quoththeraven

Here's "How to Read a Victorian Novel" from my lit prof friend's blog, Novel Readings. http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/novelreadings/how-to-read-a-victorian-novel/

No, but it doesn't surprise me. The New Yorker also has a reputation for rigorous fact-checking.

Maybe the "r" got dropped somewhere along the way. The ability to tinker up until publication has degraded coherence immensely. We are all our own worst proofreaders.

But WTF is a Tumbl? I have a Tumblr, as do many people I know, and I've never seen that term before. "Complain on Tumblr" would make more sense.

Thank you and hi to all you Austen and Dostoevsky fans! AdamSmith - Save yourself time and read Gogol's short story "The Overcoat." (Some wag of a Russian writer - I don't remember who - once said "We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat.") I forget who mentioned Middlemarch, but I disappointed a Twitter/blog friend of mine who is an English professor who teaches courses on Victorian fiction and George Eliot, among other things, by returning it to the library after reading the first two sections. (At the time, I didn't know the library has a policy of indefinite renewals.) I may try again, but not for another year. I have too big a backlog of unread books on my Kindle. Not now, because I need to wrap this up and go pick up needles for my diabetic cat, but at some point I'll post a link to my friend's blog, Novel Readings. And I saw a reference to Go Ask Alice in a recent literary Twitter discussion as one of the few books composed entirely of diary entries. (The main discussion was about Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is partially told through diary entries.)

I can't think of another writer who writes mysteries with gay characters and sex scenes as consistently as Lanyon, but here are a few who write some mysteries, thrillers and the like whose books also have sex scenes: Harper Fox - her Tyack & Frayn books have all the elements you are looking for plus supernatural/paranormal activity, which I guess makes them urban fantasy even though they're set in the country. One character is a (British) police officer. Her other books are worth reading, too. Jordan Castillo Price - Her Psycops series is about a practice of the Chicago police department to pair people with paranormal abilities with "regular" partners to investigate crimes their particular abilities apply to (truthtelling/mind-reading to dishonesty, communicating with ghosts to homicide). The main characters are not partners at work (one is "normal," one sees ghosts, so the investigations touched on in the books are murder investigations) but meet through work. Everything else of hers, much of which is sci fi or speculative in nature but all of which is set on Earth, is worth reading, too. J.L. Merrow has a couple of mystery/paranormal series. Some of her books are also very funny. Now that I think about it, most of Rhys Ford's books are mysteries or have a mystery element, especially the series (the name of which escapes me) with the PI main character. Her books are action-packed and more violent than most. Many are set in California. (She's from LA.) She also writes some alternate universe stories with paranormal and mythical elements. Then there are the three series by Nava, Hansen and Stephenson mentioned in my original post, but by comparison there isn't much sex in them (keeping in mind I only read the first in Nava's series). They do, however, put more emphasis on the mystery element than most of the work of the authors mentioned above. ETA: If you like mystery/detective novels that don't have a clear gay element but are somewhat sensationalistic, for lack of a better term, try anything by Wilkie Collins, contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. My favorite of his, Armadale, is vaguely homoerotic (two of the main characters are distant relatives with the same name, Allan Armadale) and features the best female villain - maybe the most interesting villain ever - in all of literature written in English. (Her name is Lydia Gwilt.) But everything else of his is worth reading, too.

My favorite novel is Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Jane Austen is my favorite novelist. (Much of the time, Dostoevsky was in need of a good editor.) Somehow I don't think I'll find a lot of people here who share those preferences. That's fine. Plenty of my Twitter friends are Austen fans. I can get my share of Austen discussion there (and have). Movie and TV adaptations can do things books can't and sometimes bring in people who wouldn't or don't have time to read the books -- watching a TV version of David Copperfield is what got me to read the book after fizzling out on reading Oliver Twist because there were too many unfamiliar words -- but books also have advantages movies and TV don't. I usually wind up preferring the books. Occasionally I like both equally.

