A Brief Wednesday Book Review

Excellent collection of short pieces by different Native American authors and selected artists telling Trickster stories. My favorite was the first story in which Mother Earth tells the different animals to create their own portraits in the sky using shiny pebbles and how Coyote in an effort to have the best self-portrait messes up all the portraits. Also loved the story of how rabbit tricks two bison into a tug-of-war and then tricks them again into letting him drink from their waterhole afterwards. Liked some of the artists and storytellers better than some of the others, but overall very enjoyable.

So instead of quoting the writing, here are a couple of images from the first story (the one I mention above) called "Coyote and the Pebbles," story by Dayton Edmonds, art by Micah Farritor.

Happy Hump Day

Watch the full video at Dudetubeonline

Beau: Andruw Barnes

See another shot at Sozo's Blog

The Garden

Kyle, you showed me yours, so I thought I'd show you mine.


Definitely not as neat as yours, mind you.

The view of the garden from the sidewalk and cone flowers.


Next year I hope to plant some vegetables.

Mint planted by the sidewalk and shasta daisies.


The building manager has yet again this year planted tomatoes. They're all shagging like a lion's mane. He's also planted potatoes, which I don't know how they'll turn out given that the dirt is really shallow.

Only one of three lavenders planted last year came back, and the hydrangea.


My enemy once again this year is a Morning Glory vine that I've allowed to take over part of the garden. It's pretty, but it very easily overwhelms all the other plants.


The hydrangea blooms on the same plant came in a spectrum from pink to blue with all kinds of purple in between, and lilies of the valley transplanted from the other side of the drive.


I can't remember this plants name but it is meant to attract butterflies and bees (which I haven't seen many bees this year), and more mint planted at the corner of the building.


Another plant meant to attract butterflies and bees. The plant is a bushy, 6 feet tall this year, and some of the lillies we planted from pots that were kept at the back of the garden.


I think this is some sort of rose, and the morning glory covering the back quarter of the garden.


Flowering mint.

Good Morning Beau

Via Always Gay Always

Watch the preview here

Good night Beau

Via Boy Oh Boi

Lady Gaga as Lady Guyguy

Via Towleroad

Damn! I'd hit on him.

Daily Dose of Cyute!

Via I Can Has Cheezburger

Tuesday Books

If any of my adoring public has ever wanted to send me a gift, besides a mouth-shaped Fleshjack (the ice-white kind that I think are called Icejacks), this would be it. This beautiful book has some of the most beautiful images of book covers I've ever seen. I'll have to see if I can find any of the images online for a later post.

The green waves break from my sides
As I roll up, forced by my season
~Hugh Cook, "The Kraken Wakes"

A dream is not a very safe thing to be near, Bayard. I know;
I had one once. It's like a loaded pistol with a hair trigger: if
it stays alive long enough, somebody is going to be hurt. But
if it's a good dream, it's worth it.
~William Faulkner, "An Odor of Verbena"

He had no especial desire to meet or to know any of
these people; all he demanded was the right to look on
and conjecture, to watch the pageant...He was now
entirely rid of his nervous misgivings, of his forced
aggressiveness, of the imperative desire to show himself
different from his surroundings. He felt now that his
surroundings explained him. Nobody questioned the
purple; he had only to wear it passively. He had only to
glance down at his attire to reassure himself that here it
would be impossible for anyone to humiliate him.
~Will Cather, "Paul's Case," 1905

Through the infinite reaches of space, the problems of Man seem trivial and naïve indeed.
~Dr. Minton

I hate all Earthlings.
~James Dean

Beau: Zack Rosen

Go to OMG Blog to learn how to get Zack Rosen completely naked!

Saturday Was Pride, Sunday Was Anniversary

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

Via Joe.My.God.

HOMO NEST RAIDED - QUEEN BEES ARE STINGING MAD

-by Jerry Lisker, New York Daily News, July 6th 1969

She sat there with her legs crossed, the lashes of her mascara-coated eyes beating like the wings of a hummingbird. She was angry. She was so upset she hadn't bothered to shave. A day old stubble was beginning to push through the pancake makeup. She was a he. A queen of Christopher Street.

Last weekend the queens had turned commandos and stood bra strap to bra strap against an invasion of the helmeted Tactical Patrol Force. The elite police squad had shut down one of their private gay clubs, the Stonewall Inn at 57 Christopher St., in the heart of a three-block homosexual community in Greenwich Village. Queen Power reared its bleached blonde head in revolt. New York City experienced its first homosexual riot. "We may have lost the battle, sweets, but the war is far from over," lisped an unofficial lady-in-waiting from the court of the Queens.

"We've had all we can take from the Gestapo," the spokesman, or spokeswoman, continued. "We're putting our foot down once and for all." The foot wore a spiked heel. According to reports, the Stonewall Inn, a two-story structure with a sand painted brick and opaque glass facade, was a mecca for the homosexual element in the village who wanted nothing but a private little place where they could congregate, drink, dance and do whatever little girls do when they get together.

The thick glass shut out the outside world of the street. Inside, the Stonewall bathed in wild, bright psychedelic lights, while the patrons writhed to the sounds of a juke box on a square dance floor surrounded by booths and tables. The bar did a good business and the waiters, or waitresses, were always kept busy, as they snaked their way around the dancing customers to the booths and tables. For nearly two years, peace and tranquility reigned supreme for the Alice in Wonderland clientele.

The Raid Last Friday

Last Friday the privacy of the Stonewall was invaded by police from the First Division. It was a raid. They had a warrant. After two years, police said they had been informed that liquor was being served on the premises. Since the Stonewall was without a license, the place was being closed. It was the law.

All hell broke loose when the police entered the Stonewall. The girls instinctively reached for each other. Others stood frozen, locked in an embrace of fear.

Only a handful of police were on hand for the initial landing in the homosexual beachhead. They ushered the patrons out onto Christopher Street, just off Sheridan Square. A crowd had formed in front of the Stonewall and the customers were greeted with cheers of encouragement from the gallery.

The whole proceeding took on the aura of a homosexual Academy Awards Night. The Queens pranced out to the street blowing kisses and waving to the crowd. A beauty of a specimen named Stella wailed uncontrollably while being led to the sidewalk in front of the Stonewall by a cop. She later confessed that she didn't protest the manhandling by the officer, it was just that her hair was in curlers and she was afraid her new beau might be in the crowd and spot her. She didn't want him to see her this way, she wept.

Queen Power

The crowd began to get out of hand, eye witnesses said. Then, without warning, Queen Power exploded with all the fury of a gay atomic bomb. Queens, princesses and ladies-in-waiting began hurling anything they could get their polished, manicured fingernails on. Bobby pins, compacts, curlers, lipstick tubes and other femme fatale missiles were flying in the direction of the cops. The war was on. The lilies of the valley had become carnivorous jungle plants.

Urged on by cries of "C'mon girls, lets go get'em," the defenders of Stonewall launched an attack. The cops called for assistance. To the rescue came the Tactical Patrol Force.

Flushed with the excitement of battle, a fellow called Gloria pranced around like Wonder Woman, while several Florence Nightingales administered first aid to the fallen warriors. There were some assorted scratches and bruises, but nothing serious was suffered by the honeys turned Madwoman of Chaillot.

Official reports listed four injured policemen with 13 arrests. The War of the Roses lasted about 2 hours from about midnight to 2 a.m. There was a return bout Wednesday night.

Two veterans recently recalled the battle and issued a warning to the cops. "If they close up all the gay joints in this area, there is going to be all out war."

Bruce and Nan

Both said they were refugees from Indiana and had come to New York where they could live together happily ever after. They were in their early 20's. They preferred to be called by their married names, Bruce and Nan.

"I don't like your paper," Nan lisped matter-of-factly. "It's anti-fag and pro-cop."

"I'll bet you didn't see what they did to the Stonewall. Did the pigs tell you that they smashed everything in sight? Did you ask them why they stole money out of the cash register and then smashed it with a sledge hammer? Did you ask them why it took them two years to discover that the Stonewall didn't have a liquor license."

Bruce nodded in agreement and reached over for Nan's trembling hands.

"Calm down, doll," he said. "Your face is getting all flushed."

Nan wiped her face with a tissue.

"This would have to happen right before the wedding. The reception was going to be held at the Stonewall, too," Nan said, tossing her ashen-tinted hair over her shoulder.
"What wedding?," the bystander asked.

Nan frowned with a how-could-anybody-be-so-stupid look. "Eric and Jack's wedding, of course. They're finally tying the knot. I thought they'd never get together."

Meet Shirley

"We'll have to find another place, that's all there is to it," Bruce sighed. "But every time we start a place, the cops break it up sooner or later."

"They let us operate just as long as the payoff is regular," Nan said bitterly. "I believe they closed up the Stonewall because there was some trouble with the payoff to the cops. I think that's the real reason. It's a shame. It was such a lovely place. We never bothered anybody. Why couldn't they leave us alone?"

Shirley Evans, a neighbor with two children, agrees that the Stonewall was not a rowdy place and the persons who frequented the club were never troublesome. She lives at 45 Christopher St.

"Up until the night of the police raid there was never any trouble there," she said. "The homosexuals minded their own business and never bothered a soul. There were never any fights or hollering, or anything like that. They just wanted to be left alone. I don't know what they did inside, but that's their business. I was never in there myself. It was just awful when the police came. It was like a swarm of hornets attacking a bunch of butterflies."

A reporter visited the now closed Stonewall and it indeed looked like a cyclone had struck the premises.

Police said there were over 200 people in the Stonewall when they entered with a warrant. The crowd outside was estimated at 500 to 1,000. According to police, the Stonewall had been under observation for some time. Being a private club, plain clothesmen were refused entrance to the inside when they periodically tried to check the place. "They had the tightest security in the Village," a First Division officer said, "We could never get near the place without a warrant."

Police Talk

The men of the First Division were unable to find any humor in the situation, despite the comical overtones of the raid.

"They were throwing more than lace hankies," one inspector said. "I was almost decapitated by a slab of thick glass. It was thrown like a discus and just missed my throat by inches. The beer can didn't miss, though, "it hit me right above the temple."

Police also believe the club was operated by Mafia connected owners. The police did confiscate the Stonewall's cash register as proceeds from an illegal operation. The receipts were counted and are on file at the division headquarters. The warrant was served and the establishment closed on the grounds it was an illegal membership club with no license, and no license to serve liquor.

The police are sure of one thing. They haven't heard the last from the Girls of Christopher Street.

Sorting Books Project

Via Nina Katchadourian:

The Sorted Books project began in 1993 years ago and is ongoing. The project has taken place in many different places over the years, ranging form private homes to specialized public book collections. The process is the same in every case: culling through a collection of books, pulling particular titles, and eventually grouping the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence, from top to bottom. The final results are shown either as photographs of the book clusters or as the actual stacks themselves, shown on the shelves of the library they were drawn from. Taken as a whole, the clusters from each sorting aim to examine that particular library's focus, idiosyncrasies, and inconsistencies — a cross-section of that library's holdings. At present, the Sorted Books project comprises more than 130 book clusters.

Monday Book

History repeats the old conceits,
the glib replies, the same defeats...
~Elvis Costello, "Beyond Belief"

There is no trap so deadly as the trap
you set for yourself.
~Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Bret Easton Ellis has a new book, and if you've not read Less Than Zero, you should. (Skip the movie except for the scene in which a young Robert Downey Jr.'s character is performing felatio in a kimono.) This newest novel features a supporting character Trent, "a bisexual philanderer." Shock! Gasp!

Good Morning Beau

Via Scruffy Jizz Monkey

Beau: The A&F Quarterly

Exclusive: Inside the New (and Very Naked) A&F Quarterly

Saturday Morning Beau

Via Yummy of the Day

I thank this guy, whose name currently escapes me, but hey it's just now 9 AM, for all the hours of pleasure that he's given me and for his hairstyle. I took pictures of him to my stylist, and once she quite drooling, she gave me the same hairstyle.

Happy Pride, Lexington Kentucky

Click lexpride.com for a full schedule of events.

You know it is going to be a "festive" morning when you leave your place and run into a friend rushing to Kroger for duct tape and eyelashes!

Friday Beau

Via Piel@Piel

Friday Books

A Few More for Thursday

For this face, I'd do anything.

Talking in Bed

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.

Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds about the sky,

And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.
~Phillip Larkin

Welcome to the world of the deep -
where the strangest things are the people you meet.
~Hazel Barton, microbiologist and cave explorer

There is nothing more powerful
than this attraction towards an abyss.
~Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth

I wonder if there's a chapter on power bottoms.

There is nothing farther away from Washington than the entire world.
~Arthur Miller

ANNOUNCEMENT: If my blog is in your blog list and you've clicked over to see the pic of a hot couple fucking, never fear: that pic will actually appear tomorrow about 10:30 (my time). I futzted up and published the post then went back, deleted it and scheduled it for tomorrow. Sorry, I don't mean to be a tease. :)