a directory of wonderful things

[helenic]

As well as reading about the election and writing about fear, I've spent quite a lot of time today (ah, Sunday afternoons! the bliss!) exploring Boing Boing and coming across some rather fantastic stuff, including an essay entitled "I Shit My Pants": Spontaneous Ancient Literary Structure in Modern Colloquial Speech, and The London Review of Books' Personals Column, which BB.net describes as "funny, steamy ads written by bookish middle-aged Britons looking for a casual shag". Some of my favourites:

Lazy, horny, Luddite flâneur, male, 52, seeks buxom, cheerful, affectionate female with low expectations, who wants to have lots of sex. This idler has a few cultural interests for the moments in between – poetry, art, film and opera amongst them. Down-to-earth, amiable – him, and you. No texts or emails please. Just letters, telephone, human contact. I did say I was a Luddite. Box no. 08/02

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Box no. 08/06

Yes, sir. I can boogie. Man. Academic. 62. Quite possibly gay. Box no. 08/12

Massive-breasted heiress, 38, seeks witty Nobel-awarded intellectual beef-cake gardener-chef-poet with stonking pecs. Like me, you are dynamic, hilarious, serious, ironic, passionate, practical, affectionate, kind, funny, have most of your own legs, and are startled to find yourself still cruising the aisles of the Lurve Bazaar. Unlike me, you don’t exist. Am I right? If so, will consider any M who can make conversation, sense, a living, friends, four cooked meals, hot love and me laugh. Box no. 07/01

I'm half tempted to leave one myself. Watch this space.

I've also discovered the fond and satirical Harry Potter art of wizzart which is quite simply brilliant. Self-styled as "the worst HP art on the internet", remarkably expressive MS Paint cartoons that mock the books, fandom, and themselves. Including the story of how Arthur and Molly ended up with seven children. Genius.

Comments

[snowpiratess.livejournal.com]

My mum has a subscription to London Review of Books, and when I picked up a copy the personals were definitely the best bit. I noticed that they offer a bottle of wine for the most origional one. I say you go for it!

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I hadn't known about the LRB until today but I love it! I've spent long hours reading essays. I wish I could afford a subscription but I'm poor.

I'm scared though that I'm too young to leave a personal. And also I think that you have to subscribe first. They don't let you register unless you have a subscription. But £63 a year! It works out as a bit less than £3 per issue, which is quite good value, but it's a lot of money in one go. Darn it!

[snowpiratess.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it myself, there's such an excellent variety of subject matter. I particularly remember reading something about the Victorian upper classes fondness for slumming... My mum was given the subscription as a christmas present, so I didn't know it cost that much. Rather a pity it comes out so often, really.

Perhaps you could ask for a subscription as birthday/christmas/graduation present?

[lizw.livejournal.com]

That's a fantastic cartoon. I've friended her - thanks for the link.

[lzz.livejournal.com]

I always meant to read the personal ads in the London Review of Books after hearing about the story behind A Round-Heeled Woman (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400060117/103-9188760-7092611?v=glance). She put an ad in the LRB which read: "Before I turn 67--next March--I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me." However, I then got distracted because the book was pretty awful and I couldn't even finish it; it was just like an elderly Bridget Jones, interspersed with anecdotes about the rest of her life which seemed to have come from some kind of analysis-created delusion that a) her life was interesting and b) she could write well.

So thanks for reminding me about them again - I shall read them instead of the book.

Oh, and well done on the dissertation!!

[libellum.livejournal.com]

unfortunately my parents are Poor and considering what else you could get for the money, I can't see myself doing so. But I shall continue to read it online until I am Rich and can buy the subscription myself!

Yesterday I read this ace article on rats, it was fascinating.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

ah, it's brilliant. I love the H/HR strip as well. And the gangsta one. Her faces! so good!

[libellum.livejournal.com]

That book looks fabulously vile. Something about that particular typescript and shade of pink. It's a book I've considered writing myself (older woman thinking about relationships etc) which proves conclusively that it must be naff.

I'm slightly disappointed that there aren't any personals I'd consider responding to. Although I bet lots of LRB subscribers are secretly complete perverts.

well done on the dissertation!!
not over yet - I'm starting the hardcore re-write today. But thankyou!

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

Highly entertained, both by the ads and by Wizzart... thanks:)

we seeing you tomorrow?

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I really really really want to see you. But it's not looking likely. a) you can't get an overnight return, two singles is irrationally pricey and 6 hours on a coach in one evening = not fun, plus I'd have to leave before secutatrix arrived, b) I should be at choir because I kind of didn't go for all of last term, and c) it's the Calling. and d) I should be working. But I want to see you, so I'm going to pout about it lots and concoct alternate plans for the weekends after my thesis is handed in. Yes?