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

From the 'Gandalf Does Drag' file The NY Times ( 1/1 ) reports gaydom's own Sir Ian McKellan is giving that Everage dame a run for her ( his? ) money: Sir Ian is playing Aladdin's mom in a children's show. He gets to wear 10 'spectacularly tacky dresses' and has christened himself 'Dame Twankey'. Among other things he gets to sing a torch song backed up by male dancers in sequined hot pants.

Oprah in her December issue has her writers tell how women who learn their husbands are gay react. O says 2 million Americans have been married to gay spouses. Reactions vary from divorce to staying together ( usually with a re-negotiated covenant worked out ) . However, as one wife who stayed said, 'I've never doubted that he loved me. But love does not trump gay.'

If you're into film history The NY Times ( 12/21 ) says you can buy three gay-themed films from the German Silent Era on DVD: Carl Theoder Dreyer's 1924 flic Michael about a painter and his young model-student ( played by a newly minted beautiful Walter Slezak ) ; Different From The Others, a 1922 story of a concert violinist ( Conrad Veidt ) blackmailed for his involvement with a younger man; and Sex In Chains ( 1930? ) about a man convicted of manslaughter who becomes more than friendly with his cellmate to the horror of his wife on the outside.

The NY Times Book Review ( 12/5 ) spent six pages reviewing The Complete Stories of Truman Capote and Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote. Capote, the gay author who parlayed a publicity shot of himself looking like an angelic boy prostitute into major celebrity and then extended his boyishness into his 40s, was known for his Alabamian Gothic tales and his one master-piece, In Cold Blood. He spent many years running ( leaching off ) the rich and famous, but when he wrote about them he lost his social status in all of 10 seconds and he declined into drink and drugs, dying a month short of his 60th birthday.