#but I love Marlowe too much not to give him a spotlight every once in a while

[withasideofshakespeare]

I have a game for all you Marlowe fans!

(For the uninitiated: Christopher Marlowe was born two months before Shakespeare, was also a poet—he wrote Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine, and Edward II among other plays and poems—and was killed at age 29 in a bar fight that might’ve actually been an assassination. He was almost certainly queer and it definitely shows in his writing.)

Here’s the game: I’ll give you a few lines from Marlowe’s poem Hero and Leander and you tell me whether he’s writing about a man (Leander) or a woman (Hero)! Guess in the tags/replies or just in your head and see at the end how many you got correct!

(I’ve removed their names and pronouns so as not to reveal who’s who!)

1. “[Redacted] the fair, / Whom young Apollo courted for [their] hair, / And offered as a dower his burning throne…”

2. “Fair Cynthia wished [their] arms might be her sphere; / Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there. / [Their] body was as straight as Circe’s wand; / Jove might have sipped nectar from [their] hand.”

3. “I could tell ye / How smooth [their] breast was, and how white [their] belly…”

4. “Some say, for [them] the fairest Cupid pined, / And looking in [their] face, was strooken blind… / And oftentimes into [their] bosom flew, / About [their] naked neck his bare arms threw…”

5. “…My slack muse sings of [redacted]’s eyes, / Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his* / That leapt into the water for a kiss / Of his own shadow…”

*his = Narcissus

6. “Had wild Hippolytus [redacted] seen, / Enamored of [their] beauty had he been; / [Their] presence made the rudest peasant melt…”

7. “A pleasant smiling cheek, a speaking eye, / A brow for love to banquet royally…”

Answers below the cut!

1. Hero (“[Redacted] the fair…”)

2. Leander (“Fair Cynthia wished [their] arms might be her sphere…”)

3. Leander (“How smooth [their] breast was…”)

4. Hero (“Some say, for [them] the fairest Cupid pined…”

5. Leander (“My slack muse sings of [redacted]’s eyes…”)

6. Leander (“Had wild Hippolytus [redacted] seen…”)

7. Leander (“A pleasant smiling cheek, a speaking eye…”

[chiseler]

Bridging Noir and The Beats: JONNY STACCATO (1959)

Following the 1956 publication of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” the 1957 publication of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and the national spotlight that was suddenly focused on these potentially dangerous Beats and the throng of young followers who tried to emulate the lifestyle and mindset, it didn’t take long for the mainstream media to exploit the scene as it could.

The beatniks were easy—just give a character a goatee, a beret, a set of bongos, a mouthful of incoherent poetry and a jazzy score and you were all set. Suddenly drive-ins saw a flurry of quickie low-budget beatsploitation pictures, which for the most part were standard genre films (murder mysteries and juvenile delinquent movies), but featuring affected types who hung out in coffeehouses and said “daddy-o” a lot.

In those terms, 1959 was a watershed year, witnessing the release of Charles Haas’s The Beat Generation and Roger Corman’s A Bucket of Blood, as well as the arrival of Bob Denver as that beatnik’s beatnik Maynard G. Krebbs on TV’s The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

As easy as beatniks were to satirize, it was much more difficult for the mainstream (especially on television) to get a grasp on the original Beat mentality that lay beneath the co-opted cartoon affectations. It’s certainly understandable—the Beats weren’t exactly striving to be understood by the mainstream, after all—but NBC came close that same watershed year with the premiere of a new weekly series, Johnny Staccato. In historical and cultural terms, the show worked as a bridge between the fading postwar ennui and paranoia that spawned film noir and the new youthful openness and countercultural energy of the Beats. The connection is locked in place with a jazzy score composed by Elmer Bernstein, who’d fired the first hesitant noir jazz salvo with his score for 1955’s The Man With the Golden Arm.

John Cassavetes (who admittedly only took the role to help finance his own film projects) brings an easygoing streetwise cool to the titular role, playing a jazz pianist in the house combo at Waldo’s, a funky Greenwich Village bar. In each half-hour episode, Staccato finds himself embroiled in a noirish scenario, complete with a voiceover that dances the line between the hardboiled and the hep. Staccato knows everyone, it seems, from cops and stoolies to musicians, low-rent gangsters, immigrants, newstand operators, writers, artists and penny-ante thieves, so is the neighborhood’s go-to guy whenever one of his countless bohemian friends needs protection, help in clearing their name, or anything else that might come up. He’s smooth, he’s calm, and he’s as rational and honest a Johnson as you’ll ever hope to find. Although he has a knack for prying into other people’s business, he knows how to keep his mouth shut. The terms “Beat” or beatnik” never come up save for one episode in which he tries to track down a missing poet (played by Christopher Walken’s older brother), but Staccato is the embodiment of Beatness, whether trying to save a young couple from a black market baby ring or unmask a crooked storefront preacher who’s been preying on the poor and vulnerable. And all of it without a single “daddy-o.”

In Thomas Pynchon’s novel Inherent Vice, pot-smoking hippie private dick Doc Sportello holds Staccato (a clear inspiration for the character) up as a shamus on a par with Spade and Marlowe, if not greater. And despite all the hepcat trappings, the character actors who make guest spots (Elisha Cook, Charles MacGraw, etc.) only further solidifies the show’s noir pedigree.

Though filmed on a Hollywood soundstage for a major television network, the characters who populate each episode represent a melange of believably misbegotten and forsaken mid-century Village denizens.

It’s my guess that in 1959, however, an ultra-hip, wise, countercultural hero who only turned to the cops when absolutely necessary, a guy who was trying to help people out simply because he was a stand-up guy, as well as the assorted lowlifes he dealt with every week, were still too alien and threatening to family audiences at home.

So halfway through the first season, the producers began tinkering, trying to force the show and the character of Staccato into more familiar and comforting molds, beginning with the opening credits. Suddenly the original cool but up-tempo credit sequence was sharply punctuated with a shot of Staccato smashing a window and firing a gunshot at some unseen enemy. Just as suddenly, it seems, not only was the character an officially-licensed, gun-toting private detective working hand-in-hand with the cops, he was a Korean War vet to boot. While prior to the shift he’d mostly been helping out lost souls who’d gotten in over their heads, now he was after powerful mobsters, counterfeiters, hit men and occasionally getting caught up in Cold War shenanigans. You know, things the audience at home could better understand. And while we’re at it? Yeah, that whole “pianist in a jazz club” thing? Our marketing shows those places still make people kind of uncomfortable. I mean, don’t negroes hang out in those places? And all those jazz musicians are a bunch of hopheads, aren’t they? So maybe we could just kind of edge that whole scene out of the show, okay? We don’t want to make our sponsors nervous.

In midstream the show abruptly became a straight and familiar detective series, with a much higher ratio of fistfights, gunplay and general action. Still, it was a schizophrenic one, my guess thanks to those scripts greenlighted before the tweaking began. Sometimes he’s a licensed private dick with a gun, sometimes not. Sometimes he’s a Korean vet, sometimes not. Sometimes he’s tight with the cops at the local precinct, sometimes the mutual open disdain leads him to avoid the cops at all costs. And sometimes he’s a professional jazz musician who investigates crimes in his spare time, and at others there’s nary a hint of Waldo’s or his musical career.

For it all though, and for all the shifts and changes and discrepancies in the character’s background, Staccato himself remains an earnest constant, at once finger-popping and intense, thanks exclusively to Cassavetes’ performance. He clearly understood (even if he hated doing the show) who the character was supposed to be from the beginning, and never wavered from that. It’s also interesting to note that, regardless how comforting and familiar the network heads tried to make the show, it remained surprisingly downbeat. More often than not the people Staccato is trying to protect end up dead, and those whose names he’s trying to clear reveal themselves to be guilty as hell. Which I guess can either be read as brutal honesty about a cruel, ugly, and meaningless world, or a cynical comment on the part of the producers warning viewers they’re better off bringing their troubles to the officially sanctioned authorities and federal agencies like proper citizens, instead of counting on some damn beatnik for help.

The final episode of the series is telling, with the writers at once giving the producers what they wanted, while at the same time spitting in their face. Four years earlier, we learn, a renowned Soviet classical pianist defected with his wife during a concert tour of the US. The elderly couple has been on the run and in hiding ever since, pursued by relentless dirty commie assassins. So you got a simple Us vs. Them Cold War scenario that allowed true blue viewers at home to wave little American flags. The pianist finally gets a regular job at Waldo’s, where the assassins find him once again and, well, things don’t end on a happy note. Much of the episode is a hearkening back to the show’s origins, with most of the action taking place within the club, and jazz and classical music playing throughout. Staccato himself plays only a minor role here for the most part, but after the pianist and his wife are gunned down in the street, Staccato’s closing VO is unusually bitter. The assassin got away, and though he hints at an ongoing storyline, he says someone else is going to have to take care of it. People are going to continue killing each other, but he wanted nothing more to do with it himself. “I’m finished,” he spits as the closing credits role. In short, he’s turning his back on the Beat sensibility that drove him to try and help the forgotten and the gutter trash. Nope, from that point on he was just looking out for number one, like any real American. The producers likely saw that as ending on a high note, with that dirty beatnik finally coming to see the light and redeeming himself in the eyes of the general public and the sponsors.

After a single twenty-seven episode season, the show was cancelled, but the original spirit was resurrected shortly thereafter in the form of Route 66. Meanwhile the cheap beatsploitation caravan rolled on in 1960 with Paul Frees’ The Beatniks and Ranald MacDougall’s questionable adaptation of Kerouac’s The Subterraneans, which were much easier for the masses to understand.

by Jim Knipfel

[omnivore-bibliosaur]

Well, folks, it is hard to believe that only a year has passed since election night 2016. It feels like much more time has passed than a mere twelve months. Through all of the events (and tweets) that have transpired, my reading helped sustain my heart and mind. It’s not just the librarian in me saying this, but I’m a firm believer in the power of reading and lifelong learning to make the world a better place. Right now, I want to read about queer women who have joined the political fray in order to effect positive change. I hope that these books give you the shot in the arm that you need to keep on going, too.

True Colors by Yolanda Wallace Bold Strokes Books, August 2017 Join the conversation on Goodreads!

“Taylor Crenshaw is a lifelong Democrat, but her parents are staunch Republicans. To make matters worse, her ultraconservative father has just been elected president. Although she prefers to live her life openly, her father would rather she stay in the closet. When she meets Robby Rawlins, will she choose to give in to her father’s demands or follow her heart?   Robby Rawlins works at an antique store by day. She spends her nights anonymously skewering politicians in her blog. President Terry Crenshaw’s anti-gay rhetoric gave Robby plenty to write about during a contentious campaign, but a chance meeting with his daughter leaves her at a loss for words. Getting the scoop has always been Robby’s goal. Now it might come second to getting the girl. Unless she can find a way to do both.” — Bold Strokes Books

  By Design by J.A. Armstrong By Design series, books 1-9 J.A. Armstrong Books, 2015 Join the conversation on Goodreads!

“Building bridges has a very different meaning for Jameson Reid than it does for Candace Fletcher. J.D. Reid spends her days designing some of the most elegant and majestic buildings and homes in North America.  U.S. Senator Candace Fletcher has spent her life working to build bridges between people. J.D. Reid is not who Candace Fletcher was expecting to arrive on her doorstep. Candace will challenge all of Jameson’s preconceptions about the women of Washington D.C. The enigmatic architect will test the resolve of the Junior Senator from New York. Two women will discover that falling in love may be out of their control, but creating a relationship in the world of politics and business is completely BY DESIGN.” — J.A. Armstrong Books

  A More Perfect Union by Carsen Taite Bold Strokes Books, December 2017

“When Major Zoey Granger exposed corruption in the ranks, she became an unwitting media darling and shot to a position reporting to top brass at the Pentagon. Now Zoey finds herself in the unwanted spotlight once again, this time at the heart of a scandal that threatens to devastate the military. Her efforts to contain the fallout are thwarted when the White House assigns a notorious DC fixer to oversee her every move.

Political insider Rook Daniels can fix any problem, no matter how illicit or indictable, but she has two rules: she picks her cases and she’s in charge. When she makes an exception for an old friend at the White House, she gets tangled up with a sexy but stubborn officer who has her own ideas about authority. Rook and Zoey must decide whether a chance at love is worth risking loss of reputation in a town where appearances rule.” — Bold Strokes Books

  Madam President by Blayne Cooper & T. Novan Renaissance Alliance Publishing, 2001 Join the conversation on Goodreads!

“Devlyn Marlowe, the first woman President of the United States, has just been elected. Breaking with the tradition of hiring a political writer to chronicle her administration, President Marlowe selects one Lauren Strayer, a professional biographer with a reputation for absolute honesty. There’s a slight problem with Devlyn’s plan, though. Lauren wants nothing to do with what she sees as a political hack job. It takes some serious persuading, but the Commander-in-Chief is an eloquent negotiator, and Lauren reluctantly agrees to take the job, provided she truly has editorial freedom. So armed with her computer, her incredibly ugly Pug, and a fair bit of trepidation, Lauren finds herself in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There, amidst the harrowing and demanding life of the First Family, Lauren begins to understand and eventually love the complex woman who is both leader of a great nation and loving single parent to three rambunctious children. Funny, realistic, romantic, and endearing, Madam President is rapidly becoming a modern classic.” — Amazon description

First Lady (sequel) by Blayne Cooper & T. Novan Cavalier Press, 2003 Join the conversation on Goodreads!

“In this timeless classic, the sequel to their best seller Madam President, Blayne Cooper and T. Novan continue the chronicle of the lives of Lauren Strayer and Devlyn Marlowe.

Planning a wedding is never easy. However, most brides don’t face the challenges that Lauren Strayer does. Her beloved comes with a ready-made family, something the biographer never imagined for herself. In addition, Lauren’s estranged father thoroughly disapproves of her future mate, who just happens to be the nation’s first female president. Lauren tackles the perils and pleasures of parenting and the tension between her private nature and her new, very public role. At the same time, Dev, a dedicated public servant, struggles to find the balance between managing the nation’s interests, her family, her fears and her stress, while continuing the development of her relationship with Lauren. The result is an action-packed, amusing and tender tale of the sort that fans of Cooper & Novan have come to love and expect.” — Amazon description

  Wild Things by Karin Kallmaker Bella Books, 2012 (2nd edition) Join the conversation on Goodreads!

“Scholar and award-winning author Faith Fiztgerald has every reason to be happy: a wealthy, charming man who adores her and a family cheering her marriage prospects. But from the moment she meets Eric’s sister, Sydney Van Allen, she knows her safe, predictable feelings for him are a shadow of what could be. Openly lesbian and running for Senator, Sydney can only succeed if she can live down her wild past. That means no liaisons, especially with the achingly alluring woman on her brother’s arm who looks at her with confusion—and desire.” — via Bella Books 

  Awakenings by Jackie Calhoun Bella Books, 2012 Join the conversation on Goodreads!

“Despite early attempts to contact Hayley Baxter, Sarah Sweeney has neither heard from nor seen her since Hayley moved to New York City and a journalism career eleven years ago. Both are incredulous when they literally bump into each other among the tens of thousands of protesters in and around the Wisconsin State Capitol building. Hayley offers to share her hotel room in Madison on weekends. With misgivings, Sarah takes her up on it and quickly realizes her once fierce love for Hayley still simmers under the surface of her anger. When the protests move to the next stage-collecting signatures for recall-the weekends in Madison end. Sarah, a teacher, goes back to real life certain that Hayley will never leave her roommate and job in New York. However, the bad economy causes Hayley’s newspaper to go belly-up and she is forced to return to Wisconsin, to the lake where it all began …” via Bella Books

  The Candidate (Bella Books, 2008) The Campaign (Bella Books, 2012) At Your Service, Madam President (Bella Books, 2016)

Follow Jane Kincaid as she vies for the presidential nomination, works on the election campaign, and her early struggles in the Oval Office.

I’m with her: Political fiction booklist Well, folks, it is hard to believe that only a year has passed since election night 2016.