Edmund White writes of the Crisco-Slathered Gay 70's in City Boy

City Boy, Edmund White's new memoir of life in New York around the time of Stonewall gets a review in the NYT.

Writes White: "I was a living contradiction. I was still a self-hating gay man going to a straight psychotherapist with the intention of getting cured and getting married. There was no ‘gay pride’ back then — there was only gay fear and gay isolation and gay distrust and gay self-hatred."

From Dwight Garner's review:

Orgies; leather bars; tabs of LSD; sex on the balconies of gay dance halls, in the abandoned piers along the Hudson River and in the dunes on Fire Island; group sex with American Indians and Norwegian flight attendants from Minnesota — it’s all here in exacting and eye-popping detail. He captures the “odor of brew, harness, sweat and Crisco” that began to fill gay men’s nostrils in the mid-’70s.

Mr. White was a kind of sexual werewolf. As midnight approached, he says, “my hands began to sprout hair, and my teeth to sharpen.” He sleeps with so many well-known writers and artists that this crackling if lightweight memoir can read less like a prelude to “And the Band Played On,” Randy Shilts’s stately book about the early days of AIDS, than an all-boy update of “I’m With the Band,” Pamela Des Barres‘s trippy and picaresque rock groupie memoir.

He describes a quickie with the travel writer Bruce Chatwin here; a three-way with the poet John Ashbery there. The notches Mr. White claims on his bedpost are vast and crisscrossing, and he likes to run his fingers along them in wistful horndog memory.

Sounds like a page-turner.

Also of note: Marriage equality supporter and devoted fan John Irving supplies the book's cover blurb: "A wise and humane treatise on the delicate differences between love and friendship."

City Boy [amazon]

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Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell signs marriage equality bill: "Rell this afternoon signed Senate Bill 899, which incorporates the findings of the Kerrigan case into Connecticut statutes. That ruling, handed down by the state Supreme Court in October, paved the way for same-sex marriage. Both the House and the Senate spent hours yesterday debating Senate Bill 899, which passed only after an amendment was added that provides an exemption to groups who object to same-sex marriage on religious grounds.

The giant dust cloud at the heart of the Milky Way tastes vaguely like raspberries, smells like rum, scientists think.

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Alabama House passes resolution in support of Miss California: "The House approved the resolution Thursday by Republican Rep. Jay Love of Montgomery on a voice vote...Love said Prejean stuck to her convictions even if it meant losing the pageant."

Gays vs gays on Jamaica boycott: "J-FLAG Programs Manager Jason McFarlane took particular exception to the boycott of Red Stripe beer, saying the brewer has 'unequivocally distanced itself from the hostility and violence typical of Jamaican music towards members of the LGBT community.'"

Momentum in Utah for same-sex marriage, or just optimism?

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Activists gather strength in Mumbai to pressure politicians to decriminalize homosexuality: "At a 'People's Panchayat' in the capital on resisting stigma and homophobia, the activists said political parties, which have mindset dating back to years, need to wake up to the existence of sexual minorities or face electoral boycott from the estimated four crore population."

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Lesbian assaulted at Nairobi bar. Kenyan gays demand protection.

Anti-gay forces storm parliament in Uganda.

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Stonewall Library and Archive celebrates grand opening in Fort Lauderdale: "In decades past, when gay residents wanted to find books about their community they had to borrow from friends or from a closet where some were stored at a gay-friendly church. The new location is a sign of how mainstream the gay community has become in Broward: the gay library shares a building with a county library and ArtServe and is situated on the edge of a city park where children play ball and seniors gather for tennis lessons. Jack Rutland, library executive director, lauded the city and county for entering a partnership to make the library possible. 'Imagine me saying that 20 years ago,' Rutland said."

Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Kimmel have a golf cuddle.

The Killers planning release of live DVD and cover album?

Julia Allison blabs about a "screaming match" between Rosie O'Donnell and Kelli.

Edmund White on Amazon: "I don't think it was a glitch. It's shocking that someone in that organization has the power to [get rid of] gay books. All my own books were [also] affected. I wrote in my name [on Amazon] last week and A Boy's Own Story wasn't there! Only four of my 22 books were there. It was astonishing. Frankly, if one of the custodians of Western culture is a corporation like Amazon, perhaps they should be regulated like the financial world. We need regulation in the cultural world too so that they don't restrict anything, like Amazon did."

Can D.C. clergy stop same-sex marriage vote?

U R GAY: Hamline Univeristy in St. Paul, Minnesota sees anti-gay graffiti.

