ANCIENT,
MOTH-EATEN TOMES
By way of explication:
As I get older, I find myself either looking back on books I had read
before (I can hear, even through the duct tape, that you are pointing out the
simple fact that many books I read as a child slipped from print and are being
reissued several generations down the line – a good point, though it still
won’t spare you that Starland Vocal Band/Swans torture medley I have waiting
for you…) or reading resources about records/magazines/books in order to
refresh my memory about them or direct me towards what to read next/again. Hence the theme of this section – reissues
and compilations…
Richard Adams,
The Complete Iggy Pop (Reynolds & Hearn, 61a Priory Road, Kew
Gardens, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3DH, www.rhbooks.com,
$33.95 CAN, 2006)
An exhaustive book of Iggy Pop’s career in music, covering each album, be it Stooges or solo, in great detail, full of anecdotes and biography.
Now, it
doesn’t actually cover the new Stooges record, not too surprisingly, though it
does mention its being in progress.
However, other than that, it is very thorough, even discussing tours,
pre-Stooges history and a fair number of dubiously legal releases outside the
strict parameters of the volume.
It is by no
means the biography of a saint, though it should be added it’s more of a
cultural/media study than a portrait of a life (though there can’t be that
great of a distinction by this point, despite people saying that Jim Osterberg
is nice and Iggy isn’t…how often does Jim get to come out to play by this
point?). However, it’s got as many I’s
dotted and T’s crossed as one could reasonably expect, given the holes that
must be in both the public and private record of his existence and art.
LD Beghtol,
69 Love Songs (Continuum Books, 2006, $9.95 US)
Part of the ongoing 33 1/3 series, in which various authors theoretically wax rhapsodic about a given album, though, in some cases, this is very loosely defined.
This book thoughtfully starts with some vocabulary, as Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields is inclined to wordiness, some even invented.
From there, it moves on to reminscences/associations with each of the tracks included on the 3-CD opus, from 1999.
Bias declaration time! I get cited in one of the tracks (Come Back From San Francisco) - which is nice, since being cited for me usually only follows being taken to a deserted area by two furry cops and roughed up. What? I can dream! And, as it happens, the lovely and talented Mr. Beghtol lead-vocalizes 6 tracks on the album.
Neither of the above disclosures takes away from a charming little volume full of bile and sentiment and wit.
ed. Jop Van Bennekom and Gert Jonkers,
Butt Book (Taschen, Hohenzollernring 53, D-50672, Koln, Deutschland, www.taschen.com; Butt Magazine,
Prinsengracht 397, 1016 HL Amsterdam, The Netherlands, www.buttmagazine.com, [email protected], Tel.
+31.
(0)20.3209032, $39.99 CAN, 2006)
To painfully paraphrase the previous
subject’s song “Five Foot One”: ‘I wish life could be Dutch magazines!’
It’s big. It’s pink. It’s full of
sexuality, nudity and furriness. If it
had a pulse and a Bear hat on, I’d date it.
Instead, I read this collection of 5
years’ worth of filth and depravity and good gay fun. There are interviews with the likes of John Waters, Edmund White,
Gus Van Sant, Rufus Wainwright and so many more (there’s some guy named
Christopher Ciccone in here whose sister is evidently a pop singer, but I can’t
place her name right now – and these are just a few of the names. This and many pictures/drawings and a very
Bear-positive attitude are among the publication’s myriad charms over the
years, captured here in 17 glorious issues, all in one place. If only I could find it over here in individual
slices…still, this is a wonderful starting place for the vaguely alienated and
weird queer set.
Susan Cooper,
The Dark Is Rising series (Simon & Schuster, books originally
published from 1965 to 1977, may or may
not be available individually these days – this was a boxed set…about $25.95
US)
When I was just a little boy, during
those times I was not asking my mother what I would be, I was reading
interconnected books quite a bit (Wrinkle in Time, A Wind In The Door, A
Swiftly Tilting Planet; the Narnia books; the People series
by Zenna Henderson (on which point, hope to get the omnibus edition of
that soon)). I suppose I liked the
notion that books were a whole life set out in print, not just a plot - even
though I was taught in English class that life and story were not the same
thing (for example, the fact that characters do not use the bathroom does not mean they never excrete!), and books
with recurring characters and themes seemed the best way to achieve it.
Having said this, Volume 1, Over Sea,
Under Stone could probably stand alone, given that both its tone and
content differ from the next four books (there is nothing particularly magical
about the forces of Good and Evil in this book – it’s more of an adventure
story, though what the children in it are seeking is imputed with mystical
qualities). The subsequent books (The
Dark Is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King and Silver On The Tree)
are more consumed with mythos, and
largely British/Celtic at that.
As a child, I remember thinking it fun
that these books were largely set in Wales, and it helped me many years later
when I met someone from that background, as I could pronounce his name
effortlessly. Christian parents might
find the volumes too pagan – but how many of you even READ this magazine, really? I was glad to discover, revisiting them 30
or more years later, that I still found them well-written, fast-paced and
challenging (much like Zenna Henderson’s books, which (then AND now)
strike me as a bit salty and violent for what people THINK children want
to/’should’ read…).
Kinky Friedman,
Cowboy Logic (St. Martin’s Press, 2006, $23.95 CAN, www.kinkyfriedman.com)
It’s a compilation of the wit and wisdom
of everyone’s favourite former gubernatorial candidate, semi-current novelist,
erstwhile country singer and general professional thorn-in-the-side Kinky
Friedman. As such, it is sometimes
silly, groan-inducing, offensive, questionable and plagiarized in terms of
ideas. I can think of few words that would
recommend it more for both entertainment AND education.
I would also recommend ‘Scuse Me While
I Whip This Out and Texas Hold ‘Em after you’ve finished this light
meal, for a slightly heavier repast (I’m not sure of the kosher nature of
talking turkey and having big matzo balls at the same table, but that’s what
you’d get from his writing – and that’s not even starting on the semi-mystery
novels, his travel book, the actually genuinely touching Kill Two Birds And
Get Stoned AND his rather delightful fable The Christmas Pig).
David Nichols, The Go-Betweens (Verse Chorus
Press, 2003, $19.95 US, www.versechorus.com,
www.go-betweens.net)
One could easily pick just one album by
this Aussie band and write a book about it (on which point, where IS
the 33 1/3 volume about just one such record?). The best part is, this is an updated version that reflects the
reunion of the band (in 1997, when it was first published in their homeland (a
place where they basically had had no honour, like most prophets), any thought
of their reassembling seemed remote – one of the disadvantages of having
romantic entanglements within a group).
Sadly, it would seem to call for one more update, with the death of Grant
McLennan, and perhaps the bitter irony that they had signed to a major
label in Australia not long before his death and had even won the Aussie
equivalent of a Grammy, which may have actually helped to secure some financial
betterment. But that would be a sad
revision: ‘band member dies, and band finally dies with him’.
For a 270 page book covering about 11
years of the band’s first life (and then about 4 years of their second swing,
with a gap of 11 years between, filled in with SOME information about what the
various members did), it is amazingly jam-packed with trivia and interviews and
facts.
I would recommend the website or the book
for further info about this outfit.
Suffice it to say they made literate, perhaps-too-clever, sometimes
uneasy but almost always heartfelt brainy pop music, even through various
personnel changes. When history is
written by the losers or at least the valiant effort-makers, there will be a
chapter for them. Fortunately, there’s
already a book as well.
Richard
Stevenson, Ice Blues (Harrington Park Press
reprint, 2007 (orig. 1986), $8.95 softbound/$19.95 hardbound US, www.haworthpress.com)
There are nine books in this series by the author, of which I have read four (to my memory – given the rate at which I read gay books in the 1980s, and my also failing recall as I age (more and more every minute – yes, yes), I may have read more). Three of them have been made into DVDs/specials on a network called HERE! in the States, evidently a gay station (I must reveal I had not heard of it – but, then, I’ve never seen any of the programming on Canada’s gay station either and never saw the North American QUEER AS FOLK– I’m a traitor to the cause, and clearly a straight boy who just likes to hug, kiss and blow men out of some perverse impulse…), which is probably why my good friends at Haworth have sent me these three, for which I thank them and will review them separately.
They feature Donald Strachey, who is billed as the
toughest gay private investigator, and his romantic partner Timmy (though Timmy
often seems to play the perils-of-Pauline character or be the comic relief).
This particular volume is full of political intrigue,
corpses (what mystery doesn’t – though few of them are frozen…), massive sums
of money and family dynamics that make the Borgias look like the Cleavers. All wrapped up in less than 200 pages
without feeling forced or rushed.
Suspenseful reading and great fun (as much as murder and warped
relational dynamics CAN be fun).
Richard
Stevenson, Shock To The System (Harrington Park
Press reprint, 2007 (orig. 1995), $8.95 softbound/$19.95 hardbound US, www.haworthpress.com)
This
time, Donald and Timmy take on the wacky world of ex-gay counseling, a rather
hot topic in the 1990s (not especially any cooler now).
Once again, a wild hairpin chase through plot twists,
none of which seem improbable, to the book’s credit, right until the very end,
whose twisted humour may well be the novel’s greatest triumph, though it is a
well-crafted volume all told.
Richard
Stevenson, Third Man Out (Harrington Park
Press reprint, 2007 (orig. 1992), $8.95 softbound/$19.95 hardbound US, www.haworthpress.com)
Our intrepid detective and his somewhat less bold companion take on outing this time, a very hot topic around 1992.
This book has the distinction of having one of the
most villainous heroes in a gay mainstream novel, possibly because he is rather
NON-mainstream (this may be the writer’s views here, as a somewhat
older-generation gay man, but I’m not certain and would not want to
speculate/tar-and-feather), but his complicity in various events in the book
(ironically leading to his death) do not make the story any less compelling or
his demise any more unfortunate.
Another tight little volume of suspense!
I suppose I should reveal my opinion on outing
here. Basically, I think one should
attack the policies that the gay person is inflicting. I do not think it is hypocritical for a gay
person in power to introduce anti-gay legislation. Do I think it’s sad and disappointing? You bet. I still think you attack the policy, but
that’s because my analysis of the world has a lot more to do with class than
sexuality, at least when it comes to law and the State.