Caitlin Flanagan wins the ‘most irrelevant metaphor’ contest

In her review of the 'Twilight' novels:

Reading the book, I sometimes experienced what I imagine long-married men must feel when they get an unexpected glimpse at pornography: slingshot back to a world of sensation that, through sheer force of will and dutiful acceptance of life’s fortunes, I thought I had subdued.

Ummm, yes, those men who have not so much as glimpsed pornography since they gave it up for gleaming matrimony lo those many years ago. Are there women below the age of mummified who believe in this version of men, or marriage, or pornography?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The Occidental tourist

We roughed it with Chinese coffee

We miss skylines

We went to an event at the Danish Embassy. Because we are canape-whores.

We lamented that cameras cannot capture the turpentine smell of Beijing’s moats and canals

We worried about our cardiovascular health

We ate with our hands

We summitted something called ‘The Fragrant Mountain’

We stopped smiling in pictures

We took the lazy-chair to the top of the mountain

We documented fall’s last throes

We tried to get to temples outside of the tourist-area, but they were blocked

We noticed that Chinese tourists never get off the official path

We did not remotely wonder where China’s pollution problem comes from

We did obligatory tourist things

We were too cheap to buy tickets to the proper temple, so we took pictures from outside

We went training at one of those outdoor calisthenics-parks

We wondered if the temples were originally designed to include ticket offices

We’re glad we visited the Forbidden City on a weekday, so we didn’t have to Photoshop out tourists

We got a bit templed-out by the end, to be honest

We liked the way the sunrise lit the willow trees

We watched the rich neighborhoods from the poor neighborhoods

We stopped our bikes at unexplainable boats

We ate dog

We took pictures of the dawn’s early light

We stood proudly in the sunset

Read and post comments | Send to a friend