Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Time to go on a literary diet

Okay, the time for eating candy is over. But what a time it was. I decided to usher Labour Day Weekend in with a couple of frolicksome reads.

The first bit of candy actually had some nutritional value. Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever, by Joel Derfner, is a wickedly humorous and keenly insightful look into contemporary gay male culture. It is at once light and airy, and poignant and heartbreaking. Think David Sedaris, if Sedaris had graduated from Harvard and was working in musical theatre. You don't have to be gay or even male to find insight in what Derfner writes. He's tapped into what makes us the big ball of human insecurity that we all are.

Don't judge me. Okay, go ahead. But I actually ended the summer the same way it began -- by reading the latest installment from our favourite 90210 friend, Tori Spelling.

Mommywood is Tori's account of giving birth to her two children with Canadian wife cheater Dean McDermott and how she plans to do things entirely different than her own Mom, whose name (not coincidentally, is really Candy). It's a real page turner.

I actually like Tori a lot -- even though (or especially because) she's the Queen of TMI.

In Mommywood we learn that when she and Dean met, they used to have sex three times a day. Now, with the kids, they're lucky to have sex three times a week. We learn that when Dean's away, Tori's best friend (the man she refers to as her Gay Husband) sleeps over, on Dean's side of the bed. And we learn of the unfortunate demise of Mimi La Rue, her beloved pug, whom Tori insists actually enjoyed dressing up in frilly outfits every day.

You can borrow them if you want. But I'll tell you -- they're best enjoyed when the sun's beating down and you're happily enthroned on a lawn chair. As for me....I'm breaking out the classics.

1 comment:

Ryan McNeil said...

hey franny - are you TIFF-ing this year? Wouldn't mind trackin' ya down for a few to get some vicarious fest-y goodness.

Email me and let me know OK? madhatter(dot)21(at)hotmail(dot)com