Author Edmund White is the preeminent gay man of letters of our time. Well-known for his novels, including the autobiographical trilogy that begins with "A Boy's Own Story;" his memoirs, including "City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and 70s"; his short stories, essays, and novellas; his literary criticism and social reportage in two languages; he is also responsible for the definitive biography of the great gay poet, dramatist and novelist Jean Genet, and wrote revealingly as well about the lives of Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud.
He also has an insatiable social appetite, as evidenced in his latest memoir, "Inside a Pearl - My Years In Paris," just out from Bloomsbury. He seemingly knew everybody important or interesting who ever passed through the City of Light during his 15 years there, beginning in 1983, when he worked as a correspondent for "Vogue" magazine. Everyone in gay letters is here - Adam Mars-Jones, Alan Hollinghurst, editor Michael Denneny, et al. - as well as everyone in fashion ("Azzedine [Alaia] was a tiny Tunisian") and art, usually portrayed in some amusing anecdote. James Lord, biographer of Picasso and Giacometti, is shown to be a great drunk. Revelations come wrapped in revelations. "Pat [Kavanagh, literary agent and wife of Julian Barnes ] (who was notorious in London literary circles for her affair with Jeanette Winterson), looked around and said, 'What's annoying about Paris is that every woman looks like a lesbian but none is.' "
The book is a joy ride from first to last, an avalanche of name-dropping (all the more pity there's no index). In a way it comes pre-criticized: "Although I make the 80s sound lighthearted and frivolous, I was haunted by AIDS, as were most gay men. Larry Kramer attacked me for devoting seven years of my post-diagnosis time to Genet. Larry felt every gay writer must write about AIDS alone. I wanted to remind readers that there were these great gay contemporaries (Genet died in 1986) who had nothing to do with the disease. Our experience couldn't be reduced to a malady. I didn't want us to be 're-medicalized.' "
Out There has interviewed White twice. During his book tour for the great Genet work, his publisher put him up at the Clift, where he was gracious and gregarious, ordering up room service for us both, big bowls of berries swimming in cream. Realizing OT's proficiency in Genet, he interrupted us mid-question: "Who are you?" Only Ed White's ideal reader, that's who.
Bowl Us Over
In an unexpected variation on Camper Van Beethoven's exhortation to "Take the skinheads bowling," we pass on a press release from Merola Plus, the young professionals group that meets up after Merola Opera Program events to network and engage with fellow opera and arts fans.
"On Sat., Feb. 8 at the Presidio Bowling Center in the Presidio, join Merola for the hippest Viking bowling party in town! Meet opera singer Casey Candebat, take a photo with fun opera props, and enjoy an afternoon of free Wagner Bowling! That's right. In honor of opera composer Richard Wagner (The Ring Cycle, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde), we're hitting the alley Nordic-style! Come dressed in your Viking helmets and Brunnhilde braids for free bowling to the strains of his Ride of the Valkyries (made popular in the film Apocalypse Now)."
Info on the Merola Opera Program is at (415) 565-6427 or [email protected].
Rocky 'Mountain'
The New York Times reported last week that "Brokeback Mountain," the short story by Annie Proulx that was the basis for the 2005 Ang Lee film starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, has been made into an opera by composer Charles Wuorinen with a libretto by Proulx. The opera, about closeted gay love in the American West and its dire consequences, premiered this past week at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
To give voice to the inarticulate ranch hand Ennis Del Mar, Wuorinen used Sprechstimme, "a technique between singing and speaking that composer Arnold Schoenberg developed in works like 'Pierrot Lunaire' and used to moving effect in 'Moses und Aron.' Similarly, in his 'Brokeback,' Mr. Wuorinen has made the easygoing, impulsive Jack Twist a tenor (Tom Randle, in the Madrid production), while Ennis (the bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch) is deeper and more impassive, at least at first.
"'As time goes on, he stops doing so much Sprechstimme and begins to sing more,' Mr. Wuorinen said. 'Finally, when he's alone and he's lost everything at the end, he's able to express himself. But, of course, it's too late.' " Ah, the shock and pity of great tragic opera.
The Times points out that the "Brokeback Mountain" opera "is one of several recent operas on gay themes, from Oscar - Wilde, that is - at the Santa Fe Opera to Champion, based on the life of the gay boxer Emile Griffith, at the Opera Theater of St. Louis, and [young gay composer Nico Muhly's] "Two Boys," which had its American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera this fall."
Forgive us, but we had a bit of fun imagining what some of the arias for this new "Brokeback" opera could be. "Jack Twist, You Jest!" "Up on the Mountain/Down in the Pants," "Look Away, Sheep!" and perhaps, "Pitchin' a Tent/In the Old Pup Tent." We're naughty, we know.