Plus ça change…
Oh, my. A bondage-themed chandelier made from actual women, some cantilevered over the scene, backs arched and hands manacled over their heads, some supine with their legs spread and raised to heaven… Lady Gaga, perhaps? Or Madonna at the height of her “Express Yourself” antics?
Nope. The “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” number from 1953’s featherlight rom-com Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. They’ve got women working as candelabras, too!
Today in Porn: GOP Platform Edition
A response to the news that the GOP has added the “public health crisis” of pornography to its platform:
“It’s certainly the case that the people who think it’s bad, it’s bad for them,” says sex researcher Nicole Prause, who’s the principal investigator at the Sexual Psychophysiology and Affective Neuroscience Lab, in Los Angeles. “The actual inherent ‘badness’ there’s very little evidence for. Those who identify with no religious orientation or are agnostic don’t have porn addiction. The label and shaming has grown out of religious values and beliefs in the culture.”
Interesting. The return of the repressed and all that, I suppose. Though I do recall Martin Amis’ recollection of Gore Vidal: “Gore Vidal once said that the only danger in watching pornography is that it might make you want to watch more pornography; it might make you want to do nothing else but watch pornography.” And also this guy — though he does mention jacking it for 26 hours one Yom Kippur, so maybe the religious thing applies somehow.
Two Short Poems about Animal Husbandry
A Sacred Moment of Love
Sometimes it must be now:
the moment when, er, a bull
approaches his beloved cow—
it isn’t always so venerable.
The Bored Lover Seeks Novelty
The mares seemed so last year,
so the stud mused, “That zedonk
on the far side of the pasture
has one hell of a badonkadonk.”
One Short Poem about Two Lions of 20th Century English Literature
A Lark
That was a quite a conquest,
the poor author of that aubade
about waking in the dark,
believing he’d go to prison.
And did not. That’s not so bad.
Burrito
Burrito, bolus in my belly, fire in my breast. My dinner, my doom. Boo-rree-toh: the trill of the tongue wrapped before and behind by the osculating opening of the lips. Boo. Rree. Toh. It was lengua, stewed lengua, in the middle, morsels melting from meat to stock. It was beans and rice below. It was salsa de tomate on top. But in the tortilla it was all a Burrito.
Today in Porn – Childhood Nostalgia Edition
I was perusing Hugh Hefner’s Twitter feed, as one does, when I happened upon this item from his Saturday Scrapbook collection:
I’m not sure what it means that two of the great architects of my childhood delight – Bill Cosby and Shel Silverstein – enjoyed playing croquet (and possibly other sporting activities) with the guy who founded Playboy magazine, but I did think it worth noting.
Those really were the glory days for ol’ Hef. Here’s a particularly witty cartoon from the magazine during that era:
Get it? Women are never too young to make men feel inadequate! Oh Hef, you scamp.
Today in Porn: Ground-floor offices edition
Walking through Little Italy, passed this lil’ artist-type place. I like papier mache as much as the next man, but not, perhaps, if this fellow is the next man.
Catholic Celebrities in Need of Prayers
Of course all celebrites need your prayers, but since I was about to title this Catholics Behaving Badly or something similar, perhaps we could focus some of our spiritual efforts on behalf of coreligionist Brian Williams, who seems to be having an especially hard time of it these last few weeks. Right now it’s a somewhat embellished story about getting shot down in a Chinook helicopter, last month it was having to defend his daughter’s acting abilities, or maybe career choices (actually, no, don’t follow that second link, especially if you’re in a public place), as one of the stars on HBO’s Girls
Think your life is rough? I don’t care how wealthy or insulated or just plain spoiled rotten he or they or you are—that is rough.
God help us all.