Cracker: About a Boy
73 Responses
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I'm confusing myself now.
I'll let it go. After all you recommended Murakami, and now I'm three books in and loving it. Forget the 80s, I'm getting nostalgic for Jolisa's bookie thread. I'm reading a new Jasper Fforde and I have no where to talk about it. Sorry, thread anachronism.
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Does anyone know where the insult 'egg' came from? I know it's in Macbeth, and possibly more Shakespeare - but how the hell did we end up with it? It fascinates me.
Me too. It's at least as common in Australia as it is here. Very big with people who say "Mate" a lot, as in "Yore an egg, mate."
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Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain!
What, you egg!Thousands of fifth formers doing Macbeth?
And recordari - chacun a son gout??? Can't read Fforde. Tried and failed.
But I'm so wired - I'm nearly all the way through Season 5 of The Wire and I've got no one to discuss it with because everyone else has seen it and moved on.
Hmmm It's so brilliant. Talk about characterisation of fatherless young boys ... Might have made me more critical of Boy than it deserved.
In fact, Shakespeare would have been proud of it.
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Can't read Fforde. Tried and failed.
Hmm, not sure I can let that go ;-)
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Hmm, not sure I can let that go ;-)
Sigh. I'll have to try again.
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Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain!
What, you egg!Thousands of fifth formers doing Macbeth?
Exactly where I remember it from :D
Maybe that is the answer. My god. That'd be hilarious.
I wonder if it is part of the Australian curriculum too? -
3410,
Perhaps "egg" is the ultimate in insulting someone's lack of maturity.
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You egghead? Isn't that the opposite?
This could be the makings of a good yoke. I'll just go see if I can crack it.
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Perhaps "egg" is the ultimate in insulting someone's lack of maturity.
If it was Shakespeare that wrote it, then "egg" must have been the pen-ultimate insult, thus implying it really was the "chicken" that came first as the ultimate insult.
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I'm not a jealous thread-keeper, feel free to let this wander to discussions of The Wire, Murikami, Fforde, what have you...
@Cecilia - maybe the generational thing does explain it. I dare say if Boy was set in modern day, the conversation would be much different, and probably full of swearing. As I said, for some reason in the 80s we all knew swear words, but very rarely used them.
I wonder whether the two sides of the insult might in fact be "egg" and "spoon". Both popular terms of derision in the 80s...
And #TheWire. I feel where you're at. Finished it late last year, very tempted to start again at the start. Although it wasn't until I finished the last episode I realised I wasn't in fact "catching up" with a series that was about to start a new season anytime soon, and that it had started, and ended, before I'd ever heard of it... It is brilliant. Significant characters that "get got" without so much as a second thought, the least condescending narrative and dialogue I have ever heard.
Ironically, it's quite easy to find threads from people in Baltimore saying how stereotyped the characters and unrealistic the dialogue are :)
I've just picked up Cormack McCarthy's 'The Road', putting me in probably the same place vis-a-vis other people as you are with the Wire. It's bleak. And my workmate kinda ruined it by saying <SPOILER>: "And you keep hoping something will get better and it never does."
And how many people (including my Aunt, who has always been my inspiration for good literature, introducing me to the likes of Vonnegut and Pynchon when I was a teenager) are going to tell me I *must read* 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. I'm sure its addictively good, like Dunkin Donuts and Steven King, but a little piece of me will surely die...
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Like @recordari, I didn't see stereotypes, certainly not such that they grated. The kids' dialogue seemed particularly natural to me, but then again I wasn't a Maori kid living on the East Coast in the 80s.
I was, for about six months in 1984, going to school not that far from where Boy was shot. (At which time, I was punched in the face by a future V.C. winner, but that's a whole other story.) Pretty well-observed, as far as I can remember.
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(At which time, I was punched in the face by a future V.C. winner, but that's a whole other story.)
Bloody hell, isn't it just...
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Bloody hell, isn't it just...
Just as well I inisuated that Willie Apiata smelled like he was over-affectionate towards farm animals before he got all that SAS training.
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I've just picked up Cormack McCarthy's 'The Road', putting me in probably the same place vis-a-vis other people as you are with the Wire. It's bleak. And my workmate kinda ruined it by saying <SPOILER>: "And you keep hoping something will get better and it never does."
I guess your workmate stopped reading a couple of pages before the end.
And how many people (including my Aunt, who has always been my inspiration for good literature, introducing me to the likes of Vonnegut and Pynchon when I was a teenager) are going to tell me I *must read* 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. I'm sure its addictively good, like Dunkin Donuts and Steven King, but a little piece of me will surely die...
Colm Toibin had a good comment on this the other day, on radio: he sees these books everyone else is reading and immediately wants to read George Eliot or something no one is reading.
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Just as well I inisuated that Willie Apiata smelled like he was over-affectionate towards farm animals before he got all that SAS training
138 characters, just sayin
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138 characters, just sayin
What happens in the playground stays in the playground?
Just as well most of my school-yard commando activities happened in the 70s, and I can legitimately claim memory loss. But in similar form, I was the one throwing the insults, not the punches.
In related news, I loved the character of Rocky especially. Just sayin'.
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I guess your workmate stopped reading a couple of pages before the end.
I know what you're trying to do, and thanks. But it's okay, I've read Kafka. I'm cool was bleak endings to bleak books.
Although maybe it was my workmate who was being more clever than I give her credit for, altering my expectations. Like when my friend told me it was Hosanna who was going to win NZ's Next Top Model, but it wasn't, and I was like, OMG... except with Cormack McCarthy's post-apocalyptic dystopia.
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138 characters, just sayin
I don't geddit...
Colm Toibin had a good comment on this the other day, on radio: he sees these books everyone else is reading and immediately wants to read George Eliot or something no one is reading.
I said as much the other day. If I'm reading what everyone else is reading, how will I know I'm edgy?
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I don't geddit...
Tweetable (and tweetworthy), young skywalker
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Poi-E is back in the charts.
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They should release the Boy video version. It is taking off now, but with that one, it would go viral.
Umm, as many of you may already be following the Crazy Horses Gang on Facebook, is it Ok to link to a fan photo? Oh well, here goes... This was ZOMG ponies!
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Damien - I love that comment about Baltimore people saying that The Wire contained stereotypes. It's a really good point. The word stereotype for Boy is probably too strong, I admit - Rocky is pretty unique. Everyone I know has a soft spot for Rocky ...
I can't quite articulate what I feel about the film. A friend suggested I watch Maori TV for a wider representation of Maori ...
By the way, Land of the Long White Cloud was IMHO a great kiwi film.
I don't know if you would like Dragon Tattoo. A good read but not great fodder for the soul:)
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@Cecelia - it's fine, if you feel it's stereotyped, that's how you feel. I'm happy for you not to like it - I just wanted to recommend it to people because I really did!
Land of the Long White Cloud I really liked too, it was lovely. A lot easier to avoid criticisms of being stereotypical or unnatural when you're making a documentary of course ;)
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