Band of Thebes

Joan Acocella on J.R. Ackerley

Today's New Yorker features a comprehensive essay by the always, always insightful Joan Acocella on gay writer J.R. Ackerley, author of an early play, a barely disguised novel, and three memoirs, the most famous of which is My Dog Tulip. A bit of a perfectionist, Ackerley spent 34 years working on his final book about his father, who was a closet bigamist (having three children by his other wife) and secretly was a gay hustler during his years in the Guards. When, late in life, Ackerley tried to come out to him, his father interrupted with, “It’s all right, old boy. I prefer not to know. So long as you enjoyed yourself, that’s the main thing.”

In his writing, Ackerley refused to be cut off and insisted on over-sharing. For one, his sexual relations -- "fantastically promiscuous," always with himself fully clothed and the young Guardsman, soldier, or cop fully naked, never ever oral -- were ruined by premature ejaculation. Acocella ponders the moral dimensions:

"How do you survive the humiliation of always having your body go against your will? Do you have to succeed at sex in order to feel that you have succeeded in life? And how do you tell your partner, who at that moment is innocently taking off his clothes, that the act for which he is preparing has already been completed?"

More importantly, she realizes, "The real fruit of Ackerley’s candor, however, is the power it lent his writing: the richness of characterization, the tartness of metaphor, the protection that honesty gives against sentimentality, or just a stupid simplicity." She is just as wise about the works themselves. Don't miss Hindoo Holiday about his six months in 1923 as secretary to a gay maharaja in Chhatarpur. But first read Acocella's essay. After the books, go on to his biography by Peter Parker which she calls "superb."

Born January 31: Portia De Rossi

What do you do if you're a fifteen year old lesbian named Amanda Rogers who feels destined for something bigger than a suburb a Geelong, Victoria, Australia? It's 1988, you love Shakespeare, you romanticize Italy, you tell your parents Amanda is history and you're legally changing your name to Portia. Not only that, Mr. & Mrs. Rogers suddenly have a high school daughter whose last name is de Rossi. Just because you felt like it. Well, Geelong can't hold you back, and the University of Melbourne Law School can't keep your interest. You land a part in the Australian movie Sirens, then you go Hollywood and appear in Scream 2. Your giant break comes in 1998 when you get the role of lawyer Nelle Porter on Ally McBeal, which you'll play through its end in 2002, without any noticeable difference when your castmates and family learn you're lesbian by seeing tabloid pictures of you and your girlfriend, singer Francesca Gregorini. (Possibly it's connected to your Italian craze because she really was born Countess Francesca McKnight Donatella Romana Gregorini di Savignano di Romagna, daughter of Bond girl Barbara Bach and stepdaughter of Ringo Starr.) After Ally McBeal you star in Arrested Development for three seasons, and by now the whole world has noticed your good looks: You've ranked on the Sexiest Women lists from Maxim, Blender, Stuff and Femme Fatales, then People includes you in their Most Beautiful list. Also by now you've left your Italian for an all-American named Ellen. You've come out. The two of you are named one of TV Guide's A-list Power Couples. You get married when you can, a couple months before Prop 8, and you make this video of the happy day. Your memoir of earlier misery, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain about your eating disorder, is a NYT bestseller.

Best Thing To Do 39,000' Over Mongolia

Read Colm Toibin's amazing new collection The Empty Family [[Kindle]] and stare out the windows. Full of surprises. From Toronto we flew east over Greenland and skirted the North Pole. The first photo below is Mongolia, the next two are northern Canada. Can't be more specific as the airline disabled the moving map because of terrorism. Second surprise, although the front of the 777 has six "suites," my partner and I were the only passengers there. Fresh orchids, mattress pads, duvets, an episode of Modern Family I had never seen, a documentary on Eiger -- they have it all. Click to enlarge.

