People don't spend a lot of time thinking about engineers designing things like the tops of take-out coffee cups, but obviously that's something that they must do. It's not just bridges or buildings that have to be designed, but mundane things like coffee cup tops.

You would think that McDonald's, after selling billions of burgers, could afford to get someone top-notch to design a sensible coffee cup top.

In fact, they did have such a top for many years, a marvel of simplicity and efficiency to enable the customer to drink their tasty coffee with ease, but at least in New York they seem to have switched to a newer, more complicated, and more difficult top to drink from. The new black top looks more futuristic and cool, almost as if the engineer would rather be designing the latest Batmobile; but I find myself taking off the top of the current cup in order to drink, because otherwise I burn my mouth on the strangely awkward opening. Once the coffee has cooled off, it's okay to drink from, but until then, it's problematic.

I wonder indeed why they retired the old coffee top for this new creation...it's not an improvement.

Hey, I know this has nothing to do with strippers or DVDs, but coffee is a part of my life too!

I have been writing on this blog daily for the past fifteen and a half months, with the exception of ten days in May earlier this year when I went to visit my sister in Chicago.

Over this time, I've analyzed why I like strippers, and strippers I've liked; what I like in DVDs, and DVDs I've liked (as well as plain old movies on a screen); and I've touched on many subjects in between. I've exposed a lot of my psyche.

I feel it's correct to say that I have demonstrated to myself as much as to anybody reading this blog that Sir Cranky needs both strippers and DVDs, and in the end there's no "versus" about it.

The goal is unity. Understanding that I love a lapdance, and a fluid camera movement in a movie by Otto Preminger...yes, the flesh must shake hands with the soul! The sleazy must hug the sublime!

Yes...it's becoming clear now...

My ideal video store would feature topless clerks!

I saw a good Japanese movie last night called New Love in Tokyo. It was about a twentysomething dominatrix, played by Suwa Suzuki, who is also involved in amateur theatricals. The story cuts back and forth between her life whipping and verbally chastising her customers in a dungeon, and her life as a friend to a regular call-girl and as an actress in a theater troupe. Filmed in 1994, the movie just reached DVD here. It felt like a somewhat idealized portrait, and the scenes of Miss Suzuki's character as an actress were less interesting than the ones where she was being a dominatrix; but overall it was a rounded portrayal of a woman living her life in the context of a most unusual job.

The narrative was interspersed with beautiful black and white photos of the dominatrix by the noted Japanese lensman Nobuyoshi Araki. He has done great work depicting the sexual subcultures of Japan. The photos of Miss Suzuki, some as a domina and others as just a person in more average modes, called to my mind the many paradoxes of people's behavior, and the masks they put on; or the masks that perhaps seem like masks but are actually a person's true nature. What I mean by that last phrase is this: the dominatrix seems to be playing a role when she puts on her mistress outfit and acts harshly to her slaves, but is she actually expressing a real part of herself? Is the domme part of her a mask, or her deeper reality? Does the donning of a ostensible mask enable her to be most or all of herself?

Similarly, am I expressing more of myself when I am writing behind a mask, anonymously as Sir Cranky? In some ways, yes; in other ways, I wonder...

For me, the dominatrix in the movie looked incredibly beautiful in her power over her customers, in her arrogant but strangely knowing expressions. I wonder if the male praying mantis sees an insectoid version of this beauty in the female mantis, when she is about to bite his head off as a prelude to copulation...

A provocative movie, that I will have to watch again. For more info on it: www.animeigo.com.

Today the New York Post had the results of a poll about love and sex amongst single New Yorkers. One of the more prominent and of course eagerly awaited findings was that to 73% of women in this burg, "size matters," as opposed to 63% of men saying that it doesn't. The article's blurb was, "Men are from Mars, women have a ruler."

Naturally, they never specify what size, although since they ran a picture of the Empire State Building next to the considerably shorter Flatiron Building, the conclusion is supposed to be obvious.

I swear, I don't think anybody ever talked about this stuff in public until the 1990s...

Candor, or too much information? You be the judge...

I have a theory. I wonder if a lot of the young women who are interviewed about the "size" of their paramours are actually embarrassed to admit that they might prefer a more modest tool, and so instead they go along with the "trend" and nod, "Yes, yes, size matters." I sometimes wonder if a modern woman's supposed craving for length and girth is actually a form of female machismo, a kind of sexual tomboyism; and just like a man is reluctant to admit to his pals that he couldn't get it up with a hot chick at a cathouse, young women are loathe to admit that they're not ready to try a hefty johnson...

But then again, I'm only a blogger of average length basing these musings on a tabloid poll; and I cannot confirm my theory because, like most men, I am excluded from perusing the authentic minutes of the inner councils of New York City womanhood!

The paradoxical problem of having a pleasant day is that it passes too quickly.

Lately I seem to have this desire, if not an obsession, with slowing down the passage of time...

I went to a movie memorabilia show today, hung out with my friends there talking movies and politics and more movies, and before I knew it the clock said 3:30...

I came home and read for awhile and talked on the phone to a friend and before I knew it, the clock read 6:00...

I had some Chinese takeout and drank a beer and before I knew it, it was 7:30, and if I didn’t leave quickly, I would miss the end of early admission ($10) at the strip club...

I went to the strip club and money took the place of time as a subject for my obsession with loss, and in five minutes I spent $26 ($10 for admission, $4 for coat check, $10 for a beer, $2 for a tip)...

Then I saw a dancer I knew from a few months ago, Daisy, a very uninhibited performer, and she sat on my lap and asked if I wanted her first dances of the evening, and before I knew it had spent another $40 on two lapdances...so my total now was $66 spent...

Daisy wanted me to buy more dances but I resisted and of course she had no more time for me (however pleasantly she said ta-ta) and I went back to my table and decided that as enjoyable as it was to have Daisy on my lap with her breasts in my face, it went by too quickly, too expensively, and if I’m going to enjoy strip clubs now I absolutely MUST try to resist lapdancing as much as possible...

It has to be primarily a stage show experience for me now...

Which is possible because, believe it or not, I get a nice glow of satisfaction and even contentment when I get a smile from a pretty dancer as I slip a dollar or two into her garter.

So I sat there and watched the girls onstage, knowing that I’d made a mistake spending $40 on Daisy but I didn’t have to let my mistake ruin the rest of my visit, and I tipped a couple of girls I knew a few more bucks and a couple of girls I’d never seen before a few bucks too, and then a pretty new Asian girl caught my eye and I went over to say hello and tip her a dollar. So my total was $73 spent. She looked very enticing and her hair was long, black, and silken just like I remember Angela’s was (Angela being my favorite dancer of recent years), and this new girl asked if I wanted a dance when she got offstage but I said I had to leave, and I could tell that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, but I thought to myself, “That’s good, Cranky, you can see her again the next time you come, but you can just watch her on the stage and tip her a few dollars and it’ll be enough.”

I hope it will be enough...

But it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve tried to fool myself.