Vol. IX No. 4 · September 2, 2009

HARMONY W/VISUALS

The period from 1895 to 1945 is considered the Golden Age of magazine publishing in the United States. Fiction writers could make a living publishing short stories. Illustrators could become rich and famous. There was Norman Rockwell. Even more famous than Rockwell was J.C. Leyendecker.

He was born in Germany in 1874, Joseph Christian Leyendecker and was known as Joe. The family moved to Chicago in 1882. Joe knew that he wanted to be illustrator from an early age. He studied art in Chicago. In 1896, he won first prize for cover design for THE CENTURY, a prestigious magazine at the time (Maxfield Parrish came in second). He and his brother did a stint in Paris. Joe's first cover for the SATURDAY EVENING POST was published in 1899; he was 25. He would, in the course of his life, have his work on more SEP covers than any other artist, even Rockwell.

His signature image was the Arrow Shirt man which became advertising's first iconic campaign, bigger than the Gibson Girl. The model for the Arrow ad was Charles Beach (1886-1952) who would become Joe's lover and lifetime partner. They had a large house outside New York and entertained constantly. This is a beautifully edited book and is the first comprehensive account of Leyendecker's fabulous career and tremendous output

J.C. LEYENDECKER is by LAURENCE S. CUTLER and JUDY GOFFMAN CUTLER & The National Museum of American Illustration. It is a hardcover with color reproductions of Leyendecker's work on every page, $50.00

REBECCA BROWN's collection of essays is AMERICAN ROMANCES.

Brown, a distinguished novelist, brings her creative gifts to the essay form and has great fun expanding the genre. Intelligent and playful, her meditations are a gonzo mix of pop culture, autobiography, misremembered movie plots and literary history. How else get Nathaniel Hawthorne and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in the same text about Puritanism and West Coast hedonism? Gertrude Stein. John Wayne. Shane.

Brown's book is a pure bon-bon, a treat for the mind.

AMERICAN ROMANCES is a trade paperback from City Lights, $16.95

JOHNNY DIAZ's third novel is BEANTOWN CUBANS.

Carlos Martin is 27 years old and ready for a change. Born in Cuba and raised in Miami, he is cute and slightly awkward. He works as a high school teacher. He figures that Boston is about as far away as he can get from the crazy South Beach social scene. He's also ready for a change after losing his mother.

Boston is a culture shock, until he meets Tommy Perez, another Miami transplant who quickly shows him the ropes. Within the next year, Carlos embraces his new independence and finds his footing in his new hometown.

BEANTOWN CUBANS is a trade paperback from Kensington, $15.00

JOHNNY DIAZ READS AT CALAMUS on Friday, 11 September at 7 PM.

SMASH THE CHURCH, SMASH THE STATE! THE EARLY YEARS OF GAY LIBERATION was edited by TOMMI AVICOLLI MECCA.

This is a volume collecting reflections by many writers on those first years after the Big Bang--Stonewall--and how lives were changed. These essays capture the feel of upheaval that characterized the early and mid-1970s. Institutions were being created, the energy was overflowing and since all this was new--there really was no template--it had a free-for-all feel to it. Many of the authors capture this spirit.

Authors contributing include: Perry Brass, Martha Shelley, Victoria Brownworth, Mark Segal, Pam Mitchell, Steven Dansky, Doug Ireland, Allen Young, Merle Woo and many others.

SMASH THE CHURCH, SMASH THE STATE! is a trade paperback from City Lights, $18.95

JOHN LAURITSEN and JOHN KYPER will read from their essays in SMASH THE CHURCH and lead a discussion about the early days of gay liberation on Friday, 18 September at 7 PM.

Boston generates so much musical talent. SARAH CALDWELL was a prominent and, perhaps, unique figure off this assembly line. Her timing was exquisite.

REBECCA MATLOCK, who served on the board of the Opera Company of Boston, interviewed Caldwell in the three years before Sarah's death in 2006. Her book, SARAH CALDWELL: CHALLENGES: A MEMOIR OF MY LIFE IN OPERA is a fascinating remembrance of Caldwell's fabulous career. She was a Boston institution--her every production created enormous buzz. How she managed to pull it all off remains a mystery. I still have conversations with men my age about her 1966 production of MOSES AND ARON (its first American production--imagine!) and so many others as well. Caldwell was adventurous, daring and, from the gossip I heard from those who worked with her over the years, a difficult boss. Her business model these days wouldn't have a chance. But she pulled it off. Caldwell went national, then international. A phenomenon.

CHALLENGES is a hardcover from Wesleyan University Press. There are photos throughout, a list of her productions year-by-year, and an index. $27.95

GORE VIDAL will be 84 on October third. He published his first book when he was 22. He has published 23 novels, five plays, two memoirs as well as screenplays and over 200 essays. His collection, UNITED STATES: ESSAYS 1952-1992 received the National Book Award.

THE SELECTED ESSAYS OF GORE VIDAL, edited by JAY PARINI, are highlights from his massive collection, UNITED STATES, and also includes some later work from the early 2000s.

THE SELECTED ESSAYS OF GORE VIDAL is a trade paperback from Vintage, $17.00

NOËL COWARD was an avid correspondent. He wrote them all, his friends, his enemies, the famous, the infamous, the talented and the powerful.

Among his correspondents: Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill, Greta Garbo, Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Lawrence of Arabia (not his real name), Somerset Maugham and scads more.

BARRY DAY was granted complete access to the Coward collection and edited THE LETTERS OF NOËL COWARD, to which he has also added a commentary. This is a smartly edited and designed book. There are pictures throughout, of Noël and his friends. It is also quite substantial, at 780 pages.

THE LETTERS OF NOËL COWARD is a trade paperback from Vintage, $19.95

Over the years, MARTIN DUBERMAN has published a series of memoirs. His current contribution to this series is WAITING TO LAND: A (MOSTLY) POLITICAL MEMOIR, 1985-2008.

Duberman is Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at Lehman College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York. He was the founder and for ten years the first director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate School.

WAITING TO LAND contains a lot of his reflections about the years of work he put into getting the CLAGS entity up and running. Duberman also writes about his reservations toward the assimilationist tendencies of the gay and lesbian movement. Duberman, a scholar with some sympathies for the left, also has his meditations on how the left, for years, has been uninterested or hostile to the rights of homosexuals.

WAITING TO LAND is a hardcover from the New Press, $26.95

BACK IN PRINT

Duberman's terrific history of a daring and culturally important event is now back in print. BLACK MOUNTAIN: AN EXPLORATION IN COMMUNITY, first published in 1972, has been reprinted in trade paperback by Northwestern University Press. $24.95

JAMES DAVIDSON lives in London. He is a classical scholar and history professor at the University of Warwick. His earlier title was COURTESANS AND FISHCAKES: THE CONSUMING PASSIONS OF CLASSICAL ATHENS.

His current title is THE GREEKS AND GREEK LOVE: A BOLD NEW EXPLORATION OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. "Bold" is being modest. Davidson has written the first major examination of homosexuality in ancient Greece since the modern gay movement began.

He seeks to answer the question of what did same-sex love mean in a culture that didn't have a word comparable to "homosexuality." How sexual were these male-male attachments? In the discussion of love between men and boys, how young were the boys; how old the men? Davidson shows that Greek same-sex pairs were in fact often of the same generation, with boys under eighteen kept separate from older boys and men.

Davidson is a lively writer, with a sharp and clear style, tinged with an ironic cast who has tackled a huge subject which has vexed generations of scholars. There are notes, a bibliography and an index.

THE GREEKS AND GREEK LOVE is a hardcover from Random House, $45.00

SEBASTIAN STUART has written novels, screenplays and many Off-Off Broadway plays. His latest novel is THE HOUR BETWEEN.

Arthur McDougal is kicked out of one of Manhattan's toniest boys' schools. Then his parents ship him off to the only place that will take him, the Spooner School in Connecticut, an academy influenced by the philosophy of Christian Science. While there, Arthur meets Katrina Felt. She charming but troubled, the daughter of a Hollywood movie star.

Arthur struggles with his sexuality; Katrina's talent and beauty get her into a Broadway musical. So much happens in adolescence. Arthur and Katrina have a tender friendship. But Arthur grows in self-confidence while Katrina is held back by heartbreaking secrets and sorrows in her past. After the first year of friendship, their lives will be changed forever.

THE HOUR BETWEEN is a trade paperback from Alyson Books, $14.95

FEATURED DVDs

WERE THE WORLD MINE is a charming fantasy romance about a young man who comes across a love potion and uses it to turn much of his narrow-minded town gay, starting with the rugby jock of his dreams. $24.95

FINDING ME is the story of Faybien Allan, young, hip and good-looking. He has to deal with his father's homophobia. He meets Lonnie, a self-confident activist. They hit it off, but can a new romance keep him from committing the biggest mistake of his life? $19.99

EVENTS

Friday, September 11th 7 PM.

JOHNNY DIAZ reads from BEANTOWN CUBANS.

This will be Diaz's third reading at Calamus.

Friday, September 18th, 7PM

JOHN LAURITSEN and JOHN KYPER will read and discuss their essays in SMASH THE CHURCH, SMASH THE STATE: THE EARLY YEARS OF GAY LIBERATION.

RE:PAST
Out-of-print, first editions or curios from the Calamus collection

MR. LADY BUG is a novel by BECKY CROCKER. Pure 1960s mad camp, this hardcover was published in 1968 by Sherbourne Press. This is the first printing hardcover, $14.95	THE BROOKLYN BRANDING PARLORS is a book of poems by the late JAMES PURDY. The artwork throughout is by Vissilis Voglis. This is a smartly designed chapbook, published in 1986 by Contact II Publications, unpaginated in very good condition, $50.00
TAYLOR MEAD is a legend. So is his book ON AMPHETAMINE AND IN EUROPE. This is Volume three in his series. This is the 1968 trade paperback edition from Boss Books, inscribed and signed by the author. $100.00	NOCTURNES FOR THE KING OF NAPLES, an early novel by EDMUND WHITE, was published in 1978. This is the hardcover edition, published by St. Martin's Press, in fine condition, inscribed and signed by the author, $35.00

Call (617) 338-1931 for ordering information