The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide articles from September 2006

The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide archives from September 2006

September-October 2006: "the food of love".(gay art)
September 1, 2006... To continue a rumination begun two issues ago when the focus was the visual arts, the question must be asked: what does it mean for art to be "gay" (or "lesbian," "queer," etc.)? We say a novel or a painting is gay because of its subject...

Marriage amendments assault religious freedom.(Column)
September 1, 2006... There's another argument to be made when we fight state and federal marriage amendments. It has the potential to take back the debate because it's about the Constitution and the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. There's no...

Christian colleges are voluntary.(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2006... To the Editor: The Guest Opinion by Stephanie Fairyington in the July-August 2006 issue hit home for me. As a graduate of two evangelical Christian institutions--Columbia International University and Reformed Theological Seminary--I've...

Rubuttal to Champagne's defense ...(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2006... To the Editor: Regarding John Champagne's response (G & LR, July-Aug. 2006) to my comments (May-June 2006) on his letter (Jan.-Feb. 2006) in the now hopefully not forgotten "Manly Love: Whitman, Ginsberg, Monette," by Richard Tayson...

Cause of Ennis' death not ambiguous.(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2006... To the Editor: In her article "Real Cowboys, Real Rodeos" [July-August 2006 issue] and in reference to the film Brokeback Mountain, Patricia Nell Warren states: "In 1983, Jack's story ends with a beating by gay-bashers at the age of 43."...

Second annual race to the bottom award.(anti gay laws)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Last year's prize went to the U.S. state with the most vindictive anti-gay-marriage amendment, and the winner was Virginia. This year the award goes to the European Union country that's been the most flagrant in its violation of the EU's...

Courting rejection.(military recruitment, gay discrimination)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Three young men in Minneapolis became the first to come out openly as gay when signing up to join the National Guard. The action is part of a planned 31-state demonstration against the U.S. military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. Assuming...

Can marriage be saved?(BTW)(same-sex marriages )(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Foes of same-sex marriage always make the argument that changing the definition of marriage will somehow destroy the institution itself. This ought to be a testable hypothesis, suggesting that we should see a decline in marriage statistics once...

Order of the garter.(Colin Powell)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... In an interview with AARP Magazine, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, referring to Vice President Cheney, remarked: "He was tough, demanding, and when he thought I was out of line, he snapped my garters.... But guess what? He was my boss!...

Reversal of findings.(Focus on the Family )(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Focus on the Family (FoF) must comb the world for scientific studies that seem to bolster their faith, because they love to announce that science is on their side. Alas, the reality-based world is a tougher place than the faith-based one, so...

Bah-rum-bum.(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... A Mounty always gets his man. And hey, why do you think they call them Mounties? If ever there were a setup for throwaway jokes, this was it, the wedding of two constables of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Indeed, "Mounties" seemed...

Nuremberg Trials for AIDS.
September 1, 2006... AIDS has been a plague since 1982, although officially it never has been called one. I was recently asked by The New York Times to participate in a public forum entitled "AIDS at 25: What next?" I was not allowed to make the following remarks;...

Rats.(William Carter's "Proust in Love")(Critical essay)
September 1, 2006... WILLIAM CARTER begins Proust in Love with a schoolboy trying to persuade his classmates, via letters written in geography class, to have sex with him. The classmates all refuse. "There was something about him we found unpleasant," one of them...

Josephine Baker's Hungry Heart.(Biography)
September 1, 2006... BEAUTIFUL, charming, talented, and celebrated, the toast of Europe and South America during the heyday of her career, Josephine Baker was born in a black slum area of St. Louis in 1906. She was captivating audiences in Paris as an entertainer...

Songs of the Sirens.(Excerpt)
September 1, 2006... The following is excerpted from Listening to the Sirens: Musical Technologies of Queer Identity from Homer to Hedwig, by Judith A. Peraino. University of California Press, Copyright 2006. THERE IS a persistent association in ancient Greek,...

Dreaming opera: adapting Before Night Falls.
September 1, 2006... Before Night Falls, the memoir by Reinaldo Arenas, gay Cuban novelist and poet, political dissident and prisoner, foe of Castro's repressive regime, was published posthumously in 1993 to immediate acclaim. I remember the New York Times Book...

Schubert after dark.(Franz Schubert)
September 1, 2006... SCHUBERT DIED in November 1828, long before his final resting place, the Viennese cemetery known as Zentralfriedhof, was opened in 1874. At first, he was buried in the local cemetery of Wahring, near the grave of Beethoven, whom he had...

The Lieder and homoerotic love.
September 1, 2006... OPERA QUEENS are not in short supply, but gay men who love Lieder seem to be few and far between. The German word Lieder is the plural of Lied, which means simply "song." But it has acquired a particular association, especially among English...

Villanelle for a Panboy.(Poem)
September 1, 2006... Is it possible to love a satyr? The sex is good, but he won't linger And will I see him later? Empty as a moon-like crater Weeping, I'm a hollow singer Is it possible to love a satyr? Intent he was upon my manly nadir Will he...

'A composer invents his own rules.' Michael Ehrhardt talks with the composer of Our Town.(Interview)
September 1, 2006... "The composer's success lies less in comprehending the words he is setting than in feeling them musically, and in being able to convince us of the necessity of his feeling." --Ned Rorem in Pure Contraption (1974) EARLIER THIS YEAR,...

The love songs of Jacob Israel de Haan.(Biography)
September 1, 2006... DUTCH POET and novelist Jacob Israel de Haan was born in Smilde, the Netherlands, on December 31, 1881, and murdered in Jerusalem on June 30, 1924. As a writer, he is perhaps best known for his first novel Pijpelijntjes, which appeared in 1904...

Founding mother.(Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft by Lyndall Gordon HarperCollins. 562 pages, $29.95 FEW PEOPLE change our fundamental view of the world: the Buddha and Jesus, Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Freud, a handful of others. Mary...

Parenthetically speaking.(What I Did Wrong: A Novel)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... (What I Did Wrong: A Novel) by John Weir Viking. 243 pages, $23.95 JOHN WEIR'S The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket and David Fein-berg's Eighty-Sixed, both published in 1989, were among the first novels to register the...

Necropolitan life.(Grief)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Grief by Andrew Holleran Hyperion. 150 pages, $19.95 THE UNNAMED NARRATOR of this remarkable novel arrives in Washington, D.C., on Martin Luther King Day to try to reboot his life after a long period of paralytic mourning for his...

Lesbian Lovers.(Poem)
September 1, 2006... It was hard to get over Pat, so many pats around--every pat on the back, every pat of butter. Coming out of Maude's Bar, a woman ran her BMW on the sidewalk meaning to hit her lover, missed me by a heartbeat. My child asked...

The other (trans)America.(Drag King Dreams)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Drag King Dreams by Leslie Feinberg Carroll & Graf 302 pages, $15.95 (paper) NEW YORK WINTER, in the early dawn: a man and a woman exit a PATH train and stand on the crowded platform. They have worked at an all-night club and...

The samizdat of the closeted decades.(Contacts Desired: Gay and Lesbian Communications and Community, 1940's-1970's)(Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Contacts Desired: Gay and Lesbian Communications and Community, 1940's-1970's by Martin Meeker University of Chicago Press. 320 pages, $75 ($25.00 paper) Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early...

Frasier ends; a comic novelist returns.(My Lucky Star)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... My Lucky Star by Joe Keenan Little, Brown & Co. 361 pages, $24.95 I REALLY WASN'T EXPECTING another novel from Joe Keenan. Several years ago, he'd written two perfect farces, Blue Heaven (1988) and Putting on the Ritz (1992),...

A reincarnation of America's 'Greek God'.(The Most Beautiful Man in the World: Paul Swan, from Wilde to Warhol)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... The Most Beautiful Man in the World: Paul Swan, from Wilde to Warhol by Janis and Richard Londraville University of Nebraska Press 278 pages, $29.95 PAUL SWAN, the oldest of ten children, was born in 1883 in rural Illinois....

Beyond Huck and Jim.(Men Beyond Desire: Manhood, Sex, and Violation in American Literature)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Men Beyond Desire: Manhood, Sex, and Violation in American Literature by David Greven Palgrave Macmillan. 294 pages, $65. ANDREW JACKSON captured the White House in 1828 by turning himself into a symbol of American manhood, a...

The Presbyterian heresy.(Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality by the Rev. Dr. Jack Rogers Westminster John Knox Press, 155 pages, $17.95 THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) cracked the door open for the ordination of gay men and women at its annual General...

Poem starting with a line by Cyrus Cassells.(Poem)
September 1, 2006... The dark coins of your nipples in my mouth Changing, growing, hardening to nickel, sounding brass, a burnished horn moaning blue beneath my lips (tasting, testing) until its raking notes burst in your throat, spill...

Conferences/events.(Bulletin Board)
September 1, 2006... A Gender Odyssey Conf. will be held Sept. 1-4 in Seattle. Special group rate if you register by July 31. For more info, visit: www.transconference.org. Or e-mail: info@transconference.org. Lavender Law Conf. to be held in Washington DC...

Behind the rainbow.(Rainbow Pride: A Story of the Rainbow Flag)(Movie review)
September 1, 2006... Rainbow Pride: A Story of the Rainbow Flag Directed by Marie-Josee Ferron Documentary; 60 mins. SAN FRANCISCO brings to mind many images, such as cable cars, steep hills, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Castro Theater. Add one more...

Armistead Maupin: leaping to the big screen.(ARTIST'S PROFILE)(Interview)
September 1, 2006... A critically and commercially successful writer, Armistead Maupin is the author of the globally best-selling, six-volume Tales of the City series. Three TV miniseries have been made from the series to date, the first of which received a Peabody...