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1001
Beds
Performances, Essays,
and Travels
Tim Miller
Edited by Glen Johnson
Living Out: Gay and Lesbian
Autobiographies
Joan Larkin and David Bergman, Series Editors
Publication date: March 2006
328 pp. 6 x 9 30 b/w photos
ISBN 0-299-21690-X Cloth $60.00
ISBN 0-299-21694-2 Paper $19.95
Blurbs:
"Performance artist Tim Miller has
been a pioneering and inspiring figure for twenty-five years.
. . . 1001 Beds shows Miller as an engaged and effective
storyteller and provocateur. It will attract readers from a variety
of constituencies and be wonderful for classes."–Lynn
C. Miller, editor of
Voices Made Flesh
"Tim Miller has made a career not
only of making the personal political, but more important, of
making the political personal. As a result, 1001 Beds
is not just a document of life as a performance artist, but a
history of performance art; it is not just the story of a gay
man, but an account of how being gay has changed."–David
Bergman, series editor
Reviews:
Beds, Boys, and Beyond
Tim Miller's book 1001Beds paints
a rich and complex portrait of this artist-activist.
By: Dan Bacalzo
In the prologue to his latest book, 1001
Beds: Performances, Essays, and Travels, gay male performance
artist Tim Miller states that "Writing memoir is a fierce
act of imagining the future." Memory is, to him, a springboard
for both personal reflection and political action. This volume,
published by the University of Wisconsin Press as part of its
"Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies" series,
collects a number of essays that first appeared in TDR, Mime
Journal, American Theater, and other sources, along with
previously unpublished performance texts, journal entries, and
other musings. In sum, the material paints a rich and complex
portrait of this artist-activist, providing insight into Miller's
creative process and his cultural position. This writer-performer
exploded onto the New York scene in 1980 at the groundbreaking
P.S. 122, which he co-founded. Some of the
excerpts in the book date from this period, and the author's
1990 essay "Professional Autobiography" describes in
detail some of this early work . Many of these pieces were dance
or spectacle-driven, although always containing a leftist political
slant. Best known as an autobiographical solo performer, Miller
helped to popularize this genre along with such other artists
as Spalding Gray, Holly Hughes, and Rachel Rosenthal. His previous
book, Body Blows (University of Wisconsin Press, 2002),
contains the majority of these solo plays, while the current
volume focuses on Miller's more collaborative efforts.
One of the more fascinating elements of the book is its inclusion
of three duets that Miller created with three different lovers
during the course of those relationships. The first of these
is an excerpt from Live Boys (1980-1981), a three-part
series created in collaboration with dancer John Bernd. Also
excerpted here is Buddy Systems (1985), co-created by
writer Douglas Sadownick, with whom Miller was involved in a
14-year relationship. And 1001 Beds contains the full text of
the short performance piece Carnal Garage (1997), which
Miller created with his current partner of more than 10 years,
Alistair McCartney. These texts demonstrate how Miller literally
brought his boyfriends into his world; they also depict the often
messy, fraught, erotic dynamics of these relationships.
The other performance text included in full is US (2003), Miller's
funny and moving tale of his political awakening through listening
to musical theater cast albums ("Who needs Marx and Engels
when you have Rodgers and Hammerstein!") and his current
political battle for gay marriage and immigration rights. As
he mentions here and in numerous other places in the book, he
and McCartney (a native Australian) will be forced to leave the
U.S. when the latter's visa expires, since same-sex couples do
not have the same protections and benefits—such as the extension
of one partner's citizenship status to the other—that are
automatically granted to heterosexual couples.
Editor Glen Johnson provides a useful introduction to the volume
as well as short, introductory remarks for the individual pieces.
These situate Miller's work within the context of the downtown
New York performance scene in the early 1980s, the AIDS crisis,
Miller's activist work, and the so-called "Culture Wars."
Miller gained national notoriety in 1990 as one of the "NEA
Four," whose National Endowment for the Arts grants were
denied them due to the supposedly "obscene" content
of their work. (Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Karen Finley were
the other three artists targeted.) 1001 Beds includes
a number of documents from this period, such as the artist statement
in Miller's 1989 NEA grant application. (A sample: "Look
here Senator Jesse Helms, keep your Porky Pig face out of the
NEA and out of my asshole.") Also collected are excerpts
from Miller's deposition in the NEA Four's ensuing lawsuit and
his report on the 1998 legal case in which the Supreme Court
ultimately ruled that the NEA could make funding decisions based
on "general standards of decency." Giving the lie to
the maxim "there's no such thing as bad publicity,"
Miller describes the hardships that the NEA Four debacle created
not only for himself but also for the theaters that presented
him.
Those who know Miller primarily as one of the NEA Four may be
surprised by some of the other pieces contained in 1001 Beds.
These include Miller's documentation of the performance art sermons
he conducted with the Reverend Malcolm Boyd, plus accounts of
his teaching and the activism in which he was involved as a member
of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and on behalf of
issues ranging from art censorship to gay and lesbian immigration
rights. This volume captures the many facets of a fascinating
artist who continues to present deeply personal and politically
engaging work.
Author's
Bio:
Tim Miller is an internationally acclaimed
performance artist and gay rights activist. He is the author
of the books Body Blows and
Shirts & Skin and his performance texts have appeared
in the play collections O Solo Homo and Sharing the
Delirium. He teaches performance at the University of California,
Los Angeles, School of Theater and is cofounder of Performance
Space 122 in New York City and Highways Performance Space in
Santa Monica, California. Glen Johnson is professor of English
and media studies at the Catholic University of America.
Author's
web content
Tim Miller has his own web site, hometown.aol.com/millertale/timmiller.html
his blog is at timmillerperformer.blogspot.com
An interview with Tim Miller is available
on the Lit show web site, visit www.wnur.org/lit/shows.Winter/2006/timmiller.php
There is a review of 1001 Beds on
www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/7878
For more information in addition to this press kit contact our
publicity manager, phone: (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu
[Return
to the book page for 1001 Beds]
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Cover image:
This cover image can be downloaded
and used in any web-based publicity for this book. For
a 300 dpi version, click here.
Author Photo
This image can be downloaded
and used in any web-based publicity for this book. For
a 300 dpi version, click here.
Photo courtesy Thomas Strand.
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