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Zhadan. Bread Ceasefire
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Prokhasko. Yes, But...
Artists: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [0-9]
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Catalogue -> NOT discs -> Books: Belles-lettres
Ivo Bresan. Astaroth.
"A tempting proposal from a stranger, a blood-stained contract, fulfillment of all desires – and a forfeit that lasts forever. Changing his appearances and beliefs at the will of his current Master, the "demon of politics" Astaroth, the lyrical hero unintentionally plays a significant role in the most important historic events of the present and the past. The kaleidoscope of thrilling changes becomes a prison, from which the protagonist desperately tries to escape seeking salvation from his own God only known to him."
Translated from Croatian by Iryna Markova
In Ukrainian.
Type of the edition: hard cover
Publisher: KOMORA, Kyiv
- Peredmova. Uhoda i plata
ChASTYNA 1:
- Rozdil 1. U chuzhomu tili
- Rozdil 2. Vybir
- Rozdil 3. U leshchatakh
- Rozdil 4. Slabke mistse Astarota
- Rozdil 5. Omanlyvyy smak svobody
- Rozdil 1. Strybok na chervone pole
- Rozdil 2. Lutsija
- Rozdil 3. Zrechennja
- Rozdil 4. Na rozdorizhzhi
- Rozdil 5. Pastka
- Rozdil 6. Oblychchja Satany
- Rozdil 7. Znaky
- Rozdil 1. Klitka dlja dushi
- Rozdil 2. Promyvannja y chyshchennja
- Rozdil 3. Narodzhennja demona
- Rozdil 4. Krypta doli
- Rozdil 5. Krok upered
- Rozdil 6. Za omehoju
Publisher: KOMORA
Catalogue number: ISBN 9786177286232
Domestic price: 168.30UAH
International price: $15.30USD
Milan Kundera. Zhart. (The Joke)
..The Joke, chronologically the first novel by the cult modern writer Milan Kundera, is constructed based on the principle of folk polyphony, where the choir combines harmonious sounding of multiple voices.
Domestic price: 152.90UAH, International price: $13.90USD
Milan Kundera. Bezsmertia. (Immortality)
An intellectual novel by one of the most distinguished writers of our time, a book about freedom and the overwhelming fear of death, ambiguity of actions and honesty to oneself, the desire to leave a trace and, at the same time, to destroy all traces.
Kazuo Ishiguro. Khudozhnyk khytkoho svitu. (An Artist of the Floating World)
World War II took away famous artist Ono Masuji's son and wife. The only thing left for Ono now is to arrange his daughter's marriage, but for that sake he has to renounce the past, in which it is so difficult to understand where the line between betrayal and devotion lies, and how big an artist's responsibility is in the face of challenges of history.
Natsume Soseki. Sertse. (Kokoro/ The Heart)
When a heart overwhelmed with hopes suffers painful blows, it gradually fades and dies. This is a story about vulnerability of the human heart. When hurting others – one hurts oneself, too. The multidimensional novel by the classic of the Japanese literature, Natsume Soseki, can be read at such an angle, and this is the appeal of the true prose.
Milan Kundera. Nesterpna lehkist buttya. (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
Milan Kundera's legendary novel is full of deep meaning, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles; it is a book that inspires and motivates for reflections. Can an individual make sure if their choice is right? After all, life offers no double takes, it is both the main rehearsal and, actually, the performance itself..
Salman Rushdie. Zolotyi dim. (The Golden House)
It is an antique tragedy enacted in the Lower Manhattan scenery, generously flavored, as it is customary for Rushdie, with allusions to ancient mythologies, texts of the western literature canon, and the modern pop culture. The temporal backdrop for the novel is Barack Obama's presidential term..
Bernard Werber. Skrynya Pandory. (The Box of Pandora)
How many lives does a person have? Do previous lives influence us today – our character, preferences, fears? Werber reflects on that – as always, in an interesting and thrilling way.
Bernard Werber. Zoryany metelyk. (The Star Butterfly)
Overcrowding of the planet and other hazards make people build an interplanetary spaceship and go into space in search of a better place to live. And it would have been fine had the saviors of humanity taken the following into account: humans remain humans, and they took on the journey not only their virtues, but also their vices..
Jyrki Vainonen. Nimyi boh. (The Numb God)
Together with sculptor Andre, we leave for a journey to the semi-mythical and gloomy Brittany. This is a place lost in the mountains, where people have a different look at the world and watch out for foreigners..
Jacek Dehnel. Krivoklat.
An unheard-of act of vandalism in an art museum has struck Europe, newspaper headlines keep mentioning the Acid Vandal. Who is he, why did he commit the attack? Jacek Dehnel's new novel is full of black humor, it is a work about arts, love, and an individual who is not afraid to challenge society – written at one breath.
Julian Barnes. Istoria svitu v 10 1/2 rozdilakh. (A History of the World in 10,5 Chapters)
The Flood as seen by... a woodworm that accidentally finds itself in the ark. A man who escaped from the Titanic, and a man eaten by a whale. A new Paradise model resembling a supermarket. The hell that looks like an amusement park... Ten and a half chapters about the quirky world and the significant things that surround us.
Dmitrij Kapitelman. Miy nezrymy batko. (My Invisible Father)
What shall you do if you are a Russian-speaking Ukrainian of Jewish origins living in Germany? If you are friends with Arabs and encounter neo-Nazis, while your father is still nostalgic about the Soviet Union – what is a way out?..
Dimitre Dinev. Yanholski holosy. (Angelic Voices)
It is unlikely that there is another author who would with such witty sarcasm and fervent irony square accounts with his own and our not that much bypast past. The novel will also promote better understanding and awareness of the Ukrainian – above all communist and postcommunist – past..
Bernard Werber. Zavtra budut koty. (Tomorrow There Will Be Cats)
People and cats – under the same sky. Social cataclysms, wars, and epidemics have a detrimental effect on everything alive. Who will rescue the life on the planet? Maybe, this is cats' mission? The book presents reflections on eternal values, about life and death, love and hatred, religion and science, being responsible for those who are near, for those who were tamed... for cats.
Ingmar Bergman. Nedilne dytya. (The Sunday's Child)
Bergman speaks about the carefree and, at the same time, troubling world of his childhood and his dramatic relationship with his father.
Bernard Werber. Murakhy. (Empire of the Ants)
People are accustomed to considering themselves masters of the planet, but there are creatures living next to them that can challenge humans, and there are billions of them. Two powerful civilizations, two worlds – and one misanthropic biologist...
Italo Calvino. Yakscho podorozhniy odnoi zymovoi nochi. (If on a winter's night a traveler)
In this book, there are He-Reader and She-Reader, and 10 more artistic canvases, or rather the first chapters of stories by various authors, where the plots are not at all similar to each other. The literary game engages, new characters, scenes, allusions pop up... And somewhere at the end, everything should eventually compose one single puzzle picture...
David Foenkinos. Nizhnist. (Tenderness)
A deep, sophisticated, and unexpected novel about love and loss. The glossary definition of "tenderness" is: fragility, frailness, weakness. The story by David Foenkinos is about these amazing features and the paradoxic nature of life. A same name movie was released based on the plot of the book, directed by Foenkinos brothers.
Friedrich Durrenmatt. Suddya ta yoho kat. (The Judge and His Hangman)
The story will be interesting for those who look in a detective plot for not only solving the crime, but also for answering the eternal questions: why is evil indestructible, the law – often powerless, and human justice – for the sake of restoration of the Supreme Law and the triumph of the good – sometimes forced to follow crooked paths of evil?
Domestic price: 102.30UAH, International price: $9.30USD
Richard Flanagan. Vuzka stezhka na daleku pivnich. (The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
Winner of 2014 Booker Award. A novel for those who do not like reading novels about the war. The narrative is deliberate, focused and quiet, without extra details or sentimentality. The novel get assembled as a whole in its last pages – and this takes one's breath away..
Jonathan Safran Foer. Os ya. (Here I Am)
A novel that the world looked forward to for more than 10 years! "Jacob and Julia have been together for half of their lifetime. Three wonderful sons, a cozy home – a happy family. All kinds of things happened to them: both good and bad, and lately the bad prevailed. The dear, related souls suddenly started floating away..."
Hendrik Groen. Taemny schodennyk. (The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old)
He is a new hero. An old man who began to truly live only when he turned eighty-three, but realized the meaning of life and did in it everything that could be done! His story inspires, his adventures impress, his philosophy is enticing..
Daniel Keyes. Pyata Salli. (The Fifth Sally)
Sally Porter was found naked and unconscious on the ocean shore. It turns out that the girl tried to commit suicide. Sally finds herself in a hospital, but she does not remember anything and she is convinced: it was not she who tried to commit suicide. Doctor Roger Ash undertakes helping the girl. He discovers four more personalities living in Sally's head...
