What Figure Skater Should Taylor Swift Date?

[4everchan]

Rubber pucks rule. But even a rubber puck can "rise and go among spectators to their discomfort."

that's why there are screens or netting.

 

[Mathman]

When I was a kid we played field hockey with croquet mallets and croquet balls. Fortunately no one was killed before our parents came out and confiscated our equipment.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Why is it still called figure skating in the Olympics?

At PyeongChang, the last Gala program opened with a beautiful circle (which reminded me how French Primary School teachers would pride in their perfect chalk circles on the black board :

Gotlib, René Goscinny, La rentrée des profs - Planche originale

Dingodossiers, tome 1 - La rentrée des profs - Les débuts de Gotlib - De l'ouvrage: Dingodossiers (Les) - Les dingodossiers

www.2dgalleries.com

Except that it was done in a really artistic way:

Thank you David Wilson!
But in fact I often see figures in the marks made by his blades.
Maybe there are other rather recent examples? I remember a video of Mao Asada maybe a year or two ago, doing a figure, more in the way compulsory figures used to be done.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Why not? They changed the name of synchronized swimming to artistic swimming.

And they changed the name of Artistic Gymnastics to Gymnastics.

Have you ever seen a pack of Russian Artistic Swimmers? They're highly, but very highly efficient, but artistic?


I do believe that an implicit aim of Figure Skating is artistic, but:
1) There's competitive figure skating, where the artistic aspect (furthermore, subjective) accounts for a very little part of the scoring, the rest (even in Components) being more technical, and professional figure skating, where the artistic part gets more important, and it's the same sports;
2) The adjective has a broad meaning, from entertainment aimed at fun, to the most ethereal piece of beauty; and that's a real asset of Figure Skating! This also means that even competitive programs ought to be conceived/ordered so as to become a coherent piece of show, mostly reflected in the COmposition component.

In real scoring, all tends to show that the artistic part is being dropped, rather violently, but in rules it's just starting, and some skaters do resist, and they're heroic.

 

[TallyT]

I understand that football can be Canadian rules or Australian rules in those countries, and therefore American football is used to distinguish the type of football, but it is still football.

No one in Australia calls anything football - it's footy.

And now I (a total footy unenthusiast who has never been to a game I wasn't dragged to by family ties) think on it, we have at least four different popular (or pretty popular) games that involve grown men or women running all over a muddy or bone-dead field chasing a round thing so it's a good thing they all have different names: soccer, Aussie Rules, rugby league, rugby union. Your brand is probably just "that funny American thing" on the odd occasion any footy lover comes across it. It's just too different from what they love here.

 

[TallyT]

I have a book somewhere (on English folklore and customs, great stuff) which describes the earliest village versions of something like football, in which the only rule was get it down to your opponent's end of the field by any means at all. They were one after another outlawed as the injuries and even fatalities got rather hard to ignore...

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

I am always right

Should I deduce from this answer that you're a woman? (French say : women are always right. Of course it would be the corollary in all stricture.)

 

[el henry]

No one in Australia calls anything football - it's footy.

And now I (a total footy unenthusiast who has never been to a game I wasn't dragged to by family ties) think on it, we have at least four different popular (or pretty popular) games that involve grown men or women running all over a muddy or bone-dead field chasing a round thing so it's a good thing they all have different names: soccer, Aussie Rules, rugby league, rugby union. Your brand is probably just "that funny American thing" on the odd occasion any footy lover comes across it. It's just too different from what they love here.

see, GS is great for linguistics.

I actually have heard (although I have no idea what the difference is) that rugby league and rugby union are different sports. Why? Because Jordan Mailata plays football for my beloved Philadelphia Eagles ("my" football). Jordan is Australian, Jordan never played a snap of football in his life before being drafted by the Birds, and five years later, he is one of the best tackles in the game. It helps that he is an enormous human, but also that he is smart, quick, and as far as I can tell unrelated to football, funny and down to earth.

Jordan played in one of the rugby leagues and was cut for being too big (he is not fat, he is 6'8" and 360 pounds of muscle.) Whenever an Eagles fan marvels at this, we are told about leagues and unions and we don't understand it. Much like everyone else doesn't understand football; we know how it feels.

His contract is worth $80 million US max, $40M base, probably $60M earned, which I understand makes him one of the most highly paid Australian athletes. He is not incredibly highly paid (although certainly not the lowest) for an NFL player.

That kind of money is why most football players aren't crying in their beer that the rest of the world doesn't know them or doesn't know their sport . Even if they're not American.

 

[Mathman]

... the only rule was get it down to your opponent's end of the field by any means at all.

I thought that was Australian Rules football.

My favorite woman's soccer team is the Matildas (formerly the Socceroos).

 

[TallyT]

I thought that was Australian Rules football.

Nonono, there are proper rules! It just looks like a complete scrimmage on the field

 

[skylark]

4. Except for people kindly supplying me with songs, I couldn't name a Taylor Swift tune to save my soul. If you played one for me, I could not say "That's Taylor Swift". But I know who she is. That alone means she is a big star, to dent my little world.

oh, El, you have missed something. !!! I hadn't really noticed Taylor Swift until, it must have been 2012, I happened to switch on The View, and I saw her sing her new song, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." She was wearing a red dress, red lipstick, and this fabulous attitude. I instantly knew that any girl or woman who'd ever been in an on-again-off-again relationship was laughing and cheering her. It was just her wonderful response to ... (see below). Shows how universal her experiences are that her audience relates to. here's a bit from wiki about how the song happened:

a friend of Swift's ex-boyfriend walked into the recording studio and spoke of rumors he heard that Swift and her former flame were reuniting. After the friend left, Martin and Shellback asked Swift to elaborate on the details of the relationship, which she described as "break up, get back together, break up, get back together, just, ugh, the worst". When Martin suggested that they write about the incident, Swift began playing the guitar and singing, "We are never ever......", and the song flowed rapidly afterwards. She described the process as one of the most humorous experiences she had while recording,

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Now let's get us back on topic here! LOL. I like the suggestion of Brandon Frazier. He has such a calm, gentle and happy demeanor!

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

oh, El, you have missed something. !!! I hadn't really noticed Taylor Swift until, it must have been 2012, I happened to switch on The View, and I saw her sing her new song, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." She was wearing a red dress, red lipstick, and this fabulous attitude. I instantly knew that any girl or woman who'd ever been in an on-again-off-again relationship was laughing and cheering her. It was just her wonderful response to ... (see below). Shows how universal her experiences are that her audience relates to. here's a bit from wiki about how the song happened:

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Now let's get us back on topic here! LOL. I like the suggestion of Brandon Frazier. He has such a calm, gentle and happy demeanor!

We know that he likes beautiful girls but is he free?

 

[el henry]

oh, El, you have missed something. !!! I hadn't really noticed Taylor Swift until, it must have been 2012, I happened to switch on The View, and I saw her sing her new song, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." She was wearing a red dress, red lipstick, and this fabulous attitude. I instantly knew that any girl or woman who'd ever been in an on-again-off-again relationship was laughing and cheering her. It was just her wonderful response to ... (see below). Shows how universal her experiences are that her audience relates to. here's a bit from wiki about how the song happened:

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Now let's get us back on topic here! LOL. I like the suggestion of Brandon Frazier. He has such a calm, gentle and happy demeanor!

Many have been kindly supplying me with songs. They are pleasant, but I must admit, I am not falling immediately in love. Which says *nothing* about Taylor or her music, but just about my particular taste.

Since I am such a fan of the Kelce's (Jason since forever, Travis since their adorably funny podcast), I have been educating myself. Taylor appears to be a very impressive businesswoman and I like the fact that such a positive fan community exists around her.

But no suggestions for figure skaters from me . Taylor and Travis are very much together, and Travis is funny, accomplished, good-looking, and at 6'5" and 250, beating back any figure skater who tries to sneak up on his gal

 

[skylark]

We know that he likes beautiful girls but is he free?

I have no idea! I was being a bit facetious in suggesting Brandon, just trying to get my post back "on topic."

 

[skylark]

Many have been kindly supplying me with songs. They are pleasant, but I must admit, I am not falling immediately in love. Which says *nothing* about Taylor or her music, but just about my particular taste.

I realized after writing my post that I really don't know anything about the rest of Taylor's songs. I wasn't even aware of "Lover" until Chelsea and Danny skated their fabulous SP to it.

But I too admire her acumen as a businesswoman. First, though, I admired her fiery attitude. The video with WANEGBT didn't really hold a candle to that The View performance, IMO. It happened just as she was releasing the record.

 

[skylark]

But woman's football (soccer) is actually an interesting study. In the 1970s it became official U.S. government policy to provide girls with equal opportunities as boys to participate in sports. Soccer became the go-to girls sport for school systems that wanted to be in compliance. A couple of sports generations later this movement produced wolrd championship teams.

Hooray for Title IX!

I get irritated when female politicians decry such federal laws. To say the least.

 

[skylark]

As for American football, it's big contribution is the forward pass. By the first decade of the twentieth century football as played in high schools and colleges in the United States had become increasingly violent,resul;ting in on-field deaths (18 in 1905), fractured skulls, gouged out eyes, etc. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, whose son was a footballer at Harvard, gave out an edict that football would be banned if they didn’t come up with a way to make the sport safer. The forward pass had been thrown a time or two by enterprising footballers, but it was disparaged as a sissy play in this manly man’s sport.

The forward pass was popularized by the legendary “Pop” Warner, coach of the Carlisle (Pa.) Indian Industrial School, which was part of the U.S. effort in those days to turn Indian boys into white men. Warner’s student-athletes tended to be smaller and faster than the boys on the Ivy League teams, so he relied on trick plays. He passed opponents silly, In 1907 the Carlisle Indians outscored their opponents 148-11 through their first six games, then squared off against the mighty powerhouse the University of Pennsylvania, unbeaten and unscored on.

Carlisle completed 8 of 16 passes, including one thrown by the soon-to-be Olympic track-and-field phenomenon Jim Thorpe, and won 26 to 6. (Our boy Travis Kelce is eternally thankful )

I really enjoyed this post, albeit a couple weeks late. A few years ago, I read a great book "The Real All Americans" by Sally Jenkins, about the Carlisle school and specifically about their early football teams.

 

[icewhite]

oh, El, you have missed something. !!! I hadn't really noticed Taylor Swift until, it must have been 2012, I happened to switch on The View, and I saw her sing her new song, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." She was wearing a red dress, red lipstick, and this fabulous attitude. I instantly knew that any girl or woman who'd ever been in an on-again-off-again relationship was laughing and cheering her. It was just her wonderful response to ... (see below). Shows how universal her experiences are that her audience relates to. here's a bit from wiki about how the song happened:

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Now let's get us back on topic here! LOL. I like the suggestion of Brandon Frazier. He has such a calm, gentle and happy demeanor!

I can't stand "never ever...", I also hated her when "trouble" was played here all the time, over and over, I found those songs so annoying. But my opinion has changed very much since she has written/made a lot of songs I really like, like Style, Delicate, Lover, The Man, Cardigan, Anti-Hero... I definitely like her "nastier" songs (like the man, or look what you made me do) and her folk/ballads better than the very up-beat stuff which tends to have very annoying choruses imo. (But apparently those choruses work, since these songs have become very successful). If she actually writes all these songs herself like she officially does, that's definitely impressive and shows great talent. I have to admit that, although I'm not a famous singer, I can also often relate to her lyrics - there are always some nuances and details in there, there always seems to be a personality with actual views and feelings in those songs, not just generic pop lines.

That was my Taylor Swift appreciation post, since nobody I personally know likes her songs!

 

[skylark]

I can't stand "never ever...", I also hated her when "trouble" was played here all the time, over and over, I found those songs so annoying. But my opinion has changed very much since she has written/made a lot of songs I really like, like Style, Delicate, Lover, The Man, Cardigan, Anti-Hero... I definitely like her "nastier" songs (like the man, or look what you made me do) and her folk/ballads better than the very up-beat stuff which tends to have very annoying choruses imo. (But apparently those choruses work, since these songs have become very successful). If she actually writes all these songs herself like she officially does, that's definitely impressive and shows great talent. I have to admit that, although I'm not a famous singer, I can also often relate to her lyrics - there are always some nuances and details in there, there always seems to be a personality with actual views and feelings in those songs, not just generic pop lines.

Exactly, well said. That's one of the things I admire about her, that she has the guts, courage, chutzpah to express what she's going through, and I think it helps her audience express and work through similar things. And you are spot on about the personality. that's her real talent, letting her views and feelings come through.

That was my Taylor Swift appreciation post, since nobody I personally know likes her songs!

 

[Mathman]

If she actually writes all these songs herself like she officially does, that's definitely impressive and shows great talent.

It's hard to be 100% certain when it comes to ghostwriters, studio writers, etc., but I think that Taylor Swift did write most of the songs that she is credited with, Her few covers and collaborations are openly acknowledged.

She was a songwriter before she was a singer. She signed a song-writing contract with SONY in 2004 (at age 14) and did not begin her performing career until two years later.

Give the people what they want. Exactly 300 years ago (1723) Sebastian Bach burst onto the music scene with the Magnificat, still performed today. Its virtue was that it was only a half hour long -- a godsend to churchgoiers of the day who had to suffer rthrough the musical offerings at masses for hour ofter hour..

The eighteenth century also gave us the all-time great Boyfriends-Are-No-Good song -- "Oh dear, what can the matter be, Johnny's so long at the fair." It has no modern peer or rival in the genre and speaks volumes to every young girl.

(Allthough Carly Simon's "You're So Vain You Prob'ly Think This Song Is about You" deserves honorable mention.)