Merkin

Coming of age in middle America during that era, surrounded by headlines like those and without the support of others like us as might be found in the big cities, led many of us to embrace quiet hidden lives of desperation and deception and to form entrenched attitudes of paranoia that still, today, are not fully resolved. James

Pie Day is actually Pie Month, all of October, in Julian, California, a delightful haven about 70 miles up into the hills from San Diego. Pie bakeries line the main street and the smell of freshly baked pie permeates the air year round, although in October at the peak of the harvest the total output of the town is 10,000 pies. If you love pie, as I do, this is the Promised Land. I had one shipped once from Julian to the east coast, and it arrived, frozen, in fine shape. http://www.desertusa.com/Cities/ca/julian.html

Thank you, fellow scholars.

The Salvation Army is emphatically gay-UNfriendly. Remember that this holiday season when they ding the bell in your ear. The coins that fall in that kettle do NOT go to aid gay people, no matter how needy.

In keeping with the scholastic theme established by Camy: Curriculum Love has its own arithmetic where one plus one is always greater, though sometimes, sadly, we shape its geometry from triangles. Love also has a grammar, with the second person favored first, and 'thou' replaces 'I' and 'me' in thoughts and declarations. Love's language is often learned unspoken: meanings transmitted by tilt of head or accomplished through the eyes, whose glance can fill a dictionary. Love's history lectures may be unique and its future lesson plan a mystery, but both yield to the present moment, where Love's study is our social science. Love's geography is our favorite subject, even though that homework is never finished. -Merkin

Thanks, Des. Wonderfully inventive, and the dialogue just charms. This chapter is a real hanger, though.

We got a free ride through the whole thing from BBC America, except for the concert which we were able to glimpse somewhat edited by ABC and Katie Couric, who for some reason felt she had to explain it all to us. I liked an interview with some gangly teen-aged boy along the parade route, who said the Queen 'was pretty cool: she's the nation's granny. But not as cool as my granny.'

Oops. Double post.

Yeah, Cole. The one with tweezed eyebrows.

