dubdobdee ([info]dubdobdee) wrote,
@ 2007-11-09 09:21:00
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plas mynas
++ spent ages last night writing up detailed email for distant friend abt changed v!ck situation, gradually realised as it wrote it that it --- and thus i -- was movin beyond of the "ugh bah" mode of story into "feeling really chipper abt stuff" mode; that in fact actually i have been much MORE upset abt bad communication over the weeks since returned from france than anything else, and panic abt strain on our friendship, than abt our "arrangement", the suspension of which i (unconsciously?) came to terms with ages ago; and that by being clear abt elephant in room we've started sorting the communication thing (also it was me "taking charge" which kicked off the shift, and she wz really delighted abt that) -- so (a bit unexpectedly) hurrah!
-- am getting v.tired of "elephant in the room" as a phrase
++ am writing well at the moment, publicly and privately: "wounds somewhat on show" <-- kicks you up a level!
-- woke up with crappy pressure headache
++ have no deadlines and no pending dayjob work for 10 days!
-- need to create ground-breaking bachelor love pad tidy and clean flat
++ nice day for a late spring clean!
-- still have to sort question of dad's tax return
++ "against the day" in paperback! also vol.2 of moomin comic strips! (haha misabel PIONEER YOGBLOGGER)
-- my metal glasses frame twisted and the lens won't stay in; have switched to fubsy old pair (isn't helping headache)
++ found cheque from work i hadn't paid in from JULY; for a MONTH'S WORK!
-- got my taxes in EXCEPT there are some bits still not properly tagged and explained, which will p!ss them off
++ worksanta is havin meetin w.director abt the web, to include suggestion "i am the man for the job" <-- i am in two minds abt this, but YAY for somone on er "influence" pimpin yr skeez and i only feel inadequate to the task until i think of the sorry beezer who will likely get it and the mess they will certainly make
-- ok i am somewhat mindful of the grim slavery sistrah becky has put herself up for the last 18 months, taking a senior admin job in an arts bureaucracy
++ BUT I WILL REMAIN FREELANCE AND HAVE THE WHIP HAND (er if they say yes to all my demands exactly as i outline them) (which i have not yet done)

PIMP PIMP!

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writing well my ås
[info]dubdobdee
2007-11-09 09:50 am UTC (link)
"distant friend" = very good friend who lives far away (!!)

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[info]freakytigger
2007-11-09 10:12 am UTC (link)
An extremely laboured gorilla/elephant in room joke was cut from my Pitchfork column the other month.

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[info]dubdobdee
2007-11-09 10:23 am UTC (link)
it's annoying bcz it's actually SUCH a good clear compact image for a situation

(i blame its current massive surge-to-the-fore on the war obv)
(i also blame all snitty sniping between micro-blogospheres on this too)

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[info]koganbot
2007-11-09 07:14 pm UTC (link)
Rhinoceros in room?
Tyrannosaur in foxhole?
Mastodon in treehouse?
Whale in Trevi Fountain?
Mouse in pickle jar?

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[info]awesomewells
2007-11-09 05:36 pm UTC (link)
Exactly how big *is* Against The Day in paperback? Not that I'm about to start rereading it any time soon.

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[info]mooxyjoo
2007-11-10 05:13 am UTC (link)
1232 pp in the british edition. 1104 in the american (which despite the size is far far easier to drag around than the hardcover).

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[info]aubade1984
2007-11-12 12:19 am UTC (link)
where does "elephant in room" come from? i had always assumed it was from some abbott and costello movie where there's an elephant (or gorilla) in the room and no one notices, but i could be wrong.

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via google and wiki
[info]dubdobdee
2007-11-12 12:30 am UTC (link)
Marcel Berlins commented he had traced the expression to a 1989 BBC television film [ie Alan Clarke's 1989 short television film Elephant] whose director had said he had taken it from the Belfast writer Bernard MacLaverty. The latter had described the situation in Northern Ireland as like “having an elephant in your living room”, though with the sense of something difficult in your life that you got accustomed to and tried your best to ignore, as people in Northern Ireland did with the Troubles. Marcel Berlins said that MacLaverty had used the idea in a children’s story of 1978, A Man in Search of a Pet.

The Oxford English Dictionary has recently added an entry for the expression to its online service. It doesn’t mention MacLaverty and instead argues it’s originally American. The first example it has in our current sense is the title of a well-known American book of 1984 by Marion H Typpo and Jill M Hastings, An Elephant in the Living Room: a leader’s guide for helping children of alcoholics.

There are earlier examples. A piece in the Winnipeg Free Press in October 1976 said, “What is big and unfamiliar is mistrusted. Anyone would feel uncomfortable with an elephant in the living room, no matter how friendly it might be.” The OED’s entry also notes an example from the New York Times of June 1959: “Financing schools has become a problem about equal to having an elephant in the living room. It’s so big you just can’t ignore it.” Neither of these are in our current sense.

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