-- from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan. In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.

Michael, let's discuss intimacy in bed later on.

Gayface strikes again!

The best part of this article is the pictures of gayface through history.

Although, as it stands, I don't think that historical readings of gayface are entirely appropriate, although current readings may be perfectly appropriate.

PS: Shakespeare = gay.

Work you love: 1 year, a retrospective

The reason I started working at Pho Sho was simple: I couldn't stand the last place I worked at, Coffee Connection Cafe. It wasn't that I didn't like to work hard or that the money wasn't good, it was that it became an abusive relationship, the type in which you have so much invested, your paycheck, your lively-hood, that leaving seems more painful than staying.

That all changed when I met Island and Chris, my current employers. They didn't care at first why I wanted a change. They saw me for who I was, firstly as a person, secondly as a good fit, and thirdly as a person who knows what panccetta is ("an italian bacon?"). It wasn't like that before. Before, I was an exploitable, not-to-be-trusted body that wasn't expected to know anything. Despite my education and honesty, my willingness to cover shifts and give up entire weekends, my former employers treated me and my co-workers with open hostility, brought people to tears, and seemed as though they didn't even trust each other. Finally, as my last college finals were approaching, I made a very scary change which has turned out to be the best professional decision I have made to date. I took another job.

I wasn't perfect before. I showed up hung-over, I became a mean person to line cooks and bussers, but I had no reason to want to be better, or even good. My natural affinity to relate to strangers and to endorse Walla Walla brought my only joy. 

My theory on love is that it is a quality that brings the desire to create more love, that it inspires beauty and a strong passion for self improvement. When you love what you do, you want to be the best at it, you want to bring your truest self.

In my current position, I am also not perfect. I sometimes grumble when challenges seem insurmountable, and I am indignant, although privately, when I give better service than my tips reflect. I have taken it fully upon myself, in love, that I can and will be the only person to improve this. In any case the rewards are abundant. I get to develop rich relationships with everyone there, from dishwashers to owners; I feel the type of love and support I miss still from the family I left behind in Colorado. No paycheck could reflect that kind of security. I can continue to build an affinity with diners and share a love for food, sometimes wine and sake, and always the joy of living in or visiting a real community.

A year hasn't been very long. It has really been quite short. The arrival of this anniversary has actually been a surprise, but so much has happened. I graduated from college. I surprised my family for Christmas. A relationship began and ended. I was in a wedding. I left a church. It's great that some things stay the same, like this job I love.

Do not be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place.


If I were a religious fanatic I might be flaying myself right now. Oh, I am sweating wickedness as though I drank it with my dinner.

NYT: Introducing Outdated Technology to Old People

I stumbled upon this New York Times article yesterday and was like, yeah, duh.

People have been using the internet as a tool for sex since the very beginning. In fact, the rapid growth of high-speed networks can be partially attributed to demand for streaming pornographic content and live video chat. The NYT takes an interest in the very most basic tools for the exchange of sexual content: craigslist, a text-only, utilitarian website which is basically an online format of the classifieds at the back of a newspaper. There is nothing sophisticated about craigslist, and while that may be the reason for its popularity, other websites and information technologies allow users to exchange richer media such as video and high resolution images. Welcome to 1997, NYT. I hear that you can use the computer to send electronic mail that arrives almost instantaneously. That will they think of next?

Print may be inviting its own end.

Although sex is solicited online in many places — legally and otherwise — the Casual Encounters listings are a major hub, offering to do for casual sex what the rest of the site does for no-fee apartments, temp jobs and old strollers.

Like bathhouses and sex clubs, the Casual Encounters section caters to the erotic underbelly of society, where courtship gives way to expediency and anonymity is a virtue (or at least a turn-on). The section was introduced in late 2000 and is available in all cities served by Craigslist, for users gay and straight, male and female. The ads range from prim to raunchy; a good number of people include photographs of precisely what they have to offer. (The site has a policy against posting pornographic pictures, but it does not seem to be enforced very vigorously.)

To begin your study of the life of Muad'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Muad'Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis.

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows.

Thank you, Dylan, for your resourcefulness.

PIST.

So, I was unable to find my copy of Dune. Suspect either I'm losing my mind or have lent it out to recent fuckbuddy. Will retrieve and begin posting.

So that you may always know everything: Twitter

Let it be said that I was recently interested in a certain event for which television coverage may never exist.

If you want to know more about the event, go here (NSFW)* to find out. Suffice it to say that the event, while mainstream in its own discipline, is not generally mainstream.

The most useful tool for getting minute-to-minute updates, the whole weekend, were up-to-the-moment tweets from "journalists" at the event. I felt so very there. I learned from blogs and other sites about certain attitudes and biases, and I saw them all in action. And then the live stream. And the tweets. And instant google searches for images and video (done on the iPhone), I was there.

The existence of information and a location for that information have separated. They are considering divorce.



*(I have never used this particular acronym, and it makes me wonder [upon encountering it many times last weekend] who would be reading blogs about the adult industry and its stars and events at work. Here's another interesting item on a related topic.)

A WORLD WITHOUT BOOKS

I am going to post-- in a circadian mode-- two sentences from Frank Herbert's Dune. Here.
Then, when I have posted the entire book online, I plan to burn my very well-loved copy of this sci-fi classic.