Pedro Almodovar developing Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown into a TV series: "Fox TV Studios is developing the English-language hourlong project and has tapped Mimi Schmir to pen the pilot script. Almodovar and Schmir are exec producing...Almodovar will be very involved in "Women," which will be developed with an eye for the international market."

Photographer David LaChapelle lists Hollywood Hills home for $1.65 million.

John Irving Supports Marriage Equality in Letter to Edmund White

As I post this, the debate over same-sex marriage is underway in the Vermont House.

Via Rex Wockner comes this letter heterosexual author and Vermont resident John Irving sent to his friend, the gay author Edmund White. White told Wockner that Irving wanted it to be made public. You may remember an item I posted in January in which Irving expressed his admiration for White's writing.

Here's the letter:

Dear Edmund:

It's interesting that, as you and I are comparing our calendars to see when we might get together in Vermont -- and while we are both engaged in overseeing the editing and copy-editing phase of our new books -- my fellow Vermonters are deciding the fate of a gay marriage bill, which I very much support, and which has been supported by the Vermont State Senate (by a wide margin).

Some years ago, I was an outspoken opponent of my fellow Democrat, Sen. Peter Shumlin -- then and now, the President of the Vermont Senate -- on an issue having nothing to do with gay marriage. (It was a tax issue, and a school issue, called Act 60, and the disagreement between Sen. Shumlin and myself was very public. It was unfortunate, too, because we were friends -- formerly neighbors in Putney --and the issue was very divisive.) Not so now, when Sen. Shumlin and I are allies on the gay marriage issue; Peter Shumlin's statements in support of gay marriage have been clear, fair, and admirable -- and I've told him so. Gay rights have long been the "new" -- as we both know, truly not so new -- civil rights. It is heartening to see that the Vermont Senate thinks so.

Continued, AFTER THE JUMP...

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Jared Polis: Congress like going back to college. " New members have a lottery for our rooms (offices). We "rush" for our committee assignments and elect a class president (Martin Heinrich of New Mexico). We wander around aimlessly, clutching maps, trying to find our way around "campus." There are even intramural sports; I played baseball in high school and hope to join the congressional team. And just like college, newbies are often lumped together and collectively, even mockingly, referred to as 'The Freshmen.' Some of the upper classman are a bit snooty and don't talk to us lowly fish, but others are friendly and eager to help."

Watch the first episode of RuPaul's drag Race before it debuts tonight.

Obama abandoning "war on terror" catchphrase.

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Hate crimes bill introduced in Georgia House: "Rep. Pedro 'Pete' Marin (D-Duluth) had put forth the hate crimes bill, H.B. 111. It would offer sentence enhancement for hate crimes motivated by the victim's 'race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or national origin.' The legislation would officially amend Georgia's previous hate crimes law, which was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 2004 on the grounds that its definition of hate crimes as those motivated by "bias or prejudice" was unconstitutionally vague. Lawmakers had enacted the bill without naming specific categories out of concern that it would not pass if "sexual orientation" was included."

Prop 8 backers admit they don't really believe their own arguments.

General Hospital: Night Shift head writer Sri Rao on gay storylines: "The other thing about bringing in new storylines, whether it be gay storylines, or stories about people of color, different ethnicities, unless it comes intrinsically from the writer, the writer living this, what that is, it's not going to work. The only way for gay storylines to really resonate is if gay writers are writing them. I know that is controversial and all the straight writers out there will be like 'you think I can't write a love story because I'm not gay'. I'm not saying that at all, but for the storyline to have heart, someone on the writing team who is gay, or has a very strong personal connection with that, needs to take the lead on writing the heart of that story."

Extinct Ibex successfully cloned: "Sadly, the newborn ibex kid died shortly after birth due to physical defects in its lungs. Other cloned animals, including sheep, have been born with similar lung defects. But the breakthrough has raised hopes that it will be possible to save endangered and newly extinct species by resurrecting them from frozen tissue."

Male model fix: Philip Fusco.

Mexican archbishop bans HIV-positive men from the priesthood: "They undergo tests including HIV, so that someone who is sick can't get in through the cracks. We pay attention to this, we are not asleep, but sometimes things get past us, but if you are sick we do not accept you"

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NYT on Edmund White's Gore Vidal - Timothy McVeigh drama: "Critical and audience reactions have been encouraging, which is an improvement over the response to his first two plays, written decades ago and largely ignored. With 'Terre Haute' Mr. White is gaining traction as a legitimate dramatist. 'It made me wince a little because I thought it sounded a bit literary sometimes,” he said immediately after the first Off Broadway performance. “But there were certain moments I thought could only be visual.'"

