A los 22 años se convirtió en la segunda mujer farera del estado. Hoy, Cristina sigue anclada en la Costa da Morte (Galicia) dedicada a un oficio casi extinto y tradicionalmente masculino.
Esta escritora y cineasta radical francesa conocida por su libro 'Teoría King Kong' nos habla sobre el sexismo en la industria editorial, sobre cómo volverse lesbiana cambió su vida y si es o no justo decir que odia a los hombres.
A modo de reclamo, hicimos un llamamiento en Twitter para encontrar a hombres capaces de explicarnos por qué no comen coños. Aquí están sus testimonios.
El grupo de investigación científica (CREA) se atribuye, entre muchos otros logros, haber liderado la lucha contra la violencia de género en las universidades de España. Algunos testimonios acusan a este grupo de investigación de ser una secta.
Artemisia Gentileschi fue violada cuando tenía 19 años. Durante su carrera como una de las pintoras más importantes de Italia, resucitó y exorcizó aquel trauma una y otra vez.
Las mujeres discapacitadas se encuentran con una doble discriminación: por ser mujeres y por tener discapacidad. Hablamos con una asistente sexual y una mujer que sufre diversidad funcional.
Los principales festivales de España no disponen de protocolos específicos para prevenir abusos o violaciones. Pero diversos colectivos de barrio están empezando a aplicar medidas en sus fiestas mayores que podrían servir de referente.
La irrupción de las fuerzas de ISIS en el pueblo de Nadia Murad, en Sinjar, marcó el inicio de varios meses de tormento, violaciones, abusos y cautiverio. Ya liberada, esta activista yazidí ha emprendido ahora una feroz campaña a favor de la supervivencia de su gente.
Tras sufrir de infecciones vaginales crónicas durante años pensé que un lubricante completamente natural a base de THC sería la respuesta a mis plegarias, pero en lugar de eso me sumergió en las profundidades de un infierno que yo misma había creado.
Simone de Beauvoir, Chantal Akerman, Sylvia Plath... son varias las artistas que han empleado el espacio de la 'cocina' para intentar romper los roles tradicionales, hablar de política o incluso como terapia.
Mientras los hombres manejan los hilos invisibles de las grandes redes de narcotráfico, las mujeres caen presas. En el tráfico de drogas existe una división sexual donde las mujeres ponen el cuerpo.
La pedagoga menstrual Erika Irusta nos ha ayudado a hacer esta Biblia para aprender a conocernos mejor y organizarnos según nuestras necesidades y posibilidades.
"Feminazi" es un oxímoron, una voz compuesta que a mucha gente le encanta usar, pero queríamos saber si las nazis feministas existen en realidad. A través de foros sobre supremacía blanca y contra viento y marea emprendimos nuestra búsqueda de esta bestia mitológica.
Una mujer cuenta cómo ha sido trabajar durante tres décadas en buques noruegos donde la mano de obra femenina fue durante años muy reducida pero muy respetada.
Los expertos denuncian que casos como el que implican a dos futbolistas en la red de explotación sexual ponen de manifiesto la existencia de una industria que prostituye a las mujeres y fomenta modelos desigualitarios
Este fin de semana se ha celebrado en Barcelona la feria Spannabis, el encuentro más importante del mundo alrededor de la cultura cannábica. Unos días antes –el 10 de marzo– y por primera vez en la historia del país, tenía lugar el Primer Encuentro de Mujeres Cannábicas con unos objetivos claros: visibilizarse, plantarse y empoderarse.
Durante la década de 1970, el colectivo Jane de Chicago ayudaba a las mujeres a abortar de forma segura cuando el procedimiento todavía era ilegal. ¿Necesitamos un servicio así en la actualidad? Hablamos de ello con dos antiguas "Janes".
Desde la ira refinada de Virginia Woolf hasta el auge de la superpositiva cultura "girl squad", la ira de las mujeres ha sido siempre una fuerza poderosa, desestabilizadora y, a menudo, incomprendida.
"Las relaciones sexuales empiezan allí hacia 1963, algo tarde para mí, cuando acaba la censura de Lady Chatterley y los Beatles lanzan su primer longplay". Martin Amis describe de este modo, en 'La viuda embarazada' (2011), cómo influyeron en la revolución sexual de los setenta los explícitos escarceos amorosos y el descubrimiento del fragor (y la necesidad) sexual de Connie Chatterley en toda una generación de lectores a los que les estuvo vetada la novela de D.H. Lawrence.
La historia de 'El amante de lady Chatterley', hoy todo un referente de la literatura erótica y casi un compendio sociológico sobre la lucha de clases, el empoderamiento femenino y esa guerra tan estúpida del intelecto vs. el sexo, es la de la censura. En Gran Bretaña y Estados Unidos el libro estuvo prohibido 30 años acusado de pornográfico e indecente. En España, durante la dictadura, circuló de forma clandestina. Todo porque Lawrence, que reescribió tres veces el libro desde el primero editado por un florentino en 1928, ensalza la importancia de la sexualidad, en hombres y en mujeres, de forma clara y sin tapujos. La novela vuelve ahora a las librerías en una nueva edición de Sexto Piso ilustrada por Romana Romanyshyn y Andriy Lesiv.
La belleza del coño
Por eso, no es extraño que cuando cayó en mano de los lectores de la época, en plena liberación de los corsés de la moral políticamente (y eclesiásticamente) correcta, la obra se convirtió en un manual de educación sexual. Ahí podían encontrar referencias al sexo anal, podían leer a dos amantes fogosos que rompían la escala Fahrenheit, ver a una mujer que se libera del estándar que le impone la sociedad y (oh, revolución) quiere gozar y se desnuda de su vergüenza gracias al sexo o leer frases como "follar es algo que simplemente se hace. Los animales follan, pero un coño es más que eso. Un coño eres tu misma, ¿no lo ves? Hay una gran diferencia entre tú y los animales, ¿verdad? Incluso cuando follas. ¡El coño! Esa es tu belleza, mi amor".
Hoy meterse en el mundo de lady Chatterley, su paralítico marido y su apasionado amante Mellors no solo no es nada escandoloso, de hecho, en ocasiones, supura un machismo muy de la época, pero destaca sobremanera lo avanzado de la fuerte reivindicación de la libertad femenina y el retrato de clases y de un mundo dominado por el dinero y los tabúes que hoy nos siguen rodeando de forma muy similar. Lawrence lo escribió en palabras de uno de los personajes de su celebérrima novela: "el único tabú enloquecedor que queda hoy en día es el sexo como un acontecimiento vital y natural".
En este sentido, recuerda el Nobel J.M. Coetzee en 'Contra la censura. Ensayos sobre la pasión de silenciar' que 'El amante de lady Chatterley' es un relato sobre la transgresión de fronteras; fronteras sexuales y fronteras sociales sexualizadas. Sus tensiones específicas y su fuerza dramática depende, por lo tanto, de la viabilidad continuada de los tabúes. El tabú es una condición necesaria de su existencia. La economía sexual de los amantes, la economía dramática del relato, incluso las ganancias o pérdidas del libro publicado, dependen de la vitalidad de los tabúes. El libre se abre; después de largos desplazamientos, después de muchas páginas, los amantes quedan desnudos, sus cuerpos explorados, su verdad se cuenta por fin; el libro puede cerrarse sobre ellos. Sin embargo, el mismo libro espera a que se lo vuelva a abrir, a explorar. Cada vez que lo reabrimos, los amantes vuelven a estar ante nosotros, preparados para la desnudez y la exploración correspondientes. Cualesquiera que fueran los tabúes derrotados en el primer recorrido por el texto, ahí están de nuevo, redivivos".
Coetzee dedica un capítulo a la censura, el juicio y la persecución que sufrió la novela de Lawrence. Cuenta que, cuando Penguin Books publicó en 1960 el texto íntegro de la edición de 1928, la respuesta de la Corona británica fue emprender acciones legales en virtud de la Ley de Publicaciones Obscenas aprobada un año antes. Pero frente a la legislación del siglo XIX que se encargaba de estos casos, la nueva norma incluía la opción de salvar a un libro de la purga en función de su mérito literario, que debían resaltar expertos en la materia.
Un libro a juicio
Con este escenario, fueron desfilando varios testigos a favor de la editorial, incluidos sacerdotes y un obispo anglicano que sostuvo que el sexo estaba descrito como "algo esencialmente sagrado", que inclinaron la balanza del lado del autor. Tanto es así que el juicio y la absolución están considerados un acontecimiento emblemático que liberó la fuerza sexual contenida y dio el pistoletazo de salida a la revolución de los sesenta y setenta.
A pesar de que Lawrence ganó, los problemas no acabaron ahí. El clásico '¿si?, pues ahora vamos a por ti'. La Cámara de los Lores debatió una moción para prohibir todos los textos del escritor británico. "Tengo una opinión muy firme sobre el hecho de que en este país se dé libertad sin freno a todo el mundo, y me preocupa mucho que nuestro mundo pueda volverse depravado e indecente, por no decir algo peor", afirmó el impulsor de la moción, lord Teviot, quien además definía 'El amante de lady Chatterley' como "una afrenta repugnante e indecente a las convenciones sociales".
Al final tuvo que retirar la moción, pero la obra siguió siendo considerada un atentado contra el decoro durante mucho tiempo. ¿Sus pecados? Lady Chatterley es adúltera, cero casta y a veces antinatural en sus relaciones. La sodomía, recuerda el Premio Nobel, era un delito tal que el código penal británico de los años veinte la penaba con "castigos draconianos, incluso si se producía entre marido y mujer". Pero, ahonda Coetzee, la mayor afrenta de la novela es que 'contamina' la mente de los lectores levantando todos esos tabúes desde el lenguaje.
"La pornografía es el intento de insultar al sexo, de cubrirlo de inmundicia", se defendió Lawrence en varios textos. El problema, añadía, era que la sociedad británica consideraba el sexo una inmundicia y una contaminación. Según su opinión, se trataba de una actitud heredada de la sífilis vivida en la época de Isabel II cuyo horror se instaló en la mente y la conciencia de sus ciudadanos.
"El poder evocador de las llamadas palabras obscenas debía ser muy peligroso para los caracteres cortos de alcance y violentos de la Edad Media, y quizá sigan siendo demasiado fuertes para los caracteres inferiores, poco despiertos y semievolucionados de la actualidad", añadía el escritor. Porque precisamente se temía tanto o más a las palabras que a las imágenes sugerentes e incluso incitadoras que desliza la novela. Por eso Lawrence dijo con mucha razón -en una frase que hoy podemos sacar a pasear sin problema-: "El canguro es un animal inofensivo, la palabra cagar es una palabra inofensiva. Convirtamos cualquiera de los dos en tabú y se volverán peligrosos. El resultado del tabú es la demencia".
La cantanteDolores Vargas, la 'Terremoto', famosa por interpretar en los años setenta del siglo pasado la rumba flamenca'Achilipú', ha fallecido a los 80 años en el Hospital General de Valencia, donde permanecía ingresada desde hace más de 20 días.
Así lo ha asegurado a EFE el hermano y guitarrista de la artista, Juan José Castellón Vargas, quien ha explicado que Dolores Vargas, que falleció en el centro hospitalario, será enterrada en el cementerio de Xirivella (Valencia), donde vivía con su hija desde hace unos 20 años.
Vargas, que se hizo famosa por su canción 'Achilipú', se retiró de la canción al fallecer su marido y, según ha explicado su hermano, solo cantaba en la iglesia, a pesar de que le ofrecieron "contratos millonarios e incluso cantar con Peret".
La cantante superó una leucemia, pero volvió a recaer con más fuerza y el cáncer se extendió a los huesos, lo que la obligó a varios ingresos hospitalarios. El último fue hace cerca de 20 días y no pudo superarlo.
Season 1 of Preacher wrapped up last Sunday (you can check out my recap here if you missed it), and it was a ride. We watched Jesse lose his faith, regain it after receiving Genesis, go false prophet in denial, and then discover that God was missing the whole time. Like I said, a ride. This show’s first outing was pretty solid. I wouldn’t say anything was bad, just not as good as everything else.
The Good
The biggest triumph is Tulip, who is a delightful, complicated piece of work. Jesse figures largely in Tulip’s story line, but ultimately she exists as her own person with her own relationships and life outside of him. I’ll never be sold on the clingy depiction of her at the start of the season, but they did manage to explain why she was the way she was in a way that isn’t completely offensive. That is a feat. They also touch on the classism that she and her family deal with without indulging in it, and she isn’t sexualized at all. It is so ridiculously rare to see this kind of writing and scripting for a black woman on TV when its not done by other black women that I’m almost in shock. How is this character real?
A gift to us all.
Cassidy is another success story. He’s a vampire with a mysterious, violent past who nowadays indulges in sex, drugs, and Coen Brothers movies. He’s a Bad Guy™ with decades of murder and mayhem under his belt, but spends a good portion of his screen time trying to keep Jesse from utterly destroying himself, and falls hopelessly in love with Tulip. The writers could have easily made Cass a sleazy asshole who’s only out for himself, but instead they decided to make him the heart of our three mains, and only tinge him with sleaze.
As for the rest of Annville, the writers did a good job inhabiting the town with interesting characters, in every sense of that word. Odin Quidcannon was creepy and quirky all at the same time, and the QM&P Qrew was hilarious when they weren’t being grossly male. Betsy and Donny Schenck were a great exercise in bait and switch characterization. Emily, Hugo Root, and Mrs. Loach were good portraits of dysfunctional parents. Eugene raised some great questions about morality once his past was revealed, and Fiore and DeBlanc… I just love them.
Oh, you.
The cinematography was another win for this season. There were so many beautiful shots, and episode 9 was a stunner throughout. The set design was great as well. Annville looks like a town that exists in five different decades at once, but the anachronism stew doesn’t call attention to itself. You can almost see the dirt under the characters’ nails. All of this melded together to give us a show that is more grounded than its source material, but still distinct in its tone.
The emotional depth is the most surprising thing about this show. This season was about a man searching for purpose and meaning in a world that refused to give him any. Jesse’s false prophet turn brought up some really interesting questions about judgement and morality. Tulip is still coping with her miscarriage. Crises of faith affect every other person in Annville, and the whole town is forced to reckon with the fact that God is missing at the end of the season. This show actually offers us a lot of philosophical questions about faith, and displays many different modes of coping with grief. The fact that it does this without violating its light-ish tone is amazing.
The Not-As-Good
Despite an excellent character arc, Jesse wasn’t nearly as interesting as Tulip or Cassidy. He was most compelling at his lowest point, justifying his bad actions by saying they were God’s will, because he was in denial about the lack of divine purpose in his life. He also started in an interesting place – losing faith in God until he is gifted a miraculous power. The space between those two points only becomes interesting in retrospect, once you fully grasp the depths of his misunderstanding. The acting might also be to blame, as Dominic Cooper is fine, but pales in comparison to Ruth Negga and Joe Gilgun.
Speaking of Jesse, his relationship with Tulip left me cold. This is partially because I didn’t realize Jesse still had feelings for her until the show told me so. They also waited all season to tell us why Tulip kept clinging to Jesse. In retrospect, I get why she hung around, but while watching I constantly wondered why she didn’t just leave his ass.
Still better road dogs.
The love triangle they’ve set up between Tulip, Jesse, and Cassidy feels like a way to use Tulip to create tension between the boys. They’ve avoided doing once this season, so I’m cautiously optimistic about them keeping to that trend. At the same time, I question why it had to happen at all.
The Cowboy had absolutely no impact on the season despite the time they took out of it to tell his story. He’s interesting, but they didn’t tie him in until the very end. They should have waited until season 2 to introduce him fully.
This season also had a few tone-deaf moments regarding race. They never specified where that church in Africa was, just Africa. Considering that Africa is a whole ass continent, that’s not really helpful; it would be like if they said that Satanist church in Russia was just in Europe or Asia. We were also forced to look at the mutilated corpses of Native Americans up close multiple times. I found this a little weird after Lacy’s body was given a discretion shot in episode 4, but, you know, she’s white.
The show does pay lip service to some Native issues, like changing offensive mascots, but that’s used to set the scene in Annville, and no one discusses it. The way that Tulip’s race would play into the perception of her family is also missing. This is par for the course in mainstream media, so I’m not going to get my hopes up about them improving on these points, though I would sorely like to.
Lastly, who was the guy that Danny passed the map off to, and how does he factor into any of this? And what was that map for?
In conclusion
Preacher’s inaugural season was ten episodes of decent, fun television. We got a good story, great characters, blood, guts, and laughs. I’m still surprised at the depths this show managed to reach, while still being so silly. The slate has been wiped clean for next season. Hopefully the writers can stir up some new characters and settings that are just as good as, or better than, the denizens of Annville. I, for one, can’t wait.
En internet existen unos cuantos archivos de música gratuita
donde pasar cientos de horas sin tener ningún remordimiento. Son webs con
archivos públicos y legales donde puedes encontrar desde las primeras mixtapes
de hip hop que circularon de mano en mano a finales de los 70 y principios de
los 80, a músicos oscurísimos de ruido pasando por todas las vanguardias,
músicas del mundo y bootlegs graciosísimas de tus grupos favoritos. Todo sin un
ápice de remordimiento porque son bibliotecas al alcance de todos. Os recomendamos 5 de estos archivos para encontrar música nueva gratis, sin anuncios y legal.
Archive.org es uno de los archivos más increíbles que puedes
encontrar en internet. Empezó en San Francisco a mitades de los 90, con la
noble misión de conseguir "el acceso universal a todo el conocimiento". No es
una página estrictamente de música, ni de arte, ni de pelis, ni de software antiguo,
pero si hay de todo un poco. A lo que vamos: tienen un archivo musical brutal,
alguno de ellos con un pie metido en la ilegalidad, como los miles de piratas y
grabaciones de conciertos de Grateful Dead. Por mi como si los eliminan todos
debo decir. Allí encontrareis cosas como: Cientos de conciertos de Camper Van Beethoven, incluido el
concierto totalmente improvisado que hicieron acompañando a Tiny Tim –encontrar esto justifica la invención del mismo internet-. Ellos lo cuentan así: "El
promotor nos reunió fuera de la sala y nos dijo que le había prometido que le
haríamos de grupo. Tiny Tim era como una abuela, y no quiso ensayar nada, solo nos
dijo: ya os sabéis las canciones, simplemente os diré lo rápido que tenéis que
tocar y la clave. Fue suficiente, antes de cada canción agitaba una mano y
decía: '¡En D maestro!'".
O este otro: No preguntéis que buscaba cuando encontré al grupo de metal acústico Deus Me Livre. Es como escuchar al primer Daniel Johnston obsesionado
con Burzum, o como el Pato Donald cantándole a Satán en la ducha con un
ukelele. Un desastre sólo apto para los oídos menos refinados, pero con títulos
como "Muerte al black metal capitalista" es difícil que no nos enamoremos...
Un verdadero pozo de felicidad sin fondo para todo el que le
guste descubrir música de cualquier sitio del mundo, traído por la biblioteca inglesa ¿Queréis escuchar calypso
hecho en Sierra Leona? Aquí lo tenéis,
¿queréis saber qué narices es el skiffle? Tenéis todo un archivo para descubrirlo,
da igual lo que os guste en realidad. Si tenéis interés en saber cómo sonaba el
mundo hace un siglo, daos una vuelta, que es gratis. Lo único malo de esta web es ¿no os da mucha pena que no exista un archivo similar aquí?
Free Music Archive es un archivo de música libre curado por
la cadena de radio universitaria WFMU, una de las radios más queridas por los
fans de la música de todo el mundo, y una evolución de su forma de entender la
radio: como un servicio público que pone la música al alcance de todos
respetando la inteligencia del oyente y la voluntad del artista.
Lo mejor aquí también es dejarse llevar por algunas de las
mixtapes o atreverse a dar click en cualquier género, porque el archivo es
ingente y apenas hay nombres conocidos (¡VIVA!). Encontrareis desde bandas
militares a hip hop alternativo, todo bajo licencias Creative Commons, fácil de
escuchar (las canciones cargan rapidísimo) y de compartir. Hay recopilatorios de música realmente antigua,
acústicos de Pau Riba y hasta alguna rareza de Jandek.
No es exactamente una web de archivo, pero si es un archivo
on-line apabullante. Centenares de mixtapes de hip hop primerizo, grabaciones
de las primeras fiestas a finales de los 70 y el mejor espíritu: abierto al
intercambio y a compartir conocimientos. Si no sabéis por dónde empezar, os
recomendamos este post con 20 cintas en directo del año 77 al 80. Nos van a acompañar todo el verano: ¡Hagamos una fiesta!
La reciente tendencia a acoger lo que dicten culturas que se encuentran a muchos husos horarios de nosotros, sobre todo si son orientales, tiene sus riesgos: entre toda la mezcolanza de información hay no pocos ejemplos de pseudociencia, como explico más ampliamente en ¿Por qué la India es tan exótica y cool? La medicina alternativa como timo (I) y (II).
Quienes abrazan estas manifestaciones culturales también adoptan una serie de clichés, como poner a quemar incienso por casa. Sin embargo, hay que tener cuidado con esta costumbre porque, a pesar de que se nos antoje muy espiritual y conectada con la naturaleza, el empleo de incienso en lugares con poca ventilación o cerrados es perjudicial para la salud.
Es lo que sugiere, al menos, un estudio realizado por un equipo de científicos de la Universidad de Tecnología del Sur de China en Cantón (China), dirigidos por Rong Zhou. Para ello, analizaron el humo del incienso de dos tipos o variantes, incienso con agar y con sándalo, dos de los elementos más comunes en la fabricación de estos productos.
El experimento sugiere que el humo del incienso era potencialmente más tóxico que el humo del tabaco, porque el 99% del humo contenía partículas finas y ultrafinas de sustancias químicas muy perjudiciales para la salud.
El estudio ha sido publicado en la revista Springer's Journal Environmental Chemistry Letters, pero se requieren más estudios para confirmar si estas conclusiones se repiten en todas las variedades de incienso.
Imagen | Pedro Alonso.
La neofobia no se refiere a mostrar repugnancia por un sabor en particular, sino al miedo activo a probarlo, a prejuzgarlo. Es un comportamiento que suele darse en niños, y también en algunos adultos.
En el caso de los niños, la neofobia puede superarse simplemente dándole de comer el alimento en numerosas ocasiones, a menudo pueden ser necesaria quince veces o más, hasta que el niño advierte que el sabor no es tan malo, y que incluso está bueno.
El mayor escollo que presenta esta forma de combatir la neofobia es que, en primera instancia, el alimento debe ser probado, a peasr de la renuencia inicial, tal y como explica Bee Wilson en su libro El primer bocado:
Exponer a un niño al brócoli muchas veces es más fácil de decir que de hacer. Tal como sabe cualquier padre o madre que haya intentado darle de comer a un niño reacio, las estrategias bienintencionadas a menudo son contraproducentes. Decir "cómete la verdura y después te daré un caramelo" tiene su riesgo porque hace que el niño todavía le coja más manía a la verdura. Los psicólogos lo llaman efecto de sobrejustificación. Cuando por hacer algo se nos da un premio, la actividad en cuestión se valora menos. Al niño le acaban gustando más los caramelos porque se han convertido en un premio.
La mayoría de niños superan la peor fase del miedo a los alimentos nuevos a los seis o siete años. Hasta esa edad, se considera una fase normal del desarrollo infantil.
Imagen | rikofoto
1. Take a selfie, fully naked, and then use the drawing function to censor your pussy and nipples. It’s the perfect way to tease him. If he agrees to be extra nice to you, tell him you just might give him the unedited version.
2. You don’t actually have to remove a single item of clothing. Just show a little cleavage, purse your lips, and use a simple caption like, “I miss you.”
3. Or, if you want to make your feelings blatantly obvious, try, “I’m horny AF.”
4. If you aren’t looking your best and don’t want your face in the picture, then take a picture of your lingerie while it’s on the hook. Caption it, “Think I would like good in this?”
5. Or take a picture of your dildo and caption it, “I’ll be thinking of you the entire time.”
6. You could also try taking a picture of a bottle of wine with two glasses and tell him to get to your house ASAP.
7. Or just take a picture of your bed, with or without you in it, and tell him that you wish he was there with you.
8.Try turning it into a game. Tell him to send you a picture of a naked body part, and you’ll return the favor with the same part of your body.
9. Instead of taking a photo, take a sexy video. Record yourself lifting off your shirt so he can see what’s underneath.
10. If you have a seductive voice, you could always try dirty talking to him in your video clip.
11. Or you could go all the way and take a video of yourself masturbating.
12. If you’d rather stick to pictures, take a shot of your naked tits, but hold your hands over them, so there’s a little left to the imagination.
13. Or take a photo with a phallic object in your mouth, like a lollipop or a banana. Of course, you might want to take this photo a few times before sending it, because it’s easy to look silly instead of sexy.
14.Take a photo while you’re leaning forward, so he sees the maximum amount of cleavage possible.
15. Or play dirty and take a picture of a pitch black room and caption it, “You can’t tell, but I’m completely naked right now.”
16. You can always turn him on without showing off private parts of your body. Try taking a picture of your long legs in a pair of short shorts. He’ll go nuts.
17. Or take a picture in a skirt with your legs crossed, but tell him you aren’t wearing any underwear underneath (it doesn’t matter if you’re a liar).
18. Take a video of your car radio while it plays an overtly sexual song. It’ll let him know what you’re thinking about doing to him.
19. Take a picture in your towel after you get out of the shower.
20. Or take a picture from the knees down while you’re in the bath.
21. Find a full-length mirror to take a picture of yourself from behind. It doesn’t matter if you’re in yoga pants, in a thong, or are completely naked, because he’s going to love the view no matter what.
22. If you want to turn him on, but don’t want to be obvious about what you’re doing, put on a filter that gives you a puppy dog face while wearing something skimpy. That way, it won’t look like you’re trying too hard.
23. Ask him to answer questions about you, like what your cat’s name is or how many drinks you’ve had. Whenever he gets one right, you’ll remove an item of your clothing and send a new pic to him.
24.You know, you can upload photos from your camera roll to Snapchat, so if you’re not feeling your sexiest, upload an old nude photograph and pretend you just took it.
25. If you’re still not in a picture taking mood, Snapchat has a text function, so you two can just talk dirty over the app. The conversation will be deleted as soon as you’re finished, so you won’t have to worry about the words getting around and ruining your good girl reputation.
Although I’ve searched YouTube in vain several times over the years looking for video clips of vintage TV appearances by Reparata and the Delrons, I could never find any. This morning I finally located a Beat-Club lip-sync by the near-forgotten 60s girl group. Not...
I had a certain Mrs. N as my English teacher during my senior year of high school. She loved teaching 12th-graders, she liked to say, because she couldn’t do that much bad to us — and not that much good, either. She had the rigorous affection that great instructors...More »
Great news: Body-related self-loathing is on the decline. Researchers from the College of Wooster in Ohio analyzed results from 250 studies involving more than 100,000 people between 1981 and 2012 to look at trends in how they felt about their bodies, specifically in regard to theirMore »
At TorrentFreak we have been keeping a close eye on the torrent ecosystem for more than a decade.
During this time, many sites have shut down, either voluntarily or forced by a court order.
This week meta-search engine Torrentz joined this ever-expanding list. In what appears to be a voluntary action, the site waved its millions of users farewell without prior warning.
The site’s operators have yet to explain their motivations. However, it wouldn’t be a big surprise if the continued legal pressure on torrent sites played a major role, with KAT as the most recent example.
And let’s be honest. Running a site that could make you the target of an FBI investigation, facing over a dozen years in prison, is no joke.
Looking back at the largest torrent sites of the past 15 years, we see a familiar pattern emerge. Many of the sites that make it to the top eventually fall down, often due to legal pressure.
Suprnova (2004)
Suprnova was one of the first ever BitTorrent giants. Founded by the Slovenian-born Andrej Preston, the site dominated the torrent scene during the early days.
It was also one of the first torrent sites to be targeted by the authorities. In November 2004 the site’s servers were raided, and a month later Preston, aka Sloncek, decided to shut it down voluntarily. The police investigation was eventually dropped a few months later.
Lokitorrent (2005)
When Suprnova went down a new site was quick to fill its void. LokiTorrent soon became one of the largest torrent sites around, which also attracted the attention of the MPAA.
LokiTorrent’s owner Ed Webber said he wanted to fight the MPAA and actively collected donations to pay for the legal costs. With success, as he raised over $40,000 in a few weeks.
However, not long after that, LokiTorrent was shut down, and all that was left was the iconic “You can click but you can’t hide” MPAA notice.
TorrentSpy (2008)
In 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular than any other BitTorrent site. This quickly changed when it was sued by the MPAA. In 2007 a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data and the site opted to ban all U.S. traffic in response.
March 2008 TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnell decided to shut down completely and not much later his company was ordered to pay the Hollywood studios $110 million in damages.
Mininova (2009)
After TorrentSpy’s demise, Mininova became the largest torrent site on the net. The name was inspired by Suprnova, but in 2008 the site was many times larger than its predecessor.
Its popularity eventually resulted in a lawsuit from local anti-piracy outfit BREIN, which Mininova lost. As a result, the site had to remove all infringing torrents, a move which effectively ended its reign.
Today the site is still online, limiting uploads to pre-approved publishers, making it a ghost of the giant it was in the past.
Talking to TorrentFreak, BTjunkie’s founder said that the legal actions against other file-sharing sites played an important role in making the difficult decision. Witnessing all the trouble his colleagues got into was a constant cause of worry and stress.
“We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best,” he wrote in a farewell message.
isoHunt (2013)
The shutdown of isoHunt a year later wasn’t much of a surprise. The site had been fighting a legal battle with the MPAA for over a decade and eventually lost, agreeing to pay the movie studios a $110m settlement.
As one of the oldest and largest sites at the time, the torrent ecosystem lost another icon. However, as is often the case, another site with the same name quickly took over and is still operating today.
EZTV (2015)
The story of EZTV’s demise is quite different from the rest. The popular TV-torrent distribution group shut down last year after a hostile takeover.
Strangely enough, many people don’t even realize that it’s “gone.” The site continued to operate under new ownership and still releases torrents. However, in solidarity with the original founders these torrents are banned on several other sites.
YIFY/YTS (2015)
What started as a simple movie release group in 2010 turned into one of the largest torrent icons. The group amassed a huge following and its website was generating millions of pageviews per day early last year.
In November 2015 this ended abruptly. Facing a million dollar lawsuit from Hollywood, the group’s founder decided to pull the plug and call it quits. Even though various copycats have since emerged, the real YIFY/YTS is no more.
KickassTorrents (2016)
Three weeks ago Polish law enforcement officers arrested Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of KickassTorrents. The arrest resulted in the shutdown of the site, which came as a shock to millions of KAT users and the torrent community at large.
Out of nowhere, the largest torrent index disappeared and there are no signs that it’s coming back anytime soon. The site’s community, meanwhile, has found a new home at Katcr.to.
Torrentz (2016)
Torrentz is the last torrent site to cease its operations. Although no official explanation was given, some of the stories outlined above were probably weighed into the founders’ decision.
—
So what will the future bring? Who will be the next giant to fall? It’s obvious that nearly nothing last forever in the torrent ecosystem. Well, apart from the ever-resilient Pirate Bay.
And there are several other alternatives still around as well. ExtraTorrent has been around for a decade now and continues to grow, and the same is true for other popular torrent sites.
Cuando una distinguida señora iba a ser enterrada en su panteón se descubrió que había dos cuerpos, con disparos en la cabeza. Resultaron ser Ben Barka, opositor del rey de Marruecos Hasán II, y su secretaria. Ocurrió hace ahora 50 años.
La reciente publicación del libro de Mark Fisher, Realismo capitalista. ¿No hay alternativa? (Caja Negra Editora, 2016), supone una sacudida teórica que nos informa de algunos de los males agudizados a partir de la crisis bancaria de 2008 y la reorganización de los poderes neoliberales para entrar en una fase de capitalismo más agresiva si cabe. Fisher, crítico musical y escritor británico, recurre a un conjunto de ejemplos culturales salidos de la televisión, el cine, la literatura y la política para trazar los principales rasgos y mecanismos del realismo capitalista; el desmantelamiento de los servicios públicos, la cultura del consumo, la expansión de la burocracia al sistema educativo y los desordenes de atención, el estrés y la depresión que incapacitan al sujeto individual para cualquier capacidad de agencia colectiva. El famoso eslogan de Margaret Thatcher, “No hay alternativa” al neoliberalismo económico y el libre mercado, sirve a Mark Fisher para trazar el recorrido del realismo capitalista. En esta entrevista le hemos preguntado por su libro de amplio recorrido que ahora se presenta en una cuidada edición.
Danny McBride is more soft-spoken than you might expect, given the characters he plays.
Of course, he’d almost have to be. He’s become famous for playing brash loudmouths in a wide variety of big-screen comedies and especially on his two HBO series, Eastbound & Down (where he played baseball pitcher gone to seed Kenny Powers) and the new Vice Principals (where he plays slowly fizzling powder keg Neal Gamby).
Watch an exclusive clip from the next episode of Vice Principals, airing Sunday, August 7, at 10:30 pm Eastern on HBO.
(Courtesy of HBO)
When I meet with him in a hotel bar during the Television Critics Association summer press tour, Vice Principals (which debuted July 17)has already been met with some of the most divisive reviews of the summer.
Some critics believe the show is a near masterpiece, a surprisingly deft examination of white male rage and the kind of American climate that has made the rise of Donald Trump possible.
Others think it fails to indict its two heroes (McBride’s Neal and his co-vice principal Lee Russell, played by Walton Goggins) as they attack Dr. Belinda Brown (Kimberly Hebert Gregory), the black woman who received a principal job they thought they were competing against each other for at the North Carolina high school where the show takes place.
In the show’s second, controversial episode, Neal and Lee burn down Belinda’s house, and then manage to get away with the crime. Are McBride and series co-creator Jody Hill celebrating this crime? Or are they setting up the two men for a brutal fall?
What’s impressive about both the show and the way McBride describes it to me is that both of these answers can be true simultaneously.
Neal and Lee can be driven to actions that are frankly despicable, but McBride and Hill want viewers to understand that their darkness comes from somewhere, that the two men are still human, with very real disappointments, regrets, and, yes, anger.
So McBride and I talked about the angry national mood, about the criticism of the show, and about what he thinks Hollywood gets wrong about the South.
Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
On what’s funny about anger: "It has less to do with anger and more to do with disappointment"
HBO
Danny McBride stars as Neal Gamby in Vice Principals.
Todd VanDerWerff
You guysfilmed Vice Principals last year. What’s it been like to watch the national mood tilt in angrier and angrier directions, knowing the show was just waiting to be released?
Danny McBride
I've never been one who really follows politics. I just don't see my world through the lens of politics a lot. When we wrote this story originally [as a film], it was actually back in 2006, and then we wrote the whole series in 2014.
It is crazy. We were shooting in 2015, and we were starting to see the beginnings of this presidential campaign.
There's things about this story that I think speak to any time. But if it's this time, where we're all witnessing a crazy power struggle going on and how far people will go to get that power [like in the show], I think that's definitely accurate.
I don't think we tried to write something that was exploiting what's happening now. I think it's weird the world is kind of lined up with this vision that was written so long ago. Maybe we saw where things were going.
Todd VanDerWerff
But you’ve always been drawn to rage as a comedic engine. What do you find interesting about anger?
Danny McBride
I think it has less to do with anger and more to do with disappointment.
We take a lot of these stories, and we figure out how you take something that to someone it would feel like there's this big epic goal happening, but then set it in a very realistic, small world. The stakes suddenly don't feel as high as the characters are taking them.
With all these characters, I wouldn't categorize them as angry guys. I'd categorize them more as dreamers that had a failed sense of what they were going to get, and I think that frustration can make people lash out in ways that maybe isn't even in character for them. Also, it's just not healthy. That's part of, I think, what this story is ultimately about.
Todd VanDerWerff
You talked about how these characters feel acute disappointment, and I really recognize that type of guy from my childhood in rural South Dakota. And we don’t often see that sort of person on TV or in movies. Where are you drawing from? What are your inspirations for writing these characters?
Danny McBride
I come from being a guy who grew up in a small town like Spotsylvania, Virginia, and carried around a dream of wanting to work in the industry and wanting to make movies or tell stories.
When you are so fixated on a goal like that, there's lots of times when things aren’t going your way, when you feel like you've been walking around with a little egg on your face.
In some regards, I share that with some of these characters, the idea of having a grand vision and things not always panning out the way you want them to, and also understanding that there's nothing wrong with having a grand vision, but it's not what life is all about ultimately.
Todd VanDerWerff
One fascinating thing about Neal is how class-conscious he is. He’s very strict about not wanting to be seen as a "redneck," and it gets into social divisions in the South that I haven’t really seen portrayed on TV like this. Where did that come from?
Danny McBride
There's a lack of originality when it comes to Hollywood portraying Southerners.
[Vice Principals is] not somehow breaking the mold by putting on a guy who has a mullet and stuff, but the South isn't all just one thing. The South is many things. It's many different cultures. It's many people from all over the world, and it's not a guy in overalls with hay hanging out of his mouth. That's a very cheap understanding of the South.
Southerners have grown up watching TV, and they know how they're portrayed. I do think you get people who are aware of how they can come off, just because they have a Southern accent. That's an interesting thing that I don't feel like you really see much, but it's something I see when I'm there.
Todd VanDerWerff
What do movies and TV shows get wrong about the South?
Danny McBride
It's kind of universal that if you have a dipshit in a movie, you give them a Southern accent. Some of the most intelligent people I've ever met are from the South, and they're not just Southerners. They're people who migrated there, and there's some of them who are leading universities and the whole country down there.
The South is made up of a lot of different types of people, and that is the one thing I feel like isn't really represented about the South — how diverse it is.
There are liberals in the South, and there's conservatives in the South. There's thinkers in the South, and there's guys who don't give a shit about thinking in the South. It's not different from any other city you live in.
Todd VanDerWerff
You’ve had quite a film career, but you also keep coming back to television. What part of your need to tell stories does television satisfy?
Danny McBride
I feel like it is very hard to get people's attention these days, and movies are really struggling to do that. If you're not a gigantic, known entity, it's very hard to get people to talk about you, and it's very hard to get people to talk about movies, other than dollars and cents and how much it made or how much it didn't.
TV is one of those things that the social aspect of it is still very much alive, the idea of people seeing an episode and then discussing what they thought about that episode. When we see the debate on whether we've gone too far, that's exactly what makes us excited about this show, the idea that you can create something and there can be conversation about it that evolves and changes from week to week.
For me, when Game of Thrones is on, which has hit me more than any [recent] movie has hit me, on that Monday morning [after an episode airs], I have my friends that I instantly go to, or my websites where I see what people are saying.
It's awesome to invest in a story where there's a public forum to discuss it, and to anticipate things and to think about things. That's something I really hope doesn't go away with TV as everyone's cutting their cord.
Sometimes when we binge things and you're moving through a story at your own pace, it cuts out some of that conversation. There's something cool about everyone having to wait and everyone having to process it at the same time.
On building the show: "We intentionally made that second episode a kick in the balls"
HBO
Neal and Lee plot their revenge.
Todd VanDerWerff
Neal is different from, say, Kenny Powers, in that there’s a side of him that really does, genuinely, care about his students, even if he does a poor job of expressing it. Why was it important to you to show that side of him?
Danny McBride
When we write Neal Gamby, it's not anything similar to Kenny at all.
When you're a comedian, if people gravitate toward you, it's because they like something you do. It's that weird balance of trying to make sure you give people who showed up to see one thing enough of what they're expecting, but try to make sure it's reinvented and pushes it further, so it's not just the same thing.
To me, Neal doesn't seem like Kenny at all. Kenny ultimately was a man who was driven by ego and his own success. I really think that Neal is more misguided. He really thinks that what he's doing is the best thing for the school, and that ultimately leads to his downfall.
Todd VanDerWerff
This whole show is one story told over two seasons and 18 episodes, and you filmed it all at once. But it’s still airing week to week. How are you constructing the show to make sure audiences know that you know these guys have crossed the line in some of their actions?
Danny McBride
We had written this script originally as an hour-and-a-half [movie], and audiences are so savvy now and they've seen so many stories that it really felt like what that script was suffering from was predictability. You've seen enough movies that audiences are going to kind of be able to identify the highs and lows.
For us, even opening up the canvas of it, being able to make it that much longer, I really think we worked hard on the audience not really being sure what's going to happen, and, honestly, challenging the audience on what they even want to have happen.
We intentionally made that second episode a kick in the balls, where you almost punish the audience for being on board with these two guys wanting to take this principal down. All of a sudden, you see how far they're going, like, "Well, I'm not sure if this is what I want to see happen."
