Behind the Cover: Eiris Key

Tonight I will post in advance my cover artist post since tomorrow I will have limited internet connection. This week artist is Eiris Key. She worked for eXtasy Books doing some covers with a clear Yaoi influence.



( more pics )

I didn't find many info about her on the net, only an Anime Art Commission website that eventually you can contact:

http://www.altiz-studio.com/

Behind the Cover: Eiris Key

Tonight I will post in advance my cover artist post since tomorrow I will have limited internet connection. This week artist is Eiris Key. She worked for eXtasy Books doing some covers with a clear Yaoi influence.



( more pics )

I didn't find many info about her on the net, only an Anime Art Commission website that eventually you can contact:

http://www.altiz-studio.com/

You Can Run: Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America by Jesse Archer

Sometime you wonder how much of the character there is in the actor who played it. Jesse Archer is the actor who played Luke in two romantic comedies, Slutty Summer and A Four Letter Word. Luke is a burst of colours, someone capable to love to an extreme level without the necessity to change his lover, probably since he himself is not someone who wants to change, not even for love.

You Can Run is the journal of Jesse Archer's adventure in South America, from 1999 to 2001, when he was in that phase of life where you decide what will be your future: a degree in hand you have a lot of possibility in front of you, but all of them expect you to settle down and decide something. You want to be an actor? You can, go to Los Angeles and work hard waiting table or doing something else while attending every possible audition. You want to be a writer? You can, go to New York and work in some related fields, learning the job and spending night after night writing the next Great American Novel. Or, in alternative, You Can Run, from all of this and from any possible commitment. But if you are Jesse Archer, you can't simple run with a backpack and two pair of shoes, you have to do that with style... and so I believe that Jesse Archer and his travel companion are the first persons I heard that start a trekking in South Africa with wine in the backpack instead of bottle of pesticide.

At 24 years old Jesse is on an on / off relationship with Zane. He loves Zane, but as you can love someone that knows you well, that was there with you when you were developing the man you are now. It's not brotherly love, since it would be border on incest, but nevertheless you know that it's not your true love, also since you still don't know if true love exists or if you are ready for it. But still Zane is the only man who will follow Jesse on this adventure without questions. If you are expecting reading this journal to discover that Jesse was wrong and that Zane is his true love, you are wrong. Since Jesse was not wrong from the beginning, he has no open ends with Zane, the basis of their relationship are clear: they are travel companion and when they are not travelling, they can have separate lives, always knowing that, when one of them is starting the travel again, the other will be ready to follow. It's not love that bonds them together, it's the travel. And when one of them is starting to be too serious with someone else met during the journey, it's not the betrayed lover who is jealous, it's the abandoned travel companion.

There is a logic time sequence in all the chapters, but not a continuum. It means that every single chapter is an independent little story, a little piece in the whole puzzle that was the entire journey. Sometime the story concerns a character, sometime a place. Hardly a place recurs for more than one story, since it reflects the fact that Jesse was often in motion, hopping from one place to the other, and the discontinuous trend is well reflected from that, at the end of a chapter Jesse is in a country, and at the beginning of the other he is in another one, the reason why he left one to move to another one seldom are explained, as often are not detailed all the work he had probably done to settle in a new place. It's like being inside Jesse's mind, reading is memory, and so, only the more important things are available; Jesse chose to "run" not to write a travel guide, but to live, and I don't believe he spent most of his time taking notes of what he did or what he saw, probably he filled a journal of what in that moment made a great impression to him, and when years later he went through that notes, he filled the gap with something else from his memory. The result is a travel journey that maintains the eclecticism of the man who did it.

A bit of stability in the instability that essentially is Jesse, is given by the men in his life... how strange isn't it? But actually they are the only constant in his life and they are basically two. As I said before, Zane, his travel companion, that sometime took his own path but always came back, or Jesse went to him: their relationship as travel companions was like their relationship as lovers, in and off, open or exclusive, always without regret. There is a moment in which I wondered if Jesse or Zane said something, maybe that relationship would have changed in something else, but no one said something, and Zane took a bus headed on a direction opposite to Jesse, and that bus in a way set the path for their future life; it was not a physical farewell, both of them knew that they would meet again, but it was the definitely farewell to their relationship as lovers.

More or less at the same time of this farewell, maybe since Jesse felt "free" (you can say with your mouth that you are not committed, but your heart maybe has other idea...), Jesse meets the second important man of this story, Walter. Walter is Argentine, and for a bit he will replace Zane; again for Jesse is not a real commitment, and again I think that if it was, Jess would have run on the opposite way. Even if Jesse is enjoying his time in South America, I always felt like this was a "foreign" adventure for him, and that, sooner or later, he would return in the United States, leaving behind all his "temporary" bonds, like Walter. Walter stands out from all the others only since, like Zane, he hops in and hops out from Jesse's life in more occasion than one, and Jesse considers himself "involved" with him for more than a passing adventure, but on the contrary of Zane, Walter doesn’t conquer a special place in Jesse’s life; Walter represents the moment, Zane is the past, the present and the future, a future that is all to write.

