Filed under: art, books, magazines | Tags: magazines, me me me me me, new york art book fair, spending sprees
Just got back from New York last night. During my two half-days at the book fair I went on something of a mini shopping spree. Luckily I didn’t pay more than $8 for anything (I don’t think) but also in eight hours at PS1 I feel like I only managed to see many half of the show.
Anyway, in no particular order, I got:
1. Girls Like Us, Vol. 2 Issue 1
A Dutch magazine for the ladies, Girls Like Us is a really well laid-out magazine with a striking purple and white motif.
2. Lance Blongren, Walkups (Conundrum Press, Montreal)
A really lovely-looking novella. Says the back cover: “Composed as a series of documentaries depicting actual Montreal apartments, this book offers an intimate architectural tour of the city that is in turns humorous, erotic, and deeply unsettling.”
Filed under: books, gay, heterosexuals, hookers, hot, in praise of athletic beauty, internet, music | Tags: addictions and rituals, alexa dicarlo, boners, books, death in venice, e-cigarettes, jon secada, netflix, new york, pat bohannon, penises, prostitution, sports, suicide bombers, the british, the incomparable hildegarde, twin peaks, uniforms, world cup
As it turns out, the World Cup didn’t have much of an impact on South Africa’s sex trade.
I recently learned about The Incomparable Hildegarde, a Wisconsin-born cabaret singer who performed for about seventy years and who inspired much of Liberace’s act. She was wildly populat in the forties and, it should be repeated, went by the name The Incomparable Hildegarde.
Tess Lynch on smoking electronic cigarettes, something my friend Kerry recently described as “all the ritual of heroin addiction without actually having to do heroin.” Unlike Tess Lynch, I’ve only heard good things about the Jupiter Hotel. But, you know, different social circles, maybe.
When I was thirteen I’d get a boner from pretty much any man who was on my television and wearing a sleeveless shirt. (Which also explains why I tolerated professional basketball for so long.) But this week I was reminded of the video for “Whipped,” one of Jon Secada’s less-remembered steamy Latin hits of 1994. I’m totally ready for a Secada revival if you are, by the way. (I even sang “Just Another Day” at karaoke recently…)
New Yorkers can’t stop touching Adam’s golden penis.
Someone recently directed me to this athletic uniform blog, which is reeeeeeeeally thorough.
I’ve been thinking about joining Netflix, because I’m kind of a dullard about movies lately, and also because it would give me an excuse to spend more time at home. If I do, Visconti’s Death In Venice would be at the top of the list, because I (somehow?) didn’t even know it existed until this week.
In the Books That Sound Really Interesting But Which I’ll Probably Never Get Around To Because I Never Read Books Like That category: Cutting The Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How To Stop It.
Finally, The British are finally starting to appreciate Twin Peaks again.
[video: Army Of Lovers' Jean-Pierre Barda advertising vegan Swedish condoms]
Winnie Lundy is injured trying to rescue the animals after her brother’s barn catches fire in the middle of the night. While in the hospital, she ends up falling for the Englisher brother of her Amish friends back home. Meanwhile, Winnie’s brother Jonathan has a hard time moving on after learning that the barn fire was caused by a cigarette.
This book, which I finished reading at 2:30 this morning, is seriously like no book that I have ever read before. The plot is fluffy and wholesome and, while it moves along rather quickly, it’s also a lot like reading a TV movie. There are plots and subplots which dovetail thematically, schemes are hatched as gently and unobtrusively as possible, and everyone works together to reach the happiest of happy endings. There’s one character who’s not in a very good place at the conclusion, but he takes comfort in knowing that things could always be worse.
Filed under: books, people from rhode island | Tags: anthropology, ara wilson, brown university, sexual latitudes
This Thursday, Duke Women’s Studies/Cultural Anthropology professor Ara Wilson’s going to be at Brown to deliver a lecture entitled “Sexual Latitudes: The Erotic Life of Globalization.” It’s at the convenient hour of 3pm at Smith-Buonanno 106, which is pretty much my favorite classroom ever.
I don’t actually know much about Wilson, though she sounds pretty exciting. Her first book, The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City is (to quote the press release) “a pioneering feminist ethnography of gender, sexuality, and economic globalization.” She’s now working on an ethnographic study of sexual rights activism.
To quote more from the press release, “Wilson’s talk will explore new forms of sexual politics and transnational advocacy, offering a view of NGOs as erotic sites, that is, as modern spaces that both generate and regulate queer sexuality.”
Filed under: books, gay, shameless self-promotion | Tags: justin hall, me me me me me
“
This Tuesday, September 15th, I’m doing a reading with the fabulous Justin Hall. It’s my first ever reading in Providence, which is kind of exciting but also kind of scary because, you know, I’ll actually know a large chunk of the audience. And also all of my stories are about awful sex that I’ve had. This might be fun? Or I might just throw up.
We’re doin’ it at the Homestead, which is where the Dark Lady was until last month. 124 Snow Street. 9pm.
[image: the cover of J.F.Killer, Justin's new comic, starring Glamazonia the Uncanny Super Tranny.]
Filed under: art, books, hookers, internet, personal | Tags: angostura sours, blurb, books, change.org, goodreads, npr, peeping tom, prostitution, the environment, the iPad, the kindle
The Telegraph on the fiftieth anniversary of Peeping Tom, one of my all-time favorite movies.
The Millions isn’t really into Goodreads, although for me it’s the one social network that actually tends to lead to interesting real-life conversations. (I guess you don’t have that problem when you’re already a famous book blogger, though…)
I just this week stumbled across high-class self-publishing site Blurb and so of course now I’m planning a book which will haunt me for months and then never happen.
Change.org continues to conflate prostitution with human trafficking. Also their math isn’t so good.
Articles about how iPads and Kindles are more environmentally friendly than printed books continue to make no sense to me. Also, shut up.
Finally, NPR recommended drinking angostura sours in honor of Mad Men. I have yet to see a single episode of that show, but bitters and egg whites sounds like a win-win cocktail for me.
[image: Still from Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)]
Filed under: books, personal | Tags: coming and crying, me me me me me, stone temple pilots inspired story titles
My copy of Coming & Crying arrived in the mail today. My story, “Sex Tape Thing,” is the first story I’ve ever had published in book form, so I’m reeeeeeally excited that it’s in the same book as stories by Stephen Elliott and Tao Lin and a whole bunch of people I know from the internet and also a whole bunch of people I’ve never read anything by before. I’m not even really sure that I like my story anymore, but, you know, that happens, maybe? I don’t know.
Anyway, if you happen to have gotten a copy in the mail, too, and read my bio and found your way here, um, hi.
Filed under: books, gay, hookers, internet, Italians, porn | Tags: bjork, china, cumshots, dragons having sex with cars, human rights, italy, reality condoms, rl stine, shirley sherrod, visible penis lines
Banana Republic’s herringbone pants are available in big and tall.
Lynsey G from McSweeney’s on the meaning of the money shot. I like her column because she’s so completely ambivalent about everything. But also right.
China will hopefully put an end to “shame parades,” in which suspected prostitutes are shackled together and then forced to walk around in public.
Reality condoms. I don’t know anything about these from a health or pleasure standpoint, but maybe they’re a good thing?
The Reykjavik Grapevine interviews Bjork about Iceland’s economy, working with Antony, and how Paris Hilton basically saved serious pop music. Definitely worth reading.
Racism, Shirley Sherrod and the Obama White House. I’m not one to post political stuff, normally, but Sherrod’s forced resignation is one of the most fascinating (and also stupid) things I’ve heard of in a long, long time.
Is Italy too Italian? (And are those Italian clothes actually Italian at all?)
Finally, I spent a good chunk of this week reading some (extremely long) reviews of early-nineties RL Stine novels, written in 2010 by an adult. This, because I was trying desperately to remember the name of the author who wrote the deranged killer story that I read when I was maybe ten, that took place in a Rhode Island ice cream place. (It was Ellen Emerson White.)
Cecile Aubry, the French actress and writer of popular children’s books, died on Monday of lung cancer at the age of 81. She is perhaps best known for the 1965 book Belle et Sebastien, which was later turned into a live-action television series starring Aubry’s own son, Mehdi. An animated Japanese version of the series debuted in 1980 and was picked up by Nickelodeon in 1984, which is when I used to watch it. The name was later adopted by Stuart Murdoch for his band, who I obsessed over in high school and who have something new coming out later this year.
