Nikki Giovanni 1943-2024; Michael Cole 1940-2024
December 23, 2024
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
except by my permission
Category
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
except by my permission
A few nights ago at dinner out with new friends, our getting-to-know-each-other small talk circled around to coming out to our families. Our stories all had variants, but one thing seemed universal: how the presence of AIDS smoked the edges of each instance. Mine came at the end of a most challenging year, one spent…
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I was finishing a late-aborning BA when a professor introduced me to the works of David Wojnarowicz. No doubt she fathomed that he could be a model for the writing I was attempting—autobiography of a frank, sexual nature that also had very much to do with loss and the times in which I came of…
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It isn’t true for every child that grows up in a large family, but it was true for me: I wanted to be seen. There I was, a middle child (one of ten) convinced of his invisibility, and fighting like hell to rectify the injustice. From where I sat, recognition came either by way of…
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It looks like a hole in the world. Among many other thoughts, that’s what struck me when I finally got a chance to see the 9/11 Memorial Plaza few weeks back. Symbols exist for a reason, and the architects of our country’s newest grief repository have hit on just the right one; it’s hard not…
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First Jason Collins and now Michael Sam: the pro-sports glass ceiling has been broken, ushering in waves of support and (no surprise) standard-issue good ol’ American homophobia. Check out the media weigh-ins on CNN and the New Yorker, and don’t forget: when you express your happiness by kissing a loved one, by all means “think…
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We go to the theater to renew our ties to the world. Sometimes we’re reminded of things, lives, people we used to know, or feelings we’ve tucked away long ago. When it’s working, a play can unearth those buried treasures, though the effect isn’t always pleasant. At a recent performance of Mothers and Sons, a…
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I could think of no greater tribute than posting some works of Barbara Kruger, many of which read like metaphors for the state of closetness. A toast…to self.
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