And I was put in the seat instantly, of course. I said, “your honor, I can’t be a juror on a two week trial, I have opera rehearsal.” And she said, “opera huh, well, sing something for us.”
And I did. In a federal court of law, in front of the judge, 75 jurors, the lawyers and the fucking DEFENDANT, I sang o mio babbino caro.
YO I DIDNT EMBARRASS MYSELF IN FEDERAL COURT SO YALL CAN DOUBT ME.
I know a lot of opera singers, and singing a full-on aria in a court room with only a hint of provocation is EXACTLY what they would do.
I know a lot of judges, and demanding an impromptu opera solo on a whim is also something they would do.
(And also one of the main reasons you can be excused from jury duty is economic hardship–basically, it would cause you unreasonable financial damage. If you’re a professional singer, a two week gap in your rehearsal schedule could do that for sure.)
As a muso, I absolutely believe this. I’ve got my accordion out of my carry-on and played a tune when airport security couldn’t recognise its weird mass of levers. Singers and musicians are just Like That.
Accurate.
My friend got stopped at the Canadian border coming back into the US. Border patrol took one look at his tattoed, ear-gagued, mutton chop wearing, hipster self, and said “I don’t believe you’re an opera singer. Sing something for me.”
His wife immediately put down her knitting and plugged her ears, because Matt’s a contrabasso, and he does NOT sing quietly.
Every other booth along the border stop had a head poking out of it within twenty seconds. And they let them pass without further contest.
The unwillingness of some people to believe that literally anything remotely interesting happens in other people’s lives is truly astounding.
Can we all please just take a moment to appreciate that OP’s url is literally @melodramaticsoprano and yet she still was doubted?
i was in the grocery store and saw an onion on the ground and picked it up, absently saying “poor little guy.” behind me a teenage girl started laughing and then stopped and went “aww. i’m sorry for laughing. that’s nice actually.” and the cycle of cruelty is broken for another generation as a young person realizes that it is not embarrassing to have empathy for another thing that was once living, because certainly to be a lone white onion rolling on the ground in a supermarket would be terrifying to anyone
Once again, Tumblr manages to succeed via just being honest with their users.
I made a post back around April fool’s about the crabs being so popular because the joke was that every other website tries to trick you into clicking things so they can make money from your clicks and what if instead a website just asked “please click this revenue generating crab. It is there to generate revenue. In return you will have clicked on a crab. Nothing more.” And the answer to that question was “people will frantically click on that crab. They don’t hate the idea of the website getting money, they hate the idea of being profited on against their will”.
So Tumblr implemented actual revenue crabs. “For this much money you can fill your or someone else’s dash with virtual crabs. This will have the effect of there being crabs on their screen.”
And people will buy those crabs. Because yes you’re spending money on something stupid and useless but it’s being sold to you as “hey you want something stupid and useless?”, which is a nice change of pace from every other site trying to make itself out to be something more than what it is.
Twitter is floundering with the checkmark system because it’s being sold as “confirm that you are someone important and who you say you are is true”, which it isn’t at all right now because anyone can buy one. You’re buying a useless checkmark that only says that YOU think you’re important. Or, more often than not right now, you are intending to trick other people into thinking you’re someone you’re not.
Meanwhile, Tumblr just said “Consider this double check mark. It does nothing. You will be marking yourself as someone who paid money for a meaningless checkmark and sometimes it will randomly turn into a bunch of crabs, making the site harder to use”. And the userbase is like “Well sure, that sounds delightful.”
The point is, despite what all the marketing and advertising people have tried to say, painting trash gold and trying to pass it off as something better is almost never as effective as just saying “hey you want this trash?”