The Ideal, Photographed
Book review
MoreBrowsing: November-December 2009
November-December 2009
Blog Posts
Short Reviews
Reviews of the novel, Inferno Heights, by John Mitzel, and the movie, Taking Woodstock.
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The Impresario
Included [here] are numerous portraits of Diaghilev; photographs of friends, family, artists, nobility, and philanthropists; contemporary caricatures; drawings of Leon Bakst’s costumes (including his design for Nijinsky in the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, the ballet that scandalized audiences); photos of Igor Stravinsky (who composed the music for The Firebird and Le Sacre du Printemps) and other famous dancers, both male and female.
MoreLavender Women
TOGETHER, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers form the Indigo Girls, the Grammy-winning folk-rock act whose new album, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug, marks the pair’s return to an independent label-their own, in fact, which they dubbed IG Records-after releasing eleven, major-label studio albums since their debut in 1987 (with Strange Fire). The homecoming must have been catalyzing, because they recorded Poseidon in just three weeks inside an Atlanta studio.
MoreLetters to the Editor
Letters from readers
MoreGUEST OPINION: Blacks Lack Standing on Marriage Question
FOLLOWING THE PASSAGE of Proposition 8 in California last November, the battleground for marriage equality has now shifted to the nation’s capital as efforts are under way to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (or DOMA), which precludes the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage even in states where it is legal. One group that strongly supported Proposition 8-with seventy percent voting yes, according to some exit polls-was African-American voters.
MoreA Double Standard in Lincoln Studies?
“LINCOLN’S SOUL MATE and the love of his life was a man named Joshua Speed,” John Stauffer writes in his dual biography of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Stauffer refers to carnal love, not to one of those asexual “romantic friendships” in vogue with certain scholars. He chairs the History of American Civilization Department at Harvard; Stauffer’s perspective can’t be easily dismissed as fringe. But that did not deter Sean Wilentz.
MoreTamotsu Yato’s Nude Male Warriors of Japan
IN 1972, the Rho-Delta Press of Los Angeles published Tamotsu Yato’s book Otoko: Photo-Studies of the Young Japanese Male. The book has long been out of print, and it usually commands a hefty price from rare book dealers. But the story of its origins and eventual publication is notable-and ultimately poignant-because it intersects with the life of one of Japan’s most complex and fascinating literary figures.
MoreHere’s Your ‘Traditional Marriage’
CONSERVATIVE FORCES in the U.S. have succeeded in shifting the debate about same-sex unions from a question of equal protection under the law to one about protecting the meaning of the word “marriage.” The phrase “defense of marriage” emerged as a touchstone in the conflict after passage of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which limited marriage to heterosexual couples in matters under federal jurisdiction. Since then-spurred by the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in 2003-many states have moved to ban same-sex marriage by enacting laws or amending their constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
MoreAndrew Epstein: Tom of Finland’s Eye in the Sky
PHOTOGRAPHER, artist, and designer Andrew J. Epstein has had behind-the-scenes access to some of the most important and influential gay artists of the last forty years, and fortunately he has had his camera in hand to record much of it. In the 1970’s, living in New York City’s West Village, he met artist Tom of Finland and photographed many of the artist’s gallery shows. Epstein’s photos are featured in Taschen’s recent, massive tribute to the artist titled Tom of Finland XXL.
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