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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 15, 2021 9:32:46 GMT -5
Totally on board with all those general assumptions. If he calls his own couple Alpha Couple, it’s a really nice gem, but everything holds ip regardless.
A very live remark here: I just went back to the Stay Positive bonus tracks and found a «Hey angel» in You Tremble. Didn’t remember that.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 15, 2021 10:27:24 GMT -5
THE GIRLSThere are good reasons to imagine going in that Juanita is a central character; but who are the non-alpha girls in the story? What in particular do we do with Virginia, Jane, Sally, and Sandy, who show up once each, with almost no characterization, and never reappear? ***Let's start with the last two, Sally and Sandy. Everything we know about them comes from the closing verse of SSC: her name was sally but they all called her sal mineo she was lit up like an arson but she burned out like arsenio her name was sandy but they all called her san antonio she can't remember where she slept last night but she won't forget the alamo sandy, don't forget our alibi [SSC] There's not a lot there, but we still have information to work with. 1) The repetition of "her name was X," without any intervening change of subject, seems literally to mean that both names apply to the same girl (the one referred to both times by "her"); in other words, they're not real names. Since the entirety of the song up to this last verse has been either about Jenny or reported in Jenny's voice, it's reasonable to suspect that "Sally" and "Sandy" are both one-off handles for Jenny. 2) The repeated "her name was X but they all called her Y" framing is familiar from the repeated "she said my name's X but people call me Y" in THS' The Swish. In this latter case, we know that it's alpha girl Mary speaking, and that neither X nor Y are Mary's "names" except in the sense that they call out particular graphic aspects of her character ( heregoes). Here again we have reason to suspect that Sally and Sandy are both one-off "names" for the alpha girl. 3) Sally's "lit up like an arson but she burned out like arsenio" combines two fundamental characteristics of Juanita that are attributed to her by name: that she's the Eyepatch Guy's fire-lighter [CaAoC], and that she's badly strung out on drugs [11AF]. 4) "the alamo" (referring to the massacre of the Alamo Mission in Texas: wikipedia) which Sandy won't forget correlates either with "the night of all that bloodshed" witnessed by Jenny (suggesting that Sandy is Jenny), or with the nightclub fires lit by Juanita (suggesting that Sandy is Juanita). 5) The Narrator and Sandy apparently both need an alibi, and need to remember it separately. This lands us squarely in THS alpha couple territory (at the stage where the THS Narrator and Mary are sequestered, i.e. separated in different rooms for questioning by the police, and interrogated about the Party Pit stabbing; heregoes). From SWH we know that the LP Narrator is sequestered by the police, but that unlike the THS Narrator, he drops his alibi under pressure and sells the girl out --- that girl being Juanita. So here's another indication that Sandy is Juanita. Two of the above five points suggest that Sally and Sandy refer to Jenny; one suggests that Sally refers to Juanita; one suggests that Sandy refers either to Jenny or to Juanita; and one (the analogy with Mary) is ambiguous. So the next obvious question is, are Juanita and Jenny also different names for the one alpha girl? ***Before we answer that, let's look at another J-name, Jane, in Sangre De Stephanie. Here again we have a few data points to lean on: 1) Jane is literally English for (Spanish) Juana, whose diminuitive is Juanita. 2) Jane is explicitly used as a fake name in solo song Jester And June ("Now the cops got our names/ As Justin and Jane"). 3) The name "Jane" seems to have been added late for lyrical reasons, rather than in reference to a real, new character; in an early version of the song, when it bore the title "Unsure, Hunted, Small," (played in LP's December 1997 KVSC Monday Night Live performance: link; song starts at 9:39), the rest of the lyrics are basically the same as in the released version, but "hey jane, you're lame" is simply "you're lame, you're lame." So "Jane" looks very much like it's just a metrically short version of "Juanita." We saw earlier that the name "Juanita" was chosen for the reference to marijuana (see LACED SUBSTANCES above); but at three syllables, it can't easily fit into Craig's staccato lines, and having a one-syllable alternative in "Jane" helps with that. And "Jane," like "Juanita," is also slang for marijuana (see LISTED above.). ***This brings us around to "Jenny," since it, like "Juanita," is also originally a diminutive of Jane (not Jennifer; link), which is to say that it looks an awful lot like the two-syllable version of the same name. And if we take a look at the actual characteristics of Jane, Jenny, and Juanita, the correspondences are pretty easy to spot: - Jane and Jenny both lose their dress at dawn: for Jane it's "in the break of dawn ... her dress was all gone" [SdS], for Jenny it's "six six six am on the weekend ... woke up with my dress wide open" [ILtL]
- Juanita and Jenny both make a solo return from Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul: for Juanita it's "take the train downtown" [SWH], for Jenny it's "creepin back to the east end" [NN]
- Juanita and Jenny both need a cover story for a visible injury: for Jenny, it's "and you said it was nothing/ you just slipped and missed your ride from your girlfriends" [ILtL]; for Juanita, it's "what am I supposed to tell our friends?/ that you walked into a bender?" [11AF]
- Jane and Jenny both drink spiked drinks: for Jane, it's "her tongue it turned blue from the tropical drinks" [SdS]; for Jenny, it's "not just cork that's floating around in your wine / the drinks taste like pantene ... roofies in your jungle juice ... it's never just the liquor alone" [NN]
- Jenny and Jane are both jumpy: "Jenny's pretty jumpy, pulls a gun out of the glove compartment" [TCMaMG], and for Jane it's "she said jesus i'm jumpy" [SdS]
- Juanita and Jane both make sexy wardrobe decisions in front of the Narrator: "she lets me braid her hair / but she never lets me pick out what she wears" [SCity]; for Jane it's "tryin to decide what the fuck she could wear / and i helped her to take off that hair shirt / slide right into that slit skirt" [SdS]
- Jenny and Juanita both cut their hands on a mirror: for Juanita it's "smashed her hand on the mirror in the bathroom" [11AF]; for Jenny it's "she says i'm scratched up on glass" [TCMamG]
Confirmation that they're all the same girl is provided, finally, by the comparison of the evidence of HDaD and KatKH with that of CaAoC. HDaD/KatKH emphasize that Katrina goes by the alternate name of K; parallel to this, CaAoC tells us she said hey my name's juanita but the guys they call me ll cool j [CaAoC] emphasizing that initial J --- which like Jane and Juanita is also slang for marijuana (see LACED SUBSTANCES above, Snoop Dogg's "Gin And Juice," etc.) --- is their common identifier: J Jane Jenny Juanita ***The reference to Jane occurs in Sangre de Stephanie, linking Stephanie to Jane. The two things we know about Stephanie are that, like Jenny and Juanita, she's bleeding ("sangre"=Spanish for blood :: "Juanita"=Spanish for Jenny), and that, like Juanita, she's got a phone connection ("Stephanie Says" alludes to the Velvet Underground song; "Stephanie says when answering the phone"; "Stephanie says but doesn't hang up the phone"; compare Juanita's "left me by the phone at the metrodome" [Bloomington]). Similarly, the reference to Virginia (with an obvious sexual play on the name, like the one in Killer Parties) occurs in 11AF, linking Virginia to Juanita. With all this, we can be pretty confident that Sally Sandy Stephanie Virginia are also all handles for alpha girl Juanita. Which leaves just Katrina, queen of the clubs. We'll come back to Katrina later (see KATRINA below).
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Post by tableinthecorner on Jan 15, 2021 18:33:24 GMT -5
This is great. My assumption was that the three J's were the same person, but you picked up on so much that I never would've noticed. I'm curious about the significance of "Sally" and "Sandy." I've always thought of Sandy as some sort of drug reference (I presumed coke, but sand is slang for heroin as stated by the post a couple days ago). I don't know if associating that character with heroin makes sense in terms of the overall narrative, so is there any substance to that? Regardless, what are your thoughts on the meaning behind those two aliases?
Edit: Does this mean that "you've got enough nicknames already" from The Pirate And The Penpal (my personal favorite Lifter Puller song) is officially referring to Juanita? (That may be obvious based on the content of the song, but I'm not too well-versed with the Lifter Puller story outside of the basic elements, so forgive me.) I'm sure you'll cover everything at some point down the line so feel free to not respond to that, but I got excited when I noticed it.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 16, 2021 15:47:44 GMT -5
This is great. My assumption was that the three J's were the same person, but you picked up on so much that I never would've noticed. I'm curious about the significance of "Sally" and "Sandy." I've always thought of Sandy as some sort of drug reference (I presumed coke, but sand is slang for heroin as stated by the post a couple days ago). I don't know if associating that character with heroin makes sense in terms of the overall narrative, so is there any substance to that? Regardless, what are your thoughts on the meaning behind those two aliases? This is basically why I'm wading into this by establishing definitions first, so I can just refer back to them with a link --- a little boring, maybe, but hopefully it's going to make things much simpler and faster in the end. I don't actually think there's anything more to "Sandy" and "Sally" than what I've said upthread: 1) They're both just names for Juanita, added for no other reason than to ratchet up the frenzy and obscurity of the song's descriptions of her (see THE GIRLS above). 2) Like "Juanita" itself, they're girls' names that map to slang drug terms (see LACED SUBSTANCES above; everything I have regarding their significance is in the table of girls' names there). 3) There's no special significance to heroin or coke in the story; they just go under the catchall bad-stuff category of "#4 Hard drugs generally" (see DRUG LANDSCAPE above). Really, the whole thing just serves to reiterate that Juanita is one of "the girls who live the druggy lives" [BiB]. But since my notes in the LACED SUBSTANCES table were pretty compact, I guess I'll say more explicitly that "Sal"="salt"=meth is playing off *two* of the DRUG LANDSCAPE categories at the same time. There's a direct reference to "#5 The truly bad stuff: amphetamines and meth." And with the insistent theme of salt "on the rims of the glasses/ and when we drink, then we all fall in love" [212M] added to the girls' drinks like Mary's "margarita" and Stephanie's "sangre de [Cristo]," there's a subtler, but not super subtle, reference to "#2 Knockout drugs: roofies and others." When we get to the story, I think it will become graphically clear in pretty short order why Craig connects these meanings the way he does. Edit: Does this mean that "you've got enough nicknames already" from The Pirate And The Penpal (my personal favorite Lifter Puller song) is officially referring to Juanita? (That may be obvious based on the content of the song, but I'm not too well-versed with the Lifter Puller story outside of the basic elements, so forgive me.) I'm sure you'll cover everything at some point down the line so feel free to not respond to that, but I got excited when I noticed it. Man, TPatP is a really rich song, with a couple of huge aha's built into it, and I don't want to spoil it. I will say that this is an excellent connection to draw, and one that I hadn't noticed myself. I promise to link back to this when we get to talking about TPatP in more detail.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 18, 2021 11:58:58 GMT -5
SHOES AND SOCKSTwo important THS lines made much clearer by LP context are the following from The Swish: Shoes and socks, baby, socks and shoes [Swish] Tights and skirts, baby, skirts and tights [Swish] These lines form a pair alluding to the exchange of drugs (brought out from hiding places in shoes, socks, wristbands, hatbands, bandanas) for sex (as skirts go up and tights come off) that takes place at these parties (see SEX FOR DRUGS IN METAPHORS above). The theme of dealers' clothing as a place of concealment (and therefore an identifier, or advertisement) for the drugs they're holding is especially useful in breaking down the LP lyrics.***Clothing concealing drugsarticle | line | notes | shoes | she slips the shade inside her shoes [SGS] | 'shade'=heroin; marijuana? (see LISTED above) | shoes | they sat down and shook the sand from their shoes [TLaDiLBI] | 'sand'=heroin (see LISTED above) | shoes | tiger can't talk he's got shoes to shine [Viceburgh] | can't talk, because he's polishing dick to make the drugs come out of the shoes (see SEX FOR DRUGS IN METAPHORS above) | shoes | they pulled the six from their shoes [LDoL] | 'six'=TR-6, an amphetamine (see LISTED above) | shoes | I got a brown paper bag and black buckle shoes [SGirls] | dealer can be identified by his shoes | shoes | I saw you look at his shoes, I saw you look at their teeth [IHTWTDFY] | he's scared that she's zeroing in on their shoes, where the drugs are; 'teeth'=cocaine/crack/needles (see LISTED above) | shoes | I used to walk around with rubies in my shoes [Trapper Avenue] | girl is a "waitress" for a drug house, like Jesse; 'ruby'=heroin (see LISTED above) | boots | They got kids that'll try