1. Listen to David Behrman. [If you're using a feed reader to see this, you may not see the music widget below.]
2. Go see Half of the People Are Stoned and the Other Half Are Waiting for the Next Election in Brooklyn, July 1 at 8pm. The title of the evening comes from the text of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
Gov. David A. Paterson, who has made advancing gay rights as central to his policymaking, was greeted enthusiastically at the gay pride parade in New York. James Estrin / The New York Times
Today was the first time a serving New York governor marched in the gay pride parade. He has walked in the parade, on and off, since 1976! I would like to think my headline above just made some conservative idiot's head explode.
From the NY Times:
If there was ever any doubt that gay people form one of Gov. David A. Paterson's most loyal and enthusiastic constituencies, that doubt was erased on Sunday by the howl of a drag queen on Fifth Avenue.
The drag queen, standing at the foot of the steps to the New York Public Library dressed in a green Afro wig, a red miniskirt and candy-cane-striped stockings, had the duty of announcing the notables marching down Fifth Avenue in the gay pride march.
She introduced Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, and the onlookers who had gathered along the parade route politely applauded.
But when she bellowed, "Let's hear it for the governor of New York, David Paterson!" the crowd roared.
...
Sunday was not the first time Mr. Paterson marched in a gay pride parade. He said he attended his first parade in 1976 at the urging of a gay friend and had walked in them on and off ever since.
"Back then, we would march in the back," he said. "But then we learned that wasn't cool because you couldn't hear the music in the back. So we moved up." He added that in those early years, he did not generate quite the same amount of attention from the crowd.
Here is an excerpt from a related NY Times story from two weeks ago.
Gov. David A. Paterson's decision to direct state agencies to recognize marriages of same-sex couples elevated his status in the eyes of many gays and lesbians to something of a celebrity.
But Mr. Paterson has unexpectedly discovered that some of the people who are most grateful to him for issuing the order are, in fact, parents with a gay son or a lesbian daughter.
The governor said in an interview last week that he had been approached by several people who expressed their gratitude. "What struck me were the straight people who came up to me," he said. "This has happened four or five times since. They'll say: 'We're so glad you did this. Our daughter is gay or our son is gay.' I found that to be so very touching."
One evening two weeks ago, while he was having dinner with his wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, at a restaurant at 105th Street and Broadway, the governor said, a man and a woman approached him, introduced themselves, and then each hugged him. Their son was gay, they told Mr. Paterson, and they wanted to let the governor know how thankful they were about his policy.
...
The one memorable phone call that Mr. Paterson said he received shortly after his order became widely publicized was from the Rev. Al Sharpton, a supporter of civil rights for gay people. Mr. Paterson said Mr. Sharpton called to offer thanks, but also to take a friendly jab at the governor for disclosing that he became comfortable around gay people at a young age because two close Paterson family friends were gay.
"He was calling on behalf of Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald, saying I'd be in trouble for outing them," Mr. Paterson said, referring to a gay couple who often took care of him and his brother, Daniel.
Hanna Fushihara Aron, Self Portrait
* For my fellow nerds in the audience, here is the link to my new tech blog I'm using to comment on the technologies I work with.
* Little Cakes is closing for now, and tomorrow (Sunday) is the last day to see them in this location. Brent Burket gives us an excellent tribute on the ArtCal Zine.
Yesterday, I used Dotster to buy a domain name for a new art gallery client. Their name is an Polynesian name shared with a certain beach in the Pacific, and has no hint of a porn connection, as far as I know. This is a screen grab of what Dotster put up as a placeholder page. I recommend pairNIC in the future.
[click here if you don't see the video above]
Bonus photo: one half of Andrew Andrew spotted in the wild:
Found Art (Soho): Unmonumental 58 by Joy Garnett
"He loves you, and he needs money!"
"Results like this do not belong on the resumé of a supreme being."
[click here if you don't see the video above]
Marcus Kenney, I Aint Tryin to Be a Hater, 2007
mixed media on canvas
36 × 36 inches
(detail)
Postmasters has an excellent show up through July 12 titled AMERIKA: Back to the Future. My favorite discovery of the show was the work of Marcus Kenney -- collages that include found paper such as that from old ledgers, adding machine tape, and canceled checks.
The soundtrack for the show is provided by this Rammstein video, playing in the gallery's entry.
The artist's website doesn't have any content, but I know that Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta had a solo exhibition of his work for their booth at the Pulse NYC fair in March.
The other artists in the show are David Herbert, Anthony Goicolea, and Jennifer and Kevin McCoy.
Friday
Saturday
Saturday and Sunday
Aurora Robson, photo by Hrag Vartanian
I see that a huge email of posts from the last week or so went out tonight to those who subscribe to my email list. As you can see, I've relaunched this blog and James's with a new layout and the latest version of Movable Type, and apparently this confused our email service.
I'm so glad the primary season is over. Here are a couple of video highlights explaining why.
Last night (from AMERICAblog):
Newsweek's Howard Fineman just said on MSNBC at 8:35pm Eastern that the Clinton campaign is demanding that Hillary be offered the VP position, which she will then decline, and then Fineman quotes the Clinton campaign as saying "don't you dare offer it to another woman." Isn't that special. Apparently, Hillary was only planning on breaking her own personal glass ceiling. For the rest of you, you can break you own.
From HuffingtonPost in March, in which Hillary Clinton says McCain is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama.
I'm not really interested in hearing how the wife of the President who gave us the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and who herself voted for both the Iraq War and the PATRIOT Act, is some kind of hero for women, liberals, or queers. She's not even showing up for some pretty important Senate votes on abortion.
Plus, don't even get me started on white women from privileged economic backgrounds talking about how they are second class citizens unlike black people.
I just found this great podcast via googling for Elliott Durko Lynch. The April 6 episode is amazing. The story about New Orleans by Rik Reppe (roughly 20 minutes in) made me cry.
