I'm exceptionally thrilled to have just agreed to edit not one, not two, not four, not five ... well, okay: three brand new anthologies for one of my all-time favorite publishers (and people) Jean Marie Stine's Renaissance/Sizzler Books. I'm going to post the calls one after another here just to give you folks an early head's up before sending them out into the big, wide, kinky world.
So sharpen your pencils and get writing!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Dark Roasted M.Christian
Check it out: a brand new Dark Roasted Blend piece I did just went up: this time about some of the strange - and beautiful - creatures living in the VERY deep sea.
Here's a fun fact for you: did you know that you, an unprotected human being, can last for about two whole minutes in a vacuum -- say on the surface of the moon? Here's another amusing bit of knowledge: did you also know that you, still just an unprotected homo sapiens, would last only the barest smidgen of a second before being totally, completely pulped by the crushing pressures at the bottom of the sea?
Still with the facts and, hopefully, still fun: there is more light on the dark side of the moon than there is down, down, down in those ocean depths.
But what's especially chilling is that these facts -- amusing or otherwise -- are some of the few of things we know for certain about the deep sea: it's commonly said we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about what happens right here on our own planet, in that murky world at the bottom of the sea.
One thing we do know, though, beyond that despite the crushing pressure (at least 16,000 pounds per square inch) and the absolute, total, complete darkness, there is life.
Even at the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, and the deepest part of the Trench, the Challenger Deep, there are living things. Auguste Piccard, who made an adventurous trip in 1960 to the bottom of the Deep in his bathyscaphe, the Trieste, saw a few extreme creatures that managed to made that extreme environment their home.
While not as deep – but just as dark – as the Deep, scientists have found, and continue to find, an amazing, and sometimes nightmarish, world of creatures in the abyssal plains, which make up more than a staggering 50% of the earth's surface.
Light is so rare down there that its uniqueness is an allure, for mating, as well as a lure, for eating. Grammatostomias flagellibarba, a dragon fish to you and I, uses bioluminescence – biological light– mainly for the latter: any deep, deep, deep swimmers that notices, and becomes interested in, a certain tiny flickering light will end up becoming caught by the dragon fish's monstrously huge, and needle-sharp toothed, mouth. The light being a glowing lure at the end of a long, thin filament connected to the underside of the fish's jaw.
The sea angler uses a similar trick, though it's more globular instead of having the dragon fish's lean and nasty body. The angler's lure is the same in function, but different in location: its flashing trick is a kind of deadly finger between its eyes and it's similarly sharp-toothed mouth rather than being at the end of a thin strand like the dragon fish.
While neither of these fish – and there are far too many to name here – are monsters in size, there something called abyssal gigantism, the tendency for other forms of extremely deep-dwelling organisms to not only be odd, strange, bizarre and darned creepy but also oddly, strangely, bizarrely and – yes, you guessed it – creepily huge.
Do you have a small dog, a cat, or a larger-than-average tortoise? How would you like to have a pet the size of any of them but isn't just from a different species but from a whole different phylum?
Cute? Not really. Cuddly? Absolutely not. But the giant isopod would certainly be a conversation starter if you took it out for a walk: imagine a pill bug weighing over four pounds.
Other abyssal giants include the poster child for arachnophobia, the Japanese spider crab, which averages 12 feet from leg to creepy leg; and then there's the giant ... well, we'll get to him in a minute.
While not a heavyweight, one of the most oddly lovely creatures living in the dark depths is the very-correctly named vampire squid. Blood red, with soft hooks instead of a squid's regular suckers, it has the neat trick of flipping it's legs over its soft body turning itself into a spiny ball. The vamp has its own bioluminescent trick as well: glowing when it wants to be seen but turning its lights off when it wants to vanish into the darkness.
The so-called Piglet variety of squid is, for want of a better word, actually cute: looking for all the world like the strange mating of a cartoon character, a bunny rabbit, and a kitten, this deep water oddity is almost a complete mystery – though scientists, not reputable ones, have speculated that the piglet's defense mechanism is to make adversaries go "Awwwwww..." and leave them alone.
The granrojo is almost the vamp and the piglet's relation, despite the fact that it's a jellyfish and not a squid. While neither hooked or spiked -- or cute -- this deep-water creature is just as odd, with chubby arms and an almost plastic looking crimson bell.
Yet another contender for the oddly pretty prize is the so-called barreleye. This fish takes vision to a new level of spooky strange. Sure, it has eyes, but instead of having to deal with an oh-so-annoying skull that gets in the way of what it's trying to see, the barreleye's head is transparent: to look up it just moves its eyes to focus through its clear – and a bit disturbing – cranium.
We could go on, and there are certainly more than enough odd and strange and weird and beautiful and disturbing creatures out there, but it has to be mentioned that while we know about some, there are still possibly thousands of even odder, stranger, weirder, more beautiful and disturbing creatures in the deep seas.
Remember the promise about getting back to one particular example of abyssal gigantism? Well, there is one creature that is a mix of the known and the unknown, almost a poster-child for the wonder, and horror, of the dark oceans. For a long time it was thought it was just a myth, a story shared by sailors who'd been out at sea too long. But then there was evidence: the disturbing marks on the sides of Sperm Whales, the kings of the sea -- evidence of nightmarish battles between one and the other miles below the surface.
These giants are out there, possibly the largest species currently on the planet: eyes the size of dinner plates, 30 foot tentacles dotted with razor-toothed suckers, and a massively strong beak. Architeuthis, the giant squid to you and I, was recently filmed, for the first time, but there is still much – too much – we don't know about it.
So take a moment and look up at the full moon, wonder about the mysteries that may be up there, but then go to the shore, look out at the sea, and think that we may very well know more about a hunk of rock 250,000 miles away than we know about a world full of life just a few miles away, and many, lightless, miles straight down.
Here's a fun fact for you: did you know that you, an unprotected human being, can last for about two whole minutes in a vacuum -- say on the surface of the moon? Here's another amusing bit of knowledge: did you also know that you, still just an unprotected homo sapiens, would last only the barest smidgen of a second before being totally, completely pulped by the crushing pressures at the bottom of the sea?
Still with the facts and, hopefully, still fun: there is more light on the dark side of the moon than there is down, down, down in those ocean depths.
But what's especially chilling is that these facts -- amusing or otherwise -- are some of the few of things we know for certain about the deep sea: it's commonly said we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about what happens right here on our own planet, in that murky world at the bottom of the sea.
One thing we do know, though, beyond that despite the crushing pressure (at least 16,000 pounds per square inch) and the absolute, total, complete darkness, there is life.
Even at the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, and the deepest part of the Trench, the Challenger Deep, there are living things. Auguste Piccard, who made an adventurous trip in 1960 to the bottom of the Deep in his bathyscaphe, the Trieste, saw a few extreme creatures that managed to made that extreme environment their home.
While not as deep – but just as dark – as the Deep, scientists have found, and continue to find, an amazing, and sometimes nightmarish, world of creatures in the abyssal plains, which make up more than a staggering 50% of the earth's surface.
Light is so rare down there that its uniqueness is an allure, for mating, as well as a lure, for eating. Grammatostomias flagellibarba, a dragon fish to you and I, uses bioluminescence – biological light– mainly for the latter: any deep, deep, deep swimmers that notices, and becomes interested in, a certain tiny flickering light will end up becoming caught by the dragon fish's monstrously huge, and needle-sharp toothed, mouth. The light being a glowing lure at the end of a long, thin filament connected to the underside of the fish's jaw.
The sea angler uses a similar trick, though it's more globular instead of having the dragon fish's lean and nasty body. The angler's lure is the same in function, but different in location: its flashing trick is a kind of deadly finger between its eyes and it's similarly sharp-toothed mouth rather than being at the end of a thin strand like the dragon fish.
While neither of these fish – and there are far too many to name here – are monsters in size, there something called abyssal gigantism, the tendency for other forms of extremely deep-dwelling organisms to not only be odd, strange, bizarre and darned creepy but also oddly, strangely, bizarrely and – yes, you guessed it – creepily huge.
Do you have a small dog, a cat, or a larger-than-average tortoise? How would you like to have a pet the size of any of them but isn't just from a different species but from a whole different phylum?
Cute? Not really. Cuddly? Absolutely not. But the giant isopod would certainly be a conversation starter if you took it out for a walk: imagine a pill bug weighing over four pounds.
Other abyssal giants include the poster child for arachnophobia, the Japanese spider crab, which averages 12 feet from leg to creepy leg; and then there's the giant ... well, we'll get to him in a minute.
