No Rose Without a Thorn Book Review
A Little Life deserves a mention in any anthology of gay literature, at the very least, for its unconventional treatment of gay identity.
The Arc of Activism Book Review, Politics: GLBT Rights
The lesson of And Then I Danced is that we need more of the radical, outsider, challenge-the-system activism that once animated Segal but now seems lost to him in an excess of self-satisfaction.
Selective Reading of a Complex Era Book Review, Politics: GLBT Rights
THE PERIOD loosely called “gay liberation” is invariably thought of as falling somewhere between the buttoned-up climate of the 1950s and the emergence of AIDS in the ’80s, but for Jim Downs and many others, it ultimately comes down to the ’70s.
Finding Love in Old Persia Book Review, Poetry
While A Poet of the Invisible World is not a nonfiction biography of Rumi, and anyone expecting that will be disappointed, it seems a safe bet that Michael Golding drew on the poet’s life as inspiration for this novel.
The Religion of Art Book Review, Essays
If both Proust and Scott Moncrieff believed in the divinity of art, the latter was a Scottish Presbyterian who converted to Catholicism after walking into the cathedral of Rouen in the middle of World War I.
What Ever Became of Lesley Gore? Book Review, Music
Personally, as Tolliver writes, while she sang about young love and boys, Gore knew as a teen that she was a lesbian. She didn’t dare to come out to her family, much less to her fans ...
Transitioning in the Real World Book Review, Memoir, Transgender
JULIET JACQUES’S Trans: A Memoir begins where most transition stories do—on the eve of her sexual reassignment surgery, the supposed start of a new life and the denouement to a journey from male to female.
When Warhol Came to Look for America Art, Book Review
Deborah Davis suggests in The Trip that this experience—with its roadside motels, silver diner meals, brightly colored billboards, and neon lights, all bathed in an Americana patina of mid-century kitsch—would prove a turning point for Warhol and Pop Art.
In the Age of the Gay Memoir Book Review, Essays, Memoir
AN HOUR BEFORE I was due there, I was surprised to read on my calendar that I was part of a reading group at the Huntington Library in San Marino, part of the hundredth birthday celebration of the writer Christopher Isherwood, born in 1904. I’d totally forgotten. His widower, Don Bachardy, had asked meMore
She Who Held the Camera Art, Book Review
The images in Polaroids represent a variety of famous names, some immediately recognizable, such as Patti Smith, a beautifully bejeweled Paloma Picasso, and Diana Vreeland.
A Philosopher’s Double Life Book Review
Many of his contemporaries have remarked upon Foucault’s “double life,” and it is this sense of inherent contradiction that forms the theme of François Caillat’s Foucault Against Himself, a collection of interviews with four people who knew and worked with Foucault ...
Scenes from a Modern Marriage Reviews, Theatre
Dada Woof Papa Hot A play by Peter Parnell Directed by Scott Ellis At the Lincoln Center Theater IN OUR AGE of same-sex marriage and parenting, a play titled Dada Woof Papa Hot seems sure to tap into the GLBT zeitgeist. Playwright Peter Parnell, as if to pick up where Terrence McNally leftMore
Just One Look Film, Lesbians, Reviews
The first image in Carol is that of a subway grate. Seen up close, it resembles both a baroque tapestry and the gilded bars of a birdcage. What follows is every bit as visually stimulating, and, with compelling performances to complement cinematographer Edward Lachman’s gorgeous camerawork and Haynes’ exacting directorial style ...
Short Reviews Briefs, Film
Reviews of the books: More Than We Know and Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin, and the movie Spotlight.
BTW BTW
Demonic Circle It was announced that a right-wing church called Open Door Baptist Church of Easley, SC, forgot to renew the name of their popular website, WarningsOfWrath.com, and the domain name was promptly bought by a gay rights activist who redirected the URL to “scaryfuckers.com”—a gay porn site that may be shocking even toMore
Readers’ Thoughts Correspondence
More Appreciation for John Money To the Editor: Thanks to Vernon Rosario for his thoughtful appreciation of pioneering sexologist John Money (“How ‘Sex’ Undid John Money,” GLR, January-February 2016). In 1980 I spent a weekend with Money at his African-art-filled home in Baltimore, not far from his base at Johns Hopkins, to interview himMore
Modeling to Survive in 1955 Essays
MY LIFE TRAJECTORY took an unexpected tum one sunny October day in 1955 as I was crossing the street at Lexington Avenue and 48th Street in New York. I was taking classes during the day at Columbia University under the GI Bill after four years in the Air Force, and working five nights aMore
In Search of the Spirit of Mu Xin Essays, Poetry
In the spring of last year, the Asia Society in New York hosted the premiere of a film about Mu Xin’s life, made by documentary filmmakers Francisco Bello and Tim Sternberg and titled Dreaming Against the World. Joanne Wang was associate producer for the film, and at her invitation I attended the New York premiere.More
To Be, or Not to Be, in Bhutan Essays, International
ON MY FIRST VISIT to Bhutan in 2007, one of the participants on our trip asked our guide Dorji about gay people in Bhutan. Dorji’s straight-faced reply was “I don’t think we have gay people in Bhutan.” Our driver, Karma, smirked at this comment, saying that he thought otherwise. But it was commonMore
MARGARET ATWOOD said in a 1995 lecture: “If you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography—but if you write your biography, it is equally assumed you’re lying your head off.” At the risk of being accused of one or the other, I wrote twoMore
How David Bowie Bent My Gender Guest Opinion, Music
I AWOKE one morning in January to a message from my friend Roy in England that just said, “Sad day for music.” A sense of dread welled up. I know that I am likely to witness the passing of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Patti Smith. What will the world be like without them?More
The Wisdom of Extraordinary Hearts Guest Opinion
COLUMNIST Nicholas Benton has something potentially life-saving to tell us about the continued viability of gay liberation during these frightening times. In his 2013 collection of short essays, Extraordinary Hearts: Reclaiming Gay Sensibility’s Central Role in the Progress of Civilization (Lethe Press), he articulates how the cosmic spark that set off the historic “eruption”More
After submitting the final draft of the memoir to his publisher, Sacks learned that he had metastatic cancer, and that it was terminal. He then focused on a series of discursive essays reflecting upon the imminence of his death. These have now been posthumously published as Gratitude, in the manner of a spare, graceful codaMore