The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide articles from November 2004

The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide archives from November 2004

Nov.-Dec. 2004: "the straight issue".
November 1, 2004... "But enough about me," Bette Midler says in the movie Beaches, then pauses for a moment. "What do you think of me?" It is in this spirit that we offer "the straight issue," which indulges forthrightly in a similar kind of self-absorbed interest...

Two speeches from the Democratic Convention.
November 1, 2004... Following are the transcripts of two speeches delivered at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last July. No corresponding GLBT leaders were invited to speak at the Republican Convention. Hello. Thank you, thank you. But if you...

The low-down on the Down Low.(GUEST OPINION)
November 1, 2004... Last season on the hit television series Law and Order, a young, "straight-acting" African-American male from a black neighborhood stood trial for the murder of a gay white man with whom he seemed to have no connection. The twist in this story...

GLBT geography: a cautionary note.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... To the Editor: In "Getting Us Where We Live" (September-October 2004), Gary J. Gates and Jason Ost present some fascinating findings from the most recent U.S. Census. I was struck, however, by the ease with which the authors allowed the...

Gay Republicans in deep denial.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... To the Editor: As a gay Republican, Chris Barron [in the G & LR Sept.-Oct. 2004 issue] may very well have heard phrases like "naive," "misplaced loyalty," and perhaps even "crackpot." But, as a gay independent who votes overwhelmingly...

Picano's take on Toibin's James.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... To the Editor: This is to inform your readers of a curious error in Felice Picano's knowledgeable review of Colm Toibin's book about Henry James (The Master) in your September-October issue. "In The Awkward Age," the review states, a...

Plastic counts, too.(BTW)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... It's well known that in the original Greek Olympics the male athletes competed in the nude. And while there was plenty of skin on display at the 2004 Olympics in Athens--the swimmers and gymnasts got the prime-time coverage for a reason--this...

Stop making sense.(BTW)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... One morning session of the Republican convention in New York was opened with an invocation by one Sheri Drew, a fanatical anti-gay speaker who's fond of stating that those who support same-sex marriage are no different from those who supported...

This protest sucks.(BTW)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... For years, the Phelps family of Kansas has been traveling around the country picketing any event that celebrates gay life or mourns its deaths. Alas, they seem to be running out of targets, as witness their recent visit to an Electrolux...

Naked boys.(BTW)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Republicans showed that their convention in New York wasn't only about politics, it was about good clean values, too, so they carefully controlled the entertainment portion of the week to ensure that no one was corrupted by the Big City. Well,...

Naked men.(BTW)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... If there's one place that draws the ultra-elite among conservative power brokers and fat cats, it's the Bohemian Grove in California. The all-male enclave recently featured a two-week retreat whose guests included George H. W. Bush, Dick...

Beyond the great barrier reef.(BTW)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... When a group of Australians declared their intention to set up "the world's first independent sovereign Gay & Lesbian nation," it sounded about as serious as the plan of some American evangelicals to move en masse to South Carolina and then...

'It's really about the search for love': John Esther talks with the star of Head in the Clouds.(INTERVIEW)(Interview)(Cover Story)
November 1, 2004... BORN AUGUST 7, 1975, Charlize Theron grew up in South Africa during the last years of apartheid. Her first love was dancing, but after a knee injury she began to pursue a modeling career in Europe and the U.S. Her acting break came in the form...

Closet-dwellers of the mind.(ESSAY)
November 1, 2004... THE MOST INSIDIOUS FORM of anti-gay representation is not in religious broadcasting--which speaks only to the converted--but in seemingly gay-positive films and videos. It's not just that Will of Will & Grace is never allowed to have a...

The bachelors.(ESSAY)
November 1, 2004... The following article has been adapted from a piece that first appeared in the on-line journal, Slate.com. WHAT'S GOING ON with gay men and reality television? Even as the debate rages about whether or not to deface the U.S. Constitution...

Circling the square.(ESSAY)
November 1, 2004... IN JULY 2003, Bravo premiered Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a reality series in which five urbane gay men give lifestyle makeovers to straight men, and it became an overnight cultural phenomenon. That same summer, The New York Times made the...

Poets are out in the presses.(ESSAY)
November 1, 2004... KNOWING THAT WE LIVE in a time of hope as well as of threat, I am skeptical of claims that poetry is alive and well in America and that gay and lesbian poetry has been fully embraced by the "mainstream." While some people insist that we are...

Goat Island at the Russian River.(Poem)
November 1, 2004... for Lawrence Fixel (1917-2003) Genesis: a major quake along a minor fault Path: applejack whiskey and wine eye-for-eye reduced to tit-for-tat What comes after "next"? Next does and after that is a next it precedes, follows....

Straight pen for gay men.(ESSAY)
November 1, 2004... "HOW CAN YOU DO THAT?" straight people invariably ask when they learn that I write and publish gay male erotica. I always listen for the inflection, as the question comes in two varieties. If the emphasis is on the "how," it indicates genuine...

Upper west side story.(ESSAY)
November 1, 2004... AMONG THE MANY THINGS of which gay men have been accused is one, at least, that is true: that we often move into and invade somewhat impoverished neighborhoods of major cities, and lend our "queer eye" sensibility to improving them, while...

The new post-straight.(ESSAY)
November 1, 2004... DESPITE the wedding band on her finger and all the other conventional markers of femininity--the makeup, the dress, the pretty, delicate features that would make most people read her as "straight"--Nancy Unger does not wish to identify herself,...

To the Boy with Beautiful Skin.(Poem)
November 1, 2004... I sometimes watch you while you're typing up my day's mail or returning books to my shelves. There is an aura to you, a kind of glowing that reminds me of the way light dances from the face of portraits painted by Rembrandt. I once...

The essentials of heaven.(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst Bloomsbury. 448 pages, $24.95 ALAN HOLLINGHURST'S new novel, The Line of Beauty, begins in 1983, just when The Swimming Pool Library left off--though its leading man is not the confident...

The lesbian between the lines.(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Lesbian Rule: Cultural Criticism and the Value of Desire by Amy Villarejo Duke University Press 207 pages, $74.95 ($21.95 paper) THE LESBIAN in literature is found in the shadows of heterosexual plots with (often ambiguously)...

What really happened at the Stonewall Inn?(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution by David Carter St. Martin's Press. 352 pages. $24.95 THE STONEWALL RIOTS of June 28 to July 3, 1969, following a police raid on an illegal, Mafiaowned gay bar in New York's...

Sharecropper's daughter.(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Alice Walker: A Life by Evelyn C. White Norton. 496 pages. 29.95 THE LIFE of Alice Walker, born in the segregated South to sharecropper parents, is a lens through which a painful part of this country's history can be closely...

Can sex be (re)liberated?(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality by Patrick Moore Beacon Press. 232 pages, $25. FOR THOSE OF US over forty, it's pretty obvious by now that the gay political movement that leapt forward so...

Sex markets and the city.(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... The Sexual Organization of the City Edited by Edward O. Laumann, Stephen Ellingson, Jenna Mahay, Anthony Paik, and Yoosik Yim University of Chicago Press 418 pages, $35. HBO's Sex and the City gave us a New York that was...

Ultimate Gay Sex.(BRIEFS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Ultimate Gay Sex by Michael Thomas Ford Dorling Kindersley. 191 pages, $30. The Gay Man's Kama Sutra by Terry Sanderson Thomas Dunne Books. 144 pages, $24.95. Motivated, no doubt, by fraternal concerns, two of our big...

Best Gay Asian Erotica.(BRIEFS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Best Gay Asian Erotica Edited by Joel B. Tan Cleis Press, 252 pages, $14.95, paperback In 1998, Joel B. Tan edited what was then hailed as the first anthology of its kind, Queer PAPI Porn: Gay Asian Erotica (PAPI stands for...

A big life writ large.(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Sir John Gielgud: A Life in Letters Edited by Richard Mangan Arcade Publishing. 572 pages. $30. SIR JOHN GIELGUD (1904-2000) was a towering figure in 20th-century English theatre, an actor to rank alongside Ralph Richardson,...

Brazil: organizing for gay rights in Bahia.(INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM)(Interview)
November 1, 2004... SALVADOR DA BAHIA is perhaps best known to tourists as the most "African" city in Brazil. The administrative center of Bahia State, the third-largest city in Brazil and the country's first capital (until 1764), Salvador displays the profound...

Some of the sights.(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts Edited by Claude J. Summers Cleis Press. 373 pages, $29.95 (paper) THE 200 ENTRIES in The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts cover individuals, artistic movements, time periods,...

Do you surfer boy?(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Clay's Way by Blair Mastbaum Alyson Books. 242 pages, $12.95 BLAIR MASTBAUM'S impressive comic debut novel, set in Hawaii, presents the serious love choices of its fifteen-turning-sixteen-year-old narrator Sam, an unskilled...

Is there a 'gay aesthetic'?(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Hear Us Out: Conversations with Gay Novelists by Richard Canning Columbia University Press. 358 pages, $62.50 ($24.95, paper) IN THIS, his second book in a proposed three-volume series, literary interviewer Richard Canning...

Life after orgasm.(BOOKS)(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Desire, Lust, Passion, Sex by Jameson Currier Green Candy Press. 288 pages, $14.95 THE TITLE of Jameson Currier's book of short stories, Desire, Lust, Passion, Sex, making use of four words that need to go on a ten-year hiatus,...

Conferences/events.(Bulletin Board)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
November 1, 2004... The European Conference of the International Lesbian & Gay Association to take place in Budapest Oct. 27-31, 2004. For more info, visit: www.ilga-europe.org. The National Rainbow Health Conference will take place Nov. 4-7 in Gatineau,...

LGBT veterans sought.(Research Assistance Wanted)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... LGBT veterans sought for an anonymous, web-based study. The research is being conducted by an LGBT research team at the Univ. of Washington. The survey will ask about your physical and mental health, your experiences with health care, and your...

Health promotion and HIV prevention materials sought.(Research Assistance Wanted)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Health promotion and HIV prevention materials sought--flyers, posters, brochures, or other forms of media--targeting gay and bisexual men, for a research project. E-mail digital files to: ric@kasinhouse.com. Or mail printed materials to: Ric...

Participants sought.(Research Assistance Wanted)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Participants sought by Acadia University for an on-line study of GLBT relationships. Cash and vacation prizes available. Open to U.S. and Canadian citizens. For more info, visit: www.klbresearch.com. Or e-mail info@klbresearch.com.

Amazing Dreams Publishing.(Announcements)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Amazing Dreams Publishing hosts a free online support group for lesbians and bisexual women who are coming out worldwide. For more info, and to join, visit: www.amazingdreamspublishing.com.

The LGBT Religious Archives Network.(Announcements)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... The LGBT Religious Archives Network (LGBTRAN) is dedicated to preserving the history of gay and lesbian religious movements. Supported largely by a few foundations to date, the archive seeks to raise $10,000 from private donations To make a...

The lost songs of Cole Porter.(HUMOR)
November 1, 2004... COLE PORTER has been considered by many to be the best writer of popular songs in show business history, but his impressive oeuvre has been significantly incomplete until now, as the following stories of a number of lost songs demonstrate. ...