Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

In this corner, we have the re-release of Marta Acosta’s Midnight Brunch at Casa Dracula:

And in the other corner? Keri Arthur’s Embraced by Darkness.

Tez says, “Never mind that the right is left, and the left is right...I’m convinced these amorous couple is the same.... Never mind that Riley Jenson is a redheaded Australian and Milagros de los Santos is a black-haired Latina hottie… Or am I losing my marbles in this respect?”

I dunno - Tez’s marbles are on the line. You be the judge - is this the same couple?

Read on.

On 6 June, the Pilot published two letters, one from JulieAnn Singleton-Smith, a fellow military wife, who stated that she has “a career and a series of degrees” and therefore objected to the “cheap, hot pink high-heeled shoes” as an image that “conveys a message that military wives are cheap and trashy.”
Another letter praises the image as on par with the WWII era photo of the sailor kissing a nurse on V-J Day.

But the reaction continued on!

On 7 June, more letters appeared.

First, a rather fascinating analysis from Dr. Frederick Lubich Chair of Old Dominion’s Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, who calls the image “controversial” as it may be “insulting” or “intimidating to those military wives who are...more than just lusty ladies in waiting.” But Dr. Lubich then likens the image to:

mythic memories of seafaring warriors” such as Ulysses and Penelope, providing the epic model for this timeless human experience, in which ‘passion’ in its archaic sense connotes the suffering of separation and the ecstasy of reunion.

From the shorts of ancient Greece to the modern ports of Hampton Roads, there is nothing offensive about young lovers dressing up to celebrate the magic...of homecoming and its nostalgic euphoria.

Dr. Lubich also recognizes the similarities to the V-J Day photo, and states that the photograph “symbolically encodes the increasingly more complicated lifestyles and love lives of our own times and...stand[s] as an iconic image.”

But wait, there’s more. A former military wife weighed in by relating her memories of “choosing carefully what to wear to enhance that special first evening home,” and pointedly responding Ms. Singleton-Smith that “one can have degrees and careers and still look fabulous while celebrating while celebrating the ship’s return from a difficult mission.” A second military wife also said she thought the picture was “absolutely great” and that it had “nothing to do with how many degrees you’ve got” but the “joy of having your ‘sailor’ home again.”

Another letter said he thought the image was not cheap or trashy, but “touching and poignant” and offered “a unique perspective on that familiar theme” of families reunited during wartime.

But another spouse was “saddened” by the paper’s decision to highlight that particular photo as “inappropriate” for the Truman’s homecoming, as “a woman’s legs and her high heels with the price tag still on the bottom...do not capture a...homecoming for one of our beloved aircraft carriers.”

I’m struck by two things: one, the seeming desire to asexualize a homecoming. Those who objected referred to the aircraft carrier, not the people on it - people who loved and missed their families, and in some cases spouses who, one would hope and pray, were loved in a demonstrative fashion once they arrived home. The asexualization of the military and the concept of homecoming vs. the sexuality and human need for contact on the part of the servicemen and service women on board are quite at odds with one another in the responses, especially in the context that we are, after all, at war, and deployment is a life-or-death issue for many, many enlisted individuals. Coming home safe means coming home alive, and let’s be frank, the most affirming way to celebrate the fact that one is alive, home, and safe? Sex. Hugging. Kissing. Possibly more sex. (I hope it was awesome.)

And two: that yet again hot pink shoes are very, very eye catching.

Personally, I thought the image was very evocative and certainly sexual, and that’s not at all a bad thing from where I stand in my shoes which, today, are brown. I don’t know if I can stand anywhere and judge the welcome-home wear of a woman whose husband has been deployed for seven months, but I surely wouldn’t dare start by casting aspersions on the relative cost of someone else’s shoes.

However, what is the lesson in this minor kerfuffle? That pink shoes are eye catching? Publishers already know that!

No, the lesson may be: take the price tag off the bottoms of your shoes. You never know from what angle you may be photographed.

Addendum: welcome home and thank you to the service men and women of the Harry S. Truman, the Oscar Austin, the San Jacinto, and the Winston S. Churchill and anyone else who returned home. Hope your reunion was so great you had to take your shoes off.

The photographer, Rich-Joseph Facun, didn’t think he had a great picture when he took the shots of Knilans, but the Pilot photo director thought the picture illustrated “[a]ll the joy of the day.” While other photo editors “complaints about the insinuations of sexuality in the shoe color and the crossed ankles” the photo ran anyway.

And yup, the complaints rolled in. Detractors were a minority, and they objected to the sexuality in the image as predicted.
Some insisted that a more innocent picture, that of a 5 year old waiting for his father, should have been the front-page above the fold image to portay the sailors’ homecoming. Yet again, I am struck by the desexualization and the preference for “wholesome or patriotic” images, which underscore a preference for chaste innocence when it comes to portrayals of military figures.

But the majority applauded, and the public editor, who is also an associate professor of English at Old Dominion, wrote:

...many readers were reveling in that giddy anticipation that accompanies the long-awaited arrival of a loved one.

With that moment came a flash of insight. Our military neighbors deserve to be celebrated for their sacrifices - sacrifices the rest of us seldom share.

For that awareness, we are indebted to Candice Knilans and her love of pink.

I wonder if Ms. Knilans is now a bit hyperaware of her choice of footwear when she leaves the house. 

The main character was named Lucy and was an English girl growing up as an orphan in China in the late 1800s/early 1900s.  She meets a young English man in a Chinese prison who is about to be executed, and she agrees to marry him so that his work looking for a hidden treasure won’t fall into his enemy’s hands after his death but will remain with his estate.  They’re married by the prison chaplain, she’s released, and he’s presumably executed.  Years pass.  She makes it back to England somehow and is living unhappily with a family who are shocked by her savage Chinese ways (OMG, she calls legs “legs” instead of “limbs”!).

So then, one day, her husband shows up on her doorstep—turns out he faked his own death to escape from prison and now has come to collect his wife.  She’s not too unhappy about this because she remembers him being very nice to her when they were in prison, but when she moves in with him, he completely ignores her (they even have separate bedrooms) except for rare occasions when he takes her to the opera or theatre.  She can’t figure out why he’s so cold to her, and thinks there must be something wrong with her.  Little does she know that he really does love her but thinks she’s in love with someone else, so he ignores her in order to leave her free to love the other dude.  Except she totally doesn’t: she loves her husband but is too bewildered by his strange moods (and too timid, as a result of her submissive upbringing) to ask him what’s going on.  (I also remember the husband telling her that her servile ways freak him out—not in those words—and that she needs to understand that she is his equal and doesn’t have to submit to anyone.  He’s a good guy.)

Somehow they make it back to China just in time for the Boxer Rebellion (I think to look for this treasure the husband has been hunting), something happens, husband is injured in the fighting, and in his fevered ramblings, he mutters that he loves Lucy.  Lucy is ecstatic, and after his fever breaks, they confess their love for each other and live happily ever after (with the treasure, IIRC).

A marriage of convenience, a husband who’s frosty on the outside but passionate on the inside, a very sweet and likable heroine....these are some of my favorite elements of Romance, and, oh, how I would love to read this again!

Anyone got an idea? That’s a lot of detail - surely someone knows this book.

According to Bitchery reader Elizabeth, Gaia Online members can receive avatars as part of their membership, and then have the option to decorate them with accessories. The monthly collectibles are “rare items you can get only be donating money to the website.”

Elizabeth tells me there’s multiple poses should you wish to indulge in the romance avatar:

...along with poses showing you holding a romance novel, you can give your avatar glistening skin (I shit you NOT), a “romantic breeze” (rose petals"), a “portrait of passion” (an interesting border), a “romantic sunset” background, wild windswept hair, or, the BEST PART: you either get Beresford, a “lusty” regency-era scoundrel with shirt wide open and feathered hair, leaning over your avatar, Fabio-style, or Heloise, a female character with heavy bosoms who kneels at your avatar’s feet and looks up adoringly.

There’s an image that accompanied the newsletter which you can see here (caution: popup), and while it’s not entirely a bad pastiche of romance covers from Days Gone By, there’s a few errors that betray the artist as not a TRUE fan of romance.

Nice nuclear explosion and accompanying phallic lighthouse on the parapet. But no nuclear explosion would be so close to the hero’s posterior, lest the art send a subtle message that Sir Beresford has a bit of a gas problem and a predilection for beans. Further, Beresford’s shirt is unbuttoned AND untucked. Impossible! FOR SHAME GAIA ARTISTS. FOR SHAME.

Then there’s the heroine. She’s bent over backwards, which is good, and she’s wearing a shockingly unnatural shade of pink - also good - but she doesn’t have requisite o-face. She looks...repulsed. Bitter, even. Like she’s looking into the sun while eating sour gummy worms. Her clavicle is about to eat her, if the ruffle doesn’t get her first. And given the position of her back, her hips, and her legs, I’m not sure she has a pelvis. This will make the red hot lovin’ something of a challenge.

I have no idea what to say about the smaller icons pictured on the right, except that the one with the bloody eye patch looks disturbingly merry and is wearing a LOT of eyeliner.

Anyone out there a Gaia member? Which one are you, the dude or the lady?