Product Description

From the Introduction by Brian Fawcett<.P>

"A first clue to how this book is going to work lies in the book s title: Topic Sentence. In the title story, written in 1970, Persky took on the two questions that dog every artist in the post-modern: What is the subject matter, and how can it be articulated? Since both questions are unanswerable, Persky twists them: How am I supposed to isolate the subject matter from the myriad of things in which it is lodged, and how do I elude the distortions of conventional exposition and its self-serving selectivity? How do I make what I write as alive and dynamic as the things I write about?

"...The book has three slightly cryptically-named sections: Before, During, and After. They do not mean beginning, middle and end. Instead, they mark, without having discrete boundaries, the three stages Persky has traversed to become a writer: self-articulation, ideology and dissidence; sexuality; and the still-in-progress open field that lies beyond commissioned intentions and self. Persky began as a poet, morphed into a fine political writer, then wrote about homosexuality, and now is a writer prepared to examine every and anything with a fully deployed sensibility that includes his political and sexual commitments and passions without being governed or limited by either or by anything else. The problem with this sort of explanation is that it makes it appear to be linear, and that s not how Stan Persky s mind or this book operates."

Book Description

In a volume inspired by Czeslaw Milosz, Stan Persky appropriates the format of the alphabet book as a springboard for musings both personal and philosophical.

The Short Version&#151; which, at 300-plus pages is the author's longest book &#151; is a literal ABC: Persky covers only topics that begin with those three letters, though he can't resist tweaking the format to include such subjects as Richard Rorty("Contingency") and Jack Spicer ("After Lorca"). Subjects range from his travels across Eastern Europe and Asia, to reflections on writers of today.

Unafraid to topple sacred cows or singlehandedly resuscitate those in undeserved obscurity, the author provides a road map to a public intellectual's mind. Persky's cosmopolitan perspective encompasses Woody Allen's films, Roland Barthes's theories of identity, and Italo Calvino's creation of Mr Palomar. Along the way he covers such matters as the art of teaching as practiced by Persky, his foray into northern British Columbia, and memories of long-ago Gestalt sessions with David Berg.

Book Description

In January 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its ruling on the Charter challenge brought to the "kiddie porn law" by Robin Sharpe's case.Political and legal commentator Stan Persky and former senior justice department policy advisor John Dixon follow the course of Sharpe's case through the courts from his arrest in 1995 to the verdict.

While favouring sanctions for the possession of material whose production requires crimes to be committed, Persky and Dixon remain equally concerned that child pornography law not violate constitutionally guaranteed freedoms such as thought, belief and expression - values central to democratic life.

Does the law as it now stands, with the Supreme Court's modifications, measure up? On Kiddie Porn's clearly thought-out analysis let the reader decide.

Book Description

Autobiography of a Tattoo is an investigative literary work about the education and pursuit of homosexual desire.Its mixture of serial stories and modernist meditations invites readers on a journey that rangers from post-Wall Berlin to Plato's Athens.Stan Persky, the author of Buddy's and Then We Take Breaks, here breaks through the current impasse of contemporary gay/queer writing.

Innovative in both form and content, Autobiography of a Tattoo probes the tensions between the memory and anticipation of desire, sexual representation and moral relationships, the illuminating glimpse of the immediate and the long view of civilization.Can writing be both hot and thoughtful, intimate and analytic?Find out why Stan Persky is the most important writer about homosexuality in North America today.

Customer Reviews (2)

another fine collection of essays from the author of Buddy's
Persky is a very underrated writer in Canada. Partially, this is due to his chosen writing form--essays (although he began as a poet). Essay writing is still considered a dry, academic form in North America but Persky draws upon the more pleasurable personal/philosophical essay tradition of Montaigne and Roland Barthes. He is very open and insightful about his homosexual desires, but it would be a shame if his readership was limited to only those who share his sexual preference(s). Here's hoping that he begins to receive the wider attention he deserves and that he helps revive the essay tradition in North America.

Take Me There!
A fascinating hybrid of a philosophical meditation on love and a diary of Berlin summers, Persky's book breaks so many rules to thrilling effect that he should be enshrined as Chief Literary Outlaw. Persky is so fearless ininvestigating the basis for his feelings about his work, his obsession witha young rent-boy in Berlin and his friends that he virtually dares thereader to become exasperated with his waffling about reaching any prematureconclusions. The miracle of his writing (and thought process) is that hekeeps us fully engaged in his conversation with himself until exasperationturns into affection and complicity. Persky's love of teaching (he is aprofessor of philosophy in Vancouver, BC) is clear here both explicitly (hetalks about his concern for his students at length) and implicitly (theentire book becomes an example of a unique teaching style). Persky, who isproudly over 60, takes pains to make sure we know that his own libido isexuberantly healthy (bravo!). If he had anything to do with approving thefabulous cover art for the book, he certainly insured that the libido ofevery reader will be sent into overdrive every time the eye catches thecover. ... Read more

Book Description

Buddy's is a gay bar in Vancouver's West End that opened in the spring of 1982 and closed in the summer of 1988.It was the starting point for this unusually frank and engaging portrait of gay life and gay culture in the late eighties.Shifting effortlessly between autobiography, fiction, and criticism, Buddy's is in turn shocking, erotic, witty, and moving, a study of life in a time of plague.

Customer Reviews (1)

Slow book about fast changing region!
I was dissapointed after being tantalized by the title.I fully expected much more anecdotal evidence that a gay lifestyle exists in Eastern Europe...instead it reinforced the sterotype of a bleak and gray people.Which is not true, Eastern Europe is fascinating and quite gay.Maybe someone will do this subject justice next time around ... Read more

Book Description
Stan Persky's tale of his adventure through Eastern Europe and into "boyopolis" &#8212; the underbelly of Berlin, a fast-changing world of gay bars, houses of pleasure and cabarets that mirrors the fractured turmoil of Europe today&#8212; was greeted with tremendous critical acclaim. With the wit and sexual candour of Edmund White, and the acute historical sense of Ryszard Kapuscinski, Persky gives us an intensely frank, revelatory and disturbing picture of the new Europe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

In search of tawdry sex in the new Berlin
This is an unusual book - a travelogue of Eastern Europe from the perspective of a middle-aged gay tourist looking for boys. I suppose I should have guessed what I was getting into on the basis of the cover illustration. The fact that the longest chapter is titled "Boyopolis/Berlin" is another tipoff.

Stan Persky tells us a lot about himself - in fact, too much. He is a fiftysomething philosophy professor who grew up in Chicago and now lives in Vancouver, Canada. He is a non-practicing Jew who has participated in protests against Israel. And when Stan hits a new city such as Berlin, he spends his time in "pederast bars" (a phrase used in the book) to look for boys. Some readers will find this titillating and others not, but you have been warned.

My greatest disappointment about this book is that Stan Persky tells us too little about Berlin itself, beyond the gay-cruising circuit. His Berlin tales of boy-hunting could just as easily be set in any large city. Berlin, which is the focus of the book, is one of the world's most interesting cities, but I felt I learned very little about it. On the other hand, the chapters covering other cities give the reader more of a flavor of local politics, culture, and history. Berlin, Budapest, Sofia, Vilnius, and Tirana receive the greatest coverage. ... Read more