once upon a time I wrote long posts about single subjects.

[eruthros]

1. Oh my god, they got Jewel Staite too?

For those keeping track, they also snagged Torri Higginson. And David Hewlett. Again.

2. Does anybody know why Icerocket doesn't index dreamwidth? And whether there's any way to get them to? I like to use icerocket as a casual search tool, but I want it to find DW posts too!

3. thingswithwings and I started to watch Fringe. We quite liked the pilot, with a few reservations, but then the second episode was all guess-what-the-camera-finds-women-being-killed-erotic. And I just can't take that anymore, no matter how interesting the characters or plots or whatever. So, friends who watch Fringe, does the show change? Was that a moment of complete screw-up that they backed off from? Or is it a show that I can't watch?

4. I find this Gloria Brame post about bondage as performance art really intriguing! It's just a little snippet, though.

5. Don't you hate it when you see an image on someone's blog without citation, and then you've got no idea when or where it's from? Well, I found one of those images, and I'd love to see the context of it.

So! Long shot and all, but can anybody tell me where this is from, or maybe a better way to google for it, or a reference book that might help me out?



6. Today I am using my Mythbusters icon because Mythbusters is back! Hurrah hurrah hurrah! thingswithwings and I ran out of Mythbusters a month ago, and since then we've only been able to rewatch things. But now! New Mythbusters! It is like an early birthday present for ME.

Comments

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

That picture puts me in mind of Farzana Doctor's novel Stealing Nasreen, which is about Gujarati-Canadians; one of the characters has an antique miniature painting from home of a rani and her maid-servant, who are implied (much more subtly) to have an erotic connection. (The book suggests that the figures in the painting are sentient and commenting on the action, willing one of the characters to come out as a lesbian; on the other hand the whispers she hears might be a psychological projection, but I would vote for option one.)

As far as reference books go, I would recommend checking out some of Ruth Vanita's edited collections; she has several about the representations of same-sex desire in India that have very good historic (including ancient and medieval) sources. (This is just a guess, as the drawing style seems very South Asian to me, but I bet it's a lot more specific in terms of region and time period, and I could be wrong.) I've heard her speak and I think she's very smart; I believe her work nicely deconstructs the whole Foucault "homosexuality was invented in the West in the 19th c" argument, which I have minimal patience for, with a lot of evidence for India have a discourse and words for same-sex sexuality going back for thousands of years.

The picture also makes me think of some of the women-with-dildos pictures painted on Greek wine-vases from around 500 BCE; Bernadette J. Brooten's Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (ignore the subtitle--it's a brilliant book that looks at the pagan Roman & Jewish contexts in depth before addressing the Christian one) has pictures and some discussion; Martin F. Kilmer's Greek Erotica in Attic Red-Figure Vases treats the subject in more depth, I think, but I haven't read him.

[eruthros]

Oh, cool! I will check out Ruth Vanita, plus those other collections you mention. Thanks so much!

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Glad to help--and especially if it involves recommending books! Please let me know what you find; it's such an intriguing picture.