from: Boz | url: Boz
re: pillage

Thought of the day: we used to sacrifice our children and mail 'em to the gods, Guzzle up our enemies and pillage their belongings and harlots like shore raiding bandits. The whole thing was a beautiful mess and the gods were proud. Nowadays, you get locked up for this sort of carry on. - Boz 13:13

[in response to a wish for an axe:] You can get real cheap axes in the hardware stores here (5 euro - about 5 dollars). They probably need sharpening. No... I reckon blunt is the new sharp. More fun too. Works in conversation; there's no reason why it shouldn't work with a cheap axe too. »

from: Fred L | url: Good Shit
re: nod backstory 29 august 2002

Hey! I am a bit taken aback by your contempt, hate etc for Heidi Klum and Paltrow et al. Men's mags fill a need for many men. Now you may not like this, and I can appreciate your contempt, but clearly these mags are doing quite well and that bespeaks the Darwinian notion that men do indeed love to look at what they consider attractive women and their bodies. And that's a fact. So live with it and ignore it and get on with Life.

I like you and don't mean to sound mean, but then different strokes etc as Tom Jefferson once said to Sally Hemmings. so be of good cheer and you can be sure you have an admirerer in me. I would at my site post more kinky stuff but that is not for the present but in the planning stages.Kink is good. Great. Play nice, your new pal. »

from: Leigh | url: no one's daughter
re: nod backstory 29 august 2002 [above]

No, dear Fred, I won't be ignoring it. Put it out there, and I'm going to respond. I'm sick to death of a pathetic handful of white male constructs of "beauty" affecting and killing women who will starve themselves and carve themselves up and poison their bodies in an attempt to simulate the pituitary mutants (super models), emaciated junkie/waifs and children that appeal to those few men who control the millions of forms of media that constantly bombard us at every turn.

This has nothing to do with Darwin (smart bloke). This has nothing to do with pornography (me likey). This has nothing to do with individual tastes (go for it).

This is about programming.

This has everything to do with blind, sheep-like adherence to what's tantamount to schoolyard bullying by a handful of companies that ALSO happen to own the pharmaceutical companies (you know, the ones that sell things like diet supplements, speed, cosmetics and everything revolving around the multi-trillion dollar cosmetic/cosmetic surgery industry. They're also the same companies that need us to keep breeding little blind, doped up drones and inhabitants for their veal-fattening pens (offices) so that they can keep making their wares while standing on our backs... it's all about maintaining the status quo.

If someone's kink is pituitary mutants, good for him, because that means he can honestly proclaim his desires to the world without fear of ostracization. But then, that's not a kink, is it? It's just more boring rich, white, male fantasy propaganda fed by its own propaganda, ad nauseum.

I'm not an ostrich. I'm not going to sit idly by like some doormat moron while I'm slapped into bored acquiescence by that fantasy just because the blindness is rampant. Do you think that black people should shut up and get over the fact that there are so few accurate and fair representations of them within the media? What about Hispanics? Muslims? Homosexuals? Jews? BDSMers? The differently-abled? The elderly?

I know that you didn't intend it (your letter was very kind) but I think that you're smart enough to realize that it was insulting for you to even suggest that I "live with it and ignore it and get on with Life".

Perhaps if you'd try (through their writing or communications) to experience what it's like to live in another's skin... to live with every form of media telling you, "you are not good enough"... or perhaps if you could actually know and love someone who does NOT fit into the narrow roles of what an acceptable "woman" is as determined by our society, i.e.: supermodel/barbie, child/waif, emaciated junkie, eunuch/mother...

I don't know what the answer is. All I know is that I'm never ever going to shut up about it. »

from: mjk | url: teal91
re: smoke

Ron Battaglio flicked a piece of lint from his silk board shorts. He placed them back in the Nordstrom's shopping bag. His portion of the appetizer devolved to crumbs under the liquid gaze of Enmity, his pit bull. The waiter had begun to cough significantly until Enmity pissed on his shoes and nipped the conversation in the bud. Ron ordered the biggest steak on the menu, and gazed into the red contacts of the tall woman at the corner talking a blue streak into her cell phone, under the flattering rose light of the Lion lamp. She frowned as he lit a huge cigar and exhaled in expansive blue rings. He kept his tie firmly fastened and spread his legs in Texan alpha male fashion. The steak, grass fed, and well aged, came with pomme frites and he slathered them with ketchup, the green kind, and Tabasco. He cut deftly and with quick slashes. He tossed a big piece to Enmity.

