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 +