Jealous Hearts

Still waiting for the Fallout New Vegas DLC Honest Hearts.  
(Hi, I'm a PS3 owner.)

Reeaaally want to see how Zion looks. I've been to Zion IRL. And Bryce Canyon. Have to admit, after Bryce, Zion seemed a bit of a let down. Which isn't it's fault. Let me show you.


This is Bryce.


This is Zion.

The approach to Zion, as you can see, is on the floor of the canyon.

The approach to Bryce is on the top, like it is for the Grand Canyon.

Being on the top rim makes it easier to see the magnificence of the place immediately. With Zion, you just can't appreciate the full scope. You have to go do the trails and get to an overlook. Which we didn't have time to do. So I'll definitely have to go back some day.

In any case, it should be a cool setting for Honest Hearts.

Pigs Take Main Street

I honestly love our local news:

Police responded to five large pigs stopping traffic on Main Street. Two cruisers and Lt. Bob Hazelwood joined the effort to return the pigs to their pen. It wasn't easy. "One of those pigs is over 400 pounds," Hazelwood noted. Nor are pigs easily cowed. They don't move even when confronted or coaxed. Police eventually resolved the problem by shaking containers of grain, which the hungry pigs were unable to resist and happy to follow.

Hidden History of Salem Video

Hidden History of Salem available for Pre-Order on Amazon!

Uncalled for Misogyny

I just Netflix-ed Clash of the Titans. The new one. This one:



On the cover there, our hero is holding up Medusa's head. You can't tell what her face looks like (the snakes obscure it). Which is good since she's dead. Also good because she's a Gorgon. And scary looking.

Or at least she should be.

In the original Clash of the Titans she was appropriately terrifying. Or that's how I remember her. 


In this new version she looks like a beautiful woman until she switches on her turn-you-to-stone powers. And that's a brief on-off switch.


Which means we are watching a group of men pursue a beautiful woman with the intent to decapitate her. 


Add in the fact that we're told she was a rape victim just before this, and instead of Medusa being a terrifying force to be reckoned with, we now are watching a beautiful woman who has already been victimized once by a man, get attacked by a gang of men, and murdered. 


What were they thinking??


Okay, yes, she does take, what, three men with her? But it's self-defense. 


And that reminds me. The men were willing to befriend that weird tree-desert creature - a male creature - but they couldn't try asking Medusa to cooperate? I know that's not really how the myth goes but, hey, practically nothing about this movie goes according to myth so I don't see a problem with that type of re-write.

I write like...

I ran a chapter of mine through this analyzer and got this result:

I write like
Anne Rice

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I'm sort of ... stunned.

Especially because it was Captain Devlin's Captive, not Vampire Close.

So then I ran a chapter from a non-fiction book I'm working on

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

***SQUEE***

I could only hope to write like him.  That would be so cool.

So, if you try it, let me know in the comments what you get!!!

Titanic Disaster ... Fun??

May 23, 1914
Luna Park on Coney Island opens its summer season with a "spectacular" depiction of the Titanic Disaster "in three amazing acts."

Note the people falling off the end of the ship.  And the heads bobbing in the water.

Way to keep it classy, Coney Island of 1914.  World War I is just around the corner. Wonder what you can do with that....

Spaced, the final frontier

In my role as pop culture maven, I am here to explain to you why so many of your friends are wishing you a happy 420 today.

Your friends aren't saying that?  It's just mine?  Well, whatever.

Four-twenty as a denotation of belonging to the "cannabis subculture" began, according to Wikipedia, with a group of marijuana smokers at San Rafael High School who would meet at 4:20pm.

Since 4/20 is April 20th (in the way the US writes dates), April 20th became a sort of "counterculture holiday."

"Up to 2,000 UC Santa Cruz students celebrated '420' on Friday by smoking marijuana on Porter Meadow as law enforcement officers stood by." - 2007 Santa Cruz Sentinel article

This was after my time at UCSC but I can totally imagine this on the Porter Meadow. Especially as Porter is home to the Flying IUD.

