Vol. VII No. 11 · December
31, 2007
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 AMY
HOFFMAN is a friend of mine. I met her when she joined THE GAY
COMMUNITY NEWS back in the 1970s. Hoffman has written AN ARMY
OF EX-LOVERS: MY LIFE AT THE GAY COMMUNITY NEWS, a book a number
of persons, myself included, have been awaiting with some eagerness.
There has been no history of GCN since its demise. Hoffman's is a memoir
of her experiences there and completely engaging in what she sets out
to do. There are photos throughout.
Hoffman's style is charming. When she arrives at GCN, there's the
sense that it's a bit like Dorothy Gale opening that door when she hits
Oz. GCN was started in 1973 as, I think, the first weekly G&L rag in
the country. It lasted into the 1990s, in a somewhat altered format.
GCN was a magnet for talent. Because it was new, it was a constantly
changing periodical. There were lots of politics, cultural commentary,
personal notes. Full disclosure: I wrote for the paper from its early
years, through the late 1970s and into the early 80s and still had my
by-line appear in the 1990s. Hoffman's tenure there was when GCN was
going through some of its biggest tumult. There was always the tension
between the men and the women. It was a paper of limited readership
(perhaps 5000 to 10,000 tops), very limited resources, and the staff
was always changing. The internal conflicts were magnified by the claustrophobia
of the work environment. And yet, despite all the shortcomings, GCN
turned out to be a crucible for the G&L movement. It was a factory for
processing many who would become leaders of other groups and organizations,
as they formed, in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. Hoffman captures
this raw spirit of a generation--a cohort of commitment and dedication,
working for something new and living on a thin paycheck.
Hoffman's accounts of the various eruptions which invariably came
about in such a situation she recalls with sense and sensibility. The
strange death of David Brill in 1979--odd, someone was just chatting
me up about this the other day, nearly 30 years on. There are the others
deaths, murders and diseases. Hoffman, previously, wrote a poignant
book, HOSPITAL TIME, about the decline and death of our mutual
friend, Mike Riegel, office manager of GCN.
AN ARMY OF EX-LOVERS is a wonderful evocation of a time and
a place of a certain part of a generation that, as a dear older friend
of mine told me, "got it all." That may only be accurate in his
vision, but those who got the movement going in the 1970s literally
wrote the script, and Hoffman, in her delightful book, gives us a sense
of what it was like to be young in the 70s and doing something daring
and something entirely new. I'm so glad Hoffman wrote this book and
I'm doubled glad it was published. I don't usually gush, but I just
did.
AN ARMY OF EX-LOVERS is a trade paperback from the University
of Massachusetts Press, $22.95
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 For
five years, DENNY DENFIELD worked with a color stereo camera,
a device offered to the market in 1947. Denfield was born in 1918 in
San Francisco. He started his photography career soon after he finished
military service in WWII. These 3-D pictures were taken in the 1950s.
Denfield was among that generation of photographers--many of whom he
met and worked with--who created erotic male photos in a repressive
culture and at incredible risk.COMIN' AT YA! is a collection
of Denfield's stereoscopic photos, collected here for the first time--3-D
glasses included!--$27.95
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 THE
GOD BOX is ALEX SANCHEZ's sixth novel. The story is set in
a small town high school. Paul's a senior. He's dated Angie since middle
school. They enjoy similar pursuits. They both sing in the church choir,
also active in the Bible club.A new student, Manuel, transfers to
their school. Manuel is something different. He's an openly gay teen
and says he's also a committed Christian. No one in town has ever met
anyone like this before. This sets Paul to thinking. When he talks to
Manuel, Paul comes to reconsider thoughts he has kept hidden. When Manuel
relates his interpretation on the Biblical passages regarding homosexuality,
Paul reevaluates everything he has been taught.
Manuel's outspokenness triggers dramatic events at school, ending
up in a terrifying situation--that's when Paul takes his stand.
THE GOD BOX is a hardcover from Simon & Schuster, $16.99
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 QUEERVILLE
is an erotic collection of illustrated short stories and strips
from TOM BOUDEN. The work is color throughout.QUEERVILLE
is published by Bruno Gmünder,
$27.00
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 DIRTY
LITTLE DRAWINGS: THE QUEER MEN'S EROTIC ART WORKSHOP is just as
announced.On December 27, 2000, a group
of 14 artists met in a basement art gallery in New York's SoHo District.
The model hired for the event was open to any suggestion. The event
continued week after week. HARVEY REDDING, ROBERT W. RICHARDS
and ROB HUGH ROSEN made these events happen. Their goal was to
create erotic work available and affordable for the growing market.
They wanted to create an exhibition in which all the drawings would
be the same size, identically priced and available directly off the
gallery walls. Artists were encouraged to produce as little or as much
as they wanted. Some created only a few works--others more than 50 each!
The first of four exhibitions was held in 2003; each was a huge success.
This book is a sampling of the works created through the workshop.
DIRTY LITTLE DRAWINGS is a hardcover
from Bruno Gmünder, $39.95
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 Katharine
Hepburn had a very long and a very full life. WILLIAM MANN gives
it all a full court press in his biography. Kate was born in 1907. Her
father was a noted surgeon; mother was active in the women's suffrage
movement and later agitated for legal birth control. Kate was the second
child. She was graduated from Bryn Mawr. After college, she had a brief
marriage. She arrived in Hollywood in 1932. Her stern father was not
sympathetic to her choice of career. But Kate was unstoppable. She famously
wore slacks whenever she wanted to, considered somewhat scandalous at
the time. She got right onto the studio career mill and worked constantly.
There were speedbumps in her path, and some of her assignments, like
SYLVIA SCARLETT, seem completely odd, though it's nice she made
them. The catalogue of films with Tracy sealed her reputation as a silver
screen legend; winning four Academy Awards put her in the pantheon.
Mann's account is extensive and full of interesting details, not just
about her screen career but on Broadway as well. She loved her fame
and worked hard to create her image, something that can be difficult
in a fickle industry driven by monstrous egos, last weekend's box-officegross
and a deck that was stacked against female players. Hepburn survived
it all and was well-liked.
KATE: THE WOMAN WHO WAS HEPBURN is a trade paperback published
by Picador. Black and white photos are included and an index, $18.00
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 MARSDEN
HARTLEY is grouped with the most outstanding of the early American
modernists. Hartley (1877-1943) traveled the US and Europe while developing
his distinctive visual style. As a result of his sojourn in New Mexico,
he later created a set of extraordinary of images--between1918 and 1924--of
the southwest; they grounded his aesthetics in the modernism of the
postwar years.In MARSDEN HARTLEY AND THE WEST: THE SEARCH FOR
AMERICAN MODERNISM, HEATHER HOLE explores these productive
years of the artist's career. She draws upon Hartley's writings and
considers his involvement with the Stieglitz circle, the Taos arts community,
New York Dada as well as the lasting impact of the Great War.
MARSDEN HARTLEY AND THE WEST is a hardcover from Yale University
Press, color plates throughout, $50.00
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 CARNAL
SACRAMENTS is the latest novel by PERRY BRASS, which
he describes as "a historical novel of the future."It's near the
end of the 21st century. Jeffrey Cooper, from Alabama, is a design star
living in Germany. He has made a Faustian bargain with the economic
cabal that runs the world, and the deal was this: they keep him young
and razor-sharp, he stays at the top of his game and keeps the profits
rolling in. Only problem is that his work is very competitive, the stress
level is very high, and it is killing him. Jeffrey's got a very "Daddyish"
German therapist who tells him when all else fails, there are "angels"
in the world who can save him.
An "angel" does appear in Jeffrey's life, but he assumes he's the
devil, proffering every kind of excitement, even promising he can get
Jeffrey's soul back for him. Jeffrey has to wonder: will this younger,
mysterious and attractive man wind up saving him or killing him?
CARNAL SACRAMENTS is a trade paperback from Belhue Press,
$16.95
Calamus
Bookstore will be hosting an event
with PERRY BRASS in February, 2008.
Date to be announced.
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 CHI
CHI LARUE's SMUT is a valentine to the industry in which
LaRue has done quite well. C. C. LaRue has clocked many years in the
gay film biz and has an extensive filmography. A most unusual life,
even though, if fun, work's still work.SMUT is a collection
of photos of men--many young and some mature--that have worked in various
LaRue productions over the years. LaRue must have a very long
Christmas Card list! While perusing SMUT, I could only think
of what would be the appropriate theme song for such a singular career:
"Nice Work If You Can Get It."
SMUT is a hardcover from Bruno Gmünder,
$68.00
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 TODD
GREGORY is the author of EVERY FRAT BOY WANTS IT.
Also interesting is that this same title has its copyright held by
GREG HERREN, a very prolific writer.
FRAT BOY is a romp. We meet Jeff Morgan, blond, blue-eyed,
and an athlete at his small Kansas high school. For college, he's off
to California; he aspires to be a writer. He's also of the belief that
joining a fraternity, and partaking of macho culture, will rid him of
his sexual attraction to other men. College can be a learning experience.
He joins Betta Kappa, where drugs and booze are staples, and under
the influence, the frat brothers engage in fraternal intimacies. There
are the weekends in LA and Palm Springs, and then spring break with
a boys-gone-wild theme. And, as time passes, there comes the time when
the new pledges show up to join the fun.
EVERY FRAT BOY WANTS IT is a trade paperback from Kensington,
$15.00
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We hosted JOE HAYES for his third annual art show!
For further information about any of the displayed in the store,
you may contact Joe directly at
joe36arl@yahoo.com
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WILLIAM MANN discussed his new biography,
KATE: THE WOMAN WHO WAS HEPBURN, Friday evening, 14 December.
His was a talk filled with wonderful stories about Hepburn. The biography
is reviewed above.
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FEATURED DVDs
 CHARLES
BUSCH and POLLY BERGEN star in A VERY SERIOUS
PERSON. Bergen plays a grandmother in charge of her teen
grandson. Busch is a Danish male nurse who connects and bonds
with the precocious grandson, $24.95
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 OUT
OF THE PAST: THE STRUGGLE FOR GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS IN AMERICA
is framed by the narrative of Kelli Peterson, a 17-year-old
in Salt Lake City, as she struggles to set up a Gay Straight
Alliance in her public school; there is a lot of back story
that grounds Peterson's struggle, $29.95
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BARGAIN BOOKS
 ALAN
DOWNS wrote THE VELVET RAGE: OVERCOMING THE PAIN
OF GROWING UP GAY IN A STRAIGHT MAN'S WORLD. This is
the 2005 hardcover edition, $10.95
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 PAUL
LISICKY is the author of FAMOUS BUILDER. In these
charming essays, he reflects on the impulse to recreate
oneself--in the realm of youthful dreams, in adolescent
sexual discoveries and in adult realities. This is the 2002
trade paperback edition, $5.95
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RE:PAST
Out-of-print, first editions or
curios from the Calamus collection
Call (617) 338-1931 for ordering information
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