Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Amazon Censorship, Part ... Well, More.... MONSTER PORN: Amazon Cracks Down On America’s Latest Sex Fantasy Eric Spitznagel, Dec. 21, 2013_Censoring Adult Fantasy Fiction

They're cracking down on ALL titles of adult fiction subgenres and descriptions. As if, like when standing on the street, when you search you just avert your eyes and move on quickly when coming upon something that freaks you out. It's not clearly illegal.

Amazon and many others, including Smashwords now, I read, have reneged on the contracts of content they've been selling for years, one of mine for a decade, and now decide to make you change a title they just made you change a month ago. Spastic much for a handful of complaints?

http://www.businessinsider.com/monster-porn-amazon-crackdown-sex-fantasy-bigfoot-2013-12


Monster Porn Cover_03 

Author Virginia Wade's fiction debut follows a group of women who embark on a week-long camping trip to Mt. Hood National Forest. There, in the shadow of Oregon’s highest mountain, they are kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a mysterious woodland creature. "What the hell is that thing?" asks one protagonist.


“‘It's f---ing Bigfoot,’ hissed Shelly. ‘He's real, for f---'s sake.’ Horror filled her eyes. ‘With a huge c---.’”


The book, with the decidedly un-PG title "Cum For Bigfoot," is just the first of 16 fiction ebooks that Wade (a pen name) has written about the legendary beast sometimes known as Sasquatch, each detailing a series of graphic and often violent sexual encounters between the apelike creature and his female human lovers. 

Wade has made an exceptional living writing these stories.


Moan for Bigfoot

Virginia Wade's bigfoot erotica has been downloaded more than 100,000 times.


It began in December of 2011. A stay-at-home mother from Parker, Colo., Wade had no ambition to be a published author and no real writing experience other than a few attempts at historical romance in the mid-90s.

 But then, she says, "I got this crazy idea for a story." So she sat down and wrote the entire book — more of a novella, at just 12,000 words — in a matter of weeks. 

She never even considered trying to sell it to a mainstream publisher. Instead, she went directly to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, an online platform for self-publishing with a 70% royalty rate for authors. (The average royalty percentage for authors with mainstream publishers is between 8 and 15%.)


"Cum For Bigfoot" wasn't an overnight best-seller. "The first month, I think I made $5," Wade admits. But over the course of 2012, the book was downloaded well over 100,000 times. "And that was just Amazon," she says. "That's not counting iTunes or Barnes & Noble or any of the other places that sell self-published books." 

With no marketing muscle, no bookstore tours or print reviews or any of the publicity that most top authors use to sell books, she started bringing in staggering profits. During her best months, she says, she netted $30,000 or more. At worst, she'd bank around six grand — "nothing to complain about," she says.


She branched into other genres, penning ebooks like "Taken By Pirates" and "Seduced By The Dark Lord," but her "Cum For Bigfoot" series was the biggest money-maker. "I started cranking them out," she says. "If there was a market there for monster sex, I was gonna give it to them." She even brought in her family to help with the workload. 

"My dad, who's an English instructor, was my editor," Wade says. "My mom did the German translations" — including the equally popular "Komm für Bigfoot." "I even had my own 401k. It became a cottage industry."


The prose wouldn't win any fiction awards (a sample line: "From within the tufts of matted hair, the creature released a huge pale c--- that defied logic"), but her readers loved it, and their numbers seemed to be growing every day. "I was putting my daughter through college with the profits," Wade says. "I used to joke with her, 'Bigfoot smut is paying for your school.'"


Virginia_Wade
Courtesy of Virginia Wade

Author Virginia Wade enlisted her family's help to meet the demand for her work.

Wade is hardly the only author who has made a mint writing about monsters and the women who love them (or at least submit to their sexual appetites). She's part of a burgeoning literary genre that's found a wide audience online: monster porn, otherwise known as “cryptozoological erotica,” or as some of the authors prefer to call it, "erotic horror." 

 Their self-published books feature mythical creatures of every possible variety, from minotaurs to mermen, cthulhus to leprechauns, extraterrestrials to cyclops, who become involved in sexual trysts, often non-consensual, with human lovers. 

They have titles that are often more silly than sexy [NS_but are highly sought through online searching]— from "Demons Love Ass," part of Trisha Danes' "Beasts & Booty" collection, to "Frankenstein's Bitch" and "Sex With My Husband's Anatomically Correct Robot" — and the plots are never less than imaginative. 

A feline shapeshifter might be saved from a tree by a firefighter with a cat fetish (as in the ebook "Out on a Limb"), or a buxom cattle rancher might be abducted and kept enslaved "in a strange, perverted alien zoo" ("Milked by the Aliens").

It's easy to snicker, but somebody is buying these things. Authors of monster porn may not be notching sales to rival E.L. James or Amanda Hocking, the trailblazers of self-published erotica, but they're making more than enough to survive. That’s especially remarkable given the low price tag on many of their books. 

"Amazon pays a royalty of 35 percent for books listed below $2.99," says K.J. Burkhardt (a pen name), the 45-year-old author of "Taken by the Tentacle Monsters" and "Bred to the Creature." 

"For those listed at $2.99 and over, I can claim 70 percent in royalty payments. But I didn't feel comfortable nor right in asking someone to pay $2.99 for a five-to seven-thousand-word short story." So instead, the majority of her titles are listed at 99 cents, the minimum allowed by Amazon.

"Even with the small prices that I was asking," she says, "it doesn't take much imagination to guess that I was selling a lot of books to earn $4,000 each month."


 Then everything changed.

Attack of the Pitchfork Brigade


In October, the online news site The Kernel published an incendiary story called "An Epidemic of Filth," claiming that online bookstores like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, WHSmith, and others were selling self-published ebooks that featured "rape fantasies, incest porn and graphic descriptions of bestiality and child abuse." 

The story ignited a media firestorm in the U.K, with major news outlets like the Daily Mail, The Guardian, and the BBC reporting on the “sales of sick ebooks.” 

Some U.K.-based ebook retailers responded with public apologies, and WHSmith went so far as to shut down its website altogether, releasing a statement saying that it would reopen "once all self-published eBooks have been removed and we are totally sure that there are no offending titles available." 

The response in the U.S. was somewhat more muted, but most of the retailers mentioned in the piece, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble, began quietly pulling hundreds of titles from their online shelves — an event Kobo coo Michael Tamblyn referred to last month as "erotica-gate." 


Screen Shot 2013 12 18 at 4.31.30 PM

The title pretty much says it all.

The crackdown was meant to target the obvious offenders — ebooks like "Daddy’s Birthday Gang Bang" and others that fetishized incest and rape — but in their fervor to course-correct, the online bookstores started deleting, according to The Digital Reader blog, "not just the questionable erotica but [also].... any e-books that might even hint at violating cultural norms." That included crypto-porn. 

Wade’s sexy Sasquatch, not unlike the elusive hominid beast of legend, vanished without a trace.
 
But it wasn’t just Bigfoot who was herded into extinction. Wade says that 60% of her titles disappeared from Amazon and other online bookstores. "They started sending my books randomly back to draft mode" — where new ebooks are uploaded and edited before going on sale — "and I'd get an email from them saying, 'We found the following books in violation of our content guidelines,'” she recalls. 

“But they wouldn't tell me why. There were no specifics. It was a huge guessing game trying to figure out what the issue was."



She altered the titles of several volumes in her blockbuster series, from "Cum For Bigfoot" to "Moan For Bigfoot," and they were returned to Amazon's shelves, but now they're only seen by readers searching for them specifically. "They can still be found in the store," Wade says, "but it requires extra digging." 

Even more confusing, only some of her titles were flagged by Amazon, so while some books are listed as "Moan For Bigfoot," others remain "Cum For Bigfoot." 

Merman_02
Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

There are plenty of fish in the sea.


Burkhardt had a similar experience. "Amazon has been systematically banning just about every book I have listed with them," she says. As with Wade, she was told her books had violated content guidelines. "The guidelines are very vague," she says. 

"Reading them implies any and all erotic pornography is prohibited, so I'm left to wonder exactly what erotica is allowed."   

[NS_And once accepted, under their contract, they come back and ... change the rules of acceptance.]

"Taken By the Monsters 4," which Burkhardt first published with Amazon in July of 2012, disappeared from the site just a few weeks ago. "After 16 months, they have determined that it either no longer meets their guidelines or they didn't really look it over to begin with and just now caught it," she says.

Beauty and the Beast


Amazon declined to comment for this article. Its content guidelines state that the company doesn't accept “offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts."  But works that contain precisely that, from de Sade's "Justine" and Pauline Réage's "The Story of O" to the recently released French bestseller "The Victoria System" by Éric Reinhardt (which contains the memorable line "My erection beat time in my underwear") are readily available.


To explain the policy, the site offers this unhelpful bit of advice: "What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect." Vague as that may be, Amazon is within its legal rights to stock whatever books it chooses. 

"Bookstores are private enterprises, and are thus not required to sell every book that people ask them to sell," says Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at UCLA who specializes in First Amendment cases. 

"There is no law of which I’m aware that would require bookstores to sell a book that they disapprove of, whether or not we might think their judgments of disapproval are sound." Amazon makes the same point elsewhere in the content guidelines, when it notes, "We reserve the right to make judgments about whether content is appropriate and to choose not to offer it."  

[NS_even to breaking their contract with books they've sold for a ten year period or have just a month before asked the publisher / author to "correct" a month before.]


Screen Shot 2013 12 19 at 9.30.30 AM


The ancient Greeks would approve.


Burkhardt, who lives in Northern Virginia and writes as a hobby — she claims her day job is working as a personal protection specialist for a foreign ambassador — continued emailing Amazon with questions, and soon learned that the main objection was to her book's listing descriptions, which anybody pursuing the Amazon website could read. 

They were too graphic, she was told, and potentially offensive. Burkhardt wanted to compromise, but she worried that a less detailed description would cause more trouble in the long run. 

"I want readers to know exactly what they are buying when they make a purchase," she says, "and not be surprised and offended later because I couldn't say the book contains explicit sex with monsters.”


Her concern isn’t unjustified. One can only imagine a "Fifty Shades of Grey" fan happening upon Burkhardt’s ebook "Taken by the Monsters," and their horror upon reading about the vicious gang-rape of a woman by hirsute “humanoid” creatures in an abandoned building, which ends with them “filling her womb deep with [their] monster seed.” A little spanking this isn’t.


Author Emerald Ice (a pen name) — who lives in southern Illinois with her husband, a Catholic high school teacher — is less concerned about offending Amazon browsers than being overlooked by potential paying customers. The first three books in her Alien Sex Slave Series — "Alien Love Slave," "The Sex Arena," and "Alien Sex Cove"— were runaway hits, she says. At least until Amazon pulled them from distribution and requested changes, once again citing content guidelines. That's how "Alien Sex Slave" became "Sidney's Alien Escapades."  

