After approximately three months I finally finished reading Wildthorn, Jane Eagland’s recent teen novel about lesbianism and mental asylums in Victorian England. It won the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Young Adult Novel this past spring, and it’s occasionally rather exciting, even though I only managed to read about four pages a day.
The inquisitive Louisa Cosgrove, who cares about medicine more than marriage, finds herself imprisoned in Wildthorn, the wicked asylum where everyone insists that her name is really Lucy Childs. Cosgrove’s dear father had pushed her to read a lot, perform experiments and care for the sick. The rest of her family felt otherwise, although it takes Louisa quite a while to learn how she ended up in the asylum. (The book’s Lambda award gives you a hint, though thankfully the plot’s slightly more involved than that.)
I picked Wildthorn up on a whim after my birthday, when I was getting ready to speak on a panel about libraries as safe spaces for queer youth, but I managed to lose the book twice, started reading three other books in the meantime, and didn’t get around to finishing it until just now. For a long time I was a big advocate for teen novels as summer reading material, and while summer’s drawing to a close pretty quickly you might want to check this one out. It’s pretty smart and kind of entertaining; the ending also helps.
Filed under: books, hookers | Tags: happy endings, me me me me me, new york city, red umbrella diaries
New York: I am going to be in you in about twelve hours. Tomorrow (Thursday) evening I’ll be reading at Red Umbrella Diaries, Audacia Ray’s monthly reading series at Happy Ending. My story is kind of dirty and kind of gross and kind of still not done yet. (But I have seven hours before my bus leaves?) Doors are at 7, the reading’s at 8, and it’s over by 10, in time for a big dance party something something. (It’s called Downtown Top Ranking. I may have to stick around?)
Then! Friday night I’m heading to the Sex Work Awareness fundraiser at Madame X, which is a place with which I am not familiar at all. But this is from the Facebook invite:
Filed under: art, books, gay, heterosexuals, Italians, music, porn | Tags: abba, bobby farrell, boney m, comcast, design, fcc, germany, ingmar bergman, libraries, nbc, oregon state university, peggy scott-adams, sasha marini, tess lynch, tristan taormino
I apparently have 84 tabs open in Firefox right now, and less than 1 gig of space left on my hard drive. Here’s some links, so I can maybe clear some of this up:
Oregon State University uninvited feminist pornographer/university lecturer Tristan Taormino from speaking at their Modern Sex event. Taormino cried censorship, but the university says the blame lies on student organizers who requested the wrong type of funds. I have mixed feelings about this, I guess, but this Examiner article (!) seems pretty thoroughly researched.
Peggy Scott-Adams “Bill,” a mid-nineties bluesy R&B song about a lady whose man is busy doing it with his baby’s god-uncle, re-entered my memory the other day. It terrified me as a teenager, though now it’s kind of hilarious.
Bobby Farrell, the male face of cheeseball music group Boney M, passed away on December 30th, though I didn’t see anything about it until the other day. The group, best known in the US for their Christmas staple “Mary’s Boychild,” had four members officially, though only Liz Mitchell actually sang on their most popular recordings; male parts were done not by Farrell, but by producer Frank Farian. Farrell did, however, move on to a later solo career. Here is his first single, 1981′s Grace Jones-ish “Polizei.”
“It had cost her lots of hundreds of dollars, as did everything she owned.”
My boyfriend bought a Volvo this week, and so in celebration we have been listening to a lot of ABBA. Molly Lambert has also been listening to a lot of ABBA, it seems.
This NBC-Comcast merger is some crazy ish, huh?!
I’ve been kind of geeking out over the Open Air Library in Magdeberg, Germany. It’s up for a Brit Insurance Design Of The Year Award.
Finally, speaking of libraries, some British folks were upset about the potential closing of a local library and they responded by checking out every single book.
[image: Italian model Sasha Marini by Monica Antonelli for denim label Q-ZEE; it's from last summer, though I've been, uh, looking at a lot of photos of Marini lately.]
Filed under: art, books | Tags: agatha christie, art, books, marci washington
This is The Architect’s House by Marci Washington, and I think I love it to pieces. I’ve been a big fan of Washington’s ever since she did the cover art for the Rosebuds’ very fabulous album Night Of The Furies; The Architect’s House is her latest contribution to Tiny Showcase, the Rhode Island-based print emporium that releases limited-edition art every Tuesday evening. The roughly 5X7 print (it’s called Tiny Showcase, remember) is printed in an edition of 100 and costs just $20, a chunk of which will go to MISSSEY, the Bay Area non-profit dedicated to Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth.
Coincidentally, The Architect’s House reminds me of the first book I read in 2011. Or, technically, re-read, since it’s an old favorite I picked up for the first time about fifteen years ago. But during the holidays I was bored out of my mind, so I started rooting through my parents’ basement and found my teenaged collection of Agatha Christie paperbacks, whereupon I decided to reread Endless Night, one of Christie’s more unusual works.
Pretty much every year I made some kind of New Year’s resolution to read more, and pretty much every year I’m disappointed with the number of books I actually finish. This year, I only finished thirteen books, most of which were also very short. Well, not counting the book I edited and the book I have a story in. (But for pleasure reading purposes those probably wouldn’t count, actually.)
From my favorite to my least favorite, here they all are, along with my original Goodreads reviews. It’s very sad to me that the only two five-star-worthy books I read were both also in January.
1. Patricia Highsmith, The Cry Of The Owl (January)
I seriously couldn’t put this down, it’s so tense and creepy and ominous and wonderful. I picked it up more or less out of the blue, because I hadn’t actually read any Highsmith before and because she keeps coming up in conversation. Little did I know that it was currently being turned into a movie starring Julia freaking Stiles.
2. EM Forster, A Room With A View (January)
This was so much more amazing and hilarious than I ever dreamed it would be. Forster’s authorial asides are a hoot.
3. Patricia Highsmith, Those Who Walk Away (August)
Not quite as hard to put down as The Cry Of The Owl, but still quite ripping, particularly if you’re the sort of person who likes to know what every character drank with every meal.
Filed under: books, personal | Tags: me me me me me, new york, sex worker literati
And don’t forget, New York, I’m doing Sex Worker Literati on Sunday at the Bowery Poetry Club!
So, tomorrow (Thursday) in New York there’s a Coming & Crying reading/party,discussion thing,* and even though I have no reason to actually go, I think I’m going to go!
I’ve been super behind with everything lately, and also my personal life has been kind of nuts lately, and maybe what I really need is seven hours on a bus? Especially if it’s a bus that has free wireless…
*McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St, 7pm
Filed under: books, personal | Tags: me me me me me, new york city, readings, sex worker literati
Last December my first-ever public reading was at Sex Worker Literati. It went pretty well, I think. (It’s also the story that eventually ended up in Coming & Crying.) Anyway, I got asked to do it again, so if you’re in New York you should come see me on December 19th.
SEX WORKER LITERATI
ZOE’S HO-HO-HO-HOLIDAY PARTY
HOS, HOOKERS, CALL GIRLS, RENT BOYS
(with friends & allies)
BOWERY POETRY CLUB
DECEMBER 19, 9pm 308 Bowery, NYC
Zoe Hansen, East Village gal-about-town, will be hosting a Bowery Club holiday blowout. A Times Square dirty girl, a Feminists Porn Award winner, a very bad escort, a rock romantic and a Rough God will help Zoe Hansen and David Henry Sterry get their ho ho ho on at this Bowery Poetry Club holiday blowout.
Filed under: books, music | Tags: kristin hersh, me me me me me, personal
I mean, I go to the library a lot, but tonight Kristin Hersh is going to be there! Reading from Rat Girl and maybe performing a little. I am very excited! I’ve been a huge fan for about a decade. Back in 1998 or 1999, I saw her perform live for the first time, and she was reeeeeeeally good. It was at some kind of local women’s folk festival in the park. Her eyes do a glazing-over thing and her head shakes while she sings in a way that’s kind of snaky but which also kind of defies explanation. That day I tried to get an autograph, but I was so paralyzingly shy that I just hid behind a tree and stared at her until she and her family went away.
My notes from the show are pretty messy, spread as they are throughout the book fair catalog and on the many, many business cards I ended up taking from people over the course of my time at the show. Here’s fifteen books from the show that I liked but didn’t buy:
Jame Wilson, Praia (Jane and Jeremy)
A British couple who make handmade books of Polaroids (their own as well as those of other photographers), they were sadly buried at the back of the fair and this was, I think, the last thing I saw before I realized how late I was for the 6pm party we were going to in Manhattan.
Eric Elms, Famous People With Monkeys (AndPress)
Zine-ish photo book with a pretty self-explanatory title.
Kasper Ströman and Tomas de Rita, Around The World With King Nosmo (Napa Press)
Photographs taken around the world by a pair of Finns; they’re nice, but the monkey on the cover is the best part. I’m drawn to covers with animals, clearly.
Gijs Assmann, Pathologist (Idea Books)
Speaking of which, the German shepherd drew me to this loud and rather creepy book of photographs culled from Assmann’s father’s collection of Nazi literature.
