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The Freezer Door (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents)
By Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. 2020
A meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that enforces bland norms of gender,…
sexual, and social conformity. When you turn the music off, and suddenly you feel an unbearable sadness, that means turn the music back on, right? When you still feel the sadness, even with the music, that means there's something wrong with this music. Sometimes I feel like sex without context isn't sex at all. And sometimes I feel like sex without context is what sex should always be. The Freezer Door records the ebb and flow of desire in daily life. Crossing through loneliness in search of communal pleasure in Seattle, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore exposes the failure and persistence of queer dreams, the hypocritical allure of gay male sexual culture, and the stranglehold of the suburban imagination over city life. Ferocious and tender, The Freezer Door offers a complex meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that relentlessly enforces bland norms of gender, sexual, and social conformity while claiming to celebrate diversity.Overshare: Love, Laughs, Sexuality and Secrets
By Rose Ellen Dix, Rosie Spaughton. 2018
Rose and Rosie are known for their candid and hilarious YouTube videos... but now they are taking oversharing to a…
whole new level. Discussing sexuality, revealing secrets and empowering others, OVERSHARE is a book packed with Rose and Rosie's unique take on friendships, fame, mental health and LGBT issues.As visibly out members of the LGBT community, they open up about their own experiences, both together and as individuals, and have written this book in the hope that it gives strength to those who have faced similar difficulties. They are spreading a message of positivity and inclusivity, and want everyone to feel comfortable in their own skin, no matter what their sexuality. Delve deep into the unfiltered highs and lows of Rose and Rosie's life: family relationships, secrets of a happy marriage, struggles with OCD and anxiety, finding love and navigating the world as a gay couple. Get ready to laugh, cry, cringe and OVERSHARE.Get Out of Your Own Way Guide to Life: 10 Steps to Shift Gears, Dream Big, Do It Now!
By Justin Loeber. 2017
Dream Big! Do it now!----------Strengths and weaknesses: We all have strengths and weaknesses. So, do you want to learn how…
to get out of your own way and build your strengths and eliminate your weaknesses? Do it now with Get Out of Your Own Way Guide to Life: 10 Tips to Shift Gears, Dream Big, Do it Now!Dream big: Do you want to be known as a tremendous talent...or a lazy, unfocused slacker? Whether you’re a Millennial yearning to join corporate America, a Boomer ready for reinvention, a closeted LGBTQ+ testing the gender pool or even a nerd nauseated with perfection, the Get Out of Your Own Way Guide to Life: 10 Steps to Shift Gears, Dream Big, Do it Now! by Justin Loeber, is an in-your-face, funny, no-nonsense, socio-business, coming-of-ageless handbook for anyone who is yearning for true, inner-personal success. Great guide to life: You’ll learn 10 easy steps, such as:• Work on Your Work Ethic• Own the Power of Thoughtfulness• Find Perfection in Imperfection• Rule Your Plane• and moreLearn how to get out of your own way: This shebang of a book is based on Loeber’s quirky personal life experiences that all started in the NYC 70s disco era. Justin worked as a waiter, a Wang Word Processing Operator, (remember Wang?), a substitute go-go dancer, was discovered by pop icon Gary Numan in London and was one step from stardom in his own right as a solo pop-recording artist—only to lose it all. Then, in a 180-degree turn—and without a college degree—went from a temp at Random House to an EVP at HarperCollins in a little more than a decade. In 2006 Loeber created mouth: digital + public relations, a boutique agency in NYC—repping over 550 clients to date. Get Out of Your Own Way Guide to Life will give you the courage to:• Shake down your fear, which is squelching your dream• Find the “it” that makes you “tick”• Take a Risk, which in the end, isn’t risky after all• Put down the electronics, look up; and transfer from the passenger to the pilot of your life…NOW!So, Get out of your own way! Dream big! Do it now!The Other Mothers: Two Women's Journey to Find the Family That Was Always Theirs
By Jennifer Berney. 2021
A story of fertility, feminism, and familyJenn Berney was one of those people who knew she was destined for motherhood—it…
wasn't a question of if, but when. So when she and her wife Kelly decided to start building their family, they took the next logical step: they went to a fertility clinic. But they soon found themselves entrenched in a medical establishment that didn't know what to do with people like them. With no man factoring into their relationship, doctors were at best embarrassed and at worst disparaging of the couple.Soon Jenn found herself stepping outside of the system determined to disregard her. Looking into the history of fertility and the LGBTQ+ community, she saw echoes of her own struggle. For decades queer people have defied the patriarchy and redefined the nuclear family—and Jenn was walking in their footsteps.Through the ups-and-downs of her own journey, Jenn reflects on a turbulent past that has led her to this point and a bright future worth fighting for. With clarity, determination, and hope, The Other Mothers gives us a wonderful glimpse into the many ways we can become family.Radiant: The Dancer, The Scientist, and a Friendship Forged in Light
By Liz Heinecke. 2021
Part hidden history, part love letter to creative innovation, this is the true story of an unlikely friendship between a…
dancer, Loie Fuller, and a scientist, Marie Curie, brought together by an illuminating discovery. At the turn of the century, Paris was a hotbed of creativity. Technology boomed, delivering to the world electric light, the automobile, and new ways to treat disease, while imagination blossomed, creating Art Nouveau, motion pictures, and modernist literature. A pivotal figure during this time, yet largely forgotten today, Loie Fuller was an American performance artist who became a living symbol of the Art Nouveau movement with her hypnotic dances and stunning theatrical effects. Credited today as the pioneer of modern dance, she was perennially broke, never took no for an answer, spent most of her life with a female partner, and never questioned her drive. She was a visionary, a renegade, and a loyal friend. In the early 1900s, she heard about Marie Curie's discovery of a glowing blue element and dreamed of using it to dazzle audiences on stage. While Loie's dream wouldn't be realized, her connection with Marie and their shared fascination with radium endured. Radiant is the true story of Marie Curie and Loie Fuller, two revolutionary women drawn together at the dawn of a new era by a singular discovery, and the lifelong friendship that grew out of their shared passion for enlightenment.'You've never read a travel memoir like this before' The Sunday Times, 'Pride Culture Guide''Sweet and fun, with real emotional…
depth and a rousing, feisty spirit'Matt Cain***In the spring of 2012, Calum finds himself single again after his relationship of six years comes to an end. Heartbroken, unhappy and unsure of what to do next, he leaves the hometown he has been in all his life to embark on a journey that takes him all around the world, from teaching in a school on the outskirts of Rome to exploring the sex clubs of Berlin, to raising tigers in an animal sanctuary deep in the jungles of Thailand. Along the way, he meets LGBT+ people from all walks of life and every part of the rainbow - from an Italian teenager struggling with a homophobic father to a kathoey navigating life as a trans person in Thailand, to a young HIV-positive man living on the streets of London. Their individual stories, not only of hardship and sorrow but also of profound strength and hope, show the breadth and depth of queer life and experience, shedding light on themes such as homophobia, sexual violence, marriage equality and gender identity. Through these meetings and friendships, Calum not only finds the encouragement to embrace life after heartbreak, but also discovers a beautiful, loving global community who support and uplift him through the best and worst moments of his time on the road. A travel memoir with a difference, Eat, Gay, Love is a celebration of the power of community and a personal tribute to the extraordinary lives of LGBT+ people everywhere in the world.Francis Bacon: Revelations
By Mark Stevens, Annalyn Swan. 2021
A decade in the making: the first comprehensive look at the life and art of Francis Bacon, one of the…
iconic painters of the twentieth century--from the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of de Kooning: An American Master. Francis Bacon created an indelible image of mankind in modern times, and played an outsized role in both twentieth century art and life--from his public emergence with his legendary Triptych 1944 (its images "so unrelievedly awful" that people fled the gallery), to his death in Madrid in 1992.Bacon was a witty free spirit and unabashed homosexual at a time when many others remained closeted, and his exploits were as unforgettable as his images. He moved among the worlds of London's Soho and East End, the literary salons of London and Paris, and the homosexual life of Tangier. Through hundreds of interviews, and extensive new research, the authors probe Bacon's childhood in Ireland (he earned his father's lasting disdain because his asthma prevented him from hunting); his increasingly open homosexuality; his early design career--never before explored in detail; the formation of his vision; his early failure as an artist; his uneasy relationship with American abstract art; and his improbable late emergence onto the international stage as one of the great visionaries of the twentieth century. In all, Francis Bacon: Revelations gives us a more complete and nuanced--and more international--portrait than ever before of this singularly private, darkly funny, eruptive man and his equally eruptive, extraordinary art. Bacon was not just an influential artist, he helped remake the twentieth-century figure.Through intimate encounters with the life and work of five contemporary gay male directors, this book develops a framework for…
interpreting what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of view. For most of the twentieth century, gay characters and gay themes were both underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream cinema. Since the 1970s, however, a new generation of openly gay directors has turned the closet inside out, bringing a poignant immediacy to modern cinema and popular culture.Combining his experienced critique with in-depth interviews, Emanuel Levy draws a clear timeline of gay filmmaking over the past four decades and its particular influences and innovations. While recognizing the "queering" of American culture that resulted from these films, Levy also takes stock of the ensuing conservative backlash and its impact on cinematic art, a trend that continues alongside a growing acceptance of homosexuality. He compares the similarities and differences between the "North American" attitudes of Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, and John Waters and the "European" perspectives of Pedro Almodóvar and Terence Davies, developing a truly expansive approach to gay filmmaking and auteur cinema.An Open Secret: The Family Story of Robert and John Gregg Allerton
By Nicholas L. Syrett. 2021
In 1922 Robert Allerton—described by the Chicago Tribune as the “richest bachelor in Chicago”—met a twenty-two-year-old University of Illinois architecture…
student named John Gregg, who was twenty-six years his junior. Virtually inseparable from then on, they began publicly referring to one another as father and son within a couple years of meeting. In 1960, after nearly four decades together, and with Robert Allerton nearing ninety, they embarked on a daringly nonconformist move: Allerton legally adopted the sixty-year-old Gregg as his son, the first such adoption of an adult in Illinois history. An Open Secret tells the striking story of these two iconoclasts, locating them among their queer contemporaries and exploring why becoming father and son made a surprising kind of sense for a twentieth-century couple who had every monetary advantage but one glaring problem: they wanted to be together publicly in a society that did not tolerate their love. Deftly exploring the nature of their design, domestic, and philanthropic projects, Nicholas L. Syrett illuminates how viewing the Allertons as both a same-sex couple and an adopted family is crucial to understanding their relationship’s profound queerness. By digging deep into the lives of two men who operated largely as ciphers in their own time, he opens up provocative new lanes to consider the diversity of kinship ties in modern US history.An Open Secret: The Family Story of Robert and John Gregg Allerton
By Nicholas L. Syrett. 2021
In 1922 Robert Allerton—described by the Chicago Tribune as the “richest bachelor in Chicago”—met a twenty-two-year-old University of Illinois architecture…
student named John Gregg, who was twenty-six years his junior. Virtually inseparable from then on, they began publicly referring to one another as father and son within a couple years of meeting. In 1960, after nearly four decades together, and with Robert Allerton nearing ninety, they embarked on a daringly nonconformist move: Allerton legally adopted the sixty-year-old Gregg as his son, the first such adoption of an adult in Illinois history. An Open Secret tells the striking story of these two iconoclasts, locating them among their queer contemporaries and exploring why becoming father and son made a surprising kind of sense for a twentieth-century couple who had every monetary advantage but one glaring problem: they wanted to be together publicly in a society that did not tolerate their love. Deftly exploring the nature of their design, domestic, and philanthropic projects, Nicholas L. Syrett illuminates how viewing the Allertons as both a same-sex couple and an adopted family is crucial to understanding their relationship’s profound queerness. By digging deep into the lives of two men who operated largely as ciphers in their own time, he opens up provocative new lanes to consider the diversity of kinship ties in modern US history.An Open Secret: The Family Story of Robert and John Gregg Allerton
By Nicholas L. Syrett. 2021
In 1922 Robert Allerton—described by the Chicago Tribune as the “richest bachelor in Chicago”—met a twenty-two-year-old University of Illinois architecture…
student named John Gregg, who was twenty-six years his junior. Virtually inseparable from then on, they began publicly referring to one another as father and son within a couple years of meeting. In 1960, after nearly four decades together, and with Robert Allerton nearing ninety, they embarked on a daringly nonconformist move: Allerton legally adopted the sixty-year-old Gregg as his son, the first such adoption of an adult in Illinois history. An Open Secret tells the striking story of these two iconoclasts, locating them among their queer contemporaries and exploring why becoming father and son made a surprising kind of sense for a twentieth-century couple who had every monetary advantage but one glaring problem: they wanted to be together publicly in a society that did not tolerate their love. Deftly exploring the nature of their design, domestic, and philanthropic projects, Nicholas L. Syrett illuminates how viewing the Allertons as both a same-sex couple and an adopted family is crucial to understanding their relationship’s profound queerness. By digging deep into the lives of two men who operated largely as ciphers in their own time, he opens up provocative new lanes to consider the diversity of kinship ties in modern US history.To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents)
By Herve Guibert. 1990
A novel that describes, with devastating, darkly comic clarity, its narrator's experience of being diagnosed with AIDS.First published by Gallimard…
in 1990, To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life describes, with devastating, darkly comic clarity, its narrator's experience of being diagnosed with AIDS. Guibert chronicles three months in the penultimate year of the narrator's life as, in the wake of his friend Muzil's death, he goes from one quack doctor to another, describing the progression of the disease and recording the reactions of his many friends. The novel scandalized the French media, which quickly identified Muzil as Guibert's close friend Michel Foucault. To the Friend became a bestseller, and Guibert a celebrity. Guibert continued to document the daily experiences of his body in a series of novels and diaries, mostly published posthumously. To the Friend has since attained a cult following for its intimate and candid tone, its fragmented and slippery form. As Edmund White observed, “[Guibert's] very taste for the grotesque, this compulsion to offend, finally affords him the necessary rhetorical panache to convey the full, exhilarating horror of his predicament.” In his struggle to piece together a language suited to his suffering, Hervé Guibert catapulted himself into notoriety and sealed his reputation for uncompromising, transgressive prose.Officer Clemmons: A Memoir
By Dr Francois S. Clemmons. 2020
This intimate debut memoir by the man known to the world as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood's Officer Clemmons, who made history…
as the first African American actor to have a recurring role on a children's television program, "doesn't ask you to be his neighbor, but rather just to hear his story: one of a man of profound strength and talent who stood up, sang out, and, after great struggle, was heard" (NPR).When he created the role of Officer Clemmons on the award–winning television series Mister Rogers&’ Neighborhood, François Clemmons made history as the first African American actor to have a recurring role on a children&’s program. A new, wide world opened for Clemmons—but one that also required him to make painful personal choices and sacrifices. Officer Clemmons details Clemmons&’s incredible life story, beginning with his early years in Alabama and Ohio, marked by family trauma and loss, through his studies as a music major at Oberlin College, where Clemmons began to investigate and embrace his homosexuality, to a chance encounter with Fred Rogers that changed the whole course of both men&’s lives, leading to a deep, spiritual friendship and mentorship spanning nearly forty years.From New York to Russia, Berlin to California, Grammy Award–winner Clemmons has performed for audiences around the world and remains a beloved figure. Evocative and intimate, and buoyed by its author&’s own vivacious, inimitable energy, Officer Clemmons chronicles a historical and enlightening life and career of a man who has brought joy to millions of adults and children, across generations and borders.Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing: Essays
By Lauren Hough. 2021
Searing and extremely personal essays, shot through with the darkest elements America can manifest, while discovering light and humor in…
unexpected corners. As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe--to Germany, Japan, Texas, Chile—but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond "The Family." Along the way, she's loaded up her car and started over, trading one life for the next. She's taken pilgrimages to the sights of her youth, been kept in solitary confinement, dated a lot of women, dabbled in drugs, and eventually found herself as what she always wanted to be: a writer. Here, as she sweeps through the underbelly of America—relying on friends, family, and strangers alike—she begins to excavate a new identity even as her past continues to trail her and color her world, relationships, and perceptions of self. At once razor-sharp, profoundly brave, and often very, very funny, the essays in Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing interrogate our notions of ecstasy, queerness, and what it means to live freely. Each piece is a reckoning: of survival, identity, and how to reclaim one's past when carving out a future.Living and Loving in the Age of AIDS: A memoir
By Derek Frost. 2021
This is the tale of a devastating pandemic, of lives cut painfully short; it's also a love letter.Derek, a distinguished…
designer and J, his husband, a pioneering entrepreneur and creator of both The Embassy Club, London&’s answer to Studio 54, and iconic Heaven, Europe&’s largest gay discotheque, met and fell in love more than 40 years ago. Their lives were high-octane, full of adventure, fun and fearless creativity. Suddenly their friends began to get sick and die – AIDS had arrived in their lives. When they got tested, J received what was then a death sentence: he was HIV Positive. While the onset of AIDS strengthened stigma and fear globally, they confronted their personal crisis with courage, humour and an indomitable resolve to survive. J&’s battle lasted six long years. Turning to spiritual reflection, yoga, nature – and always to love – Derek describes a transformation of the spirit, how compassion and empathy rose phoenix-like from the flames of sickness and death. Out of this transformation also came Aids Ark, the charity they founded, which helped to save, amongst the world&’s most marginalised people, more than 1,000 HIV Positive lives.This is a story of joy and triumph; about facing universal challenges; about the great rewards that come from giving back. Derek speaks for a generation who lived through a global health crisis that many in society refused even to acknowledge. His is a powerful story chronicling this extraordinary time.Top To Bottom: A Memoir and Personal Guide Through Phalloplasty
By Finlay Games. 2021
"This book is about my penis. This is my story of going through lower surgery, specifically phalloplasty, and the adventures…
I have with my changing genitals along the way. Welcome to my journey."After coming out as trans, Finlay Games was adamant lower surgery would not be a part of his transition, but as the years went by, and his gender dysphoria increased, he decided to explore surgical options. Detailing the emotional and physical journey of phalloplasty, this book takes the reader through Finlay's experiences, from the initial decision-making through each stage of the surgery to its completion, recovery and after-care. Describing how he had to relearn his body, sexuality and his relationships, Finlay shares his wealth of advice and tips on donor site options, different types of surgery, the referral process, essential items and resources, and looking after your mental health.Part memoir, part self-help guide, this insightful, witty and deeply honest book highlights the life-changing impact surgery can have for trans people and provides hope to those on a similar journey.Men I've Never Been (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog)
By Michael Sadowski. 2021
Men I’ve Never Been recounts Michael Sadowski’s odyssey as a boy who shuns his own identity—and, ultimately, his sexual orientation—in…
order to become who he thinks he’s supposed to be. Beginning with the memory of a four-year-old sitting in a dingy dive bar, sounding out newspaper headlines while his boasting father collects drinks from onlookers, each chapter highlights a different image of manhood that Sadowski saw at home, at school, or on television—from sports heroes, hunters, and game show hosts to his charismatic but hard-drinking father. As he learns not to talk, laugh, cry, or love, he retreats further behind a stoic mask of silence—outwardly well-functioning but emotionally isolated, sinking under the weight of the past. Through wrenching tragedy and tense, life-threatening challenges, Sadowski learns to find love, purpose, and healthy self-regard. In coming to understand his identity and his place within his family, he meditates on the power of real human connection and comes to grasp the damage of his troubled upbringing and the traumas caused by toxic masculinity. By turns comic and tragic, this nuanced memoir uncovers the false selves we create to get along in the world and the price we pay to maintain them.'An enjoyable anthem to friendship' Hephzibah Anderson, Observer'Hugely enjoyable . . . Modern-day readers can thank the ambitious, complicated, funny,…
brave women of the Mutual Admiration Society' Anna Carey, Sunday Business Post'A tribute to that precious but still unsung thing: the loving bond between female friends, based on intellectual exchange and deep affection' Charlotte Higgins, Guardian Winner of the Agatha Award for best nonfiction 2020Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking 'Are Women Human?' Women's rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers's lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was not ready to concede that women were indeed fully human. Dubbing themselves the Mutual Admiration Society, Sayers and her classmates remained lifelong friends and collaborators as they fought for a truly democratic culture that acknowledged their equal humanity. A celebration of feminism and female friendship, Mutual Admiration Society offers crucial insight into Dorothy L. Sayers and her world.What Becomes You (American Lives)
By Aaron Raz Link, Hilda Raz. 2021
&“Being a man, like being a woman, is something you have to learn,&” Aaron Raz Link remarks. Few would know…
this better than the coauthor of What Becomes You, who began life as a girl named Sarah and twenty-nine years later began life anew as a gay man. Turning from female to male and from teaching scientist to theatre performer, Link documents the extraordinary medical, social, legal, and personal processes involved in a complete identity change. Hilda Raz, a well-known feminist writer and teacher, observes the process as both an &“astonished&” parent and as a professor who has studied gender issues. All these perspectives come into play in this collaborative memoir, which travels between women&’s experience and men&’s lives, explores the art and science of changing sex, maps uncharted family values, and journeys through a world transformed by surgery, hormones, love, and . . . clown school. Combining personal experience and critical analysis, the book is an unusual—and unusually fascinating—reflection on gender, sex, and the art of living.Films of Endearment: A Mother, a Son and the '80s Films That Defined Us
By Michael Koresky. 2021
&“A lovely and loving book.&”—Will Schwalbe, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Your Life Book Club"I'm not sure I…
have ever read a book about movies that is as tender and open-hearted as Films of Endearment."—Mark Harris, New York Times bestselling author of Mike Nichols: A Life A poignant memoir of family, grief and resilience about a young man, his dynamic mother and the '80s movies they shared together Michael Koresky's most formative memories were simple ones. A movie rental. A mug of tea. And a few shared hours with his mother. Years later and now a successful film critic, Koresky set out on a journey with his mother to discover more about their shared cinematic past. They rewatched ten films that she first introduced to him as a child, one from every year of the '80s, each featuring women leads.Together, films as divergent as 9 to 5, Terms of Endearment, The Color Purple and Aliens form the story of an era that Koresky argues should rightly be called "The Decade of the Actress."Films of Endearment is a reappraisal of the most important and popular female-driven films of that time, a profound meditation on loss and resilience, and a celebration of the special bond between mothers and their sons.