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Swish

Page 24

by Joel Derfner


  *2This is a lie. Typos are a sign of a deeply flawed character. But I was deceiving myself too.

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  *3 I recently started studying Middle Egyptian in earnest, and it is now clear to me that the reason the extraordinary-Drip-ad guy never responded to my ad was that the Middle Egyptian was complete gibberish. Here is what I should have written: (Loosely translated, “a man beautiful of form, excellent of mind, effective at causing laughter, who came forth from the womb open-hearted to the suffering and afflicted, and who is master of the secrets of jubilation.” After last week’s homework I can also add “who knows how to reattach a severed head” but I worry about limiting the applicant pool. I still can’t say “and a top,” but I’m only on Lesson 14, so the relevant vocabulary may be coming up.

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  †4 I am including this pair of blog posts and the previous footnote only so as to be able to drop casually the fact that I know Middle Egyptian. Please love me?

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  *5 Extraordinary-Drip-Ad Guy, I’ve corrected my Egyptian mistake. Why haven’t you called yet? That’s okay, e-mail is better, anyway. My computer is set to check it every minute, so when you get in touch I’ll be able to write back immediately.

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  *6 http://www.joelderfner.com/music/files/I_Don’t_Know.mp3

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  *7 http://www.joelderfner.com/music/files/Good.mp3

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  PUBLISHED BY BROADWAY BOOKS

  Copyright © 2008 by Joel Derfner

  All Rights Reserved

  Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.broadwaybooks.com

  BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the following for the right to reprint material in this book:

  Petr Ginz (1928–1944)

  Moon Landscape, 1942–1944

  Pencil on paper

  Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

  Gift of Otto Ginz, Haifa

  “Without You”

  Written by Peter Ham and Tom Evans

  ©1970, 1999 (renewed) BUGHOUSE (ASCAP) O/B/O/ BUG MUSIC LTD (PRS)

  All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Derfner, Joel.

  Swish: my quest to become the gayest person ever / by Joel Derfner.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Derfner, Joel. 2. Gay men—United States—Biography.3. Gay men—United States—Psychology. I. Title.

  HQ75.8.D46A3 2008

  306.76'62092—dc22

  [B]

  2007049906

  eISBN: 978-0-7679-3002-4

  v3.0

 

 

 


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