al-in-chgo's definitions
by al-in-chgo August 17, 2012
Get the double dongingmug. A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax . . . sometimes a very funny turn of phrase.
So what's a "paraprosdokian"?
"Like this: I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness."
"I don't get it"-
"Okay, how about: Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."
"You mean, something like: I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car."
"Phrasemaker!"
"Like this: I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness."
"I don't get it"-
"Okay, how about: Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."
"You mean, something like: I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car."
"Phrasemaker!"
by al-in-chgo September 18, 2010
Get the paraprosdokianmug. A fusion of AMAzon + armaGEDDON; specifically, October 13, 2017, the day the giant retailer shut down all its customer chat boards.
by al-in-chgo August 12, 2018
Get the Amageddonmug. Feeling mixed emotions, conflicted. Often implies an inability to feel and express primary emotions (love, fear, anger) without dissonant conflicts brought in from earlier issues or experiences.
.
.
Recent TV ad:
"I just got a text from my BFF Becky. She said she just kissed Johnny. That's a problem, because I like Johnny, and Becky's not even hot. Now I'm emotionally compromised (smashes pink SUV into completely innocent person's car in mall parking lot)."
.
"I just got a text from my BFF Becky. She said she just kissed Johnny. That's a problem, because I like Johnny, and Becky's not even hot. Now I'm emotionally compromised (smashes pink SUV into completely innocent person's car in mall parking lot)."
.
by al-in-chgo August 23, 2010
Get the emotionally compromisedmug. "Standing and Modeling" in one of Chicago's gay bars at a time that a less-than-convivial mood prevails.
If you mean "sadomasochism," just say "SM."
If you mean "sadomasochism," just say "SM."
by al-in-chgo January 25, 2013
Get the S and Mmug. (Sometimes called TV Parking.) Not parking for the movies, but the kind of ridiculously easy parking a character in a movie gets when s/he pulls right up to his/her destination, zeroing in on a miraculously wide-open parking spot in what otherwise is an impossibly tight urban area.
During the 1950s and 1960s, in movies and on television, Doris Day got such a rep for manifesting that lucky talent that a spin-off term was coined; see "Doris Day Parking." Generally Ms. Day's roles had her piloting sensible domestic sedans and station wagons, a visual metaphor for her competence, efficiency, self-reliance and ability to live without a man. By way of contrast, the neurotic characters Tony Randall portrayed often struggled with temperamental British roadsters, and Rock Hudson played dissolute types who poured themselves into a taxi -- hungover, drunk, in a hurry, or all three.
Times did change -- a little. On "The Doris Day Show," CBS-TV's' late 1960s career-girl sitcom and vehicle (no pun intended) for Ms. Day, her character drove a 1969 Dodge Charger. A red convertible Charger, on a legal secretary's salary. Modernity notwithstanding, Doris never seemed to have much trouble finding instant parking. In San Francisco. Business-district and high-rise parts of San Francisco. In all fairness, though, the opening credits included a very brief shot of her on the California Avenue cable car.
.
During the 1950s and 1960s, in movies and on television, Doris Day got such a rep for manifesting that lucky talent that a spin-off term was coined; see "Doris Day Parking." Generally Ms. Day's roles had her piloting sensible domestic sedans and station wagons, a visual metaphor for her competence, efficiency, self-reliance and ability to live without a man. By way of contrast, the neurotic characters Tony Randall portrayed often struggled with temperamental British roadsters, and Rock Hudson played dissolute types who poured themselves into a taxi -- hungover, drunk, in a hurry, or all three.
Times did change -- a little. On "The Doris Day Show," CBS-TV's' late 1960s career-girl sitcom and vehicle (no pun intended) for Ms. Day, her character drove a 1969 Dodge Charger. A red convertible Charger, on a legal secretary's salary. Modernity notwithstanding, Doris never seemed to have much trouble finding instant parking. In San Francisco. Business-district and high-rise parts of San Francisco. In all fairness, though, the opening credits included a very brief shot of her on the California Avenue cable car.
.
.
