“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the time when bleach-faced pop stars accused of diddling little boys showed up at court in pajama pants and slippers,—their surgically-sculpted mouths smeared in pastel pink lipstick, their posses of paid sycophants trailing behind them like the long black tail of some obscenely-priced and custom-tailored tux jacket…”*
****
update: “…tasty animal crackers and pop rocks and little red toy cars that go whiiiiiirrrrrrrrrirr”!
Thank you, King of Pop, may I have another?
An excerpt from his new, soon-to-be-classic book David Cop-a-feel
Or Oliver Twisted
A Tale of Two Kiddies
Freak House. A Tale of Two Kiddies.
Well, that was kind of freaky, huh?
Or Nicholas, Tickle Me
ok..ok.. published in 1836
The Lickdick Papers and Pictures of Boyz
And of course, Hard Times holds up well. So to speak.
Great Expectations (for Kidtouching)
-or- Great Expectations that 12 will get him 15-20
Martini Chuzzlewit da Whizzle Nizzle Yo.
Too bad Dickens didn’t write a lot books, otherwise we could really riff here for a while.
Michael bless us, every one.
(Tip for Michael Jackson from Aunt Margi: If you’re too weak and frail to spend three months in jail while you are on trial, I suggest you get your freak-ass to court on time.)
He better hope he doesn’t get a cellmate that wants to play the “mommy or daddy” game.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. Make up your mind Chuck. I think if Dickens were alive today covering this trial he would opine: “It is the worst of times”.
In a parting letter to my coworkers upon resignation, I got rip-roaring drunk and wrote a 3 page long more-or-less friendly farewell note beginning with that paragraph from Dickens (unaltered). Suffice it to say, it cemented my reputation around the office as one seriously weird dude–not that it needed cementing.
The Old Buggerosity Shop
keyword, “together”
Master Humphrey’s Cock
The Dickspit on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home
Keyword, “behind” What can I say?
Our Mutual Sex-Fiend
Little Whorrit
Really Little Dorrit
David Copafeel
Pickwick Peepers
Two that don’t need changing: Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend.
Oh, for cryin’ in a bucket. Keyword, “growing”
I guess that should have been “Coppafeel,” huh?
Domeboy and Son
CC – Similar to Daniel’s second post on this thread.
Wow, and I checked to see if it was there. Oh, well.
I knew my nizzle CC would show up!
And I gots to admit, you have the better spelling – “Coppafeel”.
I can’t believe I’m giving this idea to Jeff for free but … could we have some fun with a Michael Jackson trial diary or what?
Michael Jackson’s Pajamas should talk.
NO, Ana. Jackson’s pajamas have seen things that my poor delicate nature couldn’t handle.
..But think of the questions that could be answered once and for all..
Alpha Baboon
Turing word: long
I’m not going to touch that
(bet thats what the boy said too)
Let us turn our attention to Dombey. Shall we?
Ch 9–In Which The Wooden Midshipman Gets Into Trouble
Ch 10–Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman’s Disaster
Ch 15–Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a New Pursuit for Walter Gay
Ch 17–Captain Cuttle Does a Little Business for the Young People
Ch 19–Walter Goes Away
Ch 32–The Midshipman Goes to Pieces
Ch 39–Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
Ch 49–The Midshipman Makes a Discovery
Ch 50–Mr. Toots’s Complaint
Ch 52–Secret Intelligence
Ch 53–More Intelligence
Ch 54–The Fugitives
Ch 56–Several People Delighted, and the Game Chicken Disgusted
Ch 59–Retribution
Ch 62–Final
Downright spooky.
I kind of like “Captain Jacko Does a Little Business with the Young People”
They’re considered minor works, but you all left out:
A Child’s History of Neverland – Published serially in Household Words from Jan 1851 to Dec 1853
The Crotches on the Hearth – 1845
The Haunted Man and the Guest’s Boy Gun – 1848
OMG! Turing word: child
Ewwww
I bet Alice In Wonderland is another trove o’ treasure. Lewis Carroll liked to take pictures of little girls in the all-together. No shit.
But he was being artistic.
Beck, I like to think of my coworkers as Cow Orkers. It makes me feel superior.
Is that like llama orgles? You could be slapped with a lawsuit for that kind of hare assment.
Is Cow Orking even legal where you live? WA State passed a law against it back in ‘85. Things have been kinda boring around here since then.
Turing word: much
As in: cow orking is a much missed activity in Seattle.
I dont think Lewis Carroll actually photographed young girls in the all together.. All of his pictures I’ve seen are clothed, even Alice Liddell.
Relatively recent research kind of bucks the traditional image of Charles as a shy recluse.. In fact he was very social and outgoing, had many adult women friends (and corresponding scandalous affairs).
But he was kind of the Michael Jackson of his day in that he did enjoy young girls for friends and company..
Now Uncle Humbert was a different story..
Sorry Alph, but I must ever so slightly fact check your baboon ass. Dodgson (Carroll) did do nude studies of children, but they were part of a whole Victorian tradition of depicting childlike innocence and were not considered sexual. Here’s a good article on the subject.
Here’s a quote for those who don’t want to follow the link to the whole article
Hey, my spamword is “cut”
Wow. I didn’t know I was anyone’s nizzle, whatever that is. Is that like shizzle on my nizzle? Because that sounds vaguely disturbing.
Craig, Didn’t you get your complimentary commetator’s copy of the Urban Dictionary? (Along with the complete works of Charles Dickens, etc.)
OOoooooo OOoo oo AAh AAh AAh AAAAAAAAAAA!!!
My reply to you Ms.Gail “Smarty-Pants More-Literate than thou” is this..
Produce one…
Oh sure.. historians SAY he photographed nude children.. Researchers SAY he photographed nude children.. but then ‘reliable sources’ also say that Jeff Gannon is a Bushco plant in the White House Press Corp and John Kerry was a genuine war hero in Viet Nam… So I say Prove It..
I say, if he was so hot on Alice Liddell, how come he photographed her clothed and not wearing a PVC corset with fishnet stockings and a black leather motorcycle cap, holding a crop?
-AB
Dear Mr. Bipolar Baboon Piss,
You can’t find them online. I think people are afraid they’ll get busted for downloading child porn. No bananas for you.
Ok..OK.. you win.. I’ve read a number of recent articles on Charles Dodgson that dispelled previous beliefs about his lifestyle.. but I just didnt remember seeing any nude pictures among the dozens I’ve seen. I bluffed..
Now while were discussing the Michael Jackson Syndrome we should probably touch on Edgar Allen Poe as well.. Drunk.. Pedarest.. Writer extraordinaire !
And maybe Nabakov… yes.. certainly Nabakov.
-AB
Poe, now there was a pederast. So was Ruskin, by the way. He married a 13 year old, but delicately refrained from consummating the match until she ran off with a pre-Raphaelite. Then it was too late.
Running off with Pre-Raphaelites. Isn’t that a band?
I seem to recall that William Morris made some bitchen wallpaper.
Ooooo Lolita. I’ve gotten in trouble so many times for my un-PC views on Lolita. She knew. (Okay, it’s fiction.)
Still, there are no nymphets in Polar Climates.
Why did he wait? Wasnt the age of consent in 19th century England something in the range of 8 or 9 years old? Is the term pedarest even properly used if the youngster is of consensual age, or is it soley related to the age.. ? I read somewhere that the concept of childhood is a relatively modern concept. That in years gone by a child was expected to be basically self sufficient well before the age of puberty.
Lo was always in the driver seat..
As to polar regions.. how would you know by looking at them under all those polar bear skin coats.. ?
Isn’t there an insane amount of subtext in Nabokov’s work?
And, yes. Childhood is a relatively new concept. Just ask Mohamed.
Pre-Raphaelites rocked. Dante Gabriel Rosetti buried all his unpublished poetry with his wife, then regretted it like a year later and dug her up.
Elaborate on that please.. Referring to his most famous work Lolita, what metaphor did you take away from that..? It wasnt graphic porn but I dont think much went unstated or undeveloped either. Perhaps I’m very dense but I saw Lolita as a piece written for the pathos alone.. no hidden message or morality tale.. just a beaten man that had invested everything in something he couldnt hold onto.. If one doesnt judge Humbert for his pedaresty (and Lo wasnt all that young), then its actually quite a sad story… a love story without a happy ending.
Meanwhile his sister was writing religious poetry.
Rosetti’s sis, that is
Lolita is a prose love poem based on a bit of Poe verse.
It’s also a love poem to Americana.
Christina. She was a troublemaker.
Mommy: “Christina, why can’t you give me the respect that I would get from ANY PERSON WALKING DOWN THE STREET??!!”
Christina: Because…I am…NOT…one of your FAAAANNNNNNNS!!!!!!
Pedaresty = some kinda foot massage thingy?
Does a Pre-Raphaelite actually know that he or she is a Pre-Raphaelite?
They’re all dead so it doesn’t matter.
Ana, Ana, Ana ……….
Diana of the Frozen Tundra knows whereof she speaks.
She’s BACK from assignment in tight pants with potty mouth and flimsy plot!
I think Diana was a nymphet. That’s what I think.
Someone once told me that there was a massive play on words or a puzzle of sorts in Lolita. I never investigated, but perhaps someone knows.
Was?
Well, now, Diana. You have to be between nine and fourteen. I think we’re all pretty safe there.
Cocky, aren’t we!
Noooooooooooooo.
I am merely pointing out that the age parameters on a nymphet would clearly rule out someone with the edgy intellect, memorable tun of phrase, and exceptionally fine humor that you have exhibited. Is all. Besides, if you want to start one of those threads you’re totally out of luck. MC is nowhere in sight and the boys are off on some other thread talking Civil Liberties or some such shit that requires a hell of a lot more wattage than I can muster.
I went to the links you posted and saw the Greenfields for the first time. Ha! #2 was particularly funny.
How can you unfeeling monsters be rooting (in all senses of the word) for this great artiste, this sensitive eternally child-like soul, to be sent off to the Big House to become a mere peg-boy for Bubba?
Have you all lost all sense of human compassion?
[Speaking of Peg-Boys, my secret word is “sat.”]
I love this blog. I learn so much here.
For those of you interested in Carroll / Dodgson, allow me to recommend Rikki Ducornet’s wonderful novel, The Jade Cabinet, which features ol’ Chuck as one of its Victorian characters.
Full disclosure: Ducornet was one of my writing teachers. And, if it gives you any indication of her sensibilities, she once told me that I needed, in my writing, “to allow myself to be more crazy.”
I see you took her advise..
(and I say that as one that knows crazy)
-AB
.. but then, if Charles was only interested in young girls as friends, company & images of innocence, why did his family burn his journal following his death ? They destroyed any direct references to his relationship with Alice Liddell that he may have made.. I’ve read that Charles had a ‘Humbert Moment’ when he ran into Alice after they’d been seperated for an extended time.. and that by that time she was a teen and no longer appealed to Dodgson..
-AB
Perhaps they destroyed the journals lest history put Dodgson in a tight spot.
On the subject of whether Charles Dodgson really did photograph nude young girls: Yes, he did.
A number of years ago, I was working a student job in the library of a large, well-known university. I was gathering books to be re-shelved, and found one on that very subject, including color plates of those few known to survive. Unfortunately, some vandal (who is obviously doomed to burn in Hell for book mutilation!) had cut out all but one or two.
The photos were carefully posed, and with appropriate props, to resemble actual paintings (real, classical ones, as I remember), with girls of about age 10 posing like the original painter’s models. Now, why, you ask, did he make these photographs? Because the girls’ mothers asked him to. Some sort of weird Victorian thing, the author said.