From the “Top-of-the-25” file, Mental Floss magazine (March-April) has picked gay author Randy Shilts’ book And the Band Played On as the most influential of the 25 most important books of the past 25 years. Shilts’ book, the magazine said, forced Americans to acknowledge AIDS.
From the “Old-Dykes-Don’t-Whine-They-Move-to-Alapine” file, the New York Times (Feb. 1) has a three-page article about what happened to lesbian feminist separatist communes: in a sentence, they often morphed into lesbian retirement homes. There are “… about 100 below-the-radar lesbian communities in North America known as womyn’s lands.” They have steadily lost members, like (ironically) Catholic convents have. Alapine, in northeast Alabama, is one of the larger settlements but it has only 20 members. You can check it out online at WOMYN ONLY—nytimes.com/style.
From the “What’s-in-a-Name” file, the New York Times (Jan. 23) gives us a list of real British placenames. Without all the intervening (dull) exposition they are: Crapstone, Devon; Ugley, Essex; East Breast, Scotland; North Piddle, Worcestershire; Spanker Lane, Derbyshire; Crotch Crescent, Oxford; Titty Ho, Northamptonshire; Wetwang, East Yorkshire; Slutshole Lane, Kent; Pratts Bottom, Kent; Penistone, South Yorkshire; Butt Hole Road, South Yorkshire. Two new books, Rude Britain and Rude UK by Ed Harst and Rob Bailey, list these plus some that are so unfortunate that, though real, cannot be printed in a newspaper.
From the “Whatdya-Call-It-If-2-Guys-Really-Really-Like-Each-Other-But-Ahem-Aren’t-Gay?” file, the Chicago Tribune (Dec. 16) and the Chicago Sun-Times (Dec. 31) more-or-less jointly announce the “bromance.” The Trib lists the TV shows Scrubs with J.O. & Turk, House with House & Wilson, Heroes with Hiro & Ando, Entourage with Vince & Eric and How I Met Your Mother with Ted & Barney, while the Sun-Times had a story on Boston Legal with Denny & Alan. All of these pairs would be married if they were gay (and it was legal) ; they are thisclose. The Sun-Times even shows a pic of Denny (William Shatner) and Alan (James Spader), who DO get married for plot reasons waltzing around at the wedding: Spader’s the lead. Some movies with this theme are in the offing: there’s going to be an awful lot of dialog about how one guy can tell another guy he loves him without being, you know, uhhh, gay.
From the obits: The New York Times (Feb. 11) lists the death of Betty Jameson, who helped found the LPGA. The golfer lived with another golfer, Mary Lena Faulk, for 30 years. Eric Zorn, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune (Feb. 15) pulled a quiet little paragraph out of a Feb. 12 obituary about the partner (for 32 years), Jay Dillon, of the deceased, Gregory Harris. Zorn interviewed Dillon about this “incredible love story” and found they had met as juniors at Indiana University and had been together ever since. They were both teachers. To quote Zorn: “How dare we so casually grant serial marriage rights and privileges to any impetuous heterosexual who wants them—think Drew Peterson—and deny them to such stable, committed partners as Dillon and Harris?”