Turkeys & Tumblrs

And that is all she wrote. I'm out of here for the holiday. I'll likely be posting daily over the weekend on my Tumblr, because I'm neurotic like that. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving. There's a lot to be thankful for. Like being alive.

Pirelli Goes Wild [Updated]

Images from the 2009 Pirelli calendar are online. Shot by the legendary Peter Beard. In Botswana. Video. Jezebel cries: "Misogynist supermodel torture!" Beard
hollers: "Help me!"

Update: Relatedish: The 2009 French Vogue calendar ...

Update 2: And bigger.

Rachel Kramer Bussel Is My Friend [Updated]

Over at The Frisky, I'm doing some editing, and I enlisted the delightful Rachel Kramer Bussel as one of our new sex, dating, and relationships columnists. I like Rachel because she says all the things I would never say. And because she is endearing. And also nice. Her latest column is pretty provocative, coming from a sex columnist: "No Glove, No Love? Not Always." So suck it, Village Voice.

Update: Rachel reminds that she's my editor, too, having selected my Newsweek piece, "Dear John," for Best Sex Writing 2009, the sure to be titillating anthology she edited, which is available for pre-order and will be released just in time for Christmas.

A New Letter From A Working Girl

Miracle of miracles, I got a new letter from a working girl: "I Said Yes." While Letters from Johns is closing in on 50 letters, letters from working girls are few and far between. Thank you to Working Girl #14 for sharing your story. (Image via Nevver.)

He told me that I was too young; I was 28 and he was 53. He said he wasn't looking for a "model type", but rather, a real woman. (Um, models are real women too, for anyone who doesn't know.) He talked about how much he missed touching and holding and looking at a woman. We kept talking about the human need for intimacy, and I could tell he did want the meeting. I asked him he was ready to go the hotel ("assuming the sale" like this is an old technique I always used to sell $250/hr Champagne Room visits at the strip clubs) and he said yes.

"I Said Yes."

My, My American Apparel Ad [Updated]

The other day I came across "I Shouldn't Be So Shocked But I Am," which was written by some female ad bloggers in regards to the American Apparel ad that runs to your right. "WAIT IS THAT A NIPPLE," one blogged. In the comments, others wondered if the ad was "legal" or "European."

Meanwhile, over at Debauchette, where a similar ad runs (the model there is porn star Charlotte Stokely), one commentor whines: "I just wish you’d put up some ads with, I don’t know, normal weight women that don’t so blatantly use sex to make some guy millions... AA just makes me feel gross as a woman."

I pinged Copyranter to find out what he thinks of the ads. His response: "I just hate to see such a classic typeface as Helvetica sullied such." Oh, you ad people. So fonty.

Me? I don't really see it. I'm porn blind.

If you have something fascinating to say on the subject, email me.

Update: Adranter Steve Hall observes: "This ad is just getting back to...ahem...the natural way of things."

Update 2: Yaybia emails: "Don't get us wrong, the Yaybia ladies are no strangers to nudity. We were just surprised to see it pop out of nowhere. Offended? Nah."

Update 3: AgencySpy opines: "[N]ow, your brain will forever tie the American Apparel brand to sex (your notions of female degradation aside, sex is sex). You're screwed."

Update 4: Jezebel offers: "Personally, I just hate leggings as pants!" One commenter declares Dov Charney the Antichrist.

Update 5: American Apparel blogs: "We know people like to talk about our ads. More often, it's tongues clucking and fingers wagging in disapproval but this time, we seem to have some blogs taking to our defense about our first nude ads for the web."

And Then I Projectile Vomited

This sounds so fucking stupid it makes me want to fucking shoot myself in the fucking head.

(Image via the lovely Luminol.)

Bye Bye, Boing Boing

And so, tragically, my guestblogging stint on Boing Boing comes to an end. Thank you to Cory, Mark, David, and especially Xeni for inviting me and letting me blog unfetteredly, as I am wont to do. My entire life is going to be downhill from here, I'm pretty sure. You can peruse my guestblog archives here.

The Most Beautiful Thing in the World Is, of Course, the World Itself

A while ago, someone I know through this blog sent me something wonderful in the mail. It was a frog. Not just any frog, of course. But one of the frogs that fell from the sky in "Magnolia," which is one of my all-time favorite movies. I appreciated the gift, and now this frog sits upon my desk while I write.

The other day, this person said there was something else in the mail. What could it be? I had no clue. Today, I picked up a rather large box from the post office. I got home. I put the box on the floor. I opened the box. I looked inside it. I said: "What...?" Inside the box there was another box, with something on it that I recognized. And inside that box there was a Wilson. That is, Wilson from "Cast Away," another one of my all-time favorite movies. Of course, it's not the Wilson, but it is a Wilson, all part of a promotional packet that would have gone out to promote the movie years ago. On the outside of the box, which was made to look as if it was lost at sea for a long time, there's a set of angel wings.

The note inside explained it all.

... see unlike chuck, who lost wilson at the end of his time adrift, you receive him at the moment when youve gotten rescued from your isle of isolation and madness ...

Now Wilson sits on my mantle. Thank you very, very much.

[Note: I embedded the high-res video using this fine hack.]

Today on Boing Boing

Today on Boing Boing, a lot of videos is what: the butterfly dance, the girlfriend dance, and the JG Ballard dance.

Outside, it's raining.

I'm tired.

Most Girls Don’t Know What to Do with What They’ve Got

This is an image via Nevver, created by David Shrigley, and I love it.

Recent guestblogging on Boing Boing: Pennybags dies, serial killers dine, heads recombine, Siege splatters, dancers undress, and I mutate.

Title is Jayne Mansfield via Rachel.

Thinking Forward

Now that I'm editing my novel, I can't help but wonder what's next. Of course, the dream is to never write another word again, but that likely won't happen. (Secretly, I'd rather be a photographer, go back to Porn Valley and only shoot girls' faces, but who knows.) I'd imagine I'd likely get shanghaied into writing another novel, although if this one's good, I doubt I'd ever write anything else as good. That's the way it goes when you live the story, I think.

Lately, I've been toying with the idea of doing a nonfiction book, returning to some ideas I had a few years ago, something about men (the whale), that would involve a lot of traveling (unmoored), and perhaps be called CAN'T HOLD BACK THE DEMONS, which was written across the back of a pornographer I met one night in the Valley (a long time ago). Now there's a story not all that far from here. The same themes. A different way of getting at the truth. My Yoknapatawpha County, writ large, across America.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be Oriana Fallaci. ("... Fallaci never left her subjects unskinned.") Maybe this would be an upside down version of that. Wisdom proffered during prison visiting hours. The addict baptized in the river. The pornographer unmasked.

Who the Fuck Am I?

I was interviewed today for "Moncrieff" in Ireland about Letters from Johns.

I got a copy of a magazine in the mail. Across the top of the cover, it says: "WHO THE F*** IS SUSANNAH BRESLIN?" (Good question, I considered.) Inside, the story features a photo of someone who is not me who is supposed to be me, a page that in very large font wonders: "WHO THE FUCK IS SUSANNAH BRESLIN?", and several letters in which various people illuminate me as an asshole. Um, thanks?

Monday guestblogging on Boing Boing is all about vaginablogs, stylestreaming, and narcocultura.

Boingtastic

Yes, well, still guestblogging at Boing Boing. Today: virtual opera, smokin' crack, post-election sex, killer minds, see-through ladies.

You may have noticed that I've got my first ad up on this site. It features American Apparel and boobs, the latter being the key to any ad campaign worth its budget. I was going to say something regarding this advertising choice, but what she said. If you're interested in advertising on this site, send an email. I was thinking I should limit all my advertisers to vices: alcohol, smoking, quasi-pornography. It'll all be so SYNERGISTIC.

In any case, have an awesome weekend. Because weekends were made for lovers. Or whatever.

Boinging

Today in guestblogging on Boing Boing: robocouture cinema, Debauchette on Spitzer, this isn't happiness, sex with Bigfoot, and Beck's gamma rays.

In other news, there's an online extra from an interview I did for the latest issue of $pread Magazine.

I’ve seen all kinds of porn—mainstream porn, altporn, feminist porn, fetish porn, midget porn. In my opinion, porn is porn. Porn is a movie in which people are fucking, period. You can call it what you want, and spin it how you will, but at the end of the day you’re watching people fuck for show, for money, for a living. Porn is a pretty rough trade, and no amount of spin can doctor that fact.

What I'm Boing Boing-ing

I'm still guestblogging at Boing Boing. So far, I've posted about Sarah Palin erotica, the painfully alone, penises, breakdowns, a visible woman, clubfoot couture, what happens down in the hole, and a new letter from a john. I'll see you there, but you won't see me, will you?

I'm Boing Boing-ing!

Please come visit me as I guestblog at Boing Boing. It's a very good time. INDEED.

Guestblogging At Boing Boing [Update]

I'm superhappy to announce that for the next two weeks, I'll be guestblogging at Boing Boing. I would like to give a very special thanks to the always awesome Xeni Jardin for inviting me. I haven't started yet, but things will be kicking into gear later this evening. I'm really excited. Good times!

Update: Actually, I'm going to start on Tuesday.