In 1985 writer-director-male lead Albert Brooks, playing opposite Julie Hagerty in the film comedy LOST IN AMERICA, saw a movie convention ripe for satire. The lead couple, having had all kinds of bad luck in the Heartland, moves to New York City to find new careers. As the soundtrack blares Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York," their car, shown in exteme high shot, dives (no backing) right into a perfectly sized parking space dead center in front of a white high-rise office building in Midtown Manhattan. This knowing send-up of, and homage to the Movie Parking convention (which fit the plot perfectly) never fails to draw howls from the audience.
"Man, we were so lucky. TV parking in front of the building; the FedEx van had just pulled away."
"You want to see Movie Parking at its finest? Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO from 1957. Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara bel Geddes, all drove right up to Jimmy's apartment building, and it seemed to be the same spot perpetually open and waiting for them. Diagonal parking stalls, no less, or as you Midwesterners like to call it, angle parking."
In 1985 writer-director-male lead Albert Brooks, playing opposite Julie Hagerty in the film comedy LOST IN AMERICA, saw a movie convention ripe for satire. The lead couple, having had all kinds of bad luck in the Heartland, moves to New York City to find new careers. As the soundtrack blares Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York," their car, shown in exteme high shot, dives (no backing) right into a perfectly sized parking space dead center in front of a white high-rise office building in Midtown Manhattan. This knowing send-up of, and homage to the Movie Parking convention (which fit the plot perfectly) never fails to draw howls from the audience.
"Man, we were so lucky. TV parking in front of the building; the FedEx van had just pulled away."
"You want to see Movie Parking at its finest? Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO from 1957. Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara bel Geddes, all drove right up to Jimmy's apartment building, and it seemed to be the same spot perpetually open and waiting for them. Diagonal parking stalls, no less, or as you Midwesterners like to call it, angle parking."
by al-in-chgo February 25, 2010
Get the Movie Parkingmug. Judgment City is that part of town where all the buildings are of medium height, usually located near expressways, and built between the early Sixties and the mid-Eighties. Its style is some variation on International Style as exemplified by the almost inevitable flat roofs with HVAC equipment forming a "sore thumb" addendum to the roof lines. Judgment City gets its name from the sterile corporate complex that is the setting for most of the plot of Albert Brooks' satiric comedy DEFENDING YOUR LIFE.
Beige is the predominant theme of Judgment City -- beige for the cast-concrete slabs that form some buildings, most bridges, and practically all covered parking structures attached to those buildings that no longer are surrounded by enormous asphalt parking lots. Beige also shows up in more overtly pseudo-sophisticated building techniques like pebbled walls (usually more concrete but with a deliberate random design), or the vertical walls with pretend fluting that are made of a whiter shade of concrete.
Judgment City areas generally push retail and housing to its edges because in these neo-downtowns, rents are too expensive to support low-rise concerns.
If, however, you come across a newer area that is not flat-roofed and beige, but equally corporate with such building features as monopitch or steepled roofs, ziggurat-edged walls and exposed structural elements like gray PPG plate glass or red girders, you've gone beyond Modern into Post-Modern: Legoland. (See "Legoland".)
Beige is the predominant theme of Judgment City -- beige for the cast-concrete slabs that form some buildings, most bridges, and practically all covered parking structures attached to those buildings that no longer are surrounded by enormous asphalt parking lots. Beige also shows up in more overtly pseudo-sophisticated building techniques like pebbled walls (usually more concrete but with a deliberate random design), or the vertical walls with pretend fluting that are made of a whiter shade of concrete.
Judgment City areas generally push retail and housing to its edges because in these neo-downtowns, rents are too expensive to support low-rise concerns.
If, however, you come across a newer area that is not flat-roofed and beige, but equally corporate with such building features as monopitch or steepled roofs, ziggurat-edged walls and exposed structural elements like gray PPG plate glass or red girders, you've gone beyond Modern into Post-Modern: Legoland. (See "Legoland".)
-- Recall that in Albert Brooks' movie DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, the newer retail outlets in Judgment City, like nail salons or frozen-yogurt shops, were going up on the edge of town.
.
.
by al-in-chgo June 19, 2011
Get the Judgment Citymug.