Bill Gates Rescues PlanetOut

Word leaked out over the holiday break that someone had come to the rescue of troubled gay media empire PlanetOut, whose stock (Nasdaq: LGBT) closed at a paltry $1.66 a share on Tuesday. A news release said that the company had (mysteriously) raised "$26.2 million in private placement financing." The Seattlest is now reporting that it was Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, aka the second richest man in the world, who did the good deed, keeping the doors open at The Advocate, Gay.com, PlanetOut.com and Out magazine for the foreseeable future.

Some have suggested this may be Gates' attempt at redeeming himself for letting Microsoft go neutral on Washington state gay rights legislation a couple of years ago, but given the fact that that the gays are just wild about Macs, perhaps he's trying to woo some to the PC world.

Whatever the case may be, it's good that The Advocate will be around. It would be sad to see another 40-year-old gay put out to pasture. And with the sharp-as-a-tack Anne Stockwell in charge over there, the seemingly erstwhile magazine could still have its best years ahead of it. And the boys still need Gay.com for those hookups dating purposes, don't they? Nice work, Mr. Gates!

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Awards Given to Best Magazine Covers of the Year

The New Yorker cover that made fun of Dick Cheney's now infamous hunting accident (in which he peppered 78-year-old Harry Whittington in the face with birdshot) by utilizing the cultural trope of the moment, the much-parodied Brokeback Mountain poster, won the award for "Best News Cover" of the year from the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Magazine Publishers of America. The cover was titled "Watch Your Back Mountain".

Said the judges: "[Mark] Ulriksen’s image evokes both the smugness of a vice president implicated in catastrophe and the cluelessness of a president incapable of stopping him. The image shows a couple of hapless chaps, prisoners of their fate and unable to alter the course of events they have set in motion." Truer words were never spoken. Of course, some of you may prefer the less-refined version: Dumbfuck Mountain.

The Out Traveler tied for third place in the "Best Service Cover" category (that's service industry-oriented, not what the model looks like he's waiting for).

Said the panel: "A great travel cover is a glimpse into a moment, transporting a reader to another place and another frame of mind. It provides not only the encouragement to open the next page, but inspires a reader to think one important thought, 'I wish I were there!' This Istanbul cover evokes such a moment. Presenting a mix of quiet escape and sexy solitude, this repose in a classic hammam becomes a perfect passport to the Turkish city, and the compelling motivation to continue the journey inside."

After the jump, this year's winners for "Best Cover" along with the rationale behind the decisions.

The New Yorker (September 19, 2005) - Flood in the Oval Office: "The ineptness of the response by FEMA and the U.S. government after Hurricane Katrina was an outrage to everyone who watched it unfold. The images of bodies floating unclaimed in murky waters were clear signs of the lack of care and empathy by those at the top of the government. In his cover, "Deluged," Barry Blitt turns the tables on the situation. As the Oval Office is slowly submerged, the reader gets a release that goes beyond the first laugh and unleashes the floodgates of the nation's collective anger."

Rolling Stone (May 18-June 1, 2006) - 1,000th issue 3-D cover: "No magazine cover of the past year received more attention-or stretched the form as far-as Rolling Stone's remarkable 3-D celebration of the past four decades of American pop culture. The playful and engaging use of the holographic image served as more than a mere visual stunt-it created the ultimate rock fantasy, a lasting and indelible celebration of a milestone in American magazine history."

The Economist (July 8-14, 2006) - "Rocket man" Kim Jong-il of North Korea: "This cover appeared in the week following North Korea’s decision to launch a Taepodong rocket (which fizzled) and half a dozen others (which worked). The launch, noted The Economist, “was calculated to blast a hole in the diplomatic effort by America, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia to get Kim Jong-il’s regime to give up its nuclear bomb-building.” The Economist worried that Kim Jong-il’s “pyrotechnics” would “incinerate wider efforts to stabilize a region full of dangerous rivalries.” The cover captured the moment by picturing the elusive North Korean leader as dangerous “Rocket man.” Though considered a serious magazine, the cover demonstrates The Economist’s often irreverent take on the world’s events."

Check them all out here.

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It Was Just Too Easy [tr]

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Out Magazine Gets a Refresh

Everything old is new again over at Out magazine as the 14-year-old publication gets its latest refresh.

Editor-in-chief Aaron Hicklin (formerly of BlackBook) took the helm of the magazine a few months ago and his editorship is beginning to bear some fruit, the latest being this hot-off-the-press redesign (a bit retro, perhaps?) which should start showing up on newsstands later this week. Cover guy is Jamie Dornan, Calvin Klein model/actor who plays boytoy to Marie Antoinette in the latest Sofia Coppola film.

Incidentally, there's a great new remix of Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" from the same film floating around. You can pick it up here or here if it's still up.

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Fantastic Man: Helmut Lang Loves a Big Black Cock

I've mentioned Fantastic Man magazine here before. Via Gawker comes this shot of their latest Bruce Weber cover (preview the issue here) featuring designer Helmut Lang, which gets its point across.

Such humor is par for the course from the folks who bring you the wickedly irreverent Butt (NSFW).

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Fotolog Leaps Out of the Blogosphere

Over the past couple of years I've posted occasionally about various sexy Brazilian fotologs, though my friend at Made in Brazil has made an art of it.

Fotolog has now leapt from the virtual world to the real world in the form of fotolog.book: A Global Snapshot for the Digital Age (Thames & Hudson), a book which anthologizes many of the best user-created sites out there. Fotolog (the book) is not all sexy Brazilians (though maybe that would be a great subject for their sequel tome) but it does provide a unique window into some stunning amateur photography that otherwise might get lost among the millions of click-thrus in the blogosphere.

They've also started a fotolog site expressly for folks to post pictures of themselves reading and, uh, wearing the book.

Among the book's contributors are a NYC member named Luce, who has an affection for double portraits, and Gazelle, a chronicler of NYC nightlife. But there are many other contributors included here, even Fotolog co-founder and CEO Adam Seifer, who has photographed every meal he has eaten since 2002 (now that's an obsession), and the book's editor Andrew Long, who was once the photography critic for the New Yorker.

The 344-page book is nothing if not inspiring, and at moments, sublime. Great idea.

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Cargo and Radar Back as Real Laddie Mags

You may have heard the rumblings recently about the collapse of Cargo and the resurrection of Radar. What you haven't heard is that both pubs. have been subject to intense scrutiny and focus groups, and have decided to relaunch, acknowledging their audiences in a more appropriate way.

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A Strange Sense of Deja Vu

When I was editor of Genre magazine way back when, photographer Hudson Wright delivered a shoot to us from St. Croix featuring model Josh Saunders. It's unlikely Britain's Gay Times ever saw the cover we printed in March 2003 when they designed their latest, but they certainly know what all gay publishers know — a set of hot abs makes those newsstand figures rise. Not that it matters to the average reader (vintage beefcake never goes out of style, does it?), but I wonder if GT knew they'd been sold a second-hand model.

Hudson Wright/Splash Out/Gay Times [ohlala paris]

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Letting it all Hang Out

Picked up the new issue of Vman yesterday — the best deal you can get on the newsstand for $4.95. This one's chock full of hotness, and the best Bruce Weber bathing trunk scrap book I've seen in a while.

>> Of note also are two interviews, one with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who featured brilliantly in the film adaptation last year of Scott Heim's Mysterious Skin. When asked if he was worried about playing a gay character, Gorden-Levitt replied:

"Oh come on! The Rock played gay! No one's worried about that anymore. I'm about to do two studio movies, and none of the directors or studio people were like, 'I don't know...I think the kids think he's gay!' Plus to me, gay is a normal person who likes people of the same sex. The character I played in Mysterious Skin had a very damaged, unhealthy sexuality, whether he was with women or men."

>> A few pages later Brandon Routh is confronted with the question of whether or not he feels comfortable that Superman is a gay icon. His reply?

"He's a heterosexual icon as well. Females lust after him just like males. I think even heterosexual men look up to him and think, Wow, he's a handsome man. I'd like to be like that. If they don't, we're doing something wrong, I suppose."

Way to dodge that question! And on the other hand, I was never aware that Superman qualified as a gay icon. The new Clark Kent also confides that he wasn't required to remove his shirt for director Bryan Singer in order to get the part. Said Routh: "They could tell I was big enough and they could train me." Indeed.

