“Obsession” was interesting. Strange how other people’s concept of obsession is different from mine.
What about fear? Which novels or films do you feel are based on the theme of fear? Or worry, which is perhaps fear’s younger brother.
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Obsession.
Many novels and films are based on a character’s obsession. It may be murderous obsession, as in Peter Abrahams’ novel The Fan, filmed under the same name with Robert De Niro as the crazed football fan, and Wesley Snipes as the targeted player.
Often the obsession will be strongly sexual, as in Fatal Attraction, the 1987 film starring Michael Douglas. Sometimes the sexual element of the obsession will be against society’s taboos – Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann, filmed starring Dirk Bogart, or Lolita, Vladimir Naboakov, 1955, filmed twice.
The obsession may be with a gruesome situation – The Premature Burial, Edgar Allan Poe, or his nasty short story Berenice, both used as the basis of films many times.
What novel or film on obsession springs to your mind?
Or any work on fascination, which is obsession in its early, reasoning stage.
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Suddenly I realise just how essential pastors are to our erotic entertainment. If they weren’t there to be shocked, half the fun of discussing all the sweaty pawing of their errant sheep would be gone. As has been said of God: if they did not exist, it would be necessary to invent them.
I really must stop hanging out on theologianscafe so much. There’s so much discussion of lust there nowadays, it’s making even me more vulgar, and that takes some doing.
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Born on the twenty-sixth of January, 1918, while the First World War still raged, Philip rolled out his first short story a few months after the Second ended, and has been going strong ever since.
With sixty-one novels and eighty or so short stories to his credit, he has seen the world change to the openness of today, from the days of -
“Oh look Daphne, this book has “damn” in it no less than seven times; we can’t allow that on the shelves of our library.”
“We certainly can’t Mrs. Puddingbutt. What if ordinary people were to read it and be corrupted?”
And he can truly claim to be one of the writers who helped change it. His first published work, “The Lovers,” won him the Hugo Award for “most promising new writer” in 1953, and dealt with the concept of sexual relationships between humans and aliens from other planets. “The Lovers” has been described as the first science fiction story to feature sexuality as a major theme.
Sexuality was to be one of the controversial themes Philip introduced to his chosen genre, Science Fiction. “The Lovers” has been described as the first science fiction story to feature sexuality as a major theme, and was followed in 1960 by the remarkable and memorable collection of short stories, Strange Relations. and Flesh, the the story of a post-apocalyptic society in which one man was deified and made the source of all childbirth.
My own favourite is World of Tiers, (1965) the first in a series of seven dealing with adventures in a series of alternate universes. This series continues to World of Fire, published 1993.
In 1971 Philip commenced his other major series Riverworld – with To Your Scattered Bodies Go, an imaginative look at life after death through the eyes of Sir Richard Francis Burton, explorer and translator of The Enthused and One Arabian Nights. Doubtless it amused Philip that Sir Richard also had a reputation for controversy. The series continued through six volumes to River of Eternity, published 1983.
Farmer has also taken a fresh – and frequently highly sexualized – look at such literary characters as Tarzan, Doc Savage, and Sherlock Holmes.
But his most complex achievement – possibly started without thought of how big it would become – commenced with Tarzan Alive: A Definite Biography of Lord Greyest. This pseudo-biography lead to a vast structure of interlinking stories nowadays known as The Wold Newton Universe, based on the theory that many of our literary heroes descend from people genetically altered by the fall of a radioactive meteorite at Wold Newton, in Yorkshire, England, in 1795.
As I’m from that part of the world, I find this concept very intriguing. The meteor did fall - a monument marking its impact still stands in the little village – but as for the mutations…. I leave this to Philip and Win Scott Eckert, who co-authored Myths for the Modern Age in 2005, dealing in four-hundred pages with the complications of how characters as diverse as The Scarlett Pimpernel and James Bond.
And I see I made an error when I originally titled this blog. Philip Jose’s ninetieth birthday was on the twenty-sixth, but in January of this year.
However, today was the occasion of “Farmercon ’90,” held in late celebration at the Library of Peoria, Illinois, which I would have loved to have attended, but instead had to sit in Toronto, doing all kinds of boring crap.
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Once upon a time there was a wicked king.
He sent his warriors about the country, and they cut off all the women’s willies.
And all the women have been as mad as hell ever since.
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Once I watched our cat raise its litter of newborn kittens on a blanket in a cardboard box. At first they were blind and helpless, but soon they grew strong enough to leave her side and toddle across the kitchen floor. Sometimes their mother would pursue one of them, and briskly pin it down with one foot whilst administering a few quick licks, then let it go, duty done.
I don’t know if her purpose was to clean the kitten, or to place some kind of scent marking, or simply an overflowing of affection.
But it occurred to me that the world would be better if we two-legged animals treated each other the same. Less words, less discussion, less fussy procedures, less bureaucracy; just seize and lick on impulse, any time, any place.
We would be happier, more contented, and more filled with a feeling of love. And certainly cleaner.
Gather closer my friends: it is not everyday that you are allowed to hear such profundities.
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The most accurate answer you can give to most questions is probably “I don’t know.”
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This Sunday’s the third and final day of the famous, annual Gay Pride festival in Toronto, and the parade’s its high point.
