DJ From Lady Gaga's Early Days Releases Memoir

In case you missed seashell-bikini-clad Lady Gaga's Video Music Awards performance on Sunday, August 25^th, don't worry: you'll hear her new hit single "Applause" everywhere you go soon enough. Mother Monster's lead-off single from her upcoming ARTPOP album currently sits at #3 on the iTunes Top Songs chart.

Although forced to cancel her Born This Way Ball tour in February 2013 due to a hip injury, Lady Gaga has hardly been out of the limelight leading up to the August 12^th release of the "Applause" single. Was she always destined for stardom?

Yes, says Brendan Jay Sullivan, the author of a book released this week. In Sullivan's memoir Rivington Was Ours: Lady Gaga, the Lower East Side and the Prime of Our Lives, the former DJ, bartender and aspiring novelist, then known as VH1, tells of the chaotic year he spent DJing for Gaga as she evolved from a go-go dancer to a magnetic on-stage presence. Even in 2006, he knew Stefani Germanotta – who already called herself Gaga – would make it as a pop star.

In an interview with Salon.com writer Eric R. Danton, Sullivan confesses he had no hesitation about writing the memoir exposing Gaga's early days. He actually wanted to set the record straight, to let mainstream music fans know the singer's New York City nightlife wasn't as "filthy" and debauched as is sometimes reported.

Club-kid Gaga, however, did learn her flair for outrageous fashion early, as "almost a survival skill" for gaining access, getting into clubs and parties, Sullivan writes.

Rivington Was Ours was published August 27, 2013 by !t Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. Find it at major book retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million and the Apple iBookstore.

Lady Gaga's legion of Little Monsters now have something to read while the await the November 11^th release of ARTPOP.

Sources

"iTunes Charts." Apple, Inc. n.d. http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/ 

"Lady Gaga Cancels Tour Because of Hip Injury." James C. McKinley, Jr. Feb. 14, 2013. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/lady-gaga-cancels-tour-because-of-hip-injury/?_r=0 

"Lady Gaga's Early Days: 'The Sexual Energy Was Palpable. You could smell it." Eric R. Danton, Aug. 27, 2013.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/27/lady_gagas_early_days_the_sexual_energy_was_palpable_you_could_smell_it/ 

"Lady Gaga Releases 'Applause' Single: Listen." Jason Lipshutz, Aug. 12, 2013. http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/5646241/lady-gaga-releases-applause-single-listen  

"Lady Gaga's Versace Jumpsuit Is Pretty Versatile." Rebecca Adams, Aug. 27, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/lady-gaga-versace-jumpsuit_n_3821889.html 

Rivington Was Ours (home page). n.d. http://www.rivingtonwasours.com/

Rivington Was Ours: Lady Gaga, the Lower East Side and the Prime of Our Lives (product page). n.d. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062125583?ref=st  

'This Star Won't Go Out' Teaser

On Thursday, Publishers Weekly sent me an e-mail with the subject line "John Green and Esther Earl: Lives Connected by Words." It's a teaser for the book This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Work of Esther Grace Earl, with additional writing by Esther's parents Lori and Wayne Earl and an introduction by John Green.

Esther, diagnosed with thyroid cancer when she was only 12, passed away from the disease at the age of 16 in 2010. She's the real-life inspiration for Hazel Grace in John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.

The title is a play on Esther's name, which is the Persian word for "star." She was named after the Biblical Queen Esther.

The e-mail took me to a page of Scribd (the website for uploading and reading e-books, many of them free) with a sample of the book to download. I can't share the link because the link won't work for anyone else's computer. The sample is only 11 pages long. It contains:

- Childhood photos of Esther from 2000 and 2003, showing her bright blue eyes

- Lori and Wayne's introduction, writing about who Esther was as an individual and some of her diary-keeping habits. They write, "She loved words, felt their power and believed in the magic of story."

-A photo of Esther reading a Judy Blume book in 2009, and another of her using a laptop inside Boston's Children's Hospital after she became ill

-Esther's drawing of colorful flowers on a black stalk, underneath a blue sun

-A facsimile of a note written in Esther's own handwriting, to her parents on their anniversary. It reads, in part:

"Parents, I love you two. So much. I am so lucky to have such amazing people raising me. Because...really, I wouldn't be who I am today if not for the love and care of you two. Please realize that you  are amazing. I thank God that He blessed us with two such loving people.

"Cancer is hard. I wouldn't have made it this far if it weren't for my family. Thank you, very much, for being here for me. It makes it seem less hard."

