GLR September-October 2023

$6.95 US, $7.95 Canada Cracking the Closet MITCHELL SANTINE GOULD Emerson’s Manifesto, Thoreau’sNature IGNACIO DARNAUDE Leyendecker the Sly MEGHAN TIBBITS-LAMIRANDE 1928: Out Came Hall and Woolf WILLIAMBENEMANN Stephen Crane’s Nights on the Town RAYMOND-JEAN FRONTAIN Robert Patrick at the Caffe Cino Whither Women’s Bars and Clubs? BY ANDREW HOLLERAN The Quest for Sex in Medieval Times BY VERNON ROSARIO TheWife of ‘Gentleman Jack’ BY ANNE LAUGHLIN September-October 2023 G LRk Stephen Crane

Richard A. Barker & Matthew E. Schlansky Michael Barrett David B. Bockoff, MD Samuel D. Brown Denis Cagna & Carlos Medina Michael Carson & Ron Steigerwalt, PhD Art Cohen Darlis von Adkins Randall Arndt Bruce Arnold & James Labi Gary Arthur James Avila TomBaker Kenneth C. Beachler Jeffrey Begeal Allen W. Bernard Charles Bjorklund & Sted Mays Matthew Black William R. Bonsal Dale Boyer & Scot O’Hara DavidBray Campbell-Goldyn Peter Cannon Vic Carlson Jim Cassaro William J. Cavanaugh Burton Clarke Sherman Clarke Eddie Cline Robert Cloud RayCoe Peter Cohen and Jeff Sposato Anonymous John H. Adams Raoul Ajamil & Ronald Simonds James Anderson William E. Arndt Dr. Mark S. Arseneau Bruce Selden Babski Robert Ball Scott Bane Michele Aina Barale William Barnaby Michael Beek Joseph Bell David Benson Jerry Bernhard LarryBest Steven Bourne Courtney Bowen Jerry A. Boyd Peter Brenner JimBrogan Jeffrey Brosnan Steven Buck Michael Burke & Robert Charles Antonio Calcagno Peter Cameron Jason & Andy Cannon-Ball James Carnelia Maury Newburger John Newmeyer Robert Nicoson Trent Norris & Jack Calhoun Brian Oleksak & Gonzalo Avila SueReamer Curtis Scribner Wm. H. Jackson– Wayne Skala Trust James & William Harrison David E. Hopmann & James W. Taul Jr. John C. Knepper David LaFontaine Carroll Edward Lahniers Steven McCollom Alfred Monetta & Bruce Voss Mark Mullin Stanley Cushing & Daniel Lyons James J Dowd Jr. Heyward Drummond Martin Duberman Sacramento Community Fndn. Clifford L. Gregory Seth Grosshandler & Kim Wainwright JohnHager James Thomas & Fred Provencher In memory of Jacob Brong Trumbower Douglas J. Warn Robin Weingart & Claire Zeppieri Louis Wiley Jr. Thomas A. Zanoni Anonymous Richard C. Alter & Eric D. Johnson Harry Anderson In honor of Michael K. Boe Rodney Boren Thomas Bower Bill Brinnon & Ron Dhein Kevin Burns Robert Chaloner John Cherry Paul Grzella Leland Hall TKHerrin Ted Higginson John Hudson Jeffrey Johnson Daniel Jones William Lauch Paul Loeffler & Mike Sullivan Kevin McNamara Kenneth Fulton Marc Geller TomGenson Thomas Gerber Robert Giron Thomas J. Gormly Bill Gorodner William J. Gracie Jr. & Daniel J. Fairbanks Mikel Gray Ken Greenstein Stewart Clifford Michael Craft Rolf Danner MarkDavis Michael Denneny Robert Dockendorff Jack Dodson EdDonahue Carl Duyck Bill Evans Joseph T. Flynn, MD Joseph Melillo Bryan Mershon Shaun Mueller Roderick F. O’Connor Jack Padovano & Philip Baker In memory of Larry Phillips RonSeidle Laurence Senelick Ross Sloten Jim Stepp & Peter Zimmer Gordon Nebeker Michael G. O’Connell III Daniel A. Pavsek, PhD David Peckman & Michael Baffa Charles Popper in honor of Leland Perry William R. Powell Terence Quirk Preston Reese JerryRehm Rex Roberts Charles Roberts & Craig Combs Robert Ross G. Louis Rowles William Rubenstein Stephen T. Russell Kevin Schack Paul Schilling Jan Schoenhaus George Seeber Mit Seiler & Marshall Lee Doug Serafin Camilla Serrano John S. Shaffner Coy L. Ludwig Holly Maholm Gary A. Mainor Gregory Manifold Gerald Markovitz & Cameron Jobe Joaquin Martinez-Pizarro John Mathewson & Thomas Huish Dr. Raymond Matta Marlin Mattson John McClafferty Kirk McKusick Richard Meiss Virginia Merritt Andrew M. Miller Martha Miller EvanMogan Charles Moore & Morgan Painter Enrique Moreno Stephen T. Moskey James A. Mueller David Murdock Anthony Napoli Dennis Hall F. Harwood Scot Hedrick Bob Hellwig & Gordon Whitaker James Hendrick Darius Homayounpour & Steven Ziglar Ronald Hunt Scott Hunter Charles L. Ihlenfeld Alice Jay Dr. Michael R. Kauth Stephen Kelley Michael Kelly Brian Kieley Clay M King & Iain J King David J. Klein GaryKrivy William Kux George & Charles Labonte Keith Landers Wayne P. Lawson Gerald P. Lepp Jim Lipsett & Paul LaRiviere Robert Lobou Harold F. Cottman III Justin Coveyou Mitch Crane David Crocker Fergus Currie David Curry D. Dibley & D. Monaghan Gary Domann G. Dryvynsyde & M. Porta Bradley Paul Edin Nicholas Edsall Edward E. Eliot Eduardo Febles Jason Fichtel Theodore Filteau John Finley & Stan McGee Kirk Frederick Michael William Galligan David Garrity John A. Gibson William D. Glenn Robert Gordon James Gother Frederick Griffiths Dennis Groenenboom John Morrel Dr. Richard Muszynski JohnNeale Russell Needham Michael Neisen Ken Nimblett John T. Nolan JohnNoran David Noskin BartO’Brien DennisO’Brien Kurt Ollmann Joseph Ortiz & Paul Hinkle Dean Papademetriou Michael A. Pargee Stephen D. Paster Richard L. Penberthy Lee M. Penyak Allan Phillips Ted Pietras Stan J. Pogroszewski Kurt Proctor & Joe Welsch Richard Quintana Dave Radcliffe Thomas Raffin James Ramadei Glen W. Redman Edward Reeves & Bill Fish Stuart L. Rich Rodger Robb Patricia Lutsky & Sally Jordan Bernard Lynch Craig Machado Elliott Mackle Gerald M. Mager Gary L. Magruder Benjamin Mah James Malatak Peter Manson Clayton Marsh & George Villanueva Wayne Marshal Danny Matherly Peter Maxson & Jack Taylor Kenneth Mayer Michael McAdam Tim McFeeley David McKellar John W McKenna Kevin McLoughlin Robert Melton Edward Mendez Jon Cloudfield Merkle Greg Mermel Robert S. Miller Robert Mitchell James Moore Thomas Morbitzer Gerald Morin John Ibson & Steve Harrison Thomas Jacobson Karla Jay Jeffrey Alan Johnson Richard T. Johnson Rolando Jorif Ricky Kamins Dean M. Karns Richard Kasten Leonard Keyes Keith Klopfle John A. Kosartes LeeKramer Barry Kropf William La Civita David Lane & Grayson Less Mark LaPole Ron Larason Rick Lawrance William Lawrence Joel Leander JamesLebo Arthur Leonard Maurice Levenbach OwenLevy JohnLloyd Paul Lockman RonLong DanEaston Davis Elliott & Tim Jolley J. Yusuf Erskine Steve Fernandez-Brennan Charles Fischetti & Michael Chalmers Frederick J. 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All gifts are fully tax-deductible. SUSTAINERS ($600–1,199) BENEFACTORS ($1,200–4,999) SUPPORTERS ($150–299) SPONSORS ($300–599) LEADERSHIPCIRCLE ($5,000+) George Shardlow A.V. Shirk, in memory of Bill Costley Nicolas Shumway Michael Siegel Harvey Silberman RaySmythe Andrew Stancliffe Robert Starshak MD & Ross Dracgert DanStuder David Teeter John Thomas Robert Tinkler Paul Travis Glenn Underwood Ralph Virkler Martin Webb & Charles Venable Richard Weeks & Robert Shavin Michael Weidemann Marc Weiner Charles Whelan Allan Wing & Frank Barringer David G. Wood, MD Alexander Roche GaryRod Luis Rodriguez Michael Roggow Daniel Ross Rob Russell Jeffrey Ryan Robert Saltzman Sam Sanders Steven Sayers Michael Schwartz Jeffrey Sharlach John Silva & Lloyd Ogden LynnSipe James Skibo Eric Slater George Smart Dennis A. Sondker David H. Spear David Staats Charles Strang Charles Studen Ron Suleski Gerry Sullivan & Bob Benzel Christopher Surrana & Andrew Love Charles Swinney Deborah Taft Kevin Taylor Warren E. Taylor John Tekian Robert Teller Ken Thompson Bruce Thompson DavidTodd Jim Toledano AndyTracy Henry Tufts Dr. R. O. Valdiserri Thomas Von Foerster James W. Haas BryceWard Bill Watson Allan Weinreb Lyndon Wester Charles White John Wilson George E. Wolf Paul Wolfson Keith Wolter Matthew Wolter & A.J. Galazen JasonWong Michael Wood, MD W. Preston Woodall Jr., DO Gene Woodling George Yahnel Jr. JoeYoung James Zebroski Mark Zelinsky John Sullivan Stephen B. Thayer & Howard E. Terry Kirk S. Thomas Lyle Timpson James Uhrig Stewart Watson Jr. John Weingarten David Westmoreland & Mike Mushar Philip Willkie Eric Anderson & Roger Beck Ken Borelli Michael Manganiello The Shilts Literary Trust Elliot Leonard & Roger Litz In memory of Charles S. Longcope Jr. Robert Hardman James Hess & Robert Herald

The Gay & Lesbian Review September–October 2023 • VOLUME XXX, NUMBER 5 The Gay & Lesbian Review/WORLDWIDE®(formerly The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, 1994-1999) is published bimonthly (six times per year) by The Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational corporation located in Boston, Mass. Subscriptions: Call 847-504-8893. Rates: U.S.: $41.70 per year (6 issues). Canada and Mexico: $51.70(US). All other countries: $61.70(US). All non-U.S. copies are sent via air mail. Back issues available for $12 each. All correspondence is sent in a plain envelope marked“G&LR.” © 2023 by The Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc. All rights reserved. POEMS &DEPARTMENTS Emerson’s Manifesto, Thoreau’sNature 10 MITCHELL SANTINE GOULD Waldo’s plea for sexual honesty could have been meant for Henry Painted Angels and Tainted Fruit 14 WILLIAMBENEMANN Stephen Crane’s walks on the wild side crept into his writings 1928: Out Came Hall and Woolf 17 MEGHANTIBBITS-LAMIRANDE The Well of Loneliness andOrlando were published just months apart Leyendecker the Sly 20 IGNACIODARNAUDE The men of Arrow and Ivory Soap seem to be hiding something Robert Patrick at the Caffe Cino 25 RAYMOND-JEANFRONTAIN The late playwright wrote the shows that launched Off-off-Broadway Splendor on the Patio 27 ANDREWHOLLERAN Awriter’s visit to every lesbian bar in the U.S. reveals a storied past The Quest for Sex in the Middle Ages 30 VERNONROSARIO Medieval imagery animates today’s underground sexual subcultures COONTENTS FEATURES REVIEWS CORRESPONDENCE 5 BTW 8 RICHARDSCHNEIDER JR. ART MEMO—How Allen Ginsberg Humanized Madness 24 STEVANWEINE POEM— “Physical Education” 28 ALLENSMITH POEM— “The faggot trusted no-one” 32 SIMONMADDRELL ART MEMO—A 1953 Novel about “Inverts” and Social Class 38 MICHAEL SCHWARTZ POEM— “Strange Meeting, Thanksgiving, 1983” 44 JOSHBARTON ART MEMO—Mary Oliver, a Poet of Beauty and Grief 46 DAVIDMASELLO CULTURAL CALENDAR 47 David Román and Sean F. Edgecomb, eds. —The Taylor Mac Book 33 THOMAS KEITH Rebecca Batley —AnnWalker; Jill Liddington—As Good As a Marriage 34 ANNE LAUGHLIN Joseph Plaster —Kids on the Street 35 HANK TROUT BRIEFS 36 Thomas Mallon—Up with the Sun: A Novel 39 BRIANBROMBERGER POETRY BRIEFS 40 Richard D. Mohr —The Splendid Disarray of Beauty 41 MICHAEL QUINN Catherine Lacey —Biography of X: A Novel 42 MONICACARTER Ari Shapiro—The Best Strangers in the World 43 DANIEL A. BURR Dennis Altman—Death in the Sauna 44 WILLIAMBURTON Jon Towlson—Midnight Cowboy 45 JAMES GILBERT Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle (art exhibit) 48 MIKE DRESSEL Stephen Kijak, director —Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed (film) 50 COLINCARMAN WEBSITE: www.GLReview.org • SUBSCRIPTIONS: 847-504-8893 • ADVERTISING: 617-421-0082 • SUBMISSIONS: Editor@GLReview.org Editor-in-Chief and Founder RICHARDSCHNEIDERJR. Literary Editor MARTHAE. STONE Poetry Editor DAVIDBERGMAN Associate Editors SAMDAPANAS PAULFALLON JEREMYFOX MICHAELSCHWARTZ Contributing Writers ROSEMARYBOOTH DANIELA. BURR COLINCARMAN ANNE CHARLES ALFREDCORN ALLENELLENZWEIG CHRIS FREEMAN PHILIP GAMBONE MATTHEWHAYS ANDREWHOLLERAN IRENE JAVORS JOHNR. KILLACKY CASSANDRALANGER ANDREWLEAR DAVIDMASELLO FELICE PICANO JAMES POLCHIN JEANROBERTA VERNONROSARIO Contributing Artist CHARLES HEFLING Publisher STEPHENHEMRICK Webmaster BOSTONWEB GROUP WebEditor ALLISONARMIJO ______________________________ Board of Directors ART COHEN(CHAIR) EDUARDOFEBLES ROBERT HARDMAN DAVIDLAFONTAINE JIMJACOBS ANDREWLEAR RICHARDSCHNEIDER, JR. (PRESIDENT) MARTHAE. STONE THOMAS YOUNGREN(TREASURER) STEWARTCLIFFORD(CHAIREMER.) WARRENGOLDFARB(SR. ADVISOR EMER.) WORLDWIDE The Gay & Lesbian Review® PO Box 180300, Boston, MA 02118 Cracking the Closet WORLDWIDE September–October 2023 3

that explored the outer limits of gender and sexuality for the time (see Meghan Tibbits-Lamirande’s piece). Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness dealt explicitly with sexual “inversion” and featured a protagonist who might be considered transgender today. The hero in Virginia Woolf’s Orlandostarts as a man but becomes a woman early on and stays that way through the multicentury epic. Orlando is, in fact, based on Woolf’s real-life female lover, Vita Sackville-West. Moving into the 20th century, Ignacio Darnaude revisits illustrator J. C. Leyendecker, whose work for Ivory Soap and Arrow Collars gave him plenty of opportunities to draw pictures of well-dressed, and at times scantily dressed, American men. There’s always a perfectly innocent explanation for the intimate scenes involving two men at the club or in the locker room, but modern eyes can’t help but detect an undercurrent of desire. Leyendecker was, in fact, a gay man, and the model he used in many of his works was his lover, Charles Beach. Playwright Robert Patrick, who passed away earlier this year, catapults us into the 1950s, when he wrote a slew of plays for the Caffe Cino in Greenwich Village, many of which featured gay characters and sexual extravagances of all kinds. The Cino was an important cultural institution that splintered and evolved into what came to be called“Off-off-Broadway”—still a hotbed of sexual experimentation to this day. RICHARDSCHNEIDERJR. IN OLDEN TIMES the concept of “the closet” didn’t exist, and the idea of “comingout”had yet to be invented. Nevertheless, starting in the 19th century, a number of artists and writers found ways to“crack the closet”by expressing their sexuality between the lines or in the interstices of their work. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were nonconformists in so many respects; it’s hard not to wonder about their sexual feelings and fantasies. There’s a growing consensus that Thoreau was “queer” in some sense beyond his cabindwelling, couch-surfing ways. He left some clues behind in his writings concerning his love of men, including Emerson himself. Over the years, their friendship followed the arc of passionate lovers: effusive declarations followed by jealous fits of pique and, finally, anger over being jilted. Mitchell Santine Gould argues here that part of Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” can be read as a manifesto for people to tell the truth about their sexual nature, however unconventional. Later in the century, a writer who expressed a surprising curiosity about homosexuality was Stephen Crane, best known for The Red Badge of Courage. William Benemann discusses a number of incidents in which Crane placed himself in the company of New York’s homosexual underground, ostensibly to conduct research for a novel (never written) about a starry-eyed youth who comes to New York and ends up as a street hustler. The year 1928 saw the publication of two novels in England Early Fall: ‘Cracking the Closet’ FROM THE EDITOR 4 TheG&LR

Gratitude for Michael Denneny’sVision To the Editor: Michael Denneny’s G&LRobituary [JulyAugust 2023 issue] was the first I’d seen, prompting me to find others, including a livestream of his author appearance at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C., just weeks before he died. In 1986, my literary agent Frances Goldin started submitting my project for a biography of composer Marc Blitzstein, and no publisher seemed interested. Until, at her request, I also included three finished chapters to show my quality as a writer. Immediately she heard back from Michael Denneny of St. Martin’s Press. Later, from Michael, I learned that he hadn’t known about Blitzstein, but he called his friend, the up-andcoming conductor Bruce Ferden, who knew of Blitzstein and told him, yes, such a biography would make an important contribution. Michael also okayed a heftier advance than originally floated, without which I would not have been able to give it my full time. From the Upper West Side, I would bicycle down to the Flatiron Building to meet with Michael, hand over finished chapters, and discuss my progress. I never knew he lived just blocks from me. He was modest, professional, and discreet. Aside from our literary connection, we did not pursue a personal friendship. Early on, I asked him: “How long a book do you want?” He answered: “There’s never going to be another book about Marc Blitzstein, so yours will always be the standard reference. Include what you believe readers will want to know.” The biography topped out at just over 600 pages. He shared some advice about trimming a manuscript: Cut three lines fromevery page! He did not mean this literally, but he did mean there’s fat on every page that you can always eliminate. I continue to look for excess verbiage everywhere, both as a writer and as an editor myself. Michael assigned my manuscript to an in-house copy editor, who said she’d never encountered a draft that needed virtually no editing. Pleased as I was to hear that, it meant that Michael and I spent little time together working out kinks in the book. Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzsteinwas published in 1989. (Michael was wrong about this being the only Blitzstein biography. In 2012, Oxford published Howard Pollack’s also 600+ page Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, HisWorld.) After my book was published, we gradually lost contact. In 1990, I moved to Los Angeles, and my life started flowing in other directions. I cherish my brief association with Michael and am grateful that he trusted me with this project which, among other things, added to the world’s understanding of a significant gay American life. Eric A. Gordon, Los Angeles In Defense of Samuel Barber To the Editor: I found the review of Howard Pollack’s Samuel Barber: His Life and Legacy appallingly dismissive of a major American composer. His list of works is not as long as one might wish, but the quality of what we have is superior. Mr. Berrong focused on Barber’s vocal and orchestral work and made no mention of his piano works or many of his briefer orchestral scores. His Piano Sonata(1949) is among the halfCorrespondence September–October 2023 5 PRAISE FOR MA R is a eaching Ninety ARTIN DUB wonderful account... BERMAN’S .. of q 2023 M 3 A h VA AILABLE March ..brilliantly chart[s] m ...the wis “...a fascinating an nothing less th queer history Reaching Nin sdomof more than seventy yea nd rollicking read.” an admirable.” ety ars 9781641608800 | Cloth | $30.00 illuminates our q y .” g r world today y

