Looks at how both anti-gay and AIDS activists use apocalyptic language to describe the AIDS crisis.

Spring 196-, on the campus of the U of C and D--, in crumbling World War II barracks foreshadowing Vietnam -- incoming freshman are driven by testosterone, fear, and a dim sense of obligation to become "men." Draft boards close in. Beautiful co-eds drift doe-eyed under the pine trees on the Quadrangle, circled by upper-class Jocks like so many sharks. Professors profess from the pulpits of various disciplines, a neon mermaid throbs in the night sky at the apex of the L-shaped business district, and the latest Girl of the Month appears like clockwork in brazen glory on the wall above Roger Osborn's Love Candle. In the midst of such perils, what chance has a late bloomer like The Gnat? A budding misanthrope in a black raincoat like Martin Calihan? An accidental housemother like nubile Susan Thurlby -- or a neurotic maiden like lissome Shelley Wencelas, running against her will for Exhibit Day Queen -- or Osborn himself, the reluctant Jock transformed by ruthless publicity into The Freshman Whiz? Osborn doesn't know, but he's determined to think of something -- after all, human relationships are his specialty. And the jungle is waiting. And life. Or death. While nearby, steadfast in his quest for order in the midst of chaos, armed by the concept of duty, his green eyeshade and his trusty stapler, lurks Lawrence DeLancey ...

An operatic, satirical romp through (high and low) Washington -- filled with politicos and pundits, divas and divine spirits -- by the greatly admired author of Time Remaining and the cult classic Mawrdew Czgowchwz ("Bravo, James McCourt, a literary countertenor, in the exacting tradition of Firbank and Nabokov" -- Susan Sontag). It opens with Delancey, a reporter for the "East Hampton Star, being sent to cover the environmental budget wars of the 104th Congress, his copy of Henry Adams's Democracy in hand, for background on the farrago called overnment. It introduces us to le tout de Washington: the socialite (and exiled eighties New York party girl) Anastasia Harrington (a.k.a. Bam-Bam) and her billionaire husband, Max; a senator obsessed with the fall of the republic and with his rogue companion, an ex-hustler and congressional phone-sex virtuoso; the semiretired transvestite ballerina Odette O'Doyle and the diva (operatic and otherwise) Vana Sprezza; and Delancey's new friend, Ornette, a living antidote to the racism of our times, who sympathizes with the sexually profligate President (lovingly referred to as POTUS). From Delancey's trip on the Metroliner where it all begins, to a drink-soaked escapade in Key West, to soirees at the Harringtons' and the Cosmos Club, to the grand finale (an uproarious Venetian bal masque at the Library of Congress), McCourt shows us the pyrotechnic power plays of the nineties, eerily parallel to (but far deadlier than) those portrayed in Adams's chronicle of earlier times. Here is Washington as it should be seen -- upside down, and inside right.

"When Molly Wizenberg married Brandon Pettit, she vowed always to support him, to work with him to make their hopes and dreams real. She evinced enthusiasm about Brandon's enthusiasms: building a violin, building a boat, and opening an ice cream store--none of which came to pass. So when Brandon started making plans to open a pizza restaurant, Molly felt sure that the restaurant would join the list of Brandon's abandoned projects. When she finally realized that Delancey really was going to happen, that Brandon was going to change all of her assumptions about what their married life would be like, it was too late. She faced the first crisis in their young marriage. Opening a restaurant is not like hosting a dinner party every night. Molly and Brandon's budget was small, and the tasks at hand were often overhwelming. They had to find a space they could afford, gut renovate it themselves, find second-hand furniture and equipment, build what furniture they couldn't find, buy and install a wood-burning oven, pass health inspections, hire staff, and establish a billing and payroll system. They lost a financial partner. Their cook disappeared the day they opened. Still, their restaurant was a success, and Molly managed to convince herself that she was happy in their new life. Until Halloween night, when she was forced to admit she could no longer pretend. While Delancey is a funny and frank look at behind-the-scenes restaurant life, it is also a bravely honest and moving portrait of a tender young marriage and two partners who had to find out how to let each other go in order to come together"--

Originally published in 1994. In this pathbreaking book Alan Tully offers an unprecedented comparative study of colonial political life and a rethinking of the foundations of American political culture. Tully chooses for his comparison the two colonies that arguably had the most profound impact on American political history—New York and Pennsylvania, the rich and varied colonies at the geographical and ideological center of British colonial America. Fundamental to the book is Tully's argument that out of Anglo-American influences and the cumulative character of each colonial experience, New York and Pennsylvania developed their own distinctive but complementary characteristics. In making this case Tully enters—from a new perspective—the prominent argument between the "classical republican" and "liberal" views of early American public thought. He contends that the radical Whig element of classical republicanism was far less influential than historians have believed and that the political experience of New York and Pennsylvania led to their role as innovators of liberal political concepts and discourse. In a conclusion that pursues his insights into the revolutionary and early republican years, Tully underlines a paradox in American political development: not only were the pathbreaking liberal politicians of New York and Pennsylvania the least inclined towards revolutionary fervor, but their political language and concepts—integral to an emerging liberal democratic order—were rooted in oligarchical political practice. "A momentous contribution to the burgeoning literature on the middle Atlantic region, and to the vexed question of whether it constitutes a coherent cultural configuration. Tully argues persuasively that it does, and his arguments will have to be reckoned with like few that have gone before, even as he develops an array of differences between the two colonies more subtle and penetrating than any of his predecessors has ever put forth."—Michael Zuckerman, University of Pennsylvania.