Subverse Aphrodesia

Yea! Dirty Found has finally arrived.

By the publishers of Found Magazine the 80 page book contains "pervy Polaroids, sleazy birthday cards, raunchy to-do lists, nasty poetry on napkins, illustrations-- anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's sex life."

"It's just like our sister, Found Magazine," the publishers write, "only sleazier."

Copies are now available at independent bookstores or on-line for $10 plus shipping. Please note the following disclaimer before you buy.

"You can see totally people's junk in the magazine (though faces are obscured). But, we gotta tell you, it's not that erotic. SOME people might wanna jack off to this stuff, but don't be expecting no HOT PORNO ACTION from Dirty Found. That is, until super-sexy people start losing their stuff and you lucky finders pass it our way."

Happy Thanksgiving!

Stray cats are thriving in New Jersey right now!

Squirrels, however, aren't faring quite so well.

An online casino said it placed the winning 28,000-dollar bid for a 10-year-old partly eaten grilled cheese sandwich, seen here, said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary, and wants to take it on a world tour(AFP/OFF).

Evidence #20: America is obsessed with the culural conservative movement.

What do you imagine the personalized messages on some of these forwards might have been?

View the most EMAILED links for today (11/13/04) from TIME.com:

1. TIME - Leon Jaroff - : Faith-Based Parks?
2. Why Bush Has No Fear
3. Jesus and the FDA
4. TIME - Mitch Frank - : Conservatives Go RINO Hunting
 

Here's a shocker. Iraquis have been freed from glorifying Saddam with their artwork only to be preoccupied with the violence that continues to ravage their country.

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports in "Art Under Fire," yesterday in The Guardian

"Man in Abu-Ghraib," a marble figurine by Iraqi artist Karim Khalil Photo by Ghaith Abdul.

Evidence # 44: Culture War Escalates

"Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to clinicians and researchers testifying before a Senate committee Thursday," reports Ryan Singel in the Nov. 19 on-line edition of Wired.

Read "Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?" 

In another blow against sex... WNET New York refuses to air Kinsey film promo because it's "too provacative."

The news just keeps getting worse.
Apparently there are now computer/programs that could and would eliminate the need for a huge population of writers.

Really. Read Daniel Akst's essay "Computers as Authors? Literary Luddites Unite!" published today in The New York Times.

Can a computer possibly duplicate the artistic nuances of human creativity?

Goddess Flesh

River Hudson is speaking for free at Wilkes University a week from today. I'd love to be there, but I'm guessing I'm going to miss it.

Among other things, River Hudson wrote:
"It took getting an HIV-positive diagnosis for me to realize I was a sex goddess. If there is one thing that will improve a girl's sex life it is finding out she has AIDS. Oh, you must be thinking I made a mistake."

Here's one of River's column from 1997" "How to be a Sex Goddess" Five Easy Steps to a Hot New You.

I don't get it. What's the point of bringing this up now?

Gee, anything to do with the 11 states that banned gay marriage on Nov. 2? Are there no new stories to report on? If the most famous gay hate crime in the country's recent past suddenly ceases to be about violent homophobia, what is accomplished? Hate crimes against gays no longer exist? There is no such thing, after all?

Is it possible the case of Matthew Shepard was not a hate crime? I totally buy the methamphetamine addiction angle. McKinney and Henderson paid for a pitcher of beer with dimes and nickels. Obviously they were hard up for cash and Shepard was sort of notoriously loaded.

They may have robbed him for the money but the punishment they chose to bestowed upon him was, even if only subconsiously, because he was gay. Because he was weak. Weak and fearless and optimistic and somehow more alive than they were. They hated that. And they wanted to kill that.

"Artists are the face of God. I'm very moved by artists who have mastered their craft or are on a creative path -- but I think society has confused artistry with anyone who has found a way to [be] heard."
-- JT Leroy, author and celebrity admirer, Colors (Summer 2004)

"Talking Stick" the Nov. 18 Utne Web Watch e-newsletter

This week in Savage Love...

Dan annouces a GGG contest in order to distract himself from political depression.
The grand prize: three days and two nights in pervy Las Vegas, Nevada! Deadline for entries is December 10, 2004.

A vote by a local deer association to initiate a human culling sparks a flurry of activity on the Talkback 16 on-line message board.

On a lighter note... I love this crazy story about Nevada's soon to be ex-poet laureate, 82-year-old Norman Kaye.

A member of the Mary Kaye Trio, a Vegas lounge act, back in 1967, Kaye charmed then Nevada Gov. Grant Sawyer. As far as anyone can tell, Kaye's never published a poem in his life, but he's notably upset now that the Nevada Arts Council want to replace him.

I knew I should have been a neurologist!

In Cosmetic Neurology: Makeovers for Brains Laura Beil writes:
"cosmetic neurology could one day mean not just sharpening intelligence, but also elevating other dictates of the brain - reflexes, attention, mood and memory."

Meanwhile... on PBS, A new Frontline special titled The Persuaders examines trends in advertising and marketing, in particular the oversaturation of all possible space with ads and the effect that is having on society.

One issue the program brings up is neuromarketing or the study of the brain's responses to ads, brands, and the rest of the messages littering the cultural landscape.

Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert acknowledgles that scientists still have a long way to go but insists that neuromarketing could "eventually lead to complete corporate manipulation of consumers -- or citizens, with governments using brain scans to create more effective propaganda."

One concern is the impact of marketing-related diseases on children. Ruskin charges there is already an epdemic and those calamaties include: obesity, type 2 diabetes, alcoholism, eating disorders and eventual death from smoking-related illnesses.

In the cover story of this week's Village Voice -- Our Vanished Values Where they went, and why And how they might come back -- Michael Feingold writes
:
"For make no mistake, this is the election in which American Christianity destroyed itself. Today the church is no longer a religion but a tacky political lobby, with an obsessive concentration on a minuscule number of social topics so irrelevant to questions of governance that they barely constitute political issues at all. These are the points of contention tied into what are blurrily referred to as "moral values," though they have almost nothing to do with the larger moral question of how one lives one's life, and everything to do with the fundamentally un-Christian and un-American idea of forcing others to live the way you believe they should.

Excerpt from The Secret Diaries of Kitty Burbank, Chapter 11

Kitty sipped on very strong mug of coffee and reflected on that lusicous evening of unplanned debauchery. "It was the election that made me do it," she accused. After months of good behavior, the desire had crept up on her so fast she couldn't have seen it coming. She had been so good for so long, but resisting tempation seemed like a silly thing to do in this new America. Their America. It had rekindled the need for her secret identity. A life that could be lived in the shadows, beyond their judgements.

You know it's been a bad week when Dan Savage can't even bring himself to write about sex.

In the current edition of ArtPapers Richard Meyer takes a look at "three instances in which contemporary artists have been subjected to public attacks and censorship campaigns" in the 21st Century.

"AFTER THE CULTURE WARS"
Censorship works best when no one knows it’s happening
By Richard Meyer

Last January, the White House dispatched Laura Bush to announce a proposed eighteen million dollar increase to the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts, the agency’s largest boost in over twenty years. However, there’s a catch: almost all of the funds are reserved for an initiative entitled “American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius,” an exhibition of art, dance, music and theater to tour all fifty states, including small towns and military bases, over three years. “Through American Masterpieces,” Mrs. Bush affirmed, “citizens will reconnect with our Nation’s great artistic achievement and rich cultural heritage.” The First Lady furnished no details about what the show would include but, as a columnist in the San Francisco Chronicle wryly noted, “It’s a safe bet Piss Christ won’t be featured.”

Click here to read the rest of the story

Alma Lopez, Our Lady, 1999, iris print on canvas, 14 by 17 inches (courtesy the artist).

Thanks to AlterNet's Lakshmi Chaudhry for making the rest of us feel sane...
THE UNBEARABLE DARKNESS OF BEING

Some reports say "Presidential Votes Miscast on E-voting Machines Across the Country like this one from Electronic Frontier Foundation. But shhhh... we're not allowed to talk about such things right now.
Can't be a sore loser whining liberal. Not right now while the country is so wounded and divided.

Some people planned to protest no matter the results of Tuesday's election.

Ah... it warms my heart to see activists arrested in Pittsburgh and on Wall Street, too.

"While billions of dollars are being made off the war by the companies represented in the New York Stock Exchange," says participant Tom Good, with the Socialist Party, "we just have to look around New York City to see the costs of Bush's war policies -- education funding cuts, more expensive subway services, cutbacks at hospitals and emergency rooms, closed fire stations." In the meantime, both Bush and Kerry accepted large contributions from corporations on the NYSE.

"The real story of the Bush/Kerry race is that neither candidate listened to the millions of Americans who say, "Bring the Troops Home Now, End the War in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Ruth Benn, Coordinator, National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, and a member of NYC WRL. "We can't fight terrorism with the terror of missiles, bombs and occupation," she concluded.