dozen greatest sonatas written by a modern American and is likely to outlast anything John Adams or Philip Glass produced for the piano. Of course, Antony and Cleopatrawas a disappointment, perhaps because he made the mistake of trying to incorporate avantgarde procedures and techniques incompatible with his sensibility and gift for melody. It’s true Barber was ignored by the American avant-garde, but it’s also true that the avantgarde of that period has been ignored by American audiences of serious music. Whose string quartet will bear comparison to Barber’s? His works will continue to find an audience because pianists, violinists, singers, and conductors want to perform them. Walter Mosley, San Francisco To the Editor: For decades I’ve admired the editorial brilliance of TheG&LR, particularly its insightful and clever choice of writers for particular assignments. So it was disappointing to read Richard M. Berrong’s review of the new biography of Samuel Barber by Howard Pollack. Berrong’s superficial, simplistic impressions unfairly demean the achievements of a sensitive and gifted composer. Berrong’s deprecation of Barber’s opera Antony and Cleopatrais basedon amateurish, inaccurate generalities about “dissonance and unusual harmonies” and “an endless string of fragments suggesting no clear direction.” His comment that “it would take composers like John Adams and Philip Glass to show how avant-garde opera could be both musically innovative and emotionally appealing” suggests that Mr. Berrong has never heard an opera by Britten or Janáček or Shostakovich. Worst of all, he entirely misapprehends the qualities that characterize a great composer, chastising Barber because he “never really created a distinctive line of his own.” In fact, the greatest composers didn’t create new styles; they infused existing styles with their own genius. Bach didn’t create the Baroque; he culminated that style. Mozart was the capstone of the Classical period, not its progenitor. On the other hand, the influence of Arnold Schoenberg—a brilliantly original musician who did create a new musical language—was short-lived. Readers are advised to listen to some of Barber’s music and judge for themselves. Bob Goldfarb, New York City Richard Berrong Replies: The second of these two letters does as good a job as I could of dealing with one of the objections to my review in the first: Mosley too finds Antony and Cleopatra a lesser work, and for reasons similar to mine. (Antony, not Anthony; we all make spelling mistakes.) It is the only one of Barber’s works of which I spoke negatively, pace Goldfarb, and I don’t think I “demeaned” it. As far as “chastising” Barber for not creating a distinctive style, those were not my words but Pollack’s, as I indicated with quotation marks. We all miss things, no matter how carefully we reread our work. Mosley makes an important point regardingBarber’s chamber music that I should have addressed. I checked the 2021-22 repertory of a dozen major American orchestras to see how often Barber’s symphonic works are being performed today. No orchestra did more than one, some none at all. I did not have any way of determining how often his small-scale works show up in chamber music performances, however. There I suspect Mosley is right: Barber’s songs, especially, are probably still regularly done. Richard Berrong, Cuyahoga Falls, OH Can a Loaded Word Be Disarmed? To the Editor: As an eighty-year-old lesbian, I was shocked to see in the May-June ‘23 issue the headline “Blackbeard’sBitch.” Itwas the title of a review of the HBO series Our Flag Means Death. Theword “bitch” is commonly used to denigrate women. Its use inTheG&LRwas an unwelcome reminder of the disgust some gay men feel toward women. It wasn’t even an appropriate use of the word, as the HBO series shows Stede Bonnet, the putative bitch to Blackbeard, loved and nurtured him. For this he is called a bitch? Quite the disappointment that a publication for the homosexual community, of which I am a member, uses the same gross vocabulary to describe women, femaleness, loving natures used by rednecks. Betsy Tabac, Tallahassee, FL Editor’sReply: The headline was written by me, and surely I did not wish to offend. But it seems to me the word“bitch” has moved beyond its exclusive association with women to refer, often humorously, to anyone who is defeated or humiliated in a social context. Thus Trump was sometimes mocked as “Putin’s bitch.”A cartoon inThe New Yorker several years ago shows an overstuffed American breakfast (pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, etc.) next to a measly French croissant and demi-tasse, with the caption: “Welcome to America, bitch.” I think this usage describes to a tee the relationship between Blackbeard and Stede inOur Flag Means Death. Vaughan Williams Not ‘OneofUs’ To the Editor: Now wait just a minute. I’ve lived and worked in classical music for decades, and I have never heard even the slightest suggestion that Ralph Vaughan Williams was gay as stated in your introduction to the “Pride Issue” in May-June 2023. The composer is being confused with Griffith Vaughan Williams (1940–2010), who was an outspoken British champion of gay and lesbian rights and, so far as I know, no relation to Ralph Vaughan Williams. Robert Wennersten, Saint Joseph, MO Editor’sReply: Thanks for setting me straight (as it were) on this point. I was going by memory from a series of three pieces that the late Ned Rorem contributed back in 2000. I’ve now had a chance to check the record, and it turns out there were a couple of versions of the “top ten composers” list. In the “gay five” list that I recalled, please replace Vaughan Williams with Leonard Bernstein. In another piece, he offered a longer list that seems even more gay-heavy than the aforementioned: “Of all the arts in which gay men have played a prominent role in this century, music is the one that they seem to have dominated. How many are left once we eliminate the following names? Bernstein, Britten, John Cage, Copland, Peter Maxwell Davies, Heinz Werner Henze, Daniel