Amazon: You Can Run: Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America (Out in the World)

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art (photography) by Walter Kurtz

You Can Run: Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America by Jesse Archer

Sometime you wonder how much of the character there is in the actor who played it. Jesse Archer is the actor who played Luke in two romantic comedies, Slutty Summer and A Four Letter Word. Luke is a burst of colours, someone capable to love to an extreme level without the necessity to change his lover, probably since he himself is not someone who wants to change, not even for love.

You Can Run is the journal of Jesse Archer's adventure in South America, from 1999 to 2001, when he was in that phase of life where you decide what will be your future: a degree in hand you have a lot of possibility in front of you, but all of them expect you to settle down and decide something. You want to be an actor? You can, go to Los Angeles and work hard waiting table or doing something else while attending every possible audition. You want to be a writer? You can, go to New York and work in some related fields, learning the job and spending night after night writing the next Great American Novel. Or, in alternative, You Can Run, from all of this and from any possible commitment. But if you are Jesse Archer, you can't simple run with a backpack and two pair of shoes, you have to do that with style... and so I believe that Jesse Archer and his travel companion are the first persons I heard that start a trekking in South Africa with wine in the backpack instead of bottle of pesticide.

At 24 years old Jesse is on an on / off relationship with Zane. He loves Zane, but as you can love someone that knows you well, that was there with you when you were developing the man you are now. It's not brotherly love, since it would be border on incest, but nevertheless you know that it's not your true love, also since you still don't know if true love exists or if you are ready for it. But still Zane is the only man who will follow Jesse on this adventure without questions. If you are expecting reading this journal to discover that Jesse was wrong and that Zane is his true love, you are wrong. Since Jesse was not wrong from the beginning, he has no open ends with Zane, the basis of their relationship are clear: they are travel companion and when they are not travelling, they can have separate lives, always knowing that, when one of them is starting the travel again, the other will be ready to follow. It's not love that bonds them together, it's the travel. And when one of them is starting to be too serious with someone else met during the journey, it's not the betrayed lover who is jealous, it's the abandoned travel companion.

There is a logic time sequence in all the chapters, but not a continuum. It means that every single chapter is an independent little story, a little piece in the whole puzzle that was the entire journey. Sometime the story concerns a character, sometime a place. Hardly a place recurs for more than one story, since it reflects the fact that Jesse was often in motion, hopping from one place to the other, and the discontinuous trend is well reflected from that, at the end of a chapter Jesse is in a country, and at the beginning of the other he is in another one, the reason why he left one to move to another one seldom are explained, as often are not detailed all the work he had probably done to settle in a new place. It's like being inside Jesse's mind, reading is memory, and so, only the more important things are available; Jesse chose to "run" not to write a travel guide, but to live, and I don't believe he spent most of his time taking notes of what he did or what he saw, probably he filled a journal of what in that moment made a great impression to him, and when years later he went through that notes, he filled the gap with something else from his memory. The result is a travel journey that maintains the eclecticism of the man who did it.

A bit of stability in the instability that essentially is Jesse, is given by the men in his life... how strange isn't it? But actually they are the only constant in his life and they are basically two. As I said before, Zane, his travel companion, that sometime took his own path but always came back, or Jesse went to him: their relationship as travel companions was like their relationship as lovers, in and off, open or exclusive, always without regret. There is a moment in which I wondered if Jesse or Zane said something, maybe that relationship would have changed in something else, but no one said something, and Zane took a bus headed on a direction opposite to Jesse, and that bus in a way set the path for their future life; it was not a physical farewell, both of them knew that they would meet again, but it was the definitely farewell to their relationship as lovers.

More or less at the same time of this farewell, maybe since Jesse felt "free" (you can say with your mouth that you are not committed, but your heart maybe has other idea...), Jesse meets the second important man of this story, Walter. Walter is Argentine, and for a bit he will replace Zane; again for Jesse is not a real commitment, and again I think that if it was, Jess would have run on the opposite way. Even if Jesse is enjoying his time in South America, I always felt like this was a "foreign" adventure for him, and that, sooner or later, he would return in the United States, leaving behind all his "temporary" bonds, like Walter. Walter stands out from all the others only since, like Zane, he hops in and hops out from Jesse's life in more occasion than one, and Jesse considers himself "involved" with him for more than a passing adventure, but on the contrary of Zane, Walter doesn’t conquer a special place in Jesse’s life; Walter represents the moment, Zane is the past, the present and the future, a future that is all to write.

Amazon: You Can Run: Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America (Out in the World)

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art (photography) by Walter Kurtz

Cultivating Love by Addison Albright

Joe and Ed are young and living together. To the equation misses only love. It's not that Joe and Ed are not in love, it's probably that no one taught them "how" to be in love, and "what" being in love means. Ed, orphaned at 17 years old, spent all his time to make the ends meet, and Joe was kicked out of home when he came out to his father at 18 years old. When the book starts they are already together, sharing an house and a bed, but it's not said how they met and how they put the boundaries to their relationship, not only love relationship but also life partner. Still the boundaries are there, and even if they are not rules, they are pretty strict, they do fifty / fifty on everything from who has to cook dinner to whom has to top. Joe and Ed are obviously in love, but still no one of them has every spoken the L word, and I don't know how many time would be passed before it would slip to someone if the fate had not forced the hand.

Father's Ed, whom Ed believed long ago dead, was still alive and living in a farm. Unluckily for Ed he comes to know it when the man dies and Ed is his only heir. Ed inherits the farm, and he doesn't know nothing how to farming, but Joe knows it, having being raised in a farm. Actually Joe's life dream is to be able sooner or later to buy a farm, and this unexpected inheritance seems a sign from heaven. Ed spends only few hours to decide that he is ready to change his life and moves with Joe on the farm (if this is not love...).

The new life they are starting is like a coming back to another place in time: in the small town and inside the walls of their farmhouse, it seems impossible to continue to behave like no more than friend with benefits. The new life forces them to rethink to their priorities and to what it is important for them. More it seems to bring them nearer to what it was Joe's life before Ed, and in a way, shorten the distance between him and his family. Joe's father turned away his son since he didn't understand his choice to love a man, not since he didn't love him; when Joe proves to him that being in love with a man doesn't change so much how he is, and since he is very much like his father, his father can again relate with him on a common ground.

It's not all a paradise on earth for them, moving in a small town has its trouble, where the majority of the townfolks are all right with them being gay, there is still someone who is not so welcoming. But all in all this subplot is not so strong and in first line, and above all the story is about Joe and Ed's evolution from lovers to partners. Due to that, the book is also quite sexy, and it's nice to see how their lovemaking changes with them, more they become intimate and more the sex does the same. Still, in a way or the other, it's pretty detailed but not "acrobatic", the feeling of the novella is more sweet than erotic.

http://www.loose-id.com/prod-Cultivating_Love-972.aspx

Amazon Kindle: Cultivating Love

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Cultivating Love by Addison Albright

Joe and Ed are young and living together. To the equation misses only love. It's not that Joe and Ed are not in love, it's probably that no one taught them "how" to be in love, and "what" being in love means. Ed, orphaned at 17 years old, spent all his time to make the ends meet, and Joe was kicked out of home when he came out to his father at 18 years old. When the book starts they are already together, sharing an house and a bed, but it's not said how they met and how they put the boundaries to their relationship, not only love relationship but also life partner. Still the boundaries are there, and even if they are not rules, they are pretty strict, they do fifty / fifty on everything from who has to cook dinner to whom has to top. Joe and Ed are obviously in love, but still no one of them has every spoken the L word, and I don't know how many time would be passed before it would slip to someone if the fate had not forced the hand.

Father's Ed, whom Ed believed long ago dead, was still alive and living in a farm. Unluckily for Ed he comes to know it when the man dies and Ed is his only heir. Ed inherits the farm, and he doesn't know nothing how to farming, but Joe knows it, having being raised in a farm. Actually Joe's life dream is to be able sooner or later to buy a farm, and this unexpected inheritance seems a sign from heaven. Ed spends only few hours to decide that he is ready to change his life and moves with Joe on the farm (if this is not love...).

The new life they are starting is like a coming back to another place in time: in the small town and inside the walls of their farmhouse, it seems impossible to continue to behave like no more than friend with benefits. The new life forces them to rethink to their priorities and to what it is important for them. More it seems to bring them nearer to what it was Joe's life before Ed, and in a way, shorten the distance between him and his family. Joe's father turned away his son since he didn't understand his choice to love a man, not since he didn't love him; when Joe proves to him that being in love with a man doesn't change so much how he is, and since he is very much like his father, his father can again relate with him on a common ground.

It's not all a paradise on earth for them, moving in a small town has its trouble, where the majority of the townfolks are all right with them being gay, there is still someone who is not so welcoming. But all in all this subplot is not so strong and in first line, and above all the story is about Joe and Ed's evolution from lovers to partners. Due to that, the book is also quite sexy, and it's nice to see how their lovemaking changes with them, more they become intimate and more the sex does the same. Still, in a way or the other, it's pretty detailed but not "acrobatic", the feeling of the novella is more sweet than erotic.

http://www.loose-id.com/prod-Cultivating_Love-972.aspx

Amazon Kindle: Cultivating Love

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle