WEDNESDAY

Pop quiz for budding gender theorists: what is the ultimate example of straight American culture’s tendency to reimagine male homosexuals as oh-so-glamorous brothers from another planet? Was it Anthony Daniels’ unquestionably fruity portrayal of the loveable C-3PO in the much-ballyhooed Star Wars trilogy? Could it be Ray Walston’s nancy-boyish smirk and ambiguous relationship with a handsome earthling in those dusty episodes of My Favorite Martian? Or maybe the wholesale gender confusion of the entire cast of 3rd Rock from the Sun, featuring John Lithgow as the queenish patriarch/matriarch of a gay cluster of aliens (including that sexy preteen what’s-his-name jailbait with the lovely girlish locks)? Alvin Orloff, co-author of The Unsinkable Bambi Lake—and big-time San Francisco queer—extends the homo/alien archetype a step further, to the usually straight-dude-dominated science-fiction universe, with I Married an Earthling, a tiresomely zany and/or wickedly clever first novel. Within, Earth Studies professor and irony-worshiper Norvex 7 from the Planet Zeeron travels with high-profile hairdresser Veeba 22 to our humble sphere. Their missions: To investigate large hairdos, watch John Waters movies, and fall in love with a fat, gay, Goth teenager named Chester. Dorky homophobe Trekkies beware: this guy’s doing for sci-fi what J. Edgar Hoover did for the FBI. Orloff reads at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 20, at the Metro Cafe, 1522 14th St. NW. $5. (202) 588-9118. (Justin Moyer)