Pinkham, Poulenc, Rorem, Thompson, Tippett; and, more recently, David Del Tredici, Tyson Street, and John Corigliano.” Corrections A number of readers pointed out a rather egregious error in Richard Berrong’s review of Samuel Barber (July-Aug. 2023): the misspelling of American composer Aaron Copland’s surname. As familiar as the editor and five proofreaders are with Copland, we all somehow missed that errant “e.” In the same review, it’s stated that Samuel Barber and his partner lived in Capricorn, an estate located “outside Philadelphia.” Capricorn was actually located in Kisco, NewYork. In the May-June 2023 issue, the caption for a portrait of Henry James gives the wrong date for the painting. The correct year is 1913 (not 1922; James died in 1916). In the May-June 2023 issue, a photo accompanying an Art Memo on poet George Cecil Ives is not of Ives but instead of an Australian rugby player named George Treweek. A review on the art of J. C. Leyendecker in the May-June 2023 issue states that Charles Beach, who became Leyendecker’s lifelong partner, was hired by the artist in 1900. In fact, Beach was hired by the artist’s brother Frank in 1903. 6 TheG&LR

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to increase profits. TheTimes’deep dive into internal memos revealed that Gilead withheld the new drug—a major improvement over the existing version of Tenofovir—until just before the patent expired on the older version. The strategy was to run out the old patent before the generics hit the market, and then go live with the new version. Apparently this practice is widespread in the industry, where it’s known as “product hopping.” What makes it especially cynical in the case of HIV is the peculiar lethality of AIDS and the severity of the side effects of many antiretrovirals—including Tenofovir. Indeed, some 26,000 patients who took the older version are suing Gilead for exposing them to potential kidney and bone problems. The Times learned that the improved Tenofovir could have been available as early as 2004, but Gilead stopped working on it expressly to prolong its monopoly. It was finally released in 2015, adding over a decade to its patent, which will remain in force until at least 2031. Because that’s howit’s done. BlueShift The battle between the “red” and“blue” states took a turn when Massachusetts hired some billboards in Texas and Florida to promote the Commonwealth while subtly criticizing the homophobia of the two host states. The billboards say simply “Massachusetts For us all” and show pictures of happy LGBT couples. Governor Maura Healey (D), an out lesbian, issued a statement explicating the message: “To anyone considering where they want to live ... we want you to join us here in Massachusetts.” The fact is, many people are talking about leaving the “Don’t SayGay” state in search of bluer pastures. So, if this is an early salvo in a demographic war, this BostonThe Farther Right The headline began, “Fox News Promotes ‘Glory Holes,’” and the mind raced to make sense of it. Who would accuse the news organ of the religious Right of promoting those outlets for public sex? Turns out it came from an even more right-wing source, Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire. The basis for the story was apparently a memo from Fox Corp., in a modest effort at inclusivity, encouraging employees to read a memoir by trans journalist Meredith Talusan titled Fairest. The book includes a description of glory holes, which Walsh turned into an endorsement of their use, a “howto” for public sex. The meme then bounced around the echo chamber until Fox News was practically drilling the holes between the stalls. Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA wondered: “Why is Fox subsidizing gloryholes for their employees?”In a similar vein, when Chick-fil-A issued a pro forma statement in support of Pride month, calls for a boycott came not from the Left but from the Far Right—indeed from the Farther Right, for which even Fox News isn’t ideologically pure enough. Hopping Product An investigation byThe New York Times revealed that Gilead, one of the world’s largest drug-makers, deliberately“slow-walked”a promising new HIV therapy in order BTW 8 TheG&LR

based magazine welcomes you with open arms. On the other hand, if tipping the demographic balance is what’s at stake, why not consider a move to blue-shifting Georgia or Arizona? Massachusetts is already blue enough! Mr. and Mr. Nobody We need to talk about the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6–3 ruling in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which held that the state of Colorado could not compel a website designer to create a wedding site for a gay couple. It was a blow to LGBT rights and followed a similar (but narrower) ruling on wedding cakes in 2018. But then a strange thing happened: it was discovered that the gay couple in the case didn’t exist! The lawsuit had been brought by a hate group called Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of one Lorie Smith, who claimed that making a gay website violated her religious beliefs. Critics of the ruling argued that the gay couple’s nonexistence de-legitimized the ruling. And yet, is it possible that the plaintiffs did us a favor by this ruse? What it underscores is that the case was not about the people requesting the website (or cake, etc.), but instead about the creation of a product with explicitly LGBT content. Presumably the ruling also protects someone from having to make a website or cake promoting, say, a neo-Nazi organization. It could be a slippery slope to a more sinister kind of discrimination in which the people aren’t hypothetical—Samuel Alito may be licking his chops—but for now there’s no actual gay couple being barred at the door. Ribbit KarlMarx’dictum about history repeating itself, first as tragedy and then as farce, is playing itself out yet again. If ever there was a tragedy on the political stage, it was the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the great hope of antiwar Democrats, in 1968. And now we have presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., who popped up during the Covid crisis as a strident antivaxxer and soon began to promote zany conspiracy theories to rival those of Alex Jones (often the same ones). Of late he’sbeen talking a lot about frogs, many of which, he claims, are transitioning from male to female due to the presence of the chemical atrazine in their ponds—which also explains a purported rise in transgenderism in humans and a general feminization of American men. Frogs, of course have a longstanding connection with the LGBT community and especially with bisexuals (for whom there are frog pins, frog banners, etc.). The main reason is that frogs are amphibious, which is probably why Kennedy went after them as well. Frogs (like bisexuals) often get a bum rap. In any case, every study has shown that atrazine is not in our water and doesn’t have this effect on humans. Robert Kennedy Sr. is famous for saying: “Some men see things as they are and ask, Why? I dream things that never were and ask, Why not?”And then there are the men who see things that never were. September–October 2023 9 /0DE/FGDF DHIGJFDIG JGDH/IK ILDIM1 2LDI K34MHH 5/F6 LGJG7 2LGJG89OQDS"$QO& LQO()69+-:I;<(Q9S& EQ<(=QG><$& HQ<I<>"$<)&G?->)6@A-O"<O& G??9H9B9(S"&3"@9(2->:Q&09(@Q> C(<S"$& N<>Q$$Q& P(=O92<<>R&9O:5(9OB!9RA9 9>> >-+Q:><O=Q(>-+Q"& #<OQ<R%;@;@;9O=Q: ;"$<()#9O:>+Q:;9''->) Q+Q(9R$Q(%$;"<?Q<OQ<R $;Q"9?Q=QO:Q(! %(<$Q$;Q'<Q?"&"$<(Q"& .013573.953*@<? 9O:,<<A"%Q(Q9:-O"@;<<> ;<;)+;-+/ ;2 7468.01:!"#$%#"9 &""$:'"6%"3( .9.*"0%#"9

ESSAY Emerson’s Manifesto, Thoreau’s Nature MITCHELL SANTINE GOULD Mitchell Santine Gould, a gay historian with a spcial interest in Whitman and Quakerism, lives on the coast of Oregon. men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. Hiding in plain sight since 1841, this mandate to be true to oneself may speak forcefully to contemporary LGBT people who have had the experience of coming out as gay. On the other hand, the speaker swears to remain “the chaste husband of one wife.”Emerson was married and sworn to fidelity to his (second) wife. However, it seems quite likely that his first marriage—to a beautiful woman who was dying of tuberculosis—involved tender affection but not sexual relations. His second marriage produced four children. By 1833, Emerson seems to have calculated that he was 10 TheG&LR Henry David Thoreau RALPH WALDO EMERSON’S 1841 essay “Self-Reliance” contains one of the most stirring coming-out challenges ever written. This is not the traditonal reading of the great American essay, to be sure, but I believe that “SelfReliance”must be understood in the context of Emerson’s awareness of unconventional sexual desire, bolstered by his intimate friendship with Henry David Thoreau. Emerson was born in Boston in 1803 and died in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1882. “Waldo” was ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1829, and the response to his eloquence and personal charm promised job security. But secretly, Emerson was experiencing a crisis of faith, and his sermons minimized doctrine to focus on personal spiritual experience, arguing that each seeker’s unique encounter with a universal moral law was what really mattered. His first book, Nature, appeared in 1836, and in 1841 and 1842, he published Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series.The First Series includes his most important essay, “Self-Reliance.” “LOVE ME FORWHATIAM” TRANSCENDENTALISM, the philosophical movement that Emerson did so much to develop and promote, captured the attention not only of theologians and thinkers but also of the general public, largely because it provided people with pragmatic guidance for “the conduct of life.” “Self-Reliance” brilliantly explores this theme: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. ... Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”Everyone agrees that “Self-Reliance”is an indictment of mindless conformity and a challenge to think for oneself. But it has rarely been recognized as one of history’s first manifestos for people to be honest about their sexual nonconformity. To quote a key passage at length: Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, “O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth’s. ... I shall endeavour to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife,—but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. ... If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all

overdue for another marriage, and he found a relatively wealthy 31-year-old woman named Lydia Jackson. Emerson’s decidedly bloodless, businesslike marriage proposal, coming in January of 1835, defined the terms of their union: he would treat herwith“deep and tender respect,”sinceher “earnest and noble mind”inspired so much goodness in his soul. Nevertheless, he dampened any romantic expectations by assuring her that his love could only manifest itself in a “new and higher way.” He declared that she was “so in love with what I love”that “no remoteness of condition could separate us”—perhaps a veiled reference to his nontraditional sexual orientation. His essay“Spiritual Laws” declared that the soul harbors a “photometer,” a metaphorical “irritable goldleaf and tinfoil” device for measuring light. According to Louisa May Alcott, he “defended his lack of affectionate gestures to [Lydia] by saying he was a ‘photometer’ not a stove: he could measure light but not radiate heat.” Emerson’s own brush with a same-sex love affair was first proposed in 1976 when Jonathan Ned Katz published his groundbreaking Gay American History. Emerson’s baffling, paralyzing crush on Harvard classmate Martin Gay is fairly well documented by Katz and his successors. However, the field of Transcendentalist studies has largely chosen to trivialize its implications—when it hasn’t avoided them entirely. This tendency is nowhere more apparent than in Emerson’s relationship with Henry David Thoreau. “FOREVERASORTOFBEAUTIFULENEMY” AFTER A LONG HISTORYof denial by academic historians and critics, Thoreau’s sexual nonconformity is a matter of widespread agreement, if not