Bend My Spine and Fold Me Over

I read about this magazine (well, more precisely, the second issue) in Playguy, the porno rag that reviewed my last Noise Queen (hmmm – sounds like a Robert Browning poem – but I digress), and figured I should take a chance.

It’s chancy, all right – I might even say ‘vile, family-destroying pornography’, were not certain people both weary and expectant enough to leap on me (sadly, in a figurative sense) if I ever commit that irony to paper again (it doesn’t count if I bring it up in the sense of being warned not to invoke it, so put those clubs away).

The back page urges the reader to send in ‘a shot of (his) cruisy butt so (Michael)’ll put it here, in action’. While my generally perverse nature is tempted, I know quite well mine ain’t too treasured…and, anyway, it’s not for sale…

If Douglas Coupland did cartoons (okay, so his character development is like any number of bad comics, but I’m speaking LITERALLY here), they might be a bit like this. That is meant to be (for the most part) a compliment.

Like the comics I used to do (though much better from a design point of view), Yung’s characters are there mostly to expound on the ironies, absurdities and occasional beauties of modern life. There are certainly no ‘stories’ as such – simply meditations on sincerity, commodification, social construction, etc. I suppose you would have to be as twisted as I am to fully ‘enjoy’ this work, and, much as I later confessed to people who read my illustrated productions years after I had stopped doing them, one cannot help but feel the drawings are there to soften the blow and draw the audience in. I was certainly attracted, anyway.

The bonus ‘Ninja Berries’ mini-comic was also entertaining, if a bit too ‘He Is Just A Rat’ for my tastes. Oh – and the liner notes that encase the booklet are also worth a read (to some extent, they are almost MORE amusing than the book itself).

"Again with the comics, Tim? How old ARE you, anyway?"

Shush, little Maoist voice of self-criticism. I have a Q-tip, and I’m not afraid to use it…

Anyway – that brief attack of insanity aside, let’s take a peek at MORE doom-laden drawing, shall we?

These cartoons actually have stories, albeit more philosophical ones, and are quite detailed in their style. The story of Mary Mouse is actually touching, though it rubs against a bit of a sore spot for me, inasmuch as my living space has recently been invaded by mice that I’m afraid I have been less than humane towards, and I also find stories about animals adapting to human environments bittersweet, since, while it is nice to see that seagulls and pigeons are alive still, there is a sense in which I think we can give them better than Kentucky Fried Chicken to look forward to. Oh, well…*sigh*.

"My Trip To The Moon" seems to have something to say about self-imposed limitations and inhibitions, while also being nicely illustrated.

In fact, all of the very small, extremely brief panels ultimately touch on such themes, and how they screw with our minds.

So, again, we are in the realm of philosophical discourse – but this time the drawings are equal to the content.

This is a great big book that takes an in-depth look at Canadian ‘alternative rock’ from roughly 1985 to 1995 (with some give on either side).

Like most such volumes, it is meant to be plunged into, learned from, argued with and ultimately inspired by, perhaps to do your own book, as there are, to my mind, some omissions (much as a certain person who reads my magazine will groan at this, I DID find it distressing that Fifth Column is mentioned only twice, once in the context of a comment on Mecca Normal and another time to reveal that Caroline from that band played on a single that Ian Blurton, later of Change of Heart, put out).

The inclusion of exhaustive and thoughtful discographies will be a big help to the reader in his exploration of the scene as well. Impressive, and certainly useful if, like me, you have a bookshelf that needs some weight at one end to balance it J .

Mr. Beachy produced one of my favorite books of all time, The Whistling Song (Norton Press, early 1990s, still in print, I hope), a rarity in that it actually DESERVES to be compared to Catcher In The Rye (perhaps crossed with On The Road if that were written by Hubert Selby Jr.).

And then, as frequently happens with my most treasured writers, he effectively vanished. Here and there, in various queer anthologies, an excerpt from a second-novel-in-progress would appear, tantalizing and teasing me with hope that was dashed as time passed.

But now I have been rewarded/punished for my anticipation/despair. Like its predecessor, Distortion is a road novel, with its main character, Reggie, travelling across a surreal America by bus (to paraphrase Quentin Crisp, if you portray America thusly, you are being a realist) and experiencing a wide range of experiences, lifestyles, people and philosophies. If I had to summarize the book in one sentence fragment, I would say: odd but cool.

Language-wise, there are moments it evokes the sort of cut-up-but-evocative style of (hold nose while saying name) William S. Burroughs (but without the ugly misogyny or racism). In terms of plot, it is much less structured and linear than The Whistling Song (which was quite impressionistic too).

I fully acknowledge how lazy it is to say the following, but the book truly eludes description. It is alternately surreal, sharp, beautiful, ugly, harsh and atmospheric, and I cannot recommend it strongly enough, though, if you are partial to fluff or simplistic, unearned ‘feel-good’ reading, it may be a bit much for you.

One would hardly expect David Byrne to produce a religious treatise. In this regard, one’s expectations are not confounded; it is by no means anything that simple, and it is ultimately perhaps that oddest of creatures…a meditation on sin, redemption and holiness by someone who one would generally think would have few concepts of these states.

It is at this point I suppose I should declare my biases. While I have been an atheist pretty much as long as any adult concept of God has been in my head, one of my favourite books is, has been and always will be (dare I say yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever?) The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Why so? Who knows? It is entertaining and thought-provoking and, for an Anglican treatise, darn near exciting (hint – not a typical aspect of that religious subculture’s bag of tricks…). It also has some valid points to make about ‘sin’ (I had always thought that the sort of person who picks at their food and always says things like ‘oh, just the teeniest piece of pie – oh, that’s too much – I could NEVER eat that…’ was just as guilty of an obsession with food and consumption as the worst elbows-on-the-table-face-in-the-cake glutton…) and ‘human nature’ (the notion that all bad things are part of human nature and that all good things are coincidence is a tactic of Evil in that book, and, frankly, if there were a Devil, how better could It ensure endless misery, discontent and temptation than through THAT kind of trap?).

Peculiarly, some of David’s sarcastic, ironic commentary on such ‘sins’ as Charity, Beauty, Hope, Honesty and Intelligence would fit in rather well with the devout Mr. Lewis’ philosophy. I should add that the sarcasm and irony in the book is almost entirely directed at those who perpetuate destructive attitudes that feed into the ‘pie in the sky’ delusion, and that, ultimately, a gentle but rigorous philosophy of critical thinking and morality does emerge from this slim volume.

The Abomination by Paul Golding ($12.99 CAN, Picador, an imprint of MacMillan Publishers Ltd., 25 Eccleston Place, London, SW1W 9NF, 2001)

If Proust were around today (he would be very old – but anyway…), and were an Englishman writing about a Spanish boy’s experiences in public school, rife with sexual and cultural alienation, his work might be a bit like this.

Kiss The Girls and Make Them Spy by Mabel Maney ($14 US/$20.95 CAN, Harper Collins,10 East 53^rd Street, NYC, NY, 10022, 2001)

Ms. Maney is most famous for her three Nancy Clue novels (The Case of The Not-So-Nice Nurse; The Case of the Good-For-Nothing Girlfriend; A Ghost in the Closet) which parody/celebrate the fairly obvious titian-haired sleuth and turn them into lesbian camp classics. As I was quite familiar with the source material, I adored those books to pieces.

This one (whose back cover dutifully points out that there is no endorsement of it by the James Bond conglomerate) is trickier going, for me, since I am NOT familiar with spy novels as a general rule, and certainly not ones featuring HIM.

As it happens, this is ACTUALLY about Jane Bond, the dyke sister of the famous international spy (who, for the duration of the novel, is hospitalized, since he is essentially a sociopath (which is, really, a pretty accurate diagnosis of the famous film and novel character)).

As a parody of swinging London and spy culture, one finds oneself (with a certain degree of horror) thinking that Austin Powers does it better – but it is an amusing and frothy enough read.

Eating Fire: Family Life On The Queer Side by Michael Riordon ($22.95 CAN, Between The Lines, 720 Bathurst Street, Suite 404, Toronto, ON, M5S 2R4, printed in Canada by union labour (YAAAY!!), 2001)

This is a well-written, highly organized and sensitive profile of the diverse experiences of many queer folk across Canada (there are only glancing portraits of anyone who identifies as bisexual, but I really don’t feel like getting into this quarrel right now, having been severely dissed some years ago by the maker of the documentary Out, who seemed to think that bisexual people were only partially queer, and that he preferred to avoid the ‘heterosexual tendency’ of the equation…oh, whatEVER…).

It is certainly a depiction of all the colours of the rainbow (including, let us be honest, glimpses of black and grey…). There are farmers; S/M activists; threesomes; cottage owners; prostitutes (including a 64-year-old gentleman, which was most intriguing); crossdressers; and even the incredibly perverse bed and breakfast overseers. There were surprisingly few exclusive couples, but perhaps that just proves that me and my fella ARE weirdos (I’d always suspected as much…though, as I said to a woman at work, I am physically monogamous and mentally a slut, so I may be in denial…).

I should just caution you that, if you have lost a pet recently, as I have (well, a year and a half ago), you might want to avoid the last chapter that deals with the experiences of the author and his partner.

Overall, though, it is fascinating, revealing and ultimately heartwarming.

Lust by Geoff Ryman ($26.95 CAN, Flamingo Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB) )

Combining the fantasy of his novel Was with the rapid pacing of 253, Geoff Ryman’s Lust is about a man who discovers he can have whomever he wants (more or less – I do not want to give too much away).

Is it a dream come true? Well…again, no fair being the spoiler…