blueAlto

Doralong of What Would Jackie Where? has tagged me in the current spreading like wildfire meme, The Closest Book. My instructions are as follows.

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Locate the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing...
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

The book closest to me at the moment just happens to be the one I am currently reading; Anthony Bourdains Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.

Page 123:

We teased, poked, prodded, conspired and competed. We wanted to be the best, we wanted to be different, but at the same time, correct. We yearned to bring honor to our clan, and in that vein, we came up with the looniest, most ambitious menu our super heated, endorphin-overloaded brains could agree on, a sort of Greatest Hits Of Our Checkered Careers So Far collection.

I'm going to tag two people only because they are both, once again, late on their meme obligations. Bad! Teri at Stumbling Thru Life With Grace, and George at curiousg. Consider yourself tagged.

It may seem like I am endlessly beating a long dead horse with this entry, but it does a very good job at getting to the heart of what is happening in these debates between women of color and the larger feminist movement.

Sitting down to put this entry together, I had not yet heard of the latest mistake to hit the feminist / women of color debate. This one is beyond the pale. Yes, I used the tonal reference purposefully. Deciding I don't have much to add to the latest BS, I am going to stick to my original plan and answer a question many have asked in email regarding the original issue.

A question about what was stolen, how exactly was it stolen, and was it direct plagiarism or not. This is an edited comment I submitted to the website Feministe, and I think it may explain and demonstrate exactly who is hurt in these debates when activist work, and previous research, go completely without attribution. I make the point that appropriation or plagiarism isn't the point. Silencing a movement, is.

I think Amanda Marcotte has made her position abundantly clear with respect to engagement on this topic. It is clear as hell to me that Amanda is not going to engage, period. Too wrapped up in the velvet cape of histrionic offense, talking about greater themes and patterns is not a good move for someone if they instead can maintain the focus on a discussion that will never go anywhere. Concentrating on what was never said, through the word semantics of personal offense, does a great job of keeping the focus off the actual grievance. The one that so far, still needs to be addressed.

So....if we are serious about a conversation that speaks to racism, that speaks to privilege, and speaks to an all too common dynamic of flawed thinking when we take time to consider our otherwise progressive outlook; the one that affords many of us with a false belief in our ability to understand dynamics of minority experience, we then begin to have a conversation which may be of benefit.

My main point being, idea appropriation or not, plagiarism or not, what we need to center this discussion and future discussions on, is the actual grievance, as articulated by the injured party. After making certain I am fully aware of just what that is, I will now ask Amanda Marcotte to answer my points below, clearly and minus the previous invective.

Amanda, how is it that in an online and real life activist culture which specifically deals with the issue of immigration and sexual explotation, and with the majority of people who work for, and fight for those organizations being the exact people this issue effects, how is it possible that a major article by a popular, well read and recognized feminist, has completely ignored and denied that entire community? 

By not linking, by not referencing, and by failing to mention that community, you not only invalidated them, you stole their voice and used it for your gain. Make no mistake, there are years and years of documented work and historical precedent done by local grassroots activists. The offense is not just “one woman who writes one blog who is throwing a hissy fit”. That is a complete mis characterization and is grossly unfair to not only that woman, but more so, it is abuse of that community that your derailing side arguments over semantics and picking the best "framing", for your supposed offense. Once again Amanda, your actions and aggressive disregard of the way this issue plays out, has served to ignore and invalidate minority experience.

No matter how you cut it, what did not occur was an acknowledgment and a reference to the people who do this work day in and day out and have been doing it in a time frame measured in years. Secondly, you have harmed the individuals that this issue takes advantage of. Invalidating people who are already often invalidated without any help from you, does nothing but ensure their continued subjugation and abuse.

This is light years more serious than the appaling way you attempt to frame this Amanda. Get over yourself, and just do the right thing for a change. Because hopefully what is becoming clear to you, is that your framing is pretty damn off at the moment. Good luck with that.

I finished a novel last weekend that, more than a beautiful read, was something that stayed with me for the past week; and in the process, has ignited a few thoughts I need to explore on some deeper levels. Kiara Brinkman's Up High In The Trees is a hugely affecting novel that asks some fundamental questions about pain, perception, and examines the idea and concept of grieving as an intensely personal, never comparable experience.