UCSC has some really odd sculpture. Don't get me started on the Increasingly Disgustingly Morbid Dead Goat at Cowell.


But I digress. For those of you who can't imagine it, here is a photo.

So there you have it. April 20 is a marijuana-themed holiday, and as such it is also associated with the legalization movement.

Which is probably why this story ran today in Des Moines, Iowa:

Iowa Medical Group Gives Medical Pot Thumbs Up

Yes, Iowa, folks. The Heartland.

Although Iowa has always been a fairly cool midwestern state.

Wasn't Captain James T Kirk born there?

Lizzie Borden Not Guilty - Her Period Did It

This is the bedroom where Lizzie Borden allegedly took a hatchet to her step-mother.

(And you can actually stay here in this room - the house is a bed & breakfast now.)

I've long known about the infamous axe murder of her parents and the fact that Lizzie was generally thought to have done it even though she was acquitted at trial.

Someone was certainly after them, as they had suffered from suspicious food poisoning. And Lizzie had bought poison at the drugstore.

So why a hatchet?

Well, according to The History of Murder and A Private Disgrace, Lizzie's father had recently chopped off the heads of her pet pigeons with a hatchet. (Makes ya wonder what was going on in that house - what a sick, cruel thing for a father to do.)  And she may have been thinking about that when she had a petit mal epileptic seizure. These are also known as absence seizures. Basically, the person suffering from the seizure can walk and talk and function but isn't conscious of their actions. Such seizures can happen during one's menstruation.

And it is a recorded fact that Lizzie Borden was menstruating on the day her parents were killed.

This was mentioned in Flow, that Lizzie committed the murders during - and due to - her period, and I was like, what? Seriously?

So I looked it up in The History of Murder and, sure enough, there it is. No wonder men are so afraid of a female with access to nuclear weapons. It's not just the PMS you have to worry about. It's the period during the period itself, as well. So that's, what, two weeks each month where women could be indiscriminately violent. As opposed to men....

Anyway, this theory was first put forth by Victoria Lincoln in A Private Disgrace, which I have yet to read. The theory about Lizzie and her period, that is, not the theory about man-fear. Obviously. Just checking that you were still reading attentively.  ;)

On top of the pigeon massacre, there were also some financial dealings with which Lizzie took issue. So money was a motive as well. And then the menstruation-instigated seizure caused her to act out her feelings.

It's an interesting solution to the crime.

Tenth Doctor Cover Yumminess

This is SUCH a sexy cover!  I want this as a poster.  Over my bed.  :)  And so far the book is fantastic, too!  Trevor B has really captured the Tenth Doctor - I can totally visualize this as an episode.

I also like how he is handling the Daleks. And the other characters are very well drawn and sympathetic.  And there was a Blake's 7 reference.  So I'm a happy camper.

I really liked Judgement of the Judoon, too.  Loved how Colin B gave three dimensions to the Judoon commander.  Fun read - and this one had a Tintin reference.

I'm also working on The Slitheen Excursion. This one has a bunch of in-jokes for Classics majors. If you know your Greek mythology, your Heroic Age, or even your Mary Renault, you'll get more out of this.  :)

Oh, and just in case you thought I was joking - there really are posters of Ten.  Just not of this particular artwork.  :)

Trial for Bastardy - 1808

Place: New York City
Time: August 1808

On Trial: Alexander Whistelo, "a black coachman"

The Story:
"Adam-colored" Lucy Williams and her black lover Alexander Whistelo had a child together, a child whom Whistelo accepted as his own until his friends (possibly named Iago?) "put it into his head that it was not his." He then refused to maintain the child, and Lucy was forced to go to the Alms-House for support.

The Alms-House objected to the community being made to support a child when the mother could name its father, and thus went after the father via the court system to make him, basically, pay child support.

Lucy swore she had always remained faithful to Alexander, so why was there confusion over the child's parentage?

Because the child was "unusually fair" with light, straight hair.

