The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide articles from November 2006

The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide archives from November 2006

November-December 2006: "let's dance".(stereotyping gays)
November 1, 2006... There are stereotypes and there are grains of truth; and then there are truisms. Notions about the sexual orientation of male ballet dancers--or, say, of female basketball players--constitute a stereotype; but who can deny that there's a tiny...

Apathy is the enemy in Wisconsin ballot battle.
November 1, 2006... Like most Americans, especially those of the gay persuasion, my husband David and I were debilitated by the shock and awfulness of the 2004 presidential election. But we weren't paralyzed for long: the day after Bush was again crowned...

On Kramer's "Nuremberg Trials for AIDS".(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... Dear Editor: Larry Kramer's article [Sept.-Oct. 2006] proves that his position of privilege in the world trumps his minority sexual orientation status. Kramer writes in "Nuremberg Trials for AIDS": "There is not one person in the world,...

One more time: what killed Jack twist?(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... To the Editor: In his letter [Sept.-Oct. 2006], Antonio R. Gamboa makes a good argument for the case that Jack's death from a gay-bashing in Brokeback Mountain could be merely Ennis' projection based on his internalized homophobia ("a...

Gay composers wrote serial music, too.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... To the Editor: Your surmise concerning a gay sensibility in classical music was thought-provoking, but factual problems abound. Gay modernist composers include Pierre Boulez, the most "killer" serialist of all; the indeterminist John Cage;...

Correction.(Correction notice)
November 1, 2006... Due to an editorial error in the interview with Ned Rorem in the Sept.-Oct. 2006 issue, the first name of French composer Gabriel Faure was incorrectly given as "Felix."

Saudi house party.(gay wedding )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... It was reported by the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Watan that Saudi authorities had arrested twenty young men after raiding a suspected gay wedding in the southern town of Jizan. The detainees were among some 400 men attending the reception....

Rove's gay dad.(Karl Rove, Louis Rove)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... A new biography of Karl Rove details what has been widely known for some time: that the stepfather who raised Karl, Louis Rove, was a gay man who spent the last part of his life hanging out at gay clubs and traveling in gay circles. The thing...

It takes a leather daddy.(Peter LaBarbera)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... His name has come up before in these pages; he's a guy who gives the lunatic fringe a bad name. He's Peter LaBarbera, former head of the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a conservative Christian activist who's so obsessed with all things gay...

Temptation keyboard.(research on pornography)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... A study conducted by the world's most popular Christian website (www.christianet.com) found that pornography was very popular among its users. "The poll results indicate that fifty percent of all Christian men and twenty percent of all...

The safest sex of all.(masturbation)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Britain staged its first "masturbate-a-thon" last summer, aired by the UK's Channel 4 as part of a series of shows dubbed "Wank Week." The event saw up to 150 individuals pleasuring themselves at a converted photograph studio in London while...

Conversely ...(National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... At this year's American Psychological Association convention in New Orleans, the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) staged an elaborate protest designed to pressure the APA into endorsing "ex-gay" therapy....

The marriage fight is setting us back.(gay marriage)
November 1, 2006... EVEN BEFORE the morning paper was delivered to my door, I had a long string of e-mails from news groups and organizations announcing the decision in the New York same-sex marriage case. Once again, a major defeat. Over the next weeks, a few...

The untold story of Jacob's Pillow.(dance festivals)
November 1, 2006... THE DANCE FESTIVAL known as Jacob's Pillow began as the summer home of Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers in 1933. With that as its lineage, Shawn's enterprise would seem to be entitled to a gay back-story. Surprisingly, that story has yet to be...

Men dancing athletically.
November 1, 2006... CHOREOGRAPHERS in the U.S. have repeatedly drawn men and metaphors from the world of sports to give their work a sense of authenticity on the concert dance stage. What's more, the presence of male athletes and athleticism has worked to counter...

