The Primatology of BBQ

"Foodie Friday" returns (a little late in the afternoon) with something mouth-watering.

The first week of April brought Fosco's friend Todd on his annual pilgrimage to the Bay Area. You may not know that, in recent years, Todd has become something of a BBQ expert. Because of his travels around this country (and a group of very food-obsessed friends), Todd pretty much has recommendations for good BBQ in almost any major American city. I never travel without asking Todd if there is a good BBQ place to visit at my destination. Todd was particularly excited this visit, as he finally had a lead on some good Bay Area BBQ. And so we drove to the small town of Pacifica, just south of San Francisco along the coast, to find Gorilla BBQ.

Gorilla BBQ turns out to be notable for several reasons. First off, there is its location in a bright-orange boxcar. Second, there is its theme song (listen to it at the website). Third, there is the fact that the owners spent $26,000 on a smoker. Fourth, the place recently appeared on punk bear Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" on Food Network. And perhaps most interesting: one of the co-owners has the words "PORK" and "RIBS" tattooed on his knuckles. Indeed!

Let's check out the setup. This is boxcar (and over that hill is the ocean--that's Highway 1 right there).


The sign is perhaps slightly misleading, as I have yet to see much smoke coming from the place. Too much smoke is probably against local environmental restrictions anyway.



This is Jeff, one of the co-owners (and apparently the primary chef). Notice all of the monkey tchotchkes on the counter.


This is Rich (aka "Gorilla"). He's the one with the tattooed knuckles. He takes the orders.


As you can see, there isn't much space in the boxcar to run the whole operation. Of course, it's takeout only.


So let's talk about the food. The menu features the standard smoked meats: pork ribs, chicken, beef brisket, pulled pork, hot links. There are traditional sides (mac and cheese, red beans and rice, corn muffins, potato salad) and NorCal-inspired sides (portabello mushrooms, grilled eggplant). When Oz and I went with Todd, I opted for the three meat combo: brisket, pulled pork, and hot links. It came in two containers: one for the meat, one for the sides. Plus sauce on the side. Here's the meat:


The pulled pork is fine. The hot links are spicily delicious. The brisket is EXTRAORDINARY--crusty, smoky, tender, cut-able with a spork (yes, a spork is what they provide you to eat with...). The BBQ sauce (appropriately served on the side) is tart and wonderful--best I've had outside a hundred-mile radius of Memphis. One thing I liked: the attention to the sides, which were pretty much all delicious. The Mac N Cheese is absolutely awesome, and the corn muffins are the Platonic ideal of corn muffins--best I've EVER had. Seriously.

Oz and I were smitten and we returned the next week (with Todd in our memories...). This time, we concentrated all of our attention on the brisket and mac n cheese:



At this point, I am absolutely obsessed with this brisket. Apparently, however, I am not alone. This was the line at 11:45 on Saturday (for the opening at noon):


Sure, it may have taken half an hour to get to the counter. But it was worth it. Brisket!

Of course, Gorilla may not compete with the best of Memphis (or Texas and North Carolina, for that matter), but I suspect it's the best in Northern California--and that's not too shabby. If you are ever within 50 miles of this place, it is worth a trip.

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Did Jesus ever rebuke "Ankle Biters"?

In yesterday's post, I published a photograph of lovely Christian gentleman and his informative sign listing all of the groups of people who will be judged harshly by God. Here, again, is a closeup of his sign:

In my previous post, I helpfully turned this poster into an easy-to-read list and my readers responded--by determining how many of these categories are going to contribute to their own eternal damnation.

However, as you may recall, there were two groups that Fosco couldn't quite read. With the help of some new bionic eyes (and some other pix of this guy from other sources), Fosco is pleased to announce that he can now complete the list:

ADDITIONAL People Who Will Be Judged (Presumably Unfavorably) By God

• Thieves
  
• Ankle Biters (what does that even mean?)
  

Do these additions cause any revisions in your personal number, readers? (Especially if any of you are small dogs...)

Postcards from the Counterculture: A Fosco Lives! Special Report

Unless you live in a college town, you may not be familiar with yesterday's 4/20 holiday (it's "clever" because yesterday's date was 4/20). It's that day of the year when pot smokers come together at 4:20 PM to celebrate "cannabis culture" by smoking up--often in public. It is a particularly popular holiday at two major US public universities (as noted in this article in the NY Times): University of Colorado at Boulder and (wait for it) Fosco's own University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). In fact, the holiday has become so closely associated with UCSC that a picture of UCSC's 4/20 event is used to illustrate the 4/20 entry on Wikipedia. (And yes, the above picture is of UCSC's mascot, the Banana Slug, smoking pot.)

The event has always been unsanctioned by UCSC, of course. However, as the holiday has become larger and more public in recent years, the UCSC administration has become more concerned about the questionable PR. This year, UCSC sent an email to the parents of all first-year students asking them to discourage their sons or daughters from participating. As the email suggested (with keen insight into the mind of today's youth):

"I encourage you to talk with your student about his or her plans for 4/20. Ask direct questions about the choices they make and express your expectations regarding marijuana, alcohol or other drug use. Although students may not initiate discussion on this topic, your opinions and expectations can influence their behavior."

"Golly, Beaver, I sure hope you aren't planning to take the pot on April 20th. Remember that anyone who offers you drugs is not a true friend."

But that was just Prong ONE of UCSC's two-pronged attack on 4/20. Prong TWO was to essentially shut down the campus for the whole afternoon, in an attempt to prevent easy access to the Porter College Meadow (traditional home of the gathering). This meant shutting down the bus routes, closing the West Entrance to campus, and beefing up parking enforcement. Of course, there was added benefit of inconveniencing any non-pot-smokers who remained on campus: "Can't get home? Blame the potheads!"

Normally, Fosco would strenuously avoid an event like this, considering that he considers any group larger than twenty-five people to be an unpleasantly large crowd. And when that group is made up of pot-smoking hippies... well, let's just say that Fosco has aesthetic objections to "cannabis culture." However, this year found Fosco in class at Porter College until 4 PM on 4/20. Essentially, Fosco was a within an easy quarter-mile walk of the whole gathering: could his inner anthropologist resist a glimpse of the spectacle? Would a giant crowd of pot-smoking hippies be enough to convince Fosco to stay on campus for an extra half hour?

Yes, of course, I went to look. You would have too. And this is what I saw...

By 4 PM, the people walking toward Porter Meadow had become a steady line (see Monterey Bay in the background?).


It's kind of like watching pot-loving ants, no? And look at the smoke cloud.


Here's a view of the line looking back from the Meadow:


One thing I didn't mention yet: this was the hottest day we've had this year. It was 97 fucking degrees. (And yes, even with my canteen of water, I was regretting the quarter-mile walk by this point--anthropology is hard.) Of course, the heat did give the Santa Cruz Sentinel the opportunity to use the "twice-baked" pun in their coverage, so I suppose it was worth it.

One option for beating the heat was to smoke in the woods that surrounds the meadow:


Other heat-beating options I observed: umbrellas, parasols, shirtlessness, sweating profusely. These photos were taken around 4:05 or so--note the giant crowd and smoke cloud.



For the first time in the history of UCSC's 4/20 event, there were some party-crashers: local Christian nutballs showed up with signs to protest. Seriously!



Don't these guys have something better to do? Like picketing AIDS funerals? Or throwing blood on abortion doctors?

This guy was my favorite:


Who would have thought that God could hate so many things! Luckily, this guy has made a list for us. Can we go to a closeup? Yes?


Let's just take a moment and convert this sign into a list.

People Who Will Be Judged (Presumably Unfavorably) By God

• Sex Addicts (tough luck, David Duchovny)
  
• Baby Killers
  
• Witches
  
• Dikes [sic] on Bikes
  
• Pencil Neck Weak Kneed Gutless Men (hmmm...)
  
• So Called Christians
  
• Pot Smoking Little Devils (Bingo!)
  
• False Religions
  
• Lewd Women (well, duh!)
  
• Porno Freaks
  
• Homos
  
• [something I can't quite read]
  
• [another something I can't quite read]
  
• Sports Nuts (Seriously?)
  
• Perverts
  
• Racists
  
• Money Lovers
  
• Two Faced People (sorry, Harvey Dent)
  
• Rebellious Women
  
• All Non-Homemakers (wow, I bet these guys get lots of dates)
  
• Party Animals
  
• Drunkards
  
• Jesus Mockers
  
• And Catholics...
  

