Category Archives: Entertainment

February 13, 2011 · 9:25 am

What women want: Gay male romance novels – The Globe and Mail

Fascinating article…

I’ve noticed all these books on the Amazon Kindle list.  I’ve even read a couple.  You can really tell they were written by women and for a different audience than gay men.

More evidence that the “love that dare not speak it’s name” is becoming more and more mainstream.

I’m obviously going to have to think of something else to maintain my outsider status…

Trends in contemporary popular fiction can be as unpredictable as fashion fads. Nobody expected, for instance, that the gloomy, bespectacled Harry Potter would help resuscitate the ailing book industry any more than Lady Gaga’s bizarre looks would help motivate retail sales. Yet today’s newest publishing trend is as out in left field as Potter and Gaga once were.

Over the past year, man-on-man romantic fiction – books featuring two male protagonists engaged in a sexual or emotional relationship with each other – has taken a significant bite out of one of publishing’s biggest markets. Amazon’s Kindle has had such success with the genre that the e-book site has tripled its “m/m” stock since January, 2010. Even Harlequin – the most profitable and old-fashioned romance fiction house in the world – has recently started to publish same-sex love stories via the company’s digital imprint, Carina Press. What’s most surprising, though, are the types of readers the books have hooked: Straight, married women are among the genre’s top fans. That may be because the authors, such as Iowa’s Heidi Cullinan, a 37-year-old suburban mother of two, are frequently heterosexual females, too. Cullinan has penned such recent works as the popular gay romance Double Blind and the homoerotic fantasy Miles and The Magic Flute.

MORE:   What women want: Gay male romance novels – The Globe and Mail.

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February 12, 2011 · 11:38 am

Mary Cleere Haran: RIP

Mary Cleere Haran, one of my favorite Cabaret singers passed away this week-way too young.

Someone put together this tribute on Youtube and I would like to share it with you in her memory…

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February 12, 2011 · 11:08 am

Cross-Eyed Opossum To Predict 2011 Oscar Winners

Now, I’ve seen everything…

BERLIN — Heidi, Germany’s beloved cross-eyed opossum, is taking a page from Paul the Octopus’ playbook: the marsupial will attempt to pick this year’s Oscar winners.

Leipzig Zoo Director Joerg Junghold told Germany’s RTL television on Friday that Heidi will be appearing on the “Jimmy Kimmel Show” alongside the Oscars on Feb. 27.

He isn’t revealing much about the show but says: “quite similar to Paul, it will be about tips.” He says Heidi will be filmed in Germany over the next few days for the U.S. show.

Junghold says Heidi’s appearance fee will be donated to an animal protection charity.

Paul correctly predicted the outcome of all seven German games at last year’s World Cup plus the Spain-Netherlands final from an aquarium in Oberhausen. He died in October.

via Cross-Eyed Opossum To Predict 2011 Oscar Winners.

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February 10, 2011 · 11:03 pm

Remembering “The Great Gatsby”

Since Mia Farrow is 66 years old today, it seems a good time to look back to the early 1970’s re-make of “The Great Gatsby” where she played Daisy.

It was a beautiful, but flawed film.  Mia Farrow was gorgeous and Robert Redford was at his peak.  The art direction was impeccable.

And Nick Carraway, the character I always related to, was beautifully played by Sam Waterson.

F. Scott Fitzgerald has always been my favorite American writer.  I’ve had many Nick Carraway nights in my life and I always think of Fitzgerald’s beautiful prose and elegant observations.

