From: hsu@sp24.csrd.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu)
Subject: New reading material
Organization: Univ of Illinois, Center for Supercomputing R&D, Urbana, IL
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 22:28:35 GMT

A few things that I've come across, that weren't in recent postings, and
aren't as profound as Oscar Wilde, so don't get your hopes up...

The new issue of Thing has been out for over a month. Interviews with
RuPaul (who's been around the outrageous new drag scene for awhile,
and recently signed to Tommy Boy), DeAundra Peek (outrageous Atlanta
drag queen who does a wild show on cable TV; Atlanta folks may have
seen footage on her show of a Carol Moseley Braun fundraiser/queer party 
in Chicago, with the equally outrageous Mona Foot, dressed as Wonder
Woman, and beating up four punkboys), Hector Xtravaganza and Willie
Ninja (from Paris is Burning), plus the usual dishing and gossip and
features. This is a solid issue, tho it has less of an edge than the
older ones. Still the best magazine on the alternative/black/gay/camp/
performance scene that I've come across. (Based in Chicago, but you
should be able to get it all over the place.)

And after asking around for months and getting extremely annoyed at
the distribution problems, I finally got my hands on a copy of 
_Discontents: New Queer Writing_ ed. Dennis Cooper. It's a nice
introduction to writers whose work that's only been available in
the small small press (repetition intentional) or zines before.
However, if you're already familiar with a lot of these people (I
am), I'm not sure it's really worth picking up. A lot of the best
material has already appeared elsewhere (like the hilarious Vaginal
Creme Davis piece about Brett Easton Ellis and seducing a drunk
Adam Horowitz in a bathroom), and some of the contributors didn't
send in their better stuff (there's no excuse for the silly, overlong
"panel" with Johnny Noxcema, G.B. Jones, etc). I've seen much better
pieces from Steve LaFreniere (check out his zine Gentlewomen of California),
Brian Bouldrey (great piece in the last Whispering Campaign), Robert
Gluck (I thought his contribution was unrecognizable, and he's one of
my favorite writers), etc. But it's fun seeing friends and acquaintances 
in print from a well-distributed publisher (Amethyst), even if the cover 
(by Nayland Blake, who continues to annoy me whenever I run across him or 
his work) is incredibly ugly (and not ugly in a good way either). So a 
very cautious recommendation, and if you know these people already,
stick to their zines.

I had a very similar reaction to the new David Wojnarowicz book, _Memories
that Smell like Gasoline_, which I just finished today. It's hard
to live up to _Close to the Knives_. _Memories_ (from Artspace) is
packaged a little like a children's book, illustrated with Wojnarowicz's 
affecting drawings. The texts are similar in flavor to the more anecdotal
pieces in _Close to the Knives_, but they don't have that breath-taking
sensation of motion and *space* that makes the earlier pieces so unforgettable.
But there are some wild dream sequences, and the texts work well with the
drawings. A little expensive at $15. 

I was told there are several more Wojnarowicz books coming out soon.
Has anyone seen them?

Bill
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