![]() This secret history, written intimately from below, is an exemplar of biography’s power to comprehend societal forces through individual lives. Steward-a poet, novelist, and university professor who left higher education to become a sex-researcher, skid-row tattoo artist, and pornographer-may seem at first an odd candidate for a biography, for he is practically unknown and nearly all his writing is out of print.” But through Steward’s queer, willful story, Spring has uncovered a major current in the felt experience of gay life in the 20th century. Spring smartly frames the problem of his biography in his opening sentence: “Samuel M. I don’t think I have ever read a memoir where the archive’s presence was so palpable it’s almost a living character in the book. This obsession left a treasure trove of diaries, photographs, and a complete “Stud File” that fed Spring’s biography. Steward was an obsessive recorder of his erotic exploits, which lead to his role as a major informant for Kinsey’s pioneering studies of human sexuality. ![]() Spring was able to compose a comprehensive biography of this complex, elusive figure thanks to the enormous archive that Steward left upon his death, which preserved extensive documentation of his prodigious intellectual and sexual life. Toklas, Thornton Wilder, Alfred Kinsey, and George Platt Lynes. Steward, a novelist and professor whose confidants included Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Little did I know that Phil Andros the pornographer was also Phil Sparrow the tattooist, who was also Samuel M. I always wondered, Who is this guy? Thankfully, Justin Spring has finally uncovered the full story in Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade. Despite their erudition, his novels are always thoroughly hot and fun. You have to love a pornographer whose range of obsessions runs from rough trade to Keats and then always right back to rough trade. John Phillip Santos's The Farthest Home Is in an Empire of Fire: A Tejano Elegyby Callie Enlowįor years, I’ve treasured the intelligent, ribald, masculine novels of Phil Andros: Roman Conquests Greek Ways and My Brother, My Self. Wacky Packages New New Newby Nick Stillman ![]() Justin Spring's Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegadeby Jason Baumanįrederic Tuten's Self Portraits: Fictionsby Thomas Bolt Josiah McElheny's The Light Club and A Prismby Sabine Russ The Books's The Way Outby Peter MoysaenkoĮndless Boogie's Full House Headby Clinton Krute Inner Views, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Studio Museum in Harlemby Patricia Spears Jonesīrandon Downing's Lake Antiquityby Ben Mirov Gaspar Noé's Enter the Voidby Lena Valenciaįrédrique Bergholtz and Iberia Pérez's (Mis)Reading Masqueradesby Christopher Stackhouse Jameson Ellis's Improved M16 Prototype #1 I am writing to inform you of what i am doingby Christian Hawkeyĭrawings from 21 Love Poems and The Fried Tale (London Zoo)by Caroline Bergvall Dying Is All I Think Aboutby Alissa Nutting ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |