...and let it never be said that anything is too awful for this place.
"The pop tart (sic) left little to the imagination with her raunchy display (...)
Britney, 22, writhed in just a pink bra, knickers and suspenders as a male dancer put his head between her legs.
The soft-porn show left the audience gasping. Britney arrived on stage by sliding down a fireman’s pole — then straddled a near-naked hunk on a bed, simulating sex as he groped her breasts."
Mercifully -- despite prolific use of the usual two-syllable words from a bygone age ("hottest", "saucy", "frolic", "steamy", "shocking") -- Britney and the UK's biggest-selling newspaper in fact left the ghastly worst out in what I'd taken for an April Fool, entitled 'A star is porn'.
But no. You could see even more of the gruesome stuff by clicking on the picture, while the Spears site confirms the phenomenon (pop-ups galore!)...
Moving hastily on, my attention was drawn in that appalling direction via something else almost in the "friends of friends" category.
At the weekend, Adam Curry -- who is quite indirectly to blame for the above -- made a generous contribution to the Lawrence "Free Culture" Lessig "let's-all-have-a-go" notion (AKMA) doing the rounds and reminded me of the Gutenberg Project.
If you've got a newsreader, in his "collaborative audio books" entry, Adam's given us an RSS feed offering MP3 readings of Lessig's book. Nice thinking!
The latest curiosity to come down the pipes via one of my peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing clients has been a copy of that Paris Hilton (bedroom) Video we got by the garbage truckload. (I was, anyway; half the hemisphere offered me dozens of them, as I suppose happened to anybody whose main e-mail addy has become inextricably intertwined with the spam servers of the Florida mafia and some of the Net's better quality porn sites...).
As I hope Tony will confirm to me once he's satisfied his own curiosity about Gibson's gore-fest, "If you've not seen it, you really haven't missed anything!"
The Gutenberg Project actively encourages an altogether more sophisticated use of P2P as one means "to put the world's great literature on the hard drives and in the CD collection of as many people as possible at little or no cost".
And it's legal.
"There are three portions of the Project Gutenberg Library, basically (to) be described as:
- Light Literature; such as Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, Peter Pan, Aesop's Fables, etc.
- Heavy Literature; such as the Bible or other religious documents, Shakespeare, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, etc.
- References; such as Roget's Thesaurus, almanacs, and a set of encyclopedia, dictionaries, etc."
I'm grateful to Adam for his reminder of this remarkable enterprise, since it's been one of my e-book "meaning to" items since I joined the O'Reilly Safari library last year, but hadn't realised that Project Gutenberg (Welcome page) has been up and running for more than three decades already.
It's a combination of their link-up with 'ibiblio', the spread of broadband Net technology and the P2P explosion of recent years which now renders what they're doing of immense interest.
They now have Music in Progress.
That I unerringly manage to weave such stuff as the seedy Spears fantasy show into the same entry as a sublime String Quartet No. 13 (Beethoven "eText") which passeth all understanding will not, I'm afraid, surprise the Faithful Five ¾.
But it's an exercise in dissuasion!
Those adventurous friends I seem to have acquired will recall that things tend to happen to me and this blog at around this time of the year.
Last May, even the delicious Sandy -- that fast-living lovely who was among my first fancies and quite obviously edible from the very tips of her toes every millimetre of the way on up -- was "co-habiting" here with Wagner and soon enough, the first buds for the Wildcat!
And all you all know where that got me.
Deep into nights of succulent sweet nothings, poetic digressions, romantic insanity, emergency negotiations with The Bank, and dramatic disaster to which I've granted the Wildcat, bless her sweet heart, exclusive book and film rights -- on condition she never does that again...
The temporary disappearance of the flowers led to a kind offer from a blogger with boobies ... and a tormented note from Athens in Georgia, which received a dissuasive answer.
It has to be coincidence that Georgia is next door to South Carolina, a source not of torment but the origin of today's lunch date.
Those I am trying to dissuade -- from taking me as a good example of anything imaginable -- by rambling and digressing, cluttering up newsreaders and failing to provide hot news from the blogosphere -- are The Students.
There's somebody I've been planning to strangle -- but I'm not yet that far down my long "meaning to" list -- for more than a week now, since the fellow told me that he has recommended 'taliesin's log' (this experiment) to a whole classroom full of bright and perhaps not so bright young things as a Model of a Well-Written Journalist's Weblog.
If I didn't like the man immensely, he would be dead by now!
This piece of information -- imparted I don't doubt with the kindest of intentions -- was almost enough to complete the edification of the biggest writer's block I have endured for years, compounded only by last week's excursion back into semiology (Philosophistry) and deconstruction.
The Faithful Five ¾ were in grievous danger of becoming a Steady Six ¼, with all the risks that entailed of having to write properly, be PC, remember my manners, dress decently, and not even mention sex!
And then.
The deep southern cavalry rode into Purgatory, wearing hip-hugging jeans to her best advantage, complaining correctly about the "frigid" weather and ravenous for ... a humble croque monsieur.
Thus making of me a monsieur prêt à croquer.
"Didn't you get my e-mail?" she'd asked, when I called to make sure my last hope of a dangerously attractive encounter before returning to the Factory wasn't to be dashed.
On the contrary.
For now, let's call her Lady E.
Intuition, gut-instinct and blind faith tell me that you, the Faithful Five ¾, may be reading more about Lady E in coming months.
At close range, the woman is even prettier than recalled during a first ... irreverent encounter. She has the taste to live the sensible side of the river, has kept an accent as pleasing as her smile, and has those eyes.
You know, the kind I tend to fall into ... that make me want to sleep with the enemy (Americans wise enough to elbow out more lebensraum and make a nuisance of themselves "behind enemy lines") ... that, yes well...
Good heavens, the woman didn't even give me any of that "just good friends" nonsense, though she issued the usual warning signs -- talk of "long-distance lust relationships", the "boyfriend" (I'd expect no less), and, of course, "complications", etc.
In short, the usual entertaing recipe for disaster.
Shit. The 'Drama Queen' down under got it all so right on Saturday that I can't say I wasn't alerted.
Lady E. had scarcely begun digesting her food and tea before she was telling me that what she really wanted to do was go to bed.
Double merde! I thought. She's worse than I am! How admirably direct.
I didn't even get the slap I might have expected when I agreed that this could be a splendid idea.
But no...
She had a living to earn and I absurdly thought it safer to run for the bus.
Can you wait for the next instalment?
I can.
Sweet dreams, Lady E.
As to what your shamanistic totem beast is, give us a chance, lass! I can't manage that much on the strength of a meal only too swiftly curtailed by what passes for Reality.
11:37:57 PM link 
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