VioletBlueVioletBlue

Evaluating smut, by the numbers.

Violet Blue writes,

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has a post up titled “Christian/Family Values-Oriented Movie Review Database Restores My Faith In Snobbish Film Criticism,”
which links to this “mathematical” biblical rating system of
mainstream films — wait, I know you’re already laughing too hard to
see your monitor:

Link.

Read the review of Sin City and most especially
revel in the right-hand column detailing of offenses. I laughed so
hard I had to choke a bitch.

In the end, the “good Christian” reviewer just gives up:

“Sin City is yet another film that tends to remind me of the paintings
in which a gaggle of demons dance and prance about a boiling cauldron,
shrieking with glee as they toss soul after soul into the cauldron of
Hell, cauterizing any veins of escape.

I am not going to spend any time summarizing the listing in the
Findings/Scoring section in this report. The listing speaks volumes
about the content of this film. Nor am I going to provide a list of
Scriptures which apply to the sins demonstrated in this film. You
probably have a Bible.”

Link.

Reader comment: Stacia says,

This site is hillarious to go to after you’ve seen movies because they pick up on things that didn’t register (what? inappropriate spanking in The Incredibles?).

I just have a story to relate about a time I emailed the site owner regarding his somewhat arbitrary rating system. If you look closely you’ll see that maybe only two films get a perfect score – Mary Poppins being one of them. I wrote under a false email address and told him that I wouldn’t show my children this film because obviously Mary Poppins was using witchcraft and unholy powers gained from Satan to carry out her magical acts. He argued that Mary Poppins was a real life angel, getting her divine power from God. How does this differ from Harry Potter? I don’t know.

Anyway, he’s fun to get into arguments with. Give it a try!

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BoingBoingBoing podcast with this week’s guest, Violet Blue

Over the weekend, we recorded the second installment of our new weekly Boing Boing podcast, “Boing Boing Boing.” Each week, the Boingers and a guest talk about the week’s Boing Boing stories and new projects coming up — a kind of Best of Boing Boing, in audio form.

In this edition, we’re joined by author, blogger, lethal-robot-handler, and sex educator Violet Blue. She recently became the San Francisco Chronicle’s first sex columnist, and we asked her about that column — “Open Source Sex” — and an unauthorized but hilarious guerilla promo campaign announcing the launch (the Billboard Liberation Front stuck giant sexy photos of her on bus stops and buses throughout San Francisco).

Podcast, Podcast Feed, Subscribe via iTunes, MP3 Link (64K)

Previously: Introducing Boing Boing Boing: the Boing Boing podcast!

Local cache

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Videoblogger Josh Wolf released on bail from Bay Area jail

Videoblogger and freelance journalist Josh Wolf was granted bail by a federal appeals court today. He’s been in jail since August 1 for refusing to comply with government demands that he hand over video he shot at a political protest in San Francisco last year (earlier BB posts: 1, 2, 3).

In granting bail, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the government had not shown that Wolf’s appeal of a contempt-of-court ruling was frivolous or filed with the sole purpose of delaying proceedings. Snip from a report by Bob Egelko at the SF Chronicle:

The court said another panel would rule on Wolf’s appeal of the contempt order while he is free on bail. If he loses the appeal, he could be sent back to federal prison until the grand jury’s term expires next July. Wolf’s attorney said he would be released on his own recognizance, possibly later today.

Wolf, 24, took videos of a July 2005 anarchist demonstration in San Francisco’s Mission District against an economic summit that was taking place in Scotland. During the protest, a policeman was hit on the head and suffered a fractured skull. A federal grand jury is investigating the alleged attempted burning of a police car, which federal prosecutors say would be a federal crime because the police department receives federal funds.

Some of Wolf’s footage was shown on local television, but he refused to surrender his outtakes, claiming a journalist’s right to withhold unpublished material as well as confidential sources. Those rights are protected by California’s shield law, but it does not apply in federal court. U.S. District Judge William Alsup rejected Wolf’s constitutional defenses, denied bail and ordered him jailed until he agreed to turn over the videos.

His appeal was endorsed by numerous news organizations and by the Society of Professional Journalists, which contributed $31,000 to defray his legal expenses.

Link to story. Photo: National Lawyers Guild. (Thanks, Violet Blue)

Previously:
# Blogger jailed for refusing to hand over video

# Videoblogger’s protest footage demanded by FBI
# Free Josh Wolf: update on jailed San Francisco blogger

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Meet the SF Chron’s new sex columnist: blogger Violet Blue

Violet Blue says:

It’s official. I’m now the sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Not just ‘plucked’ from the blogosphere to freelance for a 141-year-old mainstream media institution; Phil Bronstein hand-selected me to be their frontline sex writer, with a column and everything that comes with it. I just got home from the Chronicle building — today was the final meeting with the PR department, and to set the launch date (I wore my Laughing Squid shirt to the meeting). At one point David Wiegand said, “We’re just making sure it’s okay before we plaster your face on buses.”

Link. Congrats, Violet! A chorus of lethal machines joins me in wishing you success in subversion.

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XXX-XBOX: teledildonics mod with live video chat

Violet Blue says,

It seems I finally have a reason to start gaming again: new Xbox teledildonics. Kotaku tells us that the Xbox 360 now has cameras with video chat, and while chatting there is a command to make your chat-partner’s controller vibrate. Even though it takes holding down both triggers at once, making one-handed enjoyment complicated, it seems like this is just a few tiny hardware hacks away from being consumer-level teledildonics. It’s my theory that not being truly marketed as porn/sextoy/teledildonics will make it adapted by consumers quickly and easily.

Link

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New TSA restrictions and sex toys: whither the lube?

The new “no liquids or gels” restrictions mean you can’t tote your KY jelly on-board (heavens to Murgatroid, whatever shall we do?), and you may want to think carefully about where you pack that vegan Hello Kitty bluetooth butt plug:

As far as packing non-vibrating sex toys and devices in carry on, use your own common sense. Some items, like nipple clamps and cock rings, may appear innocuous enough to escape a screener’s scrutiny. But be aware that security officials are on heightened lookout for anything unusual, and you may find yourself in the awkward position of explaining what a penis pump is for. It’s probably better to leave it in your checked luggage than have to mumble something about it being “a medical device” or wing a lame excuse about a “joke gift for a friend.” Whatever you do, don’t offer a demonstration – that will probably land you on the “no fly” list.

If you think you can beat the system by carrying your sex toys on your person, you might want to think again. Of course, you’ll have to empty your pockets of anything metal and put the contents in a tray, and anything battery-powered like a vibe will be subject to extra scrutiny. Attempting to wear a strap-on through security is risky as well. The bulge in your crotch is likely to draw attention anyway, and if the harness has any metal rivets or buckles, it will set off the metal detector, and you’ll be pulled aside for a pat-down. Likewise for any wearable clit vibrators. The one exception here might be a non-vibrating butt plug, inserted ahead of time. If you enjoy wearing a plug in public, it could help alleviate the tedium of a dull flight and long lines in the terminal.

Link to “Sex Toy Travel Advisory,” dated August 16, 2006. Violet Blue has been covering this topic for years on her blog in detail: Link.

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SRL in San Jose Aug. 11, and 1978 photo of first SRL machine

Survival Research Laboratories will herd their sputtering flock of lethal robots to a tech-art festival in San Jose on August 11. When first posted on BoingBoing, the host organization’s ticket website wasn’t working as well as the SRL machines do, so some folks got error messages. All’s well now. Here’s where you buy tickets (gas masks and earplugs sold separately), and here are show details with a growing photoblog.

Crewmember Violet Blue was poring through old photos in the SRL labs yesterday, and found some amazing stuff.

“[But] what really captivated me was finding the above image of the first SRL machine ever made for [SRL founder] Mark [Pauline]‘s first show, Machine Sex,” she says, “And guess what? We have the machine, and it still works.”

The photo is dated 1978, and you can see some neat old flyers in the background if you click on the large size jpeg. Link to more photos and punk-era robo-ephemera. Link to August 11 show home page at srl.org (Thanks, Karen!)

Reader comment: Sean Savage says,

Readers might get a kick out of knowing what that first SRL machine did: it pureed dead pigeons dressed up as Arab oil magnates, then flung the resulting gore onto the audience..

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Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) in San Jose Aug 11

Mark your calendars and grab your gas masks: the world’s longest-running lethal robot posse will perform maul, gnash, and pulverize its way through San Jose, CA on August 11, 2006. Details and a terrific video of a visit to SRL‘s San Francisco lab are here from Bre Pettis at the MAKE zine blog. Gajillions of previous BoingBoing posts about SRL are here. Image: Shot by “A*A*R*O*N” at an SRL show in Los Angeles (full-size). (thanks, Violet)

Update: the site with show details is down, so here they are:

[SRL founder] Mark [Pauline] says this show will get one of those long titles SRL is known for. As part of the 13th International Symposium for Electronic Arts festivities, SRL will be performing on August 11 in San Jose. Tickets are available here through the show organizers ZeroOne.

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Alan Moore’s erotic “Lost Girls” and Peter Pan copyright woes

Violet Blue has posted some sneak previews of an amazing new work by graphic novel master Alan Moore (previous works: Watchmen, From Hell, V for Vendetta, and the first two sets of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Killing Joke, and Brought to Light).

