The next homo-centric is Feb 19th

We're looking for mouths & ears.  

Mouths to speak their words & ears to come & listen.  

Email us if you're interested in reading.  

Stay tuned if you're planning on attending.

Testimony

Lee Wind posted about this site on his blog I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell Do I Read?.  Some terrific, empowering words - confessionals, poetry, spoken word, film, video & photography - by and for queer youth.  Check out Testimony.  You can also submit to the site.  Here's a video from Testimony featuring Samira Obeid from Florida. 

Study English Pronunciation

Not Sure Where I found this but it's fun.  Talk allowed at your computer...eye hope ewe enjoy it.

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak...

It goes on...the rest is here.

Luis Alfaro Wins 2012 Joyce Award

Congratulations to Luis Alfaro for being a recipient of a 2012 Joyce Award!  From the Theater Mania website:

"Playwright Luis Alfaro has won a 2012 Joyce Award. The annual prizes, which carry a $50,000 cast grant, are given to commission artists of color to help them create new works with cultural institutions.  Worrking with Enrique Adyanthaya and Marlina Gonzalez, Alfaro will write a season of plays based on the ideas behind the fusion of Latino and Asian cultures, that will be created in collaboration with two Minneapolis/St. Paul theater companies, Teatro del Pueblo and Pangea. The plays will range from love stories of interracial couples exploring tensions between their two communities to a children's story adapted from a fable."

We did a Sunday video post about Luis just one day shy of being exactly one year ago (weird, huh?).  The video explanation for the project the Joyce grant will fund is here.  And below is a very cool video of Luis the storyteller.  Enjoy.  And take a minute to congratulate Luis.  It's much deserved. 

Dennis Cooper on Haring & Burroughs

Dennis Cooper reposted an article on his blog about a collaboration between Keith Haring and William S. Burroughs.  You can read it here.

Cooper, Haring & Burroughs should be enough homo-centricity to power your entire day.  Now go celebrate your inner radiant baby.

Philip Littell & Billy, the Kid in Broad Daylight

Never one to sit still, Philip Littell will be at the Bootleg Theater this weekend.  I lifted the entire press release and planted it below.  You can get tickets here.

January 26, 27 & 28 at 8:00 pm
Bootleg Theater Presents
Philip Littell (with Jesse James Rice and Glen Martin) in

A Song Without Music
& A Play With Songs (two too short pieces)

Broad Daylight (A Song Without Music) Broad Daylight was written at Suzanne Lummis' instigation and received its first hearing at Beyond Baroque during her Night And the City city-wide LA Poetry Festival event last year. 

The memoir of a noir blonde: out of the past, the smoke, the mirrors, the shadows, a good time gal pulls up the blinds, opens a window and gives with the story. This is the truth and nothing but the partial truth, so help me god.

Billy, the Kid, and What He Did (A Play With Songs) Written by Libby Larsen and Philip Littell.

Billy, the Kid, and What He Did is a cool take on some bad breaks: dead guys, guns, guitars, and no girls. Aided and abetted by Jesse James Rice and Glen Martin, Littell and Larsen patrol the lawless border between this mean ol’ world and the next.

Doors open at 7:30 pm, Show at 8:00 pm
Tickets: General Admission $20 & Student/Senior $15

Poe-mo ho-mo pho-tos

Farzana Doctor

Here are a few photos by the lovely Ofelia Del Corazon from last week's Poe-mo homos.  It was a terrific reading.  

Dozens of people came out for the event, and everyone dispelled the January blahs by commiserating, breaking bread and shopping before the event.  Stories even ran out of sandwiches!

Philip Littell



Ronna Magy

Many thanks to the talented writers who gamely offered wonderfully eerie words in honor of Poe's birthday:

Tim Cummings, Farzana Doctor (all the way from Toronto!), Philip Littell and Ronna Magy.



Tim Cummings



A room with a view

Birthday Centric: Virginia Woolf

"It is true that I only want to show off to women. Women alone stir my imagination."  For me, this quote by Virginia Woolf sums up what I think of when I think of her.  Woolf is responsible for igniting the imagination of generations of lesbians, as well as generations of people who loved and continue to love and be inspired by her writing (see Michael Cunningham).





I looked around and couldn't really find a place on the web that I felt embodied her work & life - the Virginia Woolf Society in England is very informative but a bit dry and formal.  If you're so inclined, I think Wiki has the best information.  They also have my favorite portrait of V.W. by Roger Fry.

A list of some of her work that you should know: The Voyage Out, Night and Day, Between the Acts, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando.  The latter, Orlando, was made into a wondrous film by Sally Potter with the luminous Tilda Swinton, and in a lovely, late-life role, Quentin Crisp as Elizabeth I.


This post has enough homo-centricity to keep you occupied for quite a while, so if you're between the acts Mrs. Dalloway, get to the lighthouse and seek out Orlando.  And on the way send a very homo-centric 'Happy Birthday' to Virginia Woolf.

Nobody Was Afraid of Mattilda!

Last Sunday's 'very special episode' of homo-centric with Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore was a huge success!  We filled every chair, bench & footstool in the bookstore and had people leaning on bookshelves.  

Not only was there a great crowd but Stories sold every copy of Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?  Mattilda read excerpts by several contributors of the book, all of which made me want to read the book even more than I had before the reading.  

Mattilda was terrific, too-- engaging, energetic & effervescent.  The Q & A after was  also good and went on almost to closing time.  I'm asking Stories to order more copies of the book & will keep you posted when they arrive.  Here are a few photos of the evening I took with my not-so-smart phone.  If anyone else has photos, please let me know.  

Thanks again to Stories Books and a big huge homo-hug to Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore for a very special Sun-gay night!

Birthday Centric: Patricia Highsmith

Born the same day as Edgar Allan Poe, Patricia Highsmith made a career of writing creepy stories.  Strangers On A Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley are two of her works.  If you want to know a bit about her there's a good article about the Ripley collection and Highsmith at the NY Times.  Quick read it before SOPA kicks my butt. 

What we like best about Highsmith is that in 1954 she published the lesbian novel The Price of Salt (under the name of Claire Morgan).  It was the first novel of its kind to have a happy ending.  The book sold nearly a million copies when it was published.  Pretty remarkable, right? 

I'm linking to two articles about her that I think shed enough info about her.  The first is from the NY Times and the other is from a Swiss website. 

You can get many of the 22 books she wrote at your local bookstore or library.

It's the Poe-mo homo Thursday night rave(n)!

We do hope you'll stop in Stories Books & Cafe this Thursday for some ranting & Raven with the 

Poe-mo homos at homo-centric.  

And yes, we're giving you the bird.  

Stories is at 1716 Sunset Blvd in L.A.'s 90026.

Metered parking behind the store until 9pm

(with groovy new we-take-credit-card meters).

A great menu with good food, coffee & teas.

Of course, tons of books...

...including copies of Farzana Doctor's Six Metres of Pavement

It's eerie, it's creepy, it's free and it starts at 7:30.  

Come listen to and meet Tim Cummings, Farzana Doctor, Philip Littell and Ronna Magy

 as homo-centric celebrates Edgar Allan Poe's 202nd birthday.

We'll make you feel a little queer...

Birthday Centric: Mishima

Considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Yukio Mishima wrote 35 novels, 25 plays, 200 short stories and eight volumes of essays.  He was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.  I once said Spring Snow, one of the Sea of Fertility tetralogy, made Romeo and Juliet look like a romantic comedy.


Confessions of a Mask is thought to be auto-biographical.  The narrator struggles with his attraction to men.  The narrator also writes of his attraction to St. Sebastian - an image Mishima himself would replicate.

The film Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters directed by Paul Schrader with a Philip Glass score is a visually beautiful if imperfect film that ties Mishima's life with three of his stories.

John Nathan's book Mishima: A Biography is often considered the definitive account of Mishima's life.

Here's an interview Mishima gave in English.  His writings are readily available at your local bookstores and libraries.

Birthday Centric: Sal Mineo

One of my first and still one of my star crushes, Sal Mineo's birthday is today. His early career was full of hard work in some good and not-so-good films. Rebel Without a Cause, Dino & The Gene Krupa Story are a few of my favorites, and I like him enough that I've seen Exodus at least 4 times (he's beautiful in that film). Who Killed Teddy Bear goes without saying - well, except that I have to say that you should find it and watch it if you can; there's an excerpt here on YouTube.

Later in his career, Mineo re-wrote, directed and starred in a production of Fortune In Men's Eyes. Both Mineo and the production made a ruckus - Mineo because he was living as an openly gay man by that time in his life and the production because it pushed the boundaries of what had been seen on the stage in a homosexual way. You can see a young Don Johnson (yes, that one) in a couple photos from the production here along with a few other photos that have nothing to do with Sal's talent but everything to do with why I crushed on him so hard. But I'm wandering...

The night he was murdered Sal Mineo was on his way home from rehearsal for a stage version of P.S. Your Cat Is Dead.  P.S. is written by James Kirkwood and the book is one of my favorite things of all time.  He was perfect for the role of Vito & it's easy for me to read the book & imagine Sal as the character.

I know Sal Mineo didn't write any books, but there is an excellent biography of him by Michael Gregg Michaud. The book came out last year and is available in a hardcover, a paperback and soon, a James Franco film version.   I'm cautiously optimistic about the latter.   You can find many of Sal Mineo's films on DVD.  P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, was recently reprinted and is available in bookstores and libraries, as is Michael Gregg Michaud's biography of Mineo. Here's your list:
Find a library.
Find an independent bookstore.
Meet Michael Gregg Michaud.
The official Sal Mineo website (with a pretty good gallery) here.

What Books Do At Night

The Poe-mo homos read Jan 19th!

homo-centric is starting out the new year with Poe-mo homos. Since the first reading of 2012 lands on Edgar Allan Poe's 202nd birthday we decided to fill a bleak, dark January night with original LGBTQI odd & eerie stories. Thursday January 19th at 7:30 we begin our 3rd year of readings at Stories Books & Cafe. Join us for a fun night of rantin' and um...raven.

Tim Cummings was born and raised in New York, and holds a degree in theater and writing from New York University.  He is a passionate storyteller who works in a variety of mediums: writing, visuals, theater, film, music, and dance.  His most recent collection of short fiction, ORPHANS, was released this past summer to critical acclaim.  His most recent stage appearances were in The Walworth Farce at Theatre Banshee, and the ten-year anniversary performances of Anne Nelson’s 9/11 play The Guys at The Flea Theater in New York opposite Sigourney Weaver. Tim is an octopus and spider enthusiast and a lover of all octo-legged things.

Farzana Doctor is a Toronto-based author and the recipient of the Writers' Trust of Canada's Dayne Ogilvie Grant (2011). Her first novel, Stealing Nasreen, received critical acclaim and earned a devoted readership upon its release in 2007. She is currently touring her second book, Six Metres of Pavement (Dundurn 2011), which Publishers Weekly has praised as “..a paean to second chances” and NOW Magazine (Toronto) listed as one of their Top Ten Books of 2011. In her spare time, she provides private practice consulting and psychotherapy services and is a co-curator of the Brockton Writers Series.

Philip Littell is an unholy mixture of essayist, fabulist, dramatist, lyricist and witticist. To add insult to injury he is also an actor.

Ronna Magy came onto the planet as the colors of World War II were fading from Detroit’s skyline and Sputnik orbited the skies. She began writing at mid-life. A Los Angeles based writer, she creates short story, memoir, and poetry. She's not embarrassed to admit she's produced a piece of exotic and even macabre writing every now and again. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies including Assaracus: Lady Business, Sinister Wisdom, Best Lesbian Romance, My Life is Poetry, and The Bilingual Review.


Please come early and support the store and cafe!

We usually get there before seven to
* Order a coffee or tea & have a sandwich.
* Hang out & meet other writers.
* Wander the aisles & buy a book.

Please remember that we depend on the word of mouth so tell a friend, bring two or three. Come early because Stories is a terrific place to do some post-holiday shopping & pick up that book no one bought for you. The food there is really good, too. Check out their menu here.

Stories Books and Cafe is located at 1716 Sunset Blvd. in the L.A. 90026 between near Sunset Blvd and Echo Park Ave. Metered parking available in the lighted lot behind the bookstore (with those cool new credit card meters) and and entrance through the back of the store. Map here.

A Very Special Episode of homo-centric: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore Jan 22nd!

Used to be that January was boring.  After the holiday rush that began with everyone trying to remember Grandma's stuffing recipe through New Year's when someone inevitably drinks too much and grabs the wrong person to kiss at midnight, January gets the bad rap of being boring.  Bleak, cold, empty, no presents, short days & credit card bills for presents nobody remembers.

Not anymore.  homo-centric is super duper excited to smother your January blahs with the only Los Angeles bookstore appearance of Mattilda Bernsten Sycamore!  Mattilda is coming to town Sunday January 22nd at 6:30pm to tell you all about/read from/publicize her new book Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots.  Yeah, we're as excited as you now!  Everything! is! exclamation! pointed!  The book is being released in February but the cover blurbs alone - by Edmund White, Samuel Delaney & Justin Vivian Bond - are three orders to go buy the book when it comes out.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is a writer, editor, activist, artist, filmmaker, critic and troublemaker.  Most recently, she is the editor of Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform, which will be released on Valentine's Day 2012 from AK Press.  Mattilda is the author of two novels, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights 2008) and Pulling Taffy (Suspect Thoughts 2003). She is the editor of four additional nonfiction anthologies, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (Seal 2007),That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Soft Skull 2004; 2008), Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving (Haworth 2004), and Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write about Their Clients (Haworth 2000), which now also appears in Italian (Effepi Libri 2007).  Mattilda recently finished a soon-to-be-published memoir called The End of San Francisco.

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots challenges not just the violence of straight homophobia but the hypocrisy of mainstream gay norms that say the only way to stay safe is to act straight: get married, join the military, adopt kids! This anthology reinvokes the anger, flamboyance, and subversion once thriving in gay subcultures in order to create something dangerous and lovely: an exploration of the perils of assimilation; a call for accountability; a vision for change. 


So join us Sunday January 22nd at 6:30pm at Stories Books and Cafe.  The event is free.  The map to Stories is here. 

No bon bons for bon vivant who says 'bon appetit!'

Yesterday morning I was clicking my way through newly-unlimited access to the New York Times (yes, I gave in and subscribed because 15 articles a month was a form of punishment) and suddenly my eyes landed in the Dining and Wine section.  It had been like perpetual lent; I'd given up food because of the limited access to the NYT website.  However, during my first all-you-can-read feast, the caption 'Pass the large grain of salt' caught my eye.  Initially I imagined a trendy celebri-chef feeding Manhattanites plates of food at a 'so-hot-it's-cool-and-no-you-can't-get-reservations-until-summer restaurant named NaCl.  

Although that trendy wave is either in preparation or already passe it wasn't the case with this article.  The particular grain of salt being passed is Simon Doonan in a restaurant (not named NaCl) talking about food.  Gay food.  Read it all here in the NY Times.

It's thinly disguised publicity for Mr. Doonan's new book, Gay Men Don't Get Fat, but I ate it up as a single article.  I've already begun my post-holiday resolution diet and now I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a filling but not fattening copy of the book.  I can be slim & trim and one of the beautiful people (sorry, couldn't help it) in no time just by eating more gay food.  Why?  Because Simon says.

Until you have your very own copy of the book, you can read some of Simon Noonan's words at his blog.  Bon appetit!

The Poe-mo homos flyer

We're gong to make a dark, dreary, empty & chilly January evening even darker, drearier, emptier & chillier with an evening of odd & eerie original works. Please join us!

There's a Pariah in the Salon

Recently, there's been quite a bit of noise written about the film Paraiah. The film is a coming out story about a 17-year old girl named Alike. It's playing very limited release in Manhattan, Los Angeles & San Francisco. I am looking forward to seeing the film once it goes into wider release. The film is getting good reviews, especially for Adepero Oduye, the 37-year-old actress playing Alike. Yeah, 37 years old.

The coolest thing I've seen related to the movie is over at Salon. They have a series of coming out stories from young people called the Pariah Personals. It's encouraging to see a general website like Salon supporting young LGBTQI people. The stories are varied & inspiring. You can check them out here. Please feel free to chime in with comments about the Salon columns or, if you've seen it, the film.

Here's the NY Times review and below is the trailer.