Whew. I don't know about you, but that's the kind of God I could really get into. Watch out, Sports Nuts.

Anyway... the golden moment, 4:20 PM PDT, finally arrived and the smoke got even thicker:






These pictures don't quite capture the moment adequately--for one thing, you can't hear all of the drums. Consequently, allow me to offer the brief video that I recorded (and uploaded to YouTube):



Sadly, I cannot make this experience available to you in "Smell-O-Vision" because, as my college roommate David noted, the whole thing "must have smelled unspeakably awful." I cannot disagree.

All in all, I managed to stave off incipient heat-stroke until about 4:30 when I gave up and walked back to my car at Porter. I wasn't the only one leaving:




Caption: "We'll always have these stupid memories."

Walking back, I passed the only official UCSC presence at the event:



And what did I learn? Well, for one thing, I thought there would actually be a more communal atmosphere at this thing. I had envisioned people passing joints and conversing. Instead, everyone just broke up into their own friend groups--and most of them weren't actually very nice about it. I had kinda been expecting to be offered some smoke (not that I would have indulged), but that didn't seem to be the vibe. I've been to much friendlier football tailgates. And I've had more pot offered to me at concerts.

For another thing, I wonder how many actual UCSC students were there. Walking down, I was in front of a group from Berkeley. In the Sentinel coverage, they interviewed students from everywhere but UCSC: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, CSU-Monterey Bay, Cabrillo College. N.B., some kid from Berkeley was named in the Sentinel coverage as "Skittles." Delightful! Also suprising: I didn't see anyone I knew there. I've been at this school for three years and have a pretty large circle of acquaintances: colleagues, grad students, current students, former students, etc. Of course, it's possible that my students saw and avoided me...

Random 4/20 observations:

• You could not pay me enough to eat the vegan food being sold onsite by the Hare Krishnas.
  
• Hippie guys are not very attractive.
  
• God is surprisingly wrathful. That's probably bad news for my afterlife plans.
  
• Too many people brought their dogs (which are prohibited on campus). And too many of them were pit bulls.
  
• I thought there would be more music (of the non-bongo variety). Where were all the people I saw walking with acoustic guitars?
  
• It was SO FUCKING HOT.
  

All in all, I think I learned some important lessons. And I hope that I have created a precious anthropological record--especially for those of you who wonder what undergrad life is like nowadays.

Oh, and of course, I will NEVER do this again.

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A Programming Note

You've probably noticed that my blogging has been sporadic lately, and I think you (the loyal FL! reader) deserve an explanation.

You see, Spring Quarter (stupid quarter system!) started recently and Fosco has a couple of abnormally time-consuming activities to deal with right now. For one thing, Fosco's teaching assignment is a course that has two sections a week. This means that I have to prep for section twice a week (Monday and Wednesday). And because I am constitutionally opposed to subjecting my students to time-wasting activities like "everyone get in small groups and talk about your papers while I sit at the front of the room and take a little nap," the extra prep time adds up. Not to mention that the professor for this course has allowed the TAs complete freedom in planning the course for their students (which is, in many ways, a good thing); however, this means that I don't have predetermined activities or assignments to fall back on.

The second time-consuming activity for me this quarter is the final course that I need to satisfy my language requirement. I read French pretty well and my previous French course (last year) was not a huge burden--we read the novels in French and had our discussion in English. However, the French course I am taking this quarter is not just French readings: the entire seminar (including discussion) is conducted in French! This is both difficult and terrifying (although the professor is perfectly understanding). I find myself planning in advance the simplest discussion comments (I frequently write out what I want to say in discussion the night before, so as to double check the grammar, etc.). It's getting a little easier every week, but I still spend almost every class (and it meets twice a week) feeling either panicked or embarrassed. You should have seen my deep blush today when I very publicly misunderstood one of the professor's directions. In addition, there is a passage translation due every week and I, with characteristic conscientiousness, try to make my translation perfect (while I regularly watch the undergrads in the seminar just sight-translate a passage). It's been a long time since I've felt so academically inferior in a class (well, since college physics) and while a humbling experience is always useful, it can also be painful.

