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Aug 2012 10

by Nicole Powers

A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups.


[Kurosune in Apollo]

This week Kurosune tells us why she’s drawn to SG’s Hentai Group.

Members: 1,804 / Comments: 8,517

WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: What’s not to like about a group that discusses tentacles, furries, chicks growing massive dicks (stay away from Bible Black – it’s NOT for the faint of heart), bukkake, maids who punish their male employers in acts of BDSM, anti-demon slaying ninjas who wind up the prisoners of giant orges…or even just the adorable, moe-like girl who is bold enough to make the move and give up her cherished virginity to the wonderful, dreamy, all-round good guy in school who just happens to be her second period math teacher.

DISCUSSION TIP: We loooooove pictures of your particular “yum” – and remember, you ARE in a group that discusses yaoi (boy x boy), yuri (girl x girl) and furries. My personal motto is that you should never “yuck” someone’s “yum.” Don’t be shy (you’re among freaky friends!). Participate often, don’t be an asshole, and everyone should get along just fine. We especially love the ladies here. Contrary to popular belief, women watch hentai too. We love it!

BMOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: Hands down, it’s a tie between the “Favorite Images” and “What’s Your Favorite Hentai Artist.” I ALWAYS love reading those. Hentai is really visual, so pictures posted (be they silly, hot, funny, disturbing or whatever) usually manage to brighten someone’s day. And I love seeing what hentai people love. My faves are, hands down, Taimanin Asagi, Stringendo & Accelerando, and Sensual Pornograph – my first and favorite yaoi!!!

BEST RANDOM QUOTE: “Tentacles? In MY vagina???”

WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: It’s a private group, so you have to request to join. Only those who have at least some blog/comment activity will be allowed in, but basically anyone who jumps in pure joy at the words “hentai,” “yaoi,” “yuri,” “bukkake,” or “virgins in high school uniforms” is welcome. 


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Aug 2012 10

by Brad Warner

People have been asking me for my thoughts about the shooting at the sikh temple outside of Milwaukee. It’s hard to say much except to once again state that there are too damned many guns in the United States. But I’ve already given that rant.

Lots of people are speculating that the shooter probably believed that the Sikhs he killed were Muslims and that this was some sort of revenge for the attacks in New York and Washington, DC on Sept. 11, 2001. Some have said that he was a white supremacist. Some are saying he was in a punk rock or heavy metal band supposedly called End Apathy. The Huffington Post has the most information on that aspect of the story. According to them the guy played bass in some of what they’re calling “hate rock” bands.

Of all that stuff, it’s the idea that he was a punk rocker that bothers me the most. The other things are all kind of obvious. White supremacists are bad. People who kill others for their religion are bad. People who can’t tell the difference between Muslims and Sikhs are stupid. Blah-blah-blah. I agree with all that. Who needs to hear yet another person say those things?

But I’ve always been one of those people who said that violent music or art did not necessarily lead to actual violence. I still believe that. But I also believe that violent art and music definitely can tend to make unbalanced people believe that real violence is OK. That appears to be at least part of what happened here.

All of the punk rock that I liked was very left-wing. But there was plenty of hateful stuff in there. The Dicks, who Zero Defex (the band I play bass in) played with a few times had songs like “Dicks Hate the Police”. MDC, whose name at one time meant Millions of Dead Cops, often had violent messages in their songs. MDC were big supporters of Zero Defex back in the day and we even played with them in Cleveland this year.

The photo of Zero Defex I put on this blog bugged some people who saw it when I posted it years ago because there’s a Nazi flag behind us. That’s me on the far left, just under the logo for The Dale, the bar we were playing at that night. The scowling skinhead in the middle is Tommy Strange, our main songwriter and guitarist. Although this was apparently taken during one of the songs that he sang while Jimi, our vocalist, played guitar because you can see Jimi just behind and to Tommy’s left with a guitar strapped on. I Photoshopped the picture to bring out the duct tape “No” symbol we put over the swastika on the flag to make it clear that we were against the Nazis and not for them. A lot of people didn’t catch that when I originally posted this picture. I still wonder where we ever got a Nazi flag. Think of the money we could’ve made selling that! A lot more than we got for the gig, I’m sure.

In any case, I never really thought those violent anti-police and anti-government messages were to be taken literally. To me it was a verbal working out of the frustrations we all felt at the way police and government power was abused. I didn’t think those bands were trying to incite people to literally go out there and murder police officers. Perhaps I’m naive, but I still don’t think it was meant to be taken literally.

Then again, maybe I’m like the dumb guys in the comedy heavy metal band Spinal Tap who said, “We say love your neighbor. Well, we don’t literally say it. And we don’t literally mean it either. But in any case that message should be clear.”

I feel like the problem isn’t so much the violent messages, even if some of the people who send them possibly really do want us to commit violent acts. It’s people’s inability to differentiate between art and reality. Even if you might argue that this isn’t the root problem, I still think it’s the problem we have to deal with because violent art is not going away. It’s been with us as long as art has been with us. And in the age of the internet it’s as impossible to control access to violent artistic images as it is to control access to pornography. So rather than trying to make all art conform to some kind of arbitrary code of niceness I think it’s better to try and educate people that it’s one thing to say “kill the cops” and a whole different thing to actually do that stuff.

In Buddhism there is an idea that right thought leads to right action. Conversely non-right thought can lead to non-right action. Thích Nhat Hanh cautions his followers not to consume what he calls “poisonous entertainment” that feeds our agitation. Dogen, too, told his followers much the same thing 800 years ago. I do not disagree with this approach. And yet I wonder…

As I have said many times, in my own case punk rock saved my life. It literally did. I was a suicidally depressed teenager. And one of the few things that kept me going were the so-called “negative messages” in punk rock music as well as in horror films and other supposedly “poisonous entertainment.” These messages let me know that I was not the only one who was frustrated by the status quo and wanted things to change.

Without these supposedly “negative messages” I would have felt totally lost and alone in the nice, clean suburbs of Ohio. Who knows? My frustration at all the supposedly “positive messages” I was receiving, which really just reinforced the false notion that everything was OK in the world, might have led me to take up a gun and shoot all the preps and the jocks in my school. So-called “positive messages” are often just propaganda intended to help big corporations and the like control the populace, keeping them docile by insisting that everything they do makes life peachy keen.

It’s impossible to say anything really conclusive about all this. But I think it’s good to say something non-conclusive. I don’t have the great answer to this problem and neither does anyone else. I think it’s really vital, though, to look at all sides of this issue.

***

Just moments ago I did an interview on Freedomizer Radio out of Houston, Texas. You can listen to it at freedomizerradio.com

From August 11 until September 11 I will be at Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery. I’ll be working there as a student/worker or whatever they call it. Probably serving food or cutting cucumbers or something like that. At the end of my stay I’ll give a couple lectures about Dogen. I’ve done this every year for a few years now. It’s good for me to have to get up every morning at five, put on my robes, do some zazen, be an indentured servant for most of the day and then do some more zazen at night. I kinda need that experience to keep from getting too weird when I do the other stuff I do.

Speaking of weird stuff I do, I am going on yet another European tour less than two months after I get out of Tassajara. Here are the dates as far as I know them right now.

Oct. 26-28 Weekend Sesshin Kajo Zendo in Finland

Oct. 30 – Nov. 4 International Lay Buddhists Forum in Malaga, Spain

Nov. 9 Dogen Zendo in Frankfurt , Germany

Nov. 10 Balance Yoga in Frankfurt, Germany

Nov. 11 – 21 Possible dates in The Netherlands and/or Germany (Most likely Nov. 16-18 in Amsterdam or Rotterdam, but nothing is confirmed yet)

Nov. 23-25 Weekend Sesshin at Fawcett Mill Fields in Penrith, Lake District, UK (Sponsored by Yoga Manchester
)
Nov. 25 Manchester, UK (Sponsored by Yoga Manchester)

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Aug 2012 10

by Alex Dueben

“I wanted it to be the kind of book that I love to read”
– G. Willow Wilson

G Willow Wilson first made a name for herself in comics in 2007 when the graphic novel Cairo which she wrote was published by Vertigo. It made quite a splash, combining fantasy and realism in an attempt to capture life in Egypt’s capital city. She followed it up with the series Air, which was illustrated by her Cairo collaborator M.K. Perker. Her other comics work includes Superman, The Outsiders, Vixen, and most recently Mystic. She’s also published nonfiction in many places including The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times. In 2010 her memoir The Butterfly Mosque, was published about her move after college to Cairo where she met her future husband and came to fall in love with the country.

Her new book, Alif the Unseen, is her first novel. It tells the story of a hacker in an unnamed Arab Gulf country, and involves the jinn, a battle with the state security services overseen by “The Hand,” the nature of storytelling, the power of the internet and climaxes in a revolution. It’s also a book that was written before The Arab Spring erupted last year. We caught up with Wilson and spoke about the book and the current political climate in the Middle East following the Egyptian Presidential election.

Read our exclusive interview with G. Willow Wilson on SuicideGirls.com.

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Aug 2012 10

Ingenting Suicide in So Long Sweden

  • INTO: Tarantino films and late night talks, swimming pools and friends, dancing and drinking, I love food – LOVE food ok.
  • NOT INTO: Boring people, selfish people, stupid people, mean people.
  • MAKES ME HAPPY: Starry nights. Sunny days.
  • HOBBIES: Partying, playing guitar, photography, dancing, filming and editing, miming to power ballads with a hairbrush microphone in the mirror, hiking, reading and what not.
  • 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Camera, guitar, MacBook, Sailor Vodka, my leopard comfy pants!
  • I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Dreaming and making shit happen.

Get to know Ingenting better over at SuicideGirls.com!