I was scared of the Hansel and Gretel Witch when I was a kid, but then Bugs Bunny took care of her. 
The Wicked Witch of the West was the source of my first existential moment, but she never out and out terrified me. 
Oddly enough, Witchiepoo on H.R. Pufnstuf did. Her castle wasn’t believable and her bumbling servants were irritating, but there was still something unsettling about her. 
Or maybe I was just jacked up on too much sugar. 
And then there was Samantha on Bewitched. 
After that, witches just lost their wickedness. 
Category Archives: sex
The Philosophy of the Marquis de Sade
The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) is known for many things, not the least of which is his namesake, sadism; however as demented as he may appear, there is a stated method to his madness, much of which is laid out in his novel Justine:
You are astonished by cruel tastes? What is the aim of the pleasure-seeking man? Is it not to arouse his senses in every way possible, and thereby to get the most pleasure from the final crisis? The most ridiculous in the world is doubtless to want to argue about people’s tastes, to challenge them, to blame men for them, or to punish them if they are not in conformity, either with the laws of the country in which one lives, or with social conventions.
Indeed! Men will never understand that there are no tastes, however bizarre, however criminal they may supposed to be, that do not derive from the kind of make-up we are given by Nature! The imagination of Man is a faculty of the mind in which objects are conjured up and modified, and thoughts are formed via the organ of the senses. I am sure you have seen mirrors of differing shapes, some which reduce objects in size while others enlarge them; the latter make them look awful, the former lend them charm. Such is the human imagination. 
Now if we concede that the pleasures of the senses are always dependent on the imagination, always governed by the imagination, we cannot be surprised by the number of variations that the imagination can create for these pleasures, by the infinite multiplicity of tastes and different passions to which the different deviations of the imagination will give rise. Although lewd, these tastes should not startle us more than those of a simple nature. 
Judging Politicians for all the Wrong Reasons
In 1989, President Bush nominated John Tower for Secretary of Defense, an appointment that the press and public attacked not because of his hawkish politics but for his reputation as a womanizer and drinker.
A similar fate met Gary Hart in his 1987 presidential bid.
Anthony Weiner’s candidacy for New York City mayor flopped for the same reasons. 
None of these people were judged on their public policy, but on their private indiscretions. I don’t understand why, beyond his family and friends, anyone cares. Indeed what if the same skewed thinking had been applied to two American icons – JFK & MLK – for their weaknesses for the fairer sex?.
Marilyn Monroe offers her birthday wishes to JFK
What if their indiscretions had been made public while they were alive? Would they have been cast from office?
Consider this pop quiz: Which of the following personalities would you vote for?
Candidate A drinks a quart of brandy every day and is a habitual smoker.
Candidate B has had a long-standing extramarital affair and believes in the occult.
Candidate C neither smokes nor drinks and is a vegetarian.
Yes, of course it’s a trick. That’s the point. (A: Winston Churchill, B: FDR, C: Adolf Hitler)
Pitch Conference: Post Mortem
Writing is a business. Nothing more than that. It doesn’t matter how great the story is nor what a clever little wordsmith I might be. 
If I can’t pitch the idea, that’s it. It all boils down to the hook, the copy read by that deep-voiced movie trailer guy: Deirdre Sinclair must come to terms with a moment she cannot remember, a past she cannot forget. 
I think I did all right in the end, getting the interest of three out of four editors, each of them noting my spin: It’s The Happy Hooker meets Born Free in the style of Cormac McCarthy. 
I gave them a minute to think about that and then went back into it: “She was orphaned as a baby. She’s into performance sex. And she has an exotic cat! A serval! Do you know what that is?” 
As my coach pronounced, “Everyone loves a cat. Does he live? Whatever you do, don’t kill the cat!” I couldn’t. I love that crazy cat.
Six Great Heroines of Fiction
It’s a challenge to think of a heroine who isn’t passive, either loving from afar or loving too hard.
Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina
And while these passionate characters are to be admired, they tend to limit us in our view of what it is to be a woman of substance. Where are the heroines to rival Odysseus, Atticus Finch and the Cat in the Hat? 
I offer you my Top Six.
6. Joy Adamson (Born Free) 
The co-protagonist of the Born Free series, along with Elsa the Lion, Adamson is more outspoken and independent in the books – to say nothing of real life – than offered on film.
5. Hannah Arendt (Hannah Arendt) 
The 20th-Century philosopher, as portrayed in Margarethe von Trotta’s 2013 film, is intimidating, uncompromising and could smoke anyone under the table.
4. Gloria (Gloria) 
Gina Rowlands’ portrayal in John Cassavetes’ 1978 film, a modern-day Fury, is striking in her combination of anger and sentimentality.
3. Chihiro (Spirited Away) 
Even after her parents are turned into pigs and her name is stolen, Chihiro wants to help everyone, including the evil witch.
2. Clytemnestra (Agamemnon) 
While it may be true that she has the blood of her husband and Cassandra on her hands, Aeschylus makes it clear that she has her reasons.