While not a heavyweight, one of the most oddly lovely creatures living in the dark depths is the very-correctly named vampire squid. Blood red, with soft hooks instead of a squid's regular suckers, it has the neat trick of flipping it's legs over its soft body turning itself into a spiny ball. The vamp has its own bioluminescent trick as well: glowing when it wants to be seen but turning its lights off when it wants to vanish into the darkness.
The so-called Piglet variety of squid is, for want of a better word, actually cute: looking for all the world like the strange mating of a cartoon character, a bunny rabbit, and a kitten, this deep water oddity is almost a complete mystery – though scientists, not reputable ones, have speculated that the piglet's defense mechanism is to make adversaries go "Awwwwww..." and leave them alone.
The granrojo is almost the vamp and the piglet's relation, despite the fact that it's a jellyfish and not a squid. While neither hooked or spiked -- or cute -- this deep-water creature is just as odd, with chubby arms and an almost plastic looking crimson bell.
Yet another contender for the oddly pretty prize is the so-called barreleye. This fish takes vision to a new level of spooky strange. Sure, it has eyes, but instead of having to deal with an oh-so-annoying skull that gets in the way of what it's trying to see, the barreleye's head is transparent: to look up it just moves its eyes to focus through its clear – and a bit disturbing – cranium.
We could go on, and there are certainly more than enough odd and strange and weird and beautiful and disturbing creatures out there, but it has to be mentioned that while we know about some, there are still possibly thousands of even odder, stranger, weirder, more beautiful and disturbing creatures in the deep seas.
Remember the promise about getting back to one particular example of abyssal gigantism? Well, there is one creature that is a mix of the known and the unknown, almost a poster-child for the wonder, and horror, of the dark oceans. For a long time it was thought it was just a myth, a story shared by sailors who'd been out at sea too long. But then there was evidence: the disturbing marks on the sides of Sperm Whales, the kings of the sea -- evidence of nightmarish battles between one and the other miles below the surface.
These giants are out there, possibly the largest species currently on the planet: eyes the size of dinner plates, 30 foot tentacles dotted with razor-toothed suckers, and a massively strong beak. Architeuthis, the giant squid to you and I, was recently filmed, for the first time, but there is still much – too much – we don't know about it.
So take a moment and look up at the full moon, wonder about the mysteries that may be up there, but then go to the shore, look out at the sea, and think that we may very well know more about a hunk of rock 250,000 miles away than we know about a world full of life just a few miles away, and many, lightless, miles straight down.
Sunday, August 08, 2010
M.Christian At The Floating World
I'm extremely flattered, moved, thrilled, excited, pleased, and ... well, happy to have been invited by the great folks at the Floating World Convention ("one of the biggest alt-sex educational and play events of the year: three full days of great presenters, special events, a huge playspace and an incredibly diverse community of attendees") to come to Edison, New Jersey, this August (the 20th to the 22nd) to read, hang out, and teach some very cool classes:- MAGIC WORDS: USING EROTIC WRITING TO EXPLORE YOUR HIDDEN SEXUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY (Fri 1130am-1pm)
- IMPACT PLAY BEYOND FLOGGERS AND CANES (Fri 7-830pm)
- SEX SELLS: HOW TO WRITE & SELL EROTICA (Sat 130-3pm)
More info as the date gets closer but if you're going be sure and come to the classes or just say hello.
Sharazade Talks To Me
The extremely nice (and, yes, sweet) Sharazade and I had a great chat about what it means to be an anthology editor and other fun stuff. I've been interviewed by a few folks but this is one of my favorites: Sharazade was a delight to talk to and it was great to be able to talk about the business and the process of anthologies. As always, click here or on MORE to read the full interview.Keep on eye on her excellent blog for an upcoming review for Best S&M Erotica Vol. 3 coming up soon!
... I’ve worked as a commissioning editor, a development editor, a series editor, and a copy editor — but never as an anthology editor. So rather than just guess what one does and how he/she does it, I decided to ask a real one. I chose M. Christian, because 1) he’s edited 20 successful anthologies, and 2) I could easily find his contact information. And of course also because 3) he answered promptly and politely and agreed with enthusiasm. I’d heard from some authors he’d worked with that he was “sweet,” and I wasn’t quite sure what that meant — doesn’t his photo look devilish?? but he really is. He closes his emails with “Hugs,” and called me “Sweetie” once, which quite tickled me coming from a man who’s just finished editing Best S/M Erotica Vol 3: Still More Extreme Stories of Still More Extreme Sex (which I’m reviewing here in my next post within the next week).
Here, then, is that interview, with information of interest to both the reader and the writer of quality erotica.
1. How does an edited volume come to be? That is, does a publisher choose a topic and solicit an editor, or does an editor dream up a project and approach a publisher?
Actually, it’s done both ways. Most of the time an editor will put together a brief (one page or so) proposal about the anthology — what it’s about, who might be invited, how it could be marketed, etc. – and then send it around to various publishers, hoping to find a home for it. Sometimes, though, a publisher will reach out to an editor they might know as a writer or who may have done other anthologies with them to do a project. That’s happened to me a few times, and it’s a wonderful compliment.
[MORE]
Thursday, August 05, 2010
The Wonderful Kit O'Connell on The Bachelor Machine
Yes, indeedy, I do have some amazing friend and, believe me, I am very grateful for all of them. And one of them, Kit O'Connell, just posted this wonderful teaser for the brand new re-issue of my science fiction erotica collection, The Bachelor Machine, which was just put out my another amazing friend, Cecilia Tan, at Circlet Books. Kit is extra-special because he hasn't just been a huge supporter of my work but he not only wrote a fantastically rave review for the first edition of The Bachelor Machine but has also penned a brand new forward to the new edition.
Keep your peepers peeled for more info on this new edition, which I plan to be raving out very, very soon ....
I’m a longtime fan of author and editor M. Christian, perhaps most especially his short story collection The Bachelor Machine. I first read and reviewed it back in 2004 when it was in print from Green Candy Press. Not only is the book back in print as an e-book from Circlet Press, it now features my brand new foreward:
M. Christian is a writer who doesn’t let the reader off easy. I don’t mean that his books aren’t easy to read (he has a fine way with words and a unique, recognizable voice). The thing about his stories is that even at their filthiest, they also make you think.
You can take a peek at the rest of my introduction, which will hopefully convince you to buy the book. Your money will be going to support not just a hungry author but an almost 20-year old small press dedicated solely to the publication of erotic genre fiction.
Proposition 8 Thrown Out in California
It's only a step - sure it's a BIG step - but until gay men and women have the right to marry this country will be less than what it should be.
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." - Abraham LincolnHere's a few choice bit from Vaughn Walker's ruling:
"Proposition 8 places the force of law behind stigmas against gays and lesbians."
"The sexual orientation of an individual does not determine whether that individual can be a good parent."
"The exclusion (of same-sex couples from marriage) exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having different roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed."
"Domestic partnerships exist solely to differentiate same-sex unions from marriage."
"Proposition 8 harms the state's interest in equality."
"The evidence at trial regarding the campaign to pass Proposition 8 uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage: a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples."
"Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians."
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Whispers Of The Muse Talks to Me
It might sound sappy but it really does mean a lot to me that people read, and enjoy, my work - and it means even more when someone actually wants to hear what I think about writing, life, or whatever. So it was a real treat when the great Deborah Riley-Magnus, of Whispers Of The Muse, not only did an interview with me but also featured a sample story from my collection of science fiction, fantasy and horror stories - Love Without Gun Control - on her great site. Here's a teaser. For the rest just go to Whispers Of The Muse. Muse: First of all, Whispers of the Muse welcomes you to the site. Tell us a little about yourself. What part of the world do you live in? Tell us about your background?
M Christian: My dear, I live in my own little fantasy world: elves, fairies, vampires ... compassionate conservatives....In all seriousness I’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1988, having moved up here from LA, where I was born. Between here and there I’ve lived in Europe for a year and seen just about every state in the union, as well – as have most of us I believe – as having had a wide variety of jobs. Right now I drive a truck for an organic mushroom farm. Thrilling, I know, but I do it for the fresh air and exercise more than the staggeringly huge paycheck.
Writing-wise, ever since I was a wee little one I’ve always been very imaginative, but it wasn’t until high school that I heard I could use my imagination to make a living by maybe, perhaps, being a writer.
For the next ten years I tried my best to do just that ... and failed each and every time, though I did periodically come close. But then in 1993, on pretty much a larf, I took a class in erotica writing and handed the teacher my very first try at smut. Shock! Amazement! She not only bought the story for a magazine she was editing but it was then reprinted in Best American Erotica 1994. The rest, as they say, is history.
