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Schmoozemagazine of Love’s Supreme Desire XXX, e-mail bloobird@sirius.com
J January, 1998
This is the monthly and then some newsletter of Love’s
Supreme Desire XXX, an evolving indeterminate network of disreputable origin.
Feel free to copy/distribute as long as the Tabloid is reproduced in its
entirety and not deliberately misrepresented. Entire contents copyright Blue
aka Bloobird unless authorship otherwise noted. Submissions of material always
welcome. Back issues available at http://www.eskimo.com:80/~davidk/faeries/pubs.htm.
Internet subscriptions are free. To read an essay about the spiritual experience
I had in 1995 which inspired the creation of Love’s Supreme Desire XXX, see
http://www.well.com/user/bobby/SC/bloobrd.html.
Submissions! Yahoo! Yippee! Yay! Keep ‘em coming, my friends :)
This first one is from a person I met about two years
ago when Dan and I went on a trip. Lou is making some creative steps in life,
playing with gender and exploring the writer’s path. Lou is writing a book
about the civil war and is in the process of shopping it around. Good luck!!!
My Pretty Girl---by Lou Ripley
You didn’t become a girl
when you let your hair grow long;
You didn’t become a girl
when you put on a pretty dress,
when you learned how to dance in heels;
You didn’t become a girl
when you found how to cast that glance
that sideways shy seductive glance
that doubly begs and gives
Yes, sir,
Please, sir,
Bend me over and take
me, sir,
Because as a boy you could do all this.
You became a girl
when you agreed
a pretty smile on your handsome face
a willingness in your willing smile
to go down on your
knees
to accept forty strokes
for something you didn’t do wrong.
You became a girl
when you agreed
the same pretty smile on your manly face
to have your
hands tied
as you waltzed up the stairs
in your unaccustomed three inch heels
to have your hands
bound
as you sank to the floor
and crawled on your knees to come to me.
You became a girl
truly for real
when you agreed
the same willing smile on your bearded face
to allow your hands
to be unbound
only
to better
service
me.
©1997 Lou Ripley
And now for something completely different; I love this
fun and moving fable which is an antidote to much of the schmaltzy stuff
that is written about Christmas. Dorothy is a Berkeley cyberfriend of mine
who I met on the internet mailing list of performance artist/shaman Frank
Moore. She consistently writes entertaining, richly-detailed letters that
display her colorful love for life, art, and other human beings:
BABY JESUS LOOKED AT ME! (A Fable)---by Dorothy Jesse
Beagle
On Piedmont Avenue, they say it happened one stormy, wintry
day and this was told by three little Wise Men wearing red raincoats and
yellow buckle rain boots and crowns of threaded fir: we have traveled far
to see the Baby Jesus for he will help us find the missing ingredients God
gave to the world which are, 1) if you see your brother or sister trying
to push their donkey into town so that they may buy bright toys for the younger
girls and boys, you will stop and help them with their donkey. 2) you will
make no judgments against the man who moved on the block and has purple hair
and a flat head for like the flatheads in Ozland, he carries his brains around
in a can, you must not laugh because he may turn out to be the best Angel
sent by God to help little children when they are in distress, and to help
you by seeing, when you awaken in the morning, that everything material,
your splendid mansions and your sleek car in the driveway have became cheap
glass and were after all, only things. Many might learn that the old woman
who spoke to no one, and lived down the
street all alone and lonely, was not a witch as the gossipers would tell
you, and not a burden to society because she was never seen to leave her
house to go to the mill and join the others in being those who work and
pay their taxes. They did not know that she was spinning wool at home for
all those who were cold in winter time and that she asked nothing for her
work, but that carts came every year to gather her goods for which she toiled
night and day, and carried them to keep warm, every child without a coat
in the universe. But they will only learn this if the baby Jesus is born
as it has been told me. The ability to know one another as a fellow human
has been lost, it has become a list of qualifications such as certain clothes
with labels you can recognize, proper cars and the home, if not paid for,
that you ostensibly own. There is a sameness to the people. If they are different,
it is confusing. So when the Mary and Joseph came looking for a place to
stay, it was expected they would be quite ordinary, or at least, to look
like a mother and a father should look. Joseph and Mary did not look like
someone who belonged in the neighborhood, something about the way they laughed
too much, or the long robes they wore which seemed, to others, peculiar,
so they could not rent a place even for the night, and they were expecting
the birth of a child.
And thus, in an empty garage, cold and without light,
a child was born, they called him Jesus. A little girl from the neighborhood
wearing long thick braids, old fashioned in that way and wise from listening
to her parents and knowing that anything too unusual was probably something
to complain to the government about, came and because she had not been taught
that to stare at people through their windows was being a peeping
Tom, or at least, having no manners, this pretty child with her hands on
her hips staring through the
small window of the garage, saying: My goodness, what is wrong with these
people, their furniture seems to be sawhorses and doors made into tables,
and bricks and boards that hold candles and bowls with fruit and
flowers, well, that’s about what I expected of Jesus because I had heard
from others he would be just a hippy
with long hair and someone who let just ANYBODY into his family. I mean ANYBODY.
The three wise men appeared suddenly and tapped the child on the shoulder.
Do you not see the bright star which has brought us to hail the birth of
the baby Jesus? Why do you stand, imperious, with your hands on your hips
talking of that which looks strange to you and therefore seems something
you should be reporting to your government as someone who does not belong
on your street, why instead, are you not kneeling for the joy of the coming
of PEACE, for the King of Peace, for the teachings of friendship and to show
you how the materials you idolize, you worship, become dust at the touch
of a hand. And only the jewels of understanding and communication and
love will last you, little child, for your entire life, and all of the Christmas
toys under the tree, will not be as valuable as these gifts you will carry
with you in a little velvet bag for all your life, the gift of understanding
and giving and love which will be your only true friends. The little girl
with her hands on her hips looked in
amazement at the three Wise Men and said, “but my Mama and my Daddy told
me that if you do not look just like us, and you have not proved that you
have a big bank account and are paying your taxes, and if you look too carefree
and not worried a lot, like us, there is something wrong with you and you
do not belong. Jesus does not belong on this block!”
The Wise Men were aghast, they took her into the garage
with them and then a sudden light was shown, the baby then was seen by the
little girl to be more than all right, not only healthy, but radiantly beautiful,
and though the Mother and the Father had pretty long hair and wore strange
robes, they were obviously devoted parents for any parent who is adoring
their tiny baby is doing the right thing, the little girl thought to herself,
for she had a baby sister. The three Wise Men placed beside the baby many
gifts that puzzled the small child. “How will the baby play with those,
you don’t know much about babies,” she said. They smiled gently. These are
gifts for his life’s journey: A package of humility, an indignation to be
used against those who will be unjust and who will judge others harshly,
enough love to love equally the bad and the good. The little girl said suspiciously,
LOVE THE BAD! That’s not right. The Wise Men said, that’s exactly right.
It’s easy to love the good, but Jesus will love the bad and perhaps, even
a little bit more sometimes. The little girl thought it sounded strange but
then she saw something which changed her mind. The baby was looking at HER;
she felt the beautiful eyes staring at her and turned around to see a little
hand reached out to her and he took hold of her
little finger firmly as she reached her hand to touch his.
The baby Jesus looked at her and suddenly it was easy
to love everyone and she didn’t need to put her hands on her hips anymore
(she saw her mother do that so many times so it seemed right) and she could
just be like she always wanted to be, free to love the people, the animals,
the trees, her street, the school, her classmates, and she wondered what
it was that was missing and she asked the three Wise Men. They said, what’s
missing is the weight of jealousy, and the fear of yourself in you own self,
you are free. To just follow your heart. The small child did exactly that,
and went running in a happy skip hop and jump, down the street, singing and
not feeling anymore like she wanted to look in people’s windows to see whether
or not their houses were neat or whether the children had washed their faces
and whether the furniture looked threadbare. Instead, she waved and smiled
at everyone she saw and said, “Baby Jesus looked at me!”
© 1996 Dorothy Jesse Beagle
And next a piece by my friend Trace (pronounced Tracy),
who used to live in San Francisco and was around for the very first days
of the Love’s Supreme Desire XXX creative collective experiment. First, a
recent letter:
“As always, it was enlightening and encouraging to receive
your thoughts in my box, though I moped a wee scoge to think how close to
Eugene you must have passed on the Portland expedition. My existence here
has been a testimony to the preeminence of Chaos. Living in Tweekville Apartments,
I have had in sum a heart attack, 911 call, domestic violence, indecent lavatory
come-on turned race riot, and a strange phone bill, all precipitate from
my quarters within the last two weeks. If it weren’t for the hippie-ish underground
tone to the surrounding hood, I would think that I was totally living in
white trash shantyville. Too many white powders, and the damage done. It
is running on time for me to hop a bus to wage-slavery to an institution
that is unaligned with my true Will right now, but some sacred herb meditations
before I go in should transform my perspective & I’ll make light of this
all yet byjimminy! Keep on loving and living, damnit, and that’s all you
can do. Your ever faithful fey loving kumrad co-conspirator (& sleek
buff super-stud, ahem), Trace”
Assessing the Year in Growth---by Trace
It could never be understated how influential and, well, to filch a vox populi,
fabulous & inspiring the Vision was to the whole process. And the Experiment
couldn’t have been any more accurate, given the accompanying quanta of variables.
Probabilities are Legion, and this is the New Phase. When it is sought, all
cognizable essence is chased away into crevices quicker than thought and
is engulfed in the radiant lucifer of analyses. What we have, laid bare,
is The Orgia, wherein we participate with our senses in the arbiting of The
Reifying Function which, as a dis-ease of Consciousness, is also its salve.
Love, unchecked, will mow down everybody on the tracks. Civilizations perish
for lack of nexus to the infrastructure running through, more novel than
their
states of the art, and more perfected or polished than any of its traditions.
Apocalypse cultures arise like the delirium of mind from the hypertension
of the Small Man, homuncular microbeing of the circle of stars from which
his ashen body condensed. Hurling forth the swirling energy from his brow,
generating a Wheel, emanating Light and igniting Its passion for joining
with every point of matter about- it has come time in the day where he sits
ruminant in his mind & touches base with the source of all these experiences
& inert calls for Its shaft of Spirit & Its Wings to adorn his perfumed
& worthi-fied Self, that he may flirt with It and “come out to play”
like a fiendish season in reemergence or a queer beast in stealthy stalk.
He is a being of atoms and of waves, imperceptible to him, that want to have
a destiny above every odd muddle of the cosmos, and this is the spring of
his angst from which his strife surfaces to a cooling in a clear day, set
for a walk and healthy, wealthy and wise about the whole affair. This seems
to work, as the blind moribund force closes in and
leads him ever to fall, shaking all but his Will to rise again and again
like a sort of hydra yo-yo, for the most part here simply to live and share
his sex soul body and works to the fragmented union of himself
in the quotidian mummery of his life
© 1997 Trace
Biographical information:
“Lou is a teacher and a writer whose heart resides by the San Francisco ocean,
a lover of high heels and beards, hoop skirts and riding crops, who understands
all too well what it means to be a girl.”
“Dorothy Jesse Beagle - songwriter performer, featured and published poet,
S.F. Bay Area for over 30 yrs. Author of two musicals (book/lyrics/music):
“TIMBER!,” a first place winner in American Musical Festival Competition
1986. Current Musical Drama, “Frederick and Anna” (a young Frederick Douglass
before escape from slavery).” This biographical information was quoted from
1998 Winter issue - Academic Journal DISCOURSE - Special issue on the BEAT
POETS, which includes Beagle poem “Don't Bitch No More, Kerouac” performed
for RE-BEAT, a Beat Renaissance in Bay Area 1996, at SOMAR, SF. Dorothy is
a regular contributor to “Cherotic (r)Evolutionary,” ‘zine of performance
artist Frank Moore (do web search).
“Trace is variously known as Frater Gog McGog, Captain Trips, Village Trollop,
Don Quixote the Queerer, Samuel Tracy Garvin, Jr., 466-39-2531, 666, Neal
Cassady, Chuang-tzu Mama II, and Eppie, was pulled bloody from the gash of
the Parturitive Mother, who later as the Vengeful Goddess made him take to
the merciless path of coming out alone, shaped him to be the rugged individualist
who would cause his contemporaries to look upon his half-demented exploits
in the pararational Experiment with a sort of taken aback awe that could
only be verbalized as “Uh... guess he’s alright!” Who exceeded the best minds
of his generation with an untremoring proclivity for dragging the lowest
depths and untarnished, surfacing with the rarest jewels of poetry and inspiration,
wiping the fresh cum of the titans from his chin. Who, leaving his safe slave
haven in Ole Stars & Bars Southern Comfort, with much longhorn to screw
to find sapiential liberation in his travels, garnerings of literati, radical
faeries, Crowleyana, freakdom, and general po’ boy blisses.
