Rainbow Reviews: Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails

Unas pintadas de azul (Blue Fingernails) by Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes
Pansexual Book Reviews/Fiction, Pansexual Book Reviews/Anthology

TITLE: Unas pintadas de azul (Blue Fingernails)
AUTHOR: Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes
ISBN: 978-1-931010-33-7
PUBLISHER: Bilingual Press

RATING: 4
Review by Lizardlez

BOOK BLURB:
These fourteen short stories represent a Latina/o American poetic journey, a sensory odyssey through the pains and pleasures of diasporic, cosmopolitan gay and lesbian Puerto Rican identities in an ever-shifting postmodern world. The tales touch on urban experiences throughout the Americas, at times incorporating elements of science fiction, vampires, detectives, and fantasy, but mostly focusing on the difficulties of mad, passionate love and its inevitable demise. Oscillating between humor and sadness, the stories are meant for readers who are not put off by controversial ideas or taboo topics like sadomasochism, transvestism, prostitution, and pornography.

Experimental and meta-literary, with intertextual allusions to the work of other gay writers such as Manuel Ramos Otetro,Manuel Puig, and David Wojnarowicz, Unas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails is an important contribution to queer Latina o and Puerto Rican letters. Bilingual edition.

BOOK REVIEW:
Technically, this book is a single-author collection of short stories in parallel Spanish and English on facing pages. The effect of the whole work is that of a wild, colorful, hallucinogenic novel in the tradition of James Joyce (the Irish writer given credit for pioneering the stream-of-consciousness novel in the early twentieth century) and other experimental writers who describe life from outside the cultural mainstream.

In the opening story, or cuento, "my name, multitudinous mass," the author suggests that he has many identities drawn from various cultures and creative influences. The speaker claims:

"Sometimes, when I walk down the street, I become other people: William Burroughs, Truman Capote, Rene Marques. Like saying hustler, flaneur, drug addict, artist, writer, genius, pornographer, homosexual (I almost forgot!) and other things that it would take years to enumerate."

The narrator's persona, the "I" of the story, seems gender-fluid and dedicated to the goddess of the sea (which links all the nations of earth) in the African-based religion which itself takes different forms in different regions, called "ju-ju" in its place of origin, "santeria" in the author's native Puerto Rico and "voodoo" in New Orleans and Haiti.

In the title story, "blue fingernails," a film-maker named Jerry has his fingernails painted blue by his friend Silvina, who clearly doesn't trust him to do this himself after he has painted his black, and done it badly. Silvina takes great care to make his fingernails look beautiful as a gesture of friendship:

"Silvina's were pink and she wanted to paint his so that they would match: boy and girl, just like the new Pampers disposable diapers or any other random combination that would say: you and I. Like the green and yellow of the Brazilian flag. Or the black and white of an old TV set, left along the side of a road to Istanbul, that noble city that my grandmother, in her impeccably conservative way, insisted on calling Byzantium."

Jerry and Silvina enjoy the fresh green of the foliage in a park in a future New York City which is dominated by Middle Eastern culture. Both of them have an irresistible urge to feast on "all types of Arabic food." The names "Jerry" and "I" are used interchangeably, and Silvina suggests that her own identity is equally flexible.

The narrator is fascinated by food, objects, and films as fun-house mirrors of the real world. In the story "rites of devotion to the cult," a woman called Demonio Maria de Cienfuegos (Demon Mary Hundredfires), also called Angel and Angela is chosen to star in "the musical pornographic film Rites of Devotion to the Cult, to be directed by Chi Chi Larue." She asks for payment for the sexual services she will perform on film.

References to chocolate run throughout the narrative, in which New York contains all the cultures of the world, and in which chocolate in various forms represents both pleasure and disgust. In the story "shit" (with the pretty name "la mierda" in Spanish), a man is humiliated by losing control of his bowels in public."Shame compounded his despair, the impossibility of not doing anything ... His disgust provoked tears, but dear readers, don't feel pity beforehand. Disgust shall soon be yours too, disgust for the sake of art, and the pleasure of a tiny chocolate of the highest quality, Godiva no less ~ just in case, just like in the fairy tales you've undoubtedly heard."

