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1. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the editor of a book of essays titled Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform. That's what you call an attention-getting title. Here's the back jacket blurb:

Gay culture has become the ultimate nightmare of consumerism, whether it's an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into "straight-acting dudes hangin' out," what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?

Bernstein Sycamore reads at the Allen Library Auditorium on the UW campus tonight. There ought to be a lively conversation at this event, I think.

2. Amy Reading reads at Elliott Bay Book Company from her interesting-sounding non-fiction book tonight. In 1919, a rancher who was conned out of all his money traveled the country conning other con artists with a reverse-con. This book about the Reverse Madoff of the Range is titled The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con.

3. There's one strong fiction event tonight, at the Northwest African American Museum. Esi Edugyan's major award-winning novel—it was a finalist for the Man Booker—is titled Half-Blood Blues. It's about jazz and politics and other, more human things.

4. There's a whole lot more in the reading calendar.