The Chicago Reader (6-6) in its annual road-trip edition touts the gay bars of Lansing, Mich., as local color in addition to covering
author Matt Levin's novel Sine Die. The Reader says this gayish political book's characters seem to ' ... spill blood and semen in
equal amounts.'
Parade Magazine (6-8) makes it clear Harvey Fierstein on Broadway in Hairspray is not playing as a drag queen but as a female
character! He studied large women to adopt their gaits. (Now that's a concept: Harvey cruising women!) ABC is preparing a sitcom for
him as a family matriarch.
Head-lined front page NY Times (6-8), 'New Hampshire Episcopalians Choose Gay Bishop, and Conflict!' Stated is the fact that
the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson is the first candidate for bishop who indicated his sexuality before election and that a number of
Anglicans bishops are gay, open or otherwise. Robinson's partner, Mark Andrews, was pictured on the front page with him.
Serious Reading: The NY Times Book Review (6-8) says Oxygen by Andrew Miller, a novel in which a gay Hungarian playwright ' ...
is filled with regret for his actions during the 1956 revolution' is now available in paperback.
The New Yorker (6-9) reviews a one-man show I Am My Own Wife, the amazing story of Lothar Berfelde, a transvestite who lived
for years in East Berlin as 'Charlotte von Mahlsdorf' where she operated a tavern for gays and lesbians. '... Lothar Berfelde navigated
a path between the two most repressive regimes the Western world has ever known—the Nazis and the Communists—in a pair of
heels.' [About Face Theatre had the world-premiere here earlier this year.]
A major article in The NY Times (6-1) indicates a Republican party conflict may be headed toward a nasty resolution. President
Bush has appointed some gays to high-level jobs, and has raised federal spending on the global AIDS epidemic. His campaign
chairman designee, Marc Racicot, has talked to the Human Rights Campaign. However, conservative and Christian fundamentalist
elements in the party have threatened to bolt if leaders 'continue to make overtures to gays.'
The NY Times (5-28) interviews Daniel Sunjata the straight bi-racial hunk who plays the gay bi-racial hunk in Broadway's Tony-
winning hit musical Take Me Out. Sunjata, who appears nude in the show, mentions he is often propositioned by stage-door Johnnies
but is unoffended. Sunjata says he's trying to 'engender more tolerance' and he's had practice: he was adopted by a white couple on
Chicago's South side and his adoptive Mom used a wheel-chair.
Check out a new book reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times (5-29), The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives From the New
Testament, by Theodore W. Jennings, Jr. Says Jesus was involved in a same-sex relationship that was not platonic.
News of the Weird in the Chicago Reader (5-30) tells of, but does not name, a Houston gay organization that via high-fashion drag
shows provides prom gowns to high school girls who couldn't otherwise afford them.
Finally, the same issue of the Reader provides proof that one aspect of gay culture can be viciously funny revenge: U.S. Sen. Rick
Santorum's nasty comments about gay people have provoked columnist Dan Savage to sponsor a reader-driven contest to name
some unpleasant sexual act after Mr. Santorum. Don't sneer too much—a previous similar contest led to the word 'pegging' to refer to
women's use of strap-on, umm, sexual aides to schtup their boyfriends. That new word is already appearing in word usage lists.
