Pulitzer Prize winner Ned Rorem has composed 3 symphonies, 4 piano concertos, 10 operas, choral works, ballets & other music for the theater, & hundreds of songs & cycles. He is the author of 16 books, including five volumes of diaries & collections of lectures & criticism. I have all of his books of diaries & letters & they were among the 1st that I read by & about an unabashed & open gay man. In 1969 he published his Paris Diary, which, with his later diaries, has brought him notoriety for being honest about his sexual relationships with Leonard Bernstein, Noel Coward, Samuel Barber & Virgil Thomson, & outing at least a few people along the way. Rorem's regular columns for Christopher Street magazine in the late 1970s & early 1980s were a regular read for me at a time that I was trying to figure out how gay fit into the world. He writes like you would think a composer would write prose: witty, often surprisingly deep, & occasionally profound, delivered in an unselfconscious but wonderfully literate style.
Running With Scissors & Dry are 2 of my favorite books from the 1st decade of the new century. I noticed Augusten Burroughs walking with a locally well known author, who is not very nice, at least not nice to me when I have run into him. It was lovely to say- “Hello, Augusten, welcome to Portland. I have all of your books, most of them in 1st editions & they are favorites of my Husband & me. Thanks, I love your writing!” I turned to the local writer & said- “& you…not so much”.
Burroughs dropped out of school after sixth grade, & obtained a GED at age 17. He worked his way up to a high paying job in the world of advertising before leaving the field to become a writer. His written work blends the fantastic & the mundane, & is delivered in a matter-of-fact style. The 2 memoirs were followed by two collections of essays, Magical Thinking & Possible Side Effects. His first book, the novel- Sellevision, is currently in production as a feature film by Bryan Singer. Burroughs lives in New York City & Amherst, Massachusetts with his partner, Dennis Pilsits, & their French bulldogs, Bentley & The Cow.
B.D. Wong won all 5 major Theatre Awards for his role in M. Butterfly in 1988, but he was passed over by director David Cronenberg for the film version in 1993. I have admired his work on Oz & Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He appeared in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, as Howard Weinstein, a flamboyant assistant to Martin Short's equally flamboyant character, Franck.
No comments:
Post a Comment