A description of the methods used to obtain information on ancient disease and medicine and of how the evidence has survived. Palaeopathology has developed a branch of historical demography known as palaeodemography, which attempts to determine the contraction and transmission of diseases in populations. It seems that God's methods of letting people know that it exists, and of promulgating correct beliefs, are comprised of some fairly suboptimal methods. Excepting direct revelations to a very few number of people, God has all knowledge about itself passed by word of mouth from human to human. This limited and confusing way of communicating with us has led to uncountable numbers of chinese whispers, confusion, mistranslation and error, resulting in disagreements, sects, divisions, varying denominations, entirely different religions and dispute, conflict, violence and war, sometimes on large scales. Strangely, it also seems that direct revelation is nearly always given to mankind - for example there is no instance in the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament) of God talking directly to any woman, and, causing additional problems, revelation is apparently restricted to classical and ancient languages. Many holy books are very clear that believing in signs is the good and holy thing to do, but, most of the same books have terrible punishments in store for those who have the wrong religious beliefs. This contradictory mess clearly shows us one thing: the vast majority of religious instruction that has surfaced in our history is a construct of human error. God, it seems, is a very poor communicator. Not only that, but the non-religious content of our holy books, from all religions, do not reveal any non-human knowledge. Scientist Victor Stenger notes that ' Biblical and Qur'anic statements about the natural world, look exactly as you would expect them to look if there was no new knowledge being revealed - just what was the human understanding of the day. That is, they look as if there is no God who speaks to humanity through scriptures or other revelations' (2007). • • • • • • • • • • • • • •. You'd think an would have known better! “ We humans have a set of instinctive behaviours when it comes to telling stories; we naturally embellish, exaggerate, cover up doubts about the story and add dramatic and cliff-edge moments. We do this because we are genetically programmed to try to tell good stories. These subconscious side-effects of our social instincts have a downside: we are poor at accurately transmitting stories even when we want to.. All the major world religions went through periods of oral transmission of their founding stories, and the longer this state persisted the more variant the stories became. Hundreds of years of oral tradition in led to communities in different regions thinking that the Buddha gained enlightenment in the 5th century, the 8th, the 9th or even in the 11th century and each community thinks it has received the correct information through its oral transmission. A scientific study of Balkan bards who have memorized ' traditional epics rivaling the Iliad in length show that they do not in fact retain and repeat the same material verbatim but rather create a new version each time they perform it' based around a limited number of memorized elements. A sign of untrustworthiness is that as stories spread they often become marvellous, more sure of themselves, more fantastic and, more detailed rather than less. Despite this, most religions also claim to be embody final truth. This contradiction is most pronounced in the classical religions: believe their religion to be the result of a new eternal covenant between God and man, replacing the polytheistic of their era. But believe that Moses and Abraham were only given partial truth and that Jesus was then given the next set of revelations, washing away the Old Testament and establishing a new final word - in it says very clearly that the word cannot ever change. Then comes the, superseding the New Testament with another even newer final word from God. The eternal and perfect text of the is held in heaven and Muhammad is another final ' seal of the prophets' (,, et al.). Yet he has been followed by Bab and Baha'u'llah of the who too claim to be the latest messengers of God. The sequence of messiahs continues and what is revealed by one, is annulled by another. It isn't just that are at it; the teachings of the are divided into 'Sudden' and 'Gradual' teachings, and people must learn the more superficial doctrines before moving up to the more profound ones. Despite its appearance in formal doctrine and holy texts, the idea of sequential revelation doesn't make sense. (1) There is no reason for God to deceive entire cultures with claims that the latest revelation is the last - we cope with changes in knowledge without all going crazy. (2) The illusion of finality causes religious conflicts to be prone to violence and aggression, because 'belief' is raised to a matter of life and death. A benevolent God would simply tell everyone the truth, or, make it clear that it doesn't matter what we believe. The middle-ground of gradual-instruction is very destructive. (4) Many of the specific things revealed by religion differ from revelation to revelation in a haphazard manner; there is no sense in which religion is gradually getting closer to final theological truth. What this all tells us has more to do with human nature than divine truth: in reality, the only clear evidence from the proliferation of different religions is that if there is a god, it doesn't mind who believes what. Scripture, Religion and What God Wants Us to Know If, and the message of god is important for us, then it holds to reason that a would want human beings to know that message. Can immediately impart the correct knowledge directly into our consciousness. I am sure it also has the know-how to do it in a non-harmful way given that it designed our brains down to the functioning of millions of neuronal connections and neurotransmitters, etc. Put another way: It must be true that we all already know the most-important things that God wants us to know. Whatever various religions, prophets, seekers, mystics and holy spokespeople say is not exactly what God wants us to know. There is no reason for a good god, which wants the truth to be known, to convey important messages to individual human beings, in specific human languages, and allow us to spread the message using our own imperfect communication methods. As soon as people start translating it, explaining it to each other and writing it down then the message becomes reliant upon cultural understanding. It will dilute, get misunderstood, and it is sure that different communities will come to interpret the message differently, leading to schism and confusion, and as history has shown, to violence and bloodshed. Therefore, God's important messages are universal, imparted directly into all of our hearts and minds, and are therefore not made subject to human communications errors. If goodness comes from god, then given their historical mistakes, their culture-specific language, moral shortcomings and the social strife that results from their existence, holy books cannot possibly be from God. The whole idea of cultivating the True Religion via the orally-transmitted stories of itinerant and illiterate preachers such as Jesus and Mohammad, in (often obscure) human languages, is nonsensical. If God wants someone to know the facts about a particular religion, then would automatically make that person know. What God wants, can do, because. If, then if it is right for someone to know something then God will let them know it. If it is right to know something, then, a is compelled to let people know it directly. Evangelism therefore is pointless. It is senseless for religious adherents to go around telling people about their religious views if they believe in an all-powerful or perfectly good God. An all-powerful good god will want (and can!) give anyone any knowledge it is good for them to have. It is not the job of religious adherents to run around trying to pretend to know what God wants people to know! The reasons for evangelism are probably more selfish than theological; to do with (1) personal ego, (2) public image and (3) Earthly influence. They think that if they evangelize they will (4) get themselves into heaven and (5) increase their own sense of self-worth (deluded psychology). But it is obvious that evangelists are going against God's will, if God has a will. If God wanted someone to know something, and it was right for them to know it, God would tell that person directly. There is no point in doing it any other way. The only reason people need to tell each other things about religion is if it is things that God doesn't think it is best for them to know. This absurd state of affairs means that evangelists are least godly, trusting least in the abilities of God to tell people what they need to know! The fact that God appears not to have given us, as a species, any information about transcendent reality is a big hint that God does not mind what our beliefs are. Based on the evidence, it appears that the correct way, god's way, to discover the truth is to look at the evidence, judge things for ourselves, and to use our brains. In other words,. We know this from the lack of important-truths which are conveyed to us directly by God. Links: • (2004) • (1999) • (2012) 4. The Existence of Contradictory Religions Tells Us That Either God is Evil or It Doesn't Care What We Believe Many do not dare to dismiss the. Each is supported by miracles that prove their principles, and supported by prophets and mystics who have personal knowledge that prove the truth of their own religion. Yet they produce contradictory doctrine, different descriptions of God, and vastly differing instructions on how to live and what to do. The conflict that this causes has led some to argue that god itself is evil, and seeks to maximize human conflict: “. Group solidarity comes into effect: when you have enemies, you keep a closer grip on your friends and also reinforce your own group identity. So, an evil God would appear to mankind in a variety of guises and preach a number of powerful, but conflicting, religions. It would therefore create maximum confusion, and maximum suffering, through war and intolerance. It would preach to each religion that its followers were right and other followers were wrong! These groups would all wholeheartedly believe that as God (or, the gods) has revealed the truth to them, other religions must be wrong and ungodly. That way, most of the weak, inferior, pathetic people that the evil god creates would fall foul of one religion or another, and be duped! Once duped, they'd cling to the lies even more the stronger because of the existence of competing religions. An evil God, indeed, would do this, and this is exactly the state the world is in. If there is a God, it is surely evil! ” (2005) The other alternative is that God has no opinion over what religions we follow (if any). If God had an important message to convey it would not select a single person and whisper into his ear secretly and then wait for the word to spread. The fact that people think that God would communicate like this has been the cause of much suffering in history. Cult leaders, false religions and people-who-hear-voices would all be limited in their harm if the common-sense view was taken that human psychology and delusion were the most likely causes of divine revelation. It simply isn't the case that a god is trying to reveal truth to us via prophets, or via messages sent to individuals to be transmitted via human languages. These methods are poor. If God wants us to know certain things, then, has already imparted them into us innately, accurately and clearly via our genes and instincts. Which Messages From God Can You Trust? Something is Wrong Skeptical thinker Guy Harrison ponders why it is that the world's religious books can contain messages which are wrong, and yet convince so many (billions of people) that they are God's true revelations: “If one of these books really is a direct message from a god, then why has it failed so miserably to convince so many people? [.] One says Jesus is a god; the other says Jesus is not a god. This means that, at the very least, more than a billion believers have been hoodwinked by a book that is not a message from a real god. The fact that one of these books must necessarily be false, yet still manages to convince so many people that it is true, shows how people can be entranced by a book that is just a book. And if that can be the case for one book, then it could be the case for all of them. [.] There is no consensus on which gods are real or how these gods want us to worship them. Nobody can even agree on what the gods want us to eat or how they want us to dress. Disagreement and disunity is the rule for the world's believers. ” ' ' by Guy Harrison (2008) 5.2. The Ancients Could Not Tell Forgeries From Genuine Texts 5.2.1. Why We Should All Trust the Pagan Sibylline Oracles Historians have collected fourteen books and various fragments of the Sibylline Oracles, and they are referred to in respectful and amazed tones by ancient historians. Their predictions were widely held to be supernaturally accurate, and inspired by God. For example, Sejanus, a powerful General in the Roman Empire, who had a secretary write a book entitled ' The Truths of the Sibylline Oracles, Proved by the Facts'. Voltaire commented on this book in Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary: “[The book argues that] it was neccessary God to send on earth several sibyls one after the other; for He had no other means of teaching mankind. [.] They had certainly predicted all the events in the world, for Tarquinius Superbus bought three of their Books from an old woman for a hundred crowns. [The book says:] 'Who can deny the fulfilment of their prophecies? Has not Virgil himself quoted the predictions of the sibyls?' ” ' Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary' by Voltaire (1764) But despite the trust and awe that these books inspired, it has been found that they were forgeries based on an older pagan idea, with hidden messages contained within them designed to give credence as a prophesized religion. Many respectable people, including scholars and the most educated Romans, had been fooled by them, as we saw in Voltaire's comments above. This proves that belief that prophecies are genuine is easy to come by amongst credulous humans, and that it is easy to make people believe that texts have a divine source even when they are purely human products. Forgeries in the Christian Bible The Bible contains multiple forged texts. That is - texts that are written in the name of someone by an author who hides his own real identity. Bart Ehrman is the foremost scholar of the critical study of Biblical texts who has written many books on ideas which are now accepted by nearly all historians: “Some have argued that the forged books that made it into the Bible (such as the Pastoral Epistles, and 3 other letters written in the name of Paul), were not 'bad' forgeries, but were written because their authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit. German scholar Kurt Aland articulated this view. The doublethink idea was that it was really the Holy Spirit that was writing, therefore, it would have been fraudulent to use their own name! In other words, some theologians have held that God sends messages that require Humans to put down other people's names as the author so that the reader wouldn't mistake God's message for their own message. But it makes very little sense, because it seems that all the authors put down other Human's names as the author. Not only that, but to believe that God would send a message in this way is to believe that God itself causes deceit and lies. It seems somewhat more honest to simply prepend writings with 'Thus says the Spirit' rather than to lie about the author. ” ' ' by Bart Ehrman (2011) 5.3. Your Own Experiences? The and the both contain verses where believers are greatly rewarded for trusting in signs, symbols, portends, dream visions and waking hallucinations of both the visual and aural type. People have acted on these, done God's will and preached God's revelations off of the back of them. Many a saint, prophet and revered holy man has been proclaimed as a result of their confidence in experience(s) they have had. Conversely, many people in the and the have been punished, chastised, warned or even killed because they did not trust in signs sent to them, or in revelations proclaimed by others. In the example given in this text, remember that Balaam in does not take heed when his donkey is resisting his commands. The donkey was resisting because it could see a sign from God (an angel). The man did not trust in his donkey's reluctance when he should have. He got away with merely apologizing to God for his sin. But more seriously, warns that unless you believe all of God's messengers, then you are as good as a disbeliever (destined for hell). In the world's monotheistic religions then, it is the norm - the default - to expect people to believe anything that might be a sign from God. Such people are rewarded by God, and, those who do not do this, are sometimes punished by God. More verses from the and the are given below. Doubt is not an option. However, there are a seemingly endless and continual stream of visions, dreams, signs, prophecies, prophets, wonders and warnings all of which are said to come from God. It is impossible to believe them all: • There are simply too many so-called prophets and signs from God. It is impossible to analyse every dream, every shape in the clouds, every proclamation from across the world that the divine will has been freshly ascertained. To do so is to lose all fidelity in any particular belief or practice. • Most of these signs contradict each other. Given that most of them contradict each other, if any of them are right it means that most of them are wrong. • There are many biological, neurochemical, electromagnetic and artificial causes of mystical experiences. These range from intentional devices such as LSD, to highly concocted laboratory experiments where electrical stimulation of the brain causes immediate transcendentalist feelings and experiences in subjects. • Given the above, it is clear that most events that would once be called religious, 'from God', are actually purely man-made - even if it subconsciously or unwillingly so. What is needed is objective criteria on which to judge such things. The best human endeavour along this road is the combination of psychology, psychiatry and neurology, all of which attempt to rule out physiological and biological causes of these types of events. The problem is that these sciences are so far advanced that no experiences remain unexplained. We are left in the situation where no-one trusts new revelations on the basis that there already been so many firmly established religious traditions (which between them claim to know all there is to be known about spiritual matters), and that we know so many of the secular causes of such experiences, that we know their source is not divine. We now doubt - as psychologists have suspected since the dawn of psychology - that all mystics and prophets of God do in fact have their experiences sourced from purely Earthly and psychological phenomenon. If you go down the route recommended by the holy books and accept all as possible signs from God then you end up with doctrinal anarchy where no religion nor belief can stand firm against the torrent of revelation. If you go down the path where you objectively attempt to judge what experiences are true or not, then you end up agreeing with the medical and scientific world that all such experiences are manmade. From a religious point of view, neither route in satisfactory. Luckily for them, most believers do not sit down for too long philosophizing over these issues. See: • • • 5.4. Pascal's Wager: Is it Safer to Believe Than to Doubt? How can we tell which mystical communications are from God? The question raises problems when we learn how many forged and fake prophecies there have been in history, that have actually come to be widely believed and trusted. Skeptics come to the conclusion that we should distrust all Human texts that claim to be divine because so far, all concluded investigations have found that such texts have been written by fallible Humans. But those who are influenced by Pascal's Wager would ask this question: isn't it safer to believer than to not? But the problem is worse than having to make a choice between believing if a particular message is from God or not. Theologically, there is a greater risk than merely being wrong over what messages you accept. “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ” “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. ” Any powerful spirit can pretend to be good. Even a being of complete evil, like Satan in the Christian Bible, is said to be able to appear 'as an angel of light' (). And in,, without Muhammad noticing that they were from the most evil being rather than angel Gabriel. That a being of complete evil can hide its true nature and appear as good is a genuine warning from world religions; how much easier must it be for lesser demons and naughty spirits to hide their lesser quantities of evil (e.g. Some groups of, that ought to be overthrown. Such dualistic battles are common in gnostic and mystery religions. We poor Human beings have little chance of determining who are the good, and who are the bad, in the world of gods, angels, demons and spirits. In other words, it is theologically safer if you by default distrust all texts that claim to be divine. The above text is taken from my full page about Pascal's Wager:. Here is the contents menu for that page: • • • • • • • • • • • • 6. Christianity: Examples from the Bible The in the contains two examples of some very limited communication methods used by God. Both would have serious deleterious consequences if we didn't ignore these verses. • has God say ' Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream'. But this is a clear-cut path to chaos and anarchy, and would immediately undermine all religion. If we trusted, then, it would mean that isn't true, because too many people have had visions of Krishna and Buddha. Likewise, cannot be true because too many people have had visions of a monotheistic God. Instead, it must be the case that most visions are actually wrong - they are delusions and illusions. Fortunately for us, we have (see: ). We know simply to disregard. • tells a rather odd story where a man, Balaam, is travelling one way, when God wants him to go another. God's method of communication here - out of all the means available to the miracle-worker Creator of the Universe, is to have the donkey do things. At first the donkey merely resists because God sends an invisible angel to stand in their way, that only the donkey can see. The man, of course, has no idea why the donkey is being stubborn and strikes the donkey a few times. I could not think of a poorer method of communication than an unspeaking invisible angel. It is so daft that the makes fun of it in - 'indeed, the most disagreeable of sounds is the voice of donkeys'. When the donkey speaks, things get a little clearer - eventually. The moral of the story is somewhat shaky: if an animal resists doing what you want, then do not make it obey you because it might be God trying to communicate with you. • The parables of Jesus are famous for two reasons. Firstly, because they are often catchy and often repeated by many in the influential Christian world. And secondly, because they are so confusing that consensus on their meanings is very rare, and, often in the New Testament itself it describes Jesus' very own disciples as not understanding them. “It seems that not only does the Bible describe a God who is a very poor communicator, but that the Bible itself is communicated very poorly. ” It is theologically problematic that Jesus decided not to write anything down. For thousands of years,. The Bible has caused endless confusion with the irregularities, inconsistencies and ambiguities of its text. On top of that are the mistranslations, cultural misunderstandings and outright subjectivist attempts at exegesis by those who are genuinely and passionately trying to understand the core text of their religion. It seems that not only does the Bible describe a God who is a very poor communicator, but that the Bible itself is communicated very poorly. It cannot be the case, therefore, that people need the Bible nor that people have to know the right things, or have the right beliefs, in order to fulfil God's plan. (In-)famous playwright Tim Rice once had this idea, too, and put it to verse.: “. You'd have managed Peter better if you'd had it planned Now why'd you choose such a backward time and such a strange land? If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication! ” Jesus Christ Superstar (1971) Written by Tim Rice 7. Islam: God Sends Messengers Who Speak the Local Language (Contradictions) of the says ' And We sent not a Messenger except with the language of his people, in order that he might make (the Message) clear for them. Then Allah misleads whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise' (Mohsin Kahn translation). Muhammad spoke in Arabic and confirms that the Quran is in Arabic. Says that each people has a Messenger sent in their own language: The Arabic is only for Arabs. As this is not the language of the rest of the world, then, Muhammad's message was not for those others. The says in that 'every nation' has had a messenger, telling them to worship God. It is clear from the accounts of religious revelations from across various cultures and nations however, that most of those other messengers have differed from what Muhammad says. The and in the Far East, Native Americans and Aboriginees and the Indian subcontinent have not had messengers preaching the strict of 's kind. It is clear that the God of the has been having some serious communications issues, because all of these verses contradict another one: says that the message of the 'is nothing less than a Message to all the worlds' (or 'to all beings' depending on translation). But more verses say otherwise (as above) so the comment in is probably the errant one. Is the Qur'an clear? Says God has sent the to us, but, there are some verses that are ' ambiguous', containing ' hidden meanings. No one knows its hidden meanings except Allah' but also only ' men of understanding' will understand the message. Contradicting this, however, is which says that the is clear. Penguin Classics edition. Originally published 1956. Current version published by Penguin Group Ltd, London,. Translation by N. Quotes taken from 1999 edition.. The NIV is the best translation for accuracy whilst maintaining readability.. I prefer to take quotes from the NIV but where I quote the Bible en masse I must quote from the KJV because it is not copyrighted, whilst the NIV is.. Breuilly, O'Brien & Palmer (1997) Religions of the World. Hardback book. Subtitled: 'The Illustrated Guide to Origins, Beliefs, Traditions, & Festivals'. Published by Lionheart Books. By Elizabeth Breuilly, Joanne O'Brien & Martin Palmer. Published for Transedition Limited and Fernleigh Books. Donnelly, Jack (2013). Published by Cornell University Press. Ehrman, Bart (2011). Hardback book. Subtitled: 'Writing in the Name of God - Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are'. Published by HarperCollins, New York,. Gilovich, Thomas (1991). Paperback book. 1993 edition. Published by The Free Press, NY, USA. Harrison, Guy P. Amazon Kindle digital edition. Published by Prometheus Books, New York,. Momen, Moojan (1999). Paperback book. Published by Oneworld Publications, Oxford,.. Nukariya, Kaiten. Professor of Kei-O-Gi-Jiku University and of So-To-Shu Buddhist College, Tokyo. (1913) Zen - The Religion of the Samurai. Subtitled: 'A study of Zen philosophy and discipline in China and Japan'. Amazon Kindle digital edition produced by John B. Hare and proofread by Carrie R. Price, Robert M. Published by Prometheus Books, NY,. Stanton, Elizabeth C. (1815-1902) (1898). Amazon Kindle digital edition produced by Carrie Lorenz and John B. Stenger, Prof. Published by Prometheus Books, NY,. Stenger is a Nobel-prize winning physicist, and a skeptical philosopher whose research is strictly rational and evidence-based. (1694-1778) (1764) Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. Amazon Kindle digital edition produced by Juliet Sutherland, Lisa Riegel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Weatherley, Lionel A. Hardback book. Published by J. Arrowsmith, Bristol,. This is a hard to find book. Bath Library has a copy, accessed 2012 Dec 14. Footnotes • Stanton (1898) p130.• Stenger (2007) p176. Added to this page on.• Added to this page on.• Gilovich (1991) chapter 6.• Momen (1999) p332-335.• (2011)• Price (2003) digital location 333.• Weatherley (1891) p99.• Added to this page on.• Breuilly, O'Brien & Palmer (1997) p10,150-153.• Nukariya (1913) chapter 3 ' The Universe is the Scripture of Zen: Scripture is no More than Waste Paper' footnote 388.• Added to this page on.• Added to this page on.• Harrison (2008) chapter 12 ' A sacred book proves my god is real'. The second part of the quote is from the introductory chapter in the book, digital location 150-161. Added to this page on.• Added to this page on.• Voltaire (1764) p179. Added to this page on.• Ehrman (2011) p173-175. Added to this page on.• Ehrman (2011) p123-124. Added to this page on.•: Added sections on and including scriptural verses, and have slightly rewritten and editted the opening sections. Tetsuji Kawashima et al. “Capacity Enhancement of Cellular CDMA by Traffic-Based Control of Speech Bit Rate”, Aug. 1, 1996, 1-6,8-13. Wong W T K et al, “Low Rate Speech Coding for Telecommunications”, 1-6, 8-13. UMTS (XX.04) V0.8.0 1999-01—UTRA FDD, Multiplexing, Channel Coding And Interleaving Description, European Telecommunications Standards Institute 1998, pp 1-17. “Using Rate-Matching DTX for Intersystem Handover Preparation”, ETSI SMG2 UMTS L1 Expert Group, Espoo, Helenski, Dec. 14-18, 1998, 4 pages. “Ultra Physical Layer Description FDD Parts (v0.4, Jun. 25, 1998)”, SMG2 UMTS Physical Layer Expert Group, pp 1-49. What is claimed is: 1. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method for transmitting information in a radiocommunication system, the information being transmitted in compressed form between a transmitter and a receiver, and to a corresponding radiocommunication system, particularly a corresponding mobile radiocommunication system. It is known that information is transmitted embedded in a frame structure in mobile radiocommunication systems. The frame structure includes a number of frames transmitted sequentially, each frame exhibiting a particular number of time slots.
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1/11/2018 0 Comments Dating A Girl Who Has Been RapedPage 1 of 3 (,, ) I'm just hanging out with someone who I think is special. It's taking a long time to win her heart but it's a gamble I'm willing to take. One thing that troubles me is she confessed to me she's been molested. We don't talk about it at all and never gone into detail since it's a very sensitive subject. But what I want to know is there a difference between the two? Of the few times she mentioned this she only uses the M word, not the R. Although it doesnt matter to me because it was never her fault, does the choice of her word make a difference to how she views intimacy/sex? When someone says molested does it mean no penetration or abuse by a family member? Has anyone out there dated a someone who's been raped or molested? How did it turn out? Posted: 4/18/2005 5:19:38 PM It's very tough. Takes a special guy to take on that kind of baggage. I am currently dating a survivor. According to the comments, some people have had difficulty dating survivors, but in my case we just had our anniversary and it's going amazingly. The best advice I can give you is to read 'A man's guide to helping a woman who has been raped', found via another link here. The details are nowhere near as important as the consequences and that's what you have to deal with. I have some experience with it but I'm not inclined to write an essay so let me just tell you that you have to always keep things in perspective and ensure your words and actions are consistent with someone who is going to be hypersenstive to all sorts of things and you might not necessarily make the connection every time. It's hard work, dude! Posted: 4/18/2005 5:26:27 PM as a sidenote white.i am a speaker for the national coalition against abused women/men, and sexual assault.if u ever wanna talk.just msg me privately here.or anyone else for that matter.and yes--i am a survivor--yes, it's hard.but guess what? If anybody expects to find a person to share life with, who has no past, no issues, and nothing to work through.then they're looking for someone who never experiences growth, and change.sorry, got a little side-tracked there. Posted: 4/18/2005 5:41:08 PM It's distressingly common. I echo the comment about slow. Jul 24, 2012. When his girlfriend, Marina*, told him that she had been raped in high school, Tim's* first reaction was that he didn't know how to respond. Shock quickly became. Tim and Marina knew to make their relationship successful, they would have to work through the sexual trauma together. The most important. Can guys tell if a girl has been raped? I've really been wondering lately if you guys can tell if a girl has been raped before? If a girl has a few issues both emotional and mental does that make her un-datable? Say she's been through a lot in her past like getting raped, being abused as a. Female sex tours, marketed as “holidays” or “self-discovery,” have been with us for years. Expect them to only increase in popularity over the next decade. Veeery slow, no pressure at all. Also there may be some weird triggers. One woman I knew (mother of an ex girlfriend) rather than girlfriend absolutely could not abide tounges or anything to do with them because she had an uncle who used to lick her face. I remember watching this biography a long time ago about this famous indian/pakistani outlaw. Her problem extended to removing her clothing or having the guy put his hands on her in any way. I had annother ex who simply could not abide being restrained. If she got her arms stuck in a sweater she'd flip. I wish you luck with it man, it's a long road, but there could be someone great at the end. Patience patience patience. Posted: 4/18/2005 5:57:30 PM White, as with Justaguy - I don't know many women who haven't been 'taken advantage of' or raped. I have (both of the above) on several occassions, by several different men, including a husband. And I was fired from a really good job for not having sex with the boss. These things are constants in women's lives, generally until they reach an age when they say NO really clearly, loudly or violently. I have had to get violent. It's been years and I still jump when people touch me - except specified gentlemen. I gained weight because I was tired of the men hitting on me, and expecting something. But, it doesn't stop me from expressing my love or needs. I am capable of seperating the good guys from the bad guys. Hopefully you can encourage her to trust you to listen patiently, move slowly and White, if she says she has it behind her, then she probably does. Most of us do. You must be one of the really good guys - God bless you for being one. Posted: 4/18/2005 6:00:51 PM I was raped and molested as a child, and in relationships i feel like I need to be physical or the guy won't like me as much as those prettier girls down at hooters. It's hard to be in relationships. I still am kinda leary of men, and guns scare me to death. But the best thing you can do for her is be there to talk, don't pressure her into sex, and when she agrees to it, make sure she really wants to do it, not that she feels pressured into doing it. Just be the best boyfriend you can be. Posted: 4/18/2005 10:58:42 PM Don't be so general Van.therapists will tell you that, but I've noticed them to be perhaps initial reactions and then people grow from there. I know, you said COULD wind up. But if I'm good at anything, it's breaking molds, I didn't fit into EITHER of the boxes you listed above. I remained a rather typical teen as far as anyone could tell. Laughed a lot, made straight As, was active in extracurricular activities. People need time to heal, yes.but most of us I'd say are functional, many don't carry baggage. Posted: 4/18/2005 11:08:31 PM I have seen molested friend come around but its only with someone she's openned up with and talked to and known for years and trusted. We have (familiy member) adopted an abused dog and the saying was, 'let her come to you.' She'd run or cower or no play when we initiated anything. Now she's letting us play with her and other doggie. I think that trust is hard to get back. I spoke with a woman that felt she had to (do the sex) and another (that cant) - depending on situation.we all know them.wow must bemore common than I thought!!! Like motorcycle accidents we all know someone!!! Eureka Yeah, those circuits are wired deeply in the past.I guess what do you do with a scar or wound.just take it ez (depending on severityh of injury) of it let it heal.and hopefully you can work out your sore tennis are or tennis life.with help of coaches and friends.and therapy.yeah.pain and hurt.we all been there.some worse than others. Best you're kind. (Image credit: ) I think that the best thing about Thanksgiving (aside from spending it with friends and family members) is the turkey. You eat it the day of with piles of gravy, that night in sandwiches slathered with cranberry sauce, and often for many days after in different dishes. 6 related questions. Im feeding 11 people (9 adults, 2 kids) and have ordered a 6-7kilo turkey which is costing me between £60-£70. I told my mum this yesterday and she c. Refresh the display. Show 100 messages; Add a message. Expensive turkeys are generally free range, ethically reared and humanely slaughtered. How Much Turkey per. This Is Our Favorite Place in the Home to Add Wallpaper. I have been roasting two 10-12 pound birds for 14 -16 people for the last few. So, if you're like me, having too little turkey can be a total disaster. Do you know how to choose the right amount of turkey to feed your Thanksgiving Day guests? The Golden Turkey Rule When it comes to feeding a crowd, having too much food is always better than having too little. With the goal of having plenty of turkey for Thanksgiving dinner with enough for leftovers for next day meals and doggie bags, remember this simple rule and you'll never question how much turkey to buy again. The rule of thumb for buying turkey: 1 pound per person This is a brilliantly simple rule to follow anytime you're cooking meat on the bone, but this is especially perfect for the holidays when leftovers are key for feeding out-of-town guests throughout the weekend. If you really, really like leftovers and are perfectly content to eat turkey sandwiches until your head falls off, then a pound-and-a-half per person will do the trick. Maybe this rule leads you to buying two turkeys instead of one giant one, or maybe you've been buying too big a bird this whole time. No longer, folks — this is your answer! Just remember 'a pound per person' and you'll be set come the big day, and all the turkey sandwiches that follow. 1/11/2018 0 Comments Cheat Harajuku Dating ParadiseThe Kristen Archives - Just Bestiality Stories THE KRISTEN ARCHIVES The Kristen Archives are a free erotic story resource for consenting adults. Please come back often. If you find a broken link, please help us by reporting it to: JUST BESTIALITY STORIES This is a collection of bestiality stories from the Kristen Directories. If you have some good 'bestiality stories' -- or have written one that isn't here, how about sending it in so everyone can read it. Newest stories added May 13, 2012 - A young lady tries out the neighbor's dog and then gets one of her own. (F/beast, voy, mast) - My early experiences in bestiality, all 100% true. (m-teen/beast, 1st, mast) - A Charlie Brown Christmas story that would never make it on to TV. (bg, gg, 1st, youths, oral, anal, orgy, beast, parody) - I am what I consider to be a normal housewife with normal sexual needs. But after my husband offered to look after his brother's dog while they were on holiday things started to change. This is a true tale of a UK housewife (F/beast) - This story is a spoof of the Dickens, A Christmas Carole. (MFF, bi, 1st, beast) - I am Prachi, a 20-year-old young lady from Pune, India. I am sending you a story about something that really happened with a friend and me some months ago. (FF, dog) - We had gone for a drive when we encountered an abandoned doggy. He had fucked us both but then Roshni left me, bound and gagged, and disappeared with my car while I was fucking the dog. The dog, having shot its cum into me, also ran off. Here I was, in the mid-afternoon, naked and alone at a rest area in a lonely farm area on a deserted Indian highway. It is very difficult to put in words what I was feeling at that time. (F/dog, bd, india) - Sara and Amy bring home Rex. Then they learn what doggie sex is all about. (FF/beast) - A middle aged woman begins to realize her desires, both with man and beast. (MF, beast) - A short story about a boy's masturbation experiences with the family dog. (m/dog, beast, 1st, mast) - Cindy was a tough policewoman, tall, 40D breast, leggy and proud until she stumbles upon a setup on the turf of the Red Bloods. The gang's leader eventually breaks Cindy and her fate is to be a whore for the gang. (M+F, rp, v, beast, hum) - Cheerleader Leah stays behind after practice to take care of the team mascots, a pair of Bengal tigers. Her sense of duty gets her into deep trouble. (F-teen/beast, reluc, ws) - A slave must endure the punishment inflicted by her Master, which includes encounters with animals at the local zoo. (Mdom/F, bd, tor, beast) - Joyce likes her men macho. In Harajuku Dating Paradise you can experience the thrill of finding a cute girl while wandering the streets of Tokyo. Each type of girl you can date presents the. Browse all manga alphabetical order. Hundreds of high-quality free manga for you, with a list being updated daily. Naruto manga, Bleach manga, One Piece manga, Air. She also likes rough sex. And so when she found herself pinned down by her Great Dane and felt something hot and wet pressing against her anus, she didn't try all that hard to extricate herself. (MF, F/beast, rough sex) - A woman's 18-year-old, orphaned nephew is being seduced by an older woman -- a twice -- divorced, gold-digging bitch, when the boy's aunt and her Great Dane intervene. (FF, nc, beast) - Life from a dog's point of view. (F/beast) - A short story from the point of view of the dog. Bruce helps his master who is having an affair. (MF, beast) - Johnny and Jodi are 11 year old twin orphans. They go home with Bill and Joan Hill for a weekend to see if they would like to be adopted by the couple. It turns into a weekend of sex and fun. (MF/bg, extreme-ped, bi, inc, oral, anal, orgy, beast) - Two girls go for a ride out to a lake in the woods. There they have plenty of fun with a horse. (FF, ws, beast) - Andy and Sandy are having fun with Andy's dog Max. (FF/beast, ws) - Part 3 of the story about the sexual adventures of Andy and Sandy. This time they have fun with Andy's dog Max and another human friend of theirs, along with her dog. (FF, beast, orgy, ws) - Bored housewife finds ways to entertain herself. (F-solo, mast, exh, beast) - My first experience in the world of bestiality. (F/beast) - After seeing my Mom doing a Great Dane I realized that I had her right where I wanted her, under my control. (m-teens/F, reluc, blkmail, inc, 1st, beast) - Middle aged couple get rid of the kids and go on their first holiday in ten years. John has won a bet which means that his wife has to agree to do everything he asks her to do. First in a series of stories hopefully! (MF, exh, voy, bd, swing, beast) - A young girl is 'playing' with an excited neighborhood dog when she is 'caught' by two high school boys. (mm/g, youths, reluc, 1st, beast, blkmail) - Sherri takes pity on her Guinea Pig's enforced celibacy and gives him some pleasure. (F/beast, oral) - 'Yes I know this is sick. Looking back, I don't know why I first did it. I guess I was very horny at the time, hadn't had a man for over a year back then.' A horny young girl decides to try having sex with the family pet. (F/dog) - A preteen girl has a relationship with a K9 friend. (M/g, g/beast, ped, voy, 1st, mast) - The story of a young girl's introduction to the joys of sex and how she was repeatedly gang-banged by the guys of a paedophile-ring, fucked by her mother's boyfriends, even fucked by transvestites. Also how the love of her dog's cock knotting deep inside her became her favourite sort of sex. (M+g, extreme-ped, 1st, inc, bi, bd, beast, public-sex) - A story about a married lady and her desires for K9s and a horse. (F/beast) - A lady fantasizes about a horse cock and then gets the real thing. (F/b, ped, F/beast, voy) - A Cold and Lonely Arabian Night in Agrabah - Loneliness had become an unwelcome companion in the frigid winter nights of Agrabah. The days were still warm, but the desert cold swept through the palace with a viciousness that reminded Jasmine of vizier Jafar's smile. (MF, beast) - A story about a lady and her dogs. (F/beasts) - This is a story for the ladies about a woman and her sexual fantasies. They deal with several men, incest, canines, and young girls. Some of them are true as she lives out her wildest fantasies while masturbating. (MMF, Fg, F/beast, ped, inc) - Alan at fifteen discovers he is gay and so he is sent to live with me. (Mm, ped, nc, huml, beast, ws) - Alanna wanders into a strange and remote stud farm and ends up being screwed by the owner and his animals. (MF, horse, rp, beast) - A young couple from the deep south offend the wrong black man and are taken to task. They learn a deep and abiding lesson in race relations. (Mm+/F, nc, intr, exh, blkmail, beast) - One morning after the kids left for school, wearing only a t-shirt and panties, I called our dog into the house and brought him into my bedroom. (F/dog) - A friend's daughter takes care of the house while I'm on a business trip. (MF, F/beast, exh, voy) - In this parody of the movie, Alice's adventures in Wonderland begin without her panties. She discovers that many of the odd characters she meets are easily aroused by what they see of her. (g/M, g/beast, mast, voy, first, movie-parody, fantasy) - Alicia Silverstone is drugged and spirited away from a boring party, only to be subjected to a gangrape. (Mm+/F, nc, rp, beast, oral, anal, intr, celeb-parody) - As a bi transvestite, I regularly use the park to pick up other guys. This is the story of what happened one evening where I not only picked up a guy, I picked up something else. (MM, tv, oral, anal, beast) - My wife Allison gets locked out of the house naked while trying to grab the mail. The neighbor's dog takes advantage of the situation. (MMF, nc, rp, wife, beast, bd) - A mixture of real events and fantasies about what happened to me as a young girl. Parts one and two deal with my rape by a dog and then the dog's owner. (Mf, beast, 1st, voy) - Alice and Bill find their daughter's flute and get a wicked idea. (M/g, ped, inc, 1st, beast, mast, orgy) - At her parent's cabin in the mountains, Laura plans spending a nice day reading poetry. The day is beautiful, she is alone and happy, and has not a care in the world. Then Laura meets her neighbor. Join her as Laura spends the rest of the day tied to tree, a victim of her neighbor's shapeshifting. He is a mental werewolf. (MF, rp, v, 1st, beast, mc) - In response to the many requests (mainly from young ladies, let me stress) to publish the conclusion to young Sophie's further interaction with her pet. (f-teen/beast, 1st) - A woman and her wolf alone on the frozen tundra take refuge in a shelter. (MF, inc, beast) - The whole family chips in to teach young Amanda a lesson. (M+/g, ped, inc, reluc, beast, gb) - Life as an overseas representative for your country can bring hidden dangers. (MMF, mc, beast) - From the dog's perspective. Two kindred minds meet in a sexual embrace. (F/beast) - A Mom finds her son has gotten into his father's Lavitra. Now Mom needs to get him to orgasm to relieve the pressure. She gets her twin daughters to help. (F/bgg, ped, inc, bi, beast, humor) - A young lady on holiday in Greece visits a rural Amphitheatre and imagination and fantasy become entwined. (MMF, beast, reluc-exh, fantasy) - A girl and her dog explore the refinements of girl and dog sex, with pleasing results. (f/beast) - Amy thinks her dad is Santa and after seeing him have sex with her mom, she wants in. (MF, Mg, ped, inc, beast, bi) - An eleven year old girl with an infatuation for a dog on a TV commercial ends up with the same dog as her pet for her birthday. The dog really has his work cut out for him as he takes care of Amy, her friends, and her mother. (MFf/beast, ped, inc, 1st, creampie) - Amy told her parents she wasn't feeling well so she could stay home from high school. She hoped that her boyfriend would come over but that didn't happen. Something very unexpected did. (f-teen/beast) - Jean loves her two doggies and with the arrival of Sampson, her new pony, what happens next is one of her wildest fantasies comes true. (F/beast) - The Great Dane advanced cautiously toward the pool area, his haunches lowered as if he were stalking a wary prey. He inhaled, following that compelling odor, drawn to Tracy's steaming cunt like an iron filing to a magnet. (Fmf+, underage, inc, beast, orgy) - The tawdry recollections of a suburban housewife led into a life of sin and debauchery by her wicked son and her own unquenchable lust. (F/M-teen, reluc, inc, voy, exh, beast) - - - - - A teenage female has an online conversation, only to end up having forced sex with her lab rot mix. (f-teen/beast, nc) - An attractive, sexually aggressive woman is tired of her prudish boyfriend. When she visit's a girlfriend to complain about her sex life with her boyfriend and finds her not home, she sits with Saxon, her friend's German Sheppard for a while. Ultimately she finds a lover who doesn't think she's too aggressively sexual. (MF, FF, FF-beast, oral, anal, orgy) - A first person account of a woman that takes a joy ride, discovers a horse and his female owner and then suddenly finds herself taking on a new friendship in more ways than one. (FF, beast) - Teenage girl and her Labrador Retreiver. (f-teen/beast, ped, 1st) - The adventures a bi tv gets up to with other guys when he goes out in his car for the evening, and even more weird and varied things that happen when he meets a sexy female neighbour with similar interests. (MMF, exh, bi, trans, beast, sex-in-public) - Girl working at pet store and plays with one of the dogs. (F/beast, oral, work) - A young lad is working on a farm for the summer taking care of the animals until one fateful night when his world is turned upside down and his eyes are opened. (M/beasts, oral, anal) - All Linda could think about on her way home was how glad she would be to see Mao. It seemed really funny that during one of the lowest points in her life she could find a lover like Mao. After her husband had left with the kids Linda thought she would never be able to have a loving relationship again. But Mao had changed that. (F/animals) - A pretty young wife is buffeted by forces beyond her control, by both man and beast. (MF, F/dog, wife, nc, rp, mast) - A long term friendship turns into something more when a row leaves Anne feeling vulnerable and lonely and I am able to offer something other than just a shoulder to cry on. (MF, oral, anal, beast, rom) - Anne get's turned on in her sleep by Rooster, her new German Shepard, and has multiple orgasms. Ultimately Rooster takes Anne, and she never wakes up? Of course Calvin, Anne's husband, assists and enjoys the goings on. (MF, beast) - A friend and I were talking about our 'firsts' and she loved my story. So I thought I would try and write it out for anyone who wanted to read it. This is my true story. It's up to you whether or not you believe it. It happened over 2 years, from when I was 12 to 14 years old. I still miss my best friend's dad. (mf, ped, beast, shaved, oral) - A friend and I were talking about our 'firsts' and she loved my story. So I thought I would try and write it out for anyone who wanted to read it. This is my true story. It's up to you whether or not you believe it. It happened over 2 years, from when I was 12 to 14 years old. I still miss my best friend's dad. (mf, ped, beast, shaved, oral) - A friend and I were talking about our 'firsts' and she loved my story. So I thought I would try and write it out for anyone who wanted to read it. This is my true story. It's up to you whether or not you believe it. It happened over 2 years, from when I was 12 to 14 years old. I still miss my best friend's dad. (mf, ped, beast, shaved, oral) - This is a nasty, filthy, dirty story that deals with incestuous relations between a girl, her mom, her sisters, and her grandmother. It is very anal oriented and it also deals with bestiality. So, don't read any further if you're not sickly perverted and into that kind of thing. (Ff, FFf, ped, inc, anal, beast) - A story about an encounter I had with a girl and her dog during a vacation at a Swedish beach. (MF, ws, beast) - During the early years and during her teenage years a girl becomes aware of her charms and she uses them to get what she wants. (M+/f, ped, inc, exh, 1st, mast, oral, beast, glory, tv) - Wife is filmed inserting large objects in her cunt. Then her girlfriend assists and they eat each others pussy. Then they both fuck dogs, a nice time is had by all. (FFM, exh, toys, beast) - Posted by 'The Editor' - Blair is gorgeous and sexy but the preppies she meets at the formal dinner don't do it for her so she daydreams about her first time - under the tropical rainforest with a native boy when she was twelve - then her best friend comes by with a hairy hunk - just the way Blair likes 'em - and they have a threesome. (M+/F, beast) - Raped by an Ape - Sarki was a huge mountain gorilla, and usually not very amicable. But he had seemed to take to Kate immediately, usually hanging over her shoulder or something whenever she was in his cage. (F/ape, nc?) - Young Gia lives a wild and reckless life at fourteen. It finally catches up to her though and her mother decides to send her to her sister's farm in the country. They have something special in mind for this hot young girl. (Ff-teen, ped, reluc, inc, voy, mast, oral, beast) - This is a story about Ann, a lady who has a very strong sex drive. She is also into doggie sex and gets even with her hubby as she has the doggie fuck him while she has him tied to the bed. Then both of then start to enjoy him being pounded while the hubby is making love to her. A little on the wild side. (MF, M/beast, reluc) - Suzy wanders around the countryside after escaping her parent's attention for a while only to find out that bestiality is very interesting. (f pre-teen, dog, nc) - When Bill asked me how would I like to make $10,000, I thought he had gone mad. (M/beast, MM) - A Master takes his pet to fulfill a fantasy. (MMF, bdsm, beast) - Trevor sends Vernon a few e-mails describing what he's seen on a website with two webcam feeds. (MMm, oral, anal, beast) - Lisa Wilcox, one of the US competitors in the equestrian events at the Olympics, has a tender moment with her partner. I originally posted this story to a live-journal community devoted to Olympic RPS mostly as a joke, but I've grown to like the story, and think other people here would, too. (F, beast) - A mother and her young teen daughter arrive with their dog Max at the cabin they've inherited, where the mother spent a lot of time as a girl with her mother and grandfather. The young mother, full with unrealized fantasies of her grandfather here in the forest from when she was a girl, discovers her daughter and Max, and watches, further fueling her own desires. (Ff, underage, inc, 1st-lesbian-expr, mast, oral, beast) - Three redheaded nymphomaniacs, three horses with a craving for human cunt. (F/ff-teens, ped, nc, beast, inc, 1st, voy, bd) - A family of four go off on a family vacation in a motorhome and are arrested and sentenced to a month of sexual servitude. (M+/MFffm, ped, nc, rp, voy, bi, inc, oral, anal, beast, ws) - Deep under the ground, a girl is brought before a monster. But it might not be what it looks like. (F/beast, reluc, 1st, bd, sci-fi) - An older woman writes to her young lover whilst he is serving in the navy. He has heard tales from his shipmates about donkey sex shows in Mexico, but doesn't believe them. The woman writes to confirm these shows do take place and adds her own experiences witnessing sex between a pony and a farmer's wife. (MF, F/beast, voy) - A woman out for a hike in the woods meets a man and gets more than she bargained for when the moon comes up. (MF, beast, fisting, fantasy) - - Stranded in the desert after his car breaks down, a man treks to the nearest sign of civilization only to find the surprise of his life. (F/beast, voy) - No one would ever believe that Rita would have sex with a dog, least of all Rita. But sometimes circumstances arise and we discover that the abhorrent isn’t really bad at all. In fact it can be quite nice. (F/dog, 1st time) - Did you ever notice that a man's cock has about the same shape as a cow teat? A true story. (M/beast, oral) - A young baby sitter is drugged and ravished orally, vaginally and anally by older man and his dog. (Mf, drugs, oral, anal, beast, nc) - Pretty blue-eyed Cindy, the teenage babysitter decides to satisfy her sexual cravings with the neighborhood dogs, eventually introducing a girlfriend to the idea. (f/beast, teen) - My wife and I were babysitting Karen; the daughter of the wife's brother. Things were pretty normal until they went to the dogs! (MF/F-teen, beast, nc, inc) - Beth and Bill had been married for some time when one day Beth realized that her husband had been cheating on her. That revelation changed their relationship and their sex life, which soon included friends and family. (MFmf, ped, bi, inc, orgy, beast, swingers) - Wife's day with the neighborhood dogs (F/dog) - Bea has some unusual experiences while visiting her sister in Texas. (MM-teens/F, rough, reluc, FF-bi, inc, beast, orgy) - A 17 year old girl describes the events in which she became a bitch for a German Shepherd dog. (M/F-teen, F-teen/beast, inc, preg, fantasy) - I've always suspected that woman have richer, wilder fantasies than men. Men are only beginning to perceive the true nature of woman's being. They have created a false image of her. She's' neither an angel nor a bitch in heat. If she is no longer an enigma, She's' certainly an everlasting source of wonder and rich in unexplored possibilities in every domain of life. (Mdom/F, oral, anal, beast, bd) - A recap of when my life changed forever. I had to cope with a strict mother, an ignorant father, and an incestuous brother. It became a lot easier to deal with it all when I found the key to happiness in our barn one day. (mf-teens, inc, 1st, oral, anal, beast) - Down Rio way there's a tradition that still persists today that would shock many a gringo. It's called 'Belly Riding' and has adherents who are wealthy and maybe a little eccentric. Belly riding is an art that only women can perform. It take a special harness that 'slings' the willing female underneath a stallion. She controls the animal with her arms and feet, and an expert can gallop. (f/horses, exh) - A true story of my first summer after college graduation. It's about Berlin, two lesbians, a dog and kinky bondage. (FFF, nc, bd, beast) - A semi-true story of a couple who find a third for their love play. (MF, beast, oral, mast) - An experience and reluctant awakening of hidden desires a young woman meets local farmer who readers her like a book, leading to dog sex. (MF/beast, reluc) - This story is a sequel to my first submission. A woman's second encounter with a man and a dog. (F/beast) - Jessica's husband makes an unscheduled trip home from working out of town, only to find her and her sister, Jodi, preparing for a weekend of interracial partying. He encourages his wife and the weekend finds him watching his wife and her sister parade nude in public, and playing sex slaves for a group of black men. In return for his encouragement, Jessica gives him a new female club member to break in while watching the action. (M+FF, wife, preg, exh, orgy, beast, intr) - A couple in love, both like sex and indulge in it frequently. (MF, beast, exh) - Father and son finally get together watching some old tapes. A story of a young man's exploration of sex. I have changed all recognisable names and places and have switched some events around to make the story more readable, but all the events in this story actually took place. (MM, beasts, voy) - A story about a lady and her dog. She likes it so well that she asks her hubby if she can get another one. (F/beast) - A young woman, saddened by a break-up with her boyfriend, takes care of her friends' dog for the weekend. (F/beast, mast) - Friends living in London explore all types of sex. (MMF, dom, bi, exh, orgy, ws, beast, bd) - A parody of the 1970s sitcom based upon the premise of a hillbilly family that strikes it rich in crude oil and move to Hollywood California to 'tale there place in society.' (f/animal) - A young girl gives herself to her dog. (f-teen/beast, 1st) - A young girl grows up thinking that her Biker parent's swinger life-style is just the normal thing. She spies on her parents swapping and having orgies when they think she's a sleep. Things get even more interesting when at 16 the young woman gets married and takes up her parent's swinger life-style. There's even a south of the border donkey sex show in this story, just about everything except the kitchen sink. (MF, Mf, bg, ped, beast, swing) - A story of a 5th grade student and her biology teacher talking about reproduction. The 5th grader had questions her teacher couldn't answer, so the only way to answer them was to show her, using a dog's penis instead of a human penis as an example. (Fg, ped, beast, 1st, voy) - - - The darker side of a pathetic young man takes over, after his bitchy boss pushes him over the edge. Once unleashed this predatory part of him starts taking what it wants, and nothing can stand in its way. (MFg, MM, ped, nc, mc, beast, sci-fi) - I was a horny 13-year-old and had discovered something new. Being a bitch for the neighbor's dog Rambo was great fun. (mm, beast) - - Mark lay on his bed, on top of his hastily made covers, and roamed his own Naked body. His hand slowly moved down to his hard cock and wrapped around the shaft. He began to stroke himself, only one image, one girl, filled thoughts 24-hours a day. It was his sister. He wanted her. Her face danced before his eyes as his stroking increased. He saw himself fucking her, using her body. He felt that familiar churning in his groin and increased the rhythm. (Mm+/f-teen, blkmail, inc, beast, reluc) - 'My name is Dan and my story began when I was 13. I had a German Husky called Blacky. Well, one day I saw my dog mount a female mutt. I was curious, and watched them until he was done with her. A couple of days later I was in my room with my dog, when he started licking his cock. It started me thinking about him and the bitch he had fucked and my cock got really hard.' (M/M-dog) - Simply put, Virginia wanted to fuck. She didn't care who or where just as long as she got some hot male sausage to stuff into her aching pussy. 'A girl can only go so long without riding the big shaft,' she thought, 'and I've gone about as far as I want to go.' A bi-sexual woman's first time using a dog. (F/dog) - I was riven deep and thickly, plunged right up to the hilt, his cock was really hot, my pussy was totally slippery expanding up as his width filled me up completely, it was oh so glorious, there was no pain, only a delicious rippling distension of my copiously slippery pussy as it gripped the outside of his firm thick long shaft sinking deep into my youthful quim. (FF-teens, youths, mast, beast) - Jane was tending to the Bonobo chimps in the zoo and had found them lovely and adorable, until one afternoon when she found them even more lovable than usual. (F/beast, preg?) - The Smedleys become a decadent lot in a very short time, but that is bound to happen when you combine need, greed, money, four pussies, three dicks, and a dog under one roof. (M+/F-teens, inc, bi, mast, oral, anal, beast) - Doggy and boy's homosexual story - (b/dog) - When I was fifteen, I fell in love with a boy that my parents said was bad. The more they told me how bad he was the more I wanted to show him how much I loved him. (Mdom/F-teen, reluc, beast) - Janice seeks revenge on Carol for trying to seduce her boyfriend. So when her German Shepherd starts sniffing at Carol and then becomes sexually aggressive with her, Janice lets what happens, happen, offering no help whatsoever. (F/beast, nc, rp, voy) - Britney is nervous about upcoming surgery and takes solace in the arms (or paws) of her dog. (F/dog, celeb) - A young teen and her younger friend discover the fun they can have with each other and a horse. (ff-teens/beast, youths, 1st, mast, oral, voy) - What happens when I meet a beautiful girl and her horse. Just a fantasy that never happened. (Ff, ped, 1st, oral, beast) - A voyeur gets a kick out of peeping on families and their sex lives in a wooded neighborhood. (M-voy/MFmf, family-inc, beast) - It all started when Ginny, who was lonely and a bit board waiting for her husband to return from Iraq applied for a job to keep busy. The problem was that she didn't really have any work experience and that made it hard to find a job. (MF, FF, beast, reluc, orgy) - I am caught in the middle of having sex with Brutus a massive dog, when his owner’s daughters Joolie and Jenny come home from school. (Fff/beast, ped, 1st, anal) - Angered by her argument with her boyfriend Mike, Lisa had wanted some time to think alone. She had saddled her black stallion 'Buck' and was now riding him west along a ridge top. A story about Lisa and her horse, Buck. (F/horse) - One woman's fantasy enacted on camera. (MMF, horse, exh, voy, oral, mast, beast) - My tale about getting involved with the Japanese sex industry. (MMf, ped, asian, reluc, 1st, beast) - A girl gets bullied by a gang at school and ends up being dog raped. (M+/f, nc, rp, 1st, bd, mc, orgy, beast) - A girl begins to ride the school bus and finds it to be an arousing experience. (m+teens/g, youths, reluc, voy, 1st, beast) - Two young girls take a bus downtown to get their work permits and get off at the wrong bus stop. They are kidnapped and tormented by an inner-city gang. (M+/ff-teens, nc, rp, bi, oral, anal, intr, huml, beast) - I caressed the pain as I did his cock. Needless to say, we never made it to the bath tub. My ass was raw and welted by the time he came in a gush in my mouth. I lapped up every drop of his cum like a suckling babe. He then probed my cunt to explore my piercings. I had been denied for so long it was hard to keep from cumming the instant he touched me but I knew better. And shortly Master was hard again and he penetrated me deeper and harder then I had ever been. (MF, d/s, s/m, toys, exh, beast) - A couple's sexual adventures on holiday in the USA. There, they're raped by 3 guys on horseback and 2 dogs. (FFM, bi, tv, beast, dog-rp, v) - Shhhh! My mother may be asleep, wait out here while I check. 'Whispered Shelly to her two male companions. Carl whispered. Carl Fields grinned knowingly at Greg Sullivan, as the two of them sat down in the darkened hallway outside the Burnside's front door. (M+F, inc, org, dogs) - A young bride to be is raped and locked away by the jealous suitors she refused. After years of rape and humiliation, she begins to enjoy it. So much so, she involves a would-be rescuer in her debasement. (M+/F, nc, rp, 1st, bd, tor, ws, beast) - A brother and sister on a Caribbean cure with their parents go shopping on a tropical island. The younger brother is offered a cure for his older sister's really bad attitude. The cure makes her his slave. (M+/F, nc, rp, inc, mc, exh, oral, beast) - A young woman gets off work at the mall and walks out to her car. As she is ready to drive away a cold chill runs down her spine when she feels sharp steel pressed against her throat. (MF, beast, nc) - Coming of age story between two girls and a running through school involving a dog. (gg, ped, 1st-lesbian-expr, beast) - I wanted sex so bad that I put on a blue movie and let my dog Rebel join in. (F/beast) - This is the story about getting dressed up, stumbling onto a dog and being knotted to him when the owners catch me! (MMM, M-teen/beast, cd, 1st-gay-expr, oral, anal) - A Mom gets caught by her daughter and then by two teens, as she is taken by a doggie. (Ffmm-teens, inc, beast, voy) - Epic brings her darling dog over to her friend's house and the two enjoy him to the fullest. (FF, beast, oral, anal) - In 1960 the government issued a mandate that any child with Telepathy, ESP, or telekinesis to be cataloged and held prisoner at a special government facility. This facility is called the Center. They have placed a person in every library, school, and hospital to ensure these children are found, In 1990 Project Tele-search went online, a super computer that decrypts and scans all email and phone calls. They are watching, No one is safe! (Mf, beast-rp, v, ped, ws, bd) - A widowed woman takes a weekend at the coast and befriends a large dog and has more then a friendly encounter with him. (F/beast, nc) - E-novel: A father and daughter are the perfect victims. First the daughter is used and abused, then daddy's pulled in. Their problems are cause by their total inability to control their sexual urges. Sounds like some politicians we know, don't it? (M+dom/F-teens, Fdom/F-teens, nc, S&M, ws, beast, forced-inc, blkmail) - Summer camp for Cheerleaders is full of teenage hijinks and hot sex. The camp counselors and camp mascot all get involved. (M+/F+, bi, exh, orgy, beast, oral, anal) - Cher dog-sits for her friend's Greatdane. (F/Dog) - We get a glimpse into the sordid life of 15-year-old cum-slut Cheri, whose family enjoys making incest and pedo films along with other families. (M/ff-teen, ped, inc, bi, beast, ws) - A group of teens watch as two girls jack-off a horse. (MF-teens/beast, voy, mast) - A true story of a woman who was raped by a dog? (F, beast, nc) - Christina is talked into trying out doggie-sex by her friend Natalie. Then their boyfriends get involved too. (FF, MF, MM, mast, oral, anal, snoball, beast) - A family get together on Christmas Eve day, unlike any family you've ever met in real life. (MFmfbg, ped, family-inc, preg, beast) - Jennifer, an experienced young animal-lover is on holidays in Barbados over Christmas. On a lonely beach she has a lot of fun with her Dalmatian Spark. (F/beast, ws) - Newly religious woman conflicted over her past relationship with a man she called Daddy, and her being his little girl, reconsiders after her first time experience with a dog she adopts when her neighbor Mary passes away. (MF, reluc, 1st, mast, oral, inc, beast, rom) - A young husband and wife looking for some fun online find more than the bargain for. (MMF, wife, MM, FF, intr, beast, dom, s&m) - The story of a young woman who eventually discovers her reason for being: that of a sex slave to a dog. (Mdom/F, beast, bdsm, ws) - Four girls form an interesting little club where one of the initiation rites is to lose their cherry in a very special way. (ff/beast, youths, voy, oral) - My wife could not get enough cock and cum. I finally had to take care of her urges with some friends and their animals. (M+/F, wife, beast, orgy) - Like many computer lab technicians, Maud was rather homely and shy. Although she was as bright as all her peers in the lab, she found it difficult to relate to them on a personal basis. Besides, they were all disgusting because of there continuing habit of looking at pornographic gifs and grasp animation. 'What could they see in those ega screen graphics?' , she queried to herself. The question nagged her and still was not resolved by the time the lab started to close. (F/dog) - A younger man encounters arousal in a way that he never anticipated. Providentially, an avenue opens to explore his interests further. (M/beast) - A morning with a woman's best friend converted Suzan from a devout Christian into a promiscuous Satan's servant. (F/beast) - Robert Black was arrested for selling kiddie porn. Now he wants revenge on the cop who put him away, by making his daughter the star of his next film. (Mg, ped, inc, exh, drugs, rp, orgy, v, beast) - At some point in our lives we go through some introspection as to why we are the way we are. I've been accused of being a sex crazed bitch, a slut, near animal status and a sex addict. So I've decided to set the record straight and tell me story, at least part of it. (mmf, ffm-teens, youths, inc, bi, 1st, beast) - This is a story about Abby, a woman who loves to masturbate as she watches a man jerk off. She goes from one extreme to the other as she watches men and canines on the internet. Then she gets to try it for real. (MMm, ped, bi, beast, inc, voy, mast) - This is the story of my first sexual encounter with my dad's horse. I have posted a story about my first dog encounter, so I thought I would share this as well. (f-teen/beast, oral) - Daddy finds out his daughter likes the family dog among other things. (M/f-teen, ped, inc, beast, voy) - A former slut tries to turn over a new leaf. She marries a prosperous, conservative vanilla man in Indiana. In the process she offends an ex boyfriend who gets his revenge by drugging her and supplying her as a sex object for multiple women, multiple black men, and multiple dogs. (MF+/F, intr, beast, orgy, drugs nc, bd) - A strangely familiar sci-fi tale about a dissatisfied husband that finds the grass isn't necessarily green across the road. (MF, FF, MM, tg, sci-fi, beast) - A subservient takes revenge on her dominant employer. (MF, FF, bdsm, beast, work) - I have to be careful, no doubt about it. There are those who think my educational methods with recalcitrant youths too hard and extreme. Some even call them perverse. So I put it too you. Judge for yourselves. (MMdom/m-teen, beast, ped, rp) - Husband and wife play sexy games that soon get wilder than they ever thought possible. A dare is taken and soon the hot young wife is satisfied beyond her wildest dreams. (MF, reluc, oral, anal, beast) - A mother sees potential in her hot young daughter and plans a night of sexy entertainment. (F/F-teen, inc, mast, oral, anal-play, beast) - It all started one day while Dawn was sitting in the woods reading a library book and a small boy in a cowboy costume came up to her and talked her into letting him tie her up with his toy lasso. (MFFb, ped, nc, rp, inc, beast, bi, bd, gb, voy) - The family maid offers a deal to her boss to keep her out of jail after she is discovered having sex with his son. (Mf, Fm, ped, voy, inc, bd, ws, beast) - Bored housewife using erotic videos to entertain her friends at 'shop-n-perv' parties. She's so successful that soon she needs more films than her regular provider can supply. But is the price from an alternative supplier a little to steep? (MMF, voy, exh, beast) - This is a story of how I became a slut thanks to my friend and her mother. (FF, reluc, orgy, bd, beast) - Young woman fresh from a nasty divorce can't seem to reconcile her sexual life. She finds that her regular lovers are not what she really needs. But one faithful friend comes to the rescue. (F/beast, mast, oral) - I'm lying naked on a beach on some deserted island. The sun is beating down on me, warming my breasts and stomach. My ass is cradled in the warm sand. Sweat runs down my thighs and into my crotch teasing me, making me think of sex, sex in the abstract. It seems like forever since I have had a man, I've been on this island by myself for almost a year now. (fun with fish) - This story was sent to me by one of my readers, and tells of his girlfriend's introduction to dog sex. (MF, beast) - With the help of a sympathetic Private Investigator a man takes revenge on the couple that drove his wife to suicide. (M+F, nc, blkmail, exh, inc, oral, anal, beast, rom) - My sexual escapades while working at a famous theme park lead to an exciting job opportunity. (Mfb, ped, oral, fantasy, beast) - A very short, but true account of our stay on the farm. (MF/beast, mast, exh) - A high school freshman is hit by lightning and discovers he can enter the mind of of the German Shepherd that belongs to the girl next door. (MFF, mc, voy, oral, anal, beast) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Girl left out of orgy, goes to garage and has sex with family dog - 'There's more than one way to get men away from a football game on the boob tube!' (F/dog) - Sandy was the supreme bitch. She ran her household with an iron fist, and her husband's sex life with an iron snatch. Little did she know that she would soon be treated like the bitch she was.(F/dog, wife, nc) - A business trip starts as a desirable sexy weekend trip, only to become drudgery. That is until a discovery turns things around. A dare becomes an excuse to make good on a dream, only to have a phone call cut it short. (M/f+, ped, 1st, oral, anal, beast) - Amanda is making a movie with her two dog's who bring home a friend. (F/multiple dogs, beast, exh) NEW - A story of two people falling in love at a dogging site and finding out sex with a dog can be fun. (MF, exh, beast) - A young girl loses her virginity to the family dog and then becomes hooked on canine sex. (Ff, ped, 1st, beast) - A couple doggy-sits a friend's dog for a few weeks and find out how pleasurable it can be. (MF/beast) - A frustrated wife buys a watchdog, only to find that he's handy for more than personal security. (MF, wife, beast) - Cynthia is peacefully sleeping on the lawn in her backyard, when a pack of dogs come sniffing around (Dogs/F, nc?) - Doggy and woman story - 'There was a quiet clicking on the polished wood floor as her dog came over from his basket in the corner. He sat at her feet and rested his chin gently on her knee. She looked down into his large brown eyes and smiled, ruffling his headfur and scratching behind his ears. He seemed to smile up at her, seemed to understand her sadness. (F/dog) - Homemaker finds a way to get even when her husband demands that she be 'friendly' with the dog he brings home. She secretly decides to take it a step further. (MF, F/beast) - Like an addict hooked on drugs, Donna has resorted to masturbation. It is an act of desperation fueled by the frustration of sexual failure. In the quiet of early morning not even self-manipulation can stimulate release. Like an addict hooked on drugs, she dreams of more. (M/beast, reluc, huml, exh, ws) - A high school freshman is hit by lightning and discovers he can enter the mind of of the German Shepherd that belongs to the girl next door. (MFF, nc, mn, voy, oral, anal, beast) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Jeff is one of a very few people who know that I am a zoo. When we were kids, we had fooled around with a few of the neighborhood dogs, examining their sex organs, fingering bitches and jacking off the males. We once even arranged an illicit mating, just so we could watch. We eventually discovered girls and Jeff lost interest in animals, but somehow I never did. I've kept fucking bitches even to this day. (M/dogs) - The experience of one woman who is trained to become a bitch for her Master's dog. (MMF, bi, exh, reluc, beast, anal) - A group of teens get the show of a life time. (F+/beast, exh) - A family is taken hostage and forced to reveal their darkest secrets to each other and then they are forced to act out those secrets on each other. (MFmf, ped, nc, inc, beast) - This is pretty much a true story about how I went from a heterosexual male to a ball-less gay bottom. (MM, exh, oral, anal, beast, cast) - A young woman makes a bad mistake and pays for it with her body. (Mdom/F, reluc, exh, oral, anal, bd, ws, beast) - So you're thinking of getting a dog huh? You want to know what I would do with a hot bitch if I had the chance. Well if your hot pussy, or cock, can take it, I'll try to tell you. (M/beast) - The sequel to A Mother's Confession. (In directory 29) The niave Joan helps her husband and brother-in-law make special 'educational' films with the kids. (Mf, ped, inc, nc, bi, oral, beast) - A look into what happens when you mix to many things together. (MMF, oral, anal, cast, orgy, beast) - A divorced woman learns what fun can be had with her dog. When her pet runs away a woman returns the dog and joins the fun then invites her husband to join also. (MFF/beast) - Man fucks Girlfriend while submissive wife watches and then the dog does her too. (MFF/dog, reluc) - A devoted family demonstrates at a show how their pig farm is run in the old fashion way. Afterwards everyone is invited to try for themselves how to handle the young boars and sows. In the afternoon the family members earns their keep by socializing with the audience when the young farm dogs come loose. (MF, F/beast, inc, oral, anal, orgy, humor) - A curious girl submits to the pleasures that her dog has to offer. (F-teen/beast) - Young girl gets cast in a video about Adam and Eve but doesn't realize that it's an adult film of the most depraved kind. (F/F-teen, reluc, voy, mast, anal, beast) - An E-novel: A story of a woman submissive to her own desires. (M+/F, exh, d/s, inc, mast, oral, anal, bd, beast, orgy) - - - - - - - - - - - Sometime around my being 4 years old I would masturbate with either my little dog between my legs or rub off against the bathroom sink. Also this must have happened because of my dad bathing me over several years and our total relationship. (Mf, M+/F, extr-ped, inc, beast) NEW - I met a wonderful and beautiful Brazilian girl in my Latin class. When summer came, I went out to her farm to visit. We made love, but I had no idea what kind of sex she was really in to. (MF/beast) - Faelin is a teenage elf and he has a unique encounter with the dragon that kills his master. (MM-beast, reluc, v, oral, anal, fantasy) - Susan was a wild one, and her excesses lead her to an alternative realm and a lot of trouble. Humour plays a part in this story. Come to think of it, so do a lot of other things. (F/beast, fant, humor) - A father puts his young wife and her two daughters to work on the streets. Warning, this is a very nasty story. (M+/Fgg, ped, inc, oral, bi, beast, prost) - A family is planning a move from London to Nottinghamshire, but the husband is planning far more than just a move, he wants a complete lifestyle overhaul. (MMFg, ped, inc, voy, 1st, beast, mast, oral, anal, hypno, mc) - A husband takes his whole family down a path none of them ever thought they would go. (MMFmf, ped, 1st, family-inc, beast, orgy) - I turned sixteen, had a perpetually hot pussy, so my parents shipped me off to the farm. (F-teen/beast) - My name is Meg and when I was 16 I visited my uncle's farm. I was in trouble a lot back then and my folks thought something think this would settle me down. Only what it really did was teach me how to surrender to my animal lust. That summer I ended up having sex with a boar and the family dog. (f/beast, reluc) - I had three male horses and when I began to have trouble with them. The vet said they were sexually frustrated and needed to get laid. So I began to jerk them off twice a day and collect their cum. (M/beast, mast, oral, anal) - A young girl discovers sex in a strange way on a relative's farm. (M/f-teen, f/beast, ped, 1st, inc) - - Father Barton runs a most unusual orphanage and has a severe regimen for his boys. (M/b+, ped, nc, rp, v, 1st, mast, oral, anal, huml, beast, religion) - My first animal experience. (m/beast, oral) - I'm Jenn and I'm 24 years old. This is a story about my first time with my dog and a friend's dog. In the course of my adventure I find something out about myself that's quite interesting. (F, beast) - 'I like anything that will give me pleasure,' Felicia purred, 'whether it's a man, a woman.' She paused, looking Charlotte right in the eye. '.or animals.' (MF/FF/beast, nc, rp, s&m, voy, bd, drugs) - Loosing my virginity to my mare. (m-teen/beast) - First time with dog ends up being knotty. (M-teen/beast) - A true-ish account of our first time. (MF, beast) - Whilst reading porn a bbw girl gets a surprise from her dog. Her dog starts to lick her cunt and he girl finds that she likes it. (bbw/dog) - An invasion like no other. Alien life finally arrives but not in a form we ever expected. Fortunately for some, it leads to some very interesting changes in the female kind. (FFM, v, sci-fi, beast, ws) - Giselle is captured by the Vietcong and then sold to a travelling circus. What follows is her account of how she won her freedom. (MMF, asian, exh, nc, v, beast) - A runaway teen is picked up by two women and finds herself taking care of the dogs in their breeding kennel. (FF/F-teen, nc, bd, voy, 1st, beast) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A young man wanders into a massive castle like mansion only to find himself enslaved by its inhabitants and forced to submit. Frustrated with his new life, he finds peace in a young girl and a canine companion. (m/f, m/beast, nc, v, ped, bd) - From a fledgling experience after high school, I had not thought much about dogs until I decided to get one of my own during my second semester at college. (F/beast) - Watching the neighbour put on a show with her dog. After a few drinks I get my girlfriend to join in too. (MFF, beast) - A story of a cross-dresser called Suzy, that meets guys for sex and then meets one that wants to fuck her in the middle of a field. What he doesn't tell her, is that he wants his Boxer dog to fuck her as well. (MM, exh, mast, oral, anal, voy, beast) - Corey visits his aunt and Uncle's farm and by the end of the first day has fucked his first sheep, been fucked by a ram, his uncle and the family dog. It's going to be a long week as he learns about farm life. (Mm, ped, inc, reluc, beast, ws) - A young man gets his rocks off in the family's female dobby. (M-teen/F-dog, voy, 1st-beastal) - When the boys find out one student is a faggot, they have a real good time with him. He is totally degraded and used. (Mm+/m, teens, exh, inc, ped, ws, nc, v, tor, beast, bd) - A single mom finds the best way to turn a profit with a farm these days is to convert it into a whorehouse using her daughters as the whores. (M+/Fgg, inc, ped, beast, exh, s&m, oral, anal, public, bd) - Kyle and his brother Tim explore each other sexually and then have fun at the local gloryhole. (MM, beast, inc, exh, 1st, oral, anal, glory) - My dog's first piece of ass was my passed-out drinking buddy. After that, I decided to get in on the action too. (MM/beast) - A continuation of my story about the fun I had with my dog Bud. (MMF, beast, orgy) - A twelve year old girl has fantasies about playing a sexual game. She likes the idea of saying no when she means really yes. One night when she goes to a party, her fantasy becomes reality thanks to a boy named Brad and a horny dog. (Mmfg, ped, reluc, mast, anal, exh, beast, enema, ws) - For fatherless Tommy and Stephanie, life is strange - although seldom boring. Their mother simply loves to play games with them, but her favorite kind of games don't exactly have rules- except for her own. (MMF, Fbg, Fg, ped, 1st, bi, family-inc, mast, oral, anal, mc, ws, beast) - A woman tries sex with a big mutt and discovers she really likes it. (F/beast, mast) - Elaine has been selected to be the mother of a new breed. (F/beast, sci-fi, preg) - A perverted story about a child and her young stepmother and father. Not for the fainthearted. (Ff/dogs, Ff, Mf, inc, ped) - A wife held down by a demanding husband gets set free by her best friend, Spot and how! (MF, nc, F/beast) - A Young girl tries to help out friends on a goat farm, only to find that it is just too much for her to handle. (f-teen/beast, nc, v) - A fantasy about a Elvin Princess - and her rape and torchur by beastal goblins. 'The raucous shouts of hundreds of orcs echoed through the rough-hewn cavern as the guards hauled Celebrain across the floor towards the throne. At the foot of the dais she tripped on shreds of green cloth that were the remnants of her dress. Cursing, one of the uruks grabbed a handful of her silver tresses, dragged her up the steps, and dropped her painfully to the ground.' (F/beast, fant, rp) - Raped by a dog on the lawn. (F/dog) - Translator's note: Caligula's odd political promotions are a matter for historical fact. And Roman horses were small, rarely over 13 hands high. (MF, F/beast, nc, bd, historical) - Starting at 8 years old a girl finds that her dog is a great companion in more than one way. (F/beast) - An erotic fantasy with my friend's dog Louie. (MF, beast) - Horny girlfriend waiting for her boyfriend to come over gets distracted by her male dog. (MF/beast) - A tale of two friends in their late teens who, while surfing the 'net, find an adult website run by one young man's aunt. From there they introduce her to the joys of bestiality and incest by threats of exposure. (MMF, F/dog, inc, rel, blkmail) - A young grandson learns about more than just farm life when he comes to saty with his grand parents for the summer. (M/b, gay, 1st, ped, beast) - In the land of Oxford, great magic abounds. No one knows who or what is doing it. Some suspect wizards but wait till they find out what it really is. (MF, beast, fantasy) - The ring of mushrooms made a circle about 30 feet in diameter. There is a name for these odd even. It's called a faery circle. For thousands of years they have been believed to be mystical places where the world of reality and the fantastic overlap. (MF, reluc, rom, beast, bd, fantasy) - A day trip to the mountains goes astray. (f/beast, reluc) - Lesbians find out that cock isn't so bad after all, even if it does belong to their pet. (FF, FFf, ped, beasts, orgy) - A man enjoys his dogs in a Saturday morning before going to work in the yard. (MF/MF-dogs) - A full-on erotic encounter between a man and his best friend. (M/beast) - A woman receives an unexpected fantasy gift for her birthday. (MF, F/beast, oral, rom) - My friend Maiko and I have a fun day out, where we meet some interesting people and make some money on the way. (MFF, exh, bi, bd, asian, beast, cream-pie) - The story I am about to tell you happened along time ago, a couple of years after we got married. Despite having a brilliant relationship I have never been able to tell my husband about this event or indeed anyone else, which, is I why I suppose I have chosen this forum to spill the beans - to record at least that it happened and wasn't some bizarre dream. (MMF, exh, wife, cheat, blkmail, beast) NEW - A man's obsession with an older woman leads to fear and rape and changes her outlook toward sex and life in general. (MF, F/beast, nc, rp, anal) - What is Totoro? He has been called many things from 'a giant furry thing' to 'a rabbit-like spirit'. Basically, he is a spirit of the forest. Totoro is not a traditional Japanese character: he came completely from Miyazaki's imagination. However, he is obviously a mixture of several animals: tanukis (the Japanese version of raccoons), cats (the pointed ears and the facial expressions), and owls (the chevron markings on their chests and the 'ooo'-ing sound they make with their ocarinas at night). (F/beast, fantasy, cheat, preg) - A big brother and his dog help sis get over a bad breakup. And she helps him 'get over' too. (MF, beast, inc) - Ted and Lori have a devient sexual appetite. When a new family moves in next door they take pity on a young girl with a muscular disorder. They decide the only humane thing is to make her feel like a normal girl by turning her into a slut. (Mf, ped, voy, orgy, nc, bi, swing, beast) - His long, purple-veined penis jutted out of the opening in his grey flannel trousers and began to rise stiffly up below his slight paunch as he stood at the back of his desk staring down at his mistress's white, cream-like contours, displayed nakedly before him. (Mdom/F, F/beast, reluc, work) - A dark tale about a village living in the shadow of an amorous werewolf and his mate. (Mf, nc, rp, v, beast, fantasy) - A young girl stays at the seaside with her Father and becomes the victim of deviant sex. (M/f-teen, ped, reluc, voy, beast) - I always had pets when I was growing up - dogs, cats, lizards, fish, frogs and turtles. While I enjoyed them all, especially the dogs and cats, I never thought of them as more than friends. I suppose others developed more intimate relationships with their pets and I just wasn't aware of it. That all changed with Nancy. (MF, F-dog, work) - When Claire comes home from university too early and catches her parents 'playing' with the family dog, it all leads to an incestuous orgy of the whole family, including a lot of animal sex, watersports and also gay sex between father and son. (MF, inc, bi, beast, ws) - He was a sturdy horse, but not overly large, and she was able to touch both booted heels against the animal's cock. Her well-muscled thighs gripped the horse around the flanks, tightening and relaxing as if she were lasting at a trot. She began to rub her heels up and down the animal's huge, swollen prick. (MF, oral, anal, beast) - A couple hides in the hay loft to catch a rancher who is rumored to have been cruel to his horses. But what they end up seeing is something they would never have thought of. This story has some grammar problems, but it was submitted by a member who thought it was different from the run of the mill animal stories. (mf, f/horse, voy, exhib) - A young girl watching a stallion and mare mate. At first she is intrigued, but the memory becomes an obsession, then the obsession becomes a reality with the help of a black stable hand. (Mf, f/horse, intr, beast, oral) - Our story starts with Vanessa's obsession with sex and animals. Ever since she had sex with her dog Red, and me, she has been obsessed with animal sex. To satisfy my little fire ball, I finally managed to locate a man who ran a small farm (alone) and convince him to rent me his barnyard for some 'research' while he was out tending his fields. (F/horse, wife, voy) - This story happened many years ago. It's never far from my mind though. Whenever I have sex, I think about it. (f-teen/food/dog) - Father and mother realize their little girl is hotter than they imagined. (MFg, ped, inc, 1st, beast) - Melanie is a gorgeous 18 year old girl. This is the story how she discovered how nice it is to have sex with her husky Wolf. (F, beast) - This is a story about Abby, a middle aged lady and her husband as she enjoys their canine on a regular basis, but it comes with at twist towards the end, for him anyway. Abby had me write it for her. (MF, BBW, beast, voy) - A couple find themselves in a new world ready to experience all that the place has to offer. (MF/beast, sci-fi, sn) - A woman is raped by her pet dog and finds that she likes it better than sex with a man. (F/beast, reluc) - As a 5 year old, I learned that a good wife is a whore and will do what her husband wants her to. She will never question anything her husband orders her to do. (MF, exh, orgy, ws, nc, bd, prost, beast) - Missy love's her dogs and doesn't mind sharing her experiences. (F/beast) - Transplanted city boy has to return to his mountain roots for help controlling a city girl who went bitch. Some rough play and four guys and their dogs get her to mellow out. (M+/F, nc, exh, anal, bd, beast) - I saw the breathtaking form of the chief's daughter staring down at my upturned spread thighs and my heavy bikini tanned globes that displayed a sensually firm swing at the slightest movement. I felt a tingle of lust run through my body and my large nipples erected again as if touched by icy cold. (FF, forced, bd, beast, cast) - A fan of my stories contacts me and we correspond about our mutual fantasies of male domination and humiliation and the many forms of abuse that turn her on. She agrees to spend her two week vacation with me and be my total slave. (M+/F, nc, rp, bi, exh, bd, beast, ws) - Mother and scientist developing a new sex drug and decides to try it out on her daughter before marketing -- with dramatic results. (Ff, ped, inc, 1st, mast, anal, beast) NEW - A young schoolgirl wants to be socially accepted and finds out that it takes more than just good looks. (F/mf-teens, reluc, inc, mast, oral, anal, orgy, beast, voy) - Early man's beginnings with his family unit and their dogs. (MF, inc, beast) - Young girl learns about animal sex on her in-laws farm and is finally raped in their garden by the family dog. (F, beast, scat, nc) - What would you do in the name of freedom? Would you kidnap a man's daughter and rape her in front of him? (MMf, ped, v, rp, nc, beast) - A couple on holiday in Italy sneak into a photo booth in the park for a quick lustful encounter, only to be drugged, leaving the man paralysed and watching a video on the screen of his girlfriends perverted experiences. (MMF, bi, nc, rp, mc, drugs, beast, bukk, voy) - - A strong young man escorts two beautiful sisters home. As they pass by the haunted woods in their horse drawn carriage, one of the sisters exclaims that they are so late that their daddy will be very angry. The brave strong gentleman escort insists that they go through the haunted woods to save time. Against there better judgment the sisters agree and off they go -- never to be heard from again. (f/m-beasts, fantasy, v) - A young woman who knows better offers to babysit for her boss when he and his wife go on a cruise for their second honeymoon. She becomes a victim of his two teenage sons and teenage daughter and is raped and tormented while the boss is out of town. This is not a story for the faint of heart. (mf+/teens/F, nc, exh, blkmail, drugs, beast, ws) - A family is planning a move from London to Nottinghamshire, but the husband is planning far more than just a move, he wants a complete lifestyle overhaul. (MMFg, ped, inc, voy, 1st, beast, mast, oral, anal, hypno, mc) - When her parents go out of town for the weekend, twelve-year-old Stacy finds out that her family's eight dogs are more than she can handle. (g/beasts, ped, nc) - Brother and sister discover their parent's enjoying each other and the family dog. They find release for their sexual tension in each other and later the family pooch joins in too. (family, orgy, inc, beast) - A man has his first doggy experience after taking a hot shower with his large pedigree german shepherd. (M/Mdog, beast, enema) - It started as a game of spin the bottle the loser removed an item of clothing, that was until the dog got involved, then the rules changed. (MF, beast) - As a boy I was curious about sex. I was especially curious about gay sex, since I couldn't get any answers about it. The only thing I'd heard was 'That's sick and disgusting!' Then one day while wondering what it would be like to play with somebody else's cock the neighbor's dog wandered into the yard. (mm, b/beast, 1st) - Two teens girls having fun under the blanket home alone are startled by a loud noise downstairs. (FF-teens, beast) - A teenage boy has an encounter with a werewolf. (m-teen/beast, fantasy) - Jane decides to go on a world travel tour, but gets waylaid in Rwanda. He lover is a primate, but a bit hairier than most. Before anyone tells me, I know a Gorilla's dick is only one and a half inches long. (F/beast, rom, fantasy) - Janet's restful spring break is interrupted by an unexpected visitor who teaches her new ways to slake her lust. (F/beast) - - The luscious ebony beauty has a dark secret. His name is Storm and he's a pitch-black stallion, and Janet is infatuated with his strong shinny body. (f/horse, celeb) - After writing about several of my experiences, I though it was time to share a bit more. (f-teen/beast, nc, rp, 1st, asian, beast) - When I spied on my boyfriend and found him fucking his dog, I got a little too curious and tried it myself. (MF, voy, beast) - A man has an obsession for a pretty Latina woman, that burns whit hot when he finds out that she was once a pre-teen porn star and then they opportunity to see some of her videos together. (MF, ped, exh, beast, latina) - Jennifer Lopez falls on hard times. (f/animals, exh, celeb) - It was Christmas break during my freshman year in college. I finally had some time to myself after several days of parties and reunions with friends and family. Today was going to be my special day alone. Dad hadn't returned yet from a business trip and mom was off doing last minute shopping. And the most amazing thing happened to me. (girl/M-dog) - A typical housewife of eighteen years discovers dog sex for the first time. (F/beast, wife, reluc) - A mother home early from work discovered that her daughter was home early as well. (Ff, ped, inc, beast) - A friend of mine was watching an episode of the Oprah Windfrey show with the lovely Julia Roberts as the guest. She told me how Julia discussed going to Africa to film a wildlife documentary. She said Julia was telling one incident where a large male animal grabbed her hard and sat her on her lap. Julia was scared even though the story is that the animal did not mean her any harm. My friend suggested that she thought the beast wanted to fuck Julia Roberts. I got so turned on my the image of Julia Roberts in the middle of a Gorilla gang-rape that I just had to see if I could write a scene that does justice to my vision.) (F/ape, nc) - A Dom pushes the limits of his submissive, while giving his dog a taste. (Mdom/F, F/beast, reluc, bd) - I woke up after having major surgery, yelled for the nurse, the voice that answered me was soft and frail, this surprised me. I felt for my face, warm, soft and tiny, a girl's face? What the fuck? Just a few hours ago I was a fifty year old pervert with a stomach ache, now I'm in some little girl's body, how the hell could this happen? (MMg, ped, nc, tg, huml, intr, gb, bd, beast, tor) - Karen Lewis (from Monkeying Around) goes to the Principal at her daughter's school to make sure that her daughter can go to the school dance. She ends up seeing the old principal's penis and has to have it. Her ride home from the school also brings us an adventure. (MF, oral, beast) - An attractive but frigid young woman kicks her husband out of the house. She is soon a victim of the same young black man that is abusing her teenage daughter. This is a very rough story, not for the feint of heart. (Mdom+/Ff, nc, intr, rough, beast, s&m, bd, ws) - Karen felt desperate. Her father had divorced her mother and remarried. Karen hated his new wife and her new stepbrother. She rebelled at every turn, even turning to sexual practices that would compromise her if she were caught. (mf-teens, f/dog, inc, nc) - A story about my wife's drinking problem and the fun I had with her and a dog. (MF/beast, alcohol) NEW - A hooker is willing to go the extra mile for a $1000 trick. (MF, beast, oral, prost, blindfold, bd) - Two girlfriends share a dark secret and an erotic experience. (FF, reluc, beast) - Kathy gets a gob acting, only to find that there's a lot more to the job than she thought. (MF, F/beast, exh, oral, anal, wife, cheat) - A girl spends the summer with her grandparents and learns a lot about her family, as well as her how desires. (MFF, inc, bi, beast, family) - A friend comes over to 'Tie the Knot' so to speak. (FF, beast, ws) - Coming home for summer vacation from the catholic school nearby, I never expected to end up getting raped by the neighbor's dogs. (F-teen/beasts, nc, rp) - A high-class women gets degraded and loves the sex she encounters and soon becomes perverted by it. (Mdom+/F, FF, nc, rp, v, beast) - Kelly's been cleaning Mr. Blackwell's house for a few weeks now. She's teased him a lot, wearing hot outfits that show off her body. But this time things go a little beyond teasing. (M/f-teen, ped, beast, oral). 1/11/2018 0 Comments Dating A Schizophrenia Woman Movie'Tazza', 'The Host', 'Woman on the Beach', 'Family Ties' The year 2006 was a boom year in a number of different respects. Production reached its highest level in a decade and a half, with 108 films released in theaters, and many more which were waiting for release at the end of the year. Two films broke records at the box office:, which was released in the closing days of 2005 (on this site it is listed on the 2005 page) and which sold 12.3 million tickets, and Bong Joon-ho's monster movie, which sold just over 13 million tickets (the equivalent of over $90 million). Several other films did quite well too, including gambling film and comedy. Taken all together, the 2006 box office set a new record for revenues (over $1 billion) and sold the highest number of tickets since the late 1960s. From award winners to the most iconic horrors, characters with a mental illness can appear in any genre and here is our rundown of the 30 best movies on the subject. Dating with Schizophrenia. No dating for me. The third time I got married to the woman for just over two years. This Is What It's Honestly Like To Fall In Love With A Schizophrenic. By Kianne Namit, April 11th 2016. Comment; Flag. It all started on our first date. First meetings are always special, always exciting, always perfect. It was like living in every page of a young girl's dream. A prince charming, a house, independence,. Artistically too, it was a year with several highlights. Hong Sang-soo was widely praised for his seventh film; The Host won over critical praise to go with its commercial success; and the 11th Pusan International Film Festival boasted a large number of independent films that stirred up excitement among critics. A number of films shot in a more commercial vein, such as gangster movie, debut film Like a Virgin, drama and even the crazy low-budget comedy earned high praise as well. Nonetheless, people in the film industry were sounding alarm bells by the end of the year. With so many films produced, and with the budgets of many films having grown out of control, a very small number of Korean films from 2006 ended up turning a profit. In contrast to the start of the year, when a huge number of films were in production, by year's end many investors had decided to hold back on funding any new films for a while, and the mood seemed to bode ill for 2007. The other major issue for the film industry in 2006 was the controversial reduction of Korea's Screen Quota System, which obligates theater owners to screen local films for a certain number of days per year. Formerly set on a sliding scale between 106 and 146 days per year, the government bowed to pressure from the U.S. And reduced the quota to 73 days. Filmmakers responded with lengthy public protests, but were ultimately unsuccessful in trying to get the government to revoke its decision. The Art of Fighting Byung-tae is a teenager attending a tough high school, where the other students make it their daily habit to beat him up. Sporting perpetual bruises on his face, he spends his free time reading martial arts manuals and taking fighting lessons from various adults in town, in a desperate attempt to learn how to defend himself. Nothing seems to do any good, however. One day, at a private reading room, he comes across an eccentric old man named Pan-su who possesses an amazing skill for fighting. It's not that he is powerfully acrobatic or unnaturally strong, it's that he is a seasoned expert in down-to-earth, realistic modes of fighting. In other words, he fights dirty. Pan-su somewhat reluctantly takes Byung-tae under his wing and starts to teach him what he has learned about fighting and about life. These include gems of wisdom such as, 'Sand and spit are the most useful objects at hand during a fight.' Byung-tae tries his best, but at the same time he has a hard time shaking off the fear that he has been living with all these years. Debut director Shin Han-sol's The Art of Fighting is a different sort of action film, one that largely avoids impressive displays of physical movement, and instead focuses on the gritty, sensual aspects of fighting. Set in a grim, ugly-looking town where the people seem motivated by boredom rather than any enthusiasm for life, the film is most memorable for its black humor and the great presence shown by its two lead actors. With vulnerability and steely determination reflected in his eyes, Jae Hee, best known from Kim Ki-duk's 3-Iron, is well-suited to the role of Byung-tae. It may seem superfluous to say this after 3-Iron, but Jae really can communicate a great deal to the viewer even when he is not speaking. Pan-su, meanwhile, is played by acting god Baek Yoon-shik, who has already shown his mastery in films like Save the Green Planet and The President's Last Bang. Here he plays this role with a mixture of world-weary passivity and sudden, electric bursts of violence. Although lacking the depth of the other roles he has played in the past few years, Pan-su possesses an attitude that is uniquely Baek Yoon-shik. The Art of Fighting is well acted and capably put together, with a mostly predictable but engrossing narrative. Yet the film leaves you with an odd sense of emptiness. Part of this may be due to the inherent pessimism in the work, and its portrayal of a town where life is bleak and unlikely to improve. Yet on a cinematic level too, one wishes that there were just a bit more substance to the film. Ultimately Art of Fighting is worth watching, but is unlikely to rank as one of the highlights of 2006. ( ) If You Were Me 2 With the critical success of its first omnibus film, South Korea's National Commission on Human Rights commissioned another series, If You Were Me 2. This time around, the directors contributing shorts on a human rights issue of their choosing were Park Kyung-hee ( A Smile), Ryoo Seung-wan ( Die Bad, Arahan), Jung Ji-woo ( Happy End), Jang Jin ( Someone Special, The Big Scene), and Kim Dong-won ( Sanggye-dong Olympics, Repatriation). Park's short 'Seaside Flower' follows days in the life of Eun-hye, an elementary-school-aged girl with Down's syndrome. Through the swatches of her life we see her isolation from her peers and her single mother's (Seo Ju-hee of Flower Island) struggle to make up for the evil that kids do. Eun-hye's closest friend is an elderly woman who lives too far away to see every day. Compensating for this lack of regular camaraderie, Eun-hye has also created an imaginary friend. Eun-hye is played by a girl (Jeong Eun-hye) with actual Down's syndrome and some of her own experiences were brought into the short. In this way, 'Seaside Flower' represents what might be a continuing theme in the series, allowing a character to play themselves or at least indigenously represent the community explored within the short, as Yeo Kyun-dong ventured in the first series in his short about the physically disabled which featured Kim Moon-ju, an actor with cerebral palsy. Ryoo's short 'Hey Man!' Is almost one complete take of a man with multiple prejudices that lead him to cast off every one of his 'friends' and fellow patrons who are sharing the communal space of a late night restaurant. The packed crowd at 2005's PIFF who saw this film along with me laughed continuously at Kim Su-yeon's character (who has been in Ryoo's films Die Bad, No Blood, No Tears, and Crying Fist), a character who learns the lesson be careful who you hate, because your hate might leave you on your own. Made while he was still working on his essay on masculinity that was Crying Fist, Ryoo provides an added treat with a surprise cameo by someone from the previous series, making me wonder if this is also going to be a regular aspect of the future omnibuses. (I don't know about you, but I like the sound of the word 'omnibuses.' ) My favorite of the shorts was Jung Ji-woo's, 'A Boy With The Knapsack', a sparingly dialogued, black and white study of the lives of North Korean (illegal) refugees in South Korea. The pacing is perfect, the images of the friends in arms racing through the city still stay with me, and there's a nice little placement of one of the symbols of capitalism that brought a bit of laughter to what is otherwise a short full of sorrow, even more sorrowful considering its partly based on a true story. Speaking of true stories, let me jump out of the order of this omnibus and mention the last short, Kim Dong-won's documentary about Korean-Chinese immigrants, 'Jongno, Winter.' Immigration laws in South Korea give advantages to diasporic Koreans from North America and Europe that are not afforded those from China, Russia, or the former Soviet States (the '-Stans'). Kim's documentary interviews several Korean-Chinese, people whose illegitimate residency risks being exposed by appearing in this film, and they share with us the struggles in their lives due to the limits placed on their status in South Korea. The center of this documentary is around one particular person, Kim Won-sub, a Korean-Chinese who died in the streets of Hyehwa-dong from the cold on December 9, 2003, a day when director Kim himself was in that very neighborhood. Yes, the air-conditioning may have had something to do with it, but I think something more was responsible for the chill I felt while watching this film. But instead of making me feel something, Jang Jin's short 'Someone Grateful' (pictured) made me think something. That is, how amazing Jang is in his complexity, weaving together a story like no one else in South Korean cinema today. Jang chose to look at the discrimination of contract workers. But he couldn't stop there; he had to bring in the political tortures of South Korea's past to make his point. As Jang said during the discussion after the screening at PIFF, when portraying such historical torture scenes, he's very cognizant that someone in his crew might have experienced the simulacrum in front of them. To approach such a sensitive topic in such a satirical way takes a very steady hand, and I can think of no one else I'd want on the optic operating table than Jang. The key joke in the film revolves around a paper-and-pencil game about which I am unfamiliar, but the crowd lost it when Jang brought his creative wit to this game of the Korean everyday. And it is that packed crowd that was just as much a part of my If You Were Me 2 experience as the shorts themselves. As Darcy has noted, one of the impressive things about PIFF is the youthfulness of the crowd. Unlike the thirtysomething and over hip crowds that flock to festivals in the United States and elsewhere I've attended (such as Austria and Italy), high school kids, college students dominate at PIFF. And the fact that they were so engaged with this omnibus human rights film throughout and after the screening, I can't help but hope that when these young South Koreans position themselves in places of power, they might remember what they've seen here and try to make things better for the real people who inspired what's on screen. ( ) Ssunday Seoul Ssunday Seoul is an omnibus consisting of three short stories and hilariously bizarre opening and closing sequences, taking the stale genre of comedy momentarily away from 'funny' gangsters and feisty lovers. Bizarre is the operative word when describing the film and the characters running through it, and most of the movie takes on the atmosphere of a light-hearted Twilight Zone. The first chapter of the omnibus is a familiar coming of age story with a twist. Mercilessly teased and bullied, Do-yeon (Bong Tae-gyu) knows that he is the low man on the totem pole at his high school where he daydreams about the drop-dead gorgeous Ji-yeon (Ko Eun-ah) who sits in front of him in class. However, the living hell he faces daily changes dramatically when he discovers himself sprouting tufts of hair in unusual places and developing fangs. When his parents inform him that he is actually from a long line of werewolves, Do-yeon greets the fact with a mixture of despair and terror. The resulting story of learning to accept oneself is an interesting metaphor for the difficulties of adolescence. Another episode affectionately parodies the kung-fu movies of old where we find a man named Typhoon (Kim Su-hyeon) seeking to train with a mystic master of martial arts in order to take revenge on the man who killed his father. The acting in this story is exaggerated for humor, but the most entertaining aspect of this sequence is its predictability. It follows the plotline of similar movies made decades before and even pays homage to actor Hwang Jeong-ri, a Korean-born star of many Hong Kong action films of the 70s and 80s. Clever additions and numerous cameos add interest and keep the proceedings fresh. However, what works so well in the martial arts story proves to be disastrous for the story of a serial killer (Park Seong-bin) whose car has broken down. He finds himself forced to search for a phone and winds up at a house occupied by a very unusual family. The predictability of this episode, which is actually the second chapter of the omnibus, is not played for humor. In fact, it takes itself far too seriously. Anyone who knows the conventions of the horror/thriller genres will be able to guess what is about to happen the moment the killer steps in the door. The serious and sometimes disturbing events that ensue seem mismatched with the rest of the film. The three tales are connected by a pair of hapless comic figures who seem to have frequent accidental brushes with the supernatural but are just a little too dense to fully grasp what they have encountered. Director Park Sung-hoon took the name for his debut film from one of Korea's most infamous tabloid newspapers which was famous throughout the nation as having some of the most sensationalized, lurid and implausible stories imaginable. (The newspaper Ssunday Seoul went out of print nearly a decade ago). Note that there is another independent Korean movie from 2003 that is titled Sunday Seoul with one 's', but it has no relation to this one. This later work was originally screened at the 2005 Pusan International Film Festival. ( ) Way To Go, Rose Lost in all the hubbub surrounding Tony Rayns' Kim Ki-duk article in the Special (South) Korean Cinema Midsection of the Nov/Dec 2004 issue of Film Comment was another little article that posed a provocative argument. Our man Darcy dared to juxtapose My Sassy Girl's refashioning of old feminine brews in new bottles with Kim Eung-su's nihilistic, emotional-bludgeoning dungeon Desire. Although obviously different films, Darcy argued that (South) 'Korean romances remain fascinating for both the uneasy tension they exhibit between the traditional and the modern and the sense of moral confusion' (49). Kim Eung-su's focus in this area is 'the messiness of human relationships'. Kim's new film Way To Go, Rose! Continues exploration of such 'dirty love' by further deconstructing several tropes of the romance genre. Frustrating for the reviewer, the best example of this happens at the end when Kim dismantles a ubiquitous scene in South Korean romances. Review ethics keep me from going into greater detail, but it's lovely in its cheekiness. Way To Go, Rose! Is separated into two parts: 'Marriage' and 'Divorce', but the two parts are also separated by which character primary focus is placed upon. In 'Marriage' we follow Young-mi (Choi Ban-ya, who played the prostitute in L'Abri) and we learn that Nam-dae (Kim Tae-hoon, Long and Winding Road) and Young-mi have a less than an idyllic relationship, spats erupting sporadically. In an effort to rekindle what, as far as we know, wasn't there in the first place, Young-mi devises a plan for them to head out to a bar, followed by a tryst in a love motel, all the while acting as if they are dating rather than married. Young-mi even goes so far as to videotape this encoded encounter. This allows for wonderful narrative confusion about whether the actions that transpire while in the hotel are real, memories, or all a facade. Director Kim nicely utilizes color to black and white transitions as well as a discordant soundtrack to note when the narrative is shifting. The 'Divorce' section of this two part play of many parts has our two divorcees meeting up to spend the day together. Focusing on Nam-dae's after-married life, we eventually venture to the apartment of Nam-dae's boss, President Oh, where a scene takes place as classically dark and humorous as the dinner party scene of Desire. And humor is definitely where Way To Go, Rose! Gets going, such as Nam-dae's priceless mocking of the artifice of a play while standing on top of a cylindrical seat of an outdoor theatre, or Young-mi's joke about how outdated Nam-dae's cell phone is, or Nam-dae's verbal bout with an older woman on the subway. Early on we witness Young-mi placing a large fishbowl-like glass container over her head. So much is revealed in this scene about where the film is headed. Young-mi is never portrayed as stupid, so we know she knows the trouble she's about to get herself into. Yet just like the jabs she takes at Nam-dae's male insecurities, she ventures on to play around the edges of the vulnerability that intimate relationships expose. The bowl over the head also relates to how each character is confined within the roles that they play as husband, lover, daughter, subordinate employee, and divorcee. Way To Go, Rose! Can be added to a list of less than great but greater than lesser films, but it is this exploration of how we act the sum of our parts in the larger societal whole that is most interesting to me. There are expectations in the roles we take on that often bring us to expect complementary roles from others. Although neither character is portrayed sympathetically -- there are no heroes here -- Young-mi is presented as the one with the greatest expectations, from her appreciation of the acting in the play that Nam-dae mocks to her mapping out the romp at the love motel. Throughout the film she nags Young-mi to 'be a man'. Of course, what she means is 'be the person I expect you to be; don't be who you are' and these expectations are confined by gendered politics about how a man 'should' be. The film's sympathy defaults initially along his side until we discover the appalling steps he will take to get his script made into a film. Kim Eung-su works within moments of Hongian discomfort, yet his characters are louder and more histrionic than Hong's somber, muted souls. I don't need another Hong so I don't wish to impose Hong standards on Kim. Kim has his own thing going and I hope the South Korean film industry affords him an opportunity to continue to explore his quirky take on relationships. Through the most intimate of our relationships, the one we negotiate with our romantic partners, Way To Go, Rose! Reminds us how fragile these relationships are when we don't step back and watch ourselves on camera and see where the wrestling might lead to pain rather than pleasure. Kim smears our faces in the worst of our actions to the best of our selves for us to contemplate during our bus ride home or while watching the bus we missed ride away. ( ) One Shining Day Partially financed by the Committee for the Promotion of Cultural Enterprises Commemorating the 60th Year of Liberation, this indie omnibus production puts together three novella-length short films. Even though One Shining Day is ostensibly made to celebrate Korea's liberation from the Japanese colonial rule, the actual film pays little attention to the memory of colonial experience (which makes only a brief appearance as an unresolved mystery in one of the episodes). Indeed, inculcation of anti-Japanese patriotism is as far from its mind as one can imagine. Instead, the filmmakers approach the subject of Japan-Korean relationship with an attitude closely approximating the one held by many contemporary Korean youths: equanimity bordering on indifference, devoid of urgent emotional response, positive or negative, to things or people Japanese, often observable in their elder generations. For them Japan is just another foreign country, only slightly more familiar due to geographical proximity and cultural diffusion. This is pretty much the sense we get from Kim Jong-kwan's (responsible for an award-winning short film How to Use a Polaroid Camera) 'Good-bye,' an intimate and compassionate study of a teenage boy Jong-hwan (Kim Dong-young), who is attempting raise money to visit his mother, supposedly a migrant worker in Japan. Jong-hwan's stock in trade is hustling used laptops in the street, displaying a lot of moxie but also boyish recklessness dealing with much older 'clientele.' But the short is overall a rather glum meditation on the boy's loneliness. Besides, there is no compelling reason why his mother had to leave for Japan. Her destination might as well have been Brazil or Canada. On the other hand, Kim, who played the Lee Beom-soo character's teenage self in, shows a lot of promise as an actor. Scenarist Min Dong-hyun ( )'s 'Beautiful Strangers' employs a hoary gimmick-two strangers inadvertently stranded in a confined space together-- to tell the story of a befuddled tour-guide magazine writer Ishida (Shiota Sadaharu, MPD Psycho) stuck in the after-hours Incheon Airport, with the equally bewildered bookstore clerk Goni (Lee So-yeon, ) as his only companion. Naturally, they don't know a word of each other's language. The short is a sheer feel-good fantasy and works only because its two protagonists are charming and cute: otherwise their complete unwillingness or inability to work out any useful means of communication might strike us as positively doltish. It could have used either more aggressively fantasy-oriented ingredients or more toned-down, Hur Jin-ho-like relational dynamics: as it stands, the short is amusing but not memorable. Kim Sung-ho ( )'s 'Treasure Island,' unlike the other two shots, illustrates Korea from the viewpoint of a young Japanese girl. Mie (Mori Yukie) visits Jeju Island with her best friend Eiko (Seo Young-hwa) in tow, to locate a 'secret treasure box' left by her dead grandfather somewhere in the island. Along the way they encounter colorful Korean natives, both hostile and friendly. Director Kim depicts Jeju Island as an eminently recognizable but strangely enchanting place, wherein the memories of the long forgotten past as well as potentially disturbing questions about the real identities of the loved ones may turn up, yet also capable of unleashing a little bit of homespun magic. When the dorky owner (played with aplomb by the singer Han Vad) of the scooter 'borrowed' by the girls begins to serenade them in drag, the whole sequence turns out to be oddly moving, despite its surface ridiculousness. Both Mori and Seo, a real-life third-generation Korean-Japanese, deliver excellent, naturalistic performances. The omnibus is a well-meaning, nicely put-together showcase of typical low-budget, indie-film sensibilities. Its low-octane, soft-in-the-heart approach and lack of cinematic razzle-dazzle will likely disappoint some viewers. Nonetheless, One Shining Day deserves a place in the history of postwar Korean cinema as a thought-provoking snapshot of a stage in the evolution of mutual perceptions by Japanese and Koreans. ( ) See You After School Serial loser Namgung Dal (Namgung is his family name -- unlike most Korean surnames, this one is two syllables long) is a walking disaster. Everything he touches goes wrong, even after enrolling in extensive therapy. Setting off to attend his new high school one morning, all signs point to the likelihood that he will once again be branded as a helpless loser by his fellow students. Sure enough, hardly an hour passes before he insults the toughest kid in the school and is summoned to appear on the roof after classes for a fistfight. Reading this brief synopsis, viewers might not expect very much from See You After School. However after a slow start, director/screenwriter Lee Seok-hoon's debut film picks up momentum and develops into one of the season's most enjoyable comedies. Much of this can be credited to the decision to cast actor Bong Tae-gyu in the lead role. After injecting similar life into romantic comedy When Romance Meets Desire (2005), Bong is emerging as a successor to Song Kang-ho and Ryoo Seung-beom, who proved they can be top-notch actors in both comedy and drama. Charismatic and funny, he is 80% of the reason to watch this film. In the course of charting the ups and downs of Dal's first day at school, director Lee provides clever dialogue and tongue-in-cheek reversals that keep the action moving along at a steady tempo. At the same time, he creates some empathy for some rather odd students at the school who just don't fit in. At times, the film feels like an homage to Jo Geun-shik's Conduct Zero (2002), not only in its cartoonish, exaggerated staging of fistfights in flashback, but also in the way it swerves towards a more serious tone at the end. Although not as accomplished as Conduct Zero, in its strongest sequences See You After School re-creates some of the same energy. There have been some accusations in the Korean media that this film plagiarizes the 1980s Hollywood teen comedy Three O'Clock High, which shares the same basic setup. Nonetheless, many of the plot details differ (the director claims not even to have known about the latter film), and this does seem to be a genuine case of unintentional duplication. After all, the concept of a weak student being challenged to a fight after school is not that original or hard to dream up. Although far more entertaining than other recent comedies like My Boss, My Teacher or Almost Love, this film opened weakly at the box office and failed to attract large numbers of viewers (even though word of mouth was fairly positive). The comedy genre in Korea is at a weird crossroads in 2006. Audiences seem to be craving a good laugh, but few films have managed to replicate the creative energy that existed back in 1999-2002. Despite being well-executed and funny, See You After School probably falls into the same category -- it is charming, but very familiar. ( ) Romance Hyung-jin (Jo Jae-hyun, Hanbando, Mokpo the Gangster's Paradise) crashes a gangster's funeral and beats the stuffing out of the mourners in slow motion. Ethically uncompromising, Hyung-jin is marked as a persona non grata at his police department. Really serious trouble brews when he falls in love with a politico's trophy wife Yoon-hee (Kim Ji-soo, That Charming Girl). He dreams of emigrating to Argentina with her, where she can fulfill her childhood dream of being a tango dancer (I didn't make this up). Yoon-hee's husband, enraged by the illicit affair, schemes to permanently incarcerate her in a psychiatric ward and annihilate Hyung-jin by means of a forced drug overdose. And he's got many underlings, even among the police, to do his bidding. Tear-jerking melodrama or sinpa (originally meaning the 'new style' theater, a term imported from Japan during the colonial period) is arguably not only the most significant cinematic genre in Korean cinema today, but also Korea's unique contribution to the global media culture. Disparaged as vulgar and tasteless only a few decades ago, like so many popular Korean artforms, melodrama has stoutly weathered insults and derisions, to claim the position of a commercial and artistic force to be reckoned with. In recent years the melodramatic form in Korean cinema has begun to evolve in a range of interesting directions, picked up by talented filmmakers with a lot more in their minds than simply compelling the (female) audience to reach for Kleenex tissues. If Park Jin-pyo's You Are My Sunshine stands as one example of how to successfully update or reconstruct the tear-jerker for the 21st century, at the extreme opposite end lies Moon Seung-wook's Romance, the kind of jaw-dropping train wreck that only a talented director could have made. If Kryszytof Kieslowski was asked to make a hybrid of Endless Love and Die Hard, could it have resembled Romance? No, actually that movie would be a whole lot more entertaining. Or if Ingmar Bergman and Sven Nykvyst decided to make a Steven Segal movie as a joke. Only then they forgot that it was a joke. And began to take Segal's input seriously as the valuable suggestions of a creative mind. Anyway, you get the picture. It's that bad. First question that bubbled up to my mind, while I was gazing at the screen in a state of amazed stupor, was why the four (count' em, four!) screenwriters, including director Moon, did not choose to make the protagonists two ordinary people, like a banker and a housewife. Why this mock-Hollywood 'honest cop' nonsense? Why blow up a get-me-out-of-this-unhappy-marriage female fantasy scenario into an action extravaganza with shrapnel and body parts flying everywhere? It's a miscalculation of monstrous proportions, if indeed it was a miscalculation: this intrusion of Hollywood action flick bull is so ludicrous that it almost appears to be an allegory of some kind. Is Moon trying to comment on how this overwrought violence, the endless display of gunfire, explosions, beatings, face-slaps and foul language, has supplanted romantic yearning in so-called melodramas, i.e. Urban violence as a substitute for sex appeal? Otherwise how do you explain the pupil-dilating 'teaching your girl how to target shoot as instant psycho-therapy' scene between Hyung-jin and Yoon-hee? This is the kind of stuff Jerry Bruckheimer would be too embarrassed to put in his blockbuster. Hyung-jin's character is so cranked up that he appears to be permanently on speed, except for a few quite moments he shares with Yoon-hee. It is entirely due to Jo Jae-hyun's acting ability that we at least remain convinced that Hyung-jin genuinely cares about her. In almost every other respect he is a carbon copy of one of those psychotic 'tough guys' in bad Hollywood movies who probably urinates undiluted testosterone. Kim Ji-soo, who publicly complained about the lack of depth in her role, is at least allowed a few moments of dignity in which her severe, porcelain face registers trauma and despair. For the rest of the film, Yoon-hee might as well be a varnished paper cut-out. Adding insult to injury, she is stuck with some of the most atrocious lines I have ever encountered in a Korean movie, melodrama or not: 'My father was a carpenter. He was a rough man, but he was sensitive inside. Like you, Hyung-jin.' Supporting players don't fare any better. Yoon Je-mun's (so powerful in A Dirty Carnival) snickering, weasel-like secondary villain is a colossal waste of his talent. Poor Jang Hyun-seong ( Nabi, Spider Forest, Git) sinks into a bowl of second banana pudding. Lee Jung-hwan's live-wire primary villain seems to think he is Juan Peron and his wife Evita. At least that goes in sync with the film's mortifying reference to tango and its cringe-inducing use of the dance tunes as background music. The only redeemable feature of this fiasco is its unique visual look. Moon, DP Kwon Hyuk-joon ( Ardor, Marathon), lighting director Lee Jae-hyuk, production designer Hwang In-joon ( Antarctic Diary, Tube) and art director Jeong Hyun-cheol ( Bungee Jumping of Their Own) collaborate to create a stunningly stylized chromascape dominated by two colors, dark blue-indigo and gold-orange, a sort of Vermeer-meets-classic film noir look that's unlike anything ever seen in a Korean movie. It is undeniably gorgeous, occasionally even breathtaking. A tableau of Yoon-hee walking across a rain-drenched empty lot in one scene, for instance, that you could swear was filmed at a Middle European plaza, perhaps previously featured in The Third Man or some such post-Second World War masterpiece, turns out to be the Seobu Police station, one of the drabbest locations in Seoul! Alas, all this fine-arts sophistication is for naught, overwhelmed by ridiculous dialogue, unpleasant violence and overripe performance. Romance proves, like countless Korean horror films of the summer season, how difficult it is to reformulate tired-but-true cinematic cliches. It requires far greater mastery of cinematic conventions than is usually supposed. To put it bluntly, it is easier to make an imitation-Hong Sang-soo 'art movie' than to make a tear-jerking melodrama that has something new to say beyond pushing Pavlovian buttons, a point that Korean critics and producers need to appreciate. One can only hope that Moon Seung-wook will be able to put this no doubt frustrating experience behind him and get things right next time. ( ) Grain In Ear Two things have stayed with me regarding Zhang Lu's Chinese-Korean co-production Grain in Ear. First, there is how everyone appears to move listlessly through the film, as if walking through a viscuous liquid, or as if carrying a heavy burden, such as Soon-hee's (Ji Liu Lian) excruciatingly slow pedalling of her kim-chee cart across the screen. And second, there is the prevalence of frames within frames, the centering of a doorway within the film frame where we watch what happens on screen and infer what happens beyond the border of the doorway. For those unfamiliar with film theory terms, what happens within the frame is called 'diegetic' while that which happens outside the frame is 'non-diegetic.' What is lovely about Zhang's mise-en-scene is that this frame within the frame sets up a kind of non-diegetic diegetic space that allows for a powerful connection with the events happening both inside and outside our view. And of all the films I saw at the 10th PIFF in 2005, none was more sutured in my brain when leaving South Korea as this one, making me quite happy to hear that it ended up winning the New Currents Award. Soon-hee is a Korean-Chinese living in China struggling to raise her young son (Bo Jin) on her own. Soon-hee sells kim-chee-ed vegetables illegally, so she positions herself for customers at different remote locations throughout the town to avoid being caught by the police. Soon-hee lives in a tiny subdivided house, the other divide being rented by four young, Chinese, female prostitutes with whom her son will occasionally play when not marching along with his friends in town looking to creatively engage with their desolate surroundings. Reluctant to engage with her neighbors, Soon-hee is approached by different individuals, particularly by men who come with their own agendas. In its wonderfully slow pace, Zhang demonstrates vividly how stereotypes approach us. How others views about us are imposed upon us and how difficult it can be to excise ourselves from these assumptions. And most frightening is how we are sometimes forced to become these stereotypes. The kim-chee-ed vegetables she sells on the shores of abandoned roads are each man's entryway into Soon-hee's life. Then, through the poor, (il)logical leaps that create stereotypes, they assume things about her that aren't true yet they use their privileged positions to re-position Soon-hee to meet their stereotypes of her. Tragedy upon tragedy occurs in Grain In Ear, but there are moments of tiny positive poignancy that do still emerge. There is the time she buys a kite for her child. And even though the female police officer sees her solely as her ethnicity, (she's only seen Korean-Chinese on TV, never having met one before), and approaches Soon-hee as someone exotic, the moments when Soon-hee teaches her Korean traditional dance and they playfully mess around with each other as fast friends later in the sauna, each are respites for Soon-hee from the impending gloom that overwhelms the film. Zhang's use of kim-chee as Soon-hee's connection to everyone involved, including herself, is well laid out and adds nicely to a tradition of how food is used in film explored in detail in Reel Food: Essays on Food and Film edited by Anne L. And his slow, lumbering style is not just for show, for it is syntonic with the environment and lives of the characters on screen. Equally congruent is Zhang's stationary camera, because even though the characters are moving, albeit slowly, they still appear to remain in the same place, further underscored by the kim-chee cart peddling and dancers parading in one direction early on in the film and then later in the opposite direction. We can add to this the non-diegetic diegetic space of the doorways and windows, for both are entry and exit ways, underscoring the feelings of inevitability that trap Soon-hee. And the overall pace of all inactive actions of the majority of the film provide a stark contrast to the speed with which Soon-hee moves at the end of the film. All this amounts to a powerful film about the Sisyphean uphill climb of flat, false assumptions about who we are and can be and what we're capable of when all hope is lost. ( ) My Scary Girl If film can accurately be described as a marriage between art and industry, then there is always bound to be conflict. In countries where the industry side of the equation is weak, a national cinema runs the risk of shrinking or being overwhelmed by Hollywood imports. In rarer cases such as Korea where you have a strong industry, worries rise that commercial pressures will straightjacket filmmakers' creativity. This fear is widespread in Korea these days, partly because industrial developments are rushing ahead at such incredible speed. The best way to counteract this is to support diversity -- not just in topics, genres, filmmakers' backgrounds, etc., but also in the way that films are made. If all Korean movies are financed, produced and shot in the same way, then they are all bound to turn out rather similar. In today's industry, the Korean Film Council is probably trying hardest to support alternative modes of filmmaking, but it faces an uphill battle. Nonetheless, the success of the HD-shot comedy My Scary Girl may warrant a spark of optimism. A co-operative effort between leading production company Sidus FNH and broadcaster MBC, the film was conceived as sort of an experiment. Its comparatively low budget of $800,000 meant that neither side was risking a lot of money, so not much pressure was placed on writer/director Son Jae-gon (whose first feature, The Man Who Saw Too Much, was never released in theaters). TV stations like MBC have not been much involved in the film industry to date, but the start of broadcasting in HD format has created a new demand for these type of films. Son picked two well-known but not particularly in demand actors, Park Yong-woo and Choi Gang-hee, and quietly set about shooting his film. Park ( Ditto, Blood Rain) plays a well-educated, 30-year old man named Dae-woo who has never in his life worked up the courage to date a woman. One day an attractive art graduate with big eyes moves into the apartment below his, and with the forceful encouragement of one of his friends, he asks her to dinner. Soon, he is blind with love, and the two are spending all their free time making out. Yet as he learns more about his new girlfriend, he starts to suspect that she is hiding something. His puzzlement develops into anxiety, and eventually into outright alarm. The film's soft and fluffy setup outlined above is ultimately overwritten by darker and more interesting plot developments -- like a romantic comedy left out on the counter that starts to turn black. Park plays his role, as he is meant to, like a cheerful and stupid puppy who can't see what he's got coming. In contrast, Choi Gang-hee, whose only major film role before this was in the original Whispering Corridors (1998), plays her elusive character with precision control and cool grace, even when she's the butt of the jokes. The crowd I watched this with was screaming in delight at the film's humor, though so much of it is verbal-based that I wonder if it will translate. But for me the most exciting aspect of this film was what it lacked. Contrasted to something like My Sassy Girl (which the international marketers of this film seem to be referencing -- the original title means 'Sweet, Bloodthirsty Sweetheart'), My Scary Girl pitches the sappy ending right out the window. The film never labors to provide melodramatic justification for our heroine's behavior, due to a troubled childhood or whatever. It doesn't transform her into a soft, passive kitten at the story's end. Korean romances and comedies tend to be loaded with emotional and narrative baggage, but there is none of that here at all. As a viewer it's tremendously refreshing. It makes me wonder if this film's agnostic attitude would have survived if it were set up as a mainstream, normal-budgeted production. And how did it do at the box office? Three weeks at #1, easily fending off competition from Ice Age 2, and over $16 million worth of tickets sold. This from a film that was expected to earn back maybe half of its little budget. Hopefully this will encourage Korean producers to keep trying new things. ( ) The Peter Pan Formula There are many ways to receive a film, and when blogging for GreenCine at the 10th PIFF in 2005, I decided to be resistant to the narrative when reporting on my screening of Cho Chang-ho's The Peter Pan Formula. I presented a contrarian view to the Freudian text that the film presents. But for this review, I'll let that be and present the film closer to what it is rather than a text with which to debate. Premiering as part of the New Currents Award series, it didn't win but seemed to generate some buzz at the festival. And this may be because of how psychoanalysis and film seem to stroll hand in hand. (My favorite film book title ever is a testament to this - the Slavoj Zizek edited Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock). The book intimidates me too much to ever sit down at a coffeehouse to begin reading it. Although I'm sure having it in my hands would beef up my coffeehouse cred.) Han-soo (On Ju-wan - Flying Boys, The Aggressives) is a 17-year old student in his final year of high school whose already vulnerable world has fully fallen apart. His mother attempts suicide but is caught soon enough that she remains in a coma. In her suicide note is the address of his estranged father. Initially, Han-soo holds off from locating his father. Instead, he decides to sever himself off from all connections to the world. He quits school and the swimming team where he is the most promising swimmer, resolving to take care of his mother full time. His teammates, coach, and teachers at school try their best to get him to reconsider but he is headstrong in isolating himself. But Han-soo is also ambivalent about this trip to an existential island. Sharing the room with his mother is the comatose mother of college-aged Mi-jin (Ok Ji-young - again playing an orphaned young woman as she did in Take Care of My Cat). Insecure about approaching her, he ends up stalking her and stealing her stockings after discovering that she is prostituting herself to pay for the hospital bills. These stockings will later provide cover for Han-soo's own methods of paying off his mother's debts. Another woman who reaches out to him is his somewhat despondent, married next-door neighbor (Kim Ho-jung - Nabi, Springtime) who is a little too willing to comfort Han-soo in his time of certain needs. Besides what Freud fans will find reinforcing about this film (Han-soo's need to 'return to the womb', the sexuality issues that arise for Han-soo when bathing his mother, and various other fetishes), the film has some compelling scenes, particularly when Han-soo reveals a secret to Mi-jin and earlier scenes involving his coach and teammates. The scenes with his coach and peers are most compelling for me since the scenes present two common, and similar, tropes in South Korean cinema - freely dispersed capital punishment by male teachers and equally freely dispersed pummeling by peers. Cho (who also wrote the screenplay) provides a new perspective on this common occurrence in that he shows the coach punishing Han-soo and his teammates and the teammates punishing Han-soo, but then quickly shows them switching to alternate tactics when such methods prove futile. And these alternative tactics are, in one instance, the complete opposite of beating up Han-soo, resorting to prostrating themselves before him begging that he return. They truly care about Han-soo and want him to reconsider his alienating choices, placing the earlier punches as one aspect of a complicated interplay between peers. For all that is understandable about Han-soo's need for isolation, The Peter Pan Formula also demonstrates how we can exacerbate that isolation into alienation. Han-soo rejects the outreach of his friends and the father surrogacy offered by his coach. Mi-jin seems to be the most likely candidate for an understanding ear, but his high school innocence makes approaching her more difficult. And he mis-uses the sincere offers of help from his next-door neighbor. The latter two are where the fetishes presented come into play. Isolation can often bring about perversion. And I mean that in a more divergent definition of the word than is commonly used. The dictionary defines 'perversion' as a sexual practice or act considered abnormal or deviant. But what we find abnormal or deviant is subjective and hence why I initially was resistant to The Peter Pan Formula's perpetuation of certain acts as always 'abnormal'. I look at an act as perverted if it is a sexual act of disconnect rather than connection. In this way, I refuse that label for sexual acts or attractions commonly perceived as perverted that actually bring partners together and reserve it for those that separate partners to the point of the objectification of one or more members of the union. (So if being into stockings makes you even more receptive, to yourself and your partner(s), then you go put those stockings to whatever creative use you have in store!) In The Peter Pan Formula, Han-soo's thing for Mi-jin's stockings are a means of separating from her and thus clearly fetishistic and not an extension of sex play, and his desire for his next-door neighbor is a need to 'return to the womb' and not simply recognizing how damn hot some older women can be. In Cho's filmic formula here, Han-soo engages in clearly perverted actions and they definitely exacerbate his isolation. And the more and more we isolate ourselves within our modern societies, societies that by the very acts of modernizing can impose involuntary isolation upon us to begin with, the more things become harder for us to survive the trials life brings us. Cho shows us there are beacons of hope all around us, including the hope within ourselves, if we'd only bother to receive their signals that it's ok to let our guards down and be the vulnerable human beings that we are. ( ) Bloody Tie Despite a relaxation of censorship standards since the late 1990s which helped Korean filmmakers such as Jang Sun-woo ( Lies) and Park Jin-pyo ( Too Young to Die) push the envelope in terms of the explicitness of sexuality depicted onscreen, Korean cinema had for years stayed away from quite a few 'taboo' topics. Two among them were the negative experiences of military draftees (there is no such thing as sexual abuse among men in the Korean military, of course) and the widespread use of drugs (only Americans do drugs, of course). I've in fact vilified Korean filmmakers on more than one occasion for not having the guts to take on these issues. Well, I am as happy as Winnie the Pooh with a pot of honey to eat my own words, as we now have The Unforgiven tackling the military controversy, and Bloody Tie, one of the most harrowing crime thrillers to come out in Korea for some time, for the drug problem. The drug of choice for Korean addicts is Philophon (called hiroppong or ppong in the street argot), basically a Japanese version of crystal meth or methampethamine solids. Meth was used by various governments (Japanese, Nazis, American) during the Second World War to boost production and keep troops alert: today it is recognized as one of the most widely used and socially destructive addictive substances in the world, next to alcohol, caffeine and nicotine (What, did you expect cannabis to make the list?). Bloody Tie begins with an actual news montage chronicling the explosive rise of meth use in the Busan area following the 1997 IMF crisis. The film then introduces two protagonists: Sang-do (Ryoo Seung-beom from Crying Fist), a cocky, street-savvy small-time dealer with a tragic family history involving his dopehead uncle (the veteran Kim Hee-ra), and Lieutenant Do (Hwang Jeong-min, You Are My Sunshine, Bittersweet Life), a corrupt cop obsessed with bagging his arch-nemesis Jang Cheol (theatrical actor Lee Do-gyung), a big-shot crime lord ensconced in China. Sang-do and the Lieutenant hate each other with virulence yet have built a complex symbiotic relationship over the years, compared to one between a crocodile and an Egyptian plover in Yoon Deok-won's intelligent but perhaps overly literate screenplay. Bloody Tie has a four-Chinese-character Korean title, 'A Life-or-Death Decision,' that alludes to Hong Kong urban action films of the 1980s. In substance, however, the film is shorn of the H.K.-brand macho romanticism packaged in aesthetically pleasing slow-mo visuals. Rather, it is fast, dirty and mean like an angry hedgehog rolling itself into a ball of pointed quills, ready to pounce at your face. I was reminded of William Friedkin's equally nasty To Live and Die in L.A. Minus its fashion-magazine slickness. Director Choi Ho, who previously helmed the interesting Who Are You? Starring Lee Na-young, displays an impressive level of storytelling skills and an excellent ear for character interaction. Several obviously cliched setups attain, under his careful direction, a sense of dramatic authenticity, such as Sang-do's don't-tell-me-why-I-am-doing-this effort to detox an upper-class addict Ji-young (the TV drama actress Choo Ja-hyun), which develops into a highly convincing, non-sentimental relationship between the two. At the center of this hardball film noir are two of the best actors working in Korean cinema today, Hwang Jeong-min and Ryoo Seung-beom. Hwang is brilliant as usual. His trademark steam-engine puffing ('Ssssheee.' ) is no longer oddly endearing here as was in A Bittersweet Life, but revealed as a sound made by a viper spitting venom at his prey before swallowing her whole. Unfortunately for me, the character played by Hwang remains a weak link in Bloody Tie. If Director Choi, as the publicity materials imply, intended to make this character reminiscent of the scary-as-hell sociopaths in Graveyard of Honor and other yakuza films of Fukasaku Kinji, I must say he did not quite pull it off. This is where perhaps the director's arthouse sensibility, aspiring toward a dry-eyed expose of the lethal absurdity of a human creature, and his (or the producer's?) attraction to Hong Kong-style romanticism collided with and ended up canceling one another. To put it in another way, Lieutenant Do is an evil bastard from whom I could not detect any shred of 'moral ambiguity' or 'complexity of character.' Indeed, I am a bit worried that his final dialogue, spoken while striking an iconic pose of a Cool Cop and most probably meant to be ironical, will be embraced by many viewers as an uncomplicated statement of Dirty Harry-ism. Hwang delivers a showstopper as Lieutenant Do but the movie really belongs to Ryoo Seung-beom's Sang-do. I am fast running out of superlatives to praise Ryoo, undoubtedly the most naturally talented Korean actor of his generation, no contest. Following at the heels of his stunning turn in Crying Fist, Ryoo, without ever resorting to cute mannerisms or exaggerated theatrics, makes us root for Sang-do, a craven little thug full of hot air, who is just smart enough to be one step ahead of his competitors but not smart enough to see that he is nothing more than a rat in a pinwheel in terms of the Big Picture. The only possible fault I could find in his interpretation of Sang-do is that his Busan accent is not always convincing, probably a non-issue for most readers of this review. (For the record, my mother's family is from Busan) Bloody Tie is a dark, vicious and surprisingly poignant film noir, which maintains its integrity despite wholly unnecessary (and ultimately detrimental) capitulation on its maker's part to the lineage of '80s Hong Kong cinema. Do not expect something beautiful and slick: this baby's got a bite. ( ) Over the Border Kim Seon-ho (, My Teacher Mr. Kim, Blood Rain), a horn player, is leading a happy middle-class life, along with his elderly but active parents and the married sister's family. He enjoys an occasional stroll on the neighborhood riverbank and a dish of cold buckwheat noodles. Recently Seon-ho has fallen head over heels for the beautiful museum guide Young-hwa (Jo Yi-jin, The Aggressives), a girl as 'fresh and clean as a swig of dongchimi (cold radish kimchi juice made without red pepper).' When his father (Song Jae-ho) takes up a correspondence with his presumed-to-be-dead grandfather, however, things begin to unravel. You see, Seon-ho is a North Korean. And the grandfather, whom the family thought was an honored Communist hero, has been living in South Korea all these years. Threatened with exposure, Seon-ho's family decides to risk their lives and seek asylum south of the border. How far South Korean movies about the North-South division have evolved since The Spy (1997) and Shiri (1999) may be seen in the fact that the story of Over the Border, with only a few details changed, would make sense in almost any national context where illegal immigration and acculturation are serious social issues. Mexicans in the United States or Moroccans in France would certainly resonate with the Kim family's experience, their befuddlement, desperation and courage in their efforts to create new identities in a familiar yet strange land, and their sorrow resulting from the inevitable choices they make in order to survive. Considering the reality that more than one thousand 'escapees' have settled down in South Korea, some of whom can even make phone calls to North Korea via satellite relay, it is perhaps not surprising that Southerners increasingly look upon the Northerners amidst them as just another group of immigrants. The greatest strength of TV producer An Pan-seok's debut film is its almost anthropological approach to the everyday lives of North Koreans and Northerner exiles in South Korea. The painstaking recreation of communal restaurants and concert halls with their opulent but hollow-looking interior design, and an apartment house with its warm-colored but borderline cheesy wallpapers are stunning in their verisimilitude and naturalism: equally impressive are the detailed descriptions of housing facilities and relocation programs for Northerner exiles. Cha Seung-won, eschewing the comic images familiar from his earlier pictures, is so convincing in portraying Seon-ho's naive, trusting nature that I basically forgot throughout the movie that, if he were to mingle with North Koreans in real life, Cha would stick out like Gandalf among a bunch of Hobbits. Jo Yi-jin is indeed fresh and clean in her role: for me, like a gush of wind from the mountain top, carrying a fragrance of young pine needles. As a counter-point to Jo's youth and wide-eyed vivaciousness, the veteran actress ( Out to the World, Acacia) delivers an excellent supporting performance as a mature, tough owner of fried chicken restaurant who befriends Seon-ho. Unfortunately, Over the Border is altogether too gentle for its own good. Director An, while displaying a sure hand in credibly staging the North Korean scenes and bringing out unforced naturalism from the actor's performances, does not succeed in generating enough dramatic horsepower to make us emotionally invested in the characters. Over the Border's tragic romance is almost entirely carried forward by the film's ridiculously attractive stars: directorial help is not quite forthcoming, especially in the second half. Particularly groan-inducing is the clumsy montage connecting Seon-ho and Young-hwa's trips to the Northern and Southern amusement parks. While I cannot profess a passionate liking for this well-intentioned but occasionally dull film, I am glad that Over the Border has been made. I especially recommend it to Americans whose image of North Korea has been dominated by unflattering shots of its bramble-haired, portly Leader from American 'news' broadcasts. This openly cliched tragic romance, completely bereft of clever plot twists and agonizing reflections by the characters on their national identities, frees itself from the ideological baggage that has burdened other Korean films dealing with the division, by doing the right thing -- rendering its ears to the stories of the thousand-plus Northerners already living in South Korea. And that is no mean achievement. ( ) Family Ties Whenever a great film is made by a pair of co-directors, it is tempting to wonder who among the two is the truly talented one. Was the real genius behind Smoke Wayne Wang or Paul Auster? Some may have wondered the same thing about Memento Mori, the cult horror film from 1999 that is well remembered for its nuanced and haunting portrait of a girls' high school. Yet we may have to get used to the idea that Min Kyu-dong, who went on to direct All For Love in 2005, and Kim Tae-yong are both, indeed, quite talented. Kim's Family Ties is an ensemble story told in three seemingly unconnected segments. (Skip this paragraph if you'd prefer not to know anything about the plot) Acting legend Moon So-ri takes the lead in the first, playing a woman who is visited by her long-lost, delinquent brother (Eom Tae-woong) who had vanished years earlier. He announces that he has gotten married, introduces Mu-shin (Goh Doo-shim), a woman who is considerably older than he is, and then casually moves in. Part two is tightly focused on a character played by Gong Hyo-jin ( Conduct Zero, Memento Mori), a quick-tempered young woman named Sun-kyung who finds out that her mother (Kim Hye-ok) is seriously ill. Sun-kyung has been on bad terms with her mother, particularly because the latter is having an affair with a married man, and has a young son. Part three is about a young couple having problems in their relationship, and features Bong Tae-gyu ( See You After School) and Jeong Yu-mi ( Blossom Again). Given the names in this cast, it may come as no surprise to hear that the acting is top-drawer. Moon So-ri, Gong Hyo-jin, and Bong Tae-gyu are each more than capable of carrying their respective segments, and the supporting roles are well-cast. Gong's performance in particular is worth watching five or six times just to revel in its energy and to catch all of its details. As a bonus, Ryoo Seung-beom makes a brief appearance playing her ex-boyfriend (a nice bit of irony, since in real life too, Ryoo is Gong's ex-boyfriend). The original Korean title 'Birth of a Family' gives some clues as to the thematic point of the film. It is family relationships that provide the work with its narrative scaffolding, yet these family units are not stable. Indeed, we witness the birth of at least two families onscreen. In this way, the families come across as quite unconventional (separate from the fact that all these people tend to act a bit crazy). It's particularly interesting to consider the genesis of these families. Rather than being based on blood relations, they are often born out of a random or irresponsible act by other person. Yet it is made clear that the family is no less valuable because of it. This is not a controversial concept in many parts of the world, but it attracts notice in Korea because many cultural traditions are at least nominally founded on blood ties. Korea has moved far beyond its cultural traditions in many ways, but enough remains that this film carries a somewhat progressive sheen. (Consider, for example, the popular TV drama 'Autumn Love Story,' in which two newborn baby girls are accidentally switched in the hospital, and then fifteen years later when the families discover what happened, are switched back) Sometimes it seems that Western film critics look down on Asian films that take family issues seriously, compared to (for example) the hip, ironic portrayals of family breakdown seen in many U.S. Independent films. When Im Sang-soo's A Good Lawyer's Wife premiered at Venice in 2003, the reaction of many critics seemed to be that their own society had 'been there, done that' -- that the film had nothing new to say to them. But I wonder if this isn't just a closing of minds to issues that are still pretty vital to people in any society. Family Ties is unlikely to travel far on the festival circuit, given that the director is not well known and it doesn't fit the mould of a European-style art film. But aside from a few weak points (the music, for example, or a tendency to push too hard in certain scenes) this is likely to be one of the most interesting films that Korea produces in 2006. Korean critics have embraced it, but I suspect that in the West it will remain an underappreciated achievement. ( ) The City of Violence A Seoulite cop Tae-su (Korea's most famous action choreographer/stunt artist Jeong Du-hong) receives the shocking news that his childhood friend Wang-jae ( Ryoo Seung-wan regular An Kil-gang), a retired wiseguy, has been stabbed to death by a handful of punks. Tae-su goes back to his hometown Onsung to attend Wang-jae's funeral. He immediately smells a rat. The town is under the thumb of their old buddy Pil-ho (Lee Beom-soo, Oh! Brothers, Singles, Mr. Gam's Victory), now a big shot gangster and involved in a citywide real estate development scheme. Tae-su reluctantly teams up with the short-tempered Seok-hwan (Ryoo Seung-wan) to avenge Wang-jae's death. Clocking in at 92 minutes, The City of Violence is so compact and lean that it will probably perturb more than a few Korean cinema fans expecting convoluted surprise endings and long melodramatic passages. Unlike his previous work Crying Fist, which packed quite a emotional wallop, Ryoo Seung-wan's newest is a self-consciously generic update of the 'action films' of 1960s-70s Korea. It superficially reminds you of his searing debut Die Bad, in its purposefully grainy Super-16mm cinematography, archetypal characterizations, off-color humor and acerbic, witty dialogue. Yet, City of Violence is as much a Jeong Du-hong project as a Ryoo Seung-wan one (Jeong's stunt/martial arts specialty outfit Seoul Action School has co-produced the movie with Weyunaegang Productions, headed by Ryoo's wife Gang Hye-jung). Jeong's preference for high-kicking, up-close, bloody and sweaty action aesthetics is very much in evidence. For his part, director Ryoo re-conceives the film noir conventions he first tackled in No Blood No Tears in grittier and starker terms. Intriguingly, The City is the least elaborate in describing the emotional violence and oppressive atmosphere and the least cheeky in mixing humor and drama since Die Bad. Ryoo's command of visual language is as dazzling and assured as ever. A simple expository scene like Tae-su having a frustrated phone conversation with his frazzled colleague pivots on an eye-popping split-screen technique: a tumbling automobile in the film's climactic 'auto accident' sequence seemingly smashes into the camera a la the wrecked train in Lawrence of Arabia. And you know, Quentin Tarantino is a cool guy and a great filmmaker but don't bring him up anymore already. I mean, how lazy can 'Western' critics of Asian movies get? If anything in The City reminds you of Kill Bill, that's because Ryoo Seung-wan has fully absorbed into his stylistics the East Asian films that Tarantino was 'inspired by' in making his revenge flick. In terms of the characters, Ryoo casts himself in a somewhat ironic second-banana role, yielding the spotlight to Jeong Du-hong, who makes a reasonably stern if somewhat boring hero (Seokhwan is to Tae-su what Clint Eastwood is to Lee Van Cleef in Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns). His desire to make a straightforward '70s style action film can also be gleaned from the fact that its key villain Pil-ho is given all the great dialogue and is in fact the most dramatically substantial character. As the curly-haired, wide-eyed, slightly ridiculous Pil-ho, whose monumental sense of inadequacy actually propels the film's narrative, Lee Beom-soo gives a flamboyant but entertaining performance. His demise recalls Gabriele Ferzetti's close encounter with a dirty puddle near the conclusion of Once Upon a Time in the West. It is almost a given, however, that The City's reputation overseas will chiefly rely on its action scenes. The film's extended climax, featuring four beautiful, white-clad bodyguards beating the bejeesus out of our scrappy heroes and an audacious, Beat Takeshi-meets-Sam Peckinpah sequence in which they have to pass through a gauntlet comprised of about two dozen very sharp sashimi knives, is a marvel all right. But in terms of sheer kinetic energy and chutzpah it is outdone by the mid-point chase sequence, in which Tae-su and Seok-hwan are pursued by seemingly a hundred or more teenage thugs, brandishing weapons ranging from baseball bats to hockey pucks and even employing capoeira-meets-breakdance moves. Indeed, the sequence, delirious and exhilarating, resembles a major dance number in a musical rather than a martial arts slugfest, which is all for the better as far as I am concerned. During the press screening, Ryoo stated that he pretty much said everything he wanted to say about the action film genre in The City. This smashingly talented young director will no doubt continue in the future to combine fidelity to genre conventions and experimental spirit in his own unique ways, even outside the 'action' film genre: after watching The City, I won't be too surprised if his next film turns out to be a contemporary musical. ( ) A Bloody Aria A Bloody Aria's original Korean title is pretty much untranslatable into English. Guta yubalja literally means 'one who induces physical assault.' It's military slang, attached to rookies or incompetents who 'deserve' to be beaten up by their 'seniors' and boot camp sergeants. Shot in grimy HD video with just a handful of cast members, Bloody Aria is guaranteed to deeply divide non-Korean viewers into two opposing camps, as much as it has for the domestic audience and critics. Some will no doubt revile it as a premier example of Korean cinema's gloating indulgence in nauseating depictions of physical violence and horrible treatment of women (although not too many 'Western' critics seem to mind when Koreans or Japanese do this in their movies -- oh I know, feminists live only in the U.S., like 'top' baseball players): ugly characters doing ugly things to each other, with not a shred of wisdom to be found at the end. Others might champion it as one of the more honest cinematic statements about the vicious cycle of violence, an unflinching snapshot of degraded human souls hobbling toward, not redemption, but the Nietzschean abyss in which they see shiny-black reflections of their own bloodshot, insanely grinning faces. My reaction falls somewhere in between. To be sure, Bloody Aria is a riveting, nail-biting experience while you are watching it. We can readily see that the movie is far more of a personal project for director Won Shin-yeon than his debut The Wig, directing from his own screenplay that generated considerable insider buzz. Like John Boorman did with Deliverance, the quintessential urbanites-meet-the-murderous-country- yokels thriller (these two works also share the uncomfortable undertones of sexual threat among their predominantly male cast members, exploding into a devastating male rape scene in the former and congealing into a key plot revelation in the latter), Won has the good sense to anchor the bizarre plot in the terrific performances given by its ensemble cast. Unlike Deliverance, however, the focus of Bloody Aria is on the 'local crazies.' Even though the smarmy, sexpot professor of vocal music (brilliantly played by Lee Byung-joon) and his harassed student In-jung (Cha Ye-ryeon, the feline beauty from Voice, largely wasted in a thankless 'screaming girl' role) initially appear to be audience substitutes, they are soon relegated to the background. They are merely catalysts for the real drama to be acted out among the locals. Even though Oh Dal-soo (who seems to be replacing Gi Joo-bong as the ubiquitous face in Korean cinema) as an addle-brained bird hunter and Kim Si-hoo (the adorable cake-maker in Lady Vengeance) as a human punching bag provide able supports, it is really Lee Moon-shik and Han Suk-kyu who keep our eyes glued to the proceedings. Lee Moon-shik, the perennial heavy who usually specializes in portraying cowardly lechers, is given his best role since the out-of-luck soldier in Once Upon a Time in the Battlefield as Bong-yun, ringleader of the local biker gang. Lee uses his oily smile that narrows his eyes into reptilian slits as a mask that hides Bong-yun's inner turmoil. We sense that, even when this thug is prattling on like an idiot while chewing mouthfuls of uncooked pork and raw garlic, he is capable of doing something seriously dangerous or unpredictable. We never know just what -- unimaginable cruelty, a blast of rapid-fire action, or even a gesture of kindness -- and this keeps us at edge. When his character arc begins to intersect with Han Suk-kyu's cop, sparks (not to mention gobs of blood) begin to fly in earnest. Han, an actor whom I admire but find difficult to like, is perfectly cast as Moon-jae, an outwardly reasonable cop who gradually peels away layers upon layers of his personality as a snake would do with its skin, revealing something truly hideous inside. His dentist's smile in the end becomes the single most frightening image in the movie. Watching Bloody Aria, I keep imagining him cast in a super-villain role: it would be like seeing Woody Allen playing Hannibal Lecter. Now, some negative points. While Won's debut Wig was slick and professional-looking despite its laughable story resolution, Aria feels like an expanded version of a student thesis film that's a little too much in love with its own cleverness. In particular, the screenplay, for me, did not live up to its reputation. A handgun makes an appearance only at the requisite deus ex machina moment, not when it would have been most logical for a character to use it: the really clumsy subplot involving a sack of rat poison and other attempts at irony fall completely flat. Bloody Aria, like many Korean films loved by certain critics, is ultimately a rather formulaic film, overly concerned with the mechanics of plotting and symbolic representation: you can readily whip up an academic essay, based on this film, on the systematic perpetuation of violence in Korean society as driven by capitalist consumption (nicely 'signified' by the professor's white Mercedes!) and oppressive social institutions (Police! I think truly great films, bloody violent or not, tend to resist this type of pat analysis. Finally, despite director Won's good intentions, which are clearly communicated, the relentless beatings and degradations visited on the characters are sure to benumb and lose a sizable number of viewers. At the end of Deliverance, Ed, played by Jon Voight, has a scary nightmare, seemingly reaching out from the depth of his subconscious, to remind him of his harrowing ordeal, and the film closes on his anxiety-ridden, sweaty face. It is not certain whether Ed has learned any lesson from his experience, but Boorman here clearly illustrates the impact it had on Ed's soul. At the end of Bloody Aria, we feel that the characters have learned nothing, and the world remains just as rotten as before. This 'critical perspective' on the Korean society is in danger of becoming a cliche itself, like the pompous and pretentious 'unhappy' endings that permeate the European thrillers of 1970s: too much of this, I might find myself pining for a kind of mindlessly liberal, Hollywood-style heroism in a Korean movie. ( ) A Dirty Carnival Byung-doo, lanky and adorable (played by TV drama star Jo In-seong from Hearts in Bali) is a 29-year-old career criminal, working for the middle-rank enforcer Sang-chul (Yoon Je-mun, the annoying communications expert in Antarctic Journal). Burdened with a terminally ill mother and taking care of younger siblings, Byung-doo is feeling financial pressure as a substitute patriarch. When the big boss President Hwang (Cheon Ho-jin, The Big Swindle, Crying Fist) is cornered by a corrupt prosecutor, Byung-doo volunteers for a whack job and wins the big man's trust. However, his real trouble begins when friend Min-ho (Namgung Min), an aspiring movie director, asks him to be a 'consultant' for the latter's debut film, a gangster epic not unlike Dirty Carnival. Poet Yu Ha's highly anticipated follow-up to the critically and financially successful Once Upon a Time in High School, Dirty Carnival's Korean title references Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and there are similarities to the latter's Gangs of New York and Goodfellas. But Scorsesian expressionism and irony are not what Yu Ha is after. Instead we get a straightforward rendition of the oft-told narrative of the rise and fall of an underdog criminal, almost Chandler-esque in its quasi-romantic, melancholic appraisal of this rotten world we live in. As was the case with High School, Yu's assured direction and literate screenplay are at their best when they calmly illuminate the spider-web of back-stabbing deviousness and hypocrisy that enmeshes Byung-doo ever more tightly, until his life juices are sucked out, leaving an empty husk. Thugs in this film are truly thugs: they are not the goofy cretins with extravagant tattoos populating My Boss My Teacher and its ilk, but loan sharks who skulk around naked in your living room until you pay up, enforcers for real estate dealers who smash your grandmother's soybean paste jars into pieces, and the disembodied voice in the cell phone threatening rape and murder for your teenage daughter. President Hwang, who quips 'real gangsters don't use knives, they use calculators' and never once raises his hand or voice against his underlings, sits on the top of the food chain sustained by this pestering, fungoid evil known as 'loyalty' ( euiri) in Korean society (It is wonderful to see Cheon Ho-jin returning to the type of classy villain role first shown in the underrated Double Agent). Yu Ha also deserves credit for keeping the film's violence resolutely unglamorous. Dirty Carnival's fight scenes are too ugly and painful to be called 'action' scenes. They can only be aptly described as eruptions of violence, as each baseball bat swing lands with a bone-cracking crunch and each sashimi knife stab is felt by the viewer with an involuntary cringe. You are impressed as hell at Yu's directorial prowess, but only afterwards: while you are watching these scenes, you want them to be over. The movie-within-a-movie subplot could have been a mess, but is handled surprisingly well. Unlike the dime-store novelist in the Eastwood-directed Unforgiven and other similar characters who make fortunes by turning other people's misery into marketable myths, Min-ho, an obvious identification figure for Yu Ha himself, pays a steep price for not realizing his complicity in perpetuating the vicious cycle of violence and hypocrisy in real life. No tasteful 'ambiguity' that sneakily rehabilitates the filmmaker's 'art' here. At times this section appears to be a barely veiled commentary on the symbiotic relationship going on in real time between Korean filmmakers and career criminals, especially the rather ugly aftermath of Friend's financial success. Jo In-seong, who occasionally looks like an overgrown junior-high school kid with his crew-cut plate and doe eyes, was a risky casting choice for the title role, but he pulls it off. While not a brilliant actor (yet), Jo is believably awkward and conflicted in key emotional scenes, especially working opposite terrific supporting players Yoon Je-mun and Cheon Ho-jin. Ironically, it is his romance with the childhood sweetheart Hyun-joo (Lee Bo-young), terrain that Jo and Yu Ha should be familiar with, that feels lifeless and cliched (Jo Young-wook's saccharine score over these sequences make them feel much worse than they are). A Dirty Carnival illustrates what a gutsy and sensible filmmaker Yu Ha is, firmly reining in the film's narrative drive and not seduced by stylistic razzle-dazzle. At the same time, I find his semi-autobiographical films always stopping short of completely winning me over: there is something achingly lyrical and sad threatening to burst out of his tightly controlled stories of sensitive, 'nice' boys corrupted and/or destroyed by the evil world, but it never happened in High School and it does not happen here either. Nonetheless, thanks to Carnival, my expectations are hoisted way up for his next film, said to be the final installment of the 'street violence' trilogy. Perhaps in it the older protagonist will finally learn how to either fight back against the system, or renounce violence and stop living as the peculiarly noxious species known as the macho Korean male. ( ) Silk Shoes According to Kyung Hyun Kim in his groundbreaking work The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema, Out to the World's 'frank depiction of sexuality and profanity previously unpermitted on screen opens a space for the crude representation of anti-heroes that defy and criticize social norms' (66). Having partly initiated what has brought me to South Korean cinema, it's been disappointing that director and actor Yeo Kyun-dong has been absent in most discussions of South Korean cinema. It appears that Yeo may himself feel frustrated by this because he did say during a discussion after the screening of his film at 2005's PIFF that there are some bits of autobiography in his recent film Silk Shoes. Our protagonist is a struggling director and Yeo's absence from the press's roll call of the directors wowing the festival circuit alludes to the fact that Yeo is probably struggling as well. Yeo is also a respected actor. One needs only to see his performance in Jang Sun-woo's To You From Me as the impotent friend of the sexually potent but writerly-blocked lead character to see how powerful Yeo's acting can be with the right venue. More recently, you might recall him as one of the swapping partners in Love Bakery, but he hasn't appeared in the recent big grossing films nor the arthouse dandies, so he isn't noted as he should be in that roll call either. And, sadly, although I greatly enjoyed Silk Shoes, I feel it won't just go unnoticed, but when noticed will be mis-associated with Wolfgang Becker's successful German film Good Bye, Lenin! So let's nip that in the bud first. Well before Good Bye, Lenin! Said hello to international success, Jo Myeong-nam had won a KOFIC (Korean Film Council) screenplay competition in 1997 for what would eventually be entitled A Bold Family, a film he would also direct. That film was released in 2005 and, from what I've been told, is apparently, similar to Becker's film. However, due to its time of origin and the unlikelihood that Becker and Jo kick it together, Jo's script should not be seen as a copycat but as an example of parallel evolution. Both Germany and Korea have been divided. (Do I need to state the obvious that Germany isn't now and Korea still is? OK, I just did.) So it makes complete sense that the creatives in each country might come up with such a scenario as having to fake the memories of their estranged twin nation to appease the minds of an elder. As for Yeo's film, that arose from mutual conversations he had with Jo back in 1997 and in no way was inspired or copied from Becker's film. Becker does not own this theme of divided memories anymore than Yeo or Jo do. That said, let me summarize the plot. Man-soo (Choi Duk-moon - YMCA Baseball Team, Antarctic Journal) is a struggling film director whose last film failed at the box office. Some soft-spoken gangsters use this as an opportunity to force Man-soo into using his director skills to create a faux-North Korea with a haphazard collection of actors. The gangsters will fund this endeavor because the gang boss wishes to provide this facade for his dementia-stricken father. The film begins with a nice use of text, (a common enough presence in South Korean cinema to warrant its own dissertation), that would ruin the joke if I said any more about it. Along with providing film industry insider commentary within the film, the gangsters' misunderstandings about the film funding process begin the underlying theme of misunderstandings of memory and history that are present throughout the film. Man-soo is mistaken for the gang boss by the gang boss's grandfather when they meet and Man-soo begins to take on this identity for the grandfather, a grandfather who alludes to all the 'grandfathers' and 'grandmothers' who have memories of the northern homes of their youth that they will never be able to reinforce and question by returning to the North before their deaths. Scenes are enacted and re-enacted based on ambiguous and questionable recollections of the historical past and questionable conceptualizations of the hermit country to the north, all while trying to avoid the intrusion of the realities of the present from disrupting what is believed to be grandfather's wish. The importance of place and space to our memory is wonderfully portrayed throughout the film. Outside of the general themes of history, memory, place, and devotion to our elders, there are excellently orchestrated scenes. Most memorable for me is a fight scene between Man-soo and the lead gangster (Min Joung-gi) who maneuvered himself onto the set as an actor. Man-soo and the gangster come in and out of the frame of a snowy field advancing and retrenching in response to the other's advance. Choi and Yeo, speaking after the screening of this film at PIFF, both mentioned how trying this scene was. Outside of the harrowing conditions of the cold weather, Min found running in the snow extremely difficult. Plus, they needed to complete the scene in one take since covering up their footprints for a second take would be quite an endeavor. So they trudged on through this one take, working with the obstacles the environment posed, and ended up executing a memorable scene. Perhaps this scene is the most autobiographical of all for Yeo's directorial work, or for anyone wanting to work outside the mainstream constraints that squeeze the more sublime and challenging artistry out of one's vision. ( ) Aachi & Ssipak Shit is the future; the future is shit. (And if you haven't realized it yet, reviewing this film requires more of this shit-talking.) That sentence can be taken towards various interpretations because the word 'shit' has developed contradictory meanings. It can note shoddy construction (' Aachi and Ssipak is shit!' ); whereas, the simple placement of a definite article shifts the meaning 180 degrees to mean something exemplary (' Aachi and Ssipak is the shit!' To some, such a contradiction in meaning might signify that the word means nothing. But language signifies meaning through its use, and it is the words surrounding words, and the inflection with which they are spoken, that more often designates their meaning. Just like shit can be in its essence, the meaning of the word 'shit' is loose. 'Shit' finds its form from its linguistic use. And in the future world of the film Aachi and Ssipak, shit is not only mined for its linguistic use, but for its use as a valuable material resource. In this animated sci-fi world, shit is the premiere energy resource and the government seeks to control the bowel movements of the populace. (And the media is awash with constipation cures.) In order to keep track of who's shitting for big brother, every newborn has an ID ring shoved up his or her anus before release from hospital. An infrastructure of outhouses enables the government to capture everyone's bowel movements. Their ID rings confirm each bowel movement, and after pulling on the flush cord of the outhouse, the citizen crapper is allotted one juicybar for their contribution. In order to satisfy the world's need for more and more shit, the juicybars are made purposely addictive. So addictive that an underground illegal economy has emerged to supply those who can't get enough of this juicybar shit. Here enters our titular characters. Aachi (voiced perfectly by Ryu Seong-bum) is the runt of the brains of the juicybar-running outfit he's concocted with Ssipak (voiced by Im Chang-jung), the heavy of the two-man troupe, but not always heavy enough to handle competitors such as the 'Diaper Gang', the blue, mutant, constantly-constipated, baby-ish spawn of relations between two juicybar addicts. Aachi and Ssipak are a small-time racket of big time dreams. And they find their dreams attainable when they meet 'Beautiful' (voiced by Hyeon Yeong who also happens to be the voice of Koreanfilm.org's own Tom Giammarco's car navigation system). Beautiful's anus has been violated by the Diaper Gang's accomplice, Jimmy the Freak, with an intentionally malfunctioning ID ring that enables Beautiful to receive a shitload of juicybar blue gold whenever she has a movement. The trio soon becomes much sought after by more competitive groups than I can summarize here. But basically, there are a lot of subplots and the presentation of each isn't too disjointed to be distracting. The crowd I watched this with at the San Francisco Indie Film Fest's 4th Annual 'Another Hole in the Head' festival enthusiastically cheered the obscene levels of gratuitous violence that animation permits one to display. Media has long been fascinated with mental illness. It has been depicted in almost every genre of film from horror ( Shutter Island) to romantic comedy ( 50 First Dates). Sometimes these depictions are good and sometimes they are more than a little problematic. And we as an audience are so fascinated with mental illness. You can see it in reality television, our current debate about gun control, and of course film. These films often sensationalize what it means to have mental illness, even in cases where the films are based on true stories. They should not be viewed as accurate portrayals of mental illness. Nevertheless, we are going to explore what these films depict and how well they do it. This visual feast of a film explores mental illness in a way that is truly unique among films. Babydoll is locked away in an institution in order to cover up the murder of her sister. Her stepfather is easily able to bribe an employee of the institution and the wheels are set in motion to have Babydoll lobotomized. In order to escape the harsh reality of her situation, she retreats into elaborate fantasy worlds including a steampunk World War 1, a brothel, feudal Japan, and a medieval castle complete with a fire breathing dragon, and a train armed with robotic guards. All the while we are shown the actual events that are mirroring Babydoll’s fantasy world. In the end her disassociation may be the only thing truly saving her from a life of misery. Zack Snyder uses the setting of the asylum to play out this incredible fantasy world. It is visually stunning and an incredible view if you haven’t seen it. But if you’re looking for an accurate portrayal of dissociative identity disorder, this movie may not be what you are looking for. A comedy about suicide? That seemsdark. Which is exactly what this beautiful and funny movie is. This film almost serves as an in-joke to everyone who has contemplated suicide. It takes place in the afterlife for people who have killed themselves. No, its not hell. No, it's not heaven. It’s something else entirely. According to this film, death by suicide awards you a ticket to a world that is pretty much like the one we are in only just a little bit worse. You still have to get a job, pay rent, and be a responsible adult. Except you’re surrounded by people who are just as depressed as you are, no one can smile, and everything is just slightly gray. Of course our hero Zia also manages to fall in love with a woman who seems just a little too vibrant for their world. She keeps insisting that someone made a mistake and that she certainly didn’t commit suicide. So they go on an adventure to find the people in charge so that they can correct this mistake. Zia doesn’t quite believe her but he’s falling in love with her so he goes along with what she says. It’s a very funny and quirky movie that explores an interesting concept and really speaks to people who have lived this experience. There are a lot of people who argue that Patrick Bateman is violently antisocial. And we definitely think this film supports the incorrect association between violence and mental illness. But we think most analyses overlook at major fact. We think these people fail to grasp the end of the film. When it turns out these were all fantasies of his. Now having fantasies about murdering people may certainly indicate that someone has antisocial personality disorder but we think there is a more interesting angle to approach this from. He is having serious issues distinguishing his intensely violent fantasy life from his real life. Obviously this is only one level that this film exists on. It is also a very radical rejection of the yuppism of the 1980s. It also takes materialism and wealth obsession to a whole new level. The violence has made this film both a huge controversy and a cult classic and it is certainly deserving of a place on this list. Black Swan is an incredibly macabre tale about the dangers of perfectionism and distorted body image. Nina struggles with her dual role as the white swan and the black swan. This struggle is embodied with her conflict and attraction to her understudy Lily. She also struggles with sexual harassment from the director. She continues to be plagued by distressing delusions including an imagined sexual encounter with her archnemesis Lily. She also imagines she is turning into the black swan, feathers and all. Her world continues in a downward spiral as the show gets closer and closer. It is strange that so many apparently missed that Nina struggles with mental illness. She is clearly haunted by perfectionist tendencies and sexual issues. She doesn’t allow herself any kind of freedom. A fact only reinforced by her domineering mother. Its horrifying to watch unfold. This one may cause some controversy for its place on our list. After all, is this a film about mental illness? Is Donnie Darko mentally ill? Or is this a fantasy film about time travel? Or is it fake? And that’s exactly the struggle Donnie faces as the film progresses. Are his visions of time travel real? Or is he having a break from reality? Either way this is an incredibly good film that has gone on to become a cult classic. And its soundtrack is amazing. There is something about this film that people find a connection with. Maybe we are drawn in by the darkness of the film. Or perhaps it is Donnie that we cheer for. He stands up for a girl who is being bullied and tries to fight against what he sees as the horrors of the 1980s. It is also one of the only films to portray a schizophrenic person as non-violent and likable. We LIKE Donnie Darko. We want him to prove time travel can be done and win the girl. This is a classic film depicting mental illness and we could not possibly miss it on this list. It shows the brutal treatment of the mentally ill in institutional settings where humiliation, electroshock therapy, and lobotomies are all tools in the institutional arsenal used to keep patients in line. But one of the most amazing things about this film is how it truly humanizes the patients. And obviously Jack Nicholson does an incredible job in his performance. We want him to escape. And we want him to take all of these amazing and interesting men with him. But of course, that’s not really the way the story can end. But it is beautiful nonetheless. If you have never seen this film we strongly recommend you check it out. It’s a classic. Requiem for a Dream may be one of the most disturbing films ever made. It isn’t terribly violent. There isn’t too much sex. It is just disturbing. It looks right into the face of what it means to be addicted to drugs. And even when we want to look away it never lets us. It destroys stereotypes about who uses and why they use. And it leaves us chilled to the very bone when we examine not only the consequences of drug use but also the consequences of our current medical model and the harsh stigma against drug use and the effect it has on addicts. But don’t worry about the glamorization of drug use. It certainly does not do that. Drug abuse is portrayed as an ugly nasty monster that takes over the lives of good people and makes them do bad things. It is probably one of the most honest views of addiction out there. We would encourage anyone who has ever experienced major depression to at least check out the book that this film was made from. It really gives an interesting view on the history of depression. Because people were depressed long before antidepressants and Lizzie experiences what it means to be depressed and unable to find effective treatment. Lizzie medicates herself with sex, drugs, and other forms of escapism. She attempts to kill herself and is completely unable to cope with reality. She throws all her success and opportunities out the window. She destroys her relationship with her mother. Because she’s depressed. And therapy isn’t working. And nothing seems to be working until they put her on a new medication that seems to finally ease her suffering. The Hours is a film that tells the story of three women living parallel lives. One is Virginia Woolf who is struggling with bipolar disorder while attempting to write Mrs. The second story concerns a despairing housewife in the 1950s who attempts to escape her unhappiness by reading Virginia Woolf, attempting suicide, and finally choosing to escape by choosing to live. Finally we are left with a woman planning a party. She is living out the life of Mrs. Dalloway and is attempting to throw a party for one of her good friends who is dying of AIDS. She puts on a smile but she seems to be empty on the inside. All three stories are tied together by mental illness and suicide. They all struggle with being their true selves while also making the people around them happy. They are all confined in narrow roles. They each ultimately must choose their own fates. This is also an incredibly haunting film about mental illness. And given the recent mass shootings, it is a film that has even more meaning. It follows the story of a mother raising a young child. Their relationship starts out on a sour note when she finds herself pregnant and miserable. The two of them have conflicts even when he is a small child. He seems to take pleasure from hurting her and she finally snaps and throws him against a wall breaking his arm. We aren’t sure if we are horrified by her actions or sympathetic. This child is a monster. And it only continues to get worse as he gets older. He is seriously violent towards his little sister eventually causing her to go blind. He seems to enjoy the fact that he is ruining his mother’s life. He goes into class and shoots fellow classmates with a bow. But not before killing his little sister and his father. We are only left to wonder why he spared his mother. Does he identify with her? Does he feel that he can hurt her more by letting her live? Honorable Mentions: Twelve Monkeys (1995), The Deer Hunter (1978), The Iron Lady (2012) Like us on and follow us on for all news updates related to the world of geek. 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I got what i was told is a 60's vibe stratocaster and i almost trust the guy i got it from but maybe someone here could confirm? CGS080400146 this is a sunburst, maple fretboard with that pretty looking high gloss finish on the neck with an almost amber tint to it with the wilkinson type tuning machines. Stratocaster numbers are hard to read without a decoder. This guitar guide will help you lookup the Fender serial database and show your Telecaster age. Fender® Guitar Pickguards WD offers many more Fender® pickguards than shown here. Due to a variety of manufacturing changes over the years many guards require. When was my Fender instrument made? It’s a common question we get at The Music Zoo. If you have a Fender in your hands, you can use this guide to precisely date your Fender instrument all the way back to 1950. Information on Japanese and Mexican-made instruments is included towards the bottom. This information is courtesy, republished here for your convenience. Hit the jump to see just how old that guitar or bass really is. Dating Your U.S.-Made Fender Instrument For most of Fender’s U.S. Instrument production history, production dates have been applied to various components. Most notably, production dates have been penciled or stamped on the butt end of the heel of the neck of most guitars and basses, although there were periods when this was not consistently done (1973 to 1981, for example) or simply omitted. Neck-dating can be useful in determining the approximate age of a guitar, but it is certainly not definitive because the neck date simply refers to the date that the individual component was produced, rather than the complete instrument. Given the modular nature of Fender production techniques, an individual neck may have been produced in a given year, then stored for a period of time before being paired with a body to create a complete guitar, perhaps, for example, in the following year. Therefore, while helpful in determining a range of production dates, a neck date is obviously not a precisely definitive reference. Most specifications for a given Fender instrument model change little (if at all) throughout the lifetime of the model. While there have been periods of dramatic change—such as the transition periods between the Leo Fender years and the CBS years or the transition between the CBS years and the current ownership—most models are generally feature-specific and do not change from year to year. Serial numbers are also helpful in determining an instrument’s production year. For years, serial numbers have been used in various locations on Fender instruments, such as the top of the neck plate, the front or back of the headstock and the back of the neck near the junction with the body. Serial numbers were stamped on the back vibrato cover plate on early ’50s Stratocaster® guitars, and on the bridge plate between the pickup and the saddles on some Telecaster® guitars. But once again, due to Fender’s modular production methods and often non-sequential serial numbering (usually overlapping two to four years from the early days of Fender to the mid-1980s), dating by serial number is not always precisely definitive. Dating Your Instrument The chart below details Fender serial number schemes used from 1950 to 1964. Notice that there is quite a bit of overlap in numbers and years. The only way to try to narrow the date range of your specific instrument is to remove the neck and check the butt end of the neck heel for a production date, which may be stamped or written there (if you’re uncomfortable doing this yourself, please refer to an experienced professional guitar tech in your area). SERIAL NUMBERS PRODUCTION DATES Up to 6,000 1950 to 1954 Up to 10,000 1954 to 1956 10,000s 1955 to 1956 10,000s to 20,000s 1957 20,000s to 30,000s 1958 30,000s to 40,000s 1959 40,000s to 50,000s 1960 50,000s to 70,000s 1961 60,000s to 90,000s 1962 80,000s to 90,000s 1963 90,000s up to L10,000s 1963 L10,000s up to L20,000s 1963 L20,000s up to L50,000s 1964 Fender was sold to CBS in January 1965. Serial numbering didn’t change immediately because instruments continued to be made using existing, tooling, parts and serial number schemes. The chart below details Fender serial number schemes used from 1965 to 1976. Notice that there is quite a bit of overlap in numbers and years. SERIAL NUMBERS PRODUCTION DATES L50,000s up to L90,000s 1965 100,000s 1965 100,000s to 200,000s 1966 to 1967 200,000s 1968 200,000s to 300,000s 1969 to 1970 300,000s 1971 to 1972 300,000s to 500,000s 1973 400,000s to 500,000s 1974 to 1975 500,000s to 700,000s 1976 The charts below detail the most common Fender serial number schemes from 1976 to the present. Once again, there is quite a bit of overlap in numbers and years. The only way to try to narrow the date range of your specific instrument is to remove the neck and check the butt end of the neck heel for a production date, which may be stamped or written there (if you’re uncomfortable doing this yourself, please refer to an experienced professional guitar tech in your area). Serial numbers with an “S” prefix denote the 1970s (signifying a CBS attempt to use serial numbers to identify production years); an “E” prefix was introduced in 1979 to denote the 1980s. As seen in the overlap of numbers and years, even these references to actual production dates are rather loose. SERIAL NUMBERS PRODUCTION DATES 76 + 5 digits S6 + 5 digits 1976 S7 + 5 digits S8 + 5 digits 1977 S7 + 5 digits S8 + 5 digits S9 + 5 digits 1978 S9 + 5 digits E0 + 5 digits 1979 S9 + 5 digits E0 + 5 digits E1 + 5 digits 1980 S9 + 5 digits E0 + 5 digits E1 + 5 digits 1981 1982 saw the introduction of the U.S. Vintage Series instruments and “V”-prefix serial numbers. The only way to definitively date U.S. Instruments with “V”-prefix serial numbers is to remove the neck and check the butt end of the neck heel for a production date, which may be stamped or written there. SERIAL NUMBERS PRODUCTION DATES EI + 5 digits E2 + 5 digits E3 + 5 digits V + 4, 5 or 6 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1982 (For U.S. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year) E2 + 5 digits E3 + 5 digits V + 4, 5 or 6 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1983 (For U.S. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year) E3 + 5 digits E4 + 5 digits V + 4, 5 or 6 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1984 (For U.S. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year) CBS sold Fender in March 1985. Serial numbering didn’t change because instruments continued to be made using existing tooling, parts and serial number schemes. SERIAL NUMBERS PRODUCTION DATES E3 + 5 5 digits E4 + 5 5 digits V + 4, 5 or 6 5 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1985 (For U.S. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year) V + 4, 5 or 6 5 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1986 (For U.S. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year) E4 + 5 5 digits V + 4, 5 or 6 5 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1987 (For U.S. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year) E4 + 5 5 digits E8 + 5 5 digits V + 4, 5 or 6 5 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1988 (For U.S. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year) E8 + 5 5 digits E9 + 5 5 digits V + 5 or 6 5 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1989 (For U.S. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year) “N”-prefix serial numbers denoting the 1990s were introduced in 1990. The numbers and decals were produced far in advance, and some N9 decals (denoting 1999), were inadvertantly affixed to some instruments in 1990. Consequently, some 1990 guitars bear 1999 “N9” serial numbers. SERIAL NUMBERS PRODUCTION DATES E9 + 5 digits N9 + 5 digits N0 + 5 digits V + 5 or 6 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1990 (For U.S. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year) N0 + 5 digits N1 + 5 or 6 digits V + 5 or 6 v (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1991 N1 + 5 or 6 digits N2 + 5 or 6 digits V + 5 or 6 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1992 N2 + 5 or 6 digits N3 + 5 or 6 digits V + 5 or 6 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1993 N3 + 5 or 6 digits N4 + 5 or 6 digits V + 5 or 6 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1994 N4 + 5 or 6 digits N5 + 5 or 6 digits V + 5 or 6 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1995 N5 + 5 or 6 digits N6 + 5 or 6 digits V + 5 or 6 digits (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1996 N6 + 6 or 6 digits N7 + 5 or 6 digits V + 5 or 6 v (U.S. Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1997 N7 + 5 or 6 digits N8 + 5 or 6 digits V + 5 or 6 digits (American Vintage Series) 1998 N9 + 5 or 6 digits V + 5 or 6 digits (American Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 1999 1999 “Z”-prefix serial numbers denoting the new millennium appeared on U.S.-made instruments in 2000. Z0 denotes 2000; Z1 denotes 2001, etc. American Deluxe Series instruments use the same dating convention, but with the addition of a “D” in front of the “Z”, i.e., DZ1, DZ2, etc. As always, there is typically some number prefix overlap and carryover from year to year. SERIAL NUMBERS PRODUCTION DATES N9 + 5 or 6 digits Z0 + 5 or 6 digits DZ0 + 5 or 6 digits (Am. Deluxe) V + 5 or 6 digits (American Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 2000 Z0 + 5 or 6 digits Z1 + 5 or 6 digits DZ1 + 5 or 6 digits (Am. Deluxe) V + 5 or 6 digits (American Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 2001 Z1 + 5 or 6 digits Z2 + 5 or 6 digits DZ2 + 5 or 6 digits (Am. Deluxe) V + 5 or 6 digits (American Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 2002 Z2 + 5 or 6 digits Z3 + 5 or 6 digits DZ3 + 5 or 6 digits (Am. Deluxe) V + 5 or 6 digits (American Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) 2003 Z3 + 5 or 6 digits Z4 + 5 or 6 digits DZ4 + 5 or 6 digits (Am. Deluxe) V + 5 or 6 digits (American Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) XN4 + 4 digits 2004 Z4 + 5 or 6 digits Z5 + 5 or 6 digits DZ5 + 5 or 6 digits (Am. Deluxe) V + 5 or 6 digits (American Vintage Series except ’52 Telecaster) XN5 + 4 digits 2005 The “odd” serial numbers on the chart below exist somewhat outside the more well-known Fender serial number schemes. If you have what you consider an odd serial number, it might appear here. NUMBER DESCRIPTION AMXN + 6 digits California Series electric guitars and basses; 1997 and 1998 DN + 6 digits American Deluxe series instruments; 1998 and 1999 NC(XXXXXX) Squier® Strat Bullets (dating unclear) FN(XXXXXX) U.S.-made guitars and basses destined for export market. Some may have stayed in the U.S. Or found their way back (made to Standard Stratocaster specs; dating unclear) I(XXXXXXX) A limited number of these “I” series guitars were made in 1989 and 1990. They were made for the export market and have “Made in USA” stamped on the neck heel. LE(XXXXXX) Blonde Jazzmaster® and Jaguar® guitars with gold hardware made in 1994. 1/9/2018 0 Comments Dating RobotWould you date a robot? It seems pretty safe. The existence of pickup-artist systems like the ones described in Neil Strauss’s The Game suggests that there is a. DATING ROBOTS's profile including the latest music, albums, songs, music videos and more updates. Sep 10, 2009. You've met someone new, and things are going great, but you start to notice something off about them. Could your significant other be a robot in disguise? Check our list for the possible signs. Dating websites Tinder, Match and OKCupid's reported IPO proves that the dating industry is being taken seriously; but not all dating sites are high quality, and. You are sitting at a cafe in Sydney having a date with a woman sitting in a cafe in Melbourne. She is in front of you. You can hear, see and touch her but you’re in different states, or countries. This ladies and gentlemen is the future of online dating. The dating landscape now only requires a strong network connection, even when going out to dinner with a potential partner. Think about how much you would save on the bill, robots can’t eat. Australian media agency saw the growth of both online dating and the use of ‘robots’ in Australia simultaneously and decided they would be a match made in heaven. So they are giving someone an opportunity to win a date with Lucy, the robot. The robot itself is a Double, a telepresence robot that you can control from wherever you are as long as you have an internet connection. Lucy the Robot ordering her own coffee. Source:Supplied Lucy is actually an employee at Atomic212, her name is Lucy Kelly. She recently made headlines for being the first “robot” to purchase an iPhone when she set up her machine in a line outside Apple’s Australian flagship store in Sydney. She can control the robot from the her home or office. The iPad placed on the ‘head’ of the robot works as a sort of Skype, her face and voice are there in real-time and she can see and hear you and her surroundings. 100% free dating & social networking for robot lovers. At this time, the site is restricted to humans only, although we hope to open registration to robots/androids. Robot' star Rami Malek dating? Is his girlfriend Portia Doubleday? Get the details here. People may soon be dating and having romantic relationships with robots developed to feel and express their emotions. This is the idea of two robotics experts from. 100% free dating & social networking for robot lovers. At this time, the site is restricted to humans only, although we hope to open registration to robots/androids once their AI is sufficiently advanced. If you (are human and you) are interested in the progress being made in robotics, feel free to browse the 'Robot Related. Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships. Young men need to get into sexual relationships with young women through dating. Apr 19, 2016. Australian media agency Atomic212 saw the growth of both online dating and the use of 'robots' in Australia simultaneously and decided they would be a match made in heaven. So they are giving someone an opportunity to win a date with Lucy, the robot. The robot itself is a Double, a telepresence robot. 1/9/2018 0 Comments Dating Myself PoemThis poem is for anyone that is currently or has ever DATED THEMSELVES! Follow me on Twitter @Defpoetpoetri. Check out my show on July 29th at the HaHa Cafe Comedy Club. It is called Spoken Funk. For tickets and more info go to my website Make sure you pick up Poetri's latest CD available. Moved to New York in the fall and started performing in poetry slams Ten years ago #Nike brought Def Poets Poetri Smith Tamika Harper Mayda Alexandra Del Valle as well as myself out to meet a Young basketball star who was only 18 and newly signed to If you want to take your date out for a night on the town next. May 31, 2009 I love this poet. He writes with a lot of humor. He reminds me that poetry doesn't always have to be angst, tragedy, or even passionate love/longing/desire. This poem is for anyone that is currently or has ever DATED THEMSELVES! Poetri's latest CD is available for download at http://www.reverbnation.com/Poetri. I wrote this poem to my boyfriend Michael. So far we have been together for 10 months and still counting. I love him more than anything.xx. Just Know by Cassandra - Hello Poetry. I will tell you the ways in which i hate myself and not believe you and a single word you say when you disagree. #love #dating #hard. But when the merchandiser for House of Blues isn't touring or performing poetry. The likes of Mos Def, Slum Village, Doug E. Fresh, Slick Rick. When I'm not working: Writing music or designing someone's T-shirt ideas or CD. I do a lot of freelance. Cleveland Magazine • 3 years ago • 'Mirrors in Every Corner' sheds a new light. 1/9/2018 0 Comments Dating Harmony Ukulele PartsAsk our team of specialists a question. If you want information about a vintage ukulele, it really helps if we have pictures. All questions will be answered via email, sent to the address you provide on the form or in your email. On this page, we will display some of the questions and answers. If you prefer not to have your question displayed publicly on this page, just let us know when you write us. Although this page is only updated occasionally, we answer questions by email on an regular ongoing basis. Date: March 6, 2011 Question: I picked up this old ukulele at my mother's house (we used to live in Hawaii) which says 'Hawaiian Ukulele' inside with a picture of a man playing a ukulele and at the bottom says 'Especially made' for and then a series of letters. Can you help me to research this? Answer: The letters B. At the bottom of the label stand for Barth, Lutchen, and Feinberg, a major musical instrument distributor based out of New York city in the 1920s. They sold ukuleles made by various companies, putting their own labels inside (or having the manufacturer glue in the BL&F label). I know that BL&F sold some ukuleles made by Harmony, but yours does not appear to be a product of the Harmony factory. Dating harmony ukulele Whatever your room rate, the staff offer a level of dedicated and hospitable service usually only found in the most deluxe of London hotels. Quality Guitars Since 1892. The Harmony Company was founded by Wilhelm Schultz in 1892. Thus began the most successful American made stringed instrument producer ever. Wilhelm immigrated to America to work for the Knapp Drum Company of Chicago. In 1892 he bought a two room loft on the top floor of the Edison. The Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of ukulele. Your ukulele was made by the Harmony Company of Chicago. Harmony is a really neat facet of music, it’s kind of a shame that there aren’t more harmonized ‘ukulele parts. This lesson is on two ‘ukuleles playing. Ian Chadwick's reviews and comments on the ukulele. These instruments are all in a family of small guitar-like instruments dating from the 18th century. These and similar forms are still. That same year, Sears Roebuck bought the Harmony guitar company to make ukuleles and cash in on the craze. Hawaiian music also. The ukuleles made in Hawaii are desired by collectors of Hawaiian memorabilia as well as by ukulele players. They are very similar to Harmony ukuleles of the 50's. The last photo showing no heel cover or two-piece neck suggests that your ukulele was made on the mainland. It was made to look similar to a Hawaiian ukulele. It is probably from the early 1920s but could even be from the later teens. I am not sure about the specific manufacturer. Date: March 6, 2011 Question: I am trying to help a friend identify the maker and year of manufature of this instrument. I think it is an 8 string tenor ukulele. What are your thoughts? Answer: That is a very interesting instrument, but I don't think it is related to the ukulele. It is a type of mandolin now often called a mandolinetto. These were popular in the first few decades of the 1900s. I have seen a pretty good number of mandolinettos over the years, but yours is very unusual. The carved headstock is especially unusual - I would think that it could be used to help identify the maker, but I have never seen it before. Any readers who might have any information feel free to write in. Date: March 6, 2011 Question: Any info you can give me on the attached ukulele would be greatly appreciated. It's not in great condition. It was a crawl space find when we purchased our house in 1989. Answer: Your Banjo Ukulele is a Wendell Hall Professional model made by the Ludwig & Ludwig of Chicago, Illinois. Ludwig made very high quality banjo ukuleles in the late 1920s through around 1930. Vintage Harmony ukulele I have a friend who told me she had her grandmothers old antique ukulele in her closet somewhere, so I told her to send me pictures. I'm not 100% certain of the dating. Harmony banjo, vintage harmony tenor banjo amp. Parts and Accessories; Ukulele; Vintage. They are prized by banjo ukulele players still today.The Wendell Hall Professional model was actually Ludwig's most basic model - it sold for $25 in the 1920s. Yours is a little rough, but the condition doesn't look all that bad. Pretty nice crawl-space find! Date: February 25, 2011 Question: I cannot find any information on SS Maxwell Ukuleles. Any information would be appreciated. Answer: SS Maxwell was a trademark name of Targ and Dinner, a Chicago based musical instrument distributer. T&D bought instruments from various manufacturers and sold them under their own trade names. Your ukulele was made by a major Chicago manufacturer, Regal Musical Instruments. The SS Maxwell name was registered in 1931. I would estimate your ukulele was made sometime between the late 1940s and the middle 1950s based on the style of ukulele and the tuning pegs. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: I found this ukulele in a thrift store and I would like to know about how old it is. I have found other Kumalae ukes on the web but none with the same labels as this one. The one remaining peg is wooden. The inside label says 'Ukulele O Hawaii made by Jonah Kumalae Honolulu especially for Sherman Clay and Co. San Francisco', with 'Highest Award Panama Pacific Exposition 1915' around the outside of the label. It has a small crack, but the one string still sounds pretty good. Any information you can give me would be great. Answer: Your Kumalae decal is from his early period. I'd estimate your ukulele to be from 1916 - 1920. It is a pretty fancy model with the inlay on the body & fretboard. It is made from some very nice Hawaiian koa wood. It was model Kumalae designated as a model 'D' Sherman Clay's model number was 24. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: Hello. I just purchased this Martin Concert Ukulele. I am unable to find photos of ones similar. The wood tuners are something i have not seen on the Concert size. Answer: Your ukulele was made by the Regal Musical Instrument Company of Chicago, Illinois. The partial paper label is a piece of the standard Regal label. Winner was a brand name used by a particular instrument distributor, but I am not positive of which one. It was most likely the Manhattan Band Instrument Co. They registered a different 'Winner' logo in 1926, so I would guess Winner was their brand name and that the logo just changed over the years. I would estimate that your ukulele was made between the late 1920s and the mid 1930s. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: Hello. I just purchased this Martin Concert Ukulele. I am unable to find photos of ones similar. The wood tuners are something i have not seen on the Concert size. Answer: Your ukulele was made during World War II. The metal restrictions during the war forced Martin to use wooden pegs on many of their ukuleles, including some concert ukuleles. There were likely only a few hundred of these concert ukuleles made with wooden pegs, so they are not common. Looks like a nice ukulele - enjoy! Date: February 23, 2011 Question: I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about a Washburn ukulele that I recently purchased from a widow. Her husband collected just about everything and brought this home about 40 years ago, but never played it. It's 21' long and has two patents - one pictured on the back of the headstock and one listed simply 'PAT. APL FOR' on the bridge just below the saddle. I can't seem to find anything similar to this uke anywhere online. Answer: Your ukulele was made by the Lyon and Healy Company of Chicago, probably around 1926-1928. The model number '5316' is stamped on the neck block. The 5316 was known as the 'Collegian'. It is made from figured mahogany. Lyon and Healy made very good quality instruments and the Washburn line were their best instruments. The 5316 was one of their more basic Washburn models, but it is still a nice quality instrument. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: Hi there. Congrats on a great web site! I have a couple of older Kumalae ukes and am interested to know more about the decal which has the following words in Hawaiian language:UA MAU KE EA O KA AINA I KA PONO. Do you happen to know what this means? The logo itself is very interesting with various figures and symbols on a shield flanked by two figures who appear to be standing on a stage with curtains drawn back by other figures. Is there any information on what the symbols mean or represent? Many thanks Answer: 'UA MAU KE EA O KA AINA I KA PONO' is the Hawaii state motto. It's translation is 'The Life of the Land is Perpetuated in Righteousness'. The logo with the figures is a version of The Great Seal of the State of Hawaii. Obviously, the Kumalae ukuleles predate Hawaiian Statehood. At the time the ukuleles were made these were the Seal and Motto of the Territory of Hawaii. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: We have a ukulele that my father purchased through a comic book during the 1920's. It has a material on it that looks like Ivory, but I don't think it is, it is very thin. It is located by the hole where it would be strumed and it goes up the throat under the strings. It is some type of wood with a white trim around it. The plastic tuning knob have screw in the top and the label inside is pretty much gone except for the letters 'NL' and a number 10821 stamped on the throat and the inside of the instrument. I am more interested in the maker and history than the value, and it will stay in the family. Any information you can give me I will appreciate. Thank you in advance for your assistance in this. Answer: Your ukulele was made by the Harmony Company of Chicago, sometime in the 1930s. The label inside used to read 'Supertone'. Supertone was a brand name of the Sears Company. Sears actually owned Harmony at the time, and Harmony made many different musical instruments that were sold through Sears and elsewhere. The material on the fretboard is Pyralin - known to collectors today as 'mother of toilet seat'. Harmony made mostly inexpensive instruments, but yours is a better than average Harmony. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: I have inherited an old ukulele from my father-in-law. The only markings is the stamped logo, 'Wings'. It has wooden friction pegs rather than the newer tuning pegs. I cannot find any information on the manufacturer. Can you give me any information on this Ukelele? Answer: That is a great ukulele you have. I have a 1932 Carl Fischer catalog that includes this ukulele. It sold for $2.80 at the time. The description read as follows. 'Wings' - A low priced ukulele, handsomely finished and decorated. Ebony-black finish, with ivory, highlighting around the soundhole. Decorations on body, position markers on fretboard, and name stencilled in ivory. Semi-gloss lacquer finish. These ukuleles were made by the Harmony Company of Chicago, Illinois. I don't know if the name has any relation to the 1927 movie Wings (the winner of the first Academy Award for best picture). Date: February 23, 2011 Question: I have this wonderful old instrument. Is there anything you can tell ma about it? Answer: B & J stands for Buegeliesen and Jacobson. B&J was an instrument distributor based in New York City. They did not manufacture their own instruments. Instead, they sold instruments made by an assortment of different companies. Their instruments were sold under a number of brand names, including Serenader, Mele, and SS Stewart. The Serenader name was first used on Ukuleles in 1926. The trademark was registered in 1927 and renewed in 1947, so it was used for quite a long period of time. Your ukulele was made by the Harmony Company of Chicago in the 1930s. It is one of Harmony's better ukuleles, with all mahogany construction. It appears to be in very nice condition. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: Any idea age or make? Edges and hole has inlay. Bottom scroll work looks like glued rather than painted. At garage sale sellers only said was like a dept. Store give-away uke. Back is just plain.thanks. Answer: Your ukulele was made by the Regal Musical Instrument Co. Of Chicago Illinois. I would guess that it was made in the early 1930s. It has a spruce top. Regal made mostly inexpensive instruments. Your ukulele is actually somewhat fancy for Regal, with the colorful binding and the decal on top. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: I've got a ukulele from my father which he bought in the thirties while at sea with the trade mark AFSON. Can you say anything about it?Best regards. Answer: Afson was a brand name for the company A. Favilla & Sons. They made instruments in the later 1920s in New York. They are blood related to the more commonly seen Favilla Company, but they were a separate company run by another part of the family. Their instruments don't turn up a whole lot, they might not have been in business for too long. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: Found this at a yard sale I was gonna restore.I can't see it being a rare find.I'd like to know more about it.Would you know if this was made from mahogany or koa? Answer: Your ukulele's headstock decal used to read 'Mele'. 'The Mele' was a brand name used by Buegeleisen and Jacobson (B&J), a New York City based musical instrument distributor. They sold many types of ukuleles that were made by a number of different manufacturers, and they used the name 'The Mele' on a wide range of instruments from these manufacturers. Most of the instruments that B&J sold with the 'The Mele' label were manufactured by the big Chicago companies like Harmony and Regal. I can't tell from your photos the shape of the bridge - this might be enough to know whether it is Harmony, a Regal, or something else. The wood does not look like koa to me, again it is hard to say for sure without bigger photos. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: I would like to know more about my uke which I'm told is a Lyon and Healy from the twenties. It's a simple teardrop model (with case) in great shape as near as I can tell and has 'patent applied for' on the headstock. Thanks in advance for any info you can provide. Answer: Yes your ukulele was made by Lyon and Healy. It is a model they called 'The Venetian'. These were only made in the 1920s. I've attached an image of the patent, which was granted in June of 1928. By the time the patent was granted, Lyon and Healy had discontinued the manufacturing of all instruments (except harps). The Venetian was an inexpensive model, but they are still well-made and can sound pretty good. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: Hello and thank you for this really great website! I hope you can help me pin a date on this oddball. It's a Roy Smeck uke with brass frets, the first i've ever seen (i own another Roy Smeck with a plastic fret board). Plastic tuners, looks to be solid mahogany and it's LOUD! My new favorite uke!:D Answer: The Harmony Roy Smeck ukuleles came in a few different iterations over the years. Your model, the soprano model with the painted wood fingerboard, was first sold in the first half of the 1950s, around 1954 I believe. In 1958 Harmony started using their plastic fingerboard on the Roy Smeck ukuleles. Harmony definitely sold a whole lot more of the plastic fingerboard model based on how often the different models turn up today. I too have one of the wood fretboard Smeck ukes - it is a nice little instrument. Date: February 23, 2011 Question: Hi! I bought this old Martin Ukulele with its vintage gigbag. It can be open/close with two poppers on its back side. Can you tell me more about this instrument? Many thanks for your help and cheers for all at the Museum! Answer: You have a beautiful looking Martin Style 1k soprano ukulele. It has a Hawaiian koa wood body. It was made between 1927 and the early 1930s. It appears from your photos to be in excellent condition. The case is probably original or at least from the same vintage as the ukulele. That type of case is notorious for damaging ukuleles - the snaps at the bottom sometimes will crack the bottom of the ukulele when popped shut. I'd suggest getting a decent hardshell case. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Hello, Could you tell me about ukuleles that were manufactured in New York City? I was surprised to find out about a Brooklyn company in the 20s called Turturro's. Would you happen to have any more information about them or any other New York companies. Answer: There have been a number of companies that manufactured ukuleles in New York City, primarily in the 1920s. Here is a short list. Albert Houdlett & Son, Brooklyn: Made Nu-Way banjo ukuleles Favilla, Manhattan, Brooklyn, later Long Island: Made ukuleles & banjo-ukuleles Gretsch, Brooklyn: Made ukuleles & banjo ukuleles under many brand names A. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Hello, I have this koa ukulele which I have been told is from the 1930's, it has the label inside but can't find any information about it. Could you please have a look and see if it rings any bells.Thanks you for your time. Answer: I believe your ukulele was made in California sometime between 1914 and 1920. As the ukulele became popular in California, a few different ukulele manufacturing plants opened in California. The ukuleles they produced were often made from koa, and they were sometimes patterned after Hawaiian instruments. The three piece neck on your ukulele is one of the features of many of these ukuleles - and it was pretty much unique to these California ukes. I think the California manufacturers all shut down as the larger Chicago instrument manufactures got going into ukulele production. Winship & Sons Music House was located in Spokane, WA (I am not sure if they had other branches). Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Here are pictures of the Regal concert uke that I have owned for nearly sixty years. It was a used uke when I bought it. It was with me in the Korean War. The finish is beginning to crack. What can you tell me about this Regal uke? How old is it? What restoration methods are recommended? Answer: That's a great story about your ukulele. I think it is wonderful that you have held on to it for such a long time. I would estimate that your ukulele was made between the late 1920s and the late 1930s. Regal was a large Chicago-based instrument manufacturer. They made mostly inexpensive or mid-priced instruments, but some of their ukuleles play and sound great. If the cracking that you mention is just in the finish, I wouldn't be too concerned. If the wood itself is developing cracks, you should bring it to a good luthier who can handle the repair. I'm sure that you could get it refinished by a good luthier too, but I'm not sure that I see the need to do that. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: I recently found this Ukulele and a 'sister ' Ukulele stored with other family items from the 50 's. I did my research and beleived they were products of Jonah Kumalae, but not everything matched up. While reviewing all of your Q & A, and seeing several Kumalae, I 'm still not sure. The shape of the headstock and the chevron shape of the bottom of the neck neck suggest someone other than Kumalae. It has been suggested that they may have been made by Sam Chang or evey by Echo. Can you help. Since I have two nearly identical, this is refrenced as 'Y ' KE KE ' as it contains that name on the Headstock. Answer: Y'Ke'Ke was a trademark registered in 1926 by Jules M. Sahlien, a San Francisco based musical instrument distributor. He sold instruments made by a few different Hawaiian manufacturers. I am quite sure that both of your ukuleles were made by the Hawaiian Mahogany Company. This company was run by C.Q. Yee Hop & Co of Honolulu. They were selling 'Royal Hawaiian' ukuleles by 1929 - possibly earlier. I would guess your ukuleles were both made in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Echo ukes were also a product of the Hawaiian Mahogany Company.Both of your ukuleles are high-end instruments, fancier than the vast majority of Royal Hawaiian ukuleles. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Could you give me some info on my Ukulele? Answer: That is a great old Hawaiian ukulele you have. Paul Summers was a Hawaiian musician and music instructor in Honolulu, Hawaii in the 1920s and 1930s. He worked at both the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and the Moana hotel. He didn't manufacture his own instruments, he sold instruments made by a number of different Hawaiian ukulele makers. The Moana decal on your ukulele suggests to me that it may have been sold by Summers from a shop at the Moana hotel. The stamp on the back of the headstock is a stamp used by many Hawaiian makers to verify that there ukuleles were genuine products of Hawaii.Your ukulele is a very high-end Summers instrument. The beautiful koa wood, fancy inlays on the body and neck, and the fancy shape of the headstock are features that set your ukulele apart from the standard Hawaiian ukuleles of the time period. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Hi, I bought an old uke years back. It is called a Chickie. The label says made in Chicago. How old is it and do you know anything about its history? Answer: That's a great ukulele you have - very unusual. I have never seen another 'Chickie' brand ukulele - I don't think a whole lot of them were sold. I am guessing that the TD on the label stands for 'Targ and Dinner'. Targ and Dinner was a large musical instrument distributor based in Chicago. They distributed instruments from many different manufacturers, so it is a bit harder to name a particular manufacturer. Chickie was likely a Targ and Dinner brand. The finish is what was referred to as a 'Crystal' finish in its day. This type of finish was popular on inexpensive instruments in the 1930s. Also, it looks like a pretty nice hard-shell case it is in. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: I have already bought it but it hasn't been sent yet, but I would like to know this ukulele's information. I saw many website which have many information about martin ukulele, but I saw them example pictures, the standard martin koa ukuleles fingerboard are using rosewood or mahogany, so I think this one a little bit unusual, maybe you could help me more understand this ukulele. Thank you a lot:) Answer: That's a nice old Martin Style 2K you are getting. You are correct that it is an unusual model. This looks to be a very early style 2K. Martin first produced 2K ukuleles in 1919. Most were made for the Southern California Music Company, and were stamped on the back of the headstock with the Southern California Music Company stamp. So it is interesting to see such an early one with a Martin stamp on it. Another sign that it is a very early Martin is that the position markers are on the 5th, 7th, and 9th frets. The koa wood (?) fingerboard is definitely very early and unusual. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: The mystery uke is photographed above. It seems to be very well made. Grover tuners. Judging by the case, I'm assuming it's also late 40's, early 50s. There is no brand name on it anywhere that I can find. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Answer: Your 'mystery' uke was made by the Harmony Company of Chicago, Illinois. It is likely from the 1920s, and it is made to look like a Hawaiian-made ukulele. I can't tell if it is Hawaiian koa wood or mahogany - I'd guess koa but it is hard to say for sure from your photos. This was a high-end ukulele for Harmony, with the fancy bindings and fretboard inlay. The tuning pegs are high end Grovers - they may be original or may have been replaced long ago. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Hello, I own a 1930's Martin 2K soprano Ukulele. It has the decal on the front and bar frets, it also has rosewood binding rather than the more common cream or white. Made in the USA is also stamped on the back of the peg head. I have been told that this means that it was for export, is this true? Answer: Your ukulele is actually a Style 1K not a Style 2K. As you mentioned, the 2K had ivory colored binding, while the 1K from that period had rosewood binding. I'd guess your ukulele is from the mid to later 1930s with its combination of features. It is true that the Made in USA stamp was used on instruments that were being exported. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Dear Ukulele Hall Of Fame Museum, Here is an all koa wood soprano ukulele made for the mainland department store, Rhodes Brothers (in Tacoma, Washington, established in 1892). Their label reads, 'Rhodes Bros. / Incorporated / Hawaiian Ukulele Dealers / Tacoma, / Wash'. I'm hoping you might be able to supply more information about this instrument's date of manufacture and possibly it's maker? The construction characteristics may give up some clues: it has a one piece koa wood rib and an arched back. It's a great player! Thank you for your website and this tremendous service!! Answer: That's a nice ukulele you have - I actually own a pretty similar one that I am guessing was made by the same company. Your ukulele has strong Hawaiian characteristics including the style of neck construction, the Hawaiian koa wood body, and the rope style binding. I think most people would tell you it is Hawaiian-made. Still, I believe your ukulele is actually an early mainland-made ukulele. As ukulele popularity grew in California in the teens, a few manufacturers went into business around California. Some of these California makers produced ukuleles very similar in style and construction to the true Hawaiian makers. I'm guessing your ukulele was made by one of the California manufacturers around 1914 - 1920. I assume the California manufacturers died out when Chicago companies started to mass-produce cheaper ukuleles. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: New to the world of uke's, I'm a guitar player. I have been on the lookout for one for a while now. Bought this last week in a carboot sale in London and would love to find out more about it. Someone (over the phone) thought it was a Kumalae but didn't recognise the red shield lable. Any info highly appreciated. Answer: Thanks for the photos. Your ukulele looks like an early Japanese-made ukulele to me. I can't say for sure it is Japanese, but I'm quite sure it was not made in the US or Hawaii. Definitely not a Kumalae (or other Hawaiian maker). I'd guess it was made in the late forties or early 1950s. I am not familiar with the headstock decal, but I guess it was applied by the London distributor that sold it. Sorry I don;t have more info. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Could your please help me idenify this Ukulele. I was a child when my uncle gave it to me. He was in Hawaii in the 40's. I would like to know as much about it as you can tell me. I have searched the internet and have not see another one like this. Answer: That is a very interesting ukulele you have. This looks like a late 1930s or early 1940s Kamaka pineapple ukulele. The wood appears to be monkey pod not koa. The painting on the top is what makes it unusual. I have seen other styles of painting on Hawaiian ukuleles from this period, but never one quite like yours. I would guess these were hand-painted by someone and sold as souvenirs. The painting on your ukulele is nicely done and I think it is quite attractive. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: This banjo uke was given to me because I am a banjo player. I haven't cleaned it up yet but am interested in what you can tell me about the instrument. I have never heard of the maker. The neck appears to be maple and is very solidly attached. Action excellent. It currently has metal strings (is this usual?) and is tuned to an open chord (like a 5-string banjo G tuning). Is this correct? Since I have not heard one of these things played, I am not sure what kind of music one might attempt (other than loud). Any pointers appreciated. PS: Great website!! Answer: The instrument in your photos is a banjo ukulele made by The House of Stathopoulo, know later as Epiphone. The company was run by Epi A. They made very good quality banjos, banjo mandolins, and banjo ukuleles. Banjo ukuleles were typically played (and strung) like standard ukuleles, but they were usually louder. Gut strings would have been the standard when this was made, today nylon strings are the standard. The standard ukulele tuning is GCEA (or sometimes ADF#B), with the G string tuned re-entrant (the strings don't go from highest to lowest pitch in order). George Formby is probably the best known banjo-ukulele player. You can check out his playing by doing a quick search on Youtube. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Any information about this 8 string (soprano?) ukulele would be appreciated. It was my father's, who recently carved new pegs to replace missing ones. The interior label reads: manufactured by KOHALA CO. The soundhole is surrounded by white, red, green and black inlay. I am just starting to learn to play it. If I get the 2nd set of strings, how is it tuned, and do you need to buy a different type of string if notes are an octave apart? Thank you so much. Answer: Your eight string ukulele is known as a taropatch. Taropatches were popular from the later teens through around 1930. I would guess yours is from around the mid 1920s. It looks to be a product of the Regal Co. Regal was one of the big Chicago ukulele manufactures of the time. Regal was the only ukulele company that I know of that was using the multi-colored herringbone inlay, so I'm pretty sure they made your instrument. The Kohala label was probably added by the retailer. Hawaiian ukuleles had a better reputation than those made on the mainland, so many times deceiving labels like this were used to fool the potential buyer. It should be tuned as a standard ukulele GCEA, the pairs of strings are in unison - they are not an octave apart. So another set of standard strings is all you should need. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: I am trying to find out more info on a Ukulele I have. It was my aunt's and I now have it. She used it professionally and also played the piano. She was a character. Thank you for any information. Answer: Thanks for the photos. That is a great looking ukulele. I have seen an ad for the Band-o-uke but I have never before seen an existing example. The Band-o-uke was a product of the Oscar Schmidt Company of Jersey City, NJ. I am posting an Ad from May of 1928 with a picture of the Band-o-uke. I am guessing that Schmidt did not make a whole lot of these, as I have never seen another. By May of 1928 the ukulele craze of the 1920s was dying out and I am guessing these were not made for long. Oscar Schmidt made mostly inexpensive beginners instruments - but your Band-o-uke looks to be a better quality instrument than the typical Schmidt product. It is a great little instrument you have have. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Hi,I was wondering if you could identify this ukulele for me, and give me an idea of its quality/age. The only thing it says is 'Handmade Leonora' on the inside. A friend of mine said it looked like a 1920's Martin by the style. It plays wonderfully: it has a really rich sound. This strings in the photos are not original; I switched them out, but I still have the original strings and they are in fine shape. I inherited it from my great aunt. Answer: Your ukulele was made by The Rutan company of Kansas City, Mo. The company was named for the owner, John Rutan, who went into the ukulele business in 1926 (after being a partner running a retail music store). Their factory was eventually destroyed by a fire, I believe in the 1930s but I'm not exactly sure on that. Rutan made very nice quality instruments - very much in the style of Martin instruments. I would guess they patterned their instruments directly after Martins. While other manufacturers sometimes claimed to be as good as a Martin - Rutan ukuleles actually came quite close. Your ukulele is patterned after a Martin Style 2. It is all mahogany and appears to be in great condition (except for a possible crack on the side). I don't know anything about the 'Leonora' name in the soundhole. It was likely a name used by a particular instrument retailer - but I do not know which one. Date: February 22, 2011 Question: Hello Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum,I was wondering if you might be able to help me identify this ukulele.I bought this ukulele off of Ebay a few months ago. The tuners and nut are not original. It has 16 frets total. She has white binding with a black stripe wrapped around the neck, front, back, and sound hole. The binding is also used for the bridge. The ukulele is solid mahogany. There are mother of pearl fret markers on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 10th frets. She is slightly smaller in the body than a normal soprano ukulele. While small she has a very loud, bright tone and is a fantastic player! There are no maker marks anywhere on the ukulele.Thanks in advance for the help. Answer: Your ukulele looks to me to be a model made by the JR Stewart Company. The beveled headstock, fretboard binding, and bridge shape all match with the style of ukuleles Stewart was making in Chicago in the late 1920s. It is also possible that it was made by Regal. A little background.JR Stewart worked for the Harmony Co. In the early 1920s before opening his own business making fretted instruments. The Stewart Company grew quickly in the second half of the 1920s. Their Le Domino line of instruments was quite popular and the company expanded rapidly. When Lyon & Healy stopped manufacturing their own fretted instruments in 1928, Stewart was chosen to manufacture the Lyon and Healy Washburn line of instruments. The Stewart company's rapid growth apparently led to its downfall. Less than six months after the stock market crash of 1929, JR Stewart declared bankruptcy. The Stewart trade names were sold to another Chicago Co., Tonk Brothers, who in turn sold them to Regal. Regal began making instruments nearly identical to the ones Stewart had been producing, including the Le Domino line. That is why it is difficult to say whether your ukulele is a Stewart or a Regal. Either way, it was likely made between 1925 and the early 1930s. |
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