EnglishSpace

It's late, and this might be simpleminded. I apologize.

I've said this before, in other contexts: people crave tidy endings. Quick endings.

"Hasn't this gone on long enough?" Whatever "this" is. I'm not sure that blame is the word, but we certainly think in terms of plot resolution these days, especially with the speed things happen on the internet. At the most, we tolerate a longer story arc thanks to Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I've watched, mostly on the sidelines, because I can't argue my way out of a paper bag. I've noticed here and there people expecting moments of catharsis, and then resolution...and closure.

( Read more...if you have the fortitude. No names, mostly abstract. But I have thoughts. )

Dear Laurell,

I really loved your first six or seven Anita Blake novels. There's nothing I like better than a bloody good, bloody supernatural horror/detective novel. I know that some of your readers lost interest when the novels became bloodier, but I didn't--I liked them as horror novels.

Some of the readers who appreciated the Anita Blake series as horror novels fell by the wayside when you added more sex and de-emphasized the horror and police procedural elements. Not me. As it happens, sex and bondage are a few of my other favorite things. The wereleopards in leather hit every sexual button I own. The shift in genre (for that's what it was) didn't faze me--although just between the two of us, I think it would be good for the books if you'd remember that Anita has a job.

I've read all of the Anita Blake novels, and I call myself a fan. But now that I've started reading the Merry Gentry books, I've started to notice something. At first it was like an itch between the shoulder blades...

...then it was more like being attacked by a badger trying to gnaw out my eyeballs--really impossible to ignore.

An absence of lesbians is one thing. The lack of something is fairly easy to overlook. It takes some looking to notice something that isn't there, and a great deal of work to find evidence in the text to support the argument that there is something that the author SHOULD be doing and isn't.

When I noticed that nearly all of the lesbian or bisexual women in the Anita Blake series were at least slightly evil, I rationalized it. They were either vampires or werecreatures, usually drawn from among the antagonists, and it was really quite understandable.

Except Anita, bless her neurotic little heart, feels compelled to let us know that she's not attracted to any of them. And that's okay. We understand. She's comfortable with the bisexuality of the men in her life, which is great, and she's coming to terms with kink, which is even better.

If the novels are a little bit formulaic, well, I feel that as readers we owe you a little bit of latitude there, because after twenty books it's got to be hard to come up with novelty. And look, I own the entire Wheel of Time series, as well as all of your books--formulas work. What many your readers are looking for is the same again, please, with extra wereleopards.

But after a certain point, Ms. Hamilton, I think it's safe to assume that certain things have been established. Anita and Merry are straight. They are Kinsey zeroes. They are not lovers of women, they are not even slightly bi-curious despite lovingly describing their own breasts dozens of times per novel. We totally believe you.

So would it have been so much to ask that you trust us, your loyal readers--I feel that I can call myself a loyal reader, having invested approximately $188.79 and at least 63 hours of my time on your books--to read one 300-word lesbian scene in Seduced by Moonlight without adding a lengthy disclaimer that it was unintentional, occult, someone else's fault, and void in all fifty states and the District of Columbia?

The sheer insistence of these disclaimers is beginning to look peculiar, Ms. Hamilton. The repetition borders on the bizarre. As readers, we got the idea after the first dozen or so novels. I'm willing to sign papers to that effect.

I've decided that the most likely explanation is that you are in fact Wintermute, and that your installation of WriteFic.exe has some corrupted files. If so, it's an easy fix. All you have to do is go into the ABlakeHangups directory and delete the omgwtflesbians.dll file, reboot, and you'll be right as rain.

Yours truly,
Esmeraldus

PS- Send more wereleopards.

POSITION: Assistant Professor of English

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PMLA Alternative Source Citing

I'm cracking up.

I have been meaning to post pictures of these all week. They arrived in the mail just as I was getting in my car to drive to Virginia to visit sunshinepeachy . I stopped long enough to apply them to my iPod and Blackberry, but I never found time to take pictures and post them. I have been more or less offline for a week. I have ignored email for whole days.

Yes, at least one person thought I was angry.

Well...I needed it. Now I'm home, and you can see what the post held for me last week.

GelaSkins are essentially very tough stickers designed to protect iPods, cellphones, and other devices. They are removable and can be repositioned. Unlike most cases, they add virtually no bulk, so my Blackberry still fits in its case, and my iPod still fits in the FM transmitter dock in the car.

I got two different skins by the same artist, so they aren't exactly the same, but they complement each other: The Great Wave and Mt. Fuji, both by Katsushika Hokusai. (You can even download a wallpaper for the cellphone to match the skin.)

( Photos )
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Can anyone confirm that Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., said, "A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimensions."

It's attributed to him all over the web, but I can't pin down a source.

Q. What do you get when you cross an elephant with a kangaroo?

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New icon, feel free to snaffle. EDIT: I can think of scores of posts, maybe hundreds that should retroactively feature this icon.



Grading, do not want.

The cats are wrestling and have worked up enough static electricity that I can hear their fur crackling from across the room. I don't want them to come over here and touch me.