Batmanlust

March 20, 2019

Made in Oregon Catwoman Lust (Part 3)

A few months after renewing my hand-held crush on Julie Newmar, I published my View-Master fantasy in print and online. A few months later, I opened my email account on a rainy morning and discovered a letter with no subject line from an unfamiliar sender. Spam, I thought, but I read it anyway.

Dear Matt Love:

Thank you for the lovely things you said about me. I am producing a book titled “First Fantasy.” I would like you to contribute, if the mood inspires you. Although I am discouraging people from writing about me, in your case, you could write about anyone you like. As a matter of fact, there should be one or two stories about me in the book, so you do have that license. I love writers and enjoy your column so much.

Julie Newmar

You haven’t lived until you’ve received an email from Julie Newmar. I wrote back in seconds. She responded.

Dear Matt,

Yes it was the View-Master piece. It is so vivid. The stories that will be in the book are mostly one page, though there are no limits.

Julie Newmar

I wrote back in seconds. She responded.

Dear Matt,

I found the View-Master piece because of Google Alerts. I look forward to the new piece you have written. I’ve always wanted to visit Portland, originally for the roses. I have a book on roses that I’m working on and a rose named after me. When will you be in Los Angeles? My number is 310-***-***. I’m here most of the summer.

Julie Newmar

I had Julie Newmar’s phone number! I submitted the essay but never heard of its editorial fate. A recent check of Newmar’s web site, where she writes wonderfully on a whole range of subjects, including #Metoo, revealed the project was apparently shelved. What a blow!

I should have flown to Los Angeles and seen her. I would have brought my View-Master and reels with me. I would have watched them with Julie watching me watch her as Catwoman.

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The Old Crow

Book Club

$11.99 + $3 Shipping

In December of 2020, author Matt Love moved to Portland to care for his elderly father.

Returning to the Rose City jolted Love after 23 years residing on the Oregon Coast. In the Sellwood neighborhood where he lived, Love met a homeless man named Mark. They formed a friendship over literature and the unforeseen magical discoveries in street libraries. They created The Old Crow Book Club, and yes, sometimes that involved drinking Old Crow on a sidewalk.

The club also included several other Sellwood homeless men and women cut from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row cloth.

In due course, Love learned the members' stories of homelessness and how they survived. He wondered what happened to his beloved state of Oregon and attempted to help Mark get off the streets only to run up against the seemingly futile policies to address the crisis.

Along the way, he had the best conversations about books in his life and wrote The Old Crow Book Club, where he recounts his interactions with the homeless people in his neighborhood and offers some suggestions how to alleviate what he considers the greatest man-made American humanitarian disaster of his adult life.

The Old Crow Book Club is available for purchase here and select independent bookstores in Oregon.

Choice Cuts

of Oregon Fiction

$22.99 + $3 Shipping

Choice Cuts of Oregon Fiction by Matt Love contains 20 stories, all set in Oregon. The cast of characters includes a depressed Santa Claus, Steve Prefontaine, Jack Ramsay's fast break offense, socialist squirrels, a clearcut, a dead deer, a junior high football team, a high school tennis player, a dissipated teacher, a man who evolves into a beaver, a homeless vet, a jilted preacher, a double date to a prom, rural degenerates, a wily caterer, and much more.

The publication of the collection culminates a quarter century of the author's writing about Oregon and rambling around the state.

Choice Cuts is available for purchase here, through Amazon, or select independent bookstores in Oregon.

The Savage

of State Street

Nestucca Spit Press is proud to present The Savage of State Street: The Thieving and Literary Lives of Smoky Epley. He is the greatest unheralded writer in Oregon history and also one of its more mediocre, colorful and persistent thieves.

$19.99 + $3 Shipping

In 1973, Oregon State University Press published Men in Exile: An Anthology of Creative Writing by Inmates of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Twenty-two of Smoky Epley's pieces appeared in the book.

Smoky spent most of his adult life in state and federal prisons for robbery. In 2008, during one of his brief stints of freedom, Smoky became friends with Matt Love, an Oregon author and publisher. They met after Love discovered Men in Exile and wrote a newspaper column about the landmark book. Smoky read the column and reached out.

He returned to prison in 2009 after forging a check. Upon his release in 2011, Love encouraged Smoky to write a memoir. He completed half of Auto before dying in February of 2013.