Some great literary porn

You wouldn't normally associate E. L. Doctorow's classic novel Ragtime (profusely adapted for both stage and screen) with eroticism. Would you? I don't know. Maybe. When I first read it, whenever that was (and you can tell something by the way the pages of my paperback copy have turned not yellow, but brown), a certain passage stuck in my head. So did a few others, and all of them had to do with sex.

Not that Doctorow is a pornographer or even an especially sensual writer, though he does have his moments. His strength is describing what's right in front of him, and I seldom feel his characters' hearts beating. But once in a while. . . 

Doctorow is a notorious name-dropper in this thing and keeps on referring to the movers and shakers of the day, people like Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, Admiral Peary, and - most notably - two women, famous or even infamous for very different reasons. I don't know much about Emma Goldman except that she was an anarchist and a rabble-rouser, and had a face like a rail fence. Evelyn Nesbit was considered a scarlet woman and spent her evenings sitting around on a red velvet swing while men looked her up, or is it the other way around? 

I won't even try to navigate the ambitions of this book, because they are just so extreme. A novel is always a reduction of reality, but reducing this gigantic sprawl of history to any sort of pages is pretty remarkable, that is, without freeze-drying and removing all the juices in the process.

This passage has juices. It's just the kind of scene that my mind wanders to when.  . . oh hell, who has sexual fantasies at my age anyway? Life is full of surprises. I thought things would sort of dry up at menopause, but instead, wow, wowsa, wowsy, wow-wow-wow-wow!

So I still enjoy imagining scenes, toying with characters, even writing the stuff myself (see: The Glass Character, which has its share of erotic moments while Muriel Ashford hopelessly throbs for her dear, distant, impossible amour). The "explosive" conclusion of this scene is such a surprise that it initially kind of shocked me. I know men of that era were supposed to be almost as chaste as women, but I don't imagine too many of them could manage it.

I love costume dramas, the ones that go on in my head I mean, and I love Victorian and Edwardian scenes because the women's gowns are just ravishing, making practically anyone look graceful and beautiful, and are at the same time mortal prisons. It appeals to my innate sense of masochism. But wouldn't all those layers be perversely exciting? A man might have to take a course of study to undress his wife on his wedding night (and by the way, have you ever thought of this? In the past, a good many people, both men and women, knew nothing at all about the sex act when they married. And yet, they had these huge families. They must've figured it out, but how good was it? I mean, for her? Oh Jesus, just read the excerpt!)

Though it's not likely they ever met, Doctorow has fun with an erotically-charged encounter between Emma Goldman and Evelyn Nesbit. Writers can move the chess-pieces around any way they want, and manipulate their women figures like so many helpless dolls. One wonders if the author reacted anything like Mother's Younger Brother.

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"Cleanse that taco!" The taco cleanse diet

The Taco Cleanse Is a Real Diet — and Involves Eating Tacos All Day

01/04/2016 AT 01:31 PM ET


LIVIA CORONA/GETTY

Now, here’s a cleanse we can get behind.

Thanks to the self-proclaimed “taco scientists” and authors of the new book The Taco Cleanse, there’s finally a new trendy diet plan that aligns with our kind of New Year’s resolution.

Creators Wes Allison, Stephanie Bogdanich, Molly R. Frisinger and Jessica Morris developed the book after eating tacos for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 30 days straight—and are encouraging others to do the same.

RELATED: Alex Guarnaschelli Blogs: Win Taco Tuesday with These Garlic Shrimp and Avocado Tacos

The scientists provide all the necessities for following a taco-based lifestyle including five recipes for tortillas (there’s a waffle version!), over 35 vegan recipes for fillings and all the fixings to compliment them.

While the detox plan doesn’t promise weight loss, there are plenty of other benefits.

“A taco consumed within three hours of waking, colloquially called a ‘breakfast taco,’ has been anecdotally proven to erase the ill effects of the previous night’s toxic indulgence. A midday taco frequently results in more positive physical effects,” reads the book. “The spicy taco consumed prior to sleep stimulates the nocturnal imagination and has been used by taco spiritualists to induce prophetic dreams.”

RELATED: These Celebrities Love Tacos Just as Much as You Do



So is the Taco Cleanse right for you? If the debut of the taco emoji was the highlight of your 2015, it’s safe to say the answer is definitely yes.

—Ana Calderone, @anacalderone

Blogger's stupid comments. Oh I don't know. Whatever somebody tells me to do, I do the opposite - write an erudite, interesting blog (no, write THIS one!); eat veggies (eat garbage). Get a dog (get a cat). So if someone tells me to eat tacos all day long for no discernible reason (they admit it doesn't help you lose weight), what am I going to do? Eat an anti-taco? Anti-eat a taco? (Don't want to think about that one!). Eat an ocat? Coat? Toca? Acot? Oact? Cato? Ctao? Tao C? O, act? A cot? O, cat? And other things.

Today I left a comment on someone's Facebook page. There was an article posted called Four Steps to Keeping A Safe and Tidy Blog, or something like that - distressingly bland. I said in my comment that I thought the most important thing about blogging was to post an entry every day, so the thing doesn't run down, lie fallow or crap out. The response was, "no, I don't think you should post EVERY day because you need time to work on your poetry, novel, or non-fiction book."

Having jumped into the macerator three times, and come away with less self-esteem each time, I am convinced I DO know how to write, but don't know how to successfully publish/sell books, which is what it all comes down to. No one ever mentions this on FB. All these aspiring writers just assume that when they finally finish their masterpiece, it will leap up on top of the New York Times Bestseller List all by itself. No, really - NO one seems to worry about getting an agent or a publisher or any of those tiring, tawdry things.

I hereby retire. I mean it. I will NEVER try to publish again because I am not made of the stuff that succeeds at it. I am tired of being steadily siphoned of my sense of self-worth. From now on, I write whatever dravel (blather and drivel?) I want to write, and I promise myself I will stay away from brick walls. I am 62 years old, not getting any younger, and have had my fill of humiliation.

'Scuse me while I kiss this taco.

(Post-post. Although! I will gladly sign a movie deal for Harold, and even write the film adaptation if someone will help me with it.)

Some awesome!

 

Dear Universe. It's Margaret here, a. k. a. The Glass Character. Now listen up. I know you're the centre of everything, in fact you encompass everything that is, was, and ever shall be. Your bounds are limitless and your scope and breadth are unknown. But I know you have time for me and what I want today: and what I want today is "some awesome"! 

Never mind that no one really knows what "some awesome" means. I am totally open to it! I believe the Universe grants my every wish because I am the centre of it. Not just the world, the solar system, the galaxy, etc.: THE UNIVERSE. Everything that exists in all Creation is here to serve me, and me alone, and I am "totally open" to having the sum total of everything that exists serve up "some awesome" for me today.

I don't even have to ask. 

The $52,000.00 blankie

·

Click to open expanded view

Red Heart Plush Baby Yarn-Blueberry
by Red Heart
Be the first to review this item

Price:
CDN  $5,272.03 FREE SHIPPING.

Only 3 left in stock.
Ships from and sold by Histore CA.
1 new from CDN $ 5,272.03
Red Heart NOM060580 Plush Baby Yarn, Blueberry
Weight 0.07 Kg
Price per each SKU# NOM060580

No kidding. This is how much Amazon.ca wants for a ball of blankie wool. Used to be $3.00 or $4.00, but then, like all the materials I love to work with, it has been discontinued and is rare as the dodo. I'd need about ten of them, I'd say.

But only a dodo would buy this. 

Dumbest thing I ever saw on Facebook? We'll see

X-ray of dislocation -12/17/13. MRI showed torn supraspinatus tendon, axial nerve damage, possible tear in labrum but won't know until they operate Jan. 22, 2014





Without any fanfare or explanation, someone posted an x-ray of their dislocated shoulder on Facebook. We don't know why. Even more incredible is the fact that this was re-posted TWO YEARS LATER. We never found out why. To what purpose? To brag about/show off an injury? To get us all thinking just what a dislocated shoulder might mean in philosophical terms (being pulled in different directions - oh my!)? To get attention, do you think? Oooohs and ahhhhs of sympathy (which of course worked)? This is worse than posting pictures of your food, which to me makes about as much sense as posting pictures of your bowel movements. Maybe that's next. How about used surgical sponges? THAT would be nice.

Possible poster? We really don't know. But I want a zipper like that.

Pee Wee Herman: the Bill Cosby Connection

Reubens' 1991 arrest


In July 1991, while visiting relatives, Reubens was arrested in Sarasota, Florida, for masturbating publicly in an adult theater. Detectives would periodically visit pornographic theaters and observe the audience, arresting those engaged in indecent exposure. Reubens had not been in character for a year and a half, but because CBS was still running reruns of Pee-wee's Playhouse, Reubens' infamous mug shot, which did not depict the clean-cut look Reubens had shown for the last decade, shocked the public, and many thought that the show had been canceled due to the arrest.

The arrest was widely covered, and both the character Pee-wee and Reubens became the subject of ridicule. CBS stopped airing Playhouse and Disney-MGM Studios suspended from its studio tour a video that showed Pee-wee explaining how voice-over tracks were made and Toys-R-Us removed Pee-wee toys from its stores. However, his voice work in Disney's Star Tours was not replaced.

Despite the negative publicity, many artists who knew Reubens, such as Cyndi Lauper, Annette Funicello, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Valeria Golino, spoke out in his support. Bill Cosby defended Reubens, saying "Whatever (Reubens has) done, this is being blown all out of proportion". Other people who knew Reubens, such as Playhouse's production designer Gary Panter, S. Epatha Merkerson and Big Top Pee-wee director Randal Kleiser, also spoke out against the way Reubens was being treated by the media.

Reubens's fans also organized rallies of support after CBS canceled the scheduled reruns, with several dozens of "Pee-weeites" picketing in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.The general public also appeared to sympathize with Reubens – the TV newsmagazine A Current Affair received "tens of thousands" of responses to a Pee-wee telephone survey, with callers supporting Reubens with a 9-to-1 majority. He remained in a state of shock for weeks and was haunted by the arrest for several years, refusing to give interviews or appear on talk shows. - Wikipedia

Blogger's blather. I posted this admittedly-weak post because the line about Bill Cosby jumped out at me. It jumped out at me because - no, I can't refer to the pot calling the kettle black. But it's something like that.

When you think about it, though, why do people even GO to adult theatres? For the popcorn? Why do cops hang around adult theatres waiting to make an arrest as soon as they see a guy with his hand on his dick? Why do they bother, when there are assholes like Bill Cosby drugging and raping women for DECADES, and getting away with it?

People may have found the image of a children's entertainer whacking off in a porn theatre unsavory. That's because it is. I don't really want to think about ANYBODY whacking off ANYWHERE, which is not to say I am "against" it. I just don't want to think about it.

On a similar subject (or maybe not). This is one man's confession of sin before he joined Scientology. Obviously, they're pretty strict about what constitutes perversion. I don't think burning yourself with matches or jabbing yourself in the butt is the sin here. It's - God, I can't even SAY it! NO ONE does that, do they? I mean, EVER.

Royal Canadian Men's Historical Society and Masturbation Club, circa 1897

(NOW we know how that guy dislocated his shoulder.)

That lovin' rag

Everybody do the Michigan Rag

Everybody likes the Michigan Rag

Every Mame and Jane and Ruth

From Weehawken to Duluth

Slide, ride, glide the Michigan

Stomp, romp, pomp the Michigan

Jump, clump, pump the Michigan Rag

That lovin' rag!

My angst, my anger

I find it interesting, on this second day of the new year, that THIS is the post that probably drew the most likes on my page (53 and counting, when I normally get zero or one). It's not only just a share of someone else's post, it's highly critical of Facebook and social media mentality/narcissism. People are chiming in to agree with it, with one exception, someone who thinks it's brave of people to bare their souls like that. Hmmmmm. My brilliant Venetian vacation, my lottery win, my literary prize which I am sure I do not deserve, my new profile pic with my hair gauzily streaming in the wind (electric fan), eliciting ooohs and ahhhs, my telling people - oh so modestly - that complete strangers are stopping me in the street just to tell me how beautiful I am. And blah blah blah. Look at this, folks - look! My angst, my anger, my vanity, my conceit. There for all the world to see.

Pickle Surprise

These are the things I find in the bottom of the YouTube dustbin. Very drag-queeny stuff, and if I ever wrote anything negative about drag queens I am so sorry now, because there have been some awful repercussions. The point I was trying to make is that I had this friend (no friend of mine now, not after what he did) who was this ultra-stuffy professor with seven or eight degrees, and a much younger boy friend, and he had this negative thing about drag queens because they reminded him of his mother.

And if he didn't like women anyway, which he didn't, or not much, then why dress as one?

