The Eva Palmer audiobook will soon come out from Princeton Audio. Now I’m turning to the LGBTQ+ “Midnight in Paris,” a comedy of manners set on Left Bank in 1926. Totally obsessed with audiobooks that take you there.
Poet Renée Vivien, wild child of the Belle Epoque, turns 143 in time for Pride Month. In homage: a new cocktail club to get you through the empty-handed hour.
May 1, 2020 The Heroic Feminine and other characters from “A Night at the Amazon’s” Romaine Brooks Turns 146 Romaine Brooks was a voracious reader. One hundred years ago today in 1920, when she would have been waiting impatiently for Natalie Barney to turn up with birthday cake so they could celibrate, I
April 23, 2020 Her Second Pandemic The Red DUchess COMES OUT AGAIN at 145 Elizabeth de Gramont turns 145 today, a bit late for her second pandemic but just in time for the e-launch of No Modernism Without Lesbians by Diana Souhami. This book brings us closer to a few women we almost
“what a dump” More conversation with Cassandra Langer Born today in 1874, painter Romaine Brooks celebrated her birthday every year with writer Natalie Barney, her partner for life after they met in 1916. In search of evidence of their secret adventures, my traveling companion is Brooks biographer, Dr. Cassandra Langer. Cassandra Langer: In 1929, Natalie
It’s All Hallows Eve around the world, and in Paris the graveyards must be buzzing with activity among members of the Scorpions Club, founded by Franco-American author and saloniste Natalie Clifford Barney, born this day in 1876, to honor a group of intimates who all shared her birthday. Every year she threw a party in
(c) Eliza Jackson
If you find yourself stuck on an SNCF railway platform, a new book about Natalie Barney and her circle will take you back to a more civilized era when appointments could actually be kept: We Met in Paris: Grace Frick and her Life with Marguerite Yourcenar
Renee vivien turns 139 June 11 is the birthday of France’s best dressed Symbolist poet, Renée Vivien. Never mind that she was Anglo-American. Never mind that her real name was Pauline Tarn. She was all the rage on both sides of the Atlantic. Her fictions of Sappho fired up le tout Paris where she settled
“We got stuck with the Puritans.”Dan Savage published The Kid in 1999, when I was trying to conceive Wee Sprite. His page-turning memoir tells “What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant.” I was listening to my local NPR affiliate, WAMU, driving to the doctor’s office the day Kojo Nnamdi hosted Dan on his book tour. I got pregnant, devoured the memoir and have looked forward to this chat with my favorite sex guru ever since. This interview with Dan Savage was published January 1, 2016 in The Gay & Lesbian Review edited by Richard Schneider. The issue explores “the future of gay” and also contains a review of the book I edited, Romaine Brooks: A Life by Cassandra Langer.
DAN SAVAGE has been a fixture of LGBT culture and politics for over two decades—as journalist, author, media pundit, and founder of the sex advice column “Savage Love,” which is syndicated in several dozen U.S. newspapers. His media work includes recurring appearances on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, and various gigs on MSNBC, among many others.
Savage’s most recent project to gain worldwide renown was the “It Gets Better” campaign, which targets LGBT youths who face bullying or isolation and may be at risk of suicide. The campaign generated a vast number of videos affirming gay lives, many from celebrities and many more that went viral. His more recent books include The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family (2005) and a collection of essays titled American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Flights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics (2014).
Something readers may not know is that Savage was part of a satirical theater group in Seattle starting in the ’90s. His interest in guerilla theater has made several appearances since, notably: his contest to redefine the word “santorum” in a way befitting the “man on dog” former senator; closely covering the Bruce Bauer campaign and even trying to give the candidate the flu; and his annual Hump Pornography festival, which features short video clips from
contestants.
Born and raised in Chicago, now a resident of Seattle, Savage married his partner Terry Miller in Canada in 2005 and in Washington in 2012, one of the first gay couples to do so in that state. He and Miller have an adopted son named D.J., who’s the title character in Savage’s 2000 memoir The Kid.
This interview was conducted by telephone in early November.
Mother of all Tomboys artist Christina Schlesinger on Romaine Brooks October 2 is D-day for Cassandra Langer’s new biography of Romaine Brooks (you can buy it here), for which I furnished translations. Readers will soon take a fresh look at the Thief of Souls. Christina Schlesinger started incorporating Brooks into her self portraits in the
