Defend Your Taste: Liz Mason from Quimby's

Welcome to Defend Your Taste, wherein Chicago's cultural curators go to bat for the art they love—no staff pick shelf is safe. The A.V. Club kicks things off by chatting with Liz Mason, manager of Wicker Park bookstore stalwart Quimby's, about her choice in fetish literature—nothing new for Quimby's.

The book, Roy Orbison In Clingfilm, by Ulrich Haarburste, is exactly what it sounds like. It's a fetish book about wrapping Roy Orbison in clingfilm.

The A.V. Club: Seriously? Roy Orbison in plastic wrap?
Liz Mason: It’s entirely serious, not ironic in any way. It’s written by a guy named Ulrich, who occasionally we have humorous correspondence with. I want to say that he’s German, but I’m not 100 percent sure. It’s got a very unassuming look to the cover, just a white cover with black typewriter font on it.
AVC: What is it about the book itself that appeals to you?
LM: It’s just so weird, you know? There’s a lot of fan-fiction, but you don’t usually hear about fans coming up with as weird as a fetish topic as this—especially about, of all people, Roy Orbison. I don’t think of him as being particularly attractive in a physical way, or a celebrity with a lot of pull. He’s a fine musician or whatever, if that’s your style of music.
AVC: What kinds of fetish books do make you feel uncomfortable?
LM: We’ve never had anything that I feel uncomfortable about selling, and we’ve had some pretty far-out stuff. I live kind of in a bubble, working here. I’m surrounded by a lot of the stuff that people think is weird all day, in terms of the stuff that we sell. But, to me it’s normal, so when I go outside the realm of work, everything that’s normal to everybody else seems weird to me. We have all these Triple X comics, like Bondage Fairies, Housewives That Play, Rear Entry, Bizarre Bondage. [Laughs.] Or—we have a whole shelf devoted to weird outer-limits mayhem art and satanic literature. [Laughs.] To me, it’s totally not shocking because I’m around it all day and I just equate it more with, like, "Well I know that I get that from this particular distributor"—it’s all sort of paper-worky for me. I guess I draw the line at… rape? Or like, anything about child porn—we wouldn’t carry any of that. That stuff’s illegal, you know what I mean? [Laughs nervously.]



AVC: Have you read this book?
LM: No—well, not the entirety of it. I have read selections of it, although my co-worker Brian, who usually has correspondence with Ulrich, the guy who wrote it—I think he’s read the entirety.
AVC: How can you recommend something you haven't fully read?
LM: I’ve read enough snippets to know that I’d like to read it. But, you have to understand—my reading list is humongous. I couldn’t have possibly read everything that’s in the store.
AVC: Is it easier to recommend a book like this, with a title so on-the-nose and strange?
LM: Sure, I guess I never thought of it that way, but that sounds like a thought process that could probably go on in my brain. [Laughs.] But I also get excited when I find something weird like that. I love it! You know? It’s so bizarre. One of the M.O.s of the original owner of the store was to sell stuff that you can’t find elsewhere.
AVC: Are you more likely to recommend something that's weird?
LM: Well, not everything that’s weird is compelling. I’m not particular about whether it’s something totally weird or—let me rephrase that—I’m not particular about whether something is small press or if it’s a major press. I read lots of different stuff. Sometimes I read things that we wouldn’t even sell in the store.
AVC: What makes Roy Orbison In Clingfilm compelling and weird?
LM: That’s kind of hard to put into words, I guess, because compelling is such an umbrella word. You know? I guess it's funny little details about it, like… let me read you a passage: “The chief villain is whistling a cheerful if nasty tune, and looks pleased with himself, as well he might, for he is carrying the mysterious briefcase he must have burglared from Roy’s house.” Like, he’s immersed this random celebrity in this very detailed world and just that he uses so many adjectives and that he’s so emphatic about having the reader suspend their disbelief. It’s like a really bizarre assumption that someone’s going to read this and find it innocent and naïve—and free of any sexual undertones.

Bonus: Play the Choose Your Own Adventure-style game from the author.