Congratulations Lambda Finalists!

http://www.lambdaliterary.org/datastream/news/03/16/finalists-announced-for-the-22nd-annual-lambda-literary-awards/

Guest Blogging at Best Am Po!

http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2010/01/here-on-the-island-of-misfit-toys.html

Here is my first post for Best American Poetry!!  I'm very excited to be blogging for them.  I'll be there all week.

-Jason.

How my iPod & my CD Player think about me differently

We've been listening to CDs more lately.  We have an old school five disk CD player-- and right now it has Barbra Streisand's Stoney End, Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon, The Magnetic Field's I, Shakira's Oral Fixation Vol. English, and George Michael's Best of (For the Feet).  It's pretty wonderful.  We've listened to them all a number of times, and it's becoming a satisfying form of repetion.

iTunes, on the other hand, is set to DJ, and nothing comes up with any order.  Peggy Lee followed by Public Enemy. 

I'm nostalgic for the long form of a CD-- though I'm being a hypocrite if I don't acknowledge that the Best of George Michael is already a refusal of the album as a form of distribution.  Like iTunes, a best of album is a condensation to just what you want to hear.  No interlude, no change in tempo, no set up, no pay off. 

Our CD player does have a shuffle mode that we once used, but it was sort of annoying, slow and noisy.  Our CD player predicted what iTunes would do better.  But iTunes won't really return the compliment.  I can't figure out how to set up albums to play in sequence, unless I build a whole list or I do it one at a time. 

Sigh. 

He doesn't seem that fat to me...

Interesting interview:

Steve Fellner: An Interview With A Pansy

It's nice to see Steve having some fun.

Though my review of Jericho Brown's book is spot on. 

Can we stop the black/gay smackdown now?

I'm very excited about this:

DC Council Approves Gay Marriage

And not just because I'm still smarting from my days at the University of Maryland when the Board of Regents wouldn't extend Domestic Partner benefits to faculty and staff.  It was a long battle, we lost, and  it was awful.

I'm excited because I suspect that this will end some the blacks-are-the-enemies-of-the-gays narrative.  It also shows that blacks and gays aren't discrete populations-- there's a lot of overlap-- and while I don't want to underplay very real racism in the white gay community or very real homophobia in the black community-- I am heartened to see that the kind of false divides that were insisted on after Prop 8 being broken down.

Carry on, DC!

New Media Whore-dom Starts NOW

So, I was talking to someone about my new book coming out in the fall.  She encouraged me to work all angles-- twitter, blogs, youtube, facebook.  I kind of cringed, and I was really grateful when she said, "it's invasive and exhausting but you have to do it."  I was like, ok... great, we can't all be Laurel Snyder and sincerely love new media.

But anyway-- in the spirit of new media, here is my first effort at you tube.  Enjoy!!


Jason reads for Zach at CPR, Part 1

Jason reads for Zach at CPR, Part 2

The 1980s, decade of unecessary backflips

Last night, when we were watching Bladerunner, Michael asked, Why did Daryl Hannah stop strangling Harrison Ford, walk across the room, set up a complicated set of back flips to finish him off, and give him time to shoot her?  I had to explain that in the 1980s, unnecessary back flips were a important cultural signifier-- as well as the best way to get things done.  Have to get across a room without tripping a bunch of complicated laser trip wires?  Back flips!  Have to quickly escape from a group of hostile attackers?  Back flips! 

Oh, 1980s.  I hated living through you as much as I love the culture you produced.