Chamblee54

If I don’t start dictating this thing now I never will. This is a book report about the The Days of Anna Madrigal, the last book in the Tales of the City cycle. DOAM was written by Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. There might be a spoiler alert in this book report; that’s what book reports are for. DOAM is a wonderful book. However, like all of AJM books, you have to have a suspension of disbelief, because some of these things are just too weird to be true..
One way to prepare for a book report is to listen to videos of the author. I saw an AJM event, at the Decatur First Baptist Church in pre-pandemic 2018. Finally, I found a lovely quote.
The DOAM characters all go to Burning Man. I’ve never been to BM, and probably never will. I’ve been to many faerie gatherings, so I have a slight taste for intentional community. From all indications BM is much much, much, more intense. The BM aura is a bit off-putting. I could probably get into it but I’d have to I’d have to be prepared, and that probably is not going to happen. Fortunately, AJM had a younger husband, that dragged him there kicking and screaming.
When you make YouTube clips, you have to guess when it starts, and when it finishes. This entertainment does not have a transcript, or a cis-script. After consultation with the law firm of Trial and Error, I made this clip. It starts at 1970 seconds, and it ends at 2100 seconds. There’s a synchronicity to 1970 – 2100. These 130 seconds start with the acknowledgement that it was autobiographical. We’ve always suspected that Michael was really AJM. So he goes to BM. The last words of this clip are there would be rules.
DOAM ended much too soon for my taste. It goes into a bit of the back story for Anna Madrigal. For those who are new here, AM is the landlady at the house where the TOTC players lived. It seems like AM was raised in a cathouse in Winnemucca, NV. There was a real family named Madrigal. Part of the DOAM story is how Anna goes back to Winnemucca, and meets a player in this narrative. It’s a of a tearjerker, but most AJM stories are from time to time.
As for the fantasy of being raised in a brothel … when I was a young man I had this friend going by the name of Raven (not Wolfdancer.) He later went through several other names in the time that I knew him, and I never did find out his real name. This makes looking for him on facebook difficult. I first met Raven, his story was that he was raised in a brothel at the end of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Being the naive young idiot that I was, I believed him. Once, we went to a house on McLendon Avenue, where this old lady was introduced as being his grandmother. I said something about the business you were in, which went over her head. Anyway, Raven … then known as Harry Bowers … moved to New York in 1983, and was never heard from again.
There will be no more TOTC books, and probably little more of the characters. DOAM was set in 2012, when AM is 92. The “boomer” characters are starting to draw social security. Since Mouse is a stand in for AJM, it is safe to assume that he is alive. It is tempting to re-read some of the TOTC books, but there are so many other books to read. The current selection is Hollywood by Charles Bukowski.  It will be fun, until it is done. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.