Names and faces

A collection of John Lennon’s drawings and manuscripts is going up for auction. The “You Might Well Arsk” sale of the late Beatles singer’s material is to take place June 4 in New York, Sotheby’s said. The items are being put up for sale by Tom Maschler, who had worked with Lennon on In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. Lennon wrote the books and created the drawings for them in the 1960s. Among the items in the auction is a manuscript from 1965 called “The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield,” which is expected to sell for $40,000 to $60,000. Another is an illustration of a guitar player with four eyes, which Lennon created in 1964 or 1965. It has a pre-sale estimate of $15,000 to $25,000. The auction comes in a high-profile year for Beatles nostalgia. Fifty years ago, in February 1964, the Beatles made their first U.S. concert appearance. A piece of the stage backdrop will be up for auction April 26 in New York City. Lennon was fatally shot in 1980 by Mark David Chapman, who has been denied parole seven times.

Laura Jane Grace, who came out as transgender two years ago, says she’s able to sing in a new, liberated voice on her band’s latest album because she’s no longer hiding. Grace, 33, was born Tom Gabel and has performed as the lead singer of the Florida-based punk rock band Against Me! since 1997. “This isn’t the first time on an Against Me! record that I’ve written songs dealing with those feelings, but it’s the first time that I think I’m able to be interpreted correctly or being able to be taken from the correct perspective,” Grace said in a recent interview. “So there was a lack of frustration going into this record that’s a really good feeling.” The band’s sixth album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, is a concept record about a transgender prostitute. The album marked a chart high for Against Me! when it reached No. 23 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in late January. “It’s pretty self-explanatory,” Grace said of the album’s title. “I’m a person who’s going through gender transition, and a lot of the record was written leading up to the decision to embrace that and to go public with that - in my private life and in my public life.” The band is on an international tour that wraps up June 19 in Vitoria, Spain. Band member Atom Willard said Grace’s honesty made the group stronger.