Don't kill me, don't kill me

Artwork on an internet-posted suicide note

Gallia divisa est in partes tres. Along those lines, there are two types of content moderation. Active moderation monitors each post on a social network; reactive moderation lets things float until somebody complains. Content moderation is important, we learn from an article on Wired, not only because we are prudish, but also because we don't wanna lose our grannies or other objectionists (spelling checker objects)---folks who are not going to share their cat-and-dog pictures or their grandchildren's likenesses amidst adult parts and other shockingness. 

More than hundred thousand people are monitoring content worldwide, twice as many as are working for Google. Most of them are based in the Philippines because wages are lower there, and because the locals have a sense for American sensibilities (don't ask).

We (I mean us, Michael Ampersant and his alter egos) have been subject to content moderation two or three times on Facebook, last time with this picture...

(no, wait)

...which was taken down after a few minutes with a stern warning from the Philippines; we got blocked from posting anything for three days. Right, so we've been moderated twice exactly; the first time we've got blocked for one day only. Do the math (catchword "series"), it's frightening if you are one of these people always itching to push the envelope. 

Over-sexed as we are we think about only one thing, but porn appears to be the least of the social network's concerns---it's fairly harmless, especially for the souls of content moderators. Gore is worse, not to mention ISIS clips with beheadings of nosy journalists, or suicide notes, or clips of pet torture. And there's apparently lots of that stuff going on. The average content moderator is given only a few seconds on her Stachanovist clock for each picture. That may be a lot for the active moderators who have to check all those pictures of cats and dogs and birthday cakes, but very little when we talk reactive moderation.

&-t back of the envelope: Assume that half of the moderators do reactive stuff, and that each works 40 hours a week, and each has 10 seconds per flagged post, dum dum dum, we get 144 million flagged pictures per day, except for the weekends when the moderators are off.

What else? Lets keep it short and Socratic. O reader, we ask, would you moderate this picture that we've been dying to post for quite some time:    

(This is the picture that Facebook took down after a few minutes)

Trick or treat (Sacha)

(Wait, we are not yet done. The next morning, this:)

Gallery (17) (Ron Kibble)

"Cropped," Ron Kibble

(There's no Kibble link---we got his permission to post this picture, since then he has disappeared from the web. More art on the gallery page)

Scorpio (Jezza Smilez)

No, we don't post cat & dog pictures (2)

Purity pledge (2)

Recall this picture from the first purity pledge post:

They look the part, don't they?

So, we were wondering about a purity pledge for boys. So we asked Bob Bienpensant. That's how it looks like, the purity pledge for boys, he writes, and sends this picture:

Gallery (16) Mel Odom

"First Eyes," Mel Odom (1982)

(More art on the gallery page)

Vanilla sex

(Hat tip: Joelle Casteels)

Obama's fault

Oh, no, we're not misogynous

Gallery (15) Steve Walker

"David and me," Steve Walker (1961-2012)

This is a follow up to our last "This Is Heaven" teaser, A virginal handkerchief, where we failed to place this picture in the vicinity of a few lines about David Leavitt and this very young boyfriend entering the hall of the Accademia Galleria in Florence.


(Okay, here they are again (the few lines, John speaking)): "There’s a passage in David Leavitt’s “The lost language of Cranes” that comes back to me once a year or so, one of the characters relating a story of him and a very young boyfriend visiting Florence, and as they enter the hall of Michelangelo’s David, the eyes of the crowd are drawn away from the statue and to the magnetic beauty of this very young boyfriend. It doesn't read as if Leavitt made this up, this somehow really happened to him. Anyhow, the boyfriend must have looked like Romeo---by analogy, I mean.")

(More art on the gallery page)

Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot --- Chapter III (not a review)

We're not good at reviews unless we can complain about Hollywood producers not understanding what "ion propulsion" means, or not knowing about the ambient temperature on Titan, the Saturn moon, or/and so on.

So this is not a review but a post about the third chapter of Dave Shafer's debut novel "Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot." We're jealous of the success of his book, of course, but that doesn't keep us from really loving the third chapter. The book is about a global conspiracy (data, computers, etc) but we have no clear idea of the conspiracy yet in Chapter III where we meet the main protagonist of the story, Mark Devreaux. Mark graduated from Harvard, like his ex-friend Leo, another important protagonist---amazing how many people graduate from Harvard in American novels (although Shafer graduated from Harvard himself, so he holds some poetic license).

Dave Shafer

Mark is/was a copy writer at some internet upstart---amazing how low Harvard graduates can fall in American novels---but then he has a creative night with OxyContin (the drug), Pouilly-Fuissé (the chardonnay, usually overpriced in our opinion---St. Veran, also a white Beaujolais, has a much better quality-price quotient) and with an IBM selectric (that was/is a typewriter, a technology not quite up to the tricks of ion-propulsion). So Mark pulls an all-nighter and writes a piece about "Motivation in an Unjust World." The piece is discovered by James Shaw, the quasillionaire and godfather of the conspiracy we don't know of yet, so Mark is duly booked for Margo!, a talk show hosted by Margo, the Oprah Winfrey look-alike.

How to write a book

(Hat tip: Hall Qualls)

Back in Switzerland

(Staying for a week---Michael has another appointment with the ophthalmologist) 

Gallery (14) (Alessio Slonimsky)

"C'est encore loin, grand Schlumpf," Alessio Slonimsky

(More of this on the gallery page)

...and grammar (Glenn)

Yesterday ---- Part II: Sex on the Eames chair (really)

Finally, folks, the second part of our true-true short story about the visit of our friends from Australia. A third (and last part) will follow. (For the first part go here)

Josh and Jason slept well. They brought good winter weather, a light mistral with dry clear air and steely blue sky. We’ll go visit Saint Tropez. It would be me, today, who would have to make the move, but it’s easier to talk about the corniche or the Forêt Domanial de l’Esterel, the natural park of marais and pine trees that surrounds Le Trayas and protects us from over-development, we’ve recently met a fox up there. I point to a villa on the cliff which supposedly belonged to Greta Garbo (everything is a rumor here, and they are always false). We’ve reached St. Maxime when I finally muster the chutzpah to say: “Chang tells me you’ve sucked his dick last night.”
“Yes,” they say.
“It’s unfair,” I say. They laugh.

We arrive in St. Tropez and walk along the quay where Brigitte Bardot lived in Dieu créa la femme (the next house accomodated La cage aux folles, Birdcage was the remake). We take turns taking pictures of us and the sea. I ask Jason to zoom in on the northern horizon with his Canon EOS 70D and point to the tip of Miramar, a stone throw away from our house in Le Trayas. “It’s unfair,” I say, “they can see us, but we can’t see them.” We laugh.

Jason takes this picture, Josh (or I) hold him in place

Five is logic

(Let's post this before we post anything else:) If you're a writer, you're getting five daily emails from The Writer's Digest, all titled "X rules for leveraging your epic lack of talent." Along those lines, we read on the pages of Longform Reprints about Mike Caren, the president of Warner: 

Mike Caren

"His second discovery was that he could encourage the writing of hits by urging songwriters to follow his nine rules of hit songwriting. While Caren’s rules are not comprehensive or exclusive, it is easy to measure their value by a glance at the dozens of gold and platinum records hanging in his office. He is happy to run down his rules for me. “First, it starts with an expression of ‘Hey,’ ‘Oops,’ ‘Excuse me,’” he begins. “Second is a personal statement: ‘I’m a hustler, baby,’ ‘I wanna love you,’ ‘I need you tonight.’ Third is telling you what to do: ‘Put your hands up,’ ‘Give me all your love,’ ‘Jump.’ Fourth is asking a question: ‘Will you love me tomorrow,’ ‘Where have you been all my life,’ ‘Will the real Slim Shady please stand up.’”

Atheists know better

(I knew)

How to turn your truck into a phallic symbol

Gallery (13) (George Quaintance)

"Bathers," George Quaintance (1902-1957)

(For more art, see our Gallery Page)

Spot the difference

We had this interview on The Way She Writes about "linguistically challenged" writers like us, where we were saying typical &t-things like...

I am (and have always been) fairly absent-minded. Absentmindedness is a strength, I think, not a weakness, in general it’s a good thing to be somewhere else with your mind.

...and there was this author picture...

...and people responded with nervous emails along the lines of...what's your secret, what's your secret...?

Here it is (the secret):

Spot the difference.

PS: Cathy Ulrich from Hollywood Hates Me writes: "What difference? I can see no difference."

Wednesday matinée

The view from Chang's room this morning

Libra (Jezza Smilez)

(Click here for Jezza's website)

Monday matinée

("I had been thinking about recontextualizing news as art for some time...":) 

Circle of Abstract Ritual from Jeff Frost on Vimeo.

Back home

Last day in Switzerland

First day in France (the Estérel, us, seen from Cannes)

Gallery (12) (Naomichi Okutsu)

"Lotus," Naomichi Okutsu

(More artwork in our gallery) 

"After Auschwitz---no more poetry!"

"Alles hängt mit allem zusammen," (everything is connected with everything) would Norbert Elias say, the German sociologist and first recipent of the Theodor W. Adorno Price. It wouldn't be an Adorno saying however, because the man himself, the heavy thinker of "Critical Theory" and its Frankfurter Schule, would never say (or think) things as simple as this.

Theodor W. Adorno

But there you have it. We wake up, tumble upon a link to The New Yorker and read an article on Theodor W. Adorno and his Frankfurter Schule and learn that "he died of a heart attack in the shadow of the Matterhorn."

The Matterhorn

That's us here in Switzerland, folks, the Matterhorn is right around the corner. And yes, alles hängt mit allem zusammen, Adorno suffered his attack, was brought to the nearest hospital and died there, an unassuming Spital located in Visp, Valais, Switzerland, unassuming except that yours truly spent a whole week in the same hospital, his first time ever as a hospital patient, waiting for his foot to unswell so that Dr. Ursprung could repair his broken fibula.

"F***" (English for beginners)

Spot the difference

(This is somehow related to our Fountain of Geneva story:)

Gallery (11) (Michel Plaisir)

"Le coeur tout zébré d'amour" Michel Plaisir (oil on canvas)

(All rights reserved; reproduction in whichever form only with the permission of the artist)

(More artwork in our gallery) 

Virgo (Jezza Smilez)

(Click here for Jezza's website)

Friday matinée (Glenn)

(Click here for a bit kulturkritische assistance)

Gallery (10) (Rory Midhani)

"Boys Ahoy," Rory Midhani

(More art on our gallery page)

Today

The view around 17:00 --- the view is downhill, and the weather is also downhill, since four weeks

Gallery (9) (Steve Walker)

"At five in the morning," Steve Walker (1961-2012)

(There's more art on our gallery page)

Gallery (8) (Vilela Valentin)

"Your sweet ...," Vilela Valentin

(find more art here)

Coming out and of age in China (1) (reblogged)

Cool, folks, cool, the first part of a wonderful story by Massoud Hayoun, an Arab-American who went to China at the age of 19 to learn Mandarin. The piece---originally published by Gawker---is here reblogged with the permission of the author. It will easily count as one of the best examples of gay writing this year...


He would have been my first, I suppose---a Korean student at some other school in Beijing's Wudaokou university district.

I'd met him on a website. You're the first and only person I've ever admitted that to, handsome reader. I suppose I want to feel closer to you.

I was 19, Arab-American, studying Mandarin and poli sci at a Chinese university. I was exceptionally awkward, and still under the impression that no one knew I was gay. They all knew and indulged me my illusions of illusiveness.

(Just an illustration)

He was in his mid-20s. School was hard for him, he said, in our brief chat on a website for gay men in Asia.

I'd heard of a class of Korean students like him---unsuccessful and blowing their family's money away learning Mandarin, while China busily worked itself into the world's second-largest economy. Their parents wouldn't let them come home until they obtained a certificate of completion, and the Chinese universities appeared keen to keep accepting international student tuition fees, even if they were from the same students, year-in, year-out.

He was foreign---not just in the sense that we were of two different nationalities, living in China. He was a bad student, a rich kid, a magnificently athletic loser with a Rocky-like neanderthal chin and tall nose, the kind of man who is called, in Chinese, a baijiazi, a son who spoils his family's wealth. Fresh, preppy. He wore clothes my Chinese friends paid twice as much for at the bazaars: Korean fashion. His man-bag was made of real leather. He was a petit bourgeois; every lock of hair had been calculated and every pore tightened, perhaps surgically, because he had the time, money and inclination. He turned me on.

The view this morning

The Signalhorn seen from our chalet 

(How to explain this? You've heard of Trotzki vs. Stalin? Along those lines. The snowflakes are fake, but the rest is not. This morning, around 7 AM)

Gallery (7) (Hideki Koh)

"Les amores Kabuki" Hideki Koh

Gallery (5) --reposted

(Pedro Palanca died yesterday from HIV-related liver complications --- we posted this only 10 days ago:)

"Drinking men," Pedro Palanca

(We asked Pedro about the year of the painting, and the title, and he wrote back: "Oh this one has many titles... but in fact it's about grape distilling (an old fashioned way) to make wine or pisco and it is still practiced (but not so promoted). The piece dates from 1996-1997")

(For more art, go here)

"That's not enough!" (French for beginners)

Please read this...it's only one paragraph  from the London Review of Books connecting our recent Foucault post (by Mr. E.) with our own faux-French background with our quest for happy endings (just so that you know, Alain Robbe-Grillet was the inventor of the nouveau roman)...please read this:

Alain Robbe-Grillet

"By now, most readers in France had ceased to care [about Robbe-Grillet]; even his intellectual champions lost interest, although  [Roland] Barthes stood by him. ‘Transgression’ had come to mean l’écriture féminine and gay erotica; Robbe-Grillet’s hetero-sadist fixations looked decidedly démodé, quite possibly reactionary. (Fredric Jameson wondered whether his books had become ‘unreadable since feminism’.) At the party for  Barthes’s 1977 inaugural lecture at the Collège de France, Foucault confronted Robbe-Grillet: ‘I have told you this already and I will say it again, Alain: when it comes to sex, you are, and always have been misguided!’ Barthes rose to his defence, reminding Foucault that Robbe-Grillet was, at the very least, a pervert. Foucault replied: ‘Ça ne suffit pas!’"

Leo (Jezza Smilez)

(Click here for Jezza's website)

Gallery (6) (Jack Cowan)

"Speciman A and B," Jack Cowan (1998)

(For more art please click here)

If you were alone on an island (Incidental Comics)

(from Incidental Comics)

Thursday matinée

Gallery (5) (Pedro Palanca)

"Drinking men," Pedro Palanca

(We asked Pedro about the year of the painting, and the title, and he wrote back: "Oh this one has many titles... but in fact it's about grape distilling (an old fashioned way) to make wine or pisco and it is still practiced (but not so promoted). The piece dates from 1996-1997")

(For more art, go here)