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Buy Books!

This just in, from Roy Blount of The Authors Guild (of which I’m a proud member). I’ll add that all this is especially true for your local independent bookstores, so if you love, go buy books! Even if you aren’t a writer, it’s still a good idea – and tell them an Author’s Guild member sent you!

I’ve been talking to booksellers lately who report that times are hard. And local booksellers aren’t known for vast reserves of capital, so a serious dip in sales can be devastating. Booksellers don’t lose enough money, however, to receive congressional attention. A government bailout isn’t in the cards.

We don’t want bookstores to die. Authors need them, and so do neighborhoods. So let’s mount a book-buying splurge. Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party. Buy the rest of your Christmas presents, but that’s just for starters. Clear out the mysteries, wrap up the histories, beam up the science fiction! Round up the westerns, go crazy for self-help, say yes to the university press books! Get a load of those coffee-table books, fatten up on slim volumes of verse, and take a chance on romance!

There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they’re easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves. Stockpile children’s books as gifts for friends who look like they may eventually give birth. Hold off on the flat-screen TV and the GPS (they’ll be cheaper after Christmas) and buy many, many books. Then tell the grateful booksellers, who by this time will be hanging onto your legs begging you to stay and live with their cat in the stockroom: “Got to move on, folks. Got some books to write now. You see…we’re the Authors Guild.”

Enjoy the holidays.

Roy Blount Jr.
President
Authors Guild

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Jose O. Sucuzhanay

I mentioned, in She’s Not the Man I Married, that someone may not be gendered in American way when I wrote about looking around at people on the subway. Tonight I read, in the NYT, that a young Ecuadorean man and his brother were walking home from a night out at a bar with their arms around each other. A group of thugs pulled up in an SUV, yelled slurs about them being Hispanic and about them being gay, and only left when one of the brothers said he would call the cops on his cellphone. The other brother – Jose O. Sucuzhanay – died on Friday night in the hospital.

As GenderPAC regularly points out, anti-gay violence isn’t just a problem for gay people. Anyone who is presumed to be gay, for whatever reason, can be a target. And in this case, the brothers showed affection in ways that aren’t common here in the US – even if that kind of affection is very common between men in other counties – it caused these bigots to assume they were gay men.

That’s about gender: what kinds of affection are appropriate between men, which aren’t.

I’m just so sickened and sad reading about this. For this year and for many years to come, this family will remember this violent, senseless death and this loss right before Christmas.

(h/t to kiri for posting this story in our forums)

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TransFM

I just got this lovely note from Ethan St. Pierre:

http://www.TransFM.org
TransFM would like to thank our listeners for inviting us into your homes, offices and mp3 players over the years and as is customary for TransFM, we will be broadcasting LIVE during the Holiday season. We will begin our daily broadcast of the12 Days of Christmas, Tonight Saturday, December 13th from 5:00 PM – Midnight EST and will continue daily right through December 25th. Please check our website for further details.

We have a wide variety of shows planned with guests that will surely entertain, intrigue and provoke emotion. There will be many surprise guests from our community who have been invited to call in and chat, some are controversial, political figures while others are not but there will be no political talk or differences aired, this is about community and coming together for those in need. We realize that the Holiday season can be a lonely time for people in our community and we would like to bring you friendly voices from people who care about our community and care about you. We will have our phone lines open 24/7 during our Holiday broadcasts for those who wish to join in the conversation either on or off the air. You are all invited to participate, so please give us a call at (978)373-8898.

Happy Holidays,
Ethan St.Pierre
Founder and Creator
www.TransFM.org

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Full Moon

There is one tonight, and it’s beautiful, but damned if everyone I know is acting like a loon lately. Hopefully that will diminish in pace with the moon’s wane.

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Queer Christmas

Oh boy! Queer Christmas TV! Rufus Wainwright making cookies with Martha Stewart and his own mother. A bunch of the rest of the family – like Martha and Anna McGarrigle – are in the audience, all of them wearing sweaters Kate McGarrigle made.

The McGarrigles were in town to perform The McGarrigle Christmas Hour at Carnegie Hall last night.

He mentions his boyfriend, losing his ski sweater in a disco in Paris, and opera – more than once. Way too cute.

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Bye Bye Betty

Bettie Page, one of the women whose name influenced my own Betty’s, has died at the age of 85, in Los Angeles, following a heart attack.

<<  This is what she looked like at 80. If only we could all look half so good… but then we all know what she looked like half a century ago, in the 1950s, when she was in her 30s, and that was – well, better than just about anyone else. I picked this one, of all the gazillions out there, because she looks so pretty in it. I hope her beauty brought her some happiness in life.

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Grand Hyatt DC

This may seem silly, but I’m stupidly pleased because I got a package today from the Grand Hyatt, where I stayed in DC for the Blogger Conference – pleased because they sent me my (only) Ben Sherman shirt and a good jacket that I’d left behind in the closet.

I have never had a hotel locate something I left behind and send it to me before, and never imagined they’d get it to me that quickly.

I’m very, very impressed. (They were also great about answering questions, giving directions, & calling cabs.)

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This Huckabee Fella

It certainly looks like Huckabee is doing some early work to get out in front for the 2012 presidential run, doesn’t it?

As Pam over at PHB points out:

“This man ran for president and intends to do so again. Journalists, particularly openly progressive ones, have an obligation to bore in on pols like Huckabee because their views are often wrapped up with a wink and a smile and sold as protecting family, children, the word “marriage”, etc. as if this is all a benign act that hurts no citizens in this country.”

Jon Stewart took him down in a good way – you can see the clip at Pam’s – and I agree with her that we need go shut this down before it gets too big.

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NYC HHC Report

Betsy Gotsbaum, NY’s Public Advocate, has released a report (pdf) that recommends way to improve the LGBT population’s access to healthcare.

Among the recommendations:
• Require in-house LGBT sensitivity training for all HHC employees.
• Designate an LGBT liaison in each HHC facility.
• Establish, display, and enforce a zero-tolerance discrimination policy.
• Establish a review process to monitor progress.

Among the people quoted in the press release are Ray Carannante of CenterCARE and Michael Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF).