ON THIS DAY On this day in 2003, the Episcopal General Convention of the United
States officially ratifies / confirms Reverend Gene Robinson as the
Bishop of New Hampshire, even though he is (gasp) "a practicing
homosexual." And as predicted, five minutes later, the world ends.
BIRTHGAYS (and the occasional straights)
* 1809 - Poet Alfred Lord Tennyson
* 1843 - "South-Sea Idylls" author Charles Warren Stoddard
* 1862 - Author, English classicist, and shoe fetishist Goldsworthy "Goldy" Lowes Dickinson
* 1893 - Broadway producer / director Guthrie McClintic
* 1903 - "Plan 9 from Outer Space" actor John Cabell "Bunny" Breckinridge
* 1928 +/- fifteen minutes - Artist Andrew Warhol
* 1930 - "Stonewall" author / researcher Martin Duberman
* 1946 - Author Bruce Benderson
Q.UOTE
Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very
exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that
never meet." -Andy Warhol, pictured
THE BEDSIDE TABLE Cyclizen: A Novel by Jim Provenzano
A swift ride of bike messengers, AIDS activism, gay sexuality and
urban angst.
Cyclizen explores the class divisions of metropolitan life, the angst
and pleasures of casual sex, and offers a darkly comic take on gay
culture and relationships.
As with his previous novels, Provenzano weaves a deeper story, that of
the demise of the tribe of centaurs. With clever symbolism, names and
plot devices, he retells a mythic tale in a contemporary urban setting.
Kent R. Hyles, a 24-year-old jaded activist-emeritus, rides through
Manhattan as a bike messenger, dodging more than traffic. Ness, his
HIV-positive not-boyfriend, lures him to easier climes on the West Coast
as he prepares to leave New York.
Still recovering from a passionate affair with Eric Cleese, a popular
activist clone, Kent chooses the swift escape of traveling on wheels
through the streets of the New York in the early 1990s. Even the advice
of a Jamaican messenger leaves him confused, seeking random sexual
encounters when not working or avoiding cab doors.
Leaving New York would be easy, but he has a project, born of a chance
meeting with a corporate underling, Michael Sheets, who's eager to learn
how to sell AIDS philanthropy, and how to come out. Trading in
information for the promise of a lot of money, the messenger learns how
to use his skills for a conflicted idealism; theft for a cause.
Each chapter heading is listed with the street corner where the action
takes place. Cyclizen offers a brisk and sexy read set in a recent yet
historic time in New York City. Parental surprise visits, ex-lovers
colliding at the laundry, and a brief tragic accident stir up enough
problems to inspire an evolution; no longer citizen, not merely cyclist;
a cyclizen.
