Reverie On A Summer's Slumber

The end of summer, well actually there are 3 weeks left & I will take them. Still, I feel the first smart stinging sorrow that comes over me at summer’s end. August is my favorite month, with 31 days & no holidays. Good bye, August.

Last Sunday our new friends- Peter & Nancy joined us for brunch. The husband, who is the cook in this family, provided a very summer-ish meal of 2 varieties of bruschetta: heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, & guacamole, & one with grilled asparagus & goat cheese both drizzled with a balsamic reduction. My contribution was a white wine & apricot puree punch. A summer Sunday in the Boys’ Fort with new friends & Portland came through with 64 degrees & rain!

I love that the blue polish on the Husband's toes matches the blue of the hydrangea. Larry the canine concurs.

Nancy remarked that Post Apocalyptic Bohemia suggested & had the sense of a beach bungalow with its rocks & beach glass, boardwalks & grasses, stacks of books, dogs, & barefoot men. We live close enough to the Pacific Ocean that we get cool, salty marine air in the mornings. We are just blocks away from the mighty Columbia River & the north flowing Willamette River, which provides us with visits from gulls, eagles & the occasional beachcomber.

Do you feel like you are at the beach?

Labor Day Weekend may spell the end of summer, but September has always felt like the start of the year, perhaps because I lived a big chunk of my life in academia. The melancholy that comes with summer’s sleep is balanced with the thrill of new pencils, Pee Chee folders, & jockstraps.

How Gay Is My Emmy?

Over the weekend, I was swinging between a rattled repugnance while watching coverage of the Glenn Beck & Tea Baggers Concert at the Lincoln Memorial, & a state of sublime sentimentality & sanguine satisfaction while viewing the most gay-friendly Emmy Awards in history. I think the Emmys are now as gay as the Tony Awards. This country moves a little forward & a big step backwards on the issues surrounding acceptance of gay people & their civil rights. What better way to have a positive presence than in the world of TV, watched by nearly every household in the USA & seen by much of the rest of the world, thanks to the internet. I can’t help but reflect on how much has changed for those of us that chose to open that closet door.




A huge favorite at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, no matter the project, out actor- Jane Lynch won for best supporting actress in a comedy for her role as coach Sue Sylvester on Glee. She kissed her wife upon hearing her name & thanked her & her "lord and creator," openly gay series creator producer Ryan Murphy. Cutie Murphy won for directing Glee, while Paris Barclay ( who’s brother Neil was one of my best friends in college), who is also out, was nominated in the same category. Murphy thanked "my great partner, Dick Miller", & stated: "Glee is about the importance of arts education, so I would like to dedicate this to all of my teachers, who taught me to sing & finger-paint." He also thanked Tom Ford for the tux. I would liked to have been a fly on the wall for that fitting.

Ryan Murphy in a Tom Ford Tux with Leah Michele... now that is gay!

Eric Stonestreet won for best supporting actor in a comedy for portraying half of a gay couple on my favorite new show- Modern Family; openly gay actors Jesse Tyler Ferguson ( the other half of the couple ) & Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother ) were also nominated. (Harris, who was also a presenter, did win an Emmy for his guest-starring role on Glee.) Modern Family went on to win Best Comedy Series for its 1st year run. Mad Men, which to me is the very definition of why TV is better than Film for artful, thoughtful entertainment, deservedly won for Best Drama. Now, if Mad Men could find a place for more storyline about closeted advertising Art Director- Sal, the greatest show on TV could be made even a bit greater.

Glee’s Lynch & Chris Colfer, who is openly gay, were part of the opening sequence featuring funny & cute host Jimmy Fallon & other TV regulars singing & dancing to Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. Also, during his tribute to the series that had ended- 24, Law & Order & Lost, Fallon dressed as Sir Elton John & sang his own take of Candle in the Wind for 24.


Sexy Alexander Skarsgard, bisexual-Anna Paquin & Stephen Moyer, the stars of the pansexual True Blood presented an award (Paquin recently married Moyer.)  What a very hot 3some that would be!


This season on TV continues to feature gay story lines, out gay actors, straight actors playing gay, gay actors playing straight, a weekly show packed full of musical numbers, & a weekly dose of Jon Hamm. Progress. Baby Steps. Quality & comedy can help make this a better gay world.


