sex and violence (for young people)

Why is sex so very, very scary? Why is it that, when a parent is considering which books (or movies, or television shows, etc.) they want to give their children, sex is a corrosive and dangerous bogeyman, but violence is a clean thrill? Violence is exciting, an adventure. It goes: bam!, zoooom, pow!, and makes the sound of pages being turned. Sex, on the other hand, is insidious. It will grow shadows in young people's eyes; leave burn marks on their imaginations.

There is something wrong with this.

There's something wrong when a mother tells me that her 14-year old son could not possibly read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother because the main character loses his virginity to a girl he's fallen in love with, but a minute later tells me how GREAT Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games is for him. Would you like to know what happens in The Hunger Games? Boys and girls fight to the death. They kill each other in an arena. It (and its sequel) is one of the most popular young adult books in the store.

Parents look uncomfortable when the word is mentioned. Say, "sex," and their eyes go sideways, for just a moment. Say, "murder" or "fight scenes" or "guns" or "slashing swords," and they might get a hopeful look on their faces and say, well maybe that will be exciting. Maybe they'll like it.

I shouldn't ignore my own complicity. I never recommend Melvin Burgess's Doing It, which is a novel of enormous heart and empathy, because it is drenched in sex. I feel no guilt in championing The Knife of Never Letting Go, which has moments of shocking and personal violence. I adore action movies, admire the elegant splatter of Tarantino and the absurd slaughter of Shoot 'Em Up. Lucky Number Slevin is one of my favourite movies, and a clever, stylish film that ends with two old men being suffocated in plastic bags and duct tape. And, yet, the sex scenes are what make me feel sheepish. If I'm watching it with someone, I can feel myself very carefully not turning in their direction.

The only excuse I can make for myself (and maybe for those parents too) is that, in my world, sex is more commonplace than violence. It's more real. It exists, with all its pleasure and pain and inevitable awkwardness, more often than stabbings and fights to the death. Think of it that way, and I'm lucky to live in a world where sex is sometimes more dangerous than violence.

Except that it shouldn't be.

things that make you prettier (to me)

There are certain things that, when they come together, create that particular collision that makes someone irresistible. Or, at least, attractive.

I like fellows who are light on their feet. There's something satisfying about a walk that is swingy and clear and unadorned. Free from fumbling. Bulls in china shops make me uncomfortable.

I like eyes that focus, the kind that look brimming with interest and responsive to varying degrees of shade. There is nothing so attractive as honest enthusiasm, and the eyes have it, if you do.

Now, the reason I was thinking about this is because a very handsome guy came into the bookstore the other night and I caught myself very unsubtly peering at the books in his hands; and I realised that I was revising my opinion on his handsome-ness based entirely on what he was about to read. I'm horrified at my own snobbery, but if you're bookish, it seems that your taste in reading will actually make you prettier. Or uglier. If you have a Cussler novel tucked into your pocket, you might as well be sporting a mullet.

He was reading Hammett, by the way. I thought: how quirky, and, what a nice looking guy.

I'm starting to think I spend too much time around books.

why, yes, I am that ridiculous

I have a typewriter. It's an Olivetti rescued from the neglected depths of one of my grandma's closets. It came with a red and black ribbon that (astonishingly) still worked, despite having lived in the machine, unmolested, since whenever it was last used (30 years ago? 40?). It's a charming shade of blue and has hearty keys that make industrious banging noises, with the added excitement of flashing, tilting, springing movable parts that you can see by just taking off the lid.

I've been writing first sentences on it, the kind of ridiculous, diving board sentences that tear small holes in my imagination so light can get inside. I've been trying for 50. I don't write them very often. It takes me long enough to finish a single piece of paper, even in well-spaced and chunky typewriter letters, that it achieves a permanent curl.

There are many brilliant first sentences in the world. One of my favourites is:

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."

Which is from I Capture the Castle.

My typewriter ran out of ribbon the other day. It stopped moving, and it took me a little while to figure out why. I had to get new ribbon from the typewriter store (yes, there are still such things), and lift off the lid, and unscrew the tops from the little spools. I had to pull out the old ribbon and thread on the new, squeezing it into the narrow metal loops that hold it taut, and then I had to put it all back together with black ink on my fingers.

Fun. No, really, it was. So much more exciting than popping a new ink cartridge into my printer.