by itabix | Jan 21, 2016 | Black Mountain, Books, the South
Between October 10, 2015 and now, I have been to see the exhibition on Black Mountain at the ICA maybe half a dozen times. I read a 600-page book on Black Mountain, written by Martin Duberman and published in 1971. I have also studied the catalogue for the show. Aside...
by itabix | Jan 12, 2016 | Adam in the Morning, Barack Obama, Being gay, Ceremonies, Coming to terms with the past, Freedom, Freeing yourself of it, Race Point Light, Sexuality, Words and their meanings, Writing
Fair Shaw and his partner Chris and their friend David, and a younger man, Julio, had been at the Tea Dance at the Boatslip late in the last day of Race Point Light. Then, instead of going to a restaurant, the four of them decide to get food at the grocery store and...
by itabix | Dec 30, 2015 | AIDS, Coming to terms with the past, Compulsion of time, Courage, eBooks, Fighting Back, Gay literature, Generational Divide, Race Point Light, Sexuality, Stonewall Riots, The future
This excerpt is from late in Race Point Light. The narrator is Fair Shaw. He is just arriving at the Boatslip, a hotel on the water in Provincetown that hosts a tea dance every afternoon during the summer. It is June, 2004. Shaw is with his partner, Chris, and their...
by itabix | Dec 20, 2015 | Coming out, Compulsion of time, Courage, Fighting Back, Gay kid, Generational Divide, language, The future
In the last day or two, I have been buying kids clothes, gifts for grandchildren, and this has caused me to think about kids coming out. Many people think that most kids are going to grow up to be straight, and they continue to think that until the boy or girl tells...
by itabix | Dec 11, 2015 | Coming to terms with the past, Courage, Courage, Freedom, Sexuality, Teenage Suicides
C and I were in Provincetown this past weekend—cloudless sky, temperature in the sixties— and occasionally men and women were seen wearing red Santa Claus caps in anticipation of the season. It’s a good place to go at any time—the bars, the restaurants, the...
by itabix | Nov 29, 2015 | Alan Turing, APA, bisexuality, Coming out, Compulsion of time, Freedom, language, Sexuality, Straight marriage, Words and their meanings
The man’s name is Nyle DiMarco, and he describes himself as “sexually fluid.” His picture and the article about him—he’s worth reading about—appeared in Towleroad this week. What is interesting about him is the idea of someone being sexually fluid. What does...
by itabix | Nov 19, 2015 | Barack Obama, The effects of bigotry, Walking wounded
This is the President of the United States at his press conference in Antalya, Turkey, November 16, 2015: But what we do not do, what I do not do is to take actions either because it is going to work politically or it is going to somehow, in the abstract, make America...
by itabix | Nov 15, 2015 | Black Mountain, Books
Twice in the last week, I have heard or overheard other men speak of the new show at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston called Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College, 1933-1957. I figured something was prodding me, and on Thursday, I went to see for...
by itabix | Oct 31, 2015 | Coming to terms with the past, Freeing yourself of it, Save the raw material
The past. It’s important because of us. That is, whenever the LGBTQ community gathers, as it does on Boylston on Pride Day, we have around us men and women who came to adulthood—and frequently to their sexuality—in all the different decades since World War II. And...
by itabix | Oct 25, 2015 | Barack Obama, Books, Coming to terms with the past, DOMA/DADT, Don't Tell Me to Wait, The future, The Gay Revolution
Two books on LGBTQ subjects have been published in the last few weeks that respond to an LGBTQ need to study ourselves and our past. Lillian Faderman’s The Gay Revolution, September 2015, covers the period between 1945 and May 2012, and Kerry Eleveld’s Don’t Tell me...
by itabix | Oct 13, 2015 | Books, The Gay Revolution
Professor E. K. Johnston, acting dean of the School of Journalism, in an auditorium of the University of Missouri, stands on stage and gives out awards at the end of the term to students at the school and congratulates each of them as they are honored. He then gets in...
by itabix | Sep 30, 2015 | Stonewall Riots
I can see why Stonewall, by Roland Emmerich, has been widely and thoroughly savaged, even to the point of a call for a boycott. The movie has been attacked for having a white, straight-acting actor who plays Dannie from Indiana. Dannie is widely described as being...
by itabix | Sep 18, 2015 | Ta-Nehisi Coates
Prince Jones, a friend of Ta-Nehisi Coates, “exhibited the whole of his given name.” Coates says, “He was handsome. He was tall and brown, built thin and powerful like a wide receiver. He was the son of a prominent doctor. He was born again, a state I did not share,...
by itabix | Sep 7, 2015 | Fighting Back, Marriage, Marriage cases, SCOTUS, Sexuality, the South
I was in the Back Bay Thursday, on the second floor of the Library, when I saw the headline, US Clerk jailed for gay marriage defiance; dispute goes on. I was on the subway coming back to Somerville, ruminating on the headline. It made people think of the sixties. I...
by itabix | Aug 30, 2015 | AIDS, APA, Fighting Back, Frank Kameny, Sexuality
Lately, we’ve been reading about Black Lives Matter and their disruptive tactics on the campaign trail. BLM have disrupted Hillary’s events twice, here and here, and Bernie Sanders, here, the mayor of Washington here, and they may have disrupted a Republican or two....