Take a look at my friend- Bob’s fashion wrap up of last night’s awards. He always has an interesting take on all sorts of issues.

I think that Sofía Vergara is the most beautiful woman on TV, & she is wicked funny... a winning combo. After Modern Family won for Best Comedy Series there was one question on everyone's mind: When is Sofia Vergara going to run naked down Sunset Boulevard if her show won, as she promised on the red carpet before the show?

Beatles Album Sleeves

Whatever your opinion of the music The Beatles made, I reckon there's no denying they had some great Album Sleeve designs - remember this is the 1960's and  maybe the high point of  Sleeve design - the 12" format allowing for rather more input that a CD Cover (actually the last one tipped into the 70's, and is the worst of them). The Beatles made twelve studio albums in the seven years they were together, which is some going in itself. Here are the Sleeve designs in chronological order:

1963 Please Please Me

1963 With the Beatles

1964 A Hard Day’s Night

1964 Beatles For Sale

1965 Help

1965 Rubber Soul

1966 Revolver

1967 Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

1968 The Beatles [White Album]

1969 Yellow Submarine

1969 Abbey Road

1970 Let It Be

Born On This Day- August 29th... Mr. Blackwell

Mr. Blackwell: “Madonna is a bare-bottomed bore from Babylon". Richard Blackwell, of the Mr. Blackwell’s worst-dressed list, made a name for himself not with his own creations but by going after celebrities on the red carpet. Blackwell said that Camilla Parker Bowles as "the Duchess of Dowdy" & put the newly married Diana, Princess of Wales, at the top of his list in 1982.

But, his regular targets were usually celebrities like Zsa Zsa Gabor & Britney Spears, who he felt had sense of style or glamour. He said his criticism had nothing to do with talent & stated that Meryl Streep: "looked like a gypsy abandoned by a caravan."


Richard Sylvan Selzer, of Brooklyn, started out as an actor but switched to fashion in 1958 when his career was going nowhere.He became famous with the publication of his 1st list in 1960. Although he often admitted he was uncomfortable about appearing so publicly mean, Blackwell also said that he poked fun at celebrity style because fashion designers were not doing their job: they failed to make women look beautiful. While his original intention was to act as a sort of fashion watchdog, Blackwell & his list became a dreaded Hollywood institution. The annual list, released on the 2nd Tuesday in January, became its own kind of fashion moment. I wonder what he would have said about me when I saunter up to the stage to accept my Emmy Award for Best Guest Actor for my turn on Mad Men as Don Draper’s male lover?

I Am 6 Degrees of Separation From Activist/Pioneer Edward Carpenter On His Birthday

Gay activist, socialist, feminist, pacifist, nudist, mystic, poet, essayist, sandal wearer… The Post Apocalyptic Bohemian? No, today’s Birthday gay is Edward Carpenter. Challenging both capitalism & the values of Western civilization, Edward Carpenter had an extraordinary impact on the cultural & political landscape of the late 19th & early 20th centuries. Carpenter’s enjoyed friendships with Walt Whitman, Robert Graves, Oscar Wilde, E.M. Forster, Isadora Duncan & Emma Goldman. After reading Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Carpenter envisioned a world of brotherly love that would do away with the class system & bring true freedom & democracy.

Edward Carpenter in1874

George Merrill in 1874

Carpenter graduated from Cambridge & held a position once filled by Leslie Stephen, the father of Virginia Woolf. He gave public lectures for the working class,but attended only by the middle class, who didn’t like to his ideas. He unsuccessfully sought the friendship of laborers, but in 1891, after meeting by chance on a train, he & uneducated worker- George Merrill became lovers. In 1898, when Carpenter was 54 & Merrill was 32, they set up house together, unheard of in England which was profoundly anti-gay after the Oscar Wilde trials. They lived openly as a couple for 30 years until Merrill’s death, & their love affair, crossing the classes, was the direct inspiration for their friend E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice, as well as D.H. Lawrence’s straight version- Lady Chatterley's Lover. American- Harry Hay, credited Carpenter’s writings for galvanizing him to start the 1st gay rights group- The Mattachine Society, in L.A. in 1950.

Carpenter in 1924

 Carpenter felt strongly that people tend to settle down into a single deep permanent union, but along the way they should be experiencing a variety of relationships & sexual adventures. He warned that the ideal of exclusive attachment can lapse into a stagnant 2 way selfishness. He saw a society with love & devotion between individuals without the quality of their love being defined by exclusiveness based on jealousy, a sense of private property in the other person, social opinions, & legal unions. He believed that such unions suffocate love in egoism, lust, & meanness.Carpenter wrote of sex as a good thing in human consciousness & not a sign or cause of human frailty & sinfulness.

In May 1928, Carpenter suffered a stroke leaving him almost helpless. He lived another 13 months before he died on a perfect summer afternoon, Friday June 28, 1929, exactly 40 years before the Stonewall riots. In 1910 Carpenter had written:

"I should like these few words to be read over the grave when my body is placed in the earth; for though it is possible I may be present & conscious of what is going on, I shall not be able to communicate. Do not think too much of the dead husk of your friend, or mourn too much over it, but send your thoughts out towards the real soul or self which has escaped to reach it. For so, surely you will cast a light of gladness upon his onward journey, & contribute your part towards the building of that kingdom of love which links our earth to heaven."

In 1967, gay Beat poet Allen Ginsburg interviewed Gavin Arthur (grandson of U.S. President Chester A. Arthur), world traveler, adventurer, & later a San Francisco astrologer,about his experience as a young man of 23 of visiting Carpenter in England & having sex with the then 80 year old. Carpenter had told Arthur of his own sexual experience, as a 33 year old man, with the 58 year old Walt Whitman. When the young Arthur asked how Whitman had made love, Carpenter replied, "I will show you." The account of their night together is very sweet.

The Post Apocalyptic Bohemian in 1974

This means I am 6 Degrees of Separation from Walt Whitman, who slept with Edward Carpenter:
Edward Carpenter slept with Gavin Arthur

Gavin Arthur slept with Beat poet Neal Cassady

Neal Cassady slept with Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg slept with James Dean
James Dean slept with producer Robert Fryer
I slept with Robert Fryer in 1974.

For more on Edward Carpenter check out- Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty & Love by Sheila Rowbotham

Born On This Day- August 28th... Musical Theatre & Karl Ulrichs... Coincidence?

Did you know that the Broadway musical & the term "homosexuality" were invented almost simultaneously? Pure coincidence?

Beginning in Paris with Jacques Offenbach & in Vienna with Johann Strauss, the operetta waltzed and can-canned its way across Europe. In the same era, America stumbled upon a musical theatre of its own. The Black Crook (1866) had little plot, crappy songs & lots of spectacle. There had been American musicals before this show, but this was the first to be a great big SRO hit. It spawned 100s of musical spectaculars with fantasy themes, known as extravaganzas. American audiences made these early musicals a thriving part of what was then referred to as "the show business." The Musical Comedy Queen was born, & meanwhile, in Europe:

In 1839, German born- Karl Heinrich Ulrichs & his riding teacher began a sexual affair when Ulrichs was a youth. As a lawyer, he seemed restless, often moonlighting as a freelance writer. As a closet gay, he risked financial ruin in engaging in a relationship with a soldier, & several other men. When he was 34 Ulrichs lost his government job for being gay, & he began publishing pamphlets explaining & defending love between men. When he had just turned 42 years old, he addressed the German congress, coming out publicly & demanding they repeal their anti-gay laws. He was shouted down before he could finish his speech. His books were banned, but he continued writing about homosexuality (a term that he was the 1st to use) for the rest of his life. 100 years before Stonewall, his book- Araxes, would put forth the modern arguments for gay rights. In 1879, he published- Research on the Riddle of Man-Manly Love. In bad health & feeling he had done all he could in Germany, he went Italy, where he settled in L'Aquila, where his health improved.


Ulrichs continued to write prolifically & publish his works (in German and Latin) at his own expense. In 1895, he received an honorary diploma from the University of Naples. Shortly after he died in L'Aquila, where he had lived as the guest of a local landowner, Marquis Niccolò Persichetti, who gave the eulogy at his funeral.

Forgotten for many years, Ulrichs is now a cult figure in Europe. There are streets named for him in Munich, Bremen & Hanover. His birthday is marked every year by with a street party & poetry reading at Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Platz in Munich. The city of L'Aquila has restored his grave & hosts the annual pilgrimage to the cemetery.

Ulrichs: "Until my dying day I will look back with pride that I found the courage to come face to face in battle against the spectre which for time immemorial has been injecting poison into me and into men of my nature. Many have been driven to suicide because all their happiness in life was tainted. Indeed, I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt."

I like to think that this most important of gay rights pioneers would have named CATS- now & forever, as his favorite show.

Motel Postcards

The third and final part of my look at the nostalgic era of American Motels features American linen postcards. Linen postcards are easily identifiable by the type of high rag card stock they were printed on which was produced with a linen finish; a textured pattern distinguished by parallel and intersecting lines resembling linen cloth. The face of the card was the textured side and the reverse was smooth just like other postcards.
Due to the use of this paper, linen postcards could be printed with brighter inks creating brightly coloured images, making them a huge advancement over the earlier white border postcards. Linen postcards' heyday was from the 1930's when they were introduced to about 1945.
I have quite a collection of these linen postcards mainly featuring town views, ‘important’ buildings, and factories. I believe they are mainly heavily retouched black & white photographs, rendered in vibrant colours. This retouching gives then a unique look.

Born On This Day- August 27th... Paul Reubens

Last year on this day, I posted the following:


I have missed him so much. I can not articulate how much happiness he has brought to my life. I would tape his Saturday morning show- Pee Wee's Playhouse (remember VHS?) every week & his 2 movies had repeat viewings with my family. His absurd arrest for child porn, based on kitchy work from decades past (plus Rob Lowe's sex tape) would be eventually be dismissed, but his career never recovered. Don't you think it is time for some more Pee Wee? He is needed more than ever.


Well just ask Jambi & your wish might come true. Paul Reubens is joining fellow gay actors Neil Patrick Harris & Alan Cumming in the 3D-live action-animated-CGI-invisible Smurfs movie. Reubens will play Jokey Smurf, the one who's always happy & playing tricks on the other blue people.


If this wasn’t enough good news during these difficult times, a new Pee Wee Herman film, produced by Judd Apatow has been announced


Apatow:"Let's face it, the world needs more Pee-wee Herman, I am so excited to be working with Paul Reubens, who is an extraordinary & ground-breaking actor & writer. It's so great to watch him return with such relevance."


The partnership came about after Apatow saw Reubens' recent Pee-wee Herman Show revival at the Nokia Theater in L.A., where it played to packed houses in January & February. Reubens said he was incredibly gratified by Apatow's interest in collaborating on a pic. Reubens: "There is no one like Judd in our business,he loves comedy with emotion & heart, & he sees what we do as art.I can't believe I'm getting this opportunity to be working with him."


The Pee-wee Herman Show will arrive on Broadway this fall! Paul Reubens will reprise his role as Pee-wee at NYC’s Stephen Sondheim Theater after a successful run in L.A. The show will center on Pee-wee’s hopes to fly like Pterri (a pterodactyl). Other Playhouse friends, including Cowboy Curtis, Chairry, Miss Yvonne & Jambi will come along for the fun.




Oh, how I would love to be there! We needed you, Pee Wee, & you came back just in the nick of time.

Born On This Day- August 27th... Designer & Stephen's Secret Lover- Tom Ford

Not only am I inspired by people who, along with real talent, are able to "brand" themselves, but I want to follow in the footsteps of past blog posts: Martha Stewart, Andy Warhol & Keith Haring. Tom Ford has not only made himself a part of his own product, but he is his own muse. Every time I have come upon a print ad for Tom Ford, who is truly talented & designs beautiful clothing; I have earmarked the magazine ad & said to the Husband- "wow, can you believe how beautiful & hot he is? Plus... the clothing & accessories are amazing". The Husband concurred. Today is Tom Ford's birthday. I would be very pleased to be snowed-in at a mountain cabin for a few days with Tom Ford. I would try my best to leave him inspired. He is Daniel Craig's designer of choice, & that is all the endorsement I need. I love you, Tom Ford.... but alas, he has has been with partner Richard Buckley (14 years his senior) for 23 years. At least he needs a "daddy".

I am grateful to Mr. Ford for his 1st film- A Single Man. It was, for me, a masterful directorial debut. Happy Birthday, Tom. Have your people call my people.