Susan Sontag, one of the major intellectual minds of the 20th century, died Dec. 28. She got a full-page obit from The NY Times (12/29) and was survived by her longtime companion, photographer Annie Leibovitz. Novelist and essayist Sontag wrote AIDS And Its Metaphors among much else but perhaps her most influential, but indirect, connection to the gay community was her early essay ‘Notes on Camp,’ a critique of the separation of high and low culture, much of which was based on observations of gay social life. And as one of my dyke friends told me, ‘Right up to the end, she was a looker.’
The Trocks are celebrating their 30th anniversary. The NY Times (12/23) says the male ballet troupe is still on its toes and still hilarious. One could review the various dances (the dying swan trying to replace her moulting feathers, for example), but the best way to put their comedy in print is to give a few stage names: Olga Supphozva, Margeaux Mundeyn, Lariska Dumbchenko, Fifi Barkova, Svetlana Lofatkina, Vladimir Legupski, Vera Namethatunova, and of course, Ida Nevasayneva.
You’d never guess it from his name but our colleague, Steve Starr, is quite modest. This means you’ll have to get it from me, not him, that he was a major story on the front page of Chicago’s Skyline newspaper (12/23). Mr. Starr, characterized as ‘one of the city’s most flamboyant Art Deco dealers’ (Ha! I’ll bet they don’t even know about him atop a full-sized moving sphinx at one of his reviews, ‘Cruisin’ the Nile’) is down-sizing his famous Steve Starr Studios and moving north to Edgewater Antique Mall. In the meantime you can check out Steve at Charlie’s where he’s become quite a two-stepper.
The New Yorker (1/3) profiles gay playwright Tony Kushner of Angels in America fame. One of the incidentals in the story is his ritual of asking for a blessing at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park whenever one of his shows is about to open. This fountain, of an angel hovering over water, figured in the opening of the movie of ‘Angels…’. It was the first commissioned sculpture by a woman in New York—Emma Stebbins—and she was a lesbian. (Stebbins married—that’s right—Charlotte Kushman, a famous actress in 1856.) Kushner likes the statue because, other than it being beautiful and mysterious, ‘… it got terrible reviews when it was unveiled.’ Gay folk, just like other groups, like to visit places related to their history—here’s another site to make a pilgrimage to.