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Today was the Pulp Show at the Merril Collection. I bought the early '60s gay confessional All the Sad Young Men (not to be confused with the 1920s F. Scott Fitzgerald work, although it does seem to be related to the jazz number of the beat era). Unintentionally hilarious, but uItimately rather depressing: I couldn't find much online that was directly about it, but it seems to have been well enough known in its day to give its name to a whole gay fiction genre, the "we live in the spooky gay underworld and party madly 'cos we can never find real love" bit. Given that the narrator winds up in a blissful long-term relationship with the guy of his dreams, this would seem to be an inaccurate conclusion, but he ends the book on an anxious note, worrying that his lover will dump him for someone younger and prettier, given that gay culture is all shallow and all - even though by this point it's been established that the young man is a model of fidelity and devotion. Sheesh.
Incidentally, the love interest's name is "Gerry Ford," which adds a good deal to the campy amusement value. Oh - and the narrator, "Wally" is literally a "friend of Dorothy's" - that's the name of his beautiful, sarcastic girlfriend, later just friend. Ultimately, it's a demonstration of why being in the closet sucks: you're a target for blackmail, you have to learn insanely complicated secret signals, and every so often, you break off your ecstatic marijuana-fuelled gay-sex-with-bongo-drums-in-the-background and go, oh no! I'm depraved! De-praved!
I think it will make a good choice for the Reading of Single Pages, as there's jaw-droppingly purple prose on pretty much any random page.
Also, today was my bridal shower. Luckily, my friends all know how cluttered my kitchen already is and gave me small, portable things - including a large beach towel, which as far as I could tell was not a deliberate allusion to Hitchhiker's Guide, but welcome nonetheless.
Incidentally, the love interest's name is "Gerry Ford," which adds a good deal to the campy amusement value. Oh - and the narrator, "Wally" is literally a "friend of Dorothy's" - that's the name of his beautiful, sarcastic girlfriend, later just friend. Ultimately, it's a demonstration of why being in the closet sucks: you're a target for blackmail, you have to learn insanely complicated secret signals, and every so often, you break off your ecstatic marijuana-fuelled gay-sex-with-bongo-drums-in-the-background and go, oh no! I'm depraved! De-praved!
I think it will make a good choice for the Reading of Single Pages, as there's jaw-droppingly purple prose on pretty much any random page.
Also, today was my bridal shower. Luckily, my friends all know how cluttered my kitchen already is and gave me small, portable things - including a large beach towel, which as far as I could tell was not a deliberate allusion to Hitchhiker's Guide, but welcome nonetheless.