It allows you to shift gears and see where Dr. Brown’s coming from, or to see from the love interest’s [a teacher named Amanda Snodgrass,played by Georgia King] point of view and how she might not be as perfect as Neal imagines her.
With TV, with that canvas, it allows you to take stops and detours that I don't think you have time for in a feature. It will keep the audience on their toes, and that's really the main thing we wanted to do. Whenever they think it's going one way, we'll make sure it goes the other way.
Todd VanDerWerff
As you were expanding Vice Principals from a feature film to a TV show, what were some of the things that surprised you?
Danny McBride
Lee Russell. For us, the reason we loved that script so much was we felt that we had come up with a dynamic between two very different types of men, and men that we don't really see that often portrayed. When you see where Lee’s arc goes over the course of 18 episodes, it's a wild ride.
It was a very hard role to cast. We didn't want to cast a straight comedian, because we knew that whoever this actor was was going to have to rely on dramatic abilities as much as comedic. Walton Goggins is one of those rare actors that has that ability to be frightening and intense and also funny as hell.
Todd VanDerWerff
As the show goes forward, I like how it suggests that Dr. Brown’s approach to conflict, which involves letting people talk out their feelings, can be just as effective as a punch in the face. What’s your philosophy on conflict resolution?
Danny McBride
There are a lot of ways to approach problems, and for every problem there are obviously ways that can be more effective than others. I obviously think talking things through should be the goal — that should always be what you do. But when words aren't enough, a fist kind of can get things done.
Todd VanDerWerff
One of the theories I think the show suggests is that assholes sort of breed other assholes. We see both Neal and Lee interact with guys who are jerks to them, and that’s reflected in some of their behavior. Do you think that sort of behavior propagates other bad behavior?
Danny McBride
To break these guys down to just being assholes, it almost seems it's too simple.
In some ways, it's like every person walking around on this planet is the star of their own movie. What they want and what they need is important to them, and the people that they love are important to them.
Does it make you an asshole if you lash out at people, or does it make it that you're reaching disappointment? With all these guys, I don't think it propagates more assholes. Hopefully, it allows you, the next time somebody flips you off or yells at you in a monster truck at a traffic light, [to think], "Well, maybe I can understand where they're coming from."
On listening to the criticism ... or not: "I weirdly had to start acting like those websites didn’t exist anymore"
HBO
Dr. Belinda Brown gathers her vice principals.
Todd VanDerWerff
You mentioned earlier that you sort of followed the discussion around episode two in particular, because that just aired, obviously. Do you read the reviews and comments?
Danny McBride
When we were working on the first season of Eastbound, we had never been out in the public eye that way. We were reading everything that came in, and Wayne Kramer of the MC5 [a rock band], who did our music for Eastbound, told us, "If you give weight to the good ones, you're going to have to give weight to the bad ones. You have to get yourself in a mindset where you're not looking to reviews for the endorsement of whether you succeeded or not."
I thought that was really good advice. It's always interesting to know if what you make is connecting or if people are getting it, but all the websites that I always devoured before I was working, all the movie and TV websites, I weirdly had to start acting like those websites didn't exist anymore. Just so that I wouldn't get in my own head about what I was making and keep it pure and not start to change what you're doing to fit what other people think, and even not to get praise for one thing and then only start doing that thing.
It's a tightrope act. There's a lot of intelligent people writing stuff about TV, and TV is at a place now where it's getting talked about the same way that film gets talked about, and that's good.
Todd VanDerWerff
You’re a really gifted physical performer, and Neal feels very different from Kenny Powers even in how he walks and carries himself. How did you build that performance in terms of physicality?
Danny McBride
Honestly, it all came from [Neal being] our take on the broken-down muscle and [Lee being] our take on the diabolical brain. We started to inform everything around that, like their style, what their home life is like, how they interact with members of the opposite sex. It all is influenced by this archetype of a character and us trying to find the beaten, broken-down, modern times version of that character.
Todd VanDerWerff
As more characters on this show get into the chaos, the more fun it becomes, and I like when characters other than Lee and Neal are really starting to express their own wilder sides. But so many shows like this have a character who’s standing in the way of having any fun. How did you avoid having that figure?
Danny McBride
If there's anybody who's like that, the closest is probably Neal Gamby. In some ways, Neal Gamby is the straight man in this story to [Goggins’s Lee]. I was conscious of that. If people are invested in the story, I don't want to be the guy who shows up and keeps saying, "You shouldn't be having fun."
By doing things like breaking into Belinda Brown's house, it gives the straight man even layers of lunacy that makes you feel a little unhinged about where the show is going to go.
I hate that, though. I hate when you watch a show or a movie, and you're coming to see one thing, and there's someone there who's telling you you shouldn't be enjoying it. That's boring.
Vice Principals airs Sundays on HBO at 10:30 pm Eastern. Previous episodes are available on HBO Go.
Electric & Musical Industries was formed in 1931, initially releasing classical music, but went on to launch the Beatles, who changed the record label's operations and funded the company for years and years. The label's recording rules were further broadened by Queen and Pink Floyd. EMI ushered punk into the mainstream with Sex Pistols, and then embraced the New Romanticism and the polished excesses of Duran Duran. They made music videos big with Pet Shop Boys and made Brit Pop a thing with Blur, and were home to Radiohead. This is the inside story of EMI, one of the greatest British brands in recording history, as told by people involved with the record label's storied history, augmented by company and performance footage.
Odile Fillod: "The idea came as part of the preparation of non-sexist videos dealing with sex and sexuality in the high school science curriculum. In textbooks, the clitoris is often overlooked and is systematically misrepresented, if it is represented at all. The objective was therefore to show what it actually looks like, in order to be able to talk about the anatomical and physiological bases of sexual desire and sexual pleasure, and, for once, without forgetting women." Fillod would like to extend the project to the other sex organs, female and male (note the "dick" sketch at 0:18 in the video).
Anatomically correct models of the clitoris have been developed previously by Sophie Wallace and Amy Stenzel.
“Do you like gay sex? Like two dudes going at it? I’m kinda turned on by the idea of making out with another man if I can see a girl getting off of it. Like… I’d love to see her push our heads together.”
4. How the hell do you do a blowjob without biting the dick off?
“How the hell do you do a blowjob without biting the dick off?”
“I have heard quite a few girls say that they think their vagina looks weird. I have never once heard a guy say his penis looks weird. Is this just a common thing among girls? Frankly I have never seen a well-taken-care-of pussy I wouldn’t fuck.”
9. How hard can you squeeze a boob before it really starts to hurt?
“How hard can you squeeze a boob before it really starts to hurt? I am always afraid of hurting my girlfriend by squeezing too hard.”
“Why do some women seem so disgusted by their own vaginas? I’ve been with a few women that don’t want to have anything to do with their own. Perfectly normal, good looking vaginas too.”
14. Do you fantasize about sleeping with your guy friends?
“Most guys I know, including myself, have thought about banging their female friends at least once…probably multiple occasions, especially if you see them looking extra attractive. Even the more ‘average’ ones have some really attractive features, and that is enough to set the imagination gears in motion. We don’t really let it change how we feel about you—I can want to be your friend, but still imagining some crazy scenario where we go at it. Do girls do the same thing? Do you ever imagine sleeping with guys you are friends with, even if you would never actually date them (like I do with my female friends)?”
“What usually turns you on? And how did you get to discover it?”
16. What’s the highest number of orgasms you’ve had in a single masturbation session?
“What’s the largest number of successive orgasms you’ve had in a single masturbation session? Also how many does an average session contain? I know it’s a bit specific, but I marvel at the fact that women don’t have to recharge; it makes sense but is still cool.”
17. If you can’t cum, is sex still satisfying for you?
“Mine is for women with a psychological block to having assisted orgasms (not self induced) that are still hornballs. Is sex still super satisfying?
I’ll add that I’ve met a few that said this that I found were absolutely capable it just took lots and lots of foreplay but my wife is one of 2 that I’ve ever met that were legit incapable. The other was completely uninterested most of the time but my wife is pretty consistently ready to go.
There have been like 2 times in the past few years that she like almost had one (or started to) and freaked the fuck out for a sec and had to calm down before we could resume.”
“When I’m going down on a girl, she always seems to lean back and not say much. When she goes down on me I feel like my body flexes and relaxes and I want to thrust my hips. So is cunnilingus more relaxing and it’s a more melty reaction or do I just suck at this?”
