'My wish is to serve you': A dominatrix reveals her clients' most intimate fantasies - Profiles - People. After becoming a dominatrix and adopting the persona of the leather-clad Mistress Xena because of my resemblance to the warrior princess, I realised clients couldn't talk comfortably to me about their sessions. They'd clam up when I asked what sort of whip they wanted me to use or what persona I should adopt. Who could blame them? These were things they had thought about for years but if they ever raised the issue, it was probably to confusion, horror or derision. To ease the pressure, I encouraged clients to write a description of their ideal session beforehand. At first, I received only hand-written letters, but these are becoming less common, which is a shame, as you learn so much from a person's writing.
The letters come in all varieties. If I agree to see a client, they'll bring a letter to the session. You wouldn't know those things from the letters, which can insist on alarming degrees of torture. As told to Peter Watts. Dear Mistress Xena I do have strict no-go areas as follows: No, I Won’t Read Your Book if I Think You’re a Monster | BOOK RIOTNo, I Won't Read Your Book if I Think You're a Monster. Our Reading Lives features stories about how books and reading have shaped who we are and how we live.
It is open not only to regular Book Riot contributors, but to guest posters from the publishing industry, authors, and….you. If you are interested in telling us about a book that has been influential in your life, please contact us: community (at) bookriot (dot) com. I’ve been thinking a lot about Woody Allen’s recent lifetime achievement recognition at the Golden Globes and the media maelstrom that quickly ensued. Both Allen’s ex-partner Mia Farrow and their son (or possible Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra’s son) Ronan Farrow took to Twitter (the medium of the people!) To voice their outrage. That night Ronan posted “Missed the Woody Allen tribute – did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age seven before or after Annie Hall?”
Of course this is Book Riot, so let’s turn the focus over to books. Love and Math: Equations as an Equalizer for Humanity. By Maria Popova “Mathematics is the source of timeless profound knowledge, which goes to the heart of all matter and unites us across cultures, continents, and centuries.” French polymath Henri Poincaré saw in mathematics a metaphor for how creativity works, while autistic savant Daniel Tammet believes that math expands our circle of empathy. So how can a field so diverse in its benefits and so rich in human value remain alienating to so many people who subscribe to the toxic cultural mythology that in order to appreciate its beauty, one needs a special kind of “mathematical mind”?
Frenkel makes the same case for math that philosopher Judith Butler made for reading and the humanities, arguing for it as a powerful equalizer of humanity: Mathematical knowledge is unlike any other knowledge. Math also helps lift our blinders and break the shackles of our own prejudices: BEAUTY OF MATHEMATICS by Yann Pineill & Nicolas Lefaucheux Thanks, Kirstin Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr. Sherlock – The Empty Hearse – Time Out London. How did Sherlock survive the fall? Benedict Cumberbatch ‘I’m terrified about [the reaction]. Some will be disappointed, some will be amazed.’ Steven Moffat ‘Most of London was watching when we shot the reveal! It’s a puzzle with an answer, and sometimes the puzzle’s more fun than the answer.
The theories have been elaborate and brilliant, but there are only so many ways to avoid a pavement if you’re falling towards it – he doesn’t turn into a bat or anything. But we’re gonna play you mercilessly.’How bromantic is the reunion between Holmes and Watson? Martin Freeman ‘As far as John is concerned, Sherlock’s dead and he’s moved on – fallen in love with this woman [Mary Morstan] he hopes to marry. BC ‘Sherlock’s been away two years and he’s rusty about human relationships, especially with his best friend and with London.
‘The first conversation I had with Steven was “How did this happen?”. Mark Gatiss ‘There’s a lot of moving stuff: the reunion makes my hair stand on end. The Best of Brain Pickings 2013. Top 10 Instances of Open and Unapologetic Celebrity Cultural Appropriation in 2013! Thanks to Halloween, outdoor music festivals and the college Greek system having access to social media, people of color are constantly bombarded with acts of cultural appropriation, but with the help of rich and ignorant celebrities, 2013 had to be cultural appropriations’ most visible year yet! So, to those who attempt to add an entire race’s marginalized dress, dance or religious adornments to their own personal walk-in closets for the sake of ‘fashion’ and more importantly, to all the people of color/allies who haven’t been able to enjoy a moment’s peace on Facebook or YouTube this year without having to shout ‘REALLY?!”
At your computer screens (be sure you have a pillow to scream into handy), I bring you my Top Ten Instances of Open and Unapologetic Celebrity Cultural Appropriation in 2013! 10. Selena Gomez Refuses to Research the Backstory of the Bindi 9. Michelle Williams Dons Redface For Fashion 8. 7. 6. 5. Via abcnews.com 4. Via examiner.com 3. 2. 1. 30 Under 30: Humans of New York Photographer Brandon Stanton. Why New York City Is Known as “The Big Apple” Teachers' concern at child sexualisation. New research has revealed that many teachers are becoming increasingly concerned about the sexualisation of children, with a growing number of their pupils displaying behaviour that they view as inappropriate. A team at Alder Hey Children's Foundation Trust in Liverpool interviewed 22 teachers from primary, secondary and special schools.
They found that a majority reported an increase in the frequency and intensity of sexualised conduct, including lewd language and pressuring behaviour. Social networks and the wider media were seen as contributing to this, with children's ideas of right and wrong being changed by cultural and technological influences. The study also suggested that not enough is being done to help teachers in fighting this. Find out about becoming a member of the British Psychological Society. How to Pack Like Nellie Bly, Pioneering Journalist.
By Maria Popova Two Victorian women race against each other around the world, countering the cultural inertia of their era. “Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real,” science fiction godfather Jules Verne famously proclaimed. He was right about the general sentiment but oh how very wrong about its gendered language: Sixteen years after Verne’s classic novel Eighty Days Around the World, his vision for speed-circumnavigation would be made real — but by a woman. On the morning of November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, an audacious newspaper reporter, set out to outpace Verne’s fictional itinerary by circumnavigating the globe in seventy-five days, thus setting the real-world record for the fastest trip around the world. No female reporter before her had ever seemed quite so audacious, so willing to risk personal safety in pursuit of a story.
Circumstances demanded of Bly packing so masterful and efficient that it would put to shame even today’s most seasoned frequent flyers: The Ropes at Disney: 1943 Walt Disney Employee Handbook. By Maria Popova “If you unwittingly slip off the beam, it will give you painless nudge in the right direction. Please read it carefully.” In 1943, Walt Disney Productions’ personnel department set out to eliminate confusion for the company’s workforce with the publication of an employee handbook titled The Ropes at Disney. It was an effort to reconcile the need for organizational order with Disney’s effort to craft an image of an informal, irreverent, fun employer who seeks to “maintain a friendly relationship between Company and employee” (but, apparently, deems only the former worthy of capitalization).
Notice also the multiple cameos by this charming fellow, who appears to have a chronic ogling problem. Oh, wait, it’s 1943. The last page of the handbook features this lovely map of the Walt Disney campus: via @openculture Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount: Actress Maria Bello "Comes Out," Writes About What "Partnership" Even Means. The Art of Kissing: A 1936 Guide for Lovers. By Maria Popova “Like a bee that settles on the fragrant pistils of a flower, and sips in the nectar for honey, so should you sip in the nectar from between the lips of your love.”
Between Edison’s scandalous footage of the first kiss in cinema in 1896 and Bill Plympton’s quirky animated guide to kissing a century later, the public image of lip-locking underwent some radical transformations. In 1936, the year my grandmother was born, a man named Hugh Morris penned a small illustrated pamphlet titled The Art of Kissing (public library), in which he guided young lovers through the techniques, tricks, and “approved methods of kissing,” including such varieties as “the spiritual kiss,” “the nip kiss,” “the pain kiss,” “the surprise kiss,” “the eyelash kiss,” and “the French soul kiss,” as well as tips on how to prepare for a kiss and how to approach a girl. A section on “how to kiss girls with different sizes of mouths” advises: A kiss can never be absolutely defined. Donating = Loving. Life After Dating: Dealing With Crushes When You're In A Relationship.
