Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Sex
Hey! Look! A contest!
You can win a signed, hard cover edition of Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway
(see my review here) by helping me promote either my free ebook at Smashwords
or my Kindle book,
Here are the rules:
1. Multiple “entries” possible. Each entry will function as a lottery ticket, and I will decide the winner based on a drawing of such tickets. I have only one copy of Sara’s book, so there will be only one winner.
2. Each of the below will count as one entry:
a) Shout out this contest on twitter, facebook, or your blog. Your shout must include the URL for this blog post. If you do so on twitter, facebook, and your blog, that will count as three entries.
b) If you’ve read Gator & Shark, leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. (If you do both, that will count as two entries.)
c) If you’ve read Nothing But Light, leave a review on Smashwords or Goodreads. (Ditto.)
3. Contest will end when interest dies down — probably next Monday evening.
4. Important: to get credit, you must indicate in the comments below what you have done.
Any questions?
D.
hey, it’s FREE!
Nothing But Light, my short story collection, available free at Smashwords:
Nothing But Light
And here’s the mini-blurb:
A reality-bending toy becomes the next Rubik’s Cube, a grandfather’s stroke pushes him way outside the time stream, and two misfits find inspiration for revenge: these and more off-kilter stories await you in Doug Hoffman’s Nothing But Light.
Did I mention that it’s free?
D.
FOOOOOD
To celebrate my fiftieth, we’ve been having an eating vacation down here in Pasadena. Friday night we had dinner at a frou-frou restaurant in Pasadena called Maison Akira. Karen and I both had a miso-flavored sea bass dish which was fairly good, although neither of us cared for the bed of quinoa on which it was served. To me, quinoa has a musty, “off” flavor that detracts from whatever it accompanies. Maison Akira is a French-Japanese fusion restaurant, which means I was able to eat escargot and sashimi in the same dinner. And I did. The escargot were sufficiently garlicky and buttery, and were a good deal more fleshy than I’m used to, although I’m pretty sure they were not African giant snails. But perhaps a dwarf cousin of the giant snail. Definitely bigger than what I’m used to.
I don’t know . . . a place like that, everything ought to be die and go to heaven. It really wasn’t. The soft shell crab was plainly of the frozen-and-thawed variety, and it showed. Karen and Jake had decent desserts — Karen, a Baked Alaska with green tea ice cream at its core, and Jake, this odd confection crowned with a caramelized sugar globe. I took pictures, but I have to figure out how to upload them to the blog. Perhaps I can upload them to Facebook and then link it? Hmm. Let’s try that. Nope, nothing yet.
Anyway, I had a figs-sauteed-in-Port-wine thing that was just okay. Would have been better were it not for the shredded mint littering the dish. Hey, not everyone likes mint. If I wanted a mojito I would have ordered a mojito.
Yesterday, we went to Duck House in Monterey Park for lunch, which is one of the few places left, I’m guessing, where you can get Peking Duck without ordering it a day in advance. For their signature dish, I’d have to say they deserve only a B-. The skin was crispy and perfect, and yes that’s the most important thing, but the meat was tasteless. But what’s a boy to do — Quan Jude has disappeared from the San Gabriel Valley, and that had always been our place for Peking Duck. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, “You, sir, are no Quan Jude.” We also had a stir-fried lamb dish, tasty but not lamby. I like my lamb a little lamby, otherwise I worry that they’re feeding me beef. We had some excellent crab there, some greasy noodles, and a hot red bean paste dessert that was probably the best thing we had.
But the true star of this eating vacation was Azeen’s Afghanistan restaurant in Pasadena. What a find! We had the sambosa appetizer (like an Indian samosa, but lighter . . . and indeed, much of Afghani food, if this restaurant is representative, is a lighter, more delicate version than its equivalent in Indian cuisine). For main courses we had the mixed kebabs, the eggplant with onions and tomatoes, the spinach-onion-and-garlic stew, and an amazing butternut squash dish. Mark of a superb restaurant: I think we each had a different favorite dish. This is a restaurant that gets everything right, and I’m sure we’ll be coming back.
Not sure what’s on the menu for today. Breakfast, for starters. All this rich food has been doing a dance on my innards, so once I’m back in Bako, I’ll probably subsist on smoothies for the rest of the week. Smoothies, the perfect diet food (you just have to make them yourself to control the ingredients).
D.
Of editors and gunsels
From The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiel Hammett (1929):
“Another thing,” Spade repeated, glaring at the boy: “Keep that gunsel away from me while you’re making up your mind. I’ll kill him.”
The word “gunsel” made it into the script for the 1941 film with Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre. The various editors — Joseph T. Shaw for Black Mask, where the story was first serialized, and whomever Warner Bros. employed to parse scripts — apparently figured the word was slang for “gunman.” Has “gun” right there, don’t it? But in fact, “gunsel” was a brilliant sleight-of-hand showing why, when it comes to words, you should never screw with a writer.
Erle Stanley Gardner writes in “Getting Away with Murder,” The Atlantic, Vol. 215 No. 1 (1965):
Hammett wrote a story which contained an expression that gave Shaw quite a jolt. He deleted it from the manuscript and wrote Hammett a chiding letter to the effect that Black Mask would never publish vulgarities of any sort.
Hammett promptly wrote a story in which he laid a deliberate trap for Joe Shaw.
One of the characters in the story, meeting another one, asked him what he was doing these days, and the other shamefacedly admitted that he was “on the gooseberry lay.”
Had the editor known it, this meant simply that the character was making his living by stealing clothes from clotheslines, preferably on a Monday morning. The expression goes back to the old days of the tramp who from time to time needed a few pennies to buy food. He would wait until the housewife had put out her wash; then he would descend on the clothesline, pick up an armful of clothes, and scurry away to sell them.
Shaw had the reaction which Hammett had expected. He wrote Hammett telling him that he was deleting the “gooseberry lay” from the story, that Black Mask would never publish anything like that. But he left the word “gunsel” because Hammett had used it so casually that Shaw took it for granted that the word pertained to a hired gunman. Actually, “gunsel,” or “gonzel,” is a very naughty word with no relation whatever to a bodyguard, a gunman, or a torpedo.
(Full excerpt here.)
So what’s a gunsel? From Wiktionary,
gunsel (plural gunsels)
1. A young man kept for homosexual purposes; a catamite .
2. (street and prison slang) A passive partner in anal intercourse.
I first encountered that word in The Maltese Falcon, and all these years I assumed it meant a gunman, or a hired punk with a gun. I was going to use it today, and googled it merely to check the spelling. Imagine my surprise. And think of all the writers who use it as a synonym for “gunman,” propagating Hammett’s little joke for generations to come.
It’s stuff like this that makes it all worthwhile.
D.
What don’t these people understand about “casual encounters”?
Call it a hobby. I occasionally read Craigslist personals — the casual encounters section.
This is where the prostitutes have fled to, now that the law says they can’t advertise outright. (You can always tell the hookers — they think $ is the S key.) They seem to have flown the coop, even in the Casual Encounters section. I’m perplexed, though, by the number of people who don’t get that “casual encounters” means “hooking up.” Some people are looking for a long term relationship. Huh?
And then there’s the woman who has a “healthy attitude toward the Bible.”
He must love the Lord with all of his heart,then I know he will love me with all his heart.
I wonder: what does she think it means that all the guys are sending her photos of their junk? Bunch of bloody Onanists!
And then there are the ones who really don’t know quite what they want. Take the romantic,
These days I fantasize that a person slowly knocks the door of my bedroom, cuddles me and slowly takes me in his arms
which is all very well and good, but
eventually we turn out having sex. And so if you think that you can be the Mr. Right intended for me mail me right now. Now i’m all alone here in my room lingering to get busted thoroughly.
Or maybe I just don’t understand women. Or, rather, women who post on Craigslist.
In other news, my 15-year-old son just came in here wondering what 11-year-old girls want.
For Christmas. He’s doing some sort of charitable Secret Santa thing.
Jeez.
D.
I’ve been plagiarized!
Or is it plagiarised? I always have trouble with that. My spell check says z, not s.
Hat tip to new reader Andrea, who somehow figured out that this article on EmpowHER is a pretty thinly disguised regurgitation of this article on my website (which also appeared on allHealth.com, and may still be up there for all I know). The author has added a great deal of editorial input, thus justifying her byline. My “Mumps, for example,” has become “For example mumps.”
I’ve written to the website’s feedback email addie . . . we’ll see if anyone replies.
In other news, I finished Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn tonight, and WOW. Here’s a protagonist that keeps living when the book is done. I keep picking it up, rereading the ending, bits from the beginning; but nothing I do is going to make Lethem write a sequel. Motherless Brooklyn was pubbed in 2000, so if Lethem hasn’t written a sequel yet, I don’t know that he ever will.
Per Wikipedia, there’s a film in the works:
A film adaptation of the book, set in the 1950s, is in development and is planned to be released in 2013; Edward Norton will direct, adapt, and star in the film.
Ugh. 2013? Anything could happen between now and 2013. And who’s Norton going to play in this? I hope he’s smart and casts himself as Frank Minna, the father-figure who ends up dead at the end of Chapter One. I can buy Norton as Minna. I can’t buy Norton as Lionel, the Tourette’s-afflicted protagonist.
In still other news, our Giants are walking away with game one of the World Series.
D.
The end of an era (not).
Craigslist Abandons Adult Services… for Good?
No matter . . . there’s still the Casual Encounters section. So for example,
I am a tough woman looking for someone that is a little more gentle than what I am used to. I think I deserve to be treated like an angel for a night or two as opposed to getting roughed up in the sack all the time. I am away from my old man for a little while and thought I’d post here. IF you are interested get at me.
It’s not the “tough woman” I’m afraid of. It’s the “old man” who roughs her up.
Anyway, a quick perusal of the Casual Encounters list suggests that things have indeed changed. Gone are the pleas for “gas money,” “contribution for the room,” a “generous man.” Gone is $u$ie who will make your dream$ come true. The prossies are gone, mate.
Nothin’ left but people desperate for no-strings-attached lurve.
D.
The adult conspiracy
We’re in the gym, Jake and I, working out on the torso rotation machine. Two guys in their early 20s are working out next to us, taking turns on the preacher curl. Simultaneously, the three adults in this group of four notice a woman walking down the stairs.
Like this. Only walking. Down stairs.
One of the guys, call him Bearded Guy, says something relatively non-objectifying like “Well she’s in shape” (pretty innocent considering what guys will often say under such circumstances), and then they both noticed me watching, too. The second guy, call him Not Bearded Guy, says to me, “Yeah, you’re included in this conversation,” and we all laughed. Mind you, there were a dozen things being said without being said, without needing to be said, because when it comes to a good-looking woman, guys are psychic.
Right now, every man looking at this image is thinking the same thing.
“It never stops,” I tell them. “You could be 80.”
“Probably gets worse,” said Bearded Guy.
“Yup,” I said.
Bearded Guy: “Especially after marriage.”
Not Bearded Guy: “Oh, shut up.”
“You’re engaged?” I said.
“He’s married,” said Bearded Guy, and we all laughed.
Meanwhile, Jake was puzzled. “Why is that funny?” he asked.
“Remember the adult conspiracy in the Piers Anthony Xanth novels?” Always nice when I can make a literary reference to explain complex concepts. “We’re talking about the sex drive,” I added.
“Which is always in drive,” said Bearded Guy. “Never Park. Never Neutral.”
A little later, I watched Bearded Guy strike up a conversation with her. They were clear across the gym so I couldn’t tell what was said, but he wasn’t being rebuffed. I could tell that much.
“Amazing,” I said. “He’s picking up on her.”
“What?” said Jake.
“He’s making time.”
“Huh?”
“You know, they’re having a conversation.”
Jake shook his head a little, and I wouldn’t be at all shocked if he had rolled his eyes, too.
“It’s not often I feel naive,” he said.
D.
Where I grew up
The two homes I lived in as a kid still stand, although one is unrecognizable. The unrecognizable one is our first home, the one which the new owners uglified soon after my dad sold it. In the old days, we had a porch and a Dutch Elm (if I remember correctly) and some nice ferns and various other shrubbery that gave the place curb appeal. The remodeled home looks like a pastel box.
When I’m down in Southern California, assuming I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll drive by one house or the other. It can be depressing driving by that first house — disconcerting is perhaps a better word — because more often than not, I drive right past it. I shouldn’t have to check the street address to know, “This is the home where I pooped and peed a couple thousand diapers.”
Sex Ed, Catholic-style
Y’all know I’m not a prude. It’s not like I object to sex education in the schools; in fact, I think we need much more of it, delivered to much younger children. I’ve long thought of sex ed in the schools as a good thing. But I’m starting to rethink my position.
Perhaps the responsibility for sex education should remain with the parents.
The reason for my change of heart? I object to the manner in which my son is being educated. Do you want to know one of the first things they did with the kids? (A mixed class, by the way — whatever happened to separating the boys from the girls? Am I hopelessly square?) They showed them pictures of genitalia. Diseased genitalia.
Mind you, they did not first show them pictures of healthy genitalia.
Do you understand why I’m tweaked? Some of these kids — yeah, precious few, I know, since most kids find porn on the internet about 30 seconds after they first learn to google — but some of these kids have never seen opposite-sex genitalia before, or perhaps just artistically rendered nudity, not full-on wide-open or hanging-out-there packages. And what do they see? Warts. Ulcers. Purulent discharge.
And so for the few ninth graders left who are still mouldable, their first impression will be Ooooh! Grooooss!
I’m likely underestimating the power of sexuality to overcome the Catholic school’s ham-handed attempt to forever make sex = oh gross in the minds of these kids. But still, it bugs the crap at me that they’re trying to indoctrinate my son. Not that he succumbs easily to memes, but just the same, I’ve pointed out to him what’s going on here. Several times. Such that he’s sick of me mentioning it.
I haven’t tried to counter the propaganda with the “sex is beautiful” talk. I embarrass him enough as it is.
D.