This week, movies and more gay scifi/fantasy reviews. Also, in Part 4 of the comedy Fat Diary, some little old ladies learn a little too much about the mayor’s secret gay life. MAGICAL GAY MUSIC. Wolfe Video has just announced its acquisition of DVD rights to Were the World Mine, which will also appear on Logo. Directed by Tom Gustafson, the musical involves a gay high schooler who uses magic to turn his homophobic town gay. Wolfe has not announced a release date. The gay and lesbian DVD distributor also acquired another festival favorite, The New Twenty, directed by Chris Mason Johnson, which will appear on DVD and on Logo in 2009. GAY SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS. Last week, I mentioned that Rainbow Reviews had posted a review of Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure. More of their recent scifi/fantasy reviews follow, listed by the titles and authors of the books. Second Thoughts by Steve Berman
VR Palace by J.M. Snyder
Intimate Traitors by Astrid Amara
Moonlight Sonata for Two by Helen Louise Caroll
Tokyo Ink by Ann Vremont
The Future is Queer edited by Richard Labonte and Lawrence Schimel
Beyond Machu by William Maltese
The Gold Warrior by Clare London
Valentine by Jamieson Wolf FAT DIARY (FICTION/HUMOR), PART 4. (This story uses a librarian’s diary to introduce readers to a scifi geek, a closeted mayor, and many other interesting characters, in the West Texas town of Acorn. Read Views from the Acorn Universe next week for another installment, and for sf/f news.) Read Part 1. Read Parts 2 and 3. January 23, 2001
Dear Fat Diary: Here is the tale of the last time I ever saw Mr. or Mrs. Mayor Williams. It’s a sordid tale, but you’ll recover quickly. Every Tuesday afternoon at 3, about twenty women between the ages of 50 and 80 congregate in the library’s meeting room, which is actually a big table in the middle of the magazine and microfiche room. Of course, they all talk rather loudly, since some of them can barely hear, and since most of them are used to living with people who either can’t hear or don’t listen. So at least the noisy old hens are cut off a little bit from the rest of the library. Still, I often find myself walking past the group, known as PAW. That stands for Polite Acorn Women, though it sounds like something about pets; in fact, animal lovers sometimes show up, and I have to remind them that cats, dogs, and assorted reptiles aren’t allowed in the library, unless they’re in a book. Then there was that horrible incident with a ground squirrel and the collected works of Edgar Allen Poe, but we won’t get into that. One day, as I walked past the PAW meeting, I tried not to think about the fact that the congregation of big white hair and big blue hair made it look like a cotton candy machine exploded in the middle of the table. I also tried not to think about the fact that PAW supported Mayor Williams’s election all three times, or that they pushed him into supporting censorship in Acorn. I support everyone’s freedom of speech (even when they espouse bigoted views), but I was a little suspicious about the fact that Keith Colson’s original art gallery burned down right about that time. Of course, I found it difficult not to think about those things when I saw the mayor in attendance, and saw one of the women stand up and introduce him, after a lengthy struggle with her stroller. “It is my delight to introduce to all of you a very special person and a pillar of our community.” I wondered which of the women didn’t remember meeting him countless other times, considering that no one new ever joined PAW and that its numbers were slowly declining from attrition. Acorn’s newer old people are so much more hip, or they’re just swinging their hips in aerobic dance sessions. But Sadie Aristotle introduced him anyway, and I thought about the fact that I had just seen her grandson, dropping off his quickly devoured Babylon 5 book with Tiffani, who said she hadn’t read Babylon 1-4, but that “Mr. Davis, my like English teacher in high school, made us read The Great Gatsby, and I thought it was like about a magician or something, but there were like all these people like—” I quickly escaped that conversation, and found myself walking among blue and white clouds. “As you all know,” said the mayor, being someone who frequently informed people what they think, what they know, how they feel, and so forth, “the element of immorality continues to seep into our fine community, and we must stomp it out. Stomp it out! Stomp it out of our libraries!” His eyes darted about before meeting mine; my eyes looked for a large book that I could throw at him, without damaging the book. No, that would be wrong, I told myself, hurting an innocent book. His exercise in parallel structure continued. “Stomp it out of our schools! Stomp it out of our bookstores!” “Bookstores?” The loud voice tripped by me. Well, actually, the person with the loud voice did the tripping, nearly falling onto the microfiche viewer before tripping her way to the foot of the PAW meeting. She straightened her expensive-looking blouse as she regained her footing. “Lynn!” exclaimed the mayor, as if surprised that he might run into his wife sometimes. I rarely saw them together, so I guess that surprise made sense. “Ladies,” she said, gesturing about at the blue-hairs, “my husband knows all about bookstores, especially every adult bookstore in Texas. That’s just one of the many places where he picks up gay men, just before coming back and lecturing everyone about immortality…ality…whatever!” “Lynn!” exclaimed the mayor again, obviously not progressing in the amusing conversation. It certainly caught my attention. It also caught Ian’s, who walked in behind the obviously intoxicated Lynn Williams. But she didn’t seem to notice him, or her own loud raving. As head librarian, it was my job to stop her, but my love of drama won out, and I stood gawking, right beside Ian. “What are you saying?” one of the women demanded of Lynn. “I’m saying that my self-righteous joke of a husband is one of those whatdoyacallit ex-gays, and like the rest of the ex-gays, he keeps forgetting the ex part. Well, he’s gonna remember the ex part, because I’m filing for divorce, and he’ll be my ex-husband. I’m tired of seeing his car parked at the most em…embar…embarrassing places in West Texas!” Nick gave a well-rehearsed answer: “I had to use the bathroom!” “And the back seat, and a dirt trail, and all kinds a other places. You think no one knows! Wives know-uh! We aren’t as stoopdidid as you think.” The passion in her voice did little to clear up the slur from her drinking, a slur that aggrandized the more comfortable syllable stretching of a West Texas accent. “That’s terrible!” one of the women exclaimed, scowling disapprovingly at Nick. Ian covered his mouth, but obviously to keep from laughing, rather than out of shock. “This is the best thing since the SciFi Channel,” he whispered to me. Lynn continued. There was no stopping her! “Do any of you know what it’s like being married to a closeted ho-mo-sectional…sexual…homosexual?” Another old lady spoke up. “Well, I’m not sure if he’s you know, that way, but my Vinnie never misses The Laurence Welk Show…and he’s always shopping for antiques.” “Worry!” Lynn told her. Nick threw up his hands and approached his drunken, angry, shouting, extremely amusing wife. “This is insane! Lynn, you’re drunk again, and you’re probably hallucinating.” “No, I was hallucinating when I saw a man who loved me and would be faithful to me, because that damn sure isn’t you!” With that, she stormed out, and Nick went tumbling after. Then the library grew quiet as…well…as a library should be. Even PAW paused, before noticing the time and wandering out. Though most of them remained silent, I heard one of the women ask another, “What’s an adult bookstore? Is that like adult daycare?” The other waved her hand and shook her head, deciding not to respond. Ian told me, “Well, that was bound to happen eventually.” “You knew?” Obviously feeling awkward about seeing his grandmother walking by at the end of a sex-based conflict, Ian looked the other way for a few seconds. She seemed too shocked to notice him anyway, and almost ran into the exit door on her way out. Ian continued: “Yeah, we saw him a few times, while we were parked on the outside of town.” Realizing too late what he had just revealed about himself, he lifted his fingers away from his hips and shrugged. “Well, I’m sure y’all were just talking about your favorite scifi books.” “Okay. That works. But I don’t think Lynn and I will be…talking scifi…anymore. I’ve been wanting to end our…book club…for a long time. It’s just too weird a situation. Convenient. Fun. Hot!” “Don’t get graphic,” I implored him. “But weird.” “I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of a situation like that. You’ve always been so sweet.” He smiled at the compliment, then said, “Look, I’m totally cool about the gay thing. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but my Aunt Talia is a lesbian.” “I know.” “How did you know? The haircut? The pickup truck?” “The Sapphic tastes in literature.” Ian grinned. “We know way too much about our Acornian neighbors.” I nodded, and he continued his earlier thought. “Anyway, Aunt Talia’s been with the ladies’ basketball coach from Acorn College for longer than I’ve been alive, though everyone pretends not to notice, or forces themselves not to notice. And it isn’t like they’re the only gay couple around. I’ve seen how your buddies Keith and Chandler get all googley-eyed at each other when they’re sharing a sundae at my ice cream shop.” “You’re right. We do know way too much about our Acornian neighbors. We both have the perfect cover for gathering Acorn intel. Though I don’t know what we’d do with it.” “A sequel to your grandmother’s book?” I rolled my eyes. “Talk to Aragon.” I quickly amended my response: “But don’t tell her anything you don’t want printed.” “Anyway,” he said again, almost assertively. Ian, though quite handsome and still boyishly charming in his early thirties, suffered from a small frame and a lack of ambition. He only became manager of the Ice Cream Dream because the owner/manager retired, and Ian was the only person who had lasted more than two months as assistant manager, after being the only person to last more than three weeks as a cook/cashier. “An-y-way, I’m cool about the whole gay thing, but not when they play house with some straight person while going out at night, finding random same-sex sexiness, and doing all kinds of risky…risking.” He shook his hands about toward the end of his sentence as his articulation began to fail him, but I fully agreed with his point. “You’re right. Who wants a marriage like that?” Emboldened, Ian added, “That would be even worse than your marriage!” Then he lowered his head, letting his adorable black bangs drape over his face. (I’ve read a lot of books, and I’ve noticed that bangs have a tendency to drape constantly, which makes you want to put bangs up in your window. But, okay, it isn’t like anyone is going to read this.) “Sorry,” he sheepishly added. I laughed at his apology and his comment. “Don’t be. My marriage was from the depths of Hell! Tyler Willard is the most egotistical, misinformed, cruel, idiotic weed of a man I’ve ever met!” “He wasn’t very nice on the school bus either. So what happened to Tyler?” “The last I heard, he’s still somewhere in West Texas, writing editorials for a local newspaper.” “God help us!” (Next week, in Part 5, Tiffani Basil melts down.) Duane Simolke edited The Acorn Gathering and wrote four of its stories, including “Fat Diary.” |