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Crushing On: Caught In The Act by Courtney Act (2022)

January 16, 2023 by krisis

I can both love and loathe celebrity auto-biographies, but I definitely loved Caught in the Act.

I can love them because they are a glimpse at the inner life of someone whose art I’ve spent years – sometimes decades! – consuming. They can add fresh context to work that I already appreciate.

I can loathe them because they are often more artifice than reality. Prose is just another method of performance. Sometimes you wind up with a few shocking revelations or debaucherous anecdotes, but that doesn’t meant you’ve gotten any closer to truly knowing the author.Caught in the Act by Courtney Act

(I should know – I’ve been doing it for nearly 22 years now.)

No, I’m not talking obliquely about Prince Harry’s new bestseller, Spare. The first physical, non-graphic-novel book I read this year is Caught in the Act, a memoir in three parts by Courtney Act – contestant on Australian Idol Season 1, finalist on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 6, winner of Britain’s Celebrity Big Brother Series 21, and finalist twice-over on Australia’s Dancing With The Stars.

That’s quite a resume. I first glimpsed Courtney in her “Meet The Queens” interview for Drag Race in 2014 and I was instantly transfixed. I had seen drag queens before and I understood they were often men dressed in exaggerated versions of feminity, but Courtney looked more like a glamorous pop star.

Little did I know how right I was, but also how much that dichotomy often plagued Courtney. (She is credited both as Courtney Act and as Shane Jenek on the book’s cover and is comfortable with either he/him or she/her pronouns.)

The three acts of Caught in the Act are Courtney’s childhood in suburban Australia, her coming out of the closet and into the Sydney drag scene, and her international stardom (and ensuing relationships). I found each portion fascinating, but I think the one that affected me the most (and most unexpectedly) was the portion of the book about Courtney’s childhood.

Courtney and I virtually the same age, separated by only a few months. Even though we grew up across the globe from each other in different cultures, we were exposed to much of the same pop culture. Courtney talks about Madonna and the X-Men, which is shockingly familiar to me. She also talks about years of suffering in silent confusion as she tried to work out why some things in life were “boy things” and some were “girl things.” That felt familiar too.

Early in the book, she says:

I wish there’d been honest and frank conversations going on as well as visible queer people in the world and on TV. I can’t begin to explain what a significant difference that would have made, or what a difference increased visibility since then has made for queer kids today. Growing up in a world of queer invisibility was so isolating. The strange part is I didn’t know I was isolated – I didn’t know I was learning shame, or to hid who I was for safety: it came instinctively for survival. Every now and again I wonder if I’ve retrofitted shame where it didn’t exist. Then I remember: shame is a deposit made for a future debt, and it accumulates over time with compound interest.

That idea that we can’t tell if our adult shame is the same as our childhood shame bowled me over. I stopped and stared in shock at that page for a long while. I’ve never read someone so clearly explaining why the process of coming out can be so long and slow, even when surrounded by an entirely supportive environment. Courtney captures the emotions of childhood, but adds the the adult lens of someone who is on the forefront of conversations about gender all around the world.

What shocked me most about Caught in the Act wasn’t Courtney’s backwards tumble into fame, her drug use, or her sexual encounters. No, the most-revealing aspect of this book is just how long it took her to come to terms with her own gender identity. [Read more…] about Crushing On: Caught In The Act by Courtney Act (2022)

Filed Under: books, Crushing On, reviews Tagged With: Courtney Act, drag, Drag Race, memoir

she can read (much to my amazement)

June 13, 2017 by krisis

Much to my amazement, our nearly 4-year-old seems to have quite suddenly gotten the hang of reading.

Actual reading. Not just spitting back memorized texted in a simulacrum of reading. I still remember the first time I witnessed that, because it was the day we told all our friends we were pregnant. It was our friend M’s daughter’s third birthday, and she “read” me an entire book from front to back. I was in total shock that she could read so many words and so quickly, until her father pointed out that she had simply memorized the entire thing.

Jumanji Cover

Our copy of Jumanji came with a CD of the audiobook narrated by Robin Williams. I put off playing it for EV6 as long as I could but finally the asking became more constant. I let her follow along with the book on the couch while I cried silently in the kitchen.

EV6 has always been good at memorization. It started one night when she was still impossibly small when she spat back the final page of Nightsong at me during her bedtime reading.

That was just the beginning. Since then I’ve heard this girl recite dozens of her books back at us – including a word-for-word rendition of Jumanji, and that is not a short children’s book.

Her current favorite thing to memorize is comic books, which I suppose must be slightly easier to do since you can focus on dialog balloons as if you are learning the script of a play. She has the entirety of the first 20 issues of Lumberjanes committed to memory. Sometimes she’s got it down after hearing it only two or three times, it’s amazing.

It’s amazing, and it keeps her nose buried in books all day every day, but it’s not reading.

I haven’t been too fussed with pushing reading skills on her while I’ve been staying at home. That’s in part because I learned to read so late, and partly because I feel like America’s school industrial process is overly quick to push advanced reading and math skills on kindergartners who aren’t always developmentally ready for them.

Despite that, I also haven’t ignored the skills. We’re always sounding out the words we encounter during the day and having little spelling bees on the refrigerator. I’s exclusively directed play and that’s fine. She’s three. I don’t expect her to read.

Or, didn’t expect her to read, because that’s what she’s been doing for the last week. [Read more…] about she can read (much to my amazement)

Filed Under: books, family Tagged With: children's books, lindsay, memories, reading

Children’s Book Review: Nightsong by Ari Beck & Loren Long

December 3, 2016 by krisis

One of the critical stops on every one of our trips to the zoo is bats. Fruit bats. Insect-eating bats. We’ve even added adorable little vampire bats who live in a dark room and drink blood from a wee little dish.

Perhaps some parents would be slightly alarmed to have one of their toddler’s favorite animals be bats (especially the blood-drinking kind). I’m not, and not just because the first book I ever read was Dracula. No, it’s more that two of EV’s favorite books are the previously covered Stellaluna and today’s book, Nightsong.

Whereas Stellaluna is a story EV loves, Nightsong’s little Chiro the Bat became a persistent character for EV. He is absolutely adorable. She loves fussing over his cheeks and his chubby belly while we read the book. After a few reads, she began to talk about what Chiro was doing randomly throughout the day. In turn, she became even more engrossed in the book, to the point that she could easily recite it for us with the pages for reference.

This forced my hand on allowing the first licensed character into our home, as we discovered there is in fact a stuffed Chiro doll that one can acquire. Every day when EV takes a nap he flies up to a perch on the wall and hangs upside down, and each night he flights down to keep EV company while she goes to sleep.

Nightsong, written by Ari Beck and illustrated by Loren Long Amazon Logo

nightsong-berk-longCK Says:  – Buy it!

Reading Time: 7-10 minutes

Gender Diversity: Male protagonist (easily gender-flipped) and mother.

Ethnic Diversity: Not applicable

Challenging Language: frightened, girths, gleefully, threatened, errands, strand, kin, textures, blanketing, sheltering

Themes to Discuss: being afraid of the dark, sound waves and echolocation, independence, self-confidence and mastery of skills, predators and insectivores, testing boundaries

Nightsong is a book about discovery and boundaries that is beautiful in every way – from its flowing prose to high-contrast, nearly-3D illustrations to its supple, glossy paper. The warmth and trust between Chiro the bat and his mother provides an awesome opportunity to explain boundaries and when it’s the right time to test and push past them.

Chiro the bat awakens folded in his mother’s wings in their cave home. She explains that tonight is the night he will fly out alone and use his “good sense” to find his way – only to the pond, unless his song is sure. nightsong-loren-long-chiro-excerptAt first Chiro feels scared and disoriented, but when he begins to use his echolocation it lights up the details of the world for him as clear as day. After enjoying a breakfast of bugs, Chiro feels confident enough to keep flying. He explores as far as the ocean when he sees the glimmer of the rising sun and knows it’s time to return home to his mother’s warm embrace.

Of all the wonderful elements of this 2012 picture book, Loren Long’s illustrations are the most noticeable. He draws an animated, three-dimensional Chiro who pops off of the black backgrounds of the pages. The efffect is so uncanny that I was convinced that the book contained some computer-generated graphics until I read up a bit on Long, a mega best-selling illustrator. The flecks of acrylic paint that define Chiro’s face at times suggest the detail of blown up pointilist painting in their minute size and deliberate placement.

Other books I’ve read from Loren Long range from fine to great, but the beautiful prose in Nightsong is truly remarkable. That’s the work of Ari Beck, a YA author, folklorist, and doctor of Comparative Literature and Culture. Beck’s writing is easy to read but not simplified, descriptive but never florid. It possesses a natural rhythm that makes me smile to read it. I never get tired of reading this book – it’s a rare one that I can read daily without complaint.

“Sense is the song you sing out into the world, and the song the world sings back to you. Sing, and the world will answer. That is how you’ll see.”

Out went this song over dark water then, again and again, each wave on the ocean rising up to greet him, each splash of sea foam becoming kin to him.

I am always cautious of books with adorable protagonists who like to misbehave. Even when a powerful moral ensues, it can take a while for it to sink in for a toddler even as they begin to emulate the silly or even dangerous behavior of the character they love.

Nightsong gracefully avoids this problem, although it’s so subtle that on my first few reads I was disappointed when Chiro extended his flight past the boundary of the pond that serves as his insect breakfast bar. nightsong-loren-long-interiorIt begin with Chiro’s mother explaining exactly when he ought to push the boundaries she’s set for him – only when his song feels sure. We never get a moment of Chiro thinking to himself, “my song is sure,” but we do have the sureness threaded into the language throughout the book as Chiro’s self-confidence grows. As a result, his boundary-pushing is not only with permission, but it feels entirely organic for the character.

There are few books in our collection that have been read as often as Nightsong, and none of them are in quite as pristine condition. This is simply a beautifully-built book, from the matte soft-touch cover to the weight, glossy pages. It’s especially impressive considering just how soaked in black ink the entire work is. I’d usually expect a book like that to fray and fade, but Nightsong remains just as inky and beautiful as the day we brought it home.

That darkness means these illustrations aren’t particularly bright, although they are high contrast and cheerful. Some kids simply may not warm up to all the black-backgrounded pages. Also, the charm of the book is very much in the richness of the language rather than any particular cleverness of plot, so if you’re not going to give it a spirited read I could imagine it falling a bit flat.

Ari Beck and Loren Long have created a flawless, timeless classic in Nightsong that is so enduring that my child talks about Chiro even when the book is safely shelved away. It is one of my go-to gifts for babies and toddlers.

Filed Under: books Tagged With: children's books

From The Beginning: Dr. Seuss – McElligot’s Pool (Book #5)

November 30, 2016 by krisis

drseuss-brand-hero-01[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Today is the fifth installment of my “From The Beginning” read of Dr. Seuss’s entire bibliography. Last week I reviewed the slightly odd, lesser-known Horton book Horton Hatches the Egg.

Dr. Seuss followed Horton with another silly rhyming tale, recycling Marco the protagonist of And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street and his wild imagination. However, this time around Marco didn’t seem to capture my toddler’s imagination.

McElligot’s Pool (1947) – Dr. Seuss Amazon Logo
mcelligots-pool-dr-seuss

CK Says:  – Consider it

Reading Time: 5-8 minutes

Gender Diversity: Marco and the farmer are male; some fisher are gendered as male. The one named women is out hanging her clothes (as most of Seuss’s early women are)

Ethnic Diversity: None

Challenging Language: pasture, croquet, connecting, whoofing, friskers, kangaroo, gristle, acrobat, thrashing

Themes to Discuss: imagination, littering, evolution

McElligot’s Pool reunites us with Marco, the imaginative star of Seuss’s debut And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. On this occasion he’s not walking down a busy city street, but sitting at a fishing hole out in the country. His vivid imagination is not only intact, but it has grown.

That means the same is true for Marco’s author, Dr. Seuss. His fifth book is the first to dive deeply into his fanciful world of ridiculous made up animals  – here represented in meter by all the unusual fish that Marco can possibly dream up.

mcelligots-pool-dr-seuss-rooster-fishMcElligot’s Pool is a really just an overgrown puddle, a hole-in-the-ground filled with water and people’s junk. A local farmer says Marco couldn’t possible catch a fish there even if he fished for fifty years! Even without the junk, I’m not sure that any fish would want to live there.