Sigh. [turns page] On to something a bit more revealing...

Previously
Josh Hartnett Piles on the Glam [tr]

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VMAN: Josh Hartnett Piles on the Glam

Josh Hartnett goes from gender-bending glamazon to street tough in these hot new photos by Mario Testino from the latest issue of Vman, which imho is the best-produced men's fashion magazine in the U.S..

Rough, sexy, Josh never looked better. I think that lipstick shade is just right for him.

But wait, there's more. In his new movie, Lucky Number Slevin, he gets the crap beaten out of him by a number of people and spends a lot of time in a towel.

It's about time we saw more of Josh Hartnett.

Previously
V Like It [tr]
VMan V.2 [tr]
Ben and Josh, Sittin' in a Tree [tr]

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The Art and Letters of Becks

Folks can't seem to get enough of David Beckham. Two letters and a drawing done by the footballer have sold for £1,058 at auction. They were written when he was 16, and sold Monday to an anonymous buyer. They show no interest in skin care but do show an interest in girls. Becks wages at the time were £120. According to the BBC, he earns approximately £100,000 a week at Real Madrid now, while other reports which include his revenue from sponsorships peg him at $83,000 a day.

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Annie Proulx Pelts the Academy with Sour Grapes

With her typically brash economy of language, Brokeback Mountain author Annie Proulx offers up her Academy Award experience, "three-and-a-half hours of butt-numbing sitting" which ended, as we all now know, with a shocker.

Proulx spins her Pulitzer Prize-winning prose into a no regrets diatribe directed at Tinseltown in this Guardian commentary.

On entering the venue:

"On the sidewalk stood hordes of the righteous, some leaning forward like wind-bent grasses, the better to deliver their imprecations against gays and fags to the open windows of the limos - the windows open by order of the security people - creeping toward the Kodak Theater for the 78th Academy Awards. Others held up sturdy, professionally crafted signs expressing the same hatred."

On "the Academy":

"Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good."

On the Best Picture:

"And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline."

And on choosing a Best Actor:

"Hollywood loves mimicry, the conversion of a film actor into the spittin' image of a once-living celeb. But which takes more skill, acting a person who strolled the boulevard a few decades ago and who left behind tapes, film, photographs, voice recordings and friends with strong memories, or the construction of characters from imagination and a few cold words on the page?"

Proulx ain't happy. And she calls her bitterness as others might see it, signing out: "For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant, play it as it lays."

Blood on the Red Carpet [guardian]

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Are You Ready to Jump?

Even those keen to deface subway advertising have Brokeback on the brain.

As seen by Towleroad correspondent Adam in the NYC E Train Subway Station at Spring Street. Click for larger version.

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FrontRunner Debuts in Utah

Now that The Deseret News has picked up on the fact that the Utah Transit Authority's's new rail line, the FrontRunner, bears the same name as Patricia Nell Warren's gay novel, watch the wingnuts stand up to have it changed.

The chairwoman of Equality Utah said: "Maybe now enlightenment will be riding into the state on the rails of transit."

The new train, which the UTA says "can whisk you from Ogden to Salt Lake City in 15 minutes," replaces the Brokeback Express, whose cars, after many years of use, were still having problems coupling.

New rail's name has unexpected gay links [the deseret news]

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Gay Penguins March to a New Shelf in Missouri

Do children often read non-fiction? A Missouri library has "re-classified" And Tango Makes Three, the children's book about Roy and Silo, the gay penguin couple at the Central Park Zoo.

Parents expressed concern about the book's content, so librarians moved it to the non-fiction section in order that it wouldn't "blindside" readers. Now the chances are highly unlikely that its intended readers, young children, will ever find it at all.

The book's authors, partners Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, told Towleroad: "We were only yesterday musing over a new review on our Amazon page which angrily labels our book "Brokeback Mountain for preschoolers." This led to a wish that we could have done a take off on the movie poster with Roy and Silo in cowboy hats under the title "Brokebeak Mountain."

'Gay' penguins book frozen out in Missouri libraries [sun times]

Previously
Something for the Kiddies [tr]

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It Was Just Too Easy

The New Yorker takes a potshot at Dick Cheney with this week's issue. They're the first print publication I've seen to jump on the Brokeback poster spoof chuck wagon. The title of the cover illustration by Mark Ulriksen?

"Watch Your Back Mountain".

We have seen a similar fan-created iteration of BushCheney (above right) in relation to Brokeback, but that was before the shooting incident. The VP sprayed this twist into Conde Nast's lap. Or would that be Conde Nasty?

The Cheney shooting incident was also parodied on last night's Late Show as Dave premiered a new spoof commercial "from the White House" encouraging the press to move on to other topics of importance aside from this silly shooting incident.

Related
Brokeback Mountain spoof posters. [tr]
Vice President to Break His Silence [tr]

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Tom Ford Fluffs Jake Gyllenhaal

Fluffer. In the professional, stylist, haute-fashion sense, of course.

These are caps from the "Tom Ford's Hollywood" Vanity Fair issue portrait sitting of Jake Gyllenhaal. Annie Leibowitz is the photographer. For you Gyllenhaalics, it's another few minutes of Jake being Jake, just enough to satisfy until your next fix. Tom Ford seems determined throughout to insert himself and sex things up. I guess if you can't get the boy naked, you do what you gotta do.

As a postscript to some earlier news, the shirts that were being auctioned for charity from Brokeback Mountain finally sold for $101,100.51...

Vanity Fair B-Roll [vf]

Previously
Tom Ford Takes a Bite Out of Hollywood [tr]
Just What is Tom Ford's Hollywood? [tr]

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Jason Statham Gets You Wet

The photoshoots in Men's Health are usually more barbell-oriented. Hats off to them for showing off Jason Statham's unconventional routine, particularly this photo of the soaked rough god climbing out of a pool, even if the only workout he's facilitating is for the reader's eyes.

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Tom Ford Takes a Bite Out of Hollywood

This photo, buried on 132 of Tom Ford's "Vanity Issue" of Vanity Fair, just one of the dozens of behind-the-scenes photos of hairy-chested Ford hobnobbing with the Hollywood elite, makes me wonder if this wasn't a better choice for the cover than the Keira Knightley Scarlett Johansson nude threesome shot.

After all, the metaphor for Ford dabbling in the phony artifice of Tinseltown in this shot is much more precise:

Tom Ford tries to get his teeth around something entirely make-believe.

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Friday Afternoon Sports Shorts

Head to the movies this weekend if you're interested in the testosterone-charged Annapolis, where you're sure to catch a few glimpses of the musclebound James Franco in the ring with the musclebound Tyrese Gibson, as well as dozens of soaked-to-the-skin cadets doing push ups in the rain.

While we're on boxing, check out the photo of this beast from Russia, the tallest and heaviest boxer, ever. For all you into big, hairy, smelly men, here's your dream come true.

Finally, for you football fans, here's Superbowl-bound Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck posing for his "Got Milk" campaign, which I guess is a requirement if you achieve any kind of fame in football.

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Bumper Crop of Beauty: A DNA Preview

Friend of Towleroad Lewis Payton has allowed me to share a few images with you from the upcoming issue of DNA (now one of Towleroad's sponsors!). Lewis Payton fans should be happy, as the issue features a bumper crop of eye candy all shot by Mr. P. I asked Lewis for a few words about the images, and the guys in them.

Kevin Burns: "This shoot features a new face, Kevin Burns. Kevin is only 21, but he's already experienced more than many people ever will. Stationed in Iraq for two years with the US military, Kevin earned the Bronze Star for bravery when his quick thinking saved an entire village from terrorist attack. His stories of Iraq were shocking, moving and very sobering. It breaks my heart to think of so many of our best and brightest youth being maimed and killed fighting a war with such dubious justification.

Kevin is firmly against the war and feels a lot of anger towards the Bush administration. He lost many friends in the two years he was in Iraq and carries countless non visible scars that will never heal. It was surreal to be creating a superficial fashion story with someone who has so recently witnessed and experienced such horror and devastation. Don't get me wrong, I love my work and I feel very honored to be able to showcase beauty in the world, but I felt very humbled by this shoot. When the war get a human face like Kevin's, it really brings it home."

