Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Jonathan Ames is kinda like Prince

Jonathan Ames is kinda like Prince. If Prince played alt.country, and was a white, Ivy League educated writer in NYC with a ravenous, vaguely queer, psychosexual life that he enjoyed sharing for a stretch in an explicit and amazing reoccurring column in the New York Press (presently without an editor thank you very much—I miss you Koyen!!!). Something like that:
Caustic and self-deprecating, Ames' situational morality is comforting to the mortal reader: in the book's opening essay, he rages against a cigarette-smoking neighbour who aggravates his allergies, then follows in the second essay, "Oh, Pardon My Hard-On," with a description of an attractive Polish friend -- "She chain-smokes and uses a silver cigarette holder, but with Graziela I don't mind the secondhand smoke. With her, it's like the fog on the stage for an Ibsen play. It's romantic, moody ... I feel lucky to breathe it in."
The George Plimpton of tree fucking [The Eye Weekly]