The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Front-Ranger:
That sounds fascinating, friend! I will look for that book, for sure. Life is too short to read depressing novels.
Front-Ranger:
The fiction issue is out and so far I've read two stories that were pretty good. Shirley Jackson seems to be having the same kind of year that Kate Bush is having. Her "Call Me Ishmael" is good writing and, what's more, it's only one page. The other good fiction piece is "Peking Duck" about a Chinese-American mother and daughter. It's not the usual stereotype.
I really liked the memoirs of David Wright Falud?, called "Mixeded". Three of the four one-page Road Trips articles are good too.
I'm reading a lot because I'm kind of bored, have writer's block, and have to rest between stints in the gardens. Maybe I have the summer doldrums.
Jeff Wrangler:
I read the Shirley Jackson, but I don't get it. The Rachel Kushner I found depressing; I'll bet it's taken from a novel that will soon be published. I've seen that sort of thing often enough in TNY.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on July 10, 2022, 02:49:12 pm ---
If you want to read some serious gay fiction that is not depressing, I cannot recommend highly enough a novel I'm just about to finish, Changing Tides, by Michael Thomas Ford (Kensington Books, 2007).
--- End quote ---
Kind of OT, but this novel has really sort-of taken possession of me. The main characters, Ben the marine biologist and Hudson the graduate student, have somehow become as real to me as Ennis and Jack. It's also stirred up memories.
At one point, Ben's daughter mentions Jacques Cousteau (who invented scuba gear), which of course reminded me of the National Geographic specials about Cousteau's work that ran on TV when I was a boy (not to mention the John Denver song). Perhaps more to the point, I remember on at least one occasion, noticing one or more members of Cousteau's crew in the background wearing brief (Speedo-like) swimsuits. Thereafter I watched for glimpses of crewmen dressed like that. (They were, of course, European, so no American male squeamishness about wearing such a swimsuit). The point of this is, I now see this as a very early indication that I'm gay.
The same sort of memory was stirred up when one of the supporting characters mentions that she had to read Of Mice and Men in school and didn't like it, which was exactly my response to it when I had to read it in school. In my case it was in 8th Grade English, and the memory is that the teacher was what I would now call a hottie. I estimate he was in his late 20s or very early 30s. He was tall, with curly dark brown hair and blue eyes. All the girls had crushes on him, and in retrospect I must have, too, otherwise how could I still see him right now in my memory's eye as clearly as if he were standing right next to me as I write this? After all, I had him as a teacher in 1971 or 1972! Dear God, I can still see him in that classroom as plain as day. Anyway, again in retrospect, this would seem to be another early indication that I'm gay.
serious crayons:
The July 25 Shouts & Murmurs is laugh-out-loud funny.
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