(no subject)
Jan. 26th, 2006 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaHome sick (my doctor thinks it's a sinus infection; I just think I want to rip my throat out and then go to sleep for a week), and reading Ayelet Waldman's Nursery Crimes. I'd read another one of her "Mommy-Track Mysteries" and thought it was fun, light entertainment, so the last time I was at the library I picked up this one, the first in the series.
I did not expect alt.poly to be completely slandered on pages 124-128.
The protagonist discovers that her murder victim's husband is having an affair. She finds out the name of the girlfriend and, as part of a general online search strategy, runs it through Dejanews. Girlfriend turns out to be a big newsgroup junkie, and among alt.postmodern and some other random choices, is a major poster on alt.polyamory.
She's one of those - "our intertwined souls," "tantric love dance," and cheating. She and the victim's husband have supposedly carried out their entire courtship on alt.poly, which Waldman seems to think would be a good venue for "raunchy Internet sex." But here's the worst:
I did not expect alt.poly to be completely slandered on pages 124-128.
The protagonist discovers that her murder victim's husband is having an affair. She finds out the name of the girlfriend and, as part of a general online search strategy, runs it through Dejanews. Girlfriend turns out to be a big newsgroup junkie, and among alt.postmodern and some other random choices, is a major poster on alt.polyamory.
She's one of those - "our intertwined souls," "tantric love dance," and cheating. She and the victim's husband have supposedly carried out their entire courtship on alt.poly, which Waldman seems to think would be a good venue for "raunchy Internet sex." But here's the worst:
"Within a couple of months, the newsgroup freaks started hounding them. Remember, the whole point of this movement or whatever it is is that they're supposed to be polyamorous, not just adulterous. Tigress and Coyote - yes, that is indeed his nom de guerre - finally succumbed to the pressure and decided to include Abigail in their little love nest or cesspool, whatever you want to call it. And, get this, they decided, with the help of their comrades in arms - and legs, for that matter - that the best way to get Abigail to go along with this multiple-partner thing is to have her walk into her bedroom one fine day and find ol' Tigress and Coyote waiting there, buck naked." [...]Slandered, I tell you. Can a newsgroup sue for libel?
"Surprise, surprise, Abigail was less than thrilled with the little Wild Kingdom tableau awaiting her. In fact, she freaked out - which, by the way, totally confused everyone in the newsgroup, all of whom apparently were under the impression that she would rip off her clothes and jump in the sack with the fabulous twosome."
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 06:59 pm (UTC)YO! you cheatin' - naw dog... .that ain't right. y'all bettah stop hittin' that shit yo, and get straight wit you mate, you know what i'm sayin'?
except, not like, in ebonics :)
n.
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:04 pm (UTC)Obviously not a well-researched bit of writing. Of course, at the moment we have a pontificating color, so it's not what it usually is, but still!
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:06 pm (UTC)slander, indeed. alt.poly is about the antithesis of this nonsense - clearly she's never been there, and has it mixed up with one of those all-sex-all-the-time newsgroups. (Why, oh why, do people always seem to leap to the conclusion that polyamory - like all "deviant lifestyles," including being gay - is All About The Sex?)
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 07:08 pm (UTC)Does the denoument take place during a fucking swingers convention in a hotel? :)
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:14 pm (UTC)I hope the adrenalin from the disgraceful mystery novel helps, or at least is an effective distraction.
You may well have the same thing I do--I was in good enough shape to read popular fiction (in my case, F. Paul Wilson's _Midnight Mass_) and cranky enough to get pissed off at it (mostly Jewish stuff, though there were some class issues, too).
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 11:17 pm (UTC)(Further helpful advice: if you feel the eardrops trying to eat your brain, it probably means that 1) there's no blockage, and 2) your ears are mildly infected/irritated. It could also mean that the eardrops, recognizing that you're feeling under the weather, have decided to eat your brain, hoping to win favors from their evil masters.)
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Date: 2006-01-27 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 02:04 am (UTC)Still, I've had three or four go-rounds with having mine irrigated (and they sometimes remembered to have the water tepid before starting!), and *ick*... if I can prevent a friend from going through it, it can't help but be a Good Thing.
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:20 pm (UTC)i am currently reading a mystery set in laramie which has a womens studies prof as the protagonist and has not yet mentioned matthew shepard. i am probably going to finish the book, but this may be one time i take the book back and say "hello. this is a bad book. i would like to return it, please."
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Date: 2006-01-26 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:32 pm (UTC)But
Date: 2006-01-27 02:21 am (UTC)Re: But
Date: 2006-01-27 03:09 am (UTC)I did re-read Marilyn French's 70's classic The Women's Room (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345353617/qid=1138330948/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-7177220-8670566?n=507846&s=books&v=glance) since having Alex. Obviously there's a huge distance between me and her trapped early-60's suburban housewives, but some things still resonated - like the need for other young-mother friends, because they're the only other people in the world who actually care about the minute details of your day.
Re: But
Date: 2006-01-27 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 07:21 pm (UTC)Or maybe we could just send her a bonobo.
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:39 pm (UTC)It could fling poo at her!
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:36 pm (UTC)Also, sloppy-ass research annoys me.
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 07:44 pm (UTC)-J
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Date: 2006-01-26 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 07:44 pm (UTC)-J
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Date: 2006-01-26 09:26 pm (UTC)It was such a bizarre thing to come across in the middle of a mystery. I mean, how many people have even heard of newsgroups?
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Date: 2006-01-26 09:51 pm (UTC)-J
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:44 pm (UTC)Note to Prospective Authors: If you're going to use Teh Internets as a character in your next novel, please do the courtesy of actually spending some time, you know, researching it before you write.
And no, looking at a list of newsgroups and finding one named "alt.polyamory" does not constitute sufficient research.
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Date: 2006-01-26 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:54 pm (UTC)Well, every time I spent lots of time in alt.callahans, I noticed that my IRA didn't get any more money in it ...
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Date: 2006-01-26 10:10 pm (UTC)She made a pot of coffee, watered her plants and flossed her teeth.
Her return was well timed. She saw the last circuit of the spinny thing before the final pronouncement: "No new articles."
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Date: 2006-01-26 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 08:53 pm (UTC)That really is so entirely unfair.
Get well soon, and I hope you find something better researched to read next. Sarah Caudwell's very nice.
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Date: 2006-01-26 11:30 pm (UTC)I just have to wonder if the person bothered to read alt.poly at all before writing that bit, and if so, which posts.
(Though it's interesting. I could imagine an alt.poly regular starting a thread "What alt.polyamory is all about", and spewing cliches and such, and having the other folks join in, and having it be taken seriously by someone who read *just* that thread.)
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Date: 2006-01-27 07:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 02:18 am (UTC)