Hide/Seek Symposium Today, Censorship Protest Monday

Today the Smithsonian hosts an eleven-hour symposium called "Addressing (and Redressing) the Silence: New Scholarship in Sexuality and American Art." The event, "gathers American art historians who will propose and promote new paradigms for understanding the fraught relationship between sexuality and portraiture. In 11 papers spanning 100 years of American history, themes of racial, sexual and gendered difference will be reassessed to yield new interpretations of the history of modern American art." The complete schedule is below.

On Monday, January 31 at 1:00pm, Art Positive and other activists will again protest the removal of David Wojnarowicz's video Fire in My Belly and, in turn, demand the removal of Smithsonian head Wayne Clough. Full details here. (Image via.)

If you can't make the show in the next two weeks, buy the catalog to keep forever.

9:15–10:45      Archives and Discovery

9:15–9:50        Jonathan Weinberg, Lost and Found: Searching for the Lesbian and Gay Presence in the Archives of American Art   

9:50–10:25       Joe Lucchesi, The Body’s Shadow: On Archives, Photographs, and Queer Desire
10:25–10:45     Discussion

10:45–11:00    Break

11:00–1:15      Racing Desires

11:00–11:35    Tavia Nyong’o, The Confidence Man as Painted Lady: Dandyism and Transgendered Self-Fashioning in Antebellum New York

11:35–12:10    Tirza Latimer, Modernism’s Other Others: Faith Ringgold’s Dinner at Gertrude Stein’s

12:10–12:45    Diana Linden, “I Am a Man!”: Race and Gender in William Christopher’s Paintings in Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

12:45–1:15      Discussion

1:15–2:15        Lunch and opportunity to view the exhibition, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.”

2:30–4:45        Desire at Mid-century

2:30–3:05        James Boaden, Jess’ Imaginary Portraits

3:05–3:40        Jonathan D. Katz, The Sexuality of Abstraction: Agnes Martin

3:40–4:15        Dominic Johnson, Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures, or the Burden of Disgust

4:15–4:45        Discussion

4:45–5:15        Break

5:15–8:00       Desire and the Public

5:15–5:50        Chris Reed, Imagining Identity: Sexuality, Regionalism, and Legacy in Mid-20th Century American Art

5:50–6:25        David Getsy, Open Seating: Scott Burton, Performance Art, Public Art, and the 1970s

6:25–7:00        Jennifer Doyle, Hold It Against Me: Difficulty, Emotion, and David Wojnarowicz

7:00–8:00        Discussion

Born January 29: Greg Louganis

In 1988 when he was twenty-eight, at the Seoul Olympics, attempting to repeat his unprecedented double golds from 1984 (springboard and tower), Greg Louganis hit his head on the board during his second to last dive. Freshly stitched up, on his final dive he earned a perfect score. Again, he won both gold medals. Widely hailed as one of the great sports comebacks of all time, it earned him ABC Sports' Athlete of the Year. Three years earlier he had won the Sullivan Award as the nation's most outstanding amateur athlete, and he had been an American favorite ever since winning a silver medal at the Montreal Olympics when he was sixteen.

But what a difference one detail makes. Seven years later he published his autobiography, Breaking the Surface, cowritten with Eric Marcus, in which he revealed he is HIV positive. Suddenly he was no longer the hero of the comeback but the infected sneak whose bleeding might have put other divers at risk (not true, according to Anthony Fauci). The doctor who gave him stitches had not worn gloves. His book was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for five weeks, and all of his corporate sponsors except Speedo dropped him. (He had come out eight months earlier, at Gay Games in New York.) Remarkable for its candor, his book showed readers that performing after hitting his head was nothing compared to the stress of being closeted, HIV+, and in an abusive relationship. Even his website last year said, "the highs that came with winning never compensated for the lows."

Perks of Being Chbosky: Directing His Screenplay of His Novel

In the twelve years since MTV Books published Stephen Chbosky's first novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower [[Kindle]] it has sold more than one million copies and frequently ranks among the nation's most censored or challenged titles in libraries, thanks to its gay content. (Still wildly popular with young people, the epistolary novel is easily the most cited queer title on the gay social network DList, especially among the many, many, many teens who say they hate to read.) Chbosky has not written another book; instead he went Hollywood, penning the screenplay for Rent and writing and producing the tv show Jericho. He turned 41 on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Vulture reported that Summit, the studio behind the Twilight franchise, will finance the film version of Chbosky's novel, letting him direct his script. Logan Lerman, 19, (terrific in 3:10 to Yuma; ok as Percy Jackson) has been tapped to star as high school freshman Charlie, with Emma Watson playing his best friend Sam. Filming begins in June for a 2012 release.

Obama's Signed Support of Gay Marriage 15 Years Ago. Not Now.

Obama's shift from being for gay marriage in 1996, when most were opposed to it, to being against it now is a victory for cowardice and politicking. In his SOTU -- viewership of which was down 11% from last year and down 18% from 2009 -- he said, "no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love." However, you will be denied marriage because of whom you love. Still waiting for the grandly stirring speech about Liberty's march backward.

Windy City Times' publisher Tracy Baim, who has covered this story from the beginning, last year published a 570-page book, Obama and the Gays: A Political Marriage [[Kindle]]. Hers comes considerably after the book about the GOP and the gays, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Gay Ugandan Featured in Article Demanding Gay Executions Is Killed

Months after gay rights activist David Kato, 43, appeared on the cover of a Ugandan tabloid article listing the addresses of local LGBT leaders and calling on readers to murder them, he has been killed in his home. Kato had quit his job as a schoolteacher to work fulltime for LGBT rights. Ugandan police say they do not think his murder, from blows to his head with a hammer, was a hate crime. In the past two months, ten other people have been killed in the area during robberies, according to police.

Val Kalende, chairwoman of one of Uganda’s gay rights groups, said, “David’s death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S. evangelicals in 2009. The Ugandan government and the so-called U.S. evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood.”

The U.S. government has yet to condemn the murder. Instead, Johnnie Carson, America's top diplomat for Africa said via Twitter, "We are horrified and saddened by the murder of prominent human rights activist David Kato in Uganda yesterday afternoon." UPDATE: See comments for links to statements from the State Department ("profoundly saddened") and the White House ("deeply saddened"), thanks to Mel P.

European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said, "David Kato was a man that fought for the rights of people to live freely regardless of their sexual orientation in Uganda. I call for the perpetrators of this crime to be brought to justice He was a remarkable human rights defender." Buzek called on Uganda to legalize homosexuality, adding, "I underline that sexual orientation is a matter falling within the remit of the individual right to privacy in the framework of universal human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Born January 26: Ellen DeGeneres

Comedian, college dropout after one semester, #1 NYT bestselling author, sitcom star, chat show mogul, record company wannabe, vegan, animal lover, and lesbian wife, Ellen DeGeneres was named the funniest person in America by Showtime way back in 1982 when she was twenty-four. Johnny Carson, a big fan, considered her a girl Bob Newhart, though she cited Steve Martin and Woody Allen as significant influences. Her sitcom Ellen ran from 1994 to 1998 including her character's history making coming out in The Puppy Episode, seen by a record setting 46 million people. In 2003 she voiced Dory in Finding Nemo, Pixar's most successful movie ever. That September she premiered her talk show, which has become a mega hit, dancing its way to twenty-nine Daytime Emmys. During the height of the Prop 8 campaign to rescind gay marriage in California, she wed her wife, Portia De Rossi, fifteen years her junior, and screened this video on her show. Do we still have to hear the lie that stars can't be out, vocal in their support of gay rights, and popular with middle America? Ellen has won five consecutive People's Choice Awards as Favorite Daytime Talk Show Host. She just won her first Teen Choice Award. In 2007, she hosted the Oscars, earning higher ratings and more viewers than Jon Stewart in 2006 and 2008 and Hugh Jackman in 2009. In 2008, at fifty, she became the face of Maybelline's CoverGirl. Last year she was the new judge on American Idol, this year she amps up her record label eleveneleven whose first artist is (was?) 12 year-old Greyson Chance. A new memoir is coming, too.

Kameny Papers Expose John Macy's Antigay 'Revulsion' Letter

Obviously I'm biased, and obviously the importance of the discovery is self-evident.

The new issue of the Gay & Lesbian Review features an article by Charles Francis about the recently unearthed 1966 letter Lyndon Johnson's Civil Service Commission Chairman John Macy Jr. wrote to Frank Kameny rejecting the idea that gay men and lesbians form an identifiable class of citizen deserving Constitutional protection. Macy wrote with extreme hostility about the need to keep gay people out of the government, citing other employees' "revulsion... apprehension caused by homosexual advances, solicitations, or assaults" and the "unavoidable subjection of the sexual deviate to erotic stimulation through on-the-job use of common toilet, shower, or living facilities." Macy also worried about the "public who are required to deal with a known or admitted sexual deviate."

Ick animus aside, the crucial legal point of Macy's letter was to say on behalf of the government that in the case of the Mattachine Society, and all gay people, "we see no oppressed minority."

This was not a casual correspondence, quickly sent and forgotten. Macy drafted it with CSC counsel Lou Pellerzi and gave it much thought, then and after. He claimed, "I believe it is most effectively done and sets forth a humane public interest position." Charles searched Macy's papers in the LBJ archives in Austin and found a later letter from Macy again thanking Pellerzi for "the landmark policy statement on homosexuals."

The Gay & Lesbian Review article says this single letter to Kameny "established a viciously discriminatory policy against homosexuals that lasted for decades." Last year, Judge Vaughn Walker cited the letter as a "finding of fact" in his decision striking down Prop 8. Which means it is now on its way to the Supreme Court, when they hear the California gay marriage case later this year.

For the full history, and the backstory of this powerful archive activism, click here.

Born January 25: Virginia Woolf

Here is the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf. In April 1937 she participated in a BBC lecture series titled Words Fail Me, giving a talk she called "Craftsmanship." She contemplates using new words in an old language, beginning, "Words, English words, are full of echoes, memories, associations. They've been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing today..."

Born in 1882, she published her first novel at 33 and found her real power at 40, with Jacob's Room. Then came a great burst of creativity: Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931). Her collected letters fill six volumes, her diaries five volumes, and half her essays (stopping with 1924) are collected in three books. She wrote a play, two biographies, and she finished two more novels before March 28, 1941. Her London home destroyed in the Blitz, her writing in a lull after finishing her last, believing the Nazis would soon invade the countryside, she felt her mental illness was returning and that this time she would not recover. She drown herself in the river Ouse at 59. Her body was not found for 21 days.

Jo Shapcott's Poetry a Surprise Win for Costa Book of the Year

Bookies thought the Costa Book of the Year would be Edmund de Waal's much-lauded memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss [[Kindle]]. Other judges thought it should be Maggie O'Farrell's The Hand That First Held Mine [[Kindle]] arguing that a novel might be more accessible to a wider scope of potential readers. But in the final round of voting for Book of the Year, they selected Jo Shapcott's poetry collection Of Mutability[[Kindle]]. Shapcott wrote the 54-page book while she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer but does not think the collection is about her experience of illness. She told a reporter, “I would say more that it is a series of meditations on mortality, some of which are terribly cheerful, in fact ecstatic.”

Chairman of the panel Andrew Neil said, “The judges thought that it was accessible, compassionate, one of them said it was a celebration of life whatever was thrown at you and they had been captivated by the poetry and for these reasons, though there were other strong challengers, they thought Of Mutability deserved to win.

“They wanted to stress the accessibility. They appreciate that poetry is not everybody’s first choice in literature... but they really felt that if someone was uncertain of poetry, if they got this book in their hands they would quickly fall in love with it and read it again and again as many of the judges did before coming to their decision.”

Last year's winner was Christopher Reid's A Scattering, also a collection of poetry.

The Costas began as the Whitbread Book Awards in 1971.

Kids Are All Right Earns 4 Oscar Noms, King's Speech 12, True Grit 10

The magic isn't gone: Amid a lot of predictable crowd-pleasers, Oscar honors Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist

Oscar voters nominated the lesbian family drama The Kids Are All Right in four major categories: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Original Screenplay for Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko even though she was overlooked in directing. Please note, this means the Best Actress race is a contest between straight women who played a real lesbian (Bening, Kids) and a fake lesbian (Portman, Swan). Both just won Golden Globes.

Julianne Moore (who was the first to join the project five years ago) was shut out for Best Supporting Actress but it's thrilling to see Jacki Weaver nominated for her blistering performance in the Australian crime scorcher Animal Kingdom. Likewise, kudos to the Academy for honoring the little meth indie Winter's Bone in four big categories. The greatest injustice of the crop is the absence in Best Foreign Language Film noms of I Am Love, though it was rightly recognized in Best Costumes. (It should also have been nominated for acting, writing, directing, editing, cinematography, and art direction; by far my favorite movie of 2010.) Also short-changed, Mike Leigh's Another Year, though it does have the BAFTAs.

The King's Speech earned twelve nominations, True Grit ten, Inception and The Social Network eight each. Very happy for reclusive literary star Charles Portis who wrote the wonderful novel True Grit in 1968, though his even better, more deserving book is The Dog of the South.

As for other literary stars, you must now refer to him as Sebastian Junger, Oscar Nominee.

Last year the Academy ridiculously expanded the Best Picture field to ten movies; this year they waste one of those spots nominating Toy Story 3 which also dominates the Best Animated Film category... against How to Train Your Dragon (not Tangled, not Despicable Me) and surprise nominee The Illusionist, from a screenplay by the legendary Jacques Tati reshaped by the director of The Triplets of Belleville. I saw it Saturday night in New York playing to an empty house [mirroring the scene above] and was charmed by its melancholy tone and stunning artwork of Scotland in 1959. See it on a big screen if you can, though two words of caution: Hope you don't need dialogue or a happy ending; it has neither.

Noticeably nowhere: Somewhere. Please Give. Get Low. The Ghost Writer. Waiting for Superman. The Pat Tillman Story. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Fair Game. Christopher Nolan. Ryan Gosling. Mila Kunis. Andrew Garfield. Gwyneth Paltrow. Hilary Swank. Very little for The Town and Rabbit Hole.

Full list after the jump.

Best picture
“Black Swan”
“The Fighter”
“Inception”
“The Kids Are All Right”
“The King’s Speech”
“127 Hours”
“The Social Network”
“Toy Story 3”
“True Grit”
“Winter's Bone”

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter's Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine"

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”
James Franco in “127 Hours”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King’s Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
John Hawkes in “Winter's Bone”
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech”

Original screenplay
“Another Year” Written by Mike Leigh
“The Fighter” Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson, Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
“Inception” Written by Christopher Nolan
“The Kids Are All Right” Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
“The King’s Speech” Screenplay by David Seidler

Adapted screenplay
“127 Hours” Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
“The Social Network”  Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
“Toy Story 3” Screenplay by Michael Arndt, Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
“True Grit” Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“Winter's Bone” Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Born January 24: Hadrian

Born in Italica, Spain 1,935 years ago today, Publius Aelius Hadrianus became, at 41, the third of the Five Good Roman Emperors, following the death of Trajan who was a cousin of Hadrian's father. Overall, his reign was marked by comparable peace, the exception being the second Roman-Jewish War, after which he remained violent in his Anti-Semitism. Without constant military battles he was able to fortify the empire which stretched from north Africa to northern England and from Portugal to Iraq. Along with the wall that bears his name near the Scottish border, Hadrian oversaw several colossal building projects. Most notable are the Pantheon in its current form (entirely rebuilt after a fire destroyed the original) and what is said to have been the largest temple in the ancient capital, The Temple of Venus and Roma. A great traveler, he rarely saw his wife, vastly preferring the culture of Athens to Rome and the company of young men to women. Of course, his greatest love was Antinous, whom he met at thirteen or fourteen in Turkey. After Antinous drowned in the Nile at nineteen, Hadrian's tributes were unparalleled: He had him deified, founded the city of Antinopolis, commissioned dozens of busts and statues of him, built a temple to him at his villa in Tivoli, and put his likeness on money, the only non-Emperor ever honored with a coin. They were not just friends. The Cult of Antinous was extremely popular with a certain kind of man throughout the empire and flourished until later when it was harshly condemned for being based on an 'immoral relationship' and suppressed by the emerging Catholic church. Hadrian died at 62 without any biological children. In his final year, he adopted for the sake of an heir a 51 year-old named Antoninus Pius.

Regardless of whether or not you think you're interested in the ancient world, read lesbian Marguerite Yourcenar's amazing novel, Memoirs of Hadrian, translated into English by Grace Frick, her partner for forty-two years. The book is so good it made Yourcenar the first woman elected to the Académie française, founded in 1635.

Visitors to the British Museum's massive show on Hadrian in 2008 were greeted with a marble statue of Antinuous as Osiris. The opening sentence read, "Antinous was the lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian." No degaying for them. We went to Hadrian's Villa an hour outside Rome in May 2009. It's impressive with the ruins of 30 buildings over 250 acres. But there's no sign at the Antinoeion.

close-up after the jump

Cher, Liza, Barbra, Sex & the City Cast Vie for 2010 Worst Acting Awards

Prehistoric divas, ancient wannabes, a quartet of hot, and one out lesbian are nominated for the 31st annual Razzie Awards, recognizing the worst in American cinema. Needed as these awards are, their validity wobbles with the absence of Skyline. And some of the excruciating 'acting' in Julie Taymor's The Tempest. And what's the point of an awards show if they don't give a prize for Worst Song??

As an act of catharsis, and to forewarn your fellow moviewatchers, please list your most terrible film experiences of 2010 in the comments. Including well-intended indies. And rentals.

WORST PICTURE
THE BOUNTY HUNTER
THE LAST AIRBENDER
SEX & THE CITY #2
TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
VAMPIRES SUCK

WORST ACTOR
Jack Black / GULLIVER’S TRAVELS
Gerard Butler / THE BOUNTY HUNTER
Ashton Kutcher / KILLERS and VALENTINE’S DAY
Taylor Lautner / TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE and VALENTINE’S DAY
Robert Pattinson / REMEMBER ME and TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE

WORST ACTRESS
Jennifer Aniston / THE BOUNTY HUNTER and THE SWITCH
Mylie Cyrus / THE LAST SONG
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, K. Davis, C. Nixon (below) SEX & THE CITY 2
Megan Fox / JONAH HEX
Kristen Stewart / TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jessica Alba / THE KILLER INSIDE ME, LITTLE FOCKERS, MACHETE and VALENTINE’S DAY
Cher / BURLESQUE
Liza Minnelli / SEX & THE CITY 2
Nicola Peltz / THE LAST AIRBENDER
Barbra Streisand / LITTLE FOCKERS

Born January 23: Sergei Eisenstein

It figures that the Russian supergenius whose innovations in The Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Oktober (1927) still dictate how movies are shot and edited today would have no trouble creating private visual diversions for himself in an age before internet porn: He drew sketches of gay sex. Re-entering the U.S. from Mexico in 1932, his drawings were discovered by American customs officials who were not "artistic" and not amused. Eisenstein was a Bolshevik after all, and had been run out of Hollywood on his first visit after a campaign against him by fascist Major Pease (and because Paramount hated his treatment of Dreiser's An American Tragedy). The customs debacle capped off a fifteen-month fiasco that was supposed to have been a four-month shoot to restore his reputation. Post-Paramount, Charlie Chaplin had introduced him to Upton Sinclair whose wife Mary Kimbrough financed the Mexican picture, which Eisenstein began filming without a script or even a concept. Complicating matters further, Mexico had no diplomatic relations with the USSR and therefore claimed rights to the film as it was being made, including the right to censor. Ordered home by Soviet authorities angry that he had overstayed his visa, Eisenstein realized that thus removed and having hugely antagonized the Sinclairs, he would never be allowed to edit his Mexican footage. He suffered a nervous breakdown. Worse was on its way. His next film, Bezhin Meadow, was plagued again by his ill-conceived grandiose schemes (this time to shoot simultaneously adult and children's versions) and by his dictatorial style. Soviet officials hated his movie. Eisenstein endured the horror of having his film destroyed, which was mild compared to the fate of the government's executive producer for film, Boris Shumyatsky, who should have been supervising more closely and was executed by firing squad. Eisenstein did triumph again with a biopic of Alexander Nevsky, famous for its beautiful, majestic build up to battle. He followed it with another success, Ivan the Terrible Part I, only to see his Ivan the Terrible Part II confiscated and Part III destroyed. Although he had two wives, historians say neither marriage was consummated. He wrote in his diaries about his endless infatuations with men. He died of a brain hemorrhage at fifty.

National Book Critics Circle Nominees

As ever, the National Book Critics Circle go their own way with this year's nominees in six categories, showing zero overlap in fiction with the National Book Awards finalists. NBA winner Patti Smith is again nominated for her queer Mapplethorpe memoir, and new books by lesbians Kay Ryan and Terry Castle are honored here after being ignored in by the NBAs. The NBCC biography field is particularly disappointing as it overlooks Wendy Moffat's A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster [[Kindle]] and Justin Spring's NBA finalist Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade [[Kindle]]. Not to mention all the greatness here. NBCC finalists will read in NYC on March 9, and the awards will be announced on March 10.

(How many of last year's six winners can you name?)

 

Fiction

Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad [[Kindle]]
Jonathan Franzen, Freedom  [[Kindle]]
David Grossman, To the End of the Land  [[Kindle]]
Hans Keilson, Comedy in a Minor Key  [[Kindle]]
Paul Murray, Skippy Dies  [[Kindle]]

Biography

Sarah Bakewell. How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
Selina Hastings. The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham
Yunte Huang. Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History
Thomas Powers. The Killing of Crazy Horse
Tom Segev. Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends

Autobiography

Kai Bird, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978
David Dow, The Autobiography of an Execution
Patti Smith, Just Kids
Darin Strauss, Half a Life
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Hiroshima in the Morning
Christopher Hitchens Hitch-22: A Memoir


Nonfiction

S.C. Gwynne. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American
Jennifer Homans. Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet
Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Poetry

Anne Carson, Nox
Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City
Terrance Hayes, Lighthead
Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems
C.D. Wright, One with Others: [a little book of her days]

 

Criticism

Elif Batuman, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
Terry Castle, The Professor: A Sentimental Education
Clare Cavanagh, Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West
Susan Linfield, TThe Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence
Ander Monson, Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir

Born January 21: Cristóbal Balenciaga

"Arbiters of fashion generally agree that Balenciaga, the son of a Basque fisherman and a seamstress, was the greatest couturier of the last century. Dior considered him the primus inter pares, and Chanel conceded that Balenciaga alone could construct a perfect garment from start to finish with his own hands, whereas everyone else was merely 'a designer.'"

To comprehend his genius you could inspect the three hundred original designs he created each year from 1937 to 1968, but you'd still be lost about his legacy; or you could simply read Judith Thurman's New Yorker essay "The Absolutist," which includes the quote above and is a highlight of her brilliant Cleopatra's Nose. She discusses Balenciaga's business partner and greatest love, Vladzio Zawrorowski d'Attainville, as well as the benefits of being gay to Yves Saint Laurent and the current Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquière: "A sense of dislocation often hones the instincts of a gifted gay youth from the provinces... They are able to recognize a closeted seductress -- a Buñuel heroine, like Belle du Jour -- and help to realize her potential for transgression."

Despite his success and his unmatched status as The Master, Balenciaga suffered a series of devastations: In 1947 Dior got credit for the New Look, when Balenciaga had been showing mid-calf skirts, full bust jackets, and small waists for years; in 1948 his partner died; and over the next two decades the world edged away from couture to ready to wear. Although he triumphed time and again with his tunic dresses in 1955, his sack dresses in 1956, his pairing of tall boots with harlequin tights and shorter hemlines, and his maverick use of special fabrics like plastics for rainwear, he decided to close his business in 1968 rather than lower himself to the faster, cheaper standards mandated by ready-to-wear. Four years later he died in his native Spain.

Reynolds Price Dies At 77

After complications from a heart attack, novelist Reynolds Price died Thursday at 77. The NYT obituary catches the crucial fact that he saw himself as heir to Eudora Welty, and the obit writer just barely manages to mention Price was gay. Better, the paper sought quotes from the two most perfect people to comment:

Allan Gurganus said, “He is the best young writer this country has ever produced,” and “He started out with a voice, a lyric gift and a sense of humor, and an insight about how people lived and what they’ll do to get along.” Gurganus also told the newspaper, “He made this small corner of North Carolina the sovereign territory of his own imagination and showed those of us who went away that the water back home was fine. We could come back; there was plenty of room for all of us.”

When she was sixteen Anne Tyler was a student in Price's first class at Duke. Responding to a request, she emailed the NYT, “I can still picture him sitting tailor-fashion on top of his desk, reading to the class from his own work or from one of his students’ papers," and "He seemed genuinely joyous when we did the slightest thing right.”

Readers new to Price might start with his NBCC winner Kate Vaiden [[no Kindle]]. His most recent work was the third volume of his memoirs, Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back [[Kindle]], which is not entirely degayed, though Price was of the old Southern school of homosexual discretion.

(Photo: Duke News)

GLAAD Nominees for Film, Television, Theater Awards

GLAAD has announced the nominees for its image awards honoring 2010's best LGBT films, television, theater, with the unfortunate effect of highlighting what a dismal year it was for movies. Out of desperation, or a determination not to acknowledge the lesbianism of Black Swan, the judges have miscategorized The Girl Who Played With Fire as a wide release, meaning more than 1,000 screens, though at its peak it played only 185 screens. I Love You Phillip Morris appeared on 100 screens and is rightly listed as a limited release. Except for The Kids Are All Right, in which much of the screen time shows a lesbian's affair with a man, the wide release category is dominated by straight movies with a minor subplot involving a gay friend. Nominating the unwatchable Burlesque might be interpreted as queer irony or typical GLAAD pandering for celebrity attendance, vying for Cher or Christina.

(My excuse for seeing Burlesque: It's Alaska. It's cold. We thought the movie theater might be heated. It was. Nevertheless, my partner walked out within the 45 minutes.)

GLAAD does deserve kudos for avoiding the very weak Stonewall Uprising in the documentary category, and for honoring the underseen 8: The Mormon Proposition.

Congratulations, of course, to Lisa Cholodenko [above] for The Kids..., and to Michael Zam for The Kid, adapted from Dan Savage's memoir and nominated for Best New York Theater.

The list continues after the jump.

OUTSTANDING FILM - WIDE RELEASE
Burlesque
Easy A
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Kids Are All Right
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
 
OUTSTANDING FILM - LIMITED RELEASE
Howl
I Love You Phillip Morris
La Mission
Patrik Age 1.5
Undertow
 
OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
Brothers & Sisters
Degrassi
Grey's Anatomy
Pretty Little Liars
True Blood
 
OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES
Glee
Greek
Modern Family
Nurse Jackie
United States of Tara