30 Day Song Challenge: Your Favorite Song

The "30 Day Song Challenge" is a Facebook meme going around that all the kids are doing. Basically, you post a song a day according to these rules. I saw it and thought: Oh, what the hell?

1) Your Favorite Song

The idea that we're supposed to scour through the whole catalog of all music--all sounds for that matter? What makes a song different from a sound, or set of sounds?--and cull down to one "favorite" is, well, mind-boggling and gives me agita. I think here of Donna Tartt saying in this 2002 interview, that "My favorite color is different for different things. Depends on what it is....For flowers, it's one thing, for clothes it's another."

So, favorite, how? How about "most meaningful at a meaningful nexus in my life?" Does that make sense? That seems like a long way from "favorite," but if we're talking about the stages of aesthetic development--and why shouldn't we--I'm definitely feeling a level five on this one. (Feel free to read up and then get back to me.)

Well, in this case, it's a song that gave me--at least this is my memory, plus 20 years reflection--a first inkling of how my sexuality was more than just who you sleep with. That my queerness would encompass, or rather that it could encompass, an entire set of values different from the ones I saw the status quo culture embracing. Beauty, fashion, grandeur, elegance, camp. A refinement in which the style was the substance. At the time, I wasn't very sophisticated--but I knew, I could sense, that this was sophisticated. (I can't believe I'm waxing on how Madonna is sophisticated...but hey.) Or, if it wasn't sophisticated, it was beyond my realm of understanding in a way that made me drawn to it. It was like watching a version of myself that I had never known, revealed. I saw a version of me in black and white, too. I saw a version of me moving like that, too. I saw that me as beautiful, refined, a success.

Madonna's "Blonde Ambition Tour" was broadcast on HBO that same year, and I set the VCR to record it. It's mechanism was such that it wouldn't stop during recording unless it was completely unplugged. So, in the break between "Open Your Heart" and "Causin' A Commotion" Madonna let fly a stream of "fucks" so long and punchy that my mother, either hearing this from the other room, or getting up from the couch while watching with me, I can't remember--ripped the cord from the wall!!! "You do not need to hear that," she said, sealing the deal. I was 12. I was heartbroken.

So, for the next several months, I watched the opening three songs over and over, until the tape turned fuzzy and refused to play. Eventually, I taught myself the choreography from the below video which I periodically performed both alone in the rec room and at Roller Coaster Skate World for scores of cheering girlfriends. Wow, what a queerbait, huh? I can still do most of it.

Here's a question: How does "1990 Madonna" stealing and popularizing New York ball culture reveal the inner life of a blossoming queen from the suburbs of Chattanooga, Tennessee? And the answer: That's the power of music.

So, having said all that, I give you, my favorite song, Vogue:

Oscar Bingo!

I made some Oscar Night Bingo cards, complete with Red Carpet "Free Space." There are ten different ones, for those of you who are having more than a few people over. Download them here.

How was Your Winter?

When I first began working at the Union Square Greenmarket, I would hear farmers ask, longabout mid-April, when everyone was returning for the season, “How was your winter?” I like this question for its allusion to the past, to a time when the winter could actually make a huge irrevocable change in the future. Structures collapsed, animals didn’t make it, people died. Things are mostly different now, but farmer’s live closer to the edge than most of us. Their stakes are always higher.

We had a tiny touch of warm weather today, the kind of sunlight-surprise that fills the market with what I (somewhat) lovingly call “Unprofessionals.” People who, bless their hearts, ask, at 10:00am, things like: “Are you going to be here for fifteen more minutes?” And then they never return.

People have difficulty trying to end the brief relationship they enter into with us, mostly by accident. They make promises, they ask questions like “What days are you here, I want to know when I should come back.” But, see, we can tell when you are never going to come back. It’s okay to just say thank you and walk away. Really.

I have a thing: I hate when the weather changes and it’s all people can talk about--the news does a “story” on it, small talk in elevators are ripe with (usually) groaning office workers, and Facebook, which I like, and which has increased the chatter exponentially, lights up with everyone having the same reaction: “Snow!,” and “Snow, yay!” or “So hot outside,” and “Ugh, so hot.” But, today was the kind of day that teaches you just how radical a change in weather can be, how affirming a piece of sun on your hair really is.

Something I think about a lot is how convenient it is that the Earth so matches with our sense of time, space and beauty. I know, right?!?! I really do think about this. Of course it does, we came from the Earth. But, I still find it pretty incredible that what we find most aesthetically pleasing is what there is in the world: vistas, waterfalls, mountaintops. Maybe this seems obvious, but I am still amazed by it. By how well we fit with our planet. (Right now, for the purpose of this idea, we’re opting for naiveté, and not discussing how good we are at destroying it, too.)

I’m also amazed at the earth’s ability to give us what we need when we need it. Today, a glorious, sunwashed day, sixty degrees, after months of--literally--freezing and darkness. Coming right when I felt like I couldn’t take another windy, flat, gray winter Friday, with the city still covered in giant chunks of black, sooty snow, covered in cigarette butts and dog shit. Seriously.

Today was extraordinary, and I know more about “How was your winter” tonight than I did yesterday. No, really. All of this is very, as they say, tree-hugger....and dammit if there isn't something--OMG--spiritual-ish growing somewhere inside me. But that's what I'm talking about. That's what the sun can do. One of the customers, certainly an Unprofessional, remarked: “I didn’t remember how I could be this happy.”

More Born This Way

There is a fabulous new blog called Born This Way, and I submitted a picture of myself to it, where it was published on January 17. In addition to the picture they posted, my mother sent a few more, which I am sharing with you here. Fabulous!

Here I am in (probably) 1985 with my teacher's board and glittery-streamer baton on Christmas morning, and below that, playing a fey round of mini golf.

Gorilla-At-Large

Thanks to my tireless and wonderful mother, these very very old stories of mine are finally seeing the light. At some point, I would sit and dictate to her and she wrote down whatever I said. Behold, Gorilla-at-Large:

Scattered Light

The other night, I took this video of Jim Campbell's new outdoor sculpture "Scattered Light." There are a few pieces in the park, but the only one you will care about seeing is this one, which is described as:

Scattered Light, will feature nearly 2,000 LEDs encased in standard light bulbs, suspended within a support structure spanning 80 feet in length and standing 20 feet high and 16 feet wide to create a vibrant light grid across the center of Madison Square Park’s Oval Lawn. The LED bulbs, programed to flicker scattered light, will create the illusion of figurative images that explore and reflect the human experience amidst the urban landscape, creating the appearance of giant human shadows crossing a floating 3-D matrix of light. As one travels around the piece, the vantage point alters and the light figures begin to abstract, blurring the boundaries between image and object.

Scattered Light is on view until February 2011. More about it by looking here.

Scattered Light by Jim Campbell from Lee Houck on Vimeo.

Hansel & Gretel

My mother was digging through some old papers and books of photos and came across this. It's a story that I dictated to her and she wrote down. I was four. Embiggen to enjoy. (Also, my mother's handwriting hasn't changed one bit since then.)

The Women

I have been voraciously reading the Paris Review interviews. In particular, I am fond of the interviews with Annie Proulx, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Joan Didion. Joan Didion! (Joan also has a new book out next year, Blue Nights.) It occurred to me this week, after devouring these incredibly well-conducted and interesting interviews, just how much of my work is informed by the work of women writers.

It's surprising, in a way, to me, because my first novel is basically devoid of women--which was a conscious choice from the beginning, to have removed that kind of perspective from the narrative. I don't know why it was important that I do that. Perhaps in a few years I will have a better sense of it. No promises.

Other women I read, also voraciously: A.M. Homes, Jennifer Egan, Donna Tartt, Katherine Dunn, Janette Turner Hospital, Miranda July, Rosellen Brown, Octavia Butler, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Ruth Reichl, Kathryn Harrison, Sarah Schulman, Sharon Olds, Naomi Shihab Nye, Barbara Kingsolver, Caryl Churchill, Amy Bloom. I could go on.

Take this list and go get their books.

Reading in the Waterfalls Room at the Brooklyn Museum of Art

Coming Up!

A few more events on the calendar:

Wednesday, Sept 29 - 7:30pm
Bar on A, 170 Avenue A
part of Guerrilla Lit Series

Saturday, Oct 2 - 9:00pm
Brooklyn Museum of Art
part of First Saturdays

Tuesday, Oct 5 - 6:00pm
Dixon Place Lounge, 161A Chrystie Street
with Sam J. Miller and Alexander Chee

Wednesday, Oct 27 - 8:00pm
Nowhere Bar, 322 East 14th Street
part of PANIC!

Yield at Your Local Library

You can find Yield at the following local libraries. God bless them, every one.

-Birmingham-Jefferson Public Library, AL

-Mill Valley Public Library, CA
-Santa Monica Public Library, CA
-Torrance Public Library, CA

-Denver Public Library, CO
-Douglas County Library, CO
-Pikes Peak Library District, CO

-Ferguson Library, CT
-New Haven Free Public Library, CT
-Pequot Library, CT

-Alachua County Library District, FL
-Orange County Library System, FL
-Sarasota County Library System, FL

-Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, GA

-Ames Public Library, IA
-West Des Moines Public Library, IA

-Bloomington Public Library, IL
-Champaign Public Library and Information Center, IL
-Highland Park Public Library, IL
-Shaumburg Township District Library, IL

-Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library, IN
-Monroe County Public Library, IN
-St. Joseph County Public Library, IN
-Tippecanoe County Public Library, IN

-Johnson County Library, KS
-Wichita Public Library, KS

-Lexingon Public Library, KY
-Louisville Free Public Library, KY

-Merrimack Valley Library Consortium, MA

-Anne Arundel County Public Library, MD
-Caroline County Public Library, MD
-Cecil County Public Library, MD
-Prince George's County Memorial Library System, MD

-The Library Network, MI
-Superiorland Library Coop, MI

-Ramsey County Public Library, MN

-Mid-Continent Public Library, MO

-Cumberland County Public Library, NC
-Durham County Library, NC
-Greensboro Public Library, NC

-Bismark Veteran's Memorial Public Library, ND
-Fargo Public Library, ND

-Ocean County Library, NJ

-Brooklyn Public Library, NY
-Finger Lakes Library System, NY
-Onondaga County Public Library, NY
-Suffolk Cooperative Library System, NY
-Westchester Library System, NY

-Cleveland Public Library, OH
-Columbus Metropolitan Library, OH
-Cuyahoga County Public Library, OH
-Dayton Metropolitan Library, OH
-Marion Public Library, OH
-Public Library of Cincinnati / Hamilton County, OH
-Worthington Public Library, OH

-Tulsa City-County Library, OK

-Washington County Cooperative Library, OR

-Reading Public Library, PA

-Ocean State Libraries, RI

-Salt Lake City Public Library, UT

-Norfolk Public Library, VA
-Virginia Beach Public Library System, VA
-Williamsburg Library, VA

-King County Library System, WA
-Seattle Public Library, WA

-Beloit Public Library, WI
-Northeast Wisconsin Public Library, WI
-Lakeshores Library System, WI
-South Center Library System, WI
-Milwaukee County Federated Library System, WI

-Eastern Panhandle Library Network, WV

Oh, and in the U.K.: The British Library.

Buy the Book!!

Yield is finally in the world, on bookshelves (practically) everywhere, and in warehouses waiting to be shipped to your gleaming front doors.

I think the best way to buy the book is from an independent bookseller. But if you prefer, you can order from Amazon.com, where you can get the paperback or the Kindle edition. Barnes&Noble.com also has paperbacks and digital editions, and of course there is always one of the best indie bookstores in the (known) universe, Powell's.

If you live in New York City, you can get signed copies from the Barnes & Noble on 6th Avenue and 10th Street, or starting Sept 3rd, the Union Square B&N. You can also order signed copies directly from my website--and those books come with a cool free bonus gift!!

Also, some more reviews are in!

"Solid, unsentimental storytelling distinguishes Houck's first time out."

--Publisher's Weekly

"Five Stars."

--Echo Magazine

"Perfect emotional pitch...a brilliant, beyond-coming-out story."

--Book Marks

"Surprisingly thoughtful, emotional and erotic."

--Instinct Magazine

I am so thrilled to be able to share the book with everyone, finally.

Away in Vermont

I am sitting at a very old, very beautiful dining room table in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont half-listening to a story on NPR about butterflies. Someone has figured out a way to tag and track butterflies, the same way they tag eagles or sharks, but I didn’t hear all the details of the story—the how the do the tagging, and what the tag physically is—because I am working on some new writing projects which I came here to hopefully finish, and those are taking most of my attention. Some of the butterflies which were tagged in Vermont ended up at the Connecticut shore. Some of them ended up in Mexico, where they usually go for the winter months. To me this made the butterflies sound like retirees.

Moments ago, the 21 year-old son of the friends that I am staying with came into the kitchen to tell his father, my host whose dinner table I am sitting at, what kind of noises that his car is making. “Angry grinding noises,” he says, and then he makes the noise for all of us—a loud, angry grinding sound which makes all of us laugh. This is a perfect moment, and it rivals the joy of feeding the forty chickens in the backyard, which I did this morning. “I’m not good at laundry,” the kid says, when he is asked to help. “I am good at my own, but I always mess up if I have to do someone else’s.”

My novel will be released on Tuesday. So I am here for a few days of brain rest and rejuvenation before that experience begins. I have no idea what to expect, but I am expecting to feel a lot, to have a lot of reactions. And I want to be in the kind of mental place where I can take it all in. I was reading an article in Vanity Fair about Angelina Jolie by Rich Cohen who wrote: “I noticed everything…as you notice everything in a video game: because who knows what you’ll need, what will mean your advancement, what will be your demise.” I realize when I read this that this is why I have come to Vermont: to ready my brain like September is a video game. I’m doing a lot of events.

On the way up here, I stopped to get gas at the same exit where I was in March of 2009 when my agent called to tell me that someone was about to make an offer on the novel. I figured it was a lucky place, so I bought four scratch-off lottery tickets. The lady who sold them to me asked me which kind I wanted, and she pointed to the big acrylic case where all the rolls of tickets were held. “Red?” she asked. “These red ones are the most popular.” This is when I became suspicious of her motives, perhaps wrongly-so, because I went against her recommendation and bought the blue kind—Sparkling Diamonds—and ended up not winning. Four dollars, goodbye. Oh well. I still win: my novel comes out on Tuesday.

Garden Update!

I was relieved when my friend June said to me: "It's not really about anything other than growing." I was complaining that my shishito plant was only yielding one or two peppers every three weeks or so, which, to give you an idea, when I cook them for part of dinner, I usually start with a pound or so. June clarified that the act of gardening is often less about the physical reaping than the excitement of just watching something do what it does.

Thus, the morning glories have finally started blooming all over the railing. I like them, despite how they take over everything and at one point began shooting out into the cucumber and I had to intervene lest we have our whole garden taken over. It's true, they don't have much dignity, but they are beautiful.

The green peppers are finally growing--there are these two on the plant, and a few more starting. Actually, I think these will be red or yellow peppers once they are mature. That's the shishito behind it.

Finally there is the "Mideast Prolific Cucumber" plant, which spun itself all over the concrete and hung down the back of the railing into the yard, covered in flowers, but for many weeks made no attempt at a cucumber. Then I went to water and low-and-behold! There is a single huge cucumber hiding under a leaf. Look how it's just resting on the dirt! Who knows what mysteries the garden holds!

Sold for $20

Back in the early spring, a photographer from Getty Images came through the Greenmarket and gave a bunch of us twenty dollars* each for taking our picture. Here's what emerged from that brief session--me and David looking slightly uncomfortable, but twenty bucks richer:


Here's how Getty categorized our picture:
People, Casual Clothing, Confidence, Happiness, Freshness, Table, Jar, Abundance, Retail, Vertical, Looking At Camera, Waist Up, Outdoors, 20-24 Years, 30-34 Years, Front View, Stubble, Cheerful, Caucasian Ethnicity, Standing, Smiling, USA, Day, New York State, New York City, Adult, Young Adult, Mid Adult, Syrup, Large Group of Objects, Two People, Young Men, Mid Adult Men, Only Men, Portrait, Photography, Farmer's Market, Adults Only.

*It's certain that I am violating the model's release that I signed by posting this picture here--or at least I am violating the Getty Image Bank's rules about who can post what without payment. But I loved the categories too much not to post it, and were I to go through the motions, and I priced this vaguely via the site, it would cost me about $600.00. So....

September Readings

If you are in or near the NYC area, please come out to hear me read, and get your copy of YIELD signed, at any of the following events:

Tuesday, Sept 7 - 7pm
Barnes & Noble, 82nd and Broadway
Reading/Signing

Tuesday, Sept 14 - 7pm-9pm
Sugarland, 221 North 9th Street, Williamsburg
Book Party with Open Bar/Reading

Thursday, Sept 16 - 8pm
Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street
part of In The Flesh Series

Wednesday, Sept 29 - 7:30pm
Bar on A, 170 Avenue A
part of Guerrilla Lit Series

Tuesday, Oct 5 - 6:00pm
Dixon Place Lounge, 161A Chrystie Street
with Sam J. Miller

The Cover

Spring Cleaning and Other Things

--Jennifer and I went to see Keigwin+Company last night at the Joyce, which was fabulous. The most real revelation of the evening: horizontal lines with vertical lines going in a diagonal is so satisfying. If you are here in New York, and you can still get a ticket, do go. If you are not in New York, I bet you wish you were. This piece, Runaway, (which for the Joyce run was scaled down a bit) was, for me, the highlight of the evening.

--The plan for the next few weeks is to get some of this shit out of my house. Spring cleaning, if you will, of the shelves and the psyche. Thinking about publicity for Yield has given me such explosions of excitement and anxiety, that I feel I need to get back to the center somehow. I have so many books. Really. And some of them could find new owners.

--Theatrical Roundup! We saw Looped, which sucked hard. We saw God of Carnage, which was, well, what I expected it to be. There seems to be a lot of these plays in the past few years, where adults act like children and are terrible to each other, and they are supposed to be comedies. Janet McTeer, in this one, however, is remarkable, and brought me to tears in her final speech, which is, believe it or not, on the phone. Back in January, we saw the 39 Steps, which seemed stale but born of some brilliance, and then I saw Turandot at the Met, which was incredibly good.

--If you are nearabouts Ft. Greene, check out No. 7 Restaurant, particularly for brunch. We've had, at this point, everything on the brunch menu, and everything is great. I particularly like the fried hominy which comes alongside the grits, and the banana butter that comes with the waffle. Yo can also get a half fried chicken at 11am, which seems intense, but a lot of tables were ordering it as a shared course, which I also recommend. Of course, when you go, the menu might be very different, which is what I also like about No. 7.

See what I mean about wanting to be here?

News of the Week

--Sometimes I find myself standing in my living room, looking over the shelves, reaching for a book I've read ten times, twenty times. This week, I pulled down Oyster by Janette Turner Hospital, which I first heard about from a Booksense76 newsletter--do those still exist? I wrote this post a while back about her, which popped into my brain when I decided that I had already said all the things I was about to say again. One of the things I wrote then was that her work is: "a response, a reaction, a dialogue with the entire scope of art and artforms: music, opera, poetry, painting." This is true, even more than I remember it. Oyster is complicated, difficult, incredibly rich with language and room and intellect. And I love it.

--I hate teenagers on the bus. I realize that the only time they have to be themselves is the short, unsupervised hour between when school ends and when they arrive at home. So, in a way, the bus is the pinnacle of their real experience with each other. I'm just depressed that the way they talk to each other is so cruel, so destructive. (I do not remember my teenage years being like this. Were they? Was it because I had a group of weirdo friends who made theater together and drank wine at the teacher's house?) Everything to them is about saving face, about being in the middle, not too much of anything. They don't even listen to each other, they just talk, make grand statements about the lesserness of each other. It's disguised by the talk of phones and shoes and what she or he said, and how they said it. Am I a grumpy old person cursing the kids for stepping on the lawn? All of it makes me feel very alone. And I hate it.

--Charles Busch and Julie Halston, and a victorious cavalcade of other fantastically talented people are performing in "The Divine Sister," down at Theater for the New City. They say it's totally sold out, but you can get on the wait list. Do try. It's extraordinary. I think what I find most refreshing about Charles's work is that every one of his plays, when you take away everything, all the references and laughs and over-the-top everything, his work is about finding who you are, and loving who you are, and making the past right, and owning yourself in whatever way you have to. It's theater like nobody else is doing right now, or has ever maybe, and I don't know how the walls of that little theater can ever contain all the joy that they create together. And I love it.

Olympic Fever, Sort Of

I am sitting down to watch the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Olympic Games, and to eat my Thai food, which was delivered quickly and efficiently by the new place on Broadway. I had forgotten about all the package pieces that NBC does--including tonight's brief "Canada 101" by Tom Brokaw, in which he explained that Canada was nice enough to "share" their stars of music, film and television, and then flashed shots of Celine Dion, Jim Carrey and Seth Rogan. Wait, share?

I used to get really excited about the Olympics--now my feelings are a bit colored by the incredible amount of money spent on advertising and sponsorships. There is so much branding and marketing moments, one can hardly see the athletes for the logos. It's beginning to look too much like NASCAR. Also, no mention of (openly?) gay Johnny Weir in the package piece about American male figure skaters. And the sad news, before the games even begin, of the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.

But there are some real moments in my own Olympic history:
--I'm thinking of the nights spent at Keith's house, staying up far too late watching the Ladie's Figure Skating Final back in Nagano.
--I'm thinking of Midori Ito, arguably the most incredibly talented figure skater of all time, and the time she landed the first triple axel in competition (1988,) and the time she landed the first triple axel in Olympic competition (1992.)
--I'm thinking of the night back in 1994, when Michelle O'Born's mother announced, much to our teenage dramatic dismay, the medal results that she had seen earlier in the day, just moments before the final group of women took to the ice for their warm-up.

Okay, so maybe all of my big memories have to do with figure skating. How gay is that? Also: How gay is this? Also: Rice noodles are fucking good.