Month: April 2021

April 24, 2021

Revisiting My Ancient Artistic Triumphs

Today I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time fighting to update my Writing webpage, having decided to include pictures of the book covers. That was the first mistake because I wound up spending hours “fixing” the image of a Mississippian Eagle Warrior on the cover of my first book REMEMBER NATIVE AMERICA—a curious experience re-doing digitally what I’d drawn first in pencil I believe in 1988. Talk about ancient history… It really is a remarkable image of a repoussé copper plaque found in a mound at Etowah in Georgia.

I got the idea to do this update to my webpage because I happened to think about the beautiful drawing I did in maybe 2001 for the cover of the book “Gymnopedie,” publication of which I cancelled and then revised as BAT IN A WHIRLWIND.

The Etowah Eagle Warrior my book designer converted to digital and produced in a copper stamp. The drawing for the other book, also done in pencil, was scanned to digital by myself, and then worked over by me again in my Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). (That work was what set me on the road to drawing the icons for my YE GODS! show, as well as all the photo restoration for the biography MS. YVONNE, The Secret Life of My Mother.) The Gymnopedie cover is an illustration of exactly what that Greek word means: a dance by naked boys.

Gymnopedie

Forgive me for feeling sinfully proud of this illustration based on ancient Greek vase-painting. While some of my Aztec icons are outrageous masterpieces, I consider this classical vision right up there with my best work. The motion of their dance is palpable. At least in my opinion…

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April 23, 2021

Revised Gay Novel at Last

The Divine Dionysus and Debauched Cohort

Serendipity is a marvelous thing! I was looking for an ancient address book to find out the date of my step-son’s birth (for my third memoir GAY GEISHA), and to my surprise ran across a CD from about 15 years ago labeled “Files from old computer.” And what did I miraculously find on it but a file of the text of my first novel DIVINE DEBAUCH! I’d figured that to revise it I’d have to type the whole thing all over again (as I’d had to do for BAT IN A WHIRLWIND). But the universe gave me a splendid gift. I only found that old address book weeks later by total accident—when I no longer needed it.

With the old text in hand, all I had to do was edit it (one of my favorite activities—you can guess at others), and right away I jumped on the fun, playing steadily for about ten days in my viral solitude. Now I can cancel the book I published online in 2003 and today in 2021 offer you the immensely better revised edition of DIVINE DEBAUCH for free download. Go for it!

Told in many voices, including his own and those of friends and lovers, this is the picaresque, semi-fictional, semi-epistolary tale of Tommy Youngblood, a college boy who frequents the disreputable Latin and Greek sailor dives on the Wild Side waterfront of the Quarter. A dervish in the Holy Carouse, Tommy dances his gay way through love affairs and amorous adventures, celebrating his brief sweet youth in a Dionysian debauch.

As a teaser, here’s a passage from a letter of Tommy’s scandalous antics with hunky Mark:

“          Showtime! The evening’s concert was packed with crowd-pleasers. First, the renowned maestro Sir Roger Wrighte-Rowndleigh led the Bump-Bacon Brass Band in his own rousing, rollicking composition, the Hide-the-Sausage Suite. Whereupon, in response to audience demand, I blew a fanciful fuguing tune on the bonnie laddie’s bagpipe con brio. Then, recalling the golden opportunity once missed, the lecherous Sir Roger insisted on an encore of his first number under the same contract conditions, only this time allegro furioso. And the night’s featured work was Mark’s debut performance of the poignantly sensuous Sodom Sonata (scored for skin flute and double bum drum), quite artistically executed for an amateur flautist. His lengthy cadenza was nothing short of inspired, and the final movement was absolutely maestoso. Then we slept.”

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