Sean Harley: "Sean was my first ever magazine cover model (DNA #56) and we've stayed in touch ever since. He's a great guy, very humble, totally genuine and a real pleasure to be around. While he's currently based in California, his heart is definitely back in Nebraska - this is one guy who loves the country life. When we did our first shoot, Sean was toying with the idea of competitive bodybuilding and he was huge, even after leaning down for the shoot. In the two years since, he stopped bodybuilding in order to pursue modeling and acting. When we did this second shoot, Sean had lost almost 40 pounds of muscle - quite the transformation! This is a really clean and fresh shoot and it's one of my favorite DNA covers."

Rusty Joiner: "Pretty much everyone has heard of Rusty Joiner. He's graced the covers of countless fitness magazines and developed a massive following over the ten years he's been modeling. Rusty was DNA's December cover star and he was such a hit, they've brought him back for a second time. Rusty is a very sweet guy who brings professionalism and a tirelessly good nature to everything he does."

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Dolce & Gauguina?

David K. over at Charmed Life puts on his art history cap and offers up a critique of the latest set of Dolce & Gabbana ads — a rather cryptic set of photos that folks have been comparing to Nip/Tuck promos and a whole slew of other tableaux.

David sees more than a passing reference to Paul Gauguin's famous muralistic work Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? It's an analysis which reminded me of a comparison I once drew between a set of suggestive Diesel ads and a Hieronymous Bosch triptych.

So what's with all these creative directors looking to the masters for their inspiration? "Are Dolce & Gabbana now going to contemplate the mysteries of life?" asks David. The basics of consumerism is more likely, he suggests, offering a title for D&G's museum piece: How Do We Show More Ass? How Do We Show More Cock? How Do We Make It Sell?

Dolce & Gabbana: Life is but a Scream [charmed life] (not necessarily SFW)

Related
The Garden of Denim [tr]

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Dolce & Gabbana Do a Nip/Tuck?

The Bitchless blog sees an uncanny resemblance between this ad for the Dolce & Gabbana 2006 line and this ad for Nip/Tuck. I'm not quite sure what's going on in the D&G ad — maybe I'm just having a slow day.

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Jeremy Bloom Utilizes Soft, Weighted Balls

Jeremy Bloom appears in the latest issue of Cargo magazine and lets readers in on his workout secrets:

"I can be compulsive about working out—getting up in the middle of the night is not unheard of for me. But if I'm in, say, a tiny ski town in the Alps without an open gym to go to, it can be frustrating." To make sure he can feel the burn whenever the mood strikes, Bloom brings these resistance bands and soft, weighted balls recommended by his trainer.

I can think of a few other people who might like to work out with Jeremy's soft weighted balls. Did I just go there? Unfortunately, you won't be seeing much of Jeremy's bod in a fashion spread featuring six glistening male Olympians wearing only their timepieces. But for those of you who prefer your men slick and shiny, perhaps cross-country skier Kris Freeman will do.

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Proulx on Avedon

Annie Proulx, author of "Brokeback Mountain", drops a gorgeous review of Richard Avedon's newly reissued (in the UK) photographic tome In the American West. And who better to review it when that region's cast of characters are being so thoroughly re-examined this December? Even in this simple review, Proulx's prose on Avedon's subjects ("drifters with weatherbeaten faces like cracked mud, people with tiny heads and big tits, acne, moles, freckles, a salesman and a gravedigger, blood-spattered slaughterhouse workers, a fat pre-teen with his rifle") is eloquent and unflinching:

"Even now the Rocky Mountain western states see themselves as movie locales populated by handsome cowboys, noble ranchers and brave pioneer women living out lofty family and Christian values. These touchy people did not see the stern beauty in the portraits. They did see the dirt and unsmiling faces. Avedon's work was called vicious, sick, sensational, cruel, by people who did not understand anything beyond photography than that it was representational. They did not get it that they were seeing Avedon's observations rather than likenesses, art rather than tourism photos."

And at the end of the short review she sends up a signal flare that says as much about the upcoming release of Brokeback as Avedon's portrait book:

"Flames of resentment flare when the region is portrayed as anything but down-home, clean, decent, pioneer-spirited whatever. As one elderly rancher put it a few years ago, 'reality has never been much use out here'."

After the Gold Rush [guardian]

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Gay Book Banned Because the Internet is Scary

Brent Hartinger's novel Geography Club, which chronicles the relationship of a lonely gay student and an online chat buddy who turns out to be an athlete at his high school, has been pulled from a Tacoma, Washington area school district's library shelves.

The superintendent who made the decision explained that it was not the book's gay content that alarmed her, but the fact that the internet was used as a way for people to meet. Said the super: "We want to send a strong consistent message to all our students that meeting individuals via the Internet is extremely high-risk behavior. To the extent that this book might contradict that message, I have determined it should not be in our libraries, in spite of other positive aspects."

Geography Club was lauded by other parents in the district, however, who were confused by the message that the school district was now sending. Said parent Connie Clausen, "It is about gay students. However, the most important part of the book is that it's about bullying, outcasts, about tolerance. This is a really good book for any student to read."

The main characters in Hartinger's novel end up creating the "Geography Club" as a front for a place they can meet free from intolerance and discrimination. The question in my mind is, would the superintendent still want this book off the shelves if it were a group of heterosexual students using the internet to form a club of their own?

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Gyllenhaal in Details

Jake Gyllenhaal does the cover of Details this month and actually says some surprising things in the interview with Benoit Denizet-Lewis regarding both his Brokeback character and the way his sexuality is perceived in real life...

Gyllenhaal stresses to me the universality of Brokeback's story ("My character could have been played by a woman and it would have made just as much sense," he says), but I'm astonished when he says that he doesn't believe Ennis and Jack are gay. "I approached the story believing that these are actually straight guys who fall in love," he says. "That's how I related to the material. These are two straight guys who develop this love, this bond. Love binds you, and you see these guys pulling and pulling and tugging and trying to figure out what they want, and what they will allow themselves to have."

One of the film's producers, James Schamus, is as surprised as I am when I tell him that Jake perceives his character as straight: "Did he really say that? Well, I suppose movies can be Rorschach tests for all of us, but damn if these characters aren't gay to me. I think what Jake might have meant is that these guys lived outside of a social construction of a gay identity. There was no such thing as a gay identity for a cowboy in 1963."

If you believe the rumors in the blogosphere, Gyllenhaal might be looking for his own gay identity. In the month before I met him, two seemingly conflicting rumors circulated. The first claimed that Gyllenhaal gave way to a body double for Brokeback Mountain's nude scenes. The second said that he is bisexual and looking for an opportunity to come out.

Gyllenhaal flatly denies using a body double. As for his sexual orientation, he says this: "You know, it's flattering when there's a rumor that says I'm bisexual. It means I can play more kinds of roles. I'm open to whatever people want to call me. I've never really been attracted to men sexually, but I don't think I would be afraid of it if it happened."

I think I'll just settle on calling him delicious.

Jake [details]

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New York Magazine Gawks at Bear Culture

An article about bears, in which they don't speak with a single bear. I wasn't aware that filmmaker John Waters was considered such an expert on bear culture, he of the pencil-thin moustache. But he seems to be the go-to guy for the entire article.

Waters: "I’m for [bears] because they have a sense of humor. They’re not muscle Marys. They’re faux–blue collar. Their fag hags are called 'goldilocks.' Every group has to fetishize itself. This one caught on because most people look like this. My generation has to eroticize everything. There’ll be back rooms at old-age homes."

Grizzly Men [new york magazine]

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Francois Rousseau: Hotter Than Ever

Fresh off the launch of Princes of the Sea, a nautically-themed collection of photos, Dieux du Stade photographer Francois Rousseau has launched his new website, and it's full of the Frenchman's glistening fleshy goodness, including photos from most of his projects and a couple of short films.

One in particular, which chronicles a day at the gym with champion French boxer Jeremy Decherchi, is something to behold.

Princes of the Sea [amazon]
Francois Rousseau [official site]

(via queerclick — NSFW)

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Towleroad in Blue

Thanks to Australia's Blue magazine for throwing a blog party in their latest issue and kindly inviting along Towleroad as well as Gus Mattox, Tom Bianchi, OhLaLa Paris, Tony Hayden, and Lady Bunny.