Thankfully, the Christian right has relieved us of the burden of using gaydar to detect gay men. This is from their http://christwire.org/2010/08/is-my-husband-gay/ service and intended for wives who have grown suspicious of their men, but it would appear to serve our general population as well: 'For the wife unsure about her husband’s proclivities, the most important thing is to first confirm your suspicions. Drawing on the expertise of spiritual and medical professionals, ChristWire has put together a list of 15 commonly-accepted characteristics of men struggling with homosexuality within a marriage: 1) Secretive late night use of cellphones and computers Porn addiction is closely associated with homosexuality and a secretive nature implies he’s trying to hide something from you. Be on the lookout for a man who doesn’t want to web surf or answer phone calls in your presence. Texting is another favorite trick used by adulterers. For the sake of trust, a married couple should share everything, including phone logs, email accounts, chat friends and website histories. 2) Looks at other men in a flirtatious way When you’re out in public, does he spend too much time looking at other men? Is he fond of winking at people? Does he get visibly upset when someone does not return a compliment about his physical appearance? 3) Feigning attention in church and prayer groups Have you noticed a lack of interest in spiritual issues? Does it ever seem as if he’s just using church as an excuse to spend time around young men? Does he volunteer to mentor in all-male groups? 4) Overly fastidious about his appearance and the home Natural men have a certain amount of grit about them. They sweat and they smell. Homosexuals often abhor this sort of thing and will also be incredibly particular about the cleanliness of the home. Does your man tweeze his eyebrows, trim his pubic hairs or use face moisturizers? Is he picky about brand name shampoos? Does he spend more time getting ready for a night out than you do? 5) Gym membership but no interest in sports Gay men use the gym as a place to socialize and to have secret liaisons in the bathrooms. They like to work out their bodies without the competition of sports play. Afterward, they use the showers and steam rooms to engage in sexual activity beyond the prying eyes of women. If your man returns from the gym too exhausted to talk or have sex, that is a worrisome sign. 6) Clothes that are too tight and too “trendy” Gay men don’t need words to communicate their availability for sex “hook ups.” They silently broadcast the news by showing off their lean, hard bodies in designer clothing labels. If your husband owns skinny jeans and looks at his buttocks in the mirror or if he wears an inordinate number of small-sized t-shirts, it is probably worthwhile to pay more attention to his private activities. 7) Strange sexual demands Fetishism is a sign that a man is seeking a harder thrill beyond the normal intimacy of heterosexual relations. The woman may not appeal to the deep desires that are coming to the surface as the marriage drags on. If there is a sudden interest in sodomy, sadomasochism, lubricants, role-play, sex toys or other non-traditional intercourse methods, this is clearly an indication of deep emotional abnormalities. More interested in the men than the women in pornographic films Pornography is a dangerous element in any marriage but there are many Christians who feel watching it does add something to their sexual lives. If you have gone down this road and find that your man perks up at the sight of the men in these sorts of videos, you should be concerned. If he selects films because of specific male actors, this is an obvious sign that he is suffering from a crisis of ego and desire. 9) Travels frequently to big cities or Asia Some husbands will spend a great deal of money traveling far from home to hide their deplorable same-sex actions. Big cities offer indulgence of every kind. From gay bars and clubs to prostitutes and sex bathhouses, a man seeking encounters can find them easily if he’s so inclined. Is there ever really a good excuse for a husband to visit Thailand or San Francisco without his wife? 10) Too many friendly young male friends Someone who makes an extra effort to surround themselves with younger men should raise concerns in any community. If this is the case with your husband, ask yourself if he prefers their company to that of women. Do they touch each other or embrace in long hugs? Do they exchange expensive, personal gifts like scarves or cologne? 11) Sassy, sarcastic and ironic around his friends A man who is secretly engaged in homosexual activity with others may exhibit feminine qualities when they get together in a group. In a sense, he has “let his hair down” and this will be seen in excessive back talk and speaking with one’s hands. 12) Love of pop culture It’s quite common for young men to enjoy the science fiction end of popular culture, but when your husband becomes overly obsessed with romantic and feminine shows, that is cause for alarm. Gossip websites, Glee and The Golden Girls are three well-documented icons of the gay movement that genuine heterosexual men avoid. 13) Extroverted about his bare chest in public Does he go shirtless in the back yard or at picnics when other men are around? Does he wear a speedo at the beach? Does it seem like he’s purposely standing right in the middle of a crowd to show off his chest and arm muscles, peppering people with questions about how strong he looks? He may be craving physical affirmation from other men and desperately looking for hints of shared desires in those around him. 14) Sudden heavy drinking Sometimes people dealing with an unbearable emotional issue like homosexuality will turn to alcohol to hide their distress. Does your man disappear on drinking binges for long hours without answering his cellphone? Is there a strange odor about him when he returns, some strange mix of cigarettes and gel? Does he cry frequently? 15) Ladies, have you dated men in the past who turned out to be gay? This is an important question to ask yourself when your marriage starts to have problems. Statistics have shown that women who have encountered gay men romantically in the past are the most likely to repeat this mistake in future relationships. If you answered yes, you should ask yourself whether you’re honestly looking for a man or just a shopping companion. Is sharing gossip more important to you than raising children? Ultimately, it’s a question of getting your priorities straight!' So, fellas, now you know what to be on the lookout for.

Place is an important element of any story, for just as in real life it colors the actions of all the characters. Whether it can be claimed to be a character in its own right is an interesting question. In some stories it can easily be acknowledged as a character; for examples close at hand I think of your own Woodland House, Chris, or of Graeme's Heart of the Tree. In these instances place is not simply a setting for the story, but makes the story happen. In fact, many of your stories, Chris, revolve around specific important locations, and those locations have a decided impact on how the story unrolls and turns out. Many of our stories here on AD center on young gay men, often teenagers, and their surroundings. Place becomes an extremely important element within these stories, for writing about teenagers usually means placing them in locations such as home, school, neighborhood, or the mall. Because these characters are teenagers they often have little or no personal control over the settings they find themselves in, and thus place becomes a very important element for these stories, for it affects their lives in a way that is largely out of their control. Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to give locations such as these the status of characters in the effect they have upon the stories being told.

I love ratatouille because it is so versatile; it can be served as a main dish, as a side, or as a sauce for pasta or rice, even as a cold dip. I follow Julia Child's advice to saute the eggplant and the zucchini each seperately in order to preserve their flavors, then I combine the ingredients in layers and bake it. Either way it is a wonderful dish.

I love the broken finger one. Of course, I love redhead jokes. I'm only going to risk one in response, for fear that Luggie will hit us with another dozen if I seem to be challenging him. What did the blonde say when she found out she was pregnant? "Are you sure it's mine?"

I'd love to, but I would first have to know whether the alligator drapery was sentient or not.

My heart goes out to Julian, and David, and you, and all presently involved in Julian's care. One of the greatest desires of any fifteen- year-old is to be independent of his family, and that motivation is ideally what drives the development of maturity and understanding and the assumption of responsibility for oneself. But how can that work well when there has never been the buy-in to the concept of family in the first place? It's a tragic situation, and I can't conceive of any way that seven months with you could have repaired the destruction wrought by the preceding fourteen and a half years of Julian's life.

Wow, what interesting recipes. I had a roast of crocodile once in Australia so I suppose alligator isn't beyond possible, once I find a source for it other than something dank hanging up in a chinatown shop window. The pork loin, however, makes me wonder how you folks in New Mexico can keep your teeth with all that chewing. Five to seven pounds of loin to serve four? And here I've just gotten my head around portion sizes similar to a deck of cards.

I think most all writers agree that there shouldn't be any hard and fast rules governing the writing--or if there are, it is incumbent upon a creative writer to find ways to break them in order to develop and grow. But there are the expectations of readers, and reasons why a reader is willing to begin a story and decide to stay with it to the end. This is where I think discussions like this have benefited me the most.

This "research" seems like pretty thin stuff. Its appeal to some sort of physical characteristic reminds me a little of Phrenology and its bunkum science of skull measurements. My own limited and deeply-flawed experience of gaydar-like sensations seems more to rely on another person's attitude and presentation and body language--all those subtle cues we all use to form initial impressions and to detect threat or receptivity. I'd certainly never ask anyone out on the basis of it. A comment to Ben: I think you crank your expectation up a notch too far if you want gaydar to be demonstrated to give you signals about whether someone likes you, or is attracted to you.

Novels, I think, are more apt to be character-driven than short stories, because the range of a novel permits a writer to establish a much fuller characterization with much more of a back story to draw upon as events proceed. A short story, almost by definition, must rush toward its resolution by means of its plot, relying upon conflict, action, and climax, and often leaving the luxury of a full characterization behind. Characterization, while not forsaken, is more apt to rely on broader brush strokes to fill in the outlines of personality and motivation than is the case in a novel.

Vidalia onions make all the difference with that one. Yum. Er, ahem, too many slices of that at lunch may lead to dinner in the emergency room... anybody got any recipes that don't require a weeks-worth of egg production from the chickens and the top of the bottle from the creamery?

I think when we're young we start out writing subjectively--that is, we tend to write about the world we've experienced, and we narrate from our own point-of-view, no matter who or what we call our characters. I think one mark of a dedicated writer is the ability to put oneself in another person's shoes, and perceive the world by means of that other personality. That's an ability that comes with practice and through trial-and-error. But it is an essential skill to develop in order to avoid, as you say, rewriting yourself over and over. Merkin

Lordy!

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/b/ray_bradbury/index.html Sad news. Bradbury was one of my earliest escapes into speculative literature. He set the standard for for me and for many at a time when most of fantasy and science fiction was still published as pulp fiction and was still centered around bug-eyed monsters. Bradbury's Mars was one of those places I always longed to visit. James

In my day, Cole, a shapely girl wearing pantyhose was liable to be called a tomato.

If you buy military-grade camo pantyhose, Ben, you're liable to lose sight of it among the foliage.