From an article on Salon about the new relationship between writers and readers:

From a cultural perspective, the new democracy of voices online is a wonderful thing. But writers have an odd and ambiguous relationship with their readers, and the reader revolution is having massive consequences we can’t even foresee. Writers are being pulled, or lured, down from their solitary perches and into the madding throng. This has opened useful debate and made writers accountable. But it has also thrown open the gate to creeps, narcissists and wannabe Byrons who threaten to damage the fragile, half-permeable membrane writers use to keep the world from being too much with them.

I dare say most writers wouldn’t have a problem with being “pulled … into the maddening throng” if they simply ignored what their readers had to say or, if they can’t completely ignore them, had someone on staff filter out the constructive criticism from the rest of the inbox detritus. This is exactly the type of job an intern does, isn’t it?

I just can’t understand why a writer, online or otherwise, would give a single shit about all the “wannabe Byrons” out there. If your skin is that thin, maybe it would be a good idea to completely ignore the opinions of your readers … ?

Or you could just sprout a pair, ya pussy.

What would Hunter do?

You should see my brain on drugs.

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We’re doomed as a race.

He says so in a recent Rolling Stone interview (link goes to a Blueblood magazine commentary on the topic).

And is it just me, or does every modern guy have more estrogen than I’ve had in a lifetime? I didn’t realize when the Kinks sang “boys will be girls” that it would actually come to fruition.

Quit yer cryin’, already.

While I was wiling away the hours, eating exotic food until I nearly burst and walking London streets until my hips hurt, Robert Anton Wilson died. His final blog post was on January 6th:

Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.

Please pardon my levity, I don’t see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.

It’s times like this I wish I believed in an afterlife - any afterlife - because it’s unbelievable the man isn’t writing or teaching or mentoring anywhere, if not with us here on this plane.

If you’re anywhere near Santa Cruz, CA, that’s where the Robert Anton Wilson Cosmic Meme-Orial & Lasagna Levitation Celebration! will take place on February 18th.

If you don’t see the fnord, it cannot hurt you.

Fairy tales have been told for thousands of years for a reason: The lessons learned in Aesop’s Fables, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and other stories handed down through the centuries help children and adults alike better understand human behavior.

The ants are industrious while the grasshopper is not, so the grasshopper starves during the winter. Hansel & Gretel leave a trail of breadcrumbs which the birds promptly eat. The tortoise, slow and prodding, beats the overconfident hare. The boy who cries wolf is not believed when the wolf actually shows up. The Pied Piper steals the children, the scorpion stings the frog, the cat eats the mouse, and the troll gets greedy for an even larger goat than the third - and last one - to cross over his bridge.

One of my personal favorites is Bluebeard. Bluebeard was a wealthy and much feared man, so named because of his very ugly and off-color beard. He had been married seven times, but no one knew what had happened to any of his wives, who all disappeared within his castle. Eventually Bluebeard convinced a young local girl to marry him and, after the ceremony, she went to live with him.

Very shortly after, Bluebeard had to leave for a while on business. He gave his new wife all the keys of the home, including the key to one small room she was forbidden to enter. Before he left, he admonished her for the umpteenth time not to enter that room, even though she now had governance of the key. Of course, she was almost immediately overcome with curiosity, but she held out until her visiting sister convinced her to open the door.

Within the small, forbidden space, she found all the dead bodies of her husband’s former wives.

Now that’s pretty harsh for a fairy tale, so tellings have been modified over the years to indicate that the small room is a representative of Bluebeard’s need for privacy and, by violating Bluebeard’s trust and refusing to allow him any personal secrets, the new wife proves herself unworthy of his love.

Curiosity killed the cat, too.

After spending a bit of time in Photoshop to crop, resize, and generally muck about with them, some are now posted to Yahoo. I suggest getting to the link and then clicking Slideshow to see them with my comments.

I will get to the rest sometime tomorrow.

Maybe.

That’s what the Romans called it: Londinium.

We’re both huge history and architecture nuts, so you can imagine the tour of the Roman amphitheature ruins was a highlight of our London tour. We visited more museums in one week than I think I have ever been to in a lifetime. Westminster Abbey alone took a few hours and is more an indoor cemetery than a church, which was perfectly fine with us. The oh gloom mysteriosum atmosphere of rain outside and crypts inside was perfect for us.

And the food … oh, my the food. If you want excellent, nay, spectacular East Indian food, go to London. Even the hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the not-so-great neighborhoods had amazing korma, tikka masala, samosas, and the like. Also, if you get a chance to have fresh, wild boar sausage, I can’t recommend it highly enough, especially if you find yourself on the outskirts of Salisbury headed back to London and happen upon a pub called the Langford Poacher.

I had my first experience with food from Singapore, too. It was a seafood noodle dish unlike anything I’d ever tasted before, which is refreshing. I’ve been a culinary adventurer for decades, so to run across any food that I couldn’t compare to anything else I’ve ever had is a rarity and a treasure.

I won’t list all the places we visited, as I will be instead posting pictures over at Yahoo soon. I will say, however, that a visit to Stonehenge is a bit like a visit to the Grand Canyon: You drive the hour or two out, you arrive, you walk around a bit with the tourists, and head out to see something else. Worth it? You bet. But I’ve only ever seen the Grand Canyon once in my lifetime, too. Of course, now that the Grand Canyon Skywalk is opening, I may have to go back.

We made it out to the Slimelight club for their famous Saturday goth night, which was amazing. Two packed rooms of music, wall-to-wall people, plenty of seating for the weary, a cheap coat check, and great DJs. The club night starts at 10pm and goes until 7am, which we thought was a long time for a club, but went with it. Turns out the tube station closest to the club closes overnight and reopens at 7am on Sundays, so when we left at 5am, we had to take a bus to an open tube station and go from there.

It took a few days, too, but I found some things I don’t like about London. One, “public” toilet means a 20p to 50p charge to use it, so plan to have change available in case of potty emergency. Two, the populace likes to keep the indoor temps regulated to about 80 degrees F, which I can no longer handle, having lived at 5,000 feet for nearly 20 years. Three, affordable hotel rooms are tiny, so much so that in one we had to straddle the toilet to use the sink. And four, hardly any place - pubs, train stations, museums - actually heats their toilet areas, so if you have to sit down, prepare for shockingly cold seats in winter.

Also, if you’re not used to cold, don’t bother going in January. The temp was 48-50 degrees and rainy, but that was balmy vacation weather for us. Friends here in Denver tell us we missed a week of some of the coldest weather Denver has ever experienced.

Couldn’t have planned it better, then.

I will hopefully post for this before the night is over. Of course, I have a billion other things to catch up on, too.

Current mood: Deer caught in the headlights.

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In case of inclement weather, please check the web site for news on the tour.

We are happy to be home from Londinium, by the way.