In Hilton Als’s at once heroic and damning 1994 portrait of then-Creative Director of Vogue Magazine André Leon Talley in The New Yorker, entitled “The Only One,” Als details Talley’s unwavering attachment to having “a moment.” “He finds moments in other people’s impulses (‘I can tell you were about to have a moment’), work (‘What Mr. … Continue reading
Happy Gay Pride, friends! Happy BIG 50 to the Stonewall Riots! I mean, Uprising. No, I mean, Rebellion! Yes, rebellion! The New York Times recently provided a series of pieces on the many conflicting narratives about Stonewall. Who threw the first brick–or stone–or rock–or coins? Surely, it wasn’t Roland Emmerich’s cornfed midwestern white boy laughably … Continue reading
Asked by prosecutor Charles Gills to define the “love that dare not speak its name” during his infamous trial for sodomy and gross indecency, Oscar Wilde responded, “It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an … Continue reading
In Susan Sontag’s seminal, often quoted and equally maligned “Notes on ‘Camp,’” Sontag composes a list of examples of camp including Tiffany lamps, Swan Lake and “stag movies seen without lust.” While Sontag’s list is certainly limited, she surely would not have hesitated to include opulent lamps, gaudy glass chandeliers, shining streamers, clashing ribbons, dangling … Continue reading
“He that loves pleasure must for pleasure fall.” … Continue reading
Why hello there! Come, let me make you a drink from my mouth organ! What’s a mouth organ? Well, funny you should ask, dearest Filthy Dreams reader: a mouth organ is only a bizarre instrument dreamed up by the deviant mind of one of our oldest Filthy Dreams’ role models: that sickly aesthete himself Jean … Continue reading
Because, faithful Filthy Dreams readers, I have a big announcement: I’ve been reborn! Oh not in any traditional religious sense but I’ve seen the light–the light of the King–after making a pilgrimage to Elvis’ decadent domicile Graceland outside of Memphis. Continue reading
Because it is time, the eyes open, the body stands up, the hand stretches out, the fire is lit… —André Breton and Paul Eluard In his introduction to the retrospective exhibit of his work “The Personal Eye,” Clarence John Laughlin offers this theory to explain the artistic vision of his photographs of Louisiana plantations and of New … Continue reading
I hated the ’90’s. Well, the first half of it, anyways. All of the over-the-top tacky fashions of the ’80’s gave way to plaid and torn jeans–and all that long, greasy hair. Thanks a lot, Seattle. I did what any traumatized boy would do: I went into hiding to pray for the coming millenium/apocalypse; that … Continue reading
One of my projects right here at Filthy Dreams is to explore genealogies of aesthetic discourses and how they provide ways for people to “be” gay. I have been turning back time (with subtle reference to that leather daddy queen herself, Cher) for a while now by going all the way back to the 19th century … Continue reading