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/

You know The New Yorker used to have an editor dedicated to giving editorial tune-up advice, on both the captions and the artwork, to their cartoonists.

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

Was wondering that myself. Simple error, messed-up part of the joke, something else...?

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've always been a reader, too, and read widely and well. After being diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, I found that deep, or truely thought provoking novels tended to trigger my anxiety, about the ephemeral nature of love and life. I turned to mysteries with gay characters and vivid sex scenes to fill my need to read without stirring up painful philosophical or metaphysical issues. Good writers in this "Gay Detective" genre are hard to find. My favorite is Josh Lanyon, but the poor man can't support my reading habit by himself. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

I'm still trying to treat my Disorder with counseling and medication, and would love to follow some of your suggestions for both rereading and new reading. Maybe this year. I miss it so much.

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.

I have read all of Hansen's, Nava's, and Stevenson's books. Hansen's books particularly appeal to me because of the progress of his relationship with his younger male black lover. His books arere small gems, a word I seldom use.

 

Caution though. Lucky and I used to post a list of the books we read the previous year in early January. We stopped after two or three years after realizing how little in common we had in our reading. Right now in another forum, MrMiniver and I disagree about Tolstoy's "War and Peace." I have read the book several times; Miniver prefers the new British multi-part TV series.

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.

I propose we have a forum just dedicated to off road racing trucks because it is something I am interested in even though no one else is interested in it.

 

I should read more, I wish I had time. I have a Kindle, I have a Kindle Unlimited membership. I should read more. I should...

 

....

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.

I actually was thinking about starting one of these threads at least in reference to escorting. I was reading Richard Ford's Canada and there was a passing reference to women who would escort on trains. They would buy roundtrip train tickets but then never actually got off the the trains at the destination city. They just rode the trains back and forth meeting customers in the train compartments, and I wondered if this detail lacked verisimilitude or if it really depicted an old-fashioned way of high-end escorting before the Internet came along.

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!

http://i.imgur.com/1izBtwp.jpg

OUCH!!!

Enjoy!

Woof!

Of course you're right that technically people are innocent until proven guilty but if Americans really believed that, shouldn't someone's arrest and what they are charged with be kept confidential unless/until they are convicted? I think one reason this information is public is so that the government doesn't arrest and incarcerate people secretly, but perp walks and prosecutor/police press releases never go away even if someone is found innocent. How many times do we recall seeing the arrest on the front page (and nearly constantly repeated on CNN) yet if the person is found innocent that news is in small print on the back page? So IF this guy is found innocent I suspect for the rest of his life when someone Googles his name the arrest for possession of this porn will appear and people will still wonder.

 

Remember the IMF chief arrested in NYC for supposedly sexually assaulting a maid? Several perp walks, lots of press and then the "victim" was determined by the prosecutor to be unreliable and the charges dropped. And for the prosecutor - no negative ramifications for what the case did to the man's reputation or reimbursement of legal fees, etc.

 

The scales of justice aren't balanced at all. The government has unlimited resources and nearly unchecked power. And our elected employees want to give more.

 

I doubt anyone disagrees that if this guy is guilty he should receive a very tough sentence.

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.

There's a theory about men who were molested, molesting kids later in life and I'm sure it must be true in some cases.

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).

Grindr

Face Photo - No / Little Messages

Body Photo - Phone blows up but once I sent face photo it becomes a wasteland

 

I message older guys but I rarely get a response. I live in a conservative/waspy area. Many guys have in there profile "no rice", "no yellow", "no azns or blks", "whites only" "no ethnics". It is only once you hit Boca Raton and south it is much more diverse and more open minded.

 

I get some mean messages some are funny such as:

 

"egg roll", "wanton soup", "china man" 0___o

 

In Person

I live in a conservative/waspy area, I see guys looking / glancing at me I think something is wrong or if i'm doing something weird but I never get approached or talked to.

 

Off Topic

This is a quote from another escort Clark and his tumblr hyperlinked <--

"The designation of Asian men being considered less attractive by our beauty standards is because of racism, misogyny, and male supremacy in an arbitrary system which regards european men as the highest standard of man"

 

Which i can agree to some extent only because I have heard a lot of evidence (feedback from my own "hook ups") such as:

 

"you are the first asian i've been with", "i'm usually not into asians", "you are cute for an asian" and my favorite of all lines "are you really asian you don't sound asian?"

 

Not everyone is like that, many are judgment free and free loving however I have seen a good number who share these thoughts / philosophy. This is my take coming from my end/side. What is your take?

 

This could be a reason why I don't get approached or messaged online/in person.

 

Sorry to steal the thread, I was in a society discussing mood lol.

 

Back On Topic

I'm too shy/intimidated to approach others in a club/bar setting. I don't like going out for this reason so my nights consists of staying home and reading or entertaining guests .

 

When I go do normal errands mom-aged women will compliment me and ask if I have a girlfriend. I don't know how I feel when moms ask me if I have a girlfriend, I've had one mom introduce me to their daughter right afterwards. It was kinda awkward. However when Dilfs chat me up (which is rare) I get a rallied up and have mischievous thoughts. Thoughts such as "Son's friend seduces the dad", "son catches dad with his best friend" and "wife catches husband with son's schoolmate" LOL.

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.

Oh, to be that random woman in that one photo.......

T

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

http://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uuuploads/funny-chinese-sign-translation-fails/funny-chinese-sign-translation-fails-1.jpg

 

http://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uuuploads/funny-chinese-sign-translation-fails/funny-chinese-sign-translation-fails-2.jpg

 

http://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uuuploads/funny-chinese-sign-translation-fails/funny-chinese-sign-translation-fails-10.jpg

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."

not

 

I am morally superior to Shkreli. And if I raised the price of a life saving drug by 5000%, I would not run around with the Shkreli Smirk.

http://http//thereelnetwork.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/HIVSmirk-620x264.jpg%5Bimg%5D

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.

Yup, a reason for countries like India, South Africa and Brazil (I pick them because they have the technical capabilities to produce the drugs as generics) to decline to particpate in the Western patent merry-go-round for pharmaceuticals.

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.

It's often impossible to totally control our feelings. Even Mr. Spock couldn't do it. And the rest of us are only human. With that in mind, I could certainly see a client falling into what he thinks is love to a nice handsome guy. After all the escort will normally be the type of guy the client is attracted to-otherwise why hire him? And this guy to whom the client is attracted to is making the client feel good physically-and possibly mentally. Who wouldn't fall in love with such a guy? But the escort is providing a paid service. I'm not saying the escort can't like the client or feel warmly towards him, but for way over the vast majority of clients it ain't going to happen. The escort is not going to fall in love with the client. If a client actually expressed his love and the belief that the escort would love him back, things are way out of control. Even if the client doesn't tell the escort, but the escort can tell by what the client does, things are still out of control. While there isn't an AMA or a Bar Association for escorts, in most cases it's immoral for an escort to continue seeing a client who is in love with him. It would be like a psychiatrist or lawyer taking advantage of a patient/client.

 

Gman

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