L.B.: Bucky's in love

Left Behind, pp. 364-375

Abruptly, we shift back to Buck's perspective as he sees, for the first time, his Beatrice:

Buck was stunned. He loved Chloe's name, her eyes, her smile.

He loved her name? I suppose a charitable reading could make sense of this as an attempt to show that Buck is so thoroughly smitten that he wants to halloo her name to the reverberate hills and make the babbling gossip of the air cry out "Chloe!" But it's still kind of odd. He seems to be forgetting what any garage rocker could tell him: The name doesn't make the band; the band makes the name.

Then again, this notion that names can be inherently attractive may help to explain Buck's lack of interest in Hattie.

She looked directly at him and gave him a firm handshake, something he liked in a woman. So many women felt it was feminine to offer a limp hand. What a beautiful girl! he thought. He had been tempted to tell Captain Steele that, as of the next day, he would no longer be just a writer but would become executive editor. But he feared that would sound like bragging, not complaining, so he had said nothing.

So it's not just her name, it's also her firm handshake and ... well, that's it, actually. The portrayal of love at first sight here is trickier than normal due to Jenkins' steadfast refusal to offer any physical description of his characters. Buck can fall in love with Chloe's eyes and her smile, but he can't fall in love with her long, wavy brown hair because we still don't know whether her hair is long or short, curly or straight, light or dark. (Initially, I admit, the name Chloe had me reading with a mental image of Allison Mack, but that didn't really fit -- only serving to remind me that the Smallville Torch had better reporters than anybody who works for Global Weekly.)

We're not really ever told why the lightning bolt of infatuation has struck our love-addled hero. What is it about Chloe that Buck falls in love with? He tells us about her eyes and her smile, I suppose, because these are unthreateningly chaste features to mention, but beyond the fact that she has eyes (two, one assumes) and is capable of smiling, we learn nothing about her here. What seems to have happened is this: She meets Buck and her eyes light up and she smiles. He thinks to himself, "I love her eyes and her smile," by which he means "I love that she looked at me and smiled." What first attracts Buck to Chloe, then, is the idea that she might be attracted to him. (That's an accidentally realistic detail, because that's often how it really works. Except for when it doesn't.)

"Look," Hattie said, "the captain and I need a few minutes, so why don't you two get acquainted and we'll all get back together later. Do you have time, Buck?"

I do now, he thought. "Sure," he said, looking at Chloe and her father. "Is that all right with you two?"

The captain seemed to hesitate, but his daughter looked at him expectantly. She was clearly old enough to make her own decisions, but apparently she didn't want to make things awkward for her dad.

"It's OK," Captain Steele said hesitantly. "We'll be in here."

"I'll stash my bag, and we'll just take a walk in the terminal," Buck said. "If you want to, Chloe."

She smiled and nodded.

This is, again, a Buck's-perspective scene, so it's Buck here who considers it natural to refer to Rayford as "Captain Steele." Likewise it's Buck here who conveys the authors own stilted sense of propriety in matters of courtship with the Captain's adult daughter. And "courtship" is the right word there. Google it and you'll find a whole creepy subculture providing the elaborate rules concocted to prevent young fundamentalist couples from coupling.*

There's no reason why a thoroughly secular urban professional like Buck should be acting like he's following Bill Gothard's "Foundational Principles of Courtship," so why does he? Why, for that matter, do so many of the supposedly unregenerate, unsaved heathens in this book behave so circumspectly?

Partly, I would guess, this is due to the need not to shock the sensibilities of the intended audience. But the authors don't simply avoid dwelling on the details of the sins of sinners, they portray them as all-but not sinning. For both Rayford and Buck, the scenes in which they confess their sins read like they're answering that useless standard job interview question about your "faults and weaknesses." ("O Lord forgive me for sometimes working too hard and for being a perfectionist ...")

Or, more to the point, it's like that moment in a bad preacher's sermon, right after he's said, "We're all sinners," when he suddenly loses his nerve and illustrates his point by confessing to some inconsequential failing. You can see the fear in his eyes -- you can see that he's thinking that if he honestly confesses to something more meaningful he will lose our respect or our love or our acceptance. This, then, becomes the message of the sermon. The congregation understands that they, too, must pretend they have nothing meaningful to confess. And the amazing grace the preacher was just trying to describe is stiff-armed away as we all go back to pretending we don't need it.

This is hypocrisy, of course, but it's a hypocrisy driven by fear rather by pride. This is another reason why I think the 12-step group meeting in the basement is usually a more authentic use of the building than the congregation meeting upstairs.

It had been a long time since Buck had felt awkward and shy around a girl. As he and Chloe strolled and talked, he didn't know where to look and was self-conscious about where to put his hands. Should he keep them in his pockets or let them hang free? Let them swing? Would she rather sit down or people watch or window-shop?

There's an awful lot of that. What there's not a lot of is dialogue -- the actual words they say to one another. Instead we're told things like this:

He asked her about herself and where she went to college, what she was interested in. She told him about her mother and her brother, and he sympathized. Buck was impressed at how smart and articulate and mature she seemed. ...

She wanted to know about his life and career. He told her anything she asked but little more.

So what is Chloe interested in? Smart, articulate and mature-type things, apparently, but more than that we'll never know. The first line of actual dialogue is this, from Chloe: "Ever been married?" We get only a paraphrased summary of Buck's response:

He was glad she had asked. He was happy to tell her no, that he had never really been serious enough with anyone to be engaged.

Those of us who have served time in conservative Christian youth groups recognize this theme from the many, many Why Premarital Sex Will Destroy You Wait lectures we heard. Your purity and innocence, the lecture always said, are the Greatest Gift that you can offer to your spouse on your wedding day. Setting aside the merits of this particular pitch for chastity, the strange thing here is finding that the inner monologue of jet-setting, secular, un-saved Buck Williams sounds like a True Love Waits seminar.

I'm really not sure what to make of that. It could be an attempt to imply some kind of natural law argument (even the heathen know that sex is dirty and shameful). Or it could be an expression of another theme from the saltpeter lecture series: You might be envious of people who are getting it on, but really, they secretly wish they were like you. Or, because the lecture's whole approach is shaped by some disastrously romantic notions about The One Special Someone Destined For You, it could be an indication that saintly Irene's prayers for her daughter's future One Special Someone have cloaked Buck in an aura of divine protection from that most fecund ditch so that when they finally meet, as destined, he will be as pure and unspoiled as she is.

That last idea would also explain why the chaperoning angels have been so busy chasing away Chloe's would-be suitors:

"How about you?" he asked, feeling the discussion was now fair game. "How many times have you been married?"

She laughed. "Only had one steady. When I was a freshman in college, he was a senior. I thought it was love, but when he graduated, I never heard from him again."

Buck, who has already noticed that "she had to be at least 10 years younger than he was," has to be a bit encouraged here to learn that Chloe's OK with dating older guys. "His loss," Buck says of the Stanford senior who broke her heart. "Thank you," she says, and suddenly Buck turns into Anthony Michael Hall as Farmer Ted:

Buck felt bolder. "What was he, blind?" She didn't respond.

How could she, really?

Buck mentally kicked himself and tried to recover. "I mean, some guys don't know what they have."

She was still silent, and he felt like an idiot. ...

She stopped in front of a gourmet bakery shop. ...

So it was window-shopping, then, and they've continued strolling this whole time. You'd think over the past two pages of conversation we'd have gotten some prior clue that was the case. That context matters for conversations like this one. Silently walking along through a noisy airport is a different kind of non-response to Buck's clumsy overture than silently sitting there across from him in an airport coffee shop would be. But that's just a quibble and there's no need to get bogged down in quibbles when there are much more flagrantly awful passages to deal with, such as what comes next: Jenkins' Attempt at Witty Banter.

She stopped in front of a gourmet bakery shop. "Feel like a cookie?" she asked.

"Why? Do I look like one?"

"How did I know that was coming?" she said. "Buy me a cookie and I'll let that groaner die a natural death."

"Of old age, you mean," he said.

"Now that was funny."

No. No it wasn't. If this is Buck's idea of flirting, then Irene's prayers to preserve his virginity really weren't necessary. After this we gratefully cut away from Mr. Benchley and Ms. Parker for a few pages. Sadly for the reader, however, those pages are filled with Rayford's attempts to seduce Hattie into Heaven. We'll skip that this week and get back to our young lovers, who are now mid-cookie, although there's no way to tell whether they've resumed their stroll or have settled into a booth at the bakery.

"You're gonna find my dad's theory of the disappearances very interesting," Chloe said.

"Am I?" Buck said. She nodded and he noticed a dab of chocolate at the corner of her mouth. He said, "May I?" extending his hand. She raised her chin and he transferred the chocolate to his thumb. Now what should he do? Wipe it on a napkin? Impulsively he put his thumb to his lips.

"Gross!" she said. "How embarrassing! What if I have the creeping crud or something?"

"Then now we've both got it," he said, and they laughed. Buck realized he was blushing ...

This scene reads a lot better if you picture the parts of Buck and Chloe being played by Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley.

She starts to explain Rayford's theory, but Buck stops her. "Don't tell me," he says. "I want to get it fresh from him, on tape. ... That's just how I like to work." This is what separates the GIRAT from his competitors -- he avoids all of that distracting "research" and "trying to learn about a subject before conducting an interview" business. He explains to Chloe that, for the story he's planning:

"We're going to get some college kids' ideas, but it would be unlikely we would use two people from the same family. ..."

"You just kind of categorized me there," Chloe says, demonstrating again that she is, indeed, kind of articulate or something.

"Categorized you?"

"As a college kid."

"Ooh, I did, didn't I? My fault. I know better. Collegians aren't kids. I don't see you as a kid, although you are a lot younger than I am."

"Collegians? I haven't heard that term in a while."

Probably not. At least not since she stopped volunteering as a candy striper at the Home for Pretentious Nonagenarians. Seriously, apart from its use as the intentionally institutional-sounding name of dozens of student newspapers or as the intentionally old-fashioned sounding name of dozens of a capella groups, have you ever heard someone say this? "I am showing my age, aren't I?" Buck says, but he isn't really -- he's showing someone else's age.

The subject of Buck's age, and thus their considerable age-difference, brings on an unfortunate second round of Witty Banter:

"How old are you, Buck?"

"Thirty and a half, going on 31," he said with a twinkle.

"I say, how old are you?" she shouted, as if talking to a deaf old man. Buck roared.

"I'd buy you another cookie, little girl, but I don't want to spoil your appetite."

Emboldened by his charming dirty-old-man routine, Chloe hints at her affection and shows Buck they have something in common -- a thing for names:

"I like the way you say my name."

"I didn't know there was any other way to say it," he said.

"Oh, there is. Even my friends slip into making it one syllable, like Cloy."

"Chloe," he repeated.**

"Yeah," she said. "Like that. Two syllables, long O, long E."

(That part of this scene plays better if you imagine the parts of Buck and Chloe as played by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.) I think this bit was included by the authors as a pronunciation tutorial for readers. Sadly, they don't include a similar tutorial for Buck's name. Instead, Buck switches from Bogie to Walter Brennan and they go back to the Dirty Old Man shtick:

"I like your name." He slipped into an old man's husky voice. "It's a young person's name. How old are you, kid?"

"Twenty and a half, going on 21."

"Oh, my goodness," he said, still in character, "I'm consortin' with a minor!"

Mercifully, they wrap up this bit before this "character" gets any creepier. Buck stops trying to whimsically tease his collegian friend about her youth and reverts to deadly serious condescension:

"You play a lot older."

"I'll take that as a compliment," she said, smiling self-consciously as if she wasn't sure he was serious.

"Oh, do," he said. "Few people your age are as well-read and articulate as you are."

"That was definitely a compliment," she said.

No. No it wasn't.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* Wife-beating apologist James Dobson provides this useful summary of "courtship," which in turn links to an article titled "Lancelot Lives," which is intended to help teenage boys become "knights in shining armor." Memo to Focus on the Family: You might want to re-read the story of Lancelot.

** Chloe is a biblical name, sort of. It was a Greek name sometimes used for the goddess Demeter, and so it's not surprising that it was also the name of a woman in the church at Corinth who briefly appears in Paul's first letter to them (11:1). Here's the entire passage: "My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you." Those of us who disagree with Tim LaHaye's wife about the leadership role of women in the church like to point out that Paul didn't seem to think it unusual or improper that Chloe was both the head of her household and a leader in the local church.

Comments

[Gabriel]

It's not really about trust, the handshake is supposed to set up who is in control, who is the dominant one. It's kind of like a brief competition. A properly delivered handshake using this logic is intended to make the target feel uncomfortable, and therefore more submissive.

This line of thought fits perfectly with what has been seen so far in the book. The fact Chloe has such a good handshake just adds another wrinkle to the C&H madness.

[Geds]

I think it's high time I said thank you. I found his Amazon wishlist down on the right hand side, and I think this Christmas it's time to give back to this guy who has given me so many hours of Armageddon-based amusement. Either an item from his list or a modest Amazon gift certificate; he's certainly earned a few bucks from me.

On a serious note, I really hope I'm not the only one who noticed this post from Hibryd way up at the top.

I just decided to take this idea and combine it with something that a pastor I used to work with does that I think is a really good idea.

I just donated 20 bucks to the Nothing but Net program in Fred's name. It's not much, I know, but it's enough for two nets.

It's the orange box in the sidebar, or you can go here. Or, hey, pick one of the other charities Fred appreciates enough to pimp on the site.

Let's all add Fred to our Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or just doing a good thing for people lists.

[car]

But she would've had to start praying for the virginity of her daughter's future husband when her daughter was *five*.

Don't be surprised. Most people of that type start that prayer the minute their little girl babies are born.

[jamoche]

He had been tempted to tell Captain Steele that, as of the next day, he would no longer be just a writer but would become executive editor. But he feared that would sound like bragging, not complaining

This part just hit me - he originally intended to complain about his promotion, but didn't because it might get misinterpreted as bragging. Um, what? "God, I hate my job. Can you believe they had the nerve to promote me?" That only applies to people so incompetent and unfireable that they get "kicked upstairs" - but those types never have the self awareness to realise it; it's one of the reasons they're incompetent.

the guys who've read some be-the-best success book and noted the chapter on how much a man's firm handshake and direct gaze can tell you to trust him.

Terry Pratchett's consummate con artist Moist von Lipwig can always spot the people who've read those books, and he loves them - because they are so easy to con. All it needs is a firm handshake and direct gaze, which of course he's quite skilled at...

[Praline]

Leaving aside the awkwardness of describing the choc-chip incident as 'he transferred the chocolate to his thumb' (transferred??), it could, in the hands of a better writer, be a good moment. It is, after all, a sexual flutter - he's moving something from her mouth to his, he's touching her face, it's something between an almost-kiss and an almost-licking-chocolate-body-paint caress. Between two people who'd just met, it could be a moment of startling intimacy, a kind of headlong attraction or sense of connection that sweeps them both off their feet.

Of course, Chloe would have to not say schoolgirl things like 'gross' and 'creeping crud' immediately afterwards. (Unless she's trying to tickle Buck's paedophilic fancy.) But if she'd blushed herself, or their eyes had met, or she'd touched the skin on her face where Buck's thumb had been, or, well, any number of things that conveyed some sort of physical awareness of him - well, that could have been effective.

Except, of course, it would have implied that their thoughts might have been straying to the sheets, rather than to the Bible Study class. And obviously that couldn't happen, because both of them have Scripture-lined underpants and aren't interested in that kind of thing at all.

[mmack]

The sad part about the cookie fetishism in Left Behind is that you can have a scene where a couple sharing a cookie be extremely sexy.

A prior girfriend showed me how by coyishly asking "You've never shared a chocolate chip cookie with someone before?" She took one, warmed it in the microwave, took a bite, and teasingly said "Oh, now I've got chocolate ALL OVER my lips and no napkin. I guess you'll just have to kiss it off"

And at the risk of turning this into a Penthouse Forum letter, it was a damned sexy kiss! >:^)

Damned amateurs!

[Geds]

And apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed the gift idea. But the Bull-Riding Jesus showed up while I was on my way home from work.

Also, as much of a Buddy Jesus vibe as I get from those things, I can't shake the notion that they're supposed to be taken seriously...

[Angelika]

I like the whole courtship idea. It gives the parents so much more time to come up with dowry and bride price, if they can just sit together with the other parents after kindergarten and decide who is to court whom once they are out of high school...

[Geds]

Scripture-lined underpants

More effective or less effective than asbestos underwear?

Discuss among yourselves.

[Praline]

A properly delivered handshake using this logic is intended to make the target feel uncomfortable, and therefore more submissive.

Used against women, it generally ticks them off. I treasure the story of a female friend of mine who, grasped painfully by a pushy estate agent, yanked her hand back in instinctive horror at being mauled and yelled, 'F***! Don't do that again!' Normally she's a very polite and charming person, but in this case, her body took over, decided that it was being attacked, and made a stand.

Come to that, I know quite a few men who are ticked off by it as well. Usually, the ones who are secure in their masculinity.

Anyway, it's contemptible. I've never known a truly powerful, successful or impressive person who's bothered with something so petty. Feeling that even a handshake has to be a competition is a sure sign of a wannabe alpha male who's insecure, rather than a genuine alpha male who's confident and assured.

[LMM]

Note to L&J: What Buck is feeling is called "lust", not "love".

And seriously, who mispronounces "Chloe"?

Dude, chimpanzees are freaks. Lancelot Link has forgotten more about sex than most humans will learn in our whole lives.

Depends upon the type of chimp. Bonobos, yes -- chimps, not quite so much.

[dale]

Longtime lurker here, and I finally have something to contribute because just today I read a blogpost that explains why Bucky falls so heavily and unconvincingly for Chlohwë: she has a Glittery HooHa. Trust me.

[Praline]

Scripture-lined underpants

More effective or less effective than asbestos underwear?

Discuss among yourselves.

Well, given that Scripture is generally printed on paper, there might be some drawbacks. I mean, if my underpants were made of paper, I'd be grateful for any opportunity to take them off.

[Joolya]

He told her anything she asked but little more.
Why? Because revealing more than the bare minimum about himself would make him sissified and vulnerable and seem to eager? Becuase the authors forgot they were writing about Buck and not Ray? Buck, in previous chapters, is a guy who shoots his mouth off like discretion is going out of style - when he's trying to impress Nicky, anyway.
I guess the man-crush he's got on Nicky (acknowledged alpha-dude) is different than the dirty old man love he's got for ChlO-E, in which he is alpha dog and she is wise virtuous virgin with spunk. (Buck loves a girl with spirit. Not Hattie, obviously, because she's a bit too challenging for a 30-yr-old virgin.)
Buck reminds me here of that 24-yr-old guy who hangs around the coffee shop with the high school kids - you know who I mean - sometimes he gets them drugs or beer, but mostly he just hangs out and dates the girls because he's just not mature enough to play with people his own age. Like Matthew McConoughey's character in Dazed and Confused. You've got to be like, Why are you swimminging in the kiddie pool, dude? Why will women your own age not date you? It's not like 30 is *old* for a girl ... although maybe in RTC land it is. Should be barefoot and on baby number five by the big 3-0.
Weirdly, you'd think Chloe would be savvy enough to avoid That Guy.
Also, I don't get any feeling (from the quotes Fred showed here, anyway) that there's any chemistry on Chloe's side for Buck. She was eager to get away from Ray and Hattie, but who can blame her? Then she's a little skeeved out by his crumb-snatching maneuver (if only he'd licked his thumb first like my mom used to do ...) and seems to be humoring him by laughing fakely at his terrible jokes.
It all seemed completely false, like these two had to get together so they were shoved together despite not having much in common or even anything to talk about. (Like everything else on the End Times Checklist, I suppose.)
By far the most cringe-inducing scene yet.
I'm excited for next week, though.

[Joolya]

It'd would have been awesome if that had not been chocolate on Chloe's lip but a herpes simplex scab...

BTW, who says "creeping crud"???

[cjmr]

I thought back to a goofy little poem for lovestruck young men I first encountered when a brain-flipped Steve Dallas met a woman named Gladys in the last year of Bloom County: "Say it loud and there's music playing; say it soft and it's just like praying."

I'd stopped reading Bloom County by then. Shame I missed such a nice "West Side Story" reference.

[Randy Owens]

Richard:

(We do all accept Sir Robin as canonical, don't we?)

No, no, no. It's a grenade, not a cannon!

[Ken]

When I read the book, this was the creepiest passage. More than the disappearances, more than the killings - it was this scene that made my skin crawl. -- No Name

I agree. This scene is just -- AWFUL, Slack. Brain-bleach awful. Not-enough-alcohol-in-the-world awful. Eragon awful. "EYE OF ARGON" AWFUL!

I'm a 52-year-old virgin FOR REAL (kid genius, late bloomer, and way too much the nerd to ever be attractive to women), and I can write more romantic than that! Come to think of it, I HAVE WRITTEN BETTER ROMANCE SCENES THAN THAT!

He loved her name? I suppose a charitable reading could make sense of this as an attempt to show that Buck is so thoroughly smitten that he wants to halloo her name to the reverberate hills and make the babbling gossip of the air cry out "Chloe!" -- Slacktivist

I vaguely remember an old song on Dr Demento called "Chloe". Don't remember much of it except it was some sort of Gothic Romance joke and the song's chorus was this long, drawn-out "CHLOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

Or, more to the point, it's like that moment in a bad preacher's sermon, right after he's said, "We're all sinners," when he suddenly loses his nerve and illustrates his point by confessing to some inconsequential failing. You can see the fear in his eyes -- you can see that he's thinking that if he honestly confesses to something more meaningful he will lose our respect or our love or our acceptance. -- Slacktivist

Or his congregation will turn him into a big pile of rocks.

Memo to Focus on the Family: You might want to re-read the story of Lancelot. -- Slacktivist

Or, if that's too much, rent a DVD of Excalibur.

I think Buck is reliving Jenkins' most recent attempt(s) to hit on 20 somethings and being shot down as too goddam old. -- Scott

Hee hee hee...

Is this fetish already on the internet? -- Gabriel

Gabe, EVERY fetish is somewhere on the Internet. Once on a lark I even punched in a search for lesbian bondage DINOSAURS and got a hit! Some guy called "Bonk & Fossil Studios" that did (I kid you not) Big Tit Dinosaur Bondage Dyke cartoon art.

I get that feeling nearly every time I read a fundie site about... anything, really. Half the time they seem to be giving reasonable advice about child-rearing, marriage, music or whatever the site is about, and suddenly out of left field will come the completely crazy stuff. -- Rozzen

I have had that happen exactly twice. Once when reading The Unabomber Manifesto, the other when reading a 1905 history on The French Revolution by a "Nesfa Williams". In both cases, they started out dry and scholarly (Unabomber) or anecdotal and scholarly (Nesfa) and about 2/3 of the way through, without warning, went off into the land of the Deros shining their Telaug Rays up from inside The Hollow Earth. Or The Purple Hate Bunnies Trying To Steal Earth's Gravity. Or the Communist Gangster Computer God on the Dark Side of the Moon Puppeting Parrot Gangster Assassins with Frankenstein Earphone Radio Controls...

[Dylan]

"...Buck ... felt awkward and shy around a girl. As he and Chloe strolled and talked, he didn't know where to look and was self-conscious about where to put his hands. Should he keep them in his pockets or let them hang free? Let them swing? Would she rather sit down or people watch or window-shop?"

That explains why Buck is as old as he is and has never been in a relationship. Apparently he's me. (Well, if I was a few years older, a dirty old man, and also the GIRAT.)

Nah. Clearly, alliteration is more important than the actual reference, so Lancelot Lives is far superior to Galahad Lives.

I think it's a matter of imagery. If you're not too familiar with the legend, you're probably going to think of Lancelot as being this heroic, suave guy. You're going to think of Galahad as being just some knight. Nevermind the actual character of Lancelot in the story.

If you really wanted to run with that analogy, you could accuse them of subconsciously teaching girls to prefer interesting jerks over nice boring guys.

[Leighton]

I've been imagining Chloe as the cloaked, knife-toting assassin from Noir, but I'm having trouble explaining why she's been interacting with Buck for so long without a teenage Japanese schoolgirl putting a cap in his head from a nearby rooftop.

[Randy Owens]

Joolya:

ChlO-E... is wise virtuous virgin with spunk.

Heh, let's see what a British-speaker makes of that sentence.

[Praline]

Actually, considering the non-femininity of Chloe's handshake, possibly less surprised than you might think. It would explain a lot.

(Such as, oh, the fact that he loves Chloe's name - it's so convincing, it sounds so female - but never looks at her breasts. Between the handshake and the spunk, maybe there's not a lot to look at. And after all, she is the invisible woman; who's to say what's going on below the eyes and smile?)

[Randy Owens]

Oh, and about the poor segues in the evangelical tracts and stuff, I've long assumed that the idea was to make the crazy stuff seem more reasonable by putting it in the same context with the actually-reasonable stuff. Sort of the opposite of "guilt by association", or ad hominem. I suppose the intended thoughts of the audience might be something like, "well, everything else he's written about so far seemed like such good advice, right on the money! So I can't thoroughly discount this next suggestion...."

[Izzy]

Heh, let's see what a British-speaker makes of that sentence.

Says 'Randy'.

Hee.

I'm not British--the boyfriend is, but I don't think he's ever used the word around me--and I was snickering when I read it.

[Jon]

I had to read every comment to make sure. All I found was one reference to the word "hooters". When I was a kid, a bunch of us used to read the hymn titles in the index and then add the line "Under the covers." There were several others. Kind of changed the mental picture we had of a Sunday morning. So:

Buck was stunned. He loved Chloe's name, her eyes, her smile. She looked directly at him and gave him a firm handshake, something he liked in a woman. So many women felt it was feminine to offer a limp hand. What a beautiful girl! he thought.

His eyes devoured her body. Her long, flowing honey-blond hair flowed over her bare shoulders, partially hiding the small tatoo of the single rose entwined around the cross, the pheasant blouse fitting snugly against her full #####. Her pouty mouth, accented by a striking shade of deep red, drew his attention to the beauty mark at the right corner. Just below her naval-pierced jewel, the skin tight cutoffs with the razor slashes to expose more of her tanned skin on her tight #####, hugged her hips. The high laced leather boots and her long slender legs kept the phrase repeating in his mind, "Daisy Duke, Daisy Duke."

I've wanted to do something like that for 350 pages. My apologies to all of you.

Jon E.

[Jon]

I had to read every comment to make sure. All I found was one reference to the word "hooters". When I was a kid, a bunch of us used to read the hymn titles in the index and then add the line "Under the covers." There were several others. Kind of changed the mental picture we had of a Sunday morning. So:

Buck was stunned. He loved Chloe's name, her eyes, her smile. She looked directly at him and gave him a firm handshake, something he liked in a woman. So many women felt it was feminine to offer a limp hand. What a beautiful girl! he thought.

His eyes devoured her body. Her long, flowing honey-blond hair flowed over her bare shoulders, partially hiding the small tatoo of the single rose entwined around the cross, the pheasant blouse fitting snugly against her full #####. Her pouty mouth, accented by a striking shade of deep red, drew his attention to the beauty mark at the right corner. Just below her naval-pierced jewel, the skin tight cutoffs with the razor slashes to expose more of her tanned skin on her tight #####, hugged her hips. The high laced leather boots and her long slender legs kept the phrase repeating in his mind, "Daisy Duke, Daisy Duke."

I've wanted to do something like that for 350 pages. My apologies to all of you.

Jon E.

[bulbul]

Gabriel,

Handshakes are totally hawt.
Is this fetish already on the internet?

Over a hundred comments and nobody bothered to check?
Well, I did, et voila.

[Duane]

Once on a lark I even punched in a search for lesbian bondage DINOSAURS and got a hit! Some guy called "Bonk & Fossil Studios" that did (I kid you not) Big Tit Dinosaur Bondage Dyke cartoon art.

I was in the hospital waiting room a few days ago and I had about 23% laptop battery left to kill so I was just googling randomly. An effeminate young man walked by and I thought nice ass!fucking nancyboy! and on a lark I googled "NancyBoy". Turns out nancyboy.com is an online cosmetics store and one of the founders has a blog, blog.nancyboy.com, full of kickass entries. He is an awesome writer! The first entry had me snuffling and running. A couple of them had me laughing out loud. I'm working my way through all of his writings right now while I wait for my order of salt scrub and body moisturizer.

[Iorwerth Thomas]

Except, of course, it would have implied that their thoughts might have been straying to the sheets, rather than to the Bible Study class.

Which, naturally, did not include the 'Song of Solomon' because (in L&J's amusing parallel universe) the Bible contains no references to sex in a positive context whatsoever...

[MrsKessler]

Speaking as a girl, I would be THOROUGHLY creeped out by Rico Suave GIRAT. He talks like Bob Hope, he keeps making remarks of the "you're so wise for your age" (read: "Awww, baby, I don't just want you for your body!") variety, and he dares to touch her face about three seconds into their first meeting. Had he bought me a cup of coffee, I would make sure that cup never left my sight on the chance that he'd be waiting for the chance to slip me a roofie.

Buck seems to fancy himself a journalistic James Bond. Too bad he's the Roger Moore Bond, rather than Sean Connery.

And it's nice to know I'm not the only one thinking of Spike Jones' "Chloe" song..."CHLOOOOOOOOO-EEEEEEEE! Where are ya, you old bat?"

Buck might love Chloe's name, but what self-respecting woman would date a man called "Buck?" Or "Cameron," for that matter. I'd be thinking of Ferris Bueller's best friend, or that heavyset actress from THE PRACTICE. "Cam" is even worse; who wants to be something under a car hood?

[MrsKessler]

Thread drift: Duane, "Nancy Boy" is right down the street from my office here in San Francisco! I highly recommend their lavender-scented shaving cream.

[Tim Lehnerer]

They have a downloadable pdf with the strategy for not having sex. Does that really require a strategy?

Man, I hope I'm the first one to post "Buy the complete Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rulebook set"...

[zmayhem]

This may be the best (if possibly creepiest) Left Behind Friday ever. Also, I may never be able to eat a chocolate-chip cookie ever again, ever, and I swear by all that's holy that the next time I get food on my face and my husband swipes it away, as he occasionally does, I may just reflexively clock him one. I'll feel awful afterward, but I won't be able to stop myself.

Random Buffyverse notes: The whole cookie scene and Buck's/the writers' obsessive weirdness surrounding Chloe's age and maturity are oozing together in my brain with the weird sticky eyerolliness of Buffy's cookie dough speech to Angel in the series finale, which may be the first time that reframing something in Buffy terms hasn't made it any better for me.

Also, nancyboy.com does indeed rock -- the online community where I actually post instead of lurk pounced on it years ago when Spike sneered at Angel and his "nancy boy hair gel" and someone immediately scampered off to Google (or whatever we had in the days before Google -- Jeeves, maybe?) the term and came back squeeing with delight. Excellent name, great products.

[cjmr]

the pheasant blouse

Must be all feathery, huh?

/snark

[B-W]

I'm reminded of one of the reasons Star Wars Episode II was so bad (sure, there were many). The plot required that Anakin and Padme get together, yet the writers couldn't come up with any convincing reason for Padme to be interested in Anakin. Instead, they gave us LOTS of reasons why she should instead be screaming and running away from such a creepy guy....

[Duane]

Buy the complete Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rulebook set

LOL!

[Abelardus]

Buck is the kind of fella who appreciates a woman with big hands.

[Technomad]

Why why WHY do evangelicals, and religious types in general, have such a fetish for virginity? Particularly in a culture where, if you're male, over 20, and a virgin, you might as well go around with the word "Loser" over your head like Joe Bpfltsk's cloud in Li'l Abner?

Myself, I've never "done the deed" with a virgin, and if I do right and be good, I never will have to face that ordeal.

[Hysterical Woman]

I find it weird that Chloe would ask Buck at their first meeting whether he was married. Sounds rather personal.

Also: why not use the phrase "college student", Bucky, if you don't want to sound sexist and creepy?

off topic
Bad Sex Award 2007 shortlisted passages!

"Now in its 15th year, the prize, which only targets literary fiction, aims 'to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.'"

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2217735,00.html

[Rosina]

In my NaNo (in which I passed the 50,000 word mark in time) I was going to have the love interest wipe honey from his beloved's face at breakfast and lick his fingers. I didn't because it was just too icky making to write.

Now I am so very, very glad.

[Keith]

I'm reminded of one of the reasons Star Wars Episode II was so bad (sure, there were many). The plot required that Anakin and Padme get together, yet the writers couldn't come up with any convincing reason for Padme to be interested in Anakin. Instead, they gave us LOTS of reasons why she should instead be screaming and running away from such a creepy guy....

Yep, right up until he breaks down crying and admits to killing an entire tribe of Sand People. Then she falls for him. Who knew genocide and weeping were hot?

And there are probobly more similarities between Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars and Left behind but pondering them would just be depressing.

[Multispork]

Chloe vs Hattie, in the ring at last. Is this scene really about Buck turning away from the Whore of Babylon and aligning himself with the RTCs? OK, Chloe isn't one yet, but it's clear that she's only Rayford's appendage (ugh, just gave myself the creeps with that image). Actually, it reminds me a little of Robert Baden-Powell's 1930's sex education for boy scouts, 'Rovering to Success'. It says that there are good girls and bad girls, and helpfully provides an illustration of each for identification purposes. The choice is between a scrubbed clean, flat-chested girl guide type with a whistle around her neck, or a bedizened trollop with way too much lipstick, high heels, a short skirt and giving a 'hello dearie' wave.

[pepperjackcandy]

And, since RTCs don't use birth control, the target audience of Lancelot Lives will end up having to push the pram a lot.

[Mau de Katt]

As for Lancelot, you suppose they meant Galahad but were too dim to check their work?

Except wasn't Galahad the Perpetual Virgin, the only knight so Pure In Heart that he not only found the Holy Grail, he was Taken Up To Heaven with it in a blaze of glorificated light? No awkward and creepy pseudo-flirting sex with Hot Virgin Chix for him!

("You must spank her well, and after you are done with her, you may deal with her as you like... and then... spank me. . . . . And after the spanking, the oral sex")

The problem is that since Jenkins will keep open the chance that Hattie will eventually accept Jesus ... and string it along for half the series ... she can't be saddled with too big a sin.

Whuh? Getting preggers with the Antichrist's Baby isn't sin enough?

"He had been tempted to tell Captain Steele that, as of the next day, he would no longer be just a writer but would become executive editor. But he feared that would sound like bragging, not complaining"

This part just hit me - he originally intended to complain about his promotion, but didn't because it might get misinterpreted as bragging. Um, what? "God, I hate my job. Can you believe they had the nerve to promote me?"

Well, see, now he might actually have to do some work...! He was having way too much fun not writing all those award-winning articles before, not printing all those exclusive interviews, not sleeping with all those Hawt Chix....

> I'm reminded of one of the reasons Star Wars Episode II
> was so bad (sure, there were many). The plot required that
> Anakin and Padme get together, yet the writers couldn't come
> up with any convincing reason for Padme to be interested in
> Anakin. Instead, they gave us LOTS of reasons why she should
> instead be screaming and running away from such a creepy guy....

Yep, right up until he breaks down crying and admits to killing an entire tribe of Sand People. Then she falls for him. Who knew genocide and weeping were hot?

You mean like this?

Of course there's always the question of why she was even attracted to him in the first place, like a previous commenter has already mentioned....

[Duane]

As for Lancelot, you suppose they meant Galahad but were too dim to check their work?

It's a pun based on urbandictionary's definition for "lance".

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lance

[Jake]

MrsKessler: what self-respecting woman would date a man called "Buck?" Or "Cameron," for that matter. I'd be thinking of Ferris Bueller's best friend, or that heavyset actress from THE PRACTICE.
Why is that bad? Well, okay, Alan Ruck does kind of look like Frankenstein, but Camryn Manheim's a hottie.

Mau de Katt: Getting preggers with the Antichrist's Baby isn't sin enough?
Not only that, doesn't she have an abortion? In L&Jland, that's the equivalent of slaughtering *at least* a whole country's worth of born people.

[Gabriel]

"Buy the complete Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rulebook set"

I'm living proof it works!

Wait...

[hapax]

Duane: I was in the hospital waiting room a few days ago

So very much none of my business, but I hope that MrsDuane is doing well?

[Dahne]

He loved her name?

Chloe Steele. It fits with the theory of males expressing desire through a female. It's really too bad Rayford and Buck are both so bland and boring that nobody would ever bother slashing them.