The nature of the beast

We need a precise word for wishing we had been more clever, for the regret felt when a great barb was thought of too late, combined with wishing we utterly did not give a shit even if we ultimately don't...

okay, so the dog had rabies and we're glad it's gone, but wouldn't it've been nice to have kicked it a good one in groin before it made off?

Clearly was looking for something specific and did not find it here, although I care not to hazard a guess as to what it was.

Oh Rick,

Don't kick dogs. I will cry. I looked out my window last night to see if the moon was full. It was not. But I feel as if I and some of the others here have been acting as if it were. By the way, I hope you didn't take umbrage at the "pre-menopausal" comment on one of the other threads. I was trying to be funny not barbish. But when one lacks a dashing mustachio, one often misunderstands barbes :-(

Hugs,
urania

We are not allowed to take umbrage at comments made by our bitch queen. Anyway, I don't even take an umbrella when it rains.

Lurker briefly delurking...

You need no such word. As someone witnessing this bizarre little saga from the safety of the shadows, barbs would be completely redundant, any damage they would cause being very effectively self-administered already. The welcome given her, open and immediate, was lovely to see, particularly as you are such a tight-knit group. Whether you are talking about books, weather, citrus fruit in western secular art, seriously, ludicrously, self-indulgently, in languages other than English or otherwise, is a matter for those having the conversation. If you would like to join in and are welcomed to do so, demanding that the flow goes in your chosen direction is simply rude. To then spit bile when it doesn't is pathetic. And ridiculous (as is that bilge water about Bohemians that still makes me want to take a fork to my eyes. If the homeless kids in the Flikr images were wild-eyed with absinthe and reeking of linseed, would they have been too, too marvellous? Fuck off).

Happily back to the shadows.

The French have a nice idiom covers zackly what you seek: L'esprit de l'escalier It's what you think of after you've left the scene .......

Oh wonderful sibyx!!!

Thanks letterpress, the bohemian thing really did it for me. Real homeless people bo-ring. One person's bohemian is another person's trustafarian, evidentlly.

This was a bad week for me on LT, I also was attacked earlier on another group that was discussing Islam, again in a weird paranoid style. I am mostly just sort of sad that there are so many people out there who are so delusional and/or narcissistic. I am however glad when I reflect on the many wonderful friends I have online including all you salonistas. Group hug everyone!

I'll hug you people one at a time, but not in a group. Sorry, just not my scene.

And thanks for the nice words, letterpress. I feel much the same.

yeah, thanks letterpress, that was good to hear.

I guess there is even more kindness and erudition in the shadows of Lurk-dom than we can imagine. Thanks indeed letterpress and sybix

I never heard this expression l'esprit de l'esclier and I looked it up. Interesting enough and very à propos to share :

from Wikipedia

This name for the phenomenon comes from French encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot's description of such a situation in his Paradoxe sur le comédien. During a dinner at the home of statesman Jacques Necker, a remark was made to Diderot which left him speechless at the time, because, he explains, "l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier" ("a sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again when he reaches the bottom of the stairs"). In this case, “the bottom of the stairs” refers to the architecture of the kind of hôtel particulier or mansion Diderot had been invited to. In such houses, the reception rooms were located on the étage noble, the noble story, one floor above the ground floor,so that to have reached the bottom of the stairs means to have definitively left the gathering in question.

Diderot's fellow-philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau also recognised his own affliction with l’esprit de l’escalier. In his autobiographical book Confessions he blamed such social blunders and missed opportunities for turning him into a misanthrope, and reassured himself that he was better at "conversations by mail".

American English speakers sometimes also call this "elevator wit"

and Trustafarian is new for me too

A word that combines Trust-Fund with Rastafarian. A well to do hippie type person that is not encumbered by a job and usually has hair matted into dreadlocks. While not especially materialistic they have resources that enable them to attend a multitude of events such as Burning Man, all forms of jam band concerts, enviromential protests and the like.

Oh how learned I am getting !! ( fluttering hands )

careful Mac, you're bordering on pretenshus.

