Jesse Bering, he of the hilarious penis column fame, is at it again. This time, we learn everything we ever (or perhaps never) wanted to know about testicles.
Read the rest at Jezebel and then go on to read this:
Why Do Human Testicles Hang Like That? [Scientific American]
Raina Kelley | Newsweek
Once upon a time, it took actual talent to become a celebrity in America. Whether you achieved fame in arts and letters, athletics, or politics, it was necessary to have at least some modicum of skill. But now, thanks to cable television and the Internet, there is an endless appetite for “content.”
Content is a 21st-century invention for programming that too often falls short of the label “art,” but is usually entertaining nonetheless. For instance, Mad Men and The Sopranos are television art; reality TV and game shows are content. Vanity Fair and The Atlantic Monthly are stellar examples of the art of magazine writing, while Us Weekly and OK! are cover-to-cover content.
This need for content has created an opportunity for a young, enterprising person who’s willing to do anything to be famous but has no discernible skills. The tabloids abound with superstars who are “famous for being famous,” to crib the phrase most commonly used for this phenomenon. Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Nicole Richie, and Lauren Conrad are just some of the A-list names who enjoy the power and privilege of worldwide fame even though it is difficult to name a single project in which they showed an inkling of aptitude. They cannot act or sing, nor are they renowned for outrageous acts of charity, political courage, or even intelligence. They’re each adorable; but none is a great beauty on par with Halle Barry or Angelina Jolie. What each has, it seems to me, is the ability to turn their personal lives into viral video. But before you come to the conclusion that keeping the self-perpetuating fire of fame burning is, in itself, a skill, I promise you that it is not. Anybody can do it. You just have to follow the seven tried and true steps to celebrity—no skills required.
Continue reading
I had started to read this article at Pandagon because the whole Prejean thing is just so bizarre to me. I could care less if she made a gagillion sex-tapes. I mean, really, who cares? Well, apparently right wingers and christian fundies have all lost their shit over it, because they were more than willing to use Prejean to sell their own agenda, and then got shocked when she wasn’t as squeaky pure as they’d like to present. Are they ever? It’s always the ‘wingers and xtians that get caught doing the weird stuff, am I right?
Anyway, in reading the article, I came across this, and I’m nodding at the screen, and even pointing, like there’s someone sitting beside me *rolls eyes at my weird internet behaviour* but what I’m getting at is that Pandagon has hit the nail on the head of just what’s wrong with these people and their need to sanitize and “fix” women. Read the whole thing of course, but here’s a bit:
…it’s not “sex” that’s used to sell, but a specific kind of sexual imagery, one that erases men’s bodies as objects of desire, and focuses strictly on highly airbrushed female ones. And modern American fundies, being highly pro-capitalist, have decided they can embrace the “sex sells” mantra to sell their own worldview, up to and including their anti-sex message.It’s not as contradictory as it seems. The advertising industry version of “sex” is actually pretty prudish, as I theorized in my post at Double X about plastic surgery for female genitalia. Female bodies have to be sanitized and morphed to an unrecognizable shape before they can be deemed safe for sexual objectification. What I said then:
The airbrushed plastic perfection promoted by Playboy and Maxim magazine are to sex as EPCOT Center is to world travel: experience simulation for those too cowardly to truly dive in, but too egotistical to admit their cowardice.
Plastic surgery, airbrushed images, and the extremely lucrative hair removal market are our modern version of the menstrual hut—ritual purification in order to prepare the female body for sexual use without getting the man fucking/looking at it dirty. Taboos prey on the human mind very easily, which is why the Brazilian went from unheard of 15 years ago to something that many young men feel is mandatory so that touching a ladygarden isn’t gross.
In this atmosphere, the Christian fundie tendency to fetishize virginity, and to use sexual objectification to sell itself and an anti-sex message makes perfect sense. On top of plastic surgery and Brazilian waxes, virginity is no big thing, right? That’s why our minds aren’t actually blown by a woman in high heels and a bikini talking up the strict Christian message about sexuality. They’ve been using sex to sell an anti-sex message for a long time now…
Read more here, from The Pursuit of Harpyness:
Our Labia Look Just Fine, Thanks.
A recent article from Publishers Weekly announced the launch of Carina Press, a new imprint of romance publisher Harlequin that will exclusively publish eBooks. This got us thinking about other eBook-only publishers, a group that’s really growing in a publishing world where eReaders are getting more popular every day.
Continue reading
This explains a LOT!
NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME, England, Nov. 9 (UPI) — A British researcher said his study indicates using swear words increases a person’s tolerance for pain.
Richard Stephens of England’s Keele University said he compared the pain tolerance of 67 students of both sexes when they each dropped a hand into ice-cold water, the Boston Globe reported Monday.
Stephens said most of the subjects found their pain tolerances increased when they were allowed to exclaim swear words as opposed to neutral language.
“It seems to (work) via the emotional content of swearing — people appear to shock themselves into a state of emotional arousal (the fight or flight response), which is known to have a pain-lessening effect,” Stephens said.
Stephens said he doesn’t see why people in pain shouldn’t swear.
“What’s the harm in swearing if it helps you cope? Provided there are no children around, of course,” he said.
Via: Gizmodo:
Sure this reproduction of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam is a lil’ bit perverted by the inclusion of a coffee cup, but look closer. The entire masterpiece was painted using only coffee
I’m amazed that I haven’t seen these coffee art clones before. They’re the creation of Karen Eland, a former barista, who one day decided to dip a paint brush into her coffee cup instead of nibbling on biscotti. By gradually building layers of espresso she’s able to create a range of tones and what must be the tastiest smelling paintings ever.
See lots more at the link 
All Your Characters Talk The Same — And They’re Not A Hivemind!
It’s one of the biggest problems plaguing fiction — and it seems to hit genre fiction especially hard sometimes: the characters who all sound exactly alike. How do you keep your characters from all having the same voice?
This is something I’ve struggled with in my own fiction, and it’s a much messier problem than you would think. Even when you feel like your tough woman space captain and your sensitive young astro-biologist are incredibly well drawn and full of character and neuroses, and nobody would ever imagine they were the same person. And then you’re looking over your novel for the tenth time, and you realize that they’re all sounding absolutely identical.
It makes sense, in one way — your characters are all aspects of you, after all. They all came out of your head, unless you based them on your friends or other fictional characters. (And even if they’re based on someone else, they’re still your creations, when it comes down to it.) You’re speaking through their mouths. But that doesn’t mean they’re doomed to sound like you, or like the same person. This is totally a solveable problem.
Here are some solutions to the issue, ranging from least crude to crudest. If the least crude solution works for you, then you don’t need to worry about the rest of them — but I’ve used all of these methods at various times, and there’s no shame in using tough measures on your characters.
Continue reading
The Guardian | Alison Flood
The Bone Church, a narrative work about an ill-fated jungle expedition, appears in November edition
Marge Simpson’s appearance as its cover girl has attracted a frenzy of media attention, but this month’s edition of Playboy magazine contains another, almost equally unexpected celebrity appearance: from author Stephen King, making a very rare outing as a poet.
“When travelling to the heart of darkness, terror is not an emotion – it’s a destination,” writes King in the issue, out now, before launching into The Bone Church. Told by a man in a bar, the poem is the story of an ill-fated expedition into a jungle. “There were thirty-two of us went into that greensore / and only three who rose above it,” writes King. “We were thirty days in the green, and only one of us came out.”
