| Monday, October 17, 2005 |  |
| Access All Areas |
 Access All Areas is a book by Jeff Chapman, AKA Ninjalicious, a fellow with a passion for "Urban Exploration", that is, finding your way into places you weren't supposed to go. Forgotten subway tunnels or sewers, abandoned buildings, etc. City hacking. Jeff previously published a zine on urban exploration called "Infiltration".For those who don't know Infiltration, it's one of the most popular and well-regarded zines in the world. And for excellent reason: it's filled with great real-life adventure stories, homegrown yarns peculiarly native to our era. Instead of seeking excitement travelling abroad as I did, Jeff found it in his own city. He would knock off work at his day job and check on how the Sheppard Subway dig was going; pop by an interesting looking church he'd heard about at Yonge and Lawrence; see if there were any unlocked doors today at Union Station. It was part of his life and how he saw the world. He died shortly after the book was published. More here. Anyway, I've always found urban exploration fascinating. Not that I particularly have done it. And not that I necessarily feel like breaking into underground catacombs in the middle of the night. So, maybe my interest is more philosophical. The idea of going where you're not supposed to go. Demanding access to wonderous worlds that are kept off limit. Taking any closed door as a challenge. Seeing what is under the surface. Tracing the invisible infrastructure of society. Discovering where the the pathways go, unexpectedly. Mapping connections when no public map exists. [ Culture | 2005-10-17 13:50 | 0 comments | PermaLink ] |
| Who is JT Leroy |
 I was just reading this long, fascinating exposée in New York Magazine about JT Leroy. He has been this sort of cult literary genius in the last few years. He's written several books, and the screenplay to the film "The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things", which Asia Argento currently is directing and starring in. He's supposedly a former child prostitute and junkie and mistreated child, who has a gift for writing about his experiences. And he has many celebrity supporters and great connections in the literary world. He's also in a rock band, and has a line of clothing, and various other ventures. The trouble is that hardly anybody has met him, including many of his friends. He's supposedly agoraphobic, so when, rarely, he shows up at one of his own book readings or some other event, it is in wig and sunglasses, and he seems to have nothing to say. So, some people are getting suspicious about whether he maybe doesn't really exist, and he's some kind of elaborate hoax.
Now, the main reason that I at all care, as I haven't read his books, is that I incidentally host his website and that of his band Thistle. And, you know, I normally only host websites for friends, for people I know. As to his website, I sort of took over somebody else's favor to a friend, as it was on some other server I managed, and when that was taken down, the easiest was just to put it on my own server. And when I originally looked at the site, I didn't get much wiser as to who that really was for. I mean, JT Leroy sounds a little mysterious, or as somebody famous I'm supposed to know. And the website mainly contained listings of mentions, publicity, articles about or by JT Leroy, sightings, etc. And I gathered as much as that he was writing something, and that he had something to do with a band, even though he wasn't really in it. But mainly that he was some kind of cult figure, without it being clear why. He's always been friendly, albeit a little brief, in e-mails. Although I've mostly dealt with a string of different supporting people who have worked on his website. And not much really, as I didn't have anything to do with it other than to provide the server space. Which is no big deal. But now, the article mentioned makes a pretty strong case for him not even existing. That he's an invention of Laura Albert, who's the singer in Thistle, who apparently have somewhat of a gift for impersonating different people. And that's quite a feat, since many people have spent hours on the phone with him, and developed a great trust and respect for him. And he has after all showed up and met people once in a while, even though he didn't always look the same, and that the person who showed up often seemed to be remarkably ignorant of what he just had talked with people about on the phone. Anyway, what do I know. He seems like an intriguing character, whether he exists or not. [ Culture | 2005-10-17 14:24 | 5 comments | PermaLink ] More > |