The Off Topic Topic

[Sheilbh]

Oh wow. Yeah my graduation was a couple of hours

[The Larch]

The best take is from when the Swedes hosted a couple of years ago and showed how to do the perfect Eurovision song
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tgnx6jTQ

I think American TV has tried their own version, but because it still aspires to a heterosexual audience my impression is it's not been that great - but I could be wrong.

You know, I was having a debate with my friends yesterday about which is the perfect Eurovision song. Not the *best* Eurovision song, mind you.

My take was Rise Like a Phoenix - controversial, over the top anthemic, completely earnest, and it hits like a freight train. I listened to again and I realized would be a kickass Bond theme.  Actually "could you put this in front of Bond?" is probably a good way to rate a song for Eurovision.

Then there's the best nonsense/silly Eurovision song, which to this day I still think it's Verka Serdushka's "Lasha Tumbai"

[Admiral Yi]

It's the longest I guess.

A good wedding can go until the early hours of the morning. 

[Admiral Yi]

Oh wow. Yeah my graduation was a couple of hours

I think Celery is including all the shit the students do before they get to the actual ceremony.

[The Larch]

My graduation at a Spanish uni lasted 2-3 hours. My graduation at an American one lasted the whole fucking day 

I didn't even have one, I don't think they were really done in any of the unis I went through back then. Nowadays they do have a little event, yeah.

And some weddings can last for several days. Over here it has become somehow usual to do a pre-wedding informal low key party the day before. And that's without taking into account stag/hen parties.

[celedhring]

Oh wow. Yeah my graduation was a couple of hours

I think Celery is including all the shit the students do before they get to the actual ceremony.

On the day I had several ceremonies. One for Columbia as a whole in the quad, with the celebs, a zillion speeches, music and shit, and then we broke and each faculty would also have their own, with celebs, zillion speeches, music and shit. Theeeen back to the quad for a closing ceremony.

[Sheilbh]

Then there's the best nonsense/silly Eurovision song, which to this day I still think it's Verka Serdushka's "Lasha Tumbai"

Yes I love that song and the Elena Foureira cover from that switch song they did a couple of year's ago

It just shows how much Ukraine gets Eurovision. I think they're the only country to have always got through the semi-finals and hit well above their weight in the finals, even without the politics.

Edit: Of course and the weirdness of Ukriane's situation right now is Verka Serdushka doing instagram Q&As with fans announcing that he's staying in Kyiv etc or Kulash Orchestra having several members who are in the territorial defence forces before last night's show.

[The Larch]

Then there's the best nonsense/silly Eurovision song, which to this day I still think it's Verka Serdushka's "Lasha Tumbai"

Yes I love that song and the Elena Foureira cover from that switch song they did a couple of year's ago

It just shows how much Ukraine gets Eurovision. I think they're the only country to have always got through the semi-finals and hit well above their weight in the finals, even without the politics.

Edit: Of course and the weirdness of Ukriane's situation right now is Verka Serdushka doing instagram Q&As with fans announcing that he's staying in Kyiv etc or Kulash Orchestra having several members who are in the territorial defence forces before last night's show.

One of the myriad of dramas and losses caused by Covid is that it prevented Russia from presenting their (AFAIK) first silly/nonsense/outrageous performance, Uno by Little Big, which would show that there's more to the country than the traditional stereotypes they like to show in almost every Eurovision.

It's the winner that never was. 

[Sheilbh]

Yeah. Listening to that I would assume probably a Benelux entry. They were starting to change it up form "hot girls will win" which shows such a profound misunderstanding of the competition.

Incidentally hadn't seen it before I assume they re-did it but the new music video for Ukraine's winner is something. They are incredible at propaganda (which I don't mean as perjorative at all):
https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1525768621380755456?s=20&t=O7REBvIV2kLbk3P06ybhEw

I still wish they didn't rap, but I love the chorus and the flute (a very Eurovision sentence ).

Edit: Oh they hadn't released a video before - that's the official video. Filmed in Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel - extraordinary.

[Sheilbh]

Telegraph reporting that Italian police thwarted multiple cyber attacks from Russia-associated hacking groups last night. So bravo Italy.

Also really love Russia's stance that Eurovision is silly and they never cared anyway, while threatening to nuke it and trying to hack it off the air

[The Larch]

Yeah. Listening to that I would assume probably a Benelux entry.

Yeah, that song is quite "conventional" in terms of what those guys used to make in the past, which was much edgier and also made a heavy emphasis on their Rusian-ness. These guys do have a massive following not just in Russia but all over the former USSR and Eastern Bloc, and I have the impression that they could be whatever form it is that counter-culture in Russia at the moment has taken, even though they've gone on a turn towards the commercial in the last few years.

They were starting to change it up form "hot girls will win" which shows such a profound misunderstanding of the competition.

To be fair, it was not just them using that tactic, plenty of former Eastern Bloc used it over the years, and it's still part of the playbook in general. I mean, we ourselves kinda employed it this year and we got the best result in ages. 

[Barrister]

Yeah. Listening to that I would assume probably a Benelux entry. They were starting to change it up form "hot girls will win" which shows such a profound misunderstanding of the competition.

Incidentally hadn't seen it before I assume they re-did it but the new music video for Ukraine's winner is something. They are incredible at propaganda (which I don't mean as perjorative at all):
https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1525768621380755456?s=20&t=O7REBvIV2kLbk3P06ybhEw

I still wish they didn't rap, but I love the chorus and the flute (a very Eurovision sentence ).

Edit: Oh they hadn't released a video before - that's the official video. Filmed in Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel - extraordinary.

Holy fuck.  While I agree I could do without the rapping, and the song itself is mediocre, that video has me literally weeping.

[Sheilbh]

On Eurovision politics, I hadn't clocked this but the lyrics of Moldova's entry also looks like maybe a low key call for unification with Romania

[Oexmelin]

Interesting author bio in the Paris Review:

Andrew Norman Wilson is an artist based between Europe and North America. His work has screened at Sundance, New York, and Rotterdam, and sits in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Centre Pompidou. Though principled, he leads a fraudulent life and his heists are many. He sees the return policies offered by Bezos and the Waltons as loan agreements; he lends them $1500, and the interest they pay is his use of a new editing hard drive. While TurboTaxing he hallucinates a DJ software skin, transforming the expense estimate sliders into Fraud Modulator functions. Occasionally he takes meetings with horny, neglectful dads to become a contract conspirator in the various wealth management schemes that constitute the art market. Otherwise he accepts unpaid exhibition offers from salaried curators and gallerists in far-flung cities and tacks on lecture stops at €150 a pop, spending as much time as possible as a guest in circulation, on sofas, so as to avoid paying rent anywhere. For ten years, he has been on Medicaid and food stamps. He is also an aspiring film director, and, following the production of a proof of concept short in 2021, his feature-length heist film Impersonator is currently in development.

[DGuller]

I just randomly ran across a story about a Phillies baseball player dying of brain cancer, being the sixth player to die of brain cancer from that team.  That sparked my curiosity, as brain cancer is fairly rare.  Turns out all six players died in their late fifties. 

I know that statistical flukes happen, and they seem to happen more often than they really do because the non-flukes don't get our attention.  That said, that still seems like an awfully improbable cluster of events.  I know that PEDs were a think in baseball for a long time before it caught the public attention, could some of those be causing brain cancer later in life?