by itabix | Jun 13, 2018 | bookstores, Coming to terms with the past, Courage, Daniel D'Addario, Earthrise, eBooks, Gay literature, In Search of Lost Time, Sodom and Gomorrah, Where meaning comes from
During most of my life, there has been only one way to get a manuscript into format in which everybody can read it, and that is through the publishing industry, owned and operated by large corporations whose expertise is in making money, not literature. They do it by...
by itabix | May 30, 2018 | Alcoholism, Coming to terms with the past, Earthrise, Gay literature, inclusive gay community, language, Memory, the South
This, said to us by the man who says of himself, “Call me Ishmael:” It [the spermiceti] had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with several others, I sat down before a large Constantine’s bath of it, I found it strangely concreted into lumps, here...
by itabix | May 11, 2018 | Coming to terms with the past, Earthrise, Freeing yourself of it, Gay literature, Save the raw material, Where meaning comes from
Two weeks ago, on April 26, 2018, the Legacy Museum and Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, Alabama, funded by the Equal Justice Institute. This is the only museum and memorial in this nation dedicated to the victims of the crime of lynching. The...
by itabix | Apr 19, 2018 | Books, Earthrise, Where meaning comes from
Three images This picture was taken December 24, 1968, while three astronauts from NASA’s Apollo 8 program were circling the moon. Bill Anders took the picture, and the other two astronauts on the craft with him were Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. The picture was the...
by itabix | Sep 17, 2017 | DACA
Today, September 16, 2016, several thousand of us gathered on the Common before the Bulfinch State House and the 54th Regiment Monument (also called the Shaw Memorial), the rally under the heading Resist Deportation! The crowd gathered around the memorial, and mixed...
by itabix | Sep 14, 2017 | DACA, immigration
I left the Y, where I have been going for three days now, learning to lift weights again. I left early because the personal trainer, whom I like very much, had promised me a list of exercises that would guide me around the large gym floor. Then she didn’t send...
by itabix | Jun 19, 2017 | Uncategorized
This is an interesting moment, and the stakes are high. Most of the main-stream media have taken it upon themselves to condemn the Public Theatre’s Julius Caesar for presenting Julius Caesar as Donald Trump. (He’s assassinated.) Two very large corporations have...
by itabix | May 8, 2017 | books, Bookstores, bookstores, eBooks, Gay literature, print on demand, Publishing
Some of us have been thinking about an LGBTQ bookstore for Boston, along the lines of what I have described in “The death of our bookstore (3).” See here and here and here. If you are interested in a non-profit LGBTQ bookstore for Boston which would sell new and used...
by itabix | May 3, 2017 | books, Bookstores, bookstores, eBooks
The current crisis around LGBTQ bookstores is not a conflict between print books and digital books. Digital books are here to stay and are going to learn to coexist with print books. Consequently, a bookstore will offer a maximum number of titles of books of interest...
by itabix | Apr 28, 2017 | Bookstores, bookstores, Daniel D'Addario, eBooks, Gay literature
Most of us are complicit in the failure of bookstores. The bookstores themselves didn’t modernize. We wanted our coffee, and they didn’t serve coffee. They weren’t in the right location. The books themselves became less interesting. Shorter, less deep, less...
by itabix | Apr 22, 2017 | books, Bookstores, bookstores, Daniel D'Addario, eBooks, Gay literature
I used to say that there were three places in Boston which were at the center of gay life for me. There was, obviously, the Ramrod, the gay leather bar on outer Boylston, where numerous overlapping communities met to socialize, perhaps meet for sex, and to feel gay....
by itabix | Mar 23, 2017 | Courage, Courage, Fighting, Fighting Back, The effects of bigotry
Race Point Light is my third novel, and it is about a man finding out that, when his culture wants to destroy him, his first duty is to protect himself, and his next is to change his culture. Here is an excerpt from Race Point Light. The narrator is Fair Shaw is...
by itabix | Mar 9, 2017 | books, bookstores, Daniel D'Addario, eBooks, Freedom, Gay literature, print on demand, Publishing, Writing
Well, today is a new day, and I am here to tell you about a discovery that is going to make a difference to gay people. I was looking for a book (Henry James, Art of the Novel). I went back to Barnes & Noble and found a print-on-demand version of the book I...
by itabix | Feb 25, 2017 | Being gay, LGBTQ suicide, Marriage, Teenage Suicides, Words and their meanings
Now we learn that when our culture demonstrates it can be inclusive, then fewer teenagers try to kill themselves. That seems clear enough, and it ought to drive the whole nation into the welcoming arms of the Democratic Party. Here are the details. The scientists are...
by itabix | Feb 17, 2017 | Ceremonies, Charles Howard, Courage, Fighting Back, Uncategorized
Ceremonies is a novel based on what happened in Bangor, Maine, during the weeks after Charlie Howard was murdered on July 7, 1984. An excerpt from that novel, given below, depicts a moment after a court appearance by “the boys” who committed the murder. In the crowd...
