What the fuck have I done to my eyes but read every single one of the articles on "JC" Leroy at
http://www.jtleroy.com/press/articles/Atheywrote.htm
[For the uninitiate: 'JC' instead of 'JT' in our argot signifies "Just Come Out" as in 'somewhat clueless,' as in 'Just a Child,' as in 'Not Quite Hip Enough.']
And all I can say is: Why BOTHER over whether JC will produce again, or not? One writer even worried the artist was on the "Truman Capote Highway". Wasn't that the first dark example that came to mind here,though?
What is wrong with writing a few books and having done with it? How many writers can keep on writing and keep on being great? It rarely happens.
Capote's first book "Other Voices Other Rooms" shocked with subtle implications of gay sex and incest. It was based on childhood experiences... He titivated the literary world with sensuous diva-like photos of himself lounging, an obvious homosexualist. But what made him classical was "Breakfast," drawing himself as the struggling writer in NYC, spying on that glamourous WHORE Holly Golighty!
The heterosexed/cleaned-up movie gave him world-wide credibility...
But - curse of the subject matter - you can't tell me any actress playing SARAH will ever compete with Holly.
Capote's absolute artistic downfall was high society, and all the drinking that went with keeping up the role as entertainer, wit, arm-doily, court jester, confidante, etc. Very close to the role JC is enacting now. This world became his material, and Capote did not completely understand that WRITING about these women would effectively destroy his relationship with them.
So he dallied between fawning on them and slashing them to the bone, as his brain required. Beautiful, precious, moneyed, leisured women. Wives of enormously wealthy men who bought one-of a-kind couture, and one-of-a-kind artists. Ladies who didn't want to have their secrets told.
Le Roi's 'Sisterhood' are all Hollywood high-profile divas. Photographed into extinction, if you believe in that Amish idea of your photo stealing your soul. (I do.) Very beautiful, artists in their own right, but an altogether more vulgar and rapacious gang.
How forgiving will they be when they discover, as they MUST... if the writer is to LIVE... that all these heartfelt loving conversations li'l sweet cornpone babydoll JC has with them all night long... will be turning up in one of the books... if not the NEXT book... as MATERIAL?
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-22-03 at 11:11 AM.]
quote:
Capote's absolute artistic downfall was high society, and all the drinking that went with keeping up the role as entertainer, wit, arm-doily, court jester, confidante, etc. Very close to the role JC is enacting now.
Stanley,
I trust your literary wisdom totally.
but...
I've always thought that Truman was just way ahead of his time with the roman à clef stuff. Today these women would be THRILLED to be imortalized with scandal.
I think "JC" (short for "just come out" -for all you lurkers) is not a very good name for J.T. As a granddaughter of Truman he really seems to be in touch with the early 21st century. The one Truman & Andy Warhol saw coming.
Just what we need... another enigma.
Thanks for the dialogue!
Roman a clef always has been with us. 'Liaisons Dangereuses' is a great example. That book was a total scandal and banned when it appeared. The author was forced to write a book on the Joys of Marriage or some such drivel to clear his name. (That book was NOT a best seller...)
In any event, what happened with Truman is he
wrote in a 'fiction' (Answered Prayers) the details of a murder of a high society gent, by his wife, one of the grandes dames... The lady had gotten her name cleared, but Truman basically blew the whistle on her. When she learned 'her story' was the material for his book, she killed herself.
She might have killed herself anyhow from guilt. In any event, Truman broke confidence as they say and no one forgave him for it.
JT's divas might be thrilled, but then again may also turn against him should he ever use them for material. All I was saying is that with all the chatter about whether he is going to burn out, or not, etc., it makes sense that he will use what he now is learning about and involved with for material. And that these dames probably aren't too aware of that possibility.
Or he could continue to mine the whore thang from now until the TV series.
Anyhow this is WH Auden's quote that's used to such good effect in the Capote bio:
"No writer is a gentleman."
In other words, all is fair game with one of us
Recording Angels.
Iceberg LeRoi, moving up and out from flat-backing, to turning out a gaggle of truly highclass ho's. The success is enviable and
I am sure his shrink is thrilled with the abreaction, i.e. the transformation of painful material into something of value.
Roman a clef always has been with us. 'Liaisons Dangereuses' is a great example. That book was a total scandal and banned when it appeared. The author was forced to write a book on the Joys of Marriage or some such drivel to clear his name. (That book was NOT a best seller...)
In any event, what happened with Truman is he
wrote in a 'fiction' (Answered Prayers) the details of a murder of a high society gent, by his wife, one of the grandes dames... The lady had gotten her name cleared, but Truman basically blew the whistle on her. When she learned 'her story' was the material for his book, she killed herself.
She might have killed herself anyhow from guilt. In any event, Truman broke confidence as they say and no one forgave him for it.
JT's divas might be thrilled, but then again may also turn against him should he ever use them for material. All I was saying is that with all the chatter about whether he is going to burn out, or not, etc., it makes sense that he will use what he now is learning about and involved with for material. And that these dames probably aren't too aware of that possibility.
Or he could continue to mine the whore thang from now until the TV series.
Anyhow this is WH Auden's quote that's used to such good effect in the Capote bio:
"No writer is a gentleman."
In other words, all is fair game with one of us
Recording Angels.
Iceberg LeRoi, moving up and out from flat-backing, to turning out a gaggle of truly highclass ho's. The success is enviable and
I am sure his shrink is thrilled with the abreaction, i.e. the transformation of painful material into something of value.
quote:
"No writer is a gentleman."
Especially if the writer is a lady.
Time for Terence Sellers to grace us with a short story!!!!!!
Please Please Please
As I was waking up this AM I was thinking the quote was
"A writer is not a gentleman."
That is more elegant.
A short story - HERE? But Daddy wouldn't that be TOO LONG??? heheheheh
One can go to my website. You might like "Reluctantly Betrothed to Stan" as to how I got the name.
PS to Bobby: I am definitely senile. I already
wrote the Allan L. story, called "A Case of Moral
Insanity." I will send it to you, since
with 47.5 brain cells left I doubt in my lifetime it will get it scanned and online.
"Once upon a time there was a young hairdresser,
and when he was good he was very very ..."
[This message was edited by S'tan on 09-30-03 at 03:46 PM.]
"A writer is not a gentleman."
That is more elegant.
A short story - HERE? But Daddy wouldn't that be TOO LONG??? heheheheh
One can go to my website. You might like "Reluctantly Betrothed to Stan" as to how I got the name.
PS to Bobby: I am definitely senile. I already
wrote the Allan L. story, called "A Case of Moral
Insanity." I will send it to you, since
with 47.5 brain cells left I doubt in my lifetime it will get it scanned and online.
"Once upon a time there was a young hairdresser,
and when he was good he was very very ..."
[This message was edited by S'tan on 09-30-03 at 03:46 PM.]
What brand are his sunglasses? And is that lipstick? If so, what shade? Does he prefer coffee, or tea?
Attachments
Images (1)
oooh now we have a face to go with
all the frou-frou-ha-ha-ha...
from the articles:
"In public, LeRoy maintains a Warhol-like mystique. He wears wigs, female apparel, and oversize sunglasses, and he seldom says a word. And yet he can give better phone than Warren Beatty, drawing powerful women into his world with his raspy, girlish drawl."
"Dennis Cooper, his mentor responds: 'The question is, What is he going to write about in the future ? He can't keep talking on the phone to Tatum O'Neal and Shirley Manson. Writing is difficult. He doesn't like being alone, and he has so many fans.
"Says Mary Gaitskill [authoress]: "One of the first things [JT] ever said to me was, 'I feel like this is just another hustle, like maybe I'm hustling the literary world.' I said, 'If your writing is good, it doesn't matter.' "
Gag! Of course it matters whether you hustle, or not. That's JT's entire issue. Selling yourself can be virulent to your entire bloodie organism. Only a white-bread vanilla poptart would have the depth to say it's 'okay' to hustle.
all the frou-frou-ha-ha-ha...
from the articles:
"In public, LeRoy maintains a Warhol-like mystique. He wears wigs, female apparel, and oversize sunglasses, and he seldom says a word. And yet he can give better phone than Warren Beatty, drawing powerful women into his world with his raspy, girlish drawl."
"Dennis Cooper, his mentor responds: 'The question is, What is he going to write about in the future ? He can't keep talking on the phone to Tatum O'Neal and Shirley Manson. Writing is difficult. He doesn't like being alone, and he has so many fans.
"Says Mary Gaitskill [authoress]: "One of the first things [JT] ever said to me was, 'I feel like this is just another hustle, like maybe I'm hustling the literary world.' I said, 'If your writing is good, it doesn't matter.' "
Gag! Of course it matters whether you hustle, or not. That's JT's entire issue. Selling yourself can be virulent to your entire bloodie organism. Only a white-bread vanilla poptart would have the depth to say it's 'okay' to hustle.
The wiggage needs work.
"Only a white-bread vanilla poptart would have the depth to say it's 'okay' to hustle."
this is why you rule s'tan!
this is why you rule s'tan!
I wish that Romy Ashby would join in on this topic. She gets quite inflamed about the subject.
You all sound so Hopelessly Devoted!
Devoted to vitriol...Ever since I read Mary Gaitskill's
awful long long wrenchingly detailed
'short story' about her childhood masturbations with a toothbrush
I have loathed her.
Does Romy get vitriolic? Hear hear.
awful long long wrenchingly detailed
'short story' about her childhood masturbations with a toothbrush
I have loathed her.
Does Romy get vitriolic? Hear hear.
I am finally going out to purchase the damn book in person today!
As to JC's Aileen Wuornos meets Sharon Gless attire... well, as they say, it's a look.
As to JC's Aileen Wuornos meets Sharon Gless attire... well, as they say, it's a look.
You better read ha' before you trash her...
Don't hate ha' before you knows ha'....
Well I was harrassed by Mlle. Madison last Wednesday, whether I had done my HOMEWORK...
egads I love the rigor! Beat me with red pencil! And no I hadn't, no - I had NOT yet read "SARAH" the second time.
So honey I STARTED... 90 pages last night, and so far -
she holds up beautifully! It is orgasmic, luscious, well for me all the material is SO real.
For the white-bread Vanillas - I see why they are creaming! I personally would not have put it ALL so bluntly, but she could, and did, very prettily...
It is dirty, and magnificent.
Hoax:
(I admit I signed a contract to mention JT in every single one of my posts from now on the M'Boards. Hmph! Yeah, I's just another 'ho in the 'Sistah-hood'... But is there degradation in worshipping a true Master/Mistress?)
WHAT IS THE NAME OF HER EDITOR???
My own penny-dreadful edit will be coming soon... She is not bad at all, the second read is definitivement BETTER than the first...
but sorry, did find a few too many cliches that slipped through!
Sidebar: Wonderbar has LOVELY cocktails, feature the "Pineapple Cheesecake" which really is divine.
I just had my birthday, so am not rigourous enough at the moment to edify further.
Tomorrow?
Definitivement avant Paris.
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-06-03 at 03:22 PM.]
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-22-03 at 08:46 AM.]
Don't hate ha' before you knows ha'....
Well I was harrassed by Mlle. Madison last Wednesday, whether I had done my HOMEWORK...
egads I love the rigor! Beat me with red pencil! And no I hadn't, no - I had NOT yet read "SARAH" the second time.
So honey I STARTED... 90 pages last night, and so far -
she holds up beautifully! It is orgasmic, luscious, well for me all the material is SO real.
For the white-bread Vanillas - I see why they are creaming! I personally would not have put it ALL so bluntly, but she could, and did, very prettily...
It is dirty, and magnificent.
Hoax:
(I admit I signed a contract to mention JT in every single one of my posts from now on the M'Boards. Hmph! Yeah, I's just another 'ho in the 'Sistah-hood'... But is there degradation in worshipping a true Master/Mistress?)
WHAT IS THE NAME OF HER EDITOR???
My own penny-dreadful edit will be coming soon... She is not bad at all, the second read is definitivement BETTER than the first...
but sorry, did find a few too many cliches that slipped through!
Sidebar: Wonderbar has LOVELY cocktails, feature the "Pineapple Cheesecake" which really is divine.
