Possible Side Effects
by Augusten Burroughs
St. Martin’s Press
304 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312315961

Review by Steven LaVigne

In the coffee shop I frequent, there’s a guy who’s been slowly devouring J. D. Salinger’s Nine Stories. As much as I admire his work, I made the mistake of overdosing on Salinger by reading everything in order. I’ve done that with Fitzgerald, Erica Jong and John Cheever as well, but unlike those authors, Salinger made me feel suicidal for weeks afterwards.

No matter how bizarre the world around us gets, it’s nice to know that, as we flow through it, someone else is struggling, observing things trough beer goggles or a pharmaceutical haze. Augusten Burroughs is such a person, and his latest collection of observances, Possible Side Effects, is every bit as marvelous as his other writings, no matter how jaundiced they may seem, including Running With Scissors and Magical Thinking.

Possible Side Effects included stories on Burroughs’ childhood: summertime visits with his grandmothers, one of whom he adored while despising the other; how a bloody nose while on an international flight leads to fears about leaving his hotel room and enjoying London; becoming attached, along with his lover, to a dog they fondly call “The Cow,” and the arrogance he encounters while wearing the t-shirts of assorted college teams while running around New York. He also writes at length about watching his mother sink further into addictions due to her bipolar disorder.

Among the extra-special treats in Possible Side Effects are “Killing John Updike,” where Burroughs’ good friend, Suzanne convinces him that John Updike is about to perish and that collecting first editions of his works will net a pretty profit shortly on eBay. He introduces us to his mother’s best friend in “The Forecast for Sommer,” explaining that she uses a coffin as a bookcase and collects prescription drugs. In “The Wisdom Tooth,” Burroughs and his lover, Dennis, vacation at a seaside bed and breakfast which the owner decorates with her doll collection, and Dennis becomes upset about being charged for a restaurant meal after Burroughs breaks his tooth on a baked potato.

There are hilarious sequences on his work as an advertiser, creating a campaign for Junior Mints; peeping on a neighbor and her lover, “Penis Man;” and his life before and after rehab.  Possible Side Effects is jam-packed full of gems, far too many to include in a review.

When I asked the guy in the coffee shop if Salinger made him feel suicidal, he laughed and I recommended Augusten Burroughs to him. I’ll know if he takes my advice any time now. By the time this review sees print, the film version of Running With Scissors will have opened. Maybe first editions of Burroughs will become more profitable on eBay, too.

Memoirs
by Tennessee Williams
New Directions
368 pages, $15.95
ISBN: 0811216691

Reviewed by Steve Lavigne

When the late American playwright Tennessee Williams published his Memoirs in 1975, the Stonewall Revolution was less than a decade old, and reviews were merciless, because William’s wrote so openly about his sex life. Having recently come out, I read the Memoirs as research for a now long-forgotten book project, and found them no different from much of the Gay literature I was reading at the time. Williams passed on less than a decade after their publication and the book was left to gather dust on library shelves or in remnant bins.

Now reissued by New Directions, and with an introduction by film director John Waters, Tennessee Williams’ Memoirs are a pleasure to discover again. Yes, there are the commentaries on his sexual encounters, including his relationship with the loves of his life, Frank Merlo and his sister, Rose (model for the character Laura in The Glass Menagerie). The one thing that reviews ignored at first, but which must be savored here, is that William’s’ writing style was always lyrical and he brings that same poetic style to his life story. Williams recognized his demons and faced them while composing this book, but if the stream of consciousness is, at times, disjointed, that’s forgivable.

The strongest theme that emerges from Memoirs is his feelings toward those whom he most admired, especially the writer Carson McCullers. No one wrote so refreshingly about the exploits of Anna Magnani, who would win the Oscar for her performance in Williams’ The Rose Tattoo. He writes beautifully of affection for and appreciation of the gifted Maureen Stapleton, Marlon Brando and Tallulah Bankhead, and delights us with dishy items on Gore Vidal, Truman Capote and Elizabeth Taylor. His appreciation for Elia Kazan and the opportunity of seeing the value his work retained in his lifetime are also reflected upon.

Williams’ place in the world theatre is assured, and sadly, he doesn’t dig deeper into some of the topics addressed. In an afterword, Allean Hale clarifies some of the book’s personae, but he might have commented on Not About Nightengales, the early prison drama discovered in the late 1990s. Tennessee Williams’ Memoirs have improved with age.

boy with an ‘i’
by David Montalvo
2006 Authorhouse Press, 194 pages.

Reviewed by Peter Savastano

For this reader, the only way to review David Montalvo’s boy with an ‘i’ is by using metaphors. The book, and I imagine its author, are both seeds that have not yet sprouted, at least by my reading of boy with an ‘i’. The book is advertised as a "multi-media work of art". Indeed, the reader has the option to draw upon a music poetry project, also entitled "i", which comes with the book, as well as through other interactive mediums. One can read poetry related to the story the book purports to tell (website addresses for these interactive aspects of this multi-media project are included in the introduction to the book) and also to listen to music relevant to the subject of the book.