Evidence at trial centered on whether such a child could have a black father.  If it weren't for the level of obnoxiousness and bigotry, I suppose one might feel sorry for the medical "experts" called to testify, as they clearly hadn't a clue. For example:

Dr. Kissam: Black persons are almost white at their birth, but change soon after; the change is generally complete, and their true color decided in about eight or nine months; within the year it is complete.

But that wasn't all of the trial testimony - much of it revolved around Lucy's supposed sex life. Consequently, the men - doctors and lawyers - behaved like schoolboys and indulged in quite a bit of levity:

Prosecution: The woman's testimony in one view was meritorious—it went to discharge the community from the burden of supporting a bastard child, and to oblige the true father to maintain it.

Defense (in reply): It is said her evidence was meritorious, and for the good of the community, charitable, and for the good of the Almshouse. I never before heard of such pious and patriotic fornication.

There are many different layers to this trial. One is the construction of race. Another is how illegitimacy, sex, and charity were viewed in America during the Federalist period.

And on the women's history front, we have here surfacing of a bit of ancient and troublesome, but commonly-held, folk belief - that a woman cannot get pregnant if she doesn't enjoy or consent to the sex. Yes, at one time it was considered proof that rape had not been committed if the woman became pregnant from the attack.

Hence this exchange:
Defense Attorney:  Had you not a white man in bed with you?

Lucy Williams: I had a scuffle with one once ... such a person had been in bed with me; he had turned the black man out with a pistol, and taken his place. We had a connexion but I am sure we had made no young one, for we [fought] all the while.

Lucy is certain the child is Alexander's because 1) she loves him, and 2) she fought the rapist. Therefore it simply can't be his.

This bit of personal tragedy isn't seen by the men in court, who apparently believe even being raped at gun-point is good for a laugh:

Defense Attorney: As it appears, the black man could not have got the child because it is white, nor the white man because of the fighting, it would be good to see whether the pistol-barrel could have got it?

The doctor of whom he asked the jocular question rejoins that he doesn't indulge in kinky pistol sex:
Sir James Jay, MD: Then, sir, you must inquire elsewhere, touching that matter. I have found the old practice good enough for me, and have made no experiments in the way you allude to.

In his summation, the defense attorney again dwells on the rape:
If a white man can say to a black one, get out of that bed, you black devil, till I do this thing—by division of labor, trade will be advanced—you must do your part of the duty and I mine—I will get the child and you shall father it—there will be in this manner employment for us both. Can that, may it please your Honors, be the law?

And in response to the prosecution's criticism of his experts:
What do they know, he says, more than other men? But that is not all, he goes farther and levels a shaft at your Honors on the bench, and says you have as much experience in such matters as any doctors or any persons whatsoever. Some gentlemen have a happy knack at saying anything. If I had even suspected any of your Honors of any such experience, or at all to have dipped into such matters, even from curiosity, I never should have ventured to hint at it.

The defense's tactics were successful. Despite the word of the mother traditionally being legally sufficient, the Court decided Lucy could not prove her case and Alexander was discharged from all responsibility.

It is worth pointing out again that Alexander had accepted the child as his originally.  Perhaps this trial really should have been about the so-called friends who broke up that little family.

They were true bastards.

Always On A Monday

I am going to make the attempt to post here regularly every Monday.  I figure Monday needs something to recommend it, right? :)  I'll still be posting randomly, of course. But this way you know definitely when to look for stuff. I'm told that's the way to run a blog. So we'll give it a go. :)

The Nude That Launched a Thousand..well, One Trial

Meet Narcissus.

The original of this statue of him was discovered in Pompeii in 1862 and housed in the Naples Museum.

In 1873, an enterprising art dealer of New Bedford Massachusetts, one Charles Hazeltine, purchased a replica of this very Narcissus in Boston and displayed it in the front window of his shop.

Now, this particular shop window opened onto a very busy public street, normally a boon for a business.  However,

"the good people of this New England town were not used to nude figures, either in marble, bronze, or plaster, and very soon the sidewalk was crowded with young and old, gazing at the unaccustomed sight."

The marshal ordered Hazeltine to remove the statue from his window and when he refused, Hazeltine was arrested.  He went on trial for "exhibiting a lewd and lascivious statue."

Many citizens testified on Hazeltine's behalf, saying that of course they'd allow this statue in their homes, trying to explain that this was Art.  Perhaps they were embarrassed at how this case was making their town seem like a mad, prudish backwater.  One testified that the only reason not to have one in the house would be, "if I had a daughter of an unfortunate turn of mind."

[ah, yes, got to protect the womenfolk from seeing tiny, relaxed representations of normal body parts]

The prosecution denied that "that botch" was Art and furthermore, "if such instruments as that are necessary to teach art, then we don't want any art taught.  We have got along very well without it in New England for many years, and we can in years to come."

On the stand, Hazeltine admitted to the court, "The image is entirely nude, a male youth; the sexual organs are represented." But his defense attorney argued that anyone who could "look on this figure with anything but the loftiest sentiment must be already corrupt."

You might think he had a good point, but no, this was a slippery slope.  The anguished prosecutor protested, "If he is allowed to go on, will he not fill his window with sexual organs in all positions?"

Besides, the prosecution added, along with corrupting the populace, the statue had been causing a public scene and obstructing the thoroughfare.

To which the defense replied:
"Narcissus did not obstruct the sidewalk. He asked nobody to stop and look at him. If the street was obstructed, the marshal ought to have arrested the boys and girls who obstructed it."

The jury deliberated 9 hours, balloting 22 times, but could not come to an unanimous decision.  Charles Hazeltine was released.

What Narcissus thought about all this is unknown.

The Erotic Diaries of a Victorian Seafarer in the US Navy

An American Seafarer in the Age of Sail: The Erotic Diaries of Philip C. Van Buskirk, 1851-1870 by Barry Richard Burg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is not what you think it's about. :)

Philip C Van Buskirk was an educated young man whose family fell on hard times. Consequently:

1) He is an outsider to the world in which he now must live. For example, although he is a common drummer boy/sailor/marine he has more in common with the officers.

2) He has beautifully clear handwriting.

His urge to record his internal life is amazing - he kept diaries for *years*. And they're mostly about his private hopes, disappointments, and thoughts - not about the places he went (China, Japan) nor the Civil War he fought in.

This is a very different record of shipboard life, and of interest to anyone who likes the Age of Sail.

The reason the title has "erotic" in it is because Van Buskirk - a moral, if not Puritan, middle-class boy - is seriously appalled at the frequency of male/male relations between other crew members. Apparently unlike the British navy, the American navy accepted these liaisons as a matter of necessity and as long as it didn't interfere with your duties all's well that ends well.

Because there was little privacy on board, Van Buskirk's diaries were often read by others. Sometimes people objected to what he wrote. Interestingly, his descriptions of male/male erotic behavior were NOT objected to, which furthers the idea that this was normative behavior.

Van Buskirk is a complex, not to say seriously messed-up, person. When he grows up, he has difficulty forming friendships with adults his own age. And thanks to Victorian America's obsession with masturbation as a direct road to death and Hell, he keeps meticulous track of his bodily fluids and constantly writes of how he despises himself.

As a narrator, you may not like him, but this window into a male mind of the mid-to-late 19th century is priceless.

View all my reviews

Do You M/M?

Are you one of the many (many, many) readers of m/m romance? Do you swoon to Alex Beecroft's False Colors: An M/M Romance or Erastes' Transgressions: An M/M Romance?

For anyone who might be thinking, "What, M&M's have romance?" and trying to picture the green girl M&M in something slinky.... no.

M/M is short for male/male - as in leave-out-the-annoying-heroine-and-just-give-us-two-hot-men - romance. This genre is extremely popular, especially in ebooks.

I like the historical ones. Now, you might think there wouldn't be much scope for realism in such romances.  And there you would be wrong.

I have been reading Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships and it is fascinating how fluid love could be in early America. Not only was there no word yet for homosexuality, there was no real concept of it as a permanent existence. As this was also before companionate marriage, both men and women got married because it was expected - not only for social but for business and economic reasons. So whom you married often did not coincide with whom you loved. And once in a while someone left us evidence that the person they loved shared their gender. How they then handled this can be very emotional and touching.

We tend to think of maritime settings as being the best venue for historically accurate m/m romance, and indeed, next I am going to be reading the non-fiction An American Seafarer in the Age of Sail: The Erotic Diaries of Philip C. Van Buskirk, 1851-1870. However, there were Virginia planters, mountain men, trappers, farmers, and even urban citizens who experienced the love that dared not speak its name. (BTW, apparently Philadelphia rocked when it came to wild sex during the Federal period.)

Quite a diverse field for authors to mine for story-lines!  I encourage anyone who writes or reads m/m fiction to check out the non-fiction.

And speaking of inspiring tales of m/m non-fiction, I must of course mention I Am What I Am, John Barrowman's new autobiography.

Yes, I'm a fan-girl. I dare you not to be. :)

Happy New Year!

So did y'all make any resolutions? How long do yours usually last?

My answer is: not long. I have sooo many good intentions ... I must have a very well-paved road to Hell. ;)

A friend of mine has made a resolution to blog regularly one day a week. I should probably make that my resolution, too. I'll still post haphazardly whenever I have something to rant about, but I'm going to pick a day to post on regularly.

Any suggestions for which day?

Introduction to Aunt Flo

"For perhaps the first time in your active, tom-boy life, you must accept the fact that you are a girl. ... You're a girl and you are getting ready for the special role of childbearing. ... You may think you were intended to be a Hollywood star, or a scientist, or a great writer. But your body ignores all this ... When you know the happiness of childbirth - you will be acting the role you were created for." -- On Becoming A Woman (1958)

Yes, that's 1958, folks. Women can't be scientists or writers in Eisenhower's America. Gotta get with the procreation.

I'm reading Stein and Kim's FLOW: The Cultural Story of Menstruation and so far it has made me really, really angry. I want to go back in time and bitch-slap the two women who wrote On Becoming A Woman (yes, women authors) for trying to make a generation of girls feel they were the sum of their genital parts.

But as a militant feminist I suppose I should cut the authors some slack as brain-washed puppets of the oppressive male hierarchy. Reminds me of The Handmaid's Tale where the wife enjoyed the power she had while getting her husband installed as leader, only to realize afterward that their ultra-conservative views restricting women included her too.

Here's another thing that sent the anger meter spinning: the adverts for "feminine hygiene" douches. Want to know one of the products advertising its ability to provide women with "appealing daintiness"?

Lysol.

Yes, really. Lysol. As recent as the 1950s. "For complete Feminine Hygiene rely on Lysol. A Concentrated Germ Killer."

Scrub out the toilet and your vaginal canal! So economical!

There was also Zonite - "For newer feminine hygiene". Wanna know what Zonite was? Tough, I'm going to tell you anyway.

Bleach.

Apparently internal scalding was fine with the FDA, as long as not too many women die.

I tell you, I'm going to hit someone before this book is finished.

Spread of Technology

So, I've been seriously restricted in my access to the interwebz this week (a source of much chagrin and many conniption fits, lemme tell ya), and I started to wonder how humanity ever survived without being able to tweet about cat antics or lint or the contents of one's coffee to the world.

And then I was reminded of all those classic sci-fi episodes of Doctor Who and Blake's Seven and Star Trek where the Highly Advanced Technologically Dependent Civilization were all just a bunch of big heads because their reliance on technology had caused their unused bodies to wither away.

Remember those?

And then it occurred to me that those episodes were obviously written by active young men who did not actually ever sit around all day in front of a computer.

Because any woman will tell you, letting technology do the walking does NOT encourage bodily withering.

In fact, sitting in front of a computer all day encourages the body to cushion-up the whole seat area, so the sitting experience is more comfortable. So those aliens really should have been massively pear-shaped.

Do I have a point? Am I saying that my days away from the computer, days spent actually locomotivating my body around the house have been a wonderful break and shown me the value of incorporating an exercise regimen into my life?

No.

I'm saying, having to go to the library rather than having the library come to me over the web is Big Time Annoying.

And coming up with activities that allow me to Avoid Actual Work is way harder without access to LOLcats and Twitter and Facebook.

Which reminds me, I really must get to Farmville - my crops could be withering.

What? No, I don't want to go outside and dig in the dirt, I want to harvest my crops. Yes, I know they're pixels. But they're withering, I tell you!

Ah, very funny. I heard you say, "At least something's withering." Shut up and send me a sheep.

Roasting Romance

If someone were to come up to you and sneer, "I don't write romance. I write a real love story involving real people grappling with real dilemmas*," is your response:

a) "Oh, so you do write romance, then?"

b) "Pretentious, much?"

c) "I assume this dismissal of an entire genre was reached through extensive primary research and authoritative secondary sources, or do you simply find unfounded, sweeping generalizations to be easier than actual cognition?"

It both angers and saddens me that romance - consistently one of the best selling genres - is still in this day and age consistently the object of ridicule - and by people who should know better.

[The "romance" genre] sucks all the oxygen out of the room. It sets up expectations and lays down rules of what "romance" should be and what great sex is like.*

Seriously?

That's your final answer?

You're saying romance readers can't differentiate between a romance novel, that is to say Fiction, and Real Life?

I'd be insulted, except now I'm wondering what the "rules" to "great sex" are than aren't actually involving of great sex.

I mean, are you saying that fictional great sex does not actually resemble real great sex? Because then I am .... confused. Isn't "great sex" by definition ... great?

I'm not seeing where the bad is.

It can't possibly be because great sex from a woman's point-of-view is less valid than the male's.

Because that might lead one to suspect the assumption that romance is read and written mostly by women is one reason the genre is devalued.

But that's just paranoid thinking, isn't it? Women's literary achievements aren't overlooked these days.**

But to return to the blog post that started this rant, lastly, there's this gem:

I don't do sex because I'm more interested in love -- and love takes place in the mind where it has to fight for its existence against all the other challenges presented by life.*

Some might say sex is one of those challenges, and as such needs to be addressed.

Some might say exploring the experience of love without a nod to sex is like exploring the Godiva store with your mouth taped shut.

Others might point out that if you're having sex without love, perhaps this is something you should discuss with your therapist.

Because, when you get right down to it, most criticism of the romance genre says a lot more about the critic than it does about the genre.


*actual quotes
**Publishers Weekly’s list of top 10 best books of 2009 contains no female authors. Not one.

Full Kitty Belly

Happy Thanksgiving!

When Sugar Isn't Sweet Enough

Did you get a chance to try Pepsi Throwback when it came out earlier this year? If not, you're in luck, because it's coming back in December for a limited engagement of 8 weeks.

What's the deal with Throwback? It's made with natural sugar.

(As opposed to un-natural sugar? Deviant sugar? Perv sugar? It's actually a blend of cane sugar and beet sugar.)

The point is that this cola is flavored with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, ye olde cheap sugar substitute.

So I thought, hey, what a great idea, I'll try that. And I did.

It wasn't sweet enough.

At which point my brain exploded. Apparently I have grown up on Cheap Artificial Crap so that my tongue no longer recognizes Actual Food. It was sort of a revelation.

I need to drink less soda anyway, but now when I reach for a bottle, I try to pick one with all natural ingredients.

Just Because.

My current faves are Boylan Creme Soda and Boylan Creamy Red Birch Beer.

(Again, per FTC rules, let me state I buy my soda with my own money. No freebies.)

If you've never had Birch Beer, it's a lot like Root Beer only ... different. It's hard to explain.

So anyway, I invite y'all to try some Pepsi Throwback or another sugar-sweetened soda and see if you like it or if your taste-buds also need to be re-trained like mine. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!