You say Clamato, I say Clamato

Let's call the whole thing off.

So I'm back and while I could go on and on about Canada in one very long post, I've decided to break it up over a few.

We'll call this one the first. What kept me entertained in Canada and travelling:

Well, as you know, the George R.R. Martin book was not released on July 26th as was promised. So I obviously didn't read that. Next on my list was Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel. I made the mistake of thinking I could find it in an airport bookstore. No go there, either. My mother had a copy of The Kite Runner and I read the first chapter. The writing was so poor I could go no further. I had purchased the new Genre, Out, and BPM before I left. Only the latter provided any articles of substance--including a nice piece by Karim Rashid on album cover art. The gay mags made me a little depressed. First of all, they're super thin. Secondly, almost all of the pages are dedicated to ad space. Then, the articles are flimsy and totally irrelevant to my life. The only article that had promise (and I don't remember which mag it was in) was about a disorder in which people cannot recognize faces. Unfortunately, there were only glimpses at the science behind it and then it went into a tangential line about fetishes. Poor, poor writing. Oh, and I guess the John Waters interview of Johnny Knoxville was ok in Genre.

For my return trip, I made sure to stock up on magazines. GQ, Details, and The New Yorker. All were well worth their purchase. GQ and the New Yorker feature essays by your favorite essayist and mine, David Sedaris. I preferred the GQ with its plethora of curse words to the parasitic story in the New Yorker. Details had a mildly amusing article by Augusten Burroughs about office parties and a brief story on the International Gay Rodeo Association (the best tippers I ever waited on).

I know GQ and Details are really just "Men's Magazines" but they had more gay-centric stories than both Out and Genre--and probably more gay writers.

The New Yorker also had some great pieces on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, and a great article on hip-hop DJs Hollertronix.

End part 1.

Google image search: Bloody Caesar