Where They Love Americans...for a Living

by Sean Flynn
from The Best American Travel Writing

If I have ever read a candid article on prostitution written by a man whose agenda isn't either to justify a man's right/need to pay for sex or to fervently pronounce his solidarity with the feminist stance that prostitution always equals exploitation, it was a long, long time ago - if ever. Sean Flynn's article was refreshingly different in that, while he is often sneeringly superior, he is also realistic, informed, and frankly funny, especially when he's poking fun at the "particular class of whoremonger" who convinces himself that the women with whom he pays to have sex actually like him.

But, as Flynn points out, fantasy islands like the Philippines, Thailand, and Costa Rica - the top three destinations for adult vacationing - are popular just because, on these tropical islands where the women are “passionate and easy,” you don’t simply pay for sex. You buy, as one enthusiastic vacationer called it, the “GFE” - i.e. “girlfriend experience”. GFE, of course, referring to the beautiful and sexy girlfriend who hangs on your every word, keeps her opinions to herself, and enthusiastically performs every sexual act for as long as you want it whenever you want it - all for an established fee naturally. In Costa Rica, you don’t pay for the sex, you pay for the fantasy.

The problem however, is not the fantasy but the fact that so many of the men who frequent these places mistake the fantasy for reality. Inexplicably, they fail to realize, or refuse to realize, that prostitutes, especially the really great ones or the really expensive ones, are Oscar-worthy actresses whose job is dependent upon their ability to convince you that you’re the smartest, largest, and sexiest man she’s ever met, irregardless of your beer belly, your receding and graying hair, or your repulsive personality. That’s her job and - trust me, Flynn, or the experts who’ve studied it - most of them don't even like it.

Philosophically, I have no problem with prostitution when it is between CONSENTING ADULTS. I am, however, a firm believer that a woman has the right to do with her body whatever the hell she wants with it. If she wants to sell it for sex, hey - you do you. If a man wants to pay for it, hey - you do you. Unfortunately, things are infinitely more complicated than that, especially when you begin to believe the lies you’ve paid to have whispered in your ear.

The New Yorker, Dec. 11, 2006

Yes, you read that correctly - I have only just read the Dec. 11 issue of The New Yorker. On occassion, especially when I'm traveling, I get horribly behind in reading my New Yorkers. I have issues from 2005 that I haven't read yet - and yes, I do plan to read them, and no, I'm not throwing them out, I don't care what you say. I'll admit that when they're a month or more old, the articles aren't as relevent to the times as they were the week they were printed but that just makes the reading all that more interesting. There is an untold superior and smug pleasure in reading news-based articles with the informed eye of hindsight.

The Al Sharpton snapshot "Fifty Shots" in Talk of the Town transports me back to week an unarmed black man was shot 50 times and killed on the eve of his wedding. And although I may have predicted it, I'm able to look back with a month and half worth of hindsight with the knowledge that one week was all that unjustified over-kill recieved in the national news.

And then there's the David Denby review of "Blood Diamond" and "Deja Vu" that makes me regret not having shown either of those movies enough attention. Well, that's not particularly true of "Deja Vu", which, as Denby informs us, "makes beautiful pictures out of carnage." Intended complement though it may be, it is the very reason why I decided to pass on "Deja Vu" - carnage should never be beautiful, mindless action movie or no. The fact that this is the very case that "Blood Diamond" makes is the reason why I wonder if I can still find this film playing in a theatre. Having enjoyed - if that's the proper way to describe a movie that "breaks your heart" - "Hotel Rwanda" and "The Constant Gardener", movies "set against the background of civil wars, ethnic conflict, and Western meddling and exploitation", Denby has convinced me as all the other rave reviews weren't able to that "Blood Diamond" was worthy of my $9.00. Ah well, another benefit to reading an old movie review - I'm just in time for the DVD.

Upon the Dull Earth

by Philip K. Dick
from Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick

Something else I don't usually read: science fiction - at least not on a regular basis. I try to get in at least one sci-fi book a year but even that's often too difficult to do. I'm impatient and often bored, I've found, with talking, furry aliens from other worlds, disgusting creatures, space travel, robots, and all other manner of fantastic technologies. And I've had the misfortune of reading sci-fi authors whose only point, it seems, is to write about cool aliens and fast space jets. But I refused to give up and last year I finally decided to stop dicking around (pun intended) and bought The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick, mainly because I'd seen most of the movies based on his short stories and liked them well-enough to wonder and hope that the stories would be better, as is often the case, than the movies they had inspired.

There isn't a movie based on the short story "Upon a Dull Earth" but if there was it would have definitely been a horror flic. This is the creepiest, most disturbing in a send-shivers-down-your-spine kind of way story that I've read in a long while. Jonathan Letham hits the nail on the head when he says that it "reads like a Shirley Jackson outtake." It would be easy to say that "Upon a Dull Earth" is a lesson in being careful what you ask for. In this case, the main character Rick only wants to marry his girlfriend Silvia, have some kids, and grow old with her. Silvia however dies prematurely and when he tries to get her back, he and her both bite off quite a bit more than they can chew. It sounds a bit like Stephen King's "Pet Cemetery" but it's much more subtle than that. Silvia comes back - a lot of her comes back - but she doesn't eat or kill anyone. She's just there and it is creepy.

But to simply qualify this as a "be careful what you ask for" story would be an injustice. In the process, Dick reinvents heaven, angels, humans, God and the "dull earth" between. I'm half-way through The Selected Stories... and I have already decided that Dick has written the best sci-fi I've ever read. I have only just discovered that that's because, although, like other writers of the genre, Dick writes of the future, technology and otherworldly creatures, they are all second fiddle to the men and women who populate his stories. The stories are not about the science, they're about the man. Those are the kind of stories, sci-fi or no, that I would read any day of any year.

All Souls' Rising, pt. 2

by Madison Smart Bell
pgs. 56-119

I knew it, I knew it before I even started reading All Souls' Rising that I would have to suffer through some horrible, violent images, the type of images I generally avoid if only because they leave me with a disgusted and disappointed view of humanity. But brutality is just as much a part of life and its beauty, and it's salubrious, I think, to remind myself of that every once in a while. Though it isn't the reason why I chose to read All Souls' Rising, it is certainly serving as that reminder whether I like it or not.

The meat of the story, in fact, begins with the live crucifixion of female slave for killing her illegitimate baby. Three sentences into the first chapter, Bell writes, "There had been some bleeding from the punctures and the runnels of blood along her inner forearms had hardened and cracked in the dry heat, from which the doctor concluded that she must have been there for several hours at the least." Alright, I thought when I read that line, I knew that was coming. It was a fully expected blow to the imaginary senses and as much as anyone could take an image like that in stride, I did.

What I didn't expect was the long, excruciating scene in which Claudine Arnaud, mistress of a plantation, drunk, drugged, jealous and crazed, cuts out a slave girl's growing fetus and then proceeds to violently cut her neck. The girl's only crime, it should be said, was to accidentally spill a tray of coffee but the spill was merely an excuse for Claudine to punish the girl for having sex, most likely unwillingly, with Mr. Arnaud. Unfortunately, no detail is left out in this horrifying scene. Try this on for size: "The blade furrowed through a whitish layer of fat; there was no blood, oddly, until the viscera slithered and slapped down tangling over Claudine's feet, and then she bled."

But in his way, Bell illustrates a point that many writers before have tackled. Claudine, sold as she was to her husband - albeit in a much more civilized way - purchased for nothing more than as a breeding mare, forced to leave her home, family, and friends, and openly despised and mocked when she fails at her one task to produce and heir, she is little more than a slave herself. It is a sympathetic view of such a despicable character but it is, I think, a real one as well. It's not hard to understand that the reason Claudine hates Mouche the slave girl so much, isn't that she has sex with her husband and is pregnant with the child she herself can never produce. It is that Mouche, fresh off the boat from Africa, isn't broken in who she is or in her belief that she belongs to no one else but herself. "The voice [Mouche's singing] came out of her essential African self, and Claudine recognized that after all she was still untouched in her identity; it was infuriating."

Such is just another vulnerability of slavery: to be subject and held accountable for someone else's unhappiness, fears, anger, and disappointments. And through it all, All Souls' Rising reads like a dream, a horrible dream but a smooth, irresistible dream nonetheless. I can't put it down.

The Iraqi Constitution

fromThe Best American NonRequired Reading

Reading a constitution, any country's constitution, is informative and beneficial to our understanding of the world and the way other countries view governance, law, and citizenship. In the world we live in today, that understanding is becoming more and more vital to our everyday lives. Reading a constitution, any country's constitution I would imagine, is also much like reading a contract. Given that that's what it is - a contract - it's not surprising that it reads like one. By the same token, much in the same way that I find reading a new software contract too long, dry, and unworthy of my time despite how informative and beneficial to my life and understanding it may be, I also find myself wishing to run through the dry, contractual language of the Iraqi constitution so I can simply skip the bottom of the page where I click "Accept."

That's not to say that all of it was uninteresting reading. The Preamble was telling and, in parts, in it's own way, poetic. It also included one the longest run-on sentences I've ever seen in my life. This sentence was composed of nineteen lines of approximately fourteen words to each line. I'm too lazy to do the math - you do it - but I know enough to know that's a lot of words for one sentence and if anyone is supposed to get any since of that it certainly isn't I.

I also thought it interesting that the second line of the constitution reads, "We have honored the sons of Adam." Yeah, yeah I know that it's supposed to be a democratic Islamic state but what about Eve? I thought it took two to make a son and as far as I know Adam didn't reproduce asexually. And what about the daughters of Adam - and Eve - ? Article 14 reads: "Iraqis are equal before the law without discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, origin, color, religion, creed, belief or opinion, or economic and social status." Yet, Article 2 reads: No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established." I don't much about the Islamic religion but I know enough about the treatment of women in Islamic countries to hope that the two articles don’t already contend with each other.

The Discreet Charm of the Zurich Bourgeoisie

by Alain De Botton
from The Best American Travel Writing 2006

In "The Discreet Charm of the Zurich Bourgeoisie" De Botton is attempting to argue that boring is beautiful. "[F]ew places in the Western World have been quite as deeply unfashionable as the city of Zurich," De Botton writes. Why is this? Because Zurich is just plain old ordinary. The streets are clean, the neighborhoods are safe, and the people are unfailingly polite. Why should the anti-social, the dangerous, the consciously different and the purposefully exotic have the market on interesting? Why isn't ordinary just as beautiful, just as worthy of interest?

I don't know, I think they both have their merits. I understand how the mind can tire of monotony and routine. I also understand how monotony and routine could make our lives easier and longer. And I also think, that if we dig deep enough, if we look closely and honestly, there is something worthy of review and interest in any walk of life, even the happy suburban kind. I have always disagreed with Tolstoy's proposition that all happy families are the same and therefore unworthy of a writer's critical mind and time. No one person's happiness is the same, just as no one person is the same. To assume so, is to ignore half of life and half of the people who live it, if not more. I don't have statistics to back me up but I believe that there are just as many happy people in the world as there are unhappy.

Perhaps this is just me standing up for my people. Yes, I am a generally happy person and proud of it. Why shouldn't the story of my life and the city in which people like me would choose to live like Zurich deserve a story or interest beyond boredom? After all, we happy people will live longer than the curmudgeons and I have the statistics to prove it.