"A Man Within"

Two local PBS stations will be broadcasting the latest episode of Independent Lens — "William S. Burroughs: A Man Within," tomorrow, Sunday, February 27: WETA at 2:00 am, and WMPT2 at 10:30 pm. We've read The Wild Boys, and Burroughs was a pal of Allen Ginsberg, whose "Howl" we are discussing this Tuesday.

Howl

There is an essay in the Canning book on page 183 "Howl and Other Poems." It might be of interest to read it before next week's meeting.

Streetcar Named Desire - the Film

I just finished watching for the second time the complete Streetcar film with Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando, and was tremendously moved by the film. Remembering some of the comments at our discussion two weeks ago, I know some thought that Brando was overemphasized in the film version, and it's true his performance is so mesmerizing you can't take your eyes off him -- or his body -- when he is performing. Leigh was deliberately dressed old fashioned and fussy and somehow it didn't add much to her character, and despite the occasional lapse into her Scarlet O'Hara voice, she delivered most of her lines in an affecting, scattered way that helped tremendously in making the last scene very moving. I now understand why this is one of the great roles for women and why Brando can be accused of skewing it. At the same time I don't believe he gave a better performance in any other film. But those who have never seen it, the wait is worth it.

By the way, the music didn't seem to jive with the music directions in the stage version.

Two Old-Time Brits

A couple of articles of interest to our members and available online: James Fenton in reviewing Christopher Isherwood's second volume of diaries in the TLS makes timely animadversions on the recent heteronormativity of "gay marriage"; and Joan Acocella surveys J.R. Ackerley's œuvre in a recent The New Yorker. To my surprise in checking our list (v.i.) I discover that we have read none of his work! My Father and Myself would be an obvious choice, though My Dog Tulip about his Alsatian bitch "Queenie" is incomparably droll and has much to recommend it.

Larboard Watch

Those of you who don't read music won't be able to thank me … and those who do, will probably not want to! Zheesh! I guess you had to be there. Cope is interesting in showing how much people a hundred years ago had to rely on home/self-entertainment. Illustrating that was the best part of the movie Bright Star where Keats got to sing clarinet in the Mozart Adagio.

Cope & Wojnarowicz

I picked up Bertram Cope's Year and couldn't put it down. What a delight! Kudos to Steve for such an excellent pairing with "Hide/Seek".

And speaking of which, a friend J.C. (not né Christ) has supplied me with a link to Wojnarowicz' banned-in-Smithsonian "A Fire in My Belly". Click "Vimeo" for a larger image. (This belongs as a comment to Terry's posting but I'm publishing it separately since it might get lost there.)

Hide/Seek

Club members will greatly enjoy the exhibition Hide/Seek at the National Portrait Gallery (until February 13, 2011). It includes portraits of several of the authors we’ve read over the years as well as paintings and painters well known to gay men. The theme of the exhibition is how people occupying the “position of influential marginality in modern society” (apparently this includes such painters as John Singer Sargent) “crafted innovative and revolutionary ways of painting portraits,” forming a “powerful artistic and cultural legacy that has been hidden in plain sight for more than a century.” This is from the Gallery’s brochure. Can’t say I got all that, or even any of it, from my first viewing, but I’m definitely going back for more and hope to learn. There was a review in the New York Times on Saturday, and Frank Rich took on the controversy the exhibition has spawned in today’s paper.