On the eve of the Oscars...

This year's crop of Oscar-nominated films does not feature quite as overt an LGBTQ presence as in some past lists ("Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Green Book" being among the honorable exceptions).  So I invite you to check out the following list of the "15 Queerest Sex Scenes in Film History" to make up some of that gap.

You may also find the following commentary ("What Do We Lose When We Lose Queer Sex Scenes?") of interest.

[posted on behalf of our friend Ken Jost]

NO meeting tonight, Wed., Feb. 20

I've already notified current members of this change via e-mail, but just to close the loop: Because of today's weather, the D.C. government is closed (except for essential services)--which means the DC Center, our venue for tonight's meeting, is also closed.

Fortunately, that won't disrupt our schedule too badly.  We'll simply postpone the set of short stories we were going to discuss tonight in From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction (Charles Rice-Gonzalez and Charlie Vasquez, editors) until June.

"Carl Van Vechten & The Harlem Renaissance"

For anyone interested enough in Carl Van Vechten to want to find out more, I cannot highly enough recommend Emily Bernard's Carl Van Vechten & The Harlem Renaissance. I was inspired by The Tastemaker and our discussion of it, enough to make my next book Bernard's, which has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years.

As the title indicates, she focuses entirely on Van Vechten's connection to Black culture, which allows her to go more deeply into issues of race than White. She quotes some materials that White either did not access or did not cite, and frankly, there's very little material that feels repetitive of The Tastemaker ; she's playing a different game. Although it's from Yale UP, it's also eminently readable for an academic book — Bernard emphasizes in her introduction how any time she had the impulse to make an argument, she tried to pull back and let the narrative make that argument for her.  Fascinating insights into Van Vechten's connection to such major Black cultural figures as Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and Ethel Waters.

I realize that some people may not want to spend any more time with Van Vechten, based on some of the negative personality traits emphasized by  The Tastemaker, but if you feel like you can stand more CVV in your life, this is the next book to read.

[posted on behalf of our friend Philip Clark]

"Paul's Case": A short story by Willa Cather

A few days ago, I posted an item about the just-released operatic adaptation of Willa Cather's short story, "Paul's Case."  Since many of you were not Bookmen members back in 2011 when we discussed the source material, here is a link to the story itself.  It's only 18 pages long, but packed with a lot of melancholy beauty (my favorite type!).

Virgil Thomson & Gertrude Stein

At our meeting last night and at dinner afterwards, there was some discussion of Four Saints in Three Acts by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein, which Van Vechten was enthusiastic about.

The work was first performed in 1934. It had an all-black cast, but the opera doesn’t especially call for one. I saw a production in New York, which I’ve now established was in 1996, by the Houston Grand Opera with a racially mixed cast, and I think there have been productions by casts of various racial compositions.

The production I saw was directed by Robert Wilson (of Einstein on the Beach fame). It was initially beautiful to look at – cut outs of sheep that went floating off in the air – but after a while it got rather monotonous. There was not much interesting stage movement, or differentiation of scenes or characters. Snippets I’ve seen of the 1934 production were much more lively. Thomson and Stein provide virtually no guidance about staging.

Generally I find the second Thomson/Stein collaboration, The Mother of Us All, much more satisfying. The central character is Susan B. Anthony, and scenes connect with her life and work, though there is not a plot and there are plenty of Steinian touches (for instance, characters in her life, as opposed to Anthony’s, appear in the work). Susan B.’s final soliloquy is one of the most moving passages in opera that I know, and I read that the New Yorker critic Andrew Porter considered this the greatest American opera. There is a wonderful recording from the Santa Fe Opera with Mignon Dunn.

I saw Virgil Thomson in person at an event sometime in the 1970s at some performance venue in the Berkshires. It was an evening of short compositions and excerpts of his, and an interview with him. Thomson was brought up in Kansas City. The interviewer, rather breathless, asked him what it was like to be an American in Paris in the 1920s. He replied, “It was a lot like Kansas City” – and went on to explain why. 

Another Thomson line (don't know where I heard this): he and a male companion were walking up Fifth Avenue one day, and saw coming towards them two stunningly beautiful women. The women went past, Thomson sighed, and said to his friend, “You know, there are times when I wish I were a lesbian...”

Finally, Florine Stettheimer's portrait of Van Vechten.

She famously designed sets made of cellophane for the first production of Four Saints. Very evocative, I think.

"Paul's Case": The Musical!

Some of you may recall that back in June 2011, at Tim Walton's suggestion, we discussed "Paul's Case," a lovely short story by Willa Cather.  Not long thereafter, Urban Arias, a wonderful contemporary opera company right here in Washington, D.C., commissioned composer Gregory Spears to began work on an operatic treatment of the story, which debuted in April 2013.  (The libretto is by Spears and playwright Kathryn Walat.)

Sadly, I wasn't aware of that project at the time, though I have attended several other operas Urban Arias has presented since then, all no more than 90 minutes long.  And even though I'm definitely not an opera queen (not that's there's anything wrong with being one, of course!), I am an admirer of the company's productions.

"Paul's Case" uses seven singers, accompanied by piano, string quintet, harp and two clarinets; most of the company's productions use similar forces.

The good news is that Urban Arias has recorded "Paul's Case" on a two-CD set, with liner notes by Alex Ross, the New Yorker music critic.  I attended the launch reception this past Sunday and the cast performed several excerpts that definitely whetted my appetite to purchase the recording.

I'll bring a copy with me to tomorrow night's meeting, but here is the info for ordering it (in digital or hard-copy format).

Van Vechten Photos of the Harlem Renaissance

As we prepare for this Wednesday's discussion of Edward White's The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America, I am grateful to Ernie Raskauskas for alerting me to an article in the current issue of The Advocate: "Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance." The bio sketch of van Vechten is a bit anodyne, but the accompanying photographs he took of 10 African-American literati and glitterati--ranging from Alvin Ailey to Zora Neale Hurston--are riveting.  Check them out!

this might be Van Vechten's ring …

but it's cameo, not intaglio

Van Vechten's Ring

In reference to Van Vechten's ring (pg. 70), I have no idea what it looked/looks like but this is the best known copy of Michelangelo's "Leda and the Swan" by Rosso Fiorentino which hangs at the National Gallery in London.