Time and Identities

I was digging around in my bookshelf looking for In A Queer Place and Time, after reading an argument about it.  I came upon the book of Michelle M. Wright,Becoming Black, and went to search the interwebs for anything new by her, as she was a high school friend and is a scorching hot thinker with very wide-ranging interests.

I noticed again that internet searches today are so much more fruitful than over three years ago, the last time I did such a search.  Much more schtuff is all over, in this case particularly full text scholarly reviews and articles, not just abstracts.

It turns out Dr./Professor Wright (this makes my h.s. French class self squee) is doing some really intriguing work on time and identity formation/conception, referencing physics, time travel, etc.  She also has some fascinating articles available on the web about racism and technology and she edited an anthology about cyberfeminism.  I'm writing on my phone, which is old and limited, so I include only two links unearthed by a google of her name.

Here is an interview.  Here is  an article about how we think about technology. I'm going to have to spend some time reading her work in 2015, as it clearly has direct links to science fiction.  She always was f'n brilliant, and erudite, in multiple languages...

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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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Necessary fripperies

(A commenter on a Guardian excerpt from the book called it a frippery. She read the frippiest part of the book.  I would not call even that a frippery, but I believe more in books as life's bread...)

I spent a fair amount of free time over the last year searching out essays and interviews by Roxane Gay, after stumbling on an essay and her tumblr.  Now there's a collection, and it's funny, biting, deep, and oh so jaded that it's fresh again.  She really is a pleasure to read, and not a guilty one, despite the "bad feminist" schtick.  We know what she's getting at with that, and she's right to strike that pose in this cultural moment.  It is demanded of a thinker.

I've been doing too much dog training to read the title as I should, but: Bad Feminist.  Worth checking out.  I may say more layer on it, but I have trouble getting around to virtual socializing these days.

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Night songs

We got free tickets to see Rosanne Cash last night.  She played at the  staid St. Kate's auditorium with a mellow but skilled band and really sounded good.  She played her new album in full and some old hits and country standards.

For some reason, a song about her family's home in the sunken land of Arkansas made me think about Minnesota poet James Wright.  His work is very rich and dark, so I guess that makes sense.  The poem I was thinking of is about a condemned man at his grave, but this is a good one too:  Yo, Minneapolis. (Not really the title.)

I'm reading Christopher Bram's biography of (male) gay writers of the 40s through 90s (approx.), Eminent Outlaws, and the section on Frank O'Hara reminded me of Wright too.  I had never seen the paintings of Wynn Chamberlain until I googled them upon reading about his portraits of O'Hara.  Wow:  This may disappear. This page has his The Barricade and a picture of Johnny Cash's childhood home, a little bit of synchronicity, as well as Jacob Lawrence and a lot of other amazing stuff: Crucified Land.

Bram's book is truly fascinating, a mishmash of biographies of writers like James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams for the 60s, and lots of backroom gossip and historic commentary such as a discussion of what led to Boys In the Band and what effect it had on media homophobia and on the atmosphere for gay literature.  The rise of gay publishers, magazines, and bookstores comes in the 70s, and Bram notes things like the key role of those back wall rack sales in propping up gay bookstores.  The demise of those bookstores is due to more than just online book sales; the internet moved the cruising and page viewing online too...

I'm only in the mid-70s right now, but expect it will continue to be interesting...  The footnotes are rich, too, with links to gems like James Baldwin videos on YouTube.  The idea that i can go online and view his debate with William F. Buckley or his talks on Malcolm X instead of just reading about them in books from dusty lower shelves in old bookstores still blows me away...

I also just finished Pissing In a River by Lorrie Sprecher (The Feminist Press, 2014).  It's an awesome exploration of classic punk music, direct action politics with a 90s British feminist edge, OCD, and the aftermath of rape in lesbian relationships and friendships/ communities.  She put the soundtrack in her head into mine, in a good way, which really enhanced the story.  There are a lot of words spent on lusting after guitars and classic guitar sounds, but I'm totally a rapt audience for that.  Last night, it was making me drool over the lead guy's oh so country Telecaster...  Pissing In a River kicks some a$$...

