Taking notes on Eminent Outlaws

And they thought she ate cats.

I'm going back over Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America, by Christopher Bram, taking notes this time.  It's really an interesting nutshell of one take on the social changes that led to this current moment of public displays of gay (swype keeps wanting to write "gassy") affection and institutionalization in the non-psychiatric sense.

Speaking of which, one of the more interesting biographical sketches in the book is of the early life of Allen Ginsberg, about whom I knew only the later highlights.  I hadn't really taken in just how long he tried to live as heterosexual, living with his parents after eight months in a psychiatric hospital (following an arrest for helping steal a car for a joyride and drug possession) and even while living in New York. 

I did not know the world basically owes his later body of work and influence to a psychologist who said, essentially, " Why not live with the guy if you want to?" and "Oh, everyone gets old.  There will still be people who will like you."  So he moved in with Peter Orlovsky, set off hitchhiking across the country, and wrote "Howl."

Amazing what a difference the different shrinks made.  Tho not surprising, pre-APA rethink...

We watched "Kolya," that Czech movie from the early 90s that won an Oscar but I never got around to seeing.  I was afraid it would be cloying, but it was quite restrained, and politically charged.  The kid speaking clearly enunciated Russian was a bonus. 

I'm reading a Norwegian police procedural by a real life cop from the same small seaside town (Closed for Winter by Jorn Lier Horst).  It's OK but not great, not bad as a slice-of-life mystery.  We finally got to go skiing (Nordic) after yesterday's break in our thaw, so reading about snow is not quite as exciting as it was two days ago...  I can't lift my legs very high now, but it was fun in the moment...

Anyway, back to work.

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