I love these difficult words and oh if I could only one day become a philistine like you !

Part of the rant I deleted on the feedback thread included a regret that all the nice lurkers are scared away and rarely if ever de-lurk, and it seems to be only those with ego problems and no social skills who are brave enough to barge in. Thanks to the two nice de-lurkers on this thread, who definitely fit the former category.

I wonder actually how many so-called lurkers read us in the way they read their daily online news/blog or whatever? Are we famous without knowing it?

*choc suddenly feels shy.*

I think we have to throw some brain-crumbs on the porch... they'll be back

Meanwhile, my Balkan Connection has assured me that Lizstandbroach has been 'taken care of'.

Re the trustafarians -- maybe you can like the idea of some kid using the INTEREST ONLY (of course) of grandparental sweat and blood to attend every Grateful Dead concert from 1966 to 1980? So NOT what it was intended for! Besides who else had the dough and the dedication to buy and use the best recording equipment for the very fine bootleg tapes????!!!!!

I'm not really a lurker -- I am a bit obsessed with weather, living where I do, and I like poetry and 'plnats' (at least I think I like them) and only lurked for a few days before I had to add my two bits. I will admit I got a 'here comes a party pooper' sinking feeling when the iron lady commented 'oh no not you americans going on about the weather too' - Always gets me huffing internally as my mil thought talking about pets and weather PUBLICLY was a sign of boojoie limitation.

I wonder why people all over the world care only about the weather?

I have no idea why, really, except it's always happening? I care because we live off the grid, solar, woodstove etc. and we sort of strategize about what to do when -- like -- I vacuum on sunny days...... and so on.

>16 ChocolateMuse:

I only de-lurk when a topic interests me. I also have limited time, so if it doesn't entertain me, I just don't read it. I rarely, if ever, read this group's threads.

It's also personal preference - I prefer long pieces (walls of text), as bursts of short messages don't interest me. It's also for this reason that I prefer reading personal blogs to these forums. That, and there's not quite enough real drama in this group! Just take a look over at the Folio Society forums for some threads that have easily replaced the cancelled daytime soaps.

The Folio freaks !!!

Okay people, nick has thrown down the gauntlet. I want to see some over-the-top melodrama, or I will call in he who must not be named to kick butt and take names.

Melodrama? I don't know about that.

Was at a wedding over the weekend, a cousin's child, and the first big wedding of the next generation of my family (big meaning we exclude the guestless weddings of tender-aged reluctant souls presided over by a shotgun). In other words, the first wedding I've attended as one of the "old folks". So, what do I need to do to regain a lost youth?

You need a little ketchup and melodrama to regain that lost youth of yours. A nice Dijon mustard works well too.

Maybe a bite out of the world's hottest pepper? The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion -- clocking in at 1.2 Scoville units (a jalapeno is 5000). You might make it right out of the solar system.

ouch ouch!

Youth is vastly over-rated.

That's what I keep telling myself. Doesn't work much though.

Funny thing is, I didn't particularly enjoy being young, especially as an adolescent/young adult, and now I find myself becoming nostalgic of a period during which I was much less happy than I am now. Disturbing. And disgusting.

Yes. I took everything much too seriously, which was bad as I had a very distorted view of myself, inside and out.

Florence -- I'm reading Infinite Jest too, albeit at a glacial pace because I'm in some sort of winter brain funk. I'm around p. 225 I think. I have a thread going over on the Infinite Jester group, not that I'm reporting in much at the moment.

"I find myself becoming nostalgic of a period during which I was much less happy than I am now. Disturbing. And disgusting."

Yes! This happens to me as well!

I'll just leave these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6mTX0d6JPo

http://libx.bsu.edu/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/BSMngrph&CISOPTR=28&f...

32, ha, I know the author of the Flaubert piece you link....

Good ol Pete!

Rick- a character, I assure you...

Ha! This must then prove the internet is only two degrees of separation.

Anyway, who was the academic, Lionel Trilling perhaps, who boasted of reading SE every year...that'd be tough. It reads like a Zola but twice as dense and depressing. The First Sentimental Education was a bit easier.