[NS_Like a bad parent or quietly belligerent teacher, saying something is wrong with it but we won't say what, and after you've "fixed" it, we'll ask you to do so again. Leaving you in a neurotic wasteland of of WTF? What is the list of words, what are the situations? We are businesspeople trying to sell our legal products in a manner we know people who read these search. What the...? Can I say What, or The?]

 "I hate it," she admits of the new title. "I came up with it because I was in a panic about the books disappearing." Her sales have since plummeted, and she isn't surprised. "If I was a reader searching for hot alien sex books, I wouldn't look twice at something called 'Sidney's Alien Escapades.'"


Monster Breeding


Monster erotica is often purchased in series form.

Alice Xavier (also a pen name) had her first experience with censorship when her ebook "Serpent God’s Virgin," originally published last April, was pulled from Amazon in mid-October. "They flagged it because it had virgin in the title," she guesses, because after she renamed it "Serpent God's Maiden," it again appeared on sale. 

"Amazon didn't care that the plot involves sex with a giant snake deity," she says. 

"Ultimately, Amazon is amoral. They don't care either way that they're selling dirty, filthy erotica. Their main goal is to keep their customers happy. They have plenty of customers who get righteously outraged and complain, complain, complain. And Amazon has way more at stake than just books. So they want to keep everybody happy, understandably."

Even so, she and other monster-sex authors are more than a little unsettled by the recent purge, which lumps their work in with ebooks depicting rape, incest and bestiality — unfairly they insist. The latter label is especially dangerous, says Xavier, who authored books like "Cuckwolfed" and "At the Mercy of the Boar God.

Although she considers bestiality "an egregious act of animal cruelty when it occurs in real life," she's not so sure it should be off-limits to writers. "If writers want to write about it, that's great for them, because plenty of people love reading about it." Then again, that doesn’t mean she wants to be in any way associated with the genre. "It's a media ....storm waiting to happen,” she says. “It's massively taboo — more so than incest, I think. It has the potential to be incredibly damaging to the whole image of erotic literature.”

Wild Kingdom


Is crypto-smut the same thing as bestiality lit? It may seem like a fine distinction to the uninitiated, but for many authors, it’s crucial. "Is a werewolf an animal? What about a minotaur?” asks Mark Coker, the founder and CEO of Smashwords—one of the few ebook self-publishing platforms that didn't clean house in October. “Where do you draw the line? 

Sex with beasts is a common theme in paranormal romance. Do dinosaurs need to be a protected class of animal? What about a Sasquatch? When are they real, when are they not, when can you have sex with them and when can you not?"


Satyr
Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

Satyrs are such notoriously passionate creatures, there's a whole disorder named for them.

And even in the cases when the creature is an animal (a giant squid, for instance) Xavier insists that the power dynamic is critical. “How can you commit animal cruelty when the monster is in control, is consenting, and is an intelligent being?” she points out. In the world of fantasy, a creature can be classified as a person, she says, even if it's not a human person. “A barnyard animal is just an animal without the power of consent.”

Modern crypto-porn has more in common with the myths of ancient Greece, many of which feature gods taking animal form — Zeus was famous for this move — and having their way with humans. “Just because he turns into a swan doesn't mean he's turned into an ordinary animal,” Xavier points out. “He's still a god with his godly powers and intelligence, just in the form of a swan.”


Smashwords, which gives authors 85% of net profit, regardless of their work’s length, had its own issues with censorship last February, when PayPal threatened to deactivate the ebookstore's account if it didn't cease selling, according to a PayPal statement, "erotic fiction that contains bestiality, rape and incest." [NS_without ever considering that there may be consent or ... a lesson or morality or of personality hidden within the sexual tale.]


Although Smashwords initially complied, especially with regard to incest and sex involving underage characters, Coker was never comfortable with PayPal's other objections. "Dubious consent is a really big theme in mainstream romance," he says. "Where do you draw the lines? In mainstream romance, the woman may not want to have sex, and the man forces himself on her, and later in the book they're smiling and happy. 

Look at Gone With the Wind, where Rhett is hauling Scarlett up the stairway and she's yelling 'No, no, no!' To what extent can financial institutions regulate what people are allowed to imagine in the safety of their own mind?"


PayPal and Smashwords reached a truce in mid-March. “PayPal's worst fear was always that their payment systems would be used for illegal underage erotica and illegal underage pornography,” says Coker. “Once they learned of our prohibition against such content … they gained the confidence they needed to lift the proposed restrictions.”


Screen Shot 2013 12 18 at 4.34.13 PM

Everyone's after his lusty charms?


The initial purge of erotica on Amazon may have passed, but according to several authors, their monster sex ebooks continue to disappear from virtual shelves on a regular basis. Given her initial success, Burkhardt says, "I was seriously considering quitting my job and taking up writing full time. I'm glad I decided to wait and see, because after Amazon started banning some of my titles, my sales dropped dramatically." 

Her monthly profits from Amazon went from over $2,000 in early 2013 to just $400 last month. "I can't really complain," she concedes. "It's still a great supplemental income. But I can't help but wonder how much I would be making if I was allowed to publish with Amazon some of the stories they have since blocked or banned."


Some of the genre's authors would like to give up on Amazon entirely, furious at the way they've been treated. But it's difficult to walk away from the world's largest online retailer, even if you're confident that you've got something readers want. 

"There is a growing audience for this type of literature," says Burkhardt. "And I wish Amazon could see that." [NS_Why not put the naughty titles in a special search area. They do sell video porn. You have to be able to read and imagine to get through erotic fiction.]

