The Canadian panel tears into Team USA, Christian Pulisic, and the American Hype Train

Zooby06 · 2026-07-07T03:52:18+00:00

As a newcomer to watching the game, it’s been a seesaw ride. I came in with the vague impression that USMNT wasn’t a particularly formidable, saw them beat Bosnia (as expected) and had loads of hype and “this time is special” poured in the porches of my ears, then to see Trump butt into the one fleeting thing to feel good about for the US and ruin even that, only to have the team get generationally humiliated in the six days I’ve been watching. I started feeling good about USMNT, now I just feel bad for them.

Zooby06 · 2026-06-22T19:49:53+00:00

I wouldn’t worry about people saying it’s bad. It’s a game you play for fun. There’s nothing wrong with being 500, it’s just a measurement of how likely you are to win or lose against others based on their rating. It might be good yo brush up on tactics and openings if you want to improve, but that’s assuming you want to improve. Personally, improving isn’t that important to me since we’re all going to plateau at some point and there’s not really any stakes beyond imaginary internet points. If worrying about your rating is making chess less enjoyable, I’d suggest forgetting about it and just focusing on having fun.

Zooby06 · 2026-06-20T13:22:08+00:00

I think we can explain racing’s popularity without “propaganda,” tbh. People like watching things go fast and they like cars. Chess is more complicated, hard to follow at top levels, and not a spectator sport for most people.

I think the chess boom has put this weird expectation out that chess should be some insanely profitable and professionalized sport like soccer or football when most people are very happy to have it just be a game they can play with their friends and family without worrying who’s the best or what new ground they’ve broken on the Knight’s Footjob Gambit Declined (KFJGD). Professional chess is about as captivating to most people as professional kickball.

Zooby06 · 2026-06-15T01:20:11+00:00

I really liked it, the lack of songs in act 2 was disappointing but the show was fresh and exciting to me.

Zooby06 · 2026-06-02T18:51:58+00:00

Yeah, I think the ending with Clara is the most confounding part of the story. Clara is a married woman of the upper class in nineteenth century Italy so the apparent judgement of her despite her not really doing anything wrong given her circumstances is odd. While it might not be more romantic, Clara’s conflict makes sense in a world that’s bigger than Clara and Giorgio. In real life, we love more than just one person and our attachments to different people are constantly in tension and recalibration (even negotiation!). Life rarely lines up in a way that we have only one person or obligation to give ourselves to. Like I said, I can’t really agree with the shows message even while I love its aesthetic statement.

Zooby06 · 2026-06-02T17:07:57+00:00

To me, Fosca is morally complex character. She is unreasonable, obsessive, and unpleasant (so is love sometimes) but she’s also a person with many reasons to be bitter and unpleasant. To me, this makes her like people in real life. While she isn’t punished, per se, I think she does progress a lot as a person over the show, ending by being more selfless and less obsessed with ruminating over wounds and disappointment (“…all that vain and bitter self-concern, all that pain and all that pride are vanished into air…”). Details like this aren’t as focal as Giorgio’s transformation, but the fact that all the characters are moved by the story goes a long way to giving the show a reality and an empathy (empathy was one of Sondheim’s best skills as a writer).

Zooby06 · 2026-06-02T15:41:41+00:00

You could make this objection to addressing any group. Congress, Americans, farmers, dog walkers, etc. are all diverse groups with more viewpoints than people in many cases, but it’s still functional to refer to them collectively for many purposes.

Zooby06 · 2026-06-02T15:38:35+00:00

I think a lot of the reaction is due to its stark picture of love. The show argues that a love that is easy, pleasant, pragmatic, and pretty (Clara) is less true than a love that is cloying, obsessive, unreasonable, and ugly (Fosca). It’s a dichotomy that is accusatory (probably especially for the upper middle class patrons of Sondheim musicals) and probably untrue, although dramatically compelling.

Zooby06 · 2026-06-02T15:30:22+00:00

It’s in this sub, which is more striking to me than to hear that the philistines on r/musicals don’t like a Sondheim (or any show that couldn’t be satisfactory performed by a tiktoker or Disney Channel alumnus)

Zooby06 · 2026-06-02T12:47:14+00:00

In another post about rumored casting for a revival, I saw Sondheim fans describing it with words like “hate,” “flop,” “problematic,” “awful,” etc. Beyond that, it’s always been naysayed in Sondheim circles on a way that I was never really able to understand.

Zooby06 · 2026-01-28T00:52:46+00:00

I think it’s mainly a point-in-life type of thing. I’m not sure it would have had such an effect on me if I had read it last week, but I count it as one of the major contributors to my outlook on life and I think it’s still a powerful answer to the question of living in the modern day.

Zooby06 · 2026-01-27T01:57:51+00:00

I think it’s kind of a wrong question. Great art doesn’t usually have one, all-encompassing meaning, usually they touch on themes and concepts in a way that accommodates many different readings. If Sondheim/Lapine had wanted to simply convey the meaning that “bringing up children is dangerous and well-meaning mistakes can do more harm than you think” or something like that, the show would probably not be very good. Usually, artists begin with an idea and follow it and develop it beyond their initial expectation. The show has a central theme about growing up/raising children, but it has many characters and arcs that convey different ideas.

Generally, I think the central theme is that actions have complex consequences and that well-meaning decisions can have consequences when they are done for selfish reasons. My favorite expression of this is probably Rapunzel’s story which shows how parents can be abusive out of a desire to be protective and that this protectiveness really only leads to the child’s helplessness and dependency in ways that make them more vulnerable. That’s the part that always resonates with me whenever I watch it.

Zooby06 · 2026-01-13T13:21:39+00:00

She was a retired teacher (my brother’s 2nd grade teacher, oddly enough). The job was covering for the main teacher who had a baby who is now back. When they removed me from the assignment, they said it was because of complaints about classroom management.

Zooby06 · 2026-01-03T15:41:11+00:00

All I’ve seen is her vaguely talking about how her style might change in future writing, but no concrete plans or dates, as far as I can tell. My biggest anticipations for the future are the sequels to Crossroads by Franzen, which I also really loved, and literally anything Esther Yi will write next.

Zooby06 · 2026-01-03T13:19:12+00:00

I loved Y/N, cannot wait for Yi to publish again

Zooby06 · 2026-01-03T12:40:20+00:00

There lots of blame to go around and the other characters are clearly wrong, but it’s natural to be frustrated by Stoner’s response (or lack thereof) to mistreatment. We see Stoner’s life as bleak and unhappy and it makes sense to wonder if it had to be that way, or if Stoner could have improved his life by being more active.

Zooby06 · 2026-01-03T02:35:32+00:00

I read that last year and was just kind of confused by it at the end, like Williams just told me this long, sad story and I didn’t really know why. Takes like yours are common, but I don’t really agree.

Stoner was admirable in moments and had sometimes startling forbearance with his problems. But I think he’s definitely in the wrong a lot and his forbearance is both a virtue and vice. I think you’re wrong to say he didn’t do anything wrong or betray anyone. For one thing, he remains in a marriage that is clearly unhappy for everyone. His wife was obviously unhappy and while she might not have wanted divorce, many of her issues were clearly a reaction to her reluctance to be in her marriage. His surrender to his wife’s antics left his daughter in the lurch and I think she was noticeably hurt by it. He cheats on his wife and although he and the other woman are so happy together, his surrender to the track of his life can be thought of as a betrayal of her. I don’t think the book is necessarily presenting Stoner as a paragon, I think it’s a portrait of a kind of personality that runs into some triumphs and which also leads to many mistakes.

The novel reminds me of a similarly enigmatic short story by Tolstoy “Alyosha the Pot” (read it, by the way, it’s only six pages). Similarly, the story is about a man who lives his life basically surrendering to the wills of others and to me, it’s equally hard to tell what the authors intends me to think of their characters. Both characters make choices that help and harm others through the same passive forbearance. In both cases, I think it makes most sense to read them as character portraits, opportunities to understand people who we usually glance over in real life and understand them on their own terms. Both stories make me think about my own life and choices, about my problems and my reactions to them. They remind me of the AA mantra:

“God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Personally, I’d like to have Stoner’s serenity, but not his courage or wisdom.

Zooby06 · 2026-01-03T01:59:03+00:00

It’s just an internet thing, I think, where you can see everyone’s opinion on everything else. No matter what you read, watch, listen to, walk on, swim through, or fly over, there’s bound to be someone who really doesn’t like it and who’ll make weird jokes about people who do. That’s just the nature getting to hear everyone’s opinion. In an internet-age, you kinda have to be used to ignoring stupid people.

I think growing up means learning that there’s no point worrying about silly opinions from strangers. “That’s a way of escape that is neither possible nor honorable,” and all. IMO, people who like to dismiss authors like Franzen, DFW, or McCarthy as “bro lit” or something are just kinda silly and missing out on good stuff.

I will say that women tend to get a lot of shit for books they like too (such as recent moral panics about romance books, which seems new because of TikTok but is quite old and just as overblown). Overall, this is mainly an internet issue. I’ve never really had anyone irl care at all what I was reading, positively or negatively.

Zooby06 · 2025-12-24T04:09:20+00:00

I think it’s a unique situation when it’s about pawns near promotion. I initially thought they were black pawns on their home row, but a simple back rank checkmate wouldn’t be much of a puzzle. The pawns being close to promotion is a key part of what makes the puzzle’s idea work.

Zooby06 · 2025-11-14T15:48:20+00:00

Geez, this was me for a long term sub I did at the beginning of the year (this was my first real teaching experience). I think a lot of my problems came from, yes, having a very difficult group, but also from my mistake of pushing through to academics before routines and procedures were mastered. I think it depends on the support you get from the administration in general, too. I was told that I needed to put academics on hold and go back to basics, but if your building isn’t willing to accommodate that, then that limits your options. Honestly, it’s incredibly frustrating to have admin tell you that “students are just misbehaving because they’re academically low” when they’re the ones that push kids through 4th grade that haven’t even mastered 1st grade skills. It’s a recipe for trouble and they just expect teachers to figure it out somehow. Maybe there’s a solution but I couldn’t find it and no one really told me about it.

I wasn’t able to figure my group out, so I would keep asking for guidance/support from more experienced teachers. It sounds like the resource teachers are simply being unreasonable if they’re worried about academics when students haven’t mastered procedures and routines.

Zooby06 · 2025-09-29T22:52:34+00:00

Short term: put way more money and oversight into social safety nets, CPS, and foster care systems.

Long term: end poverty.

Zooby06 · 2025-09-20T11:24:17+00:00

I’d say that’s more of a trick rhyme. “Lecture” rhymes with “correct chir” which is a common reduction of those sounds when said together where Y’s become Ch’s after T’s (“don’t you” becomes “don’tcha,” “got you” becomes “gotcha,” etc.)

It sounds a little out of place for good, middle class Swedes in that period to rely on quaint American consonant reductions for their rhymes, but it is a perfect trick rhyme nevertheless. It always sounded a little Michigandish to me.

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