Just Giblets

Augusten Burroughs is a freak, and I will not read anymore of his work that is non-fiction and has to do with him. I just do not want to know anything else about this man, and if I ever see him walking toward me, I will cross the street immediately.

Augusten Burroughs is a very good writer. His work is clever, witty and very fast moving. I have read his novel, Sellevision (which I actually read before his smash memoir was released), said smash memoir, Running with Scissors, and just now, his collection of true stories, Magical Thinking. I did not read Dry, the account of his alochol-hazed twenties, and now I do not plan to. Reading Augusten Burroughs books has crystalized something that has been itching at the back of my mind for several months, if not years.

I don’t really want to know peoples’ dark secrets. I want to know people from the moment I meet them forward into the future. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but when it comes to complete strangers, I’m uncomforatble reading about their dirty little (or huge) secrets. This self-confessional form of memoir has been popular for several years now. It started with celebrities, but in the past few years, it seems like anyone can write a book about their chilhood, the more perverse or twisted the better, and have it be a runaway bestseller. I partially blame Oprah. Augusten Burroughs is the most recent, trendy example of this. When I read Burroughs books, I am alternatively entertained and horrified. But it’s not the fun horrified of the spiraling descent in a bleak foreign film, it’s the horrified that genuinely upsets me, and makes me wonder just how much of a freak this man must be.

Now comes the strange part. I get that feeling reading some peoples’ blogs as well. Kind of contradictory, considering I’m writing in my own blog at this moment. But I also have a love/hate relationship with blogs. I do occassionally stumble upon a blog from time to time, that I find fairly interesting, that I read sporadically, or even vaguely regularly. As is often the case, these blogs usually revolve around the person writing it. Lately, I’ve been reading someone’s blog over a period of time, getting to “know” them in a certain sense, then I will start to be horrified at what they’re writing. The things they’re sharing with people they don’t know. I start to think they’re freaks.

It helps if I meet the people, because then I can see them as a whole person, and not just as what they write in their blogs. It has also become wonderfully refreshing to find bloggers who write intelligent, interesting, personal blogs that avoid the mysterious quality that gives me the heebie jeebies.

Then there is film, and as anyone who knows me, film is a medium that I simply adore. There was a film out this fall called TARNATION directed by Jonathan Caouette. Part biography, party memoir, Caouette has been filming his own admittedly dysfunctional life since he was around eleven years old. As an adult, he edited a lot of the footage that he had been filming for his entire life into a film exploring the descent into mental illness sufferred by his mother, and the extremes in his life that he has endured. I was very wary of seeing this film, and watching it, in fact, did make me very uncomfortable in the way reading Augusten Burroughs’ books do. But Mr. Caouette was in the audience that day, and hearing him speak and talk about his life and the making of this film, put my mind at ease. The film, by the way, is pretty amazing, and one of my top 10 of the year, but I’m hoping it doesn’t start a trend.

Perhaps I should go to a reading of Augusten Burroughs, to try and get over this strong aversion I have developed surrounding him. I try to make myself feel better thinking he exaggerates for his books, and that no one like that is really walking around unrestrained among normal people. I know it’s me. His books are best sellers. People love him. And I will happily read anymore fiction that he publishes.

I have to close this blog entry with Mr. Burroughs own words… a passage from his book. He explains, since writing his books, people will approach him on the street and tell him embarassing or horrifying things about themselves. He writes of one woman, somebody’s grandmother and a complete stranger, who confessed something truly repulsive and bizarre to him. After telling this woman’s story, Augusten writes, “Although I was able to maintain a pleasant expression, I was mentally throwing up in her face. This is the sort of detail you don’t reveal to anybody, even a therapist. You simply avoid Dr. Pepper and take your dirty little secret to the grave with you.”

Well, Mr. Burroughs, I wish you had taken your own advice.

Warchild is a first novel from 2002 by Karin Lowachee. Taking place largely in deep space, this compelling novel looks at interstellar war through the eyes of a child. Jos is torn from the only life he has ever known at the age of eight, when pirates destroy the merchant ship that he lives on with his family. His parents are killed, and Jos is taken on as the pet of Falcone, a cruel, manipulative, and dangerous pirate. For the next eight years, Jos finds himself in a variety of situations were trust is a deadly concept, and doing what is right is often the most difficult thing imaginable.

Lowachee has a strong sense of storytelling. It is not often that books keep me up well past the time I should have turned out the light just so I can find out what happens next. Her characters are fully fleshed out and real, with their hidden complexities slowly revealed, rather than delineated in the pages that they first appear. Yet she doesn’t pull any unfair tricks either, with characters suddenly behaving contrary to their natures just to provide a plot twist.

I read Warchild because the author will be one of the four who I have invited to appear at the Massachusetts Library Association’s annual conference in May 2005. I always try to read at least one work by each of the visiting authors. How delightful to find a new, talented author whose career I can enjoy hopefully for many years to come. Fans of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game should give Lowachee, and Warchild, a try.