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Making Time

I finally bought some books I've been meaning to read.  I tend to get around to shopping all in one moment after putting it off for too long and then being indecisive. 

I did not do the smart thing and go to the lists I'd made (one list being too organized).  Instead I did some searching based on topics of interest and luckily landed back on a review of this book I'd been reading about and kept meaning to pick up.

Now that I've just leafed through it for a few minutes, I can see I'm gonna need to push other stuff aside and make some time to really focus on this book.  Julia Serano's last book, Whipping Girl, was good, but Excluded is an intervention into movement talk talk talk on a different level.  It comes from a particular angle that just strikes me as timely, personally in my own reading, thinking, and blah blah blah, as well as politically at this juncture in sociocultural time, more broadly. 

All the books and projects are clashing and demanding, but this  fits in with the stuff I've been rereading and trying to put together: some Mathilda Sycamore books, some 70s feminist biographies, some rereads on intersectionality, and this documentary from last year's MSPIFF that keeps sticking in my head about adoption and women being fired from jobs or kicked out of school and sent to homes for unwed mothers pre-Roe. 

Gender, revisionism, historical contextuality, and the bigger picture are all on my mind, not really meshing, and just thumbing through this book, it seems to be right on point.  I could surely use some help thinking through this cluster of ideas more clearly.  Here's hoping...

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Fire In the Belly

Spring brings everyone out of the woodwork.  We meet our neighbors again.  Go places.  Do things.  Try to catch up, make up for lost time.

Deadlines, headlines, fresh bullsh*t, annexations, power moves, sloppy footwork, out of nowheres, sideswiped, blindsided, sluggish with a hint of snow, allergies, smudges under the eyes, nodding off on the train... It must be April on the way.

People die in April, like they do in early winter.  It becomes a rhythm you get used to, when everyone is dying.  And then it slows, and slows some more, and people are astonished at death again.  But the rhythm's still there.

That makes it a perfect time to read "Fire In the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz," by Cynthia Carr.  580-some pages is daunting, but the man was fascinating, brilliant, and burned fast as hell in the too-short time he had.  His autobiography is the first thing to read, but this bio's got art and stories and a sense of history and moment.  Remember Jesse Helms, the NEA, and FDA, all that ancient history?   Yeah.  Gonna take a while to plow through but I'm not stopping 'til I'm done.

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Questionable Practices

“Without Eileen Gunn, life as we know it would be so du five or six North Americans currently able to write shor near enough.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

Now *that's* a review to envy...

I was excited to be first to get ehands on the ebook from Hennepin County Library, once it came in.  As Le Guin says, Eileen Gunn books are a rare event.  I will probably end up buying this at Wiscon, especially if a friend is working the Small Beer Press table, but a preview is a treat.

So far the first story drew me right in.  It's snowing heavily outside at 7:45 a.m. on this holiday morning.  I'm thankful not to have to shovel, try to commute, and shovel again.  A good book to read is even better.

I saw "Flight," with Denzel doing his Denzel scene chomping thing.  It was ok, but not as good as the Olympic skating, which has been good but not great.  (I missed the pairs team competition, which sounds like it was sizzling.)  Nothing at Sochi has been really riveting, that I caught.  Sort of, "Oh yeah, he got the medal."  Partly, some people, like the long track speed skaters, just make it look too easy.   I realize it's not...

I did get to benefit from having watched a  bunch of skate skiing technique videos on Youtube.  It was more exciting to watch the X-country/Nordic ski races and understand more what they're doing at different points.  V1, V2, etc. 

Same with swimming, I learn best by watching people do it and trying to visualize their technique as I try it.  In swim class, this really Zen swimmer was in a lane nearby showing perfect, relaxed form.  Now I have something to think about to slow down my crawl, so I can breathe properly.  Making slow progress toward being able to swim a sprint triathlon.

Tryin' to make a living...

I'm headed in to work Saturday OT, to help crush our ever-mounting workload.  On the train, I've been madly reading Charles Stross, Rule 43.  It's very good so far.  I  hadn't realized that all but one or two characters are decidedly not heteronormative, because he made a point of making it so.  It's relatively well done, so far.  The cyberpunk is chock full of tech goodness, suspense, economic extrapolation, and good old fashioned cynicism.  I'd say more, but I have to get back to it.  Here's the MN zoo's new tapir, because he's pretty.

May snows

Not so thick here, but southern MN got ten inches two days ago.  All bets are off.

I'm reading, randomly because I searched for running books, the story of Matt Long , a New York firefighter who got split in two by a bus and then ran a 7 hour NY marathon with no right adductor muscle, a two inch shorter leg from a fractured pelvis, and mangled left toes that he'd basically land on with every step.  The reader for the audiobook keeps it lively.

Oh yeah

I have a summary of all the books I blabbed about here, basically, up at Aqueduct Press's annual year-end extravaganza.  Mine is  here.  I've got to go peruse the other lists for 2013's to-read list...

Goblin Secrets

Will Alexander won the National Book Award for Children's Lit'r'ture!!  Writer's Night Out regular, Rain Taxi contributor, fellow alum, he's awesome, and Goblin Secrets is really good.

More here.  And a snippet from Ursula K Le Guin's review is there too.

We watched the live tweeting last night at WNOut and then did a little dance, sort of.  There was merriment. 

Reviews and reading

This Strange Horizons review of Rebecca Ore's second Vel book makes me feel better about feeling this way about the first book, despite the high wow factor of the concept.

I'm reading another Aqueduct Press book right now, Brit Mandelo's analysis of Joanna Russ, We Wuz Pushed.  It's quite interesting, with lots of quotes that both enhance the points being made and jog my memory of the books. 

The focus is on truth-telling as Russ's project, which rings true to me.  That's part of why I balk at the concept of the Heiresses of Russ anthology series.  Lesbian protagonists I'm all for, but that was not really the point or primary contribution of Russ, as far as I can tell.  Stories with scalpel blade analysis and finely pointed rage, yes...  Truth telling in this day and age, where we know so much and yet so little about other people, takes...  I dunno. 

I have to read that book before critiquing, but the title has been kind of a put-off.  Who can live up to *that* expectation?

Lesfic

Speaking of shapeshifters, here's a good selkie story by Laurie J. Marks available on the web: How the Ocean Loved Margie.

I'm excited to learn that Lethe Press is releasing Point of Knives, a follow-up to Melissa Scott's novels with her partner Lisa Barnett (who passed away several yeara ago).  Here's a blurb:

"A welcome return to the vividly realized city of Astreiant with its intricate magics and deadly politics. Point of Knives takes place in the interval between the widely praised earlier novels Point of Hopes and Point of Dreams. A fantastical mystery and a rousing adventure, Point of Knives also reveals for the first time the beginning of the romance between Adjunct Point Nicolas Rathe and ex-soldier Philip Eslingen."

I love this series- supernatural and sleuthy, with a gay touch.  Just have to wait until July...

Tor goes DRM-free

I'm not all EFF libertarian, but  Yay.  I hate ebook restrictions.

An old gem

Butches of Madison County.  By Ellen Orleans.  Almost made the driver veer off the road from laughing...  I think that's a recommendation...

The Businessman

Is compulsively readable even as it should not be.  It's a weird mishmash of gothic horror, pop culture, traditional Minnesota, philosophy, poetry, random spearing of science fiction tropes and authors, homage, and satire, with all kinds of pompous random asides.  Of course I love it.

I disagree with her on the book's appeal/success, but here's an intersting review by Marion Zimmer Bradley back in the day from the NYT.  I find the book deeply entertaining, like the whole Supernatural Minnesota series, and the horror is not the supernatural hoohah but the aspects of Minnesota and America that he satirizes, as clearly as he does in his futuristic SF.  Plus I like the word and idea games he plays, very Melville, especially The Confidence Man, which dove in so wholeheartedly to allegory and satire and all the trickster talents.

Here's a more sympathetic review, with more background, from the Tor blog.  The comments mention that Disch once sold the magnegic potholders a character buys, like the creepy kid who sells them in the book.  Cool detail.

Shape shifting historie

The Priest got a little crazy but did not disappoint.  Amidst headlines from MN's upcoming battle over the meaning of marriage rights and recent national issues, it did not seem so far-fetched.

I have moved on to Richard Bowes' Minions of The Moon, which is keeping me up late reading.  I am this writer's biggest fan.  I don't care how long or much you've read - I will fight you for the title.   Deceptively smooth and simple, his stories and novels just have that je ne sais quoi I read a ton of crap to find on rare occasions.  And this one really rocks.

I'm indulging in my recent musical obsession:  Dawes.  Yes, they dress like the J Crew catalog begat brats with the Abercrombie Fitch window display.  There's something about their faux mountain harmonies with LA themes and Neil Young worship that just hits the spot aurally.  Makes work flow smoothly, which is a plus.

Anyway.  Let the snow-rain-sleet fall.  I've still got 150 pages to go, and Tom Disch's The M.D. up next, all 400-some pages.

Reading reviews

Here's an interesting discussion of The Priest by Tom Disch: the NYT 1995 take. 

One of my quirks is that I like reading reviews of the book I'm reading if it has got a lot going on or is difficult to interpret.  In this case, my lack of knowledge about the religion at issue makes me wonder how much I'm missing.  Plus reading reviews or analyses helps me pay more attention,catch more references, etc.  I don't mind spoilers, either.  Weird, I know...

The Sub by Thomas Disch

Is turning into an obsessive git'erdone read.  As this old NYT review said:

"What begins as a story of domestic upheaval and run-of-the-mill violence soon morphs into something much stranger, eventually encompassing witchcraft, shamanism and incest. The unquiet soul of Diana's dead father haunts the Turney homestead, and his malignant presence prompts Diana to realize she's a witch with the power to transform people into the animals that best suit their personalities. Her father's vengeful spirit promises her she'll kill everyone she ever loved, a threat Diana brushes off. Soon, though, she's off on a spree of mayhem and violence that seems destined to fulfill her dead father's prophecy, but not before she uses her Circe-like powers to turn a number of locals into pigs."

The reviewer thought it was all too much, but the humor is at the right pitch and it helps if you've lived in Minnesota or the Northland.  We read about this sort of cabin fever family saga mayhem in the Strib every day...

This quote from a Guardian (UK)  obituary makes me think of the Queer Art of Failure, the Judith Halberstam book I am also reading:

Disch's novel Camp Concentration... "won some plaudits but no honours from the science-fiction community, which from the first could not tolerate Disch's corrosive disdain for the technocentric uplift typical of "normal" science fiction, and for anything that seemed to him to pander to the immaturity of most genre fiction."  Except for that last part - Halberstam's book is intersting in part because it takes children's animated films quite (but not too) seriously.  Spongebob!

Halberstam

As a theory geek, Judith Halberstam's body of work generally gets me excited.

However, the last book, about queerness and time, and the latest, The Queer Art of Failure, which questions seriousness and 'success' from a queer theory POV, really stand out amidst a crowd of books that are, well, so-o-o serious and ambitious in various ways.  Barbara Christian's earlier critique of the thrust towards 'high' theory comes to mind, one of those must-reads for feminist and social theory.

I have only browsed this so far, but I read a few reviews of The Queer Art of Failure that made me get off my butt to find this and stop taking out library books so I can actually get to it without feeling I have to read books that are due first.  Though Graham Joyce's latest novel is in at my local branch.  It's hard to resist...  But I will, and should be blabbing about Halberstam's book soon. 

I got some more writing done this weekend, finally starting the novel rewrite I've been dancing around getting to and doing needed but nevertheless delay-tactic research for.

Lots of dangling participles there, eh.  That's what my writing life has felt like in 2011.  With the queer habit of not producing enough as a community by and for 'us' (and finishing, and getting it out there, and yes, there are many exceptions, yet, so little when one looks for something new to read, watch, etc.) in mind, I am trying to push through all the laziness, after-work brain deadness, and fear of, well, failure, as well as hesitation about the difficult subject matter (AIDS in the 80s and 90s, queer and left activism, drugs, sex, and the pros and cons of old school queer community).  One step at a time, as they say...