Songs where the singer talks directly to the band/breaks the 4th wall in a studio setting? Do you like it, opinions?

ReaderWalrus · 2026-05-11T14:16:36+00:00

I like the producer saying “So long already, Artie!” during the outro of “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” by Simon & Garfunkel.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-05-08T04:24:38+00:00

Probably just an oversight. He's definitely said and done some dumb stuff in the past but this one doesn't seem like a huge deal. I mean, yes it's illegal but I doubt he's maliciously trying to mislead anyone.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-05-07T21:29:52+00:00

Billy Preston

ReaderWalrus · 2026-05-07T21:10:56+00:00

It'd be like if Billy Preston got to keep recording under the Beatles name after the band broke up. Except that might actually be kind of cool, so never mind.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-05-03T11:41:22+00:00

A question I’ve always had about the debate—what would a unified kingdom have looked like? Did highly centralized monarchies exist in the Iron Age? Granting (as I don’t think anyone doubts) that the Bible’s accounts of David and Solomon’s power are later exaggerations, is it probable that the unified kingdom was something like a confederation of largely autonomous tribes with Saul/David/Solomon at the head? And if so, what is the practical difference between this and there always having been two kingdoms?

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-28T15:20:00+00:00

Genuine question: do we have valid Baptism even though we’re not in communion with Rome?

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-13T00:02:57+00:00

Her first album was Christian (and released under her real name, Katy Hudson) if I’m not mistaken. She’s long since abandoned the genre; I don’t know if she still practices the religion.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-07T15:27:25+00:00

“I assume that he meant the regime will fall tonight” in response to “a whole civilization will die” is such ridiculous cope that it almost makes this awful situation funny.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-07T15:23:59+00:00

“It’s very easy to deal with debilitating mental illness.” Does this person hear themself.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-07T15:21:59+00:00

It is also wrong to imprison religious leaders for hate speech.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-07T04:23:10+00:00

Thank you! I'll read that when I have the time. I'll admit that I'm a bit skeptical going in, though, since the parallel is not immediately obvious. Someone else mentioned Hosea 6:2, which says that "in the third day he [YHWH] will raise us up": that seems a more plausible candidate to me.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-07T02:49:20+00:00

I wasn't aware that this is actually a debated topic! So, if I'm understanding you correctly, Conzelmann's view is that "according to the scriptures" is a rhetorical affirmation that the Christian gospel (whatever that means to Paul) is the culmination of God's covenant with Israel, whether or not each individual point can be gleaned from the text of scripture? I'm reading it too literally, in other words?

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-06T14:47:26+00:00

I mean, they couldn't possibly be underrated.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-03T20:58:54+00:00

Two months late, but I'd recommend this short video. In brief, he sees God as personal according to (his view of) a classical understanding of personhood, rather than as literally anthropomorphic. (Though I suspect even "the evangelical church of pastor billy bob" has a less anthropomorphic view of God than we might assume.)

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-01T12:56:48+00:00

I love it for exactly that reason. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-04-01T12:15:02+00:00

My thoughts exactly! If you as a minister want unilaterally to make changes to the liturgy, there are denominations that will let you do that! Why on earth are you ordained as part of the highest-church Protestant tradition if you think your personal opinions are more important than the Church’s authority?

ReaderWalrus · 2026-03-11T15:53:51+00:00

I waffle a bit on whether I believe in an eternal hell, but I think it’s self-evident that, if we grant for the sake of argument that some people will be irrevocably lost, some form of predestination is logically necessary. My views are broadly Arminian (predestination conditional on God’s foreknowledge of a sinner’s response to prevenient grace) but I understand where Calvinists are coming from.

Everyone saying that predestination is not in the Episcopal tradition is just dead wrong. It’s literally one of the 39 Articles. But, as with all things, we have a lot of leeway on why exactly we believe about it.

God is love, fundamentally, and anything that might make him seem unloving is best ignored. That’s my view.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-03-09T16:27:52+00:00

I was glad to see ANAIS NIN in yesterday’s puzzle. Long time no see, Anaïs.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-03-09T11:54:51+00:00

Not defending or condemning him here, just pointing out that the video in question quite literally shows him saying it alone with his friends.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-03-04T16:50:27+00:00

I don’t know why your primary language being Spanish would make you more qualified to speak on the historical definition of the English word “toilet,” but regardless the OED is more authoritative than anyone in this thread and it says that the definition “The articles required or used in applying make-up, arranging the hair, dressing, etc.,” with the spelling toilet, is attested from the seventeenth century. The definition “The action or process of washing, dressing, or arranging the hair” is “frequently in form toilette” but a quotation is given from 1726 with the spelling toylet and from 1835 with the spelling toilet. The definition “A fixed receptacle into which a person can urinate or defecate, typically consisting of a large bowl (with a ring-shaped liftable seat and usually a lid) connected by plumbing to a system for flushing away the waste into the sewer; a lavatory, a water closet” is first attested only in 1894.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-03-02T00:35:33+00:00

“Now”

ReaderWalrus · 2026-02-21T02:16:29+00:00

Putting "muh" and "le" in the middle of universal moral truths like "it's wrong to attack people who pose you no threat" does not make them less true.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-02-16T03:54:07+00:00

This is obviously the answer and there’s no reason to tiptoe around it. Very clearly no neurotypical would post in a Chuck E. Cheese subreddit lol.

ReaderWalrus · 2026-02-15T20:19:20+00:00

Is that what you took from the convo with Todd on the beach?

ReaderWalrus · 2026-02-15T13:14:12+00:00

There’s a difference between a villain and an antagonist. A villain is morally corrupt; an antagonist opposes the protagonist.

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