Autobiography - Mediaclature

GOOD TIME PARTY GIRL (1966)

June 19, 2022

GOOD TIME PARTY GIRL is a self-reflexive work of sorts: penned by POPULAR HOME magazine editor Robert Dougherty, it’s a recounting of “The Notorious Life of Dirty Helen Cromwell”, straight from her mouth, according to Robert.

Dirty Helen Cromwell (Helen, from here on forth), was — for some time — a Milwaukee fixture from the Prohibition age. While she was reluctant to lay down roots anywhere, she did find a home in Milwaukee with her boozy outpost THE SUN FLOWER INN, which is where Robert first met Helen.

What follows is Robert jotting down Helen recalling a good forty years of ‘good times’ as a self-proclaimed ‘woman of pleasure’. In other words: a sex worker. There’s a moment where she wishes that the term ‘call girl’ was popular in her time.

The tales recalled in GOOD TIME PARTY GIRL are certainly those of a willful, self-possessed woman, one who isn’t a skin-flint, but values what remains in one’s pocket, while still living a remarkable life, one the that included all sorts of fashionable dovetailing, as well as shoulder-rubbing with Al Capone.

“My advice is not to accept initiations to these cruises if you aren’t prepared for certain eventualities.”

That’s about as dark as Helen deigned herself to deal with, but as one dives deeper into GOOD TIME PARTY GIRL and reads about the litany of dead husbands, and the brave face she plastered on, the harder the read becomes. This is a memoir/auto-bio where the absence of details are more damning than the inclusion; you can almost feel the hurt in certain eras of hers that she glosses over, ambiguous hurt that hits harder than when she discusses the death of one of her several husbands.

That said, yes, you do have to read in-between the lines for that. Otherwise, it’s a bold, brash tale of a bold and brash and gregariously singular woman who made her place in Milwaukee. That alone is reason enough to read her tale.

Purchase: https://feralhouse.com/good-time-party-girl/

THE SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH (2021)

June 15, 2021

I’ve been a bit disheartened to see that this release wasn’t as buzzy as it should have been, considering it’s the first new graphic novel from Alison Bechdel (DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR, FUN HOME) in almost a decade, but so it goes. Hopefully it’ll gain some traction, but I do fear that the subject material was ill-suited for a pre-post-pandemic time.

As you might expect, it’s another fantastic memoir from Bechdel, and visually far more vibrant than anything else she’s done so far. I balked a bit when I heard that, since I’ve always found her stark line work and muted use of colors to play towards the tone of her material, but Holly Rae Taylor’s minimalist watercolors never trample over Bechdel’s pens and, most certainly, emphasize the physical exertion Bechdel’s put herself through over the course of her life.

To summarize: THE SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH is about Bechdel’s lifelong obsessions, first and foremost exercise, but also work, writers, and her attempts to find a proper, healthy balance, one of which I think practically anyone can empathize with. (Personally, there were more than a few passages of her self-reflection that reminded me of the ways I’d try to exhaust myself pre-pandemic.)

Some of the material will naturally be familiar with you if you’ve read her prior memoirs, but very little of it feels like a retread. While the tale of her experience, and her examination of writers’ lives such as Jack Kerouac, Margaret Fuller, and Dorothy Wordsworth make for compelling reading, what really drew me into this piece was how perfectly paced and managed it is. It’s a brilliant showcase that demonstrates how she’s evolved from someone who thought of herself as a ‘just a cartoonist’ to someone who not only knows how to write and visually tell a story, but also to do so in deeply multifaceted way. Her use of visual elements, be it with animals or simple background objects practically demands a re-read, but she also knows exactly when to throw in a callback to forty pages before in way that is leading, but not obvious, and twists it into more than just a callback.

I can’t neglect her sumi-e-esque splash pages, all of which are glorious and deviate from her traditional style, but are never superfluously thrown in to break up any ‘potential monotony’ of telling a paneled story.

It’s a tremendous accomplishment, one that I look forward to revisiting.

https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/the-secret-to-superhuman-strength/9780544387652

An aside: I received the book as part of a Chicago Humanities Festival incentive: pay X $$ and you get the book (via Chicago’s fantastic Seminary Co-op bookstores), plus access to a live virtual interview between her and artist (and friend) Nicole Eisenman. It was the most delightful piece of pandemic virtual media promotion I’ve seen. I could have listened to them talk for hours, and you can hear the same conversation via the link below:

One last thing, which might be a bit of a brag, but: Bechdel not only signed my pre-order copy, but also drew herself as a chickadee. If you read it, keep an eye out for chickadees.

THE LIFE OF REILLY (2007)

December 2, 2020

(YouTube) Charles Nelson Reilly’s one-man show. Yes, most folks know him from the ‘funny’ (a.k.a. best) episodes of THE X-FILES. People with too much time on their hands know him from the best episodes of MILLENNIUM. Game show dorks and people like me also know him from TV schlock like HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. However, he was far more than that — he was one hell of an individual, a queer pioneer. He made his own space in his own way, and THE LIFE OF REILLY features him regaling us about his life, his trials, tribulations, and trailblazing in his own words, on the stage for one last time.

“The things we go through when we’re young… it’s amazing.”

For reasons beyond me, it’s not available to stream or buy, either digitally or physically, so I feel no compunction about sharing the link below.

The film, as a YouTube playlist (better than nothing! Think of it as a series of vignettes.):

ALL THAT JAZZ (1979)

September 8, 2020

(DVD/BR) While I appreciate Bob Fosse as a talented choreographer and director, I don’t think much of the man himself, which is what conflicts me about this self-indulgent paean from himself, about himself, to himself. On one hand, the self-glorification of his caddish behavior — even if he hangs a lampshade on it — is pretty despicable and, even more criminal, it’s often dull. On the other hand, the closing scene is a goddamn stunner, and may make the film worth your moral price of admission.

Closing scene (NSFW):

Trailer: