Beauty Salon

Who has read Mario Bellatin's novella, Beauty Salon? It only takes a few minutes. I thought it would be the salon stylist's dying guests who interested me the most; but no, it was the exotic fish in the aquariums. The men who go to the salon to die, I've known for a long time. But the fish are new to me, only recent acquaintances. And as Bellatin concludes, they already "respect the loneliness to come." A gift from the future, indeed.

Another recommendation

I've just finished Tim Dean's book, Unlimited Intimacy, which is the best critical book in Gay Studies I've read in some years. It's a brave look at the subculture of barebacking, and its representation in visual pornography. Especially insightful and useful is Dean's analysis of the "barebacking community"'s kinship networks and how they play off and on the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage.

I'm rereading Dale Peck's 1990s novel Martin and John and remain in awe of it. He was a young man when he wrote it, but he already had a language of his own. He subsequent work retains some of that idiom; but this one book alone was enough to secure his reputation. I recommend it to everyone.