52 Comments
User's avatar
Ooparts's avatar

When your tastes are defined by a rejection of conventions, you are also being guided by conventions.

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Shaun McGonigal's avatar

I see your 'sitting-backwards-in-chair' and raise you 'sitting-like-Will-Riker-in-chair'

*crickets*

Yeah, that's what I thought.

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Jacob's avatar

AKA the Riker Maneuver. In-universe, it showed that Riker was virile and somewhat unconventional. In real life, it was because of Jonathan Frakes' bad back.

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Jay Moore's avatar

Communication written of style superior a discovered have I, analogy or art prior any to reference without and, individualism indomitable my of strength the through, and order word conventional of acceptance unthinking, meek your reject I because comments my of wisdom ass-bad the heed should you.

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Mike Kidwell's avatar

What the hell 😀😀🤘🤘

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JorgeGeorge's avatar

You sound like Shakespeare.

That Dude never took a straight road when a side road or a double back with a flip was available. I think they paid him by the word.....

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JorgeGeorge's avatar

I thought it's just occasionally more comfortable to rest my arms on the top of the back of the chair.

Thanks for clearing this up.

Speaking of "Brave New World," it's one of the funniest books I've ever read.....

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Chris's avatar

Yeah I always thought it was so people could visually look more casual, resting their arms on the chair and relaxing their posture. Think about what it looks like if two people are facing each other sitting in chairs: it kind of looks like an interrogation. By resting their arms and relaxing their posture the teacher signals (visually, since this is film) that they’re talking person-to-person and not teacher-to-student. Also the chair in question is often a bit shorter than normal since it’s a school chair and the teacher would just look ludicrous with their knees up around their chest.

(I also think dudes just like spreading our legs out, cf Commander Riker, but it’s a lot easier to do with support from the legs).

That said this piece was great, love “didn’t you read the chair manual?”

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Gnasher's avatar

One exception - Christine Keeler. Look her up if you don’t believe me.

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Edward Scizorhands's avatar

This is what I was trying to find. Should have read the comments first.

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NTHW's avatar

what does the Riker Maneuver say? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVIGhYMwRgs

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Cernunnos's avatar

Frakes maintains that initially he did it because a back injury made multiple takes of getting in and out of chairs uncomfortable. Then it became a character thing, signaling roughly what Jeff is describing.

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Chris O'Connell's avatar

I've seen every episode of TNG more than once and was unaware of the Riker Maneuver. Brilliant compilation. He must be tall.

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Tori Swain's avatar

That Jonathan Frakes was a much smarter actor than you'd think. (They let him direct a few times, too, and he did a very good job.) That was entirely his own work, and it does a good job of showing "the dumpster hobo" First Mate as being... well, something of a hotshot.

Which, for what it's worth, the show doesn't show a lot of. They're reduced to telling, sometimes by trying to get Riker to leave the ship... Which brings up more troubling questions.

Somewhere there is a fanfiction author shipping Picard and his first mate.

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Baron Aardvark's avatar

This post could also have been called “Why Tim Morello is The Lamest Dude Ever.”

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Kamut Maksen's avatar

Tom?

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Baron Aardvark's avatar

Yes! Typo, sorry.

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Kamut Maksen's avatar

Because he is so avowedly "bill forward"?

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Ben Shutov-Gonne's avatar

Sitting backwards in a chair is the best way to deliver a speech from a sitting position. The back of the chair becomes a podium, and so the repertoire of podium gestures is now open to you. A good starting position is arms folded on "podium", head low, ass back; this opens up the lungs, which provide the steam that powers inspiration.

A wise man once asked a second wise man, "why does the Lion sit backwards in his chair?"

Wise man number two said, "that is the most comfortable way for a Lion to sit in a chair."

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Mike Kidwell's avatar

I kind of love the "it's my blog and I'll write about what I want to" energy of this post.

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Michael Frank's avatar

> I thought that this memory might be the Mandela Effect, but it seems that Michelle Pfeiffer did, indeed sit backwards in a chair in Dangerous Minds.

I might be wrong (tm?) but I think the still image from the link is a shot filmed for the Gangsta's Paradise music video, not the movie.

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Tony Bozanich's avatar

Narc.

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Adam M. Rosen's avatar

THIS 👆. THIS is the kind of content I pay my hard-earned money for. Thank you.

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Shawn Ruby's avatar

When the principle comes in and chides them, do they shrug their shoulders and say "So? This is the way I sit." Does the principal reprimand the teacher, but the students gather together to get him a zero back support chair? Does the principal scowl through the door window until a student gives him the head nod at which point the teacher puts the chair on his head? Does the principal walk away in disgust knowing he has lost the war and will never be able to relate the value of a good education to the next generation?

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Ross Andrews's avatar

The principle might make Maurer's list of times he has sided with the bad guys in movies

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Seattle Guy's avatar

Pretty sure you mean principal, but I don't mind reading for intention.

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Ross Andrews's avatar

Yeah you got me ;)

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James Gillen's avatar

When Keith Moon posed for his last Who album (Who Are You) the photographer insisted that he sit down in a director's chair with the back to the camera in order to conceal how bloated and aged he'd become from alcoholism.

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Anthony S.'s avatar

Backwards-chair-sitting: "I'm not here for comfort. I'm here to tell it like it is."

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David Watson's avatar

There are extensions of this form of course

https://youtu.be/zOjtBmLrjho?si=ILeDZuSWS9UtRstD

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