Sophia and I were good friends in high school. She decided to marry her high school boyfriend when we were all in college, and I was a bridesmaid in their huge Italian wedding. She was part Italian, part Portuguese and didn’t know that she had been one of my teenage crushes. The summer we graduated from college, I moved into an apartment with a roommate, and they had an apartment in the same...
At this very moment there is a street festival outside and music comes to me through the open window. Stolidly dousing, some jazzy Italopop or poppy Italo jazz, who knows. The difference from what I’ve heard immediately previously couldn’t be any greater: psychedelic rock from the 1960s, synthesizer pieces from the early seventies. Old, but still refreshing – and intensive. Whatever...
“The story of a young man who is moving from the provinces to Rome in order to become a journalist. One of these journalists a society craving for sensations is creating: a muckraker enjoying himself for giving up his former ideals.” This diary note of Italian writer Ennio Flaiano was the original idea for Federico Fellini’s three-hour masterpiece “La Dolce Vita” (the...
It was on the Fourth of July that K wanted to introduce me to her parents. Her entire extended family would be present—grandparents, cousins, siblings. I was a nervous wreck driving over to their house. What if these people were my future in-laws? She answered the front door dressed in a bikini, looking smoking hot, and kissed me. After a short tour of the house, I changed clothes and the two of...
Last week we were discussing real and unreal diseases. We have learned that there is a disease mongering of socially unwanted phenomena with the reputation of addictions. These addictions, most of them of a behavioral nature, are based upon an a prior assumption to be real disorders. There is no unambiguous scientific report about these purported diseases, though: many studies are tendentious, or...
The script to my life went as follows: Woman works at a company for years. Millionaire man cuts her position during the recession. Woman can’t find work. Woman walks into a “men’s club” one afternoon and signs up to be a topless dancer. Man comes in. Woman decides to write a novel about it. *** He was sitting at a table next to the stage having a cocktail and watching the entertainment, dressed...
Anamnesis Given their druthers, most of us would suffer from an awful pest: addiction. Sitting in front of a computer for several hours, the excessive cultivation of contacts in social networks, the consumption of online pornography is only a cry for help. Because: You are suffering from addiction. But relax, there’s help. Last week I’ve read about various types of computer or Internet...
I slipped off my high heels and asked her to unzip the back of my dress. We had been out to a fancy dinner for the night and were back at our hotel room. She unzipped the top part of the dress and unexpectedly moved her hand around my waist, drawing me closer to her body at the edge of the bed. I felt her mouth on the side of my neck, marking a trail of kisses on me, and her fingers hiking up my...
Today’s illustration shows the world-wide legal status of pornography. Green: pornography is legal, yellow: pornography is subject to some restrictions, red: pornography is forbidden, grey means missing data. The international legal situation knows only two extremes: pornography is completely forbidden, or it’s completely open (usually with age restrictions and explicit bans on criminal...
Some days are like biting into a peanut butter cup that has gone old before it’s time leaving you with a mouth full of dried chalky peanut butter that’s unpalatable. Others are like sinking your teeth into the soft rich creaminess of that nutty heaven washing it down with a wave of rich chocolate goodness. Today was definitely the later but I had doubts when my bedmate woke me an hour after...
My gay boyfriend and I used to go out to gay clubs together. He loves partying with lesbians and was glad to be my wingman to assist in meeting women. One evening before heading to a club, we were having dinner at a French restaurant, the two of us at a table, and an old man came over. “I want to tell you two what a beautiful couple you make,” he said. “You will have such gorgeous babies one...
