Short Reviews
Reviews of Inseparable, The Paris Letters of Thomas Eakins, Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile: A Mystery, A Trace of Smoke, and Pacific Agony.
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On Broadway
ONE THING that becomes entirely clear as you read Herbert Keyser’s latest book, Geniuses of the American Musical Theatre: The Composers and Lyricists, is that the author is a font of knowledge about song on stage. As his bio tells us, the book is based on the lectures Keyser delivers to passengers on cruise ships. Even if the author is conspicuously heterosexual (his bio lists a loving wife, six children, and ten grandchildren), there’s something innately gay about a book on the topic of musical theatre.
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Howl, the Film, Makes the Sundance Scene
THE ECONOMY wavered back and forth and the nation’s most important film festival marched into the new decade with a bang. Set against the unexpected largest snowfall in years, the Sundance Film Festival opened on January 21, breaking an opening night tradition by screening not one but three cinematic events. There was a shorts program and there was a screening of the documentary Resperto, a pro-soldier vehicle in the vein of The Hurt Locker. And then there was Howl.
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Midnight Love Affair
EYES WIDE OPEN is a compressed drama of forbidden same-sex love within an insular community, namely the highly regulated society of Orthodox Jewry in a tight-knit neighborhood in Jerusalem. Presented in New York at this year’s Jewish Film Festival, the film is a stark reminder that the irregular contours of gay experience are perhaps best depicted by those outside the commercial cinema who are not bound by its cosmetic imperatives.
MoreThe Hatred That Dare Not Speak Its Name
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POLITICS features a phenomenon that would have baffled Anita Bryant in 1977: the stealthy homophobe. Bryant looked voters in the eye and said that gay people were a threat to society. Right-wing political figures in the 21st century often act on the same belief but lack Bryant’s candor.
MoreTaking the State out of Marriage-for Everyone
WHEN A BRIDE and groom exchange vows in a cathedral, chapel, or temple, they receive a marriage license blessed simultaneously by their clergy and their state. But why? Other religious ceremonies aren’t wedded to civil ones. The county clerk doesn’t issue a baptism license. A priest doesn’t deliver a funeral eulogy and then sign the death certificate. Could separating religious and civil marriages solve the gay-marriage standoff?
MoreJennifer Finney Boylan’s ‘Life in Two Genders’
Boylan has been married to Deirdre Finney (or “Grace” as she’s called in She’s Not There) for 22 years. The couple has two teenage sons, Zach and Sean, who refer to Jenny not as “Mommy” or “Daddy,” but as the hybridized “Maddy.” This interview was conducted in February via e-mail (a medium that Salinger probably dreaded).
MoreIt Took a Gay Man to Camouflage the Army
THIS YEAR marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of William Pahlmann, an internationally acclaimed interior designer who beautified numerous public and private spaces and made a uniquely gay contribution to the U.S. war effort in World War II.
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Letters from our readers
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The Making of a Magazine
Gay history is still being told, and Thompson’s conversational, short volume Advocate Days & Other Stories adds significant information to what we know. Despite the fact that there are some tough truths in this book and that it covers some dark times …
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