Baker in his barn, which sometimes serves as a writing space.
Nicholson Baker does not look like a dirty-book writer. His color is good. His gaze is direct, with none of the sidelong furtiveness of the compulsive masturbator. He wears round, owlish glasses, and in early book-jacket photographs, when his beard was darker and more closely trimmed than it is now, he reminds you of one of those earnest Russian intellectuals of the 19th century. Nowadays, with the beard grown out and nearly white, he could easily get seasonal work as a shopping-mall Santa.
Baker is tall and a little awkward, with size 14 feet that keep getting in his own way. And he is shy and sweet-natured. Talking about sex makes him turn maroon. Yet he is the author of “Vox,” the 1992 phone-sex novel so steamy that Monica Lewinsky gave it as a gift to Bill Clinton. It ends with a woman on one end of the line crying out: “Oh! Nnnnnnnn! Nnn! Nnn! Nnn! Nnn! Nnn! Nnn!” and climaxing so powerfully that she sees the great seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Two years later, Baker published “The Fermata,” a sequel of sorts, about a man who has the ability to stop time and uses it to undress women.
Baker’s new novel, “House of Holes,” which comes out this month, has the apt subtitle “A Book of Raunch” and is dirtier than “Vox” and “The Fermata” combined. It’s a series of loosely linked vignettes set in a sexual theme park where the attractions include Masturboats; the Porndecahedron, a 12-screen planetarium showing nonstop blue movies; and the Velvet Room, where the Russian composers Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov use their genitals to give foot massages. One visitor to the House of Holes temporarily surrenders his right arm in exchange for a larger penis, while the arm enjoys a happy sex life of its own. Another voluntarily submits to head detachment and becomes a walking pair of gonads. The book coins dozens of new terms for the male member, like “thundertube,” “seedstick” and the “Malcolm Gladwell,” and near the end there is a sort of Joycean explosion, an “Atlas-shrug shudderation of arrival” that makes a young woman named Shandee “shiver her way through the seven, eight, nine, twelve seconds of worldwide interplanetary flux of orgasmic strobing happy unmatched tired coughing ebbing thrilled spent ecstasy.”
What kind of person dreams up this stuff? It’s as funny as it is filthy and breathes new life into the tired, fossilized conventions of pornography in a way that suggests a deep, almost scholarly familiarity with the ancient tropes. “When ‘Vox’ came in, I thought it was both hilarious and horny,” David Rosenthal, until recently the executive vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster and Baker’s editor in the ’90s, recalled in June. “I kept thinking, Where on earth did this come from?” Before leaving to become the president and publisher of Blue Rider, a new imprint at Penguin, Rosenthal also saw an early version of “House of Holes.” “It pains me that I’m not there to publish it,” he said, adding: “The fantasy life of Nicholson Baker — that would be a great psychological study.”
Read more HERE.
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“We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.” – Eric Hoffer
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Indonesians Turn to Track Therapy for Cures
To many, it goes without saying that train tracks are a dangerous place to be lying around, but in Indonesia, where the practice of so-called electric therapy has surged in popularity, officials have had to erect a sign warning of the dangers of lying on railroad tracks and threatening fines and prison time for those caught doing so. Proponents of the risky therapy say the electric current that runs through one’s body when it is stretched across the rails can cure a host of diseases, but medical professionals say there is no evidence that the practice works and that it could in fact damage vital organs. More
The Bellelli Family by Edgar Degas
On August 7, 1974 Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet (417 m) in the air.
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The Robin Hood of the East Bay
For years, waiters at the finest restaurants fought to tend to her table, boutique owners’ eyes lit up when they saw her coming, and friends enjoyed the lavish gifts and trips she showered on them. But after federal investigators accused her of funding her famous generosity through one of the most audacious embezzlements in local history-a crime that netted her more than $11 million-her exclusive coterie of admirers suddenly faced a disturbing question: Why hadn’t $11 million-her exclusive coterie of admirers suddenly faced a disturbing question: Why hadn’t they seen the real Carol Huang?
Gordy Slack
If ever a wedding was for the mother of the bride, it was this one. In 1998, Carol Ann Huang spent a fortune to make it perfect. Her second daughter, Christine, was marrying well. Her mother’s dream come true, Christine was elegant, smart, and destined to be rich.
The bride was stunning in her custom-designed ballerina-length gown cut from a hand-embroidered cotton organdy. She wouldn’t have to rely on her law degree from Boalt Hall for her income for long: she was marrying Benoit Dauchez, the heir of a well-established French banking family. Carol Huang’s new son-in-law was not only affluent, he was handsome, cultured, and charming, too.
The wedding’s theme was the meeting of France and China. Held at the sprawling Beaulieu Garden in Napa Valley, the event was by all accounts extravagant. Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers performed, and the handmade napkins were embroidered for the occasion with images of pomegranates. Real dried butterflies and beetles were embedded into the luscious flower arrangements. Lemon trees had been carted in and a huge stage constructed, and East Indian tents had been set up around the estate to shield guests from the sun.
