Ali Davis: True Porn Clerk Stories

Except for the webcomics list I have mentioned only books here, not stuff I read on the net. This is an exception, and a worthy one.

This is a blog of Ali Davis's part-time work as a clerk in a video store that also rents out porn. While they have other selections as well, the porn dominates in a way because it gives a lot to think about, and it attracts the weirder part of the customers. Consequently her blog entries are a mix of stories about specific customers and incidents at the store and more general musings about the nature of porn in general and her own ideas and feelings about it.

I read these stories first about three years ago, found them great fun in parts, very insightful, well-written, and interesting. Now I saw them mentioned somewhere again, had another look, and could -- again -- not stop until I was through for the second time.

The really great thing is that they hit on a curiosity that is usually not satisfied, namely the "how is it to deal with that stuff on a daily basis, and the customers it attracts?" Of course, as a man and -- rather occasional -- porn user myself I can to some degree identify with the customers. Of course I hope -- if I'd go to the video store for it, which I haven't -- of being closer to "Mr. Gentle" than to the creepier ones, and there were quite a few really creepy ones.

Her ideas about porn in general and why people want it are plausible. I have thought about it myself a bit, if not as thoroughly as she has. I am in general agreement with her ideas, and found them quite insightful in areas I had not given much thought previously.

Real fun, well-written, interesting to read. Highly recommended. (I don't post the link here as the name servers of the domain seem to be having a problem right now, but they can easily be read from Google's cache, for instance.)

Cecil Scott Forester, the Hornblower series

As mentioned before, I have read the ten Hornblower novels about 20 years ago, although in German. For quite a while I wanted to read them again in the original version, among other reasons for learning the nautical jargon. I am nearly through with the ninth book now. (Bonaparte has just come to power again, and Hornblower builds a partisan army together with his french hosts.)

These books are significantly better than I remembered them. That may be due to weaknesses in the german translation, but I think it is just too long ago. The characters are quite believable, and, while clichéd in parts, less so than I had in mind. Forester draws much from depicting the war and heroism, but -- and I had forgotten that -- he does nowhere omit the horrors of war. And he is always entertaining, and often really suspenseful, captivating; and there is more humour in these books than I remembered. And that is a good thing, since the darling wife still is not yet done with the new Harry Potter.

Addendum: I think I'll just have to try Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. It should be quite interesting to see a different approach to the same nautical theme, and a more modern one at that: Forester wrote Hornblower, except for the unfinished Hornblower and the Crisis, from the late 1930s to the early 1960s, while the Aubrey-Maturins were written over three decades from 1970 on.

Wikipedia writes that O'Brian employs a narrative voice in style with the early 19th century he writes about, which sounds particularly interesting. This should be a style nearly a century older than that of Stevenson's Kidnapped and Catriona, which I found not difficult to read, but those were the oldest books I have read so far in English. Let's see.