The latest fad in New Yorkier is the map on its cover (12/10) called “New Yorkistan” in which the big apple is Afghanicized with various neighborhoods renamed “Pashmina, Faxistan, Hiphopabad, Mooshuhadeen, Upper Keutchnya, Youdontunderstandistan and the like. There are on the transmogrified island of Manhattan the neighborhoods of Gaymenistan and Lesbikhs.
The ironic New Yorkers, as reported by NY Times (12/10) have for some time given water in restaurants fancy names, like Chateau La Pompe (tap water) ; now they’re calling it San Miguel (or St. Mike) for the heroic gay priest/fireman who lost his life at ground zero.
The NY Times (12/15) reports that government-approved testing of medical use of marijuana will begin early next year. One of the experiments will be to see if it helps those suffering from pain in their limbs due to AIDS. One wonders if Atty. General Ashcroft will have these government-OK’d labs raided. Along these lines, another story in the same issue relates how Jesus Aguais of NY, an AIDS activist, has started Aid for AIDS, an organization which collects donated and unused AIDS medications and sends them overseas to needy people with HIV. Mr. Aguais was inspired by a Venezuelan woman who appealed to him on behalf of her HIV-positive son and daughter-in-law. She had sold everything, including her own burial plot, to come to the U.S. for medicine.
The Chicago Sun-Times (12/10) has a column by Laura Washington. She turns a critique of Illinois Atty. General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan into a mini-history of gay civil rights in Illinois. Ryan has refused a congratulatory ad for Equality Illinois (the gay/lesbian rights group) for its annual fundraising dinner/dance. Ryan actually has supported gay rights in the past but is no warily eyeing his party’s conservative wing, which is gunning for him. Washington urges him to just go on all the way for gay support and even says she’ll buy him a ticket. Tell ’em, Laura!
In an article “Couturier to the Heavens and Above, the NY Times (12/9) reports on the live and career of Patrick Boylan of New York. Mr. Boylan formerly made maternity clothes and also cocktail dresses. His partner Roger Hockett urged him to make vestments for St. Luke’s, a NY Episcopal church whose collection was destroyed by fire. Boylan now is owner, designer, and (the single) employee of Grace Liturgical Vestments. He has, among other things, vested the Episcopal church’s presiding Bishop, Frank T. Griswold III (formerly of Chicago and fondly remembered by gay Episcopalians). Boylan says of this church, “All of a sudden I could be a gay man and have a spiritual life.” He is now vesting the famous “Smoky Mary’s” (St. Mary’s) and raising adopted twins, Nora and Luke, with his partner.