After two weeks off, I've been walking again. During the time off - the girls' visit - I lost six pounds anyway. They don't eat! I can't go eat if they won't. Geez.

So for the last three days I've been back walking 5.5 miles each day around the airport. It really wastes me and all I want to do when I get home is grab a beer and lie down and read. And the reading part isn't that important. Monday I stopped on the way home and bought a "forty" of Mickey's. Yesterday it was a quart of Coors. Tonight I went to the store for some shoe polish and bought a 12-pack each of Red Hook ESB and Wing Walker Amber Ale. That should do me for the rest of the week and then some.

Gonna wear some Corcoran jump boots for the walk tomorrow. Big heavy things. That should be a pretty good workout.

Oh, I'm also getting tired of "slipstream." "Little, Big" is good, but I think I'll table the other two that are in process. Time for some noir.

Angela, last week.

Another of Angela - a candid as she came from the shower with a towel around her hips. Too much magenta, and she's not too keen on that bit of ear peeking out, but it's a candid. This was about the time Renee Jacobs called from L.A. and I was blubbering incoherently because two gorgeous girls were running around my tiny cave buck naked. You'd think this would be old hat for me wouldn't you, being as I'm an erotic photographer and all? Well, I'm not dead yet and it never gets old.

But maybe I've overdone Angela and Cynnamon lately (duh!). OK, I'll start seeding the blog with others. Obsession is a dangerous thing.

I finished up Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities last night. It was an quick easy read - a good thing because it wasn't particularly enjoyable. A series of fantastic (literal usage) observations of invented cities and an on-going conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. In the right mood I might have enjoyed the prose and allegory, but I didn't. I'm glad it's done. The book will be in my semi-permanent library for some future reading should the spirit move me. I probably missed something important there.

A candid of Angela, shot under daylight colored fluorescent lights at my laptop - this very one - last week. That thing in her mouth is a pencil, more visible if you click the picture.

My current reading list includes Little, Big, by John Crowley, Nights at the Circus, by Angela Carter, Magic for Beginners, by Kelly Link and Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino. The thread that ties these together - they are all on the list of The Core Canon of Slipstream. I found that through Bruce Sterling's blog, a place I visit daily, though it appears he's on vacation right now. There were so many of my all-time favorite reads on that list that I ordered three of these four to specifically find the thing that ties them together. And it is obvious.

As I finish, or maybe after I finish all of them, I'll give you a review.

Yeah, I know I'm bad. but they'll be here tomorrow!

I just told Angela on the phone that she'd have to wear clothes around my studio when we weren't shooting, and she quickly dissuaded me of the thought. She says no clothes unless legally necessary. I didn't argue very much.

Still haven't picked up my Harry Potter book, because when I dropped by the bookstore the line was too long. It'll wait for me. Little, Big, the book I'm reading now, still has my attention anyway.

That's all the news that's current. And I have no deep thoughts right now.

Cynnamon doin' Angela in my hotel room in St. John's, Newfoundland last March. I expect they'll be doin' it in my studio very soon. They're like minks I tell you...

I suppose it's gonna be a series of Angela and Cynnamon pictures now until they get here on Sunday. It's not like I'm excited by their visit or anything, but I went out and bought them pillows, pillowcases and sheets last night (for their camp cots) and also got a new shower curtain that isn't crusty (but is transparent). My list of things to do in preparation is getting shorter: laundry, take out the trash, clean the studio, buy color film.

I also bought and began reading Little, Big, a "slipstream" novel by John Crowley. (The term "slipstream" has come to be a category of fantasy novel that seems to slide one past the barrier of disbelief and includes work by authors Borges, Calvino, Crowley, Link, Delany, Kafka, Pynchon and others within and outside the science fiction/fantasy genres. More on this later when I get it figured out better.)

Angela, photographed on a hot summer's night in my hotel room in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada last year.

Four days and these girls will be flying in to San Diego. They've got some shoots booked here and in LA, and of course I will photograph them again. Fetish Queen Cynnamon and the lovely Angela, a tag team from heaven.

I have only a few ideas of what we'll do. I expect to photograph each of them and both of them in the studio against a black backdrop, probably with the view camera. Maybe, if they're up for it, do some bondage involving both of them. I will show them around San Diego a little, including making sure I'm seen with them at my usual haunts. And the Zoo and some museums. We really won't have all that much free time with their shooting schedule, but it will be fun. If it's not obvious, I really adore both of these girls.

On the literature side, I'm deeply engaged in Per Peterson's Out Stealing Horses. This book won the 2006 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Books win prizes for various reasons, but usually because they are good. Usually because they are deep and broad and written in a way that engages other writers and critical readers. (I just noticed that the UK and US covers of the book are completely different. Interesting, indeed. The cover designs are obviosly intended to attract readers from these two places based on what the publisher believes we want to see.) Buy it online and save a few bucks or pounds.

I'll mail this book to my mother when I'm done with it, it's that compelling.

Cynnamon and Angela, buck naked in my hotel room in Newfoundland earlier this year.

Books again! I've just finished five books of interest - that's one of the reasons I haven't been too prolific of late.

First, three books of of a series of five about the Arthurian Legend by Stephen R. Lawhead: Taliesin, Merlin and Arthur. The remaining two weren't in stock at my bookstore or I'd have devoured them as well. I've read several other Lawhead books, so didn't really "discover" these. Rather I was looking for something relatively easy to read that I could escape into. A very entertaining and well-written interpretation of the Legend. Read them in that order.

Second, I found Jon Courtenay Grimwood's 9TAIL FOX on the shelves and immediately grabbed it before anyone else could. I have read four or five others by him and knew that it would be an intriguing detective novel set in some unlikely place and involve strange and unnatural things. That's a poor description - I wish I could do better. It's not what you might think. It's never what I think, either. Garish cover on a trade paperback. I read it in one long afternoon/night.

Third, and the reason I'm posting sorta later than usual is that I just finished Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay. I'd only read one other of his novels and will find or order the remaining six at some point. OK, it involves photography a little, Celtic legend a little, adolescent romance a little, heroic tasks, mystic places, birthrights, rites and beautiful women. Even if it were poorly written that's enough to entice, but it's lucid, well-paced and enjoyable.

None of the above are particularly deep. All are pure enjoyment. All are great summer reading. Recommended.

This is Little Robin again. In my studio long ago.

Chuck Klosterman might be the best essayist writing in the English language. Or he might not. He's certainly the best to come out of North Dakota. If you've read "Fargo, Rock City" or "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" you know what I'm talking about. He's primarily a rock journalist, but whether one is into death metal or not, his writing fascinates. I picked up his latest, IV, and as usual with his work, can't put it down. He takes one inside a little-understood culture and makes it seem almost reasonable and proper. At least reasonable. And all with the big-eyed wonder of a once-adoring fan. Buy his books and read them. Or at least one of them and see if you don't agree.

This is Myra, photographed in Kiel, Germany too long ago.

Now...back to my book.

Because the folks next door have to pass through my space to get to theirs (until their door is fixed in the next few days) I've been reminded again how much I value my solitude. When I am alone, I want to be alone, and not subject to random intrusions. It's part of being a good neighbor, and they do invite me to their outrageous parties, so I will put up with it this time.

That link on "solitude" refers you to my other blog - the one on retirement planning, the non-financial aspects. I'd talked too much about it here, so I broke it out as a separate topic. Feel free to ignore it as well. I guess the next topic I should consider breaking out is "books." I'm currently making a list of stinkers. (Love that archaic word. Someone used it in an otherwise bad novel and I've picked it up.)

Trouble is, if I move major topics out of here and only talk about naked chix and erotic photography, then I'll find I don't have all that much to say anymore.

This is Cynnamon inspecting a bound Angela. That was a hot photoshoot. Jeez, I can't believe they allowed me in the same room with them. Those girls will be coming down to San Diego in late July for more photography with me and others in the area. You can not believe how much fun I've had photographing and playing with these girls.

