Not used to seeing this in the news

Usually, when SM is mentioned in the news, it is relating to some whackjob serial killer or what sounds like one of the worst dates ever, or a relationship that really could have used some counseling, oh, long before the people MET. Say, in the womb.

This is cute, though.

Study: Spank Together, Stay Together

Despite a spike in stress levels, couples who engage in sadomasochistic activities (S&M), may end up strengthening their relationship, according to a new study published in the magazine New Scientist this week.

Two separate studies, one from Northern Illinois University and one from the University of Pisa in Italy, researched hormone levels at S&M parties.

See? Awwww!! But wait...there's still trouble at hand!!

When the activities go well and are enjoyable, couples told researchers they felt closer to each other. However, the opposite was true of negative experiences with S&M.

Blink. Blink.

You don't say?? When you have bad sex, it doesn't help you feel closer to someone?? When sex is good, it makes you feel good?

Wow!

What a strange thing to feel necessary to add there. It's like saying, "Hammers used on nails can be very useful! When used on fingers, not so much!"

Clearing out some books on PBS

If you are a member of Paperback Swap, know that I am making my bookshelf 2-for-1 for a bit. I need to clear out my books and figure out which ones will become pulp and which ones will be donated to the nearest place that will take them. I would rather they went to fellow readers, of course. Request one book and send me a personal message (using the PBS message system, please, so it doesn't wind up in my e-mail backlog) listing which one you spent a point on and which additional title you'd like.

If you are not a member of PBS, maybe you should be. If you join, please consider listing me as your reference.

Patterson is so over.

Done with Alex Cross and James Patterson. I just out down Roses are Red and I am amazingly pissed.

It's the same fucking story.

Crazed serial killer is a genius using a pyramid scheme of other serial killers. Ultimate bad guy turns out to be NOT the obvious mental case...NOT the slick professional...but an actual insider on the investigative team. Detective Cross' girlfriend is once again...killed. (And mutilated.) And the entire book is written in 2 and 3 page chapters.

Nope. Not interested. This man is obviously the real serial killer - every cop, FBI agent and woman who sleep with him gets attacked, threatened, kidnapped, raped, murdered, or kidnapped, raped, murdered and mutilated. He's deadlier than Jessica Fletcher. No wonder Patterson is writing YA stories about teen girls with angel wings. Cross must have run out of people willing to be in the same space with him.

Giving anonymously

Things are tough all over, so the saying goes. It's unlikely anyone now lives in a bubble where they are not directly affected by, or have had friends and family fall prey to job loss and reductions, retirement and investment fund losses, housing difficulties, or health care crisis' made worse by and insane system of mismanaged care.

Of course, it's all perspective; those with *a* job, some healthcare, a home they can afford, little things like that, might feel worlds better off than others they know and/or love. Ditto people in the fields which benefit from economic downturns.

If you are in that category and have wondered how you might be able to help a friend of acquaintance without making them feel uncomfortable by an outright gift, there is actually a charitable organization that will act as a middle-agent for you.

It's even called Giving Anonymously. Its not free, but it is an option.

Of course, you can always just have a bank check, gift check, or gift card created somewhere and mail it to your friend, as well. When we used to answer Santa letters from the Post Office, we'd try to include something for the parent(s) in the package, usually a gift card from a local drugstore or supermarket, or a long distance calling card.

Leaving modern detectives aside

In between the adventures with Patterson, I also read one new period detective novel and revisited an old science fiction classic I hadn't read since I was a kid.

I have a great fondness for ancient Rome; the era of the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire being my favorite place to meander in fiction. Thanks to the wealth of period commentators and their later historians who had access to primary documents we can only dream about reading today, many authors can find ancient Rome a well-documented playground for storytelling.

My favorite books on the period are the books which begin with The First Man in Rome, by Colleen Mccullough. Once better known for The Thorn Birds, she has really stamped a mighty mark on the historical fiction world with this huge and amazingly researched series. (My only real quibble with her is that she maintains Julius Caesar was solidly heterosexual. Other researchers are not so sure about that. He was, however, absolutely a tomcat.)

My favorite mysteries set in that period are the ones by Steven Saylor, who is also a rather talented writer in MY genre, albeit under a pseudonym. His Gordianus the Finder series, aka Roma Sub Rosa, have his curious, cynical, clever detective rubbing elbows with all the big names of the day and finding bodies everywhere.