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Hate crime charges filed against Tacoma man for threats against woman in Seattle: "Prosecutors assert that Salway threatened to stab her in the eyes before asking 'did you hear me lesbian?' The woman told him to leave, drawing more threats from Salway. 'I'm going to hurt you lesbian,' Salway said, according to the woman's statements to police. 'Lesbian, I'm going to get you.' Fearing for her life, the woman ran from Salway as he gave chase. She and several other witnesses phoned police, who arrested Salway minutes later."

Damien Hirst paints cover art for new edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species: "The painting sits firmly in the tradition of 'still life' and is made up of objects I've come to imbue with my own meanings, some of them Darwinian in origin, and that I guess are seen in other areas of my work. The painting has an X-ray-like quality to it, as if it is revealing something about the structure of the objects painted."

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Rights for same-sex couples expand in Colombia: "The high court ordered changes to 42 norms that range from Criminal, Civil and Disciplinary Codes, to the special health plan available to military forces. The Magistrates embraced a position paper submitted by their peer, Rodrigo Escobar Gil. They ruled that the challenged dispositions did not justify the discrimination they instituted, or that the variances with regards to same-sex couples placed these people in a position of vulnerability before the law. And in both cases, the Constitutional Court held that the right to equality was violated."

Terre Haute: Edmund White's play based on imagined conversations between Gore Vidal and terrorist Timothy McVeigh comes to NYC.

Vancouver gay man's killer up for parole: "Cran, now 27, was one of three people convicted in the killing. The attackers used a golf club, pool cues and baseball bats at Second Beach in Stanley Park to kill [Aaron] Webster near the entrance to the park's gay cruising trails. At Cran's trial, witnesses —including two of his accomplices who can't be named because they were under 18 when the incident took place —told BC Supreme Court Justice Mary Humphries the group had gone to the park to beat up 'peeping toms and voyeurs.' Instead, they found Webster, naked except for his shoes. They pursued him through the park to his car, striking him with weapons while they ran."

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Lutheran minister in Namibia suspended over alleged gay activities: "It is alleged Tjongarero has been involved in a series of intimate homosexual affairs, which go against the provisions of the church at which he is a pastor. The alleged infidelities have been going on in Omaruru for some time, but ELCRN’s head office failed to take action as they had inadequate evidence to prove that Tjongarero is in fact gay. Recently however, a worshipper of his congregation allegedly caught Tjongarero with his pants down, reportedly having sex with a young male member of the church choir."

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Threatening 'straight power' discussion removed by Facebook: "The Facebook discussion is dated Nov. 13, but it wasn’t brought to Jackie Kittrell’s attention until Jan. 13, when a friend showed it to her son Conrad Honicker, a junior at West High School. The group: W.A.S.P., aka We Are Straight People. The topic: 'gay kids at school.' A typical post from the discussion: 'At west high school the GSA [Gay Straight Alliance] is getting on my nerves, they are banning phrases such as ‘thats so gay.’' The post that really caught Kittrell’s attention: 'f---ing fagots sucking dick and what not. we need assassinate conrad. ... just needs to f---ing choke to death on a ...'"

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John Irving Fond of Well-Written Fiction, That Happens to be Gay

The National Post reports on a recent interview by Nashville Scene with writer John Irving in which the Cider House Rules author John Irving trashes writers J.D. Salinger and Tom Wolfe, but lights up when talking about gay author Edmund White.

The Post's report didn't offer much more so I tracked down the original interview, which offered some interesting insight into Irving and readers of gay fiction.

Said Irving: "I love Edmund White. Every time I read a new book of his, I am reminded of a previous book of his, which I then reread. I've interrupted Hotel de Dream to reread White's novel A Boy's Own Story, which I love, and White's autobiography My Lives. He's a wonderful writer. We're the same age, and I remember when I first read A Boy's Own Story—in the early 1980s—and I thought that the novel spoke much more to me about a boy coming of age (even though it's about a gay boy coming of age, and I'm not gay) than The Catcher in the Rye ever did. I reread The Catcher in the Rye recently, and it doesn't hold up at all; it's just not very well, or very consistently, written. But A Boy's Own Story is beautifully wrought, and fiercely defiant; I could reread that novel every year and find something terrific I had missed in a previous reading. I believe Edmund White is one of the best writers of my generation; he's certainly the contemporary American writer I reread more than any other, and the one whose next book I look forward to reading most."