2Blowhards

I found these 2blowhards, Michael and Freidrich, thanks to Ian over at Panchromatica. They write on their site description:

“In which two graying eternal amateurs discuss their passions, interests and obsessions, among them: movies, art, politics, evolutionary biology, taxes, writing, computers, these kids these days, and lousy Ivy educations.”

And they do blow hard, no doubt about that. But it’s such high class, intelligent, wide-ranging blather that you gotta love ‘em, and quite frequently they are on to something.

Michael was musing not so long ago about how his attitudes have changed as he has gotten older.

“How to explain the fact that what we believe about the significance of our tastes, reactions and interests changes? As youngsters: "Wow, holy shit, the whole world oughta stop and take note." As crusty middle-agers: ‘Ah, finally, now I truly understand, what was I thinking of before?’”

Friedrich, whose 50th birthday is fast approaching, noticed, a week or so ago, that as the urgency of his sex drive diminishes, his appreciation, even wonder, at the complexity of his wife’s enjoyment grows.

“But thinking back to my younger days, I’m not so sure that the disparity between the masculine and feminine sexual experience wasn’t always present. I just don’t think I was prepared to acknowledge it when I was 25. Which is too bad, as the awe that I feel these days—and I can’t think of a better word for it—is a real and remarkable addition to the whole experience. Maybe the diminishing role of my ego is opening up a space for a certain amount of the sublime to enter in.”

I don’t mean to imply that the 2blowhards talk about getting older all the time. I chose those quotes because this Weblog is about aging and they are interesting about that topic. But they range all over the place. Even solitaire recently gave rise to a weird and funny exchange about men and woman:

“Does your wife love playing solitaire?” asks Michael. “My Wife loves Spider Solitaire, my sister loves Freecell, a niece loves Strict Klondike, and at work friend has Forty Thieves on her Windows desktop 24/7. Based on this statistically significant sample, I'm working on a theory that women love solitaire card games…”

"...But solitaire doesn't appeal to me at all. In accordance with my theory, I've decided to attribute my dislike of solitaire card games to my brawny and untamed hetero dude-hood. Does it hold any appeal for you?”

You gotta laugh out loud.

Unlike many non-political Weblogs, 2Blowhard draws a lot of commenters. Sometimes this is excellent, but frequently you just need the 2Blowhard talking with each other and the notes from readers are a bother. Just skip them if they get in the way.

Although these two guys can be a bit elitist for my taste, they are otherwise smart, funny, knowledgeable on a wide range of topics and are keen observers of themselves and of life. Take a look.