Here are a few quotes from “Gatsby”…

  • “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
  • “the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age…”
  • “Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.”
  • “Can’t repeat the past?… Why of course you can!”
  • “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before.”
  • “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one…just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
  • “I hope she’ll be a fool–that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool… You see, I think everything’s terrible anyhow… And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.”
  • “He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced–or seemed to face–the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.”
  • “I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”
  • “It takes two to make an accident.”
And my two favorite non-Gatsby Fitzgerald quotes:
  • “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”  (From “The Rich Boy” in the “Sad Young Men” collection.
  • “There are no second acts in American lives.”
There sadly wasn’t for Scott Fitzgerald- at least while he was alive….all his books were out of print by the time he was 40.  His beautiful, destructive wife Zelda was mad and institutionalized.
He died of a heart attack at 44 in Hollywood trying to churn out film scripts for a living…
Anyway, time for a glimpse of the beautiful, flawed film of the one perfect novel Fitzgerald wrote in his beautiful, flawed life….

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February 9, 2011 · 6:55 pm

AMERICAblog News: Bristol Palin’s ‘memoir’ comes out this summer? FOX’s discusses future ‘President Bristol’

I’ll post without comment…

John at Americablog.com says it all….

Pity a political party that embraces the Palins as a dynasty. The TV show ‘Dynasty,’ perhaps. But the ongoing hagiography of this trashy family doesn’t speak well to the future of the Republican party. What are the party’s hopes and dreams? Where does it want to see the country head in the future? And does anyone seriously believe Sarah and Bristol are going to take us there?

Yes, so Bristol, the one who got pregnant (though let’s not forgot that Bristol’s family-values mom has never explained why her first child was reportedly born eight months after she got married), is reportedly going to be publishing her memoirs this summer at the ripe age of 20. Oh, you hadn’t hear about Palin’s first pregnancy? This is from the NYT during the campaign, it was overlooked by most everyone:

The Palins eloped on Aug. 29, 1988, and their first son, Track, was born eight months later, a fact that Maria Comella of the McCain campaign, declined to elaborate on. “They were high school sweethearts who got married and ended up having five beautiful children together,” Ms. Comella said.

Yeah, not a denial at all. And these are family values religious right folk we’re talking about. If the baby were simply born early, wouldn’t we have been told the baby was simply born early? Would the McCain campaign really want this hanging over their heads if there was a simple non-controversial explanation? It matters because people like Palin would be the first to criticize the values of a Democratic White House contender who got pregnant out of wedlock.

Not to be topped, via Media Matters we learn that FOX is now talking about whether Bristol is going to be President.

More:   AMERICAblog News: Bristol Palin’s ‘memoir’ comes out this summer? FOX’s discusses future ‘President Bristol’.

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February 8, 2011 · 6:19 pm

“Crazy Chicks Are Hot?” 8 Messed-Up Portrayals of Women Going Insane in Film | | AlterNet

Interesting article…

I really did not like “Black Swan”, but a lot of people seemed to disagree.

Including the folks at the Academy Awards.  But I lost all respect for them when they gave Best Picture to that Lifetime TV Movie “Crash” over  “Brokeback Mountain.”

They seem to love to watch girls kiss, but not boys.  That upholds my belief that Hollywood has been stuck in the 9th grade for the past decade or so…

Everyone loves to watch a hot babe going batshit crazy. At least that’s what the astronomical success of Black Swan would have you believe, the film in which Darren Aronofsky casts his misogynist gaze upon Natalie Portman, gorgeous and coming completely undone, for what is essentially a two-hour snuff film.

Last week, Newsweek’s Ramin Setoodeh wrote a piece exploring the phenomenon of the insane woman on celluloid, and how American society not only seems to thirst for such depictions but rewards them with box office paychecks and critical accolades. His unspoken conclusion, which he craftily writes around: it’s a one-two combo of schadenfreude and titillation. “In most crazy-chick flicks,” Setoodeh writes, “the female protagonist doesn’t just lose her mind; she loses her clothes. And sometimes she loses her sexual orientation as well.”

He interviewed several actresses who’ve recently portrayed crazy women, including Black Swan’s Mila Kunis — whose own brand of insane, propped up against Portman’s paranoia, is devious manipulation — and Leighton Meester, who portrays a stalker college student in the upcoming film The Roommate. Setoodeh points out the sexism and general ookiness of audiences’ attraction to this type of character, quoting a 26-year-old videogame designer who says, “I can’t think of a crazy girl who isn’t hot.” But he never gets past the basic concepts that seem to drive the psychology behind such desire. Sexist portrayals of women as dangerous and unhinged are statistically inaccurate. Men are three times more likely to be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorders, men are more likely to be stalkers, and men are up to 10 times more likely to commit violent crime. In a kind of mass-gaslighting, the crazy-chick film meme is simply untrue.

While there are feminist portrayals of women gone awry from societal pressures — Frances, Splendor in the Grass, The Yellow Wallpaper — there are far more films that erroneously glamorize the crazy chick. Notably, several of them are clear and direct influences for Aronofsky’s hateful take on Black Swan. [Spoilers.]

via “Crazy Chicks Are Hot?” 8 Messed-Up Portrayals of Women Going Insane in Film | | AlterNet.

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February 6, 2011 · 1:33 pm

Super Bowl Shuffle

Well, I do kind of like this…

The Chicago Bear’s Super Bowl Shuffle from the mid-1980’s…

It’s kind of like “Glee”….

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February 6, 2011 · 1:14 pm

I Don’t Understand the Super Bowl…

I don’t get it…the Super Bowl?

I kind of understand College and High School sports, but I’ve never understood people gathering around the TV or in a stadium to watch over-paid millionaires attempt to destroy each other in order to make more money.

Don’t we see enough of this in Corporate American news every day?

If we are going to do this as national entertainment, we should just be honest and  do it right, like the Romans.

Let’s throw a few financial felons or corrupt politicians who helped crash the economy into a pit with a few lions and let’s see what happens.

That, I could get into….

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February 6, 2011 · 1:04 pm

Chapter 47: Surviving the Sub Debs | My Southern Gothic Life

New post up on my other blog:

I briefly mentioned the Sub Debs in one of my previous posts and said I was not even going to try to explain them. I am, probably foolishly, going to retract that statement and give it  shot.

I remember once trying to explain Sub Debs to a Hollins girl, and soon to be New Orleans Debutante, during a fraternity party when I was at Washington and Lee.  Once I finished the convoluted explanation I am about to attempt again, she looked at me and said:  ”That’s the silliest thing I ever heard of.  Either you are a Debutante or you’re not.  There is no in-between.”

Like most folks, she just didn’t get Danville, Virginia.

via Chapter 47: Surviving the Sub Debs | My Southern Gothic Life.

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February 5, 2011 · 11:06 pm

I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me By a Young Lady from Rwanda

 

Just a reminder, my partner Steve Willis returns to the stage as an actor this week in “I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me By a Young Lady from Rwanda.”

I say this play in Chapel Hill and would recommend it even without the special connection.

Details below:

 

 

 

Time
Thursday, February 10 at 7:30pm – February 13 at 3:00pm
Location The Little Theatre, Bennett College for Women
More Info
The Bennett Players present the Triad premiere of I HAVE BEFORE ME A REMARKABLE DOCUMENT GIVEN TO ME BY A YOUNG LADY FROM RWANDA, a play by Sonja Linden, Thursday through Saturday, February 10-12, at 7:30pm; and Sunday, February 13, at 3pm.

Advance reservatrions are not required. Tickets will be sold at the door: $10 (Adults), $5 (Bennett employees, alumnae, and non-Bennett students), and $2 (Bennett students).

The play is directed by Beth Ritson, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Speech at Bennett and features senior Theatre major, Tarshai Peterson (from Washington, DC), and Steve Willis, Associate Professor of Theatre and Speech and Chair of the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Bennett.

Simon, a British poet (played by Willis) meets a young Rwandan woman, Juliette, (played by Peterson) who has survived the 1994 genocide. As Juliette struggles to write a first-hand account of her tragic experience, the play becomes a story about the healing power of writing and friendship that crosses cultural barriers.

 

 

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