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.

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:

The event at Madame X will be emceed by the only letter in burlesque, N, and feature performances by Reid Mihalko, Graydancer, Luna, Brandon B, and Miss Mary Cyn. Tickets will be available for purchase for lap dances by the Luscious Lifestyle Diva, Ms. Yolanda Shoshana, the one and only lifestyle Passionista,(who will also appear as a teen dating coach on the January 31st episode of MTV’s Made, YAY ABIOLA!) Ms. Abiola Abrams, burlesque sensation, Sweet N’ Lo, and the sultry Ms. Savannah Darling. Luna will also provide foot rubs for those for purchase a ticket.

Admittance is $15 pre-paid via Eventbrite or $20 at the door and includes a 2011 NYC SexBlogger Calendar with sex educator and adult film legend Nina Hartley vamping it up on the cover and lots of steamy bloggers* heating things up from the inside cover to the very back page, Wet safe sex kits, and a $10 gift certificate to The Pleasure Chest for the first hundred people to register and/or arrive. To avoid the line, pre-purchase lap dance or foot rub tickets for $15 at Eventbrite (remember to print out and bring your confirmation with you) or pay $20 at the event.

Thanks to a donor, who prefers to remain anonymous, your money will be doubly well spent, since they are very generously matching funds up to $1,500.

See you there?

[*Ahem.]

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.]

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.

Though Dame Agatha novels and story collections appeared more or less constantly from 1920 through the mid-seventies, her best books were written in two distinct periods:  World War II, when she alternated between espionage thrillers (N or M?) and tricky country house murders (Towards Zero), and the sixties, when she was clearly fed up with her fussy but eternally popular sleuths Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

The Pale Horse (1961) is probably her best novel overall, largely because it contains neither of those indefatigable detectives; it was one of Christie’s own favorites, with a really clever plot and an affable crime-solving narrator.  Third Girl (1966) is Christie’s somewhat crazily square attempt to write about Swinging London. By The Pricking Of My Thumbs (1968) brings back Tommy and Tuppence, the sixty-something detective couple who readers first met as young newlyweds shortly after World War I.  And in Endless Night (1967), another of Christie’s personal favorites, the author waits till the third act to kill anybody off at all.

The voice Dame Agatha uses for Michael Rogers, the working-class narrator and anti-hero, suggests she didn’t much care for Holden Caulfield types, or the Angry Young Men of the day.  But the book’s most interesting character, I think, is Santonix, the oddly-named and mysteriously ill architect commissioned to create the perfect house for Rogers and his young love, an American heiress.  There’s a rather supernatural air about Santonix, who takes a far greater interest in the affairs of his clients than one would expect from an architect.

Christie never really describes the house in great detail, beyond saying a few times that it’s very modern.  On the other hand, considering Christie’s generally thorny attitude towards the sixties, perhaps it’s best that she left the details to the imagination.

Situated on land cursed by gypsies, I imagine that the house looks something like the house in the Washington print.  Endless Night is sheer gothic romance, after all, a highly unusual work from an author known for carefully plotting murders to be solved by methodical old sleuths.

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.

4. Margaret Drabble, The Garrick Year (March)
A nice response to all the Angry Young Man books. The narrator is intensely difficult to like, which is odd because the story’s set up for you to feel completely bad for her. The ending’s maybe a little too symbolic, but otherwise it’s worth reading.

5. Jane Pavitt, Fear and Fashion In The Cold War (March)
I wish it were possible to give things 4 and a half stars. This book is amazing, at least for the first 80%. I started taking notes and then eventually realized that I was basically just transcribing the whole book, so excited was I about everything to do with spacesuits and cold war fashion. But in the last fifteen pages there’s a not-totally-justified jump towards more conceptual, architectural pieces that was a lot more academic and a lot less fun. Still, totally worth reading.

6. James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (June? July?)
[I didn't review this when I read it, for some reason.]

7. Samuel Delany, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (September)
Good read, although starting about 3/4 through there are a lot of ideas packed into a short, short space. But Delany’s critique of networking v. contact seems even more astute now, in the social networking era.

8. Monica Maron, Silent Close No. 6 (August)
Frosty but eventually likeable story of an East German woman disillusioned by Communism. Picked this up on a whim at a used bookstore the other day. Quick read, though of course there were lots of cultural referents that went over my head

9. John Le Carre, The Looking Glass War (December)
Pretty good spy story. I liked 90% of the ending, but one character suddenly goes so completely off the deep end with little to no explanation that it seemed like Le Carre maybe lost control of what he wanted his people to be doing. And in a book that’s largely about the ability to follow orders, it’s, uh… maybe not the most forgivable flaw.

10. Sarah Scott, A Description of Millennium Hall (November)
This is one of those books I started, then put down for a month, then picked up again. It’s kind of frustrating–it starts out in a fabulous mansion run by entirely by a collective of women who hoard jungle cats–but instead of going on from there the narrator goes back, telling us every single minute detail of each one of their lives, starting from birth. It’s worth reading, although a novel about feminist Utopian cat hoarders could stand to be a little bit livelier.

11. Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library (April)
Intensely frustrating but not actually bad story about how gay people are all really slutty. There’s a big surprise at the end that’s neither that big nor that surprising. Still, the book taught me how to behave around hoity-toity middle-aged homosexuals, which has come in handy at least once thusfar.

12. Hilaire Belloc, The Green Overcoat (March)
Not amazing, but also pretty good. I first heard of Belloc via Edward Gorey, and also Lemony Snicket owes a lot to his writing. The story’s not so exciting, but a few paragraphs are funny enough to make it worth reading.

13. Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding (February)
I don’t know, it was fine, I guess. But a lot of mid-century southern fiction drives me nuts, I realize, because it reminds me of high school English classes where you only read stories where things like Setting and Character and Symbolism and Dialogue merit capital letters and completely lack subtlety.

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

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.

Sex Worker Literati is the slutty child of the groundbreaking and internationally acclaimed anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys, which shocked America by rocketing onto the front page of the Sunday NY Times Book Review, and gave voice to PhDs and high school dropouts, soccer moms and jailbirds, $5000 a night call girls, $10 crack hos and hard-working rent boys.  David Henry Sterry and Zoe Hansen will ride herd over an all-star lineup of the finest ho writer/performers money can buy. SEX WORKER QUIZ GIVEAWAY! & IT’S ALL FREE!!!

DAVID HENRY STERRY – Ex-teen manchild ho, ex- sitcom actor, Huffington Post muckraker, Chicken/Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys author.

ZOE HANSEN – Ex-madame, ex-junky, ex-hooker, and memoirist with twisted tales from the wild side.

MARY RAFFAELE aka RAPHAEL aka QUEEN VIXEN – former metal queen singer in Cycle Sluts From Hell. Fashionista writing memoir chronicling misadventures of  Midwestern girl who moved to New York to seek glamour in the lowest of places.

JODI SH.DOFF- How did a nice Jewish girl wind up spending a decade naked in Times Square? Take a peek from her one woman show. NY Times lauded contributor to Hos, Hookers, Call Girls Rent  Boys

CHRISTINA CICCHELLI- Doesn’t have multiple personality disorder. AVN nominee and Feminist Porn Award winner. Freelance writer, copy editor, and columnist for $pread.

KEITH CAPUTO– Ex-Life Of Agony front man Keith Caputo, literary outlaw. Worked with Flea & Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, Björk, David Bowie, Pixies.

MICHAEL ALAGO -  Discovered Metallica. Talent scout/producer/photographer/writer. Worked with Nina Simone, Johnny Rotten, Rob Zombie & Cyndi Lauper. Male portraits book Rough Gods.  Exhibited erotically in NY, Paris, Berlin, SF.

[photo: Christina Cicchelli]

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.

The second time I saw her was after Sunny Border Blue, at the old Met Cafe in downtown Providence.  Man, do I love that album.  (See me go on embarrassingly about it here and here.)  That show was the best, I think, because she did pretty much all of my favorite songs, from “Cry Baby Cry” onward.

A few years later I saw her again, at the Narrows Center For The Arts in Fall River.  That place is a funny place, because there are pews to sit on and hippies selling brownies in the corner.  That night was also kind of annoying because my friend’s car died on the way home.

So, this will be the fourth time.  Although the event’s going to be kind of big, I guess, and the library’s very strict about enforcing fire codes (which is a good thing, if you’ve ever seen the basement she’s going to be reading in.)

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.

Doniella Davy, Hippie Photos & Surfer Man (Kingsboro Press)
Funny photo book, also with a fairly self-explanatory title.  I like those, too, it turns out.

Chris Newmeyer and Denise Schatz, Books and Records (Miniature Garden)
Here’s another one.

Kate Wolf, Signs of LA (Darin Klein)
And one more; the internet doesn’t seem to have much info on this one, so hopefully I didn’t get any of the names wrong.

Yoko Inoue, An Ice Lolly Stick (self-published)
Photography book brought along by the sponsors of the Tokyo Art Book Fair; again just what it sounds like.

Anne Collier, Woman With A Camera (35mm) (Hassla)
No animals on this cover!  Stills taken from The Eyes Of Laura Mars, the film in which Faye Dunaway’s character can see gruesome murders through the lens of her camera.

Justin Hopper, Public Record (Encyclopedia Destructica)
Illustration and writing inspired by nineteenth-century crime reports of Pittsburgh.

Georges Perec, An Attempt At Exhausting A Place In Paris (Wakefield Press)
I’m already familiar with the hilariously vulgar The Young Girl’s Handbook of Good Manners for Use in Educational Establishments, so I’m excited to see what else is going to come out of this sleek, young literary press.

Bill Burns, Two Boiler Suits and a Playlist (YYZBOOKS)
Part of a trilogy, this book of drawings describes musical and clothing conditions for prisoners at Guantanamo.

Marcel Proust, All The Names In ‘In Search Of Lost Time’ (Parasitic Ventures)
All the names, none of the other text.  Two volumes.  I’m not thrilled with the jacket, but the idea is really great.

Kevin Hanley, Correlated Relations (Artspeak)
It’s a record.

Finally, there was also a book in the Canadian pavilion called something like “Photographs Inspired By Hip Hop Lyrics That Used To Inspire Me.” It was really good, although for some reason no one at any of the tables where I saw it was able to tell me where it came from.

[image: Famous People With Monkeys]