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History – Ennis Smith

History

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AIDS, Deep Songs, Gay, History, My back pages

Dread aught

December 1, 2019

A few nights ago at dinner out with new friends, our getting-to-know-each-other small talk circled around to coming out to our families. Our stories all had variants, but one thing seemed universal: how the presence of AIDS smoked the edges of each instance. Mine came at the end of a most challenging year, one spent…

History, Politics, Religion, Theater

Secrets and Lies in Old Salem

July 10, 2016

Contrary to what the cynics among us might think, revivals of plays and musicals exist not only to bring in theatergoers desperate for the tried and true. Successful ones rely on a confluence of factors: a director (Ivo van Hove, who, evidenced by this current theater season, should now be allowed to direct everything—everyone else,…

Criticals, Film, Gay, History, Short Cuts, Theater

Oscar Bait!

January 2, 2015

It isn’t true for every child that grows up in a large family, but it was true for me: I wanted to be seen. There I was, a middle child (one of ten) convinced of his invisibility, and fighting like hell to rectify the injustice. From where I sat, recognition came either by way of…

Architecture, Current Affairs, Gay, History, Politics, Television, Theater

Scene of the Crime

June 7, 2014

It looks like a hole in the world. Among many other thoughts, that’s what struck me when I finally got a chance to see the 9/11 Memorial Plaza few weeks back. Symbols exist for a reason, and the architects of our country’s newest grief repository have hit on just the right one; it’s hard not…

Current Affairs, Film, History, Music, New York, Race, Theater

Vampire Elegies, 50s Negroes and White Folks With Guitars

April 15, 2014

On screen, onstage, in concert: here’s some stuff I got to see last week. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, director). What could be more modern? Two lovers live on opposite sides of the continent; when Adam (Tom Hiddleston), a legendary rock star recluse holed up in Detroit, becomes suicidal, his lady, Eve (the tres elegant…

Current Affairs, Gay, History, Science

Today is World AIDS Days

December 1, 2013

Because it’s not over yet. Right?

Current Affairs, Gay, History, Museums/Galleries, Theater

Blood Count

July 1, 2013

To draw comparisons between the current Broadway production of Macbeth and the New York Historical Society’s just opened exhibition AIDS in New York: The First Five Years seems a reach. Yet after seeing both in the same week, my thoughts drift to issues of mortality, not to mention body counts. Anyone who lived in New…

Film, Gay, History, Music, Vespers

Death Letters

April 10, 2013

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…

Current Affairs, History, My back pages, New York, Vespers

Random Thoughts on Mortality

February 3, 2013

1) Woke up from a dream involving my ex. I and some friends and strangers found him sprawled on a divan in what seemed an abandoned office building. Like a pieta he was sprawled, and looked the way he had at the end of his life—thin, riddled with Karposi’s sarcoma, listless. 2) No surprise, but…

Current Affairs, History, Literature, Politics, Race

Richard’s Blanco’s One Day

January 21, 2013

Nothing like an inauguration and a pop of poetry to inspire one’s day. Happy MLK Day to all. “One Today” One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies. One…