I don't want all of this to sound like a bid for sympathy, because it's not--at least not primarily. I recognize very clearly the following things:

1. I chose this life.
   
2. I still have it pretty good.
   
3. Lots of people have to work much harder than I do.
   
4. At least I have a job.
   
5. It's a privilege to be doing something that I (mostly) enjoy.
   
6. It's all part of the process of becoming a professor.
   
7. It will all someday be worth it.
   
8. I could always quit and get a job waiting tables.
   

So there is no need to repeat any of these things, Dad. :) However, I did want to explain why my blog has been so empty lately (and why I've been so bad about reading and commenting on the blogs of some of my favorite people [esp. Jill!]).

The good news: I have a plan! My blogging may not reach pre-Spring-Quarter levels for a while, but I am going to try to ramp up my posting--starting now. Once again, thanks for your patience! My love to you all.

Queer Crucifixion

"Music Monday" was always sorta queer, don't you think?

Today we have the second installment in Fosco's series of "The Queerest Music Videos Ever!" Today's video is from those ultraqueer Swedes, Army of Lovers. This is "Crucified"--a song which is, I suppose, slightly blasphemous--especially if you don't have a sense of humor. If you watched a lot of MTV in the 90s, you may recognize this video from an episode of "Beavis and Butthead." Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly), I think this video is funnier without their commentary.



I've still never watched this video without laughing out loud at least once. Usually, it's the Elvis bit, but sometimes it's also when the dark-haired guy raises his eyebrow so provocatively. I don't know about you, but I can't help but appreciate a video where everyone seems to be having so much fun!

And good luck getting this song out of your head today.

It's (Once Again) the End of the World As We Know It

I've been remiss, I know. I'll see if I can be a better blogger this coming week.

As an amuse-bouche for a good week, here's a late-night/early-morning treat for you: a weather forecast of doom from the San Jose Mercury News!

This is slightly sinister, no? I'm not sure what is even sunnier than sunny, but I don't think it's a good thing. What is "and then some"? A tanning bed? A UV storm? A supernova? Twenty-four hours of daylight? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

It's clearly going to be a week of Biblical significance in the Bay Area. I'll try to keep you posted.

Don't Keep It in the Closet

Put on your eyeliner, because here comes the first installment in the ?-part series called: "The Queerest Music Videos Ever!" (And if the songs happen to be really good, well that's just gravy...)

Today's entry wasn't particularly queer when it was released, but has become much queerer in the (nearly) two decades since. When Michael Jackson's "In The Closet" video was released, the buzz was mostly about Jackson's heterosexual shimmying with supermodel Naomi Campbell. And yes, it is a sexy video (and song)--in its way. However, watching the video today, I certainly don't see much heterosexuality in it. What I do see is Naomi Campbell grinding with a (not entirely convincing) drag king. Maybe it's Michael's ponytail or maybe it's his little girl breasts, but I'm not seeing this video as anything other than lesbian dirty-dancing. And that's pretty queer.



I still love this song, too. And his hand gestures are absolutely priceless.

Amazon Glitch Roundup

This has certainly turned into the internet obsession of the day, no? I wrote two posts in haste last night and called for a temporary boycott of Amazon.

More news came out today. I am grateful to the intrepid AEJ for doing updates in the comments here; in fact, I think her comments are so useful that they deserve a place in an actual post. I reprint them, in order, here:

This is an interesting wrinkle - a hacker is claiming credit for this whole thing, saying he created an exploit that takes advantage of Amazon's "Mark this as inappropriate" tag. Of course, I'd be happy to hear that this was indeed not something Amazon did itself, so I'm trying not to allow my preference for this to be true to outweigh reasonable skepticism; still, I would say it's plausible. (Both because this type of filtering would be idiotic as a business move, and Amazon isn't usually idiotic, and because there is a whiff of mischief about the whole thing - from the beginning I've thought this had to be the work of an individual, whether within Amazon or not, rather than corporate policy.)

More at Ars Technica.

This will be my last comment - sorry to keep coming back, but I've been really bothered by this so I keep looking for news and I'm just passing along stuff as I hear it... Anyway, there are now conflicting stories - see these two posts on Salon - coming out of Amazon (not surprising, since as others have noted they hardly want to admit either to being hacked or to doing this intentionally) - but the upshot is that there are apparently something close to 58,000 titles affected and they're fixing it now. Whether someone outside actually found a vulnerability and pranked them or someone in France (really? France is our scapegoat?) mistagged stuff or whatever, I think the possibility that this is a corporate policy is vanishingly small. As the Amazon spokesperson put it, "embarrassing and ham-fisted," definitely; the good news is I think it really was a coding debacle rather than a homophobic salvo. So while I'm still irked, as others have noted, that they haven't just apologized to the writers and readers affected, I'm taking some small solace in the current look of things.

Nice work, AEJ. You've convinced me to suspend judgment for a bit, especially as I agree with your suggestion that that the likelihood of this being a corporate policy is "vanishingly small." Of course, I would like to see all of this get fixed within a reasonable amount of time.

Of course, one of the annoying things here is that we are unlikely to get a thorough and accurate explanation of what actually happened--or, at least we are unlikely to get that explanation anytime soon. Until we know for sure, Gawker/Valleywag offers this handy guide to the possible causes. And if you have wondered whether there are ways to analyze this whole debacle using anthropology, allow me to recommend this post by Ted Gideonse. Ted seems to have taken a page from Obama's book, because (as you'll see in his post) he's clearly the coolest head in the room right now.

There is a good lesson from this, though: gays and their allies are finally mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. We're coming for you next, Mormons!

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Oops, I Don't Know Where I Am

A brief, late entry on "Music Monday."

Britney Spears brought her spectacle to San Jose last night. I would say "concert," except, as the review in the Mercury News reports, Britney did precious little singing. And judging from that photograph, apparently Margaret Cho was one of her backup dancers, which would indeed be a spectacle. Not to mention the dancing midgets--seriously.

Britney is on tour to promote the Circus CD and, interestingly enough, she actually seems to be... promoting it--as opposed to touring based on her greatest hits:

To Spears' credit, the 27-year-old mother of two has left her teeny-bopper roots behind. This is no nostalgia act. Though the two CDs she recorded as a teen are among the biggest sellers of all time, only "... Baby One More Time" from that era made the cut here.

That means that instead of charming teen trifles like "Oops — I Did It Again" we got a lot of dark, erotically charged 21st-century dance music like "Hot as Ice" and "Get Naked." (In this context, "If U Seek Amy," Spears' cheekily naughty current single, came across as a pop gem.) So if you only knew Spears' music from the radio, there wasn't a lot to sing along with.

I think that's a surprising and not unadmirable approach; however, if I had paid $150 to see Britney last night, I would have expected to hear some of my old favorites.

My favorite part of the Mercury News review? This gem (remember: this show is in San Jose):

On this night, it was 40 minutes into the set — the same set she moved her lips to at every other tour stop — before Spears finally addressed the crowd, with this heartfelt sentiment: "Sacramento, how are you doing?!"

Oh girl... I would have paid $75 for that line alone.

Amazon's Attitude Toward Homosexuality

[Fosco thanks his former student Laura for pointing out the following problem.]

Something is seriously amiss at Amazon. As I noted earlier, Amazon has removed many gay/lesbian books from its ranking system because they are considered "adult." While this is repulsive in and of itself, there is a further problem. Apparently, these books are being excluded from searches at the site. Otherwise, how might you explain the results of an Amazon search for the word "homosexuality"? Here is the screen shot (click to see it full-sized):

Yes, it appears that the top search result for "homosexuality" is a book that claims to be a guide to preventing homosexuality. Note, this book's Amazon sales rank is #119,767. And yet, somehow it is the top hit for a search of the term "homosexuality." Does this seem problematic to you? Yeah, me too.

Please join the Amazon boycott until this problem is resolved.

N.B., for those of you who are wondering, the only way to prevent possible homosexuality in your kids is to not have kids. For any parents who are worried about this, I highly recommend that solution.

UPDATE: As AEJ notes in the comments below, this does not seem to be a policy decision on Amazon's part. As of 4/14/09, I am rescinding my call for a boycott. Hooray! I can spend 10% of my income at Amazon again!

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How Will We Know When Judith Butler Cracks the Bestseller List?

Remember when you were a horny teenager and you went to websites like Amazon.com to look for really sexy adult content, like books on Queer Theory? Then, remember how you used to order boxes of those books, hoping your mom wouldn't open the telltale smiling box?

When I was twelve, my good friend C used to keep a dog-eared copy of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet under his mattress. Sometimes, late at night, we would read (by flashlight) sentences like the one below, barely able to keep our hands off our pubescent erections:

At the same time, however, just as it comes to seem questionable to assume that cultural constructs are peculiarly malleable ones, it is also becoming increasingly problematical to assume that grounding an identity in biology or 'essential nature' is a stable way of insulating it from social interference.

Wow, I get hot just hearing those words again.

A few years later, I used to sneak out of the house to attend late night "Queer Theory" parties with some of the more sexually-advanced students at my high school. We never had one of our teen orgies without a copy of Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. Trust me, there is nothing that gets teens off like a careful historical study of gay marriage in the Middle Ages.

Okay, okay: why am I doing this whole facetious riff? Well, because, as the LA Times reports, Amazon.com has a quiet new policy of labeling certain books as containing "adult" content. As the LAT blog notes, an "adult" content tag removes the book from sales rankings, Amazon's bestseller lists, and "in some cases, being de-ranked also means being removed from Amazon's search results."

At first glance, this may seem reasonable enough: maybe you don't want your tween coming up with Bukake porn when she's searching for the new Jonas Brothers CD. However, the execution of this policy seems to be suspiciously homophobic. As the LAT reports:

Our research shows that these books have lost their ranking: "Running with Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs; "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown, "Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel, "The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1" by Michel Foucault, "Bastard Out of Carolina" by Dorothy Allison (2005 Plume edition), "Little Birds: Erotica" by Anais Nin, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (1997 Knopf edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 W.W. Norton edition) and "Becoming a Man" by Paul Monette, which won the 1992 National Book Award.

Books that remain ranked include: "Naked" by David Sedaris; "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller; "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis; "Wifey" by Judy Blume; "The Kiss" by Kathryn Harrison; the photobooks "Playboy: Helmut Newton" and "Playboy: Six Decades of Centerfolds"; "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs; "Incest: From 'A Journal of Love'" by Anais Nin; "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (2007 Vintage International edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 Penguin Classics edition).

Certianly [sic] many of the books that are no longer ranked are no more "adult" than many of those that are -- as the list above shows, the same book, by different publishers, might meet either fate. And Kindle editions of some books remain ranked. "Unfriendly Fire," for example, is #1 in Gay and Lesbian Nonfiction on the Kindle -- even as the hardcover of the book, which was released on March 3, does not show up at all when searched for.

For those of you who are keeping score at home, there is a suspiciously large number of gay-themed books that end up being labeled "adult"--including academic works like Foucault's History of Sexuality.

Fosco decided to pursue this line of inquiry, testing which books in his academic specialty of queer theory/gay and lesbian studies made it onto the "adult content" list. According to my research, the following important academic texts have been removed from Amazon's ranking system:

• Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick: Epistemology of the Closet and Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire
  
• Judith Butler: Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex'
  
• Lee Edelman: No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive
  
• Carla Freccero: Queer/Early/Modern (a book that may or may not be by one of Fosco's advisors).
  
• Thomas Laqueur: Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud
  
• Michael Warner: Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory
  
• Marjorie Garber: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life
  
• Leo Bersani: Homos
  
• John Boswell: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality and Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe

Please note that every one of these books is an academic book, dealing with literary interpretation, historical research, or sociological analysis. Some of them are pretty difficult to read--theory-wise, that is. However, there is nothing particularly "adult" about most of these books, unless by "adult" you mean containing language that is over the head of your average teenager (or, for that matter, your average American adult). But that's not what Amazon means, is it?

I suppose it is hard to be too upset about a policy that may prevent teens from learning about obscure academic books. Even so, I would suggest that there are plenty of queer teens who could find books like those of John Boswell to be meaningful and/or useful. A rigorous history that reveals the lies that the Catholic Church tells about the Church's historical attitudes toward homosexuality? For that right teen, that kind of book could even be life-saving.

Even more upsetting is my discovery that Beth Loffreda's Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder is also included in this "adult" list. Loffreda's book is not academic: it's beautiful and sad and political. It's an extended meditation on anti-gay hate and how the Matthew Shepard murder revealed certain fault lines across our culture. It's a complicated book that refuses the easy answers. And it is certainly not "adult" or obscene--unless, of course, you consider anti-gay murder to be obscene (but that's not what Amazon means, is it?). What it is, for everyone--gay, straight, youth, adult, is a must-read. And yet, Amazon has tried to make this book harder to find. I think that is unforgivable.

Though I'm not computer scientist, it's pretty clear that Amazon's identification of a book as "adult" is based on some sort of text-based algorithm that presumably scans the titles or descriptions of books for certain "adult" words. And yes, I recognize that any algorithm of this sort will never provide a perfect discrimination between "adult" and "non-adult" books. What is equally clear, however, is that this algorithm is using words like "sexuality" and "queer" and "gay" to define a book as adult. And that is unacceptable. I'm not demanding that Amazon stop using an automated process to determine "adult" books; however, I do demand that Amazon fine-tune this algorithm to reflect the fact that gay themes are not "adult."

And so, until Amazon can demonstrate that they have improved this practice or until they stop doing this at all, I will not purchase anything from them. Nor will I provide Amazon links at this website. I would encourage you to join me in this project. (Besides, this might provide a good temporary excuse to shop at your local independent bookstore!)

UPDATE: As Jeremy notes below, Amazon is calling the whole thing a "glitch." However, as Gawker reports, there are several reasons to question the "glitch" explanation. One of them being that, before this became a PR nightmare, Amazon called the whole thing a policy decision. Oops!

UPDATE (4/14/09): It now seems pretty clear to me that this was either an honest mistake on Amazon's part or an act of malicious hacking beyond Amazon's control. Consequently, I'm going to re-embed my Amazon links on this site.

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Fanks Easther Bunny, Bawk Bawk!

I don't quite recall the religious significance of Easter, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with Jesus bringing his son's pet rabbit back from the dead. Of course, free thinkers question whether Jesus actually resurrected said rabbit or whether he just managed to find an almost identical one at the local pet store. Even so, pretty much everyone agrees that the rabbit was named "Mary Magdalene."

At any rate, here are some Easter-related titbits.

First, a photo that cracks me up every time:

Is it wrong to root for the bunny?

Second, for all of you Goth readers of Fosco Lives!, here's a rabbit funeral dance, choreographed by the morbid and talented Wade Robson. Oz and Fosco have loved this dance ever since they saw it last summer, particularly the leg hops that start around 2:21.



Yes, Virginia, bunnies can be terrifying!

Finally, because no day is a holiday without Fosco's adored Patti Smith, here is her song "Easter" (with one of those strange homemade videos that happen on YouTube):



On Easter, Fosco is always reminded of one of Patti's best lines: "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." Word, Patti.

Saturday Story Hour: Boxing with David Schickler

It's Saturday Story Hour--even when it's a busy week.

Last week's story left at least one of you feeling melancholy, so this week I want to make up for that with a story that approaches romantic comedy(!).

Believe it or not, sometimes a writer publishes his or her debut story in The New Yorker--after which, of course, pretty much everything else is downhill. For example, the author of today's story, David Schickler, debuted "The Smoker" in TNY and (sadly) has never written anything nearly as good or successful. Fosco's writer friend NR was so enamored with "The Smoker" that he looked forward eagerly to the publication of Schickler's first collection (Kissing in Manhattan); however, after reading the collection, NR literally threw the book out the window--he was that disappointed. Fosco would never dispose of a book, but he agrees that the rest of Schickler's collection was not nearly as good as "The Smoker."

What makes "The Smoker" so good? Well, for one thing, it's a humorous and quirky take on the old teacher-student romance cliche. Charmingly, it plays that scenario without resorting to cheap sexual thrills, favoring instead awkwardness and sweet incomprehension. And there are some gems of dialogue:

"Is this real? I mean, are you . . . in love with me?" He couldn't believe what he'd asked.

"I'm ready to be," said Nicole. "And I mean this as a compliment, but I've got nothing better to do."

I must say, that's kind of a good line.

Now if still think the story sounds a bit odd and creepy, that's because I haven't sprung the story's surprising twist on you. I don't want to give things away, but this isn't really your typical teacher-student romance story (no "Don't Stand So Close to Me" here). I would suggest you give the story a chance: see if it doesn't charm you by the end...

You can read "The Smoker" here.

And if you must discover David Schickler's other work, please do so by following these links:



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YEEEAAAAHHHHHHHH!

Okay, instead of hiding in my bed as promised, I opened Photoshop and had fun with the whole "communication blackout" thing. Because there is nothing more fun than homemade "CSI: Miami" comics.

This is how you turn fear into empowerment!

Listen all of y'all...

...it's a SABOTAGE!

Phone and internet in a large area of the South Bay have been completely down since 2 AM this morning. Fosco is completely without phone service (both landline and cell). His internet is down; he is only getting internet from an unprotected wireless network (which runs on a cable connection) in his apartment complex. The UCSC network is down, so no email. Supposedly, most of San Jose and its suburbs are down as well. If that's true, that could mean something like one million people are currently without phone service.

If you think this sounds absolutely crazy, you're right--especially since the 911 network is also down and has now been down for more than 24 hours. What makes things even worse is that we are now learning that, as the Beastie Boys lyric that titles this post suggests, the cause of the outage is SABOTAGE.

According to this article,

Four AT&T fiber-optic cables in an underground vault were severed shortly before 1:30 a.m. along Monterey Highway north of Blossom Hill Road in south San Jose, police Sgt. Ronnie Lopez said. Four more underground cables, at least two of which belong to AT&T, were cut about two hours later along Old County Road near Bing Street in San Carlos, authorities said.

And lest you think that this was an easy task, consider how this had to be done:

In both instances, saboteurs had to use a piece of equipment to lift heavy manhole covers and climb down several feet to get to the cables. They would have to have been equipped with heavy-duty cutting equipment to slice through the thick cable coating.

Translation: this was an organized and professional act. We're not quite talking Ocean's Eleven-type professionals, but maybe something close. No media outlet I have seen has been willing to speculate about the reason for the sabotage yet, but I think you have to wonder about whether this served as cover for some sort of criminal act (robbery, murder, etc.)

Even scarier, as I write this, I can hear a major confluence of emergency sirens nearby--police, I think. This is not comforting. I think I'm going to draw my blinds and hide in my bed until cell service returns. It's amazing how only a few simple technologies stand between us and complete anarchy. Maybe I should buy a gun.

But hey, you know what might be fun? Watching the video for "Sabotage." It was directed by Spike Jonze, remember? It never fails to put a smile on my face.

UCSC Tapas!

Some brief updates on life here at UCSC:

• The giant UCSC campus 4/20 pot festival approaches. Watch the video from last year. This year, the Admin plans to get even more difficult about the whole thing (and I guess it is bad publicity for the U): UCSC has already contacted the parents of first-years. As the email to parents notes:
  

  "I encourage you to talk with your student about his or her plans for 4/20. Ask direct questions about the choices they make and express your expectations regarding marijuana, alcohol or other drug use. Although students may not initiate discussion on this topic, your opinions and expectations can influence their behavior."

  If only UCSC would contact my parents. I would love to have that conversation.
  
• Sad news from budget-cut land: UCSC's uber-liberal Community Studies Department may get the axe. Sure, it's a crazy radical major that creates community activists, but then again, community activists do more good in this world than almost anyone else (especially white trash governors).
  
• This past week, Fosco discovered the beauty of the Porter Koi Pond. Did you know that koi live 25-35 years? That's longer than most dogs, cats, and Community Studies departments. True.
  
  Sadly, there is this old story about two UCSC fratboys who caught and grilled one of the koi several years ago. Luckily, those frat boys are now dead.
  

Aren't they gorgeous?

Fosc Olives Tapas

Greetings, my friends. I fear that I will be testing your loyalty this week. This will be a difficult week for me work-wise (you know that thing I do that [barely] pays the bills?). But rather than abandoning you entirely to the uncivilized wilderness of most of the non-Fosco Lives! internet, I will be offering a selection of very brief posts this week in lieu of the more traditional FL! features. Call it "blog tapas"--which is, not coincidentally, one of the best ways to savor olives (including Fosc Olives).

Because we usually talk about music on Mondays, allow me to offer you today several photographs from the recent Bruce Springsteen concert in San Jose that I attended with my friend Todd. These photos were taken with my pathetically inadequate cell phone camera; however, at least I didn't hold a digital camera over my head for the whole concert like the jackass standing in front of me. Tradeoffs.

We were actually standing pretty close, no?

Also, I may have been standing next to tween sensation Zac Efron during the set. Judge for yourself from this surreptitious photo:

Okay, it probably wasn't him. But what if it had been?