I'm very excited for this book. I want to get to know this young aspiring writer who lost her life too soon. I want to read her words and understand her life from her point of view. I never made a blog post with my review of TFIOS, and part of that was because I was so shocked by how good the book was, I couldn't articulate anything other than, "This is really, really, really good and you should just read it right now." That Esther Grace inspired the goodness is the very reason I want to read her very own words. I want my life to be connected to hers by words.

It might break my heart - TFIOS sure did. I cried, and then I dropped the book, and then I called it a stupid book because it made me cry and drop it. But when that happens, you know a piece of literature has seeped into your heart because it deserved to. Heartbreak or no, I must read TSWGO. Esther Grace Earl didn't have a long life on earth, so now she'll live in readers' hearts.

This Star Won't Go Out is available for pre-order on Barnes and Noble and Amazon now, and will officially be published on January 28, 2014.

Another book release I am eagerly awaiting:

...and, of course, Allegiant by Veronica Roth (October 22, 2013). The same actress, Shailene Woodley, will play both Hazel Grace and Tris Prior at the movies. If you follow John Green on Tumblr, you'll see he is currently fangirling over the filming of his book. 

P.S. You can add John Green and his brother/fellow writer Hank Green to the list of cool people from Indiana. 

In Which I Yarnbomb My Blog (Amigurumi)

I haven't had much time for reading or blogging this week. On Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, I had a ton of cleaning to do to the apartment underneath mine, getting it ready to show to a potential renter. I probably spent a total of 12 hours vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing, and sorting items to keep or donate to charity - and the guy was a no-show. I'm glad the apartment's clean, but now I'm a day behind on my writing and editing. (Still, I make time to blog.)

Late-summer chaos is contagious, apparently: I popped in to The Vintage Apple and found that the chaos has eaten the weekly Oh How Pinteresting! link-up, which will now be monthly link-up on the first Wednesday of the month, starting September 4. Which is cool with me - I still wanted to show you a thing today.

(You'll see some pre-written Halloween posts pop up on odd Wednesdays in October - just pretend like I knew Oh How Pinteresting! was going to a monthly format and I did them on purpose anyway.)

Here's the thing. Laura Keykens is a self-proclaimed nerdy girl, and she has a Pinterest board of nothing by amigurumi. Said board covers all kinds of subjects knitted in colorful yarn, and many of these subjects overlap with my nerdish obsessions interests. I like this almost as much as Isabelle Disraeli's fictional character ship-fest.

Take, for example, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.



And Harry Potter. (Note to self: you have two Pinterest boards of nothing but Harry Potter, but you've never done a Pinterest post exclusively about The Boy Who Lived. You should do that.)



And The Hunger Games.



And The Simpsons.



And Tard the Grumpy Cat.



And Loki.



And Lady Gaga.



And even Jane Eyre. Repinning this with the misspellings intact wasn't easy for me, but I persevered.



I personally have no knitting or crocheting skills whatsoever, but I admire the crafty people who do. I don't personally own any amigurumi, either. Somehow, I don't think my husband would appreciate me carrying around a Spiderman doll all the time like I did when I was 3, or going to bed with a stuffed Loki and calling it Tom.

Do you have a favorite amigurumi character?

New From Erotica Author Fierce Dolan: The Fangirl's Dream

Have you ever had a crush on an actor from TV?

Personally, I'm really bad about this - I seem to have a different TV crush for every day of the week. Jim Caviezel, I'm looking in your direction. It's a common fantasy in our super-media-connected world; we see these beautiful faces on our screens so often, we feel like we know these people, almost like we could reach out and touch them. But what if a fangirl's biggest fantasy came true? That's the premise behind Fierce Dolan's latest creation, The Fangirl's Dream, available now for Kindle form Decadent Publishing.

The official blurb, from Amazon: "He’s a fangirl’s dream… Siler Dunham would do anything to have Farraj Reza, hero of the smash network TV drama, "Endangered." Every week she tunes in to watch him calculate the rescue of fellow bus crash survivors trapped deep in the jungle by a ruthless drug lord. 

A federal public defender with a penchant for saving the unsavable, she can’t resist his sad story, or his badass charm. When she seeks a matchmaking service to meet him, their one night stand isn't what she expected. 

Forced to choose between unbridled lust and compassion, Siler must forgo her fantasy... or mustn’t she?"

As of this morning, The Fangirl's Dream was #26 on Amazon's Multicultural and Interracial Romance chart. It has three reviews, and they're all 5-star reviews. The U.S. price is $1.99.

Add The Fangirl's Dream to your Goodreads to-read list: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18364884-the-fangirl-s-dream?ac=1

 Find Fierce Dolan online:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/fiercedolan - @FierceDolan - http://www.twitter.com/fiercedolan Google+ - https://plus.google.com/1183023800960... Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/... Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007CJS3QK Pinterest - http://pinterest.com/fiercedolan/ Tumblr - http://fiercedolan.tumblr.com/ Website - http://www.facebook.com/fiercedolan

'Insurgent' by Veronica Roth

My book story: About two months ago, I had a 15% off coupon for Barnes and Noble. I used it to buy the paperback of Divergent. You can read my review of Divergent here. 

I read it. I loved it. I decided to set my copy free and sell it to Powell’s Books. It makes me happy to think that everybody wins: Barnes + Noble made a sale, I got to read the story, and now Powell’s will earn a small profit, and another person gets to enjoy the book without paying the full price.

Did you know you can sell gently used paperbacks to Powell’s even if you don’t live in Seattle, and they pay the shipping?

I went to the post office on August 1st to mail Divergent and a couple of other books to Seattle. The post office is a block from the library, which happened to have a copy of Insurgent waiting for me. Nice synchronicity there.

On August 1st I was celebrating Lughnasa, so while on my walk to the library I went to the coffee shop for the traditional feast of blueberries and grains (and also a coffee smoothie). 

Now I'm finished with the book. Today it goes back to the library. 

My book review:

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm going to go ahead and give this book 5 stars because, taking it on its own terms, I don't see how it could get any better. My two favorite things about Divergent were how Tris Prior is a strong heroine who grows and continuously becomes stronger and braver, and the way Veronica Roth's writing keeps the reader on the edge of her seat throughout that thrill ride of a novel. This sequel has those characteristics, except now Tris is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, so the "woman versus herself" conflict intensifies - and the stakes have been raised to the tenth power.

People Tris thought were dead turn out to be alive, people who Tris thought were allies turn out to be traitors, and certain snakes in the grass turn out to have surprising advantages. It's another heart-pounding installation in an adrenaline rush trilogy, and the jaw-dropper of an ending doesn't exactly let the reader relax and kick back until the release of Allegiant.

Allegiant comes out on October 22.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

https://amzn.to/467d0Kj - this is an affiliate link

Oh How Pinteresting! Wednesday: Elmore Leonard Appreciation Post

One of the great prose artists of American literature, Elmore Leonard, passed away on the morning of Tuesday, August 20, 2013. Leonard was born in New Orleans in 1925 and later adopted Detroit as his home. His short stories, screenplays and novels were heavily inspired by the writing style of Ernest Hemingway, although Leonard accused Hemingway of using humor too sparingly. Leonard's crime noir style became a staple of U.S. popular culture, inspiring everything from a Quentin Tarantino film to a classic Western to the TV series Justified.

Leonard in 1989. Creative Commons photo.

This Oh How Pinteresting! Wednesday pays tribute to Leonard's prolific career - highlights, in my opinion. Feel free to share in the comments what your favorite Elmore Leonard works are.



I've never seen the classic movie adaptation of Leonard's short story (which he spelled "Three-Ten to Yuma").



The 2007 remake, starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, is so much more than a Western. It's just a flat-out great story about a father who will go to any length for his family.



I read Rum Punch so long ago that I don't really remember if I liked it or not.



I do harbor a certain affection for Quentin Tarantino's characteristically over-the-top movie based upon Rum Punch, which is Jackie Brown.



Ms. Pam Grier is not only one of the most beautiful humans you will ever lay your eyes on, but she's also a genuinely good person who loves animals. You can follow her on Twitter. She's a loving, supportive, positive person and, really, there's nothing not to love about her.



I'm not going to lie to you - I ship these two so hard every time I watch this movie (and I've seen it at least five times). If I recall, the book has a sex scene between them, which the movie does not, and this made my heart very happy when I read it.

The only other Leonard novel I've read (well, listened to as an audiobook in this case) is Tishomingo Blues. Supposedly, it was Leonard's personal favorite.



This one was published in 2002. I remember really liking it. It was witty and funny in the noirish way that Leonard's works usually are and just really entertaining.



Surprisingly, I've never seen Out of Sight, which is unusual because I'm one of those rare people who loves almost all the movies Jennifer Lopez is in.



This is the short story collection that Justified in based on. I've never seen the show, but my dad is a big fan, and he's also read the book.