Ron had worked at Stonewall, Bulwark, Chisel and Grind for seven years. As full partner, he not only had the key to the executive washroom and the Cancun penthouse but Enmity could have the run of the firm. Mergers and Acquisitions suited Ron and whenever the strain popped out a cowlick, he'd smooth over the problem, savage a misfit company, or as he murmured the phrase lovingly into his single malt scotch, "de-provision" the poor bastards at some Indiana factory.

Ron Battaglio feared no one save for his accountant and his inventive and dominant mistress, Miss Tahlia. The memory of latex rubbing together and the crack of thunder outside brought a faint smile to his Beeswain-coated lips. Ms Red Phone flicked a wan, rare smile as Enmity the pit bull cocked his head wistfully. She held out a finger full of tiramisu. He padded over, a loose, saucy, insouciant step, like a ballet dancer or a football striker on Holiday in Naples. He licked the creamy fillip from her finger and wagged the stump of his tail. Ron put out his cigar in a reproduction of the Triangle Shirt Building. He muttered in liquid Portuguese as the 50-inch TV set broke in with another vague and unfocused Homeland Security warning. »

from: Jayne B | url: not available
re: the girl who is too much

I am the girl who is too much.

Does that sentence scare you? Good. You are not alone.

I think too much, want too much, dream too much. Eat too much, drink too much, want dessert first and a cold vodka martini at the end of day without somebody looking at me as if I am about to embark on my own version of "The Lost Weekend." According to the FDA food pyramid, I eat too much red meat, am unapologetic of how much I savor the roasted heft and slide of a piece of steak down my throat.

I weigh too much, take up too much space, my ass is too much for many chairs and airplane seats. And yet, I see my ass as plump and welcome as the moon creamily plopped on your window sill while you lie cool beneath the sheets.

In light of the vogue for skeletal models and celebrities or surgically enhanced gals who are basically boys with tits, I am too much for most men. My breasts are too much like real breasts, they sway, they move, they gently rest on my ribcage instead of sticking out from my sternum like twin Jell-o molds. My thighs are too much, too womanly and full for those who prefer little girls. My genitals are too much—too insistent, too embracing—for those who think that sex and eroticism come only as a result of deviousness game-playing. That is too much work.

I dress too much and, according to the latest craze in fashion—beige lips, who the fuck has beige lips in real life?—I wear too much red lipstick. Something I cannot understand because to me there is no such thing as too red. My heroines are those women from the 30s and 40s who wouldn't go anywhere without red lipstick—I adore those photos of them on wild game hunts or a cattle drive their faces bare except for red lips upturned to the sun.

I love my friends and family. Is that saying too much? My father says I cause him misery because of my too-much ness. My friends and my sister and nephew and beloved auntie believe there is never too much love and laughter.

I crave too much. Every time I see a certain man I want too much—to press my lips to his wrists and lick the crease of his elbows and nuzzle the hair on his chest with my teeth. I want to taste the salt on his skin and the years on his lips. I want the throb of his veins to softly pulse against my fingertips. I can never get too much of him. I want us to push beyond our conceptions of "too much" into a realm of pure sensation and a singular pleasure beyond sight and sound that is ours alone.

My question is: why is too much too much? And when did it become wrong for a woman to be "too much?" What the fuck is "too much" anyway?

Ever since I can remember, people have been saying "Girl, you are too much!" It was meant as a compliment and I took it as one, reveled in it. Now it seems the opposite is true.

But somehow, "too much" is not an option for women. Society and the media wants us to rule our appetites until we disappear, until we are light as a feather and can blow away with one puff. We are always being asked to take things off our plates, pare down our lives, make choices and compromises, take a load off.

They make us fear there is something vulgar and unfeminine about a woman who wants the big slice of birthday cake, who wants to fuck like a tornado and still rule the business world. Who doesn't want to choose between life and work, but demand that they universe stretch so she can have both. Who wants to be fat if she's fat and still believe she deserves a life of comfort, pleasure, spirit and intellect.

Is that asking too much?

I am the girl who is too much. Too little is just not an option. »

from: mjk | url: teal91
re: little something

I remember her as a speckled egg, warm and blue green against the faded cream and blue wall paper. But this red or black haired woman wouldn't crack or peel. Where my brain whispered Dutch -canals and tapestries and little lap dogs curled under vases filled with tulips, my hands twisted handfuls of her chemise. I trusted the hands, hers and mine. Cream and blue, the one tile mounted above the clock. A faint rattle in the pipes far below. The light slanted in, motes of dust dancing as she licked her lips. "Will it last? Will we?" "No, and no; but it doesn't matter." The sound carried to us, blouse and chemise and pants cast aside. The loose gutter shaking and dragging on the bricks outside. Leaves blowing against the window panes. The springy collision of warm flesh against the thin walls. I didn't care if we fell through. Part of me was counting on it. I kissed her again. "have you brought a.." The narrow closet had four pillows with cases the colors of garnet and bing cherries. We finished up on the bed. I reapplied her lipstick and her 3 earrings. I nipped her bare right ear and watched as she daubed perfume between her breasts. I laughed. "when I was 20 I got called down." "Called out, you mean a fight? Was it over a woman?" "No, Norah was the Trip Scheduler. She came in, eyed the ceiling and waved a ringed hand. 'Some one has fallen into the cologne fountain!' But I have always like your perfume." She lounged comfortably,circling a finger on her trimmed mound. "The pillows are comfy but do you bring a lot of your women here?" I put a Nico-Wean patch on her ankle. "No. I come here to write. When the kinks get in my shoulders I go to the pillows." The tinge of menace was just outside the room. A tincture, an elixir, some alcohol whiff and the smell of slightly burnt sugar dispelled it before she could notice. I had smelled sugar and almonds many times over the past two years. The radiator was very old and painted with five colors. I had dug down one day with a small penknife, a Thursday when she could come and then didn't show. Maybe she was with someone else or putting out some financial fire.

The bottom layer of paint was a warm buttery yellow like that house in the Hopper picture. I didn't ask her about work, only at the Cuban restaurant where we ordered everything hot and spicy, with plantains on the side and plenty of anejo rum. We went there, as we did here, to this hotel room, in separate cabs; but somehow always with the same drivers. As if they worked for some rogue spy agency, tactiturn and rugged Aussie blokes but incredibly loose like they wore expensive women's underwear beneath their stained chinos. Whatever had caused that twinge of menace was gone and the wood carver before it. The tiny painted figures, a rooster, an owl and a blue kingfisher were screwed into the window sill. I felt only the spirits of passion and romance and those yearnings - the I can do anything certitude of youth. There was no pain or anguish awash in this room. I had picked carefully and the Armenian grandmother of my Aunt's Tilda's florist had come here to inspect the quilt and then they had eaten ollalieberry pie and drank rare teas until the twilight spread its peace over their rounded shoulders. I knew then that the room was a good one. It felt so to the three of us. In the way that some lives go on blessed even when war and massacre and family pain lie beneath the sepia photos and postcards in the heirloom trunk. The scent of Blessing. I reached out and grasped her hands as I had theirs that day. I held her wrists gently and gazed into her eyes. The current passed between us, the impress of all the flawed and wistful lovers of those four walls. More certain and real than death and taxes. "this lasts" I said and smiled. »

from: David S | url: David Southgate
re: making peace

When pressed through stress or anxiety it could be said that lacking a strong center to guide them, most people—and apparently nations—turn to instinct and patterns that have served them in the past. Case and point, look at the troubles in our society today.

The U.S. is at war with virtually everyone instead of turning to the World Community and the UN to bring terrorists to justice. Insularity in times of attack and the use of aggression to solve conflict have a long history in the U.S. As evidence, one need look no farther than the creation of the nation itself—to the immigrants who stole a country from its native people through aggression and then sought to protect their sovereignty in war with England.

Consider also the U.S.'s long-held and ironic xenophobia—or fear of foreigners. Racial profiling has long been used by police as an (ineffective) means of stopping crime. Now, as part of its counter-attack on terrorism, the U.S. has also brought racial profiling of Middle Eastern Americans to new heights.

In the wake of all of this, jobless rates are soaring to levels not seen since the 1970s. The economy is sputtering smoke with news of criminal financial scams at Fortune 500 companies. The pattern here? Greed, pure and simple. Corporate officers are saying: "I'll take my millions as a lie about profits and eliminate thousands of jobs. I've got mine, screw the rest." Hang all the lying bastards, I say, the insufferable Martha Stewart included for her apparent part in insider trading.

And President Bush (whom we should note did not win his presidency with a broad mandate) has just drastically cut funds designated to clean up Superfund toxic land areas. He'll need all that money to buy bombs containing cancer causing heavy metals which he'll then drop on some of the world's poorest nations. So while he effectively bombs whole societies, he ensures that generations of their children will go homeless, hungry, and be plagued by illnesses and cancer.

It's a wonder that any of can get out of bed in the morning—that is unless of course you're blind, deaf, and numb. A recent and brief trip to New York a few weeks ago would suggest that many around Mid-town Manhattan could be all three. There, I saw a sea of blank faces—perhaps they had yet to take their morning coffee—racing off to work. This, of course, presumes that they had jobs. If New York is any representation of the greater nation surrounding it, then we're all in deep trouble. People, please wake up now.

It doesn't take much to open your eyes and observe the state of the world today. But it does take a certain amount of selflessness. As the Buddha for this age, Nichiren Daishonin, said 750 years ago: "When I observe carefully the state of the world today, I see people who give way to doubt because of the lack of understandingÉ They look up at the heavens and mouth their resentment, or gaze down at the earth and sink deep into despair." Not to sound like a religious fanatic or anything, but it's amazing how 750 years later these words still ring true.

Faced with desperate times, many people do tend to simply throw up their hands and curse or mutter to themselves about how rotten things have gotten. In trying times, people tend to cluster with those who are like themselves, who share their skin color, their religious beliefs, their economic class, and their ideals. The result, of course, is homogeneous ghettoes in which people won't talk to one another for fear of stepping out of their comfort zones.

Let me suggest that we get uncomfortable. When was the last time you identified with another person's suffering? Or better yet, did something to try to help them? Some people get it, even some of the most unusual and unlikely suspects, such as a former gang member. Twilight Bey once said: "In order to be a true human being, I can't forever dwell in darkness, I can't forever dwell in the idea of just identifying with people like me and understanding me and mine." Mr. Bey seems to get it.

So does my mentor in life, Daisaku Ikeda, who has designated this year "The Year of Expanding Dialogue." I believe that it's not enough to let our leaders solve our personal, community, state, national and international problems. Clearly, they're not doing a sufficiently good enough job. Just look at the mess we're all in. So what then? Let's take some personal responsibility to put down our hostilities towards and fears of otherness. Let's look for opportunities in our environment where we can help—like the thousands of firemen who ran to the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack. Or even more simply, let's try to carry on a dialogue about peace with someone who might do us or others harm in their hostility.

With this suggestion, I'm reminded of a dialogue I had recently with the manager of an Indian restaurant. He asked me how I enjoyed dinner, which was marvelous. Then we got on the topic of where I was from. When he heard I once lived in America, he took the opportunity to inform me that he was a Muslim and he believed that America got what it deserved in the terrorists attacks on 9/11. I was offended and angered by his pomposity. But instead of telling him to stuff himself, I calmly replied that yes, the U.S. does a poor job in international relations and that the country itself might be viewed as terrorist. But then I said no one deserves to die in a war waged on them by individuals or nations. Instead, we as people of faith—himself a Muslim and me a Buddhist—should pray for peace in this war-torn world. With that, the restaurant manager's attitude changed completely and he agreed with me.

In this small act, I may not have solved world hunger, created a job, or even given wisdom to our world leaders who seem to lack so much intellect. But, I believe I planted the seed of peace into one man's heart. Who knows, he might himself have been a terrorist or had terrorist ties. In any case, I saw his heart soften before me in the recognition that peace should be our objective, not war.

It's a simple, unexpected encounter like this, repeated again and again all over the world that can begin to transform our lives and our communities. Peace won't be found in our leaders' war on terrorism or in the economic disparities in the ever widening gap of haves and have nots. Creating peace requires personal action and person accountability. It means reflecting on the patterns of behavior that you turn to when you're stressed. Perhaps they simple don't serve you well. To make peace requires you to break down the divide between us and them—to get uncomfortable but be secure and confident. Who wants to enlist? »

from: LMichelle | url: Makes Grown Men Cry
re: hope

Not feeling very perky, I sit here in the early morning hours, smoking, listening to the mockingbird on the power line go through his songlist, reading through your webpages, missing people who use words like coon-ass. I like strong women who don't apologize for who they are. Gives me hope. Gives me courage.

I don't feel eloquent at the moment. I don't do eloquent with any kind of grace. I get too carried away with the high emotion of being alive, in love with life. I have my happy song I sing. Just my little song. I begin to sing it and joy floods through me, tears run down my face because I'm soooo very happy. What's weird is to sing my happy song when I'm sad. It's odd feeling being sad and joyful at the same time. Bittersweet, but triumphant.

Okay, smoking over, sun is rising, a new day blooms, I am hopeful. »

from: Louie V | url: Villasanta
re: fashionista + Villasanta

It's so refreshing to get an email and a link from your site... your site so artsy, so informative and so liberal. I like that you are promoting fat acceptance and advising on how to deal with the prejudices. Keep up the great work! It sure helps us in our business.

I think you should have a forum on why plus size women are price resistant to fashion forward clothing. Is it because they want to lose weight first, or that the buyers from the dept stores play it safe? We hear complaints that there is no new fashion out there, or that all of it looks matronly, or we that don't have color, etc. We are on a quest to service that gap in the plus size industry and your opinion would help. I know "BBW", "Grace" and other fashion magazines are trying to change the industry but are the plus size women really supporting the issues? »

from: Leigh | url: no one's daughter
re: fashionista + Villasanta [above]

I think that both of your suggested reasons are probably very accurate for a majority of fat women, though I have never been one to succumb to the self loathing of waiting until some ridiculous diet or other works and I lose weight before deciding to drape myself in a coveted frock, and "playing it safe" just isn't in my vocabulary, so I'm definitely a BBW who dares to stray from the conservative boutiques and department stores.

[Caveat: The following are all generalizations, and I am by no means attempting to state that any of my these scenarios is the case for all larger women, but I have these further thoughts.]

Another reason could be financial:

Because there are so few women earning salaries equal to that of their male counterparts, I'm certain that many women can not afford to stray from the usual department store sales racks and discount joints that sell disposable clothing like Rainbow and Deb Shops.

Since large women are subject to further discrimination than their thinner sisters simply on the basis of their size, they are not as quickly or easily considered for better-paying positions and so are forced, again to shop at a lower price point.

As far as the housewives or mistresses of men with the kind of disposable income that would afford a quality wardrobe, you know better than I the number of closeted Fat Admirers who are so weak that they succumb to peer and media pressure, select polished, over-coiffed, borderline-anorexic, martha-stewart-action-figure-like gym-rats and make them their trophy-wives and girlfriends (suitable for draping over arms and backs of chairs, of course!). Again, the BBW is forced to fend for herself more often than not.

Yet another reason could be vendors' neglect:

Most of us are completely unaware of the availability of better designs and variety of styles to larger ladies. This is fed by the near impossibility of actually finding the great clothes that are out there because the companies aren't targeting us with the kind of marketing and advertising dollars of, say, Gucci, for our thinner sisters. PS: Did you know there's not even a Lane Bryant in greater Manhattan?

Personally, I don't care if a company provides large sizes if the clothes they're marketing to me aren't being displayed on a model of size. They're not going to get my money. Some women and companies have no problem with this (see Newport News), but I believe their sales and customer-loyalty would increase if they utilized plus-size models.

The quality of the online stores hawking plus-size wares out there is absolutely appalling! Aesthetically, these sites (they are actually the STAGES for the oft-times stellar clothing) range from the ugliest and most garish to the most boring and unpleasant on the web. Structurally, they are either broken (bad links everywhere, non-browser or -OS compatible or worse, browser- and computer-crashing) and amateurish [tip: not a good idea to let Uncle Fred the Dentist design your storefront no matter how cheap he is... would you let a web designer drill your teeth?] or so poorly coded and programmed that they render the pages so vastly screwy across browsers and platforms that many of us click away in utter frustration. »

from: Brad F | url: CMJ
re: the voice inside

28 years old and I don't feel or act a day over 20. Almost 4 years to the day that I set foot on this crazy, beautiful, heartbreaking city. Been here during some crazy times. Seen buildings rise and fall I've seen a century die in celebration, seen another born in a rain of steal, concrete and flesh. And through it all deep down inside a voice wanting to be heard. We all need to listen to those little voices within us. Maybe it's time to let them scream. Time to stake our claim in the world we all live in now. As the Chinese warning goes "may you live in interesting times"... I can't think of a time more interesting than this. Welcome to tomorrow. It is what we'll make it. »

from: mjk | url: teal91
re: Calliope Fallen + Afghan elections + holy buggers

Almost idle thought: is there an aristocracy in Cajun Country... Old Money, pre-shrimp boat money? I was reading a month ago on-line about the cycle of Parish boat blessings and feasts running through May and June. I used to make gumbo a lot. My mother-in-law was from North Carolina and made a good gumbo. Rice and grits country.

You all got A/C, air conditioning, you literate dahlinks? Just sipping pressed iced tea, plotting ways to fire all those Catholic Bishops. Also the woman candidate did get 171 votes for interim leader, down Afghan way. Not bad considering. »

from: Boz | url: Boz
re: nod backstory 12 june 2002

Leigh Biker Foley... who the fuck is this Leigh Biker Foley? I bet you're not even a real biker... just some rocker bint with posters of Lemmy and yer man from Saxon on your walls. Come to think of it, you're probably just a goth.

I'm trying to be a freelance suicide bomber but nobody will hire me, they say the insurance costs are prohibitive. I read a great thing in a Tom Wolfe book about the concept of genetic mapping and hardwired genetic mediocrity, Nice and fascist, but in the boz-fascist way.

I said to a friend of mine recently that I thought the concept of gas ovens was a noble one, it's just that they were always used for the wrong reasons. Needless to say he wasn't impressed. I mean, this isn't rocket science - The cast of FRIENDS, Stevo Segal, George W, Richard Gere and many others need a good gassing to sort out that thing we all hate about them that we just can't put our fingers on...

Just read your shit on Mayor Julie Anne-E. It's obviously very horrific to be stuck in a skyscraper and know your fate is in the hands of a load of extremist freaks, but applying the laws of how many of those people were complete arseholes - Kinda like the 98% that applies to the waking moments of life. Strangers die, and death doesn't somehow make heroes out of them, Just corpses.

And I bet all the people who went down with the titanic were assholes as well... what sort of business was conducted in the World Trade Center? If it was mostly financial then they were all tossers. »

from: Apartness | url: not available
re: nod backstory 12 june 2002

So let me tell you why I LIKE Giuliani:
Couple nights ago my girlfriend and I went to Bryant Park after dark to look at the new merry-go-round. There were other couples in the park, sitting on benches, kissing, walking.

Before G you could not go into that park after dark.

In fact, not since the 1940s could couples safely enter an NYC park after dark.

Look at old movies: the couples are always going to the park at night. It's lovely and free and a great romantic setting and great break from the city.

Look at movies from the 60s to the 90s: going into an NYC park at night is asking to be mugged, raped, or killed. Never mind the movies, look at the newspapers from a few years ago. I moved here in '88. Town was great (always has been) but a dangerous dirty shithole. G changed that. Because of him and his policies I can take my little buttercup to a park at night.

Or walk down 18th Street at 1a.m. without fear.

That's what he did.

Now I understand (I think) what your friend experienced and I too am scared about Bush and increased FBI power and all that.

But (I can't help it) I Love That Man who was our mayor. »