Anika Noni Rose
CeCe Peniston
Cisco Adler
Dolores O’Riordan
Elizabeth Vargas
Foxy Brown
Idris Elba
Jane Curtin
Jeff Foxworthy
Jo Ann Worley
Justin Whalin
Justina Machado
Kerry Katona
Macy Gray
Max George
Naomie Harris
Nina Persson
Pippa Middleton
Roger Waters
Rosie Perez
Swoosie Kurtz
The post September 6: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on World of Wonder.
August 6, 1860– Jane Addams, just in time for Labor Day:
“Unless our conception of patriotism is progressive, it cannot hope to embody the real affection and the real interest of the nation.”
When Jane Addams’ travels took her away from her special close companion, Mary Rozet Smith, she took along a painting of Smith, even though the portrait was kept in a rather bulky piece of luggage.
Addams was a brilliant & an unusually accomplished gay woman for her era. She graduated from Rockford Female Seminary in 1881. She founded Chicago‘s Hull House in 1898, along with Rockford classmate Ellen Gates Star. Hull House was an experimental model of reform to help provide for the neighborhood’s neediest residents. Hull House sought to reduce poverty by offering social services & education to the poor immigrants & laborers of working-class Chicago. They had day-care for children of working mothers, an art gallery, libraries, music & art classes, & an employment counseling. Hull House served over 2,000 residents every week & eventually included a book bindery, gymnasium, swimming pool, residence for working women, theater, labor museum, & a meeting place for trade unions.
Much of the early financial support came from Addams’ very intimate special friend, Smith, one of the richest women in the USA. Addams & Smith traveled together often. Addams would demand a hotel featuring a double bed, instead of a pair of singles. They also shared Smith’s summer home in Bar Harbor, Maine. They were a couple until Smith checked out for good in 1933.
As an educated woman with a free spirit, along with the free time to pursue her own interests, Addams decided to dedicate her life to providing for the welfare of women & children in Chicago, & in locking in legislation for their protection. Addams was also involved in other social issues. Her social reform efforts included: housing for the poor, sanitation issues, factory inspections, immigrant rights, pacifism, & the 8-hour workday.
Addams publicly supported the candidacy of attorney Pearl Hart, a champion of juvenile & women’s court cases. Hart would later become a well-known civil rights attorney in the McCarthy era & a staunch supporter of Gay Rights.
Addams was a pacifist before WW I. She spoke out against Republican President William McKinley‘s decision to go to war after the sinking of the battleship Maine. In 1899, Addams joined Mark Twain, Chicago attorney Clarence Darrow & the gay novelist Henry Blake Fuller in forming the Anti-Imperialist League to protest the war in Cuba & the Philippines. She viewed the USA’s involvement as a “murderous extension of American Capitalism”. One of those trouble making lesbians, Addams was attacked by right-wingers for her public opposition to the war & was expelled from the Daughters Of The American Revolution for her position.
She was a charter member of the National Consumers League, NAACP, American Civil Liberties Union.
Addams lived a life of commitment to making a difference in the lives of the disenfranchised. She received many honors during her lifetime, including the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize, the first American woman to receive the prize.
Addams left this world in 1935, just days after attending a celebratory dinner hosted by another woman who preferred to share her life with a special female companion, Eleanor Roosevelt.
Don’t you think the life of Jane Addams would make an especially fine film? I think it should be one of those terrific HBO event movies, maybe the team that brought us the powerful The Normal Heart (2014), or the sublime Angels In America. Or maybe, having Angelina Jolie-Pitt star as Addams, write & direct, getting the green-light for the project after she signs husband Brad to play Eleanor Roosevelt after I suddenly become unavailable for the role.
“The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.”
The post #BornThisDay: Social Reformer, Jane Addams appeared first on World of Wonder.
Yes, Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett will play comedy icon Lucille Ball in a biopic (hopefully) written by Aaron Sorkin. Ball’s marriage to Desi Arnaz, her husband, business partner and costar on I Love Lucy will be the film’s focus. After they split, Ball bought Arnaz’s share of Desilu Productions, which made her the first woman ever to run a major production company on her own. The couple’s children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr, will both serve as producers.
