Junk Mail Blues

Since I subscribe to a variety of magazines and journals, I get a wildly diverse range of junk mail. Some assume I’m Catholic, others than I’m Jewish, some that I’m a Democrat, others that I’m a Republican or Libertarian or have signed on with the Constitution Party.

One of the strangest ever came today: an invitation to join insightoutbooks, which, as it turns out, is a gay book club, featuring such classics as “Farm Boys” and “Queer Street,” “Frat Sex” and “Full Body Contact,” “Rare Flesh” and “The Male Ideal,” “The Da Vinci Code” and “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” Say what? I wonder if that will be emblazoned on the next edition of Harry Potter: “A Selection of the insightoutbooks Book Club.” Who has control over what bookclub picks up what books?

A curiosity: In the midst of the guides to gay sex and picture books of naked athletes is a two-page spread featuring books about stars. What’s striking here is that a number of these are about women: A book about Judy Garland, a Barbra Streisand Scrapbook, and elsewhere a CD of Cher’s best. What is it, I wonder, that makes these women particularly interesting to gay male readers?

The club offers a tote bag if I buy four books for a dollar each ?Eso that I can “go gay-ly everywhere.” Could I ever use a tote bag, but I think I’ll give the club a pass.