Two months ago, I bought a necklace with a black metal pendant cut in the image of Hunter S. Thompson.  Ever since then, his spirit has been following me around, reminding me to “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”  More even, than his words on the paper,/… Read full post »

            The minute I heard that Andras Jones had his book Accidental Initiations published, I was magnetized and couldn’t resist the pull.  It arrived in the mail, and I dropped what I was reading to dive right in.  It is strange and kind of wond/… Read full post »

In E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel Ragtime we are taken into the vulnerabilities and motivations behind such historical figures as Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, and Emma Goldman.  We are witness to the making of revolutionaries and criminals.  War is on the horizon – the gr/… Read full post »

            Imagine you are living in a universe where everything is pink, every girl is a princess, and men are vague figures on the periphery, only appearing when a girl needs saving.  This to me sounds like a nightmare, and yet little girls are taught that t/… Read full post »

    In Alix Kates Shulman’s 1972 novel, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, Sasha fights against the traps of being a woman.  As a child, the boy’s are pure enemies.  She is attacked, held down and pantsed so the boys can stare at her vagina/… Read full post »

            I once had a friend who was a famous child star.  I will protect her identity out of respect and call her Amy.  We both worked at a restaurant, and every now and then, super fans would appear to gush and beg her to sign an/… Read full post »

            In my junior year of college, I had the opportunity to tour Western Europe in a student group.  We traveled through Rome, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Normandy, Paris, and London for three weeks, and I chose to extend my stay for two/… Read full post »

Growing up, I never really talked to any boys until I slept with one.  And by that time, they were no longer really boys - especially since I was twenty-one and I gravitated to older men.

            In my senior year of college, there was/… Read full post »

            In Gustave Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, set in 19th Century France, Frederic is obsessed with Madame Arnoux, the wife of his friend.  It takes him years to gain her confidence and she eventually grows to love him too, but refuses to give/… Read full post »

A picture was posted on Facebook, “Twins in the Womb – Hey Brother!  Do you think there is life after birth?  Do you believe in Mom? – Nah!  I’m an/… Read full post »

               The first thing I noticed when I picked up my used copy of Platform by Michel Houellebecq, were the bits of jizz on the edges, making the pages stick together.  Not surprising, given the amount of orgy scenes. 

Houellebecq’s… Read full post »

            For the first time in twelve years, I am sober now for the last five months.  I am happier and more productive than I have ever been. … Read full post »

   It’s always strange when the topic of one book I read leads right into the next.  Jeanette Winterson’s novel, Sexing the Cherry surprised me in many ways.  To begin with, I never got around to reading the back cover, so on the basis of the title I expected an/… Read full post »

      After my sister was born, my mom was told she couldn’t have any more kids.  Six years later, I was her miracle.  She always told me I wouldn’t/… Read full post »

          I have read about Norman Mailer’s exploits for years in magazines and books. He is remembered as the womanizer, the misogynist, the disturber of the peace, the brilliant man.  He was hated and loved simultaneously.  He stabbed one/… Read full post »

 I have just finished reading The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe and my mind is spinning with the insanity of the Modern Art world.  I’ve always loved Modern Art, but suspected that something was flawed with the movements heaped upon movem/… Read full post »

            Remember the nineties when rape and sexual harassment were everywhere?  There were all those televised court cases such as Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill.  In Modern Novel class in college, every book we read had a rape scene in the first chapt/… Read full post »

For a while, last summer, I made a good attempt at going to book readings at Elliott Bay Book Company.  I like to study what authors do in their readings, how they present themselves, what sorts of people show up besides the two old ladies who sit up/… Read full post »

            In my evolution of what I like to call “Gypsy Jobs” my latest addition is working as a model for the art school up the hill.  I have always had a fascination with Bohemian Paris, artists and their muses, Kiki de Montparnass/… Read full post »

            Last night I was driven to finish Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids, before going out to see Annie Clark aka St. Vincent play at the Neptune.  The book’s ending left me sad and stoic, barely able to look forward to the show.  But I was/… Read full post »

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong, offers up magic wit and words that roll effortlessly off the tongue.  Published in 1973, Jong was lucky that her book hit the market right when female writers were finally free to express what they really thought and felt.  Readers were either horrified or affi/… Read full post »

After living in Paris for ten years, Henry Miller begrudgingly returned to New York at the cusp of World War II.  He was back in the country that had rejected him as an artist, surrounded by the sordid details of his past.  He thought maybe by experiencing it cross-country, the American/… Read full post »

            In Simone de Beauvoir’s book, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, she parallels her adolescence with that of her best friend Zaza,/… Read full post »

For the last two weeks my partner and I have been in Spain consuming tapas and gin.  We learned the art of fanning yourself spastically in the heat, dodged a million Catholic teenagers in town to see the… Read full post »

In the history of feminism, censorship has been the main means in keeping women uninformed, unarmed with information, and child-like in a patriarchal society.

            Margaret Sanger grew tired of watching women die from constant childbirth/… Read full post »