Quote of the day

Pessimists, we're told, look at a glass containing 50% air and 50% water and see it as half empty. Optimists, in contrast, see it as half full. Engineers, of course, understand the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
-Bob Lewis

Advice from the Vamp

In the unlikely case that anybody has been reading me for a long time, they might remember my post on Trudie, economics professor Tyler Cowen's take-off on the advice columnist Prudie (here "she" is on dating multiple men).

But Cowen wasn't the first professor doing advice columns, not even the first that I have read. That honor would go to Camille Paglia (just happened to be glancing through her book "Vamps and Tramps" in my basement) of "Sexual Personae". She did an advice column in "Spy" magazine, and published some examples in "Vamps and Tramps".

Excerpts:

Dear Camille:
I've been severely disappointed in my lady friends, who come across as intelligent women with common sense but end up making bad choices when it comes to men.
Jolted Joe from Brooklyn

Dear Joe:
You are puzzled by the irrational perversity of sexual attraction. Dionysus is a maelstrom. Love will never be tidy or safe. Jump in the boat and row for your life.

Dear Camille:
I'm a female who has rape fantasies featuring ex-convicts, aliens, postapocolyptic mutant gang leaders, etc. While I invent dialogue for both sexes, I feel more "inside" the male character, even after the female has gained the upper hand, which always happens. Am I bisexual, sadomasochistic, or just strange?
Is This Hell? No, This Is Iowa

Dear Hell-In-Iowa:
Make movies as soon as possible. Surf's up in your sharkish libido. It's the cyberpunk 1990's, so take us for a ride on the wild side.