There comes a time in any man's life when he realizes that he is an insignificant speck of dust careering aimlessly through the cosmic woof of time. I've lurked the blogs, read the trades, surfed the web and exchange in "chats" with so many other dissatisfied writers, that if I scribble only one idea this entire month, I want it to be this heartfelt wish of warmth from the bottom of my pen on this Valentine's Day 2005 for each of you. Kvetch, kvell & klassy
Tracking Trends Great & Small: The Flame & Flower: Much Ado About You
I fell in love with romances on the spot. But my father was a poet, and he would have preferred that I had fallen in love with Whitman
(Dman) you precious virgins! snarled the bodice-ripping rake over the sound of tearing silk. It was fifth-grade choir practice in the spring of 1972, and I was learning about sex from a copy of Kathleen Woodiwiss's "Flame and the Flower" that a classmate had purloined from his mom. Now that was a bodice-ripper: passionate, crazed and outrageously overwrought.
I've a good notion that many people, no matter their reading preference, are hoping for a Valentine's Day that involves a bit of flying lingerie.
• There's enough wrong with publishing without us keeping alive this old sterotype [Once the realm of poets, artists and philosophers, love has been exposed as biochemistry Two Decades of Exile, Love & Sex; As psychology advances its understanding of the mind and brain, perhaps the last bastion of mystery about why we do what we do remains our perplexing behaviour around love and romance. Lovers, beware candlelight’s allure ]
• · The state is not only virginal and sexually attractive, it is also populated by people who are innocent to the point of being stupid. The Hindus and the Jews are the people who want to sexually violate this virgin State as a ‘violable’ virgin ; Can true love survive political differences? Passing the Political Mouse
• · · We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights - though, of course, V.I.P.'s must be taken care of, as they are in any other circumstance The Age of the Resume Gods ; Imagine there's no accountability; it's easy if you try
• · · · Announcement from WikiMedia: Google Inc. has made a proposal to host some of the content of the Wikimedia projects. Gookimedia ; About All of Us The Unassociated Press ; Bibliography of Online Research Tools and Trends
• · · · · Why does the Web's biggest retailer want you to confide your hopes, dreams and aspirations to a Web site called 43 Things? It's not telling. On the Internet, nobody knows you're Amazon.com, if you hide behind the friendly face of an independent start-up Salon investigates 43 Things ; Maud tells us about a new column in The New Republic called "Found in Translation," focusing on translated works that have been neglected by the media Increasingly, writers, readers and publishers are turning to literature as a bridge between cultures
• · · · · · The fortunes of spa holiday resorts can ebb and flow like the tide. Lovers of hot spas are no longer like a sheep and insecure. They have done their homework on the internet. When I was young we used to head on weekends to Ruzbachy, but to escape the costs and queues today people head to Vrbov by name and its spring is boiling ; Hungarians are obsessed with bathhouses, but Peter Hay remains high and dry