WITH A WINK to Oscar Wilde, R. Tripp Evans’ The Importance of Being Furnished celebrates four influential Americans—Charles Leonard Pendleton (1846–1904), Ogden Codman Jr. (1863–1951), Charles Hammond Gibson Jr. (1874–1954), and Henry Davis Sleeper (1878–1934)—whose imaginative houses, now public museums, marked a pivotal shift toward personal expression in home design.
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KNOWN for her large-scale collage portraits of Black women, the critically acclaimed artist Mickalene Thomas was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1971. Introduced to art as a child by her mother, fashion model Sandra Bush, she earned her BFA from New York’s Pratt Institute and her MFA from the Yale School of Art. She has accepted various artist residences and received numerous prizes. She now lives and works in Brooklyn with her partner and frequent model Racquel Chevremont.
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TRANS HIRSTORY in 99 Objects has been my most popular coffee table book this summer. It has beautiful typography and color plates. It has the heft of art books by Taschen, but it’s published by another German art publisher, Hirmer Verlag, in conjunction with the Museum of Trans Hirtory and Art (motha). And it’s the catalog for an exhibition that has yet to happen!
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Short reviews of BLOOD LOSS: A Love Story of AIDS, Activism, and Art by Keiko Lane and LONG LIVE QUEER NIGHTLIFE: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution by Amin Ghazian.
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McKinney does an admirable job of reframing much of the scandal and paying homage to the genius of Pee-wee Herman. The book celebrates that such a singular, queer, and transgressive character ever existed, and the author’s sadness at Reubens’ passing is palpable. It’s a fitting tribute, one that Reubens richly deserves.
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Written for lay readers, Straight Acting discusses complex issues in a readable style and includes an extensive bibliographical essay and footnotes. Each chapter begins with a fictional scene from a particular period in Shakespeare’s life.
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The gay community is quite right to claim Baldwin with pride, as we’d be hard-pressed to find a better symbol for our own stubborn unwillingness to be forgotten.
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ALLEN BRATTON is an American writer whose first novel, Henry Henry, transfers Shakespeare’s “Prince Hal” (Henry V, 1386–1422) to the year 2014, when old Catholic families and a hereditary upper class still exist in England, but theology and rank seem increasingly irrelevant to the issues of the day.
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The Gay Imagination is a collection of pieces about poetry and music, areas in which the author proves to be a sharp and knowledgeable writer. [Contreras] applies a keen intelligence and a cultivated taste that reveal an impressive familiarity with a wide range of poetry.
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Mama provides an unflinching look at the difficult circumstance of a Black family in struggle and of a young woman’s efforts to care for her half-brother in the midst of it all.
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