to kill you at the carwash/ Coming down with blades up in their boots [Trapper Avenue] | 'blades'=crystal meth (see LISTED above) | socks | keep these rocks inside these socks [SCity] | 'rocks'=meth/crack (see LISTED above) | socks | down by the docks we pull the rocks from their socks [LDoL] | 'rocks'=meth/crack (see LISTED above) | socks | I got stopped by the cops and they found it in my socks [YLHF] | | socks | we had some sweet stuff tucked into our socks [CiS] | 'sweet stuff'=cocaine/heroin (see LISTED above) | wristband | he's in a rock band, they're called the wristband [LDoL] | compare wristbands made from socks (wikipedia); 'rock'=meth/crack (see LISTED above) | hatband | spilled the blues from his hatband [LDoL] | 'blues'=meth/percocet/etc. (see LISTED above) | hatband | keep these wings beneath your baseball hat [DStraps] | 'wings'=cocaine/heroin (see LISTED above) | bandana | we're the scumbags on the junk jags in the rock rags [LDoL] | 'rocks'=crack/meth, 'junk'=cocaine/heroin (see LISTED above) | bandana | wasted on red, white and blue and the american flag and the maple leaf rag [BiB] | 'red'=meth, 'white'=heroin/amphetamine, 'blue'=meth/percocet/etc. (see LISTED above) | bandana | Some townie, he's got a diamond wrapped up in a dishtowel and he's trying to do a deal with me [FB] | 'diamond'=meth/amphetamine (see LISTED above) |
***Clothing removed for sexarticle | line | notes | tights | and he took off my tights in the taxi [ILtL] | 'taxi'=dealer's car (riding with Night Club Dwight [NN]) | tights | i can see all the stains in your white tights [CRoom] | | tights | now jenny missed her ride and she's takin off her tights in the backseat of some taxi [NN] | 'taxi'=dealer's car (riding with Night Club Dwight) | tights | this is the body and the blood and the love and the blacklights on your white tights [NN] | 'body and the blood'=drugs (following "pills administered just like communion") | socks | She's pulling out her shirttails and she's jacking up her socks [CSongs] | after fucking in the car | skirt | and she was liftin her skirt just like a three dollar dancer [Viceburgh] | | skirt | slide right into that slit skirt [SdS] | | dress | you came in without your makeup wearing your new junk store dress [Emperor] | 'junk'=cocaine/heroin (see LISTED above) | dress | i was impressed, you fell out of your dress [NC] | following "you're in a stupor" | dress | and i was so impressed in your sequin dress [JBS] | 'sequins' (also called 'diamantes', Spanish for diamonds) look like 'diamonds'=meth (see LISTED above) | dress | she said i don't quite know what happened, woke up with my dress wide open [ILtL] | compare "you're in a stupor" [NC] | dress | and her hair was back up but her dress was all gone [SdS] | | dress | seizured on the dance floor and slithered from her party dress [4Dix] | compare "you're in a stupor" [NC] | dress | And the dress she was wearing Made a nice case for natural selection [Star18] | following "The amphetamines did what the amphetamines do" |
***On the other side of the transaction, people who go looking for drugs in the wrong places regularly end up either sleeping with their shoes on or losing them. Drug-seekers' shoesresult | line | notes | slept in | i took dance lessons, i slid around in loafers [Bloomington] | (see DANCING below) | slept in | did you all nod off with your shoes on, did you fuck and fall asleep on the futon? [ILtL] | | slept in | Slept in my shoes. Hung around with the House of Balloons. [Oaks] | 'balloon'=heroin bag (see LISTED above); 'House of Balloons' by The Weeknd is about fucking in a drug house. | slept in | "Saddle Shoes" [SShoes] | "Sleeping at the saddle shop, blacked out in blue jeans" | slept in | We're spinning through the turnstiles and we're sleeping in our shoes. [TSTux] | | lost | He had no shoes and no pants [HM] | Gideon after the metal bar party | lost | They took ten bucks and my tennis shoes [YGD] | Narrator, going down to St. Paul to buy | lost | They lie down on Lansdowne, they lose their left shoes [FB] | | lost | They killed some dude for his basketball shoes [R&T] | (see HALF DEAD below) |
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 18, 2021 15:49:40 GMT -5
(I started writing this post about ten hours ago, then work and life got in the way, but anyway, here is it) A couple of references to 11th Avenue Freezeout here. I pulled up the lyrics, and realized I might never read it in full, just listening (and singing) along a bunch of times. Just as tableinthecorner put on a disclaimer that you don't need to reply to this, I'll do the same. But again, it feels relevant to drop thoughts underway. "Juanita lives just like Jimmy drives Screech those tires, yeah and scrape the sides"Reading part of Here Goes again, I learned that "chicken strip" (Barfriut Blues) is a motorcycle reference to the "unused" part of the tire, hence the chicken allegation. I don't know who Jimmy is, or how he drives (in Rockford Files?), but could there be a connection here? "Virginia slept with the sketchy chick She was sick, they still clicked"The virginal character of THS is obviously Mary, and this also reflects "we've been sick together before". As far as I can tell, she doesn't sleep with any girls through that narrative, but in The Swish she's kissing "that Hallelujah chick". Not described as sexual in any way, but inside the same framework, at least. And everytime I hear Virginia in Craig Finn's world, I keep coming back to Only The Good Die Young, and how cose to every line in that song mirrors something in Craig's own narrative. There's three or four direct references, but even more who just have a resemblance.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 19, 2021 10:27:29 GMT -5
muzzleofbees Just to say briefly: that's a great connection between Juanita and Mary: Juanita driving recklessly as an extended drug metaphor ("rock"ford, "tires", see LISTED above, and "scrape the sides" to get the little bit left inside of the bowl, etc.); Mary driving recklessly as a prepared-to-give-blowjobs-for-drugs metaphor ("went down"). Never noticed it, but I'm sure that common image is not coincidental, in the sense that having formulated it for Juanita, he used it again for Mary. For the rest of what you say, let me try to account for it further into the story. Edit: and yes, Jim "Jimmy" Rockford is the main character of The Rockford Files, and he does drive like that.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 19, 2021 10:35:36 GMT -5
BATHROOM STALLSomething I never picked up on in THS, but that LP makes obvious, is that "bathroom" and "stall" refer specifically and emphatically to 'the inner sanctum of the party where girls blow gangs of guys for drugs.' This identification is so strong that it's meant to fill even a line like "the dance floor was crowded, the bathrooms were worse" in Massive Nights, which literally describes an innocent scene at prom, with heavy foreshadowing. Other references to the same place are the "back room," "walk-in cooler," "back half," and "booth." The scene is set in graphic detail, all the way down to the number of guys that can fit around the periphery of the stall for servicing, namely, four ("4Dix" [4Dix], "four horsemen" [CatCT], "gang of four" [DStraps], arguably "North Dallas Foursome" [C&N] and also "one, two, three, four, that's the way that Jenny scores" [NN]). Another important and closely related term is "keys," from the expression ( ondcp) Jingle The Keys -- Requesting fellatio for drugs The frequent connection of keys with the bathroom is an allusion to this expression, and of course to the transaction itself. ***Bathroom stall: bjs-for-drugslocation | line | notes | bathroom, back room | and the guys in the bathroom wanna meet my girl in the backroom [MTape] | | bathroom | key to the bathroom ... hoping for a quick divorce [Hardware] | | bathroom, stall | gettin nice with night club dwight in the bathroom stall [CRoom] | | bathroom, stall | these bathroom stalls they're speakin volumes on your ethical slips [LSifL] | next line "turnin all your tricks" | bathroom | and the ravers they rose up right in unison/ attacked the bathroom [NN] | followed by detail about love, tights, jenny creeping home after | bathroom | walked into the bathroom and and found the 4 horsemen [4Dix] | walked in, like "walk-in cooler" | bathroom | all i'm really asking for is open up the bathroom door [Emperor] | | bathroom | and we walked between these velvet ropes, went straight for the bathroom soap [JBS] | compare entrance into party in Rock Problems. "soap"=meth (see LISTED above) | bathroom, stall | the bathroom looks like wounded knee, the bloodshed and the ecstasy/ everyone was crowded in the stall [SGS] | compare "ecstasy" of "North Dallas Foursome" [C&N]; more on the blood later, but see Mary "blood on the bed" [SPayne]; crowd | bathroom | The dance floor was crowded, the bathrooms were worse [MN] | only foreshadowing, but note the crowd | bathroom | It got heavy when we got to the bathroom [SiM] | a story told with irony, but like MN foreshadowing, rests on the main metaphor | bathroom | We're tipping over in the taprooms ... dying in the bathrooms [CSunrise] | told from Mary's POV, about sex at parties; compare "dying" to "Death" [4Dix] | bathroom | Girls ... I don't think that you'll find love/ In some bathroom at some club [THH] | | bathroom | She said "The bathroom's pretty nasty/ But would you want to go in with me?" [GtaS] | here again it's not the event being described, but the associations | bathroom, booth | Meet me in the booth in the back by the bathroom [SPUD] | | bathroom, back room | The darkness in the taverns/ And the boys back by the bathrooms [StHf] | note bathrooms in the back of taverns, like CSunrise, and crowd of boys | back room | She wants to know what's going on in the room that's all the way in the back [RP] | | walk-in cooler | I walked into the walk-in cooler, I bought in to the three day bender [SWH] | compare getting naked in three-day rave (bender) in PSunglasses | stall | I was keyed up, keys jangled in the stalls [SN] | told from Holly's POV; see "jingling the keys" table below | booth | and this club is just a kissing booth and love is just an ego boost [DStraps] | club=tavern=metal bar, etc.; the booth is in the back (compare SPUD, Indications) | booth | she's perched atop the pillow in her booth/ she says it's 20 if I .../ and for 40 then I'll ... [tCMaMG] | she's quoting her prices for different sex performances | back room, booth | I think it's quite likely that you're out in the booths by the back [Indications] | | back half | twenty-seven lovers in the back half of the summer [SSC] | | back half | We mostly eat it in the back half of the theaters [MoC] | for the sense of "eat" here, compare "we scrounge around for sustenance" to "it sure beats starving" [Manpark] |
***Jingle the keys: offer drugs for bjlocation | line | notes | key | key to the bathroom [Hardware] | following "just some guys being anonymous"; followed by "hoping for a quick divorce" | key | Then you can’t tell the key from the kite [ASitS] | sex/drugs references in next two lines: "They’re fooling around [sex] with thunder and lightning [drugs, see LISTED above]/ There was a snake [dick/needle] in the shower [bathroom] last night" | keys | I was keyed up, keys jangled in the stalls [SN] | told from Holly's POV; for "stalls" see "Bathroom stall" table above | keys | Leaning on the lamp post just jangling your keys to the kingdom [FFarm] | lamp post is a dealer's station (compare "when he's holding then the streetlamps ..." [CiS]) |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2021 18:58:00 GMT -5
I always thought that Gang of Four line was both a self-deprecating dig at LIFTERPULLER and a dig at all the other Gang of Four imitators, from early Red Hot Chilli Peppers to Franz Ferdinand, though I guess they started later...
