Princess Kay of the Milky Way
“My family broke for good on the last day of August, 1981. That day I’d roamed the grounds of the nearby State Fair. During the fair our little suburb grew into the state’s largest city. Neighbors rented out their lawns for five bucks a car, and the tourists swarmed our streets, littering our yards with plastic beer cups and cotton candy sticks. Every year, the Midwest Dairy Association held a pageant for girls from local counties, and the winner was crowned Princess Kay of the Milky Way. On the first day of the fair she sat, wrapped in a ski parka, in a rotating glass cooler for nine hours, where her likeness was carved from a 90-pound block of butter. Afterwards they’d carve the busts of the eleven finalists, one per day, until the display case held an entire shelf of dairy princesses. To me they all looked like the same girl, and I spent more time worrying about the health of Princess Kay, refrigerated for nine hours, than I did admiring her golden smile.”
The above is a little excerpt from my book-in-progress. I’ll be reading from that book at a event next Friday, “Small Town Boys: Gay Men Revisit Their Histories and Hometowns,” which is part of the National Queer Arts Festival. I’ll be reading with a few other writers, including K.M. Soehnlein, who wrote THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS. If you’re in San Francisco and free that night, I’d love to see/meet you.
Friday, June 11, 2010
7:30pm – 9:00pm
S.F. LGBT Community Center – Ceremonial Room
1800 Market St.
San Francisco, CA
Tickets are $12 – $20 sliding scale.
Tickets will be available at the door.
For more information or to purchase tickets in advance, visit Queer Cultural Center or Brown Paper Tickets.
Wish I could come, but I’ll be out of town. Knock ‘em dead.
June 2nd, 2010 at 4:55 pmWish I lived in San Francisco, I’d be there in a minute. Thanks for the taste of a great book “in progress”.
June 2nd, 2010 at 7:06 pm