Looking for Mr. Good Friend.

I want friends I can have a conversation with.
An honest conversation.

I know a guy in his late thirties who has never had a relationship in his entire life and blames the jadeness of NY gays for that. I know another guy who pats his head and agrees with him: NY gays ARE jaded.

The second guy does not have the guts to tell the first the real reason he has never had a relationship: he is a mess. (Of course, I am oversimplifying the reason, but that's not the point here.) NY gays might be jaded (not all) but they are also smart (not all). (This ain't the point either.)

They call each other friends. (This might be it.)

I want friends that can be told things

most troubling sign you have a drug problem:

when you get upset at your friend for suggesting you MIGHT have a drug problem.

Public Service: If you answer yes to any of these questions, it could suggest that you may be heading for trouble.


1. Have you lost important friendships or relationships?


2. Have you missed work as a result of partying?


3. Have you had trouble finding or maintaining romantic relationships in your life?


4. Are you ever preoccupied and obsessed with finding and using crystal at the expense of your personal goals and aspirations?


5. Do you party during the week in spite of not wanting to use crystal?


6. Do you sometimes get high even though you don’t want to?


7. Are you using more than you thought?


8. Have you experienced short term or long term memory loss?


9. Have you ever caught a cold after a weekend run?


10. While using crystal, have you engaged in dangerous sexual encounters that you would normally not engage in?


11. While partying, have you had sex with people whom you would not normally agree to engage with sexually?


12. Do you have a permanent prescription for Xanax or sleeping pills?

blah blah blah

Image by Meccapixel: MERMAID PARADE CONEY ISLAND 2004

"Other than that, my gay pride was fun."

Next on my Rugby fixation: he made the cover of OUT Magazine. [send by long lost (and strongly missed) contributor Mr. DW]

Speaking off one's ass.

Coloured ABC photo

Wish I had found this during the 'Reagan Deat-a-Thon':

"My mother told me never to speak badly of the dead. She's dead....Good"
SaidWhat

West 13th, 7:30pm

You. Must. Go. See. It.

Fahrenheit 9/11 exceeded all expectations this weekend, setting a new record opening for a documentary as it claimed top spot at the US box office. Guardian

I saw it yesterday and, like Michael Musto, I found it to be biased but with an informed bias, and it happens to be the bias I share, so fuck off!

A PRAYER

"Lord?
Please don’t let me die in a funny way"

I Want to Be Alone. Please Call Me.

Cellular Sociology
'Years ago, cellphones were the province of the powerful, but now that they are mass-market items, everyone has delusions of grandeur. Now there are 280 million masters of the universe in America."

Image:
Clinical profiles in cell-addictive behavior.

It's a small world!

Country: Niue

Slogan: "undiscovered unspoiled unbelievable"
Population: 2,100
Porn pages: 2,947,800

Via memefirst

Bush:

Leave the Earth.

The Right Thing.

Everyone knows it’s the wrong thing to do but I did it anyway.

I just don't want to be Esther.

"Once, I was kicking a drunk and belligerent trannie out of my house, at 4am, after I found an ancient Buddhist relic in her magenta clutch. As she stormed out of the front door, she screamed, 'You aren't Madonna!' The comment stung, because I wanted to be you so badly. And I still do. I just don't want to be Esther."
Margaret Cho

PROUD.

This was a very special pride celebration for me. I am proud that my friends are proud of me. You know who you are. And I love you all.

Pride 2004: Big Cup, 9am.

You are not a strong black woman.

Dos & Don'ts & More Don'ts for Recent Arrivals & Most Jaded Queens I know
(I couldn't pick my favorite, but I highlighted the most relevant.)

1. You are not a strong black woman. You never will be.

2. I know it was terrible being the fag in your school/small town/own mind, but don't introduce yourself to people with this information. Being gay is, and should be, the least interesting thing about you.

3. If your mother is the greatest woman who ever lived, keep it to yourself. The holiday orphans don't want to hear it. On the flip side, your family will always be a part of you even if you never speak to them again, but try not to spend your life in reaction to them.

4. Rainbow flags, bumper stickers, and wind socks are no different than Green Bay Packers fans painting their faces green and gold: a complete embarrassment. Pride can be as ugly and warping as shame.

5. Gay life can be empty and depressing, but bitching about it outside the confines of a few close friends will get you tagged as bitter. Yes, the gay mainstream is alienating with its cookie-cutter bars, bad dance music, and Queer as Folk. It's enough to make you turn straight. But electroshock doesn't work and Jesus is a sci-fi character.

