“… VENUS IN FURS LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH …”

Female Domination is a common lifestyle in the year 2005 but back in 1869 when Sacher-Masoch wrote this book, it was considered a perversion. In fact, the word “Masochist” comes from the name Sacher-Masoch when the German neurologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing classified Sacher-Masoch’s sexual desire in his “Psychopathia Sexualis” in 1886.

Much more has been learned about the male desire to be in submission to women over the past century and a half and Female Domination is now practiced by couples all over the world. Elise Sutton in her book “Female Domination” draws a parallel to the increase of this male fantasy with the societal liberation of women. Now women are powerful and independent and more and more men are desiring to be the servants of women, both sexually and domestically. I wonder what Krafft-Ebing would think today if he saw the thousands of Internet sites dedicated to Female Domination?

I found “Venus in Furs” to be romantic, erotic and very well-written. It is a literary classic that will speak to men with masochistic and submissive desires for centuries to come. Wanda struggled with being in the dominant role (both the character in the book and the real life Wanda, Leopold’s wife) in the latter half of the nineteenth century. But today in the twenty-first century, more women are accustomed to being in charge so the prospects of men with submissive desires are much better.

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is the root for the term masochism and he portrays this in his novel ‘Venus in Furs’ by depicting the personal discovery of a young man whose relationship takes a turn when he realizes he wants to stay with his “venus” no matter the consequences. This devolves into his own urge to be treated badly by his lover, and results in his ultimately getting exactly what he wished for.

Told from the point of view of the man when he is older, he tells the story to another young man as a lesson to avoid suffering the pains he has suffered. Told with fascinating language and imagery, it is a book that offers an understanding of the source of the term “masochism” and provides a nice short story in and of itself.

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Back in the day before automobiles, a good horse trainer and veterinarian was the equivalent of ‘Mr Goodwrench’. A badly behaving or unhealthy equine was equivalent to breaking down on the highway or running out of gas on a lonely stretch of highway somewhere in Utah. My sources tell me that most of the training methods are ok, but stay away from the medical tips unless you are prepared to become the poster boy or girl for the local SPCA. Listen with tongue in cheek, and check with a professional before attempting any of these techniques on a real animal. Summary by Mike Vendetti.

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A collection of memoirs about the Peninsular War, the Battle of Waterloo, and society and personalities of Regency London and 19th century Paris, by a sometime Grenadier Guards officer, unsuccessful parliamentarian, and dandy. Gronow displays social attitudes of the day which would now be regarded as unacceptable, but is a clever raconteur who brings to life both the horrors of war and the gaiety of high society.

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“… JOHANNA SCHOPENHAUER, REISE DURCH ENGLAND UND SCHOTTLAND, 1818 `Pretty perilous and a good deal odiferous’ Boswell and …”

1819 gerät das Handelshaus, bei dem Johanna Schopenhauer ihr ganzes Geld angelegt hat, in Zahlungsschwierigkeiten. Beim anschließenden Vergleich verliert sie 70% ihres Vermögens. Ihr Sohn Arthur (der Philosoph), der sich vorher den Anteil am väterlichen Erbe auszahlen ließ, verweigert die Unterstützung. Sie muss sich jetzt selbst um ihre Einkünfte sorgen. Lange Reisen wie die nach England sind ihr nicht mehr möglich. Ihre Schriftstellerei wird zu einer wichtigen Einkommensquelle. Sie veröffentlicht Reiseerzählungen, Romane und Novellen

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This book was OK. I’m not sure I was really the target market for this short little something called a book. I like to read business books that a small business owner can get something out of. As far as I am concerned, this book is one for marketing professionals in LARGE companies that rely on traditional advertising as their marketing vehicle of choice. We all know that advertising is such a waste of money. And to read a book on how to get a little more value out of valueless advertising seems to me to be a waste, too. But that’s just me. This book has an introduction and the following 11 chapters:

0. Introduction
1. The largest neuromarketing study ever conducted
2. Product placement, American Idol, and Ford’s multi-million dollar mistake
3. Mirror neurons at work
4. Subliminal messaging, alive and well
5. Ritual, superstition, and why we buy
6. Faith, religion, and brands
7. The power of somatic markers
8. Selling to our senses
9. Neuromarketing and predicting the future
10. Sex in advertising
11. Brand new day

Before I started reading this book I thought it would be about “Why consumers buy.” But after I scoped out the book jacket, the Intro, and skimmed the book, I quickly came to realize the book was simply a report of the findings from a pretty big neuromarketing study. You may ask: What is neuromarketing? Well, one source online says it is “a new field of marketing that studies consumers’ sensorimotor, cognitive, and effective response to marketing stimuli.” I say it is the study of how people react to advertising messages.

Today most marketers (except those selling commodities from large companies) try to minimize wasting their marketing dollars on advertisements. If you are like most marketers, then this book will probably be a waste of time and money for you to consider. Get back to focusing on your Internet Marketing, Personal Networking, Book Authorship, semnars, and workshops. But if you rely heavily on advertising in magazines, newspapers, television, and online, then get this book and study it. It’s pretty well written and kind of informative.

The British economist Alfred Marshall is one of the greatest political economists of all times and this book represents a deep effort to address in an orderly way the many social and economical issues that were at stake at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. This way of addressing disturbing social questions is an Alfred Marshall trademark.

In this sense, his motto could well be the oft quoted ” Natura non facit saltum” , which is Latin for “Nature does not evolves in leaps and bounds”, and all things are going to be all right in the future but it will take some time untill they consolidate themselves into a coherent whole, where everyone in this world will have an opportunity to fully develop his natural propensities for love, companionship and free will. His view is helped by the many mathematical formulae he uses to illustrate his points of views, using differential calculus, due to his mathematical background. But the reader has not to worry if he/she is not proficient with this type of mathematical tools, because they are used only as a side-line to the text, which is dense and full of logical thinking in itself. Marshall, despite his mathematical background, didn’t judge Mathematics as a fundamental tool to Politcal Economy.

