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January 17, 2003
They got issues. They admit this.
Well, the magazine is called Black Issues Book Review. . .
The 4th Anniversary Issue is out at newstands, or at least in the library I visited yesterday. For reasons I'm still unclear on, I tried reading the article on Black Erotica, How to Get Your Literary FreakOn:
Not all romance is love, and not all sex is erotic. (And trust me, some of what’s being touted as erotica has surely strayed into what seems more like pornography.) A Supreme Court justice once said something akin to, “I can’t tell you what pornography is, but I know it when I see it.” I agree, and I’ve seen a lot of it lately in the covers of some erotica collections. But I’ll leave that for you to decide. Merriam-Webster defines erotica as “a literary work having an erotic theme or quality.” Sometimes subtle, sometimes bold, erotica is present when the written word arouses sexual desire. No matter how you categorize it, if the number of steamy new releases is any indication, erotic literature is here to stay.Prominently positioned among popular African-American fiction, new collections are debuting at an astounding rate, with offerings from the sublime to sewer-like. If your libido is stoked by sexually explicit literature, there’s no shortage of books to entertain and entice you.
Um. Yeah.
The piece concentrates on short story collections, starting off with a mention of Erotique Noire and briefly describing a number of more recent anthologies (see the list at the bottom of the page). Seems fairly superficial, even to my dumb ass someone with very limited familiarity with the genre like myself.
Did make me to think about Delany's essay from Dark Matter again, and whether literary segregation of this sort is a positive thing. It does touch (again, briefly) on the mainstream publishers vs. independents issue, and LGBT authors/subject matter is mentioned. Sort'a. If you squint a little.
And Delany himself isn't mentioned, but that might be because he describes The Mad Man and Hogg as pornography rather than. . .
No, said I didn't want to have that discussion here.
Ah, screw it.
Discuss.
Update: I'm such a flake. See Delany's Dirt by Bellona Times' own Ray Davis for more on, um, Delany's dirt.
Smut.
I give up.
Update 2: Jhames, on the other hand, never gives up, and "contribute[s his] voice to the discussion about pornography." With, like, links and definitions and stuff.
Better you than me, pal.
And I'd solicit suggestions from "the creator/pundit of the Pornographic Majority," but let's have a serious, informed discussion instead.
Update 3: Eheh.
One of the things I try to do around here -- and possibly fail at -- is making quite clear that I don't know shit from Shinola.
In fact, I don't know what Shinola is. Let's have a look.
Shinola is a brand of shoe polish available in the USA.
Armed with this information, I find that Shinola is, in fact, no longer manufactured. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's no longer available, so the info from the first link might still be accurate. . .
I also employ ellipses-ending digressions rather than bold statements. Except for that last one.
Hardly punditlike behavior, you must admit. If you want to. Up to you, really.
Anyway, just wanted to make that clear before the hammer came down.
Update 4: Unsurprisingly, Oliver just doesn't get it, claiming Jhames "doesn't offer much in the way of refutation." Which is interesting, since Heather said pretty much exactly the same thing about his original "Emerging Pornographic Majority" post, but I'm confident Mr. Willis knows much more about such things than either of them. . .
Update 4.25: Maybe I'm trying to cover too much ground with this one entry. Ronn links to Mainstream Ahead in Black Publishing, an NYTimes article about, well, the publishing of books by/for black folks. It contains another reference to Zane. I'm starting to think this name should mean something to me.
There's an interesting comment from Lynne there, too.
Meanwhile, Team Murder notes that "Even porn hosts are becoming Linux activists."
And that's it. I'm going to bed.
Posted by Aaron at January 17, 2003 12:12 PM
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» Now Where Did I Put My Ass-Whoopin’ Stick...? from jhames [journal]
Thank you, Aaron, for sending me to The Emerging Pornographic Majority by one Oliver Willis. Hi, Oliver? Let’s review your [Read More]
Tracked on January 17, 2003 06:07 PM