It seems that ringing in the new year also merits some sort of relevant comments on life in the last year, or life in the coming year. I’ve never been very good at categorizing things by year (which is surprising, since I was a cataloger by profession for many years, and like to categorize things) but I will try to organize my thoughts in some fashion that is appropriate.

Now that we’re living right in Boston proper, Scot and I took small advantage of some First Night activities, something I haven’t done for over 15 years! Chris joined us at the Boston Public Library for the musical entertainment of Ziaf. This four-piece band performs the dramatic music of Edith Piaf, and does so with style and quite a bit of talent. Ziaf drummer, Tamara Gooding, is the girlfriend of Scot’s haridresser Elyse (star of Ryan Landry’s Exorsissy – see below) which is how we heard about the show. Ziaf is fronted by the Swiss-born Christine Zufferey who captures the powerful, throaty vibrato of Piaf with uncanny clarity. Zufferey’s dramatic pauses, knowing inflections, and impeccable accent combine to great effect, and she is backed by a talented trio of musicians in Gooding on drums, Catherine Capozzi on guitar, and Carol Namkoong on piano. This inventive quartet deftly takes fully orchestrated songs and breaks them down with style to a piano-guitar-drums cabaret/rock style that left us wanting more. They played to the packed 300-seat Rabb Theatre at the BPL. Bravo!

Following the show, Chris, Scot and I met up with Ron and Marlin for a late dinner at Caffe Umbra (Pictured from left, Marlin, Ron, Chris, Michael, Scot). It was terrific to see Ron and Marlin again. They’ve been so busy; we’ve only seen them once since the summer! We’ll have to give them a spanking! Caffe Umbra had a terrific selection of food for their special dinners that night, and we stayed there through the ringing in of the New Year. Conversation topics went on to trying to find a new way to capitalize on the gay porn market to the fact that the earth’s rotation has increased speed due to last week’s horrific earthquake. After dinner, Ron and Marlin, who were both flirting with and recovering from illness respectively, headed home while Chris returned to our place. We enjoyed some VH-1 and the wacky antics of the film THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE. It was a fun night.

Now 2005 is here, and the world goes on. I’ve been thinking of my favorite films of 2004, but there are still a few from last year that I’m going to try to catch before making that list. The new music I listened to in 2004 was such a hodgepodge of music from so many years that I would have trouble singling out the stuff released last year. I don know one of the things I’l greatly looking forward to in 2005. The release of a new Kate Bush album! I know, I won’t hold my breath until I have it in my hands, and there’s a good chance, for a variety of reasons, that it will be a disappointment. Still, after listening to some of her older work while typing this blog, I was reminded what a musical genius she truly was and hopefully still is. I’m also very excited about the new album by Emm Gryner entitled “Songs of Love and Death,” which I should be getting in the mail in a couple of weeks. And while I’m not one for resolutions, I do have high hopes for really getting our apartment looking fabulous. I have all sorts of painting schemes in mind.

So Happy New Year everyone, and may 2005 be a good year for us all.

Isn’t it funny that I can watch hours of VH1 Classic and just get the biggest kick out of seeing videos that I used to groan at when they came on for the 7th time in a day back in the 80’s? Did I actually just sit through Billy Idol‘s “Dancing with Myself?” Surely I’ve seen that video about 350 times in my lifetime, but it’s true, I probably haven’t seen it for at least 15 years. Of course, the trade off is getting to enjoy a pair (since it’s Tuesday Two-Play) of videos from Erasure that very cleverly, and much to my delight, segued into a pair of vids from Yaz! “Nobody’s Diary” is a favorite of mine, and I had never seen the video for “Only You.” (I think I would have prefered the wacky hijinks of “Don’t Go.”) Then imagine my surprise when I found out that old song I loved (and hadn’t heard for ages) “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy,” was by Sammy Hagar!

I admit it, I was a video geek during the 80’s. When MTV first come on, and it was cool, commercial free, and there so few videos they had to play really cool, offbeat stuff, the town I lived in didn’t get it. I was in a band at the time (the appropriately 80’s-named Psyclone) and after practicing at our friend’s house in a neighboring town, we’d all sit around and watch MTV. So cool… I actually remember seeing a video by Robin Lane and the Chartbusters! How cool is that? Does anyone else remember “All Touch” by Rough Trade in heavy rotation? Clearly a dearth of music videos was heaven for a burgeoning queer like me. (And if you haven’t read Rough Trade vocalist/songwriter Carole Pope’s autobiograhpy Anti-Diva… oh, what do you care. No one south of the Canadian border cares that Rough Trade was one of the most sexually subversive pop bands in history of modern music.)

Hmmm… I think I’m going to make a list of the 10 videos I’d most like to see again. Not now, this is going to take some time! Look for it in a few days…