A thoughtful and thorough deep dive into the life and work of Fred Halsted, the pioneering gay pornographer whose magnum opus L.A. Plays Itself (1972) had Salvador Dalí mumbling “new information for me.” Through rigorous investigative research and interviews with Halsted's friends and lovers, William E. Jones presents and preserves a crucial piece of gay L.A. history that might otherwise have been forgotten. Don't miss the spicy behind-the-scenes snapshots and the stream-of-consciousness accounts of Halsted's sexcapades, reprinted directly from his short-lived magazine.
French thinker Simone Weil, like the mustachioed Marx, wouldn’t join any club that'd have her as a member. Jewish by birth, but drawn to Catholicism, she resisted formal baptism. Rejecting bourgeois comfort, she put her body on the line for Leftist causes—and yet, riffing on the other Marx (bearded, less funny, no relation), she posits that the “opium of the masses” is, in fact, revolution. Gravity and Grace, compiled posthumously from Weil’s later notebooks, outlines a theology and spiritual ethics riddled with paradox and counterintuitive metaphysics. You’ll instinctively disagree with her until you realize she’s saying something else. Challenging at times, but never cerebral, it's food the soul once you’re comfortable in her universe.