Philip Roth’s The Breast

I stole this off Aimee’s shelf while I was cleaning her room this weekend. A favorite line: “After all…who is the greater artist, he who imagines the marvelous transformation, or he who marvelously transforms himself?” I often think something similar when I fantasize about my favorite superheroes…would I rather write their lives and stories, or Read More …

When Pasties Bookend Your Weekend

Thursday night Greg and I went to see Margaret Cho in her Sensuous Womanvariety show. It was wonderfully raunchy and has deepened my fascination of the burlesque. Lots of nudity and pasties and subversive behavior (the rap “I’m not a homo-sexual, I’m a sexual homo” will stick in your head all night). Loved Dirty Martini’s America Read More …

Matt Donovan’s Vellum

I picked up this book after reading the first poem (which is rare for me, to have something leap out in such a way) and after noticing a nice list of “notes” at the back (nothing like a well-researched book of poems in conversation with other sources to whet my appetite), and finished it in Read More …

Margaret Garner

I saw the new opera Margaret Garner last night at New York City Opera, popping my opera cherry here in New York (long overdue given how long I’ve lived here). The opera’s libretto was written by Toni Morrison and the music was composed by Richard Danielpour. Morrison based her famous novelBeloved on the historical events concerning Read More …

Derek Walcott’s The Prodigal

I was disappointed in this “last” book (did I read somewhere that he claimed this would be his last poetry collection?) if anything for its self-indulgence. Just when I couldn’t handle another scene of light likened to some painter, he parenthetically breaks in and makes fun of himself for his knack for making such a Read More …