Emursive Productions presents Punchdrunk's Sleep No More, an "immersive theatrical production" of Shakespeare's Macbeth at the fictional McKittrick Hotel created on the site of last decade's (but really the decade before that) mega-dance club hub. 93 rooms have been created in nearly 100,000 square feet of space spanning three six-story warehouse buildings for the production (Thank you, Wendy Goodman of NYMag!)...so maybe it's not just the old Twilo space they've taken over?
The show runs for six weeks beginning March 7th (the first week's already sold out) and tickets run $75 a piece.
Yesterday, presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee explained that gay marriage would lead to derelict dads. And while some would mock him as a crazy closet queen that is afraid that, given the option, he would abandon his children to go be gay married, let's take the high road and assume that Mike Huckabee is a genius.
See, what Huckabee is trying to teach is the Butterfly Effect. You've heard of it before: A butterfly flaps its wings and there is meteorological change. It's an important principle of Chaos Theory, and the theory can explain more than just an illogical, ill-conceived, insane connection between gay marriage and broken homes.
In Huckabee world the situation in Libya has makes biscuits less buttery. Premarital sex causes meteors. Tyra Banks produces Top Models. Short skirts cause rape. Head Start can be blamed for the national deficit. And so on, and so on, and so on.
So don't criticize Mike Huckabee. Praise him and his brilliance!
When you look at most gay photography there are mostly representations through history of only whites. This collection on Flickr is thus important and poignant in both is breadth of time and yet stark in the limited number of images represented. Via Mister Michael Gray on our Facebook page: Hidden in the Open: A Photographic Essay of Afro American Male Couples.
Remember "Secret Historian" the award-winning biography of Sam Steward by Justing Spring? It's featured this month on PBS' "In the Life". Check it out:
Subtitled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Electric Banana”, this was one of the first gay porn films to have both high script and production values. Among noticeable bits about the film are its open depiction of drug use, a nonsexual party scene with 200 folks just getting down and having fun, the use of a female character who is just as ravenous for pleasures as the men, and "The Electic Banana" a thruple of long-haired, bearded sexiness.
The clip shown above is part of a larger film of which I have no info. If you know more, please share. For more about "Groupie" and to download the original, go here.
"Oh, it's just another blog." No, it's a blog with pie charts, friend. Seriously, this is so simple, yet right on. Can you say book deal by the end of the month? (Via Flavorwire where they interview the proprietor)
The level of indifference and callousness and the utter lack of compassion shown by the National Portrait Gallery in the controversy over the removal of David Wojnarowicz' "A Fire in My Belly" from the "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" exhibition on display now is as epic as the significance of the mounting of the show in the first place.
Despite inviting the controversy and going to the trouble of mounting a giant exhibition focused on sexuality for the first time, The National Portrait Gallery removed a "controversial" piece showing ants (God's creations, no?) crawling on a (poorly!) manmade object depicting a horrific torture/capital punishment technique of the Roman empire, because this was deemed sacrilegious to individuals who put way too much emphasis on the temporal and material in their spirituality, not to mention who have giant chips on their shoulders and are on constant guard for a "fight"; i.e. - are bullies.
Now, despite the insensitivity of removing something deemed offensive to a group/religion's sensibilities who have almost everything to do with the continued ostracization and - implicitly - abuse/death of homosexuals (the primary focus of the show, remember?), the National Portrait Gallery has chosen to turn down a request by an artist - a homosexual personally touched by the AIDS crisis, which was the subject of the piece that was removed - to have his piece (which remains in the exhibition) removed from the show. What's worse? The piece is a picture of the body of his partner Felix, shortly after his death from AIDS in 1994. So basically...The National Portrait Gallery wants their cake (AIDS included in a show about homosexual art. Which is a no-brainer, obviously.) and eat it, too ("Oh, sure Catholic League! We'll remove a piece important to the people the show's actually for because you got your knickers all in a twist!").
Way to undermine practically any good this exhibition might have done, inept governmental officials improperly influenced and bullied by idiotic blowhard politicians who seem primarily to like to hear themselves speak, as opposed to engaging in any real thought.
I applaud the Gallery for undertaking mounting this exhibition, but utterly denounce their handling of the ensuing (and likely welcome?) controversy. Way to utterly piss us off, asshats.
AA Bronson's Felix, June 5, 1994 after the jump...
Kiger Hansen woke up early and went to the Lanvin debut at H&M this morning. Here's his report:
it was the most fun shopping xperience ever! i waited from 6.45 on when i got there. the line was around the corner and i was right by the subway entrance near victoria secret store on 34/broadway. by 7 they handed out croissants and coffee. @ 7.05 they started to hand out the gift bags and braceleting people, by 7.30 it was getting colder and colder, the crowd and the anticipation was killing all of us. there was a fierce black girl right behind me who was just not having it with her chanel bag.
we were the first group to get in and i ran to the upstairs to the men's floor, pissing all the girls off as i ran past them to the escalator. almost half of everything was gone and people were grabbing things. all the accessories were in boxes. the first to go were the sunglasses; i did not even see them and i grabbed as much as i could to the dressing room!
the trench coat, fabric was awful.
the tux was cute, but did not like the fit.
cute free gift bag, inside: h&m magazine and a scarf and coffee kegs.
i was amazed how the shoe fit me, as all european dress shoes are too slim for my wide web feet!
the women's were outrageous and i wanted to get a necklace or lipstick but i did not want to stand in another line
ended up with 2 big bag fulls of deeeelight: blue bow tie, navy and charcoal grey cardigan, copper shoes, tiger t-shirt with green rhinestone for eyes, and navy with sequined tie, plaid blazer and purple bow tie, cute garment bag!!
i got two big bagfuls and they were adamant about giving me a garment bag and the cashier w/o his boss knowing folded one and placed one in one of my bags. i thanked him profusely in my sleepy ass state. i had amazing time and wished you guys were there to experience it. i got home by 8.45 and trying to sleep but, [redacted homo] and [redacted homo] keep texting me.
On this day when many are wearing purple (a color I don't even own), a friend reminded me of Anita Bryant and the pie of 1977. While many are urged to wait for things to get better, perhaps we should be making pies. Progress is around the corner, and establishment of rights those that continue to stand in the way deserve a pie in the face. Clowns should look like clowns, no? (Video after the jump)
The chronicled lives of Robert Mapplethorpe (by Patti Smith!) and Samuel Steward are included in the nonfiction finalists for the National Book Awards, announced yesterday. Smith's work covers her experiences with the photographer. Stewards biography by Justin King covers the live of a sexual impressario whose sex life (including the bagging of Rudolph Valentino and Rock Hudson) was explored by Alfred Kinsey. (I'm buying the Steward book today!)
The above reader-submitted guide to the 1980 "scene" sent Joe My God reader's down a nostalgic trip. From the listing are legendary bar names like Mineshaft, Ramrod, and Spike, but more telling are some of the stories from the comments. Some favorites after the jump.
There are a lot of Vaughn Walkers on Facebook, and most of them are not white! While most are very private (which goes with that "other" Vaughn's take on wiretapping) there is one Vaughn Walker that is out of the closet as a fan of Good Hair! Anyway, we all pretty much know all about Reagan-appointed, gayish Judge Walker and his well-written finding, so let's check in with the rest of the world for the CPR.
Speaking of good hair, here is Miss Naomi Campbell, sporting the beehive wig of the decade in a war-crimes trial regarding her receipt of "small dirty stones" (aka Blood Diamonds) from an African dictator.
A big part of your gay history is about knowing about the philanthropist white ladies that became angels to "your people" at the onset of the AIDS epidemic. Meet Miss Judy Peabody.
That video with all the strippers in it is after the jump, so keep reading.
Yet another stepping stone toward the right side of history was achieved today. This doesn't mean that you have to go and get married. It doesn't mean that you have to have a monogamous picket-fence relationship. What it does mean that we are progressing. And if you want to marry somebody, you might just be able to do so someday.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
Today's lead installment is from our CPR specialist and Internetty man Mister Rohin Guha. Here's his take:
I've always been fascinated by the strange overlap between Indian and gay cultures. They're like spurned aunts at a cousin's wedding, each giving the other the iciest cold-shoulder. But once in a while, they might thaw enough to cast a wary side-eye to one another. And then they'll return to ignoring each other.
On a Saturday night, when I was 13 years old, I was watching some television with my parents. We laid our eyes on this:
