Monthly Archives: August 2012

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Girl/Girl Scene: Because People Love Lesbians by

girlgirlscenefeaturedimg1

Tucky Williams is a woman who wears many hats.

A former indie movie horror queen and meteorologist, she is now the head writer, producer, and lead actress of one of the most popular lesbian web series today, Girl/Girl Scene. (Oh, and did I mention she’s a yoga instructor, too?) Now in its second season, Girl/Girl Scene follows the lives and loves of a group of young lesbians in Lexington, Kentucky. Williams plays the charismatic, confident, and promiscuous Evan – the central figure around which the show’s complicated network of hookups and relationships revolves.

Williams claims to have little in common with her wild character, but has revealed her own alluring charm and sense of humor during her time in the spotlight. Though the first episode was produced with literally no budget, it soon went viral, catching the attention of AfterEllen.comCurve, and other big names in the lesbian blogosphere – not to mention financial backers. I asked Williams what she thought might be the secret to the show’s straight shot to the top.

“It’s because people love lesbians,” she says matter-of-factly in our email interview. “If everyone put lesbians in their shows, they would all be successful.”

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Art & Autobiography

May the Changes Keep Coming: An Interview with Peter Quinn by

Daniel and Peter

Peter Quinn was a speechwriter at Time Warner and also wrote for New York Governors Carey and Cuomo. Quinn is  an Irish-American historian, an expert on all things New York and an accomplished novelist. He also happens to be my father.

He and my mother were both born and raised in The Bronx and our family has deep artistic, political and personal ties to this city. I asked my father some questions in order to more clearly understand his relationship to New York and the city’s continuing evolution.
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News & Updates

Tony Scott (1944-2012) by

Domino Harvey

Director Tony Scott’s shocking suicide (ABC News reports that Scott had inoperable brain cancer), is all the more sad as the past few years have been a critical renaissance for the director’s work. Since the triple-threat of Man on Fire (2004), Déjà vu (2006), and Unstoppable (2010), outlets like Mubi and Cinemascope featured passionate discussions of his films’ cinematography and editing that are both confidently tactile and frequently on the verge of abstraction.

Scott was no stranger to LGBT content, having directed Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve in a sexy and sapphic love scene in The Hunger (1983). The underappreciated Domino (2005), loosely inspired by the life of lesbian model turned bounty hunter Domino Harvey (played by Keira Knightley), may seem to whitewash the character’s sexuality, placing Edgar Ramirez as a love interest. But in the last scene, the “real” Harvey appears on screen. She’s made to look like a Butch caricature – shaved head, black suit, and earring. In other words, not Keira Knightley. It’s a clever, sweet way to end the film – and completely in line with what came before.The film mocks the notion that media can offer any kind of representation to those outside of a small socio-economic bracket (which the privileged Domino eventually spurns).

Some argue that The Hunger’s lesbian-vampire love is meant for heterosexual titillation consumption, but with Domino, Scott does right by his queer, punk-rock heroine.

Gay New YorkNews & Updates

Dear Biddy B by

JimBidgood

Biddy B – Mr. James Bidgood’s advice columnist friend is back this summer, to cool us down with her rapier wit and sagely advice. If you have questions for Biddy B, email jklorfein@gmail.com!

Dear Biddy B,

Grindr is a cell phone tool that tells you which gay men are in the neighborhood, and who might be interested in euphemistically “hanging out”. This is convenient and easy enough, though I’ve only hooked up with someone once. The problem is, the only way I know how to start a conversation is by opening with jokes. It’s hit or miss, but I’m wondering if you have any advice: when you want to fuck, are jokes oft-putting? Who has more power – the person who asks if you want to have sex – or the one who puns and waits for the other person to ask?

- David 

Dear David,

Well, Dahling, I think it worth noting that in my day one needed to unhook in order to hang out but time marches on or minces on, whichever pace and posture most suits you. The wants and ways of the world have changed and yet they are not all that different really. Grindr (rhymes with hinder finder if your lingo is not au current and you were struggling) is reminiscent of the accommodating Sunday New York Times Apartment To Share advertisements, a convenience used for much the same allying or amalgamating purposes back in the day. One phrased ones notice in a slightly veiled, somewhat camouflaged fashion— “Panoramic view —pretty poof in parlor” or “Musically inclined—pound pink triangle with steel rod.” I once came across, “Oubliette to share. Vaultish. Extensive silly cone toy collection. A cat, a comb, a large box.” I dialed several times however their line was always busy.

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Art & AutobiographyNews & Updates

Carlos by

Carlos consists of three vignettes, three windows into the life of a struggling art student.  I made the film as my final video project for a college class on narrative filmmaking. The film stars my best friend Carlos Diaz, and my grandmother, Margaret Kavoussi. Carlos is entirely autobiographical – I majored in Studio Art at a small, isolated liberal arts college.  I spent a great deal of time there frustrated, insecure, and alone, typically in my studio, and there were days when the only person I’d speak to would be via the phone or internet.  Carlos is my attempt to show the beauty of a nuanced “artist” life.

News & UpdatesTell Your Story

Hiding in Plain Sight by

tina turner robinson

During a trip home to my native Memphis a few years ago, I was introduced to the photography of Jack Robinson. A gay Southerner whose meteoric rise in the 1960s and 70s was followed by a quarter-century of near-total obscurity, Robinson’s story immediately intrigued me, as did his unlikely rediscovery. During the last 25 years of his life, Robinson worked as an artist in a stained-glass studio, living alone in a Midtown Memphis high-rise and battling depression. He never shared with his employer or neighbors his glamorous past as a photographer of some of the most celebrated personalities of the twentieth-century. It wasn’t until many days after his death in 1997 that his employer ventured into his apartment and discovered an actual treasure chest of Robinson’s images—thousands of them. His work is now archived in a downtown gallery that bears his name.

A native of Clarksdale, Mississippi, Robinson honed his camera skills in the early 1950s, documenting bohemian gay life in New Orleans’ French Quarter. A regular of Dixie’s Bar on Bourbon Street, a watering hole known for its literary clientele (Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal among them), Robinson documented the city’s gay cultural scene, and its involvement in Mardi Gras. His depictions of gay men in costume and in various states of drunken frivolity captured at the same time the joy and freedom that the French Quarter afforded as a reprieve from the repressive South.

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