I’m a male with a strong attraction to the opposite sex – I mean, if I could get back all the time, thought energy and cash spent chasing girls, I could easily put a man on Mars faster than the current program. Yet it’s always struck me as stupid, unfair, useless and totally dishonest to single out and persecute those members of society who emotionally prefer their own gender.
I’m not too familiar with changes of law in North America – this is some thing I’ll have to research – but in the UK the whole mess of forbidding laws were passed in 1876, and finally repealed in 1967, having achieved nothing whatsoever useful over a period of 91 years. The only “villain” of note to be corrected in this period was the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, whose brilliant career was ended by his conviction in 1895, for private actions which were nobody’s business but his and the dude he performed them with.
Why, I wonder, in a world where all manner of wars and savageries take place, should anyone care twopence what consenting people do with each other? Are there no more serious matters for us to get worked up about?
I’m away to the parade now. I’ll add a bit more later. Perhaps one hell of a lot more.
*****
I’m back, having had quite a good afternoon. Toronto’s a strange place, so prudish in some ways, so cool in others. What was it like? Brilliant sunshine, tons of floats, so many that they took over two hours to pass. The crowd cheered all the floats like crazy, and the walkers, and even the police, who were mainly on bicycles and hung around with beads. Everone seemed in a really good temper; fantastic holiday mood. If I’d had any prejudices, the difficulty wouldn’t have been getting rid of them, but succeeding in hanging onto them.
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It’s so important to understand the subject of this life. I don’t think the importance of truly grasping what this means can be over-emphasized. As human beings, we have an incredible brain, incredible talent. We can accomplish so many things—almost too many. Because we are alive, we can experience peace and joy. We can go to the moon and create space stations. We can peer into the deep, deep reaches of the universe. And because we are alive, we can also create wars, decimate this planet, and make it impossible for everything to exist.
Cell phones have saved many lives. But the same technology that is saving so many lives is also being used in weapons and a weapons delivery system that is wiping out more lives than it is saving. And the saving might happen over a period of a year, but the destruction happens within days.
So, it becomes obvious that we have to choose. And what should our choice be? Well, to put it in context, there is a place you can go that is not really real. It’s virtual. There, you can create an alter-personality of yourself. You can fly. You can do all the things you’ve always wanted to do but could never do, but only virtually, not really. In this virtual place, people buy apartments and sofas for apartments. But when you buy the virtual apartment and the furniture, you pay for it with real money. It’s a million-dollar-a-day business—$365,000,000 a year. And it’s growing. People even meet in this virtual place and get married!
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I bring a message about reality, a message that says, “What you are looking for is inside of you.”
Who are you? What are you? What is your core? We need to know that in this day and age more than at any other time. Otherwise, our choices will be virtual or make-believe, but the consequences will be real. Unfortunately, consequences are always real.
What is your real potential? There is a power, a beauty, that resides within. When I turn within, my heart is filled with joy, peace. I have to choose this every single day, because in this world, the line between the virtual and the real can become too faded. And I choose reality, because it is far more beautiful.
An Indian writer named Tulsidas once said, “All that you see is illusion. As far as your eyes can see, it’s all illusion. If you want reality, turn within.” The problem is that we don’t like what we see, but we don’t understand why. So we create an alternative world in which our fantasies can come true. People like Tulsidas said, “Turn within and all your fantasies will come true. The truest wish will come true.” But we have to choose. Every single day, we have tochoose.
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Reality is beautiful. Don’t try to measure it, because contentment, joy, love, understanding cannot be measured. There is no scale for them. Understand. Open your heart. Look within and see how beautiful it is. Feel your life filled with joy, filled with gratitude, not explanations or ideas. This is reality; no formulas or philosophies are needed to truly receive the gift every single day.
You are the vessel for the sweetest satisfaction, joy—the pure clear water of contentment. When you are filled with this, you come alive, because that’s what life is. You can understand. You don’t have to be confused. It’s that simple. Realize the pulse of life.
What an incredible opportunity it is to choose a gratification that is given every day when you turn inside. It’s not about the struggles you’ve had or the list of failures, but about each success that took place. You will still make mistakes, but the beauty is it’s not about mistakes or failures. It’s not about the length of the night. It’s about the rising of the sun. The light comes, and a new day begins.
Prem Rawat
I saw a headline on the way here.
“Dominatrix says sex is safer indoors.”
I didn’t stop to read the article – if we stopped to read all this trash, who would ever get anything done – but it stuck in my mind, and made me wonder: why? Because outdoors your ass may be struck by lightning, perhaps? Or is it that squirrels may steal your nuts?
Let’s try again, and this time say something intelligent.
“Dominatrix” is one of the few common uses of the Latin feminine form of a noun, the masculine being of course “dominator.” The only other use I can think of just now is “testatrix,” for which the masculine is “testator.” This is the fancy name for someone who makes his or her will, and has nothing to do with testicles. A dominatrix on the other hand might, so I’m back to talking a load of balls.
Let’s go with the flow. The universe may be trying to teach me something. I remember a friend of mine once claimed he’d seen, not a headline but a newspaper advert, promoting some kind of cosmetic for male genitals. Now how did it go? Oh yes, it was a short poem
Knacker lacquer!
Adds lustre to your cluster!
Obviously this is not a site for profound thought tonight.
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