Alfred Marshall is the most influential representant of the minimalist movement called Neo-Classics Economics (Stanley Jevons, Vilfredo Pareto , Karl Menger) and in this capacity is the most notorius proponent of what today is taught and learned in all Economics Schools over the world as Microeconomics, or the economics of particular competitive or non-competitive markets. In some way, he is both the inheritor of the Utilitarian theories of Jeremy Bentham, as of the economics doctrines of David Ricardo and Adam Smith. Also, one of the interesting facets of Marshall is that he had both John Neville Keynes (the father) and John Maynard Keynes (the son) as one of his pupils in Economics.

His knowledge of History and Mathematics is astounding and if he has not reached the status of Keynes or Adam Smith, this is more due to the constraints of the Victorian era in which he wrote this book, and the influences he received, than to any lack of deep understanding of economics realities, which were indeed recognized by John Maynard Keynes himself as fundamental to the latter development he gave to the so-called Dismall Science.

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“The poem provides an unwitting expose to the absurdity of Christian mythology.” With all due respect, I have to question how someone can consider what Milton intended as the “justification of the ways of God to men” an “unwitting exposé.” For sure there are several controversies throughout PL-Milton most certainly DOES represent Satan as noble, rationalize the Fall, and present God as less interesting and engaging than the Devil-but he most certainly does NOT do so “unwittingly.” Above all Milton was an advocate of freedom-freedom of thought and theology no less than the freedom from censorship he championed in Areopagitica. He was in many ways unorthodox, even denying the Holy Spirit as a person of the Trinity. In Paradise Lost, Milton was not writing a treatise on God’s justice and unwittingly undermining his own religion: the issues of Satan’s heroic charm and God’s apparent coldness are fundamental parts of that treatise. Sin is tempting and attractive, but “the wages of sin is death” (as shown by the “Unholy Trinity” of Satan, Sin, and Death, by which point in the narrative the heroic appeal of Satan the reader may have felt at the beginning of the poem starts to fade). And the cold, often unappealing reason and justice of God are hard to come to terms with-indeed, impossible to come to terms with, without the redemption of Christ. Milton hardly tries to “negate his own words with addendums and disclaimers.” Show me one such addendum or disclaimer that isn’t part of his intended theodicy. In my opinion, Milton’s epic is one of the most cogent examples of Christian apologetics ever. Did you miss the line that “with reiterated crimes [Satan] heaps on himself damnation, while he sought evil to others, and enrag’d might see how all his malice serv’d but to bring forth infinite goodness, grace and mercy, but on himself treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour’d.” Also, I suggest reconsidering the significance of his statement that “Virtue is but choosing”-a brief statement which alone can “justify the ways of God to men,” even without the hopeful ending and the redemptive fulfillment in Paradise Regained. Virtue, defined here as the choice to serve God, would not be possible had not man and woman been given free will; and maybe, just maybe, the horror of hell and Satan, the woes of man (and even the death of Christ) were worth the price of making possible the concept of love.

For all that, I do agree that “Paradise Lost features some of the most wonderful passages written in the English language.” But I can see how you might think Milton was writing an exposé, intentional or not, if you only read (or only paid attention to?) those first hundred pages about the rebellious angels. (If you ask me, though, the description of Eden, the ironic pursuits of the demons and the perverted parallels of Hell to Heaven, and all of Book IX are the highlights). However, debate is good. I’m sure we both agree with Milton that the freedom to express one’s beliefs is of paramount importance. That said, I believe that PL is indeed an exposé, in part at least-not of Christianity, but of the irony and vanity of evil. His arguments for the justice of God seem valid to me, and (is it just me?) his description of Satan as a hero, of Satan’s self-righteous volunteering to leave hell, and of the horrible perversion of the” Unholy Trinity”, serve not to justify Satan and thereby justify rebellion, but instead, to expose evil for what it is-tempting, but horrific. The most I personally can feel for Satan is pity, and by the end of Paradise Lost, that pity has turned almost entirely to enmity. As a whole, although Paradise Lost certainly raises some debatable issues, it accomplishes what Milton set out to do-justify the ways of God to men.

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I would imagine it a daunting challenge to meld a compelling storyline, interesting characters you care about, and, of all things, physics–and to do so in a few thousand words would seem more daunting still. But that is what Brian Greene has accomplished in Icarus at the Edge of Time.

In the space of a few dozen pages, with gorgeous full color imagery, we are brought into the world of a futuristic Icarus, living aboard a spaceship racing for the stars. When a black hole intervenes, Icarus can’t resist his urge to explore it, and Greene cleverly uses this analog of the original (Icarus’s journey near the sun) to combine the ancient myth with up-to-date astrophysics. The result is quietly wonderful.

The original myth has stayed with us as long as it has because children will always have a rebellious streak and will always, at some point, challenge their parent’s wisdom. In Greene’s hands, the myth takes on a more nuanced character as Icarus doesn’t die but instead suffers a different, more startling outcome.

I read the story to my 5 year old and he loved it. I’m not sure how much he understood about black holes and the science of the ending, but the story carried him (the telltale sign–he asked me to read it again tonight) and he’s been asking all sorts of questions about space travel and gravity. (I don’t think he knew the word gravity before this book.) This morning my husband read it (his more of a science buff and knows Greene from his other books), and thought the book a moving way to illustrate complex science. For me, I don’t know much science, but feel that if I’d been introduced to the subject by a book like this, I would have wanted to learn more. I do now. And I didn’t expect that.

Bravo.