I have a couple of short "on the syllabus" posts in the works, but somehow the books I'm writing up never seem to be the books I have with me when I sit down at a computer with some time to put together a blog post. So those'll have to wait for tomorrow's day of catching-up (fingers crossed they get the power in our apartment back on, or they'll have to wait a little longer!)
In the meantime, here are some links from the week's feeds.
Haute Macabre offers us silence in the library, a fashion spread set among cobweb-swathed bookshelves (and I was so proud of myself for getting the post title reference!)
The web comic sad pictures for children asks do you feel happy or insane?
I'm really hoping we get to see the Tim Burton retrospective at MOMA before it closes next April.
CarnalNation highlighted the results of a (totally unscientific) British sex survey done by London's Time Out magazine which I found a strangely fascinating read. They questions and multiple-choice options are inherently flawed, but some of the comments were fun and the Time Out editors who pulled the results together clearly weren't taking the endeavor that seriously.
In Common Claims, posted at the National Sexuality Research Center, historian Sharon Block suggests similarities between Early American discourses about sexual assault and the media coverage of Roman Polanski's recent arrest.
Similarly, in "Gay Priests? No, Confused Priests" Marty Klein writes at Sexual Intelligence about researchers at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice who are looking into the causes of sexual abuse in the catholic church.
Courtney at Feministing posted a round-up of responses to an earlier column she wrote about feminism and masculinity.
Hadley Freeman asks "do lesbians rule Hollywood?" (if so I never got the memo and I'm wondering where I sign up for my percent of the royalties!) Somewhat puzzling, but still a fun read.
In the same vein, Kelsey Wallace over at Bitch Magazine reports that acording to Marcus Buckingham of the Huffington Post the gender wars are over and women won! (it was a war? and we did? why does no one ever tell me these things??!?)
The shortlist for the bad sex awards has been announced (Philip Roth wins particular notice for claiming in the text of his sex scene that he is not writing "soft porn." Dude. If you're going to write a sex scene, don't get all squamish about it in public! Although frustratingly enough he's right: it's not soft porn, it's excruciatingly bad porn.)
The bad sex scene shortlist prompted Sarah Duncan at the Guardian to ask "where's the good sex in fiction?"
While we're on the subject of bad sex in fiction, Hanna forwarded me this I-choked-on-my-cocoa hilarious review of the second Twilight movie, which hit theaters this week. It's tough picking my favorite passage, but I think it might just be:
Bella gets dumped by Edward (for her own safety, naturally), and spends thirty minutes grieving via night fits normally seen in three-year-olds. Edward’s spirit appears at random intervals to scold her like she actually is one. Jacob wants her to be his girlfriend—except it’s too dangerous—except she’d better not go back to Edward Cullen or else.
Can we all say Wuthering Heights 2.0? It's only a matter of time before baby Renesme (yes, that really is the baby's name) gets dangled from the second floor balcony of the Grange.
*image credit: iphone brushes life drawing by Quaxx @ Flickr.
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