Brother Outsider NYC Screening

The Brecht Forum & the War Resisters League here in NYC are screening Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin this Friday, 1/19, 8PM.

I’ll be in Boston or I’d be there. I cannot recommend this film highly enough. Bayard Rustin was one of the organizers of the March on Washington, but was asked to take a public backseat as he was a known homosexual (& a communist, but that’s a whole other story). He was a really remarkable individual & the film is an excellent chronicle of his life.

There’s a bunch of other cool political films (though i’m sad to have missed the one about Dorothy Day, who is a hero of mine).

http://www.warresisters.org/filmfestival.htm for all the info.

MLK Jr.

In honor & celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and work today, I thought I’d dig up some of his influences. Everyone is aware of Gandhi’s impact on King, I think, but less known is that the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr was also an influence. Niebuhr is sometimes credited with the Serenity Prayer even though there are versions of it that existed before his time; he may only have put it into the form we know now. King himself best expresses how Niebuhr influenced him:

“Moreover, Niebuhr has extraordinary insight into human nature, especially the behavior of nations and social groups. He is keenly aware of the complexity of human motives and of the relation between morality and power. His theology is a persistent reminder of the reality of sin on every level of man’s existence. These elements in Niebuhr’s thinking helped me to recognize the illusions of a superficial optimism concerning human nature and the dangers of a false idealism. While I still believed in man’s potential for good, Niebuhr made me realize his potential for evil as well. Moreover, Niebuhr helped me to recognize the complexity of man’s social involvement and the glaring reality of collective evil.”

To demonstrate one aspect of what King is referring to, Niebuhr once wrote:

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

That said, it was Niebuhr’s thinking on both pacificism & justice that helped King fine-tune his singular response to injustice – and for that we’re all thankful.

AMS, PGW, Avalon & Perseus

The big news in publishing is that AMS (American Marketing Services), the company that owned one of the biggest book distributors in the country, PGW (Publishers Group West), filed for bankruptcy a couple of weeks ago.

It’s huge news because PGW’s distribution services effectively enable tons of small independent publishers to get their books out there, publishers like Soft Skull (who published Charlie Anders’ Choir Boy) and Cleis Press (who publish some of Tristan Taormino’s books) and McSweeney’s (who publish things like The Believer magazine and authors like Dave Eggers and Nick Hornby).

I’ve been very lucky in all of this, because my publisher, Avalon (APG) has been purchased by Perseus Books, who have their own distributor and a reputation for giving independent imprints room to be – well, independent. Avalon was the umbrella group for both Thunder’s Mouth Press (who published My Husband Betty) and for Seal Press (who will be publishing She’s Not the Man I Married). That is, I dodged a bullet because APG was first in line to be purchased, which is not true for other smaller independent presses like Cleis.

The final impact of AMS filing bankruptcy is yet to be seen. What’s being predicted is that many small publishers will just disappear without a distributor that serves their needs, and also because many of the moneys they were owed will not be paid to them, or because any buyout of AMS will mean investors will be able to buy for pennies on the dollar. It may turn out that Perseus will help PGW, which is good news indeed: PGW was created decades ago in a publishing environment that was much friendlier to growth than the current one is.

All in all it’s a huge mess with too-numerous legal battles to follow.

8th Preview of She’s Not The Man I Married

Excerpt from Betty’s Afterword:

I walked into a meeting with Helen recently and someone we both know said, “Betty, I didn’t recognize you. I thought you were a woman,” when she first saw me. She was looking for “Betty” and all she saw was “some woman” with Helen, instead. She meant I didn’t look trans and that made what I see in the mirror more real. It was a backhanded compliment, of course, but the nut of it really struck me. More and more, I really do look like a woman.

Jeebus, does Helen know this?

Yes, she does.

It’s odd, this life of ours, and I’m terribly aware of my culpability in said oddness. It is our life, though, and there is no one on the face of this earth that I’d rather be with than Helen. She really is the girl I always wanted to meet. And wouldn’t you know it? I met her . . . and she liked me back. And we got married. And I feel like a lottery winner. I’m amazed that she feels even remotely the same about me—the guy who looks like a woman a lot these days. But she does.

One Eye Open

Sleepy Endymion, on one of the boys’ favorite blankets – but with one eye open, wondering why on earth we’re taking photos of him again, and when exactly that bright light will stop disrupting his dreams.