More British Sexual Diversions

Chronic conditions occasionally wrought havoc on succession orders. In the age of Roman emperors there was the reputed madness of Caligula. In the line of American presidents, there was Grover Cleveland's oral cancer, a successfully held state secret and surgery that could have gone the other way, and there was Woodrow Wilson's stroke, and in the ever entertaining line of English Tudors, there was the sickly Edward6, a Catholic Mary, and the great virgin Liz1, of whom Renaissance students can never get enough. Lady Jane, in and of itself, is a curious film, with Patrick Stewart giving a kind of innocuous Merchant Ivory flavor in a supporting role as the duke whose loyalty is doomed. The violence in the film is ornamental, as in fact most period videos about the Tudors are, almost like a postcard. I have the film on my watchlist for additional review, but I am not sure when I'll get to it, having had a difficult weekend, from which I am trying to spare you.

I thought my little adventure into what remains of Philadelphia's historic leisured class would... how can I put it? Open a last venue, of sorts, but when I got back in, I had a furious battle; there is something about putting up one's nose against old money, and I feel, quite simply, defeated, a broken swizzle stick with a jagged fracture.

I'll never have what I want, and it is killing me, partly why I have avoided the merits, the detractions, of JK Rowling and her legacy. There are not many authors, world over, whose franchise simply steamrolled its way into that kind of wealth. She broke the chains of her state socialism. I have failed, and it will not only be a conceptually difficult issue for me; it may become one of stark choices.

A Glimpse Through the Window

"You are not evil!"
--Erik von Schmetterling, six weeks ago when I told him I'd purchase his cigarette brand for the sake of old times...

I should be in bed, as my symptoms possibly invoke wariness, suppositions about typhoid fever; instead, I swallowed a small bowl of paneer, hoping to keep it in, and sent my latest sallow memoir of dead fat bipolar mother out dancing on the ether, a twirling plate on a stick, whoosh, off to a contest of a publication which never impressed me. When I reflect on Marcel, and assert that I am darker than you know, I am not merely hinting at my mafia in Hollywood bloodlust toward the Philadelphia activists of whom you are weary of reading any more about, I mean as well that I have secrets of the type that cost Henry Miller some blood and guts. I am not quite quite willing to be so embarrassed in a blogger account as Miller is in his writing, but as I physically weaken I risk greater severity of my triggers, and must head toward my mattress, nodding off, drinking Pepto; whether with this post lengthened later, or a new one to leap the frog, we will trot on hopefully not in so many hours between then and now. My hungriest wish, if not my greatest, is to get laid by a man like Jeremy Irons, just once, dosing myself with necessary pain killers. Why couldn't I have been more attractive, less plagued by mammary cysts?

It is Jeremy's appearance on Tavis Smiley that I want to enter into, but damn illness snuffed out the appreciation. One is drawn to the man's intelligence, not just the physique. At the moment I need to discover whether or not I can absorb nutrition.

I have bran in there, rumbling as I revise, so hoorah; lets elision back. To listen to Jeremy speak is to learn anew how status can command silence, but I heard a subtext within the promotional chatter for his latest appearance on screen, this review of which does not deter curiosity. I heard, juxtaposed against the grounding that Tavis seems to fluster in, a certain lack of sincerity. Not that Irons was lying. Perhaps at this stage of his life, maybe plagued by ennui, wondering if he should have done something else, been an entrepreneur; there was also the usual plaint of the famous about fame itself, though I think the disadvantaged would trade on this curse in an instant, and not simply on the merits of affluence. Status confers privilege, and an indirect if not actual power. All those with name recognition should be more mindful of this, even if they would like us to understand the flip side of the coin. I may never fully cement my reputation, for instance, but if I surprise myself and wind up in a dilemma similar to Rowling, notoriety would be the least of my worries, regardless of my audience.

Dead Ringers bowed me over with indelible impressions as a Reagan era hit, part of the reason I have remained fixated on Irons in his season, but only part. Now back to the conclusion of The Ring Cycle, after which, I shall swear off opera viewing on a flat screen for the rest of my life. The sensationalism on which the Met banks smells like twilight to me.

Forge of Valor

As much as I love the convenience of the Amazon business model, this aftershock in light of my negative review of Out of the Black will not die, and I see this in part as not just a contest between two writers who may never break ranks out into successful authorship, but a critique of digital immediacy. Would I have purchased this text had I viewed it on a bookshelf in a book store like Borders? Hard to say. Quentin Tarantino may opine to the ever plodding Charlie Rose that he "likes genre," but I am more diffident than the stylized filmmaker, who needs a transfusion, if the failure of his Jewish revenge fantasy is any indicator. I tend to prefer the next generation when it comes to authors who can challenge the conventions of  genre, and Lee Doty is not such an author, but rather a talented hack who cannot escape comparisons to Rowling and come out worse for wear. In a very real sense I am tired of discussing this, wish Doty well in all his future endeavors, but will not let it go that his novel drops the ball, not once, but four or five times, and screams out for a brave editor who would have helped this fantasy operator clean up his act. I bought the text on the strength of another customer reviewer who asked, "When was the last time a fat nurse was the hero?" A lesson in here for keeping faith with professional critics, as per my training.

As to my Amazon reviews, I do not write them for the sake of the Common Reader, or to move products with the company, per se, but to keep my critical faculties engaged with the intent of a future project for publication. My distaste for Lee Doty's notable and continued cop outs did not receive the full weight of my intellectual censure, but this is precisely because it was not worth my time and effort to point out its defects. My review is a write off, and not a real effort, and no further exertion on my part will be forthcoming. Doty behaves as if I killed his daughter's teddy bear just to be a bully. Due to this I'll never read another work by him knowingly.