FORK ON THE LEFT, KNIFE IN THE BACK is Michael Musto's fourth book, a collection of his popular columns from New York-based THE VILLAGE VOICE. Musto's writing is witty and engaging and there are some real gems in here, especially the interviews and profiles with fringe celebrities like Sandra Bernhard, Crispin Glover, Kiki & Herb, Michael Lucas, Douglas Carter Beane, Sarah Silverman, Paris Hilton and others of such ilk. He covers NYC nightlife from the late 80s (most impressively in a 1987 essay on the death of the downtown scene) to the infamous Michael Alig years. Some of the pieces seem a bit dated, with references to Ellen's coming out, Lindsay Lohan and the let's-all-pile-on GIGLI. The book covers three decades and is not in order by date, but in a mishmash of chapters (i.e. "Weirdo's Are My Heroes") that playfully decodes the essays there within. When I went of to college in 1988 I subscribed to THE VILLAGE VOICE and read it religiously in the cafeteria - I'm sure I was the only person at Jacksonville State U who did this. Musto's column took me to place I couldn't imagine, which is why THE VILLAGE VOICE, along with the films of Woody Allen, are my Disney - to me they represented people and places that to me were a fantasy, a confederacy of names and streets that I would never get to see. When I make my bi-annual trips to the city now I see places represented by that time but the attitude is gone - the SLAVES OF NEW YORK, SPY magazine-era is long since over, leaving only Donald Trump, RuPaul and, well, Michael Musto standing in the post-Tawana Brawley landscape.