Saturday, May 08, 2010
Dark Roasted M.Christian
We always seem to short-change the past. The pyramids? Must have been aliens: those Egyptians couldn't have been smart enough to build them. The Eiffel Tower? Sure it's impressive but it probably should have fallen down decades ago: after all, Gustave Eiffel didn't have computers and modern witchy mixtures of alloys and composites.
Bur our smug superiority is misplaced, our 21st century dismissal of everything created before the integrated circuit and plastic insultingly arrogant. The fact of the matter is that the past was more than grand, more than amazing, more than impressive.
Take, for example, Coney Island, or, as it was called, The City of Fire, around the turn of the previous century.
Originally just a tiny, sandy dot of land full of itchy scrub and wild rabbits -- or "Conies" which is where the place got its name -- the island became first a waypoint and then a tawdry vacation spot for the weary citizens of the Big Apple. But soon Coney began to change, to become a phantasmagorical place: a world of wonders, dreams, and -- tragically as well as mystically -- a City of Fire.
Take, for instance, Coney Island's elephant. Created in 1885 by James V. Lafferty -- who also created Atlantic City's famous pachyderm, which still stands today -- it was one of Coney's first amazements. The elephant wasn't just a statue, some cheap tourist novelty. It was an actual, functional, five-storey hotel and, to give you an idea of what kind of world early Coney Island was, a brothel.
But the elephant, while grand at the time and would have remained grand today like her sister in Atlantic City, was only a tusked taste of what was to come. In 1897, George C. Tilyou created one of the island's lost yet enduring parks: Steeplechase Park.
It's hard to imagine what it must have been like to be a visitor to Steeplechase in those early days. No one had ever seen anything like it: wild and raucous, rude and amazing, Steeplechase was a playground of laughter and thrills. The main attraction were the mechanical ponies. Racing at almost dangerous speeds on a up-and-down and round-and-round iron track, the horses were thrilling, terrifying and, as someone perfectly put it: Gave the boys a chance to hug girls, and girls a chance to be hugged by boys.
But the fun at Steeplechase didn't end with the ponies. Exiting riders, under the frighteningly cheery face of Tillie, the park's mascot, were assaulted by a clown and a dwarf. The clown would hit the boys with a cattle prod and try to blow the women's skirts up over their heads with a blast of compressed air. The giggling and shrieking boys and girls would then be allowed to sit on bleachers to watch other fun-seekers go through the same treatment.
In what would be a common theme for the island, Steeplechase burned in 1907 but was rebuilt on a scale that's hard to comprehend for us 21st century folks. In addition to the restored mechanical horses, Tilyou also added an immense steel and glass "Pavilion of Fun" with dozens of other rude rides including the Human Roulette Wheel, the Barrel of Love, the Cave of Winds, and many contraptions guaranteed to make men and women alike shriek and wail with laughter.
Steeplechase was amazing, to be sure. But it was mostly a broad and guttural place, acres and acres of architectural joy buzzers and whoopee cushions.
Then there was Luna Park, and with it Coney Island became a land of dreams. Built by Frederic Thompson and Elmer "Skip" Dundy, Luna was a hallucination, a disorienting vision of twisting minarets, undulating arches, and – at night – the brilliant spectacle of hundreds of thousands of then-novel electric lights. At Luna Park visitors were treated to rides – such as the famous soaking Shoot-the-Chutes, and the legendary animals, including the park's own herd of elephants – but, more importantly, they could walk the sprawling promenades of Luna Park and feel like they'd been whisked away from their ordinary lives in 1903 to a world of rapturous imagination: a world of fantasy made real. Albeit in lath and plaster.
The spectacle of Luna Park's, well, 'spectacles' is staggering, even today: mock navel battles, including an attack on Manhattan by the combined navies of Germany, France Spain and even Great Britain, only to be beaten back by Admiral Dewey's fleet; a trip to the moon that included mischievous 'moon men'; a trip to the north pole by submarine; and too many more for this small space.
Luna also featured the world of the time, which for most people touring the park might as well have been the north pole or the moon: entire villages, such as Samoan's, were uprooted and placed in the park for the education – and amusement – of the visitors.
Luna Park is a legend, and with it, unprecedented spectacle came to Coney Island. But then came Dreamland.
Built in 1904 by the very crooked William H. Reynolds, Dreamland was to be the crowning glory of the island, a factor-of-ten grander park than either Steeplechase and Luna.