As I read the book, I could not help but wish that Montalvo had held off on publishing it to give himself some more time to develop the themes that run through the book, some of which are: "self-deprecation to self-worth", "an attempt to gain God consciousness", and dealing with the after-effects of falling in love for the first time. All of these themes are present in the book, but only in the most cursory ways.

A Gay man who has been on such a tripartite journey himself will clearly recognize that these are experiences that can best be described with sufficient depth only after they have been assimilated into one’s consciousness over time. Unfortunately, in reading this book I get no sense that this is the case for the protagonist in the book who is Montalvo himself.

The book is haphazardly written. Try as I did, I was not able to figure out where the spiritual angle on it is to be found, except that the author intersperses biblical quotes between the six sections of the book. Montalvo does mention something he calls the "God-ing Process". Unfortunately, he never defines what this process is and other than as a concept, the reader (certainly not this reader) will be hard pressed to deduce what he means by "God-ing Process" from the context in which it is used. If one is suffering from a broken heart over a failed love relationship of the adolescent angst kind that so many of us adult Gay men over the age of thirty five suffer from (such as myself over the past year as a perfect, even if embarrassing, example), then this is a good book to read. The reader will know from doing so that he is not alone and eternally stuck at age twenty-five for eternity.

Technically, there are more typos in this book than I have seen in a long time and as the book nears its end, they get worse. Having read the book, it seems clear that Montalvo has potential as a writer about the sometimes very painful connection between romantic relationships and the spiritual quest from a uniquely Gay male perspective. It be better, however, if Montalvo continues to nurture his creative seeds to allow them sufficient time to sprout and grow into the beautiful mature flowers they can be before he commits them to paper in such a final way as a book.

God in Your Body:
Kabbalah, Mindfulness
and Embodied Spiritual Practice
by Jay Michaelson
Jewish Lights Publishing $18.89
Soft cover. 247 pages.

Review by Perry Brass

“Religion belongs in bed as well as in the sanctuary, and bodywork belongs in temples as well as on yoga mats,” says Jay Michaelson in God in Your Body, his bright, and at times insightful and delicious book about returning the real body to Jewish and spiritual practice. Michaelson defines Kabbalah as “receiving the Divine light within.” This is done through a tradition of esoteric knowledge put together in the early Middle Ages, through meditational practices, through Hassidic joyfulness, through the “interventions” of the brachim, blessings that make us mindful of every act of eating, drinking, washing, peeing, crapping, sleeping, and even making love. Michaelson, in short, has assembled a quite encyclopedic book centered around the physical eternal body, the thing we have until there is no longer an “us,” and how mindfulness of this body opens us up to the Soul; although Judaism, he is quick to point out, has no yoga practices, no Tai Chi, little physicalization of spiritual expression beyond, say, bending the knees at prayer, circumcision, or the use of the mikva, the ritual bath that marks many transitions from unclean to clean, regular to sanctified. But to make us aware that God is with us in all of our physical selves, he has chapters on, of course, eating (So, what would Jews be without essen?), breathing, walking, sex, exercising, dancing, fasting, washing, sickness, and a beautiful benediction at the end on the full life cycle, and “Just Being.”

Strangely enough, much of Michaelson’s approach to Judaism follows techniques actors use in “method acting,” that is, that on-stage (which is a ritual in itself) emotions do not precede physical activities, they follow them: emotions, in fact, block an activity, so instead, they need to be released by it. Thus, true mindfulness in the physical act of eating releases many feelings about the reality of food that you won’t have simply by reminding yourself before you eat to think about what’s on the table. He tells us over and over in the book, “Fake it till you make it”: doing an activity, opening yourself up to the physical moment, surrendering to it, will enable real feelings and light to come into it, whether this is intense, ecstatic prayer, relieving yourself of sexual hang ups, or simple mindfulness in any form. This also follows the orthadox idea that performing a “mitzvah,” a holy act, must be done whether you want to or not. It is not done out of convenience,and its very inconvenience makes you mindful of God’s place in it.

This is a good book, which sometimes gets lost in the clutter. Michaelson is erudite, but often sounds like he’s talking to incoming college freshmen, especially when he’s being a “liberal” college counselor still fairly coy about sex, and this reviewer found the chapter on sex to be his least successful. He says, “Our culture provides a toxic soil for nurturing healthy, spiritual sexuality …guilt, judgment, shame, and the rest are what most of us have been taught the longest”; but then he sets up a paradigm of “sacred sexuality,” which seems fairly puerile, with generic admonishments to “transcend the self…let go.” “Bring the attention to the body, and let the body wake you up.” “Don’t check your theology at the bedroom door. Leave the ego on the floor with your clothes and see Who emerges” — this seems like the theological version of “Boy, was I drunk last night!” instead of being aware of what is going on, in all of its manifestations, “dirty” and otherwise, and allowing yourself to be changed by it. (However, for many young, orthodox Jews, even generic liberation talk about sex may be revolutionary; and we must grant the author that.)

He does make a point that sexuality divided Judaism from early Christianity, and its exuberant heterosexuality might have offended “Christists” who negated straight lustiness as being a temptation. Sexuality glorifies the union of opposites, the dynamism of creative energies, whereas celibacy has almost no place in the Jewish canon. Orthodox yeshivas condemn masturbation, but not from a real Jewish tradition of condemning it; and the shame coming from this becomes irreparable. Shame becomes “nothing less than a plague.” Sexual shame, Michaelson writes, “shuts down…our connection with the Divine.”

God in the Your Body embodies mindfulness within the body; and this is wonderful. In our age of unmindfulness, of vapid entertainment instead of real exploration, of non-communication with others and ourselves, mindfulness in any form, especially mindfulness leading to compassion, is needed urgently. Some non-Jews may have a difficult time with this book because it is so grounded in Judaism — in fact, he takes it for granted that you have some familiarity with the Hebrew alphabet — but the basic message of this often witty and delightful book is that God is everywhere, including your body, so why leave it to find Him? “Imagine that the truth is really true; that you are God walking on God…God loving God.”

Certainly doing this everyday would keep us kind.

Perry Brass has published 13 books. His latest, Carnal Sacraments, An Historical Novel of the Future, from Belhue Press, should be out soon. He can be reached via www.perrybrass.com

The Secret
Producers Rhonda Byrne, Paul Harrington.
Director Drew Harriot.
Prime Time Productions, 2006

"Homophobia from Religious Liberals"

Review by
Rev. Vilius Rudra Dundzila, Ph.D., D.Min.

Two liberal religious denominations are showing a movie that blames homophobia on Gay people. The Unity School of Christianity and Religious Science are both hosting screenings of the movie The Secret. In the opening segments, it demonstrates how the bad thoughts of Gays attract homophobic attacks. The scenes depict a nameless Gay man who experiences assaults at work and on his way home. The movie claims the problems will go away when Gays focus on good thoughts instead. The Gay man is next seen with a happy smile at work and flirting with someone on his way home.

I found it painful to watch the exaggerated Gay-bashing scenario and listen to the simplistic solution. Homophobia is a dangerous and very real problem: GLBTs are attacked and killed in our own country. They are executed in Iraq by the puppet government that the USA installed. For GLB people, our own internalized homophobia is a serious problem, but it does not cause homophobes to enact hate crimes on us. Attackers cause hate crimes, not the victims.

The “Secret” of the movie is that “bad” thoughts attract the bad, and vice versa. The movie teaches a few spiritual practices that develop “good” thinking, such as gratitude, prayer, visualization, etc. It emphasizes the power of positive thinking. According to the movie, good thoughts will lead to wealth (specifically, becoming part of the wealthiest 5% that controls 80% of the world’s resources), fancy cars, a rewarding career, a multi-million dollar house, a fabulous relationship (no GLBT couples were depicted), etc.

Moreover, poverty and disease would go away if the poor and the sick had good thoughts. The movie praises social injustice and economic exploitation. I would expect such capitalistic ideology at a Republican convention, but not at a liberal church. As it turns out, the movie is based on book The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles and Judith L. Powell. Moreover, many of the people featured in the movie are highly successful entrepreneurs or investors (the movie is a montage of interviews with about 20 individuals, interwoven with dramatizations). The materialistic and narcissistic message of the movie serves to belittle its superficial spiritual teaching. It makes no mention of loving one’s neighbor or enacting justice: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick, etc.

In terms of disease, the movie provides two examples of the power of healing. One is a woman who cured herself of breast cancer by good thoughts alone, without radiation or chemo-therapy. The second is Morris Goodwin who miraculously recovered from an airplane crash. The implication is clear: if she could do it, everyone can. This miasmic view of disease victimizes patients for their illnesses. It was and still is used to blame Gay men for AIDS. Positive thinking is one factor in a holistic mind-body-spirit approach to health, but it is not the sole factor. In my own case, I have been living well with HIV for 22 years now: by the grace of God, by the power of positive thinking, and by the medical miracle of HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Treatment).

Unity and Religious Science are two churches that have been very friendly to the GLB community (I am not sure how well they relate to Transgendered people): they ordain Gays, bless same-sex unions, and have very large Gay followings. Unfortunately, their current preaching perpetuates “bad thinking” not only against the GLBT community, but also against the sick and the poor.