Customer Reviews

Shirts & Skin

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I read every single word in this book. I suppose the first and obvious thing to say is that as with Tim Miller 'the performance artist' with Tim Miller 'the writer' there is the same integrity and raw honesty. There are times you squirm, and there are times you smile...

Someone once said "if something is human it is mentionable, and if it is mentionable it is manageable." Here we see Miller warts and all. He acknowledges how open relationships can cost you a loss of intimacy with your primary partner. Above all we experience his fearlessness which many of us have experienced when seeing him perform on stage, even when it leads to his near-capture by the Moonies.

Tim Miller's delight in life and the experiences it offers made this a book I took around with me for several days until I had read every last word.. Enjoy!

This is the complete TIM MILLER, in the sense we see a full his-story of the texts which his performance works are based on. Miller is known as the New York City Gay spoken word artist/ NEA-4 artist-funding controversy that sparked a generation of avant-garde identity-politics performance art movement. Shirts and Skin is Tim's "Greatest Hits", which includes most of Miller's publicy/performance photos from the past 20 years of performance art. Its good reading, its energetic, melodic writing might just spark another revolution of gay male identity, or at least reading this book gives you a sense history surrounding gay politics of the 1980 and mid 90's. Some may find it gratuitous for Mister Miller to be doing a retrospective-like book at such a young age (he just turned 40). By putting his best works in a single text, Miller puts forth inadvertently a very nice retrospective of his life. Buy this book not because Christian hate-mongers don't want you to read it, buy it beacuse its a inspiring journal of the life of a truly remarkable white gay man from southern california. Beacause gentle words of love and passion can change minds, moods and stimulate the consciousness of a whole nation.

I flew through this book. It was everything you would ever want it to be (you'll laugh, you'll cry, it's better than "Cats"). But, more than just being being entertaining, Miller forces queer men to examine their lives and our struggle. While laughing and crying (and fantasizing about the author) I really started to reexamine my queer politics, finding myself at a very different place than where I began. I am thankful for this opportunity to expand my thinking, and I hope everyone will read this book and begin challenging themselves in the same way I did.

Tim Miller's Shirts and Skin is a very sexy and funny romp through a bright and charming gay man's life in the twentieth century. This book paints a touching and meaningful portrait of his life as an artist, activist, and gay man. Essential reading, not just for gay men, but for everybody!

Tim Miller, one-time artistic nemesis of Jesse Helms and other conservative senators out to purge the National Endowment for the Arts of "objectionable" grant recipients, misses a real opportunity in "Shirts & Skin." A collection of essays and remembrances in rough chronological order, the book is intended to act as an artistic and personal memoir. What it winds up being is a journey towards Miller's realization that having two boyfriends is fun. He almost never discusses his work, and then only in extremely vague and short detail. But the minutiae of his open relationship(s), unfortunately, takes up great areas of space. At the end of the book, one wonders why Helms and Co. objected to Miller: he seems boring, rather than subversize. Truly a missed opportunity for author and reader.

Too bad Mr. Miller does not recognize the difference between performance art and biography. If he had, we might have been offered some insights into the meaning of his work as a performance artist, or the importance of art done by and for gay people. Instead, we are treated to breezy passages about Mr. Miller's sex life. If he could get beyond the 'gee whiz, this feels great' stage, there might be some erotic charge, but alas, no such luck.