Muse: Who are your favorite authors?
M Christian: I like to say that I like what I like, in that while I certainly have some faves I think good writing is good writing, no matter where it might pop up: TV shows, comic books, romance, Westerns, shopping lists – whatever. Right now my tastes are all over the place: I’m a huge fan of Alexander Jablokov, Adam Warren, Grant Morrison, Hilary J. Bader, Eiji Otsuka, Alfie Bester, and ... a lot more I know I’m forgetting. I zealously resist really popular authors because, one, they usually are pretty damned awful but, two, as a fringe writer I feel the least I can do is support other writers who have avoided, or been denied, the spotlight.
[MORE]
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Masquerade: Page 12 (The End)
Here's the final page of Masquerade - illustrated by my great pal, and a fantastic artist, Wynn Ryder, from a story by ... well, me ... for an upcoming graphic novel anthology called Legendary.
I'll be creating a special linked page for the entire thing very soon -- or you can read it on Wynn's Deviantart pages.
I'll be creating a special linked page for the entire thing very soon -- or you can read it on Wynn's Deviantart pages.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Speaking of Ralph -
- but my great pal has just joined the illustrious (ahem) line-up at the wonderful WriteSex site. So check it out to hear what Ralph, and I, and these other fine smut-writers, have to say about writing, the biz, and much more.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Me On The ISFDB
Awwww ...
This is very sweet: my great pal, Ralph Greco, Jr., who I had a fantastic time hanging out with at the recent Cybernet Expo, just posted a reminiscence about it on the Another Radio Dentata site. Check it out here.
I gladly left the heat of NJ for the 57 degrees of a San Francisco ‘summer’. Touching down at S.F.O. and whisked right to the hotel on Van Ness I wasn’t in my room more than an hour before jumping down to meet my buds, peers and possible business acquaintances at this year’s Cybernet Expo, 2010.
My second year attending this conference for those of us who write, market, monetize or generally work in the adult industry, literally the first person I ran into was the always smiling, oh-great-scribe M. Christian and we exchanged two hugs (I haven’t seen the guy in a year). I grabbed my badge (though I didn’t really need “no stinking badges”, since I was working the convention this year) and I glad-handed Connor Young, President of Ynot.
This morning of our first day there was a training session on Effective Adult Website Design, another on Worpress then Jay Kopita (Ynot V.P.), put me to work making sure everyone had a badge for our first day’s lunch buffet, paid for by eMerchantPay. The ever wonderful Oceania from Radiodentata.com even made me a plate that I ate at my post!
[MORE]
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Out Now - Best S/M Erotica Vol. 3
Logical-Lust Publications Releases "Best S & M Erotica Vol. 3" edited by M. Christian
Logical-Lust Publications, UK publisher of erotica and erotic romance fiction, announces the release of its latest anthology "Best S & M Erotica Vol. 3: Still More Extreme Stories of Still More Extreme Sex" edited by M. Christian. In these pages you'll find light stories, dark stories, powerful stories, subtle stories, fierce stories, and even romantic stories—but all of them dealing with the basic idea of consensually giving up, or taking, sexual power and control. Featured contributors are PM White, Sharon Wachsler, Kane, Jean Roberta, Jason Rubis, Shanna Germain, Cecilia Tan, Xan West, Craig J. Sorensen, Ralph Greco, Jr., Theda Hudson, Jerry Rosen, Jan Vander Laenen, Mykola Dementiuk, Jude Mason, Billierosie, and Oatmeal Girl
Logical-Lust publisher Jim Brown said, “After the great success of volumes 1 & 2 of the Best S & M series, we were proud, and excited, to be the publisher of the latest volume. Best S & M Erotica Vol. 3 continues our tradition in publishing erotic anthologies that bring together some of the most talented authors and editors of erotic fiction. M. Christian has compiled a sharp collection blending many aspects of the lifestyle sure to impress both the curious and the connoisseur.”
"Best S & M Erotica Vol. 3: Still More Extreme Stories of Still More Extreme Sex" is available in both print and ebook formats at Logical-Lust.com, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and other fine online retailers.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
What Lies Within -
- Kink.com's San Francisco armory headquarters? I recently had a special chance to find out during a party there as part of the wonderful Cybernet Expo. Here are some of the kinky wonders I discovered ....
Here's what the outside looks like (photo not by me)
Here's what the outside looks like (photo not by me)Tuesday, July 13, 2010
I Had A Blast At Cybernet -
Just wanted to toss out a well-deserved bravo to Jay and Connor, the masterful masters of ceremony behind the Cybernet Expo I had the pleasure of attending over the weekend. Thanks guys!And here's extra thanks out to the other fun folks I met there. Alas, there are far too many to name here but it really was a kick and a half ... can't wait for next year.
Best S/M Erotica 3 - The Tweet Feed and Launch Party
I tell ya, it means a LOT to me when people are excited about being in the pages of the anthologies I edit, and it's an extra-special treat when they go out of their way to help out the book and the other writers in it. My pal, and a great writer, Xan West, has gone above and beyond and has started a tweet feed for the contribs. Now I just have to get on twitter (sigh)
- and here's something equally special: this Thursday, July 15th, the the great folks at Cyber Launch Party will be featuring the release of Best S/M Erotica 3. So swing by and take a look - and be sure to check out the comments as I've asked all the fantastic authors in the anthology to come in and chat about the book, their experiences, and everything betwixt and between.
How To Wonderfully WriteSex (5)
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):Characters are the heart and soul of any fiction, erotic or otherwise. You can have a great plot, vivid descriptions, and nuances up the wazzo, but if your characters act like sock puppets – spouting endless clichés, doing stupid things for stupid reasons, and in general acting nothing like real people – the reader’s disbelief is not suspended and the story doesn’t work.
So how do you breathe life into a character? In my experience as an editor, I can tell you that stiffness instantly shows in a poorly written character. What is stiffness? Well, some of the best examples I can think of aren’t in writing, but in movies or television. You’ve seen it: an actor or actress gives a bad performance, being stilled or monotone with no inflection. On the page, that shows up when a character thinks, does, or says something wooden, lifeless, or obviously forced to get the author’s point across.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. Do you know how to make a character live on the page? It’s kind of scary, which is why I suppose a lot of writers don’t do it, and it shows in their work. Are you ready? Are you REALLY ready? Honestly? Okay, here goes: look inward, my child.
[MORE]
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Weirdsville On The Cud
Here is something very special: the great folks at the Aussie site The Cud asked me to write them something unique, just for them - always a great way to get me to do anything - and the piece, on Friedrich Wilhelm I and his very, very, very big Potsdam Grenadiers, just went up.
If you're going to dream, the old saying goes, then you might as well dream big. But Friedrich Wilhelm I did more than dream because, as another expression says all too well: It's good to be the King.
Friedrich, born in 1688, was just one in a series of notable Prussian leaders. Friedrich, though, unlike his father, Frederick I -- who achieved much during his reign, including wearing the crown for the first time, or Friedrich's son -- Frederick II, who was a reformer and fervent supporter of reason and the arts – Friedrich, to put it mildly, loved a man in uniform … in a secularly big way.
Friedrich, you see, had this thing about the military. Oh, sure, he did, during his reign, improve his then-tiny country's defenses, and carefully – almost pathologically – controlled Prussia's economy to the point when he finally passed away he left behind an awesome surplus. But Friedrich's military obsession wasn't really about keeping his people safe, or even about acquiring new territories: Friedrich liked – really liked -- a grand spit and polish display.
How big? How grand? Well, Friedrich's all-consuming passion was for his grenadiers, a Regiment hand-picked not for their skill in battle, their heroic abilities, but for being tall.
In a time when the average height was probably around five foot something, the grenadiers – which quickly became known by the Prussians as the "Lange Kerls" (Big Guys) – began at six feet and went up up from there.
The Big Guys – and some of them were very big, coming in around seven feet – were the king's all-consuming passion, to the point where it became common for foreign dignitaries to use 'gifts' of very tall men to curry favor with Friedrich. But even these presents, many of them with little say in the matter, weren't enough to satisfy Friedrich's obsession: his agents, promised huge rewards, were dispatched to the far corners of Europe to get, by any means necessary, the tallest people they could find.
To say these agents were zealous would be an understatement: there are tales of them kidnapping farmers from their fields, innkeepers from their taverns, an Irish priest in the middle of a sermon, and they even had the audacity to try to grab a Austrian diplomat. There's even the story of one poor soul who was snatched off the streets of some foreign city and shipped back to Prussia, but who arrived stiff and cold because the agents forgot to punch air-holes in the crate.
