There were hundreds of demonstrations every year, and even other progressive movements didn’t always support gay rights. Despite the haven for LGBT people the city had become, it was still very difficult to be anything but straight. The New York City Jane moved to in 1975 had already had its first pride parade, on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in 1969. It makes it difficult for her to understand the new world she’s been brought to at times: “She’s still getting used to the idea that she’s not going to get arrested for being gay in public, which was a whole three-day emotional roller coaster.” She talks about being there for riots broken up by police, the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, and the tragic arson attack on the UpStairs Lounge in 1973. Jane is a punk, butch, confident and mysterious, and soon August figures out that fighting to stay alive is a big part of who she is. It’s clear pretty early on that Jane’s life in the 70s was different from anything August has ever known.
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I came up with several schemes for developing material. He developed material by translating what made him laugh in life: Them, you might want to see again sometime." But wait - maybe the best opening line I heard was Richard Pryor's, after he started two hours late in front of a potentially miffed crowd at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. But there's a difference between me and them. The best opening line I ever heard was from Sam Kinison.He said, "You're going to see a lot of comedians tonight some will be good, some will be okay. Enjoyment while performing was rare - enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford. My most persistent memory of stand-up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the boy delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success. I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years. It's a quick read and really interesting if you're a fan. It's all about his years doing standup and how he got started. Got my mitts on an advance copy (available in November) of "Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life" by Steve Martin. Here, Dante meets Paolo and Francesca, the two unfaithful lovers buffeted about in a windy storm. In Limbo, the poets stop to speak with other great poets, Homer, Ovid, Horace, and Lucan, and then enter a great citadel where philosophers reside.ĭante and Virgil enter Hell proper, the second circle, where monster, Minos, sits in judgment of all of the damned, and sends them to the proper circle according to their sin. The ferryman, Charon, reluctantly agrees to take the poets across the river to Limbo, the first circle of Hell, where Virgil permanently resides. The poets reach the banks of the river Acheron where souls await passage into Hell proper. The two poets enter the vestibule of Hell where the souls of the uncommitted are tormented by biting insects and damned to chase a blank banner around for eternity. Dante agrees to the journey and follows Virgil through the gates of Hell. Dante is forced to return to the forest where he meets the spirit of Virgil, who promises to lead him on a journey through Hell so that he may be able to enter Paradise. He sees a sun-drenched mountain in the distance, and he tries to climb it, but three beasts, a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf, stand in his way. At the age of thirty-five, on the night of Good Friday in the year 1300, Dante finds himself lost in a dark wood and full of fear. ‘Human caregiver for alien experimentation victim’ is its own subgenre of SF romance, but Homebound’s prison setting makes it stand out. This is a book with writing issues carried by plot and character, but one that SF romance fans will find worth a read. But as Simon gets better, other things, including Gemma’s living situation and working conditions, get worse. Amidst so much misery, Gemma finds meaning in treating him with dignity, and under her care, he starts to make a recovery. A surprise reassignment to the third floor, where the alien prisoners are housed, leads to her encounter with Simon in cell 35 – a filth-encrusted, unspeaking, desiccated male on the verge of death. In The City, an urban ruin that reads like a Dickensian slum, Gemma works for a pittance scrubbing prison cells. Science Fiction romances tend to battle sequences and spaceships, but Homebound by Lydia Hope is set on a dystopian Earth. Putting things side by side in a historical order doesn’t necessarily reveal the great march of progress. Alongside this I probe the various understandings and experiences of extreme emotional states and mental disorders. What I do in this book is to provide a long view of the rise and rise of what I call the mind doctors – the specialists who initially termed themselves alienists and then became as the mental health professions grew, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychopharmacologists and so on. She applied the " Test" to her latest book, Mad, Bad, and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors, and reported the following: Lisa Appignanesi is a novelist and writer who has been made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of her contribution to literature. That style is appreciated by this subscriber of the paper daily, but the book-length treatment suffers a bit from a lack of charisma. Part of the challenge is Carreyrou’s laconic WSJ tone, with its “just the facts” attitude that is punctuated only occasionally by brief interludes on the motivations and psychology of its characters. The swift decline of Theranos and its protective legal apparatus has done this story a lot of good: many of the anonymous sources that underpinned Carreyrou’s WSJ coverage are now public and visible, allowing the author to weave together the various articles he published into a holistic and complete story.Īnd yet, what I found in the book was not all that thrilling or shocking, but rather astonishingly pedestrian. John Carreyrou’s tenacious and intrepid reporting at the Wall Street Journal would ultimately expose one of the largest frauds ever perpetrated in Silicon Valley.īad Blood is the culmination of that investigative reporting. The story of the fraudulent rise and precipitous fall of the company and its entrepreneur, Elizabeth Holmes, is also the singular story of the journalist who chronicled the company. Theranos reached that summit, and it all came crashing down. In a world where thousands and thousands of startups are started in the Bay Area every year, becoming a name that everyone recognizes is no small feat. The Oscar-winning actress “ripped the clothes off their hangers” and flung them all onto the floor before seizing Christina by the hair.Ĭhristina Crawford recalled how “with one hand she pulled me by the hair and with the other she cuffed my ears until they rang” all the while screaming “no wire hangers!” before proceeding to destroy Christina’s part of the room and then ordering her to “clean up your mess. In one chapter of the book (which would become the most famous scene in the movie), Christina recalled how Joan went into a blind rage after discovering a forbidden wire hanger in her daughter’s closet one night. In Christina Crawford’s 1978 autobiography Mommie Dearest (which would later be turned into a film starring Faye Dunaway), Christina revealed that far from being a generous and caring maternal figure, Joan was an alcoholic who physically and emotionally abused her adopted children.Ĭhristina described how she and Christopher bore the brunt of the abuse, with Christopher being strapped down into his bed with a harness each night so that he couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom. Mommie Dearest is a memoir and exposé written by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of actress Joan Crawford. Gene Lester/Getty Images Christina Crawford and her adopted mother in matching outfits, June 1944. What could possibly go wrong?īecky’s sister demands a vegan turkey, her husband insists that he just wants aftershave (again), and little Minnie needs a very specific picnic hamper: Surely Becky can manage all this, as well as the surprise appearance of an old boyfriend–turned–rock star and his pushy new girlfriend, whose motives are far from clear. Things are looking cheerier than ever, until Becky’s parents announce they’re moving to ultra-trendy Shoreditch-unable to resist the draw of craft beer and smashed avocados-and ask Becky if she’ll host this year. Life is good, especially now that Becky takes time every day for mindfulness-even if that only means listening to a meditation tape while hunting down online bargains.īut Becky still adores the traditions of Christmas: Her parents hosting, carols playing on repeat, her mother pretending she made the Christmas pudding, and the neighbors coming ’round for sherry in their terrible holiday sweaters. ’Tis the season for change and Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) is embracing it, returning from the States to live in the charming village of Letherby and working with her best friend, Suze, in the gift shop of Suze’s stately home. When treachery closes in, only he knows how to guard Cecilia from the consequences of her own principles. But he's a man who honors his wagers - and one result lands him in his brother-in-law's godforsaken mission, face-to-face with the woman who has long haunted his dreams. It's whispered that the womanizing Delacourt is vain, vindictive, and merciless. Just six years earlier, Delacourt had proven himself to be the immoral rake society called him, nearly ruining her reputation in the bargain. But when the dashing Lord Delacourt takes control, she feels an uncharacteristic urge to flee. In the lonely months since her husbands death, Cecilia Lorimer has hidden her emptiness by devoting herself to a charity mission for the unfortunate women of Londons slums. In the lonely months since her husband's death, Cecilia Lorimer has hidden her emptiness by devoting herself to a charity mission for the unfortunate women of London's slums. When a woman consumed by sinister secrets opens the door to a strikingly handsome stranger, a powerful desire rushes in - and a love she could not have imagined. From the grandeur of regency Mayfair to the dark danger of London's East End, Liz Carlyle sweeps you away with a powerful story of a love born against all odds, as an honorable young widow stands fast against the cynical rogue who seems determined to consume her, heart and soul. From its opening scene to its breath-catching climax, Liz Carlyles newest novel is a vividly etched portrait of passion and intrigue. |