I wonder if Netflix has Justified. I'll need a new TV obsession soon, now that I've watched all the episodes of Orange Is the New Black and the True Blood season (and possibly the entire series) is over.

Movie Review: The Host

When I read Stephenie Meyer's novel The Host (book review here), it didn't quite work for me either as a romance or as a science fiction movie. Still, I consider seeing the movie based on a book something of a reward for having read that book, so I was excited to see the film version of The Host. I missed it in the theater, but I watched it at home last night.

This is one of those rare cases where a movie is better than the book. All the scenes of waiting around for some action to happen are neatly condensed into a scifi movie that isn't boring. It's a good-looking movie, pretty much the way it looked inside my head (except I thought that Healer Fords was an American Indian man), and the musical score by Antonio Pinto is gorgeous. If you're not familiar with the plot, here's a brief summary: the Earth has been conquered by a species that calls itself the Souls. They're symbiotic, living inside human bodies. The human personality disappears - usually. 

When Wanderer arrives on Earth, she finds herself bonded to the body of a young woman named Melanie, but Melanie refuses to disappear without a fight. The two share a body, and Melanie leads Wanderer to a small surviving group of symbiote-free humans, including Melanie's Uncle Jeb and Aunt Maggie, her younger brother Jamie, and Melanie's lover Jared. Because Wanderer shares her body, Melanie's relationship with the other humans is complicated. One man, Ian, attempts to kill Wanderer, but then ends up having feelings for her (which makes Melanie jealous). 

Wanderer uses the Souls' advanced medical knowledge to heal Jamie when he almost dies from an infection, then teaches the humans to nonviolently remove Souls from their human hosts, leading to increased peace between the band of humans and some of the Souls. Melanie Stryder and Wanderer are played by Saiorse Ronan. The last thing I saw her in was Hanna, in which she played a modern young warrior woman, which was pretty awesome. I've also seen her in two literary adaptations, both of books I haven't read - Atonement (the love story you watch when you want to weep your eyes out) and The Lovely Bones. Ronan was born in 1994, so she's still only 19, but she's grown into a very beautiful woman. I guarantee you that by 30 she will be a legendary red carpet beauty. Jared is played by Max Irons, who was in Red Riding Hood (loosely connected to Twilight in that it was directed by Catherine Hardwicke like the first Twilight film, and it featured Billy "Charlie Swan" Burke) and who is the son of Jeremy Irons. (Anagrams of Max Irons that might describe his personality include Arson Mix, Soar Minx, As In Mr Ox, and Ram In Sox.) 

I have the same problem with Melanie and Jared's romance in the movie as I had in the book - I just don't feel that there's a lot of passion or heat there, except in one brief scene in which Jared remembers kissing Melanie and sees his memory in a dream. Max Irons is very pretty to look at, though. He is an English model as well as an actor, so think young Rupert Everett. (I say this knowing full well that Rupert Everett has aged extremely well and is, in fact, sexier now than he was at 25.) My feels reside more with Ian and Wanderer - he falls in love with her personality, not her physical body, although he does find her silvery, wispy natural form to be beautiful. (It's one of the most touching scenes of the book; in the movie, Ian is depicted holding another Soul, not Wanderer.) 

Ian is played by Jake Abel, who was in I Am Number Four (with Teresa Palmer from Warm Bodies) and the Percy Jackson movies as well as appearing in The Lovely Bones. It would be a nice symmetry if Abel and Ronan had played love interests in that movie, but while Ronan played the main character Susie, Abel had a small role as Susie's best friend's boyfriend. (He has one major scene - mistakenly thinking Susie's dad is attacking his girlfriend and beating Susie's dad with a baseball bat, badly injuring the dad's knee.) 

The stubborn Seeker who pursues Wanderer beyond what is normal for the cooperative-minded, peaceful Souls is played by German actress Diane Kruger. I may remember her from such films as Troy (in which she played Helen), the two National Treasure movies, and Inglourious Basterds (the film in which I discovered the beauty that is Michael Fassbender). She's a character you love to hate, but Kruger plays this character beautifully. The Seeker has a secret - she's fighting a losing battle with the human whose body she inhabits, and she can't stand her own perceived weakness for not being able to conquer the supposedly inferior human mind. She gets her interplanetary comeuppance. I was a little disappointed in the book - I gave it three out of five stars - but the movie was better than I expected it to be. Unless you're a hardcore Stephenie Meyer fan, you can probably skip the book safely and see the movie. It doesn't suck. Four out of five stars.

This is an affiliate link: