Armistead Maupin To Perform In P-Town

Armistead Maupin will perform his show Logical Family next Sunday during Bear Week in Provincetown.

In this witty and poignant new stage presentation the legendary author of “Tales of the City” turns a keen eye on his own youthful (and stumbling) search for family, love and authenticity. It’s a tale that leads from a repressive boyhood in North Carolina to the Mekong Delta of Vietnam to a new life and sexual salvation in 1970’s San Francisco. Fierce, bawdy, wise and funny, “Logical Family” embodies the qualities that have already endeared Maupin to generations of readers. Books will available for sale, and Armistead be signing after the show.

There will be a second show on Saturday, July 18th. Get tickets here.

HomoQuotable - Armistead Maupin

"I'm the only gay man I know who has never been to Fire Island. I have not made a point of staying away -- its charms are legendary, of course -- but the occasion has simply never presented itself. Now, it's quite likely that I will remain forever virginal in that regard. Or at least until these guys are no longer collecting money at the dock. When I coined the term 'A-gay' forty years ago, these were just the sort of creeps I had in mind. It was never intended as something to aspire to." - Armistead Maupin, reacting to this New York Times profile of hoteliers Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass. (Tipped by JMG reader Aaron)

Out Magazine Unveils 2014 Out 100 List

Out Magazine has unveiled this year's Out 100 list. The 2014 ranking features Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner (seated above) and New York Times writer Josh Barro (third from left.) Others on the list are Dan Savage, Larry Kramer, Andy Bell, Armistead Maupin, Jason Collins, Richard Chamberlain, Carmen Carrera, and the cast of Looking.  See the full list.

Yesterday In Provincetown

Left to right: Chris Turner, Andy Towle, Michael Goff, Armistead Maupin, some short dude, Brian Sims.

With Armistead Maupin

Armistead Maupin's final Bear Week show is tonight:

Author Armistead Maupin returns to the Paramount Room at the Crown & Anchor in Provincetown. Ticketholders to AN EVENING WITH ARMISTEAD MAUPIN can expect free-wheeling anecdotes and lively conversation with the audience – as well as a reading from Maupin's newest book, The Days of Anna Madrigal. The author's books will be available for purchase and signing after the event.

I totally forgot to wear the blog hat.

Today In Provincetown

Ito, fetch me a sidecar.

Friday In Provincetown

Via Towleroad:

If you are at Bear Week in Provincetown come to Towleroad's coffee meet-up on Friday from 9-11:30 am at the Central House restaurant at the Crown & Anchor (247 Commercial) and meet literary legend Armistead Maupin and Joe.My.God blogger Joe Jervis who are our special guests, along with Andy Towle and Michael Goff.

RELATED: Maupin's final Bear Week show at the Crown & Anchor is Friday night.

BONUS: Hit the top link for a woofy Bear Week photo compilation.

Afternoon View - Bear Week Performers

Armistead Maupin To Speak At Bear Week

Legendary novelist Armistead Maupin returns to Bear Week in Provincetown this month for two nights of storytelling.

Gay Icon, Literary genius! Warm, engaging, surprising and entertaining, Armistead Maupin returns to The Crown & Anchor's Paramount Room for 2 nights. Hear readings from his latest works along with anecdotes and insights from his years as a prolific writer. Always a crowd favorite, Armistead captivates his audiences.

I attended the last two years and had a wonderful time. Advance tickets are definitely suggested.

Maupin & Hubby Move Back To SF

After two years in Santa Fe, Armistead Maupin and his husband have moved back to San Francisco.

They're renting a ground-floor flat in a Castro cottage, both "craving village life again," said Maupin. They're going to keep their house in Santa Fe "because we love it, putting it up on Airbnb in hopes, of course, that it will pay for our tiny SF apartment." They returned "because we were missing the city of our hearts, and we both kind of admitted it at the same time. We absolutely adore the wild nature of our home in the desert, but it's not enough. So if we're lucky, we'll be able to have both things."

(Tipped by JMG reader Paul)

NORTH CAROLINA: Armistead Maupin To Get Honorary Doctorate From Alma Mater

This weekend beloved novelist Armistead Maupin will receive an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From their announcement:

Armistead Maupin, Carolina Class of 1966, grew up in Raleigh. As an undergraduate here he wrote a column for the Daily Tar Heel and was elected vice president of the senior class. After graduation, Maupin worked at WRAL-TV in Raleigh before enlisting in the United States Navy. Maupin later worked as a reporter in Charleston, S.C., and then with the Associated Press in San Francisco. In 1976, while at the San Francisco Chronicle, he launched the groundbreaking work that would propel his literary career for almost four decades. “Tales of the City” began as a serialized novel—perhaps the most successful example of that genre since Charles Dickens—and eventually became a sequence of nine globally bestselling books. In 1994, “Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City” became a PBS miniseries which won a Peabody Award.

On his Facebook page Maupin notes that he will attend the ceremony with his "legal California husband." (Tipped by JMG reader Richard)

The Man Who Invented San Francisco

The Days Of Anna Madrigal, the ninth and final installment of Armistead Maupin's legendary Tales Of The City series, will be published later this month. Yesterday the Guardian heaped praise upon Maupin. An excerpt:

Quentin Crisp once introduced him with the boast: "This is Mr Maupin. He invented San Francisco." More importantly, Maupin virtually invented the mainstreaming of gay life and helped the world see that "the gay experience" was nothing lesser or greater than human experience. Maupin came to a realisation of his homosexuality relatively late. He was 30 when he came out, the same year he began writing. Taking stock of himself the way he would one of his characters, he once observed: "He had kept his heart (and his libido) under wraps for most of his life, only to discover that the thing he feared the most had actually become a source of great comfort and inspiration." At the time he began writing, he saw gay fiction as both bleak and myopic. This was an era when Truman Capote still equated his homosexuality with his alcoholism and a climate in which Gore Vidal could claim: "There were homosexual acts, but not homosexual people." Maupin, however, had discovered a joyful fraternity and welcoming community in the bath houses and nightclubs of the city and decided, as he put it, to "[allow] a little air into the situation by actually placing gay people in the context of the world at large".

Read the full article. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Armistead Maupin At Bear Week

My buddy Mike and I just returned from Armistead Maupin's packed appearance at Provincetown's Crown & Anchor, where a rapt audience heard excerpts from the coming The Days Of Anna Madrigal. Like last year, my favorite part of event came when Maupin invited questions from the audience. The show runs again tomorrow, get tickets here.

Last Night On Commercial Street

I just about crashed my bike last night as I pulled over to say hello to pop crooner Matt Alber, Armistead Maupin, and his husband, Christopher Turner.  Tonight and tomorrow the Crown & Anchor will host An Evening With Armistead Maupin. Get tickets here.

Afternoon View - Bear Week Line-Up

Armistead Maupin Completes Next Book

"Anna's Tree (a honey locust) was planted in the garden today as I finished and delivered THE DAYS OF ANNA MADRIGAL. Many thanks to Enrique and Raul for the hard work. And thanks to my beloved Chris for putting up with a madman for the duration. We're off to Ptown in the morning." - Armistead Maupin, posting to his Facebook page.  An Evening With Armistead Maupin will be hosted by Provincetown's Crown & Anchor on Thursday and Friday next week. Get tickets here. I loved his talk last year and will attend again on Thursday.

Armistead Maupin & Hubby In Santa Fean

Source.

Armisted Maupin Settles Super Bowl Bet

Famed gay novelist Amistead Maupin made a Super Bowl bet with fellow writer Laura Lippman in which the loser would pen an ode to the winner's hometown. Here's Maupin's tribute to Baltimore.

The Virtues of Baltimore (After Pondering Weak and Weary)
Who makes Baltimore so fine?
The Duchess of Windsor or Divine?
Poe and his Raven or Mama Cass?
The great John Waters or Ira Glass?
Thurgood Marshall or Adrienne Rich
Barry Levinson or – sonofabitch—
That linebacker who took a stand
For marriage equality in Maryland?
I lift my glass with a way-to-go
To Brendon Ayanbadejo.

Hit the link for Baltimore Fishbowl's illustrated version.

Armistead Maupin's House Is For Sale

Last month I mentioned that one of San Francisco's most enduring icons will be moving to Santa Fe. On Sunday the Chronicle reported that his SF home is now on the market.

"I loved being able to write on that top floor and walk out on the deck and just stare into Sutro Forest," said Maupin, who penned three novels during his two-decade residence there, including the semiautobiographical "The Night Listener," which describes the house as "three narrow stories notched into the wooded slope." "The house has grown and changed organically over the years," Maupin said. "It feels like my handwriting all over the place. Whenever I got a check, if it was a good check, I could buy myself a door. (If smaller) I would buy, say, a doorknob - not just any old one, but a hammered copper doorknob from an artisan. "Many of my friends have visited me there over the years and their memory is stamped on it for me," he said. "People connected with the first 'Tales of the City' miniseries: Laura (Linney) and Olympia (Dukakis). Ian McKellen once stayed and left a note: 'Gandalf slept here with Magneto.' "I hope it goes to someone who loves it well and long as I have done."

At a website appropriately named Tales Of The City Home you can find a gorgeous slideshow of what $1.2M can get you in San Francisco these days. Of course, the home's legacy may have added something to that price.

Armistead Maupin Speaks In P-Town

Today I attended Tea With Armistead Maupin, where the famed author entertained a standing-room only crowd with anecdotes from the history of his legendary Tales Of The City series. One highlight was his reading of a chapter from the upcoming The Days Of Anna Madrigal, which traces the history of one of his most beloved characters. The following Q&A from the rabid fanboys (and fangirls) could have gone on forever as questioner after questioner grilled Maupin about myriad aspects of the series. Leaving a lot of dangling hands in the air, the crowd was then moved outside to the Crown & Anchor's pool deck where Maupin's hubby (and BearCentral.com owner) Chris Turner handled the folks clamoring for signed books. A great afternoon.