Monday, June 11, 2007

Tomorrow is Mouse Day in San Francisco

The City by the Bay celebrates my fictional avatar tomorrow, June 12; San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom has declared it "Michael Tolliver Day", celebrating, among other things, Armistead Maupin's newest novel, Michael Tolliver Lives. Therein, we find Mouse a little older, perhaps a little wiser and still living in the San Francisco wonderland.

Of the new book, Maupin says:

"I wanted to illuminate the process of growing older as a gay man, and make it easier for people who think life is over," he says. "Gay men who are growing old are incredibly lucky to be here."

Maupin's life hasn't been untouched by AIDS; like so many, he lost a loved one. The optimistic outlook he has today has been hard won.

"But if I'd known that 63 was going to feel this good, I would have been a lot more cheerful along the way," says Maupin.

June 11, 2007 at 3:18 PM |
Reading
Armistead Maupin | Tales of the City

Wednesday, June 3, 1998

June 3, 1998

"28. I will meet somebody nice, away from a bar or the tubs or a roller-skating rink, and I will fall hopelessly but conventionally in love.

29. But I won't say I love you before he does.

30. The hell I won't."

-- three of Michael "Mouse" Tolliver's "Valentine's Day resolutions" from More Tales of the City

What I'm reading now: Goodnight, Nebraska: A Novel by Tom McNeal. [A taste of chapter one, courtesy of the San Diego Union Tribune]

Another addition to the 'To Read' pile: A Boy Named Phyllis: A Suburban Memoir by Frank DeCaro. (I'm also planning to re-read David B. Feinberg's Eighty-Sixed in the next week or so, and it's about time for my semi-annual re-reading of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City sextet, apropos to the airing of the new mini-series adaptation on Showtime.)

Speaking of which, props to Showtime for producing and airing the latest installment of Maupin's Tales for the screen, but what programming genius decided to debut this as counter-programming to the Tony Awards? Are they honestly expecting a massive gay exodus tuning out Broadway in favor of Barbary Lane? We shall see.

June 3, 1998 at 5:03 PM |
Jurassic Weblog
Tony Awards | Armistead Maupin | Tales of the City | Michael Tolliver | books