Vol. XI No. 6 ˇ December 9, 2011
BETTER ANGELS |
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IN MEMORY
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 TOUKO LAAKSONEN
would come to the USA and morph into the
iconic TOM OF FINLAND (1920-1991). He was in the military service
during WWII and, as a result of this experience, he found much of
his artistic inspiration. While working in the Finnish advertising
business, he began his drawings of hyper-masculine men.His work first appeared in the USA, in PHYSIQUE PICTORIAL in 1957. The legend was born. This latest edition of Tom's work, edited by DIAN HANSON, from Taschen is a sampling of his work from 1946 on into the 1970s. Hanson and Taschen have done a remarkable job over the past fifteen years organizing, publishing and making the Tom catalogue available in the most attractive formats. TOM OF FINLAND is a hardcover from Taschen, $14.99 (yes, $14.99) |
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 GERRIT
LANSING was born in Albany, New York, in 1928. He grew up in
Northern Ohio (to be exact, Chagrin Falls--and should any of my
readers be interested in how Chagrin Falls got its name, please
contact me). Lansing was educated at Harvard and Columbia and taught
at Bard College. For many years he has lived in Gloucester,
Massachusetts.In the early 1960s, he edited and published two issues of SET, a literary journal that fused Modernist poetic experiment with occult and spiritual themes, which served as an influence on the counterculture that was to develop in that decade. His current book, HEAVENLY TREE, NORTHERN EARTH, is the inaugural volume of a new series of literary hardcovers from North Atlantic Books. Lansing cannot be slotted into any category of contemporary poets. His verse ranges from the lyrical to the cosmological. He was acquainted with so many formative figures in post-war American culture: Charles Olson, Harry Smith and others. The poet Robert Kelly said about Lansing: "He is the most learned among us, and the most fun." HEAVENLY TREE, NORTHERN EARTH is a hardcover from North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA, $35.00 |
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 MARK
D. JORDAN is the Richard Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Divinity at
the Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of many books,
including THE SILENCE OF SODOM (University of Chicago Press).His latest title is RECRUITING YOUNG LOVE: HOW CHRISTIANS TALK ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY. In his book, Jordan reviews more than a half century of American church debate about homosexuality. He posits that at the beginning of this discourse, the religious line was uniform--homosexual behavior was bad and teens were vulnerable. Since the 1948 Kinsey publication on male sexual behavior, church rhetoric has undergone a radical shift, as silence was abandoned and the public discourse is now more characterized by frequent, very public and detailed discussions of homosexuality and its alleged dangers. Along the way, the churches have adopted much of the language and ideas of the latest fads in sexology, psychiatry and social reformers, signing on with those who advocate "deprogramming" centers and enforcing traditional gender roles. Jordan's book is a contemporary history about the policies which try to determine the lives of teenagers. RECRUITING YOUNG LOVE is a hardcover from The University of Chicago Press, $35.00 One thing came to mind after I reviewed Jordan's book. I think I read this in the late Evangeline Bruce's wonderful book NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE: THE IMPROBABLE MARRIAGE (Scribner, 1995). After Bonaparte took the crown from the Pope and crowned himself, he went up to the Bishop of Paris and told him: "I now have it in my power to destroy the Catholic Church in France." To which the Bishop quipped: "You know, the clergy has been trying to do that for eighteen hundred years. Good luck, Emperor!" At least something useful came out of that mayhem--the Napoleonic Code! |
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 STEVEN
SAYLOR, in his latest novel, EMPIRE, charts the destinies of the
aristocratic Pinarius family from the reign of Augustus to the height
of the Roman Empire. Generation after generation, the Pinarii
witness the greatest empire of the ancient world and the men and
women who ruled it--from the machinations of Messalina to the
madness of Caligula, the terror of Nero to the golden age of
Hadrian.Saylor, once again, brings these ancient times to life in a vivid narrative, making an ancient city and its people more than just historical but captivating of our imaginations. EMPIRE is a trade paperback from St. Martin's Griffin, $15.99 |
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 THE
MAMMOTH BOOK OF GORGEOUS GUYS was edited by BARBARA CARDY. The
introduction is by TOM BIANCHI. This volume includes more than four
hundred erotic photographs of men by today's leading photographers.
Included are the works of over fifty artists, some male, some
female.The majority of the photographs are in black and white. Some sepia. Some color. Photographers included are: Christopher Makos, Elizabeth May, Holly Revell, Arthur Tress, David Vance, Julie Cook, James Stafford and many others. THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF GORGEOUS GUYS is a trade paperback, 480 pages, published by Running Press, $17.95 |
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 WILLIAM
E. JONES is the author of HALSTED PLAYS HIMSELF.Fred Halsted was an iconic figure in the early years of gay male erotic movies. According to Jones (and I agree), Halsted's 1972 movie, L.A. PLAYS ITSELF, was gay porn's first masterpiece. The film was sexually explicit, autobiographical and experimental. At the New York screening, Salvador Dali was heard muttering "new information to me," which seems hard to believe. Halsted was a self-taught filmmaker and the film was shot over three years in a now vanished Los Angeles, a city once rural and sleazy. Halsted's cultural influence, at the time, was equal to Kenneth Anger and Jack Smith. His star waned in the 1980s with the emergence of the commercial gay-porn industry. Joey Yale, his lover and spouse and commercial partner, died of AIDS in 1986. Halsted committed suicide in 1989. Lavishly illustrated with black and white and color photographs from Halsted's life and films, this is a tribute to a man who lived at a time when sexual liberation was new and wide open. HALSTED PLAYS HIMSELF is a hardcover from Semiotext(e) Native Agents, $24.95 |
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 DEAD ENZ is a mystery about money, murder and
the dawn of a new age. The hottest software company is about to
go public, raking in serious scratch. Only one problem--the
mysterious death of their programming wizard! It s 1984. The era
of the desktop computer has dawned. Software companies are
sprouting around the country like mushrooms. The biggest buzz in
the financial press is about Locust, Inc., in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Its president, David Hedges, is already out of
the box with a line of high-end business products. He's itching
to go public and make his hundreds of millions and Wall Street
has his IPO all lined up.
His ace-in-the-hole is lead programmer, Rusty van Handle, whose piece of Locust will bring him a bundle. Though van Handle is a hot-shot in the digital world, he has a different reputation around town. There's his plan to muscle-in on a real estate deal and take the property of an elderly black woman in the South End, and his claim that he owns half of the break-out pop band, Dead Enz, whose lead singer, Sal Iannucci, he regularly supplies with cocaine. Actually, van Handle was a regular supplier of cocaine to many, and he had mountains of the powder. The day before the IPO, van
Handle's body is found splattered on a street in the South End.
Wearing handcuffs. Murder? Accident? Suicide? The Locust IPO
goes on hold, and may burn-out entirely. The press is all over
the scandal. David Hedges is livid and uses his influence to
make sure someone, anyone, is nailed for the crime. |
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 GAY
IN AMERICA: PORTRAITS BY SCOTT PASFIELD is the first-ever
photographic survey of gay men in America. The introduction is by
TERRENCE McNALLY and TOM KIRDAHY.Pasfield traveled 54,000 miles across all fifty states over a three year period, documenting the lives of 140 gay men from all walks of life. At turns joyful and somber, reflective and celebratory, each narrative and image is an enlightening look into the variety of gay life in the United States. GAY IN AMERICA is a hardcover from Welcome Books, $45.00 |
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 JOHN WATERS. Is he simply
class clown? The radical social critic? The lover of the
outré? He remains a moving target.
His latest book is ROLE MODELS. Waters has been all over the press with this title--the press loves him (whether the sentiment is reciprocated, I do not know). The book is very handsomely published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Waters casts a wide net for his role models. First up is Johnny Mathis, whom Waters interviewed. Mathis, still at his game and filling halls, is the very definition of a cagy interviewee, but in JW's account, it's pure joy. Waters has a lovely, if brief, tribute to Tennessee Williams ("Tennessee Williams saved my life"). The water gets darker when we get to Leslie Van Houten, known to history as one of the "Manson girls." Waters has never been shy about the company he keeps. We meet Esther Martin, owner of the scariest bar in Baltimore. Also on the list are Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Saint Catherine of Siena and the English novelist Denton Welch. Waters in unashamedly a self-confessed neurotic; the subjects in his book surely have their own parts in his psychological constitution. Also interesting is the question: for how many folks out there is John Waters himself a role model? ROLE MODELS is a trade paperback from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. There are a few black and white photographs throughout, $15.00 |
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 JUSTIN
SPRING's book titles include PAUL CADMUS: THE MALE
NUDE and FAIRFIELD PORTER: A LIFE IN ART. He
is a writer who has specialized in 20th Century American art
and culture. He has also written many monographs, catalogs
and for museum publications.
His latest title, and a bit different from his previous publications, is SECRET HISTORIAN: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAMUEL STEWARD, PROFESSOR, TATTOO ARTIST, AND SEXUAL RENEGADE. Steward had a peripatetic career. Sexually active from an early age, he kept notes--often vivid--about his sexual experiences, something Alfred Kinsey found of use when they met. Steward was a friend of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas--the letters were published in his book DEAR SAMMY--as well as Thornton Wilder. Steward taught at the college level for a time. Later, he turned to the art of tattooing, working on Chicago's notorious South Street. In the 1960s, Steward started writing homosexual literature under the name Phil Andros, titles which were republished in the 1980s. Andros was only one of the names he wrote under. Spring's biography is detailed, generous and full of news. He got ahold of Steward's diaries, journals and his sexual records. Spring's account of Steward's libidinal adventures should have earned Steward a Kennedy Center Award. Steward died in 1983.
SECRET HISTORIAN is a treasure, beautifully published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It includes notes, a selected bibliography, an index and black and white photographs. 478 pages. SECRET HISTORIAN is published in trade paperback, $18.00 |
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During GAA's famous "zaps," Evans was present at Harper's
Magazine, then edited by the formidable Midge Decter; the rag had published a
particularly homophobic article--though the word "homophobia" would
not be coined until 1972--and he had the opportunity to confront Ms.
Decter, who refused to print a rebuttal as the "zappers" had
demanded.
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