lolitas, dope, and robots

[Paul Murphy]

A couple of things, having successfully vented spleen, vis-a-vis
windbaggery (which is a word in the OED, dating back to the 17th century,
should anyone care to check):

-- I share Chris's disdain for using this list as a 'research project', as
Siegel seems to be doing. If you want to do sociological research about
industrialization and emotional response, etc., Jules, I suggest you not do
it on an electronic mailing list dedicated to a novelist, simply because
your sample-size will be terribly skewed and the results probably
unduplicable, if sociology is what you are actually doing. Actually, my
suggestion is to go read a lot of Jacques Ellul, and maybe some Marcuse, if
pseudo-sociological anti-technology jeremiads is what you're after. By the
way, _The Human Robot_ is an atrocious title. But so is _Lineland_ (which I
have yet to acquire, even after Larson offered a copy, and I accepted --
seems IAM hasn't the budget for that expensive Canadian postage). I eagerly
await _Lineland II: Drawn Out Variations on a Tired Theme_, with chapter
headings like "I Am Not a Parasite" and "Me vs. the Small-Town Librarian
Phalanx".

-- We've seen some "Jules you sexist pig" posts since the Lolita topic came
up (a topic which, if I remember right, was addressed very valiantly in the
past by Andrew "My Bibliography is Bigger Than Yours" Dinn), but this list
seems very het-centric -- i.e., the allure of adolescent boys for gay men
remains unexplored. Cf. Gottfried in GR. I say this after having come
across a reasonably interesting on-line essay about the much-reviled Calvin
Klein semi-nude boys-and-girls campaign from last year, wherein the
essayist speculated about the 'homosexual gaze', the naked torso of River
Phoenix, and so on.

--Last topic before I re-lurk: some talk about drugs now vs. drugs then --
though I am congenitally unable to enjoy marijuana (makes me logey,
inarticulate, and regularly nauseous), I will observe that dope these days
is super-potent, especially the hydroponic stuff, and dealers often lace it
-- it's common to get dope laced with PCP, which is a particularly ruinous
combination. Friends in the know commonly talk about 'wheelchair dope',
which leads smokers to sit immobile for hours on end, staring at tablelegs
or the floor.

Cheers,
Paul