Upcoming projects with SMYRC

Well folks, the podcast has taken on a life of it's own. Sometimes work schedules and life prevent me from updating this blog more regularly. In 2009, the youth will be more involved in the content of both the blog and the podcast, so stay tuned, and if you know folks who would enjoy listening to the podcast refer them to the website:

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&id=21440

You can also find us in iTunes!!! Just go to the iTunes store section and search for "smyrc" and the podcast will show up. It's that easy! Thank you for listening. Happy holiday season to all, and a prosperous 2009.

Enrique

Is 'Lord of the Rings' Gay?!?

TODAY'S GAY WISDOM

Gandalf the Gay

by Josh Adler

My 16 year-old brother Chad is a "Lord of the Rings" junkie, and during my most recent visit home to Virginia, he insisted on screening the trilogy's first two extended DVDs before venturing to the multiplex to see the final installation of the Oscar-winning epic. There is an inherent heterosexual maleness that dominates the landscape of Peter Jackson's faithful adaptation, and cults of ardent straight boys not only flock to the theater for multiple viewings but desperately try to convert their Gay brothers into similarly zealous devotees. It's hard for me to tell Chad that I'd much rather see Robert Altman's new film about Joffrey ballerinas than sit through another four hours of warfare on Middle Earth, so with feigned enthusiasm I agreed to oblige him for this brother-bonding experience.

The Good Wizard Gandalf appeared onscreen early into "The Return of the King," and Chad did something that startled me. In the crowded theater, he leaned over our enormous tub of popcorn and whispered into my ear, "Is Ian McKellan really Gay?"

Let me preface my response with a little history. I came out to Chad last summer, shortly after his sixteenth birthday. Not only did he tell me that he disagreed with my lifestyle, but he said, "I really wish that you never told me this. Honestly, I'd rather not know."

His reaction was hurtful and condemning, but as his older brother I tried to see beyond his words and examine the situation from his perspective. Just as accepting one's sexuality is a unique process for gay men, a straight teenager coming to terms with a Gay sibling or loved one is equally challenging. Less than six months later, Chad felt comfortable asking me openly about Ian McKellan's sexual preference; I took this as a positive sign that he is growing into his acceptance and understanding.

"Yeah," I whispered back, a bit surprised that we were having a discussion about Gay celebrities in the Hampton AMC 24. "Actually, he is one of the few out-Gay actors in Hollywood."

"Wow," Chad replied, nodding his head and sitting back in his seat to watch Gandalf the Gay gallop on a white horse on his quest to defeat the forces of darkness and save the human race from oppression and fear.

Like the benign Hobbits of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy, Chad reveres the Good Wizard Gandalf in the same way that a Catholic respects his parish priest, a Boy Scout looks up to his Scoutmaster or an American patriot admires his President. Gandalf is an Elder, a wise man who possesses both worldly and spiritual leadership qualities and assumes a position of greatness in the eyes of the younger and less experienced community. Even before Jackson decided to make his film, the character of Gandalf has been deified by legions of Tolkien readers who see him as a God-like elder capable of transforming the world into a better place.

Similarly, the actor playing Gandalf is a kind of Elder for me and many other Gay men, actors and non-actors, who see his willingness to play heroic roles in mainstream films as something of great value to our community. We all know that there are probably other Hollywood action heroes who remain closeted in order to appease the dominant heterosexual paradigm. Sir Ian owns his homosexuality on the "Fellowship of the Rings" DVD documentary, and he feels free to kiss his partner openly in front of TV cameras at prestigious award ceremonies. He doesn't pretend to be something he's not simply to get cast in macho roles or receive huge contracts.

Not only is Sir Ian one of the few Gay men in Hollywood to embrace his homosexuality, but this 64 year-old Elder is also an activist in the gay community in the United Kingdom. He is a founder and active member of the Stonewall Group U.K., an organization that works to further legal rights for lesbians and gays in England. In 1988 he came out publicly on the BBC Radio 4 program by denouncing Margaret Thatcher's "Section 28" proposal which aimed to criminalize the "public promotion of homosexuality. " Since then, his activist stance on political issues has empowered the Gay community in the U.K. and abroad.

An Elder sets positive examples for the younger generation and instills a sense of optimism and forward thinking in peoples' lives. Sir Ian, knighted by the Queen in 1990, appears in both mainstream movies ("X-Men" and "X2" and the "Rings" trilogy) as well as many independent art-house films, many of which have gay themes ("Gods and Monsters" and "Bent"). He has also appeared in a music video for the Pet Shop Boys. His career has taken off since his coming out in the late 80s, and he jokingly mentions wanting to go back in the closet so he can live a simple and quiet life again. "I am going back in the closet. But I can't get back into the closet, because it's absolutely jam-packed full of other actors."

In addition to his activism, Sir Ian possesses a kind of passion for life and a positive outlook on the world around him. This is evident in the journals that he kept during the entire filming process of "Lord of the Rings." He has aptly titled his journals "The Grey Book" and "The White Book" after Gandalf's transformation in the trilogy, and they can be accessed online at www.mckellan. com. Many entries talk about his joyful attachment to the project and his admiration for Peter Jackson and the unique vision he brought to the film. Sir Ian's journals also contain photographs of him enjoying the natural beauty of New Zealand and communing with his cast mates. In one entry he talks about "finding Gandalf in himself" and in another he refers to the "Gandalf twinkle," the magic spark that makes this mystical leader so adored by the Hobbits.

Ian McKellan is a Gay Elder not only because of his leadership and activism, but because he continues to project a sense of confidence and awareness despite elements of homophobia and hatred directed toward him. Many "Lord of the Rings" chat rooms on the Internet include anti-gay postings by fans of the film who somehow can't fathom a Gay Gandalf. In fact, a Google search of "Gay Gandalf" yields over 30,000 sites, many of which include disparaging remarks about McKellan's sexuality. McKellan has not tried to hide from this bigotry by ignoring his Gay identity; rather, he has remained publicly proud and assured in the face of discrimination.

The gorgeous conclusion to "The Return of the King" makes the entire trilogy worthwhile. Frodo destroys the Ring, the fighting ends and the Hobbits return peacefully to their bucolic home where they are warmly embraced by their community. The film also becomes extremely Gay, in that it is unafraid to show men kissing, embracing, crying and carrying each other, literally on their backs. When tears started to run down my cheeks, my brother Chad gave me a little nudge.

"Stop crying, Josh," he said, embarrassed that his queer brother was daring to exhibit emotion in public. I nudged him back, lovingly.

"There's nothing wrong with tears," I said to him, blurry-eyed. He nodded, the same nod he gave me three hours prior when he accepted Gandalf's sexuality. These are baby steps, but my brother is slowly growing into an understanding of the Gay Soul. I look forward to the day that he'll revere me as an Elder, an older presence who offers him a new perspective on the world.

Josh Adler is a writer and director who lives in Manhattan. He is currently working on his Master's in Educational Theatre at New York University.

Learning Gay History.

I signed up for emails from this website. I invite you to learn more about queer history and learn that we have existed (both in good and bad ways) over time.



GAY WISDOM for Daily Living... from White Crane a magazine exploring Gay wisdom & culture http://www.Gaywisdo m.org

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

September 29

2006 – Yet another closeted and hypocritical Republican US Representative, Mark Foley resigns after sending inappropriate emails to male house pages. When O when will they ever learn?

