Isolated Blurt Thread

[trysail]

I have the 1966 first edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Etymology edited by C t Onions.

I bought it for £1. It is worth about £50 but it is for my use, not as a collectible.

I own a subscriber edition of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.

It is fascinating to read the acknowledgements to readers which precede each of the ten volumes into which the subscriber fasicles were bound. There one finds the corresponding contributions of one (Dr.) William Chester Minor (the subject of Simon Winchester's fascinating 1998 best seller: The Professor And The Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary).


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[oggbashan]

You read it here first...

In Canterbury, Kent an unusually named property is for sale:

https://www.struttandparker.com/properties/northgate

It is called:

The Old Harlotry

In 2015 I wrote a story about a former brothel:

https://www.literotica.com/s/whorehouse-chapel

Now one is for sale.

 

[THROBBS]

In Canterbury, Kent an unusually named property is for sale:
The Old Harlotry
Now one is for sale.

Your stories are much better than that particular property. (edit: I just finished reading this one. Great fun and a much better setting too!)

I like the idea, some of the description, the trim/detailing in the great room, and the attached shop, but the panelling, the kitchen, the exterior..."meh"

Not that I could afford, or would ever be likely to move there if I could afford.

 

[RocketLauncher]

I know. Some of my whimsical stories are rated very low.

It has become a lost art. Poetry and literature have so many written and unwritten rules that all the joy of writing for the purity of sound and abstract visualization of the written word, the quizzical, almost Seussian musings of the unfettered mind have become lost in the constraints imposed upon contemporary authors.

 

[RocketLauncher]

Randomly I may interject a few whimsical passages, purely for my own enjoyment and I hope the enjoyment of at least one other (if so I will have accomplished more than I could possibly have hoped for).
On occasion a bit of Beat literature may creep in, although , for personal reasons I am not a fan. My personal opinion of Beat literature does not exclude it from containing many whimsical, poignant passages. Who knows? Rereading it I may find a new appreciation for it.

 

[THROBBS]

nice.

 

[RocketLauncher]

Yesterday, on the train, I started reading Alice in Wonderland. The introduction was... revealing. Things I never knew.

Lewis Carroll knew how to reach small girls. He really liked talking to little girls, watching little girls, taking pictures of little girls (just little girls; little-girl-clothes not so much). Alice was one of them.

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=86068394&postcount=75

Lewis Carroll was a pedophile of the tallest order for kissing and taking nude photos of young girls, and on occasion boys, with their mother's permission.
He was not alone:
Thomas Mayne Reid (children's writer) married a 13 yr. old
Charles Kinsley (Water Babies) left crudely drawn pornographic images
William Mayne (contemporary children's author) plead guilty to 11 charges of indecent assault against young girls.
Ian Strachan (dystopian author) convicted of distributing child pornography
Roman Polanski (film director) facing charges of underage rape. Gore Vidal called the 13 year old rape victim a 'young hooker'

I still like Polanski movies AND Lewis Carroll.
Can one disassociate the monster from the artist?
Regardless of who he was, Lewis Carroll had mastered the art of whimsy.

 

[ThatsTheGuy]

In Canterbury, Kent an unusually named property is for sale:

https://www.struttandparker.com/properties/northgate

It is called:

The Old Harlotry

In 2015 I wrote a story about a former brothel:

https://www.literotica.com/s/whorehouse-chapel

Now one is for sale.

That's cool oggbashan. I do the same type window shopping on the net in the US.

About this brothel..........are there any left for sale?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Can one disassociate the monster from the artist?
Regardless of who he was, Lewis Carroll had mastered the art of whimsy.

If you don't, a huge amount of artistic content gets consigned to the dustbin, starting with de Sade, a significant number of nineteenth and twentieth century writers, artists, photographers, and film makers.

If you didn't "know" the personal circumstances of the creator, and their deeds (or alleged deeds - there's no evidence that Charles Dodgson, for example, did anything more than take photographs), the monster wouldn't be evident from the work.

Personally, I can't apply a 21st century morality to a nineteenth century work. I cannot imagine the world without Lewis Carroll's creations, it would be a poorer place.

 

[Handley_Page]

That's cool oggbashan. I do the same type window shopping on the net in the US.

About this brothel..........are there any left for sale?

That's the thing about an English brothel; since 1900 or so, it5's not an 'admitted' site [local knowledge only]. They don't advertise. . . .

.
.
Personally, I can't apply a 21st century morality to a nineteenth century work. I cannot imagine the world without Lewis Carroll's creations, it would be a poorer place.

Agreed; much poorer.

 

[oggbashan]

That's cool oggbashan. I do the same type window shopping on the net in the US.

About this brothel..........are there any left for sale?

In my area? There are only a few that admit to their past. Our oldest building was established as a hotel and public house for the Artillery officers who ran a battery of coastal guns. At the back of the building were rooms for the upmarket whores. Upstairs, reached by an external staircase, was the brothel for the troops.

It's now a reasonable food pub.

In Deal, Kent, the seafront houses were built in the days of fighting sailing ships. The ships often had to wait in the anchorage for a favourable wind to get around the North Foreland into the Thames Estuary. The houses were for three uses - ships' chandlers, beer houses, and brothels. Some of the houses were used for two of the three uses. Many of those houses are now owned by wealthy thespians or BBC management staff.

One actress was very proud of her house's history as a brothel, with secret cellars to hide smuggled goods from the customs officers. In one room there was a fireplace with a false back. It could be used as a fireplace but if you put your hand up the chimney there was a chute leading down to the sealed cellar. Any small items could be quickly 'lost' if there was a search. Unfortunately the cellars had been cleared by earlier occupants. All that was left were some broken 18th Century wine bottles and pieces of clay pipes.

The inspiration for my story Whorehouse Chapel was a local disused chapel (mid 19th Century) and a closed brothel. The building that had housed the brothel was auctioned and converted into cheap bedsits. Neither building had any real architectural merit. The chapel had been used as a builder's store for reclaimed materials. The brothel had been staffed by illegal immigrants working for a gangmaster. That particular brothel was very down-market, trading only for those who couldn't afford better whores.

 

[RocketLauncher]

If you don't, a huge amount of artistic content gets consigned to the dustbin, starting with de Sade, a significant number of nineteenth and twentieth century writers, artists, photographers, and film makers.

If you didn't "know" the personal circumstances of the creator, and their deeds (or alleged deeds - there's no evidence that Charles Dodgson, for example, did anything more than take photographs), the monster wouldn't be evident from the work.

Personally, I can't apply a 21st century morality to a nineteenth century work. I cannot imagine the world without Lewis Carroll's creations, it would be a poorer place.

I did have a moral quandary in my youth about the private lives of actors, authors, musicians etc. (Burroughs and Miller come to mind) but I arrived at the same conclusion. The world would be a poorer place without the contributions of many renowned artists who were morally corrupt.

 

[RocketLauncher]

Feel free to disagree with my choices of whimsical passages if you choose.

One of America's greatest and prolific authors of whimsy, and one of my personal favourites:

If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

 

[ThatsTheGuy]

In my area? There are only a few that admit to their past. Our oldest building was established as a hotel and public house for the Artillery officers who ran a battery of coastal guns. At the back of the building were rooms for the upmarket whores. Upstairs, reached by an external staircase, was the brothel for the troops.

It's now a reasonable food pub.

In Deal, Kent, the seafront houses were built in the days of fighting sailing ships. The ships often had to wait in the anchorage for a favourable wind to get around the North Foreland into the Thames Estuary. The houses were for three uses - ships' chandlers, beer houses, and brothels. Some of the houses were used for two of the three uses. Many of those houses are now owned by wealthy thespians or BBC management staff.

One actress was very proud of her house's history as a brothel, with secret cellars to hide smuggled goods from the customs officers. In one room there was a fireplace with a false back. It could be used as a fireplace but if you put your hand up the chimney there was a chute leading down to the sealed cellar. Any small items could be quickly 'lost' if there was a search. Unfortunately the cellars had been cleared by earlier occupants. All that was left were some broken 18th Century wine bottles and pieces of clay pipes.

The inspiration for my story Whorehouse Chapel was a local disused chapel (mid 19th Century) and a closed brothel. The building that had housed the brothel was auctioned and converted into cheap bedsits. Neither building had any real architectural merit. The chapel had been used as a builder's store for reclaimed materials. The brothel had been staffed by illegal immigrants working for a gangmaster. That particular brothel was very down-market, trading only for those who couldn't afford better whores.

I book marked your story. You have the coolest info.

 

[oggbashan]

Yesterday, my youngest daughter stood in an election for a council seat where she lives.

She didn't get elected. She didn't expect to. She was a 'paper' candidate to test opinion for her party for later elections in several years' time. But she came third behind the two major parties and ahead of six other candidates despite not campaigning seriously.

Even if she had campaigned for herself instead of supporting her party's main candidate she couldn't have expected a better result.

I had to guide her through all the paperwork and rules for being a candidate. She obviously took it all in.

I also warned her to be careful. Back in the 1930s my father was a 'paper' candidate for the Labour Party in a council election. It was considered a safe Conservative seat for the retiring councillor who had had a massive majority - more than the total of all other candidates at the previous election.

But the Conservative councillor, after he had entered the contest and too late to withdraw, was quoted as 'the other man' in a very messy divorce case. In the 1930s that was unacceptable. The election was so close that there were three recounts. My father was very relieved that he eventually lost by 27 votes out of thousands.

Why? At the time he was a Civil Servant. If he had been elected as a councillor, then an unpaid post, he would have had to resign from his post as a Civil Servant and be unemployed.

 

[MelissaBaby]

The world would be a poorer place without the contributions of many renowned artists who were morally corrupt.

Hey! I'm reformed!

 

[RocketLauncher]

Hey! I'm reformed!

It's an ethical quandary. Who do we give a pass to and who do we castigate? It seems Hollywood is experiencing this crisis at the moment a la Weinstein. Do we discredit the films he produced? Sex, Lies and Videotapes, Pulp fiction, The Crying Game, Shakespeare in Love, all excellent movies, his behaviour doesn't change the fact that what he produced was art.

 

[RocketLauncher]

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
who
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upnowgath
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,grasshopper;

 

[ThatsTheGuy]

So I'm a little blunt at times. Better get it out now than let it fester and come out at the wrong time - that really hurts a person.

 

[RocketLauncher]

So I'm a little blunt at times. Better get it out now than let it fester and come out at the wrong time - that really hurts a person.

Rather cryptic. What does?

 

[ThatsTheGuy]

Rather cryptic. What does?

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gifbin.com%2Fbin%2F102011%2F1320344488_bee_cat_falls.gif&f=1

 

[MelissaBaby]

It's an ethical quandary. Who do we give a pass to and who do we castigate? It seems Hollywood is experiencing this crisis at the moment a la Weinstein. Do we discredit the films he produced? Sex, Lies and Videotapes, Pulp fiction, The Crying Game, Shakespeare in Love, all excellent movies, his behaviour doesn't change the fact that what he produced was art.

Somebody like Weinstein doesn't seem so much of a problem to me, because the artistic vision of the work wasn't his, so there is a separation. Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are more troubling I think, because you know that their movies reflect their personal attitudes.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I just spelled kaleidoscopic right on my second attempt, and I'm damn proud of myself.

 

[RocketLauncher]

Somebody like Weinstein doesn't seem so much of a problem to me, because the artistic vision of the work wasn't his, so there is a separation. Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are more troubling I think, because you know that their movies reflect their personal attitudes.

True, I loved Annie Hall as a child, but Manhattan I found a little disturbing. Foreshadowing, perhaps? Polanski? Not sure if he did disturbing underage flicks, my interest has been piqued, I'll certainly go check it out. There's a strange documentary put out by Yorkshire Television of a pedophilia ring in the US dealing with high profile senators and boystown It was made for the Discovery Channel but for some unknown reason it wasn't aired. It"s called Conspiracy of Silence, not the movie. Most banned documentary or something, rough footage as they destroyed the original film and only the rough cuts are available for viewing. I'm going to give it a viddy this week (sorry for the Anthony Burgess reference was going to include him in my whimsical passages).
It's a fine line between art and perversion.
I agree with you wholeheartedly but if one examines the private lives of many artists they feel almost exalted and therefore superior to mere mortals. I'm still unsure of my stance on art and vice. Wouldn't watch a contemporary Woody Allen film if you paid me, but Annie Hall, it was Diane Keaton that sold me on that flick. Strange that I/T is such a popular category. In a patriarchal society that kind of behaviour is overlooked. Fortunately some people are being held accountable (Weinstein, Cosby) but are they simply pariahs being offered up for the many?

 

[RocketLauncher]

I just spelled kaleidoscopic right on my second attempt, and I'm damn proud of myself.

Lol, I wrote pariah instead of martyr, better to misspell a word than use the wrong one! Reminder to self; no tipsy posting or posting before at least two cups of coffee.