Goran Petrovic. Kramnychka "Z lehkoi ruky". (Smalltalk Place at "Lucky Shot")
Lots of readers say that while reading, they "plunge into the book", but only those who have fully mastered the art of reading can plunge into it literally: walk along the seaside and bring sand into the house on their soles, buy products in a store that has not long existed in reality, or meet a reader who is traveling along the same sentence...
Bernard Werber. Imperia anheliv. (The Empire of the Angels)
What is the work of an angel? Is it possible to influence a human choice? Can one make someone happy? Is there a limit on the path of cognition? The novel describes the world of angels in a thrilling way with fine humor, intermingling the plot vicissitudes with esoteric knowledge and scientific data.
Bernard Werber. Tanatonavty. (The Thanatonauts)
..they depart to conquer the continent of the dead and to find out the location of Paradise. For two and a half years, the writer studied in detail the theme of death in perception of different religions, mythologies, doctrines, he tried to discover points of intersection among known sacred texts and invented the new word "Thanatonaut", meaning "death sailor"..
Mathias Enard. Kompas. (Compass)
As night falls over Vienna, Franz Ritter, an insomniac musicologist, takes to his sickbed with an unspecified illness and spends a restless night drifting between dreams and memories, revisiting the important chapters of his life: his ongoing fascination with the Middle East and his numerous travels to Syria, Egypt, Iran, as well as the various writers, artists, musicians..
Haruki Murakami. Bezbarvny Tsukuru Tazaki ta roky yoho proschi. (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage)
Five school friends – as if the five fingers of a hand. But one day, without explanation, the friends deleted Tsukuru from their live... For 16 years, he built railway stations for others, because at the only one, in his hometown, nobody was waiting for him any longer. Now he will find them to find out what happened 16 years ago.
Alessandro Baricco. Shovk. (Silk)
Before becoming a writer, Alessandro Baricco was a musician. Maybe that is the reason why the wonderful poetic language of "Silk" resembles a weightless soft-and-tender song with its unhurried flow, its repetitions/refrains..
Domestic price: 97.90UAH, International price: $8.90USD
Paolo Giordano. Samotnist prostykh chysel. (The Solitude of Prime Numbers)
This book is about love and solitude. About parents and children. About the echo of ancient tragedies. About the capacity – and incapacity – to live and survive. About precipices in life and bridges over them. About fears – deep and superficial. About flight from ghosts of the past and about the very possibility – or impossibility – to get away from them...
Ignacy Karpowicz. Sonka.
..a young director, a favorite of the metropolitan public accidentally comes across a story that may become his greatest success – or the most fatal defeat. The fate of a girl, who in a village occupied by the Nazi army falls in love with an occupier soldier, and her family makes him recall his own tragedy..
Pavol Rankov. Materi. (Mothers)
When the Red Army invaded Slovakia, Zuzana was mourning for her loved one, a Russian guerilla soldier Alexei, who died in the hands of the Nazi invaders. Suddenly – an arrest, accusations of treason, and she already finds herself in a crowded train that carries to the logging camps of the Gulag disenfranchised slaves of "the state of victorious socialism"..
Zvonko Karanovic. Try kartyny peremohy. (Three Pictures of the Victory)
Events of the novel take place in Serbia in 1999, during the NATO bombing and after. The total mobilization did not spare George Uzelts – Jole, an extravagant city guy, a capricious and superficial member of the self-proclaimed urban elite. He returns from the war devoid of all illusions..
Chuck Palahniuk. Biytsivsky klub. (Fight Club)
It will hit on the face with facts that are difficult to refute. And you will only have, as a looser boxer, to miss one blow after another. Without hope for a happy-end, but with the hope that in place of the destroyed civilization something more humane will be revived. That one will be able to laugh at death. See its terrible beauty. And understand the meaning of life.
Adam Johnson. Syn nachalnyka syrit. (The Orphan Master's Son)
The novel was published in 2012 as a result of a trip to North Korea – a country of one of the last totalitarian regimes in the world. The book, which critics compare with Orwell's "1984", tells us about life of the country entirely hidden from the eyes of the world around, where in the 21 century lawlessness, starvation, and executions are commonplace.
Anthony Doerr. Vse te nezryme svitlo. (All the Light We Cannot See)
This is a story of humanism, a dream, love and the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness does not absorb it... World War II breaks into lives of millions. In war-torn French town of Saint-Malo, French girl Marie-Laure and German boy Werner Pfennih meet. They are both blind...
Thomas Glavinic. Zhyttya bazhan. (The Life of Desires)
Imagine that your deepest desires start coming true. The most secret, dark desires that so far you had no clue about. This is what happens to Jonas, to whom an unexpected passer-by one day offers to fulfill his three wishe...
Andrzej Stasiuk. Skhid. (The East)
Andrzej Stasiuk's novel – though it can be referred to as a geographical, historical, archaeological, report novel – is primarily a detective one. A large and grand, simple and multi-layer, frank and exquisite tale of a search for the East, a search for its shadow and its sources.
Jonathan Safran Foer. Strashenno holosno i neymovirno blyzko. (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)
A moving, deep, and sincere story about a boy whose father was killed during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack. After his death, the nine year-old Oscar finds an envelope with a key and the inscription "Black" in the closet. The boy decides to talk to every Black in New York..
Michel Houellebecq. Pokora. (Submission)
Sorbonne professor Francois lives in a strange time – Muslims come to govern France, and the University is forced to obey the new owners – Sheikhs from Saudi Arabia. Most of his colleagues convert to Islam to keep their position...
Richard Matheson. Kudy pryvodyat mrii. (What Dreams May Come)
What happens to a person after his/her death? Is there a soul? Is this the end or just the beginning? Chris obtained answers to these questions when he crossed the edge of eternity. His earthly life ended – but it turns out that there is something else in store! After a long walk in damp darkness, Chris found himself in a place where there was no sadness..
Chuck Palahniuk. Charivna ty. (Beautiful You)
A bright pink package with the inscription "The Beautiful You"... Women all over the world are ready to storm stores to obtain this remarkable device, which makes them wild with pleasure. Having locked themselves in their homes and forgotten about everything, they do it over and over… And they no longer need men...
J.D.Salinger. Lovets u zhyti. (The Catcher in the Rye)
The book that has become a cult one for many generations. The classic writer, the mystery writer, who announced on the top of his popularity that he was leaving literature and would live in the American province, away from temptations of the city...
Srdan Srdic. Satori.
Music, books, the memory are what help the protagonist to survive in his quest "in search of the lost self". The post-war Serbia, the countdown begins in 2004. But the roads, buses, trains, suburbs, gas stations on motorways are just the scenery...
Milos Crnjanski. Schodennyk Charnoevycha. (The Journal of Carnojevic)
This lyrical novel by the classic of the Serbian literature of the 20th century Milos Crnjanski is one of the best examples of the European expressionism. Evidence of the narrator – a Serb who in the uniform of an Austro-Hungarian officer took part in the First World War – conveys to the reader the authentic and absurd atmosphere of the hard time..
Marek Bienczyk. Knyha oblych. (The Book of Faces)
"The Book of Faces" is a map of interests and passions of the famous Polish essayist Marek Bienczyk, it's wit and erudition, with which he leads the reader through the world of what he has experienced and contemplated, at every step encountering various figures – contemporaries and people from the past, famous and almost unknown to anyone..
Arno Schmidt. Leviathan... Pocahontas... Tina... Goethe...
The early short stories by Arno Schmidt were written in the expressionist and jazz style. These are stories of people deeply affected by the war, who are in search of themselves through love, eroticism, and literature. They provoke, they are ironic, and they rebel against the monsters of the "restoration" Germany of the 1950's – conservatism, clericalism..
Dato Turashvili. Pokolinnya dzhyns. Vtekty z SRSR. (The Jeans Generation. Escaping from the USSR)
This book is more than just a book, just a story. No extra laces – frank, light and painful – to the extent that one feels no shame when, while reading, one senses tears in one's eye...
Aka Morchiladze. Prohulyanka na viynu. (Journey to the War)
..Having lost the taste for life, Gio subdues to his friend's persuasion to help him traffic "weed". At night, they enter the territory of Karabakh. The friends are captured by Azerbaijanis, and a bit later they are recaptured by Armenian... To survive, for the first time in his life Gio has to make his own decision...
Daniel Keyes. Kvity dlya Eldzhernona. (Flowers for Algernon)
One of the most humane and most insightful works of our time... Retarded Charlie Gordon works as a janitor at a bakery, and in his spare time he attends school. His secret dream is to become intelligent. And the fate offers this chance to him...
Paulo Coelho. Alkhimik. (Alchemist)
The jubilee edition commemorated to the 25th anniversary of release of the novel – the best work by the author! This is a parable novel that everyone should read at least once in the lifetime...
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Venera v mikhakh. Stories. (Venus in Furs)
In the skillful translation by the Lviv resident Natalya Ivanychuk, works by the famous Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch sound so natural and easy, as if he wrote them in Ukrainian. The book offered includes such striking and original stories as "Don Juan from Kolomiya", "Venus in Furs"...
Yevhen Markov. Narysy Krymu. Pictures of the Crimean Life, History and Nature. (Crimea Episodes)
The book by Evgen Markov was published for the first time in 1872 and became popular even during the author's lifetime. It is travel notes of an unbiased witness who aims to convey to us not only impressions from what he saw in the Crimea of the mid-19th century, but also the feelings of historical presence in this territory of the centuries-old culture of the Mediterranean...
Janusz Korczak. Dytya lyudske: selected writings. /second edition/. (A Child of Man)
"A Child of Man" is selected works by famous Polish writer, doctor, and educator Janusz Korczak, which are published in Ukrainian for the first time. The texts from different genres collected under the title composed by the editor help to visualize Korczak's child-centered philosophy developed in the cruel twentieth century...
Jonathan Safran Foer. Vse yasno. (Everything Is Illuminated)
This life-affirming novel combines everything that can be combined: a journey of a twenty-year-old American along the modern Ukraine, the history of a Jewish township destroyed during the Holocaust, letters by a not very literate young translator from Odessa about our modern life...
Mikolaj Lozinski. Reisefieber.
Is it possible to find out the truth about ourselves and the closest people, is it possible to find the words to justify one's own mistakes or to say sorry – especially when it is too late to change anything? Those alive and dead speak in this book in a slow counterpoint...
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After the triumph of Cuba's 1959 revolution, the country established a state socialist regime based on the Soviet model. This model's features are by now well-known: state-party fusion, the control and colonization of society by the state, and the systematic obstruction of society's self-organizing capabilities. It has fostered a kind of militant citizenship that identifies state order with the nation, favors unanimity as a way of expressing identities and views, and encourages the social redistribution of wealth and the rejection of exclusion based on gender and race. However, the new revolutionary order established after 1959 also deemed alternative, non-"revolutionary" collectivities and identities—such as homosexuals, religious groups, and some artistic movements—as suspicious (and punishable), even if they did not necessarily oppose the revolution.
Given this legacy, exploring the contemporary relationship between the Cuban state's policies of citizen participation, on the one hand, and practices of autonomy that emerge organically from society, on the other, can help us assess the current state of affairs in Cuba and explore the potential for greater citizen empowerment in the future. island-based researchers have studied the issue of the Cuban state's policies on popular participation since the 1990s.1 However, the Cuban academy, even with its reputation as the best in the Caribbean, has not produced work on this issue that is on par with its treatments of other important problems, like territorial and social inequalities, racism, and generational conflict. The political nature of the subject matter, as well as the possible institutional constraints on research, have not favored those interested in the subject, be they professional researchers or the public.
The current model of participation in Cuba emerged in the 1960s, when the counter-revolutionary opposition ended up in exile and defeat. The subsequent revolutionary process socialized millions of people who participated in social, economic, and political tasks directed by the state: literacy campaigns, agricultural plans, and large public assemblies. As pre-revolutionary forms of association disappeared, these gaps were filled by new mass organizations like the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and the Federation of Cuban Women, both organized at the local level. With time, these were joined by other professional and civil associations of, for example, farmers, lawyers, and environmentalists. Social rights to health, education, social security, and employment, together with cultural rights like access to artistic training and recreation, became preeminent in the collective imaginary. Civil and political rights, meanwhile, were to be conceived and realized only within state institutions and according to the new regime's policies.
By the 1970s, dysfunctions in this scheme began to reveal themselves. Voluntaristic notions of political leadership and social development that appealed to human will, embodied in charismatic leaders and enthusiastic masses, came to obviate institutional mediation and popular deliberation. State-sponsored planning, investment, and production accelerated, generating administrative chaos (most dramatically in the failed 10 Million Ton Harvest of 1967–70, when the Cuban state launched a campaign to produce a record amount of sugarcane). As a result, the institutional order was restructured more closely along Soviet lines. Despite popular enthusiasm and creativity, both the personalism and institutionalization of the political regime and its rituals gained strength in subsequent years to the detriment of more autonomous forms of participation. Following the state socialist model, a system of assemblies was formed, called Popular Power, and established at the local, provincial, and national levels, along with centralized ministries. An enormous, more or less professional bureaucracy was put in charge of this system, planning and managing public policy and distributing the economic surplus generated by workers.
The Cuban state has demonstrated its role as the defender of national sovereignty, sponsor of development, and guarantor of social justice through the redistribution of goods and services. But it has also proved its inability to satisfy a great number of Cuban society's expectations for participation, with its vertical model of central management, in which top management positions in the state and in the Communist Party overlap and are occupied by the so-called historical leadership (that is, Fidel Castro's generation of leaders). At the lower levels there is usually a similar overlap among party leaders serving as government leaders; this is particularly visible in the provinces and countryside.
Genuine popular participation would require that people who are not formally part of the state evaluate and correct public policies, a role not currently played by the press or neighborhood associations, human rights defenders, consumers, or parents' associations. Their participation would presuppose the state's respect for and promotion of societal autonomy, which is under siege in contemporary Cuba. Without such participation, institutional performance has become symptomatically precarious, as centralization, administrative discretion, and personalism, from national bodies to local ones, have put a halt on collective dynamism and deliberation. In this system of organizing collective life, social spaces, whether organized or informal, tend to be subsumed or simply controlled by the state within an asymmetrical power structure.
The Cuban press constantly defines the country's regime as a "participatory democracy," while the citizen and the act of participating are viewed in a trivialized and restricted way, bearing the imprint of a state-centric system that weakens the civic commitment required to successfully implement changes. Since 2007 the government has employed classic administrative and technocratic solutions to address demands for improving institutional performance; these solutions include installing new officials to oversee other officials and shrinking the bureaucracy. But there has been no effort to expand citizen participation based on either the socialist traditions of bottom-up collectivities (workers' councils, self-managed businesses, popular assemblies) or on contemporary democratic innovations that continue to emerge in many parts of Latin America (management boards, social auditing, roundtables). In preparation for the Communist Party's various congresses, the state has sponsored National Debates that call for a broad discussion of national issues and prioritize consultative forms of participation, but they are territorially fragmented and thematically parochial.
Participation, as it is defined in practice, has a consultative bias in the sense that citizens' discussions take place on courses of action that have already been outlined or determined at higher institutional levels, such as the State Council and Politburo. Thus, the possibilities for participation are minimized to individual voices and the limited aggregation of demands; shaping the agenda, its execution and control is off-limits. Policy corrections are exclusively up to the leadership, which operates with total discretion. This has been the experience in the debates ahead of party congresses (1991, 2010) and discussions of legislative initiatives, such as that of Labor and Social Security (2009), which had great social impact.
This fragmented way of exercising "participatory democracy" and the media's failure to communicate the results of these debates to society prevented the differentiation between personal and social expectations. It also inhibited the formation of collectives capable of advocating policies—in an organized manner and in accordance with existing legislation—with key political caucuses like the Communist Party congresses or National Assembly sessions. This is how the socialization and political participation of the citizenry is repressed.
Participation is thematically parochial because in the so-called neighborhood accountability assemblies of Popular Power, the democratic potential is limited almost exclusively to summoning low- and middle-level officials for evaluation. The issues raised almost always deal with unmet demands for goods and services rather than procedural questions or other broader matters. In the end, although removing representatives by grassroots voters is rare, citizen protagonism in this forum, as well as the relatively greater transparency in institutional performance associated with it, are real. But they are limited by a vertical subordination of local organisms according to a conventional approach to the role of the Communist Party as a driving force for the community and the persistence of traditional models of leadership that are authoritarian and personalist. Meanwhile, participation is narrowly viewed as a means of mobilizing.
Furthermore, social autonomy and the development of policies of participation are inseparable from the quality of political representation and the performance of accountability. Understanding participation as a process that stems from individual action by citizens and reaches collective forms that constitute practices and spaces of representation (managing and electoral councils, participatory budgeting, etc.) the relationship between participation and representation is complementary, given that the legitimacy and effectiveness of the two processes are presupposed. And social autonomy must be strengthened through policies of accountability that allow social actors to determine the responsibility and sanction governmental performance. This would presuppose interaction between social and state agents.
Pernicious consequences, both economic (crushing productive initiatives and self-management) and political (general demobilization), result from channeling "citizen initiative" through state and party structures and the "mass organizations." Groups that are independent of the state, including those that are legally registered or recognized (including NGOs, cultural organizations, and neighborhood movements) are made invisible by the establishment and by conservative sectors of the academy. While such groups are recognized as playing subsidiary roles in social functioning, their non-governmental character is a cause of apprehension, and they are sanctioned when they contest the government's decisions.
In those years various neighborhood movements also emerged, many of them associated with initiatives like the Workshops for the Integral Transformation of the Neighborhood (TTIB) and other community projects supported by Cuban associations and their foreign counterparts. They were essentially local, with almost no connection among them; tended to be informal and territorial; and have limited access to economic resources. Depending on external sources, they functioned with neighborhood participation and prevalent women's leadership. The TTIB were launched in the 1990s when multidisciplinary teams of planners, psychologists, and cultural activists expanded into 20 Havana neighborhoods with the purpose of working with neighbors' participation, on community issues. Their work was assisted by the Group for Integral Development of the Capital, an entity for metropolitan planning, and they were closely linked to Popular Councils, which generated some conflict because of the latter's traditional authoritarian leadership style and attempts to interfere with the TTIB's work. Despite the group's proved success, the group's expansion to other neighborhoods in Havana and other provinces was limited by governmental decision.
Faced with these experiences, the state played a contradictory role, providing material resources and support to the personnel while blocking legal recognition and the consolidation of self-management in the popular economy, and trying to co-opt local productive initiatives.6 Even so, these experiences demonstrated reciprocal relations in the form of neighborhood cooperation, food distribution, and donations, and prompted communal benefits for self-employed workers as well as cooperative arrangements to contract their services for projects supported by civil associations.
The usual justification for these new measures is the increase in destabilizing U.S. policy, expressed in the approval of the Helms-Burton Act and its Title II, which proposed work with "civil society organizations in Cuba" as its main axis and identified them as anti-systemic organizations: opposition movements and parties, human rights groups, independent journalists, and so on. Consequently, many associations were reduced to very discreet roles (paying the price of near invisibility); others were shut down under the criteria that their functions would be assumed by the state (for example, the participatory urban planning project Hábitat Cuba). Some organizations were partly able to avoid these results because they enjoy special political protection or because of the importance of their international contacts (for example, the Martin Luther King Memorial Center), which allow them to maintain some impact within Cuban society and to benefit from foreign financial support.
Truncated experiences like those of the post- and neo-Marxist intellectual group Paideia (closed in 1990), the feminist collective Magín (closed in 1996), the leftist student space Che Vive (closed in 1997), Hábitat-Cuba (closed in 1998), and the environmentalist collective Sibarimar (closed in 2005) are a sign of the Cuban bureaucracy's profound and instinctive rejection of autonomous social practices (known as autonomofobia). These groups, as well as other, lesser-known ones, suffered official repression and sanctions that led to authentic personal dramas of their members and founders, who were in many cases leading militants of the Revolution. Although they have not received the study and notice that they deserve, their greatest value resides in building initiatives for participation and activism outside the bureaucratic logic of Cuban institutions. These institutions, in turn, reacted apprehensively, seeing the autonomous groups as a threat to the symbolic monopoly through which they have always tried to simplify and represent the Cuban left in its entirety.
Fed up with this, alternative social groups have emerged in Cuba, born at the margins of institutionalism and inclined toward self-management and participatory leadership (see "New Autonomous Formations in Cuba," page 22). They seek cultural experimentation and activism by creating spaces of autonomy and articulation, confronting the state and authoritarian mercantilist threats (be they internal or external). The initiatives include environmentalist and peace groups, art workshops and groups, community intervention forums, and workshops, among others. Notwithstanding this progress, these groups find it difficult to connect with each other, and they have organizational weaknesses, lack resources, and face institutional pressures. Their political culture and praxis is dominated by a form of "self-limited radicalism," as the Polish dissident intellectual Adam Michnik put it, which supports the creation of autonomous islets within a society governed by a state-centric order.8 This is a valuable strategy for its civic potential and setting a precedent, but it is constrained by the disarmament and disarticulation that prevail at a social scale.
Through their interaction these collectives develop a particular way of being that comes from the intertwining of knowledge, affection, and shared values that evolve daily. With a more or less coherent discourse, they attempt to transform their communities through testimony and practice. There are still authoritarian positions and internal tensions, but they resolve these tensions and become aware of the nature of these conflicts in substantially different ways than those of traditional institutionalism: Words prevail over sticks.
It is difficult to provide a short summary of the current Cuban situation in regard to participation and autonomy. However, I am convinced that any proposal for a democratic and participative reform (not merely technocratic) of Cuban institutionalism has to learn from the structural crisis of the current socio-economic and political model. It must consider the strength that the global crisis provides some sectors of the bureaucracy that are eager to extend the militarized logic of the "country camp" or to make a pact with transnational capital in obscure and predatory ways.
Cuba needs to preserve national sovereignty, guarantee the development of a heterodox process of non-neoliberal economic reforms (with the participation of workers' collectives, democratic planning, and regulated markets), and an expanded form of governance with citizen participation. It must also establish a popular control of the elites, control that can derail both bureaucratic counter-reforms and the privatization of national resources in order to advance toward a true socialist democracy.
Armando Chaguaceda is a Cuban political scientist and historian specializing in Latin American politics, a member of the Social Observatory of Latin America, and coordinator of the working group Anticapitalisms and Emergent Sociabilities of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO). He is the author and editor of various texts, including Democracy, Participation, and Citizenship: Latin American Perspectives (FLACSO–Costa Rica, 2008).
1. See, for example, Haroldo Dilla, Gerardo González, and Ana T. Vicentelli, Participación popular y desarrollo en los municipios cubanos (Havana: Centro de Estudios de América [CEA], 1993); Haroldo Dilla, ed., La participación en Cuba y los retos del futuro (Havana: CEA, 1996); Juan Valdés Paz, El espacio y el límite. Estudios sobre el sistema político cubano (Havana: ICIC Juan Marinello–Casa Editorial Ruth, 2009).
2. See Marlene Azor Hernández, "La izquierda y su relación con la Revolución Cubana," Nexos (Mexico City), March 1, 2011, available atnexos.com.mx/?P=leerarticulov2print&Article=1943208.
3. There are, however, some works worth mentioning on this topic. See Armando Chaguaceda, "Ser, expresar, transformar. Los proyectos socioculturales como espacios de innovación participativa en Cuba actual: la experiencia de la Cátedra de Pensamiento Crítico y Culturas Emergentes Haydeé Santamaría (KHS)," ms. (2009), available at lasa.international.pitt.edu/members/congress-papers/lasa2009/files/ChaguacedaNoriegaArmando.pdf; Velia Cecilia Bobes, Los laberintos de la imaginación: repertorio simbólico, identidades y actores del cambio social en Cuba (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2000); Armando Chaguaceda and Johanna Cilano, "Entre la innovación y el inmovilismo. Espacio asociativo, estado y participación en Cuba," Pensamiento Propio (Buenos Aires) 14, no. 29 (January–July 2009); Haroldo Dilla, Armando Fernández, and Margarita Castro, "Movimientos barriales en Cuba: un análisis comparativo," in Participación social. Desarrollo urbano y comunitario, Aurora Vázquez and Roberto Dávalos, eds. (Universidad de la Habana, 1998).
4. See VOCES: Comunicación Alternativa, "Educación popular: participación ciudadana" (2010), available at cubaalamano.net/voces/index.php?option=com_debate&task=debate&id=17.
8. Cited in and developed by Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen, Sociedad civil y teoría política (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2002).
Read the rest of NACLA's July/August 2011 Cuba Issue.


The APMA envelopes, integrates and encourages the development of the Pilates-minded individual to embrace the Joseph Pilates philosophy under the one banner. As a community, we gather information, knowledge and resources and teach Pilates to a diverse range of the population.
Our members are instrumental in developing and shaping the Association and all members are encouraged to partake in the continual development process.
The APMA was established in 1995 as a not for profit organisation driven to share the profound results the Pilates Method has to offer. Its members are passionate about Pilates, its intelligent methodology and systematic approach to dealing with pain and strength training.
The APMA makes a major contribution to the Pilates education and training curriculum and is a keen and active proponent of professional ethics and standards.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Firefighters spent hours searching for the missing fisherman Thursday before they were forced to halt the search by darkness and weather.
Fire department divers on Friday found the body of a man who fell into Eagle Creek while fishing and was swept away by the strong current.
Hniang Cung, 36, was fishing about 7:30 p.m. Thursday just south of the Eagle Creek Dam on the west side when the Indianapolis resident fell into the fast-moving water and was swept away, Wayne Township Fire Department Capt. Mike Pruitt said.
"We are sad to report the missing man has been located by divers," the Wayne Township Fire Department said in a tweet. "Please keep family and friends in your thoughts."
Other anglers saw Cung get swept away by the current and notified authorities, according to a news release from the Wayne Township Fire Department. Rescue crews arrived and used foot patrols, boats with sonar, drones and K-9s to search for the man.
The search was suspended after about two hours because of poor visibility and weather.
Crews resumed searching about 6 a.m. Friday, and about an hour later a K-9 indicated a body was in the area about 200 yards south of I-74. Crews spent 30 minutes using chainsaws to clear a path so divers could get to the creek.
About 10 a.m. divers found Cung's body about 15 feet off the eastern shore, the news release said.
He was not wearing a life jacket.


I'd love to be a famous writer…clearly that's never going to happen. And that's ok.
As it turns out, I love my job.
In the course of my days, thoughts, ideas, stories run through my head. This is the place where I can put them.


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Faculty and Student Forms
The Environmental Collaboratory
Faculty Advancement
Institutional Research, Assessment and Accreditation
Lenfest Center
University & Community Partnerships
Policies & Calendars
Administrative Calendars
Religious Observances Calendar
Provost Awards
About the Provost
Provost's Office Leadership
COVID-19 Response and Resources
Mathy V. Stanislaus, Esq
Mathy Vathanaraj Stanislaus, Esq
Vice Provost, Executive Director
Mathy (Vathanaraj) Stanislaus, Esq, is Vice Provost and the inaugural Executive Director of a groundbreaking institute, The Environmental Collaboratory.
About The Collaboratory
Established by Drexel University and the Academy of Natural Sciences (ANS) of Drexel University, The Environmental Collaboratory (TEC) seeks to foster climate and environmentally just solutions that are actionable in the near term, with an initial focus on climate mitigation and adaptation, the scaleup of clean energy and electric mobility, and reducing local air pollution. The Environmental Collaboratory seeks to transform the historic, asymmetric power dynamics of environmental challenges through co-designed solutions and authentic partnerships with community leaders, nonprofits, corporations and government agencies — locally, nationally and globally. To realize this vision, TEC seeks to enable Drexel and ANS' expertise in areas such as science, engineering, law, health, business/economics, public health, policy and humanities by facilitating resourcing, research, education, civic engagement and public programming.
To realize this vision, The Environmental Collaboratory seeks to support research, education, civic engagement and public programming in collaboration with faculty, students and professional staff in academic and administrative units across the university. The Environmental Collaboratory also seeks to drive solutions to address today's challenges in the private and public sectors through new models and innovative approaches to often-disparate fields such as financing, entrepreneurship, engineering, business, law, policy, public health, medicine, data and information technology, history, infrastructure design and management, and civil and human rights, along with environmental fields.
With a diverse experience working for and with senior leaders from government, community organizations and the corporate sector in the U.S. and globally — from the board to the community room — Stanislaus brings his passion for authentically facilitating trust building among diverse stakeholders to credibly design and implement pragmatic solutions that align environmental, economic considerations and social justice. Stanislaus joined Drexel from the Global Battery Alliance, a multi-stakeholder initiative established at the World Economic Forum. There, he served as its first interim director and policy director with a focus on establishing a global transparent data authentication system to scale up electric mobility and clean energy in alignment with circular economy, human rights and community development.
At Drexel, he continues this engagement by connecting The Environmental Collaboratory to global partnerships including the World Bank Energy Storage Partnership, the Global Battery Alliance, the World Economic Forum and the Responsible Battery Coalition. He also continues to serve as an advisor to Carbon180 to align carbon removal strategies with community-driven environmental justice approaches.
Mathy was the founding co-director of the New Partners for Community Revitalization in New York — an organization dedicated to strengthening low-income communities and communities of color by linking technical assistance, land use planning and finance through the redevelopment of brownfield properties. He led a coalition — comprising environmental justice and community development organizations, local governments, real estate and property development organizations and financial organizations — to successfully negotiate with the New York State legislature to pass the nation's first law creating a community-based planning program for the restoration of brownfield sites with infrastructure investments and tax credits. This program was targeted at economically distressed communities.
Stanislaus served for eight years as the Senate-confirmed assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Land & Emergency Management for the Obama Administration. At USEPA, he led programs that revitalize communities through the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated sites, hazardous and solid waste materials management, chemical plant safety, oil spill prevention and emergency response. He saw firsthand the devastation of natural and man-made environmental disasters, serving as USEPA's lead emergency response official to respond to some of this country's largest environmental disasters, including Superstorm Sandy's devastation of the East Coast and the Deepwater Horizon (BP) spill devastation of the Gulf Coast
Stanislaus represented the United States in G7 deliberations that led to the countries' leaders establishing the first-ever global alliance to advance materials resource efficiency as a key driver to decarbonize and conserve natural resource in global supply chains, in partnership with countries, businesses, World Resources Institute, World Economic Forum, United Nations Environment Programme, Global Environmental Facility and Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
As Co-chair of President Obama's Chemical Plant Safety Interagency Task, with Department of Homeland Security and Department of Labor, Stanislaus led the stakeholder consultation throughout the country regarding chemical process safety and environmental justice. This work culminated in the Report to President Obama on Chemical Plant Safety and the implementation of regulations and chemical plant safety rules with a focus on addressing the impacts to vulnerable communities and protecting first responders.
Among his other achievements at the USEPA was advancing President Obama's Climate Action Plan by leading the U.S. government's first adaptation plans to protect Superfund sites and hazardous waste facilities from the consequences of more intense, frequent storms and sea-level rise. Stanislaus led his office's development of the RE-Powering America's Land initiative to foster renewable energy development on contaminated lands — providing legal clarity for clean energy financing and identifying optimum sites for clean energy in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory; the initiative was recognized as one of 2013's Top 25 Innovations in American Government by the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center. Stanislaus was also recognized by the IBM Center for Business in Government for designing and leading President Obama's Memorandum on Open Government through its community engagement plan, which was described as one of the leading actions to foster inclusion of the "full range of demographic, income, and geographic groups" impacted by EPA programs and policies.
Stanislaus earned a JD from Chicago-Kent College of Law with a specialty in environmental law, and a BS in chemical engineering, specializing in materials science, from the City College of New York. He has received awards for his environmental advocacy and been published in outlets such as Bloomberg Law, The Hill and the World Resources Institute on topics including racism and environmental justice, the circular economy, the alignment between the scaling of electric vehicles and renewable energy with human rights and sustainability for local communities, and inclusive ways to address urban inequality to create lasting change.
A former long-term member of the Board of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, Stanislaus has been a visiting scholar at The New School's Tishman Environment and Design Center and a visiting assistant professor in Graduate Architecture & Urban Design program at Pratt Institute.
ms5437@drexel.edu
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Now heated plates can be safely carried directly from the microwave! Ideal for those with arthritis or limited hand dexterity. Uses the power of leverage to lift plates: the entire hand carries the weight, not just the fingers. The plate is gripped and released as simply as using a hand. Non-slip, soft grip is easy to keep clean with no dirt traps. One size fits most plates. Latex free. Not for oven use. Patents pending.
A universal design makes "Good Grips" easy for everyone to use. Good Grips are everything that an everyday tool should be. They're comfortable, they're usable and functional. Soft rubber grips, that won't slip, even when wet.
A kitchen helper for people in a wheelchair or with a limited range of motion. Push/pull hot oven racks or use as a reacher. 13" (33cm) long.
For people who cannot grasp or turn the stove knob or reach over the hot pots, this is just the item they need. Light weight aluminum rod with no scratch epoxy coating and a large comfort grip for easy twisting action.


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Two Precious
So I'm just getting stuck deep deep deep into my luverly Valleys of the Earth ... when the edits for Falling Deep turn up in my inbox, along with a 'request' for a cover blurb ASAP!
The writing life, eh? There's always something to distract you from your book, even if it's only your other book :-)
I've seen plenty of authors say it's harder writing the cover blurb than the book, btw. I get that. We are fiction writers, not marketing copywriters. That's a WHOLE different skill, and lots of us find it really stressful.
"Explain in 200 words why your baby is the best baby in the world and everyone should love it."
Labels: Lovers Wheel, The Valleys of the Earth, writing
So it begins
Mikhail Vrubel again!
I'm 4K into The Valleys of the Earth, the follow-up to Cover Him with Darkness.
I'm scared, tbh.
I'm scared I'll end up repeating myself - metaphors, similes, theological arguments.
I'm scared Milja's relationship with Azazel is too abusive for contemporary readers.
I'm really scared I can't write anything as good as that first volume. Because I think I've set the bar way high, truth be told.
All I can do is write it out, though.
Labels: angels, art, The Valleys of the Earth, writing
Blue Monday: billierosie guests
Every Monday I post a filthy excerpt for your entertainment!
My guest this week is billierose, with an excerpt from her short story Pasiphae, which appears in the The Beast in Me. And it is, by the way, a superb read, and I loved it - but OMG NOT for the fainthearted, even by Ashbless standards!
Can you guess the theme?
"Our sexual proclivities are an enigma. We have them, we know that they are there; we hide them, we keep them secret – sometimes we act on them. We cannot talk about them – no one would understand. We feel heated shame. We block feeling, turn away from feeling; we do anything not to feel. We crush the horror of the terrible deed that the little voice inside our head bids us do. Freud tells us that repressing feeling will amount to neurosis – Jung says pretty much the same – the repressed will bubble to the surface in one way or another – it will find a way out.
It will find its voice and it will demand to be heard.
The two stories presented here delve into the idea of 'what happens next?' What do you do – where do you go, after crashing and smashing your way through the final taboo?
A Queen, her depravity told through the millennia. Homer tells her story –Pasiphae the unnatural; the King, her husband, made a cuckold. Men snigger about the royal couple – even now, centuries later. What she did, her shame exposed to all, when she gave birth to a monster.
If you know Homer's story about the Minotaur, you will know that the Monster is proof that Queen Pasiphae was indeed guilty of a terrible perversion.
And my own tale "The Beast in Me;" the taboo ever present in Daisy and Noah. They are lovers, besotted with each other; besotted with a terrible secret. They break man's law and God's law too.
Sensitive readers should be cautious, especially if easily offended."
Queen Pasiphae had even made drawings on parchment of the type of construction she wanted Daedalus to build for her. He was impressed; she had approach the matter of construction intelligently.
She realised that if the bull were to mount her he would kill her. The bull would crush her to death. She wanted him to build her a hollow cow. Something that she could crawl inside and something that would take the bull's mighty weight. Her cunt would be exposed; somehow Daedalus was to convince the bull that she was a cow and the bull would copulate with her.
Daedalus had reasoned with her. Had she realised the size of the bull's erect penis? Would she be able to accommodate him? Didn't she realise that he could split her in two?
But the Queen countered those questions. She had thought of all of those things. If it was the god's will that she should die in that way, then so be it.
Daedalus had told the Queen that the King must be informed. Daedalus was, after all, the King's guest at the court of Knossos. It seemed wrong to actively help the Queen in an unnatural act of adultery without seeking the King's permission.
Then Daedalus surprised himself at his boldness. Their dialogue had aroused him. And he could smell the meaty, animal stink of the Queen's arousal. His cock was erect. He lifted his tunic and exposed himself to the Queen. Let her see, he thought. What could she do? She needed him. He stroked his cock, pumping slowly. All the time watching the Queen's face.
And so I saw what I had come to. Daedalus' vile behaviour showed me what men and women would think of me. There was no longer any respect, as he exposed and pumped his cock. This was how it would be from now on. Pasiphae, the slut. The Queen who would copulate with a beast. Men would joke about me in taverns, laugh behind my back. They would sing lewd songs about me. The story would be carved out in history; Pasiphae the depraved whore. Pasiphae the perverted, debauched Queen. Daedalus grunted and spurted his seed on the tiled floor, never taking his eyes from my face. He bared his teeth at me. I knelt at his feet obediently, lapping up his spent seed.
The Queen stood before the King, in the magnificent throne room; Daedalus stood at the King's right hand. King Minos was a big man, yet on this day he seemed shrunken and frail. He had aged years in just a few small minutes. He sat on the sculptured throne, his head in his hands. The frescoes of gryphons guarding the royal throne looked on at the King's devastation impassively.
Queen Pasiphae was composed; she had told Minos, clearly and slowly what she wanted, needed to do. Now she stood before him, her eyes wide, steadily watching him.
And how magnificent she looked. Every bit a Queen, her blue flounced skirts setting off her deep blue eyes. Her voluptuous breasts were bare and swayed when she moved. She had gold tinted her nipples, as was the custom for a high priestess. Her arms were covered in gold bracelets filled with precious stones. Golden hairpins of crocus flowers decorated her long, tumbling, fair tresses. She wore a costly pendant, shaped and hammered by the court goldsmith, into a bee hive pattern. Pasiphae had dressed for the occasion. Speaking with the authority of the goddess, she diminished her husband. Both she and he knew it.
Daedalus smiled; the previous day he had ordered the Queen to suck his cock. Not because he particularly desired such a thing. But because he wanted to see her beautiful mouth stretched to its capacity by his thickness. She'd gagged as he pushed his long, thick cock into her throat but he'd been relentless. He'd talked to her throughout; telling her that she was dirt; a slut. He'd pulled out to ejaculate on her face; her silky, fair hair sticky with his spunk.
Daedalus admired her composure as she stood before her husband. Not once had she flinched, not even when her husband had cursed her for an evil whore. That she was no better than the women who sell themselves to the sailors at the docks and harbours around the island. She had simply replied that it was what the god demanded; that her husband was to blame for not sacrificing the beautiful white bull to Poseidon.
King Minos had wept his response. He would go down in history as a cuckold. A fool, who would encourage his wife in this perversion. He knew what the gossips around the court whispered; that Minos was an impotent idiot, who couldn't satisfy his wife.
Now they would know that they were right.
Again, Pasiphae had asserted that it was the god's will.
Daedalus bowed his head to hide another small smile from playing around his lips. It maybe the god's will, he thought. But the Queen was desperate for this fucking. The fucking may kill her; but without it she would surely die.
The King rose to his feet as if to strike his wife, but his large frame tumbled and crashed back onto the throne, his limbs twitching and jerking. He tried to speak, but his words were slurred. One side of his mouth dragged down in a terrible sneer. His head fell back; the eyes rolled beneath his lids, showing only the whites. The god had struck him down, silencing him.
Daedalus left the Queen pouring over the drawings he had brought to her apartments. He had ordered her to finger herself before he would give them to her, and desperate as she was, she'd obeyed him. He'd made her pull up her skirts and open her thighs, displaying her open cunt. He'd grinned as he watched the Queen's fingers slurped, squelching, in and out of her wet hole.
She wept as she fingered herself, little sobs coming from her throat. How much longer would she have to wait? She had begged Daedalus to make haste with his work. She'd flung her arms around his knees, begging him to hurry. The tension had gone on for too long; she couldn't bear to wait much longer.
Buy The Beast in Me at Amazon US :: Amazon UK
People fascinate billierosie. What makes them tick; what are their secrets and lies. The effete guy in the bank; the blonde lady shopping in the supermarket, the elderly lady living in a care home. What stories could they tell? Perhaps erotic stories of sex, intrigue and fetish?
And fetish is high on billierosie's agenda. The strange, haunting stuff that informs our darkest desires. It could be fur or feathers. Shoes, silk stockings, or toes. Poop or pee. An amputee's stump. If we made a list it would go on forever.
billierosie lives in a pretty village in England. She doesn't fit with village life; certainly not the Women's Institute. billierosie loves the theatre, Art, film, books and all things eccentric. billierosie plans to have fun and stay young, writing sexy erotica.
billierosie's Amazon page
Labels: art, beasty boys, Blue Monday, excerpt, Guest post
I'm too sexy for my wood
Pirelli Calendar reject
Because there's a public road bordering my bit of woodland, there's the odd bit of detritus shed by passers-by.
Highlights of my litter-picking so far:
1 tyre
2 hubcaps
1 pair freshly-discarded latex gloves (WTF? Ewwww!)
If I'm not online, btw, it's because I'm here :-)
Labels: Janine in the flesh, woodwoman
Every Monday I post a wicked excerpt for your entertainment!
And this Monday it is - it HAS to be - an excerpt featuring my very own Goblin King, from filthy fairy tale Named and Shamed.
This is, btw, pretty mucky. You have been warned.
Humiliation-junkie Tansy has fallen into the clutches of the Elder Witch and has become her housemaid. Now the witch has a visitor...
So that was how I spent my days as scullion to the Elder Tree Witch. Until one night the fishes' song gave a prediction I'd never heard before:
What does the morrow bring?
Golden sun, blackberries ripen, the Brenin rides by -
This we sing.
Neither the witch nor her sons remarked on the forecast at the time, but the next day I was out at the front of the cottage, feeding the chickens, when I heard a bestial snort behind me and I looked round. And there he was.
I really don't see how he'd managed to sneak up on me, riding a big horse like that. It was a black stallion, with an arched neck and a mane like rough silk that was hung with tiny silver bells. The Brenin was dressed entirely in black too — a hodgepodge of fashion stolen from history. Mr. Darcy boots, a long Victorian riding coat, biker leathers on his legs and a belted medieval shirt embroidered down the front — all topped off with a black half-mask in the form of a skull. Behind the skull's eye-sockets his eyes glinted. His hair was a dead white and it hung down as far as his elbows, while his skin, where it showed, was the colour of long-buried bone. Frankly, he looked like a manga villain, and he should have been risible anywhere outside of a convention auditorium . . . but he wasn't. I could feel reality crinkling up around him, like cellophane exposed to heat.
As I stared, the horse reached down, snatched up one of the chickens and ate it, bones and feathers crunching in its teeth with a noise like a packet of crisps.
"Lady," I said through dry lips. I didn't dare raise my voice. But I didn't have to. She stepped out from the cottage and strode toward the rider, wiping her hands on her apron.
"Oh, Brenin! Such an honour you pay me! Are you hunting today?"
He switched his attention to her, his thin lips twitching in a smile. "My Hounds rest at the moment, Grandmother. I thought I'd call in at the house of my favourite beldame and see how she is keeping."
I noted that the moment he opened his mouth, the rest of the chickens bolted back into their ruined hut, though there was nothing unpleasant about his voice that I could discern. It was a cool, dry, well-spoken voice, and it somehow made me think he was used to giving orders.
"Well! I am well!" she cackled merrily, practically dancing on the spot. "These old bones are still strong. You must stop a while and break bread with me."
"Willingly, Grandmother."
"Quick, skivvy!" She signalled to me and I came nervously around the front of the horse to join her. The animal snorted at me in a disparaging way and pawed the rock with a silver-shod hoof, the bells strung in its mane making a shivery noise. "On your elbows and knees," she commanded me, nodding at a spot below the Brenin's boot. "So that my lord may alight."
Nervous though I was, disobedience didn't even occur to me. I was well-trained by this point. I put down my pot and sank into position as a mounting block for him, bracing my back. His booted foot was hard and he didn't spare me his weight. I let out a little gasp of relief as his feet finally struck the dirt.
"Will you have beer, my Brenin? Wine? Milk?"
"Wine. But first I would relieve myself after the ride."
"Of course. Skivvy!"
I knelt up. At first I didn't realise what was expected of me. She signalled impatiently for me to face the Brenin, with his high boots and long legs. I noticed he wore a knife at his belt and the hollow horn of a ram, chased in gold, and that he had a riding crop with a thick stock thrust into his left boot. He was popping the crotch studs of his leathers.
"Open your mouth, girl!" the witch screeched.
A blowjob? That was no hardship, I thought. He was hot in his creepy way, and he'd make a welcome change from the three grotesque witch-spawn. As he revealed a smooth cock, full and curved but not yet erect, I licked my lips expectantly and set them in a welcoming pout.
"Open! You want him to piss all over your face?"
My eyes widened as realisation hit me. My heart clenched and blood rushed to my face, masking my freckles. After everything that had happened to me, everything I'd submitted to, I still found it hard to believe anyone could expect this. It made me feel dizzy. I felt a twinge between my legs too: shock manifesting as arousal. I looked up into his face, as he stepped in and I opened my mouth. He smelled of saffron, and rain upon dust, and his expression was unreadable. But he must have felt my involuntary tremble as, taking my jaw in his hand, he fed his elegant ivory cock between my lips and over my tongue, and set his legs a little apart.
I took his cock as far back in my mouth as I could, telling myself it was no different than necking a pint of beer, and the further back the less I would taste it. I was sort of right. Except it was hot. And not beer. In fact it tasted like honey – one of those strong, dark honeys collected from arid pine forests. As the flood commenced, tears brimmed in my eyes, making his form waver above me. I'd been pissed on by those two cops — long ago it seemed now — but never pissed in. Never reduced to such humiliation on such an intimate and primal level. I couldn't breathe, he filled my throat so. And my belly. I couldn't do anything but open my throat and swallow it all down, and it seemed to take him forever to empty his bladder. His fingers were cool where they held me, cool where they brushed the hair back from my face so he could watch my eyes. I couldn't hide from him the emotions that battered me — the revulsion, the abject submission, the desperate desire to perform well, my slowly growing panic as my air ran out. I was going to gag soon. I was going to choke and wrench away. I would end up with his hot spray all over my face, as he held my hair to keep me in place — and the thought set me burning.
At the very last moment, just before fear became reality, the Brenin pulled out. Not all the way, but enough for me to snatch a gasp of air. And to recognise part of the cause of my distress. His cock was no longer entirely soft and slender, but pumped fat with arousal. He used it in a thorough exploration of my mouth, making sure I tasted the dregs before he released me properly at last. I was crying properly now, salt tears running down and mixing with the bitter-sweet drops on my lips as I licked them.
I could no longer look up at his face.
"I like her." He stroked his cock idly and it bounced to full erection between his long fingers. "Those eyebrows — even her lashes — they're like flame. She's a rarity. And she's very receptive."
"Yes, she is. Try her cunny, my Brenin, if it pleases you. '
"I'll have her rear entrance, for preference."
"Of course. It will be quite ready for you." Grasping the long leather rope, she pulled the butt-plug from my anus with no effort at all.
He pulled the riding crop from his boot, wielding it in the hand that was not busy caressing his stiff shaft. The whip, roughly rounded in cross-section, was much thicker than a modern one, though it tapered to a springy point. I had a nasty feeling it was made from some sort of dried animal pizzle. Contemplatively, he poked and slapped at my breasts, the muted sting exciting my nipples to points.
"Face down," he said. "Grip your ankles."
I obeyed, lowering my face and shoulders to the ground and reaching behind me to grip my calves. My ass was exhibited upward, pointing into the air. The Brenin walked round behind me, flicked my skirt up with his whip and surveyed the view presented. I could feel my asshole, pliant and open, oozing grease where the butt-plug had been pulled from it. He set the narrow end of his crop across the hole, pressing slightly. My sphincter fluttered, dilating. He tapped it softly then with the very point of the crop, and I felt my anus spasm, ripples of pleasure flaring out across my ass.
"Very good," he breathed. Crouching down behind me, he fed the thick head of his cock to my waiting hole. "You may speak," he told me indulgently, as he impaled my ass.
Buy 'Named and Shamed' at Amazon US
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Buy 'Named and Shamed' at iTunes
Labels: Blue Monday, excerpt, Named and Shamed
David Bowie rocks the Urban Paranormal genre.
With tentacles.
Erised
Labels: cute bloke, movies
RIP Rickman
Oh FFS.
Well, 2016 seems determined to take out every geek icon, doesn't it? First the Goblin King, now Snape.
Alan Rickman was a great actor and a nerdy sex-symbol. He played villains (usually smart, sneering villains - my favourite kind - pitted against meathead heroes). He played repressed self-defeating British middle-class men burdened by varying degrees of bitterness. He, like Bowie, was a fixture in our cultural life, and they both died too young, even at 69.
"I'll take this as a healthy reminder that subtlety... isn't everything" - upon receiving a BAFTA for 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves'
He wasn't really handsome (well, maybe for a few moments in a good light).
All his sex-appeal was in his voice, his eyes, and his charisma. But he was pretty much guaranteed to steal the show in every movie.
Heh - I have to admit to a very school-inappropriate flutter when I first watched this epic thespian flounce-off:
Goddamnit. This year has seen too many momento moris already.
Like many, I was saddened to hear of Bowie's death this week. I'm afraid I was never much into his music (bar a few singles like The Man who Sold the World), but OMG he has a place in my heart and an eternal imprint in my psyche thanks to his role in this movie, which I still rate as one of the greatest fantasy films ever:
Labyrinth was released in 1986, so I'd have been nineteen, which is a bit late for any of these "awakening my sexuality" confessions that have been going around. But my goodness he had an effect on it. Not so much the Infamous Bulge:
(I don't actually recall noticing it at the time). More the hair actually...
I'm a hair perv and I don't care.
And the hoards of muppety goblin minions...
I mean, who doesn't adore a goblin army?
No, in all seriousness, what I fell in love with was the film itself - just endlessly inventive, funny, creepy and visually stunning - in which King Jareth was just the sexy icing on the cake. Labyrinth was extraordinary for the time because it was a magical quest with a girl as the hero. Since the invention of children's fiction we have been up to our eyeballs in boy-heroes going boldly forth to rescue, save, explore and make good of themselves, but NEVER until then was it a girl.
Sarah has a character arc where she starts off imaginative but unhappy and self-centered, and then gets to display and develop courage, cleverness, loyalty, strength of will, discernment and tenacity. She's cunning at making allies. She's also forced, at 15, to resist the temptations of easy romance and the "princess dream" when Jareth fakes up his pretty ballroom scene for her - and that's a big ask for a fifteen year old.
I mean, shit - I'd abandon my baby brother and all my friends to shag him any day. I'm no good at adulting!
There's a deeper exploration of the revolutionary girl-hero here, and a sweet male-POV eulogy for the Goblin King here.
So that's part of the reason why Labyrinth made such an impact on me. But there's more! The relationship between Jareth and Sara is a deeply uneasy one in which power and sexual attraction are double-edged weapons. It's creepy and complex, and in the end it turns out that the Goblin King is as trapped as she is.
Can you understand the impact of this dialogue in a movie essentially for children?
Oh, and I now realise that a reflection of King Jareth turns up in my BDSM novel Named and Shamed, as The Brenin, king of the fairy court:
And there he was.
In fact, now I come to think of it, there's a really strong case for Named and Shamed just being my adult version of Labyrinth...
Who would have thunk it, eh?
So I will miss you, Goblin King. Long may you reign immortal in your castle in the heart of the Labyrinth...
Labels: cute bloke, movies, music, Named and Shamed
Blue Monday: Zak Jane Keir guests
My first guest of 2016 is Zak Jane Keir with a snippet from her hot new collection Sticky Fingers and Warm Leatherette
Sticky Fingers and Warm Leatherette is a collection of short stories including BDSM, roleplay, bisexual party games and obsessive lust.
A newbie sub comes up with the perfect birthday present for the mistress he adores...
A game of Truth or Dare goes further than expected when fantasies are shared...
A DJ becomes erotically obsessed with the girl who calls him every week to talk dirty...
A Master and a Mistress find their mutual attraction is too hot to handle, even though neither is willing to submit...
All this and more: seven sexy stories from an author with a reputation for having experienced most of it before she wrote about it.
The following extract is taken from A Little Aural, where a hot-talking DJ becomes fascinated by the woman who calls him up on air every week....
Every week, she listened to the show, listened to him, and spent the entire two hours in a state of dreamy arousal. It wasn't just his voice, it wasn't just the tracks he played, it wasn't just the things he said, but some irresistible blend of everything that made her nipples tight and her pussy wet. Jade licked her lips and wriggled, feeling the satin sheet ridge up beneath her hips. He was talking dirty again, his voice low and confiding, about what it felt like to lust so intensely, to want to go deeper and harder. She heard herself whimper, and she cupped her breasts in her hands and gave them a little squeeze, her arousal growing stronger. The song he was fading up was new to Jade: throbbing bass and a languid string section overlaid with urgent, guttural lyrics, and she knew she was going to do it this time.
Her mobile was on the bedside table; she sat up and felt about for it. All the DJs asked the listeners to tweet and text and only rarely suggested they might actually phone in, but the number was available on the website and she'd managed to key it into her phone memory a few weeks ago, even though she told herself she'd never actually use it. Twitter and texting were too much effort for too little reward, but an actual conversation? She made herself focus; waited for the package of adverts and station info to kick in; pushed the buttons.
It wasn't the voice she was expecting, and she nearly dropped the phone.
"Oh. Um, is this - er -"
"Yeah, Redhot Radio. You want to go on air? Talk to Chas?"
"I... er... Jade's palms were sweating. She took a deep breath. "Yes, please."
"OK, turn your radio off. Have to do that or it makes a horrible mess."
She rolled over on the bed, scrabbled for the switch, couldn't find it for a couple of seconds but then there it was.
"I"ll stick you through now, love."
A moment or two of silence and, before she was wholly ready, he was speaking to her. He was speaking directly to her.
"So I have a caller. Hey, caller, how's it going?"
Get a grip, she thought. Either get a grip or hang up.
"It's good," she said, and her voice barely shook at all. "I was listening to the show and it made me feel..."
"Oh did it now? Why don't you tell me about it?"
"Will you play a song for me? Something really dirty?"
"I might do. Will you tell me what you're wearing?"
Jade ran her free hand over her bare breasts, feeling her nipples tighten under her own touch.
"Nothing. Nothing at all, I've just had a shower."
"Best way to be," he said. "Specially when it's hot, and you're pretty hot, aren't you. girl?"
Jade heard herself moan, didn't care. She spread her legs and raised her knees, opening herself to the hot night.
"You want it, don't you?" His voice was teasing, but there was affection there, not derision, and a hint of arousal on his side. "You like it, you love it…"
"So do you," she said, and she knew it was true.
"I've got something for you, girl," he said, and he was laughing at himself, a little, she could tell. "A whole 12 inches…"
She pressed the phone close to her ear; she could hear him breathing even over the opening bars of the song he'd chosen for her.
"Enjoying it?" he said, suddenly, and Jade gave a little squeal: her fantasies had been advancing at such a rate she'd almost forgotten she was genuinely, really, actually on the phone to him. Her hand was cupping her mound, her fingers making their first tentative little forays between her juicy, swollen lips as the insistent, sleazy bassline worked its magic.
"Oh yeah," she whispered.
"Going to tell me what you're doing right now?"
"How many times have you done the same thing?" Jade felt a sudden urge to take back at least a little control of the situation.
"You'd be surprised."
"I could surprise you, too. But I have to go now."
It took a couple of fumbles to hit the right button to end the call, but she managed to find the switch to put the radio back on within seconds, and the same track was still playing. The intensity of her desire was close to painful now, and she wondered briefly if she should have gone with it, brought herself off on air, told him exactly what she was thinking while she did it. No, that was a step too far, she wasn't bold enough, or not bold enough yet. She stretched out on the bed, glad she'd turned the volume right up. She really needed to come.
She could talk, now, when she was talking to the man she imagined: she could talk and moan and even scream if she wanted to, and no one need ever know.
Jade began to stroke herself properly, circling her clit, spreading her pussy lips and caressing them. She could use both hands now she didn't have the phone in one of them. One hand on top of the other, her palm against her mound, her middle finger dipping in and out of her slick, juicy channel in time with the music, she began to breathe faster and more noisily.
"I want you, you know I do," she whispered, just as the track playing began to fade and he spoke again. This time he was addressing all his listeners, not just her, but it didn't spoil her mood and simply increased the speed of her body's race towards orgasm. He was still talking about lust, about desire, about heat, and those times you couldn't hold on any longer but you just had to give in, you just had to let go. Jade had to let go, had to give in, two fingers pumping in and out of her snatch, her hips jerking, her thighs tensing: she came with a series of guttural moans.
Buy Sticky fingers and Warm Leatherette at
Amazon US :: Amazon UK:: iTunes
Zak Jane Keir has been writing about sex for a long, long time. She generally prefers femdom and pansexual material but doesn't mind a bit of heterosex now and again. Her latest collection of short stories, Sticky Fingers and Warm Leatherette, is available now in e-book format.
Aieeeeeee!
Vrubel's Demon
[click to expand pictures - they're worth it]
Demon Seated (1890)
Whilst poking around on t'internet for inspiration for Cover Him with Darkness, I came across the art of Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910). He was a Russian member of the Art Nouveau and Symbolist movements, and though he started off with a lot of religious art, it was eventually a fallen angel that destroyed him ...
Head of a Demon
Vrubel became interested in illustrating a long poem by Lermontov, Tamara and the Demon (full English translation here). In that work a fallen angel, tooling about feeling bored with doing evil stuff, falls in love with Georgian princess Tamara when he espies her dancing at her wedding.
Having no great grasp of either timing or subtlety, the demon has the groom killed and commences nagging / wooing Tamara into becoming his eternal bride.
"Give me thy love - for thee is waiting
Eternal life for earthly span;
For I, in loving as in hating
am great like God, not weak like man."
He's so besotted he even promises to give up evil and obey God for her - and at that point she gives in and lets him kiss her.
Which kills her on the spot.
Demon and Angel with Tamara's Soul
An angel takes Tamara off to heaven, and the poor demon is left to fly over the earth again, lamenting and alone.
Demon Flying
Ah ... That's romance for you ;-)
Demon Overthrown
Vrubel became obsessed with his own particular image of the demon (who you have to admit is pretty damn sexy!). He sculpted and painted the character over and over again.
He wouldn't stop repainting the face on this one even when it was hanging in the gallery:
DemonProstrate
And at this point he lost it all together and had a total breakdown. Several periods of hospitalization dominated the last few years of his life - it seems to have been tertiary syphilis that caused his insanity and encroaching blindness.
He never painted his Demon again. But he did paint Azrael, the Angel of Death, in 1904:
Six-winged Seraph (Azrael)
He died in 1910.
Full biography and gallery of his paintings here
Labels: angels, art, Cover Him With Darkness, poetry, Victorian Kinkery
Deeper than expected
At long last I've finished the second installment of my Lover's Wheel quartet. Or at least edited it to the point that I can no longer write any more because my brain goes Pfffft.
Falling Deep clocks in at 52,500 words, which is over 10K longer than Summer Seduction (somewhat to my surprise - I was expecting it to be short) and covers September thru November in the story of Liz's initiation into sex magick. Thank god I didn't try to write the story as a single volume!
The autumn months include Harvest-Home and Samhain, and in this tale start a shift from enthusiastic but cheerful vanilla sex into darker D/s territory. Brace yourselves for human sacrifices and visiting undead, as well as Arthurian revelations and betrayal.
And if you think that's scary, just wait for When Winter Comes ... ;-)
Labels: Lovers Wheel, writing
Editing again
Not even funny, man...
Could Try Harder
I'm a bit torn about 2015 TBH. On a personal level it was a great year full of fun times, and one in which none of that Bad Shit waiting in the wings of every life (yes, every life) was given its cue to lumber onstage. It Was Good. Even if I did start going grey...
Gold star 2015!
But I didn't get enough writing done. For great swathes of time other things took priority. And when I did have time I very very often managed to fuck it up. My procrastination fairy is earning bonuses. And nothing is more unsettling to a writer than not writing, believe me. It is the loose shale undermining a mountain of crazy just waiting to crash down.
I'm less driven as I get older, I know that. I'm less idealistic about the possibility of breaking through to a mass readership (Hah!) but I'm also genuinely lazier, I'm afraid. I used to rely a lot on my inner determination and work ethic to see things through, but alas ... the fuel tanks of Protestant guilt are finally running dry.
I think I may also be having too much good sex to need to write about it any more. What can I say?
Anyway, I'm going to try to turn things around in 2016. I've promised I'll get The Valleys of the Earth out (that's Cover Him With Darkness #2) because quite a few people want to see that.
It's my resolution for 2016.
And here's wishing you all, whether you've made resolutions or not, a very Happy New Year. May 2016 be better than 2015, that's all any of us can hope for :-)
Labels: not working but wish I was