Table of Contents
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Also on this website:
Toby
Johnson's books:
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the
Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams
GAY
SPIRITUALITY: The Role of
Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness
GAY PERSPECTIVE:
Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe
SECRET
MATTER: updated, revised & expanded edtion from Lethe Press
with Afterword by Mark Jordan
GETTING
LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE
PLAGUE:
A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING.
CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into
Gold: Reclaiming Our Queer Spirituality Through Story
Books on Gay Spirituality:
Articles
and Excerpts:
Read
Toby's review of Samuel Avery's The
Dimensional Structure of
Consciousness
Funny
Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San
Francisco"
The
Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate
Why gay people should NOT Marry
Wedding Cake Liberation
Gay Marriage in Texas
What's ironic
Shame on the American People
The "highest form of love"
The
cause of homosexuality
What is homosexuality?
What Jesus said about Gay
Rights
The purpose of homosexuality
What the Bible Says about
Homosexuality
Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men
Varieties
of Gay Spirituality
Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality
as Artistic Medium
"It's Always About You"
The myth of the
Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara
Joseph Campbell's description of
Avalokiteshvara
You're
Not A Wave
Emptiness & Religious Ideas
Experiencing experiencing experiencing
Going into the Light
Meditations for a Funeral
Meditation Practice
The way to get to heaven
Advice to Travelers to India
& Nepal
Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva
Curious
Bodies
What
Toby Johnson Believes
The Joseph Campbell Connection
Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy
The Nature of Religion
Being
Gay is a Blessing
Freedom
of Religion
The
Gay Agenda
Gay
Saintliness
Gay Spiritual Functions
The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.
"The Evolution of Gay Identity"
"St. John of the
Cross &
the
Dark Night of the Soul."
Avalokiteshvara at the Baths.
Eckhart's Eye
Let Me Tell You a Secret
Religious Articulations of the
Secret
The Collective Unconscious
Driving as Spiritual Practice
Meditation
Historicity
as Myth
Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil
Allah
Hu: "God is present here"
Adam
and Steve
The Life is in the Blood
Gay
retirement and the "freelance monastery"
Seeing with Different Eyes
What
are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?
The
mystical
experience at the Servites' Castle in Riverside
The
Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis
The Techniques Of The World Saviors
Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the
Tar-Baby
Part 2: The
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Part 3: Jesus
and the Resurrection
Part 4: A
Course in Miracles
The
Secret of the Clear Light
Understanding the Clear Light
Mobius
Strip
Finding Your
Tiger Face
How Gay
Souls Get Reincarnated
About Alien Abduction
In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke
The
D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance
The
Rainbow Flag
Toby's friend
and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.
About
Michael Talbot, gay mystic
About Guy Mannheimer
|
In the interest
of fair reporting, I need to post the bad reviews as well as the good.
This one appeared in the
Washington Blade.
Chock-full of
schmaltz
Well-meaning gay spirituality anthology lacks cohesion and style
By ZACK ROSEN
Friday, February 23, 2007
Proof that the most noble intentions can be swept away by bad prose and
a lack of focus, “Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling,” edited by
Toby Johnson and Steve Berman, is a collection of short writings meant
to “offer alternative stories to the ones the culture is telling about
what it means to be gay.” And therein lies the problem, as the
anthology swaps one stereotype for another. Gone are the oversexed
party-boys, traded instead for a portrait of the gay man as a
hippy-dippy victim of fate.
The bulk of the stories in the collection deal with the death or loss
of a partner and a multitude of unlikely spirit guides — cats, teddy
bears, St. Sebastian, Michelangelo’s David — available to ease the
pain. Interspersed with opinion pieces and factual essays on, for
example, the final months of gay pioneer Harry Hay, “Charmed Lives”
rambles about through its own wide scope until all the stories within
blur to a single, rainbow-colored smudge.
The blame for this, it would seem, lies more with the editors than with
the contributors. Some redundancy shouldn’t be surprising, but a great
number of stories feel exactly the same. Rambling tales of “how I met
and/or lost that special someone,” with only background details — this
one liked Ella Fitzgerald, this one smoked pot — to keep the stories
distinct are common. An overabundance of background and tangential
anecdotes in Bill Goodman’s “Shades” and Mark Thompson and Malcolm
Boyd’s “Charmed, I’m Sure” are reminiscent of talking to a person with
no inner monologue, and two of the more interesting tales, Mark Horn’s
“Musuko Dojoji” and Toby Johnson’s “Avalokiteshvara at the 21st Street
Bath” break up a compelling narrative to deliver author commentary on
the preceding action, a strategy akin to having a sonorous voice-over
in the middle of a guns-out action movie.
THE MAGICAL REALISM pieces fare better here. While perhaps overly cute,
there are a couple of stories throughout “Charmed Lives” that are
unlikely to be replicated anywhere else. In Ruth Sims’ “Tom or an
Improbable Tail,” a lonely gay man’s cat spends six months of the year
in the shape of a hot twink and the owner must decide which form he
prefers. J.R.G. De Marco’s “Great Uncle Ned” is about a crotchety gay
ghost who can’t move on to the next world until he drops his prejudice
against sissies, and Andrew Ramer’s “The True and Unknown Story of
Andrew Gale” tells of the hard life of Dorothy’s un-magical older
brother, who finds a happiness he would never give up for Oz. These and
several other stories manage actually to be fun, and the spirituality
in them doesn’t come at the price of their readability.
The best selections, though, are the stories that actually acknowledge
the dark side of one’s spirituality, or simply the kind of pain that
can’t be removed through a fanciful excursion or serendipitous
encounter. Neil Ellis Orts’ “My Grandfather’s Photograph,” one of the
best in the collection, uses a blessed economy of language to tell a
story that’s effective without being schmaltzy. Christos Tsirbas’ “Get
Thee Behind Me,” about an alcoholic gay man’s confrontation with the
devil, finds a very creative way to depict a man wrestling with his
demons and the well drawn characters make his victory seem
well-deserved. Victor J. Banis’ “The Canals of Mars,” also admits that
even the most enlightened of men can still be swayed by beauty, and
that a small dose of self-deception can do wonders for a happy life.
Though it could easily have been shorter, “Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in
Storytelling” fills a void that must surely exist in gay literature.
Those with a spiritual bent can glean something from the collection,
and anyone recovering from a loss might find inspiration as well. The
casual fiction fan, however, will be better served browsing through an
old favorite after their bedtime prayers.
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