6. Don't fraternize with people who haven't come out.

7. Your masculinity has most likely been called into question. Anything you do in reaction to it will be a failure. Don't try to prove or disprove anything.

8. There is a difference between being effeminate and being a queen. Being effeminate is just that--being. Being a queen is an affectation. I can't throw a ball, but I don't call anyone 'girl,' even female children.

9. Avoid she-bonics: referring to each other as Girl, She, and Her. 'What's her problem?' That you are an idiot. This includes: Bitchslap, Girlfriend, Shit pussy, Mangina.

10. Don't be a misogynist asshole. Leave the tuna jokes back in your small town with your usage of Jew as a verb. If it weren't for lesbians and feminism, we'd still be sucking cock in truck-stop restrooms. I mean exclusively.

11. I've never been to a bathhouse. No, really. So I can't advise you on it but I do know they are basically a petri dish of STDs. If you are okay with HIV, herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, and other STDs, by all means fuck your brains out.

12. Do not have black-and-white photos à la Bruce Weber taken of you and your beloved. And if you must, then don't hang them up as 'art' in your home.

13. Don't kiss and tell. Or fuck, suck, rim, or fist and tell. Think of your bedroom like Vegas: What happens there stays there. It will keep you from gossiping, which is the true heart of darkness, and will create a sense of mystery. Besides the cruelty of nicknaming someone Princess Tiny Meat (it would make a wonderful DJ name though), it isn't good karma. And what modestly endowed dude who sucks a mean cock is going to want to go home with you after that?

14. Bros before hos. I learned this the hard way: Do not sleep with a friend's ex-boyfriend. Ever. Even if they say they don't care, they do.

15. You are 200 times more likely to be an alcoholic than your straight counterparts.

16. Beauty fades. Develop some inner resources, otherwise when it goes, those of us with less far to fall will laugh at you. To your aging face.

17. Men, like lotto tickets, should not be had every day. The odds are the same.

18. Romantic friendships will end up being neither.

19. Cultivate friendships with straight men. 'But we have nothing in common,' you say? Bullshit. You are men. Many straight men are in fact softer and sweeter than their faggoty brothers.

20. Make friends with at least one dyke, you silly faggot. When the shit goes down--for instance your mother dies--fags will drop you in an instant if you aren't fun. Dykes will come to your house with food.

21. Don't make friendships based solely around how outrageous you are. It's a shitty kind of attention.

22. Don't refer to anyone as a fag hag. It's rude. Also don't hang out with fag hags.

23. Don't date people who have scars that are older than you.

24. After all of that, you are still not a strong black woman.

Mr. V is...

Word of the day: unpredictable, whimsical, arbitrary, fanciful, impulsive.

Poor Brasil.

"Most of the throng -- like most of Brazil -- was throttled by poverty. These thousands in the city of Sobral were dressed in threadbare clothes and mud-covered sandals. Some stood on tiptoes, hoisting small children who squirmed in their arms. Others held tightly to the bicycles they had ridden across the rain-drenched roads. ''Lula, Lula!'' they shouted, relentlessly pushing forward, those closest grasping for the president's sleeve. A small bear of a man, Lula is bearded and round-shouldered with a wide neck and a thick middle. He moved from one person to the next, hugging some and pausing to hear what they had to say, patting the palm of his hand against the side of their faces. ''O-lé, o-la, Lu-la, Lu-la!'' the crowd began to sing, as if roused to a chant at a soccer game. ''You are a saint!'' cried one barefoot old woman. Her eyes were desperate and bloodshot. She was clutching Lula and wouldn't let go. ''You will help us,'' she said, and as the president bent closer to hear, she bestowed the accolade of the people: ''You are one of us.''

What she, like the others, wanted was a little attention, a little empathy, a little money. Brazil is a rich nation full of poor people, its distribution of income nearly the most unequal in the world. The next night, in another city, a young girl mistook me and my translator for members of Lula's staff. She handed us a note, begging us to pass it on. Many words were misspelled; there was a name but no address. It said: ''Lula, I have six brothers and sisters and my mother doesn't work and we don't have a father to help us. Please, my mother cries because we don't have anything to eat. My name is Adriene.''

Lula, of all people, would understand, the little girl must have thought.

