Simplified English is wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong: [link]
Um, well, we listened to aggressively cheerful music sung by people chosen for their ability to dance. Then we ate cookie dough, and talked about boys.
Giles ,'Get It Done'
Natter 45: Smooth as Billy Dee Williams.
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Glamcookie - Jul 05, 2006 3:51:44 pm PDT #5549 of 10002
I know my own heart and understand my fellow man. But I am made unlike anyone I have ever met. I dare to say I am like no one in the whole world. - Anne Lister
megan walker - Jul 05, 2006 4:06:54 pm PDT #5550 of 10002
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist
Not JZ, but I second the Northanger Abbey rec. I think your students would really relate to it, especially the humor. And it has the added benefit of being much shorter than P&P and S&S!
erikaj - Jul 05, 2006 4:07:15 pm PDT #5551 of 10002
Always Anti-fascist!
At about that same age, I heard the Beatles song about California grass and said "Mom, I've been to California and their grass didn't seem that different. Maybe greener. Was it cause it was greener?" Mom said it was a different kind of grass.
billytea - Jul 05, 2006 4:12:11 pm PDT #5552 of 10002
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.
So, a friend of mine just won a round the owrld trip worth 20,000 pounds. We were celebrating. I had beer and some Greek thing. But, holiday! Holy crap!
Wow! That is so very excellent.
The first books I read that had anything to do with sex were texts in the "What to expect when you're expecting" vein. But there were no penises in them. I had a vague notion of fertilisation through implantation, gestation and development through about age 10.
I went to the local library and researched the whole sex thing when I was about six or seven. Oh, and not long after, I received a book that covered most bodily functions, with (elaborate) cartoon illustrations of robots to demonstrate. Worked very well for joints and such like. The sex robots were steam-powered, and looking back, were pretty hilarious (and rather well-endowed, as they had but one raison d'etre).
While I don't remember it, I suspect my first encounter with a sex scene in a work of fiction was probably not envisaged in the way the author intended. (There may have been choo-choo train noises.)
Ginger - Jul 05, 2006 4:20:18 pm PDT #5553 of 10002
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
I was about 9 when I found a discarded copy of Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers, which pretty much consisted of sex, violence, sex, torture, sex, violence.
ION, I just got a 404 message on a black page that said: "It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."
Kalshane - Jul 05, 2006 4:27:15 pm PDT #5554 of 10002
GS: If you had to choose between kicking evil in the head or the behind, which would you choose, and why?
Minsc: I'm not sure I understand the question. I have two feet, do I not? You do not take a small plate when the feast of evil welcomes seconds.
ION, I just got a 404 message on a black page that said: "It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."
That's awesome!
Nutty - Jul 05, 2006 4:28:29 pm PDT #5555 of 10002
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."
I don't remember my first sex book, but I do remember trolling my mother's bookshelves when I was bored (this was how I picked up Steinbeck and Nathanael West), and happening upon a book of Anais Nin pornography.
Even at that age -- probably 16 -- I was pretty sure some of the things she was describing (in that old, shy language, but used in a bold, muscular way) were not actually physically possible, or if they were, probably not as much fun as she was making them out to be.
Topic!Cindy - Jul 05, 2006 4:38:26 pm PDT #5556 of 10002
What is even happening?
Nathanael WestMiss Lonelyhearts?
§ ita § - Jul 05, 2006 4:49:03 pm PDT #5557 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Wow. Cat People is really silly. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I've been expecting it...something more...for YEARS. Not here.
Nutty - Jul 05, 2006 4:54:42 pm PDT #5558 of 10002
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."
Miss Lonelyhearts?
Yes! It was an omnibus of that and The Day of the Locust, and Miss Lonelyhearts was first, and I got all the way through it in a single sitting. It was one of those weird, "Wow, not all that much happened in the story, but I dug it all the same" kind of moments that I associate with mature reading.