more than your average bear

[lirazel]

I had to contribute a few "things I know more about than your average bear" for a thing, and unfortunately I am me, so my list kept expanding, so I thought I'd share them.

These are not things I do professionally, and they are not things I am an expert on (and I know that many people in my social circles know much more about many of them than I do), just things I have been interested in enough at some point in my life to know more about them than most people do.

ancient Egypt; Victorian literature; the Bible; 2nd generation kpop; 90s and 2000s scripted TV of a certain kind; 90s and 2000s online Western media fandom; 90s and 2000s evangelical culture; the Bloomsbury Group; golden age mystery novels; 20th century books about plucky teen and pre-teen girls; the oeuvres of George Cukor and Defunctland; the works of L.M. Montgomery and Ursula K. Le Guin; the Bronte sisters; the music of Vienna Teng, Paul Simon, Loreena McKennitt, and the Indigo Girls; film noir; screwball comedies; honestly just classic Hollywood in general; 2nd wave feminists in the southern US; the Sarah Marshall-Michael Hobbes extended podcast universe; classic Star Trek; movie musicals; the comedy of Chris Fleming; British panel game shows [probably only more than your average American; I assume your average Brit knows more than I do]; movie scores; Ecuadorian national politics; gothic fiction; the history and culture of fin de siècle Vienna; the Star Wars expanded universe novels; and 90s PBS kids shows

What are some things you know a lot about? Your list does not have to be as long as mine, but I would love to hear about anything at all! I would be delighted to start a meme!

Comments

[dolorosa_12]

Ah wow, this is amazing!

I could probably come up with a longer list, but my (rather grim) answer when people ask me this (in the UK it comes up a lot as 'what would you select as your special subject on Mastermind?') is 'UK immigration law, 2008-2017'. 2008 being the year I moved here, 2017 being the year my husband became a British citizen (I got my citizenship in 2016), and I could stop paying such close attention to the ever changing rules.

There was a period during which I knew the exact immigration status of most of my immigrant friends (i.e. who had student visas, who had five-year British ancestry visas due to a British grandparent, who had some kind of spouse or work visa, who had some form of EU citizenship), and how many years they had left on those visas, whether they had a viable path to citizenship (student visas don't count towards it), and how many years remaining every person had until they could apply for citizenship, and so on. It really was the case that whenever I met another immigrant, we'd almost immediately fall to talking about our visa status and ranting about how much we hated the Home Office.

[lirazel]

Yeah...I have a bit of an insight into this with the US system via my sister, and of course I discovered that just because I paid to get my master's degree in the UK didn't mean I got to stay and actually work in the UK, and just those tiny experiences are enough to make me frothing mad, so I can only imagine how much more intense it is for you to have had to deal with that (for both you and your husband!) and then get all those insights from friends! This is a knowledge I wish you did not have to have!


I realize this is a very niche opinion, but I don't think that nation states should be able to tell people where they can and cannot live.

[dolorosa_12]

It's a niche opinion, but it's one that I share. I basically believe in EU-style freedom of movement, but for everyone, of all nationalities. (I'm possibly slightly stricter than you in that I think there should be some exceptions, and a level of bureaucracy involved that keeps track of it all, but the bureaucracy would be just to keep a record of who is living where, not granting or forbidding permission to move to another country.)

I'm also pretty certain that if there was this kind of global freedom of movement, the inequalities that currently make some parts of the world more desirable than others would dissipate, and there would be far less incentive for countries to be autocratic or totalitarian, because people could just leave, and then they'd have no population to pay taxes or do all those other things that keep societies vaguely ticking along.

Both Ada Palmer and Malka Older have speculative fiction series in which citizenship is not bound by geography and is to a certain extent chosen freely by people (and this choice has an effect on what types of laws a person is bound by, and a reflection of the kind of person they feel themselves to be), and although there are lots of horrible things about the futures these authors imagine, this specific element always reads like paradise to me.

[lirazel]

basically believe in EU-style freedom of movement, but for everyone, of all nationalities.

Yessss!

I'm also pretty certain that if there was this kind of global freedom of movement, the inequalities that currently make some parts of the world more desirable than others would dissipate, and there would be far less incentive for countries to be autocratic or totalitarian, because people could just leave, and then they'd have no population to pay taxes or do all those other things that keep societies vaguely ticking along.

That is absolutely my theory as well. I hope one day (almost certainly not in our lifetime) humanity will have a chance to find out if we're right.

