Alix Strauss: Death Becomes Them: New York: HarperCollins: 2009.
This book deals with the suicides of brilliant, famous or notorious celebrities…some of whom were lesbian, gay or bisexual.
Gay male youth suicide was a major concern in the New Zealand context, prompting the development of LGBT youth groups and active pursuit of inclusive school antibullying policies, resulting […]

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Michael Adams: Showgirls, Teen Wolves and Astro-Zombies: Millers Point: Pier 9: 2010.
 Australian movie reviewer Mike Adams spent virtually all of 2008 trying to work his ways through the worst movies known to humanity.
What makes a movie kitsch, as opposed to camp (in which case, it has some redeeming qualities?) Bad acting? Really low production values? […]

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It was probably only a matter of time before a professional rugby union player came out, and Gareth Thomas is the aforementioned sporting great. So why am I blogging about this?
Despite the fervour that our national game attracts (and provincial games- remember, I am Cantabrian, with all that implies), it is possible to overstate its […]

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 Shelley Jackson: The Melancholy of Anatomy: New York: Anchor Books: 2002.
I’ve just read my first Shelley Jackson piece, The Melancholy of Anatomy (2002). Not to be confused with Elizabethan prosaist Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, this collection nevertheless traverses similar philosophical terrain, using the archaic medieval and pre-endocrinological designation of ‘humours’ to provide a framework […]

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If you’re looking for another yuletide stocking stuffer (…), then may I recommend Ian Spector’s The Truth About Chuck Norris (Gotham, 2007). Satirical factoids abound in this cheeky booklet, which carries multiple hyperbolic musings about the conservative overtestosteroned martial arts ’star’ in question, which apparently originated on US live television comedy shows and then spread […]

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A Lefthanded History of the World, by Ed Wright. Millers Point, NSW: Pier 9: 2009.
What do Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Alan Turing and Martina Navratilova all have in common? Apart from the obvious….
All of the above are southpaws. Left-handed people have apparently had their own experiences of hand use discrimination, including […]

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Have Cambridge University fundamentalists or antiabortionists endangered peoples lives through interference with condoms? At Cambridge University, an investigation is underway after a third-year female student found a hole in a condom. Subsequent examinations of the stock found that half had been pierced with a fine needle. They had been previously been stored in unsealed boxes […]

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Doctor Who fandom appears to have a large proportion of gay fanboys. Why is this?
I think it’s largely due to the appeal of its core character to us. We have an instinctive identification with the Doctor’s raison d’etre, as explained in the Second Doctor’s final outing, War Games (1969). It was then explained that the […]

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Motivated as I am by popular culture, I thought I’d note the plethora of books, movies and related ephemera to do with zombies yet again, and ponder their significance for the hackneyed concept of  ‘identity politics’ eg anything that isn’t Class Analysis.
During zombie apocalypses, humanity tends to unite against their ravenous anthrophagic predators, usually suppressing […]

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The zombie zeitgeist continues unabated. Why are these ravenous, deteriorating ambulatory cadavers so popular amongst the world at large suddenly?
Despite the glamour of the vampire denizens of True Blood, it is its kindred revenant siblings, zombies, that have lurched upward in public estimation more recently. Zombie graphic novels are popular in comics shops, Max Brooks […]

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