The Book Standard reports that the House of Representatives have added a clause to the Children’s Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act of 2005 in which books which offer “any visual depiction of simulated or sexually explicit conduct” or are “produced in whole or in part with materials which have been mailed or shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, or is shipped or transported or is intended for shipment or transportation in interstate or foreign commerce” must, as with pornography, report every performer portrayed in a visual depiction. In other words, if a photograph appears in a book depicting anything considered “sexually explicit” (a term that isn’t even defined by H.R. 4472, which suggests that this could apply to an innocuous image of two men kissing), the government wants to track your participation.
Of course, such a Stalinistic tactic does not, in fact, run directly counter to the First Amendment, but this does raise serious questions about whether certain performers might be audited or “investigated” simply because their work is considered “sexually explicit” by the U.S. government. Consider an author like William T. Vollmann, who regularly features provactive photographs by Ken Miller in his work, in an effort to chronicle the poor and the prostitutes. Will future editions of The Royal Family now have to be eviscerated of these photos?
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Thanks for the information. I hadn’t heard this anywhere else.
One can only hope that if this bill becomes law, the superconservatives who now dominate the federal courts — and make up the majority of the Supreme Court — will actually follow their supposed principles enunciated in the Lopez and Morrison decisions and overturn this law as being every bit as unrelated to the federal power to regulate interstate commerce as were the Gun-Free School Zones Act and the Violence Against Women Act.
I just realized how stupid my last comment was. Obviously there’s a nexus to interstate commerce here. It would have to be a first amendment challenge, I guess. Forgive me, it’s early in the morning and outrage scrambles my brain at this hour.