Friedrich was so determined to fill the ranks of his grenadiers he even began his own program of selective breeding, offering tall women and men rewards to produce even taller children – and heaven help you if you knew someone nice and tall and didn't tell the king about it.
Oh, how the king loved his grenadiers: he would lovingly paint their portraits from memory, or order them to march for hours and hours around his palace courtyard just so he relish in their military tallness, and, if the king was feeling under the weather, he would even have them thunderously circle his bed until he got better. As he told the French ambassador: "The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers -- they are my weakness."
Yes, it was very good to be the king – but, alas, it was not so grand to be one of his grenadiers. Even though Friedrich doted over them, many of his giants were in agony from diseases related to their gigantism, were painfully depressed after finding themselves in a unfamiliar land and unable to speak a word of German, or who -- again as a tragic effect of their great height – were mentally the age of a young child. Desertions were common, but since the giants were, well, 'gigantic' they were quickly caught and subsequently, and brutally, punished. Some, sadly, made the ultimate escape – but even suicides didn't dissuade the king from begging, borrowing, or out-and-out stealing tall men for his grenadiers. At its (excuse me) 'height' the flamboyant regiment numbered over 3,000 men.
Not surprising, considering how incredibly infatuated Friedrich was with them, the grenadiers were never sent into battle.
Eventually, though, the king died, and with his death the kingdom, and Friedrich's beloved Potsdam Grenadiers, were passed down to his son, Frederick II. But while his father adored brass fittings, a good uniform, and everything else stern and military, the son – having been raised by a stern and military father -- absolutely did not. Ironically, though, Frederick II did attack neighboring Austria, putting into practice some of his father's teachings. He also, after a time, put into actual combat what few of Friedrich's grenadiers remained.
There was one problem, though. Because they were considerably taller – very considerably taller – than their fellow soldiers, these surviving grenadiers didn't survive very long: they were too much of a perfect targets.
Absolutely, if you’re going to dream you should dream big. But if you're lucky -- and you're a king -- you don't have to settle for only dreams: you too, like Friedrich, can have your own marching, thundering fantasy brought to remarkably, and legendarily, tall life.
If you're going to dream, the old saying goes, then you might as well dream big. But Friedrich Wilhelm I did more than dream because, as another expression says all too well: It's good to be the King.
Friedrich, born in 1688, was just one in a series of notable Prussian leaders. Friedrich, though, unlike his father, Frederick I -- who achieved much during his reign, including wearing the crown for the first time, or Friedrich's son -- Frederick II, who was a reformer and fervent supporter of reason and the arts – Friedrich, to put it mildly, loved a man in uniform … in a secularly big way.
Friedrich, you see, had this thing about the military. Oh, sure, he did, during his reign, improve his then-tiny country's defenses, and carefully – almost pathologically – controlled Prussia's economy to the point when he finally passed away he left behind an awesome surplus. But Friedrich's military obsession wasn't really about keeping his people safe, or even about acquiring new territories: Friedrich liked – really liked -- a grand spit and polish display.
How big? How grand? Well, Friedrich's all-consuming passion was for his grenadiers, a Regiment hand-picked not for their skill in battle, their heroic abilities, but for being tall.
In a time when the average height was probably around five foot something, the grenadiers – which quickly became known by the Prussians as the "Lange Kerls" (Big Guys) – began at six feet and went up up from there.
The Big Guys – and some of them were very big, coming in around seven feet – were the king's all-consuming passion, to the point where it became common for foreign dignitaries to use 'gifts' of very tall men to curry favor with Friedrich. But even these presents, many of them with little say in the matter, weren't enough to satisfy Friedrich's obsession: his agents, promised huge rewards, were dispatched to the far corners of Europe to get, by any means necessary, the tallest people they could find.
To say these agents were zealous would be an understatement: there are tales of them kidnapping farmers from their fields, innkeepers from their taverns, an Irish priest in the middle of a sermon, and they even had the audacity to try to grab a Austrian diplomat. There's even the story of one poor soul who was snatched off the streets of some foreign city and shipped back to Prussia, but who arrived stiff and cold because the agents forgot to punch air-holes in the crate.
Friedrich was so determined to fill the ranks of his grenadiers he even began his own program of selective breeding, offering tall women and men rewards to produce even taller children – and heaven help you if you knew someone nice and tall and didn't tell the king about it.Oh, how the king loved his grenadiers: he would lovingly paint their portraits from memory, or order them to march for hours and hours around his palace courtyard just so he relish in their military tallness, and, if the king was feeling under the weather, he would even have them thunderously circle his bed until he got better. As he told the French ambassador: "The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers -- they are my weakness."
Yes, it was very good to be the king – but, alas, it was not so grand to be one of his grenadiers. Even though Friedrich doted over them, many of his giants were in agony from diseases related to their gigantism, were painfully depressed after finding themselves in a unfamiliar land and unable to speak a word of German, or who -- again as a tragic effect of their great height – were mentally the age of a young child. Desertions were common, but since the giants were, well, 'gigantic' they were quickly caught and subsequently, and brutally, punished. Some, sadly, made the ultimate escape – but even suicides didn't dissuade the king from begging, borrowing, or out-and-out stealing tall men for his grenadiers. At its (excuse me) 'height' the flamboyant regiment numbered over 3,000 men.
Not surprising, considering how incredibly infatuated Friedrich was with them, the grenadiers were never sent into battle.
Eventually, though, the king died, and with his death the kingdom, and Friedrich's beloved Potsdam Grenadiers, were passed down to his son, Frederick II. But while his father adored brass fittings, a good uniform, and everything else stern and military, the son – having been raised by a stern and military father -- absolutely did not. Ironically, though, Frederick II did attack neighboring Austria, putting into practice some of his father's teachings. He also, after a time, put into actual combat what few of Friedrich's grenadiers remained.
There was one problem, though. Because they were considerably taller – very considerably taller – than their fellow soldiers, these surviving grenadiers didn't survive very long: they were too much of a perfect targets.
Absolutely, if you’re going to dream you should dream big. But if you're lucky -- and you're a king -- you don't have to settle for only dreams: you too, like Friedrich, can have your own marching, thundering fantasy brought to remarkably, and legendarily, tall life.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Best S/M Erotica 3 - The Participants
... and here's the folks who are in the very special, and rather hot, Best S/M 3 book, as well as a draft of the back cover copy.
Welcome to Best S/M Erotica Vol 3: Still More Extreme Stories of Still More Extreme Sex!
In these pages you'll find light stories, dark stories, powerful stories, subtle stories, fierce stories, and even romantic stories – but all of them dealing with the basic idea of consensually giving up, or taking, sexual power and control.
If you've only been interested in what S/M is and can be, or if you’re an old hand to the scene, these stories will open doors to unexplored sexual and sensual worlds, expand your erotic horizons to new and maybe even challenging new ways of looking at, and experiencing, sex play.
Featuring Stories By:
PM White
Sharon Wachsler
Kane
Jean Roberta
Jason Rubis
Shanna Germain
Cecilia Tan
Xan West
Craig J. Sorensen
Ralph Greco, Jr.
Theda Hudson
Jerry Rosen
Jan Vander Laenen
Mykola Dementiuk
Jude Mason
Billierosie
Oatmeal Girl
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Best S/M Erotica 3 - The Cover!
Here it is, folks: the cover for the coming-very-soon anthology I edited for the great folks at Logical Lust: Best S/M Erotica Vol. 3. Keep your eyes on this space for release dates and such.
My New Job
I've worked with a lot of publishers over the years - and I mean a lot. Some have been pains, a good percentage have been good but only good, while a rare few others have become buddies - and then you have Jean Marie Stine at Renaissance E-Books. Not only has Jean Marie been a fantastic publisher (we've done quite a few books together now) but she is truly a great person and a fantastic friend.
What's even better is that Jean Marie has asked, and I've accepted, to be an Associate Publisher for her and Renaissance E-Books, Sizzler Editions, and PageTurner Books (her other imprints).
Here's the official announcement and thanks again Jean Marie!
What's even better is that Jean Marie has asked, and I've accepted, to be an Associate Publisher for her and Renaissance E-Books, Sizzler Editions, and PageTurner Books (her other imprints).
Here's the official announcement and thanks again Jean Marie!
