Still More Philosophy

Welcome To My House

AOL Headache

Well, it seems that AOL is being weird with me - so if you have any problems trying to reach me at zobop@aol.com keep trying, or shoot me a message to my mchristianzobop@gmail.com account.

Laura Antoniou In San Francisco!

Not only is Laura Antoniou one of the most-respected erotica writers period but she's also a very old and dear friend of mine so if you're near San Francisco you have to check out these wonderful events with her.  I can't recommend them, and her, enough!

Laura Antoniou will be in San Francisco to party, read from her latest novel, and conduct two workshops November 19-21.

November 19 , (Friday)   Book Release & BDSM Play Party For Laura Antoniou's 'The Marketplace'   8pm An  evening of black-tie debauchery for Femina Potens' Members Only will include the recreation of a BDSM sex scene from The Marketplace, performed for your entertainment and delicious delight. Bring your tux and your flogger.  To become a member today, visit:   https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/131862

November 20 , (Saturday)  'Cupcakes & Kink'  Sizzle   8-11pm  -  Femina Potens proudly presents SIZZLE, the monthly Bay Area award winning literary erotica series. SIZZLE heats up the Castro every other month, merging internationally acclaimed queer and erotic authors with the Bay Area's top emerging local writers, spoken word artists and performers. SIZZLES' open mic performances regularly reveal the bravest, hottest, most eclectic performers that the Bay Area has to offer. Please welcome  Madison Young, Lorelei Lee, Laura Antoniou, Tina Horn  and CUPCAKES!  ($10) Reserve your spot by here: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/131825

November 21 , (Sunday)  Dont Dream It; Be It. Fantasy & Role-Playing Workshop for the Shy with Laura Antoniou   3pm  -  Work out your inner desires into physical realities! ($20) Purchase your advance ticket here:  http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/132737  

November 21 , (Sunday)   For Your Own Good: Using Punishment in your SM Relationships Workshop with Laura Antoniou  5pm  -  Learn the basics for SM play.  Safety, techniques & advice on some corporal fun.    ($20) Reserve your advance ticket here:

 https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/132738

Call for Submissions - My Love Of All That Is Bizarre: The Erotic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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Suicide Girls Talk To Me

It may be an oldie but it's still a very goodie ... and it's also another bit of Bachelor Machine publicity: an interview with yers truly by no less than the Suicide Girls Web site!

The Bachelor Machine - The Cover!

As part of my spew of desperate self-aggrandisement for the release of The Bachelor Machine (new edition), let me give a huge, and very well-deserved, THANKS to my pal and a magnificent artist, Wynn Ryder, who did the wonderful cover.  As a treat, here's also a look at an early version of the new cover as well:

Vs Tame And ...?

Clean Sheets Loves The Bachelor Machine

In celebration of the release of my brand-new edition of my science fiction erotica collection, The Bachelor Machine, from Circlet Press, here's a rave review of the original book by William Dean, from Clean Sheets:

 

When mega-names in the science fiction world like Mike Resnick and Paul Di Filippo praise your work, you know you've gone supernova. When someone like Cecilia Tan writes the introduction for your latest collection, you know the included tales are white hot, sensual, and as erotic as it gets. Such are the credentials, among others, of M. Christian's just published The Bachelor Machine.

After an uncertain time, their moans and cries and incoherent bursts of near-speech, near-philosophical-balderdash, synched perfectly then climbed, a pair of syncopated screams, toward a deity that they hoped to perhaps outdo with their engineered divinity, their mechanical savior.

The machines, the bio-engineered, the alien, and the passionate humans in this collection of stories are, indeed, on a trip to tomorrow where the lusting may not always be easy, but the resulting orgasms are transcendent. I haven't read such syncopated prose since Filippo's The Steampunk Trilogy nor such riffing sensual descriptions since Samuel R. Delaney's now classic Dahlgren. M. Christian here writes, as Cecilia Tan says, like jazz, improvising on themes and taking the mind on a light-speed journey into the human erotic psyche and beyond.
Too often, science fiction can drag with polemic pseudo-dogmas or the hackneyed plots of space westerns with a lone hero standing tall against phantasmal enemies. You'll find nothing like that in The Bachelor Machine. Instead, your erotic particles will be deconstructed, sped up incredibly, and collided with a vision of sex and sensuality that is Tantric in scope.

She was beautiful. Stretched out on her huge bed, a midnight expanse that all but filled her bedroom, she looked up at me with huge earthen eyes -- lit by quivering desire, a pulse-pounding fever. Her mouth was on my right nipple, painting it with the gleam of her wet lips, making it harden almost to the point of pain. I felt the ghostly nipping of her white, white teeth. Then she really sucked, and I felt my legs turn to rubber and my cunt get heavy, wet, and hot.
In my hand, the crop was light, all but intangible.

Like all fine quality erotica, The Bachelor Machine goes past outdated concepts of gender and identity and sends its exploratory probes into the core of sexuality and desire, deep beneath the surface we normally skim across in our day-to-day imaginings. This is the territory of off-world living, cosmic, and magical. While the high-tech bits are fascinating in their own right, it is in their union with the erotic impulse where the reader finds his or her ordinary orbit shifted. Odd, even bizarre, circumstances evolve into encounters that challenge the characters' notions of love and want, self and partner, genitals and psyche.

The sender was a flaming hot number in the cybersea, a dominatrix icon that played games with the boys' heads, and played them ultimately well, and safe. She'd earned, not taken, her ID: bytebitch. She wasn't a girlie milking her tits for all the drooling boys. She was a hard dealer -- no-nonsense and straight. They didn't like that, expecting sugar and spice, not razors and sure, clear percentages.

Jump into the slipstream of The Bachelor Machine and M. Christian will take you for a joyride -- down into the places where nanoseconds seem to last an eternity and the orgasms are as big as Jupiter. Strap yourself on his rocket ship of soaring prose and fantastic plot, where your co-pilots have any gender, all gender and whose mission is to leave you breathless with desire and safely exhausted with satiation. Let The Bachelor Machine speed you on your way...

I think, I dream, I wish -- but it's not even a memory, because I'm not allowed any. I stretch out on my simple bed, in my simple flat, and spin my wishes of what they might be like, their faces, their rough hands, their cruel implements, their...cocks, in my mouth, in my hands, in my so-wet cunt. I think, I dream, I wish...

Listen to The How To Sell Erotica Panel!

How to Sell Erotica is a live recording of a panel discussion featuring five respected and best selling erotic authors, editors, and professionals presented at San Francisco's Center for Sex and Culture under the auspices of Sizzler Editions. It is presented free to anyone interested in learning the ins and outs of writing and selling erotic fiction at SizzlerEditions.com.

If you're interested in writing erotica for fun or, yes, even money, this is a wonderful opportunity to learn all there is to learn about creating sexually explicit stories, dealing with editors and publishers, how to bring sex and sensuality to life in your work, plus all kinds of tips and tricks, and much, much more!

The panelists at this entertaining and informative event were:

• Donna George Storey, a writing and book promotion columnist.
• Blake C. Aarens, who writes award-winning erotic fiction.
• M. Christian, writer and anthologist who has sold over 300 short stories, five novels and edited over two dozen anthologies.
• Gina de Vries, whose fiction, journalism, memoir, and smut have appeared in dozens of anthologies.
• Jean Marie Stine, author, former magazine editor, and publisher of the erotic ebook pioneer Sizzler Editions.

Topics discussed by these respected erotic professionals include:

• How did you sell the first story you got paid for?
• What elements make an erotic story sell?
• What are the easiest markets to break into?
• How do you dream up sexy story ideas and sexy scenes?
• What's the right amount of sex in a sexy story?
• Is it possible to write convincing stories for sexual orientations and interests beyond your own? If not, why not? And if so, how do you do it?
• What Internet resources for writers of erotica would you recommend?
• Any thoughts on how to get along well with editors and publishers? Do's? Don't's?
• Have you ever experienced negative reviews or criticism from fans? If so, how do you deal with it?
• Have you ever sold the same story more than once? If so, what is the most times you have ever sold one story?

Out Now: THE BACHELOR MACHINE By M.Christian

THE BACHELOR MACHINE
Science Fiction Erotica

A Brand New Edition
Out Now From M.Christian!

M.Christian and Circlet Press are proud to announce the publication of a brand new edition of M.Christian's best-selling and ground-breaking collection of science fiction erotica: The Bachelor Machine!

Now available in ebook for the first time, 18 short stories of crackling erotic futures by the master of erotic voice, M. Christian. Men, women, hackers, derelicts, enforcers, hustlers, and whores in every combination inhabit the streets and beds and back alleys of Christian's imagination. This is erotic science fiction at its best.

Included in this new edition, in addition to Cecilia Tan's rave introduction to M.Christian's work from the original book, is a special foreword by Kit O'Connell, a chat between Cecilia Tan and M.Christian on mixing science fiction and erotica, and much more!

I’m going to tell you a secret. There are only two people in the world I envy. One is the late Roger Zelazny, whose talent for an almost jazz improvisational way of writing I could never match.The other is M. Christian, for writing exactly what I’d write if only I could get off my ass. Which is to say, raunchy hallucinatory sexfuture dreams that never fail to arouse me and kick me in the gut at the same time ...
- Cecilia Tan, from her original introduction

In the years since I first read The Bachelor Machine, I've shared these thought-provoking tales with many friends. The stories have never failed to provoke both reaction and discussion. Long after arousal is gone, there are stories here that haunt me. I'm glad that now you can share that too ...
- Kit O'Connell, from his foreword to the new edition

The stories in his new collection, The Bachelor Machine, pass the litmus tests of both the SF and erotica genres. Take out the tech and there’s no story; take out the sex and there’s no story. This description may lead those unfamiliar with SF erotica to suspect that every story is about getting off with the aid of futuristic technologies, and that’s true as far as it goes. But that’s not going nearly far enough. The stories in The Bachelor Machine are not about sex, though they’re stuffed with sexual acts; the stories are about what sex means. M.Christian is writing about the psychology of being human, and he often does so by exploring sexual possibilities and realities that are rarely discussed, even in private conversation. He not only thinks forbidden thoughts, he extrapolates them in the finest SF fashion ...
- Cynthia Ward, Locus On-line

As a special treat, here's an interview with M.Christian from the Suicide Girl's Web site about The Bachelor Machine!

And The Bachelor Machine has its own Wikipedia page!

Here's what others are saying about M.Christian and The Bachelor Machine:

M.Christian speaks with a totally unique and truly fascinating voice. There are a lot of writers out there who'd better protect their markets!
- Mike Resnick, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science fiction author

M.Christian's stories squat at the intersection of Primal Urges Avenue and Hi-Tech Parkway like a feral-eyed, half-naked Karen Black leering and stabbing her fractal machete into the tarmac. Portraying a world where erotic life has spilled from the bedroom into the street, and been shattered into a million sharp shards, these tales undercut and mutate the old verities concerning memory, desire and loyalty. Truly an author for our post-everything 21st century.
- Paul Di Filippo, author of The Steampunk Trilogy, and reviewer for Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

Fantasist, futurist, eroticist, satirist, humorist, dentist drilling deep into the nerves of the here and now ... M. Christian wears a lot of hats in this multifaceted collection, and they're all a splendid fit.
- Brian Hodge, author of Mad Dogs and Lies & Ugliness

M. Christian is the chameleon of modern erotica. One day punk, another romantic; one day straight, another totally perverse and polyamorous. But always sexy and gripping.
- Maxim Jakubowksi, editor of the Mammoth Book of Erotica series

M. Christian is a chimera, an amazing combination of tour guide and magician. Whether he's writing science fiction, horror, or erotica, he can take you to places you've never imagined, show you sights no-one else will get to see, introduce you to some fascinating people, and guarantee that the trip will be memorable from start to finish. Buy a ticket and fasten your seat belt: you're in for a wild ride!
- Stephen Dedman, author of The Art of Arrow Cutting, and Shadows Bite

M. Christian always writes like a dream whether he's creating fantastic visions or ghastly nightmares. With this collection, you get both!
- Paula Guran, DarkEcho

Jump into the slipstream of The Bachelor Machine and M.Christian will take you for a joyride - down into the places where nanoseconds seem to last an eternity and the orgasms are as big as Jupiter. Strap yourself on his rocket ship of soaring prose and fantastic plot, where your co-pilots have any gender, all gender and whose mission is to leave you breathless with desire and safely exhausted with satiation. Let The Bachelor Machine speed you on your way ...
- William Dean, Clean Sheets

About M.Christian:

M.Christian is - among many things - an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 300 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and Web sites. He is the editor of 25 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant) as well as many others. He is the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, and Coming Together Presents M.Christian; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, and Painted Doll.

The Bachelor Machine
Circlet Press
ASIN: B003Y8XUK2
ebook/Kindle Edition
$7.99

Please contact M.Christian at zobop@aol.com for a review copy

Books Are Weapons

WWII poster, printed in 1942 (image via)

A Bookshelf Is Nothing Without A Cat

More Philosophy

Dark Roasted Biscotti

Here's another of my takes on doing a Biscotti for the always-wonderful Dark Roasted Blend.  I have to say these are a real kick and a treat to put together!

Dark Roasted M.Christian

Check it out: a brand new Dark Roasted Blend piece I did just went up: this time about old typewriters - especially the marvelous Malling-Hansen Writing Ball.


Horse and buggies, hoop skirts, steam engines, bustles ... oh, yes, life around the turn of the previous century was a delight of simplicity and workmanship.  But that doesn't mean that the artisans and engineers of way-back-when didn’t at least have their hearts and minds in the right place.

Take, for example, what writing used to be like before a few very bright bulbs thought to create machines to make it easier: pens that constantly ran dry, ink that spilled or smeared, illegible handwriting ... getting the message across -- any message across -- by hand was problematic at best, totally confusing at worst.

One of the earliest of those bright bulbs was William Austin Burt who, in 1829, created what he called a 'typewritor.'  If Burt's machine was the first is a matter of much debate as another, similar, machine had also built by Pellegrino Turri around the same time.  Some even say the crown of 'first' should go to Henry Mill, who created a writing machine way back in 1714.

But all of these devices were just baby steps: more potential than actually being helpful to people whose job it was to be clear, concise and fast with their writing.  There were a lot of others after them these early pioneers, but none of them were ever a real commercial success.  Looking at them you can see why: in many of these very early models – called 'index typewriters,' by the way – the typing was done by selecting the letter to be used on a slider and then pressing it against the paper.  To call these early monsters 'slow' is being kind.  Changing the alphabetical slider to a disc version helped a bit but not enough to make any of these machines easy or popular.

In 1865, what many consider to be the true ancestor to the first true, efficient, and financially successful was developed by Rasmus Malling-Hansen: The Writing Ball.  What's fascinating about Hansen's creation isn't just its efficiency but also it's strangely elegant beauty.  Just look at it: a brass half-sphere covered with keys above a cylinder that held the paper.  It was finely made, unlike some of the unsuccessful machines before it, looking more like a gentleman's watch than a piece of office equipment.

Sure, Hansen's Ball has some rather serious flaws – like the fact that it was hardly cheap and, because of the position of the ball and the paper under it, the typist really couldn't see what they were typing until they were done and the paper was removed from the machine -- but that didn't stop it from selling better than many other previous models.  One quirk of the ball was that, unlike the QWERTY keyboard that pretty much every typewriter after it and every computer after those typewriters became extinct had, the ball's keys had been positioned to make typing easier for the typist and not the typewriter.  By the way, in case you don't know the sad, strange story of QWERTY – which haunts us to this day -- the alphabet were originally put in that order because otherwise users would type faster than the machine could handle, thus jamming the keys.  So QWERTY was created to keep that from happening: to keep the machine happy at the cost of typist efficiency.

Here's a fun bit of trivia for you folks now interested in Malling-Hansen's elegant writing ball: one particular person was interested in this new, wondrous invention – a celebrated writer who was having a hard time with his diminishing eyesight.  While Nietzsche did get and use his writing ball he sadly didn't love it – though it is fascinating to visualize the author of Thus Spoke Zarathustra clicking and clacking on the mechanical beauty of one of Hansen's creations.

Eventually, though, other – and cheaper – machines were developed, saving generations of writers, secretaries, business people, and anyone else who used to have to put pen to paper, from cramp and bad handwriting.  Though Hansen and his elegant ball have been almost lost to time it's nice to be able to show a new, QWERTY-slaved generation, the beauty of his creation.

We've All Had Days Like This

A Personal Philosophy

missingnumbers: love-hilton:

Weirdsville On The Cud

Here's another special piece I did for the great folks at the Aussie site The Cud.  This time it's about the incredible Felix von Luckner, the The Benevolent Sea-Devil.

 The year: 1917, the height of the War To End All Wars, sadly now referred to as World War 1. The Place: The Atlantic Ocean. You: the captain of an allied merchant ship carrying coal from Cardiff to Buenos Aires.

Then, like a ghost from the distant past, a ship appears: a beautiful three mastered windjammer flying a Norwegian flag. Staggered by this hauntingly lovely anachronism you think nothing of it coming alongside – it was common, after all, for friendly ships to want to synchronize their chronometers – until, that is, the ship's Norwegian flag is quickly replaced by the German eagle and the captain, in amazingly polite terms, backed up by guns that have mysteriously appeared in the windjammer's gunwales, explains that your ship is now his.

And so you have been captured by the Seeadler ("Sea Eagle" in German), captained by Felix von Luckner, or, as he was known by both enemies as all as allies, the Benevolent Sea-Devil.
Some people's lives are so broad, so wild, so amazing that they simply don't seem real. The stuff of Saturday matinees? Sure. But real, authentic and true? Never! But if even half of Felix von Luckner's life is true – and there's no reason to really doubt any of it – then he was truly a broad, wild, and utterly amazing fellow.
Born in 1881, in Dresden, Felix ran away from home at 13. Stowing away on a Russian trawler, he fell overboard – rescued, so the story goes, by grabbing hold of an albatross, the bird's flapping wings acting as a signal to a rescue party.

Making his way to Australia, Felix tried a number of – to put it politely – odd jobs: boxer, circus acrobat, bartender, fisherman, lighthouse keeper (until discovered with the daughter of a hotel owner), railway worker, kangaroo hunter, and even had a stint in the Mexican army. During all this Felix also became a notable magician and a favorite entertainer to no less than Kaiser Wilhelm himself.


Making his way back to Germany he passed his navigation exams and served aboard a steamer before getting called to serve in the Navy on the SMS Panther.

Which brings us to that War That Was Supposedly The End To All Wars. Even though it was fought with steel and oil, the German's outfitted a number of older ships as raiders -- hidden guns, more powerful engines and the like – and sent them out to harass allied shipping. Most of them were, to put it politely, a failure. But then there was the Seeadler, under the command of Felix von Luckner.

During the course of the war Felix sank or captured no less that 16 ships – a staggering amount. What’s even more staggering is how Felix did it, and that he did it with grace, honor, and even a certain kindness. You see, while the Seeadler took out those ships it, during it's entire campaign, did it at the cost of only single human life. Most of the time the scenario went just as it did with your merchant ship carrying coal from Cardiff to Buenos Aries: the Seeadler would approach a target, raise it's German eagle and that would be that: the crew and cargo would be captured and the ship scuttled. Sometimes she'd fire a shot to two to get her pint across that she was serious, but it wasn't until the British ship, Horngarth, that anyone had actually been killed. Tricked into thinking they were investigating a stricken ship – Felix had actually used a smoke generator – the captured Horngarth had refused to stop broadcasting a distress signal. A single shot took out the radio but unfortunately killed the operator. Felix von Luckner, though, gave the man a full military funeral at sea and even went as far as to write the poor man's family telling them that he had died with honor.

To give you even more evidence that Felix von Luckner more than deserved the "benevolent" in his "Benevolent Sea-Devil" nickname he treated everyone he captured with dignity and respect: captured sailors were paid for their time while on his ship and officers ate with him at his captain's table. When the Seeadler got too packed with prisoners, by this time more than 300, Felix captured the Cambronne, a little French ship, cut down her masts and let all his prisoners go with the understanding that if they happened to get picked up before making land they wouldn't tell where the Seeadler was going. Respecting Felix's honor they didn't.

Alas, the Seeadler's rule of the Atlantic had to end sometime – but even that just adds to the broad, wild, and utterly amazing life of Felix von Luckner. With the British – and now the Americans – hot on her tail, Felix decided to take a quick barnacle-scraping break from piracy by putting the Seeadler into a bay on Mopelia, a tiny coral atoll. Now stories here conflict a bit – Felix always claimed that a rogue tsunami was to blame – but I think the more-standard explanation that the crew and prisoners of the Sealer were simply having a picnic on the island when their windjammer drifted aground.

Taking a few of his men in some long boats, Felix sailed off towards Fiji intending to steal a ship and come back for the Seeadler. Through a series of incredible adventures – including claiming to be Dutch-Americans crossing the Atlantic on a bet – the Sea-Devil was himself tricked into surrendering by the Fijian police who threatened, after becoming suspicious of one of Felix's stories, to sink his boat with an actually-unarmed ferry. By the way, the remaining crew and prisoners of the Seeadler had their own adventures, leading eventually to the escape of the prisoners and the capturing of the Seeadler's crew.

But even a Chilean prison camp wasn't the end for Felix, or not quite the end. Using the cover of putting on a Christmas play, he and several other prisoners managed to steal the warden's motorboat and then seize a merchant ship. Alas, Felix's luck ran out when they were captured again and spent the rest of the war being moved from one camp to another.

But rest assured the story doesn't end there. Far from it: after writing a book about his various adventures, Felix von Luckner toured the world entertaining audiences about the Seeadler – as well as demonstrating his strength by tearing phone books in half and bending coins between thumb and forefinger.

While, with the rise of Hitler, some people thought of Felix as a apologist, the captain had no love for the Nazi's – especially since the German government had frozen his assets when he refused to renounce the honorary citizenships and honors he'd received during his travels.

But the story of Felix von Luckner still isn't over. Retiring to the German town of Halle, he was asked by the mayor to negotiate the town's surrender to the Americans. While he did this, earning not only the respect of the Americans and the gratitude of the citizens, his reward from the Nazi's was to be sentenced to death. Luckily, Felix managed to flee to Sweden where he lived until passing away at the age of 84.

War is horror, war is pointless death, and war is needless suffering. But because of men like Felix von Luckner, war can also show the good, noble side of man – and that some men can remarkably earn the respect of friend and enemy alike.

Pornotopia - The Introduction ... By Dossie Easton!

Here's another tasty thing from my very-tasty book of sexy non-fiction pieces, Pornotopia: the very special intro from the (you guessed it) very tasty Dossie Easton, the author of The Ethical Slut and other great books. 

Dear Reader:

Do not be misled by the lighthearted title of M Christian's collection of essays on the many faces of sex.  Pornotopia offers a cornucopic abundance of practical information you can put to use in your sex life, along with philosophical musings and fascinating insights from the author's decades-long career as a sex educator and, I assume (reading between the lines), a thoughtful and creative lover.  Christian, the staggeringly prolific author of much truly baroque erotica, now shares his thoughts and his expertise. Herein you will find clearly delineated how-to and even clearer how-not-to instructions to support your own sexual explorations: elucidation of common myths and uncommon realities, and some delightful side trips into humor and fantasy.  Christian writes in a straightforward and friendly voice - sort of like the big brother you wished you had when you were first pondering these mysteries.

Pornotopia may sound like a purely fantastic world, but Christian's utopia is based on the practical building blocks that support a happy and expansive sex life.  Whatever utopia you dream about, here are the tools to bring your fantasies into reality "with the soft applause of butterflies." His writing style flows easily, I found myself following smoothly from one idea to another, thinking things like "Yeah, that's just right," and "What a good idea!" and "Hooray! it's great to see that ugly myth squarely debunked."

Always sex-positive and always sympathetic to our dreams and our demons, in Pornotopia M Christian has given us an informative, entertaining and, oh, yes, very sexy read.

Dark Roasted M.Christian

Check it out: a brand new Dark Roasted Blend piece I did just went up: this time about Rubik's cubes - and the wild things some folks do with them!

Unless you were asleep during the 1980s you should immediately recognize this six-sided, six-colored puzzle.  Created by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik in 1974, his cube soon spread across the globe: entertaining – but more than likely frustrating -- over 350 million people

Just to get the obvious out of the way, the current world record for solving one of Rubik's cubes is a fraction over 7 seconds (yes, you may gasp) which is held by Erik Akkersdijk.  But there are also mind-boggling records for, of all things, blindfolded puzzle solving (Haiyan Zhuang: 30.94 seconds), solving with feet (Anssi Vanhala: 36.72 seconds), and even one-handed solutions (Piotr Alexandrowicz: 11.19 seconds).

The smallest, yet playable, cube is a 3x3 one – meaning it has only 9 faces on a side – measuring a painfully miniscule 12 millimeters.



On the other ends of the scale, the largest playable cube was built by Daniel Urlings, and is big enough to contain 64 regular cubes.   Daniel is a bit of a legend among cube fanciers as he also has created fully functional cubes out of cardboard and even matchsticks.



Still talking about records, the most expensive cube created is called the Masterpiece Cube, assembled by Diamond Cutters International back in 1995.  Made of gold, amethyst, rubies, and emeralds this completely playable puzzle has been priced at around 1.5 million bucks – probably more if you can actually solve the thing.



And here, in a very charitable gesture, is a version of the puzzle designed for the sight-impaired: a Braille Cube.  Because, after all, why should the sighted have all the 'fun' of being driven nearly mad by a Rubik's Cube?

But there's another puzzling quality to Professor Rubik's creation: that his mind-bending creation is also a source of astounding inspiration for artists, engineers and even chefs.

Yes, you read that last one right.  Skeptical?  Well, take a look at this Rubik-inspired culinary creation: a cubic sandwich!  Please refrain from jokes about 'square meals' until the end of the article.

But cubes aren’t just the subject of art but can be just as a medium to create wonderfully pixilated masterpieces.  This cute little dragon, for instance, was created by some anonymous Parisian artist out of cubes and stuck some ten feet off the ground.  



And here are some more examples of using the already-digital boldness of the legendary cube to create some marvelous, almost 8-bit, creations.

But getting back to the biggest, but still talking about using the puzzle as the medium in incredible artistic creation, we come to the works of the aptly-named Cube Works Studio, who haven't just created cube-portraits of Marilyn, Warhol's famous tomato soup can, David Bowie, and Van Gogh's Starry Night, Chairman Mao, da Vinci's Last Supper, and many others but with their recreation of Michelangelo's Creation of Man they are now the Guinness Record holders for the largest artwork ever created using Rubik's Cubes.



What's not puzzling about their creation is its brilliance, though if to create it -- and all of their artwork – means that they had to configure each cube to make the right colors and patterns you have to wonder how long it takes them to solve a regular cube ... no doubt far faster, and more artistically, than any of us could.

HOW TO SELL YOUR EROTICA - WAS A BLAST!

Bravo to the fantastic Jean Marie Stine at Renaissance/Sizzler Books who put on the absolutely great How To Sell Your Erotica event at the Center For Sex and Culture last night. I know everyone on the panel - Gina de Vries, Donna George Storey, and Blake C. Aarens - had a great time and I hope the great folks in the audience did as well.  Stay tuned for more events with Sizzler in the near future!

Dark Roasted Biscotti

Here's another of my takes on doing a Biscotti for the always-wonderful Dark Roasted Blend.  I have to say these are a real kick and a treat to put together!

How To Wonderfully WriteSex (7)

Check it out: my new post at the fantastic WriteSex site just went up. Here's a tease (for the rest you'll have to go to the site):


“The shock of September 11 is subsiding. Each day adds distance. Distance diminishes fear. Cautiously our lives are returning to normal. But “normal” will never be the same again. We have seen the enemy and the enemy is among us …. the publishers, producers, peddlers and purveyors of pornography.”

It didn’t take me long to find that quote. It came from an LDS Web site, Meridian Magazine, but I could have picked fifty others. In light of that kind of hatred, I think it’s time to have a chat about what it can mean to … well, do what we do.

We write pornography. Say it with me: por-nog-ra-phy. Not erotica – a word too many writers use to distance themselves, or even elevate themselves, from the down and dirty stuff on most adult bookstore shelves – but smut, filth … and so forth.

I’ve mentioned before how it’s dangerous to draw a line in the sand, putting fellow writers on the side of smut and others in erotica. The Supreme Court couldn’t decide where to scrawl that mark – what chance do we have?

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Gonna Miss You Tony

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon By Annie Leibovitz

Dark Roasted Biscotti

Groovy!  Avi, of Dark Roasted Blend, has asked me to help with his very-fun Biscotti's posts: an assortment of wild, weird, and wonderful images and other things - and my very first one just went up.  Check it out here and stay tuned for more in the future.

Dr. Dick Talks To Me (Part 2)

Check it out, friends: the great Dr. Dick just posted the second part of his interview with yers-truly up on his site.  It was a real delight to do and, hopefully, for you to listen to. 

My little gray cells are all aflutter, because the extremely talented author, editor and teacher, M. Christian is back with us for another edition of The Erotic Mind podcast series.

But wait, you didn’t miss Part 1 of our conversation that appeared here last week at this time, did you? Well don’t worry if ya did, because you can find it and all my podcasts in the Podcast Archive right here on my site. Look for the site’s search function in the header, type in Podcast #231 and Voilà! But don’t forget the #sign when you do your search.
M. Christian and I discuss:

• Being a private person with a big reputation;
• The pride he has in his work;
• What sparks the erotic imagery in his work;
• The role of imagination and the awareness of human behavior in his creations;
• Writing for male and female audiences;
• The plot arc — does it mirror the sexual response cycle;
• Being compelled to write and being turned on to create;
• Topics he gravitates toward and topics he avoids;
• What he looks for in the erotica of others.

As a special treat, M. Christian will share another a delectable morsel of the fruit of his Erotic Mind. You do not want miss this, people!

Pornotopia - Out Now!

Remember how I mentioned that a book of my sexual how-to and other fun articles was coming out?  Well, folks, it's here from the great folks at Xcite books.  How cool is that?

More on this book a little later but just wanted to let everyone know that it's out and available. 

Here's a brief about the book:

Have Your Ever – 

• Wanted to know how to give ideal cunnilingus? 

• Pondered the sexy history of pirates? 

• Needed to know how to give the best blowjob in the world? 

• Wondered how to put some sexy spice into your Halloween? 

• Fancied a few tips on how to ideally, and sensually, play with nipples and breasts? 

• Been curious about the very-kinky sex lives of famous people? 

Then Pornotopia is the book for you! Abundantly irreverent, totally bizarre, and relentlessly fun, Pornotopia will explore the mechanics of everything from giving the perfect blow-job to becoming a master of cunnilingus, from how to give a wonderful caning session to learning how to treat (and sexually mistreat) breasts and nipples, as well as a wide – and witty – assortment of essays and articles about sexy fashion disasters, historical personages of unusual gender, and even the sexual history of pirates and Japanese Samurai! 

Internationally renowned erotica author and sex educator, M. Christian has navigated the sticky, sweaty, steamy and (best of all) fun world of sex to bring to readers both novices as well as the experienced to bring all kinds of playful, and essential, information to light. Even the most jaded of sexual player will find something in Pornotopia – and for the brand-new at sex play Pornotopia will be become an essential resource.

Dark Roasted M.Christian

Check it out: a brand new Dark Roasted Blend piece I did just went up: this time about some really interesting plants - with very interesting diets.


You have to admit, it does make a kind of twisted sense: After all, we've been feasting on their fibrous, nutrition-packed stems, leaves, tubers, and fruits since we began to actually eat the salad that came with our steaks so, naturally, there must have been a certain ... well, 'desire' for reciprocity. In other words if we eat them why shouldn't they want to eat us?

For all you geeks out there – and, yes, we know who you are – it's commonly thought that the first depiction of a salad making a meal out of a man comes from Dr. Carl Liche, writing in 1881. J.W. Buel echoed the idea in his Land and Sea in 1887. Unluckily for Liche and Buel they've been since exposed as 'imaginative' instead of 'accurate.' Hate to disappoint but true man-eating plants are a total myth.

But that doesn't mean that the next time you sit down to feast on a supposedly defenseless potato there aren't other forms of plant life that are also having a tasty meal of, while not us humans, then most definitely other animals – and sometimes rather large animals.

The poster-plant for botanical carnivores has got to be the legendary Venus Flytrap. A resident of swamps and bogs, the flytrap has evolved a dramatic solution to its lack-of-nutrient diet: it catches flies – and pretty much anything big enough to get caught. What's amazing about this plant is its mechanism. Anything that happens to stumble between the two halves of its unique mechanism will find itself in caught in a quickly-snapping-shut botanical bear trap. What's even worse is that after being caught the Venus then fuses those leaves together, turning them into a kind of stomach to digest its prey. What's extra-fascinating is that the trap has two triggers, and that both of them have to be tripped for the leaves to snap shut, to avoid misfires.


While the flytrap looks like something out of a monster movie it rarely grows to any really impressive size – unless you happen to be a housefly. But one carnivorous plant that really is impressive, and recently discovered, is what's called a passive hunter. Instead of using snapping traps its family instead has evolved fluid filled pitfalls lined with very slippery sides, and baited with a very alluring perfume.

Pitcher plants come in a wide variety of shapes, types, and sizes – including a special one native to the Philippines. Most pitchers feast on bugs and sometimes small lizards: pretty much whatever's unfortunate enough to get seduced by the plant's alluring smells and is small enough to fit down its leafy throat. While its mechanism is similar to its smaller kin, nepenthes attenboroughii (named after journalist and TV presenter David Attenborough), has traps that are large enough to catch not only bugs, lizards, and – what's more than a bit scary – rats.

Another device carnivorous plants use is to make its prey stick around long enough to be digested. The sundew, for instance, has leaves covered with dozens of tiny stalks, and each stalk is covered with very, very, very sticky stuff. When a bug happens to walk across these leaves it gets – you guessed it – very, very, very stuck. What's more, though, is that the plant then contracts, bringing more and more of those stalks into contact with its prey, completely trapping and then digesting it.


While there are other plants that can, and do, eat whatever they can catch there is at least other plant that deserves at least a mention and one very special one that seems to be the best candidate for what could be a real maneater.

There are lots of things the very versatile bamboo is known for: building material, food, and everything betwixt and between. What's not as commonly known is that the bamboo is a botanical racehorse. Got a spare day to kill and want to see the fastest plant in the world grow two feet (in the right soil on the right day)? Then plop your behind down and stare at some bamboo. Okay, it might not be THAT thrilling but it is a plant that you can actually watch grow – which, no matter how you slice it, is pretty impressive.

But then there's the other, the monster, the beast, the chlorophyll creature that could – if any plant could be – considered a bona fide killer. Innocently imported to the US in 1876 from its native Japan, it was sold as a botanical miracle: ink, paper, jelly, tea, you name it and you could make it from this wonderful plant. But what no one could expect that this so-called marvel would have darker roots.

Kudzu is its name and right now it covers – in some cases quite literally – a huge part of the Southeastern United States. While bamboo is a racehorse at two foot a day, Kudzu is hardly a slacker at covering half that distance in the same amount of time. In the South there are homes, cars, houses and entire communities that have been hungrily, potentially, covered – and subsequently strangled – by this ferociously determined plant.

Sure, kudzu may not be carnivorous, but it's green infestation, it's emerald conquest, it's verdant domination is definitely worth a mention – and maybe a serious shudder of fear. Or, as they sometime say in the South: "A cow won't eat kudzu, but kudzu will definitely eat a cow."

Zee Likes "Beep" From Rude Mechanicals

This just keeps getting better and better! Not only did the great Zee write a sweet review for "I Am Jo's Vibrator," and "Blow Up" but she just did a review for yet another story from my Rude Mechanicals collection: "Beep!" Yer the best, Zee!

M. Christian does it again with another fantastic short story from Rude Mechanicals. This title is worth buying for Blow Up alone, but Beep makes this even more worth the purchase!

Imagine you are a man walking through a doorway, peeling off the layers from the day, and hitting the play button on your answering machine. There is a Beep! and you hear a woman’s voice. She is calling you a slut! She accuses you of being a bad boy in need of punishment. Through a series of back-to-back messages, all preceded by a Beep!, this woman tells you in detail how she will punish you. Listening to each recorded message, you begin to sense her power, her control, and her dominatrix ways of punishment. What’s a man to do beside listen to each and every erotic message?!

I will admit that M. Christian completely surprised me with the ending (I’ll let ya’ll read about that!). I never saw it coming. I really like two things about M. Christian’s writing style.

(1) He is diverse. He can write a BDSM short like Beep, a sexually humorous piece like I Am Jo’s Vibrator, and a fetish short like Blow Up in the blink of an eye.

(2) His writing style conveys sexually explicit details, but it is never vulgar. He really knows how to keep his work tasteful.

Absolutely worth the purchase ladies! I highly recommend Rude Mechanicals.

E.H. Likes Best S/M Erotica Vol. 3

With an extremely heartfelt thanks out to my great pal Jude Mason (who made this happen), here's a great review for Best S/M Erotica Vol 3 by E.H. on the Books N' More site. Thanks, Jude!

With a tag line of “Still More Extreme Stories of Still More Extreme Sex”, I opened the cover of BEST S&M III with a little bit of trepidation. Can you imagine me being a little nervy about delving into a book – well I was.

I was and for two reason, firstly I was not sure if I would appreciate the stories within this anthology, I like BDSM, to be honest I love it – but not the really psychological end of BDSM and from all indication this was going to be that kind of book. Secondly it’s sad to say but the visual person in me was Meh about the cover – once again I am let down by this cover artist and publishing house not taking the chance to do something unique with a cover to draw readers to a book – this was definately a missed opportunity – because the book was good.

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