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Truman Capote's Lost Novel Published Today

Truman Capote's first novel Summer Crossing is published today and is receiving mixed reviews. The novel was abandoned by Capote on the curb outside his apartment in Brooklyn Heights when he moved after the success of In Cold Blood. It was rescued by a housekeeper and the manuscript ended up in an auction at Sotheby's early last December.

The novel was never meant for publication. Capote went on to write his published debut Other Voices, Other Rooms.

New York Daily News: "The problem with "Summer Crossing," besides its static writing, strained dialogue and transparent characters, is that it is boring. However, there are a couple of flashes of things to come."

The Book Standard: "Touching on hot-button issues of class, religion, ethnicity, sex, drugs and inappropriate evening wear, it makes a wonderful thing for scholars, who will be delighted to find Capote in possession of a confident voice and superb storytelling skills while just in his early 20s. Capote, though, is not just for the scholars, as those memorable though long-ago moments on the Tonight Show attest, and readers who prize a good, solid storytelling should be well pleased by Summer Crossing, too."

Sydney Morning Herald: "Nonetheless, the publication of a posthumous Capote novel is a literary event. The author died in 1984 but his reputation as a leading man of American letters endures..."

And if you haven't yet seen Capote starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, by all means get yourselves to the movie theater. Hoffman's performance as the author is riveting.

Related
That Capote Film [tr]
Truman Capote's Past Up for Auction [tr]

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The latest from Liz

Copy editor needed at the Post.

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Buy Burroughs

An Annie Leibowitz photo of the late legendary Queer writer William S. Burroughs is up for sale on eBay.

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Knoxville Gay Group Embraces Censorship

A Knoxville, Tennessee community paper (which in this case should be translated as right-wing bigot rag) agreed to run an ad for a National Coming Out Day event called "Come Out Knoxville" only after the words "gay" and "lesbian" were entirely removed from the ad.

Wow. Perhaps the "community" should ban gays and lesbians from appearing at the event as well!

Publisher Steve Hunley released a statement saying "The Fountain City Focus is a community newspaper. Our focus is on the positive aspects of community. We choose not to involve ourselves in controversial social, cultural or religious issues. We prefer to leave that to the mainstream media." The positive aspects.

Here's the kicker. Gary Elgin, director of the Rainbow Community Awareness Project, actually thanked Hunley for allowing the censored ad to be run. Said Elgin: "Steve Hunley is a very kind man and I think he has made steps to embrace us as a community. He's not going to run the ad as we had designed it, but he has agreed to run an ad of one of our events and that's a step. That's building a bridge, board by board."

What steps has he made to embrace us? As far as I can see, he's a right wing bigot who'd rather we all disappeared. I understand it must be tough-going in Knoxville but thanking Hunley? It's like thanking the bully on the playground who just punched you in the face.

Newspaper agrees to run watered-down ad promoting gay event [wate]
Video on the site as well.

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Censorship Money Rejected

A Texas couple who donated $3 million to St. Andrew's Episcopal school were released from their donor agreement after their demands that a teacher drop Brokeback Mountain from a non-mandatory reading list were not met.

This opinion piece in The Daily Texan is right on: "'Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance,' [Lyndon Baines Johnson] once said. Unfortunately, this idea seems to lack prevalence in America's relationship with 'deviant' ideas - and by deviant, we mean anything straying a hair from the Christian right 'norm.' Teenagers are free to watch educationally-valueless MTV videos with nearly naked actors all but having sex on the screen - but give them access to a Pulitzer Prize-winning author's emotional short story on gay love, and all of a sudden it's "pornographic" and morally-corrupting."

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Play Ball!

Seeing as the Yanks and Red Sox are "neck and neck," Weekly Dig editor Joe Keohane thought he would create a bit of controversy by shooting this photo for the cover of the Boston paper: "We wanted to see what would piss people off more – the gay aspect or the Sox-Yanks aspect. And we wanted to float the theory that sexual tension is the real force behind the heated Sox-Yanks rivalry."

I think he hit one out of the park!

Can You Dig It? [boston herald]
Dig That [gawker]
(thanks graham)

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