Hey! There's a new spouse here!

So, Republican National Committee head Michael Steele wants to reframe opposition to same-sex-marriage from "teh gays! they are icky!" to "the gays! they will want health insurance!"

"Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. "So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money."

- RNC chief: Gay marriage will burden small business

To which I had to...well, blink a lot in confusion. Isn't this an argument against hiring...SINGLE PEOPLE?

I mean...notice the lack of gender in that example. So, if Bob Heterosexual starts working for Janes Small Business and then gets hitched...hey! There's someone who wasn't a spouse before! OMG! WTF??

And, um...there's that "who pays for it?" question. Judging from the costs of single coverage vs family coverage, Bob Heterosexual just saw his insurance premium co-pay at work...double. He might even pay more than double. The last corporate job I had, the "family" coverage was 3X what a single person paid, because it also covered children.

So...of there are (at least) 9 hets for every gay person, and hets marry more than gay people do...and have more children than gay people do...

In order to save money, a small business should ONLY hire gay couples.

But in my own weak attempt at doing the math, I missed an even bigger picture. What about all the small business that won't get the money from all the new gay marriages?

For example, in my wedding, we paid for rings, decorations, catering, music, clothing, printing, art, yarmulkes, food, wine, fabric, prayer shawls, and legal advice - all from local small business or crafters. (OK, the printing of the invitations actually came from one of those huge catalog places.) And we had a small, small wedding. Let Keith Olberman do the bigger math.


Keith asks WTF? about the "cost" of gay weddings.

Happy Housekeepers and beaming butlers

So, according to a new survey by Time magazine, the happiest people in their profession are priests and other clergy. The second most happy at work?

Housekeepers and butlers.

Hmm.

LTNS; I've been distracted

Way behind on my reading accounting, I know. I've been on the road (Michigan, Illinois) and I've been training for a new part time job and then doing it, and pondering life's oddities. In Michigan, I saw many dancing white people, crossdressing and parading up and down the streets like nobodies business. Shameless, I tell you! But the elephant ear was tasty. In Illinois, I saw many kinky people, several of whom seemed to want to be half dead. It's a long story.

In the mean time, as I have been enjoying this jet-set almost-working lifestyle, I have read...more books than I can remember. But these are the ones which come to mind (and hand) with the greatest of ease...

Finished Ring of Fire II, enjoyed it, forgot most of it already. But that's my pattern with Eric Flint, et. al. Just for comparisons' sake, after my last post on the subject, I reread S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Timetrilogy, and yep - far more memorable and enjoyable as a story. It's always good to check these things.

Picked up three books via PaperbackSwap, and greatly enjoyed them. This is a new author for me, Kate Elliot. She popped up on my "books you might like" list several times, and sometimes appears on lists of gay SF/fantasy stories. The first book I read by her was Jaran (The Jaran, Book 1).

Technically science fiction, most of the action takes place on a low-tech world with a bunch of pseudo-cossacks and their Mongol-like roaming lifestyle. Tess, the heroine, is hiding from her brother, a powerful galactic figure, by hanging out with the nomads for a while. What made this book and its sequels interesting for me was the culture of said nomads. Instead of dropping in the standard "men are warriors, women cook and make babies" sort of lazy importing, Elliot made a few tweaks into that narrative and made the men warriors - duh, strength, stamina, thick heads - but made the women the owners of the tents, the hunters, and pretty much the tribal political leadership. Women choose lovers; men choose wives. All of a woman's children are hers and her husbands - absolutely no import is attached to the "biological father," who might be any man a woman fancies at any time. In fact, they have difficulty even picturing what "biological father" means.

So what's gay about this? Not much, actually. There's a band of leathermen, er, manly outsider men, who contain a certain number of dudes who prefer another dude in their tent, so to speak, and later in the series, it becomes clear that although the nomads really disapprove of that sort of thing, well, see, this one lead male character might have had this one great love in the past...yadda, yadda. It's about as gay as a novel-of-the-closet, really, and if that was the reason I set out to read them, I'd feel cheated.

No, the centerpiece romance is between Tess and...you guessed it, the leader of the male nomads, (he-who-had-a-boyfriend-once) - and they bicker for a while until they wind up admitting their great love, a sort of science-fiction-mongol-russian-sitcom thing. Everyone around them rolls their eyes and says, "sheesh, finally!" Everyone who is still alive, that is. This is not a series in which you should develop favorite characters too early.

And then things get interesting. The following books are An Earthly Crown and His Conquering Sword. Note that the numbering is confusing; the first book is followed by a book sometimes called book 2 or, book 1.

I read three books out of a total of four. The fourth is out of print, so after hunting around, I found a cheap copy and splurged actual money for it. That's how much I want to know how it all ends.

While lounging in Michigan and not being entertained by klompen-stalkers, I reread the final two Harry Potter novels (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows) because 1) they were there in the cottage, and 2) I didn't think I had enough new material to last me all the way home, and 3) I hadn't read them enough yet. Oh, and also because I am waiting for the next movie. Once again, I lamented the fact that there ARE movies at all. Clearly, these books were meant for a series option, preferably produced with deep pockets and sterling production values, ala HBO/Showtime. There is just so much in the story I'd love to see on the screen. Ahh, well.

Back at home, I have been enjoying the first two Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher. Apparently everyone else enjoys them, too, because not even one is available at PBS and even used copies are more than the usual amazon .01 plus postage. They're fun! Sort of a wizard-private eye thing, set in Chicago, with predictable supporting cast (wiseass spirits, coldblooded gangsters, ferocious, bloodthirsty vampires, werewolves, demons, etc.) Downright Dexter-esque in the splashes of blood everywhere, the lead character, one Harry Dresden, is a standard combination of tough PI, wily mage and sensitive new age guy. He dresses like he just walked out of a Stephen King apocalypse novel, has a lousy romantic life (so far) and breaks electrical equipment by looking at it. He comes equipped with other standard trope of the genres - mysterious deaths of his parents (which he didn't know were mysterious), a former lover who betrayed him, and a mentor, ditto; hell, in Storm Front, the first book, he came complete with all that and a stalker, ready to execute him for past crimes. Obviously, he was intended to launch a franchise. I'm OK with that so far; we'll see how long this ride lasts.

Oh, and finally, I read When the Focus is On Care: Pallative Care and Cancer. It's research.

Fabulous ad for Iowa

Iowa recently celebrated a court decision to allow for same-sex couples to get hitched there. This is a fabulous ad put together by OneIowa, to help influence people not to work for or support a reversal of that decision. Unlike some statewide campaigns, this one actually shows gay people in it, hopefully helping those who watch it realize there are real people involved here and not just an abstract theory or religious "principle."

Watch it here.

And, if you can afford it, toss them a few bucks. I admire their donation suggestions! They range from an "anything helps" level of $5 to a note that $5000 would keep that ad running in a particular congressional district for a whole week.

And if you can't send money, send a nice note, or spread the video and donation suggestions around. They have a matching grant for $25,000 if they can raise that amount by April 30. And let's face it, volunteers can always use some nice words, especially when their opposition is so batshit crazy and foaming at the mouth. And have you ever noticed how, when religious extremists and the far right start talking about the "homosexual agenda" someone ALWAYS seems to have one sex act on their mind? Methinks some people spend a lot of time thinking about having things "shoved down throats." Just saying.

Words from the opposition in Iowa (and outside agitators)

“Sen. Gronstal has formed a pact with the rabid homosexual rights lobby in Des Moines and is now working to ram their hostile agenda down your throat!”
- Flyer from Iowa Biblical Families

“The Flood of 2008 is arguably the most destructive disaster that the state of Iowa has seen — at least, that is, until last Friday.”
- Baptist Pastor from Cedar Rapids

“I believe this case is actually about going into churches and going in and attacking churches and saying you can’t teach anything else.”
- Glenn Beck on Fox News, despite the Court’s message that religious doctrine is unaffected

“I suppose, a father and a son or a mother and a daughter… They can come to this state and get married and then go back to the state where they reside.”
- Rep. Steve King

Got any Dresden Files books?

Someone left the first one at our house. During the library reorg, we discovered it and stashed it on the "to be read" shelf and found it was great fun.

However, they are simply not to be found on PBS and used copies seem...pricey! So, since it's a series, and sometimes people will buy a bunch of books in a series and then realize they have no great desire to keep them, I am asking...

Do you have these books and would rather have the shelf space? I will be happy to trade other books for them and/or pay for shipping costs. We have a loving home for books here and will treat them well. The author is Jim Butcher, and I am especially interested in volumes 3 and up for the Dresden Files series.


And if anyone knows - how is the TV show?

Ring of Fire, the biggest world around

Right now, I am 3/4 through Ring of Fire II (v. 2), edited by Eric Flint, who has apparently found a way to do without sleep. The Ring of Fire books, also known as the 1632 Series, belong to that small genre of "a large group of contemporary Americans find themselves sometime in the past for no discernible reason and proceed to change the world."

For example, S. M. Stirling has for his group the entire island of Nantucket. (And never a limerick anywhere in the books!) In the first volume, Island in the Sea of Timehe slams them into 1250 BCE, and if you have trouble picturing what the world was like then, they run into Odysseus. An interesting twist for Stirling is that he has two different series of books - one about the misplaced Nantucketeers and one about what happens on the world they left behind. (Given my druthers, I would have rather stayed with the Nantucket people. Just saying.) It's a sweeping world-wide story full of high fantasy tropes, engagingly improbable characters, dastardly villains and occasional lengthy and bloody battles. And one of the lead characters is a black, lesbian, martial arts master, Coast Guard Captain. (For which many people have condemned the books, saying that Stirling is PC and/or obscene, blah, blah. Whatever happened to SF people being the smart ones?) To say that his works are among my favorite for engrossing adventure and entertainment is an understatement. And his Draka books...woof. It's like the darkest of SM fantasies brought to life. When I reread those, I will go into more detail.

Flint, however, takes a small West Virginia mining town called Grantville and plops it into Europe in the middle of the 30 Years War. This series is impossibly huge, because Flint openly shares it with not only other professional writers, but with thousands of fans, who produce their own stories, some of which wind up in the supporting magazine and published anthologies and on the amazingly badly organized website for the series. I mean it, their website sucks rocks. For a bunch of people who get all geeky over the precise methods of manufacturing and warfare, they need a better web master.

That aside, I must say I enjoy the Stirling "Americans lost in time" more than the 1632 series, because of his masterful and epic writing style. (Plus, Flint looks like a High School teacher and Stirling looks like the guys I played D&D with.) But both the weakness and the strength of the 1632 series is the fact that it is a shared world. Sometimes, the novel or short story seems pedantic to the point of fetish. Other times, characters seem to change speech patterns and behavioral tics. But put together, there's this huge and varied world under construction here, spreading in all directions. So, an Italian action-adventure which has at its core a bunch of bumbling but well meaning teenagers off to rescue Galileo can act as a nice rest from reading way, way too much about various church doctrines of the time and their giant committee meetings. (At least for me.) Both the displaced Americans and the various locals appear as major and minor characters, and famous historical figures pop in for cameos or become major parts of the story. These books give me a good workout with Google; I am always looking up this king and that philosopher or artist. But then, I like that.

However, I do find myself skipping pages and sometimes entire stories of some of the contributors. It could be the topic, or the style. And there are events which unfurl over literally thousands of pages in the series; sometimes I need a codex to figure out in which volume this group gets rescued from the Tower of London, and in which book does this character die, etc., etc. A particular author can spend an entire story telling how various townspeople I can't really remember met and lived, while a central character who winds up being a sort of country-western version of James Bond seems to simply rise out of the text from nowhere.

