The Tolstoy Principle (and Dad "talks" to Daniel)

From LGPedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Episode 16/1x016
The Tolstoy Principle (and Dad "talks" to Daniel)

0016-BreesDad.jpg
Special guest appearance, Bree's Dad! (lower half only)

Blogger Bree
Date Posted July 29th, 2006
URL youtube.com
myspace.com
Length 2:02
Description We made another proving science wrong, this time about the Tolstoy Principle (from Jared Diamond's great book... Guns, Germs, and Steel)... and my Dad decided to be annoying and have a "talk" with Daniel. Whatever :(
Location(s) Bree's bedroom
YouTube Tags LG15 lonelygirl15 daniel danielbeast tolstoy jared diamond bree lame pelican science wrong dude uhh yeah dad parents
Production Credits
Executive Producer(s) Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, and Greg Goodfried
Producer(s) Miles Beckett
Director(s) Mesh Flinders and Miles Beckett
Vidplay Mesh Flinders
Story Miles Beckett and Mesh Flinders
Editor(s) Miles Beckett
Music YouTube version: Office Suite Part I by The Matthew Show

Revver version: The Bandit by Starlight Mints

Cast
Bree Jessica Lee Rose
Daniel Yousef Abu-Taleb
Drew Avery Mesh Flinders
Adjacent Blogs
Previous "Proving Science Wrong... with Lonelybeast and Danielgirl15"
Next "Daniel The Neanderthal"

The Tolstoy Principle (and Dad "talks" to Daniel) is the sixteenth video in the lonelygirl15 video series. It is also the third in the Proving Science Wrong series.

Transcript

(Bree is sitting cross-legged on the floor, redoing the picture board. Her dad opens the door to let Daniel in and we see him standing there with a white lab coat and a briefcase. After her dad closes the door, Bree looks up and says something inaudible to Daniel.)

Caption: Dad almost caught me! (Good thing he doesn't know a webcam from a hole in the ground) K... Back to the video!

(Bree is wearing what appears to be her dad's labcoat. Daniel is not in the room.)

Bree: Today for our installment of Proving Science Wrong, our topic is going to be the Tolstoy Principle. Jared Diamond came up with this one. (While Bree is talking, a caption that says 'Daniel and Dad left to "talk"' appears beside Bree) The Tolstoy Principle basically states that domesticable animals are all alike, but every undomesticable animal is undomesticable in its own way. (sotto voce) That's a tongue twister... Horses and cows are pretty domesticable animals, right? (Cut to Bree now holding up and reading from Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel.) "Horses and cows provide their owners with meat, milk products, fertilizers, land transport..." (Caption: 'They're still talking...' appears on right side of screen as she continues.) "... leather, military assault vehicles, plow traction, as well as the germs that killed previously unexposed peoples."

(Cut to Daniel fiddling with the picture board on Bree's door.)

Bree: (off camera) Daniel, do you think you're more like a horse or a cow?

(Bree is back on camera. Daniel is lying on the bed looking pensive, playing with P. Monkey)

Bree: So. Since Daniel is being uncooperative, looks like we're going to have to disprove this one on our own. (Cut to Bree reading either from a website or a book.) "Used for leather." Well, I would never wear Daniel. But I guess he'd make a good throw rug. "Military assault vehicles." Well, I've never ridden Daniel into battle. So there you have it: the Tolstoy Principle, proven irrefutably wrong. (Cut to Bree turning back to the camera from having glanced at a still quite pensive, subdued Daniel.) And here we have a clearly, very domesticated animal. And yet... he's clearly incapable of performing any of the previously mentioned tasks.

Daniel: (mumbles) Who says?

(Bree turns to glare at him, then returns to her normal position.)

Bree: If you're keeping count, that's Bree: two, Science: nill.

(Cut to Daniel still lying, still on the bed, still on his stomach, still pensive.)

Notes

  • In Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond calls this phenomenon the "Anna Karenina Principle," not the "Tolstoy Principle." Leo Tolstoy was the author of Anna Karenina, but it is unclear why Bree doesn't use Diamond's name. Perhaps the Creators simply got mixed up.
  • How Bree got the lab coat is a bit of a mystery. When we see Bree's dad enter the room at the beginning of the video, he is holding a lab coat in his hand, but he leaves without giving it to Bree. However, in the next clip, Bree is seen wearing a lab coat, which is probably her dad's.
  • Bree's father does not appear to be wearing a wedding ring.