1001 Beds: Performances, Essays, and Travels

by Tim Miller, Glen Johnson (Editor)

"If I continue to tour for another twenty years, as I have for the last twenty-one, I will end up sleeping in at least 1000 hotel beds in my lifetime. For maximum poetic oomph, let's say 1001 beds. . . . They symbolize a life and art dedicated to reaching out toward folks from Bozeman to Tampa. A life and art that has traveled widely and, I believe, reached a couple hundred thousand people with my stories of queer life and love."
—Tim Miller

For a quarter century, Tim Miller has worked at the intersection of performance, politics, and identity, using his personal experiences to create entertaining but pointed explorations of life as a gay American man–from the perils and joys of sex and relationships to the struggles of political disenfranchisement and artistic censorship. This intimate autobiographical collage of Miller's professional and personal life reveals one of the celebrated creators of a crucial contemporary art form and a tireless advocate for the American dream of political equality for all citizens.

Here we have the most complete Miller yet–a raucous collection of his performance scripts, essays, interviews, journal entries, and photographs, as well as his most recent stage piece Us. This volume brings together the personal, communal, and national political strands that interweave through his work from its beginnings and ultimately define Miller's place as a contemporary artist, activist, and gay man.

Genres: Drama

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 9, 2006

About the author

Tim Miller is an internationally acclaimed performance artist. He is author of three books.

Reviews

[Chris]

Miller isn't the most intellectual or technically skilled writer, and makes no pretension of being so, but these collected pieces are imbued with such an honesty and such a desire to share something very deep about his experience that you can't but be moved. The writings are performative in the sense that you can feel his whole body in them, the same way that in his performances you can feel his whole voice. It's an uneven collection, but it's wonderful as a full view of an artist's process, rather than just a coherent, polished final product. I am still kicking myself for spilling coffee on my copy of this book, because I so treasure the inscription he wrote when I got him to sign it: "Chris! Tell your stories! XO Tim."

[John Ortega · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim offers so much worldly experience in 1001 Beds. Nothing but a good read, through and through.