billierosie

THE EROTIC ART OF NAMIO HARUKAWA

2012-01-27T03:36:00.000-08:00

“Namio Harukawa, born in 1947, in Osaka Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese artist known for his realistic femdom erotica drawings. Harukawa drawings feature voluptuous women with large breasts, wide hips, round buttocks and thick legs dominating, overpowering and humiliating smaller men. Harukawa women are both Asian and European in appearance, and a few times African.

“Harukawa women usually have an aloof look on their faces as they dominate hopeless men. By far the most common Harukawa theme is the face sitting of the weaker men by the larger, voluptuous women, but his work also includes smothering, urolagnia, bondage, coprophilia and cunnilingus. Other works by Harukawa have a cuckoldry theme.

“Harukawa has developed a worldwide cult following and his works are often displayed on femdom websites.”

WIKI

Patrick Whitehurst points out that none of the paintings appear to be for sale. He wonders why that is? Maybe they are in private collections -- I don’t know.

The collection is vast: you can see the prolific scale of Namio Harukawa’s work here.

Out Now: My Love Of All That Is Bizarre: The Erotic Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes Edited By M. Christian

2012-01-23T13:22:00.000-08:00

For all that we know about Sherlock Holmes there is much that is a complete and total mystery about him - and, as he would say himself, a that is a puzzle that should be addressed. Is it any wonder that so many of us have scratched our much-smaller craniums and pondered his relationships, trying to use his own maxim of "when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" to peer down deep into those mysteries? This timely collection focuses on his unmentioned private life. In short, the great detective's amorous inclinations, the part of life Victorians were so silent on, but so profligate in its practice. And the authors don't stop there - you will also find stories about the sexual side of other key characters who make up the canon: Irene Adler, Mrs. Hudson, Dr. Watson, and even that most infamous of villains, Professor Moriarty. Included are many of today's most popular authors including Michael Kurland (American Book Award and the Edgar Award finalist), Angela Caperton (Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica), M. Christian (Lambda Award finalist), and such other distinguished practitioners of the short story and novelette as Cesar Sanchez Zapata, Kate Lear, Wade Heaton, Dorla Moorehouse, Ivo Benengeli, Billierosie, Zachary Jean, PM White, Violet Vernet. As Holmes himself said: "The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"

It is available at Sizzler, right now -- and at Amazon.

THE NIGHT PORTER

2012-01-20T04:34:00.000-08:00

Directed and written by Liliana Cavani, the controversial film “The Night Porter,” “Il Portiere di Notte”, was released in 1974. The film features Dirk Bogarde, as Max, a discreet, unassuming night porter in an exclusive Viennese hôtel and Charlotte Rampling, Lucia, as the figure from his past, who continues to haunt Max.

The year is 1957. Max tends to the hôtel guest’s needs; everything to providing a glass of cold water, to a bed-warming gigolo. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that during the dark years of World War II, Max was an S.S. officer at a Nazi concentration camp where Lucia was a beautiful, young prisoner. Lucia, became Max's sexual slave, a position that she apparently relished.

The moment where the two recognise each other in the lobby of the hôtel is compelling. Both remember. The flashbacks tell of the chilling photographs Max took of Lucia, while pretending to be a physician. Through the flashbacks appropriate to Lucia, the viewer learns of episodes of rape, sodomy, and torture. Lucia is afraid. The viewer soon realises that it is not Max that she is afraid of, but the primal, carnal power of their relationship.

Max was not simply Lucia’s tormentor. He was her protector. It is a scenario which we see rewritten in our own contemporary erotica. “The Night Porter” is a pertinent template for any “Daddy’s Little Girl”, tale; it whispers and awakens forbidden fantasies. It allows us the space to relish the darker side of desire.

Charlotte Rampling, for her part, insisted that she knew nothing about sadomasochism before embarking on the film. 'The girl had to be an innocent, both fearful, and tempted by the mysteries of unknown pleasures,' she said.

If the scene in the hôtel lobby is compelling, the scene at the opera is electric. Max is seated a few rows behind Lucia and her husband. A sensation causes Lucia to turn. She meets Max’s eyes. She turns away, then turns again. He is still there, willing her to hold his gaze. She turns away, then looks again. Max is gone.

Lucia stays in Vienna after her husband travels on. She wants to see Max, and they find themselves caught up in a renewal of their former sadomasochistic relationship. But Max is to be tried for his war crimes. His former S.S. comrades have been carefully destroying documents and "filing away" witnesses to clear all their names, and while Max tries to keep Lucia's existence a secret from them, they eventually find out about her. They consider her a threat, and they urge Max to turn her over to them. He quits his job, and he and Lucia hide out in his apartment, while his former friends keep watch, waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Filmmaker Liliana Cavani visited a Nazi concentration camp after WW II and interviewed a woman who had been involved in a sadomasochistic relationship with a guard. She then made her story the basis for this powerfully, compelling film.

Liliana Cavani certainly gives her audience a strange and unforgettable picture that questions deeply the psyches of torturers and the tortured, “The Night Porter” presents its psychoanalytically provocative material without exploitation. On another level it deals with the psychological condition known as Stockholm Syndrome
where the victim develops an empathy with his or her abuser.

In an iconic scene, Lucia sings a Marlene Dietrich song to the concentration camp guards while wearing pieces of an SS uniform, and Max "rewards" her with the severed head of a male inmate who had been bullying the other inmates. Max has previously described his relationship with Lucia as “Biblical,” but he cannot remember the story in the Bible that draws him. Then he remembers. It is the story of Salome. King Herod presents Salome with the severed head of John the Baptist as a reward for her display of erotic dance.

In responses to “The Night Porter”, Liliana Cavani was both celebrated for her courage in dealing with the theme of sexual transgression and, simultaneously, castigated for the controversial manner in which she presented that transgression: within the context of a Nazi Holocaust narrative. The film has been accused of mere sensationalism: film critic Roger Ebert calls it "as nasty as it is lubricious, a despicable attempt to titillate us by exploiting memories of persecution and suffering.” Given the film's dark and disturbing themes and a somewhat ambiguous moral clarification at the end, “The Night Porter”, has tended to divide audiences. It is, however, the film for which Liliana Cavani is best known.

I was transfixed by Liliana Cavani’s film when I first saw it, many years ago. I was transfixed again when I watched it yesterday. “The Night Porter” tells of terrible things, and the Holocaust tells a tale of the worst that human beings can ever be. Would Max and Lucia have entered into this distorted, warped love affair -- and it is most certainly, definitely a true love affair, without the Holocaust? Well, of course we don’t know. Would our world today be the same had the Holocaust never happened? Again, we don’t know. The Holocaust is our shame as human beings. We need to be reminded, we need the mirror to be held up to our dirty faces, and if this can be only achieved through a film such as “The Night Porter,” well that’s fine with me.

“The bulk of the Nazi war crime trials took place right after 1945. Basically, from 1945 to 1949, there were parallel Allied tribunals and German courts. The German courts largely dealt with crimes committed against German citizens; the Allied courts dealt with all others, which meant the majority of Nazi crimes. These proceedings petered out by the end of the 1940s and early 1950s largely because West German society suppressed the past and preferred not to talk about it. Nazi crimes hardly found mention in public discourse in the early 1950s.

Thus the Ulm trial in 1958 marked the reopening of criminal proceedings against Nazi criminals. It was seen as a sign that the West German judicial system was taking the Nazi past more seriously. But the most striking thing about the Ulm trial was that it made clear that Nazi atrocities were not just committed within the Third Reich but largely in Eastern Europe.”
Dieter Pohl

PATRICK WHITEHURST AND HIS ART

2012-01-13T04:45:00.000-08:00

Isn’t this great? It is a real treat, that this week Patrick White comes to my blog with his exquisite paintings. Patrick’s art embraces life, with all of its joy, and its pain too. He’s a communicator; his art is sometimes precarious, I can feel myself falling. At other times Patrick lifts me up, so high that I feel dizzy. Here is what Patrick has to say about his art, and following that, you can see his paintings.

“I paint both in acrylic and in oils. Lately I have focused more on acrylics due to the quickness of the media, but intend to return to oils soon! What I find fascinating in the art I enjoy is seeing an image that tells a story. Raised on comic books, I appreciate art that explodes and smacks you in the face, but also paintings that make you feel like your seeing something dark and fantastic, something no one has seen before, or quite like how you see it. To me, that is the best kind of art. I appreciate landscape painters for their talent and for the beauty in the images, but I love the art that can not be seen in the real world. The art steeped in the soul of the artist, in passion and sorrow, intrigues me.
I mostly work on canvas, but have worked on paper and even card board and wood. Mostly I prefer the traditional canvas style. More recently I have decided to attempt a blend of my doodles with traditional painting. This has resulted in my Boris series, among other paintings. Boris has appeared in eleven paintings of mine to date. He can also be found on the blog boris paintings.blogspot.com With Boris I have strived to create a character that appeals to those with a darker sense of the world, those who have embraced depression rather than hide its existence. The paintings come with letters written by Boris as an accessory to the art.
I've also begun a series of four paintings that bridge the erotic writing of PM White with my paintings and will be producing sensual paintings with erotic words painted onto the canvas.”

Patrick Whitehurst can be found on Facebook. Visit the PM White website

COFFEE POT WOMAN

The woman reclines, she’s oblivious to the viewer. She’s not on display; she is comfortable with her nudity. But is she only comfortable because she thinks that she is alone? The viewer is a voyeur and if the viewer is titillated by the image, he/she deserves to be discomforted. We are intruding on a private moment. The woman’s left hand is between her thighs. Is she fondling herself? Masturbating? We do not know.

LIZARDY

It’s a precious moment; sharing a moment in time with a wild creature. The image frozen. It is a privilege. Like a photo, but nothing like a photo. It is a peaceful image; the lizard is wild, but not feral. We have nothing to fear from this creature; we can only admire his exquisite beauty.

PRODUCERS THINK

This painting is surreal, it is like a fragment from a dream. Already the dream is fading, as dreams always do. We struggle to remember. Yes, there was woodland in the dream. We shudder as we recall the ominous shadow. The feeling of something creeping up behind you. Something, perhaps awful is about to happen. THINK the Graffiti tells us. We try, but the thought eludes us.

SITTING AND BLAMING

An alarming old man. Resentment is etched in the lines on his face but despair too. What is he holding up -- painted in soft blue and pale yellow? A memory? Is that why he grinds his teeth? Sharp edges, a wooden chair. Do we know him? Do we want to? He is very old. What tales he could tell us? Would we then understand his despair?

TEXTING CLOUDS

Once I had a dream, that there were images in the sky. It was like looking up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Only I could see them. I was telling everyone to look. They looked, but they didn’t see. So I feel a connection with this painting. A lone figure is intent on his cell phone. He doesn’t see the images in the sky. The shapes of the clouds. Is it a comment on life in the 21st century. I don’t know.

DARK AND LAUGHABLE

This is a hideous clown. The stuff of nightmares. He is scary. Is the artist showing us that sometimes we are right to be scared of humour. Do we take ourselves too seriously? But why is the face gruesome? Perhaps the clown could tell us stories too. Stories that would sound familiar; stories that repel and depress.

READER OF BOOKS

She is taking time to relax, it is another moment in time. Maybe she is trying to hard to relax. Her feet are bare, but she is all sharp angles. While she reads, there are several books discarded. Is the woman as chilled as she would like us to think.

And my readings, my thoughts on Patrick’s paintings are not definitive. There is no right answer. No wrong answer either.

There’s a lot of nonsense talked about art; a lot of waffle. You don’t have to have a deep knowledge of art history to understand something on an emotional level and really, for me, it does come down to an emotional response. Do I like it? Why? Why is it so moving? Why is it so pleasing to my eye? Do I hate it? Why does it darken my mood? Why does it discomfort me? And there’s another thing, just because a piece of art gives me the chills, it doesn’t mean I don’t like it. We can all shout out “This is beautiful!” Or “This is rubbish!” The important question to ask is: “Why?” And sometimes the answer is quite simply; “I don’t know.”

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: BBC CHRISTMAS 2010

2012-01-06T03:14:00.000-08:00

This is the trailer for the latest adaptation of “Great Expectations” by the BBC. If you are in the UK, and you missed it, it should still be on the BBC iplayer. In the UK, the DVD will be available from 30th January 2012 at Amazon UK. I don’t know when it will be available in the US -- but I am sure it will be at some point.

I think that “Great Expectations” is one of Charles Dickens’ finest novels, and the BBC1 adaptation, shown on three consecutive nights over the Christmas holiday, did Dickens proud. Gillian Anderson, as the ethereal, strange, completely bonkers Miss Havisham, and Ray Winstone, as the menacing Able Magwitch, were nothing short of superb.

“It is traditional to surround yourself with familiar faces at Christmas and the BBC’s festive offering was like an old friend. In keeping with the celebrations of Charles Dickens’ forthcoming bicentenary, “Great Expectations” has to be the jewel in the BBC’s crown.”
From Anne Billson; The Telegraph

For those who don’t know Dickens’ story, here is a sort of synopsis.

Pip, is a young orphan, being brought up by his horrible sister, and her husband, Joe. Joe is a blacksmith; gentle and kind. Pip walks through a graveyard, and out onto the marshes of the River Thames estuary. It is Hackney Marshes, before 20th century drainage, and development. Pip is accosted by an escaped convict, Able Magwitch, who demands that Pip steal a file from the blacksmith’s forge, so that he can rid himself of his shackles. Magwitch tells Pip that if he tells, Magwitch will seek Pip out and kill him. Pip returns with the file and some food for the convict. But Magwitch is recaptured and taken back to the prison ship, bound for Australia.

Miss Havisham is a recluse, living at Satis House. She was jilted on her wedding day, and ever since has remained at the house, still wearing her wedding dress, with the wedding banquet set out on display, waiting for the wedding that never took place. Miss Havisham has an adopted daughter, Estelle. She wants a boy to come and play with her daughter. Pip is that boy. As a child, he falls hopelessly in love with Estella; it is a love that he carries with him into adulthood. This is what Miss Havisham desires; she wants to wreak vengeance on the male sex, because she has been betrayed.

Pip is now an adult, and apprenticed to be a blacksmith at his Uncle Joe’s forge. It is announced that a mysterious figure has stepped forward to be a benefactor to Pip; Pip is to be made a gentleman. He has great expectations.

And that is as far as I am prepared to go with Dickens’ tale. The adaptation tells it better than me. The events up to this point precipitate the rest of the narrative. If you read the book you will not be disappointed; Dickens really does know how to tell a tale and Brian Kirk’s direction of the adaptation is inspired.

“Immediately, in the opening scenes, you can see why this story is a perennial favourite. The glowering sky and gloomy wetlands, are a director’s dream, and Brian Kirk rises to the challenge here, with the sort of desaturated steel-grey look seen in many a recent Hollywood action movie. Ray Winstone as Magwitch emerges from the marsh, like Martin Sheen rising from the Nung river in “Apocalypse Now”, accompanied by the sort of chords that Bernard Hermann gave us in Psycho”.
Anne Billson. The Telegraph.

“A small boy runs frightened, from a lonely churchyard, across a flat, marshy landscape. He starts to cross a little wooden bridge over a muddy creek. Suddenly a big hand appears from underneath the bridge, it grabs the boy's legs, and brings him down. The boy shouts out.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian.

The episode plays upon our most primal fear; the hideous troll under the bridge, a troll suddenly made nightmarishly real. It seems absolutely true to the childish fears that pervade the opening pages of the book; the evil monster, which every child knows, lurks beneath the bed -- just waiting.

"Come 'ere, shut up," growls the escaped convict, to whom the big hand belongs. "You scream again and I'll cut your throat, d'you understand?"

“Winstone is a brilliant Magwitch – rough and gruff and terrifying, but with just a twinkle of kindness and humanity under the mud and the blood. The whole opening scene is perfect; misty and spooky, with the hulks – the prison ships from one of which Magwitch has escaped – at anchor in the distance.”
From Sam Wollaston; The Guardian

Covered in blood and slime, Magwitch, is at once the monster of nightmares; a huge misshapen baby gasping its first breath. In a single sequence, the director Brian Kirk gets to the heart of Dickens’s novel as a fable of rebirth and renewal.

The scene of Magwitch rising from the water is a playful acknowledgment of what underlies all attempts to adapt classic novels for the screen. A moving body breaks out of a flat surface; two-dimensional print gives way to the three dimensions of real life.

Pip brings the file to Magwitch, under dread of being torn to pieces, but he brings the pie only because he has seen that Magwitch is starving. It is this unforced act of kindness that sets everything in motion in the novel.

“Satis House is cold, dusty and cobwebbed, forgotten and forlorn. I see some people have been moaning that Gillian Anderson isn't old enough to be Miss Havisham, that she's a cougar rather than a crone, too ravishing for Havisham. She's not that ravishing, though. They've done a pretty good job of ageing and witchifying her. And, more importantly, she feels like Miss Havisham – not overdone like a pantomime witch but quietly sad, bitter and vengeful, cruelly manipulative, and more than a little bonkers.

Dickens scholars are always going to get upset by any adaptation. They are going to get upset by the end of this one too, as it will coincide neither with Dickens' original ending nor with his revised ending, but will steer a kind of compromise course between the two. That's part of a Dickens scholar's job though, to get upset and argue.”
Sam Wollaston; The Guardian.

The defining scene in any adaptation and in the book, is the death of Miss Havisham. In Dickens’s novel, her dress catches light when she sits too near the fire; she dies weeks later from shock. In the adaptation, however, she solemnly lowers her veil, makes a pyre of her ex-fiancé’s love letters, then steps into the blaze and burns herself to death.

“At 43, Gillian Anderson is the youngest actress to play Miss Havisham. It is a shock to meet this pale yet still beautiful wraith, mouth in need of lip salve and Baby Jane ringlets slowly unravelling, speaking in an insidious singsong, instead of the usual dotty dowager tones. This is a Miss Havisham who has never really grown up.”
From Anne Billson; The Telegraph

“Many people who’ve read the book might agree that Gillian Anderson is still a little young to play the spinster who never recovered from a jilting. Yet she plays the part well and has certainly found her niche in these productions over the last few years, from Bleak House to this January’s The Crimson Petal and the White, it seems the years she spent living in London as a child have had a profound affect on her. She captures the ethereal nature of Miss Havisham brilliantly and there are also hints of her menace in this opening episode. We watch, cringing, as she trains her adopted daughter Estella to resist the lures of men, but it soon becomes clear that her twisted soul has manifested itself in a far more sinister plan and she attempts to hurt men folk through her beautiful heir. As such, Pip’s heart is her plaything. And although the novel is told through the eyes of Pip, this is just as much Miss Havisham’s story as it is his.”
From Channel Hopping on the Box.

“'You've changed," I tell Gillian Anderson. In 1996, she was chosen as the world's sexiest woman by FHM magazine's readers; this Christmas she will be bald and on fire as Miss Havisham in the BBC's adaptation of Great Expectations. So what made her take this role? Anderson bristles: "That's not really a serious question, is it? The real question is, 'How the fuck did I end up as the world's sexiest woman in 1996?' – not why would I do Great Expectations. Any actor would want to do Great Expectations. I never set out to be the world's sexiest woman."

“Anderson plays Miss Havisham in a childlike, sing-songy voice. Where did that come from? "When I read a script I hear the voice. If I don't hear the voice, the script's not for me. When I work on something, I work on it in that pitch in my head, but don't actually say it out loud."

“But what woman in 2011 could identify with a character whose life stops because she's jilted by a gold digger on her wedding day? Maybe what they're talking about is their heart being broken 20 years ago and they're still pining. But there is something twistedly romantic about the idea that someone is so in love, that their heart is so broken, that they cannot love again, and they literally stop time.

"There is something titillating and tantalising about pain, whether it's physical pain or our own sorrow or somebody else's pain. If you think about tabloids, the glee they take in somebody else's ruin – there's all of that in Miss Havisham and there's a lot of that in our contemporary existence."
From The Saturday Interview. The Guardian.

THE WHYS AND WHEREFORES OF WRITING SMUT: P.M.WHITE

2011-12-30T02:54:00.000-08:00

I am thrilled that my wonderful writer friend, P.M.White has written this essay for my blog. P.M.White turns the matter over and over in his mind, of why he, and we all write smut. Read on!

Writers usually want to write. If not, then they like to read. If not either, they want drinks, which usually goes hand in hand with a desire to get laid. Besides the aforementioned partner, writers typically like a degree of solitude, even during the holidays.
It’s about two days after Christmas as I write this. I have no idea if I’ll be social for New Year’s. I went to one Christmas party, which is on par with the amount of revelry I experienced last year. Most of my time is spent writing, both in my day job and in my personal life. This means I like to sit in my own little world, stare at a computer screen and listen to old punk albums without saying much beyond incoherent mumbles that help further the creative process.
As I write this I’m wearing sweat pants that are a little too large for me, a white t-shirt that I slept in, and slip-on rubber shoes that I wear around the house. A space heater is usually aimed at my feet while I plunk my fingers on the keys. My hair, which I’m growing out in preparation for my mid-life crisis, has not felt a brush or comb since yesterday morning. I know there are plenty of writers who get ready before they write, but I’m not one of them. I do need coffee if it’s morning, but otherwise that's it. On occasion I need whiskey.
What I’m getting at is writers tend to be a very reclusive bunch. At my day job, I have to interview people and attend meetings before I can write. At night, or early in the morning like today, I write from a home office with only my old dog as company. So for a lot of my time, I am sequestered away with a keyboard. There’s a reason why writers spend so much time alone. Many of us are socially awkward. Or we’re made that way by our chosen profession. Either way, crowds can be scary. Even if they’re composed of friends.
Case in point is the Christmas party I attended with my girlfriend. A wonderful crowd attended the gathering – called a white elephant gift exchange/ game night/ potluck. Their were single folk, gay couples, straight couples and all in between. Everyone had a great time. My girlfriend ended up with a giant pink calculator that makes the user feel they've decreased in size by fifty percent. A number of the party-goers, including a sprinkling of the non-straight guys, lusted after that pink calculator. They also lusted after a painting I contributed to the shenanigans. It became one of the most fought-over gifts for the whole exchange.
White elephant parties, for those who don't know, means you can steal the present of someone after they have drawn their number and opened their gift. When your number comes up you can open a new gift or steal someone else's. My painting was stolen often.
Later someone suggested I was just as popular to a number of the gay men as my painting. Did they want to oil up my cock and watch it spurt? Did they want to put theirs in my mouth? Possibly, but it wasn't the thought of homo-erotic sex that makes me feel awkward socially. I write erotica. I think about sex all the time and either want to have it or I want to write it. So far I have never done both at the same time, but being hit on isn't a big deal.
As it always does, writing erotica became a conversation piece at the party for those that learned of my profession. Many thought this meant, surprise surprise, that I went down on men all the time, women as well, and probably had no problem blowing a guy while pounding a woman. While I neither confirmed nor denied my preferences, I did say it meant only that I enjoy sex and writing about it. For me, the awkwardness comes in speaking aloud, in not having any control of the next sentence that comes out of someone's mouth, of wanting to be friendly, but feeling a rock in the pit of my stomach. I often wonder if awkwardness of this sort had something to do with why Bukowski behaved like such an ass. Most writers enjoy writing because they're hermits. They don't want to be bothered by the real world. It doesn't fit with the world of their words, the world they want to be in.
As I write this, I realize that I have now shared more of myself by typing than I shared to those at the party. In words, the awkwardness all but vanishes. There, I'm ready for homo-erotic adventures and bi-sexual orgies galore, but in the real world I'm ready only for another cup of coffee. Maybe with a little Irish crème in it.

PM White is the author of ‘Horror Manor Part 1: Eyeball Man’ available through Sizzler Editions and on Amazon. His short stories have appeared in ‘Best S/M 3,’ ‘Sex in San Francisco’ and most recently in the ‘Pirate Booty’ anthology. He can be found on Facebook and here.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!

2011-12-25T01:37:00.003-08:00

LADY GODIVA

2011-12-23T02:54:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a beautiful and pious lady. Her skin was as white as snow, her golden hair hung down to her delicate ankles. Every night her maids would brush her hair until it gleamed. The beautiful lady was married to a spiteful, cruel and angry man. He was the lord of all the land and he was truly horrible. He persecuted God’s Holy Church and his judgements and laws were so harsh, that the poor people of the land scarcely had enough to eat. Each year, the spiteful, cruel and angry lord increased the taxes and the poor people were in fear that their families would starve to death. Their children were so thin and frail that they couldn’t run about and play. Their bellies swelled, they were so hungry. The mother’s milk dried up in their breasts, so that they could no longer feed their babies. All across the land you could hear the sounds of weeping mothers, children and babies. The men didn’t know what to do. They too, were weak with hunger: almost too weak to work the land and grow corn to make bread. The tools that they use to work the land were all broken anyway, and they had no money to buy new spades, shovels, ploughs and scythes. But they tried, they did their best.

The beautiful and pious lady wept too. It broke her heart to see the people starving. At last she went to her spiteful, cruel and angry husband and asked him to lower the taxes so that the poor people could buy bread and grow corn. He refused his beautiful wife’s pleas. Still she begged him again and again. The spiteful, cruel and angry lord didn’t care about the poor people: he thought that the poor people were extremely dirty, astoundingly ugly, awfully lazy and sickeningly smelly. He always carried with him a little posy of fragrant rosemary, mint, marigold and lavender. He would hold it to his nose whenever he had to pass the stinking poor people. Everyone knew that they were carriers of disease, it was a well known fact, and they really did smell horrible. Once he threw up when he passed too close to a poor person. The stench overwhelmed his delicate nostrils. It was dreadfully embarrassing; the dirty, poor and ugly children laughed at him and threw sticks and mud. He blamed his beautiful wife, with the golden, shining hair and skin as white as snow. And his wife, the beautiful lady with the skin as white as snow and shining golden hair, continued to pester him. She went on and on and on. She wouldn’t leave him alone. At last, but only because he was absolutely and utterly totally tired, fed up, bored and thoroughly pissed off with his wife’s incessant nagging and whining, the spiteful, cruel and angry (SPA) lord said that he had a solution. He said that he would lower the taxes on the poor people, if she would remove her clothes and ride on a horse through the streets, completely naked.

Because she was such a pious woman, demure and modest, the SPA lord didn’t think that his wife would agree to do it. But his beautiful wife took him at his word. The SPA lord, whose name was Leofric, was, quite frankly, in a bit of a panic. What would happen to his reputation if all of the common people saw his wife naked? She was very beautiful. She had large, firm, plump breasts, a full rounded belly and wonderfully smooth, white thighs. If all of the common people saw her naked, he would be a laughing stock. So he issued a decree that all of the people should board up their windows and nail them shut, so that no one would see his wife’s naked body.

So the beautiful lady, whose name was Godiva rode naked on a beautiful white horse through the streets of Coventry, her smooth white as snow skin, covered only by her long, golden, shining hair. The streets were silent, she was unseen by the people, except for just one person, a tailor, ever after known as “Peeping Tom”, who bored a hole in his shutter, so that he might see Godiva when she passed and he could see her smooth, plump, naked body.

And behold, God in Heaven and all of his extremely Holy Entourage, wept at the plight of the poor people and they loved Godiva for her piety and her sacrifice. But God was angry that Tom had looked, when he’d been ordered not to. And God spake, issuing a decree that Tom should be punished. So God sent one of his trainee Avenging Angels to Tom. The trainee Avenging Angel wasn’t very good, in fact the Holy Entourage thought he was a bit of a jerk, but God had a soft spot for him. The Avenging Angel could have turned himself into a cloud of golden dust and spoken to Tom in a fearsome voice, but he had forgotten how to effect the transformation, so he simply kicked the door in, scaring poor Tom half to death. For his sinful temerity of looking at the naked Godiva, even if she was completely covered by her long, golden, shining hair -- the Angel struck Tom blind. Lord Leofric was so completely stunned by the Lady Godiva’s sacrifice, that he immediately ceased his persecution of the Church and abolished the taxes on the poor people. There was great rejoicing throughout the land and a statue of Lady Godiva, naked on her horse stands in Broadgate, in the city of Coventry in England, to this very day. And of course, Lady Godiva and Lord Leofric lived happily ever after.

Well, well! As far as erotica is concerned, the old tale gives us templates for the Dominant and the submissive. The submissive, Godiva, is also an exhibitionist. I know it is open to question, but I wonder if “Peeping Tom” is the earliest record we have of a voyeur? If anyone knows, please let me know!

And the old tale is still told today. The Godiva Procession, a commemoration of the legendary ride instituted on May 31, 1678, as part of Coventry fair, was celebrated at intervals until 1826. From 1848 to 1887, it was revived and continues into the twenty-first century as part of the Godiva Festival.

The wooden effigy of Peeping Tom which, from 1812 until World War II, looked out on the world from a hotel at the northwest corner of Hertford Street, Coventry, can now be found in Cathedral Lanes Shopping Centre. Nearby, in the 1950s rebuilt Broadgate, an animated Peeping Tom watches over Lady Godiva as she makes her hourly ride around the Godiva Clock.

Is the old, old tale true? Well it seems a matter of debate amongst historians. There certainly was a Lord Leofric, who was married to Lady Godiva. Contrary to the legend, both Godiva and Leofric were generous benefactors to the Church and to the poor.

“Lady Godiva was the wife of Leofric (968–1057), Earl of Mercia. Her name occurs in charters and the Doomsday survey, though the spelling varies. The Old English name Godgifu or Godgyfu meant "gift of God"; Godiva was the Latinised version. Since the name was a popular one, there are contemporaries of the same name.

If she is the same Godgifu who appears in the chronicles of Ely, Liber Eliensis (end of twelfth century), she was a widow when Leofric married her. Both Leofric and Godiva were generous benefactors to religious houses. In 1043 Leofric founded and endowed a Benedictine monastery at Coventry. Writing in the twelfth century, Roger of Wendover credits Godiva as the persuasive force behind this act. In the 1050s, her name is coupled with that of her husband on a grant of land to the monastery of Saint Mary, Worcester and the endowment of the minster at Stow Saint Mary, Lincolnshire. She and her husband are commemorated as benefactors of other monasteries at Leominster, Chester, Much Wenlock and Evesham.

After Leofric's death in 1057, his widow lived on until sometime beyond the Norman Conquest of 1066. She is mentioned in the Doomsday survey as one of the few Anglo-Saxons and the only woman to remain a major landholder shortly after the conquest. By the time of this great survey in 1086, Godiva had died, but her former lands are listed, although now held by others. Thus, Godiva apparently died between 1066 and 1086.

The place where Godiva was buried has been a matter of debate. According to the Evesham Chronicle, she was buried at the Church of the Blessed Trinity at Evesham, which is no longer standing. But, according to the authoritative account in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "There is no reason to doubt that she was buried with her husband at Coventry, despite the assertion of the Evesham chronicle that she lay in Holy Trinity, Evesham."
William Dugdale (1656) states that a window with representations of Leofric and Godiva was placed in Trinity Church, in Coventry, about the time of Richard II.”

From the New World Encyclopaedia.

“Archaeologists in Coventry have unearthed part of a 14th century stained glass window bearing the face of a beautiful woman. It is thought to be that of Lady Godiva, famous for riding naked through the streets of the city.

The face on the newly-found glass shards is beautiful and crowned by wavy, golden hair. It was part of the east window of the former cathedral where, traditionally, the images of benefactors are depicted.”

From BBC news/in depth. 24th Aug 2001

2011-12-16T04:00:00.000-08:00

Well, yes it does make me want to scream! Loudly! You see, it’s the third time this has happened to me -- males -- straight males, confusing me with the characters in my tales.

Have any other women writers come across this?

I write erotica. Sometimes what I write is downright, absolutely pornographic. I write to entertain, sometimes I write quite deliberately to arouse -- I write to explore what a fun thing sex can be. The games that we play; the games that we want to play, but dare not.

I hope that sometimes people laugh! Laughter is sexy!

If consolation is needed, then I hope that I console -- it’s a sad mind that thinks that you are the only person in the world, who has had strange fantasies -- sometimes what the world would see as perverted fantasies. I write for the guy who wants to be a mommy’s boy -- for the male or female who wants to be Dominated, humiliated, who suffers for the sake of the one that he or she idolises. Those who give up their right to orgasm, because their Master, or Mistress forbids it. They eat, sleep, wear clothes, defecate, urinate when they are permitted. I want to tell them that they are not weird. They don’t have to act on their dark fantasies, but they are entitled to have them.

Sometimes I write heavy stuff.

And I hope that women read my tales too. I write for them; to empower -- sexually.

One guy who wrote to me, declared himself a submissive. He wanted to be tied up, be beaten until he was “bruised and bloody”. He couldn’t possibly tell his wife, she would think he was a pervert.

So how can he tell me, a stranger, things that he would never divulge to the person he is closest to in all the world?

Sad, bad.

Do male writer’s of erotica get this? I wonder what their response would be? A gay friend, who writes gay male erotica, tells me that he’s had mails where his readers confess that they have masturbated after reading his stories. My friend’s response is: “well well”.

One New Year’s Eve, I had a cold so I decided not to join in the celebrations. I stayed in, warm and cosy. I was watching the new year arrive on television. Big Ben struck on the hour of midnight. The phone rang. A guy telling me to open my mouth, he was waiting to shove his penis in. It’s hardly poetry, is it? I was shocked and hung up. I was nervous and felt upset. Then I got to thinking, how would a man react to a dirty phone call? So I asked them -- gay and straight. Both said that they would laugh and probably be excited. So I wrote my story, “Retribution”. It’s about just that. A straight man receiving a dirty phone call from a woman. It’s in M.Christian’s anthology, “Best S&M Erotica vol.3

I mentioned all of this to an acquaintance; his response was -- “Well, given the genre you write in, don’t you think that this sort of thing is bound to happen?”

Maybe I’m naïve, but I didn’t. The males who have contacted me come over as intelligent guys; men with refined, intellectually developed, sophisticated minds. So why, after a few emails, do they ask me ask me inappropriate questions? Very personal questions. Have I ever…? Very creepy questions.

These questions take me by surprise rather than shock me. A bit like the dirty phone call on New Year’s Eve. Questions that unsettle me rather than distress me. I feel a little bit insulted too -- but most of all, I feel very irritated.

I could name names -- I could, perhaps I should. But I’m not going to -- that would make me spiteful, and I’m not spiteful.

But I am not Ulena, or Jasmine, or Sally, or whoever the hell the FEM/dom is in my tales. They are figments of my imagination; they are not me. I create these characters, just to see if I can do it. I put them and their submissive partners in depraved situations, just to see if I can do it. Human beings have always whispered tales of the forbidden; the taboo. Those tales are a part of every culture in the world, expressing stuff we dare not speak of.

Perhaps, one day I’ll move away from erotica/pornography -- maybe I’ll write something “worthy”. Heavens, there are plenty of issues to be going along with. Racism, homophobia, xenophobia, how we treat the elderly, child abuse, animal cruelty -- the list goes on and on. Perhaps I’ll write about the cult of celebrity -- the desire that half the world has, it seems, to be famous.

Maybe I won’t -- there are more than enough writers churning out “worthy” books.

I’ve deleted my Facebook profile -- no great loss there. I was getting inappropriate comments on my “wall”.

It’s fiction for God’s sake; it’s a story.

It seems that if I want to write in the erotica genre, then I have to hide -- But I will continue to write my tales of sexual release, sensual release -- and yes, even spiritual release.

I think that my ultimate aim, as a writer of erotica, is to express erotica with words, as beautifully as Dita von Teese does in her burlesque dance. Dita dances to entertain -- She dances to arouse men -- and women too. She’s also empowering women -- to be beautiful, to take control of their sexuality. She’s telling a story, a fiction -- her dance is no more real than any of my, or any other writer’s erotic/pornographic tales.

In her dressing room, Dita von Teese takes of her wig and heavy makeup. She kicks off the killer heels -- she probably slips, very elegantly of course, into a pair of old jeans and a tee shirt. She exits through the stage door -- her adoring fans don’t even recognise her. She tip toes away gracefully into the night.

THE HARSH REALITIES OF WRITING SMUT: M.CHRISTIAN

2011-12-09T02:30:00.000-08:00

Before I say anything here's a hearty and heart-felt THANKS to Billierosie for her love and support --- and for her wanting to share this little piece I wrote about the reality of being a smut writer. Little, alas, has changed from when I wrote this -- and when it was published in “How to write and sell Erotica:” sex and sex writing is still something that seems to bring out a lot of strange things for far too many people and, until we evolve as a species, everyone who wants to say anything about eroticism needs to have a very firm grasp of what that means.

"The shock of September 11 is subsiding. Each day adds distance. Distance diminishes fear. Cautiously our lives are returning to normal. But "normal" will never be the same again. We have seen the enemy and the enemy is among us .... the publishers, producers, peddlers and purveyors of pornography."

It didn't take me long to find that quote, just a few minutes of searching. It came from an LDS Web site, Meridian Magazine, but I could have picked fifty others. Maybe it's because of the election, or because of a few horror stories that have recently come my way, but I think it's time to have a chat about what it can mean to ... well, do what we do.

We write pornography. Say it with me: por-nog-ra-phy. Not 'erotica' -- a word too many writers use to distance themselves, or even elevate themselves, from the down and dirty stuff on most adult bookstore shelves -- but smut, filth ... and so forth.

I've mentioned before how it's dangerous to draw a line in the sand, putting fellow writers on the side of 'smut' and others in 'erotica.' The Supreme Court couldn't decide where to scrawl that mark -- what chance do we have?

What good are our petty semantics when too many people would love to see us out of business, thrown in jail, or much, much worse? They don't see a bit of difference between what I write and what you write. We can sit and argue all we like over who's innocent and who's guilty until our last meals arrive, but we'll still hang together.

I think it's time to face some serious facts about what we do. 'Swinging from a rope' hyperbole aside, we face some serious risks for putting pen to paper or file to disk. I know far too many people who have been fired, stalked, threatened, had their writing used against them in divorces and child custody cases, and much worse.

People hate us. Not everyone, certainly, but even in oases like San Francisco people who write about sex can suffer tremendous difficulties. Even the most -- supposedly -- tolerant companies have a hard time with an employee who writes smut. A liberal court will still look down on a defendant who's published stories in Naughty Nurses. The religious fanatic will most certainly throw the first, second, third stone -- or as many as it takes -- at a filth peddler.

This is what we have to accept. Sure, things are better than they have been before and, if we're lucky, they will slowly progress despite the fundamentalism of the current government, but we all have to open our eyes to the ugly truths that can accompany a decision to write pornography.

What can we do? Well, aside from joining the ACLU (www.aclu.org) there isn't a lot to we can directly do to protect ourselves if the law, or Bible-wielding fanatics, break down our doors, but there are a few relatively simple techniques we can employ to be safe. Take these as you will, and keep in mind that I'm not an expert in the law, but most importantly, try to accept that what you are doing is dangerous.

Assess your risks. If you have kids, if you have a sensitive job, if you own a house, if you have touchy parents, if you live in a conservative city or state, you should be extra careful about your identity and what you are writing. Even if you think you have nothing to lose, you do -- your freedom. Many cities and states have very loose pornography laws, and all it would take is a cop, a sheriff, or a district attorney to decide you needed to be behind bars to put you there.

Hide. Yes, I think we should all be proud of what we do, what we create, but use some common sense about how easily you can be identified or found. If you have anything to lose, use a pseudonym, a post office box, never post your picture, and so forth. Women, especially, should be extra careful. I know far too many female writers who have been stalked or Internet-attacked because of what they do.

Keep your yap shut. Don't tell your bank, your boss, your accountant, your plumber, or anyone at all, what you do -- unless you know them very well. When someone asks, I say I'm a writer. If I know them better, I say I write all kinds of things -- including smut. If I know them very, very, very well then maybe I'll show them my newest book. People, it shouldn't have to be said, are very weird. Just because you like someone doesn't mean you should divulge that you just sold a story to Truckstop Transsexuals.

Remember that line we drew between 'pornography' and 'erotica'? Well, here's another. You might be straight, you might be bi, but in the eyes of those who despise pornography you are just as damned and perverted as a filthy sodomite. It makes me furious to meet a homophobic pornographer. Every strike against gay rights is another blow to your civil liberties and is a step closer to you being censored, out of a job, out of your house, or in jail. You can argue this all you want, but I've yet to see a hysterical homophobe who isn't anti-smut. For you to be anti-gay isn't just an idiotic prejudice, it's giving the forces of puritanical righteousness even more ammunition for their war -- on all of us.

I could go on, but I think I've given you enough to chew on. I believe that writing about sex is something that no one should be ashamed of, but I also think that we all need to recognize and accept that there are many out there who do not share those feelings. Write what you want, say what you believe, but do it with your eyes open. Understand the risks, accept the risks and be smart about what you do -- so you can keep working and growing as a writer for many years to come.

Measure for Measure: William Shakespeare

2011-12-02T02:38:00.000-08:00

"Measure for Measure" is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was (and continues to be) classified as comedy, but its mood defies those expectations. As a result and for a variety of reasons, some critics have labelled it as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623 (where it was first labelled as a comedy), the play's first recorded performance was in 1604. The play deals with the issues of mercy, justice, and truth and their relationship to pride and humility: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall". WIKI

I really do believe that William Shakespeare covers just about everything in his plays; it’s impossible to talk about everything, so I’m going to talk about one strand in the “Measure for Measure" that I haven’t yet seen discussed. Erotica -- not sex. Erotica.

Shakespearean purists will be irritated with me -- I’ll get over it! They will say that I’ve written nothing about characterisation and the major themes in the plays; mercy, appearance and reality, pride, justice. There’s some wonderful comedic moments in “Measure for Measure”; I’ve not talked about them either. Neither have I considered the dramatic function of the play’s comic scenes. And there’s love here; hate, envy, greed, good, evil.

What about the text? Shakespeare’s wonderful use of language the purists will cry, as they pick up a feather quill to throw at me. No, I don’t want to talk about language; words, as much as I love them. So you won’t find anything here about imagery and symbolism. Poetry and prose. Rhyme and Rhythm.

I started with love -- and even there Shakespeare crafts a difference between the romantic love of “Romeo and Juliet” -- electricity, as eyes meet across a crowded room. and the manipulative, dark, watchful, carnal desire of “Measure for Measure.”

The post is rather long -- that’s because it’s impossible to write about William Shakespeare without quoting from the text. If you don’t have the time, nor feel reading Shakespeare’s sometimes complex writing, I’ve done my best to explain the plot and narrative as I go along -- and interpret what the characters are actually saying.

Here you go then; deep breath -- my reading/interpretation of erotica in Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure!”

The city of Vienna is out of control. Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, has let standards slip; the night time streets are ruled by debauchery and licentious behaviour. Vincentio makes it known that he intends to leave the city on a diplomatic mission. He leaves the government in the hands of a strict judge, Angelo. The Duke’s absence sets the plot in motion.

Fornication, drunkenness and depravity saturate the streets of Vienna. Debauchery rules the city.

“We have strict statutes and most biting laws.
The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,
Which for this nineteen years we have let slip;
Even like an o'er grown lion in a cave,
That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,
Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their children's sight
For terror, not to use, in time the rod
Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
And liberty plucks justice by the nose;
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum”.

So the Duke commissions Angelo to rule in his absence. Angelo is given the authority to rule -- exactly as if her were the Duke. Angelo is promoted over a faithful, wise administrator, Escalus.

“Hold therefore, Angelo:--
In our remove be thou at full ourself;
Mortality and mercy in Vienna
Live in thy tongue and heart: old Escalus,
Though first in question, is thy secondary.
Take thy commission.”

Angelo prevaricates. He isn’t worthy of such a task. He asks the Duke to appoint him to do something else; something more fitting.

“Now, good my lord,
Let there be some more test made of my metal,
Before so noble and so great a figure
Be stamp'd upon it.”

But the Duke insists -- to the audience it is curious. Is it some kind of test for the cold, seemingly perfect Angelo? The Duke wonders of Angelo, whether he is as cold and precise as he seems to be. How will Angelo behave if he is given real power?

“Lord Angelo is precise;
Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,
If power change purpose, what our seemers be”.

It seems that we are correct in our assumption. The Duke is watchful of Angelo; he is suspicious of him. We also learn that the Duke has not in fact left the city, but remains there disguised as a friar in order to spy on the city's affairs, and especially on the actions of Angelo. The Duke’s deception, is crucial to the narrative and pushes the plot forward.

The Duke is a man who knows that human nature is weak and can be corrupted, and accepts this to some extent. He knows that being a ruler requires that a person be fair and not punish people for their faults, when they are faults that the ruler has too.

Angelo is being set up by the Duke.

In the Duke’s supposed absence, Angelo wastes no time in cleaning up the city. He closes down the brothels and purges the streets of filth. Through the character of Lucio we see the popular version of what the citizens of Vienna think. Lucio is a man who likes debauchery and drinking and is not sorry for his sins. He knows that Angelo's attempt to crack down on the city and eliminate its vices will not work, for the simple reason that human nature is always prone to vice, and sin cannot be purged from people completely.

But Angelo is determined and his dark, watchful eye falls on young Claudio.

Claudio, is a young nobleman, and betrothed unofficially to Julietta. At the time, marriages were supposed to be announced by banns in advance. Due to lack of money, Claudio and Julietta did not observe all the technicalities. This did not make them unique; at the time most people (including the Church) would have considered them married.

Technically, however, all the formalities for a civil marriage had not been followed and so a strict judge might rule that they were not legally married. Angelo, as the personification of the law, decides to enforce the ruling that fornication is punishable by death, and since Angelo does not accept the validity of the marriage, Claudio is sentenced to be executed.

Through Lucio and his drinking cronies the audience learn of Claudio’s arrest.

Mistress Overdone states.

“Well, well; there's one yonder arrested and carried
to prison was worth five thousand of you all”…

“Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested, saw
him carried away; and, which is more, within these
three days his head to be chopped off.”

Lucio watches Claudio being taken away to prison. He asks him what his offence is. Claudio tells him that he has been dissolute.

“From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty:
As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,
Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,
A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die”.

Claudio continues; He and his fiancée Julietta have had sex before they are married. This is their crime.

“Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract
I got possession of Julietta's bed:
You know the lady; she is fast my wife,
Save that we do the denunciation lack
Of outward order: this we came not to,
Only for propagation of a dower
Remaining in the coffer of her friends,
From whom we thought it meet to hide our love
Till time had made them for us. But it chances
The stealth of our most mutual entertainment
With character too gross is writ on Juliet”.

Furthermore, Julietta is pregnant. Claudio’s sin can no longer be hidden. Claudio asks Lucio to act for him and approach his sister, Isabella. Isabella is a novice nun and soon to take her vows. Isabella is eloquent and skilled at the art of persuasion.

“I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:
This day my sister should the cloister enter
And there receive her approbation:
Acquaint her with the danger of my state:
Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him:
I have great hope in that; for in her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect,
Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art
When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade.”

Claudio believes that if anyone can make Angelo change his mind, it is his sister.

Lucio speaks to Isabella; He sums up what we already know. The Duke has left Vienna and his deputy, Angelo is in charge. Angelo has brought up an old law; depraved behaviour carries the sentence of death.

“This is the point.
The duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
In hand and hope of action: but we do learn
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His givings-out were of an infinite distance
From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
And with full line of his authority,
Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He--to give fear to use and liberty,
Which have for long run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions--hath pick'd out an act,
Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;
And follows close the rigour of the statute,
To make him an example. All hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business
'Twixt you and your poor brother”.

Lucio continues to press Isabella. He tells her that she must go to Angelo and speak for her brother.

“Go to Lord Angelo,
And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them”.

Isabella agrees to speak to Angelo. She obtains an audience with him and pleads for mercy for Claudio. She addresses Angelo with Christian imagery. Where would he be, where would we all be, if not for Christ’s sacrifice? Christ was executed so that our sins may be forgiven.

“Alas, alas!
Why, all the souls that were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made”.

Angelo is resolute. Even if Claudio were a relative of his, he would still deserve the death penalty.

“Be you content, fair maid;
It is the law, not I condemn your brother:
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
It should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow”.

Isabella’s response is quick; she begs for her brother’s life to be spared.

“To-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him!
He's not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven
With less respect than we do minister
To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you;
Who is it that hath died for this offence?
There's many have committed it”.

Angelo retorts that the death sentence is irrevocable. If he lets this one crime go, it would encourage more people to break the law.

“The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:
Those many had not dared to do that evil,
If the first that did the edict infringe
Had answer'd for his deed: now 'tis awake
Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,
Either new, or by remissness new-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, ere they live, to end”.

Isabella. “Yet show some pity”.

Angelo insists that Claudio must be made an example of, to stop others flouting the law in the same way.

“I show it most of all when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;
Your brother dies to-morrow; be content”.

Isabella’s passion increases. Men in authority must follow the example of God. God does not strike down every misdemeanour. If he did, he would never stop punishing us. Pride is a sin -- we should learn not to take ourselves so seriously.

“Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder;
Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal”.

Angelo retaliates, there is a change of mood. Isabella has touched a nerve.

“Why do you put these sayings upon me?”

Angelo dismisses her, telling her to attend on him tomorrow. He is left alone and questions himself; Isabella has stirred something in his cold heart. He desires her. Why does he desire her, he asks himself. Is it because she is good? He asks himself what he is, again, why does he desire her? It seems that Angelo is turned on by Isabella’s virginity. He has often been bewildered when he has seen men attracted to promiscuous women. Isabella’s virtue has aroused him like never before.

And Angelo’s use of language is interesting. He reveals that he sees his sexual desire as something "corrupt." In this passage, he compares his lustful body to carrion (road kill) rotting in the sun.

“What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
Ha!
Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!
What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live!
Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. Even till now,
When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how”.

The following day, Angelo again ponders on his nature. He prays, but his prayers are empty; he can think only of Isabella. He has always taken pride in his gravity; he realises that it has all been for show. He finally declares that he will continue to play the part of the “good angel” even though the devil has taken over his being.

“When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name;
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied
Is like a good thing, being often read,
Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein--let no man hear me--I take pride,
Could I with boot change for an idle plume,
Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn:
'Tis not the devil's crest.”

A servant informs him that Isabella has arrived; he panics. His heart pounds, he almost gibbers, he babbles in his anxiety and arousal. The audience see him pacing, clenching and unclenching his fists. He wrings his hands frantically. He is overheated, then is quickly cold. Angelo is sexually aroused.

“O heavens!
Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
Making both it unable for itself,
And dispossessing all my other parts
Of necessary fitness?
So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
By which he should revive: and even so
The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.”

Over the last scene, and the next, the emotional intensity of Angelo and Isabella increases. If the audience has missed the point, it becomes clear that Angelo harbours lustful thoughts about Isabella. He tells her that she can save Claudio’s life if she will give her virginity to him, Angelo. He speaks in metaphor, he does not ask her directly to have sex with him -- he makes allusions.

Then he comes right out with it. She can redeem her brother if she will have sex with him, Angelo.

“…then I shall pose you quickly.
Which had you rather, that the most just law
Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
As she that he hath stain'd?”

Isabella talks of her body and her immortal soul. Angelo counters her argument. He speaks plainly. If she does not have sex with him, her brother Claudio will be executed. He knows that she will be going against her conscience, but it is worth it, to save her brother’s life.

“Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
Against the thing I say. Answer to this:
I, now the voice of the recorded law,
Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
Might there not be a charity in sin
To save this brother's life?”

And he continues; she should yield to him and save her brother’s life. There is no other way for Claudio to escape the sentence of death; the executioner’s axe.

“Admit no other way to save his life,--
As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But in the loss of question,--that you, his sister,
Finding yourself desired of such a person,
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-building law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else to let him suffer;
What would you do?”

Isabella speaks directly: she would not give up her virginity to save her brother’s life. She would rather suffer pain and torture, than give up her virginity.

“As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield
My body up to shame.”

The pace quickens. The audience sees Angelo closing in on Isabella, invading her space. The text needs no commentary here. The sentences are short; breathless. No air; claustrophobia.

ANGELO
Plainly conceive, I love you.
ISABELLA
My brother did love Juliet,
And you tell me that he shall die for it.
ANGELO
He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
ISABELLA
I know your virtue hath a licence in't,
Which seems a little fouler than it is,
To pluck on others.
ANGELO
Believe me, on mine honour,
My words express my purpose.

Angelo’s compromise is plain -- he will spare Claudio's life if Isabella will yield him her virginity.

At last! Isabella is now in no doubt of what Angelo means. He has spoken plainly. Isabella is one step away from a terrible hysteria. She spits out her words. She sees Angelo for the vile manipulator that he is. It’s one of Shakespeare’s enduring themes. Appearance and reality. It is a constant. How often people, our friends, members of our families, neighbours and people in the public eye disappoint us with a complete failure of integrity. It’s the face that people present to the world and what goes on inside their heads and their private lives.

“Ha! little honour to be much believed,
And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:
Sign me a present pardon for my brother,
Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud
What man thou art.”

Shakespeare demonstrates, through the character of Angelo, that sexual desire can be dark and corrupt. There is no innocent purity here, as in Romeo, or Juliet.

Angelo’s speech is a quick reaction to Isabella’s threat; he is tersely triumphant. He knows that there is nothing that Isabella can do. His reputation is as white as snow; no one will believe her. She can say what she wants, her accusations will fall on deaf ears.

“Who will believe thee, Isabel?
My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,
My vouch against you, and my place i' the state,
Will so your accusation overweigh,
That you shall stifle in your own report
And smell of calumny. I have begun,
And now I give my sensual race the rein:
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,
That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
By yielding up thy body to my will;
Or else he must not only die the death,
But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,
Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.”

Isabella knows that she is beaten. In desperation she may turn to the audience and address them directly. Angelo’s reputation is austere, clinical. He is a good man in the eyes of the world. A man trusted by the Duke Vincentio to govern in his absence. Her despair magnifies. Her brother Claudio, must give up his life to save his sister from Angelo’s vile scheming. Isabella will tell Claudio that he must face the executioner to save her chastity.

“To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,
That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,
Either of condemnation or approof;
Bidding the law make court'sy to their will:
Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,
To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother:
Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour.
That, had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up,
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorr'd pollution.
Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.”

As Isabella enters Claudio’s prison cell, Duke Vincentio, disguised as a friar, slips away. The Duke, in his role as a holy man has been counselling Claudio; he has told him to prepare himself for death.

The Duke hides and overhears what transpires between Isabella and Claudio.

Claudio asks Isabella;
“Now sister. What’s the comfort?”

Isabella responds by telling him that the death sentence on his head stands firm. Angelo will not relent.

“As all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.
Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
Intends you for his swift ambassador,
Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:
Therefore your best appointment make with speed;
To-morrow you set on.”

Claudio asks;

“Is there no remedy?”

Isabella prevaricates. She won’t come to the point. She tells him that there is a solution, but doesn’t tell him what it is.

“Yes, brother, you may live:
There is a devilish mercy in the judge,
If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
But fetter you till death.”

Claudio presses her.

“Let me know the point.”

Isabella is afraid. She is wondering if Claudio will embrace death for the sake of her honour. She knows that Claudio will be pondering on what death will mean.

“O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour. Darest thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.”

But Claudio is brave. He tells his sister he is prepared to die.

“Why give you me this shame?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flowery tenderness? If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms.”

Isabella is proud of him. He is worthy of their father. She starts to tell Claudio of her interview with Angelo. He is a devil, yet appears to the world as a saint. She speaks of Angelo as filth. A pond with muddy, dark murky waters.

“There spake my brother; there my father's grave
Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:
Thou art too noble to conserve a life
In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i' the head and follies doth emmew
As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.”

She tells Claudio exactly what Angelo wants if he is to free Claudio. He wants her virginity.

“O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned'st body to invest and cover
In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?
If I would yield him my virginity,
Thou mightst be freed”.

Claudio is shocked.

“O heavens! it cannot be.”

Isabella assures Claudio that it is true. She must have sex with Angelo; if she refuses, Claudio dies. Angelo is to take her virginity that very night.

“Yes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,
So to offend him still. This night's the time
That I should do what I abhor to name,
Or else thou diest to-morrow.”

Brother and sister talk quickly. The pace is frantic.

CLAUDIO
“Thou shalt not do't.”
ISABELLA
“O, were it but my life,
I'ld throw it down for your deliverance
As frankly as a pin.”
CLAUDIO
“Thanks, dear Isabel.”
ISABELLA
“Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow…”

But Claudio has started to think about the reality of death and dying.

CLAUDIO
“Death is a fearful thing.”
ISABELLA
“And shamed life a hateful.”

Claudio bursts out passionately. He doesn’t know what happens after death. Where do you go? Do you simply rot -- his beautiful warm body becoming one with the cold, muddy earth of the graveyard? Do you go to the fires of hell -- or the ice of hell? Or do you become a howling ghost, blown about the world? Surely the most miserable life on earth is wonderful compared to death.

(Here Shakespeare is expressing a sentiment previously explored in his earlier play “Hamlet”. Hamlet’s “to be, or not to be” soliloquy explores the same concept. What happens when we die? The concern is universal. Every man and woman on the planet must have contemplated the sheer horror of the infinite at some time. The ghastliness for Hamlet is summed up in; “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?”)

Claudio’s imagination is suddenly frantic; he imagines one horror after another.

“Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.”

The audience see Isabella wring her hands in despair. She is barely holding back her tears. Claudio is weeping too.

Claudio begs for his life; he says that in sacrificing her virginity to save him from the axe would be a good thing.

“Sweet sister, let me live:
What sin you do to save a brother's life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue.”

Isabella’s reprimand is fiercely violent. She tells Claudio he is a coward. She accuses him of incest in that he will profit from her debasement. She cannot believe that he is even related to her. Could it be that their mother cheated on their father? She denies him; as far as she is concerned she hopes that he dies. In fact she prays for it!

ISABELLA
“Alas, alas!”
O you beast!
O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
Is't not a kind of incest, to take life
From thine own sister's shame? What should I think?
Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!
For such a warped slip of wilderness
Ne'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance!
Die, perish! Might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:
I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.”

Claudio pleads with her to listen.

“Nay, hear me, Isabel.”

Brother and sister are in a state of emotional despair. Claudio continues to plead with her. Isabella spits out her disgust. He is corrupt and deserves everything he’s got coming to him. (A production that I saw long ago, had Isabella throw her rosary across the stage at this point.)

Isabella refusal has to be understood within the context of Roman Catholicism and the convent. A nun’s vow of chastity is sacred; she is married to Christ. As a novice nun, Isabella must not sacrifice her own immortal soul (and that of Claudio's, if he causes her to lose her virtue) to save Claudio's transient earthly life. I believe that even today in the 21st century, a nun would say exactly the same thing.

“O, fie, fie, fie!
Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade.
Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:
'Tis best thou diest quickly.

So now we know where Shakespeare is going. The city of Vienna is morally out of control. Duke Vincentio has ostensibly left Vienna and has given over control to his deputy Angelo. In reality the Duke is still in Vienna, in the guise of a friar. Angelo’s interpretation of the law is harsh and he has ordered that Claudio be sentenced to death for his licentious behaviour. Julietta, Claudio’s fiancée is pregnant as proof of this. Isabella, Claudio’s sister has pleaded with Angelo to show mercy and repeal Claudio’s impending execution. Angelo has refused; but he will show mercy if Isabella has sex with him and yield her virginity to him. Isabella has refused him, so Angelo tells her that there is no hope, Claudio must die. Isabella tells Claudio what has transpired between her and Angelo. At first Claudio says that she must not have sex with Angelo; then in fear of what is on the other side of death, Claudio pleads with Isabella to yield to Angelo and save his life. Isabella is shocked and tells Claudio to prepare for death.

In the darkness of the dungeons, Duke Vincentio, disguised as a friar approaches Isabella and asks to speak with her.

She tells him she will speak with him in a while. The Duke approaches Claudio and tells him that he has overheard the conversation between the brother and sister. Here the Duke is not truthful. He tells Claudio that Angelo was merely testing Isabella’s virtue. Angelo will be pleased that Isabella has refused him. There is nothing for Claudio to do but pray and prepare for death.

“Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you
and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to
corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her
virtue to practise his judgment with the disposition
of natures: she, having the truth of honour in her,
hath made him that gracious denial which he is most
glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I
know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to
death: do not satisfy your resolution with hopes
that are fallible: tomorrow you must die; go to
your knees and make ready.”

In his guise as a friar the Duke befriends Isabella. He approves of the stand that she has made, but asks how she intends to save Claudio?

“The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good:
the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty
brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of
your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever
fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,
fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but
that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should
wonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this
substitute, and to save your brother?”

Isabella can see no hope for Claudio but she is sorry that she and her brother have quarrelled. She says that Angelo is an evil man; the Duke has been deceived.

“I am now going to resolve him: I had rather my
brother die by the law than my son should be
unlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good duke
deceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can
speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or
discover his government.”

The Duke tells Isabella that he has a plan. She is wasting her breath accusing Angelo. Angelo will simply say that he was testing her.

“That shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter
now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made
trial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my
advisings: to the love I have in doing good a
remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe
that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged
lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from
the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious
person; and much please the absent duke, if
peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of
this business.”

The Duke asks Isabella if she has heard of Mariana; her brother was lost at sea. Angelo had been engaged to be married to her. But when her dowry was lost along with her brother, Angelo left her without a second thought.

“She should this Angelo have married; was affianced
to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between
which time of the contract and limit of the
solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea,
having in that perished vessel the dowry of his
sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the
poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and
renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most
kind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of
her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her
combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.”

Isabella can’t believe what she is hearing and the audience is learning that the Duke has more grounds for his suspicions of Angelo. This is why the Duke has laid such an elaborate trap for him.

“Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them
with his comfort; swallowed his vows whole,
pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few,
bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet
wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears,
is washed with them, but relents not.”

Angelo not only deserted Mariana, he spread dirty rumours about her. He told everyone that he’d discovered that she was promiscuous. He tells Isabella that he has a plan that will save Claudio from execution without Isabella having to sacrifice her virtue. He tells her that she must go to Angelo and meekly agree to his demands. But she must state conditions. She will only stay long enough for him to take her virginity. The place where the sex act is to take place must be dark. Having agreed upon these points, Mariana will go in Isabella’s place; Angelo will be duped.

“This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance
of her first affection: his unjust unkindness, that
in all reason should have quenched her love, hath,
like an impediment in the current, made it more
violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his
requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with
his demands to the point; only refer yourself to
this advantage, first, that your stay with him may
not be long; that the time may have all shadow and
silence in it; and the place answer to convenience.
This being granted in course,--and now follows
all,--we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up
your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter
acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to
her recompense: and here, by this, is your brother
saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana
advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid
will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you
think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness
of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof.
What think you of it?”

Isabella is delighted!

“The image of it gives me content already; and I
trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.”

The Duke tells her that she has yet to convince Angelo. Meanwhile the Duke will tell
Mariana of the plan.

“It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily
to Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his
bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will
presently to Saint Luke's: there, at the moated
grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that
place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that
it may be quickly.”

The Duke goes to Mariana and speaks with her. He tells Mariana of his plan. He says that there is no sin, Angelo is still her husband in the eyes of the law and Mariana still loves him.

“Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.
He is your husband on a pre-contract:
To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin,
Sith that the justice of your title to him
Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go:
Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.”

The Duke’s plan is put into practice. Mariana goes to Angelo in Isabella’s place, but Angelo believes that he has had sex with Isabella. Angelo, however, does not issue a reprieve, for Claudio, so the Duke arranges for the head of a pirate Barnadine, who is due to be executed on the same day as Claudio, to be shown to Angelo. The Duke issues an announcement that he is returning to Vienna. He will meet with Angelo in a public place.

“Now will I write letters to Angelo,--
The provost, he shall bear them, whose contents
Shall witness to him I am near at home,
And that, by great injunctions, I am bound
To enter publicly: him I'll desire
To meet me at the consecrated fount
A league below the city; and from thence,
By cold gradation and well-balanced form,
We shall proceed with Angelo.”

Angelo is nervous. He doesn’t understand why the Duke wants to meet him publicly. Can it be that his double dealing ways have been found out? Surely not? It stands to reason that Isabella wouldn’t dare to expose him. Still he is agitated; he believes that he has executed Claudio and he regrets it -- but only because he thinks he might be exposed.

“This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
And dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd maid!
And by an eminent body that enforced
The law against it! But that her tender shame
Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;
For my authority bears of a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch
But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,
Save that riotous youth, with dangerous sense,
Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge,
By so receiving a dishonour'd life
With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!
A lack, when once our grace we have forgot,
Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not.”

The Duke Vincentio, who really is the Duke now and no longer a humble friar, meets his entourage at the appointed place. You have to bear in mind that Isabella and Mariana do not realise that the friar was actually the Duke. They are in the dark. Isabella also believes that the execution of her brother actually took place.

Isabella approaches the Duke. She tells him that she has a complaint and asks for justice.

ISABELLA
“Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard
Upon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid!
O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object
Till you have heard me in my true complaint
And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!”

The Duke beckons Angelo forward. He tells Isabella that she must talk to Angelo.

DUKE VINCENTIO
“Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.
Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:
Reveal yourself to him.”

Isabella begs the Duke to hear her. If the Duke believes that she lies, then he must punish her. If not then he must do as he sees fit.

ISABELLA
“O worthy duke,
You bid me seek redemption of the devil:
Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak
Must either punish me, not being believed,
Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here!”

I’ve been told several times, by several men that I am completely crazy. So have my friends! The tactic was obviously as alive and well in 17th century Elizabethan England, as it is today!

ANGELO
“My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:
She hath been a suitor to me for her brother
Cut off by course of justice,--”

ISABELLA
“By course of justice!”
ANGELO
“And she will speak most bitterly and strange.”

Isabella relates Angelo’s indiscretions to the Duke.

ISABELLA
“Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:
That Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange?
That Angelo's a murderer; is 't not strange?
That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;
Is it not strange and strange?”

The Duke is shocked!

DUKE VINCENTIO
“Nay, it is ten times strange.”

Isabella pleads to be believed. She is speaking the truth.

ISABELLA
“It is not truer he is Angelo
Than this is all as true as it is strange:
Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.”

The Duke agrees with Angelo, that Isabella is completely crazy.

DUKE VINCENTIO
“Away with her! Poor soul,
She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.”

Finally the Duke hears her. Isabella tells how she pleaded with Angelo to lift the sentence of death from her brother. How Angelo had told her that he would release Claudio if she had sex with him. Isabella says that she yielded to Angelo, but Angelo still had Claudio executed.

“In brief, to set the needless process by,
How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,
How he refell'd me, and how I replied,--
For this was of much length,--the vile conclusion
I now begin with grief and shame to utter:
He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
Release my brother; and, after much debatement,
My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,
His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
For my poor brother's head.”

Duke Vincentio perceives that there may be a grain of truth in Isabella’s outburst. Her words are sincere.

“By mine honesty,
If she be mad,--as I believe no other,--
Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,
Such a dependency of thing on thing,
As e'er I heard in madness.”

Isabella tells her tale to the Duke.

“In brief, to set the needless process by,
How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,
How he refell'd me, and how I replied,--
For this was of much length,--the vile conclusion
I now begin with grief and shame to utter:
He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
Release my brother; and, after much debatement,
My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,
His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
For my poor brother's head.”

But still the Duke will not believe that Angelo could be guilty of such a sin. He speaks of Angelo’s good character.

“By heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st,
Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour
In hateful practise. First, his integrity
Stands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason
That with such vehemency he should pursue
Faults proper to himself: if he had so offended,
He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself
And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:
Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
Thou camest here to complain.”

The Duke accuses Isabella of lying. He asks if anyone knew of her coming to denounce Angelo.

“I know you'ld fain be gone. An officer!
To prison with her! Shall we thus permit
A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
On him so near us? This needs must be a practise.
Who knew of Your intent and coming hither?”

Isabella responds.

“One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.”

Friar Peter steps forward. He says that he knows the friar of whom Isabella speaks. He is a good man; a good priest.

“I know him for a man divine and holy;
Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,
As he's reported by this gentleman;
And, on my trust, a man that never yet
Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace.”

The Duke asks where the elusive friar is. Why is he not here supporting Isabella’s complaint against Angelo? Friar Peter responds;

“Well, he in time may come to clear himself;
But at this instant he is sick my lord,
Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request,
Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither,
To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
Is true and false; and what he with his oath
And all probation will make up full clear,
Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman.
To justify this worthy nobleman,
So vulgarly and personally accused,
Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
Till she herself confess it.”

The guards take Isabella away. Mariana steps forward.

The Duke remarks to Angelo, that the company, Isabella included, are all fools.

“Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?
O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!
Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;
In this I'll be impartial; be you judge
Of your own cause. Is this the witness, friar?
First, let her show her face, and after speak.”

A courtroom atmosphere ensues. The Duke interrogates Mariana.

MARIANA
Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
Until my husband bid me.
DUKE VINCENTIO
What, are you married?
MARIANA
No, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Are you a maid?
MARIANA
No, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO
A widow, then?
MARIANA
Neither, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?

Mariana asserts that she was never married, yet she is no virgin. Her husband took her virginity, yet he didn’t know her identity.

MARIANA
“My lord; I do confess I ne'er was married;
And I confess besides I am no maid:
I have known my husband; yet my husband
Knows not that ever he knew me.”

Angelo is not a fornicator. The sex act was of love.

MARIANA
“Now I come to't my lord
She that accuses him of fornication,
In self-same manner doth accuse my husband,
And charges him my lord, with such a time
When I'll depose I had him in mine arms
With all the effect of love.”

At last! Mariana tells of the trick that she, and Isabella played, and the friar invented.

MARIANA
“Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,
Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,
But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.”
ANGELO
“This is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.”
MARIANA
“My husband bids me; now I will unmask.”

She speaks directly to Angelo, telling him that once he loved her. He made a contract to marry her. Angelo may think that he had sex with Isabella -- he didn’t he had sex with her, Mariana.

Unveiling
“This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
Which once thou sworest was worth the looking on;
This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,
Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body
That took away the match from Isabel,
And did supply thee at thy garden-house
In her imagined person.”

The Duke asks Angelo if he knows Mariana?

Angelo admits that he does know her and once, five years ago in fact, there was talk of marriage, but the engagement had been broken of by him, because her dowry was devalued; that and he had heard that she had a bad reputation.

“My lord, I must confess I know this woman:
And five years since there was some speech of marriage
Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,
Partly for that her promised proportions
Came short of composition, but in chief
For that her reputation was disvalued
In levity: since which time of five years
I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,
Upon my faith and honour.”

Mariana begs the Duke to believe her and tells him that she is as married to Angelo as if they had taken their wedding vows. Furthermore, their marriage has been consummated. Angelo knows her as a wife.

“Noble prince,
As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,
As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,
I am affianced this man's wife as strongly
As words could make up vows: and, my good lord,
But Tuesday night last gone in's garden-house
He knew me as a wife. As this is true,
Let me in safety raise me from my knees
Or else for ever be confixed here,
A marble monument!”

Angelo says it is all nonsense.

“I did but smile till now:
Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice
My patience here is touch'd. I do perceive
These poor informal women are no more
But instruments of some more mightier member
That sets them on: let me have way, my lord,
To find this practise out.”

The Duke exits, leaving Escalus in charge. He enters, in his friar’s habit. He is accompanied by Isabella.

Lucio, who has been having a slanging match with the Duke/friar pulls back the friar’s hood and to everyone’s amazement the friar really is the Duke!

LUCIO.

Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you
bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must
you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you!
show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!
Will't not off?
Pulls off the friar's hood, and discovers DUKE VINCENTIO

The Duke challenges Angelo. Angelo admits his guilt. He begs for the death penalty.

“O my dread lord,
I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,
To think I can be indiscernible,
When I perceive your grace, like power divine,
Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good prince,
No longer session hold upon my shame,
But let my trial be mine own confession:
Immediate sentence then and sequent death
Is all the grace I beg.”

The Duke orders that Angelo and Mariana marry immediately.

“Go take her hence, and marry her instantly.
Do you the office, friar; which consummate,
Return him here again. Go with him, provost.”

When they return, the Duke orders that Angelo be put to death for murdering Claudio.

“For this new-married man approaching here,
Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd
Your well defended honour, you must pardon
For Mariana's sake: but as he adjudged your brother,--
Being criminal, in double violation
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach
Thereon dependent, for your brother's life,--
The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE.
Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested;
Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
We do condemn thee to the very block
Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.
Away with him!”

Mariana pleads for Angelo’s life. Isabella joins her pleas. She says that Claudio had to pay for his sins. The death sentence was justly delivered.

ISABELLA
“Most bounteous sir,
Kneeling
Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,
As if my brother lived: I partly think
A due sincerity govern'd his deeds,
Till he did look on me: since it is so,
Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
In that he did the thing for which he died:
For Angelo,
His act did not o'ertake his bad intent,
And must be buried but as an intent
That perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects;
Intents but merely thoughts.”

Mariana echoes Isabella’s words.

The Duke speaks directly to Isabella. He proposes marriage to her. He excuses Angelo’s crimes and tells Angelo to love his wife. Lastly the Duke admits that he has not behaved with integrity either.

The provost enters, bringing with him the pregnant Julietta and Claudio.

Claudio is alive!

DUKE VINCENTIO
“[To ISABELLA] If he be like your brother, for his sake
Is he pardon'd; and, for your lovely sake,
Give me your hand and say you will be mine.
He is my brother too: but fitter time for that.
By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe;
Methinks I see a quickening in his eye.
Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well:
Look that you love your wife; her worth yours.
I find an apt remission in myself;”

The play is over -- the Duke presses Isabella to accept his marriage proposal.
There is no word from her. She is silent.

“She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.
Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo:
I have confess'd her and I know her virtue.
Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:
There's more behind that is more gratulate.
Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy:
We shill employ thee in a worthier place.
Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:
The offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
I have a motion much imports your good;
Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.
So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.”

Nothing still from Isabella. Just silence.

WORLD AIDS DAY

2011-11-30T11:29:00.001-08:00

GO ANNIE!!

Since the beginning of the epidemic in the early 1980’s nearly thirty million people have died of AIDS.
Gay and Straight -- the virus makes no distinction -- it does not discern…

PIRATE BOOTY!

2011-11-28T12:57:00.001-08:00

Finally! It’s here! Pirate Booty is out! An outrageous anthology of erotic pirate tales -- with a heavy emphasis on erotica! Sexy sexy sexy -- dip into this superb extravaganza -- buy it for your nearest and dearest, or in true pirate fashion, steal it for yourself! There’s all kinds of yardarms here from Zander Vyne, Jude Mason, Theda Hudson, Catherine Lundoff, PM White, Joe Vadalma, Wade Heaton, Jay Lawrence And Harry Neptune, RV Raiment, Karen Taylor, and Blake C. Aarens - and little old me, Billierosie. I’ve got such a silly grin on my face, you’d think I’d won the Nobel prize for literature! But I’m proud to be included in this book, and it’s edited by the wonderful M.Christian -- a guy you can’t go wrong with!

Pirates are hot, with twisted passions and lusty, rough, sweet kisses. It’s all here, your Christmastime reading of historical pirates, contemporary pirates and space-faring privateers, plus a hot dip into BDSM to tingle your erotic taste buds. We’ve waited a long time for an anthology of this calibre -- I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.

It’s out right now at Sizzler Edititions -- at Amazon, probably later this week.

FEM/dom

2011-11-25T01:46:00.000-08:00

Yes, it’s amusing -- it’s meant to be. But for some men and women, it’s a very real scenario. FEM/dom. In a world where traditionally women have had to fight every step of the way, for any sort of real recognition, the right to inherit, the right to vote, the right to have equal pay, even the right to take the initiative in terms of birth control; in the world of the FEM/dom the female dominates the male.

For some it’s a scenario acted out playfully every few days/weeks/months.; for others, it can be a complete choice of lifestyle. The male is told by the female when he can stand, sit, eat, sleep or speak. She gives orders and he obeys, absolutely. She may control his orgasms. Sex happens when she initiates it; when she gives her permission. And heaven help him if he orgasms before she does!

Here are some extracts of FEM/dom Erotica, from some of the finest writers, penning some of the best of the genre around today.

Janine Ashbless.
“…'This isn’t the end, Herrick. Not yet. You are not going to die until I tire of hurting you. And in this place I can take you to the brink of death and bring you back again, over and over, for my pleasure. Until your pain has brought me ease.'
Fresh damp sprang from every pore. His insides seemed to turn liquid. She raked claws down his chest and stomach, testing every patch of skin between the criss-crossed bonds. He rolled his eyes back and tried to call upon the mercy of God, but it came out sounding completely wrong somehow.
'What’s this?' Her voice was low with surprise.
He strained to look down at her and found she’d reached his lower garments, had been sliding about on his crotch, had found something that should not have been there at all: his massive, stony erection, pushing up against the cloth, the swollen head seeping with such eagerness that it was making a damp patch. Herrick was washed by a crimson tide of shame.
Dear God give me the strength to resist her, he begged.
She ripped his clothing to shreds, delicately. His cock thrust out blasphemously through the rent fabric and jerked with eagerness as she traced the veins with the tips of her deadly claws. Like a dog rising to greet its mistress, he thought, sick with humiliation.
'Oh Herrick. Now I know.'
'No,' he groaned.
'This is a gift, isn’t it? A phallus like this, and a man like you in my power?'
'You’re wrong…'
'Wrong? No. Men may lie, but this does not. It makes plain what it wants, Herrick.' She slapped his prick with first one hand then the other, like a cat playing with a mouse. He burned with shame. 'Slattern,' she mocked.
He twisted in his bonds uselessly, driving each pinpoint of pain deeper.
'Lick me,' she ordered, looming right over him, lowering her breasts to his mouth.
He put his tongue to her nipple but she snatched it away, giggling, before he could touch her. He groaned, scoured by her glee and his weakness. Then she wriggled back down and crouched over his prick, laying her lips to the underside of the shaft and nipping her way delicately right down to the root, never quite hurting him but threatening all the way. She took his balls one after the other into her mouth, rolling them between her teeth until sweat ran down his temples. Spitting out his slippery ball sac she then found the silken skin stretched between his soaring cock and his scrotum, and took a fold delicately between two eye teeth. She held it for a moment, letting him realise what he was going to do.
Herrick quivered, choking out incoherent prayers.
She bit down. Two sharp teeth met through a thin fold of skin and he opened his mouth in a soundless roar. His cock jerked twice, and clear fluid bulged at the slit and, welling out under its own volume, ran down his hard length, testament to his need.
'Herrick,' she chided.' Look at you.'
'Oh God, no!'
'Shh. Stop pretending.'
With her tongue she traced the path of his overspill back up from his balls to the head of his cock, where she lapped at his ooze. He groaned again and shook like a man with the ague. His world was in flames. Could any defeat be more shameful than this -- to be beaten in combat, then abused as a whore, his body a treacherous accomplice?
And her mouth was exquisite comfort now after the hurt she’d inflicted, as tender as a mother hugging her child after smacking it. The pleasure was overwhelming: he knew he needed more. More hurt. More solace.
Her lips, wet from painting his glans, left it bereft and straining. 'Pain,' she whispered, straightening and kneeling up astride him again. 'Your pain is my pleasure, I thought. But your pleasure too. Don’t worry, Herrick, I will give you what you need.' She guided his erect cock between her thighs, into her tight, slick grip, her eyes rolling back with the effort of taking his girth. Then she refocused on his face. For the first time she sounded a little breathless.
'You will not spend, Herrick. You will hold it back. Because if you let spill before me I will walk away and leave you here and never return. You understand that?'
'Yes.' Oh my God, yes….”

Extract from 'The Scent of Hawthorn.' by Janine Ashbless, in her 'Dark Enchantment' collection of Erotica. Despite declaring that they weren't going to publish any more paranormal erotica, "Black Lace" commissioned this collection from Janine -- they think highly of her!

From “Pink Ribbon” by Jude Mason

"Rick knelt in his cage. The bars running from front to back dug into his knees and shins, but he was used to that. Even the cool air didn’t bother him like it did the first few times she’d sent him into the punishment room and locked him in. What did bother him was why.
His knees hurt terribly, but he dared not move. Cass, his lovely sweet Cass, would be upset, and he knew she watched him sometimes. He didn’t even dare raise his eyes to see if the camera’s little red light was on or not. He’d learned not to do that, months ago, when she’d caught him masturbating guiltily, while she watched from the comfort of the living room. He shuddered at the memory.
She’d been upset with his dinner preparations that evening, the gravy had been lumpy, and the salad warm and wilted. So, angry at his lack of attention, she’d sent him to his cage. He’d gone willingly enough, thinking it would be an easy way out of some punishment he knew he
deserved. He’d thought nothing of stripping down, and crawling into the four-foot square steel cage. When she’d locked the door and reminded him to behave, he’d smiled and replied, “Yes, Mistress.”
She’d no more than walked out the door and closed it, than his hands were reaching for his privates. Never mind the rules, or that he hadn’t asked permission to touch himself. What did it matter? She wasn’t there. She’d never know.
He’d lain on his back, stretched his legs up the bars on the opposite side, and was madly pumping away at his erection when he’d heard the door. He was too far gone to stop, or so he’d thought. The bucket of ice water had changed his mind, instantly.
“Slave,” she’d roared. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Shivering, frustrated, he’d lumbered around until he got his knees under himself, and his head bowed respectfully. Dripping wet, freezing cold, he’d tried to come up with a reply that wouldn’t make it worse. “Mistress, I-I,” he’d stammered, his mind racing. He knew he had to come up with some kind of answer, but his mind was blank. Finally, he’d said, “Mistress, I was thinking of you and…well, one thing led to another. I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“Stop, right there. Not one more word.” Her tone left no question as to her indignation. “You dared think of me in that manner? And then you masturbated, stroked that puny, little cock and no doubt, fingered your balls, without asking my permission to do so.”
Rick hadn’t been sure if he should answer or not. His erection had still strained from between his legs; his balls pulled up tight to his crotch. The excitement of being caught, plus the attention of his lady and his own exhibitionistic tendencies had all conspired to keep him painfully hard. He’d decided to keep his mouth shut, and to quickly comply with whatever she said.
Wrong decision.
“I asked you a bloody question, slave boy,” she growled.
Rick remembered how he’d cringed and the reply he’d made didn’t help matters. “Yes, Mistress. I’m terribly sorry. I just couldn’t help myself. You’re so lovely. I just couldn’t keep my mind off you. It’s been over a week since I came, and—”
“Shut up!” she’d cried, and he’d immediately shut his mouth.
He’d been worried then. She’d never seemed so angry before, and he wondered what kind of punishment he’d have to endure. As it turned out, he was wise to be concerned.
“Dinner was horrible,” she’d said. She paced
around his cage, her stiletto heels doing a light tap, tap, tap as she leisurely circled him. “And you have the balls to complain about not coming for a few days.”
Something had struck the cage behind him, and he’d nearly cried out. He’d blurted, “No, Mistress. I mean, yes, Mistress.” Confused, he’d clamped his mouth shut and prayed for it to end. Prayed she’d just punish him and get it over with.
“Yes mistress, no mistress. Damn, you don’t even know what you’re trying to say, do you?”
Cringing, he’d opened his mouth to answer, knowing he was going to say the wrong thing, but also knowing he was supposed to reply to a question she directed at him. Luckily, she didn’t give him the chance.
“Never mind.” She returned to standing in front of him, and said, “Keep your eyes downcast, but lean back. Put your hands on the floor behind you.”
Rick quickly got into the position she’d requested. The bars grated against his knees, even more so against his shins, but that didn’t deter him as he’d manoeuvred his long, lanky frame into the desired pose. He made sure to keep his eyes focused downward along the length of his body. Hairless, at her command, his chest and belly rippled with muscles he’d worked hard to maintain. His erection pointed accusingly at him.
“Spread your knees,” she’d said, and again, he’d complied eagerly. He vividly remembered the feeling of his balls dangling between his widespread thighs—how defenceless he’d felt, how excited and horny. The cool air and cold water made each testicle shift closer to his body.
“Now then, it’s lesson time,” she’d said and, reaching down, unlatched his cage door.
He’d known better than to move, but the temptation was definitely there. Instead, he’d gritted his teeth and remained still. The tension had mounted in him. When he’d thought he couldn’t take the silence, the anxiety, and the excitement another moment, she spoke again.
“Keeping in position, come out of your cage.”
It was awkward, and it took a little time, but finally, he’d emerged from the cage on his knees and hands. His shins ached where the bars had dug into them, but the minor pain was acceptable.
“Here,” she’d said, pointing to a spot in front of the chair she’d crossed the small room and settled into. “Hurry up, I don’t have all day.”
It had taken him a few minutes to get to the spot she’d picked, but again, he didn’t complain. When he’d stopped before her, he’d been extremely apprehensive, but more than willing to take the punishment he knew was coming.
“Push your hips up, show me what you’ve been diddling,” she’d said in a voice as sweet as honey. He’d pushed his hips upward, displaying his rampant erection and his tight balls. His stomach muscles strained, the backs of his thighs tightened, and moments later, ached from the forced posture. His inner thighs quivered with tension.
Beyond his erection, he saw her seated in her soft, blue easy chair with her legs crossed, and a high heel dangling off her toe. He couldn’t see her face, and at the time, he was glad of it. But, he’d been so close to orgasm that seeing just her lower body was more than enough to keep him excited. Actually, she made sure he got a good glimpse of more than her legs. After deftly swinging her shoe from her toe for several moments, making sure his attention was fixed, she dropped the shoe. He’d thought she was going to ask him to retrieve it for her, but she did no such thing. Instead, she’d extended her foot, easing her legs apart, and flicked her toe under his balls.
He hadn’t dared to move, or speak. He’d hardly breathed as she moved her toe around his sac, pushing his testicles to one side then the other. With the flat of her foot, she’d pressed his balls down, forcing the skin to stretch.
He remembered moaning, not so much with any pain she’d caused, but with that fear any man would get when his balls were being handled less than carefully. Yet, he’d remained in position, and his erection had pulsed with pleasure. Cass kept toying with his balls, pressing on them, nudging at them until he’d groaned piteously and begged her to stop or he’d come. She continued, and continued until he’d sobbed and his hips had thrust wildly, uncontrollably into the air, as he’d shot off all over his belly and chest.
Just as his cock had begun to throb and spew its long ribbon of white cream into the air, she’d pulled her foot back, refusing to allow him to stimulate himself on her. So, he’d come, without permission and without so much as a touch to give him pleasure. He’d been humiliated and embarrassed, but he’d also remained almost as hard as he’d been before he climaxed.
“Now you’re in trouble,” she’d said, and he’d cringed. Not only had he masturbated without permission, he’d then followed it up by coming without asking, right in front of her. “You just don’t seem to get it.” She re-crossed her legs, again making sure he got a glimpse of the tops of her stockings, and the creamy white flesh above. “I’m beginning to think you’re not taking this seriously. Big boss during the day can’t seem to let go and be the slave at home—even when it was you who asked for it.”
“Please, Mistress, I—” he’d tried, but she’d leaned forward in her chair and with no more than a flick of her finger to his tender ball sac, had silenced him. “I didn’t ask, and you should know better than to argue or speak to me when I haven’t asked you a direct question.”
He knew he’d just made it worse. It seemed he was destined to be punished that day, and unless he kept his mouth shut, it would go very badly for him.
“You’ve got both Saturday and Sunday off this weekend, am I correct?” she’d asked levelly.
“Yes, Mistress. Tomorrow is my last day of work for two days,” he’d replied softly. He’d planned to go fishing, and perhaps encourage Cass to go along with him to their cabin. She didn’t fish, but she’d always loved the outdoors, and he tried getting away with her whenever possible.
“Excellent.” She got to her feet and took a step over to where her shoe lay on its side. Deftly, she slipped her toes in, then dragged the shoe across the floor towards him before sliding the rest of her foot inside. He never took his eyes off her foot, and shuddered when she sauntered around him. The tapping of her shoes matched the beating of his heart, and he’d wondered at that. She stopped when she stood behind him; her feet placed one on each side of his head. Again, he dared not raise his eyes. “I’ve decided to invite a woman to help me with a couple of training sessions while you’re off work…”

From “Pink Ribbon” by Jude Mason

From “Moving, by M.Christian

“Don’t move,” she said.
“That’s it?” I said.
“That’s it. That’s it, exactly. Don’t move.”
“Right now?” Smiling.
She returned my smile. “Right now. But get comfortable first.”
“Isn’t that sort of counterproductive?”
She tapped the tip of my nose. “Comedian. Don’t worry, you’ll get an experience.”
“But not a moving one, eh?”
The smile stayed, but her words were serious: “Great experiences are always moving – but not vice versa. Not at all.”
At least Sylvia’s basement was warm … no, not basement. Dungeon: that was it, though I still couldn’t think of it that way. “Dungeon” – that was bricks, rats, iron bars, and the Man in the Iron Mask. Who was in that, anyway Lon Chaney? Errol Flynn? Jose Ferrer? I’ll have to look it up later.
“Dungeon” certainly wasn’t a basement rec room in the Avenues, the perpetually foggy ocean side of San Francisco. No bricks, no iron bars, no rats, at least not as far as I could see. But that’s what Sylvia called it, so that’s what I should probably call it, too.
Golden-yellow, close-cropped, shag carpeting. A heavy table covered in black leather. A pine chest with a latch and padlock – closed and locked. It certainly wasn’t anything Lon Chaney, Errol Flynn or Jose Ferrer would have been scared of.
But I wasn’t Lon or Errol or Jose, or even Brendan Fraser, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least nervous. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Sylvia, but this was more than a bit new to me. For me, sex had always been about a cock (mine), tits and pussies. Not whips, chains and “Yes, Mistress.” But that’s what it was for Sylvia. At least she understood my trepidation, thus the padlock on her war chest.
What am I doing here? It wasn’t the first time I thought that, walking in the door to her place. The response was the same as it had always been: because this was part of her life, and I wanted to be part of her life, too.
But there was something else – bing! – right in front of my face. Sure I wanted to stay in good graces with Sylvia, but there was something else as well. Face it, I told myself, you just want see why this isn’t a rec room but a dungeon. You want to get it.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Rip roarin’ – to do absolutely nothing that is,” I said, smiling as always.
“Get comfy – you don’t want to cramp up,” she said. In a bow to my nervousness she wasn’t wearing any of her S and M gear, the leather and latex she’d showed me in the dark depths of her closet, but rather a comfy yellow bathrobe. She still was damned sexy—a beautifully full, round woman with deep night hair and flickering amber eyes—and, looking at her, the last thing I wanted to do was play her game. It took a huge effort not to just part that robe, cup her breasts, run a thumb over her nipples. But a promise was a promise.
It was also hard – or rather I should say “I” was also hard, because I definitely was that – because she’d asked me to strip down, and I had. I hopped up onto the table, my cock slapping back and forth against my thighs, and tried to work myself into a comfortable position.
After a few minutes I thought I’d found it. “Okay,” I said. “I’m all set – to do nothing.”
“You said that,” she said, tightening the flannel sash around her waist. “Now look me in the eyes.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said, curbing the mischief I felt ticking my voice.
She frowned, and I felt suddenly, deeply sad. “Don’t say that unless you mean it. I’m serious.”
“Sorry,” I said, opening my hands in supplication.
She looked at me for a moment. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “You do the same, a couple of deep slow breaths: in, out, in, out. Think about your body, the position you’re sitting in. If it doesn’t feel good then move.”
I breathed in time with her, feeling my chest rise and fall. I moved my leg a bit, then my right arm.
“When it feels good, when it feels right, then nod and we’ll start. It’s a really simple game: just don’t move. Try and keep the same position as long as you can.”
“Hum …. how do I win?”
“Win? Sweetie this isn’t a win/lose kind of game.” She kissed the tip of my nose and I smiled, despite myself. Then she looked thoughtful for a long minute. “But you know, there might very well be a way to win, but I’m not going to tell you. You’ve got to figure that out for yourself. Now, you ready?”
What the hell was that about? I thought. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good. Now start: don’t say anything, don’t nod – don’t move.”
I didn’t say anything, I didn’t nod, and I didn’t move. We started.
There were rules. For something that wasn’t a game, it seemed to have a lot of them: breathing was okay, blinking was okay, involuntary movement was okay, but anything like a conscious twitch or jerk was right out – game over, thank you for playing, here’s your complimentary Turtle Wax and a copy of the home game. Thinking of that, the game almost ended before it began: an image dancing through my mind of a 2.5 kid nuclear family sitting down around a Parker Brothers game of S & M, spinning the punishment wheel. “Oh, oh, Bobby, you drew the golden showers card...” But I fought down a smirk, locking down my face.
Sylvia, meanwhile, sat down on the chest and watched me. She was quite simply exquisite, old bathrobe and all. Looking at her, watching her watch me, a thought flickered through my mind. With a view like this, who cares about moving? Distantly, I was aware that my cock still hadn’t gone down. It was still gently throbbing, and the sight of Sylvia seemed to increase its tempo.
I blinked.
Then I wondered, still looking at my lover, what am I supposed to do now? The rules of the game were easy enough, but what was the damned point? Was I supposed to make her feel good, by obeying her? “Yes, Mistress; no, Mistress; right away, Mistress.” That could make anyone feel good, having a humble little slave – but what the hell do I get out of it, aside from a nasty cramp?
When I agreed to play Sylvia’s game I knew it could be weird, but, hell, I loved her – or at least I thought I did. But this part of her life was something that baffled me, and after a minute of immobility, it still did. But something was also niggling at the back of my stock-still noggin. I didn’t want to be a pet, a slave, a subservient little twit who’d follow her around, wipe her ass, or who knew what. That pissed me off.
I wanted to move, to say “fuck this” and get up and walk away. I wanted to break her spell, smash it up and get the hell out of there. It wasn’t something I’d thought of when I’d agreed to play Sylvia’s game but sitting there, frozen, it made my face burn: I’m not one of those “top dog” kind of guys, but I sure as shit didn’t want to be a whipped one.
Then I thought of something else and I fought to keep a sneer down again: one finger. I wanted to lift just one finger on the hand she couldn’t see. She wouldn’t know, but I would. There was something juicy in that: a little victory in our battle of “play”. When the game was over she’d think she’d had a victory when I’d really won, and I’d get to smile my secret little smile as she came out the big, bad, Mistress.
I felt my hand, behind me on the warm leather. I was sitting on the edge of the table, one hand at my sides, one where she could see it, the other behind me. That one. The one behind. My left. Maybe the first finger, perhaps the second? The birdie digit I decided was too rude, too harsh for my subtle little gesture of defiance.
Have you ever thought about moving a part of your body before you actually move it? It’s weird, putting consciousness into something you don’t often even think about. I felt a tension in my hand, my finger (the first one, if you’re curious), the muscles, tendons, tissues and all that wet, squishy stuff changing from not moving to start-to-move. The will was there, definitely, and my body was prepared, absolutely, but then something really interesting happened.
Nothing – that’s what happened. Or didn’t happen. I didn’t know. But I do know that I didn’t move, not at all, not even my finger. The room, which previously felt warm if not hot, was suddenly chilly and a parade of goosebumps ran up and down my spine, arms and thighs. I remained frozen, still, immobile.
Why? Thoughts in my head, thumping together around like idea bumper cars, weird feelings, odd impressions – and something else. Have you ever suddenly realized that your body was doing something you didn’t ask it to do – some part of yourself that normally you have to tell to perform, all of a sudden acts on it’s own? Because that’s what happened.
My cock, you see, was still hard – rock hard, steel hard, very damned hard. I was angry, or had just been angry, and the one thing that doesn’t happen to me when I get angry is to get hard. I shrink, shrivel, deflate – you name it, that’s what normally happened, or didn’t happen. Negative erection. But then, frozen for Sylvia, my cock was still hard – no that’s not quite right. I’d been hard before (my dick pulsed against my thigh) but, still not moving, I was incredibly hard. My whole groin ached, swollen, tingling, huge. The one thing I wanted more than anything in the world was to sink my wonderfully hard dick deep into Sylvia. I didn’t move though, didn’t let the slightest grimace of pain or desire show on my face.
Sylvia, watching, smiled and winked at me.
I don’t think I’d ever been as hard as that, but I certainly hoped I’d be again. It felt like a deep part of myself, somewhere down below my belly button, my guts, my soul even, was happy at this situation. Very, very happy.
But that was deep down, cock-response deep, but at the top of it all, in my brain, something else was ringing loud and long: why?
I still didn’t know Sylvia’s “why” – not really – I’d guessed but I didn’t know, but that wasn’t what was bugging me. Why didn’t I move? Why didn’t I get up and leave?

Extract from “Moving”, by M.Christian
Available from Amazon as a Kindle download -- in the UK and the US

And here’s my own humble contribution. I’m not in the league of the above writers -- I’m still learning!

“A Submissive Male.” by billierosie

“Jasmine sat in the passenger seat of the powerful Mercedes, her head bowed; her dark, gleaming hair hiding her face. Eli watched her, puzzled. What the hell was wrong with the woman? It wasn’t as if he’d asked her to marry him. He’d simply asked her if she was going to invite him in for coffee.

The lamp light across the quiet Chelsea street illuminated the interior of the car. He could see her dark, sleek hair moving as she breathed.

They sat in silence. They’d met that evening at a party, given by a mutual friend, and they’d hit it off straight away. At least Eli had thought they had.

It was like a bad black and white movie. The interior of the car, lit by one street lamp.

Then just like a bad movie, they both spoke awkwardly at the same time.

“Look…” Eli started to say.
“I’m sorry…” said Jasmine.
“…I’ve had a wonderful evening,” she went on. “But taking things any further would be a big mistake. But thanks for the ride home.”

Eli shifted in his seat. “Just tell me what the hell’s going on. Are you married? Engaged? In a relationship? I ask you for a cup of coffee and you freeze on me, like I’ve asked you to suck my cock.”

She turned to face him and smiled. It was the same smile she’d hit him with, across the room at the party and it made him quiver inside. He loved it that she hadn’t been shocked by his crude remark. That was something he’d liked about her, when they’d talked earlier at that boring party. How she’d fallen in with his silly game of guessing what type of underwear the other guests were wearing. What they’d be like in bed.

“You’re sweet, and funny,” she told him. “But really, you’re just not my type.”
“Well that’s strange,” he said. “Because, here’s me, thinking all night, that you were just my type. I…I’ve never met anyone like you before. I thought we got along just fine.”
“We did …we do. But just leave it at that will you,” her voice was low and husky.
“No,” Eli persisted. “I won’t just leave it at that. I won’t be just left on your doorstep. I want to see you again.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?”

Jasmine sighed. They were going round in circles. She felt bad, and sad. She did like Eli, and if she were any other sort of woman, perhaps they could have a nice time together. Some fun, some sweet sex. She knew that he would be a gentle, tender lover. He just wouldn’t understand her cravings; her needs. Why couldn’t she be like other women; normal? Wanting a nice home with a kind man. A couple of children too. That had been enough for her sisters and they were happy. But Jasmine knew she needed more than domesticity and vanilla sex.

“Let’s just say I have unusual tastes.”

Eli grinned. “Go on.” He reached out and ran his long fingers through her hair. She gave a barely perceptible shudder. Revulsion, or desire?

She tilted her head. Her dark eyes were huge, her dilated pupils told him it was desire. Eli persisted; he tilted her small chin with a forefinger.

“I’m only suggesting coffee.”

Jasmine felt strangely wrong footed. She wasn’t used to having to explain herself to a man. She didn’t like it. It didn’t sit easy with her. But she was strangely attracted to this big, strong guy. That had never happened to her before. Usually, she picked her men carefully; they had to be…well, just not like Eli. He was strong and controlled. In charge of himself; he’d want to be in charge of his woman too.

One thing that Jasmine knew she could never be, was someone’s woman.

“I like a certain type of man, and…”
“I’m not it.” he finished the sentence for her.
“That’s about right,” she said bluntly.
“ So what is this certain type of man?”

Jasmine was quiet for a moment, framing her answer.

“I like submissive men. I like to be in control.”
“Hell, I don’t have a problem with that.”
“Yes, you do…you would. You don’t understand what I’m saying. You think it’s just some sort of kinky game. It’s not. It’s a way of life.”

“So are you saying you want a guy to be some sort of slave to you?”

Jasmine took a deep breath. She looked up into his strong, determined face. She at least owed him an explanation.

“It’s not just that; although it can be like that. It’s more a negotiation of power between two people. The slave gives his or her Master, or Mistress power over him. For some, it may be two women; one of whom is dominant, the other submissive. The same for two men. In a straight relationship, it may be the woman who is submissive. She serves her man, unquestioningly. It’s not always sexual, although that usually plays a big part. For me, I am a Dominant; I rule my male submissive in every aspect of his life. Physical, sexual, emotional, social. I tell him when he can orgasm, when he can eat, drink, sleep. He obeys me without question. I might tie him up and whip him. I might loan him to my friends. There is nothing my submissives won’t do for me.”

A quiver ran through Eli’s frame when she’d mentioned being tied up and whipped. It was a long held fantasy of his. His cock was instantly hard.

“Wow,” he said. “Still sounds good to me.”

Jasmine sighed again. He wasn’t going to let it go.

“You better come in for that cup of coffee,” she said.

She waited while he walked around to the passenger door. She took his arm as they stepped out into the warm summer night.

Jasmine’s mews cottage was deceptive. It was like a tardis; bigger on the inside than you would at first think. She must have had two cottages knocked into one. There was a long sitting room, with a kitchen area at the end overlooking a small garden. She flicked a switch and the room was instantly bathed in a soft, glowing light. She picked up a remote control; the French doors at the far end of the room opened silently. Perfume, from what smelled like an exotic rose garden wafted in.

Eli looked around him. He was shocked; then he was surprised that he was shocked. The Art work that led the eye around the room wasn’t just erotic. It was pure pornography.

It was all huge photographs. Pictures of naked men all being lusciously violated by women. Eli held his breath; then he breathed.

He glanced at Jasmine; she was watching him, as he’d known she would be. He couldn’t meet her commanding gaze and looked away.

Eli was surprised at his nervousness. His mouth was dry. He was still hard.

“I guess I should have asked permission to look at the photographs?” He tried to sound light hearted, but he was anything but.

“Yes, you should have, but you won’t make the same mistake again. Tell me what you think of them.”

Eli stood in front of a large black and white photo. It featured a naked male being raped; but not by a man, by a woman. You could just see the line of her strap-on. She was lithe and muscular, with short, cropped, blonde hair. Her pert breasts were small. Her victim was on all fours and wore some sort of bridle. A metal bit was in his mouth. The same sort of thing that you use to control horses. The woman was raping him doggie fashion. Her cock was rammed into his arse, up to the hilt. The victim’s own cock was huge; the rapist was reaching beneath him, her fingers curved around his erection. He was being held firmly by his head by another woman; she was clothed in a black leather corset and high heeled boots. The male was being controlled and violated by the two women. Eli had the feeling that these weren’t actors, staging a scene. This was an event. This had happened.

He glanced at the next photograph. A different guy; a naked blond was hanging by his wrists. He was chained; his arms being pulled painfully out of joint. His toes were an inch away from the floor. His wrists were taking his whole weight. His body, mostly his genital area, was bruised and bloody; he’d had a thrashing. A woman stood to one side, dressed in a tight corset and high heeled shoes, her arm raised to bring her cruel whip down again. She was aiming her lash at his huge testicles and massive erection. Eli could see the tormentor’s profile; with a jolt like an electric shock, he realised it was Jasmine.

Eli blushed, but he found the courage to meet her eyes. At last he felt able to speak.

“The photos are…alluring.” he said. “But you said that relinquishing power was something the slave did willingly…”

She looked exquisite; her simple black gown enhancing the creamy whiteness of her skin. Her hair shone. She was relaxed on a chaise longue, a glass of red wine in one elegant hand. She hadn’t offered him a drink. Neither had she invited him to sit down.

“I didn’t say quite that,” replied Jasmine. But yes, the slave has given over total control to his Mistress. He gave his consent for her to do with him as she pleased. That’s what I meant by a negotiation. For a slave to start putting in clauses and safe words, takes away the whole point. Besides, the Mistress, the woman holding the slave’s head, in the rape scene, has paid a lot of money for the slave and spent a fortune on his training. She doesn’t want him damaged. And, yes. The Mistress in the second photograph is me. The slave is Joel; as you can see, he’s enduring a whipping.

“You bought him! You can’t buy people.”

“You can if they sign a contract. The slaves in the photographs signed away all their rights, willingly. They sold themselves. Never have I been asked to put in restrictions on the contract.”

Common sense told Eli, that he should get the hell out. But he was intrigued, he’d stepped into a strange, surreal world. He was also helplessly aware of his throbbing erection. Why was he aroused? He wanted to know more about this elusive woman, and her sinister life.

“Why do they do it?” he asked. “The guys I mean.”

“They recognise that their sexual orientation is submissive. They are happy, they don’t want any other way of life. As Mistresses we are honoured that they give themselves up to us. And it’s better that they make that decision, rather than get involved, perhaps even marry a woman who can never understand their needs. Both husband and his mate would be miserable. He would never dare to tell her of his urgent needs. Even if he did, she wouldn’t understand. She would run from him, screaming that he was a freak.

Nothing is done out of force; that would be pointless. They live for the pain we inflict; the humiliation. A good Mistress helps the slave find his limits; we have found that always a slave can go much farther than he had ever though possible. And when the slave orgasms, when he is permitted, it is like nothing you will ever have ever experienced.”

“You really make them hold back their orgasms?”

“Sometimes for weeks at a time. Their ethos in life is to serve; that is their pleasure. Come here.”

Her order took Eli by surprise. He didn’t obey her immediately and she clicked her tongue and snapped her fingers.

Eli stood close to her. He inhaled her fragrance; it mingled with the scent of the roses from the warm garden. She placed her hand on his erection. Eli gasped as she squeezed his hard bulge through his jeans. This was everything he had ever dreamed of; a sexually forward woman, not afraid of taking what she wanted.

Jasmine unzipped his jeans; Eli groaned. He didn’t know where the night was going, but he was happy with the action so far. She pulled his jeans and boxers down to his knees. His erect cock slapped and bounced against his belly.

Eli didn’t know why, but it seemed appropriate for him to put his hands behind his back.

She stared at his cock, absorbing every detail. Eli was proud of his thick cock and large tight balls and he preened beneath her gaze. His erection didn’t fade. Her face was close; he could feel her breath on his cock head, cooling the pre-cum that oozed from his slit. He wished she would suck him, but knew she wouldn’t.

She took hold of his cock, sliding the foreskin back, then she peered at his erection from first one side, then the other. She flicked it, bounced it, pulled at it.

Eli’s heart was beating; pounding against his rib cage. His breathing was heavy. He had to stop himself moaning. He mustn’t come. He just mustn’t. It was suddenly important to demonstrate his self control. He tried to think of something else; anything else. But her long fingers teasing his cock was all that was on his mind.

“How many women have you had?” Jasmine asked.
Eli swallowed, afraid to speak.
“Well?” She pushed the tip of her pinkie finger into his slit.
Eli gasped. He spoke as best as he could, through clenched teeth.
“Four, maybe five.”
“Well what is it four? Five?”
“Five,” he grimaced. Still concentrating on not coming.
“How soon are you hard again after you have orgasmed?”
“I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
She jiggled his balls in the palm of her hand. She fingered his scrotum. Eli felt like a prize bull being assessed for stud.
She slid his foreskin back and forth.
“Are your veins usually so pronounced?”
“It’s because I’m close to orgasm.”
“You have not been given permission to come.”
Eli was silent. What could he say? All he knew was that this was the weirdest, most erotic experience of his life.

“Turn around. Bend over,” she ordered. Eli turned so that his arse was facing her. He bent and clasped his knees. She parted his arse cheeks with her fingers and peered in at his anus.
He could feel his little puckered hole opening and closing; pulsating.
She allowed him to stand, having finished her inspection. She turned him to face her.

“Men?” She asked.
“What!” her direct gaze was unnerving.
“How many men have you had?”
“None,” he said emphatically.
“Your anus has been used.”
“I use a butt plug on myself.”
“What size?”
“Large.”
“Do you use it continually.”
Eli didn’t answer. He was too embarrassed.
Jasmine punched his testicles.
“I won’t ask you again. I’ll kick it out of you.”
He was doubled over from the force of her blow. “Sometimes I wear it all day.” He managed to croak out the words.

You wear it all day at your work?
“Yes.”

Eli was glad she couldn’t see his painful blushes. He had never felt so humiliated in his life. He wanted to weep and apologise for being unworthy. More than anything, he wanted her hand in his rectum, fisting him. Eli had read about fisting in a porn magazine. He’d seen a photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe. A man being fisted by another man. The fist was in the recipient’s rectum up to the violator’s elbow. Eli had thought it the most erotic thing he’d ever seen. The thought of Jasmine’s clenched fist inside him, nearly made him orgasm on the spot. He imagined her violating him in that dirty way; perhaps she’d be wearing a long opera glove.

“Fetch me a tape measure, pen and notepad from the drawer in the sideboard. Top left.”
Eli shuffled across the room as best he could with his jeans around his knees.
“Stand up. Face me.”
She measured his cock from root to tip. She scribbled a figure down on her note pad. The she measured his erection’s circumference, at the root and near the head. She measured his slit. She made extensive notes. Then she wrapped the tape around his cock and testicles; was she measuring him up for a cock ring?

“On your knees and masturbate,” she ordered, suddenly.

Trembling, Eli obeyed, sliding his foreskin back and pumping his cock. He prayed for release; he’d never needed to come so much in all his life.

She was still watching his every movement. He was close, very close to orgasm. His breathing rasped.

“Stop.” she snapped.

He groaned in desperation. His confusion showed in his face.

Jasmine ignored him. She sipped at her wine. Then she pulled out a laptop from beneath the chaise. She switched it on and surfed for a while. Eli stood by the chaise, his jeans and boxers around his ankles; he was still confused.

Jasmine was not confused.

“Go and look at the rest of the photographs,” she told him.

“Um, can I pull up my pants? Zip myself up?” Eli was feeling at a disadvantage.

“No, you may not,” she said, curtly.

Humiliation was a useful tool in training a slave.

Jasmine tapped away at the laptop. Did Eli have the potential to be a slave? She knew he would leave soon, he would have seen enough. She also knew that he’d be back. He would be feeling a kaleidoscope of emotions. Revulsion, despair, curiosity, fear.

He’d asked her where the slaves were kept. What happened to them after they had been purchased. How they were trained. The fact that he’d been curious enough to ask told her a lot.

She’d told him. And that alone would be enough to keep him awake at night.

But more than anything he would want to know why he’d got so turned on.

***

Eli was weeping as he pulled up his boxers and jeans, struggling to shove his still erect cock back inside. There wasn’t enough room to do up the zip, so he left his fly open. He exited with as much dignity as he could muster.

When he arrived back at his flat, he poured himself a drink. He needed one. Fucking bitch. What right had she got to make him feel such an idiot.

But she hadn’t done anything, had she? That thought came from the part of his brain that was still rational. She’d explained what she was, what she needed in a relationship and he’d found it quite a turn on. He’d persisted and pushed her.

Eli knocked back his whiskey and shuddered. He poured himself another, splashing the amber liquid into the glass.

He sat slumped on the floor, his back to the soft, suede sofa and started to cry.

A bus drove by his flat; light and shade flickered across the room. Then a car, its horn blaring. He could hear the shouts of drunken revellers in the street. He thought about people leading ordinary lives. How ordinary his own life had been before Jasmine’s extraordinary revelations.

Damn her, and damn him. He’d never felt so humiliated as when she wouldn’t let him orgasm. Up to then he’d been enjoying himself, masturbating for a beautiful woman. His fault again. She’d told him, more than once, how she denied her submissives’ orgasms.

She’d treated him like a potential submissive and Eli was shocked to realise he’d actually liked it. The photo’s had turned him on; he’d imagined himself in those degrading positions and he’d been aroused. He’d wanted to be the slave being sodomised by that slender woman. He’d wished that he was the guy being whipped by Jasmine.

Had a door been opened that could never be closed?

And there was another photograph that had caught his eye. A huge blow up of a naked guy in a metal cage. His strong arms straining in heavy chains. His massive erect cock, pushing through the bars. Despair in his dark eyes. The photographer had focussed on the slave’s erection. Pre-cum dripped from his slit.

God; to be so restrained. But where the hell had all this come from? Why had it turned him on so much? He felt his cock stir again at the memories. His erection, which had faded with his tears, became insistent again.

And another naked male. His arms bound in thick ropes. His erect cock and huge balls tied tightly. Jasmine, beautifully naked, apart from very high heels, leading the slave by rope knotted to his genitals. The slave’s head was hanging. He was weeping.

Eli wondered why the slave was crying. Shame? Pain? Ecstasy?

He thought about what Jasmine had told him about the old Manor house, deep in the heart of the English countryside. A place where wealthy Mistresses, like her, sent their slaves to be trained. Where many of the slaves stayed, after their training, to be used as their Mistresses required. She’d spoken of stables, where the hardier slaves were kept. How they were trained as “pony boys” , pulling a little cart, with one, or two Mistresses driving them hard.

She’d pointed out a small framed painting of the very subject. Two naked, exhausted slaves pulling a heavy pony trap. The red haired Mistress was lashing them to go faster. It was set in the chill of mid-winter; snowflakes falling. You could almost hear the slaves’ booted feet clanging on the hard ground. The slaves were well matched; their cocks identically erect.

She’d told him about parties, where the slaves had to compete, to see how many women they could service at a time. There were beatings and brandings. Even a special brand; a seal of quality that was given to slaves of exceptional ability; those slaves would be sold on to Mistresses in faraway countries. Their brand heralding them as one of the Manor’s triumphs.

Eli’s orgasm exploded. He felt dizzy with its violence. He hadn’t even touch himself. Her whispered tales had done that to him. And the pornography that he had lapped up voraciously.

His jeans and boxers were soaked, sticky with spunk. He stood and took off his jeans and underwear. He held his boxers to his nose and inhaled the scent of freshly ejaculated spunk. He licked the crotch of his jeans clean. He needed punishment for having orgasmed without a Mistress’ permission.

He would go to his Mistress’ house tomorrow and beg her to have him trained as a slave. To be her slave. To be used. He would be the best slave she’d ever had.

It was fitting.

Eli was afraid.

The story is from the billierosie collection, “Fetish Worship,” published and available at Sizzler Renaissance and at Amazon.

Artwork by FEM/dom artists.com

RITES OF PASSAGE: WILLIAM GOLDING

2011-11-18T03:28:00.000-08:00

William Golding’s Rites of Passage makes for a strange, haunting read. A ship bound for the New World, sometime in the 19th century. Witty observations, as the narrator weaves his journal. A self conscious narrator -- he wants to impress his reader.

But then something happens. A violation so horrible that the narrator can scarcely put it into words. Shame, is perhaps the word to sum up this crime of violating the innocent.

It's about culpability too -- we are none of us innocent, it's a question of how guilty.

As with William Golding’s "Lord of the Flies" the action takes place in isolation -- far away from the bigger picture of society. The ship is a microcosm, a world within a world. The narrator and his fellow travellers try to keep to the rules that they know. The sensible rules, the ages old English rules, the rules that work -- but out on the creaking ship, on the vast ocean, something primal, something feral stirs.

Yes, it is possible to "die of shame."

We are at the beginning of the 19th century. The Napoleonic wars are coming to an end and young Edmund has joined a heterogeneous crowd of émigrés on board an old decommissioned warship, for a long voyage to Australia where he is to become an important man in the administration.

The early narrative takes the form of a journal that Edmund Talbot keeps on the way to Australia – ostensibly to amuse and inform his godfather back in England. He fills his description of life on an old warship at the end of the Napoleonic era with witty observations on the bad manners of his fellow passengers, salacious gossip and details of his own sexual encounters. It's light, frothy and – apparently – pleasantly superficial.

“The place: on board the ship at last. The year: you know it. The date ? Surely what matters is that it is the first day of my passage to the other side of the world…”

As the narrative unfolds, Edmund’s disdain for others, throws a light on the old class prejudices that still loiter today. The ship's community indulges it's boredom and thirst for a victim, and endorsed by the captain's own prejudices, finds its soft target in a Chaplin.

True to Edmund’s character, and the nature of his undertaking, the journal reads as if it has been written in haste. So it's no surprise to learn that Golding wrote the first draft of the book in just one month. It reflects Golding’s genius to be able to recreate such convincing early 19th-century prose so fast and with such elegance. A talent that takes on almost eerie transcendence; Golding said that he simply transcribed conversations he was hearing in his head to create the novel's fluid dialogue.

Yet this easy reading should not be mistaken for levity. Golding insisted in interviews that this book was "funny" and proved that he wasn't the "dreary old monster" he was often made out to be. But he was being disingenuous. For all of its humour, “Rites of Passage” turns into a most disturbing book.

It would be easy to mistake the first 50 or so pages of Rites of Passage for a straightforward social comedy.

The comedy relates to one Reverend Colley, who gradually begins to dominate Edmund’s narrative. Initially, Edmund invites his reader to laugh at Colley – and it's hard not to. He is – as Edmund paints him – an absurd, obsequious man, ridiculous in his parson's clothing, his hacked-about haircut, his daft wig and his fawning over "gentlemen".

Edmund describes the parson;

“turning to ascend the ladder to the afterdeck, but seeing me between my young friends, and perceiving me to be of some consequence I suppose, he paused and favoured me with a reverence. Observe I do not call it a bow or greeting. It was a sinuous deflection of the whole body, topped by a smile which was tempered by pallor and servility as his reverence was tempered by an uncertainty as to the movements of our vessel.”

Edmund’s comedic description of the parson discomforts us with Edmund’s only too very English snobbery. It is tinted with a sneer. And much as we join in the laughter at the ridiculous Colley, we view Edmund with suspicion. We “know” his sort; Edmund is very much like ourselves.

For Edmund, everything is an inconvenience; everything that is, which disturbs his comfort. For the Reverend Colley, everything is a wonder. The mighty ship, the sudden clemency of the weather -- he sees the beauty of creation. We learn this, when Edmund reads Reverend Colley’s own journal. How two men, can view the same vista so differently.

The sailors and émigrés get Colley horribly drunk -- it is unlikely that he has ever been drunk before, and Edmund’s description of him, attempting to bless the passengers, while singing “joy, joy, joy” is very funny. It is the last time in the book, that Golding permits us to smile.

Colley dies of shame – starving himself after he remembers another, as yet mysterious, act he performed in his cups. The horrible feeling arises that we as readers have been complicit in his bullying and degradation.

Golding turns the screw tighter, when he introduces Colley's letter to his sister, which is, in a way, Colley’s own journal. Edmund’s coxcomb gone wrong, is transformed into a sympathetic, sweet-natured man who is terrified at smearing the dignity of his office by wearing the wrong outfit and whose wild haircut is explained by the fact that his sister tried to cut it one last time before he boarded ship and they parted, but was crying so much that she could hardly see what she was doing.

Every laugh we've had at Colley's expense turns to ashes in our mouths, every indignity he suffered seems barbarous.

The narrative turnaround is a wonderful display of writing skill, as Golding shows that Colley suffered many other cruelties that Edmund failed to observe – or ignored. The revelation of the details of the mysterious act that so mortified Colley are vague to the reader – but by this late stage Golding has done enough to overwhelm us completely.

The reader recalls Edmund’s observations of Captain Anderson. The Captain has a pathological hatred of the clergy believing himself to have been robbed out of his inheritance by one.

Because he enrages the Captain, who likes passengers never to come near him, the naval warrior decides to exert his power over the crew by picking on the parson.

With the Captain’s blessing, the parson becomes an open target for abuse, and things come to a head when he appears ramshackled and drunk on the deck and is led away to his cabin in disgrace, after urinating in front of the shocked ladies. No one can tempt him out to talk. Slowly he withers away refusing food and drink and dies on an evening when the captain has ironically invited some guests, including Edmund into his cabin for dinner.

The Captain is forced to thaw because of the announcement by Edmund of his journal, which will be sent to his godfather, with the implied threat that the bullying will be revealed to a wider audience. The Captain calls for agreement that Colley died from a low fever and Edmund is forced to go along with that conclusion.

The only one who could have saved the parson is Captain Anderson. But his hatred of the robe in general and Colley in particular, sets an example to officers and crew alike and the reverend becomes a target for abuse. The Captain has the social status to reverse the flow of things but does not assume the responsibility which goes with it.

The letter/journal is replicated by Edmund in his journal; it is offered by way of an explanation. It is also offered as an act of contrition.

“And I? I might have saved him had I thought less of my own consequence and less of the danger of being bored!”

The reader quickly understands the reason that Colley’s fellow passengers keep a distance from him. His profession as a clergyman marks him out as different; so does his sensitivity. Colley writes about the sailors manning the mighty ship. He writes in beautiful, homoerotic language. He sees the sailors as beautiful.

“They go about their tasks, their bronzed and manly forms unclothed to the waist, their abundant locks gathered in a queue, their nether garments closely fitted but flared about the ankles like the nostrils of a stallion. They disport themselves casually a hundred feet up in the air…”

Colley is a voyeur. He takes pleasure in gazing at the male form.

In a later passage in the journal, Colley tells the reader of how he entered Edmund’s room, while Edmund is ill and sleeping. He sees Edmund as a Christ like image.

“The young man lay asleep, a week’s beard on his lips and chin and cheeks - I scarce put down here the impression his slumbering countenance made on me - it was as the face of the ONE who suffered for us all - and as I bent over him in some irresistible compulsion I do not deceive myself but there was the sweet aroma of holiness itself on his breath! I did not think myself worthy of his lips but pressed my own reverently on the one hand that lay outside the coverlet. Such is the power of goodness that I withdrew as from an alter!”

The letter which ends at the Parson’s death is followed by an interrogation, a cursory inquest, with which the reader tries, unsuccessfully, to fill in the blanks in the understanding of what has happened. They prevaricate when questioning Billy Rogers, one of the suspected perpetrators. They use innuendo.

“Come Rogers. You were the one man we saw with him. In default of any other evidence your name must head the list of suspects. What did you sailors do?”

Rogers response is: “What did WE do, my lord?”

Finally Captain Anderson says it like it is.

“Buggery, Rogers, that’s what he means. Buggery.”

At last, now we know. But is this enough for a man to will himself to die?

The interrogation is promptly closed, when the enquiry unexpectedly risks implicating some officers.

So now we know the whole story?

Not quite. Mr Prettiman relates a conversation that he had with Billy Rogers.
“…he’d knowed most things in his time but he had never thought to get a chew off a parson!”

So that’s why Reverend Colley “died of shame,” for an act of fellatio. Not for something that was done to him, but for what he did.

“…Colley committed the fellatio that the poor fool was to die of when he remembered it.
Poor, poor Colley! Forced back towards his own kind, made an equatorial fool of -deserted, abandoned by me who could have saved him-overcome by kindness and a gill or two of the intoxicant-
I cannot even feel a pharisaic complacency in being the only gentleman not to witness his ducking. Far better I had seen it so as to protest at that childish savagery! Then my offer of friendship might have been sincere rather than--”

“Rites of Passage” was first published in 1980. It is a moral parable, and is the first of a trilogy. It’s about atonement and sins that can never be forgiven; only lived with.
William Golding won the Booker prize in 1980. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel prize for Literature.

THE LADY OF SHALOTT

2011-11-11T04:09:00.001-08:00

THE LADY OF SHALOTT 1888 Sir James William Waterhouse: You can see it in The Tate Gallery London.

She sits alone and lonely, viewing the beautiful city of Camelot through a mirror. She weaves a tapestry, copying the images from the mirror into the picture that she sews. She doesn’t know why she sits like this, never to view the real world. She only knows that to look, is forbidden. The reader of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem knows that “The Lady of Shalott” is cursed, if she looks, she will die.

“Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.”

"The Lady of Shalott" tells the story of a beautiful woman who lives in a tower in Shalott, which is an island on a river that runs, along with the road beside it, to Camelot; the setting of the legends about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Every day, the woman weaves a tapestry picture of the landscape that is visible from her window, including Camelot. There is, however, a curse on her; the woman does not know the cause of the curse, but she knows that she cannot look directly out of the window, so she views the subjects of her artwork through a mirror that is beside her. The woman is happy to weave, but is tired of looking at life only as a reflection. One day, Sir Lancelot rides by, looking bold and handsome in his shining armour, and singing. The woman cannot resist going to the window and seeing the beautiful Lancelot for herself.

“I am half sick of shadows,” JW Waterhouse, can be seen at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada.

“There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.”

“The Lady sees the exterior world, not through a window that opens onto real space and nature, but only as the shadow of that reality reflected in the magic mirror. The curse does not allow her to appear at the casement where the exterior and interior worlds can meet and merge; she is totally cut off. The emphasis upon love and confinement of the woman becomes intensified in the fictional Lady of Shalott, a subject that allowed the artist's imagination more freedom of interpretation.”
From “The Embowered Woman:” Elisabeth Nelson

Waterhouse continually frames her in poses in which her alluring beauty can be displayed.

“Paintings representing the Lady in her boat were as popular as interior scenes. The Lady setting out for Camelot, alive in her boat, allowed an artist like Waterhouse to portray the pathos of the "cursed" Lady, who follows her heart knowing she is going to die doing so. Mario Praz has perceived throughout the literature of Romanticism "the inseparability of pleasure and pain and, on the practical side, a search for themes of tormented, contaminated beauty" (The Romantic Agony, 1970). Tennyson and Waterhouse, poet and painter, seemed to have agreed with Edgar Allan Poe, who explained in "The Poetic Principle" that a "certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty." Exterior scenes provided the artist a different subject, mood, and set of circumstances with which to work.”
Again from “The Embowered Woman:” Elisabeth Nelson -- you can read her complete essay here

“And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls.
And there the surly village-churls
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.”

The lady weaves her tapestry in a richly appointed, artificial bower, cut off from the world. Restraint is a word that seems to sum up the Victorian’s attitude to sex.

The Lady of Shalott is as restrained as any slave in a 21st century BDSM fantasy.

“The Lady of Shalott sees Lancelot”; JW Waterhouse, 1894: Leeds, art gallery, UK .

The lady doesn’t speak, she scarcely moves. Waterhouse here, presents her in chains; she may as well be wearing a chastity belt. Her look is lascivious; predatory. Her mouth shows the beginnings of a snarl, as she growls out her urge to copulate. She has seen her mate and even death will not stop her.

“His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror…”

Perhaps in works of art and literature like “The Lady of Shalott” and contemporary Erotica we have a meeting of minds. Readers of Erotica and Pornography are certainly turned on, and carefully tuned in to the Victorian notions of sexual restraint. The clothes restricting womens’ ability to breathe, let alone run. The concept of the woman just being there, until she is needed; until the male requires sexual release. The woman is displayed for the viewer in an erotic reverie; she is waiting, wet, wilting, with desire for her mate. But this is not just a male fantasy; women fantasise about these things as much as men. Those tight, tight corsets, forcing the breasts upwards and outwards. Velvet and lace stretching over smooth, silky, creamy flesh. It is an urgent notion of beauty, that women and men both cherish. We allow the fantasy to tease out the moment when we copulate; a restorative, groan as that first thrust of penetration finally, finally occurs.

“She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.”

The Lady sees the beautiful Lancelot in her mirror. She will risk the curse to see him in the flesh. Sexual release will mean real death, even more than “la petite mort” -- she doesn’t care. Tennyson’s carefully crafted words bring the Lady’s passion from simmering, to boiling point. She is frantic with desire…

Lancelot, these days, wears leather. He’s a biker, I think. The engine throbbing into his crotch reminding him that he is all male. He has been too long away from his lady, the engine growls his frustration.

And the scenario has endless possibilities -- so let’s play a little. Have some fun. The role play can be as serious as you want to make it; or as joyous, but BDSM fulfils a huge need for many people out there.

It doesn’t have to be a submissive female, waiting for the attention of a Dominant male. It can be reversed; a Dominant woman and a submissive male.

He waits hopelessly for his Lady’s attention. All he needs is a gentle brush of her hand; a look would suffice. She will forbid him sexual release and he will comply; how can he not? Like the Lady of Shalott, he waits. He would wait for an eternity for her. His hard, muscular chest is bare, his tight, frayed jeans cover a throbbing erection. His Lady likes it that beneath the worn denim his cock pulses. His orgasm is forbidden, until his Lady permits…

…maybe it’s two women engaged in the Dominant/submissive scenario -- she is tied at her wrists and ankles -- spread wide and open on the four poster bed. She waits for the ecstasy of her Mistress’ lips caressing her soft inner thigh; her small, pointed tongue thrusting, dancing into her wet, willing labia. She will touch her clitoris with the tip of her tongue…

…or two men; his Master keeps him locked in the cage that is his home. There is limitless intelligence in his dark eyes, yet he paces the floor like the animal he has become. He remembers the night that his Master claimed him. His Master had laughed at him as he tried to deny the attraction; His Master knew that the slave was already half in love. The slave is trying so hard to be patient, but his strong fingers grip the bars and he growls his frustration. Seeing him like this, it is hard to believe that he is passive; living only for the moment that his lover’s cock will open him…

And it doesn’t even need to be about sex. Fulani suggests, if it’s done right, this kind of relationship can have an almost spiritual quality; an exquisite sharing of trust that many people find is as important as sex.

“Actually by no means all bdsm play involves sex (i.e. penetrative sex) at the same time as the bdsm - it depends on the people, their relationship, the nature of the fantasy etc. Obviously if the sub has a forced sex fantasy the two will be closely linked, but other possibilities exist - e.g. sex as the conclusion of play, or the wind-down after play, or something that happens on another occasion, or even in some relationships it's purely play and no sex in the usual sense of the word. That of course doesn't mean it's not sexual - just that the play itself satisfies sexual desires. Which is, I guess, the definition of fetishism.”

Fulani

It’s a game, it’s a wonderful fantasy. It is played out in our Erotic night and daydreams. Some of us never move beyond the dreaming stage; but we have all inherited a gift from the Victorians in the tales that they tell, and through those tales, we have our own Erotica.

Thanks to Jan Vander Laenen for correcting my appalling French -- Jan knows what I mean! And thanks to Fulani for his incisive comments, and for allowing me to quote him.

Here is Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s complete poem. “The Lady of Shalott.”

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower'd Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers "'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls.
And there the surly village-churls
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling through the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazoned baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often through the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seër in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance—
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right—
The leaves upon her falling light—
Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turned to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross'd themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in His mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

MALE RAPE

2011-11-04T04:13:00.000-07:00

I think a lot about our erotic fantasies, those wonderful tales that we tell ourselves in the night. We cast ourselves as the hero, or heroine as we delve into our deepest, darkest desires. Yearnings that teeter on the edge of the profane, the taboo. I talk to friends about their fantasies; sometimes, I put their fantasies into my stories.

A few weeks ago I put a piece together on rape; how some of us fantasise about being raped. Not just about relinquishing control, about being forced. I was talking primarily, from a feminine perspective; some women have rape fantasies, but I’d never considered that men might have rape fantasies too. And I don’t mean a male being controlled and forced to serve, and service a beautiful woman, or women; there’s plenty of those stories on the web. I’m talking about a man fantasising about being raped by a man; being forced, being violated.

I hadn’t thought about that, until I had a conversation over a bottle of wine, with Justin.
I’ve known Justin for years, I was often a guest at his home, when he was married; like so many of us, he’s now divorced. I was friends with his wife, and with his two great kids. Justin drifted a bit after the divorce, he’s a freelance photographer, so he can find work wherever he goes. He’s unusual, rather than good looking, sort of Scandinavian, with silky, straight pale blond hair and stunning eyes. Watchful eyes, dark grey and heavily lidded. When he’s old, with his angular bone structure, he’ll look like an eagle.

Justin and I always end up talking about sex. We’ve never had sex, not with each other, but he knows about my stories and I’m aware of the private portfolio of his work. He told me about a book he’s putting together for a guy he knows who is a Dominant. Justin has photographed the Dom’s favourite slave girl, in every intimacy imaginable. The book will be exclusive. It will be a piece of pornography that collectors will kill for. Probably only a dozen or so copies will be made.

We were silent for a while. I poured more wine, then Justin told me about his own fantasy. Justin fantasises about being raped. Raped by a man. Violated.

I wasn’t shocked; there’s not a lot that shocks me these days.

There’s not a great deal on the web, but I found this.
“I know this is screwed up and unbelievable but I have no sexual attraction to men at all, only women, but for some reason, every time I get really horny, I have fantasies about someone bigger then me dragging me in an ally, pulling down my pants and raping me, especially when I stop masturbating all together, I have wet dreams about it.

It's taking over my life, I want to be raped; nobody knows this because I'm afraid someone might stage a rape and that's not what I want, I want it to hurt, be real and walk away…”
Cory James. Ask.com

Male rape is acknowledged in the Greek myths.

Ganymede, the youngest son of Tros, the King of Troy, excelled in physical beauty. He was looking after the flocks of sheep, when Zeus, having fallen in love with him, swooped down in the form of an eagle, seized him and took him to Mount Olympus.

“When the gods in classical mythology fall homoerotically in love, they never do so with other gods or with adult human males; rather they always do so with a mortal youth. They enter into liaisons in which they, like Zeus, act the part of the erastes to an adolescent who, like Ganymede, serves as the eromenos. The sexual acts imagined to be performed by the divine-human lovers, though not described in detail, can be assumed to conform, just as the structure of the relationship does, to the cultural ideal of pederastic unions.”
From glbtq

“In Greek mythology, the rape of women, as explained by the rape of Europa, and male rape, found in the myth of Laius and Chrysippus, are mentioned. Different values are ascribed to the two actions. The rape of Europa by Zeus is represented as an abduction followed by consensual lovemaking, similar perhaps to the rape of Ganymede by Zeus, and went unpunished.

The rape of Chrysippus by Laius, however, is represented in darker terms, and was known in antiquity as "the crime of Laius", a term which came to be applied to all male rape. It was seen as an example of hubris -- pride and arrogance, and its punishment was so severe that it destroyed not only Laius himself, but also his son, Oedipus.” WIKI

“Laius, the king of Thebes, is thought to have been the first mortal to bring the practice of the love of youths to the Greeks. What we know for sure is that while he was still too young to rule, his cousins, Amphion and Zethus, grabbed the reins of power. With the help of loyal subjects Laius fled Thebes to save his life, and sought refuge in Pisa, a neighbouring kingdom. There King Pelops welcomed him warmly in his castle. When Laius reached manhood, Pelops entrusted his son, Chrysippus, ‘Golden Horse,' to him so that he would teach the boy the charioteer's art. The king loved Chrysippus best of all his sons, and wanted him well trained in the arts of war. Laius did as he was asked, but fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful youth. During the Nemean games, in which the pair competed in the chariot races, Laius kidnapped the boy. By then Amphion and Zethus had met with misfortune, so he was able to take him back to Thebes where he kept Chrysippus, by force, as his lover. It was not as if he did not know what he was doing. "I have understanding," Laius said in his defence, "but nature forces me."
From Gay-Art-History.

The 1972 film “Deliverance, directed by John Boorman, from James Dickey’s novel of the same name, features a male rape.

Four Atlanta businessmen, Lewis, Ed, Bobby and Drew, decide to canoe down the Cahulawassee Riverin the remote Georgia wilderness, expecting to have fun and see the glory of nature before the river valley is flooded by the construction of a dam. Lewis, an experienced outdoorsman, is the leader. Ed is also a veteran of several trips but lacks Lewis' machismo. Bobby and Drew are novices.
Pulling ashore to get their bearings, Bobby and Ed encounter a pair of unkempt hillbillies emerging from the woods, one toothless and carrying a shotgun. After some tense conversation in which the hillbillies appear to be goading the others, Ed speculates that the two locals have a moonshine still hidden in the woods and Bobby amicably offers to buy some. The hillbillies are silent; menacing. They force Bobby, at gunpoint, to strip naked. Bobby is then chased, humiliated, ordered to "squeal like a pig;" then he is violently sodomized. Ed is unable to help because he has been tied to a tree and is held by the toothless hillbilly.

In James Dicky’s novel, the narrator is Ed. Bobby has been ordered to strip off his trousers and pants and lay across a fallen log.
“The white bearded man was also suddenly naked up to the waist. There was no need to justify or rationalize anything: they were going to do what they wanted to do. I struggled for life in the air, and Bobby’s body was still and pink in an obscene posture that no one could help. The tall man restored the gun to Bobby’s head, and the other one knelt behind him.
A scream hit me, and I would have thought it was mine except for the lack of breath. It was a sound of power and outrage, and was followed by one of simple wordless pain. Again it came out of him, higher and more carrying…The white haired man worked steadily on Bobby, every now and then getting a better grip on the ground with his knees. At last he raised his face as though to howl with all his strength into the leaves and the sky and quivered silently while the man with the gun looked on with an odd mixture of approval and sympathy. The whorl-faced man drew back, drew out… Bobby let go of the log and fell to his side, both arms over his face.”

The terrible images stay with you, long after you’ve stopped watching the film, finished reading the book. The violation is graphic, in both Boorman’s film and Dicky’s prose.
And just when you think it can’t get any worse, you realise that the rape precipitates real tragedy. There is more to come, they just don’t know it yet.

I have put this piece together, because the concept of violation, of being forced, disturbs me. It really does disturb me. And writing about it, is the only way that I can deal with it.

But from my friend Justin’s point of view, and Cory James, a real rape is not just something to be desired, something to fantasise about, it has an urgency, it is a real need.

REVIEW OF THE FORSYTE SAGA. JOHN GALSWORTHY

2011-10-28T03:33:00.000-07:00

I love the Victorians. Those generations of restrained, repressed men and women, that have provided writers and thinkers with such a wealth of material. I don’t supposed the Victorians recognised that they were repressed; we just see it now with the clarity of hindsight. I guess we are the backlash to the Victorians’ discourse of silence, with our counsellors and therapists. And if we can’t afford those, our friends are usually willing listeners.

Soames Forsyte doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He doesn’t even want to talk to Irene, his beautiful wife. He just wants to consummate their marriage; he wants his conjugal rights, that are his by law. He wants her not to shudder when he touches her. It’s not too much to ask, is it?

Through Soames’ character, John Galsworthy gives us the central theme of his Victorian novel, THE FORSYTE SAGA. The theme is ownership; particularly ownership of property. Property is everything and anything touched with the Forsyte name, therefore Irene is property. Soames embraces the creed, body and soul. If the theme is ownership, it is Soames’ and Irene’s relationship that drives the plot of the novel.

The family saga opens at a gathering of the Forsytes, in 1886. They are celebrating June Forsyte’s engagement to Philip Bosinney, a flamboyant architect. One by one, Galsworthy introduces us to the central characters.

Galsworthy published the first book; THE MAN OF PROPERTY, in 1906. Galsworthy would have been aware of the laws and the mood of that time; he was writing about his contemporaries. This is an erotic novel; not in the sense of where erotica takes us today -- the sex, here, is in the sub-text. It’s hinted at and explored through the characters’ relationships, the constraints of Victorian times and the constraints members of the family, place upon themselves.

I think that this shows how forward thinking and brave Galsworthy was in publishing his book. Freud had only published THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS, in 1899. The FORSYTE SAGA, was published just seven years later. I don’t know whether Galsworthy would have been aware of Freud’s theories, he would certainly been aware of the stringent laws constraining women -- I don’t think it matters whether the reader is aware either of Freud, or the legal position of women in Victorian England; the story of this up-tight family is so cleverly woven by Galsworthy, that the novel is pure pleasure to read. As is always the case with great fiction, the reader keeps turning the pages. What happens next? We want to know.

Soames has pursued the beautifully, enigmatic Irene, with the relentlessness of a stalker, for two years. Finally, she capitulates and agrees to marry him. Irene was young, only nineteen years old, when Soames finally wore her down. She was naïve; ignorant of the physical relations of a man and wife. Within a week of married life, she knew she had made a big mistake. We join Galsworthy’s novel at the point where Irene is asking for separate rooms.

"The fact that Irene never agreed to a union with Soames seems
inconceivable to contemporary readers as her reluctance is obvious from the beginning. Scholars have tried to explain in various ways Irene’s acceptance of Soames fifth time he proposes, but none of their explanations is ultimately convincing. Irene herself when asked responds only with a “strange silence”. (Linda Strahan).

The mysterious Irene haunts the pages. She is both charismatic and enigmatic. We never know what she is thinking; we only ever see her through the eyes of other characters. She is always placed in situations where her alluring beauty can be displayed. Galsworthy arranges her as if she is continually posing for a photograph. She is seated like a goddess, in a green woodland setting. She is stylishly arranged at the piano. In both Old Jolyon and Young Jolyon’s thoughts, Irene is Venus.

Galsworthy introduces us to Irene in a passage that is pure poetry.

“ A tall woman with a beautiful figure, which some member of the family had once compared to a heathen goddess…Her hands, gloved in French Grey, were crossed one over the other, her grave, charming face held to one side, and the eyes of all men near were fastened on it. Her figure swayed, so balanced that the very air seemed to set it moving. There was warmth, but little colour, in her cheeks; her large, dark eyes were soft. But it was at her lips - asking a question, giving an answer, with that shadowy smile - that men looked; they were sensitive lips, sensuous and sweet, and through them seemed to come warmth and perfume like the warmth and perfume of a flower.”

Irene is hypnotic; desirable. She has an ethereal, sublime, other worldly beauty, that is all her own.

I don’t know who I would cast as Irene, in a new adaptation. Gina Mckee in the ITV version didn’t cut it for me. Nyree Dawn Porter was convincing, in the much earlier BBC adaptation. There certainly aren’t any actresses around today that have Irene’s class. Anyway they’re all far too skinny. Their little faces have been cosmetically modified to all look the same.

Soames Forsyte is a funny little man. Funny in the peculiar sense -- definitely not ha ha! You don’t get a laugh, or a joke, from Soames. He’s cold; indifferent to the feelings of others. He doesn’t care about the effect he has on other people. I’m trying to think of a counterpart to Soames, for today’s world.

I can’t.

Soames is the worst kind of creep. You see him today, reconstructed in photo fits for CRIMEWATCH; he is usually wanted for sex crimes. Galsworthy describes Soames’ movements as “mouse like.” Soames doesn’t walk; he “mouses.”

Soames, is the character whose head we get into the most, and Galsworthy allows Soames' own narrow thoughts to speak for him. Soames’ only passions in life are the Forsyte name, his art collection and his beautiful wife Irene. All of these things Soames owns.

Irene is a wife and therefore a possession, both in the eyes of the law at that time, and by Soames.

Irene’s unhappy marriage to Soames Forsyte has become a metaphor for the plight of women in nineteenth century England before the passage of the Woman’s Property Act (1881) and the agitation for further reforms. (Linda Strahan)

Irene is repelled by Soames.

Much has been made of the rape scene, both in the ITV 2002 adaptation of the novel and in the 1967 BBC adaptation. I can only imagine how it would be written today, writers scrabbling around for lurid metaphors, to convey the repulsiveness and violence of Soames’ violation of Irene. It would go on for pages. Galsworthy simply says;

“The morning after a certain night on which Soames at last asserted his rights and acted like a man, he breakfasted alone.”

There is no contrition; no regret. Soames has decided that his act will be a step towards reconciliation for him and the wife that he owns. Irene’s smothered sobs haunt him throughout the day. He simply reads the newspaper; he hears again and again the "sounds of her broken heart." Soames keeps himself busy. Even in the final pages of the book, Soames is still justifying himself. It wouldn’t have happened if Irene had been a good wife.

Damian Lewis played the part of Soames in the ITV version of Galsworthy’s book. Eric Porter, in the BBC much earlier version. I think both actors captured the essence of Soames.

“Funnily, Lewis does very little indeed. One scene has him manipulating events to his way of thinking without actually saying a word.
But there is a smouldering power to him and you correctly fear for anyone who tries to confront him.” (from the web).

And of Eric Porter’s performance;

“Among the most famous scenes were one in which the hapless Irene, unloved by her cold and possessive husband Soames, was brutally raped by him as their marriage fell apart. The scene was rendered even more convincing by bloodstains on Irene's dress (Eric Porter had inadvertently cut his hand on her brooch when tearing off her bodice).” (Wiki)

Read THE FORSYTE SAGA as a Victorian soap. Read it as a false construct of the bliss of the family; the spoken lies, the unspoken truths. Read it and analyse it, if that’s what you want to do; or read it as a great story -- but, oh, please do read it.

Men -- Beware The Wife of Bath!

2011-10-21T03:14:00.000-07:00

She’s the archetypal Dominatrix, and she was created over seven hundred years ago in the fourteenth century by Geoffrey Chaucer. She’s the “Wife of Bath,” and she knew a thing or two about making men behave themselves.

Usually, I look to the Greek myths, when I’m searching around for an archetype. Certainly, the myths have their share of strong women, women who really were downright superior to men. The terrifying Medusa, who could turn men, and anyone else for that matter, into stone. Athene threw her weight about a bit and Circe simply turned men into swine -- while Medea took revenge to its absolute bloody limit, by killing the kids.

The Bible too, has its share of strong women, some of them quite terrifying. Delilah, Esther, Jezebel. And the quietly strong ones, Ruth and Mary.

But as far as I can see, there is no woman before Alyson, the Wife of Bath, who made training the men in her life into an art form.

In his incredible essay on “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” which you can read here, Ian Mackean demonstrates how Alyson has achieved her aims. She is duplicitous, greedy, sexual, yes, she loves sex, but above anything else, she loves to be in charge. She is moody and she has a temper, but she’s smart, sharp and funny too. The tale that she tells ends up being a lot shorter than her prologue; it is in her prologue that we learn about Alyson as a fully rounded, three dimensional character.

I think that Chaucer was the first writer to do this, to create characters as real people. By the end of Alyson’s tyrannical diatribe, where she challenges men in general, and God and the Bible in particular, well, we could argue with her, or cheer her on.

The Wife’s appearance is startling. In his introduction to the Wife’s prologue, James Winny tells us;
“In her brazen red stockings, her vast hat and wimple, she conforms with the standards of medieval life; noisy, assertive and robust. Her ruddy complexion, her deafness and her widely spaced teeth give her an emphatic personality such as few of the pilgrims can rival…she bursts upon the pilgrimage with the unexpectedness of a bomb, to introduce herself and a group of three connected tales.”

Alyson, the Wife of Bath, is de rigueur for the fourteenth century. These days, she would be dressed in black leather, cracking a whip and wearing killer heels. She’d probably be wearing sharply spiked spurs and have a pair of handcuffs jangling from her studded leather belt, which she wears cinched in tight at the waist.

She should have a government health warning tattooed on her wide forehead.

“Warning to men. Consort with the Wife of Bath at your own risk!

AILEEN WOURNOS

2011-10-14T05:05:00.000-07:00

Aileen Carol Wuornos (29th February 1956 – 9th October 2002) was an American serial killer who killed seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990, claiming they raped or attempted to rape her while she was working as a prostitute. She was convicted and sentenced to death for six of the murders and executed by lethal injection on 9th October 2002.

Aileen had an awful start in life. Right from her childhood, she was abandoned and abused. She was born as Aileen Carol Pittman in Rochester, Michigan, on 29th February 1956. Her mother, Diane Wuornos, was 15 years old when she married Aileen's father, Leo Dale Pittman on 3 June 1954.

Less than two years later, and two months before Aileen was born, Diane filed for divorce. Aileen had an older brother named Keith, who was born in February 1955. Aileen never met her father, because he was in prison for the rape and the attempted murder of an eight-year-old boy when she was born. Leo Pittman was considered to be a schizophrenic, who was convicted of sex crimes against children, He was constantly in and out of prison, and hanged himself in prison in 1969. In January 1960, when Aileen was almost 4 years old, Diane abandoned her children, leaving them with their maternal grandparents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos, who legally adopted Keith and Aileen on 18th March 1960.

At age 12, Aileen engaged in sexual activities in school in exchange for cigarettes, drugs, and food. She also engaged in sexual activities with her brother. Aileen claimed that she was sexually assaulted and beaten as a child by her grandfather. Aileen's grandfather was an alcoholic. Before beating her, he would force her to strip out of her clothes.

In 1970, at age 14, she became pregnant, having been raped by a friend of her grandfather. Aileen gave birth at a home for unmarried mothers, and the child was placed for adoption. A few months after her baby was born, Aileen dropped out of school when her grandmother died of liver failure. Aileen and her brother became wards of the court. When she was 15, her grandfather threw her out of the house; and she began supporting herself as a prostitute and living in the woods near her old home.

On 27 May 1974, when she was 18, Aileen was arrested in Jefferson County, Colorado, for driving under the influence disorderly conduct, and firing a .22-caliber pistol from a moving vehicle. She was later charged with failure to appear.

In 1976, Wuornos hitchhiked to Florida, where she met 69-year-old yacht club president Lewis Gratz Fell. They married that same year, and the announcement of their marriage was printed in the society pages of the local newspaper. However, Aileen continually involved herself in confrontations at their local bar and eventually went to jail for assault. She also hit Fell with his own cane, leading him to get a restraining order against her. She returned to Michigan, where, on 14 July 1976, she was arrested in Antrim County, Michigan, and charged with assault and disturbing the peace for throwing a cue ball at a bartender's head. On July 17, her brother Keith died of esophageal cancer and Aileen received $10,000 from his life insurance. Aileen and Lewis Fell annulled their marriage nine weeks later. On 20 May 1981, Aileen was arrested in Edgewater, Florida, for the armed robbery of a convenience store. She only got $35 and two packs of cigarettes. She was sentenced to prison on 4 May 1982, and released on 30 June 1983. On 1 May 1984, she was arrested for attempting to pass forged checks at a bank in Key West. On 30th November 1985, she was named as a suspect in the theft of a revolver and ammunition in Pasco County.

On 4th January 1986, she was arrested in Miami and charged with resisting arrest, and obstruction by false information for providing identification with her aunt's name. Miami police officers found a .38-caliber revolver and a box of ammunition in the stolen car. On 2nd June 1986, Volusia County, Florida deputy sheriffs detained her for questioning after a male companion accused her of pulling a gun, in his car, and demanding $200. She was found to be carrying spare ammunition, and a .22 pistol was discovered under the passenger seat she had occupied.

Around this time, Aileen met Tyria Moore, a hotel maid, at a Daytona gay bar. They moved in together, and Aileen supported them with her prostitution earnings. On 4 July 1987,Daytona Beach police detained Aileen and Tyria at a bar for questioning regarding an incident in which they were accused of assault and battery with a beer bottle. On 12 March 1988, Aileen accused a Daytona Beach bus driver of assault. She claimed that he pushed her off the bus following a confrontation. Tyria Moore was listed as a witness to the incident.

Between December 1989 and September 1990, the bodies of several men were found murdered along the highways of northern and central Florida, including Richard Mallory, Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, David Spears, Walter Gino Antonio, Peter Siems, and Charles Carskaddon. Items belonging to Mallory and Antonio were pawned near Daytona Beach and the alias names used were traced to Aileen through thumbprints left on the pawn shop cards. Aileen confessed to the murder of all six men, claiming that she was picked up by the men when she was working as a highway prostitute, and shot them in self defence after they attempted to sexually assault her. She was convicted of the murder of Richard Mallory after a jury trial in Volusia County and was sentenced to death. While on death row, it was discovered that Mallory had previously served time for Attempted Rape. Aileen pleaded no contest to the murders of the other 5 men and was sentenced to death in each case.

Within two weeks of her arrest, Aileen and her attorney had sold movie rights to her story. Investigators in her case did likewise. The case resulted in several books and movies, and even one opera on the life of "America's first female serial killer.

She has been heralded in tabloid headlines and on television talk shows as Americas first female serial killer. In fact, Aileen Wuornos was neither the first nor the worst, although she did display a curiously masculine tendency to prey on strangers of the opposite sex. Suspected of at least seven murders, sentenced to die in four of the six cases she confessed to police, she still maintained that some, or all of her admitted killings were performed in self-defence, resisting violent assaults by men whom she solicited while working as a prostitute. Ironically, information uncovered by investigative journalists in November 1992 suggests that in one case, at least, her story may well be true.

Aileen’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied in 1996. In 2001, she announced that she would not issue any further appeals against her death sentence. She petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for the right to fire her legal counsel and stop all appeals, saying,

"I killed those men, robbed them as cold as ice. And I'd do it again, too. There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything, because I'd kill again. I have hate crawling through my system...I am so sick of hearing this 'she's crazy' stuff. I've been evaluated so many times. I'm competent, sane, and I'm trying to tell the truth. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again."

Florida Governor Jeb Bush instructed three psychiatrists to give Aileen a 15-minute interview. The test for competency requires the psychiatrist to be convinced that the condemned person understands that she will die and for which crime she is being executed. All three judged her mentally fit to be executed.

In a final interview Aileen said;
"You sabotaged my ass, society, and the cops, and the system. Her final words in the on-camera interview were "Thanks a lot, society, for railroading my ass."

Nick Broomfield, who directed a film about Aileen’s life; later met Dawn Botkins, a childhood friend of Aileen, who told him, "She's sorry, Nick. She didn't give you the finger. She gave the media the finger, and then the attorneys the finger. And she knew if she said much more, it could make a difference on her execution tomorrow, so she just decided not to.

Aileen, was brought into the death chamber on October 9, 2002. She had declined a last meal and instead was given a cup of coffee.

After her execution, Wuornos' body was cremated. Her ashes were taken by Dawn Botkins to her native Michigan and spread beneath a tree. She requested that Natalie Merchant's song "Carnival" be played at her funeral. Natalie Merchant commented on this when asked why her song was played during the credits of the documentary Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer:

“When director Nick Broomfield sent a working edit of the film, I was so disturbed by the subject matter that I couldn't even watch it. Aileen Wuornos led a tortured, torturing life that is beyond my worst nightmares. It wasn't until I was told that Aileen spent many hours listening to my album Tigerlily while on death row and requested "Carnival" be played at her funeral that I gave permission for the use of the song. It's very odd to think of the places my music can go once it leaves my hands. If it gave her some solace, I have to be grateful.”

Nick Broomfield later stated:

“I think this anger developed inside her. And she was working as a prostitute. I think she had a lot of awful encounters on the roads. And I think this anger just spilled out from inside her. And finally exploded. Into incredible violence. That was her way of surviving. I think Aileen really believed that she had killed in self-defence. I think someone who's deeply psychotic can't really tell the difference between something that is life threatening and something that is a minor disagreement. Her psychosis could kick in if you said something that she didn't agree with. She would get into a screaming black temper about it. And I think that's what had caused these things to happen. And at the same time, when she wasn't in those extreme moods, there was an incredible humanity to her.”

From Wiki.

SONG OF SONGS

2011-10-07T04:17:00.000-07:00

It is an incredibly erotic piece of literature. And it is in the Bible. It is “the Song of Solomon”. It is described as a poem and takes the form of a dialogue; of two lovers caressing each other with words. Each delights in the body of the other, and each delights in what they would like to do with the other.

I think that “The Song of Songs” (also known as the Song of Solomon) deserves its place as one of the greatest pieces of erotic literature ever written. Consisting of intense expressions of physical love, this classic poem describes the voluptuous beauty of lovers longing for one another. With a uniquely feminine perspective, its language is seductive and intimate, conveying an immediate, sensuous, and intoxicating desire.

The woman begins her description of her lover, by talking about his kiss. She actively explores his mouth, lingering with her tongue inside him. She compares his kisses to strong, heady wine.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.”

His name is compared to a precious ointment; it has “savour” “therefore do the virgins love thee.” He is desirable to other women; “we will remember thy love more than wine.”

She tells the reader about her lover’s cheeks; “comely with rows of jewels”.

Again, she compares him to precious ointments. Myrrh and Spikenard. Interestingly, Spikenard is an essential oil used to soothe away emotional distress. At another point in the poem she says that “she is sick with love.” I am sure that we can all relate to that sick, sinking feeling; wondering if the beloved has been faithful, after what may have been a long separation.

She tells us that he shall;” lie all night betwixt my breasts.” He will cover her, as they lie sated from their lovemaking.

She sits down “under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”

Not only is there erotic talk about physical appearances, but there is also talk about what will happen when the two of them are together alone. She is at one point looking for him and when she finds him, she says that she held him and had him follow her and would not let him go;

"...until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me"

Put in modern day terms, it seems that she has seduced him in her mothers bedroom, but it isn't until the next line that you know that the two have had sex:

"...by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please…”

At this point, the reader can conclude that the two did enjoy each other sexually, and that he is now peacefully sleeping. Of course what exactly happened in the room is not going to be said, since this is coming from out the Bible, but the reader knows that the two have had sex, since she states clearly that she will not let him leave.

Another point in which she talks about doing sexual things with her lover (although not as graphic) is when she talks about going into a garden where all kinds of fruits are ripe and ready to be picked. She says,

"whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves”. Here you can see her again seducing him, and promising him sex if he would follow her.

She tells him;

“I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.”

She wants him, and entices him to experience her, in the fullest sense of the word.

The first time that the male talks about his lover he describes her physical attributes. He describes her breasts;

"Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins"

They are young, virginal breasts, erect and not yet prone to sagging.

When he talks about his lovers thighs, he not only praises them, he describes what the very most upper part of his lovers thighs look like, to him

"the joints of thy thighs are like jewels"

He lingers lovingly on the words, which describe a part of the body that is right next to the genitalia. He is talking about real intimacy. He knows her taste and her smell. The reader knows that he is speaking from experience; the writer is intent on exciting and arousing.

He too, talks about precious ointments; she is more desirable than any of them.

“How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy love than wine! And the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
They lips O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue: and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.”

Today, the ascription of authorship to Solomon is not accepted by most scholars.

“The common consensus today is that the Song of Solomon is an anthology of lyric love songs. (The exact number of these songs, which vary in length between a simple line and an extended paragraph, is also highly debated since it is very difficult to determine when one song ends and the next begins). These works are characterized by great emotion, poetic finesse, and bold and vivid imagery. Several poems include descriptive praises of the physical features of both the male and female protagonists in the Songs; but the descriptions, though sensual, are never vulgar or coarse.

The literary genre of love poetry has its antecedents both in Mesopotamian and Egyptian literature and several literary traits and imagery are shared by all three. The book may actually contain several songs whose origins are rooted in wedding ceremonies, as has been shown by comparison with marriage customs prevalent among Arab peasants in Syria and Palestine.

The songs express the longing and yearning of the lovers for one another and joy in final consummation, conveyed by expressive monologues and dialogues. Dream songs are also part and parcel of this lyric collection The flora and fauna of Israel, are vividly employed within the songs, whose geographical background and similes encompass Gilead, Heshbon, Lebanon, Hermon, Carmel, Tirzah, Sharon, Jerusalem and En Gedi. These multiple songs from different places, times and authors all form one grand paean to nature and natural love.

The scroll is read in the synagogue during the holiday of Passover, reflecting the season of spring.” Answers.com

Twenty first century linguistic work, including re-examining the dating of early Hebrew poetry, according to evidence of dialectic variation, has been applied to the Song by a number of scholars from different traditions. Noegel and Rendsburg, for example, conclude as follows.
“The Song of Songs was written circa 900 BC, in the northern dialect of ancient Hebrew, by an author of unsurpassed literary ability, adept at the techniques of alliteration and polyprosopon, able to create the most sensual and erotic poetry of his day.” WIKI

I had to look up polyprosopon! It means a “transference of speakers”.

For my Biblical quotes, I have used the King James’ translation of the Bible; A.D.1611

RAPE!

2011-09-30T08:56:00.001-07:00

Rape: an insidious little word. Those four letters, in that order, conjure up a variety of emotions. We’ve an unwritten, unspoken contract, drawn up between ourselves, about what words convey to us. What they signify. Rape, signifies violation, an abuse of strength and power; total disrespect for another. It is selfishness at its most extreme. “I want that -- and I will have it!”

The word rape itself originates from the Latin verb rapere: to seize or take by force. To us, it is much more than that. It connotes fear, anger, guilt, shame. Sadly, those emotions are burdens, carried by far too many people.

We talk about “victims of rape.” So why is rape a favourite fantasy of so many people? Why do artists paint pictures of rape? Why do writers of erotica write their carefully crafted rape stories? Why is a word that conveys that a violation, a heinous crime has taken place such a turn on? Why do we find the paintings and stories so arousing? We know exactly what is going on; yet still we look at the pictures and read the stories.

The tale of Persephone is a favourite subject for artists. Here is her story. She was abducted by Hades and starved into submission.

The god Poseidon raped the goddess Demeter. From their union the beautiful Persephone was born. In the days when gods and goddesses walked on the Earth, the three most powerful gods were brothers. Zeus was ruler of the sky, Poseidon was god of the sea and Hades was the Lord of the Underworld.

The Underworld was Hades realm. It is where we get our ideas about hell. The Greeks believed absolutely in the Underworld; a terrible place, a place without light, where the spirits of the dead went. Having entered the Underworld, and having eaten there, no-one was allowed to re-enter the world of the living.

Hades visited Earth and rode past Persephone while she was gathering flowers in a field. He was dazzled by her beauty. He wanted her. And being one of the three most powerful gods, he kidnapped her and drove off in his chariot.

Persephone’s abduction was horrific. She was pinned to the floor of Hades' chariot while he drove faster and faster, down and down, into the darkness of the underworld. In the black halls of Hades, Persephone crouched and cried, refusing all food, refusing to speak to the god who had snatched her away.

Days passed. Persephone's hunger grew. At last she could resist no longer, she ate six pomegranate seeds and, having eaten, she could not return to the world above.

Meanwhile, her Mother, the goddess Demeter, grew distracted. Demeter was the ancient Greek goddess of grain, fertility and the harvest. She knew what had happened but she could do nothing. She raged all the more because she was powerless against Hades. She went to Zeus, the king of gods, and she begged him to bring about Persephone's return. Zeus could not bear Demeter's crying. Her tears were destroying the harvest. The earth became scorched and blackened.

Zeus was too late to stop Persephone eating the six Pomegranate seeds. The rules of the Underworld had to be obeyed. If you eat the food of the Underworld, you can never return to earth. Zeus sent Hermes, the messenger of the gods, to put a suggestion to Hades. Zeus suggested that Persephone would marry Hades. She would be Queen of the Underworld, living there half the year. Exactly six months. In the spring she could return to earth, and live there in the warm, bright light of the summer.

And this is what happened. While Persephone lives in the underworld, the days are short and dark and cold. But with her return to Earth in the spring, the flowers start to bloom, the leaves to bud, and the birds sing in the sky.

There are plenty of instances of sexual violation in the Greek myths, but in the Persephone/Hades myth, the writers substitute the actual sexual violation, with Persephone eating the six pomegranate seeds. I don’t know why that is. It isn’t as if the tellers of those old stories are shy. Poseidon rapes Medusa, violating her, so that she is unworthy to be Athene’s priestess. Zeus turns himself into a swan and rapes Leda. And there are many more examples of what is quite plainly a vicious violation, so why sanitise Persephone’s rape with the consumption of seeds? I have no idea -- but it’s a great story.

And yes, I do watch the Soaps, and “Coronation Street” is running an incredible “Rape” storyline at the moment. Carla, who owns the lingerie factory, has jilted her fiancé, Frank, the night before they are to marry. Frank lets himself into her apartment and brutally rapes her. I watched the episode, and it really was horrible. Frank hasn’t even committed the disgusting crime out of revenge. It’s out of petulance; he’s like a peevish three year old, who can’t get his own way. A three year old’s psyche in a man’s body, with a man’s strength -- that is dangerous.

When the Soaps take on an issue as big as this -- they do it so well. They have to -- research has been meticulous, from the way the police handled Carla’s accusations, to the aftershock effect that Carla experiences. Women and men, all over the country, people who have been through this revolting experience will be scrutinising the storyline. The writing is great, pace, and the subsequent tension, perfect -- it crackles.

But I, and lots of other women, and men, still have rape fantasies. I’ve enough in my life to feel regretful about, I’m not going to start feeling guilty about a fantasy. And there’s a huge gulf between fantasy and reality; it’s keeping a perspective on it that matters.

Carl Jung informs us that we need myth, and the stories that we tell ourselves through our fantasies. He teaches us that myth originates and functions to satisfy the psychological need for contact with the unconscious--not merely to announce the existence of the unconscious, but to let us experience it.

Persephone and Hades are symbolic keys to truths about human condition. They are far more than recognizable characters, they are learning tools, lessons from primordial time.

“Our dreams and fantasies are age-old mythological influences. Deriving from our remotest ancestors, they slumber in all of our unconscious memories which awaken at night and seek to compensate the false attitude modern men and women have towards our nature.”

Has anyone else out there, woken in the morning in a stupor of amazement at where their darkest desires have taken them in the night?

Myth serves as inspiration. The language of myth is profound in its imagery. Persephone and Hades are powerful forces within us. They are a god and goddess from ancient times.

We need the terrifying hoof beats of Hades’ horses pounding down on us. We need to lose ourselves in Persephone’s desperate screams. They are more than just archetypes.

Jung points out the emotional attraction of the stories, but explains it as a resonance from within the human mind, an inner recognition of the hidden truth that the stories contain.

Why does mythology speaks to us? I remember reading Pasiphae's story. The Queen of Crete who contrived to have sex with a bull. Bestiality, another taboo. I was around 10 or 11 when I read that story; I remember feeling strangely excited. I didn’t understand the story, not really, and I didn’t understand my reaction to it. Not only did Queen Pasiphae do it, but she liked it. She relished it.

I used to think my masochistic fantasies, again I was very young -- I used to think they were all my own. And then I started reading about submissives' stories in Erotica anthologies. Other people had the same dark desires -- they were even turned on by the same imagery as me. Used the same language as me.

We have to give the archetypes their time in the spotlight, Jung would say - including the Persephone/Hades archetype and Pasiphae too - because they are a powerful part of us all. But we do it safely and sanely through art and fantasy.

INCEST

2011-09-23T04:22:00.000-07:00

Lillah McCarthy (1875-1960) as Jocasta, Oedipus’ wife and mother, in “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles. Painted by Harold Speed 1913

Incest. The final taboo. It is taboo, as far as I am able to ascertain, in every society on the planet. The exceptions to the rule appear to be royal dynasties, in particular the ancient Egyptian Kings and Queens.

We’ve heard of Freud’s theory about the Oedipus complex: it is the famous Greek tragedy that the theory is based on.

The writers of the Greek myths warn of what will happen if we break the taboo. If we embrace the depravity. Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides have all dramatised the story.

Most writing on Oedipus comes from the 5th century BC, and the stories deal mostly with Oedipus' downfall. Various details appeared on how Oedipus rose to power. Here is the outline of this powerful tale.

King Laius of Thebes, heard of the Sphinx’ prophecy that his son will kill him. Fearing the prophecy, Laius pierces his baby son’s feet and leaves him out to die, but a herdsman finds him and takes him away from Thebes. Years later, Oedipus, the grown up son, hears a similar prophecy, applied to himself, and not knowing he was adopted, leaves home in fear that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Laius, meanwhile, ventures out to find a solution to the Sphinx' riddle. As prophesised, Oedipus crossed paths with Laius and this leads to a fight where Oedipus slays Laius and most of his guards. Oedipus has killed his father. Oedipus then defeats the Sphinx by solving a mysterious riddle to become king. He marries the widowed queen Jocasta, not knowing she is his mother. After many years of prosperity and conjugal bliss, a plague falls on the people of Thebes. Upon discovery of the truth, Oedipus blinds himself and Jocasta hangs herself. After Oedipus is no longer king, Oedipus' sons kill each other.

Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King”, has the Chorus, screaming out Oedipus’ crime. The audience, having seen the horrific tragedy unfold, has been anticipating this moment.
“O Oedipus, name for the ages --
One and the same wide harbour served you
son and father both
son and father came to rest in the same bridal chamber.
How, how, could the furrows your father ploughed
Bear you, your agony, harrowing on
In silence O so long?

But now for all your power
Time, all-seeing Time has dragged you to the light,
Judged your marriage monstrous from the start --
The son and the father, tangling, both one --
O child of Laius, would to god
I’d never seen you, never never!
Now I weep like a man who wails the dead
And the dirge comes pouring forth with all my heart!”

Translation by Robert Fagles.

The Chorus laments Oedipus’ crime. Just because he didn’t know that Queen Jocasta was his mother, he is still guilty, and the Chorus damns him in their profound disgust. Jocasta hangs herself. Oedipus puts out his eyes with pins from her brooches.

“But Oedipus’ destiny still moves us, only because it might have been ours — because the Oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so.” Sigmund Freud. “The Interpretation of Dreams.” 1901

“In Freudian terms, we draw from the myth of Oedipus, designating attraction on the part of the child toward the parent of the opposite sex, and rivalry and hostility toward the parent of its own. It occurs during the phallic stage of the psycho-sexual development of the personality, approximately years three to five. Resolution of the Oedipus complex is believed to occur by identification with the parent of the same sex and by the renunciation of sexual interest in the parent of the opposite sex. Freud considered this complex the cornerstone of the superego and the nucleus of all human relationships.” WIKI

Fast forward millennia. “Brookside” 1996: A British Soap, famous for its challenges to our views. The incest storyline, in which brother and sister Nat and Georgia Simpson were discovered in bed together by their younger brother, is described by Phil Redmond, the producer, as “breaking the last television taboo.” It was so shocking an MP urged viewers to complain "in their millions".

One perceptive student says; “We tried to discuss the incest storyline with teachers at school. I think they were thoroughly disturbed by what we were watching as one encouraged us to watch "normal" television. I suppose she meant games shows.”

Another student says; “I think the problem with this storyline is that it came at era where society was just not ready. Not suggesting that they’re ready now, but consensual sex between family members back in the 90’s wasn’t seen as effective story-telling, let alone talked about. Now however, you have to look at the latest magazine on the shelf and there is probably some true life story about GSD (Genetic Sexual Disorder). As ludicrous as that sounds, it exists. Usually it’s contrived, so that the two people of the same genetic family meet as adults, not where they grew up together like Nat and Georgia did.”

Here’s the episode “Family Therapy” from the Soap, “Brookside”. Okay, it lacks the sophistication of Sophocles, and it certainly does not conform to Aristotle’s concept for tragedy as discussed in his “Poetics”, but in its way, it is more effective for today’s TV generation audience. It is more accessible.

As far as I can remember from the TV soap, Nat and Georgia move away from Brookside Close, to live out their lives happily and anonymously somewhere in the south of England.

Nothing adds that certain flavour to a storyline like a romantic or sexual attraction between siblings. Most of the time it may be merely implied, but sometimes it's laid out right in the open for the viewer to see. Its presence in a story usually adds a great deal of emotional intensity.

Frequently, actual incest is avoided through the device of siblings who aren't really — they're fostered, or step-sibs, or adopted. Thus, while in arbitrary terms of relationship they may be brother or sister, in "true" terms of blood they are not, and may pursue their chosen target with relative impunity. Often it's just an extreme version of the Childhood Friend Romance set up; male and female characters who normally couldn't cohabitate or possibly even interact normally with each other are 'forced' to but meet with an arbitrary contrivance preventing them from developing past it. The only difference is that the audience is more likely to accept the latter contrivance as believable.

Phil Redmond, the producer of “Brookside”, doesn’t shy away fro the issue, he tackles it head on. It is a consensual incestuous relationship -- Nat and Georgia, the brother and sister BOTH WANT to have sex with one another.

I found this on the Web. “Forbidden Love” Can sex between close relatives ever be acceptable? Johann Hari on the queasy issue of 'consensual incest.’ The Guardian newspaper, Wednesday 9th January 2002.

“The exponents of incest that we talked to in cyberspace were very keen to draw a distinction between "consensual incest" on the one hand and abuse, rape and paedophilia on the other. Consensual incest, we were told by "JimJim2" from Ontario, is “when two adults who just happen to be related get it on. You can't help who you fall in love with, it just happens. I fell in love with my sister and I'm not ashamed ... I only feel sorry for my mom and dad, I wish they could be happy for us. We love each other. It's nothing like some old man who tries to fuck his three-year-old, that's evil and disgusting ... Of course we're consenting, that's the most important thing. We're not fucking perverts. What we have is the most beautiful thing in the world.””

SWAN LAKE: ADVENTURES IN MOTION PICTURES

2011-09-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is a piece of ballet-influenced contemporary dance choreographed by Matthew Bourne that was first staged atSadler's Wells theatre in London in 1995. The longest running ballet in London's West End and on Broadway, it has enjoyed two successful tours in the UK and thrilled audiences in Los Angeles, Europe, Australia and Japan. The ballet is based loosely on the Russian romanticballet Swan Lake, from which it takes the music by Tchaikovsky and the broad outline of the plot. The ballet is particularly known for having the parts of the swans danced by men rather than women.

The ballet has proved enormously successful, with touring companies playing to sold-out houses around the world, and it has won a string of prestigious awards. The ballet was called "a miracle" in a Time Out New York review. However, Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake has also been rebuked by some who resent changes to the standard Russian classic. WIKI.

And I was lucky enough to see it! It is wonderful and witty -- I can understand why swans have been traditionally thought of as female, but after seeing this production, I’ve never though of swans as feminine again. Swans are about a lot of things -- loyalty, they have a lifetime partner, I believe. They may epitomise romance, but they are about raw power and masculine energy. I mean, have you ever seen a swan come up out of the water? They lose their elegance, they are clumsy, but they are truly terrifying. They are muscular and aggressively strong. I’ve heard it said, that they can break a man’s arm with their beating wings.

Here are some extracts from the ballet, and time in rehearsals. Also Matthew Bourne and some members of the cast, talking about the production.

FRANKENSTEIN

2011-09-09T04:30:00.001-07:00

“Frankenstein“; or, “The Modern Prometheus”, is a novel about a failed artificial life experiment that has produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823.

It is tempting to just talk about Mary Shelley’s great novel; I remember studying it at university and how, in seminars we delved into Freudian psychoanalytical readings; fathers and sons, constructs of identity, the importance of naming things.

The name "Frankenstein" – actually the novel's human protagonist – is often incorrectly used to refer to the monster itself. In the novel, the monster is identified via words such as "monster", "fiend", "wretch", "vile insect", "daemon", and "it"; Shelley herself called it "Adam".

But I want to talk about the science behind the novel, and where the eighteen year old Mary Shelley’s ideas came from.

Mary Shelley would have been aware of scientists’ obsession to create life. They wanted to probe the mysteries of life and master the life force. “Frankenstein” is a myth that grew out of that obsession; Scientists like Luigi Galvani, Giovanni Aldini, Andrew Ure and Conrad Dippel, made the myth a reality.

Just as Victor Frankenstein digs around in graveyards, stealing human body parts, so did the scientists. They raided tombs at dead of night, to steal a heart, a foot, a head.

Victor Frankenstein narrates;
"I collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame."

Another statement, “The dissecting-room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials:”

suggests that some elements of Frankenstein's creation may not be from human bodies.

It is gruesome -- it breaks several taboos, yet this is exactly what the scientists did to achieve their goal.

After creating the monster, which he animates using lightening, Frankenstein is repulsed by his creation.

The scientists of Mary Shelley’s day, didn’t use lightening to animate body parts, they used electricity, which they had learnt how to store in batteries. There are records of Luigi Galvani’s experiment using frogs’ legs. In 1791, he discovered that the muscles of dead frogs legs twitched when struck by a spark. According to popular version of the story, Galvani dissected a frog at a table where he had been conducting experiments with static electricity. Galvani's assistant touched an exposed sciatic nerve of the frog with a metal scalpel, which picked up a charge. At that moment, they saw sparks and the dead frog's leg kick as if in life. The observation made Galvani the first investigator to appreciate the relationship between electricity and animation — or life. This finding provided the basis for the new understanding that electrical energy (carried by ions), and not air or fluid as in earlier balloonist theories, is the impetus behind muscle movement. He is poorly credited with the discovery of bioelectricity. Bioelectricity is a field that still today studies the electrical patterns and signals of the nervous system. It is from Galvani’s name, that we made the word “galvanism”.

Shelley had travelled the region in which the story takes place, and the topics of galvanism and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, particularly her future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. The actual storyline was taken from a dream. Shelley was talking with three writer-colleagues, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori, and they decided they would have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for weeks about what her possible storyline could be, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made. Then “Frankenstein” was written.

Giovani Aldini was the nephew of Luigi Galvani. His scientific work was chiefly concerned with galvanism, anatomy and its medical applications, with the construction and illumination of lighthouses, and with experiments for preserving human life and material objects from destruction by fire. It is said he was a inspiration for Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein”. Indeed, Aldini’s experiments share a common ground with Frankenstein. Aldini also engaged in public demonstrations of the technique, such as on the executed criminal George Forster at Newgatein London.
Aldini also treated patients with personality disorders and reported complete rehabilitation following transcranial administration of electric current. Aldini's work laid the ground for the development of various forms of electrotherapy that were heavily used later in the 19th century. Even today, deep brain stimulation, a procedure currently employed to relieve patients with motor or behavioural disorders, owes much to Aldini and galvanism.

In 1818, the year that “Frankenstein” was published, Andrew Ure, the Scottish physician revealed experiments he had been carrying out on a murderer/thief named Matthew Clydesdale, after the man's execution by hanging. He claimed that, by stimulating the phrenic nerve, life could be restored in cases of suffocation, drowning or hanging.
“Every muscle of the body was immediately agitated with convulsive movements resembling a violent shuddering from cold. ... On moving the second rod from hip to heel, the knee being previously bent, the leg was thrown out with such violence as nearly to overturn one of the assistants, who in vain tried to prevent its extension. The body was also made to perform the movements of breathing by stimulating the phrenic nerve and the diaphragm. When the supraorbital nerve was excited 'every muscle in his countenance was simultaneously thrown into fearful action; rage, horror, despair, anguish, and ghastly smiles, united their hideous expressions in the murderer's face, surpassing far the wildest representations of Fuseli or a Kean. At this period several of the spectators were forced to leave the apartment from terror or sickness, and one gentleman fainted.”

Johan Conrad Dippel was born at Castle Frankenstein near Mühltal and Darmstadt and Mary Shelley is thought to have visited Castle Frankenstein. It seems likely that her visit to the castle influenced Shelley’s thoughts. There are also various rumours of grave robbing that lead to his association with the Frankenstein story.

Dippel’s experiments were the cause of speculation, in particular one rumour says that he performed gruesome experiments with cadavers in which he attempted to transfer the soul of one cadaver into another. Experiments with cadavers and soul-transference were common among alchemists at the time.

Dippel did, however, experiment quite frequently with dead animals, to which he was an "avid dissector".In his dissertation “Maladies and Remedies of the Life of the Flesh”, Dippel claims to have discovered both the Elixir of Life and the means to exorcize demons through potions he concocted from boiled animal bones and flesh.

As much as it is about contemporary advances in science, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and it is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results. It has had a considerable influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films.

And as for those real life mad scientists. Their ideas about electricity weren’t really so far fetched. Electro Convulsive Therapy is still used as a treatment for depression. And medics use the Heart Defibulator to treat patients suffering from cardiac arrest, by resetting the rhythm of the heart.

Literary Landmark Press: Our First Anthology, The Spirit of Poe

2011-09-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

Literary Landmark Press: Our First Anthology, The Spirit of Poe: The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore has lost its $80,000 per year funding from the City of Baltimore. Literary Landmark Pres...

The French Lieutenant's Woman; John Fowles

2011-09-02T04:44:00.000-07:00

The year is 1867. Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. Karl Marx was writing about “the alienation of labour”, in “The Communist Manifesto” in 1848. Minds were bending and changing. Opening up to new ideas. The Industrial Revolution in England, was at its height; productivity was booming. The old aristocracy was slowly dying. They didn’t know it yet, but they were. A new class was emerging, born out of “trade”; the upper middle class. Religious concepts were being radically rethought. So was the place of women in society and roles in marriage.

These new ideas formed the background to the work of Victorian writers and thinkers. We read about them in the novels of Charles Dickens, the Brontë’s, Robert Louis Stevenson and Wilkie Collins.

So do we really need another Victorian novel? Inspired by the mind of John Fowles, yes, I think we do. But “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” can’t be a Victorian novel; it was first published in 1969, just over one hundred years after the events it speaks of.

Fowles carefully crafts his novel to mimic the Victorian convention. Through this device, he is able to offer the reader a convincing nineteenth century story, with the perspective of twentieth century thinking.

After writing the first draft in about nine months, he spent the next two years revising, working line-by-line to create the illusion of Victorian prose and dialogue by lengthening sentences, deleting contractions and employing digressions. The result is a portrayal of England in 1867 that accurately captures various facets of the time—social conventions, class struggles, etc.—while at the same time mirroring the style of 19th century prose.

The novel's protagonist is Sarah Woodruff, the Woman in the title, also known by the nickname of “Tragedy”, and by the unfortunate nickname “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. She lives in the coastal town of Lyme Regis, as a disgraced woman, supposedly abandoned by a French naval officer named Varguennes—unknown to her he was married. Varguennes, has returned to France.

She spends her limited time off, at the Cobb [sea wall], staring out to sea. One day, she is seen there by the gentleman Charles Smithson and his fiancée, Ernestina Freeman, the shallow-minded daughter of a wealthy tradesman. Ernestina tells Charles something of Sarah’s story, and he develops a strong curiosity about her. Eventually, he and she meet clandestinely, during which times Sarah tells Charles her history, and asks for his support, mostly emotional. Despite trying to remain objective, Charles eventually sends Sarah to Exeter, where he, during a journey, cannot resist stopping in to visit and see her. At the time she has suffered an ankle injury; he visits her alone and after they have made love he realises that she had been, contrary to the rumours, a virgin. Simultaneously, he learns that his prospective inheritance from an elder uncle is in jeopardy; the uncle is engaged to a woman young enough to bear him an heir.

Sarah is portrayed ambiguously: is she a genuine, ill-used woman? Is she a sly, manipulative character using her own self-pity to get Charles to succumb to her? Is she merely a victim of the notion of gender as perceived by upper-middle-class people of the 19th century?

From there, John Fowles offers three different endings for The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

The novel includes several authorial intrusions, with omniscient narrator Fowles speaking directly to the reader about the mores of life in Victorian England and various possible outcomes for his characters.

Fowles uses “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” to meditate on the nature of individual freedom and freewill—and ultimately the price. He also considers the philosophical concept of freewill’s opposite; determinism. When Charles’ circumstances are drastically changed, the reader sees how Charles comes to face his desperate decisions. He is offered a variety of solutions to his predicament. Should he flip a coin? Do what he thinks is honourable? Is he a victim of circumstance; caught up in fate?

And just when the reader is getting caught up in Charles’ dilemma, Fowles deliberately disrupts the flow of concentration. He achieves this by frequently interrupting the narrative and drawing attention to the fictionality of the characters; they are creations of his imagination. How can we care so much about people who don't - who never have, or will - exist?

Classical realist descriptions are interposed with references to the time the narrator is narrating from; 1969. The author never lets you fall into the trap usually set by an omniscient narrator; he reminds you of his position as the author; he also reminds you of your position as a reader. The reader’s response is intrinsic to the novel. This comes most starkly into focus when the narrator begins to 'converse' with the reader on what should happen with the various characters. The final, and very well crafted piece of metafiction comes when the author appears in the same train carriage as a character, and expresses his desire to have alternative endings.

Fowles began the novel as an exercise in imitating nineteenth-century fiction, and thought it would be badly received, because it would seem too coldly intellectual; too cerebral. He was wrong - It is erudite and I think that it is his most successful artistic achievement. It has been adapted into a film starring Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep, with a screenplay by the playwright Harold Pinter.

John Fowles said of the film; "It looks good but it is somehow empty at the heart,"

Sadly, I discovered, while putting this post together, that John Fowles has died. He died on 5th November 2005, aged 79. Also in 2005,the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present.

The Raft of the Medusa

2011-08-26T04:03:00.000-07:00

Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings. Although he died young, he became one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement.

Born in Rouen, France, Géricault was educated in the tradition of English sporting art by Carle Vernet and classical figure composition by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, a rigorous classicist who disapproved of his student's impulsive temperament, but recognized his talent. Géricault soon left the classroom, choosing to study at the Louvre instead, where he copied from paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, Diego Velázquez, and Rembrandt for about six years, from 1810 to 1815. There he found a vitality which he preferred to the prevailing school of Neoclassicism. Much of his time was spent in Versailles, where he found the stables of the palace open to him, and where he gained his knowledge of the anatomy and action of horses. WIKI

Géricault was beautiful, controversial, supremely talented. He had an affair with his aunt. The pair had shared an intense bond since Géricault's boyhood, but by his twenties he had matured into an eye-catching figure.

His teacher Carle Vernet claimed he 'had never seen such a good-looking man ... his legs were, above all, superb': Alexandrine-Modeste clearly thought so too and aunt and nephew started an affair. In 1816 Géricault fled to Rome in an attempt to distance himself from the imbroglio but he was back within a year and in 1818 Alexandrine-Modeste gave birth to his son. It was, therefore, in a state of turmoil that he started work on The Raft of the Medusa.

“Théodore Géricault was the quintessential Romantic artist: he died young and in torment, leaving behind him one great masterpiece and the legend of a painter touched by both genius and madness. 'Suffering is real and pleasures are nothing but imaginary,' he said; it was an extraordinarily bleak outlook and what is truly terrifying is that he believed it.

The painting that made his reputation was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1819 as “The Scene of a Shipwreck”, but is universally known as “The Raft of the Medusa”. It tells the macabre story of one of the most notorious scandals of Restoration France: the abandonment on a jerry-built raft of 147 passengers and crew of the frigate Medusa when it came to grief off the coast of Senegal in 1816.

As the Royalist captain, officers and more well-to-do passengers headed for the shore in the ship's boats they cut the rope towing the raft, leaving those clinging to its planking to their fate. Provisioned with six barrels of wine, two of water and a sack of soggy biscuit, the castaways' ordeal lasted for 13 days, during which time they suffered from exposure, malnutrition, dehydration, mutiny, murder and, most thrillingly for the audience back in France, cannibalism.

When the raft was finally sighted there were only 15 skeletal survivors left and strips of flesh - human biltong - were hanging on the mast to dry. When the full story of the abandonment of the raft came to be known in France it became a liberal cause célèbre, the perfect example of the callousness of Royalist misgovernment.

Until the second decade of the 19th century, action painting in France—whether dealing with mythic, religious or historical events, and even if violent in content—often lacked real energy. In France, the gorgeous colours and symmetries of Poussin in the 17th century, the chiselled nobility of David in the late 18th and the austere beauty of Ingres at the start of the 19th, all gave way to the explosion of Romanticism. One painting, above all, might be said to have initiated the new movement: Théodore Géricault's ‘The Raft of the Medusa.’”
From the daily telegraph 1 April 2007
Michael Prodger

Géricault revolutionized the depiction of real events, taking for his subject a scandal only a few years old and "romanticizing" it. While the painter visited hospitals and morgues to study the moribund and cadavers, the figures on the raft here hardly look as though they have just suffered through dehydration, starvation, cannibalism and madness. They are muscular. Some are beautiful.

Today's viewer will probably respond less to this picture's political and historical relevance than to the drama of its composition. In terms of art history, it looks both backward and forward.

“"The Raft of the Medusa," while maintaining the symmetry of Poussin, changes painting once and for all. It is sculptural and architectural, but depicts no architecture. Two great overlapping triangles, suggesting both a ship's sails and the ocean's waves, define the space. They also contain 19 human figures (one barely visible, four others quite obscure) in various postures, combinations and stages of life: the living, the dying and the dead, old and young, black and white, male and—perhaps—female. Some have faces; others turn away from us. We can read the painting both from left to right and from bottom to top.

The picture represents a specific moment. The survivors have just sighted the Argus, the boat that will eventually rescue them but is now a speck on the horizon, actually passing them by. At the top, two men, one an African crew member, are waving banners, shirts or kerchiefs. The figures express a range of emotions, from eagerness and exultation to incredulity, despair, hysteria, resignation and apathy. Géricault's preliminary sketches (one smaller canvas hangs elsewhere in the museum) document the growth of his ambitions for the painting. The most shocking figure, absent from the earlier sketch, is a dead person on the lower right. Its gender is uncertain: Géricault used a male friend as his model, but the chest looks womanly. The head is outside the frame. We see primarily the person's midsection, with pubic hair exposed. Whoever this is, or was, has one leg still wrapped around a beam of the raft. Clearly the person will soon slip into the sea.

Another apparently dead youth has the beauty of a Greek sculpture. The most arresting figure, the only one staring straight out at the viewer, is an older, well-muscled man who supports the youth, perhaps his dead son. He looks like someone out of Michelangelo. His gaze suggests his transcendence of both hope and despair.

The painting's center has what seem to be cracklings or bubbles, which distort both the figures and their colour. The painter's use of bitumen on his palette came at a cost: This particular black appeared lustrous at first, but over time it created a wrinkling that cannot, according to the experts, be corrected.

If not as great a colourist as Delacroix, Géricault made an appropriate palette of deathliness. The picture's primary hues are sickly, pallid grey and yellow flesh tones, but there is a range of hues from alabaster to black. The colouring seems to work against the classic muscularity of the figures' bodies.

But there is more. Nature frames humanity. At the painting's bottom, top and sides, the waves and sky—in their colour and brush strokes both intense and delicate—compete with the humans for our attention. The planks of the raft, especially when viewed from up close, reveal delicate brushwork applied meticulously to reproduce the grain and colour of the wood. Flickers of light on the beams leaven the thick brown impasto.

First and last, there's action itself. Not just the waving gestures of the men at the top, but also the play of sea and light. The wind is blowing from right to left, against the tilt of the human action. The light shines from left to right. The two forces operate in perfect antithetical harmony. Géricault learned from Caravaggio all about chiaroscuro, and then went on to discover by himself a way of depicting human life and death in a painting that contains both natural tempestuousness and compositional calm. He has put pictorial symmetry at the service of ferocity. Two dimensions have never felt less flat.

Gericault’s preparations for the painting were meticulous: he befriended Alexandre Corréard, the Medusa's engineer who had survived the ordeal of the raft and who, with the ship's surgeon, Henri Savigny, had written a celebrated account of the shipwreck; he commissioned the ship's carpenter to build a scale model of the raft; and, most notoriously, in order to immerse himself in death he filled his studio with the heads and limbs of executed criminals borrowed from a nearby hospital. The paintings he made from these body parts are the most horrific still lifes in art, but also among the most beautiful.

The Raft of the Medusa itself is an enormous work, measuring more than 23 feet by 16: 7 meters by almost 5. To paint such a subject at such a size for the official Salon can be seen as a sign of political protest but it can also signal an artist who has lost all sense of what is appropriate.

The other pictures he was producing at this period - scenes of graphic sex and murder - also reveal a severely disturbed man. Within a couple of years he was painting portraits of inmates of a mental asylum, possibly as a fellow patient. Géricault was no clear-headed agitator but a man whose grip on reality was loosening.

Today, “The Raft of the Medusa” hangs, with other large canvases of that period, in one of the Louvre's grand galleries. It has darkened with time. Some of its figures are barely visible, and many details are occluded.”
From Willard Spiegelman’s essay; “Revolutionary Romanticism.”

Sadly, I haven’t seen Géricault’s painting.

SYNESTHESIA

2011-08-19T03:26:00.000-07:00

“Synesthesia is a condition in which one sense (for example, hearing) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight. Another form of synesthesia joins objects such as letters, shapes, numbers or people's names with a sensory perception such as smell, colour or flavour. The word synesthesia comes from two Greek words, syn (together) and aisthesis (perception). Therefore, synesthesia literally means ‘joined perception’.”
From Synesthesia for kids.

Synesthesia has intrigued me, ever since I first heard of the condition. The idea that the senses can merge. It doesn’t make sense, but if you think about it, it’s a concept that occurs regularly, as we think, talk, make out way around the world. We talk about feeling ‘blue’, when we are sad. We can be ‘red hot’, with anger -- denoting the emotional outburst, and the burning pain that shocks us when we touch something that is too hot. ‘A grey day’ for gloomy. ‘Green’ for a naïve person.

These are just examples I can think of quickly. There must be many more. I think that as writers, we use this spillage, and merging of the senses, without even thinking about it. We explore and plunder sensory experience, in order to communicate with our readers. I’m not saying that means that we are synesthetes, but the fact that we can understand the concept, even vaguely, and use it in our writing, even have a dialogue about it, means that maybe synesthesia is something that is inate within us; even though it may be hiding.

It is well known that our sense of smell is connected to memory. To this day, the scent of a certain type of polish, takes me back to a little hotel in Greece, a holiday some thirty years ago. They used the polish to clean the marble staircase. When I inhale the scent, I can feel the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the marble against my bare feet. I can hear the sound of the crashing Aegean sea; feel the salt water bathing my ankles.

Am I weird to think that ‘anxious’ looks worried? Or that exaggerate looks like something that is exaggerated. Perhaps I am weird, but I have talked to other people who have the same feelings about words. That the word on the page, looks like the emotion it conveys. I close my eyes when I have a facial massage and I see beautiful colours. Shimmering yellows, purple and blue. I see numbers when I listen to Bach and I know exactly what Kandinsky means with his colours and geometric shapes. And what Mondrian means with ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie. I can feel the heat and the beat, the rhythm and rumble of the city.

BROADWAY BOOGIE WOOGIE Mondrian

“One theory Kandinsky adopted was Theosophy, which proposes that creation is based on a geometrical progression starting from a single point. This contributed a lot to the forms and expressions of the Kandinsky paintings.

Pythagoras said that the earth was ruled by geometric shapes, as was all matter.

ABSTRACT KANDINSKY

Another inspiration for the famous Kandinsky paintings was Fauvism, a method that uses colours subjectively, for instance, to express the artist’s experience; and not objectively, ie. merely to describe the physical appearance of an object.”

KANDINSKY

“The Wassily Kandinsky paintings were influenced by, first and foremost, Kandinsky’s knowledge of and love for music and spirituality. When he was younger, Kandinsky played the piano and the cello. Remarkably, Kandinsky was able to relate his music and such terms as “harmony” into the Kandinsky paintings. Many people had difficulty understanding how Kandinsky was able to pull this off.”
Famous Kandinksky.net

I heard an anecdote about a man who had been totally blind from birth. He was asked; “What do you thing of when someone speaks of the colour red?” He replied swiftly; “The sound of a trumpet!”

I don’t know if that little anecdote has anything to do with Synasthesia, or if it is something else entirely -- but it is certainly intriguing. Here’s another; Perhaps you are completely convinced that Wednesdays are light red. Perhaps the letter “q” might be brown to you. To another person, “q” might be yellow. It appears that Synesthesia is entirely subjective and deeply personal.

"What would be truly surprising would be to find that sound could not suggest colour, that colours could not evoke the idea of a melody, and that sound and colour were unsuitable for the translation of ideas, seeing that things have always found their expression through a system of reciprocal analogy."

Charles Baudelaire

In “The Man Who Tasted Shapes,” by Richard Cytowic, his dinner host apologized, "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" He felt flavour also as a physical shape in his hands, and the chicken had come out "too round." This offbeat comment in 1980 launched Cytowic's exploration into the oddity called synesthesia. He is one of the few world authorities on the subject.

Sharing a root with anesthesia ("no sensation"), synesthesia means "joined sensation," whereby a voice, for example, is not only heard but also seen, felt, or tasted. The trait is involuntary, hereditary, and fairly common. It stayed a scientific mystery for two centuries until Cytowic's original experiments led to a neurological explanation—and to a new concept of brain organization that accentuates emotion over reason.

That chicken dinner two decades ago led Cytowic to explore a deeper reality that, he argues, exists in everyone but is often just below the surface of awareness (which is why finding meaning in our lives can be elusive). In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, far from being a mere curiosity, illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what is means to be human—a view that turns upside down conventional ideas about reason, emotional knowledge, and self-understanding.
From The MIT Press.

Perhaps synesthesia is a forgotten skill of long ago. Something, that as primitive people we had as part of our survival skills. I don’t know.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

2011-08-12T04:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, something snaps inside our heads. We become disconnected; we can’t find our way. We are lost. We may be confused, babble, see visions. Sometimes, people take us away. The world whispers about us; around us. People say that we are mad.
And it is madness that inhabits the world of Ken Kesey’s novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Not just madness, fear inhabits that world too.

I can’t claim, by a long way, to have read every novel written in the twentieth century, but I’ve read a helluva lot, and I really do believe that Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, published in 1962, is one of the finest. It’s startling in its originality; Kesey’s use of language is stunning in his poetic prose. He twists metaphor until it strains like tortured metal, and threatens to snap, and all the while, instantly, the reader knows exactly what Kesey is talking about. His novel deserves its reputation as a classic work of literature.

The narrative takes place in “the Big Nurse’s” ward in a mental institution. It sounds as if you are in for a tough read, but you’re not. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is funny, Kesey’s sharp sense of humour rescues the book from bleakness.

The novel is also poignant and ultimately heartbreaking.

The two main players in Kesey’s novel are McMurphy and “the Big Nurse;” Nurse Ratched.

Kesey has gravitas. His writing has dignity. Our emotions may be miniscule, set against the great profundities that human beings have to pit themselves against, but any writer who can make us think; “yes, I have felt like that too,” is worthy indeed.

Kesey demonstrates this understanding after McMurphy observes in the group therapy session, how the residents turn against Harding. “Pecking at him, like he was a wounded chicken”, all under the eye of Nurse Ratched and the doctor. McMurphy says that Nurse Ratched is a “Ball breaker” -- she sits with a small smile on her face as Harding is emotionally castrated.

The Chief describes Nurse Ratched;

“Her face is smooth, calculated, and precision made, like an expensive baby doll, skin like flesh coloured enamel, blend of white and cream and baby blue eyes, small nose, pink little nostrils -- everything working together except the colour on her lips and fingernails, and the size of her bosom. A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, putting those big womanly breasts on what would otherwise been a perfect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it.”

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is told in the first person, by Chief Bromden. The Chief is a patient on the Big Nurse’s ward. He has been there the longest of all the patients, and despite being considered a hopeless case, he has learnt to carve out a life for himself. He knows how to survive. The staff and patients all think that the Chief is mute; deaf and dumb. He isn’t; he can hear as well as anyone, and if he chose to, he could speak. Through the Chief, readers are treated to a cynical look at society and its rules. He refers to the authority figures in the book as “The Combine”, in reference to the mechanical way they manipulate individuals. The story is really a modern day parable about the abuse of power.

The Chief introduces us to the ward. We immediately understand that this is a domain of lost souls. People with no power, who at some time in their lives have had their grip on sanity slip, never to regain their footing.

Enter, Randle P. McMurphy.

Faking insanity to get out of prison for a battery charge, McMurphy immediately begins upsetting Nurse Ratched’s routines, embroiling the two in a power struggle. As an upbeat character, McMurphy easily convinces the other patients—including the stuttering Billy Bibbit, the effeminate Dale Harding and the germaphobic George Sorenson—to gamble, to vote to watch the World Series on TV, to take a fishing trip and to start questioning the demands of the hospital staff. McMurphy is a strong, but flawed character; one who, at times, struggles with the expectations he has manipulated and the consequences he has brought about.

McMurphy represents the freedom that the patients have voluntarily given up – and it is McMurphy who shows them how to find the courage to reclaim their place in the world.

When McMurphy first enters the ward, the thing that immediately distinguishes him, aside from his lack of fear, are his jokes. He laughs out loud at everything, and makes fun of everyone. Laughter is very rarely heard in the ward, and by not taking anything too seriously, McMurphy is able to exert power over it. He manages to avoid any sort of insult or invasion by making a joke of it. And laughter is something that men do. McMurphy’s gut wrenching belly laugh is absolutely male. The Chief notices McMurphy’s calloused hands; his sunburnt skin. McMurphy is a man; a concept that the men in the ward have forgotten. Even through the pervasive odour of hospital smells, the stench of incontinence, the Chief scents on McMurphy;

“…the man smell of dust and dirt from the open fields, and sweat, and work.”

McMurphy, having bet the rest of the men that he can get the Big Nurse to crack within a week, makes his first step by the use of a long joke. The Big Nurse is unable to fight back because it takes her by surprise. By making fun of her, he subverts her authority, and eliminates any power she might have over him.

McMurphy tells the other men jokes in an attempt to get them to laugh, but such an act smacks of rebellion, and the other men are unable to accomplish it. Laughter is equated with strength and an ability to not take everything seriously. It also means having an emotional reaction to something that isn't fear, an idea of which the men of the ward are terrified.

When for the first time, the men take part in the joke, pretending to be dangerous mental patients, they frighten the people around them into treating them with respect, giving the men a feeling of power. They become a team against the world, which they always were, but a team with an ability to actively fight back. For the first time, the joke is at the expense of the society that has terrorized them.

McMurphy laughs at seeing the men the way they are, both laughing at them and with them. He is able to survive for so long against the world that has destroyed the rest of them because he can laugh at it. He takes everything seriously by taking nothing seriously. He doesn't deny that there is pain and hardship, but he refuses to let that define and ruin him.

But McMurphy misunderstands the enormity of what he has taken on. He is playing a dangerous game. These men, really are people who are very ill. They are emotionally frail and while McMurphy reminds them of what it is like to have fun, there is danger ahead. And Nurse Ratched is a formidable foe.

The Chief muses;

"I thought for a minute there I saw her whipped. Maybe I did. But I see now that it don't make any difference.... To beat her you don't have to whip her two out of three or three out of five, but every time you meet. As soon as you let down your guard, as soon as you lose once, she's won for good. And eventually we all got to lose. Nobody can help that."

McMurphy slips up and shows the danger of constant jokes. The Big Nurse warns him of the possibility of a lobotomy, but instead of taking it seriously, he turns it into a joke about his testicles. McMurphy has no intention of backing down at this point, but by turning the warning into the joke, he increases the chances of it being acted upon.

Friday is the day that the men go to the X-Ray room to get checked up. While they wait, McMurphy notices another door and asks where it leads. Harding tells him that it goes to the Shock Shop, and explains the theory behind electro-shock therapy. Once again, it is revealed that the Big Nurse has the power to order such treatment as well as lobotomies. McMurphy realizes that it's the system that's behind everything, and tries to explain this to the rest of them; how even if they got rid of the Big Nurse, things wouldn't change, really. The men don't understand, and Harding finally admits that they've noticed that he's stopped fighting against the Nurse. McMurphy agrees, and tells them he realised he had as much to lose as the rest of them. Harding tells him no, McMurphy has more to lose, since all the Acutes are there voluntarily. McMurphy can't believe this, and he starts accosting all of them, until Billy Bibbit breaks down.

"'You think I wuh-wuh-wuh-want to stay in here? You think I wouldn't like a con-con-vertible and a guh-guh-girl friend? But did you ever have people l-l-laughing at you? No, because you're so b-big and so tough! Well, I'm not big and tough.'"

It’s the beginning of a downward spiralling tragedy, that for the Chief culminates in triumphant liberation, and ends in disaster for others.

McMurphy gets the doctor on his side, and they organise a fishing trip. It’s a chance to remind the men of who they are, outside the confines of the hospital. On the fishing expedition the patients laugh and feel complete humans again. This happens with McMurphy's guidance, his laughter booming in the face of chaos.

But later, all the men who went on the boat trip have to take a special shower, because Nurse Ratched thinks they might have caught some sort of bug. While they're in the shower, the black aides attack George, trying to get him to put on salve. George refuses, because of his neatness obsession and pathological fear of germs. McMurphy steps in to defend him, and he gets in a fight with the aides. The Chief helps throw them off, and the two of them get strapped down and sent up to “Disturbed”.

Things are dangerously out of control for McMurphy. This passage, where they are driving home from the fishing trip, stands out for me. The Chief narrates;

“Then -- as he was talking -- a set of tail-lights going past lit up McMurphy’s face, and the windshield reflected an expression that was only allowed because he figured it’d be too dark for anybody in the car to see, dreadfully tired and strained and frantic, like there wasn’t enough time left for something he had to do…While his relaxed, good natured voice doled out his life for us to live, a rollicking past full of kid fun and drinking buddies and loving women and barroom battles over meagre honours -- for all of us to dream ourselves into.”

This is a story of sacrifice. While the Chief and McMurphy are waiting for Electric Shock Treatment, Kesey sprinkles his prose with Christ images.

McMurphy arranges himself willingly on the table in a crucifix; arms outstretched, his ankles clamped together, he’s clamped down at the wrists.

“They put graphite salve on his temples. ‘What is it?’ he says. ‘Conductant.’ the technician says. ‘Anointest my head with conductant. Do I get a crown of thorns?’”

Electro Shock Treatment is an obscene ritual and Kesey tells it so casually and that’s what makes it so horrifying. It is only when the Chief describes McMurphy’s body arcing, as the volts slam through him, that the reader offers up a silent scream.

“…light arcs across, stiffens him, bridges him up off the table till nothing is down but his wrists and ankles…”

The Chief is brought back to the ward, and the rest of the men greet him like a hero. They ask him all sorts of questions about what's going on with McMurphy, and when he responds, no one thinks it odd that the Chief is talking now.

The Big Nurse sees that McMurphy's legend is growing, and while he's away he's just getting bigger and bigger, so she starts making plans to bring him back down. The men anticipate this, and work out a plan to get McMurphy out of the ward that Saturday, forgetting it's the day that McMurphy has set up for Billy's date with Candy. They tell their plans to McMurphy when he returns to the ward, but he refuses to leave until after that night. He says to consider it his going away party.

McMurphy bribes the night aide, Mr. Turkle, with the promise of “booze and broads“, in order to get him to open up a window that night. Candy is late, but when she arrives, she's got a friend with her, the woman, Sandy, who was supposed to be with her earlier at the boat trip. The group hides from the night supervisor, and proceeds to get drunk on the liquor the women brought with them, along with whatever medication Harding can get out of the cabinet. Billy and Candy eventually sneak off for some privacy, and Harding tries to get McMurphy to leave. McMurphy asks why the others don't come with him, but all of them need a little more time. He asks Harding what made them so scared. Harding isn't able to say, exactly, just that they were beaten down by the rest of the world for the things they did, and who they were, and that they didn't have the strength to fight back. McMurphy says that he's always had people bugging him, and it's never brought him down that much. Harding admits that this is true, but that he's figured out who drives strong people like McMurphy to weakness.

"'Yeah? Not that I'm admitting I'm down that road, but what is this something else?'
'It is us.' He swept his hand about him in a soft white circle and repeated, 'Us.'"

It's five am, and McMurphy decides to get some sleep before leaving. He says goodbye to Harding and the Chief, then settles into bed. All of them fall asleep and don't wake up till the black aides come on the ward at six-thirty.

Harding tries to get McMurphy to leave in the morning, but he claims that he's too drunk too move. When roll call shows that Billy is missing, the aides and the Big Nurse do a room check. They find him and Candy in bed in one of the rooms. Nurse Ratched is shocked, and keeps telling Billy how ashamed she is for him, but Billy doesn't seem to notice, just gets his clothes together and comes out into the hall. He responds to her questions without a stutter. However, the Big Nurse knows what buttons to push in the end. "'What worries me, Billy,' she said- I could hear the change in her voice- 'is how your mother is going to take this.'" Billy immediately panics. He begs Nurse Ratched not to call his mother, and when the nurse refuses, he starts to blame the fact that he was in bed with a woman on everyone else in the room, saying they made him do it. He is taken away to wait alone in the doctor's office.

All the men sit down in the day room, and they tell McMurphy that they don't blame him at all, they know it wasn't his fault. He just relaxes and looks like he's waiting for something. The doctor yells for the nurse from his office, and she and the aides go running. She comes back alone, and speaks directly to McMurphy. She tells him that Billy cut his throat with some instruments in the doctor's desk.

"'First Charles Cheswick and now William Bibbit! I hope you're finally satisfied. Playing with human lives- gambling with human lives- as if you thought yourself to be a God!'"

She goes back into her office. The Chief knows that McMurphy is going to do something, and at first he thinks to try and stop it; but then he realises that he can't stop it, because he and the rest of the men of the ward are forcing McMurphy to do it. They force him to get out of his chair and go over to nurses' station. He rips open the Big Nurse's shirt, revealing those too large breasts, and tries to strangle her.

When the doctors and aides rip him off her, he cries out. The Chief describes it as;

“A sound of cornered-animal fear and hate and surrender and defiance, that if you ever trailed coon or cougar or lynx is like the last sound the treed and shot and falling animal makes as the dogs get him, when he finally doesn't care any more about anything but himself and his dying.”

McMurphy’s fate is sealed. When he is returned to the ward, he has had a lobotomy. The mythology of McMurphy lives on. The men on the ward discuss whether this ruined spectacle is really him.

“After a minute of silence, Scanlon turned and spat on the floor. ‘Ah what’s the old bitch tryin’ to put over on us anyhow, for craps sake. That ain’t him.’”

“‘Nothing like him,’ Martini said.”

“‘How stupid she think we are?’”

The chief knows it is McMurphy and he tries to think of what McMurphy would have done.

“I was sure of only one thing: he wouldn’t have left something like that sit there in the day room with his name tacked on it for twenty or thirty years so the Big Nurse could use it as an example of what can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that.”

Nurse Ratched may think that she has won the game, but the Chief’s final actions before he leaves the ward, make it a hollow victory.

The title of the book is a line from a nursery rhyme.

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn,
Wire, briar, limber lock
Three geese in a flock
One flew East
One flew West
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.

Chief Bromden's grandmother sang this song to him when he was young, and they had a game about it.

The inspiration for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest came while working on the night shift (with Gordon Lish) at the Menlo Park Veterans' Hospital. There, Kesey often spent time talking to the patients, sometimes under the influence of the hallucinogenic drugs, with which he had volunteered to experiment. Kesey did not believe that these patients were insane, rather that society had pushed them out because they did not fit the conventional ideas of how people were supposed to act and behave. Published in 1962, it was an immediate success; in 1963, it was adapted into a successful stage play by Dale Wasserman; in 1975, Miloš Forman directed a screen adaptation, which won the "Big Five" Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Director (Forman) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman).

Kesey was originally involved in creating the film, but left two weeks into production. He claimed never to have seen the movie because of a dispute over the $20,000 he was initially paid for the film rights. Kesey loathed the fact that, unlike the book, the film was not narrated by the Chief Bromden character, and he disagreed with Jack Nicholson being cast as Randle McMurphy (he wanted Gene Hackman). Despite this, Faye Kesey has stated that Ken was generally supportive of the film and was pleased that it was made.

Thanks to Jan Vander Laenen, for suggesting Gustave Courbet's Le Désespéré to head this post.

OSCAR WILDE

2011-08-05T04:16:00.001-07:00

The sad case of Oscar Wilde is well documented, and has been told many times in films and television adaptations of his life. He was the archetypal darling of London society, but one of the first celebrities to be crushed by the British establishment.

Oscar was warned about courting controversy, by his fellow playwright George Bernard Shaw. It was a warning that Oscar should have heeded.

“Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the circumstances of his imprisonment, followed by his early death.

Wilde's parents were successful Dublin intellectuals, and their son showed his intelligence early by becoming fluent in French and German. At university Wilde read Greats; he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. He also profoundly exploredRoman Catholicism, to which he would later convert on his deathbed. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States of America and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art", and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde had become one of the most well-known personalities of his day.

At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, and combine them with larger social themes, drew Wilde to write drama. He wrote Salome (1891) in French in Paris but it was refused a licence. Unperturbed, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London.” WIKI

In 1884 Wilde married Constance Mary Lloyd (1858-1898) with whom he would have two sons; Cyril (1885-1915), who was killed during World War I, and Vyvyan (1886-1976).

The events that would bring Oscar Wilde to the Old Bailey began four years earlier in the summer of 1891 when Wilde, then thirty-eight years old, met a promising twenty-two-year old poet named Lord Alfred Douglas ("Bosie") at a tea party. The two became extremely close. Douglas took great pleasure in the interest shown in him by Wilde, already a major literary figure. Douglas called his elder companion "the most chivalrous friend in the world." Wilde saw in Douglas not only a lively intellect, but a young man with an Adonis-like appearance. Wilde made no secret of his interest. Douglas later said, " He was continually asking me to lunch and dine with him and sending me letters, notes, and telegrams." He also showered Douglas with presents and wrote a sonnet for him. They stayed together in each other's houses and in hotels, and went on trips together.

Lord Alfred Douglas "Bosie" was the son of John Douglas, 9th Marquis of Queensberry It was the beginning of a tumultuous relationship that would cause many problems for Oscar and eventually lead to his downfall. Alfred had a tempestuous relationship with his father which did not help matters. He disapproved of his son's lifestyle and when he learned of his openly living with Wilde, he set out to defame Wilde.

Lord Alfred Douglas

Queensberry was an arrogant, ill-tempered, eccentric and perhaps even mentally imbalanced Scottish nobleman best note for developing and promoting rules for amateur boxing (the "Queensberry rules"). Queensberry became concerned about his son's relationship with "this man Wilde." His concern was temporarily alleviated at the Cafe Royal in late 1892, when his son introduced him to the noted literary figure. Wilde charmed Queensberry over a long lunch with many cigars and liqueurs. By early 1894 Queensberry concluded that Wilde was most likely a homosexual and began demanding that his son stop seeing Wilde: "Your intimacy with this man Wilde must either cease or I will disown you and stop all money supplies,"

For the opening performance of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London the Marquis planned to publicly expose and humiliate Wilde. Oscar took legal steps to protect himself against the 'brute’.

Four days later at the Albemarle Club--a club to which both Wilde and his wife belonged, Queensberry left a card with a porter. "Give that to Oscar Wilde," he told the porter. On the card he had written: "To Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite”. Two weeks later Wilde showed up at the club and was handed the card with the offensive message. Returning that night to the Hotel Avondale, Wilde wrote to Douglas asking that he come and see him. "I don't see anything now but a criminal prosecution," Wilde wrote. "My whole life seems ruined by this man. The tower of ivory is assailed by the foul thing. On the sand is my life split. I don't know what to do."

The first serious problem for Wilde growing out of his relationship of Douglas came when Douglas, still a student in Oxford, gave an old suit to a down-and-out friend named Wood. Wood discovered in a pocket of the suit, letters written by Wilde to his youthful friend. Wood extorted £35 from Wilde for return of most of the compromising letters. Wilde later described the money as a gift to enable Wood to start a new life in America. Two other would-be blackmailers were given smaller amounts of money after returning the remaining letters.

However Oscar’s downfall came not from blackmailers, but from the Marquis of Queensbury, Bosie’s father.

Wilde, Douglas, and another long time friend named Robert Ross visited a solicitor, Travers Humphreys. Humphreys asked Wilde directly whether there was any truth to Queensberry's allegation. Wilde said “no”. Humphreys applied for a warrant for Queensberry's arrest. On March 2, Queensberry police arrested Queensberry and charged him with libel at the Vine Street police station.

Travers Humphreys asked Edward Clarke, a towering figure in the London bar, to prosecute Wilde's case. Before accepting the case, Clarke said to Wilde, "I can only accept this brief, Mr. Wilde, if you assure me on your honour as an English gentleman that there is not and never has been any foundation for the charges that are made against you." Wilde answered that the charges were "absolutely false and groundless." Wilde left Clarke's office to join Douglas for a quick trip to the south of France before the trial.

About a week before the trial was set to began at the Old Bailey, Wilde returned to London, where numerous close friends advised him to drop his libel suit. George Bernhard Shaw and Frank Harris, two well known friends of Wilde's from the literary world, pleaded with Wilde to flee the country and continue his writing abroad, possibly in more tolerant France. Douglas, who was also present at the luncheon with Shaw and Harris, objected. "Your telling him to run away shows that you are no friend of Oscar's," Douglas said, rising from the table. "It is not friendly of you," Wilde echoed as he departed the restaurant with his young friend.

On April 3, 1895, the first trial of Oscar Wilde--with Wilde in this case cheering the prosecution--began at Old Bailey. Queensberry, wearing a blue hunting stock, stood alone, hat in hand, in front of the dock. Wilde, wearing a fashionable coat with a flower in his button-hole, chatted with his attorney. Meanwhile, in another room in the building, a group of young men--gathered by Queensberry to substantiate his charge--laughed and smoked cigarettes.

Sir Edward Clarke delivered the prosecution's opening statement. Clarke's address impressed even Edward Carson, Queensberry's attorney, who said "I never heard anything to equal it in all my life." Clarke attempted to take some of the sting out of on key piece of evidence that Queensberry planned to introduce. He read one of Wilde's letters to Douglas that might suggest to many readers the existence of a homosexual relationship. Clarke admitted that the letter "might appear extravagant to those in the habit of writing commercial correspondence," but said it must be remembered that Oscar Wilde is a poet, and the letter should be read as "the expression of true poetic feeling, and with no relation whatever to the hateful and repulsive suggestions put to it in the plea in this case."

After brief testimony from Sidney Wright, the porter at the Albemarle Club, Wilde took the stand.

He began by lying about his age, which he said was thirty-nine (he was actually forty-one). Under questioning by Clarke, Wilde, with easy assurance, described his earlier encounters with--and harassment by--Queensberry. To Clarke's final question, "Is there "Is there any truth in any of these accusations [of Queensberry]?", Wilde answered: "There is no truth whatever in any of them." That afternoon the prosecution closed its case without calling, as was widely expected, Lord Alfred Douglas as a witness. No testimony that Douglas might give, no matter how forceful, could save Wilde's case.

When Carson announced, in his opening speech in defence of Queensberry, that he intended to call to the witness box a procession of young men with whom Wilde had been sexually associated, the atmosphere in the courtroom became tense. Edward Clarke understood his client was in serious personal danger. An 1895 Act, the Criminal Law Amendment Act, had made it a crime for any person to commit an act of "gross indecency." The Act had been interpreted to criminalize any form of sexual activity between members of the same sex.

After trial that evening, Edward Clarke met with his famous client. "When I saw Mr. Wilde," Clarke later recalled, "I told him it that it was almost impossible in view of all the circumstances to induce a jury to convict of a criminal offence a father who was endeavouring to save his son from what he believed to be an evil companionship." Clarke urged Wilde to allow him to withdraw the prosecution and consent to a verdict regarding the charge of "posing." Wilde agreed, and the next morning Clarke rose to announce the withdrawal of the libel prosecution.

Queensberry's solicitor, meanwhile, had forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions copies of statements by the young men they had planned to produce as witnesses. At 3:30 p.m., an inspector from Scotland Yard appeared before Magistrate John Bridge, to request a warrant for the arrest of Oscar Wilde. Bridge adjourned the court for an hour and a half, apparently to give Wilde time to make his escape from England on the last train to the Continent.

Wilde, however, had lapsed into "a pathetic state of indecision." Meeting with Douglas and his old friend Robert Ross at the Cadogan Hotel, Wilde wavered back and forth between staying and fleeing until, he said, "The train has gone--it is too late." When Wilde learned from a journalist calling at the hotel that a warrant had been issued, Wilde went "very grey in the face." He sat quietly in his chair drinking glass after glass of hock and seltzer. Soon Wilde's name was removed from the advertisements at playbills at the St. James Theatre, where The Importance of Being Earnest was still being performed.

The first criminal trial of Oscar Wilde opened at Old Bailey on April 26, 1895. Wilde and Alfred Taylor, the procurer of young men for Wilde, faced twenty-five counts of gross indecencies and conspiracy to commit gross indecencies. A parade of young male witnesses for the prosecution testified regarding their roles in helping Wilde to act out his sexual fantasies. Although Wilde was not prosecuted for sodomy, there was little doubt by the end of the trial that he might have been. Almost all of them expressed shame and remorse over their own actions, and Wilde seemed to be left conflicted by their testimony. (Later Wilde compared his encounters with "feasting with panthers." Wilde wrote that "the danger was half the excitement.") On the fourth day of trial, Wilde took the stand. His arrogance of the first trial was gone. He answered questions quietly, denying all allegations of indecent behaviour. The most memorable moment of the trial came in Wilde's response to a question about the meaning of a phrase in a poem of Lord Alfred Douglas. Prosecutor Charles Gill asked, "What is 'the Love that dare not speak its name'?" Wilde's response drew a loud applause--and a few hisses:

"The love that dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as the "Love that dare not speak its name," and on account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so the world does not understand. The world mocks it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.”

The jury deliberated for over three hours before concluding that they could not reach a verdict on most of the charges (the jury acquitted Wilde on charges relating to Frederick Atkins, one of the young men with whom he was accused of having engaged in a gross indecency.) On May 7, Wilde was released on bail to enjoy three weeks of freedom until the start of his second criminal trial.

The Liberal government determined to go all-out to secure a conviction in Wilde's second trial, even when people such as Queensberry's attorney Edward Carson were urging, "Can you not let up on this fellow now?" There is much speculation about the government's aggressive position on the Wilde case. Prime Minister Rosebery was suspected of having had a homosexual affair, when he was Foreign Minister, with Francis Douglas, another one of Queensberry's good-looking sons. It was shortly after Francis Douglas was "killed in a hunting accident" (probably a suicide), that Queensberry went on the rampage against Oscar Wilde. There is plausible evidence in the form of ambiguous letters to conclude that Rosebery was threatened with exposure by Queensberry or others if he failed to aggressively prosecute Wilde. It is interesting to note that during the two months leading up to Wilde's conviction, Rosebery suffered from serious depression and insomnia. After Wilde's conviction, his heath suddenly improved.

Corruption in politics? Surely not. But it is thought by many, that only enormous pressure from the establishment kept Rosebery's name out of the Wilde trial and kept a serving British Prime Minister from ending up in the dock himself, a trial which would have eclipsed even the trials of Oscar Wilde.
From; Callum James blogspot

Wilde's second prosecution was headed by England's top prosecutor, Solicitor-General Frank Lockwood. Although the trial resembled in many way the first, the prosecution dropped its weakest witnesses and focused more heavily on its strongest. Lockwood had the last word in the trial, and used it to offer what Wilde described as an "appalling denunciation [of me]--like something out of Tacitus, like a passage in Dante, like one of Savonarola's indictments of the Popes of Rome."

After over three hours of deliberation, the jury returned its verdict: guilty on all counts except those relating to Edward Shelley. Wilde swayed slightly in the dock; his face turned grey. Some in the courtroom shouted "Shame!" while expressed their approval of the verdict.

The Wilde trials caused public attitudes toward homosexuals to become harsher and less tolerant. Whereas prior to the trials there was a certain pity for those who engaged in same-sex passion, after the trials homosexuals were seen more as a threat. The Wilde trials had other effects as well. They caused the public to begin to associate art and homo eroticism and to see effeminacy as a signal for homosexuality. Many same sex relationships seen as innocent before the Wilde trials became suspect after the trials. People with close same sex relationships grew anxious, concerned about doing anything that might suggest impropriety.

Wilde served two years in prison, the last eighteen months being spent at Reading Gaol. He came out chastened and bankrupt, but not bitter. He told a friend that he "had gained much" in prison and was "ashamed on having led a life unworthy of an artist."

Adopting the name Sebastian Melmoth, Wilde went to Paris, penniless, and is said to have reunited with his friend and lover of many years, Canadian journalist Robert Baldwin "Robbie" Ross (1869-1918), who was also executor of Wilde's estate. He took up residence in the Hôtel d'Alsace on rue des Beaux-Arts. On his deathbed, Ross by his side, Wilde was baptised into the Roman Catholic Church and received Extreme Unction. Oscar Wilde died of meningitis on 30 November 1900. He now rests in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris; Ross' ashes were added to the angel-adorned tomb in 1950.
Oscar’s trial notes are from; Douglas O. Linder
The Trials of Oscar Wilde:

“All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences of death; and three times have I been tried. The first time I left the box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the house of detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.”--"De Profundis"

SOUTH PARK

2011-07-29T04:24:00.000-07:00

I think that South Park is one of the great satires of our time. It is in the tradition of Swift and Hogarth, and the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, in commenting, and ridiculing contemporary events and figures. We need satire to remind us that those high up on the social scale, whether they are Kings and Queens, Politicians or just adults in authority, are the same as us, the regular mortals out on the street. Kings and Queens piss, shit, fart and throw up; they are no different to us and satire nudges us, to remind us of this undeniable fact.

For satire to work, it has to be immediate, and with true dedication to the genre, episodes of South Park are typically written and produced during the week preceding the show’s broadcast.

South Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humour that lampoons a wide range of topics. The ongoing narrative revolves around four boys—Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick—and their bizarre adventures in and around the town of South Park.

Parker and Stone, who met in college, developed the show from two animated shorts they created in 1992 and 1995. The latter became one of the first Internet viral videos, which ultimately led to its production as a series. South Park premiered in August 1997 with great success, consistently earning the highest ratings of any basic cable program. Subsequent ratings have varied, but the show remains Comedy Central's highest rated and longest running program. Originally produced by cutout animation, each episode is now created with computer software that emulates the show's distinct style. After the first couple of seasons, Parker became the only credited director, and the only writer for the majority of the past four seasons. As of 2011, a total of 216 episodes have aired during the show's fifteen seasons. Parker and Stone are under contract to produce 14 new episodes in 2011. The fifteenth season premiered on April 27, 2011.

I want to look at the episode where the show’s writers lampoon religion. It is Jesus vs. Satan.

"Damien" is the eighth episode of the first season of the animated television series South Park. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on February 4, 1998. In the episode, the boys' class is joined by a new student named Damien, who has been sent by his father Satan to find Jesus and arrange a boxing match between the two. The majority of South Park residents bet on Satan to win the match due to his enormous size and muscular physique, but Satan ultimately throws the fight and reveals he bet on Jesus, thus winning everybody's money.
The episode was written by series co-founders Trey Parker and Matt Stone, along with writer Brian Graden. It was directed by Parker, and was rated TV-14-LV in the United States for strong to extreme language & bloody violence. The episode serves as a satire on religion, faith and the nature of good and evil, as well as a commentary on commercialism, the cult of celebrity in America and the nature of children. It was originally written as a Christmas special, but the original broadcast was pushed forward when Parker and Stone decided instead to make "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" the season's holiday episode.

"Damien" received generally positive reviews and was viewed by 3.2 million households when it was first broadcast, making it the highest rated cable program the week it aired. The episode marked the first appearance of Satan, who would become a recurring South Park character, as well as the character of Damien himself, who was inspired by the antagonist of the 1976 horror film, The Omen. Parker and Stone also said the episode introduced several key characteristics of the Cartman character that have endured throughout the rest of the series. Michael Buffer, the boxing ring announcer best known for the catchphrase, "Let's get ready to rumble!", makes a guest appearance in "Damien" as himself.

Then there’s the “chickenpox” episode, where the boys take revenge on their parents for trying to get the kids infected with chickenpox.

In this episode, chickenpox begins to spread throughout South Park, and infects Stan's sister Shelley and Kenny; though the boys are not sickened by it (it is a form of herpes, they discover), the moms begin to think that maybe the other boys should be exposed to it too, so as to get it while they are young and it is easier to deal with. They agree, and the other boys stay over at Kenny's house. The boys are less than enthusiastic about spending the night over at Kenny's because he is so poor. The dinner is a meagre waffle per person with no side dishes. The next day, Cartman and Stan get sick, but not Kyle. Stan's chickenpox gets so bad he has to be brought to the hospital with Shelley.

Stan breaks out of the hospital, and all of the boys go to try to get revenge on the adults for what they did; they do this unaware that Stan is so sick that he might die. The parents begin a frantic search, while the boys go see Old Frida, a local prostitute with herpes in her mouth, who they pay to go to their homes and lick, touch and otherwise mess with the parents' stuff to give them all herpes. The parents find them and bring them back to the hospital; at this point Kyle finally falls ill and passes out on the floor, making Sheila realize what a horrible thing she has done.

All the boys wind up in the hospital, and the parents get herpes, which they agree was a fair idea for what they tried to do. They all have a laugh about it.
"Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" is the fourth episode of first season of the animated television series South Park. It originally aired on September 3, 1997. The episode was written by series co-founders Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and directed by Parker. In this episode,Stan's dog, Sparky, is assumed to be gay after humping a rival male dog. Bowing to social pressure, Stan tries to make him more masculine, and as a result, Sparky runs away and ends up at Big Gay Al's Big Gay Animal Sanctuary. Stan comes to understand homosexuality and tries to make everyone in South Park accept it.

"Big Gay Al's Gay Boat Ride" addressed open homosexuality in a way that was uncommon for television at the time, which created some anxiety among Comedy Central executives. The network initially objected to offensive remarks made by sports commentators in the episode, but the comments were kept in at the insistence of Parker and Stone. George Clooney made a guest appearance as Sparky, a throwaway part with no dialogue except for dog barks.
SPARKY

The episode marked the first appearance of Big Gay Al and generally received positive reviews for its portrayal of homosexuality. Creators Stone and Parker considered it their favourite episode of the first season, noting that it helped elevate the credibility and relevance of South Park during its early days. It was nominated for both an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program and a GLAAD Award, and was the episode submitted when South Park won a CableACE Award for outstanding animated series.

Due to restrictions on copyright, I am unable to download any episodes, or clips from South Park; but here are the two writers, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, talking about it.

AMY WINEHOUSE

2011-07-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

A little tribute to Amy Winehouse who died today.

DELIVERANCE.

2011-07-22T03:07:00.000-07:00

We’ve forgotten about the old gods, the gods of the wind and oceans; the forests and rivers. But if we’ve forgotten about them, they haven’t forgotten about us. They just choose to ignore us; but they are watchful in their slumber. Sometimes, perhaps, the old gods dream of us.

The problem with the old gods, is that when they decide to take their drowsy action, they are not at all discerning. They don’t really care who gets in the way; and why should they? As far as they are concerned, we’re none of us innocent. They don’t answer questions, those old gods; the judgement is final and if the little people get in the way, it’s too bad.

An atrocity is occurring and as usual, mankind is at the bottom of it. Mankind is damming the beautiful Cahulawassee River. Mankind, in the form of the power company, is going to turn the beautiful river, with its rapids, woodlands and panoramic views, into a dull, flat lake.

It will be a rape; a desecration. It is sacrilegious.

“Deliverance”, really is one of the great suspense films. And without being too fanciful, I do have that chilling sensation that something else is at work here. Whether that something else, is a manifestation of those old, primitive gods taking vengeance, or simply a group of city guys totally out of their depth, in the face of a world where the normal rules of civilisation don’t apply, I don’t know. But you do get the feeling that you need to keep looking over your shoulder. Maybe it’s the camera angles, maybe it’s the use of light and shade. But the hair stands up on the back of your neck; a primal reaction to the something that is creeping up behind you.

It’s been a while since I first saw it, but I watched John Boorman’s 1972 film, of James Dickey’s novel, “Deliverance”, last week. I hadn’t forgotten how good it is, but I had sort of forgotten about some memorable performances and stunning direction. I needed to remind myself of the chilling impact that the film had on me when I first saw it.

We join “Deliverance” at the point where four friends plan on a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River. The four are in high spirits; there is a sadness that the beauty that they see before them, will soon disappear, but apart from Lewis, a weekend “survivalist”, played by Burt Reynolds, they bow to the inevitable.

In his review of “Deliverance”, Steve Rhodes informs;
“The movie opens disarmingly as Drew, played by Ronnie Cox, plays a good-spirited, impromptu duet with a young, backwoods, mountain boy playing his banjo. This hauntingly tranquil banjo music will reappear periodically during the film, as will scenes of the placid sections of the river. And there will be peaceful shots of roaring campfires and of the river at twilight, all to provide sharp contrast to the horror of their journey.

Different rules apply, out in the wilds of Georgia; they are far away from the tame influence of modern civilisation. Ironically that's exactly the quality that attracts the four urban businessmen of James Dickey's novel, the chance to pit themselves against Nature. Of course what they want is not actual risk but its semblance, a taster sharp enough to remind them that they're alive”.

Anything could happen -- and does.

Steve Rhodes continues;
“It's a palpable sensation, a horror so intense you want to curl into a foetal ball. The cast really does a superb job of communicating their terror, the certainty that they're mixed up in something beyond their comprehension. Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight, as Ed, take the ultimate honours in this, modulating themselves through the full gamut of emotion, moving from excitement to happiness to panic to grim desperation. Yet at the same time “Deliverance” never loses sight of their roots, the cultural decency that becomes something of a liability in this sort of situation. Ned Beatty, as Bobby Trippe and Ronnie Cox very nearly attain the same heights, with the former, central to one of the most harrowing scenes in any '70s film. Several times Boorman leaves you open-mouthed in shock, stunned at the enormity of what you're witnessing, yet the actors are good enough to make the material hit home without numbing. This is a world turned upside-down and they're living through it.

In his review, Damian Cannon tells us;
“Dickey's narrative is carefully structured for maximum impact, an effect enhanced in Deliverance by Tom Priestley's well-judged editing. The pace picks up with the film's memorable banjo duel and never lets up, not once. The characters are supremely ordinary and the cast, in a fine acting style, makes them believably naive. Thrust into the real-life Tallulah Gorge, the peril that they're in, barely seems fictional, thanks to the awesome camerawork of Vilmos Zsigmond. In his hands the river springs to life, toying with these unwise canoeists, pondering whether it should be merciful or merciless. Around these four there is scenery of intense hue and shade, a backdrop mighty enough to awe a brave man into weeping; yet they don't see it, so consumed are they by the desire to survive. It seems as though the hellish ordeal will never end, and in some ways it never does.

From start to finish, “Deliverance” is a film of rare power, focused towards a single end. It throbs with tension and fear, a reaction to the forces arrayed against our weekend paddlers. As the drama unfolds, Dickey skilfully guides you into contact with the characters, understanding their motivations. The four, Lewis and Ed leading, are well balanced, providing everything that the film requires. Merely watching them paddle, gaining confidence from their rapid-shooting success, is a delight. When the hillbilly conflict arrives, from the merest bad timing, it propels the film onto another level; yet the battle is mostly psychological, there's barely any contact between the two sides. This is where John Boorman's direction astonishes, in his conjuring of menace from thin air. He doesn't need to show us the danger, only the suggestion”.

1972 is a long time ago, but “Deliverance” is still an important, iconic film. Its indictment is profound and powerful. The accusation makes us tremble, because we know that we are all guilty.

“In 2008, “Deliverance” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.” WIKI

Matricide; Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme

2011-07-15T03:52:00.000-07:00

They were just children; yet on the 22nd July 1954,in Christchurch New Zealand, Pauline Parker, aged 16, and Juliet Hulme, aged 15, committed the most heinous of crimes. They murdered Pauline’s mother. Honora Rieper.

That morning Honora had gone for a walk through Victoria Park with her daughter Pauline Parker, and Pauline's best friend, Juliet Hulme. Approximately 420 feet (130 m) down the path, in a wooded area of the park near a small wooden bridge, Hulme and Parker bludgeoned Honora Rieper to death with half a brick enclosed in an old stocking. After committing the carefully planned murder, the two girls fled, covered in blood, back to the tea kiosk where the three of them had eaten only minutes before. They were met by Agnes and Kenneth Ritchie, owners of the tea shop, whom they told in a horrified panic that Honora had fallen and hit her head. The body of Honora Rieper was found by Kenneth Ritchie. Major lacerations were found about Honora's head, neck, and face, with minor injuries to her fingers. Police soon discovered the murder weapon in the nearby woods. The girls' story of how Honora was killed by a fall quickly fell apart.

These two young women had a relationship that could be based on adolescent "folie a deux". They supported their instabilities by their closeness to each other.

Pauline was dark and brooding while Juliet was bright and intelligent. They both thought they were superior to all people.

There are two key points as to why they murdered Mrs Parker. One was a scheme to save money and go to the United States to sell their novels. The second was that Juliet's father planned to move to South Africa and separate the two. Pauline's mother refused to let her go with Juliet and her family. The girls were determined not to be separated.

Violent death was rare in conservative Christchurch. The girls’ story, that the mother of one of them, Honora Parker, had fallen and repeatedly banged her head, soon disintegrated; her injuries were too horrific. A bloodied half-brick and a lisle stocking were found nearby and quickly established as the murder weapon. Pauline Parker’s diary was found immediately by the police and detailed their plans for the crime.

The case brought together several disturbing elements - females who stepped outside the expected gender role by becoming perpetrators, rather than victims of a violent crime, and the frightening prospect of young girl delinquents as killers.

Other entries in Pauline’s diary suggested a sexual relationship between the girls, and this helped to establish the crime as one linking the twin spectres of lesbianism and murder.

The class-difference between the girls was an important element of the trial, though not referred to in modern terms. Juliet was the elder child of Hilda Hulme, a vice-president of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Dr Henry Hulme, rector of Canterbury University College, while Pauline’s father, Herbert Rieper, ran a fish-shop, and was legally married to another woman. (Honora and Herbert had lived together for 23 years and the whole family including Pauline were known as Rieper until the trial.). Pauline was the second of three daughters. (A firstborn son had died as a baby, and the third daughter had Down’s Syndrome.)

The two elements of Pauline’s diary on which attention has focussed since selected entries were presented at the trial are the gangster-movie tone in which they planned the killing ("moider") and the sexual relations between the girls. A passage about the girls re-enacting lovemaking between famous (heterosexual) couples was a particular favourite of the tabloids. (It reappeared in a New Zealand womens’ magazine in 1997.)

There is no doubt the girls found solace in each being an outsider. (Juliet’s family was atypical for its day, her mother’s lover Walter Perry - a former marriage guidance client - living in the house with them while they preserved a mask of respectability.

Pauline’s household was crowded with family and boarders; privacy was an issue.) Their friendship was correspondingly passionate and mutual, but whether it can be called lesbian as we now understand the term is a matter of opinion. It was certainly depicted as lesbian in the courtroom by both the prosecution and the defence, and entered New Zealand mythology on homosexuality as a cautionary tale with which to warn women, and especially young girls, of the possible consequences of such "unnatural" relationships.

Both girls did a good deal of creative writing both separately and together, which the defence tried to use as a proof of their insanity. In particular, defence psychiatrist Dr Reginald Medlicott fastened on an unusual entry where Pauline wrote that they had had a visionary experience together on Good Friday, 1953, at Port Levy, in which they found "the key to the fourth world" where they would go when they died.

Soon after Juliet found her mother in bed with Perry, the Hulme household collapsed. Dr Hulme was asked to resign as rector and the Hulmes decided to divorce. Juliet was to be sent to South Africa to stay with an aunt while her brother Jonathan went with his father to England. The Reipers were relieved that the girls were to be separated, but Pauline wrote in her diary that Hilda Hulme encouraged her to believe that she could go with them to England. The impending separation was presented by both defence and prosecution as the motive for the killing. The book "Parker & Hulme: a Lesbian View" explores other possibilities. The trial was a cause célèbre with crowds packing every session.

“The defence conceded the fact of the killing, but attempted to prove the girls "mad"; the prosecution that they were just "bad". Dr Medlicott diagnosed chronic delusional insanity - paranoia. Local psychiatrist Dr Maurice Bevan-Brown was to publish a paper (without ever having seen the girls) diagnosing "Pathological Character Trait". ("Homosexuality in late adolescence is always a sign of emotional immaturity," he wrote.) Dr Kenneth Stallworthy for the prosecution disputed that homosexuality and paranoia were closely related.

In the event, both prosecution and defence agreed that the girls failed the 19th century test for legal insanity - they knew the nature and quality of their act: "they knew what they were doing and they knew that it was wrong."

It took the jury less than three hours to find both girls guilty of murder. Since they were under 18, they could not be sentenced to death, so they were imprisoned "during Her Majesty’s pleasure."

The real significance of the case in New Zealand is the negative attitudes it created about lesbians, especially for teenage girls, for many years afterward. Throughout New Zealand, but especially in Christchurch, the mythic link between "lesbian" and "killer" had been re-affirmed. This affected not only heterosexuals, but also young lesbians’ attitude toward themselves, creating the fear that any hostility they might feel towards their mothers was their own share of the Parker-Hulme "pathology". Any girl who seemed more than usually attracted to a friend was likely to fill her parents with fear. Others, however, were beneficially alerted by the case to the existence of other lesbians.”

From: Queer History, New Zealand;
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender;
New Zealand History.

Juliet Hulme is now called Anne Perry. She lives in a small Scottish fishing village and is a best selling U.S. author, who writes mystery books. She has had no contact with Pauline Parker since their conviction, nearly 40 years ago, which was a condition of their sentence. She says she has tried to forget what happened and as a mature woman, believes she has long since paid her dues.

I cannot find out what has happened to Pauline Parker.

BLACK SWAN

2011-07-08T04:25:00.000-07:00

<a href='http://video.msn.com?vid=2559f6cd-cb37-4e51-a755-6216e598f1bd&mkt=en-gb&src=FLPl:embed::uuids' target='_new' title='Black Swan Exclusive International Trailer' >Video: Black Swan Exclusive International Trailer</a>

“Fantastically deranged at all times, Darren Aronofsky's ballet psycho-melodrama is a glittering, crackling, outrageously pickable scab of a film.”

Peter Bradshaw writing in The Guardian newspaper. Thursday 20 January 2011 14.59 GMT

Nina Sayers is a young ballerina. Played by Natalie Portman, she is ethereal, stunningly beautiful, fragile, vulnerable, inexperienced, naïve and just slightly psychotic. She is also fearful. Fearful of her own body and fearful of letting go. She has to let go; if she is to dance the role that she, and other ballerinas dream of, she must strip away the façade, break down the wall she has erected around herself and dig deep into her psyche. She has to find the raw sexual urgency to dance the counterpart of the white swan. She has to become the black swan.

Nina is in a perpetual state of anxiety; she hallucinates; she fears that her reflection in the mirror continues to stare at her, after she has turned away. She is teetering on the edge of mental collapse. Real screaming madness isn’t far away. Her art is her life, as she strives to perfect her dance. Yet her mind and body seem to be in collaboration against her. She has an ugly skin irritation on her shoulder, brought about by unconscious self harming. The skin irritation is a physical manifestation of the state of her mind.

The sharp images of the phallus in the “Black Swan” emphasise Nina’s fear of penetration. These images are shown in shards of broken glass, and a dangerous nail file. Then there is the overwhelmingly male svengali figure, Thomas Leroy, played by Vincent Cassel, the director of the ballet company. He also signifies the phallus. Nina fears his charisma, his maleness, she is drawn to him, she fears being supplanted in his affections.

Rehearsals progress; the need for perfection is intoxicating; but still she cannot access the darker, sensual side of her psyche. She has to release herself. She has to possess the virginal grace of the White Swan, but also the elemental passion of the Black Swan.
Nina, Thomas Leroy believes, lacks the latter; she is too poised, too much in control.

Thomas Leroy tells her, to go home and touch herself.

Her fears of sensual experience, are compounded by her toxic relationship with her mother, played by Barbara Hershey. Nina’s mother has done her utmost to keep her daughter a little girl. Nina’s bedroom is girlish, it is overwhelmingly pink; filled with stuffed toys and a music box that plays the theme from Swan Lake.

Nina’s visual hallucinations are expressed through the many mirrors of the dance studio. Her image is constantly thrown back to herself and the viewer. Her anxieties about whether she’s good enough; her growing paranoia that another dancer, the more naturally expressive Lily (Mila Kunis), is plotting to take her role. The borderline-schizophrenia is induced by the doubleness of her character; soon she’s not so much untethered as unhinged. The viewer shares Nina’s jittering anxiety.

I wanted to enjoy “Black Swan”, but I did find it rather predictable. From the beginning of the film, the viewer recognises Nina as a troubled personality. Nina sees her doppelgänger, she self mutilates. The pressures on her are intense as she tries to please her controlling mother and strives to satisfy her demanding director. Her move towards complete mental breakdown is inevitable; the viewer sees this and knows that the eventual outcome will be tragic.

“Freud said that meeting one’s doppelgänger in life or in dreams produces sensations of the uncanny, but isn’t one double enough? This movie has three sets: there’s also the washed-up ballerina (played, in a cruel bit of casting, by Winona Ryder) who previously danced the role, and whom Nina tries to emulate, as well as replace. Actually, there are four, if you count Nina’s mother, with whom Nina shares a clammily intimate relationship and the same pulled-back hair and clenched manner.”
David Denby writing in “The New Yorker”. December 6th 2010

In a way though, the film irritated me; I felt manipulated by the rather obvious Freudian perspectives. For example -- sharp pointy thing equals phallus, and fear of penetration. The ugly irritation on Nina’s shoulder is paradoxically placed from where a swan’s wing would sprout. The film is an exercise in psychoanalytical theory; it’s almost as if the writers got together, read Freud and Jung, then wrote the film around their ideas. It’s textbook, the classical players are all here; the overbearing, Superego of a mother, the fragile, repressed Ego hero, the free-spirited Id. The Bad Mother, the Hero, the Shadow, the Father.

And for that reason, I found the film contrived. As I said, I wanted to enjoy “Black Swan”, but in cluttering up the film with Freud and Jung, I think that the director muddled a good story. And of course, the original story of “Swan Lake” lends itself to a psychoanalytical reading, all stories do. I just felt irritated with psychoanalysis being force fed to me.

I hate to give any work of art a bad review -- marring someone’s little bit of creativity. It’s a shame I felt overwhelmed by psychoanalysis, because “Black Swan” is still a beautiful film. The dancers have that austere elegance that leaves me breathless. The film’s striking design, makeup and costume, command the attention and Tchaikovsky’s music keeps the viewer in a state of rapt awe. Darren Aronofsky’s direction is sharp and precise. It re-tells an old, old story… It’s just a pity that he let Freud and Jung take over.

The Art of Félicien Rops

2011-07-01T03:21:00.000-07:00

Félicien Rops was a Belgian artist, specialising in printmaking, etching and aquatint. He lived from July 1833 until August 1898. He trained at the University of Brussels and his work was part of, and complimented the literary movement, illustrating Symbolism and Decadence.

Although the movements of Symbolism and Decadence can be considered to be similar in one respect, the two remain distinct..

Decadence was the name given, originally by hostile critics, to several late nineteenth-century writers, who valued artifice more than the earlier Romantics naïve descriptions. Some of them adopted the name, referring to themselves as "Decadents". For the most part, they were influenced by the tradition of the Gothic novel and by the poetry and fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.

In Britain the main person associated with Decadence was Oscar Wilde.

Rops’ forté was drawing, more than painting in oils; he first won fame as a caricaturist. He experimented with a distinctive printmaking technique called "soft varnish" which resulted in an image that was very close to drawing, eventually mastering the technique after years of experimentation. He sketched incessantly and feverishly.

Like the works of the authors whose poetry he illustrated his work tends to mingle sex, death, and satanic images.

Rops met Charles Baudelaire towards the end of the poet's life in 1864, and Baudelaire left an impression upon him that lasted until the end of his days. Rops’ created the frontispiece for Baudelaire's Les Épaves, a selection of poems from Les Fleurs du mal that had been censored in France, and which therefore were published in Belgium.

Rops’ association with Baudelaire and with the art he represented, won his work the admiration of many other writers, including Théophile Gautier, Alfred de Musset, Stéphane Mallarmé, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, and Joséphin Péladan.

But let’s look at the art and see if we can fathom what critics and supporters of Rops’ were talking about.

Pornocrates by Félicien Rops.Etching and aquatint.

The etching has a defiantly pornographic tone. An almost naked, blindfolded, curvaceous woman, is led by a fat swine from somewhere, to nowhere. Cherubs flit like butterflies in misty blue. It is an image from a dream, tipping over into a nightmare. The erotica is explicit. Yes -- the woman is almost naked, but the few clothes she wears emphasise the helplessness of her situation.

Yet, she is dressed in garments that suggest that she is in control. Heeled shoes, long, opera gloves and sexy stockings. The silken blue sash emphasises her nudity. It is a work of art for the voyeur; there is a feeling that it is staged, that the subject wants to be seen in her decadent glory. Perhaps she is saying; “look at me!”

Or is this a pornographic fantasy that the woman is determined to see through, despite stepping into the realms of the taboo? The little tipping hat that she wears, suggests that she is someone of consequence; the dream symbolism is perhaps telling us something about ourselves. she has given up control, but she is in control.

It seems that Rops is illustrating the theories of Freud and Jung. No matter how hard we try to suppress our darkest thoughts, no matter our place in the social scale, our darkest desires will surface in art, fantasies and dreams; the stories that we tell.

In a letter to his friend Henri Liesse, Rops described the painting:

"My Pornocratie is complete. This drawing delights me. I would like to show you this beautiful naked girl, clad only in black shoes and gloves in silk, leather and velvet, her hair styled. Wearing a blindfold she walks on a marble stage, guided by a pig with a "golden tail" across a blue sky. Three loves - ancient loves - vanish in tears. I did this in four days in a room of blue satin, in an overheated apartment, full of different smells, where the opopanax and cyclamen gave me a slight fever conducive towards production or even towards reproduction". --Letter from Rops to Henri Liesse, 1879.

CALVARY 1892

Whereas many artists of the time might hint at a fashionable blasphemy or satanism, Rops’ dealings with these subjects were unequivocal, as was the blatant, pornographic tone of many of his drawings.

In this parody of the crucifixion Rops is being deliberately shocking to the lecherous edge of perversity. The contorted body of the Christ figure, has goat’s legs and feet. He looks down at the woman beneath; his expression is agonising. There is pain, and something else; depravity. More than decadence, the work expresses a raw, rapacious lust, that doesn’t know where to stop. The creature’s phallus rests upon the woman’s cheek; she is bound to the figure by some sort of strap. Her pose reflects that of the crucifixion, more so than that of the figure on the cross. The scarlet backdrop signifies corruption.

“Calvary” is brutal; insolent. Rops does not care about the viewer’s sensibilities; and why should he? He is being deliberately provocative. You don’t have to look, but he dares you to. If you were to challenge him, I think that his response would be; “well so what”! He is in the business of shocking and here he takes the sentimental, traditional view of the Passion of Christ, and shows it for the blasphemy and obscenity that it is.

It still has pathos, you can see it in the tortured grimaces. But it’s a work about sex and death; sex and religion. In particular I think that it is an exposition of the Roman Catholic tradition of faith and sacrifice. The life of dedication that Catholicism exhorts from the blindly faithful.

THE TEMPTATION OF SAINT ANTHONY

Saint Anthony kneels at the lectern, one bony leg outstretched as if in preparation to flee. He needs a place of security, far away from the horrors of blasphemy. His hands attempt to shield his ears from the raucous din. The figure on the cross compounds the blasphemy; it is the figure of a young, voluptuous woman, her soft, yielding breasts thrusting forwards towards the baffled saint. “Eros” replaces “Inri” at the pinnacle of the cross. The banished Christ is on her right, on her left, a ragged demon, behind the cross a swine stares intently, his forelegs raised. Tiny skeletonised demons flit like bats in the darkening sky. Can Saint Anthony resist the allure of the image? The image that so brutally usurps the Christian message.

The violent image seems to have occurred as the Saint turns the pages of the scriptures. Looking closely, I think that I can see the banishment of Adam and Eve, the first sinners. Perhaps this is encouraging Anthony to hold fast to his faith.

The earliest paintings to employ the scene were Italian frescos of the 10th century. The later European Middle Ages saw accumulation of the theme in book illumination and later in German woodcuts. About 1500 originated the famous paintings of Martin schöngauer (ca. 1490), Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1505) and Mathias Grünewald (ca. 1510). In the modern era the theme has been treated by the Spanish painter Salvador Dalí and the French author Gustave Flaubert, who considered his 1874 bookThe Temptation of saint Anthony to be his master work.

PIC "La Buveuse d Absinthe"

“Félicien Rops drew "La Buveuse d Absinthe" (meaning specifically the female absinthe drinker) in 1865 at the age of around 32 and frequently afterwards drew the same subject over the next 30 years. The picture always shows a slender woman leaning against a pillar outside a dance-hall, her low neckline and fine dress showing she is part of the nightlife. Her insouciant attitude, accompanied by her staring eyes, slightly opened mouth and haggard expression suggesting that she is a prostitute. She became the archetype of the female absinthe drinker.”

From Osygenee.com

“Joris-Karl Huysmans, writer of A Rebours (meaning 'against the grain'), often said to be the supreme expression of the decadent spirit, described Rops’ absinthe drinker:

“M. Rops has created a type of woman that we will dream of, dream of again and be drawn back to, the type of absinthe drinker who, brutalised and hungry, grows ever more menacing and more voracious, with her face frozen and empty, villainous and hard, with her limpid eyes with a look as fixed and cruel as a lesbian's, with her mouth a little open, her nose regular and short ... the girl bitten by the green poison leans her exhausted spine on a column of the bal Mabille and it seems that the image of syphilitic Death is going to cut short the ravaged thread of her life.”

“On exhibition of his absinthe drinker at the International Exhibition of Fine Art in his home town of Namur in Belgium, Rops felt himself "spat upon": The picture outraged the critics and the local civic establishment issued an official rebuke to the artist, who 'far from consecrating his talent to the reproduction of gracious and elegant works, prostitutes his pencil complacently to the reproduction of scenes imprinted with a repellent realism”.

With unconcealed glee at this notoriety, Rops wrote to his friend Jean d'Ardenne how his La Buveuse d'Absinthe blew the minds ('les têtes... s'epanouissaient') of his bourgeois countrymen.'

Oxygenee.com

LESBOS

Two women rage in an orgy of carnal lust. Cunnilingus, tongues, lips, teeth, juices. The image tells a story of how women are able to feel about sex, there is the potential for women to feel earthy, feral, rather than the sanitised presentation of the erotica in the tradition of Ingres. Women can be active, not simply passive recipients. The image is raw, primal and urgent. Their need is overpowering and overwhelming. There is nothing about making love in this drawing and it is as far away from Gustave Courbet’s tender image of “The Sleepers” as you can get. Rops’ depiction of women having sex is about possibilities; the possibility for women to indulge totally in the dark side of desire.

HERMAPHRODITE

Well, to me, it’s a celebration of life, of sexuality in all of its guises. The woman has an erect penis; or does the man have voluptuous breasts? It doesn’t matter; contorted figures writhe in blatantly sexual poses at the base of the picture. Is the artist saying; “It doesn’t matter what your sexual proclivity is, just do it?”

In his prolific body of work, Rops demonstrates that posterity favours the forthright and the unique over uniformity and compromise.

Like the works of the authors whose poetry he illustrated, his work tends to mingle sex, death, and satanic images in a way which shocked many of his contemporaries and is sometimes disturbing even today.

There can be no doubt that Félicien Robs adored sex and he adored women; their taste, their scent, their texture. His adoration is reflected in his work. In a poignant letter to Louise Danse he opens up about his personal insecurities.

“ Each time autumn arrives with its austere intoxications, I suffer as if every hope that I carry within me and which are the same as those that illuminated my twentieth year were going to expire forever along with the dead leaves. I am so afraid of being old and of no longer being able to inspire love in a woman, which is a true death for a man of my nature, and with my needs for madness of mind and body.”

Thanks to Jan Vander Laenen for introducing the artist to me, and suggesting this post.

RUTH ELLIS:

2011-06-24T03:30:00.000-07:00

On the night of Easter Sunday, April 10, 1955, Ruth Ellis took a .38 calibre revolver from her handbag and fired six shots at David Blakely outside The Magdala Pub, in Hampstead, London. Blakely was taken to hospital with multiple wounds and was subsequently pronounced dead. Gladys Kensington Yule, a passer-by, also sustained a slight wound when a bullet fired by Ellis ricocheted off the pavement and hit her in the hand. Ellis made no attempt to leave the scene, asking a witness to call the police. She was arrested and charged with Blakely's murder. The jury at the trial took just 14 minutes to convict her, and she received a mandatory death sentence and was the last woman to be executed in the UK.

'I intended to kill him,' she told the court at her trial for shooting her lover. In 1955 that was enough. But, as the High Court heard last week, the last woman in Britain to be hanged was herself a victim of violence. Was it also class that did for her?
By Catherine Pepinster
Sunday, 21 September 2003; from The Independent & The Independent on Sunday

"Ruth Ellis was many women: a mother, a nightclub hostess, a wife, a sister, a killer. But, like Myra Hindley, she is remembered as a caricature: the hard-faced bitch with the peroxide hair. The last woman to be hanged in Britain. But last week she became a person again, with all the complications that involves, as the High Court appeal into her conviction for murder in 1955 began. Her QC, Michael Mansfield, depicted a woman tormented who today would never be convicted.

The story of Ruth Ellis is well-known: that she took a shotgun and pumped four bullets into her lover, the racing driver David Blakely, outside the Magdala pub in Hampstead on Easter Sunday, 1955. The opinions of those of a certain age will always be influenced by Ellis's portrayal by Diana Dors in 1956's Yield to the Night. Others will think of Miranda Richardson's extraordinary performance in 1985's Dance with a Stranger: a complex mixture of survivor and victim, able to be tough to others, with a voice which rose to a thin screech whenever she was tormented by her abusive scoundrel of a lover, played by Rupert Everett. Last week Ellis became someone else: this time, according to Michael Mansfield, she was the subject of battered women's syndrome. He argues that the murder conviction be replaced with one of manslaughter.

But who was she really? Years ago, at the time Dance with a Stranger was first released, I interviewed her sister Muriel Jakubait for a newspaper feature. There in her living room was a family photo in a silver frame. It was of a different Ruth, a gentler, more vulnerable one. A Ruth forgotten. Later she took me to Ruth Ellis's grave. It is in a Buckinghamshire graveyard, not far from that of Blakely. There is no headstone, no memorial; nothing to attract the ghouls. Only a few flowers, often red carnations, left by her sister who has tried, year after year, to keep Ruth Ellis a human being, not a tabloid shorthand for evil. Muriel Jakubait explains her sister through the narrative of her whole life, not just her fatal love affair with Blakely. And that narrative reveals her as this: a very English killer. For her story is a story of class.

Ruth Ellis was born on 9 October 1926, the fourth child of a failed musician, Arthur Neilson, and his Belgian wife Elisaberta. Frustrated in his career, Neilson drank heavily and abused his wife and children. Both Ruth Ellis and her sister Muriel were raped by their father. "You have to understand how Ruth and I were brought up," says Mrs Jakubait. "Our father was a strict and frightening man. We were cowed, kept down. Made to feel insignificant."

Ellis yearned to escape her background, telling her sister and her mother that she was going to make something of herself. But for a teenage girl in the war years, growing up in a dysfunctional family and with little education, there were few prospects.

After a short time in a munitions factory, and with an illegitimate son by a Canadian soldier, Ellis trod a path long familiar to women with no real opportunities. She traded on her youth and looks by becoming a "hostess" at a West End drinking club, entertaining clients in the flat upstairs. It was there that she met the dentist George Ellis, a man she married in an apparent attempt to find middle-class respectability. After giving birth to a daughter, and too many beatings, she left.

Morrie Conley, later exposed in the Sunday tabloids of the time as the head of a Mayfair vice ring, had seen that Ruth Ellis was a sociable woman who attracted punters and made her manageress of The Little Club in Knightsbridge. In Fifties London, the club afforded middle-class businessmen, RAF officers, and alcoholics with private incomes an opportunity for drinking, adultery and shedding their outer veneer of respectability.
It was at the club that she met the wealthy businessman Desmond Cussen, and later David Blakely, with whom she fell in love. Blakely was louche, good-looking, a man spoilt by his divorcee mother and with a penchant for racing cars. The relationship with Ellis was tempestuous: for all her apparent easy-going sociability, she had as foul a temper as Blakely. They were both uneasily jealous of one another, both suspicious of the various alternative lovers with whom they consorted. She became pregnant by Blakely twice; the first time, she had an abortion, and on the second occasion, Blakely, who followed in her father and husband's footsteps with his violence, punched her in the stomach, causing her to miscarry.

Ellis shot him just a few days after the miscarriage, and following several days of arguments, tears and remonstrations. The last bullet was fired into him from just three inches away.

A defendant is always likely to have a better chance if there is any empathy with defence counsel. Ellis and Melford Stevenson appeared to have none. In the dock she appeared cold and uninvolved, apart from shedding tears when shown a photo of Blakely. Her behaviour, according to Helena Kennedy QC, is something we understand better today: "So many witnesses, particularly women who have gone through an emotional battering, disengage from events and give their evidence in a cool, remote way."

This became evident when Ellis was asked what she had intended to do when she shot David Blakely: "I intended to kill him."
Faced with her impassivity, it was difficult for Stevenson to convince the court that she should be acquitted of murder because her emotional disturbance had been affected by jealousy. The judge dismissed the argument, directing the jury to consider the charge of murder. They took 14 minutes to find her guilty. There was no mention of Desmond Cussen's role in providing her with the gun, or the emotional impact of the miscarriage.

Since her death Ellis has been many different women. To the tabloids and pulp crime writers, a villain. To law reformers, a cause célèbre. To Michael Mansfield, the example of a syndrome. Domestic violence experts, however, disagree. One said last week that the existence of the syndrome itself is disputed. "Labels like this aren't helpful. Her problem was she found a man who was a controlling bastard."

Nearly 50 years after her death, Ruth Ellis still haunts us. Her husband committed suicide; so did her son. Her daughter, Georgie, died last year of cancer, after campaigning to have the case reviewed. Her sister refuses to let her be forgotten: "She was a lovely girl, who did not receive the justice she was entitled to."

Ruth Ellis, though, seemed to think justice was done. Before Albert Pierrepoint hanged her at Holloway, before she stepped to the gallows, she gave him a small smile. Ruth Ellis wrote to Blakely's mother, accepting her culpability: "I shall die loving your son. And you should feel content that his death has been repaid."

THE ART OF JACQUELINE READ

2011-06-17T04:11:00.000-07:00

My sister is the artist Jacqueline Read and I am thrilled to be able to share with you just a few of her paintings. Knowing Jacqueline, as I do, I relate to some of these on a deeply personal, profound level, they have a resonance -- others, I am mystified and intrigued. Her work is poignant, lyrical and spiritual; she is sensitive, intuitive and inspiring. She seems to be to be dedicated to exploring the nature of beauty, in all of its forms.

SKY DIVER

The painting is exhilarating; the sky diver hovers in the air, capturing a moment in time. Paradoxically, the moment steps outside the confines of time; time, after all, is a construct that humans have created, in order to cope with the complexities of life. Jacqueline’s use of colour; the divine cerulean blue, catches the breath; the tiny figure has dared to take a leap into the unknown. It is a moment on the edge of a dream; maybe the image that our memory has retained, as the dream fades and we return to waking. Perhaps the image will return to us in the hours and days that follow. We struggle to recapture our dream; we know that it was beautiful, but it slips away from us and all we are left with is this spiritual and spirited image.

THE WHITE PONY

The viewer can feel the adoration of this majestic animal in Jacqueline’s careful brushstrokes. The pony here is a creature of mythology; a stallion that perhaps only an Apollo, or an Alexander, can tame and ride. Something has caught his attention and he is watchful, but without fear. His ears are pricked; when he decides to move he will be swift and assertive. Jacqueline has captured the tension of that moment before action. The pony swishes his tail, flicking at the summer flies that tickle his haunches. He is in his prime. He is indifferent to us, in that way that animals are. His graceful pose is for himself alone. The viewer is a voyeur but only because the white pony, permits us to look.

WEDDING DAY

There is a feeling of cinematography about this painting. Perhaps a romantic comedy out of Hollywood. It is light hearted, and captures a moment of pure joy and playfulness, reflected in the patterned horse’s gait and the clever balancing act performed by the girl. She is frivolous in her bridal white and her dainty little shoes. It is a moment of pure intimacy and the viewer is privileged to be present. It also has a narrative, which the viewer is able to embellish. Who are these people? Are they the bride and groom, or are we witnessing a secret liaison; are they runaways? Each time I look at this painting, I find a new, different story. But each time I look at I can sense a mood of celebration.

THE SEAWEED SKIRT

A child at the seaside, caught like a snapshot in a moment of play. A mood of nostalgia seeps from the painting, engulfing the viewer with his, or her own memories. The viewer senses that this is an important image for the painter. It doesn’t matter whether the child is a boy or a girl; it is the moment in time that is important. The work has an Impressionistic quality, there are suggestions of a busy beach, but the child stands alone. The sun is hot; yet the child is kept cool by the sort of breeze that you only get on an English holiday. The artist has captured the light too; that ethereal light that is intrinsically pure to the English seaside.

Here is what Jacqueline says about her work;

“I become absorbed in my work totally when I have the time to start it, but I am easily distracted by other things. I will wash the floor rather than draw, to postpone the moment, but once I start to draw or paint , it is wonderful to let go of all the usual tasks which occupy one's life. Being an artist makes sense of my personality; I struggle with complexity but am also a very simple person…”

You can view more of Jacqueline Read’s paintings at Image Kind.

MISERY

2011-06-10T03:02:00.000-07:00

“Misery”, is a 1990 American thriller film, based on Stephen King's 1987 novel of the same name. Directed by Rob Reiner, the film received critical acclaim for Kathy Bates' performance as the psychopathic Annie Wilkes. The film was ranked 12 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Kathy Bates won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Annie Wilkes.

It is a gruesome book and an equally gruesome film. I hadn’t forgotten how much it made me shudder, and I was shuddering all over again when I watched the film “Misery” last week. It is a claustrophobic, film and book, the main action taking place in the bedroom in a remote farmhouse where the novelist, Paul Sheldon, is held captive by Annie Wilkes. She constantly tells him; “I’m your number one fan.”

Paul is the author of a series of popular historical novels about a character called Misery Chastain. Annie has read every word of his books.

Paul is a prisoner, held captive by the relentless snow storm, during which he has crashed his car. He is a prisoner because of the injuries he has sustained in the road accident, and he is also a prisoner, because Annie has manipulated events to her advantage. She used to be a nurse and decides that she will nurse him back to health, telling Paul that the telephone lines are down, and she can’t call for help. She intends to keep him there.

Both of Paul's legs are broken and he has a dislocated shoulder, so he is bedridden and incapacitated. Again, Annie claims that she is his 'number one fan' and talks a lot about him and his novels. She is happy when Paul lets her read his new novel, but later admits she disliked the excessive swearing. While feeding him, she is angered and spills soup on him but regains control and apologizes. She buys a copy of Paul's latest book, “Misery's Child”, but after learning that he has "killed off" Misery, Annie flies into a rage, almost smashing a table on Paul's head. She reveals that nobody knows where he is, contradicting what she had earlier told him.

“And don't even think about anybody coming for you. Not the doctors, not your agent, not your family. 'Cause I never called them. Nobody knows you're here. And you better hope nothing happens to me. Because if I die... you die”.

Annie leaves and Paul hears her driving away in her car. He tries to escape his room, but she has locked the door.

I say that Paul tries to escape, but this is a task of Herculean effort and entails Paul dragging himself across the floor only to find the door locked. In both the book and the film, the reader/viewer is completely engaged in Paul’s struggle. We feel his despair.

So Paul sees that Annie is unpredictable and dangerous, and that he is at her mercy.

The next morning, Annie makes Paul burn his latest manuscript. When he is well enough to get out of bed, she insists he write a new novel entitled Misery's Return in which he brings the character back to life.

Paul reluctantly obeys, believing that Annie might kill him otherwise.

Paul has become Scheherazade, the narrator of the tales in “Arabian Nights”; like Scheherazade, he is telling stories to stay alive.

Annie pesters Paul to finish writing the novel, Paul prevaricates, knowing that Annie is going to kill him and then herself.

Linking himself to Scheherazade, Paul plays for time. He tells her;

“It’s almost finished. By dawn…we’ll be able to give Misery back to the world.”

I can’t remember if Paul says those words in the book, it’s been a long time since I read it and I don’t have a copy here to check. But this is a subtle play on Scheherazade’s situation. In “The Arabian Nights”, Scheherazade, breaks off her tale each morning, saying that;

“the dawn is breaking.”

Scheherazade knows that she will be kept alive by her husband, because he wants to hear how the story ends.

But surely “Misery” is an exaggeration. People don’t kidnap people and hold them prisoner. Do they?

Well, apparently they do; just type in “obsessives kidnap” into Google and scroll down to view the numerous cases.

Annie Wilkes is an obsessive, and almost daily we hear of obsessives’ behaviour spiralling out of control. The concept of stalking is well documented and we hear stories of men and women having to suffer the obsession of a stalker. It is a contemporary theme. I think that “Misery” is an exposition of obsession. About individuals feeling that they “know” a writer/film star/ singer/ footballer. That they are destined to be together. They seek “signs” in their work, that are meant for them only. Madonna and Jodie Foster have both been on the receiving end of obsessive fans. And it’s not only the celebrities, the wealthy and famous, that fall victim to the obsessive’s possessive eye.

“When most of us think "stalking," it's the well-publicized incidents
involving celebrities that come to mind, but you don't need to be
famous to be a stalker's fixation.

Stalking is a crime of obsession, and is often associated with
different types of psychopathology, including psychosis and severe
personality disorders. Depending on the stalker, behaviour may range
from overtly aggressive threats and actions, to repeated phone calls,
letters or approaches. Stalking harassment may go on for years,
causing the victim to exist in a constant state of stress and fear.
The violent aspects of stalking behaviour often escalate over time, and
in extreme cases, can end in murder.”

suite 101.

Thanks to Jan Vander Laenen for helping me to identify Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto number 1, used as a soundtrack in "Misery".