consensus. However, no one has gone so far as to suggest that he was Emerson’s lover. Emerson’s account of how they first met has a starry-eyed quality: “He was not quite out of college ... when I first saw him.” Emerson helped examine Thoreau for a Harvard rhetoric class on February 25, 1835, which was one month after his marriage proposal to Lydia Jackson. Thoreau, who was fourteen years younger than Emerson, graduated in 1837— a few months after the publication of Emerson’s first book, Nature. Thoreau’s Harvard classmate David Greene Haskins found it “remarkable”tosee how Thoreau had so quickly undergone a “chemical” transformation into Emerson’s doppelgänger, “due to his frequent contacts and intimate intercourse with Mr. Emerson, beginning from the very time of his leaving college.”InThoreau’s mannerisms, said Haskins, and in “the tones and inflexions of his voice, in his modes of expression, even in the hesitations and pauses of his speech, he had become the counterpart of Mr. Emerson.”Haskins swore that he could have recognized Thoreau’s original voice in the dark, but in Emerson’s study, he decided to deliberately close his eyes while they conversed and found himself “unable to determine with certainty which was speaking.” The “Self Reliance” has rarely been recognized as one of history’s first manifestos for people to be honest about their sexual nonconformity. September–October 2023 11

future poet James Russell Lowell was “exquisitely amused” by the results of the same experiment. Biographers have always expected readers to shut their eyes to the remarkable contrast between Emerson’s delight in finding Thoreau and his fussy remarks about the women in his life. In April 1838, with Thoreau by his side, his familiar surroundings suddenly acquired a novel and compelling salience: the valley forming a “great mountain amphitheatre” that echoed “with gladness” to the voices of crows and piping frogs. The valley now made “worlds enough for us.”Whenhe ventured out of doors to view the first glimmering star, the piping of a frog seemed to challenge him: “Well do not these suffice? Here is a new scene, a new experience. Ponder it, Emerson.” Thoreau responded in the same month with a poem about his “Friendship” with Emerson. Although their “Love cannot speak,” the rhapsody acknowledges their “kindred shape” and similar “loves and hates”—especially their “kindred nature,” which proclaims them to be “mates,/ Exposed to equal fates,/ Eternally.”The poem marks them as two stalwart oak trees who could, with pride, withstand any storm. The secret to their survival was to“barely touch”above ground, while“Down to their deepest source ... [t]heir roots are intertwined.” A year later, Thoreau handed Emerson his poem“Sympathy,” dedicated to “a gentle boy,” the preadolescent Edmund Sewell. It was premised upon the dicey notion that “I might have loved him,/ Had I loved him less.”Emerson called it “The purest strain, and the loftiest, I think, that has yet pealed from this unpoetic American forest.” On the other hand, one finds it difficult to gloss over the physicality of another Thoreau poem, which begins: “I was made erect and lone,/ And within me is the bone.” During two prolonged periods between 1841 and 1848, Thoreau lived in Emerson’s house. On April 26, 1841, he moved into the “prophet’s chamber” at the head of Emerson’s stairs and began a phase of his life that included fawning over Lydia via unctuous notes, doing the family’s gardening, and repairing anything that broke. He delighted in Emerson’s children, becoming a second father to them. In November 1847, when Emerson was away in Europe and Thoreau was acting head of the household, little Eddy asked him pointedly: “Mr. Thoreau, will you be my father?” By June 1841, Emerson was seeing in Thoreau a “wood god,” probably a reference to Pan. Presumably the legs that Emerson called“strong”were as hirsute as his arms, further cementing his association with a satyr. Thoreau himself delighted in the comparison: “Perhaps of all the gods of New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at [Pan’s] shrine.” Being Thoreau, however, meant also being deeply conflicted about its sexual connotations. In the “Higher Laws” chapter of Walden, he acknowledged his fear that humans are “such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that, to some extent our very life is our disgrace.”He could not speak about purity, he said, “without betraying my impurity.” Shape-shifting into a“good river-god,”“my valiant Henry” introduced Emerson to“the riches of his shadowy starlit, moonlit stream.” This “lovely new world” had all along lain close to the “vulgar trite one of streets & shops.” On the river, they left all that behind with a stroke of a paddle. “Take care, good friend!” Emerson thought, “as I looked west into the sunset overhead & underneath, & he with his face toward me rowed towards it,—take care; you know not what you do, dipping your wooden oar into this enchanted liquid, painted with all reds & purples & yellows which glows under & behind you.” In truth, there was more than a trace of wishful thinking in Thoreau’s vision of “two oaks” withstanding the frigid storm of hostility. Concord’s general store became “a great news room,”as some locals sat constantly on its porch, letting kernels of gossip “simmer and whisper through” the community. He found these “worthies” leering at him“with a voluptuous expression.” Every traveler, he swore, “had to run the gauntlet, and every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him.” His torment was increased by“a still more terrible standing invitation to call at every one of these houses.” His primary recourse was to carry out his errands as quickly as possible, or to turn away from the incivility and focus on loftier thoughts. Sometimes, however, “I bolted suddenly, and nobody could tell my whereabouts.” In 1851, looking back on his years in Concord, he wrote: “There is some advantage in being the humblest cheapest least dignified man in the village—so that the very stable boys shall damn you. ... Methinks I enjoy the advantage to an unusual extent.” All the ink that has been spilled about Thoreau’s motives for retreating to his Walden hermitage may just be so much poppycock if it doesn’t include this feeling of persecution. But Thoreau also learned to distrust Emerson’s position as his only safe refuge. By September 1841, his once-flattering habit of aping all things Emersonian, coupled with his lack of ambition, was beginning to wear even upon Emerson. Even more galling was what Emerson called in 1843 the “old fault of unlimited contradiction”: Thoreau the provocateur habitually replaced an obvious and sensible word with its exact opposite. In 1853, Emerson complained: “He wants a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory ... requires a little sense of victory.” Thoreau’s most toxic, maddening perversity took the form of his love-hate relationships—although in all fairness, Emerson’s other friends often accused him of the same thing. Richard Bridgman concludes: “The paradox is evident. Thoreau resented criticism but at the same time, privately charged with self-disgust, felt the need for it. But his championing of hate as an essential component of friendship reached such obsessive proportions at times as to become grotesque.” Indeed, Thoreau’s poem“Indeed, Indeed I Cannot Tell” includes the lines: “O, I hate thee with a hate/ That would fain annihilate;/ Yet sometimes against my will,/ My dear friend, I love thee still.” By 1843, Emerson felt forced to contrive a plan for Thoreau to escape small-minded Concord, offering him a position as a tutor to Emerson’s young nephew in New York. Thoreau was a fish out of water on Staten Island. In the midst of his despair, he sent Emerson a marvelously schizoid letter thanking him for years of kind treatment, while mocking his own genius for turning love into hate: “But know, my friends, that I a good deal hate you all in my most private thoughts—as the substratum of the little love I bear you.” Thoreau’s sojourn in the real world was short-lived. For the rest of the decade, Emerson and Thoreau accused, bruised, and 12 TheG&LR

abused each other, retreating into silences and avoidance, apologizing, and trying to mend the breach between them. By 1851, both were exhausted by the futility of the struggle. “I thought that friendship—that love was still possible,”Thoreau wrote. “I thought that we had not withdrawn very far asunder—But now ... that distance seems infinitely increased.”A few months later he added: “I know not how it is that our distrust, our hate is stronger than our love. Here I have been on what the world would call friendly terms with one 14 years, have pleased my imagination sometimes with loving him—and yet our hate is stronger than our love.” Thoreau’s pathological obstinacy had long since become legendary. It has been suggested that Thoreau may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, which could help explain his inability to sustain a consistent relationship with Emerson (or anyone else). The shape-shifting Thoreau’s seductive Pan is gradually revealed to be a sadistic trickster. In 1848, Emerson mourned: “Henry Thoreau is like the wood-god who solicits the wandering poet and draws him into antres [caverns] vast and deserts idle, and bereaves him of his memory, and leaves him naked, plaiting vines and with twigs in his hand. ... As for taking Thoreau’s arm, I should as soon take the arm of an elm tree.” CONCLUSION The idea that “Self-Reliance” can be read as a challenge to come out of the closet may be a modern conceit, yet it seems a necessary inference if we follow Emerson’s demand that we be honest with ourselves in all things. “I will not hide my tastes or aversions,” he affirms. By giving Thoreau one of his own bedrooms to inhabit for several years, Emerson made good on his own challenge to play the role of husband in his family in a “new and unprecedented way.” Whatever the motive or logistics of this arrangement, it was aberrant enough to provoke lively discussion among Concord’s general store spectators. Following the Civil War and its general darkening of the American spirit, it became increasingly important to Emerson and his family to protect his personal safety and reputation, as well as Thoreau’s. Emerson increasingly criticized and publicly distanced himself from the scandalous Walt Whitman (who had remained Thoreau’s hero until his death in 1862, and who suggested that Emerson was still his sincere friend). Even Whitman’s circle was forced to issue their own official damnation of manly sex in 1875, when Standish O’Grady’s essay on “The Poet of Joy” warned how the Greeks had allowed passionate friendships to run riot and assume “abnormal forms.” Nevertheless, the most telltale record of Emerson’s influence comes from Whitman. In the second edition of Leaves of Grass, Whitman published a sprawling, megalomaniacal open letter of appreciation to Emerson, proclaiming. “Of course we shall have a national character, an identity” standing in solidarity upon“that new moral American continent.” Using the term “the supremacy of Individuality,” he identified this new morality with Emerson’s self-reliance. Like an explorer, Emerson was the first to land on its shores, an “original true Captain” who rendered the first report of its discovery. “I say that none has ever done, or ever can do, a greater deed for The States, than your deed.” September–October 2023 13 cel tnerMar their par t renchar Surrealist F the life, art, and activ a adult gr oung- This y KazRowe ahun ClaudeC t a The Radical Ar Liberated Moore. ahunand ist Claude C , queer f gender vismo aphy explores aphic biogr eof andLif Gender Queer f —Maia Kobabe, author o eat effect.” brave queer icon to gr aleof this y to tell the t lyrical imager s, and s, direct quote historical photo . Rowe weaves together were born into y circumstances and time period the sedby the ssed and cur activist, of ble , of artist and eminine culine and f ofmas ed at the crossroads ahun liv “ClaudeC rust © 2023 J Paul Getty Trust © 2023 J. Paul Getty T getty.edu/publications Publications Getty

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