Of course, authors could sell exclusively with Smashwords, which offers mostly unlimited creative freedom and a better cut of the profits. But the platform doesn’t have nearly the reach. "Amazon is the big dog," says Emerald Ice. "They're well known, their books are easy to download. It's easy, and consumers want easy. Heck, I want easy. Smashwords is still kind of underground."
 

Another option is following the path forged by E.L. James, who started out writing "Twilight" fan-fiction under the pen name Snowqueens Icedragon before landing a major publisher and going on to earn something in the neighborhood of $95 million. But as Emerald Ice learned, even with a track record of sales, books about monster sex are hard to place with an established imprint. 

"Nobody wants to touch the taboo risqué alien books," she says. 

"They're just too out-there, I guess. I tried a few publishers, and it was the fastest rejection I ever got in my life. Within two days, it was 'Thank you, no, no, this isn't what we're looking for! Please get this off my computer!'"


We attempted to contact several publishers, asking if they'd ever been offered monster erotica. None of them responded. Literary agent Steven Axelrod, who represents Amanda Hocking — an author who made close to $2 million with her self-published paranormal romances, including "Hollowland" and "My Blood Approves" — says he has "absolutely no knowledge of 'horror erotica.'" 

A representative from Valerie Hoskins Associates in London, the literary agency that reps E.L. James, was apparently so opposed to being included in a story about the genre that they responded to requests for comment with "We know nothing about self publishing or erotica." (You read it here first: "Fifty Shades of Grey" has absolutely nothing to do with self-publishing or erotica.)

Judging a Book by Its Cover


Alien
Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

Erotic ebooks often feature close encounters with alien species.


Xavier, who when not writing smut works as a user-interface designer, has taken a different tack. Rather than argue with Amazon over content guidelines, she's looked for ways to make her books less of a target. "At its core, Amazon is trying to clean up the presentation," she says. "I think that's a good thing, because it keeps all the erotica online and for sale."


Ebooks featuring incest and rape tend to share a singular defining feature: sexually explicit and poorly produced covers. The way for monster erotica to survive, she thinks, is to "dress it up like fantasy." No more trashy illustrations. "My covers are pretty classy," she says. [NS_They block and cut these, too.]

"It's all a facade, of course. My plots are depraved. They're definitely not for kids or grandmothers. But I put it in a glossy package, so it doesn't offend anybody who's just searching through Amazon.”


Her book "Alien Seed" is a perfect example of this strategy. The cover looks like any mainstream romance novel, with the image of a reclining and scantily-clad model bathed in green light. But the image doesn’t even hint at the content (sample: “I was either in some ridiculous ... dream or aboard an alien spaceship full of robotic tools capable of delivering epic orgasms”).  

[NS_Which can be misrepresentation in sales. Which can be more offensive and actually illegal.]


"If you want to be a major player in this field,” Xavier adds, “you need to act like one.”



Screen Shot 2013 12 20 at 11.22.02 AM

Many monster porn authors employ pen names. [NS_Most romance and erotica writers do.]

Virginia Wade has a different plan. "Writing monster erotica has become a hostile work environment," she says. "I'm tired of the BS. It's just easier to write in a different genre and avoid the scrutiny." She hasn't written a monster sex ebook in months, and has instead focused her creative energies on books that don't involve hirsute creatures or kidnapped campers. Even if censorship weren’t an issue, she's not sure if she has the inspiration for another sequel.
  
"I don't know where to go from here," she says with a sigh. "Each book was like another episode of a soap opera. I've already used the love triangle plotline. I've used the amnesia plotline. I've used the heroine-gives-birth-to-the-wrong-baby plotline, where the kid she had with Bigfoot turned out to be white instead of a little baby ape. I don't know where else I can take the Bigfoot fantasy. I'm out of crazy. I think I might be done."

She pauses, considering. "Well maybe one more," she concedes. "I have to finish up the series somehow. Give it a proper grand finale." She owes it to her longtime fans. Maybe something with genetically engineered Sasquatches, she thinks. Or just drop an A-bomb on Bigfoot and his love slaves and move on.

Fans of raunchy Bigfoot sex need not fear. Over the last few months, several self-published ebooks involving a certain hirsute sex machine have appeared in Amazon's Kindle store, with titles like "Boffing Bigfoot," "Savage Love," and the newly released "Bigfoot Did Me From Behind And I Liked It." 

"There's a lot of human heads being pulled off, eating human flesh and EXPLICIT SEX between Bigfoot and JESSICA," raved one five-star reviewer of the latter title. "Overall a funny read."

Eric Spitznagel is a frequent contributor to Esquire, Playboy, Men's Health, Rolling Stone and the New York Times Magazine, among others. He lives in Chicago with his wife and son. Visit him at ericspitznagel.com.

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.
All book covers credit: Amazon

Monday, November 25, 2013

Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary_Google Doodle Game [play, regenerations included]

http://www.google.com/doodles/doctor-whos-50th-anniversary

Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary




Nov 23, 2013




The Doctor Who doodle started life as a request from a huge fan at Google. It seemed daunting- 11 Doctor's, 50 years of adventures, countless enemies and time travel!

But we loved the idea of science fiction, technology and fun coming together, so we set about creating a multiple level game. 


The game was always a simple premise- those dastardly Daleks have stolen the Google letters and we need Doctor Who to retrieve them.

Artists don't make games, programmers do. I provided the designs and various pieces of animation but without the engineers the game would only exist in another dimension! I was fortunate to work alongside people that genuinely cared:

 

Engineering Gurus - Rui Lopes, Corrie Scalisi. Mark Ivey
Additional support - Doug Simpkinson, Jonathan Shneier
All things D of 3 - Leon Hong
Deity of rain, lava & lightning - Kevin Laughlin
Additional game ideas - Gregory Capuano
Sounds - The BBC, Tom Tabanao, Manuel Clement and Cody!
Creative consultant - Chris Dibona
User testing - Jennifer Zamora

 

We thank the BBC for trusting us and also helping us whenever needed. So what are you waiting for?! Jump in your TARDIS (Time and relative "doodle" in space) and become the fastest time lord in the universe!









Location: Global
Tags: Dalek, Cybermen, Cemetery, Tardis, Weeping Angel, Game, Doctor Who, London, Time Lord, Interactive

Thursday, November 21, 2013

New Way for Characters to Meet? Or new milieu for a haunting or crime, or a romance?

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/how_we_watch_tv/2013/11/viewing_parties_why_i_love_watching_shows_like_scandal_and_breaking_bad.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

Wanna Come Over and Watch TV?

The wonderful rise of the viewing party.

TV Watching Party: Brooklyn
Viewers gather for a screening of Bravo's Work of Art at Soda Bar in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
Photo courtesy Brooklyn Museum/Flickr via Creative Commons
Earlier this fall, when the Twitter-powered juggernaut Scandal premiered its third season, the show’s devoted fans had no shortage of venues for taking in the next chapter in the lives of Olivia Pope and her team of political fix-it “gladiators.” 

They could watch in the privacy of their own homes, of course, or they could take their fandom public: Bars across the country hosted viewing parties for the occasion. In Washington, D.C.—the backdrop for Scandal—one such event, as described by Damon Young on the blog Very Smart Brothas, took on gala-like proportions, featuring a red carpet, a doorman, and parting gifts (which, for its overwhelmingly female crowd that evening, included lotion and gift certificates for a massage).

Not every live-viewing event was quite as fancy as that one—but they were all part of a new tradition of communal viewing centered around TV series. Not long ago, the only reason to seek out a bar or restaurant with a TV was to catch “the game.” 

(Note this Times piece on the encroachment of television sets into New York City bars: though from just four years ago, it only considers televised sports to be the culprit.) 

When televised events other than sports did warrant communal viewing, they were usually once-a-year offerings, like the Academy Awards, or season finales of major shows like Lost.

Lately, however, bars have been encouraging weekly communal viewing of everything from Game of Thrones to Mad Men. The move has coincided with the rise in “prestige” television series, especially those, like Breaking Bad, which traffic in dramatic tension, surprise, and catharsis, all of which can be fun—or therapeutic—to share with others. 

And there are other benefits to such experiences: For a TV consumer of certain tastes, being cable-less (as more and more people are) isn’t necessarily a hindrance. In New York City, for example, even a relatively omnivorous TV-watcher can find watering holes where she can take in her favorite programs, from True Blood to The Walking Dead to Ru Paul’s Drag Race

And if you’re lucky, you might also get to indulge in some themed drink and food specials in the process.

There’s also the opportunity to rub shoulders with your fellow fans. I recently experienced my first communal viewing of a TV series episode in a public space—the show was Breaking Bad (specifically, the explosive “To’hajiilee” episode); the venue was a moderately-sized pub in Brooklyn. By the time the episode began, the bar was standing room only, with probably about 150 people packed in. 

Prior to arriving, I had been concerned that I would have to contend with a large group of distractible patrons who would in turn distract me with their chatter, or worse, those obnoxious viewers who throw in their two cents after every turning point. But the atmosphere was astonishingly quiet, save for the TVs blaring Walter White’s furiously unraveling saga. 

A couple of times during the course of the hour, some uninformed would-be patron would blunder into the bar looking to grab a mere drink, jabbering away to a friend all the while. But these interlopers were shushed and shamed by the Breaking Bad fans, exiting as quickly as they had come.


It was a highly enjoyable experience, one that felt unashamedly cult-ish and satisfying—collective cheers and audible gasps were shared during the incredible Mexican standoff that ended the episode. Overhearing other patrons banter during commercial breaks about their affinity for “Team Walt,” “Team Jesse,” or “Team Hank” was the superior, real-life version of reading an endless stream of live-tweets espousing the same characters. 

After that night, I knew exactly where I’d be checking out the series finale.

 Of course, I had to camp out at the bar three hours early to ensure that my friends and I got good seats for “Felina”—which is one reason hosting these parties must appeal to bar owners. 

(When I called ahead just to be sure they’d be airing the finale, the employee on the other end happily replied, “Yes we are. We’ve aired it every Sunday for the last couple of seasons! We’ll see you then!” He seemed just as excited about the finale as he was about all the business he’d be getting that evening.) 

But the wait was a small price to pay for sharing a piece of television history with a room full of true Jesse Pinkman fans.

Of course, communal viewing isn’t limited to public spaces.  

Scandal has inspired at least a couple of my friends to host weekly viewing parties at their own homes. The television industry itself has sought to further audience participation, no doubt to boost ratings during initial airings: ABC’s got the perfect themed recipes for your upcoming Scandal viewing; the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has tips for hosting parties year-round; AMC lays out how to “throw the swankiest Mad Men bash on your block!” 

Even Martha Stewart has advice on how to coordinate the perfect “fall viewing party.” (“Make sure your sofa is stocked with blankets and pillows.”) 

For those who don’t wish to be limited to the tastes of the masses (maybe you and your friends love watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia together), this is a happy alternative. It also fosters a more intimate experience while still remaining communal—you’re surrounded by friends or acquaintances, and audible reactions, even the occasional bon mot, are more welcome, and often encouraged. 

At a viewing party for the recent premiere of VH1’s TLC biopic at a friend’s apartment, homemade cocktails and hors d’oeuvres flowed, as did chuckles and quips.
 
In the past decade or so, TV watching has in some ways become a more solitary act: Thanks to the DVR, to Netflix, and to the proliferation of tablets and smartphones, we’re able to watch what we want, when we want, with little need to accommodate friends or family’s viewing habits. 

Maybe that’s why collective viewing holds appeal: It offers a chance to bring back some of the old camaraderie, and simultaneity, of the TV-watching experience.  We may be more disconnected from our own TV sets and cable boxes than ever before—but the desire to connect with others through our shared pop cultural affections remains. 

 There’s nothing quite like bonding with a complete stranger over your hatred for Breaking Bad’s Todd Alquist. 

And as fun as it is to watch Scandal on a second screen, even the snarkiest tweet is a poor substitute for the real, live, exasperated groans brought on by Olivia and Fitz’s toxic relationship.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 Meaning???

http://www.feelnumb.com/2011/02/26/janet-jacksons-rhythm-nation-1814-meaning/


Janet Jackson’s Album “Rhythm Nation” is actually called “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814.”  As you can see on the album cover, Janet is wearing the number 1814 on her hat, pendant on her shirt and on her earring.  What is the meaning behind 1814???

Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation 1814 Album Title Meaning
The first meaning of “1814″ is that R (Rhythm) is the 18th letter in the alphabet and N (Nation) is the 14th.  Hence 1814.  The second meaning is pretty awesome as Janet explained,
“White writing Rhythm Nation, I was kidding around saying, “God you guys, I feel like this could be the national anthem for the 90′s…Just by a crazy chance we decided to look up when Francis Scott Key wrote the national anthem and it was September 14, 1814.”
Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation 1814 Francis Scott Key Janet Jackson 1814 Meaning
Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 was released on September 19, 1989, the same week but 175 years after Scott wrote “The Star Spangled Banner”.


rhythm nation 1814, rhythm, nation, 1814, janet jackson, means, meaning

Saturday, November 09, 2013

What does this do to your character writing? Mind blowing._Chinese Scientist Proves The First Inhabitants Of China Were Black! by vveasey

http://vveasey.hubpages.com/hub/Chinese-Scientist-Prove-The-First-Inhabitants-Of-China-Were-Black

Black Chinese

Out Of Africa

Copyright 2012 VVeasey Publishing
10/21/12

For many years Black historians and Afrocentrists have said that the first inhabitants of China were black Africans.

The Negroid races peopled at some time all the South of India, Indo-China and China. The South of Indo-China actually has now pure Negritos as the Semangs and mixed as the Malays and the Sakais." ( H. Imbert, "Les Negritos de la Chine").

“Even the sacred Manchu dynasty shows this Negro strain. The lower part of the face of the Emperor Pu-yi of Manchukuo, direct descendant of the Manchu rulers of China, is most distinctly Negroid. Chinese chroniclers report that a Negro Empire existed in the South of China at the dawn of that country's history. ( Professor Chang Hsing-Lang , "The importation of Negro Slaves to China under the Tang Dynasty A.D. 618-907)

“There is evidence of substantial populations of Blacks in early China. Archaeological studies have located a black substratum in the earliest periods of Chinese history, and reports of major kingdom ruled by Blacks are frequently in Chinese documents." (Kwang-Chih Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China, (Yale University Press) and Irwin Graham, Africans Abroad (Columbia University Press).

But after hundreds of years of the worldwide spread of the doctrine of white superiority and the inferiority of black Africans and their descendants. This notion was poo, pooed by white scientists and others and even by some blacks.

But in 2005, a Chinese DNA specialist, Jin Li, leading a team of Chinese and other scientists, proved through DNA tests that indeed the first inhabitants of China were black Africans.

Li said he was trying to prove that the Chinese evolved from homo erectus independently of all other humans. He collected DNA samples from 165 different ethnic groups and over 12000 samples in China and Asia to test his theory.

Li said he was taught through China’s education system that there was something special about Chinese. And because he was Chinese, he was hoping to prove that the Chinese developed independently of all other humans.

But surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise!

Li’s team focused on a single genetic marker that appeared about 80,000 years ago in Africa. Anyone carrying that marker would have recent African ancestors and could not be descended from the more ancient Homo Erectus.

Li and his team found that early humans belonged to different species but modern humans descended from the East Africans species.

Li Hui, a scientist on Li’s team, said, that 100,000 years ago groups of humans started leaving Africa moving through South and Southeast Asia into China, and that 65 branches of the Chinese groups studied carry similar DNA mutations as the people of Southeast Asia.

Jin Li said “we did not see even one single individual that could be considered as a descendant of the homo erectus in China, rather, everybody was a descendant of our ancestors from Africa."

Li was asked how he as a Chinese felt about what he found.

He said “after I saw the evidence generated in my laboratory. I think we should all be happy with that. Because after all, modern humans from different parts of the world are not so different from each other and we are very close relatives.” (Amen Brother!)

Li’s team was composed of an international group of scientist from China, Russia, India, Brazil and other nations. This was a 5 year project to study the geographic and genealogical routes tracing the spread and settlements of ancient and modern humans.

Now I know there are still many people and probably some of you reading this hub who would be horrified, upset, disgusted, in disbelief etc, etc, if you found that you had any genetic connection to a black person.

And I can feel your pain, because at one time in American history, as a result of all of the negative racial propaganda published about blacks to justify slavery for 400 years.
Many black people didn't want to be black either.