But happily, I have found another Roman sleuth who seems to have the bad fortune to stumble on mysteries while trying to keep a Legion healthy in the wilds of Britannia. Yes, he's a doctor; another of my favorite things to read about! I just finished my second book by the author, and Terra Incognita was as much fun for me as Medicus, the first one. And there's a new one this year! (Adds it to my wish list)

Gaius Petreius Ruso, Medicus, has a familiar kind of life; low on romance, high on bureaucracy and complaints, too many bills to pay and too many relatives with their own money problems depending on him. He's got the footloose womanizer best friend, a sullen and conniving slave who keeps more secrets than her owner would want to know, and bosses with irrational requirements at the most inconvenient times. Oh, and bodies show up from time to time. Fun! Not deep. (For depth, see Mccullough.)

The revisiting was spurred by the recent death of three-time Hugo winner Philip Jose Farmer. Turns out I didn't have a single book by him on my shelves, but I was sure I'd read him years ago. So, I popped a quest with Paperback Swap and re-read To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book in the Riverworld series. Now, I had remembered these books fondly as a sort of "what if all the people I always wanted to write about were resurrected in this odd SF environment with, oh, the rest of humanity?"

I figured it would be fun to reread.
It really wasn't.

I found it shallow. I found the set-up to be more interesting than the characters. I hated that Hermann Goring was a major character who actually set about killing Jews again. Female characters? Prude, tool or slut, all shallow and not important to the story.

Ah, well. I will not bother to get the sequels.

Toy catalog - and not what you think

This morning with the paper - why, yes, I read an actual, printed newspaper, every day - I got a catalog from a local store I had never heard of, called Carol School Supply. It caught my attention because of the incongruity between the business name and the colorful toys on the first page, including a play tent, a remote control copter that sort of looks like a shark, and a messenger sized bag which the child could color with included fabric markers. So, I flipped through it to see what else they had.

Four pages later, I handed it off to Karen (aka, Mrs. Pornographer) and asked, "Do you see what I see?"

In the entire catalog, there was nothing requiring a TV, a computer or a music player. There were no "collectible" items whose names will become future Trivial Pursuit questions. (Pokemon, Bratz, etc.) There were no toys with Disney or Nickelodeon characters on them, in fact, *nothing* from popular culture. No action figures, no giant "playsets" based on movies or cartoons, or TV shows. In fact, not only were there no Barbies, there were no baby dolls.

There was nothing passive.

Everything required participation, engagement, imagination, or creativity. Puzzles, art kits, fake food for pre-preschoolers to "cook" which required some assembly or decoration, art kits, build-it-yourself kits, rockets, racers, yo-yos, dress-up supplies, a tea set and some science kits. A lot could be enjoyed by a child alone; many required or encouraged playmates.

It's sad that I found this so surprising.

But if I had a kid I was buying toys for? I'd go there.

Carol School Supply.

At play among the bodies and gore

I wish I liked mysteries more. My Mom was quite the reader of light mysteries, both of the Agatha Christie variety and the adventures of the smug and nebbish Rabbi Small (written by Harry Kemelman) and the dapper, fastidious Mexican cardsharp Detective Luis Mendoza. (By Elizabeth Linington, writing as Dell Shannon.)I read them too, mostly around the ages of 9-13, and liked them. Later as an adult, I tried to reread them and found them simplistic, stereotypical, loosely plotted and much too heavily reliant on surprise revelations and character habits disguised as personality details.

Today Rabbi Small seems hopelessly under-educated and offensively sexist; I know people who could run him around the block in Talmudic logic, and they ain't rabbis. Plus, his eternal battles with an ever-changing Temple president seem petty and often stunningly dim when compared to what was happening in the Jewish community at the time, and what has happened since.

Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot hardly need me to detail my dislikes; let's just say I'd like to plant a nice garden in the one tiny vicarage that didn't suffer the murder of the town's gossip and fertilize it with buckets of tiny gray cells.

I didn't like 'em as a grown up.

But I keep trying, occasionally on the multiple recommendations of friends, but they always seem to disappoint. I don't know what it is; maybe it's that I get annoyed both when I solve the mystery first and when I don't, even though re-reading reveals the clues. Yet, I enjoy the Harry Potter books very much and each one contains classic examples of mysteries; at first it's a "Where in the world is Lord Voldemort?" sort of thing and later on, it's where are his goodies?

But I do find I enjoy police procedurals; thus my fetish for the Kellerman duo and they combined 4, 5 dozen books. And thanks to Paperback Swap, I have also been enjoying some of the books by James Patterson, although I fear that won't last long.

First; what I like. I like forensics. This goes back a long way. I have always admired the science of finding things where a lesser trained person wouldn't see them. And most importantly, I enjoy finding them alongside the hero. If Sherlock waits until the very end of the story to reveal he deduced the amount of time passed by how the parsley had sunk into the butter, it's grandstanding. If the story tells me as he figures it out, it's more information for me to use to follow the story along.

I loved Quincy. I love CSI:TOS. And now, I love Bones. I enjoy books which show me how the good guys discover things, not just when.

I also like gruntwork. I like stories when they go out and interview 80 people *knowing* it's highly unlikely it will help, but they do it because sometimes it does actually work. And because you can't rely on nothing but good ideas in isolation.

I like partnerships; I like teams. A squad, a department, a pair will almost always work better for me than a solo artist. Even if there is one "star," I like to know they have friends, resources, buddies, fellow professionals, most of whom are people, not duct tape characters.

I like really, really bad bad guys. Serial killers, kidnappers, ritual murderers, assassins, thrill killers, mutilators. And I am not afraid of graphic descriptions. I will not stop reading because a sympathetic or innocent character dies. I want to know anyone is at risk.

So far? Patterson delivers a lot, except for details on forensics. And with the rest, I am content. Why do I feel it won't last? Because on the way back from SF, I bought a more recent Alex Cross novel and the whole damn thing is written in chapters of, like, three pages. It drove me insane. Like some of the more recent Mr. Kellerman books, that one seemed stripped of characters, dialog, background stories and anything which wasn't dramatic, shocking, or supposedly exciting.

However, three Alex Cross books I enjoyed were Kiss the Girls, Cat & Mouse, and Jack & Jill.

Kiss the Girls had the fun of two killers working together in different areas, Cat and Mouse had the return of a psycho from a previous book, and Jack and Jill had, er, two killers working together. OK, more than two. Patterson loves to imagine these wackos are really good at calling each other up and asking for favors. "Dude! The feds are on my case. Would you mind committing a depraved murder in a public place and pretending to be me? No way! You are totally my BFF. I will definitely kill you last. Joke! Joke!"

They were good; I like the character of Alex Cross, I like his family, I like his best friend, and I fear for his girlfriends. (Oh, dear, yet another book where the object of his affection is killed, threatened OR a villain...) But at least I will have a few more books to add to the shelves before I reach a cut off point. I do not think I will need to have a complete set.

Back to books

I had my period of weird "I don't want to read anything," during which I re-read all the The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children)books except for The Mammoth Hunters. I think that book was lost to damage, although it's not like me to throw a book away without remembering. Fortunately, I think it is the weakest in the series and was not especially disturbed from my OCD to skip it. I ordered a replacement from Paperback Swap.

Since that mind-clearing, I dived back into the stack of unread books I had, with some side tracks in different media (comics) and a little enjoyment of a coffee-table book I discovered I had never actually read before. Imagine my surprise to find it actually enjoyable and interesting.

I loved a British reality show a few years ago called Manor House. They took a nice handful of modern Brits and threw them into a wonderful Edwardian mansion. The small family living upstairs and the huge, multi-layered staff downstairs. It is one of the inspirations for Peter Ackworth's Upper Floor concept. (And I saw the DVD collection on his shelves and immediately began to covet. Funny how I rarely think to even look for DVD sets of things I like.)

When in England, I found a gorgeous book relating to the show - Manor House: Life in an Edwardian Country House. The photo does not do justice to the cover at all. The interior photographs and stories of the participants are also wonderful to graze through. There are some jarring excursions into areas which I thought could have been easily left out or made more interesting if they actually referred to activities undertaken in the show - two pages about how to make a rag rug? Come on. But all in all, it was a great companion piece to the series.

And it looks like you can get it for the cost of shipping, too. Good deal!

Something I really liked about the series was that the participants were not there to compete for anything. There was no million dollar prize, there were no alliances, no strange contests to win immunity. They had volunteered to live this for the experience.

So - the servants were consensually in service to people they had not chosen. Their risk was only in the potential for a lousy time and perhaps exposure for being not up to the task. The book reflects much of what I recall from the show - some of the servants took pride in what they did, and threw themselves into their work with passion. Others were astonished at how many things they took for granted every day of their lives and horrified at how hard it really is to put other people first at all times, with little or no outlet for feelings or personal values. I would have liked to know more about the discussions below stairs, and found that the book touched on just enough to make me think I need to see the whole thing again.

Afterthoughts on Kink.com

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Adventures in the Palace of Porn, part four

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Adventures in the Palace of Porn, part three

Many links in the kink.com posts will be unsafe for work. Click at your own risk.