The desire of a gender-fluid "man" for male strangers, especially those who reveal thick cocks, also runs through the narrative, and it goes with the panorama of changing scenes and passing strangers who always seem strangely familiar. Readers who are looking for a conventional plot will be disappointed by this book, but readers who enjoy poetic imagery and language-play (including the double negatives that add emphasis in Spanish, and the musical sound of vulgar or insulting Spanish words) will be entertained. This book is not easy to read even in one language only, but its leaps of logic and loose network of characters are worth considering. Reading this book is like being high on a mind-altering substance, but without the negative after-effects.

http://rainbow-reviews.com/?p=1320

"Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes se afila las uñas"

El escritor puertorriqueño radicado en Míchigan apuesta por un “juego descontrolado de asociaciones” mentales en su libro bilingüe Uñas pintadas de azul / Blue Fingernails, que presentó la semana pasada en la librería Isla, en Río Piedras. (Para Primera Hora / foto por Carlos Giusti)


"Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes se afila las uñas"
sábado, 2 de mayo de 2009
Héctor Aponte Alequín / Primera Hora (Guaynabo, Puerto Rico)

Él y sus textos necesitaban “validación, saber si vale la pena seguir escribiendo, porque cuesta mucho trabajo”. Pero le fue difícil conseguir esa aprobación en un mercado editorial marcado por el prejuicio de que la narrativa “tiene que contar historias”.

Hace 10 años, envió sus manuscritos a “un montón de editoriales”. De todas le llegaban cartas de rechazo en las que no se exponían las razones para optar por no publicarlos. Larry, como se le conoce, sospecha que ser “literatura abiertamente gay, de un autor abiertamente gay”, pudo haber sido uno de varios factores que propició la censura.

Otros serían, probablemente, su gusto por “formas no convencionales”, los contenidos “no aptos para menores, como la pornografía” y “lo mucho de autobiográfico” que pudieran ser sus creaciones, que por fin se han puesto en circulación bajo el título Uñas pintadas de azul / Blue Fingernails (Bilingual Press, Arizona State University).

“Para mí la literatura es un espacio de diversión, mágico, donde todas las cosas que uno se imagina o sueña pueden darse”, expresa Lawrence La Fountain con una sonrisa que materializa el espíritu lúdico de los 24 relatos en español e inglés que se recogen en el tomo de 311 páginas.

“Mi interés es el deleite de la palabra. Quise exponer mi experiencia como hombre gay, puertorriqueño, quise dialogar con (el fallecido escritor) Manuel Ramos Otero. No separo entre la experiencia personal y la literatura”, establece el profesor de esa materia en la Universidad de Michigan.

“No me preocupan las etiquetas y a mucha honra me autoidentifico como autor gay puertorriqueño. Eso le da coherencia a mi escritura y es justo con el público”, expone.

Algunos de los cuentos del volumen, disponible en la librería Isla, en Río Piedras, permiten ser leídos como poemas. Otros esbozan emotivas historias a lo largo de fluires de conciencia, de forma similar a como lo hace el narrador de la novela de Ángel Lozada No quiero quedarme sola y vacía, otra víctima de censura.

“El que tenga expectativas de una trama lineal y clara se va a decepcionar”, advierte el también activista de los derechos de los homosexuales.

Larry reconoce que esa linealidad es uno de los moldes que esperan los lectores “en esta época de la profesionalización de los escritores”, ésos a los que se les hace más fácil publicar.

Firme en su postura

La mejor manera en que los artistas homosexuales pueden contribuir a conseguir igualdad de derechos para esta población es salir del clóset, opina La Fountain.

Según el escritor, “hay un vínculo entre la cultura y la política” que es esencial en esta lucha por la igualdad, puesto que las artes forjan opinión pública.

Que el artista gay se identifique como tal “hace una gran diferencia” porque enfrenta a las personas, especialmente los fans de los artistas, con sus prejuicios.

Una vez el seguidor del artista gay reconoce sus preconcepciones, reflexiona sobre ellas y entonces se generan diálogos con gente más informada.

Entretanto, al público que también se identifica como gay se le abren puentes con el resto de la comunidad que es fiel al escritor, cantante o actor en cuestión.

“Yo respeto a los que se mantienen discretos con respecto a su sexualidad, pero, hasta que no compartan lo personal, no llegarán al pueblo”, concluye.

http://www.primerahora.com/diario/noticia/otros_asi/espectaculos_asi/lawrence_la_fountain-stokes_se_afila_las_unas/294449

Revista Ambiente Publishes Charlie Vázquez Interview

Ambiente Magazine, which focuses on Latino/Hispanic LGBT issues, has reprinted my interview in its May 2009 issue and titled it: "Gay Puerto Rican Scholar Larry La Fountain and his Blue Fingernails" by Charlie Vázquez

http://www.ambiente.us/05009bLUEfINGERNAILS.html

Check it out! And thanks to Charlie!!!!

Reseña de Mayra Santos-Febres sobre Uñas pintadas de azul

From:

LUGARMANIGUA

Blog de la escritora puertorriqueña Mayra Santos-Febres. Contiene textos editados e inéditos, comentarios y datos personales.

miércoles 29 de abril de 2009
UÑAS PINTADAS DE AZUL

Estuve leyéndolo por años. Via fax, e-mail, por correo. Estuve leyendo y comentando estos cuentos tantas veces que ya me los sé de memoria. Finalmente me llega un paquete con el libro publicado. Larry La Fountain-Stokes presentó ayer martes 28 de abril su libro Uñas pintadas de azul en la librería Isla.

El temario es homoerótico y cotidiano. Larry toca los asuntos de la migración, el sexilio, la cotidianidad de los encuentros y amores entre hombres. Pero eso lo hacen muchos autores gay. Lo que resalta en Uñas pintadas de azul es la reescritura de un corpus literario; la mención y juegos intertextuales con otros escritores ancestrales que ya configuran un canon literario de escritura gay latinoamericana. El cuento que abre la colección es una reescritura de "Hollywood Memorabilia" de Manuel Ramos Otero. Los tonos de la escritura retrabajan la obra literaria de Néstor Perlogher, Manuel Puig, Pedro Lemebel. Todos están ahí, creando ya una factura estética que sostiene su conversación con una tradición, que reescribe un canon y lo amplía.

Felicitamos a Larry La Fountain por su libro. Esperamos que a este le sigan muchos más.

Publicado por Mayra Santos-Febres.

http://mayrasantosfebres.blogspot.com/2009/04/unas-pintadas-de-azul.html

Blue Fingernails: Queer Tales of Sin, Vampires, and Pornography!

From:

Charlie Vázquez: Queer Latino Esoteric musings…

Posted: 08 Apr 2009 03:21 PM PDT

I first met Puerto Rican writer, scholar and performer Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (a.k.a. Larry La Fountain) last summer, at the New York City reading for Los Otros Cuerpos, the first ever anthology of queer Puerto Rican literature, published by Editorial Tiempo Nuevo in 2007. About five years ago, I came across one of Larry’s stories, “My Name, Multitudinous Mass”, in Bésame Mucho (Painted Leaf Press, 1999), a groundbreaking collection of gay male fiction edited by Jaime Manrique with Jesse Doris. “My Name, Multitudinous Mass” also appears in Larry’s newest fiction collection, Blue Fingernails/Uñas pintadas de azul, which was just published by Bilingual Press. Blue Fingernails is a crazy amusement park ride through Santerian house parties, grimy bedrooms, gothic theater productions and The Museum of Natural History and features vampires, horny lesbians, neo-Dominicans, well-endowed Cubans and a rather loveable character named Demonio María Cienfuegos (Demon Mary Hundred Fires).

Larry was in New York recently as part of a panel assembled by the Audre Lorde Project in Brooklyn, which focused on queer Caribbean politics and activism. He gave me a copy of Blue Fingernails/Uñas pintadas de azul and I tore through it, so zany, well-written and bizarre are these stories. It’s refreshing to read literature that reflects our animalistic fantasies and darkest obsessions, as if they’re immune to condemnation. In these stories queerness is the standard, not the exception—at last! This stock of fearless fiction carries on in the queer warlord tradition of Baldwin, Rechy, Genet, Burroughs and Lorca. Mister La Fountain is an assistant professor of Queer Caribbean, Latino/a Studies and Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies—at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor—and took time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions about his new book(s). He will also be a guest reader at the upcoming HISPANIC PANIC! II reading on Wednesday, May 27th (more on that to come soon).

Take a bow, Larry…

CV: So tell us a little about how these unusual stories came to be—they’re very different from one another and capture different moods, locations, obsessions, etc. Some, such as “Love is Intergalactic”, flirt with science-fiction and fantasy while others, such as “De un pájaro las dos alas” read as documentaries on personal experience. There is also some poetry.

LLFS: Yeah, they’re all over the place! They’re basically about me, or characters that sort of seem like me—gay, Puerto Rican, sex-crazed, lonely, idealist, mostly in New York City and New Jersey but also in other parts, with painted blue fingernails! They’re also about my gay and lesbian friends, and about the authors I like to read. I started writing them sporadically throughout the nineties, and they became a book after I took a creative writing class with Diamela Eltit at Columbia University in 1997. Angel Lozada was also in that workshop, and we became comrades in arms. Angel then went on to publish La patografía and No quiero quedarme sola y vacía, two landmark queer Puerto Rican novels.

I had been showing my stories over the years to Mayra Santos-Febres, a wonderful Puerto Rican author, and she was very supportive; she’s the one who kept insisting that I had to publish them. Basically, the stories were a different way for me to process my life—different, say, than what I write in my diaries. And the most amazing part was realizing that I did not have to limit myself to my experiences, that I could break through the straightjacket of autobiography and take a free flight of the imagination! That was really transformative. That’s how all the crazy cyborgs and vampires started to appear.

CV: What’s up with the vampires? Does it have anything to do with growing up in Puerto Rico where bats are plentiful? Or are vampires the ultimate archetype for dark sensuality and tribal taboo in your work? Are you reinterpreting classic Hollywood imagery and pop culture?

LLFS: Yes! Those are all good interpretations. We had fruit trees growing outside—nísperos and mangoes, especially—and the bats just loved them! And my mom kept insisting that they were pigeons! They only flew at dusk and you couldn’t really make them out. I think my mom was afraid they would get caught in our hair. But you know what, bats eat mosquitoes! Which is really good—there’s too many mosquitoes in Puerto Rico!

You’re also right that it has to do with sexuality and desire. I am really fascinated by winged, flying creatures: angels, demons, vampires. I thought, “What would happen if you had a lonely, horny drag queen who was also an angel and a vampire and a demon, all four things at the same time, making a gay porn film with Chi Chi LaRue?” That’s how “Rites of Devotion to the Cult” came about. Or rather, that’s how a boring story of going to sex clubs in the meatpacking district of Manhattan became something more interesting… (laughs)

CV: You noted in the introduction that the stories were written in New York and New Jersey during the 1990s, yet they’re set all over the world and shift locations with the speed of Web-pages. Do you write when you travel or take notes and how does traveling and the internet factor into your prose?

LLFS: I tend to keep diaries when I travel, or to write right after I get back. In the case of “A Black Cat Called Malícia,” it’s actually a science-fiction story based on the time I spent in Brazil in the late eighties. I left my diary there by mistake and my former housemates never sent it to me, which was quite traumatic. Brazil was pretty intense—São Paulo is a city of 20 million, and I was 20 years old and had just come out of the closet a year before, and the university I was going to went on strike for three months! And the cops were beating the students! And there was hyperinflation, and there were homeless children everywhere, and everyone was obsessed with Blade Runner and kept talking about cyborgs! Writing fiction became a way to recreate (and distort) what I had lived before I forgot.

“De un pájaro las dos alas,” on the other hand, was my reaction to a trip to Cuba in May of 1998. I came back pretty shell-shocked—Cuba was nothing like what I expected. Everyone thought I was there for sex tourism. I was a broke grad student attending a theater conference! And American credit cards were no good! And there were no ATMs! I wanted to learn about gay life and socialist utopias and they wanted me to pay their neighbors and brothers and friends to go to bed. Talk about bursting my bubble… The rest of the stories are mostly set in NY/NJ and in Puerto Rico, which were my usual haunts back then, before I moved to Michigan.

I first started going online in 1995. At first it was just e-mail, and then my friend Marcial taught me how to use the IRC (Internet Relay Chat). We would make up different crazy drag queen names every time we went on! I don’t really think about the Internet too much, conceptually, that is—it just became a very integral part of my life, and that’s how it made it into the book. I think that, more than about the Internet, my writing is about latching onto an uncensored flow of consciousness. It’s about free-associations and about tapping into my unconscious and letting it all come out, unfiltered, sort of as if I were in a trance or altered state. That’s where all the connections get made. That’s why the writing can be a little hard to understand and might seem experimental. Editing helps me calm the wildest impulses and make it more accessible.

CV: Your stories are fearlessly queer. You bring up everything from extreme sexual fetishes to very visual lesbian pornography. Do you think general readers are in a more accepting position to explore this kind of literature nowadays, or do you think that the people who would buy your books are already tempered for such subjects?

LLFS: That’s funny! I think I’m crazy. This book was rejected by thirty presses before Bilingual picked it up. I was pretty convinced it was never going to come out. And remember—I wrote most of the stories in Spanish! The English translations came later. I wrote the stories for myself and for the few friends I would share them with. Most of my friends don’t like what I write. But you know what, that’s OK! You can still be my friend even if you don’t like my crazy stories! I think if I had worried about readers (or about my professional aspirations) I would have never written them, and certainly not published them! But yeah, definitely, I think there are some people who like stuff like this! That’s why I have a “disclaimer” of sorts on the back cover. I don’t want people buying the book by mistake and then freaking out when they start to read it!

CV: You have another book coming out this summer, which I’m really looking forward to reading also. Will you tell us a little about that?

