Floating on a Sea of Letters

We've criticized (with one notable exception) anthologies that organize on the default principle of alphabetization. A review of Anne Carson's recent collection offers another view:

Float' s contents page is alphabetized, a shot across the bows of those expecting Carson to dictate its chronology; "reading can be freefall", she announces in a prefatory note. And why should collections behave like maps? Why shouldn't they — as Carson suggests — be read on shuffle?

And while we're shuffling, why not read the end of a book first, I wonder (NOT)?

A new Bookmen motto? :-)

As we finish discussing Clinton Elliott's Hidden: The Intimate Lives of Gay Men Past and Present, I wanted to share a Langston Hughes quote Elliott recounts in his entry concerning Wallace Thurman: Hughes said Thurman "had read everything and [his] critical mind could find something wrong with everything he read."

Speaking as someone who has been nitpicking Elliott's anthology quite a bit, I resemble that remark!  But I can't exactly deny its applicability, either.

Gay Anger & Erotic Ventriloquism

Off topic — and I would have missed it altogether had it not been an "Editors' Pick" (along with Russell Brand and Tennessee Whiskey) — from today's NY Times  Style  section. (And to regain our high literary ground, notice Vivek Tywary's graphic novel which we might read next year if we're not all graphiced out after Queer Graphic History.)

WARHOLCAPOTE

I went to see WARHOLCAPOTE at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass.  It was good...not great.  I completely disagree with Ben Bradley's NYT review.  He says one would get lost if not an insider.  The audience loved it and gave roaring laughter at some of Capote's lines.  I find them funny but I've heard them all before, some many many times (I was not roaring with laughter).  So, it seemed to me that "not being an insider" made the play much more enjoyable.  Bradley liked Dan Butler and didn't like Stephen Spinella.  Dan Butler started out very good but lost something as the play went on.  I'm not a fan of Stephen Spinella but thought he was much better (as Warhol) than some of the things I've seen him in in New York (granted Andy Warhol was never a very illuminated personality in real life as opposed to Capote).  I kept thinking, "This will never work in New York."  But then I thought real quick, "Yes it will.  The audiences in New York are as bad as they've ever been." 

"Call Me by Your Name"

Some of you will recall that we discussed this novel by Andre Aciman in September 2008.  Our friend Ken Jost reports that a decade after its publication, the story is coming to the big screen, amid controversy that the male leads are both straight actors.

What Eagle Scouts Know

This Tuesday (October 3rd) Armistead Maupin's memoir Logical Family  will be published. Followers of this blog, however, can read an extract covering the first days of "Tales of the City" right now!