Check out the March Vanity Fair: the pic of Ben Affleck on the cover is the last by gay celebrity photographer Herb Ritts. There is also a full-page photo of Ben by Ritts where Affleck announces (once again) ‘I’m not gay. The only man I’ve ever kissed is Jason Lee.’ V.F. also has a major story on a revival of Gypsy, the 1959 hit musical. The musical doesn’t mention as the article does that Rose Hovick, the mama of June Havoc and Gypsy Rose Lee, was not only the big villain of the show, but ran a lesbian boarding house and then ‘…a sort of lesbian farm in her country house,’ where she pulled a gun on one of her boarders and killed her. That whole sordid mess was covered up, but uncovered in the same issue of V.F. are numerous furry male models. There is also a non-furry model you’d swear was Melissa Etheridge.
The NY Times (2-8) reports there are moves afoot to force some of the Greek monks on the peninsula where Mt. Athos is located to get out. This area allows no women on it, not even female livestock. The fuss started when some monks had hissy fits when upper level orthodox leaders started talking to the Roman Catholic Church. The monks say it all presages an end to the ban on women. For those of you who might think there is a possibility of a spiritual gay male underground, ‘They live without electricity, mirrors, hot water for bathing or almost any other creature comforts.’
Fans of Virginia Woolf (tho’ they wouldn’t call themselves that) are furious, says The NY Times (2-15), over Nicole Kidman’s fake proboscis in the movie The Hours. Kidman wears a nose which caricatures Virginia they say, and tho’ it is not important, per se (ha!) she was actually quite attractive. (It’s true that Nicole’s beak has a bend which Virginia’s does not.) Woolf, while no Halle Berry, is not unattractive to my (rather objective) eye. But worse, say the devotees, is that Woolf’s life and literature are caricatured. They say that instead of a third-rate fake Woolf as portrayed in the novel The Hours, one should read the real Woolf. Her 78-year-old novel Mrs. Dalloway is the No. 1 paperback on Amazon’s sales list, which is the first time the book has ever been a bestseller.