How about Jeju? --- Korea (4)

(Christine, our friend from Switzerland writes:)

I found time to read your manuscript [Green Eyes]... It is very interesting and easy to understand. I even can understand more about gay's reactions and sexual practices. Well, the story is captivating and we always want to know more. Important is that you don't get bored with it.

We wonder if you are OK in Jeju and how is the weather and temperature? Are you in a hotel? How does Chang feel?

 We have very cold weather. Lot of snow was falling in France and England. Here in Solothurn we had -6° this morning and 1° during the day. We have almost enough and wait for spring.

How many hours do you have more in Korea?

 (We answer:) 

Thanks, Christine. Yes, we are very OK in Jeju, even though the promises by Der Spiegel haven't materialized yet. How do we mean? Well, Der Spiegel, you know, every reader of Infinite Jest knows it, the German news magazine, they had a recent story on Jeju where they write about

(a) fertility rites with phallic stone statues on which we so far missed out (the rites) and

Jeju haru bang, (local stone statue, judge yourself)

The price of vengeance --- Korea (3)

So we’re on this BA flight to Seoul and grab the Daily Mail, the British tabloid.

“The Price of Vengeance” --- that's the boldface headline of the Mail today and we don’t recognize the faces. “Vicky Price is shell-shocked,” though, and “Chris Huhne may receive a lighter sentence for pleading guilty.” Expressions like "Hell hath no fury," and the Greek saying "a woman and the sea are the same in danger," dance before your lying eyes (Vicky is Greek).

All this has little to do with Korea, except that’s eternal and universal and we have to write it down so we can use it in the next part of the Green Eyes. The entire first 11 pages of the tabloid are about Vicky & Chris & collateral damage & even the boobs on Page 3 have to defer to pictures of a Greek wedding “where Huhne gave his stepdaughter away [although] the MP had already begun a fateful affair with his bisexual aide.”

Adult content

(This is Frank Sinatra, isn't it? Well, for once we are out-plussed. We have no corresponding fragment from Michael Ampersant's outrageous new novel Green Eyes)

Is the pope gay?

That's the question that keeps us erotic writers up at night. And the answer is....

Georg Gänswein is the Camerlengo (chamberlain) of Pople Benedict XV (or XVII? --- who cares)

The camerlengo does all sort of things, like, like declaring the pope officially dead when the pope dies.

Handsheets for the erotic writer (4) --- Getting religious about it

(God moves in mysterious ways, doesn't he?):

Zurich Airport

A friend sends this picture:

Huh? Well, we arrive at the airport, and the place appears to be dominated by wall-high billboards for brothels (eg. Club Aphrodisiac, "all drinks for free"); it's in this spirit that we reply: "If you like anal, use the rear entrance."

It's all in the mind

Yes, it is what you think it is: click for a larger image.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

History of the world: Apple Computers (2)

(Go  here for earlier acts)


Act III. We're now at Dartmouth College, NH, and the day is Jan 16, 1984. I had become interested in computer simulations,  and was visiting Dartmouth's Research Policy Center, run by Dennis Meadows of The Limits to Growth fame, to learn more about his approach, called "System Dynamics." To repeat, the day is Jan 16, a Monday, and we all must go and have a look at the new Apple computer, the Macintosh. So we cross the icy, snowy campus, and arrive in a dedicated room of the computing center, where a passionate lady demonstrates to us what a rectangular box, white, with a small screen, and a funny little device on the desktop, called "mouse," could achieve together. There is also a small matrix printer with very ugly output. But, but, you could create sketches on the Macintosh screen by moving the mouse across the table, and then print them on the printer. Also, you could use different fonts for your text, and print them as they appeared on the screen (WYSIWYG). This led to typographic orgies of the worst kind for months on end, campuswide (don't ask), printed in very ugly ways by this matrix printer.

Apple Macintosh

Act IV.  A year and a half later. I'm returning to Dartmouth College on a regular basis for various projects, and spend a lot of time with Perry LaPotin, the polymath grad student, who has become an invaluable part of the Cold Regions Research Lab of the Corps of Engineers, conveniently located next to the college. Perry was already writing programs for the Macintosh. There was only one small problem. You could not write Macintosh programs on the Macintosh itself, its memory was too small. Apple had built another machine, the Lisa, available only to professionals, whose memory was large enough for Macintosh programming since it had a hard disk (HARD DISK) that could be made to work as virtual memory. The hard disk was really large, 10 megabytes, (MEGABYTES) but there were glitches. Lisa didn't always know when the hard disk's capacity was exhausted, which led to hard disk malfunction, which then Perry had to repair using a mix of erratic reset activities (eg. the escape button), brawn, and black arts. He spent roughly half of his working day resetting the hard disk. I still see him sitting there, patiently kicking the Lisa back to work. When we would finally go home, belatedly, exhausted, we would turn our attention to the regrettable downward spiral that constituted the Apple Computer stock price. Apple was on its way out, since the Macintosh was fairly useless.

Perry LaPotin

Go here for the next act.

A movie script goes to see the psychiatrist...

...and says: "I have a dream."

(click on the picture for a larger image)

Inappropriate same-gender or opposite-gender sexual harassment, adultery or intrusively intimate commingling among attracteds (restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc.)

Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann have signed a pledge, which obliges them to monogamy and more.

Michele Bachmann (note the flag)

Rick Santorum (note the flag)

The pledge, in its preamble, carried the following statement (later removed from the website):

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA‟s first African-American President.

As to the pledge itself, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum "vow":

Support for the enactment of safeguards for all married and unmarried U.S. Military and National Guard personnel, especially our combat troops, from inappropriate same-gender or opposite-gender sexual harassment, adultery or intrusively intimate commingling among attracted (restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc.)

You've any idea what this could mean, "same gender commingling among attracted?"

M& is glad to help out (ranking on the scale of 1 - 10)

Same gender commingling among attracted (3)

Same gender commingling among attracted (6)

Same gender commingling among attracted (9)

The washed-up scriptwriter and more: novel novel material (Jacki)

Jacki (Jacki and Jacky are not the same person, don't get confused) sends this fragment. Enjoy:

He Grasped me firmly but gently just above my elbow and guided me into a room, his room. Then he quietly shut the door and we were alone.

He approached me soundlessly, from behind, and spoke in a low, reassuring voice close to my ear. "Just relax."

Without warning, he reached down and I felt his strong, calloused hands start at my ankles, gently probing, and moving upward along my calves slowly but steadily. My breath caught in my throat. I knew I should be afraid, but somehow I didn't care. His touch was so experienced, so sure.

When his hands moved up onto my thighs, I gave a slight shudder, and partly closed my eyes. My pulse was pounding. I felt his knowing fingers caress my abdomen, my ribcage.. And then, as he cupped my firm, full breasts in his hands, I inhaled sharply. Probing, searching, knowing what he wanted, he brought his hands to my shoulders, slid them down my tingling spine and into my panties.

Although I knew nothing about this man, I felt oddly trusting and expectant. This is a man, I thought. A man used to taking charge. A man not used to taking "No" for an answer. A man who would tell me what he wanted. A man who would look into my soul and say ... "Okay Mam," said a voice, "All done."

My eyes snapped open and he was standing in front of me, smiling, holding out my purse. "You can board your flight now."

Sex on the beach

Well, not quite, but you can call it formal foreplay (perhaps better: formalized foreplay?)



There they come.



When we showed these pictures to Lesley (yes, it's on the beach of Hilton Head), she shared some thoughts with us, and we, bitchy gay Europeans, couldn't agree more.



Will she say yes?



Will he say yes?



We'll never know.