If you are not reading much, perhaps you should cancel Kindle Unlimited. Not that it's a lot of money per month (I have it), but still. I would be lost without my Kindle Fire. I use it far more than I use my desktop. Typing on a touchscreen is still an art I haven't completely mastered, though. People are so unaccountable that this could be true -- it sounds a lot more comfortable to me than fucking in an airplane toilet, but who knows? Perhaps it was something the author ran across in his research. A quick look on the internet neither confirmed nor denied the veracity of this. Also, you reminded me about The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. After a point, I skimmed -- it leaned a little too far toward magical realism for what I was looking for -- but the beginning, and its depiction of how sex work was an objectively much better choice for a young working-class widow and mother during the Victorian era than so-called "honest work," is memorable.

I kid, I kid. But I've been thinking about starting a thread about books for awhile, and Bigvalboy's New Year's resolution to read more is as good an excuse as any. So what kind of books do you like to read? Read anything great lately? Or terrible? Here's a place where you can discuss it. I'm a big fan of mysteries, detective novels, and thrillers, especially psychological thrillers. A couple of months ago, I read everything Rex Stout published featuring Nero Wolfe. My more recent reading probably wouldn't interest you, but the mystery series penned by Richard Stevenson (featuring PI Donald Strachey), Joseph Hansen (featuring insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter) and Michael Nava (featuring lawyer Henry Rios) might. I found Nava's first Henry Rios book, The Little Death, overly cynical and a little scattered, so I haven't read more (other people swear by them). Of the other two, Hansen is the better writer but Stevenson is funnier and more political. He also happens to write about a location I'm familiar with. Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series, the basis for the TV shows, is also good, as is Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli & Isles series.

Are you trying to make a point? First a toothbrush, now a cock!

OUCH!!!

Woof!

Also, if you followed the coverage of Dominique Strauss Kahn, you would discover: 1. Charges were dropped because the case would be difficult to prosecute and a likely acquittal because of a phone conversation between the victim and her boyfriend that indicated an interest in shaking Strauss Kahn down. Acquittals can occur because of reasonable doubt even though the defendant is guilty as sin. He admitted getting a blow job from the housekeeper at his hotel, consistent with DNA evidence; his defense was consent. But unless she offered out of the blue, which I don't think even he argued, the idea of consensuality or lack of a power differential is absurd when talking about a powerful man well enough off to rent a suite in an upscale NYC hotel and a maid. What do you expect her to do when propositioned by such a person in a hotel room by herself: say no and risk violence, or say yes? 2. Strauss Kahn was known as a serial sexual harasser at the IMF. Not a crime, but if it weren't for his power, wealth, connections, and political/diplomatic status, he could have cost his employer bigtime in a civil suit. This only became public because of the rape charge. 3. Allegations regarding his behavior elsewhere, particularly in France, where a young journalist/scholar accused him of a rape she did not initially report after her mother convinced her not to (forget if her mother was motivated by prudence, disbelief, or both and believe his defense was consent, not that it didn't happen) show his sexual habits to be less than savory, to put it nicely. This also only became public because of the rape charge. 4. An extremely conservative French journalist (she's written for the Weekly Standard) with whom I am friends on LiveJournal confirmed all of the above. Before this, Strauss Kahn had a terrible but non-publicly known reputation as a skirt chaser who doesn't take "no" for an answer. Sorry, you can't reasonably hold Strauss Kahn up as someone whose life or reputation was ruined because of a false accusation.

But it's not true in others. I believe the latest, although not unanimous, conclusion is that while abuse may influence a few, mostly it's a matter of being born/wired that way, if we're talking about attraction to prepubescents (the true meaning of the term pedophile). Attraction to teenagers/youth (hebephile) is common and sometimes reinforced by society but can be dealt with by sticking to partners who are over the age of 18 but look younger. Hence all the porn out there with young-looking men (gay porn) and women (straight porn).

As a (half)Asian woman, I second this 1,000%. There is research that shows that Asian men are perceived as non-masculine/feminine. (I don't remember the specifics about study participants, but I believe the study was conducted in the US - it was definitely in an Anglophone country - so primarily college-age and almost certainly predominantly white.) This perception is related to many things, including Asian men not being romantic leads in movies, Asian men only appearing in niche porn (Van Darkholme works for Kink.com, which may be popular and well-known but is still niche; the only other gay site or studio I know of that features Asian models is Peter; and I've never seen or heard of Asian men in straight porn), and Asians and Muslims being the most stereotyped groups in popular media and culture. (Technically, most of the Muslims so stereotyped are themselves Asian. Food for thought!) In popular media/culture, a handful of black and Latino/Hispanic characters - overwhelmingly but not always male - are not stereotyped, and non-traditional casting usually means a black actor in a part not written for a black actor. It hardly ever means an Asian actor in a part not written for an Asian. It may be just as likely for a woman to be cast in a part written for a man, like Sigourney Weaver as Ridley in Alien and out gay woman Kirsten Vangsness as Garcia in Criminal Minds. TL;DR: Asian men/escorts are the Rodney Dangerfields of the gay world. We need ways of coping personally while acting to change the culture. As BVB says, it isn't helpful for those who are constantly on the receiving end of insults and stereotypes based on immutable characteristics, whether they be race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, or dick size, to become angry or defensive every single time it happens. They need to pick their battles. But sometimes that may mean walking away and avoiding toxic situations entirely.

He really is stunning.

I had to go back and look for her. I scrolled right by her.

Someone needs his hearing checked.

http://41.media.tumblr.com/8318049f031f7d78a5e34aacb3b091fb/tumblr_nz5eku6XAq1qhub34o4_540.jpg http://40.media.tumblr.com/6dc4e54cb78d620616581c580e4decec/tumblr_nz5eku6XAq1qhub34o1_400.png http://40.media.tumblr.com/88c0e0c976b5d871b9ce54cc82ce8a55/tumblr_nz5eku6XAq1qhub34o2_400.png http://36.media.tumblr.com/6f1f04894aa0657e826aa8d599de6c56/tumblr_nz5eku6XAq1qhub34o3_540.png Source

I have a small collection of photos of Chinglish signs from my daughter's trip to China with a school group. Grammar is much simplified in Mandarin compared to English, which leads to these howlers; it's usually impossible to translate Mandarin into English literally and have it be grammatically correct English at the same time. It's also possible one or more of these signs is in Japanese. The titke of Japanese heavy metal group Dir en grey's song "Ryoujoku no ame" is usually translated "Rain of Rape" but a better translation would be "Relentless Rain."

Did you read the article? How about addressing the points it raises? Sorry, we are all complicit, to one extent or another. It's easy to point fingers at someone else. It's not as easy to do anything that might actually make a difference. Shkreli is more up front about his complicity and less repentant than most. But at least he's honest about not caring about anything but himself and the almighty dollar.

Intellectual property protection has its place. But the U.S. and other Western countries have tilted the playing field too far in favor of corporate rather than consumer and humanitarian interests. Defiance of the U.S. patent regime is a rational response by those countries to fill gaps in the market. As someone who was converted to market economics after taking a microeconomics class, I break out in a rash when someone mentions price-fixing, even for the pharmaceutical industry. I have not studied their balance sheets and don't know how to respond to the legitimate claim that they incur substantial research costs without being sure the results will justify the investment. But I'm not opposed to the application of an excess profits tax, though that may have its own downsides. Taking a look at the charts included in that article, I venture to say that what we have here is the intersection of capitalism, racism, and ethnocentrism. That doesn't mean capitalism is horrible. What we need is capitalism with a human face, to borrow a phrase from Gorbachev. It'd be nice to see that reflected in policy more consistently.

This depends on what definition of love you are using. If it's more abstract, all is fine. If it is "I am obsessed with you, want to be your boyfriend and live in your pocket" (metaphorically or otherwise) "and will spend any amount to see you and let you bleed me dry of money if you feel so inclined," yes, there's a problem.

Some context about why the rest of us aren't that morally superior to Mr. Shkreli: https://medium.com/the-lighthouse/we-are-all-martin-shkreli-c77ebad1de2a#.gyc4lu9zo