Competitive ballroom dancing is back!
November 1, 2006... WHEN I TELL those outside the dance world about my interest in same-sex ballroom, their first question is always the same: "but who leads?" This query never ceases to amaze me--how and why has ballroom become primarily about leading and...

Vern Bullough, our greatest Sexologist, dies at 77.(In memoriam)
November 1, 2006... The GLBT community has lost its most effective advocate from outside the gay world. Sexologist, activist, nurse, and historian, Vern Bullough died from cancer on June 21st at 77. With his passing, we have one less witness to what it was like to...

Once a dancer, you're a dancer for life.
November 1, 2006... Walking to my office in the financial district of San Francisco, I was stopped by a man who asked me if I remembered him. The man, Rick Hood, reminded me we were both students at Harkness Ballet in New York. We hadn't seen each other in more...

Choreography and the social contract.(Speech)
November 1, 2006... Following is an excerpt from the author's keynote address at the annual meeting of the Tides Foundation in San Francisco on April 28, 2006. CULTURE has been described as "the well-stocked mind." I am here as an advocate for culture, the...

Many Limbs Later.(Poem)
November 1, 2006... I was in flagrante delecto in the middle of her many limbs later. I was in her hands and she was rubbing me up and down. My hair in her face; I was on end while she loved me, then she got in the truck, drove west. I stood on the...

Bruz Fletcher livened up the 1930's.(Biography)
November 1, 2006... There's nothing so gay as a stinking cafe A club where the night lights rally There's nothing so vicious or costly pernicious As the life we all lead in the alley For birthdays and weddings and airing our beddings The home is no...

Of Freemasons, kings, and constitutions.(Critical essay)
November 1, 2006... ESTABLISHMENT HISTORIANS like to construct closets around certain chapters of American history, and they reserve a special closet for any "founding father" who wasn't a Bible-quoting Protestant heterosexual. They snarl when revisionist...

'My sexuality gives me a place to stand.': Michael Bronski chats with the author of Exiles in America.(Interview)
November 1, 2006... Christopher Bram's latest book, Exiles in America, which was published by Morrow last August, is an exploration of relationships, religion, global politics, and sex. This is the ninth novel by Bram, whose Father of Frankenstein was turned into...

An Unrequited Spring.(Poem)
November 1, 2006... The green god of the sky has been whistling in the trees all day. Buds are pressing their way to the ends of each bough. Dare I go among them without your strange passion? There were three bluejays down by the feeders this...

America's Gore Vidal.(Gore Vidal's America)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Gore Vidal's America by Dennis Altman Polity Press (Cambridge, UK) 216 pages, $19.95 IT IS HARD TO KNOW what history will make of Gore Vidal. At eighty, he has had a career perhaps more varied than any other living American...

A sober look at a drug epidemic.(Suicide Tuesday: Gay Men and the Crystal Meth Scare)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Suicide Tuesday: Gay Men and the Crystal Meth Scare by Duncan Osborne Carroll & Graf. 158 pages, $13.95 PNP BB Bttm Boy Needing PNP HUNG Top to host this morning--24 (castro / upper market) I have been partying the last 4 days...

Duncan Grant's 'private collection': Lester Strong with Douglas Blair Turnbaugh.(Interview)
November 1, 2006... By all rights, British artist Duncan Grant (1885-1978) should need no introduction. At the height of his career in the 1930's, he was known worldwide, and his art was collected by the major museums within, as well as by many of those outside,...

Stardust memories.(Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music by Philip Auslander University of Michigan Press 259 pages, $24.95 THE NARRATIVE VOICEOVER for Velvet Goldmine (1998), Todd Haynes' film exploration of the 1970's...

Bridge to the avant-garde.(Hart Crane: After His Lights)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Hart Crane: After His Lights by Brian M. Reed University of Alabama Press. 312 pages, $35. THE PROJECT of Brian M. Reed's study of Hart Crane is two-fold: he seeks not only to examine and illuminate the poetry of Hart Crane, but...

