29 September 2011

Mary Roach- Bonk

Things I learned from Mary Roach's Bonk, the funniest book on earth about the relationship between sex and science.

A descendent of Napoleon, bitter at her inability to achieve orgasm via intercourse, raged against cows' superior anatomy: "Nature has favoured animals over womenkind... for the clitorises of mares are located right on the border of the genital orifice." Damn  them.
Many 19th century American women had their clitorises removed because preachers said masturbation caused hysteria, epilepsy and idiocy.

Sexually stimulating a sow while you artificially inseminate her leads to a 6- percent improvement in fertility.

According to a 1940s survey of American men, roughly 27-percent of college-age rural males copped to having had "some animal experience to the point of orgasm." Calves, burros, and sheep were the preferred partners.

The last portion of a man's ejaculate contains a natural spermicide- not intended to kill his own soldiers but to annihilate the seed of any who comes after him.

Blood is the backbone of a stiff penis (note the eloquence of that sentence).

San Francisco cock-ring emergencies are so common that they have their own shorthand- "C-ring"- on the Fire Department teletype.

Dead men can get erections.

In 17th century France, a man could be arrested for not getting it up for his wife. If a man failed to satisfy his spouse, she could sue for divorce if the state could prove that he was not achieving erections for her, with the assumption that he was achieving them elsewhere. A tribunal would come in to see if he could get it up, and if so, it would be assumed that he was doing other women, which gave his wife grounds for divorce. Don't ask about procedure. Really.

Restaurants in Taiwan sell tiger penis soup for 320 bucks. Many believe that tiger cock will bring back a man's boom boom.

Male pandas have a really hard time finding the slot. And we protect these creatures.

More than one scientist has studied remedies for flatulence (or leakage from the back passage) during sex.

Young widows upset with life were often diagnosed with "womb fury."

Researchers have found that a session with a rectal probe electroejaculator dampens leg spasiticity for, on average, eight hours.

According to official literature, the following have been removed from rectums over the past ten years: a frozen pig tail, a bottle of Impulse Body Spray, a parsnip, a plaintain, a dull knife, a cattle horn, a salami, a jeweler's saw, and a plastic spatula. There is plenty more, but you get the picture.

A masturbating chimpanzee will stare straight at you.

Men's colognes actually reduce vaginal blood flow.

Just a random sample, really. Much more to be found in the book, especially the brilliance of the chapter on Danish farmers massaging teats to get pigs hot to improve fertility.  Riveting stuff. I'll check back later after I've finished her work on dead bodies. Should be a hoot.

27 September 2011

Case Studies- The World is Just a Shape to Fill the Night

The Duchess and the Duke made two of the best records of the past few years, and the male half of that duo and the primary songwriter (I presume), Jesse Lortz, is back with a new name but a similar game. Dark ballads about loss and longing and ghosts. Being haunted recurs in this dude's lyrics, and usually the spectors come in the form of lost loves, or maybe just one. We get more female harmonizing, but it's not quite as aching as her majesty's, at least to these ears, and while I'm pretty sure this guy can't write a bad song, these don't quite reach the heights of those D&D efforts. And after three albums of unrelenting gloom and pining, maybe a hint from old Townes Van Zandt, the king of the moody brooder- drop a comic line or two to lighten the listener's load.  Few lives were as dark as TVZ's, but he always seemed to get that tragedy had its absurdly comic sides. If you just got dumped, this might be the record of your life, but for those muddling through, a little variety would make the haunt that much creepier.  An ironic little jig before that breakfast whiskey and those wistful looks out that stained dormer window might at least acknowledge that in the 24 hours of your pain, at least a few moments are weird.  That said, I'd buy anything the man put out, even his new take on the death knell.

Kim Salmon reminisces

26 September 2011

Jon Wayne- Texas Funeral

This is Godhead stupid, and the greatest record I had ever heard on the first night I listened to it. Granted, I was drunk and irritable and looking for a reason to feel sorry for myself, but this baby spun the evening in an entirely different direction. A dumb one. A slap upside the head and get down on the ground to get in touch with your own fucking absurd mortality direction. A reminder that no matter how seriously you take yourself in any given moment, there's some fucker in Texas trying to make country music who can remind you of what an asshole you are. Thanks, guys. I needed that. Up there with that Clap album for reissue of the year. Or maybe it was last year. Fitting. Dumb is as dumb hears and sometimes dumb is the only night road to take.

25 September 2011

White Mystery

White Mystery
White Mystery, MTV Hive

I ran across this last night. Not sure if I like em. But the guitar work is pretty fierce.

The Black Angels

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. So sayeth Mark E. Smith after the fifteenth Scotch or the umpteenth trip along the rhythm's edge. Find a groove, lock in and maybe the world will disappear and you can escape into the drone. The Black Angels understand this, and they deliver the pleasure quotient with one hook after another- albeit one hook per song. What we have here is Spacemen 3 worship by folks who really know their record collections. Dark psych of the desert variety, but one that detours from the Mojave through Texas acid-damage and left towards those Reid brothers' castles in Northern England. Let's not forget Roky, whom these guys sometimes back. Given the record I just bought is an exact replica of Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators and you have your influences duly noted. I can't stop listening to their four records, and I'm not sure I can name a single song. We're not talking anthems here. Find the beat and roll the head to and fro. Find the recesses of the hippocampus where the glory days of  mushroom mornings sit neatly beside that hot soccer player you loved and lost because you were an asshole. Marinate in the same melody repeated and repeated and repeated. Ignore those lyrical attempts at darkness. A sameness dominates, but it's a righteous sameness.  Passover and Direction to See a Ghost supply the hard S-3 rhythmic drone sounds, and Phosphene Dream is more freakbeat traditional 60s pop stuff.  Hell, I even caught a whiff of Echo and the Bunnymen with my breakfast soundtrack, and I'm talking Crocodiles. Four out of four records is purty darn rare, so respect the track record and lock in.

20 September 2011

Everything Old is New Again

Life changes and then turns round again- Sunday night at Loard's, 30+ years later.