As ebook formats, reading devices, and sales, along with the number of authors whose work we publish, have increased significantly over the past two years so has my workload. With the launching of four new ebook reading devices this year, and various time spent interfacing with Sony, Kindle, B&N, etc., in the Spring I found myself falling almost two months behind on my email, while working quite late every night. It was clear something had to be done.
Therefore we have hired M. Christian to work part time to begin with as an Associate Publisher to help take some of the work load off me. He has already begun uploading our books to Fictionwise, from whence they downstream to Barnes and Noble, and is learning how to use a new software we have just acquired that converts an rtf file into six major formats (doing in about ten minutes what it once took me an hour to do in the Paleolithic of ebook publishing). He will also be responsible for mailing out review requests for our PageTurner ebooks, and other aspects of PageTurner promotion and publicity.
M. Christian, or "Chris" as he is known to friends, has the ideal background for becoming a publisher for Renaissance E-Books: Like myself, he is a big science fiction and mystery geek, and knows the classic and contemporary authors as well as I do, and has written more of both than I have. We published the first collection of his sf/f/h this spring. His editorial credentials in erotica are equally strong. An acquisitions consultant for the late Erotica Book Club, he has published over three hundred stories in the field, and edited many anthologies. And he is solidly grounded in mainstream publishing as well, having worked for an independent print business publisher.
Welcome, Chris.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
I Wonder If They Were -
- thinking of me? See, there's this film coming out called The Death Of Alice Blue (a vampire flick of all things), and "Alice Blue" just so happens to be a one of several 'other' pseudonyms I've used over the years. Wishful thinking I guess - but still a weird kind of synchronicity, eh?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
If You're Going To San Francisco -
- wear flowers in your hair, etc, etc, but also try and make it to the Cybernet Expo, where I'll be hanging out and being a part of this really cool panel:Effective Writing and Blogging for Adult Websites (Industry Insider Series)
Moderator : Frankie Trendler (Radio DenTATA)
Speakers : Ralph Greco (FrequentlyFelt.com), Sascha Illyvich (WriteSex.net), Jean Stine (Sizzler Editions), Brent Martin (AdultForums247), M. Christian (MChristian.com)
Much of online communication comes from the written word, yet so many online companies don’t pay enough attention to the vital craft of effective writing. Poor writing or even the complete lack of text can harm your marketing efforts, damage your reputation, and even harm the image of your websites and your company. On the other hand, effective writing can help you close sales, bring you new business opportunities, and drive more traffic to your website. Our team of specialists all write for a living, and each will share his or her knowledge on how to spruce up your blogs, adult websites, and marketing materials to improve results and put your best face forward.
Saturday July 10th, 2:15 PM – 3:00 PM
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Awwww ...
I already mentioned a little essay I wrote about a rather special photo of myself for the great F-Stop site. Well, the photographer himself - the awesome and deservedly legendary Michael Rosen - just popped onto the site and left this wonderful comment. Thanks so much, Michael!
Don’t know why today I decided to finally check on who links to my site …
First, I’m sure I said it in 1992, but thank you and ex-wife for letting me into your lives that day. Over the years, my photography has given me an entry into the lives of many people. That entry has allowed me to get an insight into how they conduct themselves on our cosmic journey – to help me make my choices. And then I’ve published work to help others make their choices.
As one who has devoted his life to making sexual art, working with real people and documenting what they really do – as opposed to pornography – I bought in to, up front, knowingly or not, the fact that any reward shall be limited acclaim, rather than lots of money. So thanks to Chris and the others who said kind words in this thread.
I consider that picture one of the very best of my 30-plus year career, because of the juxtaposition between the, shall we say, extreme act depicted and the calmness and sanity of the participants. (In this case, participant singular; the ex-wife’s employment precluded showing her face.) And I’ve used it as an example of a particular aspect of photography (wide angle lens) in my presentation, “Take Your Erotic Photography To The Next Level”; I dead pan, “Notice how his left hand seems bigger than his face”.
I hear you about feeling old at 50 and not being to push yourself as when younger. I’m 68 and I still feel that I’m only as good as my most recent (don’t say “last”) work.
Coincidentally, I just published “Sexual Art”, the book where the picture first appeared, as a free PDF downloadable from michaelrosen.com.
Thanks, again, for letting me into your life, again.
Best wishes,
Michael
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Dark Roasted M.Christian
Check it out: a brand new Dark Roasted Blend piece I did just went up: this time about Harry Bensley and the outrageous bet he agreed to.
Roll up, roll up, roll up! You, sir, say that you dream of fame, and all the rewards it offers, but lack any talent whatsoever? And you, over there, wish beyond anything in this world to be the recipient of innumerable offers of marriage? And you, kind sir, desire to earn a considerable fortune but without all the trauma of actual work? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I can make all these dreams and far more a reality. How, you ask? How can I impart to you kind and far-too-simple souls the possible ability to become known the world over, perhaps have innumerable ladies of fine, and maybe not-so-fine, breeding ask for your hand in matrimony, as well as maybe receive substantial financial rewards?
The answer, you see, is in this box. But before I reveal its contents, and the answer to all your desires, I must first tell you all a story – the story of one Harry Bensley.
Harry was, to put it mildly, a bit of a rogue, a rascal, a rake, a rapscallion. Born around 1877, Harry soon proved to as wily with his businesses and investments as he'd was with the ladies, the bottle, and the cards – creating for himself an self-indulgently lavish and totally outlandish lifestyle.
But, alas – or so some stories go – Harry's luck deserted him one day and he lost it all on a foolish wager. Facing absolute ruin, Harry had few options – until, that is, the intervention of John Pierpont Morgan and Hugh Cecil Lowther (the 5th Earl of Lonsdale).
What Morgan and Lowther did was offer poor Harry an opportunity to regain his fortune. All Harry had to do was accept another, very possibly, foolish wager.
THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK
Outrageous? Definitely! Bizarre? Assuredly! Insane? Absolutely! But what choice did Harry have?
Harry, you see, had to take a stroll. But not one simply down to the local for a point, or even a few dozen, or even hundred, miles. No, according to the terms of Morgan and Lowther's wager, Harry had to walk not just across England, or even down and through Europe, or into the Middle East and then China. No, ladies and gentlemen, Harry had to walk all the way around the entire Earth.
Yes, you may gasp. Assuredly, you want shake your heads in disbelief, but those were the terms of the bet. But that's not all. For not only did Harry have to walk all the way around this lovely world but he also had a few other, well, 'unusual' terms to obey if he was to regain what he'd lost.
First of all, Harry had to follow a very specific path through no less than 169 separate British cities, getting in each one a signature proving his visit. After this would follow travels to 18 other countries, again in a strict order.
Second, Harry would begin his incredible journey with no more than one British pound in his pocket. Any money made on the trip could only be made by selling novelty picture postcards explaining the bet.
Third, his only change of clothing would be a spare set of undergarments.
Fourth, he pound push a baby carriage the entire way.
Fifth, Harry would have a companion who would make sure that Harry obeyed every term and requirement of the wager. No cheating, Harry!
Sixth, Harry would have to – somehow, somewhere – find himself a wife.
As said, this was outrageous, bizarre, insane, but Harry agreed to every requirement and term of the bet. He would push his stroller, he would have only a change of underwear, he would have no money except for what he made selling his postcards, and he would find himself a wife.
But there was one other term, ladies and gentlemen, one other requirement that Harry had to meet to win back his fortune. And that thing, the final condition, has to do with this box, right here at my feet.
You see Harry had to complete his round-the-world walk without a single, solitary person recognizing him. Yes, my rapt audience, Harry had to travel through Britain, across Europe, into Asia and beyond without even once being recognized – even by the woman he would somehow manage to agree to marry him.
And how was Harry supposed to accomplish this? And did Harry win his bet? Ah, but first things first – and now I shall open the box.
HOW TO WIN FAME, FORTUNE, AND MARRIAGE PROPOSALS
Amazing, isn't it? A real antique, too. It's hard to believe that anyone ever wore anything like this – or that Harry Bensley agreed to wear it on planned trip around the world.
The helmet is from a suit of armor and weighs almost five pounds and, yes, Harry had to wear it constantly.
On January 1, 1908, Harry began his journey: wearing his helmet, pushing his pram, followed by his monitor, he began his walk around the world.
Did Harry succeed in his outrageous, bizarre, insane voyage? Did he win back his fortune or did some cruel accident void the terms of the wager? Well, for a while things got sticky. As he traveled, the tale of the Man In The Iron mask grew and people began to flock to see him – as well as try and guess his identity. Even a newspaper of the time, in a moment of cruelty, offered a reward of one thousand pounds to anyone who could guess his identity.
Eventually Harry arrived in Italy, having walked over 30,000 miles in six years without ever voiding the terms of the wager. Alas, the fate – and the failure of diplomacy – intervened in 1914.
The details of what occurred next are hazy, at best. Some claim that Harry called off the wager to serve his country in World War 1, while others say that Morgan called it off and gave Harry a small sum, and there are even a few who argue that other, unknown, causes interfered. In any event, Harry fought for his country and, again the cruelties of fate, was seriously wounded – but Harry's poor luck continued when he lost whatever else he had and ended up having to take a series of low-end positions until his death in 1956.
You say you desire fame but lack talent? You say you lust after fortune but do not want to soil your hands with work? You say you crave the attention of women?
Well, maybe you will have better luck than poor Harry when you put on this ancient helmet and try to stroll around the world without once being identified. But before you disparage Harry Bensley you should know that even though Harry never won back his fortune, and his story is not as famous as some people's, Harry did manage to receive 200 or so marriage proposals from women who'd never seen his face.
But Harry, the once-rake, the once-rapscallion, never once accepted their offers. So maybe Harry did win a bit of something with his amazing bet after all: a special form of nobility befitting the knight's helmet he wore for over six years.
Roll up, roll up, roll up! You, sir, say that you dream of fame, and all the rewards it offers, but lack any talent whatsoever? And you, over there, wish beyond anything in this world to be the recipient of innumerable offers of marriage? And you, kind sir, desire to earn a considerable fortune but without all the trauma of actual work? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I can make all these dreams and far more a reality. How, you ask? How can I impart to you kind and far-too-simple souls the possible ability to become known the world over, perhaps have innumerable ladies of fine, and maybe not-so-fine, breeding ask for your hand in matrimony, as well as maybe receive substantial financial rewards?
The answer, you see, is in this box. But before I reveal its contents, and the answer to all your desires, I must first tell you all a story – the story of one Harry Bensley.
Harry was, to put it mildly, a bit of a rogue, a rascal, a rake, a rapscallion. Born around 1877, Harry soon proved to as wily with his businesses and investments as he'd was with the ladies, the bottle, and the cards – creating for himself an self-indulgently lavish and totally outlandish lifestyle.
But, alas – or so some stories go – Harry's luck deserted him one day and he lost it all on a foolish wager. Facing absolute ruin, Harry had few options – until, that is, the intervention of John Pierpont Morgan and Hugh Cecil Lowther (the 5th Earl of Lonsdale).
What Morgan and Lowther did was offer poor Harry an opportunity to regain his fortune. All Harry had to do was accept another, very possibly, foolish wager.
THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK
Outrageous? Definitely! Bizarre? Assuredly! Insane? Absolutely! But what choice did Harry have?
Harry, you see, had to take a stroll. But not one simply down to the local for a point, or even a few dozen, or even hundred, miles. No, according to the terms of Morgan and Lowther's wager, Harry had to walk not just across England, or even down and through Europe, or into the Middle East and then China. No, ladies and gentlemen, Harry had to walk all the way around the entire Earth.
Yes, you may gasp. Assuredly, you want shake your heads in disbelief, but those were the terms of the bet. But that's not all. For not only did Harry have to walk all the way around this lovely world but he also had a few other, well, 'unusual' terms to obey if he was to regain what he'd lost.
First of all, Harry had to follow a very specific path through no less than 169 separate British cities, getting in each one a signature proving his visit. After this would follow travels to 18 other countries, again in a strict order.
Second, Harry would begin his incredible journey with no more than one British pound in his pocket. Any money made on the trip could only be made by selling novelty picture postcards explaining the bet.
Third, his only change of clothing would be a spare set of undergarments.
Fourth, he pound push a baby carriage the entire way.
Fifth, Harry would have a companion who would make sure that Harry obeyed every term and requirement of the wager. No cheating, Harry!
Sixth, Harry would have to – somehow, somewhere – find himself a wife.
As said, this was outrageous, bizarre, insane, but Harry agreed to every requirement and term of the bet. He would push his stroller, he would have only a change of underwear, he would have no money except for what he made selling his postcards, and he would find himself a wife.
But there was one other term, ladies and gentlemen, one other requirement that Harry had to meet to win back his fortune. And that thing, the final condition, has to do with this box, right here at my feet.
You see Harry had to complete his round-the-world walk without a single, solitary person recognizing him. Yes, my rapt audience, Harry had to travel through Britain, across Europe, into Asia and beyond without even once being recognized – even by the woman he would somehow manage to agree to marry him.
And how was Harry supposed to accomplish this? And did Harry win his bet? Ah, but first things first – and now I shall open the box.
HOW TO WIN FAME, FORTUNE, AND MARRIAGE PROPOSALS
Amazing, isn't it? A real antique, too. It's hard to believe that anyone ever wore anything like this – or that Harry Bensley agreed to wear it on planned trip around the world.
The helmet is from a suit of armor and weighs almost five pounds and, yes, Harry had to wear it constantly.
On January 1, 1908, Harry began his journey: wearing his helmet, pushing his pram, followed by his monitor, he began his walk around the world.
Did Harry succeed in his outrageous, bizarre, insane voyage? Did he win back his fortune or did some cruel accident void the terms of the wager? Well, for a while things got sticky. As he traveled, the tale of the Man In The Iron mask grew and people began to flock to see him – as well as try and guess his identity. Even a newspaper of the time, in a moment of cruelty, offered a reward of one thousand pounds to anyone who could guess his identity.
Eventually Harry arrived in Italy, having walked over 30,000 miles in six years without ever voiding the terms of the wager. Alas, the fate – and the failure of diplomacy – intervened in 1914.
The details of what occurred next are hazy, at best. Some claim that Harry called off the wager to serve his country in World War 1, while others say that Morgan called it off and gave Harry a small sum, and there are even a few who argue that other, unknown, causes interfered. In any event, Harry fought for his country and, again the cruelties of fate, was seriously wounded – but Harry's poor luck continued when he lost whatever else he had and ended up having to take a series of low-end positions until his death in 1956.
You say you desire fame but lack talent? You say you lust after fortune but do not want to soil your hands with work? You say you crave the attention of women?
Well, maybe you will have better luck than poor Harry when you put on this ancient helmet and try to stroll around the world without once being identified. But before you disparage Harry Bensley you should know that even though Harry never won back his fortune, and his story is not as famous as some people's, Harry did manage to receive 200 or so marriage proposals from women who'd never seen his face.
But Harry, the once-rake, the once-rapscallion, never once accepted their offers. So maybe Harry did win a bit of something with his amazing bet after all: a special form of nobility befitting the knight's helmet he wore for over six years.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Is MY Face Red -
There I go, raving about the various editions of Love Without Gun Control (my new science fiction, fantasy and horror collection), and not once to I praise the absolutely incredible cover design by my great pal, Wynn Ryder. Sorry about that, Wynn! And if you don't know Wynn's marvelous work you have to check out his site and his Deviantart Page. He and I also did Masquerade together, if course.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Thanks!
- and keeping with the Love theme for today: my pal Drake at the great Drake's Way just posted the cover with this touching comment: "Stories from a master of erotic entertainment." Thanks!
LOVE In All Its Incarnations
Just because, here's a pic of all three versions of my science fiction, fantasy and horror (no smut, I promise) collection, Love Without Gun Control: the iphone app, the paperback, and the ebook. Kind of cool, eh?
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Erotica Esoterica: Dressing For Failure
As I just mentioned my new non-fiction book, Pornotopia, and since I don't have much else to write about, here's a bit from the book: a little Erotica Esoterica piece on some truly spectacular fashion disasters. Hope ya like!
History is rife with fashion disasters. If you had to pick a single decade where dress sense did a complete Titanic, though, it has to be the 1960s. Taking their sense of freedom to embarrassing extremes, fashion designers all over the world struck out in all kinds of ludicrous directions, proving in their enthusiasm for the unique that they proved themselves the bastions of absurdity.
One of the biggest themes designers seized on during the ‘60s was sex. It was everywhere, thanks to the revolution, so why not bring it into the world of fashion? True, fashion designers had always thought of themselves as the cutting edge of sensual allure, but here was a chance to really pull out the stops. Alas, there are some stops that simply shouldn’t be pulled.
Fashion radicals in the ‘60’s took two directions: less and more. Less being less clothing and added skin, and more being … well, call it more options – the designers’ way of blurring gender roles.
One of the highlights of the ‘less’ movement was the topless bathing suit. Agreed, it was developed and released in 1964 by Rudy Gernreich as a publicity stunt to get his name in the papers, it was still a perfect example of how fashion designers were pushing the design – and taste – envelope. Nothing more than a pair of bikini briefs with a pair of thin straps coming between the breasts – leaving them bare -- and down the back, the, Gernreich’s creation received an interesting of mix of horror and scorn. The horror came from the likes of Vatican, who proclaimed the suit “desperate and senseless adventure of impudent shamelessness”, and even the Soviet Union, who called it “back to barbarism” – of course the Vatican also said that Rock ‘n Roll was the devil’s soundtrack and Khrushchev was publicly outraged when he watched the filming of the Shirley MacLaine movie Can-Can, so at least the suit was in very good company. The worst criticism came from those in the fashion know, who pointed out that all one had to do to have a topless bathing suit was to buy a bikini and leave half at home – and literally half the cost of the $24 suit. The suit really only caused a stir here in the puritanical US (“The police are apprehensive of what these suits will reveal. I’m apprehensive they’ll reveal nothing,” said Mort Sahl), as European women, of course, had been bathing topless for decades.
Additionally banking on the expansive of bare flesh that seemed to be one of the defining factors of the decade – and perhaps spawned by the publicity around Gernreich’s suit -- the famous fashion designer Kenneth (and you know they have to be famous if they only have one name) announced in ’69 a whole line of makeup products for the bare bosom. With such descriptions as “tip blush,” and “cleavage delineator” you can imagine how fast these products flew off the shelves – and into the private collections of transvestites.
As part of the ‘more’ school of design, there were many experiments in gender experimentation in the 60s – including the failed attempt to try and raise interest in skirts for men. As reported in Paul Kirchner’s wonderful book, Forgotten Fads and Fabulous Flops, Seventeen magazine put boys in kilts in a spread, and even Time was hooked by this supposed next fad with a report that the garment industry had big plans to import the concept of the male skirt. Alas, no amount of publicity and wishful thinking in the mind of fashion designers could change the mind of the American male.
One of the best examples of fashion insanity owes a lot to the gender play experimentation of the ‘60s -- as a radical reaction against it. Eldridge Cleaver is known for many things: Black Panther Minister of Information; author of Soul on Ice; misogynist; jailed in connection with a shoot-out with the Oakland Police, ex-patriot living in Cuba, Algeria, and Paris; and -- ready for this? -- failed fashion designer.
Eldridge had this problem, you see, with the current state of men’s fashion. He felt that men should be able to enjoy all the stylish and comfortable pants being offered for women. Why should they get all the fun?
But Eldridge couldn’t just wear the new women’s slacks -- after all, there was this little problem he had about sexual identity (and he had a lot of issues with sexuality, just read Soul on Ice). So what to do about this garment dilemma? His answer was to create a whole new line of clothing, slacks with all the style and comfort of women’s pants without sacrificing his pathologically all-important machismo: Cleavers, the pants with an “appurtenance.”
Cleaver probably threw a lot of bombs during his Black Panther revolutionary days, but nothing compared to his Cleavers. While the pants component received some praise, it was that all-important “extra” feature that most people had issues with. After all, it was one thing to go through the supposed embarrassment of wearing ‘women’s’ pants, but quite another to wear them equipped with a very present, rather exaggerated 20th century version of a external jockstrap.
Luckily Cleaver’s vanished even quicker than cleavage makeup and the topless bathing suit, joining the ranks of Nehru jackets and bell-bottoms -- exiled to the deep, dark corners of fashion history. If we are lucky, their mistakes will never surface again -- but looking at the general history of garment insanity it’s more than like just a matter of time.
History is rife with fashion disasters. If you had to pick a single decade where dress sense did a complete Titanic, though, it has to be the 1960s. Taking their sense of freedom to embarrassing extremes, fashion designers all over the world struck out in all kinds of ludicrous directions, proving in their enthusiasm for the unique that they proved themselves the bastions of absurdity.
One of the biggest themes designers seized on during the ‘60s was sex. It was everywhere, thanks to the revolution, so why not bring it into the world of fashion? True, fashion designers had always thought of themselves as the cutting edge of sensual allure, but here was a chance to really pull out the stops. Alas, there are some stops that simply shouldn’t be pulled.
Fashion radicals in the ‘60’s took two directions: less and more. Less being less clothing and added skin, and more being … well, call it more options – the designers’ way of blurring gender roles.
One of the highlights of the ‘less’ movement was the topless bathing suit. Agreed, it was developed and released in 1964 by Rudy Gernreich as a publicity stunt to get his name in the papers, it was still a perfect example of how fashion designers were pushing the design – and taste – envelope. Nothing more than a pair of bikini briefs with a pair of thin straps coming between the breasts – leaving them bare -- and down the back, the, Gernreich’s creation received an interesting of mix of horror and scorn. The horror came from the likes of Vatican, who proclaimed the suit “desperate and senseless adventure of impudent shamelessness”, and even the Soviet Union, who called it “back to barbarism” – of course the Vatican also said that Rock ‘n Roll was the devil’s soundtrack and Khrushchev was publicly outraged when he watched the filming of the Shirley MacLaine movie Can-Can, so at least the suit was in very good company. The worst criticism came from those in the fashion know, who pointed out that all one had to do to have a topless bathing suit was to buy a bikini and leave half at home – and literally half the cost of the $24 suit. The suit really only caused a stir here in the puritanical US (“The police are apprehensive of what these suits will reveal. I’m apprehensive they’ll reveal nothing,” said Mort Sahl), as European women, of course, had been bathing topless for decades.
Additionally banking on the expansive of bare flesh that seemed to be one of the defining factors of the decade – and perhaps spawned by the publicity around Gernreich’s suit -- the famous fashion designer Kenneth (and you know they have to be famous if they only have one name) announced in ’69 a whole line of makeup products for the bare bosom. With such descriptions as “tip blush,” and “cleavage delineator” you can imagine how fast these products flew off the shelves – and into the private collections of transvestites.
As part of the ‘more’ school of design, there were many experiments in gender experimentation in the 60s – including the failed attempt to try and raise interest in skirts for men. As reported in Paul Kirchner’s wonderful book, Forgotten Fads and Fabulous Flops, Seventeen magazine put boys in kilts in a spread, and even Time was hooked by this supposed next fad with a report that the garment industry had big plans to import the concept of the male skirt. Alas, no amount of publicity and wishful thinking in the mind of fashion designers could change the mind of the American male.
One of the best examples of fashion insanity owes a lot to the gender play experimentation of the ‘60s -- as a radical reaction against it. Eldridge Cleaver is known for many things: Black Panther Minister of Information; author of Soul on Ice; misogynist; jailed in connection with a shoot-out with the Oakland Police, ex-patriot living in Cuba, Algeria, and Paris; and -- ready for this? -- failed fashion designer.
Eldridge had this problem, you see, with the current state of men’s fashion. He felt that men should be able to enjoy all the stylish and comfortable pants being offered for women. Why should they get all the fun?
But Eldridge couldn’t just wear the new women’s slacks -- after all, there was this little problem he had about sexual identity (and he had a lot of issues with sexuality, just read Soul on Ice). So what to do about this garment dilemma? His answer was to create a whole new line of clothing, slacks with all the style and comfort of women’s pants without sacrificing his pathologically all-important machismo: Cleavers, the pants with an “appurtenance.”
Cleaver probably threw a lot of bombs during his Black Panther revolutionary days, but nothing compared to his Cleavers. While the pants component received some praise, it was that all-important “extra” feature that most people had issues with. After all, it was one thing to go through the supposed embarrassment of wearing ‘women’s’ pants, but quite another to wear them equipped with a very present, rather exaggerated 20th century version of a external jockstrap.
Luckily Cleaver’s vanished even quicker than cleavage makeup and the topless bathing suit, joining the ranks of Nehru jackets and bell-bottoms -- exiled to the deep, dark corners of fashion history. If we are lucky, their mistakes will never surface again -- but looking at the general history of garment insanity it’s more than like just a matter of time.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Pornotopia - The Book!
This is great news: I just signed to do a brand new book with the wonderful folks at Xcite Books: Pornotopia: The Imaginative - and Informative - Non-Fiction Of M.Christian. It's not the same Pornotopia I've mentioned before, instead this book is a collection of my non-fiction articles, essays and how-tos, including a lot of the stuff I've written for Forum UK and my sexy Welcome to Weirdsville pieces. Stay tuned for more info.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Dark Roasted M.Christian
Check it out: a brand new Dark Roasted Blend piece I did just went up: this time about the some truly spectacular ruins.