These are philosophical arguments only. When I see the joy drag queens evidence, I wonder where my joy has gone sometimes. I can't get that hopped up about shoes. Or anything else.

But I hope you enjoy the strangeness of this, and if not, the brevity of this, for the best videos are always under three minutes, or, even better, under two. Under one minute is the ultimate, for even if it's a total bust, you won't have wasted more than forty-five seconds of your time.

Strawberry Shortcut

This I actually like. I wish I had seen this when I was 25 years old and trying very hard to be a proper wife and mother and do all those Good Housekeeping things and failing miserably at ALL of it, as if anyone noticed or cared. This would have lifted me up, and I might even have tried this dessert, if that's what it is. Whatever else it is, it's certainly a shortcut.

Hippo New Year

Who says 3D is new?

From King of the Mardi Gras, a 1935 Popeye cartoon. Max Fleischer was one of the great innovators of early animation. As far as I am concerned, he kicked Disney's ass. His stuff was extremely goofy and almost surreal, busting out of Disney's ultra-conventional mold. In this cartoon, the rides of the fairground are eerily realistic in the background, almost as if. . . as if they were really there. 

And they were.

The whole thing was done on a turntable with miniatures. I think that's brilliant. I can't explain it as well as this paragraph I found on an animation site:

The setback rig consists of a forced-perspective, miniature set mounted on a turntable, serving as background to the cel art held in a vertical glass platen, and a horizontal animation camera. The turntable is rotated incrementally behind the cels, creating the effect of a “tracking shot” — the 2D animated character, in a side-view walk cycle, traverses a realistically proportioned (but still recognizably Fleischeresque) 3D environment which moves perspectivally across the background.

Take that, Mickey bleeping Mouse.

BUT WAIT - there's more! Information on this process isn't that easy to find, as I keep getting sidetracked by people using the term "rotoscope" (including in the comments under the original YouTube video). This is another process entirely, involving painting over live-action images.

But here it is, an actual photograph of Dave Fleischer at work with his "set-back" animation method.

How 3-D Animation Was Made Seventy Years Ago

In 1941, the Fleischer Studio constructed this elaborate three-dimensional distorted perspective set for the feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town.

Built of balsa wood and plastics, it required architect-artists four months to construct. The entire set rests on a steel turntable which can both revolve and move up and down. Drawings will be photographed a full six feet in front of the set and the combination of the “set-back” photography and the “distorted perspective” of the set will provide the illusion of third dimension, according to director Dave Fleischer, who is seen moving the set.

Blogger's reflections. From what I've picked up, Mr. Bug was watered-down Fleischer that didn't do so well at the box office, having been released on Pearl Harbour Day in 1941. Americans had more pressing things on their minds than animated bugs.

When I look at this, I see someone trying to copy Disney. Maybe it was called survival. At any rate, the one-line review I found in Rotten Tomatoes kind of shocked me.

A bizarre mess that fails at every imaginable level.

Full Review… | February 4, 2011

Phil Hall

Film Threat

Oh, and. As a P. S. to the P. S., here's a snippet of gold: from Ali Baba and his Forty Thieves, one of those "feature-length" Popeye cartoons that lasted seventeen minutes. Beautiful, they were, and very three-dimensional.

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

TURNABOUT opening credits NBC sitcom

I keep running into this thing. I even found, sort-of, an episode, but it had two guys making comments on top of it, a form I find hard to take. Let the episode speak for itself, with its own special brand of cheesiness, rather than "Oh man! Lookit how cheesy this is!" "Awesome!". Yeah.

I have always liked animation at the start of TV sitcoms, and these reached a full flowering in the mid-to-late '60s (though there was lots of abstract stuff in the '50s). This show came later, in the '70s some time. Apparently the series lasted seven episodes. Sharon Gless and John Schuck do their best, but it's a soiled rag, folks. Actors can only do so much with material this weak/bizarre.

A new low in narcissism: Facebook quote of the day/year

Actual Facebook quote. Name withheld, though I don't know why:

"A complete stranger stopped me to say I looked beautiful. That hasn't happened in many years and it made my day."

