Theater, Movies, Art and Literature

Recently I read Bangkok 8, a novel by John Burdett. It was the third time I have read the novel and I liked it just as much as on the first or second read. It gives a view of Bangkok and nightlife that intrigues me. Yesterday I read The Last Six Million Seconds, also by Burdett. This one is about the weeks leading up to the transfer of Hong Kong to China. It's a fascinating novel, full of corruption and intrigue. Both novels came out a long time ago. I submit that they remain timely. Current Chinese corruption is explained a lot in this book.

From Vietnam Express In Japan, "Thua Me Con Di" is currently available on over eight video on demand platforms, including Rakuten TV, Fuji TV On Demand, VideoMarket, Paravi, HikariTV, Crank-In! Video, U-Next, and GYAO. It was released in Vietnam in August 2019, and chosen for "A Window on Asian Cinema", a category for the latest and most talked about films by directors in Asia at the 2019 Busan International Film Festival in South Korea. The directional debut of Trinh Dinh Le Minh, the movie depicts the drama of Van and his boyfriend Ian, who’ve just returned to Vietnam from the U.S. The couple is initially unable to come out about their relationship becaus…

From Thai Enquirer What does it mean for us to excavate, understand, and retell the past? At what point do narratives become fiction, and how do we retell history? What does it mean for us to take on that role of a storyteller? Emma Larkin (pseudonym), award-winning author of several non-fiction books on Burma, tackles these issues in the process of making her fictional debut, “Comrade Aeon’s Field Guide to Bangkok.” Divulging on her writing, her career, and what it means to articulate a city as vast and immeasurable – and with as complicated a past – as Bangkok, Larkin explores different modes of memory and how we write history. Writing non-fic…

I love me some Lil Nas X!

This show by HBO and staring Kate Winslet is excellent.

It's not exactly surprising that 2034: a Novel of the Next World War (E. Ackerman and Adm.J. Stavridis, Penquin Press, 2021) begins in the South China Sea and ends there. What occurs in between takes the reader on a journey that is its own reward. If you're looking for a beach read or just something to take your mind off the fact Bangkok isn't ready for prime time yet, this won't disappoint. Spoiler alert: it doesn't end like you--well me, anyway--thought it would. Review from the Los Angeles Times: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-03-04/admiral-james-stavridis-and-elliot-ackerman-team-up-to-write-global-thriller-2034

In light of all the recent attention with the rulings and with the IRS, I was thinking back to some of my first gay themed books. One of them, Maurice, was just divine to read. I read it when I was a wee lad (Gay section of a book store) and then again in college. I actually did a research paper on the book comparing it to Lady Chatterly's Lover. I called it Love in the Time of Ruins. LOL I got an A on the paper and then sold it to one of those online research paper places. I think I got 50 USD for it! I thought I was rich! I have such fond memories of the book and I hope that a new generation falls in love with it.

I just started watching this. I hated the first scene but I kept watching. I'm really glad I did. The show has some great characters and scenes.

The new Ryan Murphy thing on Netflix. Ewen McGregor is excellent and so is that girl from Gossip Girl as Liza Minelli. Check it out!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Kingdom_(TV_series) It's about a crime family. Nice looking guys. There is a same-sex male couple.

It's a really good scary movie. And it only has one actress. It shows what you can do with good edits to make a film terrifying even though there is no "bad guy" to speak of. Just a woman trapped alone and how she deals with it. It's fascinating. Directed by the guy who made Crawl a couple years ago.

Now what has one of the most popular disco numbers of the 1980s to do with Gay Icons? I wonder how many are aware that this song comes from a Broadway musical? "Chess", written by the chess-loving Tim Rice who in the 1970s had made himself a nice fortune as the lyricist for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Evita" and then later for Disney with lyrics for Elton John’s “The Lion King”, opened in London in 1984. To write the music, Rice commuted to Sweden to discuss the idea with the ABBA boys, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. They liked the idea. In the view of many, including me, the resultant music remains one of the greatest Broadway scores of all ti…

To be openly gay in the latter days of the Russian Empire was extremely risky. Its most celebrated composer Tchaikovsky, especially famous for his music to the ballets “Swan Lake”, “The Nutcracker” and “Sleeping Beauty”, had agonized whilst keeping his homosexuality private. His death in 1893 was officially due to cholera. Some researchers now believe he was forced to commit suicide after a threat of being ‘outed’ by a group of princeling students. He was just 53. One Russian had few concerns about keeping his gay life private. An avowed homosexual, he was destined to change forever the way the world looked at art and the performing arts. Born in 1872, Serge Diaghil…

One of my favorite stories as a child. I can't wait to see the movie.

