tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43300976849358595722024-02-22T09:02:46.745-08:00post apocalyptic bohemianRandom Musings Of A Mid-20th Century Gay Man On The Memories, Experiences, People, Animals & Things That He Loves To See, Hear, Read, Feel, Smell & ImbibeStephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.comBlogger2918125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-23042759673137102392016-12-07T02:22:00.000-08:002016-12-07T02:22:08.509-08:00Born This Day: Willa Cather<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">December
7, 1873</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">- <b>Willa Cather</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The
end is nothing; the road is all.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">When she was just 14 years old and living in Nebraska, </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Willa Cather</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> began dressing as a boy
and calling herself William. This continued when she attended the </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">University Of Nebraska</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">. Later, when she
could choose a fictional world to live in, she would usually write with an emphasis
on her male characters. She is famous for her odes to life in the Midwest, like
</span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><i>O
Pioneers!</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (1913) and </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><i>My Ántonia</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (1918), but she lived
most of her adult life in NYC, where for four decades, she lived with her
partner </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Edith</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lewis</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">, a noted NYC editor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nebraska is often a jumping off point for her work, but her
12 novels cover an incredible range of subjects: <b><i>Song Of The Lark</i></b> (1915) is
about an opera singer who travels around the world. <b><i>One Of Ours</i></b>, which won
the 1923 <b>Pulitzer Prize</b>, is about a
man enlisting to fight in WW I after his wife leaves to do missionary work in
China. Her masterpiece, <b><i>Death Comes For The</i></b> <b><i>Archbishop</i></b>
(1927), is about a bishop and a priest and their attempts to establish a church
in the New Mexico Territory. Her talent was nourished and inspired by the
American scene, the Mid-West in particular, and her sensitive and patient understanding
for what we now call the Red States informed the basis of much her work. She is
remembered for her exquisite economy of language and her charming manner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cather specialized in plot lines and characters that reveal
both the freedom of the artist to create and the social rejection of imagination.
In</span> <b><i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My
Ántonia</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">, the patriarch of a Bohemian immigrant family
is a farmer, but he has no skills for such a life. He is a violinist, a refined
man who dresses for a dignified life. The unforgiving conditions of life on The
Plains, which he knows will eventually provide his children with a future,
smother him. At his breaking point, he takes his own life. The locals, who are
written as sympathetic up to that point, will not allow the defeated man's body
to be buried in the community cemetery. Instead, he is placed at the crossroads
of two roads outside of town. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
Lost Lady</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> (1923) is the story of the Mid-West in the age
of the building of railroads. It is a tale of the charming wife of a retired
contractor, and her hospitable household as seen through the eyes of an adoring
boy. The climax of the book, with the disintegration of the household and the
slow hardening of the wife. It is told in vivid, haunting prose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The same sort of situation is played out in some of
Cather's short stories like <b><i>Paul's Case</i></b> (1905) and <b><i>The
Sculptor's Funeral</i></b> (1905), but in these stories the main characters
read as gay. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In <b><i>Paul’s Case</i></b>, Paul in a Pittsburgh
high school student who is frustrated with his middle-class existence. He wants
another sort of life, one where he attends concerts and the theater, even if
his appreciation of the arts is more social and superficial than aesthetic. He
enjoys the symphony not for the music but for the atmosphere: <i>"The lights danced before his eyes and
the concert hall blazed into unimaginable splendor."</i> Paul steals money
to escape to NYC, but after the funds are spent, he commits suicide rather than
allow his father to take him back to Pittsburgh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In <b><i>The Sculptor’s Funeral</i></b>, the body of
Harvey Merrick, a famed sculptor, is brought back to his parent’s house in small
town Kansas. Only his childhood friends, Jim and Henry, show any real emotion, and
wonder how he ever made it out of the town. Before the funeral, the town's
leading citizens make fun of Merrick for his education and uppity lifestyle,
Jim and Henry attack their hypocrisy in criticizing Merrick. They lash out at
the people in the town by exposing the corruption of their ideals, their
gambling, shootings and adultery. Henry claims that Merrick escaped that life
and that this was why the town's leaders hate him. Jim is disgusted with
himself for having not left the town like Merrick, and he gets too drunk to
attend the funeral. The story ends Jim dying from pneumonia shortly after the
ceremony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In one of her first stories, <b><i>Tommy, The Unsentimental</i></b> (1899),
a Nebraskan girl with a boy's name, and who looks like a boy, saves her
father's bank business. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In <b><i>O Pioneers!</i></b>, with its title taken
from the great gay <b>Walt Whitman</b>'s
poem of the same name, the main characters are shunned because of their
eccentricities, individuality, and what is perceived as a lack of focus in
life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She is so identified as being from the Middle of America,
but Cather was born in Virginia. When she was 8 years old, her family moved to
Nebraska and bought a farm near the small town of <b>Red Cloud</b>. As a child, she did not go to school, but spent many
hours reading the classics with her two grandmothers. Later, when her family
moved to town, she attended high school and then the <b>University Of Nebraska</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She spent a few years in <b>Pittsburgh</b> teaching and doing newspaper work, but each summer she
visited in Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cather's first collection of stories was <b><i>The
Troll Garden</i></b> (1905) which is not about the comments section on <b>The Facebook</b>. It was published by <b>McClure-Phillips</b>, and two years later
she became an associate editor for <b>McClure's
Magazine</b> and moved to NYC. She then became
the managing editor of the publication for the next four years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">During this period, she wrote very little, but she traveled
to Europe and the American Southwest. In 1912, she gave up editorial work to write
full time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1931, she was named by the great gay English writer <b>J<i>.</i>B.
Priestley</b>, as this country's greatest novelist. She received honorary
degrees from the <b>University Of Michigan</b>,
<b>Columbia University</b>, <b>Yale</b> and <b>Princeton</b>. Plus, in</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1962 Cather was elected to the
<b>Nebraska Hall Of Fame</b>; in 1973 the
USPS honored Cather by issuing a stamp with her image; in 1981, the U.S. Mint
created a Willa Cather gold coin; in 1986, Cather was inducted into the <b>National Cowgirl Hall Of Fame</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For me, Cather’s novels can easily be read as an early
commentary on gay life in America. But, when I read her work in my university’s
American Literature courses, Cather's gayness was never mentioned, of course.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Among her many lovers were her college pal <b>Louise Pound</b>, Pittsburgh socialite <b>Isabelle McClung</b>, with whom Cather
traveled to Europe and at whose home lived, opera singer <b>Olive Fremstad</b>; pianist <b>Yaltah
Menuhin</b>, and, of course Edith Lewis, with whom Cather shared her life for
40 years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the mid-1970s, my NYC boyfriend, a native, would take me
on Literary Tours of the city. He pointed out the apartment that Cather and
Lewis shared at 5 Bank Street in <b>Greenwich
Village</b>, and their final place at 570 Park Avenue.</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lewis
was named executor of Cather's literary estate when Cather was taken by cerebral
hemorrhage in 1947. Lewis published a memoir of her life with Cather titled <b><i>Willa
Cather Living</i></b> (1953).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cather and Lewis could not be open about their relationship
in their era, but they are together forever, buried next to each other in the <b>Old Burying</b> <b>Ground</b> near <b>Jaffrey, New
Hampshire</b>, a favorite vacation spot for the couple. I managed to visit this
place once, in the company of my favorite professor, who I had a crush on.
There is a prominent Willa Cather headstone placed above both their graves, it
reads:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"That
is happiness; to be dissolved<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">into
something complete and great."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From <b><i>My Ántonia</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-15437352319572556252015-06-30T10:15:00.002-07:002015-06-30T10:15:52.164-07:00Born This Day: Edythe Marrenner<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I'll Cry Tomorrow<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><b>"When you`re dead, you`re dead. No one is going to
remember me when I`m dead. Oh, maybe a few friends will remember me
affectionately. Being remembered is not the most important thing anyhow. It`s
what you do when you are here that`s important."</b></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was late in coming to appreciate <b>Susan Hayward</b>. When I
was younger I was not attracted to the turgid, soapy films that seemed to be
her specialty. Her films blended into one big melodrama about a pill popping
alcoholic on death row who sings an overwrought song just before she dies. After
revisiting VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967) in the aughts, I came to appreciate her
stunning beauty & her style, & her portrayals of strong determined
women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She worked as a photographer’s model in NYC before
traveling to Hollywood in 1937 to audition for David Selznick hoping for the
role of Scarlett O’Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND. She was not even seriously
considered, but Hayward managed to secure a contract after the screen-test
& was given her new name by her first manager.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hayward's first film appearance was as a ‘Starlet At Table’
in HOLLYWOOD HOTEL (1937). Hayward played a lot of minor roles, she later said
that she “really paid her dues” as a newcomer. The determined Hayward finally
earned a more interesting role in BEAU GESTE (1939) opposite Gary Cooper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She made a strong impression opposite John Wayne in REAP
THE WILD WIND (1942) & played opposite Wayne again in THE FIGHTING SEABEES
(1949). In a crazy coincidence, REAP THE WILD WIND is the title header for a
chapter in my memoir. Hayward’s roles & her film projects improved in the
early 1950s & her popularity with the audiences increased.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hayward’s performance in SMASH-UP: THE STORY OF A WOMAN
(1947) was an introduction to the type of strong-willed woman she would often
portray. In this flick her portrayal of an alcoholic club singer earned Hayward
an Academy Award nomination. Susan received another Oscar nomination for her
work in MY FOOLISH HEART (1950). In 1951, she starred opposite Gregory Peck in
the nutty Biblical epic DAVID & BATHSHEBA. Her third Academy Award
nomination came for her terrific performance in WITH A SONG IN MY HEART (1952),
based upon the real life story of singer Jane Froman who persevered after being
seriously injured in a plane crash. Hayward gave another strong performance in the
bio-pic of Lillian Roth, I’LL CRY TOMORROW (1955). Roth had been a singing star
of the 1920s & 1930s who survived to write about her life as an
alcoholic. Hayward was nominated again
for an Oscar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hayward finally won her Oscar, plus the NY Film Critics
Award, & the Golden Globe for I WANT TO LIVE!, the fictionalized story of
Barbara Graham, an innocent woman sentenced to die.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I really identify with Hayward. Oddly enough, I WANT TO
LIVE, I'LL CRY TOMORROW, & SMASH-UP are titles of chapters in my own
memoir- JOCKSTRAPS & VICODIN. Perhaps Miss Hayward was a big influence on
my early life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1972 Hayward was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer.
In 1956 she had worked on the film THE CONQUERORS which was filmed in the Utah
desert. The film location was 137 miles from a nuclear testing site that was
fully in use at that time. Crew & cast of that movie included John Wayne,
Agnes Moorehead, Dick Powell, John Hoyt, & Pedro Armendáriz, all died from
cancer. Of the 144 people involved in making this film, 91 developed cancer
& 46 had died from the fucker by 1972.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hayward appeared in more than 60 films & many TV
programs. She left this world too young, at age 57 in 1975. Intensely private,
she was perceived as cold, icy, aloof, & not one for small talk or press
interviews, but she was known as a smart conversationalist among her small
group of friends. She did not like socializing in crowds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hayward intensely disliked homosexuals & effeminate
males. Hayward & I have that in common... just kidding. I love a super
butch guy, but I am a sucker for a sissy. She turned down a role because George
Cukor was the director. Susan was a John Wayne sort of girl. Ironic because she
would become a Gay Camp Icon because of her emotional, hyper, overstrung
portrayals, especially as Helen Lawson in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, a Universal Gay
Favorite.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Directors enjoyed Hayward’s professionalism on the set
& her high standards for acting. She was considered easy to work with, but
she was not chummy after the film stopped rolling. I find her to be one of the
most beautiful actresses of her era. Susan Hayward was greatly admired for her
strong individualism. You have to admire that even in a homophobe.</span><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-20399633545530311012015-06-23T06:47:00.002-07:002015-06-23T11:44:53.143-07:00Born This Day, June 23, 1912: Alan Turing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For me,<i> <b>The
Imitation Game</b> </i>(2014) was a somewhat pedestrian film about an extraordinary
man. It is a good film, you should see it. It was nominated for a Best Picture <b>Academy Award. Graham</b> <b>Moore</b>’s Oscar nomiated screenplay had been
kicking around Hollywood for years & the story deserves to be told. Norwegian
director <b>Morten Tyldum</b> led the cast,
including my boo <b>Benedict Cumberbatch </b>(Oscar
nominated), whose performance was vulnerable, compelling, & persuasive, the
rest of uniformly excellent cast included:<b>
Mark</b> <b>Strong</b>, <b>Keira Knightley</b> (Oscar nominated), <b>Charles Dance</b> & yummy <b>Matthew Goode</b>. I am not certain while
ended up thinking the whole thing played a little flat. But, having audiences
experience this story is a good thing. Most people did not know of <b>Alan Turing</b>, the British cryptanalyst
who saved the world from fascism during WW2. I have to be honest, because his
contribution is outside of the subjects of arts & literature, I would not
have known of his life but for the play & film in the late 1990s, <b><i>Breaking
The Code</i></b>, starring openly gay actor <b>Derek Jacobi</b>. I find this version a bit more engaging than last
year’s film.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He saved the world from the Nazis & the importance to
the modern world of the mathematical, philosophical, & cryptographic work
of<b> Alan Mathison Turing</b> cannot be
overestimated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A once-in-a-generation gifted mathematician, Turing is as
one of the founders of computer science. <b>The
Turing Machine</b> was an abstract device that "consists" of an
infinite paper tape & a reading device that can move forwards &
backwards altering what is on the tape. Despite its simplicity, it remains a
model for all aspects of the world of computer today. It was the prototype for
all actions that can be performed by computers. It is amazing that he invented
it before computers as we know them today even existed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His most significant accomplishment was being responsible
for cracking the "unbreakable" German codes during WW2. Given the
limited resources the British had, the precise knowledge of German intentions
allowed the British to concentrate those resources so that they could achieve
battle superiority. Turing's contribution to the Allie victory over the Nazis
in the greatest of wars ranks as high as anyone else, even <b>Winston Churchill</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite the fact that he may have been the most brilliant
scientist of his generation & basically saving everyone on the planet, Turing
was discarded & deemed a security risk because of his homosexuality. We
must remember him not only for his work with computers & deciphering the Enigma
machine codes during WW2, but also because of his needless, horrific death
during an age of institutionalized homophobia. He committed suicide at just 41
years old, 2 years after his arrest, conviction, & forced chemical castration
for his gayness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After the war, Turing had decided to open the closet door
just a bit, but it was the start of time when there was a change from silence
to active persecution of homos in Britain. After his pioneering work in
computers, software design, & artificial intelligence, Turing was elected a
Fellow Of The Royal Society at an unusually young 22 years old. This should
have been the best time of his life, living as a true hero & respected
researcher, but in 1948 Turing's life took a very bad turn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He had moved to Manchester after accepting a position as
Deputy Director at the Royal Society Computing Laboratory at the University Of
Manchester. He became involved with a young working class bloke, <b>Murray Arnold</b>, who would later break
into his home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Turing reporting the burglary, but he was arrested &
prosecuted for what was then known under British law as “Gross Indecency”, the
law under which <b>Oscar Wilde</b> had also
been charged in 1895. During this ordeal, he remained defiantly open &
unapologetic about his sexuality. After the trial, Turing was offered a stark
choice: go to prison or submit to the administration of the hormone estrogen,
intended to suppress his deprived libido.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This treatment left Turing impotent. He also developed
breasts. His security clearances were revoked & he was unable to resume his
pioneering work in the new field of Computer Science. 2 years after his arrest
& 1 year after the barbaric torture therapy, Turing took his own life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He left no note & the circumstances of his death
remain inadequately investigated & left deliberately murky. It is commonly
thought that he committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide. Turing
probably drank the cyanide but left an apple by his bed. It was a grim joke
against his reputation for being impractical. It also allowed for those who
wanted to believe that he had taken the poison by mistake. But, Turing knew the
apple was the symbol of death from the Snow White story. It is also rumored
that he was murdered by his own government. How farfetched is that? A civilized
nation doesn’t bump-off its own citizens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His story is tragic, but there are some twists in his
story that despite everything, I like to think Turing would find comedic or at
least ironic & that he might enjoy: On Christmas Eve 2013, Queen Elizabeth
2 signed a pardon for Turing's conviction for gross indecency, with immediate
effect. This was only the fourth royal pardon granted since the end of WW2.
Turing’s pardon was also unusual in that pardons are normally only granted only
when the person is technically innocent, and a request has been made by a
family member. Neither condition was met in regard to Turing's original
conviction. Turing’s royal pardon is one of the positive things provoked by
that Internet thing.</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">People started an online campaign compelling Prime
Minister Gordon Brown to make an official public apology on behalf of the
British government for the way in which Turing had been treated after the war.
Both pardons sent Religious Right Wing Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic
into fits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The city of Manchester has celebrated Turing's life &
achievements. There is now a major road called Alan Turing Way & a statue
of Turing in a park in Manchester's Gay Village. There is also a statue at the
University of Surrey, close to Turing's childhood home. In June 2007 a new
statue of Turing was unveiled at Bletchley Park Research Center, where he
carried out his work during the war. Fittingly, tributes continue in a most
lovely way, many computer conference centers, research labs & university facilities
are named for Turing. I lost track counting to 50. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Although the company has denied it, Steve Jobs, when queried,
stated: <i>“God, we wish it were true”,</i>
but I doubt that is a coincidence that Jobs named his company <b>Apple</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Turing would have to be pleased that Cumberbatch was
chosen to portray him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Science
is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.”<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-8215293490954191002015-06-08T07:37:00.000-07:002015-06-08T07:37:03.601-07:00Born This Day, June 8th: Joan Rivers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">June
8, 1933</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">- Joan Alexandra Molinsky's death, sudden & unnecessary
continues to shock me. I have been a fan for 50 years & I must admit I miss
her very much. A comedy pioneer, Joan Rivers was transgressive & transporting,
brash & bold. The first time I saw her was on<b> The Tonight Show </b>in 1965 & her shtick was the message that I
needed to hear as a little gay child: <i>“Life
is very tough. If you don’t laugh, it’s even tougher. I’m in nobody’s circle.
I’ve always been an outsider.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rivers was never afraid controversy in the service of her
comedy. That is just one of the many reasons that I love her. For me, speaking
a truth, saying out-loud what most other people are thinking, is the very
essence of what is funny, a gasp & then a laugh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I
am thrilled that Anderson Cooper finally came out of the closet, because this
explains why he never tried to date me. I saw him as the perfect package. I
would have loved Gloria Vanderbilt as a mother-in-law. This explains
everything.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For 6 decades Rivers changed how women were considered as
stand-up comics in show biz. From her first appearances with <b>Johnny Carson</b> to <b><i>Celebrity Apprentice</i></b>
(which she won & boosted her career) to <b><i>Fashion Police</i></b>, Rivers
continued to lambast the sexual double standard. She was an Emmy winning talk show
host, Tony nominated actor, bestselling writer, & a jewelry designer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I always waited for her wrap-up of award shows best &
worst dressed. The Husband & I laughed & wondered at the brilliant
& honest documentary, <b><i>Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work</i></b> (2010),
again with a gasp & then the big laugh.</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This documentary follows one
year in the life of Rivers, with a calendar full of engagements, sometime several
each day, working to support her opulent lifestyle, & to bolster her own
sense of self-worth as a basically insecure person who was better known now for
her overuse of cosmetic surgery rather than her own work as a comedy
professional. She worked that full schedule up until the day she was killed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I winced when shortly before she left this world, a
friend on The Facebook referred to her as “that hag, Joan Rivers…”. But I loved Rivers because she unapologetically
skewered everyone & everything that came in to her orbit. She injected crass & controversial cracks
into the world of buttoned-up, male-dominated network TV shows, & the boys’
club of comedy clubs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It might surprise friends to know that she was one of my
idols, even though I try to keep my humor smaller & with a gentler touch.
She did inspire me unafraid to say ANYTHING. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1989 Rivers became the host of <b><i>The Joan Rivers Show</i></b>, the
first woman to host a late show, for which she won a her Emmy Award, & which
famously got her barred from appearing on Carson's Tonight Show. After a decades-long
shut-out, Rivers was invited back to <b><i>The Tonight Show</i></b> in 2014 by <b>Jimmy Fallon</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 2013 Rivers launched <b><i>In Bed With Joan</i></b>, a
weekly Web series o interviews with celebrities. Rivers even got cozy with <b>World Of Wonder</b> star <b>RuPaul Charles</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rivers continued to cook up contrversy in the last year
of her life. The comedian stormed out of a CNN interview after being questioned
whether there should be boundaries on her jokes, particularly when it affects
public figures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"Life
is very tough & if you can tell a joke to make something easier &
funny, do it."</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rivers ignored the whole notion of “too soon.” Days after
her the funeral of husband, Edgar, who had committed suicide, she claimed that
she’d scattered his ashes at <b>Neiman
Marcus</b>, so she could visit 5 times a week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rivers always wanted to be taken as a serious actor &
she stated that comedy was a fall-back profession when she had trouble finding
work on the stage. In 1959, at the start of career, she was cast opposite a then
unknown<b> Barbra Streisand </b>an
Off-Off-Broadway play <b><i>Driftwood </i></b> in which the pair of future gay icons played
lesbians & had a kissing scene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“<i>This was before
she was singing, before anything. I knew she was talented, but you never know
what someone will be. She was a fabulous kisser, that’s what I knew.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rivers was also one of show biz’s most vocal supporters
of LGBT equality. Speaking out, having gay guests on her TV shows & serving
on the board of the HIV services organization <b>God’s Love We Deliver</b> from its very start.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“My
gay fans have been wonderful from day one. </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I remember when I was working at the
Duplex in Greenwich Village at the beginning of my career & the only ones
who would laugh at my jokes were the gay guys. I think if I had started out in
straight clubs & bars I never would’ve gotten anywhere.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am acquainted with several people that knew or met
Rivers & claimed that she was a most generous & loving friend. My buddy
on the Facebook & Instagram, the handsome & talented <b>David Dangle</b>, a 3 time Emmy winning
designer, was Rivers right-hand-gay & is CEO of her <b>QVC</b> brand. He suffered a terrible loss at her passing & has
praised his dear friend’s generosity & spirit.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At her 5th Avenue palace, River had a pillow that had stitched
on it the phrase: <i>“Don’t Expect Praise
Without Envy Until You Are Dead.”</i> Rivers had long stated that when she died
she’d be sanctified just like <b>Lenny
Bruce</b>, her hero. That adage proved true. After her death, last September,
the praise came from friends & foes, all naming her as a trailblazer &
a force of nature.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-81629243148737768842015-06-07T05:35:00.001-07:002015-06-07T05:35:22.848-07:00Born This Day, June 7: James Ivory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>June 7, 1928</i>- <b>James
Ivory</b> is a great filmmaker. When asked to name a favorite film I usually
answer with <b><i>A Room With A View</i></b> (1985), although that choice changes from
moment to moment. But, the famous film is in a 10 way tie with other much loved
films, but I name this film based on the 1908 <b>E. M. Forster</b> novel because of the time & place that I saw it
& because it eventually led me to the trip of a lifetime, a month in Italy
in 1991.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
Room With A View</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> was nominated for 8 <b>Academy Awards</b>, including Best Picture & Best Director &
won 3: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costumes & Best Production Design. <b><i>A
Room With A View</i></b> was also voted Best Film of the year by <b>The British Academy of Film &
Television</b> <b>Arts</b>, <b>The National Board Of Review</b>, & in
Italy, where the film won the <b>Donatello
Prize</b> for Best Foreign Language Picture & Best Director for Ivory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ivory is known for his work in a long collaboration with Indian-born
film producer Ismail Merchant & screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The trio
formed <b>Merchant Ivory Productions</b> in
1961. Their films won 6 Academy Awards. Merchant was also Ivory's longtime
partner in life as well as art. Their professional & romantic partnership
lasted until Merchant's death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Oregon’s own Ivory studied at the University Of Oregon,
majoring in Architecture & Fine Arts & University Of Southern
California Film School. He wrote, photographed, & produced <b><i>Venice:
Theme & Variations</i></b>, a 30 minute documentary thesis film for his
degree at USC. The film was named by <b>The
NY Times</b> as one of the 10 best films of 1957.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Merchant
Ivory</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> will always be known for smart literary adaptations,
restoring characterization, subtlety & period details to films in an era of
explosions, aliens & special effects escapism. Their films were dismissed
as yawners. Yet, A<b><i> Room With A View</i></b>, with a production budget of $7 million,
grossed $55 million & left much anticipation for the next offering, the
gay-themed <b><i>Maurice</i></b> (1987).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Maurice is an impassioned love story. E.M. Forster was
gay guy in a period when homosexuality was a crime in Britain. He had demanded
that the book, written in 1914, be published only after he died. Forster left
this world in 1970.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Forster's literary executors tried to steer <b>Merchant Ivory</b> toward the writer's
other works. They found it hard to find investors for their gay love story. Their collaborator Jhabvala declined to write
the screenplay. Ivory co-wrote the script with <b>Kit Hesketh-Harvey</b>, an actor who had graduated from <b>Cambridge</b> where much of <b><i>Maurice</i></b>
takes place. Just before shooting began that year, Julian Sands, who had
co-starred in <b><i>A</i></b> <b><i>Room With A View</i></b>, opted out of playing the title role claiming
personal reasons. Ivory was warned that during the new AIDS plague, a tale of homosexual
passion was probably not a good bet for the box-office. The R-rated film shows
men courting, kissing & making love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Ivory: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"It
would have be wrong to turn our faces from the homosexual community. We wanted
the audience to root for a happy ending for the film's male lovers. People
should be saying, 'I know what's in their hearts, I can feel for them.'
Although the book was written over 90 years ago, it's completely relevant to
today. The laws may have changed regarding homosexuality, but people's
feelings, the dismay, panic & compromises, they endure remain the same."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1987, <b><i>Maurice</i></b> debuted at the <b>Venice Film Festival </b>where it<b> </b>received the<b> Silver Lion Award </b>for Best Film, Best Film Score & Best Actor
Awards for co-stars <b>James Wilby</b>
& <b>Hugh Grant</b>. The film was received
good reviews & made a profit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ivory & Merchant are the most impressive,
impassioned, inspired & influential gay partnership in film history. The films of <b>Merchant Ivory</b> will always be loved for their visually sumptuous,
smartly acted period pieces of literary works, produced on tiny budgets. The
couple & their work were so closely intertwined that film fans assumed that
"Merchant Ivory" was the name of one individual. With British
literary & cultural traditions, their professional & personal
relationship actually brought together diverse elements of American &
Indian culture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Other Merchant Ivory films based on gay literary sources
include their adaptations of Forster's <b><i>Howards End</i></b> (1992), <b>Carson McCullers</b>'s <b><i>The Ballad Of</i></b> <b><i>The
Sad Café</i></b> (1991, directed by gay actor <b>Simon Callow</b>), & <b>Henry
James</b>'s<b><i> The Golden Bowl</i></b> (2001).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ivory had no problem gathering A-list actors willing to
work for union scale: all of those darn <b>Redgraves</b>,
<b>Anthony Hopkins</b>, <b>Emma Thompson</b>, <b>Sam</b> <b>Waterston</b>, <b>Alan Bates</b>, <b>Maggie Smith</b>, <b>Judi Dench</b>,
<b>Bernadette Peters</b>, <b>Christopher Reeve</b>, <b>Paul Newman</b>, <b>Joanne Woodward</b>,
<b>Anne Baxter</b>, <b>Stanley Tucci</b>, <b>Helena Bonham
Carter</b>, <b>Daniel Day-Lewis</b>, <b>Julie Christie</b>, <b>Ralph Fiennes</b>, <b>Nick Nolte</b>,
<b>Leslie Caron</b>, & my boo <b>Jeremy Northam</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 2005, Merchant took his final bow, after a short
illness. Ivory's last was <b><i>The City Of Your Final Destination</i></b>
(2010), based on openly gay <b>Peter
Cameron</b>’s novel. It is the only film he has made on his own. Ivory:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"Ismail
was very much there to plan it, he bought the rights to the book & we went
down to Argentina together to scout the location. We then went to China & made
<b>The White Countess</b> &, when we
returned to London, that was when he died. I had to finish <b>The White Countess</b> without him & how can I put this?... It took
me some time to recover."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Ivory lives in the 3 houses on the 3 continents that
inspired his work as partners in film & life with Merchant. The made 35
films as a duo.</span></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-88871591521846818962015-06-03T17:38:00.001-07:002015-06-05T07:33:53.071-07:00Born This Day, June 3: Maurice Evans<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">June
3, 1901</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">- How astonishingly gay was that cast of <b><i>Bewitched</i></b>
(1965-72): <b>Paul Lynde</b>, <b>Dick Sargent</b>, <b>Agnes Moorehead</b>, plus the star of the series <b>Elizabeth</b> <b>Montgomery</b>, a
supporter of gay rights before it was cool?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">American TV audiences of the 1960s might remember <b>Maurice Evans</b> as <b>Samantha</b>'s father, <b>Maurice </b>(the
character was originally named Victor when he was introduced), on<b><i>
Bewitched</i></b>. I knew, of course, but most viewers were most likely unaware
of Evans' stellar Shakespearean resume. Evans insisted that his first name was
pronounced the same as the name 'Morris'. It was ironic then that his <b><i>Bewitched</i></b>
character demanded that it be pronounced: 'Maw-REESE'.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Evans first appeared on the stage in 1926 & joined
the Old Vic Company in 1934, playing <b><i>Hamlet</i></b>, <b><i>Richard II</i></b> &<b> Iago</b> in his first season. His first
appearance on Broadway was in <b><i>Romeo & Juliet</i></b> opposite <b>Katharine</b> <b>Cornell</b> in 1936, but he made his biggest impact in Shakespeare's <b><i>Richard
II</i></b>, a production whose unexpected success was the surprise of the 1937
Broadway season & allowed Evans to play <b><i>Hamlet</i></b> in 1938, the first
time that the play was performed in its entirety in NYC. Also on Broadway where
he was much loved: <b>Falstaff</b> in <b><i>Henry
IV, Part I</i></b> (1939), <b><i>Macbeth </i></b>(1941), & <b>Malvolio</b> in <b><i>Twelfth Night</i></b> (1942)
opposite <b>Helen Hayes</b> as <b>Viola</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">During WW 2, Evans was in charge of an Army Entertainment
Section in the Central Pacific & he played his famous 'G.I. version' of <b><i>Hamlet</i></b>
that cut the text of the play to make Prince Hamlet more appealing to the
troops, an interpretation so popular that he took it to Broadway in 1945.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Evans specialized in the works of <b>George Bernard Shaw</b>, notably as <b>John</b> <b>Tanner</b> in <b><i>Man
& Superman</i></b> & as <b>King
Magnus</b> in <b><i>The Apple Cart</i></b>. He was also a successful Broadway producer of
plays & musicals in which he did not appear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Evans was a true pioneer, appearing in more American TV
productions of Shakespeare plays than any other actor. Evans brought his
Shakespeare productions to Broadway many times, playing<b><i> Hamlet</i></b> in 4 separate
productions for a total of 883 performances, a Broadway record.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My favorite of Evans film roles is as Rosemary's friend <b>Hutch</b> in <b><i>Rosemary's Baby </i></b>(1968).
Some of you kids might know him as orangutan Dr. Zaius in <b><i>Planet Of The Apes</i></b>
(1968).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">In my research I was not able to find out much about his
lovers. Possibly, like other British actors of his generation, he preferred
working class blokes & rough trade. Evans lived a great deal of his life in
the USA, but in his last years, he returned to Britain. It does seem that one
of Evan's former lovers was his business manager </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">David 'Taffy' Barlow</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">, who
made Evans’ last days all the more comfortable by hiring young rent boys to
strip down & lie in the bed with him. This quite shocked some of his
deathbed visitors. Evans took his final bow in 1989, taken by that damn cancer.
He was 87 years old.</span><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-84711040343189770722015-06-01T06:25:00.004-07:002015-06-01T06:25:33.718-07:00Born This Day, June 1st: Norma Jeane Mortenson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Imperfection
is beauty, madness is genius & it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than
absolutely boring."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">53 years after her death,<b> Marilyn Monroe </b>remains an enchanting enigma. She was once the most
famous woman in the world & maybe the truest definition of “Movie Star”
ever, but her real self will be forever out of reach. Monroe is the most endlessly
talked about & mythologized figure in Hollywood history. She remains the
ultimate superstar. Her rise & fall are the stuff that both dreams &
nightmares are made of. Her estate continues to rake in millions. Just this
weekend, yet another film about her life, <b><i>The Secret Life Of Marilyn Monroe</i></b>
aired on something called the <b>Lifetime </b>network,
with the great <b>Susan Sarandon</b> playing
her mother Gladys (can someone please find Sarandon some film roles befitting
her talent & stature in Hollywood so she can turn down Lifetime stuff?).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There have been nearly as many screen portrayals of
Monroe as films that she herself made. I don’t any of them to be very good,
certainly not fitting of Monroe’s legacy, but I watched one for a second time
yesterday to prepare myself for this post. I thought that Michele Williams came
close to getting Monroe right in the charming & cheeky <b><i>My Week With Marilyn</i></b> (2011).
Williams accomplishes the near impossible, portraying Monroe as an actual
person, not just an easily caricatured icon. The film centers around the
production of <b>Laurence Olivier</b>'s
film <b><i>The
Prince & The Showgirl</i></b> (1957). Based on a pair memoirs by <b>Colin Clark</b>, played in the film by
adorable, freckled <b>Eddie</b> <b>Redmayne</b>, who worked as an assistant on
Olivier’s film. Williams captures not only Monroe’s fragility, both on-screen
& off, but also her magical, unclassifiable charisma. <b><i>My Weekend With Marilyn</i></b>
entertained & touched me. I recommend this film.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Monroe, starred in <b><i>Gentlemen Prefer Blondes</i> </b>(1953), <b><i>The
Seven Year</i></b> <b>Itch</b> (1955), <b><i>How
To Marry A Millionaire</i></b> (1953), & <b><i>Bus Stop</i></b> (1956), but she
wasn’t always Marilyn Monroe. She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson, appropriately,
in LA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She signed her first studio contract with <b>20th Century Fox</b> in 1946 for $125 a
week. Norma Jeane dyed her brunett hair blonde & changed her name.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A living contradiction, Monroe was divine & profane.
She became both myth & metaphor as Hollywood’s most famous martyred saint.
At the height of her fame, she had received 10,000 fan letters a week. Many
were from men, but women wrote too, telling about the sadness in her eyes, her vulnerability
& how they identified with her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From Monroe’s first film, <b><i>Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay</i></b>! (1948),
to her last, <b>The Misfits</b> (1962), she
went from a studio created blonde bimbo to a well-trained, heartbreaking actor
of depth & soul. She is beyond camp, making her different than <b>Jayne
Mansfield</b> & <b>Mamie Van Doren</b>, who Hollywood chose to replace her. She turned
out to be irreplaceable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Amazingly, Monroe still sells magazines. I remember when
the May 2012 issue of <b><i>Vanity Fair</i></b> arrived in my mailbox
with Monroe on the cover. The issue featured even more "newly
discovered" photographs of her by Lawrence Schiller. Never think you have
seen the last of Monroe. Books have been devoted to her some lovely & filled
with photographs, many lurid & badly written. Songs have been dedicated to
her. Plays have been produced about her. She still sells millions of posters
& calendars. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am not certain that I would say that she was a fine
actor, but she sure had something. My own favorite Marilyn Monroe performance
is in <b>Billy Wilder</b>’s <b><i>Some
Like It Hot</i></b> (1959) one of the most perfect film comedies in history.
Her performance seems like Champagne, bubbly & effortless. Odd, because Monroe
was at her worst making this classic: perpetually tardy, unprepared, unable to
remember her lines, pregnant & sick, calming herself with vodka &
downers, making the shoot tough for pros <b>Tony
Curtis</b> & <b>Jack Lemmon</b>. But,
her role as Sugar Cane Kowalczy allowed her play the dumb blond without giving
a dumb performance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gay men of a certain age held Monroe as an ultimate icon.
She was a gorgeous, but tormented person, making a career out of being sexually
& emotionally open in a brutal straight-male world. Monroe worked hard for her
fame, but it was her suffering that we identified with the most. We wanted to
save her. That was Monroe’s shtick. It worked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We all know the sad story, with the battering studio
heads, the husbands, the <b>Kennedys</b>, the <b>Strasbergs</b>,
the acting coaches, the pills & the booze, the insecurities, the
misunderstandings. We don’t need a Lifetime movie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On an early morning in the summer of 1962, Monroe died in
her sleep at her little stucco cottage on dead end street in Brentwood. She
loved the house & had installed a plaque on the house with the Latin phrase
<i>"Cursum Perficio"</i> which
translated to <i>"My Journey Ends Here”.
</i>Suicide, accident or murder? We will always specultate. She was just 36
years old. Monroe remains a most important Gay Icon. She would have celebrated
her 89th birthday today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-60553918047847509572015-05-30T07:44:00.001-07:002015-05-30T07:44:10.183-07:00Born This Day, May 30: Christine Jorgensen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Before the lovely <b>Laverne
Cox</b>, before <b>Alexis Arquette</b>,
before <b>Chaz</b>, even before <b>Bruce</b> broke the big news to <b>Diane Sawyer</b> & the world, a little
boy from the Bronx became a lovely lady. It was 1952 & science was still
popular, unlike our times. Engineers could build rocket ships, researchers
could cure diseases, & medical doctors could turn a seemingly regular guy
into a glamorous woman. This was an era before there was a T in the equal
rights movement, before there was even an L,G, or B. In fact Transgender wasn’t
even a term yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Former Army Private George Jorgensen made headlines
around the world when he returned to the USA from Denmark as a blond woman
named <b>Christine Jorgensen</b>. Jorgensen
shocked the world, & freaked out Americans. People were afraid & angry.
They still are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While serving in the Army, Jorgensen, who said that she
had felt trapped in the wrong body since childhood, read an article about a doctor
in Denmark who was experimenting with sex change & hormone therapy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Brave Jorgensen was just 24 years old when she made the
journey to Copenhagen to meet with <b>Dr.
Christian Hamburger</b> who diagnosed the young GI as “transsexual”. Hamburger
prescribed female hormones & encouraged Jorgensen to dress in women’s
clothing. Hamburger & a psychologist had to petition the Danish government
for permission to perform the illegal act of castration for surgical purposes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hamburger changed Jorgensen’s special stuff from male to
female. Jorgensen chose Christine as her new female name in honor of her
doctor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Her transition made headlines when she returned to the
USA in 1955. Curious crowdsrowd & journalists showed up at NYC’s Idlewild
Airport to cover her return from Denmark. The December 1<sup>st</sup>, 1952
headline on the cover of the NY Daily News read: <b><i>“Ex-GI Becomes Blond Beauty”.</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">''At
first I was very self-conscious & very awkward, but once the notoriety hit,
it did not take me long to adjust.''<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jorgensen was resourceful & like a true American she
was able to take that media attention & turn it into nightclub engagements.
With a straight face, she sang <b><i>I Enjoy Being a Girl</i></b> & <b><i>Bewitched,
Bothered & Bewildered</i></b> as part of her act. My city of <b>Portland</b>’s own <b>Mary’s Club</b>, the oldest strip club in the USA (Portland has more
strip clubs than churches) engaged Jorgensen with a long running gig as a go-go
girl. Often the butt of TV comedian’s jokes, she always had a sly sense of
humor about herself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jorgensen didn’t hide away. She became the first, but
certainly not the last, transgender American to grab that publicity about her sex
change & run with it, so to speak. All network news broadcasts, every major
magazine & newspaper, & every popular radio show covered her transition.
Books were written about her. She smartly wrote her own: <b><i>Christine Jorgensen: A Personal</i></b>
<b><i>Autobiography</i></b>,
a bestseller in 12 languages, adapted into a film in 1970. She got a record
deal & released <b><i>Christine Jorgensen Reveals</i></b>, a spoken-word album where she was
interviewed by comedian Nipsey Russell. She even cut a few singles. Jorgensen
made $12,000 a week performing her stage act in Hollywood. Other people who
were considered “cross-gender” always existed, but no one had the guts to go public,
become famous & make money until Jorgensen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Just like in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, the government
didn’t know how to handle a change in gender. She sought a marriage license in
1959 but was denied because her birth certificate classified her as male. She
had worked as a chauffeur, but her permit was revoked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jorgensen claimed that public reaction to her surgery was
one of the first steps in the sexual revolution of the 1960s. She said that she
never regretted her decision.</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The public acceptance of Jorgensen as a
woman showed that gender & the body were not always connected, & that
gender was something that a person could create. This changed the world in no
small way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jorgensen lived a quiet private life after her notoriety
had run its course. She resided at the famed <b>The Chateau Marmont</b> in Hollywood, occasionally taking speaking gigs.
Lovely to look at, smartly dressed, with a smoky, sexy speaking voice, she
would have been perfect for TV. In fact, at the end of her life she said that
her only real regret was not appearing on <b><i>Murder, She Wrote</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She never married & lived alone. Jorgensen took her
final curtain call in 1989, gone from that damn cancer. She was just 62 years
old. I like to imagine her still alive, living as the queen of the movement
that she gave voice to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Does
it take bravery & courage for a person with polio to want to walk? It’s
very hard to speculate on, but if I hadn’t done what I did, I may not have
survived. I may not have wanted to live. Life simply wasn’t worth much. Some
people may find it easy to live a lie, I can’t. & that’s what it would have
been… telling the world I’m something I’m not.” </span></i><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-17074994588850698562015-05-30T07:40:00.003-07:002015-05-30T07:40:30.721-07:00Born This Day, May 29th: Beatrice Lillie<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It gives me a heavy heart that so many people under 50
don't know about, or care about, many of the personalities that engaged those
that came before them. I recently mentioned Mae West & Raquel Welch in the
same sentence & a small group of 20-somethings who looked at me with
totally blank faces. It was as if I had been speaking Hebrew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Beatrice Lillie</b> was an incomparable artist, a comedic actor
known in the 1920s through the 1950s as "The Funniest Woman In The World”.
She was born Constance Sylvia Gladys Munston, in Canada, the same nation that
gave us Catherine O’Hara.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She began her stage career in London in 1914 & she
became famous for her performances in music hall productions & in intimate
revues. Lillie made her American debut in 1932. She developed & starred in
her own TV series during the 1950s. She appeared in films including ON APPROVAL
(1944) & THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (1967), although her special brand of magic
worked best on the stage. In 1952, she created her own stage show; incorporating
her greatest bits, called AN EVEVNING WITH BEATRICE LILLIE which opened on
Broadway & then toured for years across the planet to rave reviews. Lillie
won a Special Tony Award for her performance in 1953. She starred on Broadway
in HIGH SPIRITS (1964) & replaced Rosalind Russell in AUNTIE MAME (1956).
Lillie wrote a memoir EVERT OTHER INCH A LADY in 1972 before a suffering stroke
in 1974.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the first half of the 20th century, Lillie was one of
the most sought after celebrities, the darling of the smart social set, & the toast of 2 continents. Cole Porter wrote his "story of a nightmare
weekend"- THANK YOU SO MUCH, MRS. LOWSBOROUGH, GOOD-BYE, just for her, & Noel Coward wrote the
delightfully gossipy I'VE BEEN TO A MARVELOUS PARTY for her. She gave the first
ever public performance of Coward’s MAD DOGS & ENGLISHMEN in 1931.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1920, Lillie married Sir Robert Peel, making her Lady
Peel, a name she used at social affairs. She eventually separated from her
husband (but never divorced him). Lillie had love affairs with many women,
including actresses: Tallulah Bankhead, Eva Le Gallienne, Gertrude Lawrence
& Judith Anderson.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With her trademark cropped hair style, wearing a smart
hat, holding a long cigarette holder, she was a true original, an enemy of
pomposity & the sentimental. Fortunately, many of her satirical, surrealistic songs: THERE ARE FAIRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF MY GARDEN, WEARY OF IT
ALL, & my favorite, THIS IS MY FIRST AFFAIR (SO PLEASE BE KIND & PLEASE
BE QUICK) are preserved on recordings, LPs & digital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After her taking her final curtain call in 1989, Sir John
Gielgud stated: "She was The Mistress of the Absurd, I remember Bea
standing dramatically against a pillar dressed in a flowing gown which she
lifted suddenly to reveal her feet shod in roller skates on which she gravely
skidded across the stage".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Photograph by Yousuf Karsh,1948</span><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-19225883134529346442015-05-28T12:11:00.000-07:002015-05-28T12:11:05.414-07:00Born This Day: The Chrysler Building<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am zany about architecture & design. Certain
buildings & structures really grab my attention & move me, among them
(these are structures that I have actually visited): The Woolworth's Building
(NYC), the Duomo in Sienna, The Space Needle, The Hollywood Sign, Boston Public
Library, The Brooklyn Bridge, Chateau de Versailles, Church of San Spirito
(Florence) The Cliff Dwellings of Mesa Verde, The Eiffel Tower, The Empire
State Building, The Flatiron Building, Freeway Park (Seattle), The Golden Gate
Bridge, The Customs House (Portland), Leaning Tower of Pisa, Lovejoy Fountain
Plaza (Portland), Lovell House (L.A.), Mount Vernon (Virginia), MOMA (NYC),
Paris Metro Entrances, Piazza del Campo(Sienna), Piazza of San Marco (Venice),
Rockefeller Center, Santa Maria Novella (Florence), San Simeon (California), Chiesa
San Stefano (Venice), Sears Tower, or whatever it is call now (Chicago),
Seattle Public Library, Seagram Building (NYC), Piazza San Marco (Venice),
Statue Of Liberty, Stonehenge, The Louvre, The White House, Transamerica
Pyramid (SF), The Custom House (Venice,), The Washington Monument, Watts Towers
(L.A.), Capitol Records Building (Hollywood), Shaker Barns, Covered Brudges,
Tuscan Farmhouses, Yurts, Fairie Structures at Collin’s Beach- Sauvie Isalnd,
& St. Johns Bridge (Portland).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My favorite man-made structure in the world is The
Chrysler Building in NYC. At the beginning of the 20th century, the race for
the tallest building in the world had commenced & The Chrysler Building was
the first building to top the then tallest structure, The Eiffel Tower.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">On the Island Of Manhattan, The Chrysler Building was in
a race against Bank Of Manhattan at 40 Wall Street for the distinction of being
tallest building in the world. It seemed certain that the Bank Of Manhattan
would win that race, with an estimated height of 927ft against 755ft for the
Chrysler Building, but the spire of the Chrysler Building was cleverly
constructed in secret inside the tower.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Just a week after the Bank Of Manhattan had reached its
top, the spire of The Chrysler Building was put in place, making it 1045ft
high, beating the Bank Of Manhattan as the tallest building in the world. It
would not keep this title for long, a year later the Empire State Building was
erected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Art Deco Chrysler Building features gargoyles that
depict Chrysler car ornaments & the spire is modeled on a radiator grille.
The building's interior is even more magnificent than its exterior. The
gorgeous marble floors & the Deco patterns on the elevator doors make the
building one of the planet’s most beautiful towers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I lived in Manhattan in the mid-1970s, I never grew
weary of looking up & catching a glimpse of this stunning building. Like
most of the structures on my list, viewing them was made more special by watching
the Husband’s reaction as he experienced these wonders of design.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What is your favorite structure on our pretty spinning
blue orb?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-35844146154489159892015-05-22T13:59:00.002-07:002015-05-22T13:59:39.539-07:00Born This Day, May 22nd: Harvey Milk<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlHes7p-8Ifcq16PSCsvXcgnUG3mWWAotFPMVttNxUcWR4QiDbhkNNUwDJad8fNz-T2jsX0IFhQ1L7qzdQlwnxJrlBhWPYGZ7uus9nhSM6cqf5oHgH7VO6Xdjwf7MkDYPH1PRAIupfdAc/s1600/milk++h2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlHes7p-8Ifcq16PSCsvXcgnUG3mWWAotFPMVttNxUcWR4QiDbhkNNUwDJad8fNz-T2jsX0IFhQ1L7qzdQlwnxJrlBhWPYGZ7uus9nhSM6cqf5oHgH7VO6Xdjwf7MkDYPH1PRAIupfdAc/s400/milk++h2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">May
22, 1930</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">- <b>Harvey Milk</b>,
a middle-class Jewish guy from NYC, served in the US Navy during the Korean
War, who like so many other closeted gay people, chose San Francisco in the
1970s as that place to open the door to his true self & be in the company
of his tribe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Listen up, there is a history lesson to be learned. Sit
down & watch the remarkable Oscar winning <b><i>The Times Of Harvey Milk</i></b>
(1984) & the powerful Oscar winning<b><i> Milk</i></b> (2008), directed by my good
close personal friend <b>Gus Van Sant.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According to people who knew him, some of whom are
friends of mine, <b>Harvey Milk</b> was no
saint & not an easy man. He had a temper & a stubborn streak. But his
sense of independence freed him from compromising party politics, allowing him
to be controlled by his conscience rather than a debt owed to special interest
groups. A true patriot, Milk had an absolute allegiance to The Declaration Of
Independence & our Constitution, & a defiant defense of individual
rights & individual participation in our political process. The Gay political
establishment in San Francisco pushed against Milk, the man & the idea. As
an openly gay man, Milk knew that whoever holds power, dictates the limits of
individuality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Milk was one of the true political pioneers of the 20th
century. He was the first openly gay
person to be elected to public office in California when he won his seat on the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978. Now, 35 years later, all 50 states
have been served by an openly gay person in office. My representative to the Oregon State House, <b>Tina Kotek</b>, lives in my neighborhood
& my state, Oregon, now is served by an openly bisexual Governor, <b>Kate Brown</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Milk’s struggles & his successes show that there is
really no such thing as the Gay Agenda, there is simply freedom for all. His
energy & his eloquent voice spoke for all minorities, all the voiceless
citizens who are crushed in the American cultural conformity.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“All
I ever seek is to open up a dialogue that involves all of us."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">People told him that no openly gay man could possibly win
political office. Thankfully for all of us, Milk ignored them. He knew that
emotional trauma of being in the closet was the gays' worst enemy, worse than
the haters. That made the election of an openly gay person crucial, practically
& symbolically. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“It
takes no compromise to give people their rights...it takes no money to respect
the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no
survey to remove repression.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There was a time not that long ago when it was impossible
to imagine Harvey Milk. Most people, straight & gay, had to adjust to what
he represented: a gay person could live their life with honesty & still
succeed. That revelation continues to this day as the rights of gay people move
baby steps forward with Marriage Equality, & then a step backwards with
Freedom Of Religious Expression laws like the one passed in Louisiana this
week. With every gay character on TV & film, with every time POTUS mentions
us, each politician of any party that embraces the cause, & each state that
adds Equal Protection laws, we find that unequivocal equality becomes
unquestionable, & that is due in large part to Harvey Milk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"If
a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet
door."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tragically, an assassin's bullet did vanquished his voice,
but not his momentum. Milk would have celebrated his 85<sup>th</sup> birthday today.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Today marks the 6th </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Harvey
Milk Day</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">, a legal holiday in </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">California</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">.</span><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-15526312966317657612015-05-21T12:29:00.005-07:002015-05-21T12:29:38.101-07:00On This Day, May 21st... White Night Riots<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir3hyWHY9GSTFO8p04LgDaXiXOvvhHxBa21-eXApjGrlv0C3-kPtGwcGzO3CeFaXAhkVzceAcbCaf4MzKy9o1EnJESxnhzu3k9UiwZx607DTzuItskvXJ4-n-HU3yImXaSqV3QCy0QO7g/s1600/white+night.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir3hyWHY9GSTFO8p04LgDaXiXOvvhHxBa21-eXApjGrlv0C3-kPtGwcGzO3CeFaXAhkVzceAcbCaf4MzKy9o1EnJESxnhzu3k9UiwZx607DTzuItskvXJ4-n-HU3yImXaSqV3QCy0QO7g/s400/white+night.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On this day, May 21st, in 1979, inside a jury room in San
Francisco, 12 people had been deliberating whether to find former City
Supervisor <b>Dan White</b> guilty of murdering Mayor <b>George Moscone</b> & gay City
Supervisor <b>Harvey Milk</b> on the morning of November 27, 1978. White's attorney
mounted what became famously known as the "Twinkie defense", arguing
that White had temporarily gone nutty because of the sugary snacks he had
consumed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The jury rendered its verdict finding White guilty of the
lesser charge of manslaughter, saving him from getting the death sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The pain & shock over the assassinations of the pair
of beloved progressive politicians was still simmering & most gay
residents, as well as straight friends, were angered & outraged by the
outcome of White's murder trial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thousands of people descended on the Castro to take part
in a planned march to the Civic Center, where another large crowd had already
gathered to protest the jury's decision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As evening came, emotions boiled over & the crowd
surged the building, smashing windows & trying to break through the front
doors. A line of police cars parked nearby were set on fire, sending smoke
& fire into the night sky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In retaliation, police raided the<b> Elephant Walk</b>, a gay
bar in the heart of the Castro. The culmination of these events became known as
the White Night Riots & it took decades before the chasm between police
& the city's LGBTQ community would be bridged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Not all the protesters were part of the mayhem. A line of
people had locked arms in front of City Hall in an attempt to hold back the
crowd from doing further damage to the building. The events marked the last
time that San Francisco’s gay citazens would be afraid to stand up & fight
for their rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">State Assemblyman <b>Tom Ammiano</b>, then a public school
teacher, took part in the events of that night: <i>"We were in no mood. This guy had killed a hero of ours & a
friend of ours & he got treated like he had shoplifted. Dan White was a
former cop & he got away with murder. In a strange way I am grateful that
when the verdict came out people were not just silent. I am glad we were so
vocal. I just thought it taught us you cannot be too docile. You really do have
to be strong."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Mark Leno</b>, an openly gay man now serving in the
California State Senate: <i>“The White Night
Riots were the culmination of many changes that were impacting the city at that
time. It was as if it all came to a head through the outrage of the injustice
of Dan White's sentence. It was a jolt to the civic fabric as if we had to
experience all of that to be able to move forward to become the city that we
have become today. The experience I had at that time continues to inform my
public office today. That we have had to fight for every right that we have
gained & we have had to be vigilant every step of the way so as not to ever
lose anything we have again.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The next morning gay leaders convened in a committee room
in the Civic Center. Supervisor <b>Harry Britt</b>, who had replaced Milk made it
clear that nobody was going to apologize
for the riots. Britt: <i>"Harvey Milk's
people do not have anything to apologize for. Now the society is going to have
to deal with us not as nice little fairies who have hairdressing salons, but as
people capable of violence. We're not going to put up with Dan Whites
anymore."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The next day, May 22, would have been the 49th birthday
of Harvey Milk. City officials had considered revoking the permit for a rally
planned for that night, but decided against, fearing that it could sparking
more violence. Officials stated that the rally could channel the community's
anger into something positive. Police were placed on alert by Mayor Diane
Feinstein, & my hero Cleve Jones worked on contingency plans with the
police department. More than 20,000 people gathered on Castro & Market
streets. The crowd created a peaceful celebration of Milk's life. They danced
to disco, drank beer, & sang a tribute to Milk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">5 months later, on October 14, 1979, more than 100,000
people marched in a Gay Rights on Washington DC. Many marchers carried
portraits of Milk. The rally, an event that Milk had help to organize, was
instead a tribute to his life.</span><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-631331178384346522015-05-20T12:14:00.002-07:002015-05-20T12:14:44.944-07:00Born This Day, May 20th... Cherilyn Sarkisian Bono Allman.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today is a
High Holy Day in Gaydom: The birthday of <b>Cher</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cher & I have something in common & I don't mean
sleeping with <b>David</b> <b>Geffen</b>. We have both been on our <b><i>Living
Proof: The Farewell Tour</i></b> for the past 2 1/2 decades. Cher's tour is the
most successful tour by a female solo artist of all time. I felt lucky to book
my own backyard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cher dropped out of high school at age 16 & moved to
LA. She had her initial taste of Hollywood stardust when she was involved in a
minor car accident with <b>Warren Beatty</b>.
He then seduced her. Cher remembers the encounter as "a disappointment".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cher has won an <b>Academy
Award</b>, a <b>Grammy Award</b>, an <b>Emmy Award</b>, & 3 <b>Golden Globe Awards</b> for her work in
film, music & TV. Cher is the only female solo artist to reach the Top 10
of the Billboard Hot 100 in each of the previous 5 decades. I think she showed
serious acting chops as early as the sketches on the <b><i>Sonny & Cher Show</i></b>.
Cher was absolutely terrific, & Oscar nominated, as a lesbian in Mike
Nichol's <b><i>Silkwood</i></b> (1983) opposite <b><i>Meryl Streep</i></b>. <b><i>Moonstruck</i></b> (1987) is on
my Top 10 movies Of All Time list (& one of my favorite soundtrack albums).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cher's career had some ups & downs, but all the downs
were followed by another hit record or a first rate acting achievement like Robert
Altman's <b><i>Come</i></b> <b><i>Back To The 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy
Dean </i></b>(1982). The longevity of her musical career has brought Cher some
amazing stats: the oldest female performer to chart a #1 hit, with<b><i>
Believe</i></b> in 1999, when she was 53 years old. She first hit the with <b><i>I Got
You Babe</i></b> in 1965, & had a hit with <b><i>Song For The Lonely</i></b> in
2002, that’s a span of 37 years! Cher also holds the record for the longest gap
between #1 songs, from <b><i>Dark Lady</i></b> in 1974 to <b><i>Believe</i></b>
in 1999. With a recording career lasting nearly 50+ years, Cher has sold over
150 million records. Cher returned to Las Vegas in 2008 where she performed her
show <b><i>Cher</i></b>
for 5 years at the Coliseum at <b>Caesar’s
Palace</b>. Cher & Las Vegas are a perfect match. No one in the history of
show biz has had a career of the magnitude & scope of Cher's. She has been a
teenage pop star, a TV star, a fashion icon, a rock star, a pop singer, a
Broadway actress, an Academy Award-winning film star, a disco sensation, &
the subject of just a little bit of press coverage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cher is an active member Parents, Families & Friends
of Lesbians & Gays (PFLAG), & has admitted to having had affairs with
women in the 1970s (but who of us has not?). Never one to hold back her
opinions, Cher has a very active Twitter account. I follow her & Cher never
lets me down on the social media. It is my understanding that Gay People love
Cher.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“In
showbiz it takes time to be really good & by that time, you're obsolete.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></b><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-23153896530840810142015-05-16T14:23:00.003-07:002015-05-16T14:23:48.219-07:00Born This Day: May 16th, 1919- Wladziu Valentino Liberace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh571Dl6Zpey4b9habltTnzHiKuSNUcn9b35wF8DgL4RmfXheckdirx65_xUXMph8nFpVyViYK3FnIAjVXdade1vgMeLm4LkZolK5A-iThXXz0dVSIzmoqqwcRF6rLYZX4wws0z5Bn2vIw/s1600/liberace+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh571Dl6Zpey4b9habltTnzHiKuSNUcn9b35wF8DgL4RmfXheckdirx65_xUXMph8nFpVyViYK3FnIAjVXdade1vgMeLm4LkZolK5A-iThXXz0dVSIzmoqqwcRF6rLYZX4wws0z5Bn2vIw/s400/liberace+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“You
know that bank I used to cry all the way to? Well, I bought it.”</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here is the craziest part, The Husband & I briefly lived
in <b>Las Vegas</b> (long story) & even
nuttier, we didn’t have an automobile. I would actually walk in the 100 degree
heat to the theatre where I was in rehearsal. There were no sidewalks. It was
just me & the lizards. My route took me right by the <b>Liberace Museum</b>, just a few blocks from our condo. I always glanced
in & I savored the camp factor, but somehow never went in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Overheard on the MAX Train:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Older Gay Guy: <i>“That
guy is so gay.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Other Guy: <i>“Totally
gay.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Older Gay Guy: <i>“Liberace
gay.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ironic, the man spent his lifetime hiding the truth &
denied being gay to the very end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberace was an international superstar dating back to
the early 1950s. HIS averaged income was $5 million a year for more than 35
years. In the 1970s, The <b><i>Guinness Book Of World Records</i></b>
identified Liberace as the world's highest paid musician.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He was born Wladziu Valentino Liberace in a Milwaukee
suburb to poor parents. He was classically trained on the piano as a youth
& made his concert debut as a soloist at just 11 years old. As a teenager
during the depression he played piano in speakeasies to make money for his
family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1940, Liberace moved to NYC. His charm & piano
skills paid off. Within a few years he was touring the hotel lounge circuit.
His tale might have ended there, except that Las Vegas & TV discovered
Liberace’s considerable charms. By the early 1950s he began playing extended
runs in Las Vegas. He would appear at the showrooms at the casinos regularly
for the rest of his life. As Las Vegas grew, so did Liberace's fame.</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Las
Vegas is a place built on fantasy, superficiality & unbridled spending, Liberace's
very essence. Las Vegas & Liberace both proved the same adage: “Nothing
Succeeds Like Excess”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberace appearances on TV cemented his superstar status.
In the early 1950s, Liberace had a weekly variety series where he would play
his elaborate piano, sing & dance a little, praise his mother Frances who
was always in the audience, & make jokes about the show’s band leader his
brother George. His TV show was a huge hit, carried by more stations than <b><i>I
Love Lucy</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1954, the year I was born, Liberace played to capacity
crowds at <b>Carnegie Hall</b>, <b>Madison Square Garden</b>, <b>Hollywood Bowl</b>. In 1955 he opened at
the <b>Riviera</b> in Las Vegas with a salary
of $50,000 per week, becoming the city's highest paid entertainer. He bought
lavish mansions, remodeled them extravagantly & filled them with ornate pianos,
antiques, & rococo furniture. He installed a piano shaped swimming pool.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberace's musical repertoire included a unique mix of
classical, film themes, cocktail jazz & sentimental ballads. He knew
thousands of songs & could play almost any request from the audience. He
would edit his classical pieces to just less than 5 minutes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>"I took out the boring parts. I know just
how many notes my audience will stand for. If there's any time left over, I
fill in with a lot of runs up & down the scale."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liverace commissioned more elaborate costumes as the
years went by. Eventually he was spending $50,000 each season on bigger,
nuttier, ever more opulent costumes. He wore a cape made with $60,000 worth of
chinchilla, a tuxedo embedded with diamonds spelling out his name, & a King
Neptune costume covered in pearls & sea shells weighing 200 pounds. He had
large rings shaped like a candelabra & a grand piano, each studded with
diamonds. He was the Elton John of his time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To the act, Liberace added showgirls, jugglers, singers,
giant water fountains, light shows, a full orchestra, even an elephant. He flew
above the stage from a cable in a feather cape. He toured with a grand piano
covered with thousands of glittering mirror tiles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberace emphatically denied his gayness throughout his
long career. He evidently thought that coming out of the closet would hurt his
popularity. His female fans refused to recognize the obvious. In 1957, <b>Confidential </b>magazine featured the
headline: <i>"Why Liberace's Theme Song
Should Be 'Mad About The Boy’!” </i>Gossip rags frequently implied that he was
gay. He successfully sued 2 publications that attempted to out him. He had a
series of “beards” including our beloved Betty White.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberace’s denials unraveled when he was sued for palimony
in 1983 by his “chauffeur” <b>Scott</b> <b>Thorson</b>, who had been living with
Liberace for years. Liberace had Thorson on the payroll, dressed him up like
himself, & paid for plastic surgery to have Thorson look like a young
Liberace. Even this bizarre scandal didn't put a dent in Liberace's popularity.
The case was eventually settled out of court for less than $100,000. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberace was at the apex of his career in the mid-1980s.
At <b>Radio City</b> <b>Music Hall</b> he had 3 extended engagements. From 1984-86 he sold out
56 shows in a row. Liberace called the Radio City shows <i>"the fulfillment of a dream & the culmination of my 40 years
in show business."</i> Liberace’s fortune continued to grow. He owned
houses all over the world & had all of his clothes made especially for him.
He even had the front of a Rolls Royce attached to the back of a VW Beatle so
he could drive both of his favorite cars at once.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberace was in a steady relationship with <b>Jamie Wyatt</b> when the gay world was introduced
to the plague. It has never been clear when Liberace discovered that he was
HIV+, probably early in the plague, possibly as early as 1985.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the press, he attributed his sudden weight loss to the
popular watermelon diet. After a last tour to promote his new book <b><i>The
Things I</i></b> <b><i>Love</i></b>, Liberace became seriously sick. He spent 4 days in the
hospital, but he decided to go home & die comfortably surrounded by all his
opulent stuff. He spent his last days at home with his 27 dogs, watching
episodes of <b><i>The Golden Girls</i></b>. With his family & partner by his side,
Liberace took that final bow in early 1987. Only then did the world acknowledge
his secret life & his illness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberace lived a life of high showmanship & utter
flamboyance. His fervor for everything fabulous & his considerable talent
touched the hearts of his legion of mostly female fans. For decades he did influence
many other artists from <b>Elvis </b>to <b>Adam Lambert</b>. Liberace is absolute
proof that being fabulous can be a life unto itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Steven
Soderbergh</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">'s film version of the Liberace/Scott Thorson story <b><i>Behind
The Candelabra</i></b> starring <b>Michael
Douglas</b> & <b>Matt Damon</b>, made
for HBO, was easily one of my favorite films of 2013. I give it a strong A on
The Steve Report Card. I strongly believed that Damon’s ass deserved an Emmy
Award. When I saw it, I was really ready for just a little sparkle in my own
life.</span><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-85885783097473349252015-05-15T07:24:00.000-07:002015-05-15T07:24:08.813-07:00Born This Day, May 15th... Jasper Johns<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have a passion for 20th century American Art & I have always
been fascinated with the <b>NYC</b> of the
1950s, when these geniuses produced their astonishing works while in the closet,
but whose gayness was really an open secret: <b>Montgomery Clift</b>, <b>James Dean</b>,
<b>Paul Cadmus</b>, <b>George Platt Lynes</b>, <b>Andy
Warhol</b>, <b>Tennessee</b> <b>Williams</b>, <b>Gore Vidal</b>, <b>James Baldwin</b>,
<b>Truman Capote</b>, <b>Christopher</b> <b>Isherwood</b>, <b>W.H. Auden</b>, <b>James Merrill</b>, <b>Frank O’Hara</b>,
<b>Allen Ginsberg</b>, <b>Lincoln Kirstein</b>, <b>Leonard
Bernstein</b>, <b>Aaron Copland</b>, V<b>irgil Thomson</b>, <b>Ned Rorem</b>, <b>Langston Hughes</b>,
<b>Philip Johnson</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jasper Johns was a Southern Gentleman from South
Carolina. In 1953, after a stint in the army, he moved to NYC with the notion
of becoming of an artist or maybe a writer. Within just a few years he had
created the iconic <b><i>Flag</i></b>, & <b><i>White Flag</i></b>, within a half a decade
he would have 4 paintings in the permanent collection of MOMA. Within a decade,
he would be considered the greatest living American artist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Johns fell in love with fellow artist <b>Robert Rauschenberg</b>, who became an
inspiration to the younger artist. Rauschenberg:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>“We gave each
other permission.” </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Spurring each other on creatively, Johns painted works of
familiar objects: numerals, letters, maps, flags & letters that captivated
the art world, when NYC was the center of all things art. Johns & Rauschenberg
were lovers from 1955-1961, the era of their best & most important work.
They had living/working lofts in the same building & traveled freely
between their 2 spaces. Although the men lived & worked together, it was
Johns who received the most acclaim.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Johns:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>“I don’t want my work to be an exposure of
my feelings</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Johns painted conventional subjects which left the
critics to ponder the explanation of his rough brush work & saturnine
surfaces. Johns’ work is about tension, between knowing & not knowing, the
explained & the unexplained. His paintings hold secrets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His 1955, work <b><i>Target With Plaster Casts</i></b> consisted
of 9 wooden boxes with hinged doors, each box holding of a body part. One of
them held an realistic penis. A representative of the <b>Museum Of Modern Art</b> asked if it would be acceptable if that
particular box stayed closed. Johns answered that it would be all right to keep
the lid closed some of the time but not all of the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In NYC, Johns met musical composer <b>John Cage</b> & his partner choreographer <b>Merce Cunningham</b>, significant contributors to the world of modern
dance. Johns collaborated with Cunningham’s dances by designing sets &
costumes. He became an artistic advisor to the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Johns, Cage & Cunningham collaborated in 1973 on Cunningham’s piece <b><i>Un
Jour Ou Deux</i></b>. These 4 gay men never displayed explicit homosexual
content in any of their works.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Johns & Rauschenberg split up because of the
discomfort of being recognized as a couple outside of their circle.
Rauscheberg: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“What
had been sensitive & tender became gossip”. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Johns recalled the time he was reading <b>Gertrude Stein</b>’s <b><i>The</i></b> <b><i>Autobiography Of Alice B.Toklas</i></b>
& Rauschenberg stated: <i>“One day</i> <i>they’ll be writing about us like that.”</i>
Johns was not pleased by Rauschenberg’s comparison to the famous lesbian
couple.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Their breakup was so bitter that they both left NYC. They
didn't speak for more than a decade. In 1961, when the relationship was falling
apart, Johns produced a painting <b><i>In Memory Of My Feelings, Frank O’Hara</i></b>,
taking the name from a poem by O’Hara that addresses gay love & the price
paid for suppressing it. The poem's first line: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“My
quietness has a man in it.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 2006, John’s painting <b><i>False Start</i></b> (1957) was
sold by David Geffen to a private buyer for 80 million, the highest price ever
paid for the work of a living artist. Johns has become more & more
reclusive through the years. He made an appearance of sorts on an episode of
The Simpsons in 1999, playing an artist named Jasper Johns. He lives alone on
an estate in rural Connecticut. He rarely grants interviews. Johns’ &
Rauschenberg’s relationship was the deepest & most important of their entire
lives. Rauschenberg died 5 years ago this week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b><i>“Art is much less important than life, but what a poor
life without it.”</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-5200878849096124442015-05-04T17:52:00.002-07:002015-05-04T17:52:51.138-07:00Born This Day, May 4th... Keith Haring<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Someone stole my beloved </span></span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Keith Haring Swatch</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> watch. I think I know who it was, but when
queried, they denied any possibility that they were responsible for it having
gone missing. This morning, I saw the same watch on eBay for $1600. The Husband
stated:</span></span><i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> “you </span><span style="font-size: 18.6666660308838px; line-height: 21.4666652679443px;">couldn't</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> get $1600 for that watch. You loved that Swatch into a
state of 'very used'.</span></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> I wish I had
$1600, I would buy you a new one.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For most of the 1980s, I had prints of Haring’s drawings
& paintings, torn from <b>Interview
Magazine</b>, displayed on the fridge. Unbelievable, there is a Haring, held by
an <b>Andy Warhol</b> magnet on my
stainless steel refrigerator this morning. Some things just don’t change. The
display face on my iPhone phone is a Keith Haring barking dog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Keith Allen Haring grew up in Kutztown, a small
Pennsylvania Dutch farm community. As a child, he fervently drew cartoons &
gradually progressed to more complex compositions. He attended a showing of
Andy Warhol's work when he was in his teens, & was impressed by the
artist's flat lines, his use of pop icons & mundane objects, & Warhol’s
entire concept of mass-produced art. Warhol's elevation of the commonplace into
high art would be the crux of Haring's own work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Haring moved to NYC in 1980 to be at the center of both
the art world & the gay community. At 22 years old he began to create his
own graffiti, ambiguous looking animals & human figures on all 4s, painted
in the subways. Haring eventually found a job as an assistant to NYC gallery
owner <b>Tony Shafrazi</b>, who gave him
his first major exhibition in 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">During the mid-1980s, Haring's pieces brought him wealth
& celebrity. His collectors included <b>Yoko
Ono</b>, <b>Dennis Hopper</b>, & even Warhol
himself. <b>Madonna</b> explains that his
art had such a vast appeal because:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>"There was a lot of innocence & a
joy that was coupled with a brutal awareness of the world."<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Haring was among that first generation of gay men lost in
the first wave of the epidemic. He was diagnosed with HIV in late 1988, but he
continued his art until the very end, when he could hardly hold a pencil or
brush. Haring's bold lines & figures carry poignant messages of vitality
& unity. His legacy made a lasting impact on late 20th century art &
beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Haring was just 31 years old when he left this wretched
world in 1990. He would have been 57 years old today. I cried this morning
thinking about writing this post: for Keith being gone too soon, too young, for
my loss of innocence, & for that missing Keith Haring Original Swatch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Until his death, Haring was devoted to creating cultural
awareness about HIV & other gay rights issues.<b> The Keith Haring Foundation</b> was established in 1989 to assist with
HIV related & children's charities. It still maintains the archives of his
work. Haring generously contributed his talents to art workshops for kids,
created logos & posters for public service agencies, & produced murals,
sculptures, & paintings to benefit health centers for disadvantaged
communities. His foundation continues his legacy indefinitely. Haring leaves me
with a more positive vision for the future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>"My
contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can
for as many people as I can for as long as I can. Drawing is still basically
the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man &
the world. It lives through magic."</b></span></i></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-78361414675109955392015-05-03T10:26:00.003-07:002015-05-03T10:26:37.645-07:00Born This Day, May 3rd... William Inge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I have never performed in a play by </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">William Inge</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> although I have studied & admired his work. I have
it on good authority that my terrier </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Junior</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
wants the chance to play the title role in </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Come Back, Little Sheba</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> in my
theatre company </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The Backyard Players</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">
summer production of that American classic to be performed at the 12th annual
block party on July 4th. It will be playing in repertory the rest of the summer
along with a production of that 2 character musical about married life </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>I Do,
I Do</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">, in which I will be playing both roles, & the musical version
of </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Grey
Gardens</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> featuring an all-raccoon cast. It is certainly shaping up to be
an astounding theatrical summer season on my block.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Inge is our American Chekhov. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">On the surface he created
common conversation about the smallness of people’s lives, but the characters
go very deep. Human pain permeates Inge’s dramas. His major works: </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Come</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Back, Little Sheba </i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">(1950),
</span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Picnic
</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">(1953), </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Bus Stop </i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">(1957), & </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Dark At The Top Of The</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Stairs
</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">(1959) all became successful films featuring top Hollywood stars. Middle-America
born & raised, Inge’s wrote works that reveal rustic small-town Americans
struggling with sexual repression, alcoholism, gossip & religiosity. These
themes haunted Inge his entire life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Inge won the Pulitzer for <b><i>Picnic</i></b> in 1953 & in
1961 he received an Academy Award for the screenplay of the <b><i>Splendor
In The Grass, </i></b>a heartbreaking depictions of teenage angst &
confusion in the midst of adult pettiness & despair, starring an improbably
beautiful, young <b>Natalie Wood</b> & <b>Warren Beatty</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the 1950s, Inge had quite the run of hits. Even his
buddy & mentor, <b>Tennessee Williams</b>,
was envious of his success. Yet, he would still spend his lifetime seeking the
validation of the citizens of <b>Independence,
Kansas</b> who scorned him for being gay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Inge was talented & tortured, not that unusual for a
gay man of his era. His long struggle with booze, depression, & the
profound shame over his homosexuality plagued him before, during, & after
his decade of great success. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1973, insecure & sometimes unstable, but still
considered one of our nation’s best & most successful playwrights, Inge ran
out of reasons to continue a life in the closet. He went into the garage of his
Hollywood home, shut the door, & behind the wheel of his brand new automobile,
he turned the ignition key. He was 60 years old. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>"Death makes us all innocent, & weaves all our
private hurts & griefs & wrongs into the fabric of time, & makes
them a part of eternity." </i></b><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-21892710964701217262015-05-01T13:10:00.002-07:002015-05-01T13:10:57.386-07:00May Day, My Way<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>May Day</b> has to be the Teabaggers favorite holiday; they
just love to celebrate the seeds of Socialism & Labor Unions, mixed with a
little Paganism. I am sure that they would find solidarity with me. I am after
all, a union member SAG-AFTRA, AEA, & a solid supporter of workers' rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">May 1st just might have more holidays than any other day
of the year. It is a celebration of Spring. It is a day of political protests.
It is a pagan festival, the Feast Day Of Saint Philip & Saint James, the
patron saints of laborers, & a day for the solidarity of organized labor.
In many countries, it is a national holiday. In medieval England, people would
celebrate by going to the woods to go “A-Maying”, gathering greenery &
flowers. Another English tradition is the Maypole. Some villages had permanent
maypoles that would stay up all year; others put up a new one each May. The
pole, a phallic symbol of virility, would be hung with greenery & ribbons,
brightly painted, & decorated, & served as the focus for the zany
festivities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In many countries, May Day is also Labor Day. This originates
with the USA labor movement OF the late 19th Century. On May 1, 1886, unions
across the country went on strike, demanding that the standard workday be
shortened to 8 hours. The organizers of these strikes included Socialists,
Anarchists, & organized labor movements. Rioting in Chicago's Haymarket
Square, including a bomb thrown by an anarchist, led to the deaths of a dozens
of people & the injury of over 100 more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sometimes a riot can have positive results, 8 hour work
days did become the standard for most people, if not for me. Labor leaders around
the world took the American strikes as a rallying point, choosing May Day as a
day for protests, parades, & pep talks. It was a major state holiday in the
former USSR & other communist countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Portland has 2 parades this afternoon, one for</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Immigrant
Rights Coalition & another organized by Don't Shoot Portland rallying
against excessive force by police. The local TV news says to expect 10,000 +
people to participate. Occupy Portland will be clashing with the Portland
police, it is an annual tradition, like the May Pole. In Portland, with more
strip clubs than churches, I am sure many a pole will be A-Maying today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am too old to be proletariat. I am going to stay home
& do as little actual labor as I can muster. & remember kids: YOU DON’T
NEED FUN TO HAVE DRUGS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-67735146589024945452015-04-30T17:28:00.002-07:002015-04-30T17:28:51.523-07:00#BornThis Day, April 30th... Alice B. Toklas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Alice Babette Toklas</b> left Seattle for Paris when she was
30 years old. In Paris she met writer Gertrude Stein. The 2 women fell in love
& were a couple for the next 39 years, living through WW1 & WW2, the
apex of The Lost Generation, & sharing a collection of very famous friends.
They were positively partners. Toklas was Stein’s secretary, editor, critic,
& muse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Their books' titles were quite deceptive. THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS was written Stein & had next to nothing to
do with Toklas. THE ALICE B. TOKLAS COOKBOOK was not actually a culinary tome
although it contains recipes, but more a memoir of a life with friends like
Janet Flanner, Picasso, Hemingway, Thornton Wilder, & Virgil Thomson.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Toklas lived another 20 years beyond Stein’s death. At
the end of her life she was broke. After Stein’s passing the family claimed their
collection of famous paintings & the royalties. In those final years Toklas
was plagued with financial problems & she had no choice except to write a
memoir.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The much renowned recipe for marijuana brownies started
when Toklas signed a contract with Harper's to write a cookbook in 1952. She
was a known as a very good cook, but what Harper’s wanted was not so much
recipes but tales of her life with Gertrude Stein.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Toklas, then in her mid-70s, didn’t have enough pages to
call her tome a book. She added several recipes, included among them was the
one that would become renowned: “This is the food of Paradise. It might provide
entertaining refreshment for a Ladies' Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the
DAR, with euphoria & brilliant storms of laughter, ecstatic reveries &
extensions of one's personality on several simultaneous planes are to be
complacently expected. Almost anything Saint Theresa did, you can do
better."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The editors at Harper's spotted the suspicious special cannabis
ingredient & cut the recipe out, but the publisher of the British edition
didn't. The press promptly went nuts. The London Times: "The late poetess
Gertrude Stein & her constant companion & autobiographee, Alice B.
Toklas, used to have gay old times together in the kitchen. Some of the unique
delicacies that were whipped up will soon be cataloged, in a wildly epicurean
tome which is already causing excited talk on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps
the most gone concoction was her Hashish Fudge." The book would go on to
be the best seller for either of the lesbian pair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here is the recipe: "Take 1 teaspoon black
peppercorns, 1 whole nutmeg, 4 average sticks of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon
coriander. These should all be pulverized in a mortar. About a handful each of
stone dates, dried figs, shelled almonds & peanuts: chop these & mix
them together. A bunch of Canibus Sativa should be pulverized. This along with
the spices should be dusted over the mixed fruit & nuts, kneaded together.
About a cup of sugar dissolved in a big pat of butter. Rolled into a cake &
cut into pieces or made into balls about the size of a walnut, it should be
eaten with care. 2 pieces are quite sufficient. Obtaining the cannabis may present
certain difficulties. It should be picked & dried as soon as it has gone to
seed & while the plant is still green."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Just a few years ago, I had an acquaintance (now living
in Oakland with a cute husband) that made a variation of this recipe. With only
one half of a serving, I was unable to raise my head off the pillow. Her
advice: “Don’t sit down. After you eat one you need to go hiking or dancing.
Keep moving.” I was left giggling, horny & hungry & unable to move. 2
summers ago, at a neighborhood backyard party, I consumed an entire special
brownie & after laughing until I was sick & to the horror of my
neighbors, I had to crawl home on my hands & knees because I was unable to
stand. Last year during treatment for that damn cancer, I finally found the
proper dose by following Toklas’ directions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Although Toklas converted to Catholicism late in life,
the 2 Jewish lesbians are buried next to each other in the Père Lachaise
cemetery in Paris. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Toklas name would become a part of the vernacular of
the pot smoking world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-59642243742415229762015-04-28T13:11:00.001-07:002015-04-28T13:11:21.690-07:00Born This Day, April 28th... Nell Harper Lee<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDFuKYQrKr9bmh6PVXbJRXGIup8rNw_4mGU7DR58j6ZPV1aYm1X7QxilHsgnXVZiG5wzHs_sQD840ju-UJSiJGZNi1yXQuccZ4oEYID_TDPbc43RPLQwfK6SChyl6oWjtPlgVO6WOtp1U/s1600/harper+leee.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDFuKYQrKr9bmh6PVXbJRXGIup8rNw_4mGU7DR58j6ZPV1aYm1X7QxilHsgnXVZiG5wzHs_sQD840ju-UJSiJGZNi1yXQuccZ4oEYID_TDPbc43RPLQwfK6SChyl6oWjtPlgVO6WOtp1U/s1600/harper+leee.jpeg" height="262" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Seemingly impossible, I did not read TO KILL A
MOCKINGBIRD as a young person & I didn’t see the film until 2005, at the
Husband’s insistence. I certainly would have been better briefed for adulthood
if I had encountered this masterpiece American novel in my early teens rather
than early 50s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Harper Lee is a noiseless nonconformist. Her cold
shoulder toward celebrity is challenging to conceive in today's culture,
especially for a popular writer. Lee hoped her book would meet a "quick
& merciful death”. It achieved immortality, probably the most popular
American novel of the 20th century. The film version has a perfect screenplay
by Horton Foote that is so spot on that the movie & the book have merged in
most peoples’ heads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1950, a young frumpy girl, fresh from the University
Of Alabama, minus her law degree, moved to NYC from her hometown of
Monroeville. She didn't think she was up to much, just renewing her friendship
with her childhood buddy Truman Capote. She said she was writing a book &
that was that. She published that book in 1960.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That book is a barely disguised version of her Alabama
family & her town’s Southern racial consciousness, but it is also about Lee
& Capote, childhood chums who become personally & artistically linked
legends. They were precocious children with little in common with the other
kids in the town. Lee was too rough for the girls, & Capote was too soft
for the boys. They each had emotionally remote mothers. Capote's mother was a
self- centered social climber; Lee's mother was deeply depressed. Capote's
father attempted to seduce Lee in her teens, & she punched him in the nose.
Capote hated Lee's gossipy mother, & later used her in a story called MRS.
BUSYBODY. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lee has wry sense of humor. She was the editor of the
humor magazine at the University Of Alabama. When told that her book had great appeal
for children, Lee stated: <b><i>"But I hate children. I can't stand them."</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lee became a great friend to Gregory Peck, who won an
Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch. She remains close to the actor's
family. Peck's grandson, Harper Peck Voll, is named after her. In 2205, she was
portrayed on film twice, in 2 different Capote bio-pics, by Catherine Keener
& Sandra Bullock. Lee continues to live a quiet, private life in NYC &
Monroeville. She remains active in her church & community. She avoids
anything to do with her popular novel (still selling a million copies a year
& having never been out of print). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She finished her first novel in 1955 & waited 5 years
to publish it on the advice of her editor who worried it would be too
provocative. Lee’s second novel, GO SET A WATCHMAN is set to be published on
July 14, 55 years after her first.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lee celebrates her 89<sup>th</sup> birthday today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-20433623406860923842015-04-28T07:52:00.000-07:002015-04-28T07:52:14.352-07:00Born This Day, April 28th... Ann-Margret Olsson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNjySJUb_0pOIagIYKr8JZSHBFuYI8Zf65-2P2qkUrQMY97lERY1a7_HEKRuPAM1xsiUL-I_dDO_lHPNU5n6xLp4Q5pLSEZXOspmROlRcolspuCTHpIJJ4VQ3Nxfp2qYMayYf59skeyts/s1600/annmargret02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNjySJUb_0pOIagIYKr8JZSHBFuYI8Zf65-2P2qkUrQMY97lERY1a7_HEKRuPAM1xsiUL-I_dDO_lHPNU5n6xLp4Q5pLSEZXOspmROlRcolspuCTHpIJJ4VQ3Nxfp2qYMayYf59skeyts/s1600/annmargret02.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">When I was a little baby gay,
my mother dropped me off, all on my own at 9 years old, at Spokane’s Post
Theatre for the Saturday first matinee showing of the film version of the
Broadway hit </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Bye Bye Birdie</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">. I was gobsmacked & have never quite
recovered. The very next day, after church, I set up my room’s summer window
fan in the bathroom as a wind machine, & sang the title song in the manner
of </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Ann-Margret</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">, moving closer to the
bathroom mirror & pulling back to gain the effect of the camera work. I was
especially adept at having that little catch in my voice, just like the 22 year
old star of the movie. I can still do it today, although I no longer have hair
to be blown around & flounced.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Since making her debut in <b><i>A
Pocket Full Of Miracles</i></b> (1961) opposite <b>Bette Davis</b>, Ann-Margret has acted in 75 films & receiving 2
Oscar Nominations: <b><i>Carnal Knowledge</i></b> (1971) & <b><i>Tommy</i></b> (1975). She has won
5 <b>Golden Globe Awards</b>, 2 <b>Grammy Awards</b>, a <b>Screen Actors Guild</b> <b>Award</b>,
& <b>5 Emmy Awards</b>. Besides the 2
films mentioned, I especially admire her work in <b><i>A Streetcar Named Desire</i></b>
(1986) as an especially vivid & unhinged Blanche DuBois, great comic work
in the 18<sup>th</sup> century set <b><i>Joseph Andrews</i></b> (1977) as Lady Booby,
& showing her acting chops in the horror thriller <b><i>Magic </i></b>(1978) opposite
Anthony Hopkins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She was born in Sweden, on
this very day, in 1941. Ann-Margret moved with her family to Chicago when she
was 6 years old. She was discovered by <b>George
Burns</b>, who put her in his nightclub act. She had a passionate affair with <b>Elvis Presley</b> while filming <b><i>Viva
Las Vegas </i></b>(1964). He asked Ann-Margret to marry him. Thankfully she
declined, or she might have eventually become a Scientologist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the finish of filming of <b><i>Bye
Bye Birdie</i></b> there was a wrap party, & the director, producers &
the cast including stars <b>Dick Van Dyke</b>,
<b>Paul Lynde</b>, & <b>Janet Leigh</b>, all gave speeches
extolling the extraordinary talents of Ann-Margret. When it was her turn, <b>Maureen Stapleton</b>, who played Van Dyke’s overbearing mother
announced: <i>"I guess I'm the only person in the room who doesn't want to
fuck Ann-Margret."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1972, Ann-Margret
survived a dramatic fall from a concert stage in Lake Tahoe that shattered her
face & left her in a coma. She fought back through tedious reconstructive
surgeries & convalescence. Within a year she was back on stage.
Anne-Margaret:<i> "I really believed I was spared by God in 1972 because I
had so much left to do."</i> She has been married to <b>Roger Smith</b>, known for his acting & his hotness in the hit
series <b><i>77 Sunset</i></b> <b><i>Strip </i></b>(1958-64), & also her manager,
for 48 years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She is my kind of
entertainer: nightclubs, Vegas, films, TV, & stage. She turns 74 years old
today, she still looks gorgeous, & she still keeps working. Ann-Margret was
a guest star in an episode of <b><i>Law & Order: SVU</i></b> in 2010 &
she won an Emmy for that performance. She
had a terrific story arc on <b>Showtime</b>’s
<b><i>Ray
Donovan</i></b> last season. I have been so inspired by this beautiful &
talented lady, that I have a chapter in my own upcoming memoir <b><i>Jockstraps
& Vicodin</i></b>, titled <b><i>Kitten With A Whip</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ann-Margret tells this story
about when auditioned for Burns:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>“I wore this light blue
lambswool sweater & black stockings
& little black one-inch shoes that I had worn all through the summer,
because that’s all I had! & that’s the way Mr. Burns saw me. So on opening
night, that’s what I wore. But then I searched all over the place for something
that I thought would be really nice in Las Vegas, & it was more money than
I had ever spent. It was an orangey-red velvet pantsuit, & pantsuits were
just coming into style. At dress rehearsal Mr. Burns saw this outfit, & he
said: ‘Where’s the sweater & pants that you wore on the audition… the tight
sweater & the tight pants?’ I said, ‘Well, I thought that this was really
nice & that you’d like it.’ & he said, ‘People don’t want to only hear
your voice, they want to see where it’s coming from!' I never forgot that.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ann-Margret sang <i>Happy Birthday</i> to George Burns on his
100<sup>th</sup> birthday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-58158985041176972582015-04-27T10:41:00.002-07:002015-04-27T10:41:51.832-07:00#BornThisDay, April 27th... Catherine Elizabeth Pierson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
B-52s</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> have earned the title of the "World's Greatest
Party Band", yet they call themselves a "tacky little dance band from
Athens, Georgia".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They dared to be different & way out there long
before <b>Lady Gaga</b> & they welcomed
along everyone else who did the same. They were always embraced by The Gays.
Decades before <b><i>Born This Way</i></b>, the B-52’s had a little ditty called <b><i>Junebug</i></b>:
<i>"Well, don't you listen to what they
say / We're a little different anyway / Ain't it the truth, uh huh."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Following drinks at an Athens Chinese restaurant in
October 1976, a group of friends formed <b>The
B-52s </b>& named themselves after Southern slang for big bouffant hairdos,
not the bomb dropping aircraft. The band soon attracted an ardent following,
becoming the talk of Athens. They were soon doing gigs at <b>CBGB</b>, sometimes on the same bill with the <b>Ramones</b>, <b>Television</b>,
& <b>Blondie</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Their self-titled debut sold more than 500,000 copies
& spawned the hits <b><i>Rock Lobster</i></b> & <b><i>52
Girls</i></b>. <b>The B-52s</b> continue to
take their dance party music revolution into the 21st century, & they show
no signs of slowing down. 35+ years & over 25 million album sales later,
the B-52s remain are still going strong. The band is playing a concert in NYC
at Irving Plaza next month & here in my own Portland at the Oregon Zoo on
the 46<sup>th</sup> anniversary of <b>Stonewall</b>,
June 28<sup>th</sup>. The band’s cool mix of punk, new wave & surf rock
certainly kept me dancing in the late 1970s & 1980s, & that
accomplishment wouldn’t have been possible without <b>Ricky Wilson</b> (God rest his soul), <b>Keith Strickland</b>, <b>Fred
Schneider</b>, <b>Cindy Wilson</b>, &
today’s birthday girl, <b>Kate Pierson</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">3 members of <b>B-52s</b>’
quartet are out & proud gay people, including Pierson. She continues to
give us style, wit, fun retro-cool with her music. Pierson has also worked with
<b>R.E.M</b>., <b>Iggy Pop</b>, & was one of the members of <b>NiNa</b>, a band that achieved huge success in Japan in the 1990s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In her down time, Pierson operates 2 little motels, <b>Kate's Lazy Meadow</b>, in the Catskills,
& <b>Kate’s Lazy Desert Airstream Motel</b>
in the Mojave Desert, along with her partner of 13 years, Monica Coleman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">In 2012, after reading my post about Pierson’s birthday, a friend told her about my fandom & I ended up with an invitation from Kate herself, offering The Husband & me
her house seats & asking that we meet backstage post-concert. It was a sexy
shimmy shake of a summer evening & quite the thrill to hang out with this
amazing woman, still dancing strong at 67 years old. How cool is that?</span><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-20994978881848524502015-04-25T11:03:00.002-07:002015-04-26T08:33:05.901-07:00#BornThisDay, April 25th... Cy Twombly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Born in 1928, Edwin Parker Twombly Jr. should have had
the life a Virginia gentleman, but instead he became one of the last century’s
most important artists, the lover & friend of fellow artist <b>Robert Rauschenberg</b>
& the pal of the great artistic circle of the 1950s NYC Avant-Garde: <b>John
Cage</b>, <b>Merce Cunningham</b>, <b>Ray Johnson,</b> & <b>Jasper Johns</b>, one of my favorite
periods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the mid-1950s, <b>Cy Twombly</b> & Rauschenberg did the
grand tour thing in Europe. Rauschenberg returned to NYC & became very,
very famous, but basically Twombly stayed, settling in Italy, just in time for
the Art World to shift decisively from Europe to NYC. Life in Italy & its
impressions of classicism informed Twombly’s work & was symbolic of his
idiosyncrasies, a sense of the modern but also the ancient.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He avoided publicity throughout his life & he ignored
the critics, who questioned constantly whether his work deserved a place at the
forefront of 20th century Abstractionism. Twombly’s paintings, favorites of The
Husband & mine, thrillingly viewed in museums in Italy & the USA, are
huge, complex & detailed, with scratches, erasures, paint drips, graphite,
& containing fragments of Italian & classical verse amid scrawled phalluses.
His works references the high European culture of the past, & mostly
ignored modern American issues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The prolific Twombly became one of the key figures in
late 20</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> century art & his paintings hang in the most important
museums including MOMA, the Louvre, even our own Portland Art Museum. Even in
his lifetime, Twombly’s painting sold in the millions of dollars. After his
death in 2011, the prices hit the stratosphere. Last year, his work, BLACKBOARD,
sold at auction for $69.6 million.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Living in Italy, Twombly met <b>Tatiana Franchetti</b>, an
Italian aristocrat. They married in NYC, in 1959, in Rome. But, at the same
time, he began a relationship with<b> Nicola Del Roscio </b>who was Twombly‘s assistant,
archivist & lover for more 50 years. Twombly kept a home & studio close
to Del Roscio’s place in Gaeta, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, where he painted some of
the most noted canvases.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Susan Sontag</b>, herself a closet case, wrote famously in
her NOTES ON CAMP: <i>"Many things in the world have not been named, &
many things, even if they have been named, have never been described."</i>
When Twombly’s obits were written, even the one in the NY Times, his relationships
with Rauschenberg or Del Roscio were not mentioned, although they found a way
to include his wife, who died the year before, & their children &
grandchildren. But, last month’s NY Times’ T Magazine had a terrific &
colorful feature on Del Roscio with many telling details of their life together
& wonderful photographs of their homes in Italy.</span></div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-1613874901874398342015-04-22T07:07:00.000-07:002015-04-23T07:07:34.543-07:00Born This Day, April 22nd... John Waters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">John Waters</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> is
undoubtedly one of my favorite people on the planet & one of my best
reading experiences of the current decade was making my way through his memoir </span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Role
Models</i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> (2011), a collection of essays about his idols, some living, some
dead, most dating back to his teenage years. Under my New Austerity Program, I
borrowed this book from the library after making a pledge to check out books
from my local branch rather than purchasing them in hardback from Powell’s. I
loved Role Models so much; I bought it anyway, even though I had already
studied every page, before returning the library edition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Waters & I share a passion for <b>Tennessee Williams. </b>His started early in life, the nuns at his
Baltimore Catholic school told Waters that if he saw a film written by
Tennessee Williams he would go “straight to hell”, so naturally he headed for
the library to find the “joyous, alarming, sexually confusing” writer who
“saved my life”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">We both have a thing for </span></span><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Johnny Mathis</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">. In his Mathis essay, Waters remembers seeing a
basement full of his friends French kissing to Johnny Mathis music. Waters
explains: “I knew then that not only did I want to be a teenager… I wanted to
be an exaggeration of a teenager.” Note that Waters wanted to be a teen, as if
being a teenager were not simply a matter of putting in the time, but a
lifestyle. You could actually fail at Teenagerdom if you </span><span style="font-size: 18.6666660308838px; line-height: 21.4666652679443px;">didn't</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> do it right."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of my favorites of the essays in <b><i>Role Models</i></b> is about
Mexican porn director Bobby Garcia, “who has blown hundreds & hundreds of
really cute marines & lived to tell about it”, & whose favorite film
turns out to be <b><i>The</i> <i>Hours </i></b>(2002).
Garcia claims to have seen it at least 25 times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Waters writing is stealthy surprising, full of devotion
& delight. I often feel that writing for the screen must be the ultimate place
that all writers dream of escaping, but here Waters is just the opposite: a
filmmaker who writes a book that feels joyous & celebratory. He is allowed
to be the fan he wants to be in <b><i>Role Models</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Maxims from John Waters:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Be interested in other people's behavior & try to figure
out why they did it. That's what's so interesting to me, & it's not quite
so obvious, & everybody has horror stories, everybody has secrets,
everybody has things they've done that they're still trying to explain why they
did. So if you can understand why other people did it, then maybe you'll be
better with yourself, & you can be a happy neurotic, which is what I'm
trying to be.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I write about being gay in a refined way. I'm trying to
give it grace, a word I would never normally say. I also hate the word ‘journey’&
‘craft’ & ‘rigorous’ & ‘openly gay’, which always makes me laugh. Do
they say, Openly heterosexual So-&-So is appearing tonight? & that
phrase ‘practicing homosexual’. Like, if he keeps practicing, he'll get it
right. First of all, I never call myself a gay artist. History decides if
you're an artist. I certainly think I'm equally right for gay & straight
people."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I don't have a gay agenda, although I vote gay. If
someone said they were against gay marriage, I wouldn't vote for them. But I
have no desire to mimic something Larry King does 8 times, & I like Larry
King. Good for him! He's helping us. I hope he gets married 10 more times. Just
don't make me do what you want to do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The self-dubbed “King Of Filth” has directed 17
transgressive films since <b><i>Hag In A Black Leather Jacket</i></b> in
1968, including <b><i>Pink Flamingos</i></b> (1972), <b><i>Polyester </i></b>(1981), <b><i>Hairspray</i></b>
(1988), <b><i>Serial Mom</i></b> (1994), & my Favorite John Waters flick, the
rather sweet, even tender <b><i>Pecker </i></b>(1998). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Last year I very much enjoyed his funny book about his adventures
as a hitchhiker, <b><i>Carsick</i></b>. In one chapter, Waters tells about being picking up by
Myersville, Maryland’s 20 year old Republican councilman <b>Brett Bidle</b>, who thought Waters was a homeless man. Worried about
Waters, he agrees to drive him to Ohio, 4 hours away. Later, Waters reconnects
with Bidle in Denver. Bidle then drives him to Reno, 1000 miles west. Before
moving on, Waters arranges for Bidle to use his San Francisco apartment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I admire Waters’ assortment of friends which include
would be Presidential assassin <b>Squeaky
Fromme</b>, bank robbing heiress <b>Patricia
Hearst</b>, former porn actor <b>Traci
Lords</b>, <b>Kathleen Turner</b> & <b>Johnny Depp</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">He says that making his kind of films is too expensive
for him nowadays, it is rough getting financing. I hope he has one more in him.
I would like John Waters to be a guest at one of my moonlit summer garden
parties. He can bring anyone he wants as his guests.</span><br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4330097684935859572.post-13051436298991438352015-04-20T07:25:00.000-07:002015-04-21T07:26:06.368-07:00Born On This Day... Stephen Tennant<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Between the 2 great wars, there existed a movement that
we now know as <b>The Bright Young Things</b>.
They were a smart set of flappers & socialites looking for fun & frolic,
mad & gay, chasing their dreams in fast cars during an age of Anything Goes.
Their story is captured rather well in a film by Stephen Fry, titled, of
course, <b><i>Bright Young Things</i></b> (2003), based on a novel by Evelyn Waugh, <b><i>Vile
Bodies</i></b> (1930).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Stephen Tennant </b>was very much a part of this circle. He
born into a life of profound privilege, but he perverted his special station in
life by becoming the most beautiful person, male or female, of his generation.
He outraged staid society by appearing in public wearing a leather coat with a
chinchilla fur collar, putting gold dust in his pretty blond hair &
Vaseline on his eyelids, on the arm of his lover, the celebrated poet &
pacifist, super-butch, much older <b>Siegfried
Sassoon</b>. Sassoon brought his fame, his artistic talent, his celebrity to
their relationship, while Tennant's only daily activities were dressing-up
& reading gossip columns where he was the main subject. Tennant was way-too-thin,
way-too-rich, & possessed an extreme elegance that flabbergasted the public
on both sides of the Atlantic for half a century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tennant’s home was an Arts & Crafts country manor
built for his mother. It was his retreat from the vulgar world around him. He
brought in 22 tons of silver sand to spread on the lush lawns & planted
palm trees. Tropical birds & reptiles were let loose on the grounds. In the
winter, he gave them refuge indoors, joining Tennant in his heated bath,
surrounded by his seashell collection, lept wet because they looked prettier.
His many famous visitors included: <b>Cecil
Beaton</b>, <b>David Hockney</b>, <b>Kenneth Anger</b>, <b>Derek Jarman</b>, <b>Greta Garbo</b>,
<b>T.E.Lawrence</b>, <b>Tallulah Bankhead</b>, <b>Christopher
Isherwood</b>, <b>Jean Cocteau</b>, &
his BFF <b>Willa Cather</b>. Tennant lived
in his home for homos, in delicious, decorative detachment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He left Britain when things became unseemly with that war
business. When his NYC acquaintances met his ship at the pier, they had to have
been startled to see a rail-thin man walking down the gangway with Marcelle
waves in his hair, wearing makeup, & holding a bouquet of orchids. When a
tough US customs official yelled out in disgust: <i>"Pin 'em on!"</i>, Tennant
countered: <i>"Oh… have you got a pin? You kind, kind creature."</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tennant & Cather must have made quite the interesting
couple around NYC. She was the sturdy notoriously no nonsense author of <b><i>O'
Pioneers!</i></b>, & he was a slip of a man with eyeliner & scarves.
Tennant had advised: “ I insist on an absolute ban on facial grimacing or
harsh, wrinkle-forming laughter.” Cather encouraged him to write, but the novel
that obsessed him for the last 50 years of his life, remained unfinished when
he died. Tennant did publish several slim volumes of poetry.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the end of WW2, Tennant returned to England & went
to bed. For the next 17 years he lulled about on pillows. Perfumed &
prettified, with ribbons attached to his dyed comb-over, Tennant was not concerned
about his newly plump figure: "I'm beautiful, & the more of me there is
the better I like it!” He simply stayed in bed surrounded by the things he
loved: jewelry, drawings, an <b>Elvis
Presley</b> postcard, fishnets & seashells, bolts of pink satin, gold
statues, & the pet birds & lizards. Those famous friends may have
snickered, but Tennant was in on the joke from the start. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A telling anecdote has him regretting giving a present to
a friend because <i>“I’m not sure if she loves it as intensely as I do”. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As he got older, Tennant would travel to nearby villages
to go shopping wearing tight pink shorts & tablecloth as a skirt. His
family had all but given up on him long before. His circle showed only bemused
resignation, a trait my husband uses today while dealing with me. Writer V. S. Naipaul
says of Tennant: <i>"His shyness wasn't so much a wish not to be seen as a
wish to be applauded on sight."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Tennant passed away peacefully, in bed, of course, when
he was 81 years old. Cecil Beaton had predicted: <i>“He will be the last of us to
go…”</i>, & so he was, leaving this wretched world in 1987. Transcendent
disregard for the rules of polite society was Tennant's lasting contribution to
our gay history.</span></div>
Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05967985806955115917noreply@blogger.com2