Sex and the "Secret City"

There's already been a lot of buzz about journalist James Kirchick's new book, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, which covers the years from FDR's presidency through Clinton's. A tip of the hat to Richard Schaefers and Octavio Roca for independently suggesting it as a candidate for a future BookMen DC reading list. It certainly sounds promising! Here are a profile of Kirchick in the June issue of Washingtonian magazine, an Axios interview, and reviews from the New York Times (largely laudatory) and Washington Post (highly critical).

Barney Frank gets graphic

The May issue of Washingtonian magazine reports on the publication of Eric Orner's new graphic novel, Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank. (Many BookMen members will recall Orner from his long-running comic strip in the Washington Blade and other gay publications, "The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green.") As the former congressman's longtime staff counsel and press secretary, and a fellow gay man, Orner is uniquely equipped to tell the story of Frank's rise from an insider's perspective. Here is the excerpt that appears in the magazine writeup about the book:

Happy 23rd Birthday to Us! 🌈

On May 11, 1999, Potomac Gay Men’s Book Group, the original incarnation of our intrepid band, met for the first time. And 23 years later, we’re still going strong!   

For a good overview of our illustrious history, here is the profile Metro Weekly published in conjunction with our big 20th-birthday bash at the D.C. Center, back in 2019. The Washington Blade also ran an article, but it's a bit cumbersome to get to; you have to click on the PDF file and scroll to p. 38. And, of course, there are various postings on the subject from the spring of 2019 on this blog (scroll down to "Older Posts," select 2019 and go from there). 

"We're not in Cairo anymore"

We just passed the 10-year anniversary of Omar Sharif Jr.'s coming out in the pages of The Advocate, back on March 16, 2012. As we prepare to discuss his memoir this Wednesday, I thought it would be useful for us all to read (or refresh our memory of) that bombshell declaration. And no, my decision was not influenced in any way by the illustration the magazine used with the article! 😎