It's hard to picture imagine the scale and majesty that Reynolds made with Dreamland, the outrageousness as well as the beauty that he created on the island. While Luna had a reported quarter of a million electric lights, Dreamland claimed to have more than one million: all of these lights giving the island its nickname of The City Of Fire.
Dreamland was an entire dazzling world, a complete universe of dazzling spectacle. Every hour on the hour 2,000 firemen would put on a performance of extinguishing a roaring blaze in a six-storey building. An entire town was built – half scale of course – for the park's resident 350 midgets. A 375-foot-high central tower lit up so bright it was often seen from Manhattan. There were also performances of the Biblical view of creation as well as a tour of Hell. And let's not forget the incubator babies.
Yep, that's right: one of the most famous exhibitions of Dreamland were the baby incubators, compliments of the brilliant Dr. Martin Arthur Couney. Unable to get hospitals to take his inventions seriously, Dr. Couney worked with Reynolds and – through some showmanship – finally got the world to take notice of his technique to save the lives of premature babies.
Unfortunately, as with that original elephant, Steeplechase, and many other Coney Island amazements, the City of Fire lived up to its name and Dreamland burned to the ground in a hellish blaze that, too ironically, began in the Hell Gate exhibition in 1911. Fortunately there were only a few tragedies, including a lion that had escaped from the fire and had to be shot by police. Unfortunately, the park never recovered and Dreamland became only a memory, the ghost of a dream for those lucky enough to have seen it before it became soggy ashes.
Even more sadly, Luna and Steeplechase's appeal and popularity slipped away in the decades afterward until they collapsed into tawdry ruins, their majesty becoming tainted by the desperation and failures of their autumn years.
These days we have our Disneylands and dozens of other parks around the world and feel like we've managed something amazing – but then you look at the pictures of Coney Island in its heyday and realize that what we consider amazing now is actually small and cheap and easy. For truly wondrous playlands and amazing spectacles, you have to go back at least a hundred years, to Coney Island, to that legendary City of Fire.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
At Your Local Library?
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Love Without Gun Control - Now In Print!
Just click here to go to amazon where you can get the very-lovely print edition for just $15.99. You will not be disappointed!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Tinkling of Tiny Silver Bells - In The Mammoth Book Of Best New Erotica
If you don't want to wait until the anthology comes out you can read the same story - and lots of other juicy tales - in my collection, Licks & Promises. So what are you waiting for? Buy it!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
WriteSex and SavvyAuthors!
Check it out: The wonderful Writesex bunch (including Sascha Illyvich, Oceania, and Jean Marie Stine ... and me) are going to be holding a special forum/class on Defining Erotica – A Primer for Authors of All Genres for Savvywriters. First up was Sascha Illyvich (on the 26th), after Sasha is Jean Marie Stine (on the 27th), then it's Oceania (on the 28th), on the 29th it's me, on the 30st it's Thomas Roche. For more info go to the Savvyauthors site. Tune in, have fun, and learn something.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Less Than 1000 Words About A Certain Picture
It was really a very special thing to do and I want to really thank the great folks, the great friends, who gave me this opportunity to put my thoughts about the picture, and the man in it, out there. Thanks!
Since I try to make this, my 'professional' blog, SFW, I'm not going to post the picture but if you click here (or go over to Frequently Felt) you can not see the picture but also read the essay.
In the meantime, here's a teaser for the piece:
I know that’s me. I remember that afternoon: a house in the Sunset District of San Francisco with an intimate playroom in the basement, owned by a friend, since passed away. The woman was my wife, now ex-wife.
I remember Michael Rosen, the magnificent photographer who took the shot, saying “Open your eyes” over and over again. I remember she was almost standing on her head, laying backwards on a GYN table with her ass raised high. I remember the shot took a long time — so long my hand began to cramp. I remember the day Michael sent us a copy of his magnificent book Sexual Art with the photo published in it.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. They say that pictures don’t lie. They say ‘photographic evidence.’ I don’t know why ‘they’ are, but when I look at that picture I wonder about what’s real and not real, about who that man really is.
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Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The View From Here - The Book!
And here's a new, and rather special, one: a collection if my more ... shall we say 'out there' pieces, including the column I wrote for Suspect Thoughts, The View From Here, from Mindfuck books.
And this is even more special (if that's even possible): my great pal, and amazing artist, Wynn Ryder, did the cover. What do you think? I love how Wynn described it on his blog:
Must be some Monty Python influence in this one... I can imagine the hills animated, sprouting up from the ground and talking.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Happy Birthday, Pauline!
Writers have different dreams than ‘civilians.’ Some of them are pretty obvious: big book deals; Pulitzers, Nobels, etc; “Honey, there’s a Mr. Spielberg on the phone; ” an Oprah sticker ….
But there are other dreams: less obvious ones. One of them, a very special one, even the most hard-core, hard-case, hard-assed grizzled hack has, but will never admit: a friend.
Not just any friend, but a friend who comes from them following your trail of silly little literary breadcrumbs. Not a fan, but someone more than that: a cherished pal, a smile on your face whenever they send a message.
I’m lucky, and very grateful, for many things: my various breaks and bursts of luck in writing; my cherished, so-wonderful Sage Vivant, my brother, Sam; the support of my mother; and – yes – some fantastic friends.
One of them, Pauline, is one year older today. I don’t really want to embarrass her but let me say a few things about this truly wonderful person.
Pauline is sweet and caring, smart and funny, giving and supportive, kind and generous – a real treasure to know.
Happy Birthday, Pauline: you’re a dream come true … for a writer or just anyone lucky enough to have you in their life.
Dark Roasted M.Christian (flashback)
FOR SALE:
ONE ISLAND, OFF THE COAST OF SCOTLAND
ONLY ONE PREVIOUS OWNER (HER MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT)
CAVEAT EMPTOR
It's a nice enough place, this barren dome of rock between Gairloch and Ullapool. Conveniently close to the mainland, like most of Scotland it's not without a certain bleak charm. Just the place for a Heathcliff to do some Wuthering Heights or some Shakespearian witches to stir up a bubbling pot of trouble.
But if you'd landed on its shores just 17 years ago, you would have probably had a very different opinion, one formulated just before you began to suffer something kind of like a cold (high fever, aches, trouble breathing, etc.) and then ... well, how to put it?
You'd die.
For most of the world post-9/11, the word has an immediate stomach punch of frightening recognition. But well before some of it was sent out in envelopes piggybacking the terror of Al-Qaeda, anthrax has been tossed around as a weapon of last resort. There's only one problem when you toss anything around: you just might drop it.
Gruinard Island wasn't an accident, but it could be argued that the testing that took place there in 1942 exceeded the British Government's wildest expectations to a frightening degree. The special breed of anthrax, Vollum 14578l, that was released there via special bombs killed the flock of test sheep within only a few days but had the side effect of leaving that Scottish hunk of rock completely uninhabitable for close to fifty years. In 1990 the island was decontaminated and today it's considered safe for man and beast, though I doubt Gruinard will become a common tourist spot.
Once again, Gruinard can't really be considered an "ooops" if the island was intentionally turned into a terrifyingly lethal spot, though that doesn't really make it any easier to think about.
But then there's the town of Sverdlovsk, as it was called back in the days of the USSR (it's now called Ekaterinburg). Lovely little spot, I'm sure, full of all kinds of restfully quiet quaintness and charm, or maybe just the heavy grayness of a typical Soviet town. On a bad day back in 1979, though, Sverdlovsk got even quieter. It was close to a biowarfare lab; one that had an accident.
What happened to Sverdlovsk wasn't known until 1992 when the KGB finally released its death grip on the info. What came to light was this: because of Soviet slippery fingers, some people died from anthrax exposure.
Sixty-eight of them to be precise.
Another scary Russian spot is Vozrozhdeniya Island in the Aral Sea. Ironically meaning "Rebirth," Vozrozhdeniya was used for extensive biowarfare testing. That is until the Soviet Union fell and researchers stationed there decided to walk off the job in 1991, leaving behind anthrax and bubonic plague containers. Bad enough, but what's chilling is that the containers weren't treated with the respect they deserved and many began to [shudder] leak. Vozrozhdeniya was cleaned up in 2002 but between 1991 and 2000, the island was simply
posted as a no-go zone. Vozrozhdeniya and Sverdlovsk are scary enough, without getting into the fact that anthrax and bubonic plague can survive for decades even i some very harsh environments, but consider this: we know about Sverdlovsk and Vozrozhdeniya. What about other places we don't know about?
The Japanese against the Chinese in World War II, Iraq versus Iran, Irag against the Kurds, the Holocaust, Germany against the allies in World War I, the Aum Shinrikyo cult against Japan, Russian troops against Chechen terrorists: all kinds of countries and groups have used chemical weapons in battle, or as an attempt at genocide, and what hasn't been used has been developed and stored as forms of chemical and biological Mutual Assured Destruction. In addition to the Russians and the British, we've also conducted more than our fair share of experiments with nasty bugs and chemicals. And although the U.S. hasn't had any accidents -- that we know of -- we've not been particularly careful with these nasties, either.
While anthrax is frightening because of its longevity and biological spread, for really scary stuff, dig into such delights as Novichok, the v-series, the g-series, and VX. Death in the animal kingdom is one thing, but if you really want to kill, leave it up to our own inventiveness: choking, nausea, salivating, urinating, defecating, gastrointestinal pain, vomiting, then comes the twitching and finally coma. Nerve gas exposure is not a fun way to go.
If reading about Vozrozhdeniya and Sverdlovsk leaves a bad taste in the mouth about the way Russia's handled its biological weapons, how about the way the U.S. has handled what could be potentially worse: until 1972 the military basically had carte blanche to dispose of nerve gas agents by dumping them into the ocean. Let's let that sink in for a moment. Nerve gas -- 32,000 tons of it. In the ocean. Not just any ocean, mind you, but in 26 dump sites off the coast of 11 states.
Bad? Hell yes, but it gets worse. "How can it get worse?" you ask. Well, how about this: we know where about about half those sites are.
But the rest, because of poor record keeping, are a mystery. Those drums are out there, right now, rusting and no doubt leaking, spilling nasty death into the sea, doing who knows what to crabs and lobsters, fish and ocean flora, and thanks to the food chain, probably even us.
Masquerade: Page 11
I'll be putting up pages from the final periodically ... or you can read the entire thing on Wynn's Deviantart pages.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Dark Roasted M.Christian (flashback)
There are rules about such things … or so we think. After all, apples don’t fall up, lions don’t have feathers, and lakes don’t explode.
Sure enough, Macintoshes don’t fall skyward, and panthera leo doesn’t have beautiful plumage.
But if you happened to be living in Cameroon you’d know all too well that lakes can, and do, explode.
Take for example the Lake Nyos in the Northwest Province of Cameroon. Part of the inactive Oku volcano chain, it’s an extremely deep, extremely high and, most importantly, very calm, very still, lake.
But it hasn’t always been so calm or still. In 1986 something very weird happened to Lake Nyos, a weirdness that unfortunately killed 3,500 head of livestock … and 1,700 people.
No jokes this time. No clumsy 50’s horror movie metaphors. What happened to the people in the three villages near that lake isn’t funny. Most of them luckily died in the sleep, but the 4,000 others who escaped the region suffered from sores, repertory problems and even paralysis. All because Lake Nyos exploded.
Before the why, here’s some more. What happened to the villages of Cha, Nyos, and Subum that time isn’t unique. The same thing happened to lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, in 1984. That time 37 people died, again not very pleasantly. What does sound like a scene from some only horror flick is the story of a truck that had been driving near the scene. Mysteriously, the truck’s engine died, and then so did the ten people who got out: suffocating within minutes of stepping down. Only two people of the dozen survived, all because they happened to be sitting on top of the truck.
The technical term for what happened to Lake Nyos and Monoun is a limnic eruption. To get one you need a few basic elements: one, a very deep volcanic lake; two, said lake has to be over a slow source of volcanic gas; and three, it has to be very, very still.
What happens is that volcanic gas, mostly carbon dioxide but nasty carbon monoxide as well, super saturates the lake. A clumsy way of thinking about it is a can of soda: shake it up like crazy and the fluid in the can, held back by pressure, doesn’t do anything.
But pull the top, or in the case of Nyos and Monoun, a small landslide or low magnitude earthquake, and all that trapped gas rushes out in an immense explosion. That’s bad enough, as there are even some theories suggesting that the subsequent lake-tsunami from the gassy blast has wiped out still more villages, but what’s worse is that those gasses trapped in the lake water are absolutely deadly.
Heavier than air, the carbon dioxide flows down from the mountain lake, suffocating anything and anyone in it’s path – which explains how those two lucky bus passengers managed to escape: they were simply above the toxic cloud.
Fortunately scientists and engineers are working on ways to stop limnic blasts. Controlled taping of the gasses, bubbling pipes to keep the water from becoming super saturated, it’s beginning to look like they might be able to keep what happened to the 1700 people of Nyos from happening again.
But what keeps other scientists awake at night is that there are more than likely lots of other lakes ready to explode, the question being … when?
Okay, so lakes can explode. But fruit doesn’t drop to the sky and feline African predators aren’t born with fluffy down, and frogs don’t pop … right?
Not if you happened to live in Germany a few years ago: for awhile there toads were doing just that. And we’re not talking a few here and there. Over 1,000 frogs were found burst and blasted in a lake that was soon stuck with the pleasant name “the death pool.”
Theories flew like parts of an exploding frog: a virus? A crazy who had a thing for dynamite and toads? A detonating mass suicide? What the hell (bang) was going (boom) on (kablam)?
The cops checked out the area and the local nut-houses but there wasn’t anyone with that very weird and very specific MO. Scientists check out the exploded remains but found no suspicious viruses, parasites, or bacteria.
They one veterinarian came up with the most likely answer: crows.
As anyone who has ever watched a crow knows they do not fit the label “bird brain.” Extremely clever and resourceful, crows are not only fast learners but they study, and learn from, other crows. What Frank Mutschmann, one clever vet, hypothesized was that it was happening was the meeting of smart crows and a frog’s natural defenses -- plus the allure of livers.
Wanting that tasty part of the toads, the crows had learned how to neatly extract it from their prey with a quick stab of their very sharp bills. In response, the toads did what they always go: puff themselves up. The problem – for the amphibians that is – is that because they now had a hole where their livers were that defense then became an explosive problem. Weasels might not literally go pop in that old kid’s song but that seems to be just what was happening to that lake of German toads in 2005.
But that still doesn’t change that Pipins don’t fall up, and lions don’t have tails like a peacock’s, right? And what about ants? They don’t explode, do they?
But they do. Ladies and Gentlemen allow me to present camponotus saundersi. Native to Malaysia, this average looking ant has a unique structure giving it an even more unique behavior when threatened.
Running the length of it’s little body are two mandibular glands full of toxins. That’s bad enough, as any critter that decides to try a bite will get a mouthful of foul-tasting, maybe even deadly, venom, but what sets this ant aside from others is what happens when it gets pushed into a corner.
By clamping down on a special set of muscles these ants can commit violent and, yes, explosive suicide: taking out any nearby threat with a hail of nasty poisons. It’s certainly a dramatic way to go but you can bet anything threatening it’s colony will get a shock it won’t soon forget.
Sure apples do not fall up and lions don’t have feathers – but what with exploding lakes, bursting toads, and suicide-bombing ants it you might want to check that your grandmother’s homemade pie doesn’t float away or that lions aren’t about to swoop down from the sky and carry you off.
How To Wonderfully WriteSex (3)
Check it out: my new post at the fantastic WriteSex site just went up. Here's a tease (for the rest you'll have to go to the site):
Writers are professional liars: it’s our job is to tell a story so well that the audience believes it’s the truth, at least for the course of the story. The technical term, of course, is suspension of disbelief – the trick of getting the reader to put aside any doubts that what you’re saying isn’t the truth, the whole truth, so help you God.
For erotica writers that means convincing the reader that you really are a high school cheerleader named Tiffany who likes stuffed animals and gang-bangs with the football team … or that you’re a pro tennis player named Andre who has a mean backhand and can suck cock like a professional. A writer’s job is to convince, to put aside doubts … in other words to lie through their fucking teeth.
As any liar worth their salt knows, the trick to telling a good one is to mix just the right amount of truth with the bullshit. You don’t tell your mom who went to the movies rather than church: you say you had a sick friend, that your car broke down or that you had a cold. The same goes for fiction: spinning something that everyone knows is a lie (“the check is in the mail”) is flimsy, but adding the right amount of real life experience makes a story really live. Rather than Tiffany and the football players, how about a young woman who really wants to do a gangbang but doesn’t know how to break it to her boyfriend or girlfriend? We’ve all had the experience of trying to find a way to communicate our sexual fantasies to someone, so that rings true … even though our character is a total fabrication.
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