I can see how there’s a double meaning there though.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 20, 2021 11:37:50 GMT -5
I can see how there’s a double meaning there though. I can see plenty, actually. That was one of the lines I pretty much at first listen associated with drugs, but I also remember hearing 4 Dix and thinking there must be something sexual there as well. The "bathroom" thing is pretty sweet as well. Will probably just get heavier when we get to the kitchen.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 20, 2021 11:42:39 GMT -5
SLIP AND TRIPIn the LP world, the terms "slip," "trip," "slide," "slick," and "soap" are all used in connection with drugs and sex. Assorted pairs of two out of the five terms occur together in several lines in the table below, showing that they form a related set. ***For song references, see the table below: 1) "slip" is used both of slipping a mickey/sherman/roofies (see LACED SUBSTANCES above), and of sexual lubrication per se [Manpark]. 2) "slide" is associated with both drugs [twice in HDaD] and sexual lubrication [11AF, Manpark]. 3) "trip" means to be high, and in "slip and trip" [SBackwards] context is short for "trip-and-fall"=roofies, the date-rape drug (see LISTED above). 4) "slick" is associated with both sex [SBackwards] and drug overuse [NC alt lyrics]. 5) "soap" is both slang for "meth" (see LISTED above), and associated with sex [SBackwards, Manpark, RtF]. For "soap," note further both (a) the prison rape joke about dropping the soap in the shower [Manpark], and (b) the Roaming the Foam connection brought up by Craig in the 2004 Cloak and Dagger interview ( link): ***slip-trip-slide-slick-soap : sex+drugsterm | line | notes | slip | and you said it was nothing, you just slipped and missed your ride from your girlfriends [ILtL] | Jenny, describing how she "woke up with [her] dress wide open" | slip, slide | and we were slipping on the frozen mudslides [HDaD] | "mud"=heroin (see LISTED above); song describes them the doing the "lay lady lay" | slip, soap | i got the stuff that gets em slippin in the shower [Manpark] | "stuff"=meth (see LISTED above); "slippin in the shower"=reference to "don't drop the soap" prison joke | slip, trip | slip and trip and hang around [SBackwards] | "trip-and-fall"=roofies (see LISTED above) | slip | slip slidin on the lubrication [Manpark] | sexual lubrication per se | slip | blue lips from slippin the tongue too much [LiaL] | "blue"=meth (see LISTED above); "slippin the tongue"=sex (parallel to obviously sexual "bruised hips from doin the bump too much," where "bump"=meth; again, see LISTED above) | slip | these bathroom stalls they're speakin volumes on your ethical slips [LSifL] | slipping in the sex-for-drugs exchange "bathroom stalls" (see BATHROOM STALL above) | slip | They slip their tongue and they hitch onto their host [ASD] | gangsters preying/fucking (for "hitch"=marry compare "the misses gettin hitched [LDoL]); see also LiaL quote above | slide | i took dance lessons, i slid around in loafers [Bloomington] | loafers (shoes)=drug cache (see SHOES AND SOCKS above); sex for drugs (see DANCING below) | slide | Rhode Island slide with the skinny guy [11AF] | implied sex, parallel to "Virginia slept with the sketchy chick" | slide | white cross now you're crumblin like a landslide [HDaD] | compare HDaD 'slip' above; drugs ("white cross"=meth, see LISTED above) for sex | slick, soap | zest soap/ and i thought baby nice, nice, that stuff gets your skin slick [SBackwards] | from *Slips* Backwards. compare "zest soap" to "bathroom soap" [JBS]; the Narrator is into the idea because of the prospect of sex | slick | theres so much blistex/ my lips are an oil slick [NC alt lyrics] | slick from applying blistex on lips burned through excessive drug use (compare Mission Viejo); "oil"=heroin/PCP (see LISTED above) | soap | and we walked between these velvet ropes, went straight for the bathroom soap [JBS] | "ropes"=roofies (see LISTED above), "soap"=meth, "bathroom"=sex (see BATHROOM STALL above) | soap | i'm getting off at the coast where the girls all taste like soap [MTape] | "getting off"=sex, oral sex, lubrication; "taste like soap" parallel to "get so wasted" (drugs) | soap | five deep in her foam dance thugs [HDaD] | gangbang | soap, trip | hey soap suds, you know you're way too quick to fall in love [RtF] | "fall"=trip-and-fall; "love"=sex |
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 20, 2021 12:21:15 GMT -5
1) "slip" is used both of slipping a mickey/sherman/roofies (see LACED SUBSTANCES above), and of sexual lubrication per se [Manpark]. 2) "slide" is associated with both drugs [twice in HDaD] and sexual lubrication [11AF, Manpark]. Bonus/context: In a column where a musician/celebrity picks his/her top 10 favourite vinyl records, Craig talks briefly about Paul Simon - Greatest Hits, and especially about the song... well, you can probably guess longlivevinyl.net/2019/08/09/crate-digging-with-craig-finn/
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Post by tableinthecorner on Jan 20, 2021 18:55:53 GMT -5
And then Craig went on to use the name "Delores" in Epaulets. That could just be referencing the Virgin Mary ( link) or even Dolores, Colorado, fitting the CO/Southwest geography of TTtP, so there's a chance it's a coincidence, but interesting nonetheless.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 21, 2021 2:01:20 GMT -5
And then Craig went on to use the name "Delores" in Epaulets. That could just be referencing the Virgin Mary ( link) or even Dolores, Colorado, fitting the CO/Southwest geography of TTtP, so there's a chance it's a coincidence, but interesting nonetheless. Hah, I didn't think about that! Thought there might be a general point there, about making lyrics more vivid with the usage of specific names, but had completely forgot the Delores in Epaulets. From experience, I know that diving deep into these things, makes me draw connections who might not really be there. But with everything we know about the narrative(s) so far, it's at least funny to read out the entire verse, and think about the overpowering love between a woman and a Jesus like figure, leading to an eventual disappearence. Or to use another phrase: "I'll be damned if they didn't disappear/ wandered out of mass one day/ and faded in to a fog of love and faithless fear". I know a man He came from my home town He wore his passion for his woman Like a thorny crown He said Delores I live in fear My love for you's so overpowering I'm afraid that I will disappearAs usual: Sorry about the digression
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 21, 2021 10:29:27 GMT -5
That's pretty crazy about Paul Simon, great connection. Yeah, I would resist going too far with it, but the purely audio triggers of "slip slidin" and "Delores," burned in from an early age, are clearly there, and it's totally believable that it influenced his vocabulary.
Also, Craig's spelling isn't always nails, so it's hard to draw conclusions, but if he looked at the Slip Slidin Away lyrics, it could explain why he went with the way less common spelling "Delores" over "Dolores" (https://www.behindthename.com/name/delores/top/united-states?compare=dolores&type=percent).
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 21, 2021 10:36:56 GMT -5
DANCING"Dancing," in the LP world, is another metaphor for sex; closer inspection reveals that this is an active metaphor in the THS world as well. (Note again Craig's definition of "foam dancing" as "anonymous sexual experiences"; see SLIP AND TRIP above.) ***Dancing=sexterm | line | notes | dance lessons | i took dance lessons, i slid around in loafers [Bloomington] | sliding=sex (see SLIP AND TRIP above), loafers (shoes; see SHOES AND SOCKS above). | dance halls | in dance halls and public places and wide open spaces/ I put smiles on their faces [Bloomington] | putting smiles on faces=giving bjs: compare "they're duckin into shrubs, crawlin out all smilin" [Manpark] | dancefloor | the dancefloor looks like normandy, the smoke, the foam, the misery [SGS] | "dancefloor" parallel to "bathroom" (see BATHROOM STALL above) in next lines, like dancefloor/bathroom in MN; "foam"=soap+anonymous sex (see SLIP AND TRIP above) | dance | five deep in her foam dance thugs [HDaD] | again, for "foam" compare Roaming The Foam and anonymous sex (see SLIP AND TRIP above) | dancer | and she was liftin her skirt just like a three dollar dancer [Viceburgh] | for "three dollar dancer" compare the expression "two-dollar whore" (in common usage and all over the internet, but see urbandictionary); lifting skirt | dancer | the flirty answers from the dirty dancers [TCMaMG] | "flirty"/"dirty"=sex | dance | or are you drinkin like you're tryin to dance [RtF] | intoxication leading to sex. Followed by "hey soap suds, you know you're way too quick to fall in love" | dancefloor | a revolution rushing into dancefloor distribution [LGI] | sex (dancefloor) for drugs (distribution) | dancing | fallin off the flatbed wasted and dancin [LPvtEotE] | falling off the bed; "wasted"=drugs for sex | dancefloor | seizured on the dance floor and slithered from her party dress [4Dix] | dress removed for sex | dancer | we knew you were a dancer when we saw you at the city center / gettin nice at the Nankin [4Dix] | for "gettin nice" compare "getting nice with Night Club Dwight in the bathroom stall" [CRoom] (see BATHROOM STALL above) | dance | Casanova's in the corner and he's asking for a dance [CiS] | Casanova, the legendary lover (wikipedia); this is Gideon asking Holly for a bj (heregoes) | dance | How am I supposed to know that you're high if you won't even dance? [CA] | "won't even dance" parallel with "won't let me touch you" | dancing | I was France Ave when they came out dancing, I was Lyndale South, I was kicking it with cousins [HSL] | "dancing" parallel to "kicking it"=fucking | dancefloor | The dance floor was crowded, the bathrooms were worse [MN] | "dancefloor" parallel to "bathroom" (see BATHROOM STALL above) |
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 21, 2021 12:22:06 GMT -5
I never realized the 100% similar pattern between Massive Nights and Sequestered In Memphis before now, but what do you make of «It started when we were dancing/ it got heavy when we got to the bathroom»? I can’t quite grasp why, if I read this right,the characters move from regular sex (dancing/dancefloor) to sex for drugs (in the bathroom). There might be some grey areas here, but wondering on a general basis.
Haha, yeah, I got a little chill when I went back and actually read the Slip Slidin’ verse. You could read some pretty coherent metaphor systems into it, I would guess.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 21, 2021 19:27:19 GMT -5
I never realized the 100% similar pattern between Massive Nights and Sequestered In Memphis before now, but what do you make of «It started when we were dancing/ it got heavy when we got to the bathroom»? I can’t quite grasp why, if I read this right,the characters move from regular sex (dancing/dancefloor) to sex for drugs (in the bathroom). There might be some grey areas here, but wondering on a general basis. Massive Nights is about prom night, and Sequestered In Memphis is about the Narrator feeding a bullshit story to the cops; in the one, the dancefloor/bathroom stuff is just foreshadowing of the future killer parties, while in the other, it's just part of the bullshit story he's telling. So there isn't a literal move from sex in one place to sex in the other in either situation. But there's still a huge question here, which is: *why* do these same images hang so insistently over episodes like the prom and the alibi story, whether foreshadowing or other-shadowing? How does it all tie together? I've got what I think is a good answer to this question, which we'll start to open up pretty early in Part 1 of the story; I hate to ask you to wait, but it's coming soon.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 22, 2021 13:20:34 GMT -5
CASH MACHINEBlowjobs-for-drugs is the essential transaction at the heart of the Lifter Puller economy, but technically there's a cash exchange serving as the middle term between them. The person looking for drugs wants to buy, doesn't have any money, and needs a quick way to earn some, as documented in the "people makin money with their mouths" passage of Manpark (see SEX FOR DRUGS IN METAPHORS above). This leads to the metaphor of the "ATM" (automated teller machine) or "cash machine" for the person being blown; see for example we went down on the cash machine [SdS] and the "cash advance" pun between advancing someone money on the one hand, and the phrase "make advances," i.e. make a sexual overture to someone, on the other: credit card chicks takin cash advances [TCMamG] always with the object of obtaining drugs ("we went down on the cash machine" [SdS] is paralleled in the previous chorus by "we went down on the smoke machine" [SdS]; "credit card" has a double meaning in reference to crack smoking, see LISTED above). ***Cash machine=blowjob clientterm | line | notes | ATM | yeah she left the ATM and she headed straight into the DEA [LiaL] | the purpose of exchanging the bj for cash is to immediately buy drugs with it (DEA=drug enforcement agency) | ATM | they made a pilgrimage / from upstairs at the nice nice to the atm ... lord grant me twenty, lord grant me ten [4dix] | like THS' "savior," "lord" is the drug dealer | cash machine | we went down on the cash machine [SdS] | "went down on"=bj; compare "we went down on the smoke machine" earlier for explicit drugs parallel | cash advance | got my pants back, got a cash advance [SWH] | pants were off=sex | cash advance | we're all looking for one more cash advance [TGatSD] | followed by "fat chance on the last dance" (see DANCING above) | cash advance | credit card chicks takin cash advances [TCMamG] | "credit card"=crack stem (see LISTED above); line follows "pock marked pervs and the pink piranhas" reference to venereal disease, perversion, dicks | cash advance | cash advances and jenny's back on campus [SSC] | after having had "twenty-seven lovers in the back half of the summer" (see BATHROOM STALL above) |
***Note that while the "cash machine" metaphor presupposes that the full chain of transactions goes blowjob->gangster->cash->gangster->drugs, there are lots of examples where parts of this chain are elided or shifted around. We've seen we went down on the cash machine [SdS] but there are other elisions, like sucking off a soda [Bears] went down on the smoke machine [SdS] blowin smoke [BiB] what you put into your mouth always gets into your mind [MM] and variations, like - blowjob->gangster->cash->gangster->miss!
I met your savior, I knelt at his feet And he took my ten bucks and he went down the street [CSummer] or the craziest one of all: - blowjob->gangster->cash->gangster->ejaculation->drugs
and the night of all that bloodshed i was kissin' on some crackhead who said he knew about a party he keeps it in his mouth in those crazy chipmunk cheeks i gave him fifty and he kissed me, spit a little treat between my teeth [SSC] All of these are views of the same transaction, and the tokens of exchange are all fungible: the kids are sucking off money, the kids are sucking off drugs; cum=drugs, cum=money, money=cum, drugs=cum. We'll see more examples of this later.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 25, 2021 10:46:01 GMT -5
PHARMACY GOODSIt seems to be widely understood that cosmetics and personal care products in LP are a metaphor for drugs; see for example this genius.com comment ( link) on the "pink zinc oxide" line in HDaD: This is clearly right on the face of it; but the question is, *why* does the LP universe work that way? ***There's a tangible foundation for this in real-world slang terms for drugs like "soap," "paste," and "tan" (see LISTED above). But Craig's particularly off-the-rails take has its own strict logic, which is laid out explicitly in Jeep Beep Suite: go out to the stop n shop stoppin by the cvs grab onto my elbow walkin down the aisle with the shiny shiny hair and the colgate smile [JBS] Stop-N-Shop Pharmacy (part of Stop-N-Shop Supermarket) and CVS Pharmacy are both New England pharmacy chains; cosmetics and personal care products are things that you buy at the *drugstore*. ***Note too that Craig plays with this loaded sense of the word as far back as Emperor. As *sung*, the sixth line is clearly you came in without your makeup wearing your new drugstore dress [Emperor] but as *documented* ( link), it's altered, using "junk" in the sense of "drugs" (see LISTED above), to you came in without your makeup wearing your new junk store dress [Emperor] which better hides the actual meaning behind an apparent allusion to vintage wear. In both cases, what is meant is specifically trap house attire, where choice of the right outfit is a key facilitator of commerce ("and the dress she was wearing/ made a nice case for natural selection" [Star18]). [*1] ***Pharmacy goods=drugstype | line | notes | hair product | "walkin down the aisle with the shiny shiny hair" [JBS] | explicit drugstore context | hair product | "dripping wet with hair care drowning in designer drugs" [HDaD] | | hair product | "the twist the turn the give yourself a perm" [TCMaMG] | list of "all the dances we learned": sex for drugs (see DANCING above) | hair product, eye product | "the drinks taste like pantene, the visine wipes clean all the bad dreams" [NN] | "pantene" in the drinks glossed as "roofies in your jungle juice" | toothpaste | "i'm getting off at the place where the boys all taste like paste" [MTape] | exchange of drugs for bjs | toothpaste | "and the colgate smile" [JBS] | explicit drugstore context | lip product | "lip gloss now you're spinning like a thrill ride" [HDaD] | "lip gloss" parallel with "white cross"=meth/amphetamine (see LISTED above) | lip product | "she puts the lipstick in her pocket and then she casually leaves" [CRoom] | compare "she slips the shade inside her shoes" [SGS], where "shade"=cocaine (see LISTED above) | lip product, eye product | "oh the lipstick, oh the mascara" [SV] | drug deal sting context | lip product | "said you guys look gorgeous, dig all that blistex" [Viceburgh] | drug deal context | lip product | "the collagen in your kiss" [TCMamG] | compare "cokey kisses" [RtF], "kissed me/ spit a little treat between my teeth" [SSC] | sun screen | "and we were dripping wet with pink zinc oxide" [HDaD] | same HDaD context of drowning in designer drugs | sun screen | "queen went clean yeah she ran out of screen" [Viceburgh] | contrast with going clean | soap | "thought you said that you were gonna get some zest soap" [SBackwards] | drugs for sex, see soap metaphor above | soap | "i'm getting off at the coast where the girls all taste like soap" [MTape] | glossed as "the place where the girls all get so wasted" | soap | "liquid soap won't get you completely clean" [JBS] | contrast with going clean | liquid tan | "now we're going to the land of the liquid tan" [MTape] | as in other MTape references, the land of drugs ("paste," "soap," "wasted," etc.; "liquid"=GHB, "tan"=heroin; see LISTED above) | liquid tan | "the liquid tan and lemonade" [TMS] | parallel with "crazy fruity drinks" with roofies (see LACED SUBSTANCES above) | liquid tan | "the dancer overdid it with the liquid tan" [LDoL] | overdose | liquid tan | "a big straw hat and a liquid orange suntan" [TFatBR] | parallel with "needle-marked arms" | liquid tan | "she says it's good to get tan/she says it's bad to get burned" [PRock] | parallel with "she says it's great gettin high/she says it's lame to get fried" | nail polish | "she's got the nails done up in the nasal drugs" [RtF] | explicit equivalence to drugs; "nails"=joints (see LISTED above) | makeup | "you came in without your makeup wearing your new junk store dress" [Emperor] | "junk"=cocaine/heroin (see LISTED above), sung lyric is "drugstore" not "junk store" | makeup | "she's takin off her makeup and she knows we'll both be better off without it" [LE] | sobering up | makeup | "the eyelids and the makeup kit" [4Dix] | following description of "death [with] the right arm on the crystal meth" | perfume | "the new perfume counter girl" [SGS] | she's started hanging out with dealers, at the "counter" (compare "I've got some hazardous chemicals ... I came right over the counter just to kiss you" [Swish]) |
[*1] This lyric change may have been inspired by Steve, who at Craig's invitation moved out to Minneapolis around Memorial Day, 1994, shortly after Emperor was recorded, and got a job at the Unique Thrift store (see starting at 58:00 of the Back To The City podcast interview: youtube). Compare the analogous change of "you're sure a bore" (sung) to "the shore's a bore" (documented) in Double Straps after the introduction, also through Steve, of the Jersey Shore/LBI motif ( link).
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 26, 2021 6:24:21 GMT -5
Making sure their makeup's straight, alright!
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Post by nosferatu on Jan 26, 2021 7:11:57 GMT -5
Making sure their makeup's straight, alright! Yeah! This has probably been mentioned before but The Swish pretty much has this whole thing too. Craig even sings “it was a cock sucking summer” live quite often rather than “it was a blood sucking summer”.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 26, 2021 12:15:27 GMT -5
Making sure their makeup's straight, alright! Great point --- drugs+bjs again. Compare "second dates and lipstick tissues" [Magazines], and ... Yeah! This has probably been mentioned before but The Swish pretty much has this whole thing too. Craig even sings “it was a cock sucking summer” live quite often rather than “it was a blood sucking summer”. ... right on, "blew red white and blue right into a tissue" [Swish]. The Swish is from Holly's point of view, and we know she's turning tricks for drugs, but you're absolutely right that there's a bigger picture here. Promise to get to it pretty early in the account of the story that's coming up.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 26, 2021 12:19:17 GMT -5
CANDYAnother LP metaphor for drugs (again with a basis in real-world slang, see LISTED above, but taken to typical LP extremes) is "candy." ***Candy=drugsterm | line | notes | candy | the candy machine and my girlfriend [TCMaMG] | compare "cash machine" (see CASH MACHINE above); The Candy Machine was a Baltimore band on the Skene! label with Lifter Puller | candy | candy's room [CRoom] | Homage to the Springsteen song about a prostitute; refers to the place where the alpha girl turns tricks for drugs (see LACED SUBSTANCES above) | baby ruth | and these downtown girls are fast and loose, they'll work you for a baby ruth [DStraps] | Baby Ruth candy bar; again, sex for drugs | lifesavers | sucking off skyscrapers, living on lifesavers baby [Viceburgh] | again, bjs for drugs | swedish fish | took an Irish car bomb/ took a Mexican quaalude ... took Swedish fish [Brokerdealer TDOLLD] | "fish"=cocaine (see LISTED above); compare "Irish car bomb," "quaalude" | sweet | MC Sweet lemme free your party [SCity] | compare Gideon's "party favors" [MM], which leave the kids "all freed up from the fears that you can never put your finger on" [MM] | sweet | we had some sweet stuff tucked into our socks [CiS] | see "sweet stuff"=heroin/cocaine (see LISTED above) | sweet | Everybody wants to suck on something sweet [NS] | see "sweets"=amphetamines (see LISTED above) | sweet | He's got something sweet in his socks [BotB] | |
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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 27, 2021 7:50:56 GMT -5
FRUITYet another LP metaphor for drugs (with a basis in real-world slang, see LISTED above) is "fruit." Like the cosmetics metaphor, this one barely appears in THS (to date) outside "the fruited plain" and related allusions to "America the Beautiful" ( link). ***Fruit=drugsterm | line | notes | fruit | the fruits they flared in the flames [TCMaMG] | the flame of a torch lighting a pipe | fruit | and the crazy fruity drinks you made [TMS] | compare "roofies in your jungle juice" [NN] | fruit | There were purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain [A&H] | "purple"=ketamine/meth (see LISTED above); "mountain"=high (see CONVENTIONS above); compare "there's fields of speed where there's fields of grain" [DLME] | fruit | Barfruit Blues [BBlues] | "blues"=meth (see LISTED above); drugs acquired at a party in a bar | grape | the green grapes and the grain [TCMaMG] | "green"=marijuana/ketamine/PCP (see LISTED above); compare "there's fields of speed where there's fields of grain" [DLME] | lemon | the liquid tan and lemonade [TMS] | after "crazy fruity drinks"; "liquid"=GHB, "tan"=heroin (see LISTED above); "liquid tan"=drugs (see PHARMACY GOODS above) | orange | And I was looking for an orange grove [Langelos] | looking for a trap house, a place where drugs are sold | strawberry | all the money from the strawberry stand slips through your hands [TMS] | "strawberry stand"=a trap house; "you don't have to go inside to buy" [SSC] | orange | a big straw hat and a liquid orange suntan [TFatBR] | "liquid tan"=drugs (see PHARMACY GOODS above); "big straw hat" is a reference to the drug dealer in the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting For The Man"; compare "needle-marked arms" |
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