the Fabulous 50s

for anybody who lived through them,
the 50s were not particularly fabulous.

but in retrospect, there does seem to be
a consensus that they looked fabulous.

it also seems to me that, looking back
from this brave new post-feminist millennium,
that they eroticized absolutely everything
around them...

lamps are sexy?
little banjos are kind of hot?

In-Sink-erators are a turn-on?

Barbasol? Gautier??

i have been to exactly one martini party in my life,
where i learned that martinis were actually the acid of the 50s...

so the Dali-esque surreality of the these next two
makes its' own sense of that time and that place...

i guess the 50s were "differently fabulous".





you can find awesome amounts
of this kind of fabulous
at this amazing site!



.










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it's hard out here to be a ...

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the Niqab and i (part 2)

from the Niqab and i (part 1)

My discomfort level with people covering up
their faces is not just due to history and some
of the cultural archetypes that have come up
with it.

I don't have to go back centuries. There are lots
of examples of problematic face coverings
in the here and now...

Well, problematic to me, anyway.

The Ku Klux Klan have been hating,
intimidating and killing people
for over 150 years in the US
and Canada.

Boo!

Here's another contemporary archetype -
is he a regular old criminal,
or is he a trans-national terrorist?


Whatever, he's everywhere!

... and here's another contemporary covered face
that puts the fear of what-have-you
into me... that seems to be just
everywhere these days.

Faces covered.
Bulky black outfits.
Take off the badge, and who knows
who's beating the hell out of you?

Nobody, not even the cop beside him-
the one who's beating the hell out
of the person beside you!

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Salut, Jacques.



i know there are good reasons why
a hockey goalie might wear a mask.
i've worn one myself.

but if i see someone walking down
my street wearing one, my discomfort level
will go through the roof.








Am I your goalie? or your opponent?






What's my point? i wish i knew...
which is one reason i have a blog-
to try and write my way into understanding
more than i do....

contemporary Hallowe'en costume

i don't really care much
about other people's religion.
most religions seem to boil down
to a handful of operating instructions
that make a certain amount of sense.

unfortunately, many people who follow
a religion don't seem to follow
those instructions very closely,
...but whatever.


after years of study and personal experience, i also feel that any kind of religious fundamentalism should be classified as a mental illness.

from some American movie, i think

...i've grown up in a culture
where covering one's face is usually
an indication that one is up to no good.

a movie in Mexico

masks are used to inspire fear.
masks are worn to give the wearer
a distinct advantage over those not wearing masks.

it's been that way for hundreds of years,
and it's still like that now.

is that you, Jason?

to expect that i'm going to be OK
with anyone wearing a mask in public
is at best, naive, and at worst,
predicated on profound cultural ignorance
and/or willful self-absorption.

Scream.

...and it's crazy to expect that choosing
to wear a mask will make no difference
in how you are perceived or treated
by others who are not wearing one.

niqab

a niqab is a mask.

mask

a niqab dehumanizes the person wearing it,
and it dehumanizes everyone the wearer encounters.



it sends a clear message that i have been judged a priori and found unworthy. it says "i don't trust you".

...so why should anyone trust someone wearing a niqab?

a hijab - vive la difference.

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the Niqab and i (part 1)

These people creep me out.
Big time.

No reason why they should.

They are Hermandes y Cofridias de Penitencia. They've been part of religious life in Seville for more than 500 years.

It's a Catholic thing.


They still creep the shit out of me.

Why?

For starters, they remind me of the men

with their faces covered

 in these old illustrations.


They worked for the Spanish Inquisition.
They tortured people until they confessed
to whatever.

After confessing, they would be executed, 

often burned alive in public.

It was a Catholic thing too.

Here's another icon of Western Civ...

The executioner was a government
employee who cut off people's
heads with an axe,
for money.

Like the Inquisitors, executioners covered
their faces to keep their identity secret.

In some places, they covered their faces and wore bulky robes.

There were other people who traditionally covered their faces
and wore robes.





We called them "lepers".

*

... and then of course,
there's this guy.

Wait, there's more!
this way to Part 2

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the persistence of Memory

Oh. My. God.

She brought the little glowing screen closer to her face, and touched each of the figures in the photo with her finger tip. She didn't even remember taking this picture... probably just playing with her new cel last September, on the first day of school.

Seven months later, there were Daniel and Andrew crunching through the dry leaves and laughing about something with no clue that this was the last minute of their lives. There was bus rolling slowly towards them. She remembers her surprise, that something so big could move so quietly. 

When the bus knocked them down, one of them had screamed until the double tires on the rear axle rolled over him. Then there was only a strange silence, and she'd barely noticed the bus rolling past her down the hill.

Her eyes were riveted on the dark red blood oozing into the rusty grate by the curb, but her thoughts were miles away, remembering that night on the beach.

She pressed "delete" and when it asked if she was sure, she pressed "Yes".

*

if wishes were Horses

It wasn't the first time Mary-Margaret had forsaken choir practice to meet a lover, but she had tarried longer in her pleasure than usual and now needed to make haste for home. Taking an old poacher's path through the woods, she stepped out of the woods to the meadow just as a wee man in a little green suit was stepping in, so she grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up.

"They always do" the leprechaun thought to himself as she held him aloft, and turned him this way and that "and it makes me feel like a fish". When she had looked her fill, and given him a sniff, Mary-Margaret said "You'd be a leprechaun, then".

The leprechaun's only response was a rolling of his eyes until Mary-Margaret gave him a good shake and said louder, again "You'd be a leprechaun, then".

"Of course I'm a bleedin' leprechaun, you cow!" he sputtered. Mary-Margaret held him even higher and then dropped him, saying "Wheeeeee! before catching him and holding him up like a child to her face.

"Then I've got a wish coming, don't I?" she asked and he sighed as he nodded his little head. "Then I wish this wee man I'm holding would be my little bitch for a hundred years!" she replied, with the strangest of smiles "starting right now!"

And some say, if you're walking that path at the right time, you can hear the scream of that leprechaun still, echoing off into the dark woods.

*

on a Rainy afternoon

It was one of those dark grey rainy afternoons in March that seem to last forever. The adults were in the drawing room, chatting about whatever, playing bridge or reading while nipping neatly at the gin to keep off the chill.

As the only children in the manor, Eldon and cousin Felicity understood they were to be seen and not heard, and preferably not even that, and no one noticed when they slipped away.

"Oh Eldon" said Felicity, "I perish from boredom". Though only a year older, she was given to aping her elders and when he suggested they play a game, she
gave him pitying look.

"What sort of a game?" she yawned, but when he replied, somewhat timorously, "Doctor?", a curious smile came to her lips. "Wait here, Eldon" she said, disappearing for a moment and returning with a small valise. She held out her hand and they climbed the stairs to their "secret place" in the attic.

Eldon had naturally assumed he would be Doctor, but when Felicity began asking about his symptoms and laid her slim,cool fingers on his brow, it was almost a relief.


When she said he was very ill, he half-believed her and when she poured the laudanum into a spoon and held it to his lips, he welcomed it like a benediction.

*

Tommy loved Jimmy

Tom loved Jimmy. How could you not? He was always smiling... cheerful, methodical, eager to please and never complained when Tom asked
him to stay late at the office. On top of all that, Jimmy was just about the dumbest bastard on God's green earth.

How a pinhead like him had ended up with
a girl like Carolyne was a mystery to Tom. She
was everything Jimmy wasn't - vivacious, attractive and inquisitive. He glanced over at her chatting with Barbara, and when she caught his eye, she sat back in her chair and slowly arched her shoulders.

Her breasts pressed against the fabric of the
little black dress as though she was offering them
to him and for a moment, he forgot to breathe. Soon, things would be different... very, very different. It was only a matter of hours now.

*

salt, Sodom and so on

One day on the plains of Mamre, three guys come up to Abraham, looking for hospitality. He gives them some and they hint like maybe they are angels - a possibility that seems probable when Yahweh suddenly drops by.

He says He wants to brimstone Sodom and Gomorrah. He's had "complaints" about wickedness and sinning exceedingly. Abraham feels Yahweh is going off the deep end, so he haggles with Him til they agree that if 10 good people can be found, Yahweh won't go nuclear.

Since Abe's son Lot lives in Sodom, he sub-contracts but as it turns out Sodom is actually pretty nasty. No sooner are the angels get to Lot's place than Sodomites turn up, wanting sex with them. Lot says no, and counter-offers with his daughters.

"They're virgins" he says "do to them whatever you like".

"What part of gay don't you get?" the Sodomites reply and seek to get all pre-medieval on Lot's ass. Finally, the angels say "Enough already"! They blind the evil ones, then tell Lot that Yahweh's exercising his nuclear option.

"Seriously" they say "walk and don't look back". Lot and his family start walking, but Lot's wife stops, looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt.

Since they aren't looking back, Lot and his daughters don't even notice. When Lot finds a nice cave nearby, his daughters get him drunk and have sex with him.

*

out in the Fields

One year in the land of Moab, there came a great famine and so it happened that many immigrated illegally unto neighbouring lands. Ruth the Moabitess was daughter-in-law of Elimelech and Naomi, and followed Naomi to Bethlehem. There Ruth went to glean in the fields of Boaz, who was a rich landowner.

"Damn" Boaz thought to himself "that woman can really glean!". He invites her to eat with him and his workers each day, and leaves out grain for her to claim while keeping a protective eye on her.

Naomi, wise in the ways of men, sends Ruth to the threshing floor one night telling her to "uncover the feet" of the sleeping Boaz. When she does, Boaz awakes and asks,"Who are you?". Ruth tells him, and then asks Boaz to "spread his cloak over her".

Boaz was eighty years old and Ruth was forty when they married. Sadly, Boaz died the day after his wedding, but Ruth would soon give birth to Obed, father of Jesse, and grandfather of David, he who would later pop a cap on Goliath's ass and become the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel.

*

my dearest Benjamin

99 Cheswick Terrace,
London
July 19, 1879


Dearest Benjamin,

I hope you know how very dear you are to me. Even when you're gone, it seems as if you are here... the desk I write to you upon, the scent of that perfume you sent me from Paris, that darling brooch we saw that rainy afternoon which even now rests upon my bosom, close by my heart...

All these souvenirs and more remind me every day of how special our feelings for each other are, dear. I treasure you, Benjamin, and it is because of this very special understanding that I wanted you to be the first to know that next Sunday noon, I am to be wed to Lord Willnot Huxtable III at St. Twittery's of the Field (reception to follow).

Willy too is very dear to me too, Benjamin, but in a different way. Some may call him feeble, but he has danced the slippers off my feet more than once and has more spirit and vitality than many men a quarter his age!

I hope you will be happy for me. I know our closeness has sometimes confused us both, but you have been a perfect gentleman during our acquaintance. If there is a "tail" to be pinned, dear, then I must be the one to wear it.

What we share, and I hope shall always our the memories of a very special time and two (dare I say?) very special people.

With warmest regrards,
(Lady) Elspeth LaRue

*

one day in the Garden

Adam and Eve were very happy in the Garden of Eden. Duh. God had blessed them. He said “Be fruitful and multiply", and so they pleasured each other in ways that are now illegal in many states.

God said "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food". One can only  imagine their laughter and joy as they discovered new flavours and vistas, many of which are also now illegal.

According to God, Adam and Eve were to "have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth", but of course there was a catch... or two.
No one is quite sure why God made a snake, let alone an evil talking one, but one day when Eve was walking around in the Garden, it came up to Eve and hit on her. She was mesmerized. She was captivated. When the snake pointed out some tasty apples hanging from the branch above their heads, Eve went for it, because sometimes mushrooms made her thirsty.

It was not long before Eve learned that God had also invented the fine print, and that despite all the hype about infinite love and all the Lord operated on a very strict "one strike" policy.

*

Marilyn Monroe rocked!

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Weiners in America

I can't believe how many people on how many programs keep making stupid pee-pee jokes about Anthony Weiner. I feel like I'm trapped in a special kindergarten class for the socially retarded...

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Men, Women and Words

Men and women are different
in so many ways.

Their bodies are different, their expectations,
the time it takes to get ready,
their shoe budgets and so many other things
about them are just plain different!

Some of those differences are delightful,
some make the world go round
and some are...well...
none of the above.

One of the big differences between men
and women is language...

...even when they use
the very same words,
they don't mean
the very same thing.



not at all.














but of all the words in the world,
there are four that take the cake:

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the little Buckaroo

William loved cowboy shows. Every day, he came straight home from school, changed into his cowboy boots, jeans and hat and sat down in front of the television. There, he would
trance out on stories of men in black and white hats, righting wrongs and riding off into the sunset.

Inevitably, when supper was ready, his mother would find him sitting on the carpet in the family room, his face illuminated by the blue-grey glow of the picture tube.

"I've told you before William - don't sit so close to the TV! You'll ruin your eyes".

These days, she said it more from habit than any hope he would change ways. Boys were not very different from grown men, and Mrs. Gates was was a practical woman.

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