Somewhere between Shopkins, Garbage Pail Kids and pornography—films and artworks that are grotesque and beautiful, a hellscape and a paradise, a beauty tip and a courageous quip just prior to an apocalypse. There is wax on the camera.

This annual award from Edinburgh’s Literary Review has a wealth of explicit excerpts that act as a kind of inverted zeitgeist—reaching around arousal to touch disgust—or horror, even. Awards like these, unintentional awards I suppose, are so valuable!

This is a placeholder for all things glistening, golden and resplendent. By ‘things’, I mean ‘pecs’, of course, and by ‘golden’, I mean ‘dude’. My friend Nate recommends The Real Wolverine—or is ‘Bronze Age Pervert’ the zenith of modern testosterone? The sentiments of Conan the Barbarian are preserved:

Mongol General: Conan! What is best in life?

Conan: To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women.

This definition of ‘satisfaction’ is brought to you by the actual John Maus.

“Once liberation reached a point of adequate success, however, sex was unconscionably easy to liberate further, as commerce discovered it had a new means of entry into private life and threw its weight behind the new values. What in fact was occurring was liberalization by forces of commercial transaction, as they entered to expand and coordinate the new field of exchange. Left-wing ideas of free love, the nonsinfulness of the body, womens equality of dignity, intelligence, and capability, had been hard-pressed to find adequate standing before—and they are still in trouble, constantly worn away. Whereas incitement to sex, ubiquitous sexual display, sinfulness redefined as the unconditioned, unexercised, and unaroused body, and a new shamefulness for anyone who manifests a nonsexuality or, worst of all, willful sexlessness—that was easy.”

The amazing thing about these ‘battles’ is how joyful and (I don’t know how to put this) enlivening they are. The whole place comes alive and you just want to be there, partying in the middle of this rare encounter. (Related: Subway sax battle.)