Marco is undeterred, imagining the pool as an underground river that runs out under his little town to the sea beyond. And, while there might not be any interesting fish in McElligot’s Pool, the sea is full of them! He starts out picturing real (or, at least, realistic) fish he might catch, but escalates quickly to picturing rooster fish, cow fish, downhill skiing fish and people fish. (It’s pretty gruesome to imagine catching some of them with a hook!)

All of those fish are the reason Marco keeps fishing, even if they might not really exist to be caught.

Seuss feints in the direction of an environmentalist tale with the initial focus on all the junk littering the pool, but the theme doesn’t linger after its initial mention. Once the underground river flows out to the sea, the story is like an underwater adaptation of Mulberry Street fueled by extra imagination.

mcelligots-pool-dr-seuss-pg-32I found the book full of silly fish to be charming, but from the first read the toddler had found it to be boring. I wasn’t sure why at first. It has colorful illustrations and  zippy, easy-to-read language. After negotiating with her to read it a few more times, I think her disinterest is the result of McElligot’s Pool lacking the progression of Mulberry Street. Though the fish do get slightly bigger and more unusual as the story continues, there isn’t a clear “this replaces that” theme nor a sense of reaching a destination. It’s just a list of silly fish.

What interested toddler does have in the book are certainly the illustrations. This book features a fuller range of colors than the last few – delicate watercolors rather than the bold color fills of Mullberry or the flash of red in 500 Hats and King’s Stilts. The fish themselves are quite delightful. Seuss pushes each of Marco’s fanciful concepts as far as possible. Some of them definitely elicit a chuckle from me on re-read, especially the saw fish who can’t get around on his own because he’s poorly balanced and the skiing fish because why would a fish need to ski underwater?!

McElligot’s Pool is a silly book to borrow from a library to spur your child’s imagination, or perhaps a fun read to get them excited about a visit the aquarium, but it’s not a Seuss classic you must own.

Filed Under: books, reviews Tagged With: children's books, Dr. Seuss, From The Beginning

From The Beginning: Dr. Seuss – Horton Hatches the Egg (Book #4)

November 23, 2016 by krisis

drseuss-brand-hero-01[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]It’s the fourth installment of my “From The Beginning” read of Dr. Seuss’s entire bibliography. Last week I covered the surprisingly awesome The King’s Stilts.

After that lengthy prose story with a clear message, Dr. Seuss returned with the a rhyming book that both looks and feels like the Seuss we all know and love – Horton Hatches the Egg. Yes, it’s the same Horton who would later hear a whoo. Between the meter and the silly animals, it was liked well enough by the toddler but we were quickly back to The King’s Stilts afterwards … and I think I know why.

Horton Hatches the Egg (1940) – Dr. Seuss Amazon Logo

horton-hatches-the-egg-dr-seussCK Says:  – Consider it

Reading Time: 8-12 minutes

Gender Diversity: Horton and the hunters are male; the lazy, shrill bird, Mayzie, is female. Animals are otherwise agender; there are women in a circus crowd.

Ethnic Diversity: None

Challenging Language: kinks, fluttered, tenderly, lightninged, anew

Themes to Discuss: parental responsibility, keeping your word, teasing and being different, hunting and animals used for entertainment, genetics, nature vs. nurture

You probably know Horton the elephant because he heard a Who fourteen years after this book was published, but this was his first appearance – and also Seuss’s first time anthropomorphizing an animal as a main character in one of his books.

Horton Hatches the Egg is a frivolous tale about responsibility and keeping your word that’s a fun read with little ones but lacks some of the narrative hooks that make other Seuss books great.

Horton isn’t the first animal we meet in this story. Instead, it’s Mayzie, a feckless bird who is bored with incubating her egg. While she isn’t quite ready to let it die of exposure, she’ll accept any substitute for her own tail feathers to keep it warm – including the massive hindquarters of Horton the Elephant. [Read more…] about From The Beginning: Dr. Seuss – Horton Hatches the Egg (Book #4)

Filed Under: books Tagged With: children's books, Dr. Seuss, From The Beginning

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