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“PERFORMANCE AT THE STARLITE”
The Starlite Lounge, a Crown Heights watering hole whose days as a “non-discriminating” bar date back to the pre-Stonewall era, (possible the nation’s oldest Gay Black Bar) is at the risk of closing. To call attention to its plight, the curator David Fierman has organized a day of performance art.
The lineup features Kalup Linzy—a Guggenheim fellow whose star turn in the self-produced video cycle “Conversations wit de Churen” has earned him comparisons to Cindy Sherman and Eddie Murphy, as well as the appellation “Spike Lee in heels”—Fetchin’ Gretchen, and Dynasty Handbag, among others. (1084 Bergen St., at Nostrand Ave., Brooklyn. 718-771-3340. March 14 at 4.)
(VIA THE NEW YORKER)
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`David Bergman Scholar, Poet, Editor.’
David Bergman created history by writing about it. A leading founder of the Gay Studies movement, Bergman’s rigorous scholarship provided both a historical context and an intellectual critique to the field of gay literature. Gay literature as a genre may seem like a quaint idea today, especially in a world where the work of David Sedaris is included in the syllabi of freshman writing classes; but there was time not too long a ago when gay writing was not actively examined by the academy. David Bergman’s groundbreaking publications, such as Gaiety Transfigured: Gay Self-
Representation in American Literature and The Violet Hour: The Violet Quill and The Making of Gay Culture, provided gay literature the proper critical assessment it deserved.Currently a professor at Towson University, Bergman is also a noted poet and an editor of a vast array of literary anthologies.
David met with Mary to talk about gay history, creating a field of study and writing about what you love.
Below is an excerpt of the interview from the Fall Issue of Mary:
On creating a scholarship around Gay Literature.
I thought that Gay writing, writings by gay authors about gay life, particularly the kind directed at gay men, deserved the same sort of critical attention that straight white male literature was getting from straight white male critics. This gay literature was absolutely important. It was important for me, but it was also really good writing. I started this scholarship around the time when Andrew Holleran and Edmund White where really first emerging. I felt it was incredible important writing. I wanted to give these writers the exact same treatment one would give Faulkner or Joyce. I wanted to give these gay writers the same critical attention. That turned out to be an unusual thing at the time. It’s hard work writing—you don’t write about things you don’t feel are worthy of documenting. Even if you write about the most frivolous things, you go in to it thinking even this frivolity is worth documenting. So, if these writers were investing their energies in creating these great works, then I thought their work was also worth a thorough critical examination. The same principles that marked that beginning have really marked all the critical work I have done since, which is ‘if writing about our’ lives was worth writing about; then it is worth the same level of critical attention.
When I was getting my PhD, I began writing my dissertation on Shelly; then my dissertation advisor died, so I changed my subject to write about Robert Browning, and in the middle of it, I realized I didn’t want to write the 50th book on Browning, or the 100th book on Browning. I realized that it was better to have the first word about something. That was going to be more valuable and worth doing.
I was in college when Stonewall occurred. I was always a person who missed by a day important events in history; I didn’t go to Woodstock until the day after it was over to help someone pick up their car they had abandoned there (laughs) and I did not get to Stonewall until the day after. Nevertheless, those things were in the air, and this was something I decided I did not want to miss. I was also lucky: Towson at the time was not a publish-or-perish school, so anything you did was more than what anyone else was doing. Certainly, now we have some incredible scholars at the school; but at that time, no one was publishing, so they were not very concerned about me publishing.
I had an older gay chairman of the department who was incredibly nurturing to me, and he was excited about the work I was beginning to undertake on gay studies. It was the sort of thing he would have liked to have done had he not been brought up in a different era.
Towson also had the second oldest Women’s Study program, which meant that gender and identity were things that were very much on the table, and I knew that Women’s Studies program would back me up. I knew I could do it, and it wouldn’t in any way effect my career at Towson. It was exciting work after writing about very dead people(laughs)…I mean people who, like Browning, had been dead for so long, and did not have direct correlation with the life I was living.
On the detective work aspect of Gay Studies
Gay literature is not only creating new work, but also discovering work form the past to add to the canon. We think we have located all the important work, but we are just hitting the tip of the iceberg. One would think that after thirty years you have read even all the minor works, but this summer, English biographer Peter Parker discovered a book, “In the Making”, by an author named G.F Green, written in 1952. It is an extraordinary novel about an English public school boy who falls in love with another public school boy. None of us had heard about this book. I have only been able to locate three existing copies. There is all this writing from the past that needs to be unearthed and looked at.
For over the last twenty years, theory developed, and I understand why theory developed. It was so difficult to unearth bare-bones facts that you needed to paper over the difficulty of not having the data with large theories. But now we need to go back and see what we really did—what life was really like. I think we will see that life is more complicated than
the most complicated theories.WANT TO READ THE REST Of THE INTERVIEW? PURCHASE MARY BY CLICKING HERE
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A clip from Woody Allen’s 1975 film Love and Death.
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Of course she will die, you say
in your German accent, after I ask,
Do you think the Wicked Witch will die?
How do you think she’ll die?
Maybe the Scarecrow will suffocate her with straw.
A house will fall on her like it fell on her sister.
The castle will collapse.
The Tin Man will decapitate her with his ax.
When Dorothy throws the bucket of water
and the Wicked Witch dissolves in her black garb,
you look disappointed.
You say, I have a heart
for those who are disadvantaged in society
but the child in me feels justice has been done.
Tomorrow, I will wake without
Aunt Em’s lukewarm wrapped washcloth
over my forehead. No farmhands,
no Toto, or open window.
A few hours before your flight, you’ll wake
and say to me, I was musing about the wizard
in my dream. He gave such bad advice:
building self-confidence upon a medal,
telling the tin man
it only matters how much
the heart is loved by others.
Jeffery Berg received his MFA from New York University. His work has appeared in Harpur Palate, Softblow and the Gay & Lesbian Review, and is forthcoming in the Hiram Poetry Review.
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Storytime with Miss Amy Sedaris from the TV show Wonder Showzen.
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Who doesn’t love a fair!
If you are in New York on March 27 come out and enjoy The 2nd Annual Rainbow Book Fair:
The event will be held at The Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies (CLAGS) at CUNY,
The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue,
on the concourse level of the beautiful old B. Altman Building
at 34th Street in Manhattan.This is the largest LGBT book event in America,
and it is FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.Be a part of the most exciting lgbt book event in the U.S. Join authors, poets, publishers, university presses, and the entire reading and writing community in this diverse spectacular of words, images, and talent. With over 8,000 square feet of exhibitions, events, mingling, and meeting authors and readers like yourself.
Combining author readings, poetry performance, academic panels on the past and future of lgbt literature and publishing, specialized events for genre readers and writers, and something for all of our community, the 2nd Annual Rainbow Book Fair will put the snap and sparkle back into book reading. Meet hundreds of authors and publishers and thousands of readers from all over the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.
There will not be any ferris wheels or corn dogs at this particular fair, but the vast array of novels detailing wanton acts of sodomy will more than make up for it!
Hope to see you there!
For more information about the event click here
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Bad boy queer writer Mark Simpson (Anti-Gay, Saint Morrissey) has written an interesting blog post this week, that in on fell swoop takes on Madonna , Lady Gaga and his personal relationship with Alexander McQueen.
Money quote:
“But aside from moments of hilarious brilliance such as ‘Like a Virgin’ and ‘Vogue’ I was never much of a Madonna fan, even before she found the Kabala and I’m-not-Gay Ritchie. Maybe it’s early-onset dementia, but I feel differently about Gaga. Rather than see her as a Madonna knock-off, I see her as a more fully-realised Madonna. She’s the Madonna Madonna wanted us to take her for (and legions of gays did).”
To read the rest of the post click here.
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James Baldwin sings Thomas Dorsey’s gospel hymnal “Precious Lord Take My Hand.” It is actually a very moving rendition.
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Below is an excerpt of BC Kalz’s short story “Special Effects.”
It is a funny look back at being young, new wave, and free in Chicago during the 1980’s.
The complete story can be found in the debut issue of Mary:
Early on in our life as roommates, Marrie, Steph, Andie, and I started going to Neo in Lincoln Park on Thursday nights, usually with Jeff, too. We loved its cave-like darkness, close quarters, mobs of hipsters and great music. We danced and drank and smoked for hours under the webs the DJs spun for us.
The nights we went out together started earlier than I would ever go clubbing with my other friends, which was a reminder for me to be on my best behavior: I usually ended a night out rolling around on the floor in the ladies’ room in a fit of pique, whenever I left my craven lust for booze go unchecked.
The second we walked in the club, Jeff and I would peel off the pack and run to the bar, downing a half dozen assorted shots before I caught myself:
“No, no more drinks! We gotta at least pretend to be normal! I just moved in with them, and you know how scary we are when we get wasted. We have to expose them a little at a time to our dirty little secret, or they’ll run screaming!” I said. “Uh oh, they’re looking at us!” I said through my teeth, as I pushed away the empty shot glasses. “Just a little sherry!”
“Well maybe you have to pretend to be normal, but my ‘secret’ is not so
secret to them. Two more Jager shots, sil vous plait! Listen, I’m Catherine Denuve, and you’re David Bowie. Let’s search for a victim!” Jeff said. As he dragged me away “Bela Lagosi’s Dead” filled the room.Stephanie usually ran into friends from her college who would kidnap her off to a dark corner where they sat planted for the night, hovering over one of Neo’s little tables deep in conversation, despite the deafening music.
Marrie, Jeff and I loved to dance, and rarely left the dance floor. We had no
choice, really; we knew if we did we’d have to inch our way back to our prime spot in the middle, and that could take hours. When we were stuck there during songs we didn’t like, we’d gossip and shuffle our feet and share cigarettes. Neo was a hard place to get drunk in, for the hoards of people clamoring for the bartender’s attention, and all the hoards in between, made it too daunting a task to attempt once the night got rolling. Jeff was right to down so many shots when he did; one round at the bar was all you got.I loved watching the reactions Andie got as she flitted around Neo. Her long sable curls contrasted beguilingly with her athletic tanned legs and red high tops. Guys fell over themselves to be by her, and she would spend the night fielding offers of romance, occasionally joining us for a quick dance when things got too hairy. Jeff and I rarely experienced any homophobia in the Chicago straight bars in the eighties; in fact, we spent most our evenings in them, us fey boys always felt safer swishing out to She’s in Parties next to our ‘girlfriends’ . Although we went to Neo together, we would trickle home separately, surrendering our solidarity to the sea of people, and got up early the next morning to fill each other in on our night’s adventures over strong black tea and cold stuffed pizza.
B.C. Kalz is a native of Appleton, Wisconsin, and has been acting and writing for the past twenty-five years. Growing up, he wanted to be either Cher or Roald Dahl.
WANT TO READ MORE? BUY MARY Click Link Below
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A reinterpretation of the Edith Wharton Classic “Ethan Frome” by Brooklyn based comedy troupe THE PERIODS.