For a first novel, Brinkman took more than a few chances with the subject of the book. The main thrust of which, is about a boy, Sebby, with Asperger's syndrome; a spectrum disorder similar to autism, characterized by communication disorders, high intellect, and the unique feature of feeling all emotion hundreds of times more intensely than his unaffected peers. Brinkman gives us astute insight to this child's world, when, at the outset of the novel, his mother unexpectedly dies.

I read an interview with the writer where she discussed the attachment that developed to characters as she spend increasing time crafting and writing them in a novel length project. I know for myself, after my first novel was completed, I went through a short phase of what could only be described as a mild depression. Now, it's important to note that it was a very situational depression, and it was also self resolving, but it does demonstrate that the process of creation is not without it's own unique baggage.

What this author had to say on the topic took me a bit off guard, and is extremely wise. It is also no doubt something that will be front and center the next time I go down the creating a new novel path. Though for the foreseeable future, I'm going to stick to reading.

Kiara Brinkman on character attachment

"...Inhabiting this character for a couple of years did affect me personally. It was very intense. In the middle of a project I carry it around with me, even trying to experience the world as the character might. Writing this character turned up the volume on my own emotions. The world become brighter, more vivid, but could also be overwhelming. When I got stuck, I would take a break for a couple of weeks. My own brain needed a change. I got very attached to Sebby and had to write him into a place where I felt he would be safe, so it was important to end the book on a hopeful note...."

You can read the entire interview with the Goddard College MFA graduate, here. 

Give a soon to be MFA graduate a forum to ramble endlessly about his "craft" and "process", and what do you get?  A literal gold mine of largely useless, overly self involved nonsense - the exact stuff blogs are made of. So enjoy.

One interesting and unique feature of my graduate school is the cross departmental approach they use with respect to pairing students from separate disciplines to work with each other on collaborative projects. One of which was an "artist interview", meant to also be something we could add to our portfolio or have an agent market to publishing houses etc.

My interview took place last weekend, and Justin, the graduate student in communications who conducted it, sent me the final copy yesterday. Supposedly he has submitted it to Outlooks magazine, a gay and lesbian quarterly with a heavy arts section, based in western Canada. I suppose we will see. As far as interviews go, it's the standard author question fare, though I did find the process interesting to take part in. And hope that I actually, you know, make some sense.

When I decided to post the entry, The End Of America, which includes a video of Naomi Wolf's University Of Washington speech discussing her new book The End Of America: Letter Of Warning To A Young Patriot, about the potential for a fascist shift in the American political landscape, I knew it would generate a response. As is often the case in the blog world, just what type of response, was what really knocked me for a loop.

While my politics are decidedly left of center, and my positions on some issues are personally referenced through a strong conviction, I wouldn't really describe myself as "a disconnected from reality, unhinged radical zealot looking for conspiracy theories" type of guy. Apparently, many of you would. The response via email has been the largest response for a single post since I began this on line adventure over two and a half years ago. Considering some of the other posts that have generated large amounts of comment and email, that is huge. And frankly, puzzling. Especially when most of those who most vehemently disagreed, had not even watched the video.

Having thought about this at length, and then having discussed this with a few friends, as well as an acquaintance, who, suffice it to say, is positioned to know and experience very well those labels and descriptions, a few thoughts came to mind. All of which revolved around the possibility that many people consider even the idea that what is being described in that video, and what has been written in Wolf's book, so terrifying, that they are literally rejecting it. 

If you will allow for that possibility, I am going to ask you to consider three things through a somewhat different lens. Specifically, how comfortable would you be if this country was to:

• legally enshrine a new power to monitor the daily activities of U.S. citizens and residents and collect information on personal associations, reading habits, and opinions, accountable to only The President.

• mandate a gradual weakening of the power of the American people to monitor government activities, and the creation of systems and barriers that restrict the flow of information and ideas.

•  in complete secret, create a shadow legal system that undercuts basic due-process protections, and operates accountable to no one but the President.
  

Maybe you are thinking the descriptions sound unnecessarily hyperbolic? Perhaps that I am adding a "worst case scenario" feel to what are simply routine concerns in a time of conflict or war? Devoid of relevant context, I would agree. However the relevant context is key. Because the three points I asked you to consider are descriptions of the intent and justification for the creation and implementation of The US Patriot Act. So the consideration of those points is actually moot. They are already in place in this country, and have been for a while.

If you have yet to consider the argument Naomi Wolf has made in The End Of America: Letter Of Warning To A Young Patriot, and the argument she continues to passionately make in lecture halls around this country, please, at least watch the video, or read her book. For more information, please visit the American Freedom Campaign.

Author Unknown

 

Whatever their planned target, the mortar rounds landed in an orphanage run by a missionary group in the small Vietnamese village. The missionaries and one or two children were killed outright, and several more children were wounded, including one young girl, about eight years old.
 
People from the village requested medical help from a neighboring town that had radio contact with the American forces. Soon, an American Navy doctor and nurse arrived in a jeep with only their medical kits.  They established that the girl was the most critically injured.  Without quick action, she would die of shock and loss of blood.
 
A transfusion was imperative, and a donor with a matching blood type was required.  A quick test showed that neither American had the correct type, but several of the uninjured orphans did.  The doctor spoke some pidgin Vietnamese, and the nurse a smattering of high school French.  Using that combination, together with much impromptu sign language, they tried to explain to their young, frightened audience that unless they could replace some of the girl's lost blood, she would certainly die.  They then asked if anyone would be willing to give blood to help.
 
Their request was met with wide-eyed silence.  After several long moments, a small hand slowly  and waveringly went up, dropped back down, and then went up again.  "Oh thank you",  the nurse said in French.  "What us your name?"  "Heng," came the reply.
 
Heng was quickly laid on a pallet, his arm swabbed with alcohol, and a needle inserted in his vein.  Through this ordeal Heng lay stiff and silent.  After a moment, he let out a shuddering sob, quickly covering his face with his free hand.

"Is it hurting, Heng?" the doctor asked.  Heng shook his head, but after a few moments another sob escaped, and once more he tried to cover up his crying.  Again the doctor asked him if the needle hurt, and again Heng shook his head. But now his occasional sobs gave way to a steady, silent crying, his eyes screwed tightly shut, his fist in his mouth to
stifle his sobs.
 
The medical team was concerned.  Something was obviously very wrong.  At this point, a Vietnamese nurse arrived to help.  Seeing the little one's distress, she spoke to him rapidly in Vietnamese, listened to his reply and answered him in a soothing voice.
 
After a moment, the patient stopped crying and looked questioningly at the Vietnamese nurse.  When she nodded, a look of great relief spread over his face.  Glancing up, the nurse said quietly to the Americans, "He thought he was dying.  He misunderstood you.  He thought you had asked him to give all his blood so the little girl could live.

"But why would he be willing to do that?"  asked that Navy nurse.  The Vietnamese nurse repeated the question to the little boy, who answered simply, "Because she is my friend."

From The Archives:

One of my favorite Larry Kramer stories. Enjoy....

Larry Kramer is certainly many things to many people. Publicly, his image is that of the loud and angry AIDS activist. In his primary relationships, the ones which provide a reference and measure of existence, he is a son, a partner, a brother, a friend. In a more general sense, Larry is a Yale graduate, an author, a playwright, and an Academy Award nominee. His detractors, and there are many, would dismiss him as intensely opinionated, sometimes cruel, often unforgiving, and deliberately manipulative. Objectively, it would be difficult to prove these allegations untrue.

Though what captivates me about this man, can be witnessed through his consistent motivations. I have often maintained that the most truly compassionate people, are the ones we often perceive as intensely cruel. They can be blunt, and unforgiving. Perhaps their compassion is so limitless, they have a difficult time understanding the limits of others. In the eighties, Larry Kramer often said, "do we care so little about ourselves to stand aside and let this unfold"?

Many would disagree, but I see Kramer as a truly compassionate man. Someone who cares immensely, and allows himself to feel wounds deep enough, that he is moved to action. For the past twenty five years, one thing among many that has drawn my attention and respect, is his historical record. With regard to HIV issues, Larry Kramer simply has never been wrong.

He has looked to the future since the beginning of this epidemic, and he has been right each and every time. Whether the context was political, societal, or community based; whether the issue was transmission rates, treatment, or prevention, Larry was always on cue. And often on cue with what many did not, or would not acknowledge.

A few years ago, when Larry Kramer published The Tragedy Of Today's Gays, reading Naomi Wolfs introduction, as well as other critiques of Mr. Kramer's work, politics, and literary accomplishments, I happened upon two examples that read as classic Larry Kramer. Both are funny, yet poignant. In the first example, Kramer recounts how gay men will frequently cross the street to shake hands with him, passing along their heartfelt thanks for all he has done in twenty five years of work and activism.

Larry will usually do a cursory mental checklist of whether he may know, but not recognize the man. As in the early years, it would have been rare to advocate for HIV without at some point knowing and working with the popular author. When he is satisfied he has never seen the man before, and also satisfied the man is of the age to have been a functioning adult in the eighties, he will respond.

"Don't mention it. By the way....exactly where the fuck were you"? He is still waiting for the answer he has so far never been offered.

The second example is the type of response one wishes would just slide off the tongue in the blink of an eye. For Larry Kramer, it appears to do so with ease.

Decade long adversaries, there is no love lost between the AIDS activist and former New York City Mayor Ed Koch. In fact, Kramer spent a big chunk of the1980's antagonizing Koch for not responding to, and in the end, ignoring the full devastation that made up the early years of the crisis. Larry had worked feverishly to at least get a meeting between the mayors office and Gay Mens Health Crisis, the organization Kramer founded. He finally succeeded.

Though it wasn't until minutes before the meeting was to take place, that Kramer was told by an aide with a decidedly icy tone, that Koch had given instruction Larry was not welcome to attend the meeting. But thank you for your efforts just the same. Outraged, and having clearly had enough, Kramer immediately resigned from Gay Mens Health Crisis, going on to found ACT-UP; a new activist group with a focus of direct action. One which later became a singular force, and largely credited for the huge advances seen in HIV treatment today.

Though regarding Ed Koch, it was not until years later, that the former mayor would cross paths with Kramer. It was bound to happen eventually, since both men ironically lived in the same Fifth avenue apartment building. On a warm spring morning, the almost sixty year old author, a witness to his generations holocaust, walked into his mail room, and was met with the site of his long time foe, casually picking up his morning mail. After an uncomfortably lengthy silence, Larry looked Mayor Koch up and down; his gaze slow and deliberate. As he reached down to retrieve his mail, nothing was said.

Leaving the mail room, Larry looked down at his dog Molly, and almost as an after thought, said with a slow, measured tone, "Molly, that's the evil, cowardly, self hating gay man who murdered so many of Daddy's friends".

Casually, he and Molly walked out into the New York morning, leaving the former mayor absolutely speechless.

Really, what more was there to say?

As Al will be tied up for a few days with some recent unexpected events, I will be your ever smiling and good natured blog hostess until his return. A somewhat out of context Julie McKoy, cruise director. Of course mentioning that seventies era TV and pop culture reference of The Love Boat, very quickly dates oneself, when expressed to ones group of nursing students. Students with a median age of no more than twenty two.

While certainly not viewing The Love Boat as a self defining element of my coming of age, hearing the late radical feminist Andrea Dworkin speak at a rally in High Park, was just that. Because one thing that she said hit me like a steam engine, and I knew that from that day forward I would never look back, or change my central identity as feminist. it was an identity that I would come to know and understand in some very deeply experienced ways.

Andrea Dworkin was a lightning rod for feminist controversy. Often espousing opinion that many viewed as suggesting intercourse is a fundamentally anti female construct that could not be separated from rape (that was not the correct interpretation of her opinions), her views were sometimes prohibitively aggressive and radical. I frequently did not, and still do not agree with many of her concepts. But it was in the following example of what she said in a description of what defines one as an anti feminist, that her words spoke to me on profound levels, and at fifteen, made complete sense.

Anti feminism is a direct expression of misogyny: it is the political defense of woman hating. This is because feminism is the liberation movement of women. Anti feminism, in any of its political coloration,holds that the social and sexual condition of women essentially (one way or another) embodies the nature of women, that the way women are treated in sex and in society is congruent with what women are, that the fundamental relationship between men and women — in sex, in reproduction, in social hierarchy — is both necessary and inevitable. Anti feminism defends the conviction that the male abuse of women, especially in sex, has an implicit logic, one that no program of social justice can or should eliminate; that because the male use of women originates in the distinct and opposite natures of each which converge what is called “sex,” women are not abused when used as women — but merely used for what they are by men, as men.

– Andrea Dworkin,

And with that passage, and the hair on my neck standing at attention because of the truth of those words, I became a feminist. How that has personally applied, and on occasion directly challenged me over the past twenty years, I will address in several future entries.

I spent the better part of the past week immersed in a writing workshop, one where we were coached to "find our inner Zen". If that was not pretentious enough, we were directed to, upon capturing the elusive inner Zen, "excavate it for resonance". And for this, I'll be paying student loan bills well into my seventies?

As I mentioned to a friend in an email, that not only sounds packaged and formulated, it doesn't even make sense beyond some very lazy symbolism. So to say that by weeks end I was feeling the need for something with a bit of traditional literary chops, is putting it mildly.

So on to my very forced segue; speaking of traditional literary genres, and the inherent limitations of such, I give you the Sunday edition of From The Archives, a critical piece regarding none other than Jane Austen. Enjoy....

 
A Lack Of Sense & No Sensibility
 
!n the last weeks of February 2007, Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' was given the honor of most popular book in a World Book Day survey. And with that decision, the next literary gender war was born. God forbid the mistress of humility might actually know the recognition of twenty first century success.

Predictably, it was left to the BBC to carefully, but skillfully trot out the English literary snarks; people who view it as nothing less than their royal duty to offer opinion meant to relegate Ms. Austin to the shelves of dusty complacency and irrelevance. After all, in their mind, Ms.Austen was not in fact a great novelist, satirist and social commentator, but only a mildly entertaining fiction writer for women. Celia Brayfield, author and lecturer at Brunel University, on Austen: 

"I think she betrays her time and I'm always gob smacked by what she ignores. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the Napoleonic Wars going on at the time she was writing?

There is never any poverty, corruption, ambition, wickedness, or war. Her wit can be enchanting, and her human observation somewhat astute, but the world she writes about is very, very tiny".

I am not familiar with Celia Brayfield, but her assertions smack glaringly of a male centric argument, one which largely diminishes literature not traditionally aggression focused, not historically relevant to popular narrative, and is refreshingly oblivious to anything not of common interest or wide appeal to men.

I've heard the same, tiered old arguments before involving Jane Austin, Toni Morrison, Rita May Brown, and Judith Guest. Women who enjoy a specific talent for the chronicling of human experience. Not battle of 1812 like, but the normal and extraordinary occurrences which exist in the confines of our own lives. Often times there is a kind of contemplated antipathy for the novels, choice of subject, style and everything else about these authors who write from an intuitive, and oft perceived female persuasion.

But for the critics who lament the absence of war, do they not realize that with every war, hundreds of years go by, and few people really care about the outcome, or can even remember what it was all about. But the truths about human nature and society in the novels of Austen and others are even more relevant today than at the time they first knew publication. Characters and story lines never lose their complexity, and well written and well formulated humor and pathos will always be exactly what it is; funny, dramatic, and most importantly, enduring.

Ultimately, there are more than adequate numbers of books which abound detailing every minute example of war and military history. The absence of women in these texts, supporting to the main characters or otherwise, is jarring. One wonders what the women did exactly, during these great battles. Authors of the genre seem to have packed them off for a permanent girls weekend in the country, as it is a rare example to find a female character of any depth in these works.

The reality is that still, even in 2008, the traditionally male centric fiction narrative has become so much the norm, that anything else seems irrelevant, which consciously or unconsciously serves to paint history from the female centric point of view as non important or trivial.

In my mind, Austen was not writing about misplaced and irrelevant issues, she was just simply very shrewd in her choice of subject. True, her novels were largely only about romantic love and family life. Interestingly, two of the few things that haven't, to any great degree, really changed since she was alive. Both of these snippets of human experience still absorb us in equal measure. If Jane Austen had written detailed accounts of the Napoleonic Wars, I'm confident a large number of people would have never read her books. And that, would be a shame.

A short block south of Bloor Street, and a few streets east of Bathurst, sits a designated heritage building. It is a late nineteenth century brownstone, a beautiful old carriage house that is now home to the universities Department of English.

On the second floor, directly at the end of the hall, is the reception room for the graduate studies fine arts division. Upon reaching the landing, and especially if it is a sunny day, one is taken off guard by the breathtaking view flowing through the long hall into the reception room, ending at the oversized bay windows, which look out from the rear of the old home.

In the frame set by those windows , sits Nancy, the administrative assistant to The Legend. Today, like every other day I have arrived in front of her desk for the past three years, the coolly efficient but warm and motherly secretary greets me with a smile and whispers an enthusiastic "Allan! Hi".

I whisper it back. Why we are whispering is unclear, though it's been the preferred style of interaction for three years. Perhaps, and I deem it a safe bet, it's because the double doors over her left shoulder mark the entrance to the office of The Legend. The artistic temperament does enjoy its quiet.

I gesture in the direction of the double doors, and, raising one eyebrow, I silently inquire if The Legend is in.

"Has been since eight. With Random House. Since eight as well", she whispers back with a tense, full body gesture. As if to indicate the next natural disaster is precipitously close at hand.

Which, given the rumors surrounding her new book, it is. Disputes over the terms of the advance, or something similar. I really don't pay close attention. Other, more pressing concerns fill my head.  Such as the lack of any advance, from the lack of any soon to be published works of my own.

That train of thought reminds me of exactly why I am here this morning. I pull the rectangular package wrapped in butchers paper out of my Mountain Equipment Co Op backpack, placing it on Nancy's desk.  It comes to rest with an unexpected thud.  "Ambitious, aren't we?" she teases.

Some might call it that. Those less concerned with implying tone, might simply call it lengthy. Coming in at an exact one hundred thousand, one hundred and four words, and given that is roughly two hundred and fifty words a page, we are talking a manuscript in excess of four hundred pages. For a first novel, yes, that is both ambitious and lengthy.

As I sign the spot indicated by the X on the sheet that Nancy hands me, I notice the heading above my signature. Final Submission: Graduate Thesis. Taking a deep breath I sign, relinquishing control of what is three years of vision, imagination, creation, sweat, personal sacrifice, and hard work, into the hands of a critically appraising academic faculty, headed by none other than The Legend.

After saying goodbye to Nancy, and kidding with her about raising funds for a bomb shelter should the meeting with Random House not go as planned, I head back out into the bright but windy Toronto morning. Walking east along Bloor St. I take a mental tally of all that exists on those four hundred and some pages.

A story of two families, representing three generations, told over the span of two days. Though it is a story that references events over a fifty year span, taking place in all corners of the globe. From New York, to San Francisco, to London, to Paris, to  Durban, South Africa, the story references several real time events. Watergate, the fatal shootings of Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk at San Francisco City Hall, a certain New York Times Editorial dated July 4, 1981, and the worlds collective before and after: September 11, 2001.

I cross the bridge to Rosedale while I wonder of the manuscripts potential, and its true destination. Will it make it to novel form?  Hell, will it even make it out of that office and translate to a successful MFA completion?  Or maybe, who knows, will it make the NY Times bestseller list?  Walking across the bridge, it hits as it always does, from out of the blue.  I feel the adrenalin rush, the burst of energy, and I see very clearly the first phrase of a new piece. And immediately I feel the need to explain it, to define it, to write it. And the feeling is exquisite, and insane, and excruciating.  But not yet complete.

As I make the steep climb up the steps off Mt Pleasant, leading to the tree lined lane and into the courtyard of my home, I smile. I am oddly satisfied. 

No you are not seeing things, and no, I haven't simply been nostalgic for the days of old. The reason you are seeing a font on these pages similar to an old relic of a typewriter, is because three months away from my MFA graduation, I have to start thinking of, you know, publishing that thing called a book. And somewhere in that way of thinking, this site fits in to a small degree.

Evidently, every last book publisher on the face of the planet enthusiastically enjoys 12 pt. New Courier. Or so I have been told at least one hundred times a day since classes started. Reflexively then, like good lemmings, everyone and their brother who wants to be a writer knowing publishing success, is now embracing the font of choice of the literary world. Me included. One of those trade offs between selling your sole to the heartless corporate fucks, and staying true to your art and intent. Yes, I'm sure that reads as offensively pretentious as it does when I'm writing it.

I thank you in advance for indulging my whoring to the corporate clones. Actually to be honest, I kind of like the font. Yes Eric I know, you think it sucks! And up until a few short hours ago I was with you on that. Oh how fast we forget....

In my world, Armistead Maupin is a visionary. A man before his time. The author of the six volume series, Tales of The City, Maybe The Moon, The Night Listener, and his most recent book, Micheal Tolliver Lives, he has been a cultural and self referential beacon for me and many others, as we have navigated a search for identity as gay men in this often very warped, North American culture.

With wit, humor, eloquence, and a fiercely political streak, Armistead Maupins novels were staples of a gay, but also a very human existence for more than one generation of that collective culture.

In 1985, while planning for a national book tour, Maupin took the advice of friend Timothy Leary, and put down on paper exactly what he wanted to say, but had yet to voice. He called it his Design For Living, and his seven points read as both a love letter, and a small kick in the ass to gay men everywhere regarding what is important, what's not, and the real value our lives hold, if we simply allow ourselves to live them. 

Condensed from the original, I post the thrust of his seven points. Seven points that have framed the cover of the written version of my daily journal for the past seventeen years. Yes, I think they are key!

1. Stop begging for acceptance. Your job is to accept yourself - joyfully and with no apologies - and get on with the adventure that is your life.
2. Don't run away from straight people. They need variety in their lives as much as you do, and you'll forfeit the heady experience of exotic if you limit yourself to only the company of your own kind. And besides, it's time you stopped thinking of heterosexuals as the enemy. It's both convenient and comforting to bemone the cardboard villanry of Jerry Falwell and friends, but the real culprits in this drama are just as queer as you are. They are the ones who sleep with you at night, but conspire to remain invisible during the day, all to get their "piece of the pie".
   
3.  Refuse to cooperate in the lie. It's not your job or responsibility to be "discreet" for others who are ashamed of their own natures. Does that include teachers? You bet it does! Have you forgotten how much it hurt to be fourteen and gay and scared to death of it? Does it not gall you just a little that your "discreet" lesbian social studies teacher went home every day to her lover and her cats and her Ann Bannon novels without so much as a wink to you, letting you know there was hope for your future?
4. Stir up some shit now and then. If you don't raise some hell on your own turf once in a blue moon, who will?
5. Don't sell your soul to the gay commercial culture. No Virginia, we don't all have good taste! We are just as susceptible to the pitfalls of tackiness as everyone else in the world. Your pissing and moaning about the shallowness of other faggots falls on unsympathetic ears when you're wearing a t-shirt that says "This face seats five".
   
6. Stop insulting the people who love you by assuming they don't know you are gay. When I began my book tour, a NY publicist implored me to not mention him in the credits, as his family "doesn't know about him". Maybe not, but they must be the dumbest bunch this side of Westchester County, I could tell he was gay over the telephone!
7. Learn to feel mortal. If the crisis of AIDS hasn't reminded you that your days are numbered - and always have been - then stop for a moment and remind yourself. Your days are numbered babycakes. Are you living them for yourself and the people you love, or are you living them for the people you fear?

Amen.

"Reading is difficult. That's why it is called literature". The famous quote from author Toni Morrison, after being told that one of her books was "hard".

When I made the decision to apply for the graduate program in creative writing, it was a decision based on two significant life events, and after having heard a long time favorite author speak....

Toni Morrison is a Pulitzer and Nobel prize winning author, former Random House editor, and current professor of humanities at Princeton University, having held earlier teaching positions at Rutgers and Yale. Her novels include The Bluest Eye, Paradise, Song Of Solomon, Beloved, and Sula. Her books have a way of engaging the reader from the first through the last page, that for me, no other author has ever come close to.

The first line from Paradise.

"They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time."

Not exactly an introduction you'll put down and come back to later. Ms. Morrisons' books take a long, often uncomfortable look at racism in America; both the history, and institution of it. Going much deeper than others before her, she examines the effects that a history of human enslavement has had on both a country and a people. The brilliance of Tonu Morrison is in her ability to effectively humanize what is often a discussion that can be dry, and increasingly framed in academic abstractions. Her books ensure one never forgets the human tally that the troubling persistence of racism exacts.

Instead of waxing on with effusive praise, I'll let some of Toni Morrisons' quotes speak to the depth of who this author, and person, is. 

"Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form."

"Ialways looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, from the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people."

"If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold