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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
thomasroche's LiveJournal:
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| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | | 12:10 pm |
| | Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | | 6:31 pm |
Armistice Day
Present Thomas Note: I am still on assignment for the Illuminada, engaging in top-secret threesomes with Bigfoot. I'm afraid I'm even too busy to scribble a new screed in honor of world peace and/or our honored veterans, so here is something I wrote last year on the topic, long before the candles lit then for troops and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan long since melted into goo, necessitating the lighting of many more.
If you've read this already, feel free to be annoyed -- I know I would. NOVEMBER 11, 2008 -- In the United States, today is known as Veteran's Day, which it has been since long before I was born. I like to think of it as Armistice Day which, as Vonnegut (A World War II veteran) put it, was sacred, whereas Veteran's Day is not. This is its 90th anniversary. Celebrations were held in Europe. Armistice Day marks the end of World War I, with hostilities ending at 11am, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Germany was the last of the Central Powers to capitulate. The Bulgarians had already signed an Armistice, on September 29, and the Ottomans on the 30th of that month. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had collapsed following an Italian offensive in late October. It was the German Revolution which caused Kaiser Wilhelm to flee on 9 November to the Netherlands, where he would remain until his death in 1941. Wilhelm hoped the monarchy would be revived after the Nazis took power, but Hitler, a commoner, had no interest in sharing power or bringing back the Second Reich at the expense of his Third, and in any event, the two men did not see eye-to-eye on many things. Of the Jewish persecutions of 1938, Wilhelm said: 'For the first time, I am ashamed to be a German.' Speaking of which, the French commander Ferdinand Foch said something kinda interesting upon the signing of the Treaty of Versaille in 1919, which formalized the terms of the surrender. Anyway, Foch said of the Versaille treaty "This is not a peace -- it's an armistice for 20 years." Twenty years from November 11, 1918 is, as devoted readers of this blog will recall, a day after Kristallnacht, so Foch was either off by a day, the f*cking Nostradamus of his day, or matters in the German political system were agonizingly, terrifyingly, infuriatingly obvious and Allied officials chose to ignore them in the interest of expediency, optimism, just plain wishful thinking or mind-boggling studpidity. The Allies would then at least partially ensure that Foch's prediction came true by extracting crippling reparations payments from the defeated Germans, which ruined what was left of the German economy and led to hyperinflation, mass unemployment, near-famine and, in the long run, the stunning attractiveness of a right-wing nutjob to the majority of the German people. After the treaty was signed, Foch, incidentally, refused to shake the hand of the German signer. During the war he had advocated the utter destruction of German war capabilities, to ensure that Germany would never pose a threat to France again. He also called the Treaty of Versailles "a treason," because he considered its terms (particularly the occupation of the Rhineland for only 15 years) insufficient to prevent another world war. Foch had been considered a great war hero following early gains in the war, but had been dismised after disasters at Ypres and the Somme in 1915/1916. He was brought back late in the war as the chief of the general staff. He was then named supreme Allied commander earlier in 1918. He died in 1929. The Great War, as it was called then, or the War to End All Wars, resulted in about 20 million deaths, about half of them civillians. There were also about 20 million wounded. Today is also my mother's birthday. I'll be lighting a candle for everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan... including the Iraqis and Afghans, thank you very much. And in Georgia, and Chechnya, and Darfur, and Tibet and the Congo and everywhere else... everywhere that humans bear arms, for whatever justified or reprehensible or half-assed reason, or don't have arms to bear or choose not to bear them, and get soundly and royally f*cked for it. Image: German and Alllied (or, more accurately, Entente) officials after the signing of the Armistice, November 11, 1918. From Wikipedia. | | Sunday, November 8th, 2009 | | 9:38 pm |
Hammet Tour of San Francisco
For something like 35 years, Don Herron has been giving the Hammett Tour of San Francisco. I took this tour at the request of Borderlands Books owner Alan Beatts, who was hosting a big signing in conjunction with San Jose's 2009 World Fantasy Convention and wanted to make sure none of his VIP writers fell into a manhole -- or if they did, that it was quickly hushed up. Principally focused on The Maltese Falcon, this walking tour covers the areas of downtown in which for a time Hammett lived and Sam Spade did stuff. Herron adds some occasional Continental Op facts and some anecdotes covering his other esoteric genre knowledge -- about San Francisco writer Fritz Leiber and occasional San Francisco visitor Charles Willeford, who once ran into Herron on a Hammett tour and told him the story of how he wrote one of his crime novels in the Powell Street Hotel. Turns out he had written the book somewhere else; he was either confused or pulling Herron's leg. In the pic above right, Hammett Tour, host Don Herron points out an interesting feature of a building. Clockwise from left, Steven Erikson, Graham Joyce, Ian Cameron Esslemont, Bill Willingham, Hammett Tour host Don Herron, Mark Van Name, Jenny Faries.  SPOILER ALERT A bit later, as you'll see from this photo, Don Herron is caught red-handed with the murder weapon; standing in the foreground is Graham Joyce, who's just been plugged 'right through the pump.' | | Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | | 9:22 am |
I'm Speaking at the World Fantasy Convention
The World Fantasy Convention starts today in San Jose. This year's theme is the celebration of Poe's birthday -- he's 200. Many happy returns, pal. For the uninitiated, WFC is the main convention for professionals in the field of fantasy writing -- including, to some extent, horror. It's a con attended principally by writers, editors, artists, booksellers and others who make some part of their living (or want to) out of fantasy literature. It's most assiduously NOT a fan convention or a media convention -- films and TV are, generally speaking, not covered there, and if you see any Klingons, bug-eyed aliens, or Vikings rampaging through the lobby, they're probably real and you should run like bloody hell. I have not been to a WFC since the one in Monterey in 1998, unless you count the one in Tempe, Arizona in '04 when, on the way back from Central America, I stopped off in Phoenix, fully intending to attend the convention but instead walked into the hotel lobby, got annoyed and decided to shoot naked pictures of a multiply-pierced goth girl named Nemesis instead. It was one of those things I've done that sports epic weirdness. This should not be considered a criticism of World Fantasy itself, which I have always found to be an erudite, fun, and friendly convention, probably my favorite of all the conventions I've been to. I'm speaking tomorrow on a panel with a real idol of mine, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, on a panel moderated by Daniel Paul Olson. The deets are here, but here's the description:
Friday, October 30
10:00 AM Crystal Room Who, What or Why Done It
In both the ghost story and in modern urban fantasy there is the potential for a central mystery that must be solved and the denouement of which is the climax of the story. Is this element critical for a successful work or is merely the icing on the cake? What are some of the outstanding examples of this and what are some examples of works that were not successful because they missed this mark?
Danel Paul Olson (moderator), J. Kathleen Cheney, Laura Anne Gilman, Thomas S. Roche, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
I intervieed Yarbro some zillion years ago and she proved to be one of the nicest, quickest, most interesting writers I've ever interviewed. I'm looking forward to actually meeting her in person. All the memberships are sold, but if you're a San Jose person don't despair. Sometimes if you wear a trenchcoat and dark glasses you can sneak in to the panels. Don't tell them I told you. Dodge serpentine to avoid the WFC snipers. The convention is at The Fairmont Hotel, 170 South Market Street, San José, California. | | Sunday, October 18th, 2009 | | 4:52 pm |
Happy Birthday Mr. Gifford
Happy 63rd to Barry Gifford, author of a pile of intense modern noir and vast amounts of nonfiction. Best known for his seven Sailor and Lulu novels -- one of which was made into the David Lynch film Wild at Heart -- Gifford has written dozens of other books, fiction and nonfiction, as well as the screenplay for Lynch's Lost Highway. My personal "we are not worthy" factor with Gifford, however, is that in the 1980s, he started the Black Lizard imprint as part of the Creative Arts Book Company, in Berkeley, California. Back in my tender years, I stumbled across Black Lizard books at Bookshop Santa Cruz (the location that would later collapse in the '89 quake, resulting in the death of a friend of a friend). Back then Black Lizard Books weren't the classy, art-photo-cover trade paperbacks they would become after Random House bought the imprint in 1990 and merged it with Vintage Crime. These were small-press-lookin', trash-art kinda dirty mass-market paperbacks with art deco covers. Knowing nothing about crime fiction beyond Raymond Chandler and Agatha frickin' Christie, I grabbed and devoured them in the stacks because I was too poor to buy them. How weird is it that I was either to ethical or too chickenshit to shoplift books about bad-ass criminals? For about a year, a trip to the mystery section was for me a visit to Skimmsville. As a result, some of those books I have only the vaguest recollections of, but they blasted a big fat hole in my brain, opening up, in that special way only violence can, new vistas of thought and dreams of black-souled perdition. Jim Thompson, Peter Rabe, Charles Willeford, David Goodis and Harry Whittington were some of the Black Lizard authors I remember discovering for the first time during my lean years in SC. If I'd been more of a criminal, I might still keep them, cherished, in a shoebox alongside my .45. If that had been true, or if I had never stumbled across Black Lizard, things might have gone different, pal, different indeed. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard continued to publish great crime fiction, but I will forever have my fondest memories of the early years of Black Lizard, and their trashy little paperbacks that hacked into my soul the old-fashioned way. Happy Birthday, Mr. G. | | Saturday, October 17th, 2009 | | 10:13 am |
I'm Reading at Litcrawl, Tonight, 7:15!
For the 10th Anniversary of Litquake, SF's Litcrawl features over 300 authors in more than 50 venues in the Mission. The full schedule is available at the Litquake website, but I know that the one you're all drooling and stomping over is of course the one hosted by Carol Queen from 7:15 to 8:15pm in the Audre Lorde room at the Women's Building, 3543 18th Street between Valencia and Guerrero, San Francisco. That one features Blake C. Aarens, Jen Cross, Dusty Horn, Simon Sheppard, Carol Queen, and yours truly. I'm informed by the organizers:
"If you haven’t participated in the Lit Crawl before, be aware: the audience can be loud at times, the scene rowdy, and venues packed. Be prepared to project -- and to go with the flow. In other words: bring your flexibility and best sense of humor. It can be unpredictable at times, but that’s part of the fun."
God damn it, I always bring my sense of humor. That's not very funny to suggest I might not. More on this "flexible," "humorous" event:
"The full Lit Crawl event runs from 6-9:30 p.m. and will be followed by the festival closing party, to which all authors and curators are invited. The party will be held at the Elbo Room, 647 Valencia Street, and you’ll be given an exclusive invitation at your reading. Be forewarned: there will be dancing."
And still more!
"Valencia St. is under heavy construction, and parking in the neighborhood that evening will be very challenging. We’d encourage you to use public transportation. There are BART stations at 16th and Mission and 24th and Mission, as well as several MUNI lines in the immediate area. You’re also welcome to bike, walk, skateboard, or otherwise 'ramble' down."
"The full Litquake festival schedule is online now, so be sure to check out all the events of the week. Of special interest might be our opening night Black, White, and Read Book Ball: a chance to mingle with Bay Area luminaries and writers galore (a href=" http://www.litquake.org/friday-october-9/#ball" target="_blank">http://www.litquake.org/friday-october-9/#ball</a>)."
See you there, with my god damned sense of humor. | | Friday, October 16th, 2009 | | 12:07 am |
Blind Man Blues
Did you know that October 15 is White Cane Safety Day in the United States? Yeah, I bet you did. Created by act of Congress in 1964, the day is intended to recognize the accomplishments of visually impaired persons. The white cane, of course, is an international symbol for the blind. While people with visual impairments occupy many walks of life, they've had an overwhelming influence on a field close to my own heart: the blues. While this fact may be due to the lack of opportunity offered to disabled African-Americans, the trend shouldn't take away from the accomplishments of individuals like harmonica player Sonny Terry and guitarists Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Josh White, or artists in related fields like Art Tatum and Ray Charles. There's some interesting stuff at the National Resource Center for Blind Musicians about reading music and Braille. The American Federation for the Blind also has an interesting page on the Louis Braille bicentennial -- Braille was born in 1809. Incidentally, Louis Braille went blind at age 3 following an accident with an awl... the same implement he later used to invent the language that bears his name, beginning in 1821 -- when he was 12. He finished the language when he was 15, and the first book in Braille was published when he was 20. Back to the blues: I highly recommend taking a moment to listen to some of the best blues harp ever played, some great guitar playing, more great guitar, the Father of the Texas Blues, some of the best jazz piano in history, and, of course, " Superstition. I can never resist that one. | | Monday, October 12th, 2009 | | 10:59 pm |
Happy Birthday, Lester Dent
Pulp fiction author Lester Dent, born October 12, 1904, died 1959, was better known by his pseudonym of Kenneth Robeson. Under this pseudonym Dent wrote 170-ish novels featuring his most popular character, the "Man of Bronze," Doc Savage -- a character he didn't actually create, but adopted from the publisher and an editor at Street & Smith, one of the big pulp publishing enterprises from the time. Doc was a two-fisted adventurer and brilliant scientist who was the model for a zillion later heroes -- most notable among them, to modern readers at least, being Indiana Jones. Doc became the star of radio, movies and comic books. Born in Missouri, Dent became a telegraph operator in 1924 and later, while working as a telegrapher for the Associated Press, found out one of his coworkers had sold a story to a pulp magazine. It paid $450 -- a strong incentive for Dent, who already read a lot of pulp fiction, to try his hand. After a small number of sales, Dent found himself solicited by Dell Publishing for a $500 a month job writing exclusively for Dell publications. He and his wife Norma moved to New York. But it was Street and Smith who later poached Dent to write a novel series, a gadget-driven take-off on The Shadow, for $500 per novel. The resulting character was Doc Savage, who became the lead character in a series that would run from March, 1933's The Man of Bronze to July, 1949's Up from Earth's Center, and beyond. Dent also wrote for Black Mask, the legendary pulp magazine where the hard-boiled style was all but invented. His book Honey In His Mouth, is a grifter-thriller I have not yet had the pleasure to read; it came out recently from Hard Case Crime. Dent's also one of the characters in Paul Malmont's pulp meta-novel The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. Though I love the idea of Doc Savage and many of the influences he wrought, every early Doc Savage novel I've read is a gooey, pulpy, likable but ultimately bewildering mess -- like first season Buffy, writ lantern-jawed and steel-thewed. Dent was really cranking them out in those years, and I understand the later books have a certain charm that's missing from the early ones I've read. My very favorite Doc Savage book is not a Doc Savage book at all -- it's the fictional biography, Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, in which Philip Jose Farmer both reminisces about his experiences reading the series as a youth, and treats it as if it's all bloody real. It's a wonderful pulp study, and the most fun I've ever had with Doc Savage. That said, Dent is still one of the originals, an architect of the pulp landscape. Remember him with reference, and while you're at it, Friend him on MySpace. | | Thursday, July 30th, 2009 | | 7:42 pm |
On Extended Hiatus Visiting With Bigfoot and/or Elvis
Those of you who follow this blog may be asking yourselves, "Is he ever going to post again?" You may find yourself asking this with considerable frequency over the next few weeks. I have been on extended hiatus at an undisclosed location with Bigfoot in either Eastern Washington state or the Southern Himalayas -- seems like they always black out the windows on those god damned black helicopters so I can't honestly be sure. That is to say, I'm making a concerted effort to focus on two principle areas of great interest to me lately: 1) more challenging fiction projects, and 2) finding a day job. To this end, I have been rather holed up lately and have been sitting tight as far from the blog, really, as possible. Some day in the future -- weeks, months, years, decades, maybe centuries from now if this brain-freezing stuff works out -- I'm quite sure one or both of those -- or something else entirely -- will come to fruition. Then I'll have something substantive to report. Or I'll go back to posting brief missives on Central Asian archaeology and alien sightings in Texas, which is pretty much the same thing. Bless you all; keep your tinfoil shiny. | | Saturday, July 18th, 2009 | | 11:14 pm |
Nude Aid Tomorrow Needs Artists
The organizers of Nude Aid, a benefit for the Center for Sex & Culture, inform me that they would like to add some artists for tomorrow's event. And hey, while you're at it, why not attend if you're just interested in being an attendee? But you might want to get your tix in advance through Brown Paper Tickets, see the link at the end in the info below:
7/19 -- NUDE AID! a Live Artmaking and Takeaway Benefit for the Center for Sex & Culture
A private party at 1286 Folsom
STILL SEEKING ARTISTS, ART & AUCTION ITEM DONATIONS
Info Line 415-255-1155
Website http://www.sexandculture.org.
Join us for a fun, sexy, arty afternoon!
Here's how the Nude Aid art-making and takeaway event works: Admission to Nude Aid is $20-40 (sliding scale). Admission entitles each guest to experience a spectacular erotic tableau vivant as artists make art on the spot, with live nude and fetish-clad models to inspire them. Each guest can choose a piece of art to take home, and may purchase additional tickets (also $20-40) to trade for additional paintings, drawings, photos, sculptures, collages, or body prints.
Nude Aid continues to be the Center for Sex & Culture's most artistically fabulous benefit, following the model developed by (and used by the kind permission of) Annie Sprinkle. Donors, models, artists and special guests from Nude Aids past included Leonard Nimoy, Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley, Sharon Mitchell,Candye Kane, Charles Gatewood, Nina Hartley, Eric Kroll, Candida Royalle, Winston Smith, Jonathan Solo, Scarlot Harlot, Ruby Pearl, Madison Young, Gloria Leonard, David Steinberg and many more. Nude Aid's July 2009 lineup includes Suzanne Forbes, Bix Warden, Matt Sachs, and more! Lovely models of all sorts will pose for your (and your favorite artist's) viewing pleasure. This year's celebrity models are writer Stephen Elliott and queer porn sensation Jiz Lee! We are also VERY excited (and you will be too) to be entertained by some of the Bawdy Storytelling gang.
The Center for Sex & Culture welcomes artists, donors, or other volunteers wishing to become involved with Nude Aid to get in touch by emailing carol@carolqueen.com or calling 415-255-1155.
More info: 18 OVER only, please.
Artists make art (from live models) before your eyes; take a piece of art home (included in price of admission)! Additional tickets to trade for additional pieces of art can be purchased. Also, artists and local businesses have donated items for a silent auction. CSC can accept VISA, MasterCard and Discover for silent art auction purchases and donations, and at the door.
Purchase tickets in advance: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/73326 -- space will be limited!
| | Monday, July 6th, 2009 | | 10:09 am |
July 25: Perverts Put Out
I'm performing again at this summer's Perverts Put Out, before the Dore Alley Fair. If any of all y'all are in town for the event, please be sure to grab me and say hello. I'll try to read something new -- I usually do, though admittedly it doesn't always work out. These events are often raucous and always a good time! PERVERTS PUT OUT! Perverts Put Out!, San Francisco's long-running pansexual performance series, is rearing its swollen head yet again. The next PPO, on Saturday, July 25th, will be the traditional pre-Dore edition, celebrating in word and deed San Francisco's kinkiest, most hardcore street event, the Up Your Alley Fair. Performers will include Greta Christina, Jeff Stroker, Thomas Roche, horehound stillpoint, Steven Schwartz, Hew Wolff, emcees Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard, and more! Saturday, July 25 7:30 pm CounterPulse 1310 Mission Street, San Francisco $10-15 sliding scale, no-one turned away for lack of funds. (Please feel free to forward and/or repost. Keep track of this and other shows at: simonsheppard.com.) | | Thursday, June 25th, 2009 | | 7:57 am |
Pulp Culture: Hardboiled Fiction and the Cold War
I recently slogged through this book from 1996, back when hardboiled crime novels were for the second time in a decade the cause célèbre of arty pricks who intoned the words "Baudrillard," "Foucault," and "Motorhead" with measured distinctness and casual self-importance while swilling microbrews at the local fuckface hipster bar. My first anthology, a hipster fuckface book of erotic crime-noir, came out that same year, so I probably should have read it then. But doing so would have been unthinkable at the time to me, as reading about writing was something I studiously avoided. Oh, how we change. Anyway, I have mixed feelings about it. While Pulp Culture: Hardboiled Fiction and the Cold War is invaluable to me for its many mentions of forgotten noir classics. It's also got some political observations of varied value. Unfortunately, most of it falls into the let's-dissect-the-text category of literary histories, which I find only vaguely interesting at the best of times and astonishingly tedious most of the time. Initially, the author's comments include some interesting perspectives on Mike Hammer fascism vs. left-of-center Lew Archer; he has a nice segment about Dashiell Hammett's appearance before McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee. There's also some great stuff about Chester Himes, a black detective writer whose first book, the non-detective If He Hollers Let Him Go reflects his deep fury about race relations in the US. We appear to be heading into an actual consideration of cold war paranoia, race anxiety and how it gave rise to the anti-Communist, anti-outsider, anti-sex, anti-deviance tone that marks the majority of American crime fiction despite its liberal use of flesh, freaks, and firearms to generate atmospheric interest. Not really. Most of the political writing in here has nothing to do with the cold war directly, but seems to be a critique of American culture overall, and particularly of capitalism. In particular, I feel like it fixates on what seems to be a sort of crypto-Marxist interpretation of consumerism, cities/suburbia, and race and class in America, rather than focusing on the actual cold war, even as reflected in those four things. I'm not bagging on Marxists -- I remain largely neutral on that odd German who seems to obsess the academic community. But here, Haut is not entirely up-front about his political orientation, so his more snide left-wing "critiques" come across as passive-aggressive and kinda Berkeley. It ends up not being so much about the cold war as about the problems the author (who lives in England) has with American culture overall. Don't get me wrong; I have some problems with it myself. But in my view a "critique of consumerism" never ages well, whether it's from 13 years ago or 50. Probably more importantly, most of this book is a very densely text-based analysis of certain noir writers, consisting of summary-analysis, summary-analysis what felt to me like ad infinitum. Some of the analysis is deeply insightful, but much of the rest of it struck me as just plain self-important pseudo-intellectual lefty wanking. Personally, I do not like text-based analysis; I find it passable when done in brief, but tedious when it becomes extended, as it is here. When it comes to politics I'm more interested in historical events and in actual people, whether they are right-wing fucks or commie pinkos, rather than texts per se. That said, there is some amazing stuff outside the framework of the text-based analysis, particularly about the politics of the time; I very much appreciated the look at Mike Hammer as a rabid right-winger, but it's the briefest treatment in the book, maybe because calling Mike Hammer a fascist is like shooting fish in a barrel. Much of the rest of the analysis is interesting, but so dense it reads almost like a book report. There's enough to justify a read for noir fans and those who like wanky text analysis, which I'm sure includes many of my friends (love ya, guys -- mean it!). But I am way more interested in the broader social aspects of the era, from a genesis of historicity rather than text-analysis, text-analysis, text-analysis, particularly when it's got kind of a pushy ideological subtext. I understand that such analyses are seductive and fun to write, but I'd really rather pound nails into my forehead than read them. Why did I go looking for it, then? It's got .45s on the cover, pure and simple. Sometimes that's all it takes. | | Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 | | 11:44 am |
| | 11:39 am |
Certified Virulent
I never did post last week's column for Blowfish.com, about the reported positive HIV test within the porn industry. This news is now a week old, but I'm fond of some of the commentary. Here's an excerpt:
For those of you who don’t know, producers of commercial straight porn in the U.S. generally require a negative HIV test. Most performers get their tests through the Adult Industry Medical Foundation. The Foundation routinely tests all or most performers in straight, above-board, commercial porn movies. In the straight industry, condoms are rarely used — but we’ll get to that. In the gay industry, HIV tests are not standard, condoms are more common, and “bareback” porn remains a very strong niche.
AIM sees to the straight industry; it does not “authorize” performers to work, but reports the results of their HIV tests to the industry through a database that reputable producers access before hiring someone. The foundation is headed by Dr. Sharon Mitchell, who holds a PhD from The Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. She is not a physician.
AIM presents itself as an independent medical foundation, but in fact is BFFs with the porn industry and exists almost solely at its suffrage. In industry terms AIM is about as far from independent as a foundation can be; it is an adult industry institution. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to put these things in context.
The performer who tested positive through AIM is not being named, because AIM doesn’t do that. On June 4, the patient was tested at an AIM clinic because her previous test was then 36 days old. Industry producers accept HIV tests that are 10 to 30 days old, but somebody fudged on that. The fact that one producer fudged the dates shouldn’t necessarily tar the whole industry. If we are talking about a system that failed because it is not effective, that’s one thing — but if talking about a system that “failed” because someone didn’t follow the rules, that’s another thing entirely. These are rules that performers trust producers to follow; they should be sacrosanct. But they are not rules that are ever, in any way, “enforced.”
Read the rest here. | | Sunday, June 21st, 2009 | | 11:01 am |
On FCC Free Radio Today
I am going to be on FCC Free Radio at noon - you can listen live, I believe, at http://FCCFREERADIO.com. I'll be discussing God Knows What... death, horror, pulp fiction, murder, science, insanity, and sex, probably, that sort of thing. If you've read Harlan Ellison's "Flop Sweat," you'll understand. Image: Recording a radio play, The Netherlands, 1949. From Wikipedia. | | Sunday, June 14th, 2009 | | 10:24 am |
Moorcock's The Golden Barge
The Golden Barge was written in 1958 when Michael Moorcock was 19; it was only published in the mid-to-late '70s. The book is the 19-year-old Moorcock's attempt to write an existential novel. As such, it's really not that much fun to read. It has the flaws you might expect from a 19-year-old's book, which are many, and the flaws you might expect from one of Moorcock's existential novels, which are just as many, if less annoying to pretentious wannabe New Wave sci-fi authors like yers trooly. Like I said, it's not that much fun to read. The central conceit, about an ugly redheaaded guy chasing a glittering barge of phenomenal beauty and agonizingly obvious significance, feels more like the Maguffin in a two-disc Hawkwind theme album than a science fiction novel. It is kind of boneheadedly obvious in its thematic importance, so I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes. However, Moorcock admirers will find The Golden Barge an extremely interesting document because it has some strange early, semi-formed renditions of the themes that later show up in his Eternal Champion cycle and the Jerry Cornelius books. The fact that Moorcock was able to turn out a novel even this good at 19, on themes as broad as this, is fairly impressive. What's more, the DAW First North American 1980 edition is worth picking up for the introductions by Moorcock and M. John Harrison. That's, you know, if you're, you know, a Moorcock nerd. Or something. | | Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | | 6:34 am |
Rape Games Banned-Not-Banned In Japan
My most recent Blowfish column. concerns Japanese game about rape and the fact that while merely censured, it's being reported in the US adult press as "banned." Here's an excerpt:
Rape Games Banned-Not-Banned in Japan
Back in February, Amazon removed from its virtual shelves a Japanese video game called RapeLay. In RapeLay, according to an AVN story:
. . .the player stalks and rapes women. If one of the rape victims becomes pregnant, the player must force her to have a abortion. In one scenario, the player takes on the role of a criminal who rapes a mother and her two teenage daughters.
Yeah, I’m kinda shocked myself, and I’m not all that easy to shock, or at least it kind of seems like I shouldn’t be.
The Wikipedia page also mentions some other choice tidbits, like the fact that the point-of-view character summons a gust of wind to lift the female characters’ skirts on a subway platform — by saying a prayer. Oh, and the POV character for part of the game, Kimura, is a “chikan” — a subway groper, for which he is arrested at the beginning of the game, setting the stage for later revenge scenarios where he evens the score for his arrest with the family of his accusers. He can do this because Kimura’s father is an important and powerful politician. Yow!! God and the government’s on the rapist’s side!
What do you think? Should games like this be "allowed"? It's rather academic since the body talking about "banning" the game is extralegal and extrajudicial; it's an industry group, but the Japanese government is also getting involved, by making its wishes known to the industry. Doesn't the same thing kinda happen all the time here in the US? How about that Hot Coffee incident? Is this censorship of oh-so-healthy alternative sexual expression, or merely the reasonable attempt to regulate the most objectionable forms of sexual material? | | Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | | 6:23 pm |
Thomas Roche Trivia Contest!
Hey! Over at Circlet Press, they're having a contest to answer trivia questions about me! You can win free books! Go participate! Now! The deadline is Tuesday at 8pm Pacific Time, so you've got two hours. To be fair, the trivia is so obscure so far nobody knows any of it. Anyone over here have better Thomas Roche Trivia chops, or am I the Clark Ashton Smith of sleaze? | | Sunday, June 7th, 2009 | | 9:05 am |
Sex and Science Fiction
Hey, all, how's your Sunday going? Word up. I'm over at the Circlet Press LJ Community asking readers to weigh in on the topic: "What mainstream SF-Fantasy works made you think dirty thoughts before you knew about 'science fiction-fantasy erotica'?" After is good, too -- anything you've read recently in the SF-fantasy field that's erotic and good is certainly worth sharing with the class. Drop by and join in! Or just email me your thoughts and I can post them anonymously if you prefer. | | Saturday, June 6th, 2009 | | 10:00 am |
Circlet Press Author Chat June 7-9
From tomorrow until Tuesday, I'm going to be hosting the Circlet Press chat at its LiveJournal community. In case you don't know about Circlet Press, they were the first (and to my knowledge are still the only) press dedicated to publishing erotic science fiction and fantasy. I will be posting excerpts from works in progress, talking about new projects and answering user questions. Please drop by and check it out over the next couple of days! One lucky participant will get a free copy of Circlet's Best Fantastic Erotica. Here is some more info from Circlet about the online event (including totally unjustified praise for my prose):
Circlet press is inaugurating a series of author-hosted chats on our LiveJournal community. First up is long-time Circlet contributor Thomas Roche. He is well-known for erotica that is hot, intellectual, and fall-over-laughing funny, often all at the same time. His story, "The Night the New Hog Croaked," won third place in Best Fantastic Erotica, and the rest of his publications, with Circlet and other publishers, are too numerous to list here. Thomas will talk about current and upcoming projects, post excerpts from his fiction, and answer any questions you might have. We also expect to raffle off some free smut. To participate, check out our LJ Sunday, June 7 through Tuesday, June 9. You will not need to have your own LJ account to participate.
Watch the Circlet Livejournal Community for more author chats in the weeks to come!
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