Charles de Lint writes urban fairy tales. He does it well and is probably the best-known writer of the genre. I've read several of his books over the years, but the genre itself takes the right time and place to read it. Frankly, the best one of the sort I've read was by Emma Bull, who after one book, it seems, dropped out of sight as a novelist. (Let me know if I'm wrong about that.)

Anyway, I bought de Lint's "Widdershins" a few days back and am about to finish it and thought I'd tell you what fun it's been to read. The cast of characters involves about every permutation of fairy, native spirit and animal totem one can think of and even the Greek and Norse gods get mentioned, if only in passing - apparently so they wouldn't feel left out. It's a big fat book at a reasonable price that yields hours and hours of great entertainment.

This picture of the lovely Angela, slightly photoshopped, seemed appropriate for the post even though she herself isn't all that keen on the picture. I think it gets close to the core of her nature though.

Finished developing Masha's 4x5 film and it's drying now. I'll probably show one tomorrow. In the mean time you'll have to settle for this photograph of Priscilla-Mae made in a condo in SoBe years ago.

I just finished Jonathan Lethem's "You Don't Love Me Yet," a wonderful book. I haven't been a huge fan of his, but this one worked, what with the band, the genius songwriter, the hot babe protagonist, the charismatic outside jingle-writer, the drummer, the kangaroo and all. If you like to read, buy and read it.

By the way, I have no idea if anyone that reads this blog reads any of these books. I don't think I've ever gotten a comment about books specifically. I'd appreciate it if anyone who reads my critiques and enjoys them would let me know. Uh...thanks.

Well, back to the film.

Has Vanity Fair magazine always been this good? I fond a copy on an airplane - the "noir" issue - and loved it. Then bought the copy with Bruce Willis on the cover. This morning Bono was talking about his editorial work on the new Africa issue. I guess my radar has been pointed in another direction. Good magazine.

Loaded Masha's 4x5 film in the tank last night so I'll develop sometime this weekend. Also loaded some film holders so I can use the camera this weekend if the spirit moves me. Next weekend I do have a shoot in Boulder City, Nevada and will use the large format and maybe take the 6x7 along as a backup. Or maybe I'll take the Horseman with rollfilm backs along. Dunno yet.

It's Friday. About time, I say.

This is Uma doing herself with a Hitachi Magic Wand. I gave that to her for being a good girl. She was really good.

Last night I fell asleep with deep and profound things to say here this morning. Naturally I've forgotten everything. They probably weren't all that deep and profound anyway. Profundity (don't you love that word?) is more likely to result from quick asides or too much coffee than long involved thought processes anyway.

I'm sorta reading Terry Pratchett's Pyramids, and it includes a couple of characters that spew profundity all over the place. One is "Xeno" with his own paradoxes, and another is the worlds best mathematician, a camel called "You Bastard," whose thoughts, as camels can't talk, nicely clarify the complete uselessness of understanding without communication. Parabolic trajectories of camel spit are quickly calculated by the world's best mathematician, but all anyone else ever knows of this is the resultant gob. "Xeno's" contributions are in the way of pointing out that theories, no matter how well thought out, are pretty useless if reality clearly contradicts them. Pratchett's a fine writer, but it takes a special time and place for me to read his silly books.

The best thing about his books are that if you carry one through an airport, there will invariably be a hot babe that wants to talk to you about the book. Hot babes adore Terry Pratchett.

This is Emalie, a hot babe, diddling herself in my hotel room in Boulder City, Nevada awhile back. Far too long ago. She emails every year saying she wants to shoot again, my pavlovian drooling begins and I hastily return the email asking just when and where, and she doesn't respond to my response. I think she's fucking with me in the baddest sense of the word.

The New York Times just published a list of books that writers are reading this summer. I think writers read for the same reasons other people do and in fact started writing because they enjoyed reading. Anyway I've printed the list out and will be stocking up on yet more books in the near future. Reading is one of my greatest pleasures.

I can see myself retired, appearing daily at a local cafe and settling into a comfortable chair with good light, paying the chair's rent by buying coffee once in awhile, and spending every day there with my short stack of current reading. It would have to be the sort of place that accepts eccentrics, which means it will not be a chain retail coffee store. And it will have to have been designed by someone who didn't pick the furniture to encourage quick customer turn-around.