To this person, I'd say: I wish that for just one time, you could stand inside my shoes. This is what you'd hear, and you'd probably find it intolerable:

"Hi, everybody. My beauty is so overwhelming, people literally stop me in the street just to tell me! Of course, this isn't the first time I've been stopped in the street. It used to happen to me all the time. So now I guess it has started up again. This makes my day, particularly since it is Facebook bait for dozens and dozens of gushing remarks about how beautiful I am. I mean, what else can they say?"

Who needs ipecac when you have stuff like this.

Turkish Delight, Part 3: The Exorcist

Turkish Delight, Part 2: Star Trek

Turkish Delight, Part 1: Superman

Click this link if you dare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXkBzTLOyjc&list=RDpXkBzTLOyjc#t=2

Click this if you dare! It kept me up all night.

Not the Proust questionnaire

Since we're in that dreadful  existential hole known as Crimbo Limbo (the useless week between Christmas and New Years), I'm going to take a questionnaire I just found on Facebook.

1. Are you doing what you truly want to do?

Right now? No. Right now I'd like to be riding a white Arabian horse under a pure blaze of sunlight beside dazzling turquoise waters.  In the Greek isles.  And I'm not.

2. How many promises you have made and how many of them you have fulfilled?

So this says "how many promises you have made/you have fulfilled". Let me see. Just my wedding vows, though I think they were written a little more grammatically than this.

3. Will you break the rules because of something/someone you care about?

 The rules? Not sure which ones, but yes.

4. Is there anything you can't let go of but you know you should?

I don't deal in "shoulds" because they immediately make me want to do the opposite. So, no. I can't let go of anything because I don't want to.

5. Do you remember anyone you hated 10 years ago? Does it matter now?

My sister. Yes.

6. If you'd die now, would you have any regrets?

"If you'd die now" can mean several things: "if you had die now", "if you did die now" or "if you would die now". So I have a creeping regret that I even started this. But, to answer the question , yes! I'd have all kinds of regrets. I really wish I could go right back to the beginning again, but be born into a different family and thus purge off all this genetic horror.

Then again, if I really died NOW I'd have no regrets, and you know why.

7. Are you afraid of making mistakes even though there's no punishments at all?

"There's no punishments at all"?   Let me mention a few mistakes that may or may not lead to "no punishments at all".

You cheat on your spouse.

You're the driver in a hit-and-run accident.

You embezzle money from your workplace.

You leave your kid in his car seat while the car is running, nip into the liquor store for a quick purchase, come back after (I swear) only 15 minutes or so, and the car is gone.

When talking about mistakes and how wonderful it is to make mistakes because they teach you about life, people must mean things like "forgot to give back that Bic pen I borrowed" They can't possibly be referring to things that might leave us morally compromised or full of a gnawing, secret guilt that lasts a lifetime and blights any chance at happiness.

So yes.

8. What's the difference between you and most of the other people?

Most of "the" other people? WHICH other people? Specify if you want me to answer this!

9. Are you doing what you truly want to do?

No! I'd rather be working in a salt mine. Look at my answer to Question One, you flaming idiot!

10. If today'd be the end of the world, what'd you do?

"If today'd be the end of the world", I wouldn't be doing anything because I'd be dead like everyone else (see question 6).

Note: "today'd" can mean "today did", as in "if today did be the end of the world, or "today would", as in "if today would be the end of the world" (both nonsensical). It might even mean "if today had be the end of the world," which is totally ludicrous.

"What'd" means "what did", as in "what did you do?", or "what would", as in . . . oh never mind.

CONCLUSIONS. This is not the Proust questionnaire.

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

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Wail: one bar that changed musical history

"The Rhapsody was performed by Whiteman's band, with an added section of string players, and George Gershwin on piano. Gershwin decided to keep his options open as to when Whiteman would bring in the orchestra and he did not write down one of the pages for solo piano, with only the words "Wait for nod" scrawled by Grofé on the band score. Gershwin improvised some of what he was playing, and he did not write out the piano part until after the performance, so it is unknown exactly how the original Rhapsody sounded.

The opening clarinet glissando came into being during rehearsal when; "... as a joke on Gershwin, [Ross] Gorman (Whiteman's virtuoso clarinettist) played the opening measure with a noticeable glissando, adding what he considered a humorous touch to the passage. Reacting favourably to Gorman's whimsy, Gershwin asked him to perform the opening measure that way at the concert and to add as much of a 'wail' as possible."

The Disposal Genie: stick your hand right in there

Vitamix FAIL on LIVE TV

Part Five