bosatsu Evolution (III)

And another...

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

bosatsu Evolution (II)

Here's a closeup from one of the most popular illustrations...

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

bosatsu Evolution (I)

Here's how bosatsu has been coming along in the last months.  As we love to say, when it comes to the arts, details matter.

And that's how bosatsu has been evolving, detail by detail...

© Jeff Stilwell 2012

Illumination

Anybody But The Current Guy

What a bizarre election we're having this time around.

The GOP candidate is easily out-fundraising his opponent because...his donors love his policies so much.  Right?

Except that he doesn't have any.  (Check it out.)

• On healthcare, he'll repeal Obamacare and replace it with...what?
• On financial regulation, he'll repeal Dodd-Frank (the new laws meant to prevent Wall Street meltdowns) and replace it with...what?
• On taxes, he'll fund his tax cuts for the wealthy by ending...which?...tax credits for the middle class
• On budgeting, he'll cut our deficit by slashing spending by hundreds of billions each year on...which?...programs

He does not say.  Resolutely.

So what exactly are his extremely well-heeled donors purchasing with all their cash?

The only thing I can see is that they are buying themselves an Anybody But the Current Guy candidate.  And he's letting them.

Wow.  What a way to get a circular office.

Budweiser Girls and Blue Angels

One of those laughable moments in relations between the genders is the Budweiser Girl phenomenon.  (At least that's what we term it at home.)

This is that moment in time when...

Take your most level-headed, rational guy and place him in front of a lifesize Budweiser Girl poster.

What happens?  He goes a bit gaga.  He gets that bug-eyed, dazed look.  He begins muttering in sub-vocal grunts as he takes in the voluptuous sight of...

• her large, curvaceous (yet almost miraculously perky) breasts
• her sumptuous cloud of brunette hair adorned with so many highlights he swears she's blonde (and fertile)

Those two things in particular.

Does he notice the shape of her elbows?  Hell, no.  The color of her eyes?  Nope.  That she might even be suffering from curvature of the spine?  Nada.

At this point, all the women in the room start snickering with contempt.

Right?  

Of course, what's forgotten is that so much of this is socialization.  After all, feed a group of boys over a series of decades - prepubescent through middle age - a steady diet of large (yet, oddly perky) breasts and clouds of blonde hair representing the ideal woman, and...

Flash them just such an image and they begin salivating without realizing it.

Well, what do we expect?  (It certainly happens to me.)

Which is why I always love it when the US Navy's Blue Angels come to town.  They do every year, as they are now, practicing their aerobatic stunts in the skies above us, preparing for SeaFair weekend in Seattle.

What's wonderful, and amusing, about the Blue Angels coming to town is that the Budweiser Girl phenom plays in reverse.

After all, what does your average guy think about Blue Angel pilots?  Oh, that's easy...

• They're short - just over five feet - to fit into the cockpit (which isn't really true) 
• They're exceptional at one thing - and probably nothing else - except...
• After their show, they screw their way through half the bars of Seattle because...

Well, take the most rational, practical, conservative businesswoman, such as Manya.  Show her the Blue Angels practicing one of their dives up there in the sky and she's suddenly screaming like a cheerleader ready to hop in the backseat.

Funny that.

A Jane Austen Sex Scene?

One of the perennial jokes among Austen fans is her frequent use of the phrase making violent love.  As in, "He was making violent love to me!"

Standards change over time, of course.  As does usage.  To Jane's way of thinking, making violent love is when a man picks up a dropped handkerchief and returns it to its blushing owner.  Or, perhaps, when a would-be suitor offers a ride home in his carriage (elderly matron accompanying the two as escort, of course).

Still, as a novelist, I've often thought what a fascinating conversation it would make to ask Jane, were she still with us, whether she would choose to include a modern sex scene in one of her novels.

I mean, sure, in a modern thriller, a rousing and (hopefully) erotic sex scene is a staple.  But in the sort of thoughtful fiction that Jane wrote?

In Fighting for Eden, I found myself grappling with the same dilemma.  Here I have my main character,  quite thoughtful and often hapless Andrew, forced into the media spotlight when his best friend is killed fighting in Iraq.

Not the kind of story where one would expect a love scene.  Still...

His door quietly opened.  And, as if another one of his dreams, she floated like a spirit without stepping to the edge of his bed.  Her legs, he saw for the first time, were quite shapely in their musculature, stretching down in fine detail under the flannel nightshirt she was wearing, a musky heat shimmering around her in the night air.

Why did I include such a vignette?

I'd love to say that I was stretching myself as an artist.

No, at the time, it simply seemed like the kind of thing my fiery Jessie would do.

Happily, it still does.

Fighting for Eden is available on Kindle and from Lulu Publishing.