So you’ve finally found The One (or at least The One For The Foreseeable Future) and you’ve committed to a serious relationship. Now what? In our new weekly column, Life After Dating, we’ll discuss the unique joys and challenges of coupledom. I’ve been with my boyfriend, Max*, for five years now. We are completely committed to each other and about as happy together as real-life couple can be. I don’t question the fact that we will be together forever. I don’t want to date anyone else. And yet, I still get crushes on other people. I’ve always been the crushing type. “I briefly fell in love with the cable guy today,” I’ll tell Max over cocktails. Max doesn’t seem to crush at all, but honestly, I think that’s more because of our different personalities than an indication of our levels of commitment. But I will admit that over the course of our five years, some of those fun, flirty little crushes have morphed into something bigger, something worth worrying about.
*Name has been changed. Dangerous Minds. Michael Gira’s band Swans have shape-shifted but plenty. They made their reputation with an extraordinarily punishing and shockingly nihilistic take on no-wave music in the 1980s, culminating in the colossal masterpiece Children of God . They then curve-balled their fans with relatively introspective and quietly mournful LPs at the decade’s turn. The ‘90s saw further experimentation, ending with the final album of their first incarnation, Soundtracks for the Blind in 1996. But whatever Swans’ approach, be it the bludgeoning riffs of their early years, the tape loop experiments of the mid ‘80s, or the early ‘90s acoustic efforts, the band’s oeuvre has been united, partly by musical and lyrical darkness, certainly, but also by the ability of all the band’s many lineups to conjure the elemental.
Swans went silent in 1997, after which Gira continued to work both solo and in The Angels of Light. I just wanted to continue making music. . , an album that met with instant acclaim. A Bewitching History: Why Witches Ride Broomsticks. Among the throngs of this year's trick-or-treaters, hundreds of Americans will be dressed as Miley Cyrus or a minion from "Despicable Me," but more will go with a fail-safe getup. "Witch" once again reigns as the No. 1 costume for adults, according to the National Retail Federation's 2013 Halloween survey.
Many of the pointy-hatted sorcerers who roam the streets this Oct. 31 will be carrying broomsticks or besoms. But few likely know the murky tale of how witches came to be associated with those familiar household objects. The story — full of sex, drugs and Christian inquisitors — starts with poisonous plants like black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), sometimes called stinking nightshade.
[What's Witchcraft? Flying ointments Ingesting henbane, which is rich in powerful alkaloids, can cause hallucinations (if it doesn't kill you first). Lady Alice Kyteler, Ireland's earliest known accused witch, was condemned to death for using sorcery to kill her husband in 1324. Sexy witches. Codex Seraphinianus: History’s Most Bizarre and Beautiful Encyclopedia, Brought Back to Life. By Maria Popova “You see what you want to see. You might think it’s speaking to you, but it’s just your imagination.” In 1976, Italian artist, architect, and designer Luigi Serafini, only 27 at the time, set out to create an elaborate encyclopedia of imaginary objects and creatures that fell somewhere between Edward Gorey’s cryptic alphabets, Albertus Seba’s cabinet of curiosities, the book of surrealist games, and Alice in Wonderland. What’s more, it wasn’t written in any ordinary language but in an unintelligible alphabet that appeared to be a conlang — an undertaking so complex it constitutes one of the highest feats of cryptography.
Now, for the first time in more than thirty years, Codex Seraphinianus (public library) is resurrected in a lavish new edition by Rizzoli — who have a penchant for excavating forgotten gems — featuring a new chapter by Serafini, now in his 60s, and a gorgeous signed print with each deluxe tome. Thanks, Willy Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr. Modern Masterpieces of Comedic Genius: The Art of the Humorous Amazon Review. By Maria Popova “Momma didn’t raise a boy with no pink tongue, no sir.” UPDATE: Part 2 is here The creative acts of humor “operate primarily through the transitory juxtaposition of matrices,” Arthur Koestler wrote in his famous “bisociation” theory of how creativity and humor work.
New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff conceives of humor as “a conflict of synergies” in which “we mashup these things that don’t belong together that temporarily exist in our minds.” In his absurdist-by-its-very-proposition one-star review for the classic 1978 children’s book Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, “Sam” writes: Maybe this book belongs to a different time and place. Another, titled “Men, do not try these on!” I tried on a pair at the local mall and suddenly Texas Republicans started telling me what to do with my genitals. Another offers five stars and an ingeniously subtle play on women’s reproductive choice via footwear choice: I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to buy or wear shoes like this. 1001 things not to do in London: hit on people at the British Library.
Time Out’s award winning columnist Michael Hodges has been at it again. This week’s thing not to do in London – No 55: hit on people at the British Library. Feeling stressed out? So tightly wound up that your bumhole is within scratching distance of your ear? Are you ready to fall to your knees in the street and cry: ‘Make it stop! Of course you are. Say you’re rushing down Euston Road at lunchtime, like I am right now. But just as the chaos and despair threaten to engulf me, I glimpse the figure of a naked man through an ironwork screen. Not wanting to spoil her enjoyment, I sit as far away from the woman as I can. This is all a mistake. If you are staring intensely at a stone above someone’s head, it can appear to the person below the stone that you’re staring intensely at them. The quiet of the garden is broken by disturbed voices.
Read more of Michael’s many mishaps and malaises Tags: 1001 things not to do in london, british library, dating, michael hodges. Adda girl: Del Rey UK celebrates Ada Lovelace and female led Sci-Fi and Fantasy | Del Rey UK. Inside the Rainbow: Gorgeous Vintage Russian Children’s Book Illustrations from the 1920s-1930s. A look back at Dennis Wheatley's black magic novels. Little Boys Learn A Lot From Watching 'Star Wars,' And It Isn't All Good. Tony Wilson Interviews The Smiths. The girls of Storyville: Haunting pictures from New Orleans' red-light district reveal how prostitutes lived 100 years ago.
Dark and Mesmerizing Short Film EACH TIME AGAIN. The Odd Habits and Curious Customs of Famous Writers. Poets in Partnership: Rare 1961 BBC Interview with Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes on Literature and Love. Disney Princesses In Men's Costumes. The Myth Of The Eating Actress -- And Why It's Dangerous For Women. I hate Strong Female Characters. My Girlfriend Weighs More Than Me. So What? | Love + Sex. Huffington Post. My secret life as a graffiti artist. Partners Swap Makeup Routines for Genius 'MADE UP' Project. THE NATURE OF YOUR OPPRESSION IS THE AESTHETIC OF OUR ANGER: The Art of Crass. XoJane. Fuck You, Men's Rights Activists. “Men’s Rights Activists” and the New Sexism | Opine Season.
Gender balancing the books | Alex Clark. Study: Reading novels makes us better thinkers. Daddy-Daughter Christian ‘Purity Ball’ celebrates virginity and intact hymens. Lego people are right to be angry – they have to live with Barbie | Ed Mayo. WAM! Hacking Group Declare War On EDL. Meet the new girl. Is NBC Trying to Stake Dracula Through the Heart With New Adaptation? Mr Bloom, the sex god of CBeebies. How Can Consumers Tell if a Company Is Socially Responsible Abroad? How Coca-Cola's Ruthless Business Tactics Created a Despicable Global Powerhouse. 10 Psychological States You've Never Heard Of... and When You Experienced Them. The queerness of love: A Jewish case for same-sex marriage | Opinion.