Police arrested two men dressed like ninjas and armed with Asian martial arts weapons who said they were delivering warning letters to drug dealers and users.
Calling themselves “Shinobi warriors,” the men carried knives, throwing stars, swords, nunchucks and a bow and arrows.
Dani spent the first seven years of her life living in a cupboard with heaps of soiled nappies, including the constantly full one she was wearing, and a cat. Both were covered in fleas and cockroaches, as was the floor throughout the house. When the police came to investigate reports of a girl seen once in a window, they reported that it was like walking on eggshells. It was the worst case of child abuse they had ever seen, and because Dani had never had the stimulation or socialisation she was considered a feral child. It is likely she will never talk or live without constant care. She was adopted by a couple who felt that she needed them, and with them she has experienced the love and trust that she should have had from birth.
The article is an amazing read, fascinating as it is touching.
My favorite customer, Marlene, first appeared at 10 a.m. on a Saturday. A youthful, 50-something firecracker in mom jeans, she marched in and scanned the shelves. “I have three sons and a husband. I need a vibrator that is completely silent. Do you hear me? Com-plete-ly si-lent.” She looked at me expectantly.
We buzzed around the store, switching 20 vibrators on and off until we found an ugly but quiet plug-in model. She raised her eyebrows. I assured her that aesthetics are not essential to payoff. I revved the motor from behind the storage-closet door. She didn’t hear a peep. When I emerged, she hugged me. “Your mother must be so proud of you,” she enthused.
Fascinating and oddly touching article, though I would quibble with it being titled ‘confessions’, as there really isn’t anything to be ashamed or even embarrassed about. This is a job I would quite like to work for a few months, just for the experience and stories.
Original here.
“Six hundred dudes. One porn queen. A world record for the ages. A must-have movie for every discerning collector of things erotic.” “Didn’t one of us on purpose set out to make a snuff movie.” Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. “Snuff” unfolds from the perspectives of Mr 72, Mr 137 and Mr 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room.
Palahniuk has outdone himself with the research for this delicious novel. Not only are we fed information about cervical weight training, vaginal embolisms and how a seasoned porn star can relieve herself of semen through very firm contractions (allegedly), but we are also treated to titbits of celebrity escapades, dark factoids and stories so outlandish they must be untrue, and yet they make a disturbing amount of sense…
A huge amount of the plot is left out in the synopsis, yet the synopsis has been as effective as the name is drawing a crowd. Thus, the content inside the x-rated cover (interesting to read on a coach to London near a child, I assure you) is a very pleasing surprise. The three men are revealed to be connected to one another as well as to Cassie Wright herself, and we are only given teasing glimpses of the porn queen herself and the actual event - the best kind of writing. Then there’s the twist - not as outlandish as in Diary or Survivor but as fitting and brilliant as in Fight Club. Snuff is certainly one of Palahniuk’s best, and a must read for any fan, no matter how casual.
See it on Amazon
It’s basically fetch - y’know, tennis ball, person throwing it, eagle bringing it back…
As part of her favourite game, the stunning bird-of-prey deploys her massive 8ft wingspan to hurtle after the balls, either catching them in mid-air or swooping to seize them from ponds.
‘One day by sheer accident Evie saw a ball on the lawn and grabbed it. Now it’s her play toy,’ Mr Hedges said.
It does make you wonder what else in the animal kingdom would enjoy games already played with pet dogs. I can see Lemurs enjoying Frisbee.
Article here.
Because of my younger brother I’ve got an interest in Autism, particularly Aspergers Syndrome, and have a tendency to read a lot about people with the condition. It’s quite something to read a well written book by an ‘Aspergian’ themselves, so this was a delightful surprise. It is coherent, beautiful explaining why Robinson wouldn’t look people in the eye (he didn’t see the point) and of how he could work so well with electronics, ultimately finding a short career making special effect guitars for KISS (yes, *that* KISS). Though my brother cannot articulate himself anywhere near as well when it comes to his quirks, I found myself thinking back on things he had done and said after reading this book and suddenly thinking ‘oh, that explains it’.
Robinson is the older brother of the gem Augusten Burroughs, so I had already been introduced to him as a character through his brother’s books and short stories. Reading through two accomplished writers presented an intriguing cross section, a meeting of perspectives on the same events. Their clinically psychotic father, whom Burroughs has only recently written about in depth, is a sore point for them both, though there is a kind of insulated indifference for Robinson. No, that’s not quite the right word. It’s more like oil on a laminated penguin as opposed to one without a plastic shield: it still gets covered in the stuff and is still bothered by it, but it’s a different perception of the problem. It doesn’t seep through and under the skin.
I tore through this book (dry eyed, for the most part, which is good for me on this topic) and immediately passed it onto my mum. It’s a tradition to exchange these good ‘Autism books’ when we find them, and already she is singing highly of its praises.
See it on Amazon
I gacked this from Matthew Hill’s delicious little blog, as it’s preferable to cleaning at this moment in time.
Usually I steer clear of ’should’ lists, but this one had quite a diverse range in it. And it’s better than cleaning.
So, below’s a list of ‘classic’ books.
I’m supposed to:
Look at the list and:
1) Bold those I’ve read.
2) Italicise those I intend to read.
3) [Bracket] the books I love.
4) Pass it on to a few others. I’m going to be passive on this bit.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - And I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it. There’s a reason it’s a classic.
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - I tried, I really did, but after so many pages of how the hobbit family trees work, I couldn’t take the plod.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - Again, read a few chapters but it wasn’t doing anything for me.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - To my shame, I have been to a few of the
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible - I went to a Catholic school for a number of years as well as church, so I’ve read a fair chunk. Will never read it all though.
7
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwelll
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare – Not all of it.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 [Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden] – One of my very favourite books.
40 Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown – Honestly, I just can’t bring myself to.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan – I read ‘Enduring Love’ and I just don’t get on with his style.
51 This one was blank so I’ll fill it in with [Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk]
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Bave
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon – Brilliantly written but I won’t read it again for a long time.
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 [Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov] - As a student of transgressive literature, I sort of had to. ^_^
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69
70 Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce – I’ve read enough of it for it to count, I think.
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A. S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
I’ll have to do my own version for transgressive literature sometime.
Philip K Dick, somehow, was something of a genius. I say ’somehow’ because the man slept about once a month and lived on a big ol’ bucket of drugs. He wrote like a demon and aside from how original his ideas were, you really couldn’t tell that it nearly all came out under the influence.
His writing is crisp, light and very much uncluttered. It’s an easy ride and it doesn’t feel too clever, though it undeniably is. I found his short stories incredibly easy to just pick up and put down, engaging when I was reading them but easy to get back into again if the phone rang.
I know a great many Philip K Dick fans slated the film adaption of The Minority Report (whether or not this was for reasons beyond Tom Cruise, I can’t be certain) but frankly, there wasn’t much of a story in the short story, so fair play for milking out a two hour screen adaption. The world that was created in the story is undeniably present and the story was as twisting and thought-provoking as in the original, so I was pretty happy with it. There are worse book-to-films out there. If Watchmen is one of them next year, there will be a lynching no doubt, but they’re out there.
Hmm. Clearly I’ve come down with some mild form of ADHD during this review. Ooh look, a magpie.
See it on Amazon
Professionally, I am very much stuck in what the film industry would term development hell. I have a book and a collection of short stories coming out next year (if bluechrome is keeping to plan, at least) and am starting my Masters next month. So, right now, I have a BA (good start) and a couple of short stories out there, but no significant publications. I’ve gained as much teaching experience as I could, but it’s all been with under-16s so it’s not really relevant to teaching at university level. In terms of applying for any sort of job, I effectively have squat until the end of next year.
But there’s no harm in trying. I’ve continued to submit to magazines and have, very bravely, just applied to a ‘performance’ reading thing in Bristol, which would be a jolly great laugh if I were accepted. I’m also going to have a go at the Open University as they are taking applications for tutors in Creative Writing, and it’s only a work load of 6 hours a week. So, I could easily do it on the side of my courses and would be gaining solid CV experience.
Still, I really can’t wait for the next 12 months to shift, or at least for March to roll around so I can touch Dolls s sexy cover and say, ‘Look ma! I’m a real writer now!’
Statistics mean sod all, which is a fact in itself. Anyone can assemble some numbers, make them sound threatening, and anyone will believe it.
I have just found an ad for nationalregistry.com to do a Free Registered Sex Offenders Search in my area. Just insert Zip code. The line they’re pushing for you to type in where you live: ‘The chance that your child will become a victim of a sexual offender is 1 in 3 for girls & 1 in 6 for boys’.
Now, I understand that in this extreme PC nanny world that is developing that the term ’sexual offender’ can now mean a very broad variety of things, but seriously…
For example, Santa’s grotto at Christmas in the shopping centre? Ah, that’s thigh-to-minor-buttock contact. He’s a sex offender. If it’s a woman in drag, then it’s a sex offender who’s trying very hard. Your kid’s photo been taken in the extreme left of a picture of a mum playing with her two daughters on a public beach? Dad’s a paedophile and no doubt he’ll be jerking off to the blurry and half-missing image of your child in the left of his family photo.
I did a few weeks work in a secondary school last year, with kids ranging from 11 to 16. During my training, I was told in no uncertain terms that I was never to be alone with any child in a room, ever, and that that was for my protection as much as theirs. I could see their point, as if the kid did decide to make something up, whose word are they going to take? I was also told that if a child fell or cut themself, I was not permitted to make any physical contact and if a plaster was required, I couldn’t put it on. Even if they wanted me to. I could give them the (packaged) plaster and supervise them applying it and then fetch another adult so we could supervise each other in escorting the injured child to the office. That was all.
It’s no stretch of the imagination to think that this has all gone too far. The scenario will no doubt come up (if it hasn’t already) of a child barely escaping being snatched and running to a stranger’s door, pleading to be let in, and the adult turning them away because if they were seen taking a strange child into their house they had a fair chance of being put on the sex offender’s list. If that wasn’t the result, sex offenders frequently have their names and addresses made public during the court case (victims do not) so even if they come out proving their innocence, there is guaranteed to be a few people wondering if the outcome was right and giving them the cold shoulder afterwards.
This is what happens when the media fear-mongers. Ultimately, very little good comes of it, and children are growing up frightened because they have it embedded that the world is a dangerous place and that if they are alone outside for even a moment, they’re going to get attacked.
Once when I was working in a cinema, a boy and a girl came out of a screen and went off to the girl’s toilets. She went in and he waited outside. They were both about eight years old and all the screens were in, so I went over and asked the lad if he was looking for the boys toilets. He told me that he was just waiting for his sister to come out ’so she won’t get raped’. Nothing has put the blood straight into my feet faster than hearing these words of matter-of-fact fear from an eight year old child.
This is not a world I want to bring children into if this is what’s on offer.
Kayleigh J Moore is a 23 year old author living in the Cotswolds in the United Kingdom.