On the day of the shoot, since everyone was running around doing terribly important stuff, I decided to go get my hair cut. Jo in the office helpfully googled a barber shop within walking distance, and I headed off to Market Street, to Joe's Barber Shop. Then, when I walked in, who do I see but leatherman Joe Gallagher, an old friend from the perverotti. (IML, '96, New York Leather before that.) Last time I'd seen Joe was on 18th Street, so I had no idea I had been innocently referred to his place. Got an awesome job from Mike, by the way. He has a totally hot lover, too.

By the time I finally got back, it was time to rest up before the shoot. The size of the room and the number of people who were going to be in there with lights, plus the fact that a good number of ladies were going to be bare ass brought to mind the classic dilemma of formal settings in porn - I was in leather trousers, boots, silk shirt and tuxedo jacket with a tie. It was warm enough for naked people. Fully dressed tops were going to be...uncomfortable. This of course should encourage some to dress lightly or strip off fast, but I was doing neither. I figured I'd just rely on my calm and cool disposition.

And plenty of ice water.

The dinner was actually catered; the two primary performers were to serve it, with additional secondary girls brought in for set dressing. Actually, one was a volunteer. This does not regularly happen in my experience, and I wouldn't say it if I hadn't been in the room when she asked if she could help out. Did I mention these people are genuinely kinky? Also, I thought the work atmosphere for the models was quite good. They had big fluffy robes, stacks of towels, assorted drinks and snacks standing by for when they were off camera, and before I arrived on the set I was given a separate document for each one, explaining in very clear terms what their limits were. Brief and explicit, I was asked if I understood each one and shown where these forms were kept, just in case I wanted to slip out of the room and check on something before acting like an idiot.

I appreciate anything that helps me to avoid acting like an idiot. Sadly, I think almost everyone said no anal play. I immediately burst into tears and hid in my trailer.

OK, I didn't.

I was allowed to mingle with the other guests during a casual cocktail hour and got to meet Princess Donna, Van Darkholme and the various directors and staff/performers for the evening. Conversation ranged from On Our Backs to World of Warcraft, and no, this time I am not kidding. It became rapidly clear, however, that the set dressing girls were going to be a lot more involved in the action than I had originally thought. The instincts of a performer is to play to the cameras, and if the slave girls were going to be free to serve drinks and dinner, then dammit, someone was going to have to put up with the bondage, the beatings, the fucking machine, etc.

There really needed to be much more discipline in making sure the non-sexual service was conducted. But for a first time? The food got out while it was still warm. And most of the drinks were delivered with accuracy, if once without the required tray.

I did manage to grab a cane and tease Satine Phoenix about not knowing the phrase "six of the best." Her nipples were perfect for the tiny black bands I'd brought with me, too. But I was mostly content to watch or get out of the way when more orgy-like activities were going on. My writer's brain was fully in gear as I noticed some of the details I will save for later use.

The lamb chops were delicious, by the way. And I have to say I have never before had dinner while my seatmate and host was energetically fucking someone where my knife would normally be. I did my best to make sure he didn't knock over his drink.

Adventures in the Palace of Porn, part two

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Adventures in the Palace of Porn, part one

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I'm going to kink.com

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Copyrights and the Kindle

So, Amazon introduced their new and improved Kindle Book-thingie, which can hold the entire library of Alexandria, connect to anyone in the world with sound and picture, like a Star Trek communicator, translate Sanskrit, compute pi, and enable you to fly. This thing is COOL! It can also read the text of your books and magazines and newspapers and everything else to you...

Or not.

Now, I am a fierce protector of my copyrights. I've pissed people off by tell them that no, you may not print that entire class or speech on your web page, you may not e-mail it to your 5000 BFFs.

But for crying out loud. This is text-to-speech technology here. Little or no inflection, mispronunciation of slang and non English words or non-standard names...no one uses text-to-speech software because it adds to or even exposes the nature of the original work.

The bland, atonal computer "voices" of any device will not make the sale of the audio versions shrink by any measurable amount. But it might make works not available in an audio format accessible to those who would have had no other option to enjoy them.

I disagree with the complaint by the Author's Guild, although I recognize that Amazon probably took the path of least tsuris by allowing publishers to disable their works from being read out loud by the Kindle.

Fortunately, the guild cannot stop you from reading an actual book to someone else.

By the way - does anyone think it would be a good idea to make my books available on some mechanical book thingie? We're mulling it over.