Delany, Samuel R. The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965. New York: Arbor, 1988. I have the revised edition of this book (published by University of Minnesota Press, 2004), but needed a copy of the first edition for an essay I’m writing on the history ofContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently”
Tag Archives: LGBT
Book Acquired Recently: Frank O’Hara’s Standing Still and Walking in New York
O’Hara, Frank. Standing Still and Walking in New York. Ed. Donald Allen. San Francisco: Grey Fox, 1983. I am a huge O’Hara fan and collect his books compulsively. However, I am ashamed to admit that I did not know of this book’s existence until I encountered a citation of it in an article several weeks ago.Continue reading “Book Acquired Recently: Frank O’Hara’s Standing Still and Walking in New York”
The Polymath or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman
The Polymath or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. Delany is my favorite writer, but I’ve never been fortunate enough to hear him speak, so it was wonderful to see this film, which is made up almost exclusively of Delany talking about his life and writing. Although the film itself is ratherContinue reading “The Polymath or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman”
Books Acquired Recently
Acker, Kathy. Pussy, King of the Pirates. New York: Grove, 1996. I really enjoy Acker’s work because of its combination of postmodern form and explicit sexuality. I was wanting to read more of her fiction this summer and saw that Hume’s book has a section on Pussy, King of the Pirates, so I decided toContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently”
Books Acquired Recently
Rivers, Larry, with Arnold Weinstein. What Did I Do? The Unauthorized Autobiography. New York: Harper, 1992. I am interested in Larry Rivers because of his close friendship/relationship with my favorite poet Frank O’Hara, but I don’t know much about his work. I recently read an essay on O’Hara in the Journal of the Midwest ModernContinue reading “Books Acquired Recently”
On the Accumulation of Multiple Copies of the Same Book
In an article in the July 12, 2012 New York Review of Books, Michael Chabon writes that he “acquired five copies, of various size and vintage” of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake during the year that he worked his way through the novel. I love this little detail because I, too, find myself obsessively buying different printingsContinue reading “On the Accumulation of Multiple Copies of the Same Book”
John Irving’s In One Person
John Irving’s new novel In One Person is a beautiful, fantastic book. It is narrated by Bill in the present day as he reflects upon growing up in the 1950s and the intervening half-century. He realizes as a teenager that he is bisexual, and the rest of the novel describes his journey to figuring outContinue reading “John Irving’s In One Person”
Theodora Keogh’s Meg
I just finished reading Theodora Keogh’s 1950 novel Meg, which is about the eponymous protagonist’s struggles with her entrance into womanhood in the year before she turns thirteen. I am generally not a fan of books that are primarily about children (two major exceptions are Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and MiriamContinue reading “Theodora Keogh’s Meg”
“The Wake-Up Bomb” at the 1995 MTV Music Awards
Here’s a link to R.E.M.’s performance of “The Wake-up Bomb” at the 1995 MTV Music Awards (oh those halcyon days when MTV mattered/was relevant to music)*: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLhZN6dwnEY I remember watching it on television at the time and being a) disappointed, because I had never heard the song before since it hadn’t been released yet–I wasContinue reading ““The Wake-Up Bomb” at the 1995 MTV Music Awards”
Samuel R. Delany’s Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders
I just finished reading Samuel R. Delany’s new novel Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. It is his longest fictional work (beating the classic Dhalgren by three pages and a much larger word count), and includes many themes which will be familiar to Delany fans (characters with nailbiting fetishes and/or massive penises, graphicContinue reading “Samuel R. Delany’s Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders”
Daniel Shank Cruz 