They have arrived!

This Is Heaven arrives in Australia

The King Bolete arrive in Switzerland. They were late this season.

Crush the elites

The ad that ends the culture wars --- This Is Heaven --- Teaser (17) --- reposted

(A few more days to go until the release of This Is Heaven, so here's an old teaser re-posted---our favorite one, in fact, because of the fab gif sequence)

John is back home where he's confronted with Ben --- Ben, last week's conquest and this week's backbone of the newfangled A-level Escort Service.


Ben has a very long shower at the moment and my feeling is that he’s going to depart from my life pretty soon, the way he shot cursory glances at the bedstead and then at me---which was still okay, especially under the circumstances---but then he asked whether he could use the shower, and his next step will be to ask whether he can use the bathroom, and then he’s gone.

We shouldn’t belabor the obvious here, but if you’re in the pay of one of these outfits that use “family” as code against gays, and you’re tasked to produce the definitive ad, the ad that ends the culture wars, you could do much worse than to tell the story of a young, handsome Afro-American who has options, obviously, when it comes to sexual preferences, and who falls into the hands of this homosexual assistant professor of French who’s only option is a tangled ménage with a rape victim and a suicide victim and pimping handsome Afro-Americans to high-strung Valkyries---not to mention Ray, the murder suspect whom he hasn’t met yet.

Now Ben’s back from the shower, and this is my last chance. He’s wearing these graffiti briefs that look so great on him even when not quite fresh, and he's just standing there, the precise model of ebony perfection, unconscious of his own skin, one more second before he’ll ask whether he can use the bathroom. So you say: “Ben.”

Insider joke

(We're posting this for a friend of Chang)

"So, you say her name was Alice?"

Working vacation

Charlottesville

Out Write Fair, Washington DC

Perry Brass took us---or at least our book ("you are what you read, or you are what you write")---to the Out Write Fair in Washington DC earlier this month.

He writes: "Just wanted to share these shots of Green Eyes at the OutWrite Fair in DC. You can put them up on Lustspiel if you’d like. I really enjoyed this fair—you would have loved it: droves of good-looking black men! I gave one copy of Green Eyes to my friend Philip Clark who is a young writer working on a history of pornography in the gay men’s community. He will be at the next Rainbow Book Fair on a panel called “Pornography as History.”

Ohne Worte

Kapitalismus Kritik (1) --- 1843

Karl Marx disliked it, "sheer critique of capitalism," although he hated "moralizing" even more. But there you have it. 1843---yet another attempt of THE ECONOMIST to launch yet another magazine and dump it onto unsuspecting Economist subscribers until it flounders---has this add in its latest issue:

You shouldn't worry that most ads in this unsalable magazine are about jet charter (or Hublot watches), but: 

(1) The suit of this this guy who has supposedly chartered this aeroplane and is now striding towards it as if it were an expensive prostitute---isn't he sagging a bit too much for his cut-to-fashion outfit? This is really bespoke (tailor-made), his 'suit'?
(2) And now what; he's walking all the way? Where's the chauffeured limousine that would take him to the gangway? 
(3) And if there's no limousine because he had a bad day in the market, why is he approaching his airborne convenience as if he's trying to commit suicide by cutting his head off the sharp side of the plane's left wing? 

You say.

We picked up two friends from Korea, at the airport of Geneva...

...and the weather was like this.

We simply had to --- Cloud fart --- This Is Heaven

We had this firm resolution: no more TIH teasers until the release date of August 27. And then we saw this gif:

So, there we are in Chapter 37. Note the name of Juliette's new boyfriend---Romeo. Romeo's sugar daddy Roper has just been found dead with a kinky dog collar around his neck, and there is more trouble on the horizon.

“Act Two,” Alex says, and fumbles in the pockets of his shorts. Alex always seems to carry a medication bottle lately, and now he unscrews it and hands a pill to Juliette.
“This will do,” he says.
“What is this?”
“A pill.”
“Oh my God, the pill,” Juliette says.
“The pace quickens in the second part of the play, doesn’t it?” Alex says.
“The pill is Act Four.”
“Act Four, then.”
“Alex, please,” Juliette says. “My Romeo, when am I going to get him back?”
“Soon.”
“Hold on, Alex. First you say Roper is not a big deal. Next thing you say they will put up wanted bills and he has to go into hiding.”
“Juliette, I’m just thinking on my feet.”
“For how long does he have to go into hiding?”
“Until Strada and friends get distracted by something else. They’re up to their ears in unresolved cases like this-—perverts passing away in seedy circumstances. Nobody wants these cases resolved, it’s much too embarrassing. Give it a week. Four days.”
“John said you know the assistant DA for vice?”

Alex grins introspectively and a bit longer than he should. He has been standing next to me and now he adds his habitual arm to my shoulder. “Yes, we do, John, don’t we?”

One is never too old to learn

The last picture of Gore Vidal

Yesterday evening

Trump Trump --- Tesla has arrived

Not all is lost, folks...

...up here on the alm in Bürchen, Switzerland, 1,600 meters above the White House and 6,000 kilometers to the east of it...this is already the second TESLA we encounter. And it doesn't run on gut feelings, or coal, or oil, or Twitter. No, it's powered by electric energy, tapped from solar panels on the roof of rich local chalet owners that can afford the Tesla S-class.

This Is Heaven --- Book cover reveal

Yesterday evening

"Your name is Obamacare, isn't it?"

About to finish This Is Heaven...my new book

(Update: the continuity girl in me just discovered a few more issues)