By Jim Edminster
Gore Vidal, says The New York Times Book Review ( 11/26 ) , writes movingly of the death of his partner of 53 years, Howard Auster. Vidal's second volume of his memoirs, Point To Point Navigation, also contains many of his famous feline remarks, such as the one about Barbara Cartland, romance writer: she is 'an authority on the royal family whom she ceaselessly defends ... even when they are not under attack.' Vidal does indulge in some rather odd interpretations of modern history ( the Mafia put Jack Kennedy in and took him out too ) but his readers are familiar with this.
The New York Times Magazine ( 11/19 ) features on its cover an 'Extended Nuclear Family' consisting of 2 gay men, 2 lesbians and their 2 sons. The article attached, 'Gay Donor or Gay Dad' highlights the growing complexity of gay parenting. Some things that arise: If a gay man is the sperm donor to a lesbian couple, how distant from the child should he be? Does his partner have any rights to a relationship with the child? What are the non-bearing woman partner's rights? What if couples break up—who gets the child? One of the mothers on the cover remarked to the writer that with all the divorces, re-marriages, boy- and girlfriends of single parents in the straight community the only big difference between gay and straight parenting is that 100% of the gay families are planned.
A review of The Fellowship ( by Roger Friedland & Harold Zellman ) about Frank Lloyd Wright and his architectural apprentices in The NY Times Book Review ( 11/26 ) comes this close to accusing Wright of being a closet case even though, while having ' ... close relationships with gay men in private he could be virulently anti-gay in public.' As it is, the book says Wright's wife Olgivanna encouraged the sexually frustrated male apprentices to take up with one another and even formed a 'sex club' to show them how to do, umm, various things. The reviewer notes that too much of the book is spent on Wright's maybe yes/ maybe no sexual sublimation and not enough on a real analysis of his relationships with the guys.
Perez Hilton AKA Mario Lavandeira AKA 'Queen of All Media' has become the Webmaster whose site, PerezHilton.com, is THE place to go for snarky gossip, according to the Chicago Tribune ( 11/23 ) . The openly gay Hilton ( no relation to Paris ) persuaded Neil Patrick Harris ( Doogie Howser ) and perhaps Lance Bass ( 'N Sync ) to come out. Hilton is pretty clear about his own celebrity: bottom of the food chain but he's still becoming the most feared blogger in Hollywood.
Finally, from the 'We're-Everywhere' file, the New York Times ( 11/23 ) reports that while the U.S. barely has relations with Myanmar ( formerly Burma ) it still does have a lending library there which also shows U.S. movies. Most requested? Far and away—Brokeback Mountain.