Michael George Holloway, the narrator and marketing graduate from Cal State summa cum laude, changes his name to "Scat" in order to better market himself for a marketing job. So begins this rollicking novel about the cut-throat world of business. Along the way Scat meets the beautiful 6-- her parents named her zero and changed her name every year on her birthday, but they both died just after renaming her "6"-- there's also the aptly named "Sneaky Pete" and the beautifullly blonde @. I suppose we could probably spell her name "Ambers Anne" because of her lemony looks.

In keeping with the tone of this novel, the chapters are marked by bar codes; and marketing case studies are interspersed throughout this tale: for example, mktg case study #1: mktg perfume - TRIPLE YOUR PRICE. THIS GIVES CUSTOMERS THE IMPRESSION OF GREAT QUALITY. HELPS PROFITS TOO.

Mr. Barry, who has taught marketing at "two major universities" in Australia, convinces me that he understands the ugly but funny world he writes about. What we ultimately have, however, is an old-fashioned love story with enough laughs for everyone.

In REBEL YELL 2, Mr. Quinn continues what he started in his first volume REBEL YELL although the collection is bigger here with 22 writers represented, including some from the previous volume. The definition of a Southern gay writer and who therefore makes the cut seems to have gotten even milkier here with the likes of Felice Picano making an appearance. According to Mr. Quinn Mr. Picano comes from New York and now lives in California-- and I suppose he has changed planes in Atlanta if that makes him a Southern writer-- in any event, he's included.

There are a lot of things Southern here-- bourbon, iced tea, pickup trucks, country music, kudzu. The quality of the stories is uneven, which is not unusual for an anthology. Some of my favorites include Jeff Mann's "Emory and Henry" which is a fine account of bigotry and prejudice among a group of high school biology honors students in a small college in Virginia in 1976. The story rings true and is filled with irony as a Jewish kid leads the assault against the gay narrator. I also liked Mr. Quinn's "The Kitchen Table" in which a "straight" carpenter with a grown son must come to terms with his feelings about the gay man whose home he is restoring. But the best was saved for last. Having gotten totally engulfed in all the kudzu in "Pueraria lobata", I almost skipped the final story "Everybody Loves the Musee d'Orsay" by Marshall Moore. That would have been my loss. About the conflict between a gay son and his overbearing, controlling mother, this fantastic story is not to be missed.

I always enjoy listening to Mr. Sedaris, usually when I'm driving and catch him on some public radio station. Here he has a new book with a terribly clever title as well as a hooty photograph of a mannequin on the jacket cover. Mr. Sedaris then proceeds to dress his family. We can only hope that he is being hyperbolic in some of his outrageous descriptions of his parents and siblings or he may not get invited back to a Thanksgiving dinner any time soon. If one of his sisters indeed is actually named "Tiffany", then of course she'll never make it in a world outside of a trailer park. Surely no heterosexual brother, even on his worst day, can be as big a pig as Sedaris' brother Paul who makes sure that his bride-to-be's dogs are a part of his wedding. She comes down the aisle in silence-- the DJ is stuck in traffic so there is no Wagner or Cat Stevens or whoever to serenade her-- followed by a pack of dogs.

Mr. Sedaris can go from the humorous to the achingly painful in short order. His description of being moved out of his parents' home by his father at the age of twenty-two, not because he was a bum but because he was gay, will break your heart--as it did his mother's. His gentle reveries of his life with his lover Henry and their patterns of dullness will make you smile. Sedaris' father's wanting him to punch out a school bully when the writer spends his weekends making banana nut muffins instead of excelling the "art of hand-to-hand combat" will amuse you. His description of his playing strip poker at a slumber party for him and his friends in the sixth grade is hilarious.

What is not funny-- not funny at all-- is Mr. Sedaris' account of his visit to the home of Anne Frank in Amsterdam. He opines that he has found the perfect apartment and would love to move in and redecorate. "The entire building would have been impractical. . . but the part where Anne Frank and her family had lived. . . was exactly the right size and adorable. . ." The writer couldn't be more wrong. When I visited this home, I was taken aback at how small the Frank family's hiding quarters were and how so many people survived there for so long.

I have no trouble with gallows humor-- if that's what Mr. Sedaris is striving for in the Anne Frank fiasco-- but he falls flat on his face here in what is otherwise for the most part an amusing book. To compare him to Mark Twain and Nathanael West, as someone in "The New Yorker" does, is a bit of a stretch too. On the other hand some commentator recently compared Johnny Cash to Mark Twain as well. Perhaps I'm the one who is out of step here.

I just saw for the first time ever this movie made in 1950; directed by Vincente Minnelli; and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. Ms. Taylor was only 18 when she made this film and was frightening and eternally beautiful. She is so petite that she almost could adorn her own wedding cake. The movie, however, as the title implies, belongs to Mr. Tracy who plays her father who cannot bear to see his little daughter grow up and get married. There is a lot of most fathers in Mr. Tracy's character. He has some great lines and some funny scenes and endears himself to us with his gentle humor-- the footage where he gets stuck in his kitchen making drinks and doesn't get to make a speech about his beloved daughter, just to point out one delightful instance. He is such a bungler-- can't get to Ms. Taylor at the wedding reception to bid her goodbye either.

I did not find this 54 year-old movie dated at all. Some things never change. Love may be eternal and most families the world over act pretty much the same when it comes to seeing their children leave home.

When I first read this little volume through, my first reaction was that this was not much ado about even less. Then upon reflection-- and after I called a couple of friends and read some of my favorite little ditties to them-- the book began to grow on me. Now when I see Mr. Bush stumping-- if that's what he is doing-- or giving sound bites, Mr. Trillin's doggerel comes to mind and makes me smile. For example, when Kerry announced that Edwards would be his running mate in November, the current occupant of the White House, when asked to compare Mr. Edwards with Mr. Cheney, responded quicker than A Texas tornado, "Dick Cheney can be President." But Mr. Trillin calls Mr. Cheney "Nanny Dick" and concludes in another little poem that the current VP only holds his head at an angle when he is lying-- which is all of the time. Wolfowitz and his crowd, those who were hell-bent on getting the U. S. into war, are called "Sissy Hawks." After all most of them didn't wear the uniform. (Weekend soldiers don't count.) Condoleezza Rice's name is always followed with "Mushroom Cloud" in parentheses. While Mr. Trillin takes most of his shots-- and he has tremendously good aim-- at Bush and his administration, the Democrats get zapped a few times too. One of the saddest poems in this entire volume is one for the Democrats: "The Loyal Opposition." "The Senate Democrats sat mum/Like doves afraid to coo./So history will soon record/This war as their war too." Then there's "A Silver-Lining View of George Bush's Not Attending Military Funerals, Lest He Become Associated with Bad News": At least there's no Bush eulogy/On why they had to die./It's better that they're laid to rest/Without another lie." (Notice that the titles are often practically as long as the poems, themselves.)

Since 1990, Mr. Trillin apparently has written a poem each week on the news. The last one in this slender volume is dated April 19, 2004. Some of his efforts don't work very well as poems, hardly rhyming, something that these sorts of poems must do in order to be successful. (Ogden Nash's reputation will not be tarnished by this book.) What we do have here are thoughtful comments by a good and funny writer on the current state of the United States as he sees it.

I cannot get very excited about this volume of male nudes by four photographers. They are Trevor Watson, Tony Butcher, Za-hazzanani and Toni Catany. It should be pointed out, I suppose, that Za-hazzanani is a woman photographer, not that it makes any difference that I can ascertain in the quality of her work. My biggest objection here is that there is a tremendous sameness to the shots. For example, I would be hard put to tell the difference between Watson and Butcher's work if Butcher didn't just do black males. Many of the photographs are framed and composed nicely and beautifully printed; but the models could be made of marble. There's hardly a live one in the bunch. Mr. Catany's photos are sepia in color and grainy. At least you know which pictures are his, but I find his images no more interesting than those by the three other photographers.

Finally many of these photographs consist only of body parts with an inordinate number of close-up shots of someone's rear. There are very few images here of complete bodies-- feet, hands, legs-- the head bone connected to the neck bone-- as the old Spiritual goes. If only these bones could rise again.

There are many fine books of photography of male nudes on the market that will excite and inspire you. This one sadly is not one of them. Three stars is most generous, aka the Gentle Person's C.

In the January 2004 issue of "Blue", the Australian magazine where Paul Freeman is decribed as the magazine's "most featured" photographer, the artist says that he has always wanted to keep some link with classical art. "Sort of like a meat pie inside the Sistine Chapel." Most of these models Michelangelo would have loved, and they to a man are meat pies. There is not a wimp or effeminate-- and it's okay if one is-- man in this collection of over 200 photographs. These men are rugged, hairy, beefy, muscular, tattooed, pierced, sweaty, wet and muddy. Some of them are a bit stylized and wearing gladiator garb. Many of them are at the beach-- Bondi perhaps--there are some beautiful portraits here. And no model has his genitalia airbrushed.

In his brief introduction Mr. Freeman says that as a youngster he was taken by the image of the suffering Saint Sebastian (check out the portrait on page 174 of Garth Elliot 2) and that present day influences are Bruce Weber and Herb Ritts (speaking of airbrushing photographs). I think many of his models look more like some of the work of Jim French as well as Caravaggio-- whom he acknowledges as an inspiration-- and Michelangelo.

Many of these men are photographed as many as 6, 7 or 8 times so you will probably get to see a lot of your favorites. Where to begin-- the man on page 11 (beautiful shadows), the outrageous Grant Perry (page 24 and 7 more photos), the hairy barrel chested Igor Praporshchikov on page 55, Black Angel No. 4 on page 73, Mat Obelisk on pages 76 and 77-- perfect exposure and lighting--the Gladiator on page 103 that, thank goodness, shows up again and again-- Gladiator 4 on page 126-- this is an unusal and most flattering pose-- the portrait of Ryan Kwanten on page 154, Kane 1 and 1 (pages 158 and 159-- the list goes on and on. The only photographs I don't care for are the ones with a snake wrapped around the model. Perhaps it's the Garden of Eden story that turns most of us off to these kinds of photographs. Richard Avedon did the snake photographs better years ago anyway.

If the test for a book of photographs is whether or not you return to it again and again, then BONDI CLASSIC gets an A+. In its own way this book is just as hot as Tom Bianchi's ON THE COUCH series. If you can only buy one book of this kind this year, this one's the one. Oh, go ahead; treat yourself and buy Bianchi's also.

Set in Florence and covering roughly 10 years from the brink of World War II to the liberation of "Il Scorpioni", Zeffirelli's film boasts a great cast: from the group of English women who love all things Italian-- Maggie Smith as Lady Hester, Judi Dench as Arabella, Joan Plowright as Mary to Lily Tomlin as Georgie, Cher as Elsa, and last but certainly not least, Baird Wallace as the older Luca based loosely on the director, himself. The group of English women will not leave Florece even in the face of an impeding war; Lady Hester, in her naivete assumes that tea with Mussolini will guarantee her and her friends' safety.

The film is a little predictable and somewhat rosy. On the other hand, If Luca is based on Zeffirelli, he obviously lived to tell his tale so perhaps this rosiness is justified. Cher seems to play Cher and isn't terribly convincing as a rich Jewish American; and her wardrobe is gaudy enough to belong to her. On the other hand, the three British actresses are great, particularly Maggie Smith who cannot abide Americans. My favorite line of hers is that Americans [referring to Elsa] can even "vulgarize" ice cream.

Of course it's impossible to make an ugly movie that's filmed in Florence; this one is no exception. (It's probably impossible for this director to make a less than beautiful movie.) While this may not be Mr. Zeffirelli's best film, it's much better than the best efforts of a lot of his contemporaries.

Jay Quinn publishes here 14 stories by, in his words, "contemporary Southern gay authors." He doesn't clarify whether or not the writers, in order to be included in this anthology, had to be born in the South or just live there. It is impossible to tell from the brief bios of the writers if some of them meet either of these requirements, if indeed, those are the requirements for inclusion. Some of these stories are not very good, some of them are so-so-- since being polite is an innate Southern characteristic-- I won't name the stories I didn't care for-- and two or three of them are first class. Almost all the writers-- regardless of their abilities-- discuss what makes Southerners different and point out the uniqueness of Southern gays. For example, there is an emphasis on family, a greater amount of prejudice against anyone different, an identification with masculine men; and Southern gays-- at least until very recently-- were probably more prone to remain in the closet and lead double lives, at least in small Southern towns. Of course fundamentalist Christianity is the dominant religion in much of the South as well.

The best story here is "465 Acres" by the editor of this volume, Jay Quinn. In this story Steve, who has recently lost his wife Janet to cancer, is living with his domineering mother whom of course he calls "Mama" and his two children. He is about to meet for the first time in 22 years or so a man named Robin whom he once loved. Mr. Quinn has perfect pitch when it comes to portraying Southern rural families in the North Carolina-East Tennessee-Virginia area. Janet's death was "the Lord's will." Steve's mother will always call friends her son's age "boy". His children are young'uns. Steve's mother, a perfectly awful human being, doesn't like Mexicans and opines that girls shouldn't go to college since they'll just get married anyway. It's worth buying this collection for this story alone. Additionally "The Preacher's Son" is a sad commentary on how far a "religious" family will go to protect their reputation even if it means letting a murderer of their gay son go practically free. Finally Walter Holland's "Hometown" is a bittersweet love story and reminds us, as Thomas Wolfe would say, that it really is difficult to go home again.

When David Leavitt published FAMILY DANCING in the l980's, I was convinced that he would be our next great gay writer as that book of stories was so brilliantly written. I have read everything that Mr. Leavitt has written since; from where I sit, nothing has measured up to his first book. THE BODY OF JONAH BOYD is no exception. I really wish I liked his fiction more. He seems to be a terribly nice person, certainly has a flair for language and often makes profound statements about the world in general. He, moreover, is most adept at character development, piling on detail after detail to make his people come alive. Here we even know what kind of purse one woman carries and what she has in it, for example. But in the end I find most of his characters not very interesting. In this latest novel, they all apparently are heterosexual. (Perhaps Mr. Leavitt is aiming for a larger audience here.) The narrator is a "fat" secretary (Denny)-- that's her description of her body, not mine-- who jumps into bed with married older men faster than she can type--certainly a little difficult to fathom. Then there's the writer who either does or doesn't get his works accepted by THE NEW YORKER, a recurring dilemma for many of Leavitt's characters.

What this novel does have going for it is that parts of it read almost like a decent mystery since Jonah Boyd's novel manuscript is missing.Yes, this book is a book is a book about books. But it has little to do with the brillance of Mr. Leavitt's early work.

Finally, whoever wrote the blurb on the inside front of the dust jacket said that this book is a tribute to "the sisterhood of secretaries." Surely he or she cannot be serious.