And this would have been right. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 58, is the genuine article, a walking fable, democracy's classic story, the poor boy who grew up to be president"

The New York Times > Magazine > Poor Man's Burden

The Ethicist

"My husband inherited a painting, almost definitely stolen, from an elderly relative who brought it back from Germany, where he served in World War II. (...) May we keep it? Anonymous, Chicago

So few people ask me if it's O.K. for them to hold on to stolen goods, and even fewer have the ethical sense, as you do, to feel guilty. I urge you to heed that feeling."

Pride 2004, day one

Block Party Benefit for Aid for AIDS.

The beginning

[image]

Mr. Roz and I were already friends for a couple of years. We were probably 21? Over 20 years ago. And we finally were going to fulfill a gay boy's dream: we had four tickets for Elza Soares, The 'Ella Fitzgerald' of samba. Diva, south american way. We were, as always, if modesty allows me to say it, being ahead of our time by recognizing her greatness.

And we decided that we would use the chance to ask guys on a date. Not necessarily a sex date, but people we felt an attraction to, which VERY often gay guys confuse with sexual attraction.

We brought Mr. LP and Dr. WM to the concert.

It was the beginning of a lifetime friendship, in spite of one death happening in the meantime.

Back to the concert. Elza Soares had led a full life and this was the 're-invention' tour and she wanted to be taken seriously, more than just a sambist, a Jazz Singer. And she told us so. "From now on I will only sing intelligent songs". And she proceeded to perform "O Pato", losely translated bellow and sang by João Gilberto above. That song sealed the deal for us.

O pato
The duck
vinha cantando alegremente, quen, quen
came singing happily, quack quack
Quando um marreco sorridente pediu
When a wild duck smilingly asked
para entrar tambem no samba
to also join in the samba
no samba, no samba
the samba, the samba

APPLAUD...

...residents of Austrian village Fucking who voted against changing the village's name. Spokesman Siegfried Hoeppl said, "Everyone here knows what it means in English, but for us Fucking is Fucking - and it`s going to stay Fucking." The name came from a Mr Fuck who settled in the area with his family 100 years ago.
[popbitch]

Similar votes on a name change have taken place recently in neighbouring Austrian towns Wank am see and Petting, as well as in Vomitville and Windpassing. [ananova]

blah blah blah

The perfect gift for Mr. V: his favorite thing.

6 months ago "she lacked understanding of her actions". Not now.

But it's Brazil for bikinis.

David Beckham embraced HOT HOT HOT striker Wayne Rooney after the youngster scored his second goal in a 4-2 victory. And Why we all fear for Wayne Rooney.

NOT SUITABLE for public places. You have been warned.

72 Bedford Street

On the window of Casa. Any ideas? I might have reasons to celebrate tonight...

Smokers Die Early, Study Finds

"Cigarette smokers lose 10 years of life to their habit."

books i can wait to read:

I FU**ED ALEC BALDWIN IN HIS A**

Too funny.

The Singhsons via a.s.

what is a happy ending?

"What if you had a happy ending and didn't notice?".

the empire

Last night, after dinner with Freda, Mr.DF and Mr.SI on the fabulous chinese restaurant on 9th & 24th. Anyone knows the name?

Freda Book Club 3

So I did it. The Freda Book Club read the book I suggested, which was 'The Jane Austen Book Club'. According to Freda (Mr. DF's mother), the book club LOVED the book club book.

Now, I confess, in spite of the fact I also loved the book, I had murkier reasons for suggesting it. And it backfired... Or not.

I got to write this post, had a lovely (not theatre) dinner with her AND suggest another book. Can't wait to hear the outcome of it.

Give Me Love

George Harrison

Please take hold of my hand
That I might understand you

Won't you please
Oh won't you

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
Heart and soul

INCIDENTAL SONG:
So many tears I've cried
So much pain inside
But baby it ain't over 'til it's over

So many years we've tried
And kept our love alive
'Cause baby it ain't over 'til it's over
[Lenny Kravitz - It Ain't Over 'til It's Over]

A brief history of Christopher Street

'Eighth Avenue is gay, gay, gay—there's no way around it,' says Christine Quinn, city councilwoman for the Third District, which includes both the Village and Chelsea. 'But Christopher Street is a landmark. Christopher Street has history. It has battle scars. No matter how fabulous another street gets, you can't take that away.'
The Village Voice: 25th Annual Queer Issue.

We will ruck.