Christine’s gown had been made by Mark Rex, a top San Francisco designer who flew to New York to fit Christine several times. Deborah Starks-Baird, owner of Soirée, a bridal boutique on College Avenue in Oakland, was flown to Paris to pick up the fabric. Huang told her, “I want Christine to have the best. If you have to go to Europe to get it, go ahead.” And though Starks-Baird’s seamstress didn’t end up making the dress, Huang paid her for it anyway.
CONTINUED.
George Silk, [Aerial view of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb blast], September 6, 1945
On August 6, 1945, the United States, at war with Japan, detonated the world’s first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, a vast port city of over 350,000 inhabitants. The blast obliterated about 70 percent of the city and caused the deaths of more than 140,000 people. Three days later, the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in another 80,000 fatalities. Within a week, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, effectively ending World War II.
He’s the original lord of lowbrow, the king of the pratfall, the last surviving link to the bedrock of American comedy—vaudeville, burlesque, slapstick. Sure, he’s ancient, but he’s juggling half a dozen new projects and still found time to sit down with Amy Wallace for an eleven-hour interview. Call it the Jerry Lewis Marathon that covered, well, just about everything that’s ever been funny
By Amy Wallace
Photograph by Robert Maxwell
August 2011
Jerry Lewis sits behind his huge desk, neatening the items that stand like sentries between us: a can of Diet Sunkist; a container of silver pens, tips up; a container of red pens, same position; a handful of green plastic surgical scalpels he uses to open mail, a dish of lemon drops. When you’ve been on the planet for almost nine decades, like Lewis has, and when you can’t throw anything out (“I’ve kept everything!”), and when you’re slightly nuts (“Did you ever see a man who can look at one eye with the other?”), you require order. At 85, Lewis employs three full-time people to help him stay organized. He loves them fiercely—and drives them bonkers.
“Have you done anything today? Why not?” Lewis likes to bellow, his voice—three parts affection, one part curmudgeon—thundering through Jerry Lewis Films, a sprawling suite in an office park about four miles from the Las Vegas strip. He looks good—a little stooped, sure, but still sharp-eyed and quick-tongued and up-tempo, his red silk shirt unbuttoned low enough to reveal the scar from his double-bypass surgery twenty-nine years ago. On his feet are red velvet slippers embroidered with those iconic faces of Comedy and Tragedy. “Can I get another orange soda?” he asks, and when it arrives twenty seconds later: “What took you so long?”
Suddenly, Lewis’s face goes blank and his hazel eyes get big as quarters. Slamming his chair back—boom!—he reaches for a trash can under his desk and expels a mouthful of soda in its general direction: a classic spit take. Except, he says, that it’s not.
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HERE IS YOUR AUSTERITY SURVIVAL GUIDE
The memorial to the Jews of the Podgorze Ghetto in Krakow was inaugurated on 8 December 2005.
The winning project by Krakow architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak included 33 steel and cast iron chairs (1.4 m high) in the square and 37 smaller chairs (1.2 m high) standing on the edge of the square and at the tram stops. The theme of empty chairs has also been used at the Oklahoma City Monument at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building blast site to reflect “absence.” Near the square stands the Krakow ghetto pharmacy owned by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish pharmacist who owned the Eagle Pharmacy in Krakow. The German occupation authorities allowed the pharmacy to function, despite ghetto conditions.
Ironically, the Krakow monument intrudes to bus and tram stops and are used by locals awaiting transportation, suggesting that anyone can be a victim. The small building in the square was used by Nazi authorities during the occupation and ghetto period. The inscription on top is 1941-1943, the years of the ghetto. The interior of the building has been reworked artistically to resemble the interior of a deportation train car.
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British aid cash is being given to the families of suicide bombers, it was claimed last night.
The Palestinian Authority, which gets £86million of British aid a year, has authorised payments of almost £5million to the families of ‘martyrs’.
Another £3million has been given to 5,500 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The payments, using taxpayers’ cash donated from Britain and the European Union, have been described as ‘ludicrous’ by one Tory MP.
A public monument in Philadelphia about the Armenian Genocide is Young Meher by the sculptor Khoren Der Harootian (1909-1991). This 22 foot high monument is located next to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and is under the custody of the Fairmount Park Commission. Executed in 1975 in bronze and dedicated on April 24, 1976, the sculpture Meher symbolizes the “invincible faith of the Armenian people,” its long history and “Day of Infamy, April 24, 1915.” The bas-relief on the East side of the sculpture depicts a vulture peering over a field of skeletons. Meher, the subject of the title, is a legendary figure from the Middle Ages symbolizing the spirit of the Armenians. Born in Armenia, Der Harootian received his art education at the Worcester (Massachusetts) Museum School. For many years he lived in Jamaica before moving to New York.
Originally posted 2011-08-08 10:48:53. Republished by Blog Post Promoter