“Do y’all get the post-wank shame like guys do? I mean after I bust from choking the chicken I’m like Bruce Banner when he turns back from the hulk, naked confused and wondering what just happened.”
“What’s the lady equivalent to a boner? And not biologically. I mean, what can happen to a woman in terms of arousal that might make her a little embarrassed if called to the board to solve a math problem or something…I guess nipples? Right? Or getting really…wet?”
“Is tit-fucking something you enjoy or do you do it strictly because your man enjoys it? Does it feel good, hurt, or kinda nothing?”
33. Is it OK for me to grab your head while you’re blowing me?
“When you are giving head to a dude, is it alright for them to like control your head? Like grabbing the whole head and pushing your head back and fourth. If yes, to what extent? Also are you y’all cool with receiving scalp massages while giving head.”
“What do you think about pegging? Would you be turned off if your SO asked about you plowing his B-hole with a strap on? If your SO were to bring up the idea what would your preferred way of him doing so be? Would you automatically assume he’s gay?”
“What do you think about black dudes? Socially? Sexually?”
38. How do you feel about guys playing with your boobs?
“How do you feel about guys playing with your boobs? Are there notable sensations or is it just like a massage? Is it something you want or it’s just for the guys enjoyment?”
39. How do you feel about taking a guy’s virginity?
“OK, girls, I have several questions are you prepared?
1. Is it the dick sucking you enjoy or is rather the noise that comes from oral stimulation? Sorta like how some guys like the noise ladies make from going down on them?
2. Circumcised or Uncircumcised?
3. What is the you favorite position? or at least one that gets you to orgasm?
4. A man who cooks?
5. Favorite porn genre?
6. Have you ever met a guy who is just completely fucking oblivious?
7. Sex anxiety? is that a thing for some ladies as it is for some fellas?
8. What’s the longest sex session (that that was a little cringy) you have had with a partner?
9. Threesomes?
10. Do some of you watch gay porn as we watch lesbians (hentai yaoi/yuri is not excluded)?
Bonus question: DO YOU FUCKING LOVE BARBEQUE CHIPS?!?!”
1. Libras have the best social skills in the Zodiac. People love them. People love to be around them. They are the wrong person to date if you are easily jealous or a total homebody, but the perfect person to date if you are looking for a partner in crime to take over the world with.
2. Secretly, Libras are total suckers for flattery. You can never compliment a Libra too much — as long as it’s genuine, they can smell a lie a mile away.
3. Libras can also be incredibly hard on themselves. The best advice you can give your Libra is to not judge themselves more harshly than they would judge one of their dear friends.
4. If you’re having a dispute with someone, have a Libra mediate. They are amazing problem solvers and understand how to be fair and keep all parties happy.
5. A Libra will be the star of your relationship, whether you’re in agreement or not.
6. Libras love love and they spend a lot of their young life focused on finding a partner. When they find one, they make them the center of their lives and social circle, in a coveted place above even their most treasured friendships.
7. There aren’t a lot of problems Libras can’t charm their way out of. When dating one, expect to be surprised by all the random favors people seem to love doing for your Libra. This is just their normal life!
8. Libras are more fundamentally moral than other signs. They will have a very hard time lying or cheating someone longterm.
9. An ideal date for a Libra involves the opportunity to charm many of their favorite people at once. An outing with their inner circle, no matter what you do, will always make for a great night.
10. In the history of the world, a Libra has never been attracted to someone who wasn’t a great conversationalist.
11. Libras tend to be old souls and appreciate the finer things in life. They are intelligent and have great taste when it comes to movies, music, books and art. They would love to get you excited about something that has excited them.
Mink Stole as Mink and Divine as Lady Divine. Photo by Lawrence Irvine
John Waters—queer film visionary, perennial prankster, and Baltimore's bohemian of bad taste—released Pink Flamingos in 1972. At the time, it was perhaps the most outrageous movie ever seen at the American box office. (After all, it includes a scene where Divine, Harris Glen Milstead's proto-punk drag-queen character who appears in many of Waters's early movies, literally eats dog shit.)
But for Waters, Pink Flamingo was a toning down of the odious aesthetic for which he'd eventually become infamous, a sensibility he brought into being with his lesser-known 1970 predecessor, Multiple Maniacs. The long-out-of-print "celluloid atrocity" has been restored by the Criterion Collection and debuts at New York's IFC Theater today.
Multiple Maniacs, like all of Waters's films, takes place in his hometown of Baltimore. It follows Divine alongside Waters's cast of so-called Dreamlanders, including Mary Vivian Pearce, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Cookie Mueller, and Edith Massey, as they take their traveling fetish circus, "The Cavalcade of Perversion," on the road. Eventually, they decide they've grown bored of all conventionality and turn to robbing and murdering their audiences—and each other—instead.
The film is chock full of Waters's signature dark comedy: Members of Divine's troupe eat puke and take drugs, Divine has lesbian sex in a Catholic church using a rosary as a dildo, and Divine is, at one point, raped by a 15-foot-tall lobster. Near the film's end, in a Godzilla-like scene, Divine stalks a sidewalk, terrorizing everyone in sight, before being gunned down by a firing squad to the tune of "America the Beautiful."
VICE spoke with Waters to discuss his film career, Lady Divine's legacy, and to ask, after nearly five decades as a moviemaker, what's next.
Divine as Lady Divine on the set of Multiple Maniacs. Photo by Lawrence Irvine
VICE: What inspired Multiple Maniacs? John Waters: I was trying to figure out what was still legal to show on screen, as far as censorship went. So it was many things—exploitation and underground films, the Catholic Church, the movie Freaks, Pasolini. I just wanted to make a startling movie, which I think it actually still is.
How long did it take you to make the film? I was on LSD, I can't remember! This was the first movie I made with dialogue, where my characters could speak, and we would shoot it when we had money. I wrote it as we went along. I think it took eight or nine days.
" didn't want to be a woman—he wanted to be a monster." —John Waters
How does the film reflect the social and political realities of life in the late 1960s and early 70s? Well, it was made at the height of the hippie years, but certainly it's a punk movie, even though nobody knew what punk was then. The hippies that liked it then turned into punks. I think it was a parody of what would be considered politically correct today. I wasn't much of a hippie, but I was a yippie—yippies were political. And, in a way, the film was a political act. It was an outlet for our anti-social humor.
Is the rosary scene a reflection of your early life in the Catholic Church? The rosary scene is something that even I had never done. But I rebelled against the church—the first thing I ever rebelled against, my mother told me, was when they asked us to take the Legion of Decency pledge, to pledge that we wouldn't see sinful movies condemned by the church. I refused, and I was eight years old.
Filth is a theme that runs throughout Multiple Maniacs and, later, Pink Flamingos. Well, first the word was "camp," which was so corny to me. To me, camp is two older queens talking about Rita Hayworth under a Tiffany's lampshade. Then the word became "trash," but I had already done trash with Mondo Trasho, so, to me, that word was used up. But "filth" had a nice punch to it. It sounded a little criminal, a little dangerous. People were already calling me trash, and I needed to go further. In Multiple Maniacs, David Lochary was trash, Divine was filth, and together, they reached a new level of comic hideousness.
Divine was punk before punk. She has this 1950s stay-at-home-mom aesthetic, but her hairstyle and makeup are very punk. In what ways did your relationship with Divine's legacy change over the past fifty years? Well, as you know, Milstead died in 1988. Today, he's more respected than ever. Luckily enough, he died right after Hairspray opened, and he got all those great reviews.
He didn't want to be a woman—he wanted to be a monster. After he died, he got great reviews for the early movies. I'm still shocked he is dead, really. I bought a plot in the same graveyard, so did Mink and all my friends. We're all going to be buried together. We call it "Disgrace Land." I think that his influence is still very much felt. I'm proud of that for him, because he was such a good actor.
The theatrical poster for Multiple Maniacs
Drag mirrored Divine in the years following those films. I completely agree. Every drag queen on RuPaul's show has been influenced by Divine. They're all hip now. When I was young, drag queens were not hip. They all just wanted to be their mothers. I framed Divine right in front of Warhol's Liz, and Divine's hairdo in Multiple Maniacs is definitely styled after a demented Liz Taylor.
You also use Baltimore as one of your muses. What is it about Baltimore that inspires your films? It's the only city on the East Coast that's cheap enough to be a bohemian in. Baltimore always had a great mixture of people. It was rich kids, poor kids, black kids, white kids, gay kids, and everybody hung around together. To me, that was the big influence—the world of bohemia.
You've held careers as an artist and comedian, on top of filmmaking. What's next for you? Oh, I've had loads of careers. I like them all the same. They're just different ways to tell stories.
And lots! I'm working on two books. I'm booked for the next few years. I'm fine. I got a job—just none of them are movies right now.
Multiple Maniacs opens today, Friday, August 5, in New York City at the IFC Center. Director John Waters will be present for a Q&A after the 7:20 PM show.
Thomas Nast's drawing of draft rioters in Printing House Square. Image courtesy of Hachette Book Group
New York City has a reputation of being a liberal place, but the history of New York is much more convoluted and conservative than most textbooks would have you believe. John Strausbaugh, the author of the new book City of Sedition: The History of New York City During the Civil War, writes that New York was perhaps the most pro-slavery city in the North and fought hard to prevent the Civil War from happening.
NYC also benefitted greatly from slavery: It's the same things that make New York the rich and attractive place today that made it a partner in slavery leading up to the war, namely its ties to finance and commodities trading. New York was enriched by slavery, and then enriched again by the war effort.
Strausbaugh has made a living writing detailed histories of New York (his last book was a 400-year history of New York's Greenwich Village), and City of Sedition is no different in its expansive coverage of the city during the Civil War. It documents the surge of immigrants before the war, the fights between local politicians in the city and abolitionists in Washington, and the role of finance in both hindering the war effort and supporting it once it got underway. It's a history of the Civil War told through the lives of its constituents—newspapermen, politicians, activists, immigrants. But it's also a profile of a rambunctious, complicated, and counterintuitive city—a profile that still feels applicable to New York today. VICE spoke with the author this week to get his take on why this history of New York has been mostly forgotten.
An artist's rendition of New York City and Brooklyn in the 1850s, looking north.
VICE: For starters, when you think of New York City, you never really think of the Civil War. You think of Washington, DC, Abraham Lincoln, and the South. As you write in your book, New York was such a huge part of the war effort, so why do you think it's never really talked about? John Strausbaugh: New York's giant impact on American affairs was no secret at the time. But over the years, the stories about the Civil War have gotten simplified, as they always do as time passes. The story of New York's involvement is messy and confusing and contested, so that's part of the reason it got left out. I think another big reason is that Civil War history is only taught and only spoken about as military history now. We know in minute detail what happened at the battle at Chancellorsville, but we talk less about the larger issues and how the war happened, and that's where New York plays a big role. The nearest battle to New York was Gettysburg, which was 200 miles away, so it doesn't get spoken about in those kinds of stories.
If New York wasn't a place of battle, how did it affect the Civil War? New York was arguably the most pro-South, pro-slavery city in the North because it had a very long and deep involvement in the international cotton trade. Cotton blew up in the first half of the 1800s. It went from under a million pounds being exported from the United States around 1800 to more than two billion pounds by 1860. A lot of that was due to New York City's involvement.
New York City banks funded the plantations that spread all across the deep South. New York merchants supplied them everything from their pianos, to their plowshares, to the clothing that they gave their slaves to wear. New York shipped out a significant portion of the cotton that went up to New England and over to England to be milled. Those ships, when they came back bringing other goods back with them, brought them all into New York, where everybody came to buy them. So New York had this very long relationship with slavery and the South, and everybody from the bankers and the businessmen, to the dock workers and waiters in the hotel restaurants had something to do with the plantation industry and depended on it as much as any plantation owner did.
So New Yorkers were against abolition? In the decades leading up to the war, New Yorkers were very much against the abolitionists. The majority of New Yorkers were very hostile to Lincoln when he was coming up, and remained opposed to him at every step during the war. But at the same time, New York also had some very key abolitionists, like Horace Greeley, for instance, the editor of the New York Tribune. They tended to be guys from New England who came down to New York, so you have a sort of North-South war going on in New York City that mirrored in its way the war going on in the rest of the country. If it wasn't for Greeley and a small group of very visible, very vocal abolitionists in New York City bringing Lincoln to come speak to the Cooper Union in February of 1860, it's highly unlikely he would have made it into the White House.
New York seems to still play a similar role, in terms of dictating the economy of other states through its finance capital. Yes, except it's role in the US was even bigger . It was the banking center, the media center, the capitol of capital, the shipping center. It was the center of everything, and it was a giant metropolis by 1850s and 1860s standards. If you count Brooklyn, which at the time was a separate city, but a sister city, there were about 1,250,000 people here. That was twice as many people as in Philadelphia, which was the next biggest city. It also had a big political influence because it had all those people in it, and New York state had more electoral votes than any other state in the Union by a large margin. It had a huge impact on everything, and we tend to forget that now because the economy and banking and media and everything has been more spread out and dispersed over the last 30, 40 years. There is no central hub anymore, but it certainly was then.
Governor Seymour's notorious "My Friends Speech" to the draft rioters.
Even though New York didn't have any Civil War-related battles, it still erupted in violence because of the prospect of the end of slavery, right? New York has always been an immigrant city right from the very start, but huge numbers of them started coming in the 1840s—a lot of them Irish, fleeing the famine and political unrest in Ireland. The other group is German, also fleeing hunger and political unrest in what came to be called Germany (there was no Germany at the time). The Irish, being Catholics who were looked down on in the 1840s and 50s, were on the next to the lowest rung. They were just above black people in New York City, and vastly outnumbered them. There were only about 12,000 free blacks in New York in 1860. And because of their low social status, the black people and Irish people would compete for jobs.
Yet, at the same time, the Irish were terrified that if all the four million slaves in the South were freed, they'd come flooding to the North and take their jobs away. That was a big motivator for the working class, not just the Irish, but the Protestant working class New Yorkers at the time, and it was a big reason they were against abolition and against Lincoln. And so there was a lot of political unrest in New York which sometimes erupted into protest.
We think of New York as this rich, diverse city now, but you say that a lot of that wealth and cosmopolitanism is built on extremely problematic grounds, right? Yes, and even though many New Yorkers were pro-slavery and opposed the Civil War, once it happened, being New Yorkers, they figured out how to make a profit out of it. The banks lent great amounts of money to the Union's war effort, and much of that money was spent right back in New York for uniforms and horses and food and other supplies. They speculated on gold, which is always in fluctuation during war time. Wall Street went through the roof during the war, so there were people making, in a week, ten times more than the average worker made in a year on Wall Street. They created a whole new class of millionaires called the Shoddy Aristocracy because they weren't old money, but they were brand new money.
The cotton trade had been cut off at the beginning of the war, so New York businesses had to learn to diversify. They looked west, they built up the railroads, they got into petroleum, they got into wheat. The economy boomed throughout the war, and set the city up to come booming out of the war they had opposed the whole time into a huge post-war time of growth and development, the Gilded Age, which set it up to become the capital of the world in the 20th century. So we are still living in a city that, in large measure, was built during and after the Civil War.
View from the Steeple of St. Paul's Chapel at Broadway and Vesey Street
New York is often thought of as this liberal place. Why did you want to write a book with this kind of counterintuitive history? New York has always been a very confused and conflicting place. There were some of the most liberal liberals, like Horace Greeley and the New York Times, the latter which was very liberal from the start. At the same time, there were some of the most conservative conservatives here. You had abolitionists and you had people who were fiercely anti-abolitionist and racist, just plain, flat-out racist. I think the city goes up and down in its conservatism and liberalism. Its reputation as a very liberal city is mostly post-World War II, and now I don't think it's nearly the liberal city it was 30 years ago. It's much more conservative now. It fluctuates, but it's always mixed.
You've also written a book about the history of the West Village, and I understand your next book will be about New York, too. Why keep writing about the city? New York City history is so rich and so deep and it goes back 400 years. Nowhere else in the US can say that, at least in terms of white people. It's so fragmented and so messy and so intricate that you can just dive in and be telling stories for ten more lifetimes. I'm always antsy when I hear people called "experts" in New York City history, because it's too big for any one person to be an expert in. You can be an expert in some corner of it, but even then, it's just too much. I'm a writer and I love writing about history. If you like writing and history, there's no place better to be then New York.
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Mink Stole as Mink and Divine as Lady Divine. Photo by Lawrence Irvine
Divine as Lady Divine on the set of Multiple Maniacs. Photo by Lawrence Irvine