1967 – CARSON MCCULLERS, American author died (b. 1917) an American writer. She wrote fiction that explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South. In 1935 she moved to North Carolina, and in 1937 she married a soldier and struggling writer, Reeves McCullers (both were bisexual). There she wrote her first novel The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, in the Southern Gothic tradition. The title, suggested by McCullers's editor, was taken from Fiona MacLeod's poem 'The Lonely Hunter'. The novel itself was interpreted as an anti-fascist book. Altogether she published only eight books. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), written at the age of 23, and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), are the most well-known. The novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1951) also depicts loneliness and the pain of unrequited love. She was an alumna of Yaddo in Saratoga, New York.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was filmed in 1958 with Alan Arkin in the lead role. Reflections in a Golden Eye was directed by John Huston (1967), starring Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. "I first met Carson McCullers during the war when I was visiting Paulette Goddard and Burgess Meredith in upstate New York," said Huston in An Open Book (1980). "Carson lived nearby, and one day when Buzz and I were out for a walk she hailed us from her doorway. She was then in her early twenties, and had already suffered the first of a series of strokes. I remember her as a fragile thing with great shining eyes, and a tremor in her hand as she placed it in mine. It wasn't palsy, rather a quiver of animal timidity. But there was nothing timid or frail about the manner in which Carson McCullers faced life. And as her afflictions multiplied, she only grew stronger."

McCullers's marriage was unsuccessful, with both parties having homosexual relationships; McCullers and Reeves separated in 1940 and divorced in 1941. After she separated from Reeves, she moved to New York to live with George Davis, the editor of Harper's Bazaar. In Brooklyn, McCullers became a member of the art commune February House. Among their friends were W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, and Paul and Jane Bowles. After WWII, McCullers lived mostly in Paris. Her close friends during these years included Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams.

In 1945, McCullers and Reeves remarried. Three years later, she attempted suicide while depressed. In 1953, Reeves tried to convince McCullers to commit suicide with him, but she fled. After McCullers left him, Reeves killed himself in their Paris hotel with an overdose of sleeping pills. McCullers's bittersweet play, The Square Root of Wonder (1957), was an attempt to examine these traumatic experiences. The Member of the Wedding (1946) describes the feelings of a young girl at her brother's wedding. The Broadway production of the novel had a successful run in 1950–51 and was produced by the Young Vic in London in September 2007.

McCullers suffered throughout her life from several illnesses and from alcoholism — she had contracted rheumatic fever at the age of 15 and suffered from strokes since her youth. By the age of 31, her left side was entirely paralyzed. She died in Nyack, NY, on September 29, 1967, after a stroke and a resultant brain hemorrhage. McCullers dictated her unfinished autobiography, Illumination and Night Glare (1999), during her final months.

1973 — W.H. AUDEN, English poet (b. 1907) Anglo-American poet, regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His work is noted for its stylistic and technical achievements, its engagement with moral and political issues, and its variety of tone, form, and content. The central themes of his poetry are: personal love, politics and citizenship, religion and morals, and the relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous, impersonal world of nature.

He was also a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential. After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") and "September 1, 1939", became widely known through films, broadcasts, and popular media.

Auden's first school was St. Edmund's School, Surrey, where he met future novelist, Christopher Isherwood. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk, where, in 1922, his friend Robert Medley first suggested that he might write poetry. In the same year he "discover[ed] that he has lost his faith" (through a gradual realization that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). His first poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923.

On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930 his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T.S. Eliot for Faber and Faber; the firm also published all his later books. In 1930 he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy, in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the The Downs School, near Malvern, Worcestershire, where he was a much-loved teacher. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape," when, while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940.

During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealized "Alter Ego" rather than on individual persons. His relations (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relations with what he regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939 (see below), based on the unique individuality of both partners.

Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many there as a betrayal and Auden's reputation suffered. In April 1939 Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met an eighteen-year old poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey). He and Kallman remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman.

In 1940-41, Auden lived in a house in Brooklyn Heights that he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, and which became a famous center of artistic life. In 1940, he joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at 13. His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams, whom he had met in 1937, partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life.

His theology in his later years evolved from a highly inward and psychologically oriented Protestantism in the early 1940s to a more Roman Catholic-oriented interest in the significance of the body and in collective ritual in the later 1940s and 1950s, and finally to the theology of Dietrick Bonhoeffer which rejected "childish" conceptions of God for an adult religion that focused on the significance of human suffering. In 1972, he moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, but he continued to summer in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973 and was buried in Kirchstetten.

This Day in Gay History.

September 26

1888 T.S. ELIOT, poet, dramatist and literary critic, born in St. Louis MO (d: 1965) He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. He wrote the poems "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", The Waste Land, "The Hollow Men", "Ash Wednesday", and Four Quartets; the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party; and the essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent". Eliot was born an American, moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at the age of 25), and became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39. When he was living in Paris before WWI, he met a French medical student named Jean Verdenal in the Luxembourg Gardens. Werdenal was waving a branch of lilac at the time. Verdenal died in the Dardanelles in 1915. Eliot dedicated Prufrock to him, adding a epigraph from Dante's Purgatory: "Now can you understand the quantity of love that warms me to you, so that I forget out vanity, and treat the shadows like the real thing."

This is all we know about his friendship with the young medical student, and all we are likely to know. Other considerations: Eliot had a horror of the female body, he feared it, and thought it "smelled." He had an abhorrence of sex in general, though as a boy, he masturbated guiltily and wrote a magnificently sensuous poem about it…an excerpt here:

Then he knew that he had been a fish
With slippery white belly held tight in his own fingers
Writhing in his own clutch, his ancient beauty
Caught fast in the pink rips of his new beauty.

Eliot obsessed with the thought that every man wanted to kill a woman, and without irony, extended his fantasy to all men. His first marriage was miserable in that his wife laughed in his face at the very idea of sleeping with him. These are the general facts, and various interpretations are offered by various biographers. Thus far, interpretations have run in two obvious directions. Of course he was completely asexual. Of course he was a latent homosexual. Either seems unfair in some way; he was simply T.S. Eliot. Perhaps the first queer?

1987 – EMLYN WILLIAMS, Welsh actor died (b. 1905) In 1927, he joined a repertory company and began his stage career. By 1930, he had branched out into writing, and his first major success was with the thriller Night Must Fall (1935), which was made into a film in 1937 and again in 1964. His other great play was very different: The Corn is Green (1938), partly based on his own childhood, and also later filmed. In addition to stage plays, Williams wrote a number of film screenplays, working with Alfred Hitchcock and other directors.

He acted in and contributed dialogue to various films based on the novels of A.J. Cronin, including The Citadel (1938), The Stars Look Down (1940), Hatter's Castle (1942), and Web of Evidence (1959). In 1941 Williams starred in the film You Will Remember, directed by Jack Raymond and written by Sewell Stokes and Lydia Hayward. The film is based on the life of the popular late Victorian songwriter Leslie Stuart, played here by Robert Morley, with Williams as Stuart's best friend.

He often appeared in his own plays, and was justly famous for his one-man-show, with which he toured the world, playing Charles Dickens in an evening of readings from Dickens' novels. On a personal note, this writer had the privilege of dining with Williams on a number of occasions in Los Angeles, through the friendship he maintained with one of my personal mentors, the late, beloved Alan Hodshire. It was at one such dinner with Mr. Williams that I learned the culinary delight of fresh cracked pepper on good vanilla ice cream. Try it.

His autobiography, in the volumes George (1961) and Emlyn (1973), was also highly successful. In it, he wrote frankly of his sexuality, though, as many Gay men of his generation did, he had married in 1935 and had a son; his wife died in 1970.

Quote of the day.

Act as if what you do makes a difference.-- William James

Comments from the publisher of White Crane

I just wanted to share with you all an email that Bo Young, the publisher of White Crane Magazine, sent to me in response to feedback of the podcast. I felt that this email is worth posting for it's powerful content, and for the questions it inspires. I hope you all feel the same.


"Greetings Enrique,

Thanks for writing. What a wonderful project. I'll give the interview a listen when I have some time. But I do have some reactions and since you've been generous enough to ask, I'm happy to give you my impressions. First, I love that you are simply organizing at all. One of the most important things we can do is to realize that we are part of a community of Gay people, and in the context of that community, there is a history. The most valuable thing stolen from any people is their history. If you take someone's history away from them, you can tell them any story at all and they are at your mercy. With that in mind, I think it's critical that young Gay people become aware of the rich history of same-sex loving people. Most are aware of the Greek model, but there are so many different same-sex love stories across time and cultures that it could (and in my case has) take a lifetime to study and understand them all. What comes out of that is an appreciation of the fact that Gay people aren't merely a "sexual minority" but a valuable and uniquely contributing part of functioning culture and healthy community. That's a whole new ballgame when we begin to consider that Gay people actually have as valuable a role to play in society as procreating heterosexuals. These roles are also known as "archetypes." Some of those archetypes include: "the mediator," "the culture-carrier," "the priest/priestess," "the teacher," "the wounded healer," "the contrary," "the clown/jester," just to name a few. When our eyes are opened to these archetypes it's like becoming able to read hieroglyphics or a foreign language, as the patterns become visible. It is nothing less than empowering to understand that each of us has a role to play in society. It is nothing less than deranging for that to be denied us. It is another fact that "history" is the story of the world told from the vantage point of the winners. The loser usually gets written out. We are about reclaiming our history so that Gay people, and society as a whole, can have a richer and more fulfilling future. I would personally also argue that there is an evolutionary role for Gay people/same-sex loving people. Nothing persists in Nature over time and across cultures that doesn't contribute in some manner to the survival of the species. I suspect that some of those archetypes above have some bearing on that, too. I do have one quibble with the project: I would think about a more positive name for your group. Self-labeling as a "sexual minority," to my ear, misses the point. It presumes that all this is about is sex, and clearly it isn't. And it presumes that even if it is all about sex, that there is one main way that constitutes a "majority" and anyone who has studied sexuality will tell you, that is hardly the case. There are as many sexualities as there are people. So "sexual minority" seems to me to be self-limiting. Language, like history, is powerful. Words have resonance in our psyche and our spirits and we need to choose them wisely. I am as tired as the next person of the alphabet soup of the "G-L-B-T-Q-TS-I" community, and wish we could come up with a deeper connection in the language for who we are. "Queer" resonates for me, as it seems to contain the idea of being "contrary"...but for some people that is the Gay equivalent of the "N" word. In any event, there must be another word out there and there has to be a better name for your group. Finally, on a personal note, I would add that not everyone of my generation was "wiped off the face of the earth" with the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Some of us managed to survive. Learning to approach elders in respectful ways and valuing them beyond the immediate and fleeting measure of sexual attraction seems to me to be an acknowledgement that we're talking about, well, something more than who has sex with whom. Old Man Harry Hay (I hope your group knows that name!?) suggested that the bedroom is the only place Gay people are like straight people (to put it in a over-simplified, binary form for a moment) and that it's everywhere else we are different. I suggest it's our task to figure out what those differences are, and learn to cherish them. And offering elders a real place in a young person's life is a gift most older Gay people would be honored to receive, and it would serve as a challenge to be met, too. I know it's why Dan and I do White Crane...for the next generation. Please do stay in touch. Perhaps you might consider writing about how your group functions as a "sanctuary" for GLBTQ youth in your community for our winter issue, which is all about "Sanctuary"?

Cordially,

Bo YoungPublisher/Editorial Director
White Crane Journal
www.gaywisdom.org
White Crane Institute
172 Fifth Avenue, Suite 69Brooklyn,
NY 11217

White Crane Institute is a 501(c)(3) education corporation.Your contributions and support are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law. Please consider White Crane for your charitable giving...for the next generation of Gay people.

For 19 Years - The Journal of Gay Wisdom & Culture. An UTNE Independent Press Award Nominee"a literate, intelligent and, at the same time, provocative and groundbreaking-scholarly quarterly of Gay culture."- Lambda Book Report"

Not your Daddy's Cartoons anymore.

SMYRC youth Aileta guides us through the world of queer Anime! When you get a youth to talk about what they are passionate about their personality comes through. Aileta is no exception, and the cartoons she talks about are not your daddy's mickey mouse cartoons. So get your movie rental ques in order and make space for gay, queer, lesbian and transgender Anime!
Listen to this episode and be enlightened and entertained.

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&id=21440