And here I thought I was such a mistress of pop culture knowledge, and I never even realized the injunction was lifted, and weeks ago to boot. I guess there was less hoopla about that, then the orginial injunction came down. I am off to purchase a copy (right after my physical therapy appt this afternoon), because I will finish Shadow of the Dolls in about 20 pages (definitely for fanatics is my take on it, but an enjoyable and easy read), and the New Hollywood Wives can wait. Gone with the Wind was one of those books I have read numerous times throughout my life, and always have loved the pageantry, sorrow, and triumph (and I always wished I could be Scarlett). On a more amusing & historical note- in college, our assignment for the last paper of the semester in one of my education classes could be in any format we chose, but the topic had to be on the future of education, so mine was entitled "Tomorrow is Another Day" written in trashy novel format. The professor told me in all her years with this same assignment, she had never gotten a trashy novel as a format, and she read the back copy of my 'book' out loud to the class (incidentally, I got an A - probably more for the sexy story than my viewpoints about where education was going in 1985).

And I have to add also- one of the best things my mother ever gave me as a Christmas present was in 1979 (the 40th anniversary of the movie release)- when the Kennedy Center (in DC) had a special commerative viewing of the movie with Olivia DeHavilland introducing the film (she was the last of the major stars alive at the time). She got me 3 tickets- for me, my younger sister, and my best friend at the time, Shannon- and I remember going down to the parking garage before the film started, after she had dropped us off, and smoking a very special cigarette, and going to our seats then & seeing Olivia in a flowing lavender chiffon gown (she looked angelicly mystical to me), a whip & poof hairdo (Bobby, you weren't in town at the time to do her hair, were you?), and recollecting briefly about the filming of movie, and then of course, we saw the film (with an intermission and return trip to the parking garage). It truly was one of the better memories of my youth. I do digress alot, don't I?

Randella/ Actually..Yes I did do Miss Husseys hair for the opening. I was working on 57th St at the time in a very shishi salon and she came if for a "do" for that opening. I love that you noticed though.

Randella--

We're "on the same page" with our latest literary endeavors. I'm just finishing Shadow of the Dolls and am loving it. Sadly, I've never read so much as a single page of a real Jackie Susann novel...(of course, they are all next on my list after this intro...) I adore the pill-popping ways of Anne and Neely, although I hear this was done with greater effect in Valley...

Prior to this, I Devoured JT LeRoy's Sarah. I enjoyed it immensely. Cliche as this sounds, it truely is unlike anything I have ever read. Agreed, the West Virginia vernacular is off-putting. But having grown up in Virginia myself (and having spent many a summer in deepest Georgia AND having a truck driver uncle) I found the story quite endearing: the bizarre terms that them southerners use "ramps?" the superstition that infuses much of their culture, the seemingly backward ways they have of doing things... LeRoy's ability to capture much of this is astonishing enough...but in light of his age (he's what, 20?)...it's remarkable. He has a real mastery of language and story-telling. And on top of everything else, that the story centers on the misadventures of a pre-teen truckstop-trannie-hooker, the son of a truckstop motel whore...it's just too beautiful! (I'm still high on this book. Ahhh...)

I wish I could have gotten through it, but I just couldn't get past the vernacular. I even asked Sweetie about the language, and she tried to explain it, but I guess it was one of those things- I grew up in Northern Virginia, which technically is the South, but not really- just another metropolis with suburbs & exurbs. So I just never finished...

Alas, SOTD I finished in 3 days- and what an easy read. You have to really Valley of the Dolls. The unique thing I have noticed about that book through the years is that regardless who reads it- they can't put it down- which is why it was such a compelling success. I had it taken away from me several times in German class during high school, but silly teacher always gave it back to me, and I always said I wouldn't do it again, but I had to find out about Neely, Anne, Jennifer, etc. Trust me, you will not be able to put it down, until you get to the very end.

Has anyone checked the profile & picture of J-No? Who is she? She is soooo Valley Of The Dolls! She posted in NYC Girls.
http://motherboards.infopop.net/3/OpenTopic?q=Y&a=tpc&s=873293195&f=299298195&m=181296859

All this talk of Shadows and Valleys- I must have my say. Having just returned from a restful stay with friends on the French Riviera and am now catching up on my posts. Well, my take on the sequel is that it is a piece of garbage. Mainly, because I am not even in Shadow, just mentioned a couple of times...hrummph. It may be own biased opinion, but the author could have brought me back, they do it on television soap operas all the time. Anybody recall Bobby Ewing? Or as the long lost twin. I wasn't consulted and since I was slighted, have no intention on commenting anymore on that book. However, if you want to talk about Valley of the Dolls- well, I have all the time in the world.

I always weed out trannie chasers by asking them who their favorite author is. Talk about deer in the headlights!

I read Valley of the Dolls when I was in my early teens and I'm sure it helped contribute to my juvenile deliquency. Seconal? Oh yes, right in Mama's night stand. Wheeee!!! Made me feel real loose like a long necked goose, as I recall. That book also debunked my Mom's indoctrination about how girls were sweet and pure. (right!)

As for my reads lately, favorite author by far is John Steinbeck, another Californian who transplanted to New York. Just finished "Log from the Sea of Cortez" and "The Moon is Down". Sea of Cortez is one of the few non-fiction narratives by Steinbeck, and recounts a expedition taken with "Doc" Ricketts to collect marine specimens, mostly invertebrates from the inter-tidal zone. He also uses the expedition as a jumping off point for a philosophical discussion of "teleological" versus "non-teleological" thought, or ways of perceiving and analyzing the world and our experience of it. Here teleological is analgous to the Western cause and effect view, while non-teleological can be related to the more Eastern wholistic view of reality. A real gem is the inclusion of Steinbeck's profile "About Ed Ricketts", written after his untimely death.

The Moon is Down was written as part of the propaganda effort during WWII. It recounts the experience of a people invaded by a foreign power and the subsequent efforts of the resistance movement that developed in the aftermath. Although it was criticized in this country for depicting the invaders as humans, unlike the current hysterical propaganda of the times, in occupied territory in Europe the penalty for possessing a copy was death.

Though not his strongest work in a literary sense, it's positive impact on the resistance movements in occupied Europe is beyond redoubt, and reading it certainly makes you think. Just suppose...

ooh yes, I like Steinbeck as well Barbara. My favorite being of course East of Eden, but also The Pearl. In high school we had to read The Grapes of Wrath, but I wasn't as into it because stories about poverty tend to bore me after a while. I prefer to read gowns, designer drugs and decadent lifestyles anytime!

Well then Lex, no wonder you liked East of Eden!
One of my favorites as well.

I finally have time to take my philosophical inspiration a notch up, and since I was going to be out of town for the channel 13 series, "The Power of Myth", I picked up "The Hero's Journey. Joseph Campbell On His Life And Work" at the local used bookstore.

I am still reading, but I thought that one of the passages spoke very well to the current schisms existing in today's societal structure and world views. As follows, in answer to a question;

"What the psychologist is finding out about the structure of the human psyche: that is what is most relevant to mythology. Because mythology has to do with relating that psychological structure to the circumstances of objective life in the world today. It gives you a clue. It's a signals system. The images of myth are not fact, they are metaphors; and the reference is to transcendence. They take the facts of life and relate them to the psyche. This double relationship is then shown to the mystical function to rest on-what do you want to call it? The void? The Fullness? The pleroma? Those are words that point past what can be conceived of, and they make the point that this whole marvelous universe that we now know of, billions of galaxies, is on the void.

No one knows where those little subatomic particles come from or go to, that flash on the screen. Lives also come and go and they are spirits within the field of time and space in causal relationships. That's what we find.

The myth has to deal with the cosmology of the day and it's no good when it's based on a cosmology that's out of date. And that's one of our problems. I don't see any conflict between science and religion. Religion has to accept the science of the day and penetrate it to the mystery. The conflict is between the science of 2000 B.C. and the science of 2000 A.D. And that's what we've got in the Bible, which is based on a Sumerian mythology"

Right now I'm reading James Baldwin's "Just Above My Head". For those who don't know, James Baldwin is considered one of the best writers of the 20th century - he's gay and black - and his novel "Giovanni's Room" is considered a gay classic. Other notable works I've read by him are "Another Country", "Tell Me How Long the Train Has Been Gone" and "Go Tell It on the Mountain". Baldwin is particurlary adept at depicting and evoking the black American experience and interracial love affairs. His gay-homoerotic passages also drip with sensuality. He was also heavily involved in the 60s civil rights movement and has written several non-fiction political pieces.

I'm working through Herodotus' The Histories--if you can keep all the place names straight he's the great chatty gossip of the ancient world.

Hattie used to date him. Back in the day. I think he lived with Hapi Phace for a while.

Recently finished a fab toothpick of a book called A Massive Swelling by Cintra Wilson.
The subtitle is "Celebrity Re-examined as a Grotesque Crippling Disease" and it truly lives up to its name.

I don't know how I missed Wilson before but she is a force to be reckoned with. Here is just a small taste

quote:

---

It appears that the Streisand throne is being usurped by the morbidly shriveled and schoolmarmish likes of Celine Dion, who despite her sexual handicap of being the most wholly repellant woman ever to sing songs of love, totally capsized the vocal world by trembling with pain over the eye-bleeding Titanic ballad, at one time the number-one favorite song of weepy teenagers and pan flautists all over the world...

---

Big thanks to Clark, who gave this to me as a birthday prezzie.

A dear friend of yours and mine loaned me this book, (always return loaned books my darlings or I will haunt you after I am dead), and I want to tell you it is absolutely fascinating. Karlen is a straight researcher, a journalist and his research and reporting of society and it's sexuality through the ages is so a matter of fact. This book fills a void of well researched un-biased reporting about the history of sex and homosexuality. If you are looking for an apologist you won't find it in Karlen's writings, but you will glean more information and insights into the relationship between society and sexual "deviance" in this one place than any other.

That's a polite way of saying there's lot's of good stuff about what the Roman Emperors did on those islands in the Mediteranean.

I am writing this one third through the book, which explains the emphasis on history. Parts two and three look like they will take us into the then present and an analysis of what it all means.

"My Son Devine" by Frances Milstead.

Her Mom writes of Devine's childhood through stardom with never seen before photos (over 100) and never publshed before inteviews with John Waters, Ricki Lake, Mink Stole, Zandra Rhodes and others-(her extended families.)

Alyson Books

www.alyson.com

1-(800)5-Alyson

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I just finished reading Mildred Pierce, the James M. Cain novel which was the basis for the smash Joan Crawford movie. The book version is great and significantly different from the movie version, worth the read.

Cain also wrote Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, two books which were also made into highly successful films. I've read all three, and personally I think Mildred Pierce is the best.

Now I'm re-reading A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White, a must-read for all queer boys.

A great book recommended by Chi Chi to me.
It is a study of Manhattan in the later half of the 19th century. It covers all sorts of interesting things including bars, brothels, strip joints, nightclubs, theaters, cops, gangs, drugs, the list goes on. It just goes to show you that things in NY never really change they just morph a bit. Excellent! thanks Chi Chi.

T

I'm currently reading an indie book _Passages from India_ by Norman C. Bansen, a friend of my family, a gay man who only came out in later years...this is his story--told in letters, poems and essays--of being a second generation Danish-American Lutheran stationed in India during WW II. Totally engrossing, especially knowing Bansen's unspoken gay subtext.

Just finished reading gay icon Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories, about life in early 30s Berlin which stars the infamous Sally Bowles character and from which Cabaret the film and Broadway musical were loosely based on. Lots of queer subtext and homoeroticism, natch. Now reading A Single Man also by Isherwood, a work he wrote later in his life. The story deals with a day in the life of a middle-aged gay college professor in California in the early 60s as he copes with the recent death of his lover. Very different in tone from the Berlin Stories but both are good reads.