Yeah, I peeked into the TWoP AI recap. Glutton for punishment, me.

[apocalypsos]

I have an issue with Lady Antebellum in which their name is really offensive. They seem like nice people, and I've been told I wouldn't hate their music, but: Lady Antebellum? Are you kidding me?

... fuck, did Jacob and I just sort of agree on something? Yuck.

Seriously, though, the first time I heard that band's name, I made the face in my icon. And now every time I hear that song -- which I do kind of like -- on the radio, I change the station.

I ... really don't get country music. Or country musicians, anyway.

*

I think I may need a bit of a pep talk.

I decided to go straight to bed instead of writing last night, which probably sounds like a bad idea, but I think I was tired enough to warrant it. That leaves me with two hours to work with this morning -- although admittedly I still haven't taken a shower or eaten breakfast -- and then from the moment I walk in the door tonight at eight. I'm going to try to pull an all-nighter tonight, but we'll see how it goes.

Really, at this point, I only need another seven thousand words. If I can crack 14k by the time I get home from work tonight between this morning and what I can get done on breaks at work, that'll leave me with six thousand words to write in twenty-eight hours. That's something like 215 words an hour. I can TOTALLY do that. (Although I don't plan on it ... I'm hoping to be done by tomorrow night, if not late afternoon.)

But, yes, a pep talk. Or maybe I'll just watch this over and over again:

Comments

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

so you'll have to excuse an Australian's ignorance - but what is the issue with the name Lady Antebellum? I really only know the term antebellum from "antebellum architecture" - is it because of the connection of the period with slavery?

[eleigh.livejournal.com]

I'm American and I'm still not sure why Lady Antebellum is offensive. Antebellum means pre-war. In America it is primarily used to refer to the period prior to the Civil War but it doesn't just have to do with slavery.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not blatantly offensive or anything. But personally it just makes me kinda uncomfortable. You don't really hear a lot of people up north referencing the time as "antebellum", so the band name sort of comes off as romanticizing some white woman in a dress on a veranda sipping a mint julep while slaves work the cotton fields. The definition itself isn't bad at all, but the connotation is ... a little icky.

[smallcaps.livejournal.com]

I have just under 24 hours left. GIANT PEP TALK MONTAGE FTW. I WON'T LET YOU DOWN, JEAN-LUC PICARD.

[supesfan88.livejournal.com]

Ok, I have to admit I like oldschool country (Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Johnny Paycheck, Jerry Reid, Don Williams). I don't particularly like the new stuff -- too pop-py.

Anyway! I looked up the definition of Antebellum (-->poor ol' young Canuck<--) and I don't know if I got the right message from it here but their name...it kind of means Lady "Pro-slavery", doesn't it?

[wrenlet.livejournal.com]

Lady "Wasn't This Culture Built on Human Suffering So Cool? We Had Nice Houses and Pretty Dresses and the Slaves Were Happier That Way, Really," basically.

[tiptoe39.livejournal.com]

That vid is awesomesauce. <3

[elorie.livejournal.com]

To me it has more of a Faulknerian, ironic ring to it. In any case, compared to shit like the middle-class housing development in Loganville, GA called "Tara Estates," which I find horrifying on several levels, "Lady Antebellum" seems relatively benign.

[sophie-448.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't feel a huge need to jump to the defense of a band I don't really care about one way or the other, but I would say that northerners don't refer to things that way because the Civil War doesn't have such a lasting impact on the northern psyche. I grew up in VA, and it's literally everywhere you look. You can't walk two steps without tripping over a battlefield. That's not to defend or romanticize a time before the abolition of slavery, because my white privilege is not quite that stifling. And who knows what they were actually thinking when they named their band. But personally, I most often hear the term antebellum applied to architechture, much of which was destroyed during the war and the Reconstruction period. So, if anything, it calls up in my mind a romanticizing of, yes, the verandas perhaps, but more of an aesthetic style which is a bit harder to come by because a lot of it got burned down.

[nrrrdy-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I always go pee during the inspirational speeches and now I feel a kind of closure I didn't even know I was missing. xo