World AIDS Day Premiere of "All the Way Through Evening"

QNY"s Perry Brass sends us this tip:  "I hope you will join me on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011, World AIDS Day, for the world premiere of Australian filmmaker Rohan Spong's moving documentary tribute to several composers who died of AIDS, "All The Way Through Evening." The film's title comes from a series of 5 "Nocturnes" set to my poetry by the composer Chris DeBlasio who died of AIDS in 1993 at the age of 34. The premiere will be at 7:30 PM at the DMAC-DUO Multicultural Arts Center, 62 East 4th Street, in the East Village, and will also feature a program of live music and dance produced by Downtown Music Productions. Tickets are $20 through Smart Tix, and $25 at the box office."

The trailer, and  more information about how you can support the film,  are after the break

QNY Fave: NYC Photographer Andrew Weir

I love his work. Here is his portrait of twins, Travis and Troy Cannata. Check him out in YVY Magazine. And here.

NYC Designing Men: It Gets Better

HIDE/SEEK at the Brooklyn Museum

The exhibition that caused all sorts of hub-bub in the art world when The National Portrait Gallery removed a video piece due to pressure from a congress is now showing at the Brooklyn Museum with the video reinstated.   Showing to February 12, 2012.

Link:
HIDE/SEEK at the Brooklyn Museum

shorakkopoch

ENJOY THANKSGIVING

Coming Home from a Hike Upstate

George Washington Bridge at Dusk

 

Riverside Drive around West 158th St. 

The Greatest Love/Hate Relationship in the World

In a bathroomless New York City, Starbucks offers us more than complicated caffeine. They also provide the life-saving bathrooms that make our daily routines possible. Here's a picture of my Starbucks on Columbus Avenue.

Sometimes a homeless person will tie up the bathroom literally for hours, and God save the person who is next in line.

Do we really want our barristas cleaning those bathrooms? There has got to be a better way to manage this human condition in the greatest city in the world.

museum of the city of new york photo collections

A fantastic collection of historic New York City photos.
Well worth the time:

Link:
Museum of The City of New York Photo Collections

Turkey Talk: Gag Or Gobble

These celebs, including some QNY faves, answer the eternal question: "His body's bangin' but his face is booty! Do you do him or don't him? 25 favorite gaylebrities, including MICHAEL MUSTO, ROBBYNE KAAMIL, and COLTON FORD get down and talk turkey!

Wine-Pairing Advice From Astor Wines & Spirits and a DVD Recommendation for After the Meal Is Over

By West Village Bill

Yesterday, my squeeze Tony P. and I took a walk to the East Village to check out Astor Wines & Spirits. I loved the Match Game–style window display that offered recommendations on which kind of wine to pair with various elements of your Thanksgiving meal.

I realize it's hard to see everything because of the weird angle and the window glare, so I'll note that the pairing suggestions are: cabernet franc with herb (stuffing), pinot noir with roast (turkey), zinfandel with spice (cranberry sauce), chardonnay with butter (butternut squash), sherry with pie (it probably should have said sweet instead), and riesling with char (Brussels sprouts).

I was impressed with the breadth of the bottles inside. There were many wines I'd never heard of.

As you'd expect with any large store, there were some items that seemed like bargains and others that seemed overpriced. Tony and I have been drinking a lot of Oregon pinot noir lately, and we saw one from Benton-Lane Winery that we'd drank before that cost a couple dollars more than at stores in our neighborhood. But we spotted an enjoyable pinot gris from Montinore Estate for the cheapest price we'd ever seen it: $12.99.

Private Lives

Posted by Mondschein

"Private Lives" at The Music Box, November 15, 2011

This London transfer brings Kim Cattrall back to the Rialto for the first time in 25 years, leading this production of the Noel Coward classic.  Her Amanda was hailed in London and she arrives in New York with a new Elyot in the very handsome Paul Gross.

The crossing seems to have had an impact on the production.  I will confess that there was much to live up to in my eyes, having basked in the glorious revival of 2002 with Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan. (Unfair?  Perhaps.)

A "Burning" Quandry

Posted by Mondschein

I can't call it a review I have to write about today, though it is about a new play I attended over the weekend.

Let's put some things on the table first, stipulations, if you will:

• Getting a new play produced, particularly in New York, particularly by a company of the reputation of The New Group, is an incredible feat of effort.
• Provocative topics and situations are excellent fodder for playwrights looking to get attention to their work (see The Submission).
• "Downtown NYC" is a great place to exercise those skills.

A few more things to stipulate:

• I've seen a lot of lousy theatre in New York and have walked out on the full range, from multi-million dollar Broadway to dusty, uncomfortable black-box off-off-off Bway productions.  
• I've even performed in a couple of the latter types.

As a member of the ITBA, I see frequent invitations to attend and review theatre of all sorts in the city, as mentioned above, Broadway to black-box, off-off-off Broadway productions.  I don't see everything, but I was excited to see the invitation from The New Group for their production of the world premiere of Burning by up-and-coming playwright Thomas Bradshaw.  I've seen a couple of other productions from this company and looked forward to this.  The premise sounded interesting.  The director has made a name for himself.


This play was the first time I've ever walked out despite having been invited to write a review.

Perry Brass: Lost Gay New York: Who Would You List as the Greatest Gay Activists?

Perry Brass talks about LGBT History at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Oct, 2011

Something interesting happened in the wonderfully closed, back-biting, infighting, but definitely useful world of gay historians and politicos. It began when CLAGS, the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies at CUNY (City U. of New York) announced that it was sponsoring a major conference, Sept. 27 -30, 2012 in New York on the life and work of Harry Hary, on the centennial of his birth. I had heard about this conference a few weeks before it was announced, and was of course ebulliant. To me, you cannot overstate the contribution of Harry Hay to what is now the vast, diverse lgbt movement. What Harry had to say was significant: out of the personal dreams, stories, consciousness, and yearnings of every single one of us can come a movement toward our own liberation--it is singular, personal, and we can't do it alone. 


The announcement, though, came right on the heels of another historic event: the death on Oct. 11, 2011--National Coming Out Day--of Frank Kameny, which made the front page of the New York Times (a paper which up to about 20 years ago could not use the word "gay" in it). But Frank Kameny, a life-long curmugeon, professional cranky old man, totally stubborn as all get up, who single-handedly took on the Federal government back when it fired him for being gay in 1958, was now being sited as, literally, the "Father of the Gay Movement."


It. The Whole Deal. 


This was unfortunate, although not completely out of left field. One of the problems of our movement has been a lack of visibility in the form of leaders. In the 1950s, there were no visible queer leaders aside from a few, a bare inkling, of people in the arts who for whatever reason had nothing to lose by being open. Often they were European culture figures like Jean Cocteau, fairly exotic and flamboyant, but in this country to be even vaguely open and a "face"--it just didn't happen. We did have Gore Vidal whose professional life was destroyed for about a decade after he published, in 1948, The City and the Pillar, a book that became as national code word for "queer," and that went on to sell a whopping 2,000,000 copies. We had Allen Ginsberg, but he could hardly be taken that seriously (again "exotic and flamboyant") and Tennessee Williams ("Broadway's Sex Poet," said Time Magazine)--and after that, if you dared showed your face in public, you were hung out for the vultures to get you. 

QNY's Perry Brass is LGBT History Month Speaker at MCC

"On October 27, 2011, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York staff celebrated LGBT History Month. Renowned author and social activist Perry Brass presented a version of LGBT history that mixed his life story with general societal progress on LGBT issues. In 1969, Mr. Brass co-edited Come Out, the first gay liberation newspaper in the world. LGBT Program Manager Paula St. John and LGBT Alternate Program Manager William J. Ryan, Ph.D. moderated the program, which concluded with a question and answer period."

Laurie Anderson's Forty Nine Days in the Bardo: The baad lamb Interview

It's no secret I'm a major fan of Laurie Anderson's work. For more than 40 years, this world-famous visual and performance artist has been captivating and thought-provoking in nearly every medium: performance, sculpture, music, painting, spoken word, video projections, photography and pheromones. (OK, I'm not sure about the pheromones, but if she hasn't used them yet, she will!)

I have yet to see Laurie's current multi-media exhibit at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philly, Forty Nine Days in the Bardo, where she very publicly works through her grief over the loss of her beloved dog and constant companion, Lolabelle (the Bardo is the 49 day intermediate state of transition from death to rebirth as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead). I jumped at the chance to speak with her, and ask questions about this new work as well as discuss some of the major themes of her recent (and past) work.

bl

I see the “transitioning” theme of this show - between life and death, death and rebirth, loss and remembrance, underlined in a section of “Animal Stories” from the live lecture: The world as Pre-9/11 and Post 9/11. [note: watch the video above]

LA

“That was just one story, I’m not sure I would be so global about it, but now that you mention it, it is kind of  a different world in many ways... I can’t think of any 10 years in my life time that are more different.”

New York City Marathon 2011

A beautiful and record-smashing day. A record 47,438 competitors started.

"In the Family"

Posted by Mondschein

This film by Patrick Wang opened at Quad Cinemas last night with a pretty strong review from the NY Times.  Check the review out here.  There's not much I would add to Mr. Brunick's observations.

Leaving the theatre, Mr. Wang was standing shyly on the sidewalk, waiting to get some direct feedback about the film.  Within minutes, Stone Phillips (who looks even better since he stopped coloring his hair) was leading the conversation among a group of us who had stopped to congratulate Mr. Wang, exploring some of his plot choices and inspirations.

As you'll see in the review, Mr. Wang hasn't had much success in his distribution efforts.  The film runs a little long, but it's well worth seeing.

Check it out at the Quad before it closes next Thursday.  Get tickets here.

Opening Fireworks New York City Marathon

At our kitchen window tonight, we watched the fireworks over Central Park signal the opening of the 2011 New York City Marathon.

New York City Marathon - this Sunday

All week long, the preparations have overtaken Central Park West. The sidewalks are flooded with cables.

BLOWOFF - This Friday

Always a good time.

Bad Public Art On Broadway

These animals are just plain boring. What is it about the public art selection process that seems to prohibit any good stuff?
You be the judge.
Here's one. Two more by the same "artist" after the break.