Eyecandy Monday

I've been thinking about this all week.
*sigh*

Thought for the Day

 

Heh heh. You betcha...

Oh - They're referring to prayer? Really?

Funnily enough, that wasn't what I was thinking of at all...
:-)

A Menace of Mermaids

A Mermaid: John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)

[click to enlarge pictures]

Mermaids, of course, were the perfect excuse for the frustrated Victorian art-lover to stare at some luscious nudes - they could hardly be depicted in full-length bathing costumes, after all! So it's not surprising how popular a theme they were among the kinky artistic set. I'll start with couple of very famous mermaid pictures by Pre-Raphaelite John William Waterhouse. You've probably seen these before.

The Siren

You might notice a recurring thread of female domination/male submission running through this post. Mermaids seem to take a lot of pleasure in drowning pretty men, as above.

The Merman

Here's a Waterhouse I bet most people haven't come across - and very unusually, a merman. I don't know if it ever got past the sketch stage. Pity. He seems a bit disconsolate - I imagine the girls are all off drowning sailors, leaving him to hump seals. Or maybe he's the only merman around and he's gay.

 The Depths of the Sea: Edward Burne-Jones  (1833-1898)

The picture above is a particularly sadistic one - cop a load of the expression on that mermaid's face!

The Mermaid and the Satyr : Ferdinand Leeke (1859-1923)

This mermaid is being horribly mean - satyrs can't resist the prospect of a bonk. I don't hold out much hope for that one.

The Fisherman and and the Siren : Lord Frederick Leighton (1830-1896)

Oops, there goes another pretty boy.

Artists seem to be confused between mermaids and sirens, btw. Technically sirens are half-bird, not half-fish. She's definitely a mermaid, that one.

Ulysses and the Sirens: Herbert James Draper(1863-1920)

I suppose the confusion is one of function: both mermaids and sirens sing and lure sailors onto rocks. But sirens are more irresistible - their song is magic. And let's face it, half-bird is not nearly as pretty as half-fish (I can't believe I just wrote that! I mean, why should that be?).  Anyway, in the Draper picture above, one of the "sirens" is definitely a mermaid and the others have legs.

 

 The Mermaid: William Arthur Breakspeare (1855-1914)

For a change - a mermaid being menaced. By a giant squid. An early precursor to tentacle-porn?

The Sea Maidens: Evelyn de Morgan (1850-1919)

Let's have a break from the menacing, for a moment. This is a mermaid picture by one of the few female painters working at the time. I'm wondering why they look so much like each other.

Mermaid Appears: Warwick Goble (1862-1943)

Okay, so a bit late to qualify as Victorian, but definitely kinkery. Goble was an illustrator of children's books ... and you can just imagine the effect this would have had.

 The Little Mermaid: Harry Clarke (1889-1931)

And this is Clarke's idea of a suitable illustration for a Hans Christian Anderson collection. Awesome - but nightmarish.

The Land Baby: John Collier (1850-1934)

Hm. What do you think is going to happen next, eh?

The Mermaid's Rock: Edward Matthew Hale (1852-1924)

Okay, we are definitely back into Menacing territory.

The Mermaid: Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

This guy seems to have fainted. Sudden rush of blood from the head, I suspect.

People haven't stopped painting mermaids, oh no - not by a long way! I'm finishing with one modern mermaid picture that I particularly like, though it's on the grim side. I'm afraid I have no idea where it came from. It's absolutely beautiful though.

And if you want more modern mermaids, you could start here - and go on for a long long time!

I bet J K Rowling gets this all the time

 

Well, it's a landmark of sorts! We were shopping for second hand books in the many charity shops in town last week, when I found one of mine. First time ever! It was Wildwood, in fact. I felt it was sort of a pity that whoever originally bought it had not treasured it close to her heart for the rest of her life ... but every real author ends up in Oxfam sooner or later, lol.

And yes, I bought it. Always good to have a spare.

Then we moved on to the next charity shop and I randomly picked up a volume called Howl. "Loose Id?" I thought. "I know that imprint. It's on my online resources list."  Flicking through, I found a werewolf threesome. I turned to the elderly volunteer assistant. "This book should so NOT be in the children's section," said I.

"But it's for teenagers, isn't it?"

"Er, no. No it's not. It's all about sex."

"Oh!"

"I'll buy it though."

"Oh thank you! I wouldn't know what to do with it!" At that point the assistant went off on a flustered rant about how she didn't know how some people dared drop off the books they did - seemingly oblivious to the fact that I dared buy it and she was really grateful that I was taking it off her hands.

People, eh?

Eyecandy Monday

I saw 127 Hours yesterday...

In  2003 Aron Ralston went hiking down a canyon in the Utah desert. He failed to let anyone know where he was going, and didn't carry a phone. A rockfall trapped his right arm. After 5 days struggling to free himself - out of water, and knowing that he was dying - he cut his arm off using a blunt penknife (it took over an hour) and hiked 8 miles to find help.

It's hard to imagine being that resourceful, that courageous, that much in command of oneself. We live in a victim culture, where we always want someone else to take responsibility when shit happens. Would I have the balls to do that, I ask myself? I doubt it.

Nowadays, with the help of prosthetics, Ralston still climbs and goes canyoning - and he's married with a kid. He wrote all about his experience in a book called Between a Rock and a Hard Place, and it's been made into a film called 127 Hours by Danny Boyle. He regards his ordeal as something so positive in its effect upon his life that, given the choice of going back in time and not making the same mistakes, he says he'd do it all again. It has given him perspective on himself and his life. He lost a bit of himself, and found the whole.

He says he learned that "our purpose as spiritual beings is to follow our bliss, seek our passions, and live our lives as inspirations to each other." And that "On the poster for the film it says there is no force on earth more powerful than the will to live. I say – except for the will to love. And that's really what got me out of there."

(Interview with Aron Ralston about the film.)

Mighty viper

(Lord Blackadder, who had no influence on the character of Severin at all, at all. Not even a tiny tangental one right at the beginning. Well, maybe.)

Yay! Well, I couldn't make it in time for a Xmas present to myself, and then parties and redecorating and stuff interfered with my writing schedule,  but on Thursday night I finally finished the first draft of my erotic romance novella The King's Viper. I'm so relieved to have brought it to a Happy Ever After - it's been a long hard journey for me as well as for the characters. My romance is even more gruelling and dark than my erotica, as you know.

I'm now at the stage of filling in the gaps - A sentence clarifying the political background here and there; a paragraph expanding on the female protagonist's feelings at crucial points ... (This is romance, Ashbless! Emote, goddamnit!)

Of course, if you missed it in December, there's a sneeky preview snippet over here :-)

Rowing result!

 

Another lovely review for my rowing story In Appreciation of Their Cox, this time from Romance Writers Reviews, who gave it 4 stars:

---

I learned things I never knew. Interesting information on rowing without making it dull or dragged out.


Glad for the brief glossary at the beginning. Good play on words that could have gone further but this book didn't over do it.


This is a very erotic short story with one girl and eight sexy muscular guys. Oh la la! Good for you girl. I hummed and hawed on the introduction thinking this could be just crude, you know with eight guys, but very surprisingly the guys have individual personalities that brought the men into a character and not just a body.


On the last day together the rowing team spend the night making all of Joanna's dreams come true and then some.


I don't remember my last night of college quite so energetic but then again I wasn't a coxswain.
Anyone got a cigarette?

---

Nice to see some people appreciate the glossary I was asked to write :-) Thanks RWR!

In Appreciation of Their Cox - download for $2.49 from Ellora's Cave.

I Blame Children's TV

Okay, so last year I wrote this post about my first awakening to erotic romance on TV (aged 12), and how one obscure and frankly naff show seems to have influenced my writing since. And I threatened to reveal the moment of my, um, non-romantic TV/sexual awakening - the moment my hormones kicked in. Which, it must be conjectured, took place some considerable time earlier.

And here it is, in all its awfulness: H.R. Pufnstuf.


Ahem.

For those of you not raised on 1970s American kids programmes, H R Pufnstuf was about a little boy named Jimmy who (along with his magic talking flute - don't ask) gets kidnapped to a fantasy island ruled by a wicked witch called Witchiepoo - pictured at top there. Anyway, she wants to steal his talking flute (Am I getting a Freudian vibe off this?), but luckily Jimmy is given shelter by a kindly dragon called Pufnstuf. They have fun adventures, many as far as I remember involving talking trees and mushrooms.

Hmm. In hindsight there may be a number of drugs references. Those hippy TV types, eh? Looking at it now I wince slightly, mostly from the costumes that make Barney the Purple Dinosaur look like the height of sophisticated realism.

BUT the particular moment I remember was when Pufnstuf the harmless yellow baggy-eyed dragon gets captured by Witchiepoo and she ties him to a big spit and roasts him over a fire. Helpless.

Bang. Hormones. And a feeling like wot I had never felt before.

So there we have it folks - dragons, wicked witches, bondage and torture. It explains EVERYTHING, doesn't it? Now I'll just crawl off and hide, and you'd better go take that TV out of your kid's bedroom, because you don't know what sort of depraved filth they are watching on the Cartoon Network, or how it will corrupt them FOREVER.
;-)

Eyecandy Monday

I've not gone soft: I'm just easing you gently into 2011. You might still be feeling fragile, and I am a responsible person ;-)

And last night I saw The Way Back, which I really enjoyed, and had Colin Farell playing the role of a Russian gangster imprisoned in a gulag. You know I like scruffy and beardy and tattooed. In fact, I found a website which asked "Which actors always look like they need a bath?" in a sneery sort of way - and managed to list every one of my favourites. Plus Robert Pattinson.

But in The Way Back, Farell was pushing it on the unkempt scale, even for me. Tattoos of Stalin, and steel teeth? - I don't see it catching on.

So here's some Farrell therapy :-)
Rock those eyebrows!

 

Naughty eyecandy next week, I promise!

With This Ring: the full lineup

Spreading the word: this is the full table of contents for With This Ring I Thee Bed, to be published by Harlequin Spice in April.


Now or Forever by Nikki Magennis
Racing to the Altar by Sommer Marsden
Forever Hold Your Peace by I.K Velasco
A Lucky Wedding by Thomas S. Roche
Something Old, Something New by Sophia Valenti
Kiss the Bride by Lana Fox
One Last Time by Saskia Walker
Forsaking All Others by Janine Ashbless
Mother of the Bride by Cheyenne Blue
I Married a Gigolo by Jax Baynard
Strippers and Cigars by N.T. Morley
Something Blue by Shanna Germain
Speak Now by Heidi Champa
Wedding Crasher by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Blushing Bride by Bella Dean
Anniversary Waltz by Portia Da Costa
I Will by Erastes
A Vow for a Vow by P.S. Haven
Seven Year Itch by Kristina Lloyd
Rites of Passage by ADR Forte
Naked Nuptials by Alison Tyler
Love, Honor, and Obey by Rita Winchester
May the Best Man Win by Kate Pearce
Taking Vows by Kristina Wright
The Wedding Stoppers by Michael Hemmingson

Huge, isn't it? Congrats to everyone who made it in: it's an honour to be there with you.
:-D

Pre-order at Amazon US

Happy New Year!

On Christmas Eve Kat challenged me to write an ode to Quorn frankfurters. Here it is - and well down to my usual standards, I think:

Quorn -

Never born,

Neither sown,

But grown

In a vat of slime.

Still - you taste fine.

:-)

I wish you all a happy new year, and a thousand good things for 2011. May it be better than 2010 for all of us!

2010 in the rearview mirror

(My favourite pic from 2010. Although there was serious competition.)

We're in the dying days of 2010 so I'm going to do my usual review of the best.

Best movie? Well, it was over-all a much better year for films than 2009, primarily because Sci-Fi and Fantasy appear to be back in fashion. Out of the 30 movies I watched, in order (based on personal enjoyment, not quality):

Inception

Buried

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Up in the Air

Most keenly followed blog of the year: Pharyngula

Best book I read all year: Ordeal by Hunger by George R Stewart - and yes, it's a weird choice, and yes it was first published in 1936. But I sat on the landing floor all night and bit all my nails off because I couldn't stop reading, not even to get up and go somewhere more comfy. If it wasn't a true account I would not be able to believe it. 

Best music?



2010 was, for me, the year of Mumford and Sons. I played their album Sigh No More over and over and over again. When I packed everything away in the attic for 5 months, this was one of 2 albums I kept out. It gives me strength.

Best TV show? Well for sheer surprise value it's a choice between Sherlock and the new Doctor Who (both from the same writers. Geek takeover!). When they announced that Matt Smith had been cast as the new Doctor, I thought "Young, white, male - well whoop: aren't they playing it safe and dull?" Then I saw him in action.

He had me at "Fezzes are cool."



So, hello 2011! What have you got in store?

Eyecandy Monday

Hold your jaws - they are about to drop off.

I picked this version to show you because although there are other videos of these two brothers out there, in most of them they wear bodystockings. And I can't help but feel that tiny briefs and gold paint add something to the astonishing spectacle.

Oh, and please don't download Chrome.

El Caganer

(Heh heh. This is the coolest Xmas card I've ever been sent!)

If you've read my short story collections you'll know I'm keen on folklore and like to turn it to erotic use in fiction. And Xmas is of course brimming with motifs ripe for naughtiness: mistletoe, stockings, candles, carol-singing in the dark...

But (and thanks to Mr Ashbless for this particular gem) I now know that I have met my match with the Caganer, a Catalonian Christmas tradition that is, I'm afraid, well beyond the reach of the velvet hand of erotica. The little figure of a man having a dump is considered a vital party of any nativity scene. Why? Nobody knows.

But those potty-obesessed Catalonians don't stop there. Another Christmas tradition is the Poop Log, which is a lump of wood (with or without cheery face) which you "feed" every day from December 8th until Christmas Day, which you hit it with sticks in order to get it to crap out sweeties.

You sing while hitting it:

Poop Log,

Poop nougat,
hazelnuts and cottage cheese,
If you don't poop well,
I'll hit you with a stick,
Poop Log!

Um ...

Real life is so much stranger than fiction!

How was your Xmas day then? Did it involve ritual violence to wooden objects? Nougat? Alcohol poisoning?