News: Spencer Tunick, Bijou, Michelle Bachmann, Bullying, Otters

Washington Post calls for protection of Washington Blade's historic archives: "Every effort should be made to keep the archive accessible to researchers and historians." Closure raises questions...More from Gay City News...

Photographer Spencer Tunick seeks gays and lesbians for mass Sydney Mardi Gras nude shoot: “I want someone who is straight to lie peacefully naked next to someone who is gay. I think the act, not only making the work, but the act itself is a calming of the senses.”

If a gay man calls you an otter, is this what he's referring to?

Sirdeaner Walker and two other mothers urge Massachusetts lawmakers to pass anti-bullying bill.

Charges dropped in Perez Hilton assault case: "Black Eyed Peas manager Liborio Molina apologized to celebrity blogger Perez Hilton as part of an agreement allowing assault charges against him to be dropped, lawyers said Wednesday. 'I apologize for what I did on June 22 of 2009, even though you engaged in highly offensive comments ... I acknowledge that these kinds of issues should not be resolved through a physical response,' the apology read. Hilton told The Associated Press in an e-mail he was happy Molina had accepted responsibility for his actions."

The Insider goes on Levi Johnston's photo shoot.

Man found dead in Bijou theater in Chicago.

CREW: Michelle Bachmann's teabagger rally may have violated House rules. "Bachmann's site urged people to come to the Capitol rally 'and tell their Representatives to vote no' on the health-care reform bill. House rules prohibit members from using their sites -- which are funded by taxpayers -- to conduct 'grassroots lobbying or solicit support for a Member's position.' CREW also alleges that Bachmann and her allies may have violated other House rules by holding a rally without a permit. News reports suggest the event's organizer's made an effort to call it a press conference, for which a permit wouldn't be needed. But no questions were asked at the event, and in a TV interview beforehand, Bachmann urged supporters 'to come to Washington, D.C. by the car load.'"

Beyond Gay: Lesbian and gay man attempt to get it on in sequel to Humpday.

ChurchOuting: Site outs closeted Catholic priests.

The spy who loved him: Trial of gay spy and Macedonian interpreter/lover, to whom he leaked classified secrets, grips Germany. "Spiegel magazine reported that this included information obtained by British agents, and that K. revealed it 'in the bedroom' or by allowing his lover access to his laptop computer. The latter 'then intended to pass this information on either to people in the area of organised crime in Macedonia or to foreign intelligence agencies,' federal prosecutors said. For the defence, however, the two men are victims of a homophobic witch-hunt within the BND, which since the affair broke has reportedly been forced to sever contacts with at least 19 information sources in the Balkans."

Vman celebrates legendary male models.

Rosie O'Donnell: Partner Kelli Carpenter moved out two years ago.

Seven tips for dissolving gay unions.

Gay Philippine party Ladlad appeals to elections board for reconsideration.

Police use taser on 10-year-old girl: "According to a report filed by Bradshaw on Thursday, the officer found the girl on the floor of the house screaming and crying. She refused to follow her mother's instructions and the mother told Bradshaw to use his Taser. Bradshaw carried the girl to the living room and told her she was going to jail, according to the report. The girl was violently kicking, the report said, and struck Bradshaw in the groin with her legs and feet. The report said Bradshaw administered a 'very, very brief' stun with the Taser, put the girl in handcuffs and carried her to his patrol car. She was taken to the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil."

1,800 Clutch Balls for Spencer Tunick in Vienna

Spencer Tunick, the master of the mass nude photo, hit Vienna, Austria over the weekend, photographing nearly 2,000 people in Happel Stadium. Tunick said he hoped to capture "the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures."

No word on whether or not Austria's skin-lovin' national rugby team took part in the shot.

Two more shots AFTER THE JUMP (possibly NSFW)...

Behind the Scenes of Spencer Tunick's Miami Beach Photo Shoot

Photographer Spencer Tunick (above) produced one of his mass nude photo installations on Monday at the Sagamore Hotel in Miami Beach.

More than 500 people showed up to take part in the shoot, which consisted of several set-ups including 140 men nude in the pool on green rafts, 140 women in the pool on pink rafts, and 400 standing around the pool bar and on the balconies of the hotel, shaking bottles of Champagne and shooting foam into the air.

Tunick called the Miami project "a cross between an installation by Nancy Rubins and Robert Smithson, with the quirky quality of a Diane Arbus piece."

One notable participant was blogger and former Real World housemate Dan Renzi, who wrote about the experience on his blog.

Said Renzi: "They promised us we'd come in, work out the shot, get naked really quick, and then za za zoom we'd be done. Promise! Cut to us, today: standing around naked, waiting to re-set the shot. Standing around naked, waiting for a cloud to pass. Standing around naked, because it was just so much easier than constantly pulling our clothes off and then finding them in the pile and putting them back on again. Naked naked naked. Although I couldn't work my way into a shoot until about half-way through the day; people are insane with devotion to Spencer Tunick, following him around the country like he's the Grateful Dead, and they are ruthless when it comes time to line up for shoots. He uses only part of the crowd for each shoot, the first 150/200/whatever people in line are the ones in the shot. So although you're supposed to take turns, of course people are selfish and pushy and go repeatedly. Fortunately when I did finally make it in, it was pretty good: we were lined up on the rooftop deck, shoulder-to-shoulder, standing on chairs to lift us up above the guard railing. And up there, we were perfectly in line with the Delano/National/Shore Club hotels, so anyone in their rooms had a clear view to watch. Which, of course, they were, people were virtually picknicking on their terraces and staring. But any nervousness about being naked in public was totally negated by the terror of standing several storeys in the air, teetering on wobbly chairs, inches away from a guard rail that subsequently came up only to our knees."

Renzi says he did the shoot because he thought it would be an interesting thing to do, although he says that for some it was somewhat dangerous: "a woman below us passed out after standing with her knees locked for too long."

Renzi was captured briefly on CNN. He notes: "You may notice my hair is all over the place; I didn't wear any product, I felt it went against the entire concept of the nakedness. Although I did wear deoderant. There's no need to be rude."

Click here for another (NSFW) shot of Renzi (in the square), via ohnotheydidnt (hey, is that Ann Coulter or Anne Heche right behind Dan?).

The photos are scheduled to be displayed at the upcoming Art Basel fair in Miami Beach. It's nice to get the naked truth about these shoots. Nice work, Dan.

I Have Been Naked All Day [how was your day, dan?]
Hundreds bare all for art in Miami Beach [miami herald]

More Spencer Tunick...
Glacial Bodies: Spencer Tunick's Latest Freeze Frame [tr]
18,000 Bare All for Spencer Tunick in Mexico City [tr]
World AIDS Day Premiere: Positively Naked [tr]
Tunick Watch: Naked on the Coast of Spain [tr]
Spencer Tunick Celebrates Skin in Caracas [tr]
A River of Flesh [tr]

News: Kylie Minogue, Sydney, Spencer Tunick, Nikolai Alexeyev

In the first nationwide law of its kind in Latin America, Colombia grants health benefits to same-sex couples.

Jury in Princess Diana inquest gets an uncanny look at her final moments, as they too are chased by the paparazzi in Paris: "The coach carrying the Diana inquest jury has reportedly crashed as it traced the Princess's last movements around Paris. In an eerie parallel with the catastrophic accident which killed the Princess, the bus driver was apparently trying to out-manoeuvre paparazzi outside the Ritz. The jury, coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker, and teams of lawyers made British legal history by making a site inspection of the places where the Princess and her lover Dodi Fayed spent their final hours. But within minutes of starting the tour in the Place Vendome, close to the Ritz hotel, their bus knocked a police outrider from his motorcycle. Then seconds later the bus collided with an 18-inch metal bollard."

Britney Spears and sister attacked at sushi restaurant: "Nobody wants you in this neighborhood Britney! MOVE! You are making this neighborhood very unsafe!"

Bush White House has tried to "silence" MSNBC's Chris Matthews, host claims: "They will not silence me!...They’ve finally been caught in their criminality."

Russian gay activist Nikolai Alexeyev gets "solidarity reception" in the Windy City.

Kylie channels Patrick Nagel for new album cover...

Former OUT magazine editor Brendan Lemon and his friend Jerry Wade have started an entertainment-oriented blog called Lemonwade. Lemon has the scoop on Jake Gyllenhaal's rumored trip to the Broadway stage in Farragut North: "Lemonwade has learned that [Mike] Nichols will not be directing the play. For now, the production — with Gyllenhaal or anyone else — is on hold. And with Gyllenhaal’s film schedule filling up (he has just signed on to star in a love-triangle movie called 'Brothers,' with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman), I don’t see him on Broadway anytime soon."

600 people to pose nude for Spencer Tunick at Sagamore Hotel in Miami Beach: "It's about fantasy and leisure. It's a stereotype, but it's true. You're going to have a good time if you come to Miami Beach. I'm going to have 100 to 200 women in pink rafts. We're going to have people on the balcony posing very much like the Tower of Babel meets Logan's Run. We're going to buy some champagne, 500 bottles, and were going to make a giant explosion for the climax of the installation from the balcony."

Violent anti-gay crimes in Sydney prompt unusual political visit to Oxford Street: "As partygoers looked on, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, Police Minister David Campbell, Labor candidate for Wentworth George Newhouse and local drag queen Maxi Shield wandered the clubs and back alleys of Oxford Street to gauge the impact of homophobic violence."

Gay nightlife "targeted" in Birmingham, England.

B'gosh! Gay and lesbian support group forms in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Movie theater lobby contains hidden erotic message.

Glacial Bodies: Spencer Tunick's Latest Freeze Frame

Six-hundred people took part in a unique weekend activity on Saturday, posing naked for photographer Spencer Tunick on a Swiss glacier in a Greenpeace-sponsored shoot intended to draw attention to the issue of global warming.

The Guardian reports: "For the Aletsch shoot, Greenpeace advertised on its website for suitable volunteers for the project who could allow all day for the 'unique experience'. Participants were assured they would not 'be naked for very long'. Tunick's 'living sculptures' have a dual artistic value for his fans, both in the act of persuading so many ordinary people to disrobe and in making nudity appear mundane, but for yesterday's work he said it was human vulnerability he wanted to emphasise. 'I want my images to go more than skin-deep. I want the viewers to feel the vulnerability of their existence and how it relates closely to the sensitivity of the world's glaciers,' he said."

The Swiss glaciers are projected to disappear completely by the year 2080.

You may have missed...
18,000 Bare All for Spencer Tunick in Mexico City [tr]
World AIDS Day Premiere: Positively Naked [tr]
Tunick Watch: Naked on the Coast of Spain [tr]
Spencer Tunick Celebrates Skin in Caracas [tr]
A River of Flesh [tr]

News: Yasser Arafat, Enigma Machine, Annie Lennox, Emmys

Did Yasser Arafat really die of AIDS? One Palestinian leader insists, yes.

William Hamilton Martin and Bernon Mitchell, NSA traitors whose treason was blamed in part on their homosexuality, are proven to be straight after documents are declassified: "After interviewing more than 450 individuals about the twosome’s character, habits, and sex lives—right down to the skin rash on Martin’s stomach—the NSA, in a 1961 report, could find no conclusive evidence the two men were gay. “Martin and Mitchell were known to be close friends and somewhat anti-social, but no one had any knowledge of a homosexual relationship between them,” investigators reported. Both, in fact, had American girlfriends, and Martin married a Russian woman four months after his arrival there. Mitchell also wed later."

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Sopranos, Ugly Betty lead Emmy nominations. Full list.

Gone before its time: Who killed A Mighty Heart?

Kylie Minogue teams up with Stuart Price, Madonna's producer on Confessions on a Dance Floor.

Courtney Love: Orange you glad she's back?

Spit-tune: If you're going to one of Amy Winehouse's concerts, be sure to stay out of range of her salivary glands.

Conservative Episcopal priest from Boston defects to become a bishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya: "The Rev. William L. Murdoch, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in West Newbury, will fly to Nairobi next month for his consecration as a Kenyan bishop, then return to Massachusetts to minister to other disaffected conservatives who are leaving the Episcopal Church over its 2003 decision to ordain an openly gay priest as the bishop of New Hampshire."

Fancy yourself the next Alan Turing? Have a bit of practice decoding some of the messages from this 1938 Enigma machine for sale on eBay. Bidding is currently near $20,000 but the reserve has not yet been met.

Window Media President Peter Polimino to step down, and will be replaced by three co-presidents: "Mike Kitchens is Window Media's chief operating officer, Steve Myers is chief financial officer, and Bill Kapfer is responsible for marketing and Genre's publisher."

Lover of flesh Spencer Tunick will make his next project a commentary on global warming and photograph hundreds of naked folk in the Alps. He is encouraging those who wish to participate to arrive there by public transportation.

Annie Lennox is back with Songs of Mass Destruction, a new album featuring the track "Sing" to which Madonna, Sarah McLachlan, Celine Dion, Fergie, Faith Hill, Pink, Dido, Gladys Knight, kd Lang, Angelique Kidjo, Bonnie Raitt, Shakira, Melissa Etheridge, Anastasia, Joss Stone, KT Tunstall and many others will add their voices. The track will raise awareness and funding for the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) - organizations fighting for human rights, education and health care for those affected by the HIV AIDS virus.

Do you take it? (warning: NSFW)

Nova Scotia tries to get in on the gay travel market with Rainbow Halifax.

"I could hear them.": Be careful when traveling in Belize and don't read this post while you're eating lunch.

Channel 4 in the UK presents 40 Years Out, a week of programming meant to mark the passing of the Homosexual Reform Act in 1967, which decriminalized homosexual acts in private between two adult men aged 21 and over.