Vol. IX No. 6 · October 16, 2009
TASTING FALL
The good folks at Taschen have finally gotten around, again, to the X-rated Neverland of Bob Mizer. (Years ago they did the complete PHYSIQUE PICTORIAL.) They have now published BOB'S WORLD: THE LIFE AND BOYS OF AMG'S BOB MIZER. Mizer's catalogue is vast and informative. DIAN HANSON put this book together and wrote the text. Hanson recently did, also for Taschen, THE BIG PENIS BOOK. It's too bad Mizer is no longer among the quick; I'd love to see him on the TV receiving his Kennedy Center Award, one richly deserved. Perhaps Hanson can accept it in his place. Mizer spent 48 years making films and photos for his Athletic Model Guild (AMG). For 41 years, he published PHYSIQUE PICTORIAL. If you are a man of my age (61), coming across this wonderful magazine as a teenager--the mag was jobbed into many newsstands that carried whatever the delivery truck dropped--was a source of both joy and dread: joy at the lovely undraped males and dread at the thought of where to hide it once you got it home. Mizer had his studio raided by the LA Police every once in awhile. He finally lived in spacious accommodations along with numerous young models who lounged naked about his pool. He had a costume shop for all the props. His mother cooked for the lads and kept the books. It was a family enterprise. There was always a sweetness about his work; the lads seemed fresh and all-American and everyone appeared to being having fun. It was a culture, once noted by Thomas Pynchon in one of his novels (CRYING OF LOT 49, I think), of "sunned California homosexuality," a theme Mizer's friend David Hockney picked up on and did quite well with. Arnold Schwarzenegger posed for Mizer in 1975, Mizer by then an established figure and clearly a magnet for talent. BOB'S WORLD is a gorgeous production. The photos are all in color; this work is almost all post-posing strap era, 289 pages, hardcover. The product also includes a DVD. $59.99 |
|||||||||
DAVID PLANTE met Nikos Stangos in London in 1965. Plante was
a young American, an aspiring writer, half in love with the fantasy
of Greece, Greeks and their culture. Nikos was Greek, a poet, an aesthete
and an intellectual. He was also a leftist, a survivor of the Nazi occupation
of his homeland and a man of few pretensions. David and Nikos spent
over forty years together. A few years ago, Nikos died of brain cancer.Plante has written THE PURE LOVER: A MEMOIR OF GRIEF. This is a book of fragments, a mosaic of memories of their lives together. It is also a meditation on the nature of grief, how grief has its own passion, its vanity, its willfulness and can be an overwhelming force. THE PURE LOVER is a very private look into dealing with loss. It is a hardcover from Beacon Press, $23.00 |
|||||||||
 Matthew
Shepard was the oldest son of Judy and Dennis Shepard. When Matthew
was brutally murdered in October, 1998, while a college student in a
small college town in Wyoming, life for the Shepard family would change
forever.JUDY SHEPARD has written THE MEANING OF MATTHEW: MY SON'S MURDER IN LARAMIE, AND A WORLD TRANSFORMED. Ms. Shepard weaves so many stories into this short and evocative narrative. She writes of Matthew's youth, his high school adventures, including a trip to Morocco, where, late one night, he was assaulted by three thugs, beaten and raped. According to Shepard, the family was adventurous and loved traveling. The second part of this book reports how the Shepards had to address the tragedy of their son's murder. Ms. Shepard writes about how she and her family learned of the outpouring of grief and support after the violence. There were candlelight vigils and memorial services in memory of Matthew around the world. She writes about how she and her husband struggled to navigate the legal system, helping prosecutors convict Matthew's murderers. THE MEANING OF MATTHEW is a hardcover from Hudson Street Press, $25.95 |
|||||||||
 TERRY
GALLOWAY's memoir is MEAN LITTLE DEAF QUEER.When Galloway was in utero, her mother took an experimental antibiotic. This experiment, it turned out, did substantive damage to the baby's nervous system. Her family, Americans living in Germany after the war, moved from Berlin back to Texas. Galloway reports from her mother's account that the German doctor was probably some sort of quack and the injection given her probably untested. (There's a terrific understory in this memoir; it's about Galloway's father's intelligence service for the US in Germany right after the war. She hints that there might have been some unseemly activities involved.) When Galloway was ten, she saw herself as a "child freak." While at a summer camp for children with disabilities, Galloway, furious with her boxy hearing aids and thick glasses, faked her own drowning in front of the other children. The role of the theatrical never left her. She writes of her mental breakdowns, her queer identity and her life in a silent, quirky world populated by unforgettable characters. Galloway is the founder of the Actual Lives writing and performance programs. Her solo piece, OUT ALL NIGHT AND LOST MY SHOES, is considered one of the founding texts in the history of disability performance. I am pleased to recommend this book. MEAN LITTLE DEAF QUEER: A MEMOIR is a hardcover from Beacon Press, $23.95 |
|||||||||
 ERIC
SCHWABEL was born and raised in Minnesota. He moved to New York
when he was 18 to study photography. Now living in Venice, California,
he opened his own studio in 2005. His work has appeared in magazines
and in TV advertising.His photography has been displayed in solo and group shows; his work is held in private collections throughout North America. SHOOTING MALE is his recent title from Bruno Gmünder, $69.99 |
|||||||||
 TO
THE LAST MAN, the DVD, is a recent release from Raging Stallion.KENT TAYLOR and GEOF TEAGUE are the still photographers for the Raging Stallion productions. TO THE LAST MAN, the book, is a photo-documentary of the two-week shoot of the erotic western, shot in Arizona. TO THE LAST MAN is a hardcover from Bruno Gmünder, $53.99 |
|||||||||
 STRIPPED
UNCENSORED follows on the previous Gmünder
title STRIPPED--THE ILLUSTRATED MALE.This book collects the work of over fifty artists, from subtle line drawings to cartoonish erotic presentations to classic studies of the male nude. HARVEY REDDING was the editor. STRIPPED UNCENSORED is a hardcover from Bruno Gmünder, $48.99 |
|||||||||
 STEVEN
ABBOTT first met Gore Vidal in 1973 when he, along with Tom Reeves
and myself, interviewed Vidal for FAG RAG, the publication of
which caused a minor breeze amongst the commentariat.Abbott stayed in touch with Vidal and has devoted decades of his life to creating this definitive work, GORE VIDAL: A BIBLIOGRAPHY, 1940-2009. Vidal authorized this publication and granted Abbott access to his literary archives, agents, publishers and his personal library at Ravello. A charming feature of this work is the photo reproductions of the covers of a bevy of Vidal's books, not just the US publications but those from around the world. Clearly a labor of love and one skillfully executed--Abbott has a Masters of Library Science--this is a tribute to a great American writer and a document I think any author would be pleased to have for future scholars. A DVD is also included and an extensive index. GORE VIDAL is an oversized hardcover, published by Oak Knoll Press, $195.00 |
|||||||||
 PAUL
RUDNICK is an accomplished writer in many forms. He has written
novels, screenplays, works for the stage and, of course, his delightful
caprices in THE NEW YORKER.His latest book is I SHUDDER. His meditations wander here and there, from his family in New Jersey to Hollywood to demented alcoholic Broadway stars waving swords. Rudnick's writing is silky, alluring--and then the zinger. He puts a bee in every bouquet. He has a sharp eye for life's obstacles and its absurdities--particularly good on the absurdities. I SHUDDER is a hardcover from Harper, $23.99 |
|||||||||
 CLEVELAND
AMORY reinvented himself several times during the course of his
life. He had a huge success with his books THE PROPER BOSTONIANS,
THE LAST RESORTS and WHO KILLED SOCIETY, whimsical
looks back at cultural artifacts of a stratum of society on the ebb
tide when he wrote about them.Amory wrote for TV GUIDE for over a decade. He was also regularly featured in SATURDAY REVIEW and PARADE (a good gig). He was also seen in regular rotation on NBC's TODAY show until 1963, when he was fired for a story on animal abuse that, apparently, greatly disturbed the breakfast-munching viewers. In 1967, he founded the Fund for Animals, which quickly became known, thanks to Amory's celebrity, as a primo animal rights group. He wrote the popular series on "Polar Bear," about the cat he rescued from the streets of Manhattan on Christmas Eve, 1978 (now available as THE COMPLEAT CAT). MARILYN GREENWALD is a professor of journalism at Ohio University. She has written the first comprehensive biography of this fascinating subject, CLEVELAND AMORY: MEDIA CURMUDGEON & ANIMAL RIGHTS CRUSADER. It includes notes and an index, published by University Press of New England, $27.95 |
|||||||||
RECENT EVENTS
On September 18, JOHN LAURITSEN (left) and JOHN KYPER read from their essays in SMASH THE CHURCH, SMASH THE STATE: THE EARLY YEARS OF GAY LIBERATION. A lively discussion followed. SMASH THE CHURCH, SMASH THE STATE! is a trade paperback, $18.95
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
FEATURED DVDs
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
BARGAIN BOOKS
|
|||||||||
|
RE:PAST
Out-of-print, first editions or curios from the Calamus collection
Call (617) 338-1931 for ordering information
|
|||||||||
Over
the years, whenever this title comes into my possession, I list
it in a newsletter and it gets scooped up. It is the Playgirl
issue featuring the nude pix of Brad Pitt. Playgirl,
the magazine, has joined the great silent majority; Brad is
still very much with us. Interested?
