BTW
Takes on news of the day.
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The Novel de Beauvoir Didn’t Publish in 1954
Inseparable is a bildungsroman that documented the emotional, physical, and sexual awakenings of its protagonist. It is, in fact, a fictionalized account of de Beauvoir’s unrequited love for her friend Elisabeth Lacoin (aka “Zaza”). In the novella, Zaza is known as Andrée and Simone is called Sylvie.
MoreBrian Broome: Writing at Busy Intersections
Richard Berrong interviews the author of Punch Me Up to the Gods, Brian Broome.
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Musical Theater Lives (in Film)!
The structure of Miranda’s film is ingenious, working on a kind of “meta meta” level. Larson’s musical tick, tick…BOOM! was itself a one-man-show about the creation of the musical Superbia, focusing on those crazy days before the big workshop and (spoiler alert) the failure of any producer to come forward.
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Frida and Vita: A Tale of Two Gardens
Kahlo at La Casa Azul and Sackville-West at Sissinghurst truly became artist-gardeners in a bewitching combination of wildness and restraint, all passion spent on their astonishing and memorable visual spaces. Their gardens have inspired my own. During the pandemic, my love of gardening has flourished, giving me so much comfort, purpose, and joy, as Kahlo and Sackville-West surely found in theirs.
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Prying Open the Museum Closet
There is a painting by the Dutch master Frans Hals with the rather misleading title Merrymakers at Shrovetide (1616–17). Shrovetide? Well, if you notice the orange beads around the neck and wrists of the “maiden” at its center you can easily tell what holiday this group of merrymakers is celebrating. Today we call it Mardi Gras. Just think how much more approachable the painting would be if it were titled “Mardi Gras Party.”
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Artists Bathing the Gay Away
Days before the unveiling of his history-changing sculpture of David (1504), the 29-year-old Michelangelo was chosen to paint an image of The Battle of Cascina on a wall of the Palazzo de la Signoria in Florence. This battle was fought between Florence and Pisa on a scorching July day in 1364.
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How We Joined the Sexual Revolution
JEFFREY ESCOFFIER [who is interviewed in this issue] is one of the founders of LGBT studies and an early promoter of lesbian and gay writers. His career has spanned diverse fields, from his graduate work in economics in the 1970s when he also became active in gay academics and politics.
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Society’s Survivor
IN JANUARY, singer-songwriter Janis Ian releases what she calls her “swan song” album, The Light at the End of the Line (Rude Girl Records). With nine Grammy nominations and two wins, the singer at age seventy has nothing left to prove, but she delivers an astoundingly resonant collection, her first full album in fifteen years.
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Forsterama
A LOVE TRIANGLE involving a policeman, his male lover, and the lover’s wife is the subject of Bethan Roberts’ new novel My Policeman. Set in 1950s England, the story was inspired by novelist E. M. Forster’s long-term relationship with policeman Bob Buckingham and his wife May. The novel is currently being made into a major motion picture for release in 2022 starring actor and singer Harry Styles (Dunkirk), actress Emma Corrin (The Crown), and British actor David Dawson.
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