Contemporary poetry, fiction, Swedish pop music, photography, cooking, eating, film, walking, travel, singing big ballads, downtime, naptime, new folky-country alt-rock, memoir, journalism, chat and chit, documentaries, reading, deep breaths, aspects of desire, tall trees, birds, spiders, museums, cats, collage.
Music
Wide range of tastes--my new enthusiams include indie singer-songwriter Brianna Lane, the band I'm From Barcelona, Mountain Goats, (Thanks Stefan for introducing me) Junior Senior, Sufjan Steves, the bright pop-folk of Girlyman, Bach cello works, Erland Oye, and any Stephin Merrit project. Always up for some Scandanavian pop music like Jens Lekman, (his new album is like a sacrement for me) Annie, or Sondra Lerche. Love my girl-with-a-guitar music, including Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Mary Gauthier, Kim Richey, Patty Larkin, Rose Polenzani, and my ultimate diva, Joni Mitchell.
Movies
I'm as likely to see an indie art house film as a big budget superhero movie--the X-men, for example, rock my world. Just saw "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," (Frances McDormand is so so good) "Amelie" is on the all-time top super great fave list, as is "All About Eve."
Television
Not much of a TV watcher. I usually catch up to series on DVD-- "Sex and the City," for example, was a big hit for me long after the rest of the country was over it. I'm viewing "6 Feet Under" currently.
Books
I read more than anyone I know--fiction, poetry, a wide range of non-fiction, from memoir to history. I just read a biography of Jumbo the Elephant, and a memoir about drug addiction by Nic Scheff called "Tweak." Give it to your aspiring drug addict friends today! In the poetry department David Trinidad's kick-ass collection "The Late Show" delights me, and I reading the new Marie Howe collection again and again and again. Poetry--musts include Diane Wakoski, Anne Carson, James Schuyler, Frank O'Hara, and Mark Doty, Lisa Jarnot, Anne Sexton and John Taggart. Newer discoveries: Eric Baus, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, and Noah Eli Gordon, a trio of amazing, innovative, haunting writers. The Selected David Shapiro, a lesser-known New York School poet, is curling my toes. My friend Richard Fox is about the bestest poet going, as well as a fine human being--his first book, "Swagger and Remorse" is out now, and you'll swagger if you have read it; be remorseful if you have not.
Heroes
Gertrude Stein, Diane Wakoski, Ryan McGinley, Wolfgang Tillmans, Ianni Grammatis (he loaned me a bathing suit that got me compliments on the beach) Joseph Cornell, anyone who manages to make art on a sustained long-term basis, famous or not. Oh, and special kudos to my boyfriend Darren, because of his fortitude, humor, smarts, and ease in his skin.
About me: I am a published writer (poetry and nonfiction) a bookseller, a Chicago resident. I have poems coming out in the new issues of Fifth Wednesday, The Columbia Poetry Review, and Gertrude. With Kathie Berquist, I wrote "A Field Guide to Gay and Lesbian Chicago" (Lake Claremont Press, 2006) It got rave reviews (yay us!) --google it if you don't believe me. I am much more of a facebook guy these days, so find me there!!
Who I'd like to meet: Other writers, especially serious poets interested in exchanging work for ideas, debate, entertainment, improvement, and edification. Editors who want my suave and spiffy book reviews and dazzling bouts of poetry. Any cool folks into writing, reading, music, art-making, and such.
now that we know what kind of music you like,
it's safe to say: WE WILL ROCK YOUR WORLD!
come and listen to our songs, we're taking over Canada by storm...
hello Charlie
www. hellocharliefans. com
Hey, thanks for being a friend. Please feel free to use the Poetry Guide comment area to post information about your book or event. You are a great Chicagoan.
Hello Robert! Just getting my orientation for new friends and wanted to say thanks. I look forward to finding out more about you and your work. Click here to check out Orientation, my new novel about reincarnation and love and what happens when a gay man and a lesbian find themselves mysteriously attracted to one another. Click here to watch the haunting trailer for Orientation. Or visit me at www. rickrreed. com
Why do we need to a show on a Gay Guide to Chicago?
We often get the question from our listeners who plan to come to the Windy City for some good gay fun; "Dear Fausto and Marc-I'm coming to Chicago and I want to know what to do and where to go."
It's a difficult question to answer because Chicago has so much to offer to so many different types of people. We usually ask people what they are into and proceed form there. We'd hate to to tell someone to go ice skating at Millennium Park and later find out they suffer from pagophobia, which is the fear of ice. Now who would be afraid of ice? What do they do at cocktail bars? But that's the great thing about phobias- they are totally irrational.
What is not is irrational is the desire to come to Chicago, "Chitown," "The City of Broad Shoulders", "Hog Butcher to The World," "The City That Works" or as Studs Terkel calls it "Home of the Gayest Podcast in The World" (just kidding about the Studs part. Not sure which stud said that.)
Gay and straight Chicago has a lot to offer to the GLBT traveller. So much in fact that we are bringing in the big guns- Kathie Bergquist and Robert McDonald, authors of
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