Absolute loon and complete legend. Most of his work is somewhat gruelling…
Antares42says
I believe the correct term is “harrowing”, and I say that as a German.
thomasmorrissays
I love Herzog a great deal – he has made a lot of great movies in the last 45 years – but I’ve gotta agree that the Samuel Jackson version is better.
Most of his work is somewhat gruelling…
I’ve gotta disagree with you there. I’ve probably watched about a dozen of his fiction films and another dozen of his documentaries, and I’ve enjoyed almost all of them to varying degrees. His films can definitely be intense (and weird,) but I’ve never been bored by them. In both his fiction and documentary work, he has an incredible knack for finding the most fascinating subjects and stories.
Rescue Dawn and Signs of Life were probably my two least favorites among his films, but even they had quite a bit to recommend them, in my opinion. Aguirre, Stroszek, Kaspar Hauser, Lessons of Darkness, Grizzly Man, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams would all rank pretty highly if I were to ever to make a list of my all-time favorite films.
petermountainsays
1:47 sounds like he took a bong hit.
SidBBsays
Sorry if this has been brought up elsewhere already, but it looks like the Pharyngula RSS feed isn’t being updated. The latest item in the feed is Chris Clarke’s “I hate the word moron as an insult” post which is more than 24 hours old.
azpaul3says
Got any children you really hate? Then you need to have Werner Herzog read them a bedtime story.
I realize this is supposed to be humor but doesn’t anyone feel “hating” innocent children, even in jest, a bit disturbing? That there are better topics than to give air to such feelings?
Not the best form for an enlightened blog.
01jacksays
I, too, have a problem with the “hate children” bit – appearing in the title it gives a distateful air to the whole post.
alektorophilesays
I just managed to get my toddler to sleep 10 minutes ago. I can soooo identify with the sentiment expressed in this book. And with Tim Minchin’s Lullaby lyrics, already mentioned by others, which I highly recommend.
Werner Herzog reading it is great, but somehow I think a Tom Waits version would be even more interesting…
Ben Psays
I realize this is supposed to be humor but doesn’t anyone feel “hating” innocent children, even in jest, a bit disturbing? That there are better topics than to give air to such feelings?
I realize this is supposed to be humor but doesn’t anyone feel “hating” innocent children, even in jest, a bit disturbing?
Yes.
But where did the “innocent” come from?
strange gods before me ॐsays
Not the best form for an enlightened blog.
it gives a distateful air to the whole post.
I lol’d.
jackiepapersays
#12 OooOOoo…Tom Waits would be cool.
strange gods before me ॐsays
Tbh I was expecting a different post, though. Something like “send them to this [horrible fundie school or degaying camp].”
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
Got any children you really hate?
wait
you mean I have to narrow it down so some?
yazikussays
@7 thomasmorris, I couldn’t agree more. I loved Grizzly Man, and Fitzcarraldo was not one you mentioned but one I enjoyed very much as well.
neutrinosarecoolsays
Sure this might be terrifying for adults, but I think any child’s response to this would be:
“Ha ha ha ha he said fuck! Can I say fuck? Why can’t I say fuck?”
At least, that’s how I dimly remember my childhood.
Steven Brown: Man of Mediocritysays
I see no reason you can’t a hate a particular child. Children are people too and if a particular individual gives you reason to hate then so be it.
But as far as the title goes… I interpreted it as “You’d have to hate a child to inflict this on them.”
neutrinosarecoolsays
The best reason to hate children is that they remind you of your own mortality, which is looming up, coming to meet you, implacable, and not all your prayers and hopes will stop that final appointment with the Grim Reaper, and yes, your mortal coil will be shuffled off and the worms in the grave will feast on your eyeballs – and children laugh about it, so yes, hate them!
Werner Herzog!
Here is his take on Unspoiled Nature: “It’s a land that God, if he exists, has created in anger. . . It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder – and we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle . . . and we, in comparison, we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban novel, a cheap novel.”
Get ’em, Werner! Or, as a child would say, “All you pathetic bastards are gonna die, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so submit to your fate, ha ha ha, look, I’m young and have years ahead of me that you don’t, good cause to hate me, right?”
scenariosays
I wonder if any of the people complaining are parents. I remember putting my kids to bed when they were 2 years old. Most of the time it was fun. Every once in a while it was a battle. My son or daughter seemed determined to stay up all night. I knew if they stayed up past about 9pm they were going to be totally awful to deal with the next day. Crying at any excuse, getting angry for no reason, etc. While I was very patiently reading the fourth bedtime story, inside my head I’m screaming, Get The Fuck To Bed And Go To Sleep.
I hear this video as the voice inside every parents head when they are on the verge of losing it and trying desperately not to yell at they child they love dearly.
I certainly can sympathize. For those of you that are horrified, I’d say either you were damn lucky or not a parent.
My first child would generally go to sleep readily (now it’s trying to wake him up for school that’s sometimes a bit of a battle). But my second boy didn’t sleep through the night until about 1.5… And yes being sleep deprived and my wife being sleep deprived and both of us needing to get up 1-3 hours later to go to work… I can totally relate to “Go to the FUCK to sleep”…
Skeptical Jackalsays
azpaul3:
I realize this is supposed to be humor but doesn’t anyone feel “hating” innocent children, even in jest, a bit disturbing?
Why? Are we supposedly obligated to love every children? I detest children in general, yes. Do you have a problem with someone despising children?
bad Jimsays
The funny thing about the Samuel L. Jackson version was that he did another one during the presidential campaign titled “Wake the Fuck Up!”
A variation on the standard airline safety instructions ran something like “If you are traveling with a child, put your own oxygen mask on first. If you have two children, decide now which one you love more.”
HappyNatsays
I have kids and sometimes I hate them, especially when they won’t go the fuck to sleep. Don’t get me started on other people’s kids.
coragypssays
One of my lullabies when a couple of my kids were quite small went:
“Hush little baby don’t you cry
Daddy’s going to buy you a tsetse fly
If that tsetse fly won’t bite
We’ll be rocking here all damn night.”
Crooned very sweetly, with the “go to fucking sleep” undertone suppressed, y’know.
Yep: dedicated to every sleep-deprived, or really hoping for a quiet evening cuddling with the spouse you dimly recall making love with (which ironically is how you got into this situation in the first place) but with whom you now barely ever have a conversation that doesn’t concern the latest childhood illness or misadventure, parent.
Koshkasays
There is a song that roughly goes;
What do you do with a baby
That won’t go to sleep
Wrap her up in calico
And give her to her daddy.
I would change the last 2 lines to
Put her in a hessian sack
And throw her in the river.
It helped me deal with lack of sleep.
musical beefsays
@Skeptical Jackal #25:
I don’t think there’s a problem with the post’s title, but “I detest children in general, yes. Do you have a problem with someone despising children”? I’m pretty sure the terms for irrationally hating an entire category of people simply for being in that category are “prejudice” and “bigotry.” Try replacing “children” in your comment with “immigrants” or “gays” or etc.
Lindwurmsays
I detest children in general, yes. Do you have a problem with someone despising children?
I don’t know about azpaul3, but I certainly do. How is saying that you despise children different than saying you despise groups of people based on other biological characteristics such as race, sex, sexuality, etc? Certainly, young children can be obnoxious and nerve-fraying to deal with…but deserving of hate? Hatred is a powerful emotion with potentially terrible consequences for the target of said hatred.
The rational adult also realizes that young children are not entirely at fault for their sometimes poor behavior. Their brains are still developing and learning the appropriate ways to interact with others and the world around them. Especially pathological antisocial behavior can usually be blamed on poor parenting. The only other alternative is that the child’s behavior is the result of a neurological disorder, in which case they surely can’t be held responsible.
So yeah, I do have a problem with saying you despise children in general, and I’m curious as to how you justify such a sentiment.
Anyone who thinks children are ‘innocent’, doesn’t know any.
bad Jimsays
W.C. Fields – “There’s no such thing as a tough child – if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.”
Thylacinesays
Babies are lovely too, but I couldn’t eat a whole one on my own
bad Jimsays
Chigau, I respectfully disagree. Children really are pretty innocent, in their savage way. Innocence can’t be considered a virtue, though, as John Milton pointed out in “Areopagitica” and Mark Twain in “The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg”: it’s just inexperience. Purity is an even more ridiculous idea to apply to an actual animal.
Apologies for the inappropriate seriousness. Two old chestnuts:
“Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.”
An elderly couple meets with their lawyer to arrange a divorce. Finding them resolutely irreconcilable, he asks why they waited so long if they hated each other so much. They answered, “We wanted to wait until the children were dead.”
texasaggiesays
Anyone who doesn’t identify with that video doesn’t have a kid whose internal clock shuts off at two in the morning and starts ten hours later.
=8)-DXsays
I agree with this sentiment entirely. It is my regular nightly monologue when putting my daughter to sleep. Essentially the tactic is to 1) ensure the child has its needs met (fed, emptied, washed, comfortable) and 2) bore it to sleep through various repetitive methods. One of these methods involves providing the same boring answers to the child’s contention of 1).
It’s a patience game.
tombloomsays
scottleschsays
Not to be confused with the wonderful The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats , read your child Snow Day! by Lester L. Laminack, in a menacing TV news voice. Then lights out so they can’t see the scary clowns.
unclefrogysays
yes he was using “that “word but he kept reading and did not start screaming and yelling. You could hear the struggle to stay in control it was a very funny reading. Little kids have two states only they are either on 100% or off and asleep very little in between. Parents small children on the other hand have also 2 states tired or tired and frustrated.
uncle frogy
scenariosays
I take the title as that you hate the kids at that moment. You haven’t slept more than 3 or 4 hours a night in a week, never more than two hours in a row and your kids woke you up for the third time that night, yeah can see it. Get a good nights sleep and you love them again.
I liked the Samuel Jackson version better.
It was less terrifying.
Truly weird, but he does have a track record http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Herzog as a movie maker and as an ‘avowed atheist’.
The Grim’s Fairy Tales in German are horrible, so maybe that is the source.
Reminds me of Tim Minchin’s Lullaby. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESFANzZTdYM
I prefer Werner Herzog reading Where’s Waldo?
And to wash out the brain, here’s a cute little bedtime story.
Absolute loon and complete legend. Most of his work is somewhat gruelling…
I believe the correct term is “harrowing”, and I say that as a German.
I love Herzog a great deal – he has made a lot of great movies in the last 45 years – but I’ve gotta agree that the Samuel Jackson version is better.
I’ve gotta disagree with you there. I’ve probably watched about a dozen of his fiction films and another dozen of his documentaries, and I’ve enjoyed almost all of them to varying degrees. His films can definitely be intense (and weird,) but I’ve never been bored by them. In both his fiction and documentary work, he has an incredible knack for finding the most fascinating subjects and stories.
Rescue Dawn and Signs of Life were probably my two least favorites among his films, but even they had quite a bit to recommend them, in my opinion. Aguirre, Stroszek, Kaspar Hauser, Lessons of Darkness, Grizzly Man, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams would all rank pretty highly if I were to ever to make a list of my all-time favorite films.
1:47 sounds like he took a bong hit.
Sorry if this has been brought up elsewhere already, but it looks like the Pharyngula RSS feed isn’t being updated. The latest item in the feed is Chris Clarke’s “I hate the word moron as an insult” post which is more than 24 hours old.
I realize this is supposed to be humor but doesn’t anyone feel “hating” innocent children, even in jest, a bit disturbing? That there are better topics than to give air to such feelings?
Not the best form for an enlightened blog.
I, too, have a problem with the “hate children” bit – appearing in the title it gives a distateful air to the whole post.
I just managed to get my toddler to sleep 10 minutes ago. I can soooo identify with the sentiment expressed in this book. And with Tim Minchin’s Lullaby lyrics, already mentioned by others, which I highly recommend.
Werner Herzog reading it is great, but somehow I think a Tom Waits version would be even more interesting…
Get over yourself.
Yes.
But where did the “innocent” come from?
I lol’d.
#12 OooOOoo…Tom Waits would be cool.
Tbh I was expecting a different post, though. Something like “send them to this [horrible fundie school or degaying camp].”
wait
you mean I have to narrow it down so some?
@7 thomasmorris, I couldn’t agree more. I loved Grizzly Man, and Fitzcarraldo was not one you mentioned but one I enjoyed very much as well.
Sure this might be terrifying for adults, but I think any child’s response to this would be:
“Ha ha ha ha he said fuck! Can I say fuck? Why can’t I say fuck?”
At least, that’s how I dimly remember my childhood.
I see no reason you can’t a hate a particular child. Children are people too and if a particular individual gives you reason to hate then so be it.
But as far as the title goes… I interpreted it as “You’d have to hate a child to inflict this on them.”
The best reason to hate children is that they remind you of your own mortality, which is looming up, coming to meet you, implacable, and not all your prayers and hopes will stop that final appointment with the Grim Reaper, and yes, your mortal coil will be shuffled off and the worms in the grave will feast on your eyeballs – and children laugh about it, so yes, hate them!
Werner Herzog!
Here is his take on Unspoiled Nature: “It’s a land that God, if he exists, has created in anger. . . It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder – and we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle . . . and we, in comparison, we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban novel, a cheap novel.”
Get ’em, Werner! Or, as a child would say, “All you pathetic bastards are gonna die, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so submit to your fate, ha ha ha, look, I’m young and have years ahead of me that you don’t, good cause to hate me, right?”
I wonder if any of the people complaining are parents. I remember putting my kids to bed when they were 2 years old. Most of the time it was fun. Every once in a while it was a battle. My son or daughter seemed determined to stay up all night. I knew if they stayed up past about 9pm they were going to be totally awful to deal with the next day. Crying at any excuse, getting angry for no reason, etc. While I was very patiently reading the fourth bedtime story, inside my head I’m screaming, Get The Fuck To Bed And Go To Sleep.
I hear this video as the voice inside every parents head when they are on the verge of losing it and trying desperately not to yell at they child they love dearly.
I certainly can sympathize. For those of you that are horrified, I’d say either you were damn lucky or not a parent.
My first child would generally go to sleep readily (now it’s trying to wake him up for school that’s sometimes a bit of a battle). But my second boy didn’t sleep through the night until about 1.5… And yes being sleep deprived and my wife being sleep deprived and both of us needing to get up 1-3 hours later to go to work… I can totally relate to “Go to the FUCK to sleep”…
Why? Are we supposedly obligated to love every children? I detest children in general, yes. Do you have a problem with someone despising children?
The funny thing about the Samuel L. Jackson version was that he did another one during the presidential campaign titled “Wake the Fuck Up!”
A variation on the standard airline safety instructions ran something like “If you are traveling with a child, put your own oxygen mask on first. If you have two children, decide now which one you love more.”
I have kids and sometimes I hate them, especially when they won’t go the fuck to sleep. Don’t get me started on other people’s kids.
One of my lullabies when a couple of my kids were quite small went:
“Hush little baby don’t you cry
Daddy’s going to buy you a tsetse fly
If that tsetse fly won’t bite
We’ll be rocking here all damn night.”
Crooned very sweetly, with the “go to fucking sleep” undertone suppressed, y’know.
Yep: dedicated to every sleep-deprived, or really hoping for a quiet evening cuddling with the spouse you dimly recall making love with (which ironically is how you got into this situation in the first place) but with whom you now barely ever have a conversation that doesn’t concern the latest childhood illness or misadventure, parent.
There is a song that roughly goes;
What do you do with a baby
That won’t go to sleep
Wrap her up in calico
And give her to her daddy.
I would change the last 2 lines to
Put her in a hessian sack
And throw her in the river.
It helped me deal with lack of sleep.
@Skeptical Jackal #25:
I don’t think there’s a problem with the post’s title, but “I detest children in general, yes. Do you have a problem with someone despising children”? I’m pretty sure the terms for irrationally hating an entire category of people simply for being in that category are “prejudice” and “bigotry.” Try replacing “children” in your comment with “immigrants” or “gays” or etc.
I don’t know about azpaul3, but I certainly do. How is saying that you despise children different than saying you despise groups of people based on other biological characteristics such as race, sex, sexuality, etc? Certainly, young children can be obnoxious and nerve-fraying to deal with…but deserving of hate? Hatred is a powerful emotion with potentially terrible consequences for the target of said hatred.
The rational adult also realizes that young children are not entirely at fault for their sometimes poor behavior. Their brains are still developing and learning the appropriate ways to interact with others and the world around them. Especially pathological antisocial behavior can usually be blamed on poor parenting. The only other alternative is that the child’s behavior is the result of a neurological disorder, in which case they surely can’t be held responsible.
So yeah, I do have a problem with saying you despise children in general, and I’m curious as to how you justify such a sentiment.
Your CONCERN is noted.
Tom Waits saying goodnight
Anyone who thinks children are ‘innocent’, doesn’t know any.
W.C. Fields – “There’s no such thing as a tough child – if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.”
Babies are lovely too, but I couldn’t eat a whole one on my own
Chigau, I respectfully disagree. Children really are pretty innocent, in their savage way. Innocence can’t be considered a virtue, though, as John Milton pointed out in “Areopagitica” and Mark Twain in “The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg”: it’s just inexperience. Purity is an even more ridiculous idea to apply to an actual animal.
Apologies for the inappropriate seriousness. Two old chestnuts:
“Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.”
An elderly couple meets with their lawyer to arrange a divorce. Finding them resolutely irreconcilable, he asks why they waited so long if they hated each other so much. They answered, “We wanted to wait until the children were dead.”
Anyone who doesn’t identify with that video doesn’t have a kid whose internal clock shuts off at two in the morning and starts ten hours later.
I agree with this sentiment entirely. It is my regular nightly monologue when putting my daughter to sleep. Essentially the tactic is to 1) ensure the child has its needs met (fed, emptied, washed, comfortable) and 2) bore it to sleep through various repetitive methods. One of these methods involves providing the same boring answers to the child’s contention of 1).
It’s a patience game.
Not to be confused with the wonderful The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats , read your child Snow Day! by Lester L. Laminack, in a menacing TV news voice. Then lights out so they can’t see the scary clowns.
yes he was using “that “word but he kept reading and did not start screaming and yelling. You could hear the struggle to stay in control it was a very funny reading. Little kids have two states only they are either on 100% or off and asleep very little in between. Parents small children on the other hand have also 2 states tired or tired and frustrated.
uncle frogy
I take the title as that you hate the kids at that moment. You haven’t slept more than 3 or 4 hours a night in a week, never more than two hours in a row and your kids woke you up for the third time that night, yeah can see it. Get a good nights sleep and you love them again.