[Photo: GaySports]

Rugby and the gay male body

Gay men have a strained relationship with their bodies. We are taught so often that our desires are wrong, that we never will be butch enough, and that we never were. Team sports raise the threat of exposure and incompetence before other boys. We train ourselves to look too critically at ourselves lest we fail to perform the correct rituals of manliness. You can't be self-conscious in rugby. To hesitate is to lose the ball or to miss the tackle. You have to act even if the action is wrong."

RELATED LINKS:
Gotham Knights Rugby Football Club.
Mark Bingham, Hero of 9/11.
Word of the day.
Scrumdown: Rugby Players and of course jockstraps.
Five times WOOF!
Ruggerbugger: Pro Sportsmen Nude Galleries.
SF FOG RUGBY: The Rookie Primer

I think I'll take rugby as my fetish from now on.

Rugby first exploded on American college campuses in the 1960s, and one reason why, argues Timothy Chandler of Kent State University, is that its free-form rugged playing style offered an alternative to football. The intense bonding among players, the public nudity on the pitch, and the bawdy, blasphemous, sometimes sexist drinking songs made rugby disliked by college administrators but popular among young men attracted to its anti-authoritarian vibe. Even today, football doesn't seem to offer gay men the same opportunities for unconventional fellowship and mayhem. For gay bodies, rugby rituals seem both ironic and real. It's small wonder that Oscar Wilde called it "a good game for rough girls, but not for delicate boys."

Message to the choir: wake up! and vote.

Moore's Fire
"Is (FAHRENHEIT 9/11) biased? Yeah, but with an informed bias, and it happens to be the bias I share, so fuck you! And even if it only preaches to the choir, said (Michael) Moore at the premiere, 'it's a good thing, because the choir must be awakened!'"

La Dolce Musto Pearls of the week

Vaginas & Daisies
"Afterbirth: Kathy and Mo's Greatest Hits provides trenchant observational hilarity that has you cheering for mo' (and Kathy). I especially enjoyed their spoof of feminine hygiene commercials: "I don't know about you, but I don't want my vagina to smell like a daisy any more than a daisy would want to smell like a vagina!""

Carnaval after 1am
"More immediately, club legend RUDOLF PIEPER told me he's helping to open Lotus clubs in Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and Rio, where the most sizzling hot spot now is Iron Lady. "It's a carioca version of an s/m leather bar, with carnival atmosphere and feathers," said Rudolf. "It's very confused. In Brazil, even macho married men are not responsible for what they do after 1 a.m.—and that's strictly enforced." De-gorgeous! Come on, Dubya—let's take some more vacations."

God is Brazilian.

Growing up in Brazil, we were always told that God was brazilian because otherwise he would not have created such a beautiful land devoided of any major natural disasters. There are no earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, deserts, etc. Of course, poverty and illiteracy do not count.

Premiere Brazil!
MoMA at Film Forum Presented with Festival do Rio at Film Forum in New York City

The one I'm looking forward to:

Deus é Brasileiro (God is Brazilian).
2003. Brazil.
Directed by Carlos Diegues. With Antonio Fagundes, Paloma Duarte, Wagner Moura.

Diegues, best known as one of the masters of Brazil's influential Cinema Novo movement, has clearly had fun creating this playful and poignant comedy, which was a runaway hit on its home turf. God, having decided to take a vacation from his endless toil minding Earth and the impossible human race, must first recruit a temporary substitute. To track down the man he considers best suited for the job, he goes to Brazil's northeast, joined by fisherman/con artist Taoca and the tough-acting, lovely Mada. The trio's spirited road trip unfolds across stunning stretches of the diverse Brazilian countryside. The locations, the frequently odd residents, Taoca's religious-icon-filled dreams, and the wacky twists of the journey itself all become integral parts of this comic fantasy. In Portuguese, English subtitles."

Frozen Assets

NYC's best Ice Cream, according to the New York Sun:


1. Mary's Dairy


2. Cones Ice Cream Artisans


3. Emack & Bolio


4. Chinatown Ice Cream Factory


5. Eddie's Sweet Shop


6. Hinsch's Luncheonette


7. Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory

karmic balance

I might be close to achieving karmic balance.

My beloved bicycle was stolen.

Things like this do not drive me crazy. Of course I like to posses things I want but I'm not materialistic in essence. The bike had been a gift from X-L (sentimental value) and got me around town (practical value) while keeping me healthy (inner value).

The reasons we do things we know are wrong...

I know the word karma has a pejorative connotation now and it's used very lightly by everybody. But the concept karma, call it whatever you will, is something we all should believe in. Good deeds attract good things. Negative energy attract bad omens. Bad people suck up all your energy. Everybody has a different way to accept it:

In life, we often do things that are against our own inner understanding of what is right/wrong - good/bad - harmonious/inharmonious. Each time we do something wrong/bad/inharmonious, we create a tension in the bow string. We create a karmic debt. 

What is right or wrong is relative to us. It stems from cultural and personal belief systems. For example, in some cultures stealing is not a bad (karmic) crime. The pigmy culture in the Congo in Africa do not have a word in their language for stealing because they don’t ‘steal’ things. They have community property and they ‘borrow’ things. They don’t understand the concept of stealing. If they take an ax and don’t bring it back, they have not created a karmic debt because they don’t understand the concept of it being stolen.

"What is right or wrong is relative to us." The fact I got a call for an interview while I was working at the center. The fact I had an interview the day of the Garden Party. The fact I got a job offer the day after.

I want to believe in the need to balance the energy that flows from/to us. I want to believe in the need for karmic balance. I want EVERYBODY to believe in it.

"a benign fairy tale of solidarity and resilience."

No, not the story of my life in the last few months...

That's what A. O. SCOTT wrote about The Terminal but I only read it just now, after watching the best movie I have seen this year. That could be why I couldn't stop crying after I left the theatre. That message hit home. Sharply.

Its etymology — termini were the local gods whose shrines served as boundary markers in the ancient Roman world — suggests a frontier between worlds, while its modern medical usage associates the word with mortality. To be trapped indefinitely in a terminal, then, without recourse to either flight or ground transportation, can be imagined as a kind of living death, a nerve-racking state of perpetual limbo.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that Mr. Spielberg has transformed this quintessential modern nightmare of interrupted air travel into a vision of earthly paradise.

I went to see the movie right after I finally got a call with a job offer.

I felt tired. I feel very tired. I felt like allowing myself to relax. So, obviously, I went to see a movie in the middle of the afternoon. ('Obviously' for the ones who know me well enough: movies are the ultimate source of pleasure to me.)

Maybe it was the lack of expectations. Maybe they are a winning combination, Spielberg and Hanks. Maybe it's just the transfer process. I loved the movie And I am still crying.

"A benign fairy tale of solidarity and resilience."

Friends...

I was so close to giving up.

Kim Sun Il

"They killed him. I have failed. We have all failed. The world is all failure. I am overwhelmed with sadness. This war is wrong."
Margaret Cho

but i digress...

In a scene from "Fahrenheit 9/11," President Bush after being told "America is under attack" on Sept. 11, 2001.

I cannot wait to see FAHRENHEIT 9/11. It opens today!

You can read over 300 front pages from 43 countries at the Newseum website. Via Manhattan User's Guide

Yeah, right. Like he actually volunteers.

"Get the hell out of my way, I'm coming through."

Fuzface Gallery

Geese poop is really really gross.

Yesterday, Britney Spears ate a small puppy. No, really.

Cones, Curves, Shells, Towers: He Made Paper Jump to Life & Geometric Paper Folding: Dr. David Huffman

Listmania! The Top 25 Weirdest Items You Can Purchase Through Amazon! via kottke

Fun, Fun, Fun!

Garden Party 21

Lustrology

Gemini
One of your big challenges is that sometimes you actually like the idea of sex more than the actual act itself. You can talk some of the nastiest, wild shit ever uttered from the genital inspired part of the brain, but can you walk the walk? You should spend less time looking for interesting variations to stimulate your organs through the mind, chat rooms or the telephone and much more looking for the highest truth of who will be more than just a brother or sister for mental masturbatory escapades. If there is any sign that would benefit by searching for the one, it is you. Then you can menage-a-trois until your heart's content with your own twin selves.

Position/Sex Act of the Month: suck the sweat off of your lover's biceps before signing your autograph (or encouraging them to sign) in jism across their (your) chest.
Via Kitchen Scratchings

Saint George Sculpture @ the U.N. Gardens

The benefits of sex with an ex:

1. No chance of being shocked by what he looks like naked the first time. That horrible mole is right where you left it.

2. Not having to awkwardly ask for contact details after. If you don't have them, it's not by accident.

3. He knows where your buttons are, how many there are, how long they need to be pressed and whether they should go side-to-side, up-and-down or in little circles.

