Category Archives: GAY GAZE: Visual Culture, Photos, Art, Comics, Film, Objects, etc…

2011 state of the closet address

Gryphon van der Hole, the supreme ruler and commander-in-chief of his own wardrobe’s closet, has offered his state-of-the-closet address. Photos and excerpts below:

“I’ll be honest with you all, the bar for the trousers has been clearly set below that of the great assembly [of jackets].” GvdH

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“We are, each one of us, aware that the department [of shorts] has some obvious pressing issues…” GvdH

For full coverage, and a transcript of the address, click through to dapperkink.

Enjoy!

From your KC ‘mo,
Gryphon

Shot in the Face! Leather Photographer Rich Trove captured by the Camera of an Other.

Leather Shooter Shot!

Hey, Rich! What? Snap! Caught! Usually, Rich “Trove” Stadtmiller is on the other side of the lens. Over the last half decade, he has put together  a “Rich Treasure Trove” of Leather images. His archive of almost 150,000 digital photographs is available at the Rich Trove website. This was taken on the occasion of Master Morris Taylor‘s 80th birthday party at the SF Citadel, the City’s premier community dungeon. In the background are the colors of The 15 Association.

London’s National Theatre opens “Angelheaded Hipsters” photos by Gay Beat Alan Ginsberg

Timothy Leary and Neal Cassady 1st meeting in Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters' 'Further' bus which Neal'd driven crosscountry SF to NY via Texas before Fall 1964 presidential election.

Beat. Beat Up. Beat Down. Beatitude. Beatnik. The mid-century, cold-war-era Beat movement exemplified movement – from degradation to grace and back again. And again. On the Road. Howl. Its literary and poetic icons were painful and exultant. The same productive tension appears in Angelheaded Hipsters, the new exhibit of photographs by Gay Beat Alan Ginsberg that just opened at London’s National Gallery. Caught by camera are Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and other artists, writers and cultural figures who defined a moment. A BBC slide show of the exhibit is available here.

From Azerbaijan to the Ukraine, San Francisco GLBT Gay History Museum is World-wide News

Opening Night at the Gay History Museum

The GLBT History Museum that just opened in the City is making news in (among other places) Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Serbia and The Ukraine. This just in from Belarus. From curator and friend of this site Gerard Koskovich, who is always looking for new and better multi-lingual search strategies. For an original content slide show from opening night, click here.

Tim’m T. West is a fly-brotha. New Music Video. Score for Hearts Break Open, Indy Queer Film.

Friend of this site Tim’m T. West is a fly-brotha. He is also a poet, a philosopher, a professor and a gay rapper. Et cetera and then some. This is the video version of his score for Hearts Break Open, an independent feature film that asks the question what would Jesus do if he were alive today…and an HIV+ gay man. “What would be his cross to bear? How would we crucify him? Would he crucify himself?”

Our Vast Queer Past: GLBT History Museum opens in San Francisco

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Milk and miscreants, A Taste of Leather, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, clubs, AIDS, the baths, Cruising and more… an enthusiastic crowd opened The GLBT History Museum on January 13th in San Francisco’s Castro District. Curated by historians Gerard Koskovich, Don Romesburg and Amy Sueyoshi. For more on this historic event, click here.

Vitas Bumac wrestles a Violin into Submission, escapes his Cage and Shatters Glass. Smile!

It’s called Smile. Sure it is. A cold-war gumshoe dandy delivers ear-splitting wails while theatrically clutching  a violin we only hear simulated on the high end of his five-octave range. A noose swings provocatively, a caged canary escapes, glass shatters.  This one from the always strange and inventive Vitas Bumak. Nostalgia, loss, grief and rage filtered through an arch sense of cornball drama. The stuff of opera and life and good enough reason to…Smile! More Vitas here and here.

Past Out In Public! America’s 1st GLBT History Museum Opens in San Francisco

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Bar Life, Bathhouses, Leather, Erotica, Violence & Trauma, HIV/AIDS…just a few of the topics touched upon in the inaugural exhibit of the long-awaited GLBT History Museum. This space will bring our histories to the street – where it has so often begun. Politics. Protest. Prostitution. Plague. The Past. The Present. It’s all here. The Museum opens in San Francisco’s Castro District on the evening of Thursday, January 13th, with a gala public reception.

Two concurrent exhibits open the new exhibition space at 4127 18th St. Our Vast Queer Past: Celebrating GLBT History fills the main gallery and Great Collections of the GLBT Historical Society Archives occupies the smaller one. Curator Gerard Koskovich says of Our Vast Queer Past: “The show brings together some 450 objects, photographs and documents, along with historic film and video…all of the materials come from the collections of the Historical Society—and most have never before been displayed publicly.” Read Koskovich’s article here. The Museum is a project of The GLBT Historical Society.

The GLBT History Museum opens on Jan. 13, 2011 with a ribbon-cutting and a free reception open to the public from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Regular hours for the museum will be Wednesday through Saturday, 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and Sundays, noon to 5:00 p.m. Admission: $5.00; free for members.

Retail Sights Seen: San Francisco Shop Windows and Billboards

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Sexy plastic mannequins show what they’re made of. Homoerotic subtexts sprout from Cerveza ads. Hung like a…rhino? Another one rides the bus. What IS that man looking at? Windows and signage seen around the City.

a few of my favorite blings…

The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize…” – Clairee Belcher

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I have been sorting through things, fondling bling, and got the itch to snap some shots.

Enjoy!

Your KC ‘mo,
Gryphon