And yet, when a new one comes out, I get it. And I enjoy...most of it. It's clear that Flint, et. al. want a more "reality based" version of the displaced Yankees story than the one Stirling tells. Stirling can't resist throwing some elements of fantasy and/or wishful thinking into the mix; but I appreciate that. But with a whole team of writers and fans constantly sending manuscripts, it's plain to see there will be simply *more* of the 1632 books. And among the quantity, there will always be some quality.

Moving right along!

Passover is done, the kitchen has been changed over (and reorganized), and I've been both avoiding writing and reading, a very odd combination for me. For some reason, visual entertainment has been more fun lately, and more interesting. I've indulged in Bones, House, M.D., The Office; (Thanks Kim!!) caught an annual viewing of some biblical epics, relaxed with Stewart and Colbert, some King of the Hill and Family Guy. Really wanted to like Kings on NBC, but wow, they missed the opportunity for some good storytelling there. (sigh) I have also enjoyed the HBO #1 Ladies Detective Agency series, which is funny because I never warmed to the books.

Not that I gave up reading, per se. I reread my collection of Boondocks, devoured some cooking magazines, skimmed Haggadot for the holiday, and packed in a few books while reading at bedtime.

James Patterson had one more chance to impress me as I got Pop Goes the Weasel in the mail after I had decided his work was far too repetitive for me to appreciate. As this one came "out of order" with the others, I decided to read it before popping it back on the PBS list. Bad idea. More 3-page chapters, yet another serial killer who e-mails other killers (and would-be-killers) and yet another way for Alex Cross to lose a girlfriend.

I also read another of Daniel Silva's spy novels, this one called The Secret Servant. They also tend to be much of a muchness? I mean there are just so many stories that can be told about spies trying to catch terrorists, stop terrorists, kill terrorists. But in this case, there is enough character development and minor character involvement kept my attention, as well as the interesting descriptions of European locales and complicated political twists.

After seeing it on Amazon's "other books you might like" list for years, I gave a chance to Jaran, by Kate Elliot. This one was delightful. A soft-SF adventure novel about a woman hiding from the responsibilities of being the heir to a galactic duke (her much older brother) slips away to a pre-industrial world half filled with a people who seem a cross between Cossacks, Mongols and just enough "newly made up" cultural differences to provide the element of "strangeness" required in something from another planet. It's primarily a travel and personal relationship story; actual conflicts are spaced far apart and brutal in their lethality. But the culture of the nomad bands and their rivalries and the various mysteries woven into the story are satisfying and fun. I ordered the next two books in the series and am annoyed to find that book 4 is out of print and apparently very rare.

I'm sure there was more mixed up in there, but we reshelved a lot of books in the Passover cleanup and recovery. However, I have a nice stack of "never read before" books on our new "to be read" shelf and I am sure I will find the right balance between staring at a screen and staring at words again.

Taking a break

So, I have a huge stack of eggplant slices salting, and it seemed a good time to sit down with an ice cold kosher-for-Passover diet Pepsi. Not that there's anything in a diet drink that should not be kosher for Passover; it's the corn syrup in regular drinks which is against the rules this time of year. Which is why we have 32, count 'em, 32 bottles of kosher-for-Passover Coke in the house. That should keep Mrs. Pornographer happy for the rest of the year. Debbie Friedman is singing in the background, reminding me of the melodies for tomorrow night's Seder.

I love to cook. Which is odd, because I am not very adventurous in cooking, at least not by the standards I see around me. If you are coming for dinner, you'll probably get my pasta with red meat sauce or skirt steak; easy things I can cook (and eat!) pretty much every day. I have decidedly pedestrian tastes, despite wanting to appreciate the "better" things with all my heart. I was devastated when I realized that deep down, I didn't like most sashimi; I'm a tuna and salmon and "is this one cooked?" philistine. I have to tread very carefully with curries; my mouth can't even interpret cilantro correctly, it tastes like nasty, dry soap. So Thai food is also tricky. I have learned what I can eat without seeming too picky in different sorts of restaurants, and every time I order an old standby, I feel like I have failed some sort of cultural taste test. When I discovered I didn't like fois gras I almost cried. I'm a peasant.

Yet when I get into the kitchen with my inadequate knives and cheap pots, I really have a good time. In the past few years, I have schooled myself to experiment more and accept an occasional "what was I thinking?" moment as part of the price of getting to something that makes dinner feel special. I have unearthed some nice childhood memories - not very easy - around food and brought my mother's side dishes to my own table with success. White beans dressed with fresh parsley, garlic and a little bit of olive oil and lemon juice makes people ask for "the recipe." But that's it.

Dinner for over a dozen, and a long dinner with the chance to run overtime, is a bit of a challenge. Pasta would be great if it wasn't for the fact that Passover pasta is sucky beyond belief. There's a reason why people have bad memories of the food at Passover dinners; roasts become overcooked, vegetables become limp and tasteless, and gefilte fish is...well. Chopped, bland fish mixed with bland filler in fish jelly with a slice of raw carrot. Blech.

So, my aversion to traditional (and Ashkenazi style) dinners led me to determine that when I converted to Judaism, I converted to be a Sephardic Jew. Middle Eastern versus Central and Eastern European. Thus, my Passover contains rice dishes, lamb, and instead of a brisket, I make the moussaka. (We did actually get a rolled lamb roast for the first Leather Seder. It was delicious, but wow...kosher lamb for so many people was...um...pricey.)

And I try, every time we do a Seder, to at least vary some of the recipes. I made a traditional tsimmes a couple of times, with carrots and apricots, but this year I roasted sweet potatoes with carrots in date syrup and cayenne. I did make a traditional charoset with apples and walnuts and honey, plus a Moroccan one with dates, figs and almonds.

Next week, I'll probably broil a nice skirt steak, toss some pears and nuts into a green salad and when the holiday is over make a rich, thick red sauce to have over penne. But this week, I am giving my spice rack a work out and pondering, as I do every year, whether I should actually get decent knives or a cast iron pan or one of those fancy stewpots. Or a food processor with more than one blade?

Time to rinse the eggplant and make more charoset.

The menu

So, for the Leather Seder, we will have...

Fresh Bitter Herb Salad - assorted leafy greens chosen for their tart and sharp flavors, accented with mint and dill, dressed with a lemon and pepper dressing.

Sephardi Roasted Eggs

Charoset Two Ways - classic style, with apples and walnuts, and Moroccan style with figs, dates and flame raisins.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Date Syrup and Cayenne Pepper

Moussaka, Sephardi style - layers of eggplant, tomatoes, and spiced beef and lamb, accented by cinnamon and nutmeg.

Cold Beet Salad with Sweet Red Onions

Roasted Cauliflower with Saffron, flavored lightly with lime and sea salt

Matzoh

Mock Chestnut Tort & surprise desserts brought by guests

The Leather Seder

The wife and I put together a Leather Seder in...wow...2001. (I had to look it up.) It's called Avadim Chayenu, which means "Once, we were slaves." Over the years, we've had a few of them here in Queens and this year it looks like we'll be having another "honey, ask the neighbors if they have another folding chair" size crowd.

The Haggadah is available for free to anyone who would like to see it or use it. Use this link to download the PDF file. This is an abbreviated version - the one we use has the lyrics to several Debbie Friedman songs and a few other items which would not fall under "fair use." If you would like to know what music we use, The Journey Continues is Debbie's awesomely fun CD, available for downloading, too.

The theme of a seder is familiar to anyone who has enjoyed Anne Baxter crooning, "Moses, Moses, Moses," or Edward G. Robinson trading in his double breasted suit jacket for a robe and headcloth. ("We're not gonna go with Moses, seeee? We're gonna make us a golden calf, seeee?" Kills me every time.) Every year, Jews around the world settle in at a table to retell the story of the exodus from Egypt and slavery into the ultimate in contracted relationships with the Ultimate of Tops.

So, why not appropriate this ritual for people who still negotiate relationships, fetishize rules and love to see Chuck Heston in a teeny little loincloth and a ton of chains?

I don't talk about "spirituality" and leather very much, because I am one of those people who actually believes ones personal religious beliefs are exactly that. But this is a rare exception for me, mainly because a Seder is supposed to open the way, to escape a narrow place and engage in something new. The stranger is welcomed to the table and made family. Wine flows and laughter is mixed with introspection. Someone will find what is hidden and ask for what they really want. The door is opened for a guest no one will see, but everyone knows.


I'm writing this surrounded by the middle of the kitchen transition; my cookware is still in storage, my favorite matzoh was not in the stores I went to, and this is one of those times when I really, really wonder where my f*cking houseboy is. But I think the menu is set, I'm pretty sure we can borrow enough chairs, and the leeks look especially robust in the market this year.

I wish a Chag Sameach to fellow MOTs and a joy-filled spring to everyone who finds something to celebrate. This year in Queens...

...probably next year, too. (wink)


By the way, The Ten Commandments really is just one of the best movies, evah.

NY Queers, take note!

LGBT New Yorkers: Don’t be invisible to New York State! Be counted!

Take a short survey on LGBT health and human services issues at:

www.nylgbtsurvey.org

Be a part of a historic effort to research and document the needs of LGBT New Yorkers, to ensure those needs don’t go unaddressed by government and health and human service providers. The information you provide will go toward fighting for policy changes and funding to make services to LGBT people in New York equitable and LGBT-friendly.
This survey is open to all LGBT New Yorkers ages 18 and over. We’ve never been counted before. This is a historic opportunity.

My appearance at kink.com

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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.

Weird time for reading

Dropped into one of those deep funks where nothing held my attention for long. My reading was mostly the daily paper, my usual gang of bloggers and news sites, some magazines. I started what should prove to be a way-fun book, Anno Dracula. I mean, really, this should have had me captivated. Dracula comes to England, beats the inept vampire hunters and marries Victoria? Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper, Oscar Wilde and Dr. Moreau, come on! This should be like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Widescreen Edition), but, um...good.

(Should I read the graphic novel? The movie was Teh Suck.)

But for some reason, I couldn't get into it. Maybe it was my disappointment over some recent reading choices, maybe it was just the winter blahs. So, to reset my taste, so to speak, I re-read Clan of the Cave Bear. Yes, again. It seems to be working, though, my mind feels clearer. And I am looking at the stack of unread books from PaperbackSwap and feeling more-than-mild interest.

Many thanks to those who joined PBS and listed me as your referral. More books makes me happy.

Catching up...

So, I went away for the weekend (will post about that later...) and took a few books with me. I did something I have *never* done before - I actually left Death Du Jour at home, with about 60 pages to go.

NEVER.

Didn't care. Lost track of the characters. I grabbed a handful of books off the "to read" shelf instead.

On the way to Alberta, I read The English Assassinby Daniel Silva, another Paperback Swap book. I liked it - not as exciting as the first, but not bad for a spy novel. I like the main character and his cover as an art restorer, I like the travel and adventures. The title is a bit of a misnomer - there IS an English assassin in the book, but he's kind of a Boba Fett guy. You get a great build up, and then he sort of falls into a pit without a word. Weird.

On the way home (not having time or energy to read while I was actually on the ground) I read Kiss the Girlsby James Patterson. This one, I also enjoyed. I can tell I will be collecting a few more of the Alex Cross books. The back-and-forth between detecting and the POV of the killers is usually a good hook for me, and Patterson gets it just the way I like it. Also, he's got a deliciously sadistic imagination so far. I had to actually google a sex practice described in this book. That's kind of impressive.

I also read Kindredby Octavia Butler. I have long been urged to read more by her; I had tried two other titles before and they left me with a shrug. This one got me. Short, and a very fast read, it's simply the story of a modern black woman who finds herself magically drawn back in time to rescue her white, slave-owning ancestor. No time at all is spent on figuring out why or how, which adds to the magical realism and subtracts nothing from the actual tale.

In such a deceptively brief series of interludes, Butler really hammers home some excellent views of slavery and how it changes things on an individual and on a cultural level. This one is a keeper - now to see what else I might try from her collection.

Trying Reichs again

So, after tossing the non-lamented Spartans into the box of books I can't wait to give away, I returned to the other new author I experimented with, Kathy Reichs. In the last book I got, the female lead character, despite being a doctor of all sorts of cool science who had first hand knowledge of the bad things that happen to people when violent crimes are committed against them, repeatedly put herself in danger and ignored her former best friend when she was kidnapped, tortured and killed by a local madman.

I decided to give her another chance anyway. Hey, everyone gets to make one big mistake. So, here I am reading Death du Jour, the second outing for forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, and on page 169, there's this mood-killer phrase:

Later, I wondered why I hadn't seen the signs. It might have changed so much.

That was when I folded over a page and went to sleep. Because really, what's the point? I knew right then that Dr. Brennan was going to, once again, ignore, not notice or downplay the danger another woman was in, for the story purpose of putting her in danger. This time, since the best friend was already dead, we jacked up the stakes and made the target her sister.

By the way, did I already mention that each woman was given several personality traits which would tend to make a reader feel less than generous toward them? Best friend was flaky and flighty. Sister is, um...flaky and flighty. And possibly mixed up with some charismatic self-help guru.

OK, well, I gave the author a try. This is absolutely one time where I can say with complete honesty that I enjoy the TV Show the author is connected to MUCH more than her novels. I like the TV Tempe Brennan better. I like the fact that the TV Tempe actually works with a team and acts as smart as the character is created to be. And I am so over passive heroines and punished victims.

I'll still try to get through to the end of this book, though. And then both of them will hit PBS. Ah, well. Luckily, a few more books have come in recently.

Prehistoric Hissy Fits

Finally dragged my way to the last page of People of the Whine. Don't actually know why I bothered, except maybe I was hoping for some last minute change of direction. But no, these indecisive, puling nitwits of the tundra manage to keep up their pointless bickering, meandering and quasi-new-age (ancient-age?) spiritualism all the way to the last stanza of bad poetry. (Shudder) Stay Away. Notice I didn't bother with the amazon link for my .05 fee for a referral. Really. Keep it.

I had decided to take a chance on this book as a sort of methadone until Auel continues her own opus du paleolithic. And let me say that I can dish Cave Bear with the best of them - I have more bones to pick with The Adventures of Amazing Ayla than she uses to invent the perpetual motion device. (Soon to come on volume 8!) So while I was listing this unpleasant bit of fiction with Paperback Swap, I tried to figure out what the real difference was for me.

Some is fairly obvious. Quality of writing. Descriptive and narrative style. Character development. Storyline. Bread and butter stuff. But what *really* makes the difference for me - I think - is the intelligence and charisma of the lead character.

I want - no, I think I NEED - the hero of a story to be smarter than I am. Braver, sure, more clever, why not, more witty, absolutely. (Where else can I steal from?) But I will happily read about or enjoy watching a cowardly, socially deaf misanthrope if they were just smart.

I admire brains. I like my heroes to have 'em. And what's more, I like my heroes to USE them, especially in interesting ways. Sure, I want to find out that smarts don't always solve the problem in the first chapter or the first segment before the commercial. House would be dreadfully dull if that happened every week. And it's lovely, storywise, if smarts can't solve a problem by themselves - when the emo partner or the amusing sidekick, or time, or tragedy or luck or magic get into the action. That's story that might be worth telling.