And the drawbacks:

1. There's probably a good reason you're not together anymore. A very good reason.

2. One of you will think this means the relationship is back on.

3. There is absolutely no way you can tell any of your friends without coming off as the world's biggest prat. After all, they had to live with you post-breakup, right?

Belle de Jour

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes

How Do You Measure The Life Of A Woman Or A Man?

In Truths That She Learned
Or In Times That He Cried
In Bridges He Burned
Or The Way That She Died

It's Time Now - To Sing Out
Tho' The Story Never Ends
Let's Celebrate
Remember A Year In The Life Of Friends

Remember The Love
Measure Your Life In Love
Seasons Of Love

Folsom Street East, summoned up in one image

but i digress...

"There is something of the bewildered ingénue about Saunders. At times she pauses so long to consider a question that it isn't clear whether she is concentrating, thinking of something else entirely, or dropping off to sleep. Because she often plays overbearing, egocentric characters, this passivity comes as a surprise. It probably has more to do with shyness than rudeness, or a horror of self-aggrandisement."
The Guardian on one of my idols, Jennifer Saunders.

Another idol of mine: João Gilberto, 73, was the prime inventor of bossa nova.

Stonehenge builders identified

Gay Dads Of Quads Split Up: I'll take one. Gladly.

Michael Jackson's three-day Brazil-trip mystery.

São Paulo Fashion Week

Party Favors: Pill Popping as Insurance

[Image: Mr. John @ FSE]

"OMG that's so sad."

"I hope those ducks are okay."
The Morning News - The LiveJournal of Zachary Marsh

Have you tried sex?

Childless couple told to try sex
A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex.

'When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: 'What do you mean?'. 'We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate.'

The 30-year-old wife and her 36-year-old husband are now being given sex therapy lessons while the university clinic undertakes a study to try to find out if there are more couples with a similar lack of sex education.

Hudson River Park @ Bethune St.

Carnaval. Same thing. Without all the colors.

Folsom Street East 8
Sunday, June 20, 2004 — 2pm to 8pm
S/M-Leather-Fetish Block Party
on 28th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, NYC

Swimming Badly

On my list of things I've always wanted to do before I die is to swim with dolphins. But I am a devout vegetarian and concerned about animal rights and conservation. Would it be wrong for me to swim with dolphins if they were bred in captivity? Would I be a hypocrite and be giving my money to perpetuate something I am against?
I sympathize. It's been my lifelong dream to swim with Miss Meg Ryan, but I've come to realize that she -- or any of our beloved actors -- ought not be conscripted in such ways for my pleasure.
The New York Times > Magazine > The Ethicist

Summer Solstice

In 2004, summer begins June 20, 8:57 P.M. EDT

"Solstice comes from the Latin (sol, sun; sistit, stands). For several days before and after each solstice, the sun appears to stand still in the sky—that is, its noontime elevation does not seem to change."

Finally around the corner...

I'll lie if I say I had not expected to enjoy myself while volunteering at the center. Can one be so highly evolved not to have any selfish motivation behind doing volunteer work? Yes, I wanted to meet new people, expand my circle, brave new frontiers... And I have. The rest is all bonus.

Exercises in Humiliation

Does he need any more hype? Of course not. Except he really deserves it. I can't help myself: I laugh out loud with every single chapter.

Touring Anne Frank's hideout in Amsterdam, Sedaris can think of the experience only in terms of a real estate open house. He admires the kitchen -- an ''eat-in with two windows'' -- and wonders, ''Who do I have to knock off in order to get this apartment?'' Sedaris is a careful writer, with a no-muss, no-fuss style that rarely misfires. He surely knows he is being offensive here, and the payout comes at the story's conclusion, when Sedaris spies a quotation from Primo Levi on the Anne Frank museum's wall. His conscience duly pricked, Sedaris starts wondering to himself: ''Having already survived two years in hiding, she and her family might have stayed put and lasted out the war were it not for a neighbor, never identified, who turned them in. I looked out the window, wondering who could have done such a thing, and caught my reflection staring back at me.''

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
By DAVID SEDARIS

Read the first chapter

Also, the author reads a selection from the essay 'Possession,' in which the narrator gets apartment envy during a visit to Anne Frank's hideout in Amsterdam.

Mott Street, 3pm