I know this conflicts completely with the Airstream Trailer version of retirement that was yesterday's daydream, but I don't have to actually pick one thing yet. Or ever.

These girls are, of course, Cynn (on top) and Angela. A digital snapshot with Cynn's camera. In Newfoundland last March.

It's been awhile since I talked about books. Currently I'm reading Celine's Journey to the End of the Night. I got there because in Pulp, Bukowski's protagonist calls Celine "France's greatest writer." And I was reading Bukowski as an antidote to overdosing on Lee Child's "Jack Reacher" novels. It's good to be back reading challenging material after four or five bubblegum books in a row.

In other news, Lucky commented that because of my shoot on the 9th I'll miss his birthday party. And because his birthday party includes heaps o' naked chicks, that will be a shame. It will indeed. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Besides, it's still possible the model might change her mind. I hope she does not, but if she does, Lucky's party is a fine default.

This is Anne. She modeled for me a little, but mostly was a fine make-up artist. She's another of those girls that is there...then isn't. Then is again. Etc.

Time for the Sunday Book Review! Two great books by established authors. One bellies up to the science fiction bar, while the other somehow avoids that tag, though it too requires the suspension of disbelief.

First, Brasyl, by Ian McDonald. His last book, River of Gods started strong, but accelerated, bringing in so many bits necessary to the hyper-plot that I lost my way around 75%, put the book down and never picked it back up. But the cover art of Brasyl and the other of McDonald's books I've read persuaded me to try once again. Like River the plots (three interwoven stories) accelerate, so keeping track is a matter of not setting the book aside for too long. Each of the three plots is good, exciting, supports excellent but slightly flat characters in three timelines in Brazil. A wonderful place for speculative fiction, as it's unfamiliar and surreal enough to sustain reader belief in the plot while not being on some distant moon or something.

Fine book. Buy it and read it, but don't set it down for too long or you'll lose track(s).

Before buying Brasyl I'd picked up a copy of Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Having read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay awhile back, I avoided his two subsequent novels because Kavalier's gay themes made me uncomfortable - it was hard to relate, as that was a key element in the book.

Yiddish, like Brasyl, requires a suspension of disbelief. The premise is that after WWII the European Jews were unable to hold Israel and were given a temporary home by the U.S. government in the Aleutian Islands - Sitka, actually. Three pages in, that becomes the readers' reality. From here on it becomes a detective novel with a yiddish flavor and twisted intertwined plots involving governments, Indians, murder, the Messiah, espionage, chess, romance/sex and about everything one could ask for. I put it down briefly to Read Brasyl and had no trouble picking up where I'd left off. Now my entire interaction with religious Jews has been in buying camera stuff in NYC. I am not part of the culture, but the author cleverly assumes the reader can pick it up as he goes along. No pausing for explanations or definitions, just an assumption of the cleverness if the reader - and I really appreciated that.

But and read this one too. Maybe first.

I know there have been some books mentioned that I haven't returned to. Should you notice them, feel free to comment here and I'll let you know either what I thought or why I put the book away. I read enough that I could probably make daily posts on books alone, but of course that's not why most readers come back here.

The model shown is Simone, photographed nude in an office building by Columbia University in NYC six years ago. Tall, lovely and with a brand new PhD.

I finally got back to the book "Manliness" after setting it down for a few weeks and am starting to understand what the author is getting at. He's gone back and is reviewing the history of Western political thought in order to analyze feminism in order to give context, historical and contemporary, to manliness, and its apparent conflict with current feminist movements. Maybe surprisingly, manliness, the best characteristics of traditional men, conflicts very little, except in dogmas that deny gender differences even exist.

Still, the book hasn't wrapped everything up into a nice summary, so I will continue to reserve judgement until I've finished it. It is a slog, jumping from Hobbes to Plato to Nietzsche to Spinoza, creating cultural models of gender when women were ignored by each. Some of it feels like a stretch...

And once again we have Cynnamon and Angela doing their respective things in my hotel room in Newfoundland. Angela accuses me of showing these pictures too often, but they are the most current work and I'm still developing film, so it seems reasonable to me to show them. But I'll drop them for a bit in the next few posts, OK?

Friday night. Just got invited out to hear a friend DJ, but she doesn't spin until 10PM and I'm already up past my accustomed time to retire for the night. I'm a morning person, despite what all these nighttime pictures may indicate. Probably more because I've established a morning routine, than because I'm chrono-biologically hardwired that way. When I travel, for example, I don't have a lot of trouble adapting to the local time. Sometimes coming home I do. Anyway, I'll miss hearing her - last time was at a place called The Dragon Lounge five or six years ago. I think at 56 I'm probably ready to admit that the club scene isn't the right place for me anyway.

Reading The Book of Dave by Will Self. I think my Ex recommended it. When I finish it, I'll give you a review.

Ordered a olive green Domke F-1X "Little Bit Bigger" camera bag today from Badger Graphics. Notice the difference between MSRP and the Badger price. It occurred to me today that with the four Domke bags I already have, color coding them might be a good idea. Thus the green one. Also ordered a Toyo 45A lensboard for #0 Copal shutter to mount the 150mm Syronar-N. Yep, it was payday.

This is Myra, playing with herself in my room of a gay hotel - a converted bordello, actually - in Hamburg, Germany a couple of years back. Haven't heard from her lately - I'll drop her a line one of these days.

Tamerlane - Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World by Justin Marozzi. The book held my attention throughout. I'd find myself riding home from work just wanting to pick it up again to see where Tamur was gonna go kick ass next. In the late 1300s, a boy rose from rapscallion to emperor on his wits, his aggression, his inhuman cruelty. He came from what is now Uzbekistan and conquered pretty much everything from the Mediterranean to India, from the steppes of Russia to the Persian Gulf. He died en route to Peking where he intended to conquer the last significant (and wealthy) place in the world.

The author, in finding his story, visits the center of Tamur's empire, Samarkand, as well as other stomping grounds. Commentary of the "this used to be" sort is fascinating, and given that much of the empire was reworked and destroyed by the Soviets in the 20th century, how they handled the Myth, the Hero, is instructive.

Great book! I picked it up because of the cover (sometimes you can tell) and gobbled it up because of the writing and the story.

In the mean time I re-read Bayles and Orland's Art & Fear, the single best book on the making of art that I've ever read or even heard about. I read this about once a year to get my head back in the right place. If you are a photographer or an artist of any type, this book should be regular reading. Takes a couple of hours, not expensive.

And now, on advice of the Ex, I'm beginning Will Self's novel, The Book of Dave. I haven't read any of his other work, but it's all gotten good reviews. More on this book later.

Candy, photographed playing with herself in a motel room in West Hollywood awhile back. Though similar to a couple other color pix of her, I don't think I've used this before. But it's hard to be sure. I should have made up some kind of system to check pix off as they're used, but having little foresight I didn't.

I finished Smith's The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre today in the Denver airport, and the fact that I read it straight through should tell you something. It is a fine romance novel, a pretty good look inside the mind of an artist, a very interesting period piece about Paris in the mid-1800's, and not a bad history of photography either. Recommended, now that it's in paperback. Heck, if I'd known it was as good as it is, I'd have bought the hardcover and not felt screwed.

Hits have been very high lately, with a whole lot coming by way of Google searches for "nudes." Seems this blog is now on the first page of results in slot #9. Thank you for visiting and feel free to bookmark the blog and come back often. And feel free to comment. I do review comments, but pretty much anything that doesn't actually call me foul names gets approved. I reserve the right to continue discussions based on your comments, however.

This is Cori again. I don't know if I've used this picture, but I probably have. I like the work we did together much more now than when I first saw it. I think that was a time of transition for me...I hadn't yet decided just how erotic I wanted the work to be, but the model was up for anything, so I pushed her a little, but then felt like I'd gone too far. Now that I look back I think I should have gone farther...