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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 20, 2007)
40 justout APRIL 20. ¿007 PORTLAND LESBIAN CHOIR V Directed by the fabulous Ray Elliott WOMEN SING ORLEANS CANDLE CO GIFTS, HAND CRAFTED JEWELRY, Rehearsals are 6:30 to 8:30 Wednesday eves in Portland Call 503-727-3306 or portlandlesbianchoir@ hotmail.com SOY CANDLES, SPIRITUAL PRODUCTS www.orleanscandleco.com 5036 N. Lombard • 503-289-2304 Store Hours: Tues - Sat 10:00am - 6:30pm COME SI NG-WITH US! (HIGHEST RATING) AUDACIOUS SMART AND SHAMELESSLY ENTERTAINING! ’ ■Glenn Kenny PREMIERE MAGAZINE ■» FILM BY PAUL VERHOEVEN WWW SONYCLASSICS COM milan nr gai SONY PICTURES CLASSICS MEDIA OXX) cihjf iviAS SO^Y PCYjef« fNTfR'Al.MfN’ ■•»€ cinemahk FOX TOWER 10 CENTURY EASTPORT 16 1 «00 FANDANGO x327 503-775 OOOO IHX (and small enough for your date.) books Don't Know Much About History? Let's give credit where credit is due by Gary Morris istory, according to legendary punk group Gang of Four, is “not made by great men” but by the unwashed masses, with plenty of help from various margin alized groups. Jews, blacks and, of course, fags ’n’ dykes have been seen as major contributors in this regard, thoughtfully improving an uptight culture sorely in need of it. Wasn’t that nice of us, given the kind of welcome we (along with our black and Jewish comrades) have historically received from the Big Mad Mutha culture? Several recent bcxiks work this territory with varying degrees of success, claiming that everything from vibrant seaports to fun fashion to haute cuisine has been pioneered and perfected by us homos. he breeziest read of the bunch is How the Homo sexuals Saved Civilization (Tarcher, 2005; $14.95 softcover). Cathy Crimmins, who made a splash a few years ago with her witty Newt Gingrich’s Bedtime Stories for Orphans, is a self-described “unrepentant fag hag” who’s never met a queen she didn’t adore and admire—and defer to in all matters of style and taste. Crimmins makes the case for queer overachievement in every corner of modern life. That would include flower arrange ments (straights’ versions are boring), language (we popularized terms like “closet,” “out” and “girl friend”), fashion (of course), cooking, martinis and Manhattans, gentrification of dying neighborhoods and even bingo, which the author says we rescued from the dull-minded heteros in places like Seattle, where Gay Bingo Night lures scads of straights with skating drag queens and “tasteless jokes.” Crimmins is a persuasive writer, clever enough to obscure how much this Ixxik is fueled by stereotyping and shallowness. Is every queen really a brilliant stylist, happily spending all his time transforming “clueless" straights? You’d think so from reading this book. Crimmins ptx>h-poohs Barney Frank’s complaint about Queer Eye for the Straight Guy as “damaging” by portraying gay men as superficial, HOW THE HOMOSEXUALS SAVED T CIVIIIZATION "£ > í I / -i Portland • 503.988.3775 FREE TEST with ad r caring only about “decorating and style.” Frank’s objection is certainly worth examining instead of flipping off, as she does. I realize this is supposed to be a witty tribute to a certain kind of style queen, but Crimmins seems to lump us all into the “fabulous” stewpot. She’s so enthusiastic in her viewpoint that she makes dubi ous claims. Something like language is much more fluid than she imagines, and our influence is arguably less than she thinks. Are straight people really embracing terms like “butch/femme"? (“Butch," yes, but “butch/femme”?) And to say that queers popu larized “girlfriend,” “diss/dish” and “bitchslap” is to ignore their origins—and widespread use—in the black community. More realistically, we borrowed those terms. And did we really resurrect the martini, or was that driven by a retro-hipster culture that’s surely as much straight as queer? Crimmins’ idea that gay men (and this book is only about gay men, not lesbians) are sexual pioneers ignores the role of 1960s counterculture, where phenomena like the clusterfuck, and indeed the whole idea of sexual liberation, originated. A more supportable view might be that we’ve contributed to the culture, in collaboration with other marginalized groups from blacks to Jews to hippies, out of proportion to our numbers. As a light read, How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization has its interest, but anyone looking for real insight might find the rampant clichés irritating. ore ambitious in its scope but less appealing is James McCourt’s Queer Street (W. W. Norton & Company, 2005; $17.95 softcover), which seems to have two subtitles; The Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947'1985 and Excursions in the Mind of the Life, whatever that means. McCourt is a novelist, and it shows. Queer Street seduces at first glance as a particu larly meaty history (577 pages) of a particular time and place for our culture; instead, it’s a htxJgefxxlge of literary riffs, as much about movies and b<x)ks M Always confidential . i- Ui +
