THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

From the 'High-Culture-Meets-Gay-Culture' file, The NY Times ( 11/14 ) in an article about whether opera singers should diet and visit gyms so they'll look as good as they sound, points out that baritone Nathan Gunn is '... so strapping, handsome and hunky that stage directors search for reasons to get whatever character he is playing ... bare-chested,' as in his recent title role in the very homoerotic Billy Budd. The article also recalls a 1997 production of Gluck's Iphrigenie en Tauride in which Mr. Gunn played one Greek king, Orestes, in love with another Greek king, Pylades, played by handsome tenor William Burden. The artists spent most of the opera '... chained together, all grimy and sweaty, clutching each other with affection and despair, and wearing little but loincloths.' Whew!

From the 'Gay-Stuff-Here-Is-Straight-Stuff-There' file, Suketu Mehta in The NY Times magazine ( 11/14 ) in a memoir about the music in Bollywood movies reports that virtually all boys growing up in India sang [ the Hindi movie song 'This Friendship We'll Never Abandon' ] to one another, arms draped fraternally around one another's necks.'

How about a brand new old taste sensation? The Chicago Tribune ( 11/7 ) has a story on the re-creation of absinthe, the liquor that has been banned for nearly 100 years because it drove people mad. Nick-named 'the Green Fairy,' and popular among artists and prostitutes, absinthe caused Oscar Wilde to see tulips growing from the barroom floor. Switzerland, where it was invented, has allowed it to be re-introduced in a slightly less dangerous version.

You know all those fancy decorating schemes of Hollywood homes in Architectural Digest? The ones that aren't quite contemporary or antique or modern but look very, very costly? The NY Times ( 11/15 ) obit of Robert Koch Woolf, 81, informs us those were his designs. Koch was well-known for being a member of the 'Woolf pack', an effort 'to give legal standing to gay relationships.' He had met John Woolf, an older architect, and became his interior designer and domestic partner. Woolf adopted Koch and later several other gay men who all lived together as companions, romantic partners and/or brothers. Koch inspired a revival of bungalows in West Hollywood which had become a 'Mecca for gay men.' His only survivors are his adopted brother, Gene, and his companion, William.