Crumbling plaster, broken and splintered lath, cracked cement, fractured concrete, gap-toothed brick walls, rusting iron, daggers of shattered glass … no argument about it: there's something hypnotically alluring, darkly fascinating, about a truly great ruin.
What's now decay and rot once was bright and brilliantly full of hope: Who lived here? What were their lives like? What happened? How did it all come apart? How did it all crumble to almost nothing?
In the case of Hashima Island, or Battleship Island as it's often called, hope and optimism became dust and decay because one black resource was replaced by a cheaper black resource. Populated first in 1887, the island – which is 15 kilometers from Nagasaki – only began to really, and phenomenally, become populated much later, in 1959.
Hashima is, for many ruin fans, the rotting and collapsing grail, the benchmark all other crumbling structures are measured against – and seeing pictures of the place it's easy to see why. Not only is Hashima frighteningly preserved in some places, as if the residents had just stepped out as few minutes before, but it is also, contrarily, spectacularly falling down. Beyond its current awe-inspiring state of decay, the island's dramatic isolation and its bizarre history make it the ruin of ruins.
Before that day when coal, the old black resource, was replaced by oil, another black resource, Hashima was the most densely populated area – ever. On that tiny island, crammed into what are now decaying tenements, were thousands of miners, their families (including children), support staff, administration, and everything necessary to make their lives at least tolerable. It's hard to imagine when looking at the empty doorways, ghostly apartments, and hauntingly vacant corridors what the lives of those people might have been like.
Unlike the post-apocalyptic drama of Hashima, we can very easily imagine what the lives of the residents of the famous Walled City of Kowloon were like – in fact we can ask them, as their city was torn down in 1993. The reason why the Walled City gets so frequently mentioned as a ruin is, while it was there, it was as if the people who lived in it were living their lives in the guts of some great, monstrous, maze.
To say that the city had a long history is an understatement, as its roots go back to the Song Dynasty (960 AD, if you need to know the date). The city was a curiosity for a very long time – a strange bit of legal knotting making it Chinese and not British -- but the labyrinth didn't start to grow appreciably until after the second world war when it became a haven for … well, people without a state: refugees, squatters, thieves, drug-dealers, and much more (and much worse). Neither Great Britain nor China refused to have anything to do with the immense warren of walkways, apartments, workshops, factories, brothels, gambling dens, and opium dens.
The Triad, who represented most of the criminal element, were pretty much forced out in the 70s – by a police attack some 30,000 strong, no less -- but the city remained as a kind of anarchist warren, a world-unto-itself where the residents built and maintained pretty much everything. Looking at pictures of the city today, it looks like some kind of ramshackle prison, a cyberpunk nightmare of florescent lights, spectrally flickering televisions, and mazes of perpetually damp hallways and trash-strewn alleyways. Yet, for many people living there, it was simply home.
Alas, the end of the living ruin that was the Walled City came to an end in the 90s when the residents were evacuated and their fantastic city-within-a-city was torn down. Interestingly, the Walled City has a strong connection to Hashima as, at its height, the Walled City had a population density almost rivaling that Japanese island. Before the bulldozers came, it had a staggering population of 50,000 people, all living in an area the size of a few city blocks.
But if you're talking ruins you have to talk about the ruin FROM THE FUTURE .. or at least a ruin that looks like it came from there.
If you travel to Taiwan, up north to be specific, you will find yourself in a what looks like the fantastic set from some kind of big-budget science fiction epic: the resort of San Zhi. Built in the 1980s, the resort was supposed to be, planned to be, a vacation spot from the next century .. BUT TODAY!
Unfortunately, the dreams of the developers stayed just that and, beyond a few remarkably-well-preserved, sections, San Zhi never materialized. But what they did build, and that's still there in all it's ruinous glory, is amazing: crumbling residential pods on a bleak and blasted landscape, a mini-sprawl of the future falling apart BUT TODAY!
Decaying, rotting, crumbling, collapsing – ruins are the remains of what was, of the lives of the people who lived in them. In the case of Hashima Island, what remains teases us with thoughts of what it must have been like to live in the most densely populated area in the world, ever; with the Walled City of Kowloon, we instead dream of what it must have been like to a resident of a labyrinthine living, breathing ruin; and then there is the painful folly of San Zhi – a ruin not from the past but strangely, wonderfully, from a tomorrow that might have been.
Crumbling plaster, broken and splintered lath, cracked cement, fractured concrete, gap-toothed brick walls, rusting iron, daggers of shattered glass … no argument about it: there's something hypnotically alluring, darkly fascinating, about a truly great ruin.
What's now decay and rot once was bright and brilliantly full of hope: Who lived here? What were their lives like? What happened? How did it all come apart? How did it all crumble to almost nothing?
In the case of Hashima Island, or Battleship Island as it's often called, hope and optimism became dust and decay because one black resource was replaced by a cheaper black resource. Populated first in 1887, the island – which is 15 kilometers from Nagasaki – only began to really, and phenomenally, become populated much later, in 1959.
Hashima is, for many ruin fans, the rotting and collapsing grail, the benchmark all other crumbling structures are measured against – and seeing pictures of the place it's easy to see why. Not only is Hashima frighteningly preserved in some places, as if the residents had just stepped out as few minutes before, but it is also, contrarily, spectacularly falling down. Beyond its current awe-inspiring state of decay, the island's dramatic isolation and its bizarre history make it the ruin of ruins.
Before that day when coal, the old black resource, was replaced by oil, another black resource, Hashima was the most densely populated area – ever. On that tiny island, crammed into what are now decaying tenements, were thousands of miners, their families (including children), support staff, administration, and everything necessary to make their lives at least tolerable. It's hard to imagine when looking at the empty doorways, ghostly apartments, and hauntingly vacant corridors what the lives of those people might have been like.
Unlike the post-apocalyptic drama of Hashima, we can very easily imagine what the lives of the residents of the famous Walled City of Kowloon were like – in fact we can ask them, as their city was torn down in 1993. The reason why the Walled City gets so frequently mentioned as a ruin is, while it was there, it was as if the people who lived in it were living their lives in the guts of some great, monstrous, maze.
To say that the city had a long history is an understatement, as its roots go back to the Song Dynasty (960 AD, if you need to know the date). The city was a curiosity for a very long time – a strange bit of legal knotting making it Chinese and not British -- but the labyrinth didn't start to grow appreciably until after the second world war when it became a haven for … well, people without a state: refugees, squatters, thieves, drug-dealers, and much more (and much worse). Neither Great Britain nor China refused to have anything to do with the immense warren of walkways, apartments, workshops, factories, brothels, gambling dens, and opium dens.
The Triad, who represented most of the criminal element, were pretty much forced out in the 70s – by a police attack some 30,000 strong, no less -- but the city remained as a kind of anarchist warren, a world-unto-itself where the residents built and maintained pretty much everything. Looking at pictures of the city today, it looks like some kind of ramshackle prison, a cyberpunk nightmare of florescent lights, spectrally flickering televisions, and mazes of perpetually damp hallways and trash-strewn alleyways. Yet, for many people living there, it was simply home.
Alas, the end of the living ruin that was the Walled City came to an end in the 90s when the residents were evacuated and their fantastic city-within-a-city was torn down. Interestingly, the Walled City has a strong connection to Hashima as, at its height, the Walled City had a population density almost rivaling that Japanese island. Before the bulldozers came, it had a staggering population of 50,000 people, all living in an area the size of a few city blocks.
But if you're talking ruins you have to talk about the ruin FROM THE FUTURE .. or at least a ruin that looks like it came from there.
If you travel to Taiwan, up north to be specific, you will find yourself in a what looks like the fantastic set from some kind of big-budget science fiction epic: the resort of San Zhi. Built in the 1980s, the resort was supposed to be, planned to be, a vacation spot from the next century .. BUT TODAY!
Unfortunately, the dreams of the developers stayed just that and, beyond a few remarkably-well-preserved, sections, San Zhi never materialized. But what they did build, and that's still there in all it's ruinous glory, is amazing: crumbling residential pods on a bleak and blasted landscape, a mini-sprawl of the future falling apart BUT TODAY!
Decaying, rotting, crumbling, collapsing – ruins are the remains of what was, of the lives of the people who lived in them. In the case of Hashima Island, what remains teases us with thoughts of what it must have been like to live in the most densely populated area in the world, ever; with the Walled City of Kowloon, we instead dream of what it must have been like to a resident of a labyrinthine living, breathing ruin; and then there is the painful folly of San Zhi – a ruin not from the past but strangely, wonderfully, from a tomorrow that might have been.
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