Right up until the civil rights movement, the "I'm black and I'm proud" and the "Black Is Beautiful" movements.

Many black Americans were happy to tout that they were part Indian. part white or part any other ethnic group other than just being only black.

Many black men and women straighten their hair and used skin lighting creams to make themselves look more white than black.

This is understandable, because all of the movies stars and other esteemed images of Americans were white and mostly all of the images of black Americans were ugly, buffoonish and how shall we say it, aesthetically not pleasing.

But the DNA is the DNA and that shows that all modern human orginated in some part of the African continent.

Believe It Or Not

Or read em and weep

"If you get to the stage where you can persuade people on the evidence, that it's solid, that we are all African, that color is superficial, that stages of development of culture are all interactive, then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to global challenges." Richard Leaky, Paleoanthropologist

Vote On This Question

Do You Agree That Africans Were The Original Inhabitants Of China?

  • Yes I Do!
  • No I Don't!
  • I'm Not Sure!
See results without voting

The Original Inhabitants Of China Were Black. Watch This Video

Thomas Jefferson The Great Slave Trader Who Wrote All Men Are Created Equal!

Creating a Fictional Language — Posted by Edwin McRae



In Path of Exile, we have an island-based culture called the Karui.  They are founded on the pre-European Maori and Samoan [Polynesian] cultures of the Pacific although their technology level has been adjusted to put them on a par with the Vikings of the 9th Century AD.  



When conversing with other characters in the game, our Karui player-character, the Marauder, understands and speaks 'Eternal', our 'common tongue (English) in Wraeclast.

But when our Marauder is alone or when he is speaking to another Karui character like Maramoa Patua, a question presents itself.  Why aren't these characters speaking in their native tongue?

We've currently developed a few words in Karui...

Makanui means 'the way of the warrior'.
Korangi means ‘he who wins wars with false promises’.
makoru means shark.
waikoama means canoe.
Makanga means 'honoured warrior'.

...but dropping a few Karui words into otherwise English dialogue is a piece of cake when compared to the task of creating full conversations in Karui.  Look at the process they went through to create Dothraki in Game of Thrones!

Iain Glen is quite right when he says that a performance will sound 'crap' if you don't go through this process.  Without meaning, there's no true emotion.  An actor needs to understand what they are saying in order to produce a convincing performance.



So...to create Karui or not to create Karui...taka oma ngatua (that is the question).

Thursday, October 31, 2013

PETITION: "Amazon, Barnes and Noble, KOBO: Leave our self-published and/or Indie authors alone."

PETITION.

http://www.change.org/petitions/amazon-barnes-and-noble-kobo-leave-our-self-published-and-or-indie-authors-alone#share
There is a LARGE amount of people who read this genre as a way to escape their reality. We are all consenting adults, you need to own a credit card to be able to purchase said books, so why all of a sudden start "cracking down" on contolling such.

Why is okay to sell "adult products" on said websites but not FICTIONAL reads.

What happened to freedom of speech?! LEAVE OUR EROTICA ALONE!!

**This petition is NOT condoning non-fictional beastiality, incest, pediphilia or other things of such 'extreme' nature**
To:
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
Michael Serbinis, CEO of KOBO
Leonard Riggio, Founder and executive chairman of Barnes and Noble
Leave our erotica and self-published Indie authors alone.

Sincerely,
[Your name]

To Erotic Authors Groups at GoodReads on Amazon Kindle KDP requesting censoring of our publishing and just out and out banning.

To Erotic Authors Groups at GoodReads.

In LinkedIn Groups we've been dealing with Amazon Kindle KDP requesting censoring of our publishing and just out and out banning. They call that "blocking." My gay novella and my compiled short stories were the first.

There are more now.

Now, Amazon and Kindle is in hysterics [see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24491723] and blocking stuff they've contractually sold for over five years; but, now say they are too naughty and break their rules.

Like they didn't notice the words [slut, whore, or school] on the covers before, years ago.

High schoolers, who are of age and willing and enjoying themselves, and exploring their fears and joys, are not abuse victims, incense victims. http://north.neale-sourna.com/index.html

Why is sex always on the hysterics and cutting block but not violence? Maybe if characters bloody skinned each other for epidermis suits, instead of enjoyed the fuck that would be fine.

Guess, it's just Amazon Kindle KDP trying to be all things but not "the biggest bookstore in the world."

The Cleveland Public Library [www.cpl.org] is never this reactive or squeamish. Some of my best research has come from their shelves.

Who else has been spanked, without the fun?

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Passion, purpose, and power: a pep-talk for writers by BookBaby on October 22, 2013 in Writing Tips

Writing: Passion and purpose[This article was written by  guest contributor and award-winning author Beth Barany.]

I just got back from a writer’s conference. I love going to them. I love speaking there and helping other authors. But I’m tired. I’m an introvert. As I wade through all the post-conference activities of following up with all the cool folks I met and getting back to the business of running my business, I also want to get back to my writing.

But I feel depleted. What’s a girl to do?

I have to get in touch with my true purpose for my own fiction, connect with the passion for my story, and there I will find the power to get writing.

 

What is your true purpose for your writing?


When all is said and done, regardless of what the world thinks of your work, would you keep writing? I would. Some writers I’ve worked with say that if their story only touches one person they have done their work, they have left their mark upon the world. I know that if I can inspire one writer and empower one girl or woman to take charge of her life because she read my fiction, I have done what I came here for.

Good writing is full of heart and connects from one heart and mind to another. What are you passionate about? Does it come across in your writing?

One of my clients is passionate about the underdog in boxing and writes compelling tales set in gritty 1950s LA. Her love of the sport and the times comes through in her fiction.

I’m passionate about exploring the responsibilities and choices of a strong young woman. How can she be a true hero in the face of her inner demons?

So, are you writing about the things that fire you up?

 

Lastly, what are you focused on?


You may have heard, “What you focus on grows.” You can choose to be focused on what’s difficult, or you can be focused on solutions. Even the smallest step pays off.

Are you stuck in your writing? Acknowledge where you are and what you’re feeling; feel it, then focus on spending a minimum of twenty minutes writing. Just get moving and allow yourself to write whatever, however. Progress not perfection.

Are you confused about all your publishing and book marketing options? Then get clear about your main purpose, your passion, and also your goal. Write it down. What is the smallest step you can take today, now, in the next twenty minutes that will move you toward that goal?

We writers have the power to change the world! Let’s start today.

Bio: Beth Barany is an author coach, keynote speaker, and the award-winning author of Henrietta The Dragon Slayer, a YA epic fantasy. She’s passionate about helping novelists create successful careers. More at www.BethBarany.com.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

CHARACTER and Human Drama: Women in Saudi Arabia stand up to authorities by breaking driving ban By: Mori Rothman

Women in Saudi Arabia stand up to authorities by breaking driving ban

 

WORLD -- October 26, 2013 at 4:30 PM ET



Women in Saudi Arabia took to the streets today in an act of defiance against the country's ban on driving. 

The ban on driving stems from conservative religious customs and isn't actually written in law -- but that hasn't stopped police from arresting women who get behind the wheel.

Despite public warnings from the Interior Ministry and conservative religious leaders, many women posted videos of themselves driving in different parts of Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh, Jeddah, and Al Hasa. The authenticity of these videos could not be independently verified by PBS NewsHour.

Saudi support site

Activists have been urging Saudi women to film themselves while driving on Oct. 26 and post it online as part of a web-based campaign that collected more than 16,000 signatures on a petition before the site was hacked.

Dr. Madeha Al-Ajroush, who spoke to the NewsHour earlier this afternoon via Skype, said that she went driving in Riyadh and noticed several cars closely following her.

She said that although some women reported receiving calls telling them not to drive, many women drove anyway -- and vowed to continue to drive until the rule is changed.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Surprising Ways to Use Olive Oil in Your Home

I think there is character background or plots enhancements in this list.

Okay. But, the wick one sounds dangerous for those of us who'll just mistakenly make Molotovs.


http://www.ivillage.com/surprising-home-uses-olive-oil/7-a-550468?nlcid=P1|10-26-2013|&_mid=2852433&_rid=2852433.35500.483662


Olive oil is a pantry must-have, but did you know the cooking staple has tons of other uses too? Check out 20 other ways to use olive oil at home and in the garden.

1. Clean grease off your hands. Rub a little bit of olive oil and salt in your hands to remove stubborn grease.

2. Remove gum from shoes. Soak a facecloth in olive oil sit, then rest it on the bottom of your shoe for several minutes. It should break down the sticky stuff enough for you to easily remove it.

3. Season cast iron or wooden pieces. Rub olive oil into kitchen go-tos like cutting boards, salad bowls and skillets to season them.

4. Peel off kids’ stickers. Forget Goof Off -- just pour a little olive oil on the sticker and let it sit for several minutes before you start pulling.

5. Make an emergency lamp. For in-a-pinch lighting, fill a bowl with olive oil and add a lamp wick, leaving one end exposed.

6. Prevent sticking. Coat measuring cups and spoons with a little olive oil before pouring in sticky stuff, like honey.

7. Unstick a zipper. Work a tiny bit of olive oil into a metal zipper so it slides much more easily.

8. Fake a healthy houseplant. Rub a little into plants’ leaves to keep them shiny and looking great.

9. Polish furniture. Pour some oil onto a dry paper towel and rub it into your wooden pieces.

10. Keep moles out of your garden. Saturate a rag with olive oil, then stuff it into a mole hole. It should keep the animals away -- they can’t stand the smell of the stuff.

11. Improve aging leather. Work a bit of olive oil into leather items like jackets or baseball mitts to add moisture and smooth out cracks.

12. Prevent tarnishing. Rub olive oil into stainless steel and brass pieces, then buff it off with a dry cloth.

13. Clean garden tools. Rub some oil into your tools after using them -- it keeps the dust and dirt away and imparts some shine.

14. Help cats with hairballs. Some folks say that adding a few drops of olive oil into cats’ food can help manage the issue -- plus, it’ll make their coats look extra glossy.

15. Soothe dogs’ paws. Dogs can also benefit from a bit of olive oil: It helps to lubricate cracked or painful paws, a common side effect of walking on a hot sidewalk.

16. Shine shoes. Pour a little olive oil onto a soft clean cloth and rub vigorously into your shoes. Polish with a soft dry cloth.

17. Polish floors. Rub olive oil into hardwood floors with a soft, dry cloth. Follow up with another wipedown, or until the surface is dry and safe to walk on.

18. Make soap. If you’re a DIY-er, olive oil is a gentle, soothing, natural soap ingredient.

19. Eliminate squeaks. Put a few drops of olive oil into a squeaky door hinge and work it around for a while -- no need for WD-40!
 
Like this? Want more?
Sign up for Healthy Living
preview
20. Polish stainless steel. Banish fingerprints by pouring a little olive oil onto a rag, then work into appliances or silverware.
Alesandra Dubin is a Los Angeles-based writer and the founder of home and travel blog Homebody in Motion. Follow her on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.