Blue Moon

Tonight we will enjoy a Blue Moon, a second full moon in the same month. The last time a Blue Moon occurred was December 2009. The next time will be July 2015.

Blue Moon

You saw me standing alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own

Blue Moon

You know just what I was there for

You heard me saying a prayer for

Someone I really could care for

& then there suddenly appeared before me

The only one my arms will hold

I heard somebody whisper please adore me

& when I looked

The Moon, it turned to gold

Blue Moon

Now I'm no longer alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own

Rodgers & Hart

1934

Chairs At Post Apocalyptic Bohemia

Who can explain it, who can tell you why? It became the summer of the chairs. The Husband brought 4 chairs home between Memorial Day Weekend & Labor Day Weekend, to a home that didn’t want for chairs. Wait… Labor Day has not passed. Poor as we are, will he dare to find one more?

Born On This Day- August 29th... Gay Pioneer, Edward Carpenter

Gay activist, socialist, feminist, pacifist, nudist, mystic, poet, essayist, sandal wearer… an apt description of The Post Apocalyptic Bohemian? Wrong. This is a portrait of today’s Birthday Gay- Edward Carpenter.

Challenging both capitalism & the values of Western civilization, Edward Carpenter had an extraordinary impact on the cultural & political landscape of the late 19th & early 20th centuries. Carpenter’s enjoyed friendships with Walt Whitman, Robert Graves, Oscar Wilde, E.M. Forster, Isadora Duncan & Emma Goldman. After reading Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Carpenter envisioned a world of brotherly love that would do away with the class system & bring true freedom & democracy.

Edward Carpenter in1874

George Merrill in 1874

Carpenter graduated from Cambridge & held a position once filled by Leslie Stephen, the father of Virginia Woolf. He gave public lectures for the working class,but attended only by the middle class, who didn’t like to his ideas. He unsuccessfully sought the friendship of laborers, but in 1891, after meeting by chance on a train, he & uneducated worker- George Merrill became lovers. In 1898, when Carpenter was 54 & Merrill was 32, they set up house together, unheard of in England which was profoundly anti-gay after the Oscar Wilde trials. They lived openly as a couple for 30 years until Merrill’s death, & their love affair, crossing the classes, was the direct inspiration for their friend E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice, as well as D.H. Lawrence’s straight version- Lady Chatterley's Lover. American- Harry Hay, credited Carpenter’s writings for galvanizing him to start the 1st gay rights group- The Mattachine Society, in LA in 1950.

Carpenter in 1924

Carpenter felt strongly that people tend to settle down into a single deep permanent union, but along the way they should be experiencing a variety of relationships & sexual adventures. He warned that the ideal of exclusive attachment can lapse into a stagnant 2-way selfishness. He saw a society with love & devotion between individuals without the quality of their love being defined by exclusiveness based on jealousy, a sense of private property in the other person, social opinions, & legal unions. He believed that such unions suffocate love in egoism, lust, & meanness.Carpenter wrote of sex as a good thing in human consciousness & not a sign or cause of human frailty & sinfulness.

In May 1928, Carpenter suffered a stroke leaving him almost helpless. He lived another 13 months before he died on a perfect summer afternoon, Friday June 28, 1929, exactly 40 years before the Stonewall riots. In 1910 Carpenter had written:

"I should like these few words to be read over the grave when my body is placed in the earth; for though it is possible I may be present & conscious of what is going on, I shall not be able to communicate. Do not think too much of the dead husk of your friend, or mourn too much over it, but send your thoughts out towards the real soul or self which has escaped to reach it. For so, surely you will cast a light of gladness upon his onward journey, & contribute your part towards the building of that kingdom of love which links our earth to heaven."

In 1967, gay Beat poet Allen Ginsburg interviewed Gavin Arthur (grandson of U.S. President Chester A. Arthur), world traveler, adventurer, & later a San Francisco astrologer,about his experience, as a young man of 23 years old, visiting Carpenter in England & having sex with the then 80 year old. Carpenter had told Arthur of his own sexual experience, as a 33 year old man, with the 58 year old Walt Whitman. When the young Arthur asked how Whitman had made love, Carpenter replied, "I will show you." The account of their night together is very sweet.

The Post Apocalyptic Bohemian in 1971

This means I am 6 Degrees of Separation from Walt Whitman.
Whitman slept with Edward Carpenter;

Edward Carpenter slept with Gavin Arthur;

Gavin Arthur slept with Beat poet Neal Cassady;

Neal Cassady slept with Allen Ginsberg;
Allen Ginsberg slept with James Dean;
James Dean slept with producer Robert Fryer;
Stephen Rutledge slept with Robert Fryer in 1974.

For more on Edward Carpenter check out- Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty & Love by Sheila Rowbotham.

A Post Apocalyptic Birthday Roll Call- August 29th

Mark Morris is an openly gay dancer, choreographer & director from Seattle. He was long noted for the musicality & power of his dancing as well as his amazing delicacy of movement. His body was heavier than the typical dancer, more like that of an average person, yet his technical & expressive abilities outstripped those of most of his contemporaries. He heads his own company- The Mark Morris Dance Group & he started the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov. He has created works for San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, and the Paris Opera Ballet. Morris has worked extensively in opera, directing & choreographing productions for the Seattle Opera, Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, English National Opera, & the Royal Opera House.

I always appreciated him for his many accomplishments, although he did not have the body or disposition of a typical dancer. My favorite work by Mr. Morris is his fantastic ballet based on The Nutcracker- Hard Nut, which has been broadcast on PBS.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Ingrid Bergman: beautiful, talented, & controversial star of stage & screen. She won 3 Oscars, two Emmys, & a Tony Award for Best Actress in the first Tony Award ceremony in 1947. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute. She is remembered for her performance as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca (1942). My favorite Bergman performance was her Oscar winning turn in Murder On the Orient Express (1974).

While still married to Dr. Petter Lindström, she became pregnant by Italian director Roberto Rossellini, with whom she was filming The pregnancy caused a huge scandal in the United States. It even led to Bergman being denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Edwin C. Johnson, who referred to her as "a horrible example of womanhood & a powerful influence for evil", there was a floor vote, which resulted in her being made persona non grata.

The scandal forced Ingrid Bergman to exile herself to Italy. During Bergman's time in Italy, anger over her private life had continued unabated in the United States, with Ed Sullivan, at one point infamously polling his TV show audience as to whether she should be permitted to appear on his show. Although the audience was mostly in favor, Ed declined to book her. Steve Allen then booked her on his show opposite Sullivan, & answered critics by stating "If it became a principle to keep off TV those performers who have been guilty of adultery, then I am very much afraid that a great many of your favorite programs would disappear." 

Bergman is, of course, the mother of beautiful & talented Isabella Rosselinni.

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Dinah Washington is a lifelong favorite recording artist of mine. Her penetrating voice, perfect timing & crystal clear enunciation added her own distinctive style to every piece she performed. She made extraordinary recordings in jazz, blues, R&B & pop genres. Washington refused to record gospel music despite her obvious talent for singing it. She believed it was wrong to mix the secular & the spiritual.

During the time that she was doing club dates & Las Vegas, she would have to enter through back doors & service entrances because of her color. Washington was married 7 times & had many lovers, including a young Quincy Jones, who at the time was her arranger. She died from an accidental overdose at age 39. What A Difference A Day Makes remains in my top 20 all time favorite recordings. The Husband & I saw a very well done play based on her life- Dinah Was, Off- Broadway in 1998. How about this amazing clip of Dinah doing I Don't Hurt Anymore?

Born On This Day- August 28th... Karl Ulrichs

Did you know that the Broadway musical & the term "homosexuality" were invented almost simultaneously? Pure coincidence?

Beginning in Paris with Jacques Offenbach & in Vienna with Johann Strauss, the operetta waltzed and can-canned its way across Europe. In the same era, America stumbled upon a musical theatre of its own. The Black Crook (1866) had little plot, crappy songs & lots of spectacle. There had been American musicals before this show, but this was the first to be a great big SRO hit. It spawned 100s of musical spectaculars with fantasy themes, known as extravaganzas. American audiences made these early musicals a thriving part of what was then referred to as "the show business." The Musical Comedy Queen was born, & meanwhile, in Europe:

In 1839, German born- Karl Heinrich Ulrichs & his riding teacher began a sexual affair when Ulrichs was a youth. As a lawyer, he seemed restless, often moonlighting as a freelance writer. As a closet gay, he risked financial ruin in engaging in a relationship with a soldier, & several other men.

When he was 34 years old, Ulrichs lost his government job for being gay, & he began publishing pamphlets explaining & defending love between men. When he had just turned 42 years old, he addressed the German congress, coming out publicly & demanding they repeal their anti-gay laws. He was shouted down before he could finish his speech. His books were banned, but he continued writing about homosexuality (a term that he was the 1st to use) for the rest of his life.

100 years before Stonewall, his book- Araxes, would put forth the modern arguments for gay rights. In 1879, he published- Research on the Riddle of Man-Manly Love. In bad health & feeling he had done all he could in Germany, he went Italy, where he settled in L'Aquila, where his health improved.

Ulrichs continued to write prolifically & publish his works (in German & Latin) at his own expense. In 1895, he received an honorary diploma from the University of Naples. Shortly after he died in L'Aquila, where he had lived as the guest of a local landowner, Marquis Niccolò Persichetti, who gave the eulogy at his funeral.

Forgotten for many years, Ulrichs is now a cult figure in Europe. There are streets named for him in Munich, Bremen & Hanover. His birthday is marked every year by with a street party & poetry reading at Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Platz in Munich. The city of L'Aquila has restored his grave & hosts the annual pilgrimage to the cemetery.

Ulrichs: "Until my dying day I will look back with pride that I found the courage to come face to face in battle against the spectre which for time immemorial has been injecting poison into me and into men of my nature. Many have been driven to suicide because all their happiness in life was tainted. Indeed, I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt."

I like to think that this most important of gay rights pioneers would have named CATS- now & forever, as his favorite Broadway Musical.

Born On This Day- August 27th... Tom Ford

“I don’t think of myself as gay. That doesn’t mean that I’m not gay. I just don’t define myself by my sexuality.”

Not only am I inspired by people who, along with tremendous talent, are able to "brand" themselves, but I also want to follow in their footsteps. I have provided past posts that include: Martha Stewart, Andy Warhol & Keith Haring.

I would like to have my own line of products: nipple clamps made from re-purposed office supplies, cocktail mixers, & a magazine- Post Apocalyptic Bohemian Lifestyle. There would be a STEVE! TV network, which would only show films & series re-runs that I appear in, or that I love, or that feature : Steve Allen, Steve Buscemi, Steve Reeves, Steve Carell, or Steve McQueen. I want my own fragrance- Douche by Stephen: nutmeg, whiskey, dirt & a hint of desperation.

Tom Ford has not only made himself a part of his own product, but he is his own muse.

Each time I have come upon a print ad for Tom Ford, a man who has the right stuff & designs beautiful clothing; I have earmarked the magazine ad & said to the Husband- "Wow, can you believe how beautiful he is? Plus... the clothing & accessories are gifts from a genius". The Husband concurred.

Ford: "I think I detach the physical from the spiritual. It’s my business to make a woman or a man beautiful, & I’m working with a model in a fitting, & I’ve objectified them to the point that they become an object."

"They’re something that I’m modeling or shaping or sculpting, but I’m very aware that even though I make them physically beautiful, their soul & personality & character is somewhat detached from that. It’s great when you have a combination of the two- that’s what makes a true beauty. Some people are physically beautiful but yet they’re completely uninteresting, & thus they’re not beautiful. I detach the two. ... That’s why I think gay men make better designers."

Today is Tom Ford's 51st birthday. I would be very pleased to be snowed-in at a mountain cabin for a few days with Tom Ford. I would try my best to leave him inspired. He is Daniel Craig's designer of choice, & that is all the endorsement I need. I love you, Tom Ford.... but alas, he has has been with journalist Richard Buckley (14 years his senior) for 27 years. At least he is into a daddy types.

Buckley was the former Editor in Chief of Vogue Hommes International. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1989 & after his recovery the couple moved from NYC to Italy.

The couple have smooth fox terriers. Their first dog- John, lived 14 years with Ford & Buckley, & appeared on the runway & in photo shoots. Currently, they have Angus & India, who are 6 & 4 years old. These terriers appeared in Ford's film A Single Man. I am grateful to Mr. Ford for his 1st film- A Single Man. It was, for me, a masterful directorial debut & a deeply moving film.

Happy Birthday, Thomas Carlyle Ford, have your people call my people.

3

3 platitudes that I cannot adhere to:

1  1.  “THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON.”

Not really. It is all rather random.

2. “THERE ARE NO SMALL PARTS ONLY SMALL ACTORS.”

A cruel maxim invented by high school theatre teachers.

3. “IF YOU REALLY WANT IT BAD ENOUGH & WORK REALLY HARD, YOU CAN ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS”.

Right. Ask Hillary.

Born On This Day- August 26th... Michael Jeter

Michael Jeter was much loved at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, not the least for providing us with the best ever moments at the Tony Awards. He was a Tony & Emmy Award-winning actor who played nebbishy characters with a Chaplinesque flair.

Jeter was born in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., & landed his first film role in Milos Forman's  film version of Hair in 1979. He had small parts in film & TV & was a frequent performer Off Broadway during the early 1980s, where he appeared in Alice in Concert & G. R. Point, & in gay playwright Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9, directed by gay polymath,Tommy Tune.

In 1989, Jeter appeared in the musical adaptation of the film Grand Hotel, also directed by Mr. Tune. He played Otto Kringelein, the dying bookkeeper who goes on one last night on the town, releasing a lifetime of pent-up emotion in a frantic Charleston-  We'll Take a Glass Together, one of the best musical theatre numbers of all time.

Frank Rich: "Mr. Jeter lets loose like a human top gyrating out of control, literally breaking out of his past into a new existence."

Jeter won a Tony for best supporting actor for the role, & was soon a frequent face in film & TV, though he was rarely the star. In The Fisher King (1991), he played played a homeless man who does a spirited Ethel Merman impression, & he was nominated 3 times for an Emmy for his role in the CBS series Evening Shade  (1990-94), in which he played a wimpy but high-strung high school math teacher, Herman Stiles, who finds himself the assistant football coach under Burt Reynolds.

He won the award in 1992 & was nominated 2 more time, for roles on Post Apocalyptic Bohemian favorites- Picket Fences & Chicago Hope.

Jeter's film credits include: Patch Adams, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Welcome to Collinwood, Jurassic Park III, Jakob the Liar & The Green Mile.

For more than a decade, Jeter also had a recurring role on Sesame Street as Mr. Noodle.

Jeter lived in LA & NYC with his longtime partner Sean Blue. On March 30, 2003, Jeter was found dead in his Hollywood home at the age of 50, a victim of HIV. He was cremated & his ashes were scattered over the Pacific. He is missed. On this day, August 26th, Jeter would have been, should have been 60 years old.

Born On This Day- August 26th... Christopher Isherwood

It is the summer of 1971 & I am doing summer stock in Coeur D' Alene, Idaho. Lucky me, at 17 years old, I am doing my 1st professional theatre & I am doted on & delighting in my first hot affair with a male, a fellow actor who was much older than me. Ron was 24 years old & was an actual college graduate! I had a hard time wrapping my mind around someone being finished with college & being interested in me. Ron lived in San Fransisco (I would visit several times in the next few years)!

The movie of Cabaret was to open that fall, & loving the Broadway Cast Album, I was preoccupied with how the film version would turn out. My summer lover was well aware of my anticipation for the film & he gave me a gift of the source material- The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood. He promised that we would see the film together & he kept his promise. I flew to San Fransisco for a weekend & saw Cabaret in the first week of release.

I delighted in the divine decadence of my new gay life. I listened to music, went to clubs, drank, drugged & Homosexuelle erfahrungen genossen.

Through the decades, I would read many books by & about Isherwood, including his diaries & my favorites- A Single Man & Christopher & His Kind. I recently purchased a new annotated re-issue of Berlin Stories. I have always been in awe of & fascinated by Isherwood's long life together with artist Don Bachardy, whom he met on the beach in Santa Monica in 1953, when Don was just a teenager. They were together until Isherwood's death in 1986. The story is told in a first rate documentary- Chris & Don: A Love Story. Today marks the 107th birthday of Christopher Isherwood.

Everyday I Write The Book

Don't tell me you don't know what love is

When you're old enough to know better

When you find strange hands in your sweater

When your dreamboat

 Turns out to be a footnote

I'm a man with a mission in 2 or 3 editions

& I'm giving you a longing look

Everyday I write the book

Chapter 1, we didn't really get along

Chapter 2,  I think I fell in love with you

You said you'd stand by me in the middle

Of Chapter 3

But you were up to your old tricks in

Chapters 4, 5 & 6

The way you walk

The way you talk, & try to kiss me,

& laugh

In 4 or 5 paragraphs

All your compliments & your cutting remarks

Are captured here in my quotation marks

& I'm giving you a longing look

Everyday, everyday, everyday

I write the book

Don't tell me you don't know the difference

Between a lover & a fighter

With my pen & my electric typewriter

Even in a perfect world

 Where everyone was equal

I'd still own the film rights

&be working on the sequel

& I'm giving you a longing look

Everyday, everyday,

 Everyday I write the book

Elvis Costello

1983

Born On This Day- August 25th... Elvis Costello

In sheer number of albums, the artists best represented in my music collection would be Tony Bennett, Paul Simon Frank Sinatra, The Police & Sting, k.d. lang, Van Morrison, & at the top of the heap would be Elvis Costello. I was crazy for him from the first listening of Alison from My Aim Is True in 1977.

Declan Patrick MacManus was born on this day in 1954. He is one of my most favorite & important musicians, with many of his huge catalogue of tunes speaking personally to me.

Costello has straddled the genres of punk, new wave, rock, pop, pub rock, traditional Irish, classical/symphonic, art song, country & soundtracks. He certainly has been prolific with 39 albums in 33 years. I used to sing Alison for auditions for shows with rock scores, & it was always included in my cabaret act in the 1980s. I modestly have to say that I feel it is one of my best numbers. I admire Costello's songwriting skills & I am zany for his singing with that hoarse little catch in his voice.

Costello is, decidedly, not gay. He is married to jazz artists Diana Krall. The couple lives in Vancouver BC.

Favorite Elvis Costello songs are too difficult to narrow down, but: Watching The Detectives, Shipbuilding (with a trumpet solo by Chet Baker!), Almost Blue, A Good Year For the Roses, Everyday I Write The Book, She, & God Give Me Strength. I could rhapsodize on & on, but I will just share one with you. This is the best cover of a country song ever.



And, of course, Alison: (You really sing it sometime. Just ask.)

Born On This Day- August 24th... Stephen Fry

“You are who you are when nobody's watching.” 

Comedian, successful novelist, star of the silver screen, raconteur & wit are all part of the dazzling resume of Stephen Fry.

Perfectly cast, he played The Cheshire Cat in Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland & Mycroft Holmes in Sherlock Holmes directed by Guy Ritchie.

I thought he was hysterical as King Charles l in Black Adder. He is good personal friends with Prince Charles & his horsey 2nd wife, even though his performance in Black Adder was a parody of Elizabeth 2’s son. Other favorite performances: Oscar Wilde in Wilde with Jude Law (“a role that I was fated to play”) & 2 of my all time favorite films- Gosford Park & Cold Comfort Farm. I understand that he appears in something refered to as The Harry Potter Series of films. Please, don't make me watch them, as much as I admire Fry.

I have also enjoyed his books- The Liar, Making History, The Hippopotamus & The Star’s Tennis Balls. Fry lives in London with his husband- Daniel Cohen. He famously drives a black TX4 London cab. Mr. Fry has & maintains a nifty blog- The New Adventures Of Mr. Stephen Fry.

"My first words, as I was being born... I looked up at my mother & said, 'that's the last time I'm going up one of those.'"

Born On This Day- August 23rd... Louise Nevelson

Nevelson by Avedon

Louise Nevelson is known for her abstract expressionist “crates” grouped together to form a new creation. She used found objects or everyday discarded things in her assemblages, one of which was 3 stories high. Nevelson: "When you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life – a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created."

She was born Leah Berliawsky in Kiev in 1899, & was raised in Rockland, Maine From early childhood Nevelson wanted to be a sculptor, with wood as her medium. It took her more than 6+ decades to make her mark in the art world. Nevelson had one unhappy marriage when she was 18 years old. The union with business man-Charles Nevelson lasted for a decade, & produced one child, a son-Myron. Nevelson left her marriage in 1931 & devoted herself to her art.

She would go an entire decade before her 1st exhibit, which was failure. Nevelson had a 2nd show in 1943 & sold nothing. She took the entire show back to her studio & destroyed every piece. After changing direction, & after years of creating small scale pieces, Nevelson's breakthrough large works in wood were critically hailed in the late 1950s.

She infused abstract art with her personal story: the epic Jewish migration to the United States between the 1880s & the 1920s, her life as a woman artist, & her involvement in American modernism functioned as the source for her vast body of work.

I have a keen interest in American 20th century art, but I know more than even a dilettante like me should about Louise Nevelson. I had a friend in the 1980s, who wrote a one-woman show about Louise Nevelson, & I was present for most of her research & preparation.

Nevelson was the entrée for the USA at the Venice Biennale in 1963, but was still not able to make a living from the sale of her work Around this time she met the young artist-Diana MacKown. They soon moved in together. A new period of success & a more concentrated, engaged work followed. Most biographies & Nevelson’s NY Times obituary fail to mention their 26 year relationship. Nevelson’s son & heir had a metal door installed at the apartment the women shared above their studios. He had been estranged from his mother most of his life, but Nevelson had made no provisions for MacKown in her will. MacKown was supported by Jasper Johns, Edward Ablee, John Cage, & Merce Cunningham when she filed a lawsuit.

I met Nevelson once, at an opening of an exhibit at the Pace Gallery in the mid-1970s. She was there in her trademark scarf & gypsy garb. I was there with a contingency of friends of the actor- Michael Higgins, with whom I was acquainted & with whom Nevelson was acquainted. She sat in the back room, & received selected visitors who came to pay her homage. The amazing Tammi Grimes was part of our group & next in line to pay her respects. Nevelson looked at her blankly. Grimes seemed to have blushed: “I’m Tammy Grimes, I am an actress.” Nevelson still looked puzzled, but polite & rather regal: “How nice to see you”.

“You see, I think that we have measurements in our bodies. Measurements in our eyes. Look, dear, we walk on 2 feet. So we're vertical. That doesn't mean the work has to be vertical, but it means there is a weight within ourselves, or this flight. All these things are within the being: weight, measure & color. If the work is good work, it is built on these laws & principles that we have within ourselves. So when you use a vertical line or a horizontal line, or a texture or the way the shadow falls or a thinner piece or a heavier piece, it all kind of satisfies something in the soul - or, I don't like the word soul, satisfies something within the deed.You add or subtract until you feel. . . the form, the principle, that something that makes the house stand, that makes you stand."

Born On This Day- August 22nd... James Kirkwood

In an interesting reversal of our usual bedtime ritual, The Husband went to sleep early & I stayed up late & watched a very remarkable documentary- Every Little Step. The film travels behind the scenes of the auditions for 2006 revival of A Chorus Line to investigate the the interplay among the hopefuls. The film establishes a parallel between the events of the play itself & the offstage experiences of the aspiring performers who are auditioning. The filmmakers also work in a layer that pertains to the original inception of the musical, & its evolution from an idea by gay director/choreographer- Michael Bennett, who recorded an ensemble of dancers speaking confessionally & used that as the basis for the book of the show.

The filmmakers play those original tapes back, on-camera, resurrecting old ghosts. Composer Marvin Hamlisch also turns up revealing a racy little nugget about the history of the song- Dance: 10; Looks 3 . The film features extensive footage of the auditions themselve, on songs such as At The Ballet & I Can Do That, interweaving an aura of suspense throughout the narrative of who will eventually cast in the production itself. The title of the documentary is a reference to the lyric of that old war horse of a musical number One ("One singular sensation, every little step she takes").

Writer James Kirkwood reached the peak of his fame when A Chorus Line*, the celebrated musical, opened at the Public Theater in 1975. Executing a concept by choreographer Michael Bennett, with music by the late, great Marvin Hamlisch & lyrics by Edward Kleban, Kirkwood joined with co-writer Nicholas Dante to develop a script based on the tape-recorded reminiscences of Broadway "gypsies," the young men & women who sing & dance in the chorus lines of musicals. In 1976, his contributions to the show brought Kirkwood a Tony Award & a Pulitzer Prize.

James Kirkwood was a born in LA. His father was a director & his mother was silent film star- Lila Lee. Kirkwood was well known in the world of theater through his work as an actor, playwright, & comedian.His novels include P.S. Your Cat Is Dead (1972), Good Times, Bad Times (1968) & Some Kind of Hero (1975). He was a capable creator of popular fiction & most have gay elements, & a most of his work was adapted for the stage or screen. There Must Be A Pony is a thinly disguised story of his life with his mother that was made into a TV film with Elizabeth Taylor & Robert Wagner.

Kirkwood will always be best known for writing the book for a A Chorus Line, for which he won a Tony in 1976, as well as a New York Drama Critic's Circle Award & the Pulitzer Prize. A Chorus Line is credited with being the first Broadway musical to deal with homosexuality in a matter-of-fact way - the concept for the show came from gay choreographer Michael Bennett.

Frank Rich: "A Chorus Line was also the first Broadway musical to deal matter-of-factly with homosexuality, & from an inside point-of-view that makes its gay men seem far more accessible than the martyrs & oddballs that typified stage homosexuals in mainstream American drama of the post-Boys In The Band, pre-AIDS era."

Like The Wizard Of Oz, A Chorus Line shares the myth of finding acceptance & identity as an outsider seeking a place that feels ineffably like home.

A Chorus Line was still playing when James Kirkwood died from AIDS-related cancer at his home in NYC in 1989.

*Tiny footnotes: I auditioned for the first touring A Chorus Line in LA & didn't get very far, as I am only a serviceable dancer ("he moves well for not being a dancer"). My pal Walter Kennedy made the cut & was offered a role at the same time that has was asked to join a well known dance company. He chose the dance troupe, without regret, I believe. When I lived in NYC in the mid-1970s, I was briefly friends with Rebecca York who played Diana on Broadway.

MEN

Men

They hail you as their morning star

Because you are the way you are.

If you return the sentiment,

They'll try to make you different;

& once they have you,

Safe & sound,

They want to change you all around.

Your moods & ways they put a curse on;

They'd make of you another person.

They cannot let you go your gait;

They influence & educate.

They'd alter all that they admired.

They make me sick, they make me tired.

Dorothy Parker

1933

Born On This Day- August 22nd... Dorothy Parker

"3 highballs & I'm St. Francis of Assisi."

As a screenwriter in Hollywood in the 1930s, she irritated Samuel Goldwyn with her stream of caustic remarks.

Goldwyn complained: "Wisecracks, I told you there's no money in wisecracks. People want a happy ending."

Parker: "I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions & billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending." 

"One more drink & I'd have been under the host."

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I played a wonderful character named- Banjo, inspired by Harpo Marx, in a play – The Man Who Came To Dinner, that was based on a real life incident in the life of Algonquin Round Table regular- Alexander Woollcott.

I usually over-research my character work as an actor & I was sent into an Algonquin Round Table jag that lasted for decades. I read everything I could by & about these interesting, talented & witty friends & colleagues during one of NYC’s richest periods. I have books about & by Alexander Woollcott, Edna Ferber, Robert Benchley, Ira Gershwin, George S. Kauffman, Herbert Ross & S.J. Perelman, but Dorothy Parker was the personality that engaged me the most. I believe I had read everything by her by the time I was 21.

"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks."

When I lived in NYC in the 1970s, my handsome, sexy, neurotic, born in NYC boyfriend- Stephen (he looked like the young Frank Langella. I wonder if he now looks like present day Langella?) took me on a Dorothy Parker's Manhattan tour one autumn day, with stops at her girlhood home on the Upper West Side, the Algonquin Hotel, Woollcott’s home- Wits End, the Waldorf-Astoria, the old offices of the New Yorker, & the restaurant- 21.

She led an interesting & difficult life, with a troubled childhood, 3 marriages ( 2 to the same man & 1 to a homosexual), & several suicide attempts, but her her caustic wit, talent, wisecracks & sharp eye for urban sophisticates & their foibles endure.

She has been portrayed on film & TV by Dolores Sutto in Hollywood (1976), Rosemary Murphy in Julia (1977), Bebe Neuwirth in Dash & Lilly (1999) & most interestingly by Jennifer Jason Leigh in Mrs. Parker & The Vicious Circle (1994). Neuwirth was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance & Leigh received a number of awards & nominations, including a Golden Globe nomination.

Parker was an early defender of human & civil rights. She left here estate to the NAACP. Parker's ashes are buried at that organization’s Baltimore Headquarters. She had suggested that her epitaph read- “Excuse my dust”

"You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

Details Of Post Apocalyptic Bohemia

The Husband recently informed me that readers of my little spot on the Internet have been fully saturated with photographs of our home & are losing interest with each post. Still, I don't think that I have ever shared this little area.

It is a small space that is covered, not quite indoors or out. We have dubbed it the "Pass-Through Room", which is different from a Panic Room, although I did once witness The Husband panic at the sight of a spider the size of a Buick making its way through the room.

One must move through this space to reach the back garden & to the structure we named the Boys' Fort (not to be confused with the Husband's shop of the same name). 

The wheel is part of the bell works from an old English Church, circa early 1880s. The bench is mid-20th century Indonesian.This outdoor room serves little other function. We simply never hang out here. The Husband did recently set the pass-through as a buffet area for a recent cocktail party.