Trace is a single, healthy, self-sufficient, bi male residing in Eugene,
Oregon (541) 485-7898, whose preferences are Middle Eastern men with hairy
groins, firm-assed skaterpunks with dirty mouths (no neo-Nazis!), or country
boys who like to work in the hay (again, not the racially-prejudiced variety
rednecks, please) for dancing to Eurythmics, nights out on the town, in the
woods, or not-so-quiet-evenings at home, cooking in any room of the house
we hit it off in, reading Finnegan’s Wake in thick shitfaced Irish brogue,
and moshing at City Council meetings.”
Portland down to San Francisco along highway 101---by Blue
Everything’s good with me, after a brief unsatisfactory,
stressful, chaotic stint at the new job that I mentioned in the last LSD
Tabloid. I won’t bore you with the details but I may write about it in some
form at a later date. All I can say for now is that I have made a course
correction, quit the job and returned to my stated goal of writing and making
jewelry. Dan and I have also been talking about making movies. I just don’t
seem to be able to do anything but write, daydream and travel, following
my spiritual path. I’ll just trust that the universe will provide, as it
always does, and jump off into the void once again. So now this is my job!
I still haven’t written about the road trip down along
the coast from Portland to San Francisco. First we drove from Portland all
the way up to the northwest point of Oregon and saw a little town there called
Astoria. Nice town! Good restaurant there called the Columbian Cafe, 1114
& 1120 Marine dr. Colorful, small place with funky decor like plastic
two-headed godzilla villain figure on the counter, probably purchased across
the street at a teeny thrift store called The Last Garage Sale. The food
inexpensive and good, especially the jambalaya and cornbread. I know some
of you out there will roll your eyes and/or throw up when I say this, but
the vibe in the place was so nice and friendly that at one point two employees,
one other customer and myself were singing aloud to “strawberry fields forever”
playing on the radio.
The Last Garage Sale was a fun store. It was narrow and
long and full of kitschy stuff, but at garage sale prices. The lady in the
back, squat, New York no-nonsense, said she and her husband owned expensive
antique stores but that cheap trashy kitsch was much more fun. Of course,
I agreed profusely. I bought a pink poodle crocheted bottle cover like your
grandma made, a scary blue plastic zombie bunny and a ceramic Tiki mug.
Farther on down the coast we enjoyed dinner at a blue
collar sports bar/restaurant called Bonnie & Paul Sandbar & Grill
(NW Beach dr.) in Newport, Oregon, a town with apparent class tensions. Happy
smartass employees, two TVs, one with tennis, one with football, huge chimichangas
for not much money. A well-to do couple walked in, took one look around,
then walked right back out. After that we watched the sunset, then tried
to find an uncivilized stretch of land upon which to crash for the night.
Pulled over in the dark, stumbled off the road and then slept on a sand dune
directly beneath the bright band of the Milky Way, the moon an orange fingernail.
Dreamt about working at an ad agency and hating it. Kept rolling down the
side of the dune. Strolled up the beach in the drizzly dawn upsetting small
insect/shrimp creatures who dove into tiny holes in the sand.
We ate breakfast at a place called Pacific Sands Hometel.
The breakfast was huge but only cost $1.99. How do they do that? Sturdy regulars,
real all-American types. Desert and I were happily the freaks once again.
Photo on the wall of dark forest with light streaming through. Words along
the bottom said, “It makes all the difference whether one sees darkness through
the light or brightness through the shadows.” Decor from garage sales and
the closure of old folks’ homes included an owl fabric painting with sea
shell eyes. Books on a shelf there were the lightweight trashy kind that
people bring on holiday then abandon. Cosmic jokes on me at breakfast: talking
animatedly on coffee while holding my fork, a greasy bit of hash brown goes
sailing into my cup, leaving rainbow swirls. Next moment I look down at my
sleeve and see a big bugger stuck there.
Drove on to Oceanside, trying to find the old home of
a faerie we met in Portland by the name of Raspberry. He used to live in
a trailer on the beach which he had painted with nature murals. He didn’t
have any heat and there were mushrooms growing in the corner of the room
but he liked it. We didn’t find the trailer, which had apparently been swept
aside by the forces of gentrification. Tillamook, near Oceanside, is a dairy
town. They are famous for the cheese and the Tillamook Dairy High School.
Tillamook smells like cow shit.
Passed a lone smokestack dark with age and carbon. An
opening partway up had a small tree growing out toward the sun. A few hitchhikers
along the way: one was too puffy-red-faced for us, another looked not very
interesting, wore shades and close-cropped hair like a million other teenagers.
We did pass a hitchhiker that looked like fun, but he and his walking companion
had too much gear. He was wearing a sign that said, “will tell stories for
food.” Appropriately, when we passed him he was chattering away, moving his
hands to the story.
Met two nice young guys on the beach one day. As I’ve
said before, one of the best things about travelling with Desert is that
he is friendly and outgoing, quick to tell jokes and be chummy with strangers,
while I am by nature a little shy and reserved in this way. The guys were
drumming on the beach. I can’t remember where, but it was north of Port Orford.
One guy had close-cropped hair and a blue and green tie-dyed t-shirt, the
other one with curly brown hair, goatee, white t-shirt. Driftwood and crab
shells all around, electric blue morning sky overhead. Leaning against bleached
white tree carcasses, me writing. Picked up two sticks with which to make
beaded magic wands as well as the jagged neck of a broken beer bottle. “Do
you write a lot?” one asks. “Yeah,” I say. “Me too,” he says, “it helps me
form my thoughts and words better instead of just spitting them out.” I agree,
adding, “It helps me to observe and listen.” They let us play on their drums,
smoke one of their cigarettes and take a sip from their grape juice. We talked
about Missouri people who fear eternal damnation and similar ones back in
Ohio, and about dangerous driving in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Port Orford has a beautiful bay with large rocks offshore.
We went down to the shore and I pissed in a rock inlet. On top of Battle
Rock there’s a small concrete slab. At first I thought it was for plumbing
but then I realized it was a grave stone: “Ralph E. Summers, 1815-1909. Battle
Rock defender 1851. Also, Betsy (wife) 1839-1904 and Ralph Jr., (son) 1867-1892.”
The view from Battle Rock is spectacular. I guess that why they had to defend
it. “Ocean water is jade, surface sparkles in the sun like a sequined evening
gown. Two or three whales surface occasionally and blow water into the air
above them. First time I’ve ever seen whales out in the ocean. It’s dramatic
and very windy here. A storm off the coast would be fantastic. Just saw a
pelican. I used to see pelicans all the time down in Florida when I was a
kid. Pelicans dive down into the ocean from the sky and catch fish in their
long bills. For a moment all of their focus is on the fish and they just
fall right into their prey like a missile. I could sit here all day watching
the whales, seagulls and pelicans.”
“Prehistoric Gardens in Oregon’s Rain Forest:” two dinosaurs
beside the highway north of Gold Beach. How many fiberglass dinosaurs roam
the Earth? Speaking of fiberglass, “Trees of Mystery” in Klamath, CA has
a big-ass fiberglass Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Beautiful stretch
of redwood forest high above the ocean.
Lots of cedar knick-knacks for sale alongside the road,
some quite nice; like one full-size sculpture of a majestic buck. Slept alongside
the Avenue of the Giants one night, at the foot of a huge redwood tree in
a gully soft with pine needles. The temperature was perfect; warm enough
to be naked inside my sleeping bag and cold enough so that I didn’t sweat.
Desert played the bongos and I played my flute for a little while. I dreamt
about a sequel to “Star Wars,” with huge spaceships drifting precariously
close to one another. Also had a strange dream about my parents having to
shit in bowls full of water because the plumbing was broken.
Next morning we took a hike into the woods and found some
burned-out redwoods that had hollows inside big enough to stand or lay down
and stretch out. Seemed like amazing places to either meditate or seek shelter
from the storm. Some tourist fools decided to shit in or throw trash into
them instead. Littering is one of the most ignorant things a person can do.
Have you ever walked behind some fool who just throws wrappings onto the
street as if the world were a big garbage can? God, that irritates me almost
more than anything, I swear.
Could’ve driven directly through a hole cut into one of
the redwoods but it cost $1.50 and we were feeling cheap. Passed a campground
called Hidden Springs and wondered if there were really hidden natural springs
or if somebody just threw rusty old bedsprings out there under the trees
where you couldn’t find them.
Just north of Guerneville, we found “The Chimney Tree,”
which was a burned-out hollow tree 78’ tall and 50’4” in circumference with
a little red door. Right near here was a trippy thing called The Hobbit Trail,
which is a path through the woods punctuated by scenes from The Hobbit by
JRR Tolkien carved from cedar. Desert and I snuck in the back way because
these two cool dykes had just done the same thing and they turned us on to
how to sneak in for free. It was before opening time and we didn’t have much
money and sure wanted to check out the Hobbit Trail. Each scene had a little
speaker and if you pushed the button, out would come the story about each
scene. Being good boys, we kept getting freaked out by how loud the speakers
were and, not wanting to get caught, hurried through like thieves. The best
scene was the one with the giant spider.
In Guerneville, which seems like a cute and friendly small
town, there was a good place for breakfast called Eel River Cafe, corner
of Maple and Redwood. We of course selected this restaurant because it has
a fabulous forties-style neon sign out front that features a stereotypical
fat and jolly french chef complete with chef’s hat and twisty mustache, flipping
pancakes. Decor inside is updated but fun and full of personality. Whoever
owns the place has a thing for cow knick-knacks. You know how some people
like animal-themed knick-knacks? Dan and I like cats; others like owls, pigs,
roosters. This place liked cows and they were everywhere. Our waitress was
totally cool, my favorite kind of character: the self-assured, wisecracking
career waitress; in her sixties probably. Nice, funny, but no-bullshit; everybody
in the place seemed to know and like her.
I’m hoping to see the coolest, scariest waitress I have
ever seen when Dan and I go with our friends Jim and Lars back down to Las
Vegas this weekend. She was working at this grungy little diner in one of
the oldest casinos downtown, a place still popular with the (elderly, desperate,
chainsmoking) locals, called El Cortez. This waitress looked like Bette Davis
in “Whatever happened to Baby Jane?” She was big, tall, sixties, with too
much white base on her face and too much red rouge, too much pitch-black
dye in her hair, wearing a dreadful forest green polyester waitress uniform.
She looked so sad and tired. What was her story? What were her dreams? I
sat at the counter wishing I had noticed her earlier so she could’ve been
my waitress.
We passed a young man and woman walking north against
the traffic. The man had a wooden cross strapped onto his back. He flashed
us the peace sign so we flashed it back at him. Also passed four scruffy
long-haired guys sitting beside the road smoking and talking. With them they
had a full shopping cart with an American flag on a pole in front and a bicycle
with a paper-mache coffin built around it. Probably protesters defending
the Headwaters forest. I think I’ve said this before, but isn’t it weird
that hippies smoke so many cigarettes?
“South of Kibesilla Gulch is a beach with lots of access.
Tents on the beach and people wandering around, signs of old campfires and
lots of empty beer bottles. About thirty feet offshore there is a solitary
rock. A seagull has been sitting on it for the longest time, digging the
scene. Off to my right there’s a group of very serious-looking grey seagulls,
itching themselves and milling about in a stately fashion. Ravens are bow-legged
and look silly when they walk.” Birds generally look silly when they walk
on those tiny legs, bobbing their heads. “There are a few yurts here made
of driftwood. Some of the big rocks have arches and small caves in them.
One of the biggest caves has shit and toilet paper inside. All along the
beach there is toilet paper, plastic cups, broken glass. If someone comes
to a place of beauty, they should leave it that way. I don’t want to look
at someone’s trash or smell their shit inside caves. People who litter should
be made to live in a landfill.”
“Passed a blissed-out woman in her early forties and her
male partner selling beadwork and pipes along the side of the road. Big blue
eyes, long blondish hair. Nice necklaces, wrapped quartz crystals and marbles.
She used to live in Southern California and misses the mexican food as they
cook it there. ‘The farther north you go the more bland it gets.’ We should
have visited Arcata. She said it was a hippy town and they just elected an
all Green city council. We stopped in conservative Eureka instead (having
gotten the two cities confused) and ended up eating bland chinese food in
a very pink restaurant. At dinner, Desert told me that the same actress is
in one commercial for tampons and another for yeast infections: “I know way
too much about her vagina.”
Call for entries:
In Fall 1998, Cleis Press will publish the inaugural issue of “Proof
of things Queer,” an annual publication edited by Justin Chin. The editor
is seeking thoughtful, incisive, innovative, well-crafted non-fiction, essays,
journalism, personal essays, memoirs, manifestoes, critical writing, cultural
and political criticism, literary criticism, and “new genre” essays. Put
a queer spin on current events or put a new spin on current queer events,
issues and phenomena. Previously published work and reprints are acceptable,
but please inform. Also, if you’ve read a particularly cracking non-fiction
piece in a magazine, ‘zine, journal or online, do pass it on and recommend
it to the editor for consideration. Deadline: June 1, 1998. Send to: Justin
Chin, 250-B Guerreo st., SF, CA 94103. E-mail: sloth3@slip.net. Please include
a brief bio, a self-addressed stamped, envelope with suitable postage to
return the manuscript. If your work is accepted for publication, you will
be required to provide the text on a 3.5” disk. PLEASE DO NOT SEND SUBMISSIONS
BY EMAIL