Death Letters
No time for visits or pleasantries with friends. Not meaning to be rude, I am all in my head and heart, completely consumed, driven to record as much as I can before you fade from me. I know this behavior is futile. You are gone and my efforts will not bring you back but somehow...
Birthday Suits
Sometimes a demurral speaks volumes, as I discovered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this weekend. Me and my spouse dropped in to catch Naked Before the Camera, a pocket-sized exhibition of photographic nudes culled from the Met’s own holdings. The show is smart and informative, combining names from the arts canon (Eakins,...
But how will it play in the South?
Finally he’s off the fence. Obama endorses same-sex marriage–thousands cheer…history is made…and the hand-wringing (over his re-election prospects, and whether this constitutes a genuine sea change for gay rights in America) begins…
The Friends of Frank
On recent sleepless nights I’ve been haunted by an image of a person I’ve come to know well. The man has the face of a pugilist; tall and long-limbed, he stands with his hands behind his head wearing nothing but a pair of boots and a taunting, defiant stare. This portrait of Frank O’Hara, by...
Too much to see dept…
From Gayletter: Above: Charles Demuth (American, 1883–1935). Dancing Sailors, 1917 Slideshow: Keith Haring (American, 1958–1990). Unfinished Painting, 1989.
Ken Russell, Film Director 1927-2011
The Music Lovers. Women in Love. The Devils. The Boyfriend. Tommy. Altered States. Could anyone combine the prurient and the literary, the highbrow and low rent more effectively than Ken Russell? His best films actually look better now than when they were made; the worst (Lizstomania, Gothic, The Lair of the White Worm) remain loopy...
Of Reliquaries and Retrospects
The mournful qualities of fall—all those dying leaves whose color mimics that of dried blood—complement the inaugural season at New York LiveArts, the still-young merger between Dance Theater Workshop and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Dance Company. With evergreen works by Jones and John Kelly being remounted, how intriguing that so far the theater unfolding in the...
Suffering indignities in order to simply be
Here’s an interesting bit from Chapter 11 of The Gay and Lesbian Almanac: …in 1962, the president of the District of Columbia’s Mattachine Society, Dr. Franklin Kameny, appeared on local television for 90 seconds to talk about his organization. Such appearance was so rare and daring that the interview was preceded by a five-minute apology...
Another Page
Live from New York: this morning as a family of starlings chirped me into cognizance, I thought, the past is present again. Funny—it remembered the first day of my Woodstock residency almost a month ago, less evocative of home than a clue to the sheer volume and diversity of bird stock in that neck of...
Double Minority
Following Rick Welts, CNN Anchor Don Lemon comes out as a gay man. See this Towleroad link and the NYT coverage where he discusses the intricacies of being black and gay, frank talk we don’t hear as often as we should. Bravo, Mr. Lemon…
