Fantabulosa

Author: Paul Baker
Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
Polari has been the secret language of gay men and women throughout the twentieth century. But more than a language, Polari is an attitude. From the prisons and music halls of Edwardian England to Kenneth Williams, American GIs in London, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Polari has been used to laugh, bitch, gossip, and cruise. Like all slang, Polari is an ever-changing vocabulary. Derived from words used by criminals, circus artists, beggars and prostitutes, it also employs elements of Italian, Yiddish, French, rhyming slang, and backslang. Since gay liberation, lesbian and gay slang has become less a language of concealment than a language of specialization, though the tradition of camp remains. A carefully researched and entertaining read, The Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang presents a lexicon of Polari and a more general dictionary of lesbian and gay slang. If you don't yet know what vada the bona cartes on the ommee ajax, parkering ninty, a Mexican nightmare, or a nellyectomy are, then this is the book for you.

Fantabulosa

Author: Paul Baker
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9780826473431
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Polari has been the secret language of gay men and women through the twentieth century. But more than a language, Polari is an attitude. From the prisons and music halls of Edwardian England to Kenneth Williams, American Gls in London and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Polari has been used to laugh, bitch, gossip and cruise. Like all slang, Polari users coined an ever-changing vocabulary. Derived from words used by criminals, circus artists, beggars and prostitutes, it also employed Italian, Yiddish, French, rhyming slang and backslang. Polari speakers camped up a storm, from West End chorus boys and office workers to East End sea-queens. Since gay liberation, lesbian and gay slang has become less a language of concealment than a language of specialization, though the tradition of camp remains. A carefully researched and entertaining read, Fantabulosa presents a lexicon of Polari and a more general dictionary of lesbian and gay slang. If you don't yet know what vada the bona cartes on the ommee ajax, parkering ninty, a Mexican nightmare or a nellyectomy mean, then this is the book for you.

Polari - The Lost Language of Gay Men

Author: Paul Baker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113450635X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
Polari is a secret form of language mainly used by homosexual men in London and other cities during the twentieth century. Derived in part from the slang lexicons of numerous stigmatised and itinerant groups, Polari was also a means of socialising, acting out camp performances and reconstructing a shared gay identity and worldview among its speakers. This book examines the ways in which Polari was used in order to construct 'gay identities', linking its evolution to the changing status of gay men and lesbians in the UK over the past fifty years.

Man-Eating Typewriter

Author: Richard Milward
Publisher: White Rabbit
ISBN: 1399602039
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 508

Book Description
'A major talent' Irvine Welsh 'Remarkable, beautiful, magic. Like Ulysses for those who can't cope with reading Ulysses' Paolo Hewitt 'We're all in the gutter but some of us are ogling the sparkles.' Set at the fag-end of the 1960s and framed as a novel within a novel published by a seedy London purveyor of pulp fiction, MAN-EATING TYPEWRITER is a homage to the avant-garde counterculture of the 20th century. Told in Polari, it is the story of an anarchist named Raymond Novak and his plan to commit a 'fantabulosa crime' in 276 days that will revolt the world. A surrealistic odyssey that stretches from occupied Paris to the cruise-liner SS Unmentionable to lawless Tangier before settling in Swinging London, the book casts Novak as an agitator and freedom fighter - but, as his memoirs become more and more threatening, his publishers find themselves far more involved in his violent personality cult than they ever intended. Constructed like a hallucinogenic cocktail of A Clockwork Orange, Pale Fire and Jean Genet's jailbird fantasies, MAN-EATING TYPEWRITER is an act of seductive sedition by a writer with unfathomable literary talent and boldness. Wild, transgressive, erotic and resolutely uncompromising, this marks the return of a writer who is out there on an island of his own making; a book that will be talked about, celebrated and puzzled over for decades.

Planesrunner

Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
ISBN: 1625673019
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Book Description
There is not one you. There are many yous. There is not one world. There are many worlds. Ours is one among billions of parallel earths. When Everett Singh's scientist father is kidnapped from the streets of London, he leaves young Everett a mysterious app on his computer: the Infundibulum, the map of all the parallel earths, the most valuable object in the multiverse. There are dark forces in the Plenitude of Known Worlds who will stop at nothing to get it. They've got power, authority, the might of ten planets—some of them more technologically advanced than our Earth—at their fingertips. He's got wits, intelligence, and a knack for Indian cooking. Everett must trick his way through the Heisenberg Gate that his dad helped build and go on the run in a parallel Earth. But to rescue his dad from Charlotte Villiers and the sinister Order, this Planesrunner's going to need friends. Friends like Captain Anastasia Sixsmyth, her adopted daughter, Sen, and the crew of the airship Everness. Can they rescue Everett's father and get the Infundibulum to safety? The game is afoot! Praise for Planesrunner “PLANESRUNNER is chock-full of awesome. Ian McDonald's steampunk London blazes on a vast scale with eye-popping towers, gritty streets, and larger-than-life characters who aren't afraid to fight for each other. The kind of airship-dueling, guns-blazing fantasy that makes me wish I could pop through to the next reality over, join the Airish, and take to the skies.” —Paolo Bacigalupi “Science fiction rules in this stellar series opener about a boy who travels to parallel universes. What joy to find science fiction based on real scientific concepts... Shining imagination, pulsing suspense and sparkling writing make this one stand out.” —Kirkus (Starred Review) “McDonald writes with scientific and literary sophistication, as well as a wicked sense of humor. Add nonstop action, eccentric characters, and expert universe building, and this first volume of the Everness series is a winner.” —Publishers Weekly

The Pride Omnibus

Author: Joe Glass
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
ISBN: 1506724477
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Book Description
Joe Glass's The Pride in a full omnibus trade paperback, collecting volumes 1 and 2 as well as the collection of self-contained stories, The Pride Adventures! In The Pride, FabMan is sick of being seen as a joke. Tired of the LGBTQ+ community being seen as inferior to straight heroes, he thinks it's about damn time he did something about it. Bringing together some of the world's greatest LGBTQ+ superheroes, the Pride is born to protect the world and fight prejudice, misrepresentation and injustice--not to mention a pesky supervillain or two. The Pride Adventures brings a whole host of extra, self-contained stories and adventures starring the heroes of the Pride! See the team members face down crazed shooters, invasions, and even a sixty-foot-tall drag queen! Featuring a slew of incredible artistic talent, plus stories from writers Mike Garley, Sina Grace and PJ Montgomery too! Follow the LGBTQ+ heroes into whole new stories and meet even more characters in the world of The Pride! Join the Pride as they work to change the world and show just what they can do! Collects the original digital series The Pride and The Pride Adventures in print for the first time. "[F]or readers hungry for queer superheroes. Joe Glass' The Pride introduces a superhero universe built on LGBTQ+ inclusion, following a team that is explicitly created to show the range of the queer experience. The Pride features superheroes who are gay, lesbian, bi, trans, non-binary, and children of gay parents. Glass blends modern queer issues with classic superhero storytelling to tell narratives that classic superhero comics haven't touched. . . . The Pride excels at using queer struggle and joy to show a different side of the superhero genre."--AV Club "I highly recommend this smart, charming, wonderful book to anyone who likes good comics. It's absolutely a pleasure to read and a clear labor of love."--Gail Simone, Batgirl, Leaving Megalopolis, Clean Room "Old-school and progressive at the same time. Classic, high-energy superhero action that gives the queer community the heroes they've always deserved."--Steve Orlando, Midnighter, Virgil "The Pride is the modern, inclusive, and compelling superhero epic the world needs today."--Alex Segura, co-writer of The Black Ghost and author of the acclaimed Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery novel series.

Fabulosa!

Author: Paul Baker
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1789141680
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year “Richly evocative and entertaining.”—Guardian “An essential book for anyone who wants to Polari bona!”—Attitude “Exuberant, richly detailed. . . . A delightful read.”—Tatler Polari is a language that was used chiefly by gay men in the first half of the twentieth century. It offered its speakers a degree of public camouflage and a means of identification. Its colorful roots are varied—from Cant to Lingua Franca to dancers’ slang—and in the mid-1960s it was thrust into the limelight by the characters Julian and Sandy, voiced by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, on the BBC radio show Round the Horne (“Oh hello Mr Horne, how bona to vada your dolly old eek!”). Paul Baker recounts the story of Polari with skill, humor, and tenderness. He traces its historical origins and describes its linguistic nuts and bolts, explores the ways and the environments in which it was spoken, explains the reasons for its decline, and tells of its unlikely reemergence in the twenty-first century. With a cast of drag queens and sailors, Dilly boys and macho clones, Fabulosa! is an essential document of recent history—a fascinating and fantastically readable account of this funny, filthy, and ingenious language.

New Statesman

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 774

Book Description

Out

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Book Description
Out is a fashion, style, celebrity and opinion magazine for the modern gay man.

The Kenneth Williams Letters

Author: Russell Davies
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007291922
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Book Description
Following the bestselling publication of THE KENNETH WILLIAMS DIARIES, the devastating self-portrait of one of our most loved and complex performers is completed with this marvellous selection of his letters. This is a wonderful treasure trove of correspondence with all manner of people, including Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith, Joe Orton, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and the Stokers' Mess of HMS Leverton. Kenneth Williams took letters very seriously, and he was always disgusted by a morning that failed to provide him with some material to pore over. Letters called forth the performer in Williams in a way that his diaries never did: many of them are virtual comic monologues, and in general they suggest more strongly than the diaries the likeable and constructive side of a man who remains, nevertheless, as outrageous and 'difficult' as ever.