August 7, 2008
This young man is dead
This young man is dead.
His name was Michael Causer.
He was killed in Liverpool for being gay.
Two other teens beat him to death,
He was 18 years old.
He survived for eight days in hospital.
Visit the facebook page set up in his memory.
August 6, 2008
August 5, 2008
some links
Because I haven't done this for awhile...
britain from above | this sex club is a family affair | al franken and us geography | some police have been killed | masked men arrive in beijing! | the montauk monster
Sociology
I just returned from Boston, where I spent the past five days attending the American Sociological Association meeting.
It seems I've been traveling to Boston a lot for work--and in all cases staying near Copley Square and that rather grotesque mall of designer goods anchored by enormous conference hotels.
I do very little in the evenings except order room service, drink beer, and watch extended marathons of The First 48 or The Two Coreys.
The reason why I am so brain dead in the evening is because my days are so packed--meetings, panels, shaking hands, hearing book pitches, schmoozing, buying coffees and drinks, exploring.
I'm finally getting to a point, after three years, where I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the meeting--the players, the younguns, what each publisher's niche is, how we're viewed, where I want to go, where the association is going.
And people are getting to know me, to expect me. I'm becoming a presence at this meeting, and a steady one at that. It's all very professional.
Which is not to say I didn't find time to relax.
Wonderful friend Tom took the train up from Providence to rescue me and give me some downtime.
I had been at the Sexualities subsection reception at Club Cafe, where an author (lesbian) dirty-danced with me and felt up my leg.
We went out to Jamaica Plain, to where Dan was housesitting, jumped in a hot tub, and ate barbecue.
Per usual, Tom crashed with me at my hotel that night, and in the morning I treated him like the dirty hustler he is.
July 28, 2008
July 14, 2008
Three hours north of Toronto...
Tom and I stopped for lunch in a small town. At the only diner that seemed equipped to provide two hungry road-trippers with sustenance, we asked for a chicken sandwich. "Is it like a chicken burger?" I asked. "Somewhat," replied the waitress...
July 13, 2008
June 18, 2008
Shakespeare in the Park
I'm not one for celebrity. Walking the great cities of the world--London, New York, Los Angeles, Paris--I'm sure I've passed the occasional Big Name but I would never notice. And frankly, when they're pointed out to me I barely find it interesting that people I read about in People while waiting to see my physician actually exist in real life.
But I couldn't help myself feel special last night at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park for the opening night of the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park. It was Hamlet, with Lauren Ambrose as a beautiful and charming (even in the midst of her madness) Ophelia and Sam Waterston as a dottering Polonius complete with senior moments.
Friend Marc got my friends and I into the show and the gala afterwords where the free drinks did flow copiously. In attendance? Alec Baldwin walked past me twice as did Steve Martin. Diane Sawyer, some guy from the show Weeds, and Maria Thayer, who played Jerri Blank's friend Tammi Littlenut on Strangers with Candy.
I loved the show--I really did. But then I go to the theater so rarely my critical faculties regarding what's good and what's so-so are mighty blunt. The New York Times gave it a mixed review tending on the bad side but can you trust a review that doesn't make a big deal of the fact that Tammy Littlenut was in the audience? I can't.
P.S. Tom, try as I might I wasn't able to get close enough to Alec Baldwin to lick his shoulder for you.
June 16, 2008
Exercises in appropriation
When I visit Marc in NYC we barely ever go into Manhattan. Why would we? Brooklyn is ten times better--cheaper food, easier mis-en-scenes, nicer boys, cuter cafes, more trees and parks. It's always seemed more real to me, whereas with Manhattan you are never quite sure if the tableau on the street in front of you is made up people who truly belong there. Manhattan seems like an amusement park for people rich enough to take part in a fantasy lifestyle based on a placed called Manhattan.
So when we do go to Manhattan we go for a specific reason and I make sure we never stay longer than we have to.
Yesterday we went to check out the New Museum in SoHo which was a pretty fantastic building and is probably going to be one of my regular stops whenever I am in town. With only a handful of galleries it's very manageable and while there are a few confused Midwesterners ambling around wondering what the hell they're looking at there's certainly fewer then you'd find at MoMa or whatever.
I simply had to check out the Paul Chan exhibition, which was truly mesmerizing. I first saw one of his simply-animated projections at the Whitney last year but this was an entire floor dedicated to the full seven-projection sequence of apocalypse and rebirth. Cars, cellphones, and spectacles floated into space while bodies fell and telephone wires danced in the air. Leaves on trees danced in the wind while an army with banners made out of laundry passed by underneath. Bowls of fruit ascended out of the painting's frame. I could stare at them endlessly; they never seemed to end and when they did resolve themselves it was into sunsets that became sunrises for the next day's rapture. You can check out some YouTube videos of Chan's work here and here and here.
Less satisfying but still interesting in some places was a joint exhibition of works by Daniel Guzman and Steven Shearer. Guzman's half was mostly composed of transparent hipster goof-offs but Shearer's work was more interesting, exploring 80s heavy metal culture, 70s teen heartthrob Leif Garrett, and contemporary internet archives of the everyday. I was captivated by gigantic collages of thumbnail photographs culled from the Internet grouped around particular themes--heavy metal, people sleeping--but at the same time it's like, I could do that.
Okay so I am going to change the subject here. In looking for a link for Leif Garrett I've discovered all kinds of interesting websites. See for instance his an official website that showcases his music career today, one of the many contemporary freaks who are still in love with the androgynous kid, a Q & A on the USA Today website, and a mugshot of Garrett from 2006 after an arrest for heroin possession.
Yes, it's been awhile
Currently in a Brooklyn coffee shop enjoying an iced tea and listening to Last Shadow Puppets. Having a glorious time here without you.
It's been a long time since I wrote--I suppose for the same reason I sometimes don't answer the phone when good friends call I don't update this thing--nothing much to say and certainly nothing good at that. Might as well just keep my big mouth shut and keep on moving on.
But I arrived in Brooklyn on Friday on the first leg of an international, nulti-modal trip that will encompass the urban, the peri-urban, and the Laurentian Shield. New York City, Providence, the Adirdondacks, the north of Toronto, Lake Huron, and finally Chicago.
New York has been a mish-mash of hot humid weather and thunderous downpours, though I haven't noticed much because I've been quite drunk on cheap margaritas basically since I arrived. I reconnected with an old friend from London, took in Brooklyn Pride (which made me ashamed), and hopscotched around coffee shops. An old Brooklyn man lectured me on the death of Tim Russert being an example of why we should live life to the fullest, a cute restauranteur rescued me on a midnight bus ride because he had recognized me in his bodega earlier that evening, and I met Marc's new boyfriend. All in all the weekend has been what I wanted and needed.
May 30, 2008
Uncontacted no more
Spotted in the forest near the border with Peru...
Most interesting are the postures...
May 17, 2008
May 13, 2008
My neighborhood
Biking through the alley adjacent to my building yesterday morning, I saw this sign. I thought I'd help this person out but publicizing the theft. Please, please, if you took this person's compost toilet, for heaven's sake return it!
