plus distance. Being able to laugh means we begin to heal.

 

[shereads]

Dracula: Dead and Loving it

Lord have mercy. When that movie came out, I had been given a, um, hand-rolled cigarette by a friend at the office, after not having indulged in such an item for about ten years. I shared it with a friend and we walked to the theater. My friend had also abstained from hand-rolled for a number of years, and was unable to remember the word for "popcorn" and attempted to pantomime her order at the snack bar.

She and I and a twelve-something boy sitting with his parents were the only three people who laughed so hard we missed a lot of the movie. We stopped laughing only long enough to breathe, and make trips to the snack bar.

Is it actually funny? I've often wondered.

The thing I remember laughing at until my ribs ached was this:

"She is nosferatu."

"She's Italian?"

 

[The_Darkness]

Originally posted by The_Darkness

filthy nasty jokes about controversial subjects.

What a great name for a thread.

Why yes, yes it is. Too bad I'm too tired to think of any right now or I'd probably start it.

 

[shereads]

How about this?

English terrorist

HAAAAahahahhahaha << seriously hard laughter.

Thank you. I'm spamming all of my friends with this, asap.

 

[shereads]

Dark, the spelling was nearly right - Quetzalcoatl; it means feathered serpent and is featured in the Mexican flag (an eagle with a snake in its beak alighting atop a cactus is the symbol for it). What most helped Cortes' welcome was the coincidence of his arrival with the religious calendar, the Aztecs were expecting Quetzalcoatl to return. However, they were astonished more by the horses (unknown to them) than the Spaniards on top of them. It did not take long to discount Cortes as a god though. BTW, the legend of Quetzalcoatl began in the 10th c. and was passed along through a number of mesoamerican cultures. Unfortunately, the conquerors destroyed much written history (burning scrolls of codices) and of course revised their own.

Perdita

My favorite historic account of a first contact between Europeans and a native culture, is the one described by Bill Bryson in "In A Sunburned Country." When Captain Cooke arrived in Australia, the response by the aboriginal people to the sight of their first sailing ships and first Europeans was...Nothing. They kept right on about their business, the story goes, politely acknowledging the presence of this new kind of person, but ignoring offers of trinkets and other trade items.

It's amusing, but of course it led to their near-extinction. We didn't have anything they wanted, so we couldn't bribe them, buy them, or otherwise control them except by getting rid of them.

Still, I love the image of these world explorers with their impressive ship and their trading beads arriving in a place where the natives were neither friendly nor hostile, but found them completely irrelevent.

 

[The_Darkness]

Shereads:

First of all, I don't know what you and your friends put in your "hand rolled" cigs, but around where I'm from, the "hand-rolled" cigs are potent as all hell, but we can still remember "popcorn." Though, I did have a friend once (during a Halloween part, in all irony--concerning this thread at least) who got so messed up off of tequilla and some of those hand-rolleds that she forgot how to pee. Now THAT'S entertainment.

Dracula: Dead and Loving it. I haven't laughed so hard at a Mel Brooks movie since the first time I saw Blazing Saddles. Between the awesome comment for turning down sexual advances (of a redhead, no less) of "But...I'm English!" and the whole steaking of Lucy scene....classic.

I was told, I don't know if it's true, but that was the only take they did of that. The only people who knew what was going to happen were the special effects guys who rigged the gallons and gallons of "blood" to gush forth and Mel Brooks himself. Now that's just good humor.

 

[The_Darkness]

My favorite historic account of a first contact between Europeans and a native culture, is the one described by Bill Bryson in "In A Sunburned Country." When Captain Cooke arrived in Australia, the response by the aboriginal people to the sight of their first sailing ships and first Europeans was...Nothing. They kept right on about their business, the story goes, politely acknowledging the presence of this new kind of person, but ignoring offers of trinkets and other trade items.

It's amusing, but of course it led to their near-extinction. We didn't have anything they wanted, so we couldn't bribe them, buy them, or otherwise control them except by getting rid of them.

Still, I love the image of these world explorers with their impressive ship and their trading beads arriving in a place where the natives were neither friendly nor hostile, but found them completely irrelevent.

I would have to say that my all-time favorite explorer story is a missionary story from early North American history.

There were a band of indians in what is now the New York state region (and I believe they were Iroquois, but I"m not sure) that had the particular misfortune of being visted by French missionaries who were Jesuit Priests. These particular priests told them that their gods and ancestor worship were pagan and that they needed to convert to save their souls. The Indians laughed them off.

The Jesuits, beaten but not discouraged, came back. They flammed on the Indian tribe and demanded that they switch over to Catholocism so they could save themselves and so that God would let their ancestors into Heaven instead of burning eternally in Hell. The Indians told them what they could go do with themselves and the Jesuits left.

A while later, the priests came back. They spat on the totems of these people and completely and totally denounced their religion, informed the people that their ancestors were burning in Hell (after explaining to them how that worked) and that God was going to lay the village to waste and began to site examples of this in the past.

So the Indians killed them. The story goes that they were run through on giant spits (kept alive during this, which is medically possible if done right and very slowly) and then slow roasted. Other tortures were in acted, but the big picture here is that the priests were killed.

Not only that, but the Indians vowed to kill any other Jesuit they found. Other missionaries were accepted and even tolerated in some cases, but not the Jesuits.

Go Indians!