![]() ![]() Pisarra’s sonnets illuminate how his one-night stands are immersed in chemistry (in all senses of the word). Through his poetic alchemy, Pisarra makes you see why combining queer eros with periodic elements isn’t an obscure mystery.Ĭhemistry as defined by the “Oxford English Dictionary,” is “the complex emotional or psychological interaction between two people,” Angie Morrill notes in the introduction to “Periodic Boyfriends.”Ĭhemistry contains the elements – from silver to tin to gold – that make up the world. The sonnets riff off Pisarra’s one-night stands, cybersex encounters and memories of queer men who’ve died. ![]() Pisarra writes sonnets that Shakespeare, who some scholars think was queer, would, I’d wager, have enjoyed reading with his BFFs.Įach of the witty, sometimes poignant, nearly always captivating, sonnets in “Periodic Boyfriends” is titled with the name for an element in the periodic table (such as the poems titled “Hydrogen,” “Boron,” “Lithium” and “Palladium”). “Periodic Boyfriends” is a collection of sonnets inspired by queer love and the periodic table of elements. The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post. ![]() “Mercury Pictures Presents” more than lives up to the promise of “The Tsar of Love and Techno” and “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,” his earlier award-winning work. “If you want the war to look real on screen, you’ll have to fake it,” he adds. “A filmmaker needs multiple takes to get the right shot” on a studio sound stage, Artie says, “The idea that you’re going to send a couple guys into a foxhole with a camera and expect to compete with Hollywood just isn’t feasible.” Mercury Pictures studio gets a momentary boost, when it, like other Hollywood studios, is called upon to make propaganda films for the War effort.īut there’s a problem when the Army brass expects Mercury’s filmmakers to film the propaganda in actual combat. His rival Boris Karloff “has two stamps,” he says. Lugosi complains that only one postage stamp has been made with his image. Hollywood only wants to cast Eddie in demeaning “Asian” parts. Just as you begin to wonder how much pain you can take, the mood shifts.Įddie talks with Bela Lugosi about the miseries of Tinsel Town. They’re not allowed to travel more than five miles from their homes. may be “the land of the free.” But because she’s emigrated from Italy, a country with which America is at war, Maria and her family must register as aliens. Prisoners in Italy live under deplorable conditions. ![]() Though much of the action occurs at the Mercury Pictures studio (which could go bankrupt at any moment), the story morphs from LA to Sicily to Utah (where a model of a German village is created).Īs in real life, tragedy and comedy intermingle in the novel.Ī Sicilian photographer escapes Italy (using someone else’s name). “Mercury Pictures Presents” is operatic in scope. Because, like her correspondence to him, they’re bowdlerized by government censors. Her dad’s letters to her don’t make sense. Maria is overwrought with worry and guilt about her father. Maria’s boyfriend is Eddie Lu, a Chinese American actor, who would love to have roles in films of Shakespeare’s plays. Maria lives with her mom in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of LA where her elderly, commanding, but loving, always wearing black, Italian great-aunts live. (They preferred Hollywood flicks over church.)īut these care-free excursions ended when her dad was arrested for defending anti-fascists. When she was young in Italy her father, a defense lawyer, took her on Sundays to see American movies. Still, they landed in Hollywood.Maria, Artie’s right hand, emigrated with her mother in the 1930s from Italy to the U.S. They owned a movie theater named the “Titanic.” As you’ve likely guessed it didn’t do well. But a heart of gold and moral scruples are intertwined with this slapstick.Īrtie and his brother Ned (with whom he doesn’t get along) came to America in the 1910s. He’s a gruff, bald, sometimes crude, Jewish guy who names and displays his toupees. In many ways, Feldman would fit in well in a Marx Brothers movie or a funny TV sit-com. Maria Lagana, a young Italian woman, works for Artie Feldman, head of the studio. Much of it takes place at Mercury Pictures, a B-picture Hollywood studio. The novel is set in Los Angeles just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. “Mercury Pictures Presents” puts the kibosh on our sentimental illusions. fought to rescue the world from fascism, and its citizens basked in freedom. It was good back then, we think, watching Victor Laszlo and Ilsa. Old Hollywood movies set in World War II are our comfort food. ![]()
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