I just had my birthday, so am not rigourous enough at the moment to edify further.
Tomorrow?
Definitivement avant Paris.
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-06-03 at 03:22 PM.]
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-22-03 at 08:46 AM.]
Msr. SELLERS:
Beginning Heart/Deceitful for second read tonight. We'll have much to discuss on your return. Bon Voyage! And Joyeux Anniversaire!
Beginning Heart/Deceitful for second read tonight. We'll have much to discuss on your return. Bon Voyage! And Joyeux Anniversaire!
Dear Handsome,
I just got Heart/Deceitful in the mail from faithful #166, but should I configure Paris under the toils of LeRoy? Standing out on the sidewalks of St-Denis, will be enjoying my own slew of tricks. Why read about it when you can live it.
Empress told me when she was unhappily at JT's last reading, someone tried to lay a racoon penis bone necklace on her! And it wasn't from Pimp Daddy Glad, though, but a publicist! Oh sorry same thing.
How can you take an image like that, and turn it into a product. I forgot to ask if it was real, or plastic, well it's all plastic!
Anyhow yes more interesting conversation will be ours in a few weeks. Almost done the second reading of "Sarah." What strikes me now is how very well she describes the minutiae of emotion. She is indeed one of the psychic lot-lizards that way.
Thinking lately of Jean Genet and how he continued to live as he always had, in little hotels in Paris... Furtive, downplaying the self, probably still finding young thieves to blow...
You have to be true to your subject matter, so it doesn't curse you. Giving away replicas of a sacred talisman for publicity purposes is a boner.
I just got Heart/Deceitful in the mail from faithful #166, but should I configure Paris under the toils of LeRoy? Standing out on the sidewalks of St-Denis, will be enjoying my own slew of tricks. Why read about it when you can live it.
Empress told me when she was unhappily at JT's last reading, someone tried to lay a racoon penis bone necklace on her! And it wasn't from Pimp Daddy Glad, though, but a publicist! Oh sorry same thing.
How can you take an image like that, and turn it into a product. I forgot to ask if it was real, or plastic, well it's all plastic!
Anyhow yes more interesting conversation will be ours in a few weeks. Almost done the second reading of "Sarah." What strikes me now is how very well she describes the minutiae of emotion. She is indeed one of the psychic lot-lizards that way.
Thinking lately of Jean Genet and how he continued to live as he always had, in little hotels in Paris... Furtive, downplaying the self, probably still finding young thieves to blow...
You have to be true to your subject matter, so it doesn't curse you. Giving away replicas of a sacred talisman for publicity purposes is a boner.
Okay, I confess. I've been meaning to read J.T. Leroy for some time now and I'd just never gotten around to it. When this forum started however, it became critical! Yes, yes, 'tis true ... J.T. had never popped my cherry! Go figure.
So I rushed out to St. Marks Books. They were sold out of Sarah but I picked up The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.
Harrowing. Brilliantly written, but really horrible stuff. The abuse of this boy never ends. I really wanted to kill that bitch mother of his, I mean really SLAP THE SHIT OUT OF HER. That is until the part where he hooks up with Grandfather. Yikes!
I'm still not finished. But frankly as great as it is, I'm not sure if this is the type of fare I can re-read again and again. Kind of like watching "Frances" with Jessica Lange. It was astounding, but so hurtful. I could only watch it once. Maybe I'm just a big crybaby.
So I rushed out to St. Marks Books. They were sold out of Sarah but I picked up The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.
Harrowing. Brilliantly written, but really horrible stuff. The abuse of this boy never ends. I really wanted to kill that bitch mother of his, I mean really SLAP THE SHIT OUT OF HER. That is until the part where he hooks up with Grandfather. Yikes!
I'm still not finished. But frankly as great as it is, I'm not sure if this is the type of fare I can re-read again and again. Kind of like watching "Frances" with Jessica Lange. It was astounding, but so hurtful. I could only watch it once. Maybe I'm just a big crybaby.
I agree it is painful to read. But his style is the triumph, don't you think... Apparently the subject matter of Heart/Deceitful is much less stylized. (Now I am definitely not taking it on my trip...!)
On a related note, I rec'd the film "The Piano Teacher" for my birthday, and it's enough to put any tourist off S&M... Total candor - that being a 'true sadomasochist' is not actually much fun, OR glamourous. No pop cool there at all, no groovy fashions, or spooky techno equipment. Just the urge: its horrifying need, subject to (often vile) power play.
This is what offends about the brou-ha-ha around JT - that somehow it's COOL to be or have been in degradation.All the more offensive his fan base of privileged women, for whom real sucking-and-fucking whoring isn't an 'option' in any of their contracts.
But JT'll never go back to the truck stop again... Tell your tales of mayhem and heartbreak, only to realize they're not so much caring about you as getting OFF on it. The very people who bring you out of it - now, on the way up, they're jacking off on you. STILL!
He has a fan-base of more protective caring types, who raged about the "I Fucked JT Leroy" t-shirts. (That was one of the articles in the earlier link here.)
Bye for now... Carry on!
On a related note, I rec'd the film "The Piano Teacher" for my birthday, and it's enough to put any tourist off S&M... Total candor - that being a 'true sadomasochist' is not actually much fun, OR glamourous. No pop cool there at all, no groovy fashions, or spooky techno equipment. Just the urge: its horrifying need, subject to (often vile) power play.
This is what offends about the brou-ha-ha around JT - that somehow it's COOL to be or have been in degradation.All the more offensive his fan base of privileged women, for whom real sucking-and-fucking whoring isn't an 'option' in any of their contracts.
But JT'll never go back to the truck stop again... Tell your tales of mayhem and heartbreak, only to realize they're not so much caring about you as getting OFF on it. The very people who bring you out of it - now, on the way up, they're jacking off on you. STILL!
He has a fan-base of more protective caring types, who raged about the "I Fucked JT Leroy" t-shirts. (That was one of the articles in the earlier link here.)
Bye for now... Carry on!
S'tan-- yeah, I'd say leave Heart/Deceitful stateside. But then, I leave most books home when I travel. I find reading books when I'm away from home is either pointless, because I'm too distracted, or counterproductive because I feel I'm getting something skewed thanks to strange surroundings. I prefer the familiarity New York, and esp. of home or the subway for reading books. Prefer newspapers and mags when away. But that's just me? Anyhow, Lex, I wish you'd borrowed my Sarah first before digging into the other! 
i just so enjoyed getting the backstory afterwards with heart/deceitful. Prob no matter tho.
Where will JT take us next? Further down the highway to the next truckstop...or someplace different altogether? Could there still be another prequel?
i just so enjoyed getting the backstory afterwards with heart/deceitful. Prob no matter tho.Where will JT take us next? Further down the highway to the next truckstop...or someplace different altogether? Could there still be another prequel?
and read "Heart/Deceitful" on the way to Paris, and then the second time all the way back...
'COAL' assuredly is one of the most heinous things ever put to paper! How is the kid still living after that? And not a scrap of self-pity, moralizing, or whining through any of it. Too great.
And the cigarette lighter torture? The mother should be in jail (if it's true)... but (as my father said as he lit another cigarette) "all great writers have terrible childhoods." So don't ask me to be good, because my evil is transforming you, darling! What a killer.
I am very disappointed you guys didn't keep
ragging on JT. You went and let the end of his penis get cold...
Somehow JT and the boy-king Louis IX (crowned at the age of 12) became one in my mind, whilst rummaging in the ancient dungeons of the Louvre.
more later. I have jet lag.
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-18-03 at 08:44 AM.]
'COAL' assuredly is one of the most heinous things ever put to paper! How is the kid still living after that? And not a scrap of self-pity, moralizing, or whining through any of it. Too great.
And the cigarette lighter torture? The mother should be in jail (if it's true)... but (as my father said as he lit another cigarette) "all great writers have terrible childhoods." So don't ask me to be good, because my evil is transforming you, darling! What a killer.
I am very disappointed you guys didn't keep
ragging on JT. You went and let the end of his penis get cold...
Somehow JT and the boy-king Louis IX (crowned at the age of 12) became one in my mind, whilst rummaging in the ancient dungeons of the Louvre.
more later. I have jet lag.
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-18-03 at 08:44 AM.]