1. Doctor’s Wife (Blindness) 
The only hope offered in Jose Saramago’s post-apocalyptic parable is a woman willing to sacrifice herself for the good of everyone else. Imagine that.
Sex Symbols of the 1960s
A tantalizing contradiction seems to exist in the sex symbols of the 1960s, a sexuality that simultaneously offers lust and innocence. 
Paul McCartney used this iconography on the Out There tour as a stage backdrop for his performance of Paperback Writer.
Paul McCartney, Barclay’s Center, Brooklyn, June 10, 2012
The Dandy Warhols used similar imagery while playing Good Morning.
The Dandy Warhols, Terminal 5, New York, May 30, 2012
The images are provocative – more so than most graphic visuals of today – as they tiptoe along the line of what might be allowed.
Brigitte Bardot
Raquel Welch
Jane Fonda
In other words, it’s not so much the nudity as the pose, a faux timidity almost asking, “Do you mind?” Of course those were different times.
Character Tattoos
Personally, I don’t understand tattoos. As much as I might be fascinated by Hannah Arendt at the moment, I think it would be a mistake to get a tattoo. 
The same is true for Kiribati.
Kiribatan flag
It’s even true for Victoria’s Secret. 
All of that said, a tattoo can be good short form for an aspect of a character in fiction. It’s a device I am toying with at the moment in The Ark. One character is a video game addict. 
Another says little. 
And the last, ironically, overstates.
Pussy Riot Spring
Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers is pretty awful, little more than a terrible rap video with loops of meaningless dialogue, sensational imagery and an off-key – even insulting – reference to the imprisoned Russian group Pussy Riot. 
Not that any of this surprises – excepting the purple unicorn balaclavas. What’s remarkable is the critical response. Spring Breakers has been called “the year’s loopiest bit of fun” (Time Out), “positively raging with affect” (New Yorker), and an “outrageously funny party that takes a while to appreciate.” (The New York Times) 
With no characters, dialogue, nor even a narrative, it’s none of the above, but rather a bland statement about the simmering violence in pretty little things, all of it trite and overly done. The only entertaining thing was the drama in the theater – teenagers sneaking in, chased out by ushers – which seemed to approximate the politics of the affair.
What is Sexy?
Victoria’s Secret poses an age-old question in their recent catalogue run. 
Is it A or B?
“A”
“B”
My question of Victoria’s Secret is less philosophical: How many more glossy trees are needed to ask the question?
Pink Tights and Empty Net Goals
In years gone by, I had a sports column for a now-defunct weekly in Toronto, Metropolis. The following is an abridged version of my article, Pink Tights and Empty Net Goals, published on April 12, 1990:
The beer ads say it all, the same old glorified fantasy of breasts and buns, another ode to the faceless jiggles of procreative dolls. 
Women have never been accepted as equals in sports. In spite of the occasional accolade in tennis or track, they cannot shake the stereotype of cheerleader/parade queen, always the voluptuous muse proudly displaying her pearly whites and profound cleavage. 
Sports Illustrated’s bathing suit issue has become an institution, Cheryl Tiegs and Kathy Ireland well-rounded icons, while films like The Laker Girls and The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders are common viewing. This is what some might call soft-core pornography, the portrayal of women as objects, as vessels to be judged by their flesh, rather than their ability, character and intelligence.
It’s not as if sports is anything but entertainment, a time to turn off the real world, but despite what marketers might think, that doesn’t mean that minds have to dissolve and comprehension be whittled to a twig of barbaric need. To have women constantly reduced to physical parts, demeaned into a position of sexual subservience at every commercial break and sideline shot, is to maintain the pathetic consciousness of master and slave, owned and owner. 
Men seem to have no need of female athletic heroes – unless synchronized swimmers can be dug up to substitute for a ‘disgraced’ demi-god (Ben Johnson) – no desire to cheer for “her” achievement when we can have “his”; “her” achievement is always second-best. Examples are inexhaustible: Grand Slam tennis always feature the Women’s Final first, the opening act to the Men’s; coverage of Women’s World Hockey Championships gave as much space to the color of uniforms as to the quality of play. 
Even in something as low profile as The Toronto Star’s “Stars of the Week” – a weekly feature on the sporting achievements of the city’s kids – it is a rarity to find even one girl in the lot. It’s as if women aren’t capable of anything physical except sex, as if they can’t run, jump and strive as well. A look to the sports pages in tabloids confirms this, where between the stories and statistics are the advertisements for strip clubs and phone sex. 
Male domination seeks to portray women as a toy, a thing that looks great when wet, that acts as fodder for the mendacious, a perambulator for the lazy. Sport doesn’t need it, nor even insinuate it; sport is about the triumph of the body, not its exploitation.
Perhaps there has been a change in the last 20 years, in soccer but that’s about it. The ads and sideline shots are the same as always, and now we have beach volleyball in the Olympics, a much more popular event in the women’s division. I wonder why. 