The Adventures of LitBoy: Bill Brent's Blog

BOOK REVIEW: INFERNAL DEVICE: machinery of torture and execution, by Erik C. Rühling

What a wicked little book. It's just the thing for an apartment-sized coffee table, at a price that won't break your budget. In terms of torture gear, all the usual suspects are depicted and described within, along with a dungeon's worth of obscurities you've probably never heard of.

Rühling taught himself 3-D rendering in order to create his lovely (and gruesome) little book. This petite yet substantial volume (40 full-color photo pages) deserves some kind of design award. A few, perhaps. He renders his gallery of torture tools in a stark museum-exhibit style while his text, an impressive feat of condensed scholarship, vividly evokes images of the poor souls who were subjected to their horrors. It's a jarring and effective contrast of the mechanistic and humanistic. I am struck by the degree of brutality extended toward women in particular via these devices. Also an awareness of how, contrary to popular belief, we have not really evolved at all from the times and places in which these devices were employed. Hence Rühling's book also serves as a handy little reminder of how man's inhumanity to man is never more than a government directive away ... if that. Trenchant thoughts in these torturous times.

Among the book's highlights are some pithy and amusing treatises on the origins and history of various well-known devices such as the rack and the guillotine. As with most of the devices in Rühling's book, the guillotine underwent various manifestations and has borne many names in many countries at many times. This popular device's employment was often more grisly (read: less instantaneous) than most of us think. Yet my personal favorite is the ear chopper. Whether or not it was actually used, it is fun to contemplate the psychological torment value. No doubt, this says more about me than the ear chopper itself. Heh heh.

INFERNAL DEVICE: machinery of torture and execution, by Erik C. Rühling

Hardcover: 87 pages

Publisher: Disinformation Company (November 30, 2007)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1932857893

ISBN-13: 978-1932857894

Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches

CLICK HERE to buy this book at Amazon.

 

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2008.02.03, 8:58 p.m. Hawaii time]

[keywords: Erik Ruhling]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

0.00 / $199.90 (0.0%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.

A Memoir of Sexual Self-Discovery, and a History of Religious Bowling

Probably I should break this entry into two or three separate posts, but lately it's tough enough for me to prod myself into doing even a monthly post to this blog. So today you get three for the price of one.

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FIRST, I want to pass along a link to an online excerpt from ENTANGLED LIVES, the erotic memoir anthology that features my true story along with six other erotic memoirs, including MARILYN JAYE LEWIS, IAN PHILIPS / GREG WHARTON, and "Adam Greenaway" (the pseudonym for a well-known gay author who chose anonymity for his self-disclosure), BILL BRENT (moi -- just including the name for the search engines), AMIE M. EVANS, ROB STEPHENSON, and RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL.

This piece, excerpted from Rob Stephenson's "Exuvia (1977-1980), is featured on the VELVET MAFIA website:

CLICK FOR "EXUVIA" (NOTE: for mature readers only.)

This excerpt contains depictions of gay male S/M sexual activity. What I love about it is how Rob describes the rush of discovery and sexual power from an activity that is not genitally focused.

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SECOND, here is a plug for a new book from editor Russ Kick and the great folks at THE DISINFORMATION COMPANY, who publish a series of encyclopedic books that challenge our cultural assumptions. This one is provocatively titled EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT GOD IS WRONG, and it contains my article, "Martin Luther Goes Bowling," all about the little-known connection between bowling and religion. For instance, there is substantial evidence that bowling, as we know it today, originated in part as a ritual in German churches several centuries after the death of Christ. The original bowling pins may have been some combination of walking stick and club that the parishioners used to defend themselves against "heathens" (robbers) enroute to Church.

Want to know more? HERE'S A LINK TO THE BOOK.

The book contains a plethora of articles by well-known authors, most if not all of which explore little-known facts concerning religion, religious fallacies, or other meditations on the topic, including one of my favorites, "Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do With God," by my blogging pal GRETA CHRISTINA. That one's a freebie, in fact, because you can read it on her blog, RIGHT HERE.

A few other articles of the dozens in this anthology: Richard Dawkins shows us the strange, scary properties of religion; Neil Gaiman turns a biblical atrocity story into a comic (that almost sent a publisher to prison); Erik Davis looks at what happens when religion and California collide; Mike Dash eyes stigmatics; Douglas Rushkoff exposes the trouble with Judaism; Paul Krassner reveals his "Confessions of an Atheist"; and best-selling lexicographer Jonathon Green interprets the language of religious prejudice.

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LAST BUT NOT LEAST, I've been putting up new items for sale in my online bookstore, BooksFromHawaii. Browse, if you wish, and see if there's something you like!

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Thanks for tuning in, and in case I don't post again before the Solstice, Christmas, or whatever your celebration of choice may be, have a wonderful and life-enriching holiday.

Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2007.12.08, 11:05 a.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

80.99 / $199.90 (40.5%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.

"Down the Dark and Sweaty Path of Extreme Sex"

...is how my sex-and-drugs memoir is described on the back cover of Entangled Lives, which just arrived here yesterday. It's available at Amazon.com for under $11 a copy,as well as through many other fine venues. However, if you order a copy through this page, I get a ten percent commission. That's, like, a dollar. Still, it's better than nothing. Just click on one of these LINKS! (They all go to the same Amazon page.)

I still think that cover is blah. Baby blue for a sex book? And what's with the lipstick on a rather raunchy title? Still, it looks better in the pulp, as it were, with a gloss varnish that adds a bit of pizazz that the image here (and at Amazon) cannot convey. You can find out more about the project and its contributors at Entangled-Lives.com.

Regardless of the cover, I'm very glad that Entangled Lives is out. It's the first truly new thing I've had out in print for close to three years, and at a whopping 12,000 words, it is by far the longest literary work I've had published to date. And I still like my story. Literature such as this usually gets branded with the "confessional" label, but I've never felt like my self-revelatory work was confessional, more like brutally frank. Perhaps the difference is largely semantic, but there's a difference in attitude, too.

I'll post some stats on the novel writing soon. Right now I just want to post this so I can get some sleep.

If anyone out there does purchase a copy, please consider posting a review at Amazon.com. Even a few lines of commentary can make a difference in sales. Thanks!

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2007.07.11, 11:15 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

43.55 / $199.90 (21.8%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.

NOVEL-WRITING LOG: 35 days and counting

Left-brain novel took a giant step forward today. I did add word count, but a lot of the progress was hidden; that progress entailed removing a friend's true-life story from a few years back. I had been using it as a place-holder, and today I rewrote it from memory, changing as many details as possible, and adding a batch of new ones, in a way that made it mine.

I also received an unexpected offer to write a piece for hire for a new sexuality website that debuts soon. Now that I am done novel-writing for the day, I am going to submit one of my memoir pieces and offer to rewrite it to meet their needs.

I saw a new green bird today, but I could not get a picture of it, so here's another shot of our favorite femme fatale, the female cardinal (the one I call "alpha female") to dress things up a bit.

And here's a shot of her male counterpart, looking particularly bedraggled as he splashes in the bath. Actually, this is a giant lava rock that we use for run-off from our gutter's overflow during storms. We think it's an ancient Hawaiian grinding stone. Oh, and don't miss the other bird right behind him — a little brown one. Kind of like a mascot to Big Red here. Can anyone identify this little bird? I'd love to know who she is, and why the big boy is two-timing on his missus up above. Wink, wink. (Gag, gag. Clearly I need to get out more often. But not until July 17!)

Last night, I finished Ariel Gore's book, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights, and I hope to post a review sometime soon. The book is chock-full of good mind-over-matter advice to help the aspirant triumph over adversity until Lady Luck spreads her lovely wings to enfold hir. (No, that last word is not a typo, just my attempt at gender neutrality in a gender-polarized language.)