When police finally broke into the tiny, dirty bedsit apartment in North London, even the most hardened were nauseated by what they witnessed. Blood was everywhere. Lying on the bed was the body of the younger of the two men, his head cratered as a result of nine fierce blows from the hammer that lay on his chest. The bloodied naked corpse of the older man lay prostrate on the floor, dead from a massive overdose of barbiturates. The plot that soon unravelled is the stuff of murder mysteries. One of the two deceased was indeed a writer and a highly successful one at that. But mystery novels were far from his genre. Outrageously gay and totally promiscuous at a time w…

From Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) Jeremy Atherton Lin's book takes a personal look into the history of an increasingly uncertain institution Before the pandemic, the last time I went this long without going to a gay bar was before I was legal drinking age. And I know I'm not alone. For many of us living in places where we've been privileged enough to have gay bars be an integral — if complicated — part of our culture since we were brave enough or old enough to get in, the past year and counting has been a big departure from a routine in our social lives. But for a lot of us, I suspect it's also left us wondering: what role did gay bars really play in our liv…

Today the gay community in much of the world has gained a freedom unthought of even half a century ago. Along with this liberation has come an understanding that gay icons are important, especially for younger gay boys and girls. Chatting with friends over dinner recently, the conversation drifted into two rather interesting directions. Who were the first gay icons, and why are there none in Asia? As for the first gay icon, was it perhaps Alexander the Great? Deeply in love with his childhood friend Hephaestion, the Greek philosopher Aristotle described them as “one soul abiding in two bodies.” But the best known of the ancient figures to attract iconic status is sur…

He was a writer, a playright, an aesthete, bon vivant, dandy and absolute master of the pithy epigram. The title of this article is one. Even better known is, "I can resist everything except temptation!" He was also gay - although not initially so. For a time, he was the toast of London and its high society matrons and their rich friends. Eventually leaders of that society were to turn on him with a viciousness more suited to a violent criminal. He was disgraced, tried in a court of law, found guilty, imprisoned and died in exile. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde came into this world in Dublin in October 1854. After a stellar success at the universities in Dublin…

Is he perhaps the youngest of all gay icons? Even today we don't really know if the moody, rebellious actor with whom so many disaffected, misunderstood, sexually confused teenagers around the world of the 1950s identified so closely was really gay. He could have been bisexual, or even - horror of horrors! - straight. Yet James Dean is now regarded as one of the great gay icons of all time. In his first two films, "East of Eden" and "Rebel Without A Cause", the angst-ridden, complex, outcast misfits he played sprang out from the screen and gripped audiences in a way no other young actor had achieved. During his short career, Dean's name was linked to a number of actr…

Half a dozen years ago, I wrote a series of articles for an Australian gay blogsite featuring icons from gay history. Although they were all a great deal longer than the average post here, I thought it might be interesting in these times of enforced stay at home when we have lots of time to read to repeat some of them here. This morning I was flipping through youtube when I came across a 1970 Dick Cavett show with Noel Coward and his long-time best friends, the actors Lynne Fontaine and her husband Alfred Lunt. Although the programme takes a little time to warm up and Cavett appears overly in awe of Coward, it is a highly amusing episode with Coward showing his usua…

"Good authors too who once knew better words Now only use four-letter words Writing prose. Anything goes." These lyrics from the opening of Cole Porter's gorgeous 1934 musical "Anything Goes" could well have been written with the writer and novelist Christopher Isherwood in mind. Although Porter and Isherwood may never have met, both were gay. While Porter married in part to mask his sexuality (the fact that his wife was rich no doubt also helped!) the English-born Isherwood was one of the 20th century's most openly gay men. Exposed to homosexuality at his boarding school in England, he had already met and become best friends with another famously gay …

The Oscars will be on television this weekend - and few of my friends even know about it. No doubt the lack of new movies and the closure of movie theatres during the pandemic have much to do with it. But viewership of the Oscars ceremony in the USA has been in a steep decline for years. From 45 million in 2014 to a paltry 24 million last year. I don't know the worldwide figures, but China and Hong Kong have banned the telecast this year, due to the nomination of a short documentary on the Hong Kong protests in 2019. Over the years I have watched various attempts to spice up the ceremony. None worked for me - apart from one brief moment when Ellen took a selfie with …

Is currently the best show on Netflix and has some of the hottest, most explicit gay sex I've seen on TV in a while.

Little here about art. So hopefully this might start the ball rolling. Whenever I travel I try to take in an art exhibition or visit a gallery. Occasionally I will see work of art which stuns me. Caravaggio is a favourite painter of many gay guys. In Bangkok a year or so ago there was a wonderful exhibition of digital reproductions. Not like seeing the originals but they looked wonderful. I remember about 3 decades ago a friend took me to the rather dingy interior of the French Church in Rome not far from the Piazza Navona. There was a side chapel near the altar. When you put some Lire into an electricity box, the chapel lit up and there before us were three large s…

I just watched the end of Shameless. It was a good show, a bit slow at the beginning, but the ending was really good. It was nice to see some of the characters moving on and the death of Frank was interesting. I liked the way he went up to Heaven. LOL I have enjoyed all 11 seasons of this show. I really wish it would have continued. It was great to see all the Gallager kids grow up. Some cool flashbacks on this last episode reminded me how young they were 11 seasons ago. Goodbye Shameless!