His newest: a series of works titled “Lost Girls Collected,” created with illustrator Melinda Gebbie. Violet says:

“[It features] explicit sex — portrayed in a compelling, highly pleasurable way. Like the setting of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lost Girls has Moore revisiting characters from Victorian fiction, where the main female characters from Neverland, Wonderland and Oz meet as adults in a strange hotel in 1913 to set out on a sexual adventure together.”

And Moore explains:

“It presents this material in a way which is every bit as sensual and beautiful and at times, startling, as the actual sexual act itself can be. I think that was probably why we did it. The sexual imagination, which is the biggest part of sexuality, is not well served in our culture, and I really don’t understand why that should be.

The only way that we can talk about or refer to sex — we have two choices: we can either do it in grubby works of pornography that will be read by people who are desperately ashamed of what they are reading, or we can discuss sex in the clinical manner of sex manuals or The Joy of Sex. Neither of these things have got anything that I, or probably most other normal people actually associate with our sexuality.”

More images, and more from Moore about “Lost Girls,” are in this post on Violet’s blog: Link.

But the London hospital that owns the rights to J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan” story is upset that Moore appropriated the iconic character Wendy for the graphic novel (she’s in good company: Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz,” and Alice from Wonderland are in there, too):

”We understand this graphic novel involves characters from the story of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan & Wendy, which is, of course, in copyright in the U.K. and EU,” the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children said in a statement about Moore’s book.

The hospital, which was bequeathed the rights to the ”Peter Pan” books by Barrie, said: ”In order to be published or distributed in these territories, Alan Moore’s title would need our permission or license. From press coverage, we understand it deals with
sensitive subject matter which does not initially seem appropriate to be associated with the hospital and with J.M. Barrie’s legacy to us.”

Stephen Cox, the hospital’s spokesman, said Friday that it has not taken legal action against Moore and is was waiting to see whether the author will contact the institution to discuss its objections.

Link to news story. (thanks, Violet!)

More…

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She’s in polyester, and she’s packin’.

After last week’s jeans with built-in gun holsters post, I ended up poking around for more stealth firearm fashion websites. A friend pointed me to Washington state resident Kathy Jackson, a mom and former “Women and Guns” contributing editor whose extensive personal website promotes personal firearm safety — and everyday outfits designed to conceal lethal weapons. From her “Dressy Clothes” page:

The outfit: brown crinkly skirt, velveteen blouse

The gun is a Glock 26 in a belly band. The gun is located at the midline, just underneath my cleavage. I’m wearing a tube top underneath the band to protect my skin from the itchies.

Comments: I wore this outfit to church this morning. I positioned the gun high and centered so that it would be particularly easy to sit down for long periods of time. If I’d been going to a social gathering, I’d have moved the belly band so the gun would ride nearer my waist.

If you’re not the churchgoing type or don’t like dressy clothes, check out Ms. Jackson’s “Casual Clothes” and “Office Clothes” HOWTOs. “With a little courage and creativity,” she explains, “It is quite possible to conceal a firearm underneath most business clothing.” Good to know next time you’re feeling cranky in your corporate-issue veal-cube. This site offers an interesting set of tips on “gun concealment for women”: Link.

What’s that? You prefer vegan glow-in-the dark ravewear gun holsters? Okay.

Here’s a slinkier fetishwear holster (as if they all weren’t fetishwear anyway) for carrying up to six handguns at a time GAH! I mean “your six-gun,” meaning ONE handgun with blast-tastic kablamability: Link, marginally work-safe. (Thanks, Violet Blue!)

And Thunderwear offers other varieties of, ah, conceal-carry thongs, like the model shown above: Link (Thanks, Aaron)

In related news, a German inventor has filed a patent application for password-protected ammunition:

[Hebert] Meyerle is patenting a design for a modified cartridge that would be fired by a burst of high-frequency radio energy. But the energy would only ignite the charge if a solid-state switch within the cartridge had been activated. This would only happen if a password entered into the gun using a tiny keypad matched one stored in the cartridge.
When they are sold, cartridges could be programmed with a password that matches the purchaser’s gun. An owner could set the gun to request the password when it is reloaded, or to perform a biometric check before firing. The gun could also automatically lock itself after a pre-set period of time has passed since the password was entered.

Link to New Scientist article.

Reader comment: John Pittman says,

Six-gun is Hollywood oater talk for a revolver – usually w/ six chambers for rounds (even more detail than you want – the cowboy left the hammer down on an empty chamber for, yes, safeties sake and that cylinder had rolled up paper money in it to pay the undertaker in the event of…). Looks like that rig would carry 2 guns less than comfortably – the bright side – high distraction factor when it’s quick-draw time. For some nice not-concealed stuff see El Paso’s web site: Link.

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