Gore (who, like me, is an editor and publisher as well as a writer), says something profound in the book about the writer's need for left-brain / right-brain balance that vindicates what I've been saying here all week, but of course I didn't mark it, so pffft. (Surely left-brain will be a bit more on top of things when I re-read the book for my review.)

Last but not least, YouTube turned up two romantic tunes from the 1970s that sound as if they came from a different era entirely, since I was writing a memory piece for the left-brain novel today, and I thought it might coax the right-brain into gear a bit if I replayed some tunes from my childhood. I was right:

Hopeful romantics, unite.
- Japanese cheesecake slideshow. The jaunty outfits are priceless. Check out that sheath dress....

Hopeless romantics, untie.
- Live version with John Farnham.
The original 1978 promo video is also on YouTube (and in the original key of D, not F), but the sound quality is even poorer than this.

"But, anyway ... what would you say" ... to today's tally? A 1,200-word net gain on that left-brain novel (and a few new lines for the right-brain novel):

Bill's Left-Brain Novel,
as of June 12, 2007:

63,741 / 90,000 (70.8%)

Bill's Right-Brain Novel,
as of June 12, 2007:

14,738 / 50,000 (29.5%)

(Just don't ask about the shaggy lawn, the shaggy hair, or the shaggy whiskers, please....)

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2007.06.12, 8:20 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

43.55 / $199.90 (21.8%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.

NOVEL WRITING LOG: Novelist, interrupted (36 days and counting)

Left-brain is in control today. I got a ton of mail and some of it needed attention. Consequently, I spent about an hour updating my budget and otherwise dealing with finances.

Most of my literary output today, however, was a right-brain sex scene. It had to be written, but I wasn't into writing it. So I typed it with one hand (accurately!) while I jacked off with the other. See, right-brain, left-brain, in perfect harmony ... but was it work or pleasure, heh-heh? It doesn't matter. It's a darned good scene, and that's what counts.

Today I re-read Greta Christina's honest and insightful article about her writing process, which is a good reminder to go easy on myself sometimes.

Last night (before the cat escaped outdoors and spent the night dodging raindrops), I started reading this under-acknowledged classic, which I've been looking forward to: In Praise of Folly and Other Writings: A New Translation With Critical Commentary (Norton Critical Editions) (Paperback)

Several versions of Erasmus' timeless satiric essay are available, but I highly recommend this edition, the Robert M. Adams translation. It's very easy to read, with extensive and helpful footnotes, so you get the best of both worlds.

So, anyway, here's today's tally:

Bill's Left-Brain Novel,
as of June 11, 2007:

62,541 / 90,000 (69.5%)

Bill's Right-Brain Novel,
as of June 11, 2007:

14,668 / 50,000 (29.3%)

I drank more coffee than I intended to but stopped myself by giving away most of that second cup.

I watched a female cardinal do a tightrope dance along my clothesline. This is an older picture, but I'm pretty sure it's the same bird:

And here's one of a male, so no one feels left out:

Financial House of Surprises, Good News Dep't.:

(1) 2 unexpected single-book orders via Amazon Marketplace. It took away from writing time to fill them, but I am now about $30 richer. Speaking of which, want to support my cause? Browse my bookstore on Amazon and buy something!

(2) A check reimbursing me for some of last year's co-payments for my prescription medications. Who knew? This nearly covers the auto insurance bill that just arrived with the check. Whoopee!

It wasn't a bad day.

OK, you can probably read today's sex scene in the novel someday (what was he wanking off to?), but meanwhile, here is intimate info about me that you never knew (and didn't really want to):

My weirdest fetish is, arguably, cleaning my ear canal with a Q-Tip ... then sniffing the earwax. Woo-hoo! Why? I have no idea, but I note that it activates four of the five senses. Not tasting. Ugh. Now that would be kinky.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2007.06.11, 4:45 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

43.55 / $199.90 (21.8%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.