What's more, I want my smart heroes to demonstrate their brains not only by coming up with good stuff on the fly, but by learning from experience. That's probably why a lot of "chick lit" doesn't appeal to me. (In addition to the fact that I can't really identify with a lot of the motives the main characters have.) It's just this feeling of "haven't we been through this before?" which pops up in disturbing frequency in relationship books aimed at women. Sex and the City was like a course in anthropology to me - "Socially stunted single women of the Serengeti go shoe shopping." I'd watch, wide-eyed, wondering if people really DID those things, lived like that. Putting out the same signals, making the same demands, the same concessions, the same mistakes over and over again and then, well, whining about the results. Entertaining, in half hour slices. Unacceptable as primary entertainment.

I think it's back to some crime novels for me, to wipe away the bad taste left by this novel.

People of the Whine

OK, it's official, People of the Wolf (The First North Americans series, Book 1)is not on my recommended list. I'll finish it, but then right back to Paperback Swap with it and no more from the series. What a bunch of whiners! Should we go north? Should we go south? We should have gone with Dancing Trachea! We should have never left Stinky Moccasins! What does this dream mean? There's nothing to eat!

These weren't the first Canadians, they were the first Kvetchers. Not one has spine enough to sit upright, from the beautiful, abused wife of the shaman to the dreaming boy who thinks maybe if they go south, like, maybe there would be food there because, see, this wolf told him so. Or, not. Add a couple of cranky old ladies who both loved the same loser back in the day and wow, this is not to my taste. Plus, they keep eating things that sound terrible.

If you buy this, don't blame me. You were warned.

Stranger, tell the Spartans this book sucked

Yeah, whew, Gates of Fire is going right back on Paperback Swap. Ah, well, one experimental author to cross off the list.

Sadly, the next book I chose based on the "how bad could it be?" standard is also turning out to be disappointing. Anyone who knows how I read knows I have an enduring fondness for Jean Auel's Earth's Children series, aka The Clan of the Cavebear books, aka, Ayla Discovers Everything books. I forgive her for some of her repetitious styles, for her stunningly overblown and dreadfully dull sex scenes, and even for Ayla, well, discovering everything but the internal combustion engine. (Soon to come in Book 8?)

Why? Because man, that woman can write awesome descriptions. Those books are, for me, the guide to that age, in geography, weather, botany, wildlife - in clothing styles and food gathering and cooking and medicine. When I read Auel, I can taste the ptarmigan wrapped in hay and stuffed with herbs, baked all day in a slow oven. I can see the vastness of a steppe and the grandeur of a continent sized glacier. In fact, when I saw my first glacier up close, my first thought was, "It's just like she described."

But because of my fondness for those books and the meticulous research which went into their structure and the inventions of the author, it's hard for me to appreciate other books like them. Every time I would consider buying one, I'd stop and think, "If this isn't as good as Cavebear, I am gonna be very annoyed I spent ten bucks on it."

But now that I am trading books for what is essentially postage, I decided I will take a risk now and then and try another author or genre. This next book is one of the risks. And at page 75, I am not that impressed.

I picked up People of the Wolf (The First North Americans series, Book 1). I figured, hey, it's written by archeologists. They sound like people who would know Cool Stuff. And since it's "the majestic saga of the first Canadians," I won't be amused to find out that the male romantic lead is actually...French.

But so far, what I have is a lot of people named things like One Who Cries and Dancing Fox and for all I know, Motion of Light In Water will come in the next chapter. And I can hardly keep them straight. This...is not a good sign. Give me some clues as to what they look like, who they are, something to differentiate them. And please, save me from the twin brothers destined to be lifelong enemies from birth. (You know the "bad" one has no reason to do what he does - he just has to. As he tells people, over and over.)

Arggh. Dunno if I will last on this one through the whole thing. I like a story with a villain as much as anyone, but at least give me a reason.

I may need a palate cleanser after this one.

I think the worst part of reading books I don't enjoy is that they make me wonder if I am guilty of the things I am complaining about. Am I describing place, time, and persons as well as I should? Do I make people different enough, interesting enough?

Anyway, back to the wolfies for a while.