March-April 2024
Miller’s text engages a fair amount of philosophical rumination, but pertinent to the visual examples under review. Her descriptions are usually quite on the mark, and her analyses, however speculative at times, never seem to emerge from left field. Body Language is an absorbing book for those who take photography and queer representation seriously.
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Reviews of About Ed by Robert Glück, The Distance Between Us by A. C. Burch, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World by Sean Hewitt and Luke Edward Hall, The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz, Mourning Light by Richard Goodkin, and Queer Networks: Ray Johnson’s Correspondence Art by Miriam Kienle.
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As with most experimental novels, the form becomes more accessible over time. The learning curve is all about distinguishing song lyrics from characters’ thoughts and actions while keeping a close eye on the time—in the evening, but also in longer cycles, as flashbacks are used throughout to reveal the story behind characters’ relationships. Levene handles the large cast of characters well, highlighting their separate connections to lesbianism, anarchy, and masculinity. Without shying away from the ways political and racial privilege impact identity within queer spaces, Greasepaint explores the timeless possibilities of butch identity and anarchism, a volatile and symbiotic relationship.
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BE NOT AFRAID of My Body is a poetic recounting of a gay Black man’s life. In beautifully moving language, poet Darius Stewart explores his race, sexuality, class, and addictions, revealing both his gift for self-reflection and his penchant for self-destructive behavior.
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The Bars Are Ours is a remarkable achievement and essential reading for any serious student of contemporary queer history.
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PHOTOGRAPHER Amos Badert-scher (1936–2023) captured the queer landscape of Baltimore from Eastern Avenue near Patterson Park, along Wilkens Avenue, and the Meat Rack on Park Avenue in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. His monograph Baltimore Portraits came out in 1999, and the recent exhibition Lost Boys: Amos Badertscher’s Baltimore in the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, was the artist’s posthumous, first career retrospective.
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“IF YOU’RE NOT CAREFUL, you’re going to die a lonely old queen.” That’s a harsh caveat, especially when spoken by one’s wife. In Maestro, directed, cowritten (with Josh Singer), and produced by Bradley Cooper, those lines are delivered by Carrie Mulligan playing actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn, also known as Mrs. Bernstein. Cooper also plays the part of Leonard Bernstein, but his performance takes a back seat to Mulligan’s. An Oscar for Best Actress is widely discussed.
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In 1987, Revolting Lesbians published “Political Women Prisoners in the U.S.,” a broad primer on women incarcerated for a wide swath of political actions.
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WHILE the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion in New York’s Greenwich Village is generally considered the spark that ignited the gay liberation movement in the U.S., San Francisco was the true epicenter of gay life for much of the previous century, as demonstrated by the following chronology of quick takes that briefly highlight some of the pioneering individuals, organizations, publications, and events that took place in San Francisco.
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Yone Noguchi, this handsome Japanese poet from California, might possibly be the New Kid, someone who was young, racially
exotic, and very talented.
