Banned in Boston
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
OP describes the elder Pynchon being exiled back to England after publishing a book criticizing Puritanism. That same book also happened to be the first one to be banned in Boston. [2]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pynchon
[2]: https://www.masslive.com/history/2011/05/springfields_375th_...
Until 1995, state securities regulators used to have independent authority over stock offerings occurring in their state. So your company might go through the SEC registration process for its initial public offering, get the go-ahead from the SEC and then get comments from regulators in Texas or California.
In 1980 the Massachusetts Secretary of State decided that a stock issue from a promising new computer company was too speculative for Commonwealth residents[1].
When Apple Computer, Inc. went public that year, Massachusetts residents where not allowed to purchase shares. Apple’s investment bankers later distributed lucite deal toys to the team that had the traditional prospectus cover stamped “BANNED IN BOSTON.” These are now quite collectible [2].
[1]: https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/AppleIPODe...
[2]: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/apple-computer-inc-ip...
(I am lucky to be able to read "old" Italian. Once I flew to Florence, got into Santa Maria Novella and spent most of the day inside reading The Decameron. It was like being in a time capsule.)
I also wander, what would a good English translation consists of? 14th century English? I'm afraid the subtleties related to the language will be lost, in this case, won't they?
And the rest is just mundane stories, which you will appreciate in any language, I'd say.
So, I wouldn't worry. Buy any version and enjoy, as I did, reading about how the world didn't change much in 7 centuries :) (I also find some tales quite funny.)
The first few chapters of the book are great but it soon gets repetitive.
It's an odd region. Repressed and taciturn by nature, as this sort of article shows. But there's also a strong ethos that people should be free to chart their own course, which stretches back to the nation's birth and eventually overcame the puritanical roots. These days people aren't particularly judgemental, but they are still quite reserved.
John Steinbeck had this to say about getting directions in the area:
>“I seem to be lost, officer. I wonder if you could direct me?”
>“Where is it you want to go?”
>“I’m trying to get to Deer Isle.”
>He looked at me closely, and when he was satisfied that I wasn’t joking he swung on his hips and pointed across a small stretch of open water, and he didn’t bother to speak.
>“Is that it?”
>He nodded from up to down and left his head down.
>“Well, how do I get there?”
>I have always heard that Maine people are rather taciturn, but for this candidate for Mount Rushmore to point twice in an afternoon was to be unbearably talkative. He swung his chin in a small arc in the direction I had been traveling. If the afternoon had not been advancing I would have tried for another word from him even if doomed to failure.
>“Thank you,” I said, and sounded to myself as though I rattled on forever.
I've lived in a lot of different areas in the US. People in the NE and PNW are more guarded and reticent. People in the Southwest/Midwest are more friendly and talkative. Wearing a cross or being the right color makes a big difference in some places.
These are not categorical statements about everyone in a region, but my life experience says that some US stereotypes have some basis in reality. Local communities have different behavioral norms, and that's fine. We can pretend that they don't exist, but we can also acknowledge them to try and help bridge cultural gaps.
Personally, I wish that people were more accepting of Northeast personalities. But the world wouldn't work if everyone was the same.
And everyone i’ve ever known from wisconsin would at least be considered a mild alcoholic anywhere else.
Stereotypes are what they are, first order approximations.
The sense of humor is my cup of tea: puns.
Dead-pan-really-good-puns. My Norwegian and Swedish friends are as punny as me.
Do you like puns?
Give me a topic for a pun-off
(as you can see from my last name "stave" '*staava*' (I don't know how to phonetically spell it - but based on stave churches...)
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I used to think I was indecisive... but now I'm just not sure.
There are some “general regional tendencies” I’ve found but they’re overblown, if a little fun.
In my experience Armenians in the Boston area are very friendly or hostile. But they’re my relatives..and it might just be me. In general Id say people Around Boston are less “outgoing” than the people in NY were I lived for a little while. Though in NY I always felt they were more honest with you. Less friendly than Alabama were one of our offices were. (Bless their hearts). And a co-worker from Minnesota “Minnesota nice” notes that while theyre friendly on the outside not so with personal info. (They’ll give you directions anywhere except to their house ) And in MInnesota when they’re hunting for agates, be afraid.
http://minnesotaconnected.com/events/agate-day-festival-brin...
> People often told me they knew I wasn’t from around there because I smiled so much.
I've always understood jokes like this to be a sort of ironic "it's funny because that's what people say about us even though it's not really true". I am now realizing I might be alone in this.
Most people’s experience of a region are hugely tourist. Like folks who visit NYC and see Times Square, then draw conclusions about your average New Yorker. Likewise folks who visit Hollywood and make a conclusion about California.
The regional stereotypes I’m familiar with are... stereotypes. They’re true. They just might not be true about any particular individual who lives there. And they’re true because these are largely learned behaviors.
Are they useful? Well, in aggregate they might give you some patience and understanding if you’re going to that region and have to interact with the people. Lots of behaviors you might consider rude might actually be friendly or at least polite there. And while you may not be able to assume an individual from a place matches the stereotype, it’s a pretty safe bet if they match the stereotype they’ve got a connection to the place.
For those of you who recognize the internal curmudgeon in yourself, move to Boston. Remember: "I LOVE HUMANITY, IT'S PEOPLE I CAN'T STAND"
One thing I remember from urban life in Boston itself in the 70s/80s is that the neighborhood identity was extremely strong. The most fun cities are extremely neighborhood centric but this was extreme: though my city high school had kids from all over the city, it was clear that some of them I could not safely visit at their homes. You could tell from someone's accent where they lived in the city. I can't say if this is still the case.
There's a big difference between just being nude vs., say, performing a striptease which is explicitly sexualized or flashing a particular person which is a kind of personal attack.
“Aroused” states, touching, exposing to specific individuals, etc seem like pretty obvious lines.
I think most people can tell the difference between “being nude” and “being sexual”.
But breasts are not genitals!
How "public" can saunas get? There are also saunas/hottubs/showers at gyms everywhere. The only restriction is they are single-sex. Mainly for women keeping the guys out. Or at least that was uniformly the requirement until recent politics with transgenders.
To answer your second question: the sense of freedom, peace, and comfort.
I mean personal space, man; it's visual too you know? I don't need to know you have liver spots on your left buttcheek or the size of your wang when I don't even care to ask you your name.
edit in response to yours: You know what would really make me feel free, safe, and comfortable? If that party of drunk guys staggering dangerously close to me were also naked, too. I think I'm okay with giving up my freedom as not to make people uncomfortable that way, especially women.
They're strangers, the average person is not trying to develop any kind of connection with you (and the unaverage person who is, isn't going to let clothing stop them). When you go to the doctors and have to disrobe, they aren't trying to make a connection with you.
Who cares about imperfections? No one is perfect. The models you see on magazines are heavily photoshoped, the actors on screen wear tons of makeup.
If you don't need to know, don't stare. Staring is rude, clothed or otherwise.
I don't care about the size of anyone's wang, and I'm sorry that you've been conditioned by others to care about penis sizes.
I can't make sense of your edit.
I'm not saying you're wrong (and I hope that you're not saying I'm wrong), it's just all about perspective. If you're in a sauna, chances are extremely likely no one is wanting to inspect your body just as much as you don't want to inspect theirs, they just want a good sauna time just like you would.
Being naked should be incidental, not the goal.
There is no weird feeling of intimacy with the people present. They're there to relax as well, and odds are you will never see them again. And I suspect seeing average people and their imperfections makes it easier to accept your own.
If you don't want to see liver spots or the size of other mens penises then you could always just not look.
Drinking or being intoxicated tends to be forbidden in saunas. I suppose your fear of groups of drunk naked guys might be more likely at a nude beach? At least they won't be carrying concealed weapons.
Why would you want to be naked at all? Better sun covering, skin can breathe, etc
Why would you want to be naked infront of anyone? You are comfortable with yourself, perhaps pride in latest fitness routine.
With covid I don't really want to be around strangers..
At least where I live, the main thing we're missing is frostbite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque#Figures_of_a_ma...
Like, the most recent example - Gina Carano. Do I disagree with what she was saying? Absolutely. Do I think that she deserved the amount of abuse she was getting on Twitter and elsewhere, and her eventual firing from Disney? Absolutely not.
Like, how is that different than Boston banning certain artists because they didn't like what they were saying? Because we(as in, more "liberal" leaning people) disagree with them? It's stupid and I don't agree with the practice.
Edit: and of course this effect exists here as well. If you disagree with something it gets downvoted until it's pushed to the bottom of the site, made nearly invisible, and eventually once enough people complain it disappears entirely behind a flagged tag. Most people don't actually engage in an exchange of ideas, they just make sure to penalize someone for saying something they don't like(downvote) and move on.
I'm waiting to hear someone ask why those people at the Capitol were so mad. What? They're crazy? Or do they have a legitimate reason to be upset? Either way, it's your show. You're the one with the trillions, the army, the never ending great debate. Maybe you're not that good at your job.
Or maybe, you are very good at your job, the job of processing people and ruining lives for your hallow celebrity and unrestrained ambition that changes every day and will do anything for a dollar. Congrats. You're a tv star now.
Ironically, Boston is known exactly these banned things...
Deplatformed from Boston means that you have something interesting to say that makes middle class busy bodies uncomfortable.
Even PG had something to say about that:
>Of course, if they have time machines in the future they'll probably have a separate reference manual just for Cambridge. This has always been a fussy place, a town of i dotters and t crossers, where you're liable to get both your grammar and your ideas corrected in the same conversation. And that suggests another way to find taboos. Look for prigs, and see what's inside their heads.
"Ironically, Trotter had succeeded in tightening a censorship bill but failed to stop the movie. It was a victory for artistic freedom but not necessarily a defeat for civil liberties, since the conflict had nurtured a young NAACP, which gained strength in the ensuing battles for civil rights in the coming century. As for Griffith, in an interview he gave in 1941 when he was virtually forgotten in Hollywood, he remarked that “because of the social progress which Negroes achieved” given the oppression they faced, “it is best that The Birth of a Nation in its present form be withheld from public exhibition.’’"
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fight-to-ban-birth-of-a-na...
Censors aren't there to protect the public, they are there to make busy bodies feel good about themselves.