Both Ada Palmer and Malka Older have speculative fiction series in which citizenship is not bound by geography and is to a certain extent chosen freely by people (and this choice has an effect on what types of laws a person is bound by, and a reflection of the kind of person they feel themselves to be), and although there are lots of horrible things about the futures these authors imagine, this specific element always reads like paradise to me.

The idea of citizenship not bound by geography is SO compelling and it's wild to me that we don't see more speculation along those lines. I guess geography bounded us so completely for so long that only a few brave scifi writers can even imagine moving beyond it!

[chestnut_pod]

I am actually also interested in things that I know less about than the average bear. Salmon-fishing. Child-rearing. Compass-less forest navigation. The latest Bear Vault models and their opening mechanisms.

Professional expertise aside… Bloomsbury Group love affairs! Bear avoidance! The history of the mass market paperback format!

[lirazel]

I am actually also interested in things that I know less about than the average bear. Salmon-fishing. Child-rearing. Compass-less forest navigation. The latest Bear Vault models and their opening mechanisms.

I respect this deeply! I also love hearing about things that someone else knows a lot about that I know nothing about.

Bloomsbury Group love affairs! Bear avoidance! The history of the mass market paperback format!

I love this! And would gladly listen to yo utalk about mass market paperbacks for three h ours at a party!

[sdk]

Oh, this is so interesting! Indigo Girls! ♥ Movie musicals -- I used to watch a ton of these when I was a kid/pre-teen. I'd love to hear about your favorite movie scores!

I know pauraque would say I know more than the average bear about weird, niche, lesser-known movies from the late 70s and 80s. I would also list The Who's Tommy (probably more the Broadway musical, but also it is a special interest of mine, so I've devoured a lot of other knowledge around other iterations) and other early-to-mid 90s Broadway musicals. Star Trek: DS9. The original Star Wars trilogy. Super Junior (kpop group). Probably other things I can't think of right now. I also have a habit of knowing more than the average bear about weird things I get obsessed with for a day or two, but then promptly forget everything I've learned once I move on to the next weird thing, so it only lasts maybe 2 or 3 days, lol.

[lirazel]

Most of my favorite movie scores are older now because I haven't paid as much attention to them recently, but here's the first ones that come to mind:

+ Little Women (1994), Thomas Newman
+ most of John Williams (it's a cliche for a reason)
+ The Magnificent Seven, Elmer Bernstein
+ Silverado, Bruce Broughton
+ How the West Was Won, Alfred Newman (honestly, Westerns have some of the best scores ever)
+ The Piano, Michael Nyman
+ Emma and Chocolate, Rachel Portman
+ The Mission, Ennio Morricone
+ Pirates of the Caribbean, Klaus Badelt

I love your list! Thank you for sharing it!

I also have a habit of knowing more than the average bear about weird things I get obsessed with for a day or two, but then promptly forget everything I've learned once I move on to the next weird thing, so it only lasts maybe 2 or 3 days, lol.

Haha, same!

[forestofglory]

I started making a list but sometimes it's hard to decide what counts as a "thing"

Chinese history, Classical Chinese, the history of feminist SFF, environmental history, how the Hugo Awards work, textiles, how to sew, tea, metalworking, ecology, board games, urban planning, agriculture and food systems, salmon, identifying insects, sewage treatment, ceramics

Some of these things I have actual degrees in so I'm not sure its quite what you are after but its what comes to mind

[lirazel]

I love your list so much! All those counts as things to me!

[pauraque]

Probably lots of things that I don't even think of as notable because of the people I happen to be around. It really depends on how you're defining average!

But I will sidestep my tendency to overthink questions and just answer: linguistics, birds, Le Guin, Star Trek, Egyptian mythology, video games from the '80s and '90s, Romantic and Impressionist music (apologies to the Impressionists who didn't like to be called Impressionists, which was like all of them), gender transition and nonconformity, strategies for every boss from World of Warcraft except the ones that came out when I was taking a break from the game, fandom history, early childhood education, paper (like, all the different kinds of paper that exist, this used to be my job), greeting cards (also used to be my job), and other things I'm sure.

[lirazel]

Probably lots of things that I don't even think of as notable because of the people I happen to be around.

This is a good point!

I love your list! Thank you so much for sharing with me! Some of the things I knew you knew a lot about but others I was not aware.

paper (like, all the different kinds of paper that exist, this used to be my job),
For some reason, this is delightful to me.