LLFS: Sure! It’s called Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora, and it’s about Puerto Rican queer migration and culture. It’s being published by the University of Minnesota Press. I focus on how artists and writers and filmmakers such as Manuel Ramos Otero, Luz María Umpierre, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Rose Troche and Erika López have discussed their experiences as queer Puerto Ricans in the United States in their short stories, poetry, cartoons, and films. I also have a chapter on Arthur Avilés and Elizabeth Marrero in the Bronx, and how they take classic stories like Cinderella and The Wizard of Oz and turn them into queer Nuyorican and New York-Rican stories in their performances, for example in Arturella and in Maéva de Oz. Basically, the central premise of the book is that LGBT people have been migrating from Puerto Rico to the U.S. for several decades because of their sexuality, and that once they arrive here (or are born here, if they are the children of immigrants), their sexuality is a factor that affects their lives. It’s going to be the first book of its kind. I’m really excited to see it come out!

CV: Thanks Larry!

LLFS: You’re welcome! Thanks for the great questions!


Visit Larry at: www.larrylafountain.com

To buy Blue Fingernails, click here:

http://www.powells.com/s?header=Search+Form&kw=Larry+La+Fountain


Charlie


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Link to article:

http://charlievazquez.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/blue-fingernails-queer-tales-of-sin-vampires-and-pornography/

Speaking at Audre Lorde Project on April 2, 2009

“Can we be safe & visible?” Community Dialogue on Caribbean Sexuality and Homophobia

When: Thursday, April 2, 2009 6:30pm - 9:00pm
Where: Audre Lorde Project (Brooklyn, NY)

Join us as we talk about the myriad voices and issues for Caribbean people at home and abroad who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (LGBTSTGNC). What is it like to be LGBTSTGNC and Caribbean? How are LGBTSTGNC communities in the region imagined within and outside Caribbean borders? Are sexual minority communities in the Caribbean more vulnerable to violence? What are these communities and others doing to create change? What are the experiences of Caribbean migrants and first & second generation Caribbeans in the United States who identity as LGBTSTGNC? What are some of the politics of language, identification, and visibility?

* We will view part of the documentary in progress, Taboo Yardies, by Selena Blake that explores the intolerance and violence against sexual minorities in Jamaica.
* We will discuss these issues with a panel of scholars who do research on Caribbean sexuality, along with contributors to the new anthology Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Gay and Lesbian writing from the Antilles, and LGBTQ activists and community organizers.
* Panelists include Anton Nimblett, Rosamond King, Carlos Ulises Decena, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, and Sebastian Colon, along with Angelique V. Nixon, who will moderate our conversation and open discussion.

This event is done in partnership between The Audre Lorde Project and MayNovProductions LLC.

Metrocards and Food will be provided. For more information, contact
Collette at 718.596.0342 x.17 or ccarter@alp.org

http://www.alp.org/node/333

Queer People of Color Community Summit This Saturday, March 21

You are invited to attend the University of Michigan Queer People of Color Community Summit on Saturday, March 21st 2009 from 8:30 AM to 6:30 PM at the Trotter Multicultural Center, 1443 Washtenaw Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI.

We will have a series of challenging and empowering workshops on the QPOC community on campus, including Art and Activism, Images in the Media, Internalized Oppressions, QPOCs in the Academy and Sexual Racism. Our event will culminate with a performance by queer, mixed-Cuban, performance artist and comedian Maceo Cabrera-Estevez! Free breakfast and lunch will be served.

Our mission:

The concept of the Queer People of Color Community Summit arose from the needs to increase the visibility of our community at the University of Michigan and to address issues that affect our diverse experiences of being queer people of color (QPOC). While there are QPOC groups and individuals on campus, these are segmented and are neither large nor visible enough to address these needs. This Summit aims to create a sense of community amongst queer people of color and similarly-identified people at the University, provide a safe space to discuss issues and politics that affect our community, and make recommendations on improving the climate for QPOC on campus - all while having fun. To this end, we have incorporated into the Summit a variety of discussion panels, workshops, and caucus groups that center around specific issues and identities within our communities, as well as a closing social event highlighting QPOC performing artists. We invite you to join us to be part of this groundbreaking event organized by and for QPOC, and begin to affect the change we need on our campus.

Registration for the QPOC Community Summit is now open. You can register at
the following link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=oWZF99sl2MI110wOuoPjKw_3d_3d


For more information, please check out our blog at
http://www.qpocsummit.org

Thank you!

Queer People of Color Community Summit Committee
The Spectrum Center
Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs

For more info contact Mark Villacorta: mvillaco at umich.edu