Coming out in Lilac (IL).(The Most Beautiful Girl in the World)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... The Most Beautiful Girl in the World by Judy Doenges University of Michigan Press. 211 pages, $24. ARE THE LAWS OF NATURE different for beautiful girls? Robin Simonsen, the heroine of Judy Doenges' wry and poignant Bildungsroman,...

Paris confidential.(Notes on Andre Gide)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Notes on Andre Gide by Roger Martin Du Gard Helen Marx Books. 99 pages, $14.95 ACCURATELY TITLED, Notes on Andre Gide is a fragmentary memoir about Gide by a close friend who offers new insights into the great French novelist and...

The Toklas factor.(The True Story of Alice B. Toklas: A Study of Three Autobiographies)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... The True Story of Alice B. Toklas: A Study of Three Autobiographies by Anna Linzie University of Iowa Press. 230 pages, $34.95 WAS ALICE B. TOKLAS really the author of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, which was supposedly...

Social satire after 9/11.(Alternatives to Sex: A Novel)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Alternatives to Sex: A Novel by Stephen McCauley Simon & Schuster. 304 pages, $24. SINCE HIS 1987 DEBUT, The Object of My Affection, Stephen McCauley has staked his claim to the modern gay comedy of manners. In a series of...

One gay youth.(Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir by Kevin Jennings Beacon Press. 288 pages, $24.95 PERSONAL MEMOIRS, despite recent scandals concerning their veracity, have been increasing in popularity over the past decade or more. The...

Hepburn imagined.(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Katharine the Great: A lifetime of secrets... revealed by Darwin Porter Blood Moon Productions. 568 pages, $16.95 (paper) THE BARE BONES of Katharine Hepburn's life are well known: born in Connecticut into a well-connected family,...

Integrate, don't assimilate.(Sexual Politics: The Gay Person in America Today)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Sexual Politics: The Gay Person in America Today by Shannon Gilreath University of Akron Press. 176 pages, $42.95 IN HIS SOLID ANALYSIS of the contradictory status of "the gay person" in the United States at this moment, and the...

A Separate Reality: A Novel.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... A Separate Reality: A Novel by Robert Marshall Carroll & Graf. 433 pages, $14.95 (paper) Robert Marshall's new novel takes us into the mind of twelve-year-old Mark Grosfeld, who lives with his well-off Jewish family in Phoenix and...

Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America by Thomas A. Foster Beacon Press. 256 pages, $28.95 This thoroughly researched but slender volume began life as the author's doctoral...

Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg Norton. 224 pages, $23.95 This book is a jolting wake-up call that should rouse even the most complacent U.S. citizen about the erosion of the wall of...

Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life by Mary Cheney Threshold Editions. 256 pages, $25. Rather than offer a conventional review of Mary Cheney's book, which came out some months ago amid much hype, was widely...

God Hates Fags: The Rhetorics of Religious Violence.(Book review)
November 1, 2006... God Hates Fags: The Rhetorics of Religious Violence by Michael Cobb NYU Press. 208 pages, $65. In its bid to conquer America, the religious Right has made persistent use of anti-gay rhetoric; this is Michael Cobb's attempt to...

Conferences/events.(Bulletin Board)(Calendar)
November 1, 2006... National LGBT Family Conf., hosted by Family Pride, will be held Oct. 27-29, in Dallas. For info: www.familypride.org/conference. Annual Southeast Gay Men's Health Summit will take place Nov. 2-5 in Ft. Lauderdale. For registration and...

The naughtiest Victorian.(Love Revealed: Simeon Solomon and the Pre-Raphaelites)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Love Revealed: Simeon Solomon and the Pre-Raphaelites Traveling exhibit, 2006 Catalog by curator Colin Cruise Merrill. 192 pages, $49.95 SIMEON SOLOMON, a gay, Jewish Pre-Raphaelite painter of the 19th century, has figured...