Sorkin, who has written biopics of both Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, was immediately the target of criticism over the project. He’s often been called out for not writing well-rounded female characters. Sorkin once said of Blanchett that she didn’t have as much “difficulty” winning her Oscar than the men who were nominated in that year. E! News reports that the studio wants him for the project, but he hasn’t written a word or officially signed on. Reps for either Blanchett and Sorkin haven not yet commented, but the project is major Oscar bait. She’s already been Katherine Hepburn as well as Bob Dylan, so, with the right makeup, Blanchett can play ANYONE.
The real Lucy & Desi
(via Town and Country)
The post #ILoveCate: Blanchett Will Play Ball in a Biopic About Lucy appeared first on World of Wonder.
Sarah Palin was featured on CNN’s State of the Union this morning and discussed Jeb Bush and using the English language in America.
“When you’re here, let’s speak American… I took Spanish in high school, I took French in high school. I got ’em all mixed up.”
She also discussed the prospect of being in a Donald Trump administration and what would happen if she were in the Department of Energy.
“If I were the head of that, I’d get rid of it.”
Lord help our poor country, if that ever happens. (Photo, Reuters; via Daily Beast)
The post #QuoteUnquote: Sarah Palin, “When You’re Here, Let’s Speak American…” appeared first on World of Wonder.
In honor of brother Barry Gibb‘s birthday today (sorry, Barry)… oh, I won’t try to explain who or what the hell this is. (It appears to be just one guy) but these are two of the funniest videos I’ve seen in a long time.
“Windy Ocean. Lettuce Pee.”
(I think a little pee just came out.) Watch.
The post #MisheardLyrics: The Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Rug?” & “Nice Beaver” Is TOO Funny appeared first on World of Wonder.
Can someone please get this editor a medal? This video will give you life. Watch it. And then watch it again.
The post Amazing Vid Seamlessly Brings All Our Favorite Movie Characters Together For a Night At the Club appeared first on World of Wonder.
The penultimate episode of Damiana Garcia’s sketch show “Pretty Things,” co-starring Amanda Barrett, is now online! This episode features the sketches “Erica & Tamara In: Bittersweet Reunion” and “Opal In: The Housesitter,” the Treble & Timbre music video “Rot In Your Arms,” and episodes of “Neverwill,” “Popcorn,” “Mulberry Commons,” “Hairbox Thrillers” and “Sugar & Pepper.” The final episode will get posted online next Sunday; be sure to subscribe to the “Pretty Things” YouTube channel to not miss it!
The post Watch Now: “Pretty Things” Episode 10 appeared first on World of Wonder.
Angie Everhart
Chrissie Hynde
Corbin Bernsen
Dario Argento
Devon Sawa
Diane Warren
Evan Rachel Wood
Gloria Gaynor
Julie Kavner
Michael Emerson
Mira Furlan
Oliver Hudson
Rudy Galindo
Shannon Elizabeth
Toby Jones
Tom Everett Scott
The post September 7: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on World of Wonder.
September 7, 1949– Gloria Gaynor:
“People always want to ask me about my drug problem – I never had a drug problem; I had a self-esteem problem!”
I only have a single song by Gloria Gaynor in my collection, but what a major song it is. I Will Survive gets a spot in my Top 10 All Time Favorites. It just hits me on a visceral level & it has since I was a tender 24 years old. I have several cover versions from such dispiriting artists as Johnny Mathis & Cake, but the original is the best & it just cuts like a knife:
At first I was afraid I was petrified
Kept thinking
I could never live without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights
Thinking how you did me wrong
& I grew strong
I learned how to get along
& so you’re back from outer space
I just walked in to find you here
With that sad look upon your face
I should have changed that stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
If I’d have known for just one second
You’d back to bother me
Go on now, go walk out the door
Just turn around now
You’re not welcome anymore
Weren’t you the one who tried to
Hurt me with goodbye
Did I crumble?
Did you think I’d lay down & die?
Oh no. I will survive
As long as I know how to love I know I’ll stay alive
I’ve got all my life to live
I’ve got all my love to give & I’ll survive
I will survive
It took all the strength I had not to fall apart
Kept trying hard to mend the pieces of my broken heart,
I spent oh so many nights
Just feeling sorry for myself
I used to cry
But now I hold my head up high
& you see me, somebody new
I’m not that chained up little person still in love with you,
& so you feel like dropping in
& just expect me to be free,
Now I’m saving all my loving
For someone who’s loving me
Go on now…
Perren/Fekaris 1975
How many times in the late 1970s did I dance at some disco, with some guy shoving a little brown bottle under my nose, while this tune was playing? How many times in the past 3 decades have I gone to bed angry at The Husband with that tune spinning in my head? It even, eerily, played on shuffle on my iPod while I was hooked up to 5 IVs at the hospital when I was doing battle with that damn cancer.
In the 1980s, with Disco on the way, Gaynor did the only thing a smart Diva could do, she traveled around playing in cabarets, consoling herself for the drop in status with bunches of money. She had more than one hit. There was Never Can Say Goodbye & I Am What I Am, but her signature song is always I Will Survive, ironically recorded while recovering from major surgery just after her mother had died.
“I was standing there in that back brace & thinking of those 2 things while I was singing that song. It enabled me to sing with conviction.”
She claims that she knew it was a hit the first time she heard it. Gaynor won a Grammy for the record in 1980.
In the 1970s, Gaynor would go out to the gay clubs, drink champagne & smoke something, but then she found Jesus.
Gay people love her, but does she love the gays? Gaynor:
“I had a backlash from gay fans for a tiny period. They didn’t understand where I was coming from. Now they recognize that my beliefs are my beliefs & that I have no opinions separate from the Bible. There are areas that we agree to disagree on. It’s as simple as that. I don’t have a problem with them having their beliefs, because my feeling is that God gives each & every one of us the right to not even believe in him. So who am I to try to take that away from somebody? I will always try to share my faith with any person who is willing to listen. When I feel a wall go up, we can talk about something else … & I will pray for you.”
Here is how I hold I Will Survive in my consciousness & my heart: the Disco Era with its new style of music, fashion, hair, platform shoes, mirror balls, it really was a sin against God & good taste. But I Will Survive is still dramatic, with a great hook, a great beat, & it makes me want to dance. It also has an almost mystical power to bring back a feeling from the past, & capture my imagination. Transcendent melodrama, is that a genre? Even when I am hearing the song for the thousandth time, I hear it as if for the first time in my life.
The post #BornThisDay: Disco Diva, Gloria Gaynor appeared first on World of Wonder.
Walter Palmer, the Minneapolis dentist whose killing of Cecil the lion fueled a global outpouring of hate and disgust, emerged yesterday for an interview conducted jointly by The Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Palmer said that he believes he acted legally and that he was stunned to find out his hunting party had killed one of Zimbabwe’s treasured animals;
“If I had known this lion had a name and was important to the country or a study, obviously I wouldn’t have taken it. Nobody in our hunting party knew before or after the name of this lion.”
Palmer said he shot the lion using an arrow outside the park’s borders, but Cecil didn’t die right away. However, he disputes the accounts that the wounded lion wandered for 40 hours and was finished off with a gun, saying that Cecil was tracked down the next day and killed with an arrow. Palmer shut down several lines of inquiry about the hunt, including how much he paid.
After Palmer was named in late July as the hunter who killed Cecil, his clinic and Eden Prairie home became protest sites, and animal welfare groups vandalized a vacation property he owns in Florida. Palmer has been vilified across social media and his dental practice was shuttered for weeks until it reopened late last month without him.
“I have a lot of staff members, and I’m a little heartbroken at the disruption in their lives.”
Theo Bronkhorst, a professional hunter who helped Palmer, has been charged with “failure to prevent an illegal hunt.” Honest Ndlovu, whose property is near the park in western Zimbabwe, faces a charge of allowing the lion hunt to occur on his farm without proper authority.
Asked whether he would return to Zimbabwe for future hunts, Palmer said,
“I don’t know about the future. Zimbabwe has been a wonderful country for me to hunt in, and I have always followed the laws.”
The killing of Cecil not only spurred on a worldwide debate about big game hunting but caused many airlines to change their policies with regard to shipping hunting trophies.
Palmer also said the ordeal has been especially hard on his wife and adult daughter, who both felt threatened.
“They’ve been threatened in the social media, and again… I don’t understand that level of humanity to come after people not involved at all.”
My staff and my patients support me and they want me back. I’ve been out of the public eye. That doesn’t mean I’m in hiding. I’ve been among people, family and friends. Location is really not that important.”
Wow. To be stalked by the press, OMG! How does that feel, Walter? To be hunted, unfairly, by hateful people that YOU DID NOTHING TO –what must that feel like? To have your loved ones threatened? What a terrible feeling…. (well, this is just my opinion of course, but the karmic gods are already doing their work.) YOU WILL NEVER LIVE THIS DOWN. No. Not if you lives live to be 100, this will be in the first sentence of your obit. Real poetic justice would be for you to be killed by a wild animal on one of your “hunts”.
The post Walter Palmer’s First Interview About Killing Cecil the Lion –and He’s NOT That Sorry appeared first on World of Wonder.
If Mike Huckabee becomes POTUS (God forbid!) all citizens will apparently be free to obey only the laws they agree with! Anti-discrimination laws, drug laws, tax laws, following the GOP presidential candidate’s logic, will all be subject to each individual’s whims. Ignoring or disobeying laws deemed by a citizen as unjust will carry no consequence. Cool! (Hey, wait, that sounds like a recipe for anarchy?)
Huckabee was interviewed yesterday morning by ABC News‘ George Stephanopoulos about his support for Kim Davis, the now-incarcerated Kentucky clerk who is refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on religious grounds.
Governor Huckabee insisted…
“to say that we have to surrender to judicial supremacy is to do what Jefferson warned against, which is, in essence, surrender to judicial tyranny.
We had so many different presidents, including Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln — there were other founders like Hamilton, Adams — who made it very clear that the courts can’t make a law. The Constitution is expressly clear that that’s a power reserved to Congress.
When the courts have a ruling, then it is incumbent on Congress to codify that into law and specifically delineate what that means. That hasn’t happened, George.”
Usually when the Supreme Court hands down a ruling, it becomes the law of the land –but in Huckabee’s world, that’s NOT how it should work.
He also refused to accept the idea that bans on same-sex marriage are similar to bans on interracial marriage, suggesting that same-sex couples who marry are redefining marriage. Huckabee didn’t weigh in on if women, when they were first allowed to vote, were “redefining voting”.
He said same-sex marriage is
“a very different equation altogether because this is a redefinition. Marriage is not defined in the federal Constitution at all; it’s a matter for the states. And applying the Fourteenth Amendment to the equality of men and women and their relationship in marriage is totally different than redefining marriage.
And I think what we’ve seen here is the overreach of the judiciary. This, if allowed to stand without any congressional approval, without any kind of enabling legislation, is what Jefferson warned us about. That’s judicial tyranny.”
Stephanopoulos then asked if Kim Davis has a “duty to obey a legal order from the court?”
“Well, you obey it if it’s right. So I go back to my question. Is slavery the law of the land? Should it have been the law of the land because Dred Scott said so? Was that a correct decision? Should the courts have been irrevocably followed on that? Should Lincoln have been put in jail? Because he ignored it.”
Stephanopoulos also noted that “the federal government now recognizes same-sex marriage for tax purposes. Health, Social Security and death benefits go to same-sex couples,” and asked, “would you resign rather than carry out those policies?” but Huckabee didn’t answer that one.
Watch.
ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos
(via The New Civil Rights Movement)
The post #WatchNow: Mick Huckabee on U.S. Laws, We Should Only “Obey It If It’s Right” appeared first on World of Wonder.
So apparently, the story was that (dumb?) driver seriously thought the cassette deck was an iPhone charger. Mike Smith Buick GMC posted photos on Facebook of the jammed iPhone…
“So a young driver stops in with an older car complaining the iPhone dock in his vehicle isn’t working and its scratching his phone.”
But the dealership apparently made up a fake story to go along with their post, instead of clarifying it was a joke they found somewhere else. The post received almost 400,000 views and was reposted on some meme sites, but didn’t go viral until it was repurposed by the dealership.
But is the story itself actually true? Yes. Well, kind of, Thomas said:
“My friend Kyle owns an older SUV and slid his iPhone 5 into the cassette deck one day and asked seriously, ‘Is that what that’s for?’ And it gave us all a good laugh. We posted it to Instagram with the caption, ‘So, that’s what that’s for!’ as a joke to him, but it only got a few likes.”
Thomas said he decided to post the story to Imgur to be funny, changing the details a bit to make the story better:
I changed the caption to my brother to protect [my friend from] embarrassment and came up with the generational gap of technology where younger people might assume that it’s made for an iPhone dock.
The dealership is mum on the whole thing but Thomas said they told him they found the picture and were just “having fun.”
“Honestly it’s been fascinating to watch how it’s spread around Facebook. The caption has always been a variation from my original on the Reddit post, which I found fascinating.”
The post #Update: That iPhone Cassette Charger Post That Went Viral Was Fake – Sort Of appeared first on World of Wonder.
September 8, 1886– Siegfried Sassoon
Suicide In The Trenches
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark
& whistled early with the lark
In winter trenches, cowed & glum
With crumps & lice and lack of rum
He put a bullet through his brain
No one spoke of him again
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by
Sneak home & pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth & laughter go
100 years ago, the grueling era of World War 1 brought a harsh education about the devastation & futility of war to 300,000+ young British men, including those who grew up in privilege. One of these was the gay “war poet,” Siegfried Sassoon.
Brought up in the leisured life of a country gentleman, Sassoon enlisted in the military just as the war was beginning. His poetry reflects the change of attitudes towards war, from a vision of combat as reflecting glory & nobility, to finishing with muddy, bloody realism & bitter grievance against the people who profited from the destruction of young soldiers’ lives. Sassoon’s poetry is filled with the ugly realities of the brutality & pointlessness of war between nations. His later work retains a rather romantic affection for the average soldier, who does his duty with bravery, even when he does not understand why.
With savage irony, Sassoon condemns the corrupt old rich men of the government, military & business, who made a profit from the war while sending young men off to die. In his poem Base Details:
If I were fierce, & bald, & short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
& speed glum heroes up the line to death
& when the war is done & youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home & die in bed.
Shortly after the start of WWI, Sassoon served with the British Army Royal, seeing action in trenches of France in late 1915. He received a Military Cross for bringing back a wounded soldier under heavy fire. After being wounded in action, Sassoon wrote an open letter of protest to the war department, refusing to fight any more:
“I believe that this War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.”
At the urging of British philosopher Bertrand Russell, that letter was read in the House Of Commons. Sassoon expected a court-martial for his protest, but famed poet Robert Graves intervened on his behalf, arguing that Sassoon was suffering from shell-shock & needed medical treatment. In 1917, Sassoon entered a sanatorium.
Always a loyal comrade, Sassoon could not stay away from the front-lines while others fought, & he returned to battle. In July 1918, he was sent back to England with a head wound & he remained there until the war ended.
Sassoon came of age during the first great period of modern homosexual culture. His friends & lovers were some of the best known writers, artists, & thinkers of the period (most have received #BornThisDay posts here on The Wow Report): Evelyn Waugh, Edward Carpenter, E.M. Forster, J.R. Ackerley, T.E. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Noël Coward, & members of the Bloomsbury Group.
He had a long sexual relationship with William Park Atkin, a British painter & illustrator. During the 1920s & early 1930s, he engaged in several affairs, including a romance with future Nazi, Prince Philip of Hesse, actor/songwriter Ivor Novello & Novello’s boyfriend, actor Glen Byam Shaw, plus he had a long significant romance with decedent gadabout Stephen Tennant.
Sassoon left this world in 1967, a week before his 81st birthday. In 1985, Sassoon was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner. The inscription on the stone was written by his former lover & fellow poet Wilfred Owen. It reads:
“My subject is War & the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”
To learn more try Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey From The Trenches (2003) by Jean Moorcroft Wilson. Sassoon published more than 40 books, including novels & memoirs. The poems are available in volumes of selected works.
This photograph started my collection of vintage photos of men being affectionate. It was the opening night gift from a fellow cast member in 1985. This image started me thinking about the work of Sassoon. I wonder if these men made it home & possibly had a life together. It remains haunting.
The post #BornThisDay: Poet, Siegfried Sassoon appeared first on World of Wonder.
Chris Brown has denied reports that he pulled out of attending Pride event in Atlanta over the weekend. The TheGAVoice.com, says this is the story;
The event was sponsored by Traxx Girls, a lesbian owned and operated entertainment company, and billed as the “biggest girl party in the country with over 4,000 women in attendance.” Brown, who was also in Atlanta to perform on his One Hell of A Nite Tour, had been prominently displayed on the Traxx Girls flyers. When the time came for Brown to fulfill his contract, he bailed –along with the fee he was paid as a retainer. His team’s reason: of the estimated 4,000 women in attendance, Brown refused to enter the building once he learned that a handful of gay men were present.
Melissa Scott, founder of Traxx Girls, says she’s “baffled” by the entire turn of events.
“I think it’s unfortunate for mainstream artists to take people’s money with the complete prior knowledge of knowing what the event is and being very clear about what the event is about. I’m completely baffled. You know it’s gay pride. You knew you agreed when you sent the contract in and took the money.”
Scott says she knew there was “trouble in paradise” when she and Brown’s team were exchanging text messages (which were verified by Georgia Voice) at 2AM and he still hadn’t arrived at the venue.
“I was being told to take his (Brown’s) image down because he looks a little feminine in that image, an image that he took. As a promoter I should be focused on my crowd. I had to send text messages of pictures of my crowd to say, there’s nothing but girls in here man.”
Brown was NOT scheduled to perform at the Traxx Girls event but had agreed to introduce R&B singer Teyana Taylor prior to her set who is currently on the road with him as one of his opening acts. Scott was able to get Fetty Wap, also on tour with Brown, as a last minute replacement…
“We called Fetty Wap who is the hottest artist in the country right now and he was five minutes away (from the venue) and asked him if he could come. He said ‘Hell yeah!’ I said it’s a gay party. It’s tons of people here. He said he didn’t care and was on his way.”
Scott says what transpired between she and Brown has never happened to her.
“It broke my heart to do that to my crowd. Some people flew in from LA. I had 100 girls who flew in from the UK to hang out with this guy in an environment they’re comfortable in.”
But Brown denies this in his Tweets;
“I wasn’t aware or informed of a show I supposedly cancelled. I have nothing but love and respect for the LGBT COMMUNITY. The show was never confirmed by any of my people. So I apologize if the fans wanted me there. I honestly wasn’t booked for the show. Hopefully in the future we can do it right. Much love LGBT”.
The implication in the media (and on the flyer, frankly) has been that he was to perform that night, which was NOT the case. He was just announcing Teyana, but if contracts were signed and money accepted, that’s a confirmed booking. You’re in town and you can’t be bothered to show up? Sounds like it might be time to do a charity benefit to show those LGBT fans you really DO “love and respect” them. (via The GA Voice)
The post #LGBT: Did Chris Brown Pull Out on 4000 Gay Fans in ATL? He Says No, But It Sounds Fishy… appeared first on World of Wonder.
It’s just about 100 degrees in Los Angeles today, and honestly, few things seem as calming right now as a thunderstorm hanging above our heads like they rarely do in the winter (because, you know, Los Angeles.) The closest thing to that experience could be this beautiful cloud lamp designed by Richard Clarkson, but arguably better because you get to sleep under it without actual rain or anything like that.
As according to Nerdist, “the light includes colorful flashing lights and a speaker inside of a cloud made of hypoallergenic fiberfill that recreates the sounds and sights of a thunder cloud. It is motion activated, the sensitivity of which can be adjusted, and also Bluetooth capable, so you can play music through it too. Take a look at one running through its various modes below.”
YOU CAN EVEN PLAY MUSIC THROUGH IT.
The post The Amazing Thunder Cloud Lamp Could Be The Most Soothing Bedroom Installation Ever appeared first on World of Wonder.
Besides dressing kids up in his Wacky Wacko love, hunky Seth Bogart (of Hunx and his Punx and former Gravy Train!) had his opening reception at 365 Mission Street this past weekend!
And anyone who’s anyone was dressed to impress in the (freely admitted) fashionable queue waiting to get a glimpse inside the fabulous gallery show complete with life size sculptures of legs, toothpaste, sea creatures – AND my personal favorite – a glitter-vomitting reclining chair. Truly, what gay dreams are made of!
Seth’s colorfully expressive installation reminds us a little bit of Pee Wee’s Playhouse, a little bit of Miley, but most of all: it’s a totally original, musically punk-able, pop-up world crafted from the brilliant, creative ingenue that makes-up Bogart’s mind. Seth has the ability to make you want to be cool, and by attending his show, you ARE cooler after the experience!
Condragulations, Seth! Go see his show, through October 3rd!!!
The post #TheSethBogartShow: What Gay Dreams Are Made Of appeared first on World of Wonder.
Adam Sandler
Afrojack
Angela Cartwright
Constance Marie
Damien McGinty
Dave Stewart
Eric Stonestreet
Goran Visnjic
Haley Reinhart
Henry Thomas
Hugh Grant
Hunter Hayes
Julia Sawalha
Julie Gonzalo
Michael Buble
Michelle Williams
Rachel Hunter
Sylvia Miles
Tom Wopat
Topol
Yung Berg
The post September 9: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on World of Wonder.
September 9, 1949– On a winter evening in 1976, millions of people watched John Curry skate to Olympic glory. Overnight he became one of the most famous men on our pretty planet & he changed ice skating from negligible sport to high art.
The Husband & I have been fans of figure skating on TV for decades. We have our favorites, & we also get chuckles watching skating’s insular world, with all of its rules, regulations, costumes, & the denial that there is anything intrinsically gay about figure skating.
We enjoy a good game of inventing names for the various positions & moves: The Double Nipple Of The Party Boy, The Death Spiral Camel Toe, The Triple Axle Rose, The Fruit Loop-Lose Your Cherry Flip, Kiss The Nun, & the Hair Bending Junior Swish Swizzle. Whenever I have put on a pair of skates & hit the ice, I look like a newborn fawn standing up for the very first time.
We were admirers of good-looking, charismatic John Curry, an elegant British Olympic Champion who infused figure skating with the possibilities of dance. As an athlete, Curry was visionary, defining his sport with balletic sophistication. He became one of the first athletes to speak openly of being Gay & HIV Positive.
Dick Button, the Men’s Olympic Champion in 1948 & 1952:
“Curry was the finest & most intelligent all-around skater I’ve ever seen. He skated with a combination of superior athleticism, solid technique, classical line & musical sensitivity. He was choreographically inventive.”
Curry was born in 1949, in Birmingham, England. He wanted to become a ballet dancer, but was forbidden by his abusive, alcoholic father. He turned to the expressiveness of skating, which came close to being dance.
By 1970, he had become the British National Champion. Curry found the training facilities inadequate in England, & in 1973 he moved to Colorado to train with Carlo Fassi who had coached Peggy Fleming, 1968 Olympic champion.
At the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Curry faced tough competition from Vladimir Kovalev of the USSR, Canadian Toller Cranston , & skepticism from the Eastern Bloc judges who preferred athleticism over artistry.
In the short program, Curry removed a planned spread-eagle flourish from his approach to a double-axel jump. The East European judges apparently appreciated that he did not embellish on what was required. In the long program, Curry balanced his refined style with vaulting jumps to receive higher marks than Kovalev, the silver medalist, from 8 of the 9 judges.
Peggy Fleming:
“I think he brought the purest form of ballet to the ice. He was a real purist, totally devoted to the art of skating. He also had the technique & athleticism to make that art look effortless. It was a wonderful blend of art & sport.”
Just hours after receiving his 1976 Olympic gold medal, Curry inadvertently disclosed his gayness to a reporter, thinking he was speaking off the record:
“I just accept being gay as the way I am. I don’t think of it as being bad or wrong or to do with any form of illness. I never pretended not to be gay, ever. I think the more open people are, the easier it gets for everybody else because it demystifies it. I don’t want others to be frightened like I was”
After the Olympic Games, no longer bound by amateur rules, the professional Curry continued to explore different forms of skating, bringing his acclaimed Ice Dancing show to Broadway in 1977-78 & later touring with his own John Curry Skating Company. He did not go for glitzy Ice Capades shows. Curry:
“I never could see the point of spending 12 years training to go dress up in a Bugs Bunny suit. I was brought up on the Royal Ballet, & I hope it shows in my work.”
Curry directed a 1980 West End revival of the Lerner & Loewe musical chestnut Brigadoon & found work as an actor, appearing in the Roundabout Theatre’s 1989 revival of Privates On Parade, Peter Nichols‘ 1977 farce about a fictional, mostly gay, WW2 military entertainment group.
Alan Bates had seen Curry on stage & became a big fan. A married father of teenage twin boys, the actor was at the height of his own fame. He was famous for that notorious hot scene in Ken Russell‘s film Women In Love (1969) where wrestles naked with Oliver Reed. Secretly, Bates had enjoyed many liaisons with other men for decades. Curry was just one. But, for almost 20 years they shared an intense & intriguing romance.
In 1987, Curry was diagnosed with HIV. He later stated that he felt “ashamed” for having contracted an STD. His first lover, skating coach Heinz Wirz claims Curry sought extreme, sometimes violent sexual experiences, but his affair with Bates seems to have been tender & genuine.
During a 1993 vacation, Curry confided in Bates that he never wanted to have a long life, to grow old. What mattered to him was a life lived well in the present & to have mattered. He told Bates that he was ashamed of being broke & was afraid that he had accomplished little during his life.
On a spring day in 1994, Curry left this world while in the arms of Bates. He was 44 years old. Curry’s athleticism & aesthetic grace had thrilled audiences. He transformed skating into a dazzling art.
The post #BornThisDay: Figure Skater, John Curry appeared first on World of Wonder.
Prepare to be amazed! Back by popular demand, the gleaming beauty that is the Guinness World Record breaking earth’s “Largest Disco Ball” will take pride of place at the UK’s Bestival’s Summer of Love this coming weekend on the Isle of Wight.
Standing a magnificent three storeys high at 10.33 metres and covered in two and half thousand mirrored tiles, Disco Ball (modelled here by reformed popster Nile Rodgers) is world renowned and truly a sight to behold.
Not content with big balls, Bestival 2015 is set to break the world record for the “Largest Number of Buskers in One Place”. Because naturally this is the one record any decent festival would want right? WOW Report is going to be there with our harmonica and tambourine to cheer them on.
If that wasn’t enough, which it really is, Duran Duran and The Jacksons are dusting off their cobwebs to join Missy Elliott getting her freak on and electronic gurus Chemical Brothers.
If dressing camp and camping is your thing be sure to find out more from Bestival.
The post World Record Breaking Mirrorball Returns to Bestival appeared first on World of Wonder.
Bryan Stinson
