Band of Thebes

Graffiti Is an Italian Word, After All

Rampant in Rome.

And Agrigento.

Leader of the Free World for Eight Years

"The man who ushered in the Internet age still does not use a computer, much less a BlackBerry, but keeps up with blogs and sites like The Huffington Post through clips printed out by aides." Which president is so described in today's dawdling NYT profile? Bill Clinton.

Born May 31: Walt Whitman

He was our most American poet and his vision of the nation, of democracy, and of humankind was inextricable from his physical love of men. All you need are the complete poems and Gary Schmidgall's MLA Prize winning biography, Walt Whitman: A Gay Life. Ignore the generations of scholars who have tried to degay him, the contemporary critics who claim his homosexuality is "irrelevant," and his own late life prevarications about his having had a wife and children.

For You, O Democracy

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America,
and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks,
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.

For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!
For you, for you I am trilling these songs.

Up with People

Tied with the Japanese film Still Walking as the best I've seen so far in 2009. All the expected Pixar traits are in full play in Up -- gorgeous visuals, fanciful yet character-driven story, grownup humor, smart movie allusions, exquisite music -- but who would have predicted a third of yesterday's audience to be in tears within fifteen minutes? Up is as much about regret and loss as it is about plucky adventure and new opportunity. I thought there was real poetry in the image of an old man dragging a floating house (tethered by its garden hose) which becomes less a rescued, cherished repository of happy memories and more of a burden, preventing him from moving on. Afterward, someone at Don Weise's party for Alyson Books told me the almost universally acclaimed film was savaged by a critic who found it sentimental. But in a time when most children's movies end with multiple, public, over-the-top triumphs, usually with large crowds cheering them, I appreciated Up's simplicity: The crowning glory that all the action leads to here is two people sitting on a curb enjoying ice cream cones.

Pixar's inexplicable avoidance of women continues. The backstory has one female but the "now" of the movie is another all-guy world. Even the entire pack of dogs is male. The problem is so pronounced in Up that the boy has no one to pin his merit badge on his sash while his mother (never seen before) sits in the audience; then she's excluded from the ice cream outing. Next year is Toy Story 3, followed by Cars 2 the following June. Christmas 2011 marks Pixar's first movie with a female lead, The Bear and the Bow.

Born May 30: Bertrand Delanoë, Colm Tóibín

Before 2001, the largest city to elect a gay mayor was Winnipeg. Then, in the spring of that year, came Paris, Berlin, and Hamburg. Tunisian-born French Socialist Bertrand Delanoë had come out in 1998, in a televised interview when a journalist asked if he was gay. As a member of the Paris city council and a member of Senate, he had always supported glbt rights, and had often marched in Paris’s pride parade. As mayor, he has been a great inventor in ways to improve the quality of free, public, communal life in the city, which he does not want to become a museum. In 2002 he began the hugely popular Paris Plage, turning two miles along the Seine into a beach. That same year he also initiated La Nuit Blanche, slang for sleeplees night, a sundown-to-sunrise festival of the arts in museums and public spaces throughout the city. About 2:30 AM, as he was greeting people in the crowded Hotel de Ville, he was stabbed by Azedine Berkane. Delanoë insisted the events should continue, though his wound was more serious than initially reported and he was hospitalized for two weeks. Berkane’s act was not premeditated—Delanoë had not been scheduled to be at Hotel de Ville—but when he found himself with his five-inch knife close to the mayor, Berkane felt it his duty as “the weapon-bearing arm of the Koran” to stab Delanoë because “the Koran advocates the execution of homosexuals.” Berkane was sentenced to a psychiatric hospital. In April 2007, doctors suggested he be allowed a three-month trial release. He fled and, despite an all-points bulletin manhunt, is still at large. Last year Delanoë was re-elected with 58% of the vote. His term goes to 2014, though he is considered a likely candidate for president in 2012. Earlier this year he strongly refuted the pope's statements about condoms being ineffective against hiv.

Predicting Nobel Prize honorees is a thankless, largely pointless pastime, yet it's worth noting today that everything the Nobel winners in literature have, Colm Tóibín has too: an impressive body of novels illuminating an overlooked group of people, many books of nonfiction, journalism, history, and travel, a staggering and seemingly effortless range of important critical essays, vision, verve, and gravitas. After being rejected by twenty publishers over two and half years, Tóibín’s debut novel The South was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and won the Irish Times/Aer Lingus prize for first novel. Two years later his second novel, The Heather Blazing, won the Encore Prize. His third novel, the widely-prized The Story of the Night, set in Argentina, is included on Publishing Triangle’s list of the 100 best lesbian & gay novels. The Blackwater Lightship, his fourth, exploring the fractious family relations as a young man with aids comes back to die in County Wexford, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was adapted for a tv movie starring Angela Lansbury and Dianne Wiest. The Master, his revelatory novel about Henry James, was an international bestseller. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, named one of the New York Times’ ten best books of the year, won the LA Times Novel of the Year award, and won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, worth 100,000 Euros. His collection of short stories, Mothers and Sons, appeared to much acclaim in 2007, and, as you have have heard, his subtle and powerful Brooklyn is currently on the NYT extended list.

