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Books
Backbone
by Karla Denise Baker
Publish America
 As the illustration of a woman sitting at a microphone on the cover suggests, Karla Denise Baker’s poems in Backbone demand to be read out loud. I have a sense that the words truly come alive when spoken, for hers are intimate truths passed person to person. The genesis of the collection came after the poet’s loss of her youngest son, Anthony, to Glioblastoma, a form of cancer, but also embrace a wide range of perspectives that give voice to emotional journeys, addiction and recovery, living with HIV, yearning for love, a mother’s love, physical and mental abuse, the struggle between faith and fear—and they demand to be heard. “Yearning,” a poem of full stops at the end of almost every line suggesting the stops and starts of desire, is an example of Baker’s clarity and composure. She has the ability to take straightforward, everyday words and make curlicues of poetry out of them. In “Brown Paper Bag Lady,” the speaker says: “She does not feel the need to write signs stating she is hungry,/The look is outlined upon her face.” These are poems about survival but also are poems about enduring to nurture something new into existence.
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Walking Higher: Gay Men Write About the Deaths of Their Mothers
Edited by Alexander Renault
Xlibris
“Ten to twenty years ago, gay sons were pre-deceasing their mothers in alarming numbers as out-of-sequence deaths from AIDS ravaged an entire generation. Now that AIDS is a treatable disease, more gay men are surviving their parents,” writes Alexander Renault. Thirty writers—contributors include Walter Holland, Michael Hathaway, John Gilgun, among others—offer pieces looking back at their relationships with their mothers and looking ahead as they confront their emotions. Ernest Rubinstein, in “Tenafly Here,” begins his reflection by imagining the satisfaction his mother might feel about a New York Times feature about her artwork, and then goes on to write: “My mother was not a famous or self-supporting artist. But her artworks were her truest children, more fully expressions of herself than my brother or I. And I know she would have been please when, on her death certificate, I identified her occupation as: Artist.” Taken together, these are complex and varied renderings about mother-son relationships that, as Renault reminds, are often pathologized, but rarely given due process.
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The Hardest Working Woman in Show Biz, Irene Soderberg
Born to Finnish immigrant parents and raised in the ultra-small town of
Brush Prairie, Washington, Irene Soderberg may have seemed an unlikely
candidate for who she has become. But along the way, her colorful life
grew more vivid and her unconventional dreams started to materialize.
And today what you see before you on stage, squeezed into a sequin
gown, topped with tender blond locks, the Irene of 2006 resembles more
a love-child of Mae West and Liberace. The unique songstress before you
is a natural, for sure. But even natural born entertainers like Irene
have to work at it. And with a wink in the eye and a purr to the voice,
you know this woman is working it well.
Behind the scenes, Irene is in complete control. She is her own agent,
producer, manager, seamstress, make-up artist and valet. Not that she
doesn’t appreciate a hand loading up her car with boxes filled with
copies of her four CDs she sells at her various gigs. Having appeared
in nightclubs and cabarets across the country, Irene keeps most of her
appearances close to home in Santa Monica. That is, if you call
trekking between Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange County and Palm
Springs in a matter of days, being close to home.
Having participated in over 700 hiv/aids benefits, she’s helped to
raise many millions of dollars for a cause she’s passionate about.
Positive herself for over 15 years, she says she’ll “rest when I’m
dead”. She manages her health with a positive mental outlook, a strong
spiritual center and some stolen tender moments with her committed
female partner.
Look for Irene performing at West Hollywood Hamburger Mary’s most
Monday’s and Mary’s sister location in Orange County most Wednesday’s.
You’ll undoubtedly be able to pick up a copy of her new CD, This Is My
Life, a diverse musical romp of Jazz, Broadway and torch songs. Maybe
you could even help her reload the car.
Log on to www.imirene.com.
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Davidd Batalon
In Davidd Batalon’s small, 1960’s West Hollywood, California apartment, just off Melrose Avenue, wall-sized unframed paintings are stacked alongside the walls, and some are hung throughout his living space. His home has the feel of an art gallery. No wonder. This is both his studio and living quarters. His palette and brush lie just one stroke away from him.
Batalon embraced art from the very beginning, but he didn’t realize the extent of his talent until he started school. "I thought all kids drew like me. But then I realized when I drew a dinosaur it looked like a dinosaur, not a warthog, or a log with legs," he chuckles. His work became the only medium in which he could express his feelings of isolation as a Filipino in the predominantly white neighborhood of Yorba Linda in Orange County. He remembers often waking up to the sound of rocks and Oreo cookies hitting the patio roof. The local kids would shout "Move out! Go back to Japan!" The issue of his homosexuality made Batalon feel like even more of an outsider. "I knew I was gay in the sixth grade," he says. “I was always the kid in the back of the class who drew on desks just to tell people that 'here I am, I'm alive.’”
Batalon's paintings reflect the different stages of his life. "In my earlier works there's a feeling of suppression because I was in the closet at the time." He looks back on the works now and sees great tension in them - with a mixture of implied eroticism. "Like the way a person will hold something, or a slight angle to the body that just kind of suggests a sensuousness of the male form that I wasn’t even aware of doing at the time," he explains. “A lot of subliminal movements come out regardless of whether I wanted them to or not. In later works I can see myself loosening up as I started coming out more."
Batalon admits that his craft, which is a joy to him, is also therapeutic. He tends to do his painting late into the night when he finds it more peaceful. "Painting exorcises a lot of demons," he admits. "I'm dealing with a lot of psychic energy that needs to go somewhere. Some people go out and play volleyball, or ride dirt bikes. I just go to the canvas and let it out."
See more of Davidd’s work at http://laartrat.tripod.com
Davidd is represented by Bert Green Fine Arts –
www.bgfa.us
View Davidd's work in an exhibit at Bert Green Fine Arts Gallery from July 6th thru August 26th. Reception is July 6th, Thursday, from 6-9pm, at Bert Green Fine Arts, 102 West 5th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013
213.624.6212
Hours: Tues. - Sat. 12-6pm.
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