The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 15, 1999 - 11 SC teacher Rechy creates chiling DS ier Los Angeles Times The scene: a hot night in the City of Angels. Santa Ana "devil winds" breathe fire through the canyons. The time: Summer 1981 - the final ments before the AIDS epidemic. The cast of characters: gay pornographer Za-Za LaGrande; Dave, a leather biker into S&M; Jesse, a lusty young street hustler; and Clint, a handsome fortysomething from New York looking for love on the streets of L.A. John Rechy, America's pre-eminent chron- icler of sexuality in the world of gay men, is back. After a dozen books about subjects rang- ing from life in the barrios of East Los ngeles to runaway teens to the myth of the len woman, Rechy, author of the 1963 best seller "City of Night," has returned to the place where he began - the violent intensi- ty of desire in the sexual underground of Southern California. And the question Rechy asks is still potent: Would you die for sex? Rechy's sizzling literary response - "The Coming of the Night" (Grove Press) - is as exciting as it is chilling. "I wanted to re-create the time when AIDS s creeping up on us as whispers. I wanted to generate that same heat and the mounting terror," Rechy says. "In this pre-millennium era, people are rather ignorantly thinking this (AIDS threat) is over. It is not. And while this book still champions rich desire, it is also admonito- ry." At an age when many authors are gather- ing anecdotes for their final memoirs - a "smashingly 60ish" (his words) - Rechy's st novel returns almost nostalgically to a ti e when sex, even street sex, was more carefree, and, if not entirely safe, at least not life-threatening. "In 1981, at about 2 in the morning on a hot windy night, I witnessed an event while cruising a small park in West Hollywood that was so raw and, in retrospect, so frightening, that I knew someday I had to return to it if I was going to understand that time." In "The Coming of the Night," Rechy shares what he saw in that park in his own last days as a hustler who unapologetically peddled his promiscuity on the streets of Los Angeles. Although his sexual outlaw days ended more than a decade ago when Rechy settled down for the love of one man, the heat of those pre-AIDS times still burns. There is no air-conditioning in the Los Angeles garden apartment where John Rechy has lived for 20 years. On an overheated afternoon recently, Rechy appears as cool as the collection of icy crystal displayed on his glass coffee table. Rechy is freshly showered after his habitu- al midday workout with weights. "Yes, yes, I still do the bench presses, and the waist crunches - like sit-ups but to the point of tension - seven sets of 50." His muscled torso - a smooth, tan trian- gle - is lightly freckled beneath a sleeveless white undershirt. His hair, lush and wavy, is hennaed to match exactly the shade of his heavy eye- brows. Rechy's jeans are fashionably faded and frayed, and he is wearing his favorite Tony Lama cowboy boots, mahogany leather with stacked brown heels. It is here in this apartment, beneath the oversized black-and-white likenesses of such Hollywood icons as Bette Davis, Carol Baker and Cary Grant, that another generation of young writers sit at Rechy's feet, learning not only how to write, but how to survive as writ- ers. As a creative writing teacher for the University of Southern California and other schools, Rechy has sheltered and guided such now-thriving authors as Gina B. Nahai, whose novel "Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith" (Harcourt Brace) has enjoyed great success this year, and Kate Braverman, who wrote the popular "Palm Latitudes" (Linden Press, 1988). "I started teaching when I was 22 and in C {pN '. r"f IIA attacked Rechy in a column that appeared beneath the headline "Fruit Salad," Chester went so far as to question Rechy's very exis- tence. "City of Night" - Rechy's sensuous and often sinister fictionalized diary of a male hustler on the make from Santa Monica to New Orleans - was an instant best seller. But because Rechy went underground, pur- posely avoiding any public promotion of the book, Chester and others speculated that the "true identity" of the book's author was more likely someone as famous as Tennessee Willians or James Baldwin. Now that Rechy has returned in his work to the setting of "City of Night," he is worried less about his literary identity than about how this latest work will be received. Leaning against a wall in his combination writer's den and workout room, thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his jeans, Rechy shakes his head in mock dismay. "Some may wonder why am I looking back now? I can only say, 'It was time. This had to be written." By returning to the setting of a book that has in three decades become an international best seller translated into 20 languages, Rechy has achieved a certain literary and personal symmetry. By chronicling a day in the sex-obsessed lives of a group of gay men on the eve of the AIDS epidemic, Rechy celebrates what he calls "the golden age of promiscuity" while at the same time exposing its darkest side. "This is a very sexual book - maybe my most sexual - and that is by design," says Rechy. "Because I think we need to look back and answer the question of where we were going with our sexuality." Now Rechy -- who between books teaches creative writing at USC and in private semi- nars - is ready to move on. Last month, he finished the manuscripts of what he calls his "new, new novel." The title? "The Naked Cowboy." And you thought the summer couldn't get any hotter. Los Angeles Times John Rechy is the author of "The Coming of the Night." the Army," says Rechy. "I was working with people who were functional illiterates. What I told them, and I now tell my students, is that the only thing I can do for them is to allow them to achieve the best they can and, once they are the best, help them have the courage to withstand what will come. What I call the enormous 'NO."' work. "Because my mother was Mexican and I grew up in Texas," says Rechy, "I can be and have been labeled a Chicano writer. Because I am homosexual and sometimes write about gay people and situations, I can be pushed into that box." Rechy nearly lost his creative identity completely when "City of Night" exploded on the literary scene 36 years ago. Reviewing for the prestigious New York Review of Books what would later become a gay classic, critic Alfred Chester not only Such rejection whether by critics or by ordinary readers - is not easy to overcome, says Rechy. Despite his personal successes, Rechy continues to fight the tendency of many reviewers to categorize him and his 'Snoops' rewrites role for Gershon Pious works examine human aith Los Angeles Tmes No way, no how would anyone ever mistake Gina Gershon for a an. After all, Gershon is the actress who mixed sultriness with a mis- chievous playfulness in "Showgirls," sizzled in her love scenes with Jennifer Tilly in "Bound," seduced Tom Cruise in "Cocktail" and brought a bold femi- ninity to testosterone fests such as "Face/Off'" and "Red Heat." So it may raise a few eyebrows to am that the impossibly sexy ershon is playing the "male lead" in the new ABC comedy-drama, "Snoops." In the series - the latest from acclaimed "Ally McBeal" and "The Practice" creator David E. Kelley, Gershon plays Glenn Hall, the head of an outrageously high-tech private eye agency that has gadgets that would make James Bond salivate. As originally conceived by lley, the role of Glenn was written or a male actor. Gershon actually was up for the female lead, detective Dana Plant, and turned it down, much to the dismay of the produc- ers. The role eventually went to Paula Marshall. But when Kelley, haunted by Gershon and her reading, rethought Glenn as a female instead of a male, Gershon jumped on board. And one glance at her "work" out- fits - often skintight leather - leaves no doubt that Glenn is a woman in charge of her life, her job and her sexuality. "This is a great woman's role," Gershon said during the briefest of breaks in a day crammed with film- ing, looping dialogue and other obligations. "I don't like the roles where the oss woman has to wear the suits and ve the tight hairdo. This is a fun part and I get to have fun with it." In "Snoops," Gershon's Hall admits that she and her investigative cohorts have "more in common with the criminals - we just have better intentions." Simultaneously intrigued and repelled by Hall's unorthodox meth- ods is Plant, a by-the-book former police detective who's looking for a new challenge. Rounding out the "Snoops" ,troupe is Roberta Young (Paula Jai Parker), who is known to wear some brazen disguises, and Manny Lott (Danny Nucci), described as "a whiz with a minicam, a mini-mike and any woman in a mini-dress." But much of the focus is on Gershon, who is making the leap to TV while riding the crest of a suc- cessful film career. The actress will be featured in the upcoming "The Insider," starring Al Pacino, and in the Miramax release, "Guinevere." Allan Arkush, the series' co-exec- utive producer and director, said of Gershon: "Gina is bringing her own unique point of view, a real confi- dence and a dark sense of humor. She's a woman succeeding in a man's world by being smarter and knowing more than the people around her. She projects a lot of intelligence, and the fact that she's sexy and gorgeous certainly doesn't hurt'." The allure of the versatile role and of working with Kelley convinced Gershon to join "Snoops." "I really had no interest in doing television," Gershon said. "I turned down the role of Dana, and had just moved to New York because I wanted to do more theater. The first call I get in my new apart- ment was from David Kelley, who said, 'What do you think about play- ing the guy's part?' All of a sudden, things were on different terms. I said I would like to do films, get preg- nant, play all sorts of characters, and he said yes to everything. It's pretty flattering to have someone so haunt- ed by you that he's willing to work things out." "Snoops" airs Sundays on ABC. The Hartford Courant Paul Wilkestas devoted much of his life to wandering, searching, asking questions, seeking his true vocation. He spent a year as a hermit. Another time he sold his possessions and lived among the poor. Along the way, Wilkes has written a number of books about religion and spirituality. His latest, "Beyond the Walls: Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Life" (Doubleday, $21, 244 pages), is an account of a year during which he lived one weekend each month at a Trappist monastery in South Carolina. Wilkes wanted to know if the wisdom found behind the walls of a monastery had any application to daily life for the rest of us. The result is a profound book filled with a sense of mystery, reverence and practical wisdom. The writing succeeds on several levels - as an account of Trappist life, as an examination of the many threads of monastic wisdom, as a story of Wilkes' own spiritual seeking and, most of all, as an evocation of the mystery of God's presence in daily life. Wilkes structures the book around 12 themes - such as faith, stability, detachment, mysticism, chastity and vocation - one for each of his monthly visits to Mepkin Abbey. He calls faith one of the most difficult virtues to understand and practice, saying it means "a certain free-fall in life, believing that God will indeed guide us to the right people and places, that he will not test us beyond our ability to endure; that God will take care of our needs -- and here is the hard- est part - in his own time and fashion." The opposite of faith is control, which Wilkes describes as an "I-centered approach to spirituality, physical healing and mental wellness." The wisdom that Wilkes so brilliantly conveys has much in common with Eastern thinking, particularly in his emphasis on living in the moment and detachment from possessions. What makes Wilkes so credible is his willingness to share the pain and con- fusion of his own journey. He comes across not as a preacher but as an authentic, sometimes broken, seeker. Wilkes' first marriage failed. He says little about the circumstances. He then spent years "of wondering and wandering in a self-made hell of plea- sure-seeking." When Wilkes fell in love again, he initially resisted the idea of marriage and children, convinced that his vocation was to become a monk. After living Want to see your work on these pages? Call, 763-0379 and sk o J ess or Chrisuto learn more about writing for Daily Arts. ( de student discount ticket price available at the Michigan Union Ticket Office. . 1,Only $12.50 for a 1 day passe!!! as a hermit at a Trappist monastery in Spencer, Mass., he finally realized that his true vocation was marriage. He and the woman he had fallen in love with, who is now his wife, have two boys. After each monthly visit to Mepkin, Wilkes returns home determined to apply monastic wisdom to his own life. The results are mixed. Sometimes he loses his temper and screams at one of his boys over something trivial. After one such incident, Wilkes berates himself, calling his year at Mepkin "a sham, so much pious talk and musings, so little real follow through." But the reader comes to see Wilkes not as a failure but as someone utterly human who makes mistakes yet can forgive himself and begin again. One of the pleasures of this book is the elegant writing. When Wilkes visits a dying woman in the hospital, he leans and presses his cheek to hers, feeling a tear and knowing he is "touching a drop of her soul's dew." Elsewhere, in describing his spiritual hunger, he says, "I read the spiritual masters eagerly, wanting so badly to tuck myself inside the pages of those books and live the experiences they so eloquently wrote about." This is a book to be savored and reread. Although Wilkes is a Catholic, this is not a narrow religious book. His engaging discussion of the mystery of God's presence will resonate with seekers from many faiths. The Dalai Lama's latest book, "Ethics for the New Millennium," (Riverhead Books, $24.95, 237 pages), contains pious sentiments about love of neighbor and respect for others, but not much more. The writing is uninspiring and the message is superficial and simplistic. The main theme is that all people want to be happy and avoid suffering. The way to happiness, the Dalai Lama says, is to treat others with love, compas- sion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness. The Dalai Lama dismisses the value of prayer and says the influence of religion on people's lives "is generally marginal," an assertion some people might challenge. The Dalai Lama appears to let his enthusiasm for world peace and broth- erhood cloud his vision. 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