Three books Tóibín considers major influences on his work are The Sun Also Rises, Giovanni’s Room, and Go Tell It On the Mountain, and he told B&N his ten favorite novels, not in order, are: Company, Beckett; A Book of Common Prayer, Didion; Doctor Faustus, Mann; Daniel Deronda, Eliot; Age of Iron, Coetzee; Amongst Women, McGahern; The Portrait of a Lady, James; The Trial, Kafka; Things Fall Apart, Achebe; Island, McLeod; and The Enigma of Arrival, Naipaul.

Predicting Nobel Prize honorees is a thankless, largely pointless pastime, yet it's worth noting today that everything the Nobel winners in literature have, Colm Tóibín has too: an impressive body of novels illuminating an overlooked group of people, many books of nonfiction, journalism, history, and travel, a staggering and seemingly effortless range of important critical essays, vision, verve, and gravitas. After being rejected by twenty publishers over two and half years, Tóibín’s debut novel The South was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and won the Irish Times/Aer Lingus prize for first novel. Two years later his second novel, The Heather Blazing, won the Encore Prize. His third novel, the widely-prized The Story of the Night, set in Argentina, is included on Publishing Triangle’s list of the 100 best lesbian & gay novels. The Blackwater Lightship, his fourth, exploring the fractious family relations as a young man with aids comes back to die in County Wexford, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was adapted for a tv movie starring Angela Lansbury and Dianne Wiest. The Master, his revelatory novel about Henry James, was an international bestseller. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, named one of the New York Times’ ten best books of the year, won the LA Times Novel of the Year award, and won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, worth 100,000 Euros. His collection of short stories, Mothers and Sons, appeared to much acclaim in 2007, and, as you have have heard, his subtle and powerful Brooklyn is currently on the NYT extended list.

Three books Tóibín considers major influences on his work are The Sun Also Rises, Giovanni’s Room, and Go Tell It On the Mountain, and he told B&N his ten favorite novels, not in order, are: Company, Beckett; A Book of Common Prayer, Didion; Doctor Faustus, Mann; Daniel Deronda, Eliot; Age of Iron, Coetzee; Amongst Women, McGahern; The Portrait of a Lady, James; The Trial, Kafka; Things Fall Apart, Achebe; Island, McLeod; and The Enigma of Arrival, Naipaul.

Ugly Man: Stories by Dennis Cooper

You can fixate on his sexual sadism, mutilation, murder, and cannibalism of nihilistic teenage boys, or you can step back, acknowledge his craft and his sly use of humor, and ask why isn't Dennis Cooper considered the Michael Haneke of American letters? Something to ponder while you read the eighteen stories in his second collection, Ugly Man, released this week.

As required, critics are divided. Kirkus is a solid no: "Some people call Cooper a maverick moralist and an innovative stylist. Well, some people will swallow almost anything." PW is in the middle: "The Anal-Retentive Line Editor proceeds through interstitial edits upon a series of drafts of a piece of gay erotica, forming a running conversation and problematic seduction between author and editor. This is classic Cooper: explicit, unconventional and, to the uninitiated, alarming." Time Out said: "But even in these moments of intense melancholy, Ugly Man has a lightness that Cooper hasn't achieved elsewhere. Though the collection deals with topics that are shocking, even abhorrent, it is certainly this highly talented author's most accessible work to date."

Cooper presented the top two awards last night at the Lammys. He reads from his work in Los Angeles on June 1 (Skylight Books) and 2 (Book Soup), and in Paris on June 6 and 8 (Shakespeare & Co.).

Lambda Winners: Grahn, Heim, Donoghue, Mayor, Rule, Rowbotham

What was it about the gay books of 2008 that the judges of the top lgbt literary awards can't reach any consensus about them in 2009? None of last night's Lambda winners overlapped with any of the winners of the Publishing Triangle Awards; in adult fiction there weren't even any repeats among nominees; and in two of the major categories, the Lambda judges couldn't unite behind a single winner and had to resort to ties. Complete list below.

The high points of last night's overlong ceremony were seeing Judy Grahn accept the lesbian poetry prize, hearing honorees Andrew Holleran, Edmund White, and Felice Picano reminisce about the early days of the Violet Quills, and watching Christopher Rice outshine Dustin Lance Black in hair, haberdashery, and his visionary speech about the demise of gay bookstores, the rise of glitch-prone online behemoths, the endurance of gay books, the responsibilities of gay bookbuyers, and the power of gay authors.

As for upsets, you may have stumbled in your office pool when William Eskridge's Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America 1861-2003 lost to Jane Rule's Loving the Difficult, and Evan Fallenberg's Light Fell lost to Shawn Stewart Ruff's Finlater.

Among the best presenters were Kate Clinton (who said she bought a toaster and was given a free bank), Keith Boykin (who claimed to have been mistaken for RuPaul yesterday afternoon), Jacqueline Woodson, Alice Quinn, Sarah Chinn, Dennis Cooper, Katherine V. Forrest, Michelangelo Signorile, and Edmund White. As a literary nerd who doesn't own a tv, I had difficulty reconciling host Scott Nevins' generic riffs on American Idol, Adam Lambert, Paula Abdul's hair pieces, Hugh Jackman, the Oscars, Angela Bassett, and Fantasia with the year's most prestigious lgbt literary awards. Is it really so hard to find a gay comic / writer who could talk about books? Next year ask Kate Clinton, or David Rakoff, or David Sederis, or Mike Albo, or Bob Smith, or Eddie Sarfaty, whose Mental drops June 30.

BISEXUAL

Open, Jenny Block, Seal Press

• Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love & Desire,
  Lisa M. Diamond, Harvard University Press
• The Bishop's Daughter, Honor Moore, W.W. Norton
• Kinsey Zero Through Sixty: Bisexual Perspectives on Kinsey, Ron Jackson Suresha, Taylor & Francis Journals
• Rimbaud, Edmund White, Atlas & Company

TRANSGENDER

• 10,000 Dresses, Marcus Ewert & Rex Ray, Seven Stories Press
• Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word), Thea Hillman, Manic D Press
• Two Truths and a Lie, Scott Schofield, Homofactus Press
• Boy with Flowers, Ely Shipley, Barrow Street Press
  
• Transgender History, Susan Stryker, Seal Press

LGBT ANTHOLOGIES

• A Casulty of War: Gay Short Fiction, Peter Burton, Arcadia Books
• Live Through This, edited by Sabrina Chapadjiev, Seven Stories Press
• Love, West Hollywood, edited by Chris Freeman and James J. Berg, Alyson
• Our Caribbean, edited by Thomas Glave, Duke University Press
• Big Trips: More Good Gay Travel Writing, edited by Raphael Kadushin, University of Wisconsin Press

LGBT CHILDRENS/YOUNG ADULT

• Hit the Road, Manny: A Manny Files Novel, Christian Burch, Simon and Schuster
• Out of the Pocket, Bill Konigsberg, Dutton
• How They Met & Other Stories, David Levithan, Knopf Children's Books
• Mousetraps, Pat Schmatz, Carolrhoda Books
• What They Always Tell Us, Martin Wilson, Random House Children's Books
• Love & Lies: Marisol's Story, Ellen Wittlinger, Simon and Schuster

LGBT DRAMA

• Phi Alpha Gamma, Dan Bernitt, Sawyer House
• Radical Acts: Collected Political Plays, Martin Duberman, The New Press
• The Second Coming of Joan of Arc, Carolyn Gage, Outskirts Press
• Two Truths and a Lie, Scott Schofield, Homofactus Press
• Vile Affections, Vanda, Original Works Publishing

LGBT NONFICTION

• Me as Her Again, Nancy Agabian, Aunt Lute Books
• If I Could Write This in Fire, Michelle Cliff, Univ of Minnesota Press
• Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America 1861-2003, William N. Eskridge Jr, Penguin Group
• Beyond (Straight & Gay) Marriage, Nancy Polikoff, Beacon Press
• Loving the Difficult, Jane Rule, Hedgerow Press
• Drifting Toward Love, Kai Wright, Beacon Press

LGBT SCI-FI/FANTASY/HORROR

• The Archer's Heart, Astrid Amara, Blind Eye Books
• The Magician and the Fool, Barth Anderson, Bantam Del Rey
• Wilde Stories 2008, Steve Berman, Lethe Press
• Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories, Craig Gidney, Lethe Press
• Turnskin, Nicole Kimberling, Blind Eye Books

LGBT STUDIES

• Tomboys: A Literary & Cultural History, Michelle Ann Abate, Temple University Press
• The Dividends of Dissent: How Conflict and Culture Work in Lesbian and Gay Marches on Washington, Amin Ghaziani, The University of Chicago Press
• Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality, Regina Kunzel, Univ Chicago Press
• Political Manhood: Red Bloods, Mollycoddles, & & the Politics of Progressive Reform, Kevin P. Murphy, Columbia University Press
• Screening Sex, Linda Williams, Duke University Press

LESBIAN DEBUT FICTION

• Red Audrey & the Roping, Jill Malone, Bywater Books
• Passing for Black, Linda Villarosa, Kensington
• Closer to Fine, Meri Weiss, Kensington
• Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind, Chavisa Woods, Fly by Night Press
• The Bruise, Magdalena Zurawski, Fiction Collective Two/ Univ Alabama Press

LESBIAN EROTICA

• Lipstick on Her Collar, Sacchi Green and Rakelle Valencia, Pretty Things Press
• Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures, Lynne Jamneck, Lethe Press
• In Deep Waters 2: Cruising the Strip, Radclyffe and Karen Kallmaker, Bold Strokes Books

LESBIAN FICTION (TIE)

• The Slow Fix, Ivan E. Coyole, Arsenal Pulp Press
• The Sealed Letter, Emma Donoghue, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Map of Ireland, Stephanie Grant, Scribner
• All the Pretty Girls, Chandra Mayor, Conundrum Press
• Breaking Spirit Bridge, Ruth Perkinson, Spinsters Ink

LESBIAN MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

• Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy, Susan Griffin,
  Shambhala Publications
• Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word), Thea Hillman, Manic D Press
• Sex Variant Woman, Joanne Passet, Da Capo
• Sex Talks to Girls, Maureen Seaton, Univ of Wisconsin Press
• Case of a Lifetime, Abbe Smith, Palgrave Macmillan

LESBIAN MYSTERY

• Blind Faith, Diane and Jacob Anderson-Minshall, Bold Strokes Books
• Whacked, Josie Gordon, Bella Books
• Sweet Poison, Ellen Hart, St. Martin's Press
• Losers Weepers, Jessica Thomas, Bella Books
• Calling the Dead, Ali Vali, Bold Strokes Books

LESBIAN POETRY

• Interpretive Work, Elizabeth Bradfield, Arktoi / Red Hen Press
• Kissing Dead Girls, Daphne Gottlieb, Soft Skull Press
• love belongs to those who do the feeling, Judy Grahn, Red Hen Press
• Same Life, Maureen N. McLane, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Two Minutes of Light, Nancy K. Pearson, Perugia Press

LESBIAN ROMANCE

• Finding Home, Georgia Beers, Bold Strokes Books
• A Pirate's Heart, Catherine Friend, Bold Strokes Books
• The Kiss That Counted, Karin Kallmaker, Bella Books
• Hotel Liaison, JLee Meyer, Bold Strokes Books
• The Lonely Hearts Club, Radclyffe, Bold Strokes Books

GAY DEBUT FICTION

• Shuck, Daniel Allen Cox, Arsenal Pulp Press
• Light Fell, Evan Fallenberg, Soho Press
• The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie The Second, Drew Ferguson, Kensington
• The Steve Machine, Mike Hoolboom, Coach House Books
• Finlater, Shawn Ruff, Quote Editions

GAY EROTICA

• Best Gay Erotica 2009, Richard Labonte & James Lear, Cleis Press
• The Secret Tunnel, James Lear, Cleis Press
• Hard Working Men, William Maltese, Victor J. Banis, Jardonn Smith, & J.P. Bowie, MLR Press

GAY FICTION

• Stray Dog Winter, David Francis, Macadam/Cage Publishing
• The Torturer's Wife, Thomas Glave, City Light Publishers
• We Disappear, Scott Heim, Harper Perennial
• The Conversion, Joseph Olshan, St. Martin’s Press
• The Boomerang Kid, Jay Quinn, Alyson

GAY MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

• Bringing Him Home, Aaron Cooper, Late August Press
• Swish, Joel Derfner, Broadway Books
• Assisted Loving, Bob Morris, Harper
• Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love, Sheila Rowbotham, Verso Books
• King of Shadows, Aaron Shurin, City Lights Publishers

GAY MYSTERY

• The Fisher Boy, Stephen Anable, Poisoned Pen Press
• Sundowner Ubuntu, Anthony Bidulka, Insomniac Press
• Mahu Fire, Neil Plakcy, Alyson Books
• First You Fall: A Kevin Connor Mystery
• Spider Season, John Morgan Wilson, St. Martin's Press

GAY POETRY (TIE)

• Want, Rick Barot, Sarabande Press
• Please, Jericho Brown, New Issues
• Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, Mark Doty, Haper
• Now You're the Enemy, James Allen Hall, Univ of Alabama
• My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, Jack Spicer, edited by Peter Gizzi & Kevin Killian, Wesleyan University Press

GAY ROMANCE

• Mexican Heat, Laura Baumbach & Josh Lanyon, MLR Press
• Got 'Til It's Gone, Larry Duplechan, Arsenal Pulp Press
• The Protector, N.L. Gassert, Seventh Window Publications

What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson

I've haven't read his competition, but if Martin Wilson wins the YA Lambda Literary Award tonight you can celebrate that a moving novel has been justly honored. In a rare case of alternating point of view chapters being equally captivating, What They Always Tell Us toggles between James, a high school senior tennis jock with 1480 SATs, and Alex, his less successful brother one year younger who recently became so despondent at a crowded but unfun party he shut himself alone in the bathroom and drank Pine-Sol. Wilson does a fine job bringing to life this Donaldson family and the town of Tuscaloosa, and he's particularly alive to the nuances of sexual dynamics: Alex with his nascent boyfriend, James withdrawing from his girlfriends, the single mom across the street balancing her male visitors. If the story covering their school year is somewhat familiar, Wilson's depth of insight into all his characters makes it fresh.

Although I don't know the strictures of YA fiction, I suspect a prime law is that young readers like to see themselves. Fair enough. As an adult reader, I wondered if another Southern writer like Eudora Welty might have flipped the story, putting the smooth J. Crew family in the background and focusing more on quirkier Henry, the heartbreaking, dictionary-reading ten year-old son of the single mom, or Alice, the dumped, working class girlfriend who continues to flip James the bird and call him to tell him off even after she's begun dating a "redneck quarterback." But of course I wouldn't want any less of Alex and James; maybe I simply wish it were twice as long. Whichever it is, it attests to Wilson's generosity, that he imbues his secondary characters with as much life as lesser writers save up for their stars, and makes readers yearn for more of them all.

Read this winning interview with Wilson, then buy the book.

Born May 28: Patrick White

When you think of gay Nobel Prize winning novelists, do you only think of André Gide and Thomas Mann? The Australian writer Patrick White won the award in 1973. White lived with a former Greek soldier his same age, Manoly Lascaris, who was his ballast and partner for forty-eight years. Although he never forgave his parents for shipping him off to a detestable boarding school in England, White inherited their conservatism and did not discuss his sexuality nor did he include openly gay characters in his work until 1979's The Twyborn Affair, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize. After winning the inaugural Miles Franklin Award for his enduring Voss, White declined that award a second time for Riders in the Chariot and refused all other prizes, asking the Booker judges to remove his name from their shortlist to give younger writers a chance. Obviously, he made an exception for the Nobel, but he sent his friend the painter Stanley Nolan to Stockholm to accept the prize on his behalf. White finally came out when he was sixty-nine with the publication of his memoir, Flaws in the Glass. He died at seventy-eight in 1990, and Lascaris survived him by thirteen years.

Rakesh Satyal Reads from Blue Boy, Sings Whitney Houston

If you find it hard to believe a novel could have one foot firmly planted in the realistic autobiographical Indian-American tradition and the other foot tapping in the whimsical universe of the great French movie Ma Vie En Rose, chances are you haven't met Rakesh Satyal. He embodies both worlds seamlessly and you can experience the unique hybrid in his first novel, Blue Boy.

Kiran Sharma is a twelve year-old who prefers dancing and playing with his mother's makeup rather than hanging out with other boys at Martin Van Buren Elementary School in Ohio. Realizing he's different from them, he plans to reveal his secret at the talent show: He thinks he's actually the 10th incarnation of Krishnaji. Then his skin turns blue. PW praised the book as "lovely," concluding, "Satyal writes with a graceful ease, finding new humor in common awkward pre-teen moments and giving readers a delightful and lively young protagonist."

Last night at B&N's Lincoln Square, he ended his reading by performing an extended version of the song Kiran sings, Whitney's classic ode to excited uncertainty, How Will I Know? For an encore he sang an especially emotive Mr Cellophane from Chicago. Mr. Satyal was so proud he leapt onto the stage, hugged Rakesh, and pointed emphatically, to make sure the large, adoring, cheering audience knew whose son was dazzling them.

With all the fictive reading and vocal styling, time for questions was brief. Satyal, whose day job is editing for Harper (most recently Vestal McIntyre's Lake Overturn), said he can't find time for a daily thousand words and mainly writes on weekends. Aside from the Alain Berliner film, which he considers "a touchstone," he worships at the shrine of Lorrie Moore, "the funniest writer alive." His longest reply was a discourse on Strawberry Shortcake, explaining, "she's pretty amazing" and how the old school version is far better than the revised character.

If you missed him last night, he performs again tonight at The Slipper Room at 7:00.

Massive New Book Discusses Centrality of Gay Life in Ancient Greece

One good gay thing happened yesterday: Finally, a year and a half after its British publication, James Davidson's 832 page The Greeks and Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration of the Ancient World was released in America. You'll notice the British subtitle is the clearer, more accurate A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece, but Random House removed homosexuality, obscuring the subject and confusing potential buyers.

However, Random's flap copy is superior:

"For nearly two thousand years, historians have treated the subject of homosexuality in ancient Greece with apology, embarrassment, or outright denial. Now classics scholar James Davidson offers a brilliant, unblushing exploration of the passion that permeated Greek civilization. Using homosexuality as a lens, Davidson sheds new light on every aspect of Greek culture, from politics and religion to art and war. With stunning erudition and irresistible wit–and without moral judgment–Davidson has written the first major examination of homosexuality in ancient Greece since the dawn of the modern gay rights movement.

"What exactly did same-sex love mean in a culture that had no word or concept comparable to our term “homosexuality”? How sexual were these attachments? When Greeks spoke of love between men and boys, how young were the boys, how old were the men? Drawing on examples from philosophy, poetry, drama, history, and vase painting, Davidson provides fascinating answers to questions that have vexed scholars for generations. To begin, he defines the essential Greek words for romantic love–eros, pothos, philia–and explores the shades of emotion and passion embodied in each. Then, exploding the myth of Greek “boy love,” Davidson shows that Greek same-sex pairs were in fact often of the same generation, with boys under eighteen zealously separated from older boys and men.

"Davidson argues that the essence of Greek homosexuality was “besottedness”–falling head over heels and “making a great big song and dance about it,” though sex was certainly not excluded. With refreshing candor, humor, and an astonishing command of Greek culture, Davidson examines how this passion played out in the myths of Ganymede and Cephalus, in the lives of archetypal Greek heroes such as Achilles, Heracles, and Alexander, in the politics of Athens and the army of lovers that defended Thebes. He considers the sexual peculiarities of Sparta and Crete, the legend and truth surrounding Sappho, and the relationship between Greek athletics and sexuality.

"Writing with the energy, vitality, and irony that the subject deserves, Davidson has elucidated the ruling passion of classical antiquity. Ultimately The Greeks and Greek Love is about how desire–homosexual and heterosexual–is embodied in human civilization. At once scholarly and entertaining, this is a book that sheds as much light on our own world as on the world of Homer, Plato, and Alexander."

I haven't read it yet but am gratified to see the Sacred Band of Thebes is discussed (though Davidson often uses their 80s band name Army of Lovers, grrr). Even Antinous gets a couple shout-outs. The photos (too few) are nicely reproduced.

More importantly, critics like the book. The British press said:

'a highly erudite work of social and cultural history, astonishingly wide-ranging... an extraordinary achievement, ranging far and wide... unpredictable and lateral-thinking... superb...' (Oliver Taplin THE GUARDIAN)

'a picture of sexuality among the ancient Greeks which is both familiar in some respects and radically new... with witty diversions... quite an achievement' (Joan Smith THE INDEPENDENT )

'a long haul over strange terrain, spiky with fragments and pulsating with beautiful ghosts... massive work of research, reflection and surprise' (DAILY TELEGRAPH )

'Massively informed and informative ... vital and outstanding study.' (THE SPECTATOR )

'James Davidson's revisionist account emerges with winning charm from the bloodshed... a landmark in gay studies' (Tom Cameron TIME OUT )

'fascinating, funny, decidedly comprehensive... entertaining and discursive' (GAY COMMUNITY NEWS )

'By turns lyrical, analytic and militant, this is a magnificently personal and self-reflexive book...' (Catharine Edwards TLS )

'Davidson, with his wit, range and learning is able to admit honestly the limitations of historical understanding, while never being less than fascinating.' (Christopher Hart THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY )

Publishers Weekly loved it:

In this marvelously entertaining and erudite follow-up to Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens, Davidson has written the definitive study of the varieties of same-sex love in ancient Greece. Abjuring recent theory-laden views of ancient Greek sexuality, and in particular homosexuality, Davidson examines the great variety of loves practiced across all ages and classes in such locales as Sparta, Crete and Macedonia. He draws deeply on etymology, philology, archeology, poetry and philosophy, observing, for instance, that the various Greek words for love -- from agape (fondness) to pothos (longing) and eros (driving love) -- define an amatory universe in which a variety of feelings and sexual practices characterize relationships between individuals. Thus, love manifests itself differently depending on whether "the lovers are Spartan women, gods and heroes, comrades-in-arms or master and slave." There is the sweet and playful eros of the lyric poets, the patriotic eros of Pericles' funeral speech, and the letters of Alexander that reject offers to send him the most beautiful boys in the world. Davidson's study is brilliant social history and a first-rate history of classical Greece.

Buy it.

Nationwide Protests Against Calif Court Ruling and Best Banner Yet

 
Last night two or three thousand people marched from Sheridan Square to Union Square to rally for marriage equality in New York and against yesterday's 6-1 California Supreme Court ruling upholding Prop 8. The speeches were okay. Irish lesbian firebrand City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was best, echoing the statement she gave the NYT. Several people condemned the White House's ongoing cowardice on lgbt issues but nothing anyone said came close to the power of Gilbert Baker's new banner. Andy Towle captured it. I'd like to see that slogan and two-faced image reproduced everywhere.

Born May 27: John Cheever

Closeted, self-hating, alcoholic, miserably married, and a frequent liar, John Cheever was the bard of the suburbs and his best writing is beautiful. Not coincidentally his most accomplished novel, Falconer, is the one that deals openly with love between men, and a handful of his stories are even better. He slept with everyone from Walker Evans when he was young to Allan Gurganus when he was old. (Read Cheever's memory of the Evans hookup here.) Blake Bailey's recent biography covers his life in 784 pages.

Hadrian's Villa Omits Antinous, Doesn't Indentify Antinoeion

The curators at Villa Adriana (the gigantic complex of more than thirty buildings on 250 acres Emperor Hadrian built at Tivoli, an hour outside of Rome) have omitted all references to his male lover Antinous. They even fail to identify the Antinoeion [foundation below], the temple Hadrian built after declaring his dead lover a god. Currently it has no sign or marker whatsoever.

Before our trip, while it was all I could do to remember my passport, my bf was trading emails and transatlantic phone calls with staff and archeologists connected to Villa Adriana. After noting Antinous's pronounced absence, he called again and was told a sign for the Antinoein would be up within a year.

To their great credit, the villa's curators have named the arrival forecourt in honor of Marguerite Yourcenar, the writer who was elected the French Academy's first female member 345 years after its inception. Her exquisite fictional recreation, Memoirs of Hadrian, was a work of love, doubly so as her longtime lesbian partner Grace Frick did the English translation. They lived together in Maine for nearly fifty years.

Born May 26: Alan Hollinghurst

Here are the four essential things you need to know about Alan Hollinghurst, the only openly gay person to win the Booker Prize, who turns fifty-five today:

1. his first novel The Swimming-Pool Library (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award)

2. his second novel The Folding Star (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize)

3. his third novel The Spell

4. his fourth novel The Line of Beauty (winner of the Man Booker Prize)

Read them all. When he made his debut with The Swimming-Pool Library, Edmund White called it, "the best book on gay life yet written by an English author." Hollinghurst has only gotten better with time, though perhaps you should put The Spell last on your list. He is late with his next novel.

Italian Hours

Forgot to mention I'd be away last week. Click each image to enlarge.

2,500 feet above the sea, workmen dangle on the side Erice's Pepoli castle.

A hazy day in Capri is better than a clear day almost anywhere else.

The unfinished 5th century BC temple at Segesta.

An olive grove near Comino.

My bf and I swam in Zingaro Nature Reserve, the first protected land on Sicily as of 1980.

Looking for spices in a smalltown market, we found the Italian sweet tooth.

Looking at the ruins at Selinunte, we found eye candy imported from Germany.

The Rome train station's billboards never, ever disappoint.

Speaking of unrequited glances, how many do you see in this Naples mural? Six?

A reminder from Agrigento that gay love is mutually returned...

...and confirmed in Naples.

A final favorite.

Born May 22: Steven Patrick Morrissey

Sing Unhappy Birthday, for the 50th time! The bible of British indie music, NME, called Morrissey's band The Smiths  "the most influential artist ever."  Can't argue with facts.  They released four studio albums and three compilations between 1984 and 1987 and pretty much changed the world with the songs This Charming Man, William It Was Really Nothing, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now, The Boy with the Thorn in His Side, Sheila Take a Bow, Shoplifters of the World Unite, Ask, Panic, Unlovable, Girlfriend in a Coma, Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before, There Is a Light that Never Goes Out and How Soon Is Now?  Morrissey has released nine solo albums since then, not all of them as good as the life-changing Viva Hate, Bona Drag, or Vauxhall & I. The most recent, Years of Refusal, earned wild superlatives in March. At his Carnegie Hall gig this spring, he opened with This Charming Man wearing a dinner jacket.

Vanessa and Virginia by Susan Sellers

On sale this week, Vanessa and Virginia was reviewed by PW as: "A delectable little book for anyone who ever admired the Bloomsbury group, Sellers's first novel speaks in painter Vanessa Bell's voice as she addresses her sister, Virginia Woolf. The story includes everything one ever imagined that happened in the intimate lives of the sisters and their astounding circle, which burst upon late Victorian England and shattered both the artistic and cultural boundaries of the times. Sellers begins during the girls' childhood with their beloved brother, and as they grow up, she taps into the incest, sexual encounters and homoerotic love with and among the many great minds of the era. The fictional world the author has recreated-of the sisters striving to perfect their respective art forms while trying to keep the reality of children and war and illness at bay-is full of color and intellectual promise and laced with despair and untimely deaths. While the mix of first- and second-person perspectives gets tedious (there are many variations on the theme of "I sensed you watching me"), the narrative's a genuine treat for Bloomsbury fans and those at least vaguely familiar with the milieu."

Born May 21: Raymond Burr

It wouldn't take Perry Mason to figure out Raymond Burr was "acting" when he invented heterosexual details about his life in order to hide his gay relationships. His alleged first wife, "Annette Sutherland," was supposedly a British actress who died in the plane crash that killed Leslie Howard, but, as you've already guessed, British Equity has no record of an actress with that name and the fatal plane had only three women on it, all of them otherwise accounted for. Later Burr claimed to have had a son who died at ten of an incurable disease, possibly leukemia, and he even said he took a year off to travel the country with him as his dying wish. Yet his publicist at the time said Burr was working steadily that entire year, 1953, and that Burr "never mentioned any wife or son." One marriage, short-lived, can be documented. Happily, Burr did have a very long relationship with fellow actor Robert Benevides. They met on the set of Perry Mason, together bought an island in Fiji where their passion for orchids eventually became a business back in California, sold their Fiji land in 1983, and spent their time on their farm in Sonoma, where they later started a vineyard. Among his many movie roles, his menacing turn as the killer in Rear Window came three years before his beloved television series Perry Mason, which ran for 271 episodes from 1957 to 1966, and remained so popular it was later revived in 26 tv movies. Burr's next series, Ironside, ran for 195 episodes from 1967 to 1975 and it too spawned a tv movie comeback in 1993, the year Burr died of cancer. One of his nieces fought with Benevides over Burr's vast estate, questioning his right to it. They were together thirty-one years.

Likewise, Last in Trilogy of Lesbian High School Graphic Novels

For all of us who loved Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, here's Ariel Schrag's Likewise.

Kirkus says it's her best: "Third and final volume of the High School Comic Chronicles (Potential, 2008, etc.). The artist's senior year is full of profound changes, and it's no accident that the strip invokes Ulysses, Infinite Jest and The Brothers Karamazov. This installment has an epic scope and scale as it deals with everything transpiring in Schrag's life, mind and art while she prepares for the transition from high school to college. The complications inherent in this rite of passage are compounded by Schrag's unrequited-or less requited than she would like-love for Sally. Now a college student, Sally seems more hetero than bi, while Schrag alternately questions and embraces her own homosexuality. The breakup of her parents' marriage causes strained feelings toward both of them (not helped when Schrag's mother tries to bond with her over marijuana). She's excited when she's accepted at Barnard, but it also adds to her tension; she's having a hard enough time deciding who she is, and now she will have a new stage for self-invention. Schrag's art is strikingly transformed as well. The lettering veers from print to scrawl, and panels change from white to dark to gray, reflecting the emotional turmoil of a cartoonist who finds herself "thinking in double frame," simultaneously engaging with her life and the comic narrative it inspires. There's also a meta-comic dimension here, as the artist confesses to "all the lies" in her previous volumes and confuses dreams and fantasies (many of them masturbatory) with reality. Toward the end, some of her experiences become so fragmentary that chapters are only two panels long. A big leap of artistic ambition and self-discovery; Schrag saved the best for last."