Mall by Eric Bogosian (Simon & Schuster) First Unitarian Church 1126 SW Park Ave Saturday Nov 18, 7:30 pm There’s a difference between writing a story down and writing in a way that shows an understanding of how to use language, of how to be evocative. I’ve been a fan of Eric Bogosian, though in […]
Monica Drake
Posted inPolitics
WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Talking Politics With Actor/ Activist Peter Coyote
Election Guide 2000
Posted inArt
WHAT WOULD YOUR PARENTS THINK?
Artists Who Push Boundaries: With or Without Parental Permission
“Sometimes I worry what’ll happen if I lose both my parents. I’ll bust out completely. There’ll be nobody left to embarrass.” –Chuck Palahniuk TOWARD THE END of the film Sex: The Annabelle Chong Story, Chong travels home to Singapore. She seems to genuinely believe that although she’s cultivated a high-profile life as a porn star […]
Posted inBooks
BOOK REVIEW
In The Snow Forest by Roy Parvin (Norton) Annie Bloom’s Books, 246-0053 Thurs Oct 19 The first page of Roy Parvin’s new book, In the Snow Forest, reads with all the beauty and dark strength of Denis Johnson: “He was a big man who looked like trouble, even with his glasses. A cruel fact of […]
Posted inNews
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SEX WORKER
An Interview with Teresa Dulce, co-organizer of Sex by Sex Workers Film and Video Festival
THERE’S MORE TO SEX WORK than sex, real or simulated. There’s more than wigs and nail polish, talking dirty into a phone, swinging on a pole, checking a tampon string, and evading undercover vice if you step over a legal line. In Teresa Dulce’s world of sex work, and for the volunteers who run the […]
Posted inBooks
Book Review
The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns (Virago) 1959 The Vet’s Daughter, by Barbara Comyns, is a novel with all the compression of a well constructed short story. The author has found a perfect balance between real world references and imaginative elements that allow the work to become a surreal commentary on cruelty, suffering, and salvation. […]
Posted inBooks
Meat Won’t Pay My Light Bill
Book Review
Meat Won’t Pay My Light Bill by Kurt Eisenlohr (Future Tense) “Jack Philly and I were on our hands and knees, two men who might have once held promise, putting together a Food Club creamed corn display. We were stacking the cans of corn into an enormous pyramid, one atop the next working it toward […]
Posted inBooks
Mysterious Point
A New Kind of Nancy Drew
THE BEAUTY of Tucker Malarkey’s first novel, An Obvious Enchantment, is in the authority of voice describing an exotic land. “In the evening sun, the windows of the perfumeries blazed with color, the deep light bursting inside the rows of tinted flasks and vials like jewels on an outstretched necklace. Incense and perfume had been […]
Posted inArt
VISIBLE WOMAN
With a Gallery Show of Erotic Photography Opening on First Thursday, MARNE LUCAS Blurs the Line Between Titillation and Aesthetic Appreciation in the Visual Arts. A “C-LIGHT” is a cunt light or a cock light. That’s what the light illuminates in a porn shoot, casting a cunt or a cock in the brightest glow. For […]
Posted inBooks
Venus Drive
Books Review
Venus Drive by Sam Lipsyte (Open City Books) “We are always shushing for in case the Old Lady puts her high holy ear to the keyhole.” Come across a sentence like this–naivete displayed through sculpted, intentionally poor, though satisfying, grammar–and you can bet the writer crossed paths with Gordon Lish, directly or indirectly, early in […]
Posted inBooks
The Big Hunger
The Big Hunger by John Fante, edited by Stephen Cooper (Black Sparrow Press) I’m always suspicious of the quality of stories published after a successful author’s death. The Big Hunger, a recently released collection of previously unpublished stories written by John Fante between 1932 and 1959, isn’t new work; my first thought is that most […]
Posted inBooks
AN INVISIBLE SIGN OF ONE’S OWN
Book Review
“There’s some kind of beautiful darkness in people that I find moving and interesting and profound. There’s something about darkness and humor together that’s a magical combination.” Aimee Bender’s novel, An Invisible Sign of My Own, reaches for that teetering place between humor and tremendous grief. It does this with language that’s quick and surprising, […]