The New York Times (4/16) has the obit of writer Muriel Spark, 88, author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and some 20 other novels. She lived many years of the latter part of her life with painter-sculptor Penelope Jardine. Spark, asked many times about the two’s involvement, always insisted it was an ‘old-fashioned friendship.’
There is a hilarious picture in The NY Times Book Review Section (4/9) in a look at the book ‘The Poem That Changed America: ‘Howl’ Fifty Years Later’ edited by Jason Shinder. The poem ‘Howl’ by gay poet Allen Ginsberg discusses heroin, marijuana, suicide, madness and men who ‘screamed with joy’ as they were penetrated by other men. The picture that is so funny is a photo of uniformed, shaven-headed cadets at the Virginia Military Institute studying copies of Howl. The poem has become one of the most anthologized and studied Beat poems in modern academic circles.
Gay British playwright Alan Bennett has his new book Untold Stories discussed in The NY Times Book Review Section (4/9). He is also interviewed in The NY Times (4/16). A founder of the British satirical troupe Beyond the Fringe, Bennett has a new play, The History Boys, opening in New York. He’s known for ‘his special brand of gentleness laced with arsenic.’ Mr. Bennett was asked by (gay) Sir Ian McKellen in 1987 whether he was straight or gay and he replied it was like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water. He had thought sex for him would remain theoretical and he cannot help being delighted that late in life he has found a partner (30 years his junior).
Item #1 from the ‘We’re Everywhere’ file: The New York Times (3/31) reports King and the Clown, a new Korean flick, has been seen by a fourth of the South Koreans. Compared to Brokeback Mountain, it is a gay love story in a society where homosexuality—until 10 years ago—was virtually invisible. Apparently based on real 16th century history, a king falls in love with one of his jesters (who is already in a relationship with another jester). ‘Many itinerant [wandering, Korean] clowns… were involved in same-sex relationships,’ the last such living clown, Kim Gi Bok, 77, said. ‘It was difficult to get a wife…. Who would marry a beggar?’ As a result intense friendships developed in these male troupes. He said some clowns who did manage to marry would sometimes leave their wives for fellow clowns. The movie has led to many discussions in that country about the nature of homosexuality.
Item #2 from the ‘We’re Everywhere’ file: The Chicago Tribune (4/4) says that Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland has pledged that gay unions will be legalized. Says Ahern: ‘Sexual orientation cannot, and must not, be the basis of a second-class citizenship.’ The prime minister added that it would be more difficult to do this in Ireland than in Great Britain because the Irish Constitution mentions that the mostly Catholic country needs to protect marriage. Ahern could have added that Ireland was simply returning to its roots: pagan Ireland & post-St. Patrick (but pre-Roman) Christianity had no bans on, or prejudices against, same-sex relationships.
And an item about where we’re not: The Chicago Tribune (4/4) is tallying up the states that are writing laws prohibiting picketing and harrassing of funerals by the likes of the Rev. Fred Phelps of Kansas who, in his very personal opinion, believes that the death of these young soldiers is due to the United States’ tolerance toward gay people. That’s right—it’s no reflection on the deceased’s sexuality or if there were official gay mourners, it’s just anti-gay intolerance. What’s interesting are the allies who have banded together as a result of the reverend’s actions: gay activists, parents of dead veterans and the bikers who are now gathering to protect the family funerals from Phelps’s nastiness.