The new issue of Tablet is out and posted online as well. If you’re bored, you can read my film column and my article on filmmaker Jan Svankmajer. This being the smut issue, my column is an all-smut special. Svankmajer, the Czech surrealist, only offers a small amount of smut. Ah well.

If I’d had my act together in time I would have done a feature article on my friend Ron, who is an honest-to-gosh pornographer, but I didn’t think of it in time. Ron does what he calls “sex-positive” porn, which means he finds actual couples who want to have real sex–that is, the kind of sex they want to have, not what porn films usually offer–and tapes it. The problem with starting your own porn company, apparently, is that the big distributors are also the companies who make the porn. Which means they carry their own stuff, and aren’t much interested in whatever independent porn is out there. And Ron’s stuff isn’t really suited to the usual raincoat crowd. He’s had a struggle getting his tapes into stores, but he’s still at it after a couple years and a slew of releases. I haven’t watched any of his tapes, but you can check out his company’s website if you dare.

It probably goes without saying that Ron was one of the early employees of Wizards of the Coast.