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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1988)
New York, New York — never to be the same again Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square and Ground Zero BY J O E L R E D O N Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square, by Stan Leventhal (Banned Books, $8.95). Ground Zero, by Andrew Holleran (William Morrow, $16.95). AIDS: “ Writers who dealt with homosexual life before the plague — the manners and mores of the homosexual community — have been quite left behind by a change of circumstances that blew the roof off the house they had been living and writing in.” He believes that gay writers can no longer successfully publish books which do not mention AIDS: “ How rom his apartment overlooking Sheridan could one write at all, in fact, when the only Square in New York City — a microcosm of the world— the narrator of Stan Leventhal’s work that mattered was that of the men Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square tells us organizing social services, taking care of friends, trying to find a microbiological who he is: Jewish, middle-class, a child of the solution to a microbiological horror in laboratories we could not see?” Do all of us really want to read books about AIDS? “ It would not be too much to suggest that much of a person’s reaction to the subject of suburbs. He comes to the city, like many, to be AIDS is directly related to his chances of getting an artist — at first he’s a folksinger, and finally it himself,” Holleran acknowledges. a writer. Here he has a succession of lovers The truth, whether we choose to accept it or before he takes his final apartment and his most not, is that AIDS affects all of us. permanent lover. He works odd jobs, but learns Holleran makes a serious plea to his readers: to accept the fact that he is not yet successful as “ Guard your health. It is all you have. It is the an artist. He is a people-watcher, a philosopher thin line that stands between you and hell. It is and a thinker. His social life includes a small your miraculous possession. Do nothing to group of friends: Jennifer, who has a daughter threaten it. Treat each other with kindness. with whom he explores paternal tendencies; Comfort your suffering friends. Help one Donald, a friend from the old days; Max, his another. Revere life. Do not throw it away for drag-queen drug dealer. the momentous pleasures of lust, or even the The time is vague, but the narrator states obliteration of loneliness.” early on in a bar scene: “ Yes, the AIDS crisis Holleran also asks the ultimate question: was reaching the proportions of a holocaust. What does AIDS really mean? He searches for Yes, two of my best friends had died as a an answer but finds none. “ For a certain result... . No, I hadn’t had any affection or sex segment of the American population,” he for approximately ten months. No, I didn’t writes, “ the plague has been a cram course in think I could survive for another three minutes death. . . . The longer one lives, the more without them. . . . But all of the men I know — arbitrary, fragile, magical the world — with its regardless of sexual preference — go crazy islands and starry nights — seems; and, at the after a few weeks of abstinence. I was in the same time, the more brutal and unappeasable its thick of the danger zone and knew that some facts: the virus, the falling brick.” He concludes thing had to happen soon or I’d become the simply: “ Life’s a movie people leave at grouchiest, most cranky man in the city.” The different times; the ones who remain get to see a little more of what happens next.” narrator seems hardly affected by AIDS, except for an occasional reference to it. And who are Many of these essays will be familiar to the two of his best friends who die? Nowhere in readers of Christopher Street magazine, where they first appeared. These clever vignettes the book does one of his best friends die. It’s not that simple, Leventhal. I wonder if the book about gay life Before and After define the time was written long before AIDS and then touched in which we live (a time when “ obituaries have up. Anyone who lived in New York in the ’80s become a literary genre” ), they focus on the would recognize Leventhal’s New York as that reconciliation of a life of sex to a life of no sex, they are about a culture that’s changing and of the late ’70s. The biggest problem with this book is that the growing up (“ . . . from the joys of liberation to the horrors of leprosy in one short decade” ). narrator isn’t very interesting. He has nothing Included as well are pieces that focus on friends new to say; he’s typical. He writes: “ Some times I wonder what keeps me going. And why who have died, artists who have inspired. For all its exactness. Ground Zero may not the direction seems so inevitable.” I felt the be a book you’ll want to read twice, as same way about his book. Mountain Climbing Holleran himself points out: “ As admirable as in Sheridan Square is in no way deep or the writing or publishing of books about AIDS profound; it asks little of the reader and takes no may be, I really don’t know who reads them risks. But it is an easy read. with pleasure — because I suspect there is one thing and one thing only everyone wants to read, Ground Zero, by Andrew Holleran, first • explains the dilemma of people who write about and that is the headline cure found .” F troversial opera Young Caesar was composed — lives up to its record of innovative programming this season by commissioning the creation of a new ballet to be danced by Ballet Oregon. joint concert with the New York City Dennis Spaight will choreograph the Gay Men's Chorus and an unusual 20-minute ballet to men’s choral music by collaboration with Ballet Oregon highlight the romantic composer Franz Schubert. Costumes ninth season of concerts by the Portland Gay and lighting for the production will be under Men’s Chorus. The 1988-89 season features Ballet Oregon’s direction. three subscription concerts with a balance of Sign language artist Kevin Gallagher will popular and classical music. interpret the December and July concerts. The holiday concert and the spring classical The 1988-89 schedule: concert will each have two performances in the • 4 and 7:30 pm, Sunday, December 4, Intermediate Theatre of the Portland Center for Intermediate Theatre, “ Strike the Haip and the Performing Arts. The New York-Portland Join the Chorus,” a traditional holiday concert joint concert will have one performance only in with internationally known harpist Scott Grimes. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. • 8 pm, Saturday, April 15, and 7 pm, Now on an extensive European tour, the New Sunday, April 16, Intermediate Theatre, “ Song York City Gay Men’s Chorus has been called and Ballet,” a classical concert with Ballet Oregon “ the most famous gay chorus in the world.” Under musical director Gary Miller, the 140- • 8 pm, Saturday, July I, Arlene Schnitzer member group has made successful com Concert Hall, New York City Gay Men’s Chorus and PGMC mercial recordings and regularly books its concerts in Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. All the performances of the 1987-88 After the New York-Portland concert here on subscription series sold out, so season-ticket July 1, both choruses will go to Seattle to sales are expected to increase this year. Current perform in GALA Festival III, the third season-ticket holders have the opportunity to triennial convention of gay and lesbian choruses renew. Season tickets are available at $39, $31 from across the United States and Canada. and $20. Single tickets will be $15, $12 and $8, David York, PGMC’s conductor for the past including city user-fee and box-office charge. six years, will be at the podium throughout the Ticket orders and requests for information new season. should be addressed to PGMC, PO Box 3223, PGMC — the chorus that commissioned the Portland, OR 97208. • zany musical Zillions and for which the con PGMC announces 1988-89 season A O ff to Esther’s Party... k\\; it * g i s s w Barnes Portland C&44 Call 297-5 _ stó|5¡2£L SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER I 1 th DONATION $ I 5 DARCELLE XV SHOW BAR IN N * TAX M D U C T ItU COCKTAILS S SO P.M — M N N tl * SO P M — AUCTION 7 SO P M Srd POP H A N D OUTGON RESERVATIONS REQUESTED CALI — 223-1679. * ju st out • 21 • September I988
