Frances McDormand & Cynthia Nixon read Tales Of The City!

From Beatstreet Productions

Over the past month, we’ve recorded several titles from Armistead Maupin’s classic series Tales Of The City.  Oscar-winner Frances McDormand read the first and third books in the series, Tales Of The City and Further Tales Of The City, and Sex And The City star Cynthia Nixon recorded the second, More Tales Of The City.  Scott Sherratt directed the books for Harper Audio while Jared O’Connell & Jeff Malinowski engineered.

http://beatstreetnyc.com/?p=422

My Tales of the City

9.25.2012
BY OLYMPIA DUKAKIS
Published in OUT Magazine


A reflection on playing one of the first transgender characters on television, Anna Madrigal.

I got the call that they wanted me to do it. I was almost in shock because I knew there were many actresses in America who wanted to play that part. I acknowledged that I knew nothing about it, so I started to read. There were a couple of biographies and autobiographies around -- not much at that time. I felt somewhat prepared, and then as the [filming] got closer, I thought, I don’t really know anything. I have got to talk to someone who has gone through this. I have to really find out what this is all about. [The producers] arranged a meeting between me and this [transgender] woman who was now a sex/gender therapist.

So I bought a couple of croissants and invited her over for breakfast. And in through the door walked a woman who was 6-foot-2 with enormous hands and the softest voice. We sat down and were chitchatting, and then I finally said to her, “Look, I have read something about what you’ve been through, and I have to ask you, what was it that you wanted or needed so deeply, so profoundly, that made it possible for you to first of all have the courage to do it and secondly to endure it?” And this is what she said to me: “All my life I yearned for the friendship of women.”

I cannot tell you… I instantly started to cry. I know what it is to want the friendship of women. I know how difficult sometimes that is to make happen, especially when you are competing heterosexually with women for men. There are all sorts of things that it brought out for me, and I understood something about Anna Madrigal and her relationship to other women that are around her.

For example, we were shooting a scene -- the first time I invite Maryann (played by Laura Linney) into my bedroom to talk. I say “Come on, let’s go over here. We can talk.” They wanted us to go over to the bureau and talk at the bureau. And I walked into the room and the bed had been dismantled and put to the side, and I said, “If we were gonna talk, we would sit on the bed and talk. We wouldn’t go over to the mirror and talk.” The guy stopped for a moment and then he made them assemble the bed. We did the scene on the bed, and I understood that scene was my wanting her friendship, that this is the thing Anna had not had and was looking for, always.

As told to Jason Lamphier

http://www.out.com/entertainment/television/2012/09/25/Olympia-Dukakis-my-tales-city

ChicagoPride.com launches episodic fiction series, Boystown

GoPride.com’s official geekologist Danny Bernardo branches out with new series

Mon. July 9, 2012  8:39:21 AM

Chicago, IL — Celebrating 10 years as the leading provider of online news and entertainment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the Midwest, ChicagoPride.com today announced the launch of Boystown, a new episodic web series written by Danny Bernardo.


Bernardo is best known in Chicago for his work in the burgeoning theatre scene, most recently with a yearlong stint with Silk Road Rising and as a new collective member and resident playwright with Bailiwick Chicago. ChicagoPride.com readers have followed his coverage of gay comic book news and his blog Geek Out. This summer, he will add fiction writer to his list of accomplishments when his episodic series Boystown debuts on ChicagoPride.com and the GoPride.com Network on Monday, July 16.

Following the lives, loves and hijinks of a trio of diverse gay men living in the heart of Chicago's famed gay neighborhood, Boystown marries the subversive intrigue of Tales of the City with the sexy escapades of Gossip Girl. In fact, Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin's serial take of San Francisco life in the 70's and 80's was a huge inspiration point for Bernardo.

"The first time I ever saw two men kiss romantically was when PBS aired the miniseries based on Tales of they City," he recalls. "I got the books from the library the next day and was hooked. The honesty and humor with which he created his characters just made me fall in love with San Francisco."

In fact, Bernardo spent the first summer out of high school living in the Bay Area and studying theatre at the famed American Conservatory Theater.

"It was the first time I was out on my own and I thought, ‘I'm like these characters. This is my story.' Then I moved away for college and fell in love with another city: Chicago. I hope that Boystown will have the same impact for those visiting or living in Chicago."

Taking a page from his literary hero, Bernardo's Boystown will run Monday through Friday on ChicagoPride.com, with a new installment posted every day. Bernardo will utilize many of the tools of new and social media, which weren't available thirty-some years ago when Maupin's Tales series ran in the San Francisco Chronicle.

"I really want it to be an interactive piece," says Bernardo. "As the series progresses, reader comments will help shape future story lines. In the future, I want readers to share pictures through social media sites and get their stories out there. This story is for all of us."

Recognizing the visual nature of today's readership, Bernardo is partnering with many local photographers, both established and emerging, to showcase their images of gay Chicago life with each installment.

For more updates and developments of Boystown, follow @BoystownSeries on Twitter.

http://chicago.gopride.com/news/article.cfm/articleid/31103761/chicagopridecom-launches-episodic-fiction-series-boystown

Tales of the Tales

This article originally appeared in The Advocate May 22, 2001

An oral history of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, which marks its 25th anniversary with this month's debut of the Further Tales of the City miniseries By Michael Giltz

Further Tales of the City-the third miniseries based on Armistead Maupin's Tales novels-begins its four-week run May 6 on Showtime, just in time to mark a quarter century since the stories first appeared as a serial in the San Francisco Chronicle.  To mark the occasion, The Advocate spoke to some of the people connected with the serial, the books, and the miniseries.

ARMISTEAD MAUPIN, author of six Tales of the City novels and cowriter of the three miniseries:  in 1974 I wrote this single functional piece, and an editor at the Pacific Sun [a San Francisco weekly] suggested that I do it on a weekly basis.  I think I did an episode on the baths with Michael, and I can't even remember what the other four were, but the paper folded after five [installments].  When the editors at the San Francisco Chronicle told me they were interested in continuing it [in 1976], I had one of those great revelatory moments when you run down the street and click your heels in the air--and I mean that literally--because you know you're on to something really good.  I was filled with excitement because I had an idea that was completely fresh and subject matter that had not been tapped.

EDITH STEIN, Maupin's coworker at the Chronicle:  I worked in the People department of the Chronicle, [which] had evolved from the old "women's pages."  We were all in our 20s and early 30s--very conservative and all on our first marriages.  When Armistead first wrote the serial, he used to come in every day and bat out these stories--these wicked, wicked "Tales of the City."  We'd all gather around and he would spill the beans about everything--the true stories behind what he was writing.  We'd say, "Is this true?  Is this true?"  He was larger than life.

MAUPIN, This first five years in the city bouncing from job to job had given me all the material I could possibly need--not to mention that I'd been working at the opera and witnessing the peregrinations of San Francisco society up close.  It was as if every crappy little job that had ever bored me silly was suddenly going to be put to use.

The deadlines were enormously useful because they got me past my natural instinct to be self-critical.  I had to do 800 words a day, come hell or high water.  There were times when the editor of that section would come by and tap her fingernails on my typewriter out of sheer impatience.

My parents subscribed to the newspaper in order to follow the column.  So as the hairpins began to drop, they got more and more concerned.  And I eventually used the column as my vehicle for coming out.

STEIN, He was terrible with deadlines.  [But] he's a very, very fast writer.  It was like a sportswriter--he was writing on deadline but producing this really beautifully written copy.

MAUPIN, Rock Hudson [the basis for the Cage Tyler character in the Further Tales miniseries] showed up in San Francisco and took a bunch of [us] out for dinner.  Then we went up to his suite at the Fairmont hotel.  I had bragged to him that my column was going to start running the next morning.  He secretly went to the desk clerk and bought an early edition of the Chronicle.  So here's a dozen guys in Rock's suite, and he rises rather drunkenly to his feet and says, "I have a reading I'd like to do," and he read the first chapter [of Tales] to the group, attempting to approximate the voices of Mary Ann Singleton and her mother.  The great irony was that Mary Ann's mother warns her that San Francisco is a dangerous place because she just saw this horrible thing that happened on McMillan and Wife.

TODD HARGIS, resident of San Francisco during most of the Tales era and friend of Maupin's:  I [left San Francisco] to help my sister move to Arizona and ended up getting stuck in Phoenix.  A friend of mine came out to visit and brought me the first Tales  in book form.  I read it in one sitting.  I could not put it down.  I remember reading it and thinking, God, look what I'm missing.

After I got back to San Francisco, one of my roommates took me out to [the gay bar] Badlands.   I looked across the pool table and saw this guy sitting there reading the newspaper, and he kind of lowered the paper and looked over at me.  We smiled, and I went over and said hello.  It was Armistead.

MAUPIN,  [As the fourth novel, Babycakes, was being serialized], people were very, very angry with me for killing off Jon Fielding, their favorite character.  I had lost a very close friend in 1982, one of the very first victims of [AIDS-related] pneumocystis:  Daniel Katz.

HARGIS,  I had friends who were really upset.  "How could he do this?  We know he's got to make a political statement.  But why do it with our friends?"

MAUPIN,  Jon Fielding's death was, as far as I knew, the first AIDS death in fiction when it appeared in the Chronicle in 1983.  I knew that I had to be faithful to the rules that I had laid down for myself, mainly that I would try to reflect the reality of my own life as much as possible within the context of this protracted fairy tale.  I wanted to make other people feel some of the pain that I was feeling over this loss--the pain and the panic.

HBO had optioned the books in 1982, [but as they developed the project, it] felt like they couldn't do a story about the freewheeling days of 1976, and they couldn't update it without making AIDS a part of the equation.  So it sat on a shelf at HBO for many, many years.

ALAN POUL,  executive producer of all three miniseries:  HBO actually took it to the script stage.  But the rights fell to [the U.K. Producers] Working Title [and its U.S. production partner, Propaganda, where Poul worked].  I jumped up and down and screamed at the possibility of being involved.

OLYMPIA DUKAKIS, who has played Anna Madrigal in all three miniseries:  I hadn't read the books, and I was advised by the director [of the first series, Alastair Reed] not to read them until it's over.  So I did what he said; I waited until it was over.

MAUPIN, You can imagine Olympia's amazement when she began reading the novels and discovered her own family being discussed in [Sure of You, which includes a visit to the Greek island of Lesbos].

DUKAKIS,  I know, isn't that interesting?  That my paternal grandfather and grandmother come from that Island?  Then, of course, you know Anna gets involved later on with a Greek fisherman.  I'm waiting for that.

MAUPIN,  I remember the night that we final shot the kiss scene [in the Tales miniseries] with [Marcus D'Amico, who played Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, and] Billy Campbell [as Jon Fielding].  I was standing at the top of the Barbary steps, looking down on the car where the kissing was going on.  In between takes, Billy would come up and join me and talk about his current heartbreak, because he'd just broken up with Jennifer Connelly.  I remember thinking how blessed I was that this simple act of a kiss between men was finally being filmed.

POUL,  The first series [which was financed by British television and aired on PBS in the United States], we did 12 days in San Francisco, and the rest of it was shot on stages and locations here in Los Angeles.  Barbary Lane completely occupied a big stage.  At the time, it's just crazy and you never have enough money and you're trying to cobble together a production.  So the depth of the reaction from the critics and the incredible ratings success that PBS had with it took us by surprise.  And then we were completely flummoxed by the hostile reaction it got from certain parts of the country.  At first we were just kind of amused, and then we realized it was not necessarily a laughing matter.  Then PBS got cold feet.

DUKAKIS,  PBS said, "We don't like to repeat them."  Meanwhile, we had six years of Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect with stories about murder and pedophilia.  And this is just about people struggling to find love and be loved.

POUL,  We had absolutely given [a miniseries sequel] up for dead.  There was about three years of somewhat cautious hope followed by absolute despair and resignation.  And then we made the [second] show.  [Laughs] The way we were able to finance the second series was by shooting it primarily in Montreal, and financing dictated that we must hire a Canadian director who qualified as a resident of Quebec.  So I must have looked at the work of a dozen directors before we found Pierre [Gang, who directed More Tales and Further Tales].

HARGIS, I was working with computers in a hotel accounting office.  It was good pay, but it wasn't very stimulating.  Armistead and my mom both said I should do something with horticulture.  It really wasn't because [the character] Michael did it; I just really enjoyed it.  [But] one of the things about Tales I learned early on is that you never know where the fiction leaves off and reality starts, or vice versa.

STEIN, The Chronicle has talked over the years about doing something like Tales of the City [again].  but it won't work now.  Silicon Valley?  Those people aren't going to be interesting in that same way.  Everyone was living on the edge, and if they weren't, they wanted to know all about the people that were.  It was an outrageous time.  Armistead was just the right person at the right time.  now, when you think about those days you can hardly believe that they were true.

Giltz writes regularly for the New York Post and other publications.

100-Plus-Year-Old Chinatown Restaurant, Home of Famed Rude Waiter, to Close This Weekend

Sam Wo, which by some accounts opened in its current location at 813 Washington Street in 1907 but may have opened ten years prior, is closing after service on Friday. The owner, David Ho, tells the Scoop his reasons: "Too old. Everything’s too old. The building is too old. It’s very sad." Sam Wo was the legendary home of "the world's rudest waiter," Edsel Ford Fong, made famous in part because the restaurant was also a hangout of the Beats. Fong, who died in 1984, was immortalized as a recurring character in Armistead Maupin's series of Tales of the City novels, a character later featured in the BBC mini-series based on the novels.

Fong was said to be in on the joke, so to speak, but nonetheless he was known for calling patrons fat, criticizing their menu choices, seating people with strangers, groping female patrons, taking orders with a cigarette in his mouth, swearing, forgetting orders, reminding people to tip him, and busing tables before diners were finished. (Alas, the restaurant's reputation for nutty/aggressive waitstaff continued into recent times, as evidenced by this video of a brusque, screaming waitress from 2009, shot by some amused tourists.)

The three-story restaurant has run into trouble with the fire department lately, and apparently the owner feels the kitchen and the building itself are beyond repair. (We should also note that Jonathan Kauffman just this week wrote about Sam Wo as part of this Rice Plate Journal series, calling it "dirty and adorable" and "the most charming dive in Chinatown.")

Luckily we still have the city's oldest Chinese restaurant, the former Hang Far Low which renamed itself (wisely) Four Seas a few decades back. It was originally located, pre-quake, on Dupont street, between Clay and Sacramento and was called the "Delmonico's of Chinatown" according to an 1885 guide book. After the quake it moved to its current location at 731 Grant Avenue.

Update: SFist reminds us that Sam Wo was featured on the Late Show with Conan O'Brien in 2007 when Conan was doing a week of shows in S.F. Also, they're open until 3 a.m., for those looking to squeeze in a last visit.

http://sanfrancisco.grubstreet.com/2012/04/sam-wo-chinatown-dive-closing.html

Armistead Maupin: I came out to my parents via Tales of the City

As his Tales of the City are released in ebook form, Armistead Maupin reflects on their 35-year journey from newspaper column to electronic text – and how they used his life as a 'jumping-off point'

Armistead Maupin
guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 March 2012 08.23 EDT

I remember this guy. He usually dressed like a clone in flannel shirts and 501s, so he must have thought that loosened knit tie would make him look more journalistic. He had just moved into a cottage in the Castro, having bounced between Russian and Telegraph Hills for most of the 70s. For five years, off and on, he'd been writing a column for the morning newspaper that was, in effect, a story without an ending. He wrote his columns on carbon paper, keeping one copy and delivering the other to the newspaper office, often in a frantic last-minute dash in his Volkswagen convertible. There were times when he was barely two days ahead of his readers. Like them, he was waiting breathlessly for what would happen next – but counting on his life to provide it.

In that regard San Francisco never failed him. His tales were often fuelled by the people around him: a closeted movie star who lured him (rather easily) to his suite at the Fairmont Hotel, a socialite who threw a fancy luncheon "to rap about rape", a homeless man who offered him coffee in a hidden lean-to on Telegraph Hill, a hulking construction worker who slow-danced with him at a gay rodeo. When a "co-ed bathhouse" opened on Valencia Street, this young man was there, taking notes. When the newspaper offered him cruises to Mexico and Alaska, he went on them – in part to see where they would lead his imagination. His never-ending story was a snuffling, ravenous beast that had to be fed on a daily basis, so anything meaty and available was tossed into its waiting maw.

When, for instance, he went home one night with someone aroused by his shoes (the Weejuns he wore with his rugby shirt), he folded that incident straight into the mix. He even wrote about the things that hurt, the "affairettes" that broke his still-adolescent heart – the gorgeous but uptight doctor named Jon who performed mastectomies, the harmonica-playing marine recruiter who read him German poetry in bed and gave him a keychain that said: "The marines are looking for a few good men." It helped him make something useful – or at least entertaining – out of his romantic misadventures.

Which is not to say that his tales were especially autobiographical. The guy in this photo was all of his characters and none of them; reality was just his jumping-off point. He used to say that he was far more like DeDe Halcyon Day, the "recovering debutante" in Tales of the City, than Michael Tolliver, the romantic gay Floridian. After all, he had never entered a jockey shorts dance contest or swum naked into the Bohemian Grove with his clothes in a garbage bag; he would not have had the nerve. His nerve was largely confined to the written word and his insistence that gay folks were part of the human landscape and therefore deserved a place – and equal billing – in his chronicle of modern life. He was often at odds with his editors about this. One of them even kept an elaborate chart in his office to insure that the homo characters in "Tales" didn't suddenly outnumber the hetero ones and thereby undermine the natural order of civilisation.

And this guy loved that. He loved frightening the horses with that goofy grin on his face. He had kept his heart (and his libido) under wraps for most of his life, only to discover that the thing he feared the most had actually become a source of great comfort and inspiration. It thrilled him to testify for his own kind, to offer a pleasing shock of recognition to people whose stories were rarely told anywhere, much less in a "family newspaper". He used his column, in fact, as means of finally telling the truth about himself, coming out to his parents in North Carolina in the very letter that Michael Tolliver wrote to his folks in Florida. He would not have been able to do any of this had he not felt so embraced by a city where everyone – gay, straight and travelling – had learned to recognise, if not yet fully celebrate, the infinite possibilities of humanity.

That was 35 years ago, but I've been thinking about this young man a lot as my never-ending story enters an astonishing new era – one in which it can travel electronically to readers anywhere in the world. Could that guy in the loosened tie possibly have guessed how long his story would last or imagine the doors it would eventually open for him? It's better, perhaps, that he remained in the dark, living in the moment and sailing on his dreams. Come to think of it, it's always been better that way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/12/armistead-maupin-tales-of-the-city?newsfeed=true

A Good Read

BBC Radio 4

"Tales of the City" has been featured on "A Good Read" from BBC Radio 4 originally broadcast on October 25, 2011.


BOOKS FEATURED IN THE PROGRAMME
Christopher Frayling's choice: Ill Fares The Land: A Treatise On Our Present Discontents by Professor Tony Judt
Publ. Penguin

Nikki Bedi's choice: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Publ. Harper Perennial

Harriet Gilbert's choice: Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Publ. Black Swan

Listen to the program here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016817f

Olive Reader's "Tales of the City" Read Along updated schedule

6/30/2011

Late last week, I began to panic. I was deep (or really, not as deep as I would have liked) into reading Game of Thrones, which is nearly 800 pages long, and I suddenly realized that I had less than a week left to not only finish that chunkster but also re-read Tales of the City for the readalong. So I buckled down, managed to finish GoT on Monday and still do tons of freelance work, and started Tales on Tuesday night. I was on track to finish by today if I tried hard, but . . . I fell asleep!

So I was all set to come here today and write a post about what I was enjoying so far and confess my sin of not finishing. I took a look at the schedule and realized that, as usual, I have been soundly defeated by math. Somehow, I set the first book for discussion today, and then put the second book almost four weeks later. And yet all of the other ones are two weeks apart. What did I do here? I still don’t know. Therefore, I’ve adjusted the schedule so that it actually makes sense now.

7/7 – Discussion of Tales of the City
7/19 – Discussion of More Tales of the City
8/4 – Discussion of Further Tales of the City
8/23 – Discussion of Babycakes
9/8 – Discussion of Significant Others
9/27 – Discussion of Sure of You
10/13 – Discussion of Michael Tolliver Lives
10/27 – Discussion of Mary Ann in Autumn

And we now have a lovely tile ad that you can include if you’re participating!
And, since there’s another whole week for you all to read Tales and since I have more copies on my shelves, I’ll give some more away! I’ll pick five random commenters (please put your email address or twitter handle in the comments so I can contact you.)

"Tales of the City" ebook

"Tales of the City" is now released in ebook format!  You can pre-order on apple iBook , Amazon Kindle, or the Nook.

Get your copy now!

Five real places that inspired great fiction

Audrey Medina, Special to The Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle December 10, 2010

All good fiction has its roots in the real world. The settings where stories take place have their own charm and character, influencing and changing the fictional folks that inhabit them as well as the readers. Here are places that inspired great works of fiction - but where experiences can be real.

1. Macondray Lane, San Francisco

There was always something interesting going on at 28 Barbary Lane. In Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City," Barbary Lane is home for an adventuresome little band of locals. Listen closely and you might hear Mary Ann Singleton and Anna Madragil chatting in the garden as you stroll along this leafy path on Russian Hill. Explore it on your own or as part of the daylong Real SF Tour ($50). (888) 973-8687, www.therealsftour.com.

2. Cannery Row, Monterey

Doc Ricketts' lab, Lee Chong's grocery and La Ida's cafe are a few of the spots that inspired John Steinbeck's portrayal of life along the piers during the Great Depression. Learn more at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Cannery Row exhibit, or take one of their monthly walking tours. (831) 648-4800, www.montereybayaquarium.org (search for "Cannery Row").

3. Angels Camp

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was the yarn that launched Mark Twain to international stardom. While Twain spent only 88 days in Angels Camp as a miner during the Gold Rush, he managed to find plenty of time to spend in the bar at the Angels Hotel listening to local stories. These days, Angels Camp is a quiet little mountain town, except for a few days every May during the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee. (209) 736-2561, www.frogtown.org/jubilee_home.shtml.

4. John's Grill, San Francisco

The interior hasn't changed since Dashiell Hammett sat at the bar ordering Sam Spade's usual, "chops, baked potato and sliced tomato." Spade was here, along with some other suspicious characters, on the lookout for the Maltese Falcon. Search for clues in the photos upstairs. 63 Ellis St., (415) 986-3274, www.johnsgrill.com.

5. The Bishop's Lodge, Santa Fe, N.M.

In Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop," the first Archbishop of Santa Fe, Jean Marie Latour, arrived in his new diocese in 1852. He made many improvements throughout his territory, including a small ranch in Little Tesuque Canyon. The story is based on the real life of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy. A lot of changes have been made during the last century, and today the Bishop's Lodge is an elegant resort. The little chapel has been saved, as has the stunning beauty of the landscape that Cather loved. Rooms from $149. Bishop's Lodge Road, (800) 419-0492, www.bishopslodge.com.

This article appeared on page M - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/10/TRVS1GLOV4.DTL#ixzz17kOmn92q

Should Serial Novels Be Continued?

Out of sync with print-based reading habits, this form is nonetheless perfectly in tune with the web

The Guardian
Stephen Emms
Tuesday 24 November 2009 

Ever since a suburban adolescence that was organised around a daily race home from school to devour a self-rationed chapter or two of Armistead Maupin's Tales Of The City, I have been intrigued by the serial novel. So in September this year, I started to write one. Called Happiness Is An Option, after a 1999 Pet Shop Boys album track, it was inspired by George Bernard Shaw's line, "A lifetime of happiness! No man could bear it; it would be hell on earth". So far, the writing process has brimmed with discoveries: the format's restrictions (character and plot can't be reworked) are balanced by its fluidity: storylines can ebb and flow, feedback from readers can be incorporated (in my case, this led to protagonist Archie's estranged girlfriend Rose arriving two chapters early). And there's the responsibility to the growing readership (the first six episodes were published on Time Out) which is now in its hundreds.

The potted history of the serial novel is well-documented, dating back to The Thousand and One Nights, with its frame of vizier's daughter Scheherazade narrating hook-laden stories to avoid execution by King Shahryar. Its heyday was the 19th century, with the Charles Dickens-founded periodical, All the Year Round, publishing novels of his, including Great Expectations, and Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, at the same time as Sherlock Holmes was taking his first cases in The Strand magazine (which had a circulation of 500,000). Nowadays newspapers and journals rarely serialise novels, but the format lives on in Japanese manga, as well as the dank online caves of the horror, SF and occult genres, pioneered by Stephen King's "e-novel", The Plant, published in 2000 (which remains unfinished).

So does the serial novel in 2009 feel anachronistic, or thoroughly modern – a way of reading literature facilitated by technology? Jenny Parrott, editorial director of Little, Brown and Abacus thinks it's problematic. "I wonder whether the biggest challenge facing us all lies in trying to capture and keep people's attention. Investing time in reading (and remembering) fiction metered out to us in regular doses might now seem a bigger ask than many of us are prepared to give. And while I'm sure many writers would love to have a go at writing in a serial form, I'm just not convinced that they would be matched by as many readers."

Chinese-Australian author Lynda Ng, who wrote the successful 12-part serial Sydney Shards, took these parameters as a challenge. "While the online medium is full of potential for fiction writers and readers, I wasn't sure if it was the place people go to read fiction. So from the start I wanted to experiment with its potential to engage the reader with greater visual and interactive techniques than traditional print. We designed a website with a distinctive style, and links to show readers the relationship between the fictional story and real-life events."

There are signs, too, that in mainstream media the tide is turning. Last year Alexander McCall Smith – apparently "put up to it" at a party by Armistead Maupin – invited Telegraph readers to sign up for a free, 100-day online serialisation of his Corduroy Mansions novel (published by Little, Brown) which has now spawned a daily sequel, The Dog Who Came In From The Cold. Wannabe authors can, at least, be encouraged by the fact that literary agents aren't against the format. Patrick Walsh of Conville And Walsh believes that serial fiction has a unique place today: "The episodic novel is the perfect form for pleasurably delayed gratification. With the internet replacing so many newspapers and magazines, serial fiction should find a natural home on the web."

So people: let's bring back the quality serial novel. What are your favourites, both on and offline?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/nov/24/serial-novels

Tales of the City named one of the "great family novels" by readers of the Chicago Tribune. Others included Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Julia Keller CULTURAL CRITIC
November 22, 2009

Over the river and through the woods and across cyberspace they came, the many e-mails responding to my request for suggestions about great family novels. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought it was an excellent time to reflect upon which books are best at exploring families -- good families, bad families, families that inspire and encourage or those that thwart and nitpick, families that run the gamut from the Marches (made famous in "Little Women") to the Mansons (ditto in "Helter Skelter").



Many people suggested "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1960) by Harper Lee. Other family-themed classics that remain bright in readers' minds include "To the Lighthouse" (1927) by Virginia Woolf: "At this time of year, when families are gathering for Thanksgiving dinners, you can't find a better family dinner party scene than the one that lasted 20 entire pages," writes Margie White of Glen Ellyn.



Christine Uliassi of Park Ridge makes the case that even long-beloved family novels such as the series "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew" (1881-1916) by Margaret Sidney can resonate anew. "I read this sweet story more than 50 years ago, and the sense of love and commitment that the Pepper family shared has stayed with me. ... The two oldest children, Polly and Ben, decide to give Christmas to their younger siblings by making presents for them -- not a bad idea in difficult times, past or present."



For Rita Krider of Streamwood, you can't beat "Little Women" (1868) by Louisa May Alcott. "My daughters and I love this book. ... As the March sisters grow and give each other advice, this book shows the unbreakable bond of women in the family. So put on the pj's and slippers, and enjoy a warm and fuzzy read!"



Marion Horwath of Berwyn recommends "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1943) by Betty Smith, while Frank Barr of Glen Ellyn says the Conrad Richter trilogy "The Trees" (1940), "The Fields" (1946) and "The Town" (1950) is not to be missed. Jan Panek of Westchester believes that "The Camerons" (1972) by Robert Crichton is well worth the search to find it.



Daniel J. Treier of Wheaton offered a suggestion of more recent vintage: "The Brothers K" (1992) by David James Duncan, "an updated 'Brothers Karamazov' of sorts." Kimberly McGuire of River Forest said that for a powerful family saga, try "Beyond the Bedroom Wall: A Family Album" (1975) by Larry Woiwode: "This book weaves the stories of various family members and multiple generations of the Midwestern Neumiller family. ... Read just the first chapter titled 'Burial,' and you will contemplate the deep ties that connect families across miles and experience. There are many quiet moments here, but the big questions of life and death and faith are here too, in very subdued tones."


Anne Tyler's "A Patchwork Planet" (1998) is the choice of Zahava S. Davidson of Skokie, while Joyce Carol Oates' "We Were the Mulvaneys" (1996) is the family novel that most moved Audrey Beauvais of Arlington Heights. Three more family novels that have entranced readers include "What We Keep" (1998) by Elizabeth Berg, "Tales of the City" (1978) by Armistead Maupin and "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" (2008) by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, recommended respectively by Beverly Waxler of Morton Grove, Brian Treglown of Chicago and Cindy Antene of Brookfield.



Thomas Mahoney of Buffalo Grove and Donna Ruggles of Flossmoor eschewed e-mail and penned impassioned notes. "This is a slam dunk," Mahoney wrote of James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (1916). For Ruggles, the choice is the Truman Capote yarn "A Christmas Memory" (1956), a "wonderful story and memory that always triggers one of my own."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/chi-1122-ae-lit-life-sidebarnov22,0,1480017.column

Laura Linney talks to Greg In Hollywood about her breakthrough role on “Tales of the City”

By Greg Hernandez on Oct 1, 2009

Before she was a three-time Emmy winner and Oscar nominee for You Can Count on Me, Kinsey and The Savages, Laura Linney was Mary Ann Singleton in the classic Tales of the City miniseries and its two sequels.

Mary Ann really was the anchor of these productions based on the novels by Armistead Maupin. Tales was a ratings sensation when it aired on PBS in January 1994 but also hugely controversial because of its gay themes, nudity, and illicit drug use.

I just loved it!

So what a thrill it was to meet Miss Linney at last night’s Outfest Legacy Awards honoring her Tales producer Alan Poul. When he convinced her to take on the role of Mary Ann, Linney was already an established New York theater actress but had only a few small previous screen credits.

“Thank God I wasn’t aware of what a beloved character that was or I would have been completely intimidated,” she said. “I was really lucky to fall into job and the people were wonderful and they are people who I have remained friends with for 20 years now.”

After Tales of the City aired, Linney began landing big roles in such movies as Primal Fear, The Truman Show and Congo.


But she returned to the role of Mary Ann in 1998’s More Tales of the City which was done by Showtime after PBS backed out due to the controversy over the first miniseries. Then in 2001, the year after her first Oscar nod for You Can Count on Me, Linney starred as Mary Ann again in Showtime’s Further Tales of the City.


“It was just fantastic writing about fantastic people, people who loved each other and I adored it,” she said. “I knew when I was making it that it would be very special.”

Linney, Olympia Dukakis, Billy Campbell and Barbara Garrick were in all three miniseries but some key roles were recast after the original production for various reasons including the key role of Michael “Mouse” Tolliver. Marcus D’Amico originated the role before it was taken over by Paul Hopkins.

Since Mouse was such good friends with Mary Ann, I actually asked Laura which Michael she preferred!

“I loved them both,” she said diplomatically. “They were both different.”

With all of the roles she’s had on television (she won every award in sight for the John Adams miniseries), in feature films and in her Tony Award-nominated stage career, I wondered where the role of Mary Ann Singleton ranked among it all.

Linney did not hesitate: “It’s my favorite job, hands down. It was the first time I was on something from beginning to end, I had a lot of responsibility, I met people who I still feel so privileged to know. It was a great, great magical job.”

http://greginhollywood.com/laura-linney-talks-to-greg-in-hollywood-about-her-breakthrough-role-on-tales-of-the-city-13177

Behind the Sun: Queen Kate, approximately

From the Pacific Sun April 3, 2009

'Pacific Sun' unveils hidden talents of Armistead Maupin, drag queens...

by Jason Walsh

35 years ago

From the Sun vaults, April 4 - 10, 1974

"Plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her legs and then he was a she..."—Lou Reed, early '70s

The Pacific Sun was taking a walk on the wild side 35 years ago this week.

Not content with bestowing quality alternative journalism to only the north side of the Golden Gate, the Pacific Sun had spent the early months of 1974 paving media inroads down Doyle Drive and into the heart of the Castro with its ballyhooed "Pacific Sun San Francisco edition." A mere 10 years after honing its typesetting techniques through stories about Stinson fishing derbies and grisly Highway 1 auto carnage, the Sun was now landing big-city interviews with Martin Scorsese, partying with Divine and Johnny Thunders and wriggling onto the press list of the North Beach Playboy Club.

And, like any wide-eyed suburban catechumen on the prowl for authentic cultural modes of Shaky Town, there was only one place for a Marin publication to turn.

Drag queen parties.

And there was only one Pacific Sun cub reporter properly equipped to investigate such events.

Armistead Maupin.

The Sun's newest contributor was a 30-year-old North Carolinian (and one-time staffer for Jesse Helms) who'd arrived in San Francisco three years prior with the dream of becoming a writer. Brandishing a fondness for the perverse and a willingness to work on the cheap, the future best-selling author was a perfect fit to assist the Sun with its latest Barbary Coast adventure. In just his second assignment for the paper, the former conservative (who, at this time, was only taking a wary peek out of "the closet") found himself in the jam-packed California Hall surrounded by hundreds of Polk Gulch queens.

"Good evening, I'm Kate Marlowe, and this is my first ball of the season, so get in there and dance your tits off, darlings...ooooohhwee!" was the opening quote from the Maupin's April 1974 story about a soiree hosted by Union Street hairdresser Kenneth Marlowe. Kenneth was throwing the Polk Street fete for 800 of his closest friends (at $5 head) to fund the surgical procedure that would once and for all transform him into the XX-chromosomed "Katherine," just as nature had intended.

"Tonight is the ball to end balls," quipped Maupin.

Katherine, decked out in Max Factor and a black-sequined pantsuit, welcomed the reporter gregariously.

"Ohhh! I just greeted a couple of queens at the door who took one look at this crowd and said they thought this was supposed to be a gay party," she said, referring to the many pleated-slacks clad straights in the room. "Well, sweetie, I just told them—look bitches..."

Kenneth/Katherine was an ex-street hustler, gay-bordello madam and Bible-school dropout with a prurient, if predictable, knack for double entendre. ("No wonder I'm changing my sex," she howled while struggling to adjust a microphone, "I can't screw this for nuthin'!") She was hoping Maupin's Sun piece would help spread the word about her quest for a new gender identity. "I'm really tripping on the turnout for this," Marlowe purred excitedly. "I mean can you buhleeeeve it?"

The entertainment highlight of the evening was an appearance by legendary burlesque fan-dancer Sally Rand. "The room goes black, a blue spotlight hits the stage and Her Sexcellency glides into view," described Maupin. "At first she is swathed in the enormous pink fans, then the incredible legs and breasts emerge."

Rand was celebrating her 70th birthday that evening. "That's the nice thing about show business," the silent-screen and stage star said, after receiving a bouquet. "You get the flowers before you're dead."

Then a streaker bounded across the stage and everyone broke for cake.

A few heterosexual couples headed for the exits.

"You know what's wrong with the straight world?" Marlowe queried Maupin. "They don't know how to have a good time. They need me to show them. They need me... [her attention turns to a handsome young man strutting past] uh, would you like to dance?"

According to single-named author Nelson, who recounted the life of Marlowe in his 2000 book, Call Me Kate: The Story of Katherine Marlowe, a Transsexual, Kenneth eventually did realize his dream—becoming Katherine Marlowe in gender, as well as attitude, sometime in 1979.

http://www.pacificsun.com/story.php?story_id=2988

Anita Bryant January 1977

Anita Bryant January 1977: the enactment of a gay rights law in Miami-Dade county mobilizes the ex-beauty queen's antigay campaign--as well as gays nationwide, including San Franciscan Armistead Maupin. (Gods & Monsters).

I actually read about Anita Bryant's Save Our Children campaign to overturn Miami's gay rights law directly from the news wires. It was quite clear to me that this campaign was going to have a galvanizing effect on the gay movement. There's really nothing like a good villain to start a revolution, and Anita filled the bill perfectly.

I know what the battle did for me: It forced me to confront my own residual self-loathing and stare it down once and for all by coming out.

I was writing Tales of the City as a serial in-house at the San Francisco Chronicle, and I was able to respond to news of Bryant's campaign in a matter of 24 hours, concocting a letter from [gay character] Michael's mother about their efforts to save Florida from the homosexuals. By the strangest serendipity, I had already established Michael as the son of Florida orange growers. Within a matter of weeks, Michael was writing a reply to his mother in which he comes out.

My parents were subscribing to the Chronicle in order to follow the series, and when they got to Michael's coming-out letter, they realized I was writing to them. And within a week they saw me described as a gay journalist in Newsweek when that magazine covered Anita Bryant.

About 10 years ago I was at an American Booksellers Association convention where Bryant was appearing, and she was still pissing and moaning about how the homosexuals had destroyed her career as spokesperson for Florida orange juice. The irony is, it wasn't the orange juice boycott that caused her to lose her job; it was the fact that she made herself forever associated with homosexuality. So in one way she was a victim of homophobia herself: Folks on the orange board didn't want people to think about queers when they bought orange juice.

Maupin, Armistead. "Anita Bryant January 1977: the enactment of a gay rights law in Miami-Dade county mobilizes the ex-beauty queen's antigay campaign--as well as gays nationwide, including San Franciscan Armistead Maupin. (Gods & Monsters)." The Advocate (The national gay & lesbiannewsmagazine). LPI Media. 2002.

AfterElton’s 50 Best Gay Books!

Book it!

Three weeks ago, we asked you, AfterElton.com readers, to vote on what you thought were the best gay books of all time.

The votes are counted, and the results are now in.

But first, some interesting statistics.

AfterElton.com readers like novels. Of the top 50 books in the poll, all but seven are works of fiction, and of the seven non-fiction books, five are memoirs. And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts and The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo are the only two non-memoir non-fiction books to make the list.

A number of authors made the list twice, including Michael Chabon, Michael Cunningham, Mary Renault, Jeffrey Round, Alex Sanchez, Jim Grimsley, and Alan Hollinghurst. (Readers voted for the other books in the series that begins with Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, but that’s the only book that made the top 50.) No author made the list more than twice.

Unlike AfterElton.com’s recent gay movie poll where most of the selections came from the last two decades, this list includes many books much older than that. Almost half were published before 1990, and four were published before 1970. The oldest book was The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s only novel, published in 1890.

And while we enjoy good literary fiction and the classics, we appreciate genre fiction as well, with six works of young adult fiction on the list, four of historical fiction, three mysteries, two fantasy novels, and even a play, Angels in America.

As with our poll of movies, most of the books on the list are by white authors writing about the experiences of white characters (albeit often surrounded by supporting characters of color). Exceptions include Giovanni’s Room, written by an African American, James Baldwin (though the book tells the story of two white characters); Call Me By Your Name by Egyptian-born author André Aciman; and Rainbow Boys and Rainbow High, two young adult novels written by Latino author Alex Sanchez.

What do some of the authors themselves have to say about making the list?

"It's wonderful to know that after 30-some years, Tales of the City still resonates with LGBT readers," says Armistead Maupin, author of the top-rated book. "My message back then was a simple one: that, gay or straight, the human heart is pretty much the same organ in everybody. You'd think that once-radical concept would be old news by now, but clearly there's still work to be done. The brutish new wave of church-generated bigotry that resulted in Prop 8 now makes it imperative for us to defend the very families we have built and treasured over the years. We must do so without equivocation and with all the strength and courage and righteous anger we can muster. I like knowing that Tales might still be useful in that regard."

“I'm deeply grateful to all the readers, through the years, who have read The Front Runner and talked it around to others – as well as all the booksellers who have faithfully kept it in stock,” says Patricia Nell Warren, author of another one of our highest ranking books. “For a book, this kind of history can't happen without them.”

“It's a privilege to be on any list that features James Baldwin,” says Jamie O’Neill, author of At Swim, Two Boys, another one of our top books. “Giovanni's Room and, even more, Another Country, are great works of 20^th century literature.”

“I wrote the books I wished I'd been able to read when I was a struggling gay Latino teen — books that would've told me ‘It's okay to be who you are,’” says Alex Sanchez of his two books on our list. “I'm thrilled to have them on a list with so many gay classics that have inspired me over the years!”

For the record, several published authors write for AfterElton.com, but their books were disqualified from the final calculations.

To see the entire liste, click http://www.afterelton.com/print/2008/11/bestgaybooks?page=0%2C0

AfterElton’s 50 Greatest Gay Books Poll

Afterelton.com is taking a poll of the 50 Greatest Gay Books, and although I hate to box Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" as an exclusive "Gay Book", I still went ahead and completed the poll with the first five books in the "Tales" series.

If you get a moment, check it out at:

http://www.afterelton.com/print/2008/10/booksurvey_voting

Cheers!

Richard

A new "Tales" movie?...well, not exactly..

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Oscar-winning "No Country For Old Men" producer Scott Rudin is bringing the high-society memoir "Oh the Glory of It All" to the screen.

Writer/producer Mike White ("Nacho Libre," "School of Rock") will write the adaptation and also produce the Miramax Films project.

Sean Wilsey's book chronicles his time growing up amid the 1980s San Francisco elite. The cast of characters who raised Wilsey seem to have jumped straight out of a John Irving novel: a drama-prone globetrotting mother who asks her son to commit suicide with her, a distant father who enjoys unnecessary helicopter rides, and a truly wicked stepmother. The book tracks his journey from the dubious role models to a tour of boarding schools and an Italian "therapeutic community."

Armistead Maupin modeled a character in his "Tales of the City" novels on Wilsey's socialite mother, who entertained movie stars and Black Panthers alike in her penthouse. "Glory" hit shelves in 1995 from Penguin Press.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080414/film_nm/rudin_dc_1

End of an era as Washbag, Trader Vic’s close doors

(01-08) 15:33 PST -- The New Year didn't exactly get off to a good start for two venerable San Francisco restaurants, both of which had been revived with much fanfare before closing for good last week.

The "out of business" sign that appeared on the doors of North Beach's Washington Square Bar & Grill (1707 Powell St.) Jan. 1 surprised even its longtime bartender, Michael McCourt.

"We didn't have a clue," McCourt says.

On New Year's Eve, revelers heard no hint that the doors would close for good the next day. On New Year's morning, owner Guy Ferri called his employees one by one to deliver the blow.

"It had been an uphill battle for a while," Ferri told Scoop. "We've had a tough year."

Ferri and his wife, Rose, took over the historic eating and drinking establishment in 2000 and decided to change its old-time San Francisco ambience.

The Washbag became Cobalt Tavern, but the concept never took off, and two years later, the Ferris brought back McCourt and the old look and cuisine.

But Ferri says he never recovered from the debts Cobalt ran up.

"And the cost of doing business does keep going up in town," he says. Nothing specific happened to spark the decision to shut, just the ongoing stress of trying to make ends meet. He's going to "take a little time off and regroup."

Meanwhile, the regulars, who have considered the Washbag their own club, for decades are "homeless," scattered hither and yon at North Beach watering holes like Gino & Carlo (548 Green St.) while they find a new home, McCourt says.

The venerable bartender, who goes back most of two decades on Washington Square, is looking for his next gig. If he has his way, he says, "I'd like to stay in North Beach, if possible."

And over in the Civic Center, closed doors, at Trader Vic's (555 Golden Gate Ave., near Van Ness), presumably just for the holidays prompted concerned e-mails and phone calls.

Indeed, the mai tais will flow no more - the tiki restaurant with a long and storied background is no longer operating, and the answering machine says it's closed for good.

The San Francisco institution ran for many years in the space that currently houses Le Colonial. After closing 12 years ago, it opened in 2004 in its current location, the previous Stars. But it seems the reopened spot was never quite able to get on its feet.

Repeated phone calls and messages to Trader Vic's offices went unreturned, so it's anyone's guess as to what ultimately was the final straw. Two other Bay Area locations - one in Emeryville and the other in Palo Alto - remain open.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/08/FDFLUBGO0.DTL

Armistead Maupin Entertainment Weekly

June 15, 2007