Thursday, December 28
Enough with the "million little pieces" already -- just trim your toenails next time!
Well, thank you, Tammy Bruce for linking to the 2006 "Bad Sex in Fiction" Awards.
Yes, that Auberon Waugh. Yes, that Courtney Love (whose chin looks eerily like her latent unformed twin in that photo...)
Why the "winner" "won", I don't know. Is "my bulging trousers" really so much more unforgivable than Pynchon's aborted teenie doggie oral thingie? (No, the dog wasn't a bloody, mangled pup with a coat hanger in its head -- you have to read it. Need I add you'll be sorry.)
Or Irvine Welsh's "thick green saliva/old Scottish lady" interlude?
Seems to me that Willocks was trying for "knowingly anachronistic/archaic," Mitchell for "adolescent p.o.v. with attendant limited vocabulary and frames of reference" -- so neither of these, er, entries really belongs on a "bad" list per se.
I'm not convinced Mark Haddon has actually slept with a woman, based soley on his contribution to this contest, so we really mustn't (sp?) laugh.
No, the winner should have been Will Self, simply for the phrase "Michelle was pleased that Dave wasn't repellent."
Great. Now everyone at the office wants to know why I'm laughing and I have to lie and say it's the description I'm writing for the KitchenAid stand mixer. Cuz Egmont Arens's name always cracks me up...
Do I even have to tell you that all but one of these entries was written by a man? I certainly don't mean because these are the "Bad Sex" awards -- I am a raging heterosexual, down to my rainbow-with-a-giant-X-through-it underpants. Or because every single one of these imaginary ladies miraculously survives a wallpaper-under-the-fingernails orgasm a mere minute into the procedings.
No, I mean because not once in any of the shortlisted entries will you see the word "Kleenex."
Michelle knows what I'm talking about.
(Only tangentially related: there's a very young Hindu girl getting married here, and she told us that the night before, all the other Hindu ladies come over and henna you from top to toe. They write your name somewhere in the ornate scroll design and your husband can't have sex with you until he finds it. And I actually managed not to say, "You know, Catholics have something like that, except we write "K-A-T..." in 6" letters using waterproof Sharpies. But what is this 'married' of which you speak?" Catholics: we're the Party Church!)
You know, reading these "Bad Sex in Fiction" entries makes me wonder what my mother really meant when she told me, with the utmost gravity, "Never, ever marry an Englishman..."
UPDATE: Wendy thinks I've been drinking. No, thank God, but really -- this post only makes sense if you steel yourself (as it were) and read the actual nominees for the Bad Sex Award (see link at the, er, top. Urgh. This is like talking funny for the rest of the day after you watch a Tennessee Williams movie -- now every other word seems like an "in-yer-end-o", as an ex-friend used to call 'em. Yes, I'll stop now.)
Yes, that Auberon Waugh. Yes, that Courtney Love (whose chin looks eerily like her latent unformed twin in that photo...)
Why the "winner" "won", I don't know. Is "my bulging trousers" really so much more unforgivable than Pynchon's aborted teenie doggie oral thingie? (No, the dog wasn't a bloody, mangled pup with a coat hanger in its head -- you have to read it. Need I add you'll be sorry.)
Or Irvine Welsh's "thick green saliva/old Scottish lady" interlude?
Seems to me that Willocks was trying for "knowingly anachronistic/archaic," Mitchell for "adolescent p.o.v. with attendant limited vocabulary and frames of reference" -- so neither of these, er, entries really belongs on a "bad" list per se.
I'm not convinced Mark Haddon has actually slept with a woman, based soley on his contribution to this contest, so we really mustn't (sp?) laugh.
No, the winner should have been Will Self, simply for the phrase "Michelle was pleased that Dave wasn't repellent."
Great. Now everyone at the office wants to know why I'm laughing and I have to lie and say it's the description I'm writing for the KitchenAid stand mixer. Cuz Egmont Arens's name always cracks me up...
Do I even have to tell you that all but one of these entries was written by a man? I certainly don't mean because these are the "Bad Sex" awards -- I am a raging heterosexual, down to my rainbow-with-a-giant-X-through-it underpants. Or because every single one of these imaginary ladies miraculously survives a wallpaper-under-the-fingernails orgasm a mere minute into the procedings.
No, I mean because not once in any of the shortlisted entries will you see the word "Kleenex."
Michelle knows what I'm talking about.
(Only tangentially related: there's a very young Hindu girl getting married here, and she told us that the night before, all the other Hindu ladies come over and henna you from top to toe. They write your name somewhere in the ornate scroll design and your husband can't have sex with you until he finds it. And I actually managed not to say, "You know, Catholics have something like that, except we write "K-A-T..." in 6" letters using waterproof Sharpies. But what is this 'married' of which you speak?" Catholics: we're the Party Church!)
You know, reading these "Bad Sex in Fiction" entries makes me wonder what my mother really meant when she told me, with the utmost gravity, "Never, ever marry an Englishman..."
UPDATE: Wendy thinks I've been drinking. No, thank God, but really -- this post only makes sense if you steel yourself (as it were) and read the actual nominees for the Bad Sex Award (see link at the, er, top. Urgh. This is like talking funny for the rest of the day after you watch a Tennessee